| | | | Hopefully by now you've had a chance to read the 9 Steps To Perfect Health eBook. The 9 steps represent the most powerful changes you can make to improve your overall health and address your #1 health concern.
But change takes time, and we can only focus on so many things at once. So in this email I'm going to tell you the 3 most important things to focus on in order to supercharge your health and feel energetic and sharp throughout your later years. All have worked wonders for me in my health journey—AND for my patients.
Focusing on these three areas will give you the biggest bang for your buck, and once you're experiencing the benefits, it will be much easier to incorporate the remaining steps.
Eat real food
Highly processed and refined food has become the mainstay of the industrialized diet. In fact, over 50 percent of the calories the average American consumes come from flour, sugar, and industrial seed oils. These foods are not only virtually devoid of the nutrients we need to perform well, they're also full of compounds that can provoke inflammation and cause oxidative damage.
Here's why that matters for you: inflammation and oxidative stress are like kryptonite for athletic and mental performance, and they're virtually guaranteed to worsen your health and shorten your lifespan. In fact, many scientists believe that aging is essentially a process of accelerated oxidative stress.
So how do you just "eat real food"? It's simple: - If it comes in a bag or a box, don't eat it. (Of course there are exceptions, like butter or almond milk. But you get the idea.)
- Don't eat flour.
- Don't eat sugar.
- Don't eat industrial seed oils (soybean, corn, cottonseed, sunflower, safflower, canola oil)
- Eat nutrient-dense, whole foods in their natural state.
Maximize nutrient density
Humans require about forty different micronutrients (i.e. vitamins, minerals, and trace minerals) to function properly. In fact, every single process that happens in the body—from your eye blinking to your heart beating to your brain comprehending this sentence you're reading—depends upon these micronutrients. When you don't get enough of them, your body can't function as it should and disease begins to develop.
It follows, then, that the key to optimizing your performance and living a long and healthy life is maximizing your nutrient intake. I describe how to do this in detail in Step 2: Nourish Your Body in the 9 Steps to Perfect Health eBook, so please refer to that for more information. I'll summarize the most important steps here: - Emphasize nutrient-dense, whole foods like meat, organ meat, fish and shellfish, eggs, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, and herbs and spices.
- Eat healthy fats. Though fats aren't especially nutrient-dense, healthy fats are an important part of the diet because they play several other important roles, including helping us to absorb nutrients we get from other foods.
- If you choose to eat nuts, grains, and/or legumes, it's best to soak them prior to cooking to maximize your body's ability to absorb the beneficial nutrients in them.
Get more sleep and rest
A large body of evidence suggests that we need at least seven to eight hours of sleep to function optimally, yet more than one-third of Americans are getting fewer than six hours of sleep each night. What's more, our culture doesn't value leisure and rest. Most of us run around like chickens with our heads cut off each day, rushing from one task to the next and rarely taking time to pause, reflect, or decompress.
Here's the bottom line: if you don't get enough sleep or rest, you're not going to perform at your best or be as healthy as you can be. I know this might sound so obvious it's not worth saying, but a large percentage of my patients simply aren't sleeping or resting enough. Here are a few tips for addressing this problem: - Allow at least eight hours for sleep each night
- Create an environment conducive to sleep (see the 9 Steps eBook for details)
- Reduce your exposure to artificial light at night (see the 9 Steps eBook for details)
- Schedule 30 minutes of rest into each day. This could be meditation, a relaxation technique, or simply taking a nap.
- Designate one day a week as a "technology sabbatical": no email, social media, or web browsing. This can really help you to unwind.
If you follow these three tips for the next couple of weeks, I'm confident that you'll see some positive changes in your performance and health.
And this is just the beginning. In about a week I'll introduce you to a 14-day program I've developed that is the fastest, most effective, and longest lasting way to boost your performance and supercharge your overall health. Stay tuned for more details. | | | | Copyright © 2015 Chris Kresser Acupuncture Inc., All rights reserved.
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