Just One More (drop of oil)
-or how I stopped getting colds 9 years ago, and increased my bench press by over 25% to 310 lbs
“Just one more” -That’s my mantra, my “indulgence cum discipline” maxim, my reminder of just getting going, always prototyping, always improving & growing, one of the pillars of my Always Be Investing way of life.
The one thing that matters above all else is your health
Please note before reading this article that you will be exposed to a lot of semi nude pictures of yours truly, not to mention completely unabashed plugging of my affiliate link to an Omega-3 supplement outfit.
There is one thing that stands out among my self improvement and investing life hacks, in terms of bang for the buck (yes, there is actual banging, but also bucks – about one a day): Omega-3 Oil from ArcticMed.
It will make you stronger, prettier, smarter, healthier, prevent cancer, live longer and not least prevent inflammations and common colds. The reason it has all these effects is that Omega-3 oil optimizes and strengthens every single cell in the body.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself…
When did you get a cold?
Last winter? The year before that? The average person gets a cold every second year, so you’re not that different. But is average enough for you, if there is a simple solution?
I had a sore throat in 2006. That’s 9 years ago. And it’s me in the pic below…
Got your attention yet?
Nothing magical here, just science
I’m actually not an anomaly, I used to get 2-3 colds a year like everybody else (probably more so, due to leading a life on the edge with travelling, partying, working out etc.), but now it’s been almost a decade since I last had a fever or a sore throat.
Before 2006, every time I upped my workout sessions a cold would follow. Every time I had a few too many nights out, I would get the sniffles and shivers for a week.
Yep, that’s right, during 14-21 days a year I had a fever, a sore throat, felt cold and weak and missed workouts. I thought that was the way life was – at least for a finance worker (long hours, lots of wine and champagne, and then hard partying during the short vacations to wind down).
To make bad things worse, between 2000 and 2006 I was slowly getting weaker (inevitably due to old age, I thought), and even had to cut down on the number of workout sessions per week from 5 to 4 to 3 one-hour sessions, and was just about to go down to just 2 workouts per week, as I was constantly feeling over trained.
Once I started drinking Omega-3 oil, I soon gave up the idea of reducing to 2 workouts/week, and after 6 months I felt an urge to increase my load to 4 times/week instead. Now, for social reasons, I’m down at 3.5/week but 2 hours per session instead of 1h/session, meaning I’m working out more than double the amount I used to before oil.
The turning point, natural bottled Omega-3 oil supplement
Then I made three changes, instead of 100% meat, I switched to 50% fish. I started chewing probiotics, and a little later, I commenced drinking Omega-3 oil from ArcticMed (affiliate link, I don’t get paid but I get reduced prices on oil, if you order enough)
All the advice on the internet touts the same remedies: vitamin-C, wash your hands, sleep, don’t drink alcohol, zinc, vitamin-D, and what have you, but hardly ever a word about Omega-3 oil (maybe, just maybe a mention of capsules, which I’ll show are inferior to oil)
What does Omega-3 actually do?
To start with, you can’t cure the common cold. Once the virus gets access to the cell’s nano machinery in the core, it’s game over and you have to ride it out. No vitamins, minerals, supplements, witchcraft or saunas will help at that point.
If you had taken Omega-3 oil regularly before, the fight against the virus infection will probably be shorter and easier, and many times the infection would never have happened at all. This is how it works:
The cell membrane is like a bag with transportation holes in it, “channels”. The bag is made of Omega-3 and Omega-6 molecules, among other things. The right balance between the two gives the bag just the right properties for the channels to work optimally, i.e., only letting the pre-approved materials pass in and out of the cell. A virus will find it hard to get up close to a cell at all in an Omega-3-balanced body, and even if it does, it will find it more difficult to bore a hole in the membrane and actually infect the cell once there.
All else regarding supplements is more or less noise. The Omega-3-balance really is the alpha and omega of infections, of a strong immune system, of insulin sensitivity, of healthy brain neurons etc.
If you can just get this one thing right, making the cell bags as supple and strong as possible with the right Omega-3 balance, you will have taken a giant leap for bodily (including recovery from injury, DOMS or exhaustion) and mental health. Yes, you heard me right there – it helps against Alzheimers, stroke, ADD and other neurological diseases as well.
Everything else from cinnamon to garlic and breathing techniques when moving in crowded areas etc. affect the junior part of the 80/20 ratio when it comes to preventing infections.
Note 1: Fix those cell membranes, the “bags”. These guys:
Optimize your Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio
In Europe, people typically have 10 times or more as much Omega-6 as Omega-3. In the US it’s over 20 (and of course much higher for certain areas, levels of education, social groups etc). Indian cities show levels over 40 (!) while the country side is way healthier at 5x. Eskimos, however, are down at 2 or below.
Historically, just a few generations ago, the average human had just 2x as much Omega-6 as Omega-3. And that’s where we find wild animals today. And coincidentally, yours truly (2.0).
ArcticMed has distilled the profile of a kind of “ideal” average person from the very best blood samples among several thousand tested persons. That ideal* person has an Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio of 2.4.
* The average of the 5%, of 9000 tested people, with over 8% Omega-3 index, less than 3:1 in ratio between Omega-6 and Omega-3, and less than 1% trans fat
ArcticMed has yet to find anybody having too low a 6:3 ratio or too much Omega-3 in their bodies (though I’m pretty close, since I have, e.g., 1.5x the level of DHA than even the “ideal” top 5%), but theoretically, if you have (much) more Omega-3 than Omega-6 (a ratio of less than 1) the cell “bag” might get too loose and floppy.
For simplicity, ArcticMed concludes that a ratio of between 1 and 3 is desirable, 2.0 is optimal, 2.4 is the average of the very best (the 5% of 9000 tested). Any level above 5 should be corrected by changing the diet.
Did I mention I’m at 2.0?
And, I have not had a cold in 9 years, remember? Typically, I would have suffered through 20-30 harsh colds during that interval.
It’s not just colds, it’s everything that involves cells. Duh!
The right Omega-3 balance makes every cell in the body work better, communicate better, protect itself better and so on.
The right balance has been associated with (partial) remedies for allergy, asthma, ADHD, ADD, obesity, diabetes, migraine, insomnia, stress related diseases, schizophrenia, lung cancer, stress, serotonin, blood pressure, body temperature, sex, appetite, learning, memory, breast cancer, menopause issues, shortening of telomeres (and thus increased longevity) and restless legs.
And, yes, you’ll become smarter too, not to mention get better skin quality.
Please note, that I’m not a medical doctor and can’t be held responsible for any of the above. It’s supposed to be reliable though. Check this link, e.g.
Liquid natural fish oil is so much better than capsules
Capsules are for convenience; they don’t taste oil or fish and they are easy to bring on vacations. However, they contain only minuscule amounts of the active components. In many cases you would have to eat 20 capsules a day to reach the same dosage as less than one table spoon of fish oil.
In addition, capsules are sometimes “concentrated”, which means important parts of the wide complex of fatty acids in fish oil has been cut out to make room for more of the two famous key components EPA and DHA. Without the entire complex of fatty acids present, actual delivery to the cells of the key components becomes much less efficient. hence you should eat even more capsules to achieve the same effect.
At 40 capsules a day, it’s starting to get quite inconvenient, not to mention expensive.
It’s not only the dosage per se that is an issue. There are other fish oils, apart from ArcticMed’s, on the market which contain the whole FA complex and provide the same dosage as ArcticMed. However, the fatty acids oxidize easier both in the bottle and in the body without extra protection.
ArcticMed scouts Europe every year for the optimal fat soluble anti oxidant rich extra virgin olive oil to mix with its Friend Of The Sea approved fish oil from the south Atlantic to protect it against oxidization. ArcticMed’s fish and olive oil mix withstands 27 hours at 70 degrees Celsius before oxidizing, whereas natural fish oil only lasts a tenth as long (3-4 hours) and the contents of the concentrated capsules less than an hour.
Flax seed oil you say? Don’t get me started
In theory the ALA contents of flax seed oil can be converted to Omega-3 in the body. In practice, however, if there isn’t enough Omega-3 to start with, if the balance is off, then the conversion chain is disrupted and more Omega-6 is produced instead! Or something like that, I didn’t quite get all the details down on paper during the seminar.
ArcticMed’s Omega-3 oil is superior in all respects
Hence, all in all, ArcticMed’s Omega-3 oil is actually both cheaper and more convenient than capsules, when focusing on actual cell delivery and end effect on the Omega-3 balance in the body. As an added bonus, the particular olive oil ArcticMed uses protects against LDL cholesterol oxidization and neurological diseases such as ALS, & MS and the high content of oleocanthal has been shown to kill cancer cells in less than an hour in lab tests.
The ArcticMed olive oil has a fascinating story itself
To make the right olive oil for use in ArcticMed’s products you need among other things the right type of olive, the right elevation above sea level, the right harvest temperature (the levels and composition of of anti oxidants can change within hours), and harvest timing (he only uses olive oil from the first week of harvest every year!)
The founder and Managing Director, Mikael Marcko, starts with screening this year’s olive oils according to industry standard tests. Then he proceeds with more nuanced, and expensive, tests for the 3-4 prospects that met the basic “hygiene” levels.
He’s hunting for a handful of important antioxidants (including the cancer killing oleocanthal that gives you that dry cough, burning throat feeling and tears up your eyes, and hydroxytyrosol which can prevent blood cell oxidization, in other words atherosclerosis) with documented health effects. The lengths he goes to actually make other producers and purchasers shake their heads in disbelief.
He only accepts the very best health effect and oxidization protection, even if consumers don’t yet appreciate it fully. Starting this year, Mikael Marcko has offered for sale, separately, whatever surplus olive oil he can spare after mixing and bottling the fish oil. This year it’s only 1100 numbered 500ml bottles of olive oil. If you start buying regularly from ArcticMed, I guess I can forget getting any olive oil for myself in the future.
SUMMARY – Faster, Harder, Omega3 Oiler
I’ve dodged 2-3 colds a year for almost a decade, I’ve increased my workout sessions from falling toward 2/week to my current regime of 3.5/week and they are twice as long as they used to be.
Not only can I train more than twice as much, and harder, I stopped my strength from falling, and increased my bench press from 110kg to 140kg in a few years (+27% from 240lbs to 310lbs). In my very late thirties and early forties!
I’m over 40 in all pictures in this post (42-43 in the majority), after 20+ years of high finance
I think you could achieve something similar, if you currently have a poor Omega-3 balance (most likely) and you choose to correct it with Omega-3 supplements (preferably with extra protection against oxidization), or lots and lots of fatty fish (mackerel, herring and salmon every day).
Coming clean: Just to be perfectly clear about my medical history the last decade, after my sore throat and six days in a row without working out in 2006, I’ve actually had a few small skirmishes with possible infections:
At four different occasions during the four years 2009-2012, I felt ill and had an itchy throat for 1-2 days after really heavy binge drinking and generally bad behavior during travels. In addition, I was home from work (!) during two days, January 24-25, 2013, in what probably was a cold, but it passed quickly and I didn’t miss any workouts.
So what should you do now?
1. buy Omega-3 oil from ArcticMed, and start downing 10-15 ml a day if you are a big guy (200 lbs, like I am). I just learned today (August 25, 2015) that ArcticMed’s products can be bought through amazon.co.uk, but still no shipping to the U.S.
2. or eat lots and lots of fatty fish (150g of mackerel or salmon a day, every day) and reduce your intake of land-living animals, in particular if they aren’t certified grass fed
3. perhaps check your Omega-3 index (recommended over 8%) and Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio to see what your starting point is. Anything above 5:1 should be corrected – with higher levels than that, your body is a bug waiting for a windshield.
4. get fish oil; if you can’t get hold of ArcticMed’s Omega-3 oil, get the best non concentrated natural fish oil you can find, treat it gently and keep it cold and dark and finish it quickly. And, a wild guess, perhaps mix it at home with a high quality olive oil and store it like that. In the fridge.
5. If you have Omega-3 capsules at home, stop taking 1-3 a day and start taking 15/day or more (check the label; you want to get 2000-3000 mg Omega3 a day – more if the capsules are concentrated and thus less effective). 12ml of ArcticMed’s natural fish/olive oil mix gives you 2900 mg polyunsaturated fats of which 2600mg Omega3, of which 1270mg EPA, 210mg DPA and 840mg DHA, plus 2.1 mg polyphenols.
Stocks and health… can it get any better? I don’t think so, so hurry up and subscribe to my newsletter and read the “Retarded” eBook about my career and the coming stock crash
Note about my affiliation with ArcticMed
I don’t get any cash money for writing this or advocating ArcticMed’s products. I just like the stuff and want to share my positive experiences. I do get better prices, though, if you buy enough through my affiliate link.
Last Friday, I finally listened to a lecture by the founder, and actually took notes (!). That’s why I’m writing this, to make sure I and you have a reference article in the future for why we became AM oilers.
I’ve heard bits and pieces of it informally, since I began taking the oil, but this is the first time in a more structured form.
My unedited notes in Swedish from the seminar (and some pics to drive the message home):