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#019 Dr. Darya and Kevin Rose Talk Meditation Retreats, Diet, Seasonal Eating, and More

Dec 25, 2015 53m 38s 41 insights
<p>In this episode, Dr. Rhonda Patrick chats with Dr. Darya and Kevin Rose.</p> <p>Dr. Darya Rose, PhD is a neuroscientist, author of "Foodist: Using Real Food and Real Science to Lose Weight Without Dieting," and creator of Summer Tomato, which was featured in TIME magazine's list of the web's 50 best websites in 2011.</p> <p>Kevin you may know from TV, the investing world, or any of a wide variety of things he's well known for (founding digg.com, just for starters). More recently, Kevin hosts a podcast where he's had guests ranging from titans of industry like Elon Musk to notables like his buddy Tim Ferriss, multi-time New York Times best selling author, investor, self-experimenter and fellow podcaster.</p> <p class="p1">In this episode, we discuss...</p> <ul> <li class="p1"><strong>(00:00)</strong> Introduction</li> <li class="p1"><strong>(03:23)</strong> Darya Rose talks about her 10-day silent retreat</li> <li class="p1"><strong>(11:32)</strong> Mindfulness can be achieved during daily activities</li> <li class="p1"><strong>(16:10)</strong> Kevin's self-experimentation with a<strong> </strong>ketogenic diet</li> <li class="p1"><strong>(23:59)</strong> Rhonda's interviews with Dr. Valter Longo and Ray Cronise on fasting</li> <li class="p1"><strong>(29:13)</strong> Tumeric increases the body's detoxification enzymes</li> <li class="p1"><strong>(33:17)</strong> Darya's career from PhD student to health advocate</li> <li class="p1"><strong>(39:32)</strong> The benefits of eating seasonally<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></li> <li class="p1"><strong>(45:12)</strong> Technology that promotes mindfulness and productivity<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If you're interested in learning more, you can read the <a href="https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/darya-and-kevin-rose">full show notes here</a>.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Join over 300,000 people and get the latest distilled information straight to your inbox weekly:</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://www.foundmyfitness.com/newsletter">https://www.foundmyfitness.com/newsletter</a></span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Become a FoundMyFitness premium member to get access to exclusive episodes, emails, live Q+A's with Rhonda and more:</span> <a href="https://www.foundmyfitness.com/crowdsponsor"><span style="font-weight: 400;">https://www.foundmyfitness.com/crowdsponsor</span></a></p>
Actionable Insights

1. Practice Present Moment Awareness

Meditate by simply taking time to be present and aware of your immediate surroundings, such as looking at a tree or listening to music, without thinking about past or future tasks.

2. Apply Mindfulness to Daily Tasks

Read “The Miracle of Mindfulness” to learn how to apply meditation to everyday life, such as washing dishes, by focusing entirely on the task at hand rather than multitasking mentally.

3. Practice Mindful Eating

Eat mindfully by turning off distractions, focusing solely on the flavor, texture, and warmth of your food, and chewing and swallowing each bite before taking another, which enhances enjoyment and helps recognize satiety.

4. Formal Mindful Eating Practice

Before eating, look at and smell your food for 30-60 seconds, identify where hunger manifests in your body, and for the first few bites, eat very slowly with closed eyes to fully experience the texture, warmth, and flavor.

5. Listen to Your Body’s Fullness Cues

Pay attention to your body’s satiety signals and the internal “committee” of voices in your brain that might encourage overeating, consciously choosing to stop when you are full.

6. Chew Food More Thoroughly

Chew each bite of food 20-50 times before swallowing to slow down eating, allowing satiety signals to reach your brain and naturally leading you to eat less and lose weight.

7. Adopt a Real, Whole Foods Diet

Prioritize eating real, whole foods and develop healthy habits around them, avoiding processed items like diet soda, protein bars, and slim fast, to naturally nourish your body and eliminate cravings and skin problems.

8. Eat Foods Seasonally

Learn to eat with the season to enjoy foods at their peak flavor and nutritional value, which also helps prevent boredom with your diet.

9. Develop Seasonal “Home Court Recipes”

Establish a set of “home court recipes” (basic, go-to meals) and adapt them seasonally by swapping out vegetables using the same cooking techniques, ensuring variety and ease of preparation throughout the year.

10. Cook Instinctively, Not Just from Recipes

Develop the instinct to cook without relying heavily on recipes, using available ingredients and basic flavor combinations, to lower the barrier to cooking and make it easier to prepare healthy meals, especially when tired.

11. Shop at Farmer’s Markets for Seasonal Produce

Shop at farmer’s markets to ensure you are buying seasonal produce, as grocery stores often stock non-seasonal items that lack flavor.

12. Learn Seasonal Produce Cycles

Understand the natural cycles of seasonal produce—light greens in spring, sweet fruits in summer, robust vegetables in fall, and sweet root vegetables/citrus in winter—to guide your food choices and enjoy variety.

13. Practice Digital Fasting & Reduce Tech

Consciously reduce your technology use by practicing “digital fasting,” potentially using gamified software to earn points for extended periods without phone use, blocking non-urgent messages, and avoiding multitasking on computers to improve focus and reduce distraction.

14. Limit Phone Use During Social Interactions

Be conscious of your phone use during social interactions, especially at dinner, and resist the urge to check your device during pauses in conversation, as it can be perceived as rude and detract from genuine connection.

15. Avoid Digital Multitasking

Refrain from multitasking with technology, such as having too many browser tabs open, as it can hinder productivity and lead to forgotten tasks.

16. Undertake a 10-Day Silent Meditation Retreat

Engage in a 10-day silent meditation retreat, involving extensive daily seated and walking meditation, a vegetarian diet, and no eye contact, to experience profound personal transformation and improved well-being, despite initial difficulty.

17. Buffer Stress with Meditation

Practice meditation to buffer the negative effects of chronic stress, as research suggests it can impact biomarkers of aging like telomere length.

18. Start Meditation with Headspace App

Download and use the Headspace app, starting with its 10-day challenge of 10 minutes a day, as it provides guided meditations that are easy for beginners.

19. Focus on Breath for Wandering Mind

If you have a wandering mind, focus on your breathing during meditation to help anchor your attention.

20. Explore Movement-Based Meditation

Try movement-based meditations like qigong, which involve full-body breathing and embodying the meditation, to focus on breath and body simultaneously.

21. Meditate for Gene & Brain Benefits

Engage in meditation to induce immediate changes in blood flow to the brain and brain activity, as well as long-term changes in gene expression, with up to a hundred different genes changing.

22. Practice 16-Hour Intermittent Fasting

Engage in 16-hour intermittent fasting, ideally six days a month, to help get back into ketosis quickly and for potential benefits like weight loss and activating beneficial stress responses in the body.

23. Utilize Fasting for Hormetic Benefits

Engage in fasting to induce a hormetic stress response in your body, which activates beneficial gene expression changes that enhance resilience and help your body deal with stress.

24. Adopt a High-Fat, High-Veg Ketogenic Diet

Implement a modified ketogenic diet by consuming 6-9 cups of blended, steamed vegetables daily, combined with extremely high amounts of fat from sources like dense coconut milk and coconut oil, to maintain ketosis while consuming more carbs.

25. Combine Carbs with Fat to Mitigate

When consuming carbohydrates, combine them with significant amounts of fat to slow down digestion and prevent large glucose spikes, which can help maintain ketosis.

26. Drink High-Fat Coffee for Energy

For an energy boost and to aid ketosis, blend grass-fed butter and straight coconut oil into your morning coffee, similar to a bulletproof coffee, for an “insane” amount of energy.

27. Use Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss

Implement 16-hour intermittent fasting daily, as Hugh Jackman did for his Wolverine physique, to achieve weight loss and “shredded” body composition.

28. Self-Experiment with Glucose & Ketone Monitoring

Conduct self-experiments by using a glucose and ketone monitor to test your blood levels before, 30 minutes after, and 60 minutes after eating, and keep detailed logs to understand how different foods and drinks affect your body.

29. Incorporate Turmeric for Detoxification

Consume turmeric, which contains curcuminoids, to activate phase two detoxifying enzymes and anti-inflammatory genes, providing a hormetic stressor that helps the body process toxins and reduce inflammation.

30. Prefer Whole Turmeric Over Curcumin Supplements

Opt for whole turmeric or turmeric tea over isolated curcumin supplements, as whole turmeric contains aromatic tumerone, which has been shown to cross the blood-brain barrier and increase neural stem cell proliferation, potentially benefiting memory and performance.

31. Enhance Turmeric Absorption with Black Pepper

Combine turmeric with black pepper (piperine) to inhibit enzymes in the liver that rapidly clear polyphenols, thereby extending the half-life and increasing the bioavailability of beneficial compounds from turmeric; however, avoid piperine if taking prescription drugs as it can extend their half-life.

32. Incorporate Organ Meats for K2

Consume organ meats to obtain Vitamin K2, which is present in higher amounts compared to hard cheeses like Parmesan or Asiago.

33. Ferment Foods at Home

Engage in home fermentation, such as making sauerkraut, to incorporate beneficial fermented foods into your diet.

34. Make Homemade Almond Milk

Prepare your own almond milk at home, as it is a quick and easy process that takes only two seconds, and can be used in smoothies.

35. Subscribe to FoundMyFitness Newsletter

Sign up for the weekly email newsletter at foundmyfitness.com to access exclusive content and detailed written information not available elsewhere.

36. Support FoundMyFitness Content

Consider financially supporting the FoundMyFitness podcast, videos, and articles by pledging a few dollars per month at foundmyfitness.com/crowdsponsor, to help sustain the creation of high-quality health and nutrition information.

37. Explore Summer Tomato Blog & Newsletter

Visit Daria Rose’s website, summertomato.com, and sign up for her newsletter to find refreshing and informative content focused on food and healthy living.

38. Read “Foodist” by Daria Rose

Read Daria Rose’s book, “Foodist: Using Real Food and Real Science to Lose Weight Without Dieting,” to learn how to achieve weight loss and health without traditional dieting.

39. Follow Kevin Rose on Social Media

Follow Kevin Rose on social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter to keep up with his activities and ideas.

40. Follow Daria Rose on Social Media

Follow Daria Rose on Twitter under the handle “summertomato” to stay updated on her content.

41. Listen to The Random Show Podcast

Tune into “The Random Show” podcast, co-hosted by Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss, for discussions on various topics.