How to Get REAL About Food

Politicians need to take on the food industry with the force required to promote real change, rather than sugarcoating the message. They need to name names. This will not be easy, but it's necessary if we are to turn the tides for future generations.  Many people, such as celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, are not waiting for government action—and YOU shouldn't either. It's time for you to take matters into your own hands. Cook and eat real food. Vote with your wallet!
You have the power to lead your children by example, which is one of the most effective teaching tools there is. First and foremost, we need to teach children what "real food" actually is. If you're unsure about how to get your family on the right track, my optimized nutrition plan offers a step-by-step guide to feeding your family right. You can find even more help in my book, Generation XL: Raising Healthy, Intelligent Kids in a High-Tech, Junk-Food World. Ten of the most powerful health strategies are summarized below. By integrating these into your family's daily life, your children will learn how to make better lifestyle choices for themselves, which will help them grow into healthier, happier adults.

1. Proper food choices: Focus your diet on whole, ideally organic, unprocessed or minimally processed, and non-GMO foods. For the best nutrition and health benefits, eat a good portion of your food raw. Avoid refined sugar, especially processed fructose. I believe the two primary keys for successful weight management are restricting carbohydrates (sugars and grains) and increasing your consumption of healthful fats. Examples of healthful fats include:

Olives and olive oil	Coconuts and coconut oil	Butter made from raw grass-fed organic milk
Raw nuts, particularly macadamia	Organic pastured egg yolks	Avocados
Grass-fed meats	Palm oil (make sure it's sustainably raised)	Unheated organic nut oils

2. Intermittent Fasting: Recent studies show that intermittent fasting can provide a number of health benefits, such as boosting your metabolism, stabilizing blood sugar, optimizing metabolic hormones (including insulin and leptin), reducing inflammation, improving blood pressure, and increasing your lean body mass. There are several types of intermittent fasting to choose from, so I recommend experimenting to see what style works best for you.
3. Regular exercise: Along with core-strengthening exercises, strength training, and stretching, I highly recommend Peak Fitness exercises two or three times a week. High-intensity interval-type training boosts human growth hormone (HGH), which is essential for optimal health, strength, and vigor. HGH also helps you optimize your weight and build lean body mass.
4. Stress management: Your emotional state plays a role in nearly every physical and mental disease. Meditation, prayer, social support, yoga, and exercise are all viable options that can help you maintain mental equilibrium. You may choose to learn a tool such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to address deeper, sometimes hidden, emotional blocks.
5. Drink plenty of pure clean water.
6. Take care for your microbiome: About 80 percent of your immune system resides in your gut. Research is mounting that beneficial bacteria affect your health in a myriad of ways, including reducing inflammation, eliminating toxins, producing vitamins, benefiting your mood, and helping you to lose weight. The easiest, most cost-effective way to optimize your gut flora is to routinely incorporate traditionally fermented foods into your diet.
7. Optimize your vitamin D levels: Research has shown that optimizing your vitamin D levels can reduce your risk of death from ALL causes. Sun exposure is the best way to do this as your body has built-in "fail-safe" mechanisms that prevent vitamin D toxicity. If you opt for oral vitamin D supplements, make sure you use D3, not prescription D2, as the latter may do more harm than good. If you take a vitamin D supplement, make sure you are getting adequate vitamin K2, which helps prevent D3 toxicity.
For more information on how to safely and effectively optimize your vitamin D, please see my previous article, "How Vitamin D Performance Testing Can Help You Optimize Your Health."

8. Avoid as many chemicals, toxins, and pollutants as possible: This includes tossing out your toxic household cleaners, soaps, personal hygiene products, air fresheners, bug sprays, lawn pesticides, and insecticides, just to name a few, and replacing them with non-toxic alternatives.
9. Get adequate restorative sleep: Sleep deprivation can disrupt your metabolism and hormone production. Recent research shows that poor-quality sleep can have a significant role in metabolic disorders, including obesity, hypertension and type 2 diabetes.
10. Ground yourself to the earth. When you walk or stand barefoot, free electrons are transferred from the earth into your body, and this grounding effect is one of the most potent antioxidants we know of. Grounding this way (also called "earthing") reduces pain and inflammation, improves blood flow, improves sleep, and has a number of other reported benefits.