6 Tips for the Best Sleep of Your Life

Sleep. You spend roughly a full third of your life asleep, and according to the Sleep Health Foundation, about a third of people have insomnia.

Even just mild sleep loss leads to impairments in cognitive performance, including attention, both working and longterm memory, as well as reasoning, and causes one to become more prone to error. (source)

Sleep deprivation increases cortisol, our main stress hormone that leads to fat gain, particularly around the midsection, and also causes muscle tissue to be broken down.

A lack of sleep impairs the functioning of leptin, a hormone that provides feelings of satiety and fullness, while improvements in sleep patterns leads to improvements in insulin sensitivity in adults.

Further, even just partial sleep deprivation increases body weight and the amount of food consumed – and this study was done with a  group of rats that were bred to be obesity-resistant.

Long story short, a sleep deficit or even poor sleep quality impairs cognitive function, increases stress and leads to a bevy of metabolic issues. So…. Why aren’t more of us trying to maximize this time?

Article at a glance 

  1. Get on a set schedule and routine
  2. Minimize blue light a few hours before bedtime
  3. Use melatonin and a Bright Light to entrain your circadian rhythms
  4. Avoid that evening night cap
  5. Utilize yoga, meditation and breathing exercises to switch off  “fight or flight” mode
  6. Get by with a little help from your friends

Improving Sleep

  1. Have a set sleep schedule and routine 

“Good habits are worth being fanatical about.” – John Irving

Absolutely nothing has a bigger impact on how I feel the next day than the quality and quantity of sleep I get the night prior.

Having a healthy sleep schedule is one of the best ways to increase your energy levels, lose weight and generally feel amazing each day. As an experiment, try just one week of getting 8 or more hours of sleep each night and you will be amazed at how fantastic you feel. Once you realize how powerful a good night’s rest is, you will be much more inclined to improving your sleep patterns long term.

So what’s the main fix? Have a set sleep schedule and routine.

I know we all live hectic, crazy lives, but do your best to keep to a set schedule every night – no computers or tv after 8 or 9 to decrease blue light (we’ll get to this), gentle yoga and/or chamomile tea and a good book at 9 or 9:30, and in bed by 10 or 11.

Some people eat three meals a day, some two, and some (monks and the like) just one meal a day. Come meal time, whether it’s your one and only meal, or your third and final, your body will begin to get hungry – it’s conditioned to expect food at a certain time and at certain intervals. In the same manner, your body comes to expect sleep at a certain time and certain intervals. Having a set schedule and routine helps train your body to sleep when you want it to.

2. Minimize blue light a few hours before sleep

Did you know that staring at your phone, iPad, tv, laptop or computer screen has the ability to drastically impair your sleep quality, even if you are in bed at a reasonable hour?

Let’s talk a bit about human evolution and circadian rhythms – I’ll keep it short. For millions of years, humans had two phases of the day – the sun would rise, and there would be light, and then the sun would set, and there would be darkness.

And for millions of years prior to that, the animals and critters we evolved from experienced the same thing – light all day, and then darkness come sundown. Our bodies have evolved to have a certain amount of time in the daylight, and then a certain amount of time under the cool blanket of the nighttime during which we sleep. This is known as our circadian rhythm, and this diurnal pattern of light/dark controls our bodily processes in huge and profound ways.

Today, we have the option to have a fully lit environment, whether it’s day or night time, and many of us choose to stay up past sundown, bathing in all sorts of artificial light. As it turns out, this is not so great for our circadian rhythm.

Our circadian rhythm acts in large part via our body’s hormones – mainly cortisol to help us wake up in the morning and melatonin to help us fall asleep at night, but with many other bodily functions, chemicals and hormones coming into play.

Cortisol release according to circadian rhythm
Cortisol release according to circadian rhythm
Melatonin levels according to circadian rhythms
Melatonin levels according to circadian rhythms

As you can see, cortisol is like our body’s natural caffeine, helping to wake us up, and melatonin is our body’s natural sleep aid, helping us to fall asleep.

The problem is that all forms of light, but especially blue light, the type emitted from tv screens, tablets, cell phones and computers, disrupts the body’s circadian rhythm and suppresses the release of melatonin.

The fix? Limit light use, especially blue light coming from tv’s, computers, tablets and smart phones, for two hours leading up to bed time. You can also download f.lux, a program that gradually tints your computer screen more and more orange as the sun begins to set, reducing the amount of blue light emitted. Or you can REALLY nerd out and impress your friends, family and coworkers with these blue-light blocking glasses

3. Entrain your circadian rhythm

Your circadian rhythm is the collective term for the cycle of bodily processes that occur during a 24 hour period, but largely refers to our sleep/wake cycle. Having a healthy circadian rhythm is paramount to good health, low levels of fat, ample energy and proper mood.

There are a few tricks you can use to sync up your circadian rhythm to our natural sleep/wake cycle. The first is to take melatonin, anywhere from 1 to 3 mg, an hour before the time you’d like to be falling asleep. Do this for roughly a week, and then cease usage as melatonin is a hormone, and any time you take hormones, your body will decrease its own production of them. Melatonin is extremely safe and inexpensive, with 180 1 milligram tablets being just under 5 bucks.

Then, concurrently with melatonin usage, set an alarm for the time you’d like to wake up and immediately use a full-spectrum Bright Light, or simply get some sunlight when you wake up. To make a long story short, the retinohypothalamic tract is a highway of nerves connecting your eyes to the specific location in your brain responsible for your circadian rhythm, called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). Without proper stimulation of this region of the brain, coming from full spectrum light, your body does not get the full “time to wake up” messages it is supposed to.

The SCN receives input from specialized photosensitive ganglion cells in the retina via the retinohypothalamic tract… When the retina receives light, the vlSCN (ventrolateral SCN) relays this information throughout the SCN allowing entrainment, synchronization, of the person’s or animal’s daily rhythms to the 24-hour cycle in nature.

Full spectrum light from the sun or from a Bright Light stimulates this control center in your brain via the retinohypothalamic tract, but it requires full spectrum light – meaning that sunlight that is being filtered through any windows or sunglasses will not suffice, as these block certain wavelengths of UVB light. 

With a Bright Light, simply turn it on within 3 feet of you, facing your body and face while you read the paper or check emails in the morning, for roughly 10 minutes. Keep it positioned on your right for half the time allotted, then switch it over to the left side. Likewise, simply sit outside in direct sunlight facing the sun (not staring into it) in the mornings.

The fix – Spend a week or two entraining your circadian rhythm by strategically using melatonin in the evenings and either a full-spectrum Bright Light or, preferably, full sun exposure. After a week or so, discontinue both and use only on an as-needed basis. A Bright Light also greatly helps with the condition of winter time blues, known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). It is advisable to also avoid over-use of sunglasses, as these impinge on the absorption of full spectrum light.

4. Avoid your evening indulgence in alcohol

Many people find that an evening drink or two helps them fall asleep faster, and while it may do just that, it actually hampers deep, restorative sleep as well.

It would be a safe bet to assume that the occasional one or two drinks before bed will do little harm, but that glass of scotch or nice Merlot every single night before sleep? I would say this is a no-no for those seeking to improve their sleep habits.

Just say no to the beautiful bourbon
Just say no to the beautiful bourbon

The Fix – Simply don’t have a night cap every single night before bed. If you do choose to imbibe, take 200 milligrams of L-theanine a half-hour before bed – it’s neuroprotective, helping protect your brain cells from the damaging effects of alcohol, helps the body break down alcohol more quickly, and helps promote deep sleep. L-theanine is an amino-acid like compound found in green tea, responsible for its focusing, calming effects.

5. Activate your parasympathetic nervous system via yoga, meditation and/or breathing exercises 

Your autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for regulating your body’s unconscious actions, is split into two groups – the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, from here out referred to as the SNS and PSNS, respectively. Your sympathetic nervous system is generally responsible for all “fight or flight” activities, while the PSNS is responsible for “rest and digest” activities, or bodily process that happen while at rest and not in immediate danger. Needless to say, if your body is in fight or flight mode, chances are you won’t be falling asleep.

You may have heard about a little thing plaguing the people of today – stress. Chronic stress is debilitating and keeps people in constant fight or flight mode. This leads to an overactive SNS, with very little activation of our calming PSNS. Luckily for us, there are more than a few ways to bring our nervous systems back into balance.

A 2015 study on basic yoga postures concluded that “Yoga practising group showed significant improvement in various cognitive functions, such as performance enhancement, neural activity, attention, and executive function. It also resulted in increase in the heart rate variability, parasympathetic nervous system activity, and balanced autonomic nervous system reactivity.” Yoga postures not only provide a noticeable cognitive boost but allowed more parasympathetic activity, as well as more balance and adaptability between sympathetic and parasympathetic modes. Sounds good to me.

A 2012 study on yoga concluded that “According to the proposed theory, the decreased PNS (parasympathetic nervous system) and GABAergic activity that underlies stress-related disorders can be corrected by yoga practices resulting in amelioration of disease symptoms. This has far-reaching implications for the integration of yoga-based practices in the treatment of broad array of disorders exacerbated by stress.” Another win for yoga.

Perfectly balanced SNS and PSNS may lead to levitation
A perfectly balanced SNS and PSNS may lead to levitation

Meditation helps bring the body’s nervous system back into balance as well. The 2015 study The Influence of Buddhist Meditation Traditions on the Autonomic System and Attention stated “we review new evidence that shows that types of meditation that developed out of certain traditions such as Vajrayana and Hindu Tantric lead to heightened sympathetic activation and phasic alertness, while types of meditation from other traditions such as Theravada and Mahayana elicit heightened parasympathetic activity and tonic alertness.” The majority of meditation practices available today are mainly those that activate the parasympathetic nervous system, and not the Tantric type that tone the sympathetic nervous system.

Furthermore, a 2016 study of a certain type of pranayama, or yogic breathing exercise, concluded that their study “showed that Bhr.P (Bhramari pranayama)  practice produces relaxed state and in this state parasympathetic activity overrides the sympathetic activity.”

The 2013 study Assessment of the effects of pranayama/alternate nostril breathing on the parasympathetic nervous system in young adults concluded that “This study showed that the parasympathetic tone was enhanced appreciably in the participants. The observations of this study suggest that the yogic exercise of A.N.B. (alternate nostril breathing) influences the parasympathetic nervous system significantly.

The Fix – Pick up a basic yoga and meditation practice. If you aren’t well versed in either, find a class near you, or pick up one of many DVDs to follow along with at home. Once you get the hang of it, you can formulate your own routine. For those curious, here is how to do alternate nostril breathing, as well as Bhramari pranayama.

6. Get by with a little help from your friends

Along with melatonin and L-theanine, a few other herbs and supplements can help you get a better nights rest.

Magnesium is a vital mineral that is essential for over 300 biochemical reactions within the body, but unfortunately most Americans are deficient, due to a poor diet and rapidly declining levels of magnesium in our soil. Magnesium acts not only within the brain to calm you down, but also throughout the entire body by helping to keep cortisol in check (source).

Try to eat foods high in magnesium, such as pumpkin seeds, dark leafy greens, and my personal favorite, 80-90% dark chocolate. It also wouldn’t hurt to have a magnesium supplement on hand, especially for those of us who live hectic, stressful lives, work out regularly, or drink alcohol regularly, as these all rapidly deplete magnesium. Try magnesium citrate, or if your budget allows, magnesium threonate, which is more readily used by the brain.

I’m almost never without a quality magnesium supplement, both because it is so crucial to good health and because I like to work hard and play hard. I would recommend that anyone experiencing sleep problems or anxiety should start by eating more magnesium rich foods and/or supplementing with a quality magnesium supplement. It’s always best to look towards fixing your diet first rather than supplementing.  

Use calming herbs such as chamomile and valerian root. Chamomile acts upon both GABA and benzodiazepine receptors in the brain, helping you to relax and calm down, and is a gentle herb with a long history of safe use. Valerian root acts not only on GABA receptors but also upon adenosine receptors – these are the same receptors that caffeine binds to in the brain, but instead of blocking those receptors as caffeine would, valerian root activates them, helping one to fall asleep.

Chamomile tea is readily available, inexpensive and delicious, and valerian root capsules are easy to find as well.

Bonus Tip!

Keep a dream journal – By keeping a dream journal, you provide yourself an opportunity to peer into your own subconscious mind – over time, you’ll piece together many recurring habits, wishes, fears and desires. Keeping a dream journal has truly been one of the most insightful and interesting practices I’ve kept up with.

A dream which is not interpreted is like a letter which is not read. ~ The Talmud

The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind. ~ Sigmund Freud

Hmmm, what might this mean..
Hmmm, what might this mean..

5 Simple Tips to Stay Trim During the Holidays

Let’s admit it – the holidays are a terrible time for weight loss, between all the parties, the rich dinners and the holiday treats.

Lucky for you, there are some simple strategies you can use to help keep some of the extra pounds off this holiday season.

1. Workout before a big meal or party

Do you ever feel guilty after eating a ton of junk food at a holiday party, or after a big holiday meal? The truth is, you don’t have to. In fact, strategic gorging on food, even somewhat unhealthy food, can help you build muscle and lose weight.

The best way to do this is by eating healthy during the rest of the week, and when the day of the party arrives, make sure to get a strenuous workout in right before the party. This makes muscle tissue more sensitive to the hormone insulin, while simultaneously making fat cells less sensitive to insulin. This means that the food you consume immediately after a strenuous workout is preferentially used to build and repair muscle tissue, and less likely to be stored away as fat.

Bonus tip – consume a casein protein shake with chia seeds right after the workout and prior to the party. Casein is a type of protein that is very slow digesting, helping to curb hunger. Chia seeds absorb moisture and expand in the stomach, also helping to create a feeling of fullness. The net result is less food consumed at the party without feeling like you’re depriving yourself. If you’re a vegan or sensitive to dairy products, use a quality hemp protein powder.

2. Drink Smart

Choose your holiday libations wisely. The higher in sugar your alcoholic drink is, the more likely you are to put on the weight.

Worst offenders – spiked eggnog, beer, sweet wines and sugary mixed drinks.

White Russians are unadvisable as well.
White Russians would be unadvisable as well.

Middle of the road – Dry white and red wines, and low sugar cocktails (think a martini)

Best bets – clear liquors with soda water and a lime/lemon. Think a vodka and soda, gin and soda, etc. Straight liquors, liquors on the rocks, as well as watered down liquors are great options too, such as a bourbon and water or a bourbon neat.

Bonus Tip – Use a good antioxidant to help prevent hangovers. My favorites for this purpose are astaxanthin and CoQ-10, 4 mg and 400 mg per every 2-3 drinks, respectively. Both of these are powerful antioxidants that make it to the brain to help mitigate some of the damage caused by alcohol consumption.

You can also use L-Theanine at the end of the night to speed up the rate the body breaks down alcohol, and promote a deeper sleep. And remember to hydrate!

3. Keep your stress levels down

I personally find holiday shopping to be the bane of my existence. Holiday shopping can be pretty stressful, and unfortunately all that extra stress leads to weight gain.

Excess stress makes you gain weight due to a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol has many necessary functions within the body – however, when your body releases cortisol in excess in response to stress, your body begins to store extra fat, especially around the midsection.

Good thing there are a few ways to help keep excess cortisol in check.

Ashwagandha – Ashwagandha is one of the best ways to reduce stress and lower cortisol, and it’s easy as just popping a few pills. This 2012 study showed that

“Ashwagandha root extract exhibited a significant reduction in scores on all the stress-assessment scales on Day 60, relative to the placebo group. The serum cortisol levels were substantially reduced in the Ashwagandha group, relative to the placebo group.”

Ashwagandha also increases levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which helps protect brain cells, helps the brain make new connections between neurons (leading to faster learning and better memory retention), and is also a potent anti-depressant. Add to this the fact ashwagandha improves thyroid functioning, which is one of the main endocrine glands in charge of your metabolism, and is an aphrodisiac, and you have one hell of an herb. This patented, full-spectrum extract of ashwagandha is only $14.

Yoga has been proven time and again to be a very effective way to reduce stress. This study shows that it was more effective than medication in both reducing cortisol and in its antidepressant effects – and it’s free.

Phosphatidylserine is another natural supplement that is proven to reduce cortisol, though is a bit more expensive than ashwagandha.

4. Don’t eat or drink 2-3 hours before bed time 

Did you know that you can burn fat while you sleep? Keep your dinner light, low in carbs and make sure to have it 2-3 hours before your normal bedtime.

Leptin is a hunger-suppressing, fat-burning hormone that is naturally released sometime around sunset. However, leptin won’t be released if there is insulin in the bloodstream, and insulin is released in response to food intake, especially carbs. This is why dinner should be light, early and low in carbs, to make sure insulin has cleared the bloodstream in time for leptin to be released.

Insulin also hampers the release of another fat-burning hormone called adiponectin, released soon after sunset. Then around midnight, leptin enters a region of the brain that signals for the body to start burning fat for energy and to increase thyroid output – but only if insulin hasn’t been hanging around.

Bonus tip – keep breakfast low in carbs too. Cortisol is highest in the morning, which acts like a natural caffeine to help us wake up. But don’t forget that cortisol is also a powerful fat-storing hormone as well.

Cortisol release
Cortisol release

Because cortisol increases fat storage, it’s best to make your breakfast low in carbs, instead having a healthy mix of protein, low-carb, high-fiber veggies/fruits, and with a small to moderate amount of fat.

Think an omelet with onions, mushrooms and peppers, a smoothie with berries, chia seeds, protein powder and unsweetened almond milk, or even a breakfast salad.

5. Lose weight with just 4 minutes per day

Anything that promises weight loss within such a short period of time is usually a massive red flag that it’s a complete marketing gimmick. For once, this appears to not be the case.

Tabata training is method of high intensity interval training (HIIT) that is completed in just four minutes.

How can only a four minute workout improve fitness and help you lose weight? To sum it up in one sentence – It’s a bitch.

Tabata involves eight rounds of 20 seconds of all-out effort exercise with 10 seconds rest. The key word here is all-out effort – if at the end of the eight rounds you feel you could do more, you weren’t going hard enough.

What would this look like in the gym? Hop on a stationary bike, and spend a few minutes getting warmed up. After five minutes or so, go all-out sprinting on the bike for 20 seconds. Then pedal lightly for 10 seconds, followed by another all-out sprint for 20 seconds, and then 10 seconds of light pedaling. That’s one minute, and two rounds.

At this point, if you’re new to this type of training, take a minute’s rest. Then do another two rounds of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, followed by another minute’s rest. Complete only 8 rounds, for a total of four minutes of active exercise.

If you’re in really good shape or have already been doing this protocol for a few weeks, feel free to try to go the whole four minutes without any minute long breaks. 
Original.00005768-199610000-00018.FF6SAs you can tell from the graph above from the original study, the group that did 6 weeks of hour long endurance training hardly improved in anaerobic capacity, while the Tabata interval training group improved drastically – with only 4 minutes of active work each day.

I don’t suggest Tabata training to be your only method of exercise, but during the busy holiday season, it’s a great way to squeeze in a workout when you otherwise wouldn’t be able to.

Looking for other ways to lose weight? 

Contact me.

 

A Day in the Life

For the sake of transparency and because I like to check out how others approach health, I thought I’d post a normal day in the life for me, focusing on food, supplements and health promoting activities.

Let me be very clear by saying that by no means should everyone be doing this much in their day to day lives in the name of health – and every so often I have days where I don’t do much. It’s also important to note that most health coaches or fitness enthusiasts don’t do quite this much – it just so happens I personally love to experiment and tinker around,  and with this regimen I’ve found massive benefits from the supplements and procedures listed below. And while it may sound like a lot, it takes very little time out of my day.

Remember, this is on top of an already very nutritious diet. For the vast majority of us, simply eating right, getting plenty of physical movement, practicing stress reduction and using a supplement or two is plenty in order to improve your health.

A Day in the Life

Wake Up – Anywhere from 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. I like to wake up semi-early to get a head start on my day, but some days I’ll just let my body catch up on sleep and wake up naturally.

Upon waking –

  • Glass of room temp water, mainly because I’m thirsty and because it helps to get the digestive system going
  • Morning supplements – the standards of which are a half-capsule of highly-absorbable B-Vitamins, Boron and half a teaspoon of magnesium citrate
  • Morning caffeinated beverage, which is either a half-caff coffee with added L-theanine, or green tea with gynostemma. The caffeine has obvious mental benefits, while the L-theanine, either in supplement form or naturally found in green tea, helps improve focus and enhances the brain’s alpha waves, increasing creativity
  • Usually a nootropic, or cognitive enhancing substance – I’m currently using oxiracetam, piracetam derivative that has a little more “kick”. This, combined with the caffeine and L-theanine, provides quite the boost in focus and mental energy

Total Time = 3 minutes

At this point I get to work on my business. In the winter I’ll use a Verilux “Bright Light” to help ward off the winter time blues, and also to help set my circadian rhythm – this is key for everything from energy levels to proper hormone release. The bright light is also quite energizing. I’ll use this light occasionally in the warmer months as well, especially when it’s too hot in the summer to sit outside in the sunlight.

After coffee or tea – A drink of adaptogens and Chinese herbs. These help improve hormone levels, delay aging, boost immune function, improve fertility, and prevent burnout and adrenal fatigue, as well as having a myriad of other benefits.

My current cocktail is centered around increasing Jing, and includes he shou wu, cistanche, ashwagandha, schizandra, shilajit, and cordyceps, as well as a formula called Restore the Jing. Most of these are mixed into one bag, so I just scoop some into warm water and mix.

Substances that increase Jing, a term from Traditional Chinese Medicine roughly translated as “Regenerative Essence”, have been found to improve hormone levels, delay aging, increase mental performance, enhance fertility, bolster the immune system and leave you feeling invincible. They’ve made a huge difference in my energy levels, confidence and ability to just get shit done.

Total Time = 2 minutes

~ 11 or 12 – Work out 5 or 6 days out of the week. Some days I work out fasted, with no food in the stomach, or some days I’ll have a small snack prior.

  • I make a home made pre-workout beverage that contains Betaine, BCAAs, Beta-Alanine, Creatine, and sometimes L-Glutamine. These all improve performance in the gym, enhancing muscle growth and improving energy levels. Betaine is also a superb liver detoxifier, beta-alanine increases the brain-growing, anti-depressive protein BDNF, and L-glutamine is great for digestive health
  • Some days I take adaptogenic herbs that specifically improve workouts. It may be rhodiola, cordyceps, a nice Asian ginseng extract, or some combination therein. These don’t have so much of muscle building effects as they do increasing drive and endurance within the gym
  • My workout may be lifting weights, going trail running, doing sprints in my neighborhood, etc.
  • Immediately after I workout I down a protein shake with either unsweetened almond milk or grass-fed dairy, whey protein powder, and sometimes some extra BCAAs and L-Glutamine, depending on workout intensity. This helps my muscles recover from the strain I just put on them

Within an hour of my workout – I have my first real meal of the day. It’s usually a big salad with plenty of greens, a protein source, some olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and some source of slow-digesting carbs, such as beans, squash, carrots, etc. Immediately post-workout is known as the “anabolic window”, so food consumed at this time is preferentially used to repair muscle tissue and won’t be stored as fat.

If it’s a “Re-feed Day”, this will be a high carb, high protein meal. Re-feed days help reset my body’s sensitivity to key fat-burning and hunger-controlling hormones, including insulin, leptin and ghrelin, as well as helping to build muscle.

Supplements, anyone?
Supplements, anyone?

~ 3 times a week – Hyperthermic Conditioning and Cold Thermogenesis – After workouts I’ll sometimes hit the sauna for a good 20 minutes. It’s more than just a way to relax, as saunas

  • Increase the release of fat-burning, muscle-building Growth Hormone
  • Resensitize the brain to endorphins
  • Improve insulin sensitivity
  • Release Heat Shock Proteins, which have immune-boosting and longevity-enhancing effects,
  • Help to release stored toxins through sweating
  • Increase BDNF, a protein that promotes growth of new neurons and protects existing ones, and an increase in which is thought to be responsible for enhanced learning. It’s also a potent anti-depressant

All of this combines to allow my body to easily repair muscle damage from my workout, boost my immune system, improve my mood and cognitive performance from the BDNF, detoxify and possibly enhance longevity, all from just sitting in a warm room for 20 minutes.

I follow this up with an icy cold shower, the combination of which leaves me feeling giddy as a schoolgirl for the rest of the day. Exposure to cold has been shown to

Again, I’m reaping massive benefits by just sitting in a hot box for 20 minutes and following that up with 5-10 minutes of a chilly shower.

~ 12 p.m. on days I don’t work out – First meal of the day, usually a low-carb salad with plenty of greens and a protein source. I also consume high quality fish oils with lunch and dinner.

Additional supplements consumed around lunch timeVitamins D and K2, as well as Vitamin A extracted from cod liver oil, 4-5 times a week. These are fat-soluble vitamins that have a plethora of effects, ranging from being precursors to hormones (Vitamin D), improving androgen levels and androgen receptor sensitivity (Vitamin A), neuro-protection and neurogenesis (all three) and ensuring that calcium gets deposited in bones and not in soft tissue (all of them, especially K2). You can buy well over a year’s supply of Vitamin D/K2 here.

~ Notice that I don’t have breakfast? I loosely practice Intermittent Fasting (IF), where you allow certain periods of the day to be food-free. Considering I usually have dinner around 7, and don’t eat my first meal till around 12, I’m giving myself 17 hours of fasting each day.

This gives you most of the benefits of real fasting, without the discomfort that sometimes accompanies real fasting (which I also do once every month or two). IF helps to reset your sensitivity to insulin and other hunger-controlling, fat-burning hormones, as well as enhancing autophagy, the process by the which your cells “take out the garbage”, and is another potent inducer of the brain-growing, mood-enhancing protein BDNF.

That said, if I wake up feeling particularly hungry for some reason, I’m not afraid to listen to my body and eat breakfast. It’s important to be regimented and disciplined with your diet, but at the same time you need to give yourself breaks and be balanced.

~ Throughout the day – Multiple cups of green tea and gynostemma. You can either carry some tea bags with you in your car, or brew a big thermos with a few bags of each in the morning.

  • the combo is a powerful antioxidant one-two punch
  • the green tea contains EGCG, which helps the body burn fat through multiple pathways
  • green tea contains small amounts of caffeine as well as L-theanine, which work in concert to improve mental functioning
  • gynostemma improves insulin sensitivity
  • gynostemma is adaptogenic, helping the body cope with all the stressors of modern life, and also significantly increases Superoxide Dismutase, or SOD, another of our body’s powerful endogenous anti-oxidants

~ Most days – A serving of greens powders. I’m a big fan of Vitamineral Green as well as Green Vibrance, although sometimes I’ll switch it out and do just spirulina or chlorella. These greens are insanely nutrient dense, helping to fill in the gaps in my diet and bolster my nutrition, which is important considering most food today is nutritionally inferior to what it once was, and because I spend five days a week working out hard and pushing my body. The mixed greens also contain probiotics.

~ Hiking and Yoga – I hike about twice a week, more for personal enjoyment than anything else. But it’s a great way to catch up with friends and as I stated in my previous post on meditation, just being in the woods has been proven to lower stress levels. Yoga is possibly the most healing activity one can do, improving everything from stress levels, hormone levels, depression, fatigue, even boosting the immune system. I aim for 2-3 sessions of yoga a week, each session lasting only 20-30 minutes each.

~ Sometime in the afternoon/evening – a few more adaptogenic/Jing boosting herbs. Usually around this time of day it’s just the use of tinctures and possibly some ashwagandha to help keep cortisol low during my stressful job.

Dragon Herbs Tinctures
Dragon Herbs Tinctures

 

~ Meditation in the evening – Currently 20 minutes a day. The benefits are endless – Read about them in my first and second posts on meditation.

~ Dinner roughly 3 hours before bed – Dinner is almost always lower in carbs, not too big and consumed early, to keep insulin low by the time I go to bed. If you have too much insulin floating around the bloodstream when you put on your night cap, a whole cascade of fat-burning, muscle-building and tissue-repairing hormones won’t be released while you sleep.

Evening supplements 4-5 days a week – One capsule of kelp, mainly for the iodine, which improves thyroid function and detoxifies toxic halogens such as fluoride from the body. Zinc and selenium as well, as both are essential for proper androgen levels, and selenium also helps boost thyroid function, keeping my metabolism buzzing like a caffeinated humming bird. If it’s your first time taking kelp or an iodine supplement, I suggest taking it in the morning as it can provide quite the boost in energy levels.

~ A few hours before bed – Reduce the use of blue light coming from cell phones, computers and tvs. This wave length of light has been found to suppress melatonin release and shift circadian rhythms, pushing them back. You can download a free app called f.lux for your computer and smartphone that gradually tints your screen more and more red as the sun begins to set, blocking blue light.

~ Twice a week 30 minutes prior to bed – A few times a week I hit the hay early (9-10 pm) and use 1.5 – 3 mg of melatonin a half hour prior to bed. Melatonin is the main hormone your body produces to help you fall asleep; it also entrains your circadian rhythm, meaning that when melatonin is consistently produced (or consumed) at the same time, you will naturally and easily fall asleep at this hour.

According to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences,

Circadian rhythms can influence sleep-wake cycles, hormone release, body temperature and other important bodily functions. They have been linked to various sleep disorders, such as insomnia. Abnormal circadian rhythms have also been associated with obesity, diabetes, depression, bipolar disorder and seasonal affective disorder.

Further,

A Harvard study shed a little bit of light on the possible connection to diabetes and possibly obesity. The researchers put 10 people on a schedule that gradually shifted the timing of their circadian rhythms. Their blood sugar levels increased, throwing them into a prediabetic state, and levels of leptin, a hormone that leaves people feeling full after a meal, went down.

In other words, having a properly tuned circadian rhythm is pretty damn important. The use of occasional melatonin along with exposure to a bright light source in the morning, either to outdoor sunlight on a bright day or a Verilux lamp, helps to entrain a healthy circadian rhythm.

The majority of people shouldn’t use melatonin every night however – it is a hormone after all, and if you continuously consume exogenous hormones, your body will stop producing it’s own.

And that about does it. Remember, this is all in the name of experimentation and seeing how far I can take things. I want to see just how much energy and motivation I can have. I’ve tried hundreds of different supplements and protocols in the past, and this is the cream of that crop. I’m sure in the future I’ll be able to narrow this list down even more but in the mean time, this is giving me the best results.

I encourage you to try some of this out and see how it effects your day to day life, and feel free to contact me to get a highly effective, personalized plan.

Quick and Dirty Tips

My latest blog post is taking a while, so here are four quick tips to read in the meantime. Enjoy!

1. Coconut oil for weight loss, improved cognition, and boosted immunity – While coconut oil has definitely started to verge on becoming a fad, there are quite a few reasons to add it to your diet.

In place of other fats, coconut oil may aid weight-loss – 60% of the fat found in coconut oil are medium chain triglycerides, or MCTs. These shorter fatty acids bypass normal digestion and are absorbed straight into the bloodstream through the liver, where the body preferentially burns them as energy instead of storing them away as body fat.

The MCTs in coconut oil are readily converted to ketones, small molecules that the body can use for energy, just like it would for sugar. This provides an immediate supply of energy not only for muscles, but for the brain as well. While normal folk may enjoy a nice boost of clear headed energy from coconut oil, it’s especially important for those with Alzheimer’s disease, during which brain cells can become resistant to burning glucose, leading researchers to believe that some forms of Alzheimer’s disease to be a type of diabetes. However, these glucose-resistant brain cells have no problem utilizing ketones as a fuel source.

Finally, coconut oil is nature’s richest source of lauric acid, comprising nearly 50% of it by weight. Inside the body, lauric acid is converted to monolaurin, a powerful little compound with antiviral, antimicrobial, antiprotozoal and anti fungal properties, with many infections being unable to develop a resistance to it. Coconut oil also contains capric and caprylic acids, two more anti-fungal compounds.

My suggestion? Spend 20 bucks on a few months supply of coconut oil and use it in place of other fat sources. Concentrated MCT oil is also available.

2. Avoid Carbs in the Morning – Cortisol, a catabolic, fat-storing hormone, is highest in the morning.

Cortisol release
Cortisol release

This is actually a good thing, as it acts as a natural caffeine, waking you up and preparing you for the day. But because cortisol increases fat storage, it’s best to make your breakfast low in carbs, instead having a healthy mix of protein, low-carb, high-fiber veggies/fruits, with a small to moderate amount of fat.

Think an omelet with onions, mushrooms and peppers, a smoothie with blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, chia seeds, protein powder and unsweetened almond milk, or even a breakfast salad.

3. Keep cortisol low to reduce stress, lower body fat and have more energy – Let’s get some things straight about cortisol – it is an absolutely essential hormone, responsible for proper energy levels, feelings of alertness, and even helps regulate blood sugar. The problem, as with all things health related, is the balance of cortisol. Too little and you’ll be plagued with fatigue; too much, and you’ll be constantly stressed, unable to put on muscle and unable to prevent fat gain, the dreaded skinny-fat.

Fortunately, as long as you haven’t dug yourself into adrenal fatigue, there are easy ways to lower cortisol to keep it right in that optimum range.

According to this study, yoga is an easy and effective intervention to reduce cortisol to a normal range –

The findings support that yoga may act at the level of the hypothalamus by its ‘anti-stress’ effects (reducing the cortisol), to bring about relief in depression.

Further, considering the fact yoga results in an almost 30% increase in GABA, our main calming neurotransmitter, you’re getting a one-two punch in reducing stress levels.

One of my most favorite herbs, ashwagandha, has a strong cortisol-lowering effect as well. According to a 2008 study, ashwagandha “significantly improved scores on a standardized measurement of stress intensity… Moreover, at the end of the study period subjects that received 500 mg of ashwagandha daily had cortisol levels nearly 30% lower than subjects who took a placebo, and their DHEA-s levels were significantly higher as well.”

DHEA is a mood-boosting, muscle-building, fat-reducing hormone that starts to decline each year starting in the early 30s, at roughly 2% a year. Any increase you can get in DHEA is a good thing.

You can also use phosphotidylserine, a phospholipid naturally present in milk and soybeans. This study states –

Pretreatment with both 50 and 75 mg BC-PS (phosphatidylserine) significantly blunted the ACTH and cortisol responses to physical stress.

You can buy 120 capsules at 100 mg each here.

4. Meditation lengthens life, improves cognitive processing speed, improves neuroplasticity, and delays the aging of the brain. 

It’s incredible how certain single activities have such a multitude of benefits – exercise, yoga, looking before you cross the road. You can now officially add meditation to that list.

Photo : Martin Prihoda
Photo : Martin Prihoda

Meditation protects telomeres, which are the end caps on your DNA. Longer telomeres are positively associated with prolonged life, meaning anything that protects telomeres will likely lengthen your life. Meditation prevents the shortening of telomeres, thus likely lengthening your life.

Recent research at UCLA shows that meditation helps not only strengthen connections between existing neurons, but increases something called gyrification. This is the amount and thickness of folds in the pre-frontal cortex – more folds, more surface area, and an increase in memory and information processing speed.

As the study states, “there seems to be a positive correlation between cortical gyrification and intelligence (Luders et al., 2008)”, meaning an increase in gyrification (through meditation or other means) should increase intelligence as well.

A 2009 study concludes that,

meditation may reduce stress-induced cortisol secretion and this could have neuroprotective effects potentially via elevating levels of brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)… In one cross-sectional study, meditation practitioners were found to have a lower age-related decline in thickness of specific cortical regions.

This means two things. First, because of a decrease in cortisol and an increase in BDNF, meditation is neuroprotective, protecting the brain against damage and stress, while at the same time increasing neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to form new connections between existing neurons.

Second, meditation prevents the age-related decline in grey matter, literally preventing the aging of the brain.

Not to mention meditation lowers stress, boosts the immune system, lowers blood pressure, reduces pain and leads to a general increase in happiness and quality of living. Stay tuned for future articles on meditation and yoga, I’ll be getting pretty in depth with these topics.

Interested in how to utilize these concepts to get the most out of life? Contact me for a free initial consultation.

Fats – Everything You Ever Wanted to Know

Alright folks, this one’s a doozy, but I figured I’d put everything in one spot instead of spreading these articles out. Pour yourself a drink and get comfortable.

Interesting things happen in the field of nutrition. It’s really one of the few fields where people can be certified experts and say completely opposite things, and then back these opposing views up with clinical studies that show contradictory results.

Nothing in the health and nutrition world has been more controversial and more vilified than dietary fats – some claim they clog your heart, leading to cardiovascular disease and heart attacks; some claim that extracted plant and vegetable oils are better for you than saturated fats, especially saturated fats from animals; people believe that margarine is better for you than butter; and of course, almost everyone thinks that dietary fats make you fat. Personally, I’ve seen quite a bit of evidence that contradicts every statement above.

The big fat debate started in 1956 with a guy named Ancel Keys, and his Seven Countries Study. As the first international epidemiological study, it “systematically examined the relationships between lifestyle, diet, coronary heart disease and stroke in different populations from different regions of the world.” 

So what were the results? This was the graph as it was first published in Time Magazine :

Keys diagram

As you can see, as the total amount of fat consumed goes up, it appears that mortality rates go up as well. This was the image and the information that started the entire cascade of events that led to fats and cholesterol being demonized, that led to low-fat diet crazes, and that led to the widespread overprescribing of statins.

However, here’s the original, unpublished plot graph showing the results of the full twenty-two countries he studied :

22-country-graph

As you can see, this graph paints a very different picture.

For example, compare Mexico and Israel, numbers 14 and 11 respectively, on the graph. They consume almost the exact same percentage of total calories as fat, yet Mexico ranks lowest for deaths while Israel is in the top 6.

Look at Sweden, Denmark and Norway (19, 6, 17) as well – they consume just as much fat as Americans, yet rank relatively low in the amount of deaths caused by arteriosclerosis and degenerative heart disease.

The truth is, Ancel Keys cherry-picked his data to make it seem as if the more fat you consumed, the more likely you were to die of heart disease. 

This is the unfortunate truth about science and the media – the facts can be distorted and the media will run wild with whatever findings prove to be “sensational”.

Turns out, fats are absolutely essential for good health – they are a major component of the membranes of your body’s 37 trillion cells; they are a major component of the myelin sheaths that coat your nerves; fat makes up roughly 60% of your brain by weight; certain fats boost metabolism while others reduce hunger, and some fats reduce inflammation and make you smarter. The truth is you would die pretty quickly if you didn’t consume dietary fats.

Then again, not all fats are created equal. So what exactly is the truth about consuming dietary fats?

Wont Eating Fat Make Me Fat?

To put it bluntly, no. Trans fats as well as rancid omega 6 fatty acids do contribute to the development of diabetes and obesity, but healthier fats will not make you fat.

In fact, it’s becoming more and more evident that increased fat consumption in place of carbohydrates does wonders for weight loss.

A high-fat diet up-regulates the enzymes responsible for burning body fat not only during exercise, but at rest as well. This means your body will be burning stored body fat as you sit and watch t.v.

Consumption of longer chain fatty acids results in the inhibition of the release of ghrelin, the “hunger hormone”, as well as an increased release of CCK, a hunger-suppressing peptide. In short, consuming fat curbs hunger and makes you feel full.

By keeping carbohydrate intake low, insulin levels remain low. This is crucial for weight loss because fat will not be released from fatty acids while insulin is circulating in the bloodstream. By keeping insulin levels very low for extended periods of time, the body enters a state known as ketosis, where it is burning extremely high amounts of fat for energy. How is ketosis achieved? By a diet low in carbohydrates, moderate to low in protein, and high in fat.

Read Ben Greenfield’s two articles on how he became “fat adapted”, allowing his body to burn body fat as fuel during intense exercise, by keeping carbs low and consuming lots of healthy fats. Part 1 here, Part 2 here.

Types of Fat and Why Certain Ones Suck

Let’s start with naming the main types of fats we encounter in our diet – saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. We’ll start with the most demonized of the bunch, saturated fats.

Structure_Sat_Fat

Most everyone has at least heard about saturated fats. These can come from both plants and animals and are so named because the fatty acid molecule is saturated at all points with hydrogen atoms. These hydrogen atoms are able to act as a buffer to light and heat, which have the ability to oxidize the fatty acid, turning it rancid and thus unhealthy. More on this in the polyunsaturated fat section.

Examples of saturated fats include those coming from most cuts of animal meat and wild game, from milk sources, eggs, human breast milk, coconut oil, nuts and from fish, but it’s important to note that none of these sources are 100% saturated fat.

Saturated fat has been made out to be the bad guy, when in reality they’re actually very important to your overall health. A new meta-analysis published in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that there was no relationship between consuming saturated fats and increased incidence of heart disease or heart attacks. “My take on this would be that it’s not saturated fat that we should worry about” said Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury, the lead author of the study.

New research published in the journal PLOS ONE shows that doubling or even tripling dietary saturated fat intake does not drive up total levels of saturated fat in the blood, while consuming extra carbohydrates will.

Again, one need only look at the actual results of Ancel Keys’ study above, or at the diet of the traditional Inuit or the Masai in Africa or the Tokelau, all of whom consume very large amounts of saturated fat in their diets all while having much better cardiovascular health than Americans, to understand that simply blaming saturated fats is not the way to go.

As you can see from the following graph, there is an inverse relationship between high saturated fat intake and mortality rate from heart disease – as saturated fat intake increases, risk of death from heart disease decreases.

6a00d8341d0fcc53ef01156f35e74d970b-

 

Further, saturated fats are essential to a wide variety of bodily functions.

  • Roughly half of the membrane of each one of our 37 trillion cells are comprised of saturated fats;
  • Saturated fats help white blood cells to recognize and respond to invading viruses and bacteria;
  • Saturated fats help to prevent and reverse fatty liver disease, as does choline, which is naturally found in fatty foods like liver, meats, eggs, nuts and seeds;
  • The majority of the brain is made up of cholesterol and fat, with the most of the fat being saturated – the less saturated fat and cholesterol you consume, the less building blocks for your brain;
  • Because saturated fats are longer fatty acids and take longer to be broken down, they aid in satiety, making you feel more full for longer periods of time, and providing a steady release of energy;
  • Stearic and palmitic acid are two saturated fatty acids that are found in high concentrations around the heart, and are used by the heart as a fuel source in times of stress

Clearly, saturated fats are not the devil they were made out to be. In fact, there’s very little evidence that saturated fats actually do any harm.

Let’s finish this section out with a little common sense. When a person eats too much sugar and gains weight, their body is converting that sugar into fat. What kind of fat? Saturated fat. Why would your body convert sugar into a toxic substance? Why would the average amount of fat in human breast milk be more than 50% saturated fat, if saturated fat is bad for you? Why is the heart surrounded by two saturated fatty acids, stearic and palmitic acid, which it relies on for energy in times of stress, if saturated fat is bad for you?

Monounsaturated Fats

As the name implies, monounsaturated fats have one point on the fatty acid that isn’t saturated with hydrogen.

Structure_Mono_unsat

This means monounsaturated fats are still fairly stable and most can be cold-extracted, but they’re not ideal to cook with. Examples of monounsaturated fats include olive and avocado oil.

These fats have been touted as being very heart-healthy, mainly because if you aim to increase consumption of monounsaturated fats, you’ll consume less saturated fats. But as we just discussed, saturated fat is not the problem. Monounsaturated fats from avocados and olive oil are no doubt a healthy fat, but they aren’t as essential to proper health as saturated fats are.

Polyunsaturated Fats

That leaves us with polyunsaturated fats, which have many points that aren’t saturated with hydrogen.

Structure_polyunsat_fat

As discussed above, the saturation of a certain fatty acid with hydrogen is important for one big reason – once any extraction process begins, a fatty acids are exposed to light and heat. This light and heat can cause the fatty acid to turn rancid if it comes into contact with an unhydrogenated bond. This means that almost all polyunsaturated fats that have been extracted are oxidized, rancid and harmful to your health, and shouldn’t be consumed, heated or otherwise. 

Let’s take a gander at the following image :

Process to Refine Vegetable Oils

As you can see, it’s a very long process that involves solvents, heating, degumming, deodorizing and bleaching. Any food that needs deodorizing probably shouldn’t be consumed. Compare this to the steps to make butter – milk the cow, let the cream separate, skim off the cream, and finally stir the cream until it hardens.

Why are polyunsaturated fats harmful? Your body still tries to incorporate the damaged fatty acids into cell membranes, the myelin sheaths that cover and protect nerves, your brain (it is 60% fat after all) – everything the body uses fat for, it now is incorporating rancid fats into.

Further, vegetable oils are almost always extremely high in Omega 6 fatty acids. Humans need adequate amounts of both Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, as both are essential, but a balance of anywhere from 1:1 up to 1:4 Omega 3 to 6 ratio is healthy – anymore Omega 6s in the diet and the body begins to become overly inflamed, which is now believed to be at the heart of all modern day diseases – including heart disease. Again, you need both types, but the ratio needs to be less than 1:4 Omega 3 to 6. Stay tuned for an upcoming post about the Omega 3 to 6 ratio.

Oh yeah, and cellulite? A combination of rancid fatty acids and lack of collagen. Buy quality collagen here.

Monounsaturated fats typically fair well for extraction if they’ve been cold-pressed, but for the most part still shouldn’t be heated to high temperatures, as this causes them to oxidize at their one un-saturated point. That leaves us with good old saturated fat being, in almost all cases, the only type of fat to cook with.

Note – Remember, the above applies mainly to extracted oils. Let’s take corn for example – it’s loaded with polyunsaturated fats. This means corn oil is a big no-no, but the polyunsaturated fats found in whole corn are largely safe as long as the corn isn’t over cooked, because the corn kernel comes with their own natural antioxidants to protect the oils. This also makes it important to buy high quality fish oils, ones that are extracted at low temperatures and blended with antioxidants to prevent rancidity. I recommend Carlson’s, Nordic Naturals or Greener Pastures.

So where do we encounter extracted polyunsaturated fats? All vegetable oils and vegetable oil products are concentrated rancid inflammatory Omega 6 laden fats – that tub that says “Vegetable Oil” in your cupboard is in reality a tub of rancid fat. The french fries and other fried foods you eat when you go out? Fried in rancid fats. The oils used to make almost every food product out there? Rancid vegetable oils. Even most beloved hummus products contain rancid vegetable oils instead of healthy olive oil.

Read ingredient labels – canola, soybean, corn, rapeseed, sunflower, safflower, peanut and grape seed oils should all be avoided. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, Crisco, Pam, “Vegetable Oil” and any other fake butter products should all be tossed and avoided. The majority of salad dressings also use these rancid vegetable oils.

What does that leave us with in terms of healthy fats and oils to use? For cooking, I recommend sticking to grass-fed butter, ghee, coconut oil, unrefined red palm oil, duck fat, and lard or tallow from from grass-fed, pastured animals. For salads, dressings and non-cooking needs, I always prefer a quality olive oil, but avocado and macadamia oils work just as nicely.

Cholesterol

There’s also cholesterol, which is a type of lipid molecule known as a sterol. Think it’s bad for you? Cholesterol is absolutely essential for

• the integrity of every cell’s membrane in your body;
• for the creation of bile salts so that your body is able to digest and absorb dietary fats along with fat-soluble vitamins;
• the direct precursor for your body to make vitamin D from sunlight;
• the precursor to sex hormones, steroid hormones and the hormones used to deal with everyday stresses;
• and is a potent antioxidant

Further, according to Dr. Harlan Krumholz of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale University, elderly people with low cholesterol died twice as often  as those with high cholesterol, from heart attacks!

If you consume less cholesterol from dietary sources, your liver will produce the amount needed by the body. Why would your body be producing something that supposedly clogs the arteries? Nature’s no dummy.

The Truth About High Cholesterol

Having high cholesterol is a warning sign that your body is under too much stress, inflammation or oxidation. The truth is that cholesterol is a major repair molecule within the body. The reason that doctors find cholesterol deposits in the arteries and heart is because it is there patching up damage done by excessive oxidation, excessive sugar intake, trans fat intake or damage caused by other stressors. If  you go to the doctor and he tells you that you have high cholesterol, what he’s actually saying is that your body is in an over-inflammed and stressed out state, and is producing extra cholesterol to help mitigate some of the damage.

Let me reiterate that your body will produce its own cholesterol if it is not obtained from the diet, and the body would not produce something that would clog the arteries in the heart.

Trans-Fats

After Ancel Keys’ study came out and saturated fats and cholesterol became the most vilified fats of all, people in the Western world were confronted with a dilemma – what will I spread all over my toast and grease my pans with if butter and lard were out of the question?

Scientists finally came up with a solution. They took extracted oils from plants and added hydrogen bonds to them, which allowed these new Franken-fats to be stable at room temperature. Voila! Spreadable plant fats, known as hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats.

Only problem is these new fats are pretty much the worst thing you could ever consume, a main culprit leading to heart disease, increasing the likelihood of diabetes, and inhibiting the metabolism of other healthier fats.

In fact, the New England Journal of Medicine reported in a comprehensive review of trans fats that :

“On a per-calorie basis, trans fats appear to increase the risk of CHD [coronary heart disease] more than any other macronutrient, conferring a substantially increased risk at low levels of consumption (1 to 3% of total energy intake)”.

Let me repeat that – even at 1-3% of total calorie intake, there is a substantially increased risk of coronary heart disease. Talk about truth bombs..

Trans fats are found in things like shortening, Crisco, margarine, and many processed foods. Some restaurants still continue to deep fry with trans fats; for example, Popeye’s hash browns have a full 10 grams of trans fats. Needless to say, this is the one and only type of fat to avoid completely.

On labels, look for any ingredient that says hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated.

In Summary

  • Other than trans fats, don’t fear fat! It’s essential for many processes within the body, including creating hormones, improving the integrity of your cellular membranes, and as basic building blocks of the brain
  • Do your best to avoid consuming extracted vegetable oils or products made with them, as they are guaranteed to be rancid by the time you consume them.
  • Don’t fear saturated fats and cholesterol, they are not the enemy and are in fact quite essential to good health!
  • Saturated fats are the only type of fat that you should be cooking with
  • Monounsaturated fats are generally healthy as long as they’re cold pressed and properly extracted, but shouldn’t be cooked with
  • Try to keep your ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 fats as close as possible to 1:1 – more on this in a future post
  • Avoid trans fats like the plague!!

If you’re interested in….

  • which fats can make you smarter,
  • which fat you can use to enhance cognitive power and boost energy levels for a workout
  • a certain type of fatty acid which suppresses appetite, and another which helps you burn more body fat

As well as other lesser known tricks of the trade on how to lose weight, have less stress and be on top of your game both mentally and physically, contact me.

A Few Effective Hacks

I’ve mentioned in passing before that people use “bio-hacks” to stay ahead of the curve (or in my case, just stay on the curve). A bio-hack is anything that improves health and performance in a quick and easy, and often unconventional way. The term is adopted from the cyber community – just as a computer programer hacks into a computer program, we too can “hack” into our own biology. These practices range everywhere from using certain supplements, to brain training, either through games, devices or meditation, or even hooking yourself up to expensive technological devices to improve your cognitive performance.

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 Zapping your brain with a Transcranial Low Level Laser Therapy device..?

I must admit, some of these bio-hacks are a bit far out there, even for me. Between LLLT devices, which are said to improve the mitochondria in your brain by zapping them with infrared light, to tCDS, or transcranial direct stimulation devices, which literally apply electrical currents to your brain to strengthen neuronal connections, I currently neither have the funds nor the guts to try some of these, despite how effective the research makes them out to be. However, there are quite a few bio-hacks I do personally use, and while the cream of the crop are going to be saved for my one-on-one clients, I’m more than happy to share a few here with you.

Hack your focus with L-Theanine

L-Theanine is a rare amino-acid like compound found only in a few plants, most notably in green tea. Ever wonder why a cup of quality green tea has that wonderful calming and focusing effect? Yup, that’s L-Theanine at work.

L-Theanine reduces feelings of stress, boosts cognitive function, improves mood and even boosts brain levels of BDNF, a compound that helps protect and grow new brain cells. Further, researchers have yet to be able to determine a toxic dose (but please be reasonable).

L-Theanine has been proven to increase the brain’s alpha waves, which correlates to a state of relaxed alertness. This study states –

“L-theanine significantly increases activity in the alpha frequency band which indicates that it relaxes the mind without inducing drowsiness.” See? Told you so.

Further, L-Theanine and caffeine are a match made in heaven. Need to get some studying done? Need that brain focusing in peak condition, but also need to stay focused? Pairing L-Theanine with caffeine is the way to go – caffeine gives you the mental boost you need to plow through work, while L-Theanine negates the negative effects of caffeine, and increases your focus to keep you from constantly checking your Facebook and email. Most people recommend a 2:1 Theanine/Caffeine ratio, but I do better at a 1:1 ratio. Play around and see what works for you.

Start with just one of these pills per cup of coffee or whenever you’d like some relaxation, and play around until you find your sweet spot. You can also just drink green tea, with gyokuro and white tea being highest in L-Theanine.

Boost motivation and accelerate fat burning with Gynostemma and Green Tea

We all know what green tea is, and how it’s loaded with antioxidants, and you now know it’s got that lovely L-Theanine in it as well. But most people haven’t heard of Gynostemma Pentaphyllum, or jiaogulan in Chinese.

Gynostemma is a delicious adaptogenic tea hailing from southern China. Researchers stumbled upon it when they noticed a village that had an unusual amount of octogenarians who remained quite active and involved in the community. Upon further questioning the researchers discovered that almost everyone in the village regularly drinks a tea made from a plant they called “Miracle Grass”, or what we call Gynostemma.

gynostemma-250x300

Jiaogulan

Turns out Gynostemma is one hell of a plant. It has over 80 different saponins, the molecules that give it it’s adaptogenic properties, beating the previous record holder, ginseng, four times over. It’s immune-regulating, boosts energy, improves cellular function and delays fatigue.

But what I really like about it is that it improves your sensitivity to dopamineDopamine is that wonderful little neurotransmitter that everyone loves, released after a nice cup of coffee, during sex and when eating tasty food, the one involved in motivation and feelings of reward and pleasure. It’s important that you have ample amounts of dopamine and that your dopamine receptors are sensitive, or else you’ll be going through life unmotivated and without feeling much pleasure, a state known as anhedonia.

This is key in my eyes – if you want to be motivated enough to accomplish your goals, you need to have your dopaminergic system running in tip top shape. There’s a lot more to this topic than simply drinking gynostemma tea, so be on the lookout for upcoming posts or possibly even an ebook.  I recommend Dragon Herbs’ Spring Dragon tea, or their Gynostemma capsules.

Gynostemma also improves insulin sensitivity, making it a great addition not only to diabetics but people in general, as improving insulin sensitivity also improves weight loss parameters. Green tea is also a fantastic choice for people looking to lose weight. Green tea is high in an antioxidant called EGCG. EGCG has a three-pronged effect on weight loss. First, it increases the rate at which stored body fat is released to be burned as energy. EGCG also sensitizes your muscles’ cells to insulin, while decreases your fat cell’s sensitivity to insulin. This means that the food you eat after a cup of green tea is more likely to be burned for energy in your muscles than stored away as fat. Finally, EGCG is actually able to destroy fat cells altogether. See, when a person loses weight, they don’t actually lose fat cells – those cells remain, they just release their stored fatty acids. If a person gains that weight back, those fat cells simply fill back up. EGCG is able to actually destroy those fat cells, something that is very rare in a natural compound.

If you want to maximize all these benefits, just combine gynostemma and green tea together and drink a few cups a day. You can also use a high quality matcha green tea, which contains significantly more EGCG than regular green teas.

matcha-green-tea

Shade-grown, stone-ground, Theanine and EGCG rich Matcha 

Hack your circadian rhythms with Melatonin and Full Spectrum Lights

Having a proper circadian rhythm is paramount to feeling and looking your best. Nothing is more rejuvenating than a full night’s rest, and it’s easy to see how much performance is affected when you either go to bed late or have to get up early. Nothing is as surefire to improve mood and energy levels as consistently as being well rested, so making sure you have this aspect of your life down is critical.

“Maintaining synchronized circadian rhythms is important to health and well-being,” says Dieter Kunz, director of the Sleep Research and Clinical Chronobiology Research Group at Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin. “A growing body of evidence suggests that a desynchronization of circadian rhythms may play a role in various tumoral diseases, diabetes, obesity, and depression.”

Eeesh.

Naturally, there are ways to hack your circadian rhythm to get more bang for your buck. Start by avoiding blue light 2-3 hours before bedtime. Blue light is emitted from phones, tablets, laptops, computers and tvs, and has been found to suppress the release of melatonin within the brain. Melatonin is the circadian rhythm entraining hormone in the body, and is the main hormone involved in you falling asleep. As the meta-study linked above states “The blue wavelength suppressed melatonin for about twice as long as the green.”

While some bio-hackers like to wear red-tinted glasses to completely block out blue light in the evenings, I simply make sure to avoid phone, tv and computer light exposure as much as possible after sunset – granted, sometimes this is a futile effort. You can also download a free program on your computer and smart phone called f.lux, which will automatically tint your screen more and more red as the sun sets, naturally blocking out the blue light emitted from your devices.

A few nights a week I like to hit the hay early. Not only does this make me feel like a million bucks the next day and improve everything from my metabolism to optimizing my hormone levels, it helps to keep my circadian rhythm in balance. A few times a month, when I’m going to bed early, I’ll take 1 to 1.5 milligrams of melatonin, to “entrain” my circadian rhythm to falling asleep at that hour, usually around 9 or 10. When I take melatonin early at night, I’m basically telling my body, “Now is when you should naturally be falling asleep. This is when you should start releasing melatonin.” Melatonin is also great for jet lag or adjusting to a new timezone – just take it the first few nights to entrain your circadian rhythm to the new timezone.

Quick note – I do not recommend taking melatonin every night, or using big doses. This is a hormone after all, and it’s not to be taken lightly. Just how bodybuilders produce very little testosterone after using steroids, using too much melatonin for too long can shut down your body’s natural production of the hormone. Please keep this in mind.

In the mornings when I wake up, especially in the winter time, I’ll throw on my Verilux HappyLight to signal to my body that the night has ended and it’s time to start producing all the hormones I need to naturally wake up. Photorecptors in our eyes send signals to our hypothalamus that help to wake us up in the presence of bright, full spectrum light, whether from the sun or from a full spectrum bright light. Let’s allow Wikipedia to get real nerdy for us –

“They [Intrinsically photosensitive Retinal Ganglion Cells] play a major role in synchronizing circadian rhythms to the 24-hour light/dark cycle, providing primarily length-of-day and length-of night information. They send light information via the retinohypothalamic tract directly to the circadian pacemaker of the brain, the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus. The physiological properties of these ganglion cells match known properties of the daily light entrainment (synchronization) mechanism regulating circadian rhythms.”

Long story short, a nice dose of strong, full-spectrum light in the mornings sends all the right signals to your body to fill you with energy and wake you right up. It’s not critical to use a full-spectrum bright light, but if you’re the type that has a difficult time waking up in the mornings or experiences the winter-time blues, it’s a great investment. I’ve personally gotten great results from mine – more energy in the mornings and no winter-time moodiness.

Hack your hormones with Yoga

Be prepared for many posts to come in the following weeks and months on yoga, as I’m a huge fan and there is a lot to cover. One of the biggest benefits of yoga that is rarely touched upon is how yoga is the best way to naturally improve and regulate almost all the hormones your body produces. Proper hormone levels are vitally important to vibrant health, as hormones regulate your physiology and behavior. Throw even one hormone out of whack, and a chain event of disastrous consequences occurs.

All the twisting, bending and stretching of the postures in yoga have many beneficial effects, one of which is to squeeze and massage all of the endocrine glands within the body, the glands that produce and release your hormones. This squeezing and massaging pushes stale blood and toxins out of the glands, and when the twist or bend is released, fresh blood rushes in like water to a dry sponge. This revitalizes the glands and improves their functioning. Inverted postures, especially shirshashana, the headstand pose, improves the functioning of the pituitary, the “master gland” of the endocrine system, which has downstream effects on all your other endocrine glands and body systems.

As you can see, “bio-hacking” is actually a pretty easy and accessible concept, and we’ve barely just scratched the surface. Keep your eyes peeled for future posts on various bio-hacks, including how to use cold to burn more fat, how to use heat to build more muscle, make you smarter and recover faster from workouts, and multiple ways to improve cognition and even grow your brain. Contact me to find out more.

Fellas – Why Red Wine is Manlier than Beer

Bad news guys – beer makes you less manly.

Not only are men experiencing record-lows in testosterone levels, but it turns out our most beloved beverage, beer, may be a big culprit.

Testosterone is a critical hormone, for both men and women, but it clearly has a bigger impact on males – it’s not just responsible for muscle growth and a healthy libido, it’s responsible for decreasing male stress levels, warding off depression and cognitive decline, keeping us lean and even delaying death.

Why the record lows in T levels? I suspect a huge factor is the overwhelming presence of xenoestrogens – foreign substances that act as estrogen does in the body. Where do these xenoestrogens come from? Plenty of foods, PCB, BPA, phthalates and other plastic chemicals, as well as many pesticides and herbicides. In a nut shell, they’re everywhere. Add to this a general lack of healthy, testosterone boosting foods, lack of exercise, and sedentary, stressful lifestyle, and you’ve got a great prescription for excess estrogen and lowered testosterone levels.

So how does beer come into play? Beer is made out of just four ingredients – barley, hops, yeast and water. Unfortunately, those lovely, delectable hops are loaded with what appear to be pretty potent phytoestrogens, or plant-derived chemicals that act as estrogen would in the body.

It seems that in Germany, women with gynecological disorders would bathe in “brewery sludge baths”, which contained up to 30% hop extracts. Sounds fun. A 1953 study reported that young girls who came to pick hops off the vine in hop gardens regularly began menstruating two days after arrival. The authors of the study concluded that hops contain “the equivalent of 20–300 μg estradiol/g”. Estradiol is the main form of estrogen within the human body, and the average levels of estradiol within the blood stream of women are 30 to 400 TRILLIONTHS of a gram per milliliter. Hops contain 20-30 millionths of a gram of estradiol per gram of hops – that’s quite a lot.

In Europe a condition called “brewers droop” is widely known; it refers to the lack of ability some beer brewers have in being able to “get it up”.

I’ll be the first to admit that I love a good hoppy beer; more than a few IPAs come to mind, and with the explosion of craft brewing and turning away from watered down, adjunct lagers (BUDWEISER), beers are becoming more and more hoppy. But with the rampant exposure to xenoestrogens, should us men be going out of our way to consume a potent liquid estrogenic cocktail?

Luckily, we have red wine to the rescue.

Red wine is one of the richest sources of a lovely little antioxidant called resveratrol. Resveratrol has many interesting health boosting properties, among them improved heart health, increased endurance and possibly increasing lifespan. But as it relates to this discussion, resveratrol just so happens to be an aromatase-inhibitor. Aromatase is this enzyme in our bodies that goes around converting testosterone into estrogen. Anything that inhibits this enzyme therefor increases testosterone and lowers estrogen, a boon for the modern man. And don’t worry ladies, you need some help too as you’re getting exposed to just as many xenoestrogens as men are.

Now, this isn’t going to be some massive effect. It won’t get you “jacked” or give you ‘roid rage, but it will help to balance your hormones in this xenoestrogen-laden world. If you’re a guy who frequently experiences low libido, depression, that “spare tire” around your belly, lack of drive and motivation, and just generally feel less “you”, I recommend giving the beer a nice month or two break and switching to some red wine. You can thank me later.

I haven’t given up my beer – in fact I drank one while finishing this article, a stout called Old Engine Oil. I have cut back on beer, however, and begun to use certain foods and supplements to detox my body of excess estrogens and prevent the hormonal disturbances caused by hops. If you’re interested in knowing how you can do the same, or how to balance your hormone levels in general, we should talk.