5 Steps To Become A Superhero
On this week’s episode we’re departing from our typical format to celebrate “National Superhero Day” and to bring some practical advice on how to become a superhero in your own right. No, we’re not talking radioactive spiders or gamma radiation here, but there is some wisdom on healthy living that we can impart to help you feel and function your best.
Some Topics We Discussed:
What does Ed mean when he talks about being a superhero? (4:50)
What is hormesis and why does it matter? (6:04)
What is the Wolverine diet? (8:16)
What part does sleep play in becoming a superhero? (14:47)
Why is exercise important? (22:20)
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
We live in a society that often treats our body as a fragile system, which has actually disempowered many people. (4:23)
It’s wise to push your body to the limit for short periods of time and then back off. It makes you more resilient. (7:20)
Food is power. (11:57)
Much of our healing capabilities reside in the gut. (18:00)
Previous episodes mentioned:
Products + Resources:
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Ed Jones 00:00 Hey everyone, welcome back to The Holistic Navigator Podcast where we believe in the body's capacity for self healing if it's given the proper nutrients and care it deserves. My name is Brian Strickland. I'm the producer of the show in here with me in the studio, as always is your host, Ed Jones. And on today's episode, we're taking a slight departure from our normal format. For all those who didn't know, April 28, is actually National Superhero Day. And that's exactly what we're going to talk about today. Now, you may not be injected with radioactive spider venom, but there are ways that you can become your own superhero, through simple steps that you can take that can radically change your life. And that's exactly what we're going to be talking about today. So, let me go ahead and get this thing started. I'll introduce your host, Mr. Ed Jones. Thank you, as always, Brian, and I am so kind of excited and also nervous about this particular podcast because it kind of came out of the clear blue, and I just loved the concept of the Superhero Day on April 28. And had never ever thought about doing something like this. You know, a wonderful friend of mine introduced me to the Marvel superheroes not that long ago in my life. And I never thought I would enjoy watching them but totally was sucked in, intrigued and really motivated me in some areas as kind of a hero fantasy hero. But I came to realize that we all have the ability generally to reach a status of health, vitality, resilience, robustness, embrace life with far more power in our heart, than I think most of us give us our own credit for. And I've certainly been in those moments where, you know, Father Time is wearing me down, work, emotions, lack of sleep, or things and accountant was throwing the towel in a little bit. But I've always made a comeback. And every time I see other people do this through their hardships, I am inspired because they didn't usually rise back to the top with just luck alone, it took a plan, a plan to reinvigorate the natural powers that we were born with. These aren't given to us from a special elixir somewhere or another planet. We actually have them already within, or we would not be able to access them. So today, I'm going to give you my five steps to hopefully, if you choose to enter the superhero club. And what I mean by superhero is not conquering the world, but conquering a lot of the challenges of your own world that you kind of doubted you could do. And you know, observing 1000s of individuals over my career, including my own aging, has been a great teacher for me. You know, I remember so well watching with envy, even when I was eight years old back in the day 60s and 70s to TV characters such as the Million Dollar Man, Jack Lalane, the Hulk, Tarzan, and several others, where they were able to access their way, way above normal powers, and certainly were considered superpowers. But in the past decade of my life, I became really like I said, taken in by the superheroes, such as Wolverine, he seems to be my favorite, and how they withstood enemies and hardships and prevailed. Just was really cool fantasy, but also a slice of reality. You know there's a lot to do with human biochemistry and aging of our body. And for over four decades, that's given me the opportunity to learn by observation, study, and actually kind of being a guinea pig to myself. I know there are methods that help to preserve the robust and powerful resilience that the human system is capable of achieving. But you know, we live in a society that often treats our body as a fragile operating system. And this has disempowered many people to kind of give up on their true potential for heroes status past the young age. You know, when you're young and foolish, you don't think about those things. But even at 30 years old people have really kind of sometimes turn the corner and are treading water. And because of this disconnection, and not embracing what I'm going to speak about these age old survival mechanisms are not triggered anymore, and we've lost touch with this inner power. So what do I mean by superhero status? You know, Wolverine possessed very keen senses, enhanced physical capabilities, and a powerful regenerative ability known as healing factor. I love that word, healing factor. Guess what, we are all capable of escalating these same powers, if we can embrace the steps that I'm going to talk about to superhero status. Powers to continue being physically strong and every day activities, regardless of your age, healing quickly, when ill despite the condition, preserving your balance, lung powers, and the ability to continue to think quickly and efficiently to solve life's daily problems. Instead of many people's constant brain fog, slow memory, fatigue, and, you know, having a lot of ability to bounce back from stresses that normal living just gives us. I'm not talking about invading other planets and conquering, you know, the 10 enemies that come attacking, I'm talking about conquering your own life. And it's time to take charge because it is possible to accomplish this. You know, before I really get into it, I want you to understand that there is a word that very few people know. And I was intrigued by it, by the very first time that I had heard the definition of this. And it's a well word called hormesis. And it applies very clearly to the body the health, the achieving of superhero status. And in the dictionary hormesis is defined as a phenomenon, termed Hormisis describes an evolutionary conserved process by which a cell or entire organism can be pre conditioned, meaning that previous exposures to low doses of an insult protects against a higher normally harmful or lethal dose of the same stressor. Growing evidence suggests that hormesis is directly linked to an organism's capability to cope with pathological conditions, conditions such as aging and age related diseases. The bottom line of this word or meses, is is defined by me that what can potentially kill us an excess can empower us at lower doses. And a lot of people don't understand that we have tremendous capabilities. But when you baby yourself, you get weaker and weaker with age that can be mentally, emotionally and physically, not just the physical. And we need to embrace an idea that and understand that the less we push ourselves to the limit with exercise, breathing, fasting, exposure to heat and cold, different nutrient cycles, the weaker we are going to become. And hormesis is actually the method of groups such as the Navy Seals, Olympic athletes, Special Forces, and many other groups use to excel in their field. The tactic for them is to take their body and mind to the absolute limit just for a bit, and then back off slightly. This produces the potential of superhero powers. But as we age, the truth is that we must expand this program, not reduce it to preserve the body with the wear and tear. Well, I'm about to offer you a plan, if you are interested, that potentially allows you to join the superhero club, but only if you have the commitment, discipline and fortitude to stick to this plan. So I've got five different topics here, one, the first one I call the Wolverine diet, you know, the power of the knife and fork is literally unparalleled regarding supporting the body for our superhero status. We must remember that nature offers blessings to the young, but is not always so kind as Father Time starts stripping it away, even as early as age 25. This is why we must be aggressive and wise to maintain or regain these powers that we're losing. So today, in this moment, I want to talk about the diet. You know, there's a hundreds, maybe 1000s of different opinions and ideas. And I'm not sitting here telling you that I have all your answers. I'm just saying this is what I observed to be the best practical method to embrace for the topic that I'm speaking about. So we first have to look at what I call the macros. The macros are the percentage of fat protein, carbs and fiber within your daily diet. And in my opinion, this is what I would take to the bank. Somewhere between one half to one gram of quality protein needs to be consumed most days of the week for you. That's pretty good range one half to one gram depends on your activity level, your age your health, but that is where I feel comfortable. Anything more than one and a half grams, not too too comfortable. Anything less than one Half grant will not support the function of the body. I'm a kind of a leaning toward a keto kind of guy. If you look back on The Holistic Navigator, you will see a podcast on keto and how I do it. But I think the average individual should work toward five days a week of being on a relatively low carb diet between 50 and 80 carbohydrates for five days a week and two days a week, we must cycle off of this. That means you can go all the way up to 200 carbs, they need to be chosen wisely. That doesn't mean you're going to eat french fries and potato chips. But you can have plenty of things I generally have a pizza on Sunday. Now fats are the other part of the macro. They should comprise about half of your calories at least. And they should be coming from foods such as raw nuts, avocados, quality olive oil, coconut, and organic butter. And what this these guidelines support is the repair of the muscular structure within the body. As it's being trained and tested. The goal is to stay in a in at least a slight anabolic state where the muscle is preserved and built and not declining. Secondly, is you have to address the proper level of calories because that must be present in order to maintain the proper body weight. You know what? Too many or not enough, will reduce any chances of optimal results. I'm fortunate I have a very fast metabolism. My frustration is not getting enough calories. One is because I'm very cautious about my foods, it's very easy to get calories when you don't think about what you're going to eat next, and you pull into a fast food place. And then thirdly is consuming the cleanest types of these foods, whether they be the proteins or fats, or the vegetable plant based foods. And this is very important for the health of the body. One item that I'm 1,000% convinced of and I think you may be if you're listening to me, is food is power. You know, we have an internal pharmacy within us that we can access but we can only do it through the right nutrition and foods. And you know many of you listening may be like me. You may eat out quite often because of the pace of life and the lack of time to fix foods. And many people think well, I can't be healthy because I'm eating out Yes, you can. Yes, you can. Very few people eat out as much as I do. And I did a podcast on The Holistic Navigator. And all of these will links will be listed at the on the notes after the podcast is posted. And it's basically the title of it is how to eat out healthy. It's about a 30 minute podcast and I really nail it down of what you need to do to be super healthy even if you're eating out. Now, in the diet, the last point I want to make is breakfast. You know there's always been the powerful statements and breakfast is the most important meal of the day and a lot of grandmothers wisdom is now returning because it is the most important why is it is because it actually sets the pace and thermostat for the rest of your day. When I say thermostat, your blood chemistry. And when you start the day with the perfect macro numbers again the fats, protein and carbs, you are setting yourself up for success. When you started improperly by the completely wrong macros, which is what most people do because the convenience you're doing the cereals and the bagels and, and the fruit and all of this with low protein and no healthy fat. I don't care what you do at lunch and supper you blown the deal. You will not be able to hold and build muscle as well keep your energy and you will not be burning body fat. So I came up with what we call Ed's breakfast drink. And it just comprises three different items. It is a keto leaning drink, and I do it six days a week and I eat foods only on Sunday, which I do enjoy one a day a week but I never actually feel as good on that day as I do when I drink it. And because of this drink my body fat is now not by any means bragging is now down to the lowest it's been in 63 years which is 9.3% and my strength is as good as ever in the gym on upper body. I do struggle sometimes with a little bit of tendinitis on legs so that's when is my challenge at the moment. So I've covered the diet as as well as I can in a short time. On The Holistic Navigator we have about 96 podcasts several of which deal with different components of of diet we please please check back on what we've already posted and you may find other things of interest now. Number two, this is my demon sleep. You know we rebuild both the brain and the body during the healthy phases of sleep. And insomnia is epidemic in this country. It will always lessens our chance to reach success and superhero status if it continues. And you know what, no one has insomnia due to an Ambien deficiency. That's a joke. But yet you go to the doctor, that's generally what you'll get. That's kind of like putting a big piece of tape on a red light on your car is just ignoring the underlying issue. But the problem is most of us is have lost the rhythm of sleep. The rhythm, because I love this analogy I heard many years ago that you don't come home from work up and down the interstate at 60, you pull off on the secondary roads at 50. You're going down the roads of your neighborhood at 30. You actually slow down way before your house, you're not going to pull in your driveway at 30 miles an hour. This is what we need to do is sleep we need to start winding down far earlier. But the other beginning steps to improve your heroes sleep is this always have a product called GABA. This calms the brain. You know most insomnia and waking up during the middle of the night is due to something I call cognitive popcorn, the thoughts are just creating themselves on top of creating themselves and it prevents you from going back to sleep. Well GABA is something I've used now for almost five years is totally natural. And I take it and place it next to my bed with a cup of water. I can go to sleep just fine is that 11 o'clock to two o'clock reawakening where I can't get back to the deep sleep. But if I'll take 1000 milligrams of GABA, sometimes I will do it at bedtime. But then I'll have to do it middle night because it only lasts three hours. But it's a game changer. And anyone can do it. Again, if you have medical conditions that are serious Ask your doctor but it's extremely safe. And my second tip of the day for sleep. And this will be an odd one. Most people have never heard of this, but it is a game changer. It is taping your mouth closed with a special tape. Yes, mouth breathing at night is deadly to our health. Because it changes the oxygen and carbon dioxide ratios to a point where you can't achieve deep sleep. When you don't achieve deep sleep, your kidneys don't shut down. Sometimes that's why we get up to go the bathroom. It's not because we drank too much just because they normally need to be told to go to sleep along with everything else and it's not happening. And I talked about this on the podcast on The Holistic Navigator on the sleep one, which we will have that link for because on the podcast, there's actually 12 steps to recreate rhythm. This is no magic bullets. It is just a path and a toolbox that you need to assemble. And I can assure you that things will change when you put that together. Number three, we have to optimize the digestion and gut integrity. You know, very few people realize that much of our superpowers actually originate within the gut, which comprises stomach small intestines and large intestines. And you know, stressed out in the end, our intestines would cover at least a half of a tennis court. And despite the old theory that the gut or intestines is simply a piece of plumbing to transport waste. It's actually an organ that has vital functions across the board. And creating super healing capacity from our immune system, kind of like Wolverine had the super healing capacity. It's been destroyed so much by the foods and the drugs we consume. And we have to establish a better balance within the gut to ever have hope of achieving optimal hero status. You simply cannot stay strong, resilient and recover without this system supercharged. We all know that if we get a food poisoning, how weak you become, well, many people walk around with us with gut inflammation constantly, which is not as bad as food poisoning, but it's weakening the system. I recommend people to reduce gluten. Make sure you take the correct probiotic and often past the age of 35 or 40 taking a digestive enzyme and focusing on more foods like organic that do not have glyphosate which is something I talk about on the Holistic Navigator often which is actually an antibiotic that sprayed on our foods. And I found many individuals have year after year imbalances of something that is overgrowing. In the gut, it's actually called SIBO small intestinal bowel overgrowth. I interviewed Brenda Watson who was on PBS for 12 years and really regarded as an expert on gut health and that is in that will be in the links below on the notes. But listening to Brenda Watson gives you the options of how to solve this issue of SIBO. Number four, hormones and blood work. You know, hormones are actually just communicators within the body. It, they send instructions to different systems that can accomplish the goals that the body thinks it needs. It's obvious that young people have much higher levels of hormones than those over 40. They recover faster, have less inflammation, better skin, more moisture, more muscle, the list goes on and on. I am convinced at the exposure and our present living world, our workplace foods, we eat toxins, and our continual stress is devastating the hormone levels in many individuals. This is why I strongly recommend getting a full blood panel on hormones and other constituents of blood chemistry. And the second take home point is to not believe that you are fine and healthy if you fall in the normal ranges. Normal is as far from Hero status as you can get almost. You know, normal is what's keeping the hospitals and doctors offices busier than ever normal is filling the drugstores with people all day long. And so we have to know that we need to find optimal levels not normal if your goal is a superhero club. And that comes with altering your lifestyle and nutrition program in order to reach these levels. And people who are in maybe cities where they don't have other health care individuals to help them on this path. We are here to help you help yourself. One of the great podcasts that I did was Dr. Pucci in New York, he takes patients online and he is a functional medicine physician that I'm very, very thrilled about that can help you in regard to getting the blood work, analyzing it, and knowing the value and what to do with them. And also, I interviewed Dr. Rountree, myself on The Holistic Navigator, and this gentleman explained what blood test to get very quickly and succinctly and after listening, you'll know the value of those and what to do about it. And number five is exercises. You know, you could do a three hour podcasts on exercise alone. And again, every one is different. We must tailor this for each individual, but activity is imperative to elevate our body and mind to superhero status. imperative with a capital I there's no way you're going to do it. If you're not pushing yourself in some form or fashion in a gym or some kind of activity. The key though, is it being done properly, but very intensive, but also non injuring routines. Each person must journey into this on their own individual basis. And the first key to success is it must be done on no less than four days a week. And I think five is being ideal. Secondly is the body does need recoveries. So two days a week should always be off days. And nothing sends signals to our muscles, bones, hormones, inflammation, reductions, digestion, reducing cortisol, as intensive training in some modality generally being in the gym or weight training. And intensive means that if you know at least from a gym standpoint, to go the gym, and you press, miss a shoulder press benchpress eight reps on a machine. And you could have done 10 it was not intensive. That doesn't mean you kill yourself every single set but if you walk away from the gym, knowing that you did not give 100% you're not going to activate this primal healing power that we need to reawaken. Pushing the limit just a few times each workout is what triggers this for me says power of building the superhero powers. The second part of the super superhero plan is embracing any number of other challenges that retrieve these powers we were born with. I love Wim Hof. He's called The Iceman. He's a superhero, there's no doubt. He utilizes breath holding and cold therapy to bring out this power. He has accomplish feats that sound literally impossible to me. But he's also trained many normal individuals to achieve similar goals with his ideas. And it's all about commitment, trusting the body nourishing with strong nutrition and not giving in to the idea that our bodies are fragile and ready to break. I personally do breath holding in the pool at times three minutes. This is my number. I do push ups on one breath every two to three weeks, I do 75. And picking and exercising going until you cannot push one more Rep. And then you do two more. That's how you do it. Again, 285 chin ups in one hour. And you know, just recently, I was so moved by this speech that I heard on YouTube from a military navy seal. Marcus Luttrell regarding his injuries in a battle, Mr. Lu trail had broken his back in three places due to bombs and bullets and the enemy, his nose was pushed into his face, he had bit half his tongue off and was paralyzed from the hip down after the bomb had thrown him down this big ravine. And he was at a point of death, he said and can barely move. And he told himself not to give up, he was paralyzed from the hip down. And what he did was he grabbed a rock. And he would take this rock, and would scratch a line in the sand above his head. And every time he would crawl by the inches to that line, where his feet hit the line, and he would draw another line. He did this for seven miles. You know what, this is what we are all capable of. If we can train and believe and stay strong, before the storms of life hit us. We also are going to post his inspirational video at the end of this. And I love the fact that President Roosevelt once said, you know is far better, isn't it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much. Because they live in a grey Twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. And you know, I look around and has been many times in my life, I've been in the great twilight, and hope I can encourage you to analyze where you are. And if you're not happy with that, draw that line in the sand he keep on crawling. Number six is the core for superheroes supplements. You know, I've observed 10s of 1000s of individuals over my four plus decades of professionally committing my life to nutrition and health. And it showed me one thing of grand importance. The human body desperately requires optimal optimal nutritional support from early life to old age and we cannot expect foods to supply all these needs. The reasons for this are varied but everything from soul depletion to foods pick before they're ripe pesticides fungicides on almost all foods and improper preparation, even if it is grown right. This is why I feel we must embrace a sound quality nutritional super plan, or the body will remain average at best. But if you're waiting this far of this article, or listing, you are more than average and good for you. The core four is what I have detailed after many years of study that must be in place for almost every single person regardless of goals, but especially those who are wanting to excel in life, I want to make it easy because you walk into any nutrition store and you can be overwhelmed very quickly by the 1000s of choices and, and all the articles written in the opinions. If you just embrace the core four, you don't have to think about it much. And it's a relatively simple plan, and requires the following daily products. A quality multivitamin, this is not the mass market Centrums and all the other brands, omega threes that have proper potency and tested to be free of contaminants. The third one a green drink. Why would we need a green drink? I have found it alters the pH to far better alkaline levels, it opens the channels of detox and protects our internal chemistry. Next is magnesium. You know this mineral magnesium I've done a podcast on also because there's over 300 functions that rely within our body on this one single molecule. And again, to learn about that, we will have the link to my podcast on magnesium and then probiotics back to the gut and immune health. But that's also found already in the greens powder. So you can go to nutritionw.com and go to the shop now and just hit core four it and you can easily see the exact products that I'm speaking about. Well, you know what, I've covered it pretty darn well. And my last notes, and I want to put this out for the people who just need to add the final touches to this program if you're going to embrace all the things I spoke about from the diet, to the nutrition, to the sleep, to the exercise, a couple other little things that may be of importance that I have learned through my life is we need to put together a team to support your goals and your body. This is not a total solo journey. And because even if we are superheroes or we reach that level doesn't mean you're not going to have tough days, feel bad at moments, have some injuries, even the superheroes, they just recovered quicker than we can, but they still had those same issues going on. And that may mean a massage therapist that you find in trust or a chiropractor or other body workers. But you need to find these people that you can call on in order to assist your body when it is struggling, because you're pushing it. And there will be moments, I'd much rather wear out than rust out. And that's what's gonna happen if you don't keep pushing and you're sitting around too long. And also find a health care professional that does understand the value of nutrition and healing modalities. And someone that does not completely involve themselves with pharmaceutical recommendations always time in place for it, but it's usually not what we need. And then maybe lastly located gym that really serves your needs that you feel comfortable in, so that you can look forward to going and maybe having a support group there. And then lastly, stocking your kitchen with the proper foods. When you get home or you're too busy and you're hungry is easy, easy to grab things. If you don't have better choices, it's still not always easy to grab the healthy ones, but it's impossible to grab them if they're not there. And you know, I'm now I feel like I've given you a recipe, recipe and a plan for reaching levels of performance that you may have only seen on the big screen. I encourage you do not doubt yourself to and I must always keep in mind one important concept regarding this even Wolverine and the other superheroes eventually die. And to quote one of my most favorite poets, Mary Oliver, doesn't everything die at last, and to soon. Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? draw that line in the sand and get yourself going because it's time to be superhero. Thank you so much. This is Ed Jones with The Holistic Navigator. The information on this podcast and the topics discussed have not been evaluated by the FDA or anyone of the medical profession, and is not aimed to replace any advice you may receive from your medical practitioner. The holistic navigator assumes no responsibility or liability whatsoever on behalf of any purchaser or listener of these materials. The listing navigator is not a doctor or does he claim to be please consult your physician before beginning any health regimen.