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This is everything that I eat in a day for both muscle and longevity. As someone who's been vegan for over a decade, I went plant-based after a cancer scare in college, and I've never felt more fit and healthy. So, in this video, I'd like to show you exactly what I eat and why, and also share my health systems that will help you to feel better and live longer.
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So, let's dive right in and I'll show you how I prep my week for success. So, I make a lot of different meal prep videos and I think those are really helpful, especially if you don't know that much about nutrition. But what I actually do in practice is a little bit different than prepping full meals. What I tend to do is create meal building blocks. And what I mean by that is I like to prep healthy ingredients ahead of time that I can then easily assemble to create meals. And that makes it really easy for me.
So, I'm going to get started by chopping up this organic broccoli. And the reason we want to cut the broccoli first, is that we don't want to kill the sulfurophane, which is a plant compound that has antioxidants, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer benefits. And it's also very heat sensitive. So, if you chop this up and kind of activate the enzyme that creates sulfurophane and then cook it, you actually kill the sulfurophane. So, we don't want to do that. We want to chop it up and let it sit for a little bit while we prep our other ingredients and then we'll cook it later.
A lot of things like sulfurophane and way to chop your broccoli I learned from Dr. Greger. So, huge shout out to Dr. Greger and his awesome team at nutritionfacts.org. I have read his books, but I know not everyone has time or interest in doing all that research. So, I just cut to the chase and create a list of the top 21 foods that Dr. McGregor recommends and precisely why. It is super valuable if I do say so myself. And you can go ahead and click the link in the description for that.
And just as a quick note throughout this video, keep an eye out for the 21 foods icon. Every time that it pops up, I'm adding one of the 21 foods into my diets. I eat all 21 almost every single day, and it's really had a big impact on my health. So again, you can grab your free copy of this guide by scanning the QR code or clicking the link in the description. This guide is packed with insights on the science behind each of these foods, including optimal serving sizes, my go-to product recommendations, and a few key precautions to keep in mind. You're also going to get a sneak peek into Dr. Greger's personal diet, which is information I gathered from our latest interview and other resources.
All right, now back to the video. This amount of broccoli will not last me and my fiance one week. So, we eat a lot of broccoli. Next thing is some black lentils. All right, two cups of lentils, four cups of water, 2:1 ratio. Super easy. I use brown rice as a setting because it takes a little bit more to cook uh the lentils. And it's uh done in like 40 minutes.
the Brian Johnson challenge video where I ate and lived like Brian Johnson for a week. That's where I actually discovered my newfound love for lentils. I did rate his super veggie, which is his kind of go-to lunch. I rate it pretty low and now I eat it for lunch every day.
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Basically, I have I've tweaked it. So, I've added some more flavors. I've made it from my perspective a little more interesting. So, it really does come down to finding what works for you. My goal with this video is to not say, "Hey, here's what I eat and this is what you should eat as well." That is not it at all. My goal is to just show you some ways, hopefully some helpful tips in maintaining a healthy diet and making it as easy as possible and creating what I like to call health systems where it just works for you and it takes some of the thought process and all the guesswork out of it.
I love the look of cauliflower. I think it is such a cool looking vegetable. I love eating healthy food. I love fueling my body with healthy food. And for me, nothing tastes as good as being healthy and fit feels. When you look at nutrition through the perspective of how are you fueling your body and taking care of yourself, it makes it a lot easier for you to make better nutrition choices. Now, with that being said, I am not uh super hardcore. Like just this past weekend, I had pizza and watched a movie with my fiance. That's awesome. I do that every once in a while. What kind of nutrition decisions are you making most of the time? Are you making good ones that serve you and your future, or are you making poor ones and have an opportunity to improve?
All right, so I'm going to bake this cauliflower at 400° F for about 35 minutes. Check that out. bunch of health, cruciferous, deliciousness. Going to throw this in the oven. All right, our broccoli is properly rested. So, let's go ahead and add that to a pan. So, I'm just going to be steaming this with water. Super simple. We are going to be adding all of the spices, all the flavors tomorrow when we actually make the full day of eating.
Up next, we've got limes. I use these limes not for any particular main nutrition benefits although they are high in vitamin C and some other nutrients. I use these because I really love the taste of limes and that is important. We want to have food that is nutritious but is also delicious. I have really been getting into the habit of using mason jars for so many things when it comes to food storage. They are super convenient and also honestly they're pretty freaking cute. So, we got uh two limes there ready to go. And we're going to do the same thing with some garlic.
All right. Now, garlic is nature's heart protector. Okay. We want to be getting some garlic in our diets every day. Super beneficial for your cardiovascular health. So, I like to have a fresh clove of garlic every single day. Garlic powder is fine. It has all these same health benefits, but I just really love the taste of fresh garlic. All right, so that's it. We've got, I don't know, 10 or so nice fresh garlic cloves that we're going to be chopping up for our lunch every day. There we go.
Got some cauliflower done. I love prepping so many healthy vegetables all at one time. It's so easy. And then every single day when you're starting to get hungry, you don't need to think about, oh man, I need to start making some cauliflower and making the broccoli and doing all of this. It is super simple. You already have your building blocks and you just put it together. Whether it's cauliflower for you or something totally different, spaghetti, squash, or whatever you want. Just prepping that ahead of time and making sure that you have healthy foods ready to grab and go in the fridge makes a world of difference.
Up next, let's talk about broccoli sprouts, which I could make an argument for being the most healthy food in the entire world. >> But the broccoli sprouts probably the healthiest food that exists on the planet. Like it's hard to imagine even like on a on a nutrition per dollar basis. You make your own. Super easy. And you know, it's probably cost about 25 cents a cup or something to make on your own. Broccoli sprouts are absolutely packed with a ton of nutrition. Everything that you find in broccoli in a much smaller, more compact package. Broccoli sprouts actually contain 10 to 100 times more sulfurophane than mature broccoli. And it's also super easy to just make this at home. You can see this little rig that I bought online that allows you to make fresh broccoli sprouts at home in a mason jar. and we are going to harvest them right now. Get a little paper towel on there. Now, this has been draining for the last 12 hours, so it shouldn't really have any excess moisture in there, but we're just going to pull this out. So, it has a little bit of a um peppery flavor.
Your body is working 24/7, 365, day and night. It is slaving away to keep you healthy. The least that you can do is provide it with the raw materials to cultivate health. So, let me show you how easy it is to actually make some broccoli sprouts. Cuz for a while, I didn't do any sprouting at home because I thought, "Oh, that's just going to be a pain in the butt." It's actually super easy. What we're going to do is prep a/4 cup. I mean, you can make a ton of different sprouts. They actually have this salad mix and there are other things that you can make. The basic idea is that you have some kind of container, probably some glass jar, like a mason container, a mason jar. And then you're just going to have some kind of mesh top on it that uh you screw on in some way. And I'm just going to rinse these seeds. As far as soaking them, you just need enough water to cover them. Basically, I use something like that. You set a timer for 8 hours. And then once it's done, you're going to dump out the water, just kind of like turn it, coat the seeds around the side, and they're just going to sprout on their own. So, it's basically no work for tons of nutrition. So, you're going to see how I use my broccoli sprouts tomorrow for my lunch. And that lunch is incredible. It is packed in nutrition.
But now, let's get on to making our tofu scramble. Now, it's time to make a meal with my favorite protein source in it, which is tofu. So, we've got some beautiful kale. We have some tomatoes, carrots, red bell peppers, a bunch of different spices. This is super nutritious and also super delicious. So, I am making a 4day portion. I understand it looks a little gross. I just washed my hands. So, you can also use some kind of masher like a potato masher. So, I don't like pressing my tofu. For me, I think that's just a little bit of a pain. I just cook the water out of it.
You know, one amazing thing about eating healthy, nutritious foods is they actually look super beautiful. If you look at these colors of all the stuff that we're preparing for this tofu scramble, it is just this orchestra of beautiful colors that all work together in harmony to deliver a symphony of good health outcomes in your body. maybe leaned a little hard into that analogy. But the point is, beautiful food, beautiful inner body. All right, we're not going to run through all the details of this exact recipe in this video, but if you'd like to have this recipe, then go check out our latest meal prep video, which has this meal included. There's a link in the description.
So, I've created hundreds of meal plans/meal preps, whatever you want to call them. If you're newer to following some kind of structured nutrition plan, it's a very beneficial way of doing it. But ultimately, our goal is not to follow a meal plan for the rest of our lives. That is not long-term sustainability. And that's really my ultimate focus when it comes to how I eat. And that's also how we teach our clients to eat in the Vegan Superhero Academy. I use the terms meal plan and meal prep a lot because that's the kind of content that we create and that's what people are searching for. So that's a great way of getting into the door. But ultimately you want to create a way of eating that fits into your life is adaptable. It's not some structured meal plan or that's also kind of um in the same realm of the word diet. The goal is not to follow a diet. The goal is to follow a way of eating that you truly enjoy and also fuels your body and optimizes your health.
All right, so this is the four cups of kale when I put it into the saucepan. And now that is after we cook it. So, as you can tell, we have substantially reduced the volume. And that actually makes it a lot easier to pack in more nutrition in a smaller package. So for some veggies, it's actually really helpful to cook them down so you can eat more of them and get more nutrition.
We got all our building blocks. Now we're going to store them in Pyrex containers. So already did that with the broccoli. So it is important to let your food cool down before you put it in the fridge. That's generally a good idea. So, there are four servings of tofu scramble in there. So, I have a quarter of that every day. Four servings. That's a heck of a lot of food. And that's because we included tons of veggies to add extra volume and also nutrition. Each serving is under 400 calories with about over 35 gram of protein.
So, here we go. Got a lot of good work done. We have just meal prep for two people in a super healthy way for the next four maybe five days. And the last step that I like to do is to put the date on so you know when you put it into the fridge. All right, that's it for the cooked food. Now, there are just a few more things to do. Dang, this is pretty heavy. Lots of food. You could do bicep curls. you eat plant protein and build muscles while you're going.
All right, up next we're going to be making some tea, specifically habiscus green tea. So, we're going to be combining both of those. I've got a full kettle of water here, so we're going to get that started. So, we're putting in habiscus tea and then green tea. So, we're going to steep both of these. We're going to do 5 to 10 minutes with the habiscus tea, which you want to do at around boiling temperature. So, that's why it's going in first. And then you want to do green tea for 1 to 3 minutes at a lower temperature, which is why it's going in second.
Now, habiscus flowers in the tea have a host of different benefits. They are extremely effective at lowering your blood pressure. So, this is helpful in that regard. And it also helps to activate EMPK, which is basically your body's recycling process that helps to clean out the garbage and reset your cells. And it looks super cool when you put it in water. So, check this out. Pretty cool, huh?
All right, while we wait for this to steep, I'm going to go ahead and grind up some flax seeds. So, what makes flax so incredible? Well, first of all, it is the best source [music] of omega-3 ALA fatty acid, and it is also packed [music] with lignens, which is a unique class of phytoestrogens that supports hormone balance and may also protect against hormone related cancers, particularly breast and prostate cancer. So, clinical studies have shown that women with higher lignen content have between a 33 and 70% lower risk of dying from breast cancer. and randomized trials have found that adding flax seeds to the diet can improve tissue markers even in breast cancer patients. Flax seed is just an incredible powerhouse, especially for women. You could probably just do this in a blender, too. Highowered blender, but I think a coffee grinder is a little better. Be sure to keep your flax seed fresh in a sealed container that you just put in a fridge because air, light, and heat can actually negatively impact the nutrients, particularly the omega-3s.
I'll bring the tea back into center stage. So, we'll get rid of the habiscus leaves. And now up next, we've got green tea. So, this amount of tea will last me about 3 days. In case you're curious, I'm using 3 tablespoon of habiscus leaves and then 2 tablespoons of green tea leaves. So, there was actually an umbrella review done of 96 metaanalyses that found that drinking three cups of green tea per day is associated with a 24% reduction in all-c cause mortality, which translates to an additional 2 years of life, which is pretty incredible. And that is the reason I started drinking green tea, even though I am not really a big tea drinker and don't particularly love green tea. But when you mix it with the habiscus tea, in my opinion, it tastes pretty good. So, I drink this tea without any sweeteners, you're certainly welcome to use them. But I've done a lot to reduce my sugar and salt intake in my diet. And one really cool thing that happens to that transition is that you start to taste foods differently and you start to bring out different flavor profiles that you didn't really even know were there because they were overpowered by sugar and salt.
Good morning. We are going to be doing a full day of eating. You're going to come train with me, see everything that I eat, and to get started with a little preworkout, which is an apple. I absolutely love apples. Sometimes I have bananas, but I don't have any super nice ripe ones right now. I also like having a little bit of pre-workout. And this actually doesn't have any caffeine. You got some creatine in here, which has a host of benefits related to muscle mass maintenance and growth. So there's actually a lot of really cool emerging science on creatine and it is the most studied and researched supplement fitness supplement in the world. So lots of good stuff. You only you need creatine monohydrate. You don't need any of these fancy different types of creatine whatever. I make like a little swaddling blanket for my apples. They have that grab and go while I'm driving. All right, let's hit the road.
>> So, today is day 203 of my daily movement streak. I am doing at least 30 minutes of moderate to high intensity activity every day. That's what makes it count as a day of movement. So, I started my daily movement streak back in March. I believe it was March of 2025. I was on this call with a bunch of our clients in the Vegan Superhero Academy and we were talking about our challenges and struggles. I just shared with everyone that I had been really inconsistent with my training for about 3 months throughout that time. I had moved, we had the holidays, etc., etc. Excuses basically. And I just wasn't consistent. And [music] that's totally fine if you are not where you want to be with your health and fitness. Whether we're talking about your nutrition or your training, your sleep, whatever, if you're not where you want to be, that's perfectly fine as long as you are taking the necessary steps [music] to change that. So, when I spoke with all of our clients about that, I committed to going to the gym the next day, and I did, and felt great, and I said, "Okay, I'm going to go another day." And then another day and now it's day 203 of daily movement. So I do running and working at the gym and I flip-flop between both of those. So when I go on a run, it's very simple. I usually just do a 5K. Usually takes 30 to 33 minutes. For gym workouts, I basically just listen to my body and decide what [music] I want to do that day based on if anything's sore or not, or based on what I have done in previous training days. Honestly, I really just do two or three every once in a while four exercises in each gym workout. I really just focus on the best of the best exercises. You really just need eight to a dozen exercises depending on what your goals are. I typically like just jumping back and forth between two exercises that use somewhat different muscle groups to just be as efficient as possible with my time in the gym.
You do not need to do movement or exercise or whatever you want to call it on a daily basis. That is not required for getting healthy and fit. I have just found that really works well for me because when I do it every single day, it takes the guesswork out. I just wake up and I know I'm going to be going and doing some form of movement right now. That could be running or going to the gym, but some form of resistance training, some form of regular movement. It could be swimming or biking or paddle boarding or playing pickle ball, whatever that looks like for you. Same thing with your nutrition. It should be something that you actually enjoy. It should be something that you can do consistently, which means that you need to enjoy it.
All right, just got our workout done. Hit some chest and back and also finished up with some arms and feeling pretty good. Always feel good after hitting some weights. And my goal is really to live as long as possible. That is the number one goal. Actually, more specifically, it is to maximize my health span, which is the number of healthy years that I have to live. So ideally, you live as long as you possibly can in good health with functional mobility and the strength to actually get around and do things that you want to do and then you die a quick painless death immediately and you just you're gone. So ideally that's what you got. So you want your health span and lifespan to basically be the same length or at least that's what I'm going for. So 100 plus that is a goal. That is the number one goal. Second goal is I want to be athletic. So I want to have an athletic physique. I want to have some extra muscle mass and strength that just makes me feel better, more confident, and just helps me to generally feel better across the board. So anyways, those are kind of my two main goals. And uh you kind of check both of those off with strength training. Strength training is incredibly important for healthy aging. It's not just about looking a certain way in the mirror or having a certain size with your biceps. It is about functional strength and mobility. Resistance training is super important.
The reason I like using the word movement and not exercise is because exercise just kind of has a little bit of a negative connotation to it. It's similar to the word diet where someone feels like this is something I have to do, not something I get to do. Moving your body and investing in your body, investing in your health and prioritizing your health is really kind of a form of gratitude. I love the word movement because it feels more empowering to me. This is something that I get to do. I get to move my body. I feel really blessed because of that.
So, here is my health cabinet, and I have everything organized for success. So, I've got all of my supplements here. I've got some spices. We're going to be jumping into that in just a minute. I've also got the sprouting mix that we saw yesterday. I also have the tea. These are foods as supplements, which I'll be showing you in just a little bit. Got some creatine, some longevity mix, which I'm going to be having with breakfast. And then I have backups of all the things that I run out of quickly. So I have systemized my nutrition for success. I know exactly what I'm going to eat. I enjoy what I eat and it makes me feel really good. I'm a big believer that discipline equals freedom. Prepare for success and you'll probably succeed.
For breakfast, we are having a ton of berries and some other stuff, but we're focusing on berries because berries have so many important nutrients that are not really found in other plant foods. There are two berries in particular that I wanted to include in my diet as a result of reading Dr. Greger's How Not to Age. Blackberries and strawberries. Blackberries are the highest dietary source of antioxidants that you're going to commonly find in the grocery store. And strawberries are the richest dietary source of fisetin, which is a plant flavonoid that has anti-aging benefits. Now, when it comes to berries and all other plant foods, variety is your friend. The more variety you have, the more different unique nutrients you're going to be getting into your diet. So, I've got a 4 cup Pyrus container, and we're going to start off with two cups of this berry mix. Then, I add about another cup of strawberries. Then, I throw it in the microwave to defrost it.
So, we got our berries here, and now we're going to be making some healthy chocolate protein pudding to put on top. Now, I am not a huge fan of chocolate actually, but cocoa does have a wide variety of different benefits. So, cocoa is rich in flavonoids that have been shown to lower blood pressure and also reduce oxidative stress, which is really important. And cocoa is also really beneficial for your brain. Now, I am using this protein powder, longevity protein from Blueprint. I like their products because they're third-party tested and I just trust the company. You can use whatever you want and you do not even need to be using protein powder. Okay? I like using it because it has a really great amino acid profile and it's a good start to my day in terms of getting in a bunch of amino acids. But you do not need to do that. You do you.
So up next, I'm adding 2 tablespoons of wheat germ, which is the best dietary source of spermadine per calorie. And spermadine is really important for healthy aging because it activates autophagy, which is your body's cellular repair process. Then we have our freshly ground flax seed that we did yesterday. Going to grab one tablespoon of that. I'm going to add half a cup of soy milk. Now, I usually have had in the past sweetened soy milk, specifically vanilla sweetened soy milk, because I really love the taste, but I've been working to lower the added sugar in my diet, which is why I am using unsweetened. Soy is exceptionally healthy for women. It actually helps to reduce menopause symptoms and also helps to reduce your risk of breast cancer and a host of other cancers. So all around soy is a total power food. I have been eating multiple servings of soy for the past 10 years. And I am working to grow some big pecs, but haven't managed to get boobies yet. So you don't need to worry about that for any guys watching. All right, so that's the mix. That's our pudding. Honestly, this tastes like dessert for breakfast.
All right, so up next we've got some organic walnuts. Now, walnuts are actually the number one food group associated with longevity. I used to eat a very low-fat diet, around 10% of my total calories. Now, I eat around 30% to 35% of my calories coming from dietary fats. And a good bunch of that is coming from nuts. All right. And the last ingredient that I add to this bowl are some tart dried cherries. So, the reason I add these to my diet is that cherries are packed with antioxidants that help to lower inflammation and also reduce exercise induced soreness. But mostly, the reason I include it is because I really love the taste and it's a very nice addition to this bowl. It tastes really great. So, again, that's important. Another half2 cup of soy milk. There we go.
Another thing that I include in my breakfast is some dried barberries. They are phenomenal for lowering your blood pressure. They're also really great for improving your cholesterol, giving you clearer skin, and they also help to activate AMPK. Lots of great benefits from a anti-aging perspective, which is why I include them in my diet. It's something that Dr. Greor recommends. And then something else that Dr. McGregor does not recommend are these pistachios. So, this is my guilty little pleasure with breakfast. So, I absolutely love pistachios. They are my favorite nuts and they're also from a protein perspective, they are the best nut in terms of protein content, amino acid profile. So, they pack a serious protein punch. But really at the end of the day, I just super love the taste. Specifically, these salt and vinegar ones. Now, they do have obviously some salt and they have a little bit of oil in them, but mostly healthy. All right. Consistent theme that you're going to see is that I'm using Blueprint products. Again, you don't need to use Blueprint products. I just happen to like them and trust them. So, this contains lots of polyphenols and antioxidants from things like blood orange and pomegranate. I hate the barberries just on their own because I don't particularly like the taste. They're not terrible. They're just kind of tart and totally mediocre. You want barberries that are red, not black. If they're black, that means they're old. A lot of barberries that I've ordered before come black.
So, two other common food as supplements, which is why I like to call them. They are foods that I use for a specific nutrient purpose. So, kind of like I'm supplementing them in my diet. I eat comoo, a small piece of comoo every day for iodine. And you don't need much. You just need about a US quarteriz piece of comoo every day to meet your daily iodine needs. And then I've also got some Brazil nuts, which are the best dietary source of selenium. And selenium is a really important nutrient for your hair, your nails, etc. Just a single daily Brazil nut will meet your needs for selenium. But I actually don't need a Brazil nut when I'm following this day of eating, which I've dialed in because it already contains enough selenium.
I am not making this video or sharing my exact diet to say this is what you should be eating. This is how I eat. It works for me. I have developed the ability to take a step back and look at food more holistically. Not just the actual experience of eating the food, but how does this food make me feel and how does this affect my long-term health? So, when you look at that broader food equation and you add the other variables to it and you're not just thinking about, do I like the taste of this food? I think you start to develop a better perspective around nutrition. You're not just eating to satisfy your cravings. You're eating to fuel your body and maintain optimal health. People talk about whole food eating as if it's black and white. They think you're either a super whole food purist or you're some kind of junk food vegan. And that's not at all the truth. There is a wide range of different points between those two extremes. And you also don't need to spend your whole week at any particular point along that spectrum. I can enjoy pizza on a Friday night and then the rest of my eating habits are super dialed in and I'm eating this exact nutrition plan.
It is now time for the Dr. Gregor spice packet. Or at least that's what I've been calling it because Dr. Greor inspired me to do it. So here I've got a potato starch packet and this is really cool. It's a edible film made from potato starch. So, you can actually put stuff inside of there, powders and stuff, and then you can put in some water and swallow it. So, you don't actually need to taste the powder because you've put it into a little pouch of potato starch. I'm going to be going through these one by one and explaining why I'm adding them. We're going to be starting with some black cumin seed powder. So, I've got 1/4 teaspoon of black cumin. So, black cumin seed powder activates which triggers autophagy. Again, getting back to the cellular recycling system that you have in your body that helps to promote healthy cells and helps promote anti-aging. Then up next, we've got some amla powder. Amla contains more antioxidants than any other food on the planet. So, that is the main reason that we are including it in this spice packet. Turmeric is really the golden spice of longevity. Turmeric is actually the number one most anti-inflammatory food in the world. So up next, we're going to add a/4 teaspoon of long pepper powder. So long pepper contains piperamine, which is a natural cenolytic compound that helps to clear out zombie cells, which are aged or damaged cells that really contribute to inflammation and aging. So we got 1/4 teaspoon of that. So, up next, we'll add a/4 teaspoon of ginger powder, which helps to significantly reduce inflammation in your body. And this is not quite a full potato starch packet, so I'm also going to add a/ teaspoon of mushroom powder, which is going to be our next packet as well. And now, you just fold it over on the top. And we're just going to dip it into water and then swallow it along with some water. So, I used to not be able to take any pills, period. I couldn't swallow pills. I would take Claritin growing up and I had to get my mom to mash it up and put in applesauce. So, I am about as bad at taking pills as they come, but this is uh not that hard and it's something that you can get used to pretty quickly. All right, just a little dip.
And then for the next packet, it's just all going to be mushroom powder. Dr. Greger has said to me if there was one food that he would add to his daily dozen, it would be mushrooms. And the main reason is because of ergoionine which is known as the longevity vitamin. In fact, in a study where researchers followed thousands of study participants and looked at over a 100 compounds in their bloodstreams, they identified ergoionine, which is only found in mushrooms, as the number one nutrient associated with the lowest rates of disease and death. So overall, mushrooms are a really great thing to add to your diet. And the reason that I have them as powder is because I cannot stand mushrooms. I do not eat them. I do not like them at all. I have tried mushrooms of all different forms. I just do not like them. So thankfully, you can get them in powder form and I don't need to taste them because I'm just going to swallow them. It is very important that you don't have any water on your hands when you are using these potato starch packets or else you're going to stick to them and just rip them apart. So, be careful with that. And do not drop any water on the potato starch packets that are all condensed together or else they're all going to get stuck together. Not good.
So, I'm not quite getting the daily serving of cocoa that I want from the longevity protein mix. So, I am taking that on its own as well. Whoa. Ready to do some sound effects for the next like Jurassic Park movie. [laughter] Well, that's it for all the spice packet stuff. It's taking a lot longer right now because we're filming, but generally to make my breakfast, to do the spice packets, grab my supplements, it um it'll take me about 20 minutes a day.
Hey, real quick. If you are enjoying this video, I just want to take a second to ask you to make sure that you're subscribed to our channel. We've got tons of valuable content coming that I really don't want you to miss. And the more that our channel grows, the more people that we can help together to thrive on plants. So, thank you so much. Now, back to the video.
All right, so here are the supplements that I'm currently taking. And I am sharing this with you just so you can see exactly what I'm doing right now. Take all this with a grain of salt. This is all subject to change. I am very much experimenting with my nutrition and my supplements. And then I get blood testing done regularly to help dial things in. So that is true for supplements and my diet. So, I am trying to kind of find the optimal way of eating for me, for my health, and then just what works with my schedule and my taste preferences. So, take this with a grain of salt, but I'm going to run through the supplements that I'm currently taking and why I take them.
So, up first, we have some essential capsules from Blueprints, and you can use whatever you want. The main reason I'm including this in my diet is to get some B vitamins and also vitamin D. When I first went vegan, I would have considered myself to be an anti-supplement person where I thought that if you need to take a bunch of supplements, like, oh, you're not you're not healthy unless you took these supplements or something. But what I've changed with my perspective is that the goal is actually health optimization. I don't just want to be healthy. I don't just want to get by. I want to achieve and maintain a state of super health to live as long and healthfully as possible.
So for this next supplement, this is probably not totally necessary because most of it is ginger and it actually has curcumin which is the active compound in turmeric. So kind of already checking those boxes with the spice packet that I had earlier. But this also has NAC in it. and NAC boosts glutathione which is your body's master antioxidant. So does have some extra additional health properties that I have not covered previously. So up next we've got some acetal LC carnitine which has some brain and nerve benefits and this is just something that I have been experimenting with recently. All right, up next we've got some red yeast rice and some odor-free garlic. And this is again a blueprint product.
Up next, we've got some vegan omega-3s. So, this provides EPA and DHA. So, there are three omega-3 fatty acids. You have ALA, which is most commonly found in plant foods like flax and walnuts and hemp seeds, chia seeds, etc. And then you also have EPA and DHA, which most people find from fish. So, fish eat algae, which is a great source of omega-3s. I cut out the middle fish and go straight to the source, some high quality algae. And then you also don't need to worry about heavy metals like mercury that are commonly found in fish. And you don't need to kill an innocent sentient being because who wants to do that? That's really kind of a shitty thing to do, honestly. The serving size is two pills. I've been taking three because my omega-3 levels were a little on the low end of normal, which is not optimal for super health. And I would like to emphasize the importance of actually testing to see where you are with different nutrients. That is why I'm such a big proponent of blood testing. If you don't test, then you're just going to be guessing. You have no idea how much you should be taking, what supplements you should be prioritizing, whether you should increase your intake of omega-3s or not. You're not going to know unless you actually do testing.
And speaking of that, the last thing that I add is some iron. This is the newest addition to my supplement stack. I've been only taking this for about 2 weeks. So, in my most recent blood test, which I took about a month ago, it said that I was low in my feritin levels. Just want to add a quick note here to explain a bit more about iron because this is something that I've been learning more about since we recorded this video. So, there are two iron related values that you will commonly get from a blood test. Iron and feritin. Serum iron is the amount of iron currently circulating in your blood right now, which is kind of like fuel running through an engine. Whereas feritin reflects the amount of iron stored in your body, which is kind of like the fuel sitting in your gas tank. So you can have a normal serum iron level but low feritin which means that your body has enough iron for now but your reserves may be running low. On my latest blood test, my serum iron was 98 micrograms per deciliter and my feritin was 30 nanogs per milliliter. Function health, which is the lab that I use for my blood test, list my target range at 38 to 380. So they flagged my ferotin as low. But as Dr. McGregor mentioned in my recent interview with him, "Lower ferotin while maintaining healthy hemoglobin and red blood cell levels may actually be optimal for your health. Excess iron has been linked to higher oxidative stress and possibly greater risk of chronic diseases like heart disease and certain cancers. According to the World Health Organization, feritin levels below 15 nanogs per milliliter indicate iron deficiency for adults while upper thresholds are about 150 nanogs per milliliter for healthy women and 200 for men. So in reality, my feritin level of 30 NOGS per milliliter is within the healthy range and may even be ideal especially as long as my hemoglobin and energy levels remain good.
>> Like your body doesn't really have good mechanism of getting rid of excess iron. That's why hem iron can be so dangerous. You can get these iron overload um uh syndromes because our body, you know, uh basically evolved to store excess iron because we we blood loss was a common occurrence and so we needed to have the iron stores to make more blood. And so it was actually in our body's best interest to have these toxic levels of iron um stores because we're much more likely to die from you know uh this from from getting bit by saber-tooth tiger than getting colorectal cancer later on in life. But it turns out um now that we the the invention of blood transfusions we don't want to have those those dangerous high stores of iron. So we actually want to have low feritin. That's the storage um uh iron indicator. low feritin while still making enough blood. So, we don't want to be anemic. You don't have your hemoglobin drop too low, but ideally be like as low as possible feritin without hurting your your blood count. Um, and that's where we want to live. So, I just want to add that little note about iron. Now, let's get back to my supplement stack.
One important thing to keep in mind when you are taking supplements or just consuming these particular vitamins, you have vitamins A, D, E, and K. They are all fat soluble, which means that you need to be consuming some dietary fat along with them to maximize absorption. It doesn't need to be that much, really just like 5 to 10 grams. But if you are not consuming dietary fat like I'm doing with my breakfast with the walnuts and I've also got some flax and the pistachios. So, I'm getting plenty of dietary fat to help me boost the absorption of those vitamins. So, again, take all this with a grain of salt. You do not need these things in your diets. I would recommend taking vitamin D and omega-3s in the form of EPA and DHA and also ensuring that you're getting some B12 in supplement form. Those are the most important three and you really don't need to worry about the other ones.
All right. And the last thing I'm going to be including is some of our green habiscus tea. So, I usually have one or two mugs of this every day. going to take my breakfast downstairs, get some work done.
So, for lunch, we have an adaptation of Brian Johnson's super veggie bowl that he has for lunch. All right, up first, we got some lentils. And guess what? We've already prepped this food yesterday, which is super awesome. So, now I don't even need to think about making some healthy food. I'm just going to assemble it. I'm going to pop this in the microwave to heat it up, and then we're going to add the rest of it. Chopped up some cilantro. also have some nice spinach right here that I'm actually just going to go ahead and add to this bowl. Now, we're going to add some red bell peppers. This is a chopped quarter of a bell pepper. So, now we're going to add some hummus. Now, hummus is a little more calorie dense, so makes sense to weigh that out. Especially if your goal is fat loss, you can be a little bit more lenient on things like cauliflower and broccoli and spinach. Garlic. So, I love garlic. I just put this over the top. All right. Up next, I'm going to throw on some capers. We're adding capers because they are a phenomenal source of cresettin. All right. So, these are lower sodium capers, at least relative to the other ones that we could find in the grocery store. And I just rinse them. Okay. So, we want to get off as much of the salt as possible.
So, apple cider vinegar has a bunch of health properties. It helps you to activate, which is a common theme across a lot of the foods we've been talking about. And the way that apple cider vinegar activates AMPK, can actually help you to target visceral body fat, that harmful body fat that's kind of deep inside your organs. So, vinegar, especially apple cider vinegar, can be beneficial for fat loss. And vinegar also helps to improve insulin sensitivity. This is my favorite salad dressing. This is oilfree vinegrettes and actually the base again is apple cider vinegar. It's also got some apple juice and some dried onion, black pepper and it's just a really great taste. You can check out the ingredient or the uh nutrition facts right there. It only has 15 calories per two tablespoons. Now, most salad dressing is absolutely laden with calories because of oil. That's why I use and recommend oil-free salad dressing.
Now, I'm going to add an ounce of this sauerkraut. So, this is really delicious. This is red and green cabbage. It's got a really lovely purple color. And sauerkraut is fermented just like kimchi and some other fermented veggies, which helps to improve gut health. I like to include one serving of fermented veggies in my diet every day for my gut health and really love sauerkraut and kimchi. You just need to be a little conscious about sodium intake, which is why I don't have a big portion. Just a little bit goes a long way.
So, I used to be very anti-oil in my diet and I do keep it to a minimum, but I have been impressed at the potential health benefits of a very high-quality virgin olive oil in your diet. Specifically, it is loaded with polyphenols. Time to add the sulfurophane on top of the broccoli that we already have. We have some delicious broccoli sprouts. All right, up next we've got a quarter of a lime. And I just really love the fresh taste of lime juice. All right, now I'm going to add half a tablespoon of table tasty, which just kind of goes around the whole meal. And then last, we've got some fresh chopped cilantro. That's it for lunch. The super delicious, so nutritious, and I love it. It's got so many great flavors. So, lime, cilantro, and also the fresh minced garlic brings a ton of delicious flavor to this meal. I have tried tons of different salt-free seasonings and table tasty is my personal favorite. I would recommend that you find a salt-free seasoning that you really enjoy and then use it amply in place of salt. I absolutely love this meal because I feel so good eating it. I know every bite is bringing me closer to a state of health. I feel really good eating this because I feel like I'm contributing to an improved state of health. That is it for lunch. I'm going to go enjoy this, get some work done, and I'll see you at dinner.
It is time for the last meal of the day, which is some dinner. All right, so that's our tofu scramble. Delicious. And it's totally ready to go. I'm a diagonal slicer. You guys can argue about that in the comments which one's better. The people that hopefully we can all agree on are absolutely insane are the people who cut it this way. Those people are among us. They they actually exist. >> Why are you the way that you are? I hate so much about the things that you choose to be. >> And then we're going to be adding some hummus. I believe it's 25 g. It is 25 g. So, this is like a southwestern tofu scramble. You add some lime to it, it's just perfect. All right, so that's it for the tofu scramble. I'm going to go enjoy this. We do have one more snack later today. So, I'm going to have a banana and also a cup of soy milk, a nice glass of cool, refreshing soy milk. Good way to end the day.
And let's dive into a nutrition breakdown for the day. I'm going to be going through all the nutrition targets and we're going to see where we ended up. All right, so I just pulled up chronometer. Now, I typically do not track my nutrition, but I did that for the purposes of this video. However, I do know that my daily calorie intake typically ranges between 28 and 3,000 calories, which is around calorie maintenance for me. So, that allows me to stay lean year-round. So, my main health and fitness goal is to maximize my lifespan, or more specifically, my health span. But from a physique perspective, I do like maintaining some higher levels of lean muscle mass and also like staying lean enough to see my abs year-round. I used to go through structured bulking and cutting cycles to get as much out of my training as possible, but now I'm really just interested in maintaining my physique.
All right, now let's talk about protein. I would say that I eat a moderate amount of protein relative to my lean muscle mass, and most fit guys my size eat a lot more protein than I do. I also used to eat a lot more protein, but I currently eat around 1.5 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, or about 0.7 g per pound. And right now, I'm sitting at about 195 lbs or about 89 kilos. So that ends up around 135 to 145 g of protein per day. Now, beyond protein to support muscle growth, I've also been regularly using creatine, which I get from the Blueprint Longevity Mix, which contains creatine. And here's the complete amino acid profile for this full day of eating. Notably, methionine, which is the amino acid most strongly linked to accelerate aging when consumed in excess, is present in optimal amounts at a little under 100% of my daily value. I'm currently working on a really detailed science-based vegan protein series that I've been doing a ton of research for, and I think it's going to bring you a lot of value. So, again, please be sure to subscribe so you don't miss that and our other future content.
Speaking of macronutrients like protein, I mentioned earlier in this video that I eat around a third of my daily calorie intake from dietary fats. And this particular day of eating clocks in at 31%. If we actually look at a breakdown of all the macronutrients, we have 31% coming from fats, 20% coming from protein, and about 49% coming from carbs. So, it's kind of like a 30-20-50 split, which is something that I found to work really well for me.
Now, let's talk about micronutrients. I've hit all of my vitamin and mineral targets while keeping my sodium intake under the US dietary guideline of 2300 mg per day. This was achieved in part because I included all 21 of the most powerful foods according to Dr. Greger's research. But it's mostly thanks to using the three layers of nutritional defense, which is our simple evidence-based checklist designed to help vegans prevent nutrition deficiencies and support long-term health and longevity. So, we'll begin by looking at layer 1, which is the whole plant foods that we should strive to eat every day. Up first, we've got two servings of dark leafy greens, which we got from a cup of spinach in our lunch and a cup of kale in our tofu scramble. Next, we need one serving of cruciferous veggies, and we got way more than that. We had the broccoli, cauliflower, and the broccoli sprouts in our lunch. Then, we need three servings of whole grains, which we got from the two slices of whole wheat bread with our dinner, and a serving of wheat germ in breakfast. Then we need three servings of legumes. And we got one serving from our lentils in lunch, two servings from our tofu in dinner, and we also had hummus in both our lunch and dinner. Our next category is nuts and seeds. We need one serving, and we actually got two from a 1/4 cup of walnuts and 1/4 cup of pistachios with our breakfast. Berries are up next. We need one serving, and we got a ton more than just one serving. We included three cups of berries, including blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries for our breakfast. For other fruits, we included an apple as our pre-workout snack, and one serving of dried tart cherries in my breakfast. We also had a ton of other berries beyond the single required serving for berries. So, you can include those in this other fruits category as well. And then for our two plus servings of other veggies, since we only needed the broccoli for the cruciferous veggies, we actually have cauliflower, red bell peppers, and broccoli sprouts in our lunch to count as other veggies. We also have onions, carrots, and some more red bell peppers in our tofu scramble. And we even had some cilantro in our lunch.
All right, now let's move on to layer two, which is food as supplements. And we'll start with iron and zinc absorption enhancers. We got a ton of vitamin C in this meal prep from the longevity drink mix, the red bell peppers and the tofu scramble and the cup of strawberries which each had over 100% of their daily value of vitamin C. And then we included broccoli, cauliflower, and a bunch of other things that also included vitamin C. And that's important because vitamin C helps us to boost iron absorption. We also have onions and garlic in the tofu scramble as well as garlic in our veggie lunch bowl which helps us to improve our zinc absorption. For fermented foods, we included 2 tablespoons of sauerkraut in our lunch. And for our serving of omega-3 rich foods, we included the 1/4 cup of walnut halves and a tablespoon of ground flax seeds with our breakfast. And lastly, we added a small piece of comoo for iodine, the calcium set tofu that we used helped us to hit our calcium intake, and we skipped a Brazil nut because we already hit our daily selenium requirement. By emphasizing the three layers of nutritional defense, I easily hit all of my nutritional needs. So, if you'd like to learn more about our three layers of nutritional defense and download it for free, then you can check out our complete vegan nutrition guide by clicking the link in the description.
Two other things beyond nutrition and training that I prioritize in my daily routine are one, sleep, and two, steps. Since I work from home, I use a walking pad to walk during my meetings, which really helps me to easily rack up a bunch of steps. All right, so I hope that you picked up some helpful tips from learning about my daily routine and health systems. As you can see, I really care about living as long and healthfully as possible on plants. And helping others to do the same has become my life's mission. [music] That's why I make these videos and why I launched a one-on-one health and fitness program called the Vegan Superhero Academy in 2018. Since you watched this video all the way to the end, I know that you're serious about your health. So, as a thank you for being part of the Vegan Gym community, for a limited time, you can apply for a free month of one-on-one coaching inside our program. We've helped thousands of people look and feel their best while supporting long-term health and longevity, and we're proud to be the top-rated vegan health and fitness [music] program in the world. This free month is simply a chance to get started, build real momentum, and see if our coaching is a good fit for you. If you decide to continue after 30 days, great. If not, you'll still walk away with habits and [music] progress that you can carry forward on your own. Because we work one-on-one with every client, spots are limited. That's why this is an application, not an automatic acceptance. If there are no openings right now, then you can join the wait list and you'll be the first to hear when new spots open. So, if you're ready to take your health and fitness to the next level with 30 days of free coaching, click the link in the description or scan [music] the QR code on the screen to learn more. And if you haven't already, then please be sure to subscribe to this channel so my team and I can keep sharing practical, evidence-based content like this with you. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.