Before making any dietary changes, please consult a dietary or medical professional
Let’s begin
I want to highlight this PubMed article titled ” Beneficial Gut Microbiome Remodeled During Intermittent Fasting in Humans”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34039011/
It states that Intermittent fasting (IF) is the practice of restricting food intake for 12-48 hours per fasting cycle over a prolonged period of time.
Previous studies show beneficial health effects such as weight loss and lower risk for cardiometabolic diseases.
Although reduced calorie intake may account for some of the observed benefits of IF, exact mechanisms are still unclear.
Recent evidence indicates that IF may lead to remodeling and increased taxonomic diversity in the human gut microbiome.
It goes on to say that IF-associated alterations to the microbiome may play a key role in the metabolic and potential healthspan-enhancing benefits of IF and dietary restriction.
According an article on Google Scholar “Brain–gut–microbiome interactions and intermittent fasting in obesity”
The obesity epidemic and its metabolic consequences are a major public health problem both in the USA and globally.
While the underlying causes are multifactorial, dysregulations within the brain–gut–microbiome (BGM) system play a central role.
The availability and marketing of inexpensive, highly palatable and calorie-dense food has played a crucial role in shifting this balance towards hedonic eating.
Circadian rhythmicity affects both eating behavior and multiple gut functions, as well as the composition and interactions of the microbiome with the gut.
It goes to reason that daily intermittent fasting, can improve our gut microbiome which we know is vital in disease prevention, improved health, weight management & more!
Enjoy your weekend fam!
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She was diagnosed with CIRS (mold toxic) in Nov 2019 after years of chronic illness.
She had a slow health decline over her lifetime of being diagnosed with chronic illnesses that could never be resolved/healed by holistic health care and diet alone.
After years of continued health decline and still fighting easy weight gain she started researching other weight control ways.
Which led her to keto then eventually, The Carnivore Diet
Monolaurin (also known as glycerol monolaurate) is a medium chain fatty acid formed from lauric acid. It can be derived from coconut and palm kernel oils, but also found naturally in mother’s breast milk.
Monolaurin is commonly used in food production and as a dietary supplement.
Monolaurin is included on the FDA’s Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) list and is already widely used in food manufacturing today.
Monolaurin occurs naturally in mother’s breast milk and is manufactured for commercial use from coconut and palm kernel oils.Why take monolaurin?Some people choose to take Monolaurin as a dietary supplement for general health.
Monolaurin can be taken in addition to other daily supplements to support digestive and overall immune health.
Natural Cure Labs products are 100% vegetarian, gluten free, and naturally sourced. We are one of the only manufacturers to offer a capsule free of additives such as Magnesium Stearate (which may slow absorption and disrupt digestion), or other fillers or supplements (such as Silica, Inosine, Calcium, or Gelatin).
Their product is purpose-made for supporting a healthy immune system and offers the highest quality and purity.
Natural Cure Labs monolaurin is 100% vegetarian and uses plant based capsules (not animal gelatin). Natural Cure Labs monolaurin does not contain any artificial colors, preservatives, flavorings, sugar, wheat, yeast, corn, gluten, soy, dairy, or other common allergens.
Before making any dietary changes, please consult a dietary or medical professional
Let’s begin:
What’s the microbiome?
The microbiome consists of microbes that are both helpful and potentially harmful
Your body is full of trillions of bacteria, viruses and fungi. They are collectively known as the microbiome
Why Have a Healthy Microbiome?
As your microbiome grows, it affects your body in a number of ways, including:
Helping to control brain health
Helping to control your immune System
Helping to achieve weight-loss
Helping to improve heart health
Helping to improve brain health
And much more !
Ways To Improve Microbiome Diversity
Eat a diverse range of foods
Eating a diverse diet promotes growth of good bacteria, including more species of bacteria
I have had experts on the show who explain that we should ingest around 25 to 30 different plants per week
This can be from supplements, teas, spices & foods like fruits and vegetables
Eat fermented foods
Fermented foods such as yogurt, sauerkraut and kefir all contain healthy bacteria, mainly Lactobacilli, and can reduce the amount of disease-causing species in the gut.
Eliminate artificial sweeteners
Some evidence has shown that artificial sweeteners like aspartame increase blood sugar by stimulating the growth of unhealthy bacteria
Take a prebiotic supplement
Probiotics are live bacteria that can help restore the gut to a healthy state after dysbiosis.
They do this by “reseeding” it with healthy microbes
Take antibiotics only when necessary
Antibiotics kill many bad and good bacteria in the gut microbiome, possibly contributing to weight gain and antibiotic resistance
Only take antibiotics when medically necessary
Enjoy the weekend fam!
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Nina Manolson is a Body-Peace® coach. She helps people end the war with food and body and finally feel truly at home in their body—as it is.
She is known for herdeeply feminist, anti-diet, body-peace approach.
She brings her 30 years experience as a therapist, Nationally Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach,
Body-Trust® Guide and Psychology of Eating Teacher to helping women create a respectful and trusting relationship with their food and body.
Nina’s Body-Peace work is all in service of helping people get off the diet roller-coaster, and into a compassionate and powerful way of eating & living which creates a positive long-lasting change in and with their bodies.
Her courses, coaching and poetry positively change the conversation that women are having with their body.
She also writes Body-Poems as a way to encourage a shift in the way we talk to, and about our body.
Remedylink provide products for detox and microbiome support to improve health & longevity.
Unless your mother had a perfect microbiome, you were breast fed for 2.5 years and you’ve never taken antibiotics, you could probably improve your microbiome and your health. Taking oligosaccharides (the food for the microbiome) may support your microbiome. Panaceum contains 8 different oligosaccharides.
Before making any dietary changes, please consult a dietary or medical professional
Let’s begin
First, why do we promote production of HGH?
HGH plays a key role in growth, body composition, cell repair, and metabolism.
HGH also boosts muscle growth, strength, and exercise performance, while helping you recover from injury and disease
HGH also boosts muscle growth, strength, and exercise performance, while helping you recover from injury and disease
Let’s discuss ways to boost it:
Optimize Your Sleep
The majority of HGH is released in pulses when you sleep.
These pulses are based on your body’s internal clock or circadian rhythm
Studies have shown that poor sleep can reduce the amount of HGH your body produces
Listen to my short in improving sleep quality or read my article on zecohealth.com
Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting can help optimize HGH levels in two main ways.
First, it can help you drop body fat, which directly affects HGH production
Second, it’ll keep your insulin levels low for most of the day, as insulin is released when you eat
Research suggests that insulin spikes can disrupt your natural growth hormone production
Reduce Insulin Spikes
I insulin & HGH counteract
This is another reason why we recommend limiting simple carbs, especially at night
Eat complex carbs and foods that can keep your blood sugar steady
In many cases wearing a CGM can be beneficial because it helps you understand how your body responds to food
Another great hack is drinking ACV before a high carb meal
Just keep in mind, this is not an excuse to go crazy with carbs though
In fact, I never recommend eating carbs by themselves, unless you need to carb up before an intense workout
Listen to my short Nutrition Hack To Keep Your Blood Sugar Steady to learn more
Don’t Eat A Lot Before Bed
Your body naturally releases significant amounts of HGH, especially at night
Given that most meals cause a rise in insulin levels, especially high carb meals, some experts suggest avoiding food before bedtime
A high-carb or high-protein meal may spike your insulin and potentially block some of the HGH released at night
Exercise
Exercise is one of the most effective ways to significantly raise your HGH levels.
The increase depends on the type of exercise, intensity, food intake around the workout, and your body’s own traits.
I generally recommend a combination of high intensity like sprints, boxing or circuit training like 2 to 3 days per week and strength training 4 to 5 days
If your schedule allows, try to workout twice per day for some days to allow this
Let’s Talk Supplements:
Drink a Protein Shake After Your Workout
Some sports supplements can optimize performance and temporarily boost your HGH levels.
Studies have shown that protein shakes, both with and without carbs, can boost HGH levels around workouts
I prefer Whey protein shakes post workout
Other Supplements:
Several other supplements may enhance human growth hormone production, including:
Glutamine. A 2-gram dose may temporarily increase levels up to 78%
Creatine. A 20-gram dose of creatine significantly increased HGH levels for 2–6 hours
Glycine. Studies have found glycine can improve gym performance and provide short-term spikes in HGH
While these supplements may increase your HGH levels, studies indicate that their effects are only temporary.
I believe that they are must haves for athletes or anyone who trains consistently
Product of The Episode
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Welcome to another episode of The Matter Over Mind Experience
I am your host, Master Trainer & Weight Management Expert, Narado Zeco Powell
This episode is Q & A 2
I will answer 5 questions from listeners & followers who emailed or sent me a DM
If you have questions about health, fitness & fat-loss, feel free to email me @ narado@zecohealth.com or DM on my IG @zecohealth
Let’s begin
Question1-
I have been on a low carb diet for a while, but have been on a plateau and it seems I am not burning carbs well. How do I reintroduce carbs into my diet?
Usually when you are on a low carb diet for a while, your body will downregulate the ability to burn carbs . It seems though your body is good at burning fat, however, if you do not improve your ability to burn carbs you will store them instead.
In your case, as you are reintroducing carbs into your diet I recommend carb cycling. The best time to eat carbs are before an intense workout and a couple hours before bed to feed your brain the glucose it needs.
In addition, outside of pre-workout, you want to eat your carbs after each complete meal of protein & fats with veggies for fiber. This can keep your blood sugar steady which is vital in weight management.
2. Why do women tend to crave more carbs on their periods?
Yeah, some women crave carbs the first week of their cycle where they are estrogen dominant while other women may crave them the week prior when they have low progesterone.
There are usually more sugar cravings with thyroid imbalances.”
If this sounds like it might apply to you, it’s a good idea to talk to an integrative or functional medicine doctor to figure out what else might be going on or to get a personalized dietary and lifestyle plan to combat these cravings and get your hormones back in balance.
Generally speaking, you have much more carbohydrate tolerance AKA, insulin sensitivity in the first half of your cycle, which is called the follicular phase, or days 0 through 14.
It seems that the estrogen helps keep away insulin resistance.
Healthy or even unhealthy carbs are just better tolerated then.”
Even so, I recommend eating more healthy unprocessed, complex carbs, especially with each complete meal.
Simple sugars will cause unnecessary blood sugar spikes
Question3-
Do you think a body could be holding the fat burning stage off if they are sipping a carb-based beverage over several hours?
Say 16oz over 2-3 hours. Even though it’s not a large amount and you have allocated for it, could this slow constant drinking be my downfall?
How long do you give yourself to drink a beverage that has carbs?
The issue here is not carbs vs fat, but the lack of fiber.
To promote fat-burn, you need to keep blood sugar steady.
In case of juice or drinks, the sugar will pick up your blood glucose and as you keep drinking, it will never get a chance to work through it.
Hence, the steady dose of glucose will limit your body’s ability to burn fat stores.
In addition, I recommend that you lose all juices if your goal is weight-loss.
Hence, eat your juice.
Question4-
What oils are better for our health
I posted on Instagram on habits to improve the health of our gut and someone asked this question in a comment
In the post I stated to avoid inflammatory cooking oils
There would be seed oils like vegetable oils, sunflower, corn and sesame oils .
All seed oils are quite high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) that can cause inflammation and toxin accumulation in the body
On top of that, when exposed to high heat or reheated multiple times, these oils can turn toxic and cause greater harm to the human body
Think about switching to coconut, olive and avocado oil
I use all three because each provides different benefits for our bodies
Avocado & olive oils benefit heart health due to their similar content of oleic acid, a monounsaturated omega-9 fatty acid.
Additionally, both promote skin health and aid wound healing
Avocado oil has a particularly high smoke point compared with olive oil, so it may be better suited for high-heat cooking methods
The main difference with coconut oil is coconut oil is different from other dietary oils, because it is mainly composed of medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs), whereas most other oils are almost entirely long-chain fatty acids
Research shows that these fatty acids could promote weight loss by reducing body fat, increase fullness, and potentially improving your gut environment
Question5-
I tried keto for a year, lost 10 pounds. I only ate what was allowed. I tried to balance the carbs, protein & fats, but never figured it out. It seems stressful, what are your thoughts?
Well, my answer may not be too popular among the carnivore or keto community
I am not a fan of always being in ketosis, in fact, I don’t believe that humans are built that way
Humans are born with the most amylase than any other mammals on the planet
Amylase are enzymes to break down carbs
Now, understanding this, leads me to believe we should not be in a constant state of ketosis
Now, it also depends on factors like your geographic location, how you train & ancestral background
Keto is not a bad diet, in fact can be very helpful
However, the issues with being in ketosis all the time is that your body will downregulate it’s ability to burn carbs efficiently
That’s why I cycle ketosis
Twice a year, I go on a keto diet for a month to train my body to run off fat
It may look different for everyone, but for me, a month is enough to train my body to break down fats efficiently, while maintaining my ability to break down carb efficiently
This is why I preach metabolic flexibility
Having the ability to switch between fats & carbs efficiently is a better long term solution & unless you will be in ketosis, the rest of your life, is a better solution
I will end here by saying to look into Lumen
It is a fantastic product
It reads your metabolism and based on if you are a sugar or a carb burner, their nutritionists give you nutrition guidelines to follow
As you follow the nutrition plan, your metabolism will learn to break down fats and carbs more efficiently, making your metabolism flexible
The website is lumen.me & you can use code zecohealth for $50 off
Question6- Do you know the connection between hypothyroidism & asthma?
I am not a medical expert so please do not confuse anything I say as medical advice.
Hypothyroidism & Asthma are a result of autoimmunity.
Experts tell us that when we have an autoimmune disease, we are more likely to develop another
So, in the end, improving the health of your gut whether that’s through getting quality sleep, eating prebiotic and prebiotic foods can be very helpful
You can also listen to any one of my episodes with gut health and/or Hypothyroidism Experts to learn more
Question7- I believe mental health has a larger impact on our gut than gut on our mental health. What are your thoughts?
Well, I believe it is a double edged sword
I do not get into the conversation of which one is more important
We know the gut-brain connection and we cannot have healthy gut health without healthy mental health & vice versa
I will give you an example of each:
If we are constantly stressed, that leads to oxidative stress and inflammation in our gut
Most of our serotonin (our feel good nuero-transmitter) is created in our guts
In fact, most mental health prescriptions add designed to increase serotonin
Research tell us that improving the health of our gut can naturally increase serotonin production
This is why I look at it from both sides
Product of The Episode
Research shows that monolaurin is an effective killer of bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Natural Cure Labs a leader in research-driven dietary supplements, including Monolaurin. Premium ingredients, quality formulas, and naturally-derived ingredients.
Click on the website below & use code zecohealth for 10% discount
Rachel Smith has been studying and working in health and wellness for over 7 years. She has a background in healthcare administration, scientific research, fitness coaching, and is a certified Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner.
She is the owner of Natural Health Rising, which is an online holistic wellness company where she helps people naturally reverse their symptoms of autoimmune disease, hormone imbalance, and chronic illness.
Her process involves nutrition and lifestyle changes, healing hidden infections, and detoxing from environmental toxins. Rachel is on a mission to help people rise to their healthiest, happiest selves.
You can find out more about Rachel & her work on her Instagram @naturalhealthrising
Research shows that monolaurin is an effective killer of bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Natural Cure Labs a leader in research-driven dietary supplements, including Monolaurin. Premium ingredients, quality formulas, and naturally-derived ingredients.
Click on the website below and use code zecohealth for 10% off
Grounding, also called earthing, is a therapeutic technique that involves doing activities that “ground” or electrically reconnect you to the earth.
This practice relies on earthing science and grounding physics to explain how electrical charges from the earth can have positive effects on your body.
This type of grounding therapy isn’t entirely the same as the technique that is used in mental health treatment.
Let’s discuss the science behind earthing
There isn’t much science on the topic, but let’s discuss the most recent study that has explored grounding for inflammation, cardiovascular disease, muscle damage, chronic pain, and mood.
According to The most recent PubMed study, titled, The Effects of Grounding (earthing) on Inflammation, The Immune Response, Wound Healing, and Prevention and Treatment of Chronic Inflammatory and Autoimmune Diseases
Grounding affects the living matrix, which is the central connector between living cells.
It goes on to state that – electrical conductivity exists within the matrix that functions as an immune system defense, similar to antioxidants
They believe that through grounding, the natural defenses of the body can be restored
Even though further research expands on this idea
In another small study, titled Earthing, the Human Body Reduces Blood Viscosity, a Major Factor in Cardiovascular Disease
10 healthy participants were grounded using patches on the palms of their hands and soles of their feet.
Blood measurements were taken before and after grounding to determine any changes in red blood cell fluidity, which plays a role in heart health
The results indicated significantly less red blood cell clumping after grounding, which suggests benefits for cardiovascular health
Another slightly larger study, titled Grounding After Moderate Eccentric Contractions Reduces Muscle damage examined the role of grounding on post-exercise muscle damage
Researchers used both grounding patches and mats and measured creatine kinase, white blood cell count, and pain levels before and after grounding.
Blood work indicated that grounding reduced muscle damage and pain in participants. This suggests that grounding may influence healing abilities
What are the types of grounding?
There are many types of grounding
All of them focus on reconnecting yourself to the earth
This can be done through either direct or indirect contact with the earth
Here are some common types-
Walking barefoot
Lying on the ground
Submersing in water
Using grounding equipment like
grounding mats
grounding sheets or blankets
grounding socks
grounding bands and patches
You can find grounding mats, sheets, blankets, socks, and bands online.
Herd it is fam.
Thanks for listening
Feel free to reach out with questions
Have a great weekend! What is Grounding & Does It Have Health Benefits?
