You Are What You Eat with Dan Young
This is brought to you by Dan Young, founder of Simple Again, a whole foods company that has helped hundreds of businesses and thousands of their customers with pre and post-workout diets as well as daily regimens to meet their wellness goals and/or fight disease. He taught me everything I know in the ways of nutrition and he is excited to share it with you.
Dan’s Story:
My story is not unlike the stories of thousands, perhaps millions of people who have come to a place in their life when it seemed as if all was lost and life was not worth living any longer. But, because of an epiphany or something born within, an inner herculean strength rises up to begin the climb up the mountain whose summit may promise to be the dawn of a new day!
How ironic it was that I found myself at age 40, stricken with diseases that were caused by my diet; after all, I had always been conscious of the foods I ate. I was a busy guy – raising a family, running a business, managing our farm, coaching, etc. I always managed to find time to eat the “right” foods. Or was I? What I was really doing was being a “creature of habit” and eating the same six or seven foods every day; many of these foods altered by chemicals and ladened with heavy metals. I didn’t realize it until it was too late; when my body succumbed to the repeated offensives I imposed on it.
Suddenly, symptoms of brain fog, fatigue, rashes, thrush, constipation and cramping became my life. What was happening to me? Weeks turned into months and then into years! There seemed to be no end in sight. I’d go to sleep at night hoping that by morning, I’d wake up feeling refreshed and normal. It wasn’t happening. I grew worse and less functional. I was losing the will to live.
After two years of barely surviving, I sought help. I went to my family doctor who chased me to a specialist and he to another and another. With no clear answers or diagnosis, I decided to get back to my core beliefs.
I discovered Healing with Whole Foods, by Paul Pitchford a book based on Eastern traditions of diet and nutrition. I read it and for the first time in two years I found hope, which drove an inner strength to fight back. I wrote a new diet protocol for myself starting first by eliminating foods that were causing my problems and then including foods that would detoxify and repair my body.
I then visited a holistic doctor who performed some simple blood tests and discovered a combination of maladies riddling my body – mercury and heavy metals seemed to be the root of my problems, but now Systemic Candida, EBV stage 4, IBS and early stages of Crohn’s all were becoming acute. Terrible right? No! I looked at this as validation! For the first time in years, I knew what was wrong and I was determined that I could fix it! Why didn’t any of my doctors discover this? Because, I am told, they just don’t look for or believe these are valid maladies!
With renewed energy, I began researching the digestive system and consuming every book I could find related to whole foods nutrition and sports nutrition. A new world was opened to me. The power for curing my diseases was within me and in my own pantry; I just needed to unlock the code. For the first time in a long time, I was in control, I could heal myself. But it was going to take time to do it right. Cells replicate at the rate of 300 billion each and every day, so to completely replace my body’s 75 trillion cells, it could take 9-12 months. I had to make that commitment to myself and to my kids. I found the power to heal and it in nature’s pharmacy!
Within the fruits, veggies, grains, beans, legumes, clean and lean proteins and healthy fats were countless phyto-nutrients, antioxidants and other compounds that science hadn’t even discovered yet! These nutrients were what I was denying myself for years; it’s no wonder my immune system was compromised!
I became vigilant about what foods I needed to eat to enable healing. This meant denying myself all of the “temptations” that everyone around me enjoyed and restricting my diet to just “healing” foods. Detoxing took time and was really difficult. This phase of my healing magnified and exacerbated my systems. But, after several weeks, I noticed positive change, which inspired me to continue. As weeks turned into months and I continued to improve, my fog brain lifted, digestive distress eased, energy returned. It was a miracle!
It took more than a year and may have been quicker; truth be told. I am human and several times during this journey when feeling better, I cheated on my diet and BAM! I’d feel like I was starting over. UGH! But, after correcting my mistakes and getting back on the protocol, my body responded more rapidly.
Today, 20 plus years later, I am 100% healed. I have never had a recurrence of any of my so-called incurable diseases and I love my life. I enjoy the ubiquitous cornucopia of whole foods that Mother Nature has given to us. All of the foods that I eliminated are now back in my diet. I have seen whole foods cure Candida, Ulcerative Colitis, Crohns, Cancer, Diabetes, MS and many other diseases. I have also seen whole foods help people achieve new levels of performance and break plateaus that before were unachievable.
In fact, I am once again participating in endurance activities finding new mountains to climb. At age 59, I completed several Olympic Tri’s, a half IM and my first full Ironman! A year later I aged up to 60 and finished my second full Ironman shaving off two hours from my time! I owe this all to perseverance, the willingness to climb mountains and to whole foods!
It’s interesting to me that the diets and supplements that fellow athletes train and live on are similar to what I left behind. My approach with whole foods has taken me to new levels of fitness and wellness. In fact, my performance is in many ways stronger than athletes who have been training for many years! I think that this is simply because your body recognizes and utilizes nature’s pharmacy far better than science’s pharmacy.
Timing is Everything!
Whether you take an intense yoga class, go for a run or climb a mountain, you use a lot of energy: fuel or glycogen as we call it. This glycogen comes from carbohydrates you’ve eaten throughout the day and stored in your muscles to be used when your body demands energy. Carbs are veggies, fruits, grains, legumes and beans; they are indeed nature’s energy source! This stored energy (glycogen) is used constantly for fuel and is the most efficient form of energy for your body to run on.
It is critical to your performance goals that you store and replenish this glycogen properly as it relates to your general energy requirements and homeostasis. When you are preparing for your workout you need to make sure your fuel/glycogen stores are topped off since your body runs best on this form of energy. When you finish your workout, your fuel/glycogen is near or completely empty. This needs to be replaced quickly or your body will begin catabolizing itself – not a good thing! More details to follow.
Pre-workout:
Ideally, your best meal of the day should be 2-3 hours prior to your workout. Why? Because, your body’s most efficient energy source is from Glycogen (previously eaten Carbs), and it’s always better to workout on an empty stomach with all foods digested and stored as Glycogen. Your energy should be used for your workout, NOT digesting.
That said, because of lifestyle dynamics, we can’t always do the right things. But it’s far more important to have the energy to sustain a dynamic workout than to have low reserves of energy and expect positive results. Your body remembers your last workout and will try and equal that experience the next workout. So, if you haven’t had time to top off your Glycogen stores by eating 2-3 hours prior to your workout then simply consume high Glycemic, easily assimilated foods that have both carbs and protein. The closer to your workout, the higher in the Glycemic Index.
Ideally, foods that should be consumed one hour or less before your workout are simple carbs like antioxidant rich fruits and processed grains; for instance, quick oats are better than whole oats. These are digested very quickly and will supply much needed sugars throughout your blood system. Branch Chain Amino acids from protein is another very good source of sustained energy and when combined with the simple sugars from carbs, its efficiencies are close to energy from Glycogen.
General Rules:
If you are just waking up to work out, start with ⅓ banana to get your metabolism and energy going. Your body is in a catabolic state while you’ve been sleeping; it’s actually fasting. The fructose in the banana or fruit turns that off like a switch. If you are working out later in the day, make sure you wait 2-3 hours after you eat before you exercise.
Ideas:
There are many ways to combine carbs and protein for a tasty, quick, high energy snack.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Sweet potato spears and almonds
Yogurt and fruit with a scoop of protein added
PB&J sandwich
These do require a little prep on your end; or, you can simply try a product like swiig’s Berries Go ‘Rounds (a product I actually created for all my endurance races). These babies are chock full of raw ingredients that hit all the right points. Just 140 calories, 60% coming from antioxidant rich dates, cranberries, goji berries, blueberries and honey. 23% coming from pumpkin seed protein and the balance from healthy fat like cashews and coconut. On my long rides, I live on one half of these every 30 minutes. Bam! My body responds very well to whole food energy.
Post-workout:
Replacing Glycogen post-workout is even more critical than topping off your Glycogen stores before a workout. Depleting glycogen stores during a workout causes your body to go into a catabolic (muscle wasting) state, using its own muscle to feed your body’s elevated metabolism and need for energy. Over time, the net result is a smaller version of yourself but with a higher fat to lean muscle tissue ratio. This decrease in muscle lowers your metabolic rate making it more and more difficult to burn calories and lose fat.
By drinking a high-Glycemic based drink immediately following a workout (within 30 minutes, preferably a 3 to 1 ratio of Carbs vs Protein respectively), all sugars are shunted directly to your muscle fibers, not to your hips or those pesky love handles. You see, glycogen is stored in your muscles, not in fat. Once in your muscle cells, recovery can begin and you can start to rebuild a stronger, leaner you.
The whole secret to weight management is to keep your body in a constant anabolic “muscle saving” state. If you are just trying to burn fat, replacing the energy used quickly keeps your body in an anabolic state so that muscle does all the work of torching fat!
To optimize Recovery, nutrition is critical. Consuming an equal to or even up to 10% greater amount of calories than expended during your workout will keep muscle on your body and help you torch fat! It is the critical first step to recovery.
I can honestly tell you, I never miss replenishing post workout with a recovery shake. And here is where you can really get creative and blend up a powerful smoothie that is going to fill you up post-workout with all the nutrition and energy you need to keep conquering all those mountains. Here is a template to make your own post-workout smoothie.
To your blender, add:
Liquid (milk, water, juice)- add 6 oz to the blender
Veggies and/or fruit (fresh or frozen)- add about ½-1 cup
Protein (whey or plant)- add 1 scoop, typically 20 grams
Sweetener (such as honey or agave)- optional
Add 12oz ice if not using frozen fruit
Blend well and enjoy within 30 minutes of your workout. For specific smoothie recipes, refer to Spiraling to Wellness Layer 1 in the chapter on “Awaken” (page 68-69). To learn more about whole foods and recovery, visit’s Dan’s site: https://simpleagain.com/.
