WQ

This book contains general information relating the potential benefits of making changes the way you Eat, Move, Sleep and Relax. The content is for informational purposes only. Every person has a unique individual situation and has a unique response to lifestyle related behaviors. You should always use your common sense and consult your medical, health or other professional, before adopting any of the suggestions in this book. The author expressly disclaims any responsibility for any adverse effects resulting from the use or the application of the information in this book.

© Folef Bredt 2019

Cover design: Justin de Haas

Interior design: Hermen Grasman Ontwerp

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without permission.

The Wellbeing Quotient

WQ

Unleash Your Full Potential

Folef Bredt MHD

For my children, Finn, Dodi and Lizzie, and my partner Charlotte. You give reason to everything I do, you brighten each day and make me look forward to tomorrow!

Introduction

A Typical Day at Work

His days are packed with back-to-back meetings. In between, he constantly checks his mobile and responds to the most urgent emails and messages. Even though he prioritizes ruthlessly, he is – as always – on a tight schedule, constantly absorbing the endless flow of information and dealing with demands for his attention. Steering the company, pushing activities forward, trying to remain sharp and a step ahead of what is coming.

Sounds hectic? It’s just another day at the office for Ralph Hamers, the CEO of ING, the biggest bank in the Netherlands and one of the 10 largest banks in Europe.

Daily Challenges

In addition to leading his organization through a massive digital transformation, Ralph and his team are driving a number of critical customer-focused innovations. Ever since he took over control of the bank in 2013, the pressure has been high, but it seems as though it has only been increasing over the past few years. The constant disruptions in the banking industry, increasing regulatory demands, the rising expectations of customers and the growing pressure to consolidate and digitalize, have had a significant impact upon him, his leadership team and his entire organization.

Hamers knows that in order to stay ahead in today’s high-pressure work environment, it is not enough for him as a leader to be smart (high IQ) and to be emotionally intelligent (high EQ). To sustain his high level of performance over time, he depends heavily on a much more fundamental capacity, his Wellbeing Quotient, his ‘WQ’.

Ralph Hamers: ‘The past few years have brought a whole new learning curve when it comes to my personal energy management. My commitment to ING and my passion for clients continue to drive me forward, but I’ve learned to accept that there are only 24 hours in a day, and that choices have to be made about what can realistically be achieved in that time. As I get older, I’m increasingly aware that I can only deliver optimal performance for ING when I myself am in prime condition, both physically and mentally.’

The Power of WQ

People with a high WQ feel better and perform better. They feel strong, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, and achieve a higher quality of life. They are better able to stay energized, focused, creative and flexible. They are more in control, they have better interactions, and they can absorb more, allowing them to sustain higher levels of performance and bounce back more gracefully when confronted with the inevitable setbacks that come with their jobs, or in their private lives. All of this carries forward, creating an upward spiral for the people around them, both at work and at home. Their clients, colleagues, family and friends all benefit.

Your level of WQ is the result of how well you develop and preserve your Wellbeing; how your treat your body and your brain. You can develop your WQ , just as you develop your skills and emotional capacities. The more you practice, the higher and more stable your WQ.

Our Wellbeing is under Siege

We may not all be the CEO of a multinational organization, however we do recognize the challenges that Hamers faces. We all operate in a highly demanding business environment that is full of uncertainties and constant distractions, where past practices seldom offer orientation on how to confront and deal with the challenges we face today, where massive change is the only true constant.

Yet, we are all expected to approach each and every task with full focus, to maintain a positive mindset even under the most challenging circumstances, to make bold decisions, to always be proactive, and stay alert and energetic throughout our days. As a result, our working days have been transformed into non-stop tests of stamina, adaptability and composure.

From the moment we pick up our mobile to check-in early in the morning, until we finally check-out late at night, we are almost always switched-on and on the go. And while we may flourish on the opportunities and excitement that our jobs have to offer, the ever-increasing demands do take their toll and inevitably wear us out; they undermine our Wellbeing.

Unfortunately, instead of upgrading our everyday behaviors that help maintain our energy, mood and mindset to accommodate a tougher schedule, we do exactly the opposite. We sleep too little and eat too much, relax too little and sit too much. When the pressure goes up, it only gets worse. We work harder, skim on our downtime, and are constantly on the lookout for a ‘pick me up’.

Ralph Hamers: ‘Personal rituals and habits, or just the odd moment of relaxation, are likely the first things to go when the pressure builds. Many, like myself, will dedicate themselves entirely to the cause at hand, to achieve that one result, that milestone. Yet no-one can thrive on continuous peak moments – you will eventually pay a price, either physically or mentally.’

The Slippery Slope

It is not that we deliberately want to undermine our Wellbeing; without realizing it ourselves, our brain, running on old software, is consistently working overtime, trying desperately to deal effectively with the modern cocktail of multiple demands coming its way.

Subconsciously, we are on a slippery slope that damages our Wellbeing in subtle ways. We find ourselves having to cope with high levels of stress, and consequently display unhealthy behaviors; squeezing in more appointments, even when it means giving up our breaks, watching one more episode of our favorite show, even if that means cutting ourselves 45 minutes short of the sleep we so desperately need.

The way we have organized our lives no longer requires healthy activity to get through the day.

Unhealthy ‘comfort’ food is practically everywhere, no matter where we go; at train stations and gas stations, on every street corner, in the office and meeting rooms, the cookies are there to greet us!

All in all, it seems impossible to resist those unhealthy temptations that provide instant gratification. Our brain, tired from having to deal with the high demands of our long days, is simply no match for the highly advanced strategies of the so-called ‘neuromarketeers’, who have evolved their seductive methods into a true art-form and are increasingly supported by automated intelligence. In reality, it has become a truly unfair game; the majority cannot beat the vending machine.

As a result, most people are operating well below their full potential, both inside and outside the office. Their interactions with clients, colleagues, friends and family are nowhere near as good as they can be. Over time, their physical and mental capacities suffer significantly as chronic elevated levels of stress accumulate and the unhealthy behaviors take their toll. More often than not this leaves people discouraged, depressed and exhausted, or totally burned-out. Ever since we started Lifeguard in 2002, it has been our mission to change this.

There Is Always Room for Improvement

Even if you are doing a good job and you generally feel pretty confident at work, there is always considerable room for improvement. Data we have collected over the past 18 years, across all major industries in nearly 50 different countries, shows that statistically you have a more than an 80% chance that your performance will benefit from enhancing your WQ. If your lifestyle resembles the average, highly-skilled professional, working long days at your desk, constantly pushing to meet deadlines, it is close to a 100%. And the older you get, the more room for improvement there is.

Beating the Vending Machine

Since both the demands of the digital economy and the temptations to indulge in unhealthy behaviors will only increase, it is imperative that you focus on the other side of the equation; get stronger and safeguard your Wellbeing, enabling you to beat the vending machine, sustain high levels of performance and live a better life.

The good news is that your WQ can be developed through making tiny changes in your daily behavior. The biggest changes come from taking a few small steps that improve the behaviors that you have been performing since the day you were born, and that you will perform every day for the rest of your life.

The Big 4: Eat, Move, Sleep, Relax.

Improving the way that you Eat, Move, Sleep and Relax has a major impact on how you think, feel and interact with others; your mood, focus, creativity and mindset, they all benefit – instantly. Over time, the tiny and sometimes seemingly insignificant changes in your behavior will lead to functional and structural changes in both your body and your brain, and it is the awesome power of these changes that make you more resilient, enhance your Wellbeing, and enable you to unleash your full potential.

Ralph Hamers: ‘For me it means creating time to be with my family, regularly exercising, reflecting, and taking proper vacations (allowing myself to truly disconnect). Spending time with my family at home and on holiday is my ‘safe haven’ – it recharges and enriches me. Because I’m absolutely convinced that you can only operate optimally in your job if you at the same time make sure to take great care of yourself’.

Strategies that Have Stood the Test of Time

Through my organization Lifeguard, we have for almost 20 years trained and coached people to perform better and achieve sustainable high performance by enhancing their Wellbeing (WQ). We have helped more than 100 organizations implement a culture of Wellbeing, reaching more than half a million people, resulting in millions of lasting behavioral changes.

Over time, learning from our experiences in the field, and working closely with top scientists in the field of human performance, ranging from neuroscience to psychology and behavioral science, and top performers in sports, music and business, we have come to learn which strategies are most effective when it comes to implementing the behavioral changes that enhance Wellbeing. In this book, I will share some of the most fundamental strategies that have survived the test of time, and offer practical tools that will help you to implement them successfully.

WQ – the Book

Each chapter is divided into 2 parts. The first part deals in detail with how your Wellbeing and performance are affected by your daily behavior, and aims to motivate you to improve your daily routines. The second part provides a list of practical tips and strategies that make it easier to follow through with behavioral change and achieve a healthier work-life harmony.

Ralph Hamers: ‘I advise everyone to seek out a safe haven, something that gives you energy: be it yoga, meditation, religion, cooking or climbing mountains – whatever works for you. For me personally, in addition to my safe haven of quality time with my family, I create time and space around me at work by trusting everyone from the beginning – this means that I don’t have to waste energy on micro management. I empower everyone around me and this gives me the opportunity to focus on the vision, our strategy.’

Crossing the Gap

As mentioned, the vast majority of people have plenty of room for improvement when it comes to ‘The Big 4’. While most understand, at least to a certain extent, how their behavior affects their Wellbeing and performance at work, they find it hard to make lasting changes. Everybody has tried to make improvements at some point in their life, some have made sustainable progress, but most have fallen back into some, or all, of their old routines.

In my experience, everybody can use some help in implementing change; the final part of this book, ‘Crossing the Gap’, offers you that help. It provides key insights from both neuro- and behavioral science, that will help you better understand how you can make your behavioral changes stick. It goes into how you can keep your motivation at a high level, how you can make change easier, how you can nudge yourself into performing the behaviors that enhance your Wellbeing and how you can translate your new behaviors into strong habits. It includes 10 proven strategies that help close that gap between knowing and doing. Applying any of them is guaranteed to work, and every time you successfully implement a behavioral change, it will build your confidence, making it easier to implement new behaviors in all spheres of your life. That is the power of mastering change!

Eat

‘Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.’

Michael Pollan

Why Eat?

Your energy, your focus, and your overall ability to perform, are highly dependent on the food choices you make. A healthy diet can help you prevent – and in many cases reverse – diseases and dysfunction in any part of your body, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, cataracts and infertility. With that, eating healthier offers a major opportunity to live a better life.

Eating for Energy

The relationship between the food you eat and your health and Wellbeing is extremely complex and continuously under debate. Having said that, there is, and has been for a while, a general consensus about how the food you eat influences your energy levels throughout the day. When you eat, your digestive system breaks down your food into microscopic, manageable components. For example, carbohydrates break down into glucose, fats into fatty acids and protein into amino acids. Because of this, your cells can grow, duplicate, repair themselves, and create the energy source which drives all of these processes, making it possible for you to breathe, move, think and feel. There is also a growing consensus about how eating specific nutrients – such as vitamins and minerals – and avoiding others – such as refined sugars and trans fats – can improve your metabolic health, the generation of new cells in your brain, the activity of important bacteria in your gut, and the regulation of anti-inflammatory genes. All in all, science constantly develops valuable insights, which show how eating specific nutrients and foods can improve energy and performance, and enhance your Wellbeing.

Looking at the statistics, eating healthy is easier said than done. In this chapter I aim to provide some insights and practical tips that I hope will help you eat as healthily as possible, within your personal possibilities and needs.

Find Out What Is Good for You

If you feel pretty skeptical about just any advice you get on nutrition, you are not alone. Many of the people I have coached and trained over the years are overwhelmed by all the nutrition and diet advice out there. Not in the least because the information can be quite confusing. 10 Documentaries on food and nutrition will offer at least 10 different views on what is good for you, and what is not. Each of them backed up by nutritional experts from around the globe. Go online to check out what’s healthy or what will help you to perform, and it seems that for every expert who tells you a certain food or nutrient is good, you’ll find at least 10 others stating the complete opposite. All in all, it may seem hard (if not impossible) to find out what really is best for you.

However, when you start looking for commonalities between the different approaches of nutritional experts that have survived the test of time, instead of focusing on whatever ‘today’s hottest food guru’ has to say, you will find that there are a number of things that most of them agree on. There actually is a growing consensus in the scientific community about what is best for most people with regard to their energy-management, health and Wellbeing.

Your Personal Needs

The reason why I underline ‘best for most people’ is that, depending on a whole list of variables, people can react differently to the nutrients they eat. A well-known example is lactose, found in dairy products. While roughly two-thirds of the world’s population is sensitive to lactose, and malabsorption rates are close to 100% in some countries, there are also countries where the prevalence of malabsorption is below 4%. For example, the vast majority of people living in South Korea have difficulties dealing with lactose, which in practice means that drinking more than 2 glasses of milk per day will harm their health. At the same time, most people in Ireland can consume larger quantities of dairy products without any complaints.

Because of these distinct differences, nutritional guidelines vary around the world. Of course they are also affected by the availability of certain types of food, which is probably why only people in Iceland are advised to eat fish at least 3 times a week, and are recommended to use vitamin-D supplements in winter – when they are terribly short on daylight-time.

Most people are, to some extent, aware of the fact that depending on their background, they may react differently to certain foods, and they are also practically guaranteed to know someone who is allergic or hypersensitive to a particular substance. Less known is that within seemingly homogenous groups of people, those with the same backgrounds and without known allergies or medical conditions, the response to specific foods or combinations of foods can also vary significantly. To make things even more complicated, people can react differently to the same foods, at different times and stages in their life. They react differently because their system will develop different needs and will be better or worse at dealing with specific foods and nutrients.

For example, as you get older you will develop different needs, and your energy requirements will reduce by about 0.5% per year, on average. This may not seem much, but it adds up to a more than 25% difference between young adulthood and older age. Keep a regular diet throughout your life, and you will start to notice the impact of those excess calories. On the other hand, your internal systems will, over time, demand higher intake of specific nutrients, e.g. vitamin D to keep your bones strong or specific fatty acids to help prevent cognitive decline.

In general, your internal systems will become less resilient as you age, and this implies that you will need to take extra good care of your body and brain if you want to maintain your ability to free up energy and stay fit both physically and mentally. Furthermore, your internal systems become more sensitive to the negative effects of alcohol, salt and high-carb products, such as unhealthy snacks and soft drinks. While you can get away with quite a bit of unhealthy eating when you are younger, you will start to feel the impact of these behaviors as you age.

Another example of when both your demands and your response to foods will change is when you are dealing with higher levels of stress for a prolonged period of time. In that situation your need for fibers, as well as certain vitamins and minerals, will increase.

In practice, this means that certain foods can be good or just about acceptable for you, but pretty bad for someone else, and that this can change over the course of time. At some point in your life, you might be able to eat foods that are considered unhealthy by most nutritional experts without actually compromising your health, while others might seriously harm theirs by eating them. Years later (and in some cases even hours) it could be the other way around, simply because your body reacts differently to the substances in your food.

Your Individual Response to Food

The reason why your body might react differently to the exact same food is that its response is influenced by a long list of factors, many of which change during your life. Your age, sex, DNA, metabolic health, gut microbiome, lifestyle, and even your mindset; they can all directly influence how your body reacts to what you eat. For example, while people generally react in the same way after eating white bread – in the sense that their blood sugar levels increase significantly after consumption – this is not the case for everybody. For some reason, people respond differently to the starch in white bread, which has a high glycemic index (GI). This means that it will generally lead to a rapid surge in blood glucose levels after consuming it, especially when eating large quantities, but not for everyone.

Recent findings emphasize the differences in how people respond to the food they eat and are beginning to explain why some people never gain weight or develop diabetes, even when they consume large amounts of simple carbohydrates, whereas others feel that they gain weight by simply ‘looking at food’ that is high in sugars or refined carbs in general, or experience sugar highs and lows for the rest of the day after having a high-carb breakfast.

Personalized Nutrition

In the future, when today’s children will have become adults, it will be possible, and practical, to closely monitor your body’s response to foods. With the help of new sensor technologies and automated intelligence, you will be able to obtain nutritional advice tailored to your personal needs, around the clock.

While many top athletes are already benefitting from the new possibilities that personalized nutrition has to offer, it’s good to realize that the data analysis tools that support personalized nutrition are effectively still in their adolescence. In practice, this means that it’s possible to obtain valuable insights from extensive lab tests, to check the nutrient values in your blood at fixed times, or to check them before and after consuming standardized meals, as well as by testing your DNA for genetic variations related to absorption of specific nutrients. However, it generally costs a lot of time and money, and translating the results into practical advice still demands a lot of expertise and has many limitations.

For now, until personalized nutrition has developed into maturity, and is available to the general public, it’s comforting to know that there are many foods and nutrients to which the vast majority of people react pretty much the same. Educating yourself about them, to better understand how the properties of these foods are likely to impact your body, is a good place to start. Find out which foods are best for you.

N. B. If you already have extensive knowledge about how the nutrients in your food impact your body, then you may want to skip the next section, and go straight to the practical tips on page 53, because often we do know why something is good or bad for us, but it’s much more challenging to nudge ourselves into making the best food choices.

Food Fundamentals

Knowing which nutrients will add to the quality of your food, and which will not, makes it easier to eat healthier. In order to better understand how following a few simple guidelines is guaranteed to provide you with all the nutrients you need, let’s look at some food fundamentals.

Your body needs to obtain a number of essential nutrients from your food to function properly. However, your body cannot create them or at least not enough of them. While there are many essential nutrients, they can be broken down into 2 categories: macronutrients and micronutrients.

Macronutrients are those nutrients that your body needs in large amounts. They provide the energy (calories) that you need to convert food into energy, move around, think, grow and repair yourself. The 3 macronutrients are fats, carbohydrates and proteins. Fat is the most calorie-dense nutrient, providing 9 calories per gram. Carbohydrates and protein each provide 4 calories per gram.

Micronutrients are those nutrients that your body needs in smaller amounts. They are better known as vitamins and minerals, and while you only need a few of them, they are crucial to ensure normal metabolism, growth and overall Wellbeing.

Your Body Needs a Healthy Nutrient Mix

It’s not that fats are ‘bad’ or ‘good’, or that sugar is plain bad, for that matter. It’s about choosing the right kinds of nutrients and about creating a healthy mix in your diet. What is best will vary according to the individual and the situation. For instance, when you do a long, high-intensity workout, your body may need to restock on carbohydrates and it will choose them as the preferred energy source. Eating a banana before you start can help your body obtain the extra carbs it needs. If you have to work behind your desk for hours, you may want to eat something with less carbs and more proteins and fats, which take longer to break down. This will help you stabilize your blood glucose levels, and maintain a steadier level of energy. The fact that your body needs different ingredients in different situations, to optimize its internal processes, can make it challenging to eat optimally at all times. Fortunately, there are many foods and ingredients that are generally good (e.g. vegetables which include vitamins and minerals), just like many are generally bad (e.g. commercially-made muffins which potentially include trans fats and tons of sugars).

Carbohydrates

Carbs are controversial these days and probably will be for some time to come, not in the least because eating too much of them can be detrimental to your health. As with all kinds of food, different people respond in different ways to consuming them. Some do better with a low carb intake, others thrive on plenty of carbs. All this, and the fact that they are not considered ‘essential’, which means you could technically survive without them, leaves people with a wide range of opinions on carbs. There is, however, a consensus in the scientific community, that the right type of carbohydrates can boost your health. That is why the vast majority of dietary guidelines around the world suggest that people should get one third to half of their calories from (the right kind of) carbs.

Your Number One Source of Energy

Carbohydrates are your body’s primary source for energy. When you consume carbs, most of them are broken down or transformed into glucose, which both your body and brain can immediately use for energy. Some of it get converted into glycogen and is stored in the liver and muscles, ready for you to use whenever you need it. Alternatively, carbs can also be turned into fats, and stored as energy for later use. Some carbs do not provide energy directly, but they feed the bacteria in the digestive system, and help regulate blood sugars. There are simple and complex carbohydrates, depending on their chemical structure. Simple carbs include sugars such as glucose, fructose and sucrose. Because of their simple structure, they are easy to digest and absorb. Complex carbohydrates consist of a number of simple sugars bonded together. They include starches, which are made up of many glucose molecules linked together, and they include fibers that come from plant foods and cannot be digested, but can help foods pass through the digestive tract.

Sources of simple carbohydrates include table sugar, candy, syrups and sugary drinks, such as sodas, as well as healthier options, such as honey, fruits and milk. Complex carbohydrates include grains and products made from grains, such as cereals, bread, rice, pasta, as well as starchy vegetables (such as potatoes), corn, beans, nuts and seeds.

Good Carbs and Bad Carbs

Complex carbohydrates are generally perceived as healthier, in part because they are harder for the body to break down, and thus cause less of a spike in your blood sugar levels. However, the difference between simple and complex carbs is not what makes them good or bad. The chemical structure by itself says little about the source of the carbohydrate and the rest of the nutrients that come with it. When it comes to classifying carbs in your foods, you ideally need to know 3 things: the food source, the kind of carbs (simple vs. complex) and the amount. Let’s take carrots for instance. They include simple and fast absorbable sugars, but the amount of sugar is limited and they also include plenty of fibers, which slows down the absorption of the carbs, and – as a bonus – they come packed with vitamins, minerals, and other healthy substances. On the other hand, you might eat white rice or pasta; while the carbohydrates inside them are more complex, and thus take longer to break down compared to the simple ones, they usually come in high numbers, and they are also stripped from their fibers and other valuable micronutrients.

Because it’s not always easy to find out what kind of carbs a certain food contains, and it’s certainly not easy to calculate the number of carbs on your plate, it’s much more practical to simply distinguish between the ones that come from whole foods and the ones that come from processed foods. Basically, this helps you (indirectly) to take the fiber content into account.

Whole Carbs

Choosing whole foods (unprocessed foods that are closest to nature) as your primary source of carbohydrates is certain to give you the healthiest ones. They will offer fiber that is naturally found within them and are bound to come full of other healthy nutrients. Because of the fibers, they don’t cause the same highs and lows in blood sugar levels as the carbs in processed foods do.

Healthy carbohydrates that are minimally, or not, processed, have been found to improve heart, gut and brain health. Stockpiles of research link consumption of whole food-based carbs to reduced risk of heart disease, certain types of cancer, type 2 diabetes, obesity and age-related cognitive decline.

Examples of whole foods that are good sources of carbs are whole grains (e.g. whole grain pasta or brown rice, quinoa and oats), vegetables (e.g. beet roots, corn and sweet potatoes), fruits (e.g. bananas, blueberries, mangos and apples) and beans. All of these foods are generally healthy.

Refined Carbs

Choosing processed foods as your primary source of carbohydrates is guaranteed to give you the worst types of carbs. Processed – or refined – carbohydrates like sugars (such as table sugar, high fructose corn syrup and agave syrup) and refined ‘white’ grains, are stripped from their natural fibers and other valuable nutrients, in particular vitamins and minerals. That is why they are often referred to as ‘empty’ calories.

Without enough fibers in your food, the starches and sugars are broken down much quicker in your body. This can spike the glucose in your bloodstream, causing a sugar crash further down the line. As a consequence, you might feel inclined to stock up on more refined sugars to counter the crash and voilà, you got yourself a ride on the ‘blood sugar roller coaster’! This negatively impacts your mood and is bound to make you feel hungrier, craving for more high-carb foods.

Most people are familiar with this principle, but they tend to underestimate the impact of food processing. While everybody understands that a Frappuccino and chocolate cake are not smart choices, still many will have a large glass of fresh orange juice at breakfast. While it may contain a bunch of healthy micronutrients, it will almost certainly trigger your first sugar high – and low – of the day.

Furthermore, the empty-carb-calories that are found in processed foods are practically guaranteed to be accompanied by more ‘not so healthy’ nutrients. For instance, the Frappuccino and chocolate cake are bound to include trans fats and a list of unpronounceable additives. Ultimately, these are the things you want to steer clear from if you want to stay sharp, happy and healthy. However, of course there are moments when you don’t need your brain to function at its best, and when a good piece of cake or other indulgence will definitely improve your mood.

How do I do it? I myself used to have an extreme sweet tooth, and because I never gained any weight, I would eat cakes, muffins and cookies throughout the day. Since I have changed my diet, I have become so accustomed to the healthier foods that I rarely crave for things that were on my daily snacks-list in the old days. I will, however, occasionally order the grand dessert. Usually I enjoy it, and sometimes, the stickiness of all the sugars and the complementary white wine, remind me exactly why I’m not regularly eating this stuff anymore. Never do I feel guilty though, as a good plate of unhealthy foods can also be a welcome challenge for my system, simply because I give it something to chew on.

Over time, a diet that is high in refined carbohydrates is simply bad for your health and Wellbeing. It’s associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes, which in turn, are related to heart disease, kidney problems, eye and nerve damage and cognitive impairment. So, eat whatever you want on occasion, but make it an exception to the rule!

Comparing Good Carbs and Bad Carbs

In practice, when you compare carb-rich foods, it’s easy to see the difference between the good and the bad. The good carbs come packed with vitamins, minerals and fibers, while the bad carbs are stripped of these valuable nutrients and provide little more than empty calories.

Fibers

Fiber is a non-digestible carbohydrate naturally found in plants. Although your body itself can’t digest the fibers you eat, it benefits tremendously from consuming them. Eating a fiber-rich diet has been shown to improve immunity and help reduce or reverse obesity and diabetes type 2. Additionally, some fibers, which are found in oats, beans, and certain fruits, may reduce cholesterol. Overall, a fiber-rich diet has a positive impact on heart and brain health, and can help prevent or delay the onset of cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, and a wide range of cancers. Simply put, fibers are key to a healthy gut, and a healthy gut is key to overall health and Wellbeing. Eating more fibers has been shown to increase life expectancy.

Fibers slow down digestion and the absorption of sugars in your blood stream. This makes you feel full and helps keep your blood glucose levels in check. Both can prevent cravings, mood swings and overeating, which in turn helps to maintain a healthy bodyweight. Furthermore, the fibers in your food feed the billions of microbes that reside in your gut. Keeping them happy (by helping them maintain a healthy balance between the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’) is beneficial for the immune system, as they produce important amino acids, the building blocks of protein. Those microbes also produce the vitamins essential for your survival and keep your intestines working well. They also have a positive impact on your cognitive performance (i.e. focus, memory and learning) and overall mental Wellbeing. Many people are not aware of this, but it is easily understood when you realize just how closely the gut and brain are connected to each other.

The Fiber-Gut-Brain Connection

The gut and brain are closely connected, through the nervous system. A key nerve that connects the 2, and allows for signaling in both directions, is the vagus nerve. Apart from having this direct line of communication, your gut can also produce a number of chemical substances that impact your brain through your bloodstream. For example, your gut can produce serotonin and gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA), which respectively produce feelings of happiness and help control feelings of fear and anxiety. Furthermore, it can produce leptin (which reduces appetite) and ghrelin (which increases hunger). Both hormones influence cognition and emotions. It’s through these pathways that your gut can directly influence how you think and feel.

Many people are aware of the benefits of fibers when it comes to weight management, and research shows that increased intake of dietary fibers can be useful for the treatment of both obesity and diabetes. Until recently most of the findings where purely associative though.

In recent years, a number of studies with mice have looked at the effects of changing the fiber content of their meals. What they kept finding was that after changing their diet from fiber-rich to a diet low in fiber, the microbiome in the gut of the mice also changed. As a result, the protective layer inside their intestines became thinner and bacteria were able to wind up much closer to their intestinal wall. This triggered an immune system response and the development of signs of chronic inflammation, after just a few days. Depending on the exact changes in diet, it took days to weeks for the mice to start putting on weight and develop other kinds of symptoms, such as elevated blood sugar levels. The good news is that it also works the other way around. When adding fiber to their diets, they did better, even on a high-fat diet.

Like humans, mice are omnivorous mammals, and their gut physiology and anatomy are in many ways comparable to humans. However, there are also distinct differences, which is why researchers have started performing all sorts of tests on humans, which generally last less than one week, to learn more about the immediate response to specific diets. In other words, a cautious approach.

In 2013, Harvard researchers studied a small group of healthy people, and observed how they would react to 2 extreme diets. One group was put on a low-fiber, high-animal protein diet (comparable to the Atkins diet), eating bacon, eggs, salami, cheese and pork rinds for snacks. A second group was put on a high fiber, plant based (sort of vegan) diet, with rice, tomatoes, lentils, squash, and fruits. Before, during and after the diet, the researchers examined the gut microbiome of the participants, and compared their regular diets with the ones in the study. What they found was that – within a day – the bacteria in their gut started to shift. Most notably, the animal-based diet showed a significant increase of bacteria that help to break down fat, but that are also associated with inflammation. They also found that the microbes exposed to the animal diet started switching on genes that helped them break down proteins and synthesize scarce vitamins. The plant-based diet caused microbes to turn on genes that helped them break down carbohydrates and that can help synthesizing amino acids.

Together, these findings underline that the foods you eat have an impact on what happens in your gut. Food influences the bacteria you grow, which in turn influences the regulation of your genes. Both can have far reaching implications in regard to inflammation and energy uptake. The findings particularly help explain the importance of eating enough dietary fibers, by showing that eating too little of them has a negative impact on the population of bacteria in the gut. All in all, it points out to the actionable advice that most people are well aware of, but practically nobody puts into practice: that you should eat more plants and cut down on (sweet) foods lacking in fiber.

Two Kinds of Fibers

There are many kinds of fibers in different food sources, which play different roles in the body. Generally, people distinguish between 2 types of fiber; soluble and insoluble. The easiest way to tell them apart: soluble fiber absorbs water, and creates a gel-type substance, while insoluble fiber doesn’t (think of what happens when you add water to celery). Although both types provide certain health benefits, it’s the soluble fiber that reduces the absorption of glucose (and fats) in the blood after a meal, and that can positively affect your triglyceride and cholesterol levels. Insoluble fiber helps to add bulk to your stool, helps stool pass better, and thereby prevent hemorrhoids, constipation, et cetera.

Foods that are rich in soluble fiber include various vegetables (e.g. Brussels sprouts, avocados, sweet potatoes and broccoli), oats, nuts, beans and fruits (i.e. blueberries, apples, pear and apricots).

Insoluble fiber can be found in wheat bran, oat bran, whole grains, vegetables (e.g. broccoli, kale, spinach and sweet potatoes), beans, and skins of fruit (so always eat your apple peels). In general, the more unrefined, or ‘darker’, the grain-based foods, the richer in fibers.

Fats

Your body needs fat. Since it cannot produce the fats it needs, you need to get them from what you eat. Contrary to what many people believe, fat is an essential nutrient with a host of important functions within your body. Eating the right kinds of fats in the right proportions can boost your energy and benefit your health and Wellbeing enormously. It’s eating too much of the ‘bad fats’ and not enough of the ‘good fats’, that is unhealthy.

The Power of Fats

Most of the fat people consume (triglycerides) is packed with calories. Some of it is used for energy right away and the rest is stored inside fat cells for later use. For instance, when you exercise, you need a large quantity of energy, so your body will break down those fats and create adenosine triphosphate (APT), its main energy source. Exercise for longer periods of time, especially at moderate intensities, and fat becomes your body’s primary fuel supplier. That is because it can provide more energy compared to the other sources (carbs and proteins), while using the same amount of oxygen; it’s just much more efficient.

Apart from supplying your body with energy, fats have many other functions to fulfill. One of them is to transport other nutrients, including fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K). When you consume fats in combination with fat-soluble vitamins, they carry them through the intestine, into the bloodstream, and then deliver them to your liver, where they are stored until your body needs them. Without an adequate amount of fat in your diet, your body is unable to effectively absorb the fat-soluble vitamins, which are essential to your health.

Fats also help in producing cell membranes, offering structure to cells, regulating your body temperature by offering insulation, and protecting your vital organs by filling fat tissue around them. Furthermore, they help maintain proper hormone function, sheath your nerves (by creating sleeves of fatty tissue that protect your nerve cells) and support chemical reactions involved in growth, immune function, reproduction and other aspects of basic metabolism. They help keep your skin and hair healthy and shiny, they provide flavor and richness to your food and they can make you feel full, as they are the last to leave the digestive tract and thus provide satiety.

How much of each kind of fat you need is a topic on its own, and one I will come back to later. One thing I can say for now is that you don’t need a lot of fat; it’s much more about the type you choose.

Many Kinds of Fats

Fats can be divided into more and less healthy types. Generally, the good ones come from vegetables, nuts and fish, and the bad ones are artificially created and come from products such as commercial cookies, pies and cakes. Somewhere in-between, leaning more towards the unhealthy side, are fats that come from animal products – yet these are practically always under debate.

Good Fats: Monounsaturated Fats

These types of fats are well known for their general health benefits, as they can protect against diabetes and heart disease by increasing the levels of ‘good’ HDL cholesterol and increasing your insulin sensitivity, which is key for managing your blood sugars. Furthermore, recent findings suggest that eating more of them may lower chronic inflammation, and may help you reduce weight. It’s the combination of these benefits that help explain why monounsaturated fats can benefit cognitive performance. Basically, keeping a healthy heart keeps a healthy brain.

Sources of monounsaturated fat are avocado, canola oil, olive oil, sesame oil, nuts (such as almonds, hazelnuts, cashew, pecan and macadamia nuts) and the oils from these nuts.

Good Fats: Polyunsaturated Fats

Polyunsaturated fats can be divided into omega-3 and omega-6. Omega-3 fats can improve heart and brain health, whilst omega-6 fats are necessary for growth and keeping a healthy hormone balance. Your body doesn’t have the enzymes to produce them, so you must extract them from your diet. That is why they are called ‘essential fatty acids’. Omegas have important roles in processes like blood clotting and inflammation. Omega-6s are pro-inflammatory, while omega-3s are anti-inflammatory. It’s because they have these opposing roles with regard to inflammation, that it’s key to keep a healthy ratio between them. If you consume too much omega-6, you have an increased risk of chronic inflammation. Our ancestors, who ate a pre-industrial diet, had an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of about 4:1 to 1:4. These days, the ratio in Western diets is 16:1 to 20:1, much higher than what people are genetically adapted to and nowhere near to the optimal ratio of 1:1 to 2:1.

Sources of Omega-3 are e.g. oily fish (salmon, mackerel, herring, trout), walnuts, lean red meat, canola oil, soybean, flax seed and their oils.

Sources of Omega-6 are e.g. sunflower seeds, wheat germ, sesame, walnuts, soybean, corn and their oils (e.g. sunflower oil, corn oil, soya been oil).

Because many foods contain both omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids, it is good to know which ratios they offer, and for most people in particular, which foods offer a high omega-3 vs. omega 6 ratio. At the top of the list are tuna (canned in water, drained), lobster (cooked), Atlantic salmon (raw) with ratio’s well above 1:10. Other foods that offer a positive ratio (more omega 3 than 6) are cod, mackerel, salmon (canned, drained), sword fish, broccoli, spinach, mango, salad, kidney beans, chia seeds and flax seeds.

In-between Saturated Fats

Saturated fats are easy to recognize since they are solid at room temperature (like butter, cheese and fatty meat). Their negative impact on cholesterol levels is less than previously thought, and some diet gurus are actually saying that it’s perfectly alright to eat as much of them as you like. However, the majority of recent studies show that it’s better to limit the amount of saturated fats in your diet – not only with regard to your cardiovascular health, but also to protect the rest of your body and in particular your brain. It’s not that the brain will consume many of the saturated fats that you eat, or that the cholesterol starts crowding your brain (dietary cholesterol cannot even cross the blood brain barrier to begin with) but that a high intake of saturated fats increases inflammation, which over time will reduce the blood flow to your brain. Many studies have linked high saturated fat intake to development of cognitive decline, including dementia.

Another reason to minimize your saturated fat intake is that your body doesn’t need any of them from your food to begin with. It can make the amount it needs internally. This, and the fact that there are healthier alternatives, is why they should not be high on your grocery list, for the sake of your body and brain.

How much saturated fats can your body handle? This question is extremely hard, if not impossible, to answer on an individual basis. If you would rather be safe than sorry, it’s best to stay below 10% of your caloric intake (at 9 calories per gram, that comes to about 22 grams per day when consuming +/- 2000 calories a day). Intake of more saturated fats has repetitively been shown to be detrimental to health.

Sources of saturated fats are butter, cheese, meat fat, meat products (sausages, hamburgers), full-fat milk and yoghurt, pies, pastries, biscuits, cakes, solid margarines and baking fats, coconut and palm oil.

The Bad Trans Fats

Trans fats are mainly formed during the process of hydrogenation of edible oils to make solid fats used in shortenings and margarines. Tiny amounts can also be produced in the heating and frying of oils at high temperatures. Of all the fats, these are without a doubt the worse kind. They have no nutritional value whatsoever and they are downright bad for you, no matter how little of these fats you eat. That is why, according to dietary guidelines around the world, there is simply no safe level of consumption. The fact that they are bad is so crystal clear to anyone who takes a closer look at them, that trans fats have the dubious honor of being argued about the least. Trans fats increase the ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol. In addition, they can also decrease levels of the ‘good’ HDL cholesterol, making the effect of trans fats significantly worse than saturated fats, or eating cholesterol-rich foods, for that matter.

Trans fats are so powerful, that eating even a little of them may be harmful, especially for the brain. Studies have shown that people who eat just 2 grams of trans fats per day, double their chances of developing cognitive decline, compared to the people who eat less. Most people eat much more! Altogether, trans fats are harmful to your body, your brain, and your overall health. Harmful for just about anything, with the exception, some may argue, of taste and the shelf life of processed foods.

Sources of trans fat are commercially baked goods: crackers, pies, cookies, cakes, frozen pizza. They are also found, to a lesser extent, in beef, lamb and dairy fat.

Proteins

While the proteins you obtain from your food offers a source of energy, your body mainly uses proteins for growth and repair. When you consume proteins, your body breaks them down into amino acids, which are the tiny building blocks of protein. Your body primarily uses them to make new proteins, which are used for growth, maintenance and repair of muscles, hair, nails, skin and every other organ and tissue in your body (such as your heart, kidneys and liver). It also uses them for the production of neurotransmitters in your brain.

In total there are 20 different building blocks, which your body uses to build an endless number of proteins. 9 Of them are essential amino acids, which means that you need to extract them from your food, as your body cannot produce them by itself.

As mentioned, the amino acids from dietary proteins can be used for energy production, but generally only as a last resort. During endurance exercise or when a diet contains too few carbohydrates and fats, the body will break down muscle and other tissue proteins to release amino acids that can then be used to generate energy.

Protein is found in both animal and plant-based foods. All animal-based foods provide all the 9 necessary amino acids that your body needs from food. Soybeans and quinoa provide them as well. All other plant-based foods lack one or more of the amino acids you need to obtain from your food. This implies that when you rarely or never eat animal products, you need to consume a broad variety of plant sources every day to ensure you obtain all the essential amino acids. Alternatively, you can combine incomplete proteins with complete protein. For example, you can combine vegetables with grains to provide sufficient amounts of the amino acids methionine and lysine. Another way to get all the proteins you need is to consume milk and eggs, the so called lacto-ovo vegetarian diet.

Sources of protein are meat, fish, chicken, milk, yoghurt and eggs. They include lots of proteins because they are all animal-based products, and animals contain protein in their muscles and tissues. Other foods that contain proteins, albeit a limited amount, are beans, nuts, seeds, grains and soy products.

Good and Bad Proteins

Proteins are different from fats, in a way that there are no clear bad proteins or ones that top the rest. The 20 amino acids that your body uses to build its own proteins are the same, but the ‘packaging’ in which they enter your body can differ in quality enormously. So when it comes to protein, the trick is to look at what you eat with it. What other nutrients do you find in the food that contains the protein? Are you eating fish, which contains omega-3 acids, or are you eating a large steak, that contains plenty of saturated fats? Many meat lovers will tell you that you get ‘the very best proteins’ from eating meat, but that’s simply not true. Yes, it’s an easy way to get in all the 9 essential fats, but it comes at a cost, namely the large quantity of saturated fats. That is not to say that you should not enjoy a good steak every once in a while.

How Much Protein Do You Need?

Between 10 to 35 percent of your daily calories should come from lean protein sources such as low-fat meat, fish, dairy, legumes or eggs.