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Our favorite is less than $8.
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My entire family is obsessed.
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Seafood, sausages, and veggies cook away on the grill for a super simple and super delicious crowd-pleasing dish.
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Hey folks! In this week’s Ask a Health Coach, Erin is answering your questions about shaking up your eating routine, wrangling sugar cravings, and how to know if you should hire a health coach. We love getting your questions, so ask yours in the comments below or in our Mark’s Daily Apple Facebook group.

Diana asked:
“I’ve been paleo for about six months and I’m getting sick of eating all the same foods day after day. What ideas do you have for mixing things up?”

This is a question I get asked all the time. And my answer is typically something in the realm of, “if you’re sick of eating the same things, then eat different things.” Honestly, if a nutritionist tells you what to eat, you’ll have some resistance to some of those foods. It’s one of the reasons I don’t offer meal plans to my clients: I don’t really want to tell people what to eat! As humans, we’re pre-wired to resist when someone tells us to do something that goes against what we’re familiar with.¹ That, and the fact that I want you to learn how to feed yourself long after our sessions wrap up.

Maybe you’re not sure what to eat. Thankfully the internet is filled with amazing resources, including this one right here. Eat anything on this list, in any combo you want. It’s that simple! No complicated recipes required. Still need ideas? Keep reading.

Here’s an exercise I use with my clients that might be helpful here. Take a sheet of paper and make a chart that has three columns and seven rows.

1. Write the numbers one through seven in the first column
2. Jot down your favorite proteins in the second column
3. Add your favorite veggies to the third column

In less than a minute’s time, you’ve got a week’s worth of meals. And if you really want to get crazy, mix and match the proteins and vegetables in your chart. I’ve had clients assign numbers to their protein and veg lists, and then use a pair of dice to throw together meal combos; gamifying it, somewhat.

One of the best ways I know to help is by educating you, setting you on the path to take care of this stuff yourself. Because in the end, who’s going to be there? You. And if after this, you get bored of eating the same things again, grab a fresh sheet of paper and make a new list.

You absolutely have to love every bite of food you eat, or you’ll struggle to stay on your Primal path. We want this to feel effortless, and rewarding, and enjoyable.

Sammy asked:
“I need to get back to keto, but I’m struggling with sweets. My sugar cravings are really bad this time! And it doesn’t help that my wife is always bringing home desserts. Suggestions, please!”

It can be frustrating when a partner, spouse, or roommate isn’t on the same page as you when it comes to your health. It’s one of the most consistent hurdles I help my clients navigate. Obviously, if the sweets weren’t in the house to begin with, you’d be having an easier time here. That’s a conversation to have with your spouse. Might your wife be open to having special designated “treat days” a couple of days per week, where everyone gets to go out and treat themselves to their fave indulgence, but those treats don’t live at home full-time?

Let’s talk for a moment about your own struggles with sweets. As you’ve noticed, ditching sweets from your diet can be difficult. I see a lot of my own clients spiral into self-destructive patterns of guilt and shame when they struggle, thinking they should be stronger or more determined or have more willpower. The thing is, we’re hard-wired to seek out quick energy. Plus, we’re constantly bombarded by advertising and messaging that encourages us to indulge in an array of less-than-healthy, hyperpalatable foods.

Does that mean you’re doomed to fight your cravings forever? Nope. It just means you have to go about it a different way. Maybe you’ve noticed that your cravings for sweets kick in any time you have a stressful day or feel anxious or deprived or smell something that reminds you of your favorite snickerdoodle cookie from childhood.

Cravings are often more psychological than they are physiological, so see if any of these factors resonate with you:

• Being too restrictive. Depriving yourself too much or even perceiving that you’re being deprived can end up backfiring. Studies show that traditional “dieters” have significantly more food cravings, especially for sugary foods.
• Emotional associations. Cravings are tied to the brain’s memory center. Knowing that the areas of the brain activated by cravings are also in charge of housing memories can help you start to break the cycle.
• Chronic stress. Sugar consumption temporarily increases serotonin, the neurotransmitter that regulates mood. So, when you’re feeling stressed, instead of reaching for a treat, find a non-food way to decompress.
• Existing rituals. When you consciously or subconsciously seek out sweets in specific situations (i.e. at the movies, summer BBQs, after dinner), you form the expectation that it will happen every time. Become aware of your triggers and start to develop rituals that better suit your goals. (By the way, I’m of the personal belief that some of our “treat rituals” ought to be allowed to stick around. I think humans are hedonistic pleasure-seekers at the core, and too much rigidity just brings us right back to to bullet point #1…)

The only person responsible for your actions is you; and I say this to empower you. You’re in charge, here! Understanding the reasons for your cravings is the first step in taking back your power.

Charron asked:
“After months of trying unsuccessfully to do it on my own, I think I’m ready to hire a health coach – someone who can answer my questions, guide my macro targets, and help me stay accountable. Any tips on what I should be looking for?”

I have a section on my intake form for new clients that basically asks these three questions:

• Are you prepared and excited to embark on a change?
• Do you have the support you need at home and in your life to succeed?
• Are you prepared to hold yourself accountable to the changes prescribed?

Why do I tell you this? Because even if you decide to hire a health professional, you’ll be the one doing the work. A health coach isn’t technically your accountability partner; they’re your guide to your own self-accountability. In my practice, I teach my clients how to create accountability from within so that after we’re done working together, they have the skills to keep going, which is really what long-term health is all about.

Whether you hire someone or continue to do it solo, this is the time to reacquaint yourself with why you wanted to make this change in the first place. Reconnecting with your ‘why’ is crucial if you want to navigate the ups and downs of your journey.

It’s also important to know where you stand on support. I can’t stress the importance of this: your support network, and the support of your environment are some of the first factors to square up before you embark on massive change. Are your friends/family/co-workers onboard with your goals? If so, great. If not, decide what you need to do to stay on track, regardless of their attitudes or behaviours. Your coach can help you strategize ways to support yourself, if and when your support network fails to step up to the plate.

And finally, figure out your potential barriers. What obstacles might come up? And what’s going to motivate you to keep going when it gets a little uncomfortable (which, by the way, it always will)? Knowing the answer to these questions will help you stay the course. Your health coach will take great care of you during your working relationship, and will be a steady source of education and support, but ultimately, you need to be there for yourself.

What about you? How do you handle accountability?

The post Ask a Health Coach: Who’s Keeping You Accountable? appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss

The training session is over, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you got any better.

Whether you meant to train:

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Gut health is an enormous topic that just got even bigger.

You know about probiotics: bacteria that provide benefits to our gut, metabolic, and/or overall health when eaten. Some probiotic bacteria colonize our guts—they take up residence in our digestive tract and provide lasting effects. Some probiotic bacteria are transients—they visit and impart benefits and interact with our guts and its inhabitants, but do not stay.

You also know about prebiotics: non-digestible food components that nourish and provide food for the bacteria living in our guts. Prebiotics include fermentable plant fibers, resistant starch, “animal fiber,” and certain polyphenols.

This is standard stuff. Entire store shelves are devoted to fermented dairy, pickles, sauerkraut, supplements, kombucha, and other sources of probiotics. You’ve probably got all sorts of strange gums and fibers and powders that serve as prebiotic substrate for gut bugs. Gut health is mainstream.

But you probably don’t know about postbiotics.

What Are Postbiotics?

Postbiotics are the products created by our gut bacteria after they consume prebiotics, interact with incoming food components, and interact with other bacteria. They include:

• Short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, propionate, and acetate
• Vitamins like inositol, vitamin K2, and certain B vitamins
• Neurotransmitters like GABA and serotonin

And then there are the likely innumerable postbiotic effects, metabolites, and outcomes that we have yet to elucidate and quantify.

In other words, postbiotics—the actions, products, and interactions of probiotic bacteria—are the entire reason we’re so interested in probiotics and prebiotics.

Short Chain Fatty Acids

The short chain fatty acids that are byproducts of fiber fermentation, including butyrate, propionate, and acetate, improve our health in many ways. Butyrate in particular has been shown to have beneficial effects on insulin sensitivity, colonic transport, inflammation, and symptoms of Crohn’s disease.¹²³ It’s also the preferred fuel source for our native colonic cells, so without enough butyrate, our colonic cells can wither and die off, leading to digestive impairments and even cancer. Mucin-degrading bacteria predominate in colorectal cancer patients, for example, while butyrate-producing bacteria dominate in healthy patients without cancer.⁴ Populations with lower rates of colorectal cancer also tend to have higher levels of butyrate.⁵

Propionate is helpful, too, reducing fat storage and improving lipids.⁶ One of the coolest effects though is on exercise tolerance: certain gut bacteria have been shown to metabolize lactate into propionate, and in doing so improve exercise capacity. In fact, elite athletes tend to have higher levels of propionate-producing bacteria in their guts.⁷

Acetate is less well-characterized, but it has been shown to enhance butyrate production.

Vitamins

When gut bacteria consume substrates, they produce various metabolites, the most famous of which are the short chain fatty acids butyrate, acetate, and propionate discussed in the previous section. But they also produce vitamins in the process, particularly vitamin K, B-vitamins, and inositol.⁸

Although this hasn’t been directly quantified, we know the potential for gut bacteria that produce vitamin K2 exists. Broad spectrum antibiotic usage leads to lower levels of vitamin K2 in the human liver, a consequence that only makes sense if the antibiotics are killing vitamin K2-producing bacteria.⁹ What we do make in the gut can absolutely be absorbed and utilized.¹⁰

And gene sequencing of bacterial strains known to inhabit human guts has found strong evidence of genetic capacities for the manufacture of folate and other B-vitamins. However, these vitamin producing genes are only expressed “when bifidobacteria are in their natural ecological niche.”¹¹ You can’t eat a diet of processed junk food and refined grains and hope to nourish the relevant bacteria. If you want your gut bacteria to produce vitamins as postbiotics, you need to provide their “natural ecological niche”—prebiotics, good sleep, healthy living, colorful plants, sunlight and exercise.

Certain gut bacteria can actually turn phytic acid into inositol, preventing the mineral-binding activity of the phytic acid and unlocking the mood regulation and insulin sensitizing effects of inositol.¹² The more phytate-rich foods you eat, the better your gut bacteria get at breaking it down into inositol.¹³

Neurotransmitters

When scientists first discovered the enteric nervous system, housed in the vagus nerve and running from the gut to the brain and back again, they assumed it only delivered information and instructions about digestive contractions. But now we know that it’s much more than that. We know that the gut bacteria produce 95% of our serotonin, half of our dopamine, and a significant portion of our GABA.¹⁴ This may explain why unhealthy gut biomes are strongly linked to mental health issues like depression and anxiety, and it’s probably why we even have the concept of a “gut feeling.”

People with major depressive disorder are more likely to have low levels of Bacteroides, a bacterial genus known for producing large amounts of GABA in human guts.¹⁵

Should You Take Postbiotic Supplements?

Some companies have begun releasing postbiotic supplements, like straight-up sodium butyrate and something called “yeast fermentate,” which is the concentrated extract of a brewer’s yeast fermentation. The butyrate and fermentate are probably fine to take, but that’s not the best way to get postbiotics. It’s not the same as letting your gut bacteria make it themselves.

I say this all the time regarding probiotics and prebiotics: rather than fixate on a single strain, single metabolite, single short-chain fatty acid, or single specific fiber source, think in terms of whole foods, whole patterns of lifestyle and health. There’s so much we don’t know about what’s going on in our gut—up to 65% of the bacteria living in our guts hasn’t even been cultured and analyzed—and it’s silly to think we can engineer specific outcomes. For instance, you can’t just megadose with propionate and hope to get performance boosts in the gym or choke down butyrate and drop your insulin resistance. It may work, but it probably works better to come at the situation with a bottoms-up approach that emulates or is the natural, organic path than to insert some ingredient midway through the process.

That said, perhaps postbiotic supplementation will improve down the line.

How Do You Support Natural Postbiotic Production?

That’s a big question, but there are answers.

Eat prebiotics. This post gives a good overview of prebiotics and how to get them. And read up on resistant starch, a particularly pro-butyrate form of prebiotic. Excellent sources of prebiotics include onions, garlic, leeks, Jersualem artichokes, asparagus, slightly green bananas, cooked and cooled potatoes, pistachios and almonds, chicory root, mushrooms, dandelion greens, and carrots. I could go on, and those listed are most of the most potent sources, but you get the point—plants contain prebiotics.

• Eat probiotics. Eat fermented dairy, eat fermented vegetables, take supplements if that’s easier or if you wish to supplement.
• Eat colorful fruits and vegetables and animals. These plant pigments, polyphenols, and animal connective tissues are prebiotic substrate for the gut bacteria.
• Maintain good circadian hygiene. Sleep and circadian rhythm affect every system in the body, and the gut is no different.
• Manage stress. Stress disrupts gut bacteria and worsens gut health.
• Play in the dirt. Spend time outside getting dirty.
• Get sun. Sunlight is another underrated modulator of gut bacteria diversity.
• Eat whole foods. Whole foods contain the broad spectrum of food components, many of which we haven’t quantified and some of which will have positive postbiotic effects on the gut bacteria.

For a comprehensive treatment of all the things that affect gut bacteria in both positive and negative ways, read this post.

As you can see, nothing is laid out with great specificity (“to produce [this specific postbiotic], do [this specific intervention] or take [this specific supplement]”). You can’t just do one thing. You have to take a comprehensive, holistic, Primal approach. But here’s the great thing about doing it that way: you won’t just get the benefits of postbiotics, but also the health, fitness, and overall happiness benefits of living more healthfully in general.

References

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19366864
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22412931
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10940278
4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23940645
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23719549
6. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21521227
7. https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-019-0092-1
8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9167138
9. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7895417
10. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8198105
11. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22940212/
12. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140213122358.htm
13. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23551617
14. https://neurosciencestuff.tumblr.com/post/38271759345/gut-instincts-the-secrets-of-your-second-brain
15. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-018-0307-3

The post What Are Postbiotics and What Do They Have to Do With Gut Health? appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.