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