Safety of Cold Showers During Winter
After listening to your episodes on cold showers, I was interested in their benefits and began taking cold showers myself. It surely is one of the best habits I’ve ever had. However, I was wondering if taking cold showers all year long (i.e. during summer AND winter) is safe and a good practice. Thank you in advance for your answer.
Protocol for reverse dieting
Is there a protocol suggestion for reverse dieting and metabolism restore after a long time on restrictive easting? I am 27 year old female and in last 9 years I've been restricting food in different ways. I had episodes with binge eating and laxative abuse in the past and overall I was maintaining BMI 15 - 17 for all these years. Thankfully I have not develop some serious health problems except amenorrhea. In the last year I'm consistent in eating ~1300 kcal a day from 80% unprocessed foods. I get my protein from eggs, cottage cheese, yogurt, fish and carbohydrates from veggies, fruits once a day and some bread. I make sure that I get enough protein for my weight daily. I don't consume rice, potatoes, pasta, junk food and I avoid added sugar. Now I have BMI 18 and I have the feeling that my metabolism is very slow, because I'm gradually gaining weight on 1300 kcal. I have naturally 2-3 periods in the last year without medicaments stimulation. I have gone though gynaecology tests and I don't have functional problems, PSCOS or something disturbing. I have passed endocrinology tests as well and I just have some hormones levels low due to amenorrhea. Also my insulin levels are low, but this is most probably due to my died, because my blood glucose level is normal and I'm negative for diabetes type 1. Confusing for me is that in the past I have period even on lower weight and now I'm gaining weight easier on lower calories.
Go on a limb -- Nutrition!
I'd love to hear a show or guest series on nutrition. While I understand that the research is complicated because of other lifestyle choices, etc., surely there are some basic concepts that can be drawn from the research. How much fish is too much fish (mercury and other pollutants)? Is dairy good, bad, neutral? I can't for the life of me meet calorie constraints and protein requirements on a vegan diet. Is it possible? How about soy? I eat more than 50g of protein from soy per day. Too much? Currently I eat some fish, dairy, and fruits and veggies. I eat little processed food, but I have to eat nearly the same foods every day to meet the recommended calories and protein.
What still counts as "low solar angle"? What if the sun rises too early!
In the UK the sun can rise at around 4am in the summer months. If I am waking up regularly at 8am and getting straight outside, am I missing the 3 (ideally 2) hour window post-sunrise that you talk about? The sun is not overhead at 8am by any means but does it still count as "low solar angle" if it's 4 hours after sunrise? Will it still work to set my clock to get outside at 8am in this context or should I only be trying to wake up at 6am to get outside in time? Would love to hear the reasoning and mechanism behind this too. Thank you!
Episode suggestion / topics for AMA
The idea of the journal club is genius! I’d really like to make an episode suggestion: In face of the concerning development of the climate I think it would be great to have an episode dedicated to the climate emergency and the intersections with your usual content. Especially for the Huberman Lab audience, I believe information about the planetary health diet, important lifestyle changes and the effects of climate change on our health would be very interesting. In addition to that, one could cover the IPPC reports and scientific responses to controversial questions like the impact of individual versus corporate versus governmental action. I would also be very interested in a discussion about the different contributors to risings carbon emissions (e.g. energy consumption, transport, diet, …). Although solutions to the climate crisis are often topic of conversation in discussions about politics and sociology, I think it would be incredibly valuable to take a very evidence based/ scientific/ factual and clear approach to the topic and for us as an audience to get an overview of what we can change that actually matters as well as estimate how individual action fits into the bigger picture. Although climate change is a highly complex topic, I really think the Huberman Lab Podcast could contribute to the education about it in a very impactful way and since the climate emergency is affecting all of us, an episode about the points mentioned above would be valuable to everyone. Finally, an episode like this could reach people who usually don’t consume media about climate change which I believe to be crucial.