Menopause: 50 Things You Need to Know – by Dr. Felice Gersh
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Can you list 50 important facts about the menopause? If not, you’ll surely find things to learn in here.
The book is divided into three main sections:
- What to expect in perimenopause
- What to expect in early menopause
- What to expect in late menopause
Each section comes with an alarming array of symptoms, ranging from perimenopause fatigue and acne to late menopause tooth loss and vaginal prolapse. This is not to say that everyone will experience everything (fortunately), but rather, that these are the things that can happen and should not arrive unexpected.
Helpfully, of course, Dr. Gersh also gives advice on how to improve your energy and skin health, as well as keep your teeth and vagina in place. And similar professional insights for the rest of the “50 things you need to know”.
The style is like one big (182 pages) patient information leaflet—thus, very clear, explaining everything, and offering reassurance where possible and also what things are reasonable cause for seeking personalized medical attention.
Bottom line: if menopause is in your future, present, or very near past, this is an excellent book for you.
Click here to check out Menopause: 50 Things You Need To Know, and know them!
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How To Engage Your Whole Brain
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The Stroke Of Insight That Nobody Wants
This is Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. She’s a neuroanatomist, who, at the age of 37 (when she was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School), had what she refers to as her “stroke of insight”.
That is to say, she had a massive stroke, and after a major brain surgery to remove a clot the size of a golf ball, she spent the next 8 years re-learning to do everything.
Whereas previously she’d been busy mapping the brain to determine how cells communicate with each other, now she was busy mapping whether socks or shoes should go on first. Needless to say, she got an insight into neuroplasticity that few people would hope for.
What does she want us to know?
Dr. Taylor (now once again a successful scientist, lecturer, and author) advocates for “whole brain living”, which involves not taking parts of our brain for granted.
About those parts…
Dr. Taylor wants us to pay attention to all the parts regardless of size, ranging from the two hemispheres, all the way down to the billions of brain cells, and yet even further, to the “trillions of molecular geniuses”—because each brain cell is itself reliant on countless molecules of the many neurochemicals that make up our brain.
For a quick refresher on some of the key players in that latter category, see our Neurotransmitter Cheatsheet 😎
When it comes to the hemispheres, there has historically been a popular belief that these re divided into:
- The right brain: emotional, imaginative, creative, fluid feeling
- The left brain: intellectual, analytical, calculating, crystal thinking
…which is not true, anatomically speaking, because there are cells on both sides doing their part of both of these broad categories of brain processes.
However, Dr. Taylor found, while one hemisphere of her brain was much more damaged than the other, that nevertheless she could recover some functions more quickly than others, which, once she was able to resume her career, inspired her model of four distinct ways of cogitating that can be switched-between and played with or against each other:
Meet The Four Characters Inside Your Brain
Why this matters
As she was re-learning everything, the way forward was not quick or easy, and she also didn’t know where she was going, because for obvious reasons, she couldn’t remember, much less plan.
Looking backwards after her eventual full recovery, she noted a lot of things that she needed during that recovery, some of which she got and some of which she didn’t.
Most notably for her, she needed the right kind of support that would allow all four of the above “characters” as she puts it, to thrive and grow. And, when we say “grow” here we mean that literally, because of growing new brain cells to replace the lost ones (as well as the simple ongoing process of slowly replacing brain cells).
For more on growing new brain cells, by the way, see:
How To Grow New Brain Cells (At Any Age)
In order to achieve this in all of the required brain areas (i.e., and all of the required brain functions), she also wants us to know… drumroll please…
When to STFU
Specifically, the ability to silence parts of our brain that while useful in general, aren’t necessarily being useful right now. Since it’s very difficult to actively achieve a negative when it comes to brain-stuff (don’t think of an elephant), this means scheduling time for other parts of our brain to be louder. And that includes:
- scheduling time to feel (emotionally)
- scheduling time to feel (gut feelings)
- scheduling time to feel (kinesthetically)
…amongst others.
Note: those three are presented in that order, from least basic to most basic. And why? Because, clever beings that we are, we typically start from a position that’s not remotely basic, such as “overthinking”, for example. So, there’s a wind-down through thinking just the right amount, thinking through simpler concepts, feeling, noticing one’s feelings, noticing noticing one’s feelings, all the way down to what, kinesthetically, are we actually physically feeling.
❝It is interesting to note that although our limbic system fucntions throughout our lifetime, it does not mature. As a result, when our emotional “buttons” are pushed, we retain the ability to react to incoming stimulation as though we were a two-year-old, even when we are adults.❞
~ Dr. Jill Taylor
Of course, sometimes the above is not useful, which is why the ability to switch between brain modes is a very important and useful skill to develop.
And how do we do that? By practising. Which is something that it’s necessary to take up consciously, and pursue consistently. When children are at school, there are (hopefully, ideally) curricula set out to ensure they engage and train all parts of their brain. As adults, this does not tend to get the same amount of focus.
“Children’s brains are still developing”—indeed, and so are adult brains:
The Brain As A Work-In-Progress
Dr. Taylor had the uncommon experience of having to, in many ways, neurologically speaking, redo childhood. And having had a second run at it, she developed an appreciation of the process that most of us didn’t necessarily get when doing childhood just the once.
In other words: take the time to feel stuff; take the time to quiet down your chatty mind, take the time engage your senses, and take it seriously! Really notice, as though for the first time, what the texture of your carpet is like. Really notice, as though for the first time, what it feels like to swallow some water. Really notice, as though for the first time, what it feels like to experience joy—or sadness, or comfort, or anger, or peace. Exercise your imagination. Make some art (it doesn’t have to win awards; it just has to light up your brain!). Make music (again, it’s about wiring your brain in your body, not about outdoing Mozart in composition and/or performance). Make changes! Make your brain work in the ways it’s not in the habit of doing.
If you need a little help switching off parts of your brain that are being too active, so that you can better exercise other parts of your brain that might otherwise have been neglected, you might want to try:
Enjoy!
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Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook – by Sarah Raven
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Note: the US Amazon site currently (incorrectly) lists the author as “Jonathan Buckley”. The Canadian, British, and Australian sites all list the author correctly as Sarah Raven, and some (correctly) credit Jonathan Buckley as the photographer she used.
First, what it’s not: a gardening book. Beyond a few helpful tips, pointers, and “plant here, harvest here” instructions, this book assumes you are already capable of growing your own vegetables.
She does assume you are in a temperate climate, so if you are not, this might not be the book for you. Although! The recipes are still great; it’s just you’d have to shop for the ingredients and they probably won’t be fresh local produce for the exact same reason that you didn’t grow them.
If you are in a temperate climate though, this will take you through the year of seasonal produce (if you’re in a temperate climate but it’s in for example Australia, you’ll need to make a six-month adjustment for being in the S. Hemisphere), with many recipes to use not just one ingredient from your garden at a time, but a whole assortment, consistent with the season.
About the recipes: they (which are 450 in number) are (as you might imagine) very plant-forward, but they’re generally not vegan and often not vegetarian. So, don’t expect that you’ll produce everything yourself—just most of the ingredients!
Bottom line: if you like cooking, and are excited by the idea of growing your own food but are unsure how regularly you can integrate that, this book will keep you happily busy for a very long time.
Click here to check out Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook, and level-up your home cooking!
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Can You Gain Muscle & Lose Fat At The Same Time?
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small 😎
❝Is it possible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time, or do we need to focus on one and then the other, and if so, which order is best?❞
Contrary to popular belief, you can do both simultaneously! However, it’s not as easy as doing just one or the other, which is why most bodybuilders, for example, have a “building phase” and a “cutting phase”.
The reason it’s difficult is because of the diet. Growing muscle doesn’t just take protein and micronutrients; it takes energy as well, which must come from carbohydrates and/or fats. Therefore, it is tricky to eat enough to build muscle and to fuel the workouts that are required to build the muscle (you can’t hit the gym in a state of rabbit starvation* and expect to perform well at your workout), while at the same time not eating enough carbs/fats to have any excess to store as fat.
*So-called because rabbit-meat is very lean, such that when during times of famine, European peasants tried to subsist off mostly rabbits, their health quickly plummeted for lack of energy. It’s also been called “salmon starvation”, apparently, for the same reason:
In French it’s called “Mal de caribou” (caribou sickness), by the way. But you get the idea: eat too much lean protein without enough carbs/fats, and woe shall befall.
So, if you want to do both at once, you need to be incredibly on top of your macros, and the bad news is, only you (or a coach working directly with you) can work out what precise macros requirements your body has, because it depends on your body and your activities.
The easier “half-way house”
We will get to the “building phase” and “cutting phase” of bodybuilders, but first, here’s an option that’s very worthy of consideration, and it is: forget about your weight and just focus on health while incidentally doing regular resistance exercises and HIIT.
What will happen if you do this (assuming a healthy balanced diet, nothing special and without counting anything, but we’re talking at least mostly whole-foods, and at least mostly plants; the Mediterranean diet is great for this, as it is for most things) is:
- The dietary approach described will gradually improve your metabolic health if it wasn’t already good. If it was already good, it’ll likely just maintain it, rather than improve it.
- The resistance exercises will, if engaged with seriously (it has to be difficult to do, or your muscles won’t have any reason to grow), gradually build muscle. This will be very gradual, because you’re not eating for bodybuilding, nor optimizing your general lifestyle for same. Historically many women have feared lifting weights because they don’t want to “look like a weightlifter”, but the kinds of bodies that word brings to mind are not the kind that happen by accident (especially for women, with our different hormones guiding our bodies to a different composition); it takes a lot of single-minded dedication to specifically optimize size gains, for a long time.
- The high-intensity interval training (HIIT) will more rapidly improve your metabolic health, and unlike most forms of exercise, it will actually result in a gradual reduction of fat, if you have superfluous fat to lose. This is because whereas most forms of cardio exercise increase the heartrate for a while but then have a corresponding metabolic slump afterwards to make up for it, HIIT confuses the heart (in a good way) which results in it having to grow stronger, and not doing any compensatory metabolic slump:
How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body) ← as well as the “how to”, this also gives some of the science behind it, too
This will, thus, result in gradual gain of muscle and loss of fat—or if you take it easier with the exercise, then you can easily settle into just maintaining your body composition as it is, but that wasn’t the question today.
So, there you have it, that’s how to do both at once! Now, if you want more dramatic results, then more dramatic methods are called for:
What bodybuilders (mostly) do
Matters of genetic predisposition and commonplace use of steroids aside, here’s how bodybuilders get that “lots of muscle, no fat” figure:
- First, get into “moderate” shape if not already there.
- Bulk up: eat amounts of food that will seem unreasonable to a non-bodybuilder; eating 2x or even 3x the “recommended” daily calorie amount is common; focus is typically on getting adequate (for bodybuilding purposes) protein while also carb-loading for workouts and getting at least enough fats for fat-soluble vitamins to work. In the gym, focus on doing sets of very few reps with the heaviest weights one can safely lift, while doing minimal cardio, and also sleeping a lot (9–12hrs per day), which is essential because this is putting a huge strain on the body and it needs a chance to recover and rebuild.
- Cut down: maintain protein intake (to at least mostly maintain muscles) while keeping carbs and fats low, doing cardio work (HIIT is still ideal) and running a calorie deficit for a short while (there is no use in trying to maintain a long-term calorie deficit; your body will try to save you from starvation by storing any fat it can and slowing your metabolism).
Phases 2 and 3 are then cycled, alternating every month, or every 6 weeks, or every 2 months or so, depending on personal preferences and scheduling considerations (bodybuilders will often have competitions they are working towards, so they need to time things to be at the end of a cutting phase to look their “best” by bodybuilder standards).
Disclaimer: bodybuilding is complex, and can be ruinous to the health if practised inexpertly, because of its extreme nature. We don’t recommend serious bodybuilding per se in general, but if you are going to do it, please consult with a professional bodybuilding coach, and do not rely on a few paragraphs from us that are intended only to give the most basic overview of how bodybuilders can approach the “gain muscle, lose fat” problem.
Want to know more?
We’ve written on some related topics previously; here’s a three-part series:
- How To Lose Weight (Healthily!)
- How To Build Muscle (Healthily!)
- How To Gain Weight (Healthily!) ← this one’s specifically about gaining healthy levels of fat, for any who want/need that
And also:
Can We Do Fat Redistribution? ← yes we can, but there are caveats
Take care!
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Strawberries vs Blackberries – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing strawberries to blackberries, we picked the blackberries.
Why?
Shocking nobody, both are very healthy options. However, blackberries do come out on top:
In terms of macros, the main thing that sets them apart is that blackberries have more than 2x the fiber. Other differences in macros are also in blackberries’ favor, but only very marginally, so we’ll not distract with those here. The fiber difference is distinctly significant, though.
In the category of vitamins, blackberries lead with more of vitamins A, B2, B3, B5, B9, E, and K, as well as more choline. Meanwhile, strawberries boast more of vitamins B1, B6, and C. So, a 8:2 advantage for blackberries (and some of the margins are very large, such as 9x more choline, 4x more vitamin E, and nearly 18x more vitamin A).
When it comes to minerals, things are not less clear: blackberries have considerably more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, and zinc. The two fruits are equal in other minerals that they both contain, and strawberries don’t contain any mineral in greater amounts than blackberries do.
A discussion of these berries’ health benefits would be incomplete without at least mentioning polyphenols, but both of them are equally good sources of such, so there’s no distinction to set one above the other in this category.
As ever, enjoy both, though! Diversity is good.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Strawberries vs Cherries – Which is Healthier?
- Blackberries vs Blueberries – Which is Healthier?
- Strawberries vs Raspberries – Which is Healthier?
Take care!
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21 Most Beneficial Polyphenols & What Foods Have Them
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We often write about polyphenols here at 10almonds; sometimes mentioning that a certain food is good because it has them, or else occasionally an entire article about a particular polyphenol. But what about a birds-eye view of polyphenols as a whole?
Well, there are many, but we’ve picked 21 particularly beneficial for human health, and what foods contain them.
We’ll be working from this fantastic database, by the way:
❝Phenol-Explorer is the first comprehensive database on polyphenol content in foods. The database contains more than 35,000 content values for 500 different polyphenols in over 400 foods. These data are derived from the systematic collection of more than 60,000 original content values found in more than 1,300 scientific publications. Each of these publications has been critically evaluated before inclusion in the database. The whole data on the polyphenol composition of foods is available for download.❞
Source: Phenol-Explorer.EU | Database on polyphenol content in foods
We use this database at least several times per week while writing 10almonds; it’s a truly invaluable resource!
However, 500 is a lot, so here’s a rundown of 21 especially impactful ones; we’ve sorted them per the categories used in the explorer, and in some cases we’ve aggregated several very similar polyphenols typically found together in the same foods, into one item (so for example we just list “quercetin” instead of quercetin 3-O-rutinoside + quercetin 4′-O-glucoside + quercetin 3,4′-O-diglucoside, etc etc). We’ve also broadly grouped some particularly populous ones such as “anthocyanins”, “catechins”, and so forth.
Without further ado, here’s what you ideally want to be getting plenty of in your diet:
Flavonoids
- Quercetin
- Foods: onions, apples, berries, kale, broccoli, capers.
- Benefits: anti-inflammatory, reduces allergy symptoms, supports heart and brain health, and may lower blood pressure.
- See also: Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin
- Kaempferol
- Foods: spinach, kale, tea (green and black), capers, brussels sprouts.
- Benefits: antioxidant, may reduce the risk of cancer, supports cardiovascular health, and has anti-inflammatory properties.
- Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG)
- Foods: green tea, matcha.
- Benefits: potent antioxidant, promotes weight loss, supports brain health, and may reduce the risk of heart disease.
- Anthocyanins
- Foods: blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, red cabbage, cherries.
- Benefits: improve brain health, support eye health, and reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
- Apigenin
- Foods: parsley, celery, chamomile tea.
- Benefits: anti-inflammatory, reduces anxiety, and supports brain and immune system health.
- Luteolin
- Foods: peppers, thyme, celery, carrots.
- Benefits: anti-inflammatory, supports brain health, and may help reduce the growth of cancer cells.
- Catechins (aside from EGCG)
- Foods: green tea, dark chocolate, apples
- Benefits: boosts metabolism, supports cardiovascular health, and reduces oxidative stress.
- Hesperidin
- Foods: oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruits.
- Benefits: supports vascular health, reduces inflammation, and may help manage diabetes.
- Naringenin
- Foods: oranges, grapefruits, tomatoes.
- Benefits: antioxidant, supports liver health, and may improve cholesterol levels.
For more on epigallocatechin gallate and other catechins, see: Which Tea Is Best, By Science?
Phenolic Acids
- Chlorogenic acid
- Foods: coffee, artichokes, apples, pears.
- Benefits: supports weight management, improves blood sugar regulation, and reduces inflammation.
- See also: Green Coffee Bean Extract: Coffee Benefits Without The Coffee?
- Caffeic acid
- Foods: coffee, thyme, sage, basil.
- Benefits: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and supports skin health.
- See also: The Bitter Truth About Coffee (or is it?)
- Ferulic acid
- Foods: whole grains, rice bran, oats, flaxseeds, spinach.
- Benefits: protects skin from UV damage, reduces inflammation, and supports cardiovascular health.
- Gallic acid
- Foods: green tea, berries, walnuts.
- Benefits: antioxidant, may reduce the risk of cancer, and supports brain health.
Stilbenes
- Resveratrol
- Foods: red currants, blueberries, peanuts.
- Benefits: anti-aging properties, supports heart health, and reduces inflammation.
- See also: Resveratrol & Healthy Aging ← and no, you can’t usefully get it from red wine; here’s why!
Lignans
- Secoisolariciresinol
- Foods: flaxseeds, sesame seeds, whole grains.
- Benefits: supports hormone balance, reduces the risk of hormone-related cancers, and promotes gut health.
- Matairesinol
- Foods: rye, oats, barley, sesame seeds.
- Benefits: hormonal support, antioxidant, and may reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
See also: Sprout Your Seeds, Grains, Beans, Etc ← for maximum nutritional availability!
Tannins
- Ellagic acid
- Foods: pomegranates, raspberries, walnuts.
- Benefits: anti-cancer properties, supports skin health, and reduces inflammation.
- Proanthocyanidins
- Foods: cranberries, apples, grapes, dark chocolate.
- Benefits: supports urinary tract health, reduces inflammation, and improves blood vessel health.
See also: Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain
Curcuminoids
- Curcumin
- Foods: turmeric.
- Benefits: potent anti-inflammatory, supports joint health, and may reduce the risk of chronic diseases.
- See also: Why Curcumin (Turmeric) Is Worth Its Weight In Gold
Isoflavones
- Genistein
- Foods: soybeans, chickpeas.
- Benefits: supports bone health, reduces the risk of hormone-related cancers, and promotes heart health.
- Daidzein
- Foods: soybeans, legumes.
- Benefits: hormonal balance, supports bone health, and may help alleviate menopausal symptoms.
See also: What Does “Balance Your Hormones” Even Mean?
Well, that’s a lot of things to remember!
If you want to make it easier for yourself, you can simply make sure to get at least 30 different kinds of plant into your diet per week, and by doing so, statistically, you should cover most of these!
Read more: What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Alternatively, for a middle-ground approach of targetting 16 most polyphenol delivering foods, check out this super-dense arrangement:
Mediterranean Diet… In A Pill? ← it’s about plant extracts from 16 specific foods, and the polyphenols they deliver
Enjoy!
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The Pain-Free Mindset – by Dr. Deepak Ravindran
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First: please ignore the terrible title. This is not the medical equivalent of “think and grow rich”. A better title would have been something like “The Pain-Free Plan”.
Attentive subscribers may notice that this author was our featured expert yesterday, so you can learn about his “seven steps” described in our article there, without us repeating that in our review here.
This book’s greatest strength is also potentially its greatest weakness, depending on the reader: it contains a lot of detailed medical information.
This is good or bad depending on whether you like lots of detailed medical information. Dr. Ravindran doesn’t assume prior knowledge, so everything is explained as we go. However, this means that after his well-referenced clinical explanations, high quality medical diagrams, etc, you may come out of this book feeling like you’ve just done a semester at medical school.
Knowledge is power, though, so understanding the underlying processes of pain and pain management really does help the reader become a more informed expert on your own pain—and options for reducing that pain.
Bottom line: this, disguised by its cover as a “think healing thoughts” book, is actually a science-centric, information-dense, well-sourced, comprehensive guide to pain management from one of the leading lights in the field.
Click here to check out The Pain-Free Mindset, and manage yours more comfortably!
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