Pod Insights The School of Greatness 116 How to Double Your Energy (The HEALTHY Way) with Yuri Elkaim About this episode "Caffeine is to energy like credit cards are to financial health." - Yuri Elkaim If you enjoyed this episode, find show notes and more at www.lewishowes.com/podcast/yuri-elkaim. Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX
Transcript 10,631 words · 2 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Lewis Howes? This is episode number 116 with New York Times bestselling author, Uriel Kane. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. What is up everyone? Thank you so much for joining me today on the School of Greatness podcast, and I am fired up. Here's why. I've been getting so many
0:41 Lewis Howes? messages from all of you, the School of Greatness Nation, and it's been incredible. I've been getting a lot of people sending messages specifically over the last 15 episodes. Since we hit number 100, it's like it went bananas all over the world. And it's grown dramatically. We've downloaded numbers are up a ton. We're just like going like crazy. And it's been a lot of fun. And I really appreciate you guys reaching out to me and sharing with me what's working for you guys in your life, how the podcast is supporting you. So continue to reach out either by Twitter, Facebook, my email, whatever may be. Let me know what podcast you're liking the most, how it's supporting you in your life. I love seeing this testimonials from you guys. And I like
1:25 Lewis Howes? to share them out sometimes as well. So stay connected with me, you know, follow me on Instagram. I love following your journey and seeing what you're up to. So thank you guys so much for being a part of this movement. We just hit over three and a half million downloads. We're getting almost 500,000 downloads a month right now. It's just growing like crazy. And it's all because of you guys spreading the message of greatness. So thank you guys so much. If you haven't checked out the last episode with Jim Quick on how to master your memory, make sure to check that out when you're done with this one with Yuri, because it's a it was a it blew up the internet as well. So many people loved it. And they've been sharing it like crazy. But let's talk about today's guest. His name is Mr. Yuri Elkaim. And he is a very interesting guy. I wasn't sure what to expect when I brought Yuri on.
2:10 Lewis Howes? But when he started diving into the things that we're going to cover, which is the seven energy commandments that you'll likely never find in a medical book and the three everyday foods in your kitchen that are robbing you of your energy. He started to really captivate me in ways that I wasn't even aware of. And I've done a lot of research on health, you know, for me, my health is a big deal. And it's what I talk about a lot on this podcast and in my daily life. But I learned a lot from Yuri in this episode, and I think you guys will a lot as well. He's got some great information about energy and how food is energy. And really, the things that we put in our bodies is robbing us of our greatness
2:51 Lewis Howes? and robbing us of our maximum potential of reaching the highest levels that are humanly possible with the foods we put in our bodies. So I want you guys to pay attention and really check this out. He's got a book also, it's a New York Times bestseller that's called The All Day Energy Diet. And in a world where people drink coffee just to stay awake for a couple of hours constantly throughout the day and to give them the energy they need, what would it be like if you didn't need coffee or a pick me up or an energy drink? What would it be like in your life if you could remove every substance to give you a pick me up and only use foods to support you, healthy foods to support you?
3:34 Lewis Howes? And it would actually give you 10 to 100 times more energy every single day because of the things you were putting in your body and the way you slept. What would life be like if you could get rid of all of that and just have natural energy? The energy you're supposed to have because you're a human being and you're putting the right things in your body? So I want you to think about that going into this episode. I'm very excited about this. Make sure to take notes and check out the show notes at lewishouse.com/116 afterwards because there are going to be some good images on there, links, all those different things you want to check out. So I'm excited about this one. Let's go ahead and dive in with the one and only Yuri Elkheim.
4:19 Lewis Howes? Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. I am here with Yuri Elkaim. How's it going, my man?
4:25 Speaker 01 It's going great. How are you, buddy?
4:27 Lewis Howes? Doing well. And you know, you've been blowing up the scene lately because you came out with a book called The All Day Energy Diet, and it's done extremely well. So congratulations on that.
4:39 Speaker 01 Thank you.
4:39 Lewis Howes? I think you've been in like Costco and Walmarts and Targets and all over the world. You've had a lot of great distribution. I believe that's where you've been, so.
4:48 Speaker 01 Well, we've definitely, I don't know if I've been in Walmart or Costco yet, but we've definitely been in all the major bookstores. Obviously, online, everywhere, Dr. Oz, The Doctors, all those fun places. So it's been good. Yeah.
5:01 Lewis Howes? Very cool. I am interested, you have, you have a mission. I love people with a mission. I've got a big mission myself, and your mission is to empower at least 10 million people to experience all-day energy and amazing health in the next few years. I think it's by 2018, you said.
5:15 Speaker 01 Yes.
5:15 Lewis Howes? So why are you so passionate about this mission and, and, and energy in general?
5:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, and I should add to that, we're actually on a mission to help 100 million people by 2024.
5:25 Lewis Howes? There you go.
5:25 Speaker 01 So, yeah, so it's the 10 million is a big stepping stone to the, to the bigger goal. And just ultimately, my, my objective is to help people experience their life to the fullest, because I've been very blessed from a young age to have been very active. And I was also very blessed to have encountered some really kind of sidestepping health issues that made me realize at a young age how important it is to have good health. And I've seen and helped a lot of people who have struggled with, you know, simple things that can be turned around that have kind of just debilitated them, whether it be low energy, or too much weight, or poor eating habits, or lack of motivation to work out. And I don't think anybody willingly wants to feel like crap.
6:11 Speaker 01 So it's all about helping people and kind of inspiring them and giving them hope that tomorrow can be better than today. But in order for that to happen, there needs to be some action that's going to be, uh, going to be required to make that a little bit different from yesterday. But ultimately, it's, you know, we live in a time where we have more access to information, more access to food, more access to every solution that we ever possibly would need for anything, whether it be a health issue, financial issues, anything. And we're still drowning in complexity. And so people are starving for wisdom and clear guidance in this, um, in this kind of jungle of, of complexity. And, and my goal is to really, what I do very well is I take complexity and I simplify it for people.
6:56 Speaker 01 And if I can show somebody how to take a complex issue like weight loss or energy and make it simple for them and help them take day-to-day actions to move them in that direction, then that's, you know, that's, that's pretty awesome. So that's what I'm here to do and really give people, um, uh, you know, the tools and resources and strategies to help them live an amazing life.
7:15 Lewis Howes? I love that. And, you know, it talks about in your book that you suffered from constant fatigue and eczema and your, even your hair started falling out at seventeen. And I remember playing sports a lot in high school and in college and feeling extremely exhausted in practice, extremely exhausted in games. And I really didn't understand what was happening until later in my life when I realized it's because I was just eating carbs and pasta and gluten and dairy before a game. And all those things probably didn't support me and sugar, you know, all didn't support me right before a game, like eating candy bars in the locker room. Was it all these issues that you were facing when you were younger? Is that why you started to jump into learning about nutrition? Cause I know you went to nutrition school as well, right?
8:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, so my goal from I think, I think the earliest I can remember, I was about ten years old and I realized that I was really good in soccer, a lot better than a lot of the other kids I was playing with. And I was like, you know what, let's, it would be cool if I could pursue this. So I spent most of like the next twelve years just focused on soccer and it kind of masked a lot of the health issues that were going on. So I was fit.
8:24 Lewis Howes? Right.
8:25 Speaker 01 But I was unhealthy.
8:26 Lewis Howes? I was the same way, man. It's like, you, you look good.
8:29 Speaker 01 Exactly. And it's, it's okay. You can run it off, right? You can burn off those calories. And that's the problem. That's the thinking that gets people into trouble. And that's what got me into trouble was that I was having McDonald's before soccer games all the way into, into my college years. I was having, I would go to McDonald's before a game. It was like, it was crazy. So, um, but again, when you're young, you're think, you think you're invincible and you can get away with whatever.
8:50 Lewis Howes? Yep.
8:51 Speaker 01 So I had a lot of digestive issues, eczema, really bad asthma to the point of when I was really young, having to, I don't even know if they have them anymore, those kind of Darth Vader ventolin tanks that you have to, with a mask you have to put on your face. So I played road hockey outside for ten minutes and then like come back in and put it on. And when I was playing soccer, I would have, I was a goalie, so I would have my puffer right beside the goalpost just in case. So that, that, that, that was with me for pretty much all the way up into my early twenties. And I didn't realize that all of that was due to the foods that I was eating growing up. Like you just mentioned, pretty much my entire diet.
9:26 Lewis Howes? Right.
9:26 Speaker 01 Um, up until I was twenty four, which consisted of grains, like pastas, cereals, breads. I could live on bread and cheese every single day.
9:35 Lewis Howes? Me too. Cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
9:37 Speaker 01 Totally, you know? And like, I remember I would have like a huge bowl of shreddies with three tablespoons of, of white sugar on top of that and, and two percent milk on top. And then I would be like, oh my God, my stomach is so uncomfortable. And I'd have to go lay down on my bed and, you know, lift up my legs and just let my legs hang out to just kind of relieve the gas. And I had no idea what was going on for so long. And it really all culminated when I was seventeen. I mean, low energy was, was the, you know, tip of the iceberg. Um, when I was seventeen, in my senior year of high school, I got home from soccer practice one night and I was taking a shower, washing my hair and I looked at my hands and I was like, oh my God, I've got, why is there a chunk of hair in my hands?
10:22 Speaker 01 And at the time I had like, you know, a full head of hair. My dad is Moroccan, so you can only imagine how much hair I had. So it was a really uncomfortable situation. So I'm in my senior year of high school. All of a sudden, my hair is starting to fall out. And within the space of about six weeks, I'd lost all my hair. Everything eyebrows, eyelashes, everything. Yeah.
10:44 Lewis Howes? Oh my eyebrows and eyelashes?
10:46 Speaker 01 Everything. Yeah.
10:47 Lewis Howes? Was your body just rejecting the things you were putting into it?
10:50 Speaker 01 Pretty much. So I go to my doctor and my doctor diagnosed me with alopecia, which is an autoimmune condition. And that was good to know, but what else, the other thing that would have been nice to know is how to kind of resolve that. And that was an answer that never came for about eight and a half years. So I went to all sorts of medical doctors, you know, Chinese, traditional Chinese medical doctors. And naturopaths and all sorts of stuff. Actually, that's right. I didn't actually go the naturopathic route until I learned more about nutrition. So for eight years, I struggled with this kind of hair loss. I kind of lost it and then I came back a little bit and then lost it again. And I had no idea about autoimmune conditions. And at this time, I was actually studying at the University of Toronto for
11:35 Speaker 01 my degree in kinesiology and health sciences, and I was still clueless with respect to nutrition. So long story short, a couple of years later, I came back and really pursued studies in holistic nutrition. And on the first day, I asked my professors, who at the time naturopathic doctors. I said, you know, I've been, I've been dealing with this autoimmune condition for eight years. I have really low energy. I've got like eczema and asthma issues. Like, do you guys think it could be related to my diet? And they're like, absolutely, we see it all the time. And I was like, really? Just one sentence? That's all I had? That's all you guys? That's all I? For eight years, I had no solutions. And then you guys are saying you see this every day. So it was frustrating, but also very relieving at the same point because I was able to,
12:21 Speaker 01 as I started to learn more about nutrition and how it interacts, like how food interacts with our body, I was very quickly able to learn like, wow, no wonder I had all these issues because the very foods I was eating were just like crushing my body. So I was able to turn all that around within a couple of weeks. My hair started growing back. Energy is, you know, through the roof within a couple of days. Eczema, asthma, gone. And just in full disclosure, with an autoimmune condition, it can come and go. So about two years ago, I started losing my hair again. And so right now, if you see a picture of me, I have nothing, but it's, but it's all good. I actually think that was related to a vaccination that I got for whatever reason I'm not too sure of.
13:03 Speaker 01 But anyways, so that was, you know, kind of my journey and I'm blessed that it happened because it gave me a lot of perspectives. I also played pro soccer for three years, so I had a lot of amazing experiences from that and learnings from that. And, you know, combining my educational experience with my own health challenges and then obviously being a former pro athlete, I was able to take a lot of things and kind of bring them together and give people some really interesting and unique perspectives on health that could make a huge difference for them.
13:33 Lewis Howes? Interesting. And you, you talk about how to double your energy in seven days. And you have seven commandments of energy. Can you first explain those and then tell me if you actually live by all of them all the time?
13:46 Speaker 01 Yeah. So the seven command, these are kind of controversial because as, as you know, like, you know, as an athlete growing up, and when I talk about as an athlete, I'm really talking about anybody who's interested in performance. So we were taught that in order to have energy, you had to have a lot of carbohydrates in the forms of grains and stuff. And the problem with that is that most grains just, you know, crush your body because they're full of gluten. And gluten is a very problematic inflammatory protein. So anyways, these, these seven commandments really challenge the status quo. Some of them are backed by science, some of them are not yet, but based on a lot of experience, having helped over 500,000 people
14:29 Speaker 01 in the past two decades, I've seen some very predictable trends based on a lot of these things. So. For instance, one of the commandments is that I'll start off with one that's actually kind of not very intuitive when it comes to energy. So anything that slows down your digestion is going to compromise your energy. So let's use the example of like Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner where you have a, you know, a huge serving of, or two servings of turkey and stuffing and all that stuff. The challenge with that is that that's a very, very intense and demanding process or a demanding type of meal for your stomach to deal with.
15:09 Speaker 01 And what I've realized is that in the body, energy is really a zero sum game. So if energy is being diverted to digestion, our body doesn't have the same amount of energy to put towards repair, healing and regeneration. And so that's why when we have a heavy meal, we feel so tired afterwards because so much of our energy is diverted right to our digestive system. So much blood flow is going down there to process all this food. And that's a very, you know, consuming type of endeavor. So if you, if you think back to Thanksgiving dinner, I've had many Thanksgiving dinners where I've literally fallen asleep at the table or on the couch afterwards, the typical food coma.
15:53 Speaker 01 So anything, any type of activity that is going to compromise your digestion, like a heavy meal, is going to lower your energy. So the flip side is that, again, this is, this has actually been proven scientifically in a lot of studies now, is that eating less can actually improve your energy. And the reason for this is because if our body is not digesting all the time, then it now has the energy to spend on regeneration, tissue repair, getting rid of dead cells, all that kind of stuff.
16:24 Lewis Howes? What if you love to eat like me?
16:27 Speaker 01 Well, it's the reality is that like you can totally have days where you go full out, you know, and then you can have days that you have less food intake. And what you'll find, this is actually a really good experiment for anyone to do is as a challenge, just take a day where you don't have any food. And it's actually one of the best things you can do for your health. There's been studies done on a lot of different animals, but specifically with monkeys, where they've followed them for up to 10 years and they've shown, there's actually some amazing pictures on this, this stuff online, where they've shown the monkeys that consumed about 30% fewer calories looked dramatically younger than the other group that were consuming calories ad libitum, so as much as they wanted.
17:10 Speaker 01 And it's very interesting because we know that fasting or eating less is one of the few things that we can do that actually increases the length or preserves the length of our telomeres, which are little kind of protective casings at the end of our chromosomes. And it's amazing, you know, you don't have to take a drug to have that happen. You can just not eat for a day and have very similar benefits. Again, I personally fast once a week, so that's a very simple thing. No food once a week. No, I just actually did it's, well, my last one was two days ago. So really simple thing, you have dinner at night. Let's say you're finished by, let's say you're finished digesting by like eight o'clock. That's the beginning of your fast. And then you go to bed, you wake up the next morning, by eight o'clock the next morning,
17:55 Speaker 01 you've already done 12 hours of your fast. Most of it's been done while you're sleeping and the real benefits kick in at about 18 hours. So if you can make it till mid afternoon, and again, the first time, I'll be very honest, is going to be challenging for people. But you learn a ton about yourself. You learn a ton about why you eat when you do. You learn about wider, like the weird emotional relationships we have with food. But the cool thing is that, you know, you finish your 18 to 24 hour fast, either let's say mid afternoon or early evening. And then you feel, it's just like there's this amazing lifting of clarity and especially for people in our field of kind of like entrepreneurs in business, you know, clarity and productivity and focus is so important.
18:36 Speaker 01 And all of that is diminished when we are constantly stuffing our faces with food. Wow. And this leads me to one of the other principles, which is essentially There's a relationship where I've I've noticed that there's a relationship between cognitive function and energy. So anything that like clutters our minds or leads us to feeling depressed and kind of takes away our our focus is going to deplete our energy. So let me give you a I'm sure a lot of listeners can relate to this. A lot of us are, you know, kind of type A entrepreneurs who are always going, going, going, have a lot of ideas.
19:13 Lewis Howes? Yep.
19:14 Speaker 01 We feel like there's this constant wheel, just like nonstop turning in our minds. But if you stop and think about it sometimes, that process is very draining. And one of the best things you can do is just clear that out of your head, at least temporarily, because what that does, it's almost like plugging your phone into the wall and recharging your batteries. So one of the things that I like to do is is encourage people to take five minutes in their day, when they feel there are kind of that wheel going a thousand miles per hour, is take five minutes, remove yourself, sit down, close your eyes, and do some deep breathing. You know, it's a simple practice, and it's so powerful at regenerating your spirit and your energy, much more effective than relying on caffeine.
19:54 Lewis Howes? That's powerful. I like that. I'm I'm a big meditator myself, so taking time to breathe, and I've learned about a lot more recently, the power of deep intentional breathing, even for two to three minutes, can be extremely powerful. Like you said, I guess, five minutes. And I think it's extremely important to do a number of times throughout the day, and start your day with that, and finish your day. I think it's really powerful to create to gain that clarity.
20:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, absolutely. It's huge. I'll I'll share the probably probably the biggest principle when it comes to the commandments of energy is is the following. So our bloodstream carries our oxygen to ourselves, right? So every single cell in our body requires oxygen, and the cells take that oxygen and convert it into energy. In order for oxygen to be delivered to our cells, it must flow freely in our bloodstream. But the problem is that most people's bloodstreams are like driving in LA traffic in rush Yeah. Right? Or New York, you know, or any major city. Exactly, right? So it's like you're in a car and you're trying to get from A to B, but it's taking you forever or 10 times longer than it would if you were driving on the highway
21:03 Speaker 01 at 2:00 in the morning. So the goal is to turn your bloodstream into that 2:00 in the morning highway. And in order for that to happen, you have to be consuming and eating the right foods that allow that to happen. So by that, I mean, when we are eating foods that are kind of typical of the North American diet, so a lot of the foods that we mentioned, fast foods, processed foods, lots of grains, sugar, copious amounts of animal products, dairy, all of these foods have an acidifying effect on our body, which basically means they give off more, or they leave more of an acidic ash, I won't go into the science
21:42 Speaker 01 here, once they're metabolized. And what that does is it actually changes the physiology in our bloodstream. And the oxygen that is normally carried through our bloodstream are, it's kind of sitting on our red blood cells. So our red blood cells are like taxicabs moving the oxygen through our body. And when we eat a lot of these crappy foods, those taxicabs end up kind of sticking together. So they end up becoming like this big massive traffic jam. So we want to eliminate or minimize foods that cause that traffic jam from occurring. And instead, focusing on foods that allow us to drive on the highway at 2:00 in the morning. And those foods are essentially, for the most part, plant-based
22:27 Speaker 01 foods with a big focus on green vegetables, because they have the greatest opposite of acid, which is alkaline or alkalinity. So when these vegetables and fruit are metabolized, they give off more of these alkaline minerals that are so important for helping our blood maintain its health. State and this is one of those things that I was on the Dr. Show talking about this specifically. And I had a lot of back and forth with her producers about this because they were a little bit uneasy about talking about this because they're like, you know, there's a lot of studies to show that the acid base or acid alkaline balance occurs in the kidneys, which is really where it all happens.
23:12 Speaker 01 But they're like, it's still a little bit kind of murky waters if we start talking about how it affects the blood. And I said, you know, that's totally cool. Like, that's fine. However, you guys want to go about it. But the premise is that, you know, there's a lot of things that we have not uncovered scientifically yet that still work, you know, just because something hasn't been proven, doesn't mean it's not right or doesn't, doesn't, doesn't work. You can actually do microscopic testing of your blood and looking at your blood live under a microscope and you can see these changes under a microscope in real time. And it's unfortunate that it's not as well supported in the medical community right now. But it's undeniable in terms of what happens to people
23:54 Speaker 01 when you start making these simple changes. And that's why I say doubling your energy in seven days is absolutely doable for, I would say, one hundred or ninety nine percent of the population, because these are fundamental things that work for all human beings.
24:09 Lewis Howes? Hmm, interesting. Okay. What's, what's one of the next commandments?
24:14 Speaker 01 So one of the next commandments would be talking about stress and the adrenal glands. So this is a big one and I would, I would venture to say that
24:23 Lewis Howes? Huge.
24:24 Speaker 01 I mean, it's, I would say all of our listeners at some level have adrenal fatigue.
24:28 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
24:28 Speaker 01 Like, it's just, it's crazy. So here's, here's how it makes sense of this. Um, so your adrenal glands, they help your body deal with stress and they also control whether your body stores fat or burns it. Which is, uh, which is quite interesting when a lot of people are having trouble losing weights and can't figure out why that's happening. So the thing to remember is that stress is not just worrying about stuff. Stress is eating the wrong foods that create inflammation in the body. Um, stress is having very low blood sugar. Uh, for instance, as a result of having a morning coffee or a muffin that leads to an energy crash afterwards. Stress is excessive exercise. Um, stress is poor quality sleep.
25:13 Speaker 01 So all of stress is pollutants, toxins. So we are inundated by daily stressors from all sorts of different sources. And the trouble is that our adrenal glands can only do so much. They're literally the shape of a walnut and they sit on top of our kidneys. So when we are presented with stress or when our body perceives something as stressful, it shoots off adrenaline and cortisol. And these hormones act to, what they do is they basically tell our body is, is now kind of in fight or flight response, right? So we can fight or we run away from something. In order for that to happen, we need the energy to do that. So our, those hormones go to the muscles and they break down stored glycogen and they
25:57 Speaker 01 break it down to immediate blood sugar for immediate use. Now, the trouble with that is that that's fine in the short term. That's fine if you're, you know, if you're an athlete and you have a, you know, a game that you have to kind of be, you know, all riled up for. But afterwards, you know, you can't, you can't sustain that level of kind of stress or, or intensity on the body forever. Um, but when you compound that with mental stress, financial stress, emotional stress, relationship stress with various foods of eating, all these different stressors are all being kind of moderated by the adrenals. And eventually the adrenals just can't do anymore. They just kind of wear down. And that's a kind of the ultimate stage is known as adrenal fatigue, which again, unfortunately
26:41 Speaker 01 is something that's not even recognized by the medical community. If you go to your doctor and you say, you tell them, I have adrenal fatigue, they will laugh at you. Really? It's ridiculous. In spite of the fact that it's, I mean, it's an established condition. You can get hormone salivary test done to show that your cortisol levels are shot. So anyways, we want to do things that are going to kind of love our adrenal glands. And
27:08 Lewis Howes? What are some of the things?
27:09 Speaker 01 So we, I want to, I want people to think about, or challenge people to think about energy through tranquility as opposed to energy through stimulation. So remember the adrenal glands are dealing with stimulation or stress on a day to day basis. So if we add things in like coffee or caffeine and lots of sugar, those are two of the biggest stimulants in our, in our, in our day to day existence. So we want to look at removing those and I'm a huge proponent. I don't care what anybody says, even my good friend, Dave Asprey with Bulletproof Coffee. There is, when you understand what caffeine does at the adrenal level, as well as how, what, how the effect it has on your energy, there really is no place for caffeine. I don't, I don't believe so. Decaf is
27:54 Lewis Howes? So you're saying completely get rid of caffeine?
27:56 Speaker 01 Yep, absolutely. So this would go for
27:58 Lewis Howes? What about Dave? Doesn't he promote Bulletproof Coffee all day long?
28:00 Speaker 01 He does. And I think as, as a, I don't know if it's a gag, but he sends me caffeinated Bulletproof Coffee once in a while. And I'm like, and I'm like, dude, like I, I love a good coffee, but I drink decaf. So
28:14 Lewis Howes? Did you say, did you say he agrees with you about caffeine or?
28:17 Speaker 01 No, he doesn't. Like he's, I mean, he's, I mean, if you're going to drink coffee and you don't want to give up the caffeine, then by all means, drink Bulletproof because it's the best quality bean. But I, you know, I'll have, I have a couple of bags of his decaf, right? So if I want to have a coffee at home, I'll use his decaf.
28:32 Lewis Howes? Here's something I've noticed, not to cut you off, but I don't drink alcohol or smoke and I rarely drink caffeine. And when I do, if I drink it on an empty stomach, I am like about, I literally want to throw up. Like sometimes I have and I get nauseous and I get sick and like my stomach hurts. And I'm like, that shouldn't happen, you know? And I haven't conditioned myself, you know, my body's not used, I don't drink it every day. So it's just not used to it. And I know when it's like affected and I have like a cappuccino every now and then after dinner. It's like fine for me because I've eaten something, but. That is not good when it affects your body that much.
29:08 Speaker 01 No, totally. And especially for someone like yourself or anyone else who doesn't drink caffeine. That's a perfect example of what it does to the body, right? Is that it puts you in a state of kind of this jazzed up. And some people think of it as, you know, this heightened state of performance. But the reality is that that's very quickly, within, let's say, an hour or two, followed by a crash.
29:29 Lewis Howes? Right.
29:30 Speaker 01 Where you feel really terrible. You get jittery and anxious and even sweaty sometimes. So, you know, these are all ways of kind of artificial stimulation that leads to very short term energy. But caffeine is to energy like credit cards are to financial health.
29:46 Lewis Howes? Right.
29:46 Speaker 01 So it's like you're using credit cards. You know, eventually you're going to pay for them in the future. So the same thing is happening with caffeine. And sugar as well. So.
29:55 Lewis Howes? So you're saying eliminate caffeine completely out of your diet?
29:59 Speaker 01 Yep, absolutely. And again, different people, you know, different people metabolize caffeine differently. Some take a little bit longer, some a little bit quicker. But the thing is to find a way that's going to work for you.
30:10 Lewis Howes? But you're saying, but you're saying even if you metabolize it differently, you're going to have to pay back that energy debt at some time.
30:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, absolutely.
30:17 Lewis Howes? Gotcha. Okay.
30:18 Speaker 01 You know, I've, it's so funny. We've led so many people through this process and helping them get off coffee. And I'm not saying like, again, if you want to enjoy coffee, coffee is, it's a great social experience, you know? And it's nice to have a cup of warm coffee every now and then. But if you require it to function, that's a, that's a problem.
30:36 Lewis Howes? That should be a sign.
30:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly. And the reality is that it's going to feel like crap. Like when you get off, so caffeine is the number one drug in the world. So.
30:48 Lewis Howes? More than sugar?
30:50 Speaker 01 Um, well, they're, they're right up there. But yeah, like as a kind of a class drug, like caffeine is, I guess, classified as a little more of a drug than sugar is.
30:57 Lewis Howes? Gotcha.
30:58 Speaker 01 But they're pretty much comparable. And if you look at the symptoms or some of the hallmark features of kind of drug addiction, one of them would be dependency, which means that you need more of the drug to get the same effect. Right? So you had that, that coffee on an empty stomach, which you have maybe never. So you feel like that, right? But if you had that all the time, you wouldn't feel that because your body is now getting adapted to it. So you need more of it to get the same effect. Uh, another hallmark feature is withdrawal. So if you go off the drug, you feel terrible. Right? It's the same thing if you're using heroin. Another hallmark feature would be kind of denial. So denial is a huge one with addiction. And again, it's not about saying you have to give up your coffee, but it's about
31:44 Speaker 01 looking at what's more important, what's more important for you? Is it, are you, is it more important that you are a high performing, high performing, good functioning human being that is focused on your work, is present with your kids and other people, and that you have sustained energy all day long? As opposed to going through these up and down roller coasters where you have energy, don't have energy, don't have, have energy, don't have energy, fall asleep after lunch. You know, that's, that's really what's happening with so many people as a result of the food choices they're making. And caffeine is, is one of those things. So we want to look at removing that, at the very minimum, switching to a decaf. So in terms of replacing and kind of loving up the adrenals, we want to look at whole foods, right?
32:28 Speaker 01 Foods that are high in vitamin C. Vitamin C is an important antioxidant and vitamin for adrenal health. We also want to look at things like, again, as I mentioned before, green vegetables. Green vegetables are loaded with glutathione, antioxidants, and just this natural presence of alkaline minerals that are so important for the health of our blood and cells, as well as giving a lot of much needed tranquility to our adrenals. If you think about it, so like, the simple things would be like have a green juice. So if you have a juicer at home, make a green juice in the morning. If you have a blender, make a green smoothie. Just get more greens into your diet. Have a salad with whatever else you're having for dinner or for lunch. Even if you did nothing else to your diet, but just added in more greens, it would start
33:13 Speaker 01 to make a difference for you. So those are some, some really important steps to start taking.
33:18 Lewis Howes? So I'm a big, you know, green juice guy. And you talk about juicing in here. Is there anything bad about juicing? Or is there any way to do it, you know, that's not as effective as other ways?
33:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, totally. This, I mean, so juicing, you can go, you can really go off the deep end with juicing because juicing vegetables is very different from juicing fruit. And if you juice fruit, one of the biggest problems in our food supply nowadays is the presence of fructose. Fructose comes from, originally from fruit. So you'd think, okay, well, fruit is bad then, right? Well, not necessarily. If you have an apple, if you eat the apple in its whole state, or even actually in the blended form. That still has the fiber, it's all good because you have the whole fruits. You have the fiber to delay the release of fructose and glucose into your body.
34:09 Speaker 01 The challenge with fructose is that it's actually not, it doesn't do anything to your blood sugar. So it's, uh, it's tricky because when you look at a food and the food says, this food is a low glycemic food. That's half the story because if the food also has fructose, then you're not really looking at that. The problem with fructose is that it requires going through your liver in order to be converted into glucose. And glucose is what your cells want to use for energy. But the problem is that your liver can only handle so much fructose at once. Before it starts to spit off triglycerides as a byproduct. So when you drink things like Coca-Cola, you are essentially getting the exact same amount of fructose.
34:52 Speaker 01 As you would if you're drinking apple juice, exactly the same amount. And the problem there is that it's not buffered by fiber. So if you're juicing fruit, like if you're having, if you think you're doing things well by juicing 10 apples and some cantaloupe. Well, you're, I guess hopefully stepping in the right direction. But understand that you are giving your body an infusion of liquid sugar. That is going to be converted into fat, most likely. So focus on juicing vegetables.
35:22 Lewis Howes? Gotcha, okay.
35:23 Speaker 01 And then add in one apple if you want for a bit of sweetness.
35:26 Lewis Howes? Cool, alright, sounds good. And what about if we want to do this one day, uh, fast? Can you drink vegetable juice then like, uh, you know, or that, or can you drink, have nothing but water?
35:40 Speaker 01 So there's a, I mean, there's a couple of different ways of, of, of looking at this. For a true fast, the true fast would have nothing. So you give like your digestive system a complete kind of day off from doing anything other than water. You can also do a juice fast. Like you can, again, juicing is great because you're getting to the core of the nutrients in those foods. The catch 22 with plants, like vegetables, is that they contain fiber. So the trouble there is a lot of people have a tough time breaking down that fiber to access those nutrients. So fiber is immensely important for our health. But juicing allows us to bypass the fiber, at least in certain occasions. If we're gonna have a juice, it's all good. So we're naturally, it's almost like getting an IV of nutrients into your body.
36:25 Speaker 01 So I think there's a lot of benefits, maybe doing a day of juicing if you wanted to. And if you didn't want to do a full day fast, maybe try a day where you're just having juices and smoothies. Where you're giving your digestive system an easier time than having to work on digesting heavier foods all the time.
36:41 Lewis Howes? Gotcha. Okay, cool. Have we, have we completed the seven commandments or are there a couple more?
36:47 Speaker 01 Um, I think the last one is, uh, actually two more. So with respect to movements, right? So movement is life, stagnation is death. So when you die, you, you kind of get into this state called rigor mortis, which is like your muscles just seize up. So if we look at how we move on a daily basis, or if we don't move, if we're sitting in a chair all day long, we're not going to feel very energetic. Um, if any of you guys are Tony Robbins fans, you'll, you'll know that he talks about, you know, emotion comes from motion, right? Everything starts with your states. And in order to change your state, you change the way you use your body. So if you want to feel better, if you want to feel more energetic, then stand up as opposed to sit down. It could be something as simple as having a standing desk as opposed to sitting in a chair for eight hours a day.
37:32 Speaker 01 Or having one of those treadmill desks where you're walking on a treadmill while you're working at your workstation. Um, and I mean, these are some basic things in addition to obviously, if we think about the basic premise again of energy, again, oxygen to your cells, if you're moving, your blood flow is increasing. And if blood flow is moving around, then oxygen is getting to those cells. So that's a great thing.
37:54 Lewis Howes? Interesting. Okay.
37:56 Speaker 01 So movement is huge. Um, another way of thinking about this is if you are sick, for instance, the last, think about the last time you were sick. You didn't feel too hot, or I guess pun intended because you probably did feel hot. You didn't feel like moving around and that's because your body had to use all of, a lot of that energy for healing and repair and less towards movements. Same thing if for women, if they're pregnant, they don't feel very energetic and that's because they're growing a baby inside of them. So a lot of that energy is diverted to growth and not as much as available for movements. So some interesting things to think about. The final principle is how you heal anything is how you heal everything.
38:41 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
38:42 Speaker 01 So the way I was able to get over my asthma and eczema and autoimmune condition for the most part, as well as my energy, is the same way that you would, that you would take to prevent diabetes, that you would take to lose weight, that you would take to prevent heart disease, because the nutritional principles that I talk about in this book are ubiquitous across health. So, you know, it's not like if you have heart disease, all of a sudden the doctors are saying, oh yeah, like it's, it's totally cool. Now you can have cow's milk and lots of bread and that's the secret, right? Most diets are saying very similar things. It's about eating more plants, more of them in their raw states and avoiding certain foods that are causing a lot of issues. And that's why it's amazing, you know, we've
39:24 Speaker 01 helped so many people with this program to see, obviously, energy being one of the things that, you know, changes almost in 24 hours, but seeing people effortlessly, effortlessly lose weight, skin improvements. We've actually had women in their 60s who had gray hair, have their hair start turning back to their original darker colors.
39:45 Lewis Howes? Interesting.
39:46 Speaker 01 You know, it's, it's amazing. So when you give your body the nutrients that it's craving, the body, the body heals itself. We don't do anything. The body is, is, we're just providing the, the inputs and our body is now saying, oh, thank you. Like, thank you. Finally, now I can get to work on putting this stuff back together.
40:05 Lewis Howes? Hmm. Interesting. Okay. Very cool. And you talk about there are three sneaky foods that steal our energy. And I think we've covered, covered a couple of them, but can you clarify what those three are?
40:14 Speaker 01 Yeah. So the three ones would be caffeine and sugar. So those I kind of, we'll kind of separate those, but they're kind of one of the same. The third one we talked about a little bit would be gluten or kind of any gluten containing grains like weeds, barley or rye. Sorry, weeds, rye and oats. And, and the trouble with gluten is that
40:35 Speaker 01 It is.
40:36 Lewis Howes? It's in everything.
40:37 Speaker 01 It's in everything, you know, and it does like its purpose is to survive, right? As most seeds, that's kind of the the purpose of pretty much everything on this planet. So in the process of trying to survive our intestinal tract, it actually attacks our intestines as a way of protecting itself and passing right through so that we can poop it out and it gets replanted in the soil, you know, somewhere. The problem with gluten is that it's it's related to massive problems. It's correlated to 190 autoimmune conditions. It's it's known to literally flatten the micro villi, which are the little absorptive fingers, if you want to think about it, in your intestines that absorb nutrients. It flattens that out.
41:18 Speaker 01 It leads to irritation and inflammation of the gut lining, which leads to something called a leaky gut whereby food proteins can then enter the bloodstream. And the immune system then sees them as foreign invaders, and that's how allergies and autoimmune conditions develop. And here's a very interesting thing is that a lot of the people that we serve suffer from hypothyroidism or low thyroid conditions. And they're always like, oh, I've heard that eating like green vegetables or cruciferous vegetables is bad for my thyroid. And the funny thing is that it has, there's really no science that shows that. But while these individuals are complaining about those foods, they're chomping away on copious amounts of bread.
42:01 Speaker 01 And gluten is one of the biggest culprits for Hashimoto's, which is autoimmune, it's an autoimmune condition where autoimmune derived low thyroid or hypothyroidism. And the problem there is that gluten has almost the same molecular structure as your thyroid tissue. And your thyroid is really the master gland of your metabolism. So if your thyroid is being compromised and if your body starts to attack your thyroid, therefore lowering its output, for instance, you're not going to feel very good. You're going to have lower energy, you're going to have a tougher time losing weight, you're going to feel cold all the time. And this, in a lot of cases, is attributed to years and years of consumption of gluten.
42:43 Speaker 01 So, you know, that's just one reason why it's it's an energy draining food.
42:48 Lewis Howes? Amazing. Yeah. And what about dairy?
42:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of dairy. Like, it's.
42:55 Lewis Howes? It's so good, though.
42:57 Speaker 01 You know what, like almond milk, coconut milk, they taste just as good.
43:00 Lewis Howes? They're pretty good, yeah.
43:02 Speaker 01 You know what they are. And the thing is, like, dairy, we're the, yeah, I mean, cheese, sure, it's nice, right? But we're the only species that drinks another species' milk. You know, and it's just like there, when you look at the breakdown of dairy, and for those of you who love dairy out there, if you're, you know, if you're gonna, if you're gonna do the cow's milk, just try to go raw cow's milk, which is not even legal in most states, but anyways,
43:25 Speaker 01 because at least you have the enzymes to help your body digest it. So 70% of people are lactose intolerant or intolerant to the sugar in milk. And those who are able to to deal with it still have issues with the protein in milk, which is casein amongst others. But also, when you look at the macronutrient or the micronutrient breakdown in cow's milk, as one example, we've been led to believe that we should drink cow's milk for calcium. But the reality is that cow's milk does have a lot of calcium, but they also forgot to tell us that it also has a lot of phosphorus. And phosphorus is a mineral that inhibits calcium absorption in the stomach. So you actually don't absorb the amount of calcium you think you are if you're drinking milk.
44:07 Speaker 01 And there's a lot of studies that show that the rates of osteoporosis and hip fractures are greatest in countries that have the highest consumption of milk products. So, and we've just been led to believe, thank you to the National, you know, thanks to the National Dairy Council, that milk is imperative for good health. Yeah, exactly. But it's.
44:28 Lewis Howes? Good marketing.
44:29 Speaker 01 Not so much. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what it is.
44:32 Lewis Howes? Wow, okay. Let's talk about raw eating. You talk about eating raw, but isn't that harder to digest and make the system work harder?
44:41 Speaker 01 In some cases, in some cases, yes, some cases, no. So I personally noticed a profound transformation when I went raw for a couple of weeks, like 10 years ago. It was like, it wasn't even comparable to anything I've ever experienced in my life. So some of this stuff can be explained by higher amounts of nutrients that you're getting by eating a raw food. So you're not boiling it or cooking it. You don't denature a lot of the vitamins and minerals. You're also getting higher amounts of food enzymes, which are enzymes found naturally in foods that are denatured when we cook them. So these enzymes will actually help the foods digest themselves in our stomach and our intestinal tract, which is helpful. The other thing is we're getting more water. So by eating a raw apple, for instance,
45:26 Speaker 01 you get more water than if you cooked that apple because in the cooking, the water evaporates. Some of the things that are a little more controversial, but I still am very open minded to you, is this kind of life force inherent in foods that are not cooked. And I think intuitively it makes sense where if you have an apple, you take it off the tree, it just naturally seems a little bit more of a kind of a closer to the earth type of thing. Maybe there's more inherent energy in that than if it were to go through a processing factory and put into a package. And there's actually some really amazing photography done by um.
46:02 Lewis Howes? Yeah, you've got that in your book is really cool.
46:04 Speaker 01 Yeah, some amazing images called, they're called Curlian photographs. And again, if we have a couple links for, within the book to check those out. But you can see the difference, for instance, between raw broccoli and steamed broccoli after just two minutes. You can see the difference in the energy of the aura emanating off the food. And again, this is kind of a little bit more wishy washy, airy fairy, but you can't deny how good you feel when you eat these foods. Like, I don't care what the science shows. If I feel a thousand times better when I'm eating more vegetables and fruit and more of them in their raw state, I'm going to do more of that. And so that's, you know, just another of the benefits of like, you know, adding more smoothies in, juicing, having more salads. You know, it
46:49 Speaker 01 doesn't matter. The one thing the medical profession does do right, hopefully, is they're going to tell you to have more fruits and vegetables.
46:57 Lewis Howes? Right.
46:57 Speaker 01 And ideally, more of them in their raw state, because that's where, that's where the real benefits are coming from.
47:02 Lewis Howes? I like that. Okay, what I want to do is kind of like a rapid fire, because I've got a bunch of questions left, and I feel like we could dive into this for forever. I could have listened to this stuff forever, because I'm learning so much. But on rapid fire, and you know, just give me your, your response in as short amount of time as you can. So here we go. Is there really a difference in organic versus non-organic?
47:24 Speaker 01 Yes, organic scent seems to have higher quality or quantities of certain minerals and vitamins and antioxidants, um, others, but only in certain cases.
47:35 Lewis Howes? Gotcha.
47:36 Speaker 01 It's worth it.
47:37 Lewis Howes? Okay, cool. What does it mean to sprout seeds?
47:41 Speaker 01 Sprouting seeds is essentially allowing the seed to come to life. You're soaking it and you allow it to germinate, which releases, uh, it kind of unlocks the nutrient power in the seed, pretty much.
47:51 Lewis Howes? Okay, cool. And I also read that you, you should not drink water while eating. Now, why is that?
47:57 Speaker 01 So if you drink water or any fluid for that matter, while you're eating, you dilute your stomach's stomach acid. And you make the whole kind of stomach, um, much less able to digest food. So if you're gonna drink water, have it before so the water can pass through and not sit on top of all the food and compromise your stomach's ability to digest it.
48:17 Lewis Howes? Hmm. Can you drink after as well or no?
48:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, give yourself, you know, give yourself, if you're gonna drink, have a little sips. And if you want to have a copious amount of water, then give yourself, I would say, an hour or two to digest the food that you just had.
48:28 Lewis Howes? Wow, that's interesting. Okay. Um, is it important to chew your food up really small or does that not matter?
48:35 Speaker 01 Yes, think of your mouth as a blender.
48:37 Lewis Howes? Hmm.
48:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, makes a huge difference.
48:40 Lewis Howes? What is the right way to exercise?
48:43 Speaker 01 Um, focus on quality, or as Tim Ferriss says, the minimum effective dose. Um, exercise more intensely, but with less volume.
48:51 Lewis Howes? So you don't need to do two hours a day, you can just do thirty minutes a day or twenty minutes a day of high intensity?
48:55 Speaker 01 Yep, and three times a week. And then balance that out with active, with, with proper recovery.
49:01 Lewis Howes? What's, there's, you know, there's so much talk about supplements constantly. Uh, and it can be very confusing for people to know what they're supposed to take, how much they're supposed to take, uh, you know, when to take it. Can you give us some sense to it all of supplements?
49:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think as a kind of a blanket statement, most people can benefit from a good multivitamin, just because we're not getting the nutrients that we used to fifty years ago from our foods, just based on soil depletion. Um, a good quality fish oil for the omega threes and their powerful anti-inflammatory benefits, as well as, you know, good brain function. Uh, probiotic, which is good bacteria, which helps to repopulate the good bacteria in our gut. Which is very, very important for all levels of health. And, um, I would say, you know, just keeping it very basic, I would say those are three big ones.
49:49 Lewis Howes? Cool. Last couple of questions. What are you most grateful for recently?
49:55 Speaker 01 I'm most grateful for my, uh, my family, for my kids, for my wife Amy. Um, I'm very blessed to have them in my life. Yeah.
50:03 Lewis Howes? How important is gratitude in relieving stress?
50:06 Speaker 01 It's huge. You can't be stressed and grateful at the same time, you know, so if you're stressed, focus on somebody else, focus on doing good for somebody else, focus on being grateful for something in your life.
50:16 Lewis Howes? Love that. Well, before I ask you the final question, Yuri, I want to acknowledge you because you've done an incredible job of simplifying the really challenging, confusing world of eating and diet and, uh, and energy. And I know you're up to a huge mission. 10 million people to start, then 100 million people is a massive mission. And I know it's going to take a lot of energy from you to fulfill that mission and, uh, to enroll thousands of other people to support you with that mission. So I acknowledge you for your dedication, your commitment, your courage to continue to push the boundaries when other people may be fighting against you. So I want to acknowledge you for a moment and just say thank you for all that you do, Yuri.
50:58 Speaker 01 You're welcome. Thank you.
50:59 Lewis Howes? And, uh, the final question, which is what I ask everyone, is what's your definition of greatness?
51:05 Speaker 01 I think greatness, I'm going to use, um, I'm going to use an example from sports. So I, I used to beat myself up all like a lot as a, as an athlete when I played. And that was one of the reasons I think I stopped because it was just so negative all the time. I later worked as the strength and conditioning coach at the University of Toronto for seven years. And I realized that greatness, I would rather, I would much rather work with a team of players who leave everything on the field, but have less skill than have a team of skillful players who play at 50%. So my definition of greatness is doing and giving your best every single day and doing more for others with the intention of serving and making this world a better place.
51:46 Lewis Howes? I love it. Thank you so much for coming on Yuri and we'll talk to you soon.
51:49 Speaker 01 Absolutely. Thanks a lot for having me.
51:55 Lewis Howes? And there you go guys. Again, I hope you enjoyed this interview. For me, I learned a lot about how to maximize my energy. And it all starts with understanding the seven commandments of energy, right? And figuring out what foods are actually giving you energy and what foods are taking energy away. And there's always going to be a different nutritionist or health expert that is going to share their own advice and their thoughts and their feedback. And Yuri is someone who's done a lot of research, who's done a lot of testing on himself and worked with a lot of other individuals to help them get results. So I hope this is valuable. I hope you see how powerful it can be to have natural energy throughout the day. I'm not saying that, you know, coffee or caffeine doesn't support sometimes
52:40 Lewis Howes? and can definitely be good for some people, but for some people, maybe it's a negative reaction. So be aware of your body, listen to your body. Make sure that whatever you're feeling, use that as feedback. And use the tools in here and apply what works. And maybe don't listen to what doesn't work. So again, this is all just tools and resources for you to increase your greatness, to increase, to get to your highest potential, to take you to the next level. And I hope this interview did that for you today. Again, big thank you to Yuri Elkheim for coming on and sharing his wisdom. Make sure again to share this with your friends over on Facebook and Twitter and Google+ with the show notes link, lewishouse.com/116. And I want to give you guys a challenge today.
53:23 Lewis Howes? If you have a couple of friends that you know have been talking about their health or want to lose 20 pounds, or you just feel like they're always stressed or always tired, I am going to challenge you to send this email to them with this link, lewishouse.com/116 and say, "Hey, listen, I checked out this interview today. It was great. It really taught me about how to increase my energy throughout the day. I've learned a lot of great things and I think it'll support you in your daily efforts as well." So if someone is lacking the energy in your life, they feel tired, they feel stressed out, they feel overwhelmed. A lot of overwhelm for people lately, taking on too much and not knowing how to manage it. If you have a friend, a family member, a loved one who's feeling overwhelmed,
54:05 Lewis Howes? please send them this interview, lewishouse.com/116. Email to them, let them know how you want them to check it out and then see what they say. You guys are incredible. Thank you for making the School of Greatness movement so big lately and for sharing it everywhere and for talking about it to your friends. You're the reason why this is growing, this message is spreading. And again, thank you for everyone who listens and says hi to me on the streets when you guys see me when I'm traveling. It means a lot to me. Give me a hug when you see me. I can't wait till I see you guys all someday soon. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.
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