What I’ve noticed about a certain tribe of people in the commercial sector of wellness medicine and of wellness itself, is that they’re people who want to get high. People who wish they could feel different, enter an altered state, and get a buzz. Instead of getting instant satisfaction from blow, booze, fags or biscuits (disco or McVites varietal), now they get high off exercise, meditation or ice baths or slowly off an accumulation of supplements and lifestyle-y changes. Being well feels great. Curating that state in your body requires a bit of this, and a bit of that, it can require a lot of pill popping and it fills the hours that used to be spent hungover or raving or doing whatever you used to do to get a nice feeling. Kate Moss is quite a good example of this, she has gone from addict and party girl to wellness guru and spiritual babbling bezzie of Deepak Chopra. I don’t judge her. She is not alone, there are loads of em out there. We all want to feel better.
I’m partial to the promise of wellness myself. As Coldplay sang, apparently quite well at Glastonbury, something something tum te tum, “…fix you…”
So, always, I am alert to the latest exciting promise from studies and trials. What will I do to fix me now? Well, did you know regular intake of cocoa increased circulation in the skin, that it improves mitochondrial function, which is how a body produces physical energy from food at a cellular level. What goes on in your mitochrondria gives us the juice to put one foot in front of another. Yay, go biochemistry.
Who wouldn’t want to optimise all that by putting a tablespoon a day of something modestly tasty in your mouth. Cocoa is a health aid that is not the torment of celery juice or burpees, hurrahs to that all round. Cocoa can improve muscle strength, muscle mass and physical performance. Gosh. Here’s the study if you want to read it, and the easy to digest Instagram post if you can’t be arsed with all that.
As a woman within coughing and spluttering distance of five and a 1/2 decades of existence I am extremely keen to maintain muscle mass. There’s nigh on universal acceptance among the health and wellness sororities, including the fruit loopers at the fringes, that preserving muscle into old age protects you against the worst of old age. Sarcopenia, the medical term for age-related decline in muscle mass and strength, is inevitable, but you can hold back the effects of time by working your muscles.
Use it or lose it baby.
Can cocoa make a difference? Because I need it. I don’t spend enough (ie, any) time lifting weights in the gym - maybe 30 minutes total every six months. I think about it endlessly, but never seem to have that burst of mitochondrial efficiency that has me bench pressing, deadlifting and kettlebell squatting my way to a zingy old age.
I say I don’t do weights, but I do other things that are a better than nothing proxy for it. Like, I never moan about taking the bins out. And when I do I hold the bag out in my extended arm, which is quite hard. It’s a bit of a challenge. This is not to avoid all the rancid fetid bin juice oozing from the inevitable tear in the bag, it’s because I am engaging some muscles in my arm and by doing that it’s a kind of a work out.
Rarely do I ask a man to lift something for me, preferring instead to struggle with it myself for the benefits that tiny domestic drudgery workout brings. Stiff lids on pickle jars and marmalade pots and met with the internal roar of, DOMINATE! DOMINATE! YOU CAN DO IT KATE.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Kate Spicer says Sort Yourself Out to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.