Articles for Public Speaking
The following is a set of views, for myself, and not for anybody to follow in any way. It's only a brief guide to what I do... sometimes. Thanks!
"Let food be thy medicine and thy medicine food"
What on earth does this mean? What Hippocrates seems to be saying is that food is some form of cure? Well, in a way it is, because a right diet prevents and corrects maladies while a bad diet encourages them! Now, what is the extension of this view? The extension is that food must be taken like medicine.... in small doses!
Ancient Wisdom
There are three main ancient civilizations which provide us with tried and tested wisdom on how to maintain health. These are India, China and Egypt. Each of these civilizations had a river valley and very very high populations for much of their history, relative to their neighbours. This prevented invasion from small amounts of barbarians. Being smaller, Egypt has had less success than China and India in preserving ancient documents. Even if it is the oldest civilization, Sumer/Babylonia was even smaller and has been overrun too many times to preserve a truly formidable ancient medicine.
All these ancient civilizations have similar ideas about maintaining health. One must eat right and one must exercise!
Because they were seldom invaded, these civilizations built up libraries of learning in all fields. We think of the 20th century as advanced and formidable, but its teachings are not based on thousands of years of testing and experience. Rather, it is all new and fashionable. For this reason, and others, I have a deep resepect for ancient teachings, particularly from China and especially India.
From ancient Egypt we learn. 'Eat a third of what you do... the doctor relies on the other two thirds'.
Alternately, in a modern newspaper article a few weeks ago, based on a modern study, I read: `Eat 40% less and live 20 years longer!' Not only does one live longer on a more restrictive diet, but one has a far better and heathier life as a skinnier person. The brain faculties are retained and one does not get significant old-age problems that one sees in societies which eat a lot of red meat. When I was in London, I noticed the supermarkets sold excellent foods which I could not buy in Australian supermarkets. There were all sorts of salads and smoothies ready to go, and for quite reasonable prices. My diet consisted of smoothies and strawberries. Occasionally I had some fish and chips, of course. I came back very skinny indeed, but I had an almost unlimited supply of energy! Waking at six AM every day, I could walk and walk and walk for miles each day and took thousands of photos of ancient monuments and the countryside. I was probably under about 2000 calories a day and losing weight quickly which I didn't need to lose.
Whenever I was in a small country town, I noticed something. Lots of old people everywhere with walking frames! Too many! When my father was 80 he was walking like a 20 year old and he ate red meat, but not as much as these guys! Lots of English people eat a bacon and eggs for breakfast, a beef sanwitch for lunch and a roast for dinner! I noticed something else as well! I coudln't buy raw fruit and veg anywhere in these towns! It clicked! All the shops were selling meat and tasty sweet bread. This is what all the old disabled people were eating! They were not getting their greens! 'Aha!'
During another part of the tour, Henry VIII's magnificent castle of Hamptom court...(his dining hall is still in place and I squatted down next to the chair where he would have sat, gazing at his tapestries and the majestic place), I noticed some things. There was always a smell of smoke. This was coming from the kitchens which were always preparing meaty dishes. I read some info in a museum which stated that back then, nobles thought that meat was a food for the rich and veggies a food for the poor. They thought veggies were for peasants and ate meat pies all the time. It also said that the diet for these nobles in terms of calories had more calories than the average diet of today. Interesting! In fact, one of the reasons that Scurvey was untreated for fifty years after it was discovered that citrus fruits prevent the onset of the condition, as well as curing it, was because few would actually believe that the type of food you ingested made any difference whatsoever. It was actually believed you could just eat bread and meat all your life, with fruits as a treat. This is perhaps one of the reasons that life expectancy was so short. So you see, the so-called experts for decades after the disovery of the citrus-scurvey cure, simply could not believe that a little modification to the diet could make a big impact. How wrong they were!
Today some berries are called 'superfoods'.
I read this in Ovid. The start of the Metamorphosis, a compendium of mythology, which is similar to Genesis in the Hebrew Old Testament. It talks of a primordial garden of berries. These grow wild in Europe. You can walk down the street today in Germany and pick delicious blackberries. They are basically weeds. Ovid said that primitive man in Europe lived on a diet of berries and had no disease in old age. They were strong with 'limbs never failing', (a contrast to today, and Ovid's own time), and when it came time to die, they died peacefully. 'Truly they lived as gods'. He stated that men became more corrupt when they began agriculture, eating wheat and farming animals, and then wars began. I find it fascinating that raw foodists apparently live similiar healthy lives, holding onto their health, and yes, youth, until the end of their lives. What the heck am I talking about now? Quite simply this. Ageing is not what we think it is. There are say, ten different aspects to ageing: I do not know the actual number. I put it to you that you can knock about six or seven of those out. With only four out of ten aspects of you actually ageing, you then begin to look substantially younger than your years. This effect tends to accelerate the more you make it a habit. The longer you make it a habit, the more DNA switches in your blood and tissue are switched on. In this way I have seen people of age about 85 (one of them was a fruit grocer), perfectly active and healthy, with the contenance and gait of a young man, despite his years, gray hair and all the wrinkles. My own father, at 80 was a theoretically a 'young man' at that age, having all the enthusiasm of a youth. The main key is to eat less, and make this a habit, but also to eat right!
What to eat?
The ancient wise ones had a secret to living life. Essene monks, based upon Jews from Egypt, ate mainly vegetarian and in quite small doses. Vegetarianism is actually a very easy way to eat in small doses because one does not crave food if we give the body a primitive form of easily digestable vegetable material---the basis for the existence of animal life on the planet. We are essentially giving the body what it needs so it can stop craving more or go into 'baby whale' mode if we eat too much dairy. Vegetarianism is generally the recommended diet to get healthy.
The BEST raw foods are greens, seeds and berries.
What to eat? Some people can be perfectly healthy eating lots of red meat. Others don't do so well and need a more vegetarian diet. Some say you can't thrive unless you eat 100% raw! The key is not to be a fanatic or not to tied into eating any particular way, and to give the body variety, planning what to eat tomorrow based upon what the body wants. I realised that a mainly vegetarian diet is best for me. Long ago, wise men in India came up with three body types and the foods these types should avoid or eat. If you want to know what is good for who you are, search for Pitta, Vata and Kapha. These are skinny, medium and solid/fat builds. Ayurvedic medicine tells us for instance, that the fatter type should avoid dairy. Some people should just avoid bread and dairy altogether as these foods are addictive. If you avoid dairy, it's great to eat greens every day for calcium. If you don't you're going to be deprived. The other thing to do is to exercise more as this prevents bone degeneration. Use it or lose it!
Ultimately vegetarianism is awesome. It makes you skinny and satisfied and happy. I consider myself veggy, but also eat fish and chicken. Fish is softer than many vegetables. Chicken seems to make me more full and takes longer to digest. It's good to pay attention to the body. People complain to me that after eating red meat they feel slow and tired for three days. Then I see them go and put some meat pies in the microwave. I dont' have that problem because I avoid the stuff! It causes too much ageing. What type of fish to eat? In our modern world, fish at the top of the food chain have eaten MANY smaller fish, thus accumulating toxins like heavy metals and even radioactive substances into their bodies. The body naturally releases and cleanses itself of such substances... slowly. It's better to eat small fish as these have a lower toxicity per unit of flesh, and can provide excellent nutrition if you crave the oils and the protein. My favourites are sardines, and especially prawns, (shrimps).
I might be a vegatarian but you coudln't keep me and mum away from that lamb roast on the plane! I'm a meaty vegetarian! LOL.
Is fish essential?
There was a newspaper article which showed human-like teeth... on a fish. They were AMAZINGLY human like. The implication is that our current front incisors were originally developed for eating fish, by fish! I think they were developed for taking snappy bites out of larger fish, kind of like a piranah! This is why I think seafood is essential! The kicker for me was when I found out that eating especially fish organs, (and land animal organs as well), actually help repair human teeth! That's how I KNEW that some form of meat is essential, (fish at least). But it doesn't have to be eaten every day. In fact some studies suggest that a little protein restriction is healthy.
Everyone needs different stuff! What is not often considered is that our body is based on metabolism at a cellular level. These are primitive eukaryote cells which developed maybe 150 million years ago. In other words we need to be eating primitive life from an earlier earth for our cells to be working in the way they were initially designed. The algae is a common ancestor for both plants and our cells. These cells need sunlight. Our skin also seems to need sunlight. In chinese medicine this is to restore Chi. In modern physiology it's to produce Vitamin D! What is a green smoothie but liquid sunlight... of sorts! Molecules based on solar transformations are stored in greens.
Weight loss
Weight loss is a snap, IF you eat at least fifty percent raw food including lots of greens every day. Cooked veggies are fine as well but raw gives you more nutritive value. This usually totally satisfies the body. It's what the eukaryotic cells were origianlly designed for... presumably munching on algae (a primitive plant), back in the days when our cells were single-cell organisms. A single cell organism is not going to be able to really eat an animal cell back then: they didn't exist yet, and the cellular machinery is much the same these days, as then.
Otherwise, weight loss can be very hard for many people. Alternatively if you merely eat an atkins diet, you will lose wieght, but will have carbohydrate cravings, which can feel like hell. (Been there, done that, never again!) If you merely eat a 100% raw diet, you might feel awesome, for a little while. After one week you will have protein or eventually B-12 and other cravings, which cannot be satisfied with beans. You might start craving the oils in animal meat, for example. B-12 can only be found in meat, but it doesnt' have to be found in red meat. There are alternatives. The foundation of raw eating is greens. Fruit for energy and greens for detox. Eating a lot of greens doesn't necessariy mean eating an enormous salad. One can use a juicer or blender. A juicer can turn a huge amount of greens into a few gulps. I think this is the best way to eat celery. Some darker greens, which are very healthy, are quite bitter. The secret is to mix it with a sweet fruit like an apple or watermellon, or even to put some ice in the drink.
In 2012 I ate 90% raw for about six months. Those were some of the best times of my life. I still eat about 60% raw or cooked veggies. Raw veggeies are the foundation of health for many people. One can truly thrive and be transformed on such a diet. I have always eaten lots of fruit, but I am not same person I was before I started eating so many greens. I think any kind of -ism is dangerous in the long run. 100% raw foodism is not a very good diet in the long term, though it can cure many maladies in the short term. Sticking to at least 50% raw is a wonderful diet.
Alternately, if you eat a lot of dairy and bread, artificial foods rather than whole foods, well the wieght loss is simply not going to happen as these foods are re-programming the body away from a natural low fat paradigm and into a modern high fat agricultural-era paradigm in which the body builds up fat reserves and craves many more! Dairy is really for a baby cow, not an adult cow. It's designed to make the body keep growing, and age.
Calorie restriction
This diet is only for mature adults. If tried in children they won't grow and will be short like our ancestors.
Following the maxim that food is medicine, food should be taken in small doses. Such food should be high in nutritional value and quality.
I think calorie restriction is awesome. I think anything under 3000 calories a day is a form of calorie restriction. This is because it was found, a long time ago, that anything under this and soldiers are simply less motivated to fight, presumably because they are less hyperactive. Calorie restriction puts you in a more spiritual paradigm and this is one reason why Hindu Yogis are always fasting.
Personally I have just developed a diet for myself where I keep it to about 2000 calories a day. I'm 6' 2" and this seems to be enough. Highly restrictive calorie restriction is just not for me. Do I do calorie restriction every day? Of course not! What if one goes to a restuarant or someone cooks for them! New foods should always be tasted and tried!
If you're calorie restricting you can't deprive yourself of any nutrients or you'll start to starve, and that does NOT feel good! It makes the body restless and weak and is to be avoided. A slice of bread will give you 100 empty calories. An egg is better. A strawberry will give you only 5 calories and about 10 or 100x the nutrient level found in that slice of bread.
Some people say well why do we want to live longer so we can be longer in an older body. The logic is presumably that it's better if we eat a rubbish diet we can get into an old body sooner! In fact, you stay younger longer this way. Ray Kordich, the father of juicing, is still playing sport and surfing at age 90, on a semi-raw food diet, with five glasses of juiced fruit and veggies a day.
The mind
Some people overwork. They strive and stive and stive only for the best, or to be the best? Is this really the way to live? I feel that there is a 'small doses' rule in life. Everything in small doses. The other thing is variety. My father told me that variety in work practices is a secret to life and living well. Alternately I believe that sometimes second best is actually number one. Settling for second best can be a meaning of life. Sometimes second best is actually best in disguise. Having said all this, I do try to work 16 hour days and never really want to stop! A complicated topic indeed!
Being active
We've talked beifly about diet. The other component to health is some kind of stretching exercise of sorts. I think the stretching definitely releases a relaxation hormone. Hormones triggered by the mind are important. I'm not sure if it's related to hormones or not but it has been found that altering part of the brains of mice can make them live 20% longer. I sometimes think ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs look like some kind of yoga or dancing. Kabala was developed in the middle ages by Jews, based on earlier documents. Part of their magical practice is a form of yoga seemingly indigenous to the west, (unless they got it from the east in Hellenistic times?) Since Jews used to live in Egypt it's also conceivable, though not provable, they got this 'yoga' from Egypt.
Tibetan Yoga... can be a more a dynamic form of Yoga. The '5 Tibetans' are a fake form of Tibetan Yoga, for body and mind, but seem to be at least based on eastern traditions.
Qi-Gong exercises can make you very long lived and healthy indeed, but I don't recommend them and wouldn't do them. I've tried and it made me feel strange and uncomfortable. I then read about strange experiences people had with them. You do need a teacher. There is also Tai-Chi and Kung-Fu. I like yoga. It's easy and you unlike some other systems you can learn it from a book!
Weights and gym are absolutely awesome. I love doing weights! It's pretty addictive after a while. This releases growth hormone into the body. Getting a lot of sleep is really important as well!
Well, this page has talked briefly about achieving a certain level of health through diet. I hope it's been a little useful. Being hungry, so long as you keep it below 2000 calories AND are not malnourised, ie: eating raw greens fruit and vegetables EVERY DAY, (for mature adults only, I mean 30 years plus), is AWESOME. The hungry feeling really sharpens you up and places you in a reflective frame of mind conducive to extreme creativity.
Did you know you can do Yoga, sitting in a chair? You won't do it correctly unless you understand exactly how Yoga works! Yoga improves the health in a number of different ways. It is 'youthing' as well as meditative. Yoga lengthens telomeres, but exactly how does it work? I will tell you. No-one really knows how Yoga does this but it is all rather elimentary when you examine it. It's to do with NewTon's Thrid Law. Every action has an equal reaction. In chemistry this is called LeChatelier's principle. Change the concentration of one solution and its touching neighbour will react to it. How do we apply this to Yoga? It's rather elimentary. When you hold a strech, you are wringing the youthing hormones out of cells. They flow throughout the body, regenerating all the time.
What happens next is rather interesting! The cells being depleted would seem to generate extra youthing hormones, upping the body's dose. In this way, the body is preserved in a state of youth and flexibility. Stretching and squeezing of cells is also a great method of draining toxic substances from the body!
Creativity
Steps to Expanding Creativity
Creativity is expanded by several steps. The more creative you are the more creative you can become. It's a bit like opening a hose up, more and more flows!
I've had lots of amazing mentors. One taught me that creativity is extremely important.
Firstly, creativity is expanded by being creative. Therefore one can start by being creative in small steps. For example, we can't do our BIG goals first, but they become far easier once we start to accomplish small goals. For example, becomming aware of new technologies or new systems while doing renovations. Keeping a journal is one of the best ways of becomming more creative, because it helps you practice practice practice! Eventually the creative process becomes highly addictive. I was not satisfied making normal journal entries anymore. I had to come up with a type of calligraphy as well, or do it in shorthand. I didn't like the traditional shorthands so I made my own, which my mother says is just as time-consuming as normal writing, lol. Lots of highly successful people seem to keep journals!
Once you start being creative, especially in different areas, there is suddenly an expansion of potential. In order to start being creative in different areas, you need to be curious about stuff. This is developed from interactions, for me, with clever people, and by READING lots of books on different subjects! This forges new connections in the brain! Travel is also awesome. I read books on all sorts of subjects, fiction and non-fiction and I find my brain starts making links between different fields. This can increase awareness leading to an increase in the potential for creative discovery and do more great stuff!
I could rattle off statistics about how this whole way of life improves production and power in the workforce, but why even bother? Everyone knows this is true by their own intuition! Simply try it and you will see! Try eating half the number of calories you normally would, just for one day, and watch what happens! It's absolutely incredible. Why does starvation do this? My theory is that
Optimism is power, but it is not everything.
Pessimism is simply the acceptance of defeat. There is NO POWER in pessimism. It should never be allowed into the mind. No matter how bad things may seem to be. Pessimism literally, is death. Optimism is not everything because 1) it constrains if action is not given to it. 2) IT is not the PICTURE of the future in itself, only a switch ALLOWING The formation of that picture. It is then the law of attraction which drives us to that secret place, our beliefs. Do youself a huge favour and switch on optimism to change your world!
Being CREATIVE!
This is truly number one in terms of importance, after diet of course! By being creative you release the hidden energies of the heart. You can create a masterpiece of art or literature. You can write a play, make a movie, do anything! By unleashing the creative spirit, you build brain matter! (One thing I realised is that by being creative, your creative potential INCREASES DRAMATICALLY and eventually it seems there is no end to what can be achieved). This includes nerve endings in the 'chakras'. It was found that the heart itself does contain a mass of cells which look like brain cells. After heart transplants, people aquire new personalities. They might start to crave beer, for example, because that's what the previous owner liked. It's not just a pump! It wants to be creative and it wants to love what it does, and above all it wants to love. This will make it stronger and improve the health.
Your group
I am available for public speaking for your group. I am a World Specialist in the field of improving efficiency in the workplace, by 'biohacking' the body for greater efficiency. Driving efficiency among staff and management is not necessarily about driving workers harder, but rather about improving cognitive and physical function, all of which is interrelated. We can transform a workplace with a few simple ideas, though it will of course take committment. Our program is designed to be simple and easy to implement, for the express reason that it can be followed through, and results acheived.
Powered by FolderCMS