Carbs make you fat, change my mind…
Whenever anyone makes a claim, ALWAYS ask if it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective.
Most living things time their days with an internal clock that is synchronized by external cues (e.g., light and dark cycles). The sun is one constant that has been around forever, therefore our circadian rhythms developed to coincide with these light and dark cycles. This means that our biology is a product of the cyclical nature of the sun. This is evidenced by the light-sensitive receptors built into the cells of our eyes, skin, blood, and bones.
Who cares?
WELL, because our biology is indelibly linked to the sun, it would also be fair to reason that it plays a role in our health as well. And that’s all I really care about here.
Before industrialized society, we had always been at the whim of nature and the environment that the seasonal orbit and rotation of the sun provided; AKA seasons. We had always “feasted” in the summertime to endure the “famine” that always followed. Your body instinctually know that the long days of summer are going to be followed by the cold days of winter, and that means no food. Summertime means carbs are plentiful, as they literally grow on trees. Your body craves them so you can store fat to keep you alive for the impending winter where food is scarce.
Here’s how it works:
Long hours of light signal summertime
Summertime means carbohydrates are plentiful and should be eaten to excess
Eaten to excess causes accumulation of fat (and lowers freezing temperature of cellular structures) so that you can survive the winter
Fun fact: Types 2 Diabetes is a survival mechanism, but in a world where winter never comes it becomes a disease. The never-ending artificial light, coupled with chronic stress jacks up our hormonal cascade and registers as the long days of summer.
In the context of modernity, the effects of constant stress and artificial light adds up pretty quickly. We live in a fear-based 24-hour news cycle that creates an environment where we live under constant threat of war, rape, pandemic, getting fat, etc. This stress is heralded by cortisol which drives us to consume carbohydrates so we can attempt to reach homeostasis by balancing our cortisol with the insulin response. All the while, our circadian rhythmicity becomes disrupted because we’re staring at blue-lit screens all day, telling our brain that it’s daytime, signaling the long days of summer. And because summer comes before winter, our body’s “know” we need to eat so that we can have enough energy storage to survive the winter. BUT WINTER NEVER COMES because everything in our environment is signaling that it is summertime and we need to eat.
While living in endless summer may seem like a great thing in theory, it completely throws off our biology. There is no day without night, there is no ying without yang. Life is about balance, without it comes dis- ease.
Why don’t wild animals get cancer?
We sit at the top of the food chain, within the wealthiest, most technologically advanced culture the world has ever known, backed by an innumerable amount of research behind what’s necessary to be healthy, YET, when it comes to the disease states of obesity, depression, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, we are bested by the most primitive ways of living in both tribal cultures and wild animals.
Do you think we’re missing something?
It doesn’t take a lot of commonsense to see that something is amiss. I think it comes down to the simple fact that there is a mismatch between the way we are currently living, and what it takes to truly thrive. Unfortunately, we’ve constructed an environment to serve our desires, at the expense of our health.
Health care should be preventative, not reactionary
The purveyor’s of health continue to promise one cure after another, yet they don’t even understand the disease. The real reason no progress has been or will ever be made in health care on a governmental or institutional level is because they have no awareness to the actually manifestations of disease (or perhaps they just don’t bother because there’s no money in it). Type 2 diabetes is not a disease of Metformin deficiency. Heart Disease doesn’t develop due to lack of statin drugs. Your poor sleep is not due to a Lunesta deficiency. Your adiposity didn’t advance because you waited too long to sign up for CoolSculpting… (you have to see the video)
This line of thinking completely misses the point of what primary health care should be.
Think of human physiological dysfunction as trying to repair a broken vase. You start with the big pieces and, finally, all that’s left are the tiny shards of the impact point. Those tiny shards will go together in the end, but you would never have started there.
The big pieces are akin to the different pieces of your lifestyle — how you eat, how you sleep, how much you move, how you think and ultimately the environment you find yourself in. All these play a role in constructing that vase so that it doesn’t break easily, and can possibly become antifragile.
You always see headlines with “cutting-edge discoveries” that ostensibly have the power to change the world, but in reality, never provide a single cure because they completely miss the point.
Health care should be preventative, not reactionary. Primary health care should be eating well, moving well, sleeping well, and spending time in the sun with people you enjoy. Secondary health care can be when you go to see your doctor because you had too much fun with your friends, decided to climb a tree, fell and broke your arm!
It all comes down to taking responsibility for your health. As I said yesterday, we have been taught that the system has our best interests in mind, however I think the epidemic rates of poor health should be considered cause for continuing to believe in a system that failed you long ago.
Fit for someone else's world
When you popped out, you were unique. Not too long after the world was telling you that you needed to fit in, to live life a certain way, and then it started giving you instructions.
You were taught to be a replaceable cog in a giant machine. You were taught to consume as a shortcut to happiness. You were taught to accept the marketing pitch as a path toward greater health. And you were taught to be conform, even if it went against your inner narrative.
You chose a school to grant you the best access to this world. On the placard mounted near the entrance of your University, it read: “WE TRAIN THE FACTORY WORKERS OF TOMORROW WE TEACH THE POWER OF CONSUMPTION AS AN AID FOR SOCIAL APPROVAL. AND OUR GRADUATES ARE VERY GOOD AT FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS IN PROMOTION OF THE STATUS QUO.”
You passed on the school that promised: “To teach people to take responsibility and the initiative to become remarkably artistic individuals, to question the status quo, to interact with transparency, to innovate toward a world they desire, and to develop a life built upon the fulfillment of both body and mind. alike.”
You did exactly what the world told you to do. You gave up on the responsibility of creating a life you wanted, and instead took the path of least resistance, worn with hubris and promise, to arrive at the same place you started. Wondering when you can start the life you really want.
It is easier to follow the worn path than to make your own. Taking the path of least resistance absolves you from the personal responsibility of creating your own journey. Just don’t be surprised that, when you arrive at the destination of someone else’s map, you find what someone else was looking for.
This is my attempt at starting over
The goal here is to share my thoughts on how to improve health and performance with the world. Additionally, to be vulnerable, to be myself, and to find my tribe. I never felt like I belonged anywhere, not with friends, not with family. I always felt alienated.
From a young age I learned I had to be another version of myself if I wanted to feel like I mattered in the eyes of someone else. I carried that idea subconsciously for the majority of my life. It created tension in my relationships, my health, and in every job I’ve had.
I can no longer be that person because I want more from myself and for my life, besides falling in line never got me anywhere I wanted to be. It would definitely be easier to be the past version of myself because it is safe, yet I know now that it will never allow me to find happiness and live the live I want.
They say that live gives you lessons over and over again until you learn what you need to learn. I took the past 3 months and realized I wasn’t living my life how I wanted to, evidenced by a long road of continual disappointment, failed relationships, firings for jobs, and extensive battles with depression. Fuck that, never again!
I’m sure this change will be met with resistance. People will say, “you’ve changed”, but isn’t that the point of life? If you’re not changing, you’re not improving.
My story so far...
My first introduction into the world of health and fitness came through Muscle & Fitness in an attempt to improve my physique and become more health conscious — I’m sure I was trying to capture the eyes of a girl also. I bought a used bench and worked on high reps of chest and biceps, ate the recommended low-fat, high-carb diet, and started running. I did some some version of this for almost 15 years until my body started to breakdown — my knees hurt so bad I couldn’t stand, I tore a muscle in my shoulder, my digestion was inconsistent, the skin on my fingertips were cracking open, and while I looked relatively “healthy”, I was far from feeling it. Worst of all, I was still “skinny fat!”
My ambition was to have a body like an athlete so that I could capture the attention I wanted. Instead, I ended up breaking myself in the process of what I thought was a healthy approach. It wasn’t long after my injuries and challenges started piling up that I met my mentor, who breathed new life into my pursuit of attaining a body that was healthy, lean and strong. He introduced me to a whole new world that stood in stark contrast to everything I had been exposed to previously. The crazy thing was that, all the things that sounded contrarian to what I had known in the past, worked! I was hooked.
The void of not knowing became the catalyst that drove me — and still does — to learn more, dig deeper, and uncover as much as I could to figure out how to optimize my health. It didn’t stop there, as I found out that helping other allowed me to further my research and hone my skills as a coach. Perhaps it’s learning I love first and coaching second, either way they are complementary.
Looking back, I remember I thought that Muscle & Fitness was gospel, thinking that if it worked for those guys, it should work for me! But, I’m here to tell you that there is no definitive blueprint for optimal health. Yes, there are things all sides can agree on, yet it is misguided to have blanketed statements regarding health because everyone’s biochemistry, physiology, biomechanics, microbiome, circadian rhythms, genetics (and their expression, called epigenetics) are all different, and each is dictated by their specific environment. With this in mind, I think that all approaches toward optimizing health should be unique to the individual outside of Robb Wolf’s classic edict on health where he says; “eat whole, unprocessed foods, get outside in the sun, move a lot, sleep like you are on vacation, and surround yourself with loving relationships.”
I now work as a Health & Performance Coach, seeking to help people build a life worth living in a body that can take them there. Over the years, I have studied many different facets of how to capture health. I synthesized what I think is best into an initiative called PrimEight which encompasses the most important pillars to focus on to live an optimal life and achieve a body that is healthy, lean and strong.
The eight pillars are Nutrition, Movement, Sleep, Stress, Digestion, Detoxification, Mindset, and Community. Neither is more important than the other, as all are connected and necessary for optimal health and performance. This is the approach I take toward my health and those I work with.
This is my story… so far. Why am I telling you this? Well, stories are the currency of narrative. And narrative is the way we see the world. I want to help people tell their own story through the perspective of improving health.
Here we go…
As I sit here viben' to the 90’s groves, I feel a sense of nostalgia as I think back to a time where I felt good in life. Somewhere after that time, I veered so far off track trying to be something I wasn’t. Trying to please people became the way I lived my life. Certain experiences in my youth instilled the mindset within me that if I didn’t act how people wanted I wasn’t worthy of belonging, or being loved. I felt the only way to fit in, to receive the love and attention I wanted was to acquiesce, to give in to how others think I should be and in return I felt seen and heard. Those thoughts were so ingrained and so deep that I wasn’t able to access them until recently when I had a fuckton of time to spend on self-reflection. The quarantine provided that time, allowing me to explore what was causing my depression and thoughts of suicide.
In isolation, which if anyone knows me isn’t all that an uncommon place for me to be, yet without being able to go outside, or work, I was able to sit down, reflect, write, think and work on self-discovery without distraction. Within that time I stumbled upon Mastin Kipp’s, Claim Your Power. I read the book, worked through the corresponding exercises and I feel like it made a profound difference in the way I am approaching life. I highly recommend it to anyone who feels stuck in life, or is battling with depression.
Our perception of life is all about how we choose to see it. In other words, our life is defined by our narrative. If the words and thought processes we use to frame our life engender a negative voice, telling ourselves stories of how we are victims and everything happens to us, it will have a profound difference than if we think that life is happening for us.
I took the time in quarantine to realize I wasn’t happy with what was going on in my life and decided to change. I am not independently wealthy, so if I have to work, my choice is to get paid to do the things I like. The first step is to be the real me. If you don’t like it that is okay. I want to read, write, podcast, tell stories, and create change in the world from the perspective of health. Will this be the change that makes me a millionaire? Who knows? But if I don’t try, I can’t fail; and if I don’t fail, I’ll never know what I need to do to right the ship and sail into the sunset.
The best time to act was yesterday, the second best time is now.
#MakeMoves