Top Five Habits for a Healthier Life

If you’re still eating three meals a day — morning, noon and night — you’re missing out on one of the most powerful, free health interventions available. TRE involves limiting your eating window to six to eight hours per day instead of the more than 12-hour window most people use.

When you eat throughout the day and never skip a meal your body adapts to burning sugar as its primary fuel, resulting in the downregulation of enzymes that utilize and burn stored fat.^12,13 As a result, you become progressively more insulin resistant and start gaining weight. When you’re metabolically unfit, your body primarily relies on glucose, or sugar, as fuel, instead of using fat as a primary fuel.

Even though the fat is there in abundance, your body doesn’t have the metabolic capacity to access it. For most people, surplus fuel stored in your body is stored in the form of fat. However, no one has more than about two days’ worth of sugar stored in their tissues. This is why when you first start fasting, and you’re unable to access your fat stores, you’ll quickly exhaust your sugar stores and can experience low blood sugar.

It’s not that you don’t have the fuel to generate, because your body can make sugar itself, but that process takes a while to ramp up and, as a result, most people get relatively hypoglycemic when they first start using TRE. You may experience dizziness and fatigue as a result, which are signs that you’re not metabolically flexible. If you were, your body would have more than enough capacity to produce all the fuel you need to keep your brain happy and healthy.¹⁴

TRE promotes insulin sensitivity and improves blood sugar management by increasing insulin-mediated glucose uptake rates,¹⁵ which is important for resolving Type 2 diabetes. Another study revealed that eating all meals between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. — instead of between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. — resulted in greater metabolic flexibility, reduced hunger and increased sense of fullness, resulting in weight loss.¹⁶

Ideally, you’ll want to stop eating for three to five hours before bedtime, then start your eating window in mid- to late morning after you wake up. Most people reading this can benefit from embracing TRE; however, it isn’t recommended for people who are underweight, pregnant or breastfeeding. You also need to use caution if you’re taking certain medications, such as those for blood pressure or blood sugar.¹⁷

Interestingly, when you’re metabolically inflexible and unable to use fat for fuel, your body generates a molecule called acetyl-CoA when it’s breaking down fats — and that happens to be one of the cofactors for your body making melatonin.

So when you’re metabolically inflexible, your body produces far less melatonin in the mitochondria where you need it, because that’s where almost all the damage that causes cancer is caused — due to oxidative stress from the process of generating energy within the mitochondria.¹⁸

4. Exercise often — Exercise is probably the single most important “drug” we know of, and it’s a powerful intervention to prevent Alzheimer’s, among other chronic diseases. One of the most comprehensive studies to date of the molecular changes that occur in your body due to exercise provided an unprecedented glimpse into the details of the body’s physiological response.

It demonstrated that “an orchestrated choreography of biological processes” occur, including those related to:¹⁹

• Energy metabolism
• Oxidative stress
• Inflammation
• Tissue repair
• Growth factor response

In all, 17,662 molecules were measured, 9,815 of which changed in response to exercise, with some going up and others going down. Certain molecules also spiked immediately after exercise then quickly dropped, while others remained heightened for an hour.

“It was like a symphony,” study author Michael Snyder, Ph.D., professor and chair of genetics at Stanford University, told The New York Times. “First you have the brass section coming in, then the strings, then all the sections joining in.”²⁰

Even weekend warriors who pack 150 minutes of exercise into two days enjoy lower all-cause and cause-specific mortality rates,²¹ although I encourage you to make exercise a priority on most days of the week instead. Along with the well-known benefits to your heart, exercise is protective for your brain.

If you know you’re at increased risk of dementia, for instance if a close family member has been diagnosed, it’s even more important to adhere to a regular exercise program. In seniors who are at high risk of dementia, cognitive decline can be reduced with a comprehensive program addressing diet, exercise, brain training, and managing metabolic and vascular risk factors.²²

Exercise initially stimulates the production of a protein called FNDC5, which in turn triggers the production of BDNF, or brain-derived neurotrophic factor. In your brain, BDNF not only preserves existing brain cells,²³ but also activates brain stem cells to convert into new neurons and effectively makes your brain grow.

Research confirming this includes a study in which seniors aged 60 to 80 who walked 30 to 45 minutes, three days per week, for one year and increased the volume of their hippocampus by 2%.²⁴ Higher fitness levels were also associated with a larger prefrontal cortex.

5. Protect yourself from EMFs — Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are the cigarettes of the 21st century — and most people are being exposed 24 hours a day. Most of the radiation emits from cellphones, cell towers, computers, smart meters and Wi-Fi, to name just a few of the culprits. Exposure causes serious mitochondrial dysfunction due to free radical damage. Among the most common consequences of chronic EMF exposure to your brain are:²⁵

• Alzheimer’s
• Anxiety
• Autism — One of my longtime mentors, Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, has linked autism in children to excessive EMF exposure during pregnancy²⁶
• Depression

EMFs may also play a role in heart issues and infertility.²⁷ Research conducted by the National Toxicology Program (NTP)²⁸ also found “clear evidence” that exposure to cellphone radiation led to heart tumors in the male rates, along with “some evidence” that it caused brain and adrenal gland tumors in the rats.²⁹

While it’s nearly impossible to avoid EMF exposure completely, there are practical ways to limit it. Given the number of EMFs that bombard you all day long, getting educated about the negative effects of EMFs is imperative to your well-being. Particularly if you are dealing with a serious illness, it is well worth your time to reduce your EMF exposure as much as possible.

One strategy is to connect your desktop computer to the internet via a wired connection and put your desktop — and cellphone — in airplane mode. Also avoid wireless keyboards, trackballs, mice, game systems, printers and house phones. Opt for the wired versions. If you must use Wi-Fi, shut it off when not in use, especially at night when you’re sleeping. Shutting off the electricity to your bedroom at night will also help reduce your exposure.

I encourage you to embrace all of these protective strategies that support optimal health. These are just a start, as there are many others, such as use of a near-infrared sauna, that will also protect your health and lower all-cause mortality.

But remember, you don’t have to implement them all overnight. With each small step you take to reduce a toxic exposure or add a health-protective element — like more sun exposure — to your day, the better your health will become.

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