Health, disease and wellness: a post on metabolism and being well

 Hey team,

Today, I’d like to write about wellness as a follow-up to my previous post on health and wellness.

I know the term “wellness” gets thrown around all the time and has somewhat lost its value, but regardless of what we call it, engaging in practices that serve your body and mind is essential. In previous posts, I discussed how most issues, in terms of subjective dysfunction, symptoms, or diseases, result from your cells not working well. While some things may feel like dysfunction, such as being stressed or sad in response to something serious, these are healthy and normal responses that are not pathological. On the other hand, if this stress or sadness is prolonged for weeks to months and extremely severe, that is actual dysfunction. 

To explain that more comprehensively, in a healthy state where all or most of one's cells are functioning perfectly, symptoms or strange lab values don’t come up. But as our cells are damaged by major stressors (both physical and psychological) or are deprived of nutrients they need, dysfunction results.

Dysfunction can look like high blood pressure, high fasting glucose, high lipids/cholesterol in the blood, fatty liver, fatigue, emotion dysregulation, and of course, many more. These are all specific manifestations of your cells in either your liver, brain, or arteries not working as they do when in a healthy state. So how do we combat this or, better yet, prevent it?

The first thing to accept and believe is that you can and should, and that it’s not some crazy set of expensive protocols and weird diets you have to stick to for the rest of your lives. I had a quote in my last post about integrating the mindset of serving yourself—not in a selfish way, but in the way biology designed you to, which allows you to serve others to your highest potential as well. This involves a certain degree of slowing down to allow yourself to really take in, mindfully, how you are feeling and how you can serve your body what it needs. For me, the simple practice of breathing deeply and slowly is an example of serving my body what it needs. The same goes for when I need to step out of what I’m doing to drink water. Doing this mindfully allows me to see that I’m serving my body what it needs in a much more conscious and deliberate way.

We live in a culture that encourages productivity and hard work, as seen by one-upping each other on who works the most, gets the least sleep, or drinks the most coffee. In a similar vein, we stigmatize self-care, a.k.a. healthy living, by viewing those who eat unprocessed foods or deny processed foods at social gatherings through the lenses of fringe dieting or even “eating disorders.” What the heck! But ultimately, these perspectives come from a place of insecurity or jealousy. No one should starve themselves, which is different than fasting, or limit themselves to a small set of foods that don’t nourish them. I strongly believe there is much to be gained in the discipline of eating a clean diet that isn’t overly indulgent or overconsumed. This same discipline is a lost virtue in the modern day, where we’re all about the most pleasurable in the shortest amount of time—look no further than our social media, online shopping, and food delivery, just to name a few.

What's the counter to this fast-paced, indulgent life? Mindfulness and discipline through action and inaction. The discipline of aligning yourself with healthy living, which is inherently subjective but rooted in common sense, expands far past that as one desires. By this, I believe it’s common sense that foods like chips, sodas, and candy, especially consumed frequently and in abundance, are not encouraging optimal cellular function, a.k.a. health. On the contrary, foods that don't have a label on them and are close to single-ingredient foods, such as leafy greens, fresh or frozen fruit or vegetables, and beans, encourage cellular function by providing all the nutrients, beyond just calories, our cells need. 

Mindfulness is also incredibly important. It allows us to see and feel more clearly that we are doing exactly what we should do. With mindfulness, the practice of living presently without worry of the future or the shadows of our past, there is a gentleness that doesn't attach to expectations or regrets. Often, we change our lifestyles to be more “healthy” in order to get something, rather selfishly, in return. Maybe it’s a skinnier body, more muscles, glowing skin, or, best of all, to be seen as someone who is “healthy.” The last one really makes me laugh because what is more superficial, and not in true service of ourselves or others, than changing your habits in order to be perceived as someone who fits in the category of “healthy”? My use of quotation marks around “healthy” is because of how loosely the term is used and often in contexts that are not truly healthy or sustainable.

So maybe you don’t like eating beans and kale. That's okay; those are not the only foods that will allow you to be healthy. But with that “not liking” comes a lot of attachment to bias. Simply claiming you don’t like a food or a class of foods is black-and-white thinking. Are all foods that share a common ingredient the same? Do all chefs make the same food the same? The answer is a resounding no, because the experience of preparing and consuming food is subjective and nuanced, like everything else. There is a common persona I come across at times that is righteous in their avoidance or dislike of “healthy food.” As I discussed above, “healthy” is an incredibly vague word that doesn’t refer to anything specific. So living your life as someone who is busy “not eating healthy foods” is not a full life. I truly can’t understand someone not valuing their health in at least some ways. How can you not want to feel better and encourage your loved ones to feel better themselves through leading by example? My only idea is stubbornness, not laziness.

Despite living in a chaotic society that promotes and encourages highly processed and nutrient-deficient eating habits, we also live in a society that allows us to have all the resources to learn and make remarkable changes. We can learn all about how cells make and use energy, and how nutrients get absorbed and utilized. We can also learn more tangible things such as balanced meals and cheap ways to grocery shop and still eat well. There is clearly some resistance between the knowledge we gain and the resulting behavioral change that takes place and eventually sticks. But life is a process, from our cells to us as complete beings living day to day. And as we water our seeds of a better self, a better tomorrow, our fruit will come. So keep watering and enjoy the process.