jump-start your day and energize your mind

Calorie Restriction
Calorie Restriction (CR) improves health and slows the aging process by seriously limiting unnecessary dietary energy intake. In both animal and human subjects, CR radically lowers cholesterol, glucose, and blood pressure. There is a direct correlation between these key biomarkers and diseases associated with aging. While few people follow this extreme path, CR is the only known dietary technique capable of extending both animal and human lifespan by as much as one-third. Advocating scientists have recently expanded the initial ‘CR’ to ‘CRON’ (Caloric Restriction with Optimal Nutrition) –sufficient quantities of vitamins, minerals, and other important nutrients must be a critical part of this equation. The key to CRON is to pack as much nutrition as possible into low-calorie eating. Healthy CRON is the opposite of eating disorders. In reality, better health comes from eating significantly less (especially when your food quality is high). It’s actually a neat feeling to be slightly hungry at least some of the day. The body then has a chance to ‘take a break’ from digesting—has a chance to ‘look around and do improvements.

Glycemic Response
Keep your Glycemic Response Low: Consumption of even medium quantities of sugar, corn syrups, juices, and foods that quickly convert to sugar are directly related to disease. Over time sugar provokes an insulin response than leads to numerous health problems and acute energy shortages. Because there’s so many wonderful foods to enjoy, why eat added sugar at all? (If you still must, one of the lowest glycemic response sweeteners is ‘agave juice’).

Antioxidents
Load up on Antioxidants: Free radicals and cellular oxidation harms your body. An antioxidant is a molecule capable of slowing or preventing the oxidation of other molecules. Oxidation reactions produce free radicals which start chain reactions that damage cells. Although this problem is immediately relevant to hair and skin health, it’s the brain and organs that really suffers. One huge problem is that the most useful antioxidants are destroyed by shelf-life, processing, juicing, heating, and packaging. Another problem is that most antioxidants aren’t even ‘bioavailable’ and (even when they are) they don’t last long in your body. Additionally, most of the ORAC labels on foods (a so-called measure-scale of antioxidants) are distorted with marketing spin. Although there are wonderful innovations in antioxidant supplements (grape seed and extract, reservatrol, carefully-constructed freeze dried powder mixes) its always best to use the most original source (cacao nibs, dark berries and fruits, spices, dark vegetables and darker salads). We recommend both.

Healthy Fats
Essential fats are vital to mental and physical health (especially skin and hair). Essential fatty acids (such as Omega 6 and 3’s) cannot be constructed within the body and therefore must be obtained from your diet. Lots of external sources exist but be very careful of contamination and heating processes (fish, shellfish, flaxseed, hemp oil, soya oil, canola oil, chia seeds, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, coconut, leafy greens, nuts with an emphasis on walnuts). Few people get enough essential fats—or take them in the right balance.

Vitamins
Vitamins and Supplements: Taking a carefully constructed multivitamin twice per day is useful insurance. Vitamin D is gaining increasing media attention because few urban dwellers get enough sunshine on their skin. Vitamin D regulates calcium, phosphorus, bone formation and mineralization. Quality E’s, B’s, folic acid, and heavy, bioavailable C’s are also recommended. A’s is also critical but only in small amounts.

Hunger
Timing, Hunger, and Habit. Realize that eating after 6:00 pm, or snacks before bed, generally end up as stored fat. Going to bed slightly hungry allows the body to focus on clean-up, rejuvenation, and improvement. Processing ‘late-comer’ meals means quickly shelving calories into fat cells, and then waking up tired. Dinner is a time for very small meals of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants—salads, vegetables, and small amounts of proteins.

Reframe Food
Reframe your Relationship to Food: Perfect food to a scientist is nothing more than electrochemical fuel (like allocating specifically formulated and measured fuel to a delicate rocket). On the other hand, food to most of us has become emotional medication, pleasure, entertainment, expression, and distraction. While that’s not necessarily bad in itself, even these values are lost when our cravings become excessive as a conditioned habit—largely unconscious, generally unsatisfying, and ultimately destructive. Taking on more fuel than we can biologically utilize wears our body out, drags us down, and ages us prematurely. The Discovery Channel’s ‘The Human Footprint’ illustrates that the average American consumes, digests, and excretes more that 84,000 pounds of food in their lifetime—not including fluids. This is a constant and exhaustive effort for the body. On average, less then half of our food is needed. To a friendly Robot from another galaxy, human food might be celebrated as the sacred (electrochemical) transference of both intelligence and energy from the Earth directly into a water based biological sack with magical transference properties. ‘Dirt becomes strawberry—becomes gas—becomes tissue—becomes emotion—becomes kiss—becomes baby—becomes cloud—becomes rainbow.’ Eating perfectly and ‘deep thinking’ about the process really means appreciating and enjoying this incomprehensible miracle more. Less is best—and ‘deeper thinking’ is more.

Reframe Exercise
Reframe Physical Exercise: Although the chore of sweating and wheezing isn’t something many people look forward to, without significant physical exercise very little of the above tips work well—especially if your metabolism is slow due to aging or genetics. Without exercise and optimal nutrition, as our older bodies experiences calorie restriction muscle tissue sheds off faster than fat. Missing both breakfast and lunch and then going to bed with a full stomach is a great way get weak, age faster, and get fat. It only takes a few weeks to reframe exercise as a reward. Start small and easy. Make exercise into a game. Make it fun. Design and record benchmarks to measure progress. Exercise is a time devoted to your brain. It’s a time to think (many of your most creative thoughts happen during exercise because more nutrients are absorbed by your brain and your breathing pH blood-gas balance is more optimum). Exercise can also be a time to pray or meditate (Some indigenous Americans use running as a form of prayer—an offering to Nature, a time to connect and reflect). Some people also use exercise as a form of ‘penitence”—an offering or gift in exchange for grace, energy, apology, insight, respect, or appreciation. Exercising can also be time to explore your neighborhood, meet new people, study the sky, take a break, set your priorities, and reconnect with things that really matter. With the right perspective, exercise becomes a celebration of your freedom and existence. If you don’t understand this perspective, talk to someone who lives in a wheelchair or is bed bound. Within a few weeks, exercise will become part of who you are.

Reframe Your Life
Reframe your Life: The idea here is that eating better and exercising more will improve the overall quality of your day. Looking better in the mirror is actually the last thing on our list of priorities.

Learned Optimism Learning to be Happier:
Studies prove that people can actually learn to be happier, more optimistic, more resilient, and more grateful if they practice—learn a few simple techniques or ‘pretend’ just a little. Even those test subjects who felt that their ‘learning optimism’ exercises were silly, became 25% happier when they regularly listed reasons why they felt grateful about something (regardless of their difficult environment). Although life is often hard and unfair, the most destructive negativity comes from lingering conditioned habits and unrealistic (illusionary) expectations.