What's On My Mind - August 2023

This Month’s Health Challenge
Take a Modern Approach to Goal Setting

A Fitness Trend I’m Noticing
Cold Plunge Brands Popping Up Everywhere

A Myth that Needs to Be Busted
Egg Yolks are Bad for You

A Study that Interested Me
Neurotoxic effect of active ingredients in sunscreen products, a contemporary review

A Book/Podcast Episode/Video/Article that Interested Me
The Hidden Brain: The Paradox of Pleasure and The Path to Enough

This Month’s Health Challenge

By taking the time to define who you want to be, what types of things you want to be doing, and what types of things you want to have in your life, you can begin to organize your efforts and behaviors to all point in the same direction…towards your dream life. When everything you do points towards the life you want to live, amazing things happen.

Read Article Here

A Fitness Trend I’m Noticing

Tons of Cold Plunging Brands Entering the Market and Driving Prices Down

I have been obsessed with the benefits of cold exposure and have been dying to have a cold plunge tub at my house…and the perfect opportunity may be just around the corner…
Brands selling cold tubs have started popping up all over the place! Until very recently, there were only a few, extremely expensive options for cold plunge tubs that have a water chiller and purifier. Now it seems like a new company is showing up every day, driving the prices lower and lower. I expect a race to the bottom for these companies, so although a cold plunge is high on my wishlist, I am going to let this new supply of cold plunge brands bring the prices down before I make my investment. Prices have dropped about 40% from $6k+ to $3k+,, but because people have turned chest freezers into cold plunges with some small additions and tweaks for around $1,000, I am hoping for options to be in the $1-2k range by next year. It’s on my list, but I’m going to stick with cold showers as I watch this play out for now.

A Myth that Needs to be Busted

Myth: Egg yolks are bad for you.

This myth corresponds to a general apprehension to consuming cholesterol although clinical trials show no correlation to egg consumption and cardiovascular disease. Most of the negative sentiment seems to come from observational studies where cohorts of people are studied that have shown some associations. These observational studies are less reliable than clinical trials as there are so many compounding variables - like the simple fact that, true or not, if the general thinking is that egg yolks are unhealthy then it would make sense that people who are trying to be healthy would be more likely to avoid egg yolks and would therefore skew the results of an observational study towards healthier people eating less eggs. The data may look like this not because eating less eggs is healthier, but because the people who are trying to be healthier are eating less eggs which are also probably the people who are exercising and doing other things they think are healthy. This is why observational studies need to be corroborated by clinical trials and the clinical trials do not corroborate the thesis that eggs and egg yolks are bad for us.

More Info Here: https://examine.com/articles/awful-nutrition-myths/

A Study that Interested Me

Neurotoxic effect of active ingredients in sunscreen products, a contemporary review
Joanna A. Ruszkiewicz, Adi Pinkas, Beatriz Ferrer, Tanara V. Peres, Aristides Tsatsakis, and Michael Aschner
Toxicol Rep (2017 May 27)

My Takeaway: Until very recently, I have gone for cheap and convenient with tons of the products I use. But, most industries have blasted full steam ahead without waiting for proper research to be done on the safety of the chemicals that we are being exposed to. Over and over again I have come to realize that a convenience of mine is exposing me to potentially harmful compounds. Retrospectively, it’s obvious that products that have a ton of crazy ingredients and things I consume that touch plastics could have potential harmful impacts on my health and I continue to work on being more aware of what I expose myself to.

Here’s a cool website my mother-in-law, Mary Tucker, recommended to me:

Environmental Working Group - https://www.ewg.org

A Book/Article/Podcast/Video that I’d Highly Recommend

Two, Related Episodes of The Hidden Brain Podcast (Thanks to Adam Wilson for the recommendation!)

Interviewing Dr. Anna Lembke, the author of the book Dopamine Nation - Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, these two podcast episodes explore addiction and the depressing consequences of quick and easy access to highly stimulating things. They also explore how to navigate through our current environments with stimuli at our fingertips all day long as well as how challenging and uncomfortable experiences (like working out and hot and cold exposure) can actually bring about a boosted baseline of dopamine. It’s no wonder I loved this one!!!