Casey Means Quotes

The incentives of our medical and food systems pressure patients to not ask questions. These incentives also lead to the biggest lie in healthcare. That the reasons we are getting sicker, fatter, more depressed, and more infertile are complicated. The reasons are not complicated. They all tie to good energy habits.

Impact of Stress on Glucose: One of my highest glucose spikes ever was after an argument with my brother (my coauthor!). We hear examples of this all the time from Levels members: stress alone can raise glucose levels, regardless of your diet. The reason is that a key stress hormone, cortisol, signals our liver to break down stored glucose and release it into the bloodstream to fuel the muscles, anticipating a threat that we’ll need energy to physically move away from. In the modern world, however, the “threats” — like arguments, emails, honking, and the alerts on our phones — that cue our stress pathways rarely require our muscles to be active. As such, that mobilized glucose sits in our bloodstream, causing more harm than good. CGM can be a powerful tool in teaching us how stress impacts our metabolic health and motivates us to address acute stress in healthy ways, like deep breathing.

Authors and poets who address the human condition, mortality, eternity, and continuity with nature that I recommend are Mary Oliver, Pema Chödrön, Paramahansa Yogananda, Michael Pollan, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Rumi, Lao-tzu, Khalil Gibran, Hafiz, Walt Whitman, W. S. Merwin, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Diane Ackerman, Alan Watts, Lewis Thomas, Ram Das, Rainer Maria Rilke, Deepak Chopra, and Wang Wei.

HDL is often referred to as “good” because it helps remove cholesterol from the blood vessels and carries it back to the liver for processing and elimination from the body. This process of reverse cholesterol transport can help prevent the buildup of plaque in the arteries and reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. Therefore, high levels of HDL in the bloodstream are considered beneficial for cardiovascular health. Meanwhile, LDL (low-density lipoprotein) is often referred to as “bad” cholesterol because it can deposit cholesterol in the walls of the arteries, leading to the formation of plaque. This process, known as atherosclerosis, can narrow the arteries and increase the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Nutrition Eliminate refined added sugars Eliminate all foods, drinks, and condiments with refined or liquid sugars. Added sugars may include the following names: white sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar, cane sugar, evaporated cane juice, raw sugar, turbinado sugar, demerara sugar, coconut sugar, maple syrup, honey, molasses, agave nectar, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, glucose, dextrose, fructose, maltose, sucrose, galactose,

I implore anyone working to optimize their metabolic health or weight to incorporate resistance training (otherwise known as strength training or weight training). Resistance training simply means intentionally making your muscles work against a weighted force, which could be functional movements such as lifting or pushing heavy things in your home or at work, lifting or pushing weights, or using your body weight as a force to work against (think pull-ups or push-ups).

were producing and using energy. Even my enormous size at birth — which medically fit the criteria for fetal macrosomia (literally “big-bodied baby”)

Lavender oil is well studied and especially potent in minimizing stress and helping with sleep, as outlined in the peer-reviewed paper “Lavender and the Nervous System.” Rub a few drops of lavender essential oil between your hands, cup your face, and inhale deeply a few times.

The two main ingredients of Beyond Burger are pea protein and canola oil. Canola oil is high in omega-6 fats, making Beyond Burger more inflammatory than grass-fed beef. Additional ingredients include natural flavors (a misnomer, as natural flavors can be highly processed and contain chemical additives) and methylcellulose, a main ingredient in laxatives manufactured by heating wood in acidic solutions to extract and purify cellulose.

key way that you regulate your hormones, metabolism, weight, and risk for disease is by showing your cells what time it is by exposing your eyeballs to direct sunlight throughout the light part of the day and by hiding your eyeballs from as much light as possible when the sun is down.

Below are recommended optimal ranges for key metabolic blood tests. Falling outside of these ranges is an indicator that you could have brewing dysfunction. The remainder of Part 2 and the plan in Part 3 will give specific steps to increase Good Energy and improve these biomarkers: Triglycerides: Less than 80 mg/dL HDL: 50 to 90 mg/dL Fasting Glucose: 70 to 85 mg/dL Blood Pressure: Less than 120 systolic and less than 80 diastolic mmHg Waist Circumference: <80 cm (31.5 inches) for women and <90 cm (35 inches) for men (South Asian, Chinese, Japanese, and South and Central Americans) <80 cm (31.5 inches) for women and <94 cm (37 inches) for men (European, Sub-Saharan African, Middle Eastern, and Eastern Mediterranean) Triglyceride-to-HDL Ratio: Below 1.5. Above 3 is a clear sign of metabolic dysfunction. Fasting Insulin: From 2 to 5 mIU/L. Above 10 mIU/L is concerning and above 15 mIU/L is significantly elevated. HOMA-IR: Less than 2.0 High-Sensitivity CRP (hsCRP): Less than 0.3 mg/dL Hemoglobin A1c: From 5.0 to 5.4 percent Uric Acid: Less than 5 mg/dL for men, and from 2 to 4 mg/dL for women

It might not sound like it, but the theme of this chapter is optimism. We are amid a modern health crisis. The good news is that our system can be fixed, and the crisis can end. Just 120 years ago, starvation, malnutrition, and early death were the norm. Tuberculosis and pneumonia were leading causes of death. Life expectancy in the United States was around age forty-seven. Back then, 30 percent of all U.S. deaths occurred in children under five years of age, compared to just 1.4 percent in 1999. If you transported someone living in those times to the present day, they’d be in utter shock as they tried to process society’s advancements. There is no

Continuous Glucose Monitoring I believe CGM is the most powerful technology for generating the data and awareness to rectify our Bad Energy crisis in the Western world. A CGM is a biosensor that can alert us to early dysfunction, coach us on how to eat and live in a way that promotes Good Energy in our unique bodies, and promote accountability. My belief in the potential of this technology to reduce global metabolic suffering is why I cofounded Levels, which enables access to CGMs and software to understand and interpret the data. A CGM is a small plastic disc worn on the arm that automatically tests your blood sugar roughly every ten minutes, twenty-four hours a day. And it sends that information to your smartphone.

Nearly every doctor I worked with dreamed as a child about curing disease and worked like crazy to become a doctor. They studied tirelessly to learn science, entered medical school with idealistic visions, and became the pride of their family. They entered residency with hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt and initially saw the chronic sleep deprivation and verbal abuse by their superiors as integral parts of the experience — because “great achievement is born of great sacrifice.” But almost universally among doctors I have met, this idealism eventually turns to cynicism. My colleagues in residency talked often about questioning their sanity, of wondering whether this was all worth it. I spoke with successful surgeons who’d drafted their resignation letters dozens of times. Another had a recurring daydream of leaving everything behind and becoming a baker. Many of my supervising physicians were desperate to spend more time with their children. I witnessed more than one tearful breakdown in the operating room when surgical cases were delayed and led to yet another missed bedtime for their kids. Several had dealt with suicidal depression. I understood why doctors had the highest burnout and suicide rate of any profession. Inevitably, these conversations led to an insight that I believe is whispered by doctors in every hospital in America: they feel trapped inside a broken system.

Doctors have twice the rate of suicide as the general population. Based on my own experience with depression as a young surgeon, I think a contributor to this phenomenon is an insidious spiritual crisis about the efficacy of our work and a sense of being trapped in a system that is not working but seems too big to change or escape.