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READERS SUMMARY:

1.  CIRCADIAN BIOLOGY NEEDS TO BE YOUR BIGGEST CONCERN AND NOT YOUR FOOD

2. WHY HAVING AN EVOLUTIONARY ADVANCED BRAIN MAYBE A DETRIMENT AT TIMES

3. THINK ABOUT WHY YOU FEEL AND THINK THE WAY YOU DO BEFORE YOU DO SOMETHING

4. THINK ABOUT WHAT IS SAFE BEFORE YOU EAT IT

5. CHANGING YOUR PERSPECTIVE MAY OPEN YOUR MIND TO NEW POSSIBILITIES FOR YOUR STALLS

 

Circadian biology is so fundamental to sleep and metabolism but few people realize just how important it really is.  It is more important than your macro or micronutrients.  Most of you reading this really do not buy this because of the questions I get asked and all the comments I have seen made on FB, twitter, blogs, and on internet forums.  The blogosphere is tied to macronutrient ratios.  It is a fact that our neolithic mind has burned into our conscious beliefs.  This post is about showing you why you might want to consider changing your perspective on things related to what you eat.  What you feel like eating does not mean it should be what you are designed to eat.  What you can eat safely, does not mean it should be what we are designed to eat either.  What we are designed to eat is the answer to where our ultimate health really lies.  When we choose to eat in spite of our biologic directives this is when illness, disease, or bad feelings tend to crop up and cause confusion to the patient.  The best way for you to solve this situation is to think.  I want you to think about the message your neolithic mind is capable of delivering to your paleolithic genome on a daily basis.  Most of us are completely unaware of this biologic mismatch.  It is my belief that it underlies much of what currently ails most of mankind today.

It is very easy to blame the USDA, SAD, and my profession for sure.  And believe me, we all deserve all the criticisms we get.  But the fact remains, even on a solid paleo/primal template there are many people who hit major plateaus that continue to confound them.  This post is about those experiences we all have faced whether we want to admit it publicly or not.  I think we can control for it as long as we think about what we are doing first.  The reason I decided to write this post is because of a thread on Facebook that just came out of the blue and someone asked for my two cents on it.  I thought what I wrote needed to be said here, because it applies to many of the the complexities I see discussed daily in the blogosphere about micro or macro nutrients.  I believe, often, many of these arguments detract from the success that can come to each of us if we just stop and think about the perspective of how our metabolism is designed to work for us.  It seems carbohydrates have been under the biggest attack the last six months so I am going to use them as the example macronutrient of why this method of thinking may be toxic to your optimal life.

There is a role for carbohydrates,  but calling them safe to me is a misnomer. The reason we all might need some carbs is that the occasional glycogen replenishment made in our liver is stimulatory to the conversion of T4-T3 in the gut (20{a7b724a0454d92c70890dedf5ec22a026af4df067c7b55aa6009b4d34d5da3c6}) and in the liver (80{a7b724a0454d92c70890dedf5ec22a026af4df067c7b55aa6009b4d34d5da3c6}).  The actual pathways that really replenishes glycogen is not carb based, it is fat based.  See this link.   The real interesting paradox of this biologic truth, is that all wild animals are at the mercy of the light cycles and seasonal variations of temperature of their own eco-systems.  We are the only animal that can reverse engineer our environment to improve upon what we might feel is “right or correct” for us.  My point here,  is that this feeling we have is a neolithic problem brought about by our brain that has evolved far faster as an organ in our species than the rest of our organs have to support it.  Some in this community feel we should eat carbs because they are essentially safe for our paleolithic genes.  They are safe when they are used in the context that evolution planned for them to be found in. This is independent of what we think or feel is best for us. That is being appropriately yoked to the light and temperature cycles.  These factors are hard wired into our genes.  Where we live generally allows for the biologic congruency of those genes expression.  This means that some of us who have epigenetics that favor long light cycles and high temperatures can do things that people who are naturally adapted to in Patagonia cannot do.  Ironically at the same time, both of these humans may “feel or think” that they can eat carbohydrates, protein, and fats as they chose regardless of the circadian cycles because this is what their brain is telling them.  These foods may, in fact be “safe”,  but we are not designed to eat them year round form an evolutionary biologic perspective. Even in the tropics, there is a seasonal variation to what foods are made available to wild animals.  That is evolutionary biology at work  and not my opinion.  I am just reminding you of this constant environmental mismatch the most humans allow themselves to fall into because of our neolithic brain.  In fall and winter,  we are meant to have a lower conversion of T4-T3 because it confers longevity and optimal health.  This is true of wild animal even in Africa. It is not a principle that we should consider altering because of how we may feel about. That biologic mismatch is however what happens over and over again and our paleolithic genes pay the price for it. The result is found in how we respond, what our mirrors reflect to us and how many times we need to go see the doctor and get pissed off by their conventional wisdom advice that never solves this simple biologic mismatch.

The role of food and diet has to be placed into the context of what the light cycle and temperature cycles  are based upon where and what you are best adapted to and not where you currently live. That means you scientifically need to understand that what the epigenetic expression is of your genome currently SHOULD match t how you employ your current paleo template………WHY?  Because when it does not this is where neolithic illness or disease spring form. Most only believe that the micro or macro-nutirents can generate inflammation. That is a neolithic thought that needs to be studied before you fall into that dogma.

Many people arguing about this issue (arguing over diet, carbs or thyroid levels) are missing the greatest points that biology is teaching us,  because they do not realize the perspective of how our metabolisms have always been set……..by circadian cycles and not much else.  In fact, the photoperiodicity in humans is codified by Vitamin A cycling in the brain independent of DNA or RNA.

The local environment forces natural adaptation and this rewires our brain via neuroplasticity and it turn effects our epigenetic responses to our diet. Illness occurs when there is a mismatch between these “tight biologic connections”.  The human mind does not appreciate this disconnect because they are not aware of it. Much like you are not aware of the perspective that the earth is revolving about its axis now at 25,000 mph……….but, in fact it is.

I hope people really begin to see how profound these thoughts are,  because the most common reason we see disease and illness as a species, is because our brain allows us to daily disconnect the “tight biologic connections” that are hardwired into our paleolithic genes. When you become consciously aware that your brain can do this all the time………you begin to think about what your actions may do to you’re underlying paleolithic genome. This allows you to really determine what is safe and what is not for you today in the present.

The funny thing to me is this might be why even today, people struggle with Einstein’s theory of relativity.  It is because they just cannot fathom the change in perspective of time is completely relative to the observer and the body in action. Moreover, when you think about it, it just plain makes primal sense.  And when you begin to realize that the earth is moving at an incredible speed daily, but  you can’t feel or perceive it every minute of every day, you begin to understand that this biologic and physical truth is revealed to your consciousness every day the sun rises and sets.  Maybe, It can then allow you to begin to think about your metabolism from this new perspective as well.  When I fell upon these thoughts it changed everything about my perspective in medicine and it allowed my brain to see different worm hole in how I might look at all neolithic diseases differently than I was taught too.  At first it was scary and daunting but as I ventured out on that limb of risk I found more answers to neolithic disease than questions.  I found solace in that for the first time in my professional life.

It also made me realize that the way I think is far more important than the knowledge I have collected over my life.  It has allowed me to make connections that before I was previously blind too.  And when my brain became aware of just how much of this was connected, it took all that data I knew, and made a lot of sense of it to give me a new insight and wisdom about diseases.  Most of those diseases today,  I still do not treat.  So I employed this new found insight first to me and then to my family.  When it worked on them I knew that these new concepts were not so new at all.  This was the work of evolutionary biology and medicine at work.  I became aware that I was now able to decipher how we were designed to work from the perspective of the owners manual that we were all born with hardwired into our DNA.