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place is crawling with scorpions, which makes walking through the house barefoot an adventure. What Markets Am I Going to Trade? This is where I lay out all the markets I’m going to trade. Beginning traders should be focusing on only a few markets. Once a trader decides on the markets she
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wants to trade, she should stick with those markets for a year instead of looking for the “next great thing.” For day trades, I’m going to trade the mini-sized Dow (YM), the E-mini S&Ps (ES), the E-mini Russell (TF), 30- year bonds (US), and the major currency pairs. For swing trades, I will trade the E-mini Nasdaq (NQ), 10- year notes (TY), corn (C),
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wheat (W), soybeans (S), crude oil (CL), gold (GC), silver (SI), single-stock futures, individual stocks, and stock options, in addition to taking swing trades in the major currency pairs in the forex markets. I will allocate my total trading funds as follows: • 25 percent intraday trades (ES, YM, TF, US, forex markets)
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• 25 percent swing trades on futures (NQ, TY, C, W, S, CL, GC, SI, single-stock futures, forex markets) • 25 percent swing trades on stocks • 25 percent swing trades on stock options Why These Markets? What Specific Trading Strategies Am I Going to Use?
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This is a really important part of the plan. Traders should have a specific setup for each market they are trading. This way, the setup can be tracked for performance. Each setup should be independent in itself. This means that a trader could have a short on the YM for a gap play and a long on the ES for a pivot play simultaneously, and then track the performance of each setup separately.
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For intraday trades, I will use the following plays: • YM: gap plays, tick fades, and pivot plays • ES: squeeze plays, waves, and market internals • TF: squeeze plays and pivot plays • US: break of the high/low 15-minute bar, squeeze plays
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• Forex markets: box plays, squeeze plays, break of the high/low 15-minute bar For swing trades, I will use the following plays: • All futures and forex plays: daily squeeze plays, box plays, break of the high/low day,
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8/21-period EMA for swings (for single-stock futures) • All stock plays: daily squeeze plays, box plays, break of the high/low day, 8/21- period EMA for swings • All stock options plays: daily squeeze plays, break of the high/low day, 8/21-period EMA for swings
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The key with this is that if I don’t have a specific setup in one of these markets, then I’m not taking a trade. I just wait until something sets up. How Much Money Am I Going to Allocate to Each Trading Strategy and Setup? Determining how much money to allocate to each trading strategy and setup is,
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of course, critical. The key is to find an allocation that doesn’t cause any stress, allows the chance for a trade to do its work, and won’t violate any daily drawdown rules. One of the biggest problems I see with newer traders is that they are trading way too big in relation to their account size. Trading 10 lots on a $10,000 account is like introducing your mistress to your wife.
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Yes, you can do it, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. (Luckily, my wife has a great sense of humor.) The following allocations are based on a per $100,000 basis. The number of contracts or the position size to be used is as follows:
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These numbers will seem conservative to some of you and aggressive to others. I’ve seen traders take a $100,000 account and start trading 60 ES contracts at a time. Pretty soon they are trading six contracts, because that’s all the money they have left to trade. The goal with this plan is to make a living, not a killing.
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What Execution Methods Will I Be Using? What Parameters? This is where I decide my primary execution method. Am I scaling in? Am I scaling out? Am I getting all in and all out? What is my risk/reward ratio? This is a lengthy part of the plan, as I will write down sample plays for all my categories. I’m not going to do that with all my
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plays here, but I will spell out my parameters for gap plays. For all of my intraday plays, I will get in all at once and scale out as the position goes my way. The target on the first half of my play will be small, the equivalent of 1 to 2 ES points or 10 to 20 YM points. Once I have this initial profit, I will give the second half more room to
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play out. For my swing plays, I will get in all at once and get out all at once, trailing my stop to protect any gains. For five-minute squeeze plays on YM, I will get in all at once, using 10 contracts per $100,000. I will use a mechanical target of 10 points on the first half for choppy days, and 20 points on the first half for more
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volatile days, as determined by the volume on the ES on a five-minute chart ( Chapter 6 ). If the target on the first half is hit, I will move my stop up to breakeven. I will stay in the trade until one of four things happens: • My stop is hit. • I get a reading of 800 ticks in the opposite direction from my trade.
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• There is a reading of 1,000 ticks in the direction of my trade. • The squeeze loses momentum. I do this for each of my plays, so that there is no question as to how they should be executed. This is crucial because it ties in directly with the next portion of the plan.
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How Am I Going to Track and Rank My Trades? This is where I detail how I am going to track each of the setups I trade and how they are working. I track this information in Excel, which calculates a running average. I will track all my trades and rate them as follows: 5. Target hit 4. Out at a different
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price from target, but profitable 3. Out at breakeven 2. Out at a different price from stop, but a losing trade 1. Stop hit I will add up my daily score and divide by the number of trades to get an average. This provides a
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“grade point average” on the different setups and how they are doing. I separate the trades based on the specific setup that is being used. At the end of the month, I will have an average for each setup and an overall cumulative average. This will help me to weed out the setups that aren’t working. For example, I may have something at the end of the month that reads, “Gap
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plays: 4.24; squeeze plays: 3.57; pivot plays: 3.87.” By looking at this, I can see trends in these setups and potentially drop setups that aren’t working or allocate more funds to setups that are working. It is imperative that traders do two things well in order to do this. First, they have to spend 10 minutes a day keying their trades into an Excel spreadsheet or into a journal. Second, they have
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to follow their setups the same way each and every time. This brings me to an important rule regarding my trading plan: Any trade I take that does not fall into a specific setup or chart pattern that I have outlined,
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I will label as an “impulse play.” This includes plays in which I took a specific signal to get in, but I got out of the trade too late or too early because I wasn’t paying attention or because I was feeling hopeful or scared or whatever. This is a weakness, and if I succumb to this temptation, I must track it
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and see the impact it has on my trading. I know from past experience that the results of my “impulse plays” over time are poor, and this reminder keeps me from taking these trades. However, I do not want to get lax, and I will continue to write down these trades and track them if I do take them. I will make notes on these trades. Did I jump in too soon? Did I miss a fill? Did I chase? I have
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found that by tracking these things, I’m also holding myself accountable. The more I keep tracking my trades, the fewer impulsive trades I take and the fewer overall amateur mistakes I make. To this end, I also grade my trades on how well I followed the setup. I will give a trade a 5 if I followed the setup to the letter—
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whether or not it makes money. Any trade that is not a 5 is an impulse play. You have to be brutally honest with yourself here. If you aren’t, you’re only hurting yourself and anyone who depends on your trading income. I will also note any overall trends in my trading. How many days did I start off losing but ended up on the
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plus side? How many days did I start off strong, only to give it all back? What was going on that day in terms of interruptions, phone calls, family stuff, and the like? I know from past experience that I get in trouble when I start off strong and start to go for “bigger trades with house money.” I will keep track of any days in which I let greed get the best of me, then work on reducing the number of
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those days. What Are My Drawdown Rules? If I am down by 15 percent for the month, I will cut my position size in half for the rest of the month. If I am down by 20 percent for the month, I will stop trading for the rest of the month. If I hit a 30 percent total drawdown, it is time for a six-week
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break from trading. My daily drawdown maximum for intraday trading is $3,000 per $100,000. If at the end of the day I have exceeded this level, I am on probation the next day. If I exceed $3,000 per $100,000 again that week, I am done for the rest of the week. This is my punishment for breaking my trading rules. I have to point out that
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many hedge funds and money managers are much more conservative than this when it comes to drawdowns and annual targets. A monthly drawdown of more than 5 percent can be devastating for a hedge fund’s business, and an annual gain of 20 percent, year after year, opens the floodgates to billions and billions of dollars for any fund. I have a couple of
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comments on that. First off, the day-trading strategies discussed in this book are not going to work for a $400 million fund. There is nowhere near enough liquidity to enable a fund to get into and out of the markets with that much money in that short a time frame. Many funds, however, will allocate a portion of their $400 million to take
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advantage of the intraday trading opportunities I describe in this book. Out of $400 million, how much would they allocate? Maybe a million. That is ¼ of 1 percent of the entire fund. I bring this up because people need to treat their trading account for what it is —a high-risk way to make a living. Most of a trader’s funds should be kept in
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conservative vehicles— things like bonds or funds run by conservative money managers. Only a portion of total funds should be allocated to an aggressive trading account designed to generate monthly income. What Are My Profit Rules? My target daily average goal for intraday trading is $500 per day per $100,000. This is
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conservative and achievable, and it adds up quickly. I will focus on generating five $2,000 per $100,000 days per month. This means that I don’t have to trade every day. I know from past experience that my best trading days are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Therefore, I will focus more on trading on these days. If I am up more than $2,000 per $100,000 before noon, I will
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continue to trade until I have a losing trade, at which point I will stop for the day. If I have a day in which I make $5,000 per $100,000, I will take the next day off to escape those feelings of euphoria that cause traders to do stupid things like double up on positions or trade without a stop. I will stop trading for the rest of the month at $20,000 per $100,000. I will track my
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daily equity curve through using an Excel spreadsheet. I will withdraw 50 percent of my trading profits at the end of each quarter. I will never add money to an account that is down, and I will never meet a margin call. I will add money to an account that has proved itself with positive returns. The reason I will withdraw profits is because this is the best
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way to protect them. It is with these profits that I get to invest in more real estate, buy more gold coins, pay for a family vacation, and fund my projects. It also is a reminder that the numbers on the screen are real and represent real cash. What Is My Office Setup Going to Be Like? I have a separate apartment a
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few miles from my house that I have set up specifically for trading. My computer setup is in the living room. One of the bedrooms has a computer in it, and I can go in there and shut the door if I need privacy (as when I’m trying to write a book). The privacy is not only from people, but from the markets. It’s good to take a break. The other bedroom is set up for an office for my assistant.
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The apartment next door houses the TTM team, and we recently added another apartment because we needed the space. I’m sure the apartment complex manager is wondering why I need three apartments. We may need to get “real office space” soon. I have AT&T U-Verse (fiber), which is an awesome broadband connection, and I have cable broadband as a backup. My
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goal this year is to get two people to help me with my actual trading as I continue to expand the markets I watch, and to program more of my trading setups to generate mechanical signals. I have had my trading office located in “regular” office space, but I found the solicitors and the general banter too distracting for trading. Also, when other people in the office building found out that I had quote
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screens all over the place, they started stopping by to check out what the markets were doing. This was fine the first few times, but then it got real annoying, real quick. In contrast, in the apartment, I’ve got a full kitchen, and it’s still okay to work in a robe. And best of all, there are no unwanted interruptions. What Are My Rewards If
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My Trading Is Going Well? This is where I establish goals that motivate me to stick to my plan. I know that if I stick to my plan, my trading has a better chance of succeeding. And if I succeed, I get to reward myself. If I hit 60 percent for the year, I will take the next four weeks off. If this occurs in the fourth quarter, I will take the rest of the year off. I
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could go for more money, but it’s enough. For 2005, I want to spend two weeks in northern Italy and Switzerland. I want to take four long weekends where I go to a beach and do nothing. I want to visit Australia, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Tokyo this year, whether on business or for pleasure. I like to watch movies, and I would like to upgrade my home theater system. I have a
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farm in southwest Nebraska, and I would like to buy another section of farmland in that area. I realize that I need to focus on the setups and not focus on the money needed for the rewards. If I focus on the money, I will lose. If I focus on the setups, I will win. Updating this in 2011, I did visit all of those areas and bought some more
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farmland. Going forward, I’m not interested as much in “buying stuff” as I am in “saving time.” Are There Any Groups, People, or Organizations I’d Like to Help Out This Year? I used to send money to the Salvation Army, but I don’t really feel any impact when I donate money to big
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charities. I would rather help out individuals. I also do a lot of work with www.DreamsForKids.org , which is doing amazing work with children. There is a school in Austin that I would like to help out so they can expand. What Are My Specific Plans for Staying “On Plan” Throughout the Year?
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This is where I add any notes I have gained from my own experiences to help me stay profitable in my trading. After you have a $5,000 per $100,000 day, escape any feelings of euphoria by taking the next day off and doing something that humbles you, like playing golf or flying a plane or sparring with a black belt in tai kwon do. Do not trade the
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S&Ps between 12:00 noon and 2:00 p.m. unless you are managing an existing position (do not initiate any new trades). Between 8:30 a.m. eastern and 10:30 a.m. eastern, leave your instant messaging service off, do not check e-mail, and do not answer phones. In the trading room, let people know that you will not answer questions during this time. Minimize the trading room
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window so that you do not read what is going on in the room. You can talk about what you are looking at and what you are doing over the microphone. If people have questions, they will have to wait. If they don’t like that, they can leave. Do not trade anything during the overnight S&P session. Better yet, don’t watch it, either. If you quit early because you had a 20 percent
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month, get away physically so that you cannot trade. Go to Cape Cod if it is summer or go skiing if it is winter. Do not trade after 12 noon on Fridays. Focus on trading lighter or not trading at all during the last three days of options expiration. Review your performance during this time and consider this as your time off during the month. For the past year, the market has seemed to do
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absolutely nothing during this time. Focus heavily on the first two trading weeks of the month. After the first two trading weeks are over, take the next two trading days off and get away from the markets. Give your brain a rest. Take off the entire week of Thanksgiving. Take off the last two weeks of the year. Plan your vacations in August so that you won’t be missing anything.
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What Am I Doing About My Physical Health? This portion of the book deserves a thorough update, not because I need to change any of the information, but because I want to expand it. The comments and reactions to this portion of the book have been remarkable. It’s a topic that people don’t think about until it’s thrown in their face. Since I wrote this,
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I’ve found a few additional useful pieces of information that I’ve incorporated into my life. I’ve had some issues I’ve had to deal with regarding health, and that led me onto a path of being a guinea pig and talking to all kinds of doctors and trying all kinds of different things in order to be as highly functioning as possible. As one of my doctor-clients recently told me, “Look, you
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can be average or you can be great. The difference is 300 minutes per week.” That 300 minutes refers to vigorous cardio activity. It’s the difference between a body that is functioning at optimum levels versus one that is just getting by. That is direct from a 68-year-old surgeon who practices what he preaches (he walks for an hour a day on a treadmill at an incline, 5 days per week).
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He sees the results day in and day out of his many patients who don’t follow that advice. For him, it’s both sad and motivating. Something so simple to do, yet so hard to maintain. Let’s take a look. Your ability to trade effectively and consistently is directly related to your physical well-being. You sharpen your mind through physical activity and plenty
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of exercise, as well as healthy eating. I’m going to share with you my recent health experiences. I debated whether to include this or not, as this is a book on trading, not on health kicks. And, of course, I’m certainly not a doctor. However, I do feel strongly that optimum health is important for a trader, so I’ll talk about my recent experiences and you can take the information for
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what it’s worth. I’ve always been health- conscious, though I certainly go through “less healthy” periods of time. I try to work out regularly, watch what I’m eating, not drink too much alcohol or caffeine, and take vitamins. When I was 34, I took a couple of physical fitness tests and detailed exams, and was surprised by the results. First
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off, my cardiovascular health and flexibility were rated as excellent. This means that my running and aerobic activity over the years were keeping me in good shape. That was where the good news ended. I then discovered that my body fat percent was much higher than I thought, and I would need to lose 20 pounds of fat. This was a total surprise. Second, I discovered that I
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had an extremely low pH level, which means that my body was highly acidic. I then went on to find out the many pleasant things that are associated with having a continuous low pH/high acidic reading in the human body. Some of you will know what this means, while others of you won’t. I’m going to condense this as much as possible and share it, so that people who are interested can
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research this for themselves, form their own opinions, and make their own decisions regarding their health. I swear on my unborn child that this is not going to lead into a multilevel marketing pitch. In a nutshell, a low pH level (high acidity) is the root cause of more than 50 percent of all diseases leading to hospitalization,
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including all the killers like heart disease and cancer, and of psychological diseases as well. More specifically, it causes plaque to form on artery walls, and it causes imbalances in the brain that lead to insomnia, anxiety, and impairment of memory. It also leads to calcium deficiencies, as calcium is pulled from the bones to fight the high acidic levels in the body, and these lead to
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weakened or collapsed vertebrae, poor posture, and back pain. A high acidic reading in the body leads to dysfunction of the digestive system causing indigestion, gaseousness, bloating, and abdominal cramping. Because of this, not enough nutrients get absorbed from the food we eat, and the entire body can experience malnutrition. This also causes undigested foods to
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ferment in the intestines, causing toxicity. High acidity also interferes with the basic functions of the colon, causing constipation and many other unpleasant side effects. The list goes on and on, with the immune system, the respiratory system, the urinary system, and the glandular system all being affected by a low pH level (high acidity) in the body.
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I had no idea about any of this until I was told about it, and I was admittedly obstinate with the doctor when he was telling me about this. Did I have cancer? No. Were my bones weak? No. He assured me that in time this would become a problem, but he did pinpoint an immediate problem, and that was with my digestive system. He asked me if I had to take
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antacids frequently because of heartburn. “Yep,” I answered. He also asked, rather delicately, I might add, if, upon emerging from the bathroom after “doing my business,” I noticed a strong, almost embarrassing odor. This applied equally to any gas I might be passing into the atmosphere. “Uh, yeah, that happens sometimes,” I said. He smiled and told me that this was due to the high
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acidity in my system, which caused the digestive system to falter and not fully digest the food I was eating—which also was the cause of my extra 20 pounds of fat. Before I embarrass myself further, let’s jump into the next obvious question. What causes high acidity? Not surprisingly, it’s the foods we eat—mostly the ones that are manufactured and come
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in cans or boxes. Even more so, it is based on what we drink. Sodas, regular or diet, are the worst culprit. I used to suck down three or four Diet Cokes a day. I love sodas. Unfortunately, the more doctors I’ve talked to, the more convincing the argument has been that sodas are killers, just like cigarettes. Believe me, that is something I never thought would be coming out of my
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mouth. I stopped cold turkey and haven’t had one since. With respect to diet, I found it amusing that many of the things I thought were healthy were responsible for my current condition. In the mornings, I would pour soy milk on my cereal. Well, while soy is good for you, processed soy is like drinking soda, and most cereals are highly acidic because of the
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high proportion of refined flour in them. For lunch, I would have a sliced turkey sandwich, soup, and a diet soda. Well, the turkey is bad because packaged lunch meats carry nitrates that ruin a person’s stomach. The bread was bad because of the refined flour, and of course the soda was bad. For dinner I would have something similar to what I had for lunch.
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To top it off, I also found out that all of the vitamins I took were worthless because they were synthetic. This applies to every vitamin a person takes that lists ascorbic acid for vitamin C, which is pretty much every vitamin. What about all the health benefits that you read about and hear in the media? It’s called marketing. Anyway, here is the list of
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foods by category, regarding overall health for the body. Foods that promote a healthy pH level are listed first, and the “killers” are listed at the bottom. 1. Eat all you want • Raw fruits • Raw vegetables (or lightly steamed)
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• Brown rice • Selected herbs • Unprocessed fruit and vegetable juices • Whole grains • Ezekiel bread (also referred to as flourless) • Drink one ounce of water for every two
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pounds of body weight each day. 2. Eat with some moderation—one part for every three parts from item 1 • Clean meats, cooked rare • Roast fish • Eggs
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• Raw dairy • Unrefined molasses • Raw nuts and seeds 3. Occasionally • Processed cheese • Commercial pizza • Commercial butter • Real ice cream (no gum)
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• Canned foods • Alcohol • Coffee • Pasteurized dairy 4. Not in this lifetime • Soft drinks • French fries • Doughnuts • Potato chips
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• Refined protein powders • Margarine • Mayonnaise • Hydrogenated oil snacks (salty snacks) • Diet soft drinks • NutraSweet/aspartame • Processed soy (soy
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milk, soy cheese, soy protein isolate, soy lecithin) • White bread Things like fast food aren’t just “fattening,” they wreak havoc on your system. They’re toxic, in fact. How does one mass-produce a food product like meat that can be served fast in under a minute? Very disgustingly. If
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you aren’t convinced, watch the documentary Food, Inc. I haven’t set foot in a fast-food place since, and I won’t let my kids eat that crap either. There is a great saying I heard from a doctor that went something like, “If you won’t feed it to your dog, then don’t feed it to your kid.” Calm children are the result of healthy foods. Of course, this applies to us adults as well.
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Admittedly, eating the foods from the first group on a regular basis took some getting used to—that is, until I discovered a Vitamix blender. One of the best pieces of advice I received from a nutritionist was to have a “green shake” every day. Take one cup of fresh fruit, one cup of water, and one large handful of green leaves (spinach, kale, lettuce, or something similar), throw
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it in the blender, then drink it. Okay, it doesn’t taste very good at first, but I got used to it, and I eventually added other things like goji berries and cacao nibs. This drink is amazingly simple and amazingly healthy. It keeps the brain alert, flushes toxins from your body, and keeps your pH levels high. And best of all, I don’t have to endlessly chew salads. Instead of using a juicer,
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which makes a mess of all the pulp, I’ll just take my Vitamix, throw in a whole apple, a carrot, some frozen peas, a large handful of spinach, pour in some fresh, clean water, and just mix it together. Again, we aren’t going for a best- tasting-drink contest here. We are going for awesome health. And to top it off, this drink is very high in fiber. As you will notice soon after you start
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drinking it. Why is fiber important? Fiber absorbs waste and pushes it out of your body. If you aren’t getting enough fiber to push the waste out through your colon, then the waste will try to get out of your body in other ways. Through sweat. Mucus. Zits. All very pleasant. Eating a large bunch of green leaves every day is about the best thing you can do for yourself.
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I love cereal, but now in the mornings I eat oatmeal with fruit, and later in the day I’ll have a green shake, sometimes with whey or even pea-based protein powder. I love deli sandwiches and sodas, but now for lunch I eat a Greek salad with grilled chicken and water. For dinner I’ll have vegetables, salad, and either chicken or fish. For snacks throughout the day,
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instead of grabbing something from the vending machine, I’ll have an apple with almond butter or a handful of raw almonds that have been soaking in water. And, believe it or not, cooking eggs (local if you can get them) in real butter is a lot better for you than cooking them in oil. Most oils turn rancid when they are heated. Avoiding rancid oils is one of the keys to
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health. These oils are also found in many favorite foods, such as chips, crackers, and so on. Essentially, anything that needs to be preserved on a shelf in a box needs to be doused in oils, which then turn rancid. What about stink? Don’t worry, the rancid smell is covered up with perfumes. Nice. If you want a cookie, then make them at home.
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My challenges today aren’t food-based, and this stems more from my travel schedule. I still drink alcohol, but only on Fridays and Saturdays, and then only two drinks (except when I’m working on a book—sorry, liver!). Every once in a while, I will do a cleanse and not drink any alcohol for 60 days. I can say without a doubt that I always feel much better when I’m off the
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weekend juice. The biggest challenge for me is caffeine, and I go through periods where I cut back on it slowly and then wean myself off it, reducing my consumption over the course of a couple of weeks. When I do this and adjust, I always notice that I have more energy because I start drinking so much water. The biggest change during the
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trading day is that instead of sucking on sodas and coffee and having my energy move up and down like a stochastic on a five-minute chart, I drink six bottles of water (16.9 ounces each) a day, and my energy level stays high and constant. The transition was difficult, but after four weeks of doing it, I couldn’t imagine going back to my old habits—that is, until I got on a plane for a two-week
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trip to Asia with the CME Group. The jet lag knocked me over and I needed a caffeine IV before a talk, and it was all over. I found that caffeine helped prevent “brain fog” during the day and also helped me out when I felt general fatigue. I asked my doctor about this, and he did some blood tests. He discovered that my adrenals
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were shot and my thyroid function was on the low side. This is a common thing among people who just feel “fatigued” throughout the day. For my particular blood test results, he said that I needed an adrenal rebuilder to help repair the adrenal glands. Adding some bile salts and milk thistle for a healthy liver got me on the road to feeling better and more alert. Your adrenals get
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worn out when you eat sugar, refined carbohydrates, caffeine, and alcohol, all of which put stress on these glands. Sound familiar? These are also acidic foods. It’s a big circle. When you eat and drink healthy, it really makes an impact. Although I don’t eat sugar or refined carbs, those beverages snuck back in and didn’t help. It was time to go back to the heavy water diet.
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As I’m writing this, I’ve been off caffeine for about 2 months. I find that if I start eating processed foods like bread, I get tired and crave caffeine. But when I eat foods that are healthy and alive, then I have more energy than I know what to do with. I’m including this information because it was a real eye-opener for me, and a
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big key to my improved health. One side benefit to all this, besides feeling better and sleeping better, was that I lost the extra 20 pounds I was carrying in five months, without increasing the amount of exercising I was doing. It was just a matter of eating foods that helped the functions in my body instead of harming them. One thing our doctor did
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to jump-start my wife and me was put us on a 21-day cleanse. There are many of these available. The one we did was called the “Standard Process Purification Product Kit,” which is available on Amazon. It flushes out toxins, cleans out the liver, and, over the course of eating extremely healthy foods for 21 days, erases cravings for the crap food. The first few days are tough (I nearly
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licked smeared egg off my kid’s face), but the body adapts quickly. My wife dropped 15 pounds and her skin started glowing. Finally, as a trader, I spend an inordinate amount of time in front of computers, and this isn’t the best thing for posture. I never though much about it until I started tweaking my lower back on a regular basis at the gym. One
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of my older and wiser friends told me to “go see my chiropractor.” I said, “What? I don’t see chiropractors. They’re whack jobs.” He just shook his head in disgust. To make a long story short, I started doing regular adjustments at a chiropractor who uses the “Gonstead system,” and my lower back tweaks disappeared quickly. After that I kept going (and keep going) in for regular
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adjustments and tune-ups. My mom sat in front of a desk for years at her job, and she never saw a chiropractor. I had her visit mine and he took an x-ray, but at this point her spine has fused together and there is nothing he can do, and she has to live with the pain. Mine was approaching being fused, but it has now been adjusted so that it’s closer to “normal.” I feel a lot better, and since I
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started the adjustments more than two years ago, I haven’t been sick. Somehow it is also supposed to be good for your immune system. There is one last thing I recently had done, and again this came about as a result of consulting with a nutritionist. I had my three amalgamated fillings that I’ve had in my mouth for 20 years removed. The main component of
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dental amalgam is mercury, which is released from the filling into the body. Mercury in dental fillings is a source of environmental exposure in humans, and mercury is incredibly toxic to the human body. The big dental associations continue to support almalgam because, frankly, they don’t want to appear like they’ve been wrong all these years, despite all the well-documented
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risks. This also means that most dentists are not equipped to remove these fillings and in fact will try to talk you out of it (mine did). Removing mercury is dangerous. It is critical to find a dentist who knows what he or she is doing and is equipped to handle this procedure. There are new dentists sprouting up that can be found by doing an Internet search for “biological
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