+1: The Optimize Food Rules | The Big 3 (+1!) (#1285)

OPTIMIZE with Brian Johnson | More Wisdom in Less Time

One of my favorite parts about creating our Optimize Mastery Series is that it forced me to go to the next level of clarity on the most important aspects of our Optimize philosophy. This was true from Day 1 of the program and I found it to be especially powerful with our Eating Fundamental (which is day 200-something!) in which I integrated the wisdom from dozens of books and our Optimal Nutrition 101 and Optimal Metabolism 101 classes into what I called our Optimize Food Rules. Of course, join Optimize Coach and check out that session for the full download. Today we’re going to take a quick look at our Big 3 (+1!) Optimize Food Rules. Here we go… Rule #1: Quit Drinking Your Sugar. This is inspired by a number of great teachers (including Robert Lustig in Fat Chance and John Ratey in Go Wild) but Mark Hyman brought the point home powerfully as his #1 rec in Food Fix. Note: If you’re currently drinking sodas or fruit juices or any liquid with sugar, this is arguably THE fastest and easiest way to take your nutrition to the next level—and, as a by-product, take huge steps forward in Optimizing your metabolism (“Hi, insulin!”) so you can move to your optimal weight. (Note: I just had a flashback of the Science Says data we collected. One of the highlights was how many Optimizers now feel they can easily follow their nutritional philosophy and maintain their Optimal weight.) (Check out the sketch on it below.) So… Are YOU drinking your sugar? If so, STOP!! (Hah. Seriously.) Note: Soda is obviously not a health food but… Parents: Fruit juice is NOT a health food either. Rule #2: Eat Real Food and Throw Out the Factory Food. In the Mastery Series session, we discuss the fact that we want to get rid of three different types of Factory Food including:

1. Factory-made ultraprocessed carbage with ingredients you can’t pronounce, don’t have in your pantry and didn’t evolve to consume;
2. Factory-farmed animals for ethical, health and environmental reasons; and,
3. Factory fat including vegetable oils like soybean, safflower, corn, and canola oils—none of which existed pre-Industrial revolution and all of which disrupt our Omega 3:6 ratios and create inflammation. (Note: Socrates was all about the olive oil—that’s been around for over 5,000 years!)

Quick check in: How are you doing there? Rule #3: Eating Sunsets (Aka: Give Yourself the Night Off!) Let your glymph get to work by restricting your eating to a window that gives you AT LEAST 13 hours between your last meal and first meal. We explore some fascinating research on cancer, etc. As you know if you’ve been following along, we have a last-input “digital sunset.” I say we need a last-input “eating sunset”!! In fact, science says: We want to eat AT LEAST two hours before we go to bed and target FOUR hours before we go to bed if we’re playing the Professional Optimizing game. (It’s crazy for me to see the resting heart rate and heart rate variability data on my Oura ring show me the difference when I play in too short of an eating window!) So… When was your last meal last night? When was your first meal Today? How many hours were there in between? Let’s get to 13+ and know that if you have a hard time going that long between meals, it’s probably because we need to work on some metabolic flexibility issues. See Rules #1 and #2 for support there. And, finally, my favorite Rule… Rule +1: Eat Like Your Favorite Philosopher (who lived at least 300 years ago). Perhaps the simplest, wisest advice is to simply eat like your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents ate before all the factories. I like to tweak that a bit to have fun helping you channel your favorite philosopher or spiritual teacher—whether that’s Jesus or Mohammed or Moses or Buddha or Lao Tzu. For me? It’s Epictetus. Guess what? Our favorite old-school Philosophers didn’t (and couldn’t) drink their sugar because it didn’t exist. And all they could eat was non-factory produced food because factories didn’t exist yet. And they couldn’t eat all day every day because that wonderful invention we call the fridge didn’t exist. There ya go. The Optimize Food Rules in a nutshell. Here’s to changing our lives (and our families’ lives) one bite at a time. TODAY.