Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS

Throughout the pandemic, I have learned or relearned that people tend to form their political positions based on tribal talking points and take positions with passion and conviction, regardless of the facts. This has been made very clear through the pandemic, and it is a deeply human thing at least in our society to pick a tribe and stick with it.
 
Transcript: "So the question is, what is the one thing you've learned throughout this pandemic? I don't know if it's so much learned as confirmed. But what I have seen in real time, what I have learned again or confirmed is How Deeply people attached to their tribe and take positions based on the tribal talking points and ra Boom to advance arguments with passion and conviction. That are relatively fact free or independent effects. Some facts, maybe write some may not be but the narratives that we tell ourselves about things and the pandemic is just a real time example of this and you know, at Defcon speed. What we tell ourselves a narrative that we make up really has more to do with our own social constructs about reality than they do with what's happening on the ground. I've always said this is always been my conviction and I guess that's why I say, I'm relearning it through the pandemic. My convictions always been that your political positions have much less to do with Republican versus Democratic talking points and everything to do with who beat you up in Middle. I think that we form our narratives on, largely emotional and historical reasons. And then we find lots of facts and data that will support that narrative. And I think I've never seen it more clearly in my lifetime in real time. Then with this pandemic and it's kind of sad because the more tribal we get and the more divided we get the harder. It's going to be the bridge that Gap and come back together. So I'm very concerned about that. But I'd say that, that is the lesson I took from this pandemic that if I thought it was all theoretical before the people, just have confirmation bias and these are just constructs that you know, psychologists come up with. I think that I've been disabused of that notion through my experience with the pandemic, the tribalism, the animosity, the other is ation of anybody who doesn't agree 100% with whatever you believe. And how malleable the truth really is the best book that I ever read. My favorite book of all time is sapiens. And here's the 15, second summary of sapiens. Whoever wins the war gets to write the history. The objective facts don't matter as much as the narrative that you make out of them, and who's in charge, and who has the biggest. His megaphone gets to say what the narrative is and that's just been very very clear to me throughout this pandemic and two other things as well. But that's the lesson that I took home. We kind of live in a post truth Society. This is true for both sides. By the way. They the cockamamie arguments. I appeared on both sides of this. The people who are pro, the policy of the government. People who have problems with the policies of the government are both. Will do this and it is just I guess a deeply human thing at least in our society to pick that tribe and I'm going to stick with it. No matter what and that's kind of what I've been saying and it's not made me very happy. That's my answer."

Eating sugar is not a healthy choice, regardless of activity level. It can lead to metabolic damage that increases the risk for chronic diseases.
 
Transcript: "How unhealthy is it to eat much sugar? While being active look, sugar is not a healthy substance to ingest. It has nothing to do with what they were active or not. I think what you're asking is based on the notion that oh, I'll burn it off. You know that I'm taking in these empty calories but it doesn't matter because I'm going to be so active. All burn it off, it really has nothing to do with burning it off. It has to do with the metabolic effects of sugar which is to raise blood sugar, raise insulin in many Cases lead to insulin resistance, which is a metabolic plague that underlines just about every major chronic disease. So it's the metabolic damage that you do to your body with sugar. Not the ability to burn it off by being very active. That isn't the criteria by which we judge, whether or not sugar is dangerous."

To improve your gut microbiome, avoid eating inflammatory foods, consume a wide variety of both real and fermented foods, and supplement with pre and probiotics.
 
Transcript: "What's the best way to improve your gut microbiome? Great question, I'm going to give you a quick three-point program to do just that first is to stop making user Errors By which, I mean stop doing the things that screws up the microbiome in the first place and that means consuming inflammatory foods. We could talk for an hour about what that is. Go online Forbes Magazine, just did a great article online, the six, most inflammatory foods in the American diet, it's a pretty good article. You can find a Anywhere, take those Foods out, those are the processed ones. Those are the ones that cause leaky gut and inflammation, all the rest of it. The second thing is, is to consume a wide variety of foods. All the studies that look at the microbiome, say that the more variety of foods you get the better and more diverse the microbiome ecology is and you want to include in that variety of foods. Not only real foods but fermented foods as well. Not the fermented aren't real but you want to concentrate on real foods not processed And you want to get lots of fermented foods in there. And the third thing, the third point would be to supplement with pre and probiotics. So if you do those three things, I think will be well on the way to having a healthy microbiome."

Fasting has many benefits including weight loss, increased energy, gut healing, reducing risk of chronic disease, and reversing insulin resistance. I recommend people do time-restricted eating or intermittent fasting and there is a free 5-day video course on my website Jonny Bowden.com.
 
Transcript: "So, the question was, what are the top benefits of fasting? Well, it's a fairly long list. I'll give you the short version of it weight loss, which is for me, not the primary reason to do fasting, but it certainly is the main attraction for a lot of people who get interested in fasting. Certainly increased energy, increased healing of the gut leaky gut and inflammation in general. It's very anti-inflammatory to too fast or do time restricted eating. And the lowering of risk for chronic disease, that's in the litter. Should have peer-reviewed articles on the lowering of risk, as a result of intermittent fasting, detoxification in the sense of really deep cellular cleaning a process called or topology, which takes place after about a 24-hour fast, maybe a little bit longer, some people claim, you can get a little bit about top of G even during intermittent fasting. But the point is, you do get it and you get it as a result of not eating. And finally, the thing that I think is probably the most important thing of all. Because I'm on a mission to educate people about this condition is that fasting can reverse or prevent or treat insulin resistance. And I'm so passionate about this particular benefit of fasting, because I think that insulin resistance is at the heart of every chronic disease. We know of, we talked about it, the great cholesterol, a myth, its tracks with heart disease, way more than cholesterol. Does it? Finds all the comorbidities for covid. It underlies, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, pre diabetes, diabetes. Obesity, heart disease. Alzheimer's, insulin resistance is a big issue in 88 percent of Americans, have some degree of it, some degree of insulin resistance. So anything that we can use to turn insulin resistance around to prevent it or to treat it or to prevent its damage is a really important intervention and fasting. Meets that criteria. So, for all those reasons, weight loss, detoxification more energy, healing of leaky gut, reduction of risk of chronic disease and the reversal of insulin resistance. For all those reasons. I recommend very highly that people do some form of time restricted eating or intermittent fasting and there's a free course. It doesn't cost a penny on my website, an introduction to intermittent fasting. It's a five-day short, video course. Just go to my website, Jonny Bowden.com and sign up for it and you'll get it for free. And and listen to that information because really fasting is an amazing intervention. So if you're thinking about doing it, I recommend that you do."

Most of us aren't optimally hydrated, and the amount of water we need is probably more than we think. You can calculate how much water you need per 20 minutes by dividing your weight in pounds by 30. Dehydration also triggers a pathway in the body called the Paulino pathway that makes fat, so it is better to consume too much water than too little.
 
Transcript: "The question is, is there a good way to know whether or not you're hydrated? Not a great way, but assume you're not. And the reason I say this is I just finished doing a video about water and hydration and its relationship to wait and its relationship to brain health and I can tell you the news isn't good. Most of us are not optimally hydrated and the amount of water we need to be. So is probably more than we think it is Andrew huberman who I have great. But for the neurologist and, and and tenured faculty at Stanford says about this, that the brain does not perform. Well when it's not hydrated, and that you need as much water for brain function for really intense concentrated projects and things where you're really putting all your brain power into it that requires as much water as exercise and the formula for that. Don't shoot the messenger. Is you take your weight, your divided by 30 my weights. Around 150. So I divided by 3. I get 5. That's the number of ounces. You need to consume every 20 minutes during really either strenuous exercise or strenuous mental exercise. The other thing about dehydration is more bad news. Is it actually triggers a pathway in the body called the Paulino pathway? That makes fat. The bottom line is you don't want the user error of being under hydrated and better too much than too little Of us are consuming too little water."

High-fat diets work because they eliminate fructose, which is linked to fat gain, and don't raise insulin, the fat-storing hormone.
 
Transcript: "So the question is, how can a high fat diet help you lose weight. It's a very reasonable question. If you've been brought up in the nutrition, dogma of the past, 40 years that says fat makes you fat, but it doesn't. And the reason that a high fat, low carb diet, not only helps you lose weight, but it is more metabolically. Healthy is number one. It doesn't contain. The number one ingredient that makes us fat and that is fructose. So we don't have truck toes. To trigger an entire fat, making mechanism in our body. And the second thing that a high-fat diet doesn't do, is it doesn't raise insulin which is the fat storage hormone. So when we all thought it was about calories, we were sitting there as if our bodies would like a you could figure it out with an adding machine just calories in calories out but those calories actually. Trigger hormones and hormones. Are what make us fat or make us lose weight or make us put on muscle or do many? Name, any other things that we need them to do. So the high fat diet, gets rid of the fructose to yuge factor, and it doesn't raise the fat storing hormones. That's why high-fat diets work."