J.D. Moyer

sci-fi author, beatmaker

Category: Metaprogramming Page 27 of 29

Working Abroad Adventure: Week 2

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On May 26

In Lifestyle Experiments, Metaprogramming, Travel

This particular neighbor is, fortunately, a vegan.

When I last left the dear reader I was in a black mood, heading to the storage shed to fetch a machete.  A thought had entered my mind; the remedy to my grumpiness was in doing something I could only do here in the jungle.  I roamed our large yard, filled with towering tropical plants, gigantic flowers, and insects as big as my hand, until I found what I was looking for — a fallen green coconut.  I hacked at my victim with abandon.  My sword was dull and my foe was tough; only a series of full-strength overhead blows removed the outer shell.  I pierced the inner fruit with a smaller knife and was shocked by the loud popping noise and spray of liquid.  I poured the coconut water over ice and shared it with Kia (Tesla Rose declined).  Slightly sweet, a little sour, and refreshing.

Big bug.

Soon after the air cooled and it began to rain.  With the change in temperature, all three of us felt a sense of relief.  Things weren’t so bad.  We had food and a roof over our heads.  We were in tropical paradise.  The mosquitoes were letting up a bit, and our problems were starting to feel solvable.

Manufacturing Happiness

Happiness comes in two flavors — the kind you feel when you get what you want, and the kind you make up when you don’t.  Psychologists, with their clever tests, have determined that the two varieties are indistinguishable in quality (you can tell I’ve been watching TED videos — I actually logged on to watch the penultimate episode of LOST, but discovered the joys of Hulu don’t extend to Costa Rica).

If you, like me, are only semi (and not fully) enlightened, you’ll sometimes forget you know the trick of manufacturing happiness in spite of your circumstances.  Bug-bitten, hot, foggy-headed, bike-less, in an unfamiliar place, with only the wire-from-the-jungle connecting me to civilization, I briefly forgot that the secret to happiness is (more or less) deciding to be happy.  That, and doing whatever you can to influence your own fate.  Of course it’s not an instantaneous switch, but I’m convinced the greater part of happiness is intention.

We've got wheels!

The next morning — Sunday — we walked to Eric Haller’s house. He made us delicious coffee — incredibly smooth — and we took a taxi into Puerto Viejo. We stopped at Gallo’s bike shop on Eric’s recommendation and bought a used mountain bike for 40,000 colones (about US$75) and attached Tesla Rose’s “iBert” bike seat. Gallo’s place only had one bike for sale, so we rented a beater for the day — transportation problem half solved!

While buying the bike, we ran into our old friend Matt Grinnell who we’d known in San Francisco, back in the dot-com boom days.  Turns out he’s been living twenty minutes up the road for the last three years.  We picked up some Toña beer (not great, but better than the watery Imperial) and stopped by the beautiful beachside Caracola Hotel (managed by a friend of Matt).

On the beach, with warm water on my feet, a cool breeze on my face, and a beer in my hand, I suddenly lost my need to synthesize happiness.

Actually Working?

The concept for this experiment was to work abroad, as opposed to “go on vacation.”  Kia and I both brought work (and deadlines) with us.  With no childcare, productivity is currently on the low side.  A good chunk of time is also dedicated to learning how to feel comfortable in the tropics (three or four cool showers a day, at least until we adjust, endless applying of various creams/repellents/antihistamines, arranging the fan to drive off the most mosquitoes, etc.).  I’m really selling this, aren’t I?  On the other hand there has been no shortage of sublime encounters with the local fauna; four types of lizards, two types of frogs, the howler monkeys (still only heard, but hearing them is thrilling), and of course the giant insects, which include enormous blue butterflies, 1000-watt lightening bugs, and the above-pictured Godzilla roach.  I’m especially excited for Tesla Rose — it’s not everyday that a city kid needs to coax a large frog to leave their bedroom before going to bed.

Ribbit.

We are getting some work done and delivered though, and that in itself is kind of a thrill.  I’m getting paid, from the jungle.  Take that, cubicle man.

I shouldn’t boast though, because my creative output has taken a hit.  I’ve been prioritizing my time and willpower towards the needs of my clients, and also just getting basic stuff dealt with (buying food, buying a bike — as of today we have two).  No fiction writing and no music composition for at least a week now, and I’m feeling it.  I hope to give you some good news on that front by my next post.

The Mind-Blowing Bit

As I sit here in my hammock, looking out at the black night and listening to the rain and the din of a million insects, I’m shocked by how easy it was to “change it up a bit.”  It was only a couple months ago that we decided to temporarily relocate to Costa Rica, almost on a whim.  It makes we wonder what else I should just decide to do (on a whim).  I realize that not everyone has the flexibility to do their work remotely, but are you taking advantage of whatever flexibility you do have?  For the most part, I wasn’t.

Possible Glitch

So … a client just emailed requesting a face-to-face meeting.  They don’t know I’m in Costa Rica for the next five weeks or so.  Not quite sure how I’m going to handle this …

Exposing Yourself to Positive Black Swans

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On May 20

In Metaprogramming, Money/Personal Finance

It'll never happen (until it does)

If you haven’t yet read it, I would recommend Nassim Taleb’s book The Black Swan.  Taleb defines a “black swan event” as something both unlikely and unpredictable that has a huge impact within whatever area it occurs.  Part of the impact is due to the way we think about extremely unlikely events; most of us tend to equate “extremely unlikely” with “it will never happen.”  Thus, we fail to adequately prepare for extreme events, and the negative impact of the event is magnified.  We build levees strong enough to withstand 50 year storms, and a 100 year storm comes along.  We think we have an adequately balanced portfolio, and one bad month in the market wipes out half of our net worth.

One reason human beings have an optimistic bias (we tend to underestimate the chances of very bad things happening. and overestimate the chances of good things happening) is because it’s a drag to behave in any other way.  Taleb describes his own experience of taking bear positions in the market on behalf of his clients, and suffering chronic long-term stress as his positions are whittled away day after day.  Ultimately Taleb and his clients win big (the market crashes, they all get rich, and Taleb gets to say “I told you so”) but in the end Taleb concludes the stress isn’t worth it.  There have to be easier ways to make a living (Taleb seems to be doing fine as a writer/philosopher/tweeter these days).

Taleb also describes “positive black swans” — unlikely bouts of extreme good fortune.  He suggests a few ways we can increase our exposure to such events.  One suggestion is “dumbbell investing”; investing the bulk of your money in very secure investments and a good chunk in very speculative investments that have a chance of paying off handsomely (and avoiding more “middle of the road” investments like the S&P 500).  Another Taleb suggestion is “go to parties” (so you can meet new people, expose yourself to new ideas, create more connections in your life, etc.).

These are great suggestions.  I’d like to share a few more that have worked in my own life.

Create/Invent Exactly What You Want

If you can envision something that doesn’t yet exist, something you have a distinct need for, then you may be on to something.  If you can create it — whatever it is — and use it to positive effect (enjoyment, efficiency, whatever) then you might have something that could really take off.

Paul Graham discusses how this idea relates to technology startups in this essay, but there are ways to apply it beyond starting a company, or creating a product or service.  Following your own taste, rather than what you imagine other people will like, is also the best way to proceed in artistic pursuits.  This might sound obvious, but most entrepreneurs and artists don’t apply this principle.  Instead, they pander to what they believe the public wants, or what they believe will be a commercial success.  This strategy might slightly increase the odds of mild success in the short-term, but it will squash any chance of wild, break-out success (black swan success).  For that, you need to invent (or create) for yourself.

I'll DJ when I damn well please.

My music and business partner Spesh invented the concept for a party called Qoöl — an after-work electronic music happy hour.  Pounding club music at 5pm, really?  He chose a weekly time slot of Wednesday, 5-9pm, because it was personally convenient for him (he had a 9-5 job at the time, and wanted to have a weeknight when he could DJ immediately after work, somewhere close by in downtown San Francisco).  We partnered with the forward-thinking 111 Minna Gallery, and within a year we had a wild success on our hands.  Lines around the block every week, all via word-of-mouth.  Our weekly event at 111 Minna continued for fifteen years, and over that time we raised tens of thousands of dollars for charity (mostly The SETI Institute — we have our name on a telescope at the Allen Telescope Array), hosted hundreds of talented local and international DJ’s, and created the Qoöl event brand which continues to this day (these days we’ve been throwing the occasional party at the Project One Gallery).

Some people thought Spesh and I were “brilliant promoters.”  For a long time I thought we were just incredibly lucky.  Now, with hindsight, I think most of our success came from Spesh inventing an event that perfectly suited his own needs.  It turned out there were a lot of people who wanted to party right after work, without going home and changing their clothes.  A few hours of clubbing, mid-week, in a convenient, beautiful location, was something that thousands of young people in San Francisco turned out to want.

Invest In What You Enjoy Doing

“Follow Your Bliss” — you hear that often enough.  But what does it mean?  Some jump off the cliff, quitting their jobs and relying on personal savings and income from their fledgling business or artistic career (often to see the former evaporate quickly and the latter grow slowly).  There’s something to be said for that approach — committing 100% from the beginning — and once in awhile it succeeds.  And if it doesn’t, that’s not the end of the world — you can usually get back into the job market.

Another approach is to proceed gradually, consistently investing time and resources into whatever it is you enjoy doing, building skills, resources, connections, etc.  With this steady, gradual approach you might lose the fear-induced intensity that jumping into the deep end brings.  I’ve tried both approaches at various times in my life, with mixed results on both the cliff-jumping side and the more gradual approach.  While I haven’t yet reached the level of artistic success I aspire to (does anyone?) I do know that whatever time or money I’ve invested into music production and writing has paid off (in terms of enjoyment, financially, broadening of experience, and self-identity and self-worth).

1st keyboard, Roland D-70

In college I bought a $2500 keyboard (95% of my net worth at that time).  It sat, unused, in my dorm room for a few months until I learned to connect it to my Mac Plus (dating myself, I know).  My roommates thought I was crazy, or at least foolish.  I had no musical training beyond learning to play “Good King Wenceslas” on the recorder in elementary school.  Within a year I signed my first dance track (to Megatech records) and released my first EP (as “DJ JD”).  The record didn’t sell very well, but it was the start of a bootstrap music career (see Albums).  I got lucky, but I set myself up for luck by making a go of it.

What’s the takeaway?  If you’re lucky enough to have an activity that excites and inspires you, then put in the time and put in the money.  There’s zero risk if you enjoy the activity itself (the means is the end), and you expose yourself to the possibility of luck and success.  Success comes unevenly, so 99% of  your efforts might yield zero rewards.  But that 1% — the black swan event — can make it all worth it.

A special note on financial rewards; don’t underestimate the amount of money you can make by consistently investing in your “enjoyed activity” over time, and at the same time don’t underestimate how long it will take.  I often receive unexpected royalty and licensing revenue from tracks published five or ten years ago.  If you manage to create something of decent or above quality, but don’t have a high-powered international marketing campaign behind your product, it can take a long time to get noticed or yield any kind of tangible result.

Be Good To People

Obvious, but worth mentioning.  A near universal human trait is the desire to punish cheaters and assholes, matched by an equally strong desire to reward people who treat you decently.  This doesn’t mean you have to be nice all the time, or always be friendly (that sounds exhausting, doesn’t it?).  It just means you have to treat people fairly, and not be a dick.  The Golden Rule is the ultimate positive black swan generator.

How you treat others, not just your family and friends but everyone you have any kind of interaction with, is a source of black swan events, both negative and positive.  You never know when someone you’ve just met once or twice might put in a good word for you to the right person, thus leading to a great job, new relationship, or other major life event.  It can happen the other way too — nobody wants to date a bad tipper.

Have you heard the story about the guy that stopped to help a limo with a flat tire, and it turned out to be Donald Trump, and Trump paid the guy’s mortgage?  Well, according to snopes, it never happened — the story was a media stunt on the part of Trump’s PR team.  That’s too bad, because otherwise it would be a great anecdote to illustrate my point.

Low-Hanging Fruit Part III (Quality of Life)

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On May 13

In Metaprogramming

Full speed ahead towards all possible fantasy futures.

All of us, to different degrees, engage in imaginary narratives regarding our futures.  Imagination takes work, and most people (myself included) tend towards laziness, so these narratives are often fuzzy.  We have vague ideas about what we’ll do, where we’ll go, who we’ll meet, and so forth.  Sometimes these vague narratives lead us into action and fulfillment; other times they continue indefinitely, running parallel to the inertia of the reality of our lives.

Fear (of death, injury, disease, poverty, failure, loneliness, shame, or change itself) holds us back.  We postpone action for fear of what that action will cost us.  On the other hand, fear can also propel us; considering our own impermanence and limited time on this planet can kick us into gear.  Fear of where our current life trajectory will lead us, if we don’t change our direction, can be equally motivating.  To get to where we want to be, it’s usually necessary to take some risks, to put it on the line, to face our fears, and really go for it.

That’s not what this post is about.

There are other changes we can make in our lives — small changes — that can enormously influence our quality of life.  These changes often have zero (or close to zero) associated cost or risk.  How can we more easily identify these possible changes?  Simple, low-effort actions that result in big positive change are the low-hanging fruit of life (also see Low-Hanging Fruit Part I – Charity and Low-Hanging Fruit Part II – Health).  Implementing positive change can become a habit in itself; small changes can cascade into big changes.  If you’re not feeling geared up enough to turn your life upside down in your quest for greater satisfaction and happiness, you can always start small.

Immediately Actualizing Your Most Accessible Dreams

View from my flat in Paris.

Do you have any expensive fantasies?  Maybe you’d like to own a flat in Paris; you could jet in, stay for a week or two, reconnect with your French lover, and drink crates of obscenely expensive wine.  Maybe you’d like to own a baseball team.  Or perhaps you’re the private island type, or maybe you fancy yourself a space pilot or hot-air balloon circumnavigator, Richard Branson style.  Personally I would like to build a massive prehistoric garden, with Jurassic-era plants, fossil replicas, and maybe animatronic dinosaurs.

Aside from the prehistoric garden, lack of money usually isn’t what’s stopping me.  There are lots of things that we might fantasize about doing for years, or even decades, but keep putting off for no good reason.  We can afford it, we can make the time, and yet for some reason we don’t start.  I’m not sure why this is, but I know that when I can break through the inertia and just do the things I want to do, it’s immensely satisfying and results in a big quality of life jump.  For example:

  • The $2 espresso cup — I’ve always enjoyed drinking coffee out of an espresso cup, but I prefer the taste of drip coffee to espresso.  I bought myself a couple small espresso cups at IKEA for about $2 each, and I get immense pleasure every morning drinking drip coffee out of my little espresso cup.  The coffee stays hot, and I can drink an impressive six to eight cups each morning without feeling overcaffeinated.
  • Ferns — we bought some ferns and planted them.  I love ferns.  It’s not my dream garden yet, but $15 at the nursery went a long way towards helping me imagine my grandiose prehistoric garden.  Ancient plants — essentially unchanged for millions of years.  I love looking at those things.

    Just add dinosaurs.

  • Become a writer — a lifelong dream that I’ve only pursued in earnest since becoming a father.  What’s involved?  Writing every day, or at least most days.  That’s it.  Outside of pens and notebooks, costs are nonexistent.  I’d like to eventually find an agent and get published, but for the moment I’m happy writing and blogging (the latter counts as self-publishing, and the blog only took an hour or so to set up).  Why did I wait so long to start?
  • Live and work abroad — both Kia and I have wanted to do this for years, but it took us awhile to take the plunge.  We’re going to live and work in Costa Rica for six weeks.  We’re renting a house in the jungle, bringing our kid and our laptops, and getting on a plane.  How’s it all going to work out?  I have no idea — I’ll let you know.  But so far it looks like the cost of the trip will be similar to the cost of staying at home.  We don’t have to sell our house, uproot our lives, etc. — we’re just picking up and going for awhile.  If it works out well then maybe we’ll experiment with longer trips.  Reading The Four Hour Workweek definitely encouraged us to take the leap.

None of these changes involved any more risk than I would otherwise experience in daily life (in terms of safety, I live in Oakland and drive a car — is riding a bicycle in Costa Rica going to be more dangerous?).  What I lose in billable hours to writing, traveling, staring at my ferns, and drinking excessive amounts of coffee out of my little espresso cup will hopefully be made up by new ideas, new relationships, and passive income from royalties down the road (that may sound optimistic, but it has worked out that way for time I’ve spent writing and producing music, and I’m no musical genius).

What’s your easily accessible dream that you can immediately implement?  I’d like to know — please comment below.  I once asked an acquaintance what she would do if she won $20 million in the lottery.  She said she’d like to produce an off-Broadway production of the musical Hair.  What would that cost, $20K?  She didn’t mention what she’d do with the remaining $19,980,000.

Identify High Stress Areas — Reduce 10%

What’s the most stressful part of your week?  What activity, person, or place makes you tense your shoulders or gives you that uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach.  Is it traffic or your commute?  A co-worker?  Dealing with your financial accounts?

Is there a course of action you can take that can reduce the stress level by 10%?  This might not sound like much, but if you think about it in terms of a 10% quality-of-life improvement, it’s worth thinking about the problem.

For example, can you:

  • change your commute time to avoid traffic
  • negotiate a swap of tasks or chores with you co-workers or co-habitators so that you don’t have to do that job you hate (and vice-versa)
  • limit communication with your most high maintenance client/co-worker/customer
  • complete a task online instead of in-person (DMV, filing forms, etc.)
  • change your mode of communication around a contentious issue
  • become more accepting of other people’s behavior, and ask for more acceptance of your own behavior

In relationships (marriage, work, whatever) people have different stress levels around different topics.  Discussing some topics (money, future plans, child-rearing practices, etc.) might be easy for one person but stressful for the other.  The more sensitive party will find their heart rate increasing, their body tensing up, and other physical manifestations of stress when the topic is raised.  It’s important to not corner someone and force them into a conversation when they’re not ready, or allow yourself to be cornered when you’re not ready.  It’s acceptable to say “I don’t want to discuss this right now — can we discuss it at x time instead?”  Ambush conversations are a significant source of stress, and they’re easily avoidable.

In my own life, the demands of fatherhood can sometimes be a source of stress.  Like all parents, Kia and I have been forced to find ways to deal with the demands of small, vocal primate with limited table manners and even more limited self-sufficiency.  I in particular had a hard time adjusting to the absence of vast expanses of free time that used to dominate the landscape of my life and consciousness.  I’d chosen to make a living as a freelancer, forgoing the 9-to-5 lifestyle, mainly because it afforded me opportunities to read books in the middle of the day, stare at the trees for hours on end, and generally avoid people telling me what to do and when and how to do it.  Now a young creature, partly of my own making, charming but also demanding, was making mincemeat of my free time, peaceful sleep, and hard-won lounging about lifestyle.  Worse than a tyrannical boss!

I’ve managed to reclaim aspects of my preferred vacation-like existence, enough so that I’m generally quite happy.  The solution was straightforward; pay for and use more outside childcare than we actually needed.  This, combined with help from my daughter’s enthusiastic grandparents, allows me not only to maintain my sanity but to have enough free “space out” time so that I can spend time with my daughter without any feelings of resentment.  The extra expense requires more financial discipline in other areas, but buying myself more free time feels like money well spent.

Implementing this plan required some acceptance from Kia, which I asked for and she has generously given.  She has mentioned that she didn’t realize how important my “down time” (for entertainment, spacing out, doing nothing, etc.) was for my psychological well-being until there was real pressure on that time (and I turned into a miserable sod, for a while).

The alternative to analyzing and reducing your stress is lower quality of life, and eventually “Id Rebellion.”  If the landscape of your life is weighted too much towards what you experience as drudgery and toil, your subconscious mind will eventually grab the reins; you’ll find yourself acting out (drugs, excess drinking, shutting down emotionally, isolating yourself, gambling … insert your own variety of “bad behavior”).  This happens to everyone at one point or another, and we may or may not emerge unscathed.  I think a measured, analytical approach to stress reduction can mitigate episodes of Id Rebellion.

Internal Entitlement (not Enlightenment)

I’m not suggesting that we should live small; that we should be satisfied with eking out small pleasures in life.  If you hate your job, or if you have big relationship problems, then big change is a prerequisite to happiness.  And if you have big dreams then you should pursue them.  But small changes lead to big changes.  When we’re proactive, and take 100% responsibility for our own actions and experience of life (regardless of how much we can actually control), then positive change becomes habitual.  More and more we feel entitled to complete enjoyment of life.

This sense of internal entitlement — an allegiance to our own preferences — is different than expecting that the world owes us a living.  And it’s not the same as steamrolling people and insisting that we always get our way.  It is about finding out what makes you happy, and what doesn’t, and doing more of the former and less of the latter.

This simple way of living can be threatening to people that defer their own enjoyment of life for no good reason.  You might become a positive threat; your proactive attitude might be interpreted as a criticism of their own way of life.

However I think that’s probably the exception — most people in your life who notice you making changes will be inspired to make positive changes of their own (and those changes may then inspire you in turn, thus creating a positive feedback loop).

I’d love to hear about your own experiences in either of these areas — stress reduction and dream implementation.  What actions did you take and how did it affect your quality of life?

Pick the Low-Hanging Fruit, Part II (Health) — continued

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On April 15

In Health/Body-hacking, Metaprogramming

Berry berry yummy.

This post is a continuation of Pick the Low-Hanging Fruit, Part II (Health).

4. Reduce artificial light in the evening.

Are you sleep-deprived?  Do you “try to go to bed earlier” and fail, night after night?  I’ve been there.  If you enjoy browsing the internet or watching TV or playing video games or even just reading, you may, like many other people, fail to get sleepy in the evening (even when your body and mind are exhausted).  You know what’s keeping you up?  It’s the artificial light (blue spectrum light in particular).  At least according to this book, the blue light (equivalent to day light) is blocking the serotonin to melatonin conversion process — and the melatonin is the hormone/neurotransmitter that tells your body it’s time to go to sleep (and makes you feel sleepy).

I’d always thought of myself as a “night owl” until I tried an experiment; go without artificial light in the evening.  I found that without light bulbs, the TV, or the blue glow of the computer screen keeping me up, I would often be yawning by 9pm (otherwise my “natural” bedtime would be midnight or 1am).

The experiment I conducted was not easy.  But there are two very easy steps you can take in the same general direction.

  • use fewer lights in the evening — no need to have the whole house ablaze
  • download and install the free f.lux software on your computer — if you do then it won’t be your computer that’s keeping you up!

5. Exercise intensely 1-2 minutes a day, at least a few times a week.

All the latest exercise physiology research is pointing to these two general conclusions:

  • intensity (achieving maximum heart rate, lifting maximum weight) is more important than duration
  • less is more (recovery time is very important, over-training is very damaging)

If you really go for for that 1-2 minutes, you’re going to achieve MOST of the benefits in the following categories:

  • cardiovascular fitness (maximize heart rate)
  • strength (maximize weight lifted, move very slowly and with good form, stress muscles to the point where GH is released)
  • bone density  (especially with jumping or sprinting — both stress and thus strengthen the long bones)

What qualifies as intense?  Sprints, jumping and leaping, body-weight exercises (pullups, pushups, chinups, bar dips, etc.), carrying/lifting/pushing heavy objects, running up stairs — that sort of thing.  The best exercises are the ones that you actually enjoy doing — don’t bother with exercises that feel uncomfortable, boring, etc.

Most of the people flogging themselves in the gym aren’t improving their health.  Instead, they’re spiking their cortisol levels, stressing their joints, overburdening (and possibly enlarging) their hearts, and probably boring themselves to death in the process.

6. Floss before you brush.

My “floss every day” intention used to lead to flossing three or four times a week.  I would wait until right before going to sleep to brush my teeth, and half the time after brushing I would be too tired or lazy to floss.

Gum health is massively important for overall health.  Even mildly inflamed gums can raise your risk of heart disease (“leaky gums” are an open door for pathogens to waltz right into your bloodstream, thus giving your immune system a constant low-grade battle which can lead to chronic inflammation and the formation of arterial plaque).  Even knowing this, AND having a family history of both heart disease and gum problems, wasn’t enough to get me to religiously floss every day.

The trick that worked for me was switching the order.  I don’t think I’ve missed a day since.  Flossing doesn’t seem difficult anymore, because I’m not waiting until I’m exhausted to do it.  Even more important is anchoring the less ingrained habit (flossing) to a more ingrained habit (brushing).

One other thing I’ve noticed is that flossing is easier and faster if I’m not looking in the mirror.  Something about the visual feedback slows down the process — I can floss more quickly (and just as thoroughly) by touch alone.

The low-fat diet is just crazy.

7. Eat more fat.

In general, carbs (sugars and starches, including bread and pasta) cause the release of insulin, which lowers your blood sugar.  This makes you want to eat more carbs.  Eating dietary fat, on the other hand, leads to the sensation of fullness.  It’s easier to avoid overeating if you tilt the balance away from carbohydrates and towards healthful dietary fats.

There are a few types of dietary fat you want to avoid, including trans fats (hydrogenated vegetable oil), highly processed fats (like canola oil), old/rancid fats (processed vegetable and seed oils are especially vulnerable), and overheated vegetable/seed oils.  These oxidized fats can damage your health in a number of ways.

The good news is that most fats that are delicious are also health-promoting, including butter (especially from pastured cows), olive oil, coconut oil, fatty fish, chicken fat, and beef fat (again, especially from grass-fed/pastured cows).

Keeping a good ratio between Omega-3 fats (from wild-caught fish and grass-fed animal sources) and Omega-6 fats (from nuts and seeds, seed oils, and grain-fed animal sources) will support overall health, including immune function, heart health, mood, and blood sugar regulation.  Most people consume too much Omega-6 and not enough Omega-3.  Taking supplemental fish oil is the easiest way to improve this ratio (you can check out this site and this study to see which brands are best and which ones to avoid).  Keep fish oil refrigerated.

These days the prevailing wisdom says that we should avoid saturated fat to maintain optimum health and avoid heart disease, but the actual evidence behind this claim in extremely weak.  Most of the studies that claim saturated fat harms our health don’t control for intake of salt, refined flour, trans-fats, sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, and processed food.  For example, a typical dietary study might compare the health of people eating the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) to the Mediterranean diet — in other words hamburgers, hot dogs, white bread, corn oil, soda VS. fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, olive oil, beans, and whole grain. Conclusion: saturated fat is bad for you!  Really?  What about all the other junk on the S.A.D. side?  What about all the protective effects of the healthful foods on the Med side?  Studies like this don’t prove anything about saturated fat in particular.  Next time you see a headline that proclaims the evils of saturated fat, drill down and take a look to see what foods were actually being consumed by the study participants.

The original Ancel Keys “7 countries” study that got us collectively believing in the evils of saturated fat was based on cherry-picked (in effect, falsified) data.  Ancel Keys only included data from countries where both dietary saturated fat and heart disease were high — and left out data from countries where dietary saturated fat was high and heart disease was low.

The latest clinical research shows there is no relationship between eating saturated fat and getting heart disease.  Here’s the direct link to the meta-analysis.

For detailed discussions and numerous citations to the studies behind these assertions about dietary fat, I encourage you to explore Dr. Eades’s site and Mark Sisson’s site.  That is, if you like butter, and bacon.

Pick the Low Hanging Fruit, Part II (Health)

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On April 12

In Health/Body-hacking, Metaprogramming

A small serving of fruit.

In my first post in this series I wrote about “low-hanging fruit” in regards to charitable giving.  I shared my opinions regarding which organizations are working effectively and transparently to improve people’s lives by tackling big problems with relatively straightforward solutions.

Today I’ll write about applying the same “low-hanging fruit” principle to personal health.  What steps can we take to improve our health, energy, longevity, and vitality that aren’t that hard? Why not start with the easy stuff?

Personal health regimens often appear to be complicated and difficult, but I think that for most of us there are easy steps we can take that can radically improve our health.

1. Get your vitamin D levels up to between 40-60 ng/ml.
Up to two-thirds of people in the U.S. have “sub-optimal” levels of vitamin D — not low enough to result in rickets but low enough to increase vulnerability to certain types of cancer, reduce bone density, reduce immunity, and negatively affect more or less every organ in the body.  If you’re curious, search for the studies online and read the opinions of various medical experts.  Quite a few doctors and researchers have A LOT to say about this topic, and there is no shortage of clinical research.

My personal experience of taking 5000IU a day (I take one 5000IU capsule a day, along with fish oil or sometimes cod liver oil) over this last winter is the following:

  • deeper, more restful sleep
  • general better mood (very little “feeling down” and frequent “happiness for no discernible reason”)
  • no serious colds and no flu (a couple times this winter I felt almost sick for a couple days, but never “full blown”)
  • cessation of asthma symptoms (most of my asthma symptoms went away after switching to something more closely resembling a paleolithic diet, but I don’t think I’ve had a single flare-up since starting on the vitamin D)

I’m also impressed by the inverse relationship between vitamin D levels and many types of cancer.  I’ll get my blood level checked at my next checkup and see what the results are … if they’re above 60 ng/ml I’ll back off on the supplementation as there can be negative effects from blood levels that are too high.  However some doctors say that keeping levels as high as 60-90 ng/ml is ideal.

A full winter’s supply of vitamin D shouldn’t cost you more than $20 or $30.  One pill a day if you take the 5kIU size, and it’s no big deal if you miss a day.  You also want to make sure you’re getting enough calcium (sardines, canned salmon, dairy, greens, almonds) and magnesium (greens, cocoa/dark chocolate, nuts and seeds, beans) in your diet.

If 5000IU seems high (it looks high compared to the U.S. RDA), consider that 20 minutes of sun on your bare skin can generate up to 20,000IU (depending on a number of factors, including how tan or naturally dark you are, time of year, time of day, latitude, how much skin is exposed, etc.).  You generally get enough vitamin D from the sun before you burn (vitamin production shuts down so you can’t get too much this way).

2. Start consuming green tea, dark chocolate, and/or red wine on a regular basis.

C’mon, you’ve got to enjoy at least one of these flavors, no?  While pill-form antioxidants have come up short in clinical studies, regular consumers of these three antioxidant-packed foods show lower risk for heart disease, cancer, and dementia.  The relatively low amounts of sugar, caffeine, and alcohol in these foods will do you less harm than the polyphenols will do you good.

If you find the taste of green tea to be too bitter, you’re probably brewing it wrong.  Get loose-leaf tea from China, quickly rinse it with very hot water (not quite boiling), then brew it for as short a time as 30 seconds.  Brewing too long or using fully boiling water can result in a bitter taste (though both methods will also increase polyphenol content, so you have to find a balance).

In terms of red wine, this page presents a good overview of which varietals contain the highest levels of polyphenol antioxidants.

With chocolate, the processing method can remove many of the healthful antioxidants.  I like to make hot cocoa out of minimally processed “raw cacao” (I don’t know what’s up with the funny spelling — that’s why I put it in quotes).  There are several brands but I’ve been buying the Navitas brand for awhile and I like the taste.  For one mug I use about 2T of the unsweetened powder and 1t sugar, boiling water, and a little whole milk.

3. Hang out more with your friends.

Commenting on your friends’ FB status updates doesn’t count.  But real social networks, the kind where you actually hang out and do stuff (or even just sit around and gossip) with your friends, is associated with longevity, lower blood pressure, reduced stress, lower risk of depression, and all kinds of good stuff.  And it makes life more fun.

If your “friends” like doing meter-long rails of cocaine, rows of Jager-bombs, crime, or extreme vertical-cliff snowboarding, this one might not apply.  Find a good Settlers of Catan group or something.

Coming up next …

I’ve been advised to keep my posts shorter if I want to keep your attention, so I’ll save 4-7 for the next post.

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