It's All About Energy

Around six or seven years ago low-carb and intermittent fasting was all the rage. Every popular health influencer was promoting doing both.

Over the past couple of years, there has been a shift. Slowly I saw videos and podcasts like these pop up everywhere.

What changed? I think it was the underlying hierarchy of prioritization. As in what the most important things are to health.

People in the health-optimizing space started to realize that there are no cure-all solutions like fasting or a ketogenic diet. The research started pointing toward the fundamentals.

But, why the fundamentals worked still didn’t seem defined. I wanted to figure out the common link of why the fundamentals they now turned to work.

That’s where the bioenergetic view comes in. It is a paradigm on health that creates an understanding of why all of these health nerds are converging on a few fundamentals.

It allows us to be both broad and specific when creating a healthy body. It allows us to reason from first principles instead of analogy.

The largest problem we are facing in the treatment of disease and the exploration of health is the lack of a common foundation or paradigm.

If two physicists are arguing over something they usually argue over specific equations or theories, the details. Now, imagine one of them has no idea what quantum physics is and only has the Newtonian paradigm to view physics through. They would contradict each other, become frustrated and come to completely different conclusions.

This is what we are doing in health. We have no clear paradigms. We don’t have Newtonian health or quantum health paradigms. We end up arguing details without defining the base assumptions that the details stand on.

Newtonian physics is correct but only to a degree, the same with quantum physics. They allow us to answer questions about reality. If we had a defined paradigm of health it would change our entire battle against disease, a battle that we are currently losing.

That’s what we are going to do today. You are about to learn the bioenergetic paradigm of health. It's the most correct paradigm I’ve found so far.

What is a Paradigm?

Think of a paradigm as a pair of glasses through which you see and interpret the world. These glasses represent a set of assumptions, beliefs, and accepted truths about a specific topic or area of study. When you wear these glasses (adhere to a paradigm), you see the world in a certain way, and certain ideas make sense to you.

Newtonian physics is a paradigm that allowed us to answer many questions about our physical reality that were previously hidden from us. Einstein, Bohr and Plank then came along and created a new paradigm called quantum physics that allowed us to answer many more, and different questions.

Each paradigm has its set of foundational principles that shape the way people within that field perceive and approach their subject matter. In the subject of health, we have not clearly defined what paradigm we are operating from.

The bioenergetic view or pro-metabolic is a paradigm that has one fundamental principle upon which everything else rests. Energy is what maintains the function of the human body.

I think the reason the paradigm is gaining so much traction is because it is correct or at least the most correct. In the sense that it has allowed us to answer questions regarding health that previously were a guessing game.

To understand the power of this paradigm, the first question we need to ask is: Why does putting energy at the base of the paradigm make sense?

The Importance of Energy

Last week we talked about your body being an ecosystem of cells. All of the trillions of cells in your body are performing trillions of processes every second to maintain your health. Now, almost every single one of those processes requires energy.

The body uses energy to perform work. But, our body only uses energy from one molecule we call Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP). We use so much of it that we create our body weight in ATP daily. That sounds like a ridiculous amount. I haven’t figured out what it means, but the point is that we produce an insane amount of ATP.

The body has organs that perform specific functions. If we scale it down to the cells they also have “organs” that perform specific functions. In cells, we call the “organs” organelles. The organelle that produces almost all ATP is called the mitochondria.

You probably remember the mitochondria as the energy plant of the cell. Energy production is so important that cells average 1000-2500 mitochondria per cell.

ATP is created by burning fats and sugars. When they are burned the chemical energy that holds them together is released. This energy is used to add a phosphate group to adenosine diphosphate (ADP) making, you guessed it, adenosine triphosphate (ATP).

In our ecosystem of cells, there is no function more important than energy production. If we take it one step further we need to ask what functions are the most important to maintain proper energy production.

But, energy production is complex, I mean fucking complex.

For the paradigm to be useful to the non-metabolic-nerds we need to be able to apply it broadly. This is something the paradigm does beautifully.

Applied Broadly

In an ecosystem living organisms interact with each other and the physical environment. It is the same in our bodies. Cells interact with each other but they also interact with the physical environment. Here you can think of the physical environment as any environmental inputs.

• Light

• Molecules (food, air-borne, water, hygiene products etc)

• Movement

• Sleep

In the analogy, we are Mother Nature. We control the weather. We control what nutrients get recycled, how much rain and sun there is, and how the landscape looks.

We have no control over what the organisms (cells) do, but we are in control of what environment the cells exist within. The obvious thing we then should do is create an environment optimally conducive to cellular function, which in our case is energy production.

I’ve given specific advice on how to do this countless times. Check out my previous posts if you want to get straight advice.

The point of this paradigm is that it allows you to explore what is the most logical course of action on your own. That is what I implore you to do.

I told you that what makes this paradigm special is that it can be applied broadly and specifically. It allows us to explore specific questions.

Specific Application: A message to the nerds out there

All paths lead to Rome but in the case of our bodies, all paths lead to ATP being produced in the mitochondria. If any road is blocked it will lead to problems. Our objective is to figure out which part of energy metabolism is suboptimal and fix that.

Take any specific symptom or disease, and then ask the question: what part of energy metabolism needs to be subpar to create this symptom or disease?

Once you have a hypothesis of what that may be you ask the question: what can we do to unblock that road?

Now you have a hypothesis of the cause and the cure of your (or the) problem. All you have to do now is test to see if your hypothesis is correct.

I’ve told you before, but I’ll tell you again, you are a scientist and the subject is you. You live in your body, it is your responsibility to maintain the health of your ecosystem of cells.

Final Words

This might sound obvious to you. We want to maximize cellular energy production because it is energy that maintains the function of our cells, and the function of our cells determines the function of our body.

But it isn’t at all. This is ground-breaking shit.

Improving energy improves your health. But, what does that even mean?

Well, if your cells have more energy what happens?

Your response to training will be better, you will recover quicker, become stronger quicker and look better faster. You will get sick less often and prevent diseases.

But, it goes beyond physical health. Your brain runs on energy. If your brain has more energy you will be able to think faster and better. The process of thinking requires energy, quite obvious I guess.

Your mood is largely determined by the energy state of your brain and body. With more energy, you will feel better. Not only that you will have more “energy” to do the things you want. Your motivation will increase. Your will to do will increase.

If you knew that you could be superhuman by creating more energy at a cellular level what would you sacrifice?

Until next Sunday, do what makes your future self proud.

If you would like to read any of my previous posts you can find them on my website below.

For you reading this when almost no one does, thank you. I would love any and all feedback.

If you have any health issues or any questions regarding health, don’t hesitate to contact me.

You can directly message me at [email protected]

Thank you for reading.