For the past three months I have been using Rescue Time, which is a really amazing tool to track your time usage.

It runs in the background and logs every single thing you do on your computer. Then when you log in to the web dashboard you can categorize the sites and programs you use and also rate them according to productivity.

From there it draws out a few stats and lets you see where your time is being spent.

In fact, for those of you who follow my daily accountability, I get my 0-3 number generally from multiplying my daily efficiency number by 3. Sometimes I add or subtract depending on what I did while not on the computer, but it’s a good measure.

Here are some interesting stats from my personal results.

I spend about 20 hours a week on working. It’s actually a bit more than this because I don’t tag every last thing (researching for a post or finding stock images for a site, for example), and some work takes place on the phone.

Oh, and I was having some computer trouble for ten days there where I was working and my work didn’t get logged.

Lets call it 25 total.

Anyway, I’m fairly happy with 25 hours of work per week. I think that I could be using my work time more effectively (something I’m implementing strategies for now), but that’s a good quantity. I’m spending a lot of time learning and seeing things. I think I’ll shoot for 30 hours from now on, though.

Keep in mind that unlike a real job, this only accounts for time that I’m actually working. As soon as I switch the browser to digg, it starts counting against me.

I spent 66 hours total chatting on AIM. That’s about 45 minutes a day.

It says that I spend only 15 minutes a day wasted on the internet. It’s actually more than this because I tend to waste time by clicking links from digg and reading about things, and I don’t tag all of those. Still - I do tag the big ones, so this is pretty good for me.

If you were to look at this stat last year… it would have been bad.

Time on e-mail every day: 25 minutes. Hey… maybe that’s because I’m terrible at replying to e-mails!

E-mail checking is actually a bigger timesuck than that because it breaks up my flow of work and takes a few minutes to get on track after checking. Because of this I have started working with my e-mail program closed.

Most computer time in one day: 15 hours 9 minutes, 10 and a half hours of that spent working.

76 hours spent blogging. That’s 1 and a half hours per post! I thought I was way faster than that.

But here’s the big stat: I have spent 550.33 logged hours on the computer. That means that I spend just over 6 hours a day on the computer everyday. That’s a lot, but not actually as much as I would have guessed.

It’s really interesting to have such good stats on my computer usage. If you use it too, post some of your stats here. If you don’t use it, you can check it out at www.rescuetime.com.

I had just stumbled across a site called www.hackaday.com, and I was fascinated. Most of the hacks were too nerdy for me to really be interested in, but one stuck out.

“Build a Hovercraft for under $100″

Yeah! As a kid I would always read the classifieds section of the Boy Scout magazine, and salivate over the plans to build a hovercraft. I wanted to build one and ride it around in school instead of walking.

My parents didn’t go for that idea.

I was pumped that I would finally get my day. My friend Andrew was at my hous. I told him that I was going to build a hovercraft, and he said that it was impossible.

We bet $100 on whether or not I could build it in a day. Perfect - that was my budget.

My friend Nick was over too. He was also excited about the hovercraft and he agreed to help me build it.

Off to Home Depot.

We bought a huge square of fiberboard. We were hoping to find a round piece, but couldn’t. No problem. My father is a carpenter and I used to get his hand-me-down tools, so I had plenty of saws.

Duct tape. Check.

PVC tarp for the skirt. Check.

Leaf blower. The leaf blower is what pumps the air into the skirt and lifts the thing off the ground. They suggest an electric one, but that wasn’t going to give me the range I wanted.

Knowing that I’d be getting $100 for winning the bet, I splurged and bought the biggest and baddest gas leaf blower they had available for around $85.

They suggested gluing the leaf blower to the hovercraft, but I got sidetracked in the plumbing department and spent an hour - literally - combining pipes and toilet fittings and such until I came up with an awesome mount for the leaf blower. It would be removable for easy transportation.

Then we went home and got to work. The construction was pretty easy, all things considered. We rounded out the corners, mounted the piping, and built the skirt.

The hardest part was doing all the duct taping that was required. The instructions called for completely covering the bottom with tape to make it more durable. It wasn’t that the labor was hard - the problem was that we were so close that it was hard to resist just flipping it over and trying it.

Finally we finished the construction and the moment of truth was upon us.

We cleared out a big area in the middle of the garage and fired up the leaf blower. Sure enough, the hovercraft created a little cushion of air to float on. Sawdust blew out from all directions.

I sat on it. and it supported my weight. It worked!

At first we were happy just taking turns pushing around my little driveway, but that didn’t last.

Soon we invested in brakes, which was a kid’s spiderman themed boxing glove that the driver would wear and drag on the ground to slow down.

We found that even a slight hill in a parking lot would provide enough acceleration to get some decent speed.

But that wasn’t good enough either.

Before long we were scoping out huge office park driveways that didn’t have speedbumps (surprisingly hard to find). We would tie a rope to a car and take turns pulling each other at 30mph.

Now that was fun. So fun, in fact, that when the Pick Up Convention came to Austin, a good portion of the attendees opted to skip going out in favor of hoverboarding.

Finally after a series of abuse, the skirt got too many holes and wouldn’t float very well. When I moved out of my house I gave the rig away to a father who wanted to fix it up for his son.

Maybe he’ll get to drive it in school. How bad could the carbon monoxide really be?

A few months ago I wrote about the power of persistence. I think that it was one of my better posts, and I think that adopting the habit of persistence and working hard is one of the most important habits I’ve picked up.

Since January I have been tracking my productivity. Besides having a log of what I’ve done nearly every day since I started, it’s made me be a lot more mindful about my productivity.

And as a result, I get a lot more done now. I can sit down with my laptop and bang out a batch of work without procrastinating.

I’m still not perfect, of course. Sometimes I’ll get distracted, or put something off a bit, but I’ve mad such exponential improvement that for me it’s not really even worth worrying about these imperfections. The bottom line is that if there’s work that needs to be done, I’ll get it done with no problems.

Back in the day that wasn’t the case at all. A lot of the time I would miss deadlines, self set or otherwise, or let stuff fall by the wayside. Just look at the archives of this blog as an example. There was a string of months where I posted 2-4 times per month instead of the eight I’ve been averaging recently.

So what do I have to show for it?

Well, things have been good. I finished Conversion Doubler and I’m just now starting to market it with the help of a friend who is “in the business”.

I rewrote Make Her Chase You. Sales have slowed down a bit from their heyday, but it’s still making me a bit of money.

Blog posting has gotten more consistent.

I started Daily 15, which now has over 700 people who check it every day.

All that’s great, and I’m really happy to be maxproductive.

BUT…

A new problem has cropped up. It’s actually been there all along, and I’ve been peripherally aware of it, but knocking my major stumbling block down has thrust this one into the limelight.

I’m not focused.

Look at all of these projects I start and then get distracted from. I have several more ideas for things I want to start, but I’m now restraining myself.

Even if we boil it down to the core projects of Conversion Doubler, Make Her Chase You, and this blog, that’s three major ways that my attention is being split.

Will I really rise to the top of any of these projects if it only gets one third of my time and energy?

The truth is that I probably won’t. Especially when I start to be drawn to new projects every time stuff gets boring.

Right now that means marketing. Conversion Doubler needs to be marketed, and I hate doing that part. I want to make something and let its excellence sell itself. But that’s not how it works.

Same with Make Her Chase you. I need to spend more time on adwords, rewrite my copy, etc. Every week I write a new newsletter for it, which takes up time.

But of course what is much MORE exciting is new projects. I have a really good idea for a book now - one I think I could sell like 4HWW. But I’m starting to realize that I just can’t divide my attention anymore.

I have a tough time saying no to anything.

That’s the problem I’m dealing with. I don’t know what the right solution is, but for now I’m going to stop myself from doing any new projects. That alone is pretty drastic for me. I’m not sure when I’ll allow myself to do new projects, but maybe I’ll know when I get there.

And really I know that this isn’t as thorough a rule as I should give myself. Really I should cut out one of my projects that I have now, but I can’t see a good way to do that yet..

I was messing around with Google street view for the first time today, and look what I found. My old house!

Link

Parked behind it is my old car. Aww, the good old days. Back when I had things.

I really do miss the RV, though. I loved that thing so much. When I go back to Austin in the winter I’m going to see if I can rent another one.

Today I was talking with my friend, Hayden. One of the things I like about talking with Hayden is that he probably has more insight into my life than I do. He’ll often describe something I do or think in a way that I’d never thought about it, which then gives me something to ponder for a few days, weeks, etc.

Ironically, he’s also the one who recommended the two books that made me adopt the MaxDiet, even though he doesn’t follow it himself.

Today he asked me if I ever feel like crap.

He asks me this every few months, maybe because he doesn’t really believe me.

“Never.”

And it’s true. I definitely have a range of how I’m feeling, but it ranges from “really good” to “incredible”. Never okay, never bad.

I’ve written a bit about this before. A year ago I wrote about how I never get angry. The ladies in my life at the time then started a riot in the comments and everyone started defending being angry.

I felt a little bit vindicated when I read The Power of Now, which basically said the same thing WAY more eloquently. Actually, I only read the beginning of that book because I found it way too boring, even though the message was awesome.

But this is different. Besides not feeling angry, I also never feel depressed or inadequate, or anything like that.

Hayden’s explanation, which I think is right, is that I set my own standards. That’s probably a nice way of saying that I really don’t care what anyone thinks about me.

And I can see how in today’s society it could go the other way. If you look at TV shows, advertising, or movies, there are clear messages being sent.

You’re supposed to get straight As at a top school, get a high paying job, buy a sportscar, find your perfect spouse, buy a house, wear cool clothes and be beautiful like me, go on vacation in the Caribbean, and have kids. And that’s just by the time you’re 30.

Do these things, the legend says, and you will be happy.

There are two problems with this message.

First, this isn’t the path that most people can or want to go down, when it comes right down to it. People don’t meet the perfect girl. They get sidetracked on their own projects. When bombarded by this message, though, people get that nagging, “I’m not on track anymore” feeling.

Second, when people DO get that Porsche Boxster, the $100k salary, and their first mortgage, they aren’t happier. They’re only as happy as they’ve always been. Maybe less because the dream is gone.

“I worked that hard for THIS?”

I forget who said it first, but a phrase really stuck with me.

“You can never get enough of what you don’t want.”

In other words, if you go after society’s standards, you will NEVER reach happiness. I’ve seen this so many times over.

However, when you change your definition of success to one that’s a lot more appropriate, like, “success is when I spend all or most of my time doing what  Iwant to do”, it’s easy and FUN to be successful.

Some people might call this lowering your standards. That’s a poor way of looking at it. Maybe you aren’t going to work 80 hours a week to afford a BMW lease, but you are going to spend more time scuba diving and reading. Which is better? Whichever one YOU want to do.

In my case, I’m essentially homeless. At one point I bought a house and two cars. Now I have no cars, no house, and actually no posessions that don’t fit in my backpack.

By society’s standards, I’m WAY less successful. By my standards, which are the only ones I care about, I’m way more successful. I’m seeing the world, learning, and becoming less materialistic.

As a result, I feel great about myself. I’m doing what I want to do. I’m happy. I feel no pressure from anyone, because I don’t care about their expectations of me.

But don’t bad things happen to me? Aren’t some days better than others?

Sure. Yesterday, for example, I got almost no work done. Even though I’m in Bangkok, I didn’t really go out and see the city. In terms of my standards it wasn’t a great day.

But…

It’s important to learn acceptance. Eckhart Tolle talks about how any anger is the act of not accepting “the now”, as he calls it.

Most days are full of me doing the things I want to be doing. Once in a while, like yesterday, I drop the ball. So I accept it. I’m not perfect.

I focus on the positives, too. While I didn’t go out and see much, I did go get some coconuts in a new area of town, and that was interesting. I started writing this post. I had some good meals and spent some time with my friends.

And hey… I’m ALIVE. The joy of being alive and having been given the chance to live life will always trump everything. You could string 400 terrible days together and I would still be happy because I am alive. Everything else is a blip on the radar.

To sum it up, three ways to always be happy that work for me:

1. Disregard anyone else’s expectations for you (including parents and society) and do what you want to do, Do it openly, honestly, and proudly. You have one life, and it is yours only. So enjoy it.

2. Accept that bad things will happen, but even if they do there is SO MUCH GOOD going on that they are irrelevant. You can consider them, act on them, but shouldn’t be affected by them because there is too much good to ever justify not feeling great.

3. Think every day about how lucky you are to be alive. Any one of millions of sperm could have reached your mother’s egg, but you were the one that made it. Trace that probability back a few generations and realize that EVERYTHING you have is a total gift. It is nearly impossible that you would be born, but you were. Is something like having your TV stolen REALLY enough to offset feeling great because you’re so lucky to be alive?

Be happy.

Many years ago I decided that when I died I would become cryogenically frozen when I died.

Of course, that decision carried no weight - the procedure costs more than one hundred thousand dollars, money which I didn’t have to set aside.

A couple months ago I walked into Style’s living room. Mystery was there.

“Herbal!”

“Mystery!”

I’m not sure that either of us has ever called the other by his real name.

“Want to see something really cool?”

Of course I do.

He pulls off his boot, and from under his sock he finds a stainless steel anklet. It looks like a medical tag.

“I’m getting frozen.”

No way. We’d talked about it years ago when we lived in Project Hollywood, but he’d actually done it. Sure enough, his tag had instructions on it to call Alcor, the leading cryonics outfit.

“it’s a lot easier than you think. You should get it taken care of.”

So right. Is it expensive?

“Nope. You just get insurance for it. It comes out of your checking account every month and you don’t worry about it.”

Wow. Insurance. Why did I never look into this enough to realize that you didn’t have to fork over the whole $150k in advance?

A few weeks later I sat at my computer and remembered our conversation. Time to get things done. I quickly found Rudi Hoffman, the best insurance agent for Cryonics.

I called him up, and was pleasantly surprised. He was super friendly, took a lot of time to answer all of my questions, and wasn’t at all what I was expecting for an insurance agent. It turns out Mystery used him too. Everyone does, because he has connections with insurance companies that are cryonics friendly.

I went with $250k of insurance. I’m going with full body preservation. Mystery went with brain only.

It’s a tough choice. Brain preservation is slightly higher quality (fewer fissures) and less expensive. Whole body preserves everything, so if for some reason there’s a need for the rest of the body, it’s there.

I picked whole body because from what I’ve read it appears that within my lifetime it will catch up to brain in quality. And even if it doesn’t, the quality of the freeze is close enough. I’d hate to get to the future, find out that we still need bodies, and not have mine with me.

People who choose brain are basically betting that if we can reanimate people, we’ll also be able to regrow bodies OR we won’t need them (we’ll all be in the matrix). Not a bad bet, either.

The Cost

The costs from Alcor are around $30 a month. That includes membership fees which support future research as well as “standby”, which means that if you get terminally ill or are in critical condition, Alcor will send a team to wait by your bedside.

Insurance varies greatly between people and situations. If you’re young, as most of my readers are, it will be very cheap.

There are two viable types of insurance, universal life and term. Term means that you are covered for a certain period of time, and then the policy becomes worthless. I got term for 20 years and it costs around $25/mo.

Universal life will cover you until you die, but it is more expensive. Talk to Rudi and he will explain the different benefits and drawbacks to each.

I chose term because I know that I’ll be rich within twenty years, and would rather pay less now. I also didn’t like that UL was basically term with an investment component - I’d rather invest my own money.

I insured for $250k instead of the $150k required. I did this because future advances in technology may be more expensive (they’re working on a better storage method right now). Probably a good idea.

Will it Work?

We can’t bring people back from the dead. Not even close. We can’t really even preserve a single organ for a long period of time, and we can’t freeze animals larger than bugs and bring them back.

So we’re a LONG way away. And to be totally clear, there’s no guarantee whatsoever that I’ll ever come back.

The scientists think that the current quality of freezing (more accurately, vitrification) is probably good enough that future technology will be able to bring people back to life. They think this because examinations of brain tissue that they vitrify seems to indicate that it is well preserved.

No one knows for sure, since we don’t have the technology to revive people.

But… the idea is that in TIME, which we dead people will have plenty of, it will someday be possible to revive the frozen people. Think of how far we’ve come in 1000 years. How far will we go in the next 1000?

Why Do It?

Most people aren’t too keen on the idea of getting frozen and potentially living forever. This is so baffling to me. I can’t even begin to comprehend why ANYONE wouldn’t want this.

I consider the likelihood of heaven, afterlife, or reincarnation to be just about a 1% probability combined. Not likely, but you never know. (For you religious types, there are some thoughts by clergypeople on Alcor’s site)

That means that if I die I’m most likely looking at nothing. Just like when a plant or animal dies.

So….

There are a million things that could go wrong with freezing.

Lightning could burn down the facility. They could run out of money. Pirates could steal my body and eat it.

Or maybe it will be something more mundane: there’s just no way to revive people. The religious people were right and souls leave the body when you’re dead and there’s no way of coaxing them back in.

Who says they’ll even WANT to bring us all back. Maybe there’s no incentive.

These are all remote possibilities that, when added up, become a very real possibility.

BUT…

ANY chance is better than NO chance. Period. The upside is SO HUGE (immortality and a chance to experience the future), that it would be foolish (to me anyway) NOT to do it.

Is $55 per month going to impact my life in any real way? No. Is the chance at living forever going to impact my life? It would quite possibly be the BIGGEST impact to my life besides being born in the first place.

Huge upside, minimal downside.

People always have these weird what ifs -

“What if they enslave you?”

“What if they use your body for science?”

“What if you come out all messed up?”

“What if the future is terrible?”

My answer is always the same. WHO CARES?

It’s like the shot from half court that a basketball player makes at the buzzer. If it doesn’t go in, then you lost nothing. No big deal.

Anyway, I’m working through the application process right now and won’t be officially signed up until I get my medical test in the US in November, but I couldn’t wait to write about it any longer.

Here are a few objections raised in the comments. Although I’ve answered a few already, I want to put the bulk of them together in one spot.

1. Other things are dangerous too. Why eat healthy if you’re not going to take EVERY precaution?

This is a pretty good question, especially aimed at me because I do tend to do fairly dangerous things occasionally.

The CDC says that the top six causes of death in the US are:

1. Heart disease: 652,091
2. Cancer: 559,312
3. Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 143,579
4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 130,933
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries): 117,809
6. Diabetes: 75,119

The things we cut out of the MaxDiet are directly and scientifically proven to be responsible for four out of the six. These make up 59.7% of the deaths in the US every year. If you’re willing to agree that part of the MaxDiet is not smoking, you can bump that up to just over 65%.

Compare that to the 5.4% of deaths that accidents make up. This is a HUGE chunk of causes-of-death that the MaxDiet virtually eliminates. Sure there is still the chance of getting skin cancer or being so stressed that you’ll have a heart attack anyways, but by and large, diet is THE root reason for these causes of death.

And even in cases of potentially getting skin cancer, all of the antioxidants and largely alkaline properties of the food have been proven to fight cancer.

Let me remind you again that this is a quality of life issue as well as a quantity of life issue. Lives not spent in the hospital are better.

I am willing to put considerable effort into diet because of all the possible ways I could die, the industrialized diet is by far the most likely to kill me.

I’d do it even if it was unpleasant. But it’s not. Here’s a graph of my food enjoyment:

As you can see, yes… it does suck to switch. You miss the foods you’re used to eating and everything seems very inconvenient. Foods taste bland. Then after a while you start loving it so much that you’d never consider going back. Normal food seems gross and artificial.

Bottom line - diet is the best way to prevent terminal diseases, and (to me and others I know who have switched) it is more enjoyable once you transition to it.

2. This Source Says that Eating Meat is Good for You!

Food is a very controversial issue, and everyone has an opinion on it. Some of these people are scientists, and some are compelling writers (*cough cough*).

Pick any decision you’ve made and you’ll find someone on the internet or in a book who says it’s wrong. They will always be out there.

However, if you follow the science you’ll see that a diet made up of the ingredients in the MaxDiet consistently proves to be healthiest. This is like the people who claim that there is no global warming. A lot of people believe that and can be very convincing, but scientists are pretty much unanimous.

Of course there are a few studies here and there that show that meat is good for you. This could be due to variance or poor experiment design. The largest and most complete study (among others) shows that it’s definitely bad.

And here’s the thing. I’m not 100% convinced. I’m 100% convinced on flours and sugars, but for meat I’m around 95%. Maybe there is some hidden benefit to meat that we haven’t discovered or something like that. But current research just doesn’t show it. So I go with the science and keep my ear to the ground.

And while we’re on the subject - I’ve never found a study that shows that eating only the items on the MaxDiet is unhealthy. And I’ve looked.

3. All Vegans are Pale and Weak

I actually agree with this somewhat, mainly because most vegans eat TERRIBLE diets. The typical vegan gets rid of meat and replaces it with weird soy / chemical based analogues and even more refined flours.

To be clear - if you’re going to eat like that, you’re better off eating meat.

Meat has many good things in it, but it also has a number of bad things in it that make it suboptimal. Flour and sugar are worse - they are pure nutritional evil.

Besides - let’s compare apples to apples. What does the average meat eater look like?

The MaxDiet is not about being vegan. That’s part of it, and the easiest one word label for it, but it’s about a lot more. That’s why I put all these posts together, rather than just talking about meat.

The average person who switches to the diet looks better than before. That’s been the experience of all of my friends who have tried it, and that’s been my experience. Try it for yourself and see.

4. Vegans don’t get enough protein

First of all, meat protein has been shown, as mentioned earlier, to contribute to all of the leading causes of death in the Western world. So first consider how much good that protein is actually doing you.

Next, realize that everything in the MaxDiet has protein in it (except fruit). Instead of eating meat, which provides a lot of protein, and then eating bread and junk that has virtually none, you eat small amounts of protein in every meal.

You will probably eat less protein on the MaxDiet, but the typical diet today has too much, which can actually cause liver issues. If you want to eat a ton of protein anyway, just stock up on nuts, seeds, and hemp protein (or just ground up hemp seeds).

The End Of MaxDiet Week

I’ve said my piece. It’s a bit disappointing to me that more people aren’t motivated to try it out or at least get the books I recommended and research it more for themselves.

Maybe I haven’t written compellingly, maybe people are too stuck in their ways, maybe it just seems too difficult to switch. I don’t really know.

For what it’s worth, I consider adopting this diet to be one of my very best choices in life. If any of this stuff struck a chord, I’d highly suggest that you try it out for 30-60 days. If you need any help with it, start a thread on the forum and I’ll respond personally.

Refined flours and sugars are out. Meat is out. When people hear this, they often say, “wow… what’s left?”

It’s a sad statement on our current food system when that question is asked, because it shows how far from eating healthy we’ve gone. The two least healthy things a human can readily digest have become our bread and butter, so to speak.

What happened to beans, nuts, vegetables, whole grains, and fruits?

Beans

Beans are amazing for you and totally delicious. . Black beans, kidney beans, lima beans, lentils, garbanzo beans, and white beans are all fantastic.

Besides being great with rice or in meals, you can also eat beans cold straight from the can. It’s a great satisfying snack, supremely nutritious, and can be carried anywhere (get the ones with the pull off tops). They cost next to nothing, too, especially if you get them dry and cook them yourself.

Nuts

Nuts are another great snack. Almonds are a perfect food - high in both protein and healthy Omega 3 fats (by the way…. these healthy fats do NOT make you fat). Walnuts, pecans, and all the other suspects are great too. Peanuts are among the worst (their fat composition isn’t ideal), but are still fine.

When getting nut butters make sure that there are no added ingredients other than salt. Most companies add sugar and oil.

Vegetables and Fruits

Other than white potatoes, pretty much any fruit or vegetable is good for you and can be eaten with reckless abandon. Variety is a good idea, as is making sure you get enough dark greens. Fruits and vegetables have so many vitamins and minerals in them that it’s ridiculous that they’re usually side dishes.

We eat so few vegetables that we have to take pills to get nutrients. How backwards is that?

Think about an orange. It tastes like candy, is good for you, is refreshing, and comes with its own durable packaging that decomposes quickly and is good for the earth.

It’s perfect. Compare that to starburst candies. They taste good too, but are terrible for you and come with packaging that pollutes. And that’s not even considering the amount of energy it took to make them.

Whole Grains

The modern grain refining process takes away the most nutritious parts of the grain, and leaves the nutritionally vacant inner part. What does that say about our food supply? We take away the good part and leave the junk.

Whole grains are great for you, though. Whole wheat, whole oats, quinoa, brown rice, kamut, and other grains are fantastic.

Grinding them down to whole grain flour is okay, but not as good as keeping the grains intact. A couple breads that are amazing are Ezekiel bread and Alvarado Farms bread. They sprout and mash the grains rather than milling them. The closer to the original form of the food you can get, the better it is.

Oils and Seasoning

Oils are generally bad, but olive oil is a shining exception. You can stir fry in it, use it to dip your bread in, make salad dressings with it, or use it to “butter” your popcorn.

Avocado oil is also excellent but more expensive and hard to find.

Coco butter (aka unrefined coconut oil), when in its semi-solid white virgin state, is also fantastic. You can even use it as a moisturizer for your skin. It’s sweet so it’s good for making healthy desserts.

Salt is fine for you IF you drink enough water so that you’re peeing clear. If you let it dehydrate you then it’s no good. Get sea salt - it’s from the sea instead of being synthesized from chemicals. It tastes better too.

All spices are good to eat. Things like fresh basil are excellent to eat.

Putting it All Together

All of these ingredients are so good that you can eat pretty much any proportion of them and you’ll be fine. Since they are foods your body “understands”, you will probably naturally want to eat the correct proportions.

On this diet you don’t really need to count calories or macronutrient breakdowns. Just eat whatever you want, and eat a lot of it. You’ll be eating so much more fiber and water that you’ll have to get used to eating more frequently or larger portions.

To give you a general idea of what to eat, here’s what I might eat on a day:

Breakfast:

• Oatmeal cooked in water with fruit, raisins, and almonds.
• Fresh squeezed unpasteurized orange juice

Lunch:

• Can of black beans
• Almond butter and sugar free jelly or banana sandwich on sprouted grain bread

Dinner:

• Steamed broccoli, cauliflower, carrots
• Kale with almonds and lemon
• Brown rice and lentils
• Sweet potato or squash soup

Snacks:

• Fruits
• Almonds
• Beans
• Popcorn popped in olive oil

What it’s Like

I’d tell you if the diet wasn’t great. The one big compromise is that eating out becomes much more difficult. The first month or two takes some adjusting and you’ll crave old foods. Strangely, I craved egg rolls, a food I was never particuarly into.

After a while you develop a disgust for traditional food. You see it for what it is- sustenance that is slowly damaging your body and working against your goals.

Eating becomes WAY more enjoyable and satisfying. Other people who have started eating like this say the same thing. You taste flavors you’ve never known, and you gain a deep contentment because you know that your body LOVES what you’re putting in it. You know that you’re eating the way you were designed to eat. You appreciate your food more.

Some people suggest that everything in “moderation” is okay. It depends what your standards are, and I find it hilarious that they always think the best option is moderation between things they KNOW are good for them and things they LIKE. Strange coincidence…

The argument that you need to eat meat and sugar to enjoy life is ridiculous too. It’s the difference between surface and depth. Are cheap sugar induced thrills the key to enjoying life? Or is it eating in a way that is satisfying and in alignment with your values and goals?

You know where I stand.

This series finishes with Part V, where I cover some common objections.