Flexible Dieting – by Alan Aragon
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
This is the book from which we were working, for the most part, in our recent Expert Insights feature with Alan Aragon. We’ll re-iterate here: despite not being a Dr. Aragon, he’s a well-published research scientist with decades in the field of nutritional science, as well as being a personal trainer and fitness educator.
As you may gather from our other article, there’s a lot more to this book than “eat what you like”. Specifically, as the title suggests, there’s a lot of science—decades of it, and while we had room to cite a few studies in our article, he cites many many more; several citations per page of a 288-page book.
So, that sets the book apart from a lot of its genre; instead of just “here’s what some gym-bro thinks”, it’s “here’s what decades of data says”.
Another strength of this book is how clearly he explains such a lot of science—he explains terms as they come up, as well as having a generous glossary. He also explains things clearly and simply without undue dumbing down—just clarity of communication.
The style is to-the-point and instructional; it’s neither full of fitness-enthusiast hype nor dry academia, and keeps a light and friendly conversational tone throughout.
Bottom line: if you’d like to get your diet in order and you want to do it right while also knowing which things still need attention (and why) and which you can relax about (and why), then this book will get you there.
Click here to check out Flexible Dieting, and take an easy, relaxed control of yours!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Recommended
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Seasonal Affective Disorder (Beyond Sunlight!)
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the time of increasing darkness is upon us again. Depending on our latitude, the sun barely rises before it skitters off again. And depending on other factors of our geography, we might not get much sun during that time (writer’s example: the ancient bog from which I write has been surrounded by fog for two weeks now).
So, what to do about it?
Firstly, we can make the most of whatever sun we do get (especially in the morning, if possible), and we can of course make some use of artificial sunlight. To save doubling up, we’ll link to what we previously wrote about optimizing both of those things:
‘Tis To Season To Be SAD-Savvy
More ways to get serotonin
Sunlight, of course, triggers our bodies to make serotonin, and hence we often make less of it during winter. But, there are other ways to get serotonin too, and one of the best ways is spending time in nature. Yes, even if the weather is gloomy, provided there are still visible green things and you are seeing them, it will promote serotonin production.
Of course, it may not be the season for picnics, but a morning walk through a local park or other green space is ideal.
On which note, gardening remains a good activity. Not a lot of people do so much gardening after a certain point in the year, but in one way, it’s more important than ever to get some soil under your fingernails:
There are bacteria in soil (specifically: Mycobacterium vaccae) that work similarly to antidepressants.
When something is described as having an effect similar to antidepressants, it’s usually hyperbole. In this case, it’s medicine, and literally works directly on the serotonergic system (as do many, but not all, antidepressants).
See also: Antidepressants: Personalization Is Key!
While many antidepressants are selective serotonin uptake inhibitors (i.e., they slow the rate at which your brain loses serotonin), Mycobacterium vaccae increases the rate at which you produce serotonin. So, you feel happier, more relaxed, while also feeling more energized.
^this one’s a mouse study, but we’re including it because it covers exactly how it works in the brain, which is something that the ethics board wouldn’t let them do on humans, due to the need for slicing the brains up for examination.
As to how to benefit: touching soil will get you “infected” by the bacteria, yes, even if you wash your hands later. Growing food in the soil and eating the good (including if you wash and cook it) is even better.
Boost the other “happiness chemicals”
Serotonin is just one “happiness hormone”, other feel-good neurotransmitters that are just as important include dopamine and oxytocin.
Dopamine is most associated with being the “reward chemical”, so it pays to do things that you find rewarding. If you’re stuck for ideas, engaging in small acts of kindness is a sure-fire way to get dopamine flowing and lift your own mood as well as theirs.
See also: 10 Ways To Naturally Boost Dopamine
Oxytocin, meanwhile is the “cuddle chemical”, and can be triggered even if you have nobody to cuddle*. If you do, by the way, make it at least 20–30 seconds, as that’s generally how long it takes to get oxytocin flowing.
*Vividly imagining it has much the same effect, since the brain can’t tell the difference. Alternatively, looking at pictures/videos (your choice) of small cute animals tends to work for most people also.
For more on these things, check out: Neurotransmitter Cheatsheet
Take care!
Share This Post
-
Brain Wash – by Dr. David Perlmutter, Dr. Austin Perlmutter, and Kristen Loberg
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
You may be familiar with the lead author of this book, Dr. David Perlmutter, as a big name in the world of preventative healthcare. A lot of his work has focused specifically on carbohydrate metabolism, and he is as associated with grains and he is with brains. This book focuses on the latter.
Dr. Perlmutter et al. take a methodical look at all that is ailing our brains in this modern world, and systematically lay out a plan for improving each aspect.
The advice is far from just dietary, though the chapter on diet takes a clear stance:
❝The food you eat and the beverages you drink change your emotions, your thoughts, and the way you perceive the world❞
The style is explanatory, and the book can be read comfortably as a “sit down and read it cover to cover” book; it’s an enjoyable, informative, and useful read.
Bottom line: if you’d like to give your brain a gentle overhaul, this is the one-stop-shop book to give you the tools to do just that.
Share This Post
-
Finding Peace at the End of Life – by Henry Fersko-Weiss
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
This is not the most cheery book we’ve reviewed, but it is an important one. From its first chapter, with “a tale of two deaths”, one that went as well as can be reasonably expected, and the other one not so much, it presents a lot of choices.
The book is not prescriptive in its advice regarding how to deal with these choices, but rather, investigative. It’s thought-provoking, and asks questions—tacitly and overtly.
While the subtitle says “for families and caregivers”, it’s as much worth when it comes to managing one’s own mortality, too, by the way.
As for the scope of the book, it covers everything from terminal diagnosis, through the last part of life, to the death itself, to all that goes on shortly afterwards.
Stylewise, it’s… We’d call it “easy-reading” for style, but obviously the content is very heavy, so you might want to read it a bit at a time anyway, depending on how sensitive to such topics you are.
Bottom line: this book is not exactly a fun read, but it’s a very worthwhile one, and a good way to avoid regrets later.
Share This Post
Related Posts
-
How To Improve Your Heart Rate Variability
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
How’s your heart rate variability?
The hallmarks of a good, strong cardiovascular system include a medium-to-low resting heart rate (for adults: under 60 beats per minute is good; under 50 is typical of athletes), and healthy blood pressure (for adults: under 120/80, while still above 90/60, is generally considered good).
Less talked-about is heart rate variability, but it’s important too…
What is heart rate variability?
Heart rate variability is a measure of how quickly and easily your heart responds to changes in demands placed upon it. For example:
- If you’re at rest and then start running your fastest (be it for leisure or survival or anything in between), your heart rate should be able to jump from its resting rate to about 180% of that as quickly as possible
- When you stop, your heart rate should be able to shift gears back to your resting rate as quickly as possible
The same goes, to a commensurately lesser extent, to changes in activity between low and moderate, or between moderate and high.
- When your heart can change gears quickly, that’s called a high heart rate variability
- When your heart is sluggish to get going and then takes a while to return to normal after exertion, that’s called a low heart rate variability.
The rate of change (i.e., the variability) is measured in microseconds per beat, and the actual numbers will vary depending on a lot of factors, but for everyone, higher is better than lower.
Aside from quick response to crises, why does it matter?
If heart rate variability is low, it means the sympathetic nervous system is dominating the parasympathetic nervous system, which means, in lay terms, your fight-or-flight response is overriding your ability to relax.
See for example: Stress and Heart Rate Variability: A Meta-Analysis and Review of the Literature
This has a lot of knock-on effects for both physical and mental health! Your heart and brain will take the worst of this damage, so it’s good to improve things for them impossible.
This Saturday’s Life Hacks: how to improve your HRV!
Firstly, the Usual Five Things™:
- A good diet (that avoids processed foods)
- Good exercise (that includes daily physical activity—more often is more important than more intense!)
- Good sleep (7–9 hours of good quality sleep per night)
- Reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption (this is dose-dependent; any reduction is an improvement)
- Don’t smoke (just don’t)
Additional regular habits that help a lot:
- Breathing exercises, mindfulness, meditation
- Therapy, especially CBT and DBT
- Stress-avoidance strategies, for example:
- Get (and maintain) your finances in good order
- Get (and maintain) your relationship(s) in good order
- Get (and maintain) your working* life in good order
*Whatever this means to you. If you’re perhaps retired, or otherwise a home-maker, or even a student, the things you “need to do” on a daily basis are your working life, for these purposes.
In terms of simple, quick-fix, physical tweaks to focus on if you’re already broadly leading a good life, two great ones are:
- Exercise: get moving! Walk to the store even if you buy nothing but a snack or drink to enjoy while walking back. If you drove, make more trips with the shopping bags rather than fewer. If you like to watch TV, consider an exercise bike or treadmill to use while watching. If you have a partner, double-up and make it a thing you do together! Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Take the scenic route when walking someplace. Go to the bathroom that’s further away. Every little helps!
- Breathe: even just a couple of times a day, practice mindful breathing. Start with even just a minute a day, to get the habit going. What breathing exercise you do isn’t so important as that you do it. Notice your breathing; count how long each breath takes. Don’t worry about “doing it right”—you’re doing great, just observe, just notice, just slowly count. We promise that regular practice of this will have you feeling amazing
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
12 Foods That Fight Depression & Anxiety
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Food impacts mental health, and while it won’t magically cure mental illness, dietary changes can do a lot to improve mood. Here’s how:
Nutraceuticals
We’ll not keep the 12 nutraceutical foods a mystery; here’s what they are and a few words on how they work (in many cases, we could write whole articles about them; in some cases, we already have! You can find many of them by using the search function in the top-right of each page).
- Walnuts are rich in omega-3s for brain health; arguably the best nut for depression relief.
- Fermented foods because probiotics in foods like yogurt and sauerkraut support the gut-brain connection as well as serotonin production there, enhancing mood.
- Cherry tomatoes are rich in lycopene, which helps combat both depression and mood swings.
- Leafy greens reduce brain inflammation linked to depression.
- Apples and other fruit are high in fiber and antioxidants that stabilize blood sugar and mood, reducing brain inflammation.
- Beans are high in B vitamins, crucial for neurotransmitter production and mood regulation (without also being high in brain-harmful things, as red meat is).
- Berries are super-high antioxidants and cortisol-lowering anthocyanidins, promoting calmness and reducing stress.
- Oats contain the healthiest kind of fiber, β-glucan, and additionally help stabilize blood sugar and mood; they’re also rich in selenium, which boosts mood.
- Mushrooms help regulate blood sugar and act as prebiotics, supporting serotonin production in the gut.
- Avocados are famously rich in healthy fats, including omega-3s and oleic acid, which support brain health and combat depression.
- Dark chocolate contains antioxidants, magnesium, and gut-healthy prebiotics that indirectly reduce mental stress and improve brain function. Also a famous comfort food for many, of course, and that factor’s not to be overlooked either.
- Pumpkin seeds are rich in tryptophan, which boosts serotonin production. As a bonus, they also help some kinds of antidepressant to work better—check with your doctor or pharmacist to be sure in your case, though.
For more on all of these, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
The 6 Pillars Of Nutritional Psychiatry
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Matcha is having a moment. What are the health benefits of this green tea drink?
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Matcha has experienced a surge in popularity in recent months, leading to reports of global shortages and price increases.
If you haven’t been caught up in the craze, matcha is a powdered version of green tea. On a cafe menu you might see a hot or iced matcha latte, or even a matcha-flavoured cake or pastry. A quick google brings up countless recipes incorporating matcha, both sweet and savoury.
Retailers and cafe owners have suggested the main reasons for matcha’s popularity include its “instagrammable” looks and its purported health benefits.
But what are the health benefits of matcha? Here’s what the evidence says.
Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock First, what is matcha?
Matcha is a finely ground powder of green tea leaves, which come from the plant Camellia sinensis. This is the same plant used to make green and black tea. However, the production process differentiates matcha from green and black tea.
For matcha, the tea plant is grown in shade. Once the leaves are harvested, they’re steamed and dried and the stems are removed. Then the leaves are carefully ground at controlled temperatures to form the powder.
The production process for green tea is simpler. The leaves are picked from the unshaded plants, heated and then dried. We then steep the dried leaves in hot water to get tea (whereas with matcha the whole leaf is consumed).
With black tea, after the leaves are picked they’re exposed to air, which leads to oxidation. This makes the leaves black and gives the tea a different flavour.
In countries such as Japan, matcha is traditionally whisked with water and served in a stone bowl. Charlotte May/Pexels A source of phytonutrients
Phytonutrients are chemical compounds found in plants which have a range of benefits for human health. Matcha contains several.
Chlorophyll gives plants such as Camellia sinensis their green colour. There’s some evidence chlorophyll may have health benefits – including anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and anti-obesity effects – due to its antioxidant properties. Antioxidants neutralise free radicals, which are unstable molecules that harm our cells.
Theanine has been shown to improve sleep and reduce stress and anxiety. The only other known dietary source of theanine is mushrooms.
Caffeine is a phytonutrient we know well. Aside from increasing alertness, caffeine has also demonstrated antioxidant effects and some protection against a range of chronic and neurodegenerative diseases. However, too much caffeine can have negative side effects.
Interestingly, shading the plants while growing appears to change the nutritional composition of the leaf and may lead to higher levels of these phytonutrients in matcha compared to green tea.
Another compound worth mentioning is called catechins, of which there are several different types. Matcha powder similarly has more catechins than green tea. They are strong antioxidants, which have been shown to have protective effects against bacteria, viruses, allergies, inflammation and cancer. Catechins are also found in apples, blueberries and strawberries.
What are the actual health benefits?
So we know matcha contains a variety of phytonutrients, but does this translate to noticeable health benefits?
A review published in 2023 identified only five experimental studies that have given matcha to people. These studies gave participants about 2–4g of matcha per day (equivalent to 1–2 teaspoons of matcha powder), compared to a placebo, as either a capsule, in tea or in foods. Matcha decreased stress and anxiety, and improved memory and cognitive function. There was no effect on mood.
A more recent study showed 2g of matcha in older people aged 60 to 85 improved sleep quality. However, in younger people aged 27 to 64 in another study, matcha had little effect on sleep.
A study in people with obesity found no difference in the weight loss observed between the matcha group and the control group. This study did not randomise participants, and people knew which group they had been placed in.
It could be hypothesised that given you consume all of the leaf, and given levels of some phytonutrients may be higher due to the growing conditions, matcha may have more nutritional benefits than green tea. But to my knowledge there has been no direct comparison of health outcomes from green tea compared to matcha.
Matcha has grown in popularity – but evidence for its health benefits is still limited. Usanee/Shutterstock There’s lots of evidence for green tea
While to date a limited number of studies have looked at matcha, and none compared matcha and green tea, there’s quite a bit of research on the health benefits of drinking green tea.
A systematic review of 21 studies on green tea has shown similar benefits to matcha for improvements in memory, plus evidence for mood improvement.
There’s also evidence green tea provides other health benefits. Systematic reviews have shown green tea leads to weight loss in people with obesity, lower levels of certain types of cholesterol, and reduced blood pressure. Green tea may also lower the risk of certain types of cancer.
So, if you can’t get your hands on matcha at the moment, drinking green tea may be a good way to get your caffeine hit.
Although the evidence on green tea provides us with some hints about the health benefits of matcha, we can’t be certain they would be the same. Nonetheless, if your local coffee shop has a good supply of matcha, there’s nothing to suggest you shouldn’t keep enjoying matcha drinks.
However, it may be best to leave the matcha croissant or cronut for special occasions. When matcha is added to foods with high levels of added sugar, salt and saturated fat, any health benefits that could be attributed to the matcha may be negated.
Evangeline Mantzioris, Program Director of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Accredited Practising Dietitian, University of South Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
