Twenty-One, No Wait, Twenty Tweaks For Better Health

Today’s almonds have been activated by:

⏰ IN A RUSH?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• A great way to start meals is with a glass or two of water (consider adding a tablespoon or two of apple cider vinegar to the first one!), and a green starter.

  • This will set you up for the gentlest blood sugar curve possible!

• Another boost to health can be enjoyed by eating according to the “king, prince, pauper” rule:

  • Try to make your breakfast the largest meal of your day, followed my a medium lunch, and a small evening meal.

• Weighing yourself twice per day (when you get up and when you go to bed) results in much better long-term weight management than weighing only once per day.

• Of all the cognitive activities we can do to keep our brains young, keeping our language skills polished is one of the most critical (use it or lose it!)

  • Today’s sponsor Memrise offers an easy, fun, and useful (because as a bonus, you learn another language) way to do just that

Read on to learn about these things and more…

👀 WATCH AND LEARN

The Only Exercise You Need for Stronger Glutes | Over-50s Specialist Physio

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

Want to skip straight to his explanation of the exercise? Click here to start at 3:51

✅ MAIN FEATURE

Dr. Greger’s 21 Tweaks… We say 20, though!

We’ve talked before about Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen (12 things he advises that we make sure to eat each day, to enjoy healthy longevity), but much less-talked-about are his “21 Tweaks”...

They are, in short, a collection of little adjustments one can make for better health. Some of them are also nutritional, but many are more like lifestyle tweaks. Let’s do a rundown:

At each meal:

• Preload with water

• Preload with “negative calorie” foods (especially: greens)

• Incorporate vinegar (1-2 tbsp in a glass of water will slow your blood sugar increase)

• Enjoy undistracted meals

• Follow the 20-minute rule (enjoy your meal over the course of at least 20 minutes)

Get your daily doses:

• Black cumin ¼ tsp

• Garlic powder ¼ tsp

• Ground ginger (1 tsp) or cayenne pepper (½ tsp)

• Nutritional yeast (2 tsp)

• Cumin (½ tsp)

• Green tea (3 cups)

Every day:

• Stay hydrated

• Deflour your diet

• Front-load your calories (this means implementing the “king, prince, pauper” rule—try to make your breakfast the largest meal of your day, followed my a medium lunch, and a small evening meal)

• Time-restrict your eating (eat your meals within, for example, an 8-hour window, and fast the rest of the time)

• Optimize exercise timing (before breakfast is best for most people, unless you are diabetic)

• Weigh yourself twice a day (doing this when you get up and when you go to bed results in much better long-term weight management than weighing only once per day)

• Complete your implementation intentions (this sounds a little wishy-washy, but it’s about building a set of “if this, then that” principles, and then living by them. An example could be directly physical health-related such as “if there is a choice of stairs or elevator, I will take the stairs”, or could be more about holistic good-living, such as “if someone asks me for help, I will try to oblige them so far as I reasonably can”)

Every night:

• Fast after 7pm

• Get sufficient sleep (7–9 hours is best. As we get older, we tend more towards the lower end of that, but try get at least those 7 hours!)

• Experiment with Mild Trendelenburg (better yet, skip this one)*

*This involves a 6º elevation of the bed, at the foot end. Dr. Greger advises that this should only be undertaken after consulting your doctor, though, as a lot of health conditions can contraindicate it. We at 10almonds couldn’t find any evidence to support this practice, and numerous warnings against it, so we’re going to go ahead and say we think this one’s skippable.

Again, we do try to bring you the best evidence-based stuff here at 10almonds, and we’re not going to recommend something just because of who suggested it 😉

As for the rest, you don’t have to do them all! And you may have noticed there was a little overlap in some of them. But, we consider them a fine menu of healthy life hacks from which to pick and choose!

❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE

Keep Your Brain Young (And, Bonus: Learn A Language) With Memrise

When it comes to keeping an aging brain young, language-learning is always one of the top-advised activities. Why is that?

It’s because unlike for example sudoku or chess, it directly works the part of the brain responsible for a critical life skill: communication.

If someone in advanced years struggles with mental arithmetic, or forgets the best 17th move in the Tartakower variation of the Queen’s Gambit Declined, it’s usually not a big deal! But fumbling speech, forgetting words, and failing to keep up with conversations? That has a big impact on life (and mental health).

Memrise is a top-tier way to keep language skills sharp, because unlike some other market-leading language-learning apps, Memrise focuses strongly on audio/video recordings of native speakers speaking naturally, keeping the human touch. This makes a big difference for your brain!

Click here to give it a try now!

(You can click through and then on “start learning” if you want; it’s literally that easy)

Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

🌎 AROUND THE WEB

What’s happening in the health world…

• Your Risk of Getting Sunburned Is Higher if You're Taking One of These Common Medications

• Study: Metabolic-associated fatty liver disease is increasing among U.S. adults

• TRAVERSE: Men using testosterone replacement do not have increased risk for CV events

• Research finds link between biomarkers in vitreous humor of the eye and Alzheimer's disease

• Special Nasal Drops Could Help The Brain Recover After A Stroke

More to come tomorrow!

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

Activate Your Brain: How Understanding Your Brain Can Improve Your Work And Your Life - by Scott G. Halford

We've reviewed a number of "improve your brain health" books over time, and this one's quite different. How?

Most of the books we've reviewed have been focused on optimizing diet and exercise for brain health with a nod to other factors... This one focuses more on those other factors.

While this book does reference a fair bit of hard science, much of it is written more like a pop psychology book. As a result, most of the actionable advices, of which there are many, pertain to cognitive and behavioral adjustments.

And no, this is not a book of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It just happened to also address those two aspects.

We learn, for example, how our neurochemistry influences us—but also how we can influence our neurochemistry.

We also learn the oft-neglected (in other books!) social factors that influence brain health. Not just for our happiness, but for our productivity and peak cognitive performance too. Halford talks us through optimizing these such that we and those around us all get to enjoy the best brain benefits available to each of us.

The format of the book is that each chapter explains what you need to know for a given "activation" as the author calls it, and then an exercise to try out. With fifteen such chapters, every reader is bound to find at least something new.

Bottom line: if you want to grease those synapses in more ways than just eating some nuts and berries and getting good sleep and exercise, this book is a great resource.

Click here to check out "Activate Your Brain" and find your next level of cognitive performance!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend,

The 10almonds Team