Kind: captions
Language: en
i started the show because i was
desperate to solve my wife's microbiome
problems and in so doing i've been able
to talk to some of the world's top
health experts on a variety of topics
these people have helped both lisa and i
change our health for the better and now
i want to introduce you to some of their
best insights so that 2019 can be your
healthiest year yet so lean forward take
some notes and let these tips change
your life for the better
hack one go to bed
sleep
okay i think this is arguably the most
undervalued pillar of health okay
because in 2018
if you're not prioritizing sleep you're
probably not getting enough it's just
infinite distractions right we all know
that feeling where we're still set up
late watching more and more content and
again
a lot of great content out there but it
could be having a consequence
so
i can tell you that the majority
of people
who are having sleep problems
are doing something in their everyday
lifestyle that they do not realize is
impacting their ability to sleep at
night
okay so my top two tips would be a no
tech 90 try and have 90 minutes before
bed with no tech
right but the counterintuitive one is
get outside in the morning
right a lot of people don't realize that
these daily rhythms
are set by light
right you in order to sleep at night
okay you need a differential between
your maximum light exposure and your
minimum light exposure so a dark room
right has something called zero lux in
it looks as a unit of light
if you go outside on a sunny day for
about 20 minutes you get about 30 000
looks
brilliant so that's a really big
differential if you go outside on a
cloudy day
you're getting about 10 000 15 000 looks
right
if you go into a brightly lit office a
modern brightly lit office you're
getting about 500 maybe 1 000 lux
maximum
right so p everyone's thinking about
what they do before they go to bed in
the evening
but a life-changing tip and i've this
has transformed the lives of so many my
patients says get outside in the morning
for half an hour
even that will help you sleep in the
evening what are things then that people
can do to actually optimize their sleep
yeah this is what it's really all about
you know i like to start with the
low-hanging fruit first
and something really really fascinating
is just simply
changing or embracing the time of day
that you exercise can improve your sleep
quality
and so appalachian state university did
a really cool study and they wanted to
see what time of day exercising at
various times of day how does it impact
your sleep quality and so they had the
study participants to exercise
exclusively at 7am
and another phase exclusively at 1 pm in
the afternoon another phase exclusively
at 7 pm in the evening they compiled all
the data and at the end of the study
they found that morning exercisers
spend more time in the deepest most
anabolic stages of sleep so they're
producing more human growth hormone they
have more efficient sleep cycles what
we've been talking about
they also tend to sleep longer and this
is the one that kind of can get glanced
past
on average they had about a 25 greater
drop in blood pressure at night
so what's what's up with that that's
correlated with a deactivation of your
sympathetic fight-or-flight nervous
system right so you're actually able to
shift gears get to that parasympathetic
rest and digest
calming down by getting some exercise in
in the morning
and so how do we employ this though
that's the question because some people
just like you know i can't exercise in
the morning and there's also people who
exercise in the morning who might have
terrible sleep and it's because this is
not like the magic bullet this is a
thing to stack in your condition if
you're doing this and then messing up
the one i'm gonna talk about next
you're probably not gonna have the best
sleep so
here's how to employ this just five
minutes
and i tested this each morning i do this
five minutes of exercise you know i
might be just jumping on a rebounder you
know a little mini trampoline for five
minutes go for a quick power walk uh do
some tabata which is just four minutes
and a little mobility work
and i guess most people don't know what
tabata is high intensity interval
training basically is 20 seconds of
exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest
repeated over and over again for four
minutes
and
in his clinical studies this was found
to outperform
you know traditional cardio like the
kind of moderate intensity 45 minutes of
exercise in four minutes wow the change
in your cardiovascular benefits body
composition
and also changing your mitochondria as
well this is why it works it does
something called a cortisol reset all
right we talked about cortisol
but again it's a good thing if it's in
the right time and the right amount
clinically i would call these people
tired and wired that would come in
looking at the hormone panels and the
cortisol will be really low in the
morning and high at night
thus they have sleep problems
so you naturally if your heart if your
cortisol is on a natural hormone rhythm
it will be elevated at its peak in the
morning right around 6 a.m to 8 a.m and
then gradually decline as the day goes
does that have to do with what time you
wake up
sort of i mean the cortisol will kind of
tend to nudge you out of sleep but also
we'll tend to notice that as the day as
it your sleep goes on it becomes lighter
and lighter anyways right this is when
you tend to remember your dreams like at
the at the end of the sleep
and so
getting this little boost like helping
your body to propel and get your
cortisol up via exercise helps to reset
that rhythm and get you back on track so
that's why it works why is it that you
think sleep is important it's so
important i mean there's a newly
discovered system in our brains called
the glymphatic system which when we're
sleeping actually swooshes
cerebral spinal fluid all throughout
essentially cleansing it of these
proteins that aggregate over the course
of the day
they've shown that on one night of bad
sleep there's an increased level
of amyloid
measurable in csf cerebrospinal fluid
but then also
you know i think dietary change for most
people is one of the most difficult
things to do
and it's particularly difficult when we
have our hormones working against us
so sleep i think is so profoundly
important because it acts like a master
regulator of our hormones
um
it helps to
you know make sure that
uh
we don't need to use our willpower very
often because you know willpower is sort
of like this muscle that we need to use
in order to
fight off cravings and things like that
but with good sleep our cravings
diminish i mean they've shown that even
on one night of poor sleep
you
consume an excess of calories the
following day anywhere between three and
500 calories i've actually noticed it's
a little off topic but
i once one of the
major breakups i had in my life i i
noticed that i would feel way more
sensitive to it
when i was under slept you know you
become less able to contextualize
emotions when when you're under slept on
just one night of bad sleep a
metabolically healthy person will be
essentially pre-diabetic the next day
temporarily well yeah you become more
insulin resistant
um
so
yeah sleep sleep i think is one of those
things that today we romanticize being
busy um but
it's sort of like the one thing that
lifts all the boats in your harbor
you know and yet we tend to undervalue
it hack two
eat more fat
so keto is a low carb high fat moderate
protein lifestyle i kind of feel like
there is not a one size fits all with
diets but for me the thing that i hear
over and over is it's like the thing
that really helps people who feel like
they have tried everything else and
nothing else has worked
but ultimately i feel like that's the
way that we were really meant to be
eating to begin with i don't think that
all these processed foods and all the
things that are so high in sugar was
what we were supposed to be eating so
now switching to this way of eating i
feel so much better i actually grew up
thinking that i had really bad stomach
issues and had to get all kinds of
testing because i was always feeling
sick all the time and then when i
switched to keto i was like it was
totally gone
um so and then on top of that in just
one year i had lost 100 pounds so it's
like obviously the only thing that i
changed with what was what i was eating
so to me that was kind of like all right
like this we're going in the right
direction the first step would be to
just give the brain an alternative form
of energy and
reduce glucose and insulin spikes as
much as possible because that can
contribute to insulin resistance cut out
sugar as much as possible or process
carbohydrates if they're eating 2-300
grams a day you want to bring that down
to
under 100 grams a day of lower glycemic
carbohydrates essentially vegetables
and and go from there but if you
abruptly take out glucose from the diet
of someone who's
you know drinking lots of sugary drinks
and things like that that may initially
cause even a greater deficit in
cognitive function because your brain is
being fueled off glucose and may take a
while
to
to induce the adaptations associated
with transporting the ketones utilizing
the ketones and switching your brain to
an alternative form of energy most
people who have been keto for any length
of time will report back dude i first of
all three meals a day can't even handle
it it's like i couldn't eat three meals
a day it's way too much food number two
i probably get by on 30 fewer calories
now
doing all the same activities than i did
before i was keto what's that about and
what that it's about it's about
metabolic efficiency it's about
um you know less
thermic effect of food you know
sometimes we eat a large meal more than
we should have
and the body raises its temperature just
to kind of burn off some of that fuel
right because it doesn't want that much
fuel at one time yes it tries to stash
the glucose into
the glycogen reserves in the muscles if
there's not enough room it goes to the
fat cells
you know yes there's some
protein but excess protein goes to the
liver gluconeogenesis gets converted to
sugar same same issue with that
so all these all of these
elements of of efficiency now you don't
need as much protein because you're
sparing protein instead of
deaminating it and then peeing it out
all the time
you don't need as much carbohydrate
because you've learned how to make
ketones from your own stored body fuel
those ketones
really reduce the amount of
glucose that you need to make or you
need to to take in from the outside
you know there's a
statement that many people make in the
keto world that there is no
requirement in human nutrition for
carbohydrate at all because the body can
make enough glucose through
gluconeogenesis and then offset the rest
of the requirements with ketones hack
three
reset your diet
so i describe whole30 like pushing the
reset button with your healthier habits
and your relationship with food so we're
not a diet we're not a quick fix we're
not a weight loss program we're not even
prescriptive the basis of the whole30 is
that there are foods that are in your
diet maybe even the healthy stuff that
could be having a negative effect on how
you look and how you feel in your
quality of life
and the best way to know how these foods
work for you is to pull them out of your
diet for 30 days and then reintroduce
them one at a time very carefully and
systematically like an experiment so you
know all the dietitians say there is no
perfect one-size-fits-all diet and i
agree but everybody then says okay cool
like how do i figure out what works for
me
whole30 is how you figure out what works
for you you do this 30-day experiment
where you eliminate really commonly
problematic foods things like
added sugar alcohol grains
beans peas
soy and most forms of dairy you pull
them out
reintroduce them one at a time after the
30 days is up and then you compare your
experience and that's what lets you
figure out how those foods are working
for you
okay that makes sense so you've talked
about like making sure that you prepare
and that you're really committed and
don't go into it like half ass what what
is the process of making grand change in
your life
habit i mean
from my perspective at least in the
research i've done habit research
actually shows that black and white
rules are easier for the brain to follow
the idea of moderation is very difficult
for many of us especially when you're
talking about foods that are designed to
be over consumed like sugar it's really
hard to moderate the thing that is
constantly making you kind of crave more
so the rules are very black and white
and there's a lot of practical advice we
give to people going into it so it's you
know announce your commitment to someone
i'm doing the whole 30 and i'm starting
on this date because that accountability
and support is going to be huge for you
seeing the commitment through do some
planning and preparation so clean out
your pantry even though right now you
feel super jazzed about the program and
you're like i'm not even going to want
the chocolate
future you is going to be so happy that
you got rid of it when the cravings hit
so you know do some of this basic prep
do some meal prep but i'm also talking
about things like how to talk to friends
and family about your intentions here
because you might be surprised to find
that
the people who should be supporting you
the most get really defensive or really
critical of you trying to make these
changes and if you're not prepared for
that it can really throw you off your
game and i'm talking about thinking
about potentially stressful or difficult
situations and creating a plan for how
you're going to handle them and
thinking about what will i do in the
absence of these foods that i used to
use to comfort or reward or self-soothe
like what else could i do and making a
list and kind of in the beginning
literally going through your list of
things when you feel like you're tempted
and don't want to give in to that
craving so there's a lot of
psychological stuff that you should do
to prepare for something like this too
because it's it's about food but it's
not really about food and so my my sort
of mental model for nutrition is
everybody is starting out on one side
eating the standard american diet
abbreviated as sad which is an
appropriate abbreviation
and the thing i always tell patients on
day one is like look the good news is
you can't get any worse than this
the only thing if you're starting at the
sad the only thing you can do to make it
worse is eat more of the sad right
but it's like the standard american diet
and i don't believe this was deliberate
right i don't think there's a conspiracy
theory here
but just through a lot of bad luck
has arrived at the absolute worst
combination of macronutrients you could
possibly imagine like you couldn't come
up with a way to confuse someone's
metabolism than to combine fats and
carbohydrates in the ratios that they
are combined in most of the foods that
we would eat by default if we were left
to our druthers
so from there i say look there's kind of
two
introductory moves which are not
mutually exclusive but you can pick one
or the other the first is time
restricted feeding where now you don't
limit what you eat you just limit when
you eat it and then the second is
dietary restriction you don't restrict
when you eat you don't restrict how much
you eat which you also don't restrict in
time or feeding but you restrict certain
elements of what you eat so
for those three years that i was on a
ketogenic diet which is
i mean probably one of the most
demanding
subsets of dietary restriction um
you know i pulled that lever as hard as
it could be pulled
then you move into diets that sort of
mimic fasting
which is basically just another way of
saying hypocaloric diets for transient
uh periods of time and then ultimately
even beyond that is fasting just you
know water only also for limited periods
of time
nowhere in there do i include
constant caloric restriction
so you know reducing by 20 30 percent
your energy intake indefinitely i i
think the data are pretty clear that
that is not a winning strategy there's
something about the cycling into and out
of
catabolic versus anabolic state
you're basically clearing house right
you're sort of getting the cells that
are themselves defective and hopefully
the ones with the most effective
mitochondria we'd love to target those
the most for other reasons
um
what you want to see is the regrowth you
want to when you refeed you want to see
the selective repopulation of the better
cells
the most robust experiments done on this
in primates
did not really suggest that
as the diet got better the benefits of
caloric restriction got better in other
words the worse the diet the better the
benefit of caloric restriction which
points us to this idea that dietary
restriction should still always be some
component of a healthy nutrition
strategy meaning like if you're eating
like stop eating like stop eating
you're if you really really if you're if
you're committed to never eating
anywhere but mcdonald's caloric
restriction will have a much bigger
effect on you positively
than you know if your baseline intake is
you know the way you would eat for
example
hack four
test your gut and let's remember
something
this is the immune system
this what do you mean this the gut right
it is the immune system i mean we now
know that
that uh parkinson's disease starts in
the stomach we now know that that uh
intraocular pressure uh glaucoma starts
in the stomach it's an autoimmune
disease everybody's got autoimmune
diseases today
we can all agree
that uh inflammation is the root of all
disease today right we've been saying
that for what a decade now
well inflammation
is what the immune system does
that's how it mounts an attack on
something that's how if there's a
foreign something in your body it sends
out macrophages it sends out
inflammatory responses to going and to
destroy that and kill it if you work out
that's your immune system making you
recover you have inflammation and it
goes and resolves the inflammation
that all that's all coming from here
when when when your gut is bad your body
is bad and you you are more prone to
developing a widespread group of
diseases the first number one thing is
is to make sure you don't have a toxic
microbiome that means your microbiome is
uh is
producing the healthy stuff that your
body needs not the toxins uh that is
going into your body so just really
think of you and say is your microbiome
healthy is your microbiome toxic right
so that's the first part the second
thing is i want to put a fine point on
that because i this is what made me
think of it a second ago that notion of
a quorum yeah so
the fact that any one of them is looking
to see if they're the bully if they get
to call the shots and what happened with
lisa was
bad bacteria became the lead bacteria
and that's that tipping point yeah so
tipping point happens when your
ecosystem goes out of balance so it's
not the individuals think they're good
or bad so it's really not about as much
of good bacteria bad vector we all have
the good and bad but what happens is
they stay in check
right and each other they all keep each
other in check it is when you start to
eat certain foods and these guys start
to grow and this aha now we're going to
control everything else right and that's
really when you start to have trouble
other thing is when your epithelial
cells the barrier the mucous lining gets
thinner you start to get a leaky gut and
then you have a chronic inflammation all
the time so the way you do that is you
need to change the balance of ecosystem
of the microorganism and you need to
start repairing the lining of the gut
and you repair the lining by some time
giving the right set of supplements and
enzymes to repair the gut lining at the
same time you start to give the
prebiotic to feed the some of the guys
so they can start to grow and probiotic
to add some of the new stuff right and
then you start to change the diet so
you're starving the bad guys and you're
starting to prop the good guys right
you're feeding the things that need to
be fed and you're adjusting to see not
just the organisms you're starting to
adjust their functions so you start to
see how much of the butyrate you're
producing and if you're not producing
enough butyrate which is really good
thing then you have to take some of the
butyrate supplement until we can start
to grow these guys you got who have a
potential to promote to produce butyrate
we need to cut down all the organisms
and the food that are feeding the guys
who produce these toxin environments so
if lectins are one of the major ways
that
we get leaky gut
then if we get lectins out of our diet
that's how we plug the holes
unfortunately for us
the lining of the gut is only one cell
thick
and so imagine one cell thickness
keeping everything you eat or everything
living in you like bacteria separated
from you
and they're all held together locked arm
in arm with tight junctions so what dr
fazano showed with gluten which is a
lectin
is that gluten
makes its trouble by causing leaky gut
so once those
spaces are open
not only do lectins get through which
are foreign proteins they're splinters
but also pieces of bacteria call or
living bacteria
also get through the wall
now on the other side of the wall
is your border patrol your immune system
and 65 of all the white cells in our
body are up against this wall
why are they there because that's where
the
problem is going to happen if it's going
to happen
so when these foreign proteins get
across the wall the immune system
basically sounds the alarm
sounds the air raid sirens we go to
threat level five we scramble the
fighter jets and we actually go to war
status and
as i talk about in the book that war
status is manifested in multiple ways
whether it's brain fog whether it's
arthritis whether it's depression or
anxiety
whether it's coronary artery disease
which is how i got interested in it in
the first place
and
all of these things come right back to
what hippocrates said 2500 years ago
that if you want to
cure the disease head to the gut hack
five
build healthy relationships i was seeing
people come in they were so afraid of
gluten and they were so afraid of some
other foods that they were withdrawing
from social activities so i'm not gonna
go to the restaurant with you know the
girls on our monthly girls night because
there might be gluten in the sauce and
i've heard that because i have a thyroid
condition if i have any gluten that will
upregulate inflammation in my thyroid
gland for for up to six months so i
can't have any and if there's any in the
sauce i don't want to go out to dinner
and so now they become a bit recluse and
they spend more time on the internet
researching which by the way time on the
internet has is correlated with the with
scores of depression and anxiety as time
the internet goes up sense of well-being
goes down so they're trying to make
themselves healthier
but in doing so they're kind of
sabotaging their lifestyle it's a good
quote don't make yourself sick and
attempts to be healthy
um but how this ties into to purpose and
meaning
is you know part of our part of our
purpose is to have social connectivity
but one of the things that can make it
more difficult to have the purpose of
social connection
or can distract you from what you're
doing with your life is getting sucked
into this black hole of dietary
restrictions that can make your life
much more difficult to live and just as
a final point here there is some
evidence showing that coming back to the
smoking analogy another parallel has
been drawn that loneliness is as bad for
your health as smoking
so purpose and connectivity are are very
important and if
your diet is unnecessarily restrictive
it makes all those components of your of
your life more difficult so what i do is
called transformational nutrition and
there's three pillars to that so
transformational nutrition is the study
of human health and wellness on multiple
levels including the biological the
psychological and the spiritual areas of
life and when i say spirituality i don't
mean
religion even though it could certainly
be religion for youth but what i'm
talking about is connection
and there's really three pillars that we
study at the institute and that is you
know your personal
spirituality
communal spirituality and environmental
spirituality so personal spirituality is
about you it's about your connection to
yourself it's about understanding who
you are where you came from the truth of
that telling your story accepting your
story right not trying to change it not
trying to numb out but then there is you
know communal spirituality and that's
our relationships with others this is
huge i always say if you want to
understand or just get a quick snapshot
of someone's health ask them about their
relationships that's interesting it's a
direct correlation every single time so
how how healthy your relationships are
is how healthy you are as a person right
it's all just an outer reflection of
what's going on on the inside so you
know creating spiritual partnerships
with people
gary zukov coined the term spiritual
partners and you know he says friends
don't want to rock the boat
and spiritual partners
turn the boat over
to help you learn how to swim get your
relationships right you could devote
yourself to work where you work yourself
to death right but you have to allocate
creative downtime
uh
you know with your significant other
with your family to really get the most
out of life because otherwise it just
goes
buying a flash and that creative
downtime
uh is probably the most important thing
for mental health mental hygiene which
really
uh can i can look at my sleep and my
heart rate variability and see major
changes in that
and even my glucose levels come down
when i remove myself from stress
environments and get out into nature
things so i think that's the most
important thing it's not being in
ketosis it's not intermittent fasting
it's not that so it's it's really
focusing on relationships and giving
back i think um especially in today's
age of social media and where so much is
done online we feel more connected than
ever i'm on three different accounts i'm
you know messaging people i haven't seen
since high school i maintain entire
relationships including with the people
i'm closest to like my you know partner
and parents and sister via text message
i rarely get on the phone
i'm rarely facetiming unless it's with
my child
i think we feel really connected but
we're less connected than ever there's
no proxy for this in person social
connection the stress meeting mediating
effects the oxytocin boosting effects
just how good it feels
to actually connect and
you know we learn skills like empathy
through this connection through mimicry
and through reading body language and
facial expression and the less we do of
that i think the more disconnected we
feel and the more disconnected we feel
the more likely we are to turn to some
of these other behaviors as a way to
like self-soothe or cope or fill a hole
so i encourage people to connect for a
couple reasons one
shame and guilt like live in the dark
secrets live in the dark for me to show
up to somebody in my life and say like
i'm really in debt let me tell you about
what's going on with my finances or gosh
i made a huge mistake at work or
whatever it is we're feeling ashamed
about or uncomfortable that's incredibly
powerful for us to move through them i
think we're denying ourselves
the stress-mediating impact of being
one-on-one especially when we're trying
to make really big changes like changing
our diet which is hard and emotional and
and really intimidating for a lot of
people why wouldn't you want to share
your experience with that with someone
else and ask for their support and allow
them to support you hack six try fasting
i read a book by dr jason fong called
the complete guide to fasting and i
learned about more about the science
behind it but i think fasting has a
there's a physical component there's a
mental component and a spiritual
component right
physically we know that's great for
anti-aging longevity
anti-cancer
better digestion
cell regeneration in your body that's
the physical component yeah some people
do it for weight loss which i do not do
it for uh there's a mental component too
knowing that you can go
a day two three however long without
food and live and actually thrive just
realizing that you don't have to be
asleep to food
you can be in control of your body
is is um
it's it's amazing for your body and your
mind to realize that you're okay
without food you'll be okay you know
you're not gonna die and then a
spiritual component like there's a
reason
almost every major religion has some
type of fasting in it you know in the
mormon religion uh we grew up fasting uh
one 24 hours uh a month like one day a
month you fast for 24 hours and i hated
it as a kid so you know my perception of
what
fasting was was like this sucks but
there's a spiritual component like being
able to be more in tune with your body
and spirit
without having food to distract you
is really powerful and i feel like it
can
be spiritually uplifting you know
whether you're religious or not just
being more in tune with your body and in
your spirit as well like you you are a
soul i do really believe that um and i
think fasting is a way to tap into that
now i find that a lot of people don't
really understand what a fast is right
walk people through the difference
between intermittent fasting and then a
full extended fasting yeah here's the
easiest way to intermittent fast it's
going to make it so easy for everybody
watching right now
so you eat your last meal today at six
right six pm
wake up the next morning yeah i'm not
really hungry you just skip breakfast
and keep in mind that term breakfast
literally means break
the fast
doesn't mean you have to eat it eight
o'clock in the morning it just means
you're breaking the fast so why don't we
push that break fast
to knew
so if you do that you go from six
o'clock the night before to noon the
next day you just intermittent fasted
for 18 hours and all you missed was one
meal
are you really gonna miss that one meal
most people not once your keto adapted
very easily you will not
so
so just eat a sensible meal on on that
intermittent fast or a couple of
sensible meals because you get noon and
six you can eat so you eat twice that
day and then you do it all over again 18
hours
and i'm a big fan of mixing it up not
having the exact same every single day i
think the body will become used to an
18-hour fast that would be six to noon
every single day so maybe one day do six
to noon maybe the next day don't eat at
all and then the day after that
six to noon but the extended fasting
this is where it gets really interesting
so let's say you've intermittent fasted
let's say you're very keto let's say
you're ready to push it to the next
level first day should be easy you're
used to intermittent fasting it's day
two where it starts to get a little bit
more difficult people go okay
they're gonna like ring their their
their hands and just
because their body is so used to eating
that at that day is when everything kind
of goes a little bizerko in their body
and they they start people start to
freak out oh this is not working i need
to eat it no no push through that so how
do you push through it stay very well
hydrated
so drink drink drink and drink some more
salt
pink himalayan sea salt you can buy big
old buckets of it now at costco
and i get a pinch of it and i stick it
under the tongue
and when you do that you feel like you
had a meal
and so you're telling your body
everything's okay
usually the withdrawal symptoms that
people have where they think they need
to eat it's really just electrolyte
imbalance and so the pink himalayan sea
salt some people also do a little bit of
potassium maybe the was it the no salt
that has potassium some people take a
magnesium supplement so you get all the
electrolytes in there
and if you push through day two you get
to day three and you start to feel a
little better maybe some people are
still a little symptomatic but get
through three days and guess what
happens that a word
rears its ugly head in a good way and
that's autophagy because after three
days of not eating food
and i mean no
food you can have water you can have
salt but no food your body rewards you
by giving you cleaning up a cleaning up
of all those proteins there's always
going to be an adaptation period for
anyone who's getting into fasting so
expect the first month of it to be
challenging
and then it gets easier because now
you're psychologically and
physiologically more adapted to doing
this to your body what i have found is
that the more you fast the more your
heart rate variability improves and the
more actually you function better under
stress so like when i was traveling um
and i i always fasted my travel i have
found that i actually travel with less
stress because i'm fasting rather than
fasting is causing me to be stressed and
that comes from being adapted to it so
things that can improve your ability to
fast more effectively are getting more
fat adapted um getting on a whole food
diet getting i always tell people try to
do whole30 for at least a month before
you start doing fasting regularly um
just because it gets people off of
refined sugar and flour like you got to
get off of those things if you want to
fast effectively because if you're
eating those things you're on the
glycemic roller coaster if you're on
that roller coaster you're going to feel
like garbage if you try to fast so
getting on whole foods is the first step
and then doing things like 68 fasting
and then you can start challenging your
body with more fast so i say try 24-hour
fast how often do you guys fast
sales every month three for 72 hours i
do a 48 to 72 hour fast every month yeah
i noticed a lot of health benefits from
it initially anti-inflammatory gut
health
um you know just felt better but now the
reason why fast isn't for the physical
health benefits now it's the
i don't know what you want to call it
spiritual effects or whatever it's the
breaking the chain
from food because i started to realize
how often i ate because i was bored or
because i was supposed to eat like oh
it's noon i'm supposed to grab some food
and i often had a little time on my
hands and like what do i do now and when
i'm stressed out i feel like i want to
grab something to eat but i'm supposed
to be fasting today and so
it really changed my relationship with
food now of course
fasting could also
create a negative association with food
so it's not like a a cure-all but for
somebody who came from
the side of fitness where i was
force-feeding myself every two or three
hours which by the way is a myth that
doesn't build more muscle um
fasting was like i mean it was it was a
game changer
muscle didn't fall off my body you know
i'm feeling better and then when i
refeed i actually get stronger and feel
better and i'm assimilating food better
well this is fantastic so i do it now
more for those effects than anything
else hack seven
meditate often so vipassana is sort of a
meditation technique that's that's
thought to be taught through the line of
the buddha himself
and it's a simple style of meditation
that teaches you to be in the present
moment without attachment
so it's not there's no mantras involved
there's no visualization involved
there's no sending love or gratitude
anywhere it's simply being in the moment
and recognizing what is
and whatever pains or discomforts or
thoughts or feelings or whatever is
coming through to detach yourself from
that
so it's almost like removing emotion
from the external world
so that you master your inner self and
your inner
peace and balance just going through
that improved my knee pain
in a 10-day retreat so what is that well
i would argue that there was emotions
that i was holding on to that manifested
in
the body
and when i was able to detach from those
and let those go the pain let's go there
are these energies i think that we store
in our body
and this practice of vipassana
meditation taught me that that's likely
the case so it's really that you know
your state of mind impacts how you
digest things it impacts
uh you know you can you can increase
your your inflammatory markers by a
thought
or by a stress or whatever you can
change how your your your central
nervous system uh is reacting you can
change your hormone levels you so and
this is all verified right this is not
even controversial to say anymore so it
only makes sense that if you want to be
able to utilize that your the food that
you're eating create a good but also
create a better relationship with your
food i mean if i'm constantly eating
in a stressed state i am creating an
association or a connection to that food
that may not may not be serving me so
stop slow down if you're religious pray
if you're not
take a breath you know ask yourself or
just become aware of what you're about
to do and what you're about to eat and
then you'll notice that your food
choices will start to change and you'll
start to feel better as you're eating
i've been trying to get into a
meditation practice but could never make
it stick it's this four part meditation
guided and i just do it in my head
i find the guided aspect of it or having
something to think about helps me
stay in it a little bit longer instead
of just sitting and like thinking about
being zen
in the first part i think about people i
think of all the things i'm grateful for
and it just turns into this rolling list
of gratitude the second part you
think about lifting someone up
maybe i'm lifting them up maybe i'm
grounding them maybe i'm connecting them
to me through my energy and through my
light in the third part you are thinking
about what success looks like for you
today and that's kind of where i find my
like maxim for the day whether it's
to stay connected or stay open or stay
grounded or sometimes these things float
into my head and i have no idea what
they mean but like it just feels right
and in the fourth part you're just
sitting listening to the sounds around
you and i do this meditation in the
middle of my gym
when i'm done working out so there are
people with there are barbells and sleds
being dragged and pull-ups and crossfit
classes and two different musics going
on
and i'm just like sitting in the middle
of the turf with my eyes closed like
listening to everything
and it's been
one of the most life-changing
game-changing experiences to adopt this
meditation practice i'm not kidding
all right there it is i hope you guys
were really paying attention to
everybody's advice and that you
implement these strategies into your
life
immediately
with that i hope you guys have a happy
and healthy 2019 and remember until next
time be legendary take
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