Eating & Behaving for Your Biology

Do you understand your complexity as an organism? Do you believe you are doing the right choices in selecting the right energy sources for your biological operations? Or is your focus primarily on meeting the demands of work, meeting deadlines, living up to that high performer expectations, finishing that project, "contributing" to making your company more successful, keeping up with family, meeting expectations from the society, and whatever else you think are drivers for your existence.

A while ago I had read "biology does not forgive mistakes". I always thought there was a little wiggle room, that biology does not forgive mistake after mistake. The biology of organisms, such as us, have internal repair, reconstruction, adaptation mechanisms that allow us to overcome certain mistakes BUT if you keep making them then, Yes! your biology will not forgive.

Biggest mistake we all make: Living in lifestyles that are not aligned with the laws that govern our biology!

Main take away from this blog: Eat the foods your cells need vs. what is forced on you, eat and sleep at the right times so you don't mess up your biological cycles, know what is important for you in life to protect your biological inheritance.

How much of an impact does healthy diet or healthy living behaviors have in todays life style? Can it overturn the negatives coming from today's hectic lifestyles and food offerings?

Won't get into this in this blog, but as most of you know, there are so many studies, and evidence out there connecting our lifestyles to obesity, depression, anxiety, obsession, sleep disorders, attention disorders, early menopause, thyroid problems, brain disease, cancer, never ending allergies, digestive track problems and much more. Yes, it is true that we can manage some of these with advancements in medicine and technology but we would all prefer not to create these in the first place.

There are many reasons we avoid changing our lifestyles and eating habits. Some are:

1- Not knowing what is actually impacting your biological systems and degrading your life.

2- Having our priorities messed up. Treating work, finances, that next achievement, that next project that will make someone else's dream come true via your sweat and blood, that social expectation more important than your most valuable inheritance: your body.

3- Thinking you, and your family members are exempt from being part of the above disease data pool?

4- Thinking "I am doing the same things that millions are doing, and life goes on...so stop with this BS".

5- Assuming, even if something happens to you, you believe you'll get it fixed when you get a little break.

6- Thinking healthy eating is just a calorie calculation exercise you do to compensate when you are not behaving good.

Well, as I said, biology does not forgive all mistakes...

Unfortunately or I say fortunately (for the ones who love life's complexity), life is complex. Most of us knows this quite well. You don't develop a disease overnight. Millions of years of evolution has layered levels and levels of complex and interlinked processes, interactions, and reactions in our bodies.

The rules of physics and chemistry are what we need to pay attention to but the complexity of how they work can get overwhelming. Or maybe it got complicated because of how our lifestyles have been evolving to something less natural. Our bodies have cycles for everything. That means we need to follow them for optimum output. We need to eat at the right times, sleep at the right times. Our bodies have a natural clock that is designed to eat at times we are exposed to natural light. Most of us are eating too late, not properly eating in the morning and messing up the rhythm of our biological cycles. All organism in this planet align their vital functions based on sunlight cycles. You can't escape it without damaging yourself. We have substituted natural light with lights coming from electronics. We are always chasing something every minute of the day, forgetting what was the real purpose of our individually unique existence as organisms.

As with every organism in this planet, we are composed of many microscopic parts, atoms, molecules, cells. Components with unique functions. Biological parts with needs that have been designed, optimized, and so effectively put together through years of evolution. We are not made of a large group of organism living together, but we are an organism that has so many components working together with processes depending on each other. This makes it vital for us to make sure we do not neglect the needs of the complete system to ensure we get the most out of this marvelous system. We have received a marvelous genetic inheritance from our parents which then gets molded by our behaviors and environmental factors along the ride.

"Wait! What? in addition to that diabetes I received from my dad, I now need to worry about behaviors, and environmental factors?" Yes, you do, and yes all organism did for millions of years and still do today. You worry about things that have less impact on your life such as that customer presentation, that product launch, a celebrities emotional breakdown, and that stock price.

I might have got sensitive on this topic and dragged the "where we are today" part of the blog too long. Let's get into the small things we can add as rules to live by. Don't worry you are not becoming Gremlings with a "how to stay alive" rule book!

- Understand the positives/negatives of food molecules especially once they are digested and have entered the blood stream. Remember only the foods that our cells are desiring are real foods! So focus on eating those and not what you are being told to eat! Most of the time our cells end up with components not desired by them, simply trash. This causes the majority of the diseases that we have. Can you consume food and have zero negative impact? I don't think so...Regardless of what you eat, there will be some unwanted waste that accumulates in your cells. This accumulation goes up as you age. Its just laws of nature. That is the price we pay for energy! Let me put my process engineer hat on now. We want maximum energy output, optimize input material conversion, eliminate materials that are not needed in the formula, reduce waste, etc. But just like any of the processes I tried to optimize over the years there is a limit to the optimization you can do. Nothing will run with 100% efficiency for every operation and the efficiency of energy creation will eventually go down, and trash will go up in the body. So don't accelerate aging by speeding up the process. Stop paying doctors to treat the symptoms of diseases that you create by eating things that destroy your cell, and cellular functions. Remember, for your organ to malfunction first the cells that make that organ needs to malfunction. This is common sense!

- Eat at normal times. Don't eat right before going bed. If possible it like 5-6pm. Try to go to bed a little hungry. Try to follow the sun a little more. Remember sun is the creator of all the energy we take in with foods. We are basically turning materialized sun energy into the energy form we use and then call that nutritional uptake :) Don't you feel cool to be part of the solar system now?

- Know which foods contain free radicals and which foods contain antioxidants. Antioxidants have a lot of electrons to give. They donate their electrons and neutralize free radicals. One of the easiest places free radicals steals electrons from are the lipids in cell membranes. If you are damaging yourself at the cellular level than you are doing the mistakes that biology will not forgive for too long! You need to eat with the intention to protect your cellular membranes. It is essential for your longevity!

Cellular Membrane health is vital (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Foods that are processed, containing a lot process aids, preservatives, alcohol, over cooked meats, most cooking oils, over heated oils result in free radicals. So limit them as best as you can. Eating the wrong foods and living wrong lifestyles makes our cells degrade and also accumulate more waste.

- Yes it is classic, but eat fruits, vegetables, spices, legumes, nuts more, but eat them as raw as possible. Cooking will degrade some of the nutrients. Cooking in water and then filtering the food out of that water will make you loose the water soluble minerals that are vital for you. Choose steam cooking. Pick purple, and red foods that are higher in antioxidants. Eat probiotic foods. Consume foods with right components (ex: sulfur) for detoxing: garlic, onion, green tea, red cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, turmeric are examples. Consume red meat 1-3 times a week. Consume it with no or very little carbs, have 4-5 times raw veggies next to it, and consume meats that you know where they are from. No "accelerated growth".

- Yes, we discovered how to use fire to cook foods and they taste damn good, but don't burn your food! Burnt foods are known carcinogens. Regardless of the amazing taste of a burnt BBQ, it has molecules that are bad for you.

- Microwave your foods less. Take the time to heat with a conventional method. Never re-heat in plastic containers. Use glass containers to store your foods.

- Do not use cooking pots/pans that are coated with those "famous non-stick" polymers. Especially, if you have seen a structural deformation.

- Try to avoid antibiotics. The list of negative impact on your or your kids (ex: early menstruations in girls) body is quite long.

- Watch what you breathe. Proper breathing is vital obviously. Things that will have negative impact on your cells in long term: Smoke exposure, car/industrial pollution, nose deviation, over exposure to paint, formaldehyde (used in a lot of building materials such as flooring) constant nose constraints due to allergies and so on, and on.

- Don't have the WIFI router on all the time. Limit electronic devices for your family. Don't have your cell phone on top of your heart going through your favorite social media feeds.

- Sleep well. There is a purpose for sleep, and it is not because you got tired! It helps reset things in our body. Your brain waves become different while sleeping. The body increases the communication between cells during sleep. Repair happens. Prep for your sleep time! Reduce your screen time. You are thinking "Wow, you just wrote a blog looking at a screen for us to read looking a screen". Yes, you are right. Go and buy books on Quantum Mitochondrial Nutrition, Alkaline Diet, and read using a paper book, and enlighten yourself. Electromagnetic fields we expose ourselves everyday is not good for you. Don't leave the cellphone right by your head on your night stand. What? the world will end if you don't check your phone at 2AM?. For those answering "yes, my work is that important", get your priorities straight or get a different job. Believe me, whatever you do, they can manage without you but your body might not manage like this.

To get into how these impact at cellular level, I will do a blog on Quantum Biology someday. There are many other things I can add to the list above but blog has gone long enough. Be persistent and do many little things and don't stick with one silver bullet. You will see it all comes together. That is nature for you, a lot of little things come together to make a gigantic change.

On to the question of the day. Let me know your thoughts...

What would you NOT give up from your current lifestyle to reduce such disorders in your life or in your family's life?

If we neglect our biology, we will get sick, we will degrade faster. This is simple rule. A simple rule that is set by the complexity of life.

So why do we choose a lifestyle that is not suiting our biology?