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There is so much divisiveness in the world right now. And no I am not talking about politics or religion.

I am talking about diets.

Vegans & vegetarians on one side, carnivore & keto on the other, and every shade of HFLC, paleo, calorie counting, as long as it fits your macros, pescatarian etc in between.

And don’t get me started on where the SAD (Standard American Diet or Canadian or Australian Diet) fits in.

What is the best diet?

First of all, let’s drop the “diet”, Health is a “lifestyle”.

Second, there is no best way of eating for everyone.

It depends. It is very individualized.

What are your genetics, your epigenetics, your ethnicity, your culture, your sex, your age, are you on medication, do you have other health conditions or concerns?

One thing I can guarantee, if you cut out inflammation, you will be healthier, no matter what you eat.

Inflammation comes from many sources, and food is one of the biggest sources of inflammation.

What are the biggest Inflammation culprits?

Again, this is individualized but let me list off some of the big ones:

Processed Vegetable cooking Oil- nearly everyone

Sugar – nearly everyone

Grains (and there are many types) – a lot of people

Gluten -many people

Dairy -many people

Legumes – some people

Nightshades – some people,

…and it can get very granular to your specific genes and gut microbiome

There is no easy, one size fits all answer for everyone.

Stop pretending that there is?

Cut the inflammatory foods and other inflammation sources and have better health, less pain, less fat and lose weight

I work with my clients to cut inflammation for their individual needs, what is best going to serve and suit them.

Having battled obesity, back and joint pain, I know what works for me, but it would be Arrogant to think exactly what I follow will work for every one of my clients.

So those Health professionals planting a flag in one camp or basing your identity on one philosophy, Get Over Yourselves. Yes, I am calling you out!

I encourage you to checkout the rest of the website or other social media (click the icons at the top of the page) to see some more posts on some of my struggles, experiments and to see how I could possibly help you reach your goals.

As many people who are reading this know, either from visiting my website and reading about my journey or having personally talked to me before, I struggled with my weight and health for most of my life, up until till about 5 years ago when I lost the last 40 lbs of fat I had been holding on to, for a total loss of over 100 lbs from my top weight.

And while I have become certified and have been coaching people to their health for three years now with great results, I still run into the resistance from people who don’t believe that the ideas I have adopted can be healthy. Why don’t they believe? Because it flies in the face of what their doctor or the medical system has told them, what the media has told them and the folklore that has been passed on from their families.

The documentary details the completely true history of how the United States and thus nearly the entire western world became so unhealthy. Some quick facts: In 1970, just over 1. 5 million people had been diagnosed with Diabetes in the United States. The number is now over 30 million. Even more concerning is that 100 million people, nearly 1 in 3, have Diabetes or are Pre-Diabetic, not to mention the 40% of the population that are obese. Ask yourself, how is it possible with the non-stop flow of new diet advice, exercise advice and our general obsession with weight loss we are as unhealthy as ever? The truth is that we have everything completely upside-down and backwards. This documentary follows a detailed history spanning 150 years to show how misinformation and outright lies have become the “truth.”

When I was doing chronic cardio to try and loose weight, and become a faster runner, all the while becoming sicker, I started listening to various podcasts and came across a number of people who I have taken inspiration from and modelled some of my personal practices on.

One of these people was Vinnie Tortorich and his “No Sugar, No Grains” (NSNG) approach to eating. I have been listening to his podcast for six plus years.

Over a year ago, he started talking about this movie he was making. He knew that most people don’t have hours to listen to each minute of every podcast, so he decided to make a documentary to sum everything up.

He chose to crowdfund the film and took no money from corporate sponsors so that no one can accuse him of being biased or influenced by industry. Over 3000 people whose lives were transformed by abandoning the traditional dieting advice contributed.

The funny thing that happened to me, when I released the last 40 lbs of fat and my health greatly improved, and I have kept it off for 5 years, friends, family, doctors and the like would tell me I looked great, but that I wasn’t being healthy or that I was strange or that I was harming myself etc.

Sorry, but what makes you an expert? And only now you are concerned with my health?

After trying to explain to my friends, family, strangers and clients why what they have been led to believe is actually wrong, I now have a movie that they can watch to learn the actual “Truth”. Heck, you can borrow my copy if you want.

This film begins with a very touching interviewing with a dad who’s one-year old son had a severe case of epilepsy. Not to ruin anything for anyone, but I will say, that by bucking the conventional treatments the doctors wanted to prescribe including brain surgery, this father was able to stop his son’s seizures in two days of following what is discussed in this movie.

The movie then goes on to interview doctors, researchers, journalists, and other experts to explain: 

• How many of the nutritional myths we have all heard began
• How the science behind the current dietary guidelines is extremely flawed
• How the media contributes to the confusion surrounding nutrition and health
• How the food industry is only interested in selling food and isn’t concerned with your health.
• How the medical community is set up to treat sickness with drugs, as opposed to prevention with food

The movie shows how politicians in the late 1970’s decided to recommend a low-fat diet to prevent heart disease even though the science was far from settled and has since been proven wrong.

It was a great big experiment where the American public (and now everywhere else) were unwitting participants and the experiment was a failure. Ever since the US government recommended people cut back on fat and increase their consumption of sugar and grains, the diabetes and obesity rates have skyrocketed in a matter of one generation, my generation.

Some key things this movie will make you think about: 

• There is not a single shred of credible evidence showing that saturated fat or cholesterol causes heart disease. Absolutely none.
• Cholesterol is essential. If you eat less cholesterol, your body will make more. If you eat more cholesterol, your body will make less.
• LDL cholesterol is not a good marker of a person’s risk for heart disease. The ratio between HDL and Triglycerides is a much better predictor.
• The American Heart, Diabetes or Cancer associations should not be trusted. This goes for all similar groups in most western countries. FOLLOW THE MONEY!
• There is no such thing as heart healthy whole grains. Sure, you can make the argument that whole grains are better for you than refined white flour, just as filtered cigarettes are better for you than unfiltered cigarettes, but that doesn’t make them good for you.
• Cancer cells feed on sugar.
• The media cannot be trusted to tell the truth. All they care about are ratings/traffic and pleasing their advertisers. FOLLOW THE MONEY!
• The government policy to recommend a low-fat diet was a flawed idea.
• The medical community views you as a customer. If you get healthy, you will be worth a lot less to them over the course of your life.
• Most doctors don’t have a clue about nutrition and are not taught about it in medical school. I know and have personally asked doctors myself.
• There will never be a day where the government or any of those associations mentioned above come out and admit they were wrong. Could you imagine the class action lawsuits that would arise?
• It is up to you to take matters into your own hands and take responsibility for your own health.

As I mentioned earlier, I have followed Vinnie Tortorich and others like him for many years, so I already knew these facts, and thus am bias towards it. The facts presented line up with what I already believed, follow myself and teach to my clients.

I suggest you watch the film with an open mind and consider the possibility that what you think you know about health and nutrition may have been not be based in solid science and have been wrong all along.

I have known that the conventional wisdom surrounding diet and health is completely backwards and this documentary does an excellent job explaining how they got it wrong. You owe it to yourself to watch this.

P.S.

I got a little behind in writing this review and this movie has been out for a few months already and climbed into the top 10 on iTunes for all movies and number one for documentaries. Also, top ratings on Amazon and other outlets.

Have you seen this movie mentioned once in the mainstream media?

I have not heard a peep about this movie. It’s like no one wants you to see this film and that should make you wonder?

Big business does not want you to see this film and they certainly don’t want you to adopt a healthy lifestyle. When you adopt the lifestyle described in the movie or what I follow and have my clients follow, you’ll end up spending a lot less money on processed food and you end up spending a whole lot less on health care over the course of your life. I will say it one last time: FOLLOW THE MONEY!

First of all, I have to profess that I have been following Dave Asprey for many years, am a fan of his and his message and have read all of his previous books and even purchased some of his nutrition products which I have written about before.

Dave has been running a podcast (The Bullet Proof Executive) for well over five years, maybe longer and has interview some of the world’s leading experts on various topics. For the first 500+ of these interviews he ended each podcast with asking his guests one question. “What three things would you advise someone to kick more ass in their life?” This book is a statistical analysis of all of those top answers.

From all those answers, Dave came up with 46 Laws, which he then grouped into three sections: Smarter, Faster and Happier. We all want to more of those things, right? I know I do.

The first page of the introduction chapter has a very unique word map or infographic on how many times the top answers came up and their weighting.

I thing I appreciated and I believe other readers will as well, is that at the end of each law, there are action items for you to try, work on or incorporate into your life, as well as a reference to the original interview(s) that this law was developed from, so you can go back and listen in more depth. As well as a recommended reading list of those guests work as it relates to that law. I especially liked that last touch, as it has become a future reading list for myself.

I am not going to go over all the laws in the book and what they mean, as you need to read it for yourself and find your own context in your life.

I will briefly mention the top three that came out of the data crunching. Nutrition and fueling your body were the top choice across these high performers from various disciplines and backgrounds. Relationships and community were the second most cited area of advice and Self-Awareness or Habits was number three on the list.

From my own personal experience and development, I would concur that these three are right near the top of the list to better performance in your life.

As mentioned, I have followed Dave for years, so none of theses Laws were completely new to me, but the way they were organized into digestible bits to follow and put into action was great. I think for someone finding Dave’s work for the first time, this book is a great way to get caught up on years worth of guest’s interviews summed up nicely.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn to perform better at whatever they do and leverage the work that Dave Asprey has already done for you.

UNDOCTORED is a book that has been on my shelf for over a year. While I was very eager to read it, other books kept going to the top of the pile. I do wish I would have read it sooner as it is chalk full of knowledge. William Davis is also the author of the Wheat Belly book series.

The book is laid out into four sections.

The first goes into the state of the healthcare industry and how we got to where we are at currently. To recognize that healthcare is big business and those interests will be protected. And to understand the many myths perpetrated to protect these business interests. The book is not about diagnosing your own illnesses or prescribing your own medication, but about taking back control over your health by taking advantage of new information and tools at your disposal. There are a few case studies of patients presented in the opening chapters as well.

The second section of the book goes into those health tools that are at one’s disposal. One aspect discussed is that the now wide access to information and the ability to collaborate with others around the world makes numerous aspects of conventional health care obsolete while putting you at the center. Nutrition and the elimination of seeds of grasses (grains) is discussed in the reversal of numerous health conditions. To those familiar with Dr. Davis’s previous work, you would expect to see this section. Also discussed is the notion to never accept “health or nutrition” advice on blind faith. Much of what is passed off as modern nutritional advice is nothing more than industry marketing or stumbling misinterpretations of science. The final chapter touches on supplementation and discusses the new apps, testing and tracking tools that make it easier than ever for the individual to measure their health on their own.

The real action items are contained in section three of the book. It begins with a deep dive into nutrition with Dr. Davis’s recommendations, followed by a chapter of recipes. I have seen more than my fair share of recipes and usually don’t take much notice of them, but I have to admit there were a few that I took the effort to write down to try. Next, he moves into the importance of a healthy microbiome and how to get your pre-and-probiotic nutrients. This ties in nicely with the following chapter on supplementation and ensuring to address our basic needs. Dr. Davis discusses which he feels are the most important ones. I can’t say that I disagree with any of them from my own research. While each vitamin or mineral provides its own benefits, it is the synergistic combination of them with proper nutrition that powers one’s individual health. While Dr. Davis is not an expert in Sleep, Exercise or Toxins, he does provide a nice starting point for someone just getting started in these areas.

The forth and final section of the book begins with providing some additional steps for people with very specific conditions such as: (Constipation, Kidney Stones, Fatty Liver etc), as well as providing many references. There are tables for hidden sources of wheat and sweetener alternatives. I appreciated the fact that additional resources are provided to the reader to seek out other Doctors or organizations that specialize in certain specific areas where Dr. Davis just touched upon or did not get into great depth. Finally, this section lists the extensive sources cited throughout the book in a by-chapter format that is easy to follow.

UNDOCTORED by William Davis, MD is a couple years old now, but I think a worthwhile read for anyone looking to begin the journey of taking control of their own health. As someone who has been on that very journey for over five years now, there were still some new things I learned. I recommend reading this book.

This post is a follow-up to my previous posts on Amusement Park Vacation and a Cruise Vacation. Our most recent vacation combined both a 3 day Amusement Park vacation followed by a 7 day cruise.

I suggest you read those previous posts on many of the strategies I employ to survive travel and those types of vacations. The purpose of this post was that I gained a lot more weight than anticipated, so I want to detail why this was, but more importantly to explain how to recover.

On this vacation I visited a Theme park in a different location, but run by the same Operator as last time. I also traveled on a cruise run by the same operator as last time, but on a different boat, from a different port and with a different itinerary.

Without rehashing the strategies I posted in my previous articles, which I followed again exactly, the reason I believe I gained more weight than anticipated was due to the fact that some food options I had expected to work for me, were not available.

I expected to benefit from having a salad and holding the dressing for diners at the park. I found that I could not find the same quality of salads, if at all and the one I did find, I could not opt for no dressing. So even when I was able to get a salad for dinner, it had inflammatory dressing. A couple other meals I was able to have a burrito loaded with some veggies, but still a little higher in carbs than I would have liked, not to mention the inflammatory oils. On another couple occasions there was no good option, so I chose to eat pizza (at least it is something that tastes good).

So, why didn’t I fast more to get around this? I was already doing a 12-14 hour fast, and with all the activity of walking around a huge theme park, I simply have not trained my body enough yet to do a 24 hour or longer fast with that amount of activity.

Once I got onto the cruise boat, I was anticipating following the same protocol as I had adopted last year. However, I found the menus/ food options to be of poorer quality. I could only occasionally get a decent salad at dinner, but my intent for lunch to have a large salad with nutritious lettuce, nuts and guacamole as my dressing did not materialize. I was told repeatedly that the guacamole or avocados were out and romaine was all there was. This left me trying to cobble a meal from the buffet. The veggies were often sautéed in inflammatory oils and the protein sources were nearly always smothered in a suspect sauce.

Travel is inflammatory on your body, being out of your routine confuses your body, so a 4 to 5 pound weight gain from inflammation was what I was expecting, NOT 11 pounds. I really chalk it up to these seemingly slight variances that can really add up over a week plus. This is why I do not believe in cheat meals or cheat weekends as it does not take long for you to feel the effects and each meal or day compounds on the previous.

So how did I get back to my pre-trip weight in 6 days? It may sound simple, but it really is. I just got back into my routine. I got adequate sleep & rest and I stayed hydrated. I was back into my fasting protocol and back to eating the low inflammatory foods that I usually do. I did not do more exercise or purposely restrict calories or anything silly like that. I simply reduced the inflammation in my body, got back to my homeostasis and all is back to normal.

If you go into a trip like this with the best intensions and plan ahead a little bit, using some or all of the strategies I have shared, you too can eliminate excessive weight gain and recover quickly when you get home.

These are all things I work with my clients on, when assisting them with building their healthy lifestyle. If you would like to discuss further, reach out and let’s have a conversation.

My Experience with the Oura Ring

This will come to no surprise to people who know me, but I am a fan of self-quantification to learn more about yourself so that you can make changes and increase performance. My newest tool is the Oura Ring. The ring has sensors which tracks a series of metrics and then produces output from the time that you were asleep and gives your scores based on their algorithm. It gives you a sleep score, recovery score and activity score.

My wife bought me the latest version, and while I had to wait quite sometime for it to arrive (they had so much success in the pre-sale they fell way behind in production). It tracks many variables and I will discuss many of them below in a second. I was most interested in getting data on my sleep and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) to see what factors affect me and what changes I could make to better optimize my health.

Deep sleep is supposed to be restorative for your body, Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep is supposed to be restorative for your brain.

A higher HRV generally indicates a stronger parasympathetic nervous system. This is the branch of your nervous system that is generally responsible for rebuilding, recovering, digesting, etc. When you are at rest (i.e. not working out or intentionally doing something challenging or stressful), you typically want an indication that your rest and digest system is adequately functioning.

Temperature can be a leading indicator to your wellness as well. If you are running a bit cold or a bit warm, it is an indication that your body is fighting something and could lead you to feeling unwell in a couple days.

First off, I will disclose a big caveat. In a perfect world I would have only controlled for one main variable at a time for a number of days and then moved to the next variable. However, I do not live in a lab. I have a couple businesses, a family with young kids and other responsibilities. So, I just lived my life. I did however try to limit the dietary variables to just a couple per day.

The methodology I employed was to wear my ring at all times and than recoded the data I was interested in from the app the following morning along with the other variables I tracked myself, like my exercise levels, what I consumed, how I was feeling, time I did things etc. I used the recovery score I mentioned as my sole indicator to determine what type and intensity of exercise to do that day. I tracked for 113 days.

First, some of my Average metrics and thoughts:

Sleep Duration: 7 hrs – 16 days I did not get enough sleep

% of Deep Sleep -17% (Research has stated that 20% is optimal) – I had 34 days where this was a warning, and my lowest score was 2%. I was a little surprised at how much deep sleep I actually get or lack thereof.

% of REM Sleep -26% (Research has stated that 20-22% is optimal) – I had 20 days where this was a warning, and my lowest score was 11%

Resting Heart Rate -47.4 bpm – I had a range of 41 to 57

Wakeups during the night -1.8 times – I had as high as 6 times. This surprised me the most. The vast majority of the time I did not recognize that I was awoken.

HRV -65.9 ms – I had a range of 16 to 101

Respiratory Rate -14.7/ min – I had a range of 15.8 to 14. This is in the normal range for people.

Temperature off normal – negative 0.02 – I had a range of -0.7 to 0.6.

The following are some of my observations on how different variables effected my scores, especially for sleep. A lot of these will probably not be a surprise to many of you. And again these are just my results during this time period and you may have nowhere the same experience.

1. Sleep duration and quality were the biggest factors to adequate recovery.
2. Having a disrupted sleep was bad for both Deep and REM. I have young kids that sometimes get up in the middle of the night.
3. Regardless of the amount of total sleep achieved, going to bed later than my normal was bad for both REM and especially for Deep sleep.
4. Having caffeine late in the day was negative for both REM and Deep. Even having a third caffeinated beverage early in the day (before 9am) was negative to both. Genetic testing has shown that I am a slow caffeine metabolizer.
5. A big surprise to me was that I found no correlation between what type of exercise I did or the intensity of that exercise. Perhaps this was due to the fact that I almost always exercise in the morning and that I am pretty well conditioned.
6. One drink of alcohol seemed to have no effect at all. However, two or more drinks were very negative to Deep sleep and slightly positive to REM sleep.
7. I know from both experience and genetic testing that I do not do well with dairy. I found no effect to REM sleep, but it was negative effect to Deep sleep.
8. Low dose 100% CBD oil had a slight positive effect to REM and was negative for Deep sleep. I would have thought it would have been positive for Deep, but maybe the dose was too low.
9. Low dose 50/50 CDB/THC oil had a slight negative effect to REM which was a surprise and no effect on Deep sleep. Again, maybe the doses were too low.
10. Having unpasteurized, non-GMO, organic honey from my neighbour in the evening seemed to be slightly positive for both REM and Deep sleep.
11. Having 85% Organic Dark Chocolate in the evening seemed to be slightly negative to Deep sleep and had no effect to REM. Darn!
12. Having a late dinner too close to bed time, less than 2.5 hours had a negative effect to both REM and Deep sleep.
13. I follow a Low Inflammatory diet which means I tend to eat higher fats and lower carbohydrates and my carbohydrates tend to come primarily from vegetables. That being said, if my carbs for the day were backloaded to dinner, it was negative for my Deep sleep and slightly negative for my REM sleep.
14. A large meal for dinner, regardless of the macronutrient composition negatively effected my deep sleep.

So what am I going to change or do with this information?

First of all, life happens and we all just need to deal with it. Sometimes we make decisions that we know will not serve our health, but we do it for other reasons such as socialization or just getting stuff done.

I already hardly ever drink so no changes there. I will really try not have coffee or caffeinated tea after noon. I will try to eat a smaller dinner and have my first meal of the day be my big meal. I will try to ensure I do not eat too late. I have already become more conscious of regulating the time I go to bed and ensuring that I just get more sleep overall.

Sleep is a key component of health and something that I stress with my coaching clients.

Now that this experiment is done, I plan to continue to check the app every morning as my indicator for how hard I will try and kick ass that day.