My life is my message.
—His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Take a look around you and notice what level of health, happiness, vitality, and fulfillment you see. World Health Organization (WHO) research states that one out of every three Americans is depressed, and the United States is ranked second in the world for the highest rates of depression (France is ranked number one). The WHO estimates 350 million people worldwide are affected by depression.1 Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and other diseases of choice in lifestyle are all on the rise as well. At this time in the United States, nearly 70 percent of adults (69.2 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control) are overweight or obese.2 We, as a country, are not sleeping well, and less than 20 percent of us report that we are satisfied with our jobs.3
The healthcare system really isn’t a “health”-care system at all. Rather, it is a disease-care system that is not built to support, educate, or inspire well-being. In the year 2011, global spending for pharmaceutical drugs topped $950 billion, and the United States accounts for over half of that spending.4 We can’t help but fantasize about how things could be different if that money went toward education, prevention, and inspiring people to take charge of their health. The more we become tethered to pharmaceutical companies and managed care, the more disempowered and disconnected we are from our true source of vitality, peace, and joy. Our collective confidence is waning; and we appear to be more vulnerable than ever to losing our battle with complacency, mediocrity, and inflammation.
We’re living at a time when inflammation, in our bodies and brains, is leading to a host of chronic diseases from which we are dying: diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s, depression, and obesity. Our attitude and our outlook on life is a main driver for whether or not inflammation becomes an issue for us (along with healthy exercise and diet).
The vast majority of our nation is overweight, sad, tired, stressed out, and underliving. People have forgotten how good they are and have bought into the myth that there is some sort of physiological conspiracy keeping them from living the life of their dreams. The planet is in need of an all-out self-care revolution, and it begins with three essential and basic ingredients: THINK, EAT, and MOVE.
When the body is not performing or looking the way we desire it to, we tend to focus on diet or both diet and exercise. Or we may choose the route of therapy and work on our mental and emotional issues. Each of these individual actions can be empowering and support growth and healing. However, when you marry and optimize the practices of mindfulness, eating with intention, and interval-based movement, you will witness a complete transformation—you will Thrive.
Think Eat Move Thrive (TEMT) builds a foundation for complete life wellness: it’s all about creating a revolution from within. The revolution is an evolution from drug and reactive care to loving, empowered, and proactive self-care. To date, most diets and self-improvement programs focus on losing weight, getting ripped, or other goals that only lead to short-term happiness. If we want long-lasting, inspired change, the driving motivator needs to be intrinsic in nature—as easy and natural as breathing. If we can identify the source of our inspiration and set new, deep-seated intentions for health, wellness, and happiness, we can actively move forward and integrate our goals into our daily lives. The wonderful side effects are feeling greater vitality, joy, confidence, and longevity. Again, the simple recipe is integrating three basic fundamentals: Think, Eat, and Move.
• Think: cultivating mindfulness and empowering attitudes shifts our limiting beliefs and habits;
• Eat: eating with intention fuels our minds for greater clarity and our bodies for greater performance;
• Move: participating in interval-based movement, resistance training—any fitness-inspired activity—and natural incidental movement strengthens our bodies inside and out for complete fitness, lasting results, and greater longevity.
The integration of these core ingredients helps us Thrive. What we’ve seen over and over again is that when we thrive and care for ourselves with love, we become a powerful source for social activism. When we perform at our best, we also best serve our families, friends, coworkers, communities, and the world. It’s beautiful to see what this kind of personal intention can manifest.
The world needs our examples of inspired living. Realizing your best life is not only about looking good, it’s also about inspiring others around you to realize their best lives. When one of us decides to truly step up and own our life from the inside out, everyone around us is elevated. When you dedicate yourself to becoming your best, others are inspired to do the same. When you choose to show up and take a stand for love, to be courageous, and to live your life with purpose and passion, you cannot help but lift the world around you. When you do this, you become an agent of change.
The book is divided into three parts: THINK, EAT, MOVE. Within each of these first three parts, there are chapters that go deeper into different aspects of each practice, providing scientific facts and personal stories that explain their individual importance and impact. At the end of each chapter, there is an exercise to help you put that idea into action and confidently develop rituals of awareness and thriving for years to come. As you move through each section and rebuild the fundamentals of thinking, eating, and moving, you will notice how each part leads into and expands upon the others. We recommend that you take the time to read through each part in order, and then feel free to go back to specific areas, jumping around as needed to those areas that you want to focus on.
Since this is a book by two people—with two sets of expertise, experiences, and ideas—you’ll see check-ins from each of us where we think our unique perspective could add something to your understanding. You’ll also see short action steps throughout the chapters, to provide you with quick, easy, immediate practices.
There are also QR tags—snappy online links—that provide bonus content for a multimedia experience. You can watch us do exercises and check out how to whip up James’s favorite pancakes. The idea is to give you the most rewarding and personal experience possible as you use this book as your personal guide. We highly recommend that you have a journal in which you can take notes along the way. You may want to jot down ideas or thoughts that come up for you (and some action steps call for this), or you may want to use it as a place to write down answers to some of the questions we pose.
Our appendices are intended to give you the tools needed to implement this life of thriving. We want you to be psyched for this journey and excited to continue the journey as a life-long learner. We’ve tried to anticipate questions that may come up along the way and trust you will find the answers you are looking for within these pages.
At the end of the book is our 30-day program to put TEMT into action. The TEMT meal plan challenges the status quo and our Standard American Diet (SAD). The fundamental difference is that SAD is predominately comprised of convenience foods, processed and packaged foods, an overload of sugar and salt, unhealthy fats, and too many calories; whereas the TEMT plan focuses on anti-inflammatory foods, lifestyle, and longevity. This program offers simple, science-based solutions that address not just the causes but the beliefs and mindsets that have created this epidemic of unhappiness, unhealthiness, and underliving. TEMT will help prevent many of the diseases associated with inflammation through the practices of optimizing our thinking, eating, and moving.
Our wellness is about more than what our bodies look like (especially in comparison to the cultural and social ideals of the media). True wellness is about fueling our bodies with the right foods while also nurturing our minds and keeping them active. It is about moving daily so we maintain a healthy mind and body as much as it’s about staying limber, fit, and strong. Our wellness is about thriving from the inside out.
The 30-day TEMT Program speaks to the idea that happiness and a thriving life isn’t a destination, it’s a daily practice. The daily practice comes through right thinking, mindful eating, and consistently moving, which translates to thriving every single day. This is the essence of our book; and with our TEMT Program, we are going to help you create the discipline and the proper chemistry to work these three principles into a daily practice.
Why do most diets fail, and why do many self-help programs fail to deliver? Because they don’t get into real-life, practical details—the heart of what we do all day long, every day. Nor do they take into consideration our whole beings—bodies, minds, and spirits—instead focusing on fragmented parts that need to be “fixed.” In contrast, TEMT offers you an inspiring, science-based map for how to live your best and fullest life day by day.
This book is designed to make you uncomfortable, push many of your buttons, and get you to leave most, if not all, of your old self behind. From this point forward, commit to letting go of anything that is not presently serving you—guilt, jealousy, perfectionism, regret, fear of failure or success. From this moment forward, commit to being a student of creating the very best life. Open your mind to new thoughts and visions for living, giving, and feeling. Open your body to being a force of strength, beauty, grace, and limitless energy. Open your spirit to being peaceful, grateful, courageous, and loving. Your life purpose is to realize your highest expression; this is your time.
This is a book and program about self-mastery and self-love. TEMT is not just a lifestyle, it is a life study. Do the work, commit to your self-care and self-love, and you will hold the keys to reinventing, reclaiming, and reframing not only your life but also the lives of everyone around you.
Age, religion, socioeconomic status, politics, race, and gender are irrelevant here. No matter where or who you are in life, you will benefit from these practices and principles.
We’re honored you’ve decided to make time for yourself and include us in your journey. Let’s create a wellness revolution through empowered thinking, clean eating, and daily movement. Together, let’s THRIVE.
Welcome from Dr. James and Dr. Debra: