When I returned home from college, I was struck at the knees with some terrible news. First, my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He’s in his 60’s, but I never thought my dad could get cancer! He’s the man that I look up to most. HOW COULD THAT HAPPEN? The entire family got tense. Things got weird.

As we were all dealing with Dad and the treatment options, my mom got some of the same kind of news – she had cancer too. Lucky for her, it wasn’t a vital organ, but it was in her nose. A weird place for it to be, but still — NOT COOL.

As I tried to look up treatments, I began to think of WHY this could happen. Why did both of my parents succumb to cancer? Neither of them smoke, they’re not obese, they don’t work with any dangerous chemicals…

Then I zoomed out and noticed a lot of people in my life were also experiencing cancer. I remember a kid I went to high school with who had testicular cancer at 16, a recent friend with brain cancer … the list keeps going.

What was going on?

I started to read more about the average American diet – because that’s who these people were, Average Americans. It was here that I found something very interesting…

I realized that our bodies are amazing machines. We can feed them a diet based mostly on corn syrup and refined sugar and somehow, they grow beautiful nails, hair and bones. Think about that! What other machine can turn something so lacking into something so incredible?

Did you know that 1/3 of the American Diet is junk food and soda? Refined sugars by the tablespoon slip into soft drinks and are consumed daily by millions of people. Diet sodas have artificial sweeteners that are VERY questionable.

It had to be the diet. My parents got cancer, I believe, because of their diet. Meat, potatoes and a little side salad with buttermilk ranch was a staple in my home. It covered all the levels that had been drilled into our heads, based on the Food Pyramid. But… the proportions were all wrong!

I remember reading that green, leafy vegetables had every mineral and vitamin we need to live. EVERYTHING in one source! I was eating lettuce in the salad, but only a tiny amount, and that was AFTER I had eaten my steak, if I had room in my belly.

After I took accountability for my health, I started to integrate more vegetables into my diet. Holy WOW did it change the way I felt. My digestion improved with all the extra fiber, my blood sugar was not fluctuating as drastically, and I wasn’t as hungry as I used to be.

I was harnessing the energy of natural greens – not cooked, steamed, or fried. The natural way they grow in the world. For flavor, I add a little balsamic vinegar or I juice them all in a handy electric juicer. The way my body responds is phenomenal, and changed my life in a HUGE way.

Tomorrow, I want you to have a big, fat salad for dinner. Don’t add cheese or croutons or anything besides fresh fruit and veggies. Stay away from anything canned – you don’ want it pasteurized (flash cooked) because it destroys all the enzymes. But that’s another story…

Be a Green Giant!

P.S. – Try to eat organic greens. I usually pick up a “tub” of them for $3-4 and it lasts me 3 days. Those are BIG organic salads. And don’t go for the discounted ones – if you get a big tub (2 pounds, I think they’ll go bad before you finish them. I pay the $1 premium to make sure they are fresh and full of love and goodness!Read more...

What if I told you that you had the World’s Best Drug available to you, on tap? This is better than anything you can buy in a pill, or get addicted to. It’s the basic building block of your body – Water.

It seems so crazy to me that I used to live in such a dehydrated state. The coffee, soda, and poor processed foods all lacked water, or were bound up with diuretics that excreted all of the water in my body. I could drink 60+ ounces of soda a day and still be dehydrated!

After I began to listen to my body and see what it was telling me, I noticed that water was seriously lacking in my life. The foods I ate robbed me, and I wasn’t working hard enough to put that water back in.

The biggest thing I did to increase my hydration and digestion was to increase not only my raw water intake every single day (about .5oz per pound of body weight a day) but also to increase the amount of water-rich foods I eat. Switching from a cooked animal to a ripe tomato on my salad made a huge difference in the way I felt.

Here’s something I want you to do tomorrow morning:

When you wake up, drink a full glass of water. I do it out of a glass jar, about a half liter every morning. I do this before I brush my teeth or use the bathroom – it’s the first thing I do. Why? Because it’s the time that my body is the most dehydrated in the day. I haven’t drank any water since the night before! To double your success, drink the same half liter before bed. After a few days of doing this, I wasn’t being woken up to use the bathroom, but instead my body put the new water to work.

I wake up now more hydrated than I used to, and I take care of my body the moment I rise. Do this simple step and you too will start feeling much healthier!Read more...

Back when I was a kid, I remember having issues with some neurological stuff. The only problems I ever experienced was having some muscle spasms in my right arm and down my side, sometimes all the way up my neck. It felt like I was being forced to move in a certain way, and would only last about 3-8 seconds.

Not a huge issue, but my parents wanted me to see a doctor to learn more. So, we researched the best doctors in the state, and I ended up at the University of Michigan pediatric unit for neurological disorders.

After a battery of tests, which included walking down a hall and visualizing whatever made me have these spasms, they diagnosed me with Dystonia. The diagnosis came with a bottle of Tegretol, and was supposed to cure my problems once and for all.

I did what any good kid would do – I took the drugs on time, 2x a day, and waited for the results to show. After weeks, I realized I was irritable and not functioning as my true self. It was at that point that I threw every last pill away and focused on what the real issue was – Stress.

Stress controlled me in a few social situations, and created a lot of negative emotions in my body. I began to look deeper and found exercises for controlling my breath and releasing stress that way. What a huge thing to run across!

It took me only a few short days to totally rid myself of that mystery disease and finally have control over how I feel. I do this simple exercise whenever I’m stressed out and need a break… you should try it right now!

Simply inhale through your nose for a count of 4, then hold for 4 seconds, and then exhale through your mouth for a count of 8. The long exhale helps to clear out the lungs, and the inhale should be done to push out your stomach – like you’re really sucking the air in deep.

I do this exercise daily, often if I’m in a situation where there is a lot of tension or stress. I can quickly do this and it changes my entire mind. Focusing on my breath makes me become aware of my body, how it operates, how I really feel, and if there is anything out of balance. Understanding you breath is the first step to gaining control over your health.

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