10 Steps to Finding a Natural Form of Adderall
Posted by Joe | Filed under Productivity
If you haven’t heard of Adderall, it’s a prescription drug meant to treat ADHD, but is widely used on American college campuses as a study drug to enhance performance. Students most always use it when cramming for finals or to get a huge paper done. I have seen first hand students using it while in college, and students becoming dependent on it. One of my friends was actually a dealer of Adderall and sold the pills from $3-5 a pop. He had an unlimited prescription for it, so he paid for his weekend recreational activities with his profits from his dealing – not the healthiest of lifestyles.
I think we can all agree that we want more energy and focus every day to get the projects done that we want to get done. We all have a thousand ideas and visions of our own potential, but our future superhuman self is limited by our current lack of energy and distractions throughout the day. A lot of kids and adults turn to prescription drugs like Adderrall as a shortcut to laser-like focus, but I’ve seen first hand the detrimental side effects from the drug and know there is a better, more natural way.
I truly believe that by eating certain high energy foods with the right combination of exercise and healthy habits, we can mimic the effects of Adderall and craft that focus in a more natural Zen-like way.
Let’s first address the elephant in the room – CAFFEINE. We are going to focus on foods and drinks that don’t have caffeine. There is mixed information about the health or detriment of caffeine, and in the end it’s about balance. After talking to a lot of people about coffee, a lot of them look at it as a temporary addiction that they need to get through the day, but they plan on getting rid of in the future. A lot of people I’ve talked to are trying to cut down on coffee, or have sworn it off for good and are proud of themselves. Green and black teas are clearly much better than coffee, at least in my opinion and the word on the street, but in the same way people are a little torn on this substance so we’ll not talk about tea in this post either. If you want to see how caffeine affects spiders, here you go:
The effect of caffeine on a spider.
The Most Energizing Foods I Know
Some foods are built to assuage hunger, others for taste, but these give our bodies the most energy. Here is a list first of all of the most energizing foods I know, and we will next look at how to utilize these to create periods of warrior-like focus and energy with them in our days.
- Green juices – For example a concoction of apple, beets, cucumber, ginger, lemon, and kale juiced
- Green smoothies – A base of almond or coconut milk, with bananas, wheatgrass, spinach/kale/dandelion greens, and berries
- Cacao smoothies – 16oz almond milk, 4 medjool dates, 2 1/2 frozen bananas, 1 Tablespoon Cacao powder, 1 Tablespoon ground flaxseed (Note: Cacao does not have caffeine – Source 1, Source 2)
- Carrots – A handful of these are super energizing with high amounts of enzymes
- Oranges – I don’t always feel the pulsing energy from them but at the right time of the day they are phenomenal
- Chia Seeds – In bars or kombucha – Chia is often called ‘Runners food’, and the energy it gives off is very potent
A Formula for Natural Energy and Focus
Everyone’s body and formula for daily focus and energy will fluctuate like the tides. Every person’s body is different so you must experiment and test what works for you. Here are some core principles though that will create the ideal environment for your mind to enter a zone of focus and energy similar to the effects of Adderall.
1. Absolutely get plenty of sleep the night before – you know how much you need (8+ hours generally, congrats if you need less)
2. You must have exercised the day before or on the day you want increased energy and focus, even a quick 20 minute workout makes all the difference
3. Clear your mind – if your mind is too scatterbrained to focus on your project, meditate for at least 5 minutes. Alternatively you can read an inspiring story, spiritual texts, or creatively inspiring text for 10-20 minutes.
4. In the morning drink one of the first three drinks mentioned above – the green juice, green smoothie, or cacao smoothie. The green juice is the most energizing.
5. Eat oranges, apples, bananas, or other light fruit 20 minutes after. If you feel too light-headed after your breakfast of fruit – ground yourself with some nuts or grains.
6. You should be feeling very energized and focused after your drink and fruit in the morning and you should have enough focus to start on your project. Do your project.
7. Around lunchtime, have a large salad with a diversity of greens and vegetables with some of your favorite raw dressing. If you are in the zone still from breakfast you don’t have to eat lunch until you are hungry and ready. If you are still hungry after the salad, have some nuts or flax crackers or anything whole that you can get your hands on that is as raw and vegan as possible.
8. If possible get a little bit of sun, and if you are near water jump in the ocean, river, or pool for a bit. Do some swimming and laps. Afterwards drink a cacao smoothie, another green juice, or have a bunch of carrots or celery with a raw dip if you want.
9. Continue to focus and finish the project with your continuing energy.
10. Stop the project when you have given all you can for the day, note your progress, and plan for the next day’s work.
I have had days where the pulsing energy has lasted all day until dinnertime, when I had a heavier and more grounding meal. I’ve also had days where I got a pulsing internal raw energy that allowed me to hit my peak in creativity and focus. Experiment with the above methods, but most of all listen to your body and your intuition. Note how you feel after certain foods and combinations. Tweak it until you hit that sweet spot where you can guarantee flow, creativity, and energy.
Report back what works for you and any arguments you have with some of the concepts from above. Now go find your flow…
Tags: energy, exercise, flow, formula, prescription drugs, productivity, raw food, sunlight
Relapsing and Renewal on Raw Foods
Posted by Joe | Filed under Basics, Motivation
Raw foodists are generally defined as people who eat raw uncooked vegan food as 70-80% of their diet daily. What do you call people who eat 100% raw for three days, 50% raw for a week, and 300% raw the two weeks after? The vast majority of us.
If you think of a bell curve, I would venture to say that the vast majority of raw food aspirants and lovers fall in that middle section of the bell curve, just like most things in life. Of all those who aspire to be a raw foodist, there are those who are beginners who are failing terribly at it on the left portion. Those that are elite and actually eat 80-100% raw food make up a smaller section on the right side. Then there are the most of us in the middle who are excellent and devoted for a full month, then you put us on a plane and send us to a new city and we fall off the wagon.
There are benefits to falling off the raw food train, and we don’t have to be self-loathing for missing a meal. One of the benefits of relapsing to say being a full time vegan instead of eating mostly raw is that you have time to reflect on what it was about eating mostly live foods that attracted us the most. Do you notice that you might feel a little more sluggish after that cooked yam and black beans. Or how the hot cooked falafel hummus wrap was good, but left you feeling a bit empty and not completely nutritionally satisfied? This period gives us a chance to not freak out that we had two cooked meals, but be thankful for the food we have and start fresh the next day ready to eat mostly living foods once again.
The times I move from mainly raw foods to cooked vegan foods are days when I was rushed and didn’t have time to prepare my next two or three raw meals. I know I am at my weakest when I don’t take the time out the night before to prepare my raw food for the next day, and I find myself in a rush in the morning and in a rut when it comes to lunch time. Those are the times I am the most vulnerable. This is an opportunity to realize that a lot of our success on the diet comes from thoughtful preparing. In a world that doesn’t make it easy to quickly grab healthy delicious raw food, we do have to work a little harder than the rest of the omnivorous population to keep ourselves honest and satisfied.
For most of us we enter and exit periods of motivation. We may read a life changing book that convinces us raw foods is the way to go and the way of the future and be energized and motivated for a few weeks, then get distracted and lose focus for a few months at a time. What I’ve found best to keep me motivated is to set shorter term goals for myself. If I am coming off a rough period where I haven’t been very raw, I’ll set a goal to eat raw foods for three days in a row, and I’m usually able to do this easily. What got me into raw foods long term initially was when I set a two week goal for myself, which then turned into about a 6-month period of only raw foods (except for beer!). Everyone has a different motivational timeline that we know works for us. It may be similar to an exercise timeline, whereas we can motivate ourselves to exercise hard for two weeks at a time or so before we have to move on to a new exercise routine. Some of you pros out there may be able to flip a switch in your brain and just charge it for three months at a time, but we’re all different.
The main point here is that we can view periods of relapse away from our goal of eating a mostly or only raw diet not as a failure but as an opportunity to reset. You will find that as you keep trying, you will become more resilient and intuitive in your food choices and motivation. Eventually it will become mostly muscle memory and you will be flowing with that raw food life force energy 24/7! The key is to treat ourselves when we relapse like that ideal disciplinary father – kind but firm. Learn from your mistake and get back on the horse the next day.
How to Feel Really Good in 5 Steps
Posted by Joe | Filed under Basics, Lists
1. Meditate
We can make ourselves feel good by reaching for stimulants that are quick and dirty, such as caffeine, sugar, fried foods, alcohol, or marijuana. We can also take another path that also makes us feel good, doesn’t take much more time to do, and requires even less effort than going to the store to buy our stimulant.
This other path is mediation. It’s something I am trying to do more and more, and after every mediation I am wondering why I am not doing it every day! Meditation has been used by all people throughout the world since the ancient times and it is not only an exotic practice from the Far East, as it has been encouraged throughout the church in the Western world just as long, although not as prominently perhaps since we usually associate meditation with some yogi sitting up high in the Himalayas.
Changing the Way We Eat
Posted by Joe | Filed under Basics
There is often a dichotomy between our long term vision of who we want to be and the decisions we make in the moment. When hunger settles in and we have no readily available food options, our long term plan of eating a healthy diet flies out the window. I’ve been there many times myself, we start to crave something and end up letting the thing we are craving enter our thoughts and start to control our mind. We can rationalize anything as humans, thinking we owe it to ourselves to eat this burrito just this once, how we will become frail and weak if we don’t eat our body weight in protein every day.
The key to fighting this is awareness in the moment, put so eloquently by Leo Babuta at zenhabits:
“When we have urges to eat something we know is bad for us, we often give in. But is it that simple? The truth is that our mind is actually rationalizing why we should just eat that cake, why it’s too hard to not eat it, why it isn’t that bad to eat it. It asks why we’re putting ourselves through pain, why can’t we let ourselves just live, and don’t we deserve that treat?
All of this happens without our noticing, usually. It’s quiet, in the background of our consciousness, but it’s there. And it’s incredibly powerful. It’s even more powerful when we’re not aware it’s happening.…
How can we defeat this powerful force — our own mind?
Awareness is the key. It’s the start.”
Of course there is flexibility for special occasions and social events, but every day is not a special occasion and the habits and self-control we exhibit on a day by day, meal by meal basis start to seep into our routine until it gets to the point where you will be able to control your cravings without even thinking about it. If we throw away our rationalization in that moment when our hunger is starting to control us, and instead listen to our intuition that tells us we are more powerful than that which we are after.
When you are extremely hungry in the moment, realize that your body is asking for nutritional satiation, not fullness. We often confuse the two, but there is a difference between eating to get the satisfaction of fullness and eating to give us more energy and nutrition. That’s not to say that we can’t meet our need to feel like we ate a full meal and be nutritionally satisfied – I recommend a huge salad with avocado, persimmons, pepitas, spinach and a savory dressing to meet that.
On a more practical level, when we are craving certain foods that means our body is trying to tell us something and if you take a moment to listen to your body and you have this handy cravings chart memorized or in your hands, I believe you can beat your cravings and stay on the path every time.
“The distinction between mind and body is an artificial dichotomy, a discrimination which is unquestionably based far more on the peculiarity of intellectual understanding than on the nature of things.” -Carl Jung
Raw Food Energy
Posted by Joe | Filed under Productivity
What if you measured the cost and time of your food not by the actual cost you pay up front or the time it takes to prepare it, but by the impact this food has on the rest of your day. Instead of looking at a Hot Pocket and thinking about how it only cost $3, has 500 calories, and will only take 2 minutes to make, lets fast forward 30 minutes after this meal and analyze our productivity from it.
I think a better way of looking at food is to aim for high energy inputs and high energy outputs rather than the face value of the food. As humans, we have the ability to at least predict what will happen a little bit into the future. We may not know what next week will look like but we can project that after eating a nutrient defficient meal, we will feel horrible after less than an hour and this can negatively impact your day.
Read the rest of this entry…
Best Raw Food Blogs of 2011
Posted by Joe | Filed under Lists
Here’s a highlight of my favorite blogs I’ve come across this year devoted to raw food. Often times I find some good blogs but they tend to be outdated. So with this Best Raw Food Blogs of 2011 list, I made sure that the blogs have at least been updated in the last month or two. The blogs are ordered starting with my favorite Enjoy and list any others you have run across in the comments below!
1. Alltop Raw Food – An aggregator of all the best raw food blogs. Lots of links
http://www.raw-foods.alltop.com/
2. Tera Warner Raw Blog – Frequently updated, all encompassing, lots of info.
http://www.terawarner.com/blog/blog-contributors/
Read the rest of this entry…
One Day Raw
Posted by Joe | Filed under Basics
If you have been thinking of taking a step towards a healthier raw diet, why not do just one day. Try it tomorrow. If tomorrow is not a good day then the day after, but try to do it this week.
The Leap
There is never the perfect day to experiment with something new and take the next leap on your journey. Every week there will be a big proposal, birthday party, or it might just be too hot outside. Instead of waiting for the perfect day, choose a day that will be good enough and go for it. Perhaps you can choose your most flexible day this week and take that leap. Stock up on your favorite raw fruits and vegetables and grab two or three easy recipes for the day.
Any fears or reservations you may have about jumping into a high raw diet long term will be thrown out the window when you know you have to just do it for one day. Put aside any thoughts of not enough protein, cravings for Choco Tacos, or your favorite lunch sandwich and just focus on one day of freedom.
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Food Matters (2008) Summary
Posted by Joe | Filed under Documentary
This documentary gives a broad overview of our industrial agricultural system, the prevalence of turning to drugs for healing in our country, and how low down on the totem pole our ancestor’s commonsense on eating have fallen over the past century. This film made me a little depressed, yet gave me lots of hope at the same time. I felt the film gave a little too much airtime to vitamin therapy with Andrew W. Saul, but overall a it did well in showing different viewpoints with all of their contributors. All of the teachers in the film were on the same page about the necessity to change our habits, while giving their own individual perspectives.
David Wolfe, one of the leading raw food spokesman in the world, contributed strongly to this film. I like his clear, concise, and simple suggestions on improvements we can make in our diets today. His best piece that I pulled from the film was that 51% of every meal should consist of raw food for optimal digestion and enzymes.
Raw Food Basics
Posted by Joe | Filed under Basics
Why should we eat a mainly raw food diet? Here are the raw food basics, a brief sketch of some benefits of eating a raw food diet that lays out the advantages for you in your life today, and how it will improve everything you do.
Efficiency
At its core, raw food is wildly efficient. The body can better metabolize and instantly use unprocessed, uncooked food that comes packed full of nutrients and its own enzymes to help your body digest the food better. It is so much more efficient to eat a banana than a slice of white bread, rather than your body having to deplete its own store of enzymes to process this white bread full of empty calories and essentially dead matter, the banana is packed full of nutrient and vitamins that are readily accessible for the body to process.
3 Best Books to Transition to Raw Food
Posted by Joe | Filed under Books
Lets face it: if you are going to be adopting a healthier, live-food packed diet, but be living in this modern prepackaged convenience food world, you need to be armed with some ammunition.
The best raw food books will give you a jolt of inspiration and connect the dots for you. They will teach you more about yourself and why you feel so good when you eat certain foods and horrible when you eat others. Some books will challenge and shock your preconceived notions in some chapters, while reassure you of what you already knew intuitively, but couldn’t exactly explain in words.