Reach Your Ideal Weight

Two main points to start with, both important...

#1 You are beautiful, just the way you are, right now, today.

Yes, you may want to lose 10, 20, 30 lbs or more but take a day trip to an art museum and notice that society's idea of beauty shifts with the sands of time. Look up the works of Ruben, his painting glorify the most desired woman of the day, all very chubby by our current societal norms.

Ignore the fashion trends and remember - you are beautiful. 

#2  If you are above your "healthy BMI target" - fully commit right now to reaching your ideal weight. This has nothing to do with beauty or fashion - it's more serious than that. Turns out those extra pounds are anything but an inert spare tire around our belly, they have an active and highly negative impact on our overall health.  

BMI, your Body Mass Index is an objective and much studied indicator. To find out your BMI use this super simple CDC online calculator. If you are outside the "normal" range of 18-25 it is time to make some changes. ( Ideally you are in the 20-23 sweet spot that correlates with the best health outcomes ) 

Take action but remember to be kind to yourself in the process. Being outside your optimal BMI has nothing to do with your self worth or your moral character, it's about what you eat and properly managing your stress and activity levels. You can do this.

Slimming Down into your own BMI Nirvana

Start by tracking your food, there are many online / app based food trackers. Studies show that just tracking what you eat improves your diet by making you much more accountable to yourself. It can be a bit depressing if it calls attention to what you recognise as a crappy diet but defining the problem is often a big part of the solution. 

If you are like most Americans your are overfed and undernourished and those two are directly related. Your body turns up the cravings and says keep eating, we are way short on nutrition. The good news is once you switch to a delicious, satisfying and super nutritious diet the cravings stop and make things much easier to manage.

Tactics

Consider "going Paleo" for a few months. At their core paleo diets emphasizes eating lots of veggies and lean clean meats while cutting the carbs. It may not be sustainable or even optimal long term but for a 1-6 month period it can really slim you down to your healthy BMI target range.

Really watch glycemic load of foods you eat. Grains, pasta, rice, bread, cookies, cake, cereals, bagels, donuts - cutting out all these carbs will pay off. Same with any added sugar from soda to high fructose ketchup. Same with beer and wine. If that's your stress relief mechanism, find another one, like exercise, time in nature or meditation. Ramp up the veggies and clean protein and cut carbs and you'll get lean fast. 

Enlist the help of a dietician or wellness coach, they are cheap to see weekly or every other week. Email them your diet tracking data and they can guide you toward subtle shifts and substitutions that keep you on track toward your goals.  

Food alone won't do it though. Start walking a brisk 30 min a day every day. Get a dog or a walking partner. If you have a computer screen based job get up and move 5 min each hour while at work.

Reduce your stress load - it's directly linked to weight gain. Get a good counselor or read books. Join a meditation group. Do whatever works for you but down-rev to a Zen state at least part of each day and watch the pounds drop away.

Hang around with slender healthy people more often. We are all human and our peer group effects us, our outlook and choices. 

Once you reach your target BMI, gently switch to a healthy consensus mediterranean diet like the one outlined here at What to Eat. Keep exercising. Stay Zen.

You'll enjoy seeing that slimmer healthy you in the mirror each morning. And the proven benefits / the reduction in all types of disease risks, that you will enjoy for a lifetime.

 

 

An American Classic - Reborn

Cheeseburger, fries and a soda please...

Oh the lust and the guilt that sweeps over us just hearing those words let alone actually downing a Big Mac, Coke and fries. It's the textbook example of an unhealthy trainwreck of a meal.

The good news is you can rewind the clock to a simpler time, a time before Food Inc f@#%ed it all up , a time when this American classic was a wholesome and healthy meal. 

Here's how...

Step 1 - Bake a sweet potato, hell bake three. I always have several in the fridge rebaked and ready to rock. Slice it longways into fries. Grease a cookie sheet with coconut oil, lay on the fries, broil on high, flip them a few times, get um all slippery and oil up, cook until a few brown edges appear, just a minute or two on each side. Salt with chunky himalayan pink sea salt.

Step 2 - Saute some sweet red onions in olive oil, then shiitake mushrooms, then a 1/4 lbs patty of bison or grass fed beef. Add slices of real hard cheese made from grass fed cows milk - infinitely better nutrition than plastic wrapped "american cheese" crap. 

Step 3 - Toast a slice of stone ground multi grain bread from your local artisan baker. Sure that dude is kinda weird but hey, his bread rocks. Dab it with a hunk of grass fed butter like Kerrygold. Way better than a white flour bun slathered in industrial oils. 

Step 4 - Reach in the fridge and pour a cold glass of the original soda pop - Kombucha. Fizzy and shyly sweet Kombucha is all natural and chock full gut balancing bugs that power your immune system unlike Coke which is full of sugar that turns straight into belly fat. 

Step 5 - Throw in some apple pie, recipe here. It's only got 1/3 cup of sugar and tastes amazing!

Chow down my brother. Cherish one of the joys of American manhood. And then, after you have put your dishes away and cleaned up the mess you made in the kitchen, get your ass to the gym.

Thats right, if you are gonna eat like Spartacus you gotta train like Spartacus. So pack your sweats and head that way, don't worry, I'll spot you bro.

GMO Oh Nooooooo

There are no awesome studies that prove GMO crops are bad for us. On the flip side; who would pay for those? Who would defend against the lawsuit cascade that would follow? Who stands to benefit from showing GMO to be terrible for our health - nobody. Who stands to benefit from GMOs dominating - several multi billion dollar companies.

So are GMOs bad? I don't know. Conceptually it looks like "oh here we go again" with mankind screwing with nature and paying a steep price.

GMO Rodeo

And ever wonder where most GMO wheat winds up? As flour in processed foods and restaurant foods. Cookies, cakes, baked goods, crackers, bread, pasta - many folks now avoid all prepared / boxed foods skipping the white flour, trans fats and GMOs. 

Most GMO grain though gets fed to animals stuck in confinement feedlots. Skip the cheap meat and skip the GMOs. 

The good news is that if you avoid processed foods - restaurant or store bought foods like baked goods, bread, pasta, buns, cakes, cookies, crackers, cereal etc - you avoid GMOs. If you avoid cheap meat fed GMO grain you are good there too.

It's a beautiful world, eat healthy and skip the GMOs.

Supplements

Food vs Pills

Supplement. Right there in plain sight is the issue many overlook. Vitamins, minerals, herbal extracts - at best these pills are meant to supplement a healthy wholesome nutritious diet of real food. It's wishful thinking or worst to believe that downing a "Centrum silver extra chewable Flintstone fruit flavored energy booster One a Day tablet" will in any way compensate for a crappy diet. That's BS / marketing, don't fall for it.

Study after study show that food is much more than the few nutrients we can currently identify. Give one group 1000 mg of vitamin C daily and the other an orange containing 1000 mg of C and which does better - the orange group every time! 

And that's if the C pill really has 1000 mg, many don't. Supplements are a largely unregulated industry. Then there is the issue of synthetic vs natural, which is more effective? And bioavailability, will it be absorbed or pass right through? Some are better taken with a fatty meal, or in the morning, but not with certain foods. 

And the 800 lbs gorilla - are supplements really helpful and at what dosage in what circumstances???? For pharma grade drugs there are FDA regulations, clinical trials and double blind studies - and still they regularly get it wrong. With vitamins no such rules apply so it's the Wild west / Buyer Beware.

Pay to Play

Undeterred? If you are still eager to dive in with supplements then break out your wallet because this may very well be worth it - but it's going to cost you. If you ever complained about the cost of buying all organic produce or thought grass fed beef was expensive wait to you see the monthly price tag really good supplements come with.

Don't go cheap here though, buying the very best is the only prudent way to proceed. The difference between cheap drug store fish oil and the best omega 3 rich alaskan krill oil harvested from pristine waters, processed promptly, without heat or chemicals etc - it can be huge. One may actually be damaging and the other very healthful. 

The List

Here are my consensus picks arranged from cheap and proven beneficial to expensive and probably helpful. All the standard caveats apply - consult your physician before taking these, etc. Personally, I have never had a doctor raise an eyebrow over this list other than to question if I was wasting my money.

  • Aspirin 81 mg - not really a supplement but cheap and effective across so many pathways. Google it. 

  • Olive Oil - 2-4 tablespoons a day. No need to put in a pill, use in salad dressings, dip bread in it, cook with it. Delicious and proven health benefits earn it a spot on the supplement list.

  • Vit D 2 - cheap, almost everyone is way low, critical to good health. They recommend taking 5000 iu  per day for a month or two, then get the cheap and easy blood test - optimal range is 50-80, bump dosage up or down to get there. 

  • Fish Oil -  Contains DHA / EPA. shoot for 1-2 grams of each per day. Krill oil is the platinum standard with a price tag to match.

  • Zinc - 25 mg pd immunity etc, missing in factory fish, some veggies, cheap meat.

  • Vit B complex - helps manage blood sugar spikes amongst other good stuff

  • Magnesium - 400 mg pd you need it, many soils missing it

  • Selenium - 200 mcg  missing from many soils

  • OK, these next ones are expensive but still show great promise...

  • Curcumin - found naturally in an Indian spice called Turmeric, curcumin reduces inflammation etc. Tons of good studies point to its effectiveness. Bioavailability is the challenge here. Either mix 1/2 tsp of turmeric with some olive oil and black pepper and add to steamed veggies etc or choose a supplement, one with enhanced absorption. 

  • CoQ10 - 100-400 mg ubiquinol form - heart and immune booster, often recommended to folks taking statin drugs

  • Vitamin E -  d alpha tocopheryl succinate, 400 iu p/day

  • Resveratrol - 250 p day. 

  • GLA - 300mg 

  • Reishi or Maitake mushroom extract

  • Ginseng  - getting the real stuff is a challenge, my advice is to consult a good Chinese acupuncturist. Mine is Dr. Shanna Zhang is a licensed Acupuncturist and Oriental Medicine Doctor  here.

  • Personally, I avoid cheap drug store supplements and high end multi-level marketing brands too. A good source I use but have zero financial interest in is here. They have a silly name but their rigorous science based approach, high quality supplements and wealth of free info make it a good place to start. They offer an 800 number with "advisors" on call. They are of course in the business of selling supplements so weigh out the cost / benefit ratio for yourself.  

  • Remember - eat an awesome diet first and foremost. If and only if you have the extra cash and want to / need to cover all the bases then proceed with caution and buy only the best. 

A Cancer Game Plan

If you or one you love has just gotten a cancer diagnosis, take a deep breath, let it out, read on...

You can get through this. Yes cancer is scary as hell but it is not what it used to be. Treatment options have progressed exponentially in just the last 10 years and new / more effective options are coming online each day. I and many others are living proof of that.

Build a Success Team. Your #1 goal when you get a diagnosis is to find the doctors / centers / treatments specialized for you situation - this specialization critical to a successful outcome. 

Ask for Help. Enlist the help of a family doctor, a medical researcher, friends, family and others who may know somebody. Go public and put it on Facebook - do whatever you need to do to find and enlist the very best specialists and once found - listen to them.

Optimize Your Self Care - turn your attention to something you have a huge amount of control and effect over - your own self care. Optimizing your self care should be your sole focus once your medical team is in place. What you do here may sound squishy but the self care effect on your outcome really matters so dive in. 

Diet - use this website to dramatically improve your diet and your health. This is not the time for "comfort food". Choose olive oil over ice cream, kale over cookies and the chances of cycling through southern France when you're 90 dramatically increase. All the food guidelines on this site apply to cancer so get cooking. 

Stress - feeling stressed sets off a cascade of hormones that are not helpful. Replace traffic, tension and watching the news with massage, meditation and journalling - reducing stress has been shown to improve outcomes.

Journalling - three pages each day, longhand, on a legal pad of paper. Get those highly negative toxic thoughts and feelings out of your body and expressed onto paper. Studies show that it's highly effective, but only if written longhand on paper vs keyboarding / using a computer. 

Counseling - over-reacting, under-reacting, stuck in in denial, overwhelmed with fear, grief, anger - cancer is a major emotional challenge so get help. There are therapists who specialise in helping people who have received a cancer diagnosis. Get one, now. Join a group as well.

Connection - staying connected to those who love and support you is huge. Now is not the time to indulge negative or toxic personalities. Be selfish and selective about who you interact with. And make sure to express how much their love and support means to you during this trying time. 

PT - had or going to have surgery? You need PT. Get a script from your surgeon and go. Most all surgery entails some complications. PT pros can get you back on your feet again literally and figuratively. I never left a PT appointment without feeling more optimistic, hopeful and capable than when I came in the door.

Exercise - it reduces stress, helps physically too. Keep it moderate, do what you can but... move, get outside in nature, breathe in fresh air, hear the birds, sweat a little, take in a sunrise. Exercise removes stress byproducts and tells your body "we have work to do so let's get healthy."

Acupuncture - Managing side effects of drugs and various treatments is critical, it's often the difference between staying on a life saving regimen or washing out of the program. Acupuncture has shown clinical results, not for curing cancer but really helping deal with those nasty side effects. If possible find a practitioner who is Chinese, trained in China, speaks English as a second language etc. 

Supplements - from Chinese herbs like reishi mushroom and ginseng to vitamin D and curcumin supplements might be worth a try. They are not cheap, some are more effective than others and none compare with an awesome diet of wholesome real food but, if you have the cash and are employing an "all of the above" strategy. See my "Supplements" blog post. 

Affirmations - paint a positive picture with words - how awesome life will be once you are healthy again. Write it all in the present tense, as if it has already happened. Load it with feeling and positive imagery so you can see and feel it. Google affirmations. This is huge.

Purpose - cancer can brings gifts along with all the terror. For many it reveals a mission, a purpose, a reason for getting well and staying in the game. Book after book, all the studies show that having a strong sense of purpose Incorporate this into your affirmations. 

Spirituality - whatever your faith or spiritual leanings studies show spiritual grounding can help you get through this. Dive into book on Buddhism, talk with your church pastor, whatever resonates. The peace and calm that flow from a heartfelt spiritual framework is profound.  

Stay Focussed - you will not invent a cancer cure in your spare time - turn that over to the best doctors you can find. Instead, focus on what you control or can effect - that's where you have the most sway over your outcome. Your medical team is working overtime to save you - help them by taking awesome care of yourself.

 

Gone Fishing

Fish, especially well sourced fish is the consensus choice / best protein you can eat. 

Fish from clean waters, wild caught / never farm raised and high in Omega 3s - that's the good stuff. Here's where I currently buy my fish...

#1 Wild caught salmon from Alaska. Tony and his crew do it right; fish for 4-6 hrs, fillet, vacuum seal and flash freeze. They ship anywhere, your foam cooler full of salmon fillets on dry ice is shipped two day air and arrives hard as a rock.  Makes sense to order a lot so that the shipping cost is spread over more pounds of fish. Call a few friends, do a group order - they'll thank you when they see and taste this crimson red buttery salmon. 

https://wildalaskasalmonandseafood.com

#2 Lake Trout from Canada. Light flaky tender lake trout, relatively high in omega 3s. My source also sells walleye which is the best I have ever had. Same shipping and economies of scale apply here. 

http://www.walleyedirect.com

#3 Another great source is a family run fishing coop out of Golds Beach Oregon, Fisherman Direct. They catch and stock a big variety - tuna, halibut, flounder, shrimp, scallops etc. All sourced from clean waters and shipped frozen. Great way to get a big variety in one shipment. 

http://www.fishermendirect.com

Lastly, if buying clean protein like fish in bulk makes sense then having a chest freezer in the basement does too. Especially when you can get a nice 7 cubic ft unit delivered to your door for about $250 via Amazon. It only costs $35 per year to run and provides you the convenience of always having clean protein ready to rock any time of year regardless of the season. 

Dr Katz on Consensus

Dr David Katz is a world renowned nutrition expert and author of Disease Proof available here . In this presentation Dr Katz reviews the Paleo diet amongst others and finds a healthy consensus we can all benefit from. 

The Need

What I have seen this past year.... Pain, fear, lives being turned upside down. Waiting rooms overflowing, anxious couples holding hands. Parents with young children worried and waiting  Adult children holding elderly parents too. And despite all the care that’s offered, It’s hell and nobody gets through it without paying a steep price. And those are the lucky ones.

 

Only one year ago I was right there with them. I swore that if i was lucky enough to make it out I would dedicate the rest of my life to helping others stay well and avoiding my ordeal. I would use my limited talents, resources and all that I had learned to inform and inspire those who seek wellness. I would help people not only save themselves but to also save the ones they love.

 

And that's how What to Eat came to be. Yes it’s pretty, positive and practical. But what people who have seen it really connect with is that it’s personal and authentic - it’s my story. An average guy who gets cancer, gets well and sets off on a search for the wholesome delicious food that can keep him well. It’s that journey that resonates with people everywhere. Sick or healthy, they really do want to know just what should they eat.


So here we are March 9th. The pilot has been shot and the spring planting season is coming fast. Myself and my crew stand ready, willing and able to shoot season one, we know how to do that and are eager to dive in. But we can’t move forward without help / guidance / collaboration.