Plant-Based Nutrition

Philosopher's Notes

The Engine 2 Diet

Rip Esselstyn is a great guy. A former professional triathlete turned firefighter who transformed the health of his fire station with a plant-based diet, he shares his passion for life and nutrition in this great book. In the Note, we take a quick peek at the Engine II diet, challenge some crazy myths about food and learn how to deal with the root causes of many of our health issues.

Philosopher's Notes

Eat to Live

The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss

by Joel Fuhrman

This book is REALLY REALLY good. In fact, I’m gonna say that if you take the time to read only *one* book on nutrition, read this one. Integrating scientific research plus his experience treating over 10,000 patients with common sense and fun, Dr. Joel Fuhrman has created a super-readable book with a challenging, yet approachable nutrition program that can completely change your life. Big Ideas we explore in the Note include the importance of really committing, what nutritional density is all about and other goodness.

Philosopher's Notes

Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease

The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure

by Caldwell Esselstyn

Caldwell Esselstyn is a former Olympic gold medalist and one of the world’s leading medical doctors specializing in heart disease. He’s successfully prevented and REVERSED heart disease with his plant-based diet and in this great book shows us how and why his approach works. If you or someone you love suffers from heart disease, this book is a *must read*!! In the Note, we’ll explore some Big Ideas on how to rock it.

Philosopher's Notes

Super Immunity

The Essential Nutrition Guide for Boosting Your Body's Defenses to Live Longer, Stronger, and Disease Free

by Joel Fuhrman

Joel Fuhrman, M.D. is a nutritional science rock star. As one of the world’s leading medical doctors, he is leading the charge in helping us understand how nutrition impacts our well-being. Super Immunity is PACKED with goodness and, as the sub-title points out, provides us with “The Essential Nutrition Guide for Boosting Your Body’s Defenses to Live Longer, Stronger, and Disease Free.” In this Note, we’ll get our wisdom on as we check our Dr. Fuhrman’s food pyramid, learn about the power of cruciferous veggies (seriously amazing), get our GOMBBS on as we unleash our healing potential!

Philosopher's Notes

Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes

by Neal Barnard

If you or someone you love is suffering from diabetes, this book is a MUST READ. Seriously. If you have diabetes, Dr. Neal Barnard and his team have developed a simple, effective, scientifically-tested program to help you take charge of your life and get your health back. In fact, Dr. Barnard’s program has proven to be THREE TIMES more effective than the American Diabetes Association’s approach to type 2 diabetes. (THREE TIMES!!) In this Note, we’ll take a quick peek at a few Big Ideas from this great book.

Philosopher's Notes

The Self Health Revolution

by J. Michael Zenn

J. Michael Zenn’s The Self Health Revolution is a great little book written in a super down-to-earth and funny style by a guy who describes himself as just “an ordinary guy who discovered an extraordinary secret” that he now feels compelled to share with the average, ordinary people everywhere. In this Note, we’ll see that we are what we eat (your butt doesn’t lie!), learn why we should eat like a poor person and how to stomp our ANTs as we get our self health on!

Philosopher's Notes

The RAVE Diet

by Mike Anderson

RAVE = No Refined Foods + NoAnimal Products + NoVegetable Oils + NoExceptions +Exercise. According to Mike Anderson, it’s what all the leading Doctors who can reverse disease recommend for their patients. In this Note, we’ll explore some Big Ideas on how plants do a body good while milk does a body bad, the best approach to osteoporosis, why antacids are a joke how to best fertilize cancer (hint: just eat a lot of meat ;).

Philosopher's Notes

Food Rules

An Eater's Manual

by Michael Pollan

Energy, Nutrition, Modern Classic Michael Pollan is the author of a number of New York Times best-selling books on nutrition. In 2010, Time magazine named him one of the one hundred most influential people in the world. If you’re looking for a SUPER compact, witty look at the primary rules on how to eat well, this is it. It’s a fun, witty, concise guide to eating well featuring 64 food rules structured around Pollan’s seven words of wisdom: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Big Ideas we explore include the 2 Facts of nutrition everyone can agree on, Rule #1, why low-fat made us fat, and the final rule (#64).

Philosopher's Notes

In Defense of Food

An Eater's Manifesto

by Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan is one of the world’s leading thinkers on nutrition. Time magazine voted him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He’s also a Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley. One of the things I most love about him and his work is that, as a journalist, he takes a much wider, more objective view of the nutritional landscape—which can often be dominated by (and muddled by) individuals with *very* strong, dogmatic, inflexible ideologies. Big Ideas we explore: Nutritionism (vs. food), the big experiment (that failed), the Aborigine in all of us, the 5 fundamental transformations of industrializing food and Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puff and Trix cereals as health foods as per the American Heart Association. (<— Can you believe that? Crazy. And true.)

Philosopher's Notes

The Thrive Diet

The Whole Food Way to Losing Weight, Reducing Stress and Staying Healthy for Life

by Brendan Brazier

Brendan Brazier is a former professional Ironman triathlete who lived on nothing but plant-based foods—no meat, no dairy… just plants. In the Note, we'll explore some Big Ideas on how to optimize our diets and experience more vitality in our lives as we quit leaking energy, go for high net-gain foods and rock the alkalinity!

Philosopher's Notes

The Pleasure Trap

by Douglas J. Lisle

There are hidden forces undermining our health and happiness. They're called Pleasure Traps. And ~Douglas Lisle + Alan Goldhamer are here to help us navigate thru the traps. In this Note, we'll look at the #1 way to deal with the tasty traps of modern food and a bunch of other goodness.

Philosopher's Notes

The Longevity Paradox

How to Die Young at a Ripe Old Age

by Steven R. Gundry

How’d you like to “die young” at a ripe old age? Well... This book gives you the how to. Dr. Steven Gundry is a former heart surgeon (plus professor and head of cardiothoracic surgery at Loma Linda University School of Medicine) who makes a compelling case for the idea that we need to invest a lot more time Optimizing the most ancient part of ourselves (our microbiome) if we want to extend both our life span AND our health span (aka die “young” at that ripe old age). Big Ideas we explore include genes vs. microbiome (which one matters more?), long-lived peoples (do and don't!), chronic cardio (equals chronic stress), your two brains (head + gut... which one's #1?), and got glymph? (how to wash your brain!).

Philosopher's Notes

Eat Fat, Get Thin

Why the Fat We Eat Is the Key to Sustained Weight Loss and Vibrant Health

by Mark Hyman

Want to reach your optimal weight while preventing heart disease, type 2 diabetes, dementia and cancer AND while feeling energized as you live longer? Eat more fat. That’s what Dr. Mark Hyman—one of the world’s leading Functional Medicine doctors—tells us. This book is ridiculously packed with Big Ideas—walking us through the eye-opening science of why fat is awesome along with a plan on how to “reboot our biology to our original factory settings” via a 21-day program followed by a long-term plan to rock it. We explore the surprising truth about fat, good fats vs. bad fats, going pegan (think: best of vegan + Paleo), a quality carb, and dealing with root causes rather than symptoms.

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+1s

Low Fat Made Us Fat

#753

Really? Michael Pollan Says: Yep.

How about one more little +1 on Michael Pollan’s Food Rules?

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+1s

Food Rule #1: Eat Food

#752

vs. Edible Foodlike Substances

Let’s continue the Food Rule fun with one more +1 on Michael Pollan’s classic little food manual.

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+1s

The Two Facts of Nutrition

#751

And the One Thing You’ll Do About Them Today

In our last couple +1s, we had fun exploring some of Michael Pollan’s Food Rules. I highly recommend his little manifesto of practical food wisdom.

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+1s

Food Rule #57

#750

“Don’t Get Your Fuel from the Same Place Your Car Does”

In our last +1, we explored the relationship between our food rotting and us rotting. Recall: The longer the shelf life of the food we eat, the shorter our lives will be!

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+1s

Shelf Life vs. Your Life

#749

Know This: Longer = Shorter

This morning as I was opening my bag of Keto Cups (which might be the most addictively tasty treat ever), I noticed the expiration date printed on the top of the bag.

$Sugar Math$

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+1s

Sugar Math

#1178

It Adds Up. Fast!

In our last +1, we did some detective work and discovered that sugar is often disguised with 61 different names.

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+1s

The Happiness Diet

#763

vs. The SAD + MAD Diets

In our last +1, we talked about my recent PhilosophersNotes-athon.

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+1s

Taking Out the Carbage

#1176

How to go from MAD to Flourishing

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that 500 years ago we basically consumed NO sugar. Then we started nibbling on 5 lbs of sugar per year a few hundred years ago. Now we vacuum up 150 lbs of sugar on average per person every year.

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+1s

Don’t Drink Sugar

#1247

“The Single-Biggest Thing You Can Do to Improve Your Health”

In our last several +1s, we’ve been exploring some powerful, sobering, and eye-opening wisdom from Mark Hyman’s great book Food Fix.

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+1s

Food Poisons Part 2

#450

What You Might Want to Consider Eliminating

In our last +1, we talked about Rule #1 of Nutrition. You remember what it was?

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+1s

Your Diet Dartboard

#794

Throw Your Dart and DO IT!

Continuing our adventure through Mel Robbins’s playfully wise brain and equally fun book The Five Second Rule, here’s another gem.

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+1s

Got Serotonin?

#903

Hide and Seek: Brain vs. Gut

Serotonin.

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+1s

The Origin of Disease

#905

Hippocrates Says: Check the Gut!

In our last couple +1s, we’ve been hanging out in our guts. (Good times! 🤓)

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+1s

Got Immunity?

#904

Hide and Seek Part Deux

In our last +1, we went on a little hide-and-seek adventure in search of our serotonin.

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+1s

Turning Frowns Upside Down

#764

One Bite at a Time

In our last +1, we talked about The Happiness Diet as we did some napkin math on the odds of getting depression based on whether you eat a SAD diet or a Happy Diet.

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+1s

Animal Nutrition

#974

You at the Zoo

The other day I did my normal morning thing. Only, this time after my Trail session I had my breakfast/first meal a little earlier than usual. 9:30am to be precise.

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+1s

Your New Taste Buds

#448

Just Give ‘em 2 Weeks

Pop quiz today!

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Sugar & Depression

#1175

Some Crazy (And Crazy-Making!) Stats

Continuing our brief tour through Kate Hefferon’s textbook on Positive Psychology and the Body, let’s flip open to the chapter on “Positive Nutrition.”

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The Gorillas in Our Midst

#1276

See Them Once, See Them Everywhere

Gorillas.

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Eating Sugar in an fMRI Machine

#170

How to Turn Off Your Addiction Center

In our last couple +1s, we’ve been hanging out in an fMRI scanning our brains and seeing some fascinating stuff.

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Independent (Non-Junk) Science Says

#1246

The Energy-Balance Theory Is Dead

In our last +1, we continued our chat about the toxicity of sugar as we reflected on the fact that the food industry spends $12 BILLION on nutrition research which is “polluting and diluting independent research, and confusing policy makers, the public, and even most doctors and nutritionists.”

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101 Classes

Optimal Weight 101

How to optimize our metabolism to easily sculpt our ideal bodies while energizing to actualize

Weight. It matters. A lot. Although I’m obviously not a weight-loss guy, as I prepped for Energy 101 I realized that we needed to talk about Optimizing our weight. Enter, this class—which could more accurately be called Optimal METABOLISM 101. Fact is, if our weight is off, our METABOLISM is off. Specifically, our insulin levels (which disrupts another hormone called leptin that regulates our appetite). In this class, we take a quick look at why it’s so hard to Optimize our weight and how to make it easy (or at least a lot easier!).