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Another set of Switch-function-supporting fatty acids are known as short-chain fatty
acids and by the names propionate, acetate, and butyrate. They are massively important
for your Switch and ecosystem functions, and are produced in the gut when beneficial
fibers digest dietary fibers. (Ding, ding, ding—the bells go off on why those are so
important, too.) Running through what they do and where they do it gives us further
insight into their direct Switch-function and ecosystem efforts.
Propionate is used in the liver for glucose production and promotes the release of
Switch hormones.
Acetate is an ingredient in energy production throughout the body’s organs.
Butyrate promotes Switch-hormone release and is a key food for colon cells
helping to maintain optimal function of the digestive tract lining.
There is an odd long-chain fatty acid, C15, getting a lot of attention. (Most fatty
acids are even in length.) The body doesn’t make it, but we can consume it in butter,
some fish, and more recently supplements made from plants. There’s warranted
excitement about C15 as it helps address cardiometabolic issues and fatty liver, thereby
earning consideration as part of your weight-health ecosystem.
Salt/Sodium
The optimal quantity and timing for you to consume sodium depends on several factors.
We’ve discussed sodium in the context of hydration and taste. It is not an evil compound
as the salt-free era tried to teach, but it does need to be optimized, personally. We do
better when sodium and potassium are closer to a balance. For most of us, that means a
reduction in added salt or salt-fortified food products and increasing our intake of
potassium, primarily from foods. Look at your supplementation, too—all of it—to make
sure you aren’t exceeding your body’s better sodium intake. For those that use sodium
supplementation to optimize hydration, you may want to adjust your food choices
accordingly.
Potassium
Potassium is one of the harder nutrients to achieve optimal levels from foods and
beverages—even harder because of the nutrition marketing messages popular today.
Most excellent sources of potassium also are significant sources of carbohydrates.
Nature did this because its design is to bring in quick energy along with a key nutrient
for the body’s weight-health signalers—Switch hormones—to get and use the nutrients
received as energy. The good news is that these carbohydrate sources also pack in lots
of other key nutrients. There are a few non-carbohydrate-rich options to help you meet
your needs. This is important because meeting your potassium needs solely from
supplementation is not an optimal health strategy—not even close. Potassium
supplementation needs to only be used as a support, at much lower amounts, to avoid
concerns for the kidneys. Medication use will also be a consideration. The “Operator’s
Manual” gives you some options for increasing potassium intake from food. Look to
those swaps as a way to upgrade your current choices whether you supplement or not.
Magnesium
We covered magnesium a lot in our discussion of hydration and motility. Refer back to
sections on hydration and motility to get guidance on how to consider supplementation,
and see the Operator’s Manual for food recommendations.
Iron
Iron plays a crucial role in metabolism and the transport of oxygen throughout the body.
Researchers are providing interesting insights about how it may impact the signaling for
GLP-1 secretion as they also explore the potential for agonists to help optimize iron
levels in some individuals. To optimize your iron levels, use better, more complete
assessment. Look at total nutrition intake, what can interfere with iron absorption, what
increases iron needs, and lab data that gets to the root cause of any imbalances. These
questions are included in your resources that accompany the book. (See the iron
evaluation and guide to better metabolic labs.) Caution: Optimizing iron levels can’t
come at the cost of other nutrient optimization. Make sure that supplementation to
increase levels doesn’t throw off other parts of your ecosystem, especially Switch-
critical digestion.
B Vitamins, Choline, and Zinc
A power trio, B vitamins, choline, and zinc all deserve attention in their own rights but
collaboratively, optimization of them is essential for Switch function, so I’ve grouped
them together. Specifically, they are all crucial for vagus nerve function, digestive
health, and optimizing methylation for cellular metabolism throughout the entire
ecosystem. Getting optimal levels of B vitamins, choline, and zinc, along with
magnesium and vitamin C, will support better methylation. Genetic variants can impact
your body’s methylation efforts; testing can provide insights to help you optimize your
nutrient needs—quality and quantity.
Additionally, among zinc’s numerous functions includes being a resource in the
metabolic functions of the L cells, which produce and secrete GLP-1. Zinc is also
active in the pancreas’s beta cells, which are involved in all aspects of insulin
formation and deployment.
B vitamins provide nutrient support for so many different Switch-related functions,
including energy metabolism, digestive function, nerve responses, and heart health.
B12 deserves a specific callout for Switch function as it directly impacts microbes
(bacteria) in the gut that promote the secretion of your Switch hormones. Digestion,
specifically stomach acid, is essential for B12 to be transformed into the usable form to
do its work in the small intestine. As you learned, medications—including GLP-1
agonists—can alter stomach acid and B12 utilization. Genetics, food choices, and other
digestive health challenges will significantly impact your needs and how your body can
use this nutrient.
Choline, on a technicality, is not a true B vitamin (it used to be called B4), so I refer
to it as “cousin choline.” Historically relegated to a nutrient that pregnant women should
optimize, we now know better. It plays crucial roles in the body, including methylation
and vagus nerve function, and its key for optimal liver health. Its importance in the
human body is telegraphed by the fact that it is found in so many foods, both plant and
animal sources. Yet with food processing, dietary preferences, and public health
marketing messages (ditch the egg yolks), we are often insufficient in our intake. This is
one you can and should optimize via food, even adding a quality source of sunflower
lecithin to smoothies or baking recipes. But also assess inclusion of it in your
supplementation to help optimize levels (if you are taking a multivitamin mineral, it
should be included). According to my colleague Dr. Navaz Habib, the better types of
choline for vagus nerve support is phosphatidyl choline or phosphatidyl serine.
Vitamin D
Vitamin D plays a direct role in your Switch function and weight-health ecosystem as it
helps promote calcium and magnesium absorption via the intestines. This in turn
impacts bone health as well as helps to avoid calcium traveling where it isn’t meant to
go. Vitamin D is also involved in thyroid and blood sugar metabolism. Your intake of
vitamin D should be personalized based on labs and, in almost all cases, will require
supplementation either daily or weekly.
We’ve been misguided to think that everyone can make enough vitamin D, known as
the sunshine vitamin, with sun exposure. Skin tone, digestive health, risk factors for skin
cancer (needing to avoid sun exposure), and your body’s vitamin needs make this a poor
recommendation for most. Though it could be part of a seasonal strategy to help
maintain vitamin D levels, I recommend vitamin D supplementation for all patients
where there is demonstrated insufficiency or frank deficiency. Insufficiency is a topic of
much debate. My preferred range for most patients is 45–60 ng/mL for vitamin D 25 OH
(this is the lab value from your assessment and the more common one tested) as a
starting point. Note that for some practitioners, 60 ng/mL may be considered on the high
side; for others, too low. Experts can debate whether there is an epidemic of vitamin D
deficiency. There is no debate, in my opinion, for vitamin D insufficiency. Correcting
for it has huge upsides for your Switch function and beyond.
Vitamin A
Many of the organs with Switch receptors rely on vitamin A compounds. Vitamin A
helps activate your thyroid hormone receptors. It operates in the gut, promoting the
health of intestinal epithelial cells and supporting microbial health—the eyes and brain.
We can and should achieve good levels of vitamin A via food choices, and where we
can, we should optimize via supplementation.
Trace Minerals
Iodine, copper, chromium, selenium, and other trace minerals support metabolic
functions throughout the body. Because they are often a casualty of food ingredient
processing, preparation, and dietary choices, and because the damage to soil means
food is often starting with less of them, it is good to pay attention to them.
Iodine is crucial for thyroid function, along with vitamin D. Unfortunately these
two are often not assessed and optimized prior to medication being prescribed,
especially for low thyroid function. We consume less today due to soil health,
changes in salt types—from iodized to sea salts—and with food processing. It
should be assessed in all weight-health efforts and given extra emphasis when
there is indication of suboptimal thyroid function.
Chromium needs to be at optimal levels to help make cells available for the sugar
that insulin delivers to their doors. Similar to iodine, assessment and optimization
should occur for all with weight-health optimization goals, but especially for those
with suboptimal blood sugar levels. Insufficiency is largely the result of the same:
soil health, food processing, and so forth.
Glucoraphanin and M yrosinase
This long-lasting antioxidant and its partner enzyme play a crucial role in your body’s
detoxification capabilities. Often referred to as sulforaphane, these compounds work
together to create the sulforaphane the body needs. Guess where? In the digestive tract.
Yup, it really is the hub. You can consume glucoraphanin and myrosinase from broccoli
florets and sprouts, but broccoli often doesn’t make the “daily” list for most of us. And
there are tremendous differences in the amount depending on the broccoli seeds, soil
quality, and growing environment. So, based on our needs for detoxification, it becomes
a smart Switch Optimization supplement to consider.
SO THAT’S IT FOR TOPPINGS
From inflammation to digestion and detoxification, through the GLP-1 shot, GLP-1
activators and optimizers, and GLP-1–adjacent recommendations, to ingredients, we
covered a lot of ground to drive personalization of your plan. Toppings can be so
delicious that they feel like the reason the whole pizza works. And yet toppings by
definition are location specific; they sit atop a crust, sauce, and cheese. They top them
off. The whole is indeed greater than the sum or any one of the parts. Switch
Optimization works just the same.
Chapter 13
Your Force Field
We defined our mission, since you did choose to accept it, as optimizing your Switch
function to build your own force field and restore your weight-health ecosystem.
Has that happened?
This isn’t a rhetorical or self-evaluative question.
You may be tempted to view this section as an end point. At the end of a mission,
we do a post-mission report and debrief, where we evaluate the mission for success or
failure, as well as its parts, to learn lessons for our next mission. That’s where The A-
Team episodes and your weight-health ecosystem’s missions diverge.
We aren’t ever at the end of this mission—until you are at your end. Where we are
now is mid-mission.
And a great time to reassess.
Here’s a piece of strategic brilliance from one of our nation’s great public servants,
physicist, and secretary of defense, the late Ashton Carter. He employed an approach he
called “backward planning” to build missions: “When we start with the desired
outcome, where we want to be, and work backward, we can plan most effectively.”
“So, Ashley,” you may be asking, “you’re telling me this now? On page three-hundred-
something? Not at the start of the mission?”
Exactly.
I’m bringing this in now because what we have just been doing, this mission, is a
model of backward planning. We set your goals: Optimize your Switch function, build
your force field, and restore your weight-health ecosystem.
We built the mission in broad strokes. Then closer in, via assessment, and finally in
the recommendations, we took it fully operational.
We could do that looking forward because all along, for years, I’d been looking
back.
Backward planning gets a big assist from (re)optimization.
(Re)optimization is as vital as assessment. It’s about your ROI—return on
investment—which, just as in business or other areas of life, needs to be measured for
our health efforts.
First, we’ll see what you’ve implemented.
Next, we’ll interpret your body’s responses.
In doing so, we’ll capture any improvements—we will tag those as optimizations—
and identify any choices that proved to not be better because they didn’t produce
positive results or they were not realistically doable.
What, if anything, has changed? To what extent? What did you learn about yourself
and your Switch’s needs? Most specifically, where do you see directional improvement,
and how and where can you see more of it?
This takes us to your better next steps.
YOUR (RE)OPTIMIZATION
You noted the date when you gathered your original data. Get that notebook out again so
that you can run a comparison. Perhaps you already reassessed some parts of your
original assessment? Great. Regardless, do the entire (re)optimization.
Once completed, here’s how you compare them. In case your mindset needs to hear
this, I am going to say it out loud: “You are comparing data, not changes in your
personal value.”
What insights do you now have? List any changes you notice.
What has improved, worsened, or stayed the same? Before answering, note that
these are your observations; a data point can be a new lab, how you felt about
making a choice, changes in how clothes fit, or whether something you thought you
wanted to do was doable or delicious.
Now it is time to assess your changes as follows:
Those you feel better about today, tag with a B.
Those you feel have worsened, tag with NB.
Those you feel stayed the same, tag with S.
These letter assignments are a starting point, not the whole story. For most of us, B’s
feel really good, and NB’s don’t. And maybe an S feels okay, or it could be like that
frustrating number on the scale that didn’t move. Argh. However, as data, they all
provide a lot of value. In this next section, use the questions and discussion to help you
evaluate the tags you’ve assigned to your insights to move onto your better next steps.
Your B’s: You want to keep the momentum going. How will you protect and
amplify these results? Do your B’s feel doable moving forward? Yes, yay,
awesome sauce! If not, consider what support you will need as life happens.
For each NB, list what you expected (or hoped) would occur and what did (or did
not) occur. This should include any emotions or challenges associated with your
experience (“It was too hard,” “I don’t have time in the mornings,” etc.).
Here are common examples of NBs and how to use the data better:
Life happened—to your disadvantage. Unexpected events will impact the
outcome of any experiment. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Is this a better time to
redo that experiment or not?
Maybe you were a bit overambitious. Did you set a goal that was achievable?
Our enthusiasm can want to be in the HOV lane, but our body really needs a
consistently paced road trip, safer and dependable. Here is where we
differentiate between a preset goal and the better goal of directional
improvement.
Perhaps your body revolted. Did you attempt too many changes at one time? On
occasion, doing one new thing can cause a body to respond with irritation. On
most occasions, when initiating several new choices at once, the body will
revolt. Not to mention, we create an impossible scenario for determining what
drove specific outcomes. Hit the pause button. Let the body get over itself. And
next time, choose just one.
Did you do the work but stress was working you over, too? If it was a really
stressful time and things didn’t get better, did they maybe stay the same? Then this
NB might be an S when you implement the “Better, not perfect” mindset. And that
is worth celebrating!
What to do next with your NB’s: Do you know what to experiment with next to see
if it could better help your Switch function? No? Like my patients (and me), you
may need to engage a practitioner to help you in this process, especially if you feel
like you’re not able to clearly decode your body’s messages. And there’s always
the chance that what you learned is that what you committed to, what you
experimented with by doing, or what you chose to invest in isn’t a better choice for
your body today. If so, it would be really good to note this down and remind
yourself the next time you are spurred to invest in it or something similar.
What’s an S—what stayed the same—and why? It’s common, particularly after the
first thirty days, to have a lot of or mostly S’s. Thirty days may seem like a long time,
but not for your body. The need for consistency and more time to let changes drive
results are often what give us S’s. Maybe we haven’t been doing something as regularly
as it demands—laughing once a week but not daily, drinking water with electrolytes
when we work out but not on nights we drink alcohol, so we are still getting up to pee.
Maybe you need to do your S’s more often or . . .
More time needs to pass: Some things can turn on your Switch really fast, and
others take time. Your vagus nerve needs you to feel safe—truly safe, not faking it
—for longer before it relaxes into prioritizing delivery of your Switch hormones.
There’s always the chance that what you learned is that what you committed to,
what you experimented with by doing, or what you chose to invest in isn’t alone
going to move the needle. What could you add to it—beyond more time or more
consistency—to have it deliver optimal results?
Do you need more personalized help?
Do you need more or better data?
Do you need to try a different effort to optimize based on the results of an
experiment you did?
(Re)optimization completed. You now have insights about your better next steps.
They are likely a combination of working to maintain your better (B) choices, letting
go of NBs and replacing them with new experiments, and setting a new time window for
when you will measure your S’s. And asking for help and support where useful.
Keep going—your weight-health ecosystem is, by nature, dynamic. It’s a web of
living things and nonliving substances that are constantly producing stimuli and
responses and interacting.
THE ONGOING MISSION BRIEFING AND ASSESSMENT TIMING
Daily: body and stress check-ins to identify and make your better choices
Weekly: weight composition, hydration, sleep, and better nutrition
Monthly: digestive
Quarterly: weight-health reassessment, INFObesity assessment, lab data
Additional specific reassessment: when life happens
Illness requiring treatments (over the counter, medications, therapies)
Injury (this includes things such as dental work that impact chewing and oral
health)
Preventative testing—colonoscopy, endoscopy, scans, dental (if local anesthesia,
etc.)
Hormonal shifts
Supplemental nutrient adjustments
Dietary changes—giving up alcohol, becoming plant monogamous (vegan),
eliminating an ingredient (gluten, dairy, etc.)
Pregnancy, having a newborn at home
Performances (training plans, performance of, and recovery from)
Travel (remember Martha!)
Life stages (starting work, changing jobs, school [yours or that of someone you
care for], empty-nesting, retirement, moving, etc.)
Chapter 14
(Re)Optimization
Mission success means you are not now and will never be in a rock-bottom nutrition
moment like the one that led to my goat’s milk cleanse. You are at a place where you
understand your body’s needs, can decode its signals, and can more easily navigate
modern living with all it throws your way. Our work together can be ongoing—both as
you come back to the book as a tool to help you navigate life’s inevitable happenings
and on the website as you use the existing resources and get updates.
At the start of the book, I expressed that I need you. Our world needs you. You’ve
got a specific superpower, zone of genius, and life mission. Mine is helping you
optimize it—by optimizing your weight-health ecosystem.
YOUR SWITCH OPTIMIZATION RESOURCES
Writing this book, I backed myself into a corner. I railed against INFObesity and all
those contributing to it. Now I need to direct you to the internet. I want you to have all
the resources you need and can use to identify, make, and evaluate the benefits of
nutrition and lifestyle recommendations. My team and I will make sure those resources
stay current; we will add additional ones as new hot topics and trends arise. You have
our word. We will not contribute to INFObesity—out in the world or in your life. To
that end, you are also getting access to humans, live and recorded, to help you vet your
INFOload and support you as you conduct experiments.
Too much knowledge is not power. But insights about your body and its needs are
key.