I view supplements in a strict sense - they should come after you’ve figured out your calories, macros and micros. Ideally, you’ve already learned what carbs you can tolerate. You’ve given your body time to adapt to the new system. You’re getting sun, grounding and moving appropriately. Then you may want to add supplements to supplement your diet and lifestyle.
With that being stated up front, here are some tried and true supps that are pro-metabolic and how they work.
Read MoreThe liver is a core regulator of sugar. In addition to handling cholesterol and fats which I won’t discuss today, it stores sugar and provides backup power to the brain during fasting states. It’s also the detoxification center of the body and the primary site of active thyroid conversion. With so many functions for the body and so many assaults from the environment, prioritizing liver health is key for high energy.
Read MoreA crucial mechanism in bioenergetics is a well documented fuel switch in mitochondria known as the Randle Cycle. It is a big reason why many people have trouble metabolizing sugar. You may have heard the term Metabolic Flexibility, which loosely refers to the Randle Cycle. Unfortunately, dietitians and health gurus often say we should focus on burning fat when nothing is further from the truth.
Read MoreIron is a necessary mineral for many proteins in the body most notably hemoglobin, the protein responsible for transporting oxygen from the lungs to your cells for mitochondrial use during energy production. Anemia refers to a deficient amount of hemoglobin that’s usually blamed as iron deficiency. Many men and post-menopausal women are negatively affected by excess iron that causes severe oxidative stress and aging. Iron disregulation is a common and important factor in lowered energy production and accelerated aging.
Read More“Stay hydrated” is a common phrase we often share along with “drink more water”. I remember attempting to follow the advice in the Google gym to drink half your body weight in ounces of water. Wow, what a disaster. Have you ever felt thirsty even though drinking a ton of water? Have you ever noticed that responding to that by drinking more water doesn’t change the craving and the water seems to go right through you? In this article I’ll explain why, how to know if you’re hydrated or not, and the best liquids for hydration.
Read MoreNow that we’ve sorted out macros and what foods you can digest we need to address micronutrients. This is what people typically think of when they hear the word “nutrition”. Unfortunately, when you listen to experts and don’t do any testing or food tracking you’re shooting in the dark without IR or a scope at a target that’s 300 yards out. So, testing and tracking are crucial for identifying your personal deficiencies. In lieu of that, I can share what population level research shows and what I personally see in my clients’s and my own diet.
Read MoreSince last week I discussed the functions of the different macros this week I’ll be showing you how to calculate the amount in grams of each macro you’ll need for a bioenergetic diet. I’ll also discuss timing, rhythm and the basics of movement from a pro-metabolic standpoint.
Read MoreCreating a diet based around bioenergetic principles requires a deeper understanding of macronutrients (and micros). In today’s article I’ll discuss the three macronutrients, their main purposes and constructing a pro-metabolic macro split that maximizes energy production and minimizes stress.
Read MoreEssentially there are two approaches to longevity and health, Rate-of-Living and Bioenergetics. Rate-of-living is the hypothesis that our bodies are machines with a finite amount of heartbeats and breaths. Increasing lifespan from this vantage becomes a matter of conservation and reducing wear & tear. Bioenergetics sees the body as machine-like, but with the innate capacity to regenerate (like soil). Regeneration requires energy and only when we lack energy does the body breakdown in the way Rate-of-living theorist see it.
Read MoreOur dear friends the cows have come under fire in the last few years as being drivers of climate change. Bovines are strong allies of humanity and in the right context are key players in lowering carbon, not increasing it. In this article I’ll explain how ruminants, the class of four-leggeds of which cattle belong, are necessary for human and planetary health.
Read More"The dose makes the poison" is a fundamental principle in toxicology, attributed to the Swiss physician and chemist Paracelsus from nearly 500 years ago. This concept emphasizes that the toxicity of a substance depends on its dose or concentration, rather than its inherent properties alone.
Two good examples of this are blue light and seed oils. Yes, the color blue coming out of your phone, tablet, HDTV, monitors, headlights, streetlights and work/home LED bulbs and vegetable oils used in everything from organic tortilla chips to restaurant french fries. There are so many parallels between the massive overuse of these two metabolic disruptors I had to write about it.
Read MoreWe made it to part 4, the final article in this series on healing your gut!
In this segment I want to give you common symptoms and general rules for figuring out a gut issue. I also want to give you my favorite at-home tools for fixing them.
Read MoreToday in part 3 I’ll be exploring gut testing markers, in particular, functional digestive markers along with a review of the “keystone bacteria” that constitute a healthy microbiome.
Lastly we’ll look at re-feeding carbs for those who been low carb for a long time. If you’re just tuning in, it is helpful to read part 1 and part 2 beforehand for background.
Read MoreThis week in part 2 we’re going to discuss the mechanics of digestion, absorption, fermentation and the role of fiber. These processes occur in the stomach, small intestine and colon and are co-dependent. For example, poor digestion because of high cortisol/low thyroid not only leads to malnutrition but SIBO. Fiber is a doubled-edged sword that can improve or worsen gut function so its important to know when to increase or decrease it.
Read MoreHippocrates, the ancient Greek physician and father of modern medicine, famously stated that “all disease begins in the gut.” In the last decade this statement has renewed meaning with over 40,000 publications listed in PubMed (60% of these in the last 3 years) on the microbiome demonstrating its impact on metabolic disease, cognitive decline, mental health disorders, and autoimmunity.
What has also manifested recently are the myriad of ways to restore gut health with some of them working for others but not you and vice versa. The reason for these inconsistencies lies in your unique gut status.
In this series we’ll seek to understand how the gut functions, it’s major disrupters and a few approaches to healing it.
Read MoreIn bioenergetics, the foundational cause of metabolic disease is something called Reductive Stress. This occurs in the mitochondrial respiratory chain, usually in the complexes themselves, when electrons are not efficiently flowing forward to complex 4 and attaching to oxygen. This process increases oxidative stress and induces everything downstream of insulin resistance.
This article is a bit technical, but if you can grasp it, you’ll have the key to unlocking chronic disease.
Read MoreLast week I covered Prolactin’s role in calcium regulation and a bit about it anti-metabolic effects. This week we’re going to look at how Dopamine, Estrogen, Cortisol, Hypothyroidism and Serotonin affect Prolactin along with ways to measure it.
Read MoreCalcium is the most abundant mineral in the human body with over 99% residing in the bones and teeth. The regulation of calcium is not only important for maintaining these structures but also energy production and preventing a host of chronic diseases. In today’s post I’ll discuss the necessity of dietary calcium and how it's dysregulation is anti-metabolic.
Read MoreEven after the largest study ever on serotonin published in 2022 destroyed the myth that low brain serotonin causes depression, the fiction that serotonin is the ‘happy hormone’ still persists.
In today’s article I’ll demonstrate serotonin’s primary role in the body, how elevations in serotonin are more likely leading to mood disorders, and how too much serotonin is anti-metabolic.
Read MoreEveryone agrees that elevated cortisol is catabolic and shortens lifespan. Some functional medicine practitioners understand how high cortisol destroys our protective, wellness hormones progesterone, testosterone and DHEA. But very few understand its most important and fundamental role, regulating blood sugar. In today’s article I’ll unpack how cortisol is wrecking metabolic health and what you can do about it.
Read More