PNTV: The Bulletproof Diet by Dave Asprey

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today, another great book, the Bulletproof Diet by Dave Asprey. The Bulletproof Diet Subtitle Lose up to a pound a day. Reclaim energy and focus. Upgrade your life. Dave Asprey is a fascinating guy. He was a multi millionaire in his 20s and he also weighed 300 pounds. And he worked hard to try to lose that weight and optimize his health. And he wasn't getting where he wanted to get. And he invested a ton of energy, time and money into hacking his biology. Became one of the earliest and most well known biohackers, created a popular blog and has done some extraordinary work. We are big fans of Dave Asprey and his bulletproof approach and perspective and products here at the Johnson household. I literally had a bulletproof bar not too long ago. This morning I had bulletproof fat coffee with ghee in MCT oil rather than the traditional butter. We have a vibrating plate in our little home gym that's bulletproof. We're all in on the Asprey bulletproof approach. It's pretty fun and we appreciate his work. Philosopher's Note, Bunch of big ideas. I'm excited to tap into a handful of my favorites. Now we'll start with number one, reducing inflammation. So in Daniel Amen's new book, Change your Life, Change youe Brain, Change youe Life, a revised and updated version of his classic book that I'll be doing a note on soon, he tells us the word inflammation comes from the Latin word inflamma, which literally means fire. And Dave Asprey makes the point that basically the cornerstone of all of our issues, 70% of our health related issues and obesity and heart disease and all these other things are connected to inflammation within our system. So the book is a systematic look essentially at how to reduce inflammation. He says the primary culprit is anti nutrients or anti nutrients. He calls them Kryptonite. If we want to upgrade our life and go bulletproof, we need to remove the Kryptonite from our lives that's creating inflammation. And I referenced a couple other sources in the note, including David Perlmutter, one of the world's leading neurologists and nutritionists, who says a lot of people think if you ask someone on the street what depression is, they would say it's a chemical imbalance in the brain. He says 20 years of research proves that to be wrong. It's inflammation which is leading to these significant issues. So we want to look at the kryptonite or antinutrients that are creating inflammation within our systems and dial that in, put out the fires. One of the most common antinutrients, kryptonites out there, that's kind of under the radar, undetected by a lot of people, is wheat and gluten in particular. 80% of people have a sensitivity to gluten, which is creating inflammation that's going undiagnosed. So if that is a potential issue for you, you may want to think about it. Of course, in the book, he goes through in detail all the other potential and actual inflammatory anti nutrients. That's our first big idea. Second one is the 10 myths. So chapter one is about inflammation, essentially. Chapter two, he walks us through 10 myths of dieting ranging from it takes willpower and something's wrong with you if you can't lose weight. And he says, look, I had all the willpower in the world, but I wasn't doing the right things. And the things I was doing were actually reducing my willpower and making it more challenging for me. He makes the point that when you do the right thing, it's actually not as hard as it is when you do other things related to the myths. Other myths include that the idea that a low fat diet is optimal. He says, look, that idea that saturated fat is a culprit in all the diseases we want to battle was based on faulty research. Something like 76 studies, 600,000 people basically made it clear that that just isn't the case. Saturated fat is not a causal factor in oxygen, all these issues that we have, heart disease, et cetera. And he says the other myth, another One of the 10 myths, is that fat makes you fat. And I've talked about this before in other episodes. But when I shifted from a low fat, higher carb diet to a lower carb, higher fat diet, my body fat percentage nearly effortlessly went down almost in half, essentially. And now I can maintain a single digit body fat percentage without even thinking about it while eating a crazy, all caps crazy amount of fat. So I'm still wrapping my brain around how is that possible? That fat doesn't actually make you fat. He talks about that in the book. It's a big idea. Which leads us to the third big idea. Notice here we have one word. Fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables. He says. We say fruits and vegetables as if it's one word. They're really three words. Fruits and versions. Vegetables. And one of the other myths that he talks about throughout the book Is that all natural food is great for you? He says, look, in this case, fruits and vegetables, we need to split it up. That's three words, fruits and vegetables. Fruits impact your body very differently than vegetables. And he says some people say that fruit is like nature's candy. He says, well, fruit actually has more in common with candy than it does with vegetables. And we want to pay attention to the fact that whereas fruits have a high level of sugar, vegetables do not. They have a ton of fiber and a ton of nutrients that are extraordinarily powerful for us. We want to pay attention to the fact that fruits and vegetables are not equivalent as often as we might have heard, eat your fruits and vegetables. We want to emphasize the vegetables and pay attention to how much fruit we're consuming. Dave says we should have 25 grams of fructose, which is the form of sugar found in fruit a day. He says that's roughly two apples. He says we should change the phrase an apple a day keeps the doctor away to three apples a day keeps the doctor well paid. Three apples a day keeps the doctor well paid. Fruits and vegetables. Three separate words. Which leads us to the fourth big idea. Increase your veggies on the bulletproof diet. Dave tells us vegetables are our primary food that we eat. Increase your veggies. And I joke in the note, this is my area of most potential optimization. He classifies avocados and olives. Although technically a fruit, they're more like vegetables, so he puts them in that category. I eat a lot of avocados and olives, but then I can afford to eat a lot more leafy greens, the cruciferous vegetables, etc. Note to self, make it happen. So look at your refrigerator right now. Do you have a lot of veggies in there? Do you have a lot of the dark leafy greens, the kales and collards and bok choy? What about the cruciferous broccoli and cabbage and cauliflower? These are all extraordinarily nutrient dense and everyone's going to agree on this. You might disagree on the details, even on the fat versus high fat, low fat, carb, etc. Vegan, paleo, whatever. But no one's going to tell you you should eat less veggies. Everyone's going to say, look, these veggies that I just described are really, really good for you. They're nutrient dense. So wherever you fall on the spectrum, know that increasing your vegetables is going to increase your overall sense of well being, decrease the inflammation and your longevity and all that good stuff, increase the longevity, et cetera, et cetera. So that's our fourth big idea. Fifth big idea is to remember that all of this discussion about nutrition and everything that we do on getting your mind right via meditation or via cognitive behavioral therapy, or in this case, nutrition, it's all a means to an end. It's not. The reason why we do it isn't such that we can get masterful at our nutrition. Why do we do that? It's so that we can be better human beings. We can be better partners in our relationships, better parents, better colleagues, better creative human beings, better teachers. Whatever it is we do, it's a means to that end of giving our greatest gifts in greatest service to the world. Now, having said that, nutrition is the number one thing. Now, I'm going to talk about that more in a moment, but I want to come back to another phrase that I loved when I first read it. Joshua Rosenthal, a guy who runs an institute called Integrative Nutrition, says something similar. He says that health is a vehicle, not a destination. Health is a vehicle, not a destination. We don't get healthy to be healthy. We get healthy such that we can drive or fly or whatever to our ultimate potential. Again, in service to the world means to an end, not the end itself. And again, having said that, nutrition, Dave tells us, is by far the most important thing we can do to optimize our well being, our physical well being, our mental and emotional well being. Did you know Your brain consumes 20 to 30% of your calories? 20 to 30% of your calories is what your brain uses. So if you're not feeding your brain brain friendly foods, and he would argue fat is the most brain friendly food, healthy fats, then you're going to diminish the performance of your mental capacity, et cetera. Anyway, nutrition is our number one. And then he says the number two. Most important thing we can do is sleep, which is even more important than exercise. Talks about this in the book. But think about that. We have nutrition, we have sleep, we have exercise. Our basic fundamentals at the base of our little actualization. How are you doing with that? What's one little thing that you know you could do? Non, debatable. You're actually excited about it. It's not a. Should you just really want to do this more in your life that you can implement based on what you just heard right now? For me, it's increasing veggies. Let's do this. What is it for you? Get specific, get clear and go out and do it. That's the bulletproof diet. It's a means to an end. We're going to increase our veggies. We're going to separate fruits and vegetables. They're not the same fruits and vegetables. Remember, one apple a day keeps the doctor away. Perhaps. But three apples a day keeps the doctor well paid. According to Dave's perspective on fructose, 10 myths we talked about and inflammation. We want to reduce it. Find sources of kryptonite that diminish your ultimate power and let's go out and optimize and actualize. Hope you enjoyed and I look forward to sharing more. Have an awesome day. See ya. Isn't it a bit odd we went from math to science to history but somehow missed the class on how to live? For some wacky reason, optimal living 100 never made the schedule. Of course, it's too late to go back and change that and you're too busy to read full time to catch up yet. If you're like us, you're all about optimizing your life and actualizing your potential. So imagine this. Imagine having someone read the best books on optimal living and pulling out the big ideas that can truly change your life. You know those sections you asterisk and underline and mark mark all up. Then imagine that guy me connecting those ideas to other great books and helping you apply them to your life today. Well, that's what I do with something we call Philosopher's Notes where I break down each great book into a simple 6 page PDF, 20 minute MP3 and 10 minute Philosopher's Notes TV episode. Then imagine me taking the absolute best big ideas from those great books and sharing them with you in fun, inspiring, super practical optimal living 101 classes on stuff like purpose 101, confidence 101, business 101, meditation 101, that sort of thing. You've got a personal trainer? I'm kind of like your personal philosopher. Ancient Wisdom plus Modern Science plus Common Sense plus Virtue plus Mastery plus fun. That's what our optimized membership program is all about. We'd love to have you join us. Check us out at BrianJohnson. Me join.