Five Simple Daily Habits to Transform Your Health & Life Forever

Daily Habits

Simple Daily Habits that Can Change Your Life

The biggest mistake that people make is to believe that abundant health means crazy effort, tons of time, loads of ‘giving up stuff’ and feeling crappy.

It doesn’t.

It can be Simple, Effortless, Easy & Delicious.

I “cleverly” call it S.E.E.D health.

Small actions, practiced consistently can yield unbelievable results.

You just have to put in the little bit of effort and work of those small actions every day.

Consistently.

Consistency is the absolute key here.

I saw this post on instagram from @thebodycoach the other day and it epitomizes this approach exactly:

simple daily habits

Simple, consistent action.

If you promise to follow these habits, I’ll promise you results…!

5 Simple Daily Habits that Can Change Your Life

Habit #1. 15 Minute Acid Crusher Morning Routine

This is the morning ritual that I credit with a huge amount of my daily energy, mental clarity, vitality, and focus.

It has superpowers. Plus following this ritual (as part of a wider morning ritual, more on that another day) means I start the day RIGHT, positively and doing this first thing puts me on the right foot to do the rest of the day right too.

Make sense?

It’s also important to start the day flooding your body with alkalinity, antioxidants, and anti-inflammatories (plus super hydration) because after a long night of fasting while you’re asleep, your body is working tirelessly to detox and rebuild, so you’ve got a whole heap of toxins, waste products, etc. you need flushing out when you wake.

PLUS your hormonal balance is critical when you first wake up to ensure your body’s daily cycles of hormones like melatonin, cortisol, adrenaline and so on are produced to the right levels to the right time of day.

This ritual helps all of this massively.

Start the day right and you’ll continue it right!

So here it goes:

The 15-Minute Acid Crusher

Acid Crusher Step One: Instant Hydration

This is an AWESOME habit to get into – the second you wake up the first thing you should do is head to the kitchen and get a 500ml / 17fl oz. glass of water and drink it. If you want to get fancy you can make lemon water or my ‘enhanced’ lemon water – but to keep it simple, just get 500ml of water into your body.

This gets you on your way to Habit #2 below AND kicks off the 15-Minute Acid Crusher.

The hydration gets your metabolism ignited and gives your body some well-needed fuel to start removing the overnight toxins through two of it’s most efficient toxin-removing mechanisms: urine and sweat.

Acid Crusher Step Two: Turmeric & Ginger Tea

Now it’s time to get this on the simmer – even while you’re sipping at your water – and it can be as simple as:

  1. Bring 330ml of water to a simmer
  2. Grate in fresh turmeric and ginger
  3. Simmer for three minutes
  4. Squeeze in fresh lemon or lime
  5. Serve and drink all the bits up too

I like to use the tiny grater bit on the grater you’d normally use to get peel rind – looks like this:

turmeric tea peeler

I have got a few more turmeric tea recipes for you here too that are a little more involved, but still only take 4-5 minutes to make:

Turmeric Tea Option 1: Creamy Turmeric Tea
Turmeric Tea Option 2: Refreshing Turmeric Tea
Turmeric Tea Option 3: “Bulletproof” Turmeric

[More guides: Turmeric User Guide | Dried vs. Fresh Turmeric]

Acid Crusher Step Three: Green Juice/Green Drink

Having a fresh, green vegetable juice every day will do more for your health, long-term and short-term, than anything else. It is amazing. This is the one habit that you HAVE to practice consistently because frankly, the return on investment is just HUGE.

I’ll cover this in more depth below under Habit #3, but for now, you just need to know – this is step three in the Acid Crusher. Make a fresh green juice of cucumber, celery, leafy greens, carrots, ginger, more turmeric(!), etc. and your body will LOVE you for it, you will not get hunger or sugar pangs mid-morning, and your all-day energy will be smooth and fantastic (as will your skin).

Using one of the recipes below, you’ll be getting another approx 300-500ml of hydration here (10-12 fl.oz)

Acid Crusher Step Four: Alkaline Minerals

Finally, the final step in the ‘crusher’ is to have a serve of alkaline minerals – best done in supplement form. After that good night of buffering acidic toxins (just the byproduct of your body ‘cleaning house’ overnight is acidic, and needs to be buffered back to pH neutral. So infusing your body with a serve of the most alkaline minerals is a very powerful thing to do.

These alkaline minerals include:

  • Sodium
  • Calcium
  • Magnesium
  • Potassium

And I recommend buying a decent quality supplement to do this:

A scoop of one of these in a further 300ml / 10 fl oz will finish off your crusher wonderfully and set you up for a day of massive energy, vitality, mental clarity, and positivity!

And, the smart among you will have already totted up that you’ve had a ton of liquids here putting you well on your way towards habit #2…

Habit #2. Hydration

Indeed, by following the “15-Minute Acid Crusher” you will have already consumed around 1-1.2 liters (35-45 fl.oz) by the time you’re off to work so you’re off to an absolute flyer.

This is more than most people drink in a day. But you’re not ‘most people’. You’re one of the 1% that is going to have unbelievable, incredible health and vitality. You’re one of the 1% that takes action. So you’re off to a great start.

Honestly, though, I don’t understand WHY so many people go through each day dehydrated when JUST getting properly hydrated will make a HUGE difference towards their health, energy, weight, any pains, inflammation and so much more.

It’s easy and it’s practically free…

How Much Is Enough? What About 8 Glasses a Day?

Enoughness. A very ambiguous concept. But not when it comes to hydration.

In my 14 years of coaching and teaching the alkaline diet I’ve found that ‘enough’ for 90% of people is around 4 litres per day on average. Sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more.

If you’re well outside your target weight then you may need a little more (up to 5 liters) while your weight comes down.

If you have a lot of muscle and/or are exercising vigorously then you will need more too.

The basic equation is:

1 liter of water per 40lbs (18k or 2.85stone) of body weight
For example, 12 stone = 4.2 liters per day (just over a gallon)
Again, this usually works out to be about 3-4 liters for most people.

Seems a Lot More Than 8 Glasses…?

It is. 8 regular-sized glasses would be around 2 litres (67 fl. oz or half a gallon).
This is half the amount I recommend.

Why? Because in all of my work over the past 14 or so years, I have seen significant improvements at the 3-4 liter range compared to the 2 liter range.

And the ‘8 glasses a day’, while realistic etc. is also the recommendation from the mainstream. And they’re still telling you to eat grains, low fat, that dairy is great for you and you won’t get enough calcium or protein unless you drink milk and eat steaks.

If you’re not convinced, try it for yourself: go for 8 glasses (2 liters/ half a gallon) for 2 weeks, and then switch to 4 liters (a gallon) for 2 weeks. You’ll see which makes you feel better and can stick with whichever the winner is.

…and don’t feel like you need to go from zero to 100mph all at once

You can build up to your ideal amount over a couple of weeks or maybe more – but start now. Get that minimum of two liters per day and you will be absolutely flying in no time!

[Read More: the Life Changing Magic of Hydration]

Habit #3 – Green Juice / Green Powdered

I have always stated that perhaps the most important thing you can do for your health is getting 5-7 serves of green foods per day. Most people get ONE serving at best. This is not good enough. And I get it’s hard to eat leafy greens all day long, every day…and that’s what juices are for!

When you make yourself a nice, alkaline green juice you’re getting 3-4 serves of greens (maybe more) in one instant hit, really easily.

Recently a piece of research was released in the journal “Preventing Chronic Disease” which revealed the 41 most powerhouse fruits and vegetables

(See my full post on the research here: 41 Powerhouse Alkaline Foods)

They were ranked based on vitamin, mineral and antioxidant content, as well as a number of other measures.

And, no surprise: 38 of the 41 foods were highly alkaline forming.

And also no surprise, the top 15 were ALL leafy green vegetables!

To level up your health and energy I strongly recommend having a fresh green juice daily. If you do this throughout the month you’ll see a MASSIVE difference 30 days from now. Massive.

A fresh green juice usually contains a combination of these types of ingredients:

  • Cucumber
  • Celery
  • Spinach
  • Kale
  • Lettuce
  • Bell Pepper
  • Tomatoes
  • Carrots
  • Beets
  • Watercress
  • Arugula / Rocket
  • Turmeric
  • Ginger
  • Silverbeet / Chard
  • And so on…

You can keep it really simple, or you can be elaborate. It’s up to you – as long as you have the basics of cucumber, celery and some leafy greens it’s a winner.

You should aim to make two serves per time at the juicer, and you can dilute it down a little with:

  • Filtered water
  • Nut milk such as coconut milk, almond milk etc
  • Coconut water (my favourite)

Here’s my favourite green drink recipe for you to try – the Big Bad Green Drink!

Now, I’ve also said ‘Green Powdered’ because I want to touch on green drink supplements here too, as for those days you literally run out of time, a powdered green drink can be a great safety net.

I’ve talked about this more here in my ‘core alkaline diet supplements guide‘ – but in brief, I do recommend checking out Alkamind Daily Greens.

It is a great to use every day anyway and the ultimate backup if you don’t get your fresh green drink in.

Habit #4 – Breathing Exercises

This is super-cool and super-simple. It cleanses your lymphatic system (one of your body’s main detoxification systems) and gets you centered.

I first learned this from Tony Robbins at UPW in 2003 and have been doing it ever since. It’s as easy as this:

  1. Sit in a comfortable position with good posture, get centred
  2. Breathe in for a count of 4
  3. Hold for a count of 16
  4. Breathe out for a count of 8

This 1-4-2 pattern can be done in any multipliers – you could do in for 10, hold for 40, out for 20 if your lungs are up to it!

I repeat this breathing pattern 10-15 times….and while I do it, I concurrently do positive visualization at the same time.

This is my favorite part of the morning, it centers me, has me feeling focuses and REALLY sets up my day to be a success.

  • Gratitude: I think that this is a massively undervalued state to be in. So little of our time each day is spent feeling gratitude, but if fills you with positivity to do so. All of my stresses disappear when I focus on gratitude. I love it. So for 2 minutes, with my eyes closed, I think about all of the things I’m grateful for in my life. My little boy, my partner, our life together. I picture my family, I picture us having happy times. I picture my friends and happy memories of us hanging out and having fun. I feel gratitude for the information, ideas, technologies, and comforts I have in my life. I feel grateful for being born into the life I have and how it could have been so different if I was born into a different time or a different country or culture. I feel grateful for the freedoms I have. It could be anything – feeling the emotion is what’s important.
  • Visualisation of What I Want to Create: this is POWERFUL. So for the next 2 minutes, I visualize my most important goals as if they’ve already done, and in as much detail as possible. You could picture your body looking exactly how you want it to look or picture yourself seeing some financial result you want to create. Whatever the goals that give you the most juice – picture them as DONE!
  • Self-Love: not as weird as it sounds I promise. Just as simple as, for the final minute of the five, I think about myself in the most positive way. I sometimes focus on the things about myself I like the least and tell myself their great. Just focusing on how much you love yourself and believe in yourself is powerful.

This is what Tony Robbins calls NET time, with NET standing for No Extra Time required. Do this while you’re doing your breathing and you’ll be feeling AMAZING!

Habit #5 – Fats & Oils

Finally, and this is a pretty easy one – make sure that you get adequate fats & oils every day!

Most people don’t get anywhere close to enough healthy fats each day, but they are so important. I strongly recommend you aim for:

  1. 3 tbsp omega 3
  2. 1 tbsp coconut oil

Fats to Include: omega 3: oily fish, nuts, seeds, flax oil, chia; saturated fats from coconut: oil, milk, cream; to a lesser degree the mix of omega 3, 6 and saturated fats from olive oils, avocado and so on.

Fats to Avoid: excessive omega 6 and 9 from vegetable oils such as sunflower oil, canola oil and so on; trans fats, hydrogenated fats and most definitely spreads such as margarine.

The fats we KNOW and all agree should not be eaten are trans-fats and vegetable oils and those from spreads such as margarine.

I know people are still concerned about saturated fats, but the truth is, these fats do not raise any risk factors for heart disease, in fact, they lower them. They lower the amount of small particle LDL and raise the amount of ‘good’ cholesterol HDL. In fact, more than this – they produce the type of HDL that de-activates the small particle LDL that’s linked to hardened arteries.

BUT when you start adding proper quantities of the right fats to your diet everything changes. Your cravings disappear, your blood sugar normalizes, your liver regenerates, your hormones begin to rebalance and your energy goes through the roof.

[Read more here: The TRUTH About Saturated Fat]

Always be thinking: where can I add fat? Can I add fat to this?

And because it’s so important, this is something I recommend supplementing with, and I talk about it in-depth in my Core Alkaline Supplements Guide here.

But to get you started here’s some ideas:

  • Salad dressings: make a simple dressing of olive oil, flax oil and lemon – it’s an easy way to get one of your tbsp of omega 3 (from the flax)
  • Drizzling veggies, curries, pastas etc in flax oil
  • Snacking on nuts and seeds, especially almonds
  • Adding flax oil and coconut oil to soups and smoothies
  • Stirring coconut oil into your oats in the morning
  • Using chia seeds in everything and making ‘chia pots’ for breakfast
  • Oily fish a few times a week, of course
  • Beans – don’t have as much Omega 3 as seeds or nuts. However, they still can help you meet your RDAs all while avoiding excess Omega 6
  • Winter Squash – a surprising source of omega 3
  • Leafy green veg also really high in omega 3 and low in omega 6

Ensuring you’re consuming way more omega 3 than omega 6 is essential. I’ll talk about that another day, but for now just aim to get at least 3x omega 3 to 1x omega 6.

Make the Commitment

Doing even three of these five habits daily, for the next 30 days, will change your life. They are little habits, you may not notice the impact in the moment or the next day even. But they are powerful when practiced with consistency. The benefits accumulate and snowball. It’s like compound interest. The penny you save each day seems irrelevant today but will make you a millionaire in no time.

Remember it is your HABITS that determine the quality of your life, more than anything else. The things you do every day – good or bad – have the biggest influence on who you are and how you feel.

Make your habits POSITIVE – because positive habits are just as hard to break as negative ones.

Ross


order the alkaline life

Ask Me a Question or Leave a Comment Here - I'd Love to Hear from You

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  1. tina Reply

    Hi Ross, thanks for all your great info!!!
    I have a question about fruit. There is a big difference between the fructose levels in ripe and less ripe fruit. Even Dr Gundry, who’s famous quote is “give fruit the boot”, recommends greenish fruit. So might green fruit be less acidifying and more valuable as well?
    Less ripe bananas have less fructose but still have potassium and their great creamy texture. Tangy, less ripe mangoes have vitamins and are great in salads. Green papayas are used in Mexican cuisine as a salad and have exceptional enzyme levels. As do less ripe pineapples.
    I don’t know about the alkalinity of greenish fruit… but if its lower in fructose, perhaps it would be less acidifying as well. And maybe deserves more appreciation than fully ripe fruit. I’d like to know your wisdom on this.

  2. ramon perry Reply

    Wow this is sensational. I already love juicing, but there are so many other things I could be doing (effortlessly as you point out). This is my first article of yours, and I’m hooked already, thanks for the great info!
    I think the fats is the one thing I’ll have to work on, I’m truly intrigued by the coconut oil suggestion.

  3. Natalie Reply

    Absolutely love all this help and advice and would really appreciate some advice on recipes ect.. I was to start cooking a lot more from scratch.

  4. Angie Reply

    Amazing list, the water seems to me a bit challenging but I really give it a try!!!!!
    Thank you!!!

    • ross Reply

      Hey Angie – baby steps, just build up over a few weeks – it is easier if you are more gentle with your body 🙂

  5. Sharon Richards Reply

    Hi Ross, is it possible to get all your omega 3’s from plant food without supplements?

    • ross Reply

      Possible but difficult consistently, and the body needs O3 consistently. A supplement is a good safety net.

  6. Allyson Bending Reply

    Hi Ross. This is all very inspirational and gives me some ideas to aim for. The main problem seems to be the amount of time we need to dedicate to this. I’ve been drinking water with a squirt of lemon first thing every morning for years now so I’m just going to try to add better daily hydration to that for now and maybe if I can make that a habit, I can add something else later – small steps!!

    Thanks for your enthusiasm!

  7. Neomi Reply

    I’d love to get a standard what to eat for breakfast / lunch / dinner …

    I don’t have too much brain space to think about it too much due to my wonderful busy life

    Do you have a standard ‘ I don’t gotta think too much ‘ ‘menus ‘?

    Many thanks ! 🙂

  8. Joyce Lockyer Reply

    HI Ross thank you for your emails. I am starting to day
    I had the flu symptoms last year and now I have
    joint pains that is suppose to be a virus
    thanks Joyce

  9. Sally Reply

    I have had good results from 7 days of 100% alkaline diet (90%?), so want to persevere with it. But I have found that following your recipes, esp Book 2 sometimes feeds me low alkaline food, e.g. Buckwheat pancakes and Mexican Corn Salsa salad, rather than focussing on high alkaline food.

    So I am looking for a golden rule on how to balance my day – I see above you say, 5-7 serves of green leafy veg.
    ?Does a serve = one cupful?
    ?If I make sure:
    – I have 5-7 cups of high alkaline green leafy veg (via salads, soups, juices, or smoothies)
    – drink enough alkaline water/liquids
    – the balance of my food excludes the mid to high acidic foods
    then should I be right?

    Appreciate your advice on how to simplify this Ross

  10. Nas Bee Reply

    Thankyou Ross. I really enjoy receiving your emails. I have just started doing these positive habits. I am 13 stone have a baby 3months old and I have put a lot of weight on. So really can’t weight to make progress. Always look forward to your wonderful positive emails. Thankyou again.
    Nas

  11. Jessica Marlin Reply

    The information you provide is incredibly helpful and insightful!! I am trying to get myself on track with an alkalizing diet for better health and it can be daunting sometimes to face that “mountain” while the rest of the world enjoys that glorious cup of coffee. Reading your emails helps tremendously in getting me refocused and giving me more insight..

    Thanks a mil!
    Jessi

    • ross Reply

      Thanks Jessi – it’s my pleasure 🙂

      Ross

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