#019 Dr. Darya and Kevin Rose Talk Meditation Retreats, Diet, Seasonal Eating, and More
Dr. Rhonda Patrick chats with neuroscientist Dr. Darya Rose, PhD, and internet entrepreneur Kevin Rose about Darya's 10-day silent meditation retreat, Kevin's ketogenic diet experiments, intermittent fasting, mindful eating, and balancing technology use.
Deep Dive Analysis
8 Topic Outline
Daria's 10-Day Silent Meditation Retreat Experience
Mindfulness in Daily Life and Eating Practices
Kevin's Ketogenic Diet Self-Experimentation
Intermittent Fasting and Hormetic Stressors
Turmeric's Detoxifying and Brain-Boosting Effects
Daria's Transition from Neuroscience PhD to Health Advocate
Benefits of Eating Seasonally and Instinctive Cooking
Developing 'Anti-Technology' for Digital Mindfulness
5 Key Concepts
Mindful Eating
A practice of focusing on the food's flavor, texture, and warmth, chewing slowly, and being aware of hunger and satiety signals, rather than multitasking while eating. This practice helps individuals enjoy food more, recognize fullness, and make better dietary decisions.
Hormesis
A biological process where a low dose of a typically harmful stressor (like certain plant compounds, exercise, or fasting) induces a beneficial adaptive response in the body. This stress activates gene expression changes that can make the body more resilient and improve overall health.
Phase Two Detoxifying Enzymes
A group of enzymes in the body that play a crucial role in neutralizing and eliminating toxic compounds, including those found in certain foods or pollutants. Turmeric, for instance, activates these enzymes, helping to prevent the formation of carcinogens.
Eating Seasonally
A dietary approach focused on consuming fruits and vegetables when they are naturally harvested in a specific region. This practice often leads to better-tasting produce and helps vary nutrient intake throughout the year, aligning with natural cycles.
Instinctive Cooking
A method of preparing meals without strictly following recipes, instead relying on intuition, knowledge of ingredients, and basic cooking techniques. This approach aims to lower the barrier to cooking, making it easier and more enjoyable to prepare healthy meals, especially when time is limited.
11 Questions Answered
It involves intense seated and walking meditation for many hours daily, with no talking or eye contact, and can feel like a mix of 'awesome and torture' as the mind resists and then eventually settles.
It can take three to four days before an individual feels less at the mercy of compulsions like checking email or social media, allowing for deeper relaxation and focus.
Practicing mindful eating, such as focusing on food and chewing slowly, helps individuals enjoy their food more, recognize satiety signals that take about 20 minutes to reach the brain, and naturally eat less.
Yes, by combining higher carb vegetables (like 20+ grams per meal) with extreme amounts of fat, digestion is slowed, which can help maintain a state of ketosis.
Beta-hydroxybutyrate not only serves as an easily accessible energy source for mitochondria but also acts as a signaling molecule that can increase BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) and neural stem cell proliferation, potentially affecting memory and performance.
Intermittent fasting acts as a hormetic stressor, prompting the body to change gene expression and activate genes involved in stress resilience, which can have positive long-term health benefits.
Turmeric, particularly its curcuminoids, is slightly toxic to the body, which activates phase two detoxifying enzymes and anti-inflammatory genes. Additionally, aromatic tumerone in turmeric can cross the blood-brain barrier to increase neural stem cell proliferation.
Black pepper contains piperine, which inhibits certain liver enzymes (CYP enzymes) responsible for clearing polyphenols like those in turmeric, thereby extending turmeric's half-life and increasing its bioavailability in the body.
There is no single 'best diet' as most specific diets don't work for more than six to twelve months; instead, long-term success comes from eating real, whole foods, developing healthy habits around those foods, and consuming a broad spectrum of produce, often seasonally.
Shopping at farmer's markets is a good indicator, and generally, if a fruit or vegetable is from the Southern Hemisphere during the Northern Hemisphere's spring (or vice versa), it's not in season locally. Seasonal eating also means experiencing different produce throughout the year, like root vegetables in winter or stone fruits in summer.
Excessive technology use can lead to overwhelming feelings, increased distraction, reduced productivity (e.g., multitasking with many tabs), and decreased social interaction, potentially impacting memory and overall well-being.
40 Actionable Insights
1. Practice Present Moment Awareness
Meditate by simply taking time to be present and aware of your immediate surroundings, such as looking at a tree or listening to music, without thinking about past or future tasks.
2. Apply Mindfulness to Daily Tasks
Read “The Miracle of Mindfulness” to learn how to apply meditation to everyday life, such as washing dishes, by focusing entirely on the task at hand rather than multitasking mentally.
3. Practice Mindful Eating
Eat mindfully by turning off distractions, focusing solely on the flavor, texture, and warmth of your food, and chewing and swallowing each bite before taking another, which enhances enjoyment and helps recognize satiety.
4. Formal Mindful Eating Practice
Before eating, look at and smell your food for 30-60 seconds, identify where hunger manifests in your body, and for the first few bites, eat very slowly with closed eyes to fully experience the texture, warmth, and flavor.
5. Listen to Your Body’s Fullness Cues
Pay attention to your body’s satiety signals and the internal “committee” of voices in your brain that might encourage overeating, consciously choosing to stop when you are full.
6. Chew Food More Thoroughly
Chew each bite of food 20-50 times before swallowing to slow down eating, allowing satiety signals to reach your brain and naturally leading you to eat less and lose weight.
7. Adopt a Real, Whole Foods Diet
Prioritize eating real, whole foods and develop healthy habits around them, avoiding processed items like diet soda, protein bars, and slim fast, to naturally nourish your body and eliminate cravings and skin problems.
8. Eat Foods Seasonally
Learn to eat with the season to enjoy foods at their peak flavor and nutritional value, which also helps prevent boredom with your diet.
9. Develop Seasonal “Home Court Recipes”
Establish a set of “home court recipes” (basic, go-to meals) and adapt them seasonally by swapping out vegetables using the same cooking techniques, ensuring variety and ease of preparation throughout the year.
10. Cook Instinctively, Not Just from Recipes
Develop the instinct to cook without relying heavily on recipes, using available ingredients and basic flavor combinations, to lower the barrier to cooking and make it easier to prepare healthy meals, especially when tired.
11. Shop at Farmer’s Markets for Seasonal Produce
Shop at farmer’s markets to ensure you are buying seasonal produce, as grocery stores often stock non-seasonal items that lack flavor.
12. Learn Seasonal Produce Cycles
Understand the natural cycles of seasonal produce—light greens in spring, sweet fruits in summer, robust vegetables in fall, and sweet root vegetables/citrus in winter—to guide your food choices and enjoy variety.
13. Practice Digital Fasting & Reduce Tech
Consciously reduce your technology use by practicing “digital fasting,” potentially using gamified software to earn points for extended periods without phone use, blocking non-urgent messages, and avoiding multitasking on computers to improve focus and reduce distraction.
14. Limit Phone Use During Social Interactions
Be conscious of your phone use during social interactions, especially at dinner, and resist the urge to check your device during pauses in conversation, as it can be perceived as rude and detract from genuine connection.
15. Avoid Digital Multitasking
Refrain from multitasking with technology, such as having too many browser tabs open, as it can hinder productivity and lead to forgotten tasks.
16. Undertake a 10-Day Silent Meditation Retreat
Engage in a 10-day silent meditation retreat, involving extensive daily seated and walking meditation, a vegetarian diet, and no eye contact, to experience profound personal transformation and improved well-being, despite initial difficulty.
17. Buffer Stress with Meditation
Practice meditation to buffer the negative effects of chronic stress, as research suggests it can impact biomarkers of aging like telomere length.
18. Start Meditation with Headspace App
Download and use the Headspace app, starting with its 10-day challenge of 10 minutes a day, as it provides guided meditations that are easy for beginners.
19. Focus on Breath for Wandering Mind
If you have a wandering mind, focus on your breathing during meditation to help anchor your attention.
20. Explore Movement-Based Meditation
Try movement-based meditations like qigong, which involve full-body breathing and embodying the meditation, to focus on breath and body simultaneously.
21. Meditate for Gene & Brain Benefits
Engage in meditation to induce immediate changes in blood flow to the brain and brain activity, as well as long-term changes in gene expression, with up to a hundred different genes changing.
22. Practice 16-Hour Intermittent Fasting
Engage in 16-hour intermittent fasting, ideally six days a month, to help get back into ketosis quickly and for potential benefits like weight loss and activating beneficial stress responses in the body.
23. Utilize Fasting for Hormetic Benefits
Engage in fasting to induce a hormetic stress response in your body, which activates beneficial gene expression changes that enhance resilience and help your body deal with stress.
24. Adopt a High-Fat, High-Veg Ketogenic Diet
Implement a modified ketogenic diet by consuming 6-9 cups of blended, steamed vegetables daily, combined with extremely high amounts of fat from sources like dense coconut milk and coconut oil, to maintain ketosis while consuming more carbs.
25. Combine Carbs with Fat to Mitigate
When consuming carbohydrates, combine them with significant amounts of fat to slow down digestion and prevent large glucose spikes, which can help maintain ketosis.
26. Drink High-Fat Coffee for Energy
For an energy boost and to aid ketosis, blend grass-fed butter and straight coconut oil into your morning coffee, similar to a bulletproof coffee, for an “insane” amount of energy.
27. Use Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss
Implement 16-hour intermittent fasting daily, as Hugh Jackman did for his Wolverine physique, to achieve weight loss and “shredded” body composition.
28. Self-Experiment with Glucose & Ketone Monitoring
Conduct self-experiments by using a glucose and ketone monitor to test your blood levels before, 30 minutes after, and 60 minutes after eating, and keep detailed logs to understand how different foods and drinks affect your body.
29. Incorporate Turmeric for Detoxification
Consume turmeric, which contains curcuminoids, to activate phase two detoxifying enzymes and anti-inflammatory genes, providing a hormetic stressor that helps the body process toxins and reduce inflammation.
30. Prefer Whole Turmeric Over Curcumin Supplements
Opt for whole turmeric or turmeric tea over isolated curcumin supplements, as whole turmeric contains aromatic tumerone, which has been shown to cross the blood-brain barrier and increase neural stem cell proliferation, potentially benefiting memory and performance.
31. Enhance Turmeric Absorption with Black Pepper
Combine turmeric with black pepper (piperine) to inhibit enzymes in the liver that rapidly clear polyphenols, thereby extending the half-life and increasing the bioavailability of beneficial compounds from turmeric; however, avoid piperine if taking prescription drugs as it can extend their half-life.
32. Incorporate Organ Meats for K2
Consume organ meats to obtain Vitamin K2, which is present in higher amounts compared to hard cheeses like Parmesan or Asiago.
33. Ferment Foods at Home
Engage in home fermentation, such as making sauerkraut, to incorporate beneficial fermented foods into your diet.
34. Make Homemade Almond Milk
Prepare your own almond milk at home, as it is a quick and easy process that takes only two seconds, and can be used in smoothies.
35. Support FoundMyFitness Content
Consider financially supporting the FoundMyFitness podcast, videos, and articles by pledging a few dollars per month at foundmyfitness.com/crowdsponsor, to help sustain the creation of high-quality health and nutrition information.
36. Explore Summer Tomato Blog & Newsletter
Visit Daria Rose’s website, summertomato.com, and sign up for her newsletter to find refreshing and informative content focused on food and healthy living.
37. Read “Foodist” by Daria Rose
Read Daria Rose’s book, “Foodist: Using Real Food and Real Science to Lose Weight Without Dieting,” to learn how to achieve weight loss and health without traditional dieting.
38. Follow Kevin Rose on Social Media
Follow Kevin Rose on social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter to keep up with his activities and ideas.
39. Follow Daria Rose on Social Media
Follow Daria Rose on Twitter under the handle “summertomato” to stay updated on her content.
40. Listen to The Random Show Podcast
Tune into “The Random Show” podcast, co-hosted by Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss, for discussions on various topics.
7 Key Quotes
Anybody who's ever tried to meditate, like meditating for 10 minutes is really hard.
Daria Rose
It's kind of like getting a deep tissue massage. Like it starts out and you're like, this is going to be great. And then you're like, oh my God, oh my God, this sucks. This sucks. This sucks. How can I keep doing this? It hurts. But then you're like, oh no, no, that's good. That's good. That's good. And then, so it's like a mixture of like awesome and torture.
Daria Rose
When most people are washing the dishes, they're thinking about email. I think about a thousand other things they should be doing and they're not actually focused on the task at hand.
Kevin Rose
You enjoy your food more if you, if you eat mindfully.
Daria Rose
There's this committee in your brain. It's like, well, yeah, you're full, but that was really good. And so you should maybe have another bite of that. And then like, another one's like, no, no, no, you're trying to lose weight. That's like another voice. And then your mom comes in and is like, you're not, you shouldn't leave any food on your plate. There's starving kids in Africa. And it's, and he was like, what you should really pay attention to, and this is Jack again, Jack Kornfield, is, um, who wins that conversation for you?
Daria Rose
I'm trying to find my time to find breaks. Um, and so this is a period where I've decided to do, do less tech, um, in my life.
Kevin Rose
I have this idea of this technology fast, the software that I want to create that will force fasting on cell phones.
Kevin Rose
4 Protocols
Mindful Eating Meditation Practice
Daria Rose (describing practice from retreat)- Look at your food for 30 to 60 seconds.
- Smell the food.
- Figure out where the hunger is in your body (stomach, mouth, head).
- Decide what you want to eat first.
- For the first couple of bites, eat very slowly.
- Close your eyes, feel the texture, warmth, and flavor of the food.
- Chew and swallow before putting another bite in your mouth.
- Pay attention to which voice in your brain wins the conversation when you start to get full (e.g., 'that was good, have another bite' vs. 'you're trying to lose weight').
Ketosis Re-entry Protocol (after being kicked out)
Kevin Rose- Fast for 16 hours (intermittent fasting).
- For breakfast, consume a 'bulletproof-like' coffee made with grass-fed butter and coconut oil, blended.
Seasonal Eating Strategy (Daria's 'Home Court Recipes')
Daria Rose- Identify a core set of 'home court recipes' or basic cooking techniques.
- Swap out vegetables in these recipes based on what is currently in season.
- For example, use roasted cauliflower in winter/fall, then rotate in Brussels sprouts or delicata squash.
- In spring, shift to more salads and less roasted dishes.
Technology Fast (Proposed Software Idea)
Kevin Rose- Block text messages, with an automatic reply indicating the user is in a 'tech fast'.
- Allow urgent messages to pass through if the sender responds with a specific code (e.g., '1').
- Use gamification to award points for extended periods of not using the cell phone for certain activities.
- Enable competition by displaying user scores (e.g., 'your score and Tim's score').