http://chriskresser.com/

Blast from the Past

Certain dietary supplements have been linked to an increased cancer risk. A research meta-analysis of two decades worth of research covered 12 trials that involved more than 300,000 people, and found that unlike eating a variety of fruits and vegetables, taking lots of supplements may raise a person’s risk of developing cancer.

Examples of supplements that were studied and found to impact certain cancers connected: beta carotene and lung cancer, vitamin E and prostate cancer, selenium and skin cancer, and folic acid and colon cancer.

However, this doesn’t mean that no one should take any supplements whatsoever. I agree that the supplements mentioned above are not ones people should be taking, yet certain supplements can be helpful for filling holes in an inadequate diet, or for addressing established nutrient deficiencies.

In Step 4 of my eBook 9 Steps to Perfect Health, Supplement Wisely, I suggest using smart supplementation based on the most common nutrient needs for the average person. While getting your nutrients from food is always the optimal choice, sometimes getting what we need solely from food is difficult, if not impossible. That’s why I recommend supplementing with certain forms of vitamins and minerals that can support our best health.

Research Report

• Electric light, particularly at night, disrupts human circadian rhythms.
• A country of couch potatoes: The number of Americans who were “totally sedentary” rose to its highest level since 2007.
• Researchers are still in the early stages of understanding the effects of sleep loss.
• Do slow-digesting carbohydrates make us feel more full?
• An an irregular microbiome can increase the risk of many chronic diseases diseases for Westerners.
• Processed foods are more likely to be associated with addictive eating behavior.
• Flavanols, natural compounds found in tea, fruits, and some chocolates among other sources, have been shown to enhance brain function and cognitive performance in older adults.

Worth A Look

• The scientists who want to fix America’s guts started with their own.
• Find your fitness bliss by putting the fun back in activity.
• We don’t need better chemicals and more tolerant crops – we need fewer chemicals.
• Get all the evidence-based information you need about healing from adrenal fatigue.
• Modern conveniences like quick, easy snacks may disrupt our natural circadian rhythms.
• Jeb Bush is following a Paleo diet, which may be affecting his campaign.
• The USDA’s organic standards don’t prevent animal cruelty—but that may soon change.
• My friend Sarah, founder of Everyday Paleo, launched a new website and blog.
• Take a look at Dr. Mercola’s newest book to change how you think about your health.
• Interested in becoming a vegetarian? (Please take this with the lighthearted spirit that I’m posting it with.)
• The negative impact lack of sleep has on the brain is alarming. (Infographic)

For the Foodies

• Sustainable Dish: Chicken, Beef and Fish Stock
• Rubies and Radishes: Superfood Sardine Spread
• Jessi’s Kitchen: Roasted Poblano with Sweet Potato Filling
• Stupid Easy Paleo: Chicken Pineapple Meatballs
• The Domestic Man: Roast NY Strip Loin
• The Healthy Foodie: Braised Lamb and Wild Mushrooms Shepherds Pie
• Everyday Paleo: Vietnamese Shaking Beef
• Things My Belly Likes: Perfect Crispy Chicken Thighs
• Against All Grain: Almond Pulp Double Chocolate Cookies
• Real Food With Dana: Berries & Cream Sweet Plantain Waffles
• Elana’s Pantry: Chocolate Chia Pudding

Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/

I freaking love the Avengers. If you’re reading this site, chances are you do too, and you’re probably freaking out with excitement for the release of Age of Ultron.

There’s something just inherently badass about taking a posse of amazing characters who have lead their own films and comics, and bringing them all together to take on an even greater challenge no one Avenger could defeat alone. Whether they’re facing an invading alien race, or artificial intelligence gone rogue, these heroes need to find a way to work together and become greater than the sum of their parts.

In the Game of Life, turning yourself into a healthy ass-kicking superhero can seem like a monumental task worthy of joining the Avengers. Having the right attitude, unwavering mental fortitude, and laser-sharp focus might feel impossible with our day-to-day responsibilities.

However, if you can take the best parts of each Avenger and apply each of their abilities to your own journey, I guarantee you’ll emerge a real life superhero yourself. Seriously!

And then you’re going to contribute your own super power and help The Nerd Fitness Rebellion take over the world.

Avengers, assemble!

The Incredible Hulk’s Alter ego

Bruce Banner is a quiet, thoughtful, bumbling scientist.

And then he gets angry.

And sure, the Incredible Hulk often gets out of control (hence the need for Tony Stark’s Hulkbuster), but the Hulk can also do some incredible things nobody else can. In fact, many Avengers would have lost their lives and the world might have ended if it weren’t for Bruce’s power to become incredible:

Do you spend your whole life like Bruce Banner? Or do you take advantage of opportunities to become somebody else?

For most of my day, I’m a quiet shy nerd who sits at a computer and writes articles about Minecraft, The Matrix, and Deadlifts. But when I’m in the gym, my headphones are blasting music, I hang from gymnastic rings like a monkey, and I grunt during heavy deadlift sets.

Socially, I’m usually a pretty risk-averse and shy person as well, but I know sometimes it’s important for me to come out of that shell. So I channel the alter ego of somebody who’s much more outgoing, talkative, and friendly when I’m in situations where I know it would improve my evening. Yup, it often takes 20 seconds of courage for me to go up to talk to somebody.

Be more like the Hulk: What’s your alter ego? You might be a scientist, or a janitor, or a doctor who struggles with social anxiety. At the gym, you can be somebody strong, fast, and powerful. You can train like somebody who’s drastically different than the person you spend most of your time living as. You can actually be a superhero!

Next time you’re on a vacation or headed out for a night on the town, adopt the alter-ego of somebody incredibly confident and make decisions based on what they would do. Who cares if it’s not really you? Confidence, social skills, and strength are all skills that can be learned with enough practice.

Tony Stark’s Tinkering

Be honest, you would give anything for a fully functioning Iron Man suit.

Every time we see Tony Stark, he’s in a newly upgraded Mark suit, all the way up to Mark XLV in Age of Ultron. With each iteration his suit gets a bit stronger, more durable, smarter, faster, sleeker, or more efficient. And thank goodness: his movies and his role in Iron man wouldn’t have worked if he stuck with the hunk of junk that was his first attempt of his suit in the original Iron Man movie:

From the first suit to the most recent, Tony is constantly shaving off millimeters to become more aerodynamic, or tinkering with the suit to get a single percentage point of efficiency.

Tony is a perfectionist, always in search of improvement. However, he doesn’t let that get in the way of progress, because he knows the rule: you can’t edit a blank page, and you can’t improve a machine that hasn’t been built yet.

Be like Tony: Don’t let perfection get in the way of progress. Instead of drastic sweeping changes each time, Tony makes teeny tiny adjustments that result in breakthroughs and improvements.

If you are looking to get in shape, look for small tweaks that you can repeatedly improve. If you want to learn how to squat, start with just the bar and work on your form. If you want to lose weight, make a single adjustment to your diet this week and then make another adjustment next week.

Don’t overwhelm yourself with the perfect diet or the perfect workout plan: they don’t exist.

Start. Build. Learn. Change. Adapt. Repeat.

Captain America’s bright lines

It’s no surprise Captain America is often referred to as “The First Avenger.”

And if you’ve been reading this site for a while, you know he’s my favorite Avenger. Heck, we even have shirts in the NF Store that pay homage to this superhero.

That’s because Cap doesn’t have to waste precious mental bandwidth on deciding what to do in conflicting situations. He has a very strong sense of right and wrong, and it’s these rules that allow him to quickly decide what action to take… even if it goes against popular opinion.

See Captain America: The Winter Soldier for proof:

Be like Cap: If you struggle with saying no, or can’t get yourself to start working out, stop saying “I can’t” and instead make it part of your identity:

• “I do [this].” “I don’t do [this.]”

“I probably shouldn’t eat that cake” suddenly becomes this idea you can’t get out of your head until you eat cake. “I can’t eat cake” is you restricting yourself and depriving you of something you want.

Compare that to a Captain America rule: “I don’t eat cake.” This one change takes the guess work out of what you need to do, and removes the need to have “just one” or “only a little.” My friend James Clear refers to these rules as “Bright Line” rules.

Black Widow’s mental flexibility

Black Widow (aka Natasha Romanova) is often praised for her deadly skills as an assassin, along with her flexibility to beat the crap out of bad guys, even when restrained or under attack.

(I’m more interested in her mental flexibility! I promise.)

Whenever the situation changes, she adapts quickly and then crushes her opposition:

Have you ever been in the gym and found that the equipment you needed to use was already taken? Or gotten ready to go for a run and realized it was pouring rain? Did you leave the gym, or give up on your run? Did you plan on eating healthy but on a business trip decided “well, if I can’t eat healthy for every meal, might as well eat whatever I want!”

Suckers look for the slightest excuse to say “Damn, can’t do my workout today!” or “Looks like I’ll have to eat fast food!” Avengers prepare for any situation and have plans B and C and D in case Plan A falls through.

Be like Black Widow: Don’t look for excuses to skip your workout and nutrition – instead look for solutions. Have a plan in place for every scenario when things don’t go according to Plan A. It works for MacGuyver, and it works for Black Widow: If you can’t get to the gym, can you do a bodyweight workout at home? If there isn’t access to any healthy breakfast options while traveling, can you do some intermittent fasting? Stay agile, like Black Widow.

Thor’s Confident humility

“Confident humility? That’s an oxymoron Kamb!” you might be saying right now.

I love Thor, as I feel like he’s gone through one hell of a transformation on his journey to becoming an integral part of the Avengers. In Thor’s first film, his arrogance and naivete get him banished from Asgard and stripped of his power:

Which is a bummer, as Asgard is freaking gorgeous, and I want to live there.

Anyways, Thor has to question everything he deemed important, and radically adjust his view of the world, from cocky arrogant demi-god, to redemption song. Sure, he remained strong and confident, but it was his humility and questioning of his deeply held beliefs that gave him a chance to regain his power and become worthy again. Although he’s surrounded by “mere mortals,” he’s learned to exist among them, including a love of coffee:

Like Thor, we all have beliefs we hold deep within us; when somebody questions those beliefs it can shake us to our core and cause us to put up our defense mechanisms. Read the comments in any article on the internet, and you’ll find people who lash out at the opposition when their own views are called into question.

Be like Thor: When it comes to getting healthy, we are all fighting decades worth of conventional wisdom that has cemented itself in your brain. If we are trying to do something different with our life, social pressure might make it hard to make a big change.

It’s time to look at our own deeply held beliefs and question everything (a Rule of the Rebellion).

• Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day? Maybe not.
• Do I need to avoid eggs because of cholesterol? Maybe not.
• Is eating a diet full of fat going to make me fat? Highly doubtful.
• As a female, will lifting weights make me bulky? Nope.

Hawkeye’s phoenix-like redemption

Hawkeye is a deadly marksman with a bow and arrow: one hell of a shot and a valuable member of the Avengers. Unfortunately, in the first Avengers flick, Hawkeye’s brain is hijacked by the trickster Loki, and is forced to do the bidding of the enemy.

During that time, he kills tons of “good guy” S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and struggles internally with the damage he’s done. He feels deeply remorseful for those actions, even though he was a puppet with somebody else pulling the strings. This wrecks him:

Fortunately for Hawkeye and for the rest of the Avengers (and us fans), Hawkeye is set free and gets a chance to redeem himself, bailing out his friends and helping save the world:

He can’t fix what happened in the past, even though it eats away at him. He can only learn from it and do his best to redeem himself moving forward. I want the same for you.

Be like Hawkeye: Be your own redemption story. Regardless of who you were yesterday, today is an opportunity to change, to atone, to redeem. If you’ve been a bad friend, or a bad husband, or a bad daughter, a bad team member, you can’t fix yesterday. You can however, fix what you’re doing right now, and change your actions moving forward.

It’s time for you to show the world what you are capable of and make your contribution. As they say: “it’s never too late to be what you might have been.”

If yesterday you were a 400-pound, unemployed, unhappy person, today you have an opportunity to start day 1 of a new life. Sure, you might be 400 pounds and unemployed today, but the difference is that today is a step towards superhero status… And tomorrow? Anything is possible!

avengers assemble

If you couldn’t tell, I’m quite excited for Avengers: Age of Ultron.

But I want to hear from you: what superpower are you bringing to The Nerd Fitness Rebellion?

Get creative. Give us your backstory. Tell us about your superpower and why it’s going to help us take over save the world!

I’ll start:

My superpower is the ability to combine abilities and skills from others, whether it’s combining the philosophy of Nassim Taleb with video games, or combining the complexities of a paloelithic diet with Legos, or intense bodyweight training and heavy barbell training. I like taking complex or seemingly unrelated things, and bringing them together to form a super idea, or super training plan, or super power. This skill has translated to team building! I like to think I helped assemble a unique group of misfits and underdogs here at Nerd Fitness, and the same with Team Nerd Fitness.

What about you? We’ll pick two commenters at random and give away free Nerd Fitness shirts!

-Steve

Rebel Hero: My friend Jason Lengstorf in Costa Rica, striking quite the superhero pose himself here in his Nerd Fitness shirt.

Want to be the next Rebel Hero? Take a photo of you doing something epic in your Nerd Fitness gear and send it to contact @nerdfitness.com so we can feature you on the site!

###

photo source: Varlin: Captain, marvelousRoland: Hawkeye, Wacko Photographer: Ironman, Jay Malone: Thor, marvelousRoland: Black Widow, JD Hancock: Universal Avengers

https://www.girlsgonestrong.com/

(Note from GGS: At Girls Gone Strong, we are huge fans of autonomy. We want women to do exactly what makes them feel happy, healthy, and fulfilled. If eating a super strict diet and always following a meal plan is something you enjoy, then by all means, go ahead. However, if you’re someone who constantly finds yourself obsessing about diet perfection, you may find this article helpful. And please, if this obsession starts controlling your life, seek the help of a mental healthcare professional immediately.)

“Health and fitness, eh? So, you must be one of those girls who only eats 1,200 calories a day, and it’s all salad.”

I was chatting with a gentleman at the gym, and as soon as I told him I worked in the health and fitness industry he sprang to the erroneous conclusion that I was constantly on a diet, subsisting on rabbit food.

His assumption made me howl with laughter, as I violently shook my head in disagreement. Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I eat a lot of whole, unprocessed foods… punctuated by frequent consumption of burgers and fries, and, if I’m feeling particularly wild, a bun, too.

Gone are the torturous days of obsessing over my food, and sadly, I had plenty of them.

I competed in Figure, and without re-opening that can of worms, let’s just say that it left me with some pretty intense food issues.

I was irrationally labeling foods—and my behaviors with them—as “good” or “bad”, and it rarely made sense. If I ate an apple that I wasn’t scheduled to eat, I labeled myself as well as the apple “bad”. If I followed my plan like I was supposed to, I deemed myself “good” that day.

This was a slippery slope because, as I’m sure you can understand, there is not one single thing that is bad about eating an apple, nor many of the other foods that I allowed myself to feel badly about eating.

My Culmination of Crazy

My diet was so strict that I thought about food all the time. I was fixated on my weekly cheat meal, and it was always followed by overwhelming remorse the next day, accompanied by plenty of negative self-talk.

It was a vicious weekly cycle: hunger and restriction Monday through Friday, a Saturday cheat meal in which I’d stuff myself silly, and then a Sunday full of shame and guilt that was iced off with the relentless return of hunger. Rinse, and repeat, for months and months. There was no happy medium.

Packing food with me constantly was “normal” for me.

My food insanity reached an all-time high when I packed my own tupperware meal to the family Christmas dinner a few years ago. This wasn’t due to food sensitivities, or special dietary needs (that would be justified); I did this because I was obsessed, and knew no other way. I was convinced that without my plan, and my food prepared my way, all of my progress would be instantaneously blown to smithereens.

How I Broke Free From the Food Crazies

I realized that the thing that was making me the craziest about food was not the actual food itself; it was how the scale reacted to the occasional indulgence.

Let me explain.

For example, Saturday night would roll around, and I’d have some pizza and a couple glasses of wine. The next morning, the scale would absolutely show a slight increase, anywhere from two to four pounds.

Commence freakout mode.

Did I gain two to four pounds of fat in one meal? Of course I didn’t. It was nothing but water retention that would dissipate in a day or two, but I didn’t care. All I could focus on was a (temporarily) higher number on the scale, which continued to perpetuate my unhealthy thought processes about food.

Buh-bye, Scale!

One Sunday morning a couple of years ago, following my weekly off-plan meal, I emailed my nutrition coach at the time with a Defcon One level of emergency over what the scale said, and he had to set me straight. He told me that unless I could let my fixation with the scale go, he would have to reconsider working with me.

This was a lightbulb moment for me. He was right; things had gotten out of control. If I was going to indulge in something once a week, I could not go berserk over the number on the scale the next day. That simply didn’t make any sense.

I tossed my scale in the garbage the morning after I spoke to my coach, and haven’t weighed myself since. That was over two years ago.

There are no words to express the freedom that this has given me. I understand that the scale can be a helpful tool for some people, however it is rarely an accurate indicator of progress, and it never tells the full story.

If you find that the scale is dictating your moods, I encourage you to back down your weigh-ins to once every two weeks, or eliminate them altogether and track physique progress using girth measurements, and progress pictures.

Your sanity is worth more than two to four pounds on the scale.

When you do occasionally indulge, stay off of the scale for a few days. You know it’s going to be up a bit temporarily, so why stress yourself out?

Prioritize the Moments

I used to dread being invited to dinner. As soon as the invitation was extended, I began to panic, and I let my anxiety over the food drown out what was most important— sharing a moment with people I cared about.

I finally began to realize that life is about moments and experiences, and many social events are centered around food. That doesn’t mean that you need to veer off track and go crazy, or eat a bunch of food that you know your body is going to revolt against. It just means learning to go with the flow, and enjoy spending time together. If you want to indulge a bit, great, and if not, let go of food perfection and simply do your best with what you have available.

I no longer let my fear of food rob me of these precious moments.

When you think back to your parent’s big anniversary dinner, what do you want to remember? The good times, the laughs, and celebrating an amazing moment? Or do you want to be plagued by memories of worry over whether or not they put too much butter on your vegetables, or if the chicken was salted?

Focus on relishing in the moments, do your best, and realize some things won’t be in your control—and that is okay!

Learn To Indulge Without Guilt When It’s Worth It

“Is it really worth it?”

Asking myself this has been a complete game-changer, and has not only altered how I view treats, but it has also eliminated any guilt that I might have had in the past for consuming them.

That simple question easily puts things into perspective really quick.

Worth it:

• The homemade carrot cake that my friend bakes me for my birthday from scratch.
• My grandma’s famous apple pie that only makes an appearance on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
• The entire bottle (I’m not sorry) of ‘Earthquake’ petite sirah over dinner with my best friends to celebrate a promotion.

Not even close to being worth it:

• Store-bought sheet cake in the office break room.
• Stale tortilla chips that have been in the pantry forever.
• Anything that you’re tempted to eat for no other reason other than the fact that it’s available.

Much to my surprise, my body now looks and performs better than it did when I was super strict.

What is on my “Worth It” list will look different than what is on your “Worth It” list, but I think you understand my point.

When it comes time for a treat, ask yourself, “Is it worth it?” If the answer is a resounding yes, then proceed—guilt-free—using ‘The Law of First Bites’ from Neghar Fonooni. This says that every bite we take must be just as good as the very first, because we all know that is the best bite!

My famous “Uncle-Buck-sized” banana and chocolate chip pancakes.

In addition, keep in mind that a bump in calories and carbs can also lead to increased physical performance. I like to put my indulgences to good use by getting in a killer squat or dirt-biking session the next day. Remember, this isn’t about “burning off” what you ate, but rather, putting the extra energy to good use. The giant banana and chocolate chip pancakes shown above are a favorite pre-dirtbiking breakfast for my crew and me.

Treat a Treat Like a Treat

When it comes to trying to lose body fat, it’s easy to get so wrapped up in the process, and in trying to be perfect, that we start to obsess over it all. While our goals are very important, we also have to remember that life happens. Once in awhile, we will have special events to attend, and dinners to share, and it’s okay. It will be okay!

Don’t get me wrong. My diet consists mainly of nutrient-dense foods that enhance my performance and make me feel like a million bucks, however, I do let myself enjoy the things that are really worth it, and I refuse to let my diet darken the time that I get to spend with people that I love.

Enjoy yourself once in awhile, and when you do, make sure it’s absolutely, truly spectacular. No guilt; just a treat.

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” – Voltaire

http://chriskresser.com/

We have a great question today. It revolves around the gut, one of our favorite topics, and in particular the connection between the gut and the heart, which is something we haven’t talked about a lot. We know there are connections between the gut and just about everything, but this is one area we haven’t explored in a lot of detail.

In this episode, we cover:

2:21 What Chris ate today
5:13 TMAO and heart disease
11:15 Four gut-heart connections

Links we discuss

• Choline and TMAO: Eggs Still Don’t Cause Heart Disease
• Red Meat and TMAO: Cause for Concern, or Another Red Herring?
• SIBO is associated with cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy.
• H. pylori has been detected within plaque in coronary and carotid artery walls using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)—a way of testing for the DNA of microorganisms.
• Intestinal permeability may contribute to coronary heart disease via increasing production of inflammatory cytokines and weakening the stability of plaque.
• Intestinal permeability has been associated with an increase in visceral fat.
• Patients with coronary disease, characterized by increased intestinal permeability, have been shown to have increased intima media thickness of carotid arteries.
• Studies link changes in gut microbiome with intestinal permeability, inflammation, insulin & leptin resistance, and metabolic problems: all major risk factors for coronary heart disease.

[powerpress]

Steve Wright: Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. You are listening to the Revolution Health Radio Show. I’m your host, Steve Wright, co-author at SCDlifestyle.com. This episode of the RHR Show is brought to you by 14Four.me. This website and this program is a 14-day healthy lifestyle reset program that Chris Kresser has put together to help you if you’re still struggling with, for instance, weight loss, maybe even weight gain, sleep issues, autoimmune conditions, digestive health. Basically if you’re having any health-related conditions and you’re still not where you want to be, optimizing your diet, your sleep, your movement, and your stress are really the foundational principles to getting these problems resolved, and what has Chris has done is put together a 14-day step-by-step program that’s going to walk you through fitting all these new changes into your life. As we all know, implementing healthy habits can be a real struggle, so it’s really good and really wise to work with somebody who has done this with hundreds and thousands of other people and using science-based principles and habit-based principles that can really make it easy for you to implement these things into your life and take your health up to the next level, so check out 14Four.me.

Now, with me is integrative medical practitioner, healthy skeptic, and New York Times bestselling author, Chris Kresser. Chris, how are you?

Chris Kresser: I’m great. How are you doing, Steve?

Steve Wright: I’m very wonderful. It’s a great day.

Chris Kresser: Fantastic. So, we have a great question today. It — guess what? — revolves around the gut, one of our favorite topics, and in particular the connection between the gut and the heart, which is something we haven’t talked about a lot. I mean, we know there are connections between the gut and just about everything, but this is one area we haven’t explored in a lot of detail, so I’m looking forward to it.

What Chris ate today

Steve Wright: Yeah. Now, before we get to the question, Chris, people would love to know, what have you been eating all day?

Chris Kresser: Yeah, I thought you might ask that. This morning I skipped breakfast and just had coffee and cream. There was a lot going on, and I had a few things I needed to get done, and so, yeah, that’s what I did, as you know I’m prone to do sometimes, and then I worked out, did some exercise around 10, and then at 11 I had kind of a brunch, I guess you’d call it. I had some plantains, a raw spinach salad with carrots and beets and a balsamic vinaigrette dressing, and then I had some lamb merguez sausage from my favorite local charcuterie, The Fifth Quarter.

Steve Wright: Nice. And no bottomless mimosas at brunch today?

Chris Kresser: Not today. I did have a glass of kefir afterwards, but that’s not quite the same.

Steve Wright: Perfect. Sounds delicious, man.

Chris Kresser: All right, so let’s give this question a listen. It’s from Simas. I hope I’m pronouncing that right.

Simas: Hi, Chris. You have briefly mentioned about the gut-heart connection in one of your podcasts, and I find it really, really interesting because I’ve had all kinds of heart problems through the years, which include high blood pressure and heart rhythm problems like various kinds of extrasystoles and just a general feeling that something’s not really right in that area, and so I wanted to hear how gut health can affect that. I mean things like H. pylori, SIBO, lipopolysaccharides, and nutrient deficiencies, do they play a role in heart rhythm problems and how it all works? I would love to hear about that. Thank you.

Chris Kresser: OK, yeah, so as I said, we’ve talked about the gut-brain connection, we’ve talked about the gut-skin connection, the gut-immune connection, so of course, why not the gut-heart connection? It shouldn’t surprise us that there is a strong connection between gut health and heart health. There are, in fact, a wide range of connections, and in this podcast I’m going to talk about the ones that I think are significant. I’m also going to spend a little time talking about one that I don’t think is significant that’s gotten a lot of attention in the media, so maybe we should probably start there.

TMAO and heart disease

All right, so I’m not sure if those of you who are listening to this know, but a year or maybe it was two years ago now — it’s all a blur! — there was a lot of discussion about TMAO and heart disease. I wrote a couple articles about it at the time, but it was really kind of the latest attempt to blame red meat and foods like eggs for heart disease. It’s pretty complex. As I said, I wrote two articles about it. They have a lot of detail. We’ll put those links in the show notes so you can do a deep dive if you want. I’m just going to cover the basics here, and that’s that there’s a chemical called trimethylamine N-oxide, which is TMAO for short, and the theory is it increases the risk of heart disease, and eating red meat and choline-rich foods like eggs supposedly increase TMAO. Therefore, red meat and egg increase heart disease. That was the argument that was being made, and there were articles published in The New York Times, and there was this whole big brouhaha about it. But there were a lot of problems with that research, and, again, you can check the articles for details, but I’m going to just highlight the biggest ones here.

First, most previous studies have shown that the only food that significantly increases TMAO reliably is seafood and fish, but of course, seafood and fish are inversely associated with heart disease in just about every study you can look at, and you don’t hear these researchers going out and telling people not to eat fish because of TMAO. And shockingly, the researchers that were really kind of advocating this TMAO-red meat connection just entirely ignored that in their papers. This was Stanley Hazen’s group out of the Cleveland Clinic, a group that’s kind of notoriously anti animal product and pro-vegetarian, kind of vegan agenda. So nobody’s explained that. If TMAO is increased by eating seafood and fish by orders of magnitude more than by eating red meat, than how is it that eating fish isn’t killing people?

Number two, even if there is an association between TMAO and red meat consumption, there’s no evidence that meat consumption is actually what’s causing the higher levels of TMAO. If you’ve been listening to the show, the most recent episode on how to do proper scientific research, you know that correlation is not causation. So if you see high levels of TMAO in people who eat more red meat, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the red meat is what’s causing the high levels of TMAO. We’ve talked before about the healthy user bias, which means that people who engage in one unhealthy behavior or healthy behavior are more likely to engage in other similar behaviors, and since red meat has been demonized for so long, typically people who eat more red meat in studies do things like smoke more cigarettes, they exercise less, they don’t eat as many fruits and vegetables, they engage in all kinds of behaviors that are less healthy, so how do we know that it’s not these other things that are leading to the higher TMAO levels? How do we know that people who tend to eat more red meat have a messed-up gut microbiome because of all these other behaviors that I mentioned and that’s what’s causing the higher TMAO levels, which is certainly possible?

And third, if eggs do increase TMAO, and TMAO causes heart disease, we should see a clear association between people who eat more eggs and heart disease, and in fact, we don’t. I’m sure many of you heard that for the first time ever the US Dietary Guidelines have removed dietary cholesterol from the list of foods that need to be avoided because there’s just no evidence to support that link between dietary cholesterol and heart disease. Other industrialized countries removed that a long time ago. The US finally joined the club and did it this year.

Along those same lines, in some of the more recent larger studies, we don’t see even any association between fresh red meat consumption and heart disease, and that’s in spite of all these confounding factors that I just mentioned related to the healthy user bias. If you go into PubMed and you look at studies on the connection between the gut microbiome and heart disease, a lot of the papers you’ll find initially will be related to this idea that TMAO causes heart disease and meat and animal products increase TMAO, but this is not, in my opinion, something that’s really significant and that we should be paying attention to, so I just wanted to start by kind of getting that out of the way.

Steve Wright: Yeah, you’ve done a lot of research on that, and I think there have been a lot of write-ups in this community about the lack of scientific evidence there.

Chris Kresser: Yeah. So now let’s talk about what I think is worth paying attention to, and there’s some really interesting stuff. I’m sure we’re going to be seeing a lot more of it in the months and years to come.

Four gut-heart connections

There are four lines of evidence that I looked at in terms of connections between the gut and the heart. The first one is our old friend, SIBO, small intestine bacterial overgrowth. There aren’t a lot of studies on the connection between SIBO and heart health, but I did see one study showing that SIBO is associated with cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy. We also know that SIBO is linked very convincingly with nutrient deficiencies, and of course, there’s tons of research showing various nutrient deficiencies connected to heart disease. And then SIBO has been shown to cause both inflammation in the gut and then, by extension, systemic inflammation, which, of course, conceivably could contribute to heart disease because we know it’s an inflammatory condition, and anything that causes continual low-grade inflammation is definitely going to contribute to inflammatory diseases like heart disease.

The second connection is with H. pylori. This is the bacterium that’s associated with ulcers, as many know, and there are a few different lines of evidence connecting H. pylori infection with higher rates of heart disease. There’s observational or epidemiological evidence showing higher rates of heart disease and heart attack in people who have H. pylori, but then there are studies that have found a significant relationship between H. pylori and endothelial dysfunction, although it’s worth pointing out that some other studies didn’t find a relationship, so there’s a little bit of uncertainty there. But most interestingly, because we can’t rely on observational or epidemiological data, as we’ve been talking about kind of ad nauseam at this point, to establish causality, there are some studies that have found that eradication of H. pylori decreases risk factors associated with atherosclerosis; such as oxidative stress; myeloperoxidase activity; C-reactive protein, which is a marker of systemic inflammation; fat mass; and blood pressure, which is actually the single greatest risk factor for heart disease. So that’s convincing evidence that there may be a causal relationship because if you observe that people with H. pylori are more likely to have heart disease, that’s just an association, but then if you find that eradicating H. pylori decreases all these risk factors that are associated with heart disease, that’s one factor that makes it more likely there’s a causal relationship. And finally — this is another factor leaning towards showing causality — is H. pylori has been detected within the plaque in coronary and carotid artery walls using DNA-PCR analysis, so they’re actually finding this bacteria in plaque. Again, that could be more a consequence of another problem and not the causal event, but it’s interesting, nonetheless.

OK, so we’ve covered SIBO and H. pylori. I’m sure many of you are wondering if there’s any connection between leaky gut or intestinal permeability and heart health, and there definitely is. There was a study published in The American Journal of Cardiology that found that intestinal permeability may contribute to heart disease by increasing the production of inflammatory cytokines and weakening the stability of plaque. And as I think we’ve talked about before, the stability — or lack thereof — of plaque is a major factor in terms of heart disease because the initiating event of a heart attack is the rupture of plaque, which then occludes the artery and prevents blood from getting to the heart, and that causes the cells of the heart to die, and that’s what a heart attack is. Instability of plaque can be the main precipitating event of a heart attack, so that connection between intestinal permeability and plaque instability is, I think, particularly significant.

Then there were a couple studies showing that leaky gut is associated with an increase in visceral fat or abdominal fat. This is fat that accumulates around the viscera or the abdominal organs, and we know from numerous studies at this point that that type of fat is a strong risk factor for heart disease.

And then we can kind of extend our search and look at patients with celiac disease. Even if there aren’t a lot of studies directly looking at intestinal permeability and heart disease, we know that patients with celiac, especially untreated celiac, suffer from intestinal permeability. So we can look at the connection between patients with celiac disease and heart disease, and sure enough, there are studies showing that patients with celiac disease tend to have an increased intima-media thickness of their carotid artery, and that is, again, a well-known marker of endothelial dysfunction and vascular disease and a risk factor for heart disease and for stroke. So several different lines of evidence suggesting a connection between intestinal permeability, AKA leaky gut, and heart health.

And then last, but not least, of course, we have to talk about the gut microbiome and not TMAO, just because there’s not necessarily a strong connection between red meat and TMAO — and even TMAO and heart disease, although I’m not ruling that out, per se — I’m just criticizing the idea that our diet is the major contributor to TMAO production. But there are lots of studies linking changes in the gut microbiome with things like intestinal permeability, which we just established is related to heart disease; inflammation, which is extremely well established in terms of its connection to heart disease; insulin and leptin resistance and all kinds of different metabolic problems. I’m sure a lot of listeners have heard now, over the last few years, a lot about the connection between the gut microbiome and diabetes and metabolic syndrome and metabolic health, and of course, diabetes and metabolic syndrome are very strong risk factors for heart disease. We can link changes in the gut microbiome to heart disease pretty directly via those mechanisms. The research here is still kind of young in terms of just directly looking at changes in the gut and cardiovascular disease, but there’s enough already, both direct and indirect, to convince me that there is a strong connection, and given what we know about the gut, that’s not at all surprising.

Steve Wright: Yeah. Not to mention, Chris — I’m guessing you have this point of view, but you’ll obviously clarify — the gut sort of feeds the rest of the body. So if we want a healthy heart or a healthy brain or any healthy organ, being able to assimilate nutrients out of our food and keeping our inflammation as low as possible, the gut seems like the central player just at a high level sort of as a feeder to the rest of the organs that will never be able to be quantified, I don’t think, in research.

Chris Kresser: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it probably could be quantified to some extent in the sense of just measuring nutrient absorption and things like that, but when I was talking about SIBO, I mentioned that SIBO is linked with nutrient deficiencies, and then nutrient deficiencies are strongly linked with heart disease, so, yeah, I completely agree. I think that at the most simple level if we’re not absorbing nutrition from food, then our whole body isn’t going to function right, including our heart! And heart disease is the number-one killer in the modern world still. And that may change. Cancer is catching up, but still right now in the industrialized world heart attack is the leading cause of death. So we want to do everything we can to protect our heart health, and a lot of people don’t necessarily think about the gut when it comes to living a heart-healthy lifestyle.

This is a little anecdote from my clinic and work with patients. I have quite a large number of people that come to me who have started a paleo diet and their cholesterol has gone through the roof, and in some cases I have patients — usually men, but sometimes women — who their only complaint is very high cholesterol. These are, maybe, competitive athletes, people who are at the top of their game. They don’t have any other symptoms that bother them. They’re just concerned about their really high cholesterol. And when they come to see me, one of the first things I do is I run a full suite of gut tests, and fortunately my patients are often up for this because they’re people who have listened to my podcast or read my book and they’re kind of expecting that. I think a lot of patients, if they were to go to see a health practitioner about high cholesterol, might be surprised and reluctant to go pay hundreds of dollars for gut testing when their only complaint is high cholesterol, but so far I haven’t had anyone resist. But they have often been surprised to find out that they have SIBO or fungal overgrowth or something like that. For whatever reason, it’s not causing a lot of symptoms for them in the gut, which is something we’ve talked about before. And let’s say they have an LDL particle number of, like, 2400 or 2500, which is quite high. Then we treat their SIBO or fungal overgrowth, confirm eradication by follow-up testing, and then we retest their LDL particle number and it drops down to 1300, which is a huge, huge drop. It’s gone from the extremely high category to the borderline high category and to a level that probably doesn’t even require treatment for most people if they don’t have any other significant risk factors. We’ve seen this a lot in our practice, and it’s direct evidence between the gut and gut health and major risk factors that at least conventionally have been strongly associated with heart disease.

Steve Wright: Well, it seems like for anybody who’s concerned about long-term heart disease issues investigating gut health would be a top priority. What about any sort of short-term heart arrhythmia-style stuff that was mentioned in the question?

Chris Kresser: Yeah, I didn’t find anything direct on that, but something that can cause cardiac neuropathy, I assume, could certainly affect the rhythm of the heart. I would assume that anything that we talked about that could cause heart disease could also affect the rhythm of the heart and how the heart pumps blood. I mean, those, to me, seem pretty closely connected.

Steve Wright: OK.

Chris Kresser: Although I didn’t find any specific studies linking SIBO and arrhythmia, for example. That’s what I meant by saying I think the research is still kind of in the early phase. We’re not seeing that level of specificity yet, but I imagine we will at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Steve Wright: Yeah, I would think so. I mean, the amount of money that’s pouring into gut health research right now is pretty staggering.

Chris Kresser: Mm-hmm.

Steve Wright: So I think there are going to be a lot of things that we might be chatting about in two years that are finally proven.

Chris Kresser: Yeah. I agree. So that’s it, the gut-heart connection. I imagine eventually we’ll get through every organ or organ system in the body and its relationship with the gut.

Steve Wright: I can’t wait for you to do the gut-calf connection.

Chris Kresser: The gut-calf connection. Well, we could do sort of, like, the gut-muscle-joint connection. I mean, there’s certainly a strong connection between the gut and things like rheumatoid arthritis and muscle fatigue and exercise intolerance and things like that, so maybe you can call in and record a question, Steve.

Steve Wright: All right, I might just go over to ChrisKresser.com/PodcastQuestion and give you a ring!

Chris Kresser: Use a fake name, disguise your voice, you know?

Steve Wright: I will use my sexy voice. All right. Well, if you’d like your question, please, as I just mentioned, go to ChrisKresser.com/PodcastQuestion and submit it there. And in between shows, make sure you’re following Chris on social media, Facebook.com/ChrisKresserLAc and Twitter.com/ChrisKresser. On social media is where you’re going to get his latest updates on new posts, but also he’s sharing things like the scientific research that he’s looking at for the shows and things that don’t necessarily make the blog for many months, so it’s a great place to keep up with what Chris is looking at on a daily basis.

Chris Kresser: All right, everybody, thanks again for listening. Talk to you next time.

Steve Wright: Yeah. Thanks, everyone.

Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/

In most fantasy or sci-fi movies, there’s a big epic battle between the forces of good and evil.

However, before that battle can happen, an even more important battle must take place: between the ears of the protagonist. Oftentimes our hero or heroine has an inner demon to slay before he or she can go slay the dragon/save the princess/galaxy/world.

There’s probably no more famous nerdy example than Luke Skywalker in the Cave on Dagobah:

A few other great examples:

• Link having to literally battle himself in the water temple of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. 
• Neo finally accepting his fate/destiny as the One before he could defeat Agent Smith in the Matrix. 
• Aragorn shunning his lineage as the heir of Isildur before taking his place as the King of Gondor to defeat the forces of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings. 

Often life is no different: getting healthy, like most other things in our life, is more about fighting our inner battles than anything else – that voice that tells us to eat bad food, drink and smoke, avoid confrontation, or skip our workout. Even when we WANT to do something like asking someone to go on a date, we must overcome the fear of rejection and that internal voice of insecurity.

Last week on Nerd Fitness, we featured one of my favorite success stories ever. Maya lost over 70 pounds and went from “not good enough” to practicing aerialist. She said something I will never forget:

“I’m much more positive now, and much more likely to take an optimistic outlook on things. I still struggle sometimes with my inner demons – who doesn’t? – but I’m better equipped to fight them now.”

Today we’re going to win some inner battles to kick some ass on the outside as a result.

Step 1: Identify the battle first

First and foremost, it’s tough to fight an inner battle before we know what we’re up against. It’d be like trying to fight the smoke monster in the show Lost, or swinging at a cloud. Put a face on that demon, give it name, and know your enemy.

As Sun Tzu said:

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

So, what the heck is it? Often we seek to treat the symptom of a problem without getting to the root of the problem, which is usually this inner demon we are trying to slay. This is like trying to patch faulty code instead of hacking it at the source.

Until we identify the demon, we might struggle to make consistent progress on our goals, consistently backsliding and berating ourselves for sucking. Or worse, spending our days thinking back on what might have been, rather than finding out what could be.

• Struggling with a food addiction or a sugar addiction?
• Addicted to caffeine?
• Drink too much?
• Maybe it’s unhappiness!
• What about a fear of inadequacy or rejection?

In each of the situations above, it’s important for us to take the time to dig deep – go into our Dagobah cave – and put a face on the demon holding you back. This part can suck – it requires 100% honesty with yourself and owning up to what’s really at the root of the issue.

Step 2: Stay Away Until You’re Ready

It’s no secret that I love role-playing games as metaphors for life.

The tagline for Nerd Fitness is “level up your life,” and I love thinking about these games and how we can apply their lessons to living better lives outside of fantasy land.

Imagine you are a Level 1 noob in a new game, and you stumble across a Level 10 Orc Chief. You pull a Leroy Jenkins and run screaming at him and attack. Unsurprisingly, he absolutely demolishes you.

You are then faced with two options:

• Continue to charge the chief, getting your ass kicked every time, and then tell yourself “I’m not good enough” and mope.
• Recognize the fact that the chief is a Level 10 and you’re a Level 1, so maybe you should find a different path and come back when you are better equipped to handle him.

Unless you are a masochist, you’re probably going to go with option 2. Doing all of these things will give you a chance to level up and prepare yourself. Build some momentum, level up, get better armor, and THEN come back.

When you return at Level 15, that once-menacing Orc Chief is now a peon that you can destroy with two clicks of the mouse. It’s not that he’s any less strong than he was when he started, it’s just that you’re much better prepared to battle him.

Why do we do things the hard way when it comes to life, but the easy way when it comes to video games?

• If you struggle with drinking too much, then continuing to put yourself in bars where everybody binge drinks is a recipe for disaster.
• If you struggle with portion control, going to an all-you-can-eat buffet is asking for trouble.
• If you struggle with fast food, driving past a row of fast food joints every single day is a hopeless endeavor.
• If you can’t get yourself to eat just one piece of candy, then putting yourself within arm’s length of more than one is a terrible idea!

My thoughts on Weight Watchers can be found here, but man they really nailed their latest ad campaign:

So, stop facing the Level 10 Orc Chief before you are ready! Go explore a different part of the world and level yourself to Level 15 before you consider putting yourself back in a fight with him.

• Get all of the junk food out of your house until you’re better equipped to handle it.
• Drive a different path to work so that you don’t drive past Burger King and Taco Bell and McDonald’s twice daily.
• Take a month off from going out to bars and get your life in order before inserting yourself back into that environment.

While you’re avoiding the Orc Chief, you can set out to fight increasingly difficult bad guys to level up your character and become better prepared for the inner battle. Maybe you are afraid of public speaking, or you’re afraid of talking to a stranger you’re attracted to. You don’t jump straight to speaking at TED conferences or asking out Scarlett Johansson. You take baby steps and slowly level up:

• Speaking: start by giving a talk to your friends. Then on a street corner. Then volunteer to talk at a local school or shriner’s club.
• Asking out somebody you’re attracted to: Start by talking to people you’re not romantically interested in, or people you find easy to talk to. For me, this might look like: dudes, married women, old folks, kids. Get comfortable with having conversations. Then offer up a drive-by compliment. Then build up to asking somebody out.

Just like with all of the examples above, that inner battle you’re facing never goes away completely, it just becomes easier due to the fact that you are now leveled up. Thanks Einstein!

Step 3: Study the pattern of the boss and memorize it

Ever played Mike Tyson’s Punch-out!!?

I remember playing this as a kid and really struggling to defeat Bald Bull – every time I got close to defeating him, he would run back and then charge me and knock me out with one punch.

This went on for WEEKS until I learned that you could send a properly timed punch right into his face and it would knock him out cold:

After, that…the fight became a breeze. And this pattern continued for each fighter after that. Initially impossible, each battle would result in my TKO. However, after dozens and dozens of attempts I would learn the opponents triggers, mannerisms, and tells before certain types of punches.

Again, it wasn’t because these guys got any easier…it was because I got better at pattern recognition and had the perfect counter punch for each situation. How can we apply this to our inner demon fight?

Prepare as much as you can ahead of time, and have a plan in place for every time that inner demon comes out to fight! If you are struggling with smoking or eating unhealthy foods, think about the triggers that cause your brain to crave these things:

• Do you smoke when you are nervous or anxious? When you drink?
• Do you eat when you are bored or unhappy?
• Do you chug a six-pack of Mountain Dew in the afternoon to stay awake at work?

Your demon has a face, and now you’re properly leveled to fight him. You still need to study his patterns and prepare yourself to fight him each and every time. He won’t get any less strong, but you’ll be better equipped to go through his patterns and counter attack and crush him.

Here’s an example:

I know that at work in the afternoon I go eat snacks and get a 20 oz soda because I’m tired and bored, not because I’m hungry. Therefore, when this feeling kicks in, I will follow the pattern of victory:

• I will walk around the office to wake up, while drinking a black coffee.
• I will eat an apple and stay away from Fran, who keeps a bucket of candy on her desk.
• I will emerge victorious.

What inner demon are you fighting?

There’s a common theme running through each of the sections and paragraphs above:

Non-judgmental analysis and adaptation.

When you come across a Level 10 Orc Chief, you might lose a few times before retreating and realizing you need a different game plan. You then go find a new path around him, or you don’t come back to fight him until you’re properly equipped to battle.

Heck, maybe you come back with two friends who can help you win – we have a community of rebels looking to group up to help you win your battle.

None of the above is possible without that first initial defeat: “okay I have an inner demon that is beating me.” However, the second step is more crucial: “I need to change my strategy or I’m going to keep losing.”

If you are struggling with an inner demon, it doesn’t make you weak or a bad person. People die in video games all the time; it’s part of the game. The satisfaction in the game is learning the patterns or leveling up high enough to deliver that finishing blow.

I want to hear from you:

What is an inner demon you are currently battling? And what are some concrete steps you can take IMMEDIATELY to help defeat it more often?

If you’ve successfully quit smoking, or overcome a fear of rejection, or finally got the courage to try something you’ve always held back on, please share your story. I know about 260,000 people who would love to hear your story and learn from you!

Because I like giving away stuff, we’ll randomly give away a Nerd Fitness shirt to a rebel who leaves a comment before Wednesday April 29th at 11:59 PM.

Ready player one…FIGHT!

-Steve

PS: In case you missed Monday’s announcement, we have less than 30 of 300 spots left for Camp Nerd Fitness this fall! Check out CampNerdFitness.com to see our first group of announced speakers – hope you can join us

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photo source: artnoose: Level up, alan: Jedi, phobus: bowser