Metabolic Health Roadmap – by Brenda Wollenberg

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.

The term “roadmap” is often used in informative books, but in this case, Wollenberg (a nutritionist with decades of experience) really does deliver what can very reasonably be described as a roadmap:

She provides chapters in the form of legs of a journey [to better metabolic health], and those legs are broadly divided into an “information center” to deliver new information, a “rest stop” for reflection, “roadwork” to guide the reader through implementing the information we just learned, in a practical fashion, and finally “traveller assistance” to give additional support / resources, as well as any potential troubleshooting, etc.

The information and guidance within are all based on very good science; a lot is what you will have read already about blood sugar management (generally the lynchpin of metabolic health in general), but there’s also a lot about leveraging epigenetics for our benefit, rather than being sabotaged by such.

There’s a little guidance that falls outside of nutrition (sleep, exercise, etc), but for the most part, Wollenberg stays within her own field of expertise, nutrition.

The style is idiosyncratic; it’s very clear that her goal is providing the promised roadmap, and not living up to any editor’s wish or publisher’s hope of living up to industry standard norms of book formatting. However, this pays off, because her delivery is clear and helpful while remaining personable and yet still bringing just as much actual science, and this makes for a very pleasant and informative read.

Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your metabolic health, as well as get held-by-the-hand through your health-improvement journey by a charming guide, this is very much the book for you!

Click here to check out the Metabolic Health Roadmap, and start taking steps!

Don’t Forget…

Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

Recommended

  • Sensitive – by Jenn Granneman and Andre Sólo
  • The Vegan Instant Pot Cookbook – by Nisha Vora
    Brighten up your plates with Nisha Vora’s Instant Pot-authorized cookbook, featuring 90 easy and beautiful recipes from cuisines around the world.

Learn to Age Gracefully

Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • White Bread vs White Pasta – Which Is Healthier?

    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.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing a white bread to a white pasta, we picked the pasta.

    Why?

    Neither are great for the health! But like for like, the glycemic index of the bread is usually around 150% of the glycemic index for pasta.

    All that said, we heartily recommend going for wholegrain in either case!

    Bonus tip: cooking pasta “al dente”, so it is still at least a little firm to the bite, results in a lower GI compared to being boiled to death.

    Bonus bonus tip: letting pasta cool increases resistant starches. You can then reheat the pasta without losing this benefit.

    Please don’t put it in the microwave though; you will make an Italian cry. Instead, simply put it in a colander and pour boiling water over it, and then serve in your usual manner (a good approach if serving it separately is: put it in the serving bowl/dish/pan, drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil and a little cracked black pepper, stir to mix those in, and serve)

    Enjoy!

    Share This Post

  • Once-A-Week Strategy to Stop Procrastination – by Brad Meir

    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.

    Procrastination is perhaps the most frustrating bad habit to kick!

    We know we should do the things. We know why we should do the things. We want to do the things. We’re afraid of what will happen if we don’t do the things. And then we… don’t do the things? What is going on?!

    Brad Meir has answers, and—what a relief—solutions. But enough about him, because first he wants to focus a little on you:

    Why do you procrastinate? No, you’re probably not “just lazy”, and he’ll guide you through figuring out what it is that makes you procrastinate. There’s an exploration of various emotions here, as well as working out: what type of procrastinator are you?

    Then, per what you figured out with his guidance, exercises, and tests, it’s time for an action plan.

    But, importantly: one you can actually do, because it won’t fall foul of the problems you’ve been encountering so far. The exact mechanism you’ll use may vary a bit based on you, but some tools here are good for everyone—as well as an outline of the mistakes you could easily make, and how to avoid falling into those traps. And, last but very definitely not least, his “once a week plan”, per the title.

    All in all, a highly recommendable and potentially life-changing book.

    Grab Your Copy of “Once-A-Week Strategy to Stop Procrastination” NOW (don’t put it off!)

    Share This Post

  • What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat – by Aubrey Gordon

    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.

    There are books aplenty to encourage and help you to lose weight. This isn’t one of those.

    There are also books aplenty to encourage and help you to accept yourself and your body at the weight you are, and forge self-esteem. This isn’t one of those, either—in fact, it starts by assuming you already have that.

    There are fair arguments for body neutrality, and fat acceptance. Very worthy also is the constant fight for bodily sovereignty.

    These are worthy causes, but they’re for the most-part not what our author concerns herself with here. Instead, she cares for a different and very practical goal: fat justice.

    In a world where you may be turned away from medical treatment if you are over a certain size, told to lose half your bodyweight before you can have something you need, she demands better. The battle extends further than healthcare though, and indeed to all areas of life.

    Ultimately, she argues, any society that will disregard the needs of the few because they’re a marginal demographic, is a society that will absolutely fail you if you ever differ from the norm in some way.

    All in all, an important (and for many, perhaps eye-opening) book to read if you are fat, care about fat people, are a person of any size, or care about people in general.

    Pick Up Your Copy of “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat”, on Amazon Today!

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Sensitive – by Jenn Granneman and Andre Sólo
  • How (And Why) To Train Your Pre-Frontal Cortex

    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.

    Dr. Chapman’s Keys For Mental Focus

    This is Dr. Sandra Chapman; she’s a cognitive neuroscientist, on a mission to, in her words, further our understanding of:

    • what makes the brain stronger, faster and last longer
    • what enhances human cognitive capacity, and
    • what enhances the underlying brain systems across the lifespan.

    To this end, she’s also the founder and Chief Director of the Center For Brain Health, where she has worked on her mission for the past 25 years (clocking up hundreds of peer-reviewed publications to her name), as well as being a professor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at UT Dallas.

    What does she want us to know?

    Get your brain into gear

    When it comes to your brainpower, it is “use it or lose it”, but it is also perfectly possible to use it and lose it.

    Why?

    Very often, what we are using our brains for is high-strain, low-yield stuff, such as multitasking, overthinking, or overthinking while multitasking. And to make it worse, we often do it without sufficient rest.

    This is the equivalent of owning a Ferrari but trying to drive it in second and third gear at once by switching between the two as rapidly as possible. And doing that for 18 hours each day.

    Suffice it to say, you’ll be going nowhere quickly.

    An alternative “use” of brainpower is low-strain, low-yield stuff, such as having to pay close attention to a boring conversation. It’s enough to stop your mind from doing anything else, but not enough to actually stimulate you.

    This is the equivalent of owning a Ferrari but keeping it idling. The wear and tear is minimal this time, but you’re not actually going anywhere either.

    Better, of course, are the other two quadrants:

    • low-strain, high-yield: consistently using our brain in relatively non-taxing ways that encourage its development
    • high-strain, high-yield: here the Ferrari metaphor definitely fails, because unlike cars, our bodies (including our brains) are machines that benefit from judicious regular progressive overloading (but just by a bit, and with adequate recovery time between overloads).

    See also: 12 Weeks To Measurably Boost Your Brain

    How to do the “low-strain, low-yield” part

    When it comes to “what’s the most important part of the brain to help in the face of cognitive decline?” the usual answer is either to focus on memory (hippocampi) or language (various parts, but for example Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area), since people most fear losing memory, and language is very important both socially and practically.

    Those are indeed critical, and we at 10almonds stand by them, but Dr. Chapman (herself having originally trained as speech and language pathologist!) makes a strong case for adding a third brain part to the list.

    Specifically, she advocates for strengthening the pre-frontal cortex, which is responsible for inhibition, task-switching, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. If that seems like a lot, do remember it’s a whole cortex and not one of the assorted important-but-small brain bits we mentioned above.

    How? She has developed training programs for this, based on what she calls Strategic Memory Advanced Reasoning Tactics (SMART), to support support attention, planning, judgment and emotional management.

    You can read more about those programs here:

    Center For Brain Health | Our Programs

    Participation in those is mostly not free, however, if you join their…

    Center For Brain Health | BrainHealth Project

    …then they will periodically invite you to join pilot programs, research programs, and the like, which will either be free or they-pay-you affairs—because this is how science is done, and you can read about yourself (anonymized, of course) later in peer-reviewed papers of the kind we often cite here.

    If you’re not interested in any of that though, we will say that according to Dr. Chapman, the keys are:

    Inhibition: be conscious of this function of your brain, and develop it. This is the function of your brain that stops you from making mistakes—or put differently: stops you from saying/doing something stupid.

    Switching: do this consciously; per “I am now doing this task, now I am switching to this other task”, rather than doing the gear-grinding thing we discussed earlier

    Working memory: this is effectively your brain’s RAM. Unlike the RAM of a computer (can be enhanced by adding another chip or replacing with a bigger chip), our brain’s RAM can be increased by frequent use, and especially by judicious use of progressive overloading (with rests between!) which we’ll discuss in the high-strain, high-yield section.

    Flexibility: this is about creative problem-solving, openness to new ideas, and curiosity

    See also: Curiosity Kills The Neurodegeneration

    How to do the “high-strain, high-yield” part

    Delighting this chess-playing writer, Dr. Chapman recommends chess. Although, similar games such as go (a Chinese game that looks simpler than chess but actually requires more calculation) work equally well too.

    Why?

    Games like chess and go cause structural changes that are particularly helpful, in terms of engaging in such foundational tasks as learning, abstract reasoning, problem-solving and self-control:

    Chess Practice as a Protective Factor in Dementia

    Basically, it checks (so to speak) a lot of boxes, especially for the pre-frontal cortex. Some notes:

    • Focusing on the game is required for brain improvement; simply pushing wood casually will not do it. Ideally, calculating several moves ahead will allow for strong working memory use (because to calculate several moves ahead, one will have to hold increasingly many possible positions in the mind while doing so).
    • The speed of play must be sufficiently slow as to allow not only for thinking, but also for what in chess is called “blunder-checking”, in other words, having decided on one’s move, pausing to consider whether it is a mistake, and actively trying to find evidence that it is. This is the crucial “inhibition habit”, and when one does it reflexively, one will make fewer mistakes. Tying this to dementia, see for example how one of the common symptoms of dementia is falling for scams that one wouldn’t have previously. How did cognitive decline make someone naïve? It didn’t, per se; it just took away their ability to, having decided what to do, pause to consider whether it was a mistake, and actively trying to find evidence that it is.
    • That “conscious switching” that we talked about, rather than multitasking? In chess, there is a difference between strategy and tactics. Don’t worry about what that difference is for now (learn it if you want to take up chess), but know that strong players will only strategize while it is their opponent’s turn, and only calculate (tactics) while it is their own turn. It’s very tempting to flit constantly between one and the other, but chess requires players to have the mental discipline be able to focus on one task or the other and stick with that task until it’s the appointed time to switch.

    If you feel like taking up chess, this site (and related app, if you want it) is free (it’s been funded by voluntary donations for a long time now) and good and even comes with free tuition and training tools: LiChess.org

    Here’s another site that this writer (hi, it’s me) personally uses—it has great features too, but many are paywalled (I’m mostly there just because I’ve been there nearly since its inception, so I’m baked into the community now): Chess.com

    Want to know more?

    You might like this book by Dr. Chapman, which we haven’t reviewed yet but it did inform large parts of today’s article:

    Make Your Brain Smarter: Increase Your Brain’s Creativity, Energy, and Focus – by Dr. Sandra Chapman

    Enjoy!

    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:

  • How old’s too old to be a doctor? Why GPs and surgeons over 70 may need a health check to practise

    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.

    A growing number of complaints against older doctors has prompted the Medical Board of Australia to announce today that it’s reviewing how doctors aged 70 or older are regulated. Two new options are on the table.

    The first would require doctors over 70 to undergo a detailed health assessment to determine their current and future “fitness to practise” in their particular area of medicine.

    The second would require only general health checks for doctors over 70.

    A third option acknowledges existing rules requiring doctors to maintain their health and competence. As part of their professional code of conduct, doctors must seek independent medical and psychological care to prevent harming themselves and their patients. So, this third option would maintain the status quo.

    PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

    Haven’t we moved on from set retirement ages?

    It might be surprising that stricter oversight of older doctors’ performance is proposed now. Critics of mandatory retirement ages in other fields – for judges, for instance – have long questioned whether these rules are “still valid in a modern society”.

    However, unlike judges, doctors are already required to renew their registration annually to practise. This allows the Medical Board of Australia not only to access sound data about the prevalence and activity of older practitioners, but to assess their eligibility regularly and to conduct performance assessments if and when they are needed.

    What has prompted these proposals?

    This latest proposal identifies several emerging concerns about older doctors. These are grounded in external research about the effect of age on doctors’ competence as well as the regulator’s internal data showing surges of complaints about older doctors in recent years.

    Studies of medical competence in ageing doctors show variable results. However, the Medical Board of Australia’s consultation document emphasises studies of neurocognitive loss. It explains how physical and cognitive impairment can lead to poor record-keeping, improper prescribing, as well as disruptive behaviour.

    The other issue is the number of patient complaints against older doctors. These “notifications” have surged in recent years, as have the number of disciplinary actions against older doctors.

    In 2022–2023, the Medical Board of Australia took disciplinary action against older doctors about 1.7 times more often than for doctors under 70.

    In 2023, notifications against doctors over 70 were 81% higher than for the under 70s. In that year, patients sent 485 notifications to the Medical Board of Australia about older doctors – up from 189 in 2015.

    While older doctors make up only about 5.3% of the doctor workforce in Australia (less than 1% over 80), this only makes the high numbers of complaints more starkly disproportionate.

    It’s for these reasons that the Medical Board of Australia has determined it should take further regulatory action to safeguard the health of patients.

    So what distinguishes the two new proposed options?

    The “fitness to practise” assessment option would entail a rigorous assessment of doctors over 70 based on their specialisation. It would be required every three years after the age of 70 and every year after 80.

    Surgeons, for example, would be assessed by an independent occupational physician for dexterity, sight and the ability to give clinical instructions.

    Importantly, the results of these assessments would usually be confidential between the assessor and the doctor. Only doctors who were found to pose a substantial risk to the public, which was not being managed, would be obliged to report their health condition to the Medical Board of Australia.

    The second option would be a more general health check not linked to the doctor’s specific role. It would occur at the same intervals as the “fitness to practise” assessment. However, its purpose would be merely to promote good health-care decision-making among health practitioners. There would be no general obligation on a doctor to report the results to the Medical Board of Australia.

    In practice, both of these proposals appear to allow doctors to manage their own general health confidentially.

    Surgeons operating in theatre
    Older surgeons could be independently assessed for dexterity, sight and the ability to give clinical instructions. worradirek/Shutterstock

    The law tends to prioritise patient safety

    All state versions of the legal regime regulating doctors, known as the National Accreditation and Registration Scheme, include a “paramountcy” provision. That provision basically says patient safety is paramount and trumps all other considerations.

    As with legal regimes regulating childcare, health practitioner regulation prioritises the health and safety of the person receiving the care over the rights of the licensed professional.

    Complicating this further, is the fact that a longstanding principle of health practitioner regulation has been that doctors should not be “punished” for errors in practice.

    All of this means that reforms of this nature can be difficult to introduce and that the balance between patient safety and professional entitlements must be handled with care.

    Could these proposals amount to age discrimination?

    It is premature to analyse the legal implications of these proposals. So it’s difficult to say how these proposals interact with Commonwealth age- and other anti-discrimination laws.

    For instance, one complication is that the federal age discrimination statute includes an exemption to allow “qualifying bodies” such as the Medical Board of Australia to discriminate against older professionals who are “unable to carry out the inherent requirements of the profession, trade or occupation because of his or her age”.

    In broader terms, a licence to practise medicine is often compared to a licence to drive or pilot an aircraft. Despite claims of discrimination, New South Wales law requires older drivers to undergo a medical assessment every year; and similar requirements affect older pilots and air traffic controllers.

    Where to from here?

    When changes are proposed to health practitioner regulation, there is typically much media attention followed by a consultation and behind-the-scenes negotiation process. This issue is no different.

    How will doctors respond to the proposed changes? It’s too soon to say. If the proposals are implemented, it’s possible some older doctors might retire rather than undergo these mandatory health assessments. Some may argue that encouraging more older doctors to retire is precisely the point of these proposals. However, others have suggested this would only exacerbate shortages in the health-care workforce.

    The proposals are open for public comment until October 4.

    Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney

    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:

  • More Mediterranean – by American’s Test Kitchen

    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.

    Regular 10almonds readers will know that we talk about the Mediterranean diet often, and with good reason; it’s been for quite a while now the “Gold Standard” when it comes to scientific consensus on what constitutes a good diet for healthy longevity.

    However, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut of cooking the same three meals and thinking “I must do something different, but not today, because I have these ingredients and don’t know what to cook” and then when one is grocery-shopping, it’s “I should have researched a new thing to cook, but since I haven’t, I’ll just get the ingredients for what I usually cook, since we need to eat”, and so the cycle continues.

    This book will help break you out of that cycle! With (as the subtitle promises) hundreds of recipes, there’s no shortage of good ideas. The recipes are “plant-forward” rather than plant-based per se (i.e. there are some animal products in them), though for the vegetarians and vegans, it’s nothing that’s any challenge to substitute.

    Bottom line: if you’re looking for “delicious and nutritious”, this book is sure to put a rainbow on your plate and a smile on your face.

    Click here to check out More Mediterranean, and inspire your kitchen!

    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: