Food Order

An interesting question is whether there is any advantage in eating the macronutrients — fat, carbs, protein — in any sequence?

There is a lot of evidence that having fat in one’s meal aids the digestion of various vitamins and minerals. Without the presence of fat, these nutrients are digested, but not as well as they would have been had there been some fat available.

Fat also has no impact at all on insulin, and if you eat a meal that includes some fat, the carbs, which will spike insulin, will spike it much less severely because of the presence of fat. You do want to lower insulin spikes as much as possible.

There is also a good deal of evidence that protein is very satiating, and also slows down digestion because the protein compounds require a lot of work by digestive enzymes to break them down, which is a good thing.

So on balance, eating fat/protein at the start of a meal would appear to be the best strategy, and nothing fills that bill better than a handful of mixed nuts — high in both fat and protein. Perhaps you should start all your major meals with a source of fat/protein like nuts to improve your digestion.

Strength and Old Age

Aerobic exercise is not enough to maintain your strength in old age. You need to use weight training/resistance training to break down the muscle so that it can rebuild with protein. That’s the process that maintains muscle and strength, and that’s what the majority of older people don’t do, and therefore suffer from severe sarcopenia.

You see this all the time in very old people, that they don’t have the strength to do simple things — like just standing up is a real effort for them. The other day, I saw an old woman who needed help getting out of the hot tub. She didn’t have the strength to step up to the next level. Clearly, this was person who never did any of the weight training for years, so her muscles atrophied.

Don’t let that happen. Do the weight training/resistance training on a regular basis — at least 3 times a week at the gym. Just do it. Your strength depends on it.

Breathe

No-Brainer Supplements

Resveratrol, sulforaphane, turmeric, milk thistle, garlic, magnesium, chlorella, glutathione.

Resveratrol because of its intense antioxidants and because it is linked to longevity — a longer life span, probably because of the antioxidants.

Sulforaphane because of its proven ability to fight cancer cells. The pharmaceutical industry has poured billions into the study of sulforaphane for this very reason.

Turmeric because of its proven ability to suppress chronic inflammation, which is so common.

Milk thistle because of its proven benefit to promote the health of the liver. You are only as healthy as your liver.

Garlic because of its proven antiviral impact.

Magnesium because of its proven ability to create calmness — a natural sedative.

Chlorella because of its unique mineral content from the sea.

Glutathione is the body’s main antioxidant — the body produces its own glutathione to suppress oxidative stress, but you can also buy it as a supplement in order to boost this defense against cancer and inflammation.

For those people who say that supplements are useless, I say nonsense.

Food Choices