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Chronic fatigue.
Poor sleep.
Brain fog.
Expanding waistline.
Cravings that nag at you all day long.
If you can't relate to at least one item in that list, you’re likely in the top 1% of health...and I'm not even sure why you're reading this.
What if all of these issues have a common root?
Micronutrients: what they are and why they’re important
In this newsletter, I’m going to introduce you to Marty Kendall - a name in the nutrition space that has become synonymous with the concept of nutrient density. He is the creator of Optimising Nutrition, but don’t be fooled by the name: you will benefit from his work even if you’re not interested in “optimization.”
I recently participated in the Micros Masterclass - a 30-day challenge run by Marty and his crew. The masterclass was a deep, practical dive into the world of micronutrients. After the class, Marty was kind enough to get on a Zoom call with me and allow me to pick his brain.
Micronutrients are the essential vitamins, minerals, and other compounds (like omega-3 fatty acids, for example) that our bodies need. We require smaller amounts of them than we do protein - that’s why vitamins and minerals are micronutrients, while protein is a macronutrient.
But the fact that we need them in smaller amounts doesn’t make micros any less essential to the optimal functioning of our bodies.
Chris Kresser puts it this way:
“…nutrients are essentially the fuel that our body needs to function optimally. I mean, certainly, we have the macronutrients, like carbohydrates and fat, that provide the basic ingredients that we need for ATP production, but it’s actually the micronutrients that determine how efficiently we convert carbohydrates and fat into usable energy…
[T]hose micronutrients are also co-factors in enzymatic reactions that pretty much run the entire show in the body, from the endocrine system to the nervous system, to the brain, to our immune system and how we fight pathogens and balance our innate versus adaptive immune responses…every single process that happens in the body requires micronutrients, like vitamins, minerals, trace minerals, and other compounds.”
Micronutrients are integral to every system in the body - immune, cognitive, digestive, metabolic, cardiovascular, hormonal. There is also a growing awareness that micronutrients may be more important than we once thought, not only for our current state of health, but also for our longevity (read about Bruce Ames’ triage theory for more).
Marty described it to me this way:
“…if we only have the minimum amount of nutrients, we'll only be able to look after the functions that relate to short term survival. However, if we have more than the minimum, we can focus on longer term functions like reproduction and repair for longevity.”
If you’re interested in thriving health, both now and as you get older, don’t neglect your micros.
The modern nutrition problem
Most people in today’s world are basing their diets on foods that are nutrient-poor but energy-rich. To make matters worse, their energy needs are not actually that high, since modern life is largely sedentary.
The result? Insidious weight gain, as your body looks for more places to store all of that excess energy.
This creates a strange, sad paradox - we have people who are awash in unnecessary caloric energy, yet they’re still deficient in the nutrients their bodies need.
They are overweight, but undernourished.
It would be like someone who appears to be a millionaire, with plenty of wealth laid up for years to come. But when you look closer, you realize their wealth consists entirely of worthless Monopoly money.
To make matters even worse, these people rarely feel satisfied with their meals. Their hunger is insatiable, and they are plagued with constant cravings.
When they try to lose weight by simply eating less of the foods they’ve been eating up to that point, it creates a situation where their bodies fight them at every turn.
Their bodies don’t want them to eat less, because they’re already getting insufficient nutrients.
But if they start to recognize the nutrients that their bodies need and where to get them from the foods available to them, over time they will start to feel satiated from their food. The friction hampering their efforts to lose weight will start to disappear.
As Marty puts it,
“It appears that we crave the nutrients we need more of, so it's smart to work to fill in the priority gaps in your diet.”
Marty to the rescue
Marty has brought much-needed attention to this problem. He has a way of seeing what's truly important and cutting to the chase:
“Nutrition is about nutrients - everything else is just noise.”
He is a welcome voice of objectivity and reason in the health and wellness space. While others expend precious energy debating which “diet tribe” is superior, he simply focuses on what nutrients are necessary for optimal human functioning, and where to get those nutrients.
On top of this, he’s an engineer at heart. This means that he has systems…for everything.
He currently runs 3 different nutrition challenges at various points throughout the year:
The process for each of them is similar. He guides participants to establish their current baseline, then make small, incremental changes to gradually improve their diets.
In my case, I established my nutritional baseline by tracking my current diet (without changing anything) with the Cronometer app. After that initial step, I was able to see which nutrients I was consistently coming short in - folate, copper, manganese, vitamin B3 (niacin), vitamin E, and iron.
Armed with that information, I could use the tools provided in the Masterclass - Marty’s Nutrient Optimser app was especially useful in this regard - to pinpoint specific foods that would provide those nutrients I was coming short in.
Over the rest of the masterclass, we were guided on how to make a habit of including more of those foods and slowly increase the quality of our diet in a sustainable way.
For me, it wasn’t a huge overhaul of my diet, but I did start to consistently incorporate more targeted nutrient-dense options. Foods like:
Liverwurst
Canned mackerel
Ground meat + organ blends from Force of Nature
Sunflower seed butter
Fresh herbs, like basil and parsley
Practical steps to increase nutrient density
If you’re recognizing a weakness in your current diet, you have to resist the tendency to get overwhelmed - that will make you quit before you even start.
We must reject the “optimization trap” - the idea that there is some perfect standard our diets must attain to. With healthy eating, “perfect” truly is the enemy of “good.”
Marty’s approach - despite the word “optimization” in the name - is perfect for this.
As he puts it,
“Rather than living at optimal, we need to find the balance between the extremes and nudge it up or down based on our goals.”
So what can you do, starting today, to improve the quality of your diet and start providing your body with more of what it needs?
Here’s a great starting point:
Increase protein - particularly protein coming from animal-based sources (meat, seafood, eggs, organ meats, dairy - if tolerated).
That shift will also increase the micronutrients you’re getting - killing multiple birds with one stone.
Decrease empty calories.
Examples: heavily processed, packaged foods (including ones marketed as healthy); baked goods with flour, sugar, and oil; liquid calories (like those delicious Starbucks Frappuccinos).
The more you can focus your diet on protein-rich, minimally processed whole foods, the more you should see an increase in your satiety, making it relatively effortless to lose weight and gain control over your cravings.
If this isn’t working - you’re not losing weight as quickly as you’d like, for example - then start to quantify what you’re eating and make specific, targeted changes in your food choices. Marty’s challenges would be a perfect place to do this.
Marty has written a very helpful and highly practical article that gives real-life examples of the types of meals people eat during his challenges in order to increase the nutrient density of their diets.
As you’ll see from the photos in the article, you don’t need to build your meals around exotic “superfoods” in order to eat a nutrient-dense diet. Most of these meals are so simple that they're almost...normal.
Conclusion
The name of the game with improving your diet quality is to make incremental, non-overwhelming changes to what you’re eating over time.
Recognize the issues and gaps in your diet - being willfully blind to them is not the solution.
But once you pinpoint them, resist the urge to despair and give up on improvement, just because “perfect” is unattainable.
Decide on one or two small changes that you can start to incorporate today, then make those habitual.
Once those changes feel easy, make one or two more…then repeat the process until your health improves, the fat melts off, and your energy comes back.
Remember - your pursuit of health will last as long as you do. Be in it for the long haul, because it’s not about an ego-driven pursuit of perfection - it’s about living your one precious life to the fullest.
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