How To Feel Great Right Now

So how's everybody doing today? I want to encourage all of you (and me), to think really hard about what's motivating you to stay healthy and fit. Do you want to look good in your clothes? Do you want to wake up in the morning all ready and raring to greet the day? Do you want to inspire others and yourself? Think hard about your reasons.

Here's mine: I want every day to be the best day I've ever had. Now, how can that be, you ask? How can your days consistently improve? How can one day ALWAYS be better then the next? Here's how: By keeping this awareness that you are creating your reality every moment through thought, word and deed.

Let's break it down. Think: Today will be the best day I've ever had! Say "Today will be the best day I've ever had". ACT like you're having the best day you've ever had!

If you truly believed that today was the best day you've ever had, you probably would take the time to really nurture yourself. You'd be open to others, open to your emotional intelligence, open to what the world is offering to you. You'd be keenly tuned in to your body's wisdom, reaching for only the healthiest foods, thoughts, and behaviors. You'd want to be embodied, you'd want to stretch out your muscles, maybe run, jump skip or play.

Ever heard of the term jumping for joy?

If you were acting like this was the best day of your life, you'd probably be smiling a whole lot. People would probably smile back. You'd inspire joy and happiness in others, and in turn, without even realizing it, they'd begin to inspire smiles and happiness in all of the people they came into contact with.

You'd be setting off a chain reaction of joy that could go viral.

If today were the best day ever, you'd accept yourself as you are while challenging yourself to be even better, all through thought, word and deed.

When it comes to weight loss, weight loss maintenance, being fit, being healthy, being emotionally, mentally and spiritually vibrant, it's your attitude that gets you there in the first place, your attitude that keeps you there, and your attitude that takes you to ever greater heights and depths of understanding about what this all means for you and everyone all around you.

I'm a huge believer in raw foods these days. Here's why: What you eat is who you are. Literally. And to eat the freshest, most nutrient rich, uncooked, live, super foods that are available on the planet means that my essence, my being, my body, my organs, my brain, liver, pancreas, lungs, heart, stomach, muscle tissue, tendons, bone, skin, eyes, knees, hands, feet and glutes are all getting fed in ways that maybe 2% or less of the general population gets to experience. You cannot believe what eating this way does for your energy levels, your attitude, your spiritual development.

Here's the deal: I encourage everyone of you in the next few days and weeks to seriously investigate the arguments for adding in more and more uncooked, nutrient dense fruits, and super-foods into your diet. The way that I began was with the "morning smoothie". I have done about 400 smoothies over the last 13 months, by my count. Everyone of them has been slightly different. But what they have in common: Rice Dream or filtered water is the base, about 4 cups, because I'm making one for my wife every day too. If it's just for you, then 2 cups is enough.

Then I add organic strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, dark sweet cherries., pineapple, or mango. You only need about a cup and a half of fruit. Most of the fruit I put in is frozen but I often use fresh in season. Organic is the way to go. Use organic as your first choice!

Now the superfoods: You can find most of the following at health food stores:
A TBSP of sprouted flax powder: Has Omega threes
A TBSP of organic hemp powder (high in protein)
A TBSP of Super Green Powder ( A mix of 35 or 40 different dehydrated green vegetables and fruits, super high in chlorophyl, antioxidants, minerals, vitamins)

Recently I started doing raw CACAO powder. Yes, this is what the native Americans call chocolate, and what the Spanish call coco. The cacao fruit's seed pod holds cacao seeds. These seeds are harvested, cold pressed and powdered. This is the most nutrient dense food on the planet. High in Manganese, which is the primary mineral in your heart, Chromium, antioxidants, polysacharrides, it's an incredible food. It's a super-food!

I don't always put Cacao powder in my morning smoothies. Sometimes I just blend it with rice dream and agave at night and cool it down in the freezer for a chocolate sorbet or I'll warm it on the stove for a hot cocoa. But I use it every day. It's an amazing, amazing mood lifter, full of incredible minerals and it's so good for you. Check out David Wolfe's Naked Chocolate or his You Tube Video "David Wolfe on Cacao"

I also put organic coconut flesh into the smoothie. Coconut is also a super-food that has incredible properties.

Lately I"m also adding baby spinach, or kale, or dark romaine. I only put a few leaves, you can't even taste it. But this way I'm getting my dark leafy greens in.

Color in foods is key. The richer, brighter, the more vibrant the color, the more pigmentation and antioxidants in the food. Eat color.

The more antioxidants, the more your will be able to counteract the free radicals in your bloodstream that are trying to damage your cell walls and defeat their functionality. Antioxidants are anti-aging formulas.

This is what you want to be eating if you are trying to look and feel your very best.

If you think about it just for a second, it makes perfect sense. Nature, it it's infinite wisdom, added in color so that we could find these fruits on trees more easily. Color is a natural attractant. Nature is trying to tell you something. Are you listening to your Mother?

My complexion has totally changed in the last few months. My skin is glowing.
Remember, I'm a 49 year old guy. You usually don't see that in 49 year old guys. Fat has burned away, muscle is more defined. ( I do work out a lot), but going raw has really helped me to show the definition that was hiding under the fat.

Here's the deal: You need to stay away from processed grains and sugars. These foods are your enemies. I'm not 100 % raw, and I don't know if I'll ever be. But I rarely if ever eat bread, or other baked grain products. And white, processed sugar is a battle, but I'm doing pretty good with it. The problem is we keep tons of candy around the office and sometimes I succumb during the mid afternoon when my energy dips. You already know I love chocolate, but I shouldn't be eating the processed white sugar kind.

I feel like a million bucks most of the time. The more I've gone raw, the more my energy levels have gone through the roof. There is a lot of intuition being released at this time in my sphere of life. I just know things, I sense them more than ever before. It's hard to explain. But women seem to have this skill. My guess is that Intuition is related to awareness. Awareness is related to our physical senses (smell, taste, touch, hearing) and the sensations that we come into contact with.

As you clean up your diet and begin gravitating to super-foods, all of your sensory organs are receiving vitality and nourishment like they've never seen before. It only stands to reason that they are going to function more robustly. And that could be the reason that everything just becomes clearer, simpler, more beautiful, and more easily understood.

Here's something I can understand. Clean up your diet, gravitate towards raw, whole, organic, live foods, and the people that grow, deliver, prepare and consume them, and your life will change for the better.

It just so happens that the practices that go into creating this type of food for us happen to be better for our environment, too. So you are contributing to the best plant ever when you eat this way.

Finally, feel love in your heart for yourself at all times, if possible. This self love is what makes me gravitate towards my intuition, which is pushing me towards doing the best thing I do for myself in any given moment. Being the right weight doesn't mean anything if you don't have love in your heart for your self and the people around you. Having love in your heart will help you start the journey, arrive at your destination, and explore new vistas, all while feeling great and having a good time doing so. That's my two cents for now -- Isaac Alfandary