Key Strategies for Optimal Health
What strategies lead to optimal health?
What is optimal health?
I don’t want good health.
I want GREAT health!
When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is
reduced to the quest for power. — Alston ChaseYou won’t learn what optimal health is from the government.
The government knows nothing about health. All they want is political power. Government gains more and more power as we turn over control of our health decisions to it. With two years of evidence, now going on three, government’s lack of knowledge should be clear, just in case you have missed the prior decades of defective knowledge. I am not shaming anyone. I did not see it myself until about four years ago.
You won’t learn what optimal health is from institutional health care.
Institutionalized health care knows nothing about health. They manage symptoms. It should be called disease symptom management instead of health care. In fact, inside the system that IS what it is called. The focus is only on diagnosing and suppressing symptoms. Some might argue institutional health care even prolongs symptoms or adds new ones, known as “side effects,” that result from the prescribed treatments.
I am willing to bet that if you are on one long term prescription drug you are on many. You started with one but then you got new symptoms that “required” another drug and another. Read the side effects list on your medications and see if you take drugs that treat the side effects of other drugs you take. Why do you think doctors are also known as “pill pushers?”
Drugs are dangerous. Some might help in a pinch but long term use is harder to support. Prescription drugs were the third leading cause of death in the U. S. three years ago — when taken as prescribed. I wonder what rank they are in now given that many current hospital treatment protocols have a 30% to 90% mortality rate.
I am sorry to say it, but anything you think you know about the current disease or even health in general that you learned from media, government or institutional healthcare is false. It is not true. You are welcome to try and prove me wrong but once you see the difference between what is true and what is false you cannot unsee it.
Just in case you wonder, I am 65 and take ZERO prescription or over the counter drugs. And I have NO indications for any of the chronic diseases of old age. That is not hubris. That was not where I was four years ago.
The goal of the drug makers is to gain the power to lock you into their system as a customer for life, a life which may become shorter with more chronic ailments than you would like. But more than likely you can get off your prescription drug diet, too. Don’t just quit drugs cold turkey. That can have serious effects since many drugs create dependencies (aka addictions.) As you change to a lifestyle that promotes health instead of destroying it the need for those drugs will go away. You will see it. Your doctor will see it. As it happens you can work with your doctor to become free of your drug addiction.
Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for
your wallet, because you’re being had. — Michael CrichtonWhere can you find the truth?
The independent, alternative media and independent health care is where to go to learn about optimizing health. An upcoming substack post will list names, web sites and freedoms groups that I have found to be reliable. It is a large and growing list and I will update it frequently.
Does anyone have the whole truth? No. Life and health are complex. But there are those who are actively pursuing what is true and those who are actively pushing what is false. My experience has been that most disagreements among those pursuing what is true arise from the complexity of life and can be figured out by honest critical thinking. Not everything works for all people. We know this.
God made each of us unique so there is “no one size fits all” for health. There are core principles for great health but I cannot think of any that involve a medical intervention. None of us are born drug or vaccine deficient. Think about that when you are told that every person on the planet must submit to a particular health intervention. Pray for God to give you discernment.
My turning point
I have learned more about health in the last four years than I did in my previous 61 years. Two of those years were before the latest assault on health by the government, media and institutional health care and two years were during it. I am grateful for God leading me to start investigating my own health issues four years ago. I go into more detail in a previous post.
My grandmother would have called much of what follows common sense. But is it no longer common. New knowledge has been discovered but the core remains the same. The quest to make extra profits and create repeat customers using cheap, artificial and toxic ingredients by institutional health systems has been a key driver to both our short and long term health decline.
Doctors who are truly looking out for their patients’ benefit find it difficult to operate in the institutional system. I would have said traditional system but it is no longer traditional. It has been captured. If you think it hasn’t, please let me know what you base that on in the comments.
Many doctors and nurses have successfully cured patients of many diseases including the latest one but it has become more and more difficult because the system is actively working against them. It is to the point that if doctors and nurses do the right thing they are attacked. They not only lose their jobs but the ability to practice at all. The system is looking for medical robots and repeat customers. They actively seek ways to lock customers in. This is a big problem. If you think I am wrong, please comment. I would like to hear why you think so.
My experience
With that perspective, I want to summarize the major thoughts and practices I have found and implemented that promote not only staying alive and well but promote my ability to thrive. I am not providing medical advice but I what I write is validated by the experiences of myself and others. I tend to give you the “why” behind the opinions I write. But to keep this short I will stick to writing “what.” As always, don’t just take my word for it. Always do your own research and where you disagree, please comment. We will both learn something.
Your health depends on good, clean food, water and air.
Simple strategies that yield big health benefits include avoiding seed oils, implementing time-restricted eating to become metabolically flexible, donating blood to lower your stored iron, strength training to build muscle, exercising in a fasted state, getting regular sun exposure and optimizing your sleep
Food
Food is more than calories.
This is not what you hear in the conventional narrative. You hear you need an 2000 calorie diet eating mostly carbs, a moderate amount of proteins and finally a few fats. This is upside down. Fats do not make you fat. Carbs make you fat. Carbs do not promote health. The right proteins and fats promote health.
If you eat the right foods for the right reasons you will never count another calorie. I have not counted or thought of counting a calorie in four years while I lost 115 pounds, I also increased muscle mass and recovered the health I had in college .
Calorie counting is meaningless unless you take into account the composition of the food containing the calories. 200 calories of sugar or butter or steak each have different effects in your body. This is because your body uses simple carbohydrates (carbs), fats and proteins for different purposes.
What is food?
I used to think food was simply calories. Man, was I wrong!
Food is composed of at least seven components (my list keeps growing as I learn) : fuel, building blocks, supplements, information, prebiotics, probiotics and toxins.
Fuel is simple carbohydrates and fats. When you think of food you have been taught to think of food as fuel only. Food does does not contain just “calories.” It is so much more.
Building blocks are proteins, amino acids, minerals and fats. All of your tissues and bones are built from these components.
Supplements are vitamins, minerals and the micronutrients needed to signal, maintain and moderate life processes. Without these micronutrients and catalysts the chemical processes of life would not get signaled properly nor would they react fast enough to support life.
Information is from the DNA and other natural molecules in the food you eat. These communicate with and signal your own cellular systems, immune processes, energy production and much more. Food can turn certain genes on or off. All of your food comes from things once living except for a few minerals. GMO foods and artificial sweeteners and colors contain DNA and other molecules your system was not designed to recognize and use. This is why you do not want these in your diet. You do not know if they will be beneficial, neutral or detrimental to your body.
Prebiotics are food for the host organisms that live in your system that you need for life also known as the microbiome. Complex carbs, commonly called fiber, are the main food for your microbiome. Your body cannot digest or use this fiber but your gut buddies thrive on it and produce nutrients and signaling molecules you cannot get any other way. If you experience gas and bloating you are probably missing a large number of your gut microbiome who are no longer there to digest those complex carbs. Antibiotics are the typical culprit in their demise. When you carpet bomb your microbiome with an oral antibiotic it will take months or even years to repopulate it.
Probiotics are the actual host organisms that live in your system, the microbiome, that you need for life. They are not optional! They protect you as well as produce materials that you cannot get from your food. You typically lose these guys one of two ways: oral antibiotics or starving them by not eating enough prebiotic fiber. You repopulate them by eating real food. There are some ways to supplement them as well which I cover in Healthy LifeStyle Habits.
Toxins are also in food. Some are actually beneficial in small amounts that trigger healthy homeostasis in your body. They exercise your immune system. Homeostasis is the ten dollar word for balance.
The worst toxins are avoidable and should be avoided. They are not safe in any quantity. Some accumulate over time and are stored in your fat tissue if your ability to eliminate them has broken down. This keeps them from doing more harm. This is important to consider if you go on a weight loss program so you support the processes to eliminate toxins as they are freed from fat loss rather than re-poisoning yourself with them. This is also important to consider if you eat the fats from animals who were fed toxic diets.
When toxins overwhelm your system it results in acute, chronic or progressive disease(s). The highest sources of toxins in the SAD (Standard American Diet) are seed oils, lectins, pesticides, herbicides, toxic metals and plastics. Chlorine and fluorine in water, containers and cooking utensils are also toxic. Some foods contain large amounts of heavy metals or toxic chemicals because of how they are grown and what they are sprayed with.
Less obvious toxins are:
Sugar. In excess, sugar is a toxin and is also addictive. Almost ALL sugar in the modern diet is in excess. I would argue ALL refined sugar is toxic. It is definitely addictive. Our ancestors ate 20 teaspoons of non-refined sugar a year coming only from foods that naturally contained sugar. Those foods had not been bred and hybridized to increase the sugar they contained to them sweeter. This is one reason heirloom varieties of plants are preferred for a healthy diet.
The average American today eats 152 pounds of sugar a year, most of it refined, PLUS 146 pounds of flour, also refined (this means it turns immediately to sugar when eaten.) That breaks down to 45 teaspoons of sugar A DAY. Most of it is refined. You may find various numbers being reported but in all cases the numbers are way too high. The lower numbers are often cited as added sugar but I am talking about total sugar. Added sugar is the worst but a diet heavy in sweet foods and bread contains much too much sugar. In any case sugar is way out of hand. You are not designed for this amount of sugar. Type II diabetes and chronic inflammation diseases, anyone?
All pharmaceuticals (I do not include bio-identical products like insulin and replacement hormones in my definition of pharmaceutical) are toxins and contain none of the benefits found in food, even food that might be the original source of that pharmaceutical. Almost all drugs are designed to kill something, create a response to a toxin or suppress a natural body process. Drugs can only be patented if they are artificial. Natural products cannot be patented (even though some are illegally.) So drugs derived from plants or animals have to be changed a little to be patented.
Pharmaceuticals can trigger healing processes in your body by removing negative pressures but they are harsh. They are not mixed with beneficial ingredients like they would be in a natural food. Their use should be very targeted and very limited. Their concentration makes it much easier to cross the line from being beneficial to being destructive. If you don’t agree, provide evidence to change my mind.
If your food does not contribute in at least one of the ways just listed you should not be eating it. One way I like to say it is this; you may not have thought of it this way before but your body is entirely composed only of the food you have eaten. If you do not eat good things your body will do its best to use what it gets but it will not be the strong healthy body you desire. You may end up more like this.
If you can think other major things we get from food that I did not list let me know what you think those are. There are probably more.
Avoid Junk Food
Enough said!
Why do you think it is known as “junk food?”
Muscle
Building muscle is by far one of the most important strategies you can implement to improve and safeguard your health. The greater your muscle mass, the higher your survivability against all diseases, including cancer. It optimizes you for longevity. Some of the best methods for muscle health are resistance training and HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training.) Simply moving like regular long walks or riding a bike is a great place to start and is more beneficial than you think.
Natural circadian rhythm
Circadian rhythm is not the latest music trend or the name of a band from the islands. This is the cycle of life. Sunrise and sunset. Waking and sleeping. Eating and fasting. All the daily, weekly monthly and yearly cycles that make up our routine habits. For this article I want to concentrate on fasting and sleeping which are critical for optimum health.
Fast
Where do you think “break-fast” got it’s name?
You should be fasting daily. This is also called time restricted eating or intermittent fasting. Creating metabolic flexibility (being able to quickly switch between using fats or carbs for fuel) and triggering growth cycles and repair cycles in the proper ratio supports great health. The key signal for both of those processes is your insulin level. When insulin is present above a certain level you are in the growth cycle and using simple carbs for fuel. When insulin is below that threshold you switch to burning fat and go into the repair cycle (aka autophagy or ketosis). Any time you eat a meal with simple carbs in it (sugar, flour, rice) insulin goes up and you are put into growth mode. This is natural. What is unnatural is staying in this cycle all day long every day. You cannot switch to the repair cycle until the insulin level goes back down. If you are constantly eating, it will never go down.
When insulin does come down between meals and overnight you go into the repair cycle. I believe a good ratio of growth to repair is 1/3 of the day in growth and 2/3 of the day in repair. When you eat a meal containing mostly fat, limited protein and no simple carbs you keep the insulin level low enough to remain in the repair cycle (aka ketosis). This is why I limit my simple carbs to only one meal a day.
From my study and experience the optimum cycle is a six to eight hour eating window. You can fit one, two or three meals into that window. Don’t eat snacks between meals. Do not eat three hours prior to bedtime. Doing so will have negative effects on your sleep. Sleep is when your body goes into the deep cleaning and repair cycle of your brain. Going to bed digesting food and a high insulin level prevents that cycle from happening.
I like two meals a day, lunch and dinner. My plan is high fat, moderate protein, complex carb lunch. Dinner is some fat, more protein than at lunch and some carbs. Saving the carbs until dinner helps promote sleepiness at bedtime. Twice a week I have a 24 hour fast. I eat only one meal in 24 hours. For example I eat dinner Saturday night and dinner Sunday night with nothing in between, except for bulletproof coffee (which contains nothing to raise insulin levels). Bulletproof coffee is a great invention to keep you in ketosis longer and really helps with the longer fasting periods. Thanks, Dave Asprey!
I am a man and the circadian rhythms of men and women are somewhat different. For the women reading this I recommend following Naomi Whittel. She has great advice on her web page and in her book Glow 15 that will help you.
Sleep
Sleep 6 to 8 hours every night. Do your best to have the same bed time and wake up time 7 days a week. Sleep is your body’s recovery and repair period, do not underestimate it. Sleep is the only time your brain gets the rest and deep cleaning cycle that makes it last a lifetime. For many years the need for sleep was an enigma. Research over the last few decades has unlocked a wealth of information about how essential sleep really is. There is a lot going on “under the covers” that is required for your best, healthiest and longest life.
A sleep tracker app can help you learn and understand your sleep patterns. Avoid all light when sleeping especially blue light. Specific light wavelengths affect your circadian rhythm and hormone levels more than you might realize. You need the small amount of blue light found in the natural morning sunlight to trigger the production of serotonin. The brighter blue light in full sun is a signal your body to stay awake. Then red and amber light in the sunset trigger your system to turn the morning serotonin into evening melatonin that will induce the deep sleep needed for brain function and tissue repair.
The blue light found in artificial light messes with that cycle. Blue light signals your body to stay awake so you want to avoid blue light after sunset. Blue light by itself can also be damaging because it is the highest energy visible wavelength. It is the most damaging to your eyes. The right amount of blue light (that found in natural light) triggers a response in your eyes that strengthens them. When blue light exceeds that threshold it overwhelms that process and causes too much damage. This deteriorates eye sight over time. Blue light from electronic devices and fluorescent light is disruptive and harmful at all times of day but particularly at night. Blue blocking glasses and apps that reduce blue light emission from electronic devices are two ways to avoid excess blue light.
Here are a few places to find blue blocking glasses. Using these links will provide some support for me but however you get blue blocking glasses, get them and use them, especially if you spend a lot of time on devices or under fluorescent lights.
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The Danger of High Iron
High iron may be a major harmful health mistake, closely followed by seed oil consumption. Combined, they’re a recipe for disaster. The primary problem with seed oils is that they’re loaded with linoleic acid (an omega-6 fat), which acts as a metabolic poison when consumed in excess.
Most men and postmenopausal women have high iron, as there’s no pathway of elimination other than blood loss. Stored iron is damaging to all of your internal systems as it promotes oxidative stress. It’s also one of the most common causes of fatigue because of how it impairs mitochondrial energy production.
Iron is an essential nutrient, integral to hundreds of biological functions including oxygen transport, DNA synthesis and energy metabolism. But having either too much or too little iron leads to serious consequences. Doctors may check for iron deficiency but iron overload is a far more common problem that is not checked often. Adult men and non-menstruating women are the most at risk of having dangerously high levels of iron. Left untreated, excess iron can damage organs and contribute to the development of heart disease, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. One easy solution is regular blood donations. For more information read Dr. Mercola’s article on iron.
Breathe
You should have a breathing exercise you practice daily. I recommend the breathing technique developed by Wim Hof. There are other good breathing exercises out there but this one has had noticeable benefits for my wife and me.
Wim Hof The Iceman Demonstrates His Breathing Technique with Lewis Howes
Light
Light is required for life. Don’t believe me? Turn off the sun and see what happens to life. All of your food contains energy collected and stored from sunlight. Only plants turn inorganic mater into organic matter by directly utilizing sunlight. Free energy! Sounds miraculous and maybe it is.
The sun shining on you feels good because it is good. Sun exposure triggers melatonin production in your mitochondria (from the near-infrared light), vitamin D (from ultraviolet B rays) and it activates vitamin A, which is just as important as vitamin D for health, especially immune health
The various wavelengths mixed together in natural light is the optimum mix. The wavelength mix varies throughout the day and contributes significantly to your daily circadian rhythm. Even the light you cannot see, infrared and ultraviolet, is as important as the light you can see.
Extra infrared light has positive health benefits that support both healing and the energy production happening in the mitochondria (your power plants) found in your cells. Many devices may now be found that provide therapeutic doses of infrared light that promote healing and energy production. Infrared sauna provides the most benefit in this area.
Here are a few places to find infrared devices. Using these links will provide some support for me but however you get them, get them and use them. I think you will find big benefits. They are very effective at speeding up wound healing and increase energy production from your mitochondria.
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For more information about light and health:
Health and Light: The extraordinary Study that Shows How light Affects Your Health and emotional well being.
by John N. Ott
This is a fascinating book about light by the inventor of the Ott Light, which he developed because of his research showing that the wavelengths in natural sunlight are the best combination for health. He was also the pioneer of stop motion photography used to produce Disney’s first movie (and many more) showing slow natural processes in “real time.” Like watching an apple from bloom to fruit and flowers opening and closing in seconds or minutes. His research into stop motion photography used color filters for various photographic effects. Unexpectedly, these filters also showed profound effects from the different wavelengths of light on living organisms. He tried to get the mainstream scientific research of the time (1950’s and 1960’s) to fund deeper research into his discoveries. He was mostly snubbed because most scientists of the time considered light, colored or not, to have very little influence on life and life processes. After all, no one had really looked into it before so how important could it be? The scientists were wrong about that. Very wrong. This is a short book that is well worth the time to read.
Two very interesting seminars on the importance of healthy light.
The person where I first heard about John Ott’s book is Jack Kruse. He has taken Ott’s initial discoveries to new levels.
Nourish Vermont 2016 // Dr. Jack Kruse: How to Bio-Hack Your Zip Code for Optimal Health
Dr. Jack Kruse / Nourish Vermont 2017
Spiritual
You and I are spiritual beings. I did not leave this until last because it is the least important. I like to save the best for last (ask my wife.)
I believe life is composed of both spiritual and physical elements. The spiritual part of my being inhabits my physical body. My spirit knows how to run my physical body and can even work around temporary or permanent damage. I have worked with people damaged by a stroke and seen this first hand. I am convinced that the only thing that keeps me alive and heals physical damage is the spirit God breathed into my life. Many refer to this as the will to live. We all have stories about how the will to live (or lack of it) has contributed to a person’s recovering from an accident or a disease.
When given the right materials for repair, the spirit constantly heals temporary damage. I believe the spirit is the source of what is called epigenetics, the unseen director that reads and coordinates the physical instructions in the DNA while conducting the complex orchestration of physical life. When damage is beyond the ability to be healed, either because the damage is too extensive or because the repair materials needed are lacking or the person lacks the will to live, the spirit departs.
Be sure you know your final destination before that happens.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
— John 3:6
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
— Matthew 10:28
Thanks Randy! So much information and I'm still working on understanding it all. So grateful you sent out your first email in 2020.