Well, after such a positive Day 1, Day 2 certainly wasn’t quite as smooth.
I still managed to hit my core commitments. I ate well, I completed my daily exercise to The Mountain Ahead (this time a run), and work was okay. However, by the afternoon, I felt intensely distracted. That distraction came from some difficult reflection on the past 12 months.
Hopefully my pace will improve over the comings weeks and months!
It’s still incredibly hard to wrap my head around the rollercoaster of the past year. Day 2 quickly became a day filled with raw emotion, especially when thinking about the position I’ve found myself in and the relationships I’ve damaged along the way.
It actually got me wondering why we, as humans, cry when we’re sad. After a little research, I found that we cry because it’s a self-soothing mechanism that helps relieve emotional pressure by releasing feel-good hormones. So tears aren’t necessarily a bad thing and ultimately, I knew that already, but sometimes, it’s nice to explore the science behind things!
Overcoming the emotion and staying strong in my routine was the most important focus. Even on a bad mental health day, I can still execute the plan – hopefully I can maintain this mindset.
Metrics
Steps: 10,146
Garmin Stress Score: 29
Mental Health Rating: 3/10
Remaining Debt: £44,052.03
Food Log
Breakfast: Weetabix, milk, orange juice
Lunch: Bean stew
Dinner: Orzo and tomato bake with feta
Snacks: Dried apricots, Graze flapjack bar
Over the past two days, I’ve seen what I suppose will be the inevitable peaks and troughs of the next 363 pages. But the goal remains the same: to keep putting one foot in front of the other and to keep turning the page.
They say “the first step is the hardest,” but honestly, if that’s the case, the next 364 days should be a breeze.
Day 1 was a clear, positive step in the right direction. While it was a standard working Wednesday by any measure, it was productive. Work was efficient, I posted a few things I sold on eBay, ate fairly healthy and I maintained a positive attitude throughout the day.
Crucially, I completed my 7km walk to The Mountain Ahead, officially marking the first instalment of my new daily routine.
The air was crisp, the route familiar, but this time it felt different, like I was finally moving toward something instead of away from it. Mentally, I felt strong and steady
I turned up, got the job done, and put down one solid page in the novel.
Metrics
Steps: 10,777
Garmin Stress Score: 33
Mental Health Rating: 8/10
Remaining Debt: £44,052.03
Food Log
Breakfast: Weetabix, milk, orange juice
Lunch: Vegetable biryani, naan bread
Dinner: Lentil & vegetable hotpot with a giant Yorkshire pudding
Snacks: Dried apricots, Graze flapjack bar
Overall, there’s not too much to say. I turned up, got the job done and it’s onto the next one. Let’s hope the positivity remains throughout the next 12 months!
Yesterday, I outlined my plan to improve my life by taking things day by day and journaling it here. I’ve mentioned my struggles with mental health before, but I thought now would be a good opportunity to recap things and outline the journey ahead over the next 12 months.
So, where did it all begin?
The first real indication of my struggles can be traced back to the night of my 18th birthday. Like most 18-year-olds, I had a bit of an emotional drunk breakdown – if I remember correctly, over the lack of direction and clarity about what I wanted to do in the future.
That uncertainty stuck with me through college and into the working world. My mental health ebbed and flowed over the years, a series of peaks and troughs that often coincided with major life events. In all honesty, during that time, my mental ill-health was manageable; the world didn’t feel so dark.
That was until October 2019, when I reached one of the darkest points in my life and tried to end it. It still feels strange to think about now – I’d just come back from one of the best trips I’ve ever had in Canada and had holidays to both Disneyland Paris and Walt Disney World planned. That whole period became a blur. And not long after, the pandemic began.
Me at the Athabasca Glacier in Canada circa 2019. One of the best adventures ever!
For the most part, the novelty of the pandemic soon wore off, and in the latter half of 2021, I began to experience the heavy, lingering symptoms of clinical depression. I sought professional help, starting both therapy and antidepressants, but found neither to be particularly beneficial and eventually stopped.
My mental health again ebbed and flowed, this time more dramatically, until things took a severe nosedive toward the end of 2024.
What had been a stressful year of selling a house and unemployment quickly spiralled into self-sabotage. Gambling had always been a minor issue, but it surged to the point where I was staking thousands of pounds a day. Over the space of two and a half months, I managed to wager more than £97,000 across various betting sites.
Alongside that, I also developed a compulsive buying habit. What had been a profitable house sale has quickly turned into nearly £45,000 worth of debt in just 12 months.
Of course, my mental health worsened even more. My physical health is at an all-time low. I’ve ruined relationships, lied, hurt people, and lost sight of what’s important.
This is where I am now, at the time of writing:
Debt: £44,052.03 Weight: 107kg BMI: 30.3 Average sleep: 6 hours 40 minutes Alcohol consumption: 3/4 days per week Average steps per day: 10,246 Average weekly stress score: 36
NOTE: Sleep, stress, and steps data are based on my Garmin watch over the past 12 months. Stress scores reflect Garmin’s daily stress metric, where higher numbers indicate greater stress.
On paper, my goals for the next 365 days are simple enough: pay off as much debt as possible, improve my physical health, fix relationships, and above all, rebuild my mental health along the way.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. I’ve made some good progress in the past few weeks. I’ve started a new job that’s going well so far. I’ve listed a number of the things I’ve bought over the past year on eBay. And this week, I’ve started a bit of a fitness plan.
In fact, there’s a hill not far from where I live that I’ve called The Mountain Ahead. It represents both the physical mountain and the mental mountain I have to climb over the next year. My plan is to climb it every day, no matter the weather.
It’s going to take time. It’s going to take effort. But for the first time in a long time, I’m ready to climb.
The view from ‘The Mountain Ahead’ or as it’s actually known, The Old Pale!
If you’ve spent any time watching motivational videos on YouTube, you’ve likely come across the powerful quote: “If you were the main character in a movie of your life, what would the audience be screaming at you to do right now?”
It’s stuck with me for years. The first time I heard it, I remember thinking, damn, that’s actually a good point. It makes you stop and sort of zoom out on your own life, like you’re watching yourself on a screen. You start wondering what choices you’d be cheering yourself on to make… or the ones you’d be cringing at.
The thing is, life doesn’t really work like that. It’s not a two-hour story arc where everything gets tied up neatly by the credits. You get those bursts of motivation, sure, those “movie montage” moments where you’re ready to overhaul everything, but they don’t last. You burn bright for a bit, then fizzle out, and you’re right back in the slow grind of the everyday.
Lately, I’ve been thinking maybe life isn’t a movie at all. Maybe it’s more like a novel.
In a novel, the big scenes only matter because of all the smaller ones that lead up to them. The quiet days, the bad decisions, the small wins – that’s where the character actually changes. You don’t notice it happening at the time, but it builds.
Most novels are between 300–400 pages long. And there are 365 days in a year. It kind of lines up perfectly. One page a day. One tiny bit of progress at a time. Instead of chasing a single, dramatic “main character moment,” it’s about showing up every day and writing one good page, even if it’s messy.
If life’s a novel, then each day deserves a paragraph – something worth adding to the story.
So that’s what I’m doing. Over the next 365 days (and hopefully beyond!), I’m going all in on improving my mind, body, and spirit and documenting everything here, in my online journal.
This blog won’t just be a place for ad hoc check-ins anymore. It’s going to become a space to track what I’m eating, how I’m moving, how I’m connecting, and what’s going on in my head along the way.
Here’s to writing a better story, one page, one day, and one small step at a time.
It’s been nearly four weeks since I published my first blog post on The Modern Day Caveman, and honestly, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind of emotions.
I started September with a positive mindset and an aim to embrace my inner caveman, focusing on a whole-food, minimally processed diet. In fairness, I managed to keep this up for around the first week. I even fared well in a tricky situation, opting for a salad and water when out for a family member’s birthday meal at a pub. It took a lot of willpower to not order my usual burger and pint of lager.
Unfortunately, that was pretty much where my willpower for the month ended.
I was trying to avoid overly processed food, but soon found it harder than I thought. Almost everything on supermarket shelves seems to contain preservatives, emulsifiers, or sweeteners designed to make food last longer or taste better. I expected to be checking labels – I didn’t expect it to be nearly impossible to avoid.
Of course, trying to avoid these additives altogether is difficult at the best of times, let alone when trying to eat with other people in the household. It’s far more convenient to all tuck in to a big pasta dish than to spend hours in the kitchen making multiple meals for different people.
But in truth, food wasn’t my biggest downfall – alcohol was.
I’ve always had an interesting relationship with alcohol. As a teenager, I couldn’t wait to turn 18 and be down the pub every week drinking my body weight in lager. Perhaps it’s partly the British culture, where every weekend and social event is centred around the consumption of alcohol, but it’s also a coping mechanism for me, particularly when my depression is at a low point.
September was a particularly boozy month, with various gatherings and days out with friends. In fact, the past four months have been fairly boozy. Since coming back from travelling in June, I don’t think there has been a weekend where I’ve not had some form of alcohol. Granted, there have been birthday parties, leaving parties, and funerals to contend with, but the amount of alcohol I’ve consumed has crept into my everyday life.
As I approach the twilight of my twenties, I’m noticing it takes me a lot longer to recover from drinking alcohol than it previously did. A two-day hangover (and in some cases, a three-day hangover) now seems to be the norm. That prolonged state of feeling like crap wrecks my productivity, my gut, and, it seems, my willpower to make better choices.
Side note: I did read a fascinating article last week about how our very own taste for alcohol may have been inherited from our primate ancestors, who consumed a natural amount of it from ripe, fermented fruit!
Whilst all this has been going on, it’s fair to say my depression has become worse and worse. The last 18 months have probably taken the biggest mental and physical toll on my health, and recently, I’ve felt like I’ve reached breaking point.
Visions of the future are no longer as clear as they once were. Plans that were once filled with excitement and joy are now filled with anxiety and dread. It’s started to feel like all hope is lost.
That being said, I have always been very aware of my feelings, and whilst sometimes it’s hard to explain why I feel the way that I do, there will always be a part of me that will fight for a brighter future.
One of my favourite quotes is, “This too shall pass.” And I hope with a renewed mindset and some positive, actionable lifestyle choices, this too will pass.
The journey ahead isn’t just about what I eat. It’s about taking back control. My renewed mindset is focused on small, consistent choices that lead to bigger changes. The Modern Day Caveman journey continues, just with a new challenge to overcome.
Did cavemen suffer from depression? This was one of my more random shower thoughts back in 2022 – and yet, it stuck with me.
Having lived with clinical depression and anxiety for much of my adult life, my mental health hit some of its lowest points after the pandemic. Through periods of panic attacks, suicidal thoughts, and endless fatigue, I often wondered: if life was stripped back to its most primal form, would these struggles still exist? Or are they purely a modern creation – born out of social media, financial stress, and relentless societal expectations?
Three years later, I’m finally ready to explore this question. If our ancestors didn’t suffer from the same mental health battles, what can I learn from the way they lived? And if they did, what might that say about the roots of depression and anxiety buried deep in our DNA?
I’m not starting with research papers or complex theories. My first step is much simpler: food. I want to see what happens when I cut back on ultra-processed foods and move closer to a “modern caveman” diet.
Over the next few months, I’ll be sharing the results of my “experiment”, including the changes I’ve made to my diet, the recipes I’ve discovered, and the physical and mental shifts I’ve experienced. I’ll also be exploring other pillars of the modern caveman life, like movement, community, and time spent outdoors.
Ultimately, this journey is my attempt to answer a simple question: is living like a caveman the cure for a modern world?
The Modern Day Caveman 