Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health

This is a life changing book!
I was diagnosed with metabolic syndrome a decade ago. At that time, my health care practitioner recommended a number of supplements as well as intermittent fasting. While the results were great, I lost interest in continuing the plethora of supplements, not only due to the cost, but the strange side effects I was experiencing.Over the next decade, I grew increasingly confused by contradictory nutritional guidelines.I bought this book because my lack of energy was becoming concerning. I did not expect much as this was an impulse buy.I WAS WRONG. This book has changed my relationship with food, and more importantly my relationship with my body. The writing is clear and concise with data and verifiable research, which provides credibility in my mind.Everyone should read this book and incorporate these guidelines.I have since also purchased the kindle edition so I can pass the physical copy on to my loved ones.Thank you to Casey Means. You have truly changed my life for the better. After six weeks, I have lost 10 pounds, regulated my blood sugar, and my energy is restored.

Important book
Awesome book! Everyone should read this so they can advocate for their own health and be more educated about making good food choices for themselves and their families.

Must read and have in every home but
Just started to read this book and already LOVE IT! I will have to order more to give out as a gift to my doctors, to people and family I love ! It’s an ultimate guide for better help, and live healthy , age gratefully and navigate in our American broken health system, toxins and lifestyle with food we are forced to live in everyday!

I can’t recommend this book enough!
This is the best book I’ve read on metabolic health, ever. It’s such an engaging read, I could not put it down (can’t say the same for “Outlive” which was good but very dense and reads like a textbook).This truly is a must read – I ordered one for my parents in Brazil too.

Good Energy written by Casey Means offers a deep dive on the deteriorating of health of North Americans.Means paints a picture of horrible health outcomes noting statistics like, “six out of ten adults are living with a chronic illness” and “Seventy-four percent of adults are overweight or have obesity.” Means notes that “preventable lifestyle conditions are responsible for 80 percent of modern human deaths.”To Means what ails us isn’t a complicated mystery but a clear byproduct of lifestyle. Our choices have consequences. She notes that many of the health problems share a common element: metabolic dysfunction. Healthy metabolic function or what Means considers Good Energy is the goal for happy health. Means defines metabolism as “the set of cellular mechanisms that transform food into energy that can power every single cell in the body.”Over the past 100 years, the types of foods we consume, quantities, and our living environments have changed dramatically, not for the better. Means points out that “we are consuming astronomically more sugar (i.e., up to 3,000 percent more liquid fructose), working in more sedentary jobs, and sleeping 25 percent less. We’re also exposed to over eighty thousand synthetic chemicals in our food, water, and air.” There are consequences to these exposures. Our metabolic markers are reflective of our health. “93 percent of Americans are in the danger zone on at least one key metabolic marker.” Means points out, “No animals in the wild suffer from widespread metabolic conditions, nor did humans as little as seventy-five years ago.”We’re consuming 20 percent more calories and eating too many processed foods. The average adult now eats 70% of their calories from processed food. We’re missing numerous necessary nutrients and our metabolic function is compromised as a result. Coupled with increased calorie intake is our decreased activity. We eat more and do less. We get fatter and sicker as a result. Additionally, our lifestyles are also more stressful. This has hormonal impact which impacts our health.The costs of making catastrophic choices is calamitous. Means notes, “more than 75 percent of deaths and 80 percent of costs are driven by obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other preventable and reversible metabolic conditions we have today.”Means takes her readers on a detailed description of each of these areas highlighting what the consequences are to the body of negative choices.Unfortunately, virtually all aspects of healthcare are incented to manage disease as opposed to promote health. Money is made by treating ailments not in having a healthy population. From medical schools to hospitals to insurance companies and pharmaceutical businesses, all benefit from managing disease as opposed to preventing it. Means writes, “Every institution that impacts your health makes more money when you are sick and less when you are healthy.”Means suggests the solution lies in owning responsibility for our health. Know this NOCLYS: No One Cares Like You Should. Your health is yours. Don’t leave it to the hands of experts or professionals. Care enough to care about your own healthcare. Medical intervention is great for acute emergencies like broken bones. However, we can take greater ownership of “regular” healthcare. Means writes, “You are the primary person in charge of understanding your body.” This is easier now with technology. We can get real time information about what’s going on inside.Means presents five accessible bio-markers we can seek to have tested by our doctors: blood sugar, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, blood pressure, and waist circumference. She provides values or targets for these bio-markers that are much “stricter” than what the medical industry considers normal.Means writes of the importance of nutrition to our health. “What we put into our bodies is the most critical decision for our health and happiness.” Food is what drives everything inside of us. All of our bodily functions require energy. That energy comes from the nutrients we consume. Unfortunately, what most of us are consuming is not ideal. Our choices as to what to consume are compromising our health.“Refined added sugar causes astronomically more deaths and disability per year than COVID-19 and fentanyl overdoses combined. We need to see refined added sugar for what it is: an addictive, dangerous drug that has been included in 74 percent of foods in the U.S. food system and for which the body needs zero grams in a lifetime.”Amidst the backdrop of deteriorating health of the average person, Means offers an optimistic path forward. She suggests technology and knowledge is available to help us help ourselves. Seek to have the bio-markers she suggests measured by your physician and work to improve these to target levels Means sets out. Then patiently work to integrate more of her suggestions into your daily life. Means suggests monitoring food intake by keeping a food journal, setting nutritional goals like consuming 50 grams of fiber daily, adding fiber to each meal, eating more of daily calories earlier in the day, seeking to narrow the number of hours a day in which food is consumed down to a goal of ten, and to aim for a fifteen-minute walk after eating. She suggests three “rules” of nutrition: avoid refined sugars, refined grains, and seed oils. This narrows down food choices away from processed to natural foods.Sleep, too, becomes a key factor supporting our health. Our sleep quantity and quality has been impaired over the years. We should be aiming to get seven to eight hours a night of quality sleep. Keeping our bedrooms dark, phones far away, and controlling temperature are all factors to assist the quantity and quality of sleep we enjoy.Sleeping and eating better will provide a boost to our energy which can be further enhanced by making movement a part of our day. We’re moving much less than past generations. Means suggests more frequent bouts of exercise throughout the day are more valuable than one vigorous session. We don’t have to go full out to get benefits. Moderate activity works wonders. Moving for a minute or two here and five minutes there several times during the day adds up to material health. There is no right way to exercise. Anything that you’ll do regularly is ideal.Beyond eating, sleeping, and exercising, avoiding chemicals becomes a goal. Chemicals from air, water, packaging, cosmetics, and other hygiene products can all contain things which we either know little about or are developing evidence that exposure over time leads to negative health consequences.Reducing exposure to stress, too, will help our bodies. We become a byproduct of our inputs. The information we absorb has biological impact. Most news is negative and causes cortisol to swim around our bodies resulting in health consequences. Means writes, “A cell living in a body experiencing chronic fear is a cell that cannot fully thrive.” Technology can be addictive which fragments our attention and impacts our bodies as well.Good Energy is a worthwhile read that will give you as much insight as you want to explore related to the threats to our health our modern world offers as well as a detailed and practical approach to taking responsibility for and regaining our personal health.

For everyone; it should be part of every school curriculum as well.