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[UpRiverMatt]

Chipotle is an old favorite, I feel pretty good after eating there I find. They don’t have that many locations though. Tim Hortons, at least in Canada, has a decent chili as well.

It’s honestly pretty hard to find decent fast food, and is definitely a gap in the market I think. There are some places in Toronto that aren’t bad, but as for on the road it’s pretty hard to find a place that isn’t sit down that has healthy food.

Also, I’ve heard of people just going into McDonald’s and ordering burger patties, which honestly aren’t too bad for you as far as I know. Plain burger patties might not be the best meal though, but maybe if you got creative there you could spruce it up!

[UpRiverMatt]

Yeah I used to have much less efficient sleeps but now I’m doing really well, probably because I’m constantly sleep deprived XD. I’ll be getting up in 6 hours or so lol. I’ve been hitting high 80s% and low 90s%.

I find the readiness tab is accurate to how I feel. I know before I get up where I’ll be roughly it seems. Recently it’s been really low, like high 50s to low 70s probably directly related to the lack of sleep and higher stress from grinding more on some projects, including the 50 page carnivore article to be posted pretty soon ;). The HRV should be higher than it is recently at the mid 50s, I’m looking to get back into the high 70s at least, preferably 90s. Resting HR I’m looking to get back down to the low 40s when it is now 50 to mid 50s. Eating close to bed and not winding down both ruin these measurements for me so that’s good feedback.

I’d like to use the tags more and then check out the cloud desktop data and do some correlation and causation analysis for more insight.

[UpRiverMatt]

I think what’s been working well for me is to plan out my days thoroughly and decide what I will and won’t do for the day, then setting a time to stop work at. After that time, I disconnect from work things and just try to tune into how I’m doing and relax and reflect. This way, when it comes time for bed, I don’t have anything left on my mind to bother me, and if I do, it gets put into my schedule during work hours.

I’ve also been taking a cold shower and doing 3 rounds of Wim Hoff style deep breathing, then journalling right before bed to get any thoughts out. I also cut out cannabis recently, and I think I’ve noticed I’m less anxious and more ready to tackle my day. I also find not eating within 3 hours of bed works well for me. A lot of a good night’s sleep seems to be made in the whole day before that night’s sleep.

[UpRiverMatt]

Yeah, the social distancing does seem very unhealthy to me, and it makes a lot of sense to get out when you can! I can definitely see the news as something to ration and not get too into, especially with the tensions and strange, strange things going on politically. With only a few days until the US election, it seems the world is at a tipping point and it’s making things uneasy especially since either way, half of the US is going to freak out.

Socialising, and rationing the crazy news are good steps. I also think maintaining as much of a normal work life as possible to keep you sane is good. Having a routine of healthy cornerstone habits seems to be a must more now than ever.

[UpRiverMatt]

Sometimes I think that haha. I find now though after using it for about a year, I know my benchmarks for resting heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep efficiency, restfulness, deep sleep %, and REM % so I use those as a gauge. I also have developed a pretty good sense of when I have a bad sleep vs. a good one, and always check to see if my intuition matches the app. It makes it very obvious when my sleep was sub-par, whereas before I wouldn’t be nearly as sure or even aware that I didn’t sleep well.

I usually notice patterns between what I do the night before and how well I sleep. I’ve learned things like don’t eat a lot within 2 hours of bed time, preferably 3, or my resting heart rate will be about 10 beats higher than it should, and I’ll feel the difference the next day. I’ve also noticed more obvious things like when I don’t wind down for a while before bed, I don’t fall asleep nearly as easily, and my sleep graph looks much worse. I know now what a good sleep graph looks like.

My overall goal with the metrics is to get a consistently high score in the areas I know are important so far including HR, HRV, how the sleep graph looks, and restfulness which are all usually pretty related.

[UpRiverMatt]

Awesome question Spencer and awesome answer Greg. I would seriously shoot for accomplishing that and continue to optimize it as I believe something like this input (diet, sleep schedule, etc.) ==> biomarker/bioquantification output feedback loop will be the future of medical care.

Right now, I am doing this (badly) by myself with my own devices and recordings, but boy oh boy would I like something else to do it for me!

I use a red light setting on my phone, the oura app, and cronometer on my web browser for nutrition tracking. I honestly don’t really find many bio apps worth using right now! The only one I have is the Oura app.

[UpRiverMatt]

I like that idea too. I often find I’m an idealist and initially I just tried to go 100% retention, but found that it wasn’t balanced and I would even find it backfired. I opt for a similar strategy to Spencer nowadays, but sometimes like to go for longer streaks when I really want to rise my energy levels to the max.

[UpRiverMatt]

I’m usually pretty militant about it, but I do allow 1 or 2 (usually 1) day of sleeping in because I know it’s probably good to have a buffer and just relax some days. I find though that nowadays since I’ve been so consistent and walk outside every morning, I can’t sleep in even if I want to! Unless, I’m up really late that is.

Weekdays:
10 aim to be in bed (but it usually ends up being 11)
7 wake up

Weekends
10-12 aim to be in bed (or later if I really want)
7 wake up (or as late as 9 or 10 if I feel like it)

I actually find I don’t really enjoy sleeping in much anymore since I love mornings!

How do you guys feel about exceptions to your sleep schedule?

[UpRiverMatt]

For sure, I’m on board with those ideas as well! As we discussed in our meeting today, we have a new section potentially laying out and helping us to explore all of the ideas we have in our minds! Stay tuned 😉

[UpRiverMatt]

That’s true, but I would differentiate between stimulants and baseline energy boosters. I guess with stimulants, you don’t generate more energy as a baseline, you just burn what you have faster and also turn on faster rmps or become higher strung and more focused or wired if that makes sense. I think you can be both calm and have high energy, and you can be wired or anxious and have low energy. I don’t think stimulants necessarily make you horny, but baseline energy boosters give you the capacity to be more horny if the energy is directed towards that. Just conjecture though.

A good example of this is caffeine vs. a supplement I recently encountered called Energenesis. Caffeine boosts energy short term, but this causes a crash later because energy production hasn’t truly increased. Energenesis is a nutritional formulation specific to mitochondria that actually increases the number, size, and power output of the mitochondria. This yields higher baseline energy levels in the long term.

Either way, I guess this is a bit different than the answer you’re looking for with aphrodesiacs. I would guess that horney goat weed, maca and other “potions” would have this effect. I looked it up actually just now and quickly found one nice double blind placebo controlled study that shows it increases libido at least in those with sexual dysfunction, so it may be reasonable to assume it also increases libido in those with regular sexual function:

“We sought to determine whether maca, a Peruvian plant, is effective for selective-serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)-induced sexual dysfunction. We conducted a double-blind, randomized, parallel group dose-finding pilot study comparing a low-dose (1.5 g/day) to a high-dose (3.0 g/day) maca regimen in 20 remitted depressed outpatients (mean age 36+/-13 years; 17 women) with SSRI-induced sexual dysfunction. The Arizona Sexual Experience Scale (ASEX) and the Massachusetts General Hospital Sexual Function Questionnaire (MGH-SFQ) were used to measure sexual dysfunction. Ten subjects completed the study, and 16 subjects (9 on 3.0 g/day; 7 on 1.5 g/day) were eligible for intent-to-treat (ITT) analyses on the basis of having had at least one postbaseline visit. ITT subjects on 3.0 g/day maca had a significant improvement in ASEX (from 22.8+/-3.8 to 16.9+/-6.2; z=-2.20, P=0.028) and in MGH-SFQ scores (from 24.1+/-1.9 to 17.0+/-5.7; z=-2.39, P=0.017), but subjects on 1.5 g/day maca did not. Libido improved significantly (P<0.05) for the ITT and completer groups based on ASEX item #1, but not by dosing groups. Maca was well tolerated. Maca root may alleviate SSRI-induced sexual dysfunction, and there may be a dose-related effect. Maca may also have a beneficial effect on libido."

There are other studies out there as well I saw!

[UpRiverMatt]

It’s a good question and a hard one. Honestly, taking note of how you feel AFTER doing this activity seems to be pretty telling.

[UpRiverMatt]

Yeah for sure, 4 weeks left of all meat! Not too crazy of a different noticed so far honestly, but a few nice perks for sure.

I think everyone is feeling a bit more stressed than normal these days so you’re not alone.

Those seem like great practices, always good to go back to the classics! I always find directly addressing things is obviously the best strategy, but easier said than done.

I always revert to the ‘keeping house in order’ sort of strategy where I clear everything off of my plate that’s bothering me and make sure I’m organized and prepared for whatever is in my life. Only when my ‘**** is together’ do I feel not stressed. Generally healthy practices of course help too.

However, you can put the house in order forever organizing and preparing and that can become unproductive and even paranoid. Gratitude and perspective shifting or reframing is definitely necessary to know when to stop I find.

[UpRiverMatt]

Hi US E.H. Good point to bring up about breathing in terms of tongue posture and the benefits of nasal breathing over mouth breathing. Breathing is definitely on our radar to delve into more! One interesting thing I stumbled across once was that nose breathing also allows the use of Nitric Oxide in the nasal cavities to dilate blood vessels and improve circulation (might need to fact check me on this).

Great response Greg, interesting examples!

Another thing I would add about breathing is the diaphragmatic breathing is much better than breathing using the muscles around the rib cage or chest breathing. It seems to oxygenate the body better due to higher density of capillaries around the lower vs upper lungs.

A third point about breathing is rhythm and its effect on the central nervous system. It seems a great gateway between the conscious and subconscious is breathing. By having calm breathing patterns, the nervous system calms down and vice versa. I think this is really important for stress and general health.

Good comparison on the detrimental effects on facial bone and teeth formation in modern, processes more industrial diets vs the traditional unprocessed diet Greg. I would have to disagree with you on the true cause of this effect however. I think it has much less to do with how one chews or the difficulty or practice of chewing and much more to do with nutritional adequacy to allow the body the proper building blocks and co factors for proper metabolic and other bodily system health, especially during periods of more growth like infancy and adolescence. If you look at not just the facial bone formation, but also the bone formation throughout the whole skeleton you can see the bone formation is much poorer on processed diets vs traditional lending evidence to the systemic effects of poor nutrition over the chewing hypothesis. Shorter stature, more dental cavities and other health effects are at play as well not to mention chronic inflammation and likely most modern disease. I’d suggest the book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Western A. Price for more in-depth research on this.

Also, to the female audience, we are interested in getting into those differences for things like fasting where I believe it is more ideal to have a longer feeding window for hormonal health in women vs men etc. We did debate this at the beginning, but decided to stick more to what we knew to start. As Greg says, we hopefully can get into these topics soon and expand our audience.

Great topic again E.H.! I too share concerns about pre-conception, conception and pregnancy since it is so vital and I believe there is much work to do in the West on re-educating mothers and families as to the importance of many factors on the health of their children and the coming generation!

[UpRiverMatt]

Hey pal, I’m doing pretty swell these days. It’s nice to see a light thread like this these days, since I’ve been feeling a bit stressed. I suppose things are swirling around pretty fast in the world and it’s been a bit overwhelming to feel ‘prepared’.

I’ve been working a lot on my diet since I’ve been on the carnivore diet for about a week now and looking at about 5 more weeks at least of this trial run. I’ve been really focusing on settling into my new routine and I’m loving it since I feel a lot of control.

How’re you faring in these times?

[UpRiverMatt]

Awesome response Spencer, I love the knife analogy. That does answer my question, and puts into perspective how to use Stoicism better.

[UpRiverMatt]

Thanks Greg, happy to put things out there to serve the greater good 😉

Also, kind of an interesting real life chat Greg and I had where we kind of concluded that anything that boosts your general energy levels might kind of work like an aphrodisiac just giving you more energy to direct wherever you choose.

[UpRiverMatt]

Generally, my approach to cheat foods is that it’s just not worth it, but like Spencer said that may not be for everyone. I think Ying and Yang is at play here, and if you have too much rigidity it can lead to inflexibility and then an unintentional break from routine and loss of control. In that case, it’s much better to have a planned release valve or vice of some sort, obviously within reason as you don’t want no rigidity or control.

For me, I usually don’t cheat with food because that’s one of my cornerstone habits, but I will have a drink or two or a puff of ol Mary Jane or something else that suits me better. For some it’s food, for others it’s video games etc.

I think a key thing here that I’ve learned over the years is to pay attention to your intuition and really feel out what your body needs. I also think it takes practice to distinguish drug-like cravings from healthy needs.

[UpRiverMatt]

Great recipe suggestion TinyCactus, I’m going to actually try that out! I’ve been looking for a way to get real liver into my diet (rather than supplements) since it’s such a super food, but haven’t brought myself to do it just yet :p

[UpRiverMatt]

I think once we get a network of people built up on here, it will compound and then there will be more to engage in. We’ll just keep adding to the forum and it’ll get there eventually!

Another thing I would like to explore is self-quantification devices like the Oura ring and other sleep and fitness measurements, along with more and more sophisticated tools as we build our resources.

Some other topics I would like to explore and re-explore more deeply are:
-Red light therapy/sun light/light therapy generally
-Fasting
-Mitochondrial functioning/enhancement
-Gut and microbiome health
-Ancient/modern indigenous health practices
-Cold therapy
-Oxygen therapy and breathing techniques
-Electrical grounding of the human body
–Anti-aging
-Brain and nervous system research
–Immune system regulation of inflammation and general optimization
-Psychological health
-Chakra/meridian systems and ancient Taoist and Buddhist practices surrounding this

I know these topics are essentially infinite, so there’s so much to go into and only so much time but I think I’d like to learn them all eventually 😀

[UpRiverMatt]

Yeah for sure, getting the routine down for food and sleep is key for me too.

I found actually that it’s much easier to just stick to a consistent wake up time than a consistent bed time. That way, I’m never restricted if I want to stay up and socialize. Plus, the wake up time keeps me in check for my bed time anyway.

Also, another thing I heard a while ago that makes me a lot more flexible, I think from Rhonda Patrick, is that you can be off your schedule 2/7 days a week and your circadian rhythm is ok. I find having my core sleep habits during the week being really good allows me to keep momentum through the weekend even if I mess it up. As long as I’m right back on it on Monday.

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