Are you in a rough spot?   You've been working hard, going to the gym, eating well, yet things just don't seem to be progressing?   Worse, maybe they've gone in the wrong direction and you're noticing that your scale is creeping up and the clothes are starting to fit tighter?   How can this be? What gives? Most importantly, what should you do about it?   The purpose of this episode is to give you a dietary check-in when everything seems to be going in the wrong direction.    What we covered:

• Give your head a shake. Most often, and in our experience, your diet falls apart not because of a lack of information but a weak mental game. You're under more stress, you're more social and that means there is more chance you'll get off track. Whatever the reason, always start with what is happening between your ears.
• Are you doing the right things? It's possible that sometimes you've picked a strategy that does not give you the results that you were hoping for. That's OK, it happens to everyone, but how do you know it's the wrong strategy vs. you just haven't done it long enough? We'll answer that.
• Have you done it long enough? We all know that diet and exercise work, but it's impossible to think you'd lose 50 pounds after only changing your diet for a month. Things always take longer than we think. Here is a great way to know when you haven't done things long enough.
• Are you guessing vs. testing? Quick...what did you eat last week on the same day? Do you remember? Of course you don't, nobody does. If you do remember, you have no idea what your portions were. The point here is to start documenting everything you eat and drink...this way there is no fooling yourself. 

This was an interesting week.   On more than one occasion, I was asked the same question many different ways...   1) Why isn't this getting any better? 2) How long until I start to feel better? 3) Is chiropractic working because I don't feel better? 4) Should I keep coming to see you because I don't feel any better? 5) What else do I need to do so I can feel better? 6) I was feeling better, and now I'm back to the beginning, how can I feel better?   These are very honest and legitimate questions.   I understand that you're not feeling well or that you might be injured. However, the healing process and ultimately fixing the problem follows a certain, very specific path, with all the parts laid out in a way that your body can't afford skip over a certain section.   Your body can heal quickly, but it must follow a certain order.   On today's podcast, I cover how you can best help your body recover fully and completely from sickness or injury.    What we covered:

• Could it be that we are looking at the human body in reverse when it comes to fixing problems? Is there another way that we could be looking at it? We think there is. Learn what that way is, how it applies to you, and what you can do about it.
• Why, in health, one thing is rarely ever the cause of your problem. I wish it were that simple, but it's not. Your health, injury, disease, symptoms are more often than not caused by many different factors, ALL of which you need to solve if you're going to be successful in getting better.
• How to look at an injury properly and how to start the process, so that when you fix the problem, you have the best chance of never having that problem again.

Despite what you may think, everyone experiences bad days.   Everyone gets tired, everyone questions themselves, everyone has moments of feeling inadequate, everyone has dark moments when they fear the worst, everyone feels like life is unfair, and everyone has days when they would swear there is someone out to get them because everything has just...gone...wrong.   I know you've met or know people who never seem to have a bad day or worse, you actually believe that nothing bad has ever happened to them or that they're somehow just lucky enough to avoid all the BS everyone else seems destined to endure.   If you are ever going to live an extraordinary life, you're going to have to learn how to deal with bad days. Because despite what you may believe, the more success you have, the more challenging situations tend to come your way.   On this podcast, we'll cover our strategies and tips for handling things when they don't go as planned.   What we covered:

• What makes it a bad day? Do you think that your bad day could be someone else's good day? I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but fundamentally you have only one choice, and that choice is how you respond to any given situation. It's your decision whether something is bad, or whether something is leverage for growth. How can you make that a much easier choice?
• How to gain perspective. Have you ever had something you perceived as bad happen, only to have something even worse happen close after? Isn't funny how your focus switched from the bad thing to the worse thing? Perspective works in many ways.
• The power of training. Your mind and decision making is a habit, and like any other habit, it will take work to change. Are you busy doing the work? Do you know what work you need to do?

The feedback from Think By Design has been amazing.   Here are some of the latest comments:   "I LOVE this Think By Design manual; it's just brilliant. So many people's lives pass by without them ever truly experiencing life to the fullest, you know? I don't want that for myself. I want to lay on my deathbed with no regrets, knowing that I lived my life as best I could for myself and others!"   "Honestly, it [The Think By Design Process] has been something I have just skipped in the past. It's apparently very different now that I have a daughter.. wow. This [The Legacy Branch] really moved me as no other branch has. I've spent years trying to figure out my purpose, and today was the day I found it, working through the legacy branch, crying like a baby on my front porch haha...Thank you for all the time and effort that has gone into developing Think By Design."   On this episode, we cover an overview of Think By Design. What is Think By Design, why it's been life changing for our community and how you can apply it to your life.   Here is what we cover:

• The most important mental requirement and why you absolutely need to know (and do) this or you will be living someone else's life.
• The most common mental hang-ups that you need to conquer or Think By Design will not work for you and, most importantly, you will not live an extraordinary life.
• The steps and a general overview of Think By Design and why we feel it's different than other 'self-help' methodologies.
• How to start applying this to your children and family.

There's a new documentary that's gaining a lot of traction and has a lot of people talking. It's called What The Health.   It's a good piece of film making, and it touches on a lot of really important topics like food, the pharmaceutical industry, politics and the large farming industry.    But, are the claims made in this movie true?   Since it would be extremely challenging to try to cover all aspects of the film in a thirty-minute podcast, we focus our attention specifically on the food argument.   There are some good sound arguments made in this movie, and there is a lot of compelling information to consider. On the other side, there are some down right lies passed as unquestionable truths.   The goal of the Life By Design Podcast today, is to give you our breakdown and some counter arguments to stimulate your brain and get you thinking.   Let us know what you think.   What we covered:

• Nutritional requirements vs. strategies. It's important to know what your body needs and give it that. 
• The cause of diabetes and how not be fooled into thinking it's anything but this. The best way to change is not the vegan version of it...it's this.
• How the pesky straw man keeps coming up...we really need to kill that guy for good.
• Know your research - it's very easy to be tricked on the validity of 'science' if you don't understand how the study was conducted and what the flaws are of that particular type of study. 
• Our recommendations for nutrition.

Here we go again...   Not surprisingly, another raunchy, illogical attack has been launched against chiropractic.   All the older arguments are here and to be honest, some of them are absolutely true.    We only call them like we see them and we won't pretend for one second that some of the allegations and claims made aren't true, they are. But, just because one thing is true does not translate into all else being true.   Our concern is simple...   We are not bothered by what other's think, (thankfully we live in a free country and other people's opinions are none of our business) but somewhere out there is a person who is going to wake up tomorrow morning and call the chiropractor for their first appointment. We definitely don't want the falsehoods propagated to change their mind and shortchange them on the positive impact properly applied chiropractic could potentially have on their life.   That breaks our hearts.   We want to present a rational, scientific, view of chiropractic for you to consider. Whether you agree with that viewpoint or not, or want the product or not, is entirely your choice...we simply hope it's a choice based on data, logic and objectivity.   What we covered:

• How to not fall victim to a logical fallacy (A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning that renders an argument invalid.) We are living in a world where information is a commodity (log onto PubMed and you have access to the same studies as your doctor) but trust is at a premium. Someone is always trying to pull a fast one on you. Learn how to spot a fraud (no matter who) in their tracks. If you can get this lesson, your life will be vastly improved.
• Why most (there are some legit ones) attacks on chiropractic are logical fallacies and the get the chiropractic side to the story.
• How to pick a good chiropractor vs. when you should run away fast and never come back.

 

If it is wasn't already difficult enough to be a mom...things just got trickier. Especially if ensuring your child is properly nourished is one of your goals.   Food to a growing child is keystone requirement. What do we mean by "keystone"? If you want to build a quality house you would only use the best materials, to build an optimally healthy child you would require the best quality materials as well, which in this example, means the highest quality fuel.    In 2001 the World Health Organization published a study claiming that the minimum age a mother should even consider weaning a child off breast milk (provided you could breastfeed) was 6 months of age.   However, recent data has challenged that claim and caused a boat-load of confusion for a lot of caring moms and dads.   Our goal for this episode is to help pierce the veil and get to the heart of the issue. It's to help you know if 'research' like this is load of garbage or has some validity.   We want to do our best to help you decide what to do.    What we covered:

• Learn to separate the strategy from the requirement The requirement is not to breastfeed your child. The requirement is to supply your child with adequate nutrition. Breastfeeding just happens to be the best strategy.
• Does breast milk have enough 'nutrients' to support a child exclusively to 6 months and beyond, or should you start to supplement sooner?
• Peanuts and Gluten as introductory foods? Is it ever a good idea to give those to your kids, and what is the impact if you choose to?
• Is this 'evidence' legit or could there be ulterior motives at play? Many of the researchers are being accused of working for formula manufacturers. Who can you trust and how do you know?

Today we welcome to the Life By Design Podcast a special guest - Preston Pysh.   It might seem odd that we are talking about investing on a health and wellness podcast but, as we've argued before, money and financial freedom are an essential part of your life if you want to have an extraordinary life.    Investing is a great way to earn money passively, and we might as well learn how to invest from an expert.   Preston is a graduate of West Point. He is the international best-selling author of Warren Buffett's Three Favourite Books, and he has written three other books on investing and leadership. Preston is the co-host of The Investors Podcast and the owner of Pylon Holding Company. He enjoys spending time with his lovely wife Demi and their four children.    What we covered:

• Money is important to living an extraordinary life; it's not everything, but almost every aspect of life gets easier with cash. Learn how to leverage investing (at least in it's simplest form) and start to build another income source.
• The difference between price and value and why you should care. This simple idea could transform the way you spend your current money.
• The most important thing you need to do in life. Preston has spent years studying billionaires, learn the one thing they have in common and how all of them have created their wealth. Hint: this has nothing to do with money.
• An easy, simple and practical way to start investing, even if you have no knowledge or idea of where to begin.

On this episode, I welcome personal friend, exceptional human being, outstanding doctor, and a man on a mission Dr. Noah Dekoyer.   Dr. Noah is in his 16th year of private practice in Bayonne, New Jersey, where he is busy helping his patients achieve health and wellness through chiropractic care.   In 2014, after attending a Tom O'Bryan work shop, Dr. Noah and his partners formed Beyond Your Wildest Genes; a Chiropractic think-tank dedicated to teaching people how to live an innately healthy life by helping bridge the gap between the Chiropractic lifestyle, the public, and the holistic wellness community.   In 2015 Beyond Your Wildest Genes released The Pain Relief Project: Natural Solutions That Actually Work. A product that has already helped countless people find the help they were seeking.   It was a real pleasure having Dr. Noah on the Life By Design Podcast.   Here's What We Covered:

• How Dr. Noah's health challenges in early life paved the way to where he is now. It's amazing how a chance conversation that inspires action is all it can take to completely change your life.
• The science of epigenetics. 'Epi' literally means 'above'; making epigenetics mean 'above' your genes. When Ph.D. Bruce Lipton published his landmark book "The Biology Of Belief," claiming that gene expression is a matter of environment, he was declared a heretic and banished from mainstream medicine. As it turns out, he was right, and epigenetics is now at the forefront of medical research. Find out what epigenetics means to you and why you are in control of your health.
• What bees, especially the queen bee, has to do with epigenetic expression.
• A remarkable story of how Dr. Noah's dad recovered from a paralyzing spinal cord injury. 

You really can't ignore it any longer.   If you've been paying any attention at all to the fitness and nutrition world, you will have likely heard the term 'keto' or Ketogenic Diet.   Seemingly overnight there is a whole new buzz word in nutrition and many companies, celebrities and products are jumping on the 'keto' bandwagon.    But... What is the Ketogenic Diet? Should you do it? How is it different from other diets and products on the market? Is it safe? Can it shortcut my results?   These are the fun and interesting questions that you need to answer before you can make a full decision on what you should do.   Every time we hear of such a massive trend that is spreading quickly, the contrarian inside of us wonders what's going on and it's legit or just hype. The whole thing reminds us of Mark Twain's' quote: "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect."   So we did...   What we covered:

• Physiology 101. What is a ketone, how does your body make them, are they good for you, and what the fuss is all about?
• The absolutely most important factor in determining if 'keto' is something that you should try? HINT: It has nothing to do with food.
• Is 'Keto' something new, or has this idea been around for some time and is just experiencing a new windfall?
• What we already know about ketosis and how it affects your body.
• Is 'keto' different from Eat By Design? If so, how?
• What about 'keto' supplements...are they helpful?
• Strategies for achieving a ketogenic state.
• Is this a good plan for a lifetime?