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Today we are gonna talk about the seven-day carb test. Now, I have to give credit where credit is due here. Robb Wolf, a very famous nutrition expert in the field of paleo and ancestral nutrition, recently wrote a book called Wired to Eat. It's a fantastic book. If you don't already have it, go out and get it. I've read it twice already. Robb Wolf is one of my personal heroes in the health and wellness space. One of the really cool things he talks about in there is something called the seven-day carb test, and I think this can be a really fantastic way for people, as individuals, to determine their individual level of carb tolerance depending on the carb that they're consuming. So, what's the seven-day carb test? Well, essentially there have been studies that have shown that people react very differently to certain types of carbohydrates depending on the individual. While that's true that almost everyone is going to have a way higher blood sugar spike when eating a cookie than when eating celery, for example, it's not always the case that when you get to same higher-carb things like, say, a cookie and a potato, that everyone's gonna have the same blood sugar spike. In fact, one of the most interesting findings of these studies is that people can actually have a lower blood sugar spike with a cookie than with a white potato or white rice, for example. Someone could have way higher blood sugar spike with beans than with white rice, for example. But then someone else could have the exact opposite reaction to those very same foods. The point of this all wasn't to say that eating a cookie is healthy if it gives you less of a blood sugar spike. There are lots of other reasons not to eat a cookie from a health perspective. But it's to say that one's tolerance for carbs is very, very, very individual. What you can glean from this is you can find out that certain carbs might be better for you and lead to a healthy blood sugar response long term as opposed to other carbs. So, for example, if you just know, "Man, I feel really lightheaded or weird after having white potatoes but I feel fine with sweet potatoes", that could be you intuitively knowing something that could be demonstrated with a blood glucose monitor, showing you that your blood sugar spikes really high after eating white potatoes but not so much after eating sweet potatoes. So, what is the seven-day carb test, with all of that background information in mind? The seven-day carb test is basically where you buy a blood glucometer -- and I've done other videos, which I'll link to that explain how you might use a blood glucometer -- but basically what you do is, over the course of seven days, each morning, you have a different type of carbohydrate source. Whether that's ... And these are the ones that you really like and would eat a lot. So maybe 50 net effective carbohydrates of pineapple, or white potatoes, or sweet potatoes. And, again, it really is worth buying Robb Wolf's book because he's got this all worked out for you. You can find it online as well, these values. But it's basically 50 net carbs from these different sources. It could be white rice, it could be beans, what have you. What you do is you take your blood sugar before you eat those foods and then, ideally, one and two hours after. If, one hour after, it's higher than 140, then chances are it's something that you're not having a good blood glucose reaction to. It could be 180 or something crazy like that. That would be really high. And if two hours after it isn't below 120, and ideally, closer to fasting, then that could be something that you have blood sugar issues with. So, this is a very nice thing where, if you're okay with getting a blood glucose monitor from your local Walmart, you can get all the equipment for no more than $50 or $60. You don't need to spend a ton of money. You can actually find out, "Is a sweet potato giving you more issues than a white potato, or vice versa", or, "Is white rice okay for you to have occasionally", or, "Is that the thing that's throwing you off and making you feel spacey, or lightheaded, or giving you hypoglycemia reactions?" In that sense, it's very, very, very helpful. Then going forward, one of the things you can do is you can know, "Well, hey ..." Let's say, for example, beans give you way more of a blood sugar spike than white rice. Then beans are something you're going to save for maybe a special occasion, and white rice is something that you know you could have on a more regular basis. Maybe post-workout. But that's not something you'd really expect initially. Initially, you would think, "Well, of course the white rice is gonna spike my blood sugar more than the beans." That's what we would intuitively think for most people. And for a lot of people, that is the case. But not for everyone. That's what's so interesting about this, is you can really dial things in and find out what's right for you. So, to recap, if you don't already have Robb Wolf's book, Wired to Eat, go ahead and get it. It's awesome, it's fantastic. Once you have it, you can do the seven-day carb test where you can find out your individual level of carb tolerance. This will tell you what you can safely have and what should maybe be avoided more long-term. That will give you a really good way to optimize your health for you, individually, rather than making this blanket statement that white rice is always bad for everyone, or beans, or white potatoes. It really depends on the individual.

Today we're going to talk about whether you should supplement with vitamin D. Vitamin D is something that's been the subject of intense research over the past number of years and almost everyone recognizes and admits that is absolutely crucial for your overall health, but where things get a little bit tricky is in the amounts and what someone should or should not take depending on their individual needs and health condition. As always, first thing up front, not a doctor. Can't diagnose, treat, cure, prescribe anything like that. Always consult your doctor before stopping or starting self medication. That being said, vitamin D is something that the overwhelming majority of people should be taking in one form or another. That being said, I do think it's really important to get your levels checked. When you go to your doctor, what should you check for? You should be checking for your 25 OH vitamin D levels. 25 OH, hydroxy vitamin D levels. Now, there's some debate where these numbers should be. Most people agree in the health and wellness arena that somewhere between 30 and 50 is going to be optimal. Below 30 is not so great, below 20 is really not so great, and below 10 is a serious deficiency. A very serious deficiency. Where things can get a little bit tricky is some people say, "Oh, vitamin D, you can never get enough. It does all these crazy, amazing things and you should just supplement like crazy," and that's not quite true. It's a fat-soluble vitamin, meaning that it's stored in your bodies fat tissue. Meaning that there is a potential for toxicity that isn't there with water soluble vitamins like B12 and vitamin C. With water soluble vitamins, you basically pee out the excess. With vitamin D however, you store it for longer, but it can ... It can also become toxic because of that. When you get above 50, it really depends on who you ask. I tend to think for people with autoimmune diseases, somewhere between 50 and 70 is going to be more optimal than a 30 to 50. Some people say 60 to 80. Some people say as high as 100 and I think that's really kind of pushing it. I think really when you cross that 70 threshold, you really want to be careful and, as always, make sure you're talking about this with a qualified healthcare professional. You should get this value tested, because a lot of people, especially here in Northern Indiana, in the winter ... It's turning into summer now, but in the winter, you're not getting enough vitamin D and it's really hard to get adequate amounts from food. You can get some from egg yolks. You can get some from wild caught fish. You can get some actually from lard, believe it or not, but really not that much. Really not that much from food. Now, once you get that tested, how much should you be supplementing with? Now again, we're doing this in consultation with a healthcare professional, but you should consider talking with your healthcare professional about maybe somewhere around 5,000 IU a day if you are deficient in vitamin D and if you're severely deficient and if someone has an autoimmune condition, then they should be talking with their healthcare practitioner about maybe somewhere between five and 10,000 IU a day. Above that really starts to get sketchy. Now there are two main type of vitamin D that you can supplement with. There's vitamin D2, which is a plant based form that is routinely prescribed in 50,000 IU amounts by doctors. This is not very well absorbed. This is not the main kind that your body utilizes. What we want to look for is vitamin D3. This is the type that you really want to supplement with. It also matters the type that you supplement with. Not just the type such as D2 versus D3, but type in the sense of pill versus sublingual. With pills, a lot of people with vitamin D deficiency also have other ... Sometimes they have other health issues going on that makes it harder to absorb nutrients in pill form. One of the best ways to bring up your vitamin D levels in a realistic fashion is with either sublingual tablets that dissolve underneath your tongue or sublingual drops that you can put underneath your tongue and get absorbed that way. That tends to be way better for absorption than your standard run of the mill pill. A lot of people that I work with who've done tests with their doctors, they do the supplementation with the pill. Either a prescription or just an over-the-counter pill and it doesn't really fluctuate or it doesn't really change the way you want it to, but then we did the sublingual stuff, it makes a big difference. Vitamin D, super important for immunity. Super important for hormonal health. Super important for circadian rhythm regulation. Basically whether you're tired or energetic throughout different points of the day. It's super important for a number of difference aspects, so what you want to do with vitamin D is you want to make sure that you get tested to find out where your levels are. If your levels are inadequate, make sure you are talking with your healthcare professional about supplementing with vitamin D3 and ideally in a sublingual tablet or drop form. All right, guys. Thanks so much for tuning in. We'll see you next time.

Today we're sharing Ella's story. Ella's mom, Erin, was concerned that Ella was having frequent gastrointestinal issues with no resolution. Ella felt uncomfortable a lot and had to miss school and athletics due to digestive issues. Erin, took her to the doctor and the doctor said that nothing seemed to be acutely wrong. The only recommendation was to take Tums when her stomach hurt. It temporarily helped but it wasn't fixing the underlying problem. This past year Ella had missed 20 days of school and 15 days of those were related non-sickness related gut issues. Erin decided to order a food sensitivity test through our Functional Diagnostic Nutrition® program for Ella (this is not the same as a food allergy test), and it turned out that Ella had a major dairy sensitivity/intolerance. Once she cut out dairy she felt a lot better. To be clear this is not the same as a dairy allergy. It's possible to have a food sensitivity to a food without having an allergy and this was the case for Ella. Ella feels like it's manageable to avoid dairy on a daily basis. Erin definitely had to rework her planned meals for Ella, in terms of cutting out dairy, but once she got the hang of it it was definitely worth the trade off. Furthermore, Erin said that the cost of the test was definitely worth the benefit of Ella not dealing with digestive pain all the time. Ella we'e so happy that you feel better, and we're so proud of all your progress! Keep up the great work! Robby:  Today I am here with Ella and Erin. Today we're going to talk about Ella's story. First of all, thank you guys so much for being here. Really appreciate it. Erin:  You're welcome. Robby: What I figured we could start with is, I wanted to have you guys just talk about how was Ella feeling before you guys came in? So, Ella how were you feeling before we started taking out the dairy and all stuff? How was your stomach feeling? Ella:   I had stomach pains after eating and it was really hard to do things. But then, once the dairy got cut out, then it was easier to things and helped me a lot. Robby: That's great. Erin, you were telling me that every time you guys went to the doc you just kept getting told to take more tums, right? Is that basically ... Robby: Yeah. This has been going on for years really. When she was younger, I took her to the doctor and she was constantly complaining about stomach aches and there wasn't really indication from a clinical perspective to do any kind of invasive testing. Which, I agree with but at the same time I knew something was wrong. So we explored. I thought maybe there was anxiety or there were problems at school and that really didn't pan out. I think everything was fine, there was just something going on that we didn't know so, this kind of went on for years. She's been taking tums and it helps a little bit at the time but it wasn't fixing the underlying problem. Robby: I think you were telling me about a number of days missed at school. So, how frequently was that happening? Erin: Yeah, that really started just recently. She had missed some school before in the earlier years but this past year it's really had started to get worse. So, when we started to see ... I think at that point she had missed like 20 days of school and probably 15 of those were related to stomach issues that weren't ... It wasn't a virus or anything. It was these same ongoing issues that she'd had. Robby: So, Erin decided to order a food sensitivity test for Ella and a gut health test and we found that Ella had a pretty serious sensitivity to diary. Then, how was it when you guys took the dairy out? How'd you feel? Ella: I felt a lot better. Robby: Cool. I bet. Ella: And I stopped missing a lot of school. I just overall felt a lot better. Robby: That's great. Erin: Yeah, ever since we've done that, she has not missed a day of school for those stomach issues. So that's great. Robby: How have you felt in terms of ... How manageable is it to do at school and things like that? Do you feel like it's something that's fairly manageable for you to do on a day to day basis? Ella: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Robby: Yeah? Ella:  Yeah. Robby:    Erin, in terms of having lunches and ... Erin: It was hard at first. I won't lie. I went and I looked and I said, "Okay." Everything I had ... I had always given her diary. I mean, you always have yogurt, milk or chocolate milk, cheese on sandwiches so, almost everything that I gave her was off limits now. So, I really had to think. We do, honestly, have ... There's a limited amount of things that she can have but there's still ... It's still doable. It's very doable. It's not like I have to ... We've tried some of the substitute dairy, that kind of stuff. It's okay but it's almost just easier to cut it out completely and substitute with other things. She's eating meats and fruits and vegetables and it's probably better for her anyway. Robby: Yeah. Erin: So, it's doable. It is really doable. It's just a learning curve. Robby: Yeah, and that's really fantastic. I mean, when we were initially talking, we were unsure was it gluten, was that the main culprit but it seems like once we did the test we saw the dairy was really the main culprit and I think that was very helpful. Erin: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Robby: Well Ella, we're super happy for you all your progress and we're glad you're  feeling better. We're glad you're able to get back to school and not have to miss as much. Anything you guys want to say in addition about Ella's progress or anything else like that? Erin:: No, I mean, I would just say if you're child is having any kind of health issues, think about food sensitivities. It's not something that ever crossed my mind and then, come to find out, she does have something in my history. Cousins, and other relatives that have the same issues. I did not know that until we started going through this and talking about it. It's something to explore if that's ... If you're child is having some issues, it's something worth looking into. In the whole scheme of things, the price of the test is more than worth the outcome of it. Robby: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. Food sensitivities are different from food allergies. Your child might not have a food allergy to something but they could have a food sensitivity so it is something worth getting checked out. Well, thank you guys so much for coming in. We're so glad that you guys have made so much progress and we'll see you guys next time.     Any information received from this video is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of medical advice and treatment from your personal physician. It is recommended that you consult your own doctor or other qualified health professional regarding the treatment of any medical condition and that you speak with your doctor before taking action on any nutritional or health recommendations we provide. The information provided is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease. It is offered for educational purposes only, and statements made have not been evaluated by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Today we are going to talk about bone broth. So some of you may have heard of bone broth, some of you may have not, but it's all the rage these days, and for good reason ... it's super, super, super healthy for you. So first of all, let's start with a little explanation of what is bone broth? So bone broth is basically just, it's very similar to chicken stock, or beef stock that you might be familiar with. It's basically where you take a series of bones with some meat on it, throw in some veggies, typically carrots, celery and onion, but it could be peppers, garlic, any sort of spices that you like and you put it in a crock pot or a pressure cooker or something on the stove top and you let it cook down and what you're left with is some sort of drink or base for soups and stews that can be used to do a lot to improve your health. So I actually happen to have a cup of it right here, that I've been sipping out of. That's what bone broth typically looks like, that's chicken bone broth and that's just a melted version of this bonified bone broth that I'm going to talk about in just a second. A lot of people wonder, what's the difference between stock and broth? Well, typically stock, in a culinary context, is going to be something that you want to have really clear, and typically, it's just usually made from meat and veggies and you just cook it for about three to four hours. With bone broth, however, the goal is not necessarily clarity as you saw with that cup I have right here, it's pretty cloudy. It's extracting all the nutrients. So typically, you'll cook it for anywhere from 12 to 24 hours, if it's in a crock pot or the stove top, and you might put in some apple cider vinegar to help extract the nutrients from the bones. And typically with bone broth, while there might be some meat, there's usually a lot of bone. What is bone broth helpful for from a health context? It has a lot of collagen and gelatin. It contains a lot of amino acids that we don't necessarily get from the muscle meats that we typically eat, things like steak and pork chop and chicken breast. You don't get a lot of collagen and gelatin from those things. So collagen and gelatin is really helpful for hair, skin, nails. It's really helpful for repairing the gut. It's really helpful for immunity. Believe it or not, when people talk about how chicken soup is the remedy for all that ails you, what's healthy about chicken soup, or chicken noodle soup, isn't the noodles, it's the actual chicken stock, or chicken broth. That's the part that's really healthy for you. Bone broth is healthy for immunity, helpful for healing the gut lining, and helpful for hair, skin and nails. So how do you make the stuff? Well, like I said earlier, you can literally take the bones and meat from a chicken that you've just finished eating, throw it in a crock pot with some carrots, celery and onions, some apple cider vinegar, cook it down for 24 hours, strain it and then store it in some jars. You can do the same thing on the stove top. You can do it super quick in a pressure cooker, maybe in like an hour or two. But, what a lot of people realize is that they just don't like taking the time to do that. I'm one where I've said I was going to make it a number of times, and I've made it once or twice, but it hasn't really turned out the way I wanted. So there are a lot of great options now that will allow you to just buy it and have it ready made. Now, something to keep in mind is that if you want it as cheaply as possible, the best way to do it is to make it at home, but there are these more convenient options. So I'm going to talk about my three favorites. Number one, the one that I use all the time is Bonafide Bone Broth. These guys, I love their brand, I love their ingredients. This is real deal stuff, so in a lot of other stuff, you're not going to get that gelatinous aspect that you see in here. That goes away obviously once you melt it down. But that's how you can tell you have real legitimate bone broth. And you can use that for soups, stocks, what have you. The same company that makes Epic Bars, that a lot of you guys have seen, Epic Provisions, they also make bone broth. Now this is going to be more drinkable straight, they're not going to have as much collagen and gelatin in there. But this is also the legit, real deal. There's a lot of stuff that claims to be the real deal that is not. This is the real deal. But think of it more as something that you can sip on. And they've got chicken, they've got turkey, they've got a bison apple cider one, that I've tasted recently that's very good. Now the new player on the field is Kettle and Fire. These are the only guys out there that are making a bone broth that is shelf stable. That's actually drinkable, like if you actually bought bone broth, like from a standard stock brand on the shelf and you tried to drink it straight, it would taste disgusting. I've tasted this and it tastes really good. They're the only ones with a proprietary process, where they're able to get it shelf stable. They've got a beef broth and a chicken broth as well. No one's really better than the other, just really depends on what you want. This comes frozen and you've got to defrost it. This is shelf stable and ready. This needs to be refrigerated. It just depends on what you're looking for in terms of portability. Another place you can get bone broth? Shout out to Primal Kitchen, that'll be opening up here soon in our neck of the woods. They've got fantastic bone broth. I just wanted to introduce you to what bone broth is today, explain how it can benefit your health, and show you my top three options for bone broth that you can get in the store. All right, guys, thanks so much for tuning in. We'll see you next time.

Today we are going to try to give you some tools to figure out how committed are you really, truly and deeply to your goals? This is something that we deal with a lot here at Crossfit South Bend. Whether it's fitness goals or health goals or mobility goals. Whatever goals you might have. One of the things we always talk to people about is their commitment level. What is that commitment level and what does that really mean? Okay. First of all, why is commitment level so important? Commitment level is going to dictate the appropriate protocol for that particular goal. I'll give you an example. If someone says, "Hey I want to lose 20 pounds." Right? "But I don't care whether it's in the next two months or in the next two years or in the next 10 years." Their commitment level is maybe a one, in the sense that they just don't really care when it happens. Then that's going to dictate what we do. We don't really have to do anything majorly invasive or severe at that point because they don't really care. On the other hand, if someone comes to you and says, "Well, I want to lose 30 pounds in three months." Which is a decently aggressive goal if they want to do it sustainably and in a healthy fashion. Then we have to have a talk about how committed are you? How committed are you to that goal, because lots of people want to do something like that but not everyone is willing to put in the effort. One of my favorite all time quotes comes in the form of the following saying which is, "Everybody wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die to get there." We see this over and over and over again with fitness, nutrition and mobility goals. If someone says their commitment level is a 10 to me. When we're meeting I will always check to see if that's really true. The way I'll check, and it isn't a perfect method by any means, but the way I'll check is I'll ask, "Well what are you willing to sacrifice?" Because if your commitment level is a 10, that doesn't just mean, "Oh I really really want this thing." That means that you're willing to sacrifice to get it. Just like lots of people want to be rich but they still want to spend a lot of money or people want to have a good relationship but they don't want to put in the work to get there. Similarly with nutrition. People say, "Oh well, I want to achieve this thing. I want to have a six pack and I want to lose 30 pounds in three months." But what are you really willing to do? Are you, for example, willing to stop going out on the weekends as frequently? Are you willing to stop drinking for a period of time? Are you willing to go to bed at 10 p.m. every single night and get eight hours of sleep? Are you willing to do a mindfulness practice where you're de-stressing constantly on a daily basis? Are you willing to cook for yourself 80 to 90% of the time? It's okay if you're not willing to do those things. That's fine. If someone says, "Hey, upon realizing that this is what I would need to do to get to those goals, I'm not willing to put in that effort." That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. If people come to us and say, "Hey look man, I just want to eat pizza and chocolate chip cookies." Or whatever it is they want to eat and they don't care about the consequences. We don't see anything wrong with that. What we see a problem with and what is most problematic for us is when someone says, "I want to do X, but I don't want to do the things required to do X." "I want to lose 30 pounds in three months, but I don't want to change my diet." Or, "I do want to change my diet but I only want to cook 40% of the time." Or, "I do want to get better sleep habits but I still want to go to bed past midnight. I still want to go out for drinks." We can't do anything for you in that case. There really isn't much to do. Your commitment level dictates what we are able to do. It dictates how we're able to help you. You need to get very very clear for yourself about what your commitment level is and whatever the level is, it's fine. If your commitment to achieving financial peace or what have you is a five, that's okay. If your commitment to achieving health and wellness is a 10, well then that's going to require a certain sacrifice. Ask yourself the following question, if your commitment level is a nine or a 10 to achieve a particular goal. Let's say it's a health and wellness goal. Ask yourself the following question, "What wouldn't I do to get there?" Not just, "What would I do, but what wouldn't I do? What wouldn't I do to get there?" That would be very telling for you because if you say, "Well there's really nothing I wouldn't do." Then you're very committed. If you're someone who says, "Well I don't know about giving up chocolate chip cookies. Well I don't know about giving up my beer on the weekends or hanging out with my friends." Again, that's okay, but you're not truly committed as you say you are. That's something that you need to get very very clear on. Because there's no way to help you achieve your goal unless you get very clear on that. Depending on your commitment level, we can give you more or less intensive protocols to help you get there. The people who say, "I'm willing to do this." And we give them the protocol and they do it, they succeed. The people who say, "Well I want to do this but I don't really want to put in the effort." They don't succeed and it's because they're just not willing to do what's required to get them there. In order to get a real sense of whether you are going to be able to achieve your goals, you need to know what your commitment level is. If you think you're really committed, ask yourself, "What wouldn't I do to get to this point and what am I willing to sacrifice to get there?" That will give you a lot of insight to how committed you are. All right guys. Thanks so much for tuning in. I'll see you next time.

In this video we talk about gray-area foods. What are gray-area foods? They are foods where: Which foods are the gray-area foods? -Gluten free grains (rice, non-GMO corn, gf oats) -Grass Fed, Full Fat, Dairy from a Local Family Farm -Beans, Peas, and Lentils -Dark Chocolate and Red Wine -Natural Sweetners (honey, maple syrup, molasses, stevia, etc.) Should you eat these things or avoid them? In general -They should NOT form the vast majority of what you eat -You should try eliminating them all for 30 days and then reintroducing them to see if you tolerate them -Once you reintroduce them it's up to you to determine if the symptoms you experience when eating these foods (if any) are worth eating the food. Lastly, keep in mind that whether you tolerate or don't tolerate these foods is a very individual thing. It's not the same for everyone. That's precisely why they are gray-area foods because they're neither a clear green light in terms of having them or a clear red light in terms of avoiding them.

  In this video we sit down to talk with Corinne and her experience with our Functional Diagnostic Nutrition® program. Corinne came to see me having issues with losing weight and chronic digestive issues. Initially, as she mentions in the video, the idea of giving up grains for a period of time as well as certain other foods wasn't very appealing to her. However, once she did it she felt a lot better. One of the biggest things for Corinne was cutting out the sugar. She said she felt way better cutting out all the sugar from her diet even though it was initially difficult. She didn't crave sugar as much and developed a much better relationship with food. She also was able to lose a lot of weight without counting any calories. She was able to fit back into clothes that she hadn't been able to wear for a while. Aside from weight and sugar cravings. She's able to sleep a lot better by cutting out caffeine and sugar. She was also able to ditch her standard digestion pills that she would have to carry with her everywhere when her digestion would get upset. Corinne we're so proud of you and all of your progress!  

Today we are going to try to answer the question, “How do I convince someone who I really care about to eat healthy?” I know they have this chronic health condition that is making their life very hard to live. I know that they’re overweight. I know that they don’t feel good about themselves. How do I convince them to eat healthy and better their lives? Typically if you’re asking this question you’re someone who has seen the benefits yourself of eating healthy and you want to help others and understandably so. The first thing I want to say before I give you the answer to this question is you’re to be applauded for trying to do something nice for people that you care about. Obviously that’s something that you’re trying to do out of generosity and kindness. That being said, you can’t do this. It’s pretty much impossible to do. I know that’s probably not the answer that you wanted to hear, but both as a nutrition coach and someone who has seen this happen personally firsthand, and from some of my mentors in the field, like Rob Wolff, who is one of the leaders in the healthy nutrition community, whose parents to their dying day were smokers and drinkers even though their son was a health nutrition coach, this isn’t something you can do. It’s very understandably that you would want to do it, but you need to understand that there is nothing you can do or say to convince someone to eat healthy. They have to come to it themselves. You might be asking, “Is there anything I can do to help?” Number one, almost do the exact opposite of what you’re trying to do right now, which I know sounds kind of intuitive, but have you ever met someone who was more likely to do something the more they were told to do it? Typically as adults it’s the exact opposite. So if someone tells us what to do, whether it’s a friend or a significant other and they kind of belabor the point, and they’re dogmatic about it, “Oh you need to start eating healthy. Stop eating that bread.” We just kind of view them as a jerk. We just say, “You’re being really pushy, and this is really making me feel uncomfortable.” It’s very rare that you are going to convince someone that way. That’s really not going to work. So stop doing that in general. That’s not really going to help. What can you do instead? Number one, be the example. Be the example. Instead of talking about all these great benefits and being the proselytizer, which no one really likes just by the way, instead of being the health proselytizer be an example. Just eat the way that you think is healthiest and continue to eat your real whole food and people will see the benefits. They will understand. They will be much more likely to take advice from you just by watching what happens with you than if you repeatedly tell them what to do. That’s number one. Number two, if someone’s really genuinely interested, send them some detail. Send them some information on it after they ask you. Don’t send this unsolicited. Don’t be a jerk about it. If you think they need to lose weight, but they haven’t asked you about how to lose weight, don’t send them an article about how to lose weight. If they ask you then send them some general information. If they want to follow-up from there then you can talk about it. Number three, never under any circumstances talk about this in a food context. This is like politics and religion. The last thing you should ever talk about at dinner or lunch or breakfast or any sort of special occasion is what you should be eating. This is the worst place to talk about this. Again, I’m talking about this both from personal experience, from my mentors in the field, from the people I’ve coached, this is the worst place to talk about this stuff. You are not going to convince someone who’s sitting there eating a roll of bread in front of you not to eat gluten, because of this that and the other thing that you’re listing out right then and there. That is the worst time to do it. So don’t talk about those things in that context. Then lastly, make peace with the way things are. We’ve talked about this in other videos with regard to mindfulness and making your peace with the way things are. The truth is we all only have so much control over what we can do. You can do the best job of trying to make these rational arguments, this that and the other thing, this piece of evidence. I come from a philosophy background. Before I got into health nutrition I was a philosophy grad student. We did tons and tons of debating. One of the things we all found out was it’s very, very rare no matter how much you try to present a rational argument to someone that they will accept it just purely on the basis of reason. There’s a lot of emotion, and psychology and other things that go into it. So make peace with the fact that you may just not be able to do this. I have certainly had this many times as a health coach where I know that there are people that I can help, who’ve come to me and have issues that they need help with, but they are not willing to put in the effort to get help. They say the equivalent of, “Well, I want to get better but I don’t want to change my diet. What can you do for me?” And the answer is, “Nothing.” At the end of the day you need to make peace with the fact that there might just be certain situations where you can’t convince people and that’s okay. Do what you can for you and for your health, and for those who want to be helped, provide them with information. Don’t browbeat them. Don’t be pushy, but give information. If someone doesn’t want to be convinced that’s just all you can do. Okay. Hopefully that gives you a better sense of how to deal with these situations. Thank you guys so much for tuning in and we’ll see you next time.  

Today we're going talk about mindfulness. Mindfulness is a really popular concept these days, but not a lot of people know what it is, and even if they do know what it is, they don't necessarily know how to use it in their daily life. What is mindfulness? There's lots of different definitions out there, but the one I like the most is Jon Kabat-Zinn's. He's really one of the founders of the mindfulness movement. He's one the people who brought it into western culture and into medical research and all of the rest of that. He defines mindfulness as paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally. What do the three of those mean? On purpose means that you're not just noticing things without intention behind them. You're purposefully paying attention to the way that you feel, the way things are in the world, things like that. In the present moment means now. There's a direct and very important focus on the here and now. Now on what has happened in the past where we feel guilt or shame or ruminate about what happened, and not on the future where we start to feel anxious about what's going to be the case, what's not going to be the case. On purpose, in the present moment and then lastly, but perhaps most importantly, non-judgmentally, meaning we just notice things. If you're angry about something, we notice that anger. If you're stressed about something, we notice that stress. A really big hang up that most people have with mindfulness or meditation, and I myself have had this when I've gotten into this practice, is the following. People think, well, if I'm supposed to meditate or be mindful, I have to instantly shut my brain off and not be judgmental about anything. What we have to realize is that this is something that's achieved over a very, very, very long period of time. Even the best people who've practiced mindfulness for years can still be judgmental at times, can still come out of the present moment. It's something that you have to practice. Knowing that you should be in the present moment, and that you should not be judgmental, is not enough to get you there. That knowledge is not enough to actually make those things happen. You have to practice it. How do you actually do this? How do you actually bring this into your life? Well, the first thing to recognize is again, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If you just say, well, I can't shut my mind off. Well, of course you can't shut your mind off if you haven't practiced it or if you don't actually sit down for ten minutes and try to. The very first thing I say to people is you have to sit down and breathe and give it a try, even if your mind is going in a million different directions. Even if it's a pinball machine where things are just going all over the place and you're angry about this thing, or you're stressed about this thing or you are thinking about this thing that happened the other day, that's okay. That's okay. People tend to feel a lot of guilt when that happens when they sit down. One of the things we want to practice when we're mindful is just noticing that feeling. Instead of saying, "Oh, well I feel guilty and I'm not doing this right," just say, "Oh, there's that feeling." Then try to bring your attention back to the present moment. How you're feeling at that moment. It's going to happen again, and it's going to happen again. What you have to do is you have to practice taking your mind from the past to the future, which is usually where it's at and bringing it back to the present. Again, just like with training or nutrition or anything else we do here at the gym, it takes time. Saying that you want to be able to sit down for ten minutes and completely shut off your mind is kind of like saying, well, on my first day in the gym I want to squat 600 pounds. It doesn't work like that. It takes a very long period of time. Even if you've been doing it for months or years, it's not going to be perfect. You have to sit down and give it a try. You might be saying, "Well, how do I do this?" I would initially recommend some programs. Headspace is a really fantastic app. They give you the first ten sessions free and have little animations to explain what your meditation practice should be like. There are other apps like Calm on the iPhone. Jon Kabat-Zinn, one of the founders of the meditation and mindfulness movement here in the West, has a number of different audios where he's got ten minute sitting meditation, 20 minute sitting meditation, 30 minute sitting meditation and lying down, and all these different variations. You can get those on iTunes. You really want to start out in a guided form. What I would say is just focus on getting ten minutes a day. Even if you're getting distracted, even if other things are popping into your head, just sit down for ten minutes and try to breathe and work through it. Another common misconception that people run into is they think, oh, well, I can't do it if there's noise around, or there are other things going on. No, that's actually a perfect opportunity. It's one of those things where you try to take your mind off of being distracted from those things and bring it back to the present moment. You have to repeatedly do this to get better at it. Mindfulness is really something that can help you deal with the stress that we all deal with on a daily basis. It can make it so that your life is actually quite a bit more enjoyable and you're not so worried about what happened in the past or what's going to happen in the future. So give it a try. What do you have to lose, right? It's free and it might actually help you out.