HEALING FOOD ADDICTION WITH THE EARTH DIET | LIANA WERNER-GRAY

Wellness Force Radio Feelings are essential, but they can't dictate our actions.

We literally infect each other with our emotions.

We came here for a special purpose. Let the purpose unveil itself. Knowing without doing is the same thing as not knowing. They're not just trackers. I'm gonna wear this and it's gonna help me do the right thing. Wellness Force Radio Episode 114 with the best selling author of the Earth Diet, Liana Werner Gray.

So to avoid feeling bad and to avoid feeling upset and sad and depressed and disempowered, I would go straight for the junk foods and then it would make me feel better. Just only for a few minutes, which is crazy how much torture we put ourselves through just to feel better for like 10 minutes. Then maybe you could be like, well you know, no, this feels like a self sabotage. And that's when we go into the shadow work. That's when we have to turn and face it and go, why do I want this burger right now? Why do I want to make the situation worse for me? Be like, no, I'm going to take out my light sword. I'm going to sort it right now and in fact I'm going to have a green juice and I'm going to kill that craving with a green juice instead and I'm going to own my power and I'm. I'm in control of my health.

What's up my friend? It's your host, Josh Trent. And welcome back to another episode for your weekly access to global experts in all things wellness, behavior change and new technologies. In this podcast, together we'll discover the connections between our emotions and healthy habits to live life well and enjoy the process. Support for this show is brought to you by Perfect Supplements. Passionate about non GMO pesticide free real food supplements that fuel us for the wellness journey. If you've been looking for a company to trust with your nutrition, click over to perfectsupplements.com and use code wellnessforce to save 10% off your entire order. I am 100% sure you're going to love this episode with my new friend and best selling author of the Earth Diet, Leona Werner Gray. As we discuss openly about food addiction today and how to use natural foods to create a life where you no longer have to be a slave to junk food and the emotions that drive their consumption. This is a really timely and powerful show as we just learned about new reports from the NIH that have recently come out. Two thirds of adults are considered to be overweight or obese. And the part that makes me cringe the most, that makes me sad and honestly angry enough to speak my voice and my truth right now is that one third, over one third of children are considered to be overweight. And so excuse me while I go on a quick rant here, but we're not gonna be able to change the food policies and all these weapons of mass distraction from fast food and big food companies on the TV and on the roadways unless we start voting with our attention and our foods that we eat and the conscious effort we put towards showing up in our wellness. So this show is really pivotal. I urge you to listen to the emotion and the meaning behind what Liana is sharing today. Food addiction, it's a big one. Especially when I was a kid, it was a big part of my life. I dealt with exactly this issue. I see it all the time with clients in my coaching pract where people are trying to get more information about what they should be eating when really the deeper work and what Leanna calls mirror work on today's show, this is what actually builds the bridge between knowing and doing. So I'm really honored and excited to share this raw and real conversation with a woman who spent many years in the vice grip of junk food, being addicted early in her life to foods that were making her sick and unhappy to a point where she'll discuss how this addiction created a tumor in her body, which was the wake up alarm she needed. And it's the same one that's ringing in our country right now for millions. Alright, no more waiting. Let's jump into this timely conversation with Liana Werner Gray. Leona Werner Gray is a best selling author of the Earth Diet published by Hay House which reached number one on Amazon in nine different categories. She's an advocate for natural healing using a wholesome diet and lifestyle. And in 2009 she started an online blog in an attempt to break her five year addiction to junk food binge eating. She declared that for 365 days she would eat only foods directly from nature and called it the Earth Diet. In three months she healed herself of many health conditions, including a precancerous tumor, chronic fatigue, glandular fever, virus and digestive issues. Liana has found a way to have all her favorite foods, but in a more natural way that nourishes the body as well as hitting its pleasure spots. Liana, welcome to the show.

Hi Josh, thank you so much for having me. Woo hoo.

This is gonna be so much fun. We met in person actually at Mark Sisson's house. It's so great. I'm excited to talk about this. And it' been coming up a lot for me in conversations with clients. It's the connection between our emotions and healthy habits so we can live life well. And you have an incredible story which I'm so stoked to jump into. We'll talk about the Earth diet. But Liana, I'm curious. You're a best selling author, you're somebody who serves millions of people towards better wellness. What's something that most of us don't know about you?

Interesting. I think, you know, I'm a very open book. So I think people who follow me on social media know everything about me pretty much.

You're pretty open on there.

Yeah, yeah.

Is there anything fun or unique that you typically don't share?

You know? Okay, fine. I love rap music and I have to admit that because I think when people look at me, they would not think, oh, she's into rap music. So there you go. That's something that not a lot of people know about me.

That is so cool. Well, this story, I want to go right to the origin. We're talking about our emotions, our healthy habits and how natural foods relate to that. Now, you were raised in the outback. And when you told me this in person, you're like, yeah, Josh, I'm raised with the Aborigines in the outback of Australia. I was like, who is this woman? Is she serious? Well, after reading your book, I realized that you were raised in the outback. That was your ethos. You knew what it was like at a really young age to eat natural foods, but you strayed from that. Take us to there. Take us to the outback. When you were really young, what was that like?

Yeah, wow. You know, it's so unique that I grew up there and I'm so grateful now. I mean, as a kid, it was just where my parents were, so I didn't really think it was any different. And it was such a small town. It's called Alice Springs. And it's literally like right in the middle of Australia. Australia. And it's in the bush or the outback, in the desert, and there's not a lot around. We didn't even have a McDonald's growing up. That's how small the town was.

Thank God.

Yes. Right. So I loved it because I remember from age 5, that was my earliest memory was like looking towards the Aboriginal people because at my school, half the kids were white and the other half were Aboriginals. And I remember looking at Them and their families thinking, wow, they look really healthy and they look really fit. Like, they had very lean, muscular bodies. They were never overweight. And my grandfather was very overweight. And I kind of compared, and I was like, what's the difference? And I just realized, okay, you know, they're doing something different than what we're doing. And our school would teach us a lot about the indigenous culture. And we were actually taken out in school excursions and we'd go camping, and we were taught how to survive in the wild, in the nature, and how to collect water and how to find food like bush tucker. And so I learned all of that from a very young age, that the best way for us to possibly eat in terms of being healthy is to be connected to the earth, in harmony with the earth, and to take food literally from our backyard. And if we can pluck food straight from the tree or the bush and eat it, that we get the most nutritional value and we get, like, this high vibrational energy as well.

And you had this dream of being in the arts. You wanted to be in film, and you ended up moving to Brisbane City. And this is where you started to become attracted to these junk foods, which, by the way, did not exist in the outback. And it reminds me, we interviewed Damon Gamow from that sugar film last year, and he actually set up a foundation that we can link in the show notes today. It's the documentary for Australia, the Mari foundation, where sugar had affected their culture so much, Liana, that so many of them got sick that there was an epidemic there. You came into the Brisbane City and you were introduced to sugar for the first time. What was that like?

Yeah, so I definitely rebelled and I was living by myself. And so I didn't have my parents around or the, you know, the Aboriginal influence around to tell me, like, don't eat those kinds of foods. So I started indulging. And I just loved the chocolate peanut butter cups and the gummy bears and chocolate biscuits, burgers, kfc. I mean, every kind of junk food, you name it, I would eat it. And I loved the sugar high that I would get from it. So I would get for, like, five or 10 minutes, I would feel so amazing, and it was like the best feeling in my body. And then, of course, we crash after we eat junk foods, but I really became addicted and dependent on that sugar high or that junk food high. So I did that every single day for five years.

You're like 17 years old, right? When this started.

Yes. And I knew it was wrong because I knew that this food was so far removed from nature and that it wasn't in its whole state, and I knew that it was not providing me with nutritional value. And then, of course, I started to notice my health was declining. I was gaining weight. I was feeling bloated. I was having skin issues. I was having digestive issues. And then I just felt disempowered because I did not feel in control. I felt like as soon as I had this craving for junk food and it was this strong impulse, I felt like I was not in control of it, that I had to go out and just have it, and there was no other choice for me. So I felt kind of like locked in this jail cell, and I didn't feel like I was living my dream life. And I was going to a film and television school at the time, and I just felt really unhappy.

Yeah, you're 17. You're 18 at that age. Leanna, we only have certain bandwidth for psychological tools, right? Depending on the examples we learned from our parents. And I think a lot of people can relate. You know, you graduate high school, you go into university, you go into your next stage of life. There's a lot of anxiety for some people there, for millions of people, actually. I'm curious about your story, though. If you look back, do you feel like the junk foods at that time were filling any kind of emotional void or any energy that you were missing?

Absolutely. Because now that I look back at it, like, my family has a history of addiction and depression and cancer. So those are all things that I've had to be aware of, like, okay, those are in my DNA history, and so those are cycles I have to break. And so with addiction, that's something that perhaps I was even born with. It was in my chemistry makeup, and that's why I started to form that addiction. So it happened whenever I felt, like, disempowered or depressed or felt like I can't really live my dream life. Who am I to live my dream life? I'm not good enough. I'm nobody. All those disempowering thoughts, as soon as I would think those, that's when I would go to the junk food, because I didn't want to feel bad. And at the time, I was not aware of shadow work or doing that kind of thing. So to avoid feeling bad and to avoid feeling upset and sad and depressed and disempowered, I would go straight for the junk foods, and then it would make me feel better, just only for a few minutes, which is crazy. How Much torture we put ourselves through just to feel better for, like, 10 minutes.

Wow, there's so much in that sentence I want to pick apart. We only have an hour together today, so, you know, the shadow work. I'll make a mental note. But you had this wake up call at some point. You're 21, in the hospital, you had heard this popping sound in your neck, and it was diagnosed precancerous. Take us to that moment when you had this threshold that you really breached emotionally in the doctor's office.

So, okay, I was at the hospital. They did a biopsy, which was super painful. They took a piece of my neck out and sent it away for results because I had. It was the size of a golf ball, this lump just sticking out of my neck on the right side. And it was in my lymphatic system. And then the results came back the next week, and at the time, they said it was precancerous stage one. Nowadays they have stage zero, 1, 2, 3, and 4. So stage one is actually more developed than even stage zero. So I had stage one cancer, which at the time, even just me thinking, wow, okay, it's like precancerous, this tumor the size of a golf ball in my throat. I mean, I was freaking out, and I thought I did this to myself. I know that I ate way too much junk food, and it was in my lymphatic system, which is the body search system. And what happens is when we put way too much toxins and poisons and rubbish into our system, the lymphatic system backfires. And that's what happened to me. And it exploded with this tumor, and it was stopping the flow. And so I got, like, more sick as time went on from that blockage in my throat. So I really had to, like, clear it out. And I was also diagnosed with chronic fatigue, Epstein Barr virus. And my blood work showed I was on the verge of leukemia. And then I went to get a live blood test done. I really wanted to see what was going on with my blood. And, sorry, this might freak out a few people, but I had my blood test done. They showed it on the screen, and I saw so many little, like, worms, which are little parasites basically invading my blood.

Oh, my God.

And to see that. And that was all of the junk food and the rubbish I just put into my body. And it had, like. It was overtaking my body, basically. And when I saw that on the side screening, I was like, well, this is real. And it was crawling around in my blood, and it felt like, oh, I need to get back in control of my health and my life. And so that was my major wake up call.

Oh, my God. It's a breakdown and a breakthrough at the same time. I mean, you literally were there asking higher intelligence, God, the universe, that force we all know is there, we can't explain. What did you say at that time?

I was like, okay, universe, I need something bigger than myself to pull me out of this and to help transform my health. And I knew what I had to do physically. I knew that I had to stop eating junk food. I knew that I had to start restoring love back into my body and proper nourishment and proper nutrition from real foods. But I said to the universe, look, I have this major addiction. And for every day for five years, I tried to tell myself, I'll stop tomorrow. I'll stop tomorrow. I'll start again next Monday. And nothing worked. And I said, I have no idea how I'm going to never crave junk foods again in my life, because I'm so. I love them and I'm so addicted, you know, what can I do? And I just really had to surrender that to the universe.

Oh, my gosh, Liliana, when you said, I want to connect to something bigger than just me, I feel like that's the transcending moment for a lot of people that are leading others in the health and wellness space. And, you know, in 2009, you're, I think, 22 or 23 at that time, your movie and film career blossomed. If you look back to those dots, how did that happen? And then what was the bridge to write the Earth Diet?

Yeah, so I was always very passionate about the arts ever since I was a kid doing writing and film and television. And so, yeah, it was really fun doing, working on some films and stuff like that. But once I started the Earth Diet, so what happened was just one day. And this is what happens when we really surrender and ask God or the universe, like, I need help. All of our questions are answered. It's amazing. And so just one day, it was a Saturday that the universe literally just, like, dropped this into my mind. It was like, here's what you're going to do that's bigger than yourself. It's going to break your addiction forever. And I was like, whoa, whoa, okay. And so the message I got was, start a blog, and for 365 days, only eat from the earth. Call it the Earth Diet. Which totally made sense to me. And that was the day that my whole life changed. And I just felt this huge Burden lift off my shoulders. And it was incredible. And I was now excited about all of my favorite foods that I wanted to eat for the rest of my life, but to find really creative new ways to eat them in a clean, nourishing way. And so once I started the blog, I wasn't as passionate about doing film or the arts anymore. All I wanted to do was to do this blog to heal myself. And then after the one year finished, I wanted to make it into a career. And that's when the books came out. And I've just been very passionate about this as my sole purpose ever since.

Yes. And we're going to dive into the Earth diet book, which I got the pleasure of scanning through. There's some incredible recipes in there. But I want to go a little bit deeper, though. I want to go three fathoms down, because you said addiction runs in your family, and I've talked about on the show, it runs in mine as well. My mom has a bipolar disease that has really held her back so much in life. My father, on his side, he has some cognitive dissonance that he struggled with. And in my early life, when I was a kid, food became the ultimate friend. It became this way for me to numb out and not feel these feelings, Liana, that I didn't want to feel. And so transcending that took a lot of deep work. I'm curious for you. You called it shadow work. What did that shadow work look like for you when we look at transcending addiction?

So shadow work for me looks like it's something I do every day. I just do a little bit each day. And to me, it feels like this dark shadow or this pit of all the things in my life that I don't like, that I don't like the feeling of. I don't like thinking of. Maybe it's something that I'm dealing with emotionally or mentally right now, or it might be something that happened to me in the past that I just do not want to address. And so I allow myself to kind of go into that shadow work where I might just sit down or I might have a pen and paper, and it feels very meditative. And basically, I'll just write what I'm feeling, like the deepest, darkest feelings, the pain. I really go into the pain of it. And then that way I feel like I'm fully facing the pain rather than, like, running from it or from avoiding it. And it's strange because it does feel really painful and really hard to just, like, turn and face the things that we're avoiding. But I find that once I do turn and face them, whatever the problem might be in my life, you know, and I'll be like, universe, I really need help with this situation. It's caused me a lot of pain. I'm having these kinds of thoughts. It's making me feel these emotions. I. I feel really uncomfortable right now. I wish I wasn't even having to talk about this. And then I find once I go into it, it really transmutes everything or it dissolves it. And then that shadow, that darkness, isn't, like, kind of lingering or hovering over me. I feel like I've turned and faced it, and I've just, like, blasted it into light. And then once we hand it over to the universe in that way, it really starts to resolve itself because, you know, the universe has our back. God really is there for us when we ask for help. So it's just, like, addressing those things that we need help with. So that's what my kind of shadow work looks like.

And the Earth Diet was this really great framework for you to stay accountable to your promises you'd made to yourself. What's the core tenets of the Earth Diet? What are these guidelines?

So, yeah, the Earth Diet is, to me, the most fun way to eat and enjoy food and have a good relationship with food forever.

I can tell you're smiling right now as you say that.

I am. I just get so lit up. Like, I love food so much, like, okay, God's number one, food's number two. And food just brings me so much pleasure, but it doesn't kill me or, like, destroy my body like it used to. And I don't feel guilty. After I eat food, the whole thing's transformed. So the principles of the Earth Diet is basically eat from the Earth, like, foods that come straight from the Earth as much as possible. So if we can just implement this in our brain right now, then you've adapted the Earth Diet philosophy. And you can keep this until, you know, for the rest of your life. So the idea is, if you can think right now, like, imagine out the backyard, you have this amazing garden, and you can go and pick kale and cucumber and celery and strawberries and blueberries. The more you can eat from your own backyard. That's organic, it's seasonal, it's local because it's literally outside your backyard. That's the best way that we can eat and nourish our body because we get the most nutrition per bite, per calorie. So we're Getting so much nutrients and then it's very nourishing, it's very healing because we're connected to the earth, we're in harmony with the earth. And when we eat like this, we don't overeat and we start to heal things like overeating, emotional eating, binge eating, and addictions because we're in harmony with the earth, which is essentially the universe and God. So we become very like, peaceful and we have a really good relationship with food. Okay, so what about people who don't have a garden in their backyard? And I live in New York City, so I don't.

Sure.

So then we just do the next step. So the next best possible thing, which is to eat as much whole foods as possible, organic foods, seasonal, local. And then once we get those things, we just put so much nutrition into our body that our cravings for junk foods eventually go away. And I never thought it was possible for me to not crave junk foods. And I do not crave junk foods. And I have not craved junk food for years, which to me is a miracle because I was so addicted. And for those of you listening that might have an addiction to food, you know, it can feel like you're addicted to alcohol and drugs. It's just as hard to give it up. And in fact, we do it more. You know, we eat all day, every day, every human. So we have such a relationship with food. So the next philosophy with the Earth diet was, or the next principle was, okay, every time I have a craving, I'm going to honor that craving and I'm going to acknowledge it. So I'd be like, okay, what am I craving? Burgers, chocolate, cheesecake, ice cream. And then I thought, okay, I can actually have that. But in a way that's really nourishing for me and it's going to give me nutrition at the same time. So I found a way to make recipes for all my favorite junk foods. And I had a lot of help because my father's a chef, so it literally is in my DNA. And I started, you know, working with food from a young age. So I got in the kitchen, I started making chocolate recipes and cheesecake made with cashews and ice cream made with almonds and burgers using organic grass fed beef and gluten free buns. And mind you, like, I had a taste for junk food, so I had to make these foods taste like junk food food. Like just as good and pleasurable as junk food, but using clean, wholesome ingredients. And that's what I built my books from. And so I shed a lot of excess weight doing that. So literally every single craving I had, I allowed myself to have it, whether it was like peanut butter chicken or if I was craving pasta, you know, I would have brown rice pasta. Just find a way to eat all my favorite foods. And so that's what I've done now for eight years.

And.

And my body's transformed, my health is transformed. It's a very exciting way to live. And actually, right after this podcast, I was going to make my 10 minute cookie dough recipe because I've been craving cookies since last night. So I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna have that. And it's made with almond flour, so I'm gonna get protein and vitamin E. And this kind of mindset is literally helping so many people not crave junk foods ever again.

I love so much what you said. And again, I want to pick it apart 12 times. The thing that came up for me first, though, the nutrient quality. We've had so many people come on the show and essentially say a sentence of, hey, just eat real food. And we know this, we know this, Leona, in the industry, right. But when we look at this raw food piece, a lot of people don't get raw foods in their diet at all. One of the tenants I saw for the Earth diet principles was to always have raw foods attached to your meals. Can you tell us about that?

Yes. So that ties in with the principle of going to your backyard and picking food, like, straight from the bush or the tree because it's so nutrient rich. So raw foods, you know, they're in their natural state and they haven't been heated. So they have a lot of live alive nutrition and live enzymes. So they're so good for us. And the energy frequency of them is really, really high. Like, cooked foods can be very healing as well. And I do eat a lot of cooked foods, but definitely when we eat raw foods, we feel that instant energy. I do encourage people to do that more often. So some examples of eating raw foods, for example, like if I make a curry or if I make a soup, I'll always have with it, I'll cut up some raw cucumber or raw celery or some raw radish or even raw cauliflower or broccoli just to have with it. So I make it like a hybrid. So that way we're always getting that raw nutrition. And also raw foods fill us up a lot quicker.

Yes. Because they're so dense. Right. And they also have a lot of fiber. You know, the concept that we're very familiar with is protein, fiber, fat and water. We learned that from Jade Tita on the show in your diet plan. What I see so much in the Earth Diet is a ton of fiber. Do you feel like fiber is the leading component? What's the flagship nutrient for the Earth Diet?

The flagship nutrient, I love it. Basically just get nutrients in. That's the whole idea. Because when I used to eat junk food, I was not getting nutrition at all. So the principle with the Earth Diet is at every single meal and drink, you could think to yourself, okay, how much nutrition am I really getting from this right now? And we can ask ourselves that throughout the day. So the idea is to get nutrition at every single meal and every single drink that we have and then trust the body because the body will crave protein sometimes or it'll crave fats and oils. Like, if you're craving fried foods, there's a good chance you're craving those fats for your brain. So you could get them with avocado or have some chia seeds and hemp seeds and flaxseed. The fiber is obviously really important also, but the body is so amazing. Like, isn't it amazing that we're sitting here talking and the heart's beating, the lungs are breathing, the digestive system is working, like everything's working. It's just like innate intelligence that we have. So when the body craves certain things, like we could trust that. Be like, wow, I'm really craving. I need that fiber right now, that protein.

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I love that question. Yes. Okay, so here's what I do when I get a craving. For example, last night I had cravings for cookies and it was like 10 o' clock at night. And so for me it's like conversation with our own selves, right? And really getting to what we're doing. So I was like, okay, I can't really make cookies right now. It's kind of late, I need to get up early. So the more responsible choice for me would be to wait until tomorrow. And I had this conversation with myself. I was like, can I wait until tomorrow? I was like, yeah, because I don't want to go to bed with a full stomach. You know, sometimes I will bake cookies at 10pm at night because to me it's an appropriate choice. But last night it wasn't. So I said, okay, what if I can have the cookies in the afternoon? I was like, yeah, actually I do have time that I can make them and it would balance out with the rest of my day. And I knew that it wasn't like a self sabotage, you know, when we can plan it out. So for me it's like whenever someone has a craving, if they can just start talking to themselves and asking themselves, okay, am I sabotaging myself right now or do I really need this? Like, if you haven't eaten a burger in a month and you're craving a burger, most likely you're not sabotaging yourself. Most likely your body wants that for that balance. And we're human beings and part of us being here, we love to have fun and enjoy all of the pleasures that we've created. So if you've eaten like for the last three days junk food and now you're craving a burger and you feel like your digestive system's backed up and you're feeling really depressed and then maybe you could be like, well, you know, no, this feels like a self sabotage. And that's when we go into the shadow work. That's when we have to turn and face it and go, why do I want this burger right now? Why do I want to make the situation worse for me? Be like, no, I'm going to take out my light sword. I'm going to slay it right now. And in fact, I'm going to have a green juice and I'm going to kill that craving with a green juice instead. And I'm going to own my power. And I. I'm in control of my.

Health and I'm feeling like these are impulses. So, Viktor Frankl, one of my most favorite books on the shelf, Man's Search for Meaning. Have you, have you read it or have you heard quotes?

I've heard quotes. I've not read his book.

One of the best quotes that relates to exactly what you're saying is between stimulus and response, there's a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. How do you fortify that space, that safe space in between stimulus and response?

That is incredible. Yeah, I love that. So that's kind of what I did last night. You know, I had the craving for cookies and I had that conversation with myself. Instead of impulsively getting up and making them right there on the spot, I said, okay, I'll have them tomorrow. And that's a really nice space to give ourselves like, a loving space. Because we say, okay, I'm going to plan when I can have that. And if we give ourselves like 24 hours or 12 hours of when we can act on that craving, then we're still honoring that. We're having that craving. And that's something that we want to enjoy. But it's not out of impulse at that point because there's a lot of patience that's going to be involved and planning and preparation. So I've learned to create more space like that whenever I have impulses as well. Whether it's food or whether it's like sending an email to someone or communicating with someone, you know, giving that space. Voice can be really helpful.

And I think there's a moment where we all can breathe and stop going and being fueled so much by instant gratification versus what you're saying is taking that breath, tuning in to what our body is trying to tell us. But there's things that block the voice of our internal narrative. And my friend Bedros Kuhlian shared this bridge between knowing and hearing the voice. And whenever he was hungry, angry or lonely or tired, that's when he would slip down into spirals of making bad food choices. Or just bad choices in life in general. Do you have any core pillars of self care or self love that guide you to make new habits stick? Looking back on your story, yes.

So I've implemented a few things that I now do every day that I have no idea how I lived without these pillars. And so one of them is for one hour every single day I dedicate to my body. I call it body maintenance. I've done this every single hour for years. And it's, it's incredible. And in the beginning, I didn't really enjoy doing it. It was a bit uncomfortable. And I was like, wow, I'm really giving a whole hour out of my day just for my body. But I justified it. Like, we have 24 hours in the day, so of course we should just have one hour a day dedicated to our body. And during this hour, I focus on nothing else but my body. If other thoughts come in, I send it out. So I focus on like, I even imagine sometimes my organs and I visualize the inside of my body. And sometimes I'll do like a yoga class. Other times I might do yoga on my own. Sometimes I'll just go for a walk through Central park for an hour. Sometimes I'll do like an intense boxing class or cardio workout, soul cycle. Or sometimes I'll lift weights at the gym. Sometimes I'll go snowboarding. So like, I mix it up every single day. But I. It's something that I really schedule out and plan out. So every single day, single day, I have that body maintenance. So today for me, what I did was the one hour walking through Central park. And then I might do stretching and dancing. So that gives me this foundation for my physical body maintenance. Because I'm thinking if I'm going to live till I'm 80, 90, 100 years old, I want to continue this practice until then because I want to be flexible and enjoy good posture and enjoy good physical feeling for the rest of my life. So that to me has been like so life changing. And then the other things I've started implementing, first thing in the morning when I wake up is ten minutes of meditation. So before anything, before I put my phone on or check messages. So 10 minutes just to completely just feel the consciousness underneath all of my thoughts. And then I've recently started doing mirror work, which is another interesting way to do shadow work. So mirror work is. It's still a little bit uncomfortable for me, but I know it's something I need to overcome and that helps with self worth.

Tell us about the mirror work. Do you stand naked and tell yourself good things?

I do. I'm not always naked. Sometimes it's just my face. But, yeah, the idea with mirror work is just to fully stand in the mirror and accept, you know, who we are. And I just turned 30, and so I found myself in the mirror. Like, okay, I'm 30. Wow. Okay, so my 20s is over. I was like, do I like myself? Do I like being alone by myself? You know, who am I? Like, what am I going to do? And then I was like, you know, I don't like the lines in my neck, and I don't like the line that I'm starting to get on my eyes or my forehead. I'm like, okay, I need to, you know, address this and accept it, because I'm only going to get probably more lines, realistically. So I need to be able to, like, create this rich inner world and this piece inside. And so that's what I find that mirror work is doing. And then, you know, the healthier we are internally, then the healthier choices that we make in every aspect of our life.

Well, I think that was the ultimate tweetable right there. We could definitely put that in a frame. So I'm hearing from you, mirror work, the hour of body work, doing walking, whatever it might be, just giving yourself an hour in our busy day, and then meditation. I don't think in the past hundred episodes, Leanna, somebody hasn't said meditation. So thank you for reminding us about that again. You know, there was an article you wrote, and it was for Huffington Post uk. It was three simple dietary changes for mental health. You talked about eating foods that were good for the brain. This is awesome. Drinking a fresh cup of juice every day and cutting back on inflammatory foods. Now, obviously all those things are in alignment with the Earth diet, but can you break those down quickly?

Yeah. So sometimes people come to me and they say, what's just one thing if you could say, anything that I should do for my health? And I always say juicing, juicing, juicing. Juicing is so transformative. And it's the fastest way for us to put, like, a lot of nutrition into every single cell in our body. And we have trillions of cells, right? So whenever we have a juice, we're getting that raw nutrition. It's like the blood of the vegetables. So someone could do, like, kale, cucumber, celery, some green apple, some ginger, and some lemon. And all of that nutrition, when we drink, it literally goes straight into our cells, straight into our blood system. We can't Help but feel better after we have a juice. And so if people do this and commit to this, like, okay, I'm going to have one juice every single day for the rest of my life. It's like your medicine, and I want to say it has a lot more benefits and nutrients than pharmaceutical drugs. It's actually legit medicine. And it can help with depression as well, anxiety. No matter how stressful our situation is, if we just have that fresh juice every single day, it does wonders. It also clears out the digestive system. So when I was healing, I would have up to six juices a day because I just. I needed to overdose my system with nutrition because I deprived it for so long. Yeah. So most of the juices I had were beet juice. And beets actually go into the digestive system. And anything that might be stuck on the bowel walls, like any growths or even tumors or any. I mean, sometimes we store things in there for years. Anything stuck to the bowels, it cannot survive beet juice. So beet juice lifts it off and, like, kicks it out. It's a crazy, amazing, powerful detox.

It's like a detox sniper. Like, beets go in there with their guns and just shoot all the bad stuff.

Yeah, totally. They just like, pow, pow, pow, pow, out, out, out. Yeah. So juicing every single day. So I had my fresh juice today, and, yeah, it's something that I commit to doing for the rest of my life. And some people say, you know, well, there's no fiber in it, but that's okay because you can get fiber from your smoothies or from your other food. Juice is its own thing. And also because it doesn't have fiber, it doesn't take energy, a lot of energy from the body to have to break it down. Because oftentimes we eat foods and our digestive system may not be clean. It may have a lot of complex, compacted waste. So it's not able to absorb a lot of nutrition from our food. And that's been a big problem in today's society. People's guts are either bloated or have some issues there. And so they're not getting all the nutrition they should be from the food. And so juicing is just one way for us to put that instantly into our cells. Have I talked enough about juicing, or should I keep going?

I'm so glad you're talking about this because. Because one of the things that I've always felt is timing around juicing. You know, if you have a cup of juice and then you Sit for four hours. What about timing for you? When do you like to have your juice? Is it before workout? Is it after your exercise? When do you find that juicing feels best for you?

You know, I just sometimes need to get it in during the day. So for me, it doesn't matter what time, but I do love to do it after a workout because I feel like my. My pores and my organs are really open and they want to receive some nourishment after putting out all that energy and maybe sweating. So I do love to have it right after that or after a sauna because I just feel like my body absorbs it. And then also whenever I have a juice, like today I had it when I was walking through Central Park, I just give myself a minute and allow my body to fully receive it and receive all the benefits that the juice is providing to my body. And I imagine all that juice going to every single cell in my body, from my toes, you know, to my fingertips, to my head, my hair. I just imagine my body, like, absorbing all of it.

Oh, my gosh, I can picture you standing in the middle of the sun and just allowing it to penetrate yourself with nutrients and life. Thank you for mentioning that. You know, the same article. We'll definitely link your article from Huffington Post in the show notes. It's this concept that we've talked so much about on the show, and it's trusting the process. I can't tell you how many people that I've worked with personally, and typically their question is right off the bat, how can I trust that this will work? And usually what I say is, you know, it's a practice of doing and believing over and over again until it becomes real. What do you think about the process of trust? How is trusting the process been for you? What does that look like now compared to what it was before?

Yeah, well, for me, it was really easy to trust the Earth diet, basically because it's come down to pure science. And it made sense to me on a scientific level. Well, science proves it. And then also it made sense to me spiritually and with common sense. So for me, it was like, common sense. It was like, yeah, eat from the earth, eat those kinds of foods, and you can enjoy all your favorite foods for the rest of your life, as long as it's in a more natural or upgraded, organic way. And then the message I got was, this is the best option for your higher self, and you will live your most healthy, vibrant life possible in this lifetime. And then also it's better for the Environment, because you're giving back to the environment. You're taking care of it, you know, not being obsessive or, like, too indulgent, like eating it. Eating. It's very in harmony with the environment as well. So it just totally made sense. And then when my body started to transform, I started to heal, I started to feel better, my immune system got stronger, I lost excess weight, and then the tumor dissolved in three months after applying this. Just three months.

That's incredible.

Yeah, it's not that quick for everyone, but some people can be even quicker. And so, I mean, it just. It was very easy to trust. To trust that. And I just think we can't go wrong with eating nutrition every single day. We can't go wrong with eating more fresh food straight from our backyard. And we can't go wrong with having that fresh juice every single day.

And I think you travel so much recently, especially with your Hay House radio. What do you notice about people across the world? They're hungry for this better life. Is there a common thread, Liana, that connects them? Whether it's lack of purpose, maybe they're in the wrong relationship, they have some past trauma, they have fear of being seen or other blocking factors. What do you think you see the most when people come to you and tell you their stories?

Yeah, so I've noticed a common thread around the world. And I've traveled to 17 countries, so I've met a lot of people from all different places. And what I've noticed is that every single person, we all want the same thing. We all want the same thing. We're all striving for this soul journey, for to feel peace and full self expression and to feel love. And I sound so simple, but that's what I really got, because I got that nobody likes suffering. And a lot of people do suffer. And you know, Eckhart Tolle and others say, like, we're addicted to our pain and suffering and yeah, we are, but nobody really likes it. And every person's soul wants to be set free of that. I found that every single soul wants to heal whatever soul wounds they have or whatever is really troubling them and keeping them in suffering. So we're all looking for that. What is that? That can make me feel better and can help heal me.

Oh, I had to take a big breath when you said that because that is a narrative that I think many people, millions of people have. It's like, how do I get out of this suffering? Let me pose this question to you. Do you feel like the tension around wanting to stop the suffering can actually be part of the suffering itself.

Yes, that is exactly it. Because we. We also not taught at school, and we're kids, okay, you guys are going to suffer. And here's how to deal with it. Here are the tools. Like, we just weren't taught that. So we've had to really explore that a lot. And I do feel like the next generation coming through of kids and their kids, I feel like they won't even accept stress. They will just kind of look at it like, you know what? No, stress is like cancer. I'm gonna opt out of stressing at all. But I do feel like our generation, we just don't like it at all, and we're just not equipped with the tools. So the more we can apply the tools to ourselves and help heal our own lives and our own souls, then other people can also see those tools. But I have found that avoiding or running away does not work at all. And for me, I always lived with this concept of, like, one day, you know, one day I'll wake up and never crave junk foods or I'll start, I'll be healthy tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. And that never came. And so my. How I live now, like, my mental shift has really changed. Is like, no, it's ongoing now and now and now. And we don't know, at any second, we could feel something, or someone could text us, or we get a phone call, or we bump into someone on the street that can trigger this, like, bad emotional feeling or thought process. And, you know, we have to deal with that right there on the spot. And so it's like this ongoing process. It's not like one day my life will begin. It's like, no, like, this is it. Okay, Something just triggered me, what's going on. And if we don't have time to deal with it right there on the spot, something I do is I say, God, I just got triggered. And now I feel absolutely terrible about that. Can you please help me with that? And then I have to go on about my business. Whether it's jumping on a podcast interview or, you know, making a recipe, whatever it is, I continue on with what I know I have to have to do. And then that other stuff, that internal stuff, it comes back and resolves itself eventually.

This is what I'm really enjoying with you. This. This energy you're sharing. I think people can feel it. It's this committing to the process, you know, one step at a time. It's wherever we are in our lives, it's Perfect. Because we're there anyways, right? So why resist it? Just go with it. When we look at beliefs, I want to wrap the show soon here. Before we get into our fun round, I'm going to ask you some surprise questions. I hope you're ready. Well, you're not ready. I didn't send you this answers. But beliefs, beliefs shape everything that we do. So you have to believe that you can make the change. And if you can't, then you get to call in support from a community, from a coach, from someone in your corner that can fortify that belief with you. What is your mission now with helping people? To fortify new beliefs?

So I worked one on one with people a lot. I still do have a few clients, but I have a team of Earth Diet health coaches and it's on theearthdiet.com people can go there and pick a health coach basically and fill out a questionnaire of your biggest health obstacles that you feel like are just in your way and then your health goals. And we have people that are trained just like myself in this philosophy and health coaching to help you break through that. And that's what I've been up to. And that's what I'm really committed to, is helping people because I suffered so much and, and that suffering was very painful and it sucks. And it's so in my heart now that I want to help others who are suffering in that same way to heal from that and recover.

I think we definitely can feel that from you. And I want to go seven layers deeper. This is the last part of our show. It's seven fast questions for seven of Liana's real answers. Are you ready?

I'm ready.

How'd your life change when you got married? What about your wellness habits shifted once you became cohabitating with someone else?

I was married when I was 2022 for 12 months. And so that didn't work out. And that was, I mean, he was great. He adopted the organic lifestyle and he loved the Earth Diet recipes and actually a fair few recipes were inspired by him because he is American. So he loved the chocolate peanut butter combo. So I made a lot of chocolate peanut butter stuff for him. But yeah, we didn't work out. And you know, I look back at that divorce now because that's something that's been like a lot of baggage in my life. And I've looked back at that like, okay, I see how I repeated my parents relationships because my parents have split and sorry, it just was not a healthy environment for me. So I've been. I've been single since then and healing from that, so I was definitely not expecting that question.

Well, it's really cool because I think you're shining light on the real work, the deeper, inner work. You know, this. This book you've written is extremely powerful. The Earth Diet, all these recipes, all your coaches. You're making a huge impact. But what comes up for me is how authentic you are. I mean, you're still doing your work. You're still talking to us about your work. So thank you for being that way. And the next thing I want to ask you is around the first time. When was the last time that you did something for the first time? And what was it the last time.

I did something for the first time? Oh, I did it a few days ago. I went to this class at Bandier in New York, and it was a booty bands class. So for all the ladies listening who want to work out your booty and who love your booty.

So men want to work out our booties too.

Okay, sure. Yeah, you totally could.

Maybe not at a booty class.

Yeah. I have to say, it was full of women, but I'm sure Ben could do a booty bands class as well. So there are these bands that you put on your legs and around your knees and do different exercises. That's really good for the booty. So that. That was a first time this week, and that was really fun.

Do you have a mantra you might tell yourself or an internal narrative that gives you a reminder to breathe and quiet whatever storm you find yourself in? Do you have something you tell yourself?

Yes, if I find myself, my mind saying, oh, this is too much. This sucks. I wish this wasn't happening straight away. Now I think just take a breath. Take a breath. Take a breath. And just taking a breath is meditation, basically. So, yeah, I just say take a breath.

And our breath is. It's really. We've talked about this a few times. It's our only autonomic response that we have control over. So, so powerful. Without breath, we have nothing. What makes you laugh the most in life? I mean, what cracks you up right now?

What cracks me up right now? Oh, my goodness. I love these questions. Oh, man. What cracks me up? What makes me laugh? Oh, man. I mean, I'm always laughing, I guess. So that's something I've also learned. It's like to not take things so seriously and to be able to laugh at everything. And I find myself, if I'm not able to laugh at something, I'm like, there's a definitely an attachment to the suffering there. So I need to find a way that I can laugh at, like, every single situation that's going on. But, yeah, yeah, I love. I just love watching funny. I just love watching funny YouTube videos. My sister and I have this sense of humor. Like, we love praying, so we love those kinds of videos.

Who is someone right now that you consider to be a mentor, either life or work? Is there anyone out there who inspires you to be your best version?

Wayne Dyer.

What about him resonates with you so much?

Wayne Dyer? To me, he's this incredible person who basically just shared his life and what he was going through. And, you know, he didn't have the most, like, fun things happen to him all the time, like when his wife cheated on him, but he, you know, he shared that. He's like, this is what happened, and this caused suffering. So this is how I'm going to deal with it, and this is how I'm relieving myself of that. So I just think he's incredible because he just put his life out there and, you know, he shared about it because it took me years and years and years to not be embarrassed about me being divorced. You know, that was like. But he's just like, real time. He was just like, whatever's happening, he would share it at that time, which I think is incredible, that he just kind of handed himself over to the universe in service to help other people through his story. And then when he had me on his radio show, he really helped boost me to this next level in my career. And, you know, he was telling people, try the Earth diet. Do the Earth Diet. It's really helpful. It's really healing. So through him saying that, he helped a lot of people heal who came to find my work, and then, you know, the earth died. Is now a business. And so that's a whole other thing. Having a business and being a business owner comes with all of its own stresses, as a lot of people who are business owners know. So I was having this a few weeks ago. I was just, like, just kind of freaking out in my mind, like things weren't really going my way. And I was just like, I don't. This just does not feel good at all. This feels like I'm going backwards. It feels really painful. And he came to me in a dream one night. All he said was, liana, it's all how you think about it. He's like, everything is actually really good. You just have to think about it differently. So I woke up the next day and everything I thought that was not working out. I just, I looked at it and I was like, wow, okay, I can see how I can think differently about that and that and that I just shifted my perspective.

Another deep breath. I've taken like five deep breaths from your shares. Thank you for that again and this last question and with all you've been through and you know, the healing, which we didn't get to talk about. I will link the story about how you healed your mom with cancer. I'll link that in our show notes. But everything you've developed up to now, what is wellness to you? How do you define wellness in your life?

Wellness is a moment to moment thing and it's constantly bringing ourselves back to the present moment and allowing ourselves to be well. Like mind, body and spirit. Wellness.

You have the Hay House Summit. You're working on a new book for next year. But where can people learn more about you in 2017? Where can they follow what you're up to?

So people can just google me or go to the earthdiet.com I'm on social media every day. I love connecting with you guys. So if you have any questions or comments, you can just type in either my name, Liana Werner Gray or the Earth Diet and find me on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. And then also I'll be speaking at the Truth About Cancer Summit this October in Florida. So you can either come to Orlando and see that live or that'll be live streamed also.

Fantastic. Well, let me pause for a breath and a moment to just say thank you for keeping it real. You have been so great today, sharing what I believe people can really hold on to. So thanks for sharing your gifts with us, for coming on the show and for doing what you do with the Earth Diet and beyond.

Thank you so much for having me.

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