Top Foods & Lifestyle Habits To Make New Mitochondria For Longevity | Dr. William Li

Today, I'm going to talk about how to activate your mitochondria. If your goal is to actually have more energy, stay sharp and slow down the natural aging process, then you've come to the right video, because the way to do this is through your mitochondria, the tiny little powerhouses that are inside each of your cells. And I'm actually going to show you how to do it. And the best part is that activating your mitochondria is easier than you think. So let's talk a little bit about the mitochondria. First, mitochondria are actually little organs. We actually call them organelles, right? Like mini organs inside each of each of the cells. All right. And they're basically like little mini nuclear batteries that generate the energy that your cell needs to be able to run. So when you're talking about energy, one of the things that I'm going to tell you about is how do you actually generate more of those energy? How do you get those mitochondria to release more power? And the mitochondria basically give you the energy. That is what you say you feel like every day. Man, today I don't have much energy or today I feel great. I got a lot of energy. Right. So that's mitochondria behind the scenes doing their job. Right. So we're going to talk about what are the different ways to power up those mitochondria. Ready? Let's go ahead and dive in. The first way to power up your mitochondria is intermittent fasting. And I can explain what the connection is between your mitochondria and intermittent fasting, because you hear so much about fasting these days. And there's an important connection, biological connection and actually practical ways that you can actually do this. So first, I need to explain to you how mitochondria actually work. When you eat food, the mitochondria inside your cells, those little tiny organelles, mini organs, the nuclear batteries in your cells, they actually convert the energy from the food that you eat and the oxygen that you breathe. So you need that energy and you need the oxygen. All right. They use that to create new energy that powers everything that you do. OK. It's like the spark plug and the fuel from the gas, like in your engine. That's how you run your car. Everything that you do relies on this process. Everything from moving around to thinking, to blinking your eyes. You need your mitochondria to be able to do that work, especially if you actually have muscle activity. Even eating and digesting your food requires mitochondria. OK. And if you want to keep your heart beating, of course, that actually is the mitochondria in your heart firing all day long from the day you're born to your very last breath. All right. In fact, without mitochondria, guess what? Life would grind to a halt very, very quickly. You know how when your phone runs out of batteries, it's like, boom, off like a light. Same deal with your mitochondria. So you want to keep your, you know, if you want to keep your phone charged all the time, you actually need to keep your mitochondria in good shape so you can have that energy. All right. Now, what does that have to do with aging? All right. Well, it turns out that as we age, as we get older, our mitochondria start to wear down. Now, I got to tell you, we start to age from the time we're born. Right. So when you're one year old, you're twice as old you were when you were actually born. All right. But as we get into middle age and older, people naturally feel like they're slowing down. And part of the reason is that our mitochondria is also slowing down. All right. We have less energy, fewer mitochondria. And sometimes the mitochondria that stick around are not functioning or even like they're inactive mitochondria. You need to clear those out. All right. So when this happens to the mitochondria during the natural aging process, it impacts your energy, slows down your metabolism and makes you feel more sluggish. All right. I got a myth. I got a bust because a lot of people think that energy is just about how much sleep that you get. All right. Not true. A lot of people think about energy is just about how many calories they're actually eating. Actually, about how your mitochondria are actually functioning. So this is why you want to know about mitochondria. This is why I'm making this video right now. And not only do you want to know what your mitochondria, you want to keep them as healthy as possible over the course of your life so you can optimize your health during longevity. It's called health span. And just being healthy, you know, like you don't want to be crashed out on a bed, even if you live to 100 or 150. You want to actually have enough energy to make every single year you have, no matter how many years worth it. OK, so what do I mean by this? Well, think about your car battery, right? Your car battery is what allows your car to start. And then once your car started, your battery is around if you need it to keep it moving smoothly. Mitochondria, kind of like a car battery. All right. And but they need care in order to be able to keep doing their job. That's really, really important. So you need to actually take good care of your mitochondria. It's super important. And that's where specific foods and habits actually come into play. And we're going to get into those in just a second. But first, let's go back to intermittent fasting, right? Because this is my first tip for you. One of the best ways to keep your mitochondria in good shape is to lower your caloric intake, eat less over a course of a day. But if you want to actually really do that in a way that optimizes your metabolism as well, all right, which is good for your mitochondria and good for longevity, do it through intermittent fasting. All right. Might sound kind of counterintuitive because you're giving your body a break from constantly eating. How does that actually help you gain energy? Because doesn't eating actually give you energy? Well, it turns out that fasting helps your mitochondria work more efficiently. In other words, not eating. OK. A state of not eating. No fuel actually makes your mitochondria work faster. The lower the number of calories you eat, the more your mitochondria actually feel like they need to be as supercharged. And that whole system of mitochondria needs to be cleaned up. Now, there's a process called mitophagy. MITOPHAGY. You might have heard about this on social media or other people's podcasts. Mitophagy is a simple process where your body, your cells, clean out old or damaged mitochondria. Think about like spring cleaning inside your cells, but aimed at the mitochondria. That's why it's called mitophagy. Phagy means eating up. But this is spring cleaning, taking out the old in order to be able to replace them with the new. Right. You've got a sock drawer that's pretty full. You got to actually take out the ones that have holes in them or that are worn out before you can actually put new ones in the drawer. Right. So you want to actually do the clean out. And that's actually what mitophagy does. And that's what fasting actually does for your cells. Right. And by the way, that sock drawer analogy is really, really important because we all want to feel a lot better wearing a pair of new socks rather than wearing ones with holes in them. Right. So that's exactly mitophagy. All right. And intermittent fasting helps your body, your cells clean out the old and replace it with the new. It's a refreshing part of your body's energy, those little nuclear batteries. All right. Out with the old, in with the new. Now, I write about intermittent fasting in my book, Eat to Beat Your Diet, right here. If you haven't read it, I would strongly recommend it. There's a whole section, multiple sections, actually, about intermittent fasting. I give you some background. I tell you about the biology behind it. But I want to, for this video, just tell you that it's that intermittent fasting is more than just cutting down calories. What it really is, is a metabolic tune up. All right. So if you want to learn more about that, just pick up a copy of Eat to Beat Your Diet and check out my sections about intermittent fasting and all the practical tips that I actually have in my book. And if you haven't read Eat to Beat Your Diet, I'll link it in the description below this video so you can actually check it out. Now, there is another advantage to intermittent fasting that I want to tell you about. And that is that when you fast, when you're not eating, which is fasting and you're sleeping, you're not eating, so you're sleeping, you're fasting as well. So that's why intermittent fasting is the most natural thing we do. Every night when we're going to sleep, we're actually doing intermittent fasting because you're eating dinner the night before. Then you're going to eat breakfast today. You're intermittently fasting, right? But when you are fasting, your body switches from burning glucose, which might be in your blood, OK, switch from burning glucose for fuel to burn to switch to burning fat for fuel. Right now, when you're burning fat for fuel, this keeps your mitochondria fresh because it gives them a break from constantly burning down glucose. During the day when you're eating, your mitochondria is burning up glucose. Guess what? When you're fasting at night and you're sleeping, you're giving your mitochondria a break from having to do glucose. Now they can actually try. They can have to burn fat as well. Now, I don't recommend doing anything to an extreme. So, you know, when people are hearing about this, I have sometimes biohackers will say, OK, so what if I fast for 16 hours? OK, that works. If you can maintain that schedule, that's fine. But if I fast for 20 hours and I squeeze all my eating into four hours, that's I would say that's probably an extreme. You're not going to get more mycophagy out of that. All right. I would say, you know, intermittently fasting 16 to 8 is probably the most I would recommend anybody to do. If you can fit that in, most people can only fit 12 hours in. And that's just fine. I can tell you in my life, it's pretty easy for me to fast for 12 hours. Here's how I do it. If I eat dinner at seven, I'm usually done by eight. I put my dishes in the sink. And you guys better heard me talk about this before. And then I don't need anything until the next day. That's it. It's my signal to myself when I put my dishes in the sink, I'm done for the day. Now, if I go to bed and I want to sleep for eight hours. All right. I'm not going to tell you what I really sleep, but I'm going to tell you what I would ideally like to do if I'm not so busy. You go to bed at 11. Let's say you sleep for eight hours. You're going to get up at seven in the morning, right? Like I'm on a holiday. That's what I might do. But if you don't eat dinner after eight o'clock when I put the dishes away, I get three hours between eight o'clock and 11 o'clock. And then I've got eight hours from 11 o'clock to seven o'clock in the morning. Right. Three plus eight hours, three hours plus eight hours is 11 hours. And I get up in the morning. I'm so fast. I'm getting up in the morning. And rather than eat breakfast right away, you know what I do? I take a break. I would go for a walk. I could read a book. I could check my emails. I can go out, just get some fresh air. You know, you don't have to eat right away like you did when you were a kid. I take it. I take it at least an hour, sometimes more. But let's do the math now. Eight o'clock, go to bed, three hours to 11, bedtime. 11 o'clock to seven o'clock in the morning. That's another eight hours, three hours plus eight hours. Eleven o'clock, eleven hours. I fasted by seven o'clock in the morning. I just told you don't eat for an hour after I wake up. That's eleven hours plus one hour. That's 12 hours. So if I do that, which is just not eating after dinner and waiting an hour after I get up before I eat anything, I've gotten 12 hours of fasting in, including my sleep time. And that 12 hours is 50 percent of my entire day. So 12 hours out of 24 hours in a day, I've been fasting. I've been actually giving my metabolism a break of the reset. I'm giving my mitochondria a chance to go from burning glucose to actually switching and giving them a break into burning fat. I burn down body fat. I'm also activating my topology, which is to clean out the old or damaged mitochondria and replacing them with the new. You get what my drift is. This is why intermittent fasting is actually so beneficial. Really, really, really easy. It doesn't actually have to disturb your lifestyle. And you just kind of can fit it in the easiest way that it works for you. That's the key thing. You've got to actually tailor intermittent fasting for your own schedule. And by the way, listen to your body, because if you don't feel quite right, if you're fasting too long and you're not feeling your body is actually sending a signal, I would say maybe fast a little bit less in order to be able to actually make it fit your physiology, fit your body. All right. So more isn't always more. I would not go on to extreme levels of intermittent fasting, which is basically like full on fasting, which some people do if they actually have like serious diseases. But I think that I would try to keep it moderation is probably the way the best way to actually go. All right. Now, I want to give you a practical tip if you're doing intermittent fasting. And this tip is actually to avoid a common mistake that everyone does or tends to do if they're actually trying to do intermittent fasting for the first time, which is, you know, you're not eating for a while and you're going to be hungry because that's natural. You're just going to be hungry. You haven't been putting fuel in your body. Fuel tank's going to be running low. It's like the gas gauge in your car. But in your brain says you've got to fill up. So we're going to be looking for some food. And when we sit down to eat, you're going to be hungry. Whatever you do, remember this. Do not overeat. You're going to be hungry. So you're going to want to eat, overeat. Hey, there. I've got an exciting resource just for you. And it's all about the five brain boosting habits for longevity. These simple but powerful habits are all based on science that can help elevate your brain's cognitive ability and support your overall brain health. If you're ready to unlock the secrets to a sharper mind and a healthier future, then click the link below the video to access this valuable information. Or you can take out your smartphone and scan the QR code on the screen right now. Now let's get back to the video. Overeating is putting in too much fuel into your body. Now you're overloading your metabolism. You just cleaned out your metabolism. Reset your metabolism the night before. Now you're overloading it. You're not making progress this way to make progress. Eat modestly. All right. In fact, I tell people that whatever your eyes want to take on the plate, take only two thirds of it. Keep a third away. That's a good start. All right. People who want to really go down in a portion, they just only leave a third on the plate. And by the way, eat slowly. When you eat fast, it's a lot easier to clean your plate and therefore to overeat. All right. And we always want to put big, huge portions. Think about what it's like for you at a buffet table, you know, or a cafeteria where you get to serve yourself. Almost always going to put more food on the plate than you actually need to eat. So portion size down. And then here's another little tip that will help you prevent from overeating is eat slowly. Eat mindfully. Don't get distracted. If you're scrolling on your device and you're, you know, reading or watching a movie makes it really easy for you to overeat. All right. And eat too quickly. And if you eat too quickly, you're not letting your body adjust to the volume of your food putting in. If you eat slowly, I guarantee you, even though you're taking a smaller portion on your plate, if you eat slowly and mindfully, think about the food that you're eating. I call it savoring the food. You enjoy the taste of the food. If you eat with other people, have a conversation. Don't feel like you've got to clean your plate. All right. I have friends who actually are really, really fast eaters. Not a healthy thing to do when you eat slowly. You tend to eat less because your stomach stretches as food gets into it. All right. And those stretch receptors tell your brain, oh, you're getting full. Let's slow down a little bit. And pretty soon your brain is going to say, we're done. All right. And that's how you prevent overeating by eating more slowly, not being distracted. All right. Eating with somebody else, a dining partner, is actually a good way to do this because then you'll actually have conversation. But also remember to savor your food, which brings me to the issue about the quality of the food. All right. First, eat food that you enjoy eating, not food that you, you know, convenience to eat. Try to look for food that you enjoy. That's one of the things that I always do. I think about my next meal. Hmm. What's just the right thing? What do I really feel like eating? All right. Healthy. I feel like eating something tasty. I eat Mediterranean style. So either Mediterranean food or Asian food, either way, mix and match the cuisines. But something in that genre is what I do. And I'm usually salivating when I think about it. And then I'll go look for that kind of food. But when I have it, I don't take too much and I eat it slowly. And I enjoy the food so I don't overeat. OK, so whatever you do, don't overeat. When you overeat, you overloaded calories. You set your metabolism back. And that's just what you were actually doing is with your metabolism going on. You are undoing some of the benefits of your of your intermittent fasting. The other thing is that high quality food is important because if you have cheap, ultra processed foods filled with additives, emulsifiers, artificial coloring, artificial flavoring, all right, artificial sweeteners, maybe all of those kinds of things, you know what those additives can not only derail your metabolism, they can also influence your mitochondria as well. And how do they do that? Well, these chemical additives can cause oxidative stress. All right. Think about them as free radicals. These are basically it's kind of like what I want to say, like sort of like bad guys running around your system with wire cutters. And they're just like chomping away at your body and your cells. You don't want to be doing that. Those are the chemicals in ultra processed foods that cause oxidative stress and oxidative stress actually can damage your mitochondrial function. So you want energy, you want good mitochondria. Stay away from ultra processed foods. Don't eat too much food. Eat slowly, eat mindfully, enjoy the food that you're eating. All right. And try to extend your natural intermittent fasting period. That's one of the ways that you can actually do this. Now, people always say, all right, well, as an alternative to ultra processed foods, what should I be eating, Dr. Lee? Listen, it's not the one thing that you should be eating. It's sort of the manner by which you navigate your food choices. I always tell people I'm not a vegan, but I do eat mostly vegetable plant based meal. If you actually try to focus on the vegetables that are going to be on your plate, that's one way to actually get high quality food and get the vegetables from the produce section. We don't have a fresh produce section. All right. Or if money is an issue, look in the frozen section. All right. Because frozen vegetables actually have all the nutrients and the bioactives that the fresh ones do. Because they usually are picked fresh and flash frozen. And so the freezer section is also a good alternative. If you can't actually get fresh produce, your metabolism is going to thank you and your mitochondria is going to thank you as well. All right. Again, mitochondria, little batteries give you energy. This is one simple way to actually using intermittent fasting. And some of the little tips I just gave you around that in order to be able to actually get healthier mitochondria. All right. Ready for tip number two. All right. Tip number two for your mitochondria, eat healthy fats. That's one of the best ways to protect your mitochondria and support longevity. Now you're saying, wait a minute, you just told me to eat fats. I said eat healthy fats because not all fats are created equal. Right. Like I'm not telling you to eat butter. I'm not telling you to eat lard. If you focus on healthy fats, the healthy fats are basically like an extra virgin olive oil, EVOO, EVOO. All right. Or in tree nuts. You know, walnuts, macadamia, pistachios, those kinds of pecans. Healthy nuts have healthy oils. Avocados actually also have healthy fats, monounsaturated fatty acids. Mufas is what we call them. And also fish that contain healthy omega three fatty acids. So I just gave you a bunch of choices of things that you would naturally consider, you know, healthy and probably part of your diet anyway. But if it or not, you should consider adding extra virgin olive oil. Tree nuts. All right. You don't have an allergy. Avocados and seafood that contain healthy omega three fatty acids. Now, what are some of those seafoods? I wrote all about them in my book. Eat to Beat Your Diet is a whole chapter on seafoods with healthy omega three fatty acids. I would go check it out there as well. This is all about providing your body with the right kind of fat. OK, and the kind of fat that helps your mitochondria function optimally. All right. So the healthy fats, like I told you, omega three fatty acids and seafood, some plants, omega threes actually have been shown to protect your mitochondria from damage because they lower inflammation. These omega three fatty acids. Right. So if you have inflammation throughout your body, that inflammation, just like oxidative stress can damage your mitochondria. So you want to throw a shield over the mitochondria so they're actually working better. They're not going to be damaged as much. Try some omega three fatty acids. Right. Inflammation harms the body. Inflammation harms mitochondria. So reducing inflammation is one easy step to help your mitochondria and promote energy production and cellular health. Right. So, again, you want to find out the seafood that can actually do this. This is a whole chapter. Chapter eight. Let me go show you where it is. I'm going to show you a picture of it. I took great pleasure in identifying all the chapters in here. Chapter eight. Hang on a second. You're going to see it in one second. All right. I call it the daily catch. And look, here's a whole list of seafoods that are all delicious that you can actually choose that are going to be actually good for you. Hang on a second. I'll just read some of the fish, like besides lobster and crab and shrimp and oysters and clams. But I would say the fish. Look, we all know that salmon is good for you. And we know sardines and mackerel and anchovies. But did you know that halibut is also good for you? It's a white, mild fish and sea bass. Who doesn't like Mediterranean sea bass? And if you haven't had it, you should try it. And if you say you don't like it, maybe you haven't had it prepared properly. All right. Go to YouTube, type Mediterranean sea bass recipe and click video and watch somebody cook something amazing. Like it makes my water my mouth watered. I should watch this kind of stuff. Hake is another white, mild fish. Seabream is another one. Turbot, another mild white fish as well. OK, so not just a super oily fish, the tiny ones that taste fishy. You got all kinds of choices in order to get this type of healthy omega-3s. By the way, walnuts actually, from a tree nut perspective, walnuts actually are a great source of omega-3s as well. It's a plant based source of omega-3 fatty acids. And again, this is a kind of a healthy fuel for your body that helps to reduce inflammation. All right. Now, how do I like to use walnuts? Hmm. Well, I like to eat walnuts plain. I like to toast them up a little bit. You can, you know, how do you toast walnuts? Like I will go buy bulk walnuts at the store. All right. I like to have them out of the shell. I don't mind cracking the walnuts, but it's a little extra work. You've got all the little bits you got to clean up. You can go to a bulk section in a grocery store. All right. Just go to wherever they're selling bulk nuts, tree nuts. And you can just open them and fill up a container of walnut halves. Me, I'm kind of picky. I don't want to have like little walnut crumbs. I want the halves. They look like wings. All right. I'll take them home when I'm ready to eat them. There's now there's there's oil in them, healthy oils. I watch the toast them up. You take a cast iron pan or any pan, but a cast iron pan or stainless steel pan. Don't put any oil in it. Don't forget that the the walnut already has oil in it. That's the unhealthy fat. Put the heat on low. So the pan is actually heating and just lightly toast the nuts. OK, what you got to do is you got to move the pan around so nothing doesn't stick and burn. That's not what you want. And pretty soon you'll start smelling the toasted walnut smell. Smells really great. Take them off the heat, put them into a container to cool off. And they're absolutely they're a little crispier and really delicious. And then if you want to break them up or crush them, you can sprinkle them on to some whole yogurt. All right. You can sprinkle them into a salad. That's kind of what I do. Or, you know, sometimes I'm taking a trip. I will just grab some and take them on as a snack with me. All right. That's a great way, especially if you're traveling someplace and you don't want to be going into an airport and then getting tempted by all that junk food or eat, you know, whatever the flight attendants hand you, the free food, usually ultra processed and not very healthy for you. Have your own bag of toasted walnuts, tree nuts. That's a great way to do it. And, you know, if I want to actually add a little special extra to my walnuts, how about some dried cranberries? All right. Now you've kind of created a simpler trail mix. It's really good. Walnut toasted walnuts with dried cranberries are good. Spice it up a little bit more and some dried blueberries. All right. That's what I actually do. It's a super great way to actually get extra healthy plant based omega threes as well. Just make sure if you're using dried fruit that it doesn't have added sugar to it, because you don't want to actually do that. You want to actually get all the benefits from that polyphenols, the dietary fiber, the healthy fats without adding extra to that system. OK. And by the way, if you're sprinkling the walnuts over a salad, guess what? It's another opportunity to add another healthy oil to the omega three fatty acids from the walnuts. What if you drizzled a little bit of extra virgin olive oil or dressing made with extra virgin olive oil on it? OK, not regular olive oil, extra virgin olive oil. Let's first press contains all the polyphenols. If you put it into a measuring glass or a cup, it's got a little greenish tinge to it. Those are little tiny olive bits. They contain polyphenols like hydroxy tyrosol and oleocanthal. And those are all floating in healthy fats, the monounsaturated fatty acids. All right. That's actually a great way to actually light up the healthy fats in your body. Remember, you're powering up your mitochondria. That's actually what the goal is, not to have extra fats, but to use fat in a healthy sort of way. OK, what about tip number three for mitochondrial health? Prioritize eating food that contain a lot of bioactives. So what do I mean by this? Well, bioactives are just natural chemicals, mother nature's chemicals that she's put into plants and plant based foods. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, seeds. All those grains, all those actually have natural bioactive. These are micronutrients. OK, not the macros. All right. That's protein and carbs and fat. These are micronutrients that activate your body's health defense systems that activate your metabolism. All right. And they activate also your mitochondria. Right. So how do they do this? Well, one thing, as I mentioned to you before, is that these bioactives found in plant based foods think about eating the rainbow, right? Red bell peppers, strawberries, guava, tomatoes, different types of leafy greens. You know, green doesn't seem like it's a color, but it's a really brilliant color. And if you look at all the vegetables and look at all those shades of green, it's part of the rainbow. All right. They all contain bioactives. It is colorful and it's found in the produce section. It's going to have the kind of bioactives you want. You know what they do? They lower inflammation, which helps your mitochondria perform better, just like omega-3 fatty acids. But the other thing they do is they are antioxidant. So they protect your mitochondria against oxidative stress. Remember, I told you those little tiny bad guys are running around with garden shears, chopping at everything. Think about that as oxidative stress. Those are the free radicals that can damage your body, including your mitochondria. By having more polyphenols, you're protecting your mitochondria from the damage from these oxidative stress particles. Right. So if you want your mitochondria to be operating at peak performance, this is what you actually want to do. All right. You want to actually have colorful foods and natural bioactives. So eat the rainbow is a is that's exactly what they were talking about. So again, I'll tell you, when I go to the grocery store and I'm wheeling my cart in there, the first place I go is I try to go through the produce section. And so here are the things that catch my eye that I know have polyphenols that have antioxidant activity that will help protect my mitochondria and also lower inflammation through my body. So overall health, I will see automatically the peppers, right? Like red bell peppers, the green peppers, the orange peppers. Those always catch me. Now, when I buy a pepper, you know what I actually like to do? Like, obviously, you can slice them up and it tastes great raw. You know, if you eat some pepper, you know, put some yogurt on the whole yogurt with a little bit of cumin or something. Amazing little snack to actually have a healthy snack. But, you know, by preparing peppers, one thing you can do is slice them down the middle, deseed them. All right. Just there's like a little white ribs that are in there. Cut all that out. Cut. Let's see a pepper. Cut it in half. Cut each half into thirds. All right. And then take a cookie sheet. All right. Add a little bit of extra virgin olive oil. Preheat your oven to 375. All right. And just put the cookie tin with these peppers on there. That have lightly a light bit of extra virgin olive oil and roast them. All right. Keep an eye on them. You roast them for 15 minutes or so. All right. They should soften up. All right. And you'll start seeing the skin changes texture. That is great because then you could eat them right away. Obviously, they're delicious roasted peppers. And I prefer to use the oven to do it rather than the grill. And you know why? Because all the grilled peppers taste awesome. The fact of the matter is that you're actually having some of those carcinogens from the grill when you get that blackened part of the pepper. Tastes great. You get the nice smoky flavor. But you need some chemicals in there that you don't get if you're actually just roasting them and slowly roasting them in the oven. But what you can do is if you're not going to eat them right away, take those roasted peppers, take a glass jar and put the peppers in the jar and pour in extra virgin olive oil. And now you're actually marinating it in olive oil and you can stick it in the fridge and you can eat those and use it for cooking as well. So that's something that catches my eye and how I think about using red bell peppers. Red onions. We go to the onions, right? Onions contain the bioactive. Oh, what's the bioactive in red bell peppers? Well, there's ascorbic acid, right? There's lycopene in some of these peppers as well. And in red onions, you actually have a lot of quercetin. Quercetin is a powerful bioactive, a powerful antioxidant, protects your mitochondria, powerful anti-inflammatory. And it's actually been shown to be good for your metabolism overall. You want more energy. You want your metabolism to be better and you want your mitochondria to be better as well. They work together so you feel more pumped up. All right. And that's what's important. Living long is good. Living long with energy is even better. That's what's important. So red onions. But by the way, you go to five onions. You got your red onions. You got your yellow onions. You got your white onions. Which ones do you choose? You get your shallots. Which would you choose? I always go for the red onions like if if if I can. They're a little bit more distinctive and powerful in their flavor. They also have more quercetin. I'm always looking for the foods that actually have a little bit more of the things that I want. And by the way, what do I do with red onions? Do you want to know the truth? I will slice them up. You can obviously, you know, roast them. You can put them into a stew. You can actually make onion soup out of them. But I like to caramelize onions as well. And you just actually slice onions fine and stick them into a like a pot and just stir them around. There's some natural sugars in the onion. You put a little bit of extra virgin olive oil in there. That's what I would actually do. Get some of those healthy mitochondria providing fats from monounsaturated fatty acids from olive oil and pretty soon the sugars that are naturally present in the onions once you caramelize, they'll soften, they'll turn a little brown. The sweetness will come out. I don't recommend adding sugar. That's the classic way of actually caramelizing onion. Put oil, put sugar in there and like you'll you'll make a soft, tasty onion mixture, but not as healthy as if you just let the natural sugars actually come to play. That's a little pro tip. I'm actually telling you. That's a great thing because you can actually put those caramelized onions on whatever you're cooking. You're doing chicken. You can grow vegetables a little bit on the side. It's kind of like a chutney almost or topping. Absolutely delicious. All right. OK, purple carrots, orange carrots, yellow carrots, purple carrots also contain bioactives. The purple of purple carrots contain anthocyanins. Same thing. That's a natural dye that's found in blueberries, makes blueberries blue, makes purple carrots purple. And by the way, little pro tip here. Purple carrots actually sometimes are heirloom carrots. That's what the original carrot looked like. Now, carrots came from southwest China way back in the day. All right. They were not those orange sticks that we actually see we associate with. Right. But the original carrots were purple on the outside. All right. And if you break a purple carrot and look inside, it's yellow on the inside. That's actually what the native carrot looked like. And they have carotenoids on the inside. And they've got anthocyanins on the flesh that's around the outside. They're really healthy. Now, orange carrots also have beta carotene and beta cryptoxanthin. Don't worry about memorizing these bioactives. I'm just telling you, that's why the rainbow is eating the rainbow. So important. All of these have antioxidant, anti inflammatory mitochondrial protecting properties that are actually good and part of the characteristic of bioactives. Strawberries, I love strawberries. Strawberries also have anthocyanins. You're like, wait a minute. That's not dark blue, like a blueberry. But you know what? If you take a look at the what the color strawberry of the colors, it's got red, it's got blues, it's got a lot of different colors. You're a painter. You'd understand. But anyway, it's got anthocyanins. It's also got something called elachiic acid. You know what makes strawberries kind of tart and sweet? The tartness comes from elachiic acid. Elachiic acid, powerful antioxidant, powerful lowering inflammation. All of these protect your mitochondria, give you more energy. Here's a benefit. Elachiic acid, I've studied it, actually cuts off the blood supply to cancers. Anti-angiogenic. So another benefit out of it. All right. What about those greens I was telling you about? Also part of the rainbow. Vibrant greens from spinach, from broccoli, from kale. Dinosaur kale is a particular favorite of mine. It's like a kind of a kale leaf that's got this pebbly surface on it. It's kind of a olive, dark green, dark forest green. Beautiful, actually. And when you cut that up and and you cook it in water. All right. Guess what? Turns almost black. The color turns black. And from the kale, sulfury kind of vegetable smell, it just actually the flavor mellows out big time. And by the way, the dinosaur kale is what your mother probably put, or certainly the school cafeteria lady put in the minestrone soup. OK, that's the classic vegetable Italian soup, minestrone. And remember, when you're eating it, which is a very healthy way to eat these colorful antioxidants and vegetables, you have these little black bits in it. That's dinosaur kale. OK. Also filled with antioxidants. Also anti-inflammatory. Also good for your mitochondria. Right now, these leafy greens, they're brassica like broccoli and kale. They'll also contain isocyanates, isocyanates. All right. These are sulfur containing compounds that are powerful in terms of their anti-inflammatory benefits. They improve your metabolism, improve your immune system, and they improve your mitochondrial efficiency as well. All right. One energy, eight greens. All right. So this is just kind of my telling you that all these colors in the produce section or if you need to go to the freezer section, don't forget that the frozen foods are also good. It's like making a watercolor painting. You want to make sure you have all those different colors on your plate. Don't just get one. Get a bunch. And the more intense, the more varied, the more flavorful, the more beautiful your plate with these vegetables, the more polyphenols, the more bioactives you're actually going to get that are going to be contributing their benefit to your mitochondrial health. All right. Tip number four. Let's go there. Fourth tip for mitochondrial health is exercise. Now, I probably don't need to tell you that exercise is good for your health and well-being, but when it comes to your mitochondria, exercise is like plugging your cell phone into the wall, into an outlet to charge it up. All right. Exercise is like plugging your cell phone into the wall to charge up your mitochondria, like your cell phone, like a mitochondria, like a cell phone. All right. Makes the mitochondria work a little bit better. And it's not just about high intensity workouts at the gym. You don't even need to hide. You don't definitely don't need to get a new gym membership or get a trainer. But even moderate and low intensity movements can trigger your body to create more mitochondria. Like your body responds to the need for energy by creating more nuclear batteries inside the cell, the little organelles called mitochondria to make the ones that you have work more efficiently. When you're active, low intensity exercise or high intensity exercise, riding a bike, for example, or training for a marathon, for example, your muscles are going to be sensing, oh, man, we need more energy. So they are going to make new mitochondria. Right. So whether you're a fitness junkie or whether you're just starting your health journey or just want to figure out, what can I do? Easy, easy peasy to get my exercise started. I always say any kind of exercise, any kind of movement will play a significant role for mitochondrial health. So for those of you who are already, you know, working out, go for it. Keep it up. Know that when you're working out and exercising. All right. You're prompting your muscles to sense. We need more energy. So they're going to make more mitochondria. But if you're just getting started, you know, and you want to just figure out what's a simple way to make your first move. Well, here's the thing. A simple 30 minute walk. Do it after dinner. OK, if you're busy during the day, even a simple 30 minute walk will stimulate the production of new mitochondria. All right. Hey, there's Dr. Lee. I share a lot in my YouTube videos, but sometimes we need a deeper, more personal dive into how food can be used as medicine. And that's why I created my Eat to Beat Disease course. You'll have me as your teacher and guide to unlock the full potential of food can be used to boost your health. My course is packed with the latest science and practical strategies. It's all designed to be easily followed as something you can start using right away. So whether you want to prevent a disease or fight a disease or just optimize your health for longevity, my course has got you covered. So if you're ready to make a positive change, click on the link below or scan the QR code on the screen right now. I can't wait to see how you're going to get started to improve your health using food. Now, back to the video. So what is that called when your body's producing more mitochondria? You might have heard this if you're listening to biohacker channels or longevity channels talking about fitness. Well, I'm just going to tell you, when you ask your body, prompt your body to make new mitochondria. The term that is used is called mitochondria biogenesis, mitochondrial biogenesis is prompting your body to make new mitochondria happens, you know, all the time. But when you exercise, you're actually going to prompt more mitochondrial biogenesis. All right. And by the way, the other thing about exercise is going to actually really make your existing mitochondria work more efficiently. It's all about efficiency when it comes to your body. All right. And over time, this kind of making your muscle, your mitochondria work more efficiently, making new mitochondria over time, exercise over time leads to better energy production. You're just going to feel more vibrant. All right. And that is critical for enjoying your life, no matter how long you live. I don't care if you live to 150 or 100 or 90 years old or 80 years old, whatever it is going to be. All right. The longest you can actually get, the more energy you have. You want to make sure you're taking care of your mitochondria, but especially if you're going to live for a long, long time. All right. So the myth that's out there is that, oh, you want to really benefit your mitochondria. You've got to go do super intense, high intensity exercise. That can be helpful as well. But even low intensity exercise is beneficial. All right. Low impact activities. Walking is good. Swimming is good. By the way, even yoga, stretching, all of these physical activities contribute to mitochondrial health. In fact, consistent movement throughout the day is even more beneficial than working out super hard. Very, very intermittently. All right. Or rarely. All right. So it's better to stay in motion all day long. Remember, your muscles are training as you move in your body. Your muscles are training yourself to make more mitochondria just to keep up with the energy demands. That's actually what we're talking about here. Staying in motion keeps your mitochondria active, stimulates mitochondrial biogenesis, and it helps take out the old, replace it with the new. All right. So small actions trigger your mitochondria. Use it or lose it, as they say. All right. And it's not just about aerobic exercise. Strength training also counts. So I'm talking about exercises like squats and lunges, weightlifting, all that counts. Right. So listen, I've just opened the gate really wide for you to find a variety of different types of exercises that you can actually do. Here's a good one, too. If you go like, I just can't think about weightlifting all the time. Look, strength training can also help your mitochondria. I'm talking about squats or lunges or even weightlifting. All of those things improve mitochondrial function, as well as just general physical strength. All right. In fact, a study published in the journal Cell Metabolism looked at older adults who are doing resistant training for just 12 weeks, and it showed that their mitochondrial function improved just with resistance training. Now, how do they measure whether or not a mitochondrial function was improving? Well, they looked at mitochondrial protein synthesis and ATP production efficiency. So this is a research study where they were deliberately looking at mitochondrial markers, biomarkers, and they found it just with resistance training. So if you're somebody who's doing running to keep it up and just starting, try some low-impact activities like walking, bicycling, add some strength training to it. It builds muscles, increases and improves your metabolic rate, and trains your mitochondria to start producing energy more efficiently and more mitochondria as well. All right. These are game changers in terms of longevity because it'll actually give you more energy. Okay. Now, one of the things that I'm telling you is that it's hard sometimes to make the time in the schedule to actually do regular workouts, to drive to the gym and change and do all that kind of stuff. But you can find little ways every single day. This is what I do as well. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. All right. Park a little bit further away from the entrance of the grocery. When you're at the grocery store, walk a little bit, and then carry the groceries back to the bag. So those are like little tiny, little tips to actually get you physically moving. All of that helps your mitochondria. All right. Going for a little brisk walk after a meal. That's a super simple one. All right. Don't go for the valet parking. If you're going to a restaurant, park yourself down the street, a couple blocks away. And that way after dinner, you're going to walk to dinner, but then after dinner, you're going to walk back. All those things are actually good for your mitochondria. You don't have to train for a marathon to keep your mitochondria in good physical shape. All right. How about the last tip I'm giving you on this video for mitochondrial health? Hopefully I'm giving you these practical tips and it's something that you can actually go, Oh, I can do that. All right. This one is kind of a broad tip, but it has actually big consequences. And that tip is to avoid or reduce environmental toxins or exposures. Now, this is not something that you might automatically connect with your mitochondria, those little nuclear batteries in your cells, but everything that you breathe, everything you touch, everything you eat, everything you have contact with is going to do something inside your body. Right. So think about environmental toxins, right? Like you're like, well, I don't live near a factory. I don't have to worry about it. Well, but have you ever had a new carpet? You know that new carpet off gases and those fumes from the solvents that new carpet. Guess what? You're breathing that in. What about the shampoo you use? Did you ever think about the chemical scent they put in the shampoo with a microplastics that are in there, that kind of somehow get into your mouth and you're going to be swallowing a little bit of it. All right. Believe it or not, there are toxins all over your house. Okay. They might be in the air. They might be in the cleaning products. They're even on the dishes that you load into the dishwasher or maybe hand wash it. If you're using detergent, guess what? Put all kinds of things to those detergents. Those actually can have these chemicals in it that can take a toll ultimately on your mitochondria, right? And you're going, oh, my gosh, I had no idea that my everyday activities like washing my hands, taking a shower, washing my hair, doing the dishes, using the dishwasher, you know, all those little tiny things, you know, those little cubes you stick in your dishwasher to make it a lot easier for you. You don't pour that powder in anymore. Powder probably wasn't that good either. Well, it's look, all those things are environmental toxins. So the fewer chemicals, toxins you encounter every day, you know, from these types of lifestyle actions that we should take, the better it is. Because when you come in contact with them, guess what? They induce oxidative stress. They cause more inflammation. And when they actually cause more inflammation and oxidative stress, you know what it does? It slows down your body's energy production, right? It's one of the greatest contributors to mitochondrial damage. There's a chemical called endocrine disrupting chemicals or EDCs. These are found everywhere. The plastic container that you store your food in, besides the microplastic, all right, these endocrine chemicals that kind of leach into your food, they can actually interfere with your body's hormones like estrogen and thyroid hormone and cortisol. By the way, you need all of these. You need your cortisol. You need your thyroid hormone. You need your estrogen. They're all involved with maintaining your mitochondria, all right? So if you want a healthy mitochondria and you want good energy, you want to really try to cut down your exposure to toxins in your immediate environment. Don't look to the outside world. I'm not talking about changing the world. I'm talking about changing your kitchen or your bathroom. Try to look for chemicals around your house for the everyday things, cleaning, shampooing, whatever, that actually have the least amount of toxins, environmental toxins possible. And if you buy new furniture, by the way, open the windows, get an air purifier. That's stuff that smells good because it feels like you're still in the carpet store, like we associate it with newness. That's all fumes that are getting in there. Those are environmental toxins, right? If you're storing food, don't do plastic. I really encourage people to throw away their plastic containers. Get glass containers. The plastic lid is fine, or get a stainless steel container, all right? Like, let's say you have coffee grounds or ground coffee. You know, you buy it in a bag of pre-ground coffee. I can grind my own coffee, but if you have some beans, but if you actually have pre-ground coffee, don't store it in a plastic container. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals in there, all right? And microplastics, store it in a stainless steel container that you can close airtight. That's an example, simple decision. Should I put it in plastic or should I put it, get a stainless steel container? Steel wins every single time, all right? Now, indoor air quality also makes a difference. The air that you breathe can influence mitochondrial health. You're like, wait a minute. I already breathe pretty good air. Nobody in my house smokes. I really try to get good, clean air. Guess what? Your home is gonna be filled with chemicals from synthetic fragrances and aerosol sprays, harsh cleaning chemicals. They're exposed. They're exposing your body, your mitochondria to all these things. Go to a hotel, right? Ooh, that distinctive smell of the hotel. It smells really great. They even try to sell you the scent, all right? Those are chemicals. Those are gonna be exposing your body to an environmental toxin. They cause oxidative stress. We're not gonna be able to avoid all of these. And sure, like a nice hotel smell, kind of relaxing. And you probably wanna have a nice smell in your house as well. You wanna have certainly a clean house. So I'm a practical guy. I'm just saying that if you have a choice when you're buying a product, a cleaning product or storage container, just think about this, right? Clean product, maybe you can get one that doesn't have as many chemicals in it. That's actually the best way to think about it. Just be practical. Get natural cleaning products from harmless ingredients or clean with the harmless ingredients, vinegar, baking soda, essential oils. Those are all better alternatives than some of the super solvent ones, all right? Whatever you do, just think about it. You don't want inflammation in your body, all right? And so these benefits I'm talking about by avoiding or limiting toxins, not only good for your mitochondria, good for your overall health, good for your DNA, good for your circulation, all of your body's health defenses are gonna benefit from this. All right, what else is I can tell you about like indoor air quality? Guess what? Do you have indoor plants? If not, maybe you should get an indoor plant, right? You go to one of those big box stores that sell hardware, right? There's always like a greenhouse section. I walk by them all the time. Sometimes I'll buy a plant or two from there, but guess what? Plants, many plants act as a natural air purifier that can take down the toxins. How about that? All right, so what are some of the best plants that you can buy to have around your house to make them look really nice? The peace lily, which is an inexpensive house plant, does well indoors. It doesn't have that bright sunlight all the time. With the snake plant, it's another plant that actually does really well. You can hang it up and peace lily, you can put it in your window. So it helps filter out toxins in your home. So why not have that? And by the way, when you take care of your plants, which is making sure you water them, not everyone needs a lot of water every day, but read the instructions on how often you should water or ask somebody or look it up. How often should you water your house plants that are purifying your air? Water it, take care of it, even caring for a plant. Or caring for a pet, like I'm caring for a pet. Actually good for your stress levels. When your stress levels go down, guess what? Your mitochondria are exposed to less oxidative free radicals, which can damage them. So lowering stress is good. Plants are good. They take care of the air. And when you take care of the plants, taking care of the air for you, everyone benefits overall, all right? Now, that's kind of the thing that I want to actually tell you about mitochondria. Your mitochondria are working hard for you every single day, day in and day out. They deserve the cleanest possible, least stressful environment that you can give them. You're going to be living with these mitochondria for your whole life, and you're going to want more of them. You want to clean out the old ones. You want to add new ones. The new ones should be working as efficiently as possible. You get it? It actually makes a lot of sense, right? And mitochondria is a topic that you hear about in these longevity seminars that are out there going on right now. I'm just trying to give you a really practical way of connecting the energy that you feel in your body to the food that you choose, the environment you live in, the lifestyle that you actually choose. It's a lot of information, but it's all really, really practical. I practice this stuff every day in my life when I can, and I've got a good amount of energy, all right? So I'm kind of like the living example of how to actually treat mitochondria in the healthiest way possible. And by the way, I know that I mentioned my book, Eat to Beat Your Diet, a number of times in this video. Be sure to check out my book, Eat to Beat Your Diet. It's got tons about intermittent fasting, tons about different kinds of foods. It's got 200 foods in it, by the way, along with the doses of the foods. Check them out in the description of this video to get more practical tips like this. I hope you learned something new today. I certainly enjoyed talking about it. Thanks very much for watching the video, and I will catch you on the next one. Dr. Lee out. Stay here and check it out, and I'll see you there.