Currently, I’m not the picture of this. At all. However, I did taste this 5 years ago, and can tell you that in no time in my life was I ever in better health or cardiovascular shape – and I have some measurements to share with you. Let’s start with the list, so you don’t have to read 50,000 words.

  • Low inflammatory diet
  • Low carb intake
  • Fasting periods
  • Being “thin”
  • Having good cardiovascular health
  • Avoiding toxins

I can start by saying most of my life I didn’t follow this list, and the last 1-2 years I fell back into some bad habits. But there was a window of my life – perhaps for about a year – where I was in peak physical condition. My resting heart rate was 48. I could run 8 miles. I could bike 45 miles. And, I held my breath under the water of a pool for one minute and 45 seconds and could have gone longer. I spent a ton of time in the sun, and heat didn’t bother me in the least.

I ran into a buzzsaw of things which exited me from this. And once I exited, I tried to stay in the periphery of this for as long as I could, before some really bad habits hit me the last 1-2 years. My goal with this was to try and make people aware of what some of these dangers are, and how you can improve. What to look for. And, part of this is to re-introduce this standard to myself, and hold myself accountable once again. I’ll try and briefly go over each of the above – and why.

Low inflammatory diet

I believe in my heart this is the root of everything bad. This also explains why the mediterranean diet has low heart disease. I believe early people at a lot of fish, lived by the sea or lakes. This had people get the salt they needed from sea food. The further you move away from water, the harder it is to get salt – and the harder it is to get omega 3 fish oils.

I’m not a doctor, and not a “scientist”. But instead, I’m someone who devoted 4 years of his life studying this stuff 4-5 hours a day, and have written 150 sourced blogs here with links to everything. Suffice it to say, I’m not going to be able to do a chemistry redux equation.

As I understand it, omega 6s are part of the diet for creating inflammation. Some inflammation is needed – if you consider clotting types of functions at perhaps even the capillary level. Omega 3s are anti-inflammatory, and it has been suggested that the “natural” human diet is 4:1 Omega 6:3. Someone like myself cannot stand fish. Unless I supplement with fish oil, I have a hard time getting enough Omega 3. I eat grass fed/finished beef, and I eat the expensive eggs that are orange on the inside which indicates a good omega 3 presence. So – I at least get SOME Omega 3s.

But when you look at things like beef – the natural diet for cows is grass. What happens when you feed them corn and grains? It’s not their natural diets. Perhaps this leads to digestion issues – like all of these cow farts – and perhaps it leads the beef to have an extremely high omega 6:3 ratio? It does. I have seen the number of grass fed/finished beef at 2:1. I have seen the low quality Walmart beef at 25:1. Now, I may have some outdated sources, but these numbers are in the ballpark. Both the 25:1 and 2:1 beef are “Grade A”. But the dietary sources led to the cows that are fatter to be higher in omega 6:3.

You then see this with things like chicken. “Organic” chicken is ridiculous in costs. I mean, I make a great living and even I cannot even think of spending $40+ for a whole chicken. This potentially has a lot of the chicken we eat coming from chickens that never see the sun or a blade of grass in their lives, and are fed grains the entire time they are alive – rather than the worms and bugs they eat when they roam the fields – which produce those eggs with a low omega 6:3 ratio.

The idea here overall is that high levels of inflammation can cause tiny little cracks inside your arteries. I have heard this before 7 years ago, so forgive me if my lab in my basement cannot confirm this. Things like “vegetable oils” are potentially leading contributors to this. And while the natural human diet may be 4:1, most Americans are consuming a diet approximately 25:1.

When your body gets these tiny little cracks in the arteries, cholesterol packets are deployed to “spackle” the walls to heal it. Cholesterol is made by the body, and what your brain is made of. Funny, how they tell people to cut cholesterol, give them cholesterol reducing drugs – and wonder why these people get dementia. Anyway – when you are measuring cholesterol, it’s measuring a lot of these empty cholesterol packets that were deployed and returning to the home base. Meaning, if you have low inflammation – your measure of good cholesterol to bad cholesterol is a good ratio. If the ratio is too bad – it can be an indication you have a high inflammatory diet. Rather than cutting off the eggs – that have cholesterol – stop eating fried foods, stop eating “vegetable oil”, and balance your food profile with a lower omega 6:3 ratio.

Overall, I believe it is the high inflammation which is ultimately leading to arterial plaque building up, and with this, here’s your blockages over 30 years of eating highly inflammatory foods.

Low carb intake

“Nate, you are an idiot. You need to count your calories better. Carbs don’t matter. They are essential”. Let’s start by picking apart this feedback, which I have received in many forms over the years. First, carbs aren’t essential. You can stop eating carbs today and you will never need an exogenous carb the rest of your life. “But your brain runs on glucose silly!”. Yes, and your body can get glucose by breaking down protein using gluconeogenesis.

Second, the physics people who talk about calories haven’t met the hormone people. And, they are mostly clueless. Not all calories are the same, and your body reacts differently given the calories you eat.

I wasn’t a meat eater growing up. We were pretty poor. Most of my meals were some form of pasta with a meat sauce. The ground beef in the meat sauce was probably my biggest form of protein in my entire diet. I was highly athletic, but always carried weight on me. Let’s look at what happens if you eat a big plate of pasta and 2 slices of bread – at about 1000 calories.

So you have a big pasta meal, and about an hour later you are tired. Exhausted. Want to pass out. That’s your body breaking down the complex carbs into glucose. Your blood glucose levels are regulated by hormones. It goes too high, and insulin is secreted by the liver to shuttle the glucose out of the blood stream and into cells. I found myself sleepy a lot after lunches or dinners. People called me lazy. I could gain weight easily.

Over time, you have enough insulin secreted over and over and over – your body develops “insulin resistance”. That is, you need more and more insulin secreted by the liver in order to take the glucose into the cells. This, eventually, leads to “metabolic syndrome” and pre-diabetes. This leads to your HBa1c rising. Your doctor tells you to “lose weight”, and if you look at the ADA website, they tell you to lose weight with eating carbs. Absolutely disgusting and quackery. You can “reverse” this in a few weeks with a ketogenic approach.

But let’s also talk about hormones. If you start to eat – your body then will release leptin to let you know when you are full. I have read that many types of foods that use MSG – the MSG suppresses leptin, so you never get the “full” signals.

Then, if your blood sugar dips – you get ghrelin released – your hunger hormone. Maybe you have a whopper of a Chinese food meal. Not only did the MSG suppress your leptin levels, but your body is now pumping the insulin out. It overshoots a little, and you have a dip that triggers you to be tired as well as the hunger hormone. This is why you can appear “hungry” after 1 hour after eating a big meal of pasta or Chinese food.

Likewise, if you do not eat carbs, consider where your brain is getting glucose. It now has to break down dietary protein to get glucose. This is not efficient – and in such – your body is expending energy to get glucose. So 1800 calories of pasta is not the same as 1800 calories of meats due to conversion factors.

Let me add here that your body will tap its glycogen stores first. In the liver, and then in stored muscles. But someone who has been ketogenic for some time and exercises like crazy can easily blow through these stores – which then allows you to easily tap the fat cells around your waist.

How do I know? Well, I was on keto for a year, then low carb. When you did the ultra long biking I did, for hours on end, you start to break down protein to get glucose for your brain. It smells like ammonia, and I have had it many times after long rides/runs. Those who do long distance events and are NOT keto trained, “bonk”. That is, they need gel packs or exogenous glucose to keep their appendages from seizing up. I also felt this before I went on keto biking 22 miles. After keto training, I was doing 45 miles and then running 8 miles later with no food in me. So yeah, I was highly trained in this and experienced everything above, first hand.

Mark Sisson has figured that “125 grams” is the optimal high end zone for carbs for most people. The first year I lost weight, I did “40-30-30”, which was 40% carbs, 30% fats, 30% protein. It was at this moment that I realized most of my life I was closer to 60-70% carbs, 20% fats, and low protein. The weight melted off of me, while eating 2700 calories a day. I could not understand this. How many years of my life did I cut calories to 1800 – but used breads, bagels, and pasta as my main sources of food? Only to then see my body fail in exercise – now knowing this is due to low protein. The high percent of carbs made me tired all the time.

Additionally, when you have insulin flowing through you, your fat cells are in “receiving” mode and take in the glucose. Meaning, if you eat a pasta dinner, then an hour later try and go running – you will have a shitty workout, like I did most of my life. Why? The insulin is taking the glucose out of the blood. You are blowing through some muscle glycogen, and you have no ability to tap you fat stores because they are in “receive only” mode due to the insulin. This is the same reason that body builders have a banana or shake after workout – the insulin then can carry glucose to the muscles and glycogen stores to help with recovery and muscle building.

Pastas, pizzas, and breads are my weakness – and why a lot of people have a problem with “keto”. In reality, “keto” really is only needed for 3-6 weeks or so to get into ketogenesis and “teach” your body how to run on ketones. The first few weeks your bench press weights drop into nothing, as your body re-learns how to replenish your glycogen stores. This was silly when it happened to me. So I know exactly what it feels like.

Eventually, you become “adapted” and can gradually increase your carbs. When I was then on “low carb”, I usually had about 50-75g of carbs a day. Being in ketosis isn’t ever something you track or care about. On the high end of stupid intense training days I’d have up to 125g. This might be fruit smoothies with protein powder and pre-workout. I would do that the day of my triathlon or 5ks. Why? If you just run flat surfaces, you are fine forever – but anyone who has done keto a long time also understands what biking or running a hill is like without some extra carbs. Still – you are relatively “bonk proof” when you are keto/low carb.

A way I made this sustainable was to pick a day once every 3 weeks I could eat my pizza or pasta. Eventually, it was a long weekend. This allowed for me to plan my “cheat” weekends around weddings, parties, etc so I could eat like everyone else.

Fasting periods

This is something not many of us knew about, and few still do. In 2018, I had read about “autophagy” which won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2016. Simply put, not eating for specific periods of time. The idea is that at some point of not eating, “autophagy” is triggered. This then tends to find malformed cells and tears them apart and recycles the parts to make new cells. Once you learn this, and understand it, simply “not eating” becomes a super power of health.

Let’s explore how this first works – in my non-medical way of explaining it.

  • blood sugar dips after while
  • glycogen stores in liver are tapped for glucose
  • autophagy triggered
  • Fat cells tapped for ketones and used as a “clean burning” energy
  • protein used to be converted to glucose for your brain using gluconeogenesis

Now, anyone who just wants to do this and not eat – you may have to chew through 1-2 days of energy in your liver glycogen stores. However, those who are in ketosis tend to mimic autophagy. However, by simply not eating all day, I’d get hit with it around 4PM. You can feel a switch flip. Yes, I have triggered this a lot.

I did OMAD (one meal a day) for many years. Additionally, I did “fasting Fridays” 3 times a month or so. I have done 3 day fasts I think 3 times. I can tell you, when you are on keto, “fasting” is 10x easier than if you are on a carb-heavy diet.

Big picture with fasting is this – if you potentially have some cancerous cells, or malformed cells – autophagy hunts them down and tears them apart. Essentially, it has potential anti-cancer benefits. Most major religions have fasting protocols. I grew up with “health experts” telling us to eat 5-6 small meals a day, according to the Food Pyramid. I don’t know how many millions of people that advice has legit killed, including my mother – but it’s in the hundreds of millions at this point.

Tip: just because you do not eat, doesn’t mean you do not need electrolytes. I am guessing when I say that people who haven’t eaten for some periods of time and had issues had to do with their hearts giving out due to electrolyte imbalance. When I would do the 3 day fasts, I’d sip some salt water and supplement with magnesium. Talk with your doctor about any of the advice here – but this one in particular. Don’t skip the electrolytes for sure.

Being “thin”

I had told my trainer my goal was to be 5’9″ and 155 for lots of running. I was friends with the cross country guys in HS and ran with them a few times – until they left me in the dust. I went with them once to the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ. It was pretty funny – these guys won the state title something like 4 our of 6 years. All of these guys were D1 runners. So we start out, and quickly I’m left alone running. About 2 miles in, they were coming back from whatever state they just ran to and back. They were surprised to see me at the 2 mile mark, and I turned around with them. Of course, still left in the dust, but I ran 4 miles and seemed to shock all of them.

I bring this up because I’ve never seen people eat more food than these guys. I went with them to an all you can eat wings night at a local airport, and saw these skinny guys polish off 30-40 wings. They never gained a pound.

My grandmother turns 98 in a few months. She’s thin. Always has been. If you look at people who are in their 90s, you do not see John Candy. But, you also don’t see John Cena. While more muscle is cool with the women in your teens, as a grown ass adult, excess muscle can chew through the calories – but it also adds weight. Mass. This mass puts strain on your heart. More on that in the next section.

Go to old folks homes. Look around. Find anyone over 85 with a lot of excess weight. It doesn’t really happen. Now, if you think about a population that is old af, who do you think of? Japanese. Who are thin, and tend to eat a lot of fish (omega 3s). No one thinks of Japanese and “body builders”. How old do the Sumo wrestlers live?

As a kid, I remember hearing about all kinds of NFL players dying young. Same with WWF wrestlers. Many of these guys who are monsters, have problems later in life. Diabetes, sleep apnea, or perhaps even heart attacks.

I got to 5’9″ and 197 at my lowest, and I didn’t have a ton of body fat left. My frame is kind of bigger – my family is just more broad and stout. I think maybe I can get to 175. But 155? Doubtful. I may try down the road.

Good cardiovascular health

Now, if you want to think about people who lived a long time, think about a lot of the guys from WW2 in Easy Company who lived to see the series made. Many of these guys lived into their 90s. If you have ever seen “Band of Brothers” you can see these guys did a ton of running and training with calisthenics. They weren’t bench pressing 400 pounds. They ran “Currahee” and marched something like 70 miles in 3 days.

You think “fit”. Remember the cross country guys above who could eat a ton? Well, they ran 10 miles a day in practice. I mentioned I had biked 45 miles, ran 8 – and I was able to swim an hour or so at a time. I was in love with running first, biking second – and swimming was a distant third. The distances I trained at meant I was able to complete an Olympic triathlon – and possibly been mid pack. Ideally, I wanted to train for half ironmans. I LOVED doing it. I was spending 2 hours a day or so training. Enter back problems, severe work stress, and a little one who needs a ton of attention and suddenly, you do not have the time for this anymore.

Running for me was cathartic. However, eventually – this led to some severe back issues that flare up from time to time today. I want to use diet to get to 195, and THEN start running again, to see if my back can take it. I did run hard for 2 years, all seasons, 3-4 times a week.

Anyway – the salads I was eating during this time were insane in size and nutrition. I’d not eat all day, then have one of my monster salads. By monster, I’m talking about 3 stalks of romaine, a pound of chicken breast, tomatoes, taco cheese, avocado, and italian dressing (Primal Kitchen avocado oil).

With me – this made me the calmest I have ever been in my life. Resting heart rate was between 48-52. I was on a path that maybe someday I’d have been 160 and running 10ks and half ironmans. But the oxygen was insane. My breathing was deep. Relaxed. In water, I could easily hold my breath for near 2 minutes – but this was also some of the keto training.

When you have incredible cardiovascular health, you FEEL a level of healthy no one can ever take from you. I want that again.

Avoiding toxins

Alcohol is something that I drank a lot in college, and since about 30, partook in it maybe 2-3 times a year. Sometimes in social settings – the introvert of me needs some to not be the quiet guy, and sometimes in this role without a lot of food in me, I can get quite drunk quite quickly. It’s not a good look, and something I don’t really do much. Around my college friends 2-3 times a year is a given. But I don’t drink at home myself. Nor do I ever go to local bars.

Alcohol messes with your liver, and the one thing I took away from a lot of my “education” over the years is that the liver is a majorly important organ.

If you think of toxins – you can think of acute things like poisoning – but most might think of something else that might cause infertility or even cancer. You can think of most processed foods as a form of toxin. You wouldn’t give your kid poison – but you have no problem giving him CheezIts. It’s just a different dosage of a toxin.

I was alarmed when I had heard Dr. Lustig talk about non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in children as young as 8. He said, “you don’t want to give your kid a beer, but you have no problems giving them fructose. Both affect the liver in the same way they are metabolized”. He went through the presentation of how the liver deals with both of these – and sure as shit, giving your kid fruit and fructose in a lot of forms is the same thing as giving him or her a beer, without the buzz.

Alcohol and many other toxins can be inflammatory – but I wanted their own little spot here.

Conclusion

I feel like the entire medical establishment, from soup to nuts, is broken. And – 7-8 years ago when I talked about low carb and keto, I was laughed at. For the last 2 years of my journey, I lost about 110 pounds and didn’t count a single calorie for those 2 years. All I needed to do was keep an eye on carbs, and eat my low carb brand of food.

While many of you then think about pounds of bacon and butter, the reality is that it’s a LOT of salads with meat added to them. But when I did this a lot, I only ate one meal a day (OMAD) M-Th, usually skipped eating on Friday, and ate two meals on Sat and Sunday.

Here are some false things that DOCTORS told me my entire life

  • First advice – stay away from the starches. Mid 1980s. I had no idea what that meant, but my parents had me eat less bread, pasta, and potatoes, and I ate more burgers and hot dogs and eggs. Thinned out a little. This was the best advice, and from an old doctor in 1984 or so.
  • “Food pyramid” – Is he eating 11 servings of grains a day? Make sure they are WHOLE GRAINS (it’s still sugar)
  • 1990s – “you need to stop eating fat. Here, eat this non-fat cheese”. Then, fat is dropped from everything in the 1990s and sugar is added to make it taste better
  • “Food pyramid. You need to focus on more of the bottom two”
  • “You need to stop eating eggs. They are high in cholesterol”
  • “You need to count calories and limit portion sizes”. This led to weighing and measuring every meal. Going to bed hungry every night.
  • “Stop eating saturated fats”
  • “Stop eating butter. Here’s margarine”
  • “Stop eating red meat. It will kill you. Eat tofu”
  • Forks over knives – let’s show graphic images of hurting animals and then have you eating beans for protein – never mind the lack of B12 these diets have, and nevermind how lectins can cause serious autoimmune issues
  • You need to do “heart healthy” vegetable oil.
  • “Keto is bad because it’s just too hard to do”
  • “You need to restrict your sodium intake”
  • “You need to take a statin because your cholesterol is over 200”

Let me explain how all but my first doctor were dopes, and all of them were following guidelines given to them by the clueless people running things in the pocket of big pharma.

Here’s how this model works….

1 – have people eat food that makes them sick

2- have them go to a doctor, who then has to send them to specialists endlessly

3- get “treatments”, either by expensive medical devices, or taking pills for the rest of your life

The only way to get these people into the system to fleece them for trillions is to give really bad medical advice.

The best advice I ever got – in 2016 from my trainer:

“Have you ever looked at the 40-30-30”? It was the first time in my life someone actually had me look at the content of my food by macros.

On par with that advice – a year later, my trainer then said:

“Have you ever heard about keto? With what your goals are, it might help you”.

I ran with that – and the rest was history.

My conclusion through my M=1 experience is that the medical establishment, from the top down, is either clueless as a feature, or in the pocket of big industries to keep the patients rolling in.

Are you aware this was never tested for efficacy? Only compliance? Did you know many people warned that people would get obese and get sick from this?

So – anything I write here, please do ask your doctor about. And, while you’re at it – take a look at:

  • Gary Taubes – read every word he has ever written
  • Dr. Ken Berry, MD
  • Dr. Robert Lustig, MD
  • Nina Teicholz, PhD
  • Mark Sisson (former ironman competitor and author of The Primal Blueprint)
  • Dr. Peter Attia