Eight years ago I was skinny fat, had horrible IBS, got sick all the time, and could never go outside without a box of tissues.
I decided to do something about it, and while I’m not where I want to be yet, I’ve fixed most of these problems.
It took me far too long though, because I was derailed by unhelpful popular health “advice”.
Learn from these 15 mistakes to save yourself much time, money, and misery.
1. Seed oils are Sinister
People seem to have had enough seed oil talk, but it’s hard to stress just how bad they really are.
I “avoided” them for years, but still only learned to fully eliminate them about a year ago.
They are without a doubt the single worst thing people consume. Not gluten, not dairy, not sugar, not even pesticides.
This article just scratches the surface at the problems they’re responsible for.
Cut them out and you might be able to save yourself from having to follow all the other diet fads, like keto or dairy free, that lead to nowhere (and are much less pleasant to follow).
2. Omega 3s are awful
I will keep stressing this until everyone understands. Omega 3s are worse than seed oils, for the same reason that seed oils are bad.
If you think seed oils are bad, then (by logic and chemistry) you must also think omega-3s are bad too.
There is a reason you need to hide fish oil in a pill. It smells demonic and repulsive (for a reason).
I took them for years and am still detoxing from them.
3. Fasting is foolish
Starving yourself elevates stress hormones.
I skipped breakfast for 3 years, and my IBS just got worse. Eating early in the morning was the only thing that fixed my digestion.
When you wake up, your liver is depleted of glycogen. If that’s not refilled, you will get a flood of stress hormones, which fasting proponents justify as a good thing.
Sure, it feels good. Ever heard of adrenaline junkies? Stress can feel good. That doesn’t mean it is good.
Instead, when you eat early in the morning, you give your liver the energy it needs, and you get the digestive juices flowing.
I used to skip breakfast and it would take me hours before my stomach felt “ready” for food.
It was hard to eat breakfast at first, but eventually I started to wake up hungry and ready for food. This is a sign that everything is working well.
Historically, fasting was used only for religious purposes, and infrequently. There are reasons for this which I won’t get into now. But suffice it to say that they knew what they were doing.
4. Superfoods are superfluous (supplements too)
Black seed oil, sea moss, chlorophyll, chia seeds, whatever.
It's all cope by people who would rather not make the hard lifestyle changes needed to fundamentally optimize health.
I’ve spend thousands of dollars on supplements and superfoods, and they never really helped.
People just want a pill to fix their problems. “Alternative health” people who trade syntetic pills for natural pills are no different.
But people like easy. They like thinking that a simple bottle of whatever will fix their problems.
The real results come from the much more difficult work.
A simple test whether a superfood/supplement is BS: ask yourself if it’s necessary for human health. I.e., does some healthy tribesman require it to build a healthy body?
If not, it’s superfluous and should be used with reservation.
5. Carnivore is counterproductive
Your gut bacteria, which produce neurotransmitters and run your immune system, require food to survive.
Carnivores are right— we can’t digest fiber. But it’s not food for us, it’s for the microbiome.
Avoiding plants entirely will genocide your gut bacteria. This is why I got sick often when on carnivore.
The keto aspect doesn’t help either. I had such high stress levels that I couldn’t digest food well, and got severly bloated, from the lack of carbs.
Funny how all the "carnivores" are eating fruit now...
6. Sun doesn't damage skin
The sun did nothing wrong. Sunburn, skin cancer, skin damage-- the sun is the root cause of none of these.
I used to burn in the summers and get pale in the winters (despite natural olive skin), because I didn’t prioritize sun exposure and I hadn’t fully eliminated seed oils.
Avoiding the sun and using sunscreen does not help at all. Sun exposure lowers stress and helps balance your hormones.
I’m convinced it’s not possible to be truly healthy without a decent amount of sun exposure.
7. Water is a waste
I did the "8 cups a day" thing, and it just made me dehydrated.
Too much water pulls minerals out of cells, and dumping a bunch of water in an empty stomach releases more stress hormones.
Your tissues also need to be primed to accept hydration— rain on a desert only makes a flood. If there is too much calcification in your soft tissues, water can not get into them.
Fruit juice or milk are the best liquids to drink.
8. Keto is crazy
You want to be jacked and tan huh? Then your body must exist in a state of perpetual summer.
Why? Because the summer is the time that testosterone peaks and stress is at its lowest (those two are inversely correlated).
The metabolism is also at its highest, because it’s a time of abundance in nature and your body doesn’t need to conserve so much energy like it does in winter.
Avoiding carbs makes your body think it’s the winter time (when the fruit is no longer available from the trees) and increases your stress hormones.
The keto people admit this. Some try to downplay it or call it a good thing.
But chronic stress slows your metabolism, which explains the plateaus in weight loss so many people have on keto.
This can take years to recover from. Do yourself a favor and don’t give yourself hypothyroidism.
9. Food is (kinda) frivolous
Food is a good place to start on your health journey.
But don't get hung up on it. I agonized over my eating, and I still had bad IBS.
I’ve learned that stress plays a much larger role in my digestion. Eating while working, or on the phone, and alone in an apartment? High stress, bad digestion.
A relaxing meal, with fun casual conversation, that’s not rushed? I digest it better.
Even if the latter meal contains foods that are not ideal.
Neuroticisim about healthy food can itself be source of stress. This is called orthorexia, which I used to think didn’t exist (because I had it).
I guarantee that if you obsess over food, particularly if you don’t enjoy your life because of it, you will never be as healthy as you could be.
10. Having fun is fine
Speaking of orthorexia, when people start to learn about health, it’s easy assume a perpetual state of panic at the myriad toxins we’re constantly inundated with.
This panic leads to more stress, and leads to people adopting a dour, serious attitude toward life.
This happened to me as I got more serious about health, and I was very unpleasant to be around. And I wasn’t healthy either.
At many of the health conferences I’ve been to, people there don’t seem to be enjoying their lives.
Not only does unhappiness not make you healthy. Even if it did, would it be worth it?
Fortunately, we don’t need to decide between the two.
Humans are made to be happy and healthy. If your techniques for improving one aren’t consistent with the other, it’s time to reconsider.
Bonus Rounds
There are 5 more lessons I have to share with you, but they may be too controversial for mass consumption.
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