You may remember that about a month ago, my wife and I left our apartment after finding out we had a pretty bad case of MARCoNS due to some mold exposure.

Since then, we’ve been on a pretty strict detoxification protocol, and I went over it (along with general detox ideas) with Olivia on this episode of the High Performance Health Podcast

Expect to learn about:

- What protocols are best for detoxifying your body

- The frequency of daily poops, Olivia thinks, is the gold standard

- What supplements are best for detoxifying your body

- What bodily processes/organs are responsible for detox

- How often should anyone be detoxing

I really enjoyed this one, and it helped color in my experience, and I hope it helps you rethink the way you’re constantly refreshing your body.

Link to the Amazon Body Roller here.

Link to the Shake Plate I mentioned here!

Enjoy!

Saying that “abs are built in the kitchen” is about 75% true.

A proper diet is going to ensure that bellies stay lean, but the abs need to be trained, too.

This newsletter was published in partnership with Form50 Fitness, a reformer strength and conditioning studio in New York City and Florida.

A big prerequisite for a defined stomach involves proper core training, which involves comprehensive, full-body exercises that generate intra-abdominal pressure (think deadlifts, squats, etc) as well as direct abdominal work (crunches, oblique bending, plank variations, and other holds).

All of these muscle groups are trained through exercises that happen during the course of any intense, well-balanced workout.

From there, your diet and the foods you choose can absolutely define the core.

But does having a toned, strong core matter?

Training abs just to have them is still a valid reason to train them. Good aesthetics are a sign that very meaningful work has been put into your physique, so I think this matters a lot.

It also matters because your abdominal muscles and core — meaning the hamstrings, glutes, and lats, too — don’t just benefit you aesthetically.

They’re a crucial set of muscles to build on throughout life to limit the risk of injury and chronic pain.

And just like any other muscle group, they grow with a proper regimen of stimulus — whether it’s the HIIT, isometric holds, or cardiovascular — and nutrient intake.

Nutrition, Metabolism, and Muscle Development

Muscles tear (at a microscopic level) when stretched and shortened through strength training, and repair themselves during rest.

The repair can be aided, however, by adequately timed protein, carbs (yes, I said carbs!), and overall calories.

High-protein meals throughout an active week will lead to more lean muscle growth.

Regular complex carbohydrate intake will provide your muscles with the fuel to effectively hit your workouts, and keeping your calorie intake near or slightly below your overall expenditure (calorie burn) will help you stay lean and develop the stomach you want.

But it’s also important to determine how your workout schedule and your meals will be structured throughout your day.

Meal Selection and Timing for Performance

Making sure you optimize your workouts is not just about eating before or after them.

It’s finding the right meal that’s:

• Digestible and low-inflammation

• Low-fiber

• Providing the right amount of glucose (sugar) for muscle fuel

• Enjoyable and reliable for you to eat!

• Minimally Processed (in most cases)

Most of these foods will be complex carbohydrates, which your body needs to sustain energy during workouts lasting longer than 30 minutes. Carbohydrates will NOT make you gain weight, despite popular misconception, so long as you’re using them strategically to fuel your training.

Depending on the time of day you’re training, some complex carbs you might consider 30-60 minutes before your workout could be:

For the morning:

🌾 Light grain options*:

• Oatmeal (quick oats > steel cut)

• Cream of Wheat

• Low-fiber cereals (e.g., puffed rice, rice-based cereals)

  *Keeping portion size in check, as too many oats can be inflammatory for some

🍞 Processed but performance-friendly grains**:

• Sourdough bread

• English muffins

• Bagels (plain)

** Despite being more processed than other foods, these foods consistently lead to higher exercise output

Simple go-to combos (easy wins)

• Rice cakes + banana + a little salt

• Cream of Rice + protein powder

• White toast + jam + egg whites

• Fruit, Applesauce, or a carb-drink with electrolytes

…whereas some foods you might consider after working out might be:

• A grilled chicken Caesar salad

• A shrimp and vegetable stir-fry

• A protein shake with milk of your choice (or water, if you’re going super lean)

• A taco bowl with lean ground beef, bell peppers, black beans, and avocado

All of the above options are protein-forward, which will not only refuel muscle growth and keep you full, but it will also mitigate the soreness felt from intense training sessions.

HIIT workouts and other high-intensity exercises will demand lots of protein for muscle growth, and as long as you’re keeping tabs on your total weekly calorie intake, you’re not going to gain excess weight while trying to build the stomach you want.

The Balance

What’s most important for making sure your body responds the way you want it to to the food you’re eating is keeping the quality of your food as high as you can.

That means healthy, whole foods that are minimally processed (because most food these days goes through some form of “processing”) to keep weight and body composition in check.

Optimizing muscle gain and staying in a calorie deficit means avoiding a skewed ratio of protein to carbohydrates. Filling your diet with too many simple carbs relative to total protein can negatively affect lean muscle mass and lead to inflammation, which can show up visually (and on the scale) as unwanted weight.

While fat in foods is not necessarily always a key macronutrient in weight loss, it’s still an important nutrient for regulating this type of inflammation, too. It’s why foods like eggs, Greek yogurt, and other dairy products with certain amounts of fat in them can be essential parts of a lean-muscle building program.

There’s really no need to leave any of the macronutrients completely out of your diet when trying to stay lean, but a good macronutrient split for someone who is optimizing their diet for weight loss and keeping things tight is roughly around 35% protein, 40% carbohydrates, and 25% fats.

This balance, of course, can be adjusted based on changes to your physique, energy levels and digestion capabilities.

If you are still feeling like the muscles aren’t muscling, you might skew toward a bit more protein, and a bit fewer carbs and fats.

If digestion feels funky, aim for an even balance of all three.

If energy levels dip to a point where it doesn’t feel sustainable, add a small amount of carbs back in.

The Protocol For Keeping Abs Flat

In short, after you’ve found the right nutritional balance, you’re going to want to find foods within those macronutrient groups that keep metabolism moving. Form50 is a workout that brings you to (and keeps you in, long after the workout is over) a fat-burning zone because of the EPOC effect.

The same foods listed above — lean beef, turkey, chicken breast, egg whites, or protein shakes — all help keep metabolism in check.

What may surprise you is that many of the carbohydrates listed above that are useful before the workout can also be beneficial post-workout, too: rice cakes, jasmine rice, bananas and/or berries, and potatoes all help refuel glycogen, which muscles thrive on in a HIIT-workout focused routine.

It’s also worth keeping a healthy dose of anti-inflammatory foods in your diet to both aid in recovery and keep hormones in check. Inflammation is a part of muscle development, but these foods will help keep it under control so that muscle growth doesn’t turn to bloating:

• Fatty Fish (Salmon, Tuna)

• Blueberries

• Avocados

• Leafy Greens (Spinach, Arugula, Kale)

All of these can be mixed into a complete diet to control for recovery.

What also matters for controlling inflammation is limiting processed sugar and alcohol intake.

Processed sugar will take longer to digest, fill you with empty calories, and cause bloating and unwanted water retention that will sabotage muscle gains.

Alcohol consumption can slow and potentially halt the muscle development process altogether. It’s also an easy way to “drink your calories” that adds up in the form of water weight and unnecessary inflammation.

If possible, try to limit alcohol intake and find a fizzy drink alternative with nutrients (think new soda brands like Poppi or Olipop, with trace prebiotics and fiber) to curb the craving for a spiked beverage.

A drink like this can easily help you hit your daily fiber goal (around 22-25g per day) and control the inflammatory response. One of fiber’s key roles in the body is to help produce a stronger gut, which is where anti-inflammatory cells live.

In short, you’ll want to be open to all food groups and macronutrients (barring any allergies or intolerances) and not limit yourself to a “low” or “no” diet, since your nutrition is your fuel for the tough workouts that move the needle.

A high-protein diet is great for weight loss, but only if it is easy to digest.

A healthy mixture of carbs in your day-to-day is essential, but make sure they’re mostly complex and that they’re not leading to excess water weight or a calorie surplus.

The goal is to be continually burning fat through a variety of foods and macronutrients, supplementing carbs and electrolytes on harder days, and boosting protein in your recovery time (after workouts and on rest days).

Some other tips that may help recover and build muscle from your workouts:

• Finish your last meal of the day (as in your final bite of the meal) about 2 hours before bedtime for healthier, deeper sleep

• Keep hydration high, not just from water but from electrolyte supplements as well

• Track your protein intake with an app or journal (MyFitnessPal has a free trial!) to aim for around 70% of your bodyweight in grams. If you can’t hit this number because of getting too full, try to get as close as you can.

Lastly, please note that these strategies take a bit of practice to nail down. You may have to experiment with different calorie intakes, meal types, and meal timing before you find the groove that effectively leads to the body you want.

As long as you’re safely and enjoyably working these habits into your routine, you can build the abs of your dreams with a few weeks of focused workouts and determination in your diet.

Ready to give Form50 fitness a try? Book a class in New York or Florida today.

I’ve had a chance to reflect on some of the most important things that have moved the needle forward for me physically over the past two years.

Unfortunately, the answers aren’t all that sexy.

And that’s the point.

Two years is both a long time and a short time depending on how you look at it. And the headline of this newsletter might have thrown you off a bit.

Don’t worry, I promise it’s about fitness.

When you fall in love with someone (or something, I guess), it usually doesn’t happen overnight.

It’s a culmination of many events, admirable moments, and milestones that get you to say, “I really like this thing.”

And then, after years of really liking and eventually loving that thing, you start to say, “I can love this thing forever, no matter how it evolves.”

If you have a life partner, you can relate. Hopefully, you still look at them today with the same googly eyes you did the first time you met and hung out with them.

They were “sexy” when you first met them, and hopefully they’re still sexy today. They’re long-term sexy.

Much of today’s neural hijacking — social media dopamine scrolls, sub-two-minute songs, Substack articles that are under 60-second reads — conditions us to think that anything that takes a while isn’t sexy.

It’s boring, repetitive, and maybe even not worth pursuing because of those things.

Well, falling in love can be sexy if you learn to romanticize the process and think of it as long-term sexy.

The same way you can’t meet your soulmate after one dating-app date and propose within a week, you can’t just speed-run enjoyment of something that is going to be rewarding.

Falling in love with some thing — much like falling in love with a person — requires a tolerance of the longer timelines, the ups, the downs, and the inevitable questioning of, “Am I doing this right? Is this the right thing to do?”

You have to fall in love with unpredictability, too.

Consistency

The number one lever for building this muscle of tolerance for all of the above is consistency.

It’s oft repeated in the fitness realm, but I hope I reeled you in with the analogy of love.

I, just this morning on my 11-mile run around Roosevelt Island, found out how much I love what the past few years of drudging through workouts, that I forced myself to do, has turned me into.

I love the fact that there were days over the past few years that were hard.

I love the fact that two years ago, the run I did this morning would have felt like an insurmountable task. Now, 11 miles at an 8-minute pace is an “easy run.”*

*Note: My “easy run” is not your “easy run.'“ Running, while very much improved with consistency, has a non-linear progression that is tough to follow. Still, you should love it all the same.

I love that I have started to develop a passion for running, regardless of my effort level, and that it has led me to travel the country for different races and the opportunity to challenge and improve myself.

Two years ago, I would have never ascribed such a romantic quality to the hours and hours of training I’ve put in.

I probably would’ve thought what my wife sometimes thinks: “You’re crazy.”

Going out for runs where the goal is to hold a 6:30 pace for the entirety of it is now something that feels attainable.

There is beauty in that just as there is beauty in your partner aging gracefully into their late years.

The workout itself might not always be sexy. Hell, most days, it definitely is not, despite all the Strava kudos or Instagram likes you’ll get from posting it.

But what is sexy is seeing how the workout translates to your race.

To the physique and resilient musculature you’re building.

To the progress photo you took.

To the waistline you’ve shed 5 inches off.

Those are the aspects of consistency you don’t appreciate in the moment, but need to elongate your gratification timeline for.

I am only now incredibly grateful (though bits of gratitude have crept their way into my life in microdoses thanks to a daily journaling practice) for all the work I’ve put in because all the work I’ve put in is MORE THAN EVIDENT when I zoom out and look at the macro timeframe.

The Super Power of Delayed Gratification

The most incredible transformations I’ve been a part of as a personal trainer have taken place over the course of 365 days or longer.

“Thank you, Fran, for adding years to my life!” One of my clients told me after recently celebrating a birthday and over 3 years of training with me.

That, I realized, is why I chose this career.

Done are the days of 75 and 90 day challenges. Sure, set micro goals within those time frames, but don’t expect that you’ll change your entire life in that short of a window.

Delayed Gratification is a super power that only those who have honed the virtue of patience can truly understand the strength of.

Like one who has married and fallen in love with a person, you are not married to them because you are looking for immediate access to their inheritance or trust fund.

You’re married to them because you see in them a quality that will one day allow the two of you, together, to pool your hard-earned money up and (hopefully, in this economy) take out a mortgage on your first home.

Start the family.

Retire on your own terms.

And during that process, you’ll do whatever it takes to make yourself better.

Despite there being hard days where it feels like it’ll be a struggle to make yourself do the dishes.

Fold the laundry.

Change the diaper.

That’s love. It’s not sexy in those moments.

But it can be sexy when you zoom out.

The same is true for your exercise and physical aspirations.

You are not starting in the gym today because that first day is going to be a cake walk. That may be the hardest day.

Day number 365 might be equally as hard, for different reasons.

But, on day 366, when you look back at the rewards you’ve reaped that year (if you’re not obtuse enough to not track some sort of progress metric) because of your commitment to improving yourself, I dare you to find something to sulk about in that moment.

There is a different type of non-flashy sexiness that is likened only to things that get better with time.

Fine wines, cheeses, 15-season athletes who still play the game gracefully (I think of Kobe Bryant or Lebron James), the sports car that is decades old but runs clean as any newer model.

All of these things are a product of tireless attention to consistency, which requires a level of grit that shrinks the ego and delays gratification.

Hone this super power.

Let it teach you the love of longevity.

Whatever the physical pursuit you’ve decided is (I hope you’ve been thinking or dwelling on one for the entirety of this newsletter), let the love of its longevity consume you.

Because everyone could benefit from finding this level of passionate consistency in something physical.

It undoubtedly carries over into your personal and professional pursuits. It can make you understand that quick wins are enjoyable, but long-term love of something is infinitely fruitful.

Have a great Sunday, lovers.

“Nothing’s wrong, you’re perfectly healthy.”

That’s what many doctors told my wife over the past year after we went from specialist to specialist to try and figure out why she wasn’t feeling herself.

The last month has been a hectic one — it’s no excuses for not having written something for you all. I strive to write…

Read more

Since my 30th birthday,

Everyone’s always asked me a question on my birthday that they never asked me in the first 29 years of my life:

How does it feel?

To which I always respond, “not much different.”

It’s a peculiar question, one that always makes me feel like the answer that someone was rhetorically expecting was, “old…

Read more

What has always frustrated me about working in fitness are the stark differences between thought processes

Between how medical doctors (and even physical therapists!) understand the realm of exercise.

I’m sharing opinions and anecdotes of my experience in eight years as a trainer in today’s newsletter, so I w…

Read more

I have to admit,

When I’d heard Lindsey Vonn tore her ACL on January 30th and saw videos of her strength training like nothing had happened, I felt polarized.

Maybe at first, the athlete and we felt some level of hope that injury specialists had finally turned the corner on ACL science.

Videos of NBA players returning to…

Read more

If you’ve trained hard for anything at all,

You know that sensation of burning that enters your muscles when they’re under stress for a prolonged amount of time.

Maybe it’s that group fitness class that’s solely focused on two or three muscles for the entire 45 to 60 minutes.

It could happen on your long runs, when your…

Read more

Good Morning!

If you’re reading from the Northeast U.S. (or anywhere above the equator) right now, you’ve probably had a piping hot cup of coffee and are bundled up on this holiday.

Make no mistake, I hate the cold.

I’m a February baby, but there’s nothing about this climate that makes me happy (unless I’m snowboarding).

But lately I’ve forced myself to continue exploring my passion for running this winter, despite the average daily temperature being 20° or colder lately,

Why?

Well for as much as I sh*t on ice baths (reminder: they do next to nothing for performance, but improve your tolerance to torture) cold-weather running is my personal preferred method of cold exposure for the season.

Over the last year, I’ve developed a sense of grit and obsession about my running, and I learned last spring that there are some benefits for running outside that undoubtedly helped me with my performance in last year’s NYC marathon.

Newsletter Summary

• The case for cold weather running and it’s benefits

• One quote about tolerance to start the week

The case for cold weather running

On a 15° January afternoon, I laced up my Nikes, grabbed my heattec gear with the built-in balaclava, and threw a beanie and two pairs of wool socks on for a 10K around my neighborhood.

Before I started my smartwatch, my pre-run heart rate was around 90 bpm.

I was excited.

Even with cold gusts from wind tunnels around Queens belting me in the face like a roller coaster ride, I was up for the challenge.

And a challenge is what it was.

The right playlist, a creative route circling Astoria Park and the East River waterfront, and a few close calls with some drivers speeding through yellow lights brought my internal temperature right where it needed to be for this run to actually be…fun.

The first argument I’ll make for cold runs is that they can be invigorating.

It’s similar to the rush of adrenaline that an ice bath brings, but unlike ice baths, there’s a certain body heat that comes with running outdoors that honestly makes the cold feelings dissipate quickly.

This is purely anecdotal, and I can’t guarantee it for everybody. Especially if you’re not already a runner.

As the folks at Idaho Spine and Sport physical therapy point out, it’s not always fun or enjoyable.

But it does come with unique benefits that will bode well for springtime and summertime running:

• Improved heart health, which is a byproduct of blood vessels working harder to pump blood to chillier areas of the body during cold runs

• Better sweat management, where (with repetition and proper winter hydration) the body is conditioned to sweat less and retain more water during cold runs, which is great preparation for hotter temperatures where sweat is more frequent

• Ample Novelty for the brain; something new and challenging strengthens our anterior mid-cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that deals with difficult things, and makes future difficult things easier

The spring runs that will (eventually) be here soon will be so much easier because I got out in December, January and February.

Not just psychologically, but physiologically too.

If there’s one thing that this newsletter will constantly challenge you to do, it’ll be to do hard stuff.

But what can’t be underscored is how often hard stuff benefits your body at a microscopic level, too.

If you’re a runner and have started to develop a weekly habit of getting the legs moving, this might not sound as attractive.

But that’s okay.

I’ve got an another try at the NYC marathon in November, and it’ll be cold again for that when it comes.

So getting the reps in now — loooong before I need to be ready to run that 26.2 miles across five boroughs — will pay dividends down the road (literally).

One Quote About Tolerance To Start March

“What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.

— Voltaire

Love this quote right here.

We have to learn to endure things.

That’s what makes us, us.

If you’ve been here a while, you can do 300 something newsletters.

That’s impressive.

I’d highly encourage you to suggest this newsletter to somebody who could benefit from learning a thing or two.

Subscribe now

Thanks in advance! See you later this week.

I recently spoke with a client of mine who — not to brag, but — PR’d their age group in a 10K. They’re a long-time runner, and they told me something I won’t forget:

“It’s impressive what you’ve done over the last year and a half alone!”

They’re right.

I haven’t shifted this newsletter content to reflect it much, but runnin…

Read more

“Once you hit (random age), it’s all downhill from there.”

If I never heard this phrase again, I’d be so happy.

This utterance comes from people who have an archaic mindset about what it means to age. Sure, every now and again it’s said jokingly.

But some people seriously mean it. Those who let their fitness capabilities…

Read more

Every year I write an article like this, hoping it helps at least some of the people who read it.

But every year, I’m not sure if it resonates. I’m opening up the comments section to this post (a feature I sometimes forget to turn on before I publish) so that if this article helps you, you can let me know.

And if it doesn’…

Read more

For as long as you’ve known me to write this newsletter, I rarely ever get too political.

But comments made weeks ago about the current president’s fitness for office had me a little alarmed.

Read more

Now and again, I like to think about the ways in which exercise can be more accessible for people.

Truly, there are a myriad of factors that limit people from exercising.

No access to a gym.

Expensive equipment.

Injuries and pain.

Busy work schedules.

Children.

Not enough time in the day for something meaningful.

The list goes on.

However, I’m not cynical enough to believe that Movement isn’t possible for everyone.

I’ve seen some amazing transformation stories, sparked by one catalyst moment and someone’s life that might seem trivial to another’s.

It’s probably a cliche, but the impetus to take control of your health starts in your mind.

And no, I’m not here to tell you that you just need to try harder or be more consistent, or even talk yourself into a daily routine of it.

I’m here to tell you that just believing that you’re more fit than you initially thought and reframing the way you think about “exercise” can have a massive effect on your life.

But first…

Something that’s had a massive effect on my life recently is the Thrive25 app.

I wake up at 5:30 am every day, and it was hard for me to rationalize having a routine.

But Thrive25 is a great place to start for tracking your labs, improving your health, and setting goals to feel better and live longer.

I’ve partnered with them and developed my personalized longevity routine, not one that’s cut-and-pasted from the web.

Best of all? Thrive25 is super affordable and secure. If you sign up for their app with my affiliate link, you’ll save on your health for life.

Use my link to get an early access discount FOREVER and take real control of your health.

Reframing Exercise And Your Relationship with How “Fit” You Are

I started working with a client with scoliosis 18 months ago.

She routinely mentioned feeling uncomfortable, like she was out of alignment, and that her day-to-day work had her feeling drained.

I should also mention she was exiting a toxic relationship, which may have had something to do with how she was feeling overall.

But I’m not a spiritual healer.

I do, however, know how movement heals.

Two or three months into training, she hadn’t noticed it, but her posture, shoulder position, and foot arch had dramatically improved from just mastering a few exercises.

Five or six months in, she reported actually feeling better.

But that is a standard trajectory.

What’s happened in the last four months may have changed her life trajectory forever.

Once we started moving to more complex lifts, she gained a certain insatiable quality for exercise.

But the interesting part was… she didn’t think of it as exercise.

A few months ago, this client reported starting a daily stretching routine in between our training sessions together that she said, catapulted her feelings of alignment into a new stratosphere.

While I always try to assign homework to clients, this practice of hers was self-taught.

When I asked her what prompted her new routine, her answer surprised me:

“I stopped thinking about the stuff I do outside of the gym as ‘exercise,’ and started thinking about it as ‘connecting with my body.’”

This answer was something I figured I couldn’t gatekeep.

I started telling my other clients about this, too.

And suddenly, strength training wasn’t the only thing my clients were doing outside of our workouts.

Yoga, running, massages, stretching…

These are all forms of connecting with your body and moving.

In isolation, they don’t achieve much. But when combined in a stew of all-encompassing movement and bodily attention, they create an incredibly healthy human.

My client, who started this trend, doesn’t just stretch anymore.

She joined a gym and connects with her body there three times a week.

Her simple change in language around exercise turned her aversion to difficult training into a habit that she associates with pleasure.

The Power of Language and What You Tell Yourself

My client’s story is not a new one either.

Changing the language around how you exercise and what you call exercise is only part of the story.

Doing this can help form a habit, but one way you can also help improve your fitness outcomes is simply believing that you are capable of exercising more (and even thinking you “exercise a lot).

Studies show this form of delusion actually leads people to healthier lives.

You don’t necessarily need to be perfect every single day, despite popular belief.

If you simply tell yourself you’re doing well enough, or even better than the average person (which you probably are), you’ll probably keep going…right?

In my case, I didn’t think of myself as much of a runner a year ago.

I didn’t dedicate nearly enough time as some of the hardcore amateurs (35-40 miles per week) do. I’d be lucky to eke out 20.

Still, I told myself it was enough, given my schedule constraints.

As of 2025, I’ve found enough time to make 30 miles per week work. And boy, has it paid dividends.

I finished top 100 in a 5k recently with over 4,800 people.

Earlier this year, I finished 479th out of 11,000 in a 10k, running 6:30-minute miles. Do I consider myself an “elite” runner?

No, but in the past year and a half, I’ve become a damn good one.

That mindset shift took time.

As do many of them.

But the stories you tell yourself — down to the very last word and way you describe that story — MATTER. A LOT.

Don’t take it from me. Take it from the amazing clients I work with. (You know who you are).

Interested in 1:1 coaching? Comment on this post and let’s get started.

Good Afternoon!

I hope everybody had an amazing Thanksgiving.

Reading comprehension is (generally) defined as “the ability to extract meaning from a written text, prior knowledge, and analysis to understand and integrate it into what’s already known.”

Too many readers today lack this skill or have thrown it to the wind …

Read more

Some Turkey Trot Thoughts

You probably don’t need to hear this unless you’re as Type-A obsessive as I am about progress, but not every race needs to (or will be) a personal best.

If you live with those expectations, you’ll almost certainly be let down more times than you’re impressed with yourself.

This…

Read more

Olivia and I recorded a shorter episode this week to expand on some more of the commonalities in her practice, including the timelines for her patients’ intake and outtake, other surprising benefits of having worked with her on gut health, and how supplements and probiotics can help us “biohack” things like sleep and metabolism.

We will be taking Thanksgiving week off from recording our weekly conversations, and will be returning in December with more fruitful health convos.

Below are timestamps from our Monday conversation:

1:30 - How long can someone expect to work with a functional nutritionist before they start seeing results?

6:00 - Interesting side effects of improving gut health, improvements in mood, and feelings of happiness

10:00 - Can probiotics and a focus on gut cleansing help with sleep and metabolism?

12:30 - “Biohacking” sleep with targeted supplementation — L-Theanine, Glycine, and Magnesium

15:00 - When should you take sleep supplements to speed up digestion, melatonin production, and sleep time?

17:10 - Best practices for probiotics — where to look, as an everyday person, to improve your microbiome and feel better.

20:00 - The gross new transplant study that involves… eating… stool? (Just listen, I promise, it’s interesting).

Olivia and I spoke yesterday about something many of you may know, but won’t get the full picture of without a GI map reading:

Your diet is a key factor in maintaining your skin health, and the mucous in your gut (sorry for the gross image) actually plays a significant role in determining whether or not your skin is clear.

Sure, the ties between ultra-processed foods and inflammation are understood at this point, but unless you’ve taken the full plunge into Acutane — the mechanisms of which we cover briefly in this episode — it’s hard to know exactly how to quell some acne outbreaks.

In this discussion, we cover:

• What a GI Map test entails, including the bacterial strains that are associated with acne and breakouts

• Why you can’t use a regular blood panel to determine the root cause of someone’s acne

• The supplements Olivia has prescribed to clients to help clear up their acne and reduce symptoms of inflammation

• The timeline one might expect to see improvement in their skin health after making the necessary adjustments to their routine

• What the everyday person without acne can do to prevent further breakouts with their current diet

Enjoy!

Tomorrow I’ll be releasing a bonus newsletter on traditional Chinese medicine, so keep an eye on your inbox for that!

KA-EX is the first energy drink of its kind to REDUCE cortisol, not raise it.

I’ve partnered with them to offer 20% off your first wellness welcome box, where you’ll receive samples of the electrolyte mix and shaker bottles to get you started on optimizing your nutrition and driving down your stress.

I recommend drinking it in the afternoon, or after your hardest workouts, to see the best benefits in recovery and sleep.

Follow my link and use the code FRAN20 (link is automatically applied when you click) to save on your box (and every box you order from here on out, too!)

When longevity first became hot, I’ll admit, I was skeptical.

“There’s no way taking a few pills or doing 10 more minutes of exercise daily could have that much of an impact on how long I live,” I thought.

I’ve had grandparents who’ve passed away in their late 70s and early 80s, which is the standard for most Americans, so truth…

Read more

I ran the New York City marathon this past Sunday, and had the time of my life.

But it also destroyed my body. There was a LOT of training that went into this, and I would be lying if I said that none of that training was painful.

There were a lot of days when I pigged out on the wrong foods to replenish carbohydrates, probably missed my hydration marks, and felt off, for lack of a better description. So when I got my bloodwork done at the start of my taper, I wanted Olivia to look at the biomarkers that came back to give me (and you!) a sense of what good readings are from a functional practitioner’s view.

Here are the most important timestamps in my view from our conversation yesterday.

3:20 - Lipoprotein A (LpA) - A hereditary biomarker I was concerned about that was elevated that may indicate cardiac events later in life, and how to lower it.

11:30 - Creatinine - Another elevated biomarker that is a direct indication of kidney function and hydration levels. (Runners, pay attention here!)

15:00 - Is there such a thing as too much protein? We talk about shifting our priority from protein — which is still important! — to another nutrient.

17:00 - Hydration and Electrolytes - Can I be TOO hydrated? We talk about how I feel despite my readings.

19:10 - Vitamin D and its many functions - Is my reading adequate?

22:30 - Folate and Vitamin B12 - Good levels and why they’re important

26:45- TSH, T4 and Thyroid health - Did I get enough data to make sure my thyroid is ok?

Share High Performance Health

I hope you enjoy this convo! You should be able to increase the speed of the video in the Substack app if you’re in a pinch but still want to listen.