A Mind of Your Own – Kelly Brogan, MD
(Buy from Amazon; Buy from The Book Depository)
New York Times bestseller
Named one of the top health and wellness books for 2016 by MindBodyGreen
Depression is not a disease. It is a symptom.
Recent years have seen a shocking increase in antidepressant use the world over, with 1 in 4 women starting their day with medication. These drugs have steadily become the panacea for everything from grief, irritability, panic attacks, to insomnia, PMS, and stress. But the truth is, what women really need can’t be found at a pharmacy.
According to Dr. Kelly Brogan, antidepressants not only overpromise and underdeliver, but their use may permanently disable the body’s self-healing potential. We need a new paradigm: The best way to heal the mind is to heal the whole body.
In this groundbreaking, science-based and holistic approach, Dr. Brogan shatters the mythology conventional medicine has built around the causes and treatment of depression. Based on her expert interpretation of published medical findings, combined with years of experience from her clinical practice, Dr. Brogan illuminates the true cause of depression: it is not simply a chemical imbalance, but a lifestyle crisis that demands a reset. It is a signal that the interconnected systems in the body are out of balance – from blood sugar, to gut health, to thyroid function– and inflammation is at the root.
A Mind of Your Own offers an achievable, step-by-step 30-day action plan—including powerful dietary interventions, targeted nutrient support, detoxification, sleep, and stress reframing techniques—women can use to heal their bodies, alleviate inflammation, and feel like themselves again without a single prescription.
Bold, brave, and revolutionary, A Mind of Your Own takes readers on a journey of self-empowerment for radical transformation that goes far beyond symptom relief.
Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.
Miller’s Review of Critical Vaccine Studies: 400 Important Scientific Papers Summarized for Parents and Researchers – Neil Z. Miller
(Buy from Amazon; Buy from The Book Depository)
Many people sincerely believe that all vaccines are safe, adverse reactions are rare, and no peer-reviewed scientific studies exist showing that vaccines can cause harm. This book — Miller’s Review of Critical Vaccine Studies — provides the other side of the story that is not commonly told. It contains summaries of 400 important scientific papers to help parents and researchers enhance their understanding of vaccinations.
“This book should be required reading for every doctor, medical student and parent. Reading this book will allow you to make better choices when considering vaccination.” — David Brownstein, MD
“This book is so precise and exciting in addressing the vaccine controversy that I read it in one evening. I recommend this book to any parent who has questions about vaccines and wants to be factually educated to make informed decisions.” — Gabriel Cousens, MD
“Neil Miller’s book is a tour de force and a clarion voice championing the cautionary principle: ‘When in doubt, minimize risk.’ Let’s talk science. Read this book. The truth will keep you and your children protected.”— Bradford S. Weeks, MD
“Nowhere else can one find such an organized and concise compilation of research on vaccines. Not only does Miller have a deep understanding of science and the issues at hand, he has made this book easy to reference and cite. Truly, there is no other guide out there quite like it. For everyone who contacts me in the future seeking scientific evidence about vaccines, I will recommend Miller’s Review of Critical Vaccine Studies.” — Toni Bark, MD, MHEM, LEED AP, previous Director of the pediatric ER at Michael Reese Hospital
“Miller’s Review of Critical Vaccine Studies is the most comprehensive and coherent accumulation of peer-reviewed research on vaccine issues and natural immunity I have ever come across. A must read for parents, teachers, doctors and other healthcare providers.” — Dr. Tyson Perez, pediatric chiropractor
Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.
Mindsight – Daniel J. Siegel MD
(Buy from Amazon; Buy from The Book Depository)
This groundbreaking book, from one of the global innovators in the integration of brain science with psychotherapy, offers an extraordinary guide to the practice of “mindsight,” the potent skill that is the basis for both emotional and social intelligence. From anxiety to depression and feelings of shame and inadequacy, from mood swings to addictions, OCD, and traumatic memories, most of us have a mental “trap” that causes recurring conflict in our lives and relationships. Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and co-director of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center, shows us how to use mindsight to escape these traps. Through his synthesis of a broad range of scientific research with applications to everyday life, Dr. Siegel has developed novel approaches that have helped hundreds of patients free themselves from obstacles blocking their happiness. By cultivating mindsight, all of us can effect positive, lasting changes in our brains—and our lives. A book as inspiring as it is profound, Mindsight can help us master our emotions, heal our relationships, and reach our fullest potential.
Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.
The Fourfold Path to Healing – Thomas S. Cowan MD, Sally Fallon, Jaimen McMillan
(Buy from Amazon; Buy from The Book Depository)
The Fourfold Path to Healing merges the wisdom of traditional societies, the most modern findings of western medicine and the esoteric teaching of the ancients. The fourfold approach includes: Nutrition using nutrient-dense traditional foods; therapeutics through a wide range of nontoxic remedies; Movement to heal and strengthen the emotions; and meditation to develop your powers of objective thought.
Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In this podcast I’ll be exploring your many different Bodies:
- I’ll explain how your physical body is more your energy body
- I’ll talk about four other bodies that help make the whole entire you
- Finally I’ll share how you can nourish and meet the needs of your 5 different bodies
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Humans, that’s me and you included, some of us we like to think that we’re different or better than other creatures, that we’re above other animals, plants, and sometimes even other humans.
Truth is on the surface we all look a little bit different. Okay majorly different, but if you were to zoom in, into your cells, into your molecules, into your atoms, and into the quantum particles themselves like quarks and leptons guess what you’d find? The exact same thing you’d find as if you zoomed in on a cat, on an insect, on a fish, on a tree, or even zoomed in on the sun.
Nothing.
Well you’d see nothing, but with devices like the superconducting quantum interference device or SQUID for short with such devices that measure energy you would find that this invisible nothing that you’ve zoomed all the way in on is actually energy swirling around vibrating as a wave of pure energetic potential and you only see this wave become physical reality and realise its potential when you zoom out of the very small quantum space where you see the particles form into atoms and molecules.
All this to say that your physical body, your physical being is really waves of potential energy manifesting and becoming real creating formed particles, molecules, cells, organs, muscle, bone, skin, and everything within.
Now your physical body is just one of the many parts that make up the whole you, one of the many energy bodies that you have and need to look after. I will now explore four other bodies that you may not be aware of.
Imagine looking at yourself standing on the Earth naked, your feet and legs connected to the Earth represent your physical body. This is the first of your 5 bodies.
Moving up from your legs we reach your groin area and here you’ll find your second body, your sexual body or sexual being. This body exists when you’re born, but doesn’t come into full expression until your teenage years when your hormones begin to go into overdrive so this body is concerned with your hormones and keeping them in balance is the key to a healthy sexual body. Your sexual body isn’t just about procreation and making babies. It’s also about creating experiences that take you out of your physical body and into a state of bliss and euphoric orgasmic ecstatic oneness with the universe. Your sexual body also strongly influences how you relate to your physical body and to other people in general. The more you explore your sexual way of being the more you will know thyself and the more confidence you will have being in your own skin in your physical body as well as having the confidence to be yourself when around other people.
If you have issues around sex where you find it difficult to think about sex let alone talk about it this will come down to the culture that you were brought up in and to how you were raised and there’s no right or wrong way to think about sex. There’s no right or wrong way about anything. Maybe this quote by French writer Marquis De Sade (I’ve no idea if that’s how you pronounce it) may help you see sex from a different perspective:
“’Sex’ is as important as eating or drinking and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other.”
So sex like food is a nutrient we all need and while food may feed your physical body sex feeds your sexual being.
Moving up your body we come to your chest area where your emotional body or emotional being radiate from. Your emotional body builds upon your sexual body and is about relationships with self and others. Your emotional way of being determines the kinds of energies or emotions you express externally and receive internally into your heart and how you express and receive these energies will determine the kinds of relationships you will find yourself in. This body is focused around perceived stress and about giving and receiving the most powerful stress-busting emotion of them all, love.
Moving up into the head area now we come to your mental body or mental being. Remember though that your mind doesn’t reside or live just in your brain, but lives in your entire being, your bodymind. Your head is merely a symbol for your mental being. Your mental body is all about thought energy and choices. Your mental body communicates with the brain, your heart, and your gut with neurotransmitters and by keeping these neurotransmitters in balance you keep your mind clear and focused which allows you to make better choices. Thought energy along with your emotions and how you feel will influence your choices which will control your actions which will determine the results you get in life.
Going above your head above your crown is the final and fifth body, your soul body or just your soul. Your soul symbolically lives outside your physical body, but it permeates, it runs, it beats through every single cell and every wave of energy of all your bodies physical, sexual, emotional and mental. Your soul joins these bodies to all the other bodies in the Universe. Meaning you are connected to the Universe, to Great Spirit, to Infinite Intelligence, to the Creator, to God, or whatever it is, whatever name you choose to call the thing that created you and everything around you. That connection to something bigger than your self happens through your soul body. Your soul is pure energy and the level and frequency that your soul vibrates at is determined by the health and the functions of your other four bodies as well as your environment. A high vibration and frequency is associated with happiness, health, wholeness, and peace. A low vibration and frequency correlates to sadness, sickness, separation, and stress.
So those are your 5 bodies and all of these bodies, physical, sexual, emotional, mental, and soul they need to be taken care of and I’ll go through now how to nourish and feed each of your 5 bodies.
In terms of your physical body you can really feed this body well and nourish it with all that it needs by following the 7 Holistic Health Principles as laid out in the previous podcast. Two simple tips that I can give now though is eat real food and move often. Simple, right? Well in reality, you know the real world, for a lot of people eating real food and moving often those aren’t easy recommendations to stick to. This is why I believe the best way to nourish your physical body besides the 7 principles is by nourishing your other four bodies. With your sexual, emotional, mental, and soul bodies fulfilled and nourished you will find your physical body feeds itself the right foods and moves itself when it needs to.
Your sexual body needs to express itself freely without it feeling shame. It receives nourishment through physical and mental erotic and sensual pleasures. This can include the obvious sexual goals of orgasm and ejaculation, but also includes something as basic as touch. Being touched or touching someone else can help feed your sexual being without having to get naked and making it an erotic or adult experience. Reading erotic literature may be helpful as well. Make sure though that you’re in a safe space with yourself or with other consenting partners when expressing your sexual way of being. Your sexual body also needs hormones in the right balance and this will come down to how well you follow the 7 Holistic Health Principles.
Your emotional body really loves love. Not just love from another person, but especially love for your self. Because if you can learn how to love yourself you’ll find it easier to love others. The best way to love you is to know you. Know thyself and you will love yourself. There are 3 practises that I use daily to learn more about myself and what it is in life that I really want or don’t want.
First one is meditation. 20 minutes in the morning of Qi-gong helps me train my bodymind to focus on one thought, but I also learn what other thoughts keep trying to creep in and take over. You’ll learn a lot about the way you think through meditation.
Second practise is gratitude. Before bed every night I give gratitude for the experiences I had that day and this keeps me grounded in knowing what’s important in the larger scheme of things, helps me see the bigger picture of life.
Final practise is mindfulness. Being in the now, in the present moment brings a lot of awareness to how I’m being. It doesn’t stop me from being or doing things I’d rather not, but I can observe myself and be fully aware of my actions and so there’s no regret later on for how I was or for what I did as I fully accepted in the moment that if this is what is, then so be it. But mindfulness also gives me the opportunity to choose a different way of being in that moment.
So for example let’s say I’m eating way too many chocolates a lot more than I should, which happens. I will think to myself, ‘okay I’ve almost eaten an entire bar of dark chocolate. Do I continue and enjoy the whole bar with its dark sensual bitter flavours or do I stop and leave the rest for tomorrow?’ Whatever action I take it doesn’t matter. I would have taken it in full awareness and acceptance. Mindfulness allows me to observe my behaviour and to choose acceptance on how I’m being and to choose an alternative action and to do something different if I wanted to. These 3 practises meditation, gratitude, and mindfulness teach me a lot about myself and allows me to love who I am and who I’m not and to love who others are for who they are and for who they are not.
Okay your mental body this needs information. The more information you can give it the better it will serve you. Now I’m not talking about books and logical types of information I’m talking about energetic information or informed thought energy. The more informed thought energy you can feed your bodymind the more nourished and healthy your mental body will be. One way to get informed thought energy is to meditate. Again I just talked about this meditation trains you in focusing your thoughts on one thing. This clears up the chatter, the clutter, the monkey speak in your bodymind and gives you the ability to control what it is you would like to be thinking about. This focus and control of your thoughts gives you the power of choice and in making choices that are life-affirming.
You don’t want scrambled thought energy as this will just mess up your bodymind, create confusion, cause doubt leading to indecision and poor choices and this scrambled energy will cause other imbalances in your other bodies. Organic farm-fresh scrambled eggs are healthy, but a scrambled bodymind is not.
Your mental body also revolves around your brain, heart, and gut and these organs are connected through your vagus nerve. They speak to each other using neurotransmitters and hormones. By following the 7 Holistic Health Principles you will keep these molecules of communication in balanced amounts giving you better focus allowing you to think more clearly and feeding your mental body informed thought energy.
Finally, your soul body. Your soul is connected to everything in the universe because your soul is pure energy, the very essence of the universe. The thing that breathes, that beats, that sleeps, that moves everything in the universe is what makes up 100% of your soul, energy. Now your soul is always giving and receiving energy. If your soul is starved it’ll give off bad energy. If it’s nourished and satisfied it’ll give off good energy. Now there’s a universal principle of like attracting like so if you’re giving bad energy that’s what you’ll receive, if you’re giving good energy that’s what you’ll receive. So how do you nourish your soul so that it gives and receives positive energy? By having a dream.
“A tortured soul is one without a dream. A peaceful soul is one moving towards its dream.”
When you’re following your Dharma or your duty here in this lifetime, when the way you live your life is on purpose and in alignment with your core values and your dream your soul is vibrating at a very high vibrational frequency, good vibes, positive energy, which always leads to happiness and health. However, if you don’t know what you’re doing or why you’re doing it or if you’re making life choices that are not consistent with how you really want to live then your soul, your energetic being begins to fizzle out and you begin to experience more pain than pleasure and more sickness than health.
Your soul is interconnected, integrated, inseparable from not only the universe, but also with your purpose, with your goal, with your vision, with why you’re here. By having a dream you will find your place in the universe and will soon realise the oneness that you, we, all things in the universe truly are.
So I want you to think to yourself before this day is done what’s one thing that you can do to feed your physical body (example eat real food); one thing you can do to feed your sexual body (say a sensual massage); one thing you can do to feed your emotional body (have some gratitude); one thing you can do to feed your mental body (try a 2 minute nasal breathing session); and what’s one thing you can do to feed your soul body (how about getting some clarity on your life purpose or take some action on the next step in reaching your goals).
You are more than your physical body, a lot more, and by nourishing the different parts that make the whole you, you give yourself the best chance at living the good life, an awesome life, a happy healthy holistic life.
Links and Resources
Please leave a 5-star iTunes review for the Whole Guidance Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher Radio | Android | RSS
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In this podcast I’ll be exploring How to get Yourself Back on a Holistic Track after Overindulging on Food:
- I’ll explain how overeating can be a gateway to many other dream-negating bad habits
- I’ll talk about some of the causes for overeating
- Finally I’ll share five tips that’ll help get your bodymind back into a holistic way of being after an episode of overeating
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Overeating, binging, and overindulging on food are habits that other animals don’t seem to exhibit. The human animal, however, practises this habitual way of eating to the extreme a lot more than it should.
When you binge eat there’s the possibility of thinking that since you’re already doing something that’s not exactly health-promoting you may as well do some other non-healthy things like indulge in some alcohol, sloth around all day, or just think horrible negative thoughts like how sucky it is to be you right now for not having the willpower to just say no to food.
As a kid I would binge eat on cookies or crackers and hot chocolate (yummy) and I still have binge eating episodes to this day. I know for myself that once I start going down the binge eating path my return to the path of a healthy way of eating can be a long and difficult one as other healthy habits fall by the wayside as well. My sleeping pattern would go all over the place, I’d forget (on purpose) about keeping up with my usual movement practise, and I’d find my thoughts heading down a dark corridor.
One reason for overeating is not being mindful and conscious of your own actions.
I know many people who literally eat like ducks. They barely chew their food and end up swallowing big portions of food down their gullets. I know many people like this because I used to be one. You can only see what you have within you, so that’s why it’s easy for me to see this because I definitely had this mindless habit for a long time. Back in the day I was one of the fastest eaters on the planet (true story) and I never took the time to chew my food, you know to just enjoy the taste. I was never fully involved in the whole eating process. I guess you could say I thought eating was a waste of time and I had better things to do. Problem is because I ate so fast I wasn’t giving my body the proper signals that I’ve eaten and it’s time to stop now. So I would have seconds, thirds, and all too often a fourth serving. Looking back at it now all I can think is ‘man I really was a pig… or a duck.
Another reason for binge eating is emotional.
Feeling alone or hurt. Feeling like you don’t have a purpose and don’t know who you are and what you want or living a life that you really aren’t in love with. So loneliness, confusion, and fear of life itself will cause many people to turn to food for comfort and this can turn into a long period of binge eating.
Last reason I’ll give for overindulging on food is the season.
What I’m talking about here are special occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, and holidays, all of these are perfect excuses to get off the health train and on the indulgence express (my kind of ride). I mean who doesn’t love pumpkin pies, fruit salads with ice cream, cakes, and my personal favourite homemade smoked salmon. Smoked salmon, you may be thinking how is that unhealthy? Well let me tell you how. If you can sit down and eat half a whole salmon including the head in less than 20 minutes that my friend is overindulging of the highest degree. Remember:
“Too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing.”
All right so let’s get into five ways you can get yourself back to living a holistic healthy lifestyle after an episode of overeating.
So the day after your however-long binge first thing you want to do is to get back in touch with your dream. What is your dream? Do you even have a dream? Have you written it down with specific goals and outlined the steps you need to take to get you there? Have you got clear personal core values on when to say yes or no when it comes to your dream? If you haven’t got a dream with clear goals and core values then you’re living life with no real direction.
A dream is your compass, your GPS that keeps you on your chosen path.
As the saying goes:
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
So unless your dream is to gain massive amounts of weight or to outdo everyone at a buffet meal or to win an all-you-can-eat contest then overeating, binging, and overindulging on food are not dream-affirmative actions. Listen to the Dream Building podcast I did for more information on using dreams to help guide your holistic lifestyle, it’s podcast number 14.
Second tip: get outdoors. Strip to the bare essentials (not fully naked, but if you can get fully naked more power to you) and get some sunshine on your skin and ground yourself to the Earth by going barefoot on the grass, soil, or sand. Connecting with nature will help improve your mood, boost your immune system, and help reduce the inflammation caused by the excessive amounts of energy you’ve been putting into your body.
Third tip is to do a little fasting. Digestion is a 4-6 hour process and your body has to focus a lot of attention on this very important function. Nutrients and energy will be diverted to your stomach and intestines to ensure proper digestion takes place, but this means other functions in your body will be somewhat affected.
One process that happens in your cells only during times your body isn’t digesting and when you haven’t eaten in a long time is called autophagy. Autophagy is when cells destroy, clear out, and recycle old, damaged, and unused proteins. This makes for a healthier, cleaner internal environment for the cell giving it longevity and maintaining its ability to function at an optimal level. By fasting you give your cells the chance to clear out the junk and to repair or get rid of what’s not working.
Now there are many different ways to fast. You could do a 24 hour fast once or twice a week, a 48 hour water fast, 3 day fruit fast, couple weeks of juice fasting, or what I normally practise intermittent fasting where you fast between 12-18 hours and eat only within a certain feeding window of 12-6 hours.
Right now I’m doing a 12 hour fast with a 12 hour feeding window. So I usually finish eating dinner before 7 and don’t have breakfast until 7 the next morning.
Fourth tip is to move at high intensities. High intensity movement patterns include lifting heavy (at least 80% your 1 rep maximum) and high intensity interval training where you go all out for a certain amount of time and then rest for a certain amount of time and you repeat this over and over.
High intensity training helps maintain and build lean muscle mass, which is a metabolically rich part of your body, meaning the more muscle you have the more energy you actually need to maintain it. HIT also keeps your metabolism raised long after the workout, up to 48 hours in some cases, allowing your body to burn energy and fat even while you’re at rest. HIT compared to longer endurance activities stops your stress hormone cortisol from staying too high for too long, which is exactly what you want as cortisol is catabolic, meaning it breaks things down including muscle tissue. Last benefit to high intensity workouts is that they can be extremely short. So instead of going for an hour long run you could do sprints on a spin bike with the whole workout lasting no more than 20 minutes and turn yourself into a metabolic beast.
Last tip to getting yourself back on track after an episode of binge eating is to get back to eating real food. Stick to whole foods from Mother Nature and skip the packaged and processed junk from Father Industry. If for one week you can lower your starch and fruit intake that’d be even better.
Remember:
“Real food is real medicine.”
And by eating real food you’re giving your body exactly what it needs to heal and repair itself. Especially important after a period of feeding it an excessive amount of energy or significant amounts of fake pretend food-like products.
So follow your dream, connect with nature, do a little fasting, do intense movements, and just eat real food and in no time you’ll be back on track to living your dream and living a holistic healthy lifestyle.
Links and Resources
Please leave a 5-star iTunes review for the Whole Guidance Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher Radio | Android | RSS
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In this podcast I’ll be exploring Vitamin D and Smart Sun Exposure:
- I’ll explain the importance of Vitamin D and how it is made
- I’ll talk about how conventional mainstream sun safety advice and practises are causing more harm than good
- Finally I’ll give tips on how to practise smart sex (that’s smart Sun EXposure) and how to optimise your vitamin D levels so you can continue to live a happy, healthy, and holistic life
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
In the previous podcast I talked about some very important hormones that you needed to know about. By living a holistic lifestyle you can keep these hormones in a beautiful state of harmony and balance which in turn keep you and your body happy, healthy, and in harmony and balance as well.
One hormone I didn’t mention in the last podcast was vitamin D. I didn’t talk about vitamin D in the previous show because I believe that no matter the chaos in your physical, emotional, and mental body’s vitamin D has the power to bring all of you back to centre, in harmony, in balance, in peace and one with the universe. Yeah I know sounds pretty hippy dippy and I’ll talk more about this at the end of this, but for now let me talk more about vitamin D.
First up vitamin D has been given just the worst name ever because it isn’t a vitamin at all. A vitamin is an organic compound that your body cannot make and vitamin D is created by your body when your skin gets exposed to the sun. Technically vitamin D is a fat-soluble secosteroid so it’s a steroid hormone much like cortisone and testosterone, but let’s not get too technical here shall we.
I like to call vitamin D the sun hormone… sounds nice right.
The sun hormone controls the expression of over 1000 genes in your body meaning it can turn on or off about 5% of your entire genetic code. Whoa! The sun hormone also reduces inflammation, boosts your immune system, destroys disease, prevents tumours, fights cancer, strengthens your bones, is a powerful antioxidant, improves mood, enhances and activates the actions of the nutrients you eat, so overall vitamin D (the sun hormone) helps you live a longer quality of life.
Right now there is a worldwide deficiency in vitamin D levels in the human population. Even those in equatorial regions are vitamin D deficient can you believe it.
On top of that skin cancer rates continue to rise despite people following national health guidelines for sun safety.
In New Zealand where I live we have the SunSmart campaign where we are advised to slip on a long-sleeved shirt and into the shade, slop on copious amounts of high sun protection factor (SPF) broad spectrum sunscreen, slap on a wide brimmed hat, and wrap on some wrap-around sunnies (that’s sunglasses for you non-local folk). So Slip, Slop, Slap, and Wrap… pretty catchy right.
This campaign also recommends the following:
- During September to April (the warmer months of the year) we should be sun protected between the hours of 10a-4p, and in the early morning and late afternoon have some form of outdoor activity for 30 minutes without sun protection
- During May to August (the cooler months of the year) we should be outdoors for 30 minutes with face, arms, and hands exposed in the hours around noon
Now unfortunately it is this exact misinformation that is leading to both decreased levels of vitamin D and increased levels of skin cancer in the human population.
How so?
Well first I’ll talk about how your body actually makes vitamin D.
Okay I know I said earlier that I didn’t want to get too technical, but the way the human body makes this potent healthful hormone from sunlight or light energy is pretty cool.
When UVB rays from the sun hit your skin they react with a precursor molecule in your skin called 7-dehydrocholesterol to create vitamin D3. Now you can find this particular form of vitamin D in supplements. When this D3 is released from your skin into your bloodstream it travels to your liver where it’s converted to 25-hydroxyvitamin D3. 25-hydryoxyvitamin D3 then gets transported to your kidneys where it’s activated into the steroid hormone form that your body actually uses. This active form of vitamin D is called 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 and it’s this form of the sun hormone that regulates gene expression and makes you a happy and healthy human.
Now the sun gives off a few different ultra violet rays, but its UVA and UVB that are relevant here. Here are some details about these two different spectrums of sunlight:
- UVA does not get absorbed by the ozone layer and reaches the Earth’s surface year round. UVB is mostly absorbed by the ozone layer and only reaches the Earth’s surface during summer and the warmer months of the year.
- UVA penetrates a few layers into the skin. UVB does not.
- UVA causes skin to thicken and age, but not burn. UVB does the opposite. It burns, but does not thicken or age skin.
- UVA damages melanin-producing cells (melanin gives colour to your skin and acts as an antioxidant, meaning melanin protects against skin cancer). UVB promotes melanin production.
- UVA overexposure leads to malignant melanoma (the aggressive type of skin cancer). UVB overexposure leads to non-melanoma skin cancer (the least dangerous of skin cancers).
- UVA passes through glass. UVB does not.
- UVA will not produce vitamin D. UVB will.
Also take note that due to the fact that most of the UVB rays get absorbed by the ozone layer the angle of the sun to the Earth will determine the amount of UVB that actually hits the Earth’s surface. So during the summer and warmer months of the year when the sun is high between 10a and 4p there will be full UVB exposure on the Earth’s surface, as well as UVA of course. However, in the winter months when the sun is low on the horizon then very little to no UVB penetrates the ozone layer, but there’s still full UVA exposure on the Earth’s surface.
So if you’re living north and south of the 33rd parallels of the Earth’s latitude then you’re not getting any UVB during the cooler months of the year, but you’re getting plenty of UVA.
Okay enough about sunrays. I want to talk about sunscreens now.
Sunscreens are just the icing on the proverbial cake of misinformation. They are meant to protect the skin of the human race, but as it turns out most commercial sunscreens or sunblocks are nothing but a big disgrace.
Your skin can also be called your second mouth as approximately 60-70% of what you put on your skin gets absorbed directly into your bloodstream – bypassing your liver and its detoxifying processes. What goes on your skin goes straight to your blood.
The majority of sunscreens sold in supermarkets and pharmacies today are made with toxic chemicals that will actually increase your chances of getting skin and other cancers. These chemicals include:
- Retinol
- Retinyl palmitate
- OMC or octyl methaxycinnamate
- Octocrylene
- Avobenzone
- Oxybenzone
- Homosalate
- Octinoxate and
- Octisalate
Add to this fact that many sunscreen SPF factors are based on blocking UVB exclusively meaning you get no vitamin D producing rays, but plenty of the UVA cancer causing rays. As for the broad spectrum sunscreens, which block both UVA and UVB, most of them don’t block both rays evenly. Instead it’s more 67-95% of UVB being blocked compared to only 5-33% of UVA.
Let me put it all together then and summarise how modern living, national sun safety guidelines, and sunscreen care products create vitamin D deficiency and skin cancer.
You work indoors most of the day missing out on vitamin D production. Even worse you sit next to windows that are not UV-rated thinking that you’re getting a daily dose of sunshine. Problem is because glass filters out UVB and not UVA it’s more of a daily dose of cancer that you’re getting.
When you’re outside you’re told to cover up during the hottest part of the day which is also the time that UVB penetrates and gets through the ozone layer to the Earth’s surface. Then when it’s cooler you uncover yourself a bit more, but there’s no longer any UVB and only UVA hits your skin.
You use toxic chemical heavy sunscreens and sunblocks that not only block more UVB than UVA, but they also block your body’s ability to function 100% by overtaxing your innate detoxification system, meaning they overload your liver and this leaves the door wide open to diseases. Plus the chemicals themselves (the ones I mentioned before) they are carcinogenic, meaning they cause the overgrowth of cancer cells in your body.
So here you have two sources of cancer. You get cancer externally via UVA rays penetrating deep into your skin and into your cells and you can get cancer internally from the toxic chemicals used in sunscreens that get absorbed through your skin.
Alright so let’s get into some tips on how you can practise smart sex, smart Sun Exposure.
First, go outside during UVB penetration times. This will depend on your location, time of the year, and is based on the sun’s position in the sky. Remember when the sun is high, vitamin D production is high.
Expose as much of your skin as possible without sunscreen for the appropriate amount of time based on your skin type. You want to get a nice tan, but you never ever want to get sunburn. Sunburn causes a cascade of inflammation and immune activity in your body that over time will turn into a chronic disease. So if you’re very light skinned maybe 5-20 minutes is all you can do before the damaging effects of UVA kick in. Whereas if you have darker skin you could do between 20-60 minutes easy depending on how much melanin you have in your skin and how tolerant your skin is to the sun’s rays. Once you sense the burn in your skin then it’s time to slip, slop, slap, and wrap!
So during the summer season and the warmer months of the year expose yourself to the sun between 10a and 4p. During any other time of the season, year, or day cover up.
Second tip, keep away from windows during the day otherwise cover up as much as possible if stuck behind one.
Third tip is to eat your sunscreen. That’s right you can consume plenty of “sunscreen-like” compounds from real food that will protect you from sun damage from the inside out. How cool is that eh!
So eat plenty of antioxidant rich foods like small berries, vegetables, herbs and spices. The lycopene in tomatoes has been shown to be protective against sun damage. Omega-3 and saturated fats are great internal sunscreens so eat more oily fish and animal fat from grass-fed free-range pasture-raised happy animals. Astaxanthin is another great skin protecting compound that you can get from krill oil or in supplement form.
Fourth tip is to only buy and use all-natural organic sunscreens. A healthy sunscreen will have the active ingredients titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. These do the actual UV blocking. Also almond, coconut, sunflower, jojoba, and eucalyptus oils or any other ingredient you would normally think of as natural and even eat are fine. Shea butter is another popular natural ingredient. If you wouldn’t eat it don’t put it on your skin. For a basic sunscreen recipe all you need is some zinc oxide and a nice plant based lotion.
Fifth smart sex step is if you are unable to get enough sun exposure then eat your sun hormone. You can get vitamin D from real foods like wild caught oily fish, grass-fed butter and raw full-fat dairy, free-range pasture-raised egg yolks and lard, fermented cod-liver oil as well as other organically raised animal livers.
If you are unable to eat enough vitamin D foods then you can take vitamin D3 supplements, not D2, but D3 and make sure the capsule is infused with some fat like extra-virgin olive oil as the sun hormone is a fat-soluble molecule and is a lot easier to absorb when taken with fat.
When supplementing with vitamin D it is important to get your vitamin D levels tested. What you want is the blood test for 25-hydroxyvitamin D. A healthy range is between 35-65 ng/mL. Your results will then determine your actions, meaning do not blindly believe you are vitamin D deficient or sufficient and go overboard on the supplements or not supplement enough. Test is best, do not guess. A good guideline to follow when supplementing vitamin D3 (while you wait for your results) is to take 1000 IU (international units) per 11kg/25lbs of body weight. Once you do find out your vitamin D levels you can increase or decrease your sun exposure and supplementation as is required.
Final and crucial tip and this has to do with optimising the vitamin D you do produce, eat, or supplement with, is to reduce your body fat. Remember vitamin D is a fat-soluble molecule so the more fat cells you have and the larger those fat cells are then the more vitamin D your body fat will hold onto and the less vitamin D there will be in your bloodstream to be converted into the more important active hormone needed for maintaining and building the wealth of your health.
Listen to the podcast before this one that I did on balancing your hormones to optimise your fat-burning potential for more information on how to reduce your body fat the easy way without having to count calories.
I’ll leave you with this.
I personally believe that Vitamin D is the most important hormone in the human body. The reason I say this is because the majority of multicellular life on this planet lives and dies by the sun and human beings are no different.
You and I,
“We are beings of light energy”
and none of us, not me, not you, not even the moon would be here if it weren’t for the beautiful unconditionally giving and loving sun that supports all the life in our little region of the universe.
The more disconnected you are from the source of your existence the more you disconnect yourself from who you really are, your true being.
The more you disconnect yourself from that light that birthed you, that light that currently breathes you, and that light that will one day return you to source, the less happy, the less whole, and the less complete you will feel.
In order to live an awesome life you need to get back to your roots and there’s nothing more rooted in human ancestral tradition and culture then having fun out in the sun man.
You want sun? Go get sun.
Links and Resources
Please leave a 5-star iTunes review for the Whole Guidance Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher Radio | Android | RSS
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In this podcast I’ll be exploring Calories and Hormones:
- I’ll explain what calories are and how counting calories won’t do much for your health
- I’ll talk about hormones and how they affect your health a lot more than calories
- Finally I’ll give a few tips on how to balance your hormones naturally to turn you into a fat-burning machine
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Calories are all people talk about when it comes to dieting and changing body composition. Funny thing is most people have no clue what a calorie actually is.
Well a calorie is a unit of heat energy where 1 calorie equals the amount of energy needed to heat 1 gram of water 1 degree Centigrade.
The way calories are measured is to burn the dry weight of the object you want to find the calorie value of and then measure how much heat is given off. So if you wanted to find out the number of calories in a banana, for example, you would first dehydrate it and then burn it and by measuring the amount of heat it gives off you will be able to work out the amount of calories it contained.
Now this is all fine and dandy when measuring calories using a calorimeter in a stale, stable, stagnant setting like a scientific laboratory, but when you’re talking about measuring the burning of foods in the human body or the metabolic-effect of how food calories are utilised by human physiology then Houston… we have a problem.
You see if you were to ask an aboriginal tribe in a South American jungle or African bushland or Australian outback who are excellent specimens of optimal human health whether they weighed, measured, and counted the amount of calories or energy or foods they ate on a regular basis, they would just look at you sideways, show off their bright-white teeth with a wide grin, and then they’d start laughing their bottoms off. They have a lot more important things to be concerned with than calories like maintaining shelters, hunting and gathering food, and getting back to telling stories and playing around all day. Sounds like the life right?
Your ancestors as far back as 100 years ago were not concerned with counting calories and obesity wasn’t even an issue back then. Today, however, it seems like the more calories we count as a society the more obese we seem to be getting. What’s up with that?
The reason is human beings are not calorimeters. You are not a simple input and output device. Your body is one of the most complex biological machines in the universe. Your body is an interconnected system of trillions of inputs and outputs.
For someone to say that they know exactly what happens to the hundred calories they eat from food or say that they know exactly how much calories they burned during exercise is human hubris at it again, meaning we think we know better than Mother Nature. It is impossible to know the exact amount of fuel energy you get from food and how much energy you burn from movement.
Another thing is that not all calories are created equal. 2000 calories of sugar water, for example, if you were to compare this to 2000 calories of coloured vegetables, yes they are the same amount of energy, exactly the same amount of energy, but when your body begins to digest, absorb, assimilate and metabolise and make use of the macro and micronutrients you will see a totally different effect in how your body looks, in how you think and feel, and how you act in life. A human body made up of sugar water compared to one made up of vegetables would be the same as comparing a house made up of straw and one made up of brick and mortar. One is weak and full of holes (tumours) whereas the other is strong and solid (healthy).
Ask yourself are the calories that you’re currently consuming on a regular basis turning you into a person of straw or into a solid piece of human awesomeness?
There are a number of ways the foods you eat and the movements you perform affect your biology way beyond calories and energy expenditure. You need to stop focusing on calories when it comes to happiness and health because there’s more to your wellbeing than just energy in and energy out.
The foods you eat and the movements you perform will absolutely determine the physical structure and functionality of your organs, they will determine your mood, and food and movement have a huge impact on your hormones.
Speaking of hormones these are molecules that your body uses to communicate between the many different organs, glands, and tissues. Hormones affect your body’s metabolism, immune function, growth and repair, your mood, your stress levels, and your body composition.
The major hormones you need to know about are:
- Insulin
- Cortisol
- Melatonin
- Leptin
- Ghrelin
- Oestrogen and testosterone and
- Thyroid hormones
Insulin is an anabolic or growth hormone released by your pancreas and helps transport nutrients from your bloodstream into your cells. Excessive amounts of glucose (sugar) in your bloodstream leads to the transformation of most of this glucose into fatty acids and high levels of nutrients in your blood causes your pancreas to release large amounts of insulin. Once insulin gets into your bloodstream it then does its job of storing all those nutrients into your cells as well as putting any leftover fatty acids into your fat cells, so insulin plays a major role in fat accumulation.
Cortisol known as the stress hormone is catabolic meaning it breaks things down and it is released by your adrenal glands in response to physical or perceived stress, low blood sugar levels, or low leptin levels. When your blood sugar levels get too low this will cause a cortisol spike. This sudden increase in cortisol then raises your blood sugar levels and when blood glucose gets too high insulin will need to be released to bring it back to a healthy low level and if your blood glucose drops too far then cortisol comes out to play again and this sugar and hormonal rollercoaster continues on and on making for a fatter and heavier you.
Melatonin is your antioxidant, anti-tumour, circadian clock time for bed hormone. Melatonin needs to be low in the morning and high in the evening for the best sleep and recovery as well as for the most growth hormone release during sleep, which helps you burn fat as you dream. This is the opposite rhythm to cortisol. Cortisol needs to be high in the morning and low in the evening. So if you don’t get enough daylight exposure during the day, you’re exposed to too much blue and bright lights after sundown, and if your cortisol rhythm is not normal, this will cause your melatonin levels to be low making it difficult for you to fall asleep and to get a full nights rest.
Leptin is a satiety hormone meaning it signals to your brain when you have enough energy in your body and is released by your fat cells. The more fat you have the more leptin your fat cells release signalling to your brain that you have plenty of energy on board and you don’t need to eat. The less fat you have the less leptin gets released signalling to your brain that you don’t have enough energy on board and that it’s time to eat. The problem for obese individuals is something called leptin resistance where you have so many fat cells releasing a lot of leptin that your brain just can’t take the excessive amounts of communication anymore and just stops listening. So even though your fat cells are signalling non-stop to your brain that your body has more than enough energy on board and that you don’t need to eat, your brain ignores these signals and still thinks you’re low on leptin and therefore low on energy and fat stores. Chronically low leptin levels as perceived by your brain will cause an increased release of the stress hormone cortisol and high cortisol levels keep your leptin levels low.
Ghrelin is a hunger hormone and works opposite to leptin. Low levels of leptin usually mean you are low on energy reserves and this causes a release of ghrelin which then increases your appetite. Once your appetite is satisfied and enough leptin hormone reaches your brain telling it you have enough energy on board then ghrelin hormone reduces which also lowers your appetite. Now if you have high levels of cortisol in your body this will cause leptin levels to be low meaning ghrelin will increase giving you an appetite. So the more stress you have the hungrier you get.
Oestrogen and testosterone are sex hormones used for growth and for reproduction. Women have slightly higher levels of oestrogen hormones compared to men and men have a lot more testosterone than women. Chronically high levels of insulin in your bloodstream (due to a high sugar diet for example) leads to an increase of testosterone in women and a decrease of testosterone in men as well as an increase of oestrogen in men. When cortisol is low testosterone and insulin are high, but when cortisol is high testosterone and insulin are low making cortisol a muscle wasting hormone. Chronically high levels of cortisol interferes with the normal production of your sex hormones, so too much stress overtime leads to low libido or sex drive, infertility, and the end of sexy times in the bedroom.
Last group of major hormones you really need to know about are your thyroid hormones. Your thyroid hormones are responsible for your body’s overall metabolism, meaning your cells ability to process energy. The two main thyroid hormones are T4 and T3. T4 is the inactive thyroid hormone and this is produced by your thyroid gland. The conversion of T4 to the active form T3 takes place primarily in your liver and in your gut. If your thyroid, liver, or gut are unhealthy and unable to do the work that they should then the production of T4 and T3 hormones will be dramatically impacted. Your body will either produce too much thyroid hormones leading to hyperthyroidism or having a very fast metabolic rate where you feel nervous or anxious a lot of the time, have irregular heartbeats, trouble sleeping, dry skin, excessive weight reduction, and excessive bowel movements. Or your body won’t produce enough thyroid hormones leading to hypothyroidism or having a very slow rate of metabolism where you feel depressed and irritable, experience hair loss and memory loss, feel tired and weak a lot of the time, find it difficult to reduce weight or have a dramatic increase in weight, have muscle cramps, feel cold a lot, have brittle nails, and constipation. High levels of perceived stress interferes with the production of T4 and high levels of the stress hormone cortisol interferes with the conversion of T4 to T3 causing abnormal metabolic function throughout your entire body.
Okay so that was a lot of information to take in about your major hormones. Now I’m not sure if you noticed, but there was one constant between them all. There was one hormone that popped up time and again and it has an impact on all the other hormones. Do you know the hormone I’m talking about? Yes, the stress hormone cortisol. That’s the hormone I’m talking about.
High cortisol leads to the increase of glucose in your bloodstream eventually causing a spike in insulin and this high insulin release causes fat storage and an increase in fat cell number and fat cell size.
High cortisol at night prevents melatonin from rising leading to trouble with sleep, less growth hormone release, less fat burning, a weakened immune system, and an increased risk of cancer.
High cortisol levels equal low leptin and high ghrelin levels meaning even if you’re obese or if you’ve eaten a big enough meal that normally would have satisfied you in the past, you will still have an appetite and feel hungry and will want to keep eating and you may never feel satiated.
High production of cortisol equals low production of your growth and sex hormones. More cortisol means less growth and more stress means less sex.
Finally high stress and rich cortisol production equals poor thyroid hormone production causing an abnormal rate of metabolism, either too high or too low. The majority of thyroid issues deal with a very slow rate of metabolism leading to difficulty reducing fat cell number and fat cell size.
So the big takeaway from all this hormone talk is that if you can control your cortisol you can control the rest of your hormones and you can determine the overall health of your body.
Not only that, but by taking control of your cortisol levels and the levels of all your other major hormones you can determine the amount of muscle and fat that your body synthesises and burns… without the need for counting calories.
Imagine that your hormones are an orchestra and that when they play in perfect harmony you get to hear wonderful music a beautiful symphony being played. However, when you have disharmony in the orchestra, when there’s a group or single instrument out of tune, out of sync, out of beat and rhythm then you’re left listening to something that would probably even make the walking dead turn and run in the other direction.
Homeostasis is a term that means a system is in balance and functioning as it should. When your many hormones are in harmony and playing sweet beautiful music together then you can consider your body to be in a homeostatic state. When your body is in homeostasis, where you’ve achieved hormonal harmony, then your body’s ability to burn fat and maintain or build health and muscle will be easy peasy lemon squeezy.
However, if your hormones are not in harmony with each other well then your ability to reduce fat and maintain or build health and muscle go right out the window. It doesn’t matter how many calories you count or restrict and no matter how hard you push yourself in the gym because if your cortisol and other hormone levels are not in healthy ranges then your body has bigger issues to deal with than worrying about energy in and energy out.
What I’m ultimately saying is that when your hormones are in balance with each other you’re a lean, mean, and very keen playful, happy, and healthy human being. But when your hormones are ‘out of whack’ (yes that’s a scientific term where I’m from) when your hormones are out of balance then oops-a-daisy you become flabby, fat, and lazy.
So what causes hormone imbalances?
High levels of stress and inflammation and stress and inflammation are caused by unhealthy relationships, disconnection from Mother Nature, exposure to toxic compounds, improper sleep, too much not enough exercise, eating inflammatory foods, not drinking enough quality water, and incorrect breathing patterns.
To get your hormones in a happy and healthy harmonious state you need to reduce your stress levels and lower the amount of inflammation in your body and you can do this by living a holistic healthy lifestyle. If you listen to episodes 2-15 of the Whole Guidance Podcast I go into detail about how to do this, but I will share a few quick and easy tips here on how to keep cortisol your stress hormone in check which will reduce the amount of stress and inflammation in your body.
First tip is to remove sugars and grains from your diet. Pasteurised dairy too if you’re really serious about keeping your cortisol levels balanced. Sugars and grains and highly treated dairy products are pro-inflammatory causing a lot of fire in your belly and in your body and also cause a lot of insulin to be secreted by your pancreas. By removing these foods from your diet for 21 days you can then try reintroducing them again to see how you feel and I bet you’ll notice a difference. With less insulin in your bloodstream your body’s metabolism will gradually shift from burning sugar and storing fat to not needing sugar and burning fat. Replace the sugars, grains, and dairy with more animal and fruit fats and oils.
Second tip is to get quality sleep. Now I said quality, not quantity and this means consistently going to bed before 11p and getting up around 6 or 7a for at least 21 days. This will reset your circadian clock and help restore your melatonin to its correct levels, low in the morning and high in the evening.
Third tip is to breathe deep diaphragmatic belly breaths through your nose. This helps keep your body in a rest, digest, calm, and connect state and so reduces your cortisol and increases your fat burning potential as well as your growth and sex hormone levels. Listen to episode 4 on how to practise proper breathing technique.
Fourth tip is to sprint more and cardio less. What I mean is that instead of doing 30 minute, 60 minute, or 2 hour long duration cardio sessions, why not try 4 minutes of high intensity interval training. H I I T or HIIT is where you go all out at 80-100% effort for 30 seconds and then rest for 90 seconds and repeat this seven more times. Timing isn’t set in concrete so you can go hard for 60 seconds and rest for 60-240 seconds if you wanted to. There’s no set rules. Find what works for you. You can do HIIT on a spin bike, sprinting up hills, or by performing exercises like burpees. Sprint training burns fewer calories during the exercise than long duration cardio does, but it produces a healthier hormonal profile after the exercise is completed meaning cortisol levels don’t stay elevated for long periods after a sprint session and your metabolism remains higher for longer periods after HIIT as well.
Fifth tip is to support your liver and gut health to ensure optimal conversion of your inactive T4 hormone into the more active T3 hormone making you a metabolism beast. Easiest way to support your liver is to reduce your exposure to toxic chemicals in your environment. You can do this by swapping out commercial home and personal care products for organic plant-based ones. Easiest way to support your digestive system is to eat real food. Real food is from Mother Nature. Anything from Father Industry I consider fake pretend food-like products and these will only create inflammation in your gut.
As Michael Pollan an author who writes about real food says:
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
Sixth tip is to manage your self when it comes to stress. I did a whole podcast on how stress affects your health and how to identify and reframe your perspective on the stressors in your life so listen to that for more details. Also meditation and practising mindfulness and awareness is another way to move away from past regrets and future failures and to just be in the present moment. The more you can be ‘in the now man’ then the less you will be stressing about stuff in your head.
My seventh and final tip for reducing stress and inflammation and on how to best balance cortisol and all your other hormones is to get some smart sun exposure. Vitamin D is a powerful hormone that regulates over 1000 genes in your body and today about 70% of people living in western society are deficient in vitamin D and do not have enough of this health building hormone. You need to be exposing your skin to the sun on a regular basis to get the right amount of vitamin D, but of course you don’t want to get too much sun as too much of a good thing will burn you on the outside and cause fire and inflammation on the inside. I’ll talk more about smart sun exposure and vitamin D in the next podcast.
I’ll leave you with this final thought.
Throughout human history calories were never counted or measured in order to be healthy. Building muscle, reducing fat, achieving a happy mindset, all of these were and still are easily accessible to anyone living with balanced hormones without the need for calorie counting.
When you focus on the quantity of calories this will cause an imbalance in the quantity and quality of your hormones. So at the end of the day if you want quality hormones you must focus on quality calories.
To learn more about how calories really don’t matter read The Calorie Myth by Jonathan Bailor. This book lays out the science on how hormones beat out calories time and again for achieving the best health ever.
“Health is not a math equation.”
When your body is healthy, whole, and complete you’ll never have to think about calories ever again because health has always and will always be instinctively and innately and naturally easy.
Links and Resources
- WGP 004: How to Breathe for an Awesome Life
- WGP 003: How Stress is Making You Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
- The Calorie Myth — Jonathan Bailor
Please leave a 5-star iTunes review for the Whole Guidance Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher Radio | Android | RSS
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In this podcast I’ll be exploring Carbohydrates:
- I’ll talk about the many different types of carbs
- I’ll explain which carbs are essential for health and which carbs can contribute to disease
- I’ll talk about how to find your sugar and starch tolerance level
- Finally I’ll share the best ways to get more healthy natural whole real carbs into your diet
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Carbohydrates are one of the three main macronutrients besides fat and protein. The most popular carb of them all is sugar. This pure white highly processed refined powder has been the cause and reason for many people failing to reach their body composition and health goals.
Sugar’s sweetness and ability to affect your hormones, your immune system, and your neurology should not be underestimated, and I’ll talk more about this later on. But there’s more to carbs than just this simple sugar.
Carbs in the modern age need to be differentiated into two groups: cellular carbs and acellular carbs.
Cellular carbs are minimally processed whole vegetables, fruits, stems, leaves, and seeds of plants. Cellular carbs are made up of living cells with more nutrients, structural fibre, and a lower density and percentage of actual sugar content per cell. These carbs get digested by your body and your gut microbiota without issue (remember your gut microbiome is the ecosystem of trillions of microorganisms living in your colon).
Acellular carbs are highly processed and refined sugars, flours, and includes the starch stored in whole grains. Acellular carbs are made up of dead cells with hardly any nutrients, non-functional fibre, and a much higher density and percentage of actual sugar concentration per cell. The digestion of acellular carbs creates an immediate excess level of sugar in your blood as well as an imbalance of your gut microbiome due to the fact that these naked sugars without the nutrition and without the fibre are rapidly digested and encourage the overgrowth of Candida and other pathogens.
All carbs are made up of single or groups of molecules called saccharides or sugars.
Monosaccharides consist of just one sugar molecule such as glucose, fructose, and galactose.
Disaccharides are made up of two sugar molecules. Examples include sucrose (your regular table sugar), lactose (milk sugar), and maltose (which is two molecules of glucose).
Carbs that are made up of 2-10 saccharide molecules are called oligosaccharides and any carb over 10 sugar molecules long is called a polysaccharide.
Now mono- and disaccharides can be considered simple sugars and oligo- and polysaccharides could be called complex sugars.
Starch is a storage form of carbs. Starch is a polysaccharide made up of hundreds to thousands of saccharide molecules, specifically chains of glucose.
Dietary fibre is also a carb. Fibre from foods are non-glucose oligo- and polysaccharides meaning that while your digestive system will breakdown and assimilate sugars and starch into glucose it will not breakdown and assimilate fibre.
Fibres can either be insoluble meaning it doesn’t dissolve in water or soluble where it does dissolve in water.
Insoluble fibre passes right through your entire digestive system from mouth hole to south hole and is not digested by your body and is also not digested or eaten as food by your gut flora.
Certain soluble fibres are digested and eaten by your gut flora. These fibres that feed your gut flora are known as prebiotics and they feed both the good bugs (probiotics) and the bad bugs (pathogens).
Another type of carb that acts as a prebiotic is called resistant starch. It is a polysaccharide made up of glucose molecules, but unlike regular starch which is digested by your body resistant starch acts like a prebiotic fibre where it is resistant to human digestion and so becomes food for your gut microbiome.
So there’s a lot of different carbohydrates some of which your body can digest, some of which your gut flora can digest, and some neither your body nor your gut flora can breakdown.
So which carbs are essential for health and which carbs aren’t?
If there was ever an essential carb it would be dietary fibre, especially prebiotics. Whole real vegetables and fruits will provide you with plenty of prebiotic, soluble, insoluble, and resistant starch fibres.
Insoluble fibre has the benefit of taking out toxins, cholesterol, and metabolised hormones ready for elimination in your colon, but insoluble fibre also has a dark side as it can cause damage to your gastrointestinal tract if eaten in excessive amounts or if eaten out of balance with soluble fibre. Think of insoluble fibre as steel wool rubbing up against your single-celled very thin gut wall.
Soluble fibre on the other hand can not only act as a prebiotic feeding your gut flora, but also provides a soft sponge bath for your gut wall. Aloe vera and chia seeds are high in viscous mucous gelatinous polysaccharides that can give your gut wall a soothing massage and are a lot better for your gut than insoluble fibres especially if you’re dealing with gut issues like constipation.
Beta-glucans are a type of polysaccharide and fibre found in certain mushrooms and seaweeds that supports immune function and has been shown to boost the immune system helping cancer patients overcome their cancer. I believe beta-glucans are essential to a long and happy life.
Are sugars and starches essential for health?
In general I would say no, but it really does depend on your ability to tolerate sugar and starch which I will talk about soon.
Whatever your sugar and starch requirements are keep in mind that carb quality matters when talking about simple sugars and complex starches.
If you’re getting sugar and starch from cellular carb sources like whole real vegetables and fruits then your chances of developing a chronic disease, gaining fat, and upsetting your gut flora will be very low compared to someone else who gets their sugar and starch from acellular carbs like highly processed and refined flours and sugars from baked goods, sports drinks, and table sugar.
When you eat acellular carbs these get taken up into your bloodstream quite quickly causing a massive spike in blood glucose levels followed by a massive surge and release of the hormone insulin. Insulin’s job is to remove glucose from the blood. When glucose is left in the blood for too long it will cause damage to your cells, body tissue, and your immune system. So insulin puts glucose into your muscle, liver, and fat cells for use or storage. When insulin is active your body turns from fat-burning mode into fat-storing mode. If you become insulin-resistant like a type-2 diabetic where your cells no longer respond to insulin then glucose will be left in the blood for far too long causing long-term damage to nervous tissue and other bodily tissues and your immune system will be unable to function properly leading to premature aging and cancer.
Basically a high fibre diet with more prebiotic soluble fibres made up of cellular carbs from real food sources is a lot healthier for you than a low fibre diet or a diet high in insoluble fibre that’s rich in acellular carbs. Sugars and starches are not essential for health, but may be needed depending on your individual needs and lifestyles.
You may have heard of low carb diets, high carb diets, slow carb diets, and even controlled carb diets. How do you know which diet is right for you? Find your personal tolerance to sugars and starches, that’s how.
You have a unique requirement for sugar and starch different to anyone else and this is called your carb tolerance. Since there are many different carbs I like to be more specific and call it your sugar and starch tolerance. Your tolerance to sugars and starches is based on you being able to eat a certain amount without increasing your waistline or increasing your fasting blood glucose levels, and by not having a decrease in performance in the gym, in the boardroom, or in the bedroom.
So how do you find out how much sugars and starches you should be eating?
One way is to look at your ancestral background. Cultures that live on or near the Earth’s equator have a higher tolerance to sugar and starch due to the high availability and cooling nature of fruits and some tubers. Cultures that live closer to the Earth’s poles have a lower tolerance to sugar and starch due to the lack of vegetation and therefore they have evolved to eat more animal foods higher in fat and protein as these have a more warming effect on the body.
Of course today most people (me included) are fruit salads made up of many different ethnic backgrounds so it’s impossible to take this information as fact, but instead use it as a guide and it’s good to have this knowledge in the back of your mind as you work through the next practical step.
To find your tolerable level of sugar and starch intake you will start eating a ketogenic diet meaning very low carb with very high fat and then by slowly progressing toward higher levels of sugars and starches and lowering your levels of fat you will find out how much sugar and starch you really need to meet your activity requirements and the unique biochemical needs of your body.
Because you are looking for your own unique tolerance to sugars and starches you will need to subtract the total amount of fibre from the total amount of carbs which will leave you with just the sugar and starch content of that food. This is also known as net carbs.
So for example a cup of cooked broccoli has about 12 g of total carbs and 6 g of fibre and after calculating for net carbs and removing the fibre content the total amount of sugars and starches in a cup of cooked broccoli is 6 g. Okay another example, a medium sized cooked sweet potato (that’s about 200 g worth without the skin) has 36 g of total carbs and 6 g of fibre. Subtract the fibre from the total carb count and you get a net carb sugars and starches content of 30 g.
Remember to focus on eating cellular carbs as much as possible during these diets.
Also stick to the same weekly routine in terms of activity levels whether that be in the gym or at home or at work. The goal here is to find the amount of sugars and starches that you can eat without harm in this current point in time of your life and if you find yourself not being as active or being more active than usual this is going to give you incorrect information affecting your results.
During each of the following four diets keep a journal and note down how you feel, your hunger and energy levels, your mood, your activity levels and performance in the gym, your libido, as well as your bowel movements. You will also want to note down any significant life happenings like a stressful event or celebration. And if you can, get yourself a glucometer or glucose meter which measures your blood glucose levels and measure your fasting blood glucose first thing every morning.
You will use all of this information after trying out each of the four diets to find out what worked, when it worked, what didn’t work, and what may have interfered when something should have worked because it was shown to have worked in the past.
Okay onto the diets.
The first diet you’ll begin with and follow for 2-3 weeks is the very low carb high fat diet aka the ketogenic diet. Total allowable net carbs on this diet will be 30 g a day and they will all come from non-starchy vegetables only. We want to restrict the sugars and starches on this initial diet. For an 80 kg male aiming for a 2000 calorie a day diet this means fat will be between 100-190 g a day and protein will be around 100 g a day. For a 60 kg female eating 1800 calories a day this means fat will be between 130-175 g a day and protein will be around 75 g a day.
So on a VLCHF diet (very low carb high fat diet) you could eat five cups of cooked broccoli and reach 30 g of your maximum allowance of carbs for that day.
After completing 2-3 weeks of the VLCHF diet move on to a low carb high fat diet for 1-2 weeks. This is where daily sugars and starches (net carbs) fall between 30-80 g and starchy vegetables are back on the menu. Again for the 80 kg male fat will now be between 120-165 g a day while protein stays around 100 g a day. For the 60 kg female fat now lies between 110-150 g daily with protein staying at around 75 g a day.
So on a LCHF diet you could eat a medium sweet potato (around 200 g worth) giving you 30 g of sugars and starches for the day.
Next diet to try out for 1-2 weeks is the moderate carb diet. This diet has net carbs between 80-150 g a day. So for the 80 kg male daily fat intake will be between 90-130 g and protein stays at about 100 g. For the 60 kg female daily fat intake becomes 80-120 g and protein sticks to around 75 g a day.
Final diet to test for 1-2 weeks is the high carb low fat diet. The HCLF diet is has net carbs between 150-300 g a day. The 80 kg male will have around 20-70 g of fat a day with protein still around 100 g. The 60 kg female will have about 10-60 g of daily fat with about 75 g of protein.
Remember all these are estimates and are based on your activity levels and whether you’re a pro athlete, a weekend warrior, or a sedentary office worker you will need to tinker with and play around with the protein and fat and net carb ratios.
Once you’ve done this sugar and starch tolerance testing you will once and for all know how much carbs you can handle without increasing your waistline, without feeling moody or hangry, and still being able to perform in the gym, the boardroom, and the bedroom. And remember this is just for where you are right now in your life and as I like to say life is a process never still, but always in flow. In a few years time you may find that this no longer works and you’ll have to figure out your new sugar and starch tolerance levels as well as protein and fat ratios that work for you.
Okay let’s talk about the best food sources for fibre polysaccharides and how to include more real carbs into your diet.
The following are all fantastic sources of prebiotics and resistant starch:
- Jerusalem artichoke
- Onions and garlic and leeks
- Asparagus
- Green bananas
- Beans
- Cooked then cooled potatoes and white rice
Shiitake, reishi, and maitake mushrooms and seaweeds are fantastic sources of beta-glucans. Remember beta-glucans help boost your immune system.
Aloe vera and chia seeds are full of gelatinous polysaccharides. This is great for gut health.
Imagine a meal made up of:
- Potato salad with red onion
- Roasted asparagus and garlic covered with butter
- Stir fried shiitake mushrooms and broccoli seasoned with kelp flakes and chia seeds
- Hummus
- Some reheated white rice
- Baked sweet potato mash with butter, cream, and cinnamon and
- Cauliflower puree with duck fat
In this meal you have altogether soluble, insoluble, prebiotic, and resistant starch fibres as well as a whole lot of phytonutrients, micronutrients, and sulphur with not that high a sugar and starch content and all of them are cellular carbs.
A favourite and simple vegetable dish I like is a starchy vegetable roast including potatoes, kumaras, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and carrots roasted in extra-virgin olive oil or duck fat. Very delicious and tasty and simple to make.
I also enjoy soups and smoothies that include more raw vegetables and herbs and spices.
If you feel you need to be living a lower carb lifestyle remember that most fruits today are bred for sweetness with higher sugar content so focus on heirloom varieties with more skin, less flesh or with more tart and sour flavours. Fruits with a higher skin to flesh ratio will have more fibre, phytonutrients, and antioxidants and less fruit sugars. So for example smaller berries are more nutrient dense then larger berries and won’t cause as large of a spike in blood sugar and insulin.
Hopefully the next time you hear that a certain carb diet is better than another you’ll think twice and ask yourself, ‘how much essential fibre compared to non-essential sugars and starches are there in this diet and would the net carb ratios work for me and my current lifestyle?’
Don’t guess. Test!
“With any recommendations and advice you hear the only real way to find out if it’s true for you and whether it will work for you is by trying it out for yourself.”
You’ll never know if that jersey or that dress looks good on you until you put it on.
I’ll leave you with this. You cannot treat all carbs the same. Some are more essential then others and some are downright detrimental (acellular carbs). Your individuality means your fibre and sugar needs will vary from moment to moment and will be different to other people.
As with all foods quality matters so make your choice of carbs a quality choice.
Links and Resources
Please leave a 5-star iTunes review for the Whole Guidance Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher Radio | Android | RSS
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In this podcast I’ll be exploring Saturated Fat and Cholesterol:
- I’ll explain how fats and cholesterol are needed by your body
- I’ll talk about how and why saturated fat and cholesterol were wrongly convicted of being the cause of heart disease
- I’ll talk about how industrial seed oils aka vegetable oils are very much non-essential and damaging to all life on the planet
- Finally I’ll share the best and most delicious ways to get more healthy natural whole real fats into your diet
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Saturated fat and cholesterol are essential for health, no doubt about it.
Saturated fatty acids form about 50% of the membranes of your cells. This is the cell wall and saturated fat gives your cells more strength and stability. Think about what happens to coconut oil or melted butter when left at a cool room temperature or if you put them in the fridge. They become solid. This is due to the high content of saturated fat which is much more stable and not as easily oxidised or damaged as the other two main types of fats monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Now if you were to put olive oil or fish oil in the fridge they would remain liquid as they don’t have anywhere near the same amount of stable saturate d fatty acids, but do have higher amounts of the more flexible monounsaturated fats and even more flexible and unstable and fragile polyunsaturated fats.
Besides making for strong cells by giving your cell membranes proper integrity saturated fatty acids also enhance calcium absorption which is critical for bone health. Saturated fats also help in the production of other essential fatty acids like omega-3 needed in the inflammatory response for healing. Saturated fats are also rich in fat-soluble vitamins A and D.
Now all fats in general have health benefits including helping your body to make use of fat-soluble vitamins. If you’re drinking low fat smoothies, you ain’t getting any of those fat-soluble nutrients. Fats also help stabilise your appetite and make you feel more satiated and full. There is no excessive release of the fat-storing hormone insulin when you eat fats compared to carbohydrates. Fats are a longer burning and consistent source of fuel compared to protein and carbs. Unlike fat protein and carbs, but more so with carbs these macronutrients get burnt up a lot quicker leading to sugar highs and sugar lows. Leaving you hungry and angry aka hangry.
Cholesterol is another very essential nutrient for health. Cholesterol is not fat, but a steroid alcohol and acts as a building block for hormones, neurotransmitters, and cells. Vitamin D for example is made when cholesterol in your skin mixes with UVB radiation from the sun. Your sex, growth, and stress hormones like testosterone and oestrogen and cortisol are made from cholesterol. No cholesterol equals no sex and growth my friend. Also cortisol is not only your primary stress hormone needed to help you deal with stress, but it also reduces inflammation in your body.
Cholesterol is also used in making bile that’s needed for proper digestion of ft. The protective coating surrounding your nerves is called a myelin sheath and these are made from fatty acids and cholesterol. Cholesterol is also an antioxidant fighting off free radicals in your body preventing DNA damage, premature aging, and cancer.
Finally and probably the biggest most important health benefit to saturated fats and cholesterol is that the dry weight of your brain is made up of at least 50% fatty acids and cholesterol. Without fat and cholesterol your brain would be nothing but a watery and mushy mass of stupidity. You want a fat head. You really do trust me.
As you can probably tell by now saturated fats and cholesterol are essential for a healthy and happy bodymind.
However, for many years now saturated fat and cholesterol have been demonised as the bad guys when it comes to health particularly heart health. This has never been true and fortunately the tides they are a changing. Whole natural real foods that the human organism was evolved to eat are coming back into favour while sales of processed and packaged fake pretend food-like products are starting to fall.
Our species of animal evolved and thrived on eating other animal meats, vegetables, and fruit. The coexistence of humans with these three main food groups has been going on for a few million years. Seeing as saturated fat is found predominantly in animal fat as well as coconut and cacao beans that humans have been eating forever and a day how could it ever be possible to think that an old-school food can begin to create new-school diseases.
For instance heart disease was a very rare and new disease over 100 years ago, but today it’s as common as canola oil and numero uno on the list of most fatal health conditions of all time.
To find out how saturated fat and cholesterol were framed for crimes they never ever committed we need to go back over 100 years ago when in the early 20th century a Russian pathologist called Nikolay Anichkov conducted studies with rabbits by feeding them high cholesterol animal foods. Seeing as rabbits are pure herbivores and raw vegans is it any wonder what the results were. Yep cholesterol damages arteries… in rabbits that don’t eat a high cholesterol diet.
Then in the mid 20th century we have Ancel Keys an American scientist who did a study on 7 countries showing an association between high rates of heart disease with high amounts of animal fat consumption. Problem is he cherry picked his data and picked only the 7 countries out of 22 countries he could have selected to show this connection. If you were to pick another 7 countries from that same set of 22 country data today you could show the complete opposite that high rates of heart disease were associated with very small amounts of animal fat consumption. Meaning ladies and gentlemen of the jury that. that man, Ancel Keys intentionally chose only the information that he knew would support his hypothesis and idea that saturated fat causes heart disease.
But wait because unfortunately there’s more… oh when will the hurting stop?
This is where money and food industry come into the picture. The American company Procter and Gamble who were in the candle and soap manufacturing industry in the mid to late 19th century used to use animal fats in their products. At the same time new oils extracted from plants were coming onto the market and these were a lot cheaper than animal fats. In the early 20th century the process of hydrogenating cottonseed oil had been invented. Hydrogenation is where you take a monounsaturated or polyunsaturated oil which as I mentioned before is naturally liquid as designed by Mother Nature herself and then turning that liquid oil into a solid saturated fat. So of course Proctor and Gamble would use this cheaper industrial seed oil in their candles and soaps.
It wasn’t long till electricity came online in homes and in cities and then candle sales plummeted. So what Procter and Gamble did next was pretty clever, deadly in the long-run, but financially smart indeed. They started to sell the crystallised cottonseed oil as a cooking fat called Crisco.
Ever since then other industrial seed oils and other vegetable oils have come on the market as imitation butters like margarine and as replacements for lard and tallow in big restaurant fryers. Even the fast-food chain McDonald’s used to use animal fats in their fryers until they were persuaded to switch to Crisco and other vegetable oils for health and financial reasons I’m sure.
The reason for the abundance and low cost to these industrial seed oils is that national governments subsidise seed farmers and growers. Authorities support and give money to grow more of these crappy crops. These crops are the highest growing food group in the world and were originally used as animal feed, but instead of throwing out the leftovers and newly created waste government officials working together with the food industry realised that if they market this stuff as healthy they could make more money from taxes and sell it as human food.
So here we have some really dodgy science showing that cholesterol damages arteries and that animal fats cause heart disease and then we have food manufacturing companies selling extremely cheap unhealthy industrial seed oils and marketing them as a healthy alternative.
So what is it that makes these crop oils, these seed oils, these vegetable oils not only bad for your health, but also damaging to the environment?
I’ll start with the environment first because even if you couldn’t care less about your own health maybe you’d think twice about buying and eating these crop oils if you knew how it affected the planet, the environment, and the future that your children will be growing up in.
Because authorities are paying to help increase the production of these crops which include cottonseed, canola aka rapeseed, corn, and soy they are knowingly or unknowingly causing massive damage to the ecosystem. How?
Just as the health of your body depends on the health of your gut microbiota which are the population of trillions of microorganisms living in your gut the health of the planet is dependent upon the health of the soil.
Topsoil is the first half metre or couple feet of soil. This soil isn’t just a mass of dirt like the subsoil beneath it. Topsoil is an ecosystem of microorganisms, worms, insects, fungi, plant roots, and broken rock. Together this entire ecosystem transforms light (sun energy) and matter (earth energy) into a natural compost called humus and into minerals, vitamins, hormones, enzymes basically every single nutrient under the sun and on the planet that’s needed to create life and make a happy and healthy human is made and found in the topsoil.
It takes thousands of years to create just one foot of healthy topsoil. Sadly topsoil around the globe is being lost due to food industry growing monocultures of seeds, that is the same single crop on the same land year after year. Once we lose this topsoil we will lose a huge supply of food.
Different soils will have different nutrients. All plants have their own unique nutrition needs and provide a different set of nutrition to the soil. When one crop is grown on the same soil year after year all the nutrients required by that one crop will be sucked out of the soil leaving the soil malnourished and lacking in those particular nutrients. Eventually this soil will be dead of nutrition and the crop will no longer thrive and production will need to be moved to another location.
We need to remember and I say this almost every show it seems that life is a process always changing and in flow. We must rotate the crops we plant on the land so that the soil never gets stripped of one set of nutrients. So until the food industry learns this, the future of the health of the soil, the planet, and future generations of people looks pretty dark.
Once harvested these seeds are turned into margarines and other solid fat substitutes that I call franken-fats through a process called hydrogenation. This involves pumping hydrogen molecules into these fragile polyunsaturated fats, saturating them with hydrogen turning them solid. This process damages these unstable fatty acids oxidising them creating free radicals. So here you have a brand new and damaged food-like product that your body does not recognise and the damaged fatty acids create inflammation and stress leading to disease.
Another process called partial-hydrogenation is even worse as this creates trans fats. Only recently have trans fats been labelled as unhealthy, but what makes things worse is that food standards state that if there’s less than 0.5 grams of trans fat in a single serving of food then a food company can put on the nutrition label 0 trans fat content. Lies I tells ya. All lies.
There are new seed processing methods used today that do not create trans fats, but still create rancid damaged franken-fats. Fractionation and interesterification are what these new processes are called so if you see fractionated or interesterified on a food-like product label… drop it, drop it like it’s hot.
Now the processing of seeds and fragile liquid polyunsaturated fatty acids into damaged solid saturated fatty acids involves many steps that make me wonder how we as a species could ever call ourselves the smartest animal on this planet. Really?
First there’s the hydrogenation, fractionation, or interesterification process followed by chemical extraction, deodorisation, degumming, bleaching, addition of additives, preservatives, artificial flavourings, and synthetic antioxidants, and so you want turn and run when you see a brick of grey goo looking back at you when you open up the packet unnatural colourings are added to make these franken-fats look like real food. Still can’t believe it’s not butter? Eww and yuck! Seriously!
Now some of you might say ‘but it has been shown that these vegetable oils lower cholesterol in the blood’ and you’re absolutely right. You know why?
Because these fatty acids are damaged and cause inflammation in the body guess who has to go about putting out the fires caused by them — cholesterol. Cholesterol has been labelled the bad guy just because it’s been caught at the scene of the crime. But what mainstream medicine fails to realise is that cholesterol is like your body’s own fire brigade and they are at the scene trying to put out the fire. The real fire starters are eating fake pretend food-like products like industrial seed oils. So of course eating these franken-fats will lower cholesterol in your blood because most of your fire brigade are in the cells and body tissue busy repairing the damage caused by these rancid oxidised fats!
Alright let’s talk about what fats are healthy and how to include them in your diet.
I already listed the healthy animal and fruit fats you want to focus on back in episode 8, but I’ll share them again here.
- Egg yolks
- Ghee and clarified butter
- Butter
- Lard
- Bacon fat
- Tallow — beef and lamb fat
- Duck fat
- Coconut oil
- Palm oil
- Cacao butter
- Macadamia oil
- Extra-virgin avocado oil
- Extra-virgin olive oil
- Sesame oil
- Raw nuts and seeds
Remember all these fats should be minimally processed, extra-virgin, and cold-pressed so there’s no damage caused by heat.
“The best way to increase your intake of healthy natural whole real fats is by eating a lot more vegetables!”
Vegetables have a lot of antioxidant, anticancer, and longevity nutrients, but the real reason I love to eat vegetables and have eaten more of them in the past few years than I ever did in the first few decades of my life is because vegetables are the best vehicle for fats!
There’s nothing like lightly steaming up some broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage and tossing them in some butter that’s come straight from the fridge, but then you see the butter begin to melt and get all gooey and when you season it with sea salt and take that first bite wow, what a taste sensation. Believe it or not friend but yes vegetables can taste juicy… you just need to add some beautiful fat.
You can take raw vegetables like celery, carrots, and cucumber and dip them in some nut butters or spread some fat on them. I love almond and macadamia nut butters. Peanuts are legumes not nuts and can have an inflammatory effect for some people so as always no matter what I or anyone else says be sure to listen to your body as the body never lies. If it doesn’t like a food then stop eating it.
Don’t forget by eating fats with vegetables and fruits your body can better absorb the fat-soluble nutrients in the food.
I have a big super green fatty vegetable smoothie every night with dinner which weighs in at over 600 grams. That’s over a pound of nutritious, delicious, scrumptious, and highly precious plant and animal fat nutrition, energy and information. I chew and chew with every mouthful and it takes me about 20 minutes to finish and by the end I’m as full and happy as Santa on the day after Christmas.
Another tasty way to eat more fat is to eat more of the fatty cuts of meat. Now remember back in the detox episode toxins love fat and get stored in your fat cells when your body cannot eliminate them. This holds true for animals as well. So if you’re eating the cheapest animal meat you can find that wasn’t naturally raised and bred, free-range out on pasture, eating a species appropriate diet then you have a toxic fat bomb right there.
When you choose fattier cuts of meat especially when it comes to organs meats like liver you must 100% choose the free-range and naturally raised meat. If you choose fatty cuts of muscle meat you can simply cut off the fat, but with offal and other meat where the fat is mixed inside the meat, don’t waste your money, time, health, energy, mood, and vitality. It ain’t worth it.
My personal favourite fat is 100% cacao or dark chocolate. No added sugar or sweeteners, just the cacao seed, bean, or pod whatever you want to call it churned into a fat bomb of a bar. With cacao being one of the highest antioxidant foods everything’s coming up chocolate!
Probably the best and most nutritious way to include more fat and overall nutrition in your diet is to eat liver pate. I love chicken liver pate. It is a mix of chicken liver, herbs, heavy full-fat cream or butter and it comes out like a dip. Raw vegetables again come to the rescue to help transport this beautiful mixture of fat and protein and vitamins into your bodymind.
My favourite chicken liver pate recipe is by Diane Sanfilippo author of Practical Paleo. I’ll put a link to the recipe in the show notes for this episode.
I’ll leave you with this quote by George Bernard Shaw as a reminder you are meant to have a naturally fat head and be proud of it.
“No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat. Without a brain, you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office.”
Amen George.
Links and Resources
Please leave a 5-star iTunes review for the Whole Guidance Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher Radio | Android | RSS