Blog

I had the privilege of being a guest host on the Health Simplified Podcast. This audio podcast is run by a couple acquaintances Dr. Shabnam Das Kar, Functional Medicine Consultant and Michal Ofer, Functional Nutrition Consultant. Shabnam and Michal are the founders of the MDS Program. The episodes I appeared in were the following.

Health Myths Part 1

Health Myths Part 2

Do You want to read a book that is going to piss you off? Most people would say no, but what about a book that pisses you off because it is so thought provoking and puts to the forefront things you thought were happening but lays out a well thought out argument to show you IT IS HAPPENNING!

Food Fix, Mark Hyman’s latest book, is such a book. While I have heard many of these arguments for a long time, this book backs it up with studies, references and detailed sourcing.

The book is comprised of five main parts, each tackling different but related topics surrounding our Health, Economy and Environment.

I do not want to spoil too much and I think every adult and teenager should read this book, so I will be brief in my overview. I will be circulating my copy amongst my circle of influence.

Part 1 is titled: The Health and Economic Impact of Our Food System

Among a number of topics in the first few chapters the author laws out an argument for how the way we look at food and its costs are completely wrong and understated. Also, how the epidemic of chronic disease around the world is due to our food systems. As someone who has overcome my own health challenges and now works with clients in this regard this is not new information to me, but laid out well to share with the average person. This leads to the discussion about how a handful of powerful companies have global reach with their products and how we as society need to push our governments to change fiscal policies to address obesity and disease. We tax the heck out of cigarettes, why not soda?

Part 2 is titled: The Dirty Politics of Big Food

This is the part of the book where you are going to start getting mad and shaking your head. You will learn how Big Food and Agriculture companies control the government and hence food policy. Did you know that there are 21 industry lobbyists for every member of the US Congress? And that the rules in place to protect independence are routinely broken and no one seems to care. You will learn how various governmental agencies tasked with protecting the consumer, that means all of us and our kids are not doing their job and actually allowing these companies to prey on our children in school. And finally, which should be no surprise to anyone, that some governmental policies are actually increasing poverty, promoting disease and destroying the environment.

Part 3 is titled: Information Warfare

If you weren’t already pissed off, the author adds in some more statistics to really get you boiling. He discusses how the Food Industry uses the old tactics of the tobacco industry to distort public health and nutrition science. Also discussed in this section is how many supposed advocacy groups are just fronts for Big food who bribe, I mean purchase partnerships and influence.

Part 4 is titled: Food and Society: The Destruction of our Human and Intellectual Capital

If you are not intricately connected, how many of you think about the farmers and people who grow your food? Maybe you know the guy at the counter at the farmers market, but what about the person in the field in some third world nation picking your vegetables and fruit? The author makes the case that these are neglected victims of our food system. We know this happens, but we usually don’t dwell on it too long as it is an uncomfortable topic. There is a lot of social injustice and oppression by Big Food that many of us are a part of. The last topic in this section discusses how food plays a role in Mental Health. Again, this is something I can attest to personally and with working with my clients.

Part 5 is titled: The Environment and Climate Impact of our Food System

Many people want to jump into various ideological camps about the Environment and as an extension to that Climate Change. There are the usual suspects you hear in the media, but nearly no one discusses the role our food system plays. The author does a wonderful job of outlining how the Food and Agricultural Industries contribute disproportionately to Climate Change, and why we all should care about Soil, Water and Biodiversity. For many people, your preconceived notions you believe or were misinformed on will be shattered.

This book is mostly U.S. focused, but these topics, problems and potentially solutions effect the entire world from the most advanced economies to those emerging.

One of the best things about this book, is that it is not all doom and gloom, it is not all facts, studies and statistics, but provides real actionable steps that everyone of us can do in our own communities or in our own families to start to make a difference. There are checklists throughout where you can make choices for you and your family and your community. Again, I was aware of many of these issues and problems beforehand, but this book really laid it out and has me thinking about my own actions and impact.

While at the time of writing this post, I can’t say I have implemented more than a handful of the recommendations to this point, but I am more educated to have conversations in our household and with others, to not only be more aware but to begin to make other substantial changes over time. That is the greatest gift of this book, awareness and education. I highly recommend it.

The author Robb Wolf, has been around the Paleo game for as long as I can remember, certainly before I turned my life around and got healthy. His first book The Paleo Solution came out in 2010. Wired to Eat is the follow-up and came out in 2017. Yes, this book is three years old. I have been meaning to read it for a long time and it never quite made it into my reading pile until recently. In anticipation of my library being closed for social distancing during COVID-19, I went in and grabbed Wired to Eat.

As this book is three years old, I will just give my very brief thoughts on it.

At this point in my journey and education, I didn’t find anything really new, considering the age of the book. However, I wish I would have read this book as I was in the beginning stages of my transformation. And the knowledge shared still holds true for those just beginning their own journey or who are thinking of making a change for their health. I would still recommend it to new clients.

The first part of the book gets into the how humans are “Wired to Eat” as the title suggests, discussing the Paleo Diet, Digestion, Individualization of nutrition, how food companies try and re-circuit our brains, and finally the importance of sleep, exercise and one’s community in regards to weight management.

The second part of the book gets into the authors plan for implementing a change to a more Paleo type diet for someone. This includes what he calls a 30-day Reset for an overall direction move, as well as a 7-Day Carb Test, where one can figure out which carbs are tolerable or intolerable for them. Remember nutrition is individualized. He also discusses Ketosis and Intermittent Fasting in this section. Nothing new here, but remember three years ago this was right at the forefront.

The last part of the book includes recipes and shopping lists to help those just beginning their journey. This has become all to common place now, but when I think back to three years ago, it was probably one of a handful of books that incorporated both knowledge of nutrition and practical recipes in one book.

While I agree with nearly everything in this book, due to the timing of me finding it in my personal journey and with working with my one-on-one clients it didn’t blow me away. But, that is not to say it is not a fantastic resource for someone beginning to look into a Paleo lifestyle and needing guidance.

Recently I met up with a Brilliant Researcher and fellow Health Coach. His specialty is everything related to Cognitive function. He is working on a cure for Alzheimer’s. More on that in a minute.

His approach and testing are a novel approach, so I can’t discuss any of the proprietary details, but I will share what I can.

 One Saturday morning, I went over to his lab and he hooked my head (brain) up to a few different devices and then had me play a game on a computer. He didn’t tell me ahead of time how long this was going to take, (and in hindsight it didn’t take that long), but I kept wondering how long do I have to keep playing this game?

Ultimately, the results were the chart below. My brain was tested on these six metrics. As you can see, I scored outside the normal range on two of the scores. I am happy that my focus and plasticity were high, but judging by my overall score and speed, there is room for improvement.

This testing was done mid-morning and after a heavy strength training session. I wonder if my results would have been very different either first thing in the morning or later in the day. I guess that is an experiment to try next time.

Next, I put on some different devices for my head and a Pulse Oximeter (which tests for precise measurement of oxygen levels in the blood). We were doing two different things at once here.

I went through a breathing exercise, two times through and the results on my brain waves can be seen in the chart below.

My Delta brain wave frequencies have a dominance presence across all brain regions, followed by Theta. I also had lower ranges of Beta waves during this period. So, Delta is usually highest during sleep, and Beta is usually highest during awake periods, and my results were the opposite during this breathing exercise. There is more for me to explore here, but this tells me that we can change our brains, our moods and other physiological states through breath work.

Getting back to the Pulse Oximeter for a moment. We did a baseline before we started and I had an oxygen level of 97%, right in the normal range. Besides the affects on my brain waves, doing this breathing exercise, my blood oxygen levels dropped to 66%. Very cool!

I have been playing around with this technique since, and have been able to increase my breath hold.

The coolest result may be; I was on a recent scuba diving trip and my air lasted much longer. My wife always has more air left in her tank when we dive, but this time we tied on one dive and on the other I had more remaining.

These tests are definitely something I will keep doing periodically and where appropriate will recommend to my clients.

I believe many people could benefit from these tests and I can’t wait for them to be rolled out shortly. These are just a few of the assessments that are being implemented by the team at Brain Mechanics

for their Alzheimer’s Resolution cure to end Alzheimer’s this decade. For more information to get involved in their mission or to get these assessments and more done for yourself check them out.

.