A couple years ago, I got really into rock-climbing. Summer of 22, my climbing mentor and I would go outdoor climbing every week. He was diagnosed with a terminal disease and had committed himself to climbing, pushing himself to his limits because he had nothing to lose. And I pushed myself to my limits because it felt extraordinarily freeing. We were a really good team.

On one very hot day, we were climbing, when my body suddenly started shutting down. I spent the next few hours on a rock a little far away from my friends, passing in and out of consciousness and battling the worst nausea of my life. Anything I ate or drank, my body would immediately throw up. By the evening I was so dehydrated I couldn’t walk, had to be carried out of the forest and brought to a hospital. My nausea didn’t stop for another 8 hours, after which I was fed and hydrated via IV and could only have my first normal meal three days later. This was just the beginning of my health adventures.

Over the next 6 months, these episodes would continue happening, while all of my medical imaging showed up as completely normal. It felt like anything I did triggered my chronic acid reflux. Medically, there was nothing wrong with me, so I started studying my body, trying to figure out how to reduce these symptoms.

I cut out anything that could induce physical or psychological stress out of my life—strenuous physical activity, most food, harmful relationships etc. The one physical stressor I kept in my life was climbing—I took example from my mentor and continued climbing. I think climbing was the thing that saved me through a period of ambiguity and fear. My climbing mentor is still alive today, largely attributed to his dedication to a specific mission throughout his disease. Maybe I’ll write about that separately.

Why my stomach was chronically inflamed.

The stomach is highly acidic, with a pH between 1.5 and 3.5, while the esophagus is closer to neutral, with a pH between 6 and 8. A muscle called the Lower Esophageal Sphincter (LES) separates the two organs, preventing acidic content from entering the esophagus. Acid reflux happens when the LES relaxes as a result of incorrect diet/routine and stomach acid enters the esophagus, damaging the lining, causing inflammation and pain.

So, some immediate changes I made was to cut out foods that directly relax the LES muscle, including caffeine, alcohol, highly-processed foods, fatty foods and tomatoes. This helped control my condition.

I originally made these lifestyle changes to stop my body from throwing fits. However, I saw such a huge change in my quality of life and ended up implementing more strategies that would reduce inflammation and improve my baseline.

I’m writing this to share my experience and understanding of my diet, in hopes that it can help you. Your symptoms of inflammation may be extremely mild—maybe your baseline is a little more lethargic or you have slightly more brain-fog—so you don’t really notice or pay attention to these things. Unfortunately for me, it took over my life, so I had to figure it out.

You’ve likely heard about all the foods and products that cause inflammation and thought about how its too unrealistic to cut it all out. Inflammation is your body’s healing response to harmful toxins that enter the body. It’s not inherently bad, but unfortunately, so much of what most of us eat on a daily basis causes inflammation. The result is that we are all chronically inflamed. I believe that the 80/20 principal applies here, and wanted to bring your attention to the changes that impacted me and my friends the most.

What does organic actually mean?

Most people, including myself a few years ago, don’t know.

Most farming in the world is monocultured, which requires absurd amounts of pesticides to maintain. Organic produce is farmed without synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides or other artificial additives. Organic farming relies on natural fertilizers like manure and uses biological pest control methods.

I won’t to go into how pesticides are toxic, since there is a lot of already-existing content and research which covers that. Here’s one paper you can look at. What is important is that they’re a huge driver of inflammation.

Organic meat guarantees that the poultry or cattle is raised without antibiotics, growth hormones or other synthetic drugs. The animals are also fed with 100% organic feed, removing the presence of pesticides, fertilizers and other additives from their diet. ## Stevia, soy, chicken and commercial red-meat are disrupting your hormones.

Stevia

Stevia, a huge part of the modern-day “healthy diet”, is made of steviol, which can significantly increase progesterone production in cells. Steviol at a concentration of 25,000 ng/ml decreases the transcriptional activity of the progestogen receptor and can increase progesterone production by 5 fold.

Based on a weight of 60 kg (132 pounds), the acceptable daily intake (ADI) of Steviol is 240 mg per day. For a total blood volume of 5L, you would need to consume 125mg of Steviol to achieve a Steviol concentration of 25,000 ng/ml in your blood. Theoretically, you only need half of the ADI of Steviol to increase progesterone production 5x. It should be taken into account that this study was done in in-vitro conditions and may have different results in-vivo.

If you look at the food label of the food you consume, a lot of it will unfortunately contain Stevia.

Soy

Soy-products have been marketed incredibly well with the rise of veganism/vegetarianism. Vegan products have significantly higher margins than meat, which is why they are so heavily pushed on society. The US has so much soy that it is basically free. Unfortunately, soybeans are really high in phytoestrogens, which bind to estrogen receptors in the body and can disrupt the natural hormone function within the body.

Chicken

Chicken feed consists of soy beans as the main source of protein. This study shows how commercial chicken feed and commercial chicken meat directly change a rats hormone levels.

Beyond its hormonal influence, chickens’ mono-gastric stomachs cannot convert the linoleic acid in soy into less harmful fats. A chicken’s fat profile is extremely high in omega-6, about 3 times as high as in grass-fed beef. Omega-6 fatty acids are high in arachidonic acid, which are also precursor to inflammatory eiconasoids.

Red-meat

When I tell people I eat primarily red meat, the reaction I frequently receive is, “isn’t beef in the US worse than chicken?” Yes, cattle in the US is mostly farmed worse than poultry because farms are allowed to pump cows with hormones. The FDA allows for hormones (such as estradiol, testosterone, progesterone and zeranol) to be used in cattle to promote growth and improve feed efficiency. Feed additives, including growth promoters, ionophores and other supplements are also used to enhance their growth. In the US, some cattle is even treated with bovine growth hormone (rBGH) and bovine somatrotropin (rBST) to increase milk production. This is banned in 30 other countries.

Grass-fed, or even better, grass-finished hormone-free beef is significantly better than any chicken you will likely find in the US. I have nothing against pasture-raised chickens on small farms (which are not fed with soy), they’re just unfortunately really difficult to farm and find.

Eating at night disrupts your circadian rhythm and drives your inflammation.

The circadian system is composed of two parts: the central clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus and peripheral clocks in various tissues throughout the body. This built-in feedback loop, regulated by transcription and translation of genetic material, turns clock genes on and off throughout the 24-hour day. A disruption of the body’s rhythm can change the timing of clock genes, causing downstream effects that can lead to glucose intolerance, insulin sensitivity, and ectopic fat accumulation.

This study shows the change in rats’ biomarkers depending on the time of day that they are fed. Rats that were fed late at night showed a phase delay of 4 hours in the expression of key clock genes, causing chronic inflammation in their bodies, as follows:

• Significant weight gain and increased overall liver weight.
• The mRNA expression of lipogenic regulators (lipogenesis is the formation of fat) became significantly more unregulated. There was a large increase in the quantity of inflammatory immune cells and lipids in the liver and a decrease in the expression of enzymes that rate-limit fatty acids.
• Significant increase in expression of fatty acid transport genes and pro-inflammatory cytokines (i.e. tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) and interleukin 1β), mucus, and antimicrobial peptide secretion-related genes in both the ileum and jejunum samples, causing intestinal inflammation. Similar results were found in the muscles and colon.

This research is consistent across human studies (source). ## I got over eating sugar by being grossed out by what it does to me. There are dozens of ways in which sugar affects your body. The following is one major example of how sugar affects the normal function of our cells, and is specific enough that I think about this every time I have sugar.

Your body oxidizes sugar to process it and too much oxidation increases the body’s production of free radicals. This puts cells under oxidative stress and triggers inflammation pathways.

Sugars react with proteins and lipids to form advanced glucation end products (AGEs). Added sugars provides more substrates/reactants for AGE transformation. Chemical additives and preservatives provide reactive carbonyl groups or promote oxidative reactions that can also help facilitate the reaction. AGEs bind to receptors that activate intercellular signalling pathways, causing stress for your cells and overall body. For example, AGEs: - Cross-link proteins, altering their normal function and impairing cellular antioxidant defenses. - Accumulate in the mitochondria, activate NADPH Oxidase and in combination with transition metals, result in redox cycling. These all cause in an increase in the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The ROS generated can damage cellular components like DNA, proteins, and lipids, - Modify and inactivate antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase, reducing the cell’s ability to detoxify radical oxygen species. - Translocates NF-κB to the nucleus, promoting the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines.

Seed oils and your cooking method may be contributing to the problem.

Seed oils are polyunsaturated fats that oxidate when exposed to heat and produce free radicals. High-temperature cooking also accelerates the reaction that forms AGEs. Some low-AGE cooking methods include boiling and steaming, slow cooking at a lower temperature, baking or roasting. ## “Natural Flavour” is extremely deceiving The US government defines “natural flavor” as flavours derived from plant or animal sources. However, non-organic foods allow for dozens of different preservatives and solvents to be added to these natural flavours. While food processors are mandated to list all of their components on their food labels, flavour manufacturers are not. This means that as long as the “natural flavour” contains some protein from some plant, they can add whatever other approved chemical they desire.

In summary, the following are the most important dietary changes I made. - Eating only grass-fed, hormone-free red meat (preferably game meat, such as elk, moose, bison, boar) and wild-caught seafood. - Organic produce. - Decreased processed foods, especially those with long/unfamiliar ingredient lists, seed oils, “natural flavours”, stevia, soy and sugars. - Became extremely mindful of when I eat sugar. - Stopped eating past 5pm. - Instead of frying, I started boiling, steaming, slow cooking at a lower temperature, baking and roasting.

Every person in my life that has tried this for 1 week says it completely changes their energy levels, brain-fog, overall mood, feeling of strength and healthiness. Hopefully this inspires you to try something similar.