This is the final of five articles in The Natural Way that form the foundation of the Healthy Human philosophy. Together, they explain how chronic disease develops, why conventional diagnostics and treatment often fall short of restoring health, and the timeless principles that can help you rebuild your body naturally.

As I was overcoming 13 chronic disease conditions, I made a lot of changes to my lifestyle—and I made them quickly.

Whenever I learned about something that could improve my health, I incorporated it as soon as possible.

Removing the habits that had contributed to my illness, however, was much harder. Those patterns had been reinforced over decades. Changing what I did was often easier than changing who I spent time with, where I went, and how I lived.

Alcohol was probably the biggest example.

For more than a decade, it was woven into my social life, from university through the early years of my career. Many friendships and events revolved around drinking, and choosing a different path often meant choosing not to participate.

Lose some friendships, or choose my health?

For me, the answer was painful, but obvious.

The transition wasn’t immediate. Over about five years, I went from drinking a dozen beers on a weekend to about a six-pack over an entire year. Eventually, in 2017, I quit completely and haven’t had an alcoholic drink since.

That was only one habit, but it may have been the most influential.

As I continued making changes, I realized exceptional health wasn’t the result of a morning smoothie, a few workouts each week, or replacing a handful of household products.

It came from creating a lifestyle—a consistent pattern of living that aligned me with as many natural and nourishing habits as possible.

Not perfection. Not obsession. Just a commitment that my health mattered more than my old habits.

I believe that commitment is one of the reasons I experienced what many would consider a one-in-a-million recovery.

Today, I want to share the nine lifestyle habits that had the greatest impact on my health—and that I believe can fundamentally change yours as well.

As always, don’t try to master all nine at once.

Start with the one that feels easiest to implement today. Build that habit until it becomes part of who you are, then move on to the next.

Over time, those small victories create momentum, momentum builds confidence, and confidence makes the next change even easier.

So let’s begin with what may be the greatest lifestyle disconnect of our modern world.

Light Exposure

If I had to wager a guess, I’d say the average person spends more time looking at screens than they do exposing their eyes to natural sunlight.

Think about your typical day. You wake up to an alarm, check your phone before getting out of bed, spend most of the day under artificial lighting, then wind down in front of a television or another screen before finally going to sleep.

Even when you do go outside, many people immediately put on sunglasses, further reducing the amount of natural light reaching their eyes—one of the key signals that helps regulate your circadian rhythm.

So from sunrise to sunset, your body is surrounded by artificial light while receiving very little of the natural light it was designed to experience.

For most of human history, our days were guided by the rising and setting of the sun. Morning light signalled the body to become alert and energized, while darkness prepared the nervous system for rest and recovery. Today, we’ve largely replaced those natural signals with LED lights, fluorescent bulbs, and blue-lit screens, then wonder why so many people struggle with their energy, mood, focus, and sleep.

Part of this disconnect stems from the fact that we’ve been taught to fear the sun itself. The very thing that makes life on Earth possible has, in many people’s minds, become synonymous with skin cancer.

Now, I’m not suggesting you spend hours baking in the summer sun or ignore common sense. A sunburn isn’t healthy. But somewhere along the way, we’ve started treating one of life’s greatest necessities as though it were the enemy.

Start by reducing your reliance on synthetic light. Cut back on recreational screen time, especially in the evening. Read a book, go for a walk, play a sport, spend time outdoors, or simply sit outside without your phone. Use warmer incandescent lighting in your home after sunset when practical, and consider blue-light filters or glasses if you spend long hours in front of screens.

Then begin rebuilding your relationship with the sun. Spend 10 to 15 minutes outside shortly after waking and again later in the day if you can. Let your eyes experience natural daylight, expose some skin during the day when appropriate, and gradually increase your exposure while respecting your skin type and avoiding burns. Your body is remarkably adaptable when given the opportunity.

Natural light was never something humans were meant to fear. It was something we were conditioned to fear. It’s time to reverse that trend.

Hydration

Ask most people how to stay hydrated and they’ll probably tell you to drink more water.

That’s certainly part of the equation, but hydration is far more complex than simply filling a bottle and drinking eight glasses a day.

Your body doesn’t just need water. It needs minerals, electrolytes, and the ability to move that water into your cells where it’s actually needed. Without those pieces, you can drink plenty of water and still struggle with dehydration at the cellular level.

For most of human history, hydration came naturally through mineral-rich natural spring water and water-rich foods like fruits and vegetables. Today, many people rely on coffee, alcohol, soft drinks, energy drinks, synthetic sports beverages, and bottled water as their primary sources of hydration. Even healthier choices, such as distilled or reverse osmosis water, can fall short if they aren’t properly remineralized.

Somewhere along the way, we forgot that nature solved hydration long before bottled water and sports drink companies ever existed.

Start by eating more water-rich foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables. Choose highly mineralized spring water whenever possible (not stored in plastic), and reduce your reliance on heavily processed beverages that work against your body’s natural balance rather than supporting it. Hydration isn’t simply about replacing fluids—it’s about nourishing the internal environment your cells depend on every second of every day (I spoke about what your cells are made of and what they require in a previous post, The Diet Designed for the Human Body.)

When you give your body the water and minerals it was designed to work with, in perfect synergy, staying hydrated becomes effortless.

Grounding

Most people spend their entire day disconnected from the earth.

They wake up in a bed, walk across hardwood or carpet, put on rubber-soled shoes, drive to work in an EMF-loaded vehicle with rubber tires, sit inside a building, then return home without their bare feet or hands touching the ground even once.

For almost all of human history, that would have been impossible.

We walked barefoot, worked the land, climbed trees, sat on rocks, swam in lakes, and lived in constant contact with the earth’s surface. The human body evolved within that relationship.

Today, we've replaced forests, fields, beaches, and natural landscapes with asphalt, buildings, synthetic flooring, and indoor living. At the same time, we're surrounded by an unprecedented amount of artificial electromagnetic exposure. Whether or not every claim surrounding EMFs proves true over time, it's difficult to ignore how dramatically we've exchanged the natural world for an artificial one.

Ironically, many modern wellness technologies are attempting to recreate what nature has always provided. Grounding mats, PEMF devices, and other therapies may have their place, but they work best as complements to a lifestyle that already moves you closer to nature—not as substitutes for it.

Sometimes the simplest solutions are still the best ones.

Take your shoes off. Walk barefoot on the grass. Sit against a tree. Work in the garden. Spend more time outside without an agenda. Put on an authentic shungite necklace.

The earth isn't just where we live. It's one of the environments our bodies were designed to stay connected to.

Sleep

If there’s one lifestyle habit modern society consistently undervalues, it’s sleep.

Many people wear sleep deprivation like a badge of honour, believing that staying up later and getting more done somehow makes them more productive. In reality, it often does the exact opposite.

Sleep isn’t when your body shuts down. It’s when your body goes to work.

During deep sleep, your nervous system settles, hormones rebalance, tissues repair, immune activity strengthens, and your body shifts into one of its most regenerative states. Yet many people spend the hours before bed doing everything possible to interrupt that process.

Instead of winding down naturally, we stimulate ourselves with phones, television, social media, bright lights, caffeine, late-night meals, and constant notifications. Then we wonder why we wake up feeling exhausted despite spending eight hours in bed.

The goal isn’t simply to sleep longer. It’s to sleep better.

Start preparing your body for sleep long before your head hits the pillow. Dim the lights, put away your electronics, avoid eating late in the evening, read a physical book, take a warm magnesium bath, or enjoy a calming herbal tea. Even spending more time outdoors during the day helps reinforce the natural rhythms that make restful sleep possible.

Like so many aspects of health, better sleep comes less from forcing your body to rest and more from removing what keeps it awake.

When you stop interfering with the body’s natural rhythms, sleep becomes one of the most powerful forms of medicine nature ever created.

Personal Care

The average person starts their day by applying dozens of synthetic chemicals to their body before they even eat breakfast.

Shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste, lotion, cosmetics, fragrances, sunscreen—the list goes on. Most people never stop to ask a simple question:

Should this really be going on my body?

Your skin isn’t just something that keeps your organs from falling out. It’s a living organ that constantly interacts with the environment around it. While not everything placed on the skin is absorbed to the same degree, it makes little sense to coat your body every day with products containing ingredients you wouldn’t knowingly consume.

Many conventional personal care products are filled with artificial fragrances, preservatives, colours, stabilizers, and other synthetic compounds that exist primarily to improve shelf life, appearance, or marketing—not to nourish the human body.

When you’re reading ingredient labels, these are some of the biggest ones I suggest avoiding whenever practical:

• Fragrance (or Parfum)

• Phthalates

• Parabens

• Triclosan

• Aluminum compounds

• Propylene glycol

• Formaldehyde-releasing preservatives (such as DMDM Hydantoin or Quaternium-15)

• Artificial colours (FD&C dyes)

Don’t feel like you need to replace everything overnight. Instead, start with the products you use most often, with soap, deodorant, toothpaste, lotion, cosmetics, and sunscreen being the highest priorities. As those products run out, replace them with simpler alternatives that contain fewer, more recognizable ingredients.

A simple rule I try to follow is this:

If I wouldn’t knowingly eat it, I probably don’t want to rub it into my skin every day.

The same principle applies to what you wear.

Clothing sits against your skin for much of the day, yet few people ever stop to consider what it’s made from. Many modern garments are manufactured from petroleum-based synthetic fibres such as polyester, nylon, acrylic, and spandex (elastane). These materials are often treated with chemical dyes, wrinkle-resistant finishes, stain repellents, antimicrobial coatings, and other synthetic compounds before they ever reach your closet.

Whenever practical, choose more natural fibres such as organic cotton, linen, hemp, wool, silk, or lyocell, particularly for underwear, sleepwear, socks, bedding, and other fabrics that remain in close contact with your skin for extended periods.

As with every other habit in this article, the goal isn’t perfection. It’s becoming more intentional about what comes into contact with your body each day.

The closer your daily environment resembles nature, the less work your body has to do simply to keep up.

Relationships & Mindset

The quality of your relationships influences your health just as much as the quality of your food.

Humans weren’t designed to live in constant conflict, comparison, isolation, or emotional chaos. We were designed for meaningful relationships, purpose, laughter, belonging, and a sense of safety. When those needs are consistently met, the nervous system settles. When they aren’t, the body often remains trapped in a prolonged state of stress.

Modern life makes that increasingly difficult.

Many people spend more time seeking validation from strangers online than connecting with the people sitting across the dinner table. Fear-based news cycles, endless social media, toxic relationships, gossip, and constant comparison gradually become emotional environments the nervous system must live inside every day.

The body doesn’t distinguish between physical and emotional stress nearly as well as most people think. Chronic fear, resentment, anger, guilt, and self-criticism all keep the body preparing for danger that often never comes.

At the same time, your mindset isn’t fixed. Much of the way you think and react was learned through years of repetition, environment, and experience. The encouraging part is that what was learned can also be relearned.

Protect your peace. Spend more time with people who inspire you. Have real conversations. Practice gratitude. Forgive when you can. Limit unnecessary negativity. And pay attention to the story you tell yourself every day, because your nervous system is listening.

The healthier your emotional environment becomes, the healthier your body often becomes with it.

Environment

Whether we realize it or not, our environment is constantly shaping our health.

For most of human history, people lived surrounded by fresh air, sunlight, trees, flowing water, diverse microbes, and natural materials. Today, many of us spend nearly 90% of our lives indoors beneath artificial lighting, breathing recycled air inside buildings filled with plastics, synthetic fabrics, particle board, paints, cleaning products, and countless other compounds that human biology never evolved alongside.

While modern conveniences have undoubtedly improved many aspects of life, they have also created environments that are increasingly disconnected from the natural world our bodies were designed to inhabit.

The good news is that reconnecting doesn’t require moving to a cabin in the wilderness.

Open your windows more often. Spend time in parks and forests. Bring living plants into your home. Improve ventilation. Grow a garden. Reduce unnecessary chemical use. Choose natural materials when practical. Whenever possible, create spaces that feel more alive and less artificial.

Small environmental changes repeated consistently often create benefits that are easy to overlook but difficult to ignore over time. Many people notice improvements in their energy, mood, focus, and overall sense of well-being simply by spending more time in healthier surroundings.

Your body is always adapting to the environment you place it in.

The more that environment resembles the one human biology was designed for, the easier it becomes for your body to do what it was naturally built to do.

Movement

The human body was designed to move—not just for an hour a day, but throughout the day.

For most of human history, movement wasn’t something people scheduled into their calendars. It was woven into daily life. Walking, climbing, carrying, squatting, stretching, gardening, and working with the hands were simply part of being human. These natural movement patterns helped maintain strength, flexibility, circulation, balance, and resilience without ever being called “exercise.”

Today, many people spend most of their day sitting. When they do move, it often swings to the opposite extreme through intense workouts that leave the body exhausted rather than restored. While exercise certainly has its place, there is an important difference between movement that nourishes the body and exercise that constantly drains it.

Especially during periods of healing, the body often responds far better to consistent, restorative movement than excessive intensity. Walking, mobility work, stretching, hiking, swimming, cycling, gardening, and other enjoyable forms of movement improve circulation, support lymphatic flow, strengthen muscles and joints, regulate the nervous system, and encourage recovery without placing unnecessary stress on the body.

Movement also reminds us how disconnected we’ve become from our natural design. Something as simple as a deep squat—a position once used regularly for resting, gathering, and daily tasks—has become difficult for many people because modern life no longer requires it.

Like nearly every habit in this article, consistency matters far more than intensity. Move often. Sit less. Spend more time outdoors. Find activities you genuinely enjoy and can continue for years, not just weeks.

Exercise is something you do. Movement is the way you live.

Presence

Modern life rarely allows the mind to be still.

Between smartphones, social media, endless notifications, news cycles, work, and constant entertainment, many people spend their lives moving from one distraction to the next without ever experiencing true presence. The mind becomes trapped replaying the past or worrying about the future, while the body remains locked in a subtle but persistent state of stress.

Just as movement nourishes the body, stillness nourishes the mind.

Spending time in nature, praying, meditating, journaling, reading, or simply sitting quietly allows the nervous system to shift away from constant stimulation and back toward a calmer, more regulated state. These moments aren’t about escaping reality. They’re about reconnecting with it.

Breath is one of the simplest ways to begin that process.

Under stress, breathing often becomes shallow and rapid, reinforcing the body’s fight-or-flight response. Slow, intentional breathing sends the opposite message, encouraging the nervous system to relax and helping restore a greater sense of calm, clarity, and balance.

You don’t need to meditate for an hour every morning to experience the benefits. Even a few minutes each day spent breathing deeply, walking quietly in nature, or simply putting your phone away and being fully present can begin restoring the inner stillness that modern life so often steals from us.

Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is simply slow down.

The Journey Begins

Taken together, these nine lifestyle habits aren’t meant to complicate life. They’re meant to simplify it.

They are reminders of the conditions the human body has always depended upon to function properly. Much of what restores health isn’t new, advanced, or artificial. It’s a gradual return to the rhythms, environments, relationships, and daily practices human beings once lived in far greater alignment with.

Health is rarely rebuilt through one dramatic intervention. More often, it’s rebuilt through the accumulation of small daily decisions that either support the body or continue burdening it over time.

Reading this article won’t transform your health on its own. Information can create awareness, perspective, and inspiration, but only consistent action creates meaningful change.

Healthy food builds the foundation. Supplementation provides the leverage. Lifestyle determines whether that foundation continues moving toward health or gradually slips back into dysfunction.

So don’t worry about changing everything today. Start where you are.

Choose one habit. Practice it consistently until it becomes part of your life. Then build on it, one step at a time. Momentum has a remarkable way of creating motivation, and before long, healthier choices stop feeling like obligations and begin feeling like second nature.

Because becoming a Healthy Human isn’t about achieving perfection.

It’s about returning to the way your body was designed to live.

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If you’d like help identifying what areas of your lifestyle that need the greatest improvement and how to do it efficiently—you can book a Health Strategy Session.

Now, in The Natural Lab, we’ll move from principles to practical application by showing you exactly how to implement these lifestyle habits. I’ll share the specific products, brands, tools, and recommendations I personally use and recommend—from water systems and personal care products to sleep support, clothing, movement, and creating a healthier home environment—so you can confidently build a lifestyle that works with your biology instead of against it.

Rather than leaving you to figure it all out on your own, I’ll help simplify the process by showing you where to start, what to prioritize, and which changes are likely to have the biggest impact—so you can begin building your own Healthy Human lifestyle, one habit at a time.

The remainder of this article continues in The Natural Lab—the exclusive section of The Natural Way available to paid subscribers.

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This is the fourth of five articles in The Natural Way that form the foundation of the Healthy Human philosophy. Together, they explain how chronic disease develops, why conventional diagnostics and treatment often fall short of restoring health, and the timeless principles that can help you rebuild your body naturally.

When I was dealing with 13 chronic disease conditions rooted in digestive and immune problems over 20 years ago, I was desperate to do anything that I felt might help relieve the debilitating symptoms I experienced every day.

The first adjustment I made was to my diet. I began eliminating processed and non-organic foods while introducing more clean, nourishing, cleansing, fresh whole foods. Two of my staples during that transition were salads and smoothies. Although they were far from perfect, they moved the health needle in the right direction.

Not long after that, the siren song of supplements seduced me with their intriguing promises, and I became eager to try nearly every one I could afford—from the mysterious remedies of the ancient East to nature’s pharmacy in the Amazon rainforest.

At the time, I was fortunate because the supplement industry was much smaller than it is today, and I focused on the advice of one individual rather than the dozens of influencers, practitioners, and companies many people follow now. Even with that focus, I still spent roughly $500 per month for five years on various supplements based on my interpretation of what I needed and what appeared to be working.

Was it worth it?

Absolutely.

Those supplements played an important role in helping me recover from all 13 chronic disease conditions, and that outcome was priceless.

Did I need to spend approximately $30,000 over five years to get there?

Probably not.

But I’ve seen people spend far more than that and achieve little to no improvement, so I still consider my supplement journey a tremendous success.

Looking back with what I know today, however, I could have achieved similar, if not better, results far more efficiently. In fact, I’d estimate I could have reduced my supplement budget by at least 30%, saving nearly $10,000, simply by being more strategic about what I took and why I was taking it.

And that’s exactly what this article is about.

It isn’t about taking fewer supplements for the sake of saving money. It’s about understanding how to build a supplement routine that is simpler, more precise, and ultimately more effective.

If you're looking at a cupboard full of supplements and can't confidently explain what each one does, why you're taking it, and how it fits into your overall strategy to resolve the ROOT issue (not just symptoms like inflammation) you're probably spending more than you need to while getting less than you could.

Fortunately, finding your supplement sweet spot isn't nearly as complicated as the supplement industry has made it seem. Here are five principles that can help you get your supplement routine back on the rails, so your supplement cupboard can go from a train wreck to a well-oiled machine.

Food First. Supplements Second.

You’ve probably heard that you can’t out-supplement a poor diet, and it’s true. Food makes up the lion’s share of what you put into your body and has a far greater influence on your health than any supplement ever will. Supplements are designed to complement good nutrition—not compensate for poor nutrition.

If you want to benchmark your diet against what I believe is the optimal way for humans to eat, I recommend reading The Diet Designed for the Human Body. Build that foundation first so your supplements can support recovery and performance, rather than being used to compensate for nutritional shortcomings.

Buy Quality, Not Quantity.

When it comes to supplementation, quality almost always beats quantity. A handful of carefully chosen, high-quality supplements will often produce better results than a cupboard full of inexpensive products chosen through marketing, trends, or guesswork.

The best supplements don’t simply target isolated symptoms—they work together to support interconnected organs, glands, and systems. This is one of the reasons whole food supplements often perform so well. In nature, nutrients exist alongside enzymes, minerals, phytonutrients, cofactors, and countless synergistic compounds that help the body recognize and use them more effectively.

Quality matters in other ways too. Because supplements are highly concentrated, both their benefits and their risks become amplified. Poor-quality products can contain synthetic ingredients, fillers, contaminants, or poorly absorbed forms that increase the body’s burden instead of reducing it. That’s why sourcing, purity, biological usability, and third-party testing are so important.

Rather than buying more bottles, focus on buying better ones. A small, targeted supplement routine built around quality, synergy, and purpose will almost always outperform a large, scattered collection built around fear, trends, and random experimentation.

To simplify it, focus on buying organic and lab-verified whole food supplements and the purity and synergy will multiply your results.

The goal isn’t to own the biggest supplement collection. It’s to own the smallest collection that produces the biggest results.

Target Systems, NOT Symptoms

For the better part of a century, we’ve been taught to chase symptoms rather than understand what is creating them. That approach has been incredibly profitable for both the pharmaceutical and supplement industries, but unfortunately, your results are often sacrificed.

As long as you focus on suppressing symptoms, complete resolution remains unlikely. Instead, direct your attention to the organs, glands, and systems driving those symptoms. When you strengthen and restore the systems underneath, the symptoms often begin resolving as a natural consequence.

Take inflammation as an example. Inflammation isn’t the problem—it’s a signal. It can arise from chronic infections, nutrient deficiencies, liver congestion, digestive dysfunction, nervous system exhaustion, or countless other underlying imbalances. Rather than simply taking another supplement marketed for inflammation, focus on detoxifying, nourishing, and rebuilding the compromised organs, glands, and systems that are actually generating it.

In other words, douse the fire—not the smoke.

Think Beyond the Label

The recommended dose printed on a supplement bottle is intentionally generic. It isn’t designed specifically for someone trying to reverse a chronic health condition, nor does it account for individual needs, sensitivities, or deficiencies. In some cases, the suggested amount may be too little to create meaningful change. In others, less may be the better place to start.

Use the label as a guide, not a rule. Begin with the recommended dose—or lower if you’re particularly sensitive—and gradually adjust based on your body’s response. Supplements are highly concentrated and should be respected and used thoughtfully.

Patience matters, too. Unlike medications that often suppress symptoms quickly, supplements work by nourishing, rebuilding, and restoring the body, processes that typically take time. In many cases, give a supplement at least 30 to 60 days before deciding whether it’s helping. Some foundational supplements may be appropriate long term, while more targeted products are often best used for specific purposes and periods of time.

Don’t Chase Trends

As our need for additional nutritional support has grown, so has the supplement industry. Unfortunately, it has also created an overwhelming marketplace filled with promises, marketing claims, and quick-fix solutions that make it increasingly difficult to separate genuine support from clever advertising.

One product promises more energy. Another better sleep. Others claim to reduce inflammation, improve digestion, sharpen focus, strengthen immunity, detoxify the body, or balance hormones. When you’re already exhausted, discouraged, and looking for answers, the idea that better health may be just one bottle away becomes incredibly appealing.

The problem is that supplement trends come and go. One year everyone is talking about probiotics. Then collagen. Turmeric. Medicinal mushrooms. Adaptogens. CBD. Parasite cleanses. Sea moss. Berberine. Colostrum. NMN. The list keeps growing, and with each new trend comes the impression that this is finally the missing piece.

Sometimes those products are genuinely helpful. Sometimes they’re exactly what a particular person needs. But they are rarely what everyone needs.

Don’t let social media, influencers, or clever marketing decide what your body needs. Let your body do that. Build your supplement routine around your own deficiencies, imbalances, and health goals—not the latest trend. Trends come and go. Your biology doesn’t.

So what should your supplement cupboard actually look like?

Keeping these five principles in mind, your supplement routine should generally consist of:

• Organic, whole food supplements that are lab-verified and free from synthetic or biologically inappropriate ingredients.

• No more than six daily supplements in most situations. I rarely recommend more than six for chronic health conditions, and almost never more than eight at one time.

• Products that target the organs, glands, and systems driving your symptoms rather than the symptoms themselves.

• A synergistic stack where each supplement complements the others instead of unnecessarily overlapping.

After more than 20 years of working in this field, I’ve found that simplicity almost always outperforms complexity. More supplements don’t necessarily produce better results. More precision does.

The challenge, of course, is knowing which systems need support, which supplements to choose, and how much to take—and for how long.

That takes experience.

If you’d like help identifying the organs, glands, and systems most likely driving your health concerns—and building a targeted strategy without another round of unnecessary testing or invasive diagnostics—you can book a Healthy Human Assessment.

If you already know what’s driving your health concerns but want to simplify your supplement routine, eliminate unnecessary overlap, improve quality, and often reduce your overall supplement costs, my Simplify Your Stack service is designed specifically for that.

In The Natural Lab, we'll move from theory to practical application by putting these principles into action. I'll walk you through the Healthy Human Supplement Decision Tree, and show you what I consider to be a well-designed supplement routine for someone looking to improve their overall vitality in ALL areas, without unnecessary complexity or expense.

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This is the third of five articles in The Natural Way that form the foundation of the Healthy Human philosophy. Together, they explain how chronic disease develops, why conventional diagnostics and treatment often fall short of restoring health, and the timeless principles that can help you rebuild your body naturally.

In some industries, the saying goes, “The trend is your friend.” I’d argue that in the diet industry, the exact opposite is generally true.

I think most of us suffer from recency bias and fail to recognize the rise and fall of nearly every popular diet introduced to the public on a massive scale. Interestingly enough, the very thing being villainized often becomes the sweetheart almost immediately afterward.

It perfectly mimics a pendulum, where there is no middle ground and we simply swing back and forth in constant motion, from one extreme to the other.

Let’s do a quick history lesson and look at a loose timeline of some major dietary trends over the last 50 years.

1970s–1980s

• Vegetarian eating gains momentum

• The low-fat movement explodes

• “Sugar-free” products become common, especially diet sodas sweetened with artificial sweeteners

1990s

• Low-fat dominates nutrition advice

• “Eat less red meat” becomes common dietary advice

• Veganism remains niche but steadily grows

2002–2005

• Atkins becomes a cultural phenomenon

• Low-carb enters mainstream discussion

2006–2015

• Gluten-free begins moving into mainstream health culture

• Paleo becomes one of the fastest-growing diet movements

• Veganism and plant-based eating accelerate through documentaries, social media, and environmental messaging

2016–2020

• Keto becomes arguably the dominant dietary trend

• Intermittent fasting gains traction alongside keto

• “No Sugar Added” and “Zero Sugar” branding explode across beverages, snacks, and packaged foods

2021–2026

• Carnivore moves from fringe communities into mainstream podcasts, social media, and health discussions

• The “protein-maxing” effect takes root, with protein being added to virtually everything

The diet industry doesn’t seem to know how to pick a lane. While this is great news for a niche of book publishers who can repeatedly sell a new idea to desperate consumers, it is terrible for those who have lost the plot and can’t step back and see what has always been the best diet for humans in the modern era.

Think about the repercussions many of these trends have created, and how every new answer seems to be a complete reversal of the previous recommendation. Yet we continue to dogmatically follow the advice without any meaningful assessment whatsoever.

Low fat got replaced by high fat. Sugar got replaced with low-calorie artificial sweeteners. Red meat was demonized for its cholesterol and saturated fat. Gluten became the dominant elimination tactic. Fruits and vegetables went from being among the healthiest foods you could eat to being called “poison.” Starving yourself became one of the most celebrated paths to better health. Animal products became the de facto primal diet and, for many, the most logical way to eat.

Everyone thinks they have it right, until they don’t.

I can almost guarantee that the majority of today’s popular diets will be largely forgotten and mostly abandoned within five years or less. That’s about long enough for people to get bored, realize their results have plateaued, notice their health is getting worse, and jump onto another trend as they whipsaw their way from one disappointment to another.

This flip-flopping won’t change until you pull yourself completely out of the diet matrix and begin looking at food from a functional and practical perspective, rather than through the lens of the quick-fix mentality the diet industry preys upon.

So, are you ready to get off the diet train? If so, let’s examine the makeup of the human body, and therefore, what it needs to function at its optimal level.

What Is the Body Made Of?

This question can be answered from multiple angles—from the macro to the micro, from the ethereal to the practical, and from the simple to the highly complex.

As always, I choose simplicity because simplicity leads to understanding, understanding leads to confidence, and confidence leads to action. It’s difficult to take meaningful action on something you don’t fully understand.

At the ethereal level, we could argue that the human body is primarily made of light and water. Perhaps this helps explain why sunlight and hydration have long been considered two of the foundational pillars of health by many natural health practitioners. Yet over time, we’ve increasingly been taught to fear one and chemically alter the other, creating doubt and bastardization around two of the most fundamental requirements for human life.

We can also examine the body from an elemental perspective. By weight, the human body is composed primarily of oxygen (about 65%), carbon (18%), and hydrogen (10%), with essential minerals making up most of the remaining 7%.

If these are the primary elements that make up the human body, it seems reasonable that our food should consistently provide those same building blocks.

Let’s begin with oxygen.

Accounting for nearly two-thirds of the body’s mass, oxygen is by far the most abundant element in the human body. Most of it is found in water (H₂O), while the rest is incorporated into virtually every major biological molecule, including carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and DNA.

Interestingly, the foods highest in oxygen are also those highest in water—fresh fruits and vegetables. As we’ll see later, this creates a fascinating parallel between the composition of the human body and the foods that most closely resemble it.

Carbon also deserves attention. What exactly is it, and where do we get it?

• Proteins are made primarily of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sometimes sulfur.

• Carbohydrates are made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.

• Fats are also largely carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.

• DNA is built on a carbon-based framework.

• Nearly all known life on Earth is considered carbon-based life.

Suddenly, carbon doesn’t seem like just another element. It is literally the structural backbone of life.

Hydrogen follows the same pattern. It is found throughout the major macronutrients and is, of course, a dominant component of water (H₂O), which consists of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.

So the three major macronutrients all contain the primary elements from which the human body is built. Almost as though nature already knew exactly what we needed.

Then there are the essential minerals, including calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, sodium, chloride, and magnesium. Although they make up only a small percentage of our total body weight, they are indispensable to life.

Viewed from this perspective, it becomes difficult to imagine thriving without consistently consuming foods that provide oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and essential minerals in abundance.

But let’s move one level deeper.

What Is a Cell Made Of?

If the body is built from trillions of cells, understanding what makes up a single cell provides another valuable perspective on human nutrition.

The largest component of the cell is water, making up approximately 70–80% of its internal environment. Water provides the medium for virtually every biochemical reaction, transports nutrients and waste products, regulates temperature, and allows countless cellular processes to occur. Hydration isn’t simply important—it’s fundamental.

Protein is the second-largest structural component, accounting for roughly 15–20% of the cell. These proteins provide structure, function as enzymes, transport nutrients, transmit signals, build tissues, and carry out thousands of other essential functions throughout the body. This makes amino acid (building blocks of protein) intake incredibly important, but the foods that supply those amino acids are often far more diverse than most people realize.

Lipids (fats) typically account for around 2–10% of the cell. They form cell membranes, provide energy storage, contribute to hormone production, and serve numerous structural functions. This raises an interesting question about whether extremely high-fat diets truly reflect how the body is constructed.

Minerals generally make up 1–5% of the cell. Although they represent only a small percentage of its structure, they help govern nearly every process taking place within it. Without minerals, amino acids can’t become enzymes, enzymes can’t drive biochemical reactions, nerves can’t fire, muscles can’t contract, and energy can’t be produced efficiently.

Finally, carbohydrates account for approximately 1–2% of the cell, primarily serving roles in energy storage and cell recognition. While they make up a relatively small structural percentage of the cell, they still serve as an important fuel source.

One way to visualize these components is to compare the body to a vehicle.

• Water = Coolant

• Proteins = Engine and machinery

• Fats = Insulation, membranes, and fuel reserve

• Carbohydrates = Gasoline

• Minerals = Spark plugs, wiring, sensors, switches, and the electrical system

Each component has a purpose. Remove any one of them for long enough, and performance inevitably begins to decline.

It’s also worth remembering that cells don’t recognize “carnivore,” “vegan,” or “keto.” They recognize water, amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, and other nutrients. From those raw materials, the body manufactures thousands of specialized proteins—including enzymes, hormones, receptors, transporters, antibodies, and structural tissues—that keep us alive.

One final point is worth mentioning. Less than 1% of the cell consists of DNA and RNA—the molecules responsible for storing and transmitting genetic information.

Does that automatically mean genetics are the dominant factor in determining our health? I’ll let you decide.

So What Does This Tell Us?

If we simplify everything we’ve just discussed, the body can be viewed from three different perspectives:

Ethereally

• Light

• Water

Elementally

• Oxygen (65%)

• Carbon (18%)

• Hydrogen (10%)

• Essential minerals (7%)

Cellularly

• Water (70-80%)

• Protein (15-20%)

• Fats (2-10%)

• Minerals (1-5%)

• Carbohydrates (1-2%)

One observation immediately stands out: water dominates every level of the discussion.

From a nutritional perspective, this naturally raises another question: which foods most closely resemble the body’s own composition?

Many raw plant foods (fruits and vegetables) generally contain between 80–95% water, while cooked plant foods often remain around 70–90%. Raw animal foods typically contain approximately 70–75% water, although cooking—particularly with meat—can reduce that considerably to 50%.

So from a hydration perspective, the most dominant part of our composition, plants typically provide almost twice the amount of water on average than most animal products (when cooked).

Looking at elemental composition produces another interesting comparison.

Plants

• Oxygen: approximately 40–45%

• Carbon: approximately 45%

• Hydrogen: approximately 6%

• Typically higher in potassium, magnesium, manganese, boron, silicon, and numerous trace minerals obtained directly from soil.

Animal Foods

• Oxygen: approximately 20–30%

• Carbon: approximately 50%

• Hydrogen: approximately 7%

• Generally higher in phosphorus, sulfur, sodium, zinc, iron (particularly organ meats), and selenium.

One of the more interesting observations is that plants may contain roughly twice the oxygen content of animal tissue, while both remain remarkably similar in carbon and hydrogen. Each also provides valuable minerals, although the mineral profiles differ.

Perhaps this helps explain why nature never intended us to argue over individual foods or dietary tribes. Instead, it provided a diverse food supply capable of delivering the same fundamental building blocks from which we are made.

So instead of asking, “Which diet is best?” perhaps we should first ask something much simpler:

Does my way of eating consistently provide the building blocks my body is actually made of?

So Where Does This Leave Us?

Based on everything we’ve explored, the category of food that most closely aligns with our physical makeup appears to be plants, particularly fruits and vegetables.

They are naturally rich in the two most abundant components of the human body—water and oxygen—while also providing the amino acids, enzymes (when consumed raw), essential fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and countless phytonutrients required to build, repair, and sustain life.

Grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds also have an important place, although their lower water content generally makes them better suited as complementary foods rather than dietary staples.

Animal foods, while considerably lower in water and oxygen than fruits and vegetables, still provide many of the same fundamental building blocks. They contain amino acids, fats, minerals, and other nutrients that contribute to human physiology, although, in my opinion, they don’t mirror the body’s composition as closely or as completely as whole plant foods.

One conclusion, however, is impossible to ignore.

Highly processed foods—those stripped of water, oxygen, enzymes, and much of their nutritional integrity—bear little resemblance to the materials from which the human body is built. Likewise, diets that dramatically overemphasize fat appear increasingly difficult to reconcile with the actual composition of our cells.

But there is one critical piece of the puzzle we haven’t discussed yet.

None of this matters if you can’t properly digest and absorb the food you’re eating.

A meal can contain every nutrient your body requires, but if your digestive system is compromised, those nutrients cannot be efficiently broken down, absorbed, transported, and utilized. The raw materials are present, but they never reach the construction site.

In my experience, this is where many people unknowingly go wrong.

Rather than restoring digestive function, they begin eliminating more and more foods in search of relief. The symptoms may temporarily improve, but they often drift further away from the diverse, nourishing diet the human body was designed to thrive on.

The good news is that digestion can often be restored.

When digestive function improves, infections are addressed, and nourishment is consistently restored, the body can finally begin receiving the building blocks it has needed all along.

And when that happens, dis-ease begins to dissolve, energy returns, and you start feeling like a healthy human again.

Now, after everything we’ve covered, if you don’t remember anything else, remember this:

Your body doesn’t respond to diets. It responds to biology. It responds to oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, water, amino acids, essential fats, minerals, and carbohydrates.

Give it the raw materials it is made up of and was designed to use, remove what interferes with those processes, and let nature create the “miracles”.

If you'd like a broader introduction to these principles, I've outlined the complete framework in my book, Return to Instinct, available through my website or on Amazon.

Now, the next question is: What does this type of eating actually look like on your plate?

In The Natural Lab, we’ll move from theory to practical application by exploring how to structure a way of eating that prioritizes hydration, oxygenation, digestibility, amino acids, minerals, healthy fats, and carbohydrates in a way that aligns with the design of the human body.

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The remainder of this article continues in The Natural Lab—the exclusive section of The Natural Way available to paid subscribers. Here I will provide specific recommendations for foods, preparation techniques, and supplements that will help align the body with it’s essential and healthy composition.

The Natural Lab

—Exclusive content for paid subscribers—

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This is the second of five articles in The Natural Way that form the foundation of the Healthy Human philosophy. Together, they explain how chronic disease develops, why conventional diagnostics and treatment often fall short of restoring health, and the timeless principles that can help you rebuild your body naturally.

When I was dealing with 13 chronic disease conditions, the last thing I wanted was to go to a doctor and get sent for testing to get a diagnosis.

Some believed that was foolish. Why would you avoid the diagnostics that could “save your life?”

Well, first of all I intuitively knew that many diagnostics could cause harm, and I also knew that whatever they did find would be met with traditional treatments which I had a severe aversion to. So I saw a lot of physical and emotional risk and very little reward in going for a series of diagnostics.

Plus, the memories of my father and how his health journey went once he was diagnosed with prostate cancer were still fresh in my mind, over 15 years later (if you missed that story, refer to my inaugural publication, What REALLY Causes Disease?)

Everyone has their stories, some that appear to claim that a diagnostic saved their life, and others who are going through a diagnostic nightmare. My purpose here isn’t to validate or debunk those personal claims, but rather, to examine diagnostics pragmatically and experientially to see if they really are the cure, or just a long-term curse.

The purpose and limitations of conventional diagnostics

At their core, diagnostics are tools used to identify abnormalities within the body. Blood tests measure markers that appear out of range. Imaging looks for structural changes, inflammation, obstruction, or visible damage. Other procedures examine tissues more directly in an attempt to locate what appears broken or dysfunctional.

In certain situations, these tools can be incredibly valuable when used appropriately. If something is acutely wrong, physically damaged, or life-threatening in the moment, diagnostics can help identify that quickly and guide immediate intervention.

But chronic illness rarely operates that way.

Most chronic conditions develop gradually over time through the accumulation of infections and nutrient deficiencies or imbalances. This is where the limitations of diagnostics begin to appear, because while these tools are often very effective at detecting symptoms and end-stage dysfunction, they are far less effective at identifying the underlying conditions that created them in the first place.

In other words, they can sometimes tell you what is happening, but they rarely explain WHY it’s happening.

For example, a blood test may show elevated inflammation markers, but not necessarily what has been driving that inflammation for years. Imaging may reveal a tumour, degeneration, or obstruction, but not the polluted terrain that allowed the body to move in that direction. A diagnosis may describe the pattern being expressed while still failing to explain the deeper imbalance beneath it.

This becomes even more difficult when the drivers of illness exist below the threshold of what many conventional, and even alternative, tests are designed to detect. Chronic low-grade infections can remain hidden deep within tissues and escape even more sophisticated forms of testing. Chemical burdens such as heavy metals, pesticides, plastics, and environmental toxins rarely appear on standard diagnostics.

Emotional stress, trauma, nervous system dysregulation, and many forms of energetic burden are often even harder to measure in any meaningful way.

So even when everything “looks normal,” dysfunction can still be developing beneath the surface, and by the time something abnormal finally appears, it is often the end result of years of imbalance rather than the original cause.

This is one of the biggest misunderstandings surrounding diagnostics. Many people assume that once something is identified, the problem itself has been fully understood. But diagnostics are primarily tools used to detect and classify the end stages of dysfunction. They are not, in themselves, tools that restore health.

So when diagnosing symptoms becomes the primary focus, the deeper conditions driving them are often left unresolved.

So let’s entertain that something comes back that attempts to explain what is happening in your body, and for a moment there can be a sense of relief (or emotional shock), but in either circumstance what has to be fully understood is that what has been found is still typically a SYMPTOM, not a cause. And if treatment is going to focus on treating the symptom, the “mothership” (the cause) often remains untouched and unresolved.

If you’re going to remove the symptom, you must remove the ROOT first. Any other way will only pander to your condition and allow it to fester and create more disease in the future.

What many associate with a “cure” is quite simply a reduction of symptoms, not the root cause itself. To be a proper cure, the remedy must remove the CAUSE with little to no harm to the body. This means the dissolving of various infections and replacement of lost nutrients and deficiencies, of which a diagnostic does neither.

Therefore, a diagnostic should never be confused with a cure, but simply an inquiry into the problem to formulate a plan for a “cure”, which it also can’t do faithfully due to symptom discovery being the standard over root cause investigation.

So is a diagnostic simply a waste of time for chronic disease discovery, a relatively benign process, or a foreteller of more problems to come?

The downside of conventional diagnostics

For many people, receiving a diagnosis is only the beginning of a much longer journey. What often follows is a sequence of additional testing, monitoring, treatments, and interventions that can place increasing demands on a body that may already be struggling to adapt.

But before any of those interventions take place, something has already happened that often cements the fate of the individual despite the perceived benefits of any conventional treatment.

Their mindset and outlook have become completely altered. The results often vary from harmful to devastating.

The body often goes how the mind goes, especially if the actions are aligned with the mindset. So if an autoimmune condition is the label, people often take that to heart and begin to own that identity—the dis-ease becomes who they are. Unfortunately, those thoughts often underscore the condition and limit the possibilities in the person’s mind to management of their new identity rather than a full health resolution.

This creates an environment that serves that exact purpose…management, not healing. And so it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If the news is perceived as even more devastating, such as a definitive amount of time you have to live, the consequences on the mind are often even more dire. How are you now going to navigate your life, if you believe the end game is near?

Once you’ve lost your purpose and will to live due to a perceived life sentence provided by a medical professional, chances are you will mentally “pack it in”, and the body will follow suit.

This is why mental alignment with what you want, matters. When I was officially diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, I was initially dejected. I was only 30 years old and I couldn’t imagine living the rest of my life in that kind of pain and the conventional management that came with it.

However, I quickly turned that around and vowed to myself that I would not entertain conventional approaches, and would find a way to reverse my health problems despite my relative ignorance on how to do it.

And I did it.

It wasn’t an accident.

And it all started with a commitment and how I envisioned the outcome. Everything fell serendipitously into place after that.

But what happens if you don’t have motivation, faith, and trust in natural methods outside the system?

What follows is usually a series of diagnostics that are invasive, toxic, and looking for the SYMPTOMS. Each step in the process carries its own burden. Imaging, procedures, medications, and surgeries all require the body to respond, compensate, repair, and recover.

In some cases, an abnormality is managed, suppressed, or removed, but the underlying environment that allowed it to emerge remains largely unchanged. The terrain has not been restored. The conditions that contributed to dysfunction may still be present. As a result, the body can continue moving along the same trajectory, only now with fewer reserves and less capacity to adapt.

As the focus remains on the symptoms, and ongoing diagnostics continue to inflict subtle but meaningful harm as the prescribed medications or treatments add another layer of insult, it eventually becomes obvious that you are in a trap that’s causing declining health.

Sure, the symptoms of the original diagnosis may be managed; however, new symptoms often pop up and are often unrecognized as the consequences of driving more illness due to an increase in chemical (i.e., prescriptions) and ethereal infections (i.e., radiation), and an increased demand on already lowered and imbalanced nutrient stores.

This often leads to a decades-long curse, because you have been taught to believe the diagnostic is the potential beginning of the cure for your chronic health problem, when in fact it more likely leads to a long and lonely road to nowhere.

But there is ALWAYS a way out, and it doesn’t even require a diagnostic.

When I was dealing with a multitude of chronic disease conditions, the diagnostics I went through did not provide answers that led to recovery. If anything, they added confusion and toxicity to an already compromised system, pulling my attention in directions that ultimately did not resolve the problem.

The progress I made came from a different approach. It came from understanding the underlying principles of how the body heals and applying them consistently over time, reducing the burden placed on the system, rebuilding what had been depleted, and supporting the body as a whole rather than trying to fix isolated symptoms. Through that natural alignment, I was able to overcome all of those conditions, despite being told many of them could only be managed rather than fully resolved.

See, the body doesn’t need a diagnosis to heal. Only the mind requests that. All the body needs is the conditions to alter its terrain, and that can be successfully done by removing the three types of infections and resolving nutrient deficiencies and imbalance (refer to my publication, What REALLY Causes Disease?, for more detail).

But what if you REALLY need to know? Well, my suggestion is to look for diagnostics that can identify those infections and the nutrient deficiencies that often go along with them, that are as minimally invasive and toxic as possible.

And that’s where we will go this week in The Natural Lab, so the curious can get answers on the root cause with little to no physiological trauma, and can then formulate a natural plan to address it.

For those that would appreciate intimate insight and a “second opinion” from someone who has extensive experience in resolving chronic health issues without conventional or even alternative diagnostics, you can consider my Healthy Human Assessment available through my website, Healthy Human.

There, you will also find my book, Return to Instinct, which provides the ideal understanding and blueprint for anyone wanting to be a healthier human, without the complexity. A complimentary digital copy (EPUB and PDF) is available to those who upgrade to The Natural Lab by July 1st! See your subscription options here.

The remainder of this article continues in The Natural Lab—the exclusive section of The Natural Way available to paid subscribers. Here I will provide specific recommendations for safe, effective, and minimally invasive approaches that may help investigate underlying root causes and support the development of a practical plan moving forward

The Natural Lab

—Exclusive content for paid subscribers—

There is a variety of testing you can get done that doesn’t involve needles, radiation, scopes, and other traumatic and invasive diagnostics.

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This is the first of five articles in The Natural Way that form the foundation of the Healthy Human philosophy. Together, they explain how chronic disease develops, why conventional diagnostics and treatment often fall short of restoring health, and the timeless principles that can help you rebuild your body naturally.

As a teenager, I recoiled at the thought of going to a doctor. Having to wait in a room full of other “sick” people while someone poked, prodded, and looked for problems filled me with anxiety.

Would he try giving me a needle? What if he found something? The mystery was unbearable.

At the time, health seemed very random and completely out of my control. The idea that I had to put myself through this experience just to find out whether I was “healthy” didn’t sit well with me, and I wanted to avoid it at all costs.

Then, to add to my growing anxiety around the medical system, my father was diagnosed with cancer “out of nowhere” when I was 14 years old.

They told him he only had a few weeks to live—and that was if he underwent their prescribed conventional treatments of chemotherapy and/or radiation. The choice seemed obvious. He would take whatever treatments might give him more time and, hopefully, save his life. We held onto the hope that the cancer would somehow disappear.

For a very short time, it did. That gave us hope.

But that hope was quickly dashed as his condition progressively worsened. He could barely eat, lost over 50 pounds, had to wear both a catheter and a surgical bag strapped to his leg for urine elimination, and eventually lost all sense of night and day.

It was heartbreaking to watch.

We watched him slowly decline for nearly a year until he quietly passed away in the hospital at the age of 57—a skeleton of his former self.

After his death, I made a promise to myself that I would avoid the medical system at all costs. That decision lit a fire within me. I started making better food choices, exercising, and doing everything I believed I could to avoid the same grisly fate.

Unfortunately, life had other plans.

At the age of 30, my body became very ill, seemingly “out of nowhere,” and I found myself facing an existential threat I couldn’t ignore. I had two choices: go to the doctor and find out what was wrong with me, or try to figure it out myself.

The first option violated the promise I had made to myself and made me feel sick just thinking about it. The second felt overwhelming, especially since I believed health was random, unpredictable, and without rules. I had no idea where I would even begin.

As 13 different disease conditions coursed through my body, I didn’t have much time to think about it. I felt like I was dying a slow and painful death. The aches and pains made it difficult to function from one day to the next.

I had to do something—and soon.

Eventually, I laid down my sword and went to a doctor.

To my horror, he ordered blood work, which I knew meant needles. I delayed as long as I could, but eventually showed up. After nearly passing out in my car afterward, I realized I now had to endure the next dreadful moment:

What would they find?

It turned out to be enough for the doctor to diagnose me with rheumatoid arthritis and tell me I would need a prescription to manage the pain—conceivably for the rest of my life.

Around that same time, I was also sent for additional testing, including X-rays and CT scans. I avoided the CT scan altogether and decided then and there to honour the promise I had made to myself years earlier.

I would never go to a doctor again.

And I didn’t.

From that point forward, armed with determination and hope, I began attracting people, experiences, and information that gradually showed me how to take these health conditions on myself. I embraced each lesson as it came and applied it as best I could.

The journey truly began when someone sent me an article about the benefits of broccoli for cancer. It wasn’t intended for me—it was meant for another member of my extended family who had cancer, and we were desperately hoping to find something that might help.

I read the article word for word.

For the first time, I realized food might possess far more healing potential than I had ever imagined.

Down the rabbit hole I went.

Over the next five years, I consumed every piece of natural health information I could find. I spent hours every day—before work, after work, and on weekends—reading, researching, and putting what I learned into practice.

I changed my diet, used supplements, adjusted my lifestyle, visited physical therapists, and experimented with countless other approaches.

Five years later, after investing approximately $35,000 in health products, spending more than 5,000 hours researching, and conducting endless experiments on myself, I reached a place I once thought impossible.

The conditions that had plagued me were gone.

I was healed.

But I wasn’t finished.

Over the next five years, I refined my approach even further. Instead of trying to do everything, I became much more intentional about identifying what actually worked and consistently focusing on those things.

That produced an entirely new level of health—one that would have seemed incomprehensible to me just a decade earlier.

And I accomplished it on my own.

No conventional intervention.

No alternative practitioner.

Just an unwavering commitment to understanding how the human body truly works.

The seemingly “impossible” became: I’m possible.

Now it was time to share what I had learned with the world—but in a simplified way.

None of the technical jargon that only doctors seem to understand (that’s by design, by the way).

Instead, I wanted to take my experiences, thousands of hours of research, and hard-earned success, and boil them down into simple concepts that anyone could understand and apply to their own life.

Then, about three years ago, it finally clicked.

I had found a way to strip away all the unnecessary complexity surrounding health and reduce it to the two fundamental reasons people become sick—regardless of the disease.

The Two Major Causes of Disease

There are thousands of disease labels, and the one major thing they all have in common is that they are based on symptoms, not the actual root cause.

This is a relatively easy concept to grasp in theory, but in practice it becomes much more difficult because we’ve been conditioned to believe that chasing and alleviating symptoms is how good health is achieved.

Many years ago, however, I came to a different realization: a small number of root causes can produce thousands of different disease labels.

With that in mind, a logical conclusion follows. If you remove the root cause, you remove the symptom.

After all, if you want to completely eliminate a weed from your garden, do you rip off the leaves, or do you pull it out by the root?

Even non-gardeners know the answer.

So, if we truly want to address the root of disease, what are the two fundamental things we need to resolve?

Infections and malnourishment.

Infections can be described as any synthetic or non-native material that invades the body and is not hospitable to the host. I’ve categorized them into three types: biological, chemical, and ethereal.

Biological infections include things like pathogenic bacteria, parasites (worms), “viruses,” and mold. Although there has been debate about whether viruses actually exist, my view is that they do, but are man-made and introduced through various childhood and adult vaccinations. Regardless of where you stand on that discussion, the core idea remains the same: invasive lifeforms can find their way into the body and, depending on where they embed, produce a wide variety of symptoms.

Chemical infections, also known as poisons, include things like synthetic fluoride, agricultural chemicals, heavy metals, plastics, artificial food preservatives and flavour enhancers, and parabens. This is only a short list, but rather than focus on what’s missing, the more important realization is that most of us have been exposed to every one of these insults, and they can have a profound—often diabolical—effect on the body.

Ethereal infections are things you can’t see, even under a microscope. Examples include anxiety, stress, depression, emotional trauma, and non-native EMFs (dirty electricity). Often overlooked because they are difficult to measure, they can profoundly affect our day-to-day lives and often build so gradually that they remain unnoticed until a breaking point is reached.

The combination of these infections can make matters exponentially worse, as one type often feeds another. In other words, the synergy between different infections can turn the equation 1 + 1 = 2 into 1 + 1 = 4.

Malnourishment is, quite simply, nutrient deficiencies and imbalances that develop as a result of poor food choices, impaired digestive function, and an infectious burden that creates a high “burn rate,” consuming nutrients faster than they can be absorbed and eventually resulting in a deficit.

This creates an internal environment where building, repairing, and maintaining organs, glands, tissues, bones, and body systems becomes increasingly difficult because the necessary raw materials simply aren’t available.

It should also be noted that most people are well-fed, but deeply malnourished. It’s important not to confuse the two.

When these two causes—infections and malnourishment—begin to overwhelm the body, disease is the natural result. The specific disease label you receive depends on the countless possible combinations of infection type, location, severity, and duration, along with the existing nutrient deficiencies and imbalances present within the body.

The more effectively you remove infections and restore essential nutrients, the closer you move toward optimal health. Perfect health may not be realistic in today’s world, but excellent health is still very much achievable when these two foundational causes are taken seriously.

It’s also important to understand that detoxification alone is not the complete answer, despite what many have been led to believe. Removing biological and chemical infections is only part of the process. Emotional trauma and proper nourishment must also be addressed—areas that conventional detox programs often overlook and, in some cases, may even worsen.

So, if you’re asking yourself how you became sick, you can ultimately boil it down to two things:

1. Infections.

2. Malnourishment.

That’s it.

Too simple?

I’d like to take a moment to emphasize that we shouldn’t confuse complexity with intelligence, or simplicity with ignorance.

We’ve been taught to believe that “institutional intelligence” and “$CIENCE” are the de facto authorities on health. Yet while they consistently fail to keep people properly educated and genuinely healthy, the “simple and the wise” quietly achieve and maintain good health despite being dismissed as ignorant by devoted science backers and “woo-woo” hecklers.

So, if your goal is to overcome disease and improve your overall health, use food, supplements, and lifestyle to avoid, mitigate, and eliminate the various types of infections while correcting existing nutrient deficiencies and imbalances.

The greatest lever you have to accomplish this is whole, organic food—and knowing which foods can be enjoyed consistently to help remove infections and restore nutrients, and which ones should be avoided because they feed infections and make nutrient accumulation more difficult.

Supplements also play an important role, but only as an adjunct to the diet. They are best used strategically rather than as unadulterated warfare. Organic and lab-verified is a must if you want meaningful results.

Lifestyle factors matter just as much. Water, movement, sunlight, grounding, relationships, and natural therapies all play an important role.

What all of these have in common is this:

They move you back toward the original alignment you once had with the natural forces that sustain life on this planet.

And with that, I'll leave you with one simple, yet profound, thought:

The further we disconnect ourselves from nature, the worse our health becomes.

This philosophy is explored in much greater detail in my debut book, available now through my website and on Amazon.

A complimentary digital edition (PDF and EPUB) is available when you upgrade your free subscription to The Natural Way to include The Natural Lab—the exclusive paid section of the publication—by July 1, 2026. You can see your subscription options here. Explore the subscription options here.

Now, let's move into The Natural Lab, where we'll begin turning these principles into practical action. Together we'll explore the foods, supplements, and lifestyle strategies that help reduce infectious burden, restore nourishment, and support lasting health.

When applied consistently and correctly, the results surprise many people. Before we continue into The Natural Lab, I'll leave you with one final thought:

Miracles are simply events you have yet to personally witness. They become more common when you understand and work with nature instead of against it.

The Natural Lab

—Exclusive content for paid subscribers—

In any situation, the goal is always to limit the incoming toxic burden of the various infections, “starve” and remove the ones already existing in your tissues, and restore existing nutrient deficiencies and imbalances.

There are several ways to do this through food, supplements, and lifestyle, including my famous tonic (below), which has often replaced the need for prescribed antibiotics.

Unfortunately, most people have diets that feed underlying infections, are difficult to digest, and aren’t particularly nutrient-rich. Many also use supplements contaminated with biological pathogens and chemicals, while living lifestyles that encourage stress, constant adrenaline surges, and exposure to health-conflicting frequencies.

These practices violate many of the principles required for effective healing and long-term health, which is one of the primary reasons so many people struggle to overcome chronic health issues.

So let’s begin with one of the most important places to start.

We’ll first identify the foods that commonly feed underlying infections, followed by the foods that help eliminate them. I’ll also share my medicinal tonic, which has often removed the need for prescribed antibiotics, along with a smoothie recipe that brings together many of the foundational principles discussed throughout this article.

The remainder of this article continues in The Natural Lab—the exclusive section of The Natural Way available to paid subscribers. Here we move from understanding into implementation, exploring the foods that commonly feed underlying infections, those that help eliminate them, and the food, supplementation, and lifestyle strategies that help prevent and remove the two major causes of disease.

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Whether you’ve followed my work for years or you’ve only recently discovered it, I’m glad you’re here.

Over the past twenty years, my journey through health has taken me places I never expected. What began as a personal struggle with chronic health challenges eventually evolved into a one-in-a-million story of recovery and a lifelong mission to better understand health, healing, and what it means to live in alignment with nature.

That journey led to thousands of conversations, countless hours of study, articles, videos, programs, consultations, and most recently, the creation of Healthy Human.

The Natural Way is the written expression of that journey.

In a world filled with conflicting information, complicated protocols, endless opinions, and more noise than ever before, my goal is simple: to help you reconnect with the natural and timeless principles that have always supported human health.

Not because I believe I have all the answers, but because I’ve learned that many of the answers we’re looking for have been hiding in plain sight all along.

Here you’ll find insights on root causes, symptom interpretation, and how to use food, supplementation, and lifestyle to self-direct yourself from confusion toward clarity.

Some articles will be practical. Some will be philosophical. Many will challenge conventional thinking. Others may challenge your own. My hope is that all of them help you become more confident, more capable, and more self-reliant in your own health journey.

One thing I can tell you for sure—I think differently. Not because I’m trying to be different, but because I AM different from most people in this space. I break down complicated topics and make them easier (not harder) to understand, and as such, I have been often told I speak a lot of common sense, which in my experience is desperately needed in today’s world of unnecessary complexity.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned over the years is that disease and what we call “aging” is not meant to be inevitable, and the cause (and reversal) of it is much simpler than you have been led to believe. As someone who overcame 13 chronic disease conditions I don’t speak from theory; I speak from heavy experience.

I’ll write directly on what REALLY causes disease in an article coming up later this week. These causes are not random, and many are no fault of your own, but before I write that article I want you to know this…

Health is not something that happens to you. Health is something you create.

This is good news, because it means your health is far more within your control than you've been led to believe and is not simply a matter of mystery or luck.

The choices you make every day matter. The food you eat matters. The environment you create matters. Your habits matter. Your mindset matters. While we can’t control everything, we have far more influence over our health than we’ve been led to believe.

My hope is that these articles help you think more clearly, ask better questions, trust yourself more, and remember that your body possesses an incredible capacity to heal, adapt, and thrive when given the right conditions. I also hope you’ll find a lot of answers here through food, supplementation, and lifestyle recommendations that will assist you in directing yourself to a higher quality of life.

Over the past two decades, I've written more than 1,000 articles, spent over 10,000 hours researching health, and worked with thousands of people seeking answers. I believe I have plenty of valuable insights to share, and I'll do my best to share them in a way that is practical, concise, and easy to understand.

For those who wish to go deeper, I’ve also created The Natural Lab, a paid subscription that will include deeper analysis and practical applications through proven food, supplement, and lifestyle protocols, for readers who want to take coordinated and efficient action. As a thank you for joining early, paid subscribers before July 1, 2026 will also receive a complimentary PDF and EPUB copy of my book, Return to Instinct.

No matter where you are on your journey, my advice remains the same:

Start where you are.

Keep moving forward.

And put your trust in nature’s system.

Live Healthy. Live Free.

P.S. Watch for my first educational article this week: What REALLY Causes Disease?

It will challenge conventional thinking, simplify complex topics, and help you better understand what it truly means to become a healthier human.

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Derek Henry
Founder, Healthy Human