Paleo Baby

Clay is the fourth-generation owner of a Tennessee funeral home and never was there a guy more invested in his future health. Originally Clay approached me for help with tackling a yeast overgrowth, and boy, have we come a long way since then!  Listen to the audio or read the transcript for the full story as Clay's is an interesting and unusually complex case. Charging a friend money for something you'd happily do for fun is strange and difficult. We worked together as peers, and I couldn't be happier with the results.  No surprises that Clay is doing Bryan's Metabolic Fitness Pro biochemistry course. I think you should too. 

Dr. Grace Liu, PharmD, AFMCP, is a functional medicine practitioner with an international functional medicine practice that includes nutritional consultations, integrative laboratory analysis, and personalized counseling. I first became aware of her work last summer at the Ancestral Health Symposium where she presented the idea of an ancestral core microbiota. Over the past couple of years, I've been lucky enough to meet many gut experts. Dr. Liu is the first that can review a bacterial taxonomy from a fecal sample and give a meaningful research and practice orientated narrative. The taxonomy I have came from the results of taking part in the American Gut Project. A faster way to get hold of the data is uBiome. These tests are great if you're feeling pretty good. If you have any chronic health complaint, you will be better off first doing a test like the BioHealth 401H or Doctor's Data comprehensive stool analysis with parasitology. Dr. Liu's blog and podcast are fantastic resources for anyone interested in b

We're throwing it back this week! Join Chris and Julie as they share a look back at the first year of Nourish Balance Thrive. The good, the bad, and the up and coming. See what happens when you change careers, start a new business, have a baby, and try to make it all work. Chris shares his story and walks you through what makes using this program so successful. Encouraging stories, business nuts and bolts, and ideas for the future, come along for a look back at an exciting year with Nourish Balance Thrive. 

Jordan Bryden is a gifted young triathlete from Alberta in Canada who came to me looking for help. In 2005, Jordan won the Canadian Junior National Championships and has since gone on to compete as an elite athlete. Now age 28, Jordan suffers from fatigue and insomnia and feels like his recovery is much slower than in his younger years. I'm certain that this is not just about getting older, and together we plan to use functional lab work to identify the underlying cause of the problem. This first interview covers some of Jordan's history, complaints, and challenges. Using a home saliva test, we measured Jordan's cortisol, DHEA, estrogen, progesterone, melatonin, and testosterone. We found hypocortisolism (full paper), also known as adrenal fatigue syndrome. The question is why? The plan is to continue the investigation with urinary organic acids, stool and blood testing. Click here to view Jordan’s results in PDF format. Are you a triathlete suffering from fatigue and insomnia? Book a free consultation and I’

Last July, Julie, Ivy and me left the East Bay and moved to Santa Cruz, a lovely town on the ocean and in the redwood trees. We love it, but ever since Mission Heirloom opened their new garden cafe in Berkeley, Julie has been finding reasons to make the 70-mile journey back home. If you ever get the chance to visit Mission Heirloom, you'll understand why. The level of care taken over the facilities and preparation is unlike anything I've ever seen before, and the food is out of this world. Better yet, it's portable, so if you live in the Bay Area you owe yourself this pleasure. In a nutshell, Yrmis Barroeta, co-founder says: Mission Heirloom is our intent to create a platform for people to carry on their health journey and elevate joy, elevate food and elevate performance. Everybody is different. Everybody has different dietary requirements. And we're here to support that. We believe that there should be different diets for different people, and that's what we're trying to provide. It's a safe space where peo

Streptococcal pharyngitis (strep throat) is a type of pharyngitis caused by a group A streptococcal bacterial infection. We’ve had a lot of people writing in to ask if they should be taking antibiotics to treat their strep throat. The concern has been more about the about the long term harm done by the overuse of antibiotics, but the potential complications of strep throat are serious. Knowing whether or not your sore throat is being caused by the streptococcal bacteria is key to determining treatment. During this podcast, Dr Busch mentions the 4 Centor criteria: (1) history of fever, (2) tonsillar exudates, (3) no cough, and (4) tender anterior cervical lymphadenopathy (lymphadenitis). Do you have a question for Dr Busch? Send it to chris@nourishbalancethrive.com  

Christian Calma is a Research Coordinator, and Dr. Les Dethlefsen is a staff scientist in the Relman Lab at Stanford University. Dr. Dethlefsen studies the microbiota of the human gut, focusing on how it varies over time, and on what happens when it's disturbed when we take antibiotics or change our diet. I'm taking part in their study to further the cause and our understanding of how changes in the microbiota relate to changes in our health. I'm also excited about having all the data--80 samples over 34 weeks. There are three arms of the trial. The first will have no perturbations; the second will receive antibiotics (ciprofloxacin), and the third (my arm) will supplement with resistant starch and Go-Lytely® solution. The resistant starch should build the microbiota up, and the solution should knock it back down. You can find out more about the trial over at the Dynamics of the Human Microbiota website, and you can find out if you're eligible to take part by completing their online survey.

Equilibrium is a probiotic supplement that restores the dietary microbes lost as a by-product of widespread food sterilization. The product is a direct offshoot of research done at the NIH’s Human Microbiome Project, a $115 million dollar census of humanity’s gut flora. The data tells a clear story: as a society our digestive flora is dying off, and this lack of diversity has causal links to western stomach issues. Using a data-driven approach, General Biotics identified the groups of bacteria that are commonly missing from western microbiomes. GB then worked backwards from these data to locate missing dietary microbes that provide the needed function. In this episode, David Salamon, CEO of General Biotics and I mention: The American Gut Project Commensal bacteria protect against food allergen sensitization

Something a bit different for you this week. I want to talk the liver and some markers on a standard blood chemistry that can help predict the onset of fatty liver and Type 2 diabetes. Maybe you've noticed that your fasted blood glucose is consistently above 85 mg/dL. This elevation could be because your liver is not getting the message that there's sufficient glucose and is continually making it via a process called gluconeogenesis. The first paper I mention is Liver transplantation for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: New challenges and new opportunities. Pull out your old blood work and have a look at these two markers: ALT is an enzyme present in high concentrations in the liver and to a lesser extent skeletal muscle, the heart, and kidney. ALT will be liberated into the bloodstream following cell damage or destruction. Any condition or situation that causes damage to the hepatocytes will cause a leakage of ALT into the bloodstream. These would be exposure to chemicals, viruses (viral hepatitis, mononucl

Dan is an entrepreneur and researcher whose life’s work is how to facilitate health behaviors in others. He is the developer of Loop Model to Sustain Health Behaviors to help people live a healthy lifestyle in a modern world. He does research in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department at Stanford and the Departments of Neurology and Endocrinology at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Follow him @dansplanhealth. I've wanted to get Dan on the show since attending the Ancestral Health Symposium in Berkeley last summer and seeing the compelling presentation How Quantified Self Technologies Will Help Us Live More Like Our Ancestors. Dan talked about how education alone may not be enough to enable someone to make a change and improve their health. Up until now education is most of what I do. I find problems with lab work, most of which is due to poor diet and lifestyle choices, and then I try to education the person so that the problem doesn't happen again. A better way would be to also give that perso

Paul Jaminet, Ph.D was an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, became a software entrepreneur during the Internet boom, and now provides strategic advice to entrepreneurial companies while pursuing research in economics. Paul’s experience overcoming a chronic illness has been key to his views of aging and disease. Paul and I started by discussing the birth of their new baby Luke, and since I have a 15-month old daughter, I got sleep envy. I regularly use LED lighting to entrain circadian rhythm but I realise I could be doing more of the same for our daughter Ivy. Paul then announced that he's working on a cookbook. Next we talked about the Perfect Health Retreat, which frankly sounds awesome. The retreat caters for every aspect of diet and lifestyle including diet, rest, exercise and stress reduction. It's a learning experience woven into a beach holiday. I was interested in Paul's experience dealing with chronic infections because I too had the same problem. Now I see it everyda

Mickey Trescott is a cook and one of the bloggers behind Autoimmune Paleo. After recovering from her own struggle with both Celiac and Hashimoto’s disease, adrenal fatigue, and multiple vitamin deficiencies, Mickey started to write about her experience to share with others and help them realize they are not alone in their struggles. She is a certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner by the Nutritional Therapy Association, and is the author of The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook, a guide and recipe book for the autoimmune protocol. You also can find her on Instagram, or on her book tour. Mickey and I have a lot in common. We both suffered a health crisis; we both are sensitive to gluten, and both had thyroid issues. The good news is that using a combination of the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) and functional medicine we've both made a full recovery. You can too! You can read the full version of Mickey's story, from asthma to Hashimoto's thyroiditis over on her blog. I first discovered her book using the Google search "

New Year's resolutions suck. Why wait to make a change? But still, we know that accountability is important, and if everyone makes a change all at the same time then there's added accountability. In order to achieve your goal, you must first break it down into manageable steps. The first steps are planning. If the step requires not doing something, raise the barrier to entry. For example, if you want to avoid a particular food, don't keep it in the house. If there's something you want to do more often, lower the barrier to entry. TRX and kettlebells are great for lowering the barrier to working out. If you don't have a resolution, consider tracking your heart rate variability (HRV). Joining our Clinical Rounds program will be helpful for two reasons. First, we'll be there each week on a webinar to answer your questions. Second, there's added accountability--we care and want to know if our recommendations work! Image credit.

Health and athletic performance have been a passion of mine since early adulthood. For the first 17 years or so, all my ideas were all dead wrong. Low-fat, high-carb, vegetarianism, polyphasic sleep. All terrible ideas. Then came the Paleo diet and lifestyle and with it success. Now I think I'm less likely to be dead wrong, and more likely to be incomplete. Katy Bowman is a witty writer I've been following for several years. I wrote to Katy her telling her about Nourish Balance Thrive and how her ideas might help me to do a better job as a coach. Katy is unique in her analysis of movement and how it affects genetic expression and cellular life. Quite possibly a missing piece! With radical, science-based health directives, Katy is taking the health-and-wellness world by storm with her bold “exercise is not movement” platform. A biomechanist by training and a problem-solver at heart, she has helped thousands reduce chronic pain, increase bone density, and improve metabolic health through movement and proper ali

Bike fit has a massive problem that's best illustrated with an example. The first time I had a fit done, I found myself wearing a plastic wedge in between my cleat and the pedal to correct the discrepancy between the length of my legs. The bike fitter did his very best to make me fit the bicycle. The bike fit process reminds me a lot of the experience I had with my primary care doctor. Rather than asking why my legs were a different length, the fitter just addressed the symptom with a plastic wedge. The wedge was all well and good until I needed to wear a mountain bike shoe, and then I ran into all sorts of problems. Leg length discrepancies that are the result of the bone being of a different length are surprisingly rare. The cause of the problem lies in the soft tissue and can often be fixed using some simple exercises. Nigel McHollan is a biomechanics coach from Edinburgh in Scotland. Unfortunately, in order for Nigel to help you're going to have to see him at least once in person. The mountain biking is g

In this episode, registered nurse Amelia, food scientist Julie and me discuss protein. Protein is fascinating for a million different reasons; not enough eventually leads to muscle wasting, too much to an inefficient conversion to glucose.  How much protein should you be eating? What type? When? Unfortunately, we can't answer those questions but we can certainly guide you through some self-experimentation to find out. Amino aicds are the building blocks of protein. Certain amino acids are gluconeogenic, meaning they can enter the citric acid cycle and be converted into malate and pyruvate and then glucose. Others are ketogenic and convert into acetyl-CoA and then ketone bodies. Many amino acids are both ketogenic and gluconeogenic! It's complicated, but know that the branched-chain amino acids  leucine, isoleucine and valine are the most ketogenic, and you should favour them for the purposes of athletic performance. Branched-chain amino acids have been shown to increase the effectiveness of the ketogenic diet

Dr. Seth Oberst uses a holistic, progressive approach to human movement patterns and their impact on sport and function. Dr. Oberst received his Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from Ohio University and has undergone extensive training through an APTA-credentialed Sports Residency. He has presented on motor control topics at national conferences for clinician scientists, provided continuing education for healthcare professionals, and regularly consults with fellow coaches and physiotherapists. Currently practicing in South Carolina, Seth focuses on performance-based sports medicine with an emphasis on returning individuals to elite-level sport and function. Dr. Oberst uses a movement-based, neuroscience-centric treatment approach combining manual therapy and progressive strength and conditioning techniques. His clients include collegiate, professional, and Olympic athletes in both team and individual sports; competitive age-division and Masters athletes as well as power lifting and CrossFit competitors. He a

Kelly Starrett is a coach, physical therapist, author, speaker, and creator of mobilitywod.com, a site that has revolutionized how athletes think about human movement and athletic performance. Together with TJ Murphy, Kelly has co-authored a new book Ready to Run. I'm not a runner (or am I--listen to find out more) but I enjoyed the book immensely. Think of it as the instruction manual for the human body part I: movement. I don't care if you're a swimmer or cyclist, there's something here for you. It's also pleasingly manageable in its size and complexity, something I appreciated after Becoming a Supple Leopard. In this interview, you'll discover the 12 standards that will keep you running and free of injury.

Introducing Amelia, the newest member of the Nourish Balance Thrive team. Amelia is a registered nurse working with a very sick population in Utah. Disenchanted with the medical system, Amelia came to functional medicine partly through her own health struggles. A low fat, traditional standard American diet lead to constant hunger, and initially Amelia got good results switching to the Atkins diet. I thought this was really interesting because Amelia was never looking to lose weight, in fact she has always struggled with the opposite. The ah-ha moment came after discovering saliva hormone testing via Sean Croxton and Dr Kalish. Amelia was suffering from depressed cortisol and a Giardia gut infection and correcting these issues lead to the health improvements that inspired her to become a certified practitioner. I will be forever grateful to the Robb Wolf podcast for giving me the opportunity for Amelia to find us, and she will be working remotely to help anyone looking to improve their health or athletic perfo

Hal Elrod is a #1 bestselling author, international Keynote Speaker, hall of fame business achiever, one of America’s top Success Coaches, national champion Sales Manager, record-breaking Sales Rep, ultra-marathon runner, grateful husband & proud father. Wow, that's a lot to live up to and live up to it he did. I enjoyed this conversation with Hal; his genuine enthusiasm is something I admire greatly. Hal is a wonderful salesman, and frankly by the end of this conversation I couldn't wait to hang up and check out miraclemorning.com to download the two free chapters. If, like me, you're already sold, head over to Amazon and buy a copy of the book. How did I do as an interviewer? Email me and let me know!