Before You Eat Breakfast: 3 Surprising Facts About Intermittent Fasting
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Dr. William Li is well-known for his advocacy of “eating to beat disease”, and/but today he has advice for us about not eating to beat disease. In moderation, of course, thus: intermittent fasting.
The easy way
Dr. Li explains the benefits of intermittent fasting; how it improves the metabolism and gives the body a chance to do much-needed maintainance, including burning off any excess fat we had hanging around.
However, rather than calling for us to do anything unduly Spartan, he points out that it’s already very natural for us to fast while sleeping, so we only need to add a couple of hours before and after sleeping (assuming an 8 hour sleep), to make it to a 12-hour fast for close to zero effort and probably no discomfort.
And yes, he argues that a 12-hour fast is beneficial, and even if 16 hours would be better, we do not need to beat ourselves up about getting to 16; what is more important is sustainability of the practice.
Dr. Li advocates for flexibility in fasting, and that it should be done by what manner is easiest, rather than trying to stick to something religiously (of course, if you do fast for religious reasons, that is another matter, and/but beyond the scope of this today).
For more information on each of these, as well as examples and tips, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Intermittent Fasting: What’s the truth?
- 16/8 Intermittent Fasting For Beginners
- Meal Timings & Health: How Important Is Breakfast?
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Outlive – by Dr. Peter Attia
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We know, we know; this diet, that exercise, don’t smoke or drink, get decent sleep”—a lot of books don’t go beyond this level of advice!
What Dr. Attia offers is a multi-vector approach that covers the above and a lot more.
Themes of the book include:
- The above-mentioned things, of course
- Rethinking medicine for the age of chronic disease
- The pros and cons of…
- caloric restriction
- dietary restriction
- intermittent fasting
- Pre-emptive interventions for…
- specific common cause-of-death conditions
- specific common age-related degenerative conditions
- The oft-forgotten extra pillar of longevity: mental health
The last one in the list there is covered mostly in the last chapter of the book, but it’s there as a matter of importance, not as an afterthought. As Dr. Attia puts it, not only are you less likely to take care of your physical health if you are (for example) depressed, but also… “Longevity is meaningless if your life sucks!”
So, it’s important to do things that promote and maintain good physical and mental health.
Bottom line: if you’re interested in happy, healthy, longevity, this is a book for you.
Click here to check out Dr. Attia’s “Outlive” on Amazon today!
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Goji Berries vs Blueberries – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing goji berries to blueberries, we picked the goji berries.
Why?
As you might have guessed, both are very good options:
- Both have plenty of vitamins and minerals, and/but goji berries have more. How much more? It varies, but for example about 5x more vitamin C, about 25x more iron, about 30x more calcium, about 50x more vitamin A.
- Blueberries beat goji berries with some vitamins (B, E, K), but only in quite small amounts.
- Both are great sources of antioxidants, and/but goji berries have 2–4 times the antioxidants that blueberries do.
- Goji berries do have more sugar, but since they have about 4x more sugar and 5x more fiber, we’re still calling this a win for goji berries on the glycemic index front (and indeed, the GI of goji berries is lower).
In short: blueberries are great, but goji berries beat them in most metrics.
Want to read more?
Check out our previous main features, detailing some of the science, and also where to get them:
Enjoy!
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Wasting Your Vitamins?
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Are you flushing away your vitamins?
Most likely…but you don’t have to.
We all know what a wasteful expense supplements can sometimes be, but you can optimise your intake to get more bang for your buck!
Top Tips for Getting Your Money’s Worth:
- Liquids are better than tablets—the body can’t absorb nutrients from tablets anywhere as easily as it can from liquids, with some saying as low as a 50% absorption rate for tablets, so if your supplement can come in drinkable form, take it that way!
- Capsules are better than tablets—capsules, depending on the kind, contain either a powder (true capsules) or a liquid (softgels). Once the capsule/softgel is broken down in the stomach, it releases its contents, which will now be absorbed as though you took it as a drink.
- Stay hydrated—on that note, your body can only make use of nutrients that it can easily transport, and if you’re dehydrated, the process is sluggish! Having a big glass of water with your supplements will go a long way to helping your body get them where they’re needed.
- Take with black pepper—studies disagree on exactly how much black pepper improves absorption of nutrients. Some say it improves it by 50%, others say as much as 7x better. The truth is probably that it varies from one nutrient to the next, but what is (almost) universally accepted is that black pepper helps you absorb many nutrients you take orally.
- Take with a meal—bonus if you seasoned it with black pepper! But also: many nutrients are best absorbed alongside food, and many are specifically fat-soluble (so you want to take a little fat around the same time for maximum absorption)
- Consider split doses—a lot of nutrients are best absorbed when spread out a bit. Why? Your body can often only absorb so much at once, and what it couldn’t absorb can, depending on the nutrient, pass right through you. So better to space out the doses—breakfast and dinner make for great times to take them.
- Consider cycling—no, not the two-wheeled kind, though feel free to do that too! What cycling means when it comes to supplements is to understand that your body can build a tolerance to some supplements, so you’ll get gradually less effect for the same dose. Combat this by scheduling a break—five days on, two days off is a common schedule—allowing your body to optimise itself in the process!
- Check Medications—and, as is always safe, make sure you check whether any medications you take can interrupt your supplement absorption!
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How To Avoid Slipping Into (Bad) Old Habits
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Treating Bad Habits Like Addictions
How often have you started a healthy new habit (including if it’s a “quit this previous thing” new habit), only to find that you slip back into your old ways?
We’ve written plenty on habit-forming before, so here’s a quick recap before we continue:
How To Really Pick Up (And Keep!) Those Habits
…and even how to give them a boost:
How To Keep On Keeping On… Long Term!
But how to avoid the relapses that are most likely to snowball?
Borrowing from the psychology of addiction recovery
It’s well known that someone recovering from substance addiction should not have even a small amount of the thing they were addicted to. Not one sip of champagne at a wedding, not one drag of a cigarette, and so forth.
This can go for other bad habits too; make one exception, and suddenly you have a whole string of “exceptions”, and before you know it, it’s not the exception anymore; it’s the new rule—again.
Three things that can help guard against this are:
- Absolutely refuse to romanticize the bad habit. Do not fall for its marketing! And yes, everything has marketing even if not advertising; for example, consider the Platonic ideal of a junk-food-eating couch-potato who is humble, unassuming, agreeable, the almost-holy idea of homely comfort, and why shouldn’t we be comfortable after all, haven’t we earned our chosen hedonism, and so on. It’s seductive, and we need to make the choice to not be seduced by it. In this case for example, yes pleasure is great, but being sick tired and destroying our bodies is not, in fact, pleasurable in the long run. Which brings us to…
- Absolutely refuse to forget why you dropped that behavior in the first place. Remember what it did to you, remember you at your worst. Remember what you feared might become of you if you continued like that. This is something where journaling helps, by the way; remembering our low points helps us to avoid finding ourselves in the same situation again.
- Absolutely refuse to let your guard down due to an overabundance of self-confidence in your future self. We all can easily feel that tomorrow is a mystical land in which all productivity is stored, and also where we are strong, energized, iron-willed, and totally able to avoid making the very mistakes that we are right now in the process of making. Instead, be that strong person now, for the benefit of tomorrow’s you. Because after all, if it’s going to be easy tomorrow, it’s easy now, right?
The above is a very simple, hopefully practical, set of rules to follow. If you like hard science more though, Yale’s Dr. Steven Melemis offers five rules (aimed more directly at addiction recovery, so this may be a big “heavy guns” for some milder habits):
- change your life
- be completely honest
- ask for help
- practice self-care
- don’t bend the rules
You can read his full paper and the studies it’s based on, here:
Relapse Prevention and the Five Rules of Recovery
“What if I already screwed up?”
Draw a line under it, now, and move forwards in the direction you actually want to go.
Here’s a good article, that saves us taking up more space here; it’s very well-written so we do recommend it:
The Abstinence Violation Effect and Overcoming It
this article gives specific, practical advices, including CBT tools to use
Take care!
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Keeping Your Kidneys Healthy (Especially After 60)
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Keeping your kidneys happy: it’s more than just hydration!
Your kidneys are very busy organs. They filter waste products, balance hydration, pH, salt, and potassium. They also make some of our hormones, and are responsible for regulating red blood cell production too. They also handle vitamin D in a way our bodies would not work without, making them essential for calcium absorption and the health of our bones, and even muscular function.
So, how to keep them in good working order?
Yes, hydrate
This is obvious and may go without saying, but we try to not leave important things without saying. So yes, get plenty of water, spread out over the day (you can only usefully absorb so much at once!). If you feel thirsty, you’re probably already dehydrated, so have a little (hydrating!) drink.
Don’t smoke
It’s bad for everything, including your kidneys.
Look after your blood
Not just “try to keep it inside your body”, but also:
- Keep your blood sugar levels healthy (hyperglycemia can cause kidney damage)
- Keep your blood pressure healthy (hypertension can cause kidney damage)
Basically, your kidneys’ primary job of filtering blood will go much more smoothly if that blood is less problematic on the way in.
Watch your over-the-counter pill intake
A lot of PRN OTC NSAIDs (PRN = pro re nata, i.e. you take them as and when symptoms arise) (NSAIDs = Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs, such as ibuprofen for example) can cause kidney damage if taken regularly.
Many people take ibuprofen (for example) constantly for chronic pain, especially the kind cause by chronic inflammation, including many autoimmune diseases.
It is recommended to not take them for more than 10 days, nor more than 8 per day. Taking more than that, or taking them for longer, could damage your kidneys temporarily or permanently.
Read more: National Kidney Foundation: Advice About Pain Medicines
See also: Which Drugs Are Harmful To Your Kidneys?
Get a regular kidney function checkup if you’re in a high risk group
Who’s in a high risk group?
- If you’re over 60
- If you have diabetes
- If you have cardiovascular disease
- If you have high blood pressure
- If you believe, or know, you have existing kidney damage
The tests are very noninvasive, and will be a urine and/or blood test.
For more information, see:
Kidney Testing: Everything You Need to Know
Take care!
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Peas vs Green Beans – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing peas to green beans, we picked the peas.
Why?
Looking at macros first, peas have nearly 6x the protein, nearly 2x the fiber, and nearly 2x the carbs, making them the “more food per food” choice.
In terms of vitamins, peas have more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, C, and choline, while green beans have more of vitamins E and K. An easy win for peas.
In the category of minerals, peas have more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while green beans have more calcium. Another overwhelming win for peas.
In short, enjoy both (diversity is good), but there’s a clear winner here and it’s peas.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Peas vs Broad Beans – Which is Healthier?
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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