Jonny Bowden's Blog, page 9

Hold back the clock with these seven tips!

What do heart disease, prostate cancer, dementia, weight gain, sagging muscles and erectile dysfunction have in common?

The obvious answer is that none of them are found at the top of your “must-have” list, but the less obvious answer is that they share one major risk factor in common: aging.

Aging is actually the number one risk factor for a lot of things you don’t want to have. And while we can’t prevent aging, we can do a lot to insure that we age optimally. That means reducing the effects of what I call “the Four Horsemen of Aging”, four processes which systemically break down our bodies, age us from within, damage our organs and tissues (including our skin) and contribute to every degenerative disease known to humankind.

These “Four Horsemen” are inflammation, oxidation, stress and sugar.

A full explanation of how these four processes contribute to all the diseases of aging would take a book. (In fact, I wrote one: It’s called The Most Effective Ways to Live Longer.) Briefly, oxidation is damage from free radicals that can impact your sex life, the appearance of your skin and the condition of your brain. Inflammation is the starting point for heart disease and is a big factor in Alzheimer’s, dementia, obesity, diabetes and cancer. Sugar sends your “fat-storing” hormone (insulin) into overdrive and contributes to aging and disease in multiple ways. And stress causes your body to release hormones (like cortisol) which, among other nasty things, can shrink the hippocampus, an important area of the brain involved in memory and thinking.

Luckily there are a number of things we can do to reduce the damage done by all four.

 

Exercise every day. It makes you look better at the beach, prevents muscle “decay” (a condition called sarcopaenia), and improves mood. Even 30-45 minutes a day of brisk walking has been shown to grow new brain cells as well as to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and depression,
Take these seven supplements:

Omega-3’s (anti-inflammatory, benefit the heart and brain)
Magnesium (helps relax blood vessel walls)
Vitamin D (benefits everything you can think of)
Resveratrol (turns on longevity genes)
Curcumin (anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and anti-cancer)
Probiotics (supports the microbiome, and increases immunity)
Coq10 (fuel for the heart)


Eat these four foods: Nuts, beans, dark chocolate and berries. Put them on heavy rotation in your diet. These four foods will provide a particularly impressive range of benefits.
Drink these three drinks: Water, green tea and pomegranate juice. (One study showed that those drinking 5 or more cups of green tea a day had a a significantly lower risk of death from all causes, particularly cardiovascular disease and stroke.) Green tea is anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-cancer and pro-weight loss! And researchers in Israel called pomegranate juice a “natural Viagra”
Stress: Stress contributes to every disease, directly or indirectly. It shrinks the brain and increases the waistline. Deal with it. Somehow. Meditation is the best, but even a few minutes of relaxed deep breathing several times a day will help.
Take this advice seriously. Do all six of the steps.

 

If you do, chances are you’ll live longer (and better) than if you don’t.

The Do-Something Principal

Practically everyone in the world has struggled with a lack of motivation.

 

As an author and speaker I hear it virtually every day. “I seem to have lost my motivation.” “I just can’t get motivated.” “I’m just not inspired.” “I know what I need to do, but I just can’t seem to do it.”

 

Can you relate?

 

Most of us can. But the question is, what do we do about it?

 

The problem lies in the fact that we think of inspiration, motivation and action as a linear progression. First you get inspired, you get motivated to do something, and finally, you take action. In this model, if you’re not inspired or motivated, you’re basically screwed.

 

There’s a better model.

 

What if motivation and inspiration were actually the result of action, not just the cause of it?

 

Here’s the deal. The mere act of taking action—any action—stimulates a cascade of activity. Your brain takes note of the fact that you’re taking an action and adjusts accordingly. Acting happy actually changes certain things in your body and brain that can be measured, like hormones, neurotransmitters and blood pressure. That’s true even when you aren’t actually happy, you’re just acting that way.

 

The writer and coach Mark Mason talks about something he calls the Do Something Principle, which is based the idea that when you’re stuck, you should just take an action.  Behavior has consequences. Taking an action isn’t just a result of your feelings; it’s also a big instigator of them.

 

Mason tells the story of an author who was interviewed once about his prodigious output. “How’d you write all this stuff?” the interviewer asked him.

 

Pay attention to the author’s answer, cause it’s genius.

 

“Two hundred lousy words a day.”

 

This dude essentially created an entire legacy of work by taking one small, almost insignificant action a day. What the writer was saying is that he took an action even when he didn’t feel like it, which is the total secret to overcoming “no motivation”.

 

I can relate—if I had waited to “feel” like giving up cigarettes twenty-five years ago, I’d be smoking as I write this. The most empowering, transcendental thing in the world is to be able to act even when you don’t feel like it. (To hear my extended rant on this, please download my free mp3, Motivation: Why You Don’t Need It.

 

The Do-Something Principle simply says take an action. It can be something as simple as drinking a glass of water, walking to the gym (even if you don’t go in), reading one page in a book you’ve been putting off reading, reading one page in a different book, writing 200 words every morning, writing the first page of a proposal, weighing yourself…doesn’t really matter.

 

The metric you’re going for here is action… not results. The kind of results you’re looking for will come later, in good time. Right now all you need to do is be concerned with taking one action.

 

I know for myself that when I don’t feel like writing—which is frequently the case—if I just make a deal with myself to do one action (like writing, for example, 200 words), two things will happen. One, I will feel more subtly empowered (‘cause I said I would do something and then I did it, and there’s nothing like making shit happen in the world to make you feel more powerful. Don’t worry about the “it” being small—the important point is you’re building an empowerment muscle that grows every time you say you do something and you do it).

 

The second thing that will happen—not always, but sometimes—is that I don’t stop at the 200 words. I know I can, ‘cause that was the deal I made with myself, but the mere act of crafting a few sentences gets my juices flowing, or gets me thinking about the topic and wanting to read more (and write more) about it.

 

I’m writing this article on a Saturday and when I started I didn’t feel like writing at all. So I made a deal with myself—just the first few sentences. Which I did. And I haven’t stopped yet, and probably won’t till the article is done because now I’m really into it. A small, unmotivated action actually produced inspiration and enthusiasm.

 

Which led to more action.

 

So if you’re stuck feeling unmotivated, here’s a challenge for you. Disempower the notion of “motivation”. It doesn’t have to rule you, you don’t have to spend your life waiting to “find” it, you don’t need to wait for inspiration to “strike” you like a thunderbolt from Zeus.

 

Just take an action.

 

Even if—or especially if—you don’t feel like it.

 

You’ll have a “win” in the short term…and a way better chance of winning the game.

 

 

When the Uber driver says you have great skin…

The other day, on the way to the airport, my Uber driver told me I had great skin.

Seriously.

We had been talking about health, vitamins, food, diet and all that stuff (she had asked me what I did for a living). I told her I was pretty strict with my own regimen, and the next thing I know she’s telling me how healthy my skin looks.

Which is a pretty nice complement to get, actually, even from completely unexpected sources, like the Uber driver in New Orleans.

Skin care products and food actually have two things in common. One, you put both of them in your body, and no, “in your body” is not a misprint. You may put skin care products—washes, lotions, serums, masks—on your body to start with, but don’t be confused, your skin absorbs what you put on it. The ingredients you put on your skin wind up in your bloodstream (and ultimately in your liver) just as sure as if you had eaten them.

(That’s why toxins and junk in your skin care products actually matter just as much as the toxins in processed food or sprayed vegetables or antibiotic-fed meat.)

The second thing skin care products and food have in common is sensual experience. Every parent in the world knows that you can make a version of kid food that’s totally healthy, but if it tastes like you-know-what, your kid (and you) won’t eat it. Period. That’s how “health food” got a reputation as a cross between rabbit food and sawdust.

And you can make the healthiest, most organic skin care product in the world, but if it smells funny and feels weird, you’re not going to use it. (Trust me—we got some product samples of facial crèmes and shampoos backstage at one of the biggest conferences I spoke at last year—they’re still sitting in my closet. I’ve tried giving them away but no one wants them. They smell awful and they feel even worse.)

Enter Annmarie Skin Care.

Now before I tell you about the products I use from Annmarie Skin Care, let me tell you something about me personally: I’m not a do-it-yourselfer. I’m a big delegator, especially with tasks or projects that I’m not good at (fixing cars) or don’t have time to do (researching skin care).

I’m really good at finding the right people to do stuff. And one thing I learned from my previous career working with some of the top directors in musical theatre, is to the right actors and then leave them alone. The biggest thing you can do is get the right people in the job and then leave them to do what they do best.

When it comes to skin care, the folks at Annmarie Skin Care are indeed the right people.

I’ve known Kevin Gianni and his wife Annmarie for over a decade. To tell you the truth, if you go to their website, you’ll probably think—in the most loving and affectionate way—of the term “hippies”. They—and their staff- look like they’re totally at home walking in the fields (they are), picking fruit from organic gardens, and using natural and gentle remedies passed onto them by wise, traditional healers.

They were both very successful personal trainers who went on a journey about a decade ago, to find a better way to live. It was their personal mission to find the freshest food, the healthiest ingredients, the most sustainable living arrangements and the most non-toxic potions and lotions that could possibly exist on the planet.

They are exactly who I would trust to put together incredible skin care products that I can truly believe in.

Now I can tell you what’s in the products—elegant formulas with ingredients like Lemon Balm Leaves, Lavender Flowers and Aloe Vera infusions among many more—but that’s not really the point. (Trust me, these guys found an earth-mother chemist and picked and chose the finest of the finest natural ingredients. They’ve got that one covered!)

The point is how well they work. AND… how amazing they feel going on.

I’ve been waiting for rosemary-peppermint body wash to arrive (I had sampled it in a small sample kit) and now that it’s here, it’s the only thing I use in the shower. It just feels great going on. It smells great, it cleans great, and it feels great. I can’t even imagine using anything else.

So here are the products I personally use right now, and yes—I buy them, and will continue doing so! (Full disclosure: I get a small professional discount, but make no mistake, this is the company whose products I buy and use myself and I would do it even without the professional discount. They’re just that good.)

Right now, I’m using the aforementioned Peppermint Body Wash, as well as three other products.

The aloe-herb facial cleanser is delicious smelling and silky smooth, and you only need like a pindrop of the stuff—it lasts forever (I’m still on my first bottle!).

After shaving, I use the serum. I’ve used facial serums that were all over the price and quality map, from an inexpensive vitamin-C based serum that did nothing, to the very well reviewed and excellent Obagi line, to the wildly expensive Perricone line. There’s not one that works as well and feels as good as this one. Seriously.

Finally, I use a dab or two of their expensive-and-worth-it anti-aging facial oil.

I’d recommend and use these products even if no one else in the world was raving about them, but I’m hardly alone in my fan-dom. Mark Hyman, JJ Virgin and Chris Kresser all seem to love this stuff as much as I do.

I can virtually promise you that if you try any of the Ann Marie Skin Care products, you’re going to be as happy with the line as I am.

And who knows, your Uber driver may even notice!

Yes, Tonight Dear! Libido Naturally

You can never be too rich or too thin, they say. Nor, apparently, too hot. The quest for potions, foods, herbs or supplements to increase a sagging libido is never ending. Erectile dysfunction (ED) affects 30 million men in the US and half the male population between 40-70. And according to a recent survey reported by sexologist Laura Berman, MD, 43% of women reported having some kind of sexual dissatisfaction, 1/3 of them specifically reported low sexual desire.

What’s up with that? And can food help? Read on.

Back in the 70’s, there was a famous erotic entertainer named Seka. When asked to name the most erogenous zone in the body, she wisely answered “the area between the ears”. Fact is, flagging libido can have a lot more to do with the brain than with the areas down below.

Stress, lack of energy, fatigue, depression, anger and worry are all sexual appetite killers, and few foods- even the erotic staples like oysters and chocolate- are going to make much of a dent if your mind is somewhere else. On the other hand, sometimes low libido for men or women does have a physical base. As often or not, it’s a mix of both- desire plus the ability to do something about it.

Assuming the “spirit is willing”, we still have to make sure the body is able. First order of business: circulation. And the best way to improve overall circulation is exercise.

Almost any kind will do- as long as your heart is pumping, blood is flushing through your organs, and oxygen is cleaning out the cobwebs in the brain. Exercise also raises feel-good chemicals in the brain called catecholamines, making it far likely that you’ll feel amorous rather than exhausted. Certain yoga postures are said to be fantastic for before sex, notably a shoulder stand for men and the butterfly pose for women.

Then there are the sexy foods.

Here’s my top seven list of foods that may increase libido naturally:

Almonds (or nuts) contain important fatty acids that help the brain work better.


Avocado: Not only are they a sensual delight, but they contain important fatty acids that help the brain and the heart.


Celery: Guys take note: celery actually contains a small amount of androsterone, a male hormone released in sweat that’s been known to turn women on.


Chili Peppers: Hot peppers contain capsaicin, which can stimulate circulation.


Chocolate: It’s no accident that chocolate is the gift of love. It contains phenylethylalamine (PEA) a chemical that’s raised in the brain when you’re in love.


Oysters: High in zinc, which is essential for male sexual functioning, oysters have been associated with sex since the days of Cassanova. And scientists recently discovered that oysters actually contain some rare amino acids that are useful in producing certain sexual hormones.


Figs: Figs are high in amino acids, and are believed to increase sexual stamina. Plus they’re sensual, juicy and sweet- perfect for “food foreplay”.


Nutmeg: According to Daniel Amen, MD, author of “Sex on the Brain”, nutmeg is used in Indian medicine for enhancing desire. In one animal study, an extract of nutmeg had the same effect on mating behavior as Viagra.

Some foods, by sheer nature of their sensuality, can trigger thoughts of amour- think a juicy peach, for example, or even an avocado. Foods with luscious textures and tastes are always mood-enhancing. The sheer sensuality of eating them-especially with a partner over a romantic dinner- may lead to even more sensual delights later on.

High carbohydrate dishes like pasta are more likely to lead to snoozing than to romancing. Go with energy producing protein and vegetables, and leave the table just a bit hungry.

To turn on the brain naturally, think of smells. Almond and coconut are always good bets, and make great scented candles. Lavender has been shown to be one of the most universal turn-ons, as have- believe it or not- the smells of pumpkin pie and buttered popcorn for men, and baby powder and licorice candy for women.

Attraction is the ultimate aphrodisiac. There’s no aphrodisiac on earth like romantic love– it’s better than any supplement, food or potion. You can’t buy it, eat it or create it out of nothing, but if you have it- and the body’s in good shape- you’re in for a great time.

New Rule: No More Getting Nutrition Information from the NY Times

No matter how you felt about our last election, or which candidate you supported, you probably noticed how the two sides seemed able to look at the exact same set of facts and yet arrive at wildly different conclusions.

Well, nutrition has a lot more in common with politics than you might imagine.

In both nutrition and politics, we now have so many facts available to us that anyone who wants to build a case (for Paleo, raw foods, veganism, high-fat diets, low-fat diets) can carefully select which research findings to emphasize and which to ignore.

Remember, facts are just neutral, bloodless data points. It’s we who organize them and give them emphasis and meaning.

You can find “facts” to support almost any argument you want to make, as observers of our most recent election know very well. Just choose the facts you like, or create some of your own.

I actually saw a serious journal article the other day that claimed that diet soda was “better” than water for weight loss (a study that was funded by the American Beverage Association). The sugar industry itself funded multiple studies that were used to bolster the claim that sugar did no harm.

And if you want to make the case that vitamin and mineral supplements are useless, all you need to do is read the New York Times, which has consistently, over the years, continued to ignore data favorable to supplements while emphasizing data that isn’t. Their main health and nutrition reporter—Jane Brody—has been litigating the case in favor of high-carb diets, the food pyramid, fat-free milk, and just about every other cockamamie idea that the “establishment” has fostered on us for decades, while ignoring or downplaying the mounting evidence against them.

Let’s take a look at this latest piece, published in November of 2016, entitled,

Which Supplements, If Any, Are Worthwhile?, (I’ll save her previous piece, Studies Show Little Benefit in Supplements for another time.)

Brody touts her credentials as a “scientifically trained journalist” who is obliged to “help others to make rational decisions”.

She writes:

“I’ll start with the bottom line on the most popular of (supplements), the daily multivitamin/mineral combo: If you are a healthy adult with no known nutritional deficiencies, save your money.”

First of all, a “healthy adult with no known nutritional deficiencies” is a unicorn. Millions of people have vanishingly low levels of at least one (and usually more) of the essential vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids. And while they may not have deficiencies that rise to the level of a full-blown nutritional deficiency disease like scurvy, beri-beri or rickets, they have levels that are—to put it kindly– sub-optimal.

Apparently, the Harvard faculty agrees with me. Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health strongly recommends a daily multivitamin-multimineral pill for everyone.

Brody writes:

“I have succumbed to several popular suggestions, including melatonin and magnesium to improve my sleep, glucosamine-chondrotin to counter arthritic pain, and fish oil to protect my brain and heart. I take these even knowing that irrefutable, scientifically established evidence for such benefits is lacking.”

Personally, I know a lot of researchers, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single one of them use the term “irrefutable”. Even DNA evidence in a courtroom trial isn’t 100% irrefutable—the term itself is a totally unrealistic bar. Science deals with probabilities and likelihoods and associations, all calculated from cumulative data from lots of different research studies. So yes, there may not be “irrefutable” proof when it comes to the supplements Brody distains, but there’s a hell of a lot of strong suggestive evidence.

Melatonin—which people take for jet lag and sleep—is a hormone that’s a powerful stimulator of the immune system with significant implications for healthy aging and hormonal health. It’s a strong antioxidant that has anti-cancer activity. And, oh yes, Jane, it has also been shown to shorten the time it takes to fall asleep, and to increase sleep efficiency.

Magnesium is the most powerfully relaxing mineral on the planet; it’s needed for over 300 biochemical processes, and shown in double-blind placebo-controlled trials to have a positive effect on insomnia. (It also lowers blood pressure, opens up the arteries and relaxes the brain, but I don’t have room to cite the dozens of studies that demonstrate those actions.)

Glucosamine and chondroitin don’t work for everybody, that’s true. But, as usual, Brody leaves out the qualifier, which is that they work quite well for some people.

A number of studies have consistently shown significant improvement for a sub-group of patients with moderate-to-severe pain.

That fact doesn’t fit Brody’s narrative of supplements being worthless, so, like the good “scientifically trained journalist” she is, she just ignores it6.

Brody also tells us, amazingly, that she “began taking fish oil supplements many years ago hoping to counter the effects of a rising cholesterol level” and proceeds to tell us how disappointing it was. No one ever claimed that fish oil lowers cholesterol. Fish oil also doesn’t lower the divorce rate. But that hardly means it’s useless.

Fish oil is one of the best sources of omega-3 on the planet. Dr. Joseph Maroon—a renowned neurosurgeon and vice chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center—indexed hundreds of published peer-reviewed studies that definitively demonstrate the value of fish oil for just about any inflammatory condition, in his book, Fish Oil: The Natural Anti-Inflammatory.

Omega-3s have rightly been termed “wellness molecules” partly because of their anti-inflammatory effect. Remember, inflammation is a promoter of every degenerative disease including Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, atherosclerosis, cancer, and osteoarthritis.

The fact that omega-3s play a profoundly important role in the cell membranes and specifically in the brain is as “irrefutable” as “irrefutable” gets. A recent study even showed that those who had higher amounts of omega-3 fats in their blood cells had larger brains!

Brody tells us of the mainstream establishment organizations which “found no role for a one-a-day supplement to prevent cancer”, ignoring a large study out of Harvard (Multivitamins in the Prevention of Cancer in Men) which found that men taking a daily multivitamin had a statistically significant reduction in the incidence of total cancer.

I could go on.. really I could… but the point isn’t to list a hundred studies that refute Brody’s arguments. (They exist.) The point is to show how easy it is to build a case for just about any position—including the one that supplements are worthless—- by selectively choosing some research findings while ignoring others.

Whatever you think of the term “fair and balanced”, this certainly ain’t it.

Yet this kind of reporting on health and nutrition is done all the time.

It’s worse than fake news, because reporters like Brody aren’t lying about the facts at all.

They’re just leaving out the ones that don’t support their beliefs, subtly leading you to conclusions that are very far from justified.

What it feels like to be 70

I’m going to tell you what it feels like to be 70 years old. But first, a quick story.

My brother is a therapist, and he once told me of a client who said to him, “Mr. Bowden. I’m a single mother of two, I’m black, I’m poor, and I’m young. How could you—a white, middle-aged, middle class Jewish man—possibly understand me?”

A reasonable question.

My brother replied: “What you say is true. But even if I were a poor, black, young, single mother of two… I still wouldn’t know what it was like to be you having that experience. So why don’t you share that with me?”

There’s a great lesson there. Circumstances—young, poor, black, privileged, white, rich, blind, short, seventy—don’t determine your experiences of those circumstances. Two kids grow up in the same neighborhood, same brutal poverty, same lousy environment, and one kid becomes a career criminal and the other becomes a judge. Go figure. You can be blind and sell pencils on the corner outside Macy’s, or you can be blind and be Stevie Wonder.

Which brings us to the title of this article, What it feels like to be 70, a bit of a misnomer since I can only tell you what it feels like for me to be 70. With metaphysical certitude, you will have your own unique experience of being 70, which is exactly what I wish for you one day. Some of the things I’ll share with you might be part of your experience as well, many will not be, and you will have plenty of your own that are completely different from mine.

And let it be very clear… I share this with you for one reason only. Because the lessons I continue to learn don’t just make me a better person, they make me a better understander of the human condition. I’m passionate about sharing the lessons I’ve learned—both about nutrition and about life– only because I’ve experienced their effects in my own life.

So here’s what it feels like to be me on my 70th birthday.

You start to get clearer on what matters, and what doesn’t, really.

You realize that some battles are worth fighting and some are not. And you hope for the wisdom to tell them apart.

You finally begin to understand the profound meaning of acceptance, (which feels very different from resignation).

And…you come to accept something that you have been avoiding thinking about, which is this: the majority of your years are behind you.

Now, I realize that could sound pretty depressing. And it could lead you down some slippery slope of self-pity—- “ah, the good old days, it’s all downhill from here…”

Except I don’t look at it that way on my 70th.

Sure, mathematically, if you’re 70 like me, you’re going to remain on this planet many less years than you’ve already been here. So what? The past 70 years had some stunning highs and some awful lows, but I’d hardly think of them collectively as “the good old days” that I wish I could go back to.

Truth be told, my life started getting really awesome for me in my 60’s, which has been my greatest decade (so far), both professionally and personally. I have more passion now than I did 30 years ago. My business went to a new level. I met Michelle. And my tennis game finally improved (except, of course, for my serve. But don’t get me started.)

The fact that most of the years of my life are behind me doesn’t mean that most of my living isn’t ahead of me.

And since we’re on the subject of acceptance… let’s talk about bodies. And aging.

When I was in my 30’s, 40’s and 50’s a big part of how I defined myself—how the world saw me and how I saw myself—was that I was extremely fit and had a really good body. Not bodybuilder good body, or Olympic gymnast good body, but very decent everyday good body. (Think Mick Jagger with definition.) While people my age around me were frequently getting sick, fat, tired, and depressed, I remained lean and mean, defined and committed to my health.

Now, nearly two decades later, I lift weights twice a week. I play hard competitive tennis 12 hours a week. And I take walks. So I think I have the exercise thing covered. And while I don’t always live up to my own standards of eating, for the most part I eat pretty well. And my weight hasn’t fluctuated more than about 5-10 pounds in over 20 years, and anytime it creeps up into the higher range of that 5-10 pounds I know how to bring it back down, and I do.

That said…here’s the truth: my body just doesn’t look the same as it did twenty years ago.

Not even close.

To be honest—this has been a source of shame for me. I almost never take my shirt off, even at the beach. I’m consciously comparing what I look like today with what I looked like then, and I haven’t felt good about it.

Until now.

So here’s the unvarnished truth about my body.

One, I have a big structural/ muscular imbalance so that my pecs—far from being symmetrical and defined—look very different from one another.

Two, I have a lot of fat around my chest, which may have been less noticeable when I was more muscular than I am today.

Three, despite the fact that I’ve been working out for 31 years, my skin sags. It just doesn’t look like 30-year-old skin, no matter how much collagen I take. (Sure, collagen supplements probably slows the process of skin aging considerably—but they don’t eliminate it. Sylvester Stallone looks amazing and muscular at 70 but you wouldn’t mistake him for the Rocky lll version.)

So today, on my 70th birthday I looked in the mirror, and instead of seeing what I wasn’t (my 30-year-old self) I saw what I was.

And I decided that it was going to be OK.

I’m always going to train, always going to try to get better, to look better, all that good stuff, but the fact is that this is who I am now, and, at least for today, I decided to make that be OK.

And that included accepting some saggy skin, some body fat I’m not fond of having, and the fact that I’m asymmetrical (some might say weirdly shaped) as hell.

And that I’m probably not going to be anyone’s second choice if Ryan Gosling’s not available.

The silver lining in that is that my view of what’s sexy and attractive has grown enormously. If I had but one legacy message to leave, one thing I believe from the bone marrow of my soul, it’s that sexy comes in all sizes and shapes. What makes someone really hot is what goes on between their ears. Size 4 or size 24, doesn’t matter. That’s just details.

As many of you know, I was a fat, overweight, smoking hot mess a mere 35 or so years ago, and didn’t start getting it together—really—till an age probably older than some of you are right now. I did it slowly—with nutrition, with exercise, with workshops and seminars, but nutrition was always the core of my program. That’s why I know that it works and that’s why I’m passionate about it.

One of my favorite writers in the world—Jennifer Weiner—says that as we get older, we all learn that there isn’t a finish line… or maybe there is, but it keeps moving.

At 70, my finish line keeps moving, my acceptance keeps growing and my awe keeps expanding. I wish the same for you. The songwriter Allen Stone has a beautiful lyric that expresses it perfectly:

Keep your dirt on the surface and just love where you’re at.

The best part of learning is just lovin’ where you’re at.

I know how my own investment in self-healing turned out— my life turned around. For me, the process started with what I put into my body, how I treated my body, my relationship with my body, my relationship with other bodies in the universe and ultimately my relationship with the universe itself.

I have no serious regrets (and that includes about two decades as a hard-drug addict and active alcoholic). I’m deeply in love with Michelle and my passion for her has only grown stronger in seven years of being together (and don’t think that doesn’t get top billing in my gratitude list). I truly think I have the greatest circle of friends anyone could possibly, possibly wish for. I love where I live. I love what I do. I live with two dogs I adore, and they apparently feel the same way as demonstrated by aggressive kissing and cuddling.

And I love that beautiful people like you care about what I write and listen to what I say, and that I can make a living with words, teaching the lessons I’ve learned about how to discover—and ultimately accept– self.

Life is good.

Life is not perfect.

But what is perfect is that that’s OK.

Let the games begin.

With love,

Jonny

Folic Acid (Vitamin B9)

Probably the single most important thing to know about folic acid is that it can prevent birth defects like spina bifida, the most common permanently disabling neural tube defect in the US.

It’s also one of a trio of B-vitamins—the others being B-12 and B-6—that can lower homocysteine, a nasty little inflammatory compound that increases the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Many people don’t really understand the difference between folate and folic acid. It’s actually rather simple. Folate is found in food (mainly green leafy veggies) while folic acid is a synthetic compound used in dietary supplements and in food fortification. Folate deficiency has been reported to be the most common vitamin deficiency in the US. Not only that, pregnancy actually doubles the need for dietary folate.

Folic acid supplementation and fortification have significantly reduced birth defects from spina bifida, and that’s a great thing. But folic acid supplementation has a dark side. While high folate status seems to reduce the risk for cancer, too much folic acid supplementation can increase it. In addition, excess folic acid consumption can mask a vitamin B12 deficiency.

The body takes the folates you get from food and turns them into the active, usable form of folate knon as tetrahydrofolate (THF). THF is metabolized in the small intestine, and everything is right with the world. But folic acid is processed in the liver, which doesn’t always do a great job of metabolizing it. That can leave you with a large amount of “unmetabolized” folic acid floating around your bloodstream, and that excess unmetabolized folic acid that may be the link to an increased cancer risk.

You can actually get supplements of folate in its already-metabolized, active form of 5-methyltetrahydrofolate (also abbrieviated as 5-MTHF). Some high-end manufacturers even use the active, 5-MTHF form of folate in their multivitamins. Those are definitely the ones you should look for.

You should definitely supplement if you’re pregnant or trying to get pregnant. It’s critical to have enough folate (or folic acid) in your system in the first weeks of pregnancy in order to prevent spina bifida and other neural tube defects. Since many women don’t discover they’re pregnant till they’re a few weeks in, experts recommend at least 400-800 mcg of folic acid supplementation for anyone of pregnancy age. At that level of supplementation, there should be no problems, but if it’s possible to find supplements that use the 5-methyltetrahydrofolate form of folate, you’re even better off.

Preventing (or curing) Holiday Weight Gain in Six Easy Steps

The comedian Lenny Bruce used to have a routine about dumb advice for avoiding shark attacks. He recalled a particularly stupid list he had seen posted at the beach one day, called “Do’s and Don’ts for Swimmers in Shark Infested Waters”.

His voice dripping with sarcasm, he said to the audience, “So are you ready for the first thing these brilliant guys came up with?”

Don’t go in the water.

I was reminded of this joke when putting together this article on holiday weight gain, because in this case, the (very obvious) first step is “don’t gain weight in the first place”.

Actually, that’s much simpler than it sounds. Easy? Not necessarily. Simple? You bet.

Research over the last decade has shown that there are powerful forces—I’m talking Terminator- SuperHero powerful— that make it difficult to lose weight. First among them: hormones. An array of hormones, ranging from the well-known insulin to the lesser known ghrelin and resistin fight to keep you at your current weight or even “encourage” you to put more on, “just in case of emergency”.

Next, after hormones, is your brain. Powerful neurotransmitters like dopamine (the “gotta have it” neurotransmitter) direct you towards sugar-laden foods, an endless supply of which are always around on holidays. Hormones like leptin are supposed to signal your brain to eat less, but many of us are “leptin resistant”– the message doesn’t get through, our brains think we’re starving, and we act accordingly.

Point is that preventing holiday weight gain—or getting rid of those extra holiday pounds—takes a lot more than mere calorie counting. Try these tips to prevent holiday weight gain (and use them if you’re trying to drop the weight you already put on!)

1. The Proactive Food Diary: Mental rehearsal has been shown to improve everything from basketball shooting to piano playing. When you visualize what you want to do—vividly, as if it’s happening right now—you have a way better chance of actually doing it, whether it’s shooting a basket, playing scales, or eating healthy food.

So instead of recording everything you eat after you ate it, try doing a food diary “in reverse”. Start the day with a clear image of what it’s going to be like. What food will be there? How will you feel? What will you eat?

Make a reasonable decision about what you will and will not permit yourself—will it be one small piece of Aunt Mary’s pie?- and then stick to it, exactly the way you wrote it down. I’ve done this for years, and it’s amazingly effective.

2. Curb your appetite naturally. The easiest time to resist food is when you’re not hungry. So for goodness sake, don’t “save up” your appetite for the big holiday meal. Eat before you leave. Don’t—repeat do not—skip breakfast. And studies show that consuming a small green salad or a cup of non-creamy soup before the main meal causes people to spontaneously consume about 10% less calories at the meal, without even trying.

3. Eat protein first. It stimulates metabolism and also satiety. Filling up on protein before hitting the sugar-laden sweet potatoes can make it easier to keep portions of the sweet stuff to a minimum.

4. Try a high-quality fiber supplement. Fiber is the best-kept secret in the fight against weight gain, and if you’re not already taking it, the holiday season is the perfect time to start. Dr. Steven Masley and I created this one, which you can add to any shake or smoothie. Odorless, tasteless, and a great way to up your fiber intake. (It’s also on special right now, so stock up!)

5. Take a walk after dinner. Preferably a long one. It will help you digest and metabolize some of those extra calories and, because exercise has an “insulin-like” effect, will also lower blood sugar as well as insulin (the “fat-storing” hormone).

6. Reprogram your brain. This one is probably the most important, especially for weight loss, and especially long-term. We live in a highly toxic food environment, one in which foods have been superbly and efficiently engineered by scientists for maximum “palatability” (read: addictiveness).

In the face of such brilliantly designed food “products”, we are next to helpless. These foods—particularly those high in sugar, fat and salt, in just the right combinations—are designed to hit all our addictive “buttons” and to produce nearly irresistible cravings. (Remember the advertisement, “betcha can’t eat just one?” They weren’t kidding!)

The point is that we need to work on re-conditioning our brains so that the sight (and smell) of the foods that make us fat, sick, tired and depressed no longer trigger powerful cravings. Much like Pavlov’s dogs salivated at the sound of a bell, our brains now “salivate” at the sight of a Cinnabon (or a holiday feast with an equivalent orgy of sugar).

Weight loss (and the prevention of weight gain in the first place) isn’t always easy. It is, however, simple– when you know what to do.

The six tips above are a great place to start.

Let the games begin!

Brewer’s Yeast

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how nutritional supplements go in and out of favor almost as quickly as costume changes at a Britney Spears concert.

Sometimes a supplement gets a lot of attention only to quickly fade into yesterday’s news (Red Rice Yeast, anyone?). Sometimes a supplement is so inarguably powerful and important that it remains on the “best seller” list for decades (fish oil).

And sometimes a supplement fades from view almost as quickly as it became popular, especially when it becomes widely known that it’s either ineffective (octocosanol) or dangerous (ephedra).

I was thinking about all this because I recently took another look at a supplement that was a staple of my early days in the health field but that no one seems to talk about anymore.

I’m talking about Brewer’s Yeast.

When I first became interested in physical fitness and health, there wasn’t anyone I knew who didn’t take Brewer’s Yeast. This old warhorse doesn’t get a lot of attention in the nutrition press these days, but it’s definitely worth a revisit, and here’s why.

Brewer’s yeast is a particular variety of a single cell fungus/yeast known as Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, the very same yeast that’s used for making bread. Most of us hear the word “yeast” and recoil in horror, associating it with yeast infections and Candida albicans. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Brewer’s yeast is deactivated yeast, and not at all related to Candida albicans or to yeast overgrowth. It’s called brewer’s yeast for the simple reason that it’s used for brewing beer. But beer makers remove the yeast and heat it to deactivate it. Then they dry it and make it into powder or flakes, and that’s the stuff you buy in the health food store.

Why should you care? Because while the yeast is in its active, living form, it virtually sucks up protein, minerals and vitamins from the material used to make beer. Those nutrients—which include a host of B vitamins—stay in the yeast even when it’s deactivated, and are part of what give Brewer’s yeast its value as a nutritional supplement.

With the exception of B-12, brewer’s yeast is a great source of B vitamins, and is vegetarian friendly. It’s also a terrific source of chromium which can be very useful in managing and controlling blood sugar. (Not for nothing is chromium known as “insulin’s little helper”.)

Best of all, it’s a terrific source of selenium, a mineral that almost none of us get enough of, and which has been found to be associated with lower rates of cancer. Selenium is needed to produce an important enzyme in the body known as glutathione peroxidase, which is vital for control oxidative damage.

According to no less a source than the Physicians Desk Reference for Nutritional Supplements, supplementation with high-selenium Brewer’s yeast over a period of several years was associated with significant reduction in the incidence of lung, colorectal, prostate and total cancer, as well as a reduction in total cancer mortality. And another compound found in brewer’s yeast called ergosterol has been found to inhibit the growth of human breast cancer cells.

There’s also research suggesting that brewer’s yeast can increase levels of HDL– the so-called “good” cholesterol—and can improve the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL. And that brewer’s yeast can reduce the risk of the common cold or flu in healthy people, as well as helping flu and cold symptoms resolve quicker. Brewer’s yeast may also decrease symptoms of PMS. And some research also suggests that brewer’s yeast can reduce blood sugar levels in people with diabetes, undoubtedly due to the chromium content.

What’s more, brewer’s yeast may help support your immune system. It’s a good source of beta-glucans– a kind of sugar found in the cell walls of fungi, yeast, bacteria and certain grains such as oats. Beta-glucans exert potent effects on the immune system, stimulating both antimicrobial and antitumor activity.

The Brewer’s yeast I recommend is Twinlab Genuine Brewer’s Yeast. This old favorite continues to sell briskly despite not getting a ton of publicity, and the reason is clear: it works. It’s inexpensive, and widely available. If you’ve never tried it, maybe you should. And if you haven’t tried it in a while, well, it just may be time for a revisit!

Biotin (Vitamin B7)

Biotin is a member of the B-vitamin family. It plays a key role in the health of the skin, cells, and the digestive tract. Most people don’t need biotin supplements because we get enough from our food. Not only that but biotin is actually recyclable by the human body.

There are, however, two situations where biotin supplements might be useful. One is in the case of brittle hair and nails. In one study, patients taking biotin supplements had improved nail hardness and firmness, and in another study, they had a significant decrease in nail splitting and brittleness.

The other case where super-high doses of biotin might be useful is in the management of blood sugar. Research on this is promising, and if managing blood sugar is important to you, you might want to discuss adding high-dose biotin to your supplement regimen with your integrative practitioner.