Module 1 – SIRT Foods

This is an extension of your dense nutrition in the previous section.

This area of nutrition has been giving me goosebumps for quiet a while now. And has been a big part of my journey to prevent disease. 

What are SIRT foods? To answer this we must first look at what are ‘Sirtuins’?

There is an ancient family of genes that exists within each of us called Sirtuins. Sirtuins are special because they orchestrate processes deep within our cells that influence important things like our ability to burn fat, our susceptibility to disease and ultimately our life span. In other words – sirtuins play a part in gene expression, so whether or not a gene gets turned on or off. So amazing is the effect of sirtuins that they are now being referred to as ‘master metabolic regulators’ – which control our ability to burn fat and stay healthy. And why do we care? Because these genes are exactly what anyone wanting to shed some pounds, be healthy and live long would want to have some control over. Sirtuins activate our ‘skinny genes’!

There are seven different sirtuins – SIRT1 to SIRT7.  Of these SIRT1 and SIRT3 are the main contributors to energy balance and metabolism (so how we burn fat for energy). These are the genes that interest most of us, the most… our skinny genes.

So, what are SIRTfoods?

When we cut back on calories, it creates a shortage of energy that activates what is know as our ‘skinny gene’. This triggers a host of positive changes.  It puts the body into a restorative mode where it stops storing fat and instead turns its attention to burning up fat stores and switching on powerful housekeeping genes that repair and rejuvenate our cells (this is VERY important for preventing disease) – the same as what fasting does. The end result then is weight loss and an improved resistance to illness.

But as we all know – cutting calories is unsustainable and unhealthy. You will fatigue, experience muscle loss and cause plateau. Enter SIRTfoods, a newly discovered group of wonder foods. Although you will have heard of them before – what we know they now do is ‘new’.

These genes of course are the “sirtuins”.  One of these nutrients for example is resveratrol, which has been shown to protect against the adverse effects of high-calorie, high-fat and high-sugar diets, promotes healthy aging by delaying age-related diseases and improves fitness. In essence this nutrient has been shown to mimic the effects of calorie restriction and exercise. *I use this in supplement form with my Cancer fighting clients and it is recommended by oncologists across the world.

Of course when people hear of resveratrol, they automatically think of red wine. And they would be correct. Red wine is hailed as the original SIRTfood. However, as well as resveratrol, red wine contains an array of other natural plant compounds, including high amounts of piceatannol, quercitin, myricetin and epicatechin, each of which has been shown to independently activate our skinny genes and more importantly, to work in coordination or synergistically with each other.

So to sum it all up, eating SIRTfoods will help you;