Biosignature 1, Day 5, Stockholm

Last day on the course was really good. The lectures covered vitamin D3, gut health & probiotics, estrogen metabolism (the need of L-5 MTHF which is the active form of folic acid - crucial for detoxing estrogens) and how to build a successful BioSignature business. We also practiced measuring, as every single day. I think accuracy was much better than on the courses I've taken before. Thanks to the checklist technique. I'm going to adopt some of that to our business as well and ordered a book Charles recommended, called The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right. I'm a nerd so I'm pretty sure the technique suits me well ;)

I went through my notebook today in the train on the way home and thought I'd make a little photo stream with tips I've learned on these BioSignature courses that I've taken. If you put each of these tips in practice, I guarantee your life quality will jump up big time. Enjoy :)

If your gut is not healthy, you're not healthy. You are what you digest - and also what you don't excrete (think: food chemicals, additives, pesticides, pathogens etc). Get your digestion together my doing the stomach acid test and using a proper probiotic supplement EVERY DAY. Don't be like me - telling yourself it's all good and finding out 1,5 years later it was everything else than good, realizing you just spent all that time spinning your wheels while you could have got awesome results. If those two tips don't do anything, get a functional medicine digestive analysis done. Quick.

Food quality is crucial! Eating "clean" isn't always clean. Above you can see two different salmon. First one (in the middle of the photo) is wild salmon: it's very light, almost greyish peach color. The second one is farm raised salmon - beautiful orange color. Wild salmon eat what they can catch, like plankton, other fish etc. Farm raised salmon eat what they're given: soy, grains and fish parts. Plus orange color to make them look nice in the fish aisle. Whenever possible, invest in your food. Same goes for meat, poultry, produce... buy organic and fresh.

"Farm-raised salmon are fed pellets of concentrated fish products. The fish used to make these pellets are usually gathered from the bottom of fishing nets and are of varieties that are not sold in your local fish market. All sorts of fish parts are included in the pellets, even the bones and skin. Unfortunately, the toxins that have built up in the fish’s body also become part of the mix."

Use an estrogen balancing product daily, like any of those above. Estrogenization is a global epidemic. How many people do you know who have problems with fertility? There are scarily many within the young couples I know. Guys should not have fat bums or saggy arms. Cover your basics by using good quality supplements, and ask your own BioSignature practitioner which of the following would suit your needs of estrogen detox the best. Not all of them work the same way.

Women's estrogen detox products

Men's estrogen detox products

Drink more water! Dehydration is one of the most underrated sources of stress (hello, bellyfat!). If you don't like the taste of plain water, add some frozen berries, lime, lemon or cucumber slices to your water. How much water do you need? Read here.

Get your biological signature revealed by contacting a BioSignature practitioner in your area. Make sure they educate themselves constantly and keep their BioSic certification updated by taking the course at least once a year. The norms change as the research progresses. They had new information now already, although I had taken my last course last fall. This time I learned a lot about how the BioSig profile can reveal what kind of risk for estrogen imbalance derived cancers the person might have. Read Nick Mitchell's excellent article on why all practitioners are not created equal.

Soak & roast your nuts and seeds. Soak them to get rid of enzyme inhibitors that might cause gastric distress and itchy throat and ears. Roast them to improve mineral absorption. These seeds have been roasted with coconut oil and cinnamon. 

Get a steel water bottle to avoid xenoestrogens that may leak from plastic bottles. My bottle is from SIGG, and Klean Kanteen makes great bottles as well. Make sure it says "BPA free" on the bottle. If you live in an area where tap water quality is bad (pretty much everywhere nowadays), get a water filter. According to Charles, Akai is the best. Or go get your water from a real spring :) Especially water in the UK is said to be horrendous - filled with estrogens from HRT and contraceptive pills, cocaine residual... uhhh!

Train with weights to improve your insulin sensitivity. Muscle mass is one of the most important determinants of great immunity, longevity and well functioning hormonal system. This photo was taken at a training school we held in Tampere. We are currently running a semi-online, semi-1-on-1 coaching program with 125 clients. All of them learn proper weight training during the three months and get their BioSig done regularly.

Relax. Don't underestimate the power of doing nothing. I did that for a far too long time and suffered from mini burnouts many times during that period, until I gave myself real permission to just rest and take the time I need to heal. The adrenals work overwork themselves until one day they say, SAYONARA! and that's when you're in trouble. Ambitious, driven people are in the risk group of burning the candle from both ends. What I found out was that the more time I took off of work, the more productive I was when I really did work. Stress management and playtime is essential for everyone!

When suntanning, don't use a sunscreen. It will block 95% of vitamin D3 that your skin would make otherwise. Besides, they're loaded with estrogenic chemicals. Instead, get your D3 level up (ask for a labtest 25-OH D3 to see where you are) and use coconut oil when you're planning on staying in the sun for a longer time. Above is my kitty Eemeli tanning ;) Cornish Rex cats are very fond of sunlight.

Bump up your fiber by using several fiber supplements in addition to your paleo diet. We should get anywhere from 30 to 50 grams of fiber daily. It will balance your bloodsugar and help you get rid of used estrogens and other toxins. Use different kinds of gluten free fiber sources, like psyllium, ground flax seed, ground hemp seed (with shells on), apple fiber... I take my fiber upon waking and often also before going to bed. I've noticed that eating my last meal around 7pm, taking my fiber at 9pm (to keep me nice and satisfied) and then going to bed before 10pm makes me sleep better than eating late.

Have a meat and nuts breakfast. No cereal or soy milk or oatmeal or bagels. Why? Read here.

Also, if you're like me and you tend to fill up your plate no matter what size it is, use smaller plates if you need to control your food intake. My eyes always want to eat more than my body needs, therefore I use snack plates (about 7 inches diameter).

Switch to a salt that has a color. Celtic sea salt is a good option. This way you will supply your body with all the minerals that natural salt has, instead of depleting it and adding a little bit of aluminum, which is a neurotoxin, that the table salt has. Remember that the more protein you eat, the more salt you need. Read more here.

Use healthy, natural fats like virgin coconut oil every day. My cat Arska loves it - I busted him licking the glass jar the other day when I had forgot the lid open... He also chews omega 3 capsules if I forget them on the table. If you don't know what healthy fats are, maybe let your pet define. They don't seem to crave trans fats and other nasty man-made fat-pretending products (like margarine). Cream, butter, coconut oil, fish oil - those would be their choices. Wouldn't be that bad for us either :)

Switch to organic coffee and have it either black or with full fat cream. Coffee plants are amongst the most sprayed crops in the world. You should always have yours organic, and the same goes for butter (and obviously cream, as butter is made of cream). Coffee is pretty much the only bitter herb we use nowadays. Thousands of years ago people seeked for bitter herbs and chewed them. They're known to be very effective for detoxing the liver. Having your coffee with milk is not the best option. Milk is a very problematic food for most, as it's designed to be baby food. If you've given up sucking your thumb quite a long time ago, quit drinking milk too. Cream is a healthy fat and helps to diminish cravings for sweets :)

Ditch bread. Most people do better without (processed) grains.If you crave it, make your own - but use fiber. The top photo is a lingonberry-coconut pie that I made with a fibrous crust sweetened with stevia. The bottom photo is flat bread I made, and it is gluten, egg, dairy and yeast free. Both were made with the same kind of dough:

-1/3 cup hemp protein

-1/3 cup Primal Fiber 2 

-1/3 cup coconut flour

-water until you have a soft, pudding-like consistency

-if you want salty flat bread, add celtic sea salt

-if you want a sweet pie crust, add stevia (I like NuNaturals liquid vanilla stevia the best... using a code KOL145 you will get a $5 discount of your order)

Bake at 200 celcius until it's set and let it cool down. Yum :)

Remember your greens and eat them RAW! Aim to get five handfuls (PLUS five handfuls of colorful veggies) daily. Green veggies contain chlorophyll which is great for detoxification, and folate that I mentioned in the beginning of this post. Cooking your greens destroys many of the vital phytonutrients that raw foods are filled with. My cat Eemeli loves green leavy vegetables. He's quite peculiar, just like his owner.

Add seaweed to your diet. Many of us don't get enough iodine from our diet and thus have a less than optimal thyroid function. Sprinkle seaweed flakes on your salad or make seaweed soup. Thyroid runs your body's metabolism. When thyroid slows down, everything slows down - from brain function to pooping, and thermogenesis to energy expenditure. Slow thyroid = fat gain all over the body but especially in the middle. 

Pinch yourself on the side of your ribs, that's the midaxillary point of BioSignature modulation. It represents thyroid function. Can you grab more than skin? Maybe you could use some seaweed (and protein - as thyroid hormones are built from iodine and the amino acid tyrosine) :)

Read more - at least a hour every day. Charles reads 16 hours per week and so does Mark Houston. They're in the top of their field of operation. Reading gives your body a rest from the go-go-go mentality and lowers cortisol. I carry a book almost everywhere I go, as I've always been a bookworm. I grew up in a house with tens of thousands of books. Personal trainers should dedicate WEDNESDAYS for studying. It helps them relax, update their knowledge and get leaner. Stress inhibits fat burning and raises blood sugar, whether you eat carbs or not.

Surround yourself with likeminded people - you're the average of the five people you spend most time with. This photo was taken in Stockholm on Thursday as Joni and I met a fellow coach, Jenni Levävaara, who flew there to participate her first PICP course. Jenni is such a wonder woman! She recently educated herself more on mental training of athletes through sports performance coaching with NLP. She loves educating herself just like I do, and on top of that has the most adorable personality. I'd get her to kick my butt anytime. She knows her stuff and I'm happy to be her friend.

"Life without dreams is unbearable, and dreams without everyday life are self-betrayal." -Jenni

Have a little red wine every now and then. This is a new skill I'm learning. I used to hate the taste of wine but recently I've been practicing this a little... as I've heard I should take life more lightly. Plus it's proven to be a good way to get some antioxidants. It's been said you have to taste a food or drink ten times to get accustomed to the taste. I'm not quite there but getting close ;)

"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly."
-GK Chesterton

I used to be too serious, too detail-oriented and too "but tomorrow I need to do this and that" (missing out THE NOW), so I'm practicing having a little more of Fun & Friends in my life. I suck at relaxing but I've noticed that having a glass of wine suddenly turns me to a Very Relaxed Person. 

If you're a coach, this might be your best tip for menopausal and stressed women: permission to have a glass of red wine with dinner. All wines aren't created equal, so read more what to choose from here. And if you don't know how to coach females, read CP's best tips here.

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Okay, that's MORE than plenty of tips... I'm known for doing too much, writing too much, talking too much and kind of wanting to be too much, but bear with me - at least I'm conscious about it ;) 

Hope you've enjoyed these BioSig course updates and maybe we'll meet on a course in the future! Check out the upcoming courses here and secure your spot now, as they fill up quickly. I know which one I will attend next already!