Tap into Tapping: The EFT Episode – Dawson Church # 474

March 13, 2018 by Dave Asprey

What if you can rid yourself of stress, anxiety, depression, all kinds of psychological issues just by tapping yourself with a finger… Worth a try right?

In this episode of Bulletproof Radio, Dave sits down with Emotional Freedom Technique expert Dawson Church, PhD, live in Hawaii…

Dawson is the author of Genie in Your Genes a book on understanding of how your emotions affect your genetic expression, as well as a new book, Mind to Matter.

Plus Dawson leads Dave Asprey through an EFT session on the podcast! If you have ever wanted to learn more about EFT Tapping (and how to try it on your own), this episode is for you!

Enjoy the show!

Follow along with the Transcript

Tap into Tapping With Dawson Church # 474

Links/Resources for Dawson Church

Dawson’s Website

Mind to Matter

Genie in Your Genes

Show Notes

What is Emotional Freedom Technique, also known as “tapping?”
Is tapping crazy or does it work? What is the science behind it?
“So if you’re listening to this, and you’ve never heard of tapping, it’s the idea that you can tap at a certain frequency on certain parts of your body, and that your body will somehow shift as a result of that. Sounds super crazy, except there’s some science on this. Dawson, tell me what is tapping, and why does this have any effect? What would you use it for?
Dawson on Tapping.”It works super well for most kinds of stress-related issues. Even in physiological problems like pain, fibromyalgia, psoriasis, and other kinds of physical things, there’s a big element of stress, and so there’s a lot of evidence showing that it works, and how it works, why it works is simply is tapping is acupressure.”
A brief example of how it works. “And you when you pair that traumatic cue with a soothing cue like acupressure, then that tells the limbic system that that memory is not a threat your survival in the here and now.” -Dawson.
How to do tapping to yourself.
Go check out “Headstrong” and “The Bulletproof Diet” on Amazon and leave a review!
If you like today’s episode, check us out on Apple Podcasts at Bulletproof.com/iTunes and leave us a 5-star, positive review

Signs of Estrogen Dominance — and How to Fix It

March 13, 2018 by Dave Asprey

Estrogen dominance is essentially too much estrogen. There’s no set number that indicates estrogen dominance. It’s the amount of estrogen you have relative to your other sex hormones.
Estrogen is crucial for day-to-day functioning. Without it, you end up with vaginal changes that lead to painful sex and urination, hot flashes, moodiness, wonky periods, brain fog, and more.
Too much estrogen can wreak absolute havoc on your whole body. It can cause things ranging from fatigue and anxiety to fibroids, endometriosis, abnormal menstruation, and breast cancer.
Conventional medicine tends to prescribe hormonal birth control to alleviate symptoms of estrogen dominance, which can have a lot of side effects and make the problem worse in the long run.
There are things you can do that not just alleviate symptoms, but get rid of the problem at its core.

It seems like female problems come in groups. Patients will learn they have fibrocystic breasts, then get treated for endometriosis or fibroids. A woman with a lifetime of heavy periods will end up at the fertility clinic. A man with a more womanly shape up top may find himself with sexual dysfunction down the road.

It all points to estrogen dominance, which is high estrogen levels. There’s no set number that indicates estrogen dominance. It’s the amount of estrogen you have relative to your other sex hormones (progesterone in women and testosterone in men).

Low estrogen symptoms (i.e., why you need estrogen)

Estrogen is crucial for day-to-day functioning. It regulates menstruation, hunger and satiety, insulin sensitivity, it helps you metabolize cholesterol, it contributes to bone density, and more. Without it, you end up with symptoms of menopause, like vaginal changes that lead to painful sex and urination, hot flashes, moodiness, wonky periods, brain fog, and more.

But, too much of a good thing causes biological chaos, in the case of high estrogen.

Symptoms of estrogen dominance:

Women:

PMS
Weight gain (particularly in hips, midsection, thighs)
Fibrocystic breasts
Fibroids
Endometriosis
Abnormal menstruation
Fatigue
Reduced sex drive
Depression
Anxiety
Bloating
Breast tenderness
Mood swings
Brain fog
Insomnia

Men:

Enlarged breasts (gynecomastia or man boobs)
Sexual dysfunction
Infertility

If you have a few high estrogen symptoms going on, you might want to open up a conversation with your functional medicine doctor about estrogen dominance. Read on to find out where these symptoms are coming from and what to do about them.

Hormonal birth control

One of the main reasons there has been a noticeable rise in estrogen dominance is because hormonal birth control is so popular. It’s a common scenario that doctors prescribe the pill to young women to regulate periods or to control heavy bleeding, and these women will stay on hormonal birth control for years without fully understanding long-term effects.

Hormonal birth control creates the perfect storm of hormone imbalance. Erratic periods and heavy bleeding are likely a result of estrogen dominance to begin with. Prescribing the pill to treat it just stacks more estrogen on top of excess estrogen. Second, hormonal birth control releases synthetic progesterone, which suppresses your natural progesterone production. Progesterone balances the effects of estrogen, and without enough, you end up with symptoms of estrogen dominance.

You don’t even have to be a lifetime Pill user to end up with hormone balance problems. If you used hormonal birth control and have symptoms of estrogen dominance after only a few cycles, the culprit could still be the exogenous hormones.

Personal care products

Thousands of man-made products contain xenoestrogens, which means they mimic estrogen and disrupt your hormone balance. There’s a long list of chemicals that mimic estrogen. Here’s the short list of the more common ones you’ll see:

Parabens. Manufacturers use this well-known xenoestrogen as a preservative.
Phthalates. You’ll find phthalates in plastics and as an emulsifier and stabilizer in topical products.
Benzophenones. This additive alters estrogen and testosterone production.[ref url=”https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0041008X04003539 “] Most often, you’ll find it in sunscreens.
Triclosan. Manufacturers use triclosan as an antibacterial agent. Researchers found that it measurably acts on estrogen receptors. For example, it increased the size of uteri[ref url=”https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/article/117/1/45/1682020″] and grew breast cancer cells in rats.[ref url=”https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/tx5000156”]

Another rule of thumb is that if it has a strong chemical or perfume smell, there’s a good chance it’s messing with your hormones. The exception is products fragranced with essential oils, which can smell strong but won’t disrupt your hormones. It’s best to avoid products with “fragrance” on the ingredients list.

You absorb a substantial portion of the things that come into contact with your skin, so it makes sense to be conscious about what’s in the products you use. Whether you switch out your products as you run out, swap one thing a month, or go nuclear on your shelves, you’ll need to pay attention to your personal care products to reduce your estrogen load.

Estrogen in the food you eat

Whether the food you eat comes from plants or animals, it has an effect on your estrogen levels. The pesticides most widely used in large-scale farming contains endocrine disruptors,[ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P

MC3138025/”] and researchers associated the most common herbicide in the world, glyphosate, with female cancers which point to estrogenic and endocrine-disrupting effects. In one example, glyphosate caused human breast cancer cells to grow in vitro.[ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23756170″]

It’s common practice for factory farmers to administer hormones to animals for faster growth, which end up in your meat (particularly the fat) and dairy.[ref url=”http://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877(97)90110-9/abstract”]

Carefully sourcing your food matters. Small-scale, naturally-minded farmers do not pump animals full of hormones for quick turnaround, and they do not have hundreds of acres of crop-dust with dangerous herbicides. Choose organic for high-residue foods when you can.

Estrogen in water

The Environmental Working Group identified 45 hormone-disrupting chemicals in public drinking water.

As a consumer, that presents a problem. You can decide to forgo certain types of foods or check ingredients on your personal care products, but you can’t skip water. If you’re drinking water from a public source, you’re probably dosing yourself with things that mimic estrogen and disrupt your hormones. Bottled water is equally problematic. Estrogenic chemicals in plastic bottles leaches out into the water.[ref url=”https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090326100714.htm”] Canned drinks lined with BPA are no better.

The cleanest water you’ll get is regularly tested well water that’s not close to factory farms, mines, or any sort of industrial complex that will contaminate it. Obviously, that’s not accessible for everyone. For the rest of us, the combination of a public water source with a high-quality filter will give you clean water that won’t change your bra size. Look for a triple-stage filter: a sediment filter, a ceramic filter (to block viruses), and an activated charcoal filter.

Slow digestion

What does the way you digest your food have to do with how much estrogen you have pumping through your system? Since your digestion points to how efficiently you get rid of waste that hangs around in your intestines, it has everything to do with how much estrogen is in your bloodstream.

One major way your body eliminates estrogen is through pooping. If you have slow elimination, you don’t get rid of estrogen through the digestive tract. If estrogen hangs around your intestines and moves inefficiently, it has plenty of opportunity to be reabsorbed into the bloodstream. Stack that on top of the normal estrogen your body releases at ovulation and around period time, and your estrogen levels will climb month over month.

There are hundreds of things that might affect your intestinal motility, but two you can take control of are low stomach acid and gut bacteria imbalance.

Low stomach acid. If you don’t have enough stomach acid, your food doesn’t break down enough for a smooth move through the intestines. When food moves slowly, bacteria have the chance to feast and reproduce, which throws off the balance of your gut microbes.
Gut bacteria imbalance. When your gut bacteria is off, owing to low stomach acid, antibiotics, heavy metal exposure, or a million other causes, it can affect the nerves that tell your intestines to contract and relax and move things along. So, an imbalanced gut both causes things like IBS and SIBO, and makes them worse.

Finding the root cause of these things can be frustrating, but if you suspect you have acid or microbiome imbalances, ask your functional medicine doctor about supplementing with betaine HCl or digestive enzymes.

Toxic load

Whether it’s heavy metals, a moldy house, or eating processed packaged foods, toxic load contributes to estrogen dominance by burdening your detoxification and elimination systems. Your detox systems — particularly your liver and kidneys — can only handle so much over the course of a day. If your body is constantly dealing with heavy metals, mold toxins, plastics, cleaning products, fragrances…all of those things and more compete with estrogen for its place in the elimination line.

Toxin-free environments do not exist. Even digestion releases by-products that your body has to neutralize and excrete. The key here is to minimize toxins when you can, which leaves room for your body to deal with the toxins that you can’t control.

Being overweight and high estrogen

Your body produces estrogen in the adrenal glands, brain, and in your ovaries or testes, depending on your equipment. Another place both men and women produce estrogen is in adipose (fat) tissues.[ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC179885/ “][ref url=”https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076003003601”]

As expected, the more fat cells you have, the more estrogen you will make. The more estrogen you make, the more fat you store. And then you make even more estrogen, and store more fat, and so on until you have more estrogen and fat than you know what to do with.

Does stress cause estrogen dominance?

If you have a handful of symptoms of estrogen dominance, evaluate your stress levels before you do anything else. Stress has a massive impact on the production of your sex hormones, and chronic stress will throw off your hormone balance and contribute to estrogen dominance if you don’t get a handle on it.

The reason for this is because we have a multi-tasking hormone, pregnenolone, that is a precursor to both stress hormones and sex hormones, and it will go wherever the demand is.

When everything is fine, pregnenolone helps make progesterone and just enough cortisol. When you’re stressed, your body snaps up the pregnenolone that it would otherwise use to make progesterone, and instead makes a substantially more stress hormones like cortisol. That means progesterone comes up short.

Progesterone keeps estrogen in check, so if you don’t have enough of it, estrogen can go haywire. That’s when you end up with weight gain, PMS, and the other symptoms of estrogen dominance.

A stressful event here and there is fine, and your body can handle that. It’s chronic stress that causes problems with your hormones and frankly, your whole body.

What to do about too much estrogen

Quit birth control. Talk to your functional medicine doctor about non-hormonal birth control options.
Swap out your personal care products. There are non-toxic versions of just about everything nowadays, and they perform just as well or better than the nasty stuff.
Choose organic. It might be tough to go all organic, all the time, but you can at least opt for organic meats and choose organic of the most high-residue foods.
Filter your water. Obviously, you can’t forgo water. A high-quality filter is an expense up-front but will pay for itself if you were buying bottled water, not to mention medical costs down the road.
Talk to your doc about stomach acid. Functional or integrative medicine doctors do stomach acid better. Conventional medicine doctors will prescribe you things that will make problems worse if your acid is too low.
Reduce toxic load and support detox pathways. Natural herbs and supplements like milk thistle, dandelion root tea, dandelion greens, glutathione, and calcium d-glucarate support the liver and help get rid of excess estrogen and all the other day-to-day yuck we run into.
Lose weight. You know who you are. You can start by using our 30 Day Upgrade guide to clean up your diet while crushing cravings.
Meditation, yoga, gratitude. Start a de-stressing practice that will free up that pregnenolone for progesterone.

When people try to get help from a doctor or other practitioner, they are often told this is genetics, it’s just the way you are, that you have to deal with it. It’s simply not true. Just because there’s no magic pill (or there is a pill but it has awful side effects) doesn’t mean you’re at a loss. There are things you can do that not just alleviate symptoms, but get rid of the problem at its core.

Learn about your female hormone profile from the DNA Company

How to Declutter Your Life and Your Mind

March 13, 2018 by Team Asprey

The benefits of decluttering go way beyond making your home look like a Pinterest board. Studies link organized homes to less stressed, happier and healthier people.
Clutter in the workspace also makes it more difficult to focus on a task without feeling distracted.
Clutter is actually a pile of decisions that haven’t been made. If you pick something up, make a decision then and there about it, and either put it where it belongs or discard it.
Hiding clutter is not the same as tackling it. Instead of packing away unused objects, donate them.
While you’re at it, declutter your calendar too. Trying to do to much can feel just as draining as trying to have too many things

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the thought of decluttering, consider this: the average American home has 300,000 items.[ref url=”http://articles.latimes.com/2014/mar/21/health/la-he-keeping-stuff-20140322″] Society that tells you to buy the newest products to make your teeth whiter, your laundry fresher, and your phone faster, but all these things have to go somewhere.

Those piles of clutter aren’t only in your way, they’re weighing on your mind. They represent chores to do, goals to meet, and decisions to make. They take up space in your home and your day, without moving you towards your most productive, happy life.

A change of seasons is a great time to evaluate your clutter and learn how to declutter effectively. FInd out why your stuff might be impacting your stress, plus get decluttering tips from the experts to start reclaiming your space.

Organizing boosts your health

The benefits of decluttering go way beyond making your home look like a Pinterest board. Achieving an organized, home, office, or car greatly reduces stress in your life — imagine always knowing where to find your keys! A study published in The Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that women who considered their homes more cluttered or unfinished felt more depressed and had higher levels of cortisol than women who described their homes as more restful.[ref url=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167209352864″]

Stress is kryptonite to a Bulletproof lifestyle, but it’s not the only way clutter connects to your well-being. Researchers from Indiana University compared the tidiness of participants’ homes to their physical activity and overall health. More than any other factor they compared, the healthiest and most active participants were those who kept their living spaces clean.[ref url=”http://newsinfo.iu.edu/web/page/normal/14627.html”] Keeping on top of clutter also means there are fewer places for dust and mold spores to hide in your home.

In another study on clutter, people working in a clean environment were more likely to choose an apple over a chocolate bar at snack time.[ref url=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797613480186″] This is likely because clutter activates stress, which can lead you to reach for that sugar fix. In 2011, a study at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute found that having clutter in sight can make it more difficult to focus on a task without feeling distracted. Basically, the more visual stimuli your brain has to take in, the more you stress your brain and limit your processing power.[ref url=”http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/2/587″]

What is clutter (and how to get rid of it)?

Everyone has a different clutter battle: those books you haven’t opened since college, that leaning tower of papers by the computer, or the maze of abandoned motorcycle parts taking over the garage. Over time, the objects you bring into your life can start to overwhelm.

According to Helen Sanderson, declutter expert and creator of The Home Declutter Kit, “Clutter is actually a pile of decisions that haven’t been made.” The piles on your countertop are made of things ‘you’ll do tomorrow,’ or projects set aside for that elusive ‘someday.’

How to declutter 101

Why are these decisions so hard to make? Maybe you feel guilty for wasting money, or tossing objects connected to old goals (like those expensive shoes you bought when you thought you were going to start rock climbing). Maybe you get caught up in the cycle of “I might need this later,” or “this could be worth something.” Or maybe you’re just feeling overwhelmed by a pile of crap.

At the end of the day, only you can decide what objects, tasks and routines are meaningful to you, and which are just clutter. Try these five tips to inspire your productivity and mindset, and learn how to declutter your life.

“As we get clear on what we *don’t* want in our lives, we simultaneously gain clarity on what we do want. This often carries over into other areas of our lives besides our physical environments. We energetically free up space for new experiences, new relationships, new career opportunities and new goals.” – Angela Betancourt, Owner, Simplicity Coach & Professional Home Organizer

Impose the one-touch rule

Dr. Gerald Nestadt, director of the Johns Hopkins OCD clinic, recommends making decisions immediately, before clutter can take root. “If you pick something up, make a decision then and there about it, and either put it where it belongs or discard it. Don’t fall into the trap of moving things from one pile to another again and again.”[ref url=”https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/psychiatry/about/publications/index.html”]

As an example, Nestadt recommends tossing junk as soon as you pick up the mail, instead of dropping everything into a pile to sort later. The same goes for your email: if a cluttered inbox is a source of stress, go through once a day to clear out any new junk.

Be proactive about decluttering

Clutter can’t happen if you don’t let it in. Think twice before bringing something new into your home/office/wardrobe/life. Angela Betancourt, the professional home organizer behind Simplify Home Organizing, recommends fighting impulse purchases by asking yourself three questions: “Where will I store this?”, “How long will I have it?” and ” How will I dispose of it?” Answering these can help you decide if a new object will really add value to your life, or become clutter.
If you crave that shopper’s high and know you’re prone to impulse buying, Sanderson suggests taking a month-long vacation from shopping. Instead of heading for the sale rack, go for a walk or meet a friend for lunch, and focus on using what you already own. Reward yourself with experiences rather than things.

You can also unsubscribe from sale emails and unfollow your favorite stores on social media: If you declutter your newsfeed, you’ll be less likely to find yourself tempted by deals on things you don’t need.

If you really want to declutter, don’t box it up

Out of sight, still in mind. Getting organized might sound like a trip to The Container Store, but hiding clutter is not the same as tackling it. In fact, pulling everything out of a shelf at once can simplify your decision-making process by letting you clearly see what you have.

Chances are, if something’s been packed away in a box, you haven’t missed it. If you haven’t used something in the last year or more, it’s in the “suspect zone,” and you’ll probably survive just fine without it. Give it a new life outside of the box by donating to a local charity or thrift store.

Interrogate your clutter

When going through clutter, dig deeper than asking if you like an object, and ask instead why it deserves to take up space in your home. People often associate objects with old accomplishments, goals, identities, or relationships, which can make it seem harder to say goodbye. Betancourt reminds her clients that they can still cherish the memories without the things they’re attached to.

Give yourself permission to recognize when an object no longer adds value to your life. Do you keep that hideous vase because it was a wedding gift? Will you wear that sweater that makes you itch? Are you really going to learn how to play that guitar? Allow yourself to be a little ruthless, but also remember that freeing yourself from clutter is a form of self-care.

How to declutter your calendar

Mental to-do lists, packed calendars, and tempting distractions make your schedule feel as chaotic as your closet. Don’t be afraid to cut out or set restrictions on activities that no longer add value to your life.

Sanderson cautions that trying to do to much can feel just as draining as trying to have too much. If nixing tasks doesn’t feel like an option, she recommends committing to finish one or two significant tasks at a time, rather than chipping away at 50 little projects.

“Think of saying ‘no’ to something as saying ‘yes’ to yourself,” says Betancourt. “We often overcommit ourselves and wind up not being fully present and enjoying activities and hobbies because we’re already mentally moving on to the next thing. Leaving breathing room in your schedule allows you to slow down and enjoy life more.”

Up Next:

Minimalism: How to Live a Richer Life With Less

How to Move Past the Fears That Hold You Back

March 12, 2018 by Team Asprey

Is there one goal or dream that always seems just out of your reach? According to Jack Canfield, prolific author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series, emotional blocks can hamper your greatest intentions. However, in a recent Bulletproof Radio podcast episode (iTunes), Canfield shared a powerful technique to release blocks and usher in your greatest success. In fact, he thinks it’s so powerful that he’s teamed up with transformational coach Dr. Lise Janelle to write a book about it called, “The Heart Freedom Method.”

“Almost everything that’s blocking you happened between the ages of three and eight. Sometimes later, it could have happened to you when you were 18. Regardless, something happened,” explains Canfield. “Then you decided:

This is never going to happen again.
I’m going to avoid this.
I’m not worthy of love.
I’m not worthy of this.
It’s not safe to talk about sex.
It’s not safe to ask for what you want.”

Whatever conclusion you came to at that young age lingered in your body as an emotional feeling or block. It’s actually preventing you from moving beyond it to achieve the success you desire. So, in order to reach your dreams, you need to release what is not serving you anymore.

According to Canfield, the following technique helps 98 percent of people to release blocks — so that they’re gone permanently. If you can relate at all to not achieving what you deeply desire, use this exercise to help you let go of whatever is holding you back.

Close your eyes and imagine a goal you haven’t been able to attain. A loving relationship, a successful career, financial stability, weight loss, whatever it is. When you think about that goal, what do you feel? What’s the emotion: frustration, resignation, fear, anger?
Scan your body from head to toe. Notice where in your body you feel either a strong physical sensation, numbness, or pain. Pay attention to this sensation in great detail. Ask yourself: How wide is it? How thick is it? What color is it? Is it solid? Is it hollow? Is it wet? Is it cold or hot? Examine the sensation fully.
Look for the deeper feeling. There is almost always a deeper feeling behind the sensation. Go back to the earliest time you can remember that same feeling. (Almost everyone goes back to something that occurred between three and eight years old.)
Find out what underlies that feeling. Ask yourself: Where are you? Who’s there? Are you alone or with people? What are you feeling there? Is there something happening you don’t want? Is someone shaming you, sending you to your room, punishing you, or accusing you of something you didn’t do? Or, is there something you wanted that you did not get? For instance: attention, love, security, or protection.
Make sense of the experience now. What decision did you make at that point in life that might still limit you? What belief did you take on? Go back into the experience as an adult and talk to that inner child with all the wisdom you have now. Come to terms with that particular experience. For instance, perhaps the experience was something you needed in your development to give you the compassion to do the work you do today.
Go into the future and become your enlightened self. What advice do you have for the adult sitting in the chair who started this exercise? Take time to journal, meditate, or talk to a friend to process the experience. Then write a “cheat sheet” for yourself — a pocket-sized note card you carry with you — that details your goal and three ways your enlightened self advises you to progress toward your goal. I.e, “I no longer need food to comfort me during times of stress. My goal is to lose 10 pounds in 3 months. I will reach my goal by surrounding myself with supportive people who believe in me and my goal.” Soon enough, this enlightened advice will become the foundation of your manifest dreams.

How to Eat Bulletproof on the Go

March 12, 2018 by Team Asprey

If you subscribe to a clean, “restrictive” diet, like keto or Bulletproof, you know this common dilemma: It’s 11AM on your day off and you’re running errands when your stomach growls with hunger. You didn’t prepare food before you left the house – “Nah, I won’t get hungry” – so now you’re hangry, and with few good food options.

What do you do? Race to the nearest restaurant to try to figure out what’s keto on the menu? Or slog back home and prep a meal, losing precious “get stuff done” time? (And that assumes you’re even close enough to home that that’s an option.) All of this sound strikingly familiar? No sweat. Read on for simple solutions of how to stay Bulletproof on the go — so that you never go hungry again.

Prep and pack snack ideas

Prepare travel-friendly snacks and meals in advance and stow them at work, in your car, and in your bag or purse. This will help you stay Bulletproof when your resolve is weak and hunger is strong. These simple snack ideas require very little prep. Eat them mess-free in the car or on-the-go.

Make hard-boiled eggs on the weekend so you have them for the week, or buy store-bought, boiled and peeled eggs that you can grab on your way out the door.
Wrap smoked salmon around avocado slices and pop into a bento box.
Make almond-butter-filled celery sticks.
Pack crudites likes baby asparagus spears, carrots, radish, zucchini and summer squash with guacamole, mayo or Bulletproof dressing for dip.
Wrap bacon, avocado, salmon and cucumber in lettuce for a sushi-like sandwich.
Keep beef jerky, almonds, cashews and macadamia nuts, protein bars, and high-quality dark chocolate on-hand for always-ready-to-eat snacks.

How to navigate restaurants on keto

These general guidelines will get you through any dining out experience with five Bulletproof stars.

Always have the Bulletproof Diet Roadmap handy. Put the list in your wallet so you can refer to it if you have questions.
Check out the menu online and in advance. Nowadays, many restaurants not only feature an online menu, but some even include nutritional information. The restaurant, particularly if it’s a burger joint, might even have an app that allows you to “build your own” burger. There’s also always Yelp to read restaurant reviews, which will give you an indication of how healthy the fare is likely to be, and if the restaurant accommodates special requests. Speaking of…
Seek out keto- and Bulletproof-friendly restaurants. Great options are sushi joints, steakhouses, and restaurants serving salad bars and burgers.
Don’t be afraid to make special requests. You can always ask the waiter to prepare your meal gluten-free, low-carb, etc. It never hurts to ask and restaurants are often accustomed to making modifications.
Go a la carte. If you don’t see anything on the main menu that works for you, order several side dishes and make your own meal with options like Bulletproof veggies and white rice, or bacon if it’s breakfast time.
Pack your own seasoning and condiments. Restaurants can usually serve up plain veggies or pan-seared meat for you. Then you can add the flavoring of your choice, so you don’t have to suffer through a bland meal.
- Fill a little jar with your Bulletproof sweetener of choice. Carry it in your purse or glove compartment.
- Pre-mix your favorite Bulletproof spices and flavorings, so you can add them to meals you eat out.
- Fill a travel vile with Brain Octane Oil, so you can add it to salads when you eat out.

Traveling tips

These days, there are lots of ways to travel and you don’t necessarily have to stay at a hotel and eat out every night. In fact, with AirBnb and the like, you could have your own home and cook in every night if you choose. Depending upon your travel scenario, the ease of adherence to your Bulletproof eating will vary. Though here are some simple steps you can take to make things easier on yourself – for the short or long haul.

Foremost, make sure you have your coffee needs covered. Check out this video on how to make Bulletproof coffee on the go — you’ll learn precisely what you need and how to do it.
For a short day-trip on the road, prep and pack snacks from home with the guidelines above.
For an overnight that includes dining out, make reservations ahead of time. This gives you a chance to troll the internet to find the best dining option for you. Check out menus or even speak to the hostess of a particular restaurant that catches your eye. Get confident that where you’re eating will cater to your food preferences.
Own that mini-fridge if you’re hotel-bound. Stop at a nearby market and stock up on your favorite Bulletproof friendly snacks. Use a soap dish to transport your own butter, grab a few chocolate bars, and buy some pre-packaged salmon, which you can also add to restaurant salad for lunch. If anything needs to be chilled or frozen, purchase an insulated bag to convert that fridge into a mini freezer.
And always, remember that Bulletproof Diet Roadmap when you’re on the go.

The Open Secret to Lasting Weight Loss

March 9, 2018 by Team Asprey

Geneen Roth, author of multiple New York Times bestsellers, has been teaching groundbreaking workshops and retreats for over thirty years about how our eating practices reflect our personal and spiritual issues. She has appeared on numerous national shows including The Oprah Winfrey Show, 20/20, Today, Good Morning America and The View, and today she’s sharing with Bulletproof readers from her new book, This Messy Magnificent Life, about the difficult experiences she had with dieting, and how what she learned from that changed her life.

Two women I know have each had two lap band/gastric sleeve procedures. Not one, but two operations in which they volunteered to have their bodies cut open and risk dying from surgical mistakes — all for weight loss. All four of the operations did exactly what they were supposed to do, and the women did indeed lose weight. But each time, they discovered creative ways to commit sabotage. They ate small amounts, all day long. They ate until they felt as if they would burst. And six months later, the weight started coming back.

The million-dollar answer to the question of why weight loss is so difficult to maintain is that along with the exaltation of being thin, healthy and eating in ways that make you feel more and more alive, come less positive feelings. The lightness that accompanies an unencumbered body feels vulnerable. And if we’ve used our weight in any way, even unconsciously, to keep us safe, the joy of weight loss can be overlaid by a wash of terror.

In my experience, the unspoken reason why many people don’t maintain their weight loss is that they don’t want to be thinner more than they want to stay protected. Or hidden.

In my twenties, a few days from attempting suicide, I realized that I’d been speaking to myself in a language — eating uncontrollably — that I hadn’t bothered to learn or understand. I decided — and this was the most radical and decidedly counterintuitive part — that I would trust the longing at the root of the compulsion rather than believing I was a self-destructive maniac. And once I took that leap and began trusting myself with food — my friends looked at me in horror when I ate whatever I wanted those first few weeks — everything changed.

The ongoing question was no longer what I could do to control my insanity, but what the eating could teach me. I saw almost immediately that every time I lost weight, I flung myself at unavailable men and then got consumed by the drama of convincing someone who didn’t and would never want me to want me — which, being an impossible task, took up quite a lot of time.

I felt so unattractive at eighty pounds over my natural weight that flinging my body hither and thither was out of the question. And so I joined a writing class and started to write daily — something I’d longed to do since fifth grade — and quickly understood that if I got involved with yet another unavailable man, my creativity would focus on inventing interesting ways to capture he-who-had-no-interest-in-me. I decided to pour that creative energy into writing instead.

When I realized that I could do for myself what eating had been doing, I realized I’d been attempting to get through to myself with food, and vanilla fudge ice cream lost its allure. I suddenly understood that the power was mine to have, even if I gave it away to food — and I never went back to dieting or believing I was out of control again.

When we don’t either understand or believe that the weight has served a crucial purpose, we can feel as if having a thin body is like being shot into the open sky without a spacesuit. We are supposed to know how to breathe without a mask, move in a body that is no longer weighted down, relate to people without layers of padding. And we are supposed to feel thrilled about the whole process even when the pounds we shed served us in oh-so-many ways.

If you ask a group of people who want to lose weight whether they’d find being thinner and having more energy threatening, you would hear a unanimous “No.” But you would be asking adults, and that which wants to stay hidden is young. The proof is not in what people say they want, but in what they do. Not in their wishes, but in their actions, which consistently lead to the spectacularly dismal results of maintaining weight loss.

And while it is the adult who decides to limit her food or substitute good fats for trans fats, it is the ghost children — the ones that hid in the closet when our parents were fighting, or whose mother died when we were ten — who sabotage the results.

If even just a part of us is constellated around a painful story from the past, if we haven’t named or allowed the feelings that accompany that story their due, then losing weight is like telling a small child that everything on which her survival depends has been ripped away. Not exactly a recipe for success.

The heart of any addiction — drugs, alcohol, sex, money, food — is the avoidance of pain coupled with the unwillingness to acknowledge that both the behavior and its consequences serve us even as they destroy our lives. They keep us distracted from the original pain by creating another, possibly life-threatening situation. When we have to focus our attention on not driving while drunk, or having an operation to limit the food we eat so that we can walk, we have little time or interest in naming and meeting feelings we’ve been exiling for thirty or forty years.

Losing weight may indeed bring up fear of being overwhelmed by the very feelings you’ve used food to exile. But so what? Fear isn’t a monster; it’s a feeling. And like any feeling, it passes. Fear can be felt, held, dissolved by naming it, feeling its location in our bodies. Instead of avoiding fear we can do what is counterintuitive: welcome it and notice that the part that allows the fear is much bigger than the fear itself.

Maintaining weight loss isn’t only about what we eat. It comes back to what we want from our brief time here on earth. It’s about making a commitment to act in ways that match that desire, including our relationships to people, the work we do, the food we eat — and not giving ourselves the wiggle room of thinking we can go on a quick diet and then pay attention to what drives us to food. But how we get there is who we will be when we arrive there. If we deprive and shame ourselves with food (or any other area of our lives), we will be deprived, ashamed beings who might also be thin for five minutes.

“Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows,” David Foster Wallace wrote. “Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me… The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors.”

Choosing to keep struggling with food, whether it’s our way up or down the scale, is a choice to stay in the burning building of suffering while telling ourselves we can’t help it. The other choice is to jump from the burning building and discover, according to Chogyam Trungpa, that “you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is there’s no ground.”

Adapted from This Messy Magnificent Life, Scribner 2018

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