Functional Plant Based Nutrition
If you have read anything I have written on plant based eating then you know I don’t think a strict vegan diet is sustainable, not if you want to truly be at your healthiest. But there is a way to thrive and limit your impact on animal life.
The only supplements worth taking
In the current world of obsessive optimization its not hard to find yourself ordering loads of supplements, each one lauded as the next super ant-oxidant or life extension compound. Taking all the advice of Andrew Huberman, Rhonda Patrick and Ben Greenfield I would need to work extra hours each week to just to afford the pills…where would I find the time to add the daily sunlight, sauna, cold plunge, meditation, breath work, skin tapping, workout, meal prep, yoga, grounding and whatever else these health gurus suggest I need to make time for. Not that these sup’ pushers don’t dole out great advice on health and wellness, they do but things have really taken a turn towards what most nutrition experts call disordered eating (if you consider supplements as eating).
Increasing VO2max – your best tool to live longer
“Cardiorespiratory fitness is inversely associated with long-term mortality with no observed upper limit of benefit.” This conclusion comes from a 2018 study published in the journal Cardiology (1) measuring all cause mortality in 122,000 participants under a treadmill based cardiovascular test.
Segmented into groups of cardiovascular health as such – Low, below average, above average, high and elite we can see how shifting from one group to another changes your risk of all cause mortality. For example, if you improve your fitness from low to below average you decrease your risk of mortality by 50%. If you can manage to move from low to above average it will decrease by 60-70%. When comparing this improvement vs the benefits of quitting smoking or reversing diabetes, increasing your cardiovascular fitness actually has a greater impact on mortality risk. These are incredible results. No single action moves the needle more for increasing longevity than improving cardiovascular health.
A Plant Based Diet: Healthiest Option or Logical Fallacy?
Years ago I wrote a two part series called – is a vegan diet the healthiest way to eat? Due to website issues, those articles are gone and so I wanted to revisit the topic because I think it continues to be a relevant question.
I grew up vegetarian until I was about 12 and then animal sourced foods were limited for another few years after that. In my early 30s I began a 6 month on, 6 month off vegan/omnivore experiment that lasted about 5 years. I was looking to prove that I could thrive on a vegan diet despite my very high activity level as well as hit various goals of gaining muscle mass and managing certain blood markers. I did this with months of research prior to beginning and then continued this research throughout the process. So I am not coming at this from a one sided perspective.
Exercise protocols to reverse cardiovascular disease
As a follow up to the last article I wanted to provide some information on how to combat heart disease with exercise. There are a couple myths worth dispelling and some very good science on what methods work best for people who are at high risk for an event or who are coming out of hospital, post event
Cardiovascular disease: testing, prevention and reversal
I am not a doctor: I am a nutrition and fitness coach and a health researcher. The following information is based on dozens of hours of research predominantly using studies and lectures from the very top specialists in Metabolic disease, Cardiovascular health, Endocrinology and Health Science So while it is advice that I myself trust and use for my own screening and prevention, in no way do I write this as a personal recommendation for your health. This is just some information for you to add to your toolbox to help you advocate for your own health.
Slow Progressive Eating Plans
As stated in our nutrition plan overview we do our best to avoid comparative planning while using current nutrition science. This involves a deep dive into your history with food.
“Authors, nutritionists and doctors want to prescribe cookie cutter programs because it means way less work. If you throw ideas out that work for the average person then it will inevitably hit enough people and stick for long enough to make it seem legitimate.” In order to get around this unfortunate truth is that we ask you a s@#* ton of questions. Food is both metabolic and psychological, to treat it like metabolic math is to undermine the real and important subjective values it holds. Our questionnaire is mostly open ended questions, like; what was your favourite food growing up and why? If you could eat any meal, every day, what would it be? What foods do you eat that are linked to your family background? These questions get into emotional value of foods, they also tend to bring out life stories that give us an idea as to how you think about meals and food in general.
Cumulative Training
I am normally not super interested in what works for the average person. My career started with a succession of failures trying to apply the science of averages to individuals. If there is one thing you learn (hopefully early) as a health coach is that the most important research is the N of 1 kind. In other words, what works for the person in front of you. This still involves looking at all the prevailing research, it’s not just throwing ideas out all willy nilly but it inevitably requires trial and error. So you have to be humble in the process and clear in setting reasonable expectations.
A Mountain of Youth
If you want to grow old but maintain a youthful energy, an agile, strong body and a happy and healthy mind, you need to seek out struggle; purposeful challenge. It is my opinion that rather than searching for a fountain of youth, we need to climb the mountain of youth. The passive path to health and longevity seems doomed to produce half measures at best. Drugs like Ozempic, “slimming” teas (laxatives), statins, most supplements, certain surgeries and even some uses of insulin only act as temporary or illusory band-aids , The easy path, as it seems, is laden with issues and does nothing to actually bolster the body from decay. Contrary to what you may think though, our minds and bodies respond very favourably to stress (the right kind and within reason of course) and so If you make intermittent discomfort a priority, it’s possible you can stave off chronic illness and mental strife.