Preamble (read: ramble)
I’ve read, watched, and listened to hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours of health talks, podcasts, vlogs, books, articles, research reviews, etc. so you don’t need to. And, honestly… most of it’s bullshit and the good ones are often too winded, too detailed, and not enough emphasis on… Get to the F*ing Point!
As with so much in life, truth depends on the POV of the source. What we all need to do more, is to challenge “the facts” by asking questions, poking holes, understanding the motivation of the source, and then finding where intersections of verifiable facts occur – here is where we will find “truth.
What I’ve laid out below, and will continue to explore and refine, is a very simple straight to the f*ing point list of commonalities that continue to come up over and over and over and here they are:
How to DE-Fuck Your Health
Let’s Start with Stop Smoking – I mean this is such a no-brainer it doesn’t need to be on the list and thankfully smoking in the USA is down dramatically over the past 40 years. Smoking is by far and away the one truly universal big bad that severely fucks up your health and is in no way beneficial… AT ALL! And, for you weed heads, it means smoking weed also so stop justifying bad habits.
Do you want to make real changes that will impact your health in real, demonstrable ways?
Remove these from your life… NOW!
- Processed Foods! Simply remove processed foods from your diet and you will have covered 90% of your health issues.
- What are processed foods? Essentially any food you buy from the grocery store or restaurant that has been pre-prepared. These include almost anything in packaging with a barcode and list of ingredients that include anything added to the food (if the ingredients are not 100% real food it’s processed) or contains things like refined flours of any kind, sugar, fructose, corn syrup/high fructose corn syrup, oils, flavorings including so-called “natural” flavorings or any ingredient you cannot pronounce). Sadly, this is the majority of modern grocery stores, fast food, and the majority of restaurants.
- Reduce, if not completely cut, Glucose and simple, refined carbs
- For the people in the back… REFINED CARBS, not whole grain natural carbs. Relax you anti-Atkins/Keto/Carnivore pariahs. What are these simple, refined carbs? Most commonly white flour, but also white rice, corn flour (masa) or meal, or any processed grain turned into something other than its natural source.
- Fructose: especially Corn Syrup and High Fructose Corn Syrup.
- Yeah, I know… Fructose is a sugar. But, it’s metabolized by the body very differently than sucrose (table sugar which is glucose and fructose) or pure glucose. Fructose will not spike blood glucose and is therefore a hidden danger because of it. Fructose isn’t metabolized by insulin and goes to the liver to be converted to energy. Here’s the kicker and why it’s so damn bad; Fructose is essentially converted straight to fat storage! And, not just fat… the worst fat… visceral, or belly fat! Visceral fat will only be converted to energy and disposed of after all other energy sources, including the energy stores in other body fat! Seasonally and in extreme moderation, fruit can be fine: It’s nature’s desert. But, Corn Syrup and High Fructose Corn Syrup are literally destroying your health! Not losing weight and working your ass off and cutting calories? Fructose is probably the main culprit.
- “Vegetable” & Seed Oils
- First, this shit isn’t even made with what you’d call vegetables. No green beans, broccoli, peas, or asparagus are in “vegetable” oil. When’s the last time you had a good naturally oily or fatty carrot or leaf of lettuce? Second, the process uses noxious agents that you’d never want near you otherwise. Do you think all those chemical agents aren’t in the end product? Did you know because they don’t hit a certain level of measurement they don’t need to report them as ingredients, but they’re still there and chemically changed the plants that were input to make the oil?
- Opt for pure olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, MCT and others may make sense because they are naturally high in fat, and healthy fats, and can be directly converted to oil with little more than a simple press.
- Move!
- Get off your ass and move! Walk, run, jog, stretch. Keep it simple. Just move more and more often. You don’t need to run a 5K or a marathon. At the office? Get up and walk! Just 250 steps/hour = 2K steps/day = 10K steps /work week = 500K steps /work year = 300K (on average) extra calories burned! 300K calories burned every year just getting off your ass for 250 steps per hour at the office! Now, throw in some quick one-leg balance work, and quick hip and shoulder mobility work (see DeFuck Your Mobility: 5 Simple Steps) and you’re mind and body will thank you in ways you cannot imagine.
Honorable Mentions:
- Feed Your Gut! – First, we need to Fix Your Gut and we fix your gut in the steps above. Once you have processed foods, shitty oils and corn syrup out of your diet… gut health becomes #1 Gut Health (gut microbiome) is quickly becoming a major revelation in human health and I believe will revolutionize human health care over the next decade or two.
- Alcohol – while not as dangerous as smoking, alcohol is incredibly damaging to your physical and mental health along with other drugs (yes, it is a drug and does impair). Alcohol is ridiculously correlated to the point of causation of a shit-ton of deaths, accidents, abuse, and just general shitty outcomes. Not to mention the impairment of alcohol leads to a lot of over-eating, especially of shitty processed foods… when have you ever had a craving for healthy food when intoxicated?
- Detoxify Your Social Circle – similar to the 5 steps to DeFuck your Life, toxic people in your life also degrade your physical health. Toxic relationships often manifest as physical issues like coping with food, especially smoking, drugs, alcohol, and sugar. You know this personally if you’re honest. More proof? Watch shows like My 600lb Life and the terrible social circles there. Fuck those assholes! Get ’em outta yer life!
- Sleep – sleep is underrated. Sleep more! Turn down the temps, make it dark, shut off the tv and phone, and SLEEEEEEP! Your body needs rest to repair and reset. Most of us have shitty horrible lives with shitty horrible people and shitty horrible food and shitty horrible habits and our shitty horrible bodies never get a chance to rest, repair, and reset to the incredible machines they are.
But…
Yeah… the heavy sighs have been heard. Given all of the above, this doesn’t mean living a puritan, black or white, yin or yang, jedi or sith, democrat or republican life. You can have fruit, you can have a drink, you can have McDs, you can have a Coca-Cola. Just minimize it and make it rare. Prioritize your health. Once you fix your gut, deplete your stored energy, and reset your body you will be able to handle the occasional indulgences.
If your health sucks, make correcting your health priority numero uno! Get your health in check. Get your gut healthy. Reverse your pre-diabetes. Then, don’t worry about having some drinks with friends or having a pizza or a bag of Doritos. But the 5 things above can’t become the norm. They cannot become your daily routine like they are now.
Parting Wisdom: If you fuck up and get off track, simply get back on ASAP. This is about taking one step at a time. One second. One minute. One hour. One day. One week. Focus on now. Ate shittily? Big f*ing deal! Get back on track ASAP and forget about it. Don’t do what losers do and give up and give in. Fight like hell and stay with the course.
