This post contains affiliate links at no extra cost to you.

2022 has been a huge year for me and it’s not over yet. I have made remarkable progress in all areas of my life and I really could not be happier.

I made myself very proud this year and aim to do this year on year from now on.

This is the essence of the Vital Sage brand. I want to provide you with the tools, resources, and knowledge you need to make the necessary changes for success. It could mean any kind of success as it pertains to your health.

For me, my year was excellent because I have learned a lot about nutrition, learned a lot about taking care of my body, gotten clearer on what I want out of life, improved my personal relationships, and have started offering much more through Vital Sage in terms of the YouTube channel, Pinterest profile, weekly emails, and releasing my own plantar fasciitis program.

All of this wouldn’t have been possible if it hadn’t been for some of the healthy habits I’ve developed throughout this year. I highly doubt any of them would make it into a mainstream publication because they are not flashy, but they are absolutely life-changing. Let’s get into them:

 

Lower Caffeine Consumption

Even as a convicted coffee lover, I knew I had to lower my caffeine intake.

I love the ritual of making coffee and casually sipping on it throughout the morning so I didn’t want to give it up. What I did was make a deal with myself to lower my caffeine intake by not buying them elsewhere anymore. This saves me money and lets me control the amount of caffeine I’m taking in.

I have talked about how much I love REBBL’s coffee protein shake and I still do, but I’m not buying them for a while to see how I do.

I make coffees at home in my Keurig and they say the average cup has about 100mg of caffeine in it. REBBL’s coffee had 170mg in it and I felt it for sure. This was a problem for me.

I’m not someone who needs help waking up or more energy so all this would turn into a racing heart, racing mind, and anxiety. I like to work out before I go to work and that always gives me huge energy by the time I get to my job. But the excess caffeine was overkill for me. 

I honestly have never bought into the whole “caffeine gives you energy” thing. I’m much more of the belief that it just amplifies what you’re feeling, and a lot of times that’s not a great thing. For most people, it seems to just be jitters and anxiety.

Not to mention, I recently came across a fascinating video by Dr. Paul Saladino talking about how caffeine is one of the coffee bean’s “plant defense chemicals” as he calls them (more on this later). This basically means it’s meant to hurt us, not help us.

All that being said, I’ve gone back to my ‘one cup of coffee per day’ rule and I’m the only one making them. This has me feeling noticeably better in the middle of my day. I no longer have that nearly jumping out of my skin feeling and I’m a little calmer overall. This is a net positive.

 

No Eating Before Bed

Not eating before bed has been enormous for me. I feel so clearly better that it’s almost crazy I had never tried this before.

The indigestion I was getting from eating so late at night was terrible and it had me believing all kinds of things about myself that weren’t true.

First, I didn’t think I could eat in the morning and this is simply not true. I would eat up until I went to bed almost every night. Because of this, I would wake up not very hungry. If I did try to eat somewhat early (within a few hours of waking), I’d get an upset stomach.

I started doing intermittent fasting out of what I thought was necessity and felt much better from this. While my problem wasn’t actually from eating early, I still think fasting can be a great tool.

Now, I cut my eating off at midnight every night in order to give myself a couple hours to digest before I go to bed around 1:30-2:30am.

Second, I thought I had a hard time getting to sleep but really, my stomach was too full for some of that time. 

Some people ask me if I eat enough or if I do restrictive diets because my appearance is thin. Little do they know, I really don’t restrict myself. I’m closer to over-eating some of the time than under-eating. I like to eat specific ways in the name of health or experimenting, but I do zero calorie counting or restriction.

More to the point, I would regularly over-eat at night because that’s when I felt the most comfortable eating a lot of food. Such a large percentage of my day’s food was eaten right before going to bed so I would have nights where I’d be laying there uncomfortably because I was so full.

For anyone who has done this, you’d know it clearly hinders your sleep. There’s no science needed to see how stupid it is to do this to yourself.

Eating so close to bedtime would hurt my sleep, give me indigestion, and not allow me to eat anything in the beginning of the day. Now that I cut my eating window off earlier, all those things have sorted themselves out and my days are significantly better because of it.

 

More Animal Food, Less Plant Food

This is a massive point and I still have yet to see how good this gets for me.

Eating less plant food and more animal food is an excellent trade for many reasons: all the nutrients are more easily digestible, there’s more protein overall, there’s more fat and less carbs, the food is more nutrient-dense, etc.

I credit Dr. Paul Saladino with opening me up to this way of life. It’s brought me quite a long way from vegan, to gluten free, to standard American diet, to more animal based.

I have been noticing over the past year that if I start my day eating animal foods (usually a beef stick, bacon, or eggs), I feel way better than if I start my day with carbs and sugar. Not only this, but the longer I keep this going in the day, the better I feel.

It’s amazing and now that I’m doing it, it seems so simple. Higher fat, higher protein, and less carbs and sugar equals guaranteed success.

Now it’s just a matter of eliminating a fair amount of the plant foods I eat. By the way, this is much more about getting rid of the flours and sweeteners than it is the fruits and vegetables.

I think when someone says plant foods, we instantly think of literal plants like broccoli. What I’m talking about are the secret plant foods we consume that we don’t think very much of: cereals, bread products, industrial seed oils, bars, treats, snack foods, packaged foods, etc. It’s about getting rid of the processed foods first, then I would consider getting more extreme and eliminating whole plant foods.

I’m shooting to be more like Dr. Saladino in his diet of meat, organs, fruit, honey, and salt. That’s all he eats right now. His explanation makes a lot of sense too and it goes something like this: all plant foods contain “defense chemicals,” as he calls them, because that’s how they fight back against being eaten.

Every organism wants to survive. Animals have physical capabilities to fight back which plants do not. These defense chemicals cause adverse reactions for us that vary in severity. But ultimately, animal foods don’t have these and their nutrients are much more easily digestible for us compared to plant nutrients. 

This is a new realm for me but I’ve really become intrigued seeing that many people have been able to sort out their health complications through a carnivorous diet whether it be skin issues, joint pain, autoimmune diseases, depression, brain fog, allergies, and the list goes on.

Related – When it comes to quality meat and seafood, Thrive Market has it covered. Grass fed beef, organic pork, pasture raised chicken, wild caught fish, you name it.

Check out Thrive Market and see how much you can save.

 

Letting Myself Sleep Fully

Letting myself sleep fully has also been life changing.

Of course, this one is a no brainer. But I wasn’t doing it until a few months ago. And if reports are to be believed, neither is the majority of the population. 

When I’m talking to someone who is saying how they don’t feel good, they’re really tired, really sore, or really stressed, I ask the same question every time:

“How did you sleep last night?”

It’s a simple question from a simple guy. Sleep is the ultimate recovery tool. There will never be anything comparable that heals your mind, body, and spirit quite like sleep does.

For too long, I was going to bed late (as always) and setting alarms to get up at times I didn’t really want to get up at because I knew I wouldn’t feel good. It was voluntary torture. I always wanted more sleep, but I equated that with sleeping in late and wasting half my day.

When I finally prioritized my sleep recently, I realized it didn’t have to be that way. I started going to bed a bit earlier and allowing myself to sleep until whenever I got up. It sounds simple, but it took a lot for me to give myself this allowance and to adhere to that routine every day.

It is possibly the simplest fix I’ve ever made in my life and it works like a charm. On the off days that I go to bed super late or I just need a ton of sleep, I just let myself go. I sleep until whenever even if it means I don’t have time for my morning workout because that’s how important sleep is to me.

That’s where I recover my body, process everything that happened that day, de-stimulate myself, plan for tomorrow, and communicate with myself uninterrupted. It is absolutely priceless and rightfully one of the 3 pillars of health.