Hey everyone,

Reading Jimmy’s email yesterday night made me recall a very important point, which I’d like to share in today’s TIP: What about “cheat” meals?

Well, first things first. I do believe that there is a case to be made for cravings possibly indicating a lack of a certain nutrient in your diet. When it comes to potato chips, for instance, it can signify a need for sodium or perhaps a lack of fat in the diet. That being said, however, we must consider that many processed foods nowadays, especially snack foods, are chemically engineered to trigger certain parts of our brain that make us instantly want more. Literally similar to a crack cocaine or heroin reaction! Given that, it’s almost impossible to determine the real cause of the craving, so then, what to do?

My personal approach, now (wasn’t always this way), after having transformed my life through years of healthy eating, is to let myself indulge a bit, when the situation naturally arises. This means, if I go out to a restaurant (which is something I avoid as much as possible due to low food quality almost everywhere outside our home), I try not to worry too much about the exact ingredients in the food I’m eating, and I may even try some dessert at the end, if it looks like a real treat, not just senseless sugar consumption.

This may not work for everyone and may not be advisable for people who know they tend to go off the deep end at such opportunities (and/or afterwards).

Another approach that many people have is to eat well all week and then reward themselves guilt-free with absolutely anything they desire, for one meal per week, not an entire day of the week. This is also fine as long as it works for you. As before, know yourself and try different things until you find your favorite.

If you’re a person who likes to dedicate one meal per week to something you love but shouldn’t have often, I believe a good guideline is to avoid gluten containing grains (mainly wheat, rye and barley) particularly because of their opiate-type proteins called casomorphins – literally resulting in addiction to those foods. Not to mention that gluten causes inflammation in the gut lining and changes the gut’s bacterial colonization. This can have some seriously deleterious effects in the long run, because it acts silently and without obvious symptoms for prolonged periods of time – probably in a ton more people than those officially diagnosed with a sensitivity or full-blown Coeliac disease. But even on the short-term, what good is pasta if it’s going to derail you from your goals in the coming days? Be careful about your choices!

What I don’t agree with and I think is completely counter-productive and unhealthy, is those people who plan all week and look ahead to that one gratifying meal. Once again, this resembles the behavior of a drug addict, so you can never achieve a healthy and sane balance this way. If you feel deprived, you’re going to binge at some point – period. And that’s when the wheels start to fall off the wagon…

So how not to deprive yourself then? Simple: forget about SAD recommendations and current conventional wisdom. To function optimally, your body needs a lot of fat, some protein and very little carbohydrates, the latter being largely dictated by your level of activity. You should literally eat fat to lose fat (entire books have been written about this), but the idea goes so contrary to the lie we’ve been sold for the last 50+ years that people still find it impossible to believe. Also, when eating right, there is no need to limit the quantity of food. Whole foods (with plenty of added fat!) are very satiating and will fill you! In any case, you don’t have to take my word for it; I highly encourage you to educate yourself, experiment and discover the truth.

In the end, whatever you choose, be honest with yourself about how well it’s working. Sometimes we need to go back to the drawing board and try something completely different.

Cheers, in good health.

Choice, not chance, determines destiny.
–E.C. McKenzie

What you eat in private will show up in public.
–Unknown

Nothing tastes as good as healthy feels.
–Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

Greetings to all health-conscious people out there!

My TIP for today is this: If you’re “trying” to lose weight, have you ever heard of Jon Gabriel and The Gabriel Method? You may be intrigued or astonished with what you find.

He’s a fascinating man (with a biochemistry background) who used to weigh over 400 pounds, but was able to lose over 220 of that – and keep it off for more than 10 years now. What’s particularly interesting about this story is that he accomplished this by using a holistic, mind-body approach to sustainable weight loss – without dieting or suffering! This is not a hoax, this is a true story. Just the picture of his transformation is incredible:

After he dramatically changed his life, he wrote a book about it and it has now become a best seller in 6 countries, it’s been translated into 16 languages, and has sold over 350,000 copies. In fact, he is now basically giving away the book through his website. You can check out some very favorable reviews of The Gabriel Method on Amazon. Even critics of the book consider the info contained in it to be very valuable.

His sane, unique and refreshing approach to weight loss is a wonderful tool to use, in an industry that’s all too dependent on gimmicks, unrealistic and restrictive eating plans, not to mention expensive yet useless supplements.

You may be surprised to find out that after all he’s learned on his personal journey, he considers weight gain to be a symptom of a greater underlying disorder, and his approach targets the root cause. Among other things, he discusses the detrimental effects of dieting, nutritional starvation/famine (lack of essential nutrients), emotional eating and how stress affects the chemical balances in our bodies. Not surprisingly, although he doesn’t have a strict eating plan, he also advocates a whole foods approach to healthy eating, except that this is just one aspect of his method. Unlike almost anyone else, he puts a big emphasis on the mental aspect of losing weight. He uses relaxation and visualization as a way to reprogram the negative internal beliefs we hold on a subconscious level.

While I have not read the book myself, I heard him interviewed on an episode of the Underground Wellness podcast, which I highly recommend, if you’re an audio learner like myself.

This is ground-breaking stuff and definitely worth checking out!

Contemplate yourself as surrounded by the conditions which you intend to produce.
–Dr. Wayne W. Dyer (self-help author and motivational speaker)

The groundwork of all happiness is health.
–Leigh Hunt (English critic, essayist, poet and writer)

If you want to look young and thin, hang around old fat people.
–Jim Eason (talk radio personality)

Hey guys, you’ve already made it to double digits! Keep on truckin’, you’re on a roll!

Here’s your Day 10 TIP: Do you really want to accomplish something but are intimidated just by the thought it? I know, I’ve been there – especially when the objective is large or otherwise complex. This can often lead to inaction…

A simple solution comes for a less daunting perspective or approach: set mini-goals! This will increase the likelihood of you staying motivated and committed to your original goal. Also, starting off by putting your larger overall objective as well as the broken-down mini-goals in writing will help make it more real and concrete. In fact, I would even recommend you make an actual written and signed contract with yourself, and hold yourself accountable for the outcome. Taking your health seriously is no trivial matter!

That being said, I have another useful tool which has been indispensable in my own successes: streak tracking!

I use a printed calendar on my fridge where I track whatever I am currently committed to doing daily (or at whatever interval you choose), but this can also be done quite effectively using technology – and comes with the added benefit of social motivation. For instance, there’s an excellent free iOS app called Lift which allows you to track your habits while other people (who you may not even know) encourage you to keep going. It’s quite interesting and definitely worth checking out. If an app is not your thing, I would recommend you post your goal on Facebook; making a public proclamation of your intent will make you think hard before your ever give up!

So, in summary, come up with a plan, break it down, track it, then get motivated and stick to it!

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
-Benjamin Franklin

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.
-Zig Ziglar

Dear Feel-Good-Health-Challengers, hope you’re feeling great and firing on all cylinders today!

Today’s TIP is about food quality and shopping smart. You may have heard some people tout the nutritional superiority of organic foods (or even better, biodynamic), and I would definitely agree that they are incomparable in nutritional value, regardless of whether people say they can’t taste the difference. The reason for this, you ask? When you buy produce, it’s often already at least a week old, plus the soil it came from is nutrient deficient and depleted. Nowadays, commercially farmed soil is especially deficient in most minerals. Typical chemical fertilizers are made up of primarily 3 nutrients: N, P, K, (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium), but where are the rest of the 52 minerals needed for optimum soil health? Nowhere to be found, in most cases! So it doesn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to understand that if our soils are deficient, then the food we eat is deficient, making our bodies deficient.

However, there are some simple steps we can take. Like buying the right things organic (those that matter most) and also buying locally, which usually means much more freshness. Also, it’s very important to be aware of which fruits and vegetables are highest in pesticides. The EWG puts out an annual list of Pesticides in Produce. You can also print the shorter one-page PDF version (for yourself and everyone you love), and stick it on your fridge for quick reference. It contains the famous Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen. If you made the effort to buy the organic counterparts of at least the top 10-15 worst items on that list, you will be doing a great service to your health – especially in the long term – and it’ll only set you back a few extra dollars for the week. If you find it expensive, I suggest you seriously consider paying a premium for quality food now, rather than a lot more in medical expenses later on. Invest in your body, your temple! We all know we spend a ton of money of far less important things.

I think our nearby Runaway Creek Farm puts it best, on their website:

GOOD… Buying foods from organic growers who are passionate about sustainable, healthy food and the future of our planet.

BETTER… Buying foods from organic growers who are local. Support your community and consume less energy from the farm to your table.

BEST… Buying your food from a local organic grower whom you know! Visit our farms and discover our passion for creating your food.

In terms of meats, it is always preferable to choose pasture-raised or grass-fed animals, which is the intended food and environment that all these wonderful creatures were designed for and need in order to thrive. You cannot get health from eating sick animals! The conventional grain-fed animals found everywhere have been literally tortured and fattened up as quickly as possible on a GMO corn-based diet, closely resembling the SAD. It’s no wonder people and animals are both getting sicker together! This type of feed is so unnatural and inappropriate to a cow’s digestive system that it makes their internal organs nearly fail by the time of slaughter. In fact, they are often kept alive with the antibiotic supplements in their diet. I strongly suggest you watch the powerful and shocking (Academy Award nominee) documentary Food, Inc. for more info. Given this, don’t expect to find much of the beneficial Omega-3 fats normally found in their meat; what we get rather is much higher Omega-6 content, which we are already over-consuming as a population.

Same goes for fish, opt for wild caught whenever possible. Farmed fish is fed the cheapest soy and colorants to give them the precise weight and look that sells. Wild salmon is very high in healthy Omega-3 fats because it eats lots of krill, whereas caged farmed salmon has never even seen krill in its entire life! This means that we’re talking about entirely different animals, in reality. A final example is real raw honey (that contains actual bee pollen as well as over a hundred different compounds!), which has almost nothing in common with the sugar-filled bear honey container you may see in grocery stores. Just some food for thought… pun intended!

Let’s make some wise choices where it counts the most and whenever possible. If you’d like to join me and help bring down the price of quality food (which we’re entitled to!), let’s all be mindful consumers and vote with each dollar we spend! Demand inevitably lowers prices, over time. The longer we continue to consume (and thus demand) garbage quality, on and on it will continue to go.

The health of the people is dependent upon the quality of the food they consume. And the quality of their foods depends on the quality of the soil on which that food is grown.
-Jerome I. Rodale (founder of Rodale Press and known for his Prevention Magazine)

Man seeks to change the foods available in nature to suit his tastes, thereby putting an end to the very essence of life contained in them.
-Sathya Sai Baba (Indian guru)

We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun.
-George Orwell (English novelist and journalist)