Frank Lipman and Danielle Claro - The New Health Rules: Simple Changes to Achieve Whole-Body Wellness

The New Health Rules

Simple Changes to Achieve
Whole-Body Wellness

Frank Lipman, M.D. & Danielle Claro

Photographs by Gentl & Hyers

New York

One love

One heart

Lets get together

And feel all right.

Bob Marley

Contents

YOUVE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE

Welcome to The New Health Rules, a wellness book with a different sort of mission: to bring you the secrets of feeling your absolute best, while keeping you engaged, inspired, and awake. We wont talk your ear off or bog you down with unnecessary detail. But youll get every bit of expert, actionable wisdom you need to transform your health. This book is not meant to change you in a weekend. Its meant to map out the healthy habits you want to integrate deeply and forever. Open to any page, anytime, and theres a step you can take toward feeling better. If youve been waiting for a clear messagebeen thinking, Just tell me what to dothis is it. Heres what to do. Change by change, youll build a healthy lifestyle that sticks. Theres no rush. Be patient, and enjoy the ride.

THE RULES WORK FOR EVERYONE

Part of the goal in taking responsibility for your health is getting to know yourself better. Not just the aches and pains, but also the peaks and triumphs. This book is for you whether youre a meat-eater or a vegan, whether youre an athlete or are just now getting inspired to commit to an exercise routine. Its about the whole selfbody, mind, and spiritand the habits and routines that make all three thrive. But its also about the individual. Everybodys different, and getting familiar with your own specific body, mind, and spirit is just as important as the rules are. Well help you with that.

EATING

Fill the Kitchen with Real Food

Meaning, the kind of stuff that grows in the ground, goes bad if not refrigerated, or has a limited shelf life. Leave no space for unhealthy items. Instead of worrying about food labels, buy fewer packaged foods. And clear your pantry of anything containing high-fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners, which travel under the following names: aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, Equal, NutraSweet, Splenda, and SweetN Low.

Fat Is Good for You

Your body needs fat to flourishgood fats, which are found in nutritious foods like avocados, raw nuts, coconut oil, grass-fed meats, fatty fish, and even butter from grass-fed cows. Its the bad fats you have to avoidthose in fried and processed foods. Good fats are not the enemy.

Eat the Colors of the Rainbow

Vegetables (and some fruits) in a wide range of deep colors should make up most of your diet. Intense color indicates loads of phytonutrients, biologically active substances that protect plants from viruses and bacteriaand offer similar benefits to humans.

Buy Organic and Local

Youve heard plenty about the effects of conventional farming on the environment and how buying locally grown organic produce helps right things by limiting the use of chemicals (in farming) and fuel (in transport). But this is a wellness book, and there are health reasons to opt for local and organic too: Conventional fruits and vegetables are often grown in mineral-deficient soil. They could look perfectly lovely but be nutrient poor. And the transportation processtrucking, prolonged refrigeration, treatment for longevityfurther depletes them. Shop your local greenmarket whenever you can. Stick with organic options if you can afford to. And if its possible for you to go hyperlocal (as in veggies grown in your own backyard), thats fantastic.

Sugar Is Poison

This isnt about cavities and empty calories. Sugar raises your risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimers. If this book inspires only one change, let it be a drastic reduction in the amount of sugar you eat. Its lurking everywhere in processed foodnot just in cakes and cookies, but in cereal, bread, salty snacks, and yogurt, to name a few. Raw sugar and brown sugar have a better public image but are just as problematic as the white stuff. Cut it out.

Glutamine can help you wean

If you have a sweet tooth and youre making a concerted effort to get yourself off sugar, take a supplement called glutamine when you have a craving (1,000 milligrams every four to six hours as needed). Its a benign amino acid that tricks your body into thinking its getting sugar (aka glucose). You can find it anywhere that sells high-quality vitamins and supplements.

use stevia if you need a Sugar Substitute

For a sweetener in your morning drink, choose stevia, a natural option that doesnt spike your blood sugar. You can get it in organic powdered or liquid form. In a pinch, you can occasionally use a drop of raw honey or maple syrup (but both are almost as bad as sugar). Dont even think about chemical substitutes like aspartame and saccharin.

Watch Your Fruit

In many ways, sugar is sugar, whether its white and granular or banana-shapedand your body shouldnt have too much of it. Snacking on a nice fresh piece of organic fruit is fantastic, but dont overdo it. When you can, opt for fruits that are lower in sugar: strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, melon, grapefruit. And dont drink fruit juice: Its an intense dose of sugaroften heavily processedwithout the fiber benefits of whole fruit.

Raw Nuts Are Packed with Nutrients

But store-bought roasted nuts are not. Industrial high-temperature roasting kills many of the nutrients in nuts. Buy raw and consume that way, or slow-roast at home. Just spread nuts on a cookie sheet or a piece of foil and place them in the toaster oven at 165F for 10 to 15 minutes (keep an eye on them to make sure they dont burn). You can add a little nutritious unrefined sea salt once you take them out.