Detox Blog

Sometimes, we overdo things, right?  Little bit, little pieces.  The stuff I’m telling you to do, literally five minutes in a day.  I might tell you to do it two times a day.  Ten minutes of your day.  That’s all I want.  I don’t want you doing any more than that because you’re going to take it to the extreme, and you’re going to go back the other way.  It’s this big pendulum.  So, this, couple of minutes.  Work it out.  See what it’s doing.

Second thing we got going on here, towel exercise.  Now, this towel’s really not going to move because of the surface I have, and you don’t technically need a towel to do this.  You can do this all on your own, and you can do it there.  You put your feet on the towel.  If you have a slippery surface, the towel will move, and this will tell where your pole is if you’re keeping that V-shaped tension.  You lift the toes up.  The first thing you want to notice when you lift your toes up is this happening or this happening?  Unevenness, right?  Part of the problem that’s happening with that big heel strike is we’re losing a lot of flexibility in the ankles.  This will start to bring that flexibility back.

For m Achilles people, this can help because if you’re very tight in the front here, your Achilles is taking a lot of pressure because it’s not having the moving the ankle should have.  So, you pick this up, and as you pick up, make sure you’re not just pulling back with the toes and doing this or that.  That’s what a lot of people are going to want to do because they don’t know how to flex the ankle.  You want to deep flex the ankle.  So, when you do that, you’re going to feel the stretch through the shin.  You want that stretch.  That’s also going to strengthen the ankle.

You’re then going to place the toes down, and you’re going to pull the towel to you.  Now, if I had a smooth surface, the towel would pull, and I’m going to pull the towel towards me.  When I pull, I want to make sure that I’m pulling evenly.  What you’ll notice, and this is where you can do this test, if you’re pulling like this, you’re going to see the towel’s coming uneven.  When you pull, you’re going to come straight.  That’s going to be your test, but otherwise, you can do this at the dinner table.  You can do one foot at a time, pulling and reaching, keeping that evenness. You’re still trying to keep that even balance as you do it, and then you reverse it.  You tuck the toes under.  You press out.  Same things, tuck, and press out.  You’re just going both directions, and you just want to know that the towel’s pulling evenly.  That’s the key.

Next one we got here, again, that same kind of lift.  We’re not pulling back with the toes.   Same kind of lift.  We’re pulling up.  We’re pressing out, down, and we’re pulling in.  So, for those of you that are pronators, that are rolling in, this is good because what you’re going to start to feel is the inside line here working.  This helps strengthen the shin, helps strengthen the calves, and helps strengthen the foot.  When we’re talking about the foot, it’s not just the foot that’s the problem.

All of these other structure have to be balanced out with the foot.  If all you do is address the foot and not address the rest of the leg, again, we’re still having those imbalances.  So, you have to address more than just the foot.  You do this the opposite way, as well.  So, if you’ve done this way, then the opposite way is you press out, lift up, pull in.  This is for really working.  You want your knees together.  If you keep your knees together, it’s a different feeling completely.  You’re going to feel that working in there.  It’s going to help your ankle.

This is going to be a good ankle strengthener, and this is going to be good for building that flexibility in those areas.   You can feel it, and you might cramp.  Your feet might cramp when you do some of this.  Your feet are going what are you doing?  I don’t know how to work that. What are you doing?  I’m freaking out.

[54:46]

You drag out, lift up, pull together, and down.  Now, remember when you go to pick up, you want to make sure, you’re not having the feet roll funky.  You want them straight on as much as possible, and that’s going make you feel it deeper in the ankle that way and deeper in the shin.  You might even feel it all the way up to the leg. When we’re talking about the feet, again, like I said, they’re not isolated.  They’re part of a bigger structure.  So, you are going to end up working more than just that.

You also can just do points and flexes.  You point the foot.  You flex the foot.  The key here, though, when you’re pointing or flexing the foot, is to not do it with the toes.  There’s that toe thing again.  A lot of us are just going to pull up the toes like this.  All you’re doing is overstretching the toes.  You’re not really using that ankle.  What I like to think is as I press pull up, I really want to make sure I’m deeply pressing through the ankle and reaching the heel out.  Does that make sense?

So, you really want that big movement.  Then you can circle the ankle.  When you circle the ankle, you want a full motion.  You want to try to keep the leg because what most of you are going to do is I’m moving it, I’m moving it.  Keep the legs straight.  Just move the ankle.  Think about making the biggest circle with your biggest toe that you possibly can.   For my Achilles people, this is going to be good for balancing that out.  So, big circles.

Last one I’m going to show you, standing footwork.  Standing footwork, we stand up.  The key here is to make sure that we’re staying there balanced, all the stuff we’ve talked about.  This is like the crème de la crème here.  We take everything we’ve been talking about, and now we put it into an exercise.  Full body.

So, we’re going to bend our knees, keeping our heels on the floor.  As we bend down, we’re trying to keep all that pressure even.  This way, we’re getting that deep bend in the ankle.  You might be feeling your shins in these.  You could feel calves.  You could feel boobs.  You’re then going to keep this knee bent and pick our feet up.  The key here, not rolling in or out of those feet. That’s going to be the tricky part.  You, then, stand up and lower down.  So, this also going to improve your balance tremendously.

So, as we do this, try to keep that balance.  What I don’t want to see from people is this thing, this jam in the ankles. You want to make sure as you pick up, you’re keeping control and you’re keeping balance with the bottom of our foot there.   Now, you reverse this as well.  The reverse of this is we come all the way up.  We bend our knees.  We lower our heels, and we straighten up.  So, you lift up.  You bend.  You lower, and you straighten up.

So, this is another exercise.  This is the Mac Daddy of those exercises.  It really can work the feet.  You really want to keep all of the things you’re talking about, keeping the balance, keeping all of that.  You can come up here and take a card.  I have a YouTube channel and have these exercises on them.  So, you’ve got them video.  You don’t have to worry about writing them all down.

One other quick thing you can do, this is a simple one, is you can pick your toes up and place one toe down at a time.  This is learning control of the feet.  What this does is this helps you get control of those toes.  For those people who have those toes coming in or hammer toes, this is going to you start working those back out.  You do it baby toe first and then down, and then try reverse it. You’re going to see mine doesn’t reverse very well.  They don’t, but it’s the thought pattern and training those and getting the bottoms of the feet to start working and getting that dexterity back into the feet.  They’re almost like hands.

Really building this dexterity, what you’re going to find is you’re doing these exercises, your body will start to become more natural with the feet.  Your shoes are going to get small.  You’re going to have to buy new shoes.  So, sorry about that, but as you start getting the feet back to the natural place, they’re going to widen out.  The bones are going to come a little more spread out to where they’re supposed to be and more natural.  You’re going to have to buy new shoes, a little bit of wider shoe.

[59:23]

I didn’t think I could get wider either, and it happened.  So, it does happen.  On these exercise, don’t kill yourself on them.  Simplify. Simplify. Simplify your life.  Five minutes, 10 minutes a day.  That’s it.  Pick one or two exercises.  Start off for about two weeks doing them every day, 5 to 10 minutes in your day.  That’s it, practicing your standing and your walking.

After those two weeks, if you’re starting to feel a little bit stronger in the feet.  You’re starting to ease some of that pain, move to one time during the day for the next couple of weeks, and then after that, every other day.  Work them when you need them.  It can happen that fast.  Don’t feel like you can jump real quick, but it can happen that fast if you’re diligent about it and not overworking it.

Simplify. Easy. Simplify.

Those are the best exercises I can tell you.  They will start to make a difference.  You’re standing, becoming aware, taking these different tips, and bringing them into your daily life.  Make it a part of your life.  If your body feels like it needs to do some points and flexes, do that.  Don’t get so diligent like I have to do this exercise every day.

Listen to your body.  Your body’s going to tell you whether it wants this one or points and flexes.  Just start doing those natural things.  That’s like what cats do.  They wake up.  They stretch and they do these things.

Start listening to your body.  Your feet will tell you that as you start doing this.

Simplify.  Make it a part of your life.

Any questions?  Anything that wasn’t clear?  Anything of that sort I can answer for you.  I do have, as I said, business cards up here.  A couple of them cut out as I didn’t bring enough business cards.  Okay.  One of these ones?  There’s a YouTube channel.  It’s called Pilates.  My YouTube channel’s Mindful Movement.  It’s under Pilates Foot Exercises.  There’s also one that says More Pilates Foot Exercises.  There’s three different ones out there.

The Merrells, here, now have a similar shoe.  These are for people who are afraid to go out with the toes.  This is not your thing.  You’re not the showy person.  I’m a showy person so I don’t mind showing my toes off.  I like the attention I get. Some people don’t like them, and they think they look weird.  Merrell has now made a shoe that you can wear the same way.  There are also Nike Frees.  These came out a few years ago.  They’re more of a minimalist type shoes, as well.

So, these minimalist type shoes, again, we’ve got a little bit of a thinner sole.  This one’s are a little thicker than the Vibrams.  So, this is nice for people who like to do a little more hiking stuff.  It’s a thicker sole than the Vibrams, the Merrells are.  We still have this minimalist.  We don’t really have much on a heel on it, and it doesn’t really have that toe thing going in as the other shoes are.  They’re going to have give in them.  This one, right now, has something in it so I can’t show you how it usually gives, but it has more give.  It is a little bit more forgiving as you move. So, Merrell would be a nice substitute.

Again, I would work my way into these.  You can’t take your way from this to this.  Start by with just one hour and then the two hours and work your way up.  That goes for walking.  Walk for a certain period of time.  Then, up that up to a mile, maybe longer, depending on how far you walk or what you do, distance-wise.

[38:40]

The Merrell would probably be better if you’re going where there’s a little bit more rocky stuff because the sole’s a little bit thicker.

[38:52]

These don’t have any.  If you’re going really mountainous type, you might want something that has a little bit stiffer ankle, but what’s nice about when you have these Merrells and the Vibrams is that it allows your foot to readjust on them.  Naturally, your feet, your ankles, are supposed to readjust and not lock up.

[39:25]

Yeah.  Either way, you can.  Your ankles have to be strong if you’re going to do something of that, and that’s again working your way into them, getting the strength into your ankles because naturally your ankle is supposed to give.  If you really get a truly flexible and strong ankle, you can roll out and not sprain it because the body readjusts.  These joints are meant to do these things.  They have this absorbency and this movement to them.  When we lock them up, they don’t get that movement which means that you have more chance of twisting them, causing problems, spraining them, all of these things.

Since I’ve been working with people or since I’ve been working myself in fixing my feet, I don’t roll my foot out.  If I do, my body responds back and catches me without sprains or inflammation or things like this.  The people I work with have the same results.  They don’t find as much foot pain.  They’re not rolling out as much.  Their body can readjust to the terrains, the different things that happen.  When your feet can feet the ground and feel what’s going on, the body can readjust to these various things that pop into the way.  If our ankles are locked down and I misstep, let’s say, off a rock, my ankle doesn’t move.  What’s going to happen?  It’s going to have to sprain.  It’s going to give, and it’s going to pull on that limb.  Thank you.

[41:22]

So, you’re a big heel striker.  Yeah.  As you work into them, they should start to get you to walk more naturally.  So you don’t have the cushion to cause you to do more heel strike.  Sorry.

[41:42]

You notice the impact more.  This was his question, earlier, that I missed.  Because you notice the impact more, your body won’t let you do that because it doesn’t want the pain.  Because it’s going to feel, it’s naturally going to start go into this walk.  When I went into the Vibrams, I noticed how much more ankle movement I had.  I wasn’t so hard on the heel.  Your body will naturally start to change because it doesn’t want you to strike on them.

[42:11]

You can’t.  You know what, this is where you start becoming aware.  Some women really like to wear their high heels.  We’re going to do it.  With us doing that, you just need to be aware and try to change as much as you can and know that you’re making a conscious decision to wear those shoes.  That’s what I do.  I know I’m going to wear these shoes.  I’m going to feel it tomorrow.  I might work me feet out a little bit, but I do try to walk a little more balanced even in them.  Even if I can’t get to the exact place because the shoes prevent me, I try as much as possible.  I try to get as much ankle and all of these things.  Does that answer your question?

[42:54]

Yeah, definitely.  I don’t recommend concrete running in the Vibrams.  I find that’s a little stressful to the body unless you have built your body enough to handle that.  You want some that’s a little bit thicker sole just because it’s concrete.  I run in them.  I can run on the concrete, but my body’s been trained a little bit more.  Trail running, these are great for.  If you can get in paths, these are for the running.  I would say these are going to be better because of a little bit of a thicker sole.  If you find, though, that you are having a lot of stress on the body, find the shoe that may be a little thicker than this but not too much, not that big high heel on.

[43:45]

How do you balance out?  You just have to understand that it’s a process, and as you continue to keep your mind focused on it and as you continue to focus, that all naturally start to go away.  The pain will naturally start to go away, and you’ll find more balance.  You sometimes have to go through the pain a little bit to get out of the pain.  If you’re focusing on all these things we’re talking about, that pain will start to alleviate as you do it.  Even joint pain, it will start to alleviate.  You just got to work through it and work in a healthy way, not an extreme way.

[44:52]

It does.  It naturally knows.  Your body naturally knows where it wants to be.  You just have to get a little bit out of how you’ve learned it or trained it and get it back to the natural place of where it’s supposed to be.  It’ll know.  It’ll know that this feels more natural.  This feels better.

[45:14]

You should wear them without socks.  They’re fine to wear without socks.  Are you talking about on the outside here?  How long have you had them?  Have you broke them in?  They do take a little bit of tiem to break in.

[46:00]

Okay.  They’re just like any other shoes, and they do take some time to break them in.  They will mold around.  So, there could be some natural breaking in of shoes, the natural rubbings and things.  Once it really starts to form fit your foot, that should go away.  Is it still doing it now?

[46:33]

For a while.

[46:36]

You shouldn’t need to wear the toe socks. You do find that if they’re the right size, they will conform to your foot, but it will take a little bit of breaking in for them to conform to your foot.  They’re just like any other shoes.  They do take some time to get that foot.

[47:02]

What about Skechers or whatever that has been that has been popular lately.

I’m going to be really honest right up.  I hate those.  I really do.  They end up overdeveloping the body in the way that they should not be.  Number one, they’re rounded.  So, they’re already putting your foot in an unnatural position.  Number two, they’re going to work your legs unnaturally.  So, they end up overdeveloping the quads and pushing you forward, and they create unbalance. Even though they talk about it, that it’s the backside, they end up overdeveloping the quads is what really happens.  They do the opposite.  So, I really do not like them.

MBTs are another brand that came out that was supposed to be.  They weren’t there for the shaping up, but they were to mimic a tribe (and I can’t remember the name of the tribe), which was Masai, which is why it’s MBT.  Those are rockers like that, too.  They’re actually bigger rocker, and although that naturalness can ease the joints, which was nice, at the same time, it unnaturally develops the body and not let it do what it’s supposed to do.  It actually throws it more out of whack than in whack.

So, I’m not a big fan of those.  I will say that, I’m sorry if there’s a Skechers person around here, I hate those shoes.  I prefer these over them.  I do have a pair of Skechers.  These are Skechers, but they’re not those Shape ups or whatever they call them.

Let’s move to some exercises.  I can answer more questions afterwards if people want.  So, let’s move on to exercises.  So, you’ve got your standing.  You’ve got your walking.  First and probably the easiest thing to do, golf ball or tennis ball.  For those of you that have tightness underneath your foot.  If you were to feel your foot, you might feel like a tight cable running through it.  My plantar fasciitis people, you might feel a tight cable that runs through the bottom of your foot.  If you were to feel your foot, and you feel hard tissue or spots that are tight or built up, this is a great thing to do.  You take a tennis ball, and you give yourself a foot massage.  Really easy.

If you have sensitive, a golf ball is not what you can use, but if you want to get deeper in there, a golf ball will help.  As you do this, you’re going to feel like there’s a tight spot.  You really work into that spot.  You put some pressure into, and you just roll.  You do both sides.  So, this can help stretch the bottom of your foot, build some flexibility back into it.

For those of you feeling a tight cable or have tight feet or high arches, these are the places.  Use a tennis ball.  This will help.  This is a good place to start in getting release in that foot.  What that’s going to do is it’s going to spread the foot out.  The bones will become a lot more natural, and those who have that high arch, the arch is going to drop a little bit, which is good, because it’s supposed to be more grounded to the floor as opposed to that big lift that’s occurring.

[50:29]

Two minutes.  Whatever feels to work the foot out.

[50:37]

Second place is loosen up your ankles, let them go.  Let those ankles be free. They want to be free.  You want to find your ankles soft, absorbent, springy.  So, when you walk, you really want to make sure you’re really moving through the foot.  You want to be a little more even in the distribution of when you’re walking.  If you notice, I’m not doing a hard heel.  It’s not a big hard heel strike.  It’s a gentler, more center of the foot.  This goes for running, too.  If you’re a heel runner and you’re striking like this, that can really be hard on the body.  You want a little bit more forefront or center, and this is all about what the minimalist shoes and barefoot runners are talking about.  It’s the forefront versus the heel strike.  Now, you can’t make this change instantly, right.  Make sure you work into this because if you go right into the extreme, you’re going to cause just as much problems just in the opposite way.  You’ve got to work slowly.  Start with your standing, start with your walking.  Start changing the structure of your body, and as that’s starting to happen, you can change these other patterns, the running, the things like these.  Naturally, though, it will start to happen on its own.

When we’re walking, loosen up the ankle.  We want to make sure we’re pushing through that toe.  That toe propels you forward.  If we don’t push through that toe, that toe’s not doing anything.  It’s not working, and when things are not working, it’s fatiguing the body.  We already talked about it.  We want more joining the party, not less.  It’s fatiguing the body, but it’s also then not making it work, which means that the body has to restructure for that not working.  So, make sure you’re rolling through that toe.  What that will do is for those you that don’t take strides forward, they take strides outwards like this.  It’s going to do is propel you forward, which means you’re going to get there faster, and you can walk slower. It’s okay.  It’s still going to get you there faster.

Now, if you look at my walk here, it’s a little bit more natural.  Do you see how loose it is?  See how grounded I am on the floor as opposed to some big heel striker?  Can you see that difference?  Is that making sense?  A big heel strike here.  My knees don’t really move because my knees can’t move because my heels’ doing this work as opposed to this.  It also has a different energetic quality.  See that?  It’s like a calmer not in your face walk.  It’s calmer.  It’s gentler.  It’s easier.  Some people might even say meditational walk, that Zen walk.

So, as you’re doing this, you want to find where you’re pushing off at so you can find the evenness and the balance of the foot, and try to be less on the heel, a little bit more even.  This, then, distributes through the body, this force, and this allows the feet to do what it’s supposed to do.  If you keep all that force, you’re not allowing the body to do what it’s supposed to do.  The feet are supposed to be shock absorbers.  Let them do they’re job.

I seem to have the tendency to use the ball of my feet as the shock absorbers.

The balls of the feet.  You do see some walkers that are like that.  They stress the balls of the feet more.  You probably want to pull your weight back a little bit, and this is a good question.  Some people are high toe walkers, and they’re putting it so much on the ball of the foot.  They’re putting a little bit more pressure into the toe joint and the ball of the foot.  If you’re in the forefront, make sure it’s not overdone.  Does that make sense?

[28:09]

Yes, the foot’s meant to have that kind of action to it.  You will see some people thought that are high kind of walkers like this. When they walk, they walk like this.  They look like they’re floating around.  They do.  I’ve seen them, and they’re really high on the foot.  They have to be lower on the foot.

[28:40]

Shoes can do that.  Yeah.  I mean shoes will force your foot into those positions without a doubt.  They force them into unnatural positions of where it’s supposed to be.

[28:57]

If you’re loving them, I’m going to say stay with it.  If you’re loving them, and they make your feet feel comfortable, then, that’s a great thing.  A lot of that of that high toe walking, it’s that heel thing that’s causing that lift.  Again, it also is the size of the heel that could be causing that.

[29:47]

You should.  There’s nothing wrong with wearing the shoes if they’re comfortable.  A lot of shoes, though, aren’t as comfortable for people because of these various things that have been unnatural.  This is why I would not take you out of your shoe and dump you into these minimalists.  You need to work your way into they as your foot restructures.  This goes for orthotics.

One of the biggest things people are given these days are orthotics or arch support.  The problem with those is they start doing the action of your foot, and if they are not proper for your foot, which they can be because we have different feet, they’re going to cause more pain.  So, the best way I can say this is if I broke my foot, and I put a cast on it, my bone’s going to heal because it’s going to set the bones.  What’s going to happen to the muscles around it?  They’re going to atrophy.  The muscles aren’t doing their job. They’re not doing what they’re supposed to.  So, orthotics, when they start doing the work, your feet are no longer doing the work.  Something else is doing it for you.  This can end up causing more problem.  I tend to get people who are in orthotics that are not out of pain or they’re in worse pain, or they’re not feeling that they’re not doing much for them or different pain, shifts it from one to another.  If people are getting pain relief from orthotics, though, the first thing I’m going to say is don’t leave the orthotics.  Work your way out of them.  You can’t go from this to that.  If they’re doing something for you, don’t jump over here.  Work your way out of them though.  Let your feet start getting more natural to them.

So, the minimalist shoes, which have become really popular these days, I’m a big fan of, and I’m a big fan of them because of the things we walked about.  We notice, we’re not really getting that raised heel problem.  A lot of people sometimes don’t like those toes.  They don’t think they look you know.  She, back there, has them.  She sports them.  She rocks them out.

[32:00]

They’re very good for you.  They’re very good.  These minimalist shoes are very good.  They do mimic being barefoot.  They’re not like toe socks.  A lot of people are like, “Toe socks.  I don’t like anything between my foot.”  That’s a pretty common things.  These do not feel like toe socks.  They don’t jam into the joints like toe socks do.  They are quite comfortable.  It might take some time for you to figure out how to get your toes in there, especially if you got toes that are curling in together.  What is nice about these is they start mimicking barefoot, which means that your feet start to get back to their natural state.  They start working the way they should.

The first thing I noticed when I bought these Vibrams, I noticed my ankle started moving again, and that was a very weird concept to me.  I was like who knew that the ankle moved?  I’ve carried it over to regular shoes because now I was conscious of it, but it was the first thing I noticed.  Now, when I suggest the Vibrams to people, and even I’m going to talk about the Merrells in a second, what I noticed was when you were these, you don’t go and wear these all day long initially.  Work your way into them.  Start by wearing them maybe an hour a day, then two hours, and then three hours.

I’m a pilates instructor.  I do all this foot work.  I’m like I’m going to totally rock these Vibrams out.  The guy forewarned me be careful.  Oh no, I can wear them all day long.  I’ve never been so sore on my calves or my shin.  I could not believe how crazy that was, and I thought that my feet were pretty balanced.  I really learned a big lesson that they weren’t.  Now, luckily my body was shifting already through the pilates I’m doing, but if you’re making a jump, start slow, an hour a day.

Now, if you have a problem, and you don’t want to be in the toe shoes, I find these to be really great shoes for gardeners or around the house because it gives you the protection you need, but what it does is it allows you to get that toe bend like if you’re down gardening and doing stuff.  It doesn’t put your foot in an unnatural place it.  It puts it in the most natural place.  So, these are great around the house, gardening, these kinds of things, if you don’t want to go out in public.

How is wearing that good for the [34:25] barefoot?

Barefoot will be just as well, but for people who go outside, they don’t like rocks.  Some people don’t like being barefoot.  There are people there who have very sensitive bottoms of foot because they haven’t really exposed their feet.  If you’re very sensitive, you usually wear shoes all the time, wear these instead.  If you can go around barefoot, that’s the best thing.  I try to be barefoot as much as I can.

[34:52]

No, it does, and because it starts mimicking back to the natural place of where your foot’s supposed to be.  A way you can do that same thing with the toes is you can take your fingers and put it right through.  For some of us, you might work your way into that.  That might be a little sore to do that, to put your fingers through, and then you just hold that for five minutes.  That will spread the toes out a little more.

Do you think having more padding to lessen the impact allows you to correct your gait more because it seems like it really hurts to walk barefoot, and when you’re barefoot, you really have to be careful?  You have less pain, so I’m wondering, if like you said, if the impact starts to amass, but the shoes, it encourages bad behavior so much.

Yeah.  There’s a lot of research coming out with all the minimalist shoes coming out.  Now, they’re doing a lot of research on it.  They’re finding that the more cushioning is actually causing more pain in the body because of the unnaturalness which is why the more minimalist ones end up being better for the body and having less pain, but the big thing that they always say is you can’t go and jump from this to this.  It’s got to be a slow thing.

[36:24]

You know what, I suggest an hour a day for about a week or two.  Then, go up to two hours a day, and just work your way up that way.  You’ll know because if they’re hurting after 30 minutes, take them off and put your shoes on.  Don’t overdo it.  You’ll know, but the best way to do this is start with an hour.  Work your way up and do two hours and three hours.  At some point, you’re going to know it’s okay to wear these more often or for longer distances or for longer periods of time.  Did I answer your question?  I not, please let me know.  I can talk forever.  I don’t have a problem with that ever.

So, when you’re standing, the first thing you can start doing to start easing your foot problems is to practice your standing.  Now, this one you can do in the grocery line.  You can do this when you’re waiting anywhere, waiting for somebody.  Just practice your standing.

Now, let me show you a couple of things that also happen because a lot of us either tend to be in our heels or on our toes.  We don’t have even pressure forward-to-back, and if we are one of those people that puts into the back, what the body is going to do to shift is I’m going to push my hips forward.  You’re going to get this kind of look.  Does this look familiar to some people?  Exaggerated, very exaggerated.  My chiropractor’s like, “I’ve seen that a million times.”  Yeah.  This is how it starts to happen.  The weight’s back in the heels, and then everything has to push forward.  So, not only do we have to worry about this whole thing going on.  Now, we’ve got to worry about this whole thing going on.

Second thing, some people are way forward here.  If I’m way forward, my body’s going to do this.  Now, I’ve got to readjust so that I can stay upright.  I’m putting all my pressure forward, and it’s pressing me forward now.

So, when we’re thinking about those three points, yes, we’ve got to be balanced.  That way, we’re going to balance front-to-back.  When we’re going be balanced front-to-back, as we do that to find this person, and I’m supinating out, as soon as I start to pull this back up and I get even, I’m going to find my pressure pushing in keeping me grounded.  I’m going to lift right on up through my spine.  That’s not me doing effort. A lot of people are going to be like, “This is I get my posture.  I squeeze my shoulders back, and I puff my chest out.  That makes me taller.”  No, if you just correct these little things, it will naturally pull you right on up, and you don’t even have to worry about shifting your spine and all these other ways they tell you to get your posture.  Makes sense?

Anybody got any questions thus far?  Just want to make sure you’re with me.  Let me know if you’re not.

So, as we find our balance when we’re standing, we find those points that I mentioned, the V point, and then we just find that front-to-back place.  That’s your first thing. Start practicing your standing.  You’re probably not going to be able to do this for long periods of time.  This is going to be like a hold it for a minute, let the body go, try it again later.  As you start to get more strength and find that foot supporting and the body structure holding you again, then you’ll find that you’ll be able to hold it longer.  It will temporarily fatigue you, but in the long run, it will help you get more endurance and stamina.  Why is this?  When we’re doing these things that are out of balance, the pronation and all of these things, we fatigue the muscles.  Your endurance goes down.  Your stamina goes down.

For my athletes, if you’ve got problems with your feet, this is going to make you a lot more tired during the day.  Those of you that stand on your feet a lot, it’s going to make you get tired a lot faster during the day.  If you fix these problems, the fatiguing stops happening because all of the muscles start working together. I like to say, it’s like getting more to join the party.  You don’t want less to join the party.  You want more to join the party.  Instead of one or two muscles doing all the work, you want 50 muscles doing the work.  Think about how much stronger you are.  Think of how much more active you’re going to be that way, and think of how much endurance and stamina you’ll have.

As you’re going finding this balance and you get this place, understand, initially, you’re not going to be able to hold it long because the muscles don’t know how to hold it.  It’s going to be like a workout for them.  It’s going to get fatigue, and they’re going to be like, “Okay.  I need to go back”.  Then, you work them again, and as you continue to work them, you’ll be able to hold them for longer and longer periods of time.  You’ll start to find that as you’re standing, you’ll have less pain as you stand.  You’ll have that achiness start to go away, and you’ll be able to hold a little bit longer.  So, standing is the first place you can start practicing, and you can do it anywhere.

Second thing we can talk about is your walking.  I do not recommend doing this in public at first because if you have ever tried to change your walk, it does not look natural.  Let me tell you.  I’m going to tell you to change your walk, and you’re going to start doing this.  I don’t think you want to be doing that in public in front of people.  It could be awkward.

I’ll do that if I have to. 

Do it a half mile a day.

You try to change, and it looks at you so odd because you’re trying to [17:16]

It’s not natural, and almost 99% of the people, when they start changing their walk, it does not look natural because when we start thinking about something you’ve done so long on that subconscious level, your body just goes I don’t know what to do and it looks awkward.  So, do it in the privacy of your own home until you get comfortable with it and can figure it out.

When you’re walking, there’s a couple of things we have going on here.  Naturally, because of our shoes, our shoes cause a lot of problems.  Naturally, when we start to walk, the shoes have been built to make us not walk naturally.  So, our bodies have been trained to make us not walk naturally, and shoes are big, big, big problem and a big reason for this.  Shoes and athletics only really started coming around, the soled shoes, really started coming around in the 1970s.  This is when Nike came together.  They started putting thicker soles for athletes.  Before that, most athletes wore very, very thin-soled shoes and did more barefoot-type stuff.  It’s only really in the last 30-some years that shoes in athletics have really gotten bulky, and then they put all these different things in it. What they really had to do when they started putting these cushionings in and raising the heel, which, as you see, the heel is raised, which is unnatural to the body.  As the heel became raised, they had to put all these supports into the arch to counterbalance so it didn’t throw you off, throw you forward.

So, all these shoes out there, arch support or these other shoes that talk about air cushions, they’ve gotten really bulky and gotten really big.  They’re the most unnatural to the body.  They don’t actually contact or allow your feet to be the spring that they’re supposed to be.  Feet are shock absorbers to the body.  When this is doing all the shock absorbing for you and creating an unnatural, many times it causes more shock to the body, and I’m going to explain why here.  We’re going to look at a couple of things.  Heel is raised, so this is going to cause you to strike fairly hard into the heel. When you strike fairly hard into the heel, this can go for runners, see how flexed my ankle is.  I have just taken a lot of energy and a lot of force and put it right into the body.  Now, all this force comes up through the body.

Naturally, when we walk there is a little bit of a heel strike.  There is a softness to it, hopefully a softness, although some of us don’t.  We all got our different walks.  We’ll talk about it, but that big strike right there is putting a lot of force.  The ankle’s not moving.  That’s because the shoes naturally been made to make that happen to you.  That raised heel causes that kind of reaction.  All that cushioning was put in there to try make your body not have shock, to be a shock absorber.  In reality, what it does is it does the opposite.  So, that heel’s been raised.

Second thing we can look at here.  See how the toe goes up?  I don’t know.  Does anybody have toes that do this?  Do your toes look like that? No.  They want to touch the ground.  This is part of reality.  The feet want to touch the ground.  Those toes are meant to do something.  They’re not just supposed to be up in the air, hanging out, doing little things, waving to people.  The toes are meant to be on the floor.  They’re meant to ground you.  So, the shoe naturally creates this rolling action, which our feet should roll, except what it’s doing is making it an unnatural rolling action because it makes that really hard strike.  Then, what happens is, most of us, because of this raised toe, we don’t roll through our toes.  We actually end up not using any of our toe.  We keep our ankle really hard, and we don’t roll.

Now, this is a pretty stiff walk, right?  Again, everything I do is exaggerated.  This is not what you look like. You look like some version of this but not like this.  So, this is how most people walk.  If I’ve got my front forward people.  See how hard that is on the body?  There’s not naturalness to it.  Now, you may not look like this yet, but there’s probably some version of this stiffness that happened to your walk.

Last thing, see these soles?  There’s no bend in these babies.  How much of your soles?  That thing isn’t going anywhere, and I’m a pretty strong girl.  Wait, I might get it.  There’s no bend to these soles so you don’t have that ability for your foot to maneuver in the way that it should or to spread and open in the way that it should, to have that contact, that groundedness.

So, I have some shoes that I like, and the reason why I like them is, although this has a little bit of the toe, it’s not that much.  Notice the heel’s not that high.  You want the heel that helps a lot.  Try to avoid the shoes that have a really high toe.  See how much give these things have?  Why I like them is because they have a lot of give.  They’re very natural.  I can feel the ground underneath me.  They’re very nice to have, those type of shoes.

In a moment, I’m going to talk about the minimalist shoes, which I’m a big proponent of, but I want to talk about the walk.  I want to show you one of those soles that are hard and a sole that’s a little bit less hard.  When we walk, as we’re moving through, we have to consider our points.  This is where it gets a little tricky because now we’ve got take that all those things we learned from standing and bring it over to our walk.  Remember those points of contact.  When we walk, we have to make sure we keep those points of contact.  What we’re going to notice is, for those of us that have that rolling out, we’re going to wear on the outside of our feet because we walk on the outside of our feet.  Those of us that have that pronation, we’re going to find that front of the big toe, you’re going to have some wear going on in there.

You’re going to find that balance again.  Look at your shoes and look at the wear pattern.  It’s going to tell you, when you walk, what do you like to do.  You’re going out.  You’re going in.  So, the first thing you got to do in your walk is get that balance.  Get that place that when you walk, you’ve got the points, the V points.  That’s the first place.

We’re going to go ahead and get started talking about the feet.  We’re going to cover a lot of various topics.  Feel free to go ahead and ask questions throughout.  I’ll keep everything nice and open and answer your questions.  If you need to, afterwards, ask me questions, feel free, or e-mail me.  I love, love to take your questions and make sure I’m addressing what you need to be addressed.

So, a lot you are having some foot pains.  This is very, very common.  Right?  I mean this is a huge problem in today’s society, foot pain, and who knows really what the causes are?  There’s so many things that we can talk about.  We’ve got the shoes that are the problem.  We’re walking on concrete.  We have injuries that occur.  We have movement patterns that we’ve picked up through time. We pick up from our parents when we start to walk.  It’s very common for people who have foot pain that their parents had foot pain or bunions or these things.  Their kids end up having it.  A lot of it is because that’s how we learn to move, through how our parents move.  We pick up these habits, and a lot of times, we end up with the same pain.

As we are working with the feet, we need to start looking at the structures of our feet.  If any of you feel comfortable, I’m going to have you take off your shoes so that you can get dirty with me here, in a sense.  I’ll let you get comfortable, but before we start analyzing it, I want to look at why it’s important we’re working the feet, we’re looking at the feet.  We’re understanding how the feet are important to the body.

Physically, the feet are the foundation to the house.  The feet are the foundation to our body, right?  If we have a house and got a foundation and you get a crack, everything up the chain can be having problems.  Cracks happen through the system.  So, when the feet start to go, it is not uncommon to have knee problems, hip problems, back problems, neck problems, and even shoulder problems, and that can all resonate from the feet.  Physically, the feet cause a lot of problems if they start to get cracks in them.

Mentally, what does this do to us if we have cracks in our feet?  Well, mentally we don’t feel as grounded.  We start to lose our balance, and that makes us start to feel a little more uncomfortable.  So, emotionally, now we don’t feel as centered.  We don’t feel as stable.  We start to have fear in movement, or we stop moving.  So, what’s really important?  We get our foundation back so we can start living life again.  We can have a full life and not be restricted in what we’re doing.  That’s where I really have a passion.  So, a lot of what I’m going to show is coming from a peace of mind to get you moving, get you out of pain, and get you feeling better about yourself.

If we look at the feet, we’re all going to have various feet.  All of us have different structures, and there’s no right or wrong.  So, you’re going to hear a lot of people talk about fallen arches or high arches.  Let me tell you:  That concept, you need to throw out the window.  There is no such thing as high arches or fallen arches.  All there is is what’s your arch?  Where is supposed to be the most natural place of your arch?  For some people that’s going to be a little bit higher.  For other people, that’s going to be flatter.  Our goal is not to give you a certain shape of a foot, but it is to find your best foot.  That’s where these exercises are going to come in.

What are some problems start to come up when our feet are going for us, when we’re not having our most natural foot?   Plantar fasciitis, the Achilles tendon problems.  People start to get just achy feet, arthritic feelings.  We also get bunions.  We get callouses, corns.  All of these things are representative of what happens when the feet start to go bad.

If we look at a bunion, what really occurs with a bunion is we’re putting pressure unevenly in our feet.  I’m going to try and get up here for you guys to see me a little bit better.  When we put our feet unevenly and we put uneven pressure, what happens is the foot starts to roll in like this.  The toes then start to press out like so.  This is a reaction.  The body’s always going to react to pull you back into balance because the body always wants to be back in balance.

So, if I go to shift my hip out, notice how my upper body shifts back towards the other side. This is so I don’t fall over.  If I shifted everything over this way, I’m going to fall over.  The body is really smart.  It’s freaking cool how it will readjust to make things happen.  Now, when that readjustment happens though, that’s not necessarily good for the body.  Overtime, it’s going to start to cause pain, and this starts when you’re a kid.  So, any of the problems you’re having now may have started when you were young.  The problem is that over 30, 40-some years, it’s now gotten how far out of whack.  So, first thing you have to know, you can’t go from here and go back to here.  We have to go really slow, all the way back.

Now that doesn’t mean you can’t start making changes fast.  It just means you have to work within its range and not try to force it too fast because if you do that, it will just cause this much pain.  We’ll talk a little about the shoes and how you can prepare yourself as you move into these other ways so that you don’t shift yourself to the other extreme because we don’t want to go to the other extreme, that one to the next.  It’s the slow kind of processes.

So, the body reacts whenever we place pressure in imbalanced ways.  If you stand up, and we take a look at our feet, there are going to be a couple of things that might happen for you as you stand up here.  Some of you might have what a lot of doctors tell you is fallen arches.  They’re not fallen arches, but what happens is that pronation happens.  Pronation is just a fancy word for rolled in.  That’s all it is.  When you’re rolling in, and I might do a little exaggerated here so that you can take a look at your feet.  Just know mine’s exaggerated.  If you notice here, now I’m balanced.  If I go to roll in and I go to do this pronation, see what happens to my knees.  See what happens to my toes, and if you can’t feel free to walk around here a little bit.  I’m going to try and do as much as I can to show you.  My toes are now starting to come out.  My knees are coming in.  This is going to put a lot of pressure.   Now, this happens overtime so remember you’re probably not here yet, but you might slightly be there.  You’re already causing these shifts to curve.  What that does is that weakens the ankle.  Those of who were talking to me about the ankle problem, if you’re rolling in like this, what is happening is not necessarily that your arch is flattening.  The entire inner line of your body is falling downward.  That’s putting a lot of pressure into that area, which is going to possibly result in knee problems, hip problems, back problems.

So, that’s one thing that tends to happen for people.  Another way is people tend to go and roll out like this.  You want to look and see if you’re one of these people.  Again, this is exaggerated.  If you see this, my knees go way.  My toes are clinging down to the floor to hold me up because it doesn’t want me to fall over, and as I’m doing that, it makes the bottom of my foot really tight.  High arches.  Those people that have really tight high arches, this is you.

Those of you who are having that inner weakness, the pressure is coming inward, or you’re feeling the pain in the first two toes on this foot area, you’re a pronator.  This is a supinator.  Fancy word for rolled out, that’s all.  Medical terms.  Easier if you just say rolled in, rolled out.

Either way, this is affecting the rest of the structure.  If you are that rolled in person, the ankle is falling.  Now, you’ve got this weakened stability in the ankle.  The knee is being pulled down.  You’re being overstretched on the outside over here.  The body is then going to readjust for this in multiple ways to try and keep you balanced and cause other tightnesses in other poles.  If you’re this person who rolls out, it’s in here that we’re getting this tightness in the bottom of the foot. The knees are pressing outside so you’re getting this bow-legged type of look.  You’re getting these off of these imbalances in the muscles.  Does that make sense?  Yeah, yeah.  Right in there.

If we look at our feet, look and see that you’re finding that you’re falling down, that ankle’s falling downward or what people call fallen arches, which technically is not necessarily fallen arches, or if you’re a supinator.  This is the first place you have to start.  You have to know what your foot is doing.  If you don’t know what your foot is doing, you don’t know how to correct it.  If you feel comfortable with that, you can go ahead and have a seat now.  You can also ask me after class.  I will analyze your foot with you and let you know what exactly you’re doing and where your pressure points are that’s happening.

Analysis and awareness are always key.   I always say this.  You need to become aware before you can make changes.  If you do not know what you are doing initially, you cannot make the changes.  This is where mindfulness comes in.  We’re going to get reconnected to our feet.  We’re going to rebuild our pathways from our brain down to the feet and have just as much control of our feet as anything else in out body.  As we get that control, we’re going to get more grounded.  We’re going to find our feet responding to us, and we’re going to get comfortable on them.  There’s going to be a whole lot of things that are going to come along with that.

There’s a gentleman called Dr. Morton, and he wrote a book in the 1920s.  He had this radical idea about the foot, which he is considered the founder of podiatry.  However, a lot of theories never carried through for some reason.  The way that he looked at placement of the foot, when you’re looking at the pressure on the foot, a lot of people thing four corners.  Well the four corners is not where you think of pressure on the foot.

Where you need to think of pressure on the foot when you’re standing is that you have to think of it as almost a V.  The V pressure points are going to be right through the center of your big into the center of your heel, right through the center of your baby toe right into the center of your heel, and if you drew a line straight through the middle of that V, those are your three points.  Does that make sense?  So, if I’m a supinator, I’m this rolled out person, I need to get that big toe back down, and as I get that big toe back down, I’m going to find the bottom of my feet spread out more.  That’s going to build that flexibility back into the bottom of that foot.

If I’m that rolled in person, I have to find that pressure rolling towards the outside so that lifts my ankle, and I’ll find that it almost lifts my entire body upward because it’s being pulled down, it will lift me up.  Does that make sense?  Yeah?  Okay, just want to make sure.

We are not grass eaters. A lot of these things will contain grass fillers and I am not a big fan of grass. Grass is for goats and cows and four legged animals. We are fruitarians. It doesn’t mean that we don’t eat green foods; I believe we should eat green leafy foods and that includes green grass too. Wheat grass can be a benefit but is it ideal, is it suitable for a human being would beg to different. Wheat grass is big in a lot of different rice but I don’t think its again there many other foods are that we can drink like algae for example. We can take different algae, they have to eat tree alive, which is great, and noni juice is also a very powerful tonic. Noni is a fruit and a noni has no sugar. There is thing that in wheat grass I think there’s just a lot of hype more than everything else. When you look for the grass but if you’re drinking green juice then you’re getting what you need anyway.

I think that’s more of a distraction more than everything else of the real issue and its like eating real food and you get what you need. I think with regular fasting or periodic fasting along with a balanced diet. We really need to look at what the gentleman asked earlier about protein fat and sugar. Those are the things we need to a balance and we have good balance of and I would even go deeper with bitter sour those kinds of things. When you have a balance between those different taste sensations, you have a balance of carbohydrates vs. the fat and protein, and then you have a balance of all the different nutrients and different hormones like estrogen….

Mushrooms, I’m not totally against mushrooms but I’m not a big fan of mushrooms either. I think that it is necessary. It’s not our true sun food. We really sun food, foods that’s are more activated by the sun and have sun energy, that’s why fruits, green leaf and vegetable, flours, nut seeds these things have sun energy vs. mushrooms and more of a fungus.

Can we benefit from some mushrooms yes. We can produce some but will it make the difference.

The thing is with losing weight; losing weight is just necessary you want to be at your natural weight however that may look. If it’s healthy you will look good. The thing is that if you re eating a good diet and I when I say a good diet I mean a high raw food diet and you are regularly fasting you would be at your natural weight where you are naturally suppose to be.

What happens interestingly enough it happened with me and a lot of folks that I know who would take on raw food diets 100%, what tends to happen is that it would be like you you are on a fast and you will lose and lose. So if you are not trying to lose weight don’t be alarm it will be almost like a 6-9 months period where you will lose and then you will start to gain.

Its like your body is eliminating and remaking so on new material. You can’t build in a dirty house. Of we want to create a building then and that’s the whole idea. When you go raw you can hope for that to happen no matter what your weight is. You can look if you stay with it then you weight will com back and whatever that weight is that’s your weight.

As well but I think that just with balanced diets, a balance approach I wouldn’t be so concerned with doing a fast not at that age. Especially with I personally wouldn’t suggest that. Even with the coconut water which typically is safe for diabetic to fast on coconut water but with that I wouldn’t take that risk. Personally would say lots of fruits and juices but foods ass well. I think that over time you just have to be more gradually and more patient with a case like that.

I have been getting the coconut water, the coconuts for years now. I’m not a big fan of the coconuts but if that’s convenient and for most people that’s what ether am able to….

I’m the source. I can sell it by the case a couple cases.

Probably a week to two weeks. Even if you don’t use it I would process it and get the water out like within a week. You don’t want to lose any because within that first week you start to lose some. Even thought its a hard encasing the water can seep through and sometimes you can put it and one can be more softer than the other one and it can cause a little crack. Within a week I would process it, I would take all the water out and bottle it then you can freeze it. The meat you would have to freeze as well if you’re not going to use right away.

That’s what we do. I don’t get as many as we can handle inn a week. Even though they set out and basically room temperature after a week they start to sour.

I talk about again the food storage. That’s what you have to do if you are storing coconut water because that can store at room temperature and it can store for a couple of months. Beyond that it’s a preference.

I would say you could drink it side by side with your usual water intake.

You did the best you can.

Again it depends on where you are at but you’re going to detox. The less you put in the more you p detox. One extreme is just to be on the you’re going to detox, on a they called it a dry fast no water. That’s too extreme for all of us and then we have plain water if you drink just plain water you’re going to detox, it’s going to be a high level detox because you’re not putting in. you’re going to be weak and your body is going to be detoxing. It’s going to be accelerated and then probably the next level is coconut water. Coconut water is a good balance. You but not extreme like water or the . Then juice is a next level. The more you put in, it’s an inverse relationship between what you put in and how hard your body has to work. It ha to work a little bit harder to process juice vs. coconut water.

Smoothie is next. I wouldn’t put any bananas in the smoothie if you are trying to detox I would just use the whole fruit if you are going to do more of a smoothie where there is going to be so much fiber. For we example pineapple or apples. You’re going to detox but not at a level of just juice because your body has to do some work in terms of breaking down the fiber.

The less work you body have to do in terms of what you put in the more detox.

Juice is definitely better than detoxing. Any other questions?

I have a class scheduled for next moth. I believe it’s the 16th and the 17th. If you want more information send me an email. Its not on my website but its a two day intensive class, we’ll go through pretty much I don’t want to say everything but we go through a lot, 2 days, 4-5 hours each day and again you can meal me at kehpra@kehprachef.com if you are interested I can shoot you the link. It was also on my newsletter that’s the thing I was also trying to correct. I have a newsletter that I use to send out information like this but I don’t have a link to join. So if you want to join you can send me an email and I will put you on my newsletter.

Thank you again. Thank you for coming out I appreciates it.

I think that you can juice every day and again if you can every morning you have your first juice and your breakfast. when you fast and you look at the cycles , you have your 24 hour cycle, you have your week looking cycle, when you are fasting multiple days it like you are extending the fast cycle because within the 24 hour cycle you have the fasting cycle which happens naturally when we are sleeping . we know instinctively to come off of our fast , whether its 3 days , 5 days , 7 days most people come and they say how should I break my fast? but we don’t ask that for a 24 hour cycle. when we wake up from my sleep how should I break my fast? with coffee and bagels and don outs? right , it sounds crazy but that’s what people do .

we should be breaking our fast with water, fresh juices and that be our breakfast. its really critical to practice . by doing that we are really practicing fasting each and every day and each everyday becomes and opportunity to fast . the nice thing about juicing is that there is variety. its just like salad , you do a raw gourmet it makes it exciting and juicing brings a variety. different colors and indifferent tastes, use different foods and be creative.

audience: how ling would you say is that for refrigerator>

Kehpra: well in the refrigerator it’s indefinite. Its they are not refrigerated I would say 3 months. You want to use them to settle longer than three months.

Say if you are strong them you want to them within three months. If you let them sit loner than three months you want to either use them or if you can store them in the refrigerator and rotate them exactly.

If you’ve got nuts that has been unshelved you probably store a little longer because when they have been processed. There are exposed to, a lot of times you get nuts and they are vacuumed pack so that’s almost like they’re being still on the shelf.

Same thing. You really want to get your dates fresh anyways. I try to use fresh dates so the dates that I get they are in the refrigerator because they are fresh and they have a better consistency, better flavor etc. the dry dates are really not that great.

I order them.

Audience: I was going to ask about wild rice. Can you put wild rice in the water for 24 hours and eat it without cooking it or do you have to cook it?

Kehpra: wild rice will or at least the way I prepare the wild rice it needs some heat. One of the ways I do this and this is a trade secret because if you just soak the wild rice it’s not going to split. Some of it will split. Its really a seed the wild rice so if you just soak it at room temperature you will have half of it and therefore it will become soft and chewy and then the other half of it will be hard. The way to get round that is, you take out all the and you set it to like 100degeeres, 120 degrees and that’s jus enough heat and you got t make sure you have enough water. At least four cups of water to one cup of rice and you want to keep a lid on it because the water will evaporated. So you keep a lid on it and you keep the water in. it took me two years to figure that out, that’s a deep secret.

That the great thing about raw food and that’s a great thing even for me personally as a chef is that I like to learn all the different traditional cuisine whether its Caribbean. Italian, Asian, African. There’s so much out there that you can do in terms of being familiar with the different spices because everyone has their own unique different spices. The other thing depending on the kind of dish it is creating that texture and its so wide pen. Like I said its still so much for me to learn personally as a chef. That’s what so exciting about raw.

Palm oil is healing oil. I use palm oil, we make , and I’ve used palm oil in my wild rice so these are two examples right t there with palm oil. You have to cook with palm oil. Palm oil does have to be at least room temperature. If it’s cold, if you store it in the fridge it’s going to cake up, it’s not going to taste good but palm oil is warm and it really taste delicious. Like I said its one of those tropical oils like coconut oil that s very beneficial for us and it should truly be in our diet.

No palm oil is again just like coconut oil when the agro business, its a big thing when they replace coconut oil back maybe 50 years ago that’s when every one was using this tropical oils, coconut oil and palm oil for their cooking needs. Soy oil was cheaper to producer and that’s why soy really exploded into the health scene. It was the oil that they were getting and the curd was a by-product and it was passed as a health food. So the soy oil replace coconut oil at least that’s what it did back then.

When you eat lots of coconut oil and palm oil those things are good for our endocrine system and our whole balance with our glands and it really helps to regulate weight among other issues that we have because we don’t eat tropical oils.

That’s a good question. That’s something that is a really big part of our business. In addition to the raw food, that’s how this book came about. Basically they wanted the program crystalized and so I crystalized it and I have added a lot of philosophy, information, and experience in addition to the actual nuts and bolts of doing a fast. That’s something as big part, we have people who come everyday picking up juice fast. If anyone is interested in doing a juice fast most people do three days but 5 days, 7 days is good especially this time of the year to really give your system a rest, a really nice way t kick start. You can see me after the talk or you can email me if you are interested and we will get you in the schedule. A lot of you may have seen that I offer this on a lot of discount sites. I’m sure some of you might have purchased one of those but coming to me directly you <> priority scheduling and I can offer a similar price online.

Basically how it works is that if you sign up and we usually give out 3 days worth of juice at a time so if you do longer than a week then you will actually come back a second time or a third time if you are going longer. Just to say al little bit about the fasting in particular by using coconut water, coconut water is a while food. Its not just water, its complete. If you are juicing celery or cucumber or pineapple you have a processed food. Yes you are going to benefit. with coconut water the only thing that is nice is that it a while food as a water and the thing is when you drink it you really get fulfilled n so many different levels.

What we do is we issue the coconut water as a base for your other juices as well, our grain juice and even fruit juices we use the coconut water as a compliment. If you were drinking fresh squeezed orange juice by itself can be pretty intense. Even though its 99% water you’re drinking it can be pretty intense but by adding county water to it really lightened it but it doesn’t dilute it. If you put spring water in it you can taste the water but when you add coconut water it lightens it without diluting the integrity of the juice. That’s why the coconut water is great. Encourage you to use cocoanut water to stretch your juice. It’s a great way to stretch your juice, without compromising it.

You got to think about what I was saying about building vs. detoxing. The green foods are builders for the most part. Green foods are actually both. They are really in-between like when you have your foods, the stray cleanser, your nuts and seeds are strength builders, and your greens are sort of in the middle. With that said your green powder is where you benefit but I think that it depends. If you are juicing your greens and you’re getting your greens then it’s probably not necessary. If you wanted to include like age and if I had some algae in they’re like sparilena or they have some fancy super foods out there on the market now. If you want to get some algae in your system then that’s great. One of the things that I am not a big of is grass.

Audience: two quick question. the first one is if you are following a raw diet do you need to supplement like I read some things that if you stop eating meat then you need t suppliant with vitamin b12. I don’t know if that is true or not and then my other question is about the macro nutrients. how do you know how much carbohydrates vs. fats vs. proteins. how do you know if you are meeting your daily intake on raw food diet.

Kahpra: the first thing that I think about when you ask these questions. I mean these are great questions and I think that a lot has been , we have been program to think we need this and that. that’s why I don’t really like supplements because its like you can make an argument . for every supplement you will be taking a cocktail of supplements and its like is this food? is this really healthy? so the thing is with b12 from a vegetarian stand point we get ample b12 in our algae’s things of that nature that come from the ocean and just minerals in general because of the salt content. usually where we have salt we have minerals. so salt is not our enemy. we need to eat salty foods. salty foods is very important.

the second part of your question is like how do I now what from what. I mentioned the thing is you really need to shift our thinking in the fact that firstly I believe we eat too much and secondly because we eat too much its not what about we eat , the question is not how much of this and how much of that and how less of this and how less of that because the thing is our bodies work better when we eat leas. we really have to shift the whole thinking. we really get more than enough. I talk about our economy, you got to look at the motivation for a lot of information is being promoted. the motivation is to get you eating , to get you consuming.

not just consuming in terms of purchasing cars, clothes and things like that . its to get you eating and taking supplements on top of that , vitamins noon top of that and make sure you get everything you need. in terms of the balance there is different schools of thought in terms of three raw food diet. there is some people the at promote what they call 801010. 80% is carbohydrates, 10% protiens,10% fat. I personally I don’t like to sort of pigeon hole and then there is some people that may say 333333 and then you probably have some people that are some where in between. may thing is one meal per day or two small meals per day and you have those meals between 12 and 8. in the cycle where the sun is at its greatest point and if you have a good balance and outside you having good foods. I like at foods being more detox or bulging . you cant detox and build simultaneously. just as important it is to eat building block foods its just as impotent to detox.

detox foods do for example are water, coconut water or your high moisture fruits like melons, citrus , these are all detoxifying foods. these are not building blocks foods.,. if you just ate these foods it would be like your body is on a fast . it would be like cleansing. you can eat cleansing foods all the time but you can eat building block foods, nuts , avocado, olives, green looking vegetables these are building block foods and you cant eat those all the time.

one way t really measure and that this is what I do is to measure your elimination. if you are eating too many building block foods m if you are eating too many nuts you’re going to be constipated. if you are eating a lot of eliminating foods its going to probably produce more of a diahorrea. you want a balance . you want something that is not following too slow or too fast. we all know when its just right . when its just right , you remember what you id and you follow that.

wow that’s a good question. that’s something I really should have talked about. the problem with 80/20, its better than not following anything. the only issue I would d say with that is that you make sure that the 20% don’t become 25%`, 30%, 35% and this is what happens. cook food being so addictive and again if we have something lets say emotionally that happens in out lives that 20% goes right out the window because foods become an emotional connection to our , to us emotionally. those are just some of the things to think about . I think I doing a 80/20, I think a good way to really follow something like that is to say, because I know a lot of people that eat high rag diet and they do well. I say l like maybe eating one cook food per week. I think of you eat a cook food everyday that’s not . you on only want to be eating one meal per da . if you are eating just one meal per day I would say if you want to find balance I would say maybe once or twice per week you can treat yourself. you want to eat conscious cook foods, you don’t want to just be going and getting pizza or French fires or burgers.

audience: now I eat a pretty health diet

Kehpra: the other side of that too because the real essence of food is really not even what you are eating , its how much you are eating.. that trumps what your’re eating. if you arte what would basically be the size of your stomach per day and that’s about maybe 12-15 ounces of food its not a lot of food. it really wouldn’t matter what you ate our would be healthy. you could b eating dairy, meat, processed foods. the thing with process foods is that what I talked about earlier is that its unlikely that you would be able to eat that amount of food and you are eating junk because its very on a nutritional scale. if you are eating foods that’s are high on a nutritional scale like even the food I prepare people say they get a large and that’s two meals because its o la notionally dense.

by acting raw food diets that would automatically allow you to eat less foods because its so dense nutritionally and if you are eating a lot of dark greens vegetable hatch some of the dense food nutritionally we can eat.

again fasting is second to none . the information is that the body is inflamed, the body is almost like there is stress and you are creating more stress by eating . that’s the way someone’s body is programmed top deal with stress is to create inflammation and to create swelling and to naturally bring that down. you can take some medication and some natural herbs and things like that but nothing trumps . it would naturally bring any issues especially inflammation.

fasting is really an art form there is no direct answer . it depends on the person , where they are at . I would say if you are ally dealing with something chronic or weak is a good start. at least 5-7 days initially and then during that 5 or 7 day period and your fasting your’re going to be evaluating hat you are eating , what your’re going to eliminate, what you’re going to replace it with . that’s the time you really take introspection on what you are doing and the changes that’s yoyo are going to make.

just like a mentioned with detox foods and building foods you cant always detox., you got to eat some building block foods, we want to wheat the best building block foods when we are eating. during that time you’ll just be fasting g so you have a lot of time to think about those things and really try to rewire yourself spiritually and say when I start eating I’m going to eat this.

n you can only go up. diabetes, the process foods again that’s one of the things that create diabetes is there is too much processed foods. one thing I say is that when you go to the supermarkets you want to do 80% of your shopping in one aisle, the produce aisle. forget about all those other stuffs ion boxes and jars. that s the problem . we need to be processing fresh foods that’s there foods that we need to eat . something like diabetes, hypertension these l run together because they are all created essentially the same , from the same root and that by eating too much processed foods.

its tough with family. you kind of have t want to do it . there’s nothing that you can really do . id she has to come to you and be informed, yes you have the information but she has to want it for herself. she’s got to believe it. it sounds like there’s some doubt there as well . of course as you talk about that exercise is also right there too and that just as important as the food but not as important. the food is going to be 60% or 70% and the rest is going to be exercise . she’s really got to commit herself to an exercise regimen and also to basically elimination of certain foods and the inclusion of fresh foods. I don’t even like to say raw , I like to say fresh. just eat more fresh foods . people can more relate to that.

One thing I can do is that I can begin to store food. I can put m dollars and transfer it into something real, something tangible, something that is going to allow me to live. I’m not a dooms day kind of person I’m just a realist and I follow nature and when I’m looking at the economy I just know that at some point the bubble has burst. The music will stop and being prepared either going to be your saving grace or your worse nightmare.

Some of the things that become essential in terms of storage and what I am personally looking to do for my family and myself is water. How much water? I have heard of a care where somebody had a year supply of food. I think that a year is a long time. I think at least three months is a good start and obviously if you’re storing food enough for 3 months, 6 months, a year you want to develop a system where you are rotating that food. Because again if you are storing non season things moths and those sorts of thing can develop so you want t o sort of build up you storage, build up your supply.

You can look at that as being real money. This is real tangible commodity. Something that you can use just in case so water is the first thing. Anybody familiar with my philosophy in cuisine? I use a lot of coconut water so story fresh coconut water is not possible. We have the pash rice coconut water which does have some storage, it s doesn’t need to be refrigerator frozen. Water along with pash rice coconut water. I use coconut water allot in my recipes and juice so having your water and your coconut water is the begging and then nuts and seeds.

Just about all nuts and seeds you can store. You got your olive, your cashews, almonds, hem seeds, pumpkin seeds, these are things that have some storage value and if you have nuts one thing you can do to prevent them form turning rancid is to refrigerate them. If you have refrigerator space and you have a lot nuts you can refrigerator them until… there was million of people while electricity some time this year, that’s something that could happen. What if what 3 months or 6 months with no electricity.

We are so dependent. We are creatures of dependency. Nothing is produce here. There is no food grown here other than you have your local farmers at your local farm market, electricity and all that stuff is from this and we have water coming from wherever. Gasoline we all know how that can be in terms of transporting foods. You got to really look at you situation and again if you have savings. I’m sure we all have saving in some form and if you’re saving paper dollars then you are really setting your self up because they are not going to be worth the paper they are printed on. It takes the government 6 cents to produce one paper dollar. That’s what it really worth in the long run. I mean you rally want to look at what’s real and what’s not. It’s a big illusion and its something that is around the world.

This is never going to be like a US phenomena. I just honestly believe that one will happen and I think it will happen in this decade. So now is really the time to start to prepare. Nuts and seeds are acid forms of food so what o we use to balance those things? Storing fresh greens you can preserve them, can them and things. Like see weed you buy dry and it does, and it can store. You want to be using seaweed and eating seaweed on a daily basis. If you have a good amount of storage then you want to be rotating your stock.

By having your sea weed of course and last and not least your berries or your dry fruit. We have our super food berries, berries, inking berries, trail mixes that have different berries, even if you have raisins and drapes those area a little on the side but you get the idea.

We really need to create a store of value because again being so over reliant on we go home, we flip the swath for electricity, we turn on the faucet and we expect the water to just flow very nice an clean, we can take a shower, we turn on the thing and our gas comes. I mean this can all ends. I don’t know one person living in this area that its truly self sufficient. Is truly able to generate their own power, they have their own generator, they have their own running water on their property where they can have water to me their daily needs, grow they’re own foods. My thing is its just no t realistic for me to go on a farm and grow my own foods and I’m sure it’s not realistic for any of you in here.

I think really the balance and the equalizer is to basically try to use your paper dollar while its still worth something, to take some of your savings and put it into something real. Especially as a raw food person and even if you want to store some can good stuff, its less than ideal but it can certainly make the difference in the end.

I will finish with a quote basically the gist of the quote is that “if you prepare for bad times then you inly know good times.” so I will leave you with that. It’s been about an hour so I want to thank you again for coming. We have the book for sale and I mention today is usually goes for $14 if you want to pick it up today we will have it on sale for $10 and if I have time will sign it.

Thank you.

And I will take questions now.

Well beans the things about beans are you really want to sprout them. The bean that I use is chickpea and usually the easier your bean can sprout the better it is for you. The thing is with bean of course we know beans are high in protein but again being high in protein is not necessarily a good thing. All food has protein. Fruits and vegetables all have protein. There is a starch component and it has a protein component, which allows for improper food combination, which is why beans can create gas. So if we sprout them then that are really the best want to eat beans. is not a good example, chic peas but mostly other beans is usually more of a high bred and they are not easily to sprout and they are usually more sugar than anything else.

On a retailer level, I know that jones have pretty good prices on nuts and seed sand things like that. If you want to get more bulk size I would go to either you local and they usually have small mark ups you can do if you want to get like 5 pounds or 10 pounds size. Most of your nuts come with 5,1 or 25 pounds sized. So you are definitely saving a few dollars per pounds by going especially 25. We always have the Internet so you can look on there as well.

I have never been to Cosco but it probably sounds like a good idea.

that’s good question . you probably have maybe between 30 and 50 customers that come through. t higher on the weekend of course. maybe 75-100.

one of thing that I didn’t talk about was real money and when I say real money I mean gold and silver. when you talk about diversification and allocation I don’t know how much it would cost some to store, I would say at least 2 months of food storage but if you want to do 6 months per years that’s even better. now how much that would cost, that would probably be a lot .

well that’s another agreement for fasting as well. when you really have to go ingot a fast that’s not voluntary at least you will be prepared f you have been doing it voluntarily but gold and silver I would say. of course I personally wouldn’t take for if I had $50 000 savings I wouldn’t take $50 000 and put it on food but I would probably take half off that and put it in precious metals because b precious metals have at least been money since the beginning of time . that’s why the centric banks are buying . they know that they can print money very easily and that have been basically edging the dollars with precious metals. I would say ate least 50% of whatever your monetary savings.

again you also have to think about insurance. all the things that require some sort of money or income or currency because there is going to be a currency crisis in our life time. I definitely believe that . I am wiling to get that. I would say at least 50% and whatever you have allocated, you have your food storage and latest you will be protected. if you want to be fancy you can get a generator . especially if your electricity is supplying your heat and things of that nature. these are all really important things we need to be looking at.

Becoming a raw food chef is the other key and again when you ask the question is raw food diet for you that may not be realistic. If this is something that you want to make an investment in terms of

Your life. This is your life. No one is going to care for you more than you.
I haven’t done classes a since last year but in YouTube there are a ton of raw food chefs. You can find a ton of recipes for just about anything on YouTube so there is no excuse.

When I started YouTube was not yet created but there were books and I was basically going out. New York city has, if you ever make it to New York City they have a number of raw food restaurants and these are things that I used to do every now and again. It used to give me inspirations like “ wow they are doing some fantastic things, these things tastes really good it doesn’t taste like the other food” so its really important.

The last thing and this is probably when I asked is the raw food diet for you, the last key is probably the most important because again we are social being. The last key and I call it, which is in your camp, which is in your circle. It’s probably our make or break. You can say I can do this raw foods, I’ve got few recipes under my belt, I don’t crave the cook food, I’ve been fasting every now and again but that last key. Your relationships, your family. That’s probably the most important question or the most important key that we cab look at in terms of like is it realistic for you.

We just went through the holidays. Would it have been realistic for you to eat all raw? When you’re going home to visit your mother or you’re going out to dinner, these are things that are really serious questions and if your partner, your significant other, cans a relationship survive? Yes. But it certainly helps if you in a relationship and your partner eat like you do. Eating is a very other than something that we do in terms of nourishing us it’s something in the whole expression you break bread together you. That’s a bonding moment, that’s a moment that you share. There’s nothing like no eating with someone and good conversation etc.

So these are some serious questions and over they years again I
Wanted to talk about this because each person here has to sort of put all those things on the table and say you “is it worth it?” it may not be worth it and that’s ok. If I just ask the question flat out “is the raw food diet for each and every one of us here?” absolutely yes and I could say that unequivocally because I’ve done enough research and I’ve seen and experienced and I’ve seen enough just to say all living creatures, whether we are a human being or a four legged animal the potential and the power of eating food that has not been heated is the best thing

One thing I mention the study, anybody familiar with doctor Potting? Well Dr. potting he did a study on cats using the raw food diets, now cats are carnivorous animals unlike human beings as fruitarians. He did a study of one group of cats that he put on a raw food diet, which was raw meat, and there was another group that was on the cook food. Really the long of the short of it is by the fifth generation of the cats that were on cook food they start reproducing. Not only di they start reproducing they had all the issues that human beings have, they had all the sicknesses, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, difficult giving birth to the litter, problems with seeing, crowding the teeth, irritability. There are all things that have plagues human beings and to know and to see that you can pretty much amount it to the fact that we have been abusing h our foods, Its really abuse. Especially now wit microwaving when yoyo nuke your food. I call it nuking your food, you deep fry it or just boiling it to death. Life begets life. If you want life you got to eat life. You are what you eat. That study was really ground breaking. Of course the cats on the raw foods diet thrived and had no issues, no emotional issues, no physical issues. I encourage you to look further into that study. That study was on cast but it really shows the measure of that being another living entity and what the potential could be, should we be wearing glasses, should we be having all the issues that we have. I have people come in here and get juice all the time and a lot of the time if they are doing more than three days they will come in and see the food and they have been doing juices for a couple days. See the body wants to eat, it wants to live and to live is to eat. However when we don’t eat for a few days everything gets better because you ‘re body is now going into a survival mode where your seeing gets better, your hearing gets better, your smelling certainly gets better. You open the door and you can smell everything down the block. Our body gets better and just by periodically taking a break. We really initiate our selves with food and we f don’t know our potential until we have to take some sort of a break and turn that digestive energy and using it to heal and regenerate ourselves because we don’t know our potential. Obviously if we were out in the wild and we had t run from a animal maybe we would make it but again just by periodically doing it as a system, a way of life, a way of living we really can put our best foot forward in terms of our health and out vitality. We are really working against ourselves.

I hope that provided some food for thought. I’m going to move into the second part of my lecture and if you have any questions we will take all questions at the end. The second part of my lecture we are really going to shift gears here and really talk about something that I personally, it has been a big part of my life a in an extreme kind of way and I really wanted to present this here and share this with you because I really think its important.

Before I became a raw food chef and a raw entrepreneur I was a day trader. When I was in college, a few friends of mine we were starting to get involved in the stock market and I really got into it and read a lot of books and had my online account. I made some large and small fortunes I’ll just say that. For about three years that’s what I was doing. I didn’t have anybody, I didn’t have a job. I woke, got on my computer and made decisions. Sometimes it worked our good and sometimes not. I did that for three years. I leant a lot obviously, I learnt a lot abut money, I learnt a lot bout the market and I mentioned that because everything that is going on we are all going to be affected regardless of our lifestyle.

We all need money to live and the thing is now I don’t know if you have been following the news its big now, a whole fiscal cliff. The thing is that these things are all symptoms of an underlying problem of this whole economy. Right now this economy at least from my view and my opinion is on a collision course and when that collision, when that explosion happens no body knows but does it have a good chance of happening? Yes it does. The thing is that if we look at our economy, how does the economy work? It works though the creation of debt and the thing is that this while fiscal cliff is really just talk. The thing is if we don’t stop buying houses via mortgage, using credit essential its like the whole game stops.

If we don’t buy a house, if we don’t go shopping to take out furniture or take our things, the creation or allowing them to generate a real estate bubble that s good for the economy even if people cant pay their mortgage. People buy cars and use credit cards its just critical that we have to keep creating debt. Then you can ask the question well we can just keep raising the debt , we can just keep creating debt.

The problem is that we live in a finite worked a just goes against the law of nature. We just can’t keep creating something out of nothing. There has to be something that coconuts for that. We cant just keep creating and that’s essentially what they are doing is they are printing money. So all of us if your working and your saving money, your saving currency, your not really saving money because the thing is that currency and money are two different things. Currency is what we essentially use to live and it forms a means of exchange for goods and services. In the bigger of things with the federal resave creating billions of dollars per month in order to keep the show going, to keep unemployment down, to keep the economy growing. The thing is that when we look at nature, nature gores through cycle. We can’t have summer all the time; we have to have a fall and a winter. Where nature goes to sleep and it comes back and then we have this kind of ebb and flow.

What our government is trying to do is basically keep the equivalent of a summer time. Where they are constantly money that they are printing. So by you saving money, your retirement, your 41k etc. is a huge risk. Anytime you have a commodity or something that you are saving and if you create more and more have it becomes less and less valuable.

Air is a commodity, it’s in abundance so that’s why it’s free but water is maybe not as abundant but we pay for it. That shows you that by saving money you are really defeating yourself and you are really putting yourself up for a huge risk. One of the things while our money is good is transferring is something that is real. When the bubble pops will life continue? I believe so. I think their s going to be some significant changes that happens to our everyday, as we know it. What those might be I have no idea but thinking ahead and what brings it back to raw foods is that, I’m not a farmer and I know me becoming a farmer is I wont say unrealistic but its really unpractical for me at this point. Now that my change again growing your own food may be great but I know how much energy and time it takes. We live in a seasonal environment so we have to consider those things.