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.
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.
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.
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.