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21 Day Keto Diet Plan for weight loss (Keto Beginners)

The 21 Day Keto Meal Plan

The 21 Day Keto Meal Plan is a complete Keto meal plan program from us for beginners to jumpstart their keto journey. It’s designed to help you lose weight and boost your energy while eating delicious foods and cooking easy meals.

Keto Can Be Tough!

You want to stick to Keto, but you still have to go to work, look after your family, and live your life. But on top of all that, you now have to figure out how Keto works as well as learn how to create Keto meals daily.

That’s why we’re here to help. Instead of spending hours each week meal planning, figuring out what’s keto and what isn’t, and counting carbs, we do all the hard work for you!

Our goal is to make your Keto life easy and healthy…

This meal plan is designed to be under 20g net carbs per day. Calories range between 1000 and 1500 calories per day. All recipes come with nutritional data and are dairy-free (except for ghee) as well as Paleo and packed with whole foods ) no grains, no legumes, no artificial sugars).

This meal is easy on your pocket too, keeping it simple so that you do not have to shop for more than 30 ingredients each week or have leftovers.

How Many People is this Meal Plan Designed for?

The meal plan is designed for 2 adults eating lunch and dinner.

We aim for around 1000-1500 calories and under 20g net carbs for those 2 meals so that you can add in breakfast, snacks, or desserts if you wish as well.

You should of course, tailor the amount of food as well as the ingredients to fit your exercise regimen, lifestyle, allergies, etc.

What About Breakfast?

We know you love variety and don’t want to be bored on Keto, but we highly suggest finding a few breakfast recipes you enjoy and sticking to them. This will make your mornings so much faster and easier.

That’s why we make 3 breakfast suggestions per week (recipes are also included), but we leave it up to you to decide which one to eat each day.

What About Desserts?

While we suggest you don’t eat desserts or snacks regularly (so that you can break the habit and better regulate your insulin response), we also know that occasionally, you’ll want something.

For healthy Keto approved desserts – check out this amazing cookbook ‘Keto Sweets’ (for a limited time the publishers are giving away free print copies of this cookbook so make sure you grab a copy before they run out of stock.) Get your free copy of Keto Sweets, here.

Recommended Keto Resources

To achieve your weight loss and health goals, choosing the Keto lifestyle is a great option. Thousands of men and women, daily are adopting this amazing way to live life and bring positive permanent changes to their life. But the path is not easy, and the transition will test you and for that matter you need to be equipped with all the tools and resources required. Below is a list of recommended resources, which will catapult your keto journey to a different level of success.

The 28-Day Keto Challenge (For Beginners) – Most people on a new diet have no plan. They learn what to eat… and not to eat. They try new recipes…. But they DON’T have a daily plan to carry them through that critical first month. Without a plan, it’s too easy to fall for peer pressure… to be unprepared… and to make bad decisions. So why do it? We have guided over 416,387 people to keto success … Simply follow this plan and you WILL succeed. The 28 Day Keto Challenge is a well-crafted plan that gets you through your first month. You’re never left out on your own. Nothing is left to chance… Start your 28 Day Keto Challenge, here.

Keto Bread Recipes – Great News! You Do NOT Have to Give Up Your Favorite Bread, Sandwiches & Pizza to Follow a 100% Paleo or Ketogenic Diet…Enjoy Your Favorite Breads Again Without Worrying about Your Health, Your Blood Sugar… or Your Waistline! Get your copy of Keto Breads Cookbook, here.

Keto protein powder – This is our favorite brand, because its completely plant based (vegan). Delicious and cost effective, but you may choose differently just make sure its not loaded with hidden carbs.

Keto Greens – get your daily dose of vegetables in a glass, keeping track of macro nutrients is key to Keto success. But in that process most people forget to look after the essential micro-nutrients, which results in Keto Flu and other complications. With a glass of Organifi Green Juice, you’ll supplement all the necessary vitamins and minerals which are crucial for healthy weight loss.

Keto Alternative – Even though keto can be considered the holy grail for weight loss, but unfortunately for some women it becomes unsustainable and many just can’t follow this strict no carb regimen. For women who think going Keto isn’t their cup of tea, then I would recommend The Cinderella Solution. This is a super effective weight loss program, based on the concept of ‘flavor pairing’ which supercharges women metabolism and you can lose all the weight you want without eating all that fat. But sadly, it works for Women only. Check out how a pre-diabetic mom, discovered this female fat-loss code missed by modern medicine and lost 84lbs using 2 a simple 2-step ritual that 100% guarantees shocking daily weight loss.

Keto is MORE than just a diet?

We’re huge believers in eating a real food diet filled with nutrients. That’s why we’re dedicated to creating these amazing meal plans for you. However, living a fullfilled and healthy life is more than just diet. Your sleep, stress levels, community, and exercise levels all matter too.

WEEK 1 – Keto Meal Plan

Below is a brief overview of how the meal plan looks like. Later on you’ll find the full recipes.

Week 1 Breakfast Ideas

Traditional Keto Coffee

Keto Chocolate Hazelnut Muffins

Keto Bacon Mini Frittata

Day 1

Lunch – Bacon and Avocado Caesar Salad

Dinner – Chicken Mushroom Kale Casserole

Notes – Make enough Caesar dressing for Day 6 Lunch and Casserole for Day 3 Dinner

Day 2

Lunch – Lemon Pepper Tuna Salad

Dinner – Quick Ground Beef Stir-Fry

Day 3

Lunch – Simple Egg Salad

Dinner – Leftover Chicken, Mushroom and Kale Casserole

Notes – Make enough egg salad for Day 5 Lunch

Day 4

Lunch – Broccoli Bacon Salad with Fried Eggs

Dinner – Beef Teriyaki with Sesame and Kale

Note – Make enough beef teriyaki for Day 7 Dinner

Day 5

Lunch – Leftover Egg Salad Stuffed Cucumber Boats

Dinner – Pan Fried Tuscan Chicken Pasta

Day 6

Lunch – Garlic Shrimp Caesar Salad

Dinner – Apple Dijon Pork Chops with Roasted Broccoli

Day 7

Lunch – Chicken ‘Noodle’ Soup with Easy Side Salad

Dinner – Leftover Beef Teriyaki with Sesame and Kale

WEEK 1 RECIPES

Breakfast: Traditional Keto Coffee

Prep Time: 5 mins Cook Time: 0 mins Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients:

2 cups of black coffee (480 ml)

2 Tablespoons of ghee (30 ml)

1 teaspoon of MCT oil (5 ml) (or more, if desired)

Instructions:

Place the coffee, ghee, and MCT oil in a blender and blend until fully combined.

Divide the coffee between 2 mugs and serve.

Calories: 143 Fat: 17 g Total Carbs: 0 g Fiber: 0 g Sugar: 0 g Net Carbs: 0 g Protein: 0 g

Breakfast: Keto Chocolate Hazelnut Muffins

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 20 mins Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients:

3 cups of almond flour (360 g)

1/2 cup of coconut oil (120 ml), melted (plus additional to grease the muffin pan)

1/2 cup of hazelnuts (100 g), chopped

4 large eggs, whisked

1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg (1 g)

1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves (1 g)

Stevia or low carb sweetener of choice, to taste

Dash of salt

1 teaspoon of baking soda (8 g)

3 oz of 100% dark chocolate (80 g), broken into small pieces

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C). Grease a 12-cup muffin pan with coconut oil or line with paper liners.

In a large bowl, mix to combine the almond flour, melted coconut oil, chopped hazelnuts, whisked eggs, ground nutmeg, ground cloves, stevia, salt, and baking soda.

Pour equal amounts of batter into the prepared muffin pan. Place equal amounts of the dark chocolate pieces into each muffin cup. Press the chocolate pieces into the batter.

Place the muffin pan in the oven and bake for 18 to 20 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into a muffin.

Remove the muffin pan from the oven and let cool before serving. Store any leftover muffins in an airtight container.

Calories: 282 Fat: 25 g Total Carbs: 6 g Fiber: 3g Sugar: 1 g Net Carbs: 3 g Protein: 8 g

Breakfast: Keto Bacon Mini Frittata

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 30 mins Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

Avocado oil, to grease a muffin pan

4 slices of bacon (112 g), diced

8 spears of asparagus (128 g), chopped small

2 Tablespoons chopped onions (30 g)

8 medium eggs, whisked

1/2 cup of coconut milk (120 ml)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C). Grease a 12-cup muffin pan with avocado oil or line with paper liners.

In a medium skillet, saute the bacon over medium-high heat until crispy, about 5 minutes. Remove the bacon from the skillet with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel-lined plate.

In a medium bowl, combine the cooked bacon, asparagus, and chopped onions with the eggs and coconut milk. Season with salt, to taste. Pour equal amounts of the egg mixture into the prepared muffin pan.

Place the muffin pan in the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until the eggs are set but still slightly soft. Refrigerate any leftover muffins in an airtight container.

Calories: 460 Fat: 41 g Total Carbs: 4 g Fiber: 1 g Sugar: 2 g Net Carbs: 3 g Protein: 19 g

Week 1 Day 1

Lunch – Bacon and Avocado Caesar Salad

[Refrigerate half of the Caesar dressing for Day 6 Lunch (L6)] Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 5 mins Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients:

For the salad –

4 slices of bacon (112 g), diced

1 head of romaine lettuce (200 g), chopped

1/2 cucumber (110 g), thinly sliced

1/4 medium onion (28 g), thinly sliced

1 large avocado (200 g), sliced

For the Caesar dressing –

1/2 cup of mayo (120 ml)

2 Tablespoons of lemon juice (30 ml)

2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard (10 ml)

2 teaspoons of garlic powder (7 g)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

Add the bacon to a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and saute until crispy, about 5 minutes. Remove the bacon from the skillet with a slotted spoon and place on a paper towel-lined plate to cool.

In a large bowl, whisk to combine the mayo, lemon juice, mustard, and garlic powder. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Refrigerate half of the Caesar dressing in an airtight container for Day 6 Lunch (L6).

Toss the remaining Caesar dressing with the romaine lettuce leaves. Add the cucumber and onion to the bowl and toss to combine.

Divide the salad between 2 plates and top each salad with equal amounts of cooked bacon and sliced avocado.

(Calories: 652 Fat: 65 g Total Carbs: 15 g Fiber: 9 g Sugar: 3 g Net Carbs: 6 g Protein: 10 g)

Dinner: Chicken Mushroom and Kale Casserole

[Refrigerate half of the casserole for Day 3 Dinner (D3)] Prep Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 40 mins Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

4 Tablespoons of avocado oil (60 ml), divided, to cook with (plus additional to grease the baking dish)

8 chicken thighs (with skin on) (1200 g)

1 medium onion (110 g), thinly sliced

3 cloves of garlic (9 g), minced or finely diced

2 Tablespoons of fresh rosemary (6 g), chopped

30 white button mushrooms (300 g), sliced

2 oz of kale (56 g), stems removed and chopped

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Grease a baking dish with avocado oil and set aside.

With a clean paper towel, pat dry the chicken thighs. Season each side of the chicken with salt and pepper.

Add 3 Tablespoons (45 ml) of avocado oil to a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken to the skillet, skin side down, and cook until the skin is golden brown and crispy, about 5 to 8 minutes.

Carefully turn over the chicken and cook for an additional 1 to 2 minutes. Remove the chicken from the skillet and place skin-side up in the prepared baking dish.

Reduce the heat to medium-low and add the onion, garlic, and fresh rosemary to the same skillet with the cooking fat from the chicken and saute until the onion is soft, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms to the skillet and saute until softened, about 2 to 4 minutes. Place the onion mixture around the chicken thighs in the baking dish.

Place the baking dish in the oven and bake at 350°F (180°C) for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, toss the kale with the remaining 1 Tablespoon (15 ml) of avocado oil.

Remove the baking dish from the oven and increase the heat to 400 F (200 C).

Place the kale around the chicken in the baking dish and return the baking dish to the oven.

Continue to bake at 400 F(200C) for an additional 5 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. Check with an instant-read meat thermometer that the internal temperature reaches 165F (75C)

Remove the baking dish from the oven and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Refrigerate (or freeze) half of the casserole for Day 3 Dinner.

(Calories:553 Fat:42g Total Carbs:7g Fiber:2g Sugar:3g Net Carbs:5g Protein:35g)

WEEK 1 DAY 2

Lunch: Lemon Pepper Tuna Salad

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 0 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

2 cans of tuna (340 g), drained and flaked

2 Tablespoons of mayo (30 ml)

1 Tablespoon of Dijon mustard (15 ml)

2 teaspoons of lemon juice (10 ml) (or to taste)

4 cups of spinach (120 g)

2 Tablespoons of olive oil (30 ml)

1 large avocado (200 g), sliced

Dash of pepper

Instructions:

In a medium bowl, combine the tuna with the mayo, mustard, and lemon juice. Season with pepper, to taste.

In a large bowl, toss the spinach with the olive oil. Divide the spinach between 2 plates.

Divide the tuna salad in 2 and place on top of the spinach. Top the tuna salad with equal amounts of sliced avocado and serve.

(Calories: 614 Fat: 46 g Total Carbs: 11 g Fiber: 9 g Sugar: 1 g Net Carbs: 2 g Protein: 45 g)

Dinner: Quick Ground Beef Stir-Fry

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 15 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons of coconut oil (30 ml), to cook with

2 medium bell peppers (240 g), sliced

10 cherry tomatoes (170 g), chopped

1/2 medium onion (55 g), thinly sliced

3/4 lb of ground beef (338 g)

2 cloves of garlic (6 g), minced or finely diced

1 teaspoon of hot sauce (5 ml) (or to taste) (optional)

2 Tablespoons of fresh cilantro (2 g), chopped

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

In a large skillet, melt the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the bell peppers, tomatoes, and onion to the skillet and stir-fry until slightly soft, about 5 minutes.

Add the ground beef to the skillet and stir-fry until browned, about 1 to 3 minutes.

Add the garlic, optional hot sauce, and fresh cilantro to the skillet and continue to stir-fry until the ground beef is cooked to your liking, about an additional 2 to 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Divide the stir-fry between 2 plates and serve.

(Calories: 620 Fat: 50 g Total Carbs: 13 g Fiber: 4 g Sugar: 6 g Net Carbs: 9 g Protein: 30 g)

WEEK 1 DAY 3

Lunch: Simple Egg Salad

[Refrigerate half of the egg salad for Day 5 lunch] Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 15 mins Yield 4: Servings

Ingredients:

12 medium eggs

1/2 medium onion (55 g), thinly sliced

1/2 cup of mayo (120 ml)

2 Tablespoons of Dijon mustard (30 ml)

1 head of romaine lettuce (200 g), chopped

3 Tablespoons of olive oil (45 ml)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

In a pot, cover the eggs with water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, remove from heat and put lid on pot. Let sit for 12 minutes and then drain eggs in a colander and rinse with cold water. Peel and chop the eggs.

In a medium bowl, combine the chopped eggs and fresh onion with the mayo and mustard. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Refrigerate half of the egg salad for Day 5 Lunch (L5).

In a large bowl, toss the romaine lettuce with the olive oil.

Divide the lettuce between 2 plates and top with equal amounts of the remaining egg salad.

(Calories: 590 Fat: 57 g Total Carbs: 4 g Fiber: 2 g Sugar: 2 g Net Carbs: 2 g Protein: 19 g)

Dinner: Leftover Chicken Mushroom and Kale Casserole

Prep Time: 5 mins |Cook Time: 0 mins | Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

Leftover Chicken Mushroom and kale casserole from Day 1 Dinner

Instructions:

In the oven or microwave, reheat the leftover casserole to desired temp.

Divide the casserole between 2 plates and enjoy/

(Calories:553 Fat: 42g Total Carbs:7g Fiber: 2g Sugar 3g Net Carbs: 5g Protein: 35g)

WEEK 1 DAY 4

Lunch: Broccoli Bacon Salad with Fried Eggs

Prep Time: 10 Mins Cook Time: 20 Mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

1/2 head of broccoli (225 g), broken into small florets

2 Tablespoons of coconut oil (30 ml), divided, to cook with

4 slices of bacon (112 g), diced

1/2 medium onion (55 g), thinly sliced

4 medium eggs

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

In a pot of salted water, parboil the broccoli until slightly tender, about 2 to 4 minutes. Remove the broccoli from the water and drain well.

In a large nonstick skillet, melt 1 Tablespoon (15 ml) of coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the bacon and cook until crispy, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Add the onion to the skillet and saute until translucent, about 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the parboiled broccoli to the skillet and saute until desired softness, about an additional 2 to 4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Meanwhile, in a medium skillet, melt the remaining 1 Tablespoon (15 ml) of coconut oil over medium heat. Add the eggs to the skillet and fry to your liking, about 3 minutes for a runny yolk and 5 to 6 minutes for a hard cooked yolk. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Divide the broccoli salad between 2 plates. Top each salad with 2 fried eggs and serve.

(Calories: 550 Fat: 48 g Total Carbs: 10 g Fiber: 4 g Sugar: 4 g Net Carbs: 6 g Protein: 22 g)

Dinner: Beef Teriyaki with Sesame and Kale

[Refrigerate half of the beef teriyaki for day 7 dinner] Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 15 mins Yield: 4 Servings

Ingredients:

1/4 cup of gluten-free tamari sauce or coconut aminos (60 ml)

2 Tablespoons of applesauce (30 ml)

4 cloves of garlic (12 g), minced or finely diced

2 Tablespoons of fresh ginger (10 g), minced or finely diced

4 beef steaks (800 g), sliced

1 Tablespoon of sesame seeds (14 g)

1/4 cup of avocado oil (60 ml), to cook with

20 white button mushrooms (200 g), sliced

4 oz of kale (112 g), stems removed and chopped

2 teaspoons of sesame oil (10 ml) (or to taste)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

In a bowl, whisk to combine the tamari sauce or coconut aminos, applesauce, garlic, and fresh ginger. Place the sliced steaks in the marinade and set aside.

In a large nonstick skillet, toast the sesame seeds over high heat until golden. Remove the sesame seeds from the skillet and set aside.

In the same large skillet, add the avocado oil over high heat. Add the mushrooms to the skillet and stir-fry until golden brown, about 3 to 5 minutes.

Add the steak and the marinade to the skillet and stir-fry until browned, about 2 to 4 minutes.

Add the kale and sesame oil to the skillet and continue to stir-fry until the beef is cooked to your liking and the kale is wilted, about an additional 1 to 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Refrigerate half of the beef teriyaki for Day 7 Dinner.

Divide the remaining beef teriyaki between 2 plates. Garnish each plate with equal amounts of toasted sesame seeds and serve.

(Calories: 754 Fat: 62 g Total Carbs: 10 g Fiber: 3 g Sugar: 2g Net Carbs: 7g Protein: 38g)

WEEK 1 DAY 5

Lunch: Leftover Egg salad stuffed cucumber boats

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 0 Mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

1 cucumber (220 g)

Leftover Simple Egg Salad from Day 3 Lunch (L3)

1 large avocado (200 g), sliced

Instructions:

Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise. Using a spoon, remove the cucumber seeds and discard.

Place cucumber boats on 2 plates and fill equal amounts of leftover egg salad. Top the egg salad with equal amounts of sliced avocado and enjoy.

(Calories: 564 Fat: 51 g Total Carbs: 11 g Fiber: 7 g Sugar: 2 g Net Carbs: 4 g Protein: 21 g)

Dinner: Pan-Fried Tuscan Chicken ‘Pasta’

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 15 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

2 medium eggs, whisked

2 teaspoons of garlic powder (7 g)

2 teaspoons of Italian seasoning (2 g)

1/4 teaspoon of salt (2 g) (plus additional, to taste)

Dash of pepper (plus additional, to taste)

2 chicken breasts (400 g), diced

2 Tablespoons of avocado oil (30 ml), to cook with

14 cherry tomatoes (238 g), chopped

1/4 cup of fresh basil leaves (8 g), chopped

1 zucchini (120 g), spiralized or use a vegetable peeler to create noodle-like strands

1 Tablespoon of olive oil (15 ml)

1 teaspoon of lemon juice (5 ml) (or to taste)

Instructions:

In a medium bowl, combine the eggs, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Add the chicken to the bowl and combine until the chicken is completely covered with the egg mixture.

Add the avocado oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken to the skillet and saute until cooked through, about 6 to 8 minutes.

Add the tomatoes and fresh basil to the skillet and saute until the tomatoes are soft, about 2 to 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, toss the zucchini “pasta” with the olive oil and lemon juice.

Divide the zucchini “pasta” between 2 plates. Top the “pasta” with equal amounts of the chicken and serve.

(Calories: 671 Fat: 45 g Total Carbs: 8 g Fiber: 2 g Sugar: 5 g Net Carbs: 6 g)

WEEK 1 DAY 6

Lunch: Garlic Shrimp Caesar Salad

Prep Time: 5 Min Cook Time: 10 Min Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons of olive oil (30 ml), to cook with

1 lb of shrimp (450 g), defrosted if frozen, peeled and deveined

1 teaspoon of garlic powder (3 g)

1/2 teaspoon of onion powder (1 g)

Leftover Caesar dressing from Day 1 Lunch (L1)

1 head of romaine lettuce (200 g), chopped

1/2 cucumber (110 g), thinly sliced

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

Add the olive oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the shrimp, garlic powder, and onion powder to the skillet and saute until the shrimp are cooked through and opaque, about 2 to 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste,

In a large bowl, toss the leftover Caesar dressing with the romaine lettuce and sliced cucumber.

Divide the salad between 2 plates. Top each plate with equal amounts of shrimp and enjoy.

(Calories: 582 Fat: 43 g Total Carbs: 6 g Fiber: 2 g Sugar: 3 g Net Carbs: 4 g Protein: 47 g)

Dinner: Apple Dijon Pork Chops with Roasted Broccoli

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 20 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

For the pork chops –

2 pork chops (320 g)

6 Tablespoons of ghee (90 ml), divided

2 Tablespoons of applesauce (30 ml)

2 Tablespoon of Dijon mustard (30 ml)

Salt and pepper, to taste

For the roasted broccoli –

1/2 head of broccoli (225 g), broken into small florets

1 Tablespoon of olive oil (15 ml)

Salt, to taste

Instructions:

For the pork chops –

Generously season the pork chops with salt and pepper.

In a large skillet, 4 Tablespoons (60 ml) of melt the ghee over high heat. Using tongs, place the pork chops on their sides with the fat in direct contact with the skillet. Render until the fat is brown and crispy.

Reduce the heat to medium-high and place the pork chops flat in the skillet. Cook the pork chops for 3 minutes on one side and turn over to cook for an additional 3 to 5 minutes. Check with an instant-read meat thermometer that the internal temperature reaches 145 F (63 C) for medium-rare. Remove the pork chops from the skillet and let rest for 3 to 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, on the stovetop or in the microwave, melt the remaining 2 Tablespoons (30 ml) of ghee. In a small bowl, combine the melted ghee with applesauce and mustard. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Place the pork chops on 2 plates and serve with equal amounts of the Dijon sauce.

For the roasted broccoli –

Preheat the oven to 450 F (230 C).

In a large bowl, toss the broccoli with the olive oil. Season with salt, to taste. Place the broccoli in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet.

Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 20 minutes until the broccoli is slightly crispy and cooked to your liking

Divide the roasted broccoli between 2 plates and serve

(Calories: 717 Fat: 63 g Total Carbs: 10 g Fiber: 4 g Sugar: 4 g Net Carbs: 6 g Protein: 37 g)

WEEK 1 DAY 7

Lunch: Chicken ‘Noodle’ Soup with Easy Salad

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 10 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients: For the chicken “noodle” soup –

1 Tablespoon of coconut oil (15 ml), to cook with

1 chicken breast (200 g), diced

1/4 medium onion (28 g), thinly sliced

3 cups of chicken broth (720 ml)

1 zucchini (120 g), spiralized or use a vegetable peeler to create noodle-like strands

1/4 cup of fresh cilantro (4 g), chopped

Salt and pepper, to taste

For the side salad –

1 head of romaine lettuce (200 g), chopped

3 Tablespoons of olive oil (45 ml)

1 Tablespoon of lemon juice (15 ml)

Instructions:

In a saucepan, melt the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and onion to the saucepan and saute until the chicken is browned, about 2 to 4 minutes.

Add the chicken broth to the saucepan and increase the heat to high to bring the broth to a boil. Continue to boil until the chicken is cooked through, about 3 to 5 minutes.

Add the zucchini “noodles” and fresh cilantro to the saucepan and continue to boil for an additional 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, toss the romaine lettuce with the olive oil and lemon juice. Divide the salad between 2 plates.

Divide the soup between 2 bowls and serve with the side salad.

(Calories: 498 Fat: 40 g Total Carbs: 6 g Fiber: 2 g Sugar: 3 g Net Carbs: 4 g Protein: 25 g)

Dinner: Leftover Beef Teriyaki with Sesame and Kale

Ingredients:

– Leftover Beef Teriyaki with Sesame and Kale from Day 4 Dinner (D4)

Instructions:

On the stovetop or in the microwave, reheat the leftover beef teriyaki to desired temperature.

Divide the beef teriyaki between 2 plates and enjoy.

(Calories: 714 Fat: 59 g Total Carbs: 8 g Fiber: 2 g Sugar: 2 g Net Carbs: 6 g Protein: 37 g)

WEEK 2 – Keto Meal Plan

Week 2 Breakfast Ideas

Keto Coconut Coffee

Chicken and Bacon Sausages

Turkey and Vegetable Skillet

Week 2 Day 1

Lunch: Turkey and Vegetable Skillet

Dinner: Pan-Seared Pork Tenderloin with Garlic Spinach Saute

Week 2 Day 2

Lunch: Lemon Blue Berry Chicken Salad

Dinner: Easy Keto Chili

Week 2 Day 3

Lunch: Leftover Turkey and Vegetable Skillet

Dinner: Pork and Cashew Stir Fry

Week 2 Day 4

Lunch: Spicy Saute Tossed with Avocado

Dinner: Leftover Keto Chili

Week 2 Day 5

Lunch: Spanish Omlette

Dinner: Chicken Broccoli Casserole

Week 2 Day 6

Lunch: Leftover Spanish Omelette with Side Salad

Dinner: Lemon Ghee Salmon with Leek Asparagus Ginger Saute

Week 2 Day 7

Lunch: 3-Ingredient Creamy Smoked Salmon ‘Zucchini Pasta’

Dinner: Leftover Chicken Broccoli Casserole

WEEK 2 RECIPES

Breakfast: Keto Coconut Coffee

Prep Time: 5 mins Cook Time: 0 mins Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients:

2 cups of black coffee (480 ml)

2 Tablespoons of ghee (30 ml)

1 Tablespoon of coconut oil (15 ml)

Instructions:

1. Place the coffee, ghee, and coconut oil in a blender and blend until fully combined. 2. Divide the coffee between 2 mugs and serve.

(Calories: 179 Fat: 21 g Total Carbs: 0 g Fiber: 0 g Sugar: 0 g Net Carbs: 0 g Protein: 0 g)

Breakfast: Chicken and Bacon Sausages

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 20 mins Yield: 12 servings

Ingredients:

2 slices of bacon (56 g), diced

1 lb of ground chicken (450 g)

1 medium egg, whisked

2 Tablespoons of Italian seasoning (6 g)

2 teaspoons of garlic powder (7 g)

2 teaspoons of onion powder (5 g)

Salt and pepper

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425 F (220 C). Line a rimmed baking tray with aluminium foil or parchment paper and set aside.

In a small skillet, saute the diced bacon until crispy, about 2 to 4 minutes. Remove the bacon from the skillet with a slotted spoon and place on a paper towel-lined plate to drain.

In a large bowl, combine the cooked bacon, ground chicken, whisked egg, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, and onion powder. Season with salt and pepper. Form the chicken mixture into 12 (1/2-inch or 1.25 cm) think patties. Place the patties on the prepared baking sheet.

Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 20 minutes until the patties are cooked through. Check with an instant-read meat thermometer that the internal temperature reaches 170 F (76 C).

Let the sausages cool slightly before serving. Refrigerate any leftovers in an airtight container.

(Calories: 370 Fat: 21 g Total Carbs: 3 g Fiber: 1 g Sugar: 1 g Net Carbs: 2 g Protein: 40 g)

WEEK 2 DAY 1

Lunch: Turkey and Vegetable Skillet

[Refrigerate half of the turkey and vegetables for Day 3 Lunch (L3)] Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 20 mins Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients:

1/4 cup of coconut oil (60 ml), to cook with

2 lbs of turkey breasts (900 g), diced (or ground turkey)

8 slices of bacon (224 g), diced

1 medium onion (110 g), thinly sliced

2 cups of spinach (60 g), chopped

3 spears of asparagus (48 g), chopped

2 Tablespoons of fresh thyme (6 g), chopped

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

In a large skillet, melt the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the turkey and bacon to the skillet and saute until slightly browned, about 5 to 7 minutes.

Add the onion, spinach, asparagus, and fresh thyme to the skillet and saute for an additional 10 minutes until the turkey and bacon are cooked through and the vegetables are soft. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Refrigerate half of the turkey and vegetables for Day 3 Lunch (L3).

Divide the remaining turkey and vegetables between 2 plates and serve.

(Calories: 674 Fat: 47 g Total Carbs: 4 g Fiber: 1 g Sugar: 2 g Net Carbs: 3 g Protein: 61 g)

Dinner: Pan-Seared Pork Tenderloin with Garlic Spinach Saute

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 15 mins Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients:

For the pan-seared pork tenderloin –

1 lb of pork tenderloin (450 g)

2 Tablespoons of coconut oil (30 ml), to cook pork with

Salt and pepper, to taste

For the garlic spinach saute –

2 Tablespoons of olive oil (30 ml), to cook spinach with

6 cloves of garlic (18 g), minced or finely diced

8 cups of spinach (240 g)

Salt, to taste

Instructions:

For the pork tenderloin –

Generously season the tenderloin with salt and pepper.

In a large nonstick skillet, melt the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the tenderloin to the skillet and sear on all sides, about 1 to 2 minutes per side.

Reduce heat to medium and continue to cook until done to your liking, about 6 to 8 minutes for medium-rare and 10 minutes for medium. Check with an instant-read meat thermometer that the internal temperature reaches 145 F (63 C) for medium-rare and 150 F (66 C) for medium. Remove the tenderloin from the skillet and let rest for 3 to 5 minutes before slicing.

Divide the sliced tenderloin between 2 plates and serve.

For the garlic spinach saute –

Add the olive oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic to the skillet and saute until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Add the spinach to the skillet and saute until wilted, about 1 to 3 minutes. Season with salt, to taste.

Divide the sauted spinach between 2 plates and serve.

(Calories: 548 Fat: 37 g Total Carbs: 7 g Fiber: 4 g Sugar: 0 g Net Carbs: 3 g Protein: 51 g)

WEEK 2 DAY 2

Lunch: Lemon Blue Berry Chicken Salad

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 5 mins Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients:

For the salad –

1 Tablespoon of coconut oil (15 ml), to cook with

1 chicken breast (200 g), diced

1 head of romaine lettuce (200 g), chopped

1/2 cucumber (110 g), thinly sliced

1/4 medium onion (28 g), thinly sliced

10 blueberries (5 g) (or other berry, of choice)

Salt and pepper, to taste

For the dressing –

3 Tablespoons of olive oil (45 ml)

1 Tablespoon of lemon juice (15 ml) (or to taste)

Instructions:

In a medium skillet, melt the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the chicken to the skillet and saute until cooked through, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

In a large bowl, whisk to combine the olive oil and lemon juice. Toss the dressing with the romaine lettuce. Add the cooked chicken, cucumber, onion, and blueberries to the bowl and toss to combine.

Divide the salad between 2 plates and serve.

(Calories: 467 Fat: 38 g Total Carbs: 6 g Fiber: 2 g Sugar: 3 g Net Carbs: 4 g Protein: 25 g)

Dinner: Easy Keto Chili

[Refrigerate half of the chili for Day 4 Dinner (D4)] Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 70 mins Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons of avocado oil (45 ml), to cook with

2 medium bell peppers (240 g), diced

1 medium onion (110 g), thinly sliced

10 white button mushrooms (100 g), chopped

2 lbs of ground beef (900 g)

2 teaspoons of cumin powder (4 g)

1 teaspoon of chili powder (2 g) (or to taste)

1 teaspoon of ground coriander (2 g)

2 cups of beef broth (480 ml)

1 can of diced tomatoes (14 oz or 400 g)

2 cloves of garlic (6 g), minced or finely

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

Add the avocado oil to a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the bell peppers, onion, and mushrooms to the pot and saute until the vegetables are soft and slightly browned, about 6 to 8 minutes.

Add the ground beef, cumin, chili powder, and ground coriander to the pot and saute until the ground beef is browned, about 4 to 5 minutes.

Add the beef broth and diced tomatoes to the pot and bring to a boil.

Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook, partially covered, for 45 to 55 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove the lid and add the garlic to the pot. Continue to cook, uncovered, for about 10 minutes or until the chili reaches desired consistency. Season with additional salt and pepper, to taste. Refrigerate half of the chili for Day 4 Dinner (D4).

Divide the remaining chili between 2 bowls and serve.

(Calories: 751 Fat: 59 g Total Carbs: 12 g Fiber: 4 g Sugar: 6 g Net Carbs: 8 g Protein: 40 g)

Week 3 Day 3

Lunch: Leftover Turkey and Vegetable Skillet

Prep Time: 5 mins Cook Time: 0 mins Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients:

– Leftover Turkey and Vegetable Skillet from Day 1 Lunch (L1)

Instructions:

On the stovetop or in the microwave, reheat the leftover turkey and vegetables to desired temperature.

Divide the turkey and vegetables between 2 plates and enjoy.

(Calories: 675 Fat: 47 g Total Carbs: 4 g Fiber: 1 g Sugar: 2 g Net Carbs: 3 g Protein: 61 g)

Dinner: Pork and Cashew Stir-Fry

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 15 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons of coconut oil (45 ml), divided, to cook with

1 medium egg, whisked

1 medium bell pepper (120 g), sliced

1/2 medium onion (55 g), thinly sliced

1 and 1/2 oz of cashews (42 g) (or nut of choice)

3/4 lb of pork tenderloin (338 g), thinly sliced

2 Tablespoons of gluten-free tamari sauce or coconut aminos (30 ml)

2 teaspoons of sesame oil (10 ml) (or to taste) (optional)

1 teaspoon of chili oil (5 ml) (or to taste) (optional)

2 cloves of garlic (6 g), minced or finely diced

1 Tablespoon of fresh ginger (5 g), minced or finely diced

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

In a large nonstick skillet, melt 1 Tablespoons (15 ml) over medium heat. Add the egg to the skillet and scrambled until fully cooked, about 1 to 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Remove the scrambled egg from skillet and set aside.

In the same skillet, melt the remaining 2 Tablespoons (30 ml) of coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the bell pepper, onion, and cashews to the skillet and stir-fry until the vegetables are soft, about 4 to 6 minutes.

Add the tenderloin to the skillet and stir-fry until browned, about 2 to 4 minutes.

Add the scrambled egg, tamari sauce or coconut aminos, optional chili oil, optional sesame oil, garlic, and fresh ginger to the skillet and continue to stir-fry until the pork is cooked to your liking, about 1 to 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Divide the stir-fry between 2 plates and serve.

(Calories: 629 Fat: 46 g Total Carbs: 15 g Fiber: 2 g Sugar: 4 g Net Carbs: 13 g Protein: 43 g)

Week 4 Day 4

Lunch: Spicy Saute tossed with Avocado

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 5 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast (200 g), diced

1 Tablespoon of garlic powder (10 g)

1 teaspoon of salt (5 g) (plus additional, to taste)

1/2 Tablespoon of onion powder (4 g)

1 teaspoon of chili powder (2 g) (or to taste) (optional)

Dash of pepper (plus additional, to taste)

1 Tablespoon of avocado oil (15 ml), to cook with

1 large avocado (200 g), chopped

1 medium bell pepper (120 g), chopped

1/2 cucumber (110 g), chopped

1/4 medium onion (28 g), thinly sliced

2 Tablespoons of olive oil (30 ml)

1 teaspoon of mustard (5 ml)

Instructions:

In a small bowl, toss to combine the chicken with the garlic powder, salt, onion powder, optional chili powder, and pepper.

Add the avocado oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the seasoned chicken to the skillet and salt until cooked through, about 5 minutes.

In a medium bowl, toss the cooked chicken, avocado, bell pepper, cucumber, and onion with the olive oil and mustard. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Divide the saute between 2 plates and serve.

(Calories: 576 Fat: 46 g Total Carbs: 18 g Fiber: 9 g Sugar: 5g Net Carbs: 9g Protein: 27g)

Dinner: Leftover Easy Keto Chili

Prep Time: 5 mins Cook Time: 0 mins Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients:

Leftover Easy Keto Chili from Week 2 Day 2 Dinner.

Instructions:

On the stovetop or or in the microwave, reheat the leftover chili to desired temperature

Divide the chili between 2 bowls and enjoy.

Calories: 751 Fat 59g Total Carbs: 12g Fiber: 4g Sugar: 6g Net Carbs: 8g Protein: 40g

WEEK 2 DAY 5

Lunch: Spanish Omlette

[Refrigerate half of the omelette for Day 6 Lunch] Prep Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 30 mins Yield 4 Servings

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons of olive oil (45 ml), to cook with (plus additional to grease the baking dish)

1/2 head of cauliflower (300g), broken into small florets

2 medium bell peppers (240g), thinly sliced

1/2 medium onion (55g), thinly sliced

10 medium eggs, whisked

1/4 cup of coconut cream (60 ml)(from the top of a refrigerated can of coconut milk)

1/4 cup of fresh parsley (4g), chopped

1 large avocado (200g), sliced

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350F (175C). Grease a 9-inch (23cm by 23 cm) baking dish with olive oil and set aside.

In a pot of salted water, parboil the cauliflower until slightly tender, about 2 minutes. Remove the cauliflower from the water and drain well.

Meanwhile, add the olive oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the bell pepper and onion to the skillet and saute until the vegetables are soft, about 6 to 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Set aside and cool slightly.

In a large bowl, combine the parboiled cauliflower and sauteed vegetables with the whisked eggs, coconut cream and fresh parsley. Pour the egg mixture into the greased baking dish.

Place the baking dish in the oven and bake for 20 minutes until the eggs are set but still slightly soft.

Remove the baking dish from the oven and let cool slightly. Refrigerate half of the omelette Week 2 Day 6 Lunch.

Divide the remaining omelette between 2 plates and top with equal amounts of sliced avocado.

(Calories: 473 Fat: 38g Total Carbs: 17g Fiber: 10g Sugar: 5g Net Carbs: 7g Protein: 19g)

Dinner: Chicken Broccoli Casserole

[Refrigerate half of the casserole for Day 7 Dinner] Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 75 mins Yield: 4 Servings

Ingredients:

1/4 cup of coconut oil (60 ml), to cook chicken with

4 chicken breasts (800g), diced

1 head of broccoli (450g), broken into small florets

1/2 head of cauliflower (300g), broken into small florets

1/2 medium onion (55g), thinly sliced

4 white button mushrooms (40g), sliced

1 tablespoons of garlic powder (10g)

3 Tablespoons of fresh thyme (9g), chopped

2 Tablespoons of fresh parsley (2g), chopped

1 cup of coconut cream (240 ml) (from the tops of 2 refrigerated cans of coconut milk)

2 Tablespoons of ghee (30 ml), melted

Salt and Pepper, to taste

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350F (175C)

In a large skillet, melt the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the chicken to the skillet and saute until cooked through, about 10 to 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

In a large bowl, combine the cooked chicken, broccoli, cauliflower, onion, mushrooms, garlic powder, fresh thyme and fresh parsley with the coconut cream.

Cover the bottom of a large baking dish with the melted ghee. Pour the chicken mixture into the baking dish.

Place the baking dish in the oven and bake for 1 hour until the vegetables are soft to your liking.

Remove the baking dish from the oven and let cool slightly. Refrigerate half of the casserole for Day 7 dinner.

Divide the remaining casserole between 2 plates and serve.

(Calories: 759 Fat:53g Total Carbs: 17 g Fiber:6g Sugar: 6g Net Carbs: 11g Protein: 52g)

WEEK 2 DAY 6

Lunch: Leftover Spanish Omelette with Side Salad

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 0 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

1 head of romaine lettuce (200g), chopped

3 Tablespoons of olive oil (45ml)

1 Tablespoon of lemon juice (15 ml)

Leftover Spanish Omelette from Day 5 Lunch

Instructions:

In a large bowl, toss to combine the romaine lettuce with the olive oil and lemon juice. Divide the salad between 2 bowls.

In the oven or microwave, reheat the leftover omelette to desired temperature.

Divide the omelette between 2 plates and enjoy with the side salad.

(Calories: 511 Fat 45g Total Carbs: 12g Fiber: 5g Sugar:6g Net Carbs: 7g Protein: 18g)

Dinner: Lemon Ghee Salmon with Leek Asparagus Ginger Saute

Prep Time: 10 min Cook Time: 20 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

For the garlic ghee salmon –

2 filets of salmon (with skin on), fresh or frozen (340g), defrosted if forzen

1 Tablespoon of ghee (15ml), melted

4 cloves of garlic (12g), minced or finely diced

2 teaspoons of lemon juice (10 ml)

Salt, to taste

For the leek asparagus ginger saute –

2 Tablespoons of avocado oil (30ml), to cook with

10 spears of asparagus (160g), chopped

1 leek (90g), sliced

1 Tablespoon of lemon juice (15ml)

2 teaspoons of ginger powder(4g)

Salt, to taste

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400F (200C). Place each salmon filet on a separate piece of aluminium foil of parchment paper.

In a small bowl, combine the melted ghee, garlic, and lemon juice. Season with salt, to taste. Cover each salmon filet with equal amounts of the ghee mixture. Tightly fold the aluminium foil or parchment paper into packets. Place the packets on a baking sheet.

Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Open each packet and continue to bake for an additional 10 minutes until the salmon is cooked through and flakes easily. Remove the salmon from the oven and let cool slightly.

Meanwhile, add the avocado oil to a large skillet over medium-heat. Add the asparagus and leek to the skillet and saute until the vegetables are soft, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Add the lemon juice and ginger powder to the skillet and saute for an additional 1 to 2 minutes. Season with salt, to taste.

Divide the saute between 2 plates and top each plate with a salmon filet.

(Calories:682 Fat: 51g Total Carbs: 15g Fiber: 4g Sugar: 5g Net Carbs: 11g Protein: 43g)

WEEK 2 DAY 7

Lunch: 3-Ingredient Creamy Smoked Salmon ‘Pasta’

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 5 mins Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons of coconut oil (30 ml), to cook with

8 oz of smoked salmon (224 g), diced

2 zucchinis (240g), spiralized or use a peeler to create noodle-like strands

1/4 cup of mayo (60ml)

Instructions:

In a medium skillet, melt the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the smoked salmon to the skillet and saute until slightly browned, about 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the zucchini ‘pasta’ to the skillet and saute until soft. about 1 to 2 minutes.

Add the mayo to the skillet and stir well to combine.

Divide the smoked salmon ‘pasta’ between 2 plates and serve.

(Calories: 470 Fat: 42g Total Carbs: 4g Fiber: 1g Sugar: 2g Net Carbs: 3g Protein: 21g)

Dinner: Leftover Chicken Broccoli Casserole

Prep Time: 5 mins Cook Time: 0 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

Leftover Chicken Broccoli Casserole from Day 5 dinner

Instructions:

In the oven or microwave, reheat the leftover chicken brocolli casserole to desired temperature.

Divide the casserole between 2 plates and enjoy.

(Calories: 759 Fat: 53g Total Carbs: 17g Fiber: 6g Sugar: 6g Net Carbs: 11g Protein: 52g)

WEEK 3 – KETO MEAL PLAN

Breakfast Recipes:

Frothy Keto Coffee

Keto Breakfast Stack

Keto Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Week 3 Day 1

Lunch: Chicken Pepper Stir-Fry

Dinner: Keto Cottage Pie

Week 3 Day 2

Lunch: Mini Spinach Meatloaves with Creamy Cucumber Salad

Dinner: Creamy Tomato Basil Chicken ‘Pasta’

Week 3 Day 3

Lunch: Chicken Cauliflower ‘Couscous’ Salad

Dinner: Easy Salmon Curry

Week 3 Day 4

Lunch: Baked eggs in avocados

Dinner: Leftover Keto Cottage Pie

Week 3 Day 5

Lunch: Leftover mini spinach meatloaves with avocado salad

Dinner: One-pot pork and cabbage stew

Week 3 Day 6

Lunch: Leftover Chicken Cauliflower ‘Couscous’ Salad

Dinner: Zucchini beef saute with garlic and cilantro

Week 3 Day 7

Lunch: Chicken hash with coconut dijon sauce

Dinner: Leftover one pot and cabbage stew

WEEK 3 RECIPES

Breakfast recipes: Frothy Keto Coffee

Prep Time: 5 mins Cook Time: 0 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

2 cups of black coffee (480ml)

1/4 cup of unsweetened coconut milk or unsweetened almond milk (60 ml)

2 Tablespoon of coconut oil (15 ml)

Instructions:

Place the coffee, coconut milk or almond milk, ghee, and coconut oil in a blender and blend until fully combined.

Divide the coffee between 2 mugs and serve

(Calories: 190 Fat: 22g Total Carbs: 0g Fiber: 0g Sugar: 0g Net Carbs: 0g Protein: 0g)

Breakfast: Keto Breakfast Stack

Prep Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 15 mins Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients:

4 slices bacon (112g)

1/4 lb of ground pork (110g)

1/4 lb of ground chicken (110g)

1 medium egg, whisked

2 teaspoons of Italian seasoning (2g)

1 teaspoon of salt (5g)

1/4 teaspoons of black pepper (1/2g)

2 large portobello mushrooms (or other mushrooms), stems removed

1 avocado, sliced

Instructions:

In a large skillet, saute the bacon over medium-high heat until crispy, about 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the bacon from the skillet and place on a paper towel-lined plate to drain. Reserve the bacon grease.

In a medium bowl, combine the ground pork, ground chicken, whisked egg, Italian seasoning, and salt. Form the mixture into 4 thin patties.

Place the patties in the skillet with the reserved bacon grease and fry over medium-high heat until fully cooked, about 2 to 4 minutes per side. Removed the cooked patties from the skillet and set aside.

Place the mushrooms in the same skillet and cook over medium-high heat until soft to your liking, about 2 to 3 minutes per side. Remove the mushrooms from the skillet and set aside.

To assemble, place each mushroom on a plate and stack with 2 patties, 3 avocado slices, and 2 slices of bacon. Serve the breakfast stack with any remaining avocado slices.

(Calories: 680 Fat: 54g Total Carbs: 13g Fiber: 8g Sugar: 2g Net Carbs: 5g Protein: 38g)

Breakfast: Keto Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 20 mins Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients:

3 cups of almond flour (180g)

1/2 cup of ghee (120ml), melted (plus additional to grease the muffin pan)

1/4 cup of applesauce (60ml)

1 teaspoon of lemon juice (5ml)

3 medium eggs, whisked

3 tablespoons of cinnamon powder (18g)

1 teaspoon of nutmeg (2g)

1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves (1g)

1 teaspoon of baking soda (4g)

Stevia or low carb sweetener of choice, to taste

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350F (175C). Grease a 12-cup muffin pan with melted ghee or line with paper liners.

In a large bowl, combine the ingredients until smooth. Pour the mixture into the prepared muffin pan.

Place the baking pan in the oven and bake for 18 to 20 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean when you insert it into a muffin.

Remove the muffins from the oven and let cool before serving. Store any leftovers in an airtight container.

(Calories: 241 Fat: 22g Total Carbs: 7g Fiber: 4g Sugar: 2g Net Carbs: 3g Protein: 7g)

Week 3 Day 1

Lunch: Chicken Pepper Stir-Fry

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 15 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons of coconut oil (45ml), to cook with

2 medium bell peppers (240g), sliced

2 chicken breasts (400g), thinly sliced

1 Tablespoon of gluten-free tamari sauce or coconut aminos (15ml)

1/4 teaspoon of chili powder (1g) (or to taste) (optional)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instruction:

In a large skillet, melt the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the bell peppers to the skillet and stir-fry until slightly softened, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Add the chicken to the skillet and stir-fry until cooked through, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Add the tamari sauce sauce or coconut aminos and optional chili powder to the skillet and stir-fry for an additional 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Divide the stir-fry between 2 plates and serve.

(Calories: 595 Fat: 41g Total Carbs: 7g Fibers: 2g Sugar: 3g Net Carbs: 5g Protein: 48g)

Dinner: Keto Cottage Pie

[Refrigerate half of the cottage pie for Day 4 Dinner] Prep Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 45 mins Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 head of cauliflower (600g), broken into small florets

2 tablespoons of ghee (30ml), melted

1/4 cup of avocado oil (60ml), to cook with (plus additional to grease the baking dish)

1 medium onion (110g), thinly sliced

1 1/2 lbs of ground beef (675g)

2 carrots (100g), grated

2 tablespoons of Italian seasoning (6g)

2 tablespoons of fresh parsley (2g), chopped

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350F (175C). Grease a baking dish (9-inch X 9-inch or 23 cm X 23 cm) with avocado oil and set aside.

Boil or steam the cauliflower until fork-tender, about 5 to 10 minutes (depending on the size of the florets). Drain well.

Using a food processor or blender, combine the cauliflower with the melted ghee until smooth. Season with salt, to taste. Set aside.

Meanwhile, add the avocado oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion to the skillet and avocado and saute until translucent, about 4 to 5 minutes.

Add the ground beef and carrots to the skillet and saute until the ground beef is browned, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Add the Italian seasoning and fresh parsley to the skillet and saute for an additional 1 to 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Place the beef mixture in the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Spread the reserved cauliflower mash over the beef mixture.

Place the baking dish in the oven and bake for 30 minutes.

Remove the baking dish from the oven and let cool slightly. Refrigerate half of the cottage pie for Day 4 Dinner.

Divide the remaining cottage pie between 2 plates and serve.

(Calories: 684 Fat:57g Total Carbs:13g Fiber:5g Sugar:6g Net Carbs:8g Protein: 32g)

WEEK 2 DAY 2

Lunch: Mini Spinach Meatloaves with Creamy Cucumber Salad

Prep Time:10 mins Cook Time:30 mins Yield:4 servings [Refrigerate half of the mini meatloaves for Day 5 lunch]

Ingredients:

For the mini spinach meatloaves –

2 Tablespoons of coconut oil (30ml) (plus additional to grease the muffin pan)

1 medium onion (110g), minced or finely diced

4 cloves of garlic (12g), minced or finely diced

1/2lb of ground beef (225g)

1/2lb of ground pork(225g)

8 cups of spinach (240g), chopped

8 medium eggs, whisked

2/3 cup of coconut milk (160ml)

2 Tablespoons of Italian seasoning (6g)

1 Tablespoons of salt (15g)

1 teaspoons of pepper (1g)

For the creamy cucumber salad –

1 cucumber (220g), thinly sliced

2 tablespoons of lemon juice (30ml) (or to taste)

Salt, to taste

Instructions:

For the mini spinach meatloaves –

Preheat oven to 400F(200C). Grease 2 (12 cups each) muffin pans with coconut oil or line with paper liners and set aside.

In a large skillet, melt the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic to the skillet and saute until the onion is soft, about 4 to 5 minutes.

Add the ground beef and ground pork to the skillet and saute until cooked through, about 6 to 8 minutes.

Add the spinach to the skillet and saute until wilted, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat and set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, combine the cooled beef mixture with the whisked eggs, coconut milk, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Pour equal amounts of the mixture into the prepared muffin pans.

Place the muffin pan in the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes until cooked through and the eggs are set. Refrigerate half of the mini meatloaves for Day 5 lunch.

Divide the remaining mini meatloaves between 2 plates and serve.

For the creamy cucumber salad-

In a medium bowl, combine the sliced cucumber with the mayo and lemon juice. Season with salt, to taste.

Divide the cucumber salad between 2 bowls and serve.

(Calories: 625 Fat: 49g Total Carbs: 10g Fiber:4g Sugar:4g Net Carbs:6g Protein:38g)

Dinner: Creamy Tomato Basil Chicken ‘Pasta’

Prep Time:10 mins Cook Time:30 mins Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons of coconut oil (30ml), to cook with

2 chicken breasts (400g), diced

1 can of diced tomatoes (14 oz or 400g), drained

1/4 cup of coconut milk (60ml) (from the top of a refrigerated can of coconut milk)

1/2 cup of fresh basil leaves (16g), chopped

4 cloves of carlic (12g), minced or finely diced

1 zucchini (120g), spiralized or use a peeler to make into long noodle-like strands

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

In a large skillet, melt the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the chicken to the skillet and saute until fully cooked, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Add the diced tomatoes to the skillet and saute until soft, about 2 to 3 minutes

Add the coconut cream, fresh basil, and garlic to the skillet and cook until the sauce starts to thicken, about 2 to 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Divide the zucchini ‘pasta’ between 2 plates. Top the zucchini ‘pasta’ with equal amounts of the creamy basil chicken and serve.

(Calories:633 Fat:40g Total Carbs:15g Fiber:4g Sugar:6g Net Carbs:11g Protein:49g)

WEEK 3 DAY 3

Lunch: Chicken Cauliflower ‘Couscous’ Salad

[Refrigerate half of the ‘couscous’ salad for Day 6 lunch] Prep Time:15 mins Cook Time: 10 mins Yield: 4 Servings

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons of coconut oil (30 ml), divided, to cook with

2 chicken breasts (400g), diced

1 head of cauliflower (600 g), processed into rice-like pieces

1 cucumber (220g), diced

1 medium bell pepper (120g), diced

4 green onions (20g), chopped

1/2 cup of fresh parsley (8g), chopped

2 Tablespoon of olive oil (30ml)

1 Tablespoon of lemon juice (15ml) (or to taste)

2 teaspoons of garlic powder (7g)

2 teaspoons of cumin powder (4g)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

In a large skillet, melt the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the chicken to the skillet and saute until fully cooked, about 8 to 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

In a large bowl, combine the cooked the cooked chicken, cauliflower, cucumber, bell pepper, green onions, and fresh parsley with the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic powder, and cumin powder. Season with additional salt and pepper, to taste. Refrigerate half of the ‘couscous’ salad for Day 6 lunch.

Divide the remaining ‘couscous’ between 2 bowls and serve.

(Calories: 371 Fat: 24g Total Carbs: 11g Fiber: 4g Sugar: 5g Net Carbs: 7g Protein: 27g)

Dinner: Easy Salmon Curry

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 15 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons of coconut oil (30 ml), to cook with

1/2 medium onion (55g), thinly sliced

7 oz of green beans (196g), diced

2 cups of chicken broth (480ml)

1 lb of salmon (with skin on), fresh or frozen (450g), defrosted in frozen, diced

1 ad 1/2 tablespoons of curry powder (11g)

1 teaspoon of garlic powder (3g)

1/2 cup if coconut cream (120ml) (from the top of a refrigerated can of coconut milk)

2 Tablespoons of fresh basil leaves (4g), chopped (for garnish)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

In a large saucepan, melt the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and saute until translucent, about 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the green beans to the saucepan and saute until slightly soft, about 5 to 6 minutes.

Add the chicken broth to the saucepan and bring to a boil.

Add the salmon, curry powder, and garlic powder to the saucepan and continue to boil for 1 minute.

Reduce the heat to a simmer and add the coconut cream. Continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, until the salmon is fully cooked, about 3 to 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Divide the curry between 2 bowls and garnish with equal amounts of the fresh basil.

(Calories: 909 Fat: 67g Total Carbs: 16g Fiber: 6g Sugar: 3g Net Carbs: 10g Protein: 59g)

WEEK 3 DAY 4

Lunch: Baked Eggs in Avocados

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 15 mins Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients:

2 large avocados (400 g)

4 medium eggs

2 Tablespoons of olive oil (30 ml), divided

2 cups of spinach (60 g)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 F (200 C).

Slice each avocado in half lengthwise. Remove and discard the avocado pits. Place each avocado half on a baking sheet.

Crack each egg into a bowl. Carefully remove each yolk from the bowl and place in each avocado half.

Pour approximately 1 teaspoon (5 ml) of olive oil over each avocado half.

Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 12 minutes.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven and season each avocado with salt and pepper, to taste.

Divide the spinach between 2 plates. Place 2 baked avocado halves on each plate and drizzle with the remaining olive oil.

(Calories: 572 Fat: 51 g Total Carbs: 18 g Fiber: 14 g Sugar: 1 g Net Carbs: 4 g Protein: 17 g)

Dinner: Leftover Keto Cottage Pie

Prep Time: 5 mins Cook Time: 0 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

Leftover Keto Cottage Pie from Day 1 Dinner

Instructions:

In the oven or microwave, reheat the leftover cottage pie to desired temperature.

Divide the cottage pie between 2 plates and enjoy

(Calories: 684 Fat: 57g Total Carbs: 13g Fiber: 5g Sugar: 6g Net Carbs: 8g Protein: 32g)

WEEK 5 DAY 5

Lunch: Leftover Mini Spinach Meatloaves with Avocado Salad

Prep Time: 10 min Cook Time: 0 mins Yield: 2 servings

Instructions:

In a small bowl, combine the avocado with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Season with sale and pepper, to taste.

In the oven or microwave, reheat the leftover mini meatloaves to desired temperature.

Divide the mini meatloaves between 2 plates and enjoy with the avocado salad.

(Calories: 725 Fat: 58g Total Carbs: 16g Fiber:8g Sugar: 3g Net Carbs: 8g Protein: 37gm)

Dinner: One-pot Pork and Cabbage Stew

Prep Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 2 hours Yield: 4 Servings [Refrigerate half of the stew for Day 7 dinner]

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons of coconut oil (30ml), to cook with

2 lbs of pork shoulder (900g), cubed

1 head of cabbage (700g), thinly sliced

1 medium onion (110g), thinly sliced

1/2 leek (45g), sliced

3 cups of cold water (720ml)

1 Tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (15ml)

2 teaspoon of fresh ginger (5g), minced or finely diced

Pepper, to taste

Instructions:

In a large pot or Dutch oven, melt the coconut oil over medium-high heat. In batches, sear the pork until browned on all sides, about 5 to 6 minutes per batch. Return the browned pork to the pot.

Reduced the heat to medium and add the cabbage, onion, leek, water, apple cider vinegar, salt, and fresh ginger to the pot.

Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 2 hours until the vegetables are soft and the pork is fork-tender. Add additional water to the pot during the cook time, if needed. Season with additional salt and pepper, to taste. Refrigerate half of the stew for Day 7 dinner.

Divide the remaining stew between 2 bowls and serve.

(Calories: 544 Fat: 35g Total Carbs: 14g Fiber: 5g Sugar: 7g Net Carbs: 9 g Protein: 42g)

WEEK 3 DAY 6

Lunch: Leftover Chicken Cauliflower ‘Couscous’ Salad

Prep Time: 5 mins Cook Time: 0 Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

Leftover chicken cauliflower ‘couscous’ salad from day 3 lunch.

Instructions:

If desired, reheat the leftover chicken cauliflower ‘couscous’ salad.

Divide the ‘couscous’ salad between 2 plates and enjoy.

(Calories: 372 Fat: 24g Total Carbs: 11g Fiber: 4g Sugar: 5g Net Carbs:7g Protein: 27g)

Dinner: Zucchini Beef Saute with Garlic and Cilantro

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 10 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons of avocado oil (45ml), to cook with

2 beef steaks (400g), sliced into 1-inch (2 and 1/2 cm) strips

1 zucchini (120g), sliced into 1-inch (2 1/2 cm) strips

2 Tablespoons of gluten-free tamari sauce or coconut aminos (30 ml)

3 cloves of garlic, minced or finely diced

1/4 cup of fresh cilantro (4g), chopped

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

Add the avocado oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the steak to the skillet and saute until slightly browned, about 1 to 3 minutes.

Add the zucchini to the skillet and saute until slightly soft, about 1 to 2 minutes.

Add the tamari sauce or coconut aminos, garlic, and fresh cilantro to the skillet and continue to saute until the beef is cooked to your liking, about 1 to 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Divide the saute between 2 plates and serve.

(Calories: 737 Fat: 63g Total Carbs: 5g Fiber: 1g Sugar: 1g Net Carbs: 4g Protein: 35g)

WEEK 3 DAY 7

Lunch: Chicken Hash with Coconut Dijon Sauce

Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 20 mins Yield: 2 Servings

Ingredients:

For the coconut dijon sauce-

1/4 cup of ghee (60ml)

2 Tablespoons of Dijon mustard (30ml)

2 Tablespoons of chicken broth (30ml)

2 Tablespoons of coconut butter (30g)

For the chicken hash –

2 tablespoons of coconut oil (30ml), to cook with

1/2 medium onion (55g), thinly sliced

1 carrot (50g), grated or thinly sliced

1/2 leek (45g), thinly sliced

1 chicken breast (200g), diced

2 cups of spinach (60g)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

In a small saucepan, melt the ghee over medium heat

Reduce the heat to low and add the dijon mustard and chicken broth to the saucepan. Simmer, whisking frequently, for 5 minutes until the sauce is slightly thickened.

Add the coconut butter to the saucepan and continue to simmer, whisking continuously, for an additional 5 minutes until the sauce is desired consistency. Remove the saucepan from the heat and let cool. (Sauce will continue to thicken as it cools)

Meanwhile, melt the coconut oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrot, and leek to the skillet and saute until the vegetables are slightly soft, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Add the chicken to the skillet and saute until cooked, about 5 to 6 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Divide the spinach between 2 plates and top with equal amounts of the chicken hash. Drizzle equal amounts of the coconut sauce over the hash and serve.

(Calories: 698 Fat: 62g Total Carbs: 13g Fiber: 5g Sugar: 4g Net Carbs: 8g Protein: 26g)

Dinner: Leftover One Pot Pork and Cabbage Stew

Prep Time: 5 min Cook Time: 0 min Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients:

Leftover one pot pork and cabbage stew from Day 5 dinner

Instructions:

On the stovetop or in a microwave, reheat the leftover pork and cabbage stew to desired temperature.

Divide the stew between 2 bowls and enjoy.

(Calories: 351 Fat: 35g Total Carbs: 16g Fiber: 6g Sugar: 8g Net Carbs: 10 g Protein: 42g)

The post 21 Day Keto Diet Plan for weight loss (Keto Beginners) appeared first on Natural Wellness and Remedies.

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[Transcript] – 16 Reasons You’re Not Burning Fat (& How To Lose Weight The Right Way)

https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/fat-loss-podcasts/how-to-lose-weight/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:01:18] The RUNGA Immersion

[00:02:53] Kion Coaches

[00:04:10] Podcast Sponsors

[00:05:33] About this Solosode

[00:06:22] How Fat Actually Gets Burnt

Get The Low Carb Athlete - 100% Free!Eliminate fatigue and unlock the secrets of low-carb success. 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[00:12:23] The 16 Reasons You’re Not Burning Fat the Way You’d Like

[00:12:36] Chronic Inflammation

[00:21:04] Glycemic Variability (GV)

[00:27:31] Podcast Sponsors

[00:30:46] Cortisol and Stress

[00:34:19] Sleep Deprivation

[00:35:27] Snacking and Post-Workout Calories

[00:39:47] You’re Not Moving Enough

[00:41:32] Too Much Exercise

[00:43:34] Chronic Cardio

[00:45:53] The SAID Principle

[00:49:56] Lack of Cold Therapy

[00:52:24] Hormonal imbalance

[00:54:40] Toxin and Chemical Exposure

[00:56:28] Food Allergies and Intolerances

[00:57:42] Micro-Nutrient Deficiencies

[00:59:01] Thyroid

[01:01:02] Disordered Eating

[01:03:25] Final Take

[01:05:36] End of Solosode

Ben: Your lungs are the primary excretory organs for weight loss. So, unless you’re wanting to gain significant mass, like if you’re a high school or college football player trying to get to the next level, if you’ve eaten at some point prior to working out, there’s no need to drop everything to slug down that post-workout protein drink. The number one thing that you can do if you are resistant to weight loss and you’re already moving more in eating less is–

I have a master’s degree in physiology, biomechanics, and human nutrition. I’ve spent the past two decades competing in some of the most masochistic events on the planet from SEALFit Kokoro, Spartan Agoge, and the world’s toughest mudder, the 13 Ironman triathlons, brutal bow hunts, adventure races, spearfishing, plant foraging, free diving, bodybuilding and beyond. I combine this intense time in the trenches with a blend of ancestral wisdom and modern science, search the globe for the world’s top experts in performance, fat loss, recovery, hormones, brain, beauty, and brawn to deliver you this podcast. Everything you need to know to live an adventurous, joyful, and fulfilling life. My name is Ben Greenfield. Enjoy the ride.

Hey, if you listened in to Thursday’s episode, you know that I am leading a very intimate heavily curated retreat at a private mansion in Napa Valley in September. Not everybody can get in. You got to apply to get accepted. It’s extremely high-end and includes these amazing meals prepared by a world-famous chef named Seamus Mullen, very luxury accommodations. This is like a mansion on 70 acres of forest out in a secret spot in Napa Valley. My wife and I will be there. Your registration includes a one-on-one consultation with me as a podcast listener in just a moment when you go to the URL I tell you to apply. You’ll automatically get $1,000 off if you are accepted to attend this retreat.

We do mobility and breathwork and meditation and yoga every morning. We do things like cold immersion and kettlebell classes in the afternoons. It includes a manual therapy session with this amazing body worker who’s been on my podcast before, name is Scott Dolly. You get to feast on these all organic fresh vibrant meals. And my wife along with Amelia DiStefano, one of the other hosts of the retreat. They teach you how to cook as well. So, it includes cooking classes, a whole bunch of extra goodie bags in your room when you check in. If you feel like you might be a fit for this, it takes play September 12th through the 15th. The only way to get in is to apply. And you apply it, BenGreenfieldFitness.com/runga. That’s BenGreenfieldFitness.com/R-U-N-G-A.

Now, another special announcement for you is that last year, I personally trained and mentored over 100 different health professionals; personal trainers, nutritionists, physicians, everything. It was a 22-week rigorous course in which I taught them everything I know about sleep and hormones, and fat loss, and performance, gut health, spiritual health, everything. Literally dumped my brain and programmed each of these coaches. And now they’re available for you to work with personally to achieve whatever goals you have. They’re spread out all over the globe, all these people I trained. They range from nutritionist to personal trainers to chiropractors to psychologist to MDs.

So, if you want to see if you’ve got somebody in your area you could work with, or you want to work with one of these coaches virtually, you just go to getkion.com, getK-I-O-N.com/kion-coach. Now, I’ll also put that link in the shownotes for today’s show, which you can get over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/fatlosspodcast. That’s BenGreenfieldFitness.com/fatlosspodcast. Or you can also click through the coach directory to the RUNGA retreat to everything else I mentioned in today’s show.

Also, this podcast is brought to you by Organifi. Organifi makes this green juice, and they pack a bunch of different superfoods into their green juice. They’ve got spirulina and alkalizing lemon extract, coconut water extract, a whole bunch of stuff. There’s even a study recently that maintaining a net state of alkalinity assists with your ability to be able to stave off muscle loss. And this was a very cool renal acid load testing protocol. I tweeted it out. But one of the best ways to alkalize your body to be able to put yourself into a state where you can maintain or even gain muscle are with these greenish type of foods. And this stuff has matcha green tea, wheatgrass, mint, spirulina, chlorella, moringa.

You’d think it’d cost like $20 a bottle, but they just send you a powder. You mix it with cold water or almond milk or in a smoothie or whatever you want. Make it yourself, and it’s pennies on the dollar compared to these fancy juice bars, plus you get an extra 20% discount when you use the code in the URL I’m about to give you. You go to organifi.com/ben. That’s Organifi with “I”, organifi.com/ben. And the 20% discount code that you can use is BENG20 at organifi.com/ben.

Hey, that’s me, my trumpet, me and my trumpet here with you today, and that’s all, no guest, zero guest. This is just me on a solosode about fat, about all the different reasons that people have a hard time burning fat. Sixteen reasons, specifically, that I’m going to get into on today’s show with you, and what you can do about it. I haven’t done a solosode in a little while because I just have so many amazing guests that I always want to talk to. But occasionally, I have some things that I want to get off my mind and into yours, and today’s episode is no exception. So, if you’re into burning fat or helping people burn fat, this is the episode for you.

So, before I talk about why people are resistant to weight loss so much, it’s important to understand where fat actually goes, like how fat actually gets burnt, because most fat loss books and so-called weight loss experts and physicians and dietitians and personal trainers, they’ll tell you that fat is converted to energy or is converted to heat. But that actually violates a law called the law of conservation of mass. And all that law states is that mass in an isolated system is neither created nor destroyed by chemical reactions or physical transformations.

So, in other words, you can’t simply take fat and poop it out or turn it in a muscle. Instead, the primary place that fat goes when you lose weight is your breath. You breathe away fat. Your lungs are the primary excretory organs for weight loss. So, any excess calories that you eat, here’s how it works, including carbohydrates, protein, and even that half stick of butter that you put into your green tea or coffee, that gets converted into triglycerides, which is a type of fatty acid. Now, excess carbohydrate or protein is converted to triglyceride and stored in the lipid droplets of fat cells. Fat cells are called adipocytes. And excess dietary fat then undergoes something called lipolysis, or the breakdown of fat followed by another process called reesterification to allow that fat to be stored.

So, people who want to lose weight while maintaining muscle and other important tissue are biochemically speaking, trying to burn through triglycerides that are stored in adipocytes, lipid droplets that are stored in or triglycerides that are stored in the lipid droplets of fat cells. Now, triglycerides are comprised of three types of atoms; carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. And they can only be broken down when these atoms are unlocked through a process called oxidation. And that requires, this is where breath comes in, the inhalation of oxygen.

There was actually a research study that was done. It was called “When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go?” Great title for a research study. And what the researchers found was that for 22 pounds of fat to be oxidized, 64 pounds of oxygen must be inhaled. And oxidation results in about 61 pounds of carbon dioxide excreted via the lungs, and about 24 pounds of water excreted via urine and feces and breath and sweat. So, your lungs are the primary excretory organs for fat loss. And stick with me here on the math. So, every breath that you breathe out contains a little over 0.001 ounces of CO2, and about 0.003 ounces or rather 0.0003 ounces of that is carbon. So, an average total of 17,000 breaths during the day is going to get rid of around 0.32 pounds of carbon, and about a third of that fat loss is occurring when you’re doing nothing at all, like when you’re sleeping during the night.

So, how do you replace all that carbon that you breathe off? Well, unless you’re eating charcoal rocks or overdosing on charcoal capsules. The only significant carbon sources that I personally know of are dietary carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. So, from as simplistic a standpoint as possible, losing fat means consuming less carbon than you’ve exhaled. So, if you were to spend a day asleep, at rest, and performing light activities that honestly can nearly double your resting metabolic rate, just walking around and moving, you’d exhale about seven ounces of carbon. By substituting one hour of rest per day with one hour of moderate exercise like going on hike, riding a bike, doing some weight lifting, your metabolic rate is increased by about seven-fold, and that removes an extra ounce and a half of carbon from the body, increasing the amount of carbon you exhale by around 20% from seven ounces up to eight and a half ounces.

Now, the problem is all that carbon loss can, of course, be offset by eating carbon molecules from carbohydrates or protein or fat. A single 100-gram whole wheat muffin, for example, will give you about 20%, 20% of your average daily energy requirement. And that means physical activity as a weight loss strategy is foiled even by relatively small quantities of food. And so the most effective albeit traditional and boring solution to this conundrum that does not sell many supplements, and it doesn’t sell many diet books, and it doesn’t sell many biohacks or anything else, is to simply move more and eat less.

Now, that’s it. You know more about the true mechanisms behind weight loss now than the average biochemistry student. The problem is, let’s say you’re already eating less and moving more, you’re theoretically now engaging in enough physical activity to breathe off more than enough carbon, and the scale still isn’t budging. So, what gives? Well, that’s what I want to dig into this podcast. But I had to lay it out beginning with this explanation of how you breathe away carbon so that you know that from a very simplistic model, the lowest hanging fruit, the bottom of the totem pole, or the top of the totem pole, depending on how you want to think about it is that you must be ruthlessly cognizant of carbons in and carbons out, how much you’re moving and how much you’re eating. Okay? So, that’s the number one thing that you need to pay attention to.

So, let’s say you’ve got that down, you’ve wrapped your head around that. If you’re listening to this podcast, you may already have kind of started on that journey. Now, let’s get into 16 of these reasons that you actually can’t burn fat. Reason number one is inflammation. So, there’s a common belief that fat cells never actually go away, and that simply is not the case. There is something that you can do to annihilate fat cells, and that is to rid yourself of inflammation. Okay. Fat cells don’t just shrink and sit there waiting for more carbon or triglycerides, as you’ve learned earlier. They can go away.

Now, before jumping into the nitty-gritty of inflammation, remember that not all inflammation is bad. Acute inflammation is a natural biological reaction to stressors. So, when you cut yourself, the area surrounding the cut becomes inflamed. As your immune system and regenerative processes react, that prevents infection. It heals the cut. Acute inflammation also happens when your muscle fibers break down and get rebuilt after a hard workout. But when you have chronic inflammation and a constant stream of inflammatory chemicals, that becomes an issue. High levels of what’s called transforming growth factor beta promote inflammation and weight gain by causing irregular appetite and glucose regulation, and that’s something that can be induced from anything from over exercise to inflammatory food.

There are also things called matrix metalloproteinases. Those remodel the matrix outside of your cells. They regulate white blood cell movement. Those can also cause inflammation when their blood plasma activity gets too high. There is vascular endothelial growth factor or VEGF is what that’s abbreviated as. And that aids in the growth of new blood vessels, and those are correlated with obesity. Those can feed blood to new fat cells. Nitric oxide synthase. You may have heard that nitric oxide is good, and some is good, but high nitric oxide synthase can lead to excess NO, and that’s also been correlated with obesity.

There’s something called toll-like receptor 4. That’s involved in a phenomenon called meta-inflammation, which is a state of low but chronic inflammation in immune and fat cells. And there are many genetic and epigenetic factors that can contribute to that process. It’s called NOS uncoupling. So, rather than making nitric oxide, NOS uncoupling results in the production of superoxide free radicals, which also contribute to the destructive path of inflammation. The cool part about that is that that can be tested. So, you can test for that via–there’s this company called StrateGene, and I’ll link to all of anything I mentioned, studies and companies in the shownotes. But basically, with StrateGene, you can test for certain dirty genes, so to speak, that could show you whether or not your nitric oxide synthase pathways are effed up, so to speak.

You can also test with StrateGene for a pathway called Nrf2. If Nrf2 isn’t working properly, your body can’t handle iron properly, and it can make excess free radicals, especially if you have too much iron or ferritin. And often, people with variance in their Nrf2 genes suffer from inflammatory conditions that nobody seems to be able to resolve. Again, functional genetic testing can help determine whether you have issues with your Nrf2 genes. And there are some substances like, you may have heard of sulforaphane from broccoli or resveratrol, which is found in the skins of grapes and in certain berries, bacopa, milk thistle, turmeric, all of those can help to support healthy Nrf2 activity.

One of my upcoming podcast guests, Dr. Bob Miller, has some wonderful work on this, if you go to his website, which I’ll link to in the shownotes. I don’t have it on hand right now, but the shownotes for this entire podcast will be at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/fatlosspodcast. That’s BenGreenfieldFitness.com/fatlosspodcast. You’ll be able to check out Bob Miller’s website. And there are a lot of other chemicals and enzymes and factors involved in inflammation, but chronic inflammation can be systemic. It can affect the entire body. And probably, the biggest thing that can lead to inflammation is rancid oils, right, oils that have been treated with high temperatures or high pressures because you get a one-two whammy of inflammation and insulin resistance.

We’re talking about the type of polyunsaturated fats you’d find in canola oil and safflower oil and peanut oil and sunflower oil, and most processed and packaged foods because polyunsaturated fats are highly prone to oxidation, and that can promote chronic inflammation, the buildup of toxic substances in the arteries. And so I think one of the number one tactics for turning your body into a fat decimating factory is to cut out most PUFAs and replace them with healthy fat sources, like extra virgin olive oil, and fatty fish, and avocado oil, and macadamia nut oil, and coconut oil, and to a certain extent saturated fats, although many people do even need to limit saturated fats because a lot of folks and studies have shown experienced a deleterious inflammatory response of saturated fats once they comprise about over 10% of your total intake of fats. We’re talking about fats that are solid at room temperature, things like butter or cheeses, for example. So, sugar can be inflammatory, but compared to rancid oils, glucose, and fructose, and sucrose, and other sugars, those are pretty quickly metabolized, especially if you’re very active. So, I think sugar is less of an issue for inflammation, as much as vegetable oil, is the primary issue.

Now, another major cause of inflammation is simply chronic stress, and that’s just because your limbic system can get stuck in sympathetic fight-and-flight mode. That’s a pretty complex set of nerves and networks in the brain that controls basic emotions like fear and pleasure and anger, but also basic drives, like hunger and sex. So, if the limbic system is overstimulated, not only does your immune system become hyperactive, resulting in this cytokine cascade and systemic inflammation, but you also see a rapid fluctuation in the hormones responsible for controlling hunger.

And also, no discussion of inflammation I think would be complete without mentioning something called cell danger response or CDR. Now, CDR is this evolutionarily conserved metabolic response that protects cells and their hosts, including you, the human host from harm, and it’s triggered by encounters with chemical or physical or biological threats that exceed your cell’s capacity to be able to keep up with that stress. And that could be emotional stress, it could be exercise stress, it could be chemical stress, it could be like mold and environmental stress. But anyways, the resulting metabolic mismatch between available resources and the functional capacity of the cell can actually change things like cellular electron flow, and mitochondrial activity, and oxygen consumption, and cell membrane fluidity, and carbon, and sulfur resource allocation, and a host of other important metabolic mechanisms that also influence fat loss.

Now typically with CDR, there is this first wave of danger that signals the release of metabolic intermediates, like ATP and ADP, and oxygen, and reactive oxygen species from the cells. And then after the danger or the stress is eliminated or neutralized, there’s this sequence of anti-inflammatory and regenerative pathways that are activated to reverse that cell danger response and heal the cell. But when the CDR persists abnormally, what happens is a state of chronic inflammation and a long-term release of inflammatory cytokines.

Now interestingly, CDR, like I mentioned, can be kind of in that stuck state from emotion or past trauma, or from infection, or from toxins. And I think probably the best book to really wrap your head around how to manage cell danger response is a book called “Toxic” by Dr. Neil Nathan. There’s another doctor named Dr. Robert Naviaux. And I’ll link to both these guys’ website. Dr. Robert Naviaux has a lab at UCSD, and they really get into how mold and mycotoxin exposure, major life stressors, chemical stressors, exercise overtraining, et cetera, can leave you in fight-and-flight mode or increase this cell danger response.

So, ultimately, the number one thing that you can do if you are resistant to weight loss and you’re already moving more and eating less is to look for any sources of inflammation. I think the biggest is vegetable oil, but I’d also consider getting a test through StrateGene for any dirty genes. I’d also consider looking into cell danger response and reading that book, “Toxic” by Dr. Neil Nathan.

Now, the second thing, the second biggest thing really, in my opinion, that affects also a host of chronic disease parameters like inflammation does but also fat loss is glycemic variability. Now, glycemic variability refers to your blood glucose fluctuations that occur during the day, how often your blood sugar is rising and falling at any given point during the day. And what can happen is that if glycemic variability gets out of control and your blood sugar gets too high, your body has two choices. It can shovel the sugar in your muscles and liver or store that sugar as body fat, but if your energy expenditure throughout the day isn’t high enough and your muscle sugar levels, your glycogen levels in your muscle, or your glycogen levels in your liver are full, you’re going to gain fat tissue. That’s where the sugar will be partitioned.

Now, there are ways that you can keep that from happening, which I’ll get to in a moment. But ultimately, it’s very simple. You just are ruthlessly cognizant again, to use that term, of how often your blood sugar levels are fluctuating throughout the day. And some of my favorite ways to control the level of glycemic variability are the following six strategies. Number one is strength training because when you strength train your ability to drive glucose, then the muscle cells increases. And strength training also decreases blood glucose levels and increases insulin sensitivity.

I’m a big fan of starting or ending the day with strength training or even doing strength training prior to whatever your largest meal of the day is going to be so that you have a place for storage disposal for many sugars that you eat with the meal. Another one that I like is pre-breakfast fasted cardio. And there are some research studies that have shown this is a really good strategy for controlling glycemic variability. There’s even a really, really good book called, “Change Your Schedule, Change Your Life” that gets into Ayurvedic strategies for fat loss, and it highlights the importance of pre-breakfast fasted cardio, which is also wonderful for sleep and circadian rhythm.

So, strategy number three would be a postprandial walk. There was a Japanese study that took three groups of men and had them do one of three actions immediately following a meal; sitting, standing, or walking. And by the end of that study, they found out that low volume easy walking for 30 minutes after a meal kept serum fat concentrations 18% lower than sitting or standing after a meal. And personally, for me, with testing with my own continuous blood glucose monitor, I found that as little as 10 minutes of walking seems to do a really good job controlling post-exercise–or post-meal glucose spikes.

Standing would be strategy number four. And while that study I just cited did find that walking is more effective than standing after a meal, standing is still more effective than sitting. Like one study on office workers found that standing for 180 minutes after lunch, like at a standing workstation rather than a sitting workstation, reduce the post-lunch blood sugar spikes by 43% compared to sitting for the same amount of time. There was another study that found that alternating between standing and sitting every 30 minutes throughout the workday reduce blood sugar spikes by 11% on average. So, even during a day at the office, you don’t have to feel like you need to work out to control blood sugar, but instead the trick is to not sit down for the entirety of your work day, and preferably to figure out ways, especially post-breakfast and post-lunch, and if you’re still working, post-dinner, to stand to work for the periods of time following a meal.

Next, are our plants and herbs and spices. And there are a host of different plants and herbs and spices that can help out with blood sugar management. Some notable examples are Ceylon cinnamon, like working in two teaspoons of Ceylon cinnamon during the day. The supplement Gymnema sylvestre can control carbohydrate cravings, but also control glycemic variability. Berberine is another one. Apple cider vinegar is another. Then there are rock lotus and bitter melon extract. So, those are really potent natural ingredients. Those are actually a component of a product that I have at Kion called Kion Lean. These were the only two ingredients in it, rock lotus and bitter melon extract.

Now, I’m very, very much, because I carry the genetic factors that predispose me to type 2 diabetes, cognizant of my blood sugar levels. And I realize this might sound spendy and I go through a bottle of this stuff faster than most folks, but I have two before every meal, regardless of the carbohydrate content. And it, for me personally, is as potent as the diabetic drug metformin at controlling my postprandial blood glucose with potentially less of some of the metabolic blowback of using metformin. So, I’m a huge fan of that supplement as an option for controlling glycemic variability along with some of the things like Ceylon cinnamon and apple cider vinegar.

And then finally, the sixth strategy in addition to strength training, pre-breakfast fasted cardio, postprandial walks, standing, and some different plants, herbs, and spices, is fiber. And dietary insoluble fiber through anaerobic bacterial fermentation breaks down into short-chain fatty acids. And about 95% of the short-chain fatty acids in your body are comprised of acetate or propionate or butyrate. And research has shown that acetate inhibits the conversion of glucose to fatty acids in the liver, and that reduces the accumulation of fat and adipose tissue and improves glucose tolerance. Propionate appears to do the same thing, and also increase insulin sensitivity.

And then finally, butyrate has been shown in rodent models to prevent and treat diet-induced insulin resistance. So, you can get your fiber from things like sweet potatoes and yams and dark leafy greens and legumes. Interestingly, for people who get irritable bowel syndrome or who have some type of deleterious response to fiber intake like bloating or gas, it appears that being in a state of ketosis or consuming ketone supplements like beta-hydroxybutyrate, can simulate what fiber does for the effects that I just mentioned without you needing to eat a lot of fiber. So, if you’re saying a carnivore diet or you’re limiting vegetables for other reasons such as your gut, you can actually just use a ketone supplement like a beta-hydroxybutyrate salt or just stay in a relative state of ketosis, and that can do the same thing.

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Okay. As I alluded to earlier with cell danger response in my explanation of that, reason number three that folks can be resistant to weight loss is cortisol and stress. When you’re stressed, your body releases hormones like cortisol that turn on essential functions for your survival, like higher blood pressure and rapid decision-making while inhibiting non-essential functions like immune function or digestion or protein synthesis. And that’s helpful if you need to handle an acute stressor like a looming deadline or say like a race or a competition. But it’s also why chronic stress can restrict your ability to shed extra weight because cortisol can suppress insulin secretion, it can inhibit glucose uptake into your cells, and it can disrupt insulin signaling to muscle tissue.

So, chronic stress directly causes insulin resistance, and that can affect glycemic variability, cause resistance to weight loss, increase inflammation, cause dyslipidemia, which is elevated blood fat and cholesterol levels, and also result in chronic hypertension. So, when it comes to stress, the daily stressors can, not just be say the things you automatically think about, like say, work or family or relationship issues, but it can also include excess exercise, relationship, or personality conflicts that might simply be unresolved, but that you’re not thinking about in the moment. Emotions, like boredom and loneliness, can contribute to stress.

So, toxins and pollutants you might not even be aware of in your air, or your water, or say like EMF and Wi-Fi and electricity that are all around you. Psyching yourself up too frequently, right, like doing Wim Hof fire breathing at the beginning of every decision, from waking up to working out to amping yourself up to an important call can just be constant sympathetic mode. Pressure to perform, constant limelight from social media, lack of encouragement or love from others. There’s a lot of this stuff that has been studied to result in the same type of chronic stress patterns as you might get from just working too much.

So, one of the best ways to know if you’re chronically stressed, in my opinion, is to simply start measuring your heart rate variability. Get an Oura Ring or a WHOOP wristband or use the NatureBeat appropriate. And you can measure heart rate variability to see where your stress is in any given moment. When you can clean up heart rate variability–and sometimes it responds to very interesting things, like for me, when I step into my office, my HRV goes up, there’s electrical stuff all over my office.

It’s odd because I can work just as hard outside of my office in a lower electricity format like out in the guesthouse in the forest back behind my house, and I get nothing so I have things installed in my office; dirty electricity filters like a Somavedic and a Blue Shield and a Himalayan salt lamp, and these things that help to mitigate some of the EMF. And since I started doing those things, my HRV is a lot more stable during a day of work. So, again, even electrical stress can cause this type of stuff. And you can go and listen to my podcast on–with the guy who wrote the Tin Foil Hat book to learn more about that. But just understand there are a lot of variables that can contribute to stress, and you need to be aware of how cortisol could contribute to resistance to weight loss. And as I mentioned in podcast number 397, which you could listen to at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/397, the DUTCH test is probably one of the best tests. It’s a 24-hour urine test. We’re really seeing what’s truly going on with cortisol.

Okay. Number four is sleep deprivation. I don’t need to kick this horse to death. You probably know the research that shows that getting under the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep per night can lead to appetite cravings, weight gain, diabetes, and what would otherwise be a healthy population. Scarier yet is that all it takes to cause this type of damage is a single night of partial sleep. Of course, sleep deprivation is also known to raise cortisol levels, and reduce glucose tolerance, and increase sympathetic nervous system activities.

So, you can see how a lot of this stuff kind of piles up on each other as I go through these different reasons. And sleep deprivation also produces a neuroendocrine effect by reducing levels of the satiety inducing hormone leptin and increasing levels of the hunger-stimulating hormone ghrelin. So, sleep deprivation reduces your ability to metabolize glucose and also makes you want to consume more sugar or more hedonistic vegetable oil laid in snack food. That’s why it’s so easy to grab a second helping up the buffet or fail to stroll by a vending machine unscathed when you’re sleep-deprived. So, sleep is another very, very important variable.

Number five is snacking and post-workout calories. When I was bodybuilding and doing a lot of personal training, it was well known that one of the best strategies to pile on the pounds was to arrive at work with a container of yogurt and a couple of Tupperware containers of lean chicken with rice and broccoli, a couple of Ziploc bags of almonds, a handful of energy bars and a premade protein shake, and that was a really, really good way to put on size and mass, especially muscle mass if you’re combining that type of frequent eating and grazing with weight training.

But a lot of people caught on to that and thought, “Oh, I’m going to lose fat and look like a bodybuilder if I graze throughout the day.” But the theory behind that is you need to eat, whatever, six to eight small meals throughout the day to keep your metabolism elevated, but that’s a myth. It’s long since been debunked by science. Short digestion does produce a thermic effect that increases your metabolism, but the bump is very slight. Frequent snacking instead increases your glycemic variability and eliminates any of the gut or longevity-boosting benefits of fasting, or compressed feeding windows.

There’s no evidence that eating more than three meals per day boosts your metabolism, helps you to lose weight or aids in appetite control. But if you, on the other hand, eat only two to three meals per day in that compressed feeding window, such as during the period between say 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., your body releases more growth hormone. It burns more fat. It releases more testosterone. And frequent feeding also keeps your blood sugar at levels elevated and shifts your metabolism into more of a sugar burning mode, which doesn’t allow your body to tap into its stored fats for fuel.

So, eating six small meals per day may be worse for your waistline than eating two or three larger meals spread throughout the day. And the belief that you’ll enter into starvation mode if you don’t eat frequently is also false. It takes about three days of complete fasting with no calories, or four weeks of extreme calorie restriction for your body to downregulate metabolism and thyroid activity. Short-term fast like daily overnight 12 to 16-hour fast actually increase your metabolic rate due to an increase in norepinephrine, one of the hormones that signals fat cells to break down. You don’t even have to reduce your calorie intake in a scenario like this. Especially if you’re a very active individual, you just eat less often, not necessarily eat less. And as long as that’s combined with physical activity, it can be a good weight loss strategy.

Another common myth is that you need to shove some protein and carbs in your mouth or grab a Jamba Juice right after a workout from the smoothie outlet at the health club as you’re walking out. The idea behind eating right after finishing a workout is to maximize muscular adaptations and repair damaged tissue and rapidly shuttle glycogen into muscle for ample anabolic growth during that limited window of maximum carbohydrate absorption, which is about 20 minutes to maximum of two hours after training. But in every single study that looks at the benefits of immediate post-workout eating, the participants were fed after exercising usually to exhaustion in a fasted state. And most of us aren’t jumping out of bed to exercise for 90 to 120 minutes with no fuel.

So, unless you’re wanting to gain significant mass, like if you’re a high school or college football player trying to get to the next level by putting on 20 pounds, if you’ve eaten at some point prior to working out, there’s no need to drop everything to slug down that post-workout protein drink. Your blood levels of amino acids and stored carbohydrates are still elevated from any meal you’ve had prior to the workout. So, that means for a 5:00 p.m. visit to the gym, your body can still easily metabolize your breakfast or lunch for a fuel. And in fact, occasionally waiting to eat a couple hours after you exercise may be beneficial for boosting growth hormone and testosterone levels.

So, the only exception of this would be if you’re performing two a day workouts within an eight-hour window each day because you are–if you’re going to hit the gym twice, you do need to eat carbohydrates and protein within that 20-minute window preferably if you’re planning on hitting it hard again later on in the day within eight hours. But otherwise, there’s absolutely no need to try to replenish all your stores after the workout. And that may actually fly in the face of hormonal adaptations that would be conducive to more fat loss.

So, strategy number six is–or reason number six, you might be resistant to weight loss, is you’re not moving enough, duh. I’m always at a day of work standing and lunging and kneeling and sitting and leaning, and I try to take 15,000 steps a day. I stop every 25 to 50 minutes for a Pomodoro break that includes kettlebell swings or a quick stroll up the stairs or jumping jacks or a handful of burpees. I’ve stopped 25 minutes into this podcast and I sat down and stood up 15 times, right? Just sit down on the floor, stand up 15 times, very functional move. I do 20 air squats every time I use the bathroom on an airplane. I do 40 air squats every time I use the bathroom in a restaurant.

And I don’t do this because I’m a hyperactive freak who’s addicted to exercise, rather, I simply know the metabolic benefits of twitching and constantly moving and really kind of fooling your body into thinking you’re in this hunter-gatherer ancestral mode of just getting stuff done during the day rather than staying sedentary for extended periods of time. And when you’re sedentary, you see changes in insulin signaling and glucose transport and lower levels of lipoprotein lipase, which is the primary enzyme responsible for breaking down fat. So, the trick is to just figure out ways to move more.

Most people who are pretty successful at weight loss, they’re taking anywhere from 10 to 15,000 steps a day, and they rarely–and a ring like the Oura ring, for example, or self-quantification device can tell you this, they rarely have a one-hour period of time during the day where they’re inactive, right, even one hour. Meaning that if you have a one-hour work project to do, you stop at the 25-minute mark. You do some jumping jacks and you keep going. I mean, it’s that simple.

Now, reason number seven is just the opposite, too much exercise. This is the hardcore CrossFit are trying to stay in the whiteboard or the housewife who’s been inspired by the Navy SEAL on social media to get up at 4:00 a.m. to go crush the day and go to the pain cave. And the physical cults are all about zero days off and no pain no gain, and balls to the wall, and going hard as a mother effort. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to going to the pain cave, if you’re trying to climb your own Mount Everest like training for a triathlon or a Spartan Race or the CrossFit games, but sometimes it’s not conducive to weight loss.

Excessive exercise, especially in the presence of other lifestyle stressors, can lead to elevated levels of cortisol and inflammation. And we now live in an era of overtrained, over-inflamed folks with hormonal dysregulation and cortisol bleeding out their ears. That’s what my entire last book, “Beyond Training” is all about. It’s about how athletes run into all these different health issues with overtraining or what’s called non-functional overreaching, just training in a state that leaves you unfunctional.

So, the idea is that in many cases if you’re resistant to weight loss, typically, what I see is it’s too much of the same exercise over and over again, too much hard exercise, not enough variability and activity, and not enough just easier days where you’re walking in the sunshine or doing yoga or gardening. I think the sweet spot is two to three days of the week, you’re lifting heavy stuff, you’re doing a brief spurt of high-intensity interval training, again two to three days a week. You have a couple of days where you’re out going on a longer walk or a longer hike.

And aside from that, you just have low-level physical activity spread throughout the day. The only exception to that is I am a huge fan of most folks going on like an easy aerobic walk before breakfast when they’re in a fasted state in the morning. But that’s something that can easily be woven into a routine, and you don’t need a lot more than that. So, over-exercising can lead a lot of people into kind of that skinny fat syndrome.

Similarly, reason number eight is chronic cardio, not the chronic heavy weight training or high-intensity interval training, but just this idea of long marathon training death marches, or multi-hour cycling sessions, or the excessive draining slog on the line up of cardio machines at the gym. Not only can chronic cardio lead to some cardiomyopathy issues like dilation of the right atrium and ventricle of the heart, and elevation of cardiac troponin and other things called natriuretic peptides and little patches of cardiac fibrosis. And I’m not talking about like walking or gardening or mowing the lawn; I’m talking about like pounding the pavement in training for an Ironman triathlon or marathon in a traditional voluminous sense.

And again, like you do need to train with volume in many cases for those type of events, but don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s a good way to lose weight or to maximize longevity or health. The idea is that excessive chronic cardio will catabolize muscle. And a wonderful stored usable energy for cardio is body fat. And so your body essentially gets rid of muscle and learns how to store fat pretty easily to prepare for each bout of cardio while simultaneously downregulating anabolic hormones, like testosterone and growth hormone. And so that’s one of the issues is that you simply put your body into a state where you’re catabolizing muscle and getting very good at storing fat.

So, if you’re already training a better but is short high-intensity interval cardio sessions, again two to three days of the week. And there was one study that found that after 20 weeks of training, participants that performed high-intensity interval training had a greater reduction in subcutaneous adipose of your body fat than those that engaged in a far more voluminous amount of endurance training, like long, slow treadmill runs. And, of course, hit is also effective at the management of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. And most hit sessions last like 20 to 30 minutes at the most. So, you’re getting a lot more bang for your buck from a time standpoint. Again, if you’re having difficulty with losing weight and you’re spending a lot of time on the gym cardio machines or doing Ironman-esque training sessions, you may want to reconsider or lower the cardio and replace it with high-intensity interval training and weight training.

Next is the SAID principle, reason number nine. The SAID principle stands for specific adaptation to impose demands, meaning, your body will eventually adapt to the demands that you place on it. Like if you’re only running for your cardio or if you’re only doing push-ups and overhead presses and pull-ups as your only form of upper-body training, your body gets very efficient at those movements and it adapts to those demands by burning fewer calories in response to those exercises. It’s just a cool element of the human body. We learn how to move very efficiently with things that we do quite often, but it also means that we burn a lower number of calories. And this means that sometimes the best workout plan is the one you’re not currently doing.

Most of my clients who I coach and I write out their training plans and workouts, they know at least every four weeks, there are some pretty serious curveballs thrown into their weight training routine, their high-intensity interval training routine, their cardio routine. Some days they’re on the rowing machine, some days they’re outside on the bike, some days they’re using the kettlebell, some days they’re using dumbbells and barbells, some days they’re doing 10 reps, some days they’re doing 20 reps. It varies widely, especially for those folks whose primary goal is aesthetics because I am keeping their body constantly kind of guessing.

The idea behind this is that I would say there are five different modifications that can help out quite a bit. One is to combine exercise, like, do a lot of complex movements. You can look up a whole bunch of complex lifts. I have a whole article at BenGreenfieldFitness.com that’ll link to in the shownotes at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/fatlosspodcast on complex exercises like squats to overhead presses, lunges with curls, vertical jumps, push-ups with a burpee, medicine ball lifts and throws, a lot of things that combine different exercises. Those can be very difficult for your body to metabolically adapt to.

Next, are active rest periods. So, if you’re doing a routine and it says, “Rest 30 seconds, rest 60 seconds, rest 90 seconds,” use that time to do mobility work like foam rolling or opposite arm, opposite leg extensions or light and easy walking. I see so many people slumped over on the bench at the gym reading their cell phones or magazine, and I think that time could be much better used to keep the metabolic rate elevated and squeeze more volume into training session.

Training outside can also be good. If you’re used to training indoors, the unpredictability and undulating terrain that you’ll experience outside, and of course there’s a host of other reasons that it’s beneficial to train outside, can really, really help. I have a formal gym at my home, but I also have a garage gym, and also a trail through the forest. So, I’ve got like three different locales, and I can tell you right now, running outside down the trail is far different than running on the treadmill in terms of metabolic cost.

Next is to change the center of gravity. Meaning, if you usually use a barbell for lunges, switch it up, use dumbbells, use a medicine ball, use a kettlebell in a goblet squat position. Add on a weighted vest or a weighted backpack when you’re walking. For cable exercises, move the cable up or down a few notches and come at the movement from a new angle because altered weight positions and angles force your body into an entirely new metabolic situation. You can also work out at a different time of day. So, if you’ve been working on the morning for the past few years, you can throw your body for a loop and hit the gym an hour before dinner and it’ll feel far different.

The only folks for whom kind of like changing up the scenario by working at a different time of day or people who have poor sleep or disrupted circadian rhythms, exercising in a regular time during the day has been shown to be beneficial for sleep. But if your primary goal is weight loss, just try to keep throwing curveballs at your body. That’s the big message. Don’t go for more than four weeks without significantly changing some specific staple of your exercise program.

Next is cold. So, most of the people I trained for fat loss–and I stay pretty lean year-round. I average about 4% to 7% body fat year-round every single day without fail. Not only do I do an easy fasted cardio session before breakfast, like a 20-minute walk in the sunshine or 30 minutes in the sauna, but I also get in two to five minutes of cold, because cold can be such a potent metabolic stimulus, it converts white adipose tissue into metabolically active brown fat. And brown adipose tissue is brown fat. It’s primarily located on your sternum and your clavicle and your rib cage. It generates heat by mobilizing the energy that’s stored in white fat. That’s known as non-shivering thermogenesis or cold thermogenesis, and it occurs in brown adipose tissue mitochondria when protons are forced across the inner membrane to be turned into heat instead of ATP.

Now, when this occurs, you can see a significant increase in metabolic rate and a conversion of a lot of adipose tissue. There’s another type of fat called beige fat. Beige adipose tissue is very similar to brown adipose tissue. And what happens is it doesn’t get moved into the clavicle area or the rib cage or the sternal area; it stays in the same general area, but it’s far more metabolically active and far less inflammatory. So, again, most of the folks I coach and myself every single day without fail, there’s at least two to five minutes of cold exposure via a cold shower or a cold soak.

Usually, once a week, there’s a longer cold training session where I’ll have people be doing like three minutes in a cold bath or cold river or cold lake or cold shower followed by three minutes of breathwork. I call this the three by three cold, back into the cold for three minutes, back into the breathwork for three minutes three times through. And in the people who can handle it from a–because I track everyone’s HRV, but the people who don’t respond deleteriously to this from a nervous system standpoint, every week, I’ll have them do a longer session that leaves them shivering for a considerable period of time, like a 10 to 20-minute cold bath.

Now, another option, if that’s uncomfortable for you, is there’s a company called cool fat burner. You can check them out at coolfatburner.com, and I’ll put links in the shownotes that sell vests and waist packs that just pack your body with cold. And those can be really effective if you just–you got to be at your computer working during the day, you can’t be sitting in an ice bath, and it allows you to stay cold. So, get cold.

Number eleven is hormone. And there are a lot of hormonal imbalances that can occur as young as your early 20s caused by everything from stress to pesticides, to plasticizers, to phytoestrogens, to dietary contaminants, to lack of sleep, to poor digestive health. And when it comes to hormones, I really like that DUTCH steroid profile that I mentioned earlier because it’ll tell you what’s going with your testosterone, with your estrogen, with your cortisol, with your cortisone, with your metabolites. It’s something that you can order online. I’ll be sure to add links to it for you in the shownotes.

But women, for example, naturally produce progesterone, and that protects against excess fat growth. And progesterone production declines much faster with age than estrogen. So, by the time a woman reaches 30 to 50 years old, she can develop estrogen dominance. And at that point, fat rapidly accumulates and becomes much harder to lose. Men can experience similar age-related issues as their testosterone falls and their estrogen rises. But you may simply be a candidate if you get tested for either adjustments to the diet or to the environment that would be influencing your hormonal panel or even bioidentical hormone replacement therapy.

I did a whole podcast with Jay Campbell on this and we talked a lot about testosterone replacement, and hormone replacement, and the safety profile of it, and some of the myths about it. If you’re not competing in a sport like Ironman or something like that that would cause this to be banned, it can be a potent strategy. But before you even jump into something like that, I mean, you can eat more cruciferous vegetables, which contain indole-3-carbinol, which is an antioxidant that metabolizes excess estrogen in the body. You can filter your water of things like fluoride and chlorine. You can use glass or stainless steel products instead of plastic.

Go read a book that my friend, Anthony Jay wrote called, “Estrogeneration” that specifically addresses all of these hormonal disruptors in our environment and minimize them in your environment. I think that hormones are another really, really important thing, especially when people are eating less and moving more and still resistant to weight loss, especially if they’re about 35 to 40 years old or higher.

Now, related to that would be number 12, which is toxin and chemical exposure. Three-letter acronyms like PCBs and DDT and DDE and BPA, those have been found in extremely high concentrations in human fat tissue and can cause significant metabolic damage and hormone imbalances and propensity to fat storage because toxins can be shoveled into adipose tissue to protect other functional tissue and internal organs. That’s why a rapid fat loss regimen can often result in skin rashes and zits and diarrhea because as you mobilize fat, you also mobilize many of the toxins that that fat contains. And those can cause other symptoms if they’re not dealt with via a wise detoxification protocol.

So, the part about balancing your hormones can really help out with minimizing or sopping up toxin and chemical damage, some of those tips that I gave earlier, but you must be, again I’m going to use this term for a third time, ruthlessly cognizant of any sources of toxins and chemicals in your environment. And it just drives me nuts when I see some woman at the gym exercising her ass off, dieting like hell, and then walking in the locker room. I’m not watching her in the locker room. You can smell the women when you walk past them just wearing these endocrine disrupting perfumes and non-organic or non-natural makeup. I mean, all these things that are just seeping into their bodies, getting their house cleaned with normal household cleaning chemicals and driving on a car with that toxic little green tree freshener. There are just so many things that sounds silly, but if you’re constantly bombarding your body with that stuff, it really can cause your body to want to create new fat cells to store those toxins.

Now, number 13 is food allergies or food intolerances. And the problem with this is it can result in a lot of times that same sympathetic inflammatory response I was describing earlier that can result in either cell danger response or resistance to fat loss. Now in many cases, this is very simply elucidated with a good food allergy test. I’m a huge fan of Cyrex Laboratories because they test for reactivity to cooked and modified and raw foods. They test for over 180 different food antigens. They test different protein structures of the food. They test, again like I mentioned, raw chicken versus cooked chicken, and the white blood cell response is going to be far different to raw versus cooked. So, you’re going to get fewer false positives in response to common foods.

It’s one that a doctor would need to order for you, but I’ll link to some helpful resources for Cyrex Laboratories in the shownotes because that’s one that I think can really, really elucidate anything in your diet that you really should eliminate. And it varies widely from person to person. One person can be green beans, another person can be cashews. But what you don’t get is a huge laundry list of false positives in most cases from a Cyrex food allergy panel.

Number 14 is micronutrient deficiencies. So, there are studies that have shown that specific micronutrient deficiencies are associated with weight gain and obesity. The most significant of these micronutrients are vitamin D, chromium, biotin, thiamine, and antioxidants. And deficiencies in these specific nutrients can prevent fat loss via mechanisms that include altered insulin gene transcription, amplification of intracellular insulin signaling and changes to glucose, and amino acid metabolism. A few others that are less common but still related to resistance to weight loss are magnesium, and boron, and vitamin A, vitamin K2, and choline.

Now, there are tests like the Genova ION panel or the Genova NutrEval, and both of those can identify these micronutrient deficiencies that can be causing resistance to weight loss. And a lot of these aren’t tested for on an average common blood panel. So, that’s another one that I would consider is your micronutrient status. I’m not saying everybody needs to go out and take a multivitamin. I don’t think that’s wise, but I do think it’s wise to test and see if there are specific vitamins and micronutrients and minerals you’re deficient in that you need to replace.

Number 15 is your thyroid. Now, the thyroid gland, as you’re no doubt aware, produces hormones that regulate metabolism. It secretes thyroxine or T3 and triiodothyronine or–thyroxine is actually T4, triiodothyronine is T3, but those influence the metabolic rate of lipids and cholesterol and glucose and protein. And when the thyroid becomes underactive and results in hypothyroidism, that can result in weight gain, so can any type of autoimmune issues that could inhibit the conversion of T4 to the more active T3, as can gut issues.

And so there are a lot of things that can influence thyroid activity. If you’re going to test for thyroid, I would get a comprehensive blood test for thyroid activity that includes things like TSH, T3, T4, free T3, free T4, reverse T3. Don’t just look at TSH because even if TSH is high, and I would consider high to be anything above about two, especially if you’re looking less for absence of disease and more for variables that might contribute to resistance to weight loss, you don’t know why the TSH is high unless you test some of these other variables too, and that will lie to figure out, “Okay, whatever.”

“I’m making more than enough T4, but it’s not getting futher into T3. Maybe I’m not eating enough carbohydrates, or maybe I’m too stressed, or maybe I have some gut dysfunction, or I’m making adequate T4 and T3 but I’ve got a bunch of thyroid antibodies. And so I have some thyroid autoimmune conditions, or I need to analyze my diet for anything that could be causing food allergies or food intolerances.” And you can also consume plenty of seaweed and sea vegetables and Dulce and Brazil nuts and shellfish and oysters, and even coconut oil, because a lot of those are the type of foods that can allow for proper thyroid conversion and metabolism in the gut. So, thyroid would be number 15.

And then we get to number 16, which is disordered eating. And for a lot of people, and research suggests this, maintaining a regular eating schedule can improve significantly the metabolic response to meals. So, if you’re having trouble losing weight rather than haphazardly skipping breakfast some days and eating it on others, having dinner late some nights and early the other nights, or shifting from restaurant to restaurant for your lunch choices, you should simply establish far more consistent meal patterns. I’ve had some clients shed significant number of pounds by not changing anything except just having the same thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner. A smoothie for breakfast, a salad for lunch, and then meat or fish and vegetables for dinner at the same time day in, day out for a few months.

Women, interestingly, seem to benefit most from this type of regularity. They did a study of healthy lean women and they found that an irregular meal pattern resulted in lower postprandial energy expenditure than a regular meal pattern. There’s another study where lean women who ate meals on a regular schedule had much better insulin sensitivity and improved blood fat levels. And there was another study of obese women in that they found that regular meal times increased postprandial thermogenesis, and insulin sensitivity, and blood lipids which put the women into a state that was more receptive to weight loss.

Now, some folks, especially very active folks, can thrive on an erratic eating schedule. But for many people, irregular meal times depress metabolism because their bodies expect food at specific times, and the result can be dysregulated appetite and altered metabolism. And I just think if you’re eating the same thing at similar times a day, it’s far easier to just be cognizant of how many calories you’re consuming. Once you begin to mix things up a whole lot, it can get really difficult.

And I personally have nearly the same thing for breakfast, the same thing for lunch, and the same thing for dinner, granted there are some benefits to seasonal eating. Like sometimes my smoothie is more of like a hot bowl in the winter, or my lunchtime salad is more of a stir-fry in the winter, and dinner might be a little bit more of a heftier, heavier meat in for dinner in the winter. But it’s kind of the same general composition year in and year out, month in and month out. So, disordered eating is the 16th.

The last thing I want to finish with today is–well, first of all, everything I’ve mentioned, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/fatlosspodcast and I’ll have plenty of helpful links and resources for everything I’ve been talking about. But you’ve learned about different factors that can prevent you from losing weight today. You’ve learned how to reverse a lot of those negative effects to get the body that you desire, but please also understand that everybody is different, and so is every body.

So, if you aren’t satisfied with your physique according to what societally subjective beauty standards thrown at you in grocery store magazines and from pop culture are, it may be the case that your body has reached its ideal weight. You may not like to hear that and it may not seem fair, but you can reach a state of healthy homeostasis even if you have higher than desired body fat percentage if you’re doing everything right. If you nailed every element in this podcast and you still can’t seem to lose more weight, you might need to accept the fact that you’ve reached healthy homeostasis and you weren’t just designed out veins in your abs or striated lats or skinny calves. And that’s okay. Own your thick calves. Own the extra little bit of fat up around your neck that you don’t like because that’s how you were built.

Excessive exercising and dieting with an orthorexic approach to life while beating your body’s smithereens with fat loss biohacks, it’s not going to shift you into maximum fat-burning zone or shrink your waistline, and it’s more likely to downregulate vital components of life, like fertility and satisfaction and happiness. So, accept the fact that you have a unique body. Inject light levels of physical activity or mild discomfort throughout the day, and stand while you work, and take cold showers, and avoid sitting for long periods of time, and engage in deep breathing to control stress, and implement intermittent fasting, and use all the other techniques that I’ve talked about, and then simply be satisfied and happy with the body that you’ve been blessed with.

So, I hope this has been helpful for you. And if you have questions, if you have comments, if you have feedback, just go over to the shownotes at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/fatlosspodcast, and I’ll be happy to help. And in the meantime, have an amazing week.

Well, thanks for listening to today’s show. You can grab all the shownotes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com, along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful “Ben Recommends” page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I’ve ever recommended for hormone, sleep, digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please, also, know that all the links, all the promo codes, that I mentioned during this and every episode, helped to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. When you listen in, be sure to use the links in the shownotes, use the promo codes that I generate, because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.

Several months ago, I filled you in on “The 2 Best Ways To Burn Fat Fast (Without Destroying Your Hormones Or Metabolism)“.

But what you learned in that article only scratched the surface of the multiple mechanisms underlying why the human body can be resistant to fat loss, and how to achieve truly sustainable, long-lasting weight loss in a safe and efficient manner.

So during today’s solosode, you’ll discover…

-How fat actually gets burnt…6:20

Law of conservation of mass: Mass, in an isolated system, is neither created nor destroyed by chemical reactions or physical transformations

Fat is primarily disposed of via the breath

Calories, as well as excess carbs and proteins, are converted into triglycerides and stored in lipid droplets of adipocytes

Excess dietary fat undergoes lipolysis, and then reesterification

Triglycerides are composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen

Oxidation: requires inhalation of oxygen

Study: When someone loses weight, where does the fat go?

For 22 pounds of fat to be oxidized, 64 pounds of oxygen must be inhaled

Results in 61 pounds of carbon dioxide excreted via the lungs and 24 pounds of water excreted via urine, sweat, feces, and breath

Average of 17,000 breaths per day will excrete .32 lbs of carbon

Sources of carbon (other than eating coal) are: dietary carbs, proteins, and fats

If you didn’t get all that, get this: Losing fat means consuming less carbon than you’ve exhaled. Even small quantities of food can foil your efforts at weight loss. The simple solution is to move more and eat less.

The 16 reasons you’re not burning fat the way you’d like

– Chronic Inflammation…12:35

High levels of transforming growth actor beta cause irregular appetite and glucose regulation

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMP): calcium-dependent zinc-containing endopeptidases

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF): Aids in the growth of new blood vessels; correlated with obesity

Nitric oxide synthase

Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) = meta inflammation

Nos uncoupling (genetic factors)

StrateGene

Tree of Life, Bob Miller’s site

Sugar can be inflammatory but is more quickly metabolized than things like vegetable oil

Chronic stress is a factor: overstimulation of the limbic system

Cell Danger Response (CDR)

– Glycemic variability (GV)…21:05

Refers to the blood glucose variations during the day

If GV gets out of control, the body does one of two things: transfers sugar into muscles, or stores as body fat

It will become fat tissue if you’re not active enough throughout the day

Be “ruthlessly” cognizant of blood sugar fluctuations

6 Strategies to control GV

Strength training

Pre-breakfast fasted cardio

Post-prandial walk

Standing

Plants, herbs, spices

Fiber

– Cortisol and stress…30:45

– Sleep deprivation…34:20

A single night of partial sleep can be deleterious

Neuro endocrine effect: reduces levels of leptin; increases levels of ghrelin

– Snacking and post-workout calories…35:25

“Grazing” or 6-8 small meals per day is a myth

Snacking increases your GV and eliminates benefits of fasting

Your body releases more growth hormone during intermittent fasting

Grazing throws metabolism into sugar burning mode

It takes 3 days, or 4 weeks of extreme calorie restriction for the body to down regulate metabolism

The need for protein and carbs right after a workout is a myth

The exception: two a day workouts

– You’re not moving enough…39:47

Fool your body into thinking it’s in the “hunter gatherer” mode

– Too much exercise…41:30

Excessive exercise, along with other stressors can lead to increased levels of cortisol and inflammation

Beyond Trainingby Ben Greenfield

Too much of the same exercise

Not enough recovery days

Sweet spot:

2-3 days per week, lift heavy stuff

2-3 days high-intensity interval training

– Chronic cardio…43:35

Your body will catabolize muscle and store fat

High-intensity cardio 2-3 days per week

Reduced subcutaneous adiposity of body fat among people who follow these guidelines

– The SAID Principle…46:00

Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands

Sometimes the best workout plan is the one you’re not currently doing

Keep the body guessing

5 modifications:

Combine exercises

Active rest periods

Train outside

Change the center of gravity

Workout at a different time of day

– Lack of cold therapy…50:00

Cold is a strong metabolic stimulus

Cold thermogenesis occurs when protons are forced across the inner membrane and turned into heat

Beige adipose tissue

Every day, 2-5 minutes cold exposure (cold shower, cold river or lake)

3×3 cold

com(Use code: BEN10CFB to save 10%)

– Hormonal imbalance…52:25

– Toxin and chemical exposure…54:40

– Food allergies and intolerances…56:30

– Micro-nutrient deficiencies…

– Thyroid…59:00

– Disordered eating…1:01:01

Your body expects food at a certain time of day

Results in irregular metabolism

Easier to track calorie consumption when you eat the same thing, at the same time of day

– Final comments…1:03:25

Everybody and every bodyis different

It could be possible your body has reached its desired weight

– And much more!

Resources mentioned:

– Article: When someone loses weight, where does the fat go?

– StrateGene

– Tree of Life, Bob Miller’s site

– Book: Toxic by Neil Nathan

– Dr. Robert Naviaux, UCSD

– Book: Change Your Schedule, Change Your Life

– Ceylon cinnamon

– Gymnema Sylvestre

– Berberine

– Apple cider vinegar

– Kion Lean

– Oura Ring (Save $50 with code: GREENFIELDOURA)

– Podcast with building biologist Brian Hoyer

– Podcast Ep. 397

– Beyond Training by Ben Greenfield

– coolfatburner.com (Use code: BEN10CFB to save 10%)

– Dutch Test

– Podcast w/ Jay Campbell

– Estrogeneration by Anthony Jay

Episode sponsors:

– Kion Coaches If you are looking for a professional that can personally help you optimize your mind, body, and spirit to become the best version of yourself, and who knows exactly how I work with my own clients, just head on over to view our brand-spankin-new Coach Directory!

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Ask Ben a Podcast Question

Source: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/transcripts/transcript-how-to-lose-weight/

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

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piscesknight12-blog · 5 years

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211: How to Boost Your Adrenals and Cleanse Using Food With Dr. Alejandro Junger

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I’m here today with someone who’s a living legend in the health world. Dr. Alejandro Junger is the New York Times bestselling author of multiple books, including Clean, Clean Gut, and Clean Eats. He trained in internal medicine in New York and completed a fellowship in cardiology at Lenox Hill Hospital. What makes him unique is he also studied Eastern medicine in India. Now he brings the wisdom of Western medicine and Eastern medicine together and offers a solution for clean living in today’s world.

Many celebrities and doctors I respect follow his approach, and it’s my privilege to sit down with him today!

Episode Highlights With Alejandro Junger

How adrenals work and why they’re so important to the body

The causes of adrenal fatigue, and why so many of us are affected

Why the gut is the most vulnerable to the outside world

Ways to follow nature’s blueprint for a healthier life

Which “detox” or “cleanses” have benefits… and which are gimmicks

The ways the body’s natural detoxification processes work (and how we can help them along)

How our thoughts affect our physical health

And more!

Resources We Mention

Learn more about Dr. Junger and his work at TheCleanProgram.com

Books by Dr. Junger

Did you enjoy this episode? What other questions do you have about adrenals? Please drop a comment below or leave a review on iTunes to let us know. We value knowing what you think and this helps other moms find the podcast as well.

Thank You to Today’s Sponsors

This episode is brought to you by Organifi and I’m so excited to tell you about them! Here’s a confession… I’ve known about them for a long time and even though so many of my friends and experts I trust rave about them, I never tried their stuff until recently because I thought… how can it actually be that good? Well, I tried it and it turns out that it is not only that good, it’s even better! Organifi has green juice, red juice (which is an antioxidant red drink that is delicious) and a golden milk turmeric drink, along with a plant-based protein shake. They are all organic and they actually taste good, unlike a lot of other green drinks and protein powders. I’ve especially been loving their red juice lately… it tastes amazing and has a blend of antioxidants from strawberries, cranberries, blueberries and pomegranates along with beets, cordyceps, reishi, rhodiola, and more. This particular blend is formulated to increase energy, boost metabolism and reduce factors that lead to aging. Their green juice is minty and delicious and has almost 800 5-star reviews… You can check it out, along with their whole suite of products and save 20% by going to https://organifi.com/wellnessmama with coupon code WELLNESS20.

This podcast is also brought to you by Good Culture. Good Culture makes amazing cottage cheese. I know, I know, not necessarily words you would put in the same sentence. But theirs is awesome, I promise, even if you don’t love cottage cheese. Basically, it’s naturally fermented cottage cheese so it’s free of gums, fillers, and additives and it’s packed with probiotics. And because it’s made naturally it doesn’t have that weird mouthfeel that a lot of cottage cheese has. So, I use it all the time in cooking and smoothies as a substitute for other types of cheese, or just a meal on the go. You can find it at Whole Foods and many other grocery stores and it comes in yogurt-sized cups too, and those are perfect for meals. Check them out. It’s Good Culture and they are available at many grocery stores.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/junger/

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jesidivi-blog · 6 years

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Do Electric Ab Stimulators Really Work?

Typically, growth hormone release will be at its highest if you are taking rest periods of about one to two minutes between each set (the lower rest being used for isolated, smaller muscle groups and the longer rest for heavier exercises like squats and deadlifts. Next, another way you can maximize your growth hormone release is ensuring you are getting a full eight hours of sleep at night. It's of no good for you to pound away in the gym, lifting as heavy as you possibly can, but then only allowing your body five to six hours of sleep at night.

Sleep time is when you recover and coincidentally, also the time when growth hormone release is high. Further, some studies have shown that growth hormone release tends to be even greater in the hours before midnight, so try and go to bed earlier and get up earlier - if possible. This shouldn't have to be said, but you'd be surprised at how many people think they can build muscle on a few extra calories above maintenance.

They are so scared of fat gain that they think, "I'll just go slowly, add about 100 extra calories per day and ensure I only gain weight." While this theoretically seems to make sense, in the real world, it usually doesn't quite work out this way. The body does adjust its metabolisms lightly to account for various intakes so, at only a hundred extra calories per day, you might find you're just spinning your wheels and not gaining any significant weight at all.

Six pack abs quicker. Ever heard that phrase? Everyone wants them, but it is determined by how hard you work. If you push yourself every day you will find yourself with a strong core. If you're lazy and sit around all day, you will get nowhere and will stay with that flab on you're stomach! Today I'll teach you what it takes to get six pack abs quicker, and how to do it easier than you ever thought!

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http://wedidreviewforyou.com/organifi-green-juice-review/

https://diethours.com/cbd-oil-for-anxiety-review/

#Marine Muscle Review

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sparefreckle · 6 years

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Organifi Green Juice-Summary

We should discuss your kitchen. The kitchen is regularly depicted as the core of the home, and it's certainly the core of your green squeezing tries. In the event that you don't have one as of now, I exceedingly prescribe beginning an adoring association with your kitchen... it's certainly a relationship worked to last!You may want to check out Organifi Green Juice for more.

Making your green juice isn't an excessively tedious undertaking, however you will require a tad of work space. Assign a particular place for your "squeezing station" - ideally near the sink. You will likewise require space for your cutting board - I exceptionally prescribe a bamboo board committed just to crude veggies - and your juicer. Keep in mind, while it's anything but a necessity to have these things out constantly, I ensure that you will be more devoted and in this manner more fruitful once a day - and generally speaking, it will simply make it more straightforward in the event that you have a committed spot for everything!

So once more, it's simplest if your squeezing station is situated close to the sink. Reason? Sink-board-juicer is perfect since you can wash the veggies, hack them and after that juice them in a sequential construction system esque way. I even utilize an over-the-sink drainer to put my flushed veggies in so the water mess is limited and it consumes us less room, yet you can utilize any expansive colander or a towel on the ledge if that works best for you.

In case you're extremely restricted on counter space, I very prescribe the conservative Breville juicer, the over-the-sink drainer, and basically put your removing board at every day! All set to go!

In conclusion, you should set up some devoted space in your cooler. The most ideal approach to do this, is to wipe out the old stuff that you are never again utilizing!

What Else Do I Need?

So what else do you require other than the cutting board, drainer, juicer? You'll unquestionably require an extraordinary blade - the best one you can bear! I for one have a substantial gourmet expert's blade from Ikea that was really not very costly and I cherish it! A decent blade will accelerate the procedure for you.

Other extraordinary things are: Produce packs as well as unique cooler holders are likewise a noteworthy accommodation since they help shield your green treats from ruining! Sustenance squander sacks to gather your mash in... put it specifically into your juicer mash catcher as they help limit the tidy up and keep your trash can from getting as well "rotten". Ultimately, you might need to keep some canning containers available to store your green squeeze in the refrigerator! Why? Since in spite of that it's best to drink your juice straight from the juicer, it's not constantly advantageous with our bustling lives. Canning containers have tight-fitting covers and are additionally helpful drinking glasses - twofold score!

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artsoccupychi · 6 years

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Healthy Travel Food – The Ultimate Packing Lists for Eating Right on a Trip

I’m a busy single mom who does a lot of traveling, with and without my kids. Part of my journey to excellent health was learning habits and recipes that we enjoyed, that happened to also be really nutritious. But another major step was key to my being able to rehab my family’s health, many years ago when I got serious about ditching the Standard American Diet. And that is, learning how to be prepared, with ideas, and healthy options away from home.

In this article:

Finding Out How to Eat Healthy When Traveling

Packing for a Healthy Road Trip

A Healthy Plane Trip Food List

Tips for Finding Healthy Food While Traveling

Plan Your Food for Traveling

Packing Healthy Travel Food

Finding Out How to Eat Healthy When Traveling

Running kids to sports practices, attending “home” and “away” games for four competitive athletes, playing a traveling, competitive sport myself, and traveling all over the country giving lectures for six years, made me get creative about staying healthy travel food while on the road.

In addition to those times away from home, I’ve gone on vacations and humanitarian service missions, where I’ve taken my entire family to developing countries for several days or even weeks at a time.

How do I feed myself and my family well when I’m on the go and away from home so often?

I’ve been asked this question countless times, and I’m happy to share with you my strategies.

Packing for a Healthy Road Trip

Car trips are easier to plan for than plane trips because they are conducive to bringing coolers and a box of ingredients and equipment, and quarts of green smoothies for your first few days.

And more often, when you drive, you’ll have access to a kitchen, where you’re going.

You can eat healthy travel food even on long car trips, like one we took to Disneyland.

Our Disneyland Road Trip Food List

We brought enough food and snacks for two meals per day. (Make sure you book a hotel with a mini-fridge, but if you tell them you need it for medical purposes, they have to provide it.)

Then, I ask Siri for a salad bar or vegan restaurant nearby.

Our Disneyland healthy travel food packing, for a family of 6, looked like this:

In the Cooler:

Bags of baby carrots, sliced cucumbers, raw sweet potato sticks

½ gallon homemade yogurt

2 bags Costco organic mixed greens

1 bag Costco frozen mixed berries

a pint of soaked/drained sunflower seeds (to add to granola for breakfast)

a quart of alfalfa/radish/clover sprouts (to add to granola for breakfast)

In the Box:

BlendTec for a family, Nutribullet for a single person with limited ability to pack (can go in a suitcase easily)

Disposable cups, straws, bowls, spoons, and resealable baggies

Knife and cutting board for smoothies (I use it even on hotel room tables or vanities)

Containers with tight-fitting lids, for smoothies

Backpack for taking food to the parks

3 loaves whole-grain bread

organic peanut butter-honey (pre-mixed for sandwiches)

A gallon bag of homemade granola (*recipe below)

3 boxes rice milk

A gallon bag of soaked/dehydrated Teriyaki Almonds (*recipe below)

Tonya’s “For Cryin’ Out Loud Dehydrator Onion Bread” (*recipe below)

1 bunch ripe bananas (for green smoothies; also add to yogurt for breakfast)

bags of washed apples, pears, plums, celery sticks

Ziploc bags of dried fruit

Powdered greens and a shaker cup

5-gallon jug of filtered water

Avoid Processed Food Overloads

Not only did bringing our own healthy travel food to save us a lot of money, but we also didn’t feel horrible and sleep 10 hours a night to recover from a day of trans fats, chemicals, food dyes, and sugar from eating Disneyland food.

Our digestive function didn’t shut down, we didn’t struggle with blood sugar lows and resulting crabbiness.

Save Money and Eat Healthy

All in all, we may have enjoyed our vacation much more, in addition to saving a boatload of money compared to what we saw others doing.

When you travel, if you don’t think ahead about healthy travel food, you are more likely to be trapped in the worst of the Standard American Diet!

Tip: Try this make-ahead mix to travel with, for a healthy flax muffin-in-a-cup made in your hotel room!

A Healthy Plane Trip Food Packing List

Traveling by plane for an extended trip (especially with children) takes a little different planning.

For example, Europe for 3 weeks was a tricky trip. I want to share how we went and ate well (5-10 raw vegs/fruits daily) without hassle or excessive expense.

Making do Without Appliances

We had no green smoothies as a crutch because you don’t go to little European hotels with an appliance, nor will an appliance company cover your warranty if you blow it out with the weird plugs in various countries.

Plus, we had flights from Venice to Barcelona, and Barcelona to Paris, with strict weight requirements. A turbo blender is just too much weight.

We packed these healthy travel food options in our suitcases to take with us.

The Best Travel Food to Bring with You

1. A good organic powdered greens product. This saved us, nutritionally, in the absence of green smoothies! I stirred a large spoonful into a glass of water for everyone, morning and night. (If you would like to order from our friends at Organifi, use coupon code ROBYN15 at checkout–you’ll get 15% off your order!)

2. Grape Nuts, Shredded Wheat, Costco Granola, and Rice Dream. Double bag the rice milk in gallon Ziploc bags: two fit perfectly in one bag (you’ll need to put liquids in your checked baggage, not your carry-on).

Remove the Grape Nuts from their boxes (we bought the big Costco ones) and add another layer of protection with a gallon freezer bag. You don’t want these things exploding in your suitcases.

3. Gallon freezer bags of homemade granola, and pint bags of dry, raw seeds like pumpkin and sunflower, on a trip, are lifesavers.

Along with a box of rice milk you bring, they’re a breakfast that will serve you well for the most important meal of the day, helping you avoid a crappy hotel continental breakfast, which is never, in any country, an option that will give you sustained energy for the day.

Soak the seeds when you get to your destination, pour the water off the next morning, and use the seeds stirred into the baked granola, for living enzymes, the world’s healthiest fats, and powerful nutrition to power through until lunch!

Even restaurant breakfasts (which take time from your touring and are expensive) are pretty much never nutritious. We bought bananas in the market, upon arrival, to add to our cereal.

4. Paper bowls and plastic spoons (for breakfasts).

5. Snacks like sprouted Teriyaki Almonds (*recipe below), organic plant-based bars you bring from home, and apples travel well.

6. Frozen plastic pint and quart containers of green smoothies, or frozen green juice, double bagged, and rolled into pairs of jeans in my suitcase at the last minute.

This works when the hotel we’ll be arriving at has a fridge. If it doesn’t, you can get some ice and put green smoothies in the sink, with ice, to keep them cold for a couple of days. This is a bit of a hassle.

You can even get through Security with a pint of frozen green juice. (It’s not liquid!)

7. A 32-oz. bottle of water in everyone’s checked luggage, to tide us over till we’re able to stop and buy gallons of distilled or filtered water, so we don’t end up not drinking enough or drinking fluoridated, chlorinated water from taps or drinking fountains.

Make sure you’re drinking a lot of water when you’re traveling, especially with airline travel, because drinking lots of clean water is even more important than food.

Tips for Finding Healthy Food While Traveling

It’s not true that you can’t find something good to eat when you’re traveling. It is, however, true that you have to try a bit harder than when you’re at home.

Just know what you’re looking for. First and foremost, you’re looking for opportunities to get greens and vegetables (priorities #1 and #2) because those are the base of the pyramid, the most important foods, and also the hardest healthy travel food to find when traveling.

So when you can, find them, buy them, and eat them however you have to—even by the handful, plain!

More tips for travelers:

1. Look for Produce Stands and Local Farmers’ Markets.

You’re enjoying local fruit and vegetables in season, and can be part of your touring the area and experiencing what they grow there!

For example, when we went to Europe, we’d stop at a market and buy some healthy travel food options like this every day for lunch:

6 nectarines

6 large carrots (I never saw baby carrots in Europe)

A loaf of whole grain bread (a comedy of communication errors in a bakery in Paris taught me that “complete” is the word in France to describe whole grains).

Some local cheeses and mustard and tomatoes for the bread.

John Robbins | The Food Revolution

(Read John Robbins’ The Food Revolution on how European meat/cheese is highly government regulated and not full of antibiotics, steroids, infected pus and other lovelies like the U.S. products contain. Also, bread is made fresh, without hybridization of the wheat, without preservatives, and Europe does not have the glyphosate [Roundup] issue. So many people with gluten issues do fine with European bread.)

Shop at a Grocery Store and Eat Local Food

We’d wash the fruit and carrots, toss all the stuff in a backpack, and stop in a park somewhere to eat each day.

Part of the fun was going in the little local grocery markets to see what they have.

Finds like this make you feel at home in a strange city and add to the sense of discovery and accomplishment in your travels.

2. Know What to Look for in Restaurants.

While traveling to Europe (and often stateside), we would eat dinner in a restaurant. I’m certainly not going to take my kids to Italy without letting them try gelato and pizza!

Try a Lot of Local Cuisine

(Of course, the pizza bears no resemblance to what is offered here in the U.S. It is much better for you, and you can get many lovely vegetarian pizzas, one of the most popular varieties being topped with mounds of raw greens.)

Ditto Barcelona, where we enjoyed the paella (vegetarian, of course) and gazpacho.

And France? I did not, myself, try the white bread, but let the kids do it once because my then-husband thought it was somehow important in their “experiencing” France.

And of course, they did fall madly in love with crepes.

(Can you believe I had never tried that hazelnut/chocolate spread, Nutella, in my life, before France? Note to self: avoid at home. Wow, it was yummy on crepes. Do not include this as part of my “eat healthy” tips.)

Indulge and Eat Healthy

So, we did indulge, but always with a big green salad.

(I learned, after my childhood of severe hypoglycemia, that if one eats refined sugar now and then, it should be done only after a good, healthy, high-fiber meal.)

The Europeans have lots of watercress and other lovely greens that we consider exotic here. And amazingly, even without my green smoothies, and despite a few servings of gelato and crepes, I came home the same weight and had lots of energy each day for our adventures.

Healthy Fast Food Choice

Stateside, Subway is our standby as “fast food” on trips. Here’s what you do: get the “wheat” bread and order a Veggie Delite.

Tell the teenage employee to put on LOTS of cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes, and shredded carrots, and spinach if they have it (skip the iceberg lettuce). For a sauce, we just do brown mustard.

Order a Large Veggie Sandwich

Then, your sandwich lies there, open, looking a little skimpy.

The “sandwich artist” awaits further orders. Do not, in the interest of being polite, leave with that skimpy sandwich. You say, can I have a bunch more tomatoes? Thanks! And how about a lot more cucumbers?

(Go through the whole vegetable lineup again if necessary. Smile and use all your chatty charisma, so as to not completely annoy the sandwich maker.)

The Perfect Packed Sandwich

When your sandwich is piled high with veggies, they manage to squeeze it shut and package it up for you, and you get a rather nutritious meal, at least compared to most fast food. I recommend the 12-inch to make it filling enough for hiking around, on vacation.

Look for Healthy Restaurants

Other restaurants we ask Siri about, on U.S. trips, are Cafe Rio or Bajio’s for the salad with whole wheat tortilla, no meat, lots of black beans, and extra romaine.

Think what chains you have found healthy options at, and look for them when you’re out of town.

How to Eat Healthy in Other Restaurants?

Robyn with her daughter Emma and Dr. Petra Wiechel, on her trip to WY, ID, UT.

If I end up at one of the really lousy Americana chains like Chili’s, Applebee’s, TGI Friday’s, etc., I ask for extra romaine on the side and dressing on the side (so you can use a minimal amount).

Avoid Mexican and Chinese restaurants, because they rarely have anything raw or nutritious on their menu.

Indulging While on Vacation

On a trip across the West with friends from Europe, at any of our given restaurant meal, some were having a couple glasses of wine with dinner, or dessert, or coffee after dinner.

All of us are very health-conscious people. My point is, we all indulge, on vacation. If we’re doing some great things, all day, to keep nutrient density high, hopefully, it’s enough to continue enjoying the vacation.

3. Look for Juice Bars and Salad Bars.

Greens are your #1 daily priority, and Google makes this easy.

I’ve found a juice bar and had a wheatgrass shot in the AMSTERDAM airport, and had another giant glass of made-to-order fresh carrot-celery juice in DOWNTOWN PRAGUE. That’s right, in the Czech Republic! Where a tour guide told us, “Our national vegetable is pork.”

Go for Green Drinks and Whole Foods

Buy green smoothies or no-fruit green juices, made fresh, with superfood additions. Some Whole Foods Markets have made-to-order juice bars.

In fact, Whole Foods was my go-to when I did my lecture tour for 6 years in 450 cities. in virtually every city we drove to, whoever isn’t the driver programs WFM in the GPS, to find the closest one. We’d get a giant salad bar to last lunch and dinner, plus a few healthy snacks and treats. It’s kind of an adventure, and it’s McDonald’s-like in that you know what you will get when you go there. Predictable and better than wandering around town hoping to find some reasonably non-toxic grub.

4. Don’t Buy Into the Idea that There’s Nothing Healthy to Eat in Airports.

You just have to look a little bit harder. I’ve found amazing quinoa/kale salad in the Phoenix airport recently, for instance.

Healthy Food Places in Airports

The Denver airport has a restaurant that serves only locally grown food selections. The Atlanta airport has a fresh juice bar. And you can get a green smoothie at Jamba Juice in most airports, though tell them to triple the greens and halve the fruit content.

Keep Looking

The point is, look around a bit, and you’ll find something plant-based, something whole, something that gives life rather than spends it. Anywhere in the world.

Here are some photos our readers shared with us, about healthy travel food “finds” on their vacations, plus a few of my own. You really can eat right, while traveling, with a bit of effort!

We got this healthy steamed and sautéed potatoes and veggies in a BBQ place in the Atlanta airport.

Look around after you’ve gone through Security and before you board your plane…Finding a good meal is a better use of time than sitting in the waiting area anyway. Survey what’s available and embrace the challenge of eating well. I found a kale-quinoa salad at a restaurant called La Grande Orange in the Phoenix airport.

And I found a juice bar inside an otherwise Standard American Diet place called Mediterranean Grill in the Detroit airport, where I get a celery/carrot juice, made fresh to order, anytime I fly through Detroit.

Check out this unassuming little place, on one end of New York City’s Canal Street, where Coach Judi and I got a 16 oz. organic, fresh-pressed parsley, cucumber, celery, carrot, and beet juice in two minutes flat. Vibrations high for the rest of the day!

Myra Johnson of Utah took her family to Rocky Point, Mexico on a humanitarian trip and stopped at “Mario’s” for food. Fresh smoothies were the main feature, with spinach, barley, flaxseed, and even asparagus! One of the smoothies Mario makes with his 11 blenders is called “Para El Estrenimianto”—for constipation! Myra took her family again the next day.

Our webmaster Jason’s wife and little boy enjoyed a green smoothie of peas, cucumbers, broccoli and spinach in a mainstream place you’d never guess would have such a great option.

Plan Your Food for Traveling

I hope these ideas are useful to you, and the recipes I made before our Disneyland trip are below for your enjoyment! And grab our Healthy Travel Food Packing List, here! It’s free and it’ll make eating healthy on your next road trip or vacation a breeze!

Special Offer! Want more ideas for healthy travel food while on vacation, on a budget, or with little time? Want to know how to get your kids to buy into healthful eating? Get my books How To Eat Right In The Real World and How To Raise Healthy Eaters at 50% off the already discounted set! Enter the coupon code ROADTRIP at checkout!

Recipes:

Teriyaki Almonds

Candied Almonds

Homemade granola

Tonya’s onion bread

What’s in your travel food list? Share them with us in the comments section below!

Disclosure: This post may contain Affiliate links that help support the GSG mission without costing you extra. I recommend only companies and products that I use myself.

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#infrared saunas #healthy

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gethealthy18-blog · 5 years

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285: How to Have a Miracle Morning and Organize Your Day With Hal Elrod

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/285-how-to-have-a-miracle-morning-and-organize-your-day-with-hal-elrod/

285: How to Have a Miracle Morning and Organize Your Day With Hal Elrod

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

This episode is sponsored by Fabletics, my current source for all my gym wear. In the last six months, I’ve discovered several new types of workouts that I’m loving. From group classes focused on flexibility, to high intensity work, to underwater weight and breath training, I’ve been loving trying new things and Fabletics has activewear for all of it. And I wear one of their pieces pretty much every day. Their mission is to make affordable high quality workout wear available to all of us, and I love being a VIP member, which unlocks special benefits. Here’s how it works… when you go to fabletics.com/wellnessmama and take a 60-second quiz, it matches you with a showroom of styles designed for your body and workout type. Before I forget, Fabletics is offering my listeners an incredible deal you don’t want to miss: Get 2 leggings for only $24 ($99 value) when you sign up for a VIP. Just go to fabletics.com/wellnessmama to take advantage of this deal now. Also, free shipping on orders over $49. International shipping is available and there is absolutely no commitment when you purchase your first order! Here’s a tip: make sure you enter your email address when you take the quiz to get notified about new styles and special. I’ve found out about some amazing sales through that link. I also personally recommend the power hold leggings which are awesome for everything from lifting weights to yoga.

This podcast is sponsored by Organifi, my source for super high quality superfood powders that are often part of my meals, especially when I travel. Green juice, their most popular drink, lets you incorporate farm fresh, gently dehydrated ingredients into your diet and lock in the extra vitamins and antioxidants. I just add to water and drink! It’s my go-to for veggies in the morning and is packed with chlorella for detox, spirulina and turmeric for detox as well as pain and inflammation, mint for improved digestion, matcha green tea for energy, and ashwagandha for cortisol and stress balance. Organifi also has a red juice with antioxidant-rich superfoods like cordyceps, reishi, and rhodiola plus an abundance of red berries. It’s sweet and fruity but low in sugar. It’s designed to fight aging, improve energy and metabolism, and sharpen cognition so I often drink it midday. And lastly, their the Organifi Gold drink is awesome at night and is filled with turmeric for skin health, ginger for achy muscles, turkey tail for immunity, and coconut milk for healthy saturated fat. Check all of these out at organifi.com/wellnessmama and use the code WELLNESS20 for 20% off.

Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and this episode is all about maximizing your morning routine. I am here with Hal Elrod who is on a mission to elevate the consciousness of humanity one reader at a time. He’s the author of the international best seller “The Miracle Morning” as well as his newest book “The Miracle Equation” and he’s doing just that.

After overcoming multiple near-death experiences that we talk about in this episode, and impacting millions of lives, he has dedicated his own life to showing others how to overcome their challenges so that they can fulfill their unlimited potential. This is a super fun episode, it has some really practical tangible things that you can implement in your own morning. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed recording it.

Hal, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here.

Hal: Katie, it is a pleasure really, thank you so much for having me.

Katie: Well, I’m so excited to chat with you because I am a huge believer in the power of a story. And I know from a little bit of research about you and from reading your books that you have actually quite an amazing story that has multiple chapters. So, to start with, for those people who are not familiar with you, can you just give us an overview of who you are and your story and how you got to this place that you are now.

Hal: Yeah, I’ll do the high level because I’m a keynote speaker I’m very long-winded, and if I start to get into the story which we can dive into each one. But, you know, all of a sudden, I’ll realize I haven’t even taken a breath yet and I’m like 12 minutes into my story. But, so, high level. When I was…I grew up very average or mediocre if you will, meaning, you know, I was a C student. I wasn’t an athlete. I wasn’t popular. I didn’t really have, other than all the gifts that, we’re each born with unique gifts, I didn’t really wasn’t born with any really amazing standout talents. And then when I was 15 I fell into a job DJing. I DJ’d school dances, and weddings, and anniversaries, and then I got hired at the radio station. And that became my dream was to be a radio DJ.

And then fast forward at 19, a buddy of mine almost tricked me into going to work with him and he was in sales, and he sold Cutco cutlery. And I had no interest in being in sales. I was at another radio station at that point after my first year of college. And I met the manager, Jesse Levine and ended up, Jesse really sold me on the idea that, you know, setting my own schedule and having no ceiling on my income, and it was kind of, and all the experience I could gain. I decided to give it a shot, and I started selling Cutco cutlery, and in my first 10 days I broke the all-time company record. Which meant I’d sold more kitchen knives in the first 10 days of anyone that had worked before me in 50 years. And it was kind of a crazy thing for me because I went from being this average kid to like, “Whoa, I didn’t know I had this in me,” you know. And that for all of us, we have so much more within us, so much more potential than we have yet to tap into.

A year and a half later I was giving a speech at a Cutco Conference and driving home after the speech in a brand new Ford Mustang. I just bought my first new car. I was hit head-on by a drunk driver at 80 miles an hour. And my car spun off of the drunk driver and the worst was actually yet to come, you’d think what’s worse than a head-on with a drunk driver at 80 miles an hour, but, the car behind me, I spun in front of them and they crashed into my driver’s side door at 70 miles an hour and crushed my car door into the left side of my body. And instantly I broke 11 bones. I broke my femur in half, I broke my pelvis in three places, I broke my arm, my humerus behind my bicep in half, shattered my elbow, broke all the bones around my eye, my eye socket was shattered, severed my ear and begin losing a lot of blood. And that night I bled to death. I was dead for six minutes on the side of the freeway. After they pulled me out of the car, the car was kind of keeping me alive. And I bled to death, I was clinically dead for six minutes, rushed to the hospital, in a coma for six days, I flatlined twice more in the coma. And when I came out of the coma, I was told by doctors that I would never walk again, and I had permanent brain damage.

And, you know, at any age, that’s tough to take, but at 20 I had a lot of goals that involved, you know, walking again, and the use of my brain. And I decided that I would not accept the doctor’s diagnosis as the ultimate fate, that I was going to believe I could walk again and have faith that I could walk again until I was proven otherwise. And I’d accepted that I would, and I’d go, “Well, maybe I’ll never walk again.” And if I never walk again, I told my dad, “I’ll be the happiest person that you’ve ever seen in a wheelchair dad, because I will not let a wheelchair define my quality of life. I will not let it define my emotional well-being.” And the power of the mind-body connection, three weeks after the crash, two weeks after I came out of the coma, the doctors came in with routine X rays and they said, “We don’t know how to explain this, Hal, but your body is healing so quickly that we’re actually gonna let you take your first step today in therapy.” And even me being, you know, faithful, and hopeful, and optimistic, I was thinking maybe I could walk in like a year, not in three weeks, you know, or two weeks after I woke up, and I took my first step and the rest is kind of history as they say.

And then I’ll kind of wrap up the big picture story with just two other pieces. In 2007 when the U.S. economy crashed, that was kind of what I would call my second rock bottom, the car accident being my first. During my second rock bottom, when the economy crashed, I kind of crashed with it. I was an entrepreneur and my business failed. I couldn’t pay the mortgage, I lost my house, I physically started declining in terms of my body fat percentage tripled in about six months. I wasn’t exercising, I was depressed, I was scared, I didn’t know how to turn it around.

And I created this morning ritual. This was like my desperate attempt to turn things around. I created a morning ritual. I wanted to create the ultimate morning ritual. And the idea was that, I was studying the world’s most successful people, just googling and looking for what are their rituals and routines? I need to start changing things in my life if I want my life to change. And I kept coming across morning rituals that I’m like, “No, I’m not a morning person, like what else do they do?” And long story short there or long story longer, I decided to create, I go, “I’m gonna create not just the morning ritual, I’m gonna create the ultimate morning ritual. I’m gonna take like the best personal development practices in the history of humanity, and I’m gonna combine all of them.”

And the next morning I woke up and over the course of an hour, I meditated for 10 minutes, I did 10 minutes of affirmations, 10 minutes of visualization, 10 minutes of exercise, 10 minutes of reading, and 10 minutes of journaling. And that morning, I went from being depressed and scared to going “Wow, I feel inspired. I feel motivated, I feel energized, I feel optimistic. If I start every day like this, it’s only a matter of time.” But I thought it’d probably be, again, like six months to a year of this slow, gradual compound effect. But within two months of doing this morning ritual, didn’t have a name, it was just personal development in the morning that I did at 5 am. And within two months, I more than doubled my income, I went from being in the worst shape of my life physically to deciding to train for a 52-mile ultramarathon, I’d never run before. And I completed the marathon, you know, six months later.

And I went to my wife and I said, “Sweetie,” I go, “We just officially have surpassed the highest, two months ago we were in debt and couldn’t pay the bills. We just surpassed the highest monthly income we’ve ever had,” which at that time was $12,000 a month. And I said, “It feels like a frickin miracle that, you know, this little morning ritual it’s like how it’s changing my life.” And she goes, “It’s your miracle morning.” And I go, “Yeah, miracle morning,” and, you know, it wasn’t a book I just wrote it down. And, you know, now “The Miracle Morning” is a book and it’s sold 1.7 million copies, it’s translated in 37 languages, it’s practiced every day by, you know, over a million people.

And then the last part of the story is. Two years ago, I woke up unable to, I couldn’t breathe, I had trouble breathing, and turned out I took 11 days of me having my lungs, 16 pounds of fluid drained from my lungs every day and a half I’d go to the ER and have a giant needle stuck in my back through my rib cage. And it took them about two weeks to figure out what was wrong, but I was diagnosed with a very rare aggressive form of cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia and I was given a 30% chance of surviving. You know, I’ve two small kids, they were seven, my daughter was seven at the time, my son was four. And, you know, for any anyone but especially a parent, you know, the idea of leaving your family without a father was terrifying.

And I made the same decision that I made when I was told I would never walk again. And I thought, “I will maintain unwavering faith that I will beat this cancer and live a long, healthy life with my children until I’m proven otherwise.” And I’m very grateful to say that after the most difficult year of my life where I was in the ER fighting for my life many times and almost dead and lost 25% of my body weight, at six feet tall I was 127 pounds. But I’m about a year of being cancer-free and in remission and now on a mission to elevate the consciousness of humanity one person at a time. And that brings us to today.

Katie: That’s incredible. And I’m so curious, because I feel like when presented with a really tough scenario in life, and you’ve definitely had a couple of those, people can go a couple of different ways. And I often see people fall into that like “Why me” mentality and I’m curious, why do you think it is that you didn’t ask why me, or take those answers that you were given from the doctors at face value? What do you think in you made you able to resist that and to choose an alternate path?

Hal: Yeah, and I think I know pretty close to exactly why. And I can’t take all the credit for it, it was really a mentor of mine. When I was in my Cutco training on day two I think, my manager and mentor, Jesse, taught us what he called the five-minute rule. And he said, “Look, sales is a microcosm for life, when you go out there, you’re gonna have goals and you’re gonna have dreams and ambitions. You’re gonna be working towards things, and you’re going to run into obstacles, and challenges, and adversity. You’re gonna, you know, be working towards a goal and, you know, be on track and then you’re gonna have your biggest order for the week, they’re gonna call and cancel.” And he said, “This is just, it’s just reality. There are a lot of things that happen that are out of your control, and you can only control the things that you can control.”

And he said, so the five-minute rule is that, whenever something happens that is unpleasant, or painful, or scary, or difficult, he taught us to literally set our timer on our phone for five minutes. And we got five minutes to complain, cry, vent, punch a wall, like whatever, you know, just like urgh, feel the pain, feel the emotion. And he said, “When the timer goes off, you take a deep breath, and you say three very powerful words ‘Can’t change it.” And you remind yourself that, “I can’t go back in time and change it. So there’s no value in continuing to feel upset about it. The only intelligent choice that I have really to make is to accept it fully and be at peace with it, and then be proactive to move toward where I wanna go in my life or in my work.” You know, get on the phone, make more calls, whatever it is in that setting.

And so I had, you know, when I first learned the, and by the way, this is one of those important lessons I teach now even when I speak. I mean, it’s crazy to think 20 years later I’m teaching this to thousands and thousands of people and, you know, in live audiences and online but it’s still this five-minute rule where, when I first learned that, like most people, they’re like, you know, I thought, “Can I get like a five-day rule, I need to be pissed off for like five days, like, five minutes is not enough.” And sure enough, the first few times I did this little five minute rule, I’d set the timer and the timer would go off and I’d go, “I’m still mad, like, I’m still upset,” right?

But here’s the interesting thing that happened. When we elevate our consciousness, when we become consciously aware of a different way of thinking or living, a better way of thinking or living and we start, you know, we be aware of it, and then we stay present to it, and we live in alignment with it, it changes everything for us. And what happened is, after a few days, maybe a week of doing this, where, you know, at first I thought, there’s no way I can get over it in five minutes. I would set the timer for five minutes and I’d go, “Son of a gun, I can’t believe that lady canceled the appointment, I’ve been working on this for weeks, and gosh, darn it, urgh, oh, man.” And then I pick up my phone and look at the timer and I’d have, you know, four minutes and 32 more seconds, and I’d go, “I’m over it.” And I’d go, “Why sit here and stew on something I can’t change for another four and a half minutes when I could probably make three more calls and schedule another appointment to make up for that one?” And so the five-minute rule became a kind of a five-second rule, where I just needed five seconds to go, “Son of a….,”, you know, and just get upset and feel it for a second. But then I just moved on.

And so I applied that in every area of life, not just my career, not just sales. So when I would be in traffic, I remember when I literally can picture myself on the freeway in Sacramento, when I had this first time I realized this applied to traffic. And this is for anybody, you don’t have to get cancer or be in a horrific car accident to apply the five-minute rule and apply this idea of accepting the things you can’t change. But, when I was in traffic one day I went, I was frustrated, I was running late, and I was just going through my head, just all the thing “Oh, I’m gonna lose this appointment, or I’m gonna lose this…” and all this stuff. Things that were all out of my control and I went, “Wait a minute, I can’t change the pace of the cars in front of me, I can’t change that I’m running late, and I can’t change the way the person reacts when I get there, that’s not up to me. But I can choose how I spend every moment in this car.” And to me, this is a metaphor for life. We can choose how we spend every moment of our lives regardless of what’s going on around us. It doesn’t matter what’s going on around us, it’s what’s going on inside of us that determines our emotional well-being and our quality of life. And so traffic became a sense of joy for me. I went, “Hey, when I’m in traffic, I’m just gonna be grateful, I’m gonna be grateful for everything I’d be grateful for.” It’s a time to slow down and think, you know.

And then the day I was diagnosed with cancer, because I had 20 years of practice or 17 years at that time of practicing this five-minute rule. The day I was diagnosed with cancer, I called my wife because she was out of town when I found out, and I was told I had a 30% chance of surviving. And I called her and I said, “Sweetheart, what I’m going to tell you is probably going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever told you. But I wanna preface it by saying I believe this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It’ll probably be the most difficult thing that’s ever happened to me and for our family, but I believe it’s the best thing because this is going to give me the greatest opportunity to learn, and to grow, and to become better than I’ve ever been before as a husband, as a father, as a leader, as a human being, and I also believe it’s gonna allow me to impact more people than I have ever even imagined.” And, you know, I will be honest, she did not take that same stance of it being the best thing that ever happened that day. In fact, I don’t know if she’s still quite there yet.

But, yeah, but I mean, it really stemmed from that simple realization that there’s no value in feeling sorry for yourself or dwelling on something after the fact, after it’s already happened. And sadly, I mean, a lot of people are suffering over their childhood. They’re still suffering over things because when they, you know, abuse or something that happened when we were kids, and we think it’s the abuse that’s causing us pain to this day, but it’s not abuse, it’s that we haven’t made the decision to just accept it and be at peace with it. So, yeah, so that for me was the biggest difference.

Katie: That’s amazing. And you mentioned your parents as well. As a mom of six, I just thought about how amazing and tangible that is to use with our kids, you know, when they’re upset, or they’re facing something, give them those five minutes. And I’ve had, like a neuroscientist and movement specialist on here before that said, you know, kids are great because they actually do express their emotions with their body and they shake it out, and they yell, and they do all that. But give them a time limit on it, and be like, “You know what? get it all out.”

Hal: Yeah. And then that empowers them like, “Hey, I’m setting the timer, do whatever you want,” right? Like, give them a punching bag, you know what I mean? Make it fun, you know. And then, you know, they could literally be upset and then kind of laughing and, you know, and it’ll help them get through it faster. That’s a great connection of parenting. Yeah.

Katie: Yeah, I love that. And you’ve also mentioned the word miracle a couple of times, and I’m truly impressed by your ability to keep a really positive mindset in the face of some pretty drastic life, you know, challenges. But I’m curious how you would define the word miracle, because I feel like that word can maybe have different meanings to a lot of different people.

Hal: Yeah, I’m glad you asked that because you’re right. It’s a really loaded word. And I think that for a lot of people, it has a bad rap. And it has a bad rap for a few different reasons, right? I think the biggest one is, miracles are thought of as random passive acts or events. And if you’re religious, maybe you believe that, you know, God creates miracles, right? So you really, you know, all you can do is pray and then, but again, passively sit back and wait, right? Or hope.

I personally am a big believer in personal responsibility, right? You know, with my car accident, I took ownership. “I’m going to walk again.” With cancer, “I’m going to beat cancer.” With “The Miracle Morning,” “I’m going to change millions of lives.” Like, I’m not gonna hope that Oprah finds me. I’m not gonna hope that, you know, this miracle drops in my lap. I believe in the power of personal responsibility. And I really believe that, you know, along those lines, that, to the degree that we take responsibility for everything in our lives determines the degree of power that we have, personal power to change or affect things in our lives.

And so the way that I define miracle is really more of a practical, actionable, and even measurable way. And so I define miracle as any meaningful outcome that is beyond the realm of what you currently believe is probable for you. I’ll break that down. Any meaningful outcome, right? So, you know, for me it was beating cancer, doesn’t get much more, when your life’s on the line, there’s no more outcome more meaningful than living, right? Than actually making it through. When I had the car accident it was walking again. When I was, you know, with my career, right? It was, I wanted to reach millions of people with this Miracle Morning message, and I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t have an audience, I didn’t have a platform, I didn’t have anything, you know, and by the way, I will tell you, my goal was to do it in one year, and I was 99.9% short of my goal the first year. I was 99.7% short of my goal still up to the second year, and it took me six years, but I just kept at it, I kept at it, I kept at it.

So, any meaningful outcome beyond the realm of what you currently believe is probable for you. And that word probable is important, I didn’t say possible. And the reason is this. If you’re an optimist, which I would consider myself, an optimist to the point of delusion. Like I’m very optimistic, right? It’s worked out for me, but I always say there’s a fine line between optimism and delusion, and I do cross it, you know, quite often. But, I’d err on that side I think and be okay with that. But, we don’t pursue that which is possible, right? So if you’re an optimist, you believe anything is possible, but we don’t pursue that which is possible, we pursue that which is probable, right? Katie, think about it, like, you know, when is the last time that you or that anybody, you know, was like, “I have this goal, this dream, and I think that the odds of me achieving it are slim to none, so I’m gonna give it everything I have.” Right? Like, we don’t work that way.

And that’s why most people, sadly, that’s what my new book “The Miracle Equation” is all about. Is it’s like, how do you move your biggest goals from possible, to probable, to inevitable. Because, for most people, we have these big goals and these dreams and these things we’d love to achieve but because we don’t believe they’re probable we never even try. What’s probable is, “Hey, I know that if I show up to work, I’ll get a paycheck, and I can at least buy food and pay my rent, or my mortgage, and my car payment.” And that, at least there’s certainty, at least that’s probable. So I’m gonna keep doing that because I don’t know that all these goals and dreams and the life that I really want, I don’t know that it’s very probable.

In fact, what we do is we check what I call our rearview mirror in our subconscious mind, and we look for evidence of what’s probable, and if we’ve never done something before, right? If you wanna start a business, or write a book, or, you know, lose weight, or whatever the goal or dream, whatever your goals or dreams are. If we check the rearview and we go, “Gosh, there’s nothing in my past that shows, that gives me evidence that I could do these things, I’ve never done them.” But if you look at the world’s most fulfilled people, successful people, happy people that have made the biggest impact in the world and even just in their own lives, they all had to step out on faith. And I’m talking about faith in themselves, that they could do something that when they checked their rearview, there was no evidence they could do it. They had never done it before.

But you have to do that, you have to step out on faith. And that’s the first step. Stepping out on faith is the first step to move your biggest goals and dreams from possible, which is existing in a void of nothingness. Everything is possible, and nothing is…right? Like possibility, it doesn’t matter what’s possible, you have to move your big goals from possible to probable, and the first step in doing that is stepping out on the faith. And I believe doing it in writing, right? Putting it in writing, so that you have, it’s tangible, it’s physical, you can hold it in your hands or at least, you know, look at it on your iPhone. But just step out on faith that you can do something that you’ve never done before.

And that first step, just the step of considering it, right? And putting it on paper is considering it not just as a thought in your head that’s fleeting, but actually where it’s a little more tangible. And then once you consider it, start to read that every day and marinate it, and then support it with, what if that were to happen? Why would that be meaningful to me? How could that change my life? How could that change my family’s life, right? And write those things down, put them in front of you, look at them every day and then, I think was Mark Victor Hansen. I love when he said this, and I remember this, I saw him give a speech, gosh, 10 years ago. And he said, “Look, people never make changes…” and I’m paraphrasing of course, but he said, “People never make changes because they think they have to go from where they are now to where they wanna be and they’ve got to like make one leap there, you know, or make a complete 180.” And he said, “That’s challenging, that’s mentally challenging to even think about that.” He said, “Don’t try to make a leap.” He said, “Just lean into the changes that you wanna make.”

And that’s what I’m talking about here, right? As you write it on paper, well, what might my dream look like? What might that tangible, measurable miracle look like? What would that look like? And then support it with some, you know, some bullet points underneath. What would life be like if I were to do that? And then ask yourself how, how might I do that?

And the first step is often a Google search, right? People are coming, they’re like, “I wanna write a book, but don’t even know where to start.” I go, “Have you googled how the words, “how to write a book?”” And they go, “No,” I go, “That’s pretty low hanging fruit. I would start there,” right? And all of a sudden, you’re gonna have 10,000 articles that will tell you exactly how to do what you now think you have no idea how to do, you’re five seconds away from learning how to do it, right?

So, the point is, and this is a long answer to your question, but, a miracle is any meaningful outcome outside the realm of what you believe is probable for you. And the first step in achieving said miracle is to step out on faith, put it in writing of what that miracle would be for you, what that big goal or dream would be for you. And then just start leaning, leaning into it.

And if you’ve waited years, you know, if you’ve spent your entire life not pursuing your biggest goals and dreams, well, what’s another, you know, just start and just, you don’t need to rush. Just take the next month to just journal about it, just journal for a month, right? What would it look like? What would that make your life like? How might you do that, right? And just lean into it, and then you can start to actually formulate a plan.

And then, by the way, the second decision of “The Miracle Equation” is extraordinary effort. And that’s where, that doesn’t mean that you need to work 80 hours a week, right? That just means doing one thing every day. That just means leaning every day. Extraordinary effort is not about working long, hard hours, it can be, but that’s not what it has to be, it’s about consistent effort. If you do one thing every day that moves you closer to your goal or dream, your success is inevitable, the only variable is timing. And most people, they just never get out the gate. Because they check that rearview mirror and they go, “Yeah, nothing in my past says that I can create this extraordinary future.” But, you can. And then one day, you’ll look in your past, you go, “Wow, I can create anything I want for my life.”

Katie: I love that. I think two important things that I’ve noticed in my own life that you just mentioned, is that consistency variable. Certainly, my husband and I often say doing the right things long enough, consistently, and it takes all of that. But I also love that you brought up taking ownership and extreme ownership, because that’s another thing I really have tried to instill in my kids and in my own life. Because I think it’s one of the most freeing things we can do. Like you said, we have no control over the things that happen to us in a lot of cases. Certainly not how other people may talk to us, or act toward us. But we always do have control of our own reaction and our own actions in our life. And so I think when you make that mental switch it’s a whole new world of freedom. And I love that you talk about that so much.

Also, I feel like, especially with “The Miracle Morning” there’s a lot of people in the world who know a lot of the good things that we should be doing. And we know that we should, you know, eat healthier, and exercise more, and get enough sleep, and all of these things, and meditate, and journal. And it’s the actual tangible shift, like making that actual habit is often the most difficult part. So I’m curious if you have any tools for people to make those changes stick, or to really truly commit them into a habit.

Hal: Yeah, a couple of things. Number one is, when I was writing “The Miracle Morning,” that was my biggest insecurity as I was writing is I go, “How am I gonna get people to actually do it?” Right? Because I’m like, because I go, “Everything I’m saying makes sense.” They’re gonna be like, “Yeah, this is good I should do this.” But, you know, I was going, most people have a limiting belief that says, I am not a morning person. That’s the majority of society when surveyed, it’s like 72% I think say, “I’m not a morning person,” it might be higher than that. And I thought, “How am I gonna enter into a conversation that they’ve had in their head for the last, you know, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, their entire lifetime that says, “No, no, I’m officially not a morning person, like been there, done that, tried it, like doesn’t work for me, like, I’m a night owl,” you know. And so that was my biggest insecurity.

So I will just say this. The fact that now well over a million people around the world do “The Miracle Morning” on, you know, an average of like five to six days a week, is evidence that you can do it too, right? I don’t just mean do it being “The Miracle Morning,” but do it being the things that you need to do, and I’m gonna will unpack, you know, to answer your question, kind of how to do that. And there’s a few things, the first and foremost, right? And we talked kind of a lot of what I just talked about with the leaning into it, right? Just start small, put it on paper, right? And “The Miracle Morning” it’s a really great tool to start, and I’m not saying this because I wrote it and I’ll make $1 if you buy it. I’m saying this because I’ve seen this transform so many people’s lives, right? Millions of lives, is that how you start your day sets the tone, the direction, and the context for the rest of the day. In other words, a way I like to put that, and actually this is from Steve Pavlina who I was…I read his book when I was writing “The Miracle Morning.” He said, “If you win the morning, you win the day,” right?

So, most people start their day with a lack of self-discipline and procrastination is how they start it. So meaning, if you hit the snooze button, that is, by default, procrastination, you are procrastinating on starting your day. And, you know, I say in the book, I say it kind of jokingly but seriously, I say, you think about how crazy it is to, you know, we all wanna have this amazing, happy, successful, extraordinary life. But when the alarm goes off in the morning, that is life’s first gift to you, it’s life’s first opportunity and it’s also life’s first challenge. And most people, the alarm goes off and it’s like we’re saying to the universe or to our own being, our own selves, saying, “Yeah, I know I say I want an extraordinary life, but not as much as I wanna lay here unconscious for nine more minutes,” right? And then we hit the snooze button and then it goes off again and you’re like, “Yeah, I wanna be happier and healthier and more successful, but I’d rather lay here for nine more minutes.” And we’re literally giving a message to our subconscious that says, “I don’t have the discipline to get my butt out of bed in the morning, let alone create the extraordinary life that I really want.”

However, if you can change that one habit, and that’s what “The Miracle Morning” I think worked, it’s doing this for so many people and it really is a miracle is, if you can learn how to, and that’s, you know, the book teaches you like, how do you beat the snooze button if you’re not a morning person. And I can give you guys, in fact, let me right now, I don’t wanna keep you like in mystery and make you buy the book, like here’s how. There’s a whole chapter on this in the book, it’s called “The Five Step Snooze-Proof Wake Up Strategy.” And I’ll just give you the most important step.

The most important step is, move your alarm clock across the room. Actually, there’s two, number one is set your intentions before bed. So, before bed, you need to say, “I’m waking up tomorrow at this time, even if I feel tired.” And actually have a…you can actually download, if you go to tmmbook.com, as in “The Miracle Morning” TMM tmmbook.com you can download the “Bedtime Affirmation.” And this is what I used in my own life and then I put it, you know, as a bonus for the book. But it’s word-for-word how to set your intentions the night before so that when you wake up in the morning…when the alarm goes off in the morning, you like jump out of bed and you’re excited. And if you think about any time, Katie, that you were excited to wake up in the morning. Like did you celebrate Christmas growing up for example?

Katie: Yeah, absolutely.

Hal: Okay, so I always when…I’m cautious when I say that because if someone didn’t celebrate Christmas, I don’t wanna, you know, what’s the word I’m looking for? You know, like make you feel left out. So think about like the first day of school, or a vacation, just think of any time in your life when you went to bed like a schoolgirl, right? Or a schoolboy, just excited like, “I can’t wait for the morning,” you know, and for me it was Christmas, you know, as a kid. And, Katie, let me ask you, but was it hard for you to wake up Christmas morning?

Katie: Definitely not. It was hard to stay asleep on Christmas morning.

Hal: Exactly. So I’m guessing you did not snooze on Christmas morning, correct?

Katie: Definitely not.

Hal: So here’s what that shows. That shows that we all have the ability to wake up and jump out of bed. But what was the difference? You had the intention before bed to wake up the next morning with excitement and enthusiasm because there was something you were looking forward to. And when I was not writing “The Miracle Morning” before it was a book, when I was doing “The Miracle Morning” in my own life, I realized I have the ability to wake up excited. I know I do because if there’s ever something I’m excited to wake up for I wake up. But most of us wake up and we’re like, “Oooh” or we go to bed and our intention is the opposite of excitement it’s, “Urgh, I gotta wake up tomorrow at 6 AM and go to work again, and I don’t wanna do that.”

And I went, “I have the ability to wake up excited every day.” But I have to take response-ability to access that ability by creating my own intention before I go to bed of what the morning is going to be like. So, in my mind, in my body, in my emotions, before I go to bed, I set my intention for what I’m going to feel and do when I wake up in the morning. And most people are very unintentional about the morning. They leave the morning up to those first few moments when the alarm goes off, it’s usually on our bedside table, and our level of self-discipline is close to a zero, maybe it’s a one or a two, right? You just reach over you hit the snooze button, you reach over you hit the snooze button.

So the first step is setting your intention before bed. And if you want a map on how…a word-for-word approach on how to do that, go to tmmbook.com you can get the free, you know, thing, the bedtime affirmation. But the second logistical step is you have to move your alarm clock as far across the room as possible. If you can reach it on your bedside table, even if I set my intention, I’ll still usually fail because I turn it off, I hit the snooze button while I’m still half asleep, right? And so, for me, the alarm clock is across the room, it’s actually in my bathroom, which is within hearing distance, you have to able to hear it, but that forces me out of bed, across the room.

So if you do that alone, that starts your day with intention, it starts it with purpose, it starts it with discipline. And now, and then you go do your Miracle Morning. And now you’re, the point of “The Miracle Morning” is really to put yourself in a peak physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state every day, so that you are at your best. You are, and essentially think of it this way, every day, “The Miracle Morning” ensures that you become a better version of the person you were when you went to bed the night before. And when you start your day like that, it’s hard to not have a great day, like you are on fire and you win the morning and then you’re the best version of yourself to win the day.

So, you know, that, to me is like the linchpin strategy, it’s the one thing you do that affects everything else. And I’ll cut myself off and then, you know, I could talk for an hour on strategies of getting yourself to do the things that you know you need to do that you don’t feel like you have the discipline to do. I mean, we can go a little deeper on that. But first, Katie, any thoughts, questions, or comments on that?

Katie: No, I love that. And I would love to go deeper on that because I think you explain it really well, and what I’ve read of your work. And I think that is the biggest struggle for so many people, because I see people and I’ve done it myself, get in that cycle of like, “You know, I’m gonna start training for a new thing.” And I’m like all about it for three weeks, and then it kind of dies down, or that you eat really clean for three weeks and then it dies down. So how do we maintain that? Like, how do we, even if it’s that thing that so exciting to us, how do we maintain that enthusiasm over the long time?

Hal: So, I’ll tell you an external and an internal strategy. The external strategy I’ll start with which is, accountability. I believe that accountability is arguably one of the, if not the single most determinant factors in taking ourselves to the next level. And if you think about it, you look at the world’s most successful anybody, right? Meaning athletes, CEOs, they all have a high degree of accountability. And it’s a huge factor in their success. You know, show me an athlete, especially as they were younger, you know, growing up, right? Maybe they hit a level of maturity where they don’t need as much accountability of course. But, you know, I don’t think you’ll find an athlete that doesn’t credit their coach. If they didn’t have practice scheduled every day at 3 pm with a coach that would kick their butt off the team if they weren’t there on time, they probably wouldn’t have practiced, they would have been at home playing video games, right?

You know, you look at a CEO, you know, 40 or 50-year-old CEO, if they didn’t have to answer, look at all the accountability in their world. They have stockholders they have to answer to, they have an executive assistant, they have an executive board, they have employees, they have just a general company. And if it wasn’t for all those sources of accountability, they’d probably be screwing off a lot more. But, you know, as they’re screwing off, and they’re watching a YouTube video, and then they go, “Oh, shoot, I’ve got that meeting at 2.” Well, that meeting is a source of accountability that gets them off the YouTube video, or off of, you know, Words With Friends on their phone, and gets them to do the thing they need to do. And if it wasn’t for the source of accountability, they probably wouldn’t do it.

Now, what we have to realize is, why we resist and resent accountability. And once you understand the source of resistance, then you go, “Oh, okay, it is time for us all to grow up,” and I include myself in this, and actually embrace accountability. So you think about this. I believe the reason most human beings resist, resent, and avoid accountability at all costs, is because it was forced upon us as children when our brains were developing. You think about, you know, my parents made sure I ate my vegetables. I didn’t wanna eat my vegetables. If it wasn’t for the accountability from mom and dad, I would not have eaten those vegetables, right? I didn’t wanna take a bath. But they made me take a bath. They held me accountable to take a bath. Most days I didn’t wanna go to school, right? Unless you’re one of those weird kids that loves, my daughter loves school, but I was like, “I don’t wanna go to school,” right? But they got me out of bed, they had to fight me out of bed and I went to school. My teachers held me accountable to turn homework in, and study, and take tests, and so on and so forth.

If it wasn’t for the accountability that was forced upon us by the adults in our lives as kids, I think that most of us would be malnutritioned, uneducated, dirty little kids, right? But what happened was, we didn’t ask for any of that accountability. And whenever nobody was looking, we avoided it, because it was forced on us. And then the problem is, we turn 18 and maybe, you know, you leave the nest, you go off to college, and I don’t know about you, but I ate junk, I was like, “Screw vegetables.” I lived jack-in-the-box. Looking back, I don’t even know how I didn’t have a heart attack at like 20, you know, but I ate jack-in-the-bo…I’m like, “Screw I’m eating whatever I want.” I’m staying up till 2, 3, 4, 5 am playing video games I’m…Like, it was a downward spiral of mediocrity for me.

And if it wasn’t for me finding a mentor at age 19 when I started selling Cutco, and him getting my stuff together, you know, and holding me accountable. And that’s it, I had accountability gifted back into my life. And because of that, I became the person that I am today. I developed discipline, and consistency, and self-belief, and the various attributes of an achiever.

And why did I develop those? Because of accountability, in all fact, I’ll tell you how much accountability I had. The first 10 days when I broke that company record, I didn’t break that company record. I mean, I did, but it was because of my mentor. I had to call him every morning when I woke up at a specific time, I had to call him at 7 am. So I was awake and ready to be on the phone by 7 am. Then I had to call him after every single appointment that I did during those 10 days and let him know how I went. And that was so he can manage my mindset and expectations because I was new to sales and I had a lot of no sales, a lot of disappointment. He would remind me it was okay and keep going and this and that. I had to call him after every single appointment, I had to call at the end of every day.

So, his philosophy was, he wanted to wake me up every morning and he wanted to put me to bed so he could manage my expectations, and that level of accountability. So I did 62 appointments, so I talked to him probably 90 times, at least 90 times, you can imagine making 90 phone calls to someone. And because of that accountability, I broke the all-time company record. Now, I earned it, I was 19 I earned $3,800 during those 10 days, which was a fortune for me, you know, for most people it’s a lot of money, it was an insane amount of money. And who I am, I literally can look back, those 10 days shaped who I am today. And accountability was the number one key to that. And so I would…in fact, we’ll just I mean, we can leave it at that, that’s it.

And in “The Miracle Morning” I talk about that in the book, how important accountability is. I encourage everyone to find an accountability partner. And, if you are wondering, “Well, I’m interested in this, but most of my friends or co, like they’re not into this kind of stuff,” you know, maybe they are maybe they aren’t. The Miracle Morning Community is a Facebook group that I would invite everyone to join. It’s free, we’re not selling anything there. Right now there are 200 and last time I checked 219,000 people from over 100 countries in there. And arguably, you go in there, just scan through the posts, and you will be inspired. It is one of if not the most loving, non-judgmental, supportive, growth-oriented communities on or offline that I have ever seen. Case studies are being done right now about this community.

And you can go in there and let people know what time zone you’re in, and, you know, and that you want an accountability partner. And typically you’ll find one, you know, within an hour, and someone that’s on this journey with you. And when you go in there you find there are people that have been doing “The Miracle Morning” for, you know, over 1,000 days, and there are people that will just like you, it’ll be day one for them. But yeah, it’s great, it’s called The Miracle Morning Community. You can also go to miraclemorning.com and just scroll down, there’s a big picture that says “Join the community.” And, you know, it’ll take you over there. So, either way, you can find it.

Katie: Awesome. I’ll make sure that’s linked in the show notes as well, at wellnessmama.fm. When it comes to a morning routine, do you think that there are specific, like a framework that is pretty much good for everyone? Or are there like different variables that are gonna work better or worse for different people? And if so, how do you identify which things need to be in your own Miracle Morning?

Hal: Yeah, it’s a great question. So, in the book, Chapter 9 out of 10 I think, it’s like one of the last, Chapter 9 is “Customizing The Miracle Morning to fit your lifestyle.” And then Chapter 10 is “The Miracle Morning 30-Day Challenge.” And we could actually, that would, you know, that’s something I could touch on is like, how do you change your behavior? You lean into it, and then you commit to a 30-Day Challenge. Meaning you do it every day, you have someone holding you accountable. And at the end of those 30 days, you’ve acclimated to this new habit, and it could be a habit of getting rid of a bad habit like, you know, quitting soda, or smoking. Or it could be a habit like, you know, adding a morning routine when you’ve never been a morning person.

And again, I mean, you think about, if you’re at all having self-doubt around this because maybe you’ve tried and failed in the past to make changes. You know, there are hundreds of thousands of people in that Facebook group that will tell you, “Hey, I didn’t know I could do it. I didn’t think I could do it. And I did it. And I’m now a morning person,” right?

Customizing it. Yeah. So, yeah, so customizing it. So, the way that I encourage folks, like I’m a very big believer in, A, I don’t know it all. In fact, I know closer to nothing than all, right? I’m a big believer in that I should be a student of life, student of everything. But so I don’t think that I know it all, first of all. Number two, I rarely think there’s a one-size-fit-all for everybody. I don’t think that exists too often.

However, “The Miracle Morning” is made up of six practices, which I mentioned earlier. But let me give you a more memorable framework. This is my brilliant wife, I was writing the book and I go, “Sweetie, I’ve got these six practices. These are like the most timeless personal development practices in the history of humanity. But I need a way to like organize them so people can remember them or they like flow together.” I said, “All these authors are so smart, and, you know, they, Stephen habit has got like “The 7 Habits” oh, sorry, Stephen Covey has got “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and Robert Kiyosaki has got like the “Cashflow Quadrant.” And all these authors are smart enough to create like a framework and I don’t know any way to connect these six practices.” And she goes, “Why don’t you consult a Thesaurus and see if you can arrange some of the wording so it creates an acronym that people can remember.” And I, you know, gave her a big kiss on the lips. I’m like, “You’re so brilliant.” I’m like, “That might work,” right?

And so, meditation became silent, which I actually like because a lot of people like to incorporate prayer into their silence time, right? And journaling became scribing, which, you know, it’s a fancy word for writing, but it created an acronym which could not be more fitting for what the practice is. And the acronym is SAVERS, or I call these the lifesavers, right? But S-A-V-E-R-S, so, the first S is for silence, these are the six practices of “The Miracle Morning” by the way. The first S is for silence, the A is for affirmations, the V is for visualization, the E is for exercise, the R is for reading, and the S is for scribing, right? So those are the SAVERS, and I believe it’s the perfect acronym. Because these literally are the six practices that have proven over centuries, that they can save you, and save me, and save all of us from missing out on the life that we really want, you know, missing out on living to our full potential. So they really are the lifesavers, right? It’s such a fitting acronym.

And what I encourage people to do is, for the 30-Day Challenge, do all six of these, because you don’t fully know the benefits, or if something resonates with you until you actually give it a fighting chance, right? Give it a fair chance. So do all the six of the SAVERS for 30 days.

Now, you can customize the order. And you can even change the order over time. You can experiment and play with these, right? So, give you an example. I start with meditate…I start with silence. Many people, though, and I don’t the percentage, but a lot of people have said, “Hal, gosh, you know, I tried meditating, but then I fall back to sleep.” They go, “I’m not awake enough for it to, you know, like I need to start with exercise.” So they move the E to the front, and they wake up, and they do some stretching, and some yoga, and some jumping jacks, and push-ups, and run, whatever they want, right?

And then in terms of the duration, the SAVERS, the first day I did the savers, I did 10 minutes each, just because it was my first day I thought doing an hour I’ll do 10 minutes each, right? And then that works. I’ve evolved where I usually do 30 minutes of reading, and then I do five minutes of the other SAVERS roughly five to six minutes, I guess is what it would be. But, so I like to read longer. And so I just I meditate for six minutes. I do the other ones for shorter periods of time.

Exercise, I do an app, there’s an app called 7 Minute Workout. And it’s a great app. It’s a full-body workout in seven minutes. In the book, in that chapter, there’s something called the 6-Minute Miracle Morning. And this came about because most of us have an all-or-nothing mentality, which is like, “Oh, I woke up late, or, today I have to leave early so I’ve only got like 10 minutes or 15 minutes. So I guess I’ll skip my Miracle Morning today.”

And one day I had that internal dialogue and I went, “Wait a minute, what if I were to just do one minute of each of the savers? What if I were to sit down and just close my eyes and just meditate and get calm for one minute. And then I pull up my affirmations and I read them for a minute. And then I close my eyes I visualize, you know, my most important priorities being executed flawlessly today for just a minute. And then I jump up and I do a 60 seconds of jumping jacks get my heart rate flowing, get the blood going right for a minute. And I pull out a self-help book that I’m reading, and I just read a page for a minute, and then I journal what I’m grateful for just a minute.”

And I did that that day, and I went, the benefits. It’s like I got 80% of the benefit with 1/10th of the time. And there aren’t too many things you can do with that, you know, get that kind of return on investment, and I went, “This is incredible.” And that’s why I put it in the book, because I go, “Look, I don’t advocate that you do a six-minute every day, you can’t go that deep. But, it just shows that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.” So, the answer to your question is, I would start your first miracle winning 30-Day Challenge. And by the way, most people their 30-day challenge when I give a speech and, you know, people aren’t necessarily reading the book yet. They don’t have, some of them don’t have the book yet. I always say, look, for your first 30 days, just start your challenge by waking up 30 minutes earlier, don’t even go the full hour, just make it easy. Just lean into it, right? Lean into it, 30 minutes earlier, and just do the R, just read, that’s it. It couldn’t be easier. Wake up 30 minutes earlier and just read “The Miracle Morning.”

And then once you get to the chapter on the SAVERS and you start reading about the S, and I teach you a really simple meditation practice, right? Then you can incorporate S and R. And then when you get to the section on, you know, the next day on affirmations, add A, and just lean into it gradually. And then at the end of the 30 days, you can decide what you wanna do. I don’t visualize every day, for whatever reason, visualization has never resonated with me. But I do use it if I’m going to have a specific thing I’m doing, like if I’m giving a speech, I’ll run through a movie in my mind of visualization. But there’s some people in The Miracle Morning Community I often will survey and go, “Which SAVERS do you like better than others, which resonate?” And it blows my mind that some people like visualization is the number one thing that impacts their life and their day. For me it’s affirmations, and some people they go, “Yeah, I don’t jive, I don’t, I struggle with that,” right?

So I always say, for the first 30 days, do all six of the Savers, play with the order, play with the duration of each, and then at the end of 30 days, create your own Miracle Morning. And then while you’re doing, the beauty of it is, “The Miracle Morning” takes a minute to learn, a lifetime to master. Because, you know, meditation I mean, I’ve read, you know, master meditators say that after 10 years of meditating every day, they started to feel like they were getting pretty good at it. Ten years, right? And then after 20 years, they started to feel like they were starting to kind of master it. And then 30 years, they actually mastered it, and I’m like, so each of the SAVERS, you can just, you can play with, you can adjust, you can keep them fresh, you can try new modalities. New affirmations, new methods of visualization, you can do guided meditations, you can do meditation apps, right? So I mean, these are, it’s really this free-flowing ritual that you get to customize and create and add to.

Katie: I love it and I’ll make sure to recap those in the show notes and of course, put a link to the book so people can really dive in.

Katie: Our time has flown by. You’re such an eloquent speaker. A few questions I love to ask at the end. The first being, are there a few things that you feel like people either don’t know or misunderstand about what you teach?

Hal: Yeah, I think that one is the idea that “The Miracle Morning” is about waking up earlier. Now, granted, I mean, A, you may need to wake up earlier depending on if you wake up now at the last minute. Most people wake up because they have to, right? They literally go, “What’s the last minute that I can wake up and not like lose my job, have my children taken away from me, get divorced, right?” I call it your mediocre morning, you know, where you’re like, it’s the last moment I could wake up and not have my life fall apart.

Now, if you’re waking up in that way, then yeah, you need to back up the alarm 30 minutes. But a lot of people wake up and they just, the first, you know, half-hour of their day, or hour of their day is spent just checking Facebook, and scrolling their phone, and checking e-mail. So, it’s really not about waking up earlier as much as it’s about waking up better. It’s waking up and dedicating the first part of your day to elevating your own consciousness, putting yourself in that peak physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state so you can become a better version of who you were when you went to bed the night before. That’s the first thing, is it? It’s not about, you know, getting up super early. It’s just getting up a little earlier. And the benefits though are so profound that, trust me, it’s worth going to bed 30 minutes earlier if that’s what it takes, right? Thirty minutes less of Netflix at night to have a radical shift in your life is very worth it.

And then the other thing that I would share is that, personal development is not enough. That is actually, my new book that just came out “The Miracle Equation” that’s kind of why I wrote it, is that, I’ve been in the past I’ve been guilty of being what I would call a personal development junkie. And I think a lot of us fall into this trap where, once we learn personal development, we start reading books, and listening to podcasts, and learning all these new ideas, you know, we get excited and we’re like, “Wow, I’m like,” and we start almost our ego can get fed like, “Wow, I like I know more than other people. Other people aren’t reading. All my friends and family aren’t reading these books, and listening to the show, learning this stuff. And they need to, like I’m smarter than they are,” right? So that’s one thing is ego can get, you know, become a part of it. I think when I was younger that was for sure part of my journey.

But just a big part of it is, we actually trick our brain, our subconscious into thinking that learning and growing in and of itself is enough to improve our lives. And while it improves our lives at a certain level, like, you know, if you learn new ways of looking at life, like the things we talk, like the five-minute rule for example, right? That’s like an internal thing that you learn and if you implement it, you start to see that, “Wow, I can be free from my emotional pain, like I don’t need to feel, I don’t need to dwell on things and feel sorry, I can just let them go after five minutes.”

That does change your life, but for the most part, we have to actually change our behavior to change our life. And what the problem is, when you think that just learning is enough to change your life. You know, reading books on finances doesn’t increase your income. Reading books on finances doesn’t increase your savings, right? Reading books on finance or on being healthier doesn’t make you healthier, right? You actually have to change your behavior.

And so while “The Miracle Morning” is arguably one of the most effective practices for personal development, you have to compliment it, you have to follow it up with a process for goal achievement. And that’s what “The Miracle Equation” is, is it’s, okay, you’re learning in the morning, you’re doing your Miracle Morning, you’re growing, you’re evolving, you’re elevating your own consciousness, you’re becoming a better version of yourself. Great. But you can do that and still stay in the comfy confines of your comfort zone, right? Like stay in your house and keep going to work and not doing anything differently. You’ve got to have, “Okay, I need a process. I need a method for getting out of my comfort zone and actually getting clear on defining, clarifying, planning my biggest goals and dreams. And creating a process that will make my success in achieving those goals and dreams inevitable.”

And that is, so that’s, to me, the biggest mistake people make is thinking that the personal development is enough, it’s only half the equation so to speak. And I wrote, “The Miracle Equation” is that is the, “Okay, now, here’s the process for goal achievement that will support your practice that you have for personal development. So you can actually take this growth that you’re experiencing and turn it into a tangible, upgraded reality that creates measurable results in your life.”

Katie: Hmm, such a good point. Secondly, is there a book or a number of books that have drastically changed your life? And if so, what they are and why?

Hal: Yeah, the book that changed my life, probably more than anything is called “Conversations with God.” And it is, you know, I always, the word God is also like miracle, it’s a loaded word. And some people are religious, and some people are spiritual, and some people are atheist. And so, you know, you get a lot of different reactions. I read that book when I was 20 years old, and, by the way, to be very transparent, you know, I grew up Catholic. I then started studying a lot of the world’s religions and just I’m happy to help people, you know, where I kind of my stance on this is. To me, I seek truth and wisdom in all religion in all spiritual practices, even in atheism. Like, to me I try to look at all of it and not think that there’s one right way and that everybody else is wrong, that my way is the right way. And I try to go, “Hey, everyone has their…” You know, I’m looking for truth always and to me like I said I lean toward I know nothing, or I know very little compared to what I can learn. So I’m just trying to learn and grow.

So “Conversation with God” it’s definitely not a religious book. I would say it’s a spiritual book for sure. But, yeah, I read that when I was 20. And, you know, in the author Neale Donald Walsch, just, you know, “Conversation with God” book four which it’s like technically I think he’s written over a dozen books. I’m actually reading book four right now, which is probably why that book is on my mind, you know, that whole series. But yeah, that’s a book that really opened my eyes and I’d encourage you to, you know, to read it with an open mind and consider it. And, yeah, that’s a book that for me was very, very, very impactful in how I live my life and how I view my life, and my purpose in life, and my place in this world, and how I can make the biggest, most positive impact.

Katie: That’s so good. I was actually on my Kindle right now. And I’m about to start reading and I’ll make sure it’s linked in the show notes.

Hal: That’s awesome. That’s so great. Wait, book one or book four?

Katie: The first one.

Hal: Oh, cool. Cool.

Katie: Yeah, excited. Any parting advice or takeaways you wanna make sure we leave with the audience today?

Hal: Yeah. There’s one that I, you know, for me, this has become a major affirmation, which, you know, I won’t go into, I won’t go down that rabbit hole. But I define affirmations as you’ll see in the book very differently than most people do. They’re not woo woo, it’s like really using affirmations to program your mind and your behaviors for success. And the way that, one of my most important affirmations, and this is the parting wisdom I’ll leave you with, is that, you know, as human beings I think that we all, we have trouble creating space in terms of time between where we are and where we want to be. We look at where other people are and we compare ourselves, or we look at where we think we should be or could be and we’re in this place of often scarcity. “Man, why am I not there right now? I wanna be there now.” And it’s, you know, our brain is not very patient, where it goes, “Okay, there’s where I wanna be, hmm, it might take me five years to get there, right? To get there, I need to find this journey and be at peace with where I am, and do something every day to move me close to where I am.” We just look at where we wanna be and go, “Urgh, I’m not there, why am I not there? Why is it taking so long? Why am I not?” You know? And we have these feelings of scarcity and inadequacy.

And so here’s the lesson. And I think that, you know, it probably took me hindsight to learn this and I share this, because I tell people don’t wait for hindsight, don’t suffer for years the way that most people do to get to this place. And here’s the lesson, is that, when we finally get to the place in our lives, when you finally get the place in your life or your business, any area of your life that you’ve been working so hard for, for so long. You’ve been wanting it for so long. You almost never look back and wish it would have happened any sooner.

Instead, when you get to the place that you’ve been working for so hard for so long, in any area of your life or just in your life as a whole, you look back and you go, “Oh, the timing and the journey were perfect. And every obstacle and setback along the way was a necessary part of my evolution to become the person that I needed to be to create the life that I’ve always wanted.” And with that hindsight, with that wisdom, to bring that into your life right now, the lesson is, the applicable lesson is, be at peace with where you are right now on your journey, even if it’s difficult or painful, while you maintain unwavering faith and put forth extraordinary effort to get to where you want to go. And know that when you finally get there, the timing will be perfect.

Katie: That’s a perfect place to put a pin in it for today. But, Hal, thank you so much for being here. I know that you are busy and it’s an honor to chat with you today.

Hal: You’re so welcome, Katie. Thank you for having me on. It’s an honor and you’re a special human being because I felt like that was, everything I talked about was like through me, like you brought out the best in me, the divine. So, yeah, you have some special Mojo, so, thank you.

Katie: Oh, thank you so much. And thanks to all of you for listening and sharing one of your most valuable assets, your time, with both of us today. We’re so grateful that you did. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of “The Wellness Mama” podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/hal-elrod/

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Rankings: Best superfood green powders of 2018

Superfood green powders are an easy and convenient way to get your fruits, vegetables, vitamins, and nutrients. They even come packed with digestive enzymes, probiotics, and special herbs and superfoods that support immunity, heart health, and more.

This list ranks the most nutrient-rich, effective superfood green powders on the market so you can make sure you’re getting quality.

Part 1 ranks this year’s 9 best fat superfood green powders in order, and part 2 will go over how they work and answer some FAQs.

9. AdvoGreens Greens Powder by Advocare

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Greens Powder by Advocare is a phytonutrient green shake that is plant-based and high in fiber.

Phytonutrients are natural compounds found in plants. Our modern diets make it difficult to get sufficient phytonutrients, which have both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. They boost the immune system, promote eye health, improve cardiovascular health, and even protect against cancer.

In fact, a study done on rats shows that compounds found in a certain type of phytonutrient – glucosinolates – actually inactivates carcinogens and protects cells from DNA damage. (1)

The ingredients in AdvoGreens include a greens and vegetables blend that’s rich in antioxidants, and vitamins A, C, and E, an enzyme, prebiotic, and probiotic blend that supports digestive health, and a fiber blend to manage digestion and appetite.

If you check the ingredients list, it’s packed with superfoods and nutrient-dense proteins like spinach, alfalfa juice, wheat grass, broccoli, flax seed, chia seed, kale, carrot, spirulina, barley grass, green tea, green coffee, and more.

Spirulina was used by the Aztecs and has even been proposed by NASA to be used as space food. (2) If you look at the density of protein, vitamin B, copper, iron, magnesium, and potassium per gram of dried spirulina powder, it might be the most nutritious food on the planet. (3)

Kale is almost as nutrient-dense and is known to lower cholesterol and fight cancer. (4) (5) Meanwhile, green tea extract can help you focus while burning fat and boosting your metabolism. (6)

The number of health benefits found in the AdvoGreens ingredients list is endless.

8. Shakeology Power Greens Boost

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Rather than give you trace amounts of 100 different ingredients, Shakeology’s Power Greens Boost focuses on giving your body high levels of the most important nutrients through a hand-picked selection of powerful superfoods. It’s also free of artificial sweeteners, artificial colors, and preservatives.

Power Greens Boost puts the spotlight on three important ingredients: kale, chlorella, and spinach.

We’ve all heard about the benefits of kale. It’s one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the plant, with over a dozen important vitamins and minerals and well over your recommended daily amount of vitamin K, vitamin A, and vitamin C in just one cup. (7)

Chlorella is an algae superfood that’s sometimes taken as a nutritional supplement. It’s a complete protein source, made up of 50-60% protein containing all nine amino acids. (8) It’s also a good source of iron, and the high levels of vitamin C present help your body absorb the iron. (9)

Finally, chlorella is often used to aid in detoxing, and animal studies have shown that it’s helpful in removing harmful compounds from the body. (10)

One cup of raw spinach will get you 56% of your daily vitamin A and all of your vitamin K. (11) They’re also home to antioxidants beta-carotene and lutein, which have been associated with reducing your risk of cancer. (12) Spinach can even improve heart health and lower blood pressure.

A month’s supply of Power Greens Boost costs $34.95, which is pretty affordable. A lot of customers like to mix it into their regular Shakeology shakes.

7. Vital Reds

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Vital Reds is a dietary supplement made from a concentrated polyphenol blend. It’s a quick-dissolve powder that comes in red berry flavor and is free of artificial sweeteners, soy, sugar, and lectin.

Formulated by Dr. Steven Gundry, this superfood powder claims to boost energy, improve digestion, and improve skin health using a unique blend of super fruits. One serving has 10 calories, and some of the primary ingredients include organic apple peel, Aronia berry extract, mulberry fruit, cranberry, mango, acai, blueberry, pomegranate, and black currant.

Polyphenols are micronutrients that come from plant-based foods, especially berries. They’ve been proven to promote beneficial microorganisms in the digestive system and even increase lifespan. One study showed that people who took 650 mg per day of polyphenols had a 30% lower mortality rate than people who took less than 500 mg per day. (13)

The polyphenol blend in Vital Reds is 1,540 mg per service, which is more than enough to see an impact on your health. In addition, it includes two secondary blends – a metabolic boosting blend and a digestive support blend – for a holistic approach to nutrition.

6. Athletic Greens

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Athletic Greens has become pretty popular in the superfood greens powder department. This isn’t surprising when you see the list of models, physicians, and even internet celebs like Tim Ferriss who have recommended the supplement.

They market themselves as “the only whole food supplement that unlocks your body’s true potential.”

What Athletic Greens has done is put a decade of research into creating a product that fills all the nutritional gaps in our modern diet. One scoop contains 11 supplements as well as the antioxidant equivalent of 12 servings of vegetables.

Athletic Greens contains 75 natural, quality ingredients including spirulina, lecithin, chlorella, organic wheat grass powder, pea protein, dairy-free probiotics, and a super mushroom complex.

The proteins and vegetable blends provide you with nutrients and minerals while the probiotics promote digestive health. The mushroom blend incorporates shiitake and reishi mushrooms, both of which have been shown to promote a longer, healthier life and even possibly protect against cancer. (14)

5. Vega Protein & Greens

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Vega’s plant-based Protein & Greens protein shake uses non-GMO veggies and greens to pack 20 grams of plant protein into one shake. The powder comes in vanilla, chocolate, and berry flavors.

Their proprietary protein blend is made up of pea protein, brown rice protein, hemp protein, and sacha inchi protein.

Pea protein is a fairly new protein that’s become popular with vegetarians and vegans as well as people sensitive to dairy. It’s high in fiber and branched-chain amino acids. Studies also show that it’s more effective than whey protein at triggering the “fullness hormones” in your body. (15)

The blend also contains super nutrient dense plants such as alfalfa, spinach, broccoli, and kale.

4. Organifi Green Juice

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This superfood powder is USDA organic, gluten free, soy free, dairy free, and vegan, so it’s got most of your dietary restrictions bases covered.

Their unique formula for the Green Juice is infused with coconut and ashwagandha.

Coconut oil has been popular in the health sphere for a while now, but people tend to forget that the whole coconut is actually a powerful super fruit. It’s packed with protein while also supporting digestion and immunity. Studies of cultures that rely heavily on coconuts as part of a daily diet have shown that they are in excellent health and have lower rates of heart disease. (16)

As for ashwagandha, this ancient Ayurvedic medicinal herb helps your body manage stress by reducing cortisol levels, lowers blood sugar, boosts brain function, and even improves mood. More than one human study has shown that it effectively reduces stress and helps with anxiety disorders. (17)

The juice also incorporates high quantities of moringa, spirulina, chlorella, and matcha green tea, which are some of the most nutrient-dense, healthy greens on the planet.

One jar goes for around $69.99, which is definitely not cheap. That being said, it’s one of the most high-quality green superfood powders on the market.

3. Juice Plus+ Greens

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If you’re looking for a superfood greens powder because you want to get your fruits and veggies in, Juice Plus+ powder concentrates are made up of 48 different fruits, vegetables, and grains – probably more than you even knew existed.

The grains play an integral role by adding even more protein and fiber to your beverage, while the wide range of fruits and vegetables offer a greater diversity of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and phytonutrients than you could possibly get by simply eating the same whole foods every day.

Juice Plus+ ingredients are natural and farm fresh, grown without pesticides, and they’re incorporated into supplements using Juice Plus+’s proprietary juicing and drying process that ensures the plants retain their nutritional value.

Their unique formula comes in chewable, capsule, and shake powder form. Their orchard and garden blend products add whole food nutrition from 20 different nutrition-dense fruits and vegetables, including carrots, broccoli, spinach, kale, beets, and more.

It also contains glucomannan, a fiber that has been proven to significantly reduce hunger and cravings. (18)

There’s no miracle science to the Juice Plus+ formula. Just simple, fresh, nutritious ingredients.

2. It Works! Greens

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It Works! has blown up in the weight loss sphere over the past few years for their body wraps, but they also sell a number of nutritional supplements and other weight loss products.

Their It Works! Greens blend is a drink powder made up of 52 herbs and superfoods, 34 fruits and veggies, and matcha green tea. It’s non-GMO, soy-free, dairy-free, and vegan and has no artificial colors, flavors, or sweeteners.

This nutritional superfood drink aims to help you achieve three wellness goals: alkalize, balance, and detoxify.

Alkalizing blends work to restore your body’s pH balance and support your immune system. Alkaline diets are rich in calcium, magnesium, and potassium and get nutrition from fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes, all found in the It Works! Greens blend. (19)

It’s believed that consuming more alkalizing nutrients builds immunity and protects from illness and disease. There hasn’t been enough research yet to confirm this.

As for balance, the It Works! Greens blend achieves this by filling dietary gaps in your regular eating habits with additional vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and enzymes.

Detoxification happens thanks to the matcha green tea that’s added. For decades studies have shown that green tea has powerful medicinal properties and can even treat a variety of diseases. (20)

Regardless of whether or not you believe alkaline diets are effective, there’s no arguing that the ingredients in It Works! Greens can improve your overall health.

1. Patriot Power Greens

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Patriot Power Greens is a high-power, all-natural “secret green drink” that supports health, energy, and overall well-being.

They call it a secret because the formula used to be reserved only for the military elite, used basically to restore their youth by sharpening memory and increasing energy and stamina while decreasing their pain response. They claim it’ll make you feel 30 years younger, and now it’s available to the public, so you can go ahead and test it out for yourself.

The unique blend used in Patriot Power Greens contains 20 fruits and vegetables, 10 probiotics, and 6 digestive enzymes all in one single serving.

The fruits and vegetables can be broken down into superfood greens and sea vegetables such as spirulina and seaweed, organic veggies like carrot, kale, broccoli, and spinach, and superfruits such as blueberries, goji berries, amla fruit, and acai.

The seaweed is particularly intriguing since it’s one of the most prominent ingredients. The blend uses three different types of seaweed: kombu, nori, and wakame.

Seaweed is generally higher in nutrients and trace minerals than any other vegetables, including high amounts of B12 and antioxidants. It promotes heart health, boosts the metabolism, helps with thyroid conditions, stabilizes blood sugar levels, strengthens the immune system, and even helps prevent bone diseases…all conditions associated with old age. (21) (22) (23) (24) (25)

Most of the superfoods incorporated into Patriot Power Greens, such as papaya, blueberry, broccoli, spinach, and pomegranate, are also known to have powerful anti-aging properties.

Patriot Power Greens does not contain any dairy, gluten, wheat, soy, shellfish, egg, fish, tree nuts, or peanuts, so it’s safe to consume for more allergies.

Part 2: Why should you use superfood green powders? What are their benefits and side effects?

Even with a balanced diet, it’s very difficult to get all of the vitamins and minerals our body needs on a daily basis.

Superfood green powders serve two purposes: to enhance the nutrition we already provide ourselves in the form of whole foods and to fill in nutritional gaps where our diet is lacking, all in a convenient and easy method.

Green drinks are a health and nutrition staple for good reason. But are there any risks or side effects?

Benefits of superfood green powders

One of the biggest nutritional benefits of green drinks comes from the high levels of antioxidants found in the superfoods they tend to contain.

Antioxidants essentially fight free radicals, which are molecules in your body that seek to damage your cells and can even lead to cancer. Studies have shown that the typical Western diet is so lacking in antioxidants that the biggest source of them for most people is their morning cup of coffee. (26)

Other benefits will depend on the ingredients in any given superfood green powder.

Many contain kale and spirulina, which are two of the most nutrition-dense foods you can consume. Together, they provide more than your daily recommended amount of vitamin A, vitamin K, and vitamin C, as well as a good amount of your vitamin B, protein, copper, magnesium, and iron. Spirulina also has anti-inflammatory properties. (27)

Other popular ingredients include berries such as acai and pomegranate, which can lower cholesterol, and seeds like chia and flax are a great source of fiber and omega-3 fatty acids. Many also incorporate detoxifying and medicinal herbs as well as fibers that suppress appetite.

Another benefit of superfood green powders is convenience. You get all of this nutrition packed into a quick and easy drink that you can take with you on the go, and usually at an affordable price. While some superfood green powders may seem expensive, if you tried to get all of the nutrition they pack through whole foods, you’d spend a lot more money.

Side effects of superfood green powders

Some people will use superfood green powders as a substitute for their vegetables and fruits. Not eating a healthy, balanced diet, even if you are taking green powder supplements, can lead to malnutrition, weight gain, and more.

Most side effects will depend on the quality of the green drink you’re purchasing as well as its individual ingredients and how your body reacts to them.

Chlorella, a popular green powder ingredient due to its nutrition and impressive range of benefits, has caused reactions on rare occasions that include diarrhea, nausea, gas, and stomach cramping in the first week of use. (27)

This is a normal reaction to many superfood supplements, as increased fiber consumption can lead to mild digestive problems such as constipation and upset stomach.

Your body may not be used to getting so much fiber and nutrition, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need it. It just means our digestion has adapted to a diet that is largely processed and lacking in nutrients.

Recommended dosage

This will vary depending on the product. It’s always important to read the dosage instructions on the label before consuming any superfood green powder.

Most require that you add one or two scoops to water, juice, or a smoothie. Typically you’ll consume one per day.

Superfood green powder FAQ

What is a supergreen? Supergreens are superfoods that are also green vegetables. They’re essentially extremely nutrient-dense, providing even more vitamins and minerals to your body than your typical vegetables and greens. Some examples of supergreens include kale, spinach, algae, and seaweed.

What is in green powder? Green powder is a powdered blend of concentrated, dehydrated supergreens. It’s like a multivitamin but even more powerful because it contains additional nutrients such as probiotics, prebiotics, detoxifying herbs and minerals, and antioxidants.

What is in Patriot Power greens? Patriot Power Greens contains a blend of 20 different highly nutritious fruits and vegetables, 10 probiotics, and 6 digestive enzymes.

What are the benefits of green superfoods? Green superfoods provide your body with a concentrated supply of the vitamins and minerals it needs to stay healthy. They can boost your immune system, help you detox, and improve your digestion, among other benefits.

What does green juice do for your body? Green juice doesn’t just provide your body with additional nutrients. The ingredients it contains can actually help your body absorb vitamins and minerals from other foods more effectively.

What does a superfood do for you? Superfoods contain high levels of antioxidants, which improve your health and may protect against cancer. They also contain healthy fats, such as omega-3s, and fiber which can prevent heart disease and lower cholesterol, and they help you get your daily dose of iron, magnesium, calcium, and more. Finally, they improve digestion, boost your immune system, and leave you feeling energized and refreshed.

Do powdered greens expire? Yes. Most have a shelf-life of around two years, but check the expiration date on your product. You can still consume powdered greens past the expiration date – they won’t hurt you, but they will lose their potency.

Summary

Getting the proper nutrition your body needs on a daily basis is difficult, especially when you’re too busy to cook three meals every day or on a budget.

Superfood green powders are one of the most effective and convenient ways to make sure that you’re getting a healthy daily dose of all the important vitamins and minerals your body needs. Of course, different green powders come with different ingredients and levels of quality.

It’s important to do your research and select a superfood green powder that will truly provide your body with the holistic nutrition it needs to stay healthy.

For MLMCompanies.org #1 superfood green powder recommendation, click here.

via https://mlmcompanies.org/green-drinks/

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mlmcompanies · 6 years