Blog

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.

.

I have to admit, I did not know who David Sinclair was until recently. Then in the summer and fall of last year when this book was being released, he started making the promotional rounds including a few of the podcasts of people who I follow and trust. This put him on my radar screen. Then when I had lay people, like my wife’s co-workers who know about my longevity goals asking if I was going to read it, I knew I had to order it. I had a backlog of books to read, so it only got to the top of my list recently. I decided to bring it along on a beach vacation and thought I could get a good start on it. Boy, was I wrong! I absolutely devoured it. I couldn’t put it down, and including making notes and high-lighting parts of the book, I finished it in a week, and I am not a fast reader.  

The secondary title of the book is “Why We Age -And Why We Don’t Have To”, and that is exactly what this book is all about in a nut shell.

The book is split into three main sections.

The first is called: What we Know or the Past. This covers the history of how humans came to be, the science and notions that developed on aging and disease, application of science to animal models and finally a great chapter, which the author titles “The Blind Epidemic”. This chapter discusses the cumulative effect of various factors, conditions, diseases that effect our aging and how one needs to look at the cumulative and not one single factor.

The second section of the book is titled: What We’re Learning or the Present. This is the part of the book that details where we are currently with the science of Longevity and the tips to achieve that goal. Things such as; Eat Less without Malnutrition, Managing your Amino Acid Profile, Exercising in the Right Dose, Cold Exposure, Avoiding Dangerous Chemicals and Avoiding Radiation. These are all things I work on with my clients.

Then the discussion moves onto some of the more promising drugs or compounds for longevity. The types of cells (including stem cells), and how they react over time is also detailed. This section of the book ends off with discussing various medical system models and how they will need to change to keep up with what we are learning about aging and longevity.

The third main section of the book is titled: Where We’re Going or the Future. The first couple pages details how some of the concepts/ treatments discussed earlier can really start to add up when combined and make being a centenarian (my personal goal and some of my clients) very achievable.

I greatly appreciated how throughout the book the author described how the various systems and pathways in the body were affected by the topic he was discussing.

The book then turns and does a good job of detailing the issues we as mankind will need to overcome if a significant part of the population starts living 20, 30, 40, 50 years longer. Things like food production/ consumption, political systems, government assistance programs, fertility and population growth, pollution and other world resources. Human kind needs to realize that the future is not someone else’s concern.

The medical system and research dollars are discussed again, in that there needs to be a paradigm shift in the approach and treatment of aging. I agree with the author “that there is no cheaper way to address the healthcare crisis than to address aging at its core”.

In the conclusion, David Sinclair provides what he is doing for longevity as of the publishing of this book. Most of which I agree with and follow myself.

I also truly appreciate the robust sourcing of the studies mentioned in the book as well as the glossary of scientific terms and key people mentioned.

This was a very high-level overview of the book; and it has currently moved to the top of my list for Longevity books. If you are serious about pushing the boundaries of your own Longevity, read this book or contact me and I would be happy to discuss with you.

This is the latest in a series of posts on how to survive vacations and keep your health goals. I had previously discussed cruising and theme parks, so check those out too.

This year we went on a 10-day All-Inclusive trip to a Resort in the Maya Rivera in Mexico.

All-inclusive means that all your food and drinks (including alcohol and snacks) are included in the price.

Like many vacations, having 24hr access to all the food and drink you could want can lead to debauchery and poor decisions.

I only gained 3 pounds in these 10 days and was back to my normal weight in 3 days after our return. I was actually surprised it took 3 days to get back to baseline, but I chalk that up to the strenuous travel schedule we had on our return trip home. That is a story for another day!

So, let’s focus on only gaining 3 pounds in 10 days. How did I do it?

Well many of the same strategies I discussed in those previous posts.

First, start off with health snacks for the travel days (nuts, lots of water, coffee with the BulletProof InstaMix product).

Secondly, Stick to normal routines:

1. I still did my fasted workout in the morning, a little cardio, some strength training and stretching. Nothing excessive, pretty much what I do at home.
2. I intermittent fast normally, so I kept up with that during the trip. I didn’t go down to the breakfast buffet, I just had my coffee, relaxed and read and fasted until somewhere between Noon and 2:30pm depending on that day’s activities.

Things that were different from my normal:

1. I did drink more than normal. To be clear I rarely drink at home, maybe 2-3 drinks every few months. For the first few days I probably had 3-4 drinks per day spread out during the day. Some people might see the free alcohol as a reason to go crazy, and I certainly saw a lot of that, especially with the fruity, sugary, frozen drinks. I stuck with my usual’s, either scotch with water or red wine at dinner. In reality, by the tail end of the trip, my body was done with alcohol and I had one or no drinks the last few days.
2. Whether at the buffet or the ala carte restaurants, there was definitely a lack of vegetables, especially that were not slathered in some mystery inflammatory oil or sauce. To be fair there was a salad bar, but I was pretty cautious with produce that may be washed in questionable water sources. I made sure I had a daily dose of a greens power that I brought mixed in a bottle of water. So, I got my 10-15 servings of fruit and vegetables, all the vitamins and minerals in one quick shot.
3. While I had a ton of avocados (a nice healthy fat source), I was left to fill my plate with the best protein sources I could find. I probably ate more protein than normal as a result.
4. When hanging at the beach or poolside, there is ample opportunity for swimming, snorkeling, sand castle building etc. I also did two scuba dives on this trip. So yes, my overall activity level was a bit higher due to the water related activities, and this likely helped offset the extra protein and the alcohol.
5. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, my sleep quality was not the best on this trip and this also likely had a negative effect to my body and weight gain.
6. While I have a very simple menu rotation of foods at home, repeating nutritious health meals multiple times a week. I found the repetitiveness of the food at the resort to be boring and by the last few days of the trip I was eating what my body needed and not anymore, so this likely helped as well.
7. It was really hot down in Mexico, so I drank more water than normal to stay hydrated. This also helps flush the alcohol out of your system faster and helps with appetite control too.

As I have stated before, just because you are on vacation, somewhere new and exciting and experiencing cool things, you can still enjoy yourself without falling off the wagon and sticking to what you do at home as best as possible.

If you would like more insight into how I vacation with health in mind or how I work on nutrition with my clients click here.