Healthy Tips

Hi, dear friends and supporters of the GoutBye Foundation! Happy New Year!

I, Martin Tomov, the Founder of GoutBye, am writing this message as a personal statement and a reflection on the past year and what to expect in 2024. First, let me start with the statement that I have high uric acid, and I am just like you. The struggle that everyone is experiencing is the same for me. I had the good and the bad moments; I got multiple gouty arthritis flares and I know what the pain is. The desire to beat gouty arthritis led me to create the GoutBye Foundation. And, despite all the expenses and the fact I run the whole foundation voluntarily by myself, and the help of my wife and a couple of friends, I am grateful to see the positive impact of our work and dedication!

For the past few years, more than 4400 people have downloaded our 7-day Gouty Arthritis Diet, and more than 2500 people participated anonymously in our survey “Do you have Gouty Arthritis”. We have received a lot of positive feedback, which motivates us further to keep to our mission and strive to educate more and more people!

As a personal achievement, I can say that doing the Foundation work for our articles helped me dig deeper into the latest research studies on arthritis and build a personal program. I did not have flares for the last 3 years, and I have made a simple resolution to start within the new 2024, which might help you achieve better results by yourselves, too:

• Drink water. I do 2-3 litres per day, and I would admit it costs me a lot of effort to keep it persistent. But the results are awesome. I feel really good and I believe this is one of the main reasons I stopped getting flares.
• Ditch sugary drinks, soda, beer and spirits. Yep, I was an avid beer drinker a few years ago, and maybe this was the one thing I was missing most. However, leaving beer, whisky and soda had a great effect on my body – not only because I stopped being dehydrated from the alcohol, but also got a positive effect on sleep and my body weight. I am still 104-106kg. but have stopped at this weight for the last 5-6 years now and feel great.
• Practice some sports or just walk. 10k steps per day can make wonderful changes to your organisms. I highly recommend walking. Me, personally – I am training for two days of Wing Tsung and two to three days of swimming. The total time spent “sweating” is around 5-6 hours weekly, and the sports keep my joints in motion, preventing the accumulation and inflammation of the purine crystals.
• Food. This is the trickiest part. We have on the site a 7-day recipe to serve as an idea generator for you on what you can eat with low purine containment. I have received some comments from users that the diet is hard to follow as the ingredients are not the ones they use day-to-day. And I understand this; however, it comes with additional regional, national and multi-cultural complications. At the same time, I feel the same – I would really love to have an easier way to maintain my healthy nutrition, not only through ideas but constantly. This really got me thinking: can I improve the gouty arthritis patients’ lives in some way, using the latest technological achievements like artificial intelligence and machine learning so that we can have a personalized experience tailored to our needs? This will be another mission I will pursue in the next couple of years, and will keep you updated, but the initial research is really promising. So stay tuned and for now, search for a list with low-purine foods, or grab our free diet! 🙂
• Medication. If your doctor has prescribed you a medication for maintaining your urine acid levels – strive to follow it and combine it with all of the above options. This will reduce gouty flares, flush out the crystals, and help you have a normal life.

I know – all of the above sounds pretty easy until you start following these, but actually, you can start a little and build gradually from there ( I started with going to swim once per week and raised the bar up to 5 times per week sometimes – It just feels so good). Walking is the easiest option, with a strict water intake schedule and watching what you eat.

Although we have a donation option to help our GoutBye Foundation strive and develop further, I will not pledge you to donate. For me it’s more important to hear back from you – you can always send a message to me directly via our site form and I’ll do my best to reply back. I wish you a healthy 2024! 🙂

Kind Regards,
Martin Tomov