In this episode of Work Like A Mother, we delve into the topic of health like never before. Marina takes us on a deep dive into the keys to achieving extraordinary health, as she shares insights from a four-day event with experts like Tony Robbins, Jillian Michaels, and Dr. Michael Hyman. From understanding the three mandates for extraordinary health to breaking down the gifts and poisons of a vital life, Marina shares practical tips for implementing health strategies that don't require a major lifestyle overhaul. Join us as we uncover the science behind alkalinity, the impact of acids, and practical steps for revitalizing your health. Get ready to discover how small changes can lead to a long and vital life. Tune in as we uncover the secrets to vitality and well-being on your journey to work like a mother.

Mentioned in this Episode:

That Sugar Film

Marina Tolentino

https://www.marinatolentino.com/

IG: @marinattolentino_

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Transcript:

Alright, so you know the saying health is wealth today, we're gonna get a little nitty gritty on it. And just, I think for me, it's getting over what everyone else telling me on the Internet to do and really looking at the research and realizing what doctors say and what research scientists are saying about our health. So I think we all know this, but as Americans, we have the worst diets, like literally, globally, it's so bad. And we look at our disease, we look at our sickness, our cancer rates, and also just mental health. Like our gun shooting rates are horrible compared to everyone else in the world. Why is that? Right. So if we get it back into the health as wealth perspective, some of the things I took away from Tony Robbins is that sometimes we just need to do like a hard stop and a reset. And so that's one of the things I'm doing right now is I'm doing ten days of a reset that for my body to clear it of toxins, to clear it of acid buildup.

And like all these things I'm going to talk about with you today, but just realizing the why. Why do we need to get healthy? Not just to look hot, but it's also to live a long, vital life. Right? And so I just want to break through what are the things I'm going to implement that aren't rocket science? They don't cost a lot of money and they take as little as an hour a day. So if that sounds good to you, tune in. We're going to deep dive into this. But let's kind of start with the three mandates of extraordinary health. And I'm literally just reading through my notes that I took from the Tony Robbins event that I went to in Dallas, where it was four full days of education and the entire last day was 13 hours back to back to back of speakers. I mean, Jillian Michaels, Dr.

Michael Hyman, like all of these crazy experts, come in and just talk to us about our health. So first thing is you have to stop the poisoning. And when you think poisoning, if you knew you were poisoning yourself, you would probably stop, right? Like, the word poison is very negative, but really it's just getting conscious and understanding what's good for us and what's not good for us. And you probably already know those answers, but when you look into what you're actually consuming in a day, and this is also mental and spiritual, too, what you're feeding on every day has a big impact on your vitality. Second thing, so first is stop the poisoning. Second thing is to cleanse and detoxify, which is what I just talked about, but really just opening the channels of elimination and detoxifying to cleanse your system. One of the things I learned and took away was just more information about our limbic system. So we have our lymph nodes, right, which that's actually in charge of cleaning our body every day and taking the trash out.

But so often we're so clogged up and it's not getting what it needs, so it can't even operate. And that's where it's a breeding ground for disease and sickness, which I was like, oh, this makes so much sense. Like, our body is a science experiment and we know how it works, but we choose not to make it work that way. That was a big aha for me. Third thing on the three mandates of extraordinary health is to revitalize and regenerate. So once you've stopped the poisoning, you've cleared it all out of the gunk. Now we're going to rebuild, right? So that's really just boosting your body to be primed for top energy and feeling good. You know that moment when you like, I don't know if this has happened in a while for some of you guys, but you actually pop out of bed and you're excited to start your day and you are happy with a smile on your face.

Let's get back to those mornings. That is the whole point of this journey. But you commit to giving your body what it really needs, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. So let's kind of dive into some of these things. So, out of Tony Robbins stuff, he has twelve principles. There are eight gifts of life, and there are four poisons of a vital life. So, going into the poisons, right, I think a lot of us forget that we have to breathe like we know we wouldn't survive. If we don't have air in three minutes, that's all we got.

We got three minutes, or you're goners. So, realizing the power of oxygen, that was a huge one. And just taking three or four simple breaths three to four times a day, it's so often that we think a deep breath, we go up with our chest, right, which actually limits with our rib cage. However, if we just breathe deep through our stomach and fully expand, what is it called? Your diaphragm, then you're actually able to cleanse your lymph nodes and get so much more oxygen than you are normally. So if we just keep breathing up high, we're not actually getting all the oxygen that our body needs, which limits us in so many other ways. It limits our brain functioning, it limits our sleep. It just goes on and on and on, and it's just mindful. Breathing is so powerful.

Second gift that we have is the power of living water and live food, which makes a lot of sense, right? We need water. We're like 90% made up of water, and we need living food, meaning not processed, meaning not hydrogenated oils, meaning something that grew in the earth and is actually more energy as you consume it, instead of something that consumes your energy. So just being super mindful of that, the number three thing is healthy fats and oils. They're not all bad, and we know this, but butter is actually a good thing when it comes from grass fed beef versus the mentality in diet culture saying, you can't have butter, you can't have all these fats, they're actually really good for you. And our body needs them. And so just being cognizant of that, doing some research, what are those healthy fats and oils, things like omegas, getting it in salmon and avocado oils and some other seed oils, those are going to be really beneficial for you. But if you have that can of canola spray in your kitchen, this is your cue to throw that out right now, because it's been so processed and so overheated that it's literally a poison for your body. And one example that they gave, so one of the speakers is Joseph McClendon II, which is an awesome name, but he has been teaching with Tony for 30 years, and he got out Crisco on his hand.

Like a scoop of Crisco. And it's like a white clump, right? Like it looks like a scoop of ice cream. It's on his hand, and he's talking on stage for probably 1015 minutes with this oil on his hand. Does it change in ten to 15 minutes? What do you think? No, it does not. It stays in the same form. And you think, well, if you body heat, it should melt, right? It should start to get slippery. Well, the actual heating point of Crisco that boils and cooks all of your french fries is over 500 degrees. So when we think about consuming that, what is our highest body temperature that we have, usually 98.698.7 degrees, is our body.

Do you think our body is going to be able to heat that oil up so high that it's going to liquefy and be able to be digested in our body? No, it does not. So one of the scary things that they showed us was a heart surgery, whereas open heart surgery, and the guy had heart failure and they're pulling out what, I swear to God, looks like a white, thick string from the valve of his heart. And it's built up oils from processed foods like it was three to four inches long of like a thick white tube. And that's literally what we do when we consume fast foods all these times and we eat all of these processed potato chips and all these things. It's crazy. So if that's not something to scare you enough, go watch the YouTube video of, like, heart surgery with someone obese and you're never going to want to eat them again. But just mindful, right? Whatever we come in, it needs to be something that our body knows how to process. It's natural.

And if we are eating processed foods, we're eating it within reason. It's not the majority of our diet. So one of the rules that I'm going to talk about is that 70% of your intake food should be water rich foods. And so we can break through. What do those look like? What are examples of those? Number four gift that we have for a vital lift is alkalinity, or alkalinity. So going green. So just like how there's like acid scales and when you do the chlorine pool, right. Our bodies have their own alkaline balance, I guess you could say.

And so you can order like test strips on Amazon where you can actually put it under your tongue, I think, is what it is. And it'll tell you if you're balanced or not. And if you're not, it's usually because you're consuming too many acidic foods, like coffee, like soda, like alcohol, et cetera. And it causes your balance to be way off, which then causes your body to not work at an optimum, which it then makes your body ripe for disease and sickness and all those things. You're more likely to get a cold and flu, et cetera, if your body is not balanced. So I'm going to talk about what I'm doing today to balance myself every morning. Number five gift is the power of movement and aerobic activity, which we know if you're not growing, you're dying. So you can't just sit still.

You got to actually move your body. And it doesn't have to mean like this full cardio and strength circuit training workout or a hit class or anything, literally. By walking 15 minutes a day, you can reduce your chances for obesity, heart failure. What was the other thing? Diabetes and cancer by 50%. Reduce it by 50%. If you just walk 15 minutes a day, I'm like, oh, my gosh, that's so easy. Don't we all walk 15 minutes a day? Well, we probably don't, and that's the scary thing. Even as humans, we're, like, in our prime age right now, and we can't walk 15 minutes a day.

Something is crucially wrong with us. So one of the tips that they gave was, when you start on a walk, tell Siri to set a timer for seven and a half minutes. Just go for a walk, seven and a half minutes. WHOOP. Do whatever you want. Listen to a podcast, listen to an audiobook, talk with your kids, talk with your spouse. Then when that timer goes off, great, you turn around and you go home. That's it.

That's 15 minutes, guys. Pretty easy. Let's see. The next thing is going to be number six, the power of maximum nourishment. And so, again, this is just eating really mindfully with what you're putting in your body. So the right minerals, the right vitamins, understanding that food is energy and getting those right ingredients. So we'll talk about that a little bit. Number seven is the power of structural alignment and maximum strength.

So they had a guy come out just talking about our posture. That's a huge part of us. And just in order for our bodies to function right, we have to actually use them, right. So a lot of us are hunched over all the time. If you look at your spine when you're sitting in a chair, it's supposed to have a natural curve to it. But we are constantly in this, like, c shape, which is the opposite of how we should be. And just if we're wanting to grow our bodies and our minds, posture is everything. Number eight, gift.

This is the last gift of this one is the directed mind and heart. And so we went through a lot of visualization practices over the week. We went through a lot of gratitude and really just bringing ourselves back to moments that meet us proud, that meet us, like, overjoyed to where we wanted to cry or we wanted to laugh. And just realizing we have all of these within us, we just have to slow down enough to get back to our core and remember who it is we really are. So that's a big part of a vital life. So let's go into the scary part. Dun, dun, dun. The poisons.

Poison number one is processed fats, which I talked about that already, but that is literally poisoning our bodies and priming us for sickness, which is, if you could stop it, why wouldn't you? You're literally signing up and saying, check over here for diabetes. I'll take it. If we don't do intentional actions. Otherwise, poison number two is animal flesh, which, this is a hard one for me because, I don't know, just being part of a filipino family, we like our meat and rice at every meal. And so how do you start to evaluate? Okay, we like cheap meat, but is it really good for us? No. How can we make a better conscious choice if we're going to continue eating meat? And so they always recommend, like, watch super size me if you haven't yet. And they just came out with super size me too. I just watched it.

It's free on YouTube, so you can go get that and just check out the chicken industry. Right. There's another one, I think, with cows that you can read about and listen about, but realizing when these animals are being mass produced the way that they are, and thinking that 90% of all animal produced meat is coming from the same handful of companies, like, literally a handful, five companies or less, produce all the meat that we consume. Who do you think has more control? And the way that these animals are raised, they're in such a stressed environment that they have to be pumped with hormones, with antibiotics and their cortisol. Their stress levels are off the chain because they're in these crazy situations. So then when we consume that meat, guess what we consume, too. We consume the cortisol, we consume the hormones and the antibiotics. And so all of that is extra crap that our bodies are not prepared to have.

And it makes our personal hormones go off the chain, which then allows us to keep on the weight longer. It allows us to feel more sluggish. It's just a ripple effect. And so it's a really aha. Moment when you watch these things and you're like, oh, this is so bad. So instead, grass fed, not farm raised, if you can get it wild caught for some things. I think for the meat part, especially in Hawaii, I just feel like we're very cow reliant. We love our beef and our steak.

What if we try some venison? What if we do goat? We have a lot of goats here, right? Lamb is another great, lean source that they were talking about. So I think just getting mindful and realizing you can order these online and have it shipped to your door so you don't have to worry about always having that comparison of, like, oh, it's so expensive to buy organic versus the cheap costco one. What should I do? It's just on autopilot, it's going to be shipped to your door, and you got your meat for the month. So that's a great tip. The next thing is going to be the poison of dairy products. I know one of the big ahas I had was that 75% of people are actually lactose intolerant. And it's not necessarily because milk is bad, but because there are so many things added to our milk now. It's not the same milk that you could get 30 years ago where it shows up fresh at your door and you have to drink it within 24 hours or it goes spoiled.

This is milk now that it's been made at a dairy, right? It gets shipped to Hawaii, at least for me, locally here, for at least a week or two. And then I grab it and it comes home with me. And the expiration isn't for three or four more weeks, not years more weeks after I get it. So that is milk that has been made and additives put to it. That's meant to last a month or longer. So when you think about that again, we're adding all this extra crap to our bodies that our bodies are not supposed to be having. And it just keeps stacking and stacking and stacking. And no wonder why we're all dying prematurely.

And, like, majority of people are obese now. It's just crazy. The last thing that was really a big aha. Was the poison of acid. Addictions. Notice I said addictions. These are things that we are constantly craving. Things that we think are okay because it's culturally accepted or whatever.

But really, this is a poison. And so I'm going to break those acids down for you. So let's fast forward into a couple of things. I mean, this could be like an hour long episode. So I actually just want to go to the two big ones. So let's go to the power of alkalinity. And then I'm going to go to the power or the poison of acids. So the power of alkalinity.

And I'm just going to read this. But this has to do with energy, right? So, so often we're experiencing stress, fatigue, depression, and disease. And it has to do with our body chemistry and maintaining a proper ratio between acid and alkaline foods in your diet. So when we talk about that balance, that chemistry within you, you have like a scale of highly acidic all the way to strongly alkaline. So the way to get to neutral or strongly alkalined is foods that are alkaline forming and life giving. So I'm just going to read this list. You guys can take notes as I go. Superfoods that include almonds, carrots, dates, avocados, lemons, limes, coconuts, celery, cucumbers, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, asparagus, green beans, broccoli, green, red, and yellow peppers, onions, garlic, radishes, leafy green vegetables.

I like underlined this one because it's so easy to get those wheatgrass, cabbage, walnuts, soybeans, tofu, lima beans, spinach, turnips. Beet tops. Oh, beet tops. Not just the beets, the greens on top. Melons, mangoes, papaya, fig, cantaloupe, watermelon, parsley, alfalfa, sprouts, navy beans, soybeans, and nuts. And of course, you could google this. There's pinterest after pinterest of ideas for alkaline rich foods, but just focusing on those in your diet. So previous to me learning all of this, I was eating avocados, asparagus, green beans, peppers, and onions and mangoes.

So that's like five out of 30 that I was consistently buying. And so I think it was like a shake up to be like, okay, mama, you're the grocery shopper for your family. So if I'm not doing it, then my whole family isn't doing it. And so I just got super mindful, and the second I got off the airplane, we went to Costco, and I totally redid our refrigerator so that I'm not tempted anymore. And these are just the grab and go items. So these are really good foods. I just forget to buy them. They're not part of my routine, so I just had to do that.

Foods to avoid for alkalinity, these are the acid forming foods and the devoid of life. So this is pork, which we love our pork in Hawaii, but unfortunately, this is a bad one. So just eating it imbalance. Maybe only kalua pork once a month instead of twice a week. Right. Freshwater fish is actually a bad one, but I would say ocean is okay. This is just freshwater. So, like, lakes and stuff.

Unclean sources of beef, chicken, or turkey, eggs, shrimp, lobster, oysters, hot dogs, whole wheat and high rye breads, white rice, white flour, cornbread, refined sugar, cheese, milk, sour cream, yogurt, butter, margarine, mushrooms, peanuts, coffee, tea, wine, and beer. So all the good stuff, guys, that is the acid forming stuff. So when I go into acid addictions, keep all of that in mind when I start to talk about this. So the way that you balance the negative with the positive is to have more of the positive. That's the whole point of this, right? So you really just have to supplement our diet with dark green vegetables or their juices. So I think it was like last year or the year before, celery juice was trending, trending hard. I feel like every influencer and their mom had a juicer, and we talked about it. Well, just because the trend is over doesn't mean the science has changed.

Celery juice is a great way to get that into your system. And it doesn't mean you have to get a whole box of celery and have all this juice factory going on in your kitchen. The stranger that I sat next to at the event actually said, he only buys one bunch of celery a week, and he has about a stock a day in juice form, and he feels a significant difference in energy when he has it in the morning and when he doesn't. And I was like, oh, okay. You're like real life facts that it works. So that was a great encouragement. And then I love this one, the last thing, because this can be a little complicated. Like, you're probably listening, being like, marina, I'm so overwhelmed.

What are you talking about? The best thing you can do is to keep it super simple and literally just put fresh lemon in your water. That's it. And it will help alkaline your body and get it back to neutral or positive. So I started doing that when I got home. I just put a quarter of a lemon in every and a tall glass of water. First thing I do when I wake up, I'm not having coffee right now. And that feels great, and I feel hydrated. So let's get into the nasty.

The poison of acids and why this is so bad. So this is why it's an addiction, right? So it's a diet that promotes over acidification in the blood and tissues, which is just conductive to viruses, bacteria, yeast and fungus, and all the things that make us feel yuck. So the things that we're talking about here is these addictions. Get ready. There's seven of them. Excessive caffeine, which we know. Processed sugar, which we know, alcohol, white processed foods, processed vinegar, nicotine, and drugs. So a movie to recommend to watch is called that sugar movie.

I haven't watched it yet, but it's on my to do list. And really just making sure that we are balancing these. If you're going to have them, you can have them sometimes, just not all the time. If these seven things. Excessive caffeine, processed sugar, white, refined foods, nicotine and drugs. If that's part of your daily routine, your habits. Then your body is like, stacking that reserve of negative things in your body, and you need a full clean out. You need a reflush.

You need to call the plumber and have them flush you out. So coming back from this trip, that's exactly what I'm doing. They have a ten day vital health challenge that I can share with you. And so one of the first things is when you wake up, we're not waking up and having the cup of coffee, right? Like I said, I'm waking up. I'm having my glass of water with lemon. That's like, one thing. Breath work. Tony Robbins calls it priming.

Right? So consistent, deep, deep breaths that fill you all the way to your stomach, right. Your stomach should come out when you breathe, not your chest going up. Deep breaths, holding it there, letting the oxygen reach all the way out. That's going to be a huge part of it. Drinking enough water. We don't drink enough. We know this. Right? But what you should do is take half of your body weight and drink that many ounces of water a day.

That's the magical rule. If you weigh a lot, you got to drink a lot because your body's made up a lot of water. And just making sure that we have enough, not only to satiate us, but to clean us out, to flush us out. So if you're thirsty, you're way beyond dehydration at that point. You should never really feel thirsty. We should be drinking enough water that it's flushing us out. Those water rich foods, really focusing on those. I'm adding those into my diet.

10,000 steps a day. The 15 minutes walk is going to be essential. I already kind of did that before, but I'm just going to add in an extra 15 minutes just to make me feel good and feel like I'm checking the box. But if you're not doing it yet, I mean, there's no excuse. Like, seven and a half minutes there, seven and a half minutes back. We know how fast that time goes. When we're scrolling on the gram, it feels like 15 minutes turned into 2 hours. All of a sudden, we wake up and we're like, oh, my God, the sun is down.

So you can absolutely do 15 minutes a day, three times a week. Strength training. So part of this that I totally went over was like, jillian Michaels came on and was talking about strength and building muscle and why that's so important as we age. But just three times a week and again, doesn't have to be this big, complicated thing. You don't have to buy a program, just move your body, push it to its max. It should feel hard. It should feel strenuous by the last rep. It should be like, oh, my God, I can't get this.

Because your body needs that resistance, right? So it's called progressive overload. So three times a week, just doing that. If you're going to eat a breakfast, making sure it's not sugary, that's like the go to thing right now is like, sugar, sugar, sugar. My kids are addicted to nutella and bread and I can't get them off of it. And so I literally have to remove it from my house. I think there's no alternative. But ideally, you're eating a big, protein heavy breakfast. So that's eggs, leafy greens, organic meat, if you're going to.

And you're going to eat relaxed and slowly overnight. Oats is another great one packed with protein. Right? So just making sure that your breakfast is big to start the day so you're not having that sugar crash and burn that most of us get. What else did I have on there? I'm doing no dairy products for the next ten days, just as a reset, but we can do almond, oak, cashew, et cetera. Coconut milk is fine. Sheet and goat milk is okay. So that feta cheese is fine. Goat cheese is fine.

You can still have some of that. But no coffee. Like I said, that is a hard stop. Day one was really hard. I'm on day two right now as I record this, and it was hard this morning because my husband wanted coffee, but I'm not having it. But other than that, I've actually been really good. I'm having really high energy. And if I start to feel that slump, I can just have a liquid iv or like an electrolyte drink.

And it treats me enough to feel like, okay, I got a perk in my day again, last couple of things was little to no. White, processed foods and sugar, maple syrup and honey is okay, which is great because as you guys know, I have a honey company. So we have about seven five balance buckets in our condo right now. I got plenty of honey, but I think, just, again, being mindful. So as I'm doing this, I'm, like, sharing this with my kids, right? Like, okay, guys, mommy's going to do this reset. You should do it with me. Here's what I'm going to do. And just going through our pantry, it's like all the freaking fruit snacks are a corn syrup and additives and dyes.

And I'm like, okay, those are all trash. Let's look at the granola bars. Second ingredient, corn syrup. Like, shoot. Okay, that's not good either. So, so much of what is in our pantry and what our kids are consuming is all of these crazy things that I'm telling you are bad for us. So, as a mom, I'm responsible, right? At the end of the day, my kids aren't paying for this. They're not bringing into the house.

I am. And so I'm just being super mindful and educating them as I go. Not to say it's like you can't ever have it, but should we have hot Cheetos and talkies five days a week? Not anymore, because my son is literally addicted to them. And then just on the whole food diet thing and hot Cheetos, we started to see a couple of things on social media about people needing surgery because they eat too much of it. So it's a real thing. This is causing major damage. So if I'm allowing my eight year old to have this, then I'm basically inflicting damage on him without us knowing about it. So just big aha moments, I think.

And then the last one, which I love, and you can do this either in the morning or at nighttime, is a daily gratitude journal. So, usually you do your devotions in the morning or whatever, but this is just a way to remember how blessed we are every single day. Regardless of your situation, regardless of how you feel, there are facts, and you have proof to show it that you have a very abundant, blessed life. Even if we take money out of the equation, who's around you? Who's in your life, right? Do we have a roof over your head? Do we have wifi? Let's just pause on that moment. If you have wifi in a cell phone, you are more privileged than most of the world. And so remembering how freaking blessed we are, it just really shifts the perspective in our brains and starts to turn us on to, like, the world is not falling. Like, we're okay, we're secure, we're covered here today. And it allows you to look forward into the future and get excited about it.

So, I know that was, like, a lot, this episode of health and wellness, but just some major key takeaways on vitality, not just living a life that checks the box on autopilot, because that's what I was doing. I always made the excuse, I'm too busy or it's too expensive or it's for them and not for me or whenever I achieve this, then I'm going to do my health. It's no longer an exception. It is a must for my life. And that means I have habits stacked to the gym in the morning. So I take my daughter to preschool and then right next door I go to the gym right after. And then when I'm doing that, I've got my lemon water, right? I've got my electrolyte drink, I've got my greens drink. I've got like five, six drinks by the time it's eight in the morning.

But I'm getting all my vitamins and all those things in before I start my day. So there's literally no more excuses. It's just up to you. And really your why. You have to have enough pain, either emotionally or physically, to make this change. But I promise you, once you make it, you're going to have so much energy that you didn't know existed. You can feel better now today at whatever age you are than you were ten years ago. It's true.

And it's really just about being motivated enough to live life a little bit better and hopefully a lot happier. So I hope that helped, guys, and I will see you on the next one.