A Trifecta of (Healthy) Awesomeness:

I’ll be covering the conference in more detail in following posts, but I was so inspired by the great people I ran into, I thought I’d give them a big blog “shout out” so that you could be exposed to their awesomeness as well. Pay attention now: I’m sharing my ultra “secret” resources here!

Dave Asprey: The Bulletproof Executive

Dave Asprey

Dave Asprey has been putting out some very good info on the subject of optimal health for years. He definitely isn’t USDA approved. Maybe that’s why I like him so much.

I first ran into Dave a couple years ago at a Quantified Self conference. Sitting across from Dave at lunch, I felt I’d met a kindred spirit. There was an eerie similarity to our lunch spreads. As others chewed away on their daily dose of conference supplied gluten in the form of hoagies, we savored the delicious goodness of massive amounts of wild salmon and pastured butter that we had both brought to tide us over. (See Balanced Bites article here about why you shouldn’t be afraid of healthy animal fats). Then and there I made a note to check this guy out.

I discovered that getting his dose of healthy fats must really help Dave build a better brain.  His information is cutting edge stuff that flies in the face of the Standard American Diet (SAD) that has doomed far too many ‘people of potential’ to mediocrity. After extensive research he’s arrived at his own version of a Paleo diet that ranks the toxicity of food vs its benefits. Even better; he’s made the information necessary to follow this diet for yourself extremely accessible by creating a handy dandy illustrated chart here. Check it out!

In addition to moonlighting as a nutritional Rock Star, Dave has a very successful career as a Silicon Valley investor, computer security expert, and entrepreneur which allows him to invest in and test out all of the latest and most expensive biohacks himself. To quote his website, he’s “spent 15 years and $250,000 to hack his own biology. He upgraded his brain by >20 IQ points, lowered his biological age, and lost 100 lbs without using calories or exercise”. Don’t you just love it when someone else volunteers to be your guinea pig?

If you’re interested in a direct line to the latest and best biohacks for lifestyle and nutrition I’d recommend checking out Dave’s website here.

Abel James: The Fat Burning Man

Abel James

At this latest conference I sat across from one of the nicest healthy (and brilliant) badasses I’ve had the pleasure to meet in the form of  Abel James  (AKA the “Fat Burning Man”).  Not only does he have a great website, podcast, books and other resources exploring the best ways to reshape yourself into a healthy, happy and just generally awesome person, it’s pretty darn obvious that he lives up to these ideals.

The main thrust of Abel’s thinking?

YOU are responsible for your own health. Wow. What a concept! Although it seems simple- it’s not often that I see someone live it. Abel makes sure to remind you that he may supply the information, but you are the one who has to take the steps to apply it to your life. There is no magic pill, machine or product that can do that for you.  He encourages you to to take the reins of health into your own hands and stop waiting for your doctor or big Pharma to save you. If you’ve read much of my blog, you know that this kind of thinking is right down my alley.

If you want the inspiration and information to take charge of your own health all in one down-to-earth package (with a radio voice from heaven), check out Abel.

Ben Greenfield Fitness

Ben Greenfield

What to say about Ben? Yeah, he’s really that awesome.

He’s insanely fit and definitely knows his stuff. You may hate him for his ripped abs… that is until you realize he’s freely sharing all his ‘secrets’ for you to partake in the same level of freakish fitness. He’s a research monster that tries out all of the latest biohacks on himself and reports back to his multitude of dedicated followers in a steady stream of informative blog posts and addictive podcasts. I just started catching up on his back episodes and I’m definitely digging it.

If you’re looking for enhancing your athletic performance while still retaining a strong focus on longevity (previously thought an either/or trade-off) and mental performance you’ll check out Ben.

Check them out!

These three barely disguised geeks represent some of the best health and fitness info I’ve found out there after extensive research. Besides, they’re all great researchers and just generally great guys. If you want to be up to date on some of the latest cutting edge info in fitness, mindfulness and nutrition and like it when others offer themselves up to guinea pig themselves for your benefit, you’ll run (not walk) right over to their websites for some serious edification.

NOTE: If you’re like me and do a decent amount of driving you should probably also check out their iTunes podcasts for juicy nuggets of nutritional goodness for your ears:
Dave Asprey

Abel James

Ben Greenfield

After this shameless plug for my favorite resources, stay tuned for an extended blog post in the near future covering my thoughts on all the great health and fitness information I garnered from the conference!