Single Blog

One diet does not fit all. A cutting-edge MD friend of mine is always saying that we are in the age of personalized medicine since we can map an individual’s genetic code. (Look up epigenetics and behavioral epigenetics to learn more about how nutrition can affect your genes.) Basically stated, the dietary and lifestyle choices you make affect your likelihood of contracting or succumbing to certain disease states.

Pay attention to how foods affect your body, and make sure you’re not sabotaging your brain health with old information. As Gary Taubes, co-founder of the Nutrition Science Initiative and a science and health journalist, stated in his Timesarticle “Why Nutrition Is So Confusing“:

“Because the nutrition research community has failed to establish reliable, unambiguous knowledge about the environmental triggers of obesity and diabetes, it has opened the door to a diversity of opinions on the subject, of hypotheses about cause, cure and prevention, many of which cannot be refuted by the existing evidence. Everyone has a theory. The evidence doesn’t exist to say unequivocally who’s wrong.

…Back in the 1960s, when researchers first took seriously the idea that dietary fat caused heart disease, they acknowledged that such trials were necessary and studied the feasibility for years. Eventually the leadership at the National Institutes of Health concluded that the trials would be too expensive–perhaps a billion dollars–and might get the wrong answer anyway. They might botch the study and never know it. They certainly couldn’t afford to do two such studies, even though replication is a core principle of the scientific method. Since then, advice to restrict fat or avoid saturated fat has been based on suppositions about what would have happened had such trials been done, not on the studies themselves.

Nutritionists have adjusted to this reality by accepting a lower standard of evidence on what they’ll believe to be true.”

If the evidence can’t yet tell us who’s right and who’s wrong, you have to play scientist in your own life. If you’re low on energy, get brain fog on a regular basis, or are unhappy with your weight, pay attention to what you eat and how it affects you. You may be surprised by what you discover.

2. Move more.

If exercise is a dirty word to you, don’t try to go from couch potato to gym rat in one giant leap. Take the amount of movement you’re currently doing and increase it slowly and gradually. Walking outside for 10-15 minutes before you eat lunch is better than sitting at your computer catching up on Facebook. If it’s too cold (or hot) to go outside, walk around inside, climb up and down the stairs, or do some basic bodyweight exercises (pushups, squats, crunches) in your office. If you don’t exercise at all, consider starting with 10 pushups, 10 squats, and 10 crunches once a day. This works your muscles and costs nothing more than a few minutes of your time.

3. Learn to relax.

Two minutes of breathing exercises can change the course of your day and, over time, your life. Stress is linked to almost all major diseases, and exacerbates whatever is already ailing you.

With all of these habits, the key is to start slow and gradually increase as you build confidence and get comfortable with what you’re doing. Give yourself manageable, achievable goals that don’t feel overwhelming. Most of all, keep in mind that if you want to be successful, your goals should stretch you, not break you.