Would you like
to have a clear mind all-day long? To never get tired after lunch and keep a
cheery, happy mood when the conditions are causing everyone around you to break
down? To never get sick? How about to be able to go from mountain biking to
climbing to trailrunning to writing all in one day, or improve your times in
your next triathalon? Would you like to lose or gain weight and take control of
not only the shape and look of your body, but the genes that control them?
Though I have never actually read Dry, and I am not an alcoholic and in fact rarely drink alcohol at all, I agree wholeheartedly with Burrough’s sentiment.
Health is the most important thing anyone can own.
Yet, in today’s world, health seems to be a concept that has a lot of different meanings. Does health mean having low cholesterol numbers or six-pack abs? Does it mean working out for 3 hours a day and restricting your diet to 2,000 calories a day in order to reach your high school weight, albeit at the expense of much of your daily energy and drive? Or does it mean going Paleo, Vegan, Vegetarian, Bulletproof, or any range of other diets/lines of advice?
My own conviction on the issue is that finding health is a personal journey of finding one’s life.
I am about to convince you to embark on that journey – but do it at your own risk. There will be struggles along the way, and successes, too. Whatever you find, one thing is certain – your life will change. You may find that you start having more entrepreneurial ideas, or that your body can push harder and further than ever before, giving you new athletic goals. Or, you may just find that you feel really, really good - all the time. Whatever the case, you are bound to flourish, and admittedly that can be scary.
My Story:
As a little bit of background about myself, I once weighed in at 290 lbs. I am a big guy - between 6'2'' and 6'3'', but that is no excuse - 290 lbs is something that I promise you, you do not want to carry around. Your body will hate you.
Though I have never actually read Dry, and I am not an alcoholic and in fact rarely drink alcohol at all, I agree wholeheartedly with Burrough’s sentiment.
Health is the most important thing anyone can own.
Yet, in today’s world, health seems to be a concept that has a lot of different meanings. Does health mean having low cholesterol numbers or six-pack abs? Does it mean working out for 3 hours a day and restricting your diet to 2,000 calories a day in order to reach your high school weight, albeit at the expense of much of your daily energy and drive? Or does it mean going Paleo, Vegan, Vegetarian, Bulletproof, or any range of other diets/lines of advice?
My own conviction on the issue is that finding health is a personal journey of finding one’s life.
I am about to convince you to embark on that journey – but do it at your own risk. There will be struggles along the way, and successes, too. Whatever you find, one thing is certain – your life will change. You may find that you start having more entrepreneurial ideas, or that your body can push harder and further than ever before, giving you new athletic goals. Or, you may just find that you feel really, really good - all the time. Whatever the case, you are bound to flourish, and admittedly that can be scary.
My Story:
As a little bit of background about myself, I once weighed in at 290 lbs. I am a big guy - between 6'2'' and 6'3'', but that is no excuse - 290 lbs is something that I promise you, you do not want to carry around. Your body will hate you.
|
In the beginning of 2009, I decided I had enough. My knees hurt when I tried to go backpacking or bike riding, my kayak sunk deeply into the water when I went paddling, and I generally disliked my large stature. I embarked on a journey to transform my body, athletic abilities, and also my mind. When not adventuring, why not focus on health which will, in turn, improve my ability to adventure?
Right now, I weigh in at around 200 - 210 lbs, depending on what activities I am up to. I won my age group for a half-ironman last summer. I rock climb or ride bikes every day. I carry far less food on backpacking adventures than ever before, and can go for more than a day without eating and still perform well. I don't have to carry snacks on long bike rides. Interestingly enough, my mind feels sharper. My health numbers are off the charts good, despite having 'bad genes' for things like cholesterol (which is a whole 'nother story!) |
So, I want to share a couple things I learned on that journey (keep in mind, I am still on that journey!). These are the things that I have found work best for me. As you will find out, I am a believer in the fact that you should get close to the truth by seeing what others have done, and then self-experiment to find out what tweaks work best for you!
"If we are to achieve results never before accomplished, we must expect to employ methods never before attempted." -Francis Bacon
"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
#1. The most important thing you can do to become healthier is to become invested in your health. Why do you want to become healthier? You must have a reason that truly drives you to become healthy. Find it.
Does your family depend on you? Do you want to make it through medical school without becoming just another fat, unhappy, unhealthy doctor? Did you create an online blog on which you know people are following your progress with hawk-eyes? Do you want six-pack abs? (I actually don’t suggest this for your goal, but for some people it is effective). Do you have one of the goals listed in the hook paragraph above?
Once you are invested in your own health, you are well on your way to it. But, you also need a plan and a method/system. That’s where tip #2 comes in to play.
#2. Learn to perform self-experiments, and learn to learn from them. To start off, this means that you should take advantage of the wealth of resources out there! Listen to free health podcasts on the way to work or while cooking. We live in an amazing age of increasing availability of information and a revolution in the way we think about health, so embrace it! All of the major players out there doing podcasts and blogs have learned to self-experiment on themselves, so listen to them and don’t take their word for anything! I know, that seems counterintuitive, but I say it because you should not take what they have learned for granted; rather, you should be inspired by their findings and use that inspiration to create new experiments to test on yourself.
Very important in this process is that you need to quantify the things you are doing in some way. If you are trying to lose fat, take body fat measurements with calipers. If you are trying to get fast, perform a 100 meter sprint or a one mile run every week or two under the same conditions and time yourself. If you are trying to improve overall health, get blood testing done (via WellnessFX is an easy way). I think you get the point. Your quantification can be very simple or complex, and then numbers you are looking for are going to depend on your goals. Quantifying yourself now will not only help you to stay honest about your goals and keep you on track, but you will also thank yourself in the future. You will be able to compare your data to data from the past to see how you measure up, and how to get back on track if you have fallen off.
#3. Learn to biohack. See where it takes you!
A few concrete steps to start with:
I want to set you off on the right foot, so here is some important advice from my own experience on the journey to optimal health. Read it, and don’t take it for truth. Go test it for yourself with your own goals in mind.
Many of you have probably heard of “The Paleo Diet”. Someone you know is probably saying that they are going to try it out, or that they have been doing it for _____ long and have lost or gained ____ pounds.
I have self-experimented with this diet and different iterations of it for almost 2 years. I tried a number of different things from Bulletproof (a VERY high fat, ketogenic diet) to the Cordain version of Paleo (a low-fat version of paleo) to going vegetarian (which, yes, can be considered Paleo in certain respects). Here is what I have found:
The Paleo diet, in my mind, is certainly the BEST paradigm for the way we, as a people, should eat for optimal health. HOWEVER, the diet is not always described in a consistent manner, and different variations of it work best for different people. However, the concept behind the Paleo diet is an important starting point: we should attempt to eat in a way that mimics the way our ancestors ate, thereby staying consistent with the way our own genome evolved and expressing the fullest of our genetic potentials. Here is where I got it wrong for a long time: it is easy to say, ok great, I will eat a lot of meat, and include lots of healthy fats in my diet. But it’s easy to overestimate the role of hunters in hunter-gatherer communities. Hunts were often unsuccessful, and our evolutionary roots were therefore more dependent on the gathering portion of the equation. What does this mean? Eat a ton of whole-food vegetables. We tend to be in opposition to vegetables because they simply are not as good and delicious as other foods, but the fact of the matter is that we know they need to make up the majority of our diets – a perfect way to tell is by examining what we know to be the Paleolithic intake of Potassium – around 10.5 grams a day. This compared to only around… Potassium plays an important role in the body’s … Of course, this does not mean that you should just pop potassium pills – it is the whole food that is healthful. The magnesium, vitamin C, and a whole host of other micronutrients combine forces to be healthful.
Of course, micronutrient intakes are extremely important, but similarly important is the state of our microbiome. A healthy microbiome is strongly correlated to the amount of inulin and oligofructose (which are prebiotics) that we consume. So to make this similarly simple to getting enough micronutrients, consume a whole lot of vegetables and you will be healthy – especially known prebiotic ones like leeks, onions, garlic, or dandelion greens.
I like to say that if you are Paleo, that should mean you get about 70% of your food from whole plants (or at least minimally processed plants). There are ways to make them interesting, I promise, and I will show you some of my favorite ways in on this website.
This should go without saying, but aside from eating a ton of vegetables, the other most important thing is to cut out all processed foods. Yes, that includes all gluten-free packaged ________. That stuff does not count towards the number of whole plants you eat every day.
Along with lots of vegetables, I have found that I enjoy eating certain types of animals. I like to follow Dave Asprey’s rule on this: “Eat happy things that ate healthy things.” For me, this means wild-caught salmon, local pasture-raised beef (especially beef liver), and eggs from local pasture-raised hens.
As a final interesting note on the “Paleo” diet, think about where your food comes from. For me, I realized early on after doing the ‘Clean’ diet that I was eating a TON of fruit. Fruit is seen to be one of those incredibly healthy foods, but as research is showing, this may not be the case in a world where fruit from far-away places is always available. For me, I thought about my evolutionary roots (northern latitudes where fruit is only seasonally available) and concluded that the best way for me to eat would be to avoid fruit except that which is truly local and in season. People with evolutionary roots from other parts of the world might have better reactions to it, though! Once again – test it for yourself!
Finally, don't get too obsessive. Experiment with Tim Ferriss's Binge Day techniques. Sometimes that can help a diet stay on track in the long term more effectively than not binging. Plus, knowing the techniques for binging will help you eat Thanksgiving dinner with your family or go out for a night with friends every once in a while and have whatever you want. Everyone needs that.
"If we are to achieve results never before accomplished, we must expect to employ methods never before attempted." -Francis Bacon
"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
#1. The most important thing you can do to become healthier is to become invested in your health. Why do you want to become healthier? You must have a reason that truly drives you to become healthy. Find it.
Does your family depend on you? Do you want to make it through medical school without becoming just another fat, unhappy, unhealthy doctor? Did you create an online blog on which you know people are following your progress with hawk-eyes? Do you want six-pack abs? (I actually don’t suggest this for your goal, but for some people it is effective). Do you have one of the goals listed in the hook paragraph above?
Once you are invested in your own health, you are well on your way to it. But, you also need a plan and a method/system. That’s where tip #2 comes in to play.
#2. Learn to perform self-experiments, and learn to learn from them. To start off, this means that you should take advantage of the wealth of resources out there! Listen to free health podcasts on the way to work or while cooking. We live in an amazing age of increasing availability of information and a revolution in the way we think about health, so embrace it! All of the major players out there doing podcasts and blogs have learned to self-experiment on themselves, so listen to them and don’t take their word for anything! I know, that seems counterintuitive, but I say it because you should not take what they have learned for granted; rather, you should be inspired by their findings and use that inspiration to create new experiments to test on yourself.
Very important in this process is that you need to quantify the things you are doing in some way. If you are trying to lose fat, take body fat measurements with calipers. If you are trying to get fast, perform a 100 meter sprint or a one mile run every week or two under the same conditions and time yourself. If you are trying to improve overall health, get blood testing done (via WellnessFX is an easy way). I think you get the point. Your quantification can be very simple or complex, and then numbers you are looking for are going to depend on your goals. Quantifying yourself now will not only help you to stay honest about your goals and keep you on track, but you will also thank yourself in the future. You will be able to compare your data to data from the past to see how you measure up, and how to get back on track if you have fallen off.
#3. Learn to biohack. See where it takes you!
A few concrete steps to start with:
I want to set you off on the right foot, so here is some important advice from my own experience on the journey to optimal health. Read it, and don’t take it for truth. Go test it for yourself with your own goals in mind.
Many of you have probably heard of “The Paleo Diet”. Someone you know is probably saying that they are going to try it out, or that they have been doing it for _____ long and have lost or gained ____ pounds.
I have self-experimented with this diet and different iterations of it for almost 2 years. I tried a number of different things from Bulletproof (a VERY high fat, ketogenic diet) to the Cordain version of Paleo (a low-fat version of paleo) to going vegetarian (which, yes, can be considered Paleo in certain respects). Here is what I have found:
The Paleo diet, in my mind, is certainly the BEST paradigm for the way we, as a people, should eat for optimal health. HOWEVER, the diet is not always described in a consistent manner, and different variations of it work best for different people. However, the concept behind the Paleo diet is an important starting point: we should attempt to eat in a way that mimics the way our ancestors ate, thereby staying consistent with the way our own genome evolved and expressing the fullest of our genetic potentials. Here is where I got it wrong for a long time: it is easy to say, ok great, I will eat a lot of meat, and include lots of healthy fats in my diet. But it’s easy to overestimate the role of hunters in hunter-gatherer communities. Hunts were often unsuccessful, and our evolutionary roots were therefore more dependent on the gathering portion of the equation. What does this mean? Eat a ton of whole-food vegetables. We tend to be in opposition to vegetables because they simply are not as good and delicious as other foods, but the fact of the matter is that we know they need to make up the majority of our diets – a perfect way to tell is by examining what we know to be the Paleolithic intake of Potassium – around 10.5 grams a day. This compared to only around… Potassium plays an important role in the body’s … Of course, this does not mean that you should just pop potassium pills – it is the whole food that is healthful. The magnesium, vitamin C, and a whole host of other micronutrients combine forces to be healthful.
Of course, micronutrient intakes are extremely important, but similarly important is the state of our microbiome. A healthy microbiome is strongly correlated to the amount of inulin and oligofructose (which are prebiotics) that we consume. So to make this similarly simple to getting enough micronutrients, consume a whole lot of vegetables and you will be healthy – especially known prebiotic ones like leeks, onions, garlic, or dandelion greens.
I like to say that if you are Paleo, that should mean you get about 70% of your food from whole plants (or at least minimally processed plants). There are ways to make them interesting, I promise, and I will show you some of my favorite ways in on this website.
This should go without saying, but aside from eating a ton of vegetables, the other most important thing is to cut out all processed foods. Yes, that includes all gluten-free packaged ________. That stuff does not count towards the number of whole plants you eat every day.
Along with lots of vegetables, I have found that I enjoy eating certain types of animals. I like to follow Dave Asprey’s rule on this: “Eat happy things that ate healthy things.” For me, this means wild-caught salmon, local pasture-raised beef (especially beef liver), and eggs from local pasture-raised hens.
As a final interesting note on the “Paleo” diet, think about where your food comes from. For me, I realized early on after doing the ‘Clean’ diet that I was eating a TON of fruit. Fruit is seen to be one of those incredibly healthy foods, but as research is showing, this may not be the case in a world where fruit from far-away places is always available. For me, I thought about my evolutionary roots (northern latitudes where fruit is only seasonally available) and concluded that the best way for me to eat would be to avoid fruit except that which is truly local and in season. People with evolutionary roots from other parts of the world might have better reactions to it, though! Once again – test it for yourself!
Finally, don't get too obsessive. Experiment with Tim Ferriss's Binge Day techniques. Sometimes that can help a diet stay on track in the long term more effectively than not binging. Plus, knowing the techniques for binging will help you eat Thanksgiving dinner with your family or go out for a night with friends every once in a while and have whatever you want. Everyone needs that.
