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Here’s What You Don’t Know About the Mediterranean Diet Plan

Here’s What You Don’t Know About the Mediterranean Diet Plan

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  • The Mediterranean Diet plan gets considerable acclaim as the healthiest diet in the world, the diet that helps you live the longest, and the plan that protects against heart disease.
  • It’s a good start, but the Mediterranean Diet doesn’t take into account blood sugar, toxins, harmful proteins in grains, and toxic load. If you’re not careful, you can end up with a lot of inflammation working against you.
  • Swapping fish and olive oil for muffins and hot dogs is an impactful first step. Read on to find out what dietary steps you can take to really help your waistline — and your heart.

The Mediterranean Diet gets considerable acclaim as the healthiest diet in the world, the diet that helps you live the longest, and the plan that protects against cardiovascular disease. There’s something to that, especially if you’re switching over from a typical western diet.

Scientists have been keeping a close eye on the Mediterranean Diet, and they have found that people experience benefits worth paying attention to, like:

  • Reduced markers of coronary heart disease risk[ref url=”https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/486851″] 
  • Favorable changes in plasma fatty acid profiles (a cardiovascular risk marker) [ref url=”https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/61/6/1360S/4651220″]
  • Slower progression of existing cardiovascular disease[ref url=”https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/199488″] 
  • Slower cognitive decline[ref url=”https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/184384″] 

Swapping fish and olive oil for muffins and hot dogs is an impactful first step. But, there are some things you can do to to kick it up a notch. Read on to find out how to take the Mediterranean Diet to the next level.

What is the Mediterranean Diet?

mythbuster mediterranean diet_What is the Mediterranean Diet_salmon toast

There are slight variations depending on your source, but most generally, on the Mediterranean Diet, you eat:

  • Vegetables
  • Fruits
  • Nuts, seeds, and legumes
  • Potatoes
  • Whole grains and breads
  • Herbs and spices
  • Fish and seafood
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • Poultry, eggs, cheese and yogurt (in moderation)
  • Red meat (rarely)

And you avoid:

  • Added sugar
  • Refined grains
  • Trans fats
  • Refined Oils
  • Processed meat
  • Highly processed foods

Cutting sugar and just a few of the things in the “avoid” category — that’s a good idea for everyone, and you’ll probably see major improvements from just a few of these changes.

But there’s more. You can shoot your results through the roof by paying attention to things like inflammation, antinutrients, where your food comes from, and a couple more small tweaks.

Saturated fat and the Mediterranean Diet

mythbuster mediterranean diet_olive oil_Saturated fat and the Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean Diet plan says to avoid trans fats, and stay away from refined oils. Bring on the extra virgin olive oil.

Makes perfect sense. Everyone should get behind that.

This is an incomplete picture, though. The Mediterranean Diet shuns saturated fats, but there are piles and piles of measured scientific evidence that it’s better than its unsaturated counterparts. A few examples:

  • In one study, people who ate more vegetable polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) and less saturated fat didn’t get healthier…they died.[ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23386268″] 
  • PUFAs (found in vegetable, corn, canola and soybean oil) don’t protect you from coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, stroke, or mortality like the AHA claims.[ref url=”http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i1246 “] [ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9635993″] [ref url=”http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009.27725.abstract”]
  • In fact, eating less saturated fat and more linoleic acid from plant-based oils increased deaths from coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease, and deaths from all causes.[ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23386268″]

What about extra virgin olive oil on the Mediterranean Diet?

Extra virgin olive oil is a monounsaturated fatty acid, which means it’s highly unstable. It’s highly nutritious if it’s not damaged, so handle with care. Drizzle it over your salad or veggies, but don’t heat it over 320 degrees. Make sure it’s in a dark glass bottle away from a light source, because it can oxidize just hanging out on your shelf.

Most importantly, get your olive oil from a reputable source. Olive oil fraud is big business, and you don’t want to think you’re doing something healthy for yourself when you’re actually ingesting cheap rancid oils that have been fragranced to mimic olive oil.

The Mediterranean Diet and blood sugar

The key to a successful change in habits is removing obstacles. Simply feeling hungry derails the best-laid plans when people start a new way of eating, and that comes from fluctuations in blood sugar.

The Mediterranean Diet lays out what to eat, but doesn’t break down proportions or when. While choosing good types of foods is a good start, too much of this or not enough of that can throw you off.

To keep your blood sugar happy and your hunger at bay, keep fruits, grains, potatoes, and other carb-heavy foods to a minimum. It might be helpful to track your macronutrients while you’re just starting out, so that you can follow how you feel when you have more carbs or less carbs. Here’s how to find your carbohydrate sweet spot.

Carbs are only part of the blood sugar equation. You have to have adequate fat to keep your blood sugar steady and keep you feeling full. The fatty fish and olive oil that you get on the Mediterranean Diet are your friends. Here’s an article on how good amounts of fat help you lose weight.

Keeping toxins low on the Mediterranean Diet plan

mythbuster mediterranean diet_Keeping toxins low on the Mediterranean Diet plan

The Mediterranean Diet plan details what to eat, but doesn’t get into where to source your food. With the way farmers and manufacturers produce food today, you can’t ignore the role of toxins in your food.

Take glyphosate, for example. Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide on the planet, and it’s the main active ingredient of the weed killer Roundup. Glyphosate carries with it some pretty nasty problems, like:

  • It mimics estrogen, and causes human breast cancer cells to grow in vitro[ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23756170″] 
  • It’s toxic to mitochondria, the power plants for our cells[ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16263381/ “][ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1764160/”] 
  • It damages human placental cells[ref url=”https://www.drperlmutter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Glyphosate_pathways_to_modern_diseases_IV_cancer_and_related_pathologies.pdf”] 

And that’s just one of the cocktail of sprays that go onto your food in the field. You’ll also run into other chemicals, like anti-microbials that throw off the ecosystem of gut bacteria that contributes to your immunity and helps you digest your food.

Related: Glyphosate: Why Eating Organic Really Does Matter

Factory-farmed livestock are raised in crowded, filthy conditions, so farmers pump the animals full of antibiotics and growth hormones to keep them from dying and make them grow as quickly as possible. All of that makes its way into your food.

What’s more, the meat that comes from these animals are lower quality. Factory farmers feed an unnatural diet, so the fatty acid profiles coming from these meats aren’t the same as they would be if the animals were raised in better conditions with more natural feed. You end up with meat lower in beneficial fats and higher in inflammatory fats.

That’s probably why the Mediterranean Diet advises you to eat red meat only occasionally. Red meat from a feedlot leads to a lot of inflammation and heart disease. What the Mediterranean Diet doesn’t acknowledge is that small-scale, grass-fed, organic meats are extremely heart healthy and your body is better at using these fatty acids.  

The bottom line: choose organic. Shop small-scale farms when you can, and pay attention to where your food comes from. It’s OK to eat red meat, as long as it’s grass-fed.

Whole grains, bread, and beans on the Mediterranean Diet

mythbuster mediterranean diet_Whole grains, bread, and beans on the Mediterranean Diet

Grains and beans are some of the most carbohydrate-dense foods out there, so breads, rice, and beans will spike your blood sugar causing crashes and cravings later on. There’s more to the issue with grains and beans, though. They contain some proteins and compounds that humans just don’t handle well. Here’s a breakdown of some of the issues with grains and beans.

Whole grains are high in anti-nutrients

Every animal in nature wants the starch in grains for the easy calories and quick energy. So, grains had to develop ways to protect themselves from animals who want to eat them.

Since plants can’t run away, they developed chemical defenses against hungry herbivores. One of these is phytic acid. Phytic acid binds to minerals with positive charges and keeps you from absorbing them. That means you won’t benefit from the iron, zinc, and calcium from the grains you eat.[ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17693180 “][ref url=”http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mnfr.200900099/epdf?r3_referer=wol&tracking_action=preview_click&show_checkout=1&purchase_site_license=LICENSE_DENIED_NO_CUSTOMER “][ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20715598 “] The phytic acid will also bind to positively charged nutrients in any other veggies you eat alongside them.

Brown rice, wild rice, and whole wheat have the highest content of phytic acid, and the Mediterranean Diet says you can eat these with abandon. They’re high in phytic acid because a large portion of it is packed into the casing, the bran. White rice is much kinder to your system.

Grains, legumes and lectins

Lectins are another way plants defend themselves. Food naturally wears and tears your gut lining as it passes through. The normal repair process is part of the digestion program. Lectins interfere with the repair by binding to the lining of your gut and blocking healing.[ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1115436/?tool=pubmed”][ref url=”http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0000687″] This leaves microscopic holes in the gut, which allows undigested food particles to pass through, and then you find yourself constantly afflicted with low-level inflammation.

Grains and beans are high in lectins, and it’s no surprise that the top allergen foods also have a high lectin content. The lectins in nightshade vegetables can be troublesome for some people, while others handle them just fine. Cooking and peeling removes some of the lectin content in vegetables (but not grains, they’re pretty heat stable), but some super-sensitive people have to avoid them completely.

Gluten and other grain proteins

You may have noticed a bit of an explosion of gluten-free offerings on your grocery store shelves. Some may call it a trend, but over the last 70 years there’s been a steady increase in the number of people who don’t tolerate gluten or other grain proteins.[ref url=”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2704247/”] People with a sensitivity, intolerance or full-on Celiac disease experience any combination of brain fog, inflammation, fatigue, joint pain, and gut issues – and they tend to resolve simply by avoiding grains.[ref url=”http://gut.bmj.com/content/early/2016/07/21/gutjnl-2016-311964.full”]

The Mediterranean Diet is a great way for people who are used to doughnuts in the morning to start feeling the difference that eating real food makes. After a while though, you may hit a plateau with weight or maybe you know you’re capable of having more energy or a clearer mind. That’s where these extra little tweaks come in. With a few minor changes, you can adjust the Mediterranean Diet to help you perform at max power.

This Week in Biohacking Health: An Anti-Aging Pill, and the Reason Your Kid Could be Overweight

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Want to live forever and feel spry at 100? Researchers dive into why the Amish stay young for longer. If you don’t have the Amish gene, no worries – you can still adopt a few key habits. There’s also a new pill on the horizon that’s “the closest we’ve gotten to a fountain of youth.” Speaking of pills, taking this supplement when pregnant could keep your kid from being overweight. Sound intriguing? Read on to see what other biohacking headlines had us clicking this week.

What keeps the Amish so healthy in old age?

Time magazine[ref url=”http://time.com/5159857/amish-people-stay-healthy-in-old-age-heres-their-secret/”] reveals the secrets of how Amish people stay healthy in old age. Spoiler Alert: It’s a combo of lifestyle and genes. It appears that intermarriage actually turned out to be a good thing, because the Amish got a lucky bid. What does this mean for you? Genes get turned on and off, depending on your habits, and those genetic activations have a ripple effect for generations to come. So even if you aren’t Amish, you can live like one: No smoking, no alcohol, exercise built into daily activities, and good sleep (no electricity means an early bedtime). And listen to this podcast if you’re game to understand how your environment hacks your genes. 

The latest and greatest anti-aging pill on the horizon

A group of researchers honed in on a verifiable longevity elixir.[ref url=”http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6331/1312″] The key ingredient? A compound called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD+ — a molecule responsible for regulating cellular aging. “NAD+ is the closest we’ve gotten to a fountain of youth,” says David Sinclair, co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School.

NAD+ levels decrease in humans over time, but when researchers re-upped NAD+ in mice, the mice looked and acted younger — and lived longer too. What can you do? The nootropic supplement Keto Prime shifts the bodily ratio of NADH to NAD+ – which makes mitochondrial energy production more efficient. Your mitochondria are what keep your cells healthy and vibrant. Another way to boost your longevity? Autophagy — your body’s natural detoxification process. Find out how to induce autophagy to boost your lifespan.

Vitamin D deficiency in pregnant women linked to child obesity

A new study[ref url=”http://news.usc.edu/136309/pregnant-women-deficient-in-vitamin-d-may-give-birth-to-obese-children/”] from the Keck School of Medicine, USC reveals that vitamin D deficiency in pregnant women may result in obese children. Specifically, researchers observed that mothers with low levels of vitamin D fostered 6-year-olds with bigger than average waists – about half an inch larger than children born from vitamin D-sufficient mothers. The children also carried 2% more body fat. If you’re pregnant (or even if you’re not), be sure to get 20 minutes of daily sunshine; eat vitamin D-rich Bulletproof foods like fatty fish and egg yolks; and consider supplementing with vitamin D – in the morning, 1,000 IU per 25 pounds of body weight. Read more about the top 5 reasons vitamin D makes women bulletproof.

Gut bacteria play a role in obesity development and insulin resistance

In obesity-related news, this Johns Hopkins study[ref url=”https://www.nature.com/articles/mi2017114″] reveals a direct correlation between gut bacteria and obesity in mice. The intestinal microbiome – home to a host of bacteria, viruses, and fungal genes – is known to play a key role in obesity development and insulin resistance. This study concludes that there is potential to prevent obesity and diabetes by manipulating gut bacteria levels or related genes that are responsible for metabolism.

To help healthy gut bacteria thrive and minimize the bad bacteria, focus on nutrient-dense, low-inflammation foods. Read more about how to own your gut bacteria.

Uber-processed foods cause cancer

What else makes you fat — and causes cancer? French researchers found mass-produced, packaged bread, chips, sodas and sweetened beverages, instant noodles and soups, frozen/ready-made meals, and even the bad kind of chocolate (less than 70% cacao) are the culprit. The BMJ study[ref url=”http://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k322″] of 105,000 people revealed the more of these foods people consumed, the greater their cancer risk. The link between being overweight and disease risk is well known. However, what is a little murkier is the difference between processed foods that typically contain a lot of fat, sugar, and processed carbohydrates versus whole foods that naturally contain high levels of fat. You can understand the common health myths about sugar, fats, and meat here.

Is rock-climbing the ultimate full-body workout?

Time Magazine ran an online story[ref url=”http://time.com/5158732/rock-climbing-workout/”] touting rock climbing as the physical activity to live by. Here’s why: rock climbing engages all of your muscles in a way few other activities do. Because climbing terrain varies from one step to the next, you’re constantly mixing it up and challenging muscles in different ways, compared to workouts that rely on the same repetitive motions. Climbing combines the pushing, pulling, and lifting of high-intensity resistance training with a solid cardio workout for a high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout. Read up on the benefits of HIIT and why HIIT is the key to keeping weight off.

Related: This Whole-Body HIIT Workout Takes Just 18 Minutes  

Climb the stairs to lower blood pressure and strengthen leg muscles

If you can’t climb walls, climb the stairs instead. A new North American Menopause Society (NAMS) study[ref url=”https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180214093842.htm”] finds that climbing stairs is another great way to combine cardio and resistance training into one activity. The study found that taking the stairs lowers blood pressure and builds leg strength, particularly in postmenopausal women. Catch up on the complete Bulletproof exercise guide, including what a typical routine looks like.

 

Light, Dark, & Your Belly: Satchin Panda, Part 2 – #467

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Maybe its not what you eat, but when! In this episode of Bulletproof Radio Dave continues the conversation with leading researcher in Circadian Rhythms, Satchin Panda about forgetting calories, forgetting about what kind of food it is, and only focusing on timing!

Dave and Satchin go into some surprising results in mice and Satchin’s own mother!

Also, Dave Asprey talks about how he avoids jet lag by controlling light and food!

Enjoy the show!

Bulletproof Executive Radio at the iTunes, App Store, iBookstore, and Mac App Store

Listen

Follow along with the Transcript

Light, Dark, & Your Belly: Satchin Panda, Part 2 – #466

Links/Resources for Satchin Panda

Satchin’s Website

My Circadian Clock 

Show Notes

  • Satchin on a big discovery “Similarly, almost nine years ago, we made another big discovery. That is, we know that almost every organ in our body has a circadian clock.”
  • How it might not be What you eat, but when you eat!
  • To test this very simple idea that, forget about calories, forget about what kind of food you eat, if we control timing, how much of benefit you can get?
  • On Fat mice, “And in fact, if we take the mice that are already obese and overweight, if we give them the same food, but they have to eat only within eight hours, we can reverse their disease. And that was so earth-shattering, that I could not believe it.”
  • What we found is nearly 50% of those healthy cohorts, healthy adults were eating their food over 15 hours or longer.
  • What is “evening diabetes?” That’s a very clear circadian effect. And in fact, in ’70s, doctors had a funny term for this. They used to call it the evening diabetes. That means, in the morning, the same person might be diagnosed healthy, and the evening, if you give a diabetes test, postprandial glucose test, then, the person might be diagnosed diabetes.
  • Ketones and the circadian rhythm.
  • On how Satchin convinced his mom to stop eating after six at night.
  • Satchin on restricted eating and cancer. “We’re also beginning to see that eating time has an interaction with drug. That means, people who are going through cancer chemotherapy or radiation therapy, then there might be an interaction between how many hours they eat or sleep, and what time they’re taking the radiation therapy, or the cancer therapy, or the chemotherapy.”
  • On the myCircadianClock app.
  • Dave on music. “Yeah. That old song, I Wear My Sunglasses at Night. They were right.”
  • Dave on avoiding jet lag. “I can fly to Dubai like from California and not have jet lag and it’s totally changed my life. But I’ve gotta control the light spectrum and the food. One or the other isn’t enough.”
  • Go check out “Headstrong” and “The Bulletproof Diet” on Amazon and leave a review!
  • If you like today’s episode, check us out on iTunes at Bulletproof.com/iTunes and leave us a 5-star, positive review

Burn Fat With This 18-Minute Full-Body HIIT Workout

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This no-equipment HIIT workout is designed for someone who’s looking to increase their overall physical performance but may not have time for the gym. The exercises combat a lot of the sitting that we do every day, which makes our shoulders slope, our belly stick out and our glutes become dormant.

To maximize your effort, this HIIT workout hits the largest muscle groups in the body with compound movements (exercises that engage two or more different joints to stimulate entire muscle groups and multiple muscles).This style of training, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), is intended to activate the entire body.

Related: Read more about the benefits of HIIT workouts here.

HIIT Warm-up Moves

These moves increase blood flow while improving overall mobility. They’re designed to build “mind to muscle connection” through proper movement pattern. If you are tight in one muscle group that keeps you from executing a movement with proper form, you are building movement patterns that will set you up for injury down the road.

  1. Lateral Shuffle

Stand with feet hip distance apart and knees deeply bent, so that your quads (or thighs) are as parallel to the ground as possible. Put your hands out in front of you, arms bent, in the guard position.

Keeping your torso upright and your core engaged, shuffle to the right four times as quickly as possible, and then to the left four times.

Repeat 10 times.

  1. Runner’s Lunge to Rotation

Step into a low runner’s lunge, with your right foot outside of your right hand. Your back (left) leg should be straight, and your front (right) knee is bent.

Keeping your front foot flat on the ground and your back leg straight, press your right palm firmly into the ground. Lift your left arm up overhead, rotating open toward that front leg. Reach as far as you can with your free hand, while looking over that same shoulder.

Repeat 10 times per side.

  1. Catcher Squats to Toe Touch

Place your feet shoulder-width apart with your feet rotated slightly outwards. Squat down until your thighs are parallel with the ground, and reach your hands down to touch your toes. Next, lift your glutes into the air by straightening your knees and simultaneously folding your upper body over until your hands touch the ground (or come close to it). Come back to the squat position with your hands touching your toes.

Repeat 10 times.

  1. Cactus Press

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and raise your arms out to the side so that your arms are parallel to the ground. Bend your elbows at a 90-degree angle so that your open hands are out in front of you, palms facing the ground, with your thumbs facing each other. Keeping your elbows in the same place, rotate your hands so that your palms face out in front of you and your forearms perpendicular to the ground (so you look like a cactus). Press your hands overhead until your body makes a Y-shape. Return to the cactus stance, and then rotate back to the starting position.

Tip: Keep your spine neutral, so you don’t hyperextend your back. You can do this against a wall to maintain proper postural alignment.

Repeat 20 times.

5. Fire Hydrant

Come into a table top with your back parallel to the ground, your shoulders above your hands and your hips above your knees. Raise your right leg out to the side and make a forward circular motion with your leg for ten repetitions and then reverse the movement. Repeat with your left leg.

Repeat 10 times on each side.

HIIT Super Set No. 1

Perform each of the 3 moves at maximum effort for 30 seconds. Rest for 30 seconds between each exercise. Each Superset will take 2 total minutes. Beginners should repeat this super set 3 times, advanced should repeat the super set 6 times.

  1. Pushup to Crunch

Get into plank position, with your shoulders lined up over your wrists and your abs tight. Lower your body down to hover just above the ground and push yourself back up to the starting position. Bring your right knee up to touch your right elbow and then return it back to its starting point. Repeat the move, alternating between your right and left leg each time. Do as many reps as you can for 30 seconds.

2. Glute Bridges

Lay down with your feet flat on the ground, knees pointed directly up in the air. Raise your glutes off the ground until your upper body is lined up with your legs. Squeeze your glutes together at the top of the movement for 1 second and return your body back to the starting position. Do as many reps as you can for 30 seconds.

3. Body Weight Squat

Place your feet shoulder-distance apart with your feet rotated slightly outwards. Initiate the movement by pushing your hips back, maintaining your gaze directly out in front of you and keeping your torso upright. Squat down until your quads are parallel with the ground, keeping your hands out in front of your body for balance. Push through your heels to bring your body back into an upright position and squeeze your glutes at the top of the motion for 1 second. Do as many reps as you can for 30 seconds.

Tip: Press your knees out and makes sure that you can see your toes through the entire movement

Rest for 30 seconds before moving on to the next super set.

HIIT Super Set No. 2

Perform each of the 3 moves at maximum effort for 30 seconds. Rest for 30 seconds between each exercise. Each super set will take 2 total minutes. Beginners should repeat this super set 3 times, advanced should repeat the super set 6 times.

    1. Jumping Lunges

Place your feet shoulder-distance apart with your feet pointed directly out in front of you.

Step forward, lowering your hips until both knees are bent at a 90-degree angle, keeping your upper body as upright as possible. From there, explosively jump into the air, switching the positions of your legs so that you land and can immediately drop into another lunge but with the opposite leg forward. Make sure that your front knee is always lined up directly over your heel. Repeat for as many reps as you can in 30 seconds.

If maintaining your balance is difficult, modify the move by holding onto a sturdy object and shortening the length of your lunges.

  1. Super Mans

Lay face-down with your arms and legs extended, and your hands and feet spread two feet away from each other. Make sure that your thumbs and heels are pointed up to the sky, and raise your hands and legs 4-5 inches off the ground. Squeeze your glutes and shoulder blades together and hold for 3 seconds and return to the starting position. Repeat for as many reps as you can in 30 seconds.

  1. Up Down Planks

Get into plank position, with your shoulders lined up over your wrists, hands on the ground and your abs tight. Lower your right elbow to the mat and then your left, coming into an elbow supported plank. Put your right hand down on the mat, straighten your right elbow and return to a hand supported plank. Repeat the same on the left side. Repeat for as many reps as you can in 30 seconds.

Rest for 30 seconds before moving on to the finisher.

HIIT Finisher

When you get to the finisher, make sure that you are pushing your limits. In order to get the max benefit from high-intensity interval training, you need to increase the amount of oxygen your body requires during exertion to build up something called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption or EPOC. Basically, your body, when burning energy at close to a maximal rate, will build up an oxygen debt that is slowly paid back in the hours after exercise. This results in an elevated metabolism, long after you’ve finished this workout.

  1. 15-Second Mountain Climbers + 50-Yard Sprint

Beginners should repeat this combination 3 times, advanced should repeat the combination 6 times.

Get into plank position, with your shoulders lined up over your wrists, hands on the ground and your abs tight. Bring your right knee to your right elbow and return your leg to the starting position. Repeat for the left side and then alternate legs. Complete for as many reps as you can in 15 seconds. Immediately after finishing your mountain climbers, sprint for a distance of 50 yards.

Tip: Focus on quality ab contractions and a neutral (flat back) spine throughout the plank. It’s not about how many mountain climbers you can do in 15 seconds.

 

New Study Finds Non-Stick Pans Sabotage Weight Loss

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A new study[ref url=”http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002502″] finds that environmental chemicals known as perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – found in fast-food wrappers, non-stick pots and pans, textile coatings, and even paper – cause another worrisome and unwanted side-effect. Previously linked to hormone dysregulation, immune dysfunction, high cholesterol, and even cancer, PFAS exposure is now also linked to weight gain. Specifically, researchers found that people with the highest levels of PFAS in their bloodstream had the hardest time keeping weight off after dieting.

High PFAS levels are associated with weight gain

For the study, over 600 people followed a heart-healthy diet for six months, leading to an average weight loss of 14 pounds. Over the next 18 months, participants gained back an average of 6 pounds. All the while, researchers tracked PFAS concentrations in people’s bloodstreams. They noticed that while PFAS levels didn’t affect how much weight people lost originally, they did affect how much participants gained back. In fact, people who gained the most weight back possessed the highest PFAS levels. Furthermore, the link appeared to be gender-based – women with the highest PFAS blood levels regained 2.7 to 4.9 pounds more than women with the lowest PFAS levels. It’s possible that PFAS obstruct estrogen metabolism, which is why these results are notably evident in women.

High PFAS levels are also linked to lower resting metabolic rates

Interestingly, the study also concluded that people with the highest PFAS levels possessed lower resting metabolic rates – the baseline rate of caloric burn doing sedentary, daily activities. “People with lower metabolic rates are more likely to accumulate a lot of fat in the body, so this may be a very important part of the problem,” says senior author Qi Sun, assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Minimize your risk of environmental toxicity to manage your weight

While Sun argues that it’s “basically impossible” for Americans to avoid PFAS entirely – after all, they’re found in drinking water, contaminated seafood, and packaging products, to name a few – there are steps you can take to minimize your exposure and risk of PFAS health hazards, including the more immediate side-effect of weight gain.

To limit your exposure to PFAS as much as possible:

  • Purchase PFAS-free pots and pans. Look for ceramic non-stick options, though keep in mind they should not be heated above 450 degrees. As well, best if they’re not manufactured in Latin American or Asian countries where regulations are more lax for cadmium and lead. 
  • Mind your wrappers. This can be trickier if you are eating on-the-go and happen to partake in fast-food. Those wrappers, used because they repel oil and water, are loaded with PFAS, so best to bypass them entirely. Plus, in most cases, the actual food in the wrappers isn’t exactly a boon for your belly either. Microwave popcorn bags also contain PFAS.
  • Ensure your water is PFAS-free. Purchase a water filter for your home/office faucet with a label on it that notes PFAS-free.

Final takeaway: These environmental chemicals are now linked to weight gain – which is actually a side effect of toxicity in and of itself. One of your bodily defenses is to wrap up toxins in visceral fat to keep it away from your organs – which contributes to weight gain. So even if you’re not trying to lose weight, you still want to keep PFAS out of your system.

To help rid your body of built-up toxins like PFAS naturally, forget about juice cleanses. Think autophagy – a process where your body cleans out damaged cells and toxins to help regenerate newer, healthier cells. While your body does this, to some degree, naturally, there are things you can do to amp up the process. Learn more about how to help your body detox with autophagy.

 

Light, Dark, & Your Sleep: Satchin Panda, Part 1 – #466

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In this fascinating episode of Bulletproof Radio, Dave talks to leading researcher in Circadian Rhythms, Satchin Panda about why we are wired to follow a natural pattern of light and dark, and what we can do to get the rest we need in an electric society.

Satchin goes into surprising research on how your sleep, or lack thereof, has a profound impact on a huge number of diseases. Such as: diabetes, depression, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, and cancer.

Plus, is it possible that Dave Asprey is a sleep mutant?

Enjoy the show!

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Follow along with the Transcript

Light, Dark, & Your Sleep: Satchin Panda, Part 1 – #466

Links/Resources for Satchin Panda

Satchin’s Website

My Circadian Clock 

Show Notes

  • Satchin Panda has gone through and done research about the profound impact of ambient light in your daily eating and fasting cycle on preventing a huge number of diseases, like diabetes, depression, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, cancer. He is running a large research study right now through an app called My Circadian Clock that monitors and modifies circadian rhythms.
  • What is a circadian rhythm. “It essentially means approximately a day or a 24 hours rhythm. These circadian rhythms are found in almost every living animals, plants, and also many microbes that are on the planet.”
  • “That’s why for example plants raise their leaves and drop them down in every 24 hours. Birds, animals, humans, we all go to sleep and wake up in 24 hours. These 24-hour rhythms are so ingrained to our life, that if we take one animal or plant from our planet and put it into Mars or any other planet that has a day and night cycle other than 24 hours, will have a hard time to survive.”
  • “Why do we have circadian rhythms?”
  • “Just like that in our body when we go to sleep or when we wake up or when you go play sports there are many things, many genes, many hormones, many brain chemicals that have to work together. For example when you go to sleep at night our sleep hormone melatonin should go up, our muscle tones would go down so that we can sleep nicely, we should not act out our dreams.”
  • Why is knowing about circadian rhythms more important now that there is artificial light.
  • Then what happens is as we have light becomes an enabler to stay awake at nighttime and boost up some stuff. If we look at what is circadian disruption or how much disruption is bad for health? How many nights in a year we can stay awake? That will actually cause dramatic health disturbances.
  • Some of the things seeing in lab rats with circadian rhythm disruption. “Diseases, starting from diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, even anxiety, ADHD-like symptom and cancer.”
  • “How many days in a year you can disrupt your rhythm and be classified as a shift worker?”
  • “There is a nice European definition and I like that, and that is if you stay awake for three hours or longer between 10:00PM and 5:00AM for 50 nights in a year, then you are almost a card-carrying shift worker.”
  • Fifty nights of staying awake for three or more hours around midnight will cause damage.
  • Satchin on Jet Lag.
  • Satchin on “digital jet lag.”
  • What is “social jet lag.”
  • What bin are you in? “Six different categories, traditional shift workers, secondhand shift worker, jet lag, digital jet lag and then social jet lag.”
  • “This is the reason why I think this is very important that we learn more about circadian rhythm, because our body is designed, almost every gene in our genome is designed to go up and down or turn on and off at different time of the day. All of our hormones go up and down at certain time of the day. Our brain chemicals rise and fall at certain time of the day and there is no escaping from that.”
  • “We cannot go back to the Stone Age, we cannot turn off all the lights and just live under day and night, the natural day and night cycle, but if we learn about what disrupts circadian rhythm and how we can nurture rhythms, then we can still live in this modern society and have a nurturing circadian rhythm so that we can be healthy, we can prevent diseases or even reverse some of the diseases.”
  • Dave on red lights not disturbing the owls around his house.
  • How blue light synchronizes our clocks. “That’s how we are designed, not only us as you pointed out, almost every animal is designed to synchronize their internal circadian clock with the sunlight or day and night cycle, because sunlight or daylight is the richest source of blue light out there. That’s why we are designed to synchronize our clock with blue light. “
  • Don’t go shopping late at night! “Essentially by going shopping late at night to a very bright store, you are essentially reducing your hormone levels.”
  • Lighting on circadian Rhythm. “LED, like white LED versus fluorescent, versus halogen, versus incandescent and what they do to circadian rhythm?”
  • Satchin on getting dimmers on every light in your house.
  • It’s possible Dave, that you are a mutant. -Satchin confirms what we all already knew.
  • When it comes to that, as you pointed out just taking care of light exposure or less light during night time, of more light during the daytime is really key to keeping our brain circadian clock functional.
  • Go check out “Headstrong” and “The Bulletproof Diet” on Amazon and leave a review!
  • If you like today’s episode, check us out on iTunes at Bulletproof.com/iTunes and leave us a 5-star, positive review
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