I hope you’re staying safe, but most of all, I hope you’re staying healthy.

If you’re running scared right now, I get it. After all, that’s the goal of our elected officials, the media and our health experts. They think if we’re afraid, then it’s easier for them to mindlessly lead us to do what they want.

I disagree. I think knowledge is our most powerful weapon.

Fear (False Evidence Appearing Real) will only motivate you until you wake up and realize that you’re being led down the wrong path.

Don’t get me wrong. Covid-19 IS a serious threat to our health and way of life.

And unfortunately, it isn’t going away anytime soon. So instead of dealing with Band-Aid measures, let’s talk about what’s going to put you in the best possible position to beat this thing should you get it.

Our elected officials call this pandemic a war against Covid-19. And all they want you to do is stay home. But I’m afraid that’s not good enough.

If this is indeed a war against a virus, then your body is the first line of defense. Which means, the health of your body IS the most important factor to consider.

Why is this the case?

Well, we know for a fact that people with pre-existing conditions such as COPD, heart disease, obesity, sepsis, diabetes, and other autoimmune disorders, are more likely to have severe complications after contracting the corona virus; and are also more likely to die.

There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part, the healthier you are the more likely you are to survive if you should contract the virus. And since scientists are still at least one to two years away from creating a suitable vaccine to eradicate the virus, if you’re to survive, you’re left with only two viable options.

The first is prevention. Take every precaution necessary and try not to contract the virus. Like the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Secondly, the numbers overwhelmingly show that healthier people do far better against the Covid-19 virus than those with severe pre-existing health conditions. So it isn’t enough just to take precautions and try not to contract the virus.

This is the time you should also be working on your health, especially if you’re already living with COPD, heart disease, obesity, sepsis, diabetes, or other autoimmune disorders.

Remember, small changes can quickly pay big health dividends. In fact, if you’re overweight, losing just five percent of your body weight can lower your risk for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and decrease inflammation levels in the body.

Creating a healthier body now could make a significant difference in the severity of your symptoms and length of your recovery time should you contract the corona virus.

Eat, move, sleep, live

Good health is not an accident. It depends on what you eat, how much you move, the quality of your sleep, and finding ways to successfully deal with stress, while building meaningful relationships…how you live!

Now I realize it’s hard to build and maintain meaningful relationships when we’re isolated at home. Fortunately, however, we have the technology to help us stay in touch, and maintain some of those important human bonds that are necessary to build up our immune function. That’s right, our human bonds affect our immune system.

Unfortunately, at times like these, the people who are the most vulnerable, the elderly, are also the ones who often feel isolated and alone. This is not good. So try your best to reach out to your older family members, neighbors and friends. Now more than ever, they need to hear from you.

Prevent the covid-19 pounds

Carrying a lot of excess weight can make the Covid-19 Virus even more dangerous and deadly. You may not realize this but excess weight often leads to a condition call metabolic syndrome, which increases your risk of diabetes and heart disease, and also increases your chances of becoming severely ill from Covid-19.

So if you’re carrying a lot of excess weight, especially around your mid-section, you may want to start doing something about it. Other conditions such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels are contributing factors that may also increase your risk of severe Covid-19 complications.

In short, metabolic syndrome suppresses the immune system and increases your risk of infections and pneumonia. This is a bad combination in the middle of a corona virus pandemic.

I’m not telling you all this to scare you.

I’m simply reminding you what I’ve been teaching people for over two decades. That is, the healthier you are the more resilient your body will be to disease, infections and the various types of corona viruses that seem to be evolving over the years.

What should you be eating and doing?

Every morning before breakfast I take my three daughters on a three-mile run. We’ve made this a daily ritual since most of their days are now spent sitting in front of the computer.

If you can’t run, take a long walk or bike ride around the neighborhood. Whatever you do, it is vitally important that you get out of the house and enjoy the health-giving benefits of being outdoors.

So what should you be eating?

Eat food! Mostly plants!

There are a lot of weight loss diets out there, but plant-based nutrition has been shown over and over again to reverse disease, increase the body’s immune function, and reduce inflammation.

Metabolic inflammation not only compromises your immune system, it reduces the body’s ability to tackle infections, impairs the healing process and prolongs recovery.

And we know that Covid-19 greatly elevates the levels of several inflammatory proteins in the body. Fortunately for us, plant-based foods contain antioxidants, polyphenols and other anti-inflammatory compounds that reduce inflammation, metabolic syndrome and all other risk factors for disease.

In short, fruits and vegetable are your first line of defense against Covid-19 and all other viruses and diseases.

Let’s be clear. I’m not saying that fruits and vegetables are going to prevent you from getting Covid-19 or any other virus or disease. That’s not what I’m saying.

What I am saying is that a healthier, fit body leads to less inflammation, a more robust immune response if you get infected, and a shortened recovery time.

Having said all that, you may want to rethink your daily binging habits in front of the television. Instead of the process carbs, why not try some fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, nut butter and other whole foods options.

For more ideas check out some of my previous videos on simple ways to put more fruits and vegetables in your diet.

Lastly, I would highly recommend a whole food supplement to bridge the cap between what you actually eat and what your body really needs.

I use Juiceplus fruits, vegetable and berries capsules for one simple reason, research. They’ve been proven to improve the body’s immune function. And that’s exactly what we need to be thinking about right now.

Remember, covid-19 will be with us for a while. So the best thing you can do to improve your chances of beating it should you get it, is to

• Eat more plant-based whole foods.
• Move your body daily and get 7-8 hours of restful Sleep each night.
• Find a way to successfully deal with all the added stress of these uncertain times.
• And lastly, make time to nurture your relationships. They’re more important than ever (Live).

I’ve often wondered why premature aging affect some people and not others, causing them to age so much faster. I know people in their seventies and eighties who look twenty years younger, and conversely, I know people in their thirties and forties who look twenty years older. Why is this? Is it just bad genes? Or is there something else at play here?

Case in point, last month I went to a memorial for an old friend who had just passed. She was a very popular lady who brought a lot of people together. So over the years, I became acquainted with many people through her. Many of these people were also at her memorial. Now I hadn’t seen most of them for close to ten years, but it just struck me that most of them looked at least ten to twenty years older than they actually are. Of course, there were a few who looked exceptionally young and vibrant. But for the most part, the majority of people looked old, frail and very fragile. Instead of looking older, but vibrant and alive, they just looked old, as if they were aging prematurely.

Now don’t get me wrong, I know that we all must get older, but there’s a difference between getting older and aging prematurely. The physical body does age, but it can be a graceful, instead of a drastic, process. It’s like a houseplant. When you don’t water it and give it good food and light, it can shrivel up and die almost overnight. However, when you water it regularly, make sure that it gets adequate light and change the soil occasionally, that same plant will last for years.

Most scientists now agree that aging is, at least in part, the result of accumulating damage to certain molecules—such as proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids (DNA and RNA)—that make up our cells. If enough molecules are damaged, our cells will not function as well, our tissues and organs will begin to deteriorate, and eventually, our health will decline. So in many respects, we appear to age much like a car does: Our parts start to wear out, and we gradually lose the ability to function. Of course, this can be a slow gradual process, or it can happen quite rapidly, leading to premature aging.

But are we just at the mercy of our predestined fate or can we take charge of the entire aging process, thereby, at least slowing the rapid decline of our cells, tissues and organs?

In the rest of this article, I will explore the relationship between our lifestyle choices and the degree to which our bodies decline both in looks and function.

Is it your Genes or your lifestyle that causes premature aging?

In talking with some people, many of them have resigned themselves to the “fact” that they’re getting old and that’s just the way it is. But is that really the case? It’s true that as we get older things just don’t work the way they used to. But is this a function of aging or lifestyle?

Let’s look at a few examples. Your body produces various hormones that help to regulate a myriad of functions. When you’re young, hormone production is high. As you get older, however, hormone production drops off causing a decline in the body’s ability to repair itself and keep functioning at top form.

Another example is cellular waste. Your working cells produce a lot of waste. Over time, this waste accumulates because your cells make more than they can get rid of. Unfortunately, the build up of cellular waste can affect their ability to function and slowly lead to their death.

While these are naturally occurring processes that happen with an aging body, the rate at which they occur depends on the raw material that the body has access to. Let’s take the case of free radicals; remember those? Free radicals are unstable molecules roving around your body, ready to pounce on healthy cells. They are produced as part of the millions of chemical reactions your body performs to sustain life. Your body also produces them in response to environmental toxins such as excessive amounts of cigarette smoke, toxic air and food toxins.

Can free radicals lead to premature aging?

It is a widely held belief in the scientific community that excessive free radical activity accelerates the aging process at the cellular level. From premature wrinkling of the skin, to arthritis, cancer and heart disease, excessive free radical activity is believed to be the primary culprit. Is it true that based on our DNA that some of us are predestined for certain diseases?

Yes, that is the case. However, just because we are predestined for certain conditions based on our genes, oftentimes, most of those genes remain dormant until other conditions (such as poor lifestyle choices) cause them to be expressed.

In the case of excessive free radical activity, which ultimately leads to a pre-disease condition called oxidative stress, it is our lifestyle choices that ultimately take us down this path because free radicals can easily be neutralized by the body’s antioxidant defense system. Unfortunately, the body cannot produce these antioxidants. It has to get them from the fruits and vegetables that we eat.

Antioxidants are molecules that can safely interact with free radicals and terminate the chain reaction before vital molecules are damaged. The most widely known micronutrient (vitamin) antioxidants are vitamin E, beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, and vitamin C. The body cannot manufacture these micronutrients so they must be supplied in the diet.

The bottom-line

We all must get older, but premature aging is a result of poor lifestyle habits. Like a car, if you take care of the body, you’ll be able to rack up the miles and still remain functional into old age.

On the other hand, poor lifestyle choices, such as poor eating habits, lack of physical activity, excessive use of alcohol, cigarettes and drugs, will most certainly cause your cells to decline in function and ultimately die an early death. This leads to premature aging. So don’t blame your genes for making you old, blame yourself for not taking better care of them. The good news is it’s never too late to start.

Until next time, may “the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows.”

Why we never seem to have enough time

The two phrases I hear more than any other are: “I’m too busy” and “I just don’t have the time.”

In fact, “I don’t have the time” seems to be the new anthem for our busy stressed out, over-committed lives today.

But is time-crunch really just about not having enough time to do what we want or is it just the latest catch-all phrase for things we just “don’t want to do?”

The truth is feeling stressed about time largely has to do with three things: values, attitude and mindset.

So to a large degree, the feeling of “I don’t have time,” has very little to do with time itself.

Let me explain…

How you spend your time is usually a good indicator of your values

I exercise 5-6 days per week, play tennis 3-4 days per week, and spend at least 3 days each week doing activities with my three daughters. We do tennis, basketball, martial arts, swimming, ride our bikes along the beach, and sometimes just hang out at the Farmer’s market.

Why do I spend time on all these things? Yes, you guessed it.

Making time to exercise, play and spend time with my kids are the things I value most.

These are the things that feed my soul so, of course, I make time for them.

In fact, back in the day before I gave up my corporate suit and tie, I used to get up at 5am every morning to go running or go to the gym before work, because my physical practice fuels me physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

What do you value most?

Before you can commit yourself to something new, you have to first give up something old.

There are only 24 hours in a day. And right now you spend every one of those hours doing something.

Whether you’re binge-watching Netflix, browsing Facebook, working out, or spending time with family and friends, every one of those hours is currently accounted for.

So the reason why some people are constantly time stressed is because they’re constantly trying to ADD new things to their schedule without first identifying what they’re willing to give up as a trade off.

Let me repeat.

Your time is already accounted for, so before you can add something new to your busy day, you MUST give up something else.

When you adopt this new mindset, you will never again use the old victim mindset phrase “I don’t have time.”

Instead, you will be empowered to say what you truly mean:

“I’m not going to commit to that right now because it isn’t as important as the other things I’m currently committed to.”

This is a more empowering approach because it allows you to make an immediate comparison between how you’re currently spending your time and how you could be spending that time.

For instance, if you’re currently browsing Facebook for an hour each day, yet you can’t see where you could make the time to exercise, this new mindset empowers you to make a decision about what’s most important to you.

Facebook or exercise?

And maybe you might even come up with a third option. Could you browse Facebook while exercising?

So it’s not that you don’t have time to exercise, but rather, you choose to spend your time doing something else that, to you, is more important.

Now do you see how powerful a shift in mindset could be?

Feeling Overwhelmed and short on time often means your schedule is filled with things you don’t enjoy doing.

As I wrote in my last book, Energize Your Life, when we’re doing things that are meaningful to us, we feel less time pressure, less rushed and more inspired.

This has been validated by several research studies. In fact, one such study reported that men who volunteered more felt less time stress than women, even when the men spent more hours volunteering than the women.

How is this possible? It has to do with the nature of the volunteer activity.

Case in point, when I volunteer at my kid’s school, I assist with PE or the annual 5k run. My wife, on the other hand, volunteers as a room mom or other things that require meetings, setup and other menial tasks.

Now I’m not saying that her activities aren’t fulfilling, but I doubt she gets the same fulfillment that I get. I get to be a motivational cheerleader. What could be more fulfilling than that?

The bottom line is that when we’re doing more fulfilling and enjoyable things we tend to be less stressed about time, than if our day is filled with menial chores.

Your escape…

1. Take control of your schedule

Yes, I know, it’s easier said than done when you’ve got a million work commitments, afterschool activities with the kids, house work, shopping, walking the dog…

I’m stressed out just thinking about all those things.

But here’s the deal…

It’s okay not getting everything done. Really, it’s okay!

Do the most important things first. That way, at least you’ll feel better knowing that you’ve accomplished something important, instead of just being “busy.”

2. Delete more than you add to your schedule

Let’s face it; most people just like to be busy for the sake of being busy. They don’t feel okay with themselves unless they’re busy doing something, whether or not that something is really important.

So take control of your schedule. Plan your week. Make sure you’re doing something meaningful with your time everyday and spread out the menial tasks evenly over the week.

And most importantly, learn to say “no,” to your boss, the kids, your friends and anybody who want to add more “stuff” to your already busy schedule.

3. Schedule time to do “absolutely nothing!”

Remember when you were a kid and you used to just sit and daydream?

When was the last time you just sat staring out the window at nothing at all?

When was the last time you just sat at the coffee shop or in the park just watching people come and go?

I know it’s hard because most people would rather undergo electric shock than to sit still for fifteen minutes doing nothing.

But doing nothing every once in a while is the most important thing you can do for yourself. It’s a loving thing to do.

Try it sometime.

Simple Strategies for Making Quick Healthy Meals in Minutes

Are you challenged by your busy schedule to find the time to plan and make your meals? Do you find yourself eating out more than you would like? Are you frustrated with the pace of your progress but unable to maintain a consistent eating plan? If this sounds like you, you’re not alone.

Over fifteen years ago, I decided to pursue a PhD in Nutritional Sciences because as a personal trainer, the number one challenge my clients were facing was making the time to plan and make healthy meals. Unfortunately, this is still the case today.

Over the years I have worked with clients who had never turned on the stove in their kitchens. Some didn’t even know that they had an oven in their kitchens. Today, however, these same clients are cooking most of their own meals. What’s the secret to their success and to yours? They followed my simple strategies for making quick meals in less than ten minutes.

Let’s face it, you won’t get healthy, look the way you want or perform at an optimal level, unless you are in control of what you’re eating. Unfortunately, it is not possible to be in control of what you eat unless you make your own meals.

Here are my simple strategies for taking charge of your meal plan and building a healthy, fit, high performance body.

1. Stock up

Obviously, before you can make quick healthy meals you have to stock your freezer, refrigerator and pantry with certain necessities. In the freezer, stock up on frozen vegetables, berries, wild-caught salmon, organic chicken, grass-fed steak, turkey and some of your other favorite protein sources. Try and keep the ratio of your meals to about 90/10. Ninety percent plant-based and no more than ten percent from animal proteins. If your goal is to reverse disease, however, your diet should be 100% plant based.

Stock your refrigerator with fresh vegetables. You can find most vegetables pre-chopped and pre-washed in most large supermarkets. How easy is that?

Stock your pantry with cans of tuna, salmon, sardines, beans, whole grain/rice/bean pasta, tomato paste and sauce, as well as other items you like to eat.

If all this seems daunting, there is a weekly shopping list in my cookbook, Dr. Del’s Rapid Fatloss Cookbook. Just take it to the market with you and buy everything on the list for your freezer, refrigerator and pantry.

2. Plan your week

To be successful, you must have a designated day as your planning and shopping day. It takes me no more than a couple hours on a Sunday to shop for all the things I need for the week. And I’m usually out shopping with my three young daughters. What’s your excuse?

Every Sunday, I shop and make enough food to last at least three days. I usually cook a pot of rice, some sweet potatoes, a large pot of soup or bean chili, and a couple different protein sources (organic chicken, turkey, tofu or fish–since I eat mostly plant-based, I typically use about three ounces of these most as food flavoring for the kids). Guess what? By Wednesday, I still have plenty of food to make my famous leftover stir-fry. Whatever you’re tired of eating, toss it into a stir-fry and it becomes a brand new delicious meal. By the way, did I mention that I’m cooking for a family of five?

3. Buy pre-chopped and pre-cooked

Save yourself time by buying your vegetables pre-chopped. You can find everything from greens, onions, garlic, peppers and most other vegetables already chopped and washed for you. Yes, it’s a bit more expensive, but that’s the price you pay for convenience.

You can also save yourself time by buying some items pre-cooked from your local market. For example, Whole Foods, Bristol Farms and other markets have huge food courts with many healthy selections. Pick up some protein and make everything else yourself.

4. giant salad

Make one of your main meals a giant salad with at least 4-6 different vegetables, a cup of beans, and a home-made dressing. Check out my Youtube channel (youtube.com/drdelmillers) for ideas.

5. Make your meals a top priority

Remember, you will never get healthy, look the way you want or perform at your optimal best unless you make your meals a top priority. If what you eat is always an after-thought, then you will always struggle with your weight, health, fitness, energy level, focus, concentration and performance (at work, play and in the bedroom).

So take a couple hours out of your week to plan your meals. Not only is this good for your health, fitness, and performance, but over time, you will also be increasing your earning potential. That’s right. We’ll talk more about that another time.

6. 10-Minute Meals & Dr. Del’s Rapid Fatloss Cookbook

Next time, we’ll talk about what to do if you’re always on the road.