I’ve been cranking out content each week for the Flex Diet Cert going into week 6 now.   Each week has involved 3 videos:

1) Big Picture of Met Flex + Flexible Dieting (Flex Diet).
2) The theory about the specific intervention that week ranging from dietary protein, fasting, to exercise.
3) 5 Action Items that you as a coach can implement with your clients.

As I’ve been creating 2-3 hours of material each week, I’ve found myself going back to a core concept I wanted to share with you here.

Here is that concept:

“You are not that fragile.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo credit:  https://pixabay.com/en/glass-cup-fragile-signs-symbols-38380/

Your body is brilliantly designed.  Even just looking at the metabolism side, the ability of your body to process many different types of fuel is utterly amazing.

While we have hybrid cars and some dual fuel vehicles now, they are quite limited in what they can use for power.  Put sugar in your gas tank of your Prius, and you won’t get very far.

 Story time…

Many years ago, I was a support team member for the 4-person Race Across America (RAAM).    4 people would take turns pedaling their bike from the start in San Diego CA to the end (hopefully) in Atlantic City, NJ some 7 days or so later.

“RAAM spans 3000 miles, climbs 175,000 feet, crosses 12 states…”  and is considered one of the “The World’s Toughest Bicycle Race.” (1)

As support for these amazing cyclists, I can vouch first hand that it was an insane experience.   Human power at its best.

Keep in mind that this was not just a ride, which would be brutal enough, it was a race.

Many times teams would finish within minutes to some times seconds of each other – about a week after they started.

Distill all this down, plus toss in massive sleep deprivation, mountains, a bumpy RV that is vertically impossible to sleep in (if you were lucky enough to get into the bed which would launch you off it entirely at each bump) . . . add in 7 days of this, different personalities and shake.   By the end, it was a minor miracle we finished third without any blood shed between people (just skin meeting asphalt twice).

 

One of the stories that we heard was about a team from Austria that was competing where half of the team members got getting pissed about how they were doing the race.  In the middle of Nebraska at a remote gas station surrounded only by miles of corn, 1 church and a bar, a disgruntled team member put Diesel (instead of normal 85 octane gas) into the main support vehicle on purpose.   Said vehicle ran for 1 mile,  and then coughed and seized up.  The team had to either leave a bunch of its members there and continue or pull out. They opted to pull out.

While I did my masters at Michigan Tech, I spent many many hours around engineers who work in the auto industry.   Now whether above story is true or not, the point is that something as complex as a vehicle cannot hold a candle to the amazingness of the human body.

For example:  cardiac tissue (your heart), can run on a multitude of fuels including fats, carbs, ketones, lactate, pyruvate, CP, etc (2).  And it does this by grabbing the fuel just as it passes by in order to keep the tissue alive.   Flex fuel (metabolic flexibility) and JIT (Just In Time) manufacturing at its finest.

My main point of my yammer is this…

“You are not that fragile.”

Sure, everything you do does have a cost associated with it, although your body is quite good at handling those insults.

Living on fast food and running in fear of anything green on your plate is not a good idea nor recommended.  There is a cost to be paid.

The flip-side is that you can consume a large 7-11 slurp-ee with no ice, and be ok.    The fact that your body even knows what to do with it still boggles my mind.

Photo credit https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8774/28230037585_19e63a9db6_z.jpg

Here are a few great paragraphs from my buddy Dr. Ben House along theses lines.

“….If you are building an army of Type A SNP Carrying Health Hypochondriacs. STOP. IT.

The human organism is the smartest and most deadly predator to ever roam this planet. The meat suit you drive around in has 5 million red blood cells in a drop of blood, your brain thinks before you are even aware you are having a “thought,” you incinerate 3,000 to 5,000 pounds of food a year at 98.6 degrees, and without counting a thing you maybe gain a pound over the holidays. 

 Boohoo.

 The average American eats over 69,000 grams of pure sugar per year, and their fasting blood sugar might go up by 1 or 2 points which equals around 0.05 grams!

 Walk slowly away the next time you see or hear someone legitimately worried about the lights just happening to get flipped on after dark or diatribe someone else for eating a banana. Leave these humans to their fragile existence, and if someone tries to bitch at you about a banana, slap them with it.” – Dr Ben House

Hells to the yeah!

Summary:

By all means, Do things that increase your health, but don’t spend your life living in fear of minor things.

You are not that fragile.

Dr Mike

PS – if you want to see more from Dr Ben House and myself, plus Dr Bryan Walsh and now Dr Michael Ruscio (who was my personal doc after I screwed myself up post PhD), check this out below:

http://functionalmedicinecostarica.com/costa-rica-retreat/

Disclosure – I don’t make a dime if you go as I am already teaching there.  I can say it is an amazing opportunity that you will never forget.

References:

  1. Race Across America, RAAM, URL http://www.raceacrossamerica.org Accessed Dec 8, 2017
  2. Pascual F, Coleman R  Fuel availability and fate in cardiac metabolism: A tale of two substrates.  Biochim Biophys Acta. 2016 Oct;1861(10):1425-33. doi:  10.1016/j.bbalip.2016.03.014. Epub 2016 Mar 16.