Today’s question comes from Yesenia, which is a very cool name by the way. Who is talking about cravings. I’m going to paraphrase this because it’s a very long question. So I’m going to put it up right here.

She wants to know about cravings, why is it that she craves certain foods, even if she’s not hungry. Like certain combinations of foods like burnt toasts stuff like that. Why does this happen?

Well again it’s tough. Like with my previous video on the Paleo diet and cold feet, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are related. There can be a lot of different reasons for cravings. Now, I’m going to just talk about one that I think is very pervasive. Which is simple conditioning, all right.

Let’s say and again I’m just sharing this because I’m a victim of it. Let say your favourite show’s on TV. Like for me Vampire Diaries, I know damaging admission, I really enjoy Vampire Diaries. Don’t ask me why, I do. Let’s say its Vampires Diary night, for whatever reason, that’s the night where I just say, hey you know what I feel like a pizza tonight, which I don’t eat as much of anymore than I used to.

But I’d really have to catch myself, because there is nothing about, it’s not like Thursday nights, I have this set time where I have a craving physiologically. It’s simply because I know it’s a special show and I for whatever reason of condition special shows with special foods. That’s it.

That’s literally as simple as it is. Not it’s simple, but it’s tough to break. You have to be aware of first of all why that it’s happening. You have to look at situations in your life where, when and why. First of all when are you craving things? Secondly what are those things you’re craving? And try to identify something about the situation that has a series of events over your life, led you to make that connection of I eat this when this. I feel sad I feel upset, I feel stress out therefore I eat this.

I’ll give you another example from my life. When I’m stressed out or after I play soccer, I have a very, very big craving for salt. I’ve noticed this, definitely and within that last couple of years.

The reason for that is because my adrenal function is on the low side. Why that’s important is because adrenal gland function is responsible for sodium retention and regulation in the body.

If my adrenal gland are a little bit short, they’re not able to retain sodium properly and especially with activity. So with exercise you’re sweating your getting rid of sodium. So you’re losing sodium that’s why, for me I have this craving of salt after for instance a soccer game. Or a heavy sweat and do some work out, so I feel like chips. But usually I’ll turn to like healthier nachos I’ll have guacamole with that. Or I’ll just have some sea vegetables which have a good source of sodium.

The other thing is that we’re stressed, because stress directly impacts the adrenal glands. It’s essentially like intense exercise. The hormonal, what’s happening hormonally is almost identical. So there’s this compromise with the adrenal glands ability to regulate sodium. Especially in times of stress and exercise, right?

Again with stress and exercise, both adrenalin and exercise and adrenalin and stress go through the roof. Those are two hormones or that’s a hormone that produced in the adrenal glands just as an example. In that case, that’s what’s happening for me for food addiction or cravings.

I’ve identified those scenarios where I understand what it is that I’m craving, more or less why I’m craving it. Does it indicate sort of mineral deficiencies, nutrient deficiencies? It could. I mean for me if I crave salt, it’s because I tend to have low salt or low sodium or low tissues salts. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to suck in more sodium, it means I need to do things to regulate my adrenal function to kind of bring them back to health. That’s hopefully making a difference.

For you, again, some people have their addictions to bread, to sugar, to chocolate. Identify first and foremost is this a result of classical conditioning? I’m on the couch watching my favourite show, therefore I feel like eating this. I just got out of a bad relationship and I’m feeling pretty bad about myself, therefore I eat this.

It’s not like a bad relationship depletes your body of a specific mineral, right? It could do inadvertently and kind of indirectly by suppressing adrenal functions, suppressing immune functions, which might lead to the requirement of certain other minerals. It’s tough to really say this, what you could do is actually just do a panel.

If you go to our Naturopath and you do like a heavy metal analysis you can look at which nutrient are deficient. Get to the bottom of why are there specific things in you body is missing. Is that why you’re craving them, in and above specific conditioning scenarios.

Yesenia I hope that answers your question. I’m sure it gives you a little bit of insight, but again as you can probably tell, a lot of these health and nutrition questions, there is rarely a very simple oh this is the answer to your problem. In a lot of cases like symptom can be, you can have symptoms of low energy that could indicate a host of problems. Could indicate adrenal fatigue, cancer. Just because you have low energy, it’s tough to say what it is.

Hopefully this will give you some insights and again you really need to experiment on your self. Use yourself as a guinea pig, become your own scientist, and get to the bottom of these issues. That’s one of the reasons why I developed Super Nutrition Academy in order to give you the tools and resources to help you become your own scientist, right?

I’m not saying that I have all the answers, because I don’t. But I can give you a heck of a lot of them and at least the fundamental tools to help you understand how your body works. For instance, how the adrenal glands work. So therefore you understand in periods of stress, why your libido goes down. In periods of stress, why your salt cravings go up. Why that impacts your thyroid. And understand it. When you understand the underlying principles of how your body works form the inside out, you’re able to make better food choice and you’re able to understand how food impacts your body.

It’s really phenomenal. There really is nothing like this. I keep saying this, we spend so much time leaning about ridiculous stuff in school, history, that we’re never going use ever again, you know. Kids get stressed out because they can’t remember the date of the war of 1812, who cares. No ones going to be using that in their real life ever. The two most important things I feel we need in our lives, are better understanding or health and better understanding of finances. None of which are taught in school, in an applicable manner.

That’s why I developed Super Nutrition Academy, to tackle at least the health side. So that everyday people can have a much better understanding of how to their own freaking body works, okay? You can learn about it at SuperNutritionAcademy.com. Again it’s not for everyone, it’s only for serious people who want to learn about their heath, but if that’s you, you’re going to love it.

So that’s it, check it out, SuperNutritionAcademy.com. Go there now check it out, and I will see you in the next video.

I think you’re smarter than believing in that kind of nonsense and that’s why I’ve got a cool concept to share with you today about aging.
Now, if you’re like a lot of me and most of our readers, then you probably think about advancing age on a regular basis. However, HOW you choose to think about it can make all the difference.

Here’s an example of what I mean…

I play soccer with a number of friends who are now in their early 30s. However, in talking with them you’d think they were a few steps from their death bed…

“Oh my knees!”, “My back”, “I can’t keep up with you guys.”

Blah, blah, blah…

These are guys who are BIOLOGICALLY in their early 30s but psychologically MUCH OLDER.

I’ve been thinking about this idea of biology versus psychology quite a bit lately – especially in relation to aging – and I’d love to know how this affects you.

But before I get your feedback, here are a few ways that we prematurely age ourselves without even knowing it…

1. Negative Self-Talk

Degrading yourself should be a crime punishable by jail time. Seriously! If most people spoke to their friends like they speak to themselves, they wouldn’t have many friends.

If you have nothing nice to say (to yourself), then don’t say anything at all. I firmly believe that negative self-talk can age you faster. I don’t know if there’s much science to back this up yet but I’m sure you’ve witnessed the difference between men and women in their 70s (and older) who are bitter versus those who are cheerful.

You can almost predict who will live longer…and probably in better health.

2. Smoking and Drinking

I love Europe…I really do. But I still don’t get why many European countries (and Asian countries for that matter) still think that smoking and drinking is cool.

When I lived in France, it was almost unbearable to go a cafe unless you love sitting in a cloud of smoke.

It’s not breaking news that both smoking and drinking are 2 of the most detrimental activities to your health. Both increase free radical damage inside your body – which directly accelerates the aging process.

They also tend to be linked to unhealthier eating and lifestyle habits, which makes matters even worse.

Smoking should be banned outright. It has no redeeming qualities. Perhaps someone should alert the swarms of 5-year old kids in Indonesia about this fact who smoke a pack a day. (Yes, Indonesia has one of the highest rates of smoking in the world).

And if you must have a drink, please keep it to no more than 3 drinks per week. Trust me, your brain and liver will thank you.

3. Sedentarianism

I don’t even know if that’s a word but it essentially means that being sedentary increases your risk of being an unhealthy, fragile, and dependent human being as you get older.

Let’s say you sit all day and don’t strength train. Over time, you will lose strength in your legs. Remember, use it or lose it.

Now, imagine you’re 80 years old and sitting in your favourite comfy chair when all of a sudden you feel like getting dinner.

Problem…

It takes you several minutes to get out of your chair (if at all) because your legs are too weak. They can’t even support the basic task of standing up.

This is a big problem faced by millions of elderly people. And it all starts with being sedentary. So please get off the couch and stay strong.

We’ve just looked at 3 ways that we can undesirably accelerate the aging process. Just do the opposite of these and you’ll have a good head start to a healthy life as you get older.

And here’s another cool tidbit of information…

Did you know that the 2 of the most important factors of healthy aging are:

1. Grip strength, and
2. Being able to stand up from a seated position on the floor (without using your hands)

Pretty cool, right?

That’s just another reminder of how important it is to be STRONG at all stages of life. So please put down the baby weights and challenge your muscles.

Now, back to my earlier thoughts on biology versus psychology…

What do you think about people looking and feeling older based on their mindset? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below…

You have a lot to look forward to…

Now if the government and big food would just get out of the way.

Also, before we get into today’s FAQ Friday I want to remind you that today is your last chance to get FREE access to my buddy Sean Croxton’s Sexy Back Summit (in which I’m a guest speaker). If you want to regain your libido and overall zest for life, then check it out here…

>> FREE access to the Sexy Back Summit (last day)

Now onto today’s questions…

The first one comes from Marg who asks…

“What do you think of Ensure, Boost etc. healthwise? Are they just a bunch of chemicals or do they have nutritional value?”

Funny thing Marg…

When I was in university I was a guinea pig for a diabetes study and was asked to drink Ensure several times per day. I got so addicted to it (thank high fructose corn syrup) that I had several cases stacked up in my locker.

Long story short, the stuff is poison. It’s man-made synthetic garbage and it’s unfortunate that it’s promoted as a healthy meal replacement drink for seniors. Please avoid it and Boost at all costs as it loaded with garbage like high fructose corn syrup and more.

Next, we’ve got a question from Quynhthi:

“Yuri, If I make green smoothies out of raw kale and spinach, I will run to bathroom 10 times a day. Why is that and how can I stop?”

Sounds to me like a possible food sensitivity. Try making a smoothie with either kale OR spinach and see if you respond the same way to both. If you do, then make a smoothie without them (other ingredients still being the same) and if you have no reaction then you know that kale and/or spinach (or perhaps pesticides lingering on them) don’t resonate with your body.

Our final question comes from Mark:

“Hi Yuri, I am not a runner but I have some classes coming up that I am going to have to be able to run in and I wanted to start getting ready for them. My question is, how do I know what kind of heart rate I should have while running. Im 27 years old in fairly good shape but just cant run very well. Everything I have seen is talking about a percentage of your heart rate while running but I have no numbers to judge this with. Can you give me some advice?”

I’m personally not a fan of heart rate training because it’s annoying to keep track of.

If you’re going for a run you need to determine what your goal is. Do you want to be able to converse with other people as you’re running or get the best possible training effect in the least amount of time.

Sounds like you’re doing a group running class of some sort so I would suggest trying to stay within your talk-test zone – a pace whereby you can carry a conversation (which is about 60-70%o your max heart rate) – while running with the group.

Then, on your own increase the intensity by doing shorter interval runs to enhance your ability to keep up during the running classes.

You can try this interval protocol:
10 seconds fast
30 seconds slow jog
Repeat 20 times

Cool?

If you need more help with your runs you can check out Treadmill Trainer Volume 1 so I can run alongside and coach you each step of the way.

That’s all for today…gotta run downstairs to the summit now.

Your friend and coach,

Yuri

Okay so Glauco’s got a question for me today. He’s one of Eating for Energy clients. He raves about how amazing the program is for him. It’s boosted his energy. You can actually see his question here. How much energy he has, and how amazing it is and how it’s transformed his life.

Thank you Glauco and welcome to the club of thousands and thousands of individuals that Eating for Energy has helped. If you’re wondering if Eating for Energy works, believe me it does. There is just another example UltimateEnergyDiet.com is where you can get it.

In the meantime, he has an addiction to chocolate which he just can’t kick. So do I have any tips? Well like I recommend with all food addiction or food cravings, the only sure fire way to get over it is complete avoidance. That’s it. It’s like if you’re an alcoholic, you don’t have a drink every now and then, you completely avoid it.

Unfortunately a lot of the addictions are not only physiological but it’s psychological. It’s conditioning that we’ve developed over the years of our lives, right?

So if for instance you for whatever reason, let’s say you lost your memory, you got amnesia or something like that. I guarantee in a lot of cases, we would not have the same addictions we had before the amnesia. Because what’s happening there is that we’ve lost that memory, that connection of a specific event and the condition or the association we’ve made with chocolate in this case for instance.

So let’s say you have an association between sitting on a couch and watching your favorite show, and eating chocolate. You’re going to want to do that every time your watch your favorite shows. Either you don’t watch your show, or you find another way to get rid of chocolate, which is simply by avoiding it, but you need to replace it. You can’t just avoid something and just keep that void opened. You need to replace it with something that essentially gives you the same benefit that the chocolate did. So you need to find a healthier alternative to that.

So its again complete avoidance, but you need to fill that gap with something healthy that will also satiate that craving that addiction, whatever that feeling is. That dopamine been released from your mind, in your brain, to give you that same, to fill that void.

The second thing you may want to consider with chocolate is that it’s very, very high source of magnesium. So it could be that your body is simple craving more magnesium. If that’s case try to eat more fruits and vegetables, which are already doing through Eating for Energy. You always may want to look at maybe magnesium supplement like Calm, which is a very commonly found powder in most health food stores. It’s just in some taller bottle that says Calm on it. It’s pretty much all magnesium.

Again it’s tough to say what the issue is whether it’s a magnesium thing, or it’s chocolate thing exclusively. Or if it’s a sugar thing, right? Chocolate contains sugar, depends on the type of chocolate you’re eating. Is it raw chocolate, right? Like some of the recopies we show you how to make in Eating for Energy. Or is it Hershey’s Kisses, right? Which is milk chocolate, lots of sugar. You really want to get clear on that.

I think as I mentioned earlier, the key is really to; it’s pretty much cold turkey. You have to cut it out for as long as you need, so that you get to the point where you have a healthy relationship with that food. For me its pizza, I can devour pizza like seven days a week like no problem. Maybe I’ll take a day off here and there.

I also know that if I’m watching one of my favorite shows, like Mad Men or Dexter, or Weeds. For whatever reason that’s like an event. I want to sit down with a pizza and do those two together. That doesn’t happen anymore. It’s sometimes I catch myself when I know that, that show is coming on that night. I’ll be thinking about pizza for several hours during the day.

When you can catch yourself, and you can say, you know what, this is the old way of me doing things and this got me to nowhere. You can replace that with something healthier, and then you’re on much better power position. There is much healthier alternatives and that’s really what I would suggest.

Glauco don’t worry you’re not alone. I mean we all have our shortcomings. It’s not that it’s a shortcoming, it’s just that we all have our indulgences and cravings, and sometimes it’s best to really just avoid them if they’re not helping you move forward. Hopefully that gives you little bit of insight into how to do that. Thanks again for the question, thank for being an awesome Eating for Energy clients.

If anyone else is interested in Eating for Energy as I mentioned before, the website is somewhere here, UltimateEnergyDiet.com. It will transform your life, it will. I guarantee it, in a couple of days. We’ve got tens of thousands of people as proof. I guarantee if you take it for a test run, in a couple of days, you will feel like a completely new and approved person. Give it a shot, try it out, and I’ll see you in the next video.

And it can also be a roller coaster ride full of ups and downs…

Periods of inspiration followed by periods of outright despair where you feel that nothing is working.

If you’ve ever experience this “ride” then you’re not alone. It’s part of the human experience.

Today, I want to share 3 tips with you that I’ve used in my own life to get “my mojo back”. And by “mojo”, I really mean motivation.

Because truthfully NO ONE and NOTHING can motivate you. It must come from within.

So apply these to your life and you’ll instantly start feeling better and doing better.

Deal?

Mojo Tip #1 – Set Inspiring Goals

Listen, we humans are goal-seeking organisms. When you set a powerful goal (or even a small one) your brain becomes obsessed (like a dog on a bone) to pull you towards achieving that outcome.

Most people don’t get what they want simply because they don’t KNOW what they want. They simply haven’t written down any goals.

So please do this today.

At the very minimum, WRITE down ONE goal on paper. Put a date on it and keep it visible to you at all times. This goal must recharge your batteries when you look at it – by that, I mean it must move you at a deep emotional level.

Mojo Tip #2 – Count Your Successes

At the end of each day, write down 3-5 successes you enjoyed during the day. Doing so automatically forces your brain to focus on the GOOD, instead of what you didn’t do.

Like attracts like…What you focus on expands…etc…

When you focus on what you’ve done well (ie. being grateful) you inevitably build your confidence and feel better about you and what you’re doing.

This is one of the easiest and most powerful ways to instantly become a happier and more confident person.

Mojo Tip #3 – Energize Your Life

Let’s face it – if you feel tired all the time, you won’t have enough pizzazz to make your days awesome.

This is such an important topic that I spent an entire hour giving away my best energy-boosting secrets with friend Sean Croxton over at Sexy Back Summit…

>> Get FREE access here

Not only will get my interview but you’ll also hear from a number of other incredible experts who can help you get your motivation (and sexual) mojo back to new heights.

I know you’ll find it inspiring and very actionable.

Check it out here (it’s free)

Have a great Monday.

Your friend and coach,

Yuri