Meals & Recipes: Delicata Squash, Wild Salmon & Veggies

Wild salmon, winter squash (red onion, ghee, salt and pepper mixed in), zucchini (garlic and onion sautéed), mushrooms, avocado. 

Your Bowl. Add 1 filet of salmon cut in half. Add 1 handful of zucchini, mushrooms, and 1/4 sliced avocado. Add 1/4 winter squash mixed with chopped red onion, 1 tbsp of ghee, 2 pinches of sea salt and 1 pinch of pepper. Drizzle zucchini, mushrooms, avocado and salmon with red wine vinegar and 2 pinches of sea salt.

Buon Appetito!!

Cooking Instructions:

Wild Salmon. Start with wild salmon. I’ve been enjoying frozen wild sockeye salmon from Whole Foods or Sprouts (grocers closest to me), or fresh wild Sockeye from Trader Joes. Preheat the oven to 425. Lightly coat both sides of the salmon filet (or filets if cooking multiple) with olive oil. Place the filet skin up on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Add a pinch of salt (or two) to each filet and black pepper. Cook for 8 - 10 minutes (depending on thickness of the fish). 

Winter Squash. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice squash in half length wise. Use a spoon to scoop out the seeds (save and clean seeds if you’d like to roast them later). Scoop out the stringy meat inside. Coat the entire squash in olive oil and sprinkle salt inside. Place on baking sheet with the skin up. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 or until tender (easily pierced with a fork). 

Zucchini. Bring a pan to medium heat. Chop one slice of yellow onion and two cloves of garlic. Add to the pan with 1/2 tbsp of olive oil and two pinches of salt. Chop a zucchini in half down the middle. Then chop the halves in half length wise. Then cut into bite size (1 inch) pieces. Toss in a bowl with 1 tbsp olive oil and two pinches of salt. Once the garlic and onion are fragrant, add the zucchini to the pan. Add a splash of water and cover. Let cook for 3-5 minutes. Uncover and flip, then cover again and let cook for an additional 3-5 minutes (until done).

Mushrooms. We like organic baby bellas. Bring a pan to medium-high heat. Add a tbsp of olive oil. Slice the mushrooms into quarters, toss lightly with olive oil (1 - 2 tbsp) and salt (2 - 3 pinches, and add them to the preheated pan. Add a few splashes of water and cover. Leave undisturbed for 5 minutes, then toss and let sit for another 3 - 5 minutes.

Meals & Recipes: Eggs, Peppers & Brussels

Eggs over easy, with brussel sprouts, peppers (garlic and onion), chopped walnuts, diced onion and a splash of red wine vinegar and salt. 

Your Bowl. Add a handful of brussel sprouts. A handful of peppers, garlic and onion. Two eggs cooked over easy, topped with chopped yellow onion, red wine vinegar and 2 pinches of sea salt. Add chopped walnuts to garnish.

Boun Appetito!!

Cooking Instructions:

Eggs Over Easy. Bring a pan to medium heat. Add 1 tbsp of olive oil, butter or ghee. Add 1 pinch of sea salt. Crack two pasture raised eggs into the pan. Add 1 pinch of sea salt to each egg. Allow to cook for 3 - 5 minutes before flipping and allowing to cook for another 2 - 3 minutes, leaving the yolk good and runny!

Brussel Sprouts (garlic, onion, poblano). Cut the stems off and quarter or halve them (if bigger). Dice half a poblano chile. Chop one slice of onion. Toss with olive oil and salt first. Chop two gloves of garlic. Add onion and garlic to a pan with olive oil, set to medium heat. Once the onions and garlic start cooking, add the Brussels and poblano. Add a splash of water to the pan and cover. Let cook for 5 minutes. Toss and cover for another 5.

Peppers, Garlic and Onions. Bring a pan to medium-high heat. Chop 1 slice of onion, 2 cloves of garlic and 1 jalapeño pepper. Add to the pan with 1 tbsp olive oil and two pinches of salt. Cut out the core of three peppers (red, yellow and orange) and slice into 1/8 inch strips. Toss in a bowl with 1 tbsp olive oil and 2 pinches of salt. Add to the pan once the onion, garlic, jalapeño combination starts to give off an aroma. Cook for 15 - 20 minutes depending on how you like your peppers, flipping every 5 minutes.  

Homemade Veggie Stock and Soup

I’ve been keeping all of my food scraps in a plastic bag in the freezer. I hate throwing away food so when I learned this technique of making vegetable stock out of scraps I went all in. This was my second time trying it which is always better than the first because I got to try things I missed the first time to make it better.

It was also exciting because this time I had new scraps. Peppers, eggplant, and my favorite, beets to add to the flavors! The recipe is so simple.

The biggest pot I have in my rental house holds only 10 cups of water. So I unloaded 1/2 of a gallon size ziplock worth of frozen scraps into the pot, and then covered them with water until the liquid hit the 10 cups level.

Then I added 2 bay leaves, 2 tsp of dry parsley, 3 - 4 pinches of sea salt, 1 tsp of turmeric, and 1 tsp of ginger root. Brought it all to a boil, and then brought the heat down to a simmer.

I didn’t time it, but once the liquid came down to about 8 cups, 2 cups evaporated off, I drained the pot. I probably could’ve let it go a bit longer, the originally recipe says once the liquid has reduced to half take it off, but we only have one pot and someone needed to make pasta. The stock (to the left) came out looking medicinal, and it tastes that way too. In a good way. It’s just so rich and full of abundance.

The next logical step of course was to make soup. I started it the same way I have been.

• 2 chopped carrots

• 2 slices of chopped red onion

• 3 cloves of sliced garlic

• 2/3 chopped celery stalk (I typically use 1/2 but it was going bad and needed to be cooked)

After sauteeing those ingredientns in a pot for 5 minutes with 2 tbsp of olive oil and 3 pinches of sea salt, I added the veggie stock from above and topped it off with water. I also added:

• 3 bay leaves

• 2 tsp of dry parsley

• 1/2 purple sweet potato (the only vegetable I had available, plus we’ve been wanting to add potato to the mix)

• 1 handful of Bob’s Red Mill Soup Mix

I brought all of that to a boil, then let it simmer. After 20 minutes I added 1/2 cup of white cannelloni beans to the pot and let it all simmer for another 25 minutes.

Having soup in the refrigerator has been a nice way to add some variety into my day. Recently I’ve been loving pouring a ladle of soup over some wild cod I pan fried (seen in the dish below). The flakey white fish and broth mesh so well together. It creates such a warming dish that fills you up. Give it a try.

Try This Move: Weighted Push Up

Classic push up w/ a Ruck Sack

• In this video I'm using 30 lbs.

• Start in a plank position, hands just past shoulder width, in-line with your chest. Tuck your tail bone, squeeze your glutes. Rotate your elbows back and in.

• Descend to the ground, stopping a fists width off the ground. Keep your tailbone tucked, glutes tight, core engaged as you drive your hands through the floor back to the starting position.

• If you've never done a push up with weight, then take extra precaution to make your form pristine before adding weight.

• 3 sets x 10 reps

Meals & Recipes: Beet, Squash & Salmon

Sockeye salmon. Boiled beets. And delicata squash (mixed with ghee, salt, onion and pepper). 

Your Bowl. Add 1 salmon filet and drizzle with soy sauce. A handful of boiled beets (usually 3 - 4 quarters) chopped into bite size pieces. Add 1/4 delicata squash chopped, and mashed with 1 tbsp of ghee, 2 pinches of sea salt, 1 slice of chopped onion, and 2 pinches of pepper. Drizzle the beets and squash with red wine vinegar and salt.

Buon Appetito!!

Cooking Instructions:

Wild Salmon. Start with wild salmon. I’ve been enjoying frozen wild sockeye salmon from Whole Foods or Sprouts (grocers closest to me), or fresh wild Sockeye from Trader Joes. Preheat the oven to 425. Lightly coat both sides of the salmon filet (or filets if cooking multiple) with olive oil. Place the filet skin up on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Add a pinch of salt (or two) to each filet and black pepper. Cook for 8 - 10 minutes (depending on thickness of the fish). 

Boiled Beets. Buy 3-4 loose organic beets. Remove the skin. Cut them into quarters (1/8s if they’re large). Place in a pot, add water so covered by 1-2 inches of water. Add two pinches of salt. 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer for 60 minutes. Make sure you can easily pierce them with a fork before removing from water.

Delicata Squash. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice squash in half length wise. Use a spoon to scoop out the seeds (save and clean seeds if you’d like to roast them later). Scoop out the stringy meat inside. Coat the entire squash in olive oil and sprinkle salt inside. Place on baking sheet with the skin up. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 or until tender (easily pierced with a fork). 

The Future of Health and Food Is Here

Click here: OneSource Health, January 21, 2024

“Life is not only a pleasure but a kind of eccentric privilege” - G. K. Chesterton

I had two major epiphanies this week. The first one came while I was listening to Joe Rogan and Brigham Buhler’s conversation for the third time. A few people in my immediate circle recommended I listen to it. But I didn’t grasp the importance of the episode until my third time through.

In this episode Brigham Buhler, founder of Ways2Well, dive’s into the failings of the U.S. healthcare system. Despite spending more than $4 trillion on healthcare each year, two times more than other countries of comparable wealth, disease prevalence continues to increase and life expectancy continues to decline to it’s lowest level in years.

As he describes it, “what you’re seeing is a symptom of a disease… and its spread throughout all of the government, and that disease is private industry and its influence on the federal government and the decisions they make.”

The private industry he’s referring to is the one created by intermediaries such as insurers, pharmacy’s, and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). They’ve figured out that it’s a lot more valuable to treat, rather than prevent disease. 

To quote Brigham, “If [the insurer] can monetize your diabetes, why would [the insurer] cure or prevent your diabetes?” And that’s exactly what they’ve done.

These intermediaries now receive 45%, almost $2 trn, of the annual healthcare spend in the United States. This enormous wealth is shared by a little more than a handful of companies that control the industry, and therefore control the treatments they make available to us, the patients.

In recent years they’ve been using their capital to narrow our options even further by creating “vertically integrated networks.” It’s a model of healthcare that promises to reduce costs and improve patient outcomes by bringing all of your healthcare needs under one “roof.” According to The Economist, “between 2013 and August 2023 the nine health-care giants spent around $325 bn on over 130 mergers and acquisitions.”

But the model hasn’t lived up to it’s promise. In fact the exact opposite has occurred. Patient health has declined while costs have increased. “Many studies have found that after hospitals acquire physician practices, prices increase but quality of care does not.”

I can verify this all because I lived it. My former company was acquired by Optum, a subsidiary of United Health Group (UHG), the largest insurer in the country. We were one of many acquisitions by UHG in the last 10 years who now control 70,000 physicians across the country. Their obsession with profits over patient outcomes made it unbearable to work for them, and was one of the main reasons I left in 2018.

But listening to this conversation also gave me hope for the future of healthcare or The Age of Scientific Wellness, a recent book that describes the future of health in great detail. Like the vision shared by Brigham, the book envisions the future as one that is personalized, predictive, and preventative.

By focusing on comprehensive testing (i.e. blood, genetic, gut biome), analysis of data from wearables (i.e. tracking sleep, glucose levels), and alternative modality treatments (i.e. stem cells, red light therapy, optimization of sleep and hormones) they believe they can prevent or slow the onset of early disease.

“The difference between somebody dying at the average human life expectancy, and making it to be a centenarian, the only difference is the onset of chronic disease” Brigham says.

It occurred to me that there is a real movement happening, and it’s being led by guys like Brigham and Ways2Well, Peter Attia and his company Early Medical, as well as companies such as Parsley Health, InsideTracker, LevelsHealth, Prenuvo, Function Health, and many more.

This movement to replace “sickcare” coincides with the movement to transform the food system through a new age of agriculture. Commonly referred to as “The Future of Food.” These two movements have the potential to solve a lot of what ails our society. And they both need as much support as possible if they’re going to have any chance of succeeding.

Which brings me back to my first epiphany. That I need to support these movements and the companies and people who are driving the change. So everything I do going forward will be with an eye towards supporting these efforts.

My second epiphany occurred to me while I was in the sauna. It dawned on me that I needed to stop hiding behind the content of other people; the books, podcast’s, and articles I enjoy. They’ve played a pivotal role in teaching and inspiring my beliefs, and will continue to do so. But I’m going to use my knowledge and experience to highlight what I see, rather than summarizing what I’m consuming.

If you know me then this idea of a renewed focus on healthcare and food might seem obvious, but it’s just never been as clear to me as it is right now, and the work I’ve been doing on this newsletter has helped me to realize it. So with that said, I want to thank you all for receiving week 10 of the newsletter, and providing me with the feedback and support you all have!

Cheers.

James

If you want to help in a small way, consider signing onto this petition: Tell the EPA to keep this toxic pesticide out of our food

This Week’s Posts

5 Names to Follow in Health and Fitness

Photo by Khyta on Unsplash

I’ve written a little bit before about some things to keep in mind when you seek advice from influencers and public figures. I watched this TED Talk with EC Synkowski recently. She opens the talk with this quote that put it all into perspective for me.

“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods.” - Ralph Emerson.

It made me realize that the people I was most interested in following all had a common thread. Beyond teaching their own methods, they preached and taught fundamentals. And it occurred to me that the biggest problem with 9 / 10 influencers we find online is that they preach their methods as gospel.

Read more here…

Ruck Plate Series: Workout 3

My girlfriend gifted me a Ruck Plate Carrier and 30 lb Ruck plate for our two year anniversary.

The Ruck Plate Carrier is a game changer. But the bigger surprise is the Ruck plate itself. It’s unique one foot rectangular shape lends itself to a lot of different movements. The morning after I got it I put together this workout series.

Get the workout here…

Meal Prep: Salmon, Brussels, and Vegetable Soup

I’ve been doing a lot of my cooking in the morning. I find it therapeutic to start the day that way. My routine recently has been wake up between 5 - 6 am, make coffee, read for 60 - 90 minutes, then walk and feed my dog. Most days I start cooking by 8 - 9 am. This Wednesday I went into the kitchen to make breakfast and before I knew it I had salmon, brussels sprouts, and vegetable soup all going at once.

Read more here…

Meals & Recipes: Meatloaf, Mushrooms, Asparagus and Squash

Meatloaf square, with delicata squash (ghee onion and salt), mushrooms, avocado and asparagus. Topped with red wine vinegar. 

Your Bowl. Add one square of meatloaf. Slice 1/4 avocado and line around the meatloaf. Add a handful of mushrooms. Add a handful of asparagus. Top the meatloaf with 1/4 delicata squash mashed and mixed with 1 tbsp of ghee, 1 slice of chopped yellow onion and 2 pinches of sea salt. Drizzle with red wine vinegar, add 2 pinches of sea salt.

Buon Appetito!!

Cooking Instructions:

Meatloaf. Prepare the meat. Use 1 lb of 100% grass fed and finished or pasture raised ground beef. In a mixing bowl add the ground beef, 6 pinches of salt, 6 pinches of black pepper, 2 tbsp mustard, 2 tbsp Primal Buffalo Sauce, 1 egg (beat it before adding it), and 1/4 cup panko bread crumbs. Mix it all together.

Prepare to cook. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Coat the bottom of a 8 x 8 pyrex with olive oil. Ball the ground beef mixture into one big ball in your hands, and then place it in the middle of the pyrex. Flatten it out so it’s even throughout and fills in all the corners and edges of the pyrex.

Chop up 1 slice of onion and 2 cloves of garlic. Add that to the top of the beef and sprinkle with 2 pinches of sea salt and a generous amount of cracked fresh pepper.

Cook for 20 minutes.

Finishing up. After cooking for 20 minutes, move the pyrex to the top rack and turn on the boiler and allow to cook for an additional 1 - 2 minutes (try not to let the garlic and onion burn like I did. It happens fast).

Remove after 1 - 2 minutes and cut into 4 equal portions to make preparing meals in the future easy (each one will be approximately 1/4 lb of beef).

Place in a glass container to store and drizzle the remnants from the pyrex over the top!

Delicata Squash. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice squash in half length wise. Use a spoon to scoop out the seeds (save and clean seeds if you’d like to roast them later). Scoop out the stringy meat inside. Coat the entire squash in olive oil and sprinkle salt inside. Place on baking sheet with the skin up. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 or until tender (easily pierced with a fork). 

Mushrooms. We like organic baby bellas. Bring a pan to medium-high heat. Add a tbsp of olive oil. Slice the mushrooms into quarters, toss lightly with olive oil (1 - 2 tbsp) and salt (2 - 3 pinches, and add them to the preheated pan. Add a few splashes of water and cover. Leave undisturbed for 5 minutes, then toss and let sit for another 3 - 5 minutes.

Asparagus. Cut the base of the stems off. Line the asparagus on a cookie sheet lightly covered in olive oil and salt. Cook for 8 - 10 minutes if you’re cooking at 425, 12 minutes if cooking at 350. Thick asparagus will take longer. We always buy thin bunches. You’re looking for bright green color, with some snap.

Meal Prep Wednesday

I’ve been doing a lot of my cooking in the morning. I find it therapeutic to start the day that way. My routine recently has been wake up between 5 - 6 am, make coffee, read for 60 - 90 minutes, then walk and feed my dog. Most days I start cooking by 8 - 9 am. This Wednesday I went into the kitchen to make breakfast and before I knew it I had salmon, brussels sprouts, and vegetable soup all going at once.

Wild Sockeye Salmon

Ever since reading The New Fish, which confirmed all of the rumors I’d heard about the poor health of farmed fish and it’s harmful impact on the environment, I’ve been avoiding farmed fish. But finding wild caught fish in Colorado has thus far been a challenge, so I’ve been opting instead for flash frozen wild cod or salmon sold at the grocery store. The quality is fine, but I do hate that it’s wrapped in plastic. I guess nothing is perfect.

I defrosted two 6 oz filets and marinated them in 1 tbsp of olive oil, a generous tbsp of soy sauce, and sprinkled them with 2 pinches of sea salt, chili powder, onion powder, and garlic powder. I let them sit and marinate as I prepared the rest of the food I was cooking.

After marinating for 10 - 15 minutes I put the filets face down, skin up, on a baking sheet, and cooked them for 9 minutes at 350 degrees. I finished them under the broiler for 90 seconds to crisp the skin. The flavor and texture it gives it makes all the difference.

Vegetable Soup with Homemade Bone Broth

Christmas day was the first time I ever made a whole chicken in the crock pot. I’ve made one every week since. It’s just so easy and delicious. The meat falls right off the bone. In previous weeks I had been discarding the chicken bones and carcass, but listening to EC Synkowski talk about collagen supplementation put the idea in my head that I should make my own collagen supplement. Bone broth.

I also HATE FOOD WASTE. I LOVE the idea of using as much of every animal, vegetable, and fruit you can. So this past week I made my first bone broth in the instant pot. It was so easy. I’ve also been on a soup kick. So with fresh bone broth in the refrigerator I decided to use it to make soup.

For this soup I went with: chopped carrots, celery, red onion, garlic, salt and olive oil, which I cooked for 5 minutes in a pot. Then I added 2 cups of bone broth, 2 cups of water, a handful of sliced white and baby bella mushrooms, sliced tomato, bay leaves, parsley, 1 handful of Bob’s Red Mill Soup Mix, brought it all to a boil, then let it simmer for 20 minutes. Finally I added 1 cup of kidney beans and let everything cook for another 25.

The soup at first came out a little bland, but my girlfriend reminded me that I needed to add salt since we didn’t use store bought broth which contains sodium. Once she added salt we both agreed it was the best batch of soup thus far.

Brussels Sprouts

Brussels are my favorite vegetable. They’re really healthy, they can be cooked lightly or crisped, baked, boiled, or sautéed, and they hold onto a lot of flavor. It’s a rare occasion when there aren’t cooked brussels in my refrigerator. How I cook them varies just slightly every time.

Today, after cutting off the stems and quartering them, I added them to a mixing bowl with 2 tbsp of olive oil, 2 pinches of sea salt, onion powder, and 2 slices of red onion cut in half. I tossed all the ingredients together until all of the brussels were evenly coated. Then I spread them evenly on a baking sheet to cook for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

I usually cook everything, brussels included, at 425, but I cooked them a little slower to see what difference it made. It turns out, not that much. But they were delicious. 

Reducing Waste

I really hate wasting food and materials in the kitchen. I try as much as possible to re-purpose ingredients, and re-use plastic bags, tin foil, parchment paper, whenever I can.

I cooked the salmon on tin foil that had been used prior to make roasted brussels sprouts. Tin foil gets tossed away so easily when it really has 2 - 3 good uses out of a single sheet. I was able to use the chicken carcass and bones to make a delicious broth for my soup. I’ve also been keeping my vegetable scraps in a bag in the freezer and using them to make homemade vegetable broth. It’s a trick my mom saw online and sent me.

It’s all part of my commitment to limit waste and re-use. These are small actions, but right now it’s the best I can do. I look forward to the day when we have a garden for compost, and when we can use our coffee grinds to grow mushrooms.

This was my meal prep Wednesday. For the next few days I’ll be all stocked up. All I have to do is open a container and grab a ladle of soup, a handful of brussels, and a filet of salmon, and breakfast, lunch, or dinner is served. It’s about 2 hours of work, but it makes eating healthy a lot easier. Plus, I love being in the kitchen and seeing my refrigerator stocked.

Meals & Recipes: Winter Squash & Chicken

Your Bowl. Scoop out the cooked inside of 1/4 of the squash, chop it up, and mix with a handful of chopped roasted peppers, a handful of sautéed mushrooms, 1/4 sliced avocado, one slice of chopped red onion, 3 pinches of sea salt and 1 - 2 tbsp of ghee. Line the rim of the bowl with 1/2 chicken breast chopped into bite size pieces. Use the homemade sauce for dipping.

Buon Appetito!!

Cooking Instructions:

Chicken Breast. Buy organic free range chicken breast (pasture raised is best if you can get it). Preheat the oven to 425. Put the chicken breast into a Pyrex. Rub them down in olive oil. Rub them down with salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and a touch of cayenne pepper. Add a little water to the dish. Cook at 425 for 25 - 35 minutes depending on the thickness of the breast. 

Delicata Squash. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice squash in half length wise. Use a spoon to scoop out the seeds (save and clean seeds if you’d like to roast them later). Scoop out the stringy meat inside. Coat the entire squash in olive oil and sprinkle salt inside. Place on baking sheet with the skin up. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 or until tender (easily pierced with a fork). 

Peppers, Garlic, Onion. Bring a pan to medium-high heat. Chop 1 slice of onion, 2 cloves of garlic and 1 jalapeño pepper. Add to the pan with 1 tbsp olive oil and two pinches of salt. Cut out the core of three peppers (red, yellow and orange) and slice into 1/8 inch strips. Toss in a bowl with 1 tbsp olive oil and 2 pinches of salt. Add to the pan once the onion, garlic, jalapeño combination starts to give off an aroma. Cook for 15 - 20 minutes depending on how you like your peppers, flipping every 5 minutes.

Sautéed Mushrooms. We like organic baby bellas. Bring a pan to medium-high heat. Add a tbsp of olive oil. Slice the mushrooms into quarters, toss lightly with olive oil (1 - 2 tbsp) and salt (2 - 3 pinches, and add them to the preheated pan. Add a few splashes of water and cover. Leave undisturbed for 5 minutes, then toss and let sit for another 3 - 5 minutes.

Homemade Sauce. 1 tbsp Primal Buffalo sauce, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar, 1/2 tbsp fig balsamic vinegar, 2 pinches of sea salt.

Try This Move: Split Stance Row

Split Stance Kettlebell Row

• Step one leg back and slightly out, with your foot angled at 45 degrees. Keep your front foot straight and knee straight, knee bent at a 120 degree angle.

• Tuck your tail bone, hinge forward, and grab the kettlebell with a tight grip. Lift your chest away from the ground back into the split stance.

• Press your opposite arm straight out and make a fist. Start the movement by activating your shoulder, rear deltoid and then lats. Let those muscles guide the weight up towards you hip. Lower and repeat.

• Lower the weight back down while keeping those muscles engaged.

• 3 sets x 10 reps per arm

5 Names to Follow In Health and Fitness

I’ve written a little bit before about some things to keep in mind when you seek advice from influencers and public figures. I watched this TED Talk with EC Synkowski recently. She opens the talk with this quote that put it all into perspective for me.

“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods.” - Ralph Emerson.

It made me realize that the people I was most interested in following all had a common thread. Beyond teaching their own methods, they preached and taught fundamentals. And it occurred to me that the biggest problem with 9 / 10 influencers we find online is that they preach their methods as gospel.

But as I’ve pointed out before, there’s no guarantee that what works for someone else will work for you. In fact, it’s highly unlikely it will for an endless number of reasons (goals, experience, access) that I won’t get into here.

But if you can grasp the principles, then you can start to figure out your methods.

With that in mind I thought it would be helpful to share the short list of instructors and teachers that I’ve been following and learning a lot from.

• Ben Bruno is a personal trainer who’s clientele includes professional athletes and actors/actresses. But he is in no way a Hollywood trainer. He trains all of his clients out of his garage which is no bigger than a living room. The exercises and workouts he shares are mostly variations of the same core movements. He believes that proper training really comes down to mastering the same basic exercises. A few months ago he put out two workouts, both of which I’ve purchased and used multiple times. They are really thorough, and unique. I’ve incorporated a lot of what I learned from him into my normal routine. This podcast episode is a great way to get to know him a little bit better.

  • How To Train NBA Players & Hollywood A-Listers out of a 12' x 15' Garage w/ Ben Bruno

• EC Synkowski - As far as nutritionists go, I usually gloss over anytime I read or listen to what they have to say. Most nutritionists, like most experts, get caught up in the weeds and in proving their worth by making things complex. EC Synkowski is the opposite. Her mission is to make nutrition as simple as possible. She preaches achieving maximum results through a proper, healthy, and balanced diet. She also provides actionable ways on how to achieve that. Her #800 gram challenge is one such method, which I first discovered in the book Built to Move. Applying the 800 gram challenge to my life has been a game changer for me. Her weekly newsletter and podcast are also great resources to learn more about nutrition, supplementation, exercise, sleep and more.

• Beth Lewis is a movement specialist. She is constantly sharing unique ways to move your body and stay fit. She’s a big believer in building strength and proper technique from the ground up. And for her a lot of that starts with foot strength. She also puts on a lot of online classes that will teach you how to move or stretch, and other non-conventional ways of increasing strength and mobility. To get a glimpse into what she believes, check out this great podcast episode with Peter Attia, MD.

  • Beth Lewis: The Art of Stability: Learning about pain, mitigating injury, and moving better through life

• Meghan Callaway is no frills. She teaches unique ways to strengthen your overall body, with a lot of focus on core and glute strength, as well as hip mobility. She is always sharing exercises I’ve never seen before and could’ve never dreamt up in my life. Her work is great because most exercises can be done at home with a resistance band, the couch, or a kettlebell. I’ve incorporated a lot of her exercises into my workouts. She’s also published a handful of detailed workouts programs, such as how to perform the perfect pull-up. Her content is real and I really enjoy seeing her work. She also shares a weekly newsletter packed with the exercises she’s working on.

• Levels Health - Not a person, but a company. I’ve found their newsletter and blog to be very valuable. Their content is direct, actionable, and informative. It’s the reason I chose them when doing my continuous glucose monitor experiment. Everything they publish is well researched and well written. Metabolic health has become a big thing recently and as far as I can see they are leading this revolution in how we think about our health.

Meals & Recipes: Crispy Salmon Skin & a Side Fruit Salad

Wild sockeye salmon, with roasted bell peppers, and crisped (burnt) salmon skin, and a side salad.

Wild Sockeye Salmon. Start with wild salmon. I’ve been enjoying frozen wild sockeye salmon from Whole Foods or Sprouts (grocers closest to me), or fresh wild Sockeye from Trader Joes. Preheat the oven to 425. Lightly coat a baking sheet with olive oil and a few pinches of salt. Place the salmon skin side down. In a bowl mix 1 tbsp of: honey dijon mustard, Primal buffalo sauce, Sweet Baby Rayss Hot Sauce, and stone & ground mustard. Sprinkle 1 pinch of: salt, black pepper, onion powder, and 1 garlic powder on the filet side. Spread mustard evenly throughout the filet. Cook for 8 - 10 minutes. 

Salmon Skin. Remove the salmon skin after baking. Bring a pan to high heat. Add the salmon skin, make sure it’s laying flat. Flip every few minutes until crisp and it doesn’t bend when you pick it up.

Peppers, Garlic and Onion. Bring a pan to medium-high heat. Chop 1 slice of onion, 2 cloves of garlic and 1 jalapeño pepper. Add to the pan with 1 tbsp olive oil and two pinches of salt. Cut out the core of three peppers (red, yellow and orange) and slice into 1/8 inch strips. Toss in a bowl with 1 tbsp olive oil and 2 pinches of salt. Add to the pan once the onion, garlic, jalapeño combination starts to give off an aroma. Cook for 15 - 20 minutes depending on how you like your peppers, flipping every 5 minutes.  

Assemble. Add a filet of salmon. Add a handful of pepper. Add salmon skin. Drizzle lightly with olive oil over the whole dish. Sprinkle with 2 pinches of sea salt.

Side Salad. Add a handful of arugula. Two handfuls of blueberries. One handful of raspberries. Half a handful of pepitas. One slice of chopped red onion. Drizzle with olive oil, red wine vinegar and two - three pinches of sea salt.

Buon Appetito!!

Podcast Review: Peter Attia w/ Michael Easter

Michael Easter is an investigative journalist, author or The Comfort Crisis and a new book Scarcity Brain, discussed in this episode. Michael Easter makes the point that most of our behaviors as humans are based off what he calls “the scarcity loop,” which consists of three components.

1. Opportunity - you have an opportunity to get something of value

2. Unpredictable rewards - you don’t know when and how much, but you know something is coming

3. Quick repeatability - The faster a human or any animal can repeat a behavior the more likely they are to repeat that behavior

And it’s this evolutionary scarcity loop that food manufacturers, casinos, drugs, retailers, and social media take advantage of to keep us eating, gambling, inebriated, shopping and scrolling.

The episode dives into each one in further detail, but I’d like to focus on their discussion of food and diet as I believe it is the most relevant and important.

Food wasn’t always easy to come by, and when food was scarce, we had a necessity to store excess food for energy. But you also had to expel energy to get energy. Now, more than 10,000 items line grocery store shelves, which created an environment where over-nourishment now causes 4x more disease worldwide than under-nourishment. Simply put, the more options we have, the more we will eat. A behavior that has been termed the “buffet effect.”

The result is a population that consumes 60 - 70% of their calories from ultra-processed foods (i.e. fast food, potato chips, cereal), and where 70% of adults are overweight or obese. This trend towards consuming more and more processed food began in the 1970s with the invention of the “snack.” Food manufacturers discovered what Michael Easter refers to as the Three V’s of Snacking that would ensure a snack sells.

1. Value - it must be affordable (cheap)

2. Variety - the more flavors the better

3. Velocity - it must be fast to eat ensuring over consumption

The environment created by Big Food is at the root of our disease epidemic. Food that is designed to be extremely palatable, cheap (we spend 8% of our income on food today compared to 40% historically), non-perishable, and calorically dense has resulted in the dramatic rise in metabolic disease, which causes chronic illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

A study discussed in the episode verifies this claim. The purpose of the study was to determine the impact of ultra-processed food on weight gain. A group of participants were kept in a tightly controlled environment for one month and fed a diet of ultra-processed foods for two weeks, followed by a diet of minimally processed food for two weeks.

The result showed that on the ultra-processed food diet participants ate on average 500 calories more per day, and gained 2 lbs. When they were on the minimally processed food diet they lost 2 lbs.

The lead researcher Kevin D. Hall Ph.D. concluded, “This is the first study to demonstrate causality — that ultra-processed foods cause people to eat too many calories and gain weight."

So what do we do in a world filled with cheap processed food? Michael Easter visited a group of hunter gatherers, the Tsimane, in Bolivia who do not suffer from heart disease, or any other diseases of the modern world, to find out.

He found that they’re diet consisted of fish, meat, rice, plantains, vegetables, and fruit. They consumed every type of macro, but never fried or overcooked their food, and always ate in moderationn. The one thing they didn’t consume, was ultra-processed foods. He broke it down as follows.

• Eat foods that are ingredients, not food that contain ingredients (i.e. fruits, vegetables, lean protein).

• Eat your food plain. Even adding something as innocuous as salt makes food taste better and can cause over-eating.

• Eat slowly. The quicker you eat the more likely you are to over-eat.

• Eat a balanced diet with a little bit of everything.

He also noted that they did not eat a ton of vegetables, about the equivalent of one Sweet Green salads worth of vegetables a day.

This was a great episode and I encourage you to listen to it in length to hear many more valuable insights. I have The Comfort Crisis in the queue to read next and report back on.

Cheers.

The "Complexity" of Our Food System and Health

Click here: OneSource Health, January 14, 2024

“The deal we made with our planet, its creatures, and our rural workforces, all so we could enjoy a slightly cheaper hamburger, might just be the worst deal that was ever made.” - Will Harris

Last week I shared an article titled Colon cancer is rising in young Americans. It’s not clear why. and my commentary that healthcare is invested in the technique of sowing doubt. This week the Wall Street Journal provided further evidence of my claim with the headline: Cancer Is Striking More Young People, and Doctors Are Alarmed and Baffled.

Even if doctors, researchers and experts remain baffled, I’m not. It’s evidently clear that the rise in disease is directly related to the rise of industrialized food.

Just take this example from A Bold Return to Giving a Damn, this week’s book, discussing the toxins that cattle are treated with.

“What’s the weed situation out here… is it more weedy than I want… If affirmative, I’d get out the herbicide. Next… Is there an infestation of fall army worms? If yes, spray some Pyrethroid to take them out. Search… for leaf spot mold. Better get the fungicide. Test the soil for nutrients, then add nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Now look over the cattle for bottle jaw… some of them might need a dewormer. And if there are over two hundred flies per head, the books says to spray insecticide on them, so I’d do that too.”

Or this example from The Botany of Desire.

“I asked Forsyth [a potato farmer] to walk me through a season’s regimen... Typically it begins early in the spring… potato farmers douse their fields before planting with a chemical toxic enough to kill every trace of microbial life in the soil. Next… herbicide to “clean” his field of all weeds. Then… a systemic insecticide is applied to the soil. This will be absorbed by the young seedlings and kill any insect that eats their leaves... When the potato seedlings are six inches tall, a second herbicide is sprayed to control weeds.”

Both the cattle and the potatoes in each of the examples will end up in fast food chains and grocery stores around the country, and ultimately in the stomachs of millions of Americans.

Or read this week’s article discussing 7 food additives that are banned in other countries for causing diseases such as cancer and nerve damage, but remain legal in the U.S.

So when doctors and researchers say they’re baffled, I’m baffled that they’re baffled. But the twisted part is that they’re not baffled. They’ve just decided to trade lives for profits.

And all of these chemicals and additives don’t even account for the impact that ultra-processed foods (UPFs) has on our health. As Michael Easter points out in this weeks podcast, in a tightly controlled one month study, participants fed a UPF diet ate on average 500 more calories per day than when they were fed a minimally processed diet. Extrapolate that over a full year and the math to obesity and disease becomes clear.

So here in lies the problem. We have a population that is getting sicker by the day. We know why, but politicians and corporate greed keep telling us “they’re not sure why.” Pharmaceutical companies keep developing and marketing treatments and medicines, meanwhile the prevalence of disease continues to rise.

Instead its up to us as consumers to spend our money in places where health, quality food, the welfare of animals and the land is the priority. The best way to do that is by buying local, from farmers and growers in your area. Here is a list of resources from A Bold Return to Giving a Damn where you can search for locally sourced food in your area.

eatwild.com

americangrassfed.org

getrealchicken.com

localcatch.org

But if you can’t do that, you can at least keep your dollars from going to the likes of fast food chains and food manufacturers which rely on cheap corn, soy, beef, and grains grown with toxic chemicals. You can opt for cooking food from whole foods produce and humanely raised meats. Every dollar shifted away from Big Food, Ag, Drinks, and Healthcare is a dollar shifted in the direction we need to go.

This Week’s Posts:

Three Easy Ways I Improved My Nutrition

Ruck Plate Series: Workout 2

Kidney Bean and Mushroom Soup Recipe

Click Here to Subscribe

A Book, Podcast, and Article Worth Sharing

A Bold Return to Giving a Damn: One Farm, Six Generations, and the Future of Food, By Will Harris III

In 2020 the pandemic revealed cracks in our food system and I became interested in learning more about it. In 2021 I leaned in a little more and worked part-time on a farm near Los Angeles. Through my reading and experience I became a believer that fixing the food system was a path to fixing most (if not all) the ailments we face as a nation. November 2022 I listened to Will Harris on the Joe Rogan Experience and the episode provided even more fuel and I started manifesting a trip to visit his farm, White Oak Pastures, to learn more.

Order the book here… and Read my takeaways here…

Peter Attia The Drive with Michael Easter, Author of The Comfort Crisis and Scarcity Brain

Michael Easter is an investigative journalist, author or The Comfort Crisis and a new book Scarcity Brain, discussed in this episode. Michael Easter makes the point that most of our behaviors as humans are based off what he calls “the scarcity loop,” which consists of three components.

• Opportunity - you have an opportunity to get something of value

• Unpredictable rewards - you don’t know when and how much, but you know something is coming

• Quick repeatability - The faster a human or any animal can repeat a behavior the more likely they are to repeat that behavior

And it’s this evolutionary scarcity loop that food manufacturers, casinos, drugs, retailers, and social media take advantage of to keep us eating, gambling, inebriated, shopping and scrolling.

Listen to the episode here… and Read my takeaways here…

7 Additives in our Processed Food That Are Banned Outside the U.S.

The reasons why we face a catastrophic health epidemic in this country are many and complex. But if we can’t get this right, having an FDA with a backbone to stand up against Big Food and ban ingredients KNOWN to cause cancer, neurological problems, and metabolic disease (the main culprit of obesity and diabetes), then what chance do we have?

Credit to California, the first state to pass a law that will ban 4 of these additives from being used in food sold in California. But even they fell short. The law, which passed in 2023, doesn’t go into effect until 2027, giving companies time to "revise their recipes to avoid these harmful chemicals," said Governor Gavin Newsom. Said another way, “corporate profits are more important than your health.”

Our politicians are constantly faced with the decision: do I support the public that supports me, or the companies that line my pockets? And without fail, they choose the latter. We deserve so much better.

Read the article: 7 Additives in Our Processed Food That Are Bannee Outside the U.S.

Book Review: A Bold Return to Giving a Damn

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”

— Niccolo Machiavelli, political theorist

In 2020 the pandemic revealed cracks in our food system and I became interested in learning more about it. In 2021 I leaned in a little more and worked part-time on a farm near Los Angeles. Through my reading and experience I became a believer that fixing the food system was a path to fixing most (if not all) the ailments we face as a nation. November 2022 I listened to Will Harris on the Joe Rogan Experience and the episode provided even more fuel and I started manifesting a trip to visit his farm, White Oak Pastures, to learn more.

In February 2023, Jen and I found ourselves within a 6 hour drive of Bluffton, Georgia where White Oak Pastures is located. By good fortune they were having a Valentines Day dinner at their farm-to-table restaurant connected to their general store. So we made reservations, booked accommodations, and made the 6 hour drive.

Walking into the general store, originally built in the mid-1800s and recently restored, was like going back in time. The whole ambience of being in Bluffton, which resides within one of the poorest counties in the country, just 3 hours south of Atlanta, was a surreal experience. It gave me a glimpse into what rural communities must’ve looked like when local farms and the infrastructure they built could sustain the towns and counties around them.

The food, prepared out of a trailer converted into a kitchen, was beyond expectations. All of the meat and produce served was harvested directly from their organic regenerative farm. There was a stark contrast between their food, and the food we’ve become used to that is grown by industrial methods and fills grocery stores.

But the highlight of the evening was meeting Will Harris. Not only because my girlfriend, who herself is an experienced farmer, and myself view people like Will Harris who are fighting to change the food system as rock stars, but because he was as friendly and down to earth as one could hope for when meeting their heroes. He spent 30 - 40 minutes chatting it up with us around the fire surrounded by his family and friends.

Reading A Bold Return to Giving a Damn on the heels of reading Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling of America provided even more insight into the struggles farmers face who are trying to break away from the “conventional” way of farming, i.e. using tons (literally) of pesticides, herbicides and all kinds of “cides” to kill unwanted life off their farms. Wendell Berry published his book in 1977 when Will Harris was just coming of age as a farmer (he graduated from the University of Georgia in 1976).

For farmers the 1970’s were marked by the mantra “Get Big or Get Out,” a phrase coined by President Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz. It was part of the administration’s campaign to grow agribusiness and commodity foods. Nearly 50 years later Get Big or Get Out has triumphed at the expense of small family farms and their communities. White Oak Pastures and Bluffton, Georgia were among the casualties. But in the last 25 years, Will Harris has turned that all around.

To give you a little background on what agribusiness and industrial food is, consider the following.

In the industrial food model cattle are separated from their mothers and their milk at 6 month old, and forced into tightly packed feedlots where they’re unable to move or walk. They’re fed commodity grains and corn, crops grown using herbicides, pesticides and other toxic chemicals, which is nothing like the grass these ruminants are used to eating out in the pastures.

The carbohydrate rich food packs weight on quick, and by the time they are ready for slaughter, around 30 - 40 months old, they’re akin to “a twenty year old human weighing four hundred pounds… likely dying of the diseases of obesity and sedentary lifestyle that kill countless humans today.” But their misery doesn’t end there.

A 30 hour ride to the slaughterhouse in a double-decker tractor trailer without food, water, or rest awaits them. Eventually these cattle make their way into your McDonalds hamburger, or grocery store steak.

Would you want to eat a sick animal suffering from many of the diseases that plague humans? Is it a coincidence that humans suffer from the same diseases that the animals we eat face?

The land and climate has also not been spared. It’s estimated that the applications of chemicals and extraction of resources has eroded our soil so drastically that we only have sixty harvests left. As Will Harris puts it, “What I was doing and what my daddy had been doing before me was kind of a one way street: take, take, take from nature, without giving much back.” A trend that hasn’t slowed for the majority of conventional farmers.

Meanwhile large corporations have continued to grow and profit off of this inhumane system. Big Food, the likes of Tyson, Cargill and others, now control over 90 percent of the food we eat. Industrial feedlots supply 97 percent of beef consumed in America (just four corporations control 88 percent of beef processing), and industrial chicken houses supply 99 percent of the eggs and chicken we buy.

And while they’ve been getting rich, rural farmers have been disappearing and getting squeezed for profits. Farmers today make up only 1 percent of the American workforce compared to 41 percent a century ago. And farmers keep only 15 cents on ever dollar of food produced, the remaining 85 cents goes to Big Food and Big Ag.

Before the food system became centralized rural communities enjoyed meaningful livelihoods from raising food and being part of getting food to market. But that small town infrastructure has mostly eroded. All of this degradation and inhumanity is what prompted Will Harris to make a change.

He had been farming according to all of the conventional methods mentioned above. Spraying his land with toxic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. Feeding his cattle grains, and giving them antibiotics when the grains inevitably made them sick. And shipping them out to slaughterhouses far away for processing. The farm that was in his family for over a century and the town around him was suffering, and he knew there had to a better way. Twenty five years later and White Oak Pastures is the antithesis of industrial agriculture.

Today White Oak Pastures is a leader in the regenerative agriculture movement, although Will Harris likes to refer to it as “resilient” agriculture. His farm, which raises cattle, chickens, turkeys, hogs, goats, sheep, duck, and guinea hens, as well as organic produce, operates as a “closed loop” ecosystem. The animals are free to roam, graze, root, and most importantly express their instinctive behaviors.

By re-engineering his farm White Oak Pastures runs at almost zero waste. Anything that can be turned into compost and used to support future life is put back into the earth. They’ve also been able to achieve what almost no other farm has, they’re carbon negative. For every pound of beef produced they sequester 3.5 pounds of carbon (compare that to Impossible Burger’s “plant based meat” which emits 3.5 pounds of carbon for every pound produced).

They’ve also been leading the charge by developing internship programs that allow young farmers to come stay on the farm and learn their processes. They’re an open book. In 2021 they launched The Center for Agricultural Resilience with the goal “to educate thought leaders on the environmental, economic and social benefits of building resilient animal, plant and human ecosystems that can nourish our communities.”

But the most amazing part of might just be the impact it has had on the local economy and spirit of Bluffton.

As someone who’s been there, I can tell you that outside of the White Oak Pastures’ general store, there ain’t much else. There’s one “grocery store” although neither you nor I would ever choose to shop there. The closest gas station is 10 miles away. But in returning his farm to the natural ways of growing and producing food, and turning his back on industrial farming, Will Harris and team have been able to revitalize a whole town.

White Oak Pastures now employs close to 200 people, attracting people from all over the country and all backgrounds. Their employees make twice the average pay for the county, and receive benefits such as health insurance.

Local business creates local jobs, which stirs local economy and breaths life into dying towns and cities that were once thriving. Health can never be fully defined, because it encompasses so much. Food, happiness, fulfillment are all ways we try to achieve it. But I’ve recently been learning that none of that matters unless you have community. Community to lean on and support each other is the foundation of a healthy population. It’s whats distinguishes most blue zones from the rest of the world, and it’s what has distinguished White Oak Pastures’ success from so many others.

I loved this book. It’s a story that everyone should know in detail because it tells more than just Will Harris’ story, it tells the story of why our country finds ourselves in the state of decline that we do.

---

The podcast episode is a great alternative to the book, as they touch on many of the same topics, just in a lot less detail.

A quick tip from Will Harris about getting to know your food

Ask yourself these three questions about the animals you’re eating:

• Are the animals free to express instinctive behaviors?

• Do they live in their natural habitat?

• How and where do the animals die?

Meals & Recipes: Homemade Chicken Pate Parte!

Homemade chicken pate, roasted baby carrots, boiled broccoli. Fig balsamic drizzle. 

Homemade Chicken Pate (makes 1 serving). Chop up 1/2 a large chicken breast and one slice of red onion and place them together into a food processor (I have a mini Ninja which works great). Pulse it a few times until mixed. Add 1/2 chopped apple, and pulse until mixed. Add a few almonds and walnuts. Pulse until mixed. Add 1 tbsp of honey dijon mustard, stone & ground mustard, Buffalo Primal Sauce, and Sweet Baby Rays hot sauce. Pulse until mixed. Add 2 tbsp of olive oil and a few pinches of salt and pepper. Pulse until desire consistency is reached.

Roasted Carrots. Buy a bag of organic baby carrots, to a bunch of regular sized carrots. Preheat the oven to 425. Chop them on a slant into 1 inch pieces (bite size). Toss in a bowl with 2 tbsp olive oil, 4 pinches of salt, 1 - 2 tsp of red pepper flakes, 2 tbsp of honey. Cook for 20 - 25 minutes.

Boiled Broccoli. Chop two broccoli crowns into bite size pieces. Bring a pot of water to boil. Add broccoli and let cook for 3 - 5 minutes. Once strained, add the broccoli back to the pot, add 2 pinches of salt and a tbsp of ghee and mix.

Assemble. Add the chicken pate to the bowl. Add a handful of broccoli. Add a handful of roasted carrots. Drizzle with fig balsamic vinegar. Add two - three pinches of sea salt.

Buon Appetito!

3 Easy Ways I Improved My Nutrition

I always thought I had a good handle on nutrition. But these three things proved me wrong, and changed my understanding of nutrition and my approach to diet.

1. Logging my food

I’ve been an athlete all of my life and I’ve always manipulated my diet in pursuit of my physical goals. But a few years ago when I stopped racing in triathlons I found that my diet was out of whack and I couldn’t get it straight.

Three years of endurance training had changed my relationship with food. I had become overly conscious of every single thing I was putting into my body. I wanted to optimize what I was eating so I could optimize my training. And I thought I was, but physically I just didn’t feel great.

I had been dealing with a lot of injuries and my body wasn’t responding well to training. I felt like I was never recovering. I decided I needed to look past the food and at the actual macros going into my body. So I started tracking my meals with Avatar Nutrition. (My Fitness Pal offers a free meal tracker but with less amenities than Avatar).

I tracked every meal, snack and drink for 4 months.

I learned two important things:

• I was not consuming nearly as much protein as I thought I was. Actually about 50% of what I thought. My goal was 160 grams of protein per day (1 gram per pound of bodyweight), I was consuming about 75 grams.

• I was over-consuming fats. I regularly found myself 20 - 30 percent above my target.

I was surprised, but it made sense based on what I was experiencing physically. My body wasn’t recovering, due to a lack of protein, and I couldn’t lose the last bits of fat hanging around those tough spots.

This was my first insight into the changes I needed to make. I bought a better protein, whey instead of pea, animal protein is more bioavailable than plant, and I upped my meat and fish intake. Aiming for three 30 - 40 gram servings per day (1 per meal).

I also limited my fat intake. The fat I was eating was all “healthy fat” (i.e. walnuts, almonds, olive oil, avocado) but by labeling it “good for me,” I had gave myself permission to overindulge. But fat is fat. And when over consumed, fat will find a place to store itself.

Logging my food made me realize that even though I was eating the right foods, I was eating them in the wrong proportions to achieve my goals.

2. #800 Gram Challenge

I was eating healthy and I made adjustments to my protein and fat intake, but I still wasn’t getting it right. I felt better but not as good as I thought I should feel. My diet was clean, devoid of anything processed, and 9.5/10 meals were cooked at home. So I was kind of stumped as to why I still felt like I was falling short.

I read Built to Move (a great book) and learned about the #800gramchallenge. And at that point it clicked for me. I had heard so much advice before about portion sizes, how many servings of fruits and vegetables to eat. But this approach was simple and practical.

I learned, amongst other things, that, similar to my overconsumption of “healthy fats,” I was also over consuming vegetables and fruits, sometimes causing gastric distress and bloating. Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

My #800gramchallenge takeaway:

• Eat 6 handfuls of fruits and vegetables a day. Do that in addition to eating .7 - 1 gram of protein per bodyweight and you’ll be well on your way to achieving your goals.

So now, I grab two handfuls of cooked vegetables from the refrigerator, and/or a thumb sizer serving of fat to add to every meal, and snack on berries or an apple..

It’s been such a simple change that’s been a life saver. I don’t get the gastric distress and bloating I had been experiencing, and my bowel movements are better than they’ve ever been.

3. Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM)

A CGM is a wearable medical device that measures glucose levels in your body every 5 minutes. Unless you have been diagnosed with diabetes, you’ll likely need to agree to be part of a clinical trial by working with a company like Levels Health, the company I used.

The device connects via Bluetooth to the Levels app on your phone where you can monitor your glucose activity. The Levels app will also show you your Stability Score, which increases with stable blood sugar, Average Glucose for the day, and Spike Duration, how long your glucose stays elevated past the set threshold. The app also includes a host of advice, articles and recipes to help you maintain a stable glucose score.

Erratic glucose levels can lead to poor metabolic health, which can lead to a host of chronic diseases such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes and more. So knowing what impacts your glucose score and how to improve it is valuable.

I wore my CGM for 23 days. It was supposed to go for 30 but I had a couple of technical difficulties applying two of the sensors. Note: Do not apply it into a muscle. Get the needle to pierce between muscle, preferably between the shoulder and tricep, more towards the front of the arm, not the back.

After 23 days I learned a few important things.

• Getting consistent quality sleep is the most important thing I could do to control my glucose. On days where I slept like shit, even a handful of blueberries was enough to spike my glucose and trigger an event on the app. Even worse to note, poor sleep causes sugar cravings. A bad cycle. Sleep is priority numero uno.

• Carbohydrates are ok when balanced with the right types and amounts of fiber, protein and fat. Whether that’s a balance plate, or a balanced food like lentils. Consuming the right balance of macros, and in the right order, carbohydrates last, was important to not spike glucose.

• Potatoes, sweet, russet, red, it didn’t matter what kind, spiked my glucose on average 15 - 20 points more than rice or pasta. I’ve never enjoyed eating potatoes and perhaps this is why. Now I know I don’t have to eat them.

In Summary

In order of work, time, and effort, logging my food was by far the worst. It takes a lot of work because to do it right you really have to log every single thing that goes onto your plate and into your mouth. That includes the olive oil you use to cook and finish your dish with, and the 4 - 5 almonds you grabbed when you ran out the door. All of these things up and need to be accounted for.

But logging my food was also the most valuable. I really thought I understand from simply reading labels the amount of macros I was eating, and I was so wrong. It’s so easy to lose track of what you’ve consumed throughout the day. But when it’s right in front of you, it sinks in. It’s probably no coincidence that the most work got the most reward.

Second is the continuous glucose monitor. Mostly because I had two bad experiences applying sensors. But the other three went on smooth and I forgot I was even wearing them. To get the most out of the experience though you really should log your meals. If not all of them, at least when you notice a spike or a crash. When log your food Levels gives you feedback and advice on how to make glucose stable changes to your food.

The real amazing thing is to eat mashed potatoes and then watch your glucose take off in real time. It’s wild when you realize what’s going on behind the scenes.

And the easiest has been complying with the #800gramchallenge. Yes it requires meal prep (check out this whole page of meal ideas) to stay consistent, but once you establish a cooking routine, you’ll be excited to load two handfuls of veggies onto every plate.

These three things completely changed my understanding of nutrition and how my body and mind have been able to perform as a result. They are all easily accessible and I think offer a good return on investment. Pick one to start. And go from there. I logged my food in 2020 - 2021. Adopted the #800gramchallenge in mid 2023. And wore the CGM from 2023 - 2024. That’s all to say, take your time. Nothing happens overnight.

Let me know which ones you’ve tried or which ones you’re thinking about getting into, and if you have any questions. Enjoy.

Fiber and Omega Rich Bowl!

Wild sockeye salmon, lentils, beets, avocado and red onion delight.

Wild Sockeye Salmon. Start with wild salmon. I’ve been enjoying frozen wild sockeye salmon from Whole Foods or Sprouts (grocers closest to me), or fresh wild Sockeye from Trader Joes. Preheat the oven to 425. Lightly coat both sides of the salmon filet (or filets if cooking multiple) with olive oil. Place the filet skin up on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Add a pinch of salt (or two) to each filet and black pepper. Cook for 8 - 10 minutes (depending on thickness of the fish). 

Lentils. Add 3 cups of water or vegetable brother to a pot. Add 1 cup of green lentils. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover. Cook for 45 minutes, covered. Taste for tenderness before removing from heat. Strain the lentils and return them to the pot.

Boiled Beets. Buy 3-4 loose organic beets. Remove the skin. Cut them into quarters (1/8s if they’re large). Place in a pot, add water so covered by 1-2 inches of water. Add two pinches of salt. 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer for 60 minutes. Make sure you can easily pierce them with a fork before removing from water.

Assemble. Add enough lentils to cover the bottom of the bowl. Add 3 quarter pieces of beets chopped into bite size pieces. Add 1/4 slice avocado and one slice chopped red onion. Add 1 salmon filet (4- 6 oz). Drizzle with red wine vinegar and 3 pinches of sea salt.

Buon Appetito!!

Try This Move: Thread the Needle

Elbow Plank Thread The Needle

• Get into a side plank on your elbow. Feet stacked or staggered.

• Tuck your tail bone, squeeze your glutes and engage your core, paying particular attention to lock in the chain from your obliques, down the outside of your leg.

• Shoot your opposite hand straight up perpendicular to your body. Slowly start to lower your arm, keeping your hand close to your body, palm facing in towards you.

• When your hand is at your chest, begin rotating by moving your hips down towards the ground.

• Then let your your core, chest, back, and then arm, hand and head turn. Take a peak over your opposite shoulder.

• Then rotate your hips away from the ground in the opposite direction, repeating the steps above to bring your hand back up.

• 3 sets x 10 reps per side

Celebrating California Sober

December 21, 2023 marked two years of being California sober. It’s not “sober” because in that period I have used “recreational” drugs such as psilocybin and cannabis when needed. But psychedelics like these never impacted me the way alcohol has, and I’ve also never been tempted to over indulge in them. Alcohol and I on the other hand don’t have that track record.

Unlike drinking, smoking a joint, eating an edible, or micro-dosing mushrooms has never been followed by a physical altercation, or a fight with a loved one. They’ve never been the reason I missed a test or bailed on an obligation. On the contrary, they’ve led to deeper discussions, more intimate relationships, and a kinder and gentler me.

There’s also alcohol’s impact on health. As Peter Attia shared recently, there is no safe amount of alcohol consumption that doesn’t increase the risk of disease. The idea that alcohol could be part of a “healthy lifestyle,” came from studying populations of people already living healthy, full and active lives. Their robust lifestyles kept them heathy despite drinking, not because of it.

One of the main health risks, is an increased chance of developing heart disease. Which every single male figure in my bloodline has suffered from. The prevalence of heart disease in my family, is another reason I’ve decided it’s better to avoid it.

Living a full, happy, and healthy life has become my priority, and I’ve found that it’s much faster and easier to achieve that through the subtraction of harmful behaviors, than it is from adding beneficial ones. Whether it’s ultra-processed foods, sugar, relationships, or drugs and alcohol, the elimination of toxins is a guaranteed way to feel better. I’m working smarter, not harder these days.

It’s hard to put into words the difference I feel now compared to two years ago. But I thought this example might help make the abstract more tangible.

Picture a person who has never lifted a weight or exercises before in their life. Now picture that person decides to start exercising daily, and stays consistent with it for 2 years. Now think about what that person would look like and feel like at the end of those 2 years. The difference would be tremendous. They would not just look different, but their mood, confidence and clarity would be improved as well.

That is how I feel. I feel the best I’ve ever felt in my life.

True other factors have helped shape my way over this time. Perhaps none more important than the stable home life my girlfriend, dog and I have built. But I’m not sure it would have been possible if I (we) didn’t stop drinking when I (we) did. 

The biggest benefit that I believe accounts for my improvements in mental clarity and physical strength, has been improved sleep quality and consistency. Alcohol is one of the worst sleep disruptors. Over two years of not drinking, I’ve been able to accumulate a lot of restful nights. Which means consistently waking up ready for the day, ready to be productive. Of not having to put my workouts, diets, relationships, or other goals on hold. It’s felt like two years of progress, which is what actually prompted this post.

When I woke up this New Years, January 1, 2024, I was tired. We stayed up two hours past our bedtime on New Year’s Eve, and it took an extra minute for me to wake up. But I wasn’t groggy. I didn’t need to pull the covers back over my head. I didn’t have a headache, or crave something greasy or sugary and want to curl up on the couch until the feeling passed.

On the contrary, I wanted to read, make coffee, and walk my dog. Same as I do every morning. I wanted to shake off the slight fatigue I felt, and start my day. Each day, for two years, this has been my experience.

If you’re reading this as a lecture, then I apologize. But, if you’re reading this thinking “I want to stop,” “I’ve tried to stop,” and “I’m working on cutting back, but it’s hard,” or “I don’t even know why I drink, I don’t even like it,” then this post is for you. Because over the last two years those have been the most common responses I’ve heard whenever I tell someone I gave up drinking. Whether it’s at a wedding, out to dinner, or skiing with friends, there’s always someone who wants to get on board.

The reason we all drink with the frequency and carelessness in which we do is the same. Alcohol is engrained in our society. There’s happy hour to decompress from work. There’s, “What would you like to drink?” immediately upon sitting down for dinner, and the uncomfortable feeling if you say “I’m okay with water.” There’s the over $500 million spent on marketing each year. And the sponsorships for beer, liquor, and wine at ball games, plays, concerts, and now even the movie theater. The societal pressure to drink, relax, and “be part of society” is enormous and unavoidable. It feels easier to give in than resist and miss out. But I got news for you, you won’t be missing out.

At this point I would be remiss if I didn’t say that the decision to give up drinking was one that my girlfriend and I made a together a couple of months into dating. We both had periods in our life of sobriety prior to dating. Having each other to lean on when we’re out, to talk about it’s impact on our lives with, and not fall prey to the pressure has been immeasurable. It would not be nearly as enjoyable without her.

So this post is for the people who want to stop but feel like in a society that values the drinker, they don’t want to be left out in the cold. This post is to say that it’s entirely possible to stop drinking. That there’s a whole lot of people who’ve made the decision, and a whole lot more who want to put down the drink, if only we could normalize not drinking the way we’ve normalized drinking.

And most importantly, it’s to say that you can do it, and live your best life ever after.