445: Eating for Energy and Longevity

Hal Elrod: Hello and welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. This is your host, Hal Elrod, and thank you for tuning in today. We are going to talk about eating for energy and longevity. Eating is a passion of mine. It's been a passion of mine for 20-something. Well, I guess, my whole life, right, but like 20-something years. I should say eating healthy has been a passion for 20-something years. Today, I'm actually going to share my eating journey with you from a child to an adult to now and kind of how that trajectory went. It was pretty gruesome in terms of the quality of food, the fast foods I consumed during my teenage years and into college, so on and so forth. But then I’m going to share that journey with you today but really the main focus today is talking about what to eat, when to eat, and most importantly, why to eat, as in what is the primary criteria that you use to decide which food or foods to put into your body. That's the why. Why? Why are you eating? Are you eating for energy? Are you eating for longevity? Are you eating because it will melt in your mouth? Or all three?

 

And that's the objective here is to get you to place the value of the consequences of the energetic and the longevity properties of the foods you eat but then to choose foods that are delicious that meet those first two criteria. That's where we're going to end up today. Also, when I touch on what to eat, one thing I didn't explicitly address is the importance of buying organic and minimizing pesticides. You know, there are millions, I think it's actually billions, I mentioned this in the episode, of lawsuits against Monsanto right now for Roundup for causing cancer. And a lot of people say, "But organic is more expensive. I can't afford it,” and that may be true. You know, I don't know. Here's my thought is that we're going to spend money on stuff no matter what, right? Whether it's Netflix or buying stuff on Amazon. Like, we spend our money somewhere. It's about where our priorities are. And as somebody who has survived cancer and feel like I gave it to myself, absolutely, I take responsibility. I don't blame anybody or anything. I look at what did I put in my body that may have been cancer-causing and I talk about that today a little bit in the episode.

 

But when it comes to where priorities go like when you don’t have your health, you don't do anything. You could be a multimillionaire/billionaire because you saved pennies here and there everywhere you could and then you get diagnosed with a deadly disease and it's like, "Oh, I should have spent a little bit of that money on organic food that didn't have pesticides.” And so, I wanted to see what the difference was in the price of organic versus non-organic to see how significant it is. So, I just went and look for a few of the things that are popular that a lot of us buy, that I buy. I'm sure it's my own bias. So, organic spinach for a 1-pound bunch of organic spinach, it is $2.49. For an ordinary bunch of spinach that is non-organic, that is filled with pesticides, potentially, it is $1.99. So, you're spending $0.50 more and it's a pound of spinach, so $0.50 more to get that organic versus regular. And these aren't sale prices. These are regular prices. Avocados, right? If you eat avocados, an organic large Hass avocado is $2.50. A large Hass avocado, non-organic, is $2.00. So, again we’re talking $0.50 difference per avocado.

 

And I realize that you might think, "Well, Hal, that adds up. It adds up over time.” Sure. Again, it comes down to priorities. Is your health a priority? And are you willing to ingest food that potentially has cancer-causing pesticides, not to mention who knows what else they're doing to our body? And then last but not least, bananas. I don't know about you. My son eats bananas. I like bananas. I don't eat them very much anymore just to minimize all sugars. I talk about that in today's episode as well. But listen to this. An organic banana is $0.28 per banana at the store and a non-organic banana with might have pesticides in it is $0.24. So, you're looking at a $0.04 per banana difference. Again, it really comes down to how much of a priority is your health because we put money in things that are important to us. So, I just wanted to mention that because I didn't touch really much on the organic piece or the pricing in today's episode.

 

Another thing that I realize I didn't touch on, so I want to mention it and cover it here is what I drink. I talked a lot about what I eat from start to finish the entire day but I didn't mention what I drink so I want to cover that now. I first and foremost drink a glass of water first thing in the morning. If you read the Miracle Morning, you know that because if you're 7 to 8 hours of sleep without hydrating, you're going to wake up mildly dehydrated, which causes you to feel fatigued. So, replenishing that hydration as soon as possible when you wake up is paramount. Absolutely important. Now, I want to teach you a little trick that I've been doing that you might enjoy. Actually, I just wrote this into the Miracle Morning updated and expanded edition, which is coming out probably in the next six months. I'm excited for that. It's turning out really, really good. It has the Miracle Evening in it. It has the Miracle Life in it. And I'm rewriting the entire book just making it better. It's going to be awesome.

 

But anyway, I just added this in there. I said a little hack that I've been doing recently is I use Pique Green Tea. In fact, I'd love for them to sponsor the podcast because I'm such a fan of their product. It's this micro green tea where they crush up the green tea leaves into a micronized powder. You tear it open and then you put it into a cup, whatever I use, like a little mini carafe. Like it's like a 6-ounce or 8-ounce carafe, and then you just pour room temperature water, stir it up, and I set that by my bedside table. And so, when the alarm goes off in the morning, I actually shoot that. I drink the entire thing very quickly. There are 50 grams of caffeine. And then as I'm getting ready for the day, I go, I turn off the alarm, I drink the tea, really drink more water, brush my teeth, get ready for the day. As I do that, the caffeine is kicking in and I start to become more alert and, of course, experience the benefits that caffeine provides. The beauty of green tea versus coffee is that it has the amino acid l-theanine in it, and l-theanine helps balance the effects of caffeine so that you don't have the spike and then the crash.

 

L-theanine is much more balanced both mental energy and physical energy. So, that's a little hack for you. Keep a little if you want to use Pique Green Tea or, I mean, you could use a shot of espresso, probably whatever you wanted. You pour it the night before, set it right by the alarm, get out of bed, turn off your alarm, and then shoot that caffeine, whatever it is. And I would recommend don't use energy drinks, right? Those have all sorts of chemicals and who knows what in them but green tea for me that's my go-to. And so, again PiqueTea.com. That's the company I use. I use their jasmine green tea because I think that's the highest caffeine of any of their green teas. It’s like 45 to 50 milligrams. So, that's the first thing I do in the morning is I shoot that green tea.

 

And as far as what else I drink, I drink just water throughout the day. I do have a smoothie but that's more of a meal to me. It's got nuts and seeds. Again, I give you the full recipe. We talk about it today in the episode but what I drink during lunch and dinner is Organic Green Juice. So, there's a local company. I don't know if they're nationwide. They're here in Austin called Stoke Juice. And actually, I have it delivered every week but you can get Organic Suja Juice at the grocery store or whatever but that's what I drink during my meals. And I drink a small amount but that's what I drink. It's green juice. It has ginger, spinach, lemon juice, apple juice. I think that might be it but it tastes fantastic. It's my favorite green juice. It's organic. It's fresh-pressed every single week.

 

And then as for coffee, I used to be a daily coffee drinker. Now, I drink coffee only on the weekends and it's a treat. I'll tell you a few things about that. Number one is, again, it's that spike and crash from coffee where you're constantly kind of having to have another cup and have another cup and have another cup versus having green tea with l-theanine so it's a much smoother energy without the crash. And then coffee on the weekends, I'll tell you what, because I only have it on the weekends, oh my God. It tastes amazing. Right? Anything you have every day, it's Monday and you get used to it but coffee only on the weekends, it's such a treat. It tastes fantastic. So, that's basically what I drink during the day, during the week. I think if there's anything else that I drink.

 

Occasionally, actually, right now I'm making a matcha. I made a matcha latte. So, I made homemade almond milk using a device that I mentioned in the episode today called Almond Cow but you can make it in the blender. But I make homemade almond milk and then I take matcha green tea, and then I blend them together and then I put coconut cream in. Anyway, I make a little matcha latte. It gives a little also energy boost during the day and that's it. So, that's what I drink during the day. And today we're going to talk about, like I said, what to eat, when to eat, and most importantly, why to eat to optimize your energy and to optimize your longevity, right? The payoff for eating the way we're talking about today is physical, mental, and emotional energy every single day so that you can perform at your best. That's the short-term payoff. The long-term payoff, of course, is remaining disease-free, living to be however old you want to live, 100, 120, whatever it is for you. That's what we're talking about today.

 

Before we dive in, I want to take just a couple of minutes to thank our sponsors, CURED Nutrition and Organifi. CURED Nutrition, of course, I've told you the two products that I absolutely love are Rise, which I take first thing in the morning and then, I'm sorry, what's the CBN oil called? Nightcaps. Nightcaps, which has 5 milligrams of CBN oil which helps you sleep. It's like a sedation effect and 30 milligrams of CBD oil, which is more of a relaxation effect. And those two together is fantastic. I've been sleeping really well, sleeping like a baby, waking up feeling energized. So, if you want to wake up with Rise and have that cognitive boost in the morning or go to bed with Nightcaps, head over to CUREDNutrition.com/Hal and then use the code “HAL” at checkout for 20% off your order as a listener of the Achieve Your Goals Podcast.

 

And then last but not least, I want to thank our long-term sponsor, Organifi. And if you want to just optimize your health, Organifi has a broad product line for everything from improving your cognitive function with their product called Pure or plant-based protein powder that I use every day. I use their vanilla and their chocolate. I alternate back and forth to kind of mix the taste up, right? Give a little variety to my smoothies. And then their Gold is an evening tea that helps you to wind down. And they've got their Critical Immune, which is a capsule for whenever I'm starting to feel sick, I take that. I also drink their Immunity powder, which I keep with me in my suitcase when I travel in case I start to come under the weather or catch a bug. Organifi’s got a great product line. Head over to Organifi.com/Hal and then use the same code “HAL” at checkout. And again, as a listener of the Achieve Your Goals podcast, you will get 20% off your order. And I hope that you find something either at CUREDNutrition.com/Hal or Organifi.com/Hal that adds value to your life, enhances your health, and boosts your energy.

 

Speaking of boosting energy, let's dive in today. We're going to talk about eating for energy and longevity.

 

[EPISODE]

 

Hal Elrod: Hey, goal achievers and members of the Miracle Morning community, my friends, family. How's everybody doing? I hope you are well today. How are you feeling? Are you feeling energized? I hope so. But if not, that is what we were going to talk about today is eating for energy. I did an episode on this, I don't even know, years ago and I thought it was time to do another, right, to do an updated episode. Now, you personally, right, I want you to think about your energy levels throughout the day. And do you have a lot of energy? And so, before we dive into eating for energy, I want to talk about what to eat, when to eat, how much to eat, why to eat, which is actually where we're going to start. That will be the premise is why. Why are you eating? Why are you putting the food in your body that you choose? What's the criteria to choose that food? But first, I want you to think about your energy levels throughout the day.

 

And I want you to consider this, energy, managing our energy, our mental, physical and emotional energy is arguably one of the most important components of our lives when it comes to health, happiness, success, you name it. Because think about this. First of all, someone that's depressed, typically, there's low energy, right? If you've ever been depressed, which I think most of us have, I've definitely gone through some pretty severe depressions, energy level is low, right? You know, I've never been depressed with high energy like, "Oh, my gosh. Well, I feel so depressed!” Energy and our emotional state are very much interconnected. It's usually, “I'm just down. I just don't have any motivation. I don't have any passion for life, any will to live.” There's an energy correlation with our emotional state. In terms of success, the more energy you have, the more you can direct it toward whatever it is that you need to do to achieve the results that you want in your life.

 

So, having an abundance of energy, you can even say it affects our relationships, right? If you're a parent, for example, you can relate to feeling exhausted when your kids want to play, especially if you have younger kids. Without that energy, you can't be the thriving parent that's always there, that's always going to be on for your kids when they want to play and they want to engage. And then even with a spouse or a significant other, not having energy to show up and be your full, enthusiastic, energetic, loving self, be fully present to your relationships, right? So, energy or lack thereof impacts literally every single area of our life. And I say literally, I don't know, there may be an area that I'm missing but I think pretty much every area of our life is impacted by our physical, mental, and emotional energy. And we're really focusing on physical today, although as we just talked about, they're very much intertwined. Same thing with mental energy.

 

Now, if you’ve ever eaten a big lunch, right, you ate a big meal, and then they call that a food coma that follows that big meal. And what happens? You go back to work and you can't even keep your eyes open. You can't focus. You can't think straight, right? All the blood has gone from your brain down to your stomach to digest your food. And I want you to also think about that. That is one of the most energy-draining processes, energy-depleting processes that we put our bodies through, and it is digesting food. But I don't know about you. When I was growing up, nobody ever talked about eating for energy. Nobody ever talked about the energetic consequences of the foods that I put in my body, when I put them in my body, and how much of them I put into my body.

 

Now, let me just say this real quick in terms of my credibility to talk about this topic, right, for those of you that are like, "Well, what are the credentials that you are bringing to this topic, Hal, the subject? Are you a nutritionist? Are you a doctor? Have you written a book on health?” The answer is absolutely none of those. I will say this, though. I will say that when it comes to like, for example, let's say I was a nutritionist and I said, "No, I went to school. I'm a nutritionist,” my experience with and I actually want to tread really lightly because if someone is a nutritionist, this isn't meant to offend at all but like when I was in the hospital with cancer, they sent a nutritionist in to advise me on my diet. And first, though, I asked my oncologist, you may have heard me, I've shared the story many times. I said, "What role does diet play in my healing?” And I was really asking him that more is like a test to see his competency because I know based on decades of research, literally, that diet is arguably the foundation of our health. You eat unhealthy food and we're going to get into more of that that provides evidence for this.

 

And he said, "It doesn't matter. Your diet doesn't matter. You can eat whatever you want as long as you do the chemotherapy.” That kind of goes to show some of the traditional Western medicine and the thinking around health. And I've heard this. I can't verify this. I've never gone to medical school but I've heard that it's something along the lines of like one week out of the entire four or five or four to six, eight-year journey to becoming a doctor that is spent on nutrition. And the nutritionist that came into the hospital to visit with me, she said, "You just eat whatever's in the cafeteria and you're fine.” And the cafeteria served cakes and pies and soda. It's pretty common knowledge that sugar does feed cancer. I've read that in many books on cancer from many experts on the topic. They had soda, fried chicken, they had hamburgers, and they had nothing organic. So, tons of pesticides, which Roundup is the most common pesticide owned by Monsanto. Right now, they pay out millions upon millions and I believe that's into the billions now in lawsuits from cancer victims every year caused by the pesticide.

 

So, again, they're serving all of this. The nutritionist is recommending that I consume pesticides, GMO foods, hormone-infested beef, so on and so forth. And so, really, we have to take our health into our own hands, our nutrition into our own hands. And so, where my I don't know if I want to call it expertise but it comes from when I was 20 years old. That's when I started diving into the topic of health. And in fact, I'll share my journey with you. Actually, I was going through this. I thought this would be kind of fun to share. It was fun for me to go through like what was my eating journey like. So, I was born in 1979. I grew up in the 80s and 90s and my mom cooked dinner almost every night. But back then, right, like there was no organic. We didn't know what was in our food, chemicals, preservatives, high fructose corn syrup. It was just kind of like the Wild West, right? I think there was not nearly as much mindfulness around food and what we ate and what is in the food that we're eating. When I was 11 years old, my parents bought a grocery store, a little mom-and-pop grocery store called the Oakhurst Market.

 

The first year was great. My mom still made homemade meals, although again I don't know how much mindfulness was around what ingredients were in those meals. But our second year, a big grocery store, Vons, opened up in town and we went not out of business but my parents basically the revenue dropped so much that they had to let go of a bunch of their staff and they had to work like 60 to 80 hours a week. And my sister and I were kind of left to fend for ourselves for dinners and lunch and breakfast and you name it. Thankfully, we lived in a grocery store, so at least we weren't without food. But dude, I lived on Macaroni and Cheese Pasta Roni, Haagen-Dazs ice cream, whenever I could sneak that from the shelf, from the freezer. And my parents were working so it was kind of a free-for-all in terms of diet. So, I was not eating healthy growing up. And then in high school, we were allowed to drive into town for lunch. So, every single day, I either ate Pizza Factory, which was our pizza place in town. Best pizza ever, by the way, if you find a Pizza Factory near you. I know they franchised.

 

But anyway, Pizza Factory, Taco Bell, which was probably between pizza and Taco Bell, and then McDonald's on occasion. But that was it. I was eating horrible fast food. Then fast forward to college, I had no money. I was broke and so I pretty much ate $0.99 jumbo jacks on the daily. That was my daily food. So, when I look back, it's like I'm amazed that I didn't develop a disease at a much younger age. And then in my twenties, I ate Subway a lot. I thought that was healthy. I was actually conditioned from their commercials to think it was like the healthy alternative. So, I ate a lot of Subway, didn't know any better, and I also took a lot of workout supplements from GNC. And those supplements have red dye 40, blue dye, yellow dye, all sorts of just terrible chemicals. And I didn't know any better and I just thought, "Cool. These will help me be stronger so I can work out more.” A lot of this I looked back at when I was diagnosed with cancer and I went, “Wow. What might I have done throughout my lifetime that wasn't natural, that wasn't from nature?”

 

And that's to me where our diet should come from. It should come from nature, not from a lab. But I looked back and I was like, "What might have caused cancer?” And I looked at any pharmaceutical drugs that I took which are not from nature and then I looked at all these foods that I ate and I was like, “God, I ate a horrible diet when I was younger as in my teens and twenties and all the workout supplements that I took by dyes that have caused cancer in lab rats,” that kind of thing. So, that was my eating journey. And then when I was 20, I can’t think of the age but I went to a Tony Robbins event. And Tony believes so much in health that he dedicates out of a four-day event, Unleash the Power Within, one day is all about health. And it really opened my eyes to how I was eating and that the way I was eating was definitely not optimal and that it was causing harm and that I better make some serious changes. That led me down a path of reading and watching documentaries.

 

Now, I will tell you the first book I ever read, this was before I think the Tony event. This is when I was into working out. It was Body for Life by Bill Phillips and I don’t know if you ever heard of that book but back then it was the bestselling book on diet and nutrition of all time, if I'm not mistaken. And Body for Life, now, interestingly enough, Bill Phillips back then, he owned a supplement company that I was taking the supplements at GNC that were not healthy. What I got from that book, though, was eating six small meals a day. That was what I learned from that book. The premise was that when you eat three large meals, you end up overloading your body with too many calories and also just too much food to digest and it affects your energy levels and you have these spikes and drops in your glucose levels as well. And so, from that book, the biggest takeaway that I got, I would not recommend that book, no offense to Bill but I wouldn't recommend that as like the nutrition book that you want.

 

That's really the, "Hey, I want to build muscle, get in shape, and take a bunch of supplements that are bad for me book,” but six small meals a day. I started doing that religiously and that was a game changer in my energy levels. Because here's the thing. When you eat food, I said this earlier, digesting food is one of the most energy-draining processes that your body endures, if not the most. Think about how you feel after a big meal. They call it a food coma, right? Thanksgiving, like everybody shoots for a bedroom or a couch to fall asleep because you just ate so much food. You're right. You can't even keep your eyes open. All the blood has gone from your brain down to your stomach. And so, when you eat small meals, your body's able to digest it. It doesn't take nearly as much energy from you. And you're able to maintain more of a consistent energy and glucose level all day long. So, six meals a day from Bill Phillips, that was the big thing that I learned from that book.

 

Other books I've read on the topic over the years, I think the next one I read, and this was a big game changer for me, it was Eating Well for Optimum Health by Andrew Weil, M.D., The Essential Guide to Bringing Health and Pleasure Back to Eating. And that really opened up my eyes to eating whole foods, not foods that were made in the lab, not foods that were loaded with chemicals or preservatives. That was the big takeaway as I went, “Oh yeah, that makes sense. If I'm going to choose foods to eat, they should be made in nature. You know, it should be from the Earth, from an animal. It should be made in nature.” And so, that book sent me on a journey of really making sure that I ate whole foods. And then I don't remember the order of all the books that I read but something turned me on to being vegan and I decided to be vegan. I was vegan for quite a few years and I ate a lot of raw vegan food. A big part of that was eating for energy. And I mentioned this, I don't want to go into too much detail, I mentioned this recently. Well, if you didn’t hear the episode, I should tell you.

 

So, when I was at that Tony Robbins event, he did a little experiment. He had a device, I don't remember what it was called, but it measured the megahertz of energy that were being emitted by the foods that were on a table in front of him. And he had a steak. He had cooked broccoli. He had raw broccoli. Those are the three that I remember. And he talked about how it requires a certain amount of energy to digest your food, as we've addressed here a couple of times. And he said, "If the food is providing your body less energy than it requires to digest that food, you will be in an energy deficit and you will feel mentally and physically fatigued. You will be tired.” And so, when he put the device that he was using on the steak, naturally, when you cook food, you're killing a lot of the enzymes and kind of the energy. Imagine just you're cooking the energy out of the food that might have been there before you cooked it. And the steak required a significant amount of energy to digest, as you might imagine, it's a big meat, and it gave you less energy than it required to digest. So, you were in an energy deficit.

 

The same thing would go with like a chicken sandwich, right? The bread is dead. The chicken is dead. The energy's been cooked out of both. And it requires a significant amount of energy to digest the food. And that's why, by the way, I remember 5-hour Energy, they used to have their commercials. They said, "You ever get tired in the afternoon?” And they would show somebody like at their desk with like their head in their hands and they're slumped over in front of their computer. And it's like, "You ever get that 2 p.m. crash?” and everybody's going, “Yes, I get that.” And they go, “Have a 5-hour Energy.” Well, what they don't address is the actual root cause, which is, hey, you just eat a chicken sandwich for lunch. Your body is in an energy deficit. You're trying to digest that food. So, yeah, of course, you're tired. You didn't eat a raw, living, energized food source from nature for lunch. And so, now you're tired. Totally makes sense.

 

So, then Tony went on back to the experiment. He then showed the cooked broccoli and the cooked broccoli put off much more energy than the steak, and it also required much less energy to digest. So, you were actually in an energy surplus when you ate that broccoli, that cooked broccoli. However, when you cook food, even vegetables or fruit, you are killing essentially, I'm not using very scientific terms here, but you're killing the energy in the food. And so, to prove that, he then took this device and he measured the energy of the raw broccoli and it put off like ten times as much energy as the cooked broccoli, which put off much more than the steak. So, ten times. And it did require an interesting piece of information here. Interesting distinction is it required more energy to digest because when you do cook food, you are breaking it down, which makes it easier to digest. When it's in raw form, your stomach has to do more work to break it down.

 

So, the raw broccoli actually took a little more energy to digest than the cooked broccoli, not as much as the steak but it gave you ten times as much energy. So, you were in an energy surplus. In fact, now that I'm sharing the story, I remember that is what sent me toward being a vegan. I thought, “I want to eat for energy.” And I was in my early twenties when I went to this and I thought, "From now on, I'm going to start eating raw, living food.” That's my diet. I want to have as much physical, mental, and emotional energy as possible so that I can perform at my best in everything I do and feel good. Don’t you feel good when you're energized? Of course, you do, right? Of course. The more energy we have, the happier we are, the more motivation we have, the more discipline we have. Like, think about that, energy is crucial to, again, every aspect of our lives. So, I was vegan for quite a few years and what I would do, I was also lazy and I wasn't a cook.

 

So, I'd make a smoothie in the morning. I’d throw in a banana and a handful of spinach and maybe some berries and a handful of almonds for protein and some water or almond milk or juice, whatever. And I blended up and that was a raw, energizing breakfast. So, that was my breakfast. And then what I do for lunch is I'd make a huge salad to last me for like three, four, or five days. I put in this huge like giant Tupperware bowl. And every day, as I would leave on my sales appointments, I would scoop out a little of the salad, put on some dressing, and the dressing was olive oil, lemon juice, and Bragg's liquid aminos. So, it was not like ranch or anything like that. It was a really light dressing. And then I'd put it in a smaller Tupperware container. I would take it with me and I would eat it during the day for lunch while I was out and about on my appointments. So, that was my like really easy way. The smoothie took five or ten minutes to make in the morning. The lunch, I made it for the entire week or half a week ahead of time. And then when it ran out, I would make it again.

 

And then for dinner, I actually don't remember what I used to eat for dinner back then. I don't remember but it doesn't matter. We're going to get closer to now. And then I read the book, The China Study. I watched the documentary, Forks over Knives. I read the book, and this is more recent, The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in "Healthy" Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain. I read the book How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease. When I read The China Study, it's the most comprehensive study of nutrition ever conducted and the startling implications for diet, weight loss, and long-term health. I watched a documentary called Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days and I want to mention that real quick, just what that was about. They took I forgot the amount of people. It was like 16 people that all had I think is it type 2 diabetes, whatever the more difficult one is. Sorry. I don't have the knowledge on that.

 

But they had diabetes and they put them into a house. So, they all lived there. And literally, they checked their bags. They made sure they didn't sneak in any like snacks or candy. And so, that way they could feed them a raw vegan diet for 30 days and then see the results. 100% of the people that stayed there because one of them left, one of them was like, “I can't do it. I need sugar. I need whatever.” You know, it was too hard for them to do the vegan raw diet but every single person that stayed in the house and followed the diet, their insulin levels were completely normal at the end of the 30 days. They literally reversed diabetes that they were on insulin for. They were all on insulin. They were able to stop taking their insulin after 30 days and I don't know the follow-up. If they didn't maintain the diet, of course, probably their diabetes came back. But only to think about that for a second. Would your doctor tell you that? If you went in with diabetes and you said, "Hey, doc, what's the healthiest way I can cure the diabetes?”

 

You know, I can't speak for anybody but I would imagine, based on my experience with traditional medicine, is they probably wouldn't say, "Hey, if you change your diet, you actually don't take any medication.” You know, I'm assuming here. Again, I don't like to assume but I think that we could all agree this is probably the case. I mean, I don't know how much. I didn’t google how many people are on diabetes medication but I'd imagine it's the majority. And I don't know how many doctors are like, "Hey, you don't need the medication. You can actually cure this completely naturally with no side effects by going to a raw vegan diet for 30 days. You can reverse your diabetes.” It seems like that would be the responsible thing to do if you were really focused on somebody's health. I then watched a documentary called Healing Cancer from the Inside Out. I ended up buying. I was so moved by that documentary. It was all these folks that were curing cancer naturally with diet. And I bought DVDs for all of my family members for Christmas. I don't know if they watched those or not.

 

And then most recently, I read the book Eat Smarter by Shawn Stevenson: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life. And right now, I'm reading a book called Genius Foods, which is also fantastic. And I had Shawn Stevenson on the podcast to talk about the book, Eat Smarter, a while back. I don't know the episode. I'm not looking at it right now but you can find it if you go to MiracleMorning.com/Podcast and then just search Shawn and that should pop up for you. Anyway, so there are some of the books that I have read on nutrition and there's a lot more. In fact, I read when I had cancer, I read Radical Remission, and I read a bunch of books on healing cancer naturally. And, of course, I was juicing every day and that sort of thing when I had cancer. So, all of that is to say that what we're talking about today is a culmination of literally decades of not just research, reading books, and attending events, and watching documentaries, but this is decades of real-life experimentation.

 

This is real-life experimentation where I've been living this for 20-plus years. And I want to mention that for those of you that have in case you heard me say vegan and you didn't shut off the podcast, I know some folks are like, "Oh, I'm not going vegan,” and I'll make sure to address that in the introduction so that you're aware of where we're going with this. But I am no longer vegan. I will say this. I eat for energy and longevity. Those are my two highest priorities. And so, I am vegan. I am raw vegan by day. And I am, I guess, what you would call paleo by night. What that means is I eat raw vegan food in the morning and for lunch and throughout the day as based on that, you know, what I learned at the Tony Robbins event, and I've learned from 20 years of living that lifestyle that I want to eat foods that still have that living energy inside of them that were picked recently. As soon as you cut a vegetable even off of a tree, it starts dying, and eventually, the energy is depleted to nothing. So, the sooner you can eat it, that's why we have a garden at our house now so we can pick food right out of the garden and eat it right away.

 

But this leads into the question I want to ask you, which is why do you eat what you eat? Why do you choose the foods that you do? I don't think I talked about this yet. This is my second time I’m recording the podcast. I got 7 minutes in the first time and then I didn't like where I felt like I was disorganized, so I shut it off. So, we started again. So, now I forget. Did I already mention that in the last episode or this episode? Anyway, forgive me if I'm saying this twice. But again, it's probably worth you considering this twice and that is, do you choose the foods that you choose based on energy and longevity, based on the energetic consequences and the health consequences of those foods? For most of us, we choose it based on taste, based on texture, based on how it's going to make us feel. You go to a restaurant, right? And the conversation is you look at the menu and you go, "What looks good to you?” Right? Well, by looks good, I don't think anybody means what looks like it's going to give you the most energy and provide your cells with the nutrition to fight off disease and live a long, healthy life. That's not what looks good means. It means, “Hm, what sounds good, what tastes good, what's going to melt in your mouth?”

 

Now, to be clear, I absolutely or I shouldn't say only but for the most part, I only eat foods that I love the taste of. I love my smoothie. I love my salad. I love the snacks that I eat that are raw, vegan, healthy, etcetera. I love those things. I love the taste. But that's not the highest priority in terms of the foods that I choose. And so, that's the consideration I'm offering here is that we start choosing the foods that we eat based on the consequences first and then the taste. And what that looks like is figuring out, "Okay. Well, what are the healthy foods that I can eat that are going to give me energy and help me be disease free?” And granted, as you saw, I had cancer and somebody be like, "Well, Hal, you had cancer so how can you talk on this?” Again, leading up to my cancer, I was still eating a ton of vegan ice cream, right? Yeah, I was vegan but ate a lot of ice cream, a lot of sugar, snacked a lot. So, for me, I wasn't following the advice that I am giving to you now. Actually, I shouldn’t say I wasn't. I was to a degree but if you don't remove the bad things in your body, if you don't stop putting cigarettes or sodas or waffles or like if you're eating things that are unhealthy and that are detrimental to your energy levels and to your health, adding positive things isn't going to do very much. You have to eliminate the bad things.

 

And I was of the mindset that I've got so much good, healthy things that I'm eating that it justifies me putting these unhealthy things in my body. And after I got cancer, I went, “Oh, alright, maybe not. Maybe I should be a little closer to impeccable with what I put into my body.” And I think it's like anything it's the 80/20 rule, right? It's making sure that the majority of what goes in your body is healthy. But if there's anything that you're putting in your body that is absolutely unhealthy, if you're eating excessive sugar, if you're drinking soda, if you're putting too many preservatives or chemicals into your body, that's going to have a detrimental effect. And all the healthy food in the world isn't going to eliminate the consequences of those foods that are unhealthy that you put into your body. So, as far as that criteria, why do you choose the foods that you choose, well, I shared this a couple of years back. Adam Stock who owns the company, Rising Stock, he hired me to speak to his team and he wanted me to share what I'm sharing now. This is part of the message that I shared with his team. And he has since told me on multiple occasions, he's a member of Front Row Dads now, so we see each other at Front Row Dads events.

 

He has told me on multiple occasions that some of the best advice that he's ever gotten from me was when I said, “Adam, you've got to decide to value the consequences of the foods you eat above the taste of the foods you eat.” He said that stuck with him. He has since lost I don't know how many pounds but he's lost a ton of weight. He's in great shape. And he said that single strategy, that single piece of advice was the most valuable, the most game-changing for him in terms of improving his diet. So, that's why I share that with you. It's making a conscious decision. And by the way, if that's not in writing right or if that's not cemented in your brain, you're probably going to forget it. So, if I were you, I write that in my affirmations. If you have affirmations around your health or your energy, I would have in the affirmations I would say, “I'm committed. From now on, I am committed to valuing the consequences of the foods I eat.” And when I say consequences, I'm talking in terms of energy and longevity. Those are the two aspects that I'm talking about. So, maybe you have those in the affirmation in parentheses, right?

 

“I am committed to valuing the consequences of the foods I eat in terms of energy,” that's the short-term consequence, “and longevity,” that's the long-term consequence, your health, “above the taste of the food.” And again, taste is a close second. So, for me, it's okay. I want to eat raw vegan food for breakfast, for lunch, and snack. And I usually do like a small snack in between that's raw vegan as well. So, whether it's some fruit or some veggies or some flaxseeds or whatever. But once you decide on, okay, I'm going to eat healthy energizing foods, and you go, "Alright. What tastes really good amongst those?” So, for me, my smoothie, I've tinkered with it for years and found a smoothie that I love the taste of. I get excited to drink my smoothie every morning. So, that decision of what I'm going to eat, it still becomes emotional, right? Because when we're at the restaurant, we're going, “Ooh, that looks so good. Mmm,” and our mouth starts watering. That's an emotional response to food based on the taste, based on the way it will make us feel because it tastes so good. So, I still get to enjoy that when I drink my smoothie in the morning.

 

And my smoothie, well, so it's changed over the years. It's evolved. If you go to the latest Miracle Morning smoothie recipe, it's actually pretty hardcore. It's where I was at for about six months. It was like my Live to 100 smoothie. I've backed off of that a bit. So, here's generally what goes into my smoothie. I start with three Brazil nuts for protein, for fat, and for selenium. Brazil nuts are very high in selenium. Then I put in a handful of organic unpasteurized almonds. Organic Brazil nuts, of course, too. Unpasteurized almonds.

Now, this is an important distinction that I learned somewhere along my health journey, which is pasteurize means that they heat the almonds up and they pasteurize milk, they pasteurize nuts, they pasteurize lots of things. They heat it up to try to eliminate any bacteria that might be in those almonds. Now, I think this– well, I don’t want to go too far down that road. Anyway, I think this is based on germ theory that you’ve got to kill all the bacteria because it’s all bad, whereas we realize that no bacteria is actually really good for you. It’s good for your gut, it promotes gut health, etc. So, another topic from another time.

 

But when you pasteurize almonds, you’ve heated them up. And again, you’ve robbed them of their energy. You’ve killed the nutrients. The nutrient value significantly goes down when you pasteurize something. And you just have to Google unpasteurized organic almonds to find those. And you can get some on Amazon or just Google them and get them online.

 

There’s a great company called Braga Farms that sells– Braga, I think it’s B-R-A-G-A or G-G-A, but Braga Farms down in California. I get a lot of my organic nuts from them because that’s their specialty. That’s all they make. So, when it comes to products, when I find a product, if a company only makes that product and that’s their flagship, that’s all they do, that they make this healthy product, that’s all they make versus a company that that product is one of a wide variety of things that they make. So, they might be a company that makes nuts and seeds and supplements and oils and all sorts of different stuff. I’d rather focus on a company who specializes in something. So, just a little side note.

 

So I put three Brazil nuts, handful of almonds, handful of spinach, handful of organic berries, such as I put blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, a few strawberries. I don’t put bananas anymore. Nothing wrong with that, but I’m always trying to minimize the amount of sugar that I consume, even it’s natural sugar. And there’s different opinions on that. Some experts say you can live completely off fruit, and maybe you can, I don’t know, but I just try to minimize all the types of sugar. I’m a little bit hypersensitive since having cancer.

 

So, berries, nuts, and then I put in a half a scoop of Organifi vanilla protein powder. As you know, that’s our sponsor. But I was putting that in my smoothie long before they were a sponsor, which is why I reached out and asked them to be a sponsor because I love your products, I talk about them anyway. So, I put a half a scoop of Organifi vanilla protein. And again, it’s just because I like to minimize the sweetness, I don’t like it very sweet.

 

And then I put in, oh gosh, it’s a probably close to 10 different– what do I call these? I guess it varies. So, one of them is organic matcha green tea, high in antioxidants. It gives you a little bit of boost of caffeine. It has the amino acid L-theanine in it. So, I put in a scoop of organic matcha green tea powder into my smoothie. I put fenugreek seed into my smoothie. I believe the reason, it’s funny I learn about something I integrate in my life, and then if it’s been there for a while, like a few years, my memory is not the best. So, I often forget, why did I even start doing that? I just know that I was convinced to do it at some point. And so, fenugreek seed, I believe, helps with hormone regulation.

 

I also put in milk thistle seed, which I get a lot of these herbs from MountainRoseHerbs.com because everything they make is organic. And I love the descriptions on each product, like they tell you the history, where it came from, where they sourced it, what the benefits are. It’s fantastic. I get my green tea there. I put beet powder in there, which increases blood flow. I mentioned the milk thistle seed before I move on. Milk thistle seed helps detox your liver. I learned that when I was on my cancer journey because chemotoxicity builds up in the liver. I wanted to take multiple things to detoxify my liver, and I still do that to this day.

 

I also put in organic cinnamon, which I think it helps with blood. Again, I don’t remember all the benefits, I apologize, but I do the research, I decide on things, and then I often forget the details of why I did. And then sometimes, I’ll even throw in some frozen avocado chunks to make the smoothie even creamier. Cacao nibs, I’ll throw in sometimes. I’m trying to think what else, I’m not looking at my smoothie cupboard right now. But that’s more than enough for you.

 

And then I put in water, I just get alkaline water. That’s the base of the smoothie. You just put in orange juice. But again, it’s concentrated sugar, and so, I try to minimize that so I’ll use water. Sometimes, I’ll make my own almond milk. There’s this thing called almond cow. If you Google almond cow, it’s a nut milk maker. And so, I don’t make it every day because it’s extra work, but I will often soak almonds overnight, which causes them to start sprouting. It basically makes them alive.

 

Again, you can literally bring nuts and seeds back to life. If you’ve ever seen that where if you put nuts or seeds into a jar and you soak them, eventually, they will literally start sprouting and growing new life. And you want that energy in your body. So, that’s breakfast, that’s the smoothie. It’s got healthy fats for your brain. It’s got antioxidants to help eliminate free radicals in your body that are cancer-causing. So, my smoothie is designed to give me a lot of energy and longevity. So, that is an example of how you can start your day.

 

You might also just start it by grabbing an apple, that’s living food, or a banana or any living, uncooked fruit or vegetable, and even nuts and seeds can qualify as raw, organic living foods. Again, ideally, if you have nuts or seeds, you want to put them in water and soak them overnight. That starts the germination process or the sprouting process, which then again, it reactivates the life inside of that nut or that seed. And then it goes, that energy is transferred into your body when you eat it. All right, so that’s breakfast.

 

And then for lunch, I just do a salad. And the salad that I make, again, taste is important to me. I want energy and longevity first, and taste is a close second. And so, my salad, you can tinker with your salad, like it has raw organic sunflower seeds and raw organic pistachios just because they give it a really cool flavor and texture. I like that crunchiness. I put in organic Granny Smith apples, organic avocados as well. And I like that contrast between salty and sweet, which is why I throw the apples in there. I used to do organic raisins for that salty and sweet contrast.

 

And then I put in a handful of spinach or romaine lettuce. And then my dressing, which if you missed this on a previous episode, I’ll share the rest with you real quick. This dressing, I promise you, it’s incredible. I’ve made it for many people. People are always like, oh, I got to have the recipe. It’s fantastic and it’s healthy. So, the dressing that I make is organic olive oil, which by the way, that book I’m reading right now, Genius Foods, the first genius food that he recommends is olive oil. And he tells you to literally just pour a tablespoon of it and just drink it, which is fine, but I throw it into my salad dressing.

 

So, I squeeze half a lemon. Sometimes, if it’s a small lemon, I’ll use the whole lemon. So, I use lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil. Cayenne has a lot of health benefits. So, I actually put in a few sprinkles of organic cayenne pepper, and then I like pepper, so I actually load the dressing with organic pepper. And then, last but not least, really, the secret ingredient, if you will, is hummus. So, I buy organic hummus. Now, the brand that I’ve tried, every brand out there that I’ve ever seen, Hope Foods. And I think they used to have it at Whole Foods. I don’t know. I don’t shop at Whole Foods as much anymore.

 

I shop at Sprouts. If you have Sprouts in your area, I know depending on what part of the world or country you live in, you may or may not have these stores near you, or this brand. But Hope Organic hummus, to me, it’s the best texture, it’s the best flavor. And when it comes to flavor, they’ve got such great flavors that I mix up the flavor of the dressing by getting different kinds of hummus.

 

So, today, jalapeño cilantro hummus in my salad that I ate about two hours ago. And they’ve got spicy avocado, which is probably my favorite. Those two are tied for favorite. They’ve got original, of course. So, there’s a handful of different flavors. And so, the way you make the dressing is real simple. I start out with a big salad bowl and I pour in some olive oil, I squeeze the lemon juice, I sprinkle on the cayenne, I sprinkle on the pepper, then I scoop out a big scoop of hummus. And then I take a fork and I whip it into a nice creamy dressing. So, that’s the bottom of my– and I use a large salad bowl.

 

Then, I grab the handful of spinach, I throw it in there. I chop up the apple, I cut up the avocado, put the seeds, all the things. You could add whatever you want, throw in some cucumbers. Oh, I also use sauerkraut because there’s benefits of any fermented food for your gut. And so, I use organic sauerkraut as well. I can’t think of the brand that I use, I’m drawing a blank on that. And anything else that I put in? Pepperoncinis, but I can never find them organic. I use them sparingly, but I only put in a little bit of pepperoncinis for, again, that added kick.

 

So, this salad, it’s got apples, pepperoncinis. It’s got almond, it’s got all these, like it is a party in your mouth, if you will. Like it is so flavorful. And here’s the thing. It didn’t start out that way. It started out with apples and avocados and that dressing. That’s how it started. That was the first time I ever made the salad. We had almost nothing in the fridge. And I was like, we have apples and avocados. I wonder how those will taste together. Wait, I bet if I mix this hummus, like I just experimented and I was like, oh my God, this tastes amazing. Then I added sunflower seeds to it. Then I was like, why don’t I throw in a handful of spinach with that? And then I discovered pistachio, like on and on. And I’ve just built the salad over time, but it is delicious. I love it.

 

Now, if you can afford to order food, if you don’t want to make your own food, I want to give you another option. Now, this is not a sponsor of the show or anything, but I’ve recently discovered Urban Remedy, and I think their website is UrbanRemedy.com. Urban Remedy, they make raw, organic, vegan, pre-made lunches or, I mean, food, eat it whenever you want. And they make a bunch– they make coffee drinks, they make desserts, they make organic, vegan, gluten-free cookies. Everything they make is organic, vegan, and gluten free, I believe, and I think raw.

 

But recently, to mix it up every other week– I’ve been eating a salad I eat for years, and to mix it up, I order Urban Remedy, and just so you know, they just upped their minimum order. If you’re not in California, it’s 150 bucks, which is a lot. It used to be 100, that was fine for me for a week. So, now, I actually split it with my mother-in-law, and so, she gets about $40 worth of the food and I get $110 worth of the food. And I do like every other week, so it just mixes it up.

 

So, if you don’t want to make food and you want something super easy done for you, it’s already energizing, it’s already raw, vegan, and organic, UrbanRemedy.com is a killer option. And I don’t like all their salads. I love their vegan Caesar, I love their Macro Bowl, and I love their Summer Salad, which I think is seasonal right now. That’s what I eat, so is their Summer Salad. So, there you go. So, that’s just an alternative.

 

And also, by the way, they sell that at Whole Foods. That’s where I discovered Urban Remedy initially is I was at Whole Foods and they had a– like on the side of the produce section on an end cap, they had a big Urban Remedy refrigerated section. That’s how I discovered them. So, their food’s incredible.

 

And I got to mention this. They make these sunflower butter squares. Oh, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever eaten in my life. And I order those. It’s like my little raw, vegan treat, if you will. It’s raw, actually, but it’s vegan and it’s low in sugar, it’s only three grams of sugar per square, and I only eat half a square at a time because it’s so rich and decadent. Yes, I said decadent.

 

All right. So, what was the other thing that I was going to share with you? Oh, and then for dinner, I mentioned paleo by night. And I’m going to tell you, I meant to say this earlier, but why I stopped being vegan. And it’s an important component. Why did I stop being vegan? In fact, yeah, this is just like we’re having a conversation, by the way. Like, I’m not delivering a lecture here. We’re just chatting. We’re just talking. It’s like two friends talking.

 

So, the paleo by night, that means that whatever my wife makes for dinner, and I’m very blessed, I don’t ever lose sight of how blessed I am to have a wife that makes us food for a family every night. Like she’s amazing. She cooks for us. And I’m so blessed for that. And so, I do buy the food, to be fair.

 

So, usually, she makes grass-fed steak one night a week. We like Sunday steak night, typically. And then she’ll make chicken usually. One, two nights a week, we’ll have some sort of chicken. And usually, we have beef, sometimes we do hamburgers. Tonight, we’re actually having a barbecue with some friends. So, she’s making grass-fed hamburgers on the grill. Yeah, so I absolutely eat meat. And I’m going to tell you why I stopped being vegan.

 

I forgot what I read. It doesn’t matter. I came across information that talked about– I think somebody asked the question like, how do you get B12 in a vegan diet, meaning vitamin B12, which is a crucial nutrient. Vitamin B12 is a crucial nutrient. And the reason I became vegan, by the way, I mentioned earlier, it was for energy. I wanted to eat for energy and longevity. And I was convinced that a raw vegan diet was the best diet for energy, which I’m still convinced, and longevity. That could be debated. So, that’s why I became vegan.

 

It wasn’t because of animal rights or anything like that. My sister is vegan to this day, and I believe her reasoning is more for animal rights and not harming animals. And I’ll speak to that really quickly. I actually said this to her. I was visiting her a couple of weeks ago and I said this to her, like I don’t want to harm animals, of course. That’s not anything that I would be excited about doing, but I look at nature, to me, nature is our best teacher. If you want to learn how to live your life, look toward nature and look at the way nature operates. Nature has been going strong for millions of years. You think about that. Nature is such a perfect harmonic ecosystem if you will. It’s been thriving for millions of years. It just goes.

 

So, I look at nature to be my teacher. And animals eat other animals in nature. So, I’m not trying to upset, if there’s anyone who’s vegan and supports animal rights, I tread lightly here, but I’m just sharing my perspective, which hopefully, you can accept without getting triggered and realize that there are multiple ways to look at a topic. For me, I realize that in nature, animals eat other animals. That was the first– so I was never against eating animals for that reason.

 

What caused me to switch and to start being vegan is I saw this question, how do you get B12 in a vegan diet? And it was asked, or more correctly, it was someone that was an expert, like they were, I forgot maybe it was David “Avocado” Wolfe. I don’t know who it was. It was somebody that’s considered like in the vegan community to be an expert. And they said it’s almost impossible to get in a vegan diet without supplementation, so you just have to supplement it.

 

They said nutritional yeast, I believe, provides B12. And there was one other ingredient. Oh, algae, I believe it’s algae. So, algae and nutritional yeast are two of the only or very few ways to get B12 in a vegan diet. And that really, I don’t know, startled me, for lack of a better word. I went, well, wait a minute. Again, I look toward nature to be our teacher. I go, if the best diet for human beings to eat was vegan, then why wouldn’t nature make B12 a crucial nutrient prevalent in a vegan diet? Why would you have to either supplement it or go to the bottom of the ocean to get algae? Or I don’t even know, I don’t remember where you get nutritional yeast. I used to put that in my dressing for my– and I went, huh, interesting.

 

And so, then I looked at a couple of things. Okay, so that got me to reconsider being vegan. I thought it seems to me that, number one, if I look toward nature, animals, carnivores eat other animals, there are benefits to that, such as protein and vitamin B12 and iron and other nutrients that are really beneficial for our body. Now, two things to consider is number one is the amount of meat that you eat.

 

So, then I looked at how much B12 do we need? That was my next step. I went, okay, I’m open to eating meat again because it seems that if I want to get B12, that’s arguably the best source for it. I don’t believe that nature or God intended us to supplement, to go to the store and buy capsules of a nutrient that is not in nature. I mean, I invite you to consider that.

 

So, I thought, okay, so it looks like I’m going to start eating meat again. And this was, gosh, five years ago, ten years ago. I literally don’t even remember. It was a long time ago that I started eating meat again. But I went, how much do I need to eat? Because I want to eat the minimum amount of meat to get the nutrients that I need, namely B12. And of course, I googled what other nutrients are absent from a vegan diet. I don’t remember what they were or if there were any others that were significant, but I figured out how much meat I needed to eat.

 

And it was something like– I don’t remember the specifics, but it was like four ounces, once a day or every other day or something like that. So, I went, okay, I’m going eat a minimal amount of meat to get my body the needed amount of B12 and other nutrients. And in the evening, I’m not as concerned with having an abundance of energy because I’m winding down for the day. So, that’s like kind of big picture on what to eat.

 

If you want energy, raw vegan living food is where you’re going to get the most energy. Portion size is very important. The amount of food you eat determines the amount of food you now have to digest and the length of time it takes to digest the food. The more food you eat, the longer it takes to digest, the longer you will be tired. Even goes back to that book Body for Life, six small meals a day. You don’t have to eat six more meals a day. You don’t have to at all.

 

But in general, just know, if you’re eating based on the consequences of the foods that you choose, the energetic and the longevity consequences, then how much you eat, the size of your meal, of the portions that you’re eating that is going to impact your energy arguably more than anything else. And I’m guilty of where I’ll eat a huge healthy meal. Like I go to this restaurant, my favorite restaurant in the world is Cafe Gratitude. They originated in San Francisco. And then when I lived in Southern California, I would go to the one in Temecula. In fact, we’re taking our kids for their birthday to Universal Studios in Los Angeles. And like, whenever I go to anywhere where there’s a Cafe Gratitude, my world revolves around getting to that Cafe Gratitude as often as I can. Anyway, I could go on and on about Cafe Gratitude.

 

But it’s an amazing restaurant. Every item on the menu, by the way, is an affirmation. So, that’s not why I love them but Miracle Morning affirmations. But every menu item is an affirmation. So, when you order, you literally order by affirming thing. So, let’s say you want to get their green juice and their raw tacos and their salad, you would look at the menu, and the green juice might be called I am healthy, and then the tacos might be called I am vibrant, and then the salad might be called I am energetic. So, you look at the waiter or waitress and you go, “Hi, I am vibrant, I am healthy, and I am energetic.” As I say that, it makes me smile. I know the owners of Cafe Gratitude, Matthew and Terces Engelhart, and they are such beautiful human beings. They literally were very successful. Cafe Gratitude was a passion project for them.

 

Anyway, so I’m going on too much of a tangent here. But the point is I’ve gone to Cafe Gratitude and I’ve ordered so much food because it’s so good, it tastes so good, it makes me feel so good. But you can’t have too much of a good thing, of course. And so, I’ve had a major food coma after I ate four entrees at Cafe Gratitude. So, portion size matters.

 

And in terms of when to eat, I’m not going to talk about fasting. That’s, again, a whole ‘nother topic, and it’s not my expertise. And I feel like that requires expertise to really address what’s happening in your body, how often to fast, the dangers of fat. Like that’s a whole ‘nother topic that I’m not going to go into. But I do fast every day. I do intermittent fasting, which you can Google that. Intermittent fasting is essentially, I don’t eat for the first four hours that I’m awake in the morning. That’s not true.

 

I have a large scoop of organic extra virgin coconut oil first thing in the morning so that my brain has fuel and so that my stomach has something for me to take a few supplements that I take. I take the Cured Nutrition Rise in the morning. I take E3Live. It’s actually the algae that has the B12. And I take that in the morning. And then I take HTP in the morning as well, which helps with kind of mood and stuff. I find that really helpful. So, that’s what coconut oil is for. But then I don’t eat for four hours. So, anyway, intermittent fasting, whole ‘nother topic.

 

But here’s the big thing I want to mention is not eating before bed. It takes your body two to four hours to fully digest your food. If you eat food late at night, you’re going to be digesting that food all night long while you’re trying to sleep. And yes, you will be sleeping, but your body will be working and you will not (a) your body should be repairing while you sleep. You should have nothing in your stomach. It should all be digested so your body can repair itself. That’s when your body repairs itself. In fact, that helps you to remain disease-free of giving your body a chance to repair while you sleep. Also, if you eat before bed, you’re going to wake up feeling tired because your body was working all night long. You’re physically fatigued in the morning. So, that’s one.

 

If you wake up feeling tired in the morning, that is potentially a cause is that if you ate late at night, yeah, of course, you feel tired in the morning. Your body’s exhausted. It didn’t get a chance to rest, to rejuvenate, and to repair. It was working, digesting food all night long. As far as when to eat, that’s a really, really important component. Anything else? I’m looking at my notes. Nope, that’s it.

 

All right, goal achievers, I hope that’s been helpful for you. And I want to mention one more time that if you add healthy foods into your life, you start eating more raw vegan foods, it’s equally as important, if not more important, to identify what are the foods that you eat or the supplements you take or the alcohol you drink or the cigarettes you smoke. And of course, quitting addiction is is a whole ‘nother topic, in fact.

 

And if you need help with that, by the way, there is a book, The Miracle Morning for Addiction Recovery, in case you’re not aware of that. I coauthored that with Joe Polish, the founder of Genius Recovery, and Anna David, who is a New York Times bestselling author on books on addiction. And again, the book is called The Miracle Morning for Addiction Recovery. So, it’s a total side note on overcoming addictions. But that’s a crucial piece, is we have to identify what are the things we’re putting in our body that are detrimental that we need to eliminate because eliminating those is arguably more important than adding in the healthy stuff. Of course, once you eliminate them, you got to replace them with something. You can replace them with healthy stuff.

 

But for me, when I got cancer, I thought I was super healthy, but when I actually looked at the unhealthy things I was putting in my body, they were plentiful. I took Adderall, a pharmaceutical drug. Who knows what the long-term effects of that are? I ate a lot of ice cream and was too close to bed. So, when my body was supposed to be repairing itself, it was actually trying to digest sugar, which was– yeah, so not good.

 

So, we’ve got to identify and eliminate, and by the way, what stopped me from eliminating those is the story I told myself that I’m healthy, I eat healthy, I eat healthier than most people. And people would reinforce that, Hal, you eat so healthy, man. We got to eat. And you’re always ordering the healthiest thing on the menu. And I always see you with your smoothies and your salads, like you’re so healthy. So, because my identity was I’m healthy, I didn’t actually look honestly and critically at what I was doing that was unhealthy.

 

And by the way, again, that could be an entire episode that, based on our identity, this goes both ways. But if we have an identity that says, I’m a great spouse, but our wife or husband is complaining about certain things, well, you know, I’m a great spouse. Screw you. You don’t appreciate me. I’ve been there, too, by the way, I’m saying this.

 

It’s like if we have this identity that says we’re great in an area, sometimes that can be to our detriment because it prevents us from actually going, okay, yeah, I’m doing good in this area. I’m doing even great. But am I doing anything that’s detrimental to my relationship, to my health, to my finances, to my emotional well-being? They say good is the enemy of great. So, just because you’re good in an area, it’s important to identify which aspects of any given area of your life. And then today, it’s, of course, health. Are you eating? Are your portions too big? Are you eating a lot of dead, cooked food? What are you doing, based on what we talked about today, that might be detrimental to your energy?

 

And then I’ll just leave you with the premise of if you can make the decision and put it in writing and read it and review it every day, affirm it, and then live in alignment with it, the decision to value the consequences of the foods that you eat and the amount of food that you eat value the consequences in terms of your energy and your longevity, the consequences of the foods value that above the taste. And then once you decide, I’m going to eat foods that give me energy, that make me feel motivated, alive, like so much, an abundance of energy, and I know we’re healthy and I’m going to eliminate the foods that are causing me fatigue and that are potentially going to limit my longevity because they’ve got chemicals and preservatives and hormones and pesticides and GMOs and all the– I’m going to get rid of all that crap. Once you make that decision to value the consequences above the taste, then you go, all right, now I get to explore. Now it gets fun. I get to explore what are the best-tasting foods that are in alignment with my highest priority of valuing the consequences of the foods that I choose.

 

All right, goal achievers, I love you so much. I hope this has been helpful for you. It was really a buffet of thoughts and ideas and knowledge and information, and I hope that you got something that you can implement in your life to increase your energy and your longevity. I love you so much. And I will talk to you next week.