EAT

Summary

Eat with intention.

• Focus on your primary “foods” (things that feed your soul)—your relationships, your career, your community—to build a foundation for the rest of your life.

• Set an intention every morning to be present to your highest potential, and then make food choices that support this.

• Discover your eating personality so you know what psychological state you start from when eating.

• Consider how to best alter or support your eating personality for living your highest potential.

Inflammation is a widespread epidemic that can often be prevented through diet.

• SAD (Standard American Diet) feeds the fire of inflammation; TEMT cools it down.

• Think plant-based and nutrient-dense eating: the traditional Okinawan, Mediterranean, and anti-inflammatory diets are good places to start.

• Consider periodic cleansing with the changing of the seasons, or at least a few times a year.

• Simple lifestyle shifts can decrease exposure to toxins and buildup of toxicity, naturally keeping your body in balance.

Look at the habits that affect your eating. Change the ones that need to be changed and adopt new ones that will support your highest self.

• Embrace portions that are right-sized, not the oversized portions of SAD.

• Practice hara hachi bu—eating until you are just 80 percent full.

• Eat breakfast every day.

• Eat a high-protein snack after every workout.

• Focus on high-fiber foods.

Feed your brain the foods it needs.

• Eat foods that support BDNF to help your brain grow.

• Acknowledge how stress impacts your eating choices (comfort foods or fasting are the two most common inclinations). Infuse your diet with the foods, vitamins, and minerals it needs to deal with stress in a healthy way.

• Take an offensive stance with cravings by eating to keep your serotonin levels high.

• Eat to protect your brain from degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia by eating to decrease free-radical production.