How can you live longer, release weight, reverse aging and eradicate illness from your body and your life… all without destroying your passion for food and your love of life?

This is a question I’ve struggled with for some time. I’ve come to different answers here and there… tried this or that out.

What I’ve learned? There are no easy answers. Each of us brings our own set of challenges to the table. We each focus on different results or needs that we want or have.

However I want to share with you some amazing superfood and superherb tonic and smoothie recipes that have deeply impacted my life. These easy-to-make drinks require nothing but a blender, a way to heat up water (preferably without a microwave), and a few superfoods… and I’ll tell you just where to get them for the best price.

What is a “Superfood” or “Superherb?” Coined by alternative health expert and raw foodist David Wolfe, a superfood is any food that is off-the-charts in nutrition, medicinal properties and health-fortifying benefits compared to 99% of their sister foods. For example, wouldn’t you like to know the three fruits that will deliver the most bang for your buck… the two herbs that, were you to take nothing else ever, would give such a boost to your overall immunity and health, that you’d lack for nothing? There are also superfoods that are highly specific, such as what to take if you want to reverse gray hair, detoxify your liver, or repair the elasticity of your skin (yep, get rid of wrinkles!).

Basically, superfoods ROCK. I can’t tell you everything in this one little post, but I’ll give you a quick primer for the foods, herbs and technologies (and where to get them) that I’ve recently found helpful to me. I’ll continue to post recipes, resources, and discoveries in the future as I come across them.

So first let me thank the person who started me on this whole super-journey to health: I’ve been a long-time fan of David Wolfe. Even before he became one of my favorite clients (for his Longevity NOW brand), I appreciated his candor in teaching people about superfoods, superherbs, and the leading edge technologies and resources that are reversing age, fueling longevity, and throttling productive energy through the roof. Rather than tell you to cut out everything you’re already eating (though you need to do this eventually), he says just start out by asking yourself, “What’s one super-nutritious, epically awesome food I can add IN to my lifestyle?”

In this post I’ll share some of the solutions I found to answer that question for myself. But first, as I mentioned earlier, we’re each different. So let me share the specific goals and needs I was looking to fulfill here so you can see where I was coming from in finding the specific solutions I’ll share. The following factored greatly in my selection of choice foods to add into my diet…

• I wanted to amp up my nutrition but significantly reduce calories. I wanted weight loss.
• I also focused on superfoods, herbs and technologies that would repair and fuel my metabolism as I had to battle anorexia during my college modeling days and have since developed deep self-esteem body issues that I’ve repaired emotionally, but still needed to heal physically
• I knew I needed superhuman energy that wouldn’t tax my system to the point of break down later on. I needed to keep myself super healthy so that I could sustain long work hours without burnout.
• I was also looking for tonics, herbs and technologies that would ignite my brain power, memory, and take my retention and ability to consciously hold information to an entirely new level…

You can learn a lot about the following and other superfoods through the following resources:

1. David Wolfe’s “Superfoods” Book. Grab it here!
2. UltimateSuperfoods.com
3. Google It!

Key Superfoods I Keep in My Kitchen (or Suitcase as right now I’m a Perpetual Traveler!)

• Cacao: Raw chocolate
• Maca
• Shilajith
• MSM Powder
• Coconut Oil
• Coconut Water
• Bee Products (Pollen, Royal Jelly)
• Ashwagandha
• Holy Basil
• Marine Phytoplankton
• Sun Warrior Raw Protein Powder (www.sunwarrior.com)
• Almond Milk (or any nut milk)
• Vanilla Powder (for yumminess more than anything else!)
• Yerba Mate (for tea based recipes, you can also use medicinal mushroom tea bases and such)
• New Chapter Organics “Unbounded Energy” supplement (a bit pricey but SO worth it. No jitters or energy side effects, you don’t even feel it, the effect builds over the first few days you take it and I can’t believe the difference in my energy levels)
• Wholesome Sweetener Zero (organic natural sweetener you can find at any health food store). Other good sweeteners are Stevia powder or liquids. I like vanilla or chocolate Stevia drops for my smoothies and lemon stevia for my tonics.

NOTE: A lot of people are all about agave sweetener, but new studies show that the way these sweeteners are being produced, they are NOT low glycemic as promised and actually spike and crash your blood sugar levels like regular sugar and artificial sweeteners, which is a leading factor in advanced aging, illness and a frozen or poor metabolism (weight gain). I recommend staying away from agave and sticking to raw honey if your primary aim is not weight loss… if it is, stick to Stevia, Malitol, Xylitol and Wholesome Sweetener (which you can use just like sugar in cooking).

I learned about a TON of new awesome recipes and foods I’ll be experimenting with over the next months, but it’s too much to post here, so above are just the foods I’ve been using for the past year. I’ll post the new recipes and ingredients in a future post.

Where to Get These Superfoods:

You can get just about everything I listed above at www.UltimateSuperfoods.com. They have amazing prices and I know the owners. They’re a great company. Their email customer service is seemingly unresponsive, so if you need any help, just call their 800 number. Their people are great!

You can also get many of these superfoods at your local health food store or Whole Foods (many whole foods I’ve seen across the country have some of Ultimate Superfoods’ products in their raw section). However if they don’t have something you want, just request it. I’ve gotten so many products at the Whole Foods in Tustin where I used to live, simply by requesting them once.

My Primary Recipe

I’ll post a series of further recipes over the next week. But here’s my favorite:

Superfood Smoothie

Purpose: Great morning energy, nutritious, but lots of fruit and that means lots of calories and sugar. NOT bad, but if you want to release weight, keep these down to once per week for a treat. This recipe is modified for a regular blender. Your best blender would be a Blend Tec or Vitamix, but they’re expensive (though entirely worth it if you make this a lifestyle). Unfortunately mine was stolen while traveling back from Alaska so until I stop my travels, I decided to NOT bring expensive equipment in my suitcases ) I’ve reduced this recipe to the bare minimum ingredients I feel give the biggest bang for your buck. You can of course add any other superfoods to the mix! Experiment!

• Assorted medley of frozen fruits (I like cherries, berry medley, mango, pineapple, extra blueberries – you only need a handful total of frozen fruit)
• 1 Acai smoothie pack (I like unsweetened or the one with added protein) Available at Whole Foods or health food store in frozen section
• 1-2 tbsp Cacao Powder
• 1 tbsp Maca Powder
• 1 tbsp Mesquite Pod Powder
• 1-2 heaping scoops of Raw Sun Warrior Protein Powder
• 2 tbsp Coconut Oil
• 1 tsp Shilajith
• 3 drops Marine Phytoplankton (build this up over time… but start with DROPS, not dropper-fulls. This stuff is the most potent food on the EARTH. After two years, I’m up to 30 drops per day, but I started with 1 and thought I was going to exit my body or have to run a marathon to handle the energy!)
• 1/2 tbsp goji powder (if you have a good Vitamix blender, get actual goji berries… but for regular blenders that can’t blend them, get the powder)
• A bit of your chosen sweetener to taste, though I go with no sweetener. Get plenty of sweetness from frozen fruits
• Fill with 1/2 Coconut Water, 1/2 Almond or Nut Milk to almost top of heap… blend and add more liquid for your chosen consistency

Okay that should be PLENTY to get you started!

I’ll post more awesome recipes (elixirs for energy, elixirs for awakening your feminine prowess (sorry guys, just happens to be more my interest then experimenting with elixirs for men!) and plenty else. Stay tuned!