Serotonin is a molecule that makes people feel satisfied with what they have. And it does much more than that. It interacts with many other systems throughout the body, which is highlighted by the fact that it acts as both a neurotransmitter (i.e., communicates locally in the synapses between nerve cells) and hormone (i.e., communicates distally by circulating in the blood). Its complex nature helps explain why habits that support its healthy functioning can have substantial downstream benefits.

As a former vegan, protein is an area where I’ve made many changes. Like dietary fat, we have to get sufficient protein from our diet to optimize health, and quality matters. I no longer believe that I can reach my best health potential without consuming animal products. Thus, high-quality and ethically-sourced protein is where I spend the most on investing in my health. If cost or animal ethics are a concern for you, I’ll also discuss some alternatives.

Don’t worry, it’s not bad to eat carbs. But, critically look at the carbs you eat. Western cultures, and those that have adopted our food culture, have a surging epidemic of chronic illnesses. There’s good reason to think many of these chronic illnesses — Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer’s (sometimes called Type 3 diabetes) — start with hyperinsulinemia, a chronic elevation of insulin. Insulin is a hormone that tells your cells to grow by storing fat, making new proteins, and replicating. These are all necessary processes. However, when insulin is chronically elevated, cells are consistently in growth mode and rarely in repair mode. Repair mode allows you to burn fat, clean up misfolded proteins, and repair regularly occurring DNA damage. These are also necessary processes. Thus, it is healthy to cycle between growth and repair.

First, fat isn’t bad for our health. It’s calorically dense, but many people under-consume essential fats in our fat-phobic society. Fat is essential because we use fat to make a lot of the tissue in our body, like cell membranes and hormones. Without it, you’re stuck recycling old fat or downregulating the repair of cells. Extra fat can also be used as a fuel, which burns with less oxidative stress than carbohydrates. Don’t worry, I’m not demonizing carbs. Carbs are useful, especially because most vegetables are primarily carbs. But we also need to not demonize fat.

I’m kicking off the nutrition category with something that is relatively easy to apply. It’s relatively easy because it doesn’t require you to change your diet, nor does it take any time (it can actually save you time). Time-restricted eating, also called intermittent fasting, means having set hours in the day when you eat and when you don’t. Though you can find a lot of variations, for recovery, I like the daily version, in which you eat within a set time window. Restricting your eating window is good for daily cycling between growth and rest processes, confronting disruptive eating habits, and ensuring that you are using both glucose and fat energy for a healthy metabolism.

Nearly every topic in wellness is controversial. In part, this is due to individual differences and preferences, but it’s also a result of talking about behaviors without understanding how they work. To better understand the mechanisms of wellness, I began collecting information in June 2020 (nothing like a pandemic to spark an interest in health). I can’t believe I knew so little. This series has three goals:

• To synthesize information about wellness and health around mechanisms and goals
• To give my grad students a starting point for discovery when I ask them how they are taking care of their wellness
• To share curated wellness and health information with anyone else who is interested