Written by Christopher Kelly
Nov. 20, 2015
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Christopher: Hello and welcome to the Nourish Balance Thrive Podcast. My name is Christopher Kelly and today I'm joined by Mike Zusman. Hi, Mike.
Mike: Hi, Chris. How are you?
Christopher: Good, thank you. How are you? That's the question.
Mike: I'm doing very well.
Christopher: That's excellent news. Mike is someone that I'd been working with for the last -- Wow, it's been a while now, isn't it? Eight months at least, coming up on a year maybe.
Mike: Yeah. I keep thinking a year in my head but I tend to round up.
Christopher: Yeah. So the first revision of this health plan document I'm looking at was on March 6th of this year, so it's not quite that long. Now is September. So, what were your main complaints when you first approached me?
Mike: It's kind of funny. I didn't have complaints that are sort of in line with the improvements I've experienced, let me put it that way. When I reached out to you, and actually it was about a year ago, sometime in the fall before the holidays, my wife was actually six to seven months pregnant at that time and I naively thought that 2015 was going to be my year on the mountain bike. I kind of had a routine down. I was training. I was working on my imbalances. I was getting there.
When I reached out to you, I was kind of looking at it from the perspective of -- I'd been listening to lots of different podcasts. There's all these crazy supplements and all these crazy things you should be doing to improve your health, improve your performance, which I wasn't really doing any of them. But you hear about them and you wonder what if? And then there's another big what-if. If I'm spending all this time training, I'm putting in the time, putting in the money, is my body doing what it's supposed to be doing to take advantage of all this training?
Or is my gut maybe not completely right given how I've spent the last ten years of my life, 20 years of my life, I should say? So I kind of looked at it as there are probably a number of unknown unknowns for me and it would be cool to have a much deeper understanding of where I stood.
Christopher: Yeah. No, you and I have so much in common it's ridiculous. Not only are you a new dad, you're also a mountain biker. You're a couple of years younger than me. And you're a tech guy. You work for a security company. I guess I'm not very secure. I'm probably one of those programmers that make tons of mistakes that you frown upon. But we have tech in common. I think it's quite a lot.
Mike: Yeah, I know. We definitely do. And that was something else that just kind of drew me to you. I heard you on the Ben Greenfield podcast. I guess, I'm technically a cat-one according to my USA cycling license, cat-one mountain bike racer. I'm probably more realistically a really fast cat two right about now because I hadn't been riding or training that much because I'd been working on building this business, this security consulting business and also, obviously, raising a family. I have two beautiful daughters now. There are a lot of moving pieces that all seem to ultimately one way or another result in stress.
Christopher: Yeah, absolutely. So tell me about how your stress was before we met? I know that anxiety sometimes comes from the stress. So how was all of that?
Mike: Yeah. I would tend to get anxious surrounding work situations. I have to do a lot of public speaking and I think public speaking is -- What is that like, top one or two fears across all of humanity? Nobody wants to get up in front of a crowd of people and speak. But I kind of always just muscled my way through it. So I would get myself into sort of work situations or even social situations that I get through it and I don't, hopefully, I'm assuming I don't look like a complete idiot.
But it's always been somewhat difficult. I guess, over the past year, what I've done in looking at a number of different -- Both looking at all the bio markers, all the lab results and then looking at nutrition and diet and how that actually impacts how I'm feeling, right? I think before I started working with you -- You just ate food, you had your oatmeal, you went for your bike ride, you went to your office, you do all these things. And you kind of know that, well, oatmeal is probably healthier than, say, a big bowl of pasta.
But I didn't really have the ability to actually take stock of what is the impact that the food I'm eating is actually having on the way I feel. And then how does that factor into my relationships and the interactions I have both personally and professionally? And what I found is that it can have an impact.
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And I would say one of the biggest tools that you advised me to start using and doing when we started was actually just simply checking my blood glucose at various times throughout the day. For me, as sort of a data-driven guy, that has a huge impact because a year ago, before I started working with you, it would be very common for me to walk away from the computer, go grab a pro bar, and just have a pro bar as a snack, which is like 400 calories and most of that is from brown rice syrup and grains and things. And not think twice about it.
And then ultimately not necessarily have the mental performance I was looking for throughout the afternoon. But I didn't really put two and two together until you start checking your blood glucose and you have one of those, next thing you know your blood sugar is over 130 when my fasted blood sugar was in the 70s or 80s. So I would say that a lot of the past year is basically resulted in me just sort of figuring out what is a better lifestyle for me. And when I say lifestyle, factor in work-life balance, nutrition as a huge component, and then even things just like taking the time to meditate and do something like Headspace.
Christopher: Excellent. And you've enjoyed Headspace, have you?
Mike: Yeah, yeah. It's easy and it's always there. I put the app on my dock on my iPhone. You can't really escape it. Even if you just go to check your email you're going to see that Headspace icon.
Christopher: I don't know. I'm more stressed. That was the opposite of what I wanted to achieve. So tell me how you've changed your diet then? You've moved away from the high carb approach and you've noticed the influence that those foods have on the way that you feel. So what's been working for you since?
Mike: Yeah. It's funny, I never even thought of myself as high carb. So what's been working for me since, really just keeping it simple. I kind of look at it from a plants fat and meat perspective as opposed to protein, carbs and fat. Every meal should be primarily plant-based, make sure I'm getting adequate dose of a healthy fat in there. And then have some meat with it. I guess, just for example, today I knew was a super busy day. I made a green smoothie with full-fat coconut milk, kale, arugula, some nori, some cinnamon and sea salt.
And then I had that and I had some bacon that I made the other day. So it was kind of quick and easy and definitely filling. But when I first had a transition away from oatmeal or my old version of the green smoothie, which had some more fruit in it and a lot more carbs in the morning, the thing that got me going was really just chopping up some garlic, throwing some olive oil in the pan, throwing in some greens and some tomatoes and just sautéing that with some eggs. I was thinking about it today. That sort of breakfast is actually easier and faster to make than the green smoothie.
Christopher: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Mike: So taking it back to the whole real foods approach, that was what sort of set me up on a much more positive trajectory.
Christopher: Awesome. It sounds like you'd been talking to Julie. She's all about this kind of thing with people with a smoothie, she's like, "By the time you clean that goddamn blender, you could have just made something."
Mike: No, for sure. And I think about this a lot. I think about routines. And in one sense routines are good. It's good to have a morning routine, right? But where does food fit into a routine? Because really, what I'm learning, what I'm hearing is that we really need variety. And it's very easy to fall into the trap of 'I'm just going to have the same green smoothie every day.' Or even the same spinach, kale and eggs every day.
How do you get out of that habit and get into the habit of just mixing it up, which is sort of seemingly counter intuitive because you want things to be comfortable and easy. But at first introducing that variety is kind of discomforting, a little bit stressful. But ultimately you adapt.
Christopher: Right, of course. I think that makes -- If our goal is nutrient density and the nutrients are in lots of different types of food, then I think it makes a lot of sense to mix things up.
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I think for me personally, letting go of what foods I eat at a particular time of day has been helpful for adding in variety because if you've already decided that you have cereal for breakfast or eggs for breakfast then that's the problem right there. But if you just will eat anything and if you're having something different for dinner every night and saw these different leftovers every day, every morning, then that kind of makes inserting the variety piece a lot easier, I think.
Mike: Yeah. I definitely agree. Trying to get a little bit creative and just kind of going out of your way to try new things. Make it a fun thing instead of a comfort thing.
Christopher: Right. So tell me about how this has affected you. So you got your blood sugar stable and you're thinking a bit more clearly. Tell me about how this has affected you at work? Because I'm kind of slightly envious in the exact line of work that you do and that you obviously need to be as razor sharp with your thinking. How has it affected you?
Mike: Yeah. So it's kind of interesting that in only in the past couple of weeks has a major change happened and that major change being for me that I actually went into ketosis. I'd been eating a high fat low carb diet for many months. But for a while, I was just sort of getting used to it. I wasn't really like, "I'm going to go into ketosis and that's the way it's going to be." So I wasn't really tracking things. I wasn't tracking my blood sugar. I wasn't tracking blood ketones.
But after a while, I said, "You know what, I'm eating this way. I haven't noticed any great difference. What is happening? What's going on with me?" So I just started tracking my blood sugar again and tracking, this time, ketones. So I pretty much started tracking that stuff early August just to see where things were at. And I noticed initially that my blood sugar was much higher this time around than when I was sort of tracking every day many months ago.
To be clear, when we first started, I was tracking three or four times a day. And then I kind of got a good handle on where I stood with certain foods and I stopped. But then in August, with sort of a different outlook on things, I started again. And what I noticed was that my blood sugar, my fasted blood sugar was actually much higher. So months ago, I would have been in the -- I could be in the low 70s to low 80s. This time around, I was actually out of bed in the morning pushing 90, which I thought was -- That was eye opening to me.
And I knew that at that time I had been under a lot more stress professionally and at home with the new baby. So, that was kind of one of those aha moments. Stress really does have a physiological impact on your body. At least that was the most readily available explanation. So it just made me take stock and think about how can I reduce my stress, I better manage my day and see an actual improvement in blood glucose.
And I have seen some improvement there or some ability of me to sort of influence my fasted blood sugar in that way. But, I guess, last week or two weeks ago at this point, after many weeks of checking ketones and they're 0.2, 0.2, 0.3, 0.1, 0.2, one day I woke up I felt especially great. I did my morning routine, I was like, "Let me check my ketones." And sure enough, they were like 0.8. That was kind of a game changer for me because I really just felt better than day.
And when I say felt better, I felt calm. I felt like I had a clear head. I felt I would almost say a little bit less anxious about the day. But what I found as I went throughout the day is that some interactions that I would normally have that would sort of, I don't know, trigger some sort of stressful response on my account, I was just able to sort of be present, take a moment, not sort of fly off the handle like in the case of your two-year old running around with food spilling all over the house.
You're just able to, I suppose, regulate my mood or control my mood. Yeah, I mean, that was kind of an eye opening experience for me. After that, as the days went on, I just found I had more and more energy like later in the day, booming energy at times. In fact, sometimes, to be honest, it was very intense, almost like -- I knew I wasn't drinking any caffeine but I felt like I had a big cup of coffee. That was kind of interesting to me.
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Christopher: That's awesome.
Mike: Yeah.
Christopher: I should probably make it really clear actually that you did work with Julie and she gave you some advice on what you should be eating but I'm sure that at no point she told you that you needed to be in ketosis, which is kind of interesting. It's not uncommon. Our thinking is that if you got someone that's got low cortisol and maybe looks like they have adrenal fatigue then now might not be the time for them to go through that keto-adaptation period. And so that's why Julie didn't say anything about ketosis to you at that time.
It seemed like all the boys do this. Once they've been working with us for six months, you'll get an email from them saying, "Oh, I just measured 2.2 millimole of ketones and I feel fantastic. Do you think I'm in ketosis?" Of course, that is the path that all the men seem to take. I don't fully understand why but it works.
Mike: Yeah. I'm glad you said that because that reminds me of something. Yeah, I worked with Julie. She was like eat real foods, get the banana out of your smoothie, try to avoid smoothie. She gave me some real practical actionable advice. Every time I make a smoothie, I still think, "Oh, she said no smoothies." But I feel like I'm doing a better job at nutrient density and so forth. But anyway, if you're not going to just jump into low fat, I'm sorry, high fat low carb, what is the middle ground?
Like, okay, we'll have a bunch of veggies and a piece of meat and sweet potato. And I should add another experience. Prior to cleaning up my nutrition, my wife and I we'd have sushi probably once a week. One of the things I noticed was that every day after eating sushi -- I would have like a sweet potato roll with brown rice, maybe two of those, and then a tuna roll. Every day, the following morning, I would wake up feeling almost hangover.
Well, I was also maybe having a beer or glass of wine with the sushi too. I always kind of attributed it to that. Then at some point, I think after we started working together, I made dinner for my wife. We had some scallops and big Japanese yam. I didn't drink anything that night because I was avoiding alcohol at that time. And the next morning I woke up with what I would say almost a significant hangover. I just had that headache. Maybe I had what some people refer to as brain fog. I just felt crummy.
I'm like, the only thing I had last night was that sweet potato. That makes sense. So that was kind of something that was always in the back of my mind. Depending on the carbs or the type of carb or the amount of carbohydrates I have, there could be something going on within me that just doesn't agree. And it's resulting in me feeling crummy the next day. So that was one of the major catalysts for me to say, "You know what, forget it. I know I'm getting carbohydrates, the carbohydrates I need to survive from the other plants. I should be good. Let's see what happens." And that's kind of the path I took.
Christopher: Yeah. I should probably point out actually. So we did some testing and in particular I thought the urinary organic acid testing was really useful for you. People are probably starting to think that I'm one of those guys that just blame the carbs. I've seen stuff on Facebook recently where people are saying, "Oh, it's the insulin, stupid. All we need to do is just cut out the carbs and everybody is going to be healthy."
But I don't think that's true. I don't think it's as simple as that. If anything, if you wanted to pick one hormone as being the most important, I would argue that it is, in fact, cortisol. If you'd like to read more about that, I highly recommend Robert Sapolsky's book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers or Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, as we say in the UK. I'm starting to turn into an American. But that's a fantastic book.
There's other things other than carbs that cause brain fog. And on your urinary organic acids test, we saw an elevation of quinolinic acid. For people that like to do their own research, go Google this organic acid. You can measure it in the urine sample. And quinolinic acid is a metabolite. It's a breakdown product that comes from immune activity in the brain. And it's a neurotoxin. So when there is high levels of quinolinic acid, you'd expect to see neurological symptoms.
The question is where does inflammation coming from? And we saw bacterial overgrowth as well as on the urinary organic acids. So, I think, that taking some supplements and killing off some bacterial overgrowth was also really helpful for you. I mean, we never know. It's always an observation, isn't it? You look at the biochemistry and you make an educated guess and you take some action and then you observe a response or a change.
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You don't really know for sure what was the cause and effect. But there's definitely some evidence there are the things other than carbs that were causing you trouble.
Mike: Sure, sure. I mean, I can draw it on a couple of times. It's actually kind of interesting throughout my bike racing career, I can remember a number of occasions where after a bike race I would have a headache. I would always attribute it to, well, I'm probably dehydrated. I didn't have enough electrolytes, something simple like that. And then during six months ago, I had a super stressful morning at home, kids screaming, contractor coming and going, all hell is breaking lose, and instantly I just had this pounding headache. I kind of put two and two together. Okay, I'm like really stressed out in this situation and, boom, I get a headache. What's causing that? I don't know if you have any opinion or something like that.
Christopher: I mean, imagine you had an overgrowth of some bacteria and it was a gram-negative bacteria and there were lipopolysaccharides, which are a type of endotoxin, in the cell walls of these bacteria. And say you had a somewhat increased intestinal permeability, so a bit of a leaky gut. And then if you're riding your bike on a regular basis, well, riding your bike, any kind of endurance exercise is an ischemic event to your gut. It actually removes the blood supply by up to 80%.
And then the guts can become more leaky and some of these endotoxins can get into the bloodstream. And then if those endotoxins, which can cause inflammation in the brain, then that will give you a headache. It's kind of that's where the -- I don't know that this is happening for sure but when you see an elevation of quinolinic acid, you have to kind of wonder. And it will be super interesting for you to do that test again to see whether the quinolinic acid has gone away.
Mike: Yes. So I actually did order a new organics test.
Christopher: Good.
Mike: Hopefully, that should arrive, I don't know, I'm hoping this week. Yeah, see the follow up data.
Christopher: Yeah. You're definitely a data-driven guy, which I very much appreciate. That's awesome. But tell me how it's been for your bike racing? Because I know a lot of people, they're concerned that when they take away the carbohydrates they're going to see a massive decline in their performance, they're going to get slow even if they are skinny. Tell me how your training and your racing has been? Has it suffered or got better?
Mike: Yeah. I would say things are only getting better due to the sort of the nutritional changes and the things I've learned from you guys. I guess, why is it not getting better as fast as I would like, well, because I have an eight-month old and a two-year old and I'm running a business. I'm definitely in this period of transition where I'm sort of learning how to train again. And I think everything is sort of -- It's all complementary. I guess, to give you a little bit of background about sort of when I was eating the typical diet, the typical high carb diet, my weight would fluctuate.
During the race season, I could be -- I remember at my lowest, I was 163 pounds. And then in the off season, while I'd keep eating my oatmeal and eggs every morning, next thing you know I'd be like pushing 200 again. So this sort of big weight fluctuations. But at the same time, while I was kind of aware, I know I'm eating these giant bowls of oatmeal but I'm hungry. I need to eat them. What else am I going to eat? Oatmeal is healthy.
Versus now, my training load has decreased but my weight I stable. I'm at 180 pounds or so. Yeah, I could lose a couple of pounds of body fat and I think that being in ketosis is definitely going to help there. I guess, initially when I did start with you guys, that was one of my major points or complaints if you will that it seemed like no matter how hard I train, some belly fat just wouldn't go away. It just didn't make much sense to me.
But now, I'm starting to see the sorts of visual improvements without even increasing my training load but just by cleaning up the nutrition, which is cool. I haven't actually done any -- Let's see. The last big event I did. I split time between trail running and mountain biking. Those are my two things. In July, I did, I guess, what you would call a minimalist training program to get ready for a 50-mile race here in North Jersey.
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And I did very well for myself. I set a PR for myself. I wasn't anywhere near the podium but in terms of my training volume I was very pleased with the results. I was riding two or three times a week, probably no more than three hours a week, and getting in about two hours of weight training spread out throughout the week in anywhere from like ten-minute chunks to 30-minute chunks, depending on what my schedule allowed, and a lot of walking. And in doing that, I was still able to put out, for me, a great performance on the bike. So that's something I've learned over the years, is that for me I don't necessarily need to be out there sort of slaving away for five hours a day on my road bike.
Christopher: Nor can you. I mean, you can't do that. You get to a point in your life -- I mean, you're running a business and you got two small kids. I don't think you could. Unless your business was so successful that you didn't actually need to do anything to it then, yeah.
Mike: Right. God willing, in a couple of years.
Christopher: Yeah. Maybe we'll get there. You're going to be the fastest. I think it's a neat biohack to do this test, to make sure that your biochemistry is working as well for you as it should. Maybe it's just the blood chemistry. Maybe you're already doing some blood work with your doctor. Run it through the software and see whether there's anything you could be doing better. Because I can guarantee that fixing those problems will be a lot easier than going and doing another 15 hours of training per week.
Mike: Right, for sure. Yeah. So the blood work is happening. Hopefully, we'll have that data in a couple of weeks. I guess, the other thing I sort of had to come to terms with is you need to learn to be patient with these things too. The changes don't overnight and you have to stick with it.
Christopher: Yeah, for sure.
Mike: But once they start happening, then you can see. Like, well, I've done this for six months and this is where I've gotten. How much better will things be in another six months? That's what helps you keep your head in the game.
Christopher: Yeah. Even now, I notice stuff. I think I probably mentioned this before but sleep has always been my biggest vice. When I started with this whole thing, I was at a dreadful insomnia. Really only in the last few months have I noticed that I sleep through the night now and I don't wake at all. I don't get up to pee or anything. That's like kind of a recent change. But it's a huge win. It's funny that the second or third time it happens, it's the new norm. You totally forget about it and you'd never think about it ever again. I feel guilty about it now, not being grateful for that.
I'm hoping that I can track this progress better now because I've got this health assessment questionnaire that I've been trying to get everybody to do. It's a really useful tool. I'm not sure if you've been sent a link here but being asked these poignant questions before and after you've done some interventions is quite often a very enlightening experience and it's fun.
Mike: Yeah, sure. Again, you don't see the changes overnight so you kind of have to take that approach every three to six months and see where things are at. It's definitely a process change. It's a lifestyle change.
Christopher: And then how was it affecting you? Because as a new dad, or a new-ish dad, my daughter is coming up on two, she's super demanding. I'm just wondering, how is it affecting you like outside of on the bike or at work? Are you able to be fully present and fully engaged with your kids in a way that I know you would like to because that was definitely my problem before. I'm not sure about with you, but I don't think I could have done it like now as tired as I was before. How were you feeling at home?
Mike: Yes. I mean, there's a couple of things that are like first you -- And this goes back to when our first daughter was born. You kind of have to re-program your brain. Your brain is looking for dopamine from going to a three-hour mountain bike race and now you have to sit there and play with an infant. That was just a huge, huge shock. And, obviously, I've changed and I love spending time with my kids now but I would say that the biggest change, that sort of mood regulation from going into ketosis was like very apparent to me.
The ability to just sit there and not be worried about work or be distracted, the ability to focus on what's in front of you. I guess, in meditation, or whatever you would say, just to be present, to be present with your kids and just have fun playing with blocks. That is just much easier for me now.
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But again, that literally happened like three weeks ago when I noticed that change, that day I went into ketosis. For me, that said a lot about how the way I was eating was potentially hampering my ability to focus.
Christopher: Right, right.
Mike: Which then plays into work. So, I guess, another couple of things that have happened over the past couple of months that are pretty eye opening for me is I did start blogging again.
Christopher: Cool. I didn't know that. I'll have to start reading again.
Mike: Yeah. I mean, years ago, I was writing very technical blog posts for the information security space. But I always just wanted to have a general blog where I could write about anything I wanted to write about whether it's bike racing or technology or health and wellness. But it was always one of those things that I really wanted to do but, I don't know, maybe later or I don't have anything that great to write.
But now, for some reason, I'm just able to write. It's almost like that resistance is just gone. And I almost look at it as, well, if you're stressed out and anxious all the time for whatever reason, whether it's nutritionally or external stress, it's going to hamper your creativity, your productivity. I guess, the big realization for me is it will basically hurt your confidence. So I've just kind of been telling myself that stress and anxiety is sort of the enemy of confidence. If you're going to do things like run a business and do public speaking and even just be a good dad, you have to be confident. So there's this weird -- It can basically, stress and anxiety can affect your personality.
Christopher: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, tell me more about that. You're reminding me of something Amir said. Amir is someone else that's been on the podcast that I work with. That was one of the things he said was, "I found myself taking up new hobbies." It's so telling, when you find yourself motivated to start something new like that. So what have you been writing about?
Mike: What have I been writing about? So I've just had these ideas about -- I see a big parallel between the information security world and health and wellness. So if you could think of the lack of healthy technology systems resulting in security vulnerabilities. So I've just been playing around with drawing some analogies and trying to tell some compelling stories to help people, to help my clients make better decisions about the way they manage technology risk.
Because ultimately, helping an organization become more secure is a process change. It's a behavior change in the same way that you're going to try to help an individual try to become more healthy. There's no magic pill that you can take to become healthy just the same way there's no magic appliance you can plug in to your network to be more secure.
Christopher: Is it not just a macro at the top of my source file I can just do hash to find security and then just put it, set that to one that the end of my developer cycle and then the security is going to be done, right?
Mike: Unfortunately, no.
Christopher: It's kind of a geeky program. But know that security is something that needs to be built into the design of something from the very beginning. You can't just add it on later.
Mike: Yeah, yeah. But then when you talk about ability to focus and you talk about the bigger picture with information security, probably the biggest risk facing any organization whether you're like Google or a small law firm or accounting firm, whoever is phishing attacks. And so we've done some like phishing simulations with clients. And we had one client. They're a high tech startup. About 120 of like the brightest engineers money can hire. And we were sending out these fake phishing emails, which phishing emails were like scam emails trying to get you to give up your username and password or wire money to Nigeria.
And we were working with these client and they said, "You know what, these scenarios, they don't seem very sophisticated. We don't think anybody is going to fall for them." And we were like, let's just try and let's see what happens. And sure enough, a handful of people fall for them and one person who fell for the simulated phishing email wrote this sort of apology letter to the security team saying, "You know what, I clicked on the link. I'm so sorry. It was the end of the day. I was really tired. I was stressed out. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
[0:35:02]
So it's kind of funny, there are these strange intersections of technology and health and wellness where one individual's hampered decision making because they had a late night the night before or they didn't have, they just have low energy and they're tired can have an impact on the organization.
Christopher: That's some really interesting way of thinking about it, isn't it? Rather than trying to fix the system, you fix the person.
Mike: Ultimately, a lot of information security problems boil down to people.
Christopher: Right. And I always wonder when you see someone that has to do a job like that, that requires a lot of attention and focus and maybe long periods without eating, how did they do it? How do these security guards stand there and look at TV screens for an eight-hour shift, if he's eating the kinds of food that most Americans eat, the standard American diet? How does a surgeon or someone like that perform if they're eating those foods? It's frightening, isn't it?
Mike: It is frightening. I don't even know what to say to that.
Christopher: I'm not even that competent that the surgeons know that they shouldn't be letting their blood sugar raise up to 180 every time they eat. Even though they're far clever than I'll ever be, but I think that might be true.
Mike: Yeah. Do you ever get in the room with someone who's really smart, really put together and maybe they're delivering an awesome presentation or they're just really owning what they're doing and wonder, is that guy in ketosis?
Christopher: Yeah, maybe. I mean, it seems like this way of eating is not brand new, is it? I mean, at least in the UK, bacon and eggs was what everybody had for breakfast until Kellogg's came along in the '50s or '60s whenever it was and just totally revolutionized that. I wouldn't like to say that the English or the British diet was flawless until that point because I'm sure it wasn't. But starting off on the right foot, I think, is at least something. At least you make it to lunch time without getting brain fog and fatigue and wanting to go for a nap underneath your desk. And that's kind of half a win.
Mike: Yeah, yeah. No, definitely, it is a win. But I guess, just speaking from my own experience, over the past couple of weeks, like you don't know what you don't know. I never really had an accurate understanding of -- You hear people talking on podcasts or writing about brain fog. Like what does that even mean? Until suddenly it's lifted.
Christopher: Right, exactly. It's the retrospective absence that you notice, a really curious thing. Brain fog for me was the ability -- I could just sit at my desk and stare at the monitor and my eyes would dial out of focus almost immediately. And I could stay in that state for ten minutes at a time, no problem at all. And there'll be nothing literally. If you were to look behind my eyeballs, there would only be fog. So the analogy brain fog was pretty good. And it sounds a lot like meditation actually. I'm probably not as good at meditating now as I was then. But being forced into this kind of state is not that much fun. And I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone.
Mike: Yes. So funny you mentioned that. Since I kind of had that turning point a couple of weeks ago, I'd been using Headspace a lot more. So when I've been having like that moment, like wow I'm really stressed out right now, I should take a step back and do get some Headspace. Versus before, I would just kind of muscle my way through it. So I would say that it's actually -- It has improved. Not that I'm a pro at meditating or anything but it's definitely improved my ability to make the decision to do it, sort of take action when I'm in a bad situation.
Christopher: Yeah, it's awesome. It's awesome. It's such a powerful tool, Headspace, it really is.
Mike: Yeah. I don't know. It's interesting on a number of levels. Did you listen to the -- I don't know if you listened to the Rich Roll podcast.
Christopher: I used to. I used to listen to it a lot. It's one of the ones that's fallen by the wayside as I've added so many new podcasts and my iPhone is full to overflowing.
Mike: But he actually interviewed Andy, the creator of Headspace.
Christopher: Now way. I've been trying to get hold of him for like two years.
Mike: Yeah, yeah. So he had him on the podcast. I mean, it's just a crazy story that that guy has to share. I'm not going to reiterate it here but -- I guess, the one cool part that I really appreciated was Andy, the creator of Headspace, had a child. So his morning routine was he would get up and do his own meditation. Then Rich asked him, "Well, how has having a child impacted your life, impacted your routines?" Like, "Yeah. I can't wake up and just meditate anymore. I have to do my own thing."
[0:40:02]
And Rich was like, "Well, now, do you have a better perspective on when people say, 'You know what, I just don't have the time to meditate.'?" It was kind of interesting how the tables get turned on a guy like that.
Christopher: Yeah, absolutely. I will search out that episode and I will link to it in the show notes so that people can find that. I'm quite looking forward to hearing that now. Rich Roll is very good actually. I'm not sure I agree about all of his ideas on nutrition but philosophically he's always exactly on the money, isn't he? He's really, really good.
Mike: Yeah, yeah. He's just always got an interesting mix of business, health, wellness, nutrition, creativity, I don't know. It's one of those podcasts that -- I would say the three I listen to now are Rich Roll, Ben Greenfield and Nourish Balance Thrive.
Christopher: Oh, how flattering is that? That's so cool.
Mike: But, yeah. I don't know, it's cool to get those different perspectives. And, yeah, I hear you on the -- I guess, that's something I should talk about my history prior to starting with you guys is that I did try to go down the vegetarian and even the vegan route. And initially, I think I noticed improvement but I often wonder like how much damage did I really do to myself? Just in terms of -- I know I just wasn't getting the nutrient density that I'm getting now. But I'm definitely feeling much better now.
Christopher: With animal food, yeah. And, I mean, we can measure this as well in the biochemistry. So there's a couple of markers on the organic acids, in particular, methylmalonate. It builds up in the urine when there's a B12 deficiency which you did have. And then there's another marker there that looks at biotin and B2 and I'm sure that animal foods are the most dense source of these vitamins. It kind of makes sense. I think maybe if you're super really well organized and up for taking some supplements then vegetarian or veganism can work really well. But I don't think it's the path of least resistance for most people. Especially if you've got any symptoms or you're not meeting your health or performance goals.
Mike: Yeah, yeah. I'd agree with that. You kind of struggle with everybody wants to say what's the best way to eat? And it's so heavily dependent on the individual. Probably it's possible to live a perfectly healthy life on like a vegan lifestyle but you need to -- Maybe it's a little more work to make sure you're getting everything you need.
Christopher: Right, right. I mean, I'll give you another example. So we saw a buildup of pyroglutamate on your urinary organic acids. Pyroglutamate builds up when there's insufficient glycine to make this really important antioxidant called glutathione. So which of the most dense sources of glycine and there are bone broth and connective tissue. So, yeah, it seems like a really good reason to drink bone broth to me. I don't think you're going to get that from any vegetarian. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe you should double check vegetarian sources of glycine. But certainly, I'm sure that the animal foods will be the easiest way to get that nutrient.
Mike: Right. And bone broth, that's one of the things I haven't even tried yet too.
Christopher: Oh, really? You can definitely benefit from that. It's a bit of a pain in the butt to get started, when you first go to make it, it seems like a lot of hassle. But once you get into a routine, once you found someone that can sell you bones on a regular basis, you get used -- We use a pressure cooker now and you can cook bones very, very quickly. Like even in an hour with the pressure cooker. It's good as well. Ivy loves it. Our two-year old daughter, one of her favorite things, is bone broth. She calls it soup and she'll ask for soup all the time. She loves it.
Mike: Yeah. That's awesome. That's the other fun part of all this, getting to try new foods and giving to my almost three-year old. She's going to be three in November. And just seeing the expression on her face once she finds something that she really loves is really awesome. It's a lot of fun.
Christopher: Well, this has been fantastic, Mike. I'm really grateful for you taking the time to talk about how you've been doing on one of my programs and working with me. It's incredibly fulfilling for me to do this rather than programming computers to make rich people richer. I'm sincerely grateful for the opportunity. Thank you.
Mike: No, no. I mean, thank you for your insight. I'm kind of glad that you're doing what you're doing. I have to say it's a little bit inspiring in a professional sense.
[0:45:00]
How do we as, my company, security consultants, get motivated? Sometimes, yeah, you are just helping the rich people get richer. But ultimately, we like to think that we're helping them learn how to produce more secure technology and that's going to help everyone in the long run. You got to find the sort of silver lining that helps keep your passion high, right?
Christopher: Right, absolutely. And I am sincerely grateful for the technology as well. I mean, just think about it, before, how on earth would I have launched this business without the internet and without some of the apps that I use that run in the cloud right now? There's just no way you could have done it. Even just scheduling appointments was really, really difficult ten years ago. Yeah, I mean, I just couldn't do it without the technology. So all of these has come together as just one big thing. Yeah, it's cool.
Mike: No, definitely it's awesome. Hopefully, maybe in another six months or so, I'll give you another update and I'll have more cooler lessons learned to share.
Christopher: Yeah. I think so. I mean, I've got it highlighted here in some notes that I took about you when we first met that you wanted to get your pro license. Maybe I'm going to hold you accountable to that, that you've got to achieve that goal now that you've started working with me.
Mike: Yeah, I know. That's good. I mean, I don't want to drag this on too long but the idea of being coachable and just having someone to hold you accountable, that works for me, obviously, in my bike racing life and to certain extent in my professional life. But I feel like it's a valuable tool in terms of your own health and wellness. Your doctors hardly hold you accountable for things.
Christopher: No. No way. The doctor is saying I wish I look as good as you. And you're thinking, "I don't feel that good."
Mike: Yeah, yeah. And in many situations, even though you want to make, you as an individual, want to make positive improvements in your life, your immediate social network might not be supportive or understanding, so it's helpful to have a "health coach" to sort of guide you along and hold you accountable.
Christopher: Cool. Well, I certainly believe in you. I think you can do it. Even though you got two small children, you can do it.
Mike: Thank you. It will happen now.
Christopher: Excellent.
Mike: All right.
Christopher: Okay. Well, this has been great. Thanks very much then, Mike.
Mike: Yeah, thank you, Chris.
Christopher: Cheers then.
Mike: Bye.
[0:47:31] End of Audio
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