When my body crashed over a dozen years ago it didn’t just happen overnight. Now that I’m on the other side of that nightmare I can clearly see all the red flags my body was giving me along the way. BUT, like most people, I listened to my doctor and took the pills to mask the symptom. I also listened to the culture to move more, eat less, workout harder and do this, that and the other things. . .and I was a good student. I did it all. It is a long story of what started it all and nobody really cares anymore, but IF I knew then what I know now, my body would not have crashed, and I wouldn’t have had to leave my career as a corporate accountant. Granted, I do absolutely love my life now, but I worked hard for it clawing my way out of that mess I created for blindly following and not taking ownership of my body, my health and my life. Ladies, let that be a wake up call for you right now. . . Don’t let things slide until “I have more time” or “when the kids graduate” or “maybe next summer”.
Remember: symptoms are not the problem. They are your friend warning you that “HEY, there’s a problem here!” Symptoms are logical. You eat a food your body don’t like and you get this symptom. Stop eating that food and the symptom stops. When we stop doing the things that are causing the symptoms, fix the underlying issue, we don’t need pills to mask the symptoms, and more pills to mask the side effects of the pills.
Here are the few things I would do differently, and things I wish I had known then. Granted, it was also a different era and there weren’t a lot of IG influencers, I had not even heard of a ketogenic diet or MCT oil or low carb. But, whatever. . . here is the list:
1. The POWER of dense nutrition
The first thing I wish I knew back then was the power of dense nutrition. It isn’t just about getting out of migraine hell (it was at first) but getting fit, losing body fat, having energy, clean mental energy, strength. . .if you want any of those things the thing that moves the needle the most is nutrition.
I probably need to define what I mean by Dense Nutrition. It is about what my body can use best with the least amount of junk. Red meat is an excellent source of dense nutrition. There is every nutrient in red meat and is readily available for my body to use. Plant proteins just don’t cut it, imo. It also means any food that doesn’t work for your body. For me, I don’t do well with grains, and I limit all sweeteners, and dairy. Nutrient dense food of ruminant (beef, lamb, elk, bison. . .), seafood and eggs. . .that is what works best for my body.
The percentages range from 70% to 90% but all of those are just guesses, but the idea is correct. A big chunk of progress happens because nutrition was dialed in for the individual. It makes sense that it is true for fat loss as eating in a calorie deficit will help one lose body fat, but what about the other things? Well, anytime you are limiting foods that cause your body to have to deal with the chemical crap, manage histamines or other triggers that cause your body to over respond, inflammation, bloating, constipation, brain fog, you’re gonna be better off. Who wants to eat lunch then spend the rest of the day sluggish with a bloated belly? That feels awful and looks awful. What if you were to give a presentation to the board after lunch and now you’re dealing with a sluggish body, a slower brain, wanting to sleep and you look 6 months pregnant? Wouldn’t that be delightful? Yeah, no. So it does make sense for all of the other things, too. A clear brain, clean energy, reduced inflammation and being able to show up 100%. Dialing in nutrition can do that.
2. Exercise Snacks:
Exercise doesn’t have to be a 45 minute workout or a 5 mile walk. The All or None idea plaques me even today. Why? No idea. I was probably scared by a To Do list when I was a child. LOL! But our workout times can be broken into small sessions throughout the day.
EXAMPLE:
- Have a kettlebell next to your desk and do 10 kettlebell swings every hour, or mix them up with goblet squats.
- One hour you do swings, next hour squats, and the next one a 10 minutes walk.
- If you did that throughout the day you’d get at least 2 sessions of each, but more likely 3 sessions of each. So by bedtime you will have done 30 kettlebell swings, 30 goblet squats and 30 minutes of walking.
Exercise snacks are small bouts of exercise like dropping for 10 push ups during commercials while you watch a miniseries, or if you’re at work, do 10 push ups before and after each Zoom meeting. Want something more intense? Try doing a 10-15 second sprint while walking to the mailbox, a dozen air squats before meals.
There are studies showing that breaking up exercise into smaller sessions like this is beneficial. First, there is a less chance for injury since the chances of being tired from the previous exercise is not a factor. But get this, there is a metabolic boost for the shorter workouts. Each short workout can provide a metabolic boost, leading to increased calorie burning throughout the day. Now, this doesn’t work if the 10 minute bouts of exercises are wimpy. You still have to give it your best. Not to exhaustion but a workout to when you feel like you have “2 more reps left in the tank” so a heavier kettlebell or dumbbell, not the little 5 pound ones. Slower 4 count push ups, not 10 quickie bad form pushups. Think about it. Do them with intention, form, with the idea of it being your exercise time.
Another benefit is it’s easier to do your workout this way. You aren’t traveling to a gym in town, you aren’t having to carve out 30-45 minutes, you don’t get sweaty so no need to change into gym clothes, and it breaks up the length of time we are sedentary.
3. Freebies First:
Yes, there are so many things a biohacker can do to upgrade their day to day life that don’t require a ton of cash. At first I was all about the next gadget or supplement. I’d think that next thing would be THE ONE that would finally fix me. I had baskets of supplements, and some did help for a short time, and many did nothing at all. Same with the gadgets. . .some were helpful but not the miracles that I envisioned when giving them my credit card number.
The problem was I didn’t have the free, low hanging fruit things dialed in first. There is no magic in supplement. Think about it: taking an isolated nutrient without all the cofactors isn’t going to help for long most of the time as we are causing something else to be out of balance downstream. And, no, multivitamins are not better. I used to take a handful of supplements everyday, and had baskets of others that “didn’t work” but I still kept just in case. Oh, lordy, did I ever drink the Kool-Aid. Supplements are just a bunch of random nutrients some formulator stuffed into a capsule along with fillers. That isn’t the way nature intended those micronutrients to be delivered. Are there some good supplements? Yes. There are some really good ones out there, and if you have a deficiency, you can get some benefit from using them. But for the most part, save your money. Eat whole unprocessed food, be sure to get in optimal protein (somewhere between .8 and 1.2 grams of protein per pound of healthy body weight) and do some of the other free things first. You may not be needing that melatonin or vitamin D supplement after all.
Also, this include protein and collagen powders. Yes, they do have a time and a place where they are the better choice, but they are rarely ever the best choice. Like supplements, protein and collagen powders are processed food and highly processed, at that. Lord only knows what chemicals are used on the cow hide and hooves to get them ready for processing. They might have been grass fed when they were alive but they are processed with chemicals to extract the collagen. I do use unsweetened protein powders when traveling and sometimes as a boost in a recipe. I used to rely on protein powders a lot, but not anymore once I saw what a contradiction they are. “Hey, I don’t eat processed foods except for protein powders, collagen supplements and my vitamin and mineral tablets.” I stopped it all.
The Freebies are:
- Light environment
- Grounding
- Eating for my goals and needs
- Sleep
- Movement
My light environment. My body was not created to be inside an air conditioned box in artificial light not connected to the earth or to nature. This is not woo woo stuff either. This is science. Our bodies need the light from the sun, especially the early morning sunrise. I’ve been out at sunrise for years now. Not just that, but limiting the exposure to the excess blue light we get from tech screens like phones, TV and computers especially after the sun has gone down.
Intermittent fasting. Stopping any food intake in the mid afternoon and then not eating again until sunrise has been awesome for my sleep, something no pill could do for me. My body is not trying to digest food while I’m sleeping, I rarely have to get up to pee in the night. My body is done with all the digestive things it needed to do for me, and now it can rest. I used to do my intermittent fasting from 6 pm to noon the next day. That worked for a while until the stress of that became a problem. So I moved it all forward. I start eating at sunrise, then have a second final meal at 3ish, with all eating done by 4. Then I intermittent fast until sunrise. The enhanced sleep has been a huge part of healing.
Nutrition we discussed earlier. I know eating is not free, but you are going to eat anyway, so shift from the expensive fast foods, processed food poison, switch to buying organic produce and meats from a local farm. You’ll save money, and you won’t have to buy meds to undo all the damage crappy foods cause. This is a huge money saver over time.
Sleep: this is a big one. If there is poor sleep, it really doesn’t matter how hard you workout, how hard you try to concentrate, or how many lotions and potions you use on your skin, it won’t work like it is supposed to. Poor sleep causes higher blood glucose, more cravings, mixed up hormones, which can lead to overeating, binge eating, brain fog, irritability and weight gain. Things I do to protect and enhance my sleep is:
- Go to bed at the same time
- No blue light after dark
- Limit screen time later in the day
- Circadian rhythm lighting on my computer, phone and TV
- Watching sunset
- Stop drinking liquids a few hours before
- A hot mineral bath
- No food after my last meal
- Cool, dark room
We already talked about movement in the first part of this article, but walking is free. Doing body weight exercises are free. You don’t need a gym membership or fancy gear to get into shape. If an exercise is too easy, do it slowly with pauses. MindPump TV on Youtube has a lot of videos on this.
Disclaimer: Linda is not a medical doctor or a healthcare provider. This blog and all of her content should not be construed as medical advice. Please contact your own licensed healthcare provider.
