Supplements for Peak Performance - On the road and everyday.

Some have asked what supplements I take, here's my current list:
Vitamin C - Immunity. Energy. This one is a must. At home I love this powdered form from HealthForce Nutritionals, it's made from acerola cherries so it's completely natural. For on the go I have various kinds, for travel I use Ester-C (non-acidic) with timed release
B-Vitamin Complex - Energy, and especially since I eat less animal protein than most.
Vitamin D - Mainly during Fall-Spring season to make up for the lack of sun rays.
EFA's (Essential Fatty Acids) - Brain function, slows down the absorption of starches, energy. For a while I used Udo's Oil (plant based) which has the perfect ration of Omega 3/6/9's - but my body favors fish oil. Think high quality, and sustainable sources.
LiverCare by Himalaya Herbal Healthcare - Our livers metabolize food/alcohol, toxins, and drugs. This supplement (I also like their Liver.52) supports liver function and healthy liver enzyme ranges.
Prosta-Q by Farr Labs - It's a guy thing, preventative. This lab makes excellent products.
Glucosamine with Chondroitin - For my joints, of course.
Calcium - For bone strength and just strength.
Magnesium - To balance out the calcium - at night it helps me sleep (it's a natural muscle relaxant). I like a product called Calm, they also have Calm plus Calcium, which is an excellent sports drink.
Gingko Biloba - Memory, concentration. To be sharp!
CoQ10 - Co-enzyme Q10 for heart function.
St John's Force - Natural happiness, why not.
Powders -
"Green Drink" (vegetable juices in powder) - For alkalinity (feel free to research, so much information about this). Who wouldn't benefit from having the equivalent of one pound-plus of spinach?
Oxygelent - Think Airbourne but a more natural version. It's practically a multi (vitamin) - I take it when I fly, always! It has vitamins, minerals, enzymes, electrolytes.

Healing Eye Vision naturally!

I know what you are thinking - "it's not possible", right? Well I'm a real person and the only reason why I'm writing about it is because I'm doing it myself and it's working!

These pictures show my old boxes of contact lenses (bottom) and the new ones with left and right eye lenses. You'll see that I was in the 7's and with higher astigmatism - that was in 2012. In 2013 I got it down to the 5's and as you see I'm in the 4's now. This formula tested 20/20 at my optometrist's last week!

So how did I do it? First of all - anyone can do it. I've included the link of the book that showed me how to and why it works. I had been looking for books like this one for years and had even bought some but they were long and I didn't get to them. This one was very simply but how it happened for me was actually due to a small incident...

Before I tell you how I started improving my vision, let me tell you the basis of this method: use less power in your lenses than actually needed! Specifically, it's about 80% power that gets it done. It's enough to see fine without straining - unless you are a fighter jet pilot on a mission, perhaps 20/20 isn't needed; 20/40 is what you want to strive to take advantage of your own eyes' ability to adjust (to less power). Probably one of the most important principles is that if we relax the eye, again instead of straining, then we can see better. And it's through consistent relaxation of the eye that the vision starts getting back to normal.

What happened in my case is that I lost a pair of glasses in a rental car. I was determined to find them (I never did) because they were very nice frames so in the meantime I pulled out of my cabinet and old pair that had an "outdated" lower prescription. At that point a previous optometrists was putting me in the 7's on both eyes and the old pair was in the 5's. Well, after a few weeks of wearing these old glasses I went back to the eye doctor and to my surprise - my eyes had become adjusted to the lower prescription!

That's when I started reading this book in detail and saw the mind-eye connection, the importance of relaxing the eye, and that I can do this by backing off from my prescription slowly.

You'll also need a friendly doctor because not all want to allow you to walk out with a formula for less than 20/20. I recommend Dr Vince Bertomeou at My Eye Dr (this is not an advertisement, he's simply been amazing in working with me on this).

http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Without-Glasses-Step-By-Step-Improving/dp/1582700893/ref=pd_sim_b_23?ie=UTF8&refRID=0WPGE1ZRMJRZM018HN33

Full-disclosure, again: I'm not a licensed physician.

A word on New Year Resolutions

The New Year provides reinvigoration of our true desires to many of us. Personally, I like to revisit my goals although this year I've thought about the New Year Resolutions concept and decided to play with some habitual-type behaviors that I want to influence myself on.

Two of the books I listened to last year provided some insights which I believe can help most anyone with their resolutions. Here's what I noted:

In the past I would try to make changes too ambitiously; I would give myself the expectation of doing the new behavior for 21 days in a row, in order to capture the well-known psychology factor of building a habit in 21 days; I would shoot for the stars, which I believe in, but I wanted the result starting day one. This left me in the predicament that if I missed a day I felt I would have to start the 21 days from scratch plus I set up my resolutions so that it was easy to disappoint myself. This led to demoralization and sometimes giving up altogether.

The New Method
The best example I found so far is how to get out of bed early. If my circadian rhythm had me waking up at 7AM but instead I wanted to get up at 5 I would previously set my alarms (yes, that's plural) for 4:45 - too aggressive for my purposes. I ended up hitting the snooze button multiple times and sometimes having to just sleep in because I wasn't allowing my body to rest well.

Now with my new knowledge I understand that if I already have 7AM "mastered" that my next challenge is going to be 6:45. Easy enough, right? Basically, I now set my alarm at the latest, not earliest time, that I am okay getting up at. This doesn't at first give me the extra two hours I am hunting for but I can make progress little by little until eventually I end up reaching my true goal without shocking my system but while still having wins most days. I believe you can apply this method to most behavioral changes that we are after as part of our New Year Resolutions or otherwise.


Give it a go! Post how you do with this plus your goals and resolutions. Best wishes in 2014!


Juan

Books mentioned are:
The Will Power Instinct by Kelly McGonigal
Eat, Move, Sleep by Tom Grath

The Duty To Lead

Anyone who has been in a profession long enough will encounter the question of whether to step up and lead others or remain as "the talent".

The structure of most all organizations makes it seem that being in management and rising up the ranks, "climbing the ladder", is the way to succeed in the corporate environment. The concept of having a career, the term itself, which roots stem from the word for road-track; point to a fast race against others. Notice even in my first paragraph that I say "step up" while referring to becoming a manager and leading.

Some of the best advice I received while being the talent myself was the fact that one does not need a title to lead. Leading and managing are two related but different functions. The purpose of this entry is not to argue what separates one from the other - there is already a lot of literature on this - rather, my point is that we can all lead others even while performing other non-management roles.

The beauty of leading without a title is that one really needs to radiate such magnetism that others will be intrigued and inspired enough to want to allow one to lead them. Once a title is placed there is a certain ability that a manager has to lead; however, if it is abused or if no value is further presented, then the talent will loose respect for their leader, or worst- destroy their motivation.

So, there is a lot of practice that an individual can be exposed to before becoming a formal leader and these skills will be ever-polished further with time and experience.

Leading, therefore, is a duty. It is a duty whether one's company promotes one into a leadership position or not (yet). Once someone has their footing in any entity, feels the confidence to guide the people around them, and believes that his direction has a positive outcome for others and themselves- it's time to serve as a leader. There is no need to wait for a promotion in title or an increase in responsibilities. This is stepping up!

Surely, a fine leader will eventually be approached by management about joining the formal leadership and at this junction a decision is required. This decision is not uni-dimensional; it's not whether to manage/lead or not. It involves various factors which include:

• Do I have the desire to serve other colleagues, putting their needs above mine?
• How will the new position and profession affect the time and presence that I'd like to devote to my loved ones and personal life? What's the trade-off?
• Is this the right company culture where I want to grow up as a leader?
• What do the leaders in this company or in the industry look like in terms of balance and personal happiness?
• Where do I want to end up in this new profession (of management) in five years? ten? twenty years later?
• What dreams am I giving up by embarking in this new career?
• What dreams will I realize if I'm successful in rising through the ranks?
• What is my true talent and how can I leverage this to serve others and making this world a better place?

These and many other questions will come up and should be answered. The world needs leaders but the world also needs the talent performing what they are best at. It is a personal decision yet like all decisions it doesn't have to be a permanent one. If your company has a mentorship program for rising leaders, this is a good opportunity to shadow managers to learn what their day-to-day and week-to-week is. It is important, if one is going to do this exercise, that the manager being followed exposes the challenges of the position which may not be available except for certain times during the year (i.e. quarter closes).

Regardless, having a purpose bigger than just oneself will be a way to make any job and career fulfilling. The duty to lead may be focused just to one's personal life and/or family and this is absolutely okay because for most of us work is a means to an end- to live and provide for ourselves and our loved ones. Now for those lucky ones that can work within the field where they have the most passion, then retirement isn't necessary.

A career isn't about a destination. It can be but doesn't need to be a race. It can be a joyride, even in a race-track where one can drive fast and enjoy the forces of physics and the air outside. Too much obsession about climbing the ladder could likely make years of our lives fly by while waiting for an outcome that may never come; or, if it does, it probably won't be enough and we may have by then sacrificed some of our health and relationships to get there- that's when it's lonely at the top. But growing into a leader is fulfilling because it's a natural evolution of someone committed to a profession. And with balance along the way then life can continue to be magical during the journey!

Why and how to eat clean

These are notes from books & seminars that have taught me some very good tips for general health...here's a few of these key-points and a couple of titles should you care to see more for yourself.

pH: Some of the latest research is focused on the body's/blood's pH level. Just like body temperature, if it fluctuates more than a certain range we all know it's dangerous. The pH should be near neutral (apparently, slightly an alkaline at 7.3 is ideal). Most of us eat foods that create acidity in the body (refined sugars, too much meat) also, stress releases hormones that increase the level of acidiy so most of us, especially "eating" in the US likely have an acidic pH. It can be tested easily by buying pH strips.
Here's what happens: Over time, the body tries to deal with acidity with its alkaline resources (think minerals that are in dark leafy greens for example), when there are no resources then to protect itself (because if the blood became too acidic the body would stop functioning so it's always regulating itself as we know), then first it will start to store extra acidiy in the form of fat...after a while, and all bodies are different, if the acity is too much and can't store it, it'll encapsulate it in fat to at least keep the blood from become too acidic and that's what we call bad cholesterol...eventually decades after decades it'll even start leaching calcium from our bones to at least have some alkalinity (we call that osteoporisis). That's what I've learned, so how do we balance out our pH? By consuming more foods that are alkaline-forming; examples: uncooked "raw" dark leafy greens, any raw vegetables, raw fruits, squeezing lemon in water (sounds counterintuitive but lemon has an alkalinic reaction in the body). For people that are busy, the most efficient way is to drink a "green drink" which is basically the juice of those type of green vegetables dried, powedered, so that it can be brought anywhere and mixed with water. This doesn't mean we give up all the other stuff we eat (obviously, there are things we would want to reconsider). By introducing more salads, green drinks, etc., we can still enjoy most of the foods we like and we can measure and watch our pH come closer to neutral.

My friend Stephanie Hall teaches some great ways of preparing food with some tasty recipes, check her out:
http://stephaniethall.com/

Studies have shown that disease like certain parasites and cancer cannot survive in a neutral/alkaline environment. Did you know that the cause of cancer was discovered already in 1931? Dr. Otto Warburg was given the Nobel prize for doing so! Well, it came down to cells lacking oxygen. When the blood is acidic, the red blood cells (carriers of oxygen) loose their negative charge that would otherwise allow them to repel from each other, and in acidic blood (you can see your own blood by doing a live blood exam) the red blood cells lump together and travel like slush. When they are neutral/slightly-alkaline, they gain their negative charge on the outside and travel freely therefore reaching the cells of the tissues/organs/body more easily. Obviously, the green drink, etc. can also give you more energy since more oxygen will be available in the body.


So how's that so far, care to hear more? A couple of items to look forward to hearing more about:
EFA's (Essential Fatty Acids): For now, all I'll say is that there's a reason why the word "Essential" is in there. A good plant-based source is "Udo's Oil", it can be found in whole-foods...google "Fats that heal, fats that kill".

Lastly, I'm sure you already know about "hydrogenated oils", right? They basically act like little razors inside our arteries and cut the artery walls, and the walls repair themselves (using plaque). You can play out the picture and see how bad that is. Also, the fluoride in tap water does something similar, so I only drink filtered water and get the flouride for my teeth with a special mouth-rinse.


And here's some good book titles:
YOU, the Owner's Manual - Dr. Oz (Simple to read guide)
Natural Cures, they don't want you to know about - Kevin Trudeau (Must be open minded to read this one but excellent source of various natural healing methods. It does include some conspiracy theory type stuff around the FDA/Big Pharma, etc.)
Breathing - Dr. Andrew Weil (and anything by him)
Or, you can atttend a live Tony Robbins seminar where you can learn more and there's even when where you can master a lot of these concepts while doing a cleanse...

breakfast

Breakfast

Lunch

Yeah, that's a portobello mushroom...