POSITIVE ADDICTION #7: RELENTLESS HEALTHY DIET
Back in the hippie days of the 1960s the saying was born, “Your body is your temple.” It turns out the hippies were right! What you put into your body doesn’t just sustain your physical body, it also feeds your mind, spirit, and soul. So a healthy, holistic, nutritious diet is the “Positive Addiction” that feeds your success.
The latest “World Cancer Report” issued by the World Health Organization predicts a cancer EPIDEMIC. It predicts cancer will rise by 57% worldwide over the next two decades. The WHO calls this “an imminent human disaster.”1
There are two components to this disaster. The first is the number of sick and dying. What a terrible waste of human life. What terrible unnecessary suffering.
The second component is the cost to society and governments around the world. This cancer epidemic is simply unaffordable. It threatens to bankrupt economies across the globe. As of 2010 (the latest figures) the cost of cancer treatments worldwide was $1.16 trillion per year. You can bet by this year that number is over $1.5 trillion. Now add in a 57 percent increase in cancers and the runaway inflation of healthcare costs. My educated guess is soon the world will be spending $2 to $3 trillion annually to deal with cancer alone. This is a budget buster.
Yet the report also contains good news: half of all cancers are preventable. The World Health Organization says, “We cannot treat our way out of this problem.” The WHO reports four simple changes can dramatically prevent and reduce cancer:
• Improved Diet
• Increased Exercise
• Quit Smoking
• Reduce Alcohol Consumption
All are part of my “Positive Addictions” program. It’s that simple. Put good things into your body, exercise your body, eliminate the bad things . . . and like a computer, what goes in, will come out. Program a computer with good information, good results come out. Put good stuff into your body, nourish your body, and your mind will produce positive thought and creative ideas. That’s how you “Think and grow rich.”
Unfortunately, cancer is not the only epidemic we are facing. Diabetes and obesity caused by sugar may be just as costly. Let’s look at the latest research.
Scientific studies report that soda is even worse for your health than cigarettes.2 Obesity caused by junk food and sugar is a worse threat to kids than cigarettes.3
Limiting sugar is the key to anti-aging and disease prevention. Researchers are coming to the conclusion that sugar is pure poison. It’s like pouring sugar into your car engine. Bad stuff in, bad results. Your car won’t run on sugar. Except in this case, the human body is so amazing it continues to run. However, you get sicker and sicker. Your mind gets foggy. Your energy dissipates. Your health breaks down.4
Drinking soda dramatically accelerates aging, according to scientists at University of San Francisco. Over five thousand people were studied. Less than two cans of soda per day increases aging by 4.6 years.5
Researchers are also warning that pesticides in our food are a major health threat. Skyrocketing depression rates are linked to the pesticides in our food.6
So the answers are pretty simple. Stop smoking and drinking, cut out soda, reduce sugar dramatically, eliminate junk and fast food, and eat organic (to avoid pesticides) whenever possible. Your odds of living a long, healthy, and prosperous life just increased dramatically!
The bonus is, if you look and feel healthy and have lots of energy, focus, and confidence, you’ll find it much easier to be relentless and successful in your business and financial life.
It is not just important that you adopt these “Positive Addictions” for yourself. It is just as important that you ensure your entire family adopts a healthy diet and lifestyle. Again, more proven studies and facts:
A new UK study of over 11,000 fifth- and eighth-grade students indicates eating junk food reduces IQ. The more junk food children eat, the lower their IQ goes. Once again, bad stuff in, bad results.7 A new Ohio State study reported the more junk food kids ate the lower their test scores go. It showed a 20 percent reduction in grades for those who ate the highest levels of junk food.8
THINK. If junk food reduces IQ and performance for children, what does it do to you? What is it doing to your career? Your looks? Your energy? Your ability to project confidence and charisma? Your sex life? Your ability to be relentless in the face of challenge and adversity?
As always, I have my own personal dietary success to share with you. I’m not a MD or scientist. I’m not advising you what to eat. I’m merely sharing a way of eating and living that has worked wonders for me. My diet is divided into “home and away.”
My diet at home is a high-protein, low-carb, gluten-free, ketogenic diet.9 It is often called a paleo or caveman diet. Look it up. It is rich in protein (meat, chicken, turkey, fish) combined with brown rice, beans, vegetables, and fruit.
But there is a catch. When it comes to meat, although I eat about 80 percent chicken and turkey, the 20 percent that is red meat is a particular kind of red meat . . .
I eat 100 percent grass-fed beef. Cattle raised on grass is completely different from the grain-fed beef you buy at the local supermarket. It is even far superior to organic meats. Grass-fed beef is now carried nation-wide at every Whole Foods supermarket.10 You can also find grass-fed meat at gourmet markets or butcher stores. Or you can buy it online at a grass-fed beef monthly buyers club.11
The flavor and texture of grass-fed beef is far superior; it’s as tender as butter. But most importantly, grass-fed beef is dramatically higher in Omega 3s and CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid). When cattle feed on grass-only diets, CLA levels are three to five times higher than grain-fed diets.12 These Omega 3s and CLA have health benefits such as enhancing the immune system, increasing good cholesterol, lowering bad cholesterol and triglycerides, reducing inflammation, lowering insulin resistance, and lowering blood pressure. But here’s the really amazing part: grass-fed beef lowers body fat and increases lean muscle tissue.13
A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that people who ingested 3.2 grams of CLA a day lost about 0.2 pounds of body fat per week (about one pound a month). No exercise was involved.14
That’s a loss of twelve pounds per year just by eating delicious high-protein, grass-fed meat, WITHOUT exercising! So I guess you could say my body is a high-protein, grass-fed temple!
And like beef labeled as “organic,” most grass-fed cattle are raised “free-range” on grasslands with limited pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics, hormones, or growth stimulants, and will never see the inside of a feedlot.
I’m not a monk. I’m a businessman. I live in the real world. So it’s impossible to live a perfect life. I am forced to eat out constantly for business lunches and dinners. So I had to figure out a way to eat healthy while dining out. When I eat out at restaurants, my body is more like an “Asian Temple.” My away-from-home diet is primarily Asian food: Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, or sushi. Just chicken, beef, or raw fish with veggies and occasional brown rice or rice noodles (all non-gluten).
Rarely do you see an obese Asian person . . . not in Japan . . . not in Thailand . . . not in Vietnam . . . not in China. Also, did you know that the instance of diabetes, cancer, and heart disease is much lower in Asian countries . . . at least until an American diet is introduced? Once Asians start eating fast food, junk food, and fried food, their levels of obesity and diabetes skyrocket (just like in America).15
It’s not the quantity of food, it’s the quality. Like me, do you like to eat a lot of food? I like to eat! Then eat a primarily protein-based, non-gluten diet (very little bread, cakes, donuts, pasta, or pizza), combined with an Asian diet with very few grains or carbs.
The latest science agrees that this is the way to dramatically reduce the odds of disease and death. But my motives are more financial than health-related.
This book isn’t a health book. It’s a success and wealth book. You’re reading this book because you want to achieve wealth and financial freedom. The diet I just described above will leave you lighter, healthier, and high-energy from morning to night. I’m literally never tired. I never “lose steam.” And I rarely ever get sick. When I do catch a cold, it’s so minor I’ve never missed a full day of work because of illness in my life.
Health leads to wealth. Feeling positive and having perfect health are central to The Power of RELENTLESS. You can’t be relentless if you’re sick. You can’t be relentless if you’re overweight. You can’t be relentless if you’re low-energy. You can’t be relentless if you’re negative and lacking in confidence.
So in fact your body is your temple. Put a healthy holistic diet into your body . . . you’ll get prosperity and positivity out! This is how you “Eat and grow rich.”