If you keep up with the popular health news at all, you’ve probably seen quite a few reports on the benefits of probiotics.  And if you’re a “foodie” like me, you’ve probably taken an interest in the growing popularity of probiotic foods and beverages, including lacto-fermented sauerkraut or kimchi (cultured veggies), kvass (cultured veggie juice), kefir (a yeast/bacteria beverage usually made from milk, coconut water, or sugar-water), kombucha (a yeast/bacteria beverage usually made from green tea), and the many varieties of yogurts, cheeses, and other fermented dairy products from all over the world.

These special probiotic foods have been used for centuries as essential components of a healthy diet among virtually every population of people ever studied by anthropologists and archaeologists.  In Asia, cultured foods such as kimchi, natto, miso, and tempeh are consumed regularly.  In Africa, taro, millet, and other local crops are fermented into healing beverages.  In Peru, corn is chewed up and spit into a container, fermented for a few days, and then consumed.  In Mediterranean Europe, raw milk is made into cheese and left to age in dark caves from a period of a few weeks to a year or longer!  In Northern Europe, there is even a tradition of fermenting fish and fish liver for supposed health benefits.

Growing up in the 1980′s, I remember seeing commercials on TV advertising yogurt for its benefits for digestion.  Supposedly, if you’re frequently constipated, you can simply reach for a cup of aspartame-sweetened Yoplait yogurt for breakfast each morning and achieve digestive regularity.  Unfortunately, Yoplait fails to disclose that aspartame is a neurotoxin that may initiate the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, and possibly other neurological disorders, and the amount of beneficial bacteria in their yogurts by the time you purchase them at the store may actually be close to zero.

More recent research on probiotics clearly shows that “better digestion” is just the tip of the iceberg in the benefits you can obtain from supplementing with probiotics and probiotic foods at physiologically therapeutic dosages (AKA more than in a container of Yoplait).  Indeed, an imbalance in your gut microbiota may actually cause weight gain, high cholesterol, insulin resisance (sugar cravings), leptin resistance (excessive appetite), and a weakened immune system.  If you’ve ever taken antibiotics, drank chlorinated water, or been exposed to GMOs and herbicides found in conventionally grown foods, you have disrupted your gut “ecosystem” in a way that can have a negative impact on nearly every aspect of your health.

Studies have shown that when you supplement with a variety of the right kind of probiotics, this alone will cause your VLDL and LDL cholesterol to go down, your insulin sensitivity to increase (and sugar cravings decrease), your leptin receptors to increase (and your satiety after meals to increase), and your bodyfat setpoint to decrease.  Just changing the bacteria in your gut can cause you to lose weight without having to make any change your diet or exercise regimen!  (Of course, eating healthy Real Food, and getting adequate exercise in addition to supplementing with probiotics is most recommended for best results.)

Change your bacteria, change your life!  The probiotic supplement that has been formulated with the bacteria that have been most studied and found to promote leanness in called Theralac and you can buy it online here.

Combine it with Greens First to get even more probiotics from food, plus a variety of digestive enzymes, antioxidants, and potent anti-inflammatory nutrients to increase your fat-burning potential and prevent chronic pain.  I like to add a scoop of Greens First into a cup of raw milk, and then stir in an egg yolk, a dash of cinnamon, and a few drops of liquid stevia for a delicious, nutritious breakfast.  I follow that up with one capsule of Theralac and I’m good to go with beneficial probiotics for the day!  (For fat-soluble vitamins including vitamins A and D, I also have a tablespoon of cod liver oil every day too.)  I do this not because of theory or heresay, but because this is what works if you want to easily maintain your ideal body composition AND have great skin, lots of energy, and a balanced mind and mood.

This anti-aging secret of the Japanese is found in natto -- NOT rice!

I’m talking about pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ).  It was discovered in 1979 and found to be in certain foods, such as natto, green tea, and potatoes, which are commonly consumed by populations known to have a high incidence of longevity and robust health into old age.  More recently, scientists have decided that PQQ is actually a vitamin, though there seems to not yet be a concencus over what type of vitamin it is (though many agree that it is a B vitamin because it is molecularly similar to vitamin B2 and B6).

One of the functions of PQQ in the body is that it works as an extremely potent antioxidant (up to 5,000 times more potent than vitamin C, according to researchers at the University of California – Davis).  This doesn’t mean much if you don’t understand what an antioxidant is.  Antioxidants are free radical scavengers, meaning they act like Pac-Man to free radicals, totally eating them up.  You don’t want to have a bunch of free radicals in your body because these damage mitochondrial DNA, and damage to your mitochondrial DNA is one cause of aging.  Translation: The more free radicals you have, the faster you will age.  The fewer free radicals you have, the slower you will age.  You can decrease the number of free radicals you have, and therefore slow down the aging process in your own body, by either eating abundant amounts of foods high in PQQ or by taking a PQQ supplement.

This is one reason why two people who are both 50 years old in chronological age can look completely different in age.  One person can have “middle age spread” with a large amount of fat on the torso and lack of muscle tone in the limbs, combined with skin damage and lack of collagen in the face.  This is partially caused by accumulation of a large number of free radicals on a daily basis for many years by smoking cigarettes, succumbing to stress, not eating foods rich in antioxidants, eating too many calories, not exercising at all or exercising too much, not getting adequate sleep, and many other factors including psychoemotional factors.  In contrast, another person of the same chronological age can have very little accumulation of fat on the belly and torso, strong bones and musculature, and youthful skin.  This is NOT caused by just “getting lucky” or having “good genes!”  You can influence your own genetic expression by eating a species appropriate diet, getting adequate exercise and sleep, decreasing your exposure to toxins AND intelligently using supplements that can help you combat the ill-effects of living in a toxic world laced with nuclear radiation and genetically manipulated Monsanto crops.

PQQ has also been found to protect memory and cognition in animals and humans.  It protects against neurotoxicity caused by mercury, aspartame, MSG, and other deadly neurotoxins, and works to BLOCK formation of amyloid-beta proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease.  But PQQ is not just important for prevention!  It actually improves memory, attention, and cognition — especially in combination with supplementation of CoQ10.  These benefits are achieved with a dosage of 10 – 20 mg/day.

I recommend picking one of the two PQQ supplements made by Pure Encapsulations that are listed below.  You can click on the “buy now” link directly within this blog post to have either supplement shipped straight to your door.

PQQ with B Complex

Buy Now $59.97

Ultra B-Complex w/ PQQ 60 vcaps
With Metafolin® L-5-MTHF
Hypo-Allergenic Dietary Supplement
Supplement Facts
Serving Size: 1 Capsule
Servings per Container: 60
Amount per Serving
ascorbyl palmitate (fat-soluble vitamin C) 10 mg
thiamine HCl 125 mg
riboflavin (B2) 5 mg
riboflavin 5’ phosphate (activated B2) 10 mg
niacinamide 100 mg
inositol hexaniacinate (no-flush niacin) 10 mg
pyridoxine HCl (B6) 90 mg
pyridoxal 5’phosphate (activated B6) 10 mg
folate (as Metafolin®, L-5-MTHF) 400 mcg
methylcobalamin (B12) 1,000 mcg
biotin 400 mcg
panthothenic acid (calcium pantothenate) (B5) 100 mg
alpha lipoic acid (thioctic acid) 100 mg
luteolin 20 mg
BioPQQ™ pyrroloquinoline quinone disodium salt 10 mg
other ingredients: vegetable capsule
Recommendations: As a dietary supplement, take 1–2 capsules per day, in divided doses, with meals.
Warning: If pregnant, consult your physician before taking this or any other product.
This encapsulated product contains no hidden coatings, excipients, binders, fillers, shellacs, artificial colors or fragrance. Contains no dairy, wheat, yeast, gluten, corn, sugar, starch, soy, preservatives or hydrogenated oils.

PQQ with CoQ10

Buy Now $59.99

SR-CoQ10 with PQQ 60 vcaps

Hypo-allergenic Dietary Supplement
Supplement Facts
Serving Size: 2 Capsules
Servings per Container: 30
Amount per Serving:
coenzyme Q10 (from MicroActive® CoQ10-cyclodextrin complex) 100 mg
BioPQQ™ pyrroloquinoline quinone disodium salt 20 mg
Other ingredients: potato starch, hypo-allergenic plant fiber, vegetable capsule
Recommend Use: As a dietary supplement, take 2 capsules daily, in the morning, with a meal.
Warning: If pregnant, consult your physician before taking this or any other product.
This encapsulated product contains no hidden coatings, excipients, binders, fillers, shellacs, artificial colors or fragrance. Contains no dairy, wheat, yeast, gluten, corn, sugar, soy, preservatives or hydrogenated oils.

Most people who have ever tried losing weight tend to experience ravenous hunger and lack of energy when they lose down to their “goal weight.”  When they eat enough food to satisfy their hunger and provide them with enough energy to get through their day, they end up gaining back all the weight.  Why does this happen?  Is it because overweight people have a lack of willpower?  Or because in order to stay lean, one must count calories, exercise compulsively, and not eat enough food to satisfy their hunger.  Most yo-yo dieters would probably guess the latter is true — those who are lean just exercise all the time and starve themselves.

I tell you that neither of the statements above explain why overweight people tend to gain all the weight back after dieting, or why lean people stay lean without having to constantly track calories in vs. calories out.  The reason why we all tend to maintain a consistent weight over time is because the body has a “body-fat setpoint” that it tries to defend.  If you eat more calories than you expend, your appetite should decrease and your energy expenditure should increase.  Translation: If you eat a big buffet meal at lunch, you should feel less hungry for dinner.  Plus your basal body temperature and respiratory rate will slightly increase, making you burn more calories than if you had skipped lunch.  If you eat fewer calories in an effort to lose weight, your hunger will increase and you will have less energy for exercise because your body is trying to defend its setpoint.

This leads us to the question of why one’s body-fat setpoint would be set at higher than it needs to be.  Why would your body be trying to defend a weight that is not your ideal weight?  This has largely been a mystery among weight loss researchers, but now we are starting to reach a few conclusions.  Food additives, including everything from artificial and “natural” flavorings, MSG, wheat, and preservatives, to high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, and vegetable seed oils like cottonseed and canola, can actually increase your body-fat “setpoint” to a higher number.  This means that if your ideal weight is 110 pounds, but you’ve been eating fat-free cookies made from refined wheat flour and partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, and drinking diet soda, the intense and unnatural flavorings and ingredients will actually cause your body to increase its setpoint to a higher weight, such as 160 pounds.  You will therefore develop a condition known as hyperphagia, a condition in which your appetite causes you to consume more calories than you expend, until you reach the new body-fat setpoint of 160 pounds.  Your body will then be resistant to going back to its ideal weight by causing you to feel excessively hungry and tired when you drop below 160.

Modern foods essentially break the “thermostat” that keeps you at your ideal weight.  There are a variety of methods to bring your setpoint back down to where it should be so that you can lose the weight and actually not feel hungry or lacking in energy.  In the future, I will write in more detail these simple methods you can use to reach your ideal weight and then maintain it without having to count calories, spend hours in the gym burning calories off, feel hungry/deprived, or having to use your willpower to avoid your favorite foods.  Obviously the first thing you can do to lower your bodyfat setpoint is to eat only real foods — no boxed or canned items containing added flavorings and non-food ingredients.  You will also need to avoid *wheat, because the modern variety of wheat is actually a man-made food that is entirely different from “wild” wheat.

For treatment of hyperphagia, you will benefit from taking natural plant compounds that send signals to your hypothalamus that you’ve already eaten to satiety.

Chemical appetite suppressants may do more harm than good, but natural foods-based supplements such as Leantain can help repair your metabolism and treat the condition of hyperphagia.  The active appetite-suppressing ingredient in Leantain is a succulent plant that is commonly eaten for food by hunter-gatherers on long hunting trips.  This succulent plant helps suppress their hunger and keep their energy levels high while they are seeking food.

*If you’re skeptical about my advice to avoid wheat, please read the book Wheat Belly, and I guarantee you’ll never want to go near the stuff again.  Not only does wheat pike your blood sugar higher than drinking a can of Coke does, it is responsible for triggering a variety of health conditions including rheumatoid arthritis, liver disease, Alzheimer’s disease, fibromyalgia, depression, and dermatitis.  One man on the waiting list for a heart transplant actually recovered without the need for a transplant when he stopped eating wheat.

Something you may not know about me — which is also something that I have been heavily criticized for by some people — is that I stopped watching TV in 1999.  I’m not really aware of what shows are on now (except for what I’ve heard from people talking about the shows they watch), and I don’t begin and end my day with a ritual of learning everything “bad” that’s happening in the world (AKA the news).  The truth is that when I went off to college, I simply didn’t have time for watching TV.  I knew that if I sat down to watch just one sitcom, I’d end up sitting in front of the TV for hours to watch the entire evening line-up.  At my college undergrad, there was a name for people who could be found in front of the TV instead of in the library or the lab on weeknights: Five Year Seniors (people who took more than 4 years to finish their degree).  I know there are people who are exceptions to the rule, but as a pre-med student, I personally had to study for long hours to make A’s and to graduate with honors after 4 years.

Many have argued with me that TV can be educational, and I’m really missing out by not being able to watch the Discovery Channel, History Channel, Mythbusters, the news, political debates, etc.  While I agree that there are some worthwhile programs on TV and it’s important to be aware of current events, it is the nature of TV watching that can re-wire your brain and actually lower your IQ and ability to think critically for yourself.

TV watching is an entirely passive experience in which you are being spoon-fed information in short sound bites, and frequently interrupted by advertisements that subliminally tell you contradictory and false information: Buy this mascara or have ugly lashes and no friends; Eat this hamburger, fries, and Coke or feel hungry and un-hip; Be skinny like this supermodel or else you’re a big fat blob; Eat this candy bar and drink this sports drink for satisfaction after a long hard day; Don’t miss this exclusive report on such-and-such celebrity’s latest nose job, etc.

The average adult was believed to have an attention span of about 20 minutes (which is not very long), but nowadays some adults may have attention spans more like 20 seconds or even less.  This means that if you’re trying to learn a new concept that takes longer than a few seconds or a few minutes to explain, you won’t learn it.  You will only be able to comprehend very simple factoids — much like the simple concepts explained in TV soundbites.  It’s one reason why there are so many problems in this world that seem to have no solution; people simply don’t take the time (nor have the ability) to think critically about our problems to reach a simple solution.

If you feel like your attention span might needs a boost, or if you’re constantly fading in and out of conversations, or feeling like you “don’t get” some concepts very easily, you might want to check out Focus Fizz.

It’s a nutritional supplement that contains many of the factors needed for attention and focus, and of course it’s gluten-free and soy-free.

Happy Chinese New Year! January 23, 2012 - February 9, 2013 is the year of the Yang Water Dragon.

Why I’m Cautious About Vitamin D Supplements

You have surely heard about the importance of vitamin D, and how we aren’t getting enough of it because we’re indoors too much of the time.  Chiropractors, acupuncturists, massage therapists, and even medical doctors are recommending it to their patients.  However, I have remained skeptical of the push to get everyone taking high dosages of synthetic vitamin D3 pills.  In fact, vitamin D is actually a hormone produced by your body in response to sunlight; it isn’t really a “vitamin” at all.  All other hormones (except for DHEA, which has restricted status) are only available by prescription from a medical doctor.  Vitamin D is the only hormone you can buy like candy from a discount store.  Synthetic vitamin D taken alone in pill form may cause more harm to your body than good.  We simply don’t know yet because the public is being used as guinea pigs.

What I Recommend Instead of  Synthetic Vitamin D Pills

Before the era in which drug manufacturers and corporations influenced what the government, registered dieticians, and medical doctors told us what was good for our health, people who did not live in tropical climates used cod liver oil as a health tonic to protect against cold viruses, the flu, bone disorders, overweight and underweight, respiratory disorders, and chronic cough, among other things.  We now know that cod liver oil is rich in omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA and fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K2, which are not found in substantial amounts in plant-based foods, and which protect against a variety of diseases.  The omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA are not present in plant foods and cannot be synthesized by the human body.  New evidence suggests that the vitamin A and vitamin D found naturally in cod liver oil work together synergistically to protect against autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, and hypothyroidism.  Vitamin K2, a rare nutrient also found in organ meats and nattokinase, protects against osteoporosis, tooth decay, and arteriosclerosis.  Clearly, there is much more time-tested and scientific evidence for the use of cod liver oil to fulfill vitamin D requirements and promote optimal health than the usage of synthetic vitamin D3 pills such as here.

My Personal Experience With Cod Liver Oil

I truly notice a difference in my health when I take a tablespoon of cod liver oil every day.

Some things that I notice are:

• Perfect skin (I don’t mean to brag here, but I’m elated that my forehead pimples have been gone for an entire year.)
• Youthful complexion (People still think I’m a college undergrad.)
• Heightened mood (No more wanting to jump off a cliff.)
• Lots of energy that lasts all day (Literally.)
• Improved quality of sleep (I actually sleep through the entire night and wake up at 6 AM without an alarm.)
• Greater strength & flexibility (Nutrition plays a huge role in whether you are stiff or flexible, injury-prone or injury-proof.)
• Flat, toned abs  (Without ever logging one minute inside a gym.)

The cod liver oil I recommend is this one.

This Norwegian cod liver oil is regularly tested to be free of heavy metals and PCBs.  Lemon oil and rosemary oil are added to keep the oil from going rancid and to prevent “repeats” (AKA fish burps).  This cod liver oil tastes pleasant — believe it or not — and you can take it alone or in a smoothie or salad dressing.  Strangely enough, I always look forward to taking a tablespoon of cod liver oil that some days I will even take 2 tablespoons of it: one in the morning as soon as I wake up and one at night just before I go to bed.  This practice of taking cod liver oil in the morning and at night is also recommended by Tim Ferriss in his book 4-Hour Body.

Some other supplements I take daily as part of my anti-aging and perfect health regimen?

Astaxanthin

Ubiquinol

Theralac probiotics

Immortal Qi

Why do they always use pictures like these? This woman is still fat. She's just standing with her legs crossed in the "after" pic to create an illusion.

Surely you’ve seen them — the ubiquitous ads that show up as Google adwords listings embedded in sites that are monetizing from the high traffic (usually news sites, online review blogs, and other websites made for people with a pulse but no brain).

“Learn how a stay-at-home mom dropped 10 pounds in 10 days!” “Five foods to NEVER eat!” “Ten foods that burn belly fat!” “Read how people everywhere are losing weight eating this African mango fruit!”  And, of course, “Acai berry for weight loss!”

Apparently people click on these things, and probably a few of those people will even pull out their credit cards to buy these things without reading the fine print.  Otherwise, marketers wouldn’t keep making these ads.  “Free 30 day supply of acai berries for weight loss!  We’ll bill you after the first 7 days if you don’t try to reach us to cancel your order.  And we don’t have a phone number.  For cancellations, you will have to submit a support ticket.  We’ll begin billing you $47 every month and sending you more cheap acai berry extract if we don’t hear from you within 30 days.”

Acai berry is a fruit that is popular in Brazil just like coconuts.  Frozen acai beries became popular among the surfers in Southern California a few years ago with the startup of a company called Sambazon.  Acai tastes like chocolate flavored blueberries and they are commonly added to smoothies, yogurt, and granola.  It’s not a magical weight loss fruit from the jungle, though acai is high in antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids and low in sugar.  (And did I mention they taste heavenly?)  If anyone with two hemispheres in their brain is still spending money on acai berry extract pills, they need to save their money and buy some acai berries to eat instead.  An entire package usually costs about $6.

Enough on that.  I just had to rant!

Besides eating a nutrient-dense diet, getting plenty of sleep, and doing 10 minutes of high intensity interval training once a week, another way to shed excess body fat is to get rid of inflammation in your body.  Two of the best supplements for getting rid of inflammation are astaxanthin and cod liver oil.

Astaxanthin has the added benefit of protecting your body from the inside out from UV radiation, thus eliminating the need for toxic sunscreens to prevent sunburn.  (And, yes, toxic sunscreens can make you fat.)  Some people have found that astaxanthin makes their skin look more youthful and causes “sunspots” or “liver spots” to disappear.  Because astaxanthin has anti-inflammatory properties, it also prevents delayed onset muscle soreness after intense physical activity.

Numerous studies have found that omega-3 fatty acids accelerate fat loss even when calories are kept the same.  While having an imbalance in your omega 3:omega 6 ratio (an overabundance of omega-6 fatty acids in your diet in relation to omega-3 fatty acids) might be one factor that contributes to weight gain or difficulty losing weight, chronic inflammation is believed to be one of the main contributing factors to an expanding waistline.  Two to three servings of cod liver oil daily can help you lose weight by balancing your omega 3:omega 6 ratio and fighting inflammation.  Cod liver oil — unlike other fish oils — is also high in vitamin D, which can also help you lose weight by balancing your hormones.

If you want to learn more about astaxanthin and/or cod liver oil, or if you want to purchase them online, just click on the words astaxanthin and cod liver oil.

I was attacked by angry vegans again.

Last week I posted something on Facebook that turned out to be pretty controversial even though it seemed to be a benign status update at the time that I posted it.  I said that there needs to be more dialog between companies and their best customers.  For instance, I enjoy shopping at Whole Foods because I like the selection of items that are available there (in comparison with other grocery stores such as Von’s, Ralph’s, Trader Joe’s, etc.).  However, I’m often appalled by the selection of books and DVDs they sell in their Whole Body section.  Nearly all of them promote a vegan or vegetarian diet, various unhealthy means of purgation such as the maple syrup diet (AKA Master Cleanse) and colonics (which strip away the protective biolayer in the small intestines), and myths about the dangers of animal fats, cholesterol, saturated fats (except for coconut oil), and animal protein.  It seems as though Whole Foods is trying to “teach” the health-conscious, affluent people who shop there that a plant-based [vegan] diet is the key to vibrant health, and the causes of environmental degradation, poverty & hunger, and modern disease is caused by eating meat, saturated fat, and cholesterol.

Immediately after I posted this I was ridiculed by vegan Facebook “friends.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of The China Study?  Or Forks Over Knives?”  One commenter said I didn’t know a thing about nutrition and asked if I had any college degree.  She continued to make angry, rude comments not only towards me, but also towards two of my Facebook friends who politely commented that they like to eat liver occasionally for energy and vitality.  This woman’s argument in favor of veganism was that she herself has been a vegan for over three decades and is perfectly healthy.  (Plus, The China Study and Forks Over Knives are obviously scientific documents of well-conducted, flawless scientific studies.  Please note: I’m being sarcastic here.)

Sorry, but I wouldn’t classify being rude to people and spreading negativity all around as being the picture of perfect health.  But that is just my opinion.

As a bit of background information, I was into the vegan diet many years before it was popularized by Oprah, Dr. Oz, The China Study, an Forks Over Knives.  Back then, we had Diet For a New America, Mad Cowboy, and Fast Food Nation.

Before going vegan, I would eat things like Eggo waffles (with Peter Pan peanut butter instead of dairy butter), El Charrito Cheese Enchilada Dinners, public school lunches (or something from a vending machine if lunch was inedible), and Wendy’s frosties.

After going vegan, I ate a lot of fresh fruit and fresh vegetables from the college cafeteria salad bar, slow-cooked oatmeal, veggie stews, Ezekiel bread, organic tempeh, kombucha, raw flaxseed chips, nutritional yeast, almond butter, and vegan protein powder from Peaceful Planet.  I also took a vegan multivitamin, a sublingual B-12 supplement, and an algae-derived DHA supplement.

Of course I felt healthier eating a mostly organic, high raw, plant-based, unprocessed foods diet than I had felt eating microwaved frozen food, school food, and fast food.

In fact, if you click on the links to the foods I was eating before going vegan, you’ll see that everything I ate on a daily basis contained genetically modified corn in some form or another.  Even conventional dairy, eggs, and meat contain genetically modified corn because this is what is fed to the animals.  I think anyone who gets GMO corn out of their diet by choosing to not eat processed foods and conventional animal products is going to experience some profound improvements in their health and well-being.

After 5 years as a strict vegan, however, I still suffered from asthma.

And I had developed some severe fluctuations in my mood and energy level (most of the time feeling tired or irritable, except for the couple of hours every day that I spent in the gym in pursuit of Madonna arms).  Conventional blood tests revealed that I was healthy, though my fasting blood sugar was a little bit high (still “normal” according to conventional medicine but not in the optimal range according to functional and anti-aging medicine) and my cholesterol was extremely low.

After much in-depth investigation, meditation, and listening to my body, I decided to slowly integrate animal products back in — things like pastured eggs, sardines, bison, and venison.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that around this time, my moods improved, my asthma went away, and my arms began to look much more like Madonna’s than Lady Gaga’s.

But that is just my experience.  It’s useless for anyone to try to convince me that eating meat, fish, eggs, and dairy (including beef tallow, butter, unpasteurized dairy, liver, kidneys, heart) is somehow leading to my hasty demise, clogging my arteries and putting me at risk for diabetes.  My blood sugar is now in the optimal range — between 84 – 87 mg/dL — after becoming an omnivore.  And although my total cholesterol is still on the low side — my HDL (the “good” lipoproteins) is the highest it has ever been.

I don’t try to convince anyone to change their diet if what they’re doing is working for them.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a fruitarian, carnivore, junk food addict, paleo, primal, GAPS, WAPF, real food eater, or some other style of eating.  If you’ve been able to get rid of allergies, improve your mood, eliminate chronic pain, achieve and easily maintain your ideal body composition, or overcome some other problem through your way of eating, and you have fine-tuned everything to the point of constantly being in the flow and feeling your best, you don’t need a health coach or anybody to help you.

But for anyone who feels that something isn’t quite right with your nutrition plan, or for someone looking to improve their health, fitness level, body composition, energy levels, and moods, or troubleshoot a lack of time to cook or prepare meals, boredom with unprocessed “real” foods, or just general confusion over conflicting dietary advice, these are the issues that I’m here to help you with.  If your Lamborghini is functioning optimally, there is no need to start a fight with a Volkswagon mechanic about the perfect way to maintain a Lamborghini; likewise, if your health is functioning optimally, there is no need to start a fight with me.

One nutrition “fad” I would like for us to let go of in 2012 is the idea that caffeine (found in coffee, tea, and chocolate) is inherently “bad.”  Whether caffeine consumption is hindering or helping you reach your health goals is actually highly dependent on your individual state of health and the reasons why you specifically use caffeine.  This is why one study will come out supporting the idea that caffeine is good, while another study will show that it’s bad.  Most health journalists only care to write a shocking headline that helps to sell the publication they write for, rather than actually read the studies they cite and interpret them with some critical thinking skills.  You can’t base your nutrition plan on the latest newspaper or magazine headline if you want to make any improvements in your health!  (And I’m not criticizing journalists here — it’s their job to write in this way.  It’s not their job to provide you with a personalized nutrition program.)

Because so many people have asked me over the past couple of weeks about where I stand on the caffeine issue, I decided to write a blog post about it to clear up any confusion among anyone wondering whether they should finally kick the caffeine habit.

Why Caffeine Is Bad

If you use caffeine as a substitute for an adequate amount of sleep (between 7 – 9 hours per night for most people), then the definitive answer for you is yes, you do need to stop consuming caffeine until you get your sleep schedule under control.  Not getting enough sleep sets you up for developing metabolic syndrome, obesity, car accidents, lack of productivity, and cognitive decline.  Caffeine will not save you from any of this, and it just might hasten your demise by putting excessive stress on your adrenal glands.

You should also stop consuming caffeine if you have become dependent on it to feel alert in the mornings, to have regular bowel movements, or as a “fix” for an afternoon wane in energy.  These are tell-tale signs that you are addicted to caffeine, and are possibly requiring increasingly larger amounts of caffeine in order to get the same effects.  Eventually this, too, will lead to more serious health problems.

Why Caffeine Is Good

If you can do without caffeine and still make it through your day without feeling sleepy, grouchy, constipated, or headachey, the occasional cup of coffee or green tea can provide you many benefits without doing harm.  Aside from the antioxidants in coffee and tea, the caffeine itself can increase both cognitive and physical performance.  If you’re going to be taking an exam, going to a job interview, working out, competing in an athletic event, or anything else requiring you to be “on,” a moderate amount of caffeine can enhance your mental focus and physical abilities.  Just don’t overdo it!  There’s no need for the excessive amount of caffeine in Monster energy drinks!  A cup of coffee, yerba mate, or green tea should be enough, taken 30 – 60 minutes before you need it most.  You might want to take one day a week or one week per month off of caffeine to make sure you don’t become dependent on it.

A blog post about grains, gluten, celiac disease, gluten sensitivity, wheat, etc. is long overdue here, and I admit that I’ve been procrastinating.  Why?  Every time I sit down to write about the topic, I get frustrated by all the misinformation floating around on the internet, in gyms, at health stores, and even in published diet books you can find at your local big-box bookstore in the health aisle.  Because I’ve been enjoying a gluten-free and grain-free diet for years with great success, I forget how difficult it can be to sort through all the information out there to figure out what foods contain gluten, and whether all grains are “bad.”  The reason for all the confusion about this topic?  All I can say is that it’s a little bit like the game of “telephone” where you whisper something into the ear of the person next to you, and that person whispers what they heard to someone else, and so on until your message has gone through several people.  When the message gets back to you, it has turned into something entirely different from what the original message started out as.  It’s even easier for these kinds of misunderstandings to occur when information is spreading so fast via the internet (blogs, messageboards, emails, social media, podcasts, videos, etc.).  I will try to be as clear and brief as possible here so I can allay some confusion and possibly help many of you discover the misunderstanding about gluten and grains that might be contributing to all your health and weight problems.

Myth #1: Celiac disease is a food allergy, digestive problem, or enzyme deficiency.

Truth: Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder of the small intestine caused by an autoimmune reaction to gliadin, a component of the gluten protein found naturally in wheat, barley, spelt, kamut, and rye.  Gluten is now also used to make a product called TVP or texturized vegetable protein, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, and seitan, which are commonly used to make vegetarian “faux meats.”  Gluten may also be added to soups, boxed foods, ice creams, frozen dinners, and other processed food items to provide texture.  Any foods containing wheat, barley, rye, triticale, spelt, kamut, malt or maltodextrin from an unspecified source, or flour (breakfast cereal, nutrition bars, waffles, chicken nuggets, burger buns, etc.) also contain gluten.

Myth #2: I don’t have digestive problems, so gluten must not be causing my arthritis, allergies, asthma, fibromyalgia, weight gain, mood swings, intense food cravings, headaches, PMS, [insert your ailment here]…

Truth: The most common symptoms of a gluten sensitivity or celiac disease are actually not digestive symptoms.  The most common symptoms may be vague feelings of unwellness such as coughing or postnasal drip during and after meals, tiredness, insidious weight gain (particularly around the belly), brain “fog,”tiredness, skin rashes, fibromyalgia, and irritable bowel syndrome, or more obvious problems like infertility, thyroid problems, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, Sjogren’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, psychiatric disorders, and gallbladder disease.  You can start having any of these symptoms at any age, meaning you can have no symptoms of a gluten intolerance when you’re 21, but by 41 you’ve got migraine headaches, early menopausal symptoms, and fibromyalgia that are all relieved by getting gluten (and grains) out of your diet.

Myth #3: My doctor tested me for celiac disease, but all my results came back normal.  I don’t need to avoid gluten if I don’t have celiac disease.

It is estimated that at least 85% of people have some kind of undesirable symptom caused by eating gluten and grains.  Celiac disease is one end of a spectrum in gluten sensitivity, meaning that it is diagnosable by intestinal biopsy, but most people fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum.  Blatant celiac disease may not be diagnosable by a simple blood test or intestinal biopsy in most people, but if they eliminate gluten and grains from their diet, it is likely that many of their health problems will be completely eliminated within a matter of a few months.  Many patients have been able to get off all their medications even after years of being sick with chronic ailments.  I am one example of such a patient.  I completely eliminated chronic migraine headaches, threw away my inhaler for asthma, and no longer wake up in the mornings needing to sneeze and blow my nose.  I have a lot more energy too, and many would probably say I look a lot healthier than I did 10 years ago when I was still eating grains and gluten.  If my parents would have fed me bacon and eggs for breakfast when I was a child instead of oatmeal and low-fat “whole grain” cereal, I might not have developed many of the problems that I had to begin with.  Thankfully, most of the damage has been reversible.  (Whether I would have been taller and had a more attractive facial structure, we will never know for sure.)

Myth #4: Since other grains such as oats and rice are gluten-free, as long as I switch from eating wheat bread to eating gluten-free bread and gluten-free baking flours, I should be able to get rid of my belly fat, allergies, and chronic pain.

Truth: Cross-contamination of “gluten-free” grains with gluten-containing grains still remains an issue.  Oats are often grown on land that was previously used for growing wheat, and they are commonly processed using the same equipment as wheat.  Another problem with gluten-free breads, pastas, and flours is that they still have a high glycemic index that is often even higher than wheat bread.  (Check the labels of many gluten-free breads and pastas, and you’ll find that the ones that don’t contain soy have almost no protein at all, and are even higher in calories and sugar than white bread.)  And I certainly wouldn’t advocate switching from wheat to soy-based bread, pastas, and flours!  High-glycemic “gluten-free” breads, pastas, cereals, cookies, cakes, pies, flours, and other things wreak havoc on your blood sugar, causing you to have food cravings and put on fat around your abdominal organs known as visceral fat.  This visceral fat is not only viewed as unsightly by the fashion and fitness industries, it is also the #1 risk factor for heart disease, diabetes, chronic inflammation, and metabolic syndrome.