“Media fast: The news is like caramel corn – after the first bite you just keep eating. I have been limiting my exposure to the news – actually since Covid started. The media moguls try to get us to hang onto their every word by telling us that each news segment is, “Breaking News.” It’s not all “Breaking News.” It’s their way of training our taste buds to keep coming back for more or to never leave. We need to step away from the TV. You are so right. Our brains, our bodies, our spirits need a break.”
Ever heard the quote, “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work?”
Originally said by NBA all-star, Kevin Durant, this is a perfect example of utilizing a growth mindset — meaning your success can be cultivated by your efforts. When you operate from the opposite perspective (called a fixed mindset) you believe your talents and abilities are predetermined. Either you’re good at something or you’re not. End of story.
Maybe you believe you’ll always have a layer of fluff around your middle because you never stick with anything. Or you avoid working out because everyone in your family is uncoordinated. Or you’re “so intelligent” but can’t seem to figure out how the heck to lose those last ten pounds. If that’s you, congratulations, you have a fixed mindset.
When you start viewing things through a more optimistic lens, you move into growth mindset territory. And that’s where the magic really happens.
Let’s Define Growth Mindset
You can’t talk about this term without acknowledging the famous Stanford University psychologist who coined it. Decades ago, Carol Dweck published research that kind of changed the world.1 In the study, Dweck and one of her colleagues gave puzzles to 400 fifth graders. After completing the first puzzle, the children were either praised for their effort or praised for their intelligence. The group who was praised with statements like “you must have worked so hard!” ended up choosing a more demanding puzzle next time around than the ones who were told “you must be so smart!”
Years later, Dweck and other researchers tested the theory again, following 373 seventh graders to find out whether or not mindset could predict their grades over the course of two years.2 In this study, they taught one group about the brain and how intelligence can be developed, while the other group had no intervention. As you might expect, students who adopted a growth mindset were more motivated and got better grades than their fixed-minded counterparts.
Students with a growth mindset not only believed that their abilities could improve through effort and persistence, they actually made it happen.
Examples of a Growth Mindset
I’d like to get better at this
Mistakes help me learn
This has been a challenge, but I’m working on it
I haven’t figured out how to do this yet
This might take some time
Dweck’s research proved that changing a key belief about yourself can make a big difference. But clearly, it’s not just students who can benefit from this concept.
Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadellauses growth mindset tactics with his management teams to create an environment of constant learning…
Michael Jordan (who was initially cut from his high school basketball team and was passed up during the first two NBA draft picks) used it to persevere and become uber-famous…
I use it in my own health coaching practice to help my clients overcome their previous, self-described failures…
And you can too. You just need the right tools to shift your mindset.
So, What Causes a Fixed Mindset?
Anyone who shaped your childhood – parents, teachers, coaches – may have inadvertently had something to do with it. Research shows that the way children are talked to (both positively and negatively) can have a profound impact on their mindset. Maybe you were told that you were super talented growing up. Or that you were “so skinny” or “not strong enough” or some other trait-based comment.
This sends the message that what you can achieve is completely tied to something innate. On the other hand, if you were praised for your hard work, you might have gotten the message that your effort is what led you to your success. And that anything you want (looser clothes, better relationships, a better night sleep) is within reach.
Examples of a Fixed Mindset
I’m a binge eater
I just have a slow metabolism
I’d never be comfortable doing that
I’m bad at sticking to routines
I’m a night owl
Regardless of your upbringing, you’re not stuck with what you’ve got.
Moving away from a fixed mindset requires you to take a deeper dive into your beliefs and stories, the way you talk to yourself, and the actions you take. Keep in mind, no one stays in a growth mindset all the time. You could be inherently growth-minded but get triggered into a fixed mindset state by certain people or situations.
How to Cultivate a Growth Mindset
The key thing to remember here is that attaining a growth mindset isn’t about ignoring your past. Actually, quite the contrary. It’s about leaning into learning — taking educated risks, gaining wisdom from the results, and surrounding yourself with people who challenge you to grow. These are six strategies I use to help my own clients work toward shifting their mindset.
1. Check your self-talk. These are the (conscious and subconscious) messages you send to yourself all day long, and they have the power to motivate you or limit you. Your brain’s job is to protect you, so it sometimes enables negative self-talk to keep you safely tucked inside your comfort zone. So, if you’re used to telling yourself “I’m not good at this” try reframing it as “I’m learning something new every day” and see how that feels. And don’t give up. Rewiring your brain’s neural pathways takes time.
2. View challenges as opportunities. Asking yourself, “What can I learn from this?” is a huge part of self-improvement. Unfortunately, it’s easier to focus on the perceived failures. And a lot of times it leads to giving up before you even get going. When you fear getting it wrong or making mistakes or just flat out taking it as a sign that you’re just not cut out for whatever it is you’re attempting, you’re missing out on a big opportunity to grow. The more you can test your abilities, the more you learn about yourself.
3. Stop looking for approval. Or more appropriately, stop doing things to avoid disapproval. If you’re a self-described people pleaser, you know what I’m talking about. Whether you’re attempting to eat healthier, move your body more, or take better care of yourself in general, looking for outside approval can lead you down a path of self-sabotage because you’re always waiting to see if you got it right. Or worse, never starting because of the overwhelming fear of that disapproval. Instead, work on your underlying beliefs about yourself (i.e. your stories) and learn to trust yourself enough to see what’s possible.
4. Use the word “yet” regularly. This is a really powerful way to begin switching from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. Using this word shows that while you might be struggling with something right now, it’s only because you haven’t gotten the hang of it yet. Try saying, “I haven’t conquered my sugar cravings yet” or “I haven’t woken up at 5am to meditate yet” and pay attention to what happens.
5. Develop more grit. According to Angela Duckworth, TED talk speaker and author of Grit: the Power of Passion and Perseverance, “grit is the tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals.” She adds that while people are born with different degrees of grit, it’s a trait that develops through experience. And that can lead to a growth mindset since grittier folks are more apt to stay the course even when they struggle, falter, or all out fail. Here are a few APA-approved ways to build more grit.
6. Appreciate the journey more than the destination. Your end goal might be to lose 15 pounds or get super ripped, but when you have a “journey mindset” as researchers call it, you benefit from the opportunity to learn and grow from your actions. Plus, studies show that you’re more likely to continue the new behaviours you’ve adopted even after you’ve reached your goal.
6 Strategies to Shift Your Mindset
I’ll tell you firsthand that believing your abilities are carved in stone will send you down a path of trying to prove yourself over and over again — and not learning from any of it. Even if you grew up with a fixed mindset, it’s never too late to grow. Do me a favor. Whenever you hear yourself say things like “I can’t stick with this” or “I’m terrible at sprints,” give these strategies a try:
Check your self-talk
View challenges as opportunities
Stop looking for approval
Use the word “yet” regularly
Develop more grit
Appreciate the journey more than the destination
What do you think? Do you have more of a Fixed Mindset or a Growth Mindset?
Although the prevailing sentiment is that we want to “increase serotonin,” it’s not that simple. There’s no indication that more serotonin is necessarily better in every situation, or even generally. The link between serotonin and “happiness” or “mood” isn’t so clear-cut as the experts would have you believe, either. So while I am going to tell you how to “boost” serotonin levels because serotonin is a vital neurotransmitter, I plan on sticking to foods, supplements, and behaviors that promote physiological levels of serotonin. Boosting serotonin beyond what the body is designed for may not help you, and it may have unpleasant and unwanted effects.
Is Serotonin a Mood Booster?
Yes and no. For evidence, I submit two items. The first is clinical research and the second is pure anecdote, albeit personal anecdote.
Everyone has heard of SSRIs, or selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. The most common form of antidepressants, their purported mode of action is to reduce the re-absorption of serotonin by neurons which increases the circulating concentration of serotonin in the brain. They increase brain levels of serotonin so it’s able to act longer. The evidence in favor of SSRIs in treating depression is mixed. Not everyone benefits, and it often takes several months to take effect. But they do help some people.
In recent years, depression studies have pitted SSRIs against another drug—tianeptine—that does the opposite: increases the absorption of serotonin by neurons and decreases the concentration of serotonin the brain. If the “serotonin=happy” hypothesis is correct, tianeptine shouldn’t improve depression. It should worsen it. But that’s not what happens. Both tianeptine, which lowers brain serotonin, and SSRIs, which increase it, have been shown to improve depression symptoms in patients with clinical depression. If anything, tianeptine might even be more effective.1
This doesn’t mean that serotonin has nothing to do with depression, or that it’s bad for depression. It just means that the story is a little more complicated than we thought.
Now the anecdote. Back when I was doing some research for a new probiotic supplement, I tried one that had been shown to increase serotonin levels: B. infantis. This is how I do things usually. Most all my products are created to solve a problem in my own life. I figure that if something appeals to me or fixes an issue affecting me, it will help others too. So this time, I added the powder to a smoothie and down the hatch it went. About half an hour later, I got the distinct sense of what I can only describe as emotional numbness. There was just this big blank emptiness in my heart and mind. I felt robotic, except I was a robot who had memories of what it was like to feel. It was a very uncanny, unnerving feeling that I don’t ever want to feel again.
Maybe the dosage was too high. Maybe I shouldn’t have been taking a probiotic strain meant for human infants (B. infantis is present in infant guts and breast milk). Maybe if my baseline levels of serotonin were lower, the probiotic would have helped. But that’s not the point of all this—it’s that boosting serotonin isn’t necessarily good for mood and happiness.
What Does Serotonin Do?
Serotonin facilitates communication between neurons, making it a major regulator of mood, learning, memory, and sexual desire. 2 Adequate levels of serotonin help us deal with stress, while chronic stress can deplete serotonin. As the precursor to melatonin, serotonin also has a powerful effect on sleep and circadian rhythm.
The underrecognized effect of serotonin on the brain’s ability to learn may explain why increasing serotonin levels through SSRIs can help depression patients.3 We usually think of learning in the context of knowledge or skill acquisition—learning a language, learning calculus, memorizing state capitals—but it also applies to mood acquisition. We aren’t happy just because. We are happy because we experience positive stimuli and the resultant good mood is reinforcing our continued pursuit of said positive stimuli. The good mood is how we learn, and we learn with the help of serotonin. And because we’ve learned to associate good moods with positive stimuli, the effect sustains itself. Depression alleviated. Meanwhile, in a low-serotonin state, a patient can experience positive stimuli without learning that it’s actually positive. They never make the connection. Or, rather, they never feel the connection.
Low brain serotonin is also linked to increased rumination—getting stuck on the same thoughts or thought patterns—another manifestation of decreased connectivity between neurons in the brain. Thoughts don’t “flow”; they get stuck.
Although we mainly think of serotonin as a neurotransmitter acting on the brain, our guts are the biggest producers of serotonin. About 90% of the serotonin in our bodies is produced in the gut, where it helps trigger the contractions that push food through the GI tract and initiates nausea and vomiting (when necessary).4 Gut serotonin may also travel to the brain via the vagus nerve, the “highway” that allows our gut to interface with our brain.
Serotonin also has other peripheral effects. For instance, it plays a role in bone formation and maintenance, with brain serotonin maintaining bone formation and gut serotonin inhibiting it.
How to Increase Serotonin
While you don’t necessarily want to boost serotonin to supernatural levels, it’s quite clear that low brain serotonin can have some unwanted effects. How do you make sure you’re making enough serotonin in your brain to enable optimal neuronal communication and melatonin synthesis, minimize rumination, and improve mood?
Eat tryptophan foods
Get plenty of natural light
Get sun or take vitamin D
Eat seafood or take omega-3s
Spend time in nature
Eat some carbs
Take curcumin
Move
Drink coffee
Get a massage
Get your micronutrients
Take tryptophan on an empty stomach
Eat Tryptophan Foods
We often forget that “thoughts” and “feelings” aren’t just ephemera floating around inside our heads without a material representative. Every thought, feeling, emotion, or mood we experience is a physical thing made of matter. We don’t just “feel better.” To feel better, we manufacture serotonin using an amino acid called tryptophan as the precursor.
Whether it’s turkey, eggs, dairy, beef, lamb, chicken, or fish, animal protein is a reliable source of tryptophan. Studies show that whey protein and egg protein both acutely increase tryptophan availability in the brain.56
Get Plenty of Natural Light
Sunlight is a direct trigger of serotonin synthesis. The brighter the sunlight, the higher the serotonin production.7 This may explain seasonal affective disorder, where depression spikes during colder, darker months. It may also explain why sun exposure increases cognitive function in both depressed and healthy subjects, or why bright light exposure prevents bad moods after tryptophan depletion.89
Without light, you can’t convert tryptophan into serotonin.
Bright light doesn’t imply full blaring sunlight. Going outside on a cloudy, late autumn day will expose you to far more bright, natural light than you’ll experience sitting inside with the lights on. I’d guess the main reason winter is worse for serotonin is that people are less likely to go outside and brave the bad weather.
Get your light as early as possible. A 10-15 minute walk just after sunrise (no sunglasses; bathe in the light) sets the tone for the day.
Get Sun or Take Vitamin D
Vitamin D—which we synthesize from UVB exposure—allows the conversion of tryptophan into serotonin.10
I recommend getting most of your vitamin D from the sun. It’s better regulated that way, and you get the added benefit of lots of natural light. If you need or want to supplement (probably a good idea for most people during the colder seasons when sun exposure is low), look for a high potency formula. Here’s what I take.
Eat Seafood or Take Omega-3s
Not only does seafood provide ample amounts of the amino acid tryptophan, the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids found in marine fat increase serotonin production in the brain and improve serotonin transport across neurons.11
You might take cod liver oil or eat the actual livers, as that provides both vitamin D (for increased tryptophan conversion) and long-chain omega-3s. However, a good daily dose of omega-3 supplementation through high potency, pharmaceutical-grade fish oil works fine, too, for those who get ample vitamin D otherwise.
Spend Time in Nature
I’ve written about forest bathing in the past for its ability to lower stress hormones, improve mood, reduce blood sugar levels, and even increase natural killer cell activity, a marker of anti-cancer ability.
Don’t Avoid Carbs Entirely
Carbs spike insulin, which shuttles amino acids out of the blood and into cells. This leaves tryptophan as the dominant amino acid in the bloodstream, because it’s bound to albumin and inaccessible to insulin. When amino acids compete for conversion into neurotransmitters, tryptophan wins, and serotonin rises, because no one else shows up.
Many readers of this blog prefer lower-carb diets. I’m the same. If you feel like your serotonin levels need a boost, consider increasing carb intake a little. Just one meal containing carbohydrates should get enough tryptophan into your brain for conversion into serotonin.
Take Curcumin
Turmeric has emerged in recent years as a powerful antidepressant, in many cases equalling or even surpassing the effects of prescription antidepressants.12 Turns out that turmeric (or curcumin, rather) increases brain serotonin levels in a dose-dependent matter.13
So maybe you need curcumin, the isolated polyphenol found in turmeric, to really affect depression. Maybe your chicken tikka masala isn’t replacing your SSRI. But absent outright depression or serotonin-based mood disorders, cooking with turmeric should help regulate normal serotonin levels.
Move
Exercise increases serotonin via two pathways. First, the activation of motor neurons increases the firing rate of serotonin neurons, thus boosting the synthesis and release of serotonin. Second, exercise consistently elevates tryptophan levels in the brain, even for hours after the session.14 This is probably why going for a walk or grabbing a quick workout is a surefire way to beat ruminating thoughts.
Drink Coffee
Generic alternative health gurus will tell you caffeine depletes serotonin. It sounds right, doesn’t it? What they won’t say is that caffeine has actually been shown to increase brain serotonin, at least in rats.15 It also makes the brain more sensitive to the effects of serotonin. Personally, I’m drinking my coffee.
Get a Massage
Conventional experts will say “massage just feels good.” Well, yeah. That’s the point. Getting a massage boosts serotonin by 28%.16
Get Your Micronutrients
This should really be standard advice for any health issue. Many problems go away when we eat more micronutrients—vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients—because micronutrients are essential to fundamental physiological processes and pathways. It’s a safe bet that all of us are at least mildly deficient in a handful of important nutrients—like B6, which regulates serotonin synthesis.17
One study found that a food-based multivitamin/multimineral supplement drink called Lavita increased tryptophan and serotonin levels in healthy subjects. While that product does purport to offer a boost in many micronutrients, a solid Primal diet with quality meats and good, varied vegetable intake should provide the same nutrient base. Of course, many of us choose a comprehensive multivitamin/multimineral supplement as well.
Take Tryptophan on an Empty Stomach
Taking tryptophan on an empty stomach eliminates the competition for brain uptake with other amino acids you’d encounter when eating tryptophan-rich foods, allowing tryptophan to flood the brain and trigger serotonin synthesis.
That’s what I have for today, folks. Thanks for stopping by. Share your thoughts and questions on the comment board, and have a good week.
I’m trying to stay strictly primal/paleo, but I always run into problems when I need to thicken sauces or soups. I grew up learning to use flour/cornstarch like everyone else, but is there a good low-carb/primal alternative?
Thanks,
Raul
I received this email a while ago, but it wasn’t the first. A number of readers have expressed their confusion when it comes to thickening sauces, gravies, or soups without using traditional floury methods. The question of thickening sauces is one of the hurdles I face every time I put up a recipe post – it’s become a bit of an internal struggle (as seen with last week’s beef and broccoli stir fry recipe, in which I hesitatingly called for a teaspoon of flour as a thickener) because while adding a bit of flour or cornstarch to a larger recipe may not drastically impact the carb count, it does complicate the consistently Primal message I try to convey. This post, I hope, will resolve that struggle.
There are plenty of ways to thicken a sauce without resorting to refined starches. In fact, thickening a sauce using Primal methods can produce a richer, more satisfying meal.
Carbs in Cornstarch
There are 7g of carbs in 1 tablespoon of cornstarch. Since you only use a tablespoon or two in a whole recipe that serves four or more people, cornstarch won’t send your carb count through the roof.
A lot of people who follow paleo, Primal, or keto will want to avoid corn and its derivatives because of its naturally-occurring sugar and starch, and because it is not a nutrient-dense food.
Make a Reduction
The most rewarding way to thicken a sauce is by reduction. Indeed, learning how to reduce a sauce is important for any cook – home or professional. It’s quite simple, actually, but it’s an integral step in the thickening of any sauce or soup (whether you keep it Primal or use starches). Reduce the moisture content of a potential sauce by simmering over low heat and letting evaporation take over. The water goes, but the flavors stay. If you reduce too much, be prepared for incredibly potent flavors. Adding fats toward the end of the reduction process can complete the thickening process (more later).
Add Fat
Ah, the epic battle between fats and carbohydrates rages on. Fats can make effective thickeners, especially butter and especially with reductions. Say you’ve just seared a garlic-and-shallot-studded steak in your cast-iron pan. See those browned bits and bubbles of delicious beef fat and juices left behind? Keep the heat low and add some red wine. Scrape the good stuff off the bottom and let the wine reduce Toward the end, add a pat of cold butter and whisk it all together until smooth and creamy and viscous. Drizzle over your finished steak and veggies.
Heavy cream works well, too, especially for white sauces and soups. Again, the key is reduce, reduce, reduce.
Rendered duck, bacon, beef, or chicken fat can act like butter, if you want to avoid dairy altogether or add a different flavor profile. Just make sure you add the fat towards the end in its solid (cold) state.
Gluten Free Roux
A roux is a sauce starter or thickener that involves whisking flour into a pan containing heated fat. I’ve found that arrowroot flour is a great substitute for flour in most, if not all applications that call for a roux.
Almonds do not have any starch, and starch is what adds structure to the cooking liquid. So, almond flour will not make a good roux.
Keto Roux
If you want a gravy-like consistency but you don’t want the carbs of arrowroot or cassava, opt for recipes that use a small amount of xanthan gum.
Pureed Veggies
Adding a few scoops of pureed vegetables is another option, especially to thicken soups. Almost any acceptably Primal veggie will work: squash, carrot, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, or mushrooms, just to name a few. Simply steam or soften the vegetables and then throw them in a food processor or otherwise pulverize them. Canned tomato paste works well, too. If you’re already cooking a vegetable-filled stew or soup for hours, this might happen on its own as the veggies break down and add density to the broth.
Primal Flours
You already know how much we love almond meal around here, and the other nut meals/flours can work as sauce thickeners. Unlike traditional flours, these don’t really clump when added directly to a sauce, but they can add flavors you might not expect or really want in your sauce, so be careful. You can also use nut butters – a little bit goes a long way.
I’ve heard good things about defatted coconut flour. Never used it myself, but it is an effectively low-carb (high in fiber, though). Anyone tried coconut flour?
Vegetable Gums
Vegetable gums sound a bit unappetizing, but they’re used in a lot of Asian cooking. Essentially pure fiber that absorbs moisture to form a gel, the most popular of the vegetable gums are xanthan gum and guar gum. Sprinkle over sauces while whisking to thicken, but be cautious – a little bit goes a long, long way, and too much will make your sauce “gummy” and “gooey” rather than creamy.
Vegetable gums can be a bit tricky to use properly, but there are products that make it easier. I’m interested to hear what your favorites are if you’ve used them.
Is Xanthan Gum Keto?
There are 7g of carbs per tablespoon of xanthan gum. A little bit goes a long way, and most recipes call for a tiny amount of xanthan gum – a pinch or a fraction of a teaspoon or less. Therefore, xanthan gum can be considered keto and works well as a thickener.
Some people experience gastrointestinal symptoms with gums like xanthan gum. Experiment for yourself and see how you feel.
Conclusion
I’d say reduction is the most purely Primal way to thicken a sauce, but it’s not exactly the quickest or the easiest. It remains my favorite (excepting, of course, the fact that I haven’t tried the gums) because it produces the richest flavors and textures, especially with some sort of animal fat as a thickener. The nut flours work well enough, but the resultant textures will never completely compare to those of traditional flour thickeners; nuts are just too coarse and non-absorbent. Vegetable purees are delicious, nutritious thickeners, but they have limited use (mainly in soups and stews). As for the vegetable gums, I suppose these are technically PB-friendly – they come from natural sources and they’re definitely low-carb – but I’m not sure I’d want to rely on them completely, and I’m skeptical of “low-carb”packaging. Of course, I plan on trying them at some point, and I’d love to hear your experiences with them.
Oh, and for the broccoli beef recipe? I think a vegetable gum would be your best bet. I don’t know how well butter or cream would compliment the flavors, and I doubt nut flours would blend seamlessly into the sauce; with this one, you’re just going for texture alone, and the gums would probably achieve that without compromising flavor or cooking time.
Today’s recipe is courtesy of Ashleigh van Houten, nutrition journalist, public speaker, certified health coach, and self-proclaimed muscle nerd. Ashleigh recently released her new organ meats cookbook, It Takes Guts, available in stores now!
Liver is a superfood that’s packed with pre-formed nutrients like vitamin A, zinc, folate, and more, which are important nutrients to get for everyone, and especially people who are experimenting with a carnivore diet.
Understandably, a lot of people find it intimidating. Even if you didn’t grow up with it, liver is a food that is easy to learn to love. You just need the right recipes to make it happen.
This appetizer is a delicious way to introduce liver into your life. Wrap anything in prosciutto and it’ll be a crowd-pleaser! Here, the rich, creamy sweetness of chicken livers pairs really well with crispy, salty prosciutto. (You can use thin-sliced bacon, too.) You definitely want to eat this delicious and protein-packed appetizer immediately, as soon as the livers come out of the skillet.
Serves: 6 appetizers
Time in the kitchen: 1 hour to soak livers, then 15 minutes active time
Prosciutto-wrapped Chicken Liver Recipe
Ingredients
6 whole chicken livers, split into 2 lobes each (12 pieces total), cleaned (see instructions)
Ground black pepper 12 slices prosciutto
Fresh thyme or rosemary sprigs, for garnish
Special Equipment
2 (9-inch) wood skewers, soaked in water for 1 hour
Instructions
To clean all animal livers, first rinse them in cold water, then trim any white connective tissue or membranes with a sharp paring knife. Soak them for one hour in cold water with one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar or a pinch of salt.
Pat the livers dry with a paper towel. Lightly season with pepper.
Using 1 strip of prosciutto per lobe, wrap the strips tightly around the liver pieces so that they are entirely covered.
Using the skewers to hold the prosciutto in place, insert the prosciutto-wrapped livers onto the skewers, 6 per skewer.
Preheat a barbecue grill to medium heat, or preheat a grill pan on the stovetop over medium heat.
Grill the skewers, turning them every few minutes, until the prosciutto is crispy and the liver is just cooked through, about 7 minutes. Serve hot with a garnish of
fresh thyme or rosemary.
NOTE: If you have leftovers, store them in the fridge for up to 5 days. To reheat, throw them back in a skillet over medium heat with some butter until re-crisped, about 3 minutes.
Ashleigh VanHouten is a health and nutrition journalist, public speaker, certified health coach, and self-proclaimed muscle nerd. She has written for Paleo Magazine for more than eight years, along with a number of other health publications. She hosts the Muscle Maven Radio podcast, which has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times, where she’s interviewed some of the biggest names in health and wellness, including Mark Sisson, Dave Asprey, and Steph Gaudreau. She’s also worked with other top-rated health-related podcasts, such as Barbell Shrugged, Muscle Intelligence, and Paleo Magazine Radio. Combining her formal education and professional experience in marketing and communications with her passion for healthy eating, exercise, and learning, Ashleigh works in a consulting role for a number of professionals in the health and wellness world, working alongside individuals like Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, Ben Pakulski, and Elle Russ. Find recipes like these in her new cookbook, It Takes Guts, available in stores now! Find out more at ashleighvanhouten.com.
Hey folks! Erin Power is back for another round of Ask a Health Coach. This week she’ll be answering questions about beating the 3pm slump, what to eat when you’re hungry all the time, and strategies for speeding up a slow metabolism. Comment below with more questions or head over to the Mark’s Daily Apple Facebook Group.
Pete asked:
“I get so sleepy in the afternoons. In fact, sometimes, I actually have to take a nap. What can I snack on to beat my daily 3pm slump?”
Feeling a dip in energy mid-afternoon is so common, a lot of offices actually have a nap room. They also have boatloads of processed snacks, sugary coffee drinks, and vending machines to help you perk back up after your carb-laden lunch.
But just because it’s common, doesn’t mean it’s normal. Sure, you could be having a reaction to what you ate for lunch. Some food choices trigger a blood sugar spike and crash (think pasta, pizza, giant subs, a handful of candy).1 If this is the case with you, I have a better solution than doling out energy-boosting snack ideas…or napping.
The lowest hanging fruit here is to manage your post-lunch sleepiness by swapping refined carbs for satiating and blood sugar stabilizing protein and fat. Maybe a Big Ass Salad or some leftover roasted chicken and veggies with butter. Even a handful of mixed nuts is better than a sandwich.
It’s not always food related though. You have a natural drop in energy as part of human circadian biology. And it comes, you guessed it, about mid-afternoon. Knowing that your body has a built-in lull that happens around 3pm, the best thing you can do is anticipate it and plan accordingly. That means don’t schedule any overly draining tasks during that time. Instead, practice a little self-care and schedule in 15 minutes of stretching, walking outside, or listening to energizing music.
Another possibility for your slump is mental drain. Even if your workday isn’t overly stressful, everything else in the world is right now, so again, cut yourself some slack and pay attention to how drained you feel on a daily basis. It could just be that by 3pm your brain (and your central nervous system) are so tapped that it signals a reset (i.e. you to take a nap). To avoid burnout, I like productivity apps like Focus Keeper. This one’s based on the Pomodoro Technique and breaks your day into 25-minute focus sessions, followed by 5-minute breaks.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that you’re not breathing. And by “not breathing” I mean, you’re taking small shallow breaths that rob your brain of oxygen. Chances are you spend most of your day hunched over your computer, which compromises your breathing and your energy flow. Next time you feel that midday lull, think about the last time you took a good, deep breath, then sit up straight and take six slow deep breaths.
Test out any of these tips and my guess is you’ll feel better fairly quickly, no snack required.
Valerie asked:
“I’ve lost 40 pounds following the Primal Blueprint and have about 5 more to go. The problem is, I feel hungry all the time, so I either eat or try and white knuckle it! How do I tame my hunger?”
You’re not alone here Valerie. This is one of the most common challenges I hear from my clients. “I would have done better this week, but I was SO HUNGRY!” Common diet culture says you should eat healthy meals and snacks every 2-3 hours if you want to keep your blood sugar stable and keep hunger at bay.
My opinion? You shouldn’t have to feed your body every 3 hours to do either of those things. You also shouldn’t fear hunger. We’ve all been led to believe that hunger is bad — that it’s the one thing that stands between you and your weight loss goals.
Here’s the deal though. Hunger is actually a loving, protective signal from your miraculous body. It’s one of your most primitive survival mechanisms. It’s how your body makes sure you’re fueled sufficiently so that you can function properly.
The clients I work with claim to feel hungry “all the time”, which to me, indicates that they’re out of touch with their body. Sometimes it starts as a kid — if you’ve been told to finish your plate, regardless of whether or not you were hungry. And sometimes it’s in the ultra-processed foods you eat which unapologetically mess with your hormones. Certain foods inhibit your ability to recognize when you’re full — they literally confuse your brain into thinking you need to eat more.2
Sugar-free or “diet” foods aren’t any better. In fact, this study proved that sugar substitutes, although calorie-free, adversely affected the metabolism of participants, causing them to eat more.3Even a can of diet soda can increase your appetite because your brain thinks you’re getting something sweet, but your body never receives the energy it’s expecting.
My solution? Step one, ditch any processed or diet foods you’re consuming. That means ones labeled “healthy” or “low carb” or “low fat.” Step two, sit with your hunger next time you feel it and know that you’re okay. I promise you that you won’t starve. Even if you had zero pounds to lose, you’d still have access to thousands of calories in stored energy.
Feeling as if your only choices are to succumb to hunger and *fail* or really punish yourself and diet harder, aren’t good choices if you ask me. Work on trusting your body’s signals instead of fearing them.
Suzanne asked:
“Now that I’m in my 40’s, I can’t even eat a few fun-sized candy bars without seeing it on the scale in the morning. Any tricks for speeding up my metabolism?”
Chances are you could eat whatever you wanted as a kid. Fun-sized candy bars, heck, even a few full-sized candy bars wouldn’t impact your weight or your mood or mental clarity for that matter. As you mentioned, age has made it harder to indulge when you feel like it, and potentially a “slow metabolism” is to blame.
For those who don’t know, your metabolism is the system of the body that decides how fuel is used and has implications for weight management, energy, and more. The uneducated will tell you that the extra five pounds around your mid-section (or your brain fog, or blah feeling) is just a sign of getting older. They’ll say that because of your age, your metabolism has just naturally slowed down.
That is absolute BS in my book. I believe that over time, your metabolism does “forget” to effectively put fuel to use — and seems to just start storing it instead of burning it. But you can help your body remember by making some simple changes to what you eat and how you move.
The goal here is to become metabolically flexible. That means your metabolism gets to a place where it can effortlessly switch between burning carbs and burning fat — leaving more room for a few treats now and then. All those people who can “eat whatever they want”? Those people have excellent metabolic flexibility.
So how do you get metabolically flexible? Start by exercising. And not in a chronic cardio sort of way. Go for a daily walk, try some speed intervals, or add a weight training session here and there. Not only does this help you burn fat, it increases mitochondrial biogenesis, a key factor in reversing age-related loss of insulin resistance.4
Next up, get fat adapted. For a period of time, choose foods that are unprocessed and higher in protein and healthy fats. While you’re at it, cut out all snacks. Honestly, if you’re eating satiating foods, you won’t need them. While this might seem opposite of what you want right now (to eat candy without gaining weight), it will eventually allow you to indulge without the same consequences to your waistline.
Got thoughts on snacking? Metabolic function? Hunger pains? Share them in the comments below.
Before I had kids, I thought I’d be that mom who cooks and bakes endlessly with her kids. After all, I enjoy being in the kitchen, so why wouldn’t I want my sweet offspring by my side as I lovingly prepare meals for the family.
Ah, to be that young and idealistic again. Every year we get busier and more pressed for time, and—in my experience, at least—cooking with your kids makes everything take three to eleven times longer. Gone are my ideas of being Betty-Crocker-meets-Mary-Poppins in the kitchen. I have new priorities now:
I need to be time-efficient.
I want to feed myself and my kids nutritious foods.
I refuse to prepare separate meals or snacks for kids and adults.
My kids should learn their way around the kitchen, which means giving them age-appropriate tasks.
Most days we manage dinner together, but the rest of the day is a whirlwind. Snacking is something of a contentious topic in the ancestral community. Sincere kudos if your family can stick to set meal times with perhaps one planned snack interlude. Realistically, though, snacking happens here. Rather than fight it, I try to have quick, healthy options that check my four boxes above.
These are some of my top picks. Add yours in the comments section.
Veggies with ranch dressing. Use raw vegetables like celery, carrots, snap peas, broccoli, cauliflower, and mini sweet bell peppers, or leftover roasted asparagus or Brussels sprouts. To make a thicker dip, mix the ranch with sour cream to get the consistency you want.
Frozen chicken skewers (I get mine at Costco) dipped in barbecue sauce or a quick peanut sauce. This one uses tahini, or you can use almond butter instead.
Steak “salad” bites. Leftover cubed steak topped with a few leaves of baby spinach and cheddar or blue cheese. Dip in BBQ sauce or dressing of choice. For the grown-ups, add Quick Pickled Onions.
How kids can help:
Cube melon or steak.
Wrap prosciutto around melon.
Assist with cooking meatballs. The steps are easy enough for even young kids, supervised.
Assemble the skewers.
Pour dipping sauces into ramekins.
Charcuterie Plates
Charcuterie plates are just meat, crackers, cheese, produce —stuff you eat every day, but it’s the presentation that counts. There’s a reason the charcuterie plates were trending all over social media this year. Artfully piling a bunch of food on a platter or cutting board feels fancy and abundant. The nice thing about charcuterie plates is that you can put them out, and everyone can help themselves to the parts they like. It’s a great way to introduce new foods in a non-pressuring way.
NOTE: You can also adapt this idea into bento boxes. Have your kids help you fill compartments with these same types of ingredients. Put them in the fridge to grab for snacks or on-the-go mini-meals throughout the week.
Greek Yogurt Parfaits & Smoothie Bowls
These are filling options that older kids can make themselves—really more a small meal than a snack. All you need is Greek yogurt, protein or collagen powder if making smoothies, and toppings. Some of our favorites are:
Dr. DeVany’s title quote has haunted me for years; I typically ponder the significance of this deadpan assertion during my morning jog. “Come on, this can’t be dangerous, can it?” I assert that my morning jog helps me enjoy nature, clear my mind for the impending busy day in front of a screen or microphone, and seemingly contributes to both my fitness base and my health.
But only if I go slow!
That is the revelation I have come to appreciate over decades of devoted endurance training. Walking is perhaps most health and longevity promoting activity of them all, the ultimate human experience of life and planet that our genes require daily for healthy functioning. This is especially true as you age. A UCLA study of the elderly revealed that walking more than 4,000 steps a day makes for a thicker hippocampus, faster information processing, and improved executive function.1 Sedentary folks were found to have thinner brains, lower overall cognitive function and increased disease risk. From a base of frequent daily walking (and other forms of low level movement like yoga), if you are fit enough to jog at a heart rate below “180 minus age” in beats per minute, there is pretty strong evidence that you are boosting health. If your “jogging” routinely drifts above that important MAF cutoff (surely the context for DeVany’s warning), you are likely actualizing the quote and endangering your health.
This article details how I destroyed my health during a six-month binge of high volume aerobic exercise (playing Speedgolf, where you run around five miles while playing 18 holes as fast as possible) after a long layoff from real training. I overestimated my aerobic maximum heart rate by 12 beats (and exceeded that beeper limit on the golf course frequently as well!) and experienced that familiar steady spiral into declining energy and burnout. First, I delivered a free testosterone reading that was clinically low—as in, a candidate for hormone replacement. Next, on the heels of a two strenuous workouts in 100-degree temperatures over four days, I found myself in the hospital with extreme dehydration, a ruptured appendix and emergency surgery. Months of complications and follow up surgeries ensued. Doctors might assert that an appendix will blow out randomly, but I’m certain that my problems were driven by the six-month chronic cardio binge.
With five months of enforced rest and trading my slightly too difficult cardio for easy jogging and walking (after surgeries), I doubled my testosterone levels—going from clinically low to exceeding the 95th percentile for my age. In the aftermath of the ordeal, which coincided with me hitting the big Hawaii 5-0, I turned my attention to fitness goals better suited for longevity: building power, speed, explosiveness, flexibility, balance, and mobility. I increased my devotion to sprinting and strength training, and integrated the wonderful drills and skills highlighted in the basic running drills and advanced running drills videos and morning flexibility/mobility exercises video. I’ve gone from an aging ex-triathlete still capable of jogging or pedaling (increasingly slowly with each passing year) to high jumping at a world class level for my 55-59 age group. Granted, attrition in this event is a driving factor in my positioning in the rankings, but in many respects I am a fitter, stronger, faster human than the narrowly adapted endurance athlete I was decades ago.
Here are some ideas to trade steady state cardio sessions for sessions that deliver broader fitness benefits and are more fun, more challenging, and more rewarding.
What to Do Instead of Steady State Cardio
Morning Flexibility, Mobility, Dynamic Stretching, and Core Strengthening
The sequence of exercises that I present in the video take about 12 minutes, and I’m on a good streak of daily execution for nearly four years now. What’s happened with my recent transition away from my consistent morning jog is that I continue to add more and more fun stuff to the daily template. At first, it’s extremely important for habit forming to design an initial routine that’s easy and doable, meaning short in duration. Once you build some momentum, you can add to the complexity and degree of difficulty of your routine. Today, I burn up at least 45 minutes with an exact sequence of exercises that I repeat every day. I regularly add, subtract, and modify the sequence, but it’s important to have a repeatable routine that doesn’t require creative energy. This way, you can relax and get into the zone of simply counting out the desired reps of each drill and move on to the next. You’ll see this same dynamic in a flowing yoga class.
I’m not suggesting that you squeeze a 45-minute routine into your already busy mornings, but starting small with a 12-minute session can be a great way to broaden your fitness experience. For me, the lengthy and quite strenuous morning routine has pushed my morning jog into the “optional” category. As mentioned in the previous post about the paltry requirement for optimizing aerobic fitness (Dr. O’Keefe’s Goldilocks Zone), shifting from daily jogging to a few per week causes no loss in aerobic conditioning. Furthermore, an ambitious routine of flexibility/mobility drills without break from start to finish is aerobic in nature. I obtain all the cardiovascular benefits of jogging in addition to all the additional flexibility, mobility, core strengthening, and balancing benefits.
Walk – Jog – Jump
We’ll discuss the broad-based benefits of jumping in a future post. Mark says, “Nothing cuts you up like sprinting,” due to the profound genetic signaling that occurs from brief, all-out high impact sprinting on flat ground. Any act of jumping falls into the same esteemed category. You are building bone density, improving the resiliency of your muscles and connective tissue, and sending a strong genetic signal to reduce excess body fat.2 The reason for the latter is the same as with sprinting—the penalty for carrying excess fat is severe when you are trying to get off the ground.
Head out the door for your session on the roads or trails at your aerobic jogging pace. After 10 minutes of warmup, do some jumping drills of your choice. You can simply stand in place and jump up and down off of two feet. Dr. Michael Roizen, co-author with Dr. Oz of the popular You: The Owner’s Manual book series and Chief Wellness Officer at the Cleveland Clinic, recommends jumping up and down 20 times every morning and evening to preserve bone mass in the spine and lower extremities. “Jumping is thought to create an electrical current that stimulates the bone and thickens internal bone mass,” says Roizen.
Options for jumping abound, pun intended. You can get a three-step running start and jump off of one foot like you are going for a slam dunk, land and repeat three times. You can do some explosive skipping, trying to maximize the height of each leap into the air. You can try the bicycle drill as seen at 1:18 in the Advanced Running Drills video below. Perhaps you’ll want to try some vertical jumps onto a park bench or retaining wall, jump over a bush or traffic cone, or other appealing challenges along your route.
Remember, your explosive efforts should last between 10-20 seconds and no longer. Review the HIIT versus HIRT post to understand why 10-20 seconds is the sweet spot. After you do your jumping sequence, walk for five times as long as your burst lasted—so that’s between 50 seconds and 1 min, 40 seconds. After you feel fresh and recovered, resume your jogging pace slowly and eventually work back up to your “180 minus age” heart rate. After 1-3 minutes of jogging, initiate another jumping sequence.
Cardio Plus Calisthenics
If your go-to workout is on a cardio machine in the gym, do you thing for 5-10 minutes and then take a quick break for a set of burpees, squats, pullups, mini-bands, TRX moves, or other exercises you’re fond of at the gym. Take your time returning to your cardio exercise, and resume at a very slow pace. Work up to your usual aerobic training pace for a few minutes, then dismount again for different activity.
Power Walk
You’ll completely bypass steady state cardio in this session; you’ll either be walking or jogging very slowly (20-40 beats below your MAF heart rate), or doing a 10-20 second explosive effort. This could be an uphill sprint, a set of stadium or building stairs, or a few kettlebell swings if you are taking laps around the block and returning to your garage every ten minutes.
For those dutiful endurance athletes monitoring training heart rates to stay below MAF, note that the explosive efforts in each of the aforementioned formats will cause your heart rate to exceed aerobic maximum. You’ll hear the beep somewhere between the middle and the end of your burst, and it may take 30-60 seconds for heart rate to return to MAF or below. This is nothing to be concerned about and will not hinder your aerobic development like exercising for sustained periods above MAF at many workouts. Exercise physiologists call the heart rate zone above MAF where you still feel pretty comfortable but are burning more glucose and less fat the “black hole.” This is a no-man’s land where you are sabotaging desired aerobic benefits but not going hard enough for a truly anaerobic effort that can stimulate performance breakthroughs when done occasionally and correctly.
JFW (Just F@$&ing Walk!)
Let’s put in a plug here for trading the occasional jog for a walk. The common fitness edict of, “consistency is key” can easily be misapplied to the extent that the daily and weekly application of exercise stress is not adequately balanced with recovery time and down time. I’d like you to view the “consistency is key” principle over a wider time frame that the typical obsession with delivering a tidy weekly schedule of repeat template workouts (e.g., Sunday long run, Tuesday night track intervals, Thursday spin class, etc.) Realize the body is really good at preserving fitness even with the occasional week or month of drastically reduced training. Popular studies from renowned exercise physiologist Dr. David Costill of the Ball State University Human Performance Lab reveal that extreme tapering delivers outstanding results. One decades-old Costill study of elite swimmers revealed that reducing swimming volume by 67 percent for 15 days delivered a four percent performance increase! A study from McMaster University in Toronto of serious runners averaging 50 miles per week showed the control group that cut volume by 88 percent (six miles a week, but featuring hard intervals) improved performance by 22 percent!
If you are reluctant to embrace any workout that doesn’t introduce discomfort and sweat, realize that a brisk walk still delivers an outstanding aerobic training effect that will support peak performance efforts at all faster speeds. Envision a cruise ship with 12 massive turbine engines. On the open seas with all 12 at full throttle, the mighty ship can hit 25 knots. When cruising into port at two knots, imagine only two engines are running at half power. However, those two engines still make a contribution to the effort when cruising at full speed. You are easily doubling your resting heart rate during a walk recruiting the same aerobic enzymes and muscle fibers to perform that you call upon when you deliver a peak performance effort. For endurance athletes, walking is a low stress way to build and build more fitness without the risk of breakdown and burnout from black hole workout.
Hopefully these suggestions will get your creative juices flowing when you head out the door for future workouts. You can let your imagination run wild here, unleash your childlike spirit, and look for forgotten ways to engage your body with nature for physical challenge. Take inspiration from Nutritious Movement queen Katy Bowman, MS—here’s some people having fun on one of her “Move Your DNA weekends.”
Ever heard the quote, “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work?”
Serotonin is a funny one.
Dear Mark,
Today’s recipe is courtesy of Ashleigh van Houten, nutrition journalist, public speaker, certified health coach, and self-proclaimed muscle nerd. Ashleigh recently released her new organ meats cookbook, It Takes Guts, available in stores now!
Ashleigh VanHouten is a health and nutrition journalist, public speaker, certified health coach, and self-proclaimed muscle nerd. She has written for Paleo Magazine for more than eight years, along with a number of other health publications. She hosts the Muscle Maven Radio podcast, which has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times, where she’s interviewed some of the biggest names in health and wellness, including Mark Sisson, Dave Asprey, and Steph Gaudreau. She’s also worked with other top-rated health-related podcasts, such as Barbell Shrugged, Muscle Intelligence, and Paleo Magazine Radio. Combining her formal education and professional experience in marketing and communications with her passion for healthy eating, exercise, and learning, Ashleigh works in a consulting role for a number of professionals in the health and wellness world, working alongside individuals like Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, Ben Pakulski, and Elle Russ. Find recipes like these in her new cookbook, 
Hey folks! Erin Power is back for another round of Ask a Health Coach. This week she’ll be answering questions about beating the 3pm slump, what to eat when you’re hungry all the time, and strategies for speeding up a slow metabolism. Comment below with more questions or head over to the 
Before I had kids, I thought I’d be that mom who cooks and bakes endlessly with her kids. After all, I enjoy being in the kitchen, so why wouldn’t I want my sweet offspring by my side as I lovingly prepare meals for the family.
Dr. DeVany’s title quote has haunted me for years; I typically ponder the significance of this deadpan assertion during my morning jog. “Come on, this can’t be dangerous, can it?” I assert that my morning jog helps me enjoy nature, clear my mind for the impending busy day in front of a screen or microphone, and seemingly contributes to both my fitness base and my health.
