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Audio Interview: Gareth Edwards on Alkaline Water

Ross — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 06:55:17 +0000

Audio Interview: Gareth Edwards on Alkaline Water

Hey everyone!

This week I interviewed alkaline diet expert, blood microscopist and nutritionist Gareth Edwards on the subject of alkaline water. In this 25 minute interview we talk about the alkaline diet, water ionizers, antioxidants and more.

Click on the play button to hear my interview with Gareth Edwards:

Click here to book a live blood analysis appointment with Gareth Edwards

Click here to book a 1 hour telephone consultation with Gareth Edwards

A Bit About Gareth Edwards

Gareth, who heads Food for Life, the UK’s leading live food nutrition and live blood microscopy clinic is perhaps the UK’s most qualified and experienced blood microscopist and we are extremely excited to have him on board!

Gareth has a real passion for natural health and nutrition through real, live, whole foods and his philosophies sit exactly with ours. I know many of you will already know Gareth or will have met him at the Dr Young Event and for those of you who do know him – you will understand why I am so excited!

Gareth brings a wealth of experience and as a qualified, highly respected nutritionist he will give us insights and angles that we have previously not been able to explore.

In the coming weeks Gareth will be contributing regularly to the Energise Blog and newsletters and will also be answering your questions – but more on that next week.

Here is Gareth’s official bio:

Gareth Edwards helps people to overcome health challenges with fresh living foods. He has a degree in Natural therapeutics, a diploma in nutritional therapy and is a nutritional blood microscopist.

Gareth has helped people with health challenges as diverse as wanting to loose a few pounds to potentially life threatening disease diagnoses. He has been explaining the importance of food selection and choices to customers and clients at the new Whole Foods market since it opened in June and also practices at London’s leading complimentary health Hale Clinic.

His fresh food based approach draws inspiration from his visit to the Hippocrates Centre in Florida and personal tuition by leading American microbiologist Robert Young. He was also taught by British Nutritionist Patrick Holford during his studies at the Institute for Optimum Nutrition.

One of the corner stones of maintaining or re-discovering optimal personal health is healthy blood. Made aware of this by recovery from a severe infection, Gareth uses the cutting edge technique of live blood analysis to help patients see the state and shape of their red blood cells. This test provides information and insights that are unlikely to be apparent from tests more widely used in conventional medical practice. This test can be really useful and fun to do, whatever your current health goals are. It requires only four small drops of blood.

Gareth is also acutely aware that sometimes, in spite of good intentions, we sometimes struggle to choose healthy foods. He also helps people to assess what may be getting in the way of eating the foods and quantities that they want to eat.

Gareth has won three sporting national championship titles and writes a weekly column in the Daily Star.

About Ross Bridgeford

Ross is known as THE Alkaline Diet Expert...especially when it comes to implementation and making the alkaline diet REAL in your life. He has been living, learning, teaching, coaching and loving the alkaline lifestyle since 2004 and has written over 600 articles, alkaline recipes, videos and guides on how to live alkaline and stay alkaline for life. Ross loves life in Brisbane, Australia (although is a proud Englishman) and is healthily-obsessed with nutrition, fitness and Tottenham Hotspur F.C.

From Energise Alkaline Diet & Natural Health Blog - health news, alkaline diet resources & tips to make you happy! do something nice today...

Interview with Dr Robert Young (pH Miracle)

Ross — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:22:50 +0000

Interview with Dr Robert Young (pH Miracle)

This week I’m very proud to bring you my 1 hour video interview with the pioneer of the alkaline diet and author of the pH Miracle, Dr Robert Young!

Dr Young is, without question, the world’s leading authority on the alkaline approach to health, having dedicated 28 years of his life to researching and furthering the scientific development of the importance of blood and cell pH to human health.

Over the past two and a half decades, Robert O. Young has been widely recognised as one of the top research scientists in the world. The author of seven books including the international bestseller The pH Miracle.

We did this interview literally three hours after he had stepped off the plane after his 15 hour flight from LAX, so I am extremely grateful to him for agreeing to do it! The interview was the day before our hugely successful Dr Young Live weekend and I have to say, it was a pleasure to spend the weekend with him.

During the interview we talked about the basics of alkalising, exercise, the protein myth, where to start, his alkaline C.O.W.S programme, green drinks, alkaline water & pH drops, the importance of emotions and much more. Whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned pro, it is well worth watching!

Anyway, here is the interview! Enjoy…

Ross Interviews pH Miracle Dr Robert Young

Resources:

The Energise 12-Week Online Alkaline Diet Course
Doc Broc Green Drink
puripHy pH Drops
CholoropHeal
Water Ionizers by Life Ionizers
Dr Young’s Blog

About Ross Bridgeford

From Energise Alkaline Diet & Natural Health Blog - health news, alkaline diet resources & tips to make you happy! do something nice today...

Interview with Yogi, Vegan & Personal Development Guru – Ravi Raman!

Ross — Thu, 14 May 2009 01:50:50 +0000

Interview with Yogi, Vegan & Personal Development Guru – Ravi Raman!

This weeks interview is with Ravi Raman of sethigherstandards.com!

Ravi is an inspirational guy. He works full time, flat out for one of the worlds largest companies, while at the same time becoming a highly trained yogi, vegan and is currently mid way through a 30-day raw food challenge!

Earlier this week I caught up with him to quiz him on the virtues of his lifestyle, and also find a little more about his other passion – consistent personal development!

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You’re a huge fan of Veganism and, more recently, raw foodism. When and how did you learn about this and what made you decide to go down this path?

I’m currently 29 years old and went vegetarian when I was 9 years old (hard to believe that was 20 years ago!). My family ate vegetarian food at home (including some eggs and diary – but never any fish or other animal products) so this was easy for me to do.

About 8 years ago, after taking a yoga workshop with Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Sharon Gannon, I picked up a copy of her book that spoke about veganism. She wrote about it in a way that really made sense to me. I went vegan the next day and never looked back!

While I am not a raw foodist by any means, I do enjoy eating a large variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, and have gone raw for weeks and months at a stretch just to experience what that would be like. In fact, right now, I am in the middle of a 30-day raw food challenge – 100% raw for an entire month! I’m feeling great so far!

I have been an athlete for most of my life, competing in Ironman Triathlons, long distance running, swimming and cycling events. As an athlete I have always been interested in learning about how to have more energy and recover faster between workouts. Lots of reading, research and self-experimentation pointed to the health and fitness benefits of eating a diet with less processed food.

Exploring online I discovered some great resources, including the website www.veganbodybuilding.com that was full of great insights on how to be a healthy vegan athlete, with many insights from raw or mostly raw athletes that were performing at a high level. I learned a lot from this site, and many others like We Like It Raw and several books like 80/10/10 and The SunFood Diet. The more I read the more I started to understand the impact the food I was eating was having on my body.

While I am not a 100% raw foodist by any means today, I do try to incorporate as much raw food in my diet as possible.

A question I often get asked is how, with a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle do you possibly get enough protein to sustain a gym/physical routine? People think without eating meat it would be impossible to build muscle and a strong body. What is your take on the protein debate? What has your experience been of a gym-going vegan?

There is absolutely no problem getting enough high quality protein in sufficient quantities. In fact, just one look at some of the profiles on www.veganbodybuilding.com will demonstrate that you can not only survive, but thrive on a plant-based diet!

People forget that every fruit and vegetable has protein. Leafy greens are loaded with plenty of protein and whole grains like quinoa, millet, buckwheat and amaranth are brown rice also contain plenty of protein. Combine these foods with plenty of sprouts, legumes/lentils, nuts and seeds – and you should not have any problem getting protein on a plant-based diet.

In my personal experience, my own fitness and endurance went through the roof when I went vegan. I dropped unwanted water and fatty weight, this made my strength-to-weight ratio skyrocket. I also noticed that I recover faster when I eat a plant-based diet with mostly unprocessed foods.

I remember you following a programme close to the Colorado experiment – similar to Tim Ferriss (click here for Tim’s AMAZING results)- can you tell me a bit more about this, and how did you go?!

The experiment involved doing very short and infrequent resistance training workouts – that were incredibly intense. The program involved doing only one set each of a few compound (multi-joint) exercises. The trick is, each set would include about 10 reps done incredibly slowly – 5 seconds up and 5 seconds down! The idea is that the last few reps would be to muscular failure or beyond (using a spotter).

I did this experiment for a while, and it did work in terms of getting me some major strength gains, but I did not gain anywhere near the weight as Tim Ferriss mentioned in his blog article. At the end of the day, I think if you have a personal trainer or workout partner and can stay incredibly focused in workouts, it could be worthwhile to try. However, I found it very difficult to approach my workouts with that kind of intensity. The upside is that the workouts are ridiculously short. If people are curious, I think they should give it a try and see how their body decides.

Back to the raw – in your opinion, what are the benefits of eating raw food? What have you seen happen in your life because of it?

Let’s start with diary products. I’ll say that the benefits of giving up dairy products are absolutely incredible. If there is just one dietary change that I could recommend to anyone, it would be to eliminate dairy products completely from their diet. The transformation I witnessed going from vegetarian to vegan were absolutely incredible. I felt lighter, lost bloat weight, had increased clarity of thinking and that is just the start!

In terms of eating raw food, it just makes natural sense. Our bodies were designed to eat food in its natural unprocessed form. When you consume raw and living foods, you are naturally hydrating your body with the living waters from the food. The minerals, vitamins and phyto-nutrients in the plants are left intact and this makes the food more nutritive.

Another thing that people really need to understand is the nutrient density of the foods that they eat. Most people tend to think about the total number of calories or fat/protein/carbs in a given meal – but what about the actual nutrient density of the foods? If you are going to have a meal of 6-700 calories, the nutrition you would get from a large green salad with avocado, seed, carrots, spinach and sprouts is 10x (at least!) higher than what you would get from a bowl of pasta! We underestimate how much real nutrition our bodies need in the forms of natural vitamins and minerals. Raw plant foods supply these nutrients in abundance. You can’t come anywhere close on a cooked food diet.

Since I’ve started eating more raw food (I’d say my diet is about 50% raw on average), my skin is far clearer, I sleep better, think better, meditate easier and my yoga practice is through the roof! Through my 30-day raw food challenge, I’ve seen even more profound effects from going 100% raw.

And your top 5 tips for someone wanting to go raw?

Great question! Here are a few things that I’ve learned the hard way:

Educate yourself! Read a ton and soak up all the insights you can. Read books, online forums and websites like www.energiseforlife.com to educate yourself. Remember that at the end of the day you are your own best teacher. Read a ton, test ALL of your assumptions and then do what feels right.
Count calories! Most people who make a dietary change end up restricting their calories too much. Especially if you have an active lifestyle, you need to eat a lot! Keep a food log for at least a few weeks so you can be sure you are feeding yourself well.
Fruits are your friends! I have a great friend who follows an 80-10-10 raw vegan lifestyle and the 80-10-10 book by Dr. Doug Graham has a wealth of information that every raw foodist should read. Don’t be afraid to make a meal out of fruits! I’ll have smoothies with 4-6 bananas for breakfast. I’ll go through 10 bananas in a day sometimes!

Check out raw food restaurants. Most large cities have them, and they will open your eyes to the wide variety of tastes you can experience. Just don’t overdo the heavy nut-laden raw gourmet meals. Everything in moderation!

Exercise, exercise, exercise! Exercise makes any dietary change have more impact. Remember, we eat to live we do not live to eat! Walking, running, cycling, yoga, weights – just pick something you like and do it every day!

And you’re mid-way through a 30-day raw food challenge! What prompted you to do this and how is it going? How long have you got left?

It is rockin!!!!! I’m on Day 12 of my 30-day raw food challenge and I feel absolutely fantastic! I’ve lost some weight, but now my weight seems to have stabilized – which is great since I am already quite lean. I really feel amazing and my senses are much more in tune to the world. I’m enjoying my smoothies, creamy soups and fruits so much. I’m also lucky that I have two raw food restaurants in the Seattle area. So on the weekends, I’ll indulge in a raw gourmet meal or two.

You’re a massive fan of the smoothie too – what is your favorite recipe?

I think my Vita-Mix has to be my single most used piece of technology I own (yes, more than my computer!). I consume 1-2 smoothies a day, sometimes three on the weekends. Since I am so active, they are delicious and nutritious ways to get in high quality nutrients in a short period of time.

Almost every day for breakfast, I’ll have the following Banana Superfood Smoothie:

2-4 ripe, organic bananas
12-16 ounces water
5 large organic strawberries
½ teaspoon maca root powder
1 teaspoon cacao powder
1 tablespoon Organic hemp seed powder

In the afternoons or evenings after a yoga practice, I’ll enjoy a green smoothie. I’ll usually throw in 4-6 large kale leaves with either 1 banana or 1 apple or some pineapple. You can see a couple of my smoothie recipes and photos here.

Your other big health passion is Yoga. I’ve only really recently started and I’ve fallen in love with it – it is addictive! I put it off for years because I thought I’d need to be flexible to start with! What would your advice be to someone who is a bit scared of getting started or who is putting it off? And what benefits have you experienced from practicing yoga?

I wish I discovered yoga earlier in my life. I’ve been practicing regularly since I was 20 years old, and the benefits to my corporate career and other athletic endeavors have been profound. Yoga teaches you to maintain poise in difficult situations. It teaches you to cultivate a deep and penetrating awareness of the present moment. It teaches you to breath fully and deeply.

I came to yoga after suffering a stress fracturing while training for my first Ironman triathlon. It was 3 months before my race and couldn’t run at all! I was worried that I would have to drop out, but decided to give yoga a try. After a month of daily yoga practice, not only did my leg heal, but I was actually running faster than when I stopped! From that day I kept up with a regular yoga practice. In fact, just last year I started teaching Vinyasa Power Yoga as well.

There is no time like the present to begin a yoga practice. If you are thinking about it, I recommend dropping into a local studio and giving it 5-10 classes. Remember that like learning anything new, the first few classes may be a challenge as you begin to learn how your body moves. It is like learning to ride a bike all over again! Keep at it and you will have a lifetime to enjoy the practice.

We both started blogging at almost exactly the same time, back in 2006, and we pretty quickly connected through it (I can’t even remember how!) – how has blogging effected your life? Would you recommend it?

I think that everyone should blog. We are lucky to have the technology and means to be able to connect to other like-minded individuals and learn from other people’s successes (or struggles). Blogging is a great outlet for clarifying my own thoughts, and I have also met several people that I stay in regular contact with as a result of my blog.

We’ve both also been through Date with Destiny – I think you went the year before me, how did this impact your life? Do you think that you’re still benefiting from it now?

Tony Robbins trainings and programs have completely changed my life. I draw upon the tools and technologies learned through his programs almost every day of my life. His seminars also offer a chance to connect to hundreds (in some cases thousands!) of other motivated individuals. I’ve made many life long friends as a result. In fact, a few years ago I started a Powergroup community in Seattle that meets regularly to discuss and apply Tony’s and other personal empowerment tools.

Your blog, sethigherstandards.com is based around human improvement – not only in health, but also in terms of goal setting, personal achievement and creating an outstanding life. You’re clearly a man who knows how to set and achieve a goal! What are your top three goal setting tips – how would you advise my readers to set their health goals?

Write your goals down. It is amazing what happens when you actually take the time to write down your goals. I am also a big fan of vision boards, they are a rich and visual way of reminding yourself every day about what you are looking to achieve and bring into your life.
The “why” matters more than the “what.” I’ve written about this at length before on my blog. We are all motivated by compelling reasons. So instead of just saying “I want to lose 5 kg this month,” think about how losing that extra weight will allow you to be more active, enjoy more of the sports you love, have the energy to play with your family and friends, etc. For each of your goals, write a solid paragraph (minimum) about “why” the goal is important.
Consistency is key. For example, many people ask me how often they should practice yoga. I say that 15 minutes daily is better than 2 hours once a week! Whatever your goal is, think about what you can do consistently to make progress against that goal. Remember that small changes made consistently will completely transform the quality of your life over the long term!

What is the biggest goal you’ve set and achieved? Have you got anything big in the pipeline at the moment?

I completed my first (of two) Ironman Triathlons in 2002. This was a really a lifelong dream for me, and something I had wanted to do ever since I was a little overweight kid! No joke, I had to work for it, but it was worth every step (and blister!).

I have a few big goals I am working on right now. I’m most motivated right now to grow into my yoga teaching, and to assist other master teachers over the next year in a few big workshops. I’m also working on a book project!

And finally, if you had to recommend three other blogs to my readers, what would they be?

Absolutely! Here are three blogs that I read regularly.

Seth Godin’s Blog: An amazing blog where he posts short daily insights that are useful for both building a successful business and improving your own personal potential.

Tim Ferris’s Blog: A wealth of insights on how to life a fulfilling life with less time and money!

We Like It Raw: If you are at all interested in raw and living foods, this is a must-read blog.

Thank you Ravi!

I cannot recommend Ravi’s blog highly enough – he posts some truly inspirational stuff and is just such a lovely fella. Go see it now: http://www.sethigherstandards.com

About Ross Bridgeford

From Energise Alkaline Diet & Natural Health Blog - health news, alkaline diet resources & tips to make you happy! do something nice today...

Interview with Jason ‘Juice Master’ Vale!

Ross — Fri, 01 May 2009 08:49:29 +0000

Interview with Jason ‘Juice Master’ Vale!

This week I have been incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to interview Jason Vale – the Juice Master! Legend!

Described as the UK’s answer to Tony Robbins, Jason Vale is the UK’s leading authority on health, addiction, and most importantly juicing & using the power of freshly extracted raw juice from fruit and vegetables to help you live a fitter, vibrant and juicier life! I was very privileged to be given the opportunity to interview Jason this week and get the low-down on how he has been transforming the lives of millions since 1999! Jason is the real deal, and this interview was an absolute gem.

Hi Jason! Our businesses have been working together for a while now, particularly with regards to rebounding (more on that later!) but this is the first time we’ve touched base. You’re a very busy man! Tell me what is happening in the world of the Juice Master right now?

OK where to start, there’s so much going on! Well as you may know my sole mission is to literally ‘Juice the World’, and by that I mean get a juicer in every kitchen, and importantly give people the knowledge and the tools to make sure it is being used on a daily basis. As part of this grand mission we have just opened up a whole season of retreats in beautiful Turkey where a small group can come away for one week at a time to enjoy some sun, and live on juice for a week.

I’m also hosting a big seminar in London on 20th June and have the honour of a very special guest, in the form of Jay Kordich. For those that don’t know Jay Kordich started the whole juicing movement over in the USA 40 years ago and is living testament (he’s almost 90 and still fitter than many half his age) to the power of nature’s finest foods. Oh I’d also recommend keeping an eye out for one of a fleet of new Juicy Vans that will be hitting the streets in coming months. Mobile juicing is definitely the way to go!

What I love about your story is that you started from a place that we can all relate to (smoker, drinker and junk food addict with chronic allergies and skin complaints) – tell me, where did you first hear about juicing and what sort of impact did it have on your life in those early days?

I was really fed up with being overweight, and dealing with psoriasis, hayfever and eczema and feeling so lethargic. I read a little book on juicing by Doctor Norman Walker and it literally changed my thinking about food overnight and my life from then on turned very juicy! I began juicing, as a novice at first, I went a bit crazy, drunk buckets of carrot juice and even turned bright orange! But even as a novice I noticed things started to improve; my skin started to clear up, I had more energy, I was losing weight and feeling absolutely amazing. So I began studying it, refined my recipes and diet and slowly became the “Master” of juicing (that’s what my friends used to call me, and it just stuck!).

There was me, a guy from Peckham in London drinking lots of juice every day with everyone thinking I’d was a few strawberries short of a trifle, but I didn’t care, I was a changed man. I wrote my first book Slim for Life, sent it into Harper Collins, and the next day they called me up said it was the best thing they’d read on the subject in 25 years!

7 books later I’m still as passionate as ever that if I can do it, so can everyone else.

So when was the absolute ‘ah-ha’ moment that made you think – I’ve got to spread this message?

I was messing around making vegetables juices and combining them with fresh apple juice. By the way if you’ve never had REAL apple juice, you haven’t lived, it is the single most eye-opening drink I’ve ever had. I had never really truly tasted apple juice up to that point, as the brown stuff you buy in the supermarket doesn’t even come close on the taste front.

Anyway, so I was mixing different percentages of apple juice with vegetable juice and with a 50/50 mix I thought, I’ve got it! I was drinking vegetables (something I’d always hated eating) and was loving the taste. My first thought was “why don’t people know about all this!” so it then because my sole mission to tell the world and make juicing popular.

You’ve now published seven books (I’ve nearly read them all!) containing an absolute wealth of information. If you had to distill your years of research and practice down into your top five key points, what would you advise my readers? What five things can have the most profound impact on my readers’ health?

I’ll make it easier than that I’ll give you 3.

1) Attitude of Gratitude – More important than anything else is the appreciation of life and the position we have been granted. We are in the top 1% in the world when it comes to wealth, we have access to the best foods in the world and live in a free society. That fact alone is so often under appreciated. Also, some people might be surprised to hear that a lot of my books are more about the psychology of food than about juicing. We’ve spent so many years of our lives being subtly brainwashed by BIG Food and BIG Drink companies that it’s so important to try and untangle this web of clever and deceptive advertising. Appreciating and being grateful for everything you have right now and everything that will come into your life, even if you dont do anything else, will have the biggest impact of your life and health. It’s no surprise that some of the oldest people in the world are often the happi est and most grateful.

2) Movement is Life – More important than diet even, is the necessity to move your body every day. We have become a nation of people now sat behind a desk staring at a screen all day. You MUST make sure you get out and do something active a couple of times a day. Movement keeps the lymph system working, removing toxins and dead cells and an increased heat rate and oxygen are like superfuel to the body. I once met an 80 year old man that beat me 6-0 three times in a row at tennis. Now, I consider myself pretty good at tennis but this guy was phenomenal and I asked him what his secret was. He just said one thing, “move your body every day. I’ve been doing that all my life and I’m just as fit as I ever was”. What a living testament to his own statement! It is ridiculous that you even see kids these days unable to run, play and move because they’ve become a nation obsessed with computer games and TV, it’s heat breaking. So tip number 2, MOVE your body daily.

3) Nature’s Liquid Fuel – We are the ONLY species on the entire earth that cooks our food. I have never once met and gorilla that can cook me a good BBQ and I don’t think I ever will. The life force that the animals of the world live off, including us, is to be found in raw, uncooked fruits, vegetables, plants, nuts and seeds. Now in today’s modern world it’s pretty impossible to consume entirely raw foods, or huge amounts of fruits and vegetables. That’s where juicing comes in, you are giving your body all the vitamins and minerals it needs in liquid form, that goes straight to the cells where its needed. A combination of the right attitude, daily exercise and the right nutrition and you have the perfect combination to life-long health.

And what are your top 5 ingredients?

There are many foods out there touted as the new superfood, and there certainly are some foods that contain a super concentration of nutrients and antioxidants for example. BUT in all honesty all fruits and vegetables are superfoods really. They all nourish the body, provide an array of vitamins and minerals to help the body grow and repair and they are what our ancestors have been living on for years! People also ask me what particular juice I can recommend for their ailment, but I’m a real believe in the One Disease One Body approach in that the body can not selectively heal. If you are feeding it an abundance of nutrients rich live foods it wont cure one ailment without helping the body fix the rest.

The problem is, that is exactly how the medical profession works, they treat symptoms with drugs and not the underlying cause. The body is often under nourished, lacking in nutrients, the immu ne system is in pieces and a majority of the ‘illnesses’ that people suffer are huge warning signs that something needs to be done. BUT doctors to the most part will not advocate a nutrition plan, which is utter madness!

Anyway slightly off topic! My top ingredients;

Avocado’s – the only complete fruit in the world in that it contains every major food group and a huge array of nutrients.

Beetroot – a blood builder, liver cleanser and beetroot juice is medically proven to lower blood pressure within half an hour of consuming it, amazing!

Apples – more vitamins than you can shake a bunch of grapes at and a real staple for many of my juice recipes because of it’s all round high nutrient content.

Carrots – the anti-cancer king and a real winner on the mineral front. In combination with apple juice, it tastes amazing and is fantastic for you too.

Last one – wheatgrass – you cant put it in a centrifugal juicer but juiced fresh through a masticator or in powder form it is phenomenal for the body. In fact whole communities in America live off wheatgrass juice and have huge cancer success rates with it too . Amazingly powerful.

As you know, at energiseforlife.com we’re massively behind juicing for health and wellness. It forms the bedrock of our online course and is a part of our daily lives. Callum & I were both on Skype comparing how dark our green veggie juices were only last night! What, in your words is it about juicing that provides so much benefit. I guess my question is – why juice? Why not just eat the fruits and vegetables as they are? Is juicing for everybody?

Great question and the simple answer is, if people ate enough fruits and vegetables every day then you wouldn’t need to juice at all, but people don’t. If they do get their 5-a-day, they cook them to death and all the nutrients end up on the ceiling! I got into juicing because I hated vegetables. I knew they were good for me but I couldn’t physically eat the amount I needed each day to provide me with the nutrients I needed, so juicing was the answer.

Also, juicing helps the body extract the nutrients. Take carrots as an example, eat a carrot and you’ll be able to extract about 5% of the betacarotene contained within it, juice it, and you’ll be able to absorb about 90%. It takes the liquid fuel directly to the cells where it’s needed and in greater proportions that if you ate it.

Another thing you may not know is that the 5-a-day campaign should really be the 15-a-day, but the government thought that 5 was much more manageable for Brits. In Japan its 14-a-day! The point is, you need quite a huge amount of nutrients on a daily basis, and it would take an eternity to eat them all every day, so juicing simply helps you get more raw live goodness into your body.

We also have a shared passion for rebounding. What is your take on rebounding – why do you advocate it? How often and how long do you like to rebound for?

As I mentioned in my 3 principles, movement is life and rebounding has got to be one of my all time favourite forms of exercise, even NASA thinks it’s great! It awakens the lymphatic system, can be done in any weather and is so much fun. I’ve got them everywhere, in my offices, at my house. I will usually rebound for 20-30 minutes at a time and up to 2 times a day. Put on some of my favourite music and just make up routines, it’s great fun. We actually do rebounding at sunrise and sunset at our retreats in Turkey. It is one of the most magical experiences you will ever have, bounding along with everyone else to Take That while the sun comes up. You just cant beat it!

Click here for Jason’s Rebounding Exercise DVD

Here at Energise HQ we are massively excited about your new ‘Veggie Juice in a Bar’ snack. Snacking is usually the single most difficult thing to keep healthy for most of us – and this looks like the perfect answer! Tell me more about it!

This has taken a year to get right, it’s a vegetable juice based raw food bar and so took some time to get the nutrition and taste just right. But when we got the last samples in, we knew we were onto a winner. The taste is out of this world, raw almond butter, wildcrafted dates and then a HUGE array of vegetable and plant juices; it is seriously the next best thing to freshly extracted juice. Hungry on the go? Cant get to a juicer? Going on holiday? Want to give the kids something healthy as a snack? It is just perfect.

We’ve also had a phenomenal response to them since we launched.

Our first batch was pretty big but we sold out in 3 days of putting them on our website! Also, we’re really happy that it won Best New Food Product at the Natural and Organic Show last month, really proves that people really like it! (click here for more information!)

You’re a man who travels a LOT. When you’re on-the-go and running from place to place and country to country – what other snacks do you recommend for our readers to take with them on-the-go?

Anything from nature really. I eat big bags of nuts and seeds, lots of fruit, energy bars like our new Juice in a Bar or the closest alternative that I can find. I also appreciate that you can sometimes be in places where there is nothing good to choose from, so it’s sometimes about making sure that most of what you’re eating is good. But I am not 100% raw, I do have a thing for the occasional skinny latte or chunky chips but that is really only when I cant get something decent. I also take a lot of juice with me on the go in flasks like the Sigg ones to keep them fresh.

You’ve seen some dramatic transformations in people (in terms of weight, energy and psychology) – what is the secret to making it permanent?

Some people might think this sounds strange but it’s all about your relationship to food. Some people are emotionally attached to what they eat. Some people say they couldn’t possibly live without chocolate, but tell them that a sardine might be killing them, they probably wouldn’t find that food to much hassle to stop. This is because with chocolate, we attach emotions to it, and this is the same with lots of food. Break the psychological connection that we have with certain foods and we can achieve true Food Freedom as I like to call it. It’s all about changing the idea that “I want but I cant have” to “I can but I choose not to”.

It takes a while, a bit of repetition of message, and people finally get it. So what’s the secret to Food Freedom, a healthy and vibrant life and remaining in the best shape you’ve ever been in? Don’t think you’re on a diet, choose to not eat foods that you know are bad for you, dont cut them out, and find ways, like with juicing, to start to fill your body with a large majority of nutrient rich foods. You’ll be surprised how much you start to crave healthy foods once you start including some juices into your life every day.

And finally – we love our vegetable juice here at Energise – what is your favourite veggie juice recipe?

It’s got to be my Turbo Charge Smoothie but with an added beetroot. So juice 1/3 pineapple, 2 golden delicious apples, 2 sticks celery, 1/2 cucumber, handful of spinach and kale, 1 bulb of beetroot and 1/2 peeled lime, and then blend with a little ice and the flesh of 1 avocado. Sheer bliss! That recipe serves 2 and it’s packed with a mountain of life giving nutrients. I actually have this for breakfast and I’ve even run a marathon on it too!

(Ross – Ha, that sounds like the kind of smoothie Ravi would love!)

Thank’s Jason. I hope we can finally catch up when I get back to the UK later in the year. Until then, I wish you every success with all of your new initiatives (Jason has also launched Juice Master Juice Bars, a Retreat in Turkey, a 3-Day UK Detox and a new book – Slim 4 Life over the past few months!)

What a wealth of information!

For more information about Jason’s new Veggie Juice in a Bar snack click here. And click here to see more of what Jason is up to over the next 12 months!

Thanks Jason!

About Ross Bridgeford

From Energise Alkaline Diet & Natural Health Blog - health news, alkaline diet resources & tips to make you happy! do something nice today...