We are quickly approaching New Year’s Day and the annual accounting that accompanies it. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions last year? The year before?
Most of the time, resolutions focus on health issues.
- I will lose weight.
- I will get healthy.
- I will completely change the way I eat.
Within weeks we give up, defeated.
If you’re not healthy, if you continue to say to yourself, “I wish I could eat like that, take care of myself that well,” then do it. If the change is radical, approach it with a project plan – one step at a time.
Step One
One of the reasons change is hard is because it usually starts with taking away something. Instead, start the other way around. Every day, drink a smoothie. It doesn’t matter if you have it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a snack. Just drink a nutrient-dense smoothie. There are two important ingredients: a high quality nutrition powder and, depending on the diet, a balanced oil supplement. In a blender, start with fresh or frozen fruit, cover with juice (not always necessary when using fresh fruit), add two tablespoons of nutrition powder, a tablespoon of flaxseed oil or an omega oil blend, and as much kale or spinach or other greens you can handle. See the Powerfully Healing Raspberry Cream Smoothie Recipe.
Step Two
Your enthusiasm for this project will grow as each step makes a significant difference in the way you feel. Step two is to eat a large salad every day. No, I am not talking about a bowl of lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers. I am talking about an incredibly nutritious salad filled with lots of raw veggies. Make it with at least 12 different vegetables, and throw in some herbs and seeds as well. Be sure to add fresh garlic, turmeric, and pepper for synergistic health benefits. Make it big and munch on it all day if you can’t finish it in one sitting. You might find it easier to make a bunch of this salad twice a week. See 80% Raw Food Diet (amazing salad and dressing recipe).
Step Three
It’s time to learn how to breathe properly. Breathing should be done deeply, in a manner that expands the abdomen as you inhale. Proper breathing dramatically increases stamina and mental clarity, elevates your mood, and helps the body detoxify more efficiently (more toxins are released through breathing than through the pores, urination, and defecation combined). For more information, check out How To Breathe.
Step Four
Between your daily smoothie and your daily salad, you are going to be feeling so much better. Your body is getting the nutrition it needs to repair damage and to thrive on a cellular level. Now that you are feeling better, are you ready to feel a whole lot better? If it’s time, move on to step four. Clean out your kitchen. Get rid of all the crappy processed food filled with artificial colors, flavors, preservatives, MSG, high fructose corn syrup, GMOs, trans fats, and other disgusting chemicals.
You want to eat whole foods, real foods, organic foods. But while we’re taking something away, let’s add something. One of the most amazing things you can do for your body is to take up drinking a gallon of cranberry stevia lemonade a day. Drink it throughout the day. Check out this recipe.
Step Five
Increase the amount of raw foods you eat. Aim for 80% raw – more vegetables than fruit. Produce heals. Munch on produce all day, and eat the aforementioned big salads.
Step Six
It’s time to detox, and balance the gut’s eco-system (though the aforementioned salads have made a huge difference already). True health is achieved by providing the body with the nutrition it needs and ridding it of the parasites, yeast, heavy metals, chemicals, and other garbage that doesn’t belong.
You have the choice to take each of these steps fast or slow. The point is, be sure each step is ingrained before moving on. Check out Kill Candida and Balance The Gut Quickly. See the previous link for a cheap and easy detox.
Step Seven
Do squats. Start with a few, and do a few more every day. Get up to 100 every day. Take your time, and work your way up.
Be sure to see the first link for more on diet and a great salad recipe.
Can you imagine making such a radical change and how it will impact your life? If you can imagine it, you can do it. Just start with step one.
Step Eight
It’s time to take up running! We are made by nature to run, just like we are made to do squats. Running seriously detoxifies the body, flushes the lymphs glands, produces lots of great hormones, and is incredibly good for you. For optimum health, work up to being able to run long distances but also mix it up, do sprints (sprints are great to jump start a thyroid that’s beginning to heal), do slow jogs, and anything in between. Running long distances with an unhealthy body (or with the wrong shoes) can be very bad for your health and lead to injury and many other issues. On the other hand, when you’re in excellent health, running long distances a couple of times a week is one of the best things you can do for yourself.
If running is too much for you right now, start with speed walking, rebounding, and jumping rope (other great exercises).
This would also be a great time to take up yoga. The more well rounded your fitness regimen is, the better it is for your health. Try not to get stuck on one thing. Check out Yoga, A Beginner’s Guide. Also see, Running Without Knee Pain.
Check out and bookmark this list of “Foundational Articles.” See the top one for a Cheap and Easy Detox recipe for the lemonade recipe and a good detox protocol. For a recipe to make your own nutrition powder filled with vitamins and minerals check Make Your Own Homemade Nutrition Formula.
Recommended Supplements:
Further Reading:
- Raw Food Diet
- How to Kill Candida and Balance Your Inner Eco-system
- Garlic – The Most Amazing Herb on the Planet
- Cheap and Easy Detox Diet Plan