Month: November 2024

Here are 16 things I’ve learnt about diet and metabolism over the past 5 years.

1. Throughout the 2010s, the mental model I had was that “nutrition research is complicated.” I’ve since realized that this idea is a side-effect of the fact that most nutrition studies were funded by processed food companies. There’s a lot of rigorous independent research on nutrition and its effect on our metabolic health. And I’m grateful to folks like Tim Spector, Peter Attia, Andrew Huberman, and Casey Means for getting the word out on this.
   
2. Let’s start with hydration. There are straightforward guidelines on water – most adults need between 2.7 (women) to 3.7 liters (men) of water per day. This translates to 100-125 oz. I didn’t realize how dehydrated I was for many years.
   
   I carry an 18 oz bottle with me everywhere and I’ve been making small changes to ensure I drink 6 of these every day. I feel better when I do.
   
3. Ultra-processed foods are BAD. It isn’t about the quantity of calories but also the quality. Ultra-processed foods are low quality calories,nmade mostly from substances extracted from foods, such as fats, starches, added sugars, and hydrogenated fats. Bring calories from these foods in any normal day as close to zero as possible.
   
   I wasn’t a big consumer of ultra-processed foods. But I’ve been working to reduce intake of some varieties of these – especially cereals and baked goods.
   
4. Our gut bacteria are key to our ability to digest the food we eat. The more the variety of good gut bacteria, the better. Fermented food – yogurt, kimchi, etc. – are great sources of good gut bacteria. Eating ~30 vegetables and fruits goes a long way here. And living a generally active lifestyle helps. For example, kids who played more with soil ended up with good gut bacteria that boosted their metabolism and immunity.
   
   I have been covered on yogurt since childhood. :-) I could do better on other fermented foods. I’ve been doing more salads to increase the variety of vegetables I eat and have been more intentional about eating at least 4-5 fruits every day.
   
5. Antibiotics destroy our gut bacteria. Beware regularly using antibiotics to cure illness. Avoid them where possible.
   
6. Nuts and seeds are also great adds to our diet. For nuts, we can’t go wrong with almonds, walnuts, pistachios, and cashews (hello Costco Mixed nuts pack). Recommended seeds include Chia, ground Flaxseed, Hemp, and pumpkin seeds.
   
   I’ve made it a habit of late to eat a handful of nuts every evening. And I add 3 spoons of Chia + Flaxseed + Hemp to my morning protein shake every weekday.
   
7. Lessen (or even remove) grain – especially refined grains. This means less white bread and white rice. If you must eat rice for example, there’s no question brown or red rice is better.
   
   This one has been hard for me. I’ve never been a big bread eater but I’ve always been a big rice eater. The biggest shift I’ve made in the past months is to roughly halve the quantity of rice I eat. I still relish it and don’t plan to cut it out of my diet but I have realized that I didn’t need the quantities I was used to.
   
8. Moderate caffeine, remove tobacco, and avoid alcohol.
   
9. When we buy vegetables and meat, organic/pasture raised/grass fed are better where possible. Organic food has less toxins from chemicals and typically retains more nutrients. Same story with meat/fish – if it isn’t pasture raised/grass fed, it is likely raised by antibiotics.
   
   I’ve reduced red meat significantly over the past decade (given climate impact). We switched to pasture raised eggs a few years ago. All in all, we could do better with ensuring we’re buying more organic.
   
10. Supplements are a topic where my understanding is partial. From all my reading, I’ve come to the conclusion that adding protein and 5 gms of Creatine – which is one of the most studied supplements – sound like no brainers (as long as the protein powder isn’t filled with too many additives/is too sugary). We are living much older than our ancestors and we lose muscle mass rapidly as we age. Protein aside, some folks swear by vitamin supplements, and some oppose it. This is an area I expect to learn more over time.
    
    I cover my supplements in my morning protein shake. This shake is intended to cover a collection of the above notes – it is protein powder + spinach + seeds + frozen mixed berries.
    
11. Time restriction via fasting is a natural way to give our body a break. That said, Peter Attia makes the case that too much of this can result essential protein intake. So, your mileage with it may vary. A simple thing we can all do is to eat at least 2 hours before bed so we naturally get a long fast in the night. This way, our metabolic system isn’t taxed when we get to bed.
    
    I do a horrible job here. I am working on changes to my routine to consistently eat 2 hours before bed.
    
12. A 15 minute walk after a meal goes a long way in helping our system digest food. These walks are called “digestive walks” or “fart walks.” Those names made me chuckle.
    
    We’ve started doing 15 minute walks after dinner in the past week. It feels great. It is a keeper.
    
13. Building on that, exercise works wonders on our metabolism. The more we get our heart rates up, stay active throughout the day, and carry weights, the better. More muscles and more heart rate variability = better metabolism and better glucose control.
14. So does maintaining good circadian rhythms with good sleep and getting natural light in the mornings. All of these help improve our mental health (everything is connected!). Disconnecting from our phones as we approach bedtime and getting away from habits like doomscrolling that negatively affect our mental health are among the best things we do.
    
15. The best book I’ve read on the topic of our metabolism is “Good Energy” by Dr. Casey Means. She makes a compelling argument that the root of all our chronic illnesses is bad metabolism – due to a mix of a unhealthy diet and lifestyle. Reading it three weeks ago was a gamechanger. I’ve been recommending her book to everyone I know.
    
16. Finally, our bodies work better when we take a moment to appreciate the many gifts we’ve been given. Even a simple thing like savoring our food while we eat it and not, say, checking email while we do it positively impacts our metabolism.
    
    Gratitude and perspective got a long way in helping us make progress. While there are always changes to be made, the one thing I attempt to keep in mind is to never lose the joy. I think what we’re trying to do is to maximize joy while balancing healthy outcomes. The more the joy is healthy, the better.
    
    But we’re not perfect. And much of doing this right is making small changes consistently over time.
    
    Progress over perfection.

A teammate once beautifully summarized a key trait good leaders share in common – they are “shit umbrellas” for their team.

I know the visual that accompanies this term isn’t pretty. But stick with me.

Her observation was that teams are thrown all kinds of “shit” from above their level. And good leaders deflect the noise, ensure the team has relevant context, and enables them to focus on getting the job done.

It is a description I’ve come to appreciate more and more over the years.

Progress is non-linear.

One of those many simple and powerful ideas that is easy to understand and yet hard to internalize.

Periodic reminder to self – we can’t always do the big things, but we can do the small things with extraordinary care.

“You can write a narrative in your head, and spin yourself down a negative path, and beat yourself up and second guess. But what’s true is you made what you thought was the best decision in the moment. Then, you leave it behind. There’s no going back. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone makes good decisions, bad decisions, or they just didn’t work. For me, it’s, ‘Learn the lesson. Leave the event.’” | Stephen Vogt, manager, The Cleveland Guardians

H/T: Om’s blog

In the 1700s, scurvy – caused by a deficiency of Vitamin C – was a deadly disease on voyages. Captain James Cook noticed that Dutch ships used to have less scurvy than English ships.

He wondered what they were doing that’s different and noticed they carried barrels of sauerkraut (fermented cabbage). So he decided to carry Sauerkraut which happens to contain a trace of vitamin C.

But he didn’t want to tell his men he was doing it in the hope that it would prevent scurvy. That would mean telling his men that he was taking them on a voyage so long that scurvy might kill them.

Instead, he had his officers eat at one place where the men could observe them. And, for a while, he served sauerkraut to the officers, but not to the men.

Then, finally, he said – “Well, the men can have it one day a week.”

In due course, the whole crew was eating sauerkraut.

Tact might be the most potent persuasion tool of them all.

H/T: Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Peter Kaufman

I first tried a robot vacuum cleaner 5 years ago. We bought a Eufy and it taught me a valuable lesson – I needed to either understand how it works or be able to predict what it would do.

The Eufy I’d purchased functioned on a “bounce” algorithm. So it ping-ponged its way through a room and eventually our home. This sounded reasonable before I bought it.

But it drove me crazy. As it was hard to predict, I ended up using its remote control to take it where I wanted it. At that point, however, it was easier to just vacuum myself.

I’d picked the Eufy up on sale. It reminded me of another old lesson – if you decide to buy something, invest in making it good. It pays off over time.

3 years ago, as we moved into our home, I purchased the Roborock S7. This time, it wasn’t about the sale (lesson learned). I did extensive research and I decided to try the Roborock for 3 reasons –

(1) Feedback on its mapping technology was great. The Roborock promised to map out our home and go through the map systematically.

(2) It had mopping functionality. That sounded very cool.

(3) It also had auto-empty functionality. This meant emptying the dust and dirt every few months vs. every time we used it.

3 years in, our Roborock – nickamed Zorro – has become a key fixture in our home. It has delivered on all the above with impressive consistency.

Zorro is a great example of an AI tool that adds a ton of value to our home. It uses its vision to see around the home and uses its intelligence to navigate and clean. A big part of my job these days is to build AI tools, I look to Zorro as inspiration for what a great tool does.

First, it solves real problems well. In doing so, it removes time spent on tedious tasks.

Second, it does so in a manner that makes the output predictable. When we delegate control to a tool, it helps us ensure the tool is working in a way that solves our problems in a manner that works for us.

Dr Casey Means, in her book “Good Energy”, shares a piece of advice on working with the US healthcare system (and perhaps many healthcare systems) – Trust the system on acute issues, ignore it on chronic issues.

Her experiences studying and practicing medicine kept pushing her toward a siloed approach to understanding problems. This meant a raft of treating symptoms vs. understanding the problem holistically. In medicine, the suffix “itis” means inflammation. And inflammation in various parts of the body were treated with specific medication that, in her experience, repeatedly didn’t work.

Her insight is that inflammation takes root because fof core dysfunctions in our cells that impact how they function, signal, and replicate themselves.

As a result, one simple measure that can powerfully reframe how we understand health and disease is by looking at how well or poorly the mitochondria (that converts food energy into cellular energy) in our cells are making energy.

When the body is healthy, they produce “Good Energy.” And, when these cells had are metabolically dysfunctional and underpowered, we are stuck with “Bad Energy” which shows up in all our biological markers.

It reminded me of Peter Attia’s notes about Medicine 2.0 (modern medicine that is great at stopping quick deaths) vs. Medicine 3.0 (medicine that helps us prevent slow deaths from diseases like diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer’s). He wrote in depth about metabolic dysfunction… but Dr. Casey Means points to metabolic dysfunction as the key to that bigger question.

It is a powerful way to think about wellness.

It resonated.

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” — Edith Wharton

It resonated.

H/T: Arjun

I’ve been thinking about this story a bunch over the past days – I first read it a decade ago.

When Ben Horowitz was working for the web server team at Netscape, Microsoft created a rival web server product that was 5 times as fast as Netscape’s and gave it to customers for free. So, Ben began working hard on potential acquisition targets that could help Netscape overcome this problem.

When he shared the idea with his engineering counterpart, Bill Turpin, Bill listened and said – “Ben, those silver bullets that you are looking for are all fine. But, our server is FIVE times slower. There is no silver bullet that is going to fix that. We’re going to have to use a lot of ‘lead bullets.’”

So they decided to focus on simply fixing the performance issues. Once they did, Netscape beat Microsoft’s performance and grew web servers to a 400 million dollar business.

Later, as CEO of Opsware, when he found competitor BladeLogic consistently beating them on big deals, Ben had colleagues who suggested silver bullets like other acquisitions and pivots. But, he had learnt his lesson – they had to build a better product. No silver bullets, only lead bullets.

When we’re dealing with difficult problems, it is natural to look for silver bullets. But those don’t generally exist.

The hard way tends to be the way.