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#026:The Functional Juice Feast: A

Practical Guide to Superior HealthDecember 23, 2013

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Introduction

●The 5 am Miracle - Episode #26: The Functional Juice Feast: A Practical Guide to Superior Health

[Intro Song]●Good morning and welcome to the 26th

episode of The 5 AM Miracle.● I am Jeff Sanders and this is THE podcast

dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast.

●My goal is to help you bounce out of bed with enthusiasm, create powerful lifelong habits, and tackle your grandest goals with extraordinary energy.

● In today's episode I reveal how to complete a fresh vegetable juice feast, lose weight, AND

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boost your energy without taking time off work!

●But first, let’s begin with the Tip of the Week!

[Musical Interlude]●This week’s episode is going live during the

week of Christmas, so I thought I would orient the entire show on health and wellness.

●The holidays tend to be a time when many people make less than ideal choices, so I thought it would be great timing to share some health advice that has worked wonders for me.

●Also, you may be wondering why I discuss health and wellness so often on a podcast about 5 AM Miracles.

●My reasoning is simple: my own personal experiences have shown me that early mornings are the best time for focus on personal health.

●Whether you choose to use that time to exercise, drink water, make a smoothie or fresh vegetable juice, meditate, practice yoga, take a walk, or run a marathon -- the early morning hours are ideal for preparing your body for the

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upcoming day.●When you hydrate, burn calories, and fill your

body with healthy nutrients -- all before your work day begins -- imagine how much more productive you will be and how better you will feel throughout the entire day.

●I adimately believe that an intentional focus on energy is the foundation for a productive day and a focus on health and wellness is the foundation for optimal energy.

●I will also take this time to mention that I am NOT a licensed physician.

●Please do not take my health advice as gospel because I am just like you -- a normal guy who wants to be healthy.

●If you have any individual health concerns, please consult a doctor you trust, which could include a Naturopathic Physician as they are usually more knowledgeable about juicing and related topics.

● On that note, For this week’s tip, I am going to share my Top 3 Books for Plant-Based Diets:

●Now, I realize that many people that listen to

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this podcast do not follow a plant-based diet and some have no plans of ever doing so.

●Not a problem!●The books I am recommending are excellent

guides to better health, regardless of what your view is on an ideal diet.

●The way I view health and fitness is through the lens of making healthy, compassionate, and energizing choices.

●So, these books all lead to a lifestyle that is filled with fresh fruits and veggies, which are great for your body, animals, and the environment.

1. The 80/10/10 Diet by Dr. Douglas N. Graham

○If there was one book that best summarized my perspective on food, this is it.

○Dr. Graham does an excellent job at describing not only which foods are best for you, but also exactly why and how the foods nourish your body to give you the best possible end result.

○ I think one of the best parts of Dr. Graham’s perspective on health is his focus

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on keeping everything simplistic.○There are no complicated recipes, no real

cooking of any kind, and most people have easy access to the fresh foods he recommends.

○If anything, this book is a great reminder to eat more fresh produce and exercise every day to keep yourself athletic for your entire life.

2. The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D.

○The China Study is a little more scientific and is a great book for anyone who wants to dig into the science behind healthy plant-based foods.

○Honestly, the first 100 pages are all that is necessary to read if you want to understand Dr. Campbell’s main argument.

○After that, he dives into specific chronic diseases and how to treat each one with nutrition.

○This was one of the first books I read when I first started changing my diet four years ago, and it is still one of the most influential books of my life.

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○I highly recommend reading The China Study is you are on a path to improve your health coming up in the new year.

3. Finding Ultra by Rich Roll○I have discussed this book before in more

detail, especially during my previous podcast episode when I interviewed the author.

○If you haven’t yet heard that interview, go back and listen to episode #21.

○The reason why I listed Finding Ultra is that in the book Rich focuses on transformation.

○His dietary choices were based almost entirely on a desire to become a new person inside and out.

○He radically altered what he ate and began exercising more than most people combined.

○The end result is that Rich achieved huge results, won a few major competitions, and was listed as one of the Top 25 healthiest people on planet earth by Men’s Fitness magazine.

○If you want to eat the best foods AND become more athletic, Finding Ultra is a

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phenomenal and inspiring read.

● I hope you found that helpful. Now it’s time for the Feature Segment!

[Musical Interlude]●I have been looking forward to this episode for

quite a while.●Juice Feasting is one of my favorite healthy

activities because I am always amazed at how powerful a little vegetable juice can be.

●I want to start today’s discussion with a quick background on what a juice feast actually is, why I believe it is so important, and then I’ll go into more detail as to how you can complete your own juice feast without having to take time off work.

●So, let’s dive right in!

What is Juice Feasting?●In order to define juice feasting, we should

quickly talk about cleansing, detoxing, and fasting.

●In my view, these are all different words to describe the same process and end goal.

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●Cleansing and detoxing generally refer to eliminating toxins from the body, which could be accomplished in various forms including

○Deep colon cleansing: which is usually performed by a doctor or licensed health practitioner

○Enemas: which can be completed in a hospital or at home.

○Laxatives: which you can buy over-the-counter.

○Everything else: there are many other methods including massage therapy, chelation, and others, which I won’t discuss here, but just take note that you have many, many options for eliminating toxins and healing your body.

●Fasting vs. Feasting○Fasting is well-known and is very

common.○It usually involves abstaining from solid

food and drinking only water for a short time period, like 24 hours.

○Feasting is different, but very similar.○In a juice feast you don’t eat any solid

foods, but you drink vegetable juice that is full of nutrients, so your body should not

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feel deprived of anything AND you can feast for an extended period of time.

●Cleansing First: there are many juice feasting programs that will recommend you cleanse before you feast.

●What this means is that it is recommended to eliminate as many toxins as you can first, before you ingest large quantities of nutrients.

●When this happens, the cells in your body will have less junk in them, which makes them receptive to taking in the healthy nutrients from the juice.

●So, in theory, a very healthy person who drinks 8 ounces of fresh vegetable juice will absorb more nutrients than an overweight and unhealthy person.

●Rich Roll talks about this in his book, Finding Ultra, when he discusses how he does not have to drink as many smoothies each day as he did when he first started because his body can assimilate the nutrients more efficiently than they could when he was sick and unhealthy.

●Many people have never heard of juice feasting because they are never recommended by

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traditional doctors or talked about on the nightly news.

●Juice feasting can be a life changing transformation but most people don’t like talking about it because they think other people will judge them for being too radical.

●The reality is that juice feasting is not any more radical than going on a diet, doing a weekend cleanse, or going in for a routine colonoscopy.

●The difference is that mainstream medicine has yet to fully embrace the power of nutrition.

●Juice Feasting is a crash course in nutrition that funnels more healthy nutrients into your body in a week than you likely get in a month.

●So, what is it?●Juice Feasting is the act of drinking fresh

vegetable juice in large quantities.●That’s it. ●There are many programs that will advise you

on how much to drink, what kinds of produce to use, and how long you can go for, but there really are no limitations.

●Juice Feasting at it’s core is all about the feast -- meaning that you are not depriving your body of anything.

●Instead, you are gorging on fresh nutrients, straight from mother nature.

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●You may have heard of Jay Kordich. He is the known as the Juiceman, or the Father of juicing.

●Jay is a great teacher is you want to learn more about how to effectively create lot’s of healthy juice.

●If you own a juicer, you know what it’s like to drink fresh fruit and vegetable juice right in your own kitchen.

●Juice Feasting takes normal juicing to a new extreme level because you don’t just have one glass, instead you drink nothing but vegetable juice for a specified time period, like one day, a week, or even as long as 90 days in a row!

●I know, that might sound crazy, but stick with me.

●Let’s talk about why juicing is so important and why you should seriously consider it if you want to dramatically improve your health.

Why is a Juice Feast so Important?●The average person is sick.●There’s really no getting around that fact

because the signs are everywhere.●Healthcare is more expensive than just about

anything and medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States.

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●The most common commercial on television is an ad from a drug company for another pill that comes with an endless list of side effects.

●Americans in particular love to eat food that makes them feel terrible and then pop a pill to feel better.

●The end result is an over-reliance on drugs to cure problems that mother nature has been able to solve for many thousands of years.

●What juice feasting provides is a nutrition boot camp.

●It is a way to flood your body with healthy nutrients that can eliminate much of the toxins, disease, and crap that builds up in your body.

●Juice Feasting gives your body a break from digesting large amounts of unhealthy foods, and instead allows your digestive system time to heal.

●Most people lose a considerable amount of weight when they drink a lot of juice and the much of that weight is pure fat.

●There are many, many stories of how people have radically altered their personal health, overcome chronic diseases, and permanently changed their family tree because they embraced juicing.

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●One of the most famous examples from the last few years comes from the documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead where a fat man named Joe Cross decides to drink nothing but vegetable juice for 60 days.

●Now, he is healthier than ever and talking about his life changing story as a fulltime job.

●There are many more health benefits from juicing that I don’t have time for here, but I will link to a number of great sites in the show notes so you can do more research on your own.

●I will mention one of the best sites is JuiceFeasting.com.

●There is an incredible amount of information on that site, as well as a great program to go through if you want more structure to do this yourself at home.

●I will also mention that Juice Feasting is like Skydiving, or running a marathon, or having a baby -- unless you experience it firsthand, you will never truly understand why it is so powerful.

●It is impossible for me to fully communicate through a podcast how awesome a juice feast

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really is.●My best advice is to try it yourself because it

can seriously be one of the best choices you ever make.

●On that note, let’s now discuss how you can do a modified version of a fully juice feast yourself.

Functional vs. Extreme Juice Feast●I named this episode “The Functional Juice

Feast” and not “The Extreme Juice Feast” because what I am going to share is not as extreme as most programs available today.

●Most juice feasting programs recommend drinking nothing but vegetable juice and water for an extended period of time.

●I don’t recommend that option if you are new to the world of juicing because it will likely be too extreme.

●I personally completed a 10-day juice feast three years ago where I drank over 2 gallons of juice and water each day.

●I lost 10 pounds in the process and fell in love with juicing.

●However, the process was daunting and difficult to pull off.

●I also found myself rebounding back to

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unhealthy foods afterwards because I was craving them so badly.

●Based on my experience with drinking smaller quantities of juice since that 10-day adventure, I think it’s best to take a different approach, especially if you’re new at this.

●However, if you’ve already extremely healthy and you have a wildly ambitious spirit like I do, then go for it and see what happens.

What is a Functional Juice Feast?●A Functional Juice Feast is designed to be

simple, practical, and less extreme.●Instead of juice and water comprising 100% of

your diet during the feast, you would scale it down to 25-50%.

●The goal is to drink much more juice than you do now, but you would still eat many of the same healthy foods you normally do.

●What this provides is an opportunity to experiment with different juices and flood your body with more nutrients without having to stay home from work.

●Now, you might be wondering, why would you have to stay home from work while drinking juice?

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●Great question!●First, the obvious. Juicing will make you pee, a

lot!●The more liquids you drink, the most trips to

the bathroom you will have to take.●So, you may have to alter your normal work

schedule to accommodate this change of pace.●For some people, going to to the bathroom at

lot more often may not work because of their current job or home situation.

●For others, this is very manageable.●My recommendation is to not assume you can’t

pull this off, and instead ask yourself HOW could this be possible?

●My guess is that you can easily drink one, two, or three juices a day without changing your work schedule at all.

●Secondly, you may have to consider taking time off of work because of the detoxing effect.

●By the way, whenever any natural health person mentions the word “detox” they are almost always referring to pooping.

●It’s just a more PC word than walking around all day talking about solid waste.

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●One of the big secrets of weight loss is that the majority of fat is not burned away during exercise, but is instead released through your bowels when you hydrate and eat plenty of healthy fiber.

●Juice feasting provides a quick and efficient solution to weight loss because it gives your body the nutrients it needs to release a lot of toxins.

●So, you will definitely be spending plenty of quality time in the restroom.

●Plan for it now, because it will happen.

Step-by-Step●Alright, now for the step-by-step approach to a

Functional Juice Feast.

#1: You Don’t Have to Own a Juicer

●Technically, you don’t have to buy a juicer to pull off a juice feast.

●I don’t think it’s the best way to go, but let me briefly discuss what you other options could look like, especially if you just want to dip your toe in the water and see what this juicing thing is all about.

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●In Nashville, where I live, there is a juice delivery service that brings fresh vegetable juice to your home or office four days a week.

●It’s very convenient and healthy, but you pay a premium for it.

●The other option is to visit a local cafe or grocery store that sells fresh juice.

●In Nashville there are least three different options including Whole Foods, Juice Nashville, and The Urban Juicer.

●If you want to skip the process of buying a juicer and making juice at home, then buying fresh juice directly from a Juice Bar could be a great option.

●Juice Bars are great if you like variety and you want to sample different options.

●Most of the time the juices can be customized for your own taste preferences, so use the juice bars as an experimental testing ground before you try your own concoctions at home.

#2: Buy a Juicer●In order to pull this off without too much

hassle, I believe owning your own juicer is a must.

●When it comes to buying a juicer, you have many options.

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●My recommendation is simple: DO NOT buy a cheap juicer.

●Don’t, don’t, don’t do it.●You will regret it.●Cheap juicers are awful.●The quality is terrible and you will spend

exponentially more money on a produce because the cheap juicers cannot extract very much juice from any one plant, which will force you to buy more plants.

●Cheap juicers are normally less than $100 USD and they are usually the centrifugal models.

●Centrifugal means to spin away from the center, so if you have ever been on a merry-go-round or ridden any ride at a carnival -- you know what it feels like to be spun really fast.

●Centrifugal juicers are loud, ineffective, and they break more often.

●Believe me when I say that you don’t want to go there.

●The kind of juicers I recommend are either masticating, triturating, or presses.

●I own a masticating juicer called the Hurom Slow Juicer.

●Most masticating juicers run anywhere from $200 to $400.

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●Masticating juicers use one auger to crush the produce and they are great for handling just about anything, except grasses.

●Triturating juicers are the next level up.●They are more expensive, costing anywhere

from $300 to $1,000 and use two augers to crush the produce.

●These juicers are excellent for leafy greens and grasses.

●If you have seen wheatgrass being juiced, it is normally done in one of these Triturating juicers.

●Finally, presses are the king of all juicers.●The best press on the market is the Norwalk

Juicer Model 280 and it is currently priced at $2,500.

●If you are serious about juicing, the Norwalk is the way to go.

●I’m not yet at this level of intensity, so I can’t comment on the power of the Norwalk, but I have heard it is the best juicer ever made.

#3: Buy a Nut Milk Bag●When you’re shopping around for your juicer

you will likely see advertisements for nut milk

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bags.●These are small bags use to extract juice and

they are most commonly used when making milk from nuts like almonds, pecans, or macadamias.

●The bags are cheap, usually $5 to $10.●The reason why you want to buy one is that

your juicer may or may not do a great job of separating the pulp from the juice.

●If you want to guarantee that your juice is 100% liquid, with no chunks of food in it, then definitely get a nut milk bag.

●Even if your juicer is expensive and top of the line --buy a nut milk bag anyway because you will likely use it every time.

●And there is a link in the show notes for a nut milk bag I recommend.

#4: Head to the Produce Aisle●Once you have a juicer and a nut milk bag, all

you need is the produce.●What kind of produce is best?●The answer depends on your taste buds and

your goals with the juice.●Just as eating different foods affects your

health in different ways, juicing different types of fruits or veggies has dramatic effects on

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your health in different ways.●I always recommend you stick to ORGANIC

produce during your feast because you want to avoid any unnecessary chemicals or pesticides.

●Afterall, the goal here is get rid of toxins, not ingest more of them.

●The best way to get started with the right produce is to research recipes online and find a few that are tasty.

●I follow the juicing philosophy and recipes of the Juiceman, Jay Kordich.

●Jay always juices carrots and apples because they are easy to digest and they are very sweet.

●He also almost always juices celery and cucumber for similar reasons.

●After he uses those ingredients, he juices a small amount of dark leafy greens like spinach, swiss chard, or kale.

●Here is what a typical juice might look like:

○50% carrots○25% celery, cucumber, and apple○25% dark leafy greens, beets, garlic, or any

other strong and powerful plant●I don’t have time to go into detail with all of the

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possible juice recipes, so you can read my blog post about juicing at JeffSanders.com/juicing and I definitely recommend you read Kay Kordich’s book, The Juiceman’s Power of Juicing.

●I will have a link to both of those resources in the show notes page.

●Also, while we’re on the topic of produce and juicing, let’s talk about fiber.

●The most common question everyone always asks me about juicing is about fiber.

●Where does it all go?●Don’t you need to eat fiber?●How could you only drink liquids?●Isn’t that bad for you?●These are all great questions. Here are some

answers.●Yes, fiber is good for you.●No, you don’t have to consume healthy fiber

every single day of your life to be healthy.●In other words, you can go up to 90 days or

more without any fiber at all and you could actually be more healthy if you have been doing a juice feast during that time period.

●During a Functional Juice Feast, as I have described it here, you would still be consuming

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fiber every day along with your juice, so fiber would not be an issue.

●The ultimately reality is that even if you stopped consuming fiber completely for 90 days, you would still continue to pass solid waste every day because most people an incredible amount of toxins in their body.

●So, don’t worry about fiber.●Continue to eat healthy fruits and veggies and

fiber will likely never be an issue.

#5: Experiment with Your Juicer●The primary reason I use my Vitamix Blender

more than my Hurom Slow Juicer is because blending is so quick and easy.

●Juicing always takes more time and preparation.

●One of the most important things you can do is to use your new juicer a lot.

●Find out what it can do.●Experiment with how long it takes to make a

glass of juice.●Get to know what your juicer is great at making

and what it can’t handle.●The more you know about your juicer, the most

you will know about how you Juice Feast will go.

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#6: Buy a Few Thermoses●If you plan to make your juice at home in the

morning and take it with you to work, you will need thermoses to transport the juice.

●I bought a few standard Stanley Thermoses from a sporting goods store and they work great.

●I recommend high-quality thermoses instead of plastic water bottles or coffee mugs because you need to keep the juice as cold as possible.

●Ideally, you would store the thermoses in your freezer at home, transport the cold juice to work, and then put the thermoses in the freezer at the office.

●The goal is to either drink the juice as soon as you make it OR keep it as cold as possible until you do.

●Keeping the juice cold maintains the nutrients for as long as possible.

●Keep in mind that the nutrients will only last about 12-24 hours even if kept extremely cold.

●Always plan to drink the juice quickly.

#7: Set Aside Some Money●Let me be frank about the money: juice

feasting is expensive.

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●Why?●Because organic produce is expensive. ●When you decide to complete a juice feast you

should plan to make it your number one priority during the time you set aside.

●During my 10-day feast I spent an average of $45 per day on produce.

●Keep that figure in mind as you plan your feast.●Honestly, I wish I didn’t have to mention this

topic, but organic produce is just expensive. ●Sorry!

#8: Plan Your Juice Feast●Once you have your juicer and nut milk bag,

and you have experimented with making different juices at home, it’s a great time to plan your juice feast.

●To get the most benefits from your feast, you should plan to drink as much juice as you can for as long as possible.

●More IS Better.●Don’t feel bad if you can’t drink a ton for very

long.●Just try to create a system where you can wake

up early in the morning, make (or buy) your juice for the day and then drink it throughout the day when it’s most convenient for you.

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●Like I mentioned earlier, my first juice feast lasted 10 days and I drank nothing but juice and water the whole time.

●My daily schedule looked like this:○I woke up at 5:00 am and made about 150

ounces of juice.○I arrived at work at 9:00 am and drank

juice and water all day.○I returned home and cleaned out my

thermoses and put them back in the freezer.

○I repeated this process every day for 10 days.

●Your schedule will likely be different, but the basic structure will be the same.

●If you are sticking to the Functional Juice Feast plan and your goal is to drink 1-3 glasses of juice each day, you could maintain that system indefinitely.

●There really is no necessary deadline.●However, if you plan to drink 100% juice and

water, I would recommend a 30-day feast.●That length of time is enough to reboot your

system and get huge health benefits without it taking up too much time or money.

Let’s Recap:

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1.Buy a juicer or find a place where you can buy juice

2.Buy a nut milk bag3.Buy lots of organic produce4.Experiment with your juicer and make plenty of

juice at home to see how the process works firsthand

5.Buy a few thermoses for storage6.Budget money for the juice feast7.Schedule your first feast!

Questions?●If you have any questions at any time during

your juice feast, feel free to send me an email: Jeff@JeffSanders.com.

●I’m always happy to help!

[Fade In Music]Announcements

●Just 3 quick announcements here at the end of this episode.

● The first: If you enjoying my podcast, I would greatly appreciate a nomination for the 2nd Annual Stitcher Awards!

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● I have a link in the show notes.● It’s super quick, easy.●If you have enjoyed listening to my show, I

would greatly appreciate a nomination in one of the many categories.

●You can pick whichever category you think my show would fit best (or multiple categories if you’d like).

●To vote, simply go to JeffSanders.com/vote and you will be redirected to Stitcher Awards panel.

● Voting ends tomorrow, December 24th, so be sure to cast your vote today!

●My 2nd announcement, if you have not yet joined The 5 am Club, you can easily do so today for free.

●When you join the club you will get a free copy of The 5 AM Miracle eBook, which shows you exactly how to wake up each morning with vigor and make enormous progress on your biggest goals.

●To join The 5 AM Club AND jump start your morning - visit 5amMiracle.com.

●My 3rd announcement is that my next podcast episode will be an interview with

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August Turak, author of the book, Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks.

●We discuss how service and selflessness are the keys to lifelong fulfillment and success.

● If you have a question you’d love me to answer here on my podcast, please leave me a voicemail message at JeffSanders.com/podcastquestion.

Final Thoughts

●Also, I would be grateful if you would rate my podcast in iTunes with a full 5 stars.

●That helps tremendously with keeping my podcast visible so that people who have never heard of it can discover it.

● Just head on over to JeffSanders.com/itunes

●Also, if you would like to see all of the resources I mentioned in this show, please visit the show notes page at JeffSanders.com/026, as in Episode 26.

●Well, that's it for this episode of The 5 AM Miracle.

●Until next time remember, you have the power to change your life, and the fun begins bright and early.

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[Fade Out Music]