Self tracker, author, and luminary Tim Ferriss sits with the WellnessFX crew for an intimate 4-part talk about performance, longevity, and the future of healthcare. Check out the trailer!
Check back for the full-length webisodes – coming soon!
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Imagine a man. He’s been health-conscious his whole life. One day his doctor informs him things have begun to go downhill. His cholesterol–fine mere months before–has gone crazy.
“Why is this happening?” he asks.
“Life,” the doctor says. “You’re forty-five years old. Your bad genes are starting to flip on and your good genes are shutting down.”
The man remembers how his grandfather died as a result of heart surgery and how he’s been fighting to avoid that same fate. All his efforts–the countless hours in the gym, the runs in the morning, the small portion sizes at family dinners–begins to feel like they were for naught. What does he do?
When she’s not on the phone with WellnessFX members, interpreting labs and providing guidance, Kathleen Bundy is the staff nutritionist at the Center for Health and Wellbeing in San Diego. A Registered Dietitian who works with a wide range of clients, Kathleen is a prolific source of health and wellness knowledge.
For many of our WellnessFX providers, their day to day practice is much different than their member consultations. For Kathleen, clients range from those who are begrudgingly referred to her by their physician, to those who are excited and receptive to new ways of thinking about food.
Kathleen’s journey to a career in nutrition was a natural progression. “I grew up in the garden and the kitchen with a family that liked to eat well.” Raised in Alaska, physical activity and an intimacy with nature were a strong part of her upbringing. This respect for food and the environment evolved to incorporate aspects of psychology and spirituality.
credit: Instagram @caitlanm14
When I was in medical school, I spent my summers working for a stonemason. By the end of each summer I had thick, grizzly calluses on my hands. The cause was clear: continual irritation to the area led the body to adapt by thickening the skin in order to prevent repetitive damage. Calluses did not attack me and they did not occur over night.
Chronic diseases occur in the same way. They are the result of the body’s own adaptive physiology straining to react to a continual stress over time. Dis-ease is a state of not being at ease or balance. Chronic dis-eases, such as heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, autoimmune conditions, etc. do not occur over night, but are a process of time. The effects accumulate and eventually cause symptoms.
When we think about healthy eating, it is not only what you eat but also how you eat. Practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) emphasize the regularity of meal times as important to maintaining health. Irregular eating patterns, such as eating late at night, skipping meals, and over- or under-eating can negatively impact the digestive system, leading to symptoms such as acid reflux, gas, and abdominal pain. Moreover, emotional stress or excessive mental activity during mealtimes, e.g. working lunches, watching tv, reading email, etc, could interfere with proper absorption of the nutrients in your food. This relationship between the mind and digestive system parallels that of the Brain-Gut Axis in western medicine.
According to TCM principles, food should be eaten at an unhurried pace, in small bites, and with little distraction. This is also the concept behind the Buddhist practice of “mindful eating,” which has attracted interest among health experts and consumers as a method to curb binge eating.
Yet there’s more than personal stress and distractions that could affect your eating habits and nourishment. According to TCM, even factors outside of your control such as seasons, temperature, and humidity may affect your appetite and weaken digestive systems. TCM recognizes that choosing the right kinds of food is what brings balance to an individual between their natural cycles and surroundings. To find the balance that works best for you, start by getting a deeper insight into the state of your health!
Currently a student and clinic intern at American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ACTCM) in San Francisco, Teresa Lau believes that health should not be viewed as merely a lack of disease, but rather, a positive state of physical, mental, and social well-being. Teresa’s vision is to combine her clinical training in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with her background in Public Health to not only heal clients through acupuncture treatments and herbal remedies, but to also educate everyone on TCM perspectives of health and well-being in order to empower them with the knowledge and tools to make positive lifestyle, diet, and behavioral changes.
You take your fish oil religiously, but how much do you really know about the different fatty acids and the affects they have on your body? In following today’s nutritional trends, your fatty acid ratios may not be optimal for your health. An example of why from the Bulletproof Executive:
Dave Asprey, the Bulletproof Executive and upcoming author of The Better Baby Book, and our CEO, Jim Kean, sit down to discuss both the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids and how to achieve optimal ratios. They also offer some nifty tricks on eating healthy while on the move.
Despite the increase in consumption of plant-based oils, 25% of North Americans don’t possess the gene responsible for converting plant-based fatty acids into useful long-chain fatty acids. And even those who do possess this gene only convert at very low levels, meaning that 40 grams of inflammatory omega-6 is needed just to get 1 gram of anti-inflammatory omega-3. This can be very taxing on the body’s enzyme system, something vegetarians and vegans should be dutifully aware of when assessing their nutritional plans. ‘Healthy’ range for omega-6 to omega-3 ratios is considered to be under 4:1.
So, really, how feasible is it for you to drop all the way down from 40:1 to 4:1? Consider this: both Jim and Dave have decreased their ratios to under 2:1! They achieved this by testing their levels and then simply manipulating their diets with fish oils, krill oils and prioritizing grass-fed beef over corn-fed beef. If they can do it, so can you.
Remember: eliminating certain fats isn’t the answer. They all have their roles in powering our bodies. Finding the correct balance of the different types of these nutrients is the best way to ensure a healthy lifestyle.