I got a great question from a reader. And it’s about a subject near and dear to me. My dogs

Here’s the question:

Hi Sean. Another Pac NW’er here! Haven’t been able to make one of the meet ups yet, but hope to soon. Anyway, I wanted to ask you about what you are feeding your dog. Right now, I’ve got my little guy on chicken (with fat), rice, and organic veggies. I add in the Missing Link supplement as well. Treats are cooked chicken livers, as well as chicken jerky and sometimes raw beef. What has been best for your pup?

Thanks for the input! Have fun at the hike this weekend.

Krys

Thanks Krys for the great question!

So how do I feed my dogs?

The reason why this is such a great question (from my perspective) is because I have two dogs. A Cocka-Poo and a Lhasa-Poo, they’re both half poodle, one is half Cocker Spaniel, and one is half Lhasa Apso.

This is Lucky:

And this is Clover:

Lucky and Clover are very spoiled dogs, and we like to keep it that way
But Clover is a rescue, she was kept in a kennel for 1.5 years of her life. She was first in a puppy mill, then was bought by a developmentally delayed woman who would not ever let her out of her kennel.

Then her landlord finally found out about her being mistreated and had an animal rescue group come in and was then transferred to a “foster home. ”

We then got her from the “foster home” and she’s now part of our family. But she has a bit of issues as a result of her upbringing.

One of the major ones is extreme allergies.

Her allergies are so bad that she would literally scratch off her own fur on her face, around her eyes, her “arm pits,” her paws, etc. She was a big patchy, scabby mess for a long while.

The vet said she’s the worst case they’ve seen.

We tried lots of different medications, and tried the prescription diet food, etc. The only thing that did work was a drug called “Atopica.”

That stuff is EXPENSIVE! It’s like $75 to $150 a month, depending on your dosage.  (Clover was doing closer to $150.)

It was working, and still does work… but I didn’t like giving her medication all the time, and I didn’t like paying the bill…
So one day, the “light bulb” went off in my head, and I thought “Hey why don’t we stop feeding her grain, try and get more good fat into her diet?”

And just like that… bam!

I haven’t given her Atopica in about a month and a half, and she’s doing just as well as she did when she was taking it.

So here’s what we feed her now.

It’s Wellness brand, and it’s the grain free stuff. We have 3 different kinds so we can switch it up.

Here’s closer pics:

In addition to the plain ‘ol dog food, we pour Coconut oil, or Walnut oil on top of their food too to increase their fat consumption.

We also noticed a huge benefit to Clover getting over her allergies and feeling much better when we switched out her “Doggy Treats.”

We get this stuff now. (It’s also grain free.)

And instead of rawhide bones, we go to the farmers market and get local grass fed beef “Doggy Bones.” It’s actually less expensive, and way way better for them.

And… well that’s about it.

The dogs eat (basically) the same way as myself and Lindsey do… but they eat dog food, and dog treats, and doggy bones.

But we just make sure to get the “right” stuff.

The result?

Happier dogs, saved money, and less medication.

Sounds good to me!

How do you feed your dogs?

And what type of diet do I follow?

Here’s a very quick summary.

1.) I eat virtually no wheat, and drastically limit any grains. (Grains = Wheat, corn, rice, oats, barley, etc.)

2.) I limit my sugar intake (especially fructose.)

3.) I limit my carbs, and try and eat less than 100 grams a day. (Mainly from nuts, veggies, and fruits.)

4.) I balance my Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio.

5.) I keep my protein fairly high, at least 100 grams a day.

6.) I eat around 50% of my calories in fat, mainly saturated and monounsaturated fat.

7.) Not only do I balance my Omega 3 and Omega 6 ratio, I try to keep my Omega 6 intake low. (Less than 5% of my total calories a day.)

And that’s about it.

I believe if most people were to eat this way, we would be much healthier in general.

There’s a lot behind that “mix” above, and we’ll delve more into it later in future posts.

This is a fairly new blog, and isn’t getting much visitors yet, but if you stumble upon it, then leave a comment and tell me how *you* eat.

See ya next time!

No not that guy…
More like this guy. (Omega 3 Man to the rescue!)

Ya, that guy is pretty much awesome. I think I just found what I want to be for Halloween.

Or maybe not.

OK back on subject.

I do love Omega 3 fatty acids, and so should you.

Why? Well Omega 3’s make us really happy, they make our brains work, they help with tissue building, help prevent heart disease, lessen the chance of blood clotting, and a wide variety of really cool stuff.

They’re basically essential for healthy living.

But here’s some bad news for ya.
Omega 3’s are disappearing from our diet, and being replaced by it’s “cousin” Omega 6.

Our bodies actually evolved in “cave man times” while eating closer to one part Omega 3 to one part Omega 6. But some compelling evidence has shown that we can get up to about 4 times the Omega 6 as Omega 3 and we should be OK.

Now, don’t get me wrong Omega 6 is actually good for us, but just not in TOO much of a supply. You actually can  eat about 2-4 times as much Omega 6 as you eat of Omega 3.

But today, we’re eating much closer to 10-14 times as much Omega 6 compared to Omega 3. And that’s a LOT of Omega 6.

This is what our ratio looks like now (for most Americans.)

This is what we *used* to eat like while we were evolving, until about 50 years ago with the invention of vegetable oil which is mainly Omega 6.

But it’s not very realistic to be able to constantly eat with a 1 to 1 ratio of Omega 6 to 3, so a 4 to 1 ratio is still pretty good. And that’s what is shown below…

But why should you keep a lower ratio? Because Omega 3 and Omega 6 compete to be used in your body, and if you have too much Omega 6, then Omega 6 will always “win” the battle to be used and basically overwhelm your Omega 3.

So you know all that talk about how you should supplement with Omega 3’s? Well maybe you should, but the benefit of Omega 3 is not *just* from taking an Omega 3 pill. The real benefit is coming from the fact that your equaling out the ratio of your Omega 3 to Omega 6 intake. You could actually do yourself more of a favor if you just decreased your Omega 6 intake rather than trying to “artificially” balancing your ratio.

But if Omega 6 is good, then why does it matter if Omega 6 “wins?”
While it’s true that Omega 6 is an essential fat for your body, too much of it can actually cause bad things to happen in your body. These bad things include: Increased blood clotting, inflammation, heart attacks, thyroid suppression, increased risk of certain cancer and possibly autoimmune diseases (inflammation.)

Do any of these sound familiar? If you’re living in the USA they probably do. And most of our fats these days come from Omega 6 sources. Mainly vegetable oils, and “heart healthy” butter substitutes.

It’s not just important to get Omega 3 into your diet, but it is equally, if not more important to cut down on your Omega 6 intake.

You really need a balance in your diet of Omega 3 and Omega 6 so they can work in your body harmoniously. When you do this, then you decrease your chances of heart disease, inflammation, blood clotting, and many other common ailments found in many Americans today.

In future posts we’ll focus on how to get more Omega 3 into your diet, and how to eliminate Omega 6, with the ultimate goal of balancing our intake and optimizing our health.

Until then, try and cut out your vegetable oils, and maybe get an Omega 3 supplement to even out your ratio a little more.

See ya!

Quick warning, if you’re a sugar addict, or really enjoy sweets, you may want to stop reading now, because it’s going to get ugly.

I’m about to rock your world, and you will never see sweeteners the same way again. Yes… including your coveted “all natural sweeteners.”

You should probably be as scared as this guy below:

Careful about that fructose monster dude, he’s pretty tough.

But the good news is that he’s easier to find than the boogyman who supposedly lives in your closet, but you can never seem to find. (Which is probably a good thing by the way. I know I’d be pretty freaked out if I actually *met* a real boogy monster…)

Anyhow, how do you find fructose?

Well it’s in almost every sweetener out there.

Table sugar, natural cane sugar, evaporated cane sugar, fruit juice concentrate, maple syrup, honey, and even high fructose corn syrup… Pretty much any sweetener you may use has 1 part fructose, and 1 part glucose.

They pretty much all look the same (within just a few percent difference for each.)

They’re basically just connected together by a small little chemical bond that breaks down almost instantly when it hits your stomach.

For all intents and purposes, sweeteners look like this:

When they hit your stomach, they do this.

And then glucose does all of it’s good stuff, while fructose goes straight to your liver.

Out of all the “natural sweeteners” agave nectar is probably the worst, as it can be up to 90% fructose instead of just about 50%.

What’s the best sweetener?

Pure corn sugar is actually as close to 100% glucose as you can get, and that’s great.

It’s hard to find unless you order it online, or you get it from a local home brewing shop (it’s the sugar they use to make beer.)

Sometimes local cake baking shops have it too because they use it for the fondant on the cakes.

The bottom line is that sweeteners aren’t the best choice no matter what, but you need to know that most sweeteners have over 50% fructose, and it’s really not doing your body any good. (Refer to part 1 of this sugar series for a more detailed description.)

But if you *are* going to use a sweetener, do yourself a favor, put down the “natural” sweeteners like honey, agave nectar, or evaporated cane juice, and go get some corn sugar.

Your liver, and insulin sensitivity will thank you.

And even if you don’t have a specific diet, maybe you just heard you’re supposed to avoid the all evil High Fructose Corn Syrup. Oh no! The horror!

Don’t eat that crazy HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) stuff, or else you know what will happen!

Or do you?

Really, think about it, why don’t you like HFCS?

Why do you think it’s bad for you?

Maybe you’ve just heard it over and over again, about how it’s a synthesized, and quazi-artificial sweetener that just does all sorts of bad things to you.

But again… what types of bad things? Do you even know?

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t like HFCS and I avoid it as much as I possibly can. But if you’re going to avoid something you’d better know why you’re avoiding it.

Because if you don’t know why you’re avoiding HFCS then that comes with some serious danger. And I’ll get into that in a second.

First, let’s explain the simple structure of sugar.

Almost all sugars, including HFCS, table sugar, and even honey are made of two types of sugar.

I hope you like my drawings, I spent a few seconds on each. SO… take a good hard look at them. They’re very important, and have hidden messages in each…

1.)

2.)

Now which do you think is better?

I’ll give you two guesses.

Good job! I bet you got it right after at least two tries

But really, glucose is much better for you than fructose.

Why?

Because your muscles, organs, brain, and almost entire body really likes glucose and gets along with it really well. (Therefore the pretty hearts.)

So when you eat glucose, it goes from your stomach, to your muscles, and other organs, brain, etc.

Whatever is left over after your body uses what it can right away goes to your liver to store as sugar for later use.

And that’s good.

Here’s a map in case you get lost.

And then there’s fructose… Remember him?

Man, he’s angry huh?

And he’s out to get your liver! AND make you fat!

Here’s what Mr. Fructose man does.

He’s pretty mean, and your muscles, brain, organs, etc. are all really nice. So they don’t get along. They say “no way” to Mr. Fructose meany man. And they send him to where all the “mean” toxic substances are sent to in your body.

Where’s that?

You guessed it, your liver!

Yea, you’re liver takes junk from almost everyone, so you should be happy you have one.

Basically, fructose gets rejected by all of the things glucose gets along with. And it gets kicked to your liver almost instantly from your stomach.

Your liver has a pretty tough time making fructose into something your body can use, and in the process of breaking it down, it makes a bunch of “junk” proteins which can cause accelerated aging in your body.

When your liver breaks down fructose, it also turns about 33% of it into fat. Yes I said fat.

Specifically the *bad* kind of fat. It turns into triglycerides, and very low density LDL which is the really bad type of LDL and both triglycerides and very low density LDL contributes greatly to heart disease.

SO when you think you’re eating fructose, you’re really making bad fat instead of just eating “empty calories.”

In addition to this, the conversion of fructose to “useable” energy in your body creates insulin resistance and that’s really bad. And it’s a big pre-cursor to diabetes, and other bad things. (We’ll cover this in a later post.)

Fructose can also make it so your hormone leptin turns off, and when leptin turns off, you feel hungry almost all the time.

And again, in case you got lost… here’s a road map. You’d better be happy I made these for you. They tool a LOT of effort.

So how do you avoid fructose?

And what foods contain the most fructose?

Well… I’m a little tired right now, and this is a long post.

So I’m going to pick this back up in a future post.

Just remember.

If you are going to reach for a sweetener.

Glucose = good

Fructose = bad

See ya,

Sean

OK, so I admit it, I’m not perfect.

What  a great way to start out a bloggy website thing where I’m positioning to talk about health, wellness, and expect at least someone to listen to me…

Well forget about that for a second and just listen because you might just learn a thing or two, or at least disagree with me enough to post an inflamatory comment in the form below.

In the past I’ve always been a big believer in the “all mighty” law of thermodynamics in relation to diet, weight loss, muscle gain, etc.

Basically the law of thermodynamics says that if you eat a bunch of food and don’t burn it off, then you’ll probably gain weight, and if you limit what you eat and exercise then you’ll probably lose weight.

You’ve heard it before… Eat less, move more. And that’s supposed to work right? And truthfully, it *does* work for many people. But there’s some serious flaws to that theory, and while it is an effective strategy, it’s really hiding something sinister behind its simplicity. And I’ll get to why that is in a minute.

Believe me, if you had told me this even 6 months ago, I wouldn’t have taken you seriously. I have even written a book, and developed a piece of software that’s entire purpose is to help people get in shape eating the foods they want to eat.  But for the people who care more about their health, wellness, and want a turbo charged way to really get in the best shape of their lives, then read on.

Before I get into the specifics of my discovery, what changed my mind? And how did it happen?

Well, I know you don’t have all day to read a long winded blog post on someone esle’s diet revelations… So I’ll keep it quick.

For many years I’ve been very into fitness and nutrition. As an extension of that I’ve gone to the gym for many years, lifted weights, did the treadmill, StairMaster, elliptical, etc.

And my goodness did it get extremely boring…

So I “rebelled” and stopped going to the gym, stopped lifting weights, and started doing some other activities, like trail running for example.

I really enjoyed running through the forest, and up challenging hills with my wife Lindsey and 2 dogs Lucky and Clover.

Although it was fun, and I still enjoy it from time to time, I missed lifting weights, and some of the social aspects of the gym.

I’d heard about a fitness program called CrossFit for years, and a friend of mine had just started, so I decided to check it out. And it kicked my butt!

I felt like I was in pretty good shape, but that was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I had a massive headache, my lungs were burning, and my entire body felt like jelly (and that was the *first* workout.)

I took that as a personal challenge, and signed up.

And it *still* kept kicking my butt.

It kicked my butt so hard that I would literally get so nervous before a workout that it liquefied my stomach, made my heart flutter, and I’d get cold sweats just thinking about the next workout.

I didn’t want to give up, but those workouts were literally *scary*!

After some looking around, and talking with people, I realized that the people who did very well at CrossFit were eating a diet called the “Paleo Diet.”

The Paleo Diet basically means, no grains, no beans, no salt, no processed foods, no processed sugar, etc…

If you’re eating the Paleo Diet, you mainly eat nuts, seeds, fruit, vegetables, and meat.

And mainly if you’re eating the Paleo Diet, you end up eating pretty boring breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. And especially coming from the “You can eat whatever you want as long as you keep your calories under control, and your protein pretty high” I did *not* want to deal with the Paleo Diet.

But I couldn’t deny that it had some serious performance enhancing effects.

I’m not one to take a diet at face value and just blindly follow it. And when I get interested in something, I can sometimes become pretty obsessed with it.

So I went on a crazy research frenzy and poured through PubMed, clinical studies, watched lectures from professors and doctors from respected universities on the subject of nutrition and tried to relate it to the Paleo Diet.

The truth was, that I wanted the benefits from the Paleo Diet, but didn’t want to follow it perfectly. Basically, I was trying to cheat the Paleo Diet…

And I’m pretty sure after hundreds of hours of reading, watching, researching, debating, and dreaming advanced nutrition I believe I found not only a way to get the benefits of the Paleo Diet, but I believe you can even get greater health benefits from the way that I now eat.

While CrossFit is undeniably tough for me still, it’s not the same “I feel like I might literally die” feeling I used to get.

Some of the performance enhancing feelings are most likely from simply spending more time at CrossFit, but I know that my diet alterations are helping, and I also believe that I’m setting myself up for optimal helth in the future.

My family has a history of dimentia, cancer, and heart disease, and my wife’s family has a history of cancer, MS, and diabetes. I’d like to avoid these if at all possible, and I’m glad that I believe I’ve found a very real way to minimize the risk of getting these incredibly scary diseases.

We’ve even switched one of our dogs who had to have a $150 dollar a month allergy medication to this new way of eating, and she’s almost completly off of her medication.

So I’m pretty psyched about it, and I think you should be too.

Prepare for your mind to be blown in the future posts.

I’m going to share with you some seriously cool things that I believe you need to know if you want to be as healthy and happy for as long as your time lasts on this planet.

See ya!