Happy new year and welcome to the newly renamed, B.rad podcast! For the first show of 2021, I’ll be sharing predictions of what’s hot, what’s coming on strong, and how we can sort through all the tips, tricks, confusion, and controversy to take advantage of the absolute most important, most helpful advice for healthy eating, exercise, lifestyle, stress management, relationships, happiness — basically everything! The presentation covers 9 hot topics that I contend are an excellent place to invest time and energy to transform your life. Here is a quick overview of the topics that will be covered over three awesome shows: Personalized dietary patternsMicroworkoutsA kinder, gentler approach to fitnessEvolved workplace and career dynamicsUsing discipline, restraint, and selectivity with technologyPrioritizing live social interaction and your intimate circle of family and friendsEvolving love relationships to the next level Reprogramming your brainTaking baby steps to achieve your goals In Part 1, we will cover the first three items: personalized approach to diet, the fitness breakthrough of the century that is micro-workouts, and rejecting no pain, no gain ethos of the fitness industry for a kinder, gentler approach. When it comes to personalizing your approach to healthy eating, it’s important to remember that it’s not so much about science and biohacking, but rather, intuition, testing, and refining. And when it comes to CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring), it’s extremely helpful to examine the impact that lifestyle behaviors have on blood sugar (not just your food choices). Who knows, this could be the catalyst for a majorly effective behavior change, such as walking after meals! Next, it’s time to clean up your diet: get rids of all processed foods, industrial seed oils, sugar, and processed grain products. Then, it’s time to introduce fasting, because when your body is in a fasted state, it is universally (and scientifically) agreed to be the most efficient functioning of your body. Robb Wolf said, “If you want to live longer, lift more weights and eat more protein.” Protein has an especially significant thermic effect: an estimated 25 percent of protein calories are allocated to their digestion. Metabolic flexibility also significantly increases the thermic effect of food. Researchers have observed two to three times the rate of diet‑induced thermogenesis in lean people than in obese people.I think it makes things really simple to realize that skipping a meal, passing on your super antioxidant juice bomb in the morning, giving your digestive system a break and never working out more than 12 hours, pushing the limits once in a while (if you’re metabolically flexible, for an extended fast), and anything related to fasting is going to contribute to health. We talk in detail in Two Meals a Day that you have to be ready for it, otherwise the fast will be too stressful. So, progress gradually, at an intuitive pace, and just wait to eat until you’re hungry, rather than obsessively stuffing your face according to the 24 hour clock of the day.Another important step in personalizing your diet is learning how to optimize carb intake. We can all agree that processed carbs don’t have a place in a healthy diet, but there are still many nutrient-dense carb sources to enjoy. Especially if you are female, dropping carbs and excess body fat can be at conflict with your primary biological drive, which is reproduction. This explains why women’s bodies hold onto more stored body fat than men’s bodies do, and it’s important to remember that eliminating too many carbs can lead to hormonal issues, like thyroid and adrenal problems. Also, if you’re an athlete, carbs are great for fueling both performance and recovery. My take is that I’ve found it’s best to aim for a targeted increased carb intake around high intensity or long duration workouts (meaning, after performing these workouts).Now, onto micro workouts, otherwise known as the fitness breakth