Chapter 1 E + M = H: An Equation for Health My health is important, so I learn everything I can about nutrition. --Louise Hay When was the last time you ate a tomato? Maybe it was a week ago. Maybe it was today. Maybe you don''t like tomatoes and have no interest in eating them. But science is interested in tomatoes. Specifically, science is interested in breaking the tomato down into its component parts, isolating the parts that seem to do some good for human health, and then testing whether they really do or not. It''s a fascinating process, but does it translate to anything that will help you decide whether or not to put a tomato on your salad? One of the things science has figured out about tomatoes is that they contain a phytonutrient called lycopene that gives them their red color. Science has also demonstrated that lycopene in particular seems to have cardioprotective health benefits.

Interesting, right? In fact, recently, in 2014, a study was published in Advanced Nutrition that compared tomato intake to lycopene supplements (lycopene taken out and isolated and put into a capsule) to see which had a more beneficial effect on markers of cardiovascular disease.1 And guess who won? The tomato! The study concluded that tomatoes have more positive impact on human health than supplements. This is all very exciting--and great news. I always love reading about a new study that supports the notion food can influence health. However, what does this information actually have to do with you? The study doesn''t tell you what to do with tomatoes. The scientists don''t come to your house and consider your life, and advise you about tomatoes. Are you supposed to lay the tomatoes on your chest at night and hope the magic happens? Are you supposed to eat them for every meal for the rest of your life to ensure you won''t ever have a heart attack? Or is the occasional tomato enough to benefit you? What is the dosage of tomatoes? And what are the specific benefits you can count on? And furthermore, can you ever really know whether tomatoes, for you as a unique individual with an unprecedented biochemistry, will actually make any difference at all? What happens in a lab does not (and cannot, by its very nature) possibly predict what will happen when you, with your individual body, metabolism, and circumstances, eat a tomato or any other food. Are you even prone to heart disease? If you are, is your body able to get the lycopene out of the tomato and send it where it needs to go? Can you grab those cardioprotective elements from that tomato in the same way some other random person on the street could or couldn''t? Food can do profound things for you, but you have to have a body that can use it properly to enact those protections and healing compounds.

You have to have a body that is set up for creating health out of food. You have to have a metabolism that works. You can deliver a giant pile of 2 x 4s to a building site and they can be the highest quality, most dense, and sturdiest oak available, but if the workers don''t show up or have never been trained in how to build a house, that wood is going to sit there and rot. The quality doesn''t matter if the house can''t get built. Or what if it''s a log cabin to be constructed and the only thing delivered were steel beams? That won''t help in getting a log cabin built. It''s exactly the same with "power foods." You have to have a body that can take those raw materials and actually make the magic happen. Health is an equation, and it is not as simple as eating a tomato, or taking a pill, or going for a walk, or any other one thing, but it isn''t too complicated for us to understand, either.

So what are you struggling with? Is it low energy, premenstrual syndrome (PMS), or menopausal symptoms, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), indigestion, high cholesterol, or even a chronic disease like diabetes or an autoimmune disorder? No matter what it is, you probably already know you need to do something different. Maybe you have seen a doctor, or maybe you want to try achieving better health on your own, but either way you need a prescription. I''m not talking about a pharmaceutical prescription. I''m talking about a food prescription--one that can have a greater, more lasting, and more restorative effect than anything else you ever do for yourself. The term for prescription so often used by doctors and pharmacists is Rx, but what "Rx" actually stands for is the Latin word recipere, which means "recipe." A food prescription is a recipe for health. The foods you choose and when you eat them can change everything about your energy level, your mood fluctuations, your changing body shape, the numbers on your lab tests like blood pressure and cholesterol, and even the course of chronic diseases that may have already gotten a foothold in your system. How can food be so powerful? Because food integrates with your body to create health in a powerful way.

I like to explain this using an equation so simple that at first it may seem less significant than it actually is: E + M = H. I repeat: E + M = H Here''s what it means: E + M = H Eating Metabolism Health Exercise Metabolic pathways Homeostasis Environment Me Harmony E is what you eat, how much you Exercise, and the Environment in which you live, breathe, move, and think. Both eating and exercise create your internal environment, but E is also your external environment, influenced by everything around you, from your family and friends to your job, to what you do with your free time, even to the weather. E is everything you put into your body, everything you do with your body, and everything with which you surround your body. M is your metabolism, or your rate of converting food into energy. It is also your Metabolic Pathways, which are the many possible roads down which micronutrients (that come from what you eat) travel. Finally, M is the "Me" in the equation--you as an individual, your genetic makeup, your belief systems, your life experiences. This is how your individual body works and what it is doing at any given moment.

Your metabolic pathways are the result of biochemical decisions in your body and what they do. For example, you have a metabolic pathway that controls what your body does with sugar. You have one that controls what your body does with hormones. You have another one that controls how your body processes toxins, from substances like medications and pollution. You even have one that translates your thoughts into physical reactions and causes tissues to secrete hormones. All of these influence the M and make you who you are. M is what happens inside you. H is Health.

Health doesn''t always mean you are disease free. Instead, it means your body has created a Homeostasis, or internal balance. It means you are living in Harmony with a body that is naturally in a constant state of healthy adaptation or flux. It is the end result of how you combine E with M. It is how you feel right now and how well your body is working. Maximizing the H is what we all hope and strive for, and what we will accomplish with the information in this book''s pages. E + M = H. This equation applies and is working for (or against) you all the time, from your first to your last day on this earth.

What science knows is true, even though this knowledge doesn''t always trickle down into clinical practice, is that what you eat and do (your environment) combined with your individual metabolism and how well your metabolic pathways function (the "me") determine your health status, your body''s ability to maintain homeostasis, and your state of harmony in the present moment. Although we''re talking about equations, I''m not trying to create a teacher-student dynamic. We are on this journey together. Now, the focus is on your self-discovery. Together we will explore what the equation means in your life as the formula holds the key to impacting how you feel, the way you look, what your lab reports say, and how healthy you are today and moving forward. Your health depends on two things: E and M. What you do to your body (eating, exercise, and the environment you provide), and what your body is doing to run things (metabolism, metabolic pathways) and be who it is ("me"), creates how well you are able to live (health). Your internal and external environments combined with your individual makeup and the way your body runs directly result in the quality of your health.

E + M = H. When you embrace the implications of E + M = H, you will understand that you have the power to change how your body works--how it feels, how it looks, and how it functions. Depending on what problem you have right now (crushing fatigue, hormonal or digestive issues, metabolic syndrome or diabetes, or autoimmunity), you can use specific food prescriptions to change your internal environment, thereby altering your metabolism in a way that addresses the problem (fills you with energy, balances your hormones, heals your digestion, balances your blood sugar and insulin, or even calms your overactive immune response). Because everyone has a different "M" (metabolism, metabolic pathways, "me") no one "E" (eating plan, exercise, environment) is right for everyone to create health (and homeostasis and harmony). No two metabolisms work in exactly the same way to create a healthy body, and no two bodies are the same. This is why eating on its own cannot create health. Yet, what you eat profoundly influences your metabolism, which is why metabolic intervention alone (such as with pharmaceuticals) cannot create true health. You need both variables working in concert.

The diet industry hasn''t.