The Weekly Thread: Olive Oil Hunting, Bringing Back the Exercise Trampoline, Regenerative Farming, and Why Most Things Don’t Matter
Welcome to The Weekly Thread
I want to welcome you to the very first edition of our new weekly newsletter called “The Weekly Thread”.
This newsletter will combine ancestral wisdom with modern science, and focus on our core tenets of wellness: Nutrition, Movement, Biohacking, and Mental Health.
QUICK NOTE: Any products, services, or supplements I recommend in “The Weekly Thread” are products I use, or have used personally. Any news, research, books, or podcasts I recommend, are all media I’ve personally consumed, and find noteworthy enough to share. Finally, any fitness, nutrition, and lifestyle tips I share, are all things I’ve personally researched, and have personally applied and implemented in my life with success. In short, every item you read in “The Weekly Thread” is truly coming from me.
All thoughts and opinions expressed here are that of my own, and is not meant to be medical advice of any sort. I'm no expert, just an individual obsessed with understanding more about, and how to get the most out of this amazing, wildly complex organism we've all been blessed with, called the human body. Take it for what it’s worth to you, and I hope you enjoy!
Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club
Longevity is typically defined as living a long life, longer than normal, without disease. The “without disease” part is key, as longevity is truly defined by living longer with a high quality of life.
Through and through, extra virgin olive oil is one of the most important foods linked to longevity. It’s probably the biggest component, and most consumed food in the Mediterranean diet, which is often associated with incredible longevity.
Extra virgin olive contains high amounts of a known anti-aging plant molecule called polyphenols. It’s also extremely rich in an Omega 9 fatty acid called Oleic Acid.
Potential benefits and uses for Oleic Acid include:
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Reduction in blood pressure
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Lowers cholesterol
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Promotes lipolysis (fat burning)
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May help prevent Type II Diabetes
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Promotes improved brain function
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Fights infections
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Moisturizes and helps repair aging skin
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Reduces inflammation
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May help fight cancer
Worse yet, they’ve found that many of the “pure” extra virgin olive oils found in supermarkets are actually cut with cheap, refined seed oils, which are one of the most unhealthy, inflammatory causing foods there are.
I typically consume 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil per day, oftentimes straight from the bottle, to ensure I’m getting adequate amounts daily, as one would living in the Mediterranean, and eating a traditional Mediterranean cuisine.
For me, I’ve removed the guesswork and headache of ensuring my extra virgin olive oil is freshly harvested, pressed, and is what it says it is on the bottle. I rely on “The Olive Oil Hunter” TJ Robinson to find and source the best tasting, freshest, and unique extra virgin olive oils from all around the world for me.
I’m a member of the “Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club”, where I receive quarterly shipments of hand selected extra virgin olive oils by TJ himself. I think it’s great and highly recommend checking it out to ensure you’re getting the world’s best tasting, healthiest extra virgin olive oils continually shipped to you with no extra effort on your end. To learn more, and to join the Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club, click here.
Biohack: Rebounding
The first thing I do upon waking in the AM after I drink a glass of hydrogen enriched spring water is go outside regardless of conditions or temperature, and jump on a small trampoline.
No joke.
The actual act of jumping on a trampoline is called “Rebounding”, and its benefits have even been researched by NASA!
So how does this benefit me?
This may sound a little too literal, but “rebounding” jumpstarts your body in a way no other form of movement does, due to the acceleration (jumping up) and deceleration (landing on and the trampoline absorbing your downward movement) of the movement.
These benefits can include:
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Boosts lymphatic system drainage. (Your lymphatic system is your body’s internal detoxification pathway.)
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Improved immune system function
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Helps you burn more calories
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Improves recovery from other exercise
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Improves oxygen circulation throughout the body
Rebounding is great for you anytime of day, and can be done multiple times per day, however, I find it’s best when done right away in the AM upon waking (after you’ve had a glass of water) to really get all those systems moving and functioning properly.
I do about 3 minutes every morning as indicated above. Ideally, get outside and do it, as the natural light exposure and change in temperature (whether it’s hot or cold) from the ambient temperature of your house, further helps jumpstart the body, thus compounding the benefits of rebounding.
PRO TIP: If you can, on days with sun, watch the sun as it rises while you rebound. This immediate exposure of natural sunlight for your eyes kickstarts a lot of positive hormonal and endogenous chemical processes in the body that give us more natural energy, boosts metabolism, and helps you sleep better at night by effectively setting your Circadian Rhythm.
So how do you get started “rebounding”?
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Buy a small exercise trampoline just like the ones that were popularized in the 80s (guess they were actually on to something)
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Jump on it.
That’s it. You’re officially “rebounding” in two easy steps.
Are Animal Source Foods Healthy and Environmentally Sustainable?
I recently came across a paper in The Journal of Nutrition, titled “Friend or Foe? The Role of Animal-Source Foods in Healthy and Environmentally Sustainable Diets”
This is an area of nutrition I’m extremely passionate about, and is quite nuanced, and often misunderstood and I believe, misportrayed, so I was excited to read on.
After reading the Abstract, (TIP: for most scientific and medical papers, reading the Abstract is all you really need) I wasn’t very surprised with the findings.
“ASFs (Animal-Source Foods) are rich in bioavailable nutrients commonly lacking globally”
A very key word from this excerpt from the paper is “bioavailable”.
Let’s begin with unarguably the two most important nutrients for human survival, and thrival: the macro-nutrients fat and protein, with quality fats being probably the most important.
The proteins and fats found in ASFs, ideally from grass-fed, pasture-raised animals, are bio-identical to the human body, meaning the body recognizes these as essentially the same fats and proteins that make up our cell walls, brain, other organs, and muscle tissue.
Because these fats and proteins are bioidentical, they are, as a result, more bioavailable to the human body, meaning we synthesize and use them for optimal function more readily.
This is the reason we choose to use whey protein in our smoothies, (and offer the option to substitute plant protein if you’d like) as whey protein is an ASF bio-identical protein, with the highest bioavailability of all protein sources on the planet.
Furthermore, let’s dive into micro-nutrients, like vitamins and minerals, before we dive into the environmental sustainability of ASFs.
Vital nutrients to central nervous system and brain function like B Vitamins, especially bioavailable B12, are found in abundance in ASFs, especially red meat, along with other key red blood cell boosting nutrients, Creatine, et cetera.
Beef liver, a tremendous source for bio-identical heme-iron, is probably the most micro-nutrient dense food on the planet by vitamin & mineral composition.
I personally take a grass-fed beef organs complex, which are freeze-dried, encapsulated beef organs, making it very easy to consume organs, and get the benefits of the plethora of bioavailable nutrients they contain.
I’m not making the case personally for ASFs, just as I’m not making the case personally against plant-sourced foods for proteins, fats, and micronutrients. I firmly believe in everyone’s decision to choose what they eat, and why.
I’m merely sharing the findings of this paper, and what we know to be fact, which is that ASFs are bio-identical, and as a result, have higher bioavailability when it comes to key nutrients.
What really intrigued me about this paper was the discussion about ASFs and their role in environmental sustainability,
This is where I feel ASFs often get misportrayed, and get an undeserved bad reputation as bad for the environment.
Large-scale, factory farming, is bad for the environment, whether it’s corn, soy, or cows.
Regenerative farming, (a farming practice where animals graze freely, and co-exist amongst a diverse plant/crop environment) is an environmentally sustainable method that has been third party tested.
You need plants and animals coexisting, in a way that mimics nature to have true environmental sustainability, and this is highlighted in the paper.
For true environmental sustainability, you need animals grazing, and then naturally fertilizing the ground, adding rich nutrients and bacteria back into the soil, and that then grows robust, more nutrient-dense crops, and enriches the soil over time with living, organic matter, rather than stripping it of its nutrients and life, like large scale, factory mono-cropping.
The solution to environmental sustainability is local and regenerative.
This paper does a good job of focusing on the nuanced discussion that is environmental sustainability, and discusses the importance of buying local, from farms and sources that work in unison with the local ecosystem, in a way that mimics nature.
This is also why we choose to carry True Grace nutritional supplements, as they’ve developed whole-food multivitamins and adaptogens sourced from organic, regenerative farming practices.
Something to Ponder: Most Things Don't Matter
In this section, I will share with you thoughts and ideas I’ve been pondering more deeply, and think are poignant enough that they’re worth sharing.
Here’s what I’m pondering on this week…
Most things don’t matter.
We, as humans, haven’t evolved for the busy, noisy, oftentimes stressful world we live in. The human brain just knows stress objectively, and responds accordingly. It has not yet evolved to understand how to respond to the various levels and nuances of stress we encounter in our lives.
The stress response is meant to be used sparingly, and only when truly needed, as a defense mechanism, say, if you were a hunter gatherer and being chased by a tiger. Your brain would pump out stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline to combat any pain you may encounter, and to run faster, longer, cause it’s literally life or death.
These kinds of very real stressors don’t really exist in our modern world, and are replaced by more mundane, less meaningful stressors, like being stuck in traffic, minor arguments, running late for something, and so on.
The rub is, the brain hasn’t evolved to tell the difference between the low-level stressors we face everyday, and a real stressor like being chased by a tiger.
So it responds the same to both.
Meaning, you could be fighting over politics on social media, or running late for an event, and you’ll get the same defensive adrenaline and cortisol rush.
This is not an optimal state for health & wellness.
And we can experience this hormonal push in the face of stress multiple times per day. Heck, some people spend most of their day in these adrenaline and cortisol pumping states.
This negatively impacts your mental and emotional health, your sleep, and over time, more serious areas of your health.
Which to us, can make that small argument, or stress over being late feel very real, feel very stressful, but ultimately, it’s not.
In fact, if you think about it, think back to the last year, heck, even the last month, think back to what you remember, you won’t remember these small arguments, being late for that one thing, or the time someone cut you off in traffic, and you’ll realize very quickly that most things don’t matter.
Emotional health, happiness, well, they’re skills.
To achieve them more effectively and at higher levels, requires personal accountability and effort.
I’ve found this simple reminder, these four words, “most things don’t matter”, when truly applied to all the minor stressors we face in our everyday lives, is a tremendous perspective shifter.
Ultimately, life is going to bump into you, and things will go wrong, however, the choice is always yours in how you respond to such events, and relatively minor occurrences and stressors.
Most things don’t matter.
