Gut Health and Instrument Flight Training-Can't See What's Happening? No Problem.

Last week we learned to fly. Primary flight lays the foundation and begins the journey in both aviation and gut health. We’re getting the hang of the physical and mechanical requirements of flying, whether it’s a helicopter or a gut microbiome.

This week it gets a bit tougher, a bit more mental, and it requires quite a bit of trust. The workload increases and we’re tasked to rely on what we can see, not necessarily what we feel. We will transition to a dashboard with a pile of instruments on it because we can’t see a damn thing on the outside.

So let’s see what it’s like to fly by instruments.

Flying Instruments- it's exactly as it sounds. You are learning to fly using ONLY your instruments on your dashboard.  

You have no outside references to use, no visual cues, no visual contact with the ground, no horizon, nothing. We in the aviation field refer to this as flying in the “soup”.

You have maps that have air routes on them, and approach plates or diagrams that safely get you from the airport runway into flight, and safely on the ground, clear from all obstacles.

And of course, you have your "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" phone-a-friend called the Air Traffic Controller.

This portion of flight training is probably most applicable to the gut health discussion.

As the title says, you can't see a damn thing while doing either activity.  

For flying instruments, you must learn how to do it so you're prepared for virtually all weather conditions. We do our best to plan, but have you ever known a weather person to be right 100% of the time?

Next, you must learn to trust what your instruments are telling you. It’s more important than what you're feeling most of the time.

Let me explain briefly.

If you've ever had a stuffed-up head and found yourself getting dizzy, you sometimes lose your balance. This is largely from fluid in your ears running over the eyelash-like cilia and sending signals to your brain that "Houston we have a problem". Maybe you stumble into a wall or even fall.

Embarrassing if anyone sees you? Yes.

Catastrophic? No.

But it can be.

Let's use an example of a helicopter. In normal flight, we’re trained to use our proprioceptive senses. (C’mon Jeff, enough with the big words) In lay terms, it means using your “seat of the pants” senses, or your body sensing movement, motion, etc.

But without any external, visual ground references, especially no visible horizon to maintain a level posture, all while balance and motion sensations are still signaled to your brain, you can begin to see where this might be a problem.

The problem is the signals are not directionally accurate to what you’re feeling. The propriocep…, oops “seat of the pants” senses are failing us. The fluid in your ears is moving around like water in a washing machine and without any external cues to orient yourself, often you "feel" movement OPPOSITE of what is happening.

So when you go to correct what you INCORRECTLY think is the problem, your corrective action exacerbates the problem.  

A good example would be if you perceive the aircraft to be in a LEFT bank, when you are actually in a RIGHT bank, correcting for the erroneous left bank farther to the right would send you into a steeper right bank. 

Now your ears are going crazy and signaling to you that the left bank is even steeper, so you correct harder to the right.  

This is catastrophic when you're thousands of feet in the air in an uncontrollable bank, spin, or worse yet, a dive.

The one thing that can prevent this from happening is an instrument that visually depicts your position on the horizon.

Regardless of what you’re feeling, the blue-shaded attitude indicator will tell the truth.

But only if you trust it.  

Only if you disregard what your body tells you and trust what the instruments are SHOWING you.

My very first, non-simulated, instrument flight was about a 4-hour trek from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana to Corpus Christi, Texas, ENTIRELY in the "soup".

Three photos can summarize the 4 hours:

About 3 minutes of lights on each end and 3 hours and 54 minutes in the middle of rain clouds.

You have to trust what your instruments tell you and keep good contact with your phone-a-friend. It requires unwavering trust in the process.

As a brief aside, this particular trip was with a Lieutenant Colonel who pulled rank on me and made me plan, preflight inspect, fly the helicopter for the entire 4 hours, and then had the gall to reach for the controls when he saw the lights at our destination airport.

Without overt insubordination, I politely informed him there was no way in hell I was giving up the right to fly this one all the way to the ground.

“Fair enough”, he said.

We know the pillars of successful gut health are diet, exercise, good sleep, and stress management. All of these have visual cues, but once you eat and drink (the right stuff), the magic of gut health happens in the "soup" of the GI Tract.

And where the real magic happens, in the colon, it's pitch black.

This is where you have to rely on your instruments. It also requires unwavering trust in the process. 

Now we’ve discussed in prior newsletters that changes and improvements to the gut microbiome can occur quickly.

As in a matter of days.

But just like wiggling the sticks of a helicopter in the “soup” with no visual reference, much of what goes on in the GI tract is not visible either. So we have to construct a gut microbiome “dashboard” of our own.

One of the best instruments you can use is closely monitoring how things leave your body. When the fuel tank is emptying, pay close attention. Strive to be a 4.0 student, not a 4.0 GPA, but a 4.0 BSC (Bristol Stool Chart). This will typically be the first place you can monitor your progress.

So, get good grades and make changes accordingly. Too much fiber too quickly, not enough hydration, and everything in between- this is critical to monitoring progress and identifying concerns.

Next on the instrument panel is probably the scale. Depending on where you are in the gut microbiome spectrum, weight loss is pretty typical when you begin to reset your gut bacteria balance. Eating fermented foods and fiber will help you with satiety and whole, dense, nutrient-rich foods are filling with not many calories.

These are two examples of obvious instruments to rely on and trust when it comes to your progress.

I’ve previously mentioned my in-progress, 5-year-and-counting recovery from colorectal cancer. So, one thing I have access to that you might not is regular bloodwork. Blood tests are like a huge instrument cluster, something you’d see on a helicopter dashboard.

Without releasing too much personal information, let me share some screenshots from the instrument panel on my dashboard, containing some of the regular test results I’ve seen.

My story is not your story and my dashboard might look different than yours, but there is a consistent pattern that is worth looking at after 5 years of sustained gut microbiome improvement.

Nearly all my glucose and cholesterol blood markers have seen a dramatic improvement in the downward trajectory and HDL on the preferred upward trajectory.

I share this to show you that despite not being able to see the daily activity, knowing the work is being done in the deep, dark abyss of the lower GI Tract, the progress will appear on your dashboard if you’re consistent.

Trust your instruments and have unwavering trust in the process.

And if you need a phone-a-friend, as a subscriber to this newsletter, I’m an email away.

Next week, we leave the soup and come back to normal weather. But the work doesn’t get any easier. The next portion of flight training, Basic Combat Skills, is taking our basic skills and applying them to real-world situations.

We’ve achieved a level of success and mastery, now it is time to double down and keep advancing on the target. Flying meant learning how to be part of a bigger mission and showcasing abilities across various mission profiles. For gut health, now that we have a base of knowledge and skill built, it’s time to employ a more targeted focus on areas that need improvement.

Everything’s easy until it’s not.

Thanks for reading,

Jeff