Casey Means Quotes

The second is that our food is being transported over large distances, causing degradation and damage to nutrients. The average distance that produce travels from farm to plate in the United States is approximately fifteen hundred miles. During this journey, some fruits and vegetables can lose up to 77 percent of their vitamin C content, a critical micronutrient for ATP production in the mitochondria and antioxidant activity in the cell. You may have thought that “eating local” or shopping from farmers’ markets is frivolous, but it is actually a critical step to ensure you are getting maximal helpful molecular information in the bites you take to build and instruct your body. The third is that most of our U.S. calorie consumption is ultra-processed foods, stripped of their nutrition. About 60 percent or more of the calories adults in the nation consume is ultra-processed garbage. You’re looking at just a fraction of that seventy tons meeting the cells’ functional needs.

Eating spices like turmeric (which directly minimize chronic inflammation) or cruciferous vegetables (which directly minimize oxidative stress) are two examples of ways that food can functionally signal for Good Energy.

in the modern West, where — unlike many indigenous and Eastern cultures — we tend to be culturally avoidant of talking about death or having curiosity about it, leading it to be an existential fear for many. So many of the texts that have stood the test of time — spanning Rumi, Khalil Gibran, Hafiz, Marcus Aurelius, Yogananda, Seneca, Lao-tzu, Thích Nhất Hạnh, and more — implore us to examine death and trust that it is both natural and not to be feared.

GOOD ENERGY BIOMARKERS AND MOVEMENT When you’re striving to be part of the 6.8 percent of metabolically healthy Americans, regular movement will help you get there. Research shows that exercise improves all five of the following basic biomarkers of metabolism: Glucose Levels Above 100 mg/dL: Twelve-week exercise programs of either high-intensity running (40 minutes per week) or low-intensity running (150 minutes per week) both brought participants’ blood sugar from the prediabetic range (100 mg/dL or greater) to the nondiabetic range (<100 mg/dL). HDL Cholesterol Less Than 40 mg/dL: A 2019 review of the literature showed that exercise increased HDL cholesterol, “with exercise volume, rather than intensity, having a greater influence.” Meanwhile, “raising HDL levels pharmacologically has not shown convincing clinical benefits.” Triglycerides Above 150 mg/dL: Numerous studies have demonstrated that physical activity effectively lowers triglyceride levels. In a 2019 study, an eight-week moderate aerobic exercise program significantly reduced triglyceride levels in participants. Furthermore, even a single session of intense aerobic exercise has been found to decrease triglyceride levels the following day. This positive effect could be due to the increased activity of hepatic lipase in the liver, an enzyme that facilitates the absorption of triglyceride from the bloodstream. Blood Pressure of 130/85 mmHg or Higher: Research has shown the effects of exercise among populations with high blood pressure were similar to the effects of commonly used medications. A Waistline of More Than 35 Inches for Women and 40 Inches for Men: Not surprisingly, regular exercise can help decrease obesity by increasing energy expenditure and promoting weight loss. Research shows a clear inverse relationship between the amount of movement people do each week and the size of their waistline: more movement, smaller waist circumference. What’s more, lower activity (fewer than 5,100 steps per day)

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).

and I am convinced that healthy emotional boundaries — such as being clear and vocal about what you will and will not let into your life — are what make relationships functional. Your gut lining is a boundary between you and everything else in the universe that is poised to inundate and overwhelm your biology and generate unrelenting inflammation. Healing and strengthening your gut lining with food — therefore creating and strengthening this critical boundary and reducing intestinal permeability or “leaky gut” — allows you to be selective about what you want to take in from the universe on a material level. You can choose what serves you. I reflect on the fact that many of the problems in society — including violence, mental illness, developmental issues, and pain — start in humans, and humans are made by cells that become dysfunctional largely because of oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, and chronic inflammation. How miraculous that food can directly combat those things. We can’t have a healthy society without well-functioning humans. We can’t have well-functioning humans without well-functioning cells. And we can’t have well-functioning cells with mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, and cellular and hormone disruption from toxic chemicals in our food. We combat those things through nutrient-dense, unprocessed foods grown in living, thriving soil.

On my mom’s final day of consciousness, she woke up weak and started to lose control of her speech. Later in the day, in a burst of energy, she urged us to take her to the place where she would soon be buried — a rustic forest grove overlooking fields and ocean, just three minutes from her house. We quickly drove her there and took her in a wheelchair to the natural burial site. My mom expressed amazement at the beauty of the ocean view and the trees she would soon be buried under, and we hugged as a family. She asked my dad to kneel beside her in the wheelchair and cupped his face in her hands. She looked at him and talked about how magical their life was together. On this small patch of earth with the Pacific Ocean behind them, they exchanged silent looks that expressed emotion and gratitude for each other that are impossible to fully convey in words. The awe and connection they shared as they exchanged their final embrace will forever be my definition of the meaning of life. “It’s just . . . so perfect and beautiful,” my mom burst out as she looked at her family embracing her at her final resting site. Minutes later, she lost consciousness. Two days later, surrounded by her family holding hands around her, she died. The final thirteen days I shared with my mom were the most meaningful of my life. If we had taken the advice of the medical system, they wouldn’t have happened.

next revolution in health will come from understanding how the root of almost every disease relates to energy, and how less specialization, rather than more, is the answer.

low-grade activity that occurs more frequently and regularly throughout the day is extremely important for cellular health and glucose control, even more so than chunking all your physical activity in one discrete block and sitting for the rest of the day (a pattern most Americans adopt).

According to Dr. Mark Hyman, “the triglyceride-to-HDL ratio is the best way to check for insulin resistance other than the insulin response test. According to a paper published in Circulation, the most powerful test to predict your risk of a heart attack is the ratio of your triglycerides to HDL. If the ratio is high, your risk for a heart attack increases sixteen-fold — or 1,600 percent! This is because triglycerides go up and HDL (or ‘good cholesterol’) goes down with diabesity.

Patients are being crushed by the devil’s bargain. Between the 6 trillion dollar food industry which wants to make food cheap and addictive and the 4 trillion dollar health care industry which profits off interventions on sick patients and stays silent about the reasons they are getting sick.

PRINCIPLE 5: IGNORE DIET PHILOSOPHIES AND FOCUS ON UNPROCESSED FOOD Diet controversy is a charade.

TRUST THE SYSTEM ON ACUTE ISSUES, IGNORE IT ON CHRONIC Most health care books give recommendations and end with a disclaimer to “consult your doctor.” I have a different conclusion: when it comes to preventing and managing chronic disease, you should not trust the medical system. This might sound pessimistic or even frightening, but understanding the incentives of our medical system and why it does not deserve our benefit of the doubt is the first step to becoming an empowered patient.

Thermoneutrality”: A hallmark of modern industrial life is spending most of our time indoors at relatively consistent ambient temperatures, a concept we’ll refer to as thermoneutrality. Interestingly, experiencing swings in temperature is great for mitochondrial function, as cold stimulates the body to generate more warmth by increasing mitochondrial activity and stimulates more ATP generation and use. Heat exposure has been shown to activate heat shock proteins (HSPs) within cells, which can protect mitochondria from damage and help to maintain their function. HSPs can also stimulate the production of new mitochondria and improve their efficiency in producing ATP.

The most blatant and deadly example of the intervention-based incentives of our medical system is that medical leaders are absolutely silent on the things that are actually making us sick: food and lifestyle.