Gut Health and Military Flight Training- A Similar Road Map and Milestones

In this space I try to bring a different perspective to the whole gut health discussion.  I'm not a scientist or a doctor and won't try to imitate them.

But I have been an active participant in the discipline of rebuilding a diseased gut. 

I try to bring some different experiences to the table in an effort to provide a fresh take on gut health, how it can have a huge impact on your overall well-being, and perhaps illustrate that if I can do it, anyone can do it. 

And hopefully we can share a laugh or two along the way.

In a newsletter with "Pilot" in the name, it's incumbent to make some aviation connections.  There's quite a few actually.

So lets fly.

I've earned two sets of wings. 

The first set was the U.S. Army Aviator wings I received after about 18-months of ground and flight training.

The second set were honorary wings of sorts, a 4.5 inch scar that resides where my 6-pack abs should be.  These "wings" permanently mark where my gut health journey started and continues some 5 years later. 

I'm going to gloss over, but not minimize the significance of experiencing a seminal moment, a rock bottom of sorts when you're back is pressed against the wall and you have to face the music.

Now I raised my hand and volunteered for military flight training.  But in the case of gut health, I was unceremoniously picked on like a kid in Algebra class, asked to provide an answer from the homework assignment my dogs ate.

Speaking of dogs, meet Wally- the 18-month old blonde, Golden Retriever we rescued a week ago.  He really could eat homework.  He's already fast friends with our other 2-yr old red golden named Gibbs. 

These two may be part of a new segment of the newsletter, "Ice cream and Musings With Gibbs and Wally".  Stay tuned.

I digress.

However you get to the point where it's time to stand, deliver, and earn your Gut Pilot wings, get there. 

Hopefully it’s with less drama and stress than military flight training or worse yet, being fileted in major abdominal surgery.  Afterall, drama is overrated.

Over the next few writings, I want to use the unique perspective I gained from military flight training to show a very relatable road map and set of milestones.

I've experienced quite a bit of deja vu' from flight school and this gut health journey.

The flight training road map had 5 distinct routes:

1.  Nickel Ride2.  Primary Flight3.  Instruments4.  Basic Combat Skills5.  Advanced Combat Skills

There are some very applicable parallels to this road and that of the gut health journey. Let's start this week with the Nickel Ride

Just what the hell is a Nickel Ride? 

When you first walk up to a military helicopter, it's hard enough to open the door, let alone fly it.

An Instructor Pilot is charged with taking a completely oblivious student and teaching the very basics like opening a door, fastening your seatbelt harness, and once inside, yelling at you to not touch a thing!

The Nickel Ride is the first flight an Instructor Pilot (IP) takes his or her students on. 

The nickel ride was the first time most of us ever sat in a helicopter.  Is was the first time we saw all the switches and lights and first  smelled the exhaust fumes from turning jet fuel into noise.

The helicopter’s buffeting of disturbed air made for a rollercoaster of sorts.  It was an experience from nearly 34 years ago that I remember like it was yesterday. 

The nickel ride tradition has many variations, but during my time in flight school, the student paid the Instructor a nickel for the orientation flight, hence the name "Nickel Ride". 

And not just any nickel. 

The nickel presented to your instructor pilot had to be minted in your birth year. 

Little did we know that once the IP took our nickels, they returned them to our family members to make a plaque, so we had a keepsake and not just a memory. 

Despite not having gut health credentials or a bunch of letters after my name, I hereby volunteer to be your Instructor Pilot.

The aviation parallel I'll draw is when I first learned to fly, I didn't have the engineer who designed the helicopter teach me. So, no doctors, no worries.

No, I had a guy with a logbook with thousands of hours of flight time teach me how to finesse this mechanical beast I was tasked to fly.

So, I'll take you on your gut health Nickel Ride. I'll open up my logbook with 5 years of gut health flight time, my medical records, so you can see the same results I have seen.

I'll teach you the methods that have worked for me.  Only this time, you can have even better results than your instructor pilot.  Your gut's starting point will hopefully be from a position considerably stronger than mine.

You also have your ENTIRE colon chocked full of bacteria to seed, feed, and weed .  That's quite an advantage for a student to have over the instructor.

So, open the door, fasten your seatbelts, and don't touch a thing! 

Your gut health orientation flight can be found in the archive issues of this newsletter. Read through them and you’ll see a bit of where I’ve been and where we can go together.

Next week, we'll begin to fly.  Primary Flight is where we began to hone initial aviation skills.  It was difficult, and it took work at the craft.  But the results were so rewarding.

But not nearly as rewarding as a rebuilt or tuned-up gut.

Thanks for reading,

Jeff