The Energy Paradox: Dr. Gundry On Why You’re So Tired All the Time

March 19, 2021 at 11:10AM

Modern life can be exhausting, but, according to Dr. Gundry, we’re fighting ourselves if we’re not equipped with the right information to manage our bodies’ natural energy stores.

We can’t think of anyone in our lives who isn’t looking for more energy and Dr. Gundry never fails to present us with new and empowering ideas when it comes to our health. In his new book, The Energy Paradox: What to Do When Your Get-Up-and-Go  Has Got Up and Gone Dr. Gundry explores a fascinating and useful perspective on fighting fatigue.

You may remember Gundry as the author of The Plant Paradox, a book that introduced everyone to the idea of a lectin-free diet and placed into question some of wellness culture’s most popular foods. Based in good science and decades of work as a renowned cardiologist, Dr. Gundry’s sometimes controversial stance on things plays an interesting role in the overall health and wellness conversation right now — especially regarding gut health.

Here’s an excerpt borrowed from inside The Energy Paradox. The topic of ‘postbiotics’ alone has us buying our own copy ASAP…

An Excerpt from Dr. Gundry’s ‘The Energy Paradox’

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As I sometimes tell patients, feeling tired all the time is like being on the first curving section of what may become a downhill spiral. And you want to turn around now and scamper up to solid ground, while it’s still easy to do so. Because there is hope—as I plan to show you in the pages that follow—that you have a lot more control over your energy than you might think. We’re going to take a good look under the hood and address this conundrum from where the rubber meets the road: the condition of your cellular energy system.

It all starts with understanding the three underlying principles that influence energy production and how to better harness them for a lifetime of health and vitality:

You are overfed, but underpowered. Think about it. We have access to more fuel than ever before, and yet we feel out of gas. How is that possible? As you will learn shortly, the food we eat every day may look and taste “normal,” but in actuality, it has a fraction of the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients than that same food our great-grandparents ate. In addition, the sheer volume and concentration of “energy­ promoting” foods we consume almost continuously throughout the day actually taxes our cellular energy system, which struggles to keep up with the constant onslaught of calories. We’re going to look at why this is and how we can repair it, which brings us to #2.

E = M2C2. Inspired by Einstein, I created this equation to illustrate simply how our energy (E) is maximized.

Now, I don’t want to totally steal the thunder of what’s to come in the following chapters, but for now, understand that M2 stands for microbiome—the complex community of bacteria that mainly colonize your intestines (or “gut”)—and mitochondria—the minuscule organelles inside your cells that turn the nutrients from food and oxygen into energy, adenosine triphosphate or ATP.

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If you have followed my work, you know that I subscribe to the Hippocratic truth that (loosely translated from ancient Greek) All health and disease starts in your gut. And as you will soon learn, your energy starts there too, because the trillions of microbes that reside in the gut actually influence how much energy your body makes and how that energy is spent.

Believe it or not, your microbiome and the energy ­producing mitochondria that live inside almost all your cells have a long­standing relationship. Communication between gut microbes and mitochondria tells your body how to make and spend energy.

The C2 in the equation stands for chrono consumption, my version of time-­controlled eating with the right food choices. Eating the right foods within the right window of time gives your mitochondria and your microbes the optimal power to heal and regenerate. The result? Energy! Which leads us to #3.

You’ve heard of probiotics and prebiotics, now meet post­biotics. Your gut microbes and your cells (including the mitochondria contained within them) communicate via compounds called postbiotics. These are gases and short­chain fatty acids that are produced when certain fibrous foods are digested by bacteria in the gut. Postbiotics constitute a newly discovered communication system between your gut microbiome and your mitochondria—one that is now under enormous strain due to assaults from environmental chemicals, improper and inadequate nutrition, and stress. In order to restore our energy levels, we need to restore balance to this delicate ecosystem.

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