Your genetics, your microbiome (think probiotics), and your biochemistry (hormones and neurotransmitters) influence how you look, feel, and perform. The good news is, you have control over all of them.
You can literally manipulate gene expression, promote the growth of good bacteria in your gut, and influence the chemical reactions that take place in your body by providing the right environmental signals like food, sleep, exercise and our behaviors (the 5 Pillars of Health).
In fact, approximately 80% of your body composition (muscle vs fat) results from how you manipulate hormones, gene expression, and gut microbiome through your nutrition.
It’s important to keep in mind that there’s no one thing will make you healthier or shed a few pounds. Sorry, but there’s no magic supplement or gadget that will do this long term. It’s the combination of a bunch of healthy habits – the overall lifestyle and entire context of our lives that make the difference.
Your whole body is a system. By addressing one aspect of that system (like exercising), you only get partial results. But when you address the system as a whole, you reap the benefits. When all the parts are working together, the body and mind become optimized, exceeding their full potential.
Here are the 5 Pillars of Health – the 5 factors that determine your gene expression, microbiome, and biochemistry.
1. Mindset
Your perception of the external environment influences your internal environment. Your mind is subconsciously programmed by the way you talk to yourself — it controls your body, your behaviors, and your beliefs and all the processes and chemistry of your body (the mind-body connection). Your mind tells you what to eat, motivates you to work out and contributes to how well you sleep. Your mindset is also the limiting factor in achieving your goals. By changing your perception of what is possible you will trigger a new level of performance and results you didn’t know were possible.
2. Sustenance & Smart Supplementation
What do you put in your body every day? How does it help you perform?
Food is not just energy and nutrition for your body but also information for your body. It’s used to communicate and influence every cell and gene in your body, telling it how to look, feel and function. The higher the quality of food (and supplements) you consume, the better messages your body has to do what you want it to do (like burn fat).
3. Stay Active & Play, preferrably in Nature
Create a lifestyle around constant, natural, low-intensity, non-exercise movement and unstructured-free play. Add a few brief intense workouts that focus on the five basic movements (push, pull, hip-hinge, squat, and plank) and sprints for cardio.
4. Sleep, Rest & Recovery
Sleep is essential for basic maintenance and repair of the neurological, endocrine (hormone), immune, musculoskeletal and digestive systems. Sleep controls our blood sugar, improves our eating habits and emotions, and is associated with higher activity levels and weight loss. This is the time the body rebuilds, renews and restores itself.
5. Stress & Anxiety Management
Stress of any kind elevates cortisol, which in excess, can lead fat storage, especially around the midsection. Stress includes all forms: physiological stress (job-related stress, family/marital stress, anxiety and phobias, lack of sleep, unresolved childhood trauma, low self-esteem, guilt, etc.), environmental, nutritional, physical stress (over-exercising, sports, manual labor or a highly physical job like construction, police, etc.).
6. Social Connectivity & Having Fun
Study after study has shown that social connections – through family, friends or with companion animals – seem to pay off in terms of good health, longevity and even prolonged survival among patients with very serious diseases.
7. Symbiosis & Digestion
The microbiome is the approximately 100 trillion microbes (bacteria, viruses and fungi) that live upon and, mostly, within us. They are a fundamental part of our lives. Research has shown that the connection between your body and your microbiome is the foundational key for optimal health and wellbeing. It can influence numerous processes in your body including your metabolism, weight, energy production, mood, immune system, psychological processing and thinking patterns (that’s right, mental health!), digestion, how much we eat and what we choose to eat, and the regulation of gene expression, which affects everything from disease risk to muscle growth.
8. Sun Exposure
Sun is essential for getting Vitamin D which affects over 1000 genes in the human body and serves as a substrate for sex hormones like testosterone, human growth hormone, and estrogen. It moderates immune function and inflammation, assists in calcium metabolism and bone formation. Vitamin D is critical for brain health and cognitive function.
Sun exposure is important for maintaining a healthy circadian rhythm (your sleep-wake cycle) which affects every cell in our body from the cardiovascular system, to digestion, immune function, metabolism, and endocrine/hormone balance. Sunlight also has a powerful mood-elevating affect which can enhance productivity and interpersonal interactions.
9. Smart Supplementation
We consider this better living through science. If your body lacks vital, necessary nutrients—essential fats, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, enzymes and probiotics, you won’t see the results that you want. High-quality supplements can help make-up for the impact our modern lifestyle has on our health and correct nutrient deficiencies, stress and illness, and genetic differences in nutrient metabolism.
We’ll teach you how to dial in on every aspect of your life that determines how you look, feel, and perform.