Bonfire

Words of Encouragement
Congratulations on being a Level 3 eater – you are not only well on the path to being healthy, but also to being a leader to your family, friends and coworkers!

Eating healthy is becoming a lifestyle ritual for you.  You know that success will be based upon taking ownership of your beliefs regarding your personal nutritional paradigm (the lens through which you view things), and then acting upon those beliefs.  As a Level 3 eater, you now know that what you eat and what you don’t eat is a matter of choice.  For example: "I don’t put anything into my body that I know is harmful, especially if I have the choice!"

The specific goal during the first month is to significantly increase the amount of uncooked or raw vegetables into your diet.  Also, to increase the quality of the animal-sourced protein you eat.

One of Bonfire Health Program’s primary purposes for you in Level 3 is to eliminate most, if not all, things that are unhealthy for you.  This should be a piece of cake (no pun intended) for you as you are a Level 3 eater.  The tremendous opportunity you have in your life for making decisions without being in direct conflict with your personal values should be an exciting goal and accomplishment during Level 3 of your Bonfire Health Program.

Helpful Resources:
Planning and Preparation
Master Shopping List
Critical Concepts: Food Shopping
Fuel Level 1 Expectations
Fuel Level 2 Expectations

We know you desire to be happy and healthy and, most of all, at peace with all the decisions that make up your LIFE.  Following Bonfire Health Program will allow you to choose the lifestyle habits that are congruent with the values of the life you truly desire to live.  We at Bonfire Health deeply appreciate you being a part of our vision to change and transform the lives of as many people as we can.  We kindly request, that as you see results in your own life, you share our program with your friends and loved ones too!

As a Level 3 eater, you have extra motivation to stay on track by being a healthy role model for your loved ones, friends, and all those people around you - living as a powerful influencer.  Always remember, the way you choose to eat affects people in a positive or a negative manner.  Choose life for yourself and others!

LEVEL 3 - Expectations and Assumptions:
Congratulations!  At Level 3, you are not expected to be "perfect," but you're moving and progressing toward adopting the following vital behaviors:

• You never miss eating breakfast - at home!

• Grains are not part of your diet anymore, at any time.

• You drink exclusively water each day,

• You eat at least 80% of your food raw - meaning lots of fresh fruits, salads, and vegetables, along with raw nuts and seeds.

• Your diet style is a predominantly plant-based (that doesn't mean vegetarian).

• You rarely eat dairy products; if dairy is consumed, it is made from raw milk.

• Refined sugars and refined carbohydrates are becoming a thing of the past (you visualize soda pop as "diabetes in a can" and artificial sweeteners as cancer food).

• Green smoothies are a regular part of your diet.

• You haven't shopped at a chain grocery store in ages, except for trash bags, foil, etc.

• You own and use a Vita Mix blender regularly.

• You can't remember the last time you ate something that had hydrogenated oil or high-fructose corn syrup.

Meals/Menu Plan - Overview:

For Breakfast:  Eat quality protein, poached, such as free-range organic eggs, vegetables (yes, veggies at breakfast), fresh fruit after working out (and preferably organic fruit that's local and in season, versus fruit that has been shipped two to five thousand miles), raw nuts, almond or hemp seed milk, bananas or berries, and healthy smoothies or raw vegetable juice.

For Lunch:  Always eat a large salad with or as your lunch itself with added fish, chicken, etc.  To make eating large salads much more enjoyable, add toppings such as avocados, sliced pears with freshly toasted walnuts, leftover chicken or fish, even steak with leftover steamed vegetables from the night before, sardines, etc.; dress salads with fresh lemon or lime juice and/or fresh olive oil or vinaigrette dressing.  An incredibly delicious topping is Cashew Crunch, a raw cashew Parmesan cheese.

For Dinner:  Level 3s always base dinner around a large salad and steamed, sautéed, or grilled vegetables, and eat little to no starches (i.e. potatoes, etc. foods high on the glycemic index, meaning they cause abnormal blood glucose levels similar to sugar).  Of course, you have an adequate intake of quality protein (organic/natural beef, lamb, chicken, fish) and healthy fats, which are critical to health in general and your high level diet style in particular.

Salads:
As a Level 3 eater, you eat LARGE vegetable salads throughout the week, often topped with the leftover fish, chicken or some other quality organic animal-sourced protein.

Remember, your vegetable salads can be made delicious and interesting by topping them with everything from fresh berries, Greek olives, marinated artichoke hearts, leftover steamed vegetables, avocado, Cashew Crunch (this is a raw parmesan-like cheese made from cashews that takes 3 minutes to make a week's supply - it's incredibly delicious), grilled meat, toasted or raw walnuts, raw hemp or sunflower seeds - the list goes on and on.  Salads are only limited by your imagination.  Go for it!

Snacks are Optional and Awesome!
As a Level 3 eater, you eat nutrient-dense foods (raw, organic fruits, vegetables, and raw nuts and seeds) and quality protein (organic eggs and organic grass-fed lean meats).  As a result, you no longer have to eat every 2 or 3 hours because you now understand that eating nutrient-poor grains and "snack foods" is the cause of frequent and increased hunger cravings.

Level 3 eaters understand that having a net calorie loss is one key to living long and living well.  When you snack, you eat vegetables (such as cut carrots, celery, cucumber, etc.) or fruit, along with raw nuts and seeds.

Important Recommendation:
To save money (and the environment), have a Reverse Osmosis water purification system installed at your kitchen sink (GE unit at Home Depot - $150, for plumber to install - $125).  You will be amazed at how much more health-promoting water you will drink when it’s readily available and tasty.

Although they are now ubiquitous in our society, and no matter how inexpensive they may be at Costco or Wal-Mart or Trader Joe's, we can't keep buying plastic bottles of water for many reasons:

• It's too costly in the long run.
• The quality of the purification process varies widely.
• The plastic bottles leach cancer-causing chemicals into the water and then into your body.
• The impact of buying plastic water bottles on the environment is tremendous.  There are over 2 million plastic water bottles disposed of every day in America which is creating a huge trash problem.
• This environmental "cost" is unacceptable [FACT: Today, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where the currents converge, there is a mass of floating plastic twice the size of Texas called The Great Pacific Garbage Patch that is so large and has so much mass that it is a "navigational landmark" and shows up on ships' radar!]
• Although some plastic bottles often get recycled into cool things like Patagonia clothing, most ultimately ends up inside marine animals or landfills. 

Helpful Resources:
Master Shopping List
Critical Concepts: Food Shopping
Fuel Level 1 Expectations
Fuel Level 2 Expectations