Cortisol is a glucocorticoid hormone that is released primarily in response to stress or low blood sugar concentration. Looking at cortisol through an evolutionary lens, it’s the hormone primarily responsible for making energy available in response to a threat.
For most of our evolutionary history, if we experienced stress, there was a fair chance it was due to the looming threat of a tiger or bear hoping to make us a meal. Cortisol initiates the release of glucose into the blood (largely from the liver) which, in this prehistoric scenario, would be useful energy for the muscles as we attempt to run away from the tiger.1. Phosphatidylserine (PS)
Phosphatidylserine (PS) is a phospholipid produced by the body this is naturally highly concentrated in the brain and nervous system. Unsurprisingly given its prevalence in the brain, PS is involved in countless neurological processes, including modulating the activity of receptors, ion channels, enzymes and signaling molecules.
Two studies in particular have looked at the effects of PS supplementation on cortisol levels, both with positive results.
The first study used 600mg of PS per day for 10 days and had the participants follow a set workout regimen to standardize the level of exercise-induced stress. Average cortisol concentrations in response to stress were 35% lower when compared to the placebo group.
Also interesting was that PS increased the average testosterone-to-cortisol ratio 184% compared to the placebo group (all of the participants in this study were men). [3]
The second study included an even number of men and women, and had them use doses of 400mg, 600mg or 800mg once per day for 4 weeks.
Interestingly, while all dosages produced a reduction in cortisol relative to the placebo group, the 400mg group showed the most significant reduction in cortisol levels (about an 80% reduction compared to the placebo group). [4]
2. L-Theanine
L-theanine is a naturally-occurring amino acid found in a number of plants, most notably the tea plant (camellia sinensis).
L-theanine is structurally very similar to glutamate, the most abundant excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain. Owing to this structural similarity, L-theanine will bind to certain types of glutamate receptors, with relatively low affinity, however.
Still, this interaction with glutamate receptors is significant enough for L-Theanine to blunt some of the excitatory effect of glutamate. L-theanine has also been shown to increase levels of GABA in the brain, the primary inhibitory (relaxing) neurotransmitter.
A 2016 study looked specifically at the effects of L-theanine on cortisol levels. A dose of 200mg given only once, on the day of the experiment. Researchers then looked at serum cortisol levels at 1 hour and 3 hours after ingestion.
While there was no statistical difference between the L-theanine and placebo groups after 1 hour, the difference at 3 hours was significant. The L-theanine group showed a “significantly lower cortisol response” than the placebo group in response to a stress test. [5]
3. Ashwagandha
Ashwagandha is a root that has been used in Ayurvedic medicine for centuries, if not millennia, as an anxiolytic, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulator, antidepressant...to name just a few from an impressively long list of use cases.
Indian researchers - always eager to substantiate the claims of Ayurvedic medicine - have studied ashwagandha’s effects on dozens of conditions and metabolic processes…and an impressive number of them have shown statistically significant results in the direction that Ayurveda suggested.
A 2016 study used a 300mg dose of KSM-66 (a standardized extract of ashwagandha) taken twice per day, for a total of 600mg per day, for 60 days.
Serum cortisol levels were measured on Day 1 and Day 60 and the ashwagandha group saw a 27.9% decrease over that period, on average, vs a 7.9% decrease for the placebo group. [6]
Roughly half of all Americans (48%) are deficient in magnesium. [1] A recent review estimated that up to 68% consume less than the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of magnesium—this larger percentage includes those who have not yet reported symptoms of deficiency but are at higher risk for their development. [2]
This deficiency shouldn’t be taken lightly, as there are few nutrients involved in more metabolic processes than magnesium.
The movement of magnesium (and calcium) through ion channels in cell membranes allows for the contraction of all muscle tissues (including the heart).
In addition to its role in muscle contraction, magnesium is also a cofactor for over 300 enzymes, including those involved in protein synthesis, nerve function, blood glucose control, and energy production. [3]
As a result, magnesium gets used at a high rate in the body and needs to be continually replenished. Many studies have also noted that magnesium is almost entirely absent from processed foods, refined grains, and even fruits and vegetables grown in nutrient-depleted soil. [4] This means that food sources of magnesium are usually insufficient, and most people hover in the less-than-ideal range without supplementation.
Addressing low magnesium levels via supplementation commonly alleviates headaches, eases pain and muscle tension, and improves sleep. [5][6][7]
Researchers have also found a strong link between magnesium deficiency and emotional disorders. One review reports that magnesium supplementation can perform on par with leading antidepressants, and has been shown to “rapidly terminate major depression safely and without side effects.” [8]
We’ll highlight just one more of magnesium’s countless benefits. If you’ve followed the push in recent years toward vitamin D supplementation, you should be aware that low magnesium levels make vitamin D ineffective.
A 2018 study demonstrated that, due to magnesium deficiency, vitamin D remains “stored and inactive” for up to 50% of Americans. When the body is unable to mobilize vitamin D properly, calcium and phosphate levels increase, thus heightening the risk of vascular calcification while leaving the original vitamin D deficiency unaddressed. [9]
Your first priority is to address existing deficiency, so that all the enzymes that depend on magnesium can return to optimal functioning.
Know your status; get tested. We highly recommend getting a lab test, before and after this protocol, so that you can accurately track your magnesium levels (it’s also really satisfying to see the quantifiable benefits of your supplementation protocol). It’s fairly cheap to run this test alone at a Quest lab, or as part of a more complete blood panel ordered by your primary care physician.
If getting a lab test sounds like a chore, though, don’t let it stop from beginning the protocol. Knowing your precise magnesium levels is ideal, but If you haven’t been actively supplementing, it’s almost guaranteed that you’re running some level of magnesium deficiency.
Epsom salt baths. The quickest and most effective way to increase both free/serum and stored magnesium in the body is with an epsom salt bath (epsom salts are magnesium sulfate).
Add 2 cups to a standard size bathtub of warm water, 2-3 times per week for 4 weeks. For best absorption, stay in the bath for 15-20 minutes each time.
Oral supplementation. If you’d prefer an oral magnesium supplement, chelated formulas have been shown to have the best overall absorption. Take 800mg per day of magnesium glycinate for 4 weeks.
Oral supplementation occasionally causes diarrhea, though this effect is more common with other forms of magnesium (especially magnesium oxide). If you still experience this issue with magnesium glycinate, though, experiment with splitting the 800mg into separate doses throughout the day (with or without food, depending on what works best for your body).
Once our magnesium levels are in a healthy range and simply need to be maintained, you can turn to other forms of magnesium that have lower total absorption, but offer other benefits.
A fast-absorbing magnesium like magnesium carbonate can produce a perceptible muscle-relaxing effect. Taking 400mg/day of magnesium carbonate 30 minutes before sleep can also help improve time-to-sleep and even quality of early sleep cycles. [10]
Note that with popular products like this one, 400mg of magnesium is generally somewhere between 2-5g of powder.
Magnesium Threonate is interesting as it crosses the blood-brain-barrier at a higher rate than other forms of magnesium, which some people believe could allow it to improve sleep quality to an even greater degree.
I personally see a greater improvement to my sleep quality using magnesium carbonate, but which form offers the greatest benefit likely varies person to person.
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[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22364157/
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507265/
[3] https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Magnesium-HealthProfessional/
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507265/
[5] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29920023/
[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507245/
[7] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23853635/
[8] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507265/
[9] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180226122548.htm
]]>As we’ve discussed in other articles, even flawless lifestyle and nutrition practices will leave inevitable nutritional gaps, so supplementation is invaluable for ensuring optimal health and vitality.
Of all the essential supplements that we recommend for daily supplementation, creatine monohydrate is the one most likely to evoke confusion or skepticism. If you think creatine is just a GNC staple for bodybuilders looking to put on more muscle, you’re in good company.
The reality, however, is that creatine is one of the most powerful and underrated supplements available for supporting metabolism and improving cognition.
Creatine is an endogenously produced (i.e. produced naturally by our bodies) amino acid that is present in every one of your cells. It is absolutely critical for metabolism and energy production—it’s not an exaggeration to say that without it, the body would quickly die.
Here’s how it works: In order to power the enzymes that perform thousands of metabolic functions throughout the body, an “energy” compound called adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is required. ATP “gives” a phosphate ion to enzymes and is thereby degraded into inactive adenosine diphosphate (ADP). To become useful for further energy production, ADP must be rephosphorylated; that is, it must be converted back to ATP by reacquiring a phosphate ion.
You probably see where this is going: creatine is the compound responsible for rephosphorylating inactive ADP to active ATP. Consequently, there is no enzymatic activity or energy production (and thus no life) without creatine.
Creatine’s metabolic benefits are usually referenced in the context of physiological performance, but they extend to cognitive performance too.
In fact, the effects of creatine supplementation on cognition are particularly dramatic, because the brain requires a lot of energy to function. For the average adult in a resting state, the brain uses 20 percent of the body’s total energy.
During states of activity and mental exertion, or in the context of nutritional deficiency, illness, or cognitive decline, the percentage can be even higher. [1]
If you’re wondering what “dramatic” effects look like, here’s an example: a 2003 study found that six weeks of daily creatine supplementation was linked with a 20% average increase in IQ (compared to the placebo group, in which there was no significant change). [2]
The study participants were all vegetarians and vegans, who lack the dietary creatine that omnivores get from eating meat, hence the dramatic results.
Subsequent studies have confirmed these positive effects on cognition, and shown that the benefits extend to those of all ages and diets, not only vegetarians. A 2018 review of randomized controlled trials reports that creatine supplementation is correlated with definitive cognitive improvements, especially for short-term memory and measured intelligence/reasoning. [3]
The improvements are most impressive for vegetarians and vegans (again, no dietary creatine intake), the elderly, and those in cognitive decline (age-related or otherwise). [4][5]
For us, the effects of daily creatine supplementation are undeniable. If you give it a try, you will very likely feel stronger, think more clearly, and experience more balanced energy and vitality. We highly recommend sticking with the regimen for at least the duration of the study cited above (six weeks) before assessing whether you’re experiencing the benefits.
To start, aim for 5 grams/day of creatine monohydrate. This dosage is a good average for most people, but if you’d like to get more granular, we recommend starting with 1g of creatine per 15kg of body weight (which would translate to 4g/day for someone weighing 130 pounds, and 6g/day for someone weighing 180 pounds, etc).
Our favorite brand is Creapure, which is unflavored, unsweetened, and very affordable. We always add our dose to our daily Genesis shake.
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[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/99/16/10237
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691485/
[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29704637/
]]>Supplementation is an endlessly confusing corner of the health world. On one hand, every new product is touted as the silver bullet that will solve all your problems. Meanwhile, other sources assure us that all supplements are a useless waste of money.
The truth lies somewhere between these two extremes. Unfortunately, even ideal lifestyle habits will leave inevitable nutritional gaps, due to the nutrient-depleted foods and constant environmental stressors that come with modern living. Fortunately, supplementation can help—and it need not be as complicated as you might think.
This post distills the overabundance of available information on supplements into an easy-to-implement daily protocol.
While the mechanisms of supplementation are as complex as the human body itself, the goal of the protocol given below is simple: to eliminate nutrient deficiencies, and to allow for unhindered metabolic and endocrine function.
Because metabolic and endocrine processes are the biochemical ground of nearly every aspect of “optimal” health, supplementing with a focus on this simple goal is a highly effective strategy for strengthening disease resistance, improving physical and cognitive performance, and ensuring a resilient daily sense of vitality and well-being.
As convenient as it would be if multivitamins were an effective one-stop-shop for supplementation, the fact is that they just don’t cut it.
Even the best and most expensive multivitamins use inferior and less bioavailable forms of vitamins and minerals. In some cases, the form used renders the nutrient almost worthless (e.g. essential fatty acids must be in oil form in order to be absorbed and utilized, rather than the powder form used in nearly all multivitamins).
Lastly (though the arguments against multivitamins could fill an entire post), the vitamin and mineral dosages contained in multivitamins are almost always insufficient. For example, the ideal daily dosage of only magnesium (800mg) or vitamin C (1000mg) would fill (or exceed) the entire volume of a multivitamin.
Luckily, the cost of the optimal supplement protocol below (especially if you purchase in bulk) is not all that different from the cost of a popular multivitamin. In fact, the cost of everything below breaks down to just $1.82/day, or $55/month.
If you’re interested in a deeper dive into each of the following supplements, check out this supplement article from THE SEVEN, the series in which we outlined our Principles of Nutrition for a Life in Sync.
To keep things simple in this post, here’s our recommended daily supplement protocol, without further ado.
Vitamin A (as retinol or vegan beta-carotene) - 2000-4000mcg/day
Vitamin D3 - 5000IU/day
Vitamin K (as MK7) - 50-100mcg/day
Vitamin B12 (as methylcobalamin) - 3000-5000mcg/day
Vitamin B9 (as folinic acid) - 800mcg/day
Vitamin C (as buffered ascorbic acid) - 1g/day
Copper (as chelated copper) - 2mg/day
Selenium - 200mcg/day
Iodine (as kelp powder) - 200-300mcg/day
Lithium (as lithium oroate) - 5-10mg/day
Magnesium (as chelated magnesium) - 500-800mg/day
Omega 3 (as EPA and DHA...via fish oil or vegan algae) - 1g/day
Creatine Monohydrate - 5g/day
Everyone seems to have an idiosyncratic preference when it comes to night time bedroom temperature. Sleep is generally associated with being warm and cozy—but it turns out that being too warm can actually compromise sleep quality.
Sleep researchers have concluded that the ideal bedroom temperature for sleeping is 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius). Accounting for personal differences in temperature regulation, a range of 60-67 degrees is generally considered favorable.
Along with minimization of light exposure, proper temperature regulation is one of the most important (and most easily controlled) sleep hygiene practices. Above-optimal core body temperatures have been associated with decreased restorative slow-wave sleep, [1] time spent in REM sleep, [2] and sleep efficiency. [3]
As we discussed in a previous sleep hygiene article, our sleep cycle is regulated by our circadian rhythm. Though circadian rhythm is primarily based on the light-and-dark cycle of the sun, temperature is one of the most important cues used by the body clock to transition into sleep.
A lowering of core body temperature tends to coincide with the release of melatonin about two hours before sleep, and this temperature can fluctuate by up to 2 degrees over the course of the night.
If this lowering of body temperature is interrupted by external factors, your circadian rhythm is disrupted, and sleep becomes more difficult. Higher ambient temperatures, excessive sunlight exposure, eating or exercising too close to bedtime, and caffeine consumption can all raise core body temperature and compromise sleep.
A warmer-than-ideal bedroom temperature then creates a sort of vicious cycle (especially if your core body temperature is already too high at bedtime). When you begin to enter REM sleep, most of the body’s temperature-regulating behaviors cease (i.e. sweating, shivering, etc.). [4] This shift makes you more vulnerable to the ambient temperature of the bedroom, and the resulting rise in body temperature will increasingly lessen the amount of time spent in REM sleep.
You can break this cycle with some simple practices for regulating your core body temperature and the ambient temperature of your bedroom.
1. Take a cool shower before bed. Save the full-on cold showers for morning, as lowering body temperature too dramatically can trigger the body’s compensatory mechanisms, which could end up raising body temperature rather than lowering it.
2. Eat your last meal at least 2 hours before bedtime, and try to eat light. Digestion raises body temperature, especially after heavy meals (so it’s best to save those for earlier in the day).
3. Stop exercising at least 3 hours before bedtime—this will help you align with your natural circadian rhythm (and its accompanying drop in body temperature as bedtime approaches).
4. Cool your pulse regions with ice packs or wet washcloths. Even a quick application on your forehead and wrists can work remarkably well.
5. Stay hydrated. Obviously, drinking too much water right before bedtime will have you visiting the bathroom in the middle of the night, but even mild dehydration can disrupt your body’s thermoregulation.
1. If you have a central climate control system, keep the thermostat at 65 degrees F (or even as low as 60 degrees, if you tend to run hot). Try out a few different settings in the range of 60-67 degrees, and monitor which one allows for the highest perceived sleep quality.
2. If you don’t have a central cooling system, consider investing in an air conditioner, or at least a high-quality fan.
3. If the air temperature outside is 65 degrees or cooler, open your bedroom window.
4. Power down any electronics (or remove them from your bedroom). They not only generate heat, but also can expose you to blue light and compromise psychic sovereignty.
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[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29247670/
[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22738673/
If you’re not familiar with Wim, he’s the eccentric dutch man who’s become hugely popular in recent years for his genuinely groundbreaking practices using extreme cold exposure and breathwork to manipulate his metabolism, nervous system and immune system (and teaching thousands of others to do the same).
]]>If you’re not familiar with Wim, he’s the eccentric dutch man who’s become hugely popular in recent years for his genuinely groundbreaking practices using extreme cold exposure and breathwork to manipulate his metabolism, nervous system and immune system (and teaching thousands of others to do the same).
He essentially single-handedly provoked scientists to reconsider the question of whether the sympathetic nervous system and innate immune response might be accessible to voluntary influence (both were long considered by scientists to be wholly unavailable to direct conscious influence). See this 2014 research paper if you’re curious to learn more on this.
Generally when someone upends core fundamental assumptions of a hard science field, we’re talking about a bonafide genius. While I wouldn’t put Wim in the same category as an Alan Turing or Charles Darwin, his disruption of the neurobiology orthodoxy is a massive contribution.
My critiques are not even so directly of the breathing techniques Wim uses, as they clearly have utility in his system of practices.
The critiques below are of the manner and context in which these techniques are being taught, by Wim, yes, but mostly by countless other “breathwork instructors” of varying (and generally dubious) credentials.
Here’s how I view pranayama:
The techniques we have today are the distillation of thousands of years of countless yogis sitting in caves experimenting with different breathing patterns to determine which techniques most reliably move the mind/body/nervous-system towards vitality, balance and - most importantly - peace.
So what are we to make of the absence of any technique resembling Wim Hof breathing from yogic texts?
If a breathing pattern or technique does not appear in yogic texts, there is one thing we know for certain - it’s not because it wasn't tried.
If a technique fails to appear (particularly one as simple as Wim’s), it’s because it was experimented with thoroughly and determined NOT to move the nervous system towards balance and peace.
In my view, the absence of Wim's technique from yogic texts points towards it having been determined to actually be counter to the aim of balance and peace with some frequency (if not in all cases).
Wim's technique is an intense one, and intense techniques are rarely, if ever, neutral in effect (and certainly not techniques involving the breath). Rather, Wim's breathing technique is (in most cases) an explicitly aggravating one.
This squares well with both my direct experience of Wim's techniques, and what I observed and heard reported by others when I've attended workshops teaching Wim's technique. I've attended many such workshops, although, admittedly none led by Wim himself (some were led by direct students of his, however).
Aggravating is not at all synonymous with "bad" or even "not useful". It is precisely because the technique is aggravating that it produces the novel psychic and emotional effects that Wim and others find useful.
One point to make here is that, while potentially useful in other contexts, if one's aim is a balanced and peaceful nervous system, a fundamentally aggravating technique like Wim's is not a good candidate for daily practice (certainly not when time-tested pranayama techniques are available).
The other point is that an aggravating technique like Wim's can open the door to many varieties of intense experience, such as...
While Wim's technique does not closely resemble any pranayama technique, there is a technique to which it is very similar: Holotropic Breathing.
Holotropic breathing was developed in the late 60's by Stanislav Grof, a who had previously been doing research with LSD. When LSD research was effectively made impossible to do legally with the substance's criminalization in 1968, Grof began looking for other ways to continue his research of the subconscious/unconscious mind.
This eventually led him to a cyclic breathing technique that he found to be quite effective in allowing subjects to access parts of their subconscious/unconscious psyches, including repressed traumas.
Holotropic breathing and Wim's technique are not identical, but they do share key elements: a cyclical, intensified breath with equal duration and emphasis on the inhale and exhale.
Given these similarities, it's predictable that the effects on the nervous system also tend to be quite similar, with potential emergence of repressed traumas very much on the menu.
There is one critical difference between Holotropic Breathwork and Wim Hof breathing, at least as it's commonly practiced...
Holotropic Breathwork is a therapeutic technique (almost always) used in a therapeutic context under the guidance and supervision of trained professionals.
Uncomfortable experiences, including the emergence of repressed traumas, are expected, and the guides are present in large part to comfort the client and help them to work through and integrate the uncomfortable experiences when they arise. This dramatically increases the probability that the session will be productive and healthy, and doesn't reify past traumas or create new ones.
There are now many thousands of people worldwide guiding Wim Hof breathing sessions, and I would hope/assume that some number of them are in fact trained psychotherapists with adequate personnel present to support all of the participants.
Unfortunately, I can assure you that this is not the case for 99+% of Wim Hof breathing workshops (sometimes now called "psychedelic breathwork" or "DMT breathwork", etc).
I've attended Wim Hof breathwork workshops with 50+ people in a yoga studio. I even attended one where the "guide" was on a stage at a music festival, in front of thousands of people (in wildly varying psychopharmacological states, I'm sure).
At none of these was there anything approaching adequate personnel to support the participants (in either numbers or training). Given the possibility for traumatic experiences, this is downright reckless (moderately so in the case of the yoga studios, extremely so in the case of the music festival).
Predictably, at every one of these workshops, I saw multiple people having difficult/unpleasant experiences with no one on hand to help them work through it.
I don't want to give the impression that this was the common experience - I don't think Wim's techniques would have become so popular if that was the case! Without question, the majority of people at these workshops have a pleasant, even profound, experience.
But is it worth if for 47 people to have a pleasant, breathing-induced high if the other 3 in the room have potentially traumatic experiences? I can't imagine any ethically-inclined person would say yes.
This is particularly true because it's not necessary. There is certainly a place for Wim Hof's technique in the world, but that place is in therapeutic setting, not large workshops.
And, of course, if one wants a daily breathing practice that reliably beings the mind/body/nervous-system towards peace, yogis have been sitting in caves hard at work on this very project for many millennia.
Our bodies are built to adapt to environmental stress—and to become stronger in the process. Modern, climate-controlled life effectively removes many of these natural stressors (such as temperature fluctuation), but you can still tap into your body’s adaptive response with frequent cold water exposure (also called hydrotherapy).
A cold shower might sound like a jarring way to start the day, but trust us when we say that it’s worth it. With a bit of practice, you’ll come to cherish this ritual—few others bring such immediate full-body clarity and alertness.
Just as physical exercise helps condition muscles and other associated bodily systems, cold water exposure can help strengthen and improve stress resistance throughout the body. Practiced consistently, cold showers/plunges balance brain chemistry and endocrine health, improve metabolic function and circulation, and even facilitate ideal body composition.
Here’s a more detailed layout of what researchers have to say, in case you still need more evidence before taking the plunge.
Some researchers hypothesize that depression and other mood disorders may be caused by a lack of the physiological stressors that were present throughout millions of years of primate evolution, including “thermal exercise” (i.e. brief shifts in body temperature).
A study designed to test this hypothesis demonstrated that daily cold showers effectively alleviate symptoms of depression. Researchers attribute this antidepressant effect to the activation of the sympathetic nervous system, the release of beta-endorphin and noradrenaline, and the triggering of electrical impulses from cold receptors in the skin (like a sort of subdued electroshock therapy). [1]
Recent research around metabolism and weight loss has revealed that ideal body composition and positive metabolic markers are associated with healthy levels of a type of fat called brown adipose tissue. Obesity and its comorbidities, on the other hand, are associated with high levels of white adipose tissue (and correspondingly lower levels of brown adipose tissue). [2]
Because cold water activates brown adipose tissue (which the body “burns” in order to produce heat), researchers believe that hydrotherapy can help increase metabolism and facilitate healthier body composition. [3]
Because cold water exposure triggers circulatory response (in order to bring warmer, freshly oxygenated blood to colder areas), regular cold showers help make the circulatory system more efficient. [4]
Improved circulation leads to other downstream benefits, including lower blood pressure, more radiant skin, and faster recovery from injury. [5]
The shock of cold water is like a training ground for improving your body’s infection-fighting and disease-resisting potential. Studies have shown that regular cold water exposure stimulates leukoctyes (i.e. white blood cells, which help your body fight infection) and increases levels of endogenous antioxidants). [6]
In one randomized controlled trial, participants who took daily cold showers reported fewer sick days. [7] Another study even concluded that cold stress may confer enhanced immunity to various kinds of cancer. [8]
Let’s not forget one of the most important non-physiological benefits of cold showers: a serious improvement of willpower. The practice itself is simple—all that’s required is the nerve to begin.
Start with your regular hot shower, and turn the water cold at the end. Start with 1 minute of cold water, and build up to 3 minutes (the duration most often used in studies and clinical trials). Some studies also advocate a 5-minute gradual adaptation (i.e. slowly turning the water from hot to cold over the course of 5 minutes) when first beginning a daily cold shower practice.
Avoid hyperventilating or any of the unsustainable breathing techniques sometimes associated with cold water exposure. Instead, just breathe deeply and evenly. It can be helpful to exhale completely right before turning the water cold, in order to combat the shortness of breath that can occur during the initial shock. Practicing Anulom vilom pranayama prior to your cold shower is also a great way to prepare the nervous system.
Consistency is most important, so adopt whatever approach allows you to stick with the practice on an ongoing basis. Commit to a daily cold shower practice for at least a week or two (30 days is ideal, if you’re feeling brave). At the end of your trial period, you can decide whether to discontinue the practice...but by that point, we bet you’ll be a believer.
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[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030698770700566X
[2] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0810780
[3] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0808718
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4049052/
[5] https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/44/3/179
[6] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10396606/
[7] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0161749
]]>Psychic sovereignty is our approach to establishing a healthy relationship to technology. Our devices should be tools with which we consensually interact, and from which we derive value and pleasure. If we’re not careful, they can easily become tools for tech companies to monopolize our attention by hijacking deep-rooted instincts.
If you missed our article about mobile device practices for psychic sovereignty, check it out here.
This post will cover a similar list of practices for ideal computer hygiene. They apply equally to desktops or laptops, though they’re especially important for laptops, since we’re more likely to take those with us wherever we go.
If your work requires lots of screen time, you may not have the luxury of sustained time away from your machine during work hours, but you can still take micro-breaks throughout the day. When possible, take a minute to stretch, stand outside in natural light, and focus on a distant point (to help your eyes counter the sustained narrow-field-focus of using a computer). Research has shown that these micro-breaks decrease fatigue, increase subjective vitality, and improve overall occupational well-being. [1]
Outside of work hours, prioritize non-screen activities like reading a (physical) book, getting outside, or some tactile/analog hobby (we like ceramics and working on bikes).
As with your phone, avoid using your computer for 1 hour after waking up and 1 hour before bedtime. As we’ve mentioned before, eliminating device usage before bedtime is also a crucial sleep hygiene practice.
If you haven’t tried f.lux yet, we highly recommend it. You can download it for free here. It’s a simple app that allows your computer to shift adaptively between warmer and cooler (i.e. more blue/white) color display over the course of the day—this helps preserve your circadian rhythm, even if you need to be in front of your computer after sunset.
Blue light activates the prefrontal cortex and other brain areas associated with attention and focus, [2] so the less of it you’re getting from your computer, the more sovereignty you’ll have over your own attention. Also, one somewhat surprising study showed that daily blue light exposure shortens lifespan and causes neurodegeneration in flies, [3] in case you need another reason to shift your devices to a warmer color display.
We prefer to set f.lux at 5000K for daytime, 3700K for sunset, and 1900K for bedtime (the K stands for Kelvin, the unit of measurement for color warmth). To customize color settings, click the main dropdown menu in f.lux, select “Adjust day and night colors together,” and set your colors accordingly.
Setting your computer to Dark Mode will further reduce blue/white light exposure. And let’s be honest—it also just looks really cool.
For Windows 10: Settings > Personalization > Colors > Select Dark from the “Choose your color” dropdown menu
For Macs (macOS Big Sur and newer): Control Center > Display > Select Dark Mode
Here are a few of our favorite Chrome browser extensions (all free and easily accessible) for mitigating the attention-suck of ads, social media, and the digital world in general.
Blocksite: Use this browser extension to block yourself from distracting websites during work hours. We highly recommend adding Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and any other content sites or platforms that you find particularly tempting.
Adblock Plus: Advertising is perhaps the most direct and aggressive avenue for exploiting your attention (and money). Adblock Plus is our favorite extension for enjoying an ad-free online experience.
News Feed Eradicator: If you use Facebook for business, events, groups, or other context-specific interactions, you probably still find your attention drawn into the News Feed. (It’s literally designed to be as addictive as possible.) This ingenious browser extension removes the News Feed and replaces it with an inspirational quote, while preserving the rest of Facebook’s functionality.
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[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001879114001067 [2] https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article/39/9/1671/2708319
Yogic breathing techniques (pranayamas) are at once simple and impressively potent practices. Different breath patterns and techniques were designed (and refined over thousands of years...) to stimulate and/or relax the nervous system in extremely specific ways, yielding a wide range of effects: generation of energy (prana) within the body-mind, clearing of energy blockages in the body, purification and cleansing of the body, promotion of mental clarity and focus, grounding and balance in the body-mind, and reduction of anxiety, just to name a few.
A wealth of academic studies has confirmed numerous benefits of and therapeutic applications for regular pranayama practice. One review reports decreased subjective stress, improved cognitive function, improved parameters of autonomic function (including decreased blood pressure), enhanced respiratory function, lower free radical load and increased superoxide dismutase (both signs of lowered oxidative stress), enhanced melatonin production (and a corresponding improvement in sleep quality), decreased subjective pain, and much more. [1] Pretty impressive for just changing your pattern of breathing.
Here we'll focus in on Anulom Vilom Pranayama, which is widely considered to be a universally appropriate technique—it’s perfect for anyone who is new to pranayama, but tends to remain a core focus even for advanced practitioners.
Here’s how to get started.
Anulom Vilom is the Sanskrit name for what’s now called alternate nostril breathing. This pranayama falls under the category of Nadi Shodhana, a range of breathing exercises intended to calm and cleanse the nervous system.
Studies and clinical trials have confirmed the benefits of this ancient practice by tracking various parameters for autonomic nervous system, cardiopulmonary, and cognitive function. [2]
(Our Relationships Director, Sandra, demonstrates the technique)
1. Sit in a comfortable, upright posture, on a meditation cushion or bench if possible. Keep the neck and back straight.
2. Begin with a one-minute somatic scan. Bring the attention to the top of the head, and move down through each part of the body. Just observe the sensations throughout the body; don’t judge or try to change anything. Beginning your pranayama sessions with this simple technique will help increase the focusing and clarifying benefits of the practice.
3. Bend the index and middle fingers to touch the palm. Rest the thumb on the right nostril and the ring finger on the left nostril. This precise hand gesture—known in yogic tradition as a mudra—is an important part of the practice.
4. Close the right nostril with the thumb, and inhale through the left nostril.
5. Close the left nostril with the ring finger, and exhale through the right nostril.
6. Keep the left nostril closed, and inhale through the right nostril.
7. Close the right nostril with the thumb, and exhale through the left nostril. This completes one cycle.
8. Keep the right nostril closed, and inhale through the left nostril to begin the next cycle.
9. Once the breath pattern becomes intuitive (i.e. when you no longer need to devote attention to performing it correctly), focus your attention on the third eye center between the eyebrows.
10 minutes of focused Anolum Vilom will completely change your mental and emotional environment, purging stress from mind and re-grounding you in your body. Start with 1-5 minutes per session, if doing so helps you overcome the psychological hurdles to establishing a regular practice.
Once you’re comfortable with performing the basic breath pattern, you can deepen the practice by counting and retaining (holding) the breath.
Counting and holding requires concentration, and therefore are helpful techniques for stepping away from disruptive external stimuli and mental chatter. The more immersive your practice, the more amplified the somatic, mental, and emotional effects of the breath will be.
Try adding these two techniques to the same Anulom Vilom breath pattern outlined above.
Samavritti (Equal Count + Hold): Inhale, hold the inhalation, exhale, hold the inhalation, all for the same count. Start with a count of 4, and work up to counts of 8 and 12. Try to let the breath “rest” or “float” during the retentions, rather than actively closing the back of the throat and airways. If longer counts are a struggle, stick with a count of 4—the aim is to bring more peace to the nervous system, not more stress.
Visamavritti (Unequal Count + Hold): Inhale-inhale hold-exhale-exhale hold in a pattern of 1-4-2-3. For example, inhale for a count of 4, hold the inhalation for a count of 16, exhale for a count of 8, hold the exhalation for a count of 12. This is a more advanced practice, and should only be attempted when you’re very comfortable with Samavritti.Caffeine consumption is a well-loved and almost ubiquitous morning ritual—one study concluded that 85% of all Americans over the age of 2 consume at least one caffeinated beverage every day. [1]
Caffeine rituals certainly have their benefits (we enjoy a nice cup of coffee or Ketobasis Matcha Latte as much as anyone). If caffeine is a part of your lifestyle, though, it’s essential to understand how it affects your sleep.
Unsurprisingly, caffeine and sleep are not a great match—research has shown that caffeine typically prolongs sleep latency, reduces sleep time and efficiency, and worsens perceived sleep quality. [2]
Nevertheless, by understanding more about caffeine’s effects and making a few informed lifestyle choices, you can enjoy high-quality sleep without having to give up your beloved caffeine rituals.
The brain has a remarkable system in place for ensuring proper sleep: your circadian rhythm determines the timing of your sleep-wake cycles, and your sleep pressure system enforces these cycles by making you feel tired when it’s time to sleep.
The neurotransmitter adenosine plays a critical role in this process. It acts as a kind of timekeeper; the longer you stay awake, the more of it accumulates in the brain. Adenosine is an inhibitory neurotransmitter and can act as a central nervous system depressant, so its buildup in the brain leads to an increasing feeling of sleepiness (i.e. increased pressure to sleep). [3]
Caffeine functions as an adenosine receptor antagonist—it blocks signals sent by adenosine receptors, in other words—so it effectively tricks your brain into thinking it’s not tired. Because this signalling is a crucial step in the body’s sleep induction process, it’s much more difficult to sleep while caffeine is still in your system. The post-caffeine crash occurs because built up adenosine will bind to receptors all at once when caffeine is cleared from the system.
Caffeine activates the nervous system and inhibits phosphodiesterase enzymes, which help keep your heart rate in check. As a result, caffeine is usually associated with increased heart rate, as well as a delay in your resting heart rate (RHR) reaching its lowest point. [4]
These cardiovascular effects aren’t an issue during the day, but they can disrupt your process of winding down for sleep. Even subtle deviations from your normal RHR make it more difficult for your body to relax into those critical "deep sleep" states. [5]
Tracking your heart rate and monitoring how caffeine affects it can be a useful practice for determining your ideal caffeine consumption schedule. If your RHR is higher than normal at bedtime, try moving your caffeine cutoff time to earlier in the day.
1. Timing - As you’ve probably already figured out, minimizing caffeine’s impact on sleep is all about proper timing.
The effects of caffeine last longer than you might think, though. Even though most people feel the maximum effects of caffeine between 30-60 minutes after consumption, it actually has a half life of 5-7 hours. [6] This means that 7 hours after ingestion, up to half of that caffeine is still in your system!
Other factors can lead to caffeine being broken down even more slowly. For example, 50% of the population have a gene variant that slows down the metabolism of caffeine by the liver.
Being aware of how your body processes caffeine can help you determine an ideal caffeine ritual schedule that won’t negatively impact your sleep. For most of us, this will mean cutting out afternoon and evening caffeine consumption (or at minimum, drinking your afternoon caffeine dose as early as possible).
2. Dosage - So many people continue to drink caffeine well past the point of diminishing returns. That second and third cup of coffee in the day often has a minimal (if any...) benefit for your focus/mood/alertness, but has a massive negative impact on your sleep quality. And if there is a benefit, it's often psychological rather than metabolic (meaning decaf would work just as well).
It's a good practice to cultivate a sensitivity to when you've consumed the dose that yields the maximum improvements to focus/mood/alertness, and then stop drinking there. And for those subsequent cups of coffee/tea/whatever...experiment with decaf to see if you can get much of the psychological benefit without having to ingest the extra 100-200mg of caffeine that is guaranteed to wreck your sleep quality.
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[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10408398.2016.1247252 [2] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2016.01.006Living in sync begins with reclaiming sovereign control of your own psyche. If this premise sounds overly dramatic, remember that tech companies spend billions of dollars to design devices and social media platforms that will capture your attention for as long as possible. Bright color screens and intelligent algorithms effectively hijack our deep animal brain, activating reward pathways with an intensity that is rarely matched by non-screen life.
This is why we refer to our relationship with technology as psychic sovereignty—and why we consider it an essential lifestyle principle.
It’s safe to say our phones pose the greatest risk to this sovereignty (since they’re nearly always within reach), so this article will outline some simple practices for establishing an ideal relationship to your mobile device.
We’re all familiar with how easily notifications draw attention back to your phone. Get a phone case that hides the screen. This phone sleeve and this wallet case (as pictured above) are our favorites. With these cases, looking at your screen is significantly more likely to be a conscious choice than the involuntary reaction it is for most people.
You won’t be sorry. It really is the worst use of time and attention imaginable, and research has shown that it (along with other social media) negatively impacts your health.
Need more evidence? The University of Pennsylvania conducted a study in which they split undergraduates into two groups: one continued their current social media usage, and the other was required to limit their usage to 30 minutes or less per day. At the end of study, the group with limited usage reported significantly reduced symptoms of depression, loneliness, and anxiety. The researchers went so far as to conclude that the study “shows a causal link between time spent on these social media and increased depression and loneliness.” [1]
Another prominent review correlated excessive use of digital media with a staggering list of health impacts: depression, anxiety, addictive behaviors resembling those surrounding substance dependency, “screen time induced ADHD,” impaired vision, reduced bone density, poor sleep, risk factors for high blood pressure, obesity, decreased stress resistance, and more. [2]
You get the point. While that review focused on the particularly egregious effects of screen time on children and adolescents, it’s clear that the risks of digital media usage don’t simply vanish when you hit adulthood.
The detrimental effects of screen time on attention and focus are now so well-documented that apps for regulating screen time are now a standard feature of smartphones. The feature is called Screen Time on iPhones and Digital Wellbeing on Android devices, both of which are easily accessed from the Settings menu of your phone. Make use of them!
Turn your phone on Airplane Mode 1 hour before bed and 1 hour after waking. Minimizing screen time before bedtime is a crucial practice for both psychic sovereignty and sleep hygiene.
If you enjoy jumping right into digital reality first thing in the morning, an hour of Airplane Mode might be a tough change to make, but give it a try. Beginning each day with analog rituals will dramatically improve your quality of life.
Here’s how to select a few different iPhone color settings that reduce white and blue light exposure (the instructions below are for iOS 13). The setting process is roughly the same for Android devices, though some use slightly different feature and menu names.
Reducing your phone’s blue and white light emission will make it slightly more difficult for your phone to hijack from attention. We think of it as making your phone as “unsexy” as possible. Going full grayscale with all-day Night Shift is the most radical (and therefore probably most effective) option, but go with what feels comfortable for you.
Dark Mode: Settings > Display & Brightness > Select “Dark”
Invert Color: Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Turn on “Smart Invert” or “Classic Invert”
Greyscale: Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters > Toggle Color Filters > Select Grayscale
All-Day Night Shift: Settings > Display & Brightness > Night Shift > Turn on “Scheduled” and set the “Turn On” time for 1 minute after the “Turn Off” time
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[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181108164316.htm [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29499467/A simple and delicious recipe from our Staple Meal series. For more recipes, and to download our free Staple Meals Guide, check out the introductory article to our Staple Meals approach to cooking.
Serves: 3-4 // Prep time: 40 min
INGREDIENTS
Cashews
Cilantro
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Follow the individual recipes below.
2. Assemble your bowl and top with cashews and cilantro.
3. Enjoy!
Serves: 3-4 // Prep time: 20 min
INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 CUPS grated cauliflower
1/2 Onion, Diced
2 Garlic Cloves
1 tbsp Coconut Oil
1/2 TSP Salt
1/2 TSP Pepper
FLAVOR VARIATIONS
Sesame Cashew:
1 TBSP Sesame Oil
1/4 CUP Spring Onion
1/4 CUP Raw Cashews , Roughly Chopped
Cilantro Lime:
Zest of 1 Lime
2 TBSP Lime Juice
1 CUP Roughly Chopped Cilantro
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Over medium heat, sauté the onion in coconut oil for 5 minutes until translucent. Add the garlic and continue cooking for an additional 2 minutes.
2. Add the cauliflower and sauté for 5-8 additional minutes, stirring every minute or two as the cauliflower starts to brown.
Prep time: 10 min
INGREDIENTS
1/2 BLOCK Tofu, Cubed (firm silken tofu is our favorite here)
1 TBSP Coconut Oil
1 TBSP Curry Powder or Paste
¼-1/2 CUP Coconut Milk
2 TBSP cashews
Salt and Pepper to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Heat oil over medium heat in a pan.
2. Once the oil is fully melted and shiny, add the tofu and cashews. Cook for 3-4 minutes, until golden brown around the edges.
3. Add curry powder/paste to the pan and cook for 1 minute.
4. Add coconut milk, salt, and pepper. Stir and allow the curry powder/paste to dissolve into the coconut milk. Cook for an additional 2-3 minutes until fully incorporated.
Prep time: 20-30 min
INGREDIENTS
1 Butternut Squash (or sub Sweet Potato or Zucchini)
2 TBSP Melted Coconut Oil
1/2 TSP Salt
1/2 TSP Pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Roughly cut your preferred vegetable into ½ inch cubes or ⅓ inch thick slices. Toss with Coconut Oil, Salt, Pepper.
3. Transfer to a baking sheet, making sure to spread evenly. Roast in oven for 8 minutes, flip, and return to oven for an additional 5 minutes, until golden brown and caramelized.
It's a reflection on the state of things that eco-friendly packaging requires a fair amount of extra cost and logistical work. We wish that industry standards were aligned with forward-thinking ecological principles, but sadly, that’s rarely the case.
Nevertheless, we stand by our promise: we will always seek out the lowest-energy, lowest-waste, and most recyclable materials, no matter what extra costs we incur in the process. The products that support your health shouldn’t require you to make ethical sacrifices. After all, minimizing our ecological impact is an essential part of Life in Sync.
Here are a few examples of the steps we’ve taken to ensure the minimum ecological impact of our products.
That's post-consumer paper used in place of plastic bubble padding in these biodegradable envelopes.
Yep, even the tape is made from biodegradable paper.
We generally re-use these canisters rather than recycle, but they are fully recyclable.
If we were competing for shelf space, those Micro•Bios bottles would (unnecessarily) be twice as big. Thankfully, we're not playing that game.
What it looks like to receive a package from us. No plastic packaging materials to be seen.
Driving is the default mode of transportation for the majority of people (especially those of us who live in rural or suburban areas). The pace of modern life can make any other mode feel untenable—but we’ll make the case that figuring out how to include walking or biking in your transportation rituals is not only less daunting than you might think, but it’s also one of the easiest ways to significantly improve your quality-of-life.
On the surface, the choice seems simple: since we need to get from place to place anyway, why not get some fresh air, sunlight exposure, and exercise in the process? There’s no doubt that these benefits produce a much higher quality of life than driving (not least because your physical health will improve measurably).
Walking and biking will also almost certainly save you money (and possibly even time, depending on the traffic and parking situation in your area). And needless to say, they’re both infinitely more eco-friendly than driving.
We get that this can be an intimidating switch to make, though, especially when driving is an integrated part of daily life and you have a busy schedule.
Here are some tips compiled from our years of walk/bike commuting that will get you to the level of enthusiasm we have (at this point, the idea of commuting via car sounds like inhumane drudgery):
Even if you enjoy walking as a leisure activity, it can take time to unlearn the assumption that driving is the only mode of transportation fast enough for practical use.
Are you lucky enough to live somewhere that the places you regularly visit are within a 1-2 mile radius? Then take advantage of this! Being able to walk in the fresh air to work or a store or a friend’s house rather than being trapped in a steel box (and possibly in traffic) is a true luxury not available to everyone.
As you walk for transportation more frequently, you’ll likely notice that time spent walking rarely feels inefficient—instead, it offers space for presence and contemplation (or maybe an ebook or podcast) amidst your otherwise cramped daily schedule.
If you commute to work or have other daily destinations that aren’t within walking distance, try parking farther away and walking the last 5-10 blocks. In some cities, this simple practice may even save you money (and time) on parking.
Similarly, if a number of your errands are in the same general area, try parking centrally and taking care of them on foot.
Biking is a better option if you’re pressed for time (or just love the feel of gliding along with wind on your skin like we do), but it does require some planning and investment. Here’s how to get started.
We have to admit: e-bikes are getting pretty stylish these days...(this one's from VanMoof)
In case you haven’t noticed, we’re pretty obsessive about how we formulate our products. From day one, we’ve been driven by a product design ethos that prioritizes synergy between innovative nutritional science and the remarkable sophistication of organic functional ingredients.
We call this design ethos Naturally Innovative Nutrition. In every product we develop, we aim to take the most potent healing plant materials nature has to offer, and amplify their bioavailability and efficacy via cutting edge nutritional science. These whole plants are time-tested by thousands of years of human use, unlike the synthetic ingredients and isolates that characterize a less balanced approach to “innovation.”
A great example of this “naturally innovative” approach is the full-spectrum CO2 turmeric extracts we use in our Gold Liposomal Turmeric products.
Whereas other turmeric products use only a single isolated compound from turmeric (generally, curcumin), we found that using the complete set of turmeric's beneficial compounds delivers a more profound and lasting anti-inflammatory effect.
Furthermore, turmeric’s lesser known compounds (absent from curcumin products) offer their own impressive benefits. One prominent example is ar-turmerone, which was found to accelerate the proliferation of neural stem cells by 50-80%. [1] Studies like this make us firm believers that full-spectrum turmeric is dramatically superior to isolates.
Is this indicative of some innate wisdom in the plant? We remain agnostic to that question, but this is just one of many instances we've observed the advantages of whole-plant extracts over isolated compounds. So now we always begin our formulation processes with whole-plant extracts and work from there.
But as is the case with the turmeric CO2 extract, these whole-plant extracts are never perfect, and this is where we can use innovative nutritional science to overcome their shortcomings - increasing bioavailability and efficacy in the body.
When we formulated Gold, our goal was to create the world’s most potent turmeric supplement. We saw that, as powerful as the CO2 turmeric extract is, its absorption in the body was quite inefficient. To address this shortcoming, we explored an innovative nutrient-delivery strategy in which phospholipids (a specific type of fat) are used to form nano-encapsulations of a bioactive material (in this case, our turmeric extract). This process - called liposomalization - allows for a tenfold increase in bioavailability (i.e. absorption in the body).
Combining the full-spectrum turmeric extract with cutting-edge nano-encapsulation delivery is what puts Gold levels above other turmeric supplements with regards to potency and efficacy.
This synergy between whole-plant wisdom and modern science is Naturally Innovative Nutrition at work.
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]]>Sleep hygiene is a cornerstone of life in sync. When it comes to optimizing performance and vitality, even ideal nutrition and fitness can’t make up for poor sleep.
Even if you’re getting enough sleep, it’s important to remember that quality is even more important than quantity. 5-6 hours of high-quality sleep is better than 8 hours of poor, interrupted sleep. (Make no mistake, though: you should be getting more than 5-6 hours of sleep per night on average.)
One of the easiest ways to improve sleep quality is to minimize light exposure during your entire sleep period. Studies definitively show that light has a greater effect on sleep quality than any other external factor, due to its dramatic influence on circadian rhythm, melatonin production, and sleep cycles.
The brain interprets light as information about the time of day and regulates bodily processes accordingly. Our circadian rhythm is altered by the timing of light exposure (both natural and artificial). Artificial light before bedtime, early morning sunlight, and ambient light in our sleeping environment can all disrupt circadian rhythm if not mitigated by proper sleep hygiene practices.
Similarly, the production of melatonin (a critical hormone that facilitates sleep) is slowed or halted by light exposure. [1] Research demonstrates that these downstream effects of light exposure decrease sleep quality by interrupting transitions between sleep cycles. [2]
For a better night’s sleep, implement these simple practices for minimizing light exposure.
LEDs (which emit short-wavelength blue light) have been shown to have the most significant impact on melatonin and circadian rhythm. [3] For this reason, it’s incredibly important to remove all LED lights from your bedroom (especially those that emit blue or white light).
At the very least, cover LED light sources after sunset; this will keep your circadian rhythm aligned to a natural sunrise-sunset cycle. And, of course, stop using your phone or other blue-light-emitting devices at least one hour before bedtime.
Any ambient light to which you’re exposed throughout the night will compromise sleep quality by interrupting transitions between sleep cycles [4], so make your bedroom as dark as possible. Black out shades are a great place to start, and are available in every size and color. We use these shades and are very happy with them.
Make sure that your shades sit in a track that is custom cut for your window, otherwise light will still seep in around the sides.
Research demonstrates that light can pass readily enough through closed eyelids to suppress melatonin production [5], so getting a high-quality eye mask is also a gamechanger (especially if your bedroom has large windows or other sources of light that are difficult to black out).
We highly recommend the eye masks offered by Manta Sleep---they completely block all light and are very comfortable (we personally use them).
For the next 30 days, get 10% off your sleep mask by entering the code SYNCHRO at checkout.
Most dietary approaches out there naturally focus on the foods you DO want to be eating and. It’s our opinion that there’s a lot more to be gained in eliminating from your diet the foods you definitely DON’T want to be eating.
]]>This series is a distillation of our decades of researching, experimenting and generally obsessing over the question:
What is the ideal way to nourish a human body if the aim is to slow the progression of biological aging?
Most dietary approaches out there naturally focus on the foods you DO want to be eating and - worry not - this Seven Principles series will also spend plenty of words on this topic. That being said, it’s our opinion that there’s a lot more to be gained in eliminating from your diet the foods you definitely DON’T want to be eating.
Meticulous calorie-counting and macronutrient-ratio-tracking won’t get you very far if those calories are filled with health-sapping food allergens and inflammatory toxins.
Given this, toxin elimination was our unquestioned Principle Number One in this series.
This isn’t just another “don’t eat unhealthy foods” article, though. You’ll notice that all the “problem foods” are easily replaced with delicious, healthy alternatives. Nutrition In Sync need not be about abstaining from entire food groups, but rather taking a bit of extra time to seek out the healthiest version.
Reduced Inflammation
Improved Metabolic + Hormone Function
Improved Energy Levels
Improved Mental Clarity
Lower Risk Of Certain Diseases (Including Some Cancers)
It’s an unfortunate reality of modern, post-industrial life that we inhabit a very toxic world. The body has remarkable detoxification capabilities, but the diet and lifestyle choices we make can easily overburden these processes. This article covers the most effective dietary strategies for staying well shy of that point.
So why are toxins so dangerous?
Simply put: because they disrupt the essential functions of the body. Toxins sap our vitality and burden the body in a variety of ways:
Dietary toxins disrupt hormone production and regulation [1], trigger our inflammation response [2], interfere with nutrient absorption [3] and disrupt the microbiome [4] (just to name a few…)
By following the simple practices below, you’ll significantly reduce your intake of damaging toxins. Within a relatively short period of time, you’ll likely feel clearer, more youthful, and more energized. Here are a few of the benefits to expect...
The body’s inflammatory response is a protective mechanism aimed at removing damaged cells, foreign pathogens, and other irritants. When toxins are continually introduced through diet and lifestyle, however, this mechanism is overwhelmed and inflammation becomes chronic—often leading to more serious health problems [5]. Toxin and allergen avoidance helps lighten the body’s burden, keeping inflammation levels lower.
Despite the body’s attempts at self-protection, toxins inevitably disrupt the critical functions of hormones, enzymes, and cell receptors. Damage can occur through oxidative stress (e.g. with free radicals) [6], through specific targeting of organic molecules (e.g. with mycotoxins) [7], and occasionally when the body mistakes toxins for nutrients and tries to use them accordingly (e.g. with heavy metals) [8]. Removing these disruptions helps restore your metabolism and endocrine system to a truly healthy, resilient equilibrium.
Depleted energy and sluggishness are common downstream effects of chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, poor metabolism, and disrupted hormone function. This is why toxin and allergen elimination is so powerful: once you remove these stressors, you’ll be amazed by how quickly your overall mood and energy levels improve.
Brain fog is another classic symptom of all the disruptions discussed above, especially chronic inflammation. When the immune system increases cytokine production (a process used to regulate inflammatory response), these cytokines transmit signals that cause the brain to increase its own cytokine production [9]. In short, inflammation in the body leads to inflammation in the brain. Luckily, you can avoid the ensuing brain fog, memory impairment, and cognitive decline simply by avoiding toxins in the first place.
Studies have demonstrated that reducing oxidative stress and chronic inflammation (through proper diet and lifestyle) can significantly reduce the risk of many chronic diseases [10], including some cancers. The “inflammation theory of disease” is now well-supported. In one review, researchers report that inflammation is “intimately linked with a broad range of non-infectious diseases, perhaps even all of them.” [11]
Buy organic produce, and always wash it thoroughly
Minimize plastic use (and NEVER put plastic in the dishwasher)
Significantly reduce or eliminate consumption of corn, wheat, and dairy
Avoid peanuts, brazil nuts, walnuts and pecans (frequently mold contaminated).
Cook only with high-smoke-point oils like coconut, avocado and ghee
Yes, it’s really worth it. Conventional produce is almost always sprayed with copious amounts of herbicides and pesticides (including the infamous glyphosate) [12]. While the risks of these agrochemicals are still being researched, even at this point there’s more than enough evidence suggesting these chemicals are hormone-disrupting to some degree [13]. Buying organic is often more expensive, but this is still one of the easiest ways to remove damaging toxins from your diet.
Not even organic produce is 100% free of toxins (especially if it has traveled a long way to reach your local grocery store). Submerging your produce in room-temperature (or warmer) water, and then scrubbing it lightly, will ensure that none of those toxins make it into your body.
No article on toxin avoidance would be complete without noting that truly clean water is essential for health, and conversely, unpurified water is a huge liability when it comes to toxin exposure. Avoid tap water—which can contain chlorine, fluoride, heavy metals, and many other toxins—and invest in a high-quality water purifier. Berkey filters and reverse osmosis systems deliver the best combination of effectiveness and affordability. (Brita filters and similar cheap filters are unfortunately NOT sufficient).
Remember the BPA scare from a number of years ago? Manufacturers of plastic products would love for us to believe that those days are over, and that “BPA-Free” means “Zero Toxicity,” but this simply isn’t the case. Low-quality plastics still often contain BPA, and even BPA-Free plastics still contain a multitude of other endocrine disrupting compounds.
Research out of the University of Texas looked at 455 common plastic products and showed that 70% tested positive for endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Seventy percent! These chemicals are much more likely to leach when plastic is heated, so if you can’t avoid plastic altogether, at least keep them out of your dishwasher. Otherwise, all of your dishes (plastic or not) will end up coated with a film of endocrine-disrupting toxins leached out of those plastics.
Mycotoxins are toxic chemicals produced by molds in order to destroy competing bacteria and other strains of mold. Needless to say, they attack the cells of your body with the same vigor—unsurprisingly, mycotoxins have been linked with hormone disruption, immunosuppression, chronic inflammation, and even cancer [14].
The bad news is that mycotoxins are frighteningly prevalent in our food supply, and they tend to bioaccumulate in human tissue, which means their adverse effects can continue to get worse over time. The good news is that you can dramatically reduce your mycotoxin exposure simply by removing corn, wheat and certain nuts from your diet.
Why corn and wheat? Mycotoxins proliferate on grains that are stored for extended periods of time. Vast quantities of corn and wheat are produced in the U.S., nearly all of which are stored in grain silos prior to distribution. A testing of U.S. crops a few years ago detected the presence of mycotoxins in up to 93% of corn [15] and 80% of wheat samples [16].
While mycotoxins can be found in some other common dietary sources, if you do nothing but cut out corn and wheat, it will still make a tremendous difference. Nuts (peanuts, brazil nuts, walnuts and pecans are the worst offenders) and coffee also frequently contain mycotoxins, so try to ensure your sources are offering fresh products (some boutique coffee producers will have their product tested and certified mycotoxin-free).
By now, you’re certainly familiar with the gluten-free zeitgeist, which was originally based on the idea that gluten adversely affects a small percentage of people (i.e. the 1% of the population with Celiac’s disease, and up to 10% with “gluten intolerance”). A growing body of research, however, suggests that gluten (at least potentially) poses risks for everyone.
There’s no shortage of great gluten-free products available, so there’s never been a better time to join the gluten-free bandwagon. If you’re still not convinced, though, here are some more research-backed reasons why you should take the plunge.
Mycotoxicity. I’ll begin by reiterating that 80% of all tested wheat was found to be mycotoxin-contaminated. In my opinion, this would be a perfectly good reason to avoid it, even if there was nothing else questionable about wheat products. But that’s just the beginning…
Zonulin signaling. Here’s how researchers think it works. A metabolite of gluten called gliadin appears to trigger a regulatory gut process known as zonulin signaling. Simply put, zonulin signaling makes the epithelium (the protecting lining of the intestinal tract) more porous and permeable. This is not good at all, because it allows particles of undigested food to slip into the bloodstream, which leads to chronic GI inflammation (because the immune system responds to the particles as threats) [17]. The severity of this varies greatly from individual to individual, but it does appear it affects almost everyone to some degree.
Wheat germ agglutinin (WGA). Studies have demonstrated two worrying facts about this wheat protein: it is able to cross the blood-brain barrier and bind to neurons[18], AND it is highly pro-inflammatory [19]. It should go without saying, any amount of highly-inflammatory protein crossing the blood-brain barrier is no good. While WGA is present in very small quantities in wheat, it can accumulate in brain tissue over time and produce neurotoxic effects.
Opioid peptides. Last but not least, research also shows that isolated peptides from wheat exhibit “high opioid-like activity.” While opioid receptor activity is not an inherent health risk, it’s just kinda creepy to think that gluten may have addictive properties, especially given the adverse effects discussed above.
Most of us were raised to believe that milk is healthy, but the research simply doesn’t support this. There’s a mountain of evidence to suggest that dairy is not healthy for anybody, regardless of whether you have a known allergy or intolerance. Forget everything you learned from those “Got Milk?” ads, which were essentially a whitewashing campaign designed to increase consumption of fundamentally unhealthy products.
A1 casein. Perhaps the most compelling reason to avoid dairy products is the prevalence of A1 casein protein. Casein comes in two forms, A1 and A2, and historically, dairy cows produced A2 almost exclusively. Over the past few decades, as dairy farmers have learned that A1-producing cow breeds yield more milk, they started raising these breeds almost exclusively.
As a result, nearly all commercial milk products today contain high levels of A1 casein, which has been shown to trigger gastrointestinal inflammation.[20] Another study confirmed that A1 casein triggers the pro-inflammatory Th2 pathway, while A2 casein does not.[21]
Hormones and antibiotics. The dairy industry uses hormones and antibiotics in staggering quantities - but not to combat disease as you might expect. Dairy farmers use antibiotics primarily because they are the most reliable tool for fattening cows and stimulating them to produce more milk.
Antibiotics, rBST, and IGF-1 and are routinely found in tested milk samples, whether conventional or organic.[22] [23] Inadvertent consumption of antibiotics in milk will inevitability compromise your microbiome, and thus adversely affect your digestion, immunity, and nutrient absorption.
Histamines and nitrosamines. These distinctly undesirable chemicals are frequently in cheeses (especially aged or ripened cheeses). Histamines are compounds used by the body to trigger inflammatory responses (including the sinus inflammation that accompanies seasonal allergies) . Nitrosamines, another byproduct of fermentation, are also pro-inflammatory and have been linked with gastric and oesophageal cancer.[24]
Mycotoxins. The vast majority of dairy cows are fed with low-grade, mycotoxin-contaminated grains, which means these toxins nearly always end up in milk products. Buying organic milk doesn’t lower your risk unless it’s also exclusively grass-fed.
A Possible Acceptable Dairy Option? If you can find a local source for raw milk and cheese from exclusively organic, grass-fed, pasture-raised Guernsey cows (or another confirmed A1-free breed), this could potentially be a source of dairy that avoids most of the problems listed above.
But do you really need to eat cow dairy that bad? The wiser, easier choice is simply to cut dairy out of your diet. Besides, the non-dairy alternatives these days are amazing!
After trying nearly every available alt-dairy product out there, these are my favorites:
The basic idea here is that all oils, when exposed to sufficient heat, will break down into oxidized fats that are highly pro-inflammatory. The temperature at which oils break down varies widely, and it’s important to choose an oil that will stay intact in the cooking process.
Unsaturated fats (e.g. nearly all vegetable oils) break down quickly when heated, and therefore should not be used for cooking. If you see smoke in the pan, this is indicative of the oil oxidizing.
Saturated fats like coconut oil, avocado oil on the other hand, have very high smoke points (450 degrees and 520 degrees F, respectively) - they’re both great choices for cooking.
Olive oil can be used for cooking, but it has a low smoke point (about 360 degrees) and should only be used away from heat. French chefs are taught only to add olive oil to a pan when the heat is turned off, for exactly this reason (oxidation also compromises the subtle flavors of oils).
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41574-019-0273-8
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4579563/
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2868080/
[4] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2018.00060/full
[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2868080/
[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3249911/
[7] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC164220/
[8] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4427717/
[9] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12676570/
[10] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5037570/
[11] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3492709/
[12] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6963490/
[13] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221475001530041X
[14] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1319610310000827
[15] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030213001318
[16] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5666349/
[17] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16635908/
[18] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8866643/
[19] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19332085/
[20] http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ejcn2014127a.html
[21] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24166511/
[22] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0039914011004498
[23] https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/1998/an/a804923h/unauth#!divAbstract
]]>One of the most powerful nutritional “levers” we have to pull to improve the way our body feels and performs is the ratio of macronutrients - i.e. proteins, fats and carbohydrates - we put into it each day.
]]>This series is a distillation of our decades of researching, experimenting and generally obsessing over the question:
What is the ideal way to nourish a human body if the aim is to slow the progression of biological aging?
One of the most powerful nutritional “levers” we have to pull to improve the way our body feels and performs is the ratio of macronutrients - i.e. proteins, fats and carbohydrates - we put into it each day.
After experimenting with virtually every reasonable macronutrient ratio over the past decade (both on ourselves and with our clients), we’ve found one approach that produces the best results for nearly everyone: The Low-Carbohydrate, Metabolic-Flexibility Diet.
There’s obviously a bit (ok, a lot) more nuance to the diet than this, but in its essence, the low-carb, metabolic-flexibility diet (LC/MF) is this:
1. Eating such that carbohydrates account for 25% (or less) of total calories.
(in combination with)
2. Time-restricted eating to build metabolic flexibility.
So there it is. Fairly simple on the surface, and in practice once you understand the nuances.
Ok, on to those nuances...
Metabolic Flexibility means your body is able to efficiently use both fats and carbs for energy, and switch between the two without suffering consequences.
This sounds like something we should all be able to do, but the reality is very few of us can actually do this.
Most people (even those on a typical low carb diet), are only able to use carbs efficiently, and struggle to use fats for energy. Keto folks have the opposite problem - they’ve trained their body to use fats efficiently, but in the process have lost the ability to use carbs for energy in a way that’s efficient and healthy.
The ideal state, we believe, is one in which your body can use either energy source, efficiently and on demand. Here’s why:
Stability Of Metabolic Energy (i.e. exiting the carbohydrate rollercoaster)
Improvements In Metabolic Markers Of Disease
Reduced Inflammation
Improved Mitochondrial Function
Ease Of Improving Body Composition
Improved Gut Health + Digestion
Accelerated Cellular Cleaning (Autophagy)
The elevator pitch for the Low-Carb/Metabolic-Flexibility diet is this:
Research shows that using exclusively fats for energy (i.e. ketosis) has a long list of metabolic benefits, but potentially some undesirable effects when done continuously for long periods.
It’s a similar story for carbohydrates. Using carbs for energy has unique benefits in specific applications, but similarly, potentially undesirable effects when done continuously.
The LC/MF diet aims to deliver the benefits of both approaches.
LC/MF provides many of the profound benefits of ketosis (albeit, to a lesser degree), but from a lifestyle that’s a world more flexible and easier to adhere to. It also allows for many of the unique benefits that can come from eating certain carbohydrates, something totally unavailable on a ketogenic diet.
And most importantly, LC/MF avoids the negative effects that almost always come with eating either way continuously.
When the body is running on carbohydrates exclusively, it’s essentially on a metabolic rollercoaster ride.
Within a couple hours following a carb-heavy meal, blood sugar rises dramatically. Insulin levels swiftly follow suit and rise as well, instructing cells to store this blood sugar (as glycogen or fat).
Sometime in the hours that follow, blood sugar will drop too low for the brain’s liking and it initiates a hormone cascade that leads to the secretion of cortisol (aka the stress hormone) and ghrelin (the hunger hormone). Predictably, you feel sluggish/hungry/grumpy and eat to fix the problem, starting the cycle all over again.
For most people, this is just “normal” and they’ve never really considered that there can be another way to fuel the body that is inherently more balanced and is largely absent of these ups and downs.
Once adapted to the LC/MF diet, the body is no longer so completely dependent on blood sugar for energy, as it can readily switch over to using fats (a much more stable energy source) when blood sugar levels drop. Any ups and downs in mood and energy are greatly reduced in magnitude and often disappear entirely.
Because the LC/MF diet includes a significant amount of carbohydrates (with dinner), stores of glycogen in our muscles and liver stay ‘topped off’ and provide an additional energy reserve for maintaining stability of metabolic energy, a unique advantage over a ketogenic diet.
As blood sugar and insulin levels stabilize as the body adapts to LC/MF, a series of other hormones follow suit and similarly move towards a healthier, more balanced equilibrium.
A 2012 study was done on subjects following a diet in which carbohydrates are eaten primarily or exclusively at dinner (a diet functionally similar to, but considerably less effective than LC/MF). Over a 6 month period, the participants (on average) displayed the following changes (my notes in parenthesis):
“greater improvements in fasting glucose (blood sugar), average daily insulin concentrations, insulin resistance (a marker of pre-diabetes), low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL, correlated with heart disease), high‐density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, C‐reactive protein (CRP, a marker of inflammation), tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α, another marker of inflammation), and interleukin‐6 (IL‐6, another marker of inflammation) levels.” [1]
As the study referenced in the section above shows, restricting carbohydrate consumption to a small window each day reduces levels of CRP, TNF‐α and IL-6 (all markers of inflammation).
There is good evidence that this effect will be even more pronounced with LC/MF, as the body will be using fats for energy at a significantly higher rate, meaning circulating levels of β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB, a ketone byproduct of fat breakdown) will be higher on average.
BHB has been shown to suppress activation of one of the body’s primary pro-inflammatory pathways, known as the NLRP3 inflammasome. [2]
Our mitochondria are our cellular power plants, using ketones or glucose to produce ATP (which powers essentially everything the cell does).
As our mitochondria get healthier and more efficient, so too do countless downstream metabolic processes, and we typically experience the net effect of this as “having more energy”.
Using fats for energy (which the body will do more frequently with LC/MF) has been shown to increase mitochondrial efficiency relative to glucose metabolism, and increase the production of new mitochondria (mitochondrial biogenesis). [3]
The two biggest obstacles most people face in an effort to move towards a leaner body composition are (1) hunger and (2) metabolic inability to ‘burn’ body fat efficiently. LC/MF addresses both.
By stabilizing blood sugar and insulin levels, LC/MF significantly reduces the frequency and intensity of experiences of “hunger” (which, again, is just the brain’s hormonal response to a drop in blood sugar). When hunger isn’t skewing our decision-making process several times each day, it’s a world easier to make better decisions about when, what and how much we eat.
LC/MF also trains our body to burn fat more efficiently, and body fat will be used for energy at a higher rate if you choose to calorie-restrict in an effort to move towards a leaner body composition.
LC/MF prioritizes getting a diversity of indigestible fibers and starches in the diet, which is arguably the #1 key to building and maintaining a robust, healthy microbiome (which is the #1 key to improving gut health and digestion).
I mention this here because it comes in contrast to a ketogenic diet, which is often deficient in these valuable fibers and starches.
Autophagy is our cells’ primary process of recycling unneeded or degraded proteins and organelles. The greater the rate and frequency with which autophagy is running, the more likely our cells (and thus, the tissues and organs constituted by them) are to be healthy and live longer.
The primary mechanism for up-regulating autophagy? Time restricted eating, a core element of LC/MF. [4]
Less than 25% of daily calories come from carbohydrates
55-65% of daily calories come from healthy fats
10-20% of daily calories come from protein
Modified Intermittent Fasting for 15+ hours in every 24hr period
Very-Low or No-Carb before dinner
Occasional high carb days are OK! (but not more than 1 per week)
Macronutrient ratios (i.e. carbs-fats-proteins) are the core of LC/MF, and the whole thing only “works” when you consistently stay in the ranges outlined below.
Realistically, when you’re starting to eat this way, you’re going to need to weigh your foods (I use this pocket scale) and record them in a diet tracking app that calculates the macronutrients (like My Fitness Pal). Without this, you risk dramatically overshooting your targets and being left wondering why you’re not experiencing all those benefits mentioned in the sections above.
After a month or two of weighing your foods and seeing the macronutrients of each, you’ll gain a better intuitive sense of the macronutrients in the foods you’re eating, and need to weigh and record your foods less frequently. (This is made even easier when you use a Staple Meals approach to meal prep, as we’ll outline in the 4th installment in this series)
Less than 25% of daily calories come from carbohydrates.
The most important component of the Metabolic Flexibility diet is keeping daily carbohydrate intake at less than 25% of your total calories. That means:
For a 2000 calorie/day diet = Less than 125g carbs per day
2500 calories = Less than 156g carbs per day
3000 calories = Less than 187g carbs per day
55-65% of daily calories come from healthy fats.
Limiting carbohydrates alone won’t get you to Metabolic Flexibility and its benefits - it’s also necessary to get plenty of healthy, easily digestible fats in your diet to give your body fuel for fat-burning periods of the day.
Coconut oil, grass-fed butter, ghee, and ideally MCTs (like Ketobasis) are the best examples of clean, easily-utilized fats that get used for energy preferentially, rather than stored. A minimum of half of your fats in a given day should come from these sources.
For a 2000 calorie/day diet = 122-144g fats per day
2500 calories = 153-181g fats per day
3000 calories = 183-217g fats per day
10-20% of daily calories come from protein.
Protein supplies the building blocks for maintaining and building our muscles, an important process to support even if you don’t have aspirations of building muscle.
Muscle is the body’s primary consumer of fat stores, so even if your aim is to lose weight, supporting your lean mass is essential, and 10% of your daily calories from protein will be plenty for this. If you’re looking to add muscle, or you train intensely in any discipline, you’ll do best staying towards the upper end of this range.
For a 2000 calorie/day diet = 50-100g protein per day
2500 calories = 63-125g protein per day
3000 calories = 75-150g protein per day
The macronutrient ratios above are essentially an ordinary low-carbohydrate diet. So what makes this a Metabolic Flexibility diet? Time restricted eating, of course.
Time restricted eating is to intentionally eat only with a certain time window each day (and thus, fasting for the remainder of the 24 hour period).
When we’re sleeping we’re (hopefully) not eating, so this effectively amounts to tacking a short-ish fasting period onto each end of your daily time in bed.
These daily fasting periods serve several critical functions; giving your digestive system a pause, improving hydration and - most importantly - sending your body a strong signal to start utilizing stored glycogen and body fat for energy.
I promise this is much easier than it might look at first glance, and once you get used to it, it becomes hard to imagine not giving your body this break from food each day.
Modified Intermittent Fasting for 15+ hours in every 24hr period.
In my experience, 15 hours is the minimum daily fasting period that communicates to the body that it needs to start efficiently utilizing stored fat for energy. Something closer to 16-18 hours is probably the ideal, and what I do most days.
15 hours is easier than it might sound; this could mean finishing dinner at 8pm and then eating your first calories at 11am the day following.
The “modified” part of this protocol makes it even easier to adhere to. Consuming a few hundred calories of easily digested fats like ghee, coconut oil and MCTs doesn’t meaningfully disrupt the metabolic signal-sending we’re after, but it does make the fasting period more pleasurable.
I usually do this via my late-morning matcha lattes.
4oz Almond Milk
6oz Boiling Water
2tsp (3g) Matcha Powder
2 Scoops (10g) Ketobasis MCTs
1Tbsp (13g) Grass Fed Ghee
Directions: Add contents to a jar or blender, shake/blend. Enjoy.
That’s 23g/207cal of clean, easily utilized fats that keep my energy levels up and my brain sharp for the duration of the modified fasting period (and it’s considerably yummier than any cafe-bought matcha latte I’ve ever had).
As you finish your modified fasting period, your body will be deriving a significant portion of its metabolic energy from fats, which is exactly what we’re aiming for.
The foods you chose to eat at the conclusion of your fasting period are crucial, as they can either continue to support this process or end it prematurely. Ideally, anything you eat between this point and dinner should have as few carbohydrates as possible.
A salad or roasted green vegetables accompanied by some form of clean protein is a good afternoon meal that fits these criteria. Our upcoming articles on The Staple Meals Philosophy will have dozens more ideas that can also be built to have next-to-no carbohydrates.
I personally have a shake (Genesis + Ketobasis in homemade almond milk) as my mid-afternoon ‘meal”, but I’m well aware this is not for everyone. :)
We’re all human, and in my experience, it’s psychologically valuable to diverge from our patterns on occasion.
Thankfully, the LC/MF diet allows for this.
Having a day every now and then when you eat way more carbs than the diet typically allows won’t undo the work you’ve done to adapt to this way of eating, or the health benefits it’s bestowed.
Your fasting period the following day might not feel quite as smooth as usual as your blood sugar and hormone levels re-stabilize, but none of the core metabolic adaptations you’ve worked for will be meaningfully diminished.
For most people, LC/MF will be fairly different from their previous ways of eating, and the body will need a bit of time to adapt, particularly in balancing blood sugar levels and building the metabolic pathways needed to utilize fat for energy efficiently.
This adaptation time will be different for everyone, but it generally falls somewhere in the range of 3 to 8 weeks before it “clicks” such that the benefits are obvious. I highly recommend being diligent about adhering to your macronutrient targets and modified fasting periods during the first 4 or 6 weeks, as it’s easy to throw the whole project off course and never get to the point where you’re reaping the rewards of your efforts (this means no high-carb days until at least your 5th week).
References
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2011.48
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3804
[3] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnmol.2017.00377/full
[4] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.4161/auto.6.6.12376
]]>Everyone knows that proper hydration is important, but what exactly does that mean? Hydration seems so simple on the surface as to be not worth talking about, but the reality is most of us leave a huge amount of potential benefit on the table by not hydrating intelligently.
]]>This series is a distillation of our decades of researching, experimenting and generally obsessing over the question:
What is the ideal way to nourish a human body if the aim is to slow the progression of biological aging?
Everyone knows that proper hydration is important, but what exactly does that mean? Hydration seems so simple on the surface as to be not worth talking about, but the reality is most of us leave a huge amount of potential benefit on the table by not hydrating intelligently.
Here are the three most common mistakes:
Fixing these mistakes is easy, particularly relative to the improvements in wellbeing they generate. I’ll get into the details in the implementation section below, but as usual, I’ll present the benefits first.
Improved Cognitive Function
Healthier, Better Looking Skin
Improved Toxin Elimination (and thus, decreased inflammation)
Improved Gut Health + Digestion
Avoiding Chlorine, Fluoride And Other Contaminants
Dehydration Resistance
To state the obvious: you quite literally can’t live without water. Up to 60% of the human body is composed of water. This pervasiveness makes water an easy leverage point for dramatically improving your health and well-being.
Unfortunately, ideal hydration can be a bit tricky. I’d love to tell you that tap water is fine, but that’s simply not the case—water sample tests have shown tap water to be contaminated with chlorine, fluoride (more on this one below), heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, and other health-sapping toxins. Most bottled water is no good either, as the cheap plastic bottles have been shown to leach endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
I assure you that efforts to address these issues are absolutely worth it. Here are just a few of the changes you’ll enjoy after switching to drinking ideal volumes of pure, mineral-rich water.
Research has demonstrated that being dehydrated by only 2% of body weight impairs cognitive performance and dampens subjective mood.[1] A state of ideal hydration keeps the brain’s detoxification mechanisms running smoothly, which lessens neurological inflammation and decreases the risk of neurodegenerative disease.[2]
While a lot goes into having bright, youthful skin, staying hydrated is a critical factor. If the body is even slightly dehydrated, it will pull water from the skin in order to ensure the vital organs stay hydrated. The more hydrated you are, the brighter, healthier, and softer your skin will tend to look.
Because the body needs water to move and expel toxins (via lymphatic fluid, sweating, urination, etc.), detoxification is inextricably tied to proper hydration. When we’re less than ideally hydrated, detoxification systems slow and toxins accumulate. As oxidative toxins are the primary driver of inflammation in the body, proper hydration helps minimize the havoc they wreak there.
Good luck having regular, complete bowel movements if you’re under-hydrated. If you’re not adequately hydrated, your body is going to shuttle available water to your essential organs, and your GI tract is not at the top of this list. Peristalsis (movements of the intestines) slow, and you’re heading towards constipation.
In most parts of the country, tap water is treated with chlorine, chloramine, and fluoride. All of these are antibacterial and (surprise) seriously harmful to the gut bacteria we depend on for digestion, immune health and so much more. [3]
As mentioned above, essentially all municipal water in the US is treated with chlorine/chloramine and fluoride. Analyses of tap water almost always show trace levels of heavy metals too, which can accumulate in the body over years, eventually to problematic levels.
All of these contaminants have been shown to negatively impact gut flora [3] and disrupt endocrine (hormonal) function.[4]
Even marginal dehydration wrecks mental function and energy levels, so spending as little time there as possible is a priority. The protocol below is designed to maintain a "hydration buffer", so-to-speak, such that we don't dip into a state of dehydration if we're in a hot/dry climate or forget to drink water for some period.
Drink Only Spring Water, Reverse Osmosis, or Berkey Filtered Water
Drink 0.6-1oz Water Per Pound Of Body Weight, Per Day
Re-Mineralize Your Filtered Water
Drink Warm Water First Thing In The Morning
This part takes a bit of effort to get right. Passive home filtration products (e.g. filters from Brita, Pur, Aquasana, Culligan, etc.) are mostly a waste of time and money, as they will not remove chlorine, fluoride, or pharmaceuticals.
Reverse osmosis (RO) and Berkey filters are the best options for filtering tap water. Either system can be purchased for a few hundred dollars, and most natural food stores offer bulk filling stations with RO water. Alternatively, if you’re lucky enough to have access to a clean natural spring and you’re willing to invest the time to collect it regularly, that’s another great option for sourcing clean, mineral-rich water. You can see if there are any clean springs near you via findaspring.com.
In my experience, most people’s intuitive sense of how much water they should be drinking is WAY less than the volume that’s ideal.
A good heuristic for determining how much water to drink is:
0.6-1oz of water per pound of body weight, in any 24 hour period
Where you should aim within this range depends on the climate where you live, and your activity level. If it’s hot and/or dry and/or you’re active, you want to be in the upper end of that range. If it’s very hot and dry and you’re very active (as is the case for me, living in the desert), more than 1oz per day could be appropriate.
In the longer-term, the goal should be to learn what it feels like to be hydrated to this level, and then stay that way. Measuring and tracking can be useful when you’re adapting to this level of water intake, though, as your initial intuitions are likely to be poorly calibrated.
It’s pretty (ok, extremely) difficult to overhydrate if you’re drinking well-mineralized water, so that thankfully need not be a concern with this protocol. (Drinking even moderate amounts of mineral-devoid water, however, can create electrolyte- and mineral-deficiency issues over time, hence the importance of the next section...)
Oh, and a final note here: beverages that contain sugar (or fake sugar) and/or caffeine sadly DON’T count. Sure, they technically are mostly water by volume, but sugar and caffeine both act as a diuretic, meaning they’re functionally net-dehydrating (my apologies, soda lovers).
A good filtration system like RO or Berkey removes contaminants from your water, but it also removes any beneficial minerals and electrolytes. So while this water is very clean, it’s also essentially “empty”, which means it’s still not perfect water.
(It feels like there’s some metaphor to be drawn from the fact that something so fundamental and simple as drinking clean water has been made so complicated in our modern world, but I digress...)
Mineral-devoid filtered water can actually pull minerals from the body over time, potentially creating a deficiency or worsening an existing one. More importantly, at least in the near term, this “empty” water is also absorbed poorly by the body, making ideal hydration nearly impossible.
There are a number of remineralizing products out there, but none of them provided the perfect balance of electrolytes we wanted, nor did any of them taste particularly great. So, we did what we always do in these situations: we created our own.
Adding 30-40 drops of Hydros Trace Mineral + Electrolyte Drops to a liter of filtered water turns it into mineral- and electrolyte-rich water that absorbs perfectly and tastes like imported mineral water.
Get this fun trivia fact: The average person loses about 1 liter of water every night during sleep due to normal respiration and perspiration. That’s 2.2 pounds or water! If you live somewhere particularly dry, that can easily be 1.5 liters or more.
Given this, we’re essentially guaranteed to be dehydrated when we wake up each morning - so replacing this lost liter (~34oz), at minimum, should happen before anything else goes in your body (yes, that includes coffee).
Fully rehydrating first thing in the morning brings all of our body’s systems fully back online, but you’ll probably notice the most benefit in your brain function and digestion. I’ve found these systems suffer the most if they’re “called into action” before they’re fully rehydrated (which is why it’s SO important that the body is rehydrated before eating or drinking anything else).
I highly recommend following the millennia-old Ayurvedic practice of drinking warm water in the morning. I started doing this in recent years, and (predictably) it has been life-altering. My experience matches what Ayurveda promises will happen - the GI tract is stimulated and the body rehydrates more quickly than if drinking the same volume of cold or room temperature water.
I’ve found 40% boiling water mixed with 60% room temperature water (purified and remineralized, of course) to be the perfect ratio for this.
References:
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22855911/
]]>Using foods to legitimately transform the way your body feels and your brain performs is 100% possible, but for this to happen, eating according to these principles has to be an all-day, every day (or nearly every day) practice.
]]>This series is a distillation of our decades of researching, experimenting and generally obsessing over the question:
What is the ideal way to nourish a human body if the aim is to slow the progression of biological aging?
The strategies in this Seven Principles series are of limited value if the meals you're eating only occasionally follow the principles.
Using foods to legitimately transform the way your body feels and your brain performs is 100% possible, but for this to happen, eating according to these principles has to be an all-day, every day (or nearly every day) practice.
That being said, we’re definitely aware that this Seven Principles series contains a LOT of information.
If we had to consider each of these principles every time we wanted to prepare a meal, we realistically wouldn’t adhere to them ourselves most of the time.
Thankfully, we don't have to consider these principles with every meal. Using this Staple Meals approach, all of this obsessing is done way ahead of time and the meals are guaranteed to adhere to the Seven Principles.
Preparing a nutritionally amazing meal doesn’t get much easier than this.
Following the steps outlined below, you’ll have a delicious, nutrient-dense meal that’s essentially guaranteed to be free of toxins and common allergens (and generally in under 20 minutes prep time).
Depending on the macronutrient ratio you’re aiming for, it’s easy to make your meal low- or (virtually) no-carb by excluding the starchy toppings like roasted root vegetables.
Each of the “bases” listed below has its own post, complete with prep instructions and recipes for some particularly pretty bowls we’ve made recently. Clicking on the links to these "base" recipe posts is a great place to start.
Oven Roasted Green Veggies (recipe post here)
Cauliflower Rice (recipe post here)
Salad Greens (mixed field greens, baby spinach, kale, dandelion greens, and arugula are our favorites. Much more flavor than lettuce!) (recipe post here)
Free-Range Organic Eggs (7 minute, hard boiled, scrambled, fried, poached)
Roasted Vegetables - sweet potato, parsnip, squash, zucchini (recipe here)
Tofu
Tempeh
Avocado
Raw Veggies/Herbs (cilantro, avocado, salad greens, basil, purple cabbage)
Nuts + Seeds (almonds, cashews, pistachios, hemp seeds, chia seeds, sesame seeds)
Violife Vegan Feta
Beyond Sausages
Staple Meals Guide:
3 Bases, Endless Possibilities
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Microbiologists admit that they're only at the beginning of understanding the relationship between our body/brain and our microbiome, Still, this much is clear: The health of our gut flora is really important to the health of our bodies and brains.
]]>This series is a distillation of our decades of researching, experimenting and generally obsessing over the question:
What is the ideal way to nourish a human body if the aim is to slow the progression of biological aging?
When was the last time you took a course of antibiotics?
If it was inside the last 5 years and you didn’t take well-informed measures to rebuild your gut bacteria afterwards, odds are your bacteria are still out of balance and your health is less than what it could be as a result.
Even if you’ve been fortunate (and smart?) enough to avoid antibiotics entirely, our modern diet and lifestyle are such that your gut flora are still likely a long way from optimally healthy.
Given the rate at which microbiologists are discovering new ways that the bacteria in our gut impact our health - physiological, mental and emotional - it would not surprise me in the least if this principle becomes the clear, stand-alone Principle #1 in five or ten years.
This is wild to consider given that, just a few decades ago, microbiologists regarded the bacteria in our gut (known as our gut “microbiome”) as little more than food digesters.
Now we know these bacteria are in constant communication with our immune, endocrine and nervous systems - and ideal functioning of these systems is impossible if our microbiome is unhealthy.
Microbiologists readily admit that they're only at the very beginning of understanding the relationship between our body/brain and our gut microbiome, and we’re virtually assured of discovering even deeper levels of interconnection in the years ahead.
Still even with our limited knowledge of these relationships, this much is absolutely clear: The health of our gut flora is really important to the health of our bodies and brains.
Stronger, More Resilient Immune System
Improved Digestion + Nutrient Absorption
Balanced Hunger + Appetite
Leaner Body Composition
Improved Insulin Sensitivity
Improved Mood + Cognitive Function
The ways in which immune function is intertwined with gut flora health are wildly complex. What’s clear, though, is that our body’s immune systems interact constantly with our gut and skin microbiota, and that this relationship begins at the very beginning of life.
The exact mechanisms remain unclear, but microbiologists now believe that our gut and skin flora essentially “train” our body’s immune cells to better recognize which viruses and bacteria are genuine threats and which are not.
Looking more holistically at immunity, our gut and skin flora effectively act as our immune system’s “first line of defense”, eliminating pathogenic bacteria and viruses before they have the opportunity to enter the body and potentially create systemic infection. Estimates are that gut and skin flora account for something on the order of 80% of our holistic immune protection. [1]
To illustrate this point, research has shown that unhealthy/unbalanced gut flora is correlated with greater susceptibility to infectious disease, autoimmune disease, and a number of other chronic conditions. [2]
Gut bacteria carry out the critical task of converting indigestible fibers and starches from our foods into a wealth of critical nutrients, including short-chain fatty acids (which serve as high-quality fuel for the brain) and multiple vitamins (particularly B and K vitamins).[3] This means that when you feed and nourish your gut flora, they’ll quite literally do the same for you.
It's an unfortunate quirk of the human body that our experience of “hunger” is rarely coincident with the body actually needing fuel or nutrients. If this was the case, there would be a LOT less obesity in the world. Rather, hunger is largely the product of certain hormones circulating in elevated levels, ghrelin (aka the hunger hormone) being the main driver.
Research has shown that the frequency and magnitude of ghrelin release are influenced greatly by the bacteria in our gut. When our gut flora are unhealthy/imbalanced, ghrelin levels can become further decoupled from our body’s need for food, and we end up eating more (and more frequently) than is healthy. Building a healthy gut microbiome reliably balances ghrelin secretion and brings hunger under control. [4]
The connection between ghrelin/hunger and body composition is fairly obvious, but our gut flora also influence the body’s energy storage pathways in other, even more direct ways.
Regulation of insulin - our body’s primary hormone for directing fat/carb storage - also appears to be influenced by the health of our gut flora. In one particularly dramatic study, mice with type 2 diabetes (and thus, very poor insulin sensitivity) received fecal microbiota transplants from healthy mice, upon which, their insulin sensitivity was significantly improved.[5]
The impact of ghrelin, insulin, and associated downstream hormones on body composition is difficult to overstate, and the health of our gut flora is inextricably tied to the proper functioning of these hormones. [6] [7]
Research has demonstrated a dramatic correlation between gut flora imbalance and clinical depression, chronic fatigue, and other mood disorders. The connection is unsurprising, as these disruptions of our mood and energy levels are natural downstream effects of a disrupted endocrine or immune system. Both of these systems are intimately intertwined with gut flora health (as described above).
It's far from intuitive, but research supports the idea that building a healthy gut microbiome is one of the most powerful “levers” we have to pull for improving emotional wellbeing + stability. [8][9]
Every year, we learn a bit more the workings of the “gut-brain axis", the name given to the pathways through which the gut and brain communicate. What’s most notable is that the communication goes both ways—that is, the gut is equally capable of sending neuroendocrine signals to the brain. Studies in the past ten years have demonstrated that gut flora participate directly in the modulation of the peripheral and central nervous systems, and thus that gut dysbiosis can hamper cognitive function and contribute to neurodegenerative diseases.[10]
Supplement With The Right PRObiotic
Eat A Diversity Of PREbiotic Fibers And Starches
Don’t Take Antibiotics (unless absolutely necessary)
Avoid Non-Organic Foods
It’s interesting to consider why it’s necessary for us to consume bacteria to maintain a healthy gut microbiome. The full answer to this question is complex (and still largely beyond scientific understanding), but the simplified answer is that our digestive system evolved getting regular exposure to bacteria, via the largely-unwashed foods our hominid forebears ate until very recently, historically speaking. Now, as we wash the dirt and bacteria from our fruits and vegetables (to our great benefit in many other ways), we need to consume beneficial bacteria (i.e. probiotics) intentionally to replicate the bacterial exposure of our ancestral past.
Also interesting is that probiotics don’t necessarily work the way you might think they would. Counterintuitively, the bacterial species in the supplements we take generally don’t themselves colonize the gut. Rather, they stimulate the beneficial bacteria that are already in your gut, which become more resilient and reproduce at a faster rate (thus outcompeting harmful species like yeasts) in response to this stimulus.
Choosing a probiotic supplement capable of exerting this effect is an unfortunately complicated undertaking. Most probiotic supplements on the market today (and essentially every product available at the grocery store) are comprised of genetically-weak bacterial species grown on a sugar medium. These probiotics reliably die in the acidity of the stomach and never reach the small intestine (where they would exert their beneficial stimulatory effect).
A new generation of probiotics attempts to address this failing by developing growing conditions in the laboratory that closely mimic the soil environments where our hominid ancestors would have plucked their food (and their “probiotic” bacteria) from. These new “spore-form” probiotics are a world more resilient and have been shown to survive the acidity of the stomach and reach the small intestine intact.
In 2017 we partnered with Microbiome Labs - one of the few labs with the equipment and technical know-how to produce spore-form probiotics - to develop a new spore-form formula with an explicit focus on improving digestion and immune function. That formula is Micro•Bios | Medical Grade Spore-Form Probiotic.
As important as probiotics are, most microbiologists (and this humble author) would argue that the research points to PREbiotics being even more essential for the health of your gut flora.
Prebiotics are the indigestible fibers and starches in our foods that we’re not able to make use of directly, but our beneficial gut bacteria consume as their preferred nutrient source. When our diet contains an abundance and diversity of prebiotics, beneficial bacteria tend to thrive. Conversely, when our diet is deficient in these indigestible fibers and starches, beneficial bacteria starve and can be outcompeted by harmful species (like sugar-loving yeasts).
There are three primary categories of prebiotics; resistant starches, soluble fibers, and insoluble fibers - and consuming each of these daily will yield the best results for your flora.
Resistant Starch Foods - green plantains, jerusalem artichokes, and sushi rice (realistically, resistant starch is most easily consumed via a prebiotic supplement)
Soluble Fiber Foods - squash, potatoes, carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, turnips, parsnips, plantains, taro, and yucca
Insoluble Fibers Foods - leafy greens, bell peppers, celery, eggplant, cabbage, bok choi, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower
If getting each of these types of prebiotic fibers and starches in your diet each day seems like a big task, you’re not alone. I always try to include foods from the lists above in my meals, but realistically, it’s not going to happen every day, and certainly not in ideal levels. To ensure I have my prebiotic bases covered, I take Pre•Bios | Prebiotic Digestive Support + Cleanse before dinner each day, via which I get a complete set of prebiotic fibers and starches.
If you take our society as a whole, the use of antibiotics is unquestionably the most direct and egregious contributing factor to unhealthy gut flora. Antibiotics do not distinguish between good and bad bacterial species—taking a course of antibiotics is equivalent to dropping an atomic bomb on your microbiome. Killing off beneficial bacteria kicks off a vicious cycle, in which your digestion is compromised, your immune system suffers and your body becomes increasingly vulnerable to harmful bacteria and viruses.
Obviously, there are cases where antibiotics are absolutely necessary, but taking them is a decision that shouldn’t be made lightly. Ask your doctor (or dentist) lots of questions before accepting a prescription. Are antibiotics really necessary in this particular situation? Are they (uselessly) being prescribed to fight a viral or fungal infection? Are they being used as a preventative measure against infection, when the actual risk of this is very low? Do the benefits outweigh the adverse effects on gut flora? If you do need to take antibiotics, it’s even more crucial that you implement the rest of these practices in the following weeks and months. After a course of antibiotics, research suggests it can be helpful to take Saccharomyces boulardii, a beneficial probiotic yeast that will outcompete Candida and other fungal parasites.[11]
Non-organic produce is frequently sprayed with pesticides and herbicides (like glyphosate, aka RoundUp), which have been shown to disrupt gut flora. [12] Generally only trace amounts of these contaminants are present in produce, but they tend to accumulate in the body and their impact on gut flora is compounded over time.
Large-scale-produced meats (including organic meats) and farmed fish present even more issues. The grains these animals are fed are generally of low-quality and contain significantly more pesticide and herbicide residues. Just as these pesticides and herbicides accumulate in our own bodies, so too do they accumulate in the tissues of these animals, meaning that meats often contain contaminants in significant levels. [13]
Large-scale-produced meats and farmed fish present an additional concern as they’re almost always given antibiotics throughout their life, and residues of these remain when they make it to your dinner table.
If meats are part of your diet, try to seek out local, grass-fed, organic meats - ideally from a source where you have a chance to learn more about their animal husbandry practices. There may be some farmed fish out there that use exclusively organic feed and don’t use antibiotics, but I haven’t found one that meets these standards. Until this exists, wild-caught fish are the safest option.
References:
[1] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7351/abs/nature10213.html
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6733864/
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3601187/
[4] https://www.nature.com/articles/4441009a
[5] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2019.00455/full
[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5082693/
[7] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5867888/
[8] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24888394/
[9] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6302292/
[10] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2019.00170/full
[11] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3296087/
[12] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0892036218300254
[13] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00003-014-0927-3
]]>
This series is a distillation of our decades of researching, experimenting and generally obsessing over the question:
What is the ideal way to nourish a human body if the aim is to slow the progression of biological aging?
In previous installments of THE SEVEN, we spent a few thousand words discussing what to eat and what not to eat, but there’s another variable to consider here. Perhaps just as important is the consideration of when to (and when not to) eat.
I’m referring, of course, to time-restricted eating (aka fasting) - the practice of abstaining from eating for periods ranging anywhere from 14 hours to several weeks.
The list below of beneficial processes stimulated by time-restricted eating speaks for itself - this is unquestionably one of the most powerful tools we have for promoting health in the body and brain, and slowing the march of biological aging.
Interestingly, when you look at the underlying metabolic mechanisms behind these benefits, many of these are stimulated exclusively (or almost exclusively) by fasting.
In light of this, I think there’s a case to be made that fasting is something we’re “designed” (by millions of years of evolutionary forces) to be doing - and true health simply can’t be fully realized without it.
Enhanced Cellular Cleansing (aka Autophagy)
Improved Brain Health/Cognition
Slowing/Reversing Markers Of Aging
Improved Body Composition
Cancer Prevention
Digestive Reset
Here’s a general outline of how our cells age:
When cells are young, they generally carry out their functions efficiently, owing in part to an absence of waste matter in the cell.
As time goes on, proteins in the cell are inevitably damaged (or not produced correctly to start with). New proteins are produced in their place and life goes on, but these damaged proteins are effectively waste matter, left floating uselessly around the cell, waiting to get in the way of something important.
As more and more waste matter accumulates in the cell, it becomes less and less efficient and “ages”. When you get a bunch of these waste-filled, inefficient cells in a given tissue or organ, that tissue/organ becomes inefficient and “ages” as well.
Thankfully, this need not be a one-way process, as our cells do have a tool for clearing out this waste and slowing/reversing aging.
That process is autophagy, in which organelles in the cell called lysosomes degrade and then recycle unneeded or dysfunctional proteins.
So what’s the strongest signal we can send our cells to upregulate autophagy and reverse aging? Time-restricted eating of course. [1]
There are a set of metabolic processes neurologists will tell you are essential for maintaining a healthy, high-performing brain, and fasting - remarkably - stimulates essentially all of these.
Fasting increases circulating levels of several neurotrophic factors, biomolecules that support the growth, survival, and differentiation of neurons. The result is enhanced network plasticity (critical for learning), increased stress resilience and increased mitochondria (i.e. increased cognitive energy).
Fasting also reduces oxidative stress (and thus, inflammation) in the brain both by stimulating the removal of damaged molecules and stimulating the production of endogenous antioxidants. [2] All of these translate to meaningful improvements in brain performance.
Fasting has also been shown to reduce the neuronal dysfunction that results from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other neurodegenerative diseases. [3]
A common way biochemists define aging is as “the slow accumulation of dysfunctional proteins and organelles in our cells” - a process that leads eventually to cell dysfunction and/or death.
Because it powerfully stimulates autophagy, fasting can dramatically slow or reverse this process, stimulating cells to “clean house” and preventing the dysfunction that can lead to disease (including cancer). [4]
Fasting increases insulin sensitivity and adiponectin levels, two key hormonal factors that determine if stored body fat gets oxidized (used for energy) as well as if incoming caloric energy gets used immediately or stored (as fat) for future use. [5][6]
These hormonal changes persist well after a fast is completed. So while the calorie deficit you run on fasting days will improve body composition a bit, these hormonal changes will be the force that more substantially improves body composition over days and weeks.
Talk to most anyone involved in research around calorie restriction or fasting and they’ll tell you these are tragically underused tools in the cancer-treatment toolkit.
Fasting has been shown to be comparable in efficacy to chemotherapy in delaying the growth of certain types of tumors. [7][8] Think about that: fasting is comparable in efficacy to the unbelievably toxic chemical soup that works by (hopefully) killing cancerous cells ever-so-slightly faster than it kills the recipient. Why is fasting not more used in oncology?
At a minimum, a fasting protocol should be used in addition to chemotherapy, as it has also been shown to preferentially protect non-cancerous cells from chemo drugs. [9]
Allowing the GI tract to rest during fasting periods allows for a sort of digestive reset, which reduces intestinal inflammation, improves motility (the contraction of GI muscles during digestion), optimizes nutrient absorption, and ensures bowel movement quality and regularity. [10] This is likely to be the benefit you experience most noticeably when doing daily intermittent fasting.
Studies have also shown that fasting can improve the resilience of gut microbiota,[11] reduce populations of harmful bacteria, [12] and even increase bacterial species that promote lipolysis (fat burning). [13]
[Every Day] 14-18 Hour (Modified) Intermittent Fasting
[Every 1-3 Weeks] A 24-30 Hour (Modified) Fast
[2-4 Times/Year] 72 Hour Fast
Daily intermittent fasts are simple and, likely, way easier to do than you might be thinking (particularly when using the modification practices described below).
Here’s how intermittent fasting works:
When we’re sleeping we’re (hopefully) not eating. So there’s a 7-8 hour fast without even trying. Turning this into a proper intermittent fast is simply finding the easiest way to tack a few hours onto each end of your sleep.
Research shows that sleep quality is a world better when we finish eating a minimum of 3 hours before bedtime (yes, that includes snacking), so if we adhere to that, we’re already at 11 hours. Now you just have 3 hours after waking up before eating your first meal, and - voila - you’re at 14 hours.
Most of the resistance you’ll encounter tends to be psychological habituation - your brain is likely accustomed to getting mouth pleasure (aka breakfast) within a couple of hours of waking, and this addiction might take a week or so to re-pattern.
Making sure you fully rehydrate in the first hour after waking will do a lot to get you past this resistance point (you can find hydration best practices here). So too will caffeine, which suppresses hunger and - thankfully - doesn’t disrupt the beneficial metabolic processes we’re aiming to set in motion (sans milk or sugar, of course).
14 hours is the minimum for most people to see any level of beneficial metabolic effects, but ideally, we should be aiming for a daily fasting period in the 16-18 hour range, where autophagy tends to be more meaningfully upregulated.
This is where the “modified” part of this protocol comes in to make things a lot more manageable:
Consuming a few hundred calories of easily digested fats like ghee, coconut oil, and (ideally) MCTs doesn’t significantly disrupt the metabolic signal-sending we’re after, but it does make the fasting period more pleasurable.
I usually do this via my late-morning matcha lattes.
4oz Almond Milk
6oz Boiling Water
2tsp (3g) Matcha Powder
2 Scoops (10g) Ketobasis MCTs
1Tbsp (13g) Grass Fed Ghee
Directions: Add contents to a jar or blender, shake/blend. Enjoy.
That’s 23g/207cal of clean, easily utilized fats that keep my energy levels up and my brain sharp for the duration of the modified fasting period (and it’s considerably yummier than any cafe-bought matcha latte I’ve ever had).
Autophagy is not an on/off proposition - the level of cellular cleansing (and all the health benefits that come with it) can vary greatly depending on the strength and duration of the signal we send our cells.
There is good evidence that sending a stronger signal delivers benefits that more frequent, weaker signals do not, even in the cumulative. This is where 24 hour fasts come in.
Researchers measure the level of autophagy by counting the number of autophagosomes (the cellular organelles that handle protein degradation), and have found that this number increases by 300% after 24 hours of fasting, and an additional 30% after 48 hours of fasting. [14]
Based on this and related research, the 24-36 hour range seems to be the sweet spot where we get the greatest benefit per hour invested.
Getting to the 24 hour mark is easier than you might think, particularly if you've been doing modified intermittent fasting for a few weeks and are comfortable fasting for 16-18 hours.
A modified 24 hour fast follows the same formula as the modified 14-18 hour fast described above. Hydration is key, caffeine helps a ton, and consuming a bit of MCTs or other easily-digested fats makes things a lot more comfortable.
(I'd avoid eating more than 400 calories of fat throughout your fasting period, as more than this risks engaging the digestive tract and disrupting some of the beneficial processes you've set in motion)
A note: I set the recommended interval for 24-hour fasting at once every 1-3 weeks, but I'll admit this is mostly to make it seem less intimidating. I personally do a 24-30 hour fast once each week, and I believe this to be the ideal interval. That being said, doing a 24 hour fast once every 3 weeks delivers infinitely more benefit than not doing it at all - so start with the interval you're confident you'll actually do.
I'm definitely aware that multi-day fasts are intimidating and probably not for everyone.
Still, multi-day fasts have been shown to deliver a qualitatively unique set of benefits, so they clearly deserved a section of their own.
I do two multi-day fasts each year, on average, and they're among the most significant and transformative days of my year. You learn a LOT about your relationship to food when you go without for a few days.
I won't say multi-day fasts are "fun", but I always value the experience highly. My stress resilience tends to drop during these longer fasts, and I definitely recommend doing these at a time when you can rest, relax and largely avoid the typical stresses of your life.
As far as the implementation, I modify the first fasting day (same as described in the sections above) to make the transition a bit smoother, but days two and three are truly zero calorie - nothing goes in my body other than water and tea.
I've done a couple multi-day fasts without caffeine, and these, not coincidentally, were the least fun fasts I've done. Caffeine is an appetite suppressant, which obviously helps. But really, this is more about not adding the stress and discomfort of caffeine withdrawal on top of the challenges that are inherent to multi-day fasting. Caffeine doesn't significantly disrupt the beneficial metabolic processes we're setting in motion, and studies have shown it may even accelerate autophagy.
You might have noticed some overlap in the recommendations in this article with those in the second installment of this series, [THE SEVEN] 2. Low-Carbohydrate, Metabolic-Flexibility Diet.
That's because these two principles work in synergy - the LCMF diet makes fasting a world easier because the body is metabolically ready to use whatever energy source is available, including our body's stores of glycogen and fat in adipose tissue (which the body will be using for energy almost exclusively during a fast).
References:
[1] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.4161/auto.6.6.12376
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23168220
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17306982
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3946160/
[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6358975/
[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3946160/
[7] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12016155
[8] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3608686/
[9] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18378900
[10] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6128599/
[11] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6924599/
[12] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590097819300035
[13] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22972297/
[14] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.4161/auto.6.6.12376
]]>
Even if you perfectly adhere to every other practice in this series you'll inevitably still be left with some nutritional gaps that leave you shy of what would be considered "optimal" nutritional status. This vitamin and mineral supplementation protocol aims to fill those gaps.
]]>This series is a distillation of our decades of researching, experimenting and generally obsessing over the question:
What is the ideal way to nourish a human body if the aim is to slow the progression of biological aging?
We've made it to the last installment of The Seven, and while the articles in this series aren't necessarily ordered according to any particular hierarchy, I did intentionally choose the supplementation article to be the final installment.
Why? Because even if you perfectly adhere to every other practice in this series - eating nutrient-dense foods, nurturing your microbiome, etc - you'll inevitably still be left with some nutritional gaps that leave you shy of what would be considered "optimal" nutritional status.
This vitamin and mineral supplementation protocol aims to fill those gaps.
How can it be that eating nutrient-rich, whole foods every day can still leave us with gaps in our nutrition? Well, some of the contributing factors are new to modernity and some are as old as our species.
It sounds trite to say it, but the foods produced by our modern large-scale supply chains are not at all the same as those our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate. Analysis shows that modern foods are not nearly as nutritious as those that grow in the wild, and that's largely because of the soil these foods are grown in.
Minerals have been stripped from our soils by years of farming the same plots of earth over and over. Farmers are able to add NPK (nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium) fertilizer to depleted soil and yield big beautiful plants, but these plants will not contain all the minerals they would have absorbed growing in truly wild, nutrient-rich soil.
Organic farming practices are a lot better for returning nutrients to the soil, and a number of studies have shown organic produce to frequently be more nutritious than the non-organic equivalent. But farming itself is the core issue here, and even the best organic soil practices are going to yield foods that are significantly less nutrient-rich than those grown in the wild.
There was likely never a point in human history, or animal history for that matter, where an individual was perfectly nourished in every way. The reality is "optimally nourished" is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve via foods alone (even if those foods are wild-harvested).
That being said, I think it is possible to get adequate levels of every essential nutrient via foods alone - but even this is still extremely difficult to do and studies have repeatedly shown that very few of us actually achieve this. Even if we were only looking at addressing deficiency, nearly all of us would benefit from supplementation. But as you might sense, the practices outlined below are aiming for a distinctly higher bar.
Deficiency, in this context, means that one or more essential vitamins or minerals are present in levels inadequate to support baseline metabolic function. For some nutrients, the adequate/non-deficient level effectively is the optimal level. That is to say, there's not really anything to be gained by consuming more of the nutrient than is needed to address a deficiency.
For other nutrients though, including many on the recommendations list below, there is quite a lot to be gained from consuming these nutrients in levels higher than those required to address a deficiency. Consuming higher levels of certain nutrients can help the body build greater metabolic resilience, resistance to disease and mental/physiological performance. This is what most of the recommendations in the section below are intended to realize.
Unhindered Metabolic And Endocrine Function
This "benefits" section perplexed me for a while. How does one go about framing the benefits of a practice that touches - literally - every single process in the human body?
Some of the nutrient-specific benefits are described in the implementation section below, but even these lists are far from comprehensive. When a nutrient is essential for hundreds of metabolic processes, the list of "benefits" from addressing a deficiency tends to be pretty long.
So after some deliberation, I couldn't think of a better way to summarize the positive impacts of this practice than this:
Our metabolic and endocrine processes are the biochemical ground on which everything we care about, biologically-speaking, stands. Well-informed supplementation allows these processes to function efficiently and without impediment.
Vitamin A (as retinol or vegan beta-carotene) - 2000-4000mcg/day
Vitamin D3 - 5000IU/day
Vitamin K (as MK7) - 50-100mcg/day
Vitamin B12 (as methylcobalamin) - 3000-5000mcg/day
Vitamin B9 (as folinic acid) - 800mcg/day
Vitamin C (as buffered ascorbic acid) - 1g/day
Copper (as chelated copper) - 2mg/day
Selenium - 200mcg/day
Iodine (as kelp powder) - 200-300mcg/day
Lithium (as lithium oroate) - 5-10mg/day
Magnesium (as chelated magnesium) - 500-800mg/day
Omega 3 (as EPA and DHA...via fish oil or vegan algae) - 1g/day
Creatine Monohydrate - 5g/day
Looking at the (admittedly lengthy) list of vitamins and minerals above, you might be thinking “why can’t I just take a multivitamin?”
Unfortunately, even the best and most expensive multivitamins will not use the ideal bioavailable forms I’ve listed for each of these vitamins and minerals (generally, due to cost) - and they certainly won’t all be in the dosages I’ve recommended (both a cost and space consideration).
Fat soluble vitamins and essential fatty acids need to come in oil form to be absorbed and utilized, not in powder form as you see in almost every multivitamin. B12 is best absorbed sublingually. 800mg of magnesium and 1000g of vitamin C are not going to fit into a multivitamin...
These are just a few of the dozens of reasons I could cite that even the best multivitamins aren’t going to deliver the same quality of nutrients as taking them individually.
It could be the case that your serum levels of some of these nutrients are already towards the upper end of the “optimal” range and supplementing with those particular vitamins or minerals isn’t going to do a lot for you.
The only way to know this, of course, is to get blood tested regularly - once every 3-4 months is probably the right interval if you’re going to use this data to inform your supplementation practices.
Getting blood tested regularly is expensive and time-consuming, whereas supplementing comprehensively is comparatively inexpensive and time-efficient. Given this reality, I get blood tested about once a year on average (more for insight into my hormone levels and other metabolic markers, than nutrient levels), and follow the supplementation regimen laid out here, preferring to be confident my serum levels are where I want them to be, even if I’m peeing out some quantity of the supplements I consume.
1. Vitamin A (as retinol)
Vitamin A is probably best known for its role in the production of rhodopsin (a protein in our eyes critical for low-light vision), but the reality is vitamin A is involved in a huge number of essential processes in the body. Here are some of the highlights: immune function, embryo development, bone metabolism, red blood cell production and gene transcription. [1][2]
Recommendation: 2000-4000mcg/day via a fish liver oil concentrate like this one.
For vegans it’s a bit trickier. Beta-carotene (found in carrots, etc) is similar to the bioactive form if vitamin A and can be converted into the bioactive form, but this process is extremely inefficient (you have to consume about 24000mcg of Beta-carotene to get 2000mcg of bioactive vitamin A. It’s do-able, but not quite as convenient). If you go the vegan route, you’d take about 3 of these capsules each day.
2. Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol)
Vitamin D regulates the expression of over 1000 genes (about 1/24 of our total). Deficiency in vitamin D has been correlated with DNA damage and telomere shortening, two primary indicators of biological aging. Vitamin D is also converted into calcitriol, the body’s primary hormone for regulating calcium levels in the blood and cells. [3][4]
Recommendation: 5000IU per day via a cholecalciferol supplement. I use this one from Jarrow.
Our body can convert cholesterol into cholecalciferol when exposed to sufficient UV-B radiation from the sun, but few of us regularly get enough sun to keep serum levels in the ideal range. Some studies have shown 70% of individuals tested to be below adequate levels.
3. Vitamin K2 (as MK7)
Vitamin K is required for synthesis of several essential proteins, including many of the proteins responsible for blood clotting. It’s also centrally involved in the binding of calcium in bones and other tissues. [5][6]
Recommendation: 50-100mcg/day via a MK7-form supplement like this one from Jarrow.
4+5. B12 (as methylcobalamin) + B9 (as folinic acid)
These two come as a pair because they so commonly work in tandem in the body. B12 and B9 play a critical role in DNA methylation (which facilitates both DNA replication and expression) and function as well as fatty acid synthesis. B12 and B9 also work together to play a key role in neurological function. Having either one of the two present without sufficient amounts of the other can produce neurological issues, so the common practice of taking a B12 supplement by itself is not a wise one.[7]
Recommendation: 3000-5000mcg/day of B12 via a methylcobalamin supplement like this one.
800mcg/day of B9 via folinic acid.
6. Vitamin C (as buffered ascorbic acid)
Vitamin C is probably best known for its essential role in lymphocyte (immune cell) production and function. Ascorbic acid is also necessary for the synthesis of glutathione, one of our body’s primary endogenous antioxidant enzymes that protects our various tissues from oxidative damage. [8]
Recommendation: 1000mg/day of buffered ascorbic acid. Recommended product here.
7+8+9. Copper (as chelated copper) + Selenium + Iodine (as kelp powder)
All three of these minerals act as cofactors for a huge number of enzymes in the body, meaning those enzymes will not function if these minerals are not available in adequate levels. Iodine deficiency is both particularly common and consequential. Iodine is used in the synthesis of several thyroid hormones, and deficiency in iodine can lead to suppressed thyroid function (and thus, suppressed energy metabolism and a long list of other downstream functions). [9]
All three of these minerals are great examples of nutrients that were formerly abundant in our soils and our foods, but have been largely stripped out (and not replaced) by modern large-scale farming.
Recommendation: 2mg/day of chelated copper (product recommendation), 200mcg/day of selenium (product recommendation) and 200-300mcg/day of iodine via kelp powder (product recommendation)
10. Lithium (as lithium oroate)
Lithium is a particularly interesting case. We’ve known that lithium is critical to healthy neurological function - it upregulates the production of several neurotrophins (proteins essential for neuron growth and function) - but we haven’t had a clear picture of the consequences of deficiency (and in many ways, we still don’t).
There have been a handful of recent studies that suggest lithium deficiency might be correlated with a number of undesirable psychological and emotional traits including violence and impulsiveness. For what it’s worth, in my own personal n=1 study with lithium, I noticed a marked improvement in emotional stability within a few weeks of starting supplementation. [11]
Recommendation: 5-10mg/day via lithium oroate. I use this one from Klaire Labs.
11. Magnesium (as chelated magnesium)
What doesn't magnesium do in the body? There are few nutrients involved in more metabolic processes than magnesium.
It’s the movement of magnesium (and calcium) through ion channels in the membranes of our muscle cells that cause these tissues to contract when we want them to. Because of this, magnesium gets used at a high rate in the body and most people hover in less-than-ideal range without supplementation.
Addressing low magnesium levels via supplementation will commonly result in headaches and muscle tension disappearing, and sleep improving.
In addition to its role in muscle contraction, magnesium is also a cofactor for over 300 enzymes, including all enzymes using ATP (the metabolism's primary energy source). [12]
Recommendation: 500-800mg/day via a chelated magnesium like this one.
Our body has a long list of fatty acids essential to the functioning of its many systems, but Omega 3/6/9 fatty acids are the only ones our body cannot produce on its own, meaning we have to consume them via our diet.
Omega 6 and 9 fatty acids are abundant in common foods like vegetable oils, so it’s rarely necessary to supplement with these. Omega 3 (DHA and EPA being the most important) are comparatively rare in our foods, meaning supplementation is usually necessary.
DHA and EPA are used in membrane formation in most cells in the body, but their role is particularly important in the brain, where DHA is the most abundant fatty acid. Studies have shown DHA supplementation to enhance memory, offer neuroprotection and slow the progression of neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s. [13]
Recommendation: 1g of EPA/DHA per day via small, deep-water fish like anchovies and sardines. Nordic Naturals is a brand that always performs well in 3rd party quality and purity testing.
For vegans, EPA and DHA are available via algae, but it is generally in the range of 2-3x as expensive to get the same dose. Nordic Naturals makes the most reputable algae-based EPA/DHA product also.
Foods like flax and chia that are often cited as plant-based sources of Omega 3s contain ALA, not DHA or EPA. While ALA can be converted to EPA and DHA, it’s an inefficient process and you’d have to consume a TON of flax oil to get the equivalent of 1g of EPA/DHA (which I don’t recommend due to phytoestrogens in flax oil) . Algae supplements are easily the best vegan option here.
13. Creatine Monohydrate
Many people will associate creatine with dudes lifting weights in a vanity-fueled effort to get “shredded” - and while creatine is definitely this, it’s also an essential compound our bodies manufacture that’s used for ATP synthesis in literally every cell in our body.
While our bodies will usually produce creatine in levels sufficient to keep the ship running, there is a lot of evidence that there is a lot to be gained in consuming additional creatine via our diet. Creatine is present in red meat, but unless you’re consistently eating a steak or two a day, you’d likely benefit from supplementation.
The benefits of creatine supplementation for athletic performance have been well documented, but it’s the improvements in brain function that I find the most compelling. A handful of studies have shown improvements in various measures of cognitive function when subjects are supplementing with creatine. [14]
Recommendation: 5g/day of creatine monohydrate.
If you've made it to the end of this rather lengthly list of supplements and are wondering "How much does this cost!?!" - you're not alone.
The good news is, it's almost certainly less than you think. There's an up front cost of buying in quantities that will last several months, but when you break down the actual per/day cost it comes to a whopping $ 1.82/day, or about $55/mo.
One final suggestion: Trust me on this one, opening 12 supplement bottles and dispensing pills is not something you want have to do every day. Invest in a pill organizer like this one and open 12 pill bottles once a week instead.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0012160686901442
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378111903011296
[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0083672915000631
[4] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00394-015-1095-7
[5] https://jasn.asnjournals.org/content/28/6/1717?
[6] https://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/vitamins/vitamin-K
[8] https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3921/7/3/41
[9] https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/thy.2018.0305
[10] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19523343/
[11] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030698771600044X
[12] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0899900715004062
[14] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17461391.2018.1500644
]]>
This article is from the Staple Meals installment of our series "THE SEVEN | Principles Of Nutrition For Slowing Biological Aging" and provides ideas for bowls you can make with oven-roasted green veggies as a base. For a little more context on what we're up to here, this intro post will fill you in.
Staple Meals Guide:
3 Bases, Endless Possibilities
Enter your email below to receive our Staple meals guide, including a grocery list, recipes, and bowl ideas to make your life easier.
Eating amazing nutrient-dense, clean and low-carb meals doesn’t have to involve complex cooking or tons of time. The recipes in this series are delicious, inspired by our travels, and designed to make eating according to the Seven Principles easy and enjoyable.
Oven Roasted Green Veggies (recipe below)
Cauliflower Rice (recipe here)
Salad Greens (mixed field greens, baby spinach, kale, dandelion greens, and arugula are our favorites. Much more flavor than lettuce!) (recipe post here)
Free-Range Organic Eggs (7 minute, hard boiled, scrambled, fried, poached)
Roasted Vegetables - sweet potato, parsnip, squash, zucchini (recipe here)
Tofu
Tempeh
Avocado
Raw Veggies/Herbs (cilantro, avocado, salad greens, basil, purple cabbage)
Nuts + Seeds (almonds, cashews, pistachios, hemp seeds, chia seeds, sesame seeds)
Violife Vegan Feta
Beyond Sausages
Serves: 1 // Prep time: 25-40 min
INGREDIENTS
1 Bunch of Kale OR 1 Head of Broccoli OR 1 Bag of Brussels Sprouts
3-4 TBSP Coconut Oil
1/2 TSP Salt
1/2 TSP Pepper
PREP
Wash your selected base and dry well.
Kale - separate leaf from the stem. Mince stems, chop leaves.
Broccoli/Broccolini - Cut to whatever size your heart desires.
Brussels Sprouts - Clean off the outside leaves, cut in half.
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit.
2. Place your prepped selected base (kale, broccoli, or brussels sprouts) in a large pot over low heat. Add 3-4 tbsp of coconut oil, salt and pepper.
3. Stir for 2-3 minutes, until your base is fully coated in oil and slightly wilted down.
4. Transfer to a baking sheet, making sure to spread evenly. Bake for 10 minutes, toss, and return to the oven for another 10-15 minutes until you see the first signs of the greens getting crispy and brown (this crisping is where the flavor really comes out!).
5. Remove from the oven, toss, and let cool for a few minutes.
6. Use as a base for your DIY bowls (ideas below!)
Base: Brussels Sprouts
Toppings: Poached Egg (recipe here), Avocado, Baby Kale, Pistachios
Sauce: Green Goddess (recipe here)
Base: Brussels Sprouts
Toppings: Roasted Sweet Potato (recipe here), Avocado, Purple Cabbage, Hemp Seeds
Sauce: Vegan Pesto (recipe here)
Base: Roasted Kale
Toppings: Roasted Butternut Squash (recipe here), 7 minute egg (recipe here), Violife Feta Cheese, Chia Seeds
Sauce: Turmeric Tahini (recipe here)
Base: Roasted Kale
Toppings: Roasted Sweet Potato (recipe here), Marinated tofu (recipe here), Avocado, Sesame Seeds
Sauce: Synchro Dressing (recipe here)
Base: Roasted Broccoli
Toppings: Roasted Sweet Potato (recipe here), Roasted Zucchini, Cilantro, 7 minute egg (recipe here), hemp seeds
Sauce: Coconut Almond "Peanut" Sauce (recipe here)
Base: Roasted Broccoli
Toppings: Baby Kale, Crispy Tempeh (recipe here), Roasted Butternut Squash (recipe here), Avocado, Sesame Seeds
Sauce: Smoke and Spice (recipe here)
I hope you love these bowls as much as we do! If you'd like some more ideas, click here for cauliflower rice bowl ideas, and here for salad base bowl ideas.
When you decide to make one, comment below, let us know what you think, and post a photo on Instagram with the hashtag #staysynchro so we can see it. Can’t wait to connect!
Stay Synchro,
Sandra
Staple Meals Guide:
3 Bases, Endless Possibilities
Enter your email below to receive our Staple meals guide, including a grocery list, recipes, and bowl ideas to make your life easier.
This article is from the Staple Meals installment of our series "THE SEVEN | Principles Of Nutrition For Slowing Biological Aging" and provides ideas for bowls you can make with oven-roasted green veggies as a base. For a little more context on what we're up to here, this intro post will fill you in.
Staple Meals Guide:
3 Bases, Endless Possibilities
Enter your email below to receive our Staple meals guide, including a grocery list, recipes, and bowl ideas to make your life easier.
Eating amazing nutrient-dense, clean and low-carb meals doesn’t have to involve complex cooking or tons of time. The recipes in this series are delicious, inspired by our travels, and designed to make eating according to the Seven Principles easy and enjoyable.
Oven Roasted Green Veggies (recipe here)
Cauliflower Rice (recipe below)
Salad Greens (mixed field greens, baby spinach, kale, dandelion greens, and arugula are our favorites. Much more flavor than lettuce!) (recipe post here)
Free-Range Organic Eggs (7 minute, hard boiled, scrambled, fried, poached)
Roasted Vegetables - sweet potato, parsnip, squash, zucchini (recipe here)
Tofu
Tempeh
Avocado
Raw Veggies/Herbs (cilantro, avocado, salad greens, basil, purple cabbage)
Nuts + Seeds (almonds, cashews, pistachios, hemp seeds, chia seeds, sesame seeds)
Violife Vegan Feta
Beyond Sausages
Serves: 3-4 // Prep time: 20 min
INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 CUPS grated cauliflower
1/2 Onion, Diced
2 Garlic Cloves
1 tbsp Coconut Oil
1/2 TSP Salt
1/2 TSP Pepper
FLAVOR VARIATIONS
Sesame Cashew:
1 TBSP Sesame Oil
1/4 CUP Spring Onion
1/4 CUP Raw Cashews , Roughly Chopped
Cilantro Lime:
Zest of 1 Lime
2 TBSP Lime Juice
1 CUP Roughly Chopped Cilantro
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Over medium heat, sauté the onion in coconut oil for 5 minutes until translucent. Add the garlic and continue cooking for an additional 2 minutes.
2. Add the cauliflower and sauté for 5-8 additional minutes, stirring every minute or two as the cauliflower starts to brown.
3. Use as a base for your DIY bowls (ideas below!).
Base: Cauliflower Rice
Toppings: Tofu Curry (recipe here), Roasted Butternut Squash (recipe here), Cashews, Cilantro
Base: Cauliflower Rice
Toppings: Roasted Butternut Squash (recipe here), Cilantro, Avocado, Poached Egg (recipe here)
Sauce: Vegan Pesto (recipe here)
Base: Cauliflower Rice
Toppings: Coconut Almond Tempeh (recipe here), Spinach, Purple Cabbage, Shredded Almonds
Sauce: Coconut Almond "Peanut" Sauce (recipe here)
I hope you love these bowls as much as we do! If you'd like some more ideas, click here for oven roasted veggie bowl ideas, and here for salad base bowl ideas.
When you decide to make one, comment below, let us know what you think, and post a photo on Instagram with the hashtag #staysynchro so we can see it. Can’t wait to connect!
Stay Synchro,
Sandra
Staple Meals Guide:
3 Bases, Endless Possibilities
Enter your email below to receive our Staple meals guide, including a grocery list, recipes, and bowl ideas to make your life easier.
This article is from the Staple Meals installment of our series "THE SEVEN | Principles Of Nutrition For Slowing Biological Aging" and provides ideas for bowls you can make with salad greens as a base. For a little more context on what we're up to here, this intro post will fill you in.
Staple Meals Guide:
3 Bases, Endless Possibilities
Enter your email below to receive our Staple meals guide, including a grocery list, recipes, and bowl ideas to make your life easier.
Eating amazing nutrient-dense, clean and low-carb meals doesn’t have to involve complex cooking or tons of time. The recipes in this series are delicious, inspired by our travels, and designed to make eating according to the Seven Principles easy and enjoyable.
Oven Roasted Green Veggies (recipe here)
Cauliflower Rice (recipe here)
Salad Greens (mixed field greens, baby spinach, kale, dandelion greens, and arugula are our favorites. Much more flavor than lettuce!)
Free-Range Organic Eggs (7 minute, hard boiled, scrambled, fried, poached)
Roasted Vegetables - sweet potato, parsnip, squash, zucchini (recipe here)
Tofu
Tempeh
Avocado
Raw Veggies/Herbs (cilantro, avocado, salad greens, basil, purple cabbage)
Nuts + Seeds (almonds, cashews, pistachios, hemp seeds, chia seeds, sesame seeds)
Violife Vegan Feta
Beyond Sausages
Base: Baby Spinach + Arugula
Toppings: Roasted Veggies (recipe here), Avocado, 7 Minute Egg (recipe here), Almond Slivers
Sauce: Vegan Pesto (recipe here)
Base: Kale
Toppings: Roasted Sweet Potato (recipe here), Avocado, Hemp Seeds
Sauce: Synchro Dressing (recipe here)
Base: Spinach + Baby Kale
Toppings: Marinated Tempeh (recipe here), Purple Cabbage, Cilantro, Sesame Seeds
Sauce: Green Goddess (recipe here)
I hope you love these bowls as much as we do! If you'd like some more ideas, click here for oven-roasted veggie bowl ideas, and here for cauliflower rice bowl ideas.
When you decide to make one, comment below, let us know what you think, and post a photo on Instagram with the hashtag #staysynchro so we can see it. Can’t wait to connect!
Stay Synchro,
Sandra
Staple Meals Guide:
3 Bases, Endless Possibilities
Enter your email below to receive our Staple meals guide, including a grocery list, recipes, and bowl ideas to make your life easier.
This article is from the Staple Meals installment of our series "THE SEVEN | Principles Of Nutrition For Slowing Biological Aging" and provides recipes for sauces to be used on the bowls. For a little more context on what we're up to here, this intro post will fill you in.
Staple Meals Guide:
3 Bases, Endless Possibilities
Enter your email below to receive our Staple meals guide, including a grocery list, recipes, and bowl ideas to make your life easier.
Eating amazing nutrient-dense, clean and low-carb meals doesn’t have to involve complex cooking or tons of time. The recipes in this series are delicious, inspired by our travels, and designed to make eating according to the Seven Principles easy and enjoyable.
Below you will find some of our favorite sauces to eat on bowls. For each sauce, blend all ingredients, plus salt and pepper to taste, on med-high for ~30 seconds. Add a bit of water if necessary to attain desired consistency. Our sauces will keep well in a sealed container in the fridge for 4-5 days.
Oven Roasted Green Veggies (recipe here)
Cauliflower Rice (recipe here)
Salad Greens (mixed field greens, baby spinach, kale, dandelion greens, and arugula are our favorites. Much more flavor than lettuce!) (recipe post here)
Free-Range Organic Eggs (7 minute, hard boiled, scrambled, fried, poached)
Roasted Vegetables - sweet potato, parsnip, squash, zucchini (recipe here)
Tofu
Tempeh
Avocado
Raw Veggies/Herbs (cilantro, avocado, salad greens, basil, purple cabbage)
Nuts + Seeds (almonds, cashews, pistachios, hemp seeds, chia seeds, sesame seeds)
Violife Vegan Feta
Beyond Sausages
Serves: 5-6 // Prep time: 5 min
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Blend all ingredients, plus salt and pepper to taste, on med-high for ~30 seconds
2. Add water if necessary to attain desired consistency.
3. Top your your DIY Bowl with your favorite Sauce!
Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator. Keeps well for 4-5 days.
2 CUPS basil leaves
½ CUP Extra Virgin Olive Oil
⅓ CUP Sliced Almonds
2 Garlic Cloves, Minced
1/2 TSP Salt
1/2 TSP Pepper
Optional: ½ CUP Violife Vegan Parmesan Cheese
1/2 CUP Raw Cashews
½ CUP Water
4 TBSP Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 TBSP Cilantro (this is a great place to use your stems!)
1 TBSP Red Pepper Flakes
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Lime, Juiced
1/2 TSP Smoked Paprika
1/2 TSP Cumin
1/2 TSP Salt
1/2 TSP Pepper
1/2 CUP Tahini
½ CUP Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 Garlic Cloves
2 TBSP Lemon Juice
1 TSP Turmeric Powder
1 TSP Maple Syrup
1/2 TSP Salt
1/2 TSP Pepper
1/2 Avocado
½ CUP Extra Virgin Olive Oil
½ CUP Cilantro
1/4 CUP Basil
2 Garlic Cloves
2 TBSP Lemon Juice
1 TBSP Raw Ginger
1/2 TSP Salt
1/2 TSP Pepper
I hope you love these sauces as much as we do!
You can find cauliflower rice bowl ideas here, oven roasted veggie bowl ideas here, and salad bowl ideas here. All of the bowls in these posts use these sauces.
When you decide to make one, comment below, let us know what you think, and post a photo on Instagram with the hashtag #staysynchro so we can see it. Can’t wait to connect!
Stay Synchro,
Sandra
Staple Meals Guide:
3 Bases, Endless Possibilities
Enter your email below to receive our Staple meals guide, including a grocery list, recipes, and bowl ideas to make your life easier.
This article is from the Staple Meals installment of our series "THE SEVEN | Principles Of Nutrition For Slowing Biological Aging" and provides recipes for toppings you can use on your bowls. For a little more context on what we're up to here, this intro post will fill you in.
Staple Meals Guide:
3 Bases, Endless Possibilities
Enter your email below to receive our Staple meals guide, including a grocery list, recipes, and bowl ideas to make your life easier.
Eating amazing nutrient-dense, clean and low-carb meals doesn’t have to involve complex cooking or tons of time. The recipes in this series are delicious, inspired by our travels, and designed to make eating according to the Seven Principles easy and enjoyable.
Oven Roasted Green Veggies (recipe here)
Cauliflower Rice (recipe here)
Salad Greens (mixed field greens, baby spinach, kale, dandelion greens, and arugula are our favorites. Much more flavor than lettuce!) (recipe post here)
Free-Range Organic Eggs (7 minute, hard boiled, scrambled, fried, poached)
Roasted Vegetables - sweet potato, parsnip, squash, zucchini (recipe here)
Tofu
Tempeh
Avocado
Raw Veggies/Herbs (cilantro, avocado, salad greens, basil, purple cabbage)
Nuts + Seeds (almonds, cashews, pistachios, hemp seeds, chia seeds, sesame seeds)
Violife Vegan Feta
Beyond Sausages
Serves: 1 // Prep time: 10 min
INGREDIENTS
1 Fresh Egg
3 CUPS Water
2 TBSP Vinegar
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Bring a pot of water to a simmer (only small bubbles making it to the top of the water). Add the vinegar.
2. Crack the egg into a small cup.
3. Once your water is simmering, swirl the water to create a small vortex in the middle. Gently drop the egg into the center of the vortex, and use a wooden spoon to shape the whites.
4. Remove the egg from the water after 4-5 minutes, when whites are set. Serve immediately.
Prep time: 20-30 min
INGREDIENTS
1 Sweet Potato OR 1 Butternut Squash OR 1 Zucchini
2 TBSP Melted Coconut Oil
1/2 TSP Salt
1/2 TSP Pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit.
2. Roughly cut your preferred vegetable into ½ inch cubes or ⅓ inch thick slices. Toss with Coconut Oil, Salt, Pepper.
3. Transfer to a baking sheet, making sure to spread evenly. Roast in oven for 8 minutes, flip, and return to oven for an additional 5 minutes, until golden brown and caramelized.
Prep time: 15 min
INGREDIENTS
1 Egg
1 TBSP Salt
3 CUPS Water
Optional:
2 TBSP Braggs Liquid Aminos
INSTRUCTIONS
1. In a small pot, bring water to a boil and add the salt.
2. Prepare a timer for 5 minutes. Once the water is at a rolling boil, gently place the egg in the water and start the timer.
3. At the 5 minute mark, remove the pot from the heat. Reset your timer for 2 minutes and allow the egg to sit in the water until the timer goes off.
4. When your 2 minute timer goes off, remove the egg from the water and run under cold water to stop the cooking process.
5. Use a spoon to crack and peel the egg.
6. To serve, cut the egg in half lengthwise and place on top of your bowl.
OPTIONAL: Before cutting, soak the peeled egg in 2 tbsp of braggs liquid aminos for 5 minutes, rotating halfway through.
Prep time: 10 min Rest Time: 20 min+
INGREDIENTS
Cubed Tofu or Tempeh
1 TBSP Coconut Oil
Marinade:
2 TBSP Braggs Liquid Aminos
1 TBSP Apple Cider Vinegar
1 TBSP Minced / Grated Ginger
1 TSP Maple Syrup
1 TSP Sesame Oil
2 Garlic Cloves, Minced
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Combine all of the marinade ingredients in a bowl. Add tofu or tempeh and stir to coat the cubes thoroughly. Let the tofu or tempeh marinate in the fridge for at least 20 minutes (up to overnight).
2. To cook, heat oil over medium heat in a pan. Once the oil is fully melted and shiny, add the tempeh. Cook for 3-4 minutes per side, until golden brown and crunchy.
Prep time: 10 min
INGREDIENTS
3-4 ¼ Inch Slices of Tempeh
1 TBSP Coconut Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Heat oil over medium heat in a pan.
2. Once the oil is fully melted and shiny, add the tempeh. Cook for 3-4 minutes per side, until golden brown and crunchy.
Prep time: 10 min
INGREDIENTS
1 Marinated Tofu/Tempeh Recipe
4 TBSP Coconut Almond Sauce
1 TBSP Coconut Oil
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Heat oil over medium heat in a pan.
2. Add the cooked + marinated tofu or tempeh to warm up.
3. Pour almond sauce over the tofu or tempeh. Cook for an additional 2-3 minutes, stirring to fully coat the cubes in the sauce.
4. To serve, put over the top of your DIY bowl.
Prep time: 10 min
INGREDIENTS
1/2 BLOCK Tofu, Cubed (firm silken tofu is our favorite here)
1 TBSP Coconut Oil
1 TBSP Curry Powder or Paste
¼-1/2 CUP Coconut Milk
2 TBSP cashews
Salt and Pepper to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Heat oil over medium heat in a pan.
2. Once the oil is fully melted and shiny, add the tofu and cashews. Cook for 3-4 minutes, until golden brown around the edges.
3. Add curry powder/paste to the pan and cook for 1 minute.
4. Add coconut milk, salt, and pepper. Stir and allow the curry powder/paste to dissolve into the coconut milk. Cook for an additional 2-3 minutes until fully incorporated.
5. To serve, place over the top of your DIY bowl.
Staple Meals Guide:
3 Bases, Endless Possibilities
Enter your email below to receive our Staple meals guide, including a grocery list, recipes, and bowl ideas to make your life easier.
The article, originally published in 2015, was just updated for 2020 with new research and product recommendations. Updates to the article will be highlighted in purple.
Beautiful skin doesn’t happen by accident.
Beautiful, healthy skin is the culmination of a lifetime of decisions about the foods you eat, your lifestyle and your skin care practices. Yes, there’s a genetic component to great skin, but genetic factors are vastly outweighed by your nutrition and lifestyle decisions.
Skin care is an every-day, all-year project - but it takes on extra significance during the summer when sun exposure increases dramatically for most people.
This article ahead is the product of hundreds of hours (and $$$) spent looking for the perfect sunscreen. Spoiler: It doesn't exist (yet?). Once this became clear, I started investing my time in figuring out the best skin protection strategy given the reality of the products currently available.
But first, let’s look at why we should care about this project at all.
It’s a bit ironic that the same gaseous orb responsible for all life on the planet is also perhaps the single biggest threat to the health of our skin.
Both the UV-A and UV-B radiation produced by the sun can result in significant damage if the skin is exposed in large doses. This is because both UV-A and UV-B will damage fats and other molecules in the skin to create reactive oxygen species, otherwise known as oxidative toxins.[1]
When allowed to accumulate, reactive oxygen species will damage and kill skin cells. In short, it's this oxidative damage that makes skin look old and weathered.
UV-B radiation is even more problematic as it will directly damage DNA in skin cells, leading to cell death and greatly increased risk for skin cancer. [2]
Here are the problems with each of the three common types of sunscreens.
1. Conventional Sunscreens Contain Toxic Ingredients - Conventional “chemical sunscreens” use synthetic compounds known as photostabilizers that absorb the UV radiation before it damages your skin cells. The problem is almost all of the commonly used photostabilizers are also potentially toxic if absorbed into the skin.
By far the most problematic of these is oxybenzone. Oxybenzone has been shown in multiple studies to disrupt endocrine function by mimicking estrogen in the body. [3] If allowed to accumulate in the body, oxybenzone can lead to disrupted reproductive function in both sexes and endometriosis in women.
Unlike some of the other photostabilizers, Oxybenzone is particularly problematic because it absorbs readily into the skin, where it can then move easily into the bloodstream and be stored in fat throughout the body. Up to 9% of the oxybenzone you apply to your skin will be absorbed. For these reasons, oxybenzone is at the top of my list of sunscreen ingredients to be completely avoided. [4]
Other common chemical photostabilizers like octinoxate (octylmethoxycinnimate) and homosalate have also been shown to have estrogenic activity in the body. However, because both of these are absorbed into the skin at a rate of less than 1%, they don’t set off alarm bells quite in the same way oxybenzone does for me.
If allowed to accumulate in the body (with regular use), both octinoxate and homosalate will certainly have hormone-disrupting effects, but because the absorption rate is so low, I relax ever-so-slightly from the avoid-at-all-costs approach I take with oxybenzone.
[2020 update] Since this article was originally written, avobenzone has become the photostabilizer of choice in the chemical sunscreens that market themselves as being "less toxic".
The research on avobenzone is still sparse, but there is some research showing it can mimic glucocorticoid and anti-androgenic hormones in certain doses. [5] We also know avobenzone absorbs into the skin and blood [6], but at levels that are nowhere near as alarming as oxybenzone. All in all, I put the practical risk level of avobenzone on par with octinoxate and homosalate.
2. Mineral Sunscreens [used to!] Provide A Terrible User Experience - I have tried literally dozens of the best-reviewed mineral sunscreens (some for upwards of $50/bottle) and I can report that every single one sucks in its own way.
[2020 update] Hey! I'm happy to report this has improved significantly over the past 5 years, and is what primarily inspired me to update the article.
Mineral sunscreens use either zinc oxide or titanium oxide to reflect UV away from the skin. They're very effective and essentially non-toxic when applied topically, so on paper they're the ideal sunscreen.
But, 5 years ago even the best of these products invariably left your skin tinted white and feeling like you have a thin layer of clay covering your body.
Now, thankfully, there are some really good mineral sunscreens available.
Brush On Block uses zinc oxide powder plus a natural tint (so it doesn't show up white on the skin), applied with a makeup brush. The application is a bit tedious, so it's best used on the face. Once applied, it's very effective and essentially unnoticeable. Brush On Block goes on my face any day I'm expecting to get even a little sun.
As much as I love Brush On Block, the brush applicator makes it impractical to use on the whole body, so until recently I was still occasionally (begrudgingly) using a chemical sunscreen on other areas. Thankfully, this piece of the puzzle is now filled by Babo Botanicals Sheer Spray Sunscreen.
Babo's product uses zinc oxide also, and is easily the best experience of any (non-powdered) mineral sunscreen I've tried. It definitely still has a bit of a white tint (even when rubbed in thoroughly), but it's significantly better than any other mineral sunscreen I've tried, and definitely not noticeable enough to discourage me from using it.
More impressively in my estimation, Babo has formulated their product to somehow avoid feeling oily or cakey like every other mineral sunscreen. It dries quickly and feels totally fine on the skin in my opinion. A big step forward for mineral sunscreens.
3. Natural SPF Oils Are Rarely Adequate - In the past few years, the idea of using plant-based oils that contain natural photostabilizers has become popular. I was admittedly bullish on the idea myself for a while, as some sources claimed that oils like red raspberry seed oil and carrot seed oil had SPF in excess of 30.
[2020 update] The more I used oils like red raspberry for sun protection, the more my confidence in them eroded.
The short version of the story is that while these oils might contain compounds that are effective photostabilizers under labratory/experimental conditions, the real world reality doesn't reflect this.
My guess is that the levels of these compounds vary wildly from batch to batch of a given oil, making it a gamble as to whether the oil you're applying to your skin will offer any sun protection at all.
I've also noticed that any protection offered by the oils seems to be short lived, likely because these photostabilizing compounds break down after a comparatively short period of UV exposure and cease to offer any protection.
Given the far-from-perfect sunscreen landscape, this is what I believe to be the most intelligent strategy for protecting the skin from UV radiation:
1. Minimize Your Sunscreen Use, Cover Up! - Covering your skin is always the best strategy for protection from UV radiation. Even the best sunblocks still let significant UV reach your skin.
Hats, umbrellas and scarves/shawls are great wardrobe choices for sun protection on hot days where it would get sweaty to have a lot of clothing close to the skin.
[2020 update] There are a number of breathable, sweat-wicking long sleeve shirts made from fabric with SPF 50+ that stay reasonably cool even in the heat. I still prefer using sun sleeves paired with a t shirt/cycling jersey when I'm hiking/riding, as this set up ventilates much better than a long sleeve garment.
2.[2020 update] Use An Agreeable Mineral Sunscreen!
In 2015, points two and three were devoted to instructions for choosing the least-toxic traditional chemical sunscreen, and then recommendations to use it as infrequently as possible.
Things are much easier in 2020! Use Brush On Block and/or Babo Botanicals Sheer Spray Sunscreen, or perhaps another mineral sunscreen I haven't yet encountered that you find agreeable.
3. Wash Your Skin Thoroughly - The best thing you can do to prevent absorption of these photostabilizers is to deeply clean your skin after you use them.
[2020 update] Absorption of chemical photostabilizers need not be a concern anymore! Zinc oxide and the tints and oils used in the sunblocks recommended above don't carry toxicity concerns, but that doesn't make them great for skin. I still recommend washing skin thoroughly as soon as you're out of the sun.
This is a good opportunity to point out that most “soaps” on the market are actually detergents that linger in the skin and can damage skin cells. I highly recommend choosing an additive-free true soap like Dr Bronner’s Liquid Soap.
4. Dry Brushing - Washing your skin thoroughly will remove any octinoxate and homosalate still sitting on your skin, but to clear chemicals that have already absorbed into the skin, you need to support your skin’s detoxification systems.
[2020 update] Similar to number four, removing octinoxate and homosalate from lymph is thankfully not a concern with mineral sunscreens, but there's still a lot to be gained from dry brushing. UV-damaged lipids and proteins accumulate in our skin and lymph after a day in the sun (these are what produce a "sunburn"), and flushing these should still be a priority.
Dry brushing stimulates blood flow and lymphatic fluids to clear these damaged compounds from the skin. See The Synchro Guide To Truly Healthy Skin [Part One]: Dry Skin Brushing.
5. Moisturize - Yes, using a moisturizing oil makes your skin look nice - but more importantly it keeps your outermost layer of skin (epidermis) hydrated which, in turn, improves clearing of toxins.
[2020 update] I've tried dozens of natural oils over the years, and my current favorites are jojoba oil (for cooler weather and/or drier skin) and sweet almond oil (warmer weather, less dry skin) My favorites are here and here.
6. Antioxidants - No sunscreen - mineral or chemical - absorbs even close to 100% of the UV radiation that will hit your skin during a day in the sun. This means that oxidative toxins will always be formed in the skin during prolonged sun exposure, and neutralizing these oxidative toxins is just as important as removing potential endocrine disruptors.
Oxidative toxins in the skin aren't neutralized until they come into contact with antioxidants. Using a product that supports endogenous antioxidant production (like Gold Liposomal Turmeric) or contains super high levels of plant-based antioxidants (Genesis Powerfood) will help mitigate the damage done from your day in the sun.
If your goal is truly healthy, glowing skin (not to mention minimized skin cancer risk), skin care can’t be something you focus on only when you’ve spent a day in the sun.
From the list above, numbers 1, 5, 6 and 7 should be practiced every day.
I specifically omitted number 4 here - as I don’t recommend using soap on the skin every day. Soaps (and detergents) pull natural oils out of our skin and make it more difficult for our skin to maintain it’s natural oil balance.
Our skin is “designed” to have a certain level of oils in/on it, so a hypothetical “clean” skin free of oils is NOT actually healthy skin.
Dry brushing, moisturizing and showering (sans soap) every day is a much better practice for keeping the skin healthy and “clean”.
Stay Synchro,
Graham Ryan
The Synchro Guide To Truly Healthy Skin [Part One]: Dry Skin Brushing
Intermittent Fasting: Improve Energy, Mental Performance And Burn Fat Like Crazy
Your Chair Is Killing You...Time To Start Squatting.
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References
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15748643
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21392107
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15908756
[5] https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/article/156/1/240/2937760
]]>From growing up during the 60’s and marching on Washington D.C. with Dr. Martin Luther King, to being able to travel when travel was still uncommon and living in diverse places such as Mexico, Paris, and Israel, Diana Rilov has had a long and exciting life.
40 years ago, Diana started studying yoga. She fell in love with it immediately, and over the course of her life has managed to turn it into a career.
“Yoga has been my guiding light throughout this wonderful long life I've had and hope to have many more years of all of this.”
I recently sat down with Diana to talk about her 40-year career as a yoga instructor, the wisdom that comes with time, and how to continue feeling vital no matter your age. At 73, Diana Rilov is not slowing down.
Hi Diana! After 40 years as a yoga instructor, you still teach consistently, and you're even leading international retreats. How do you feel about where you are right now in your life?
"I feel fantastic, frankly. I think I have accomplished a lot. I still have a lot more to do, a lot more to accomplish. I look in the past and I see I've come a very long way and I look to the future and I feel that I still have a long way to go. I'm proud of what I've accomplished and am very happy doing what I do."
Something I’ve noticed in the age conversation is the stigma that as you get older, paths close for you and you should slow down and not do as much. It’s almost as if society expects older people to be frail and sedentary. This stigma obviously doesn't apply to you, so I'd love to hear your opinion on this.
“It's a very old fashioned concept. People used to retire at the age of 65 and then they went to Florida and they played golf and sat on the beach and played ping pong and just sort of waited for death in a way. That’s not the norm anymore.”
“I feel that the more you do the younger you feel. I always have projects and I'm always thinking ahead and doing things because that's how I feel vibrant. If I didn't have anything to look forward to, except going on a cruise or something like that, I think I would shrivel up and be frail.”
“It's the attitude of constantly looking forward, making plans and learning new things, and being open to new things. Just because I'm 73 plus and I have a lot of wisdom, that doesn't mean that I'm done yet. I'm not done yet. There's a lot I still want to do, accomplish, see, read, meet, engage, and that's me."
“I have a lot of young students and their attitude is, 'Hey, I want to be like you. I can do yoga within a person my age, but what is that person going to be like in X amount of years? You are that person. I want to learn from you.' It’s very invigorating for me to have younger people in my life, it’s a wonderful interaction.”
“Just because I'm 73 plus and I have a lot of wisdom, that doesn't mean that I'm done yet. I'm not done yet. ”
What are the aspects of your current age that make you the happiest?
“When I was younger, I wanted everybody to like me. I was a pleaser. That dropped out of my life when I dropped the things there were unimportant, the things that didn't feel authentic, the things I didn't feel right about. I stuck with a clear notion of something very, honest about my life and the people I loved and the people I wanted to be with. I stay totally authentic to who I am and that always works out the best.”
“The wonderful thing about aging is that we have a different perspective, a different narrative, a different context. So the longer you live, the more context you have, the more you see things from a different perspective.”
“I also love that I’ve gotten to a point where I can work with quality and not quantity. When I was younger, I taught every yoga class I could because I had to, and that's how I was building my career. Now, I can pick and choose more. There's a thing in New York where people say, ‘Oh, I'm so busy I can barely breathe.’ Well, if you can't breathe, you're really shortening your life. When I work really hard, I need to rest because that's one of the reasons I stay healthy.”
How does self care factor into your life? Do you have any daily rituals or routines that you integrate into your life to enhance your physical, spiritual, and mental wellbeing?
"I think sleep is crucial. I go to bed early because I get up very early so I can take my time in the mornings. I need time to sit and dream. With my eyes closed or open, I spend some time dreaming awake, letting my creative juices begin flowing for the day for my teaching. It's my version of meditation."
"I live in a busy city. It's very noisy. It's very active. I see a lot of people all day long and teach a lot, so I need quiet time. I'm very lucky in my home, and when I'm here, I replenish myself."
"I also love to drink a lot of fresh juices. I always have, but now more than ever because they're so available when I don't have a chance to make my own. I have to say when I got my own juicer and I started making juices and drinking more and more of those, I almost felt like I was drinking God into my body. There is something so special about how good I feel when I’m drinking fresh juices that I highly recommend it."
When I was researching for this interview, I heard you use the concept of a spiritual selfie. Can you tell me a little about that?
"I have watched the younger generation get carried away with the selfie, with filters, with how you look and where you are, and how happy you are. All this incredibly - it's not nice to say, but - it's narcissistic. I'm thinking, what about your spiritual side? Where are you on the inside? Where do you see your spiritual side and not only your selfie side?"
"So I developed this concept. It’s a thought process to turn your gaze inward, to assist in organizing the internal chaos. I've been using this for a while now, a year or so, or more probably. It's something that came to me in one of my dreaming awake moments when I was in the zone. I said it a lot of times, and then I decided to do something with it.
“It’s a thought process to turn your gaze inward, to assist in organizing the internal chaos.”
What are you excited for in the future?
"I'm excited to develop my brand. There are not a lot of yoga teachers my age who are doing as much as I am. I want to continue doing it, and I want to develop this spiritual selfie that I'm working on. I want to be inspiring for younger people who always look around Instagram, and see pictures of yoga people doing handstands on a beach in a bikini, and everything looks marvelous and wonderful."
"I think that can be inspiring, but it can be daunting at the same time. I just want to be different, I want to be who I am and be authentic in who I am and share that with the world and see what happens."
“I want to be who I am and be authentic in who I am and share that with the world and see what happens.”
Any final words?
I would say, keep learning all the time. Keep an open mind, and remember - we all go through good times, we go through bad times, but we can always look at the glass half full."
"Try to be a little less judgmental. It has to start with ourselves, we're very judgmental about how we look and all kinds of stuff like that, especially as women. it's a curse. And so, I want everybody to be kind - kind to yourselves, kind to people around you."
"The world will be a better place."