The WAY to WOW Shows
Cocktails & the New Year
January 2, 2025
Automatically generated from YouTube captions; names and wording may contain errors.

[0:07] who are you and where are you going what do you want [Music] hello and welcome to J's place it has been a bit of a afternoon here in Los Angeles uh sorry for

[0:44] beginning late uh you know how business goes it's only the second day of the year H crazy and and then I got a sneezing attack so thank you for joining me for the uh first episode of jigger's place here in the New Year 2025 if you've seen the show before so you're looking you're saying wait something looks a little bit different yes I completely well not completely but I substantially reorganized um my bar I got rid of a lot of the Clutter and also

[1:20] made it so you can actually see what's going on because before I had all this stuff stacked up here you couldn't see what I was doing and I thought you know really uh you know you for the those of you who uh especially tune in for the cocktail making portion uh you really should be able to see what I'm doing so so here we go um so for the New Year I'm going to be talking about what I think are the fundamental building blocks of of living a healthy life um and in honor of that with the help of chat GPT uh came up with a cocktail called a

[1:56] Vitality Spritz right that sounds pretty good so it includes orange juice and I've got some orange juice that I got here from uh Trader Joe's um pomegranate infused vodka this happens to be stoich NAA um and this is a a white pomegranate flavored vodka it's Russian vodka um you know with with due respect to Ukraine I had this a long time long before Russia invaded um the country and and also when I was in the store earlier today I found

[2:32] this um pomegranate concentrate so I'm actually going to use a mixture of the vodka and the pomegranate um concentrate um rather than using all vodka I just I think that it'll be more um pomegranate flavor and then um the ginger lure that I've used um before and uh lime juice and we're GNA garnish it with some uh uh cucumber slices these are hot house cucumbers so I got my

[3:07] trusty um Shaker here and we're going to start out with an ounce of orange juice let's see okay pour that in okay and then we're going to use like I said a combination of um of the uh pomegranate infused um vodka with [Music]

[3:43] some um with some pomegranate now this is pomegranate concentrate when I was in the store a man come to me say oh get this this other brand is much much better it was actually pomegranate molasses which is different because it had sugar in and all kinds of stuff this is just pure pomegranate so uh ju de granade con right um pomegranate and um and it's got natural colors in it from the um I guess from the skin of the pomegranate so and it's got that beautiful sort of reddish purplish pomegranate color

[4:21] so there okay and let's see the um there we go the ginger liquor so half an ounce of that estimate that and lime juice also a half an ounz

[5:01] um you know it would be better to use fresh lime juice forgot to get a lime when I was at the store that's how it goes sometimes and by the way before mixing this you want to get your glass ready um I'm using a wine glass this nice kind of um I don't know bul this wine glass with some ice in it already Okay so we got all that in it right all right so we're going to shake this up and we want to do this for good you

[5:36] know 20 to 30 seconds this gives all the flavors a chance to mix together as well as um let some of the ice melt to um open up the flavors and all of that kind of thing just a little bit more more a little bit more and you'll know if you if you down downloaded the cocktail recipe you'll see that um we're going to top it off with some sparkling water I've got my um siphon here I just reloaded it earlier

[6:11] [Music] today so there we go you can see the whole exterior of the Shaker is um is all Frosty and let's pour this into the wine glass oh it's got a lovely color okay and we're going to top this off with some sparkling

[6:48] water now the nice thing about a siphon by the way is because it's um because the way it works it kind of mixes everything together while you spray it so here we go let's give it a try nice and refreshing I'll meet you over on the couch

[7:54] [Music] ah so less clutter in the background yes so here we are it's January 2nd 2025 can you believe it and uh very soon next year our country is going to be 250 years old wow 1776 right yep yep there we go so to start off the year right I wanted to talk about

[8:30] the fundamentals for living a healthy life now I think most of the time when we hear the word healthy we think physically healthy and indeed these are the three Foundation blocks for living a physically healthy life however physical health and mental health are so closely tied together that these same three building blocks are also crucial to your mental health

[9:05] and I would argue they're also crucial to your spiritual health because while the spirit can transcend the phys the physical nature of life and it can uh overcome um mental uh challenges uh the spirit Spirit too has to replenish itself and so if the vessel in which the spirit inhabits is not healthy physically and

[9:41] mentally we're really putting an huge demand on the spirit and to do that day in and day out week in week in month and month out Etc is is really to play with fire okay so another SI of cocktail it's really refreshing which is what it's supposed to be because it's Vitality uh

[10:16] so the three building fundamental building blocks to a healthy life are sleep diet and exercise Okay so so um if you watched my show yesterday I mentioned I am not a believer in uh New Year's resolutions um I think they're they're too easily just they too easily go by the wayside and all of that what I am an advocate for is goals and goals to

[10:53] incrementally improve so uh of and then I um of the I put those three in the order I gave them for a very specific reason if you're challenged on all three sleep diet and exercise the one to start out with is sleep sleeping well will set the foundation for everything else and if you're not sleeping well diet and exercise will will help but not nearly as much as

[11:29] getting your sleep straightened out so what is sleeping well so um if you were to talk to my friend uh Dr Michael Bruce um he would tell you you need to know your chronotype which is and and I'm not going to get into it because that's his area of expertise but you know are you a night person a day person it's those kind of things and and and and that's important but the bottom line is uh if you're an adult most adults need at least seven

[12:05] hours of good solid sleep now distinguish that from being in bed for seven hours because if you're in bed for seven hours you're not sleeping for seven hours okay you're not now people say to me oh the minute my head hits the mattress bang I'm asleep okay that's that's probably true or I'll take I'm not saying it's probably I'll take you at your word okay uh it's unlikely you're literally sleeping through the entire night okay now there may be a very small minority of people who do but

[12:41] most of us wake up you know periodically during the night I know on on even on nights when I get um you know good sleep I still wake up two three times a night sometimes most nights I'm out of I'm you know going to the bathroom at least once once a night I may get out of bed even twice or three times during the night okay so our our we go through Cycles in our sleep we go through periods of Deep Sleep of REM sleep of light sleep okay

[13:18] so in total we need seven hours of those three types of sleep deep REM and light sleep okay now I know for me my deep sleep tends to be front loaded so after I fall asleep I generally speaking fall into deep sleep initially and then throughout the rest of the night I sort of move between RAM and light sleep uh and and that's when I tend to wake up and that sort of thing so uh now and I just noticed I I um

[13:53] forgot to put my aura ring back on um I I my friend Michael Bruce recommended the aura ring um and it really is a great tool for understanding how well you're sleeping and for for figuring out what do you need to do to sleep better okay so there's uh basically two areas to consider for improving your sleep one is your sleep environment and the other is the the

[14:28] behaviors in terms of things like what you eat and those sort of things that will impact your sleep so let's take sleep environment first your bed should be comfortable okay your bed should be a place where you sleep as opposed to where you work or watch TV or do whatever okay so uh I know I have a Ducks bed I love it super comfortable always wanted one and you know it's it's terrific you should have a comfortable pillow the the pillow I use may not be a pillow that's comfortable for me I like a

[15:03] squishy down pillow um and you know other people like those foam pillows or whatever or they like a polyester fill pillow whatever find one that's comfortable for you okay I like a fairly light blanket on me other people like a heavy blanket again what makes you comfortable the room should be cool to cold Okay so my thermostat is set to 64 okay so and I I like to sleep in a Quil room I cannot sleep well in a hot room okay so um if you're fortunate to

[15:40] have air conditioning great um if you're not you may need to have a fan I have a ceiling fan in my bedroom uh during the summertime I will sometimes run the ceiling fan and the air conditioning in order to keep the temperature down okay so a cool the coolness in the room tells your body it's time to go to sleep okay next your room should be dark okay so you should absolutely minimize if not completely get rid of any sources of light in the room in which you sleep so now I put up blackout

[16:18] curtains on all my windows okay so even during the daytime When I close my my drapes the room is pretty dark now not as dark as it is at night because light does seep through um but a lot less light sleeps through seeps through with black eeks they're not expensive you know you can go online and find them and and and hang them up and that'll give you a dark room it's best not to have a television in your room and to be watching television uh in in bed okay because that tends to keep your brain active in

[16:54] fact any source of blue light um is is particularly bad for sleeping okay so in terms of sleep environment comfortable bed comfortable pillow dark room no nothing in the room that will distract you and keep you awake okay now in terms of um preparation so you don't want to eat um or you want to W yeah you don't want to eat closer than an hour before your bedtime I think is what Dr Bruce recommends and bet and and the the

[17:30] longer the time is between when you eat and when you go to bed or when you go to sleep the better I know sometimes I I end up having to eat late because of business commitments whatever I it always pays me off in terms of lower quality sleep okay in particular caffeine and alcohol okay um two to three hours stop the intake of caffeine and alcohol before you go to bed okay now you say well gosh when I when I've had a couple of drinks or I like to have a Brandy right before I go to sleep and I fall right asleep that's

[18:07] true but what happens with alcohol is alcohol is essentially sugar so while you may fall asleep your body is still working hard processing the sugar and and if you had if you had an or Oro ring you would see that your resting heart rate is elevated as a result of your body working to process the sugar and the alcohol or for that matter food uh you know all all food which is why you don't want to eat too close and drink caffeine or or liquor too close to

[18:44] bedtime so I know when again when I if I have wine with dinner and then I you know go to sleep right after my resting heart rate up will usually be 47 to 49 which for me is high and in fact the aura ring registers it as high and it lowers my sleep score if I wait a long enough time in between eating and and and whatever I'm drinking I don't I never drink caffeinated coffee so it's not an issue but whatever I'm drinking my normal uh resting heart rate is the low

[19:22] 40s 41 42 maybe 43 now you say well that's only like five six you know beats per minute yes but it's a crucial five or six so I get vastly higher quality sleep when my heart rate is in the low 40s than it is when it's in the high 40s okay so uh don't eat or drink and and by the way even drinking water close to bedtime it increases likelihood you'll need to go to the bathroom in them night then interrupt your sleep etc etc so uh you

[19:57] you want to cut off you know eating sleeping and drinking at least an hour preferably a couple of hours or more before you go to bed okay uh don't exercise right before you go to bed exercising we say well makes me tired yes it does but it also raises your pulse rate okay which means even if you're sleeping you're you're the quality of your sleep isn't as good okay it's important exercise we'll talk about that a little bit later but not right before you go to bed okay now one of the things that um Dr Bruce

[20:34] mentions is you know he talks about should you wear pajamas or you know a night shirt or whatever so um the more clothing you wear the more effort your body has to go to to Thermo regulate because you have more layers and those those while those layers trap heat they also mean the body has to adjust so the fact of the matter is um you're best off not wearing anything when you sleep now that may make you really uncomfortable and so then it's counterproductive but

[21:09] in terms of how to dress for sleep that's that's the optimal that's the optimum way okay so uh those are the basics of sleep okay and uh you know if you're having trouble sleeping you you get a sleep study you may be suffering from sleep apnea and if that's the case you may need a s cpat machine or a mouth guard I know I I used to use a cpat machine I now use a mouth guard um and all of those things are very important if you are overweight for

[21:45] example one of the reasons could be that you're not sleeping enough or you're not getting enough good sleep okay if you're feeling tired during the day you're not among other things you're not getting enough sleep or you're not getting enough uh you're not getting high quality enough sleep right so that's why sleep is the fundamental building block and I'll put I'll put uh Dr Bruce's uh a link to his website in the show notes there's a tremendous amount of information there and and you know if you're having trouble sleeping I can't encourage you enough to check out Dr

[22:20] Bruce's website okay so sleep next is Diet Okay so it used to be in Times Gone by we ate according to the four food groups U meat poultry and fish was one cereals and Grains two Dairy was three or three and fruits and vegetables was four now they got this whole food pyramid and all say the food pyramid I think is way too

[22:57] complicated there's a few basic principles of of healthy eating okay number one eat as much real food as possible as opposed to processed foods okay and the more highly processed the food the less healthy it is for you okay so when I say Eat Real Foods eat you know fruits and vegetables right

[23:33] no they can be cooked and and and there are some fruits and vegetables that are healthier when they're cooked like tomatoes for example okay mushrooms as well so I'm not talking about you don't have to eat raw food and and by the way raw food again is not necessarily healthier than cooked food one of the most important inventions in human history was cooking food because it gave human beings access to a lot more nutrition relative to the amount of

[24:09] effort it took to get that nutrition so the problem with eating raw foods is it takes a lot of effort for our body to digest them and we're not getting nearly as much energy out of those Foods so we have to eat more of them it becomes somewhat of a cycle okay so um you know fresh fruits and vegetables uh meat fish poultry they're all fine I I I don't particularly care for meat and poultry I

[24:46] do I do like fish quite a bit but whatever you like it it's it's it's fine but don't e with all you know it's best not to eat it with all kinds of sauces and junk on it just eat a nice you know grilled steak or a nice piece of grilled chicken okay or maybe some grilled chicken with just a little bit of hot sauce on it as opposed to heavy sauces or ketchup or this kind of stuff okay same with fish right fish with nice grilled fish is much better than fish with you know fried fish with tartar sauce okay okay

[25:21] so uh grains whole grains are best Okay so highly processed grains not as good okay like like you know bleached flour not as good as uh whole grain flour okay um and whole grain B bread is better than white bread right okay and then um oh Dairy so uh there there was there's been a TR there was a trend for many many years that you know fat was bad fat was bad

[25:57] that turns out to be completely wrong you're better off uh having uh you know lowfat or full fat dairy products than non-fat dairy products now your particular situation you may have a your body may have a a particular issue with fat that's between you and your doctor but in general fat is not bad fat is what helps us feel full so we don't overeat and what's happened is with the whole no fat or you know or get fat out of our diets Trend what people did is they started eating a lot more uh foods

[26:34] with sugar in them and sugar is far worse for our bodies than fat ever was okay so again it's you know you can you can make you know lovely meals cheese and and all these great things okay but you want to eat as much real food as possible now do you have to cut out all processed foods well you know it depends who you talk to right I'm I'm a believer that look let's let's let's be honest Oreo cookies are delicious I'm sorry they are they are I understand nutritionally

[27:10] they're terrible but you know what so have a couple of Oreo cookies once in a while or even a couple of day no big deal right much better to uh create a sustainable diet that includes some processed foods but reduce the amount of processed foods than it is to get frustrated with trying to eat no processed foods and give up improving your diet all together and that's where I think we make we make a

[27:46] mistake changing our diet is about incremental change not revolution revolution rarely sticks so for example if you're eating a lot of proc High highly processed foods and and you're eating three meals a day filled with fast food and highly processed food so just choose one meal that you're going to modify to eat healthier and work on that for three months and optimize that the best you

[28:22] can okay and maybe that's all you're going to do for this year that's great that's progress okay now if you feel particularly strong after having made that change maybe maybe you're you're you'll work on a second meal or maybe you'll work on making that one meal really you know really healthy okay and you won't worry about the other two for now or maybe you'll switch eating only two meals okay you going to eat one meal where you're very focused on being healthy and the other meal all right you're going to do what you want for now and and you'll deal with that down the road

[28:58] that's a much more sustainable plan than trying to revolutionize your diet and failing where you're more likely to fail okay so like I said I'm look my big thing chocolate and ice cream okay not a big pie guy I mean cake yeah it's fine but I don't need a whole lot of it um but but but chocolate and ice cream I love them both um and most days I have a a little bit of chocolate now I look for high quality chocolate but chocolate

[29:33] after all even high quality chocolate is cocoa and sugar and uh cocoa butter I mean Sugar's not great now that's not a highly processed food unless it's something like you know Hershey's chocolate um but but it's still a processed food but so what uh you know I enjoy it and and and for most of us life is is not being you know a monk it's about uh incremental Improvement okay so those are those are what I would encourage you to focus on in terms of diet okay just think about

[30:10] the four food groups and think of ways that you can eat more real food within those groups okay with an emphasis on fruits and vegetables okay and protein and that way you will be light years ahead of of of most Americans okay because the reality is one of the reasons we have such a huge problem with obesity in this country it's not because people are not exercising enough it's because people are have terrible diets

[30:45] frankly okay there is not there is not enough hours in the day for you to exercise and do the other things you have to do to counteract a poor diet that's why after sleep diet comes next okay all right third is exercise okay I'm going to exercise my arm have a little more cocktail

[31:20] so exercise the fact of the matter is minimum exercise we need each week is three sessions of aerobic exercise where we get our pulse rate up to I think it's 165% of normal okay but in other words we want to get some some walking or some running or some bicycling or some rowing something that's going to get our heart pumping now of course before you start

[31:55] exercising you have to make sure you're fit to exercise so if you have any concerns on on on on that basis you know get talk to your doctor and make sure that you're good to go there was a time for me when my doctor he said to me my my Orthopedist to be specific said to me it's time it's time for you to stop running said if you walk instead of run you will be on a much more sustainable exercise path than

[32:31] if you continue to run and you just completely destroy your knees okay there you go I'm you know and and the fact of the matter is it does take more time to walk because you know longer time to go the same distance but um you know I'm I'm in this for the long game not not for the short game so so three times a week a minimum of 20 minutes of aerobic exercise uh we can all walk we can go outside get some sunshine help generate some vitamin

[33:06] D and and you know walk through our neighborhoods get some fresh air or or you know at least somewhat fresh air depending on where you live okay that's that's the minimum now if you're not exercising at all start out with just you know getting out and walking for 20 minutes one day a week okay maybe there's phone calls that you typically make maybe you speak to uh a family member a relative or somebody uh you know once a week okay so get out

[33:43] there with your you know your your headset or whatever and while you're getting your exercise have that phone call and the time will pass and you'll be done with your exercise you'll make your phone call and you've you know as they say killed two birds with one Stone nothing wrong with that obviously if you're walking in my my neighborhood you better pay attention because the cars will run you down they could not care less okay uh but but that that's you know perfectly fine um you know if you're more serious like me I don't I don't talk on the telephone when I'm out

[34:18] exercising I put on my my headset my aftershocks I get my music going and I I walk I walk fast so I walk um it's between nine and 10 minutes per kilometer now by the way I used to run you know eight minutes per mile 8 to nine minutes per mile so i' I've slowed down but that is you know it is what it is okay um and and but just start with one day a week okay now if you're already doing some exercise just try and add a little bit more in if you're doing

[34:53] aerobic exercise already three days a week so add in a a a day of doing some strength building core building exercises he do some abdominal work and some some arm and shoulder work okay there's so many apps that that are free by the way that will uh help you do this kind of core building exercise and do a do it in a low impact way help you keep track and you know you kind of you can set up kind of a contest with yourself okay you don't have to have a personal trainer

[35:29] you don't have to be lifting weights okay I mean if if like I I struggle to be disciplined in doing core building exercises so I do have a trainer that I work with a couple times a week um and uh you know that helps me but you know it is an expense and and you may not be able to afford that so then um you know there were times when I uh was just I was using an app when I couldn't afford to have uh you know a trainer help me out so I was just I was just looking at

[36:04] I don't know why but I saw the results from it uh I was looking yesterday I think I was looking to get rid of some apps on my phone or something right they're they're really good um I mean look there are a lot of app developers out there who really want to help you live a healthier life so just get one of those okay um and again don't try to completely revolutionize I'm gonna go to the gym four times a week and blah blah blah blah blah no probably not going to work you know and I I don't know about you but I I I find going to a gym depressing

[36:40] because almost all the people there look better than I do they seem to be working harder than I do and uh yeah it's it's it's a downer or or it's like a meat market all people are trying to do is pick up other people and not interested in that either so just start out making an incremental change just like we talked about in diet with exercise as well incremental change is the key now you say okay well that's all making me physically healthier but you said these three uh foundational elements are going to make me mentally

[37:16] and spiritually healthier absolutely so proper sleep good quality sleep a good amount of sleep is absolutely essential essential to good mental health okay and we know this because when our children don't sleep well they're cranky and news flash so are we right our crankiness isn't stemming from a physical ailment per se it's because mentally we're tired and we're

[37:51] not able to exercise sufficient self-control so we we do things that people look at and go wow he's really cranky right so uh sleep is key to mental health diet is also very important in mental health there's lots of studies credible studies that show the connection between good mental health and proper diet right and we we look we know this like why is it so nice to drink a cocktail well because alcohol can help

[38:27] help us relax now obviously too much alcohol we get drunk and that's a whole another thing but you know a drink helps us relax it helps us relax physically but it also helps us relax mentally right so that's why we do it but it's not just you know alcohol as a part of a diet um certain uh nutrients vitamins minerals impact our our brain health our mental health okay caffeine has an impact on

[39:03] Mental Health um but also eating a good diet so that we're feeling physically strong it it means we don't have to drain so much of our mental energy on just you know keeping focused and regulating our Behavior okay so that's why diet is such an important component of mental health okay and finally exercise one of the

[39:39] reason people think I love to exercise I don't love to exercise I'd much rather sit around but the fact of the matter is I live a very stressful life and exercise is the least expensive way for me to release stress and the healthiest way right like too many people rely on too much alcohol to release stress That's not healthy right we know this right so exercise helps us relieve

[40:15] stress okay it's it's it's but aside from sleep it's it's the next best thing we can do for mental health is to get regular exercise okay and the whether it's um uh cardiac uh aerobic exercise or whether it's strength training so strength training has an impact on Mental Health that's different than aerobic exercise it takes a certain Focus but that Focus pulls our brains away from other things that we may be

[40:50] stressed out about and it it in fact helps us to relax mentally okay and then in terms of our spiritual health so that goes back to what I was saying at at the beginning which is when we're feeling strong physically and mentally we're not putting as big a burden on our spiritual uh Health to sustain Our Lives okay now what I say about what do I mean by spiritual health so excuse me um

[41:28] so the idea that uh so so for example if you believe in God and you believe that God takes care of his children it's a lot easier to re to remember that and and run our lives by it when we're well rested when we're feeling uh adequately nourished okay it's a lot easier to keep that in mind when we've exercised and reduced

[42:04] the stress in our lives okay otherwise frustration sets in and then we start thinking things like oh you know God doesn't really care about me all all those kind of negative spiritual thoughts that come to us okay so all three of these areas of Health work together okay so again sleep diet exercise just incremental change don't try to revolutionize your

[42:39] life in 2025 that's that's the best way to make no progress at all just make have if you haven't done this already make goals to make you know two three changes in your sleep diet or exercise that will head in the right direction and just just work on getting those on habituating those okay and if you do if you do you do a great job on that okay so maybe mid year you'll decide hey I think I've got this so far I'm going to try something

[43:15] else okay but work on incremental change and while you're doing it have a Vitality spritzer who would have thought orange juice and pomegranate was so good together right yum yum all right well so thank you so much for joining me especially those of you who are joining me live really appreciate it glad to have you back here in the New Year next week Monday is my show Tres

[43:50] and Estates weekly my guest is Craig redler and he's gonna talk about cook Island Trust this is a way to protect your assets he's an expert in these you might say well that's pretty esoteric join us for you I think you'll find this quite fascinating on Tuesday is my show business lessons from the military at 10: a.m. Pacific Time all all the shows next week 10 a.m. Pacific time okay and uh gosh I don't recall what my topic is for Tuesday um and then

[44:26] when Wednesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time is my show people uh people making money so I hope you'll join me next week and this is it for this week so going to wish you a wonderful evening a wonderful rest of the week and weekend wishing you a happy New Year a new year filled with good health prosperity and and and fulfillment and signing off as I always do Marie darling you you are and ever will be my bell courage at all times my friends