You know that feeling you get after a huge meal (think big dinner or Thanksgiving-style meal)?

That feeling is making you tired and irritable, heavy and bloated, missing out on everything that life has to offer. What kind of life is that? The only thing on your mind right now should be HOW to turn it around and start experiencing radical amounts of energy everyday.

Energy to start your day. Inspiration at work. Feeling turned on and activated when you get home to do all the things you really wanted to do – but often couldn’t find the energy to get done. It’s all an energy game- to do the things we want to do, we need the drive to do them. That drive is born of the mental AND physical energy we have at any given point in time. A key tip? Increasing your physical energy through the meals you choose to fuel yourself with simultaneously increases your mental energy and ability to get things done in your life.

Back to that heavy, tired feeling…

That feeling comes from a number of different factors. The primary one is overeating, taking in too much food at once and having your body essentially “shut down” in order to digest it. All of your physical energy goes to the digestion of your food, and you’re left with zero for working out, playing with the kids (or friends), working on projects, etc. Zero!

I could just tell you to eat lightly, or smaller portions – but that’s not nearly the whole story. While that will certainly improve your energy levels, the primary consideration is the TYPES of foods that you’re eating. We know that refined carbohydrates (think grains like breads, cereals, pastries, biscuits, pancakes, etc) can spike the blood sugar and leave you with uneven moods and energy levels throughout the day, and especially following your meals. Of course, anything with added refined sugar in it will do the same – and even more drastically – but I’d like to hope that you’re beyond choosing those types of choices if you’ve been following me for any length of time.

You’re capable of choosing the meals that deliver solid, even and abundant energy to your mind and body all the time…it’s just a matter of finding the meals that work for you. Simply through trial-and-error, you can discover incredible combinations that really work for you. But here’s a quicker way to do it in the meantime: add in more raw foods.

We just saw that heavy, cooked meals can take away nearly 100% of your available personal energy and redirect it toward the digestion of those meals. A better way is to add in an all-raw or mostly raw meal at least every now and then. Personally, my two favorites are superfood smoothies and large salads. My own superfood smoothie is a blend of water, fresh greens, berries and a wide variety of superfoods – some of the most mineral-rich, nutrient-packed foods available to us on this planet :)

Something absolutely EVERYONE can do is throw together a healthy salad. Just toss some fresh greens (romaine, collard greens, swiss chard, spinach, others) into a large bowl or dish and get some raw nuts or seeds to round it out (hemp seeds, almonds, walnuts and so many others all work great). Even better, add in some fresh fruit! Dice up some apples or throw in a few handfuls of fresh berries.

Listen, it’s not about being “healthy” (a word that’s taken a lot of abuse in its image for some reason over the years). It’s about how you feel after every meal, which determines how you feel every day. How you feel every day determines how you feel over the course of your lifetime. Your experience of life – and the energy you have available to you – is directly related to how you feel after each and every meal you choose to fuel yourself with. Eating a large salad with fresh fruit and/or raw nuts and seeds will give you the clear-minded abundance of energy you need to stay aligned with what’s really important to you. It will let you maintain and develop those key relationships with others, give you the extra energy you need to move your career forward, and eventually net you an increase in income if you’re looking for it. It’s all an energy game in the end.

Too heavy? I hope not. Really start becoming aware of how each meal is making you feel when you’re eating it, directly after, and within the next 2-3 hours of your life. With momentum, you can start choosing only the meals that leave you inspired and full of personal energy, ready to take action and live life to the fullest.

Unleash Your Vitality,

– John Brackett

=> Leave a comment below and let me know what you think!

P.S. Check out the banner for these guys below – I use about 5-1 0 different products from them at any given time, and these are the ones that consistently give me the “edge” and mental clarity I’m looking for in my daily superfood smoothie. Click the banner and check out their online store for some cool ideas on what might be fun to throw into the mix for you personally:

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If you’re new to the concept of green smoothies, then you’re in for a treat. If you’re already familiar with them, then I’d love to hear your take on this post – as well as your personal favorites. If you’ve been around me for any length of time, you’ve probably seen me down at least a few “green smoothies”. What are these wild green drinks and why on earth would you want to drink one?

Green smoothies are fruit smoothies with added greens…blended in. It almost sounds outrageous until you get ahold of one and experience it firsthand. The truth is, green smoothies actually taste just like fruit smoothies, but deliver an unparalleled level of nutrition and personal energy for your day.

This morning is the perfect example: I woke up and relaxed to a tall glass of water first thing, and then made my way downstairs to the home gym setup for an amazing budokan workout (a vigorous blend of yoga, martial arts and meditation). The best post-workout meal? You guessed it: a green smoothie. If you’re ready for the challenge, I’ll give you today’s recipe: 2 cups of water as a base, 3 large bananas, 4 medium apples, a few handful of mixed berries and several large leaves of collard greens…all blended together. The net effect is a large, green smoothie; the net taste is a refreshing blend of bananas, apples and fresh berries.

If you’re looking for a way to have more energy in your day, feel better all day long, clear up your skin and just enjoy life more in general, green smoothies are one of the fastest ways to get there. It’s a daily ritual for me that’s second to none in health and fitness, but perhaps more importantly in mental clarity and peak performance. I like having a clear vision of the day ahead of me, and really being able to enjoy that day to the fullest.

Here’s the basic recipe so you can start enjoying life-changing nutrition today: 1.5 – 2 cups of water as the base, plenty of your favorite fresh fruits (like bananas, mangoes, papayas, apples, etc) and keeping it simple with 1-2 types of fresh greens (think spinach, kale, collard greens, swiss chard, lettuce, etc). You’ll find that the blender brings those greens down into such small particles that their absorption into your body brings in a rush of good health and wellbeing. You’ll find mental clarity and energy for your day, just from a green smoothie that tastes amazing anyway!

The challenge is on the table: just make one green smoothie for yourself within the next day or so. I promise you’ll be blown away!

Unleash Your Vitality,

John Brackett

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As a raw foodist myself, I’ve spent hundreds of hours (if not more) researching the arena of raw foods, health, energy, peak performance and other related topics. I’ve seen the research for raw foods, and I’ve heard the counterarguments against going raw. After looking at all of this evidence with an open mind, I’m more convinced than ever that eating 100% raw foods is by far the most sensible path to radiant health.

I’ll be honest with you: it’s tough to accept ideas that completely shatter a current paradigm. This is a cooked food world everywhere you turn…but that doesn’t mean it’s natural or even healthy. Humans are the only creatures on Earth that cook their food. Think about it. All animals in nature eat their wild, natural diet of raw foods. These animals also live to their natural old age, free of the countless diseases on the rise more and more. Yet feed all these animals the same exact foods – cooked – and they develop the degenerative diseases seen everywhere today. There have been countless studies on all different types of animals, and the difference between the same food raw and cooked is the difference between vibrant health and chronic disease, genetic mutations, and complications galore.

It’s certainly not our fault for eating cooked foods! They’ve spread rapidly across the globe since fire was first used to cook thousands of years ago. The reason for this has nothing to do with health if you really dive into the research. When proteins, fats or carbohydrates are heated above a certain temperature, the structure of the food itself changes. My favorite line about this comes from Susan Schenck in The Live Food Factor: “When you were in chemistry lab at school, you no doubt learned that heating things changed their chemical structures. Why would heating food be immune to this chemical process?” The generally accepted cut-off point for heating most foods is 118 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s interesting to think about temperatures in nature, where most hot days reach up into the 80s or 90s. Certain regions can even hit 100-110, but that’s about the upper limit. This corresponds remarkably well to the point where foods change structurally.

An example? The act of heating protein creates cross-links that make around 50% of the protein unusable by the body. When you cook a big slab of meat, you likely go from about 100% protein to 50% protein digestibility on average, depending on the temperature and duration of heating. This literally means that raw foodists need only half the protein intake of people who cook every form of protein they encounter.

But to get back to why the cooked food culture has spread, the heating actually causes thousands of chemicals to be released, many of which our bodies are simply not designed to handle. Many of these chemicals also inhibit our natural functioning by destroying the delicate chemical balances throughout our body. Cooked foods are addicting, comforting, and warm. How many times have you reached for your favorite cooked food when you’ve had a stressful day? An emotional challenge? When you’re exhausted? They’re comforting and addicting, which is why it’s such a hard habit to break. Many raw foodists know firsthand that breaking the habit can be more challenging than any drug addiction – and that it can take years to accomplish.

This is a tough topic to write about because it really feels like an attack on your habits. If you found yourself becoming defensive over your foods, consider why that may be. Have your foods become tied up in your emotions rather than a shining path to radiant health? These are the hard questions, but if you’re willing to ask them then you’re actively breaking up the patterns and habits that may be holding you back. Let me know if this post inspired some heavy thinking and opened some doors for you, or just feel free to ask questions below and I’ll give you my honest opinion.

Unleash Your Vitality,

John Brackett