Nutrition, the other part of well-being
My story
I ate a lot of sugar growing up. I ate sandwiches made with sugar, put two extra lumps of sugar in my hot chocolate, and I was always on the hunt for candy, pastry and all sorts of other sweets. I was also sick often.
This went on until my early thirties, when I read an article suggesting that processed sugar interferes with our immune system. As an experiment, I decided to cut processed sugars from my diet to see what would happen. The affect was almost immediate! I felt much better AND foods began to taste better than before.
Fast forward to 2019, my yearly physical exam shocked me to my core. Despite my diet that excluded processed sugar, my disciplined, rigorous karate workouts and strength exercises, my blood test results were not good. For several years prior I saw my blood sugar level slowly rising. But, neither my doctor, nor any of my medical references seemed to be very concerned about it. This time, however, my blood sugar level was way up, putting me in the prediabetic category. I was thin on the outside, but fat inside. My liver was bloated and there were other signs of impending doom. This forced me to learn what the cause was and what could be done about it. I thought that cutting out processed sugars and following the nutritional guidelines of the USDA Food Pyramid was all I had to do and I’d be in good health. I was wrong!
Nutrition basics
As recent examination shows, the Food Pyramid is based on “bogus science” and on political considerations, with no basis on any reliable scientific research. It is misguided, fraudulent and is at the root of most of our problems. No wonder we have an obesity epidemic, type-2 diabetes running rampant, with many other “age related” ailments added to the list that directly stem from the misguided nutritional advice. To see why that is, let’s look at the fundamentals of nutrition, as a start.
All natural foods can be grouped into three categories:
1.) Fats
2.) Proteins
3.) Carbohydrates
Fats are the most energy-dense foods, followed by proteins, then carbohydrates. Besides energy, we need a variety of nutrients as well. The human body has a wonderful ability to create the energy and all the nutrients we need from a wide variety of foods. But, which of those foods dominate our diet makes all the difference.
Important details of nutrition
Every cell in our body needs energy to live and function. At the cellular level, our energy is derived from ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate). No matter what food we eat, the human body has a mechanism to produce ATP from it. But, depending on the food source, vastly different processes are utilized by which ATP is created. These different pathways have dramatically different outcomes on our metabolic health. So, gaining a calorie from fat or a calorie from sugar (carbohydrate) will have dramatically different effects. There is a wide spectrum, with carbohydrate-burning on one end to fat-burning on the other. Where our daily diet puts us on this spectrum is the primary determinant of our health. The typical, Western diet, as recommended by the Food Pyramid, puts us close to the carbohydrate end. Clearly, even after cutting out processed sugar I was still close to that end of the spectrum. It didn’t serve me well. I was getting sick.
Learning from science
After a friend pointed me in the right direction I set out to learn as much as I could. I learned about the true effects of fats, proteins and carbohydrates, and what their different proportions in my diet may do. Incorporating fasting as part of the diet regimen also promised many benefits. So, I experimented with intermittent fasting, as well as making up my diet from a progressively changing proportion of fats, proteins and carbohydrates. I quickly arrived at a ratio that served me well. It is: about 70% + of calories from fat (mostly saturated fats), about 25% from protein (mostly animal meat) and the rest is complex, natural carbohydrates (as opposed to processed, refined and otherwise altered). In a mere two months, my blood sugar level went down to an almost normal level. The positive trend continued and my metabolic system has changed in ways I could not have imagined before. Now, four years later, I’m in better metabolic health than I have ever been.
It is really quite amazing to contemplate that at age 79 (in 2023) I’m in better health than before, still gaining more flexibility, taking no medication, not relying on any medical intervention, and living my life in good health.
Important resources
Below are the links to the most important videos that put me on the right track:
Enjoy Eating Saturated Fats: They’re Good for You. Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRe9z32NZHY
Dr Michael Eades – 30 years of flawed nutritional science
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyfDsv0t6YY
Dr. Jason Fung – ‘Therapeutic Fasting – Solving the Two-Compartment Problem’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIuj-oMN-Fk
Tying it all together
Many of the videos and scientific papers I researched made an interesting observation. That is, our metabolic health has been in decline starting about ten thousand years ago. The records show that we lived healthier lives as hunter gatherers prior to that time. I found this very interesting, and in support of my own hypothesis about a similar decline in our physical structure, our mobility.
The common point of reference is an inescapable observation: humans have evolved over millions of years to live long, healthy lives as hunter gatherers. The invention of agriculture put us on a path of self-destruction. Our current, sedentary life-style, coupled with a diet based on misguided notions creates a destructive combination for our health.
Promise of a healthy future
Fortunately, we now have the scientific methods and tools to study our history, as well as the functions of the human body and brain at cellular levels that were not possible before. Putting together the array of scientific studies that explore the specific aspects of our metabolic system, like putting together the pieces of a puzzle, reveals an optimistic picture for our future. It clearly shows how we can achieve excellent health well into old age, unburdened by the ailments associated with our modern, Western way of life. We can keep our amazing technological advancements, while recapturing the excellent health of our hunter-gatherer ancestors of ten thousand years ago. Current science shows us that we can prevent, even reverse obesity, type-2 diabetes, dementia, Alzmeimer’s and many so called “age-related” ailments. We can live our lives in good health to the end without pain and suffering.
An easy start is with the Painless Flexibility™ system.