SHAWN STEVENSON: Welcome to the Model Health Show, this is Fitness and Nutrition expert, Shawn Stevenson, and I'm so grateful for you tuning in with me today, I've got a secret to tell. I don't talk about this very often, but there is a certain implement, a certain health tool that I utilized very early on in my career, really my transformation, my own body, my own mind that I don't talk about very often. And if you know my story, you know that at the age of 20, I was diagnosed with an advanced arthritic condition of my spine, degenerative disc disease, so my disc in between my vertebrae were rapidly deteriorating, and this again at the age of 20, but it was many years in the making when I was just a teen, my spine was breaking down, even my bones, my bone density was incredibly low, leading to, at track practice as an aspiring athlete, who ran a 4-5-40 when I was just 15 years old, aspirations of playing at the next level, I broke my hip just from running, I literally broke the iliac crest, the tip of my hip, just broke off.

Alright. Now, these situations obviously through a monkey ridge in my plans and what I thought my life was going to be, and I sought out counsel, I sought out advice and healing from my physicians, and being in high school, I went to a physician and they saw the X-ray that my hip had broken and gave me some NSAIDs, some anti-inflammatory compounds, told me to stay off the leg, I got some crutches, I got a hall pass to get out of class early, I got to take the school elevator. Alright, it was all good, seemingly, but nobody stopped to ask, "How did a kid break his hip from running? What's the root issue here?" And said I was experiencing something called standard of care, standard practice. And it wasn't until years later, again, at the age of 20, when I finally get this diagnosis, and I knew that something was not right all this time, because my body... I just couldn't stay on the track, I couldn't stay on the football field, things kept happening, my body kept breaking down, and getting this diagnosis of degenerative disc disease, something that is an advanced aging condition, and being 20 years old, my physician at the time told me that he had never seen this happen in someone so young.

And when I asked him, "Is there anything that I can do to get out of pain? Is there anything that I can do to get rid of this condition?" He told me that this is something that just happens, and he's sorry that it happened to me. This is incurable. And it's something that I'm going to have to live with. And what he delivered for me was, again, standard of care, I was given some more drugs, I was given a back brace, bed rest, I was able to share that with my employer that I was now on bed rest, and I was not supposed to be doing all these things, and I relented to give my possibility of my life and my health away to someone else's beliefs. Now again, it's not that he wasn't in an altruistic position and wanting to do what was right, but the reality was, when I asked him this very simple question, even all these years ago, I don't know what inspired me to ask him this question, but I asked him, "Does this have anything to do with what I'm eating? Should I change the way that I'm exercising?" Something had been planted somewhere in my life that it drove me to ask that question under very strange conditions, but I can tell you, he looked at me like I was from another planet.

He looked at me like I just arrived, and he told me, "This has nothing to do with what you're eating," but yet he wrote me a prescription to eat some pills. That's the paradigm that I was dealing with. And so, not to mention, my physician at the time, he was clearly not in a good state of health, he was struggling himself with obesity, he was probably insulin-resistant, diabetic or pre-diabetic, probably on Metformin and/or Lisinopril, or he probably had an arthritic condition himself, which is why he was specializing a little bit in what he was seeing me for. And this is a situation where we must strive for our world's healers to heal themselves, to be examples and models, because the root of this term doctor is teacher, and us teaching by example and really helping to educate our system from the bottom up and from the top down so that we can become a nation of human beings who are teaching and expressing what real health is, and we've been removed from that somewhat, but me getting from that place where I was at when I was broken down, 20 years old, an excruciating pain in fear of standing up literally because I would go from a kind of running three-level pain to whenever I would stand up 10 just for a split second, but it was enough to scare the crap out of me and make me not want to stand up because a sciatic pain would shoot right down my body.

And something you can't really explain. And so, dealing with that, and for the next two years, gaining a lot of weight, I became a much fluffier version of Shawn Stevenson, by not only am I now having my spine is breaking down and atrophying, but the rest of my body is, is still eating the same drive-through diet that I was eating living in Ferguson, Missouri, and now I'm not moving much at all. I was barely even getting to my college campus to get into classes, I kept dropping classes because it was just too much mentally and physically to get around. So getting from that place to creating two of the most successful health books in the recent decade with my international best-selling book, Sleep Smarter, and my USA Today national bestseller, Eat Smarter and impacting lives of millions of people, having the number one health podcast in the United States many, many times over, I'm smiling right now because how is anything like that possible? Getting from where I was, so broken down to being the expression and a teacher of health for so many people.

There was that gap in between there. Part of that story that I don't talk about often, we're talking about today, and part of it was, of course, yes, what I ate mattered because it's literally the building blocks of what makes up our tissues, what makes up the disk in between the vertebrae of my spine, is food.

It's literally built from the food that you eat, as it is with the water that you're consuming, the fluids you're consuming, the air you're breathing, these are the things that make up our tissues, this isn't rocket science, but yet even as I say that how is rocket science going to be so far from biochemistry and anatomy and physical sciences, these are all incredibly complex things on the surface, superficially, but when it's drilled down to its essence, these principles are incredibly simple, very, very simple. You are what you eat, isn't just a catchy little term, little bar, little rap bar, you are what you eat. Now go eat a tree, it's not like that, it's a matter of being a law of human reality, it's a law of reality for all things in existence, because everything is eating something, and that's what makes up our bodies. So having that piece, now, what am I providing my body with? At the time, like I said, I was on the drive-through diet, if I could roll up to the window, reach out, exchanged some dollars for that bag, that's what I was eating every day, and I'm not exaggerating, literally every day.

Unless some kind of strange phenomenon would happen, that's what I was eating. Because it was cheap, accessible, and it tasted good to my very manipulated palette, which we've talked about this on multiple episodes of the show, some of the science of flavor and having the ability to use entities or contraptions like a gas chromatograph and being able to isolate flavors and then replicate those for processed foods, and processed food manufacturers investing tens of millions of dollars in food science every year, upwards of even much more than even what I'm sharing here, to find a way to bypass normal human association or interaction with foods.

Really, not just dead foods, these are over-dead, these are zombified foods, to make them taste like there's some life still existing in them and manipulating our ability to communicate and connect with our food in those channels. So how do I take my power back? How can I reset my palette? How can I associate it with real whole foods again when I'm so entrained? I am connected deeply to quarter pounder with cheese from McDags, incredibly attracted to the flavor sensations at Dominoes, at Papa John's, at Little Caesars, pizza, pizza. Now you got to be down and out if you're having a hankering for Some Little Caesars, you got... That's kind of like, life isn't going too well, alright? But hey, that's where I was investing my time. Alright. So, this was my story, and how do I get from there to where I am? Because the taste of a vegetable was not resonating with me, alright? It's just something I didn't grow up around, and it would repulse me, alright? A brussels sprout? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? No way, no how. The list goes on and on of the things that I was averse to, the real whole foods that my DNA had evolved, having access to and communicating with, I was now living a fast-food paradigm.

And so, the thing that helped to bridge that gap. That tool was juicing. Now, I'm not talking about the Barry Bonds kind of juicing. Alright, I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about the A-Rod juicing allegedly. Alright, I'm not talking about that kind of juice, I'm talking about real whole food juicing, vegetable juicing, a little bit of fruit mixed in there as well with these different combinations is starting to deliver my cells this nutrition that heretofore had never gotten any access to. And in a way that I could actually was palatable and having that be a bridge that started to change my craving, started to change my palate and things that I associated with. I personally first-hand, this is my first-hand experience, for me utilized juicing as a power like I had no idea. This for me, this was around 2005, when I started to utilize this tool, and I had the great gift of having my mother-in-law who had all these different juicers and she was like making wheatgrass, and all these things that seemed very weird. Even the studio here, I'm looking over and seeing, we got this little plant here that looks like wheatgrass, that I would see at her house, alright? And I just thought it was just a very strange phenomenon, but because of various things happening in my life, I took that tool on, and I utilized it.

And one of the things that took place for me, was... So, with me transforming my own health, that was through really cleaning up my nutrition and upgrading the sourcing of my food, I got so much better from that alone, but when I got rid of the things that were bothering me for years, the asthma, the allergies, those strange things that I kind of accepted as normal. Every year, certain things would happen, I get hay fever. Those things no longer existed when I started to utilize this tool, and that's my first-hand experience and working with thousands of people as well and seeing them implement these different strategies, and it's not for everybody, but I saw such a great success with it, and I thought, today I would reinvigorate this tool because now it's become a little bit common where a lot of people know about juicing, there's been many different books and documentaries and things like that. But listen, a little bit of OG with this subject matter, and I want to rekindle this fire because there's a certain bridge that juicing can help to create and also simply, today, more than ever when health is not being talked about, when we're dealing with such a widespread health issue, we're not really talking about getting our citizens healthier.

And for many people that are like me, where that gap is too wide to go from eating a fast-food paradigm to eating a real whole food paradigm, the gap is so wide that it can seem to be too difficult to traverse. When I talk about somebody who's the walking, talking representation of this tool, and somebody who is inspiring many people and making it very practical as well, that's who I have for you today on this episode. So very, very excited about this because again, there's been a lack of focus on health and providing a plethora of different tools, because not every tool is for everybody, there's so many wonderful diet frameworks, and I've really made it an intention to bring forward experts in each domain, voices with experience in serving and helping other people to achieve great results with these different tools to help to educate folks and to share, "Hey, there's not just one cookie-cutter way of being here." There are physicians and experts that we've had who focus on a ketogenic protocol, or a paleo protocol, or even a carnivore protocol, or vegan protocol. There's a plethora of different frameworks that are available today, and the core tenet here, and that I want to remind you of and keep an open mind with all these things, is that, is it based on real whole food as a tenet?

Because there's a lot of infighting on what's best because a lot of folks are very dogmatic that their approach should be the approach for everyone, and I just want to ask you to express some compassion in this moment for other people and their experience. Because in truth, in me seeing this first-hand, every one of us is so incredibly unique, yes, we are the same species, but even if we're talking about our microbiome cascade, we have a unique microbial fingerprint that is unlike any other human who's ever existed in the history of humanity. And here's the rub, it's dramatically different. Your unique microbial fingerprint is dramatically different than what it was yesterday, let alone last week, and the same thing for tomorrow and next week, our microbiome is shifting and adapting and changing so much that if you sneeze, you could have a shift in your microbiome, but seriously, just simple exposures, it might be something that we inhale from the environment if somebody... Maybe some car exhaust that can have an impact on our microbiome, the foods that we're eating, obviously. The water that we're drinking.

What's in the water? Is it chlorinated water? For example, all of these things have an impact. Our sleep, there's so much science that we now have, peer-reviewed evidence on how our sleep dramatically impacts our microbial cascade, alright? So, you have a unique microbial fingerprint, and those microbes that you currently have right now, there's a certain nutrition input that's going to help the community to thrive, to have a healthy microbiome versus having dysbiosis, is going to be unique to everybody. And so, getting away from that place of judgment and understanding that certain teachers with certain frameworks, they're not doing that to be nefarious, they're doing it because it's helping patients.

It's something that they believe in because they've seen it first-hand, help people to get better, and again, their story is going to be different from person to person, so your microbial fingerprint, but also you have an overall metabolic fingerprint that is dramatically different from any other human in the history of our species or whoever lives on beyond this. And so you're going to hear the transformation, the physical transformation, and also, if you're watching the video of this episode, you get to see first-hand his physical transformation as well, because with his unique metabolism and his tool being implemented, has helped him to really thrive into express and experience levels of health that he didn't even know existed. And so, again, I want to make sure that this tool is highlighted and available for you, if it fits, if it feels good, if it's something you want to experience or experiment with, and if not, there are so many other wonderful tools for us to utilize.

That's the beauty of today, but it's still going to boil back and he's going to talk about that as well, too simple clinically proven tenets of health that we all have access to, that our genes expect from us beyond nutrition. And so that's where the conversation really needs to go, is what are the things that unify us in health. So, again, really excited about this episode. Now, our special guest actually brought me a gift, he actually made me a fresh juice himself, and he added something that he didn't know, this is one of my all-time favorite things to the juice that just really up-levels the nutrition. I've been adding this particular thing to various juices and different recipes for years and years and years, just continue to find it incredibly valuable. And what I'm talking about is spirulina. Now, of course, I thought this was super weird when I first heard about it, but then finding out, hey, this is the most protein-dense food ever discovered, and humans have been utilizing spirulina for thousands of years, documented, and in fact, spirulina was a major protein source for various human civilizations, including the ancient Aztecs of Mesoamerica, and all the way to nation of Chad in Africa, and its rise back to popularity actually began in the late 1980s when NASA initiated research proposing that this nutrient-dense protein source could be utilized in space by astronauts.

It's not rocket science. Remember when I said that earlier, look how it ties together. You see how I intermingle those things. But truly, the science really backs this up as to its efficacy. Spirulina is so dense in nutrition that the United Nations has been working to utilize it to help stamp out global malnutrition. It is packed with an abundance of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and other essential nutrients, but what does the data show? Well, a recent double-blind placebo-controlled study had participants who received spirulina, lost significantly more weight and had a greater reduction in body mass index than those taking a placebo. And another study published in the Journal of Medicinal foods uncovered that having just two grams of spirulina a day had outstanding effects on reducing blood glucose levels over the course of a two-month study period. Now, spirulina plus one of my other favorites, chlorella, which it's appropriately named because it's one of the chlorophyll-rich foods on the planet. It's another one of those metabolism supporting entities, in a study published in the peer-review journal Appetite, found that this chlorophyll can actually aid in weight loss and reduce the urge to eat hyper-palatable foods.

That's what happened to me. I had a reduced attraction to hyper-palatable foods, to my Ding Dongs and Ho-Hos that I was getting from the Hostess outlet. 'Cause I'm from St. Louis, so we had a Hostess outlet was there. But I really feel... Again, I've said this before, I really feel like they're insulting us even with the product names. Ho Ho, Ding Dong. Come on. Snowballs? The tag line for Snowballs is actually, "They're to be eaten not thrown." But these are the entities that are seeking a controlling interest with our mind and with our palate. And so, having incredible nutrition sources like this, and literally, it's not just something kind of superficial or imaginary, really does help to reset our palate. And so having that combination, spirulina, chlorella, Moringa, ashwagandha, in a combination that actually tastes good, a little bit of coconut water flavor, a little bit of mint, and these are things that are utilized on a daily basis to... Even if I'm having a fresh juice, I'm up-leveling the juice by adding Organifi. Organifi is a green, superfood, green juice blend in and of itself; that's the name, green juice is the formula.

Organic cold temperature process: this is something you can simply add to water or up-level our juices with Organifi. Go to organifi.com/model, that's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com/model, and you get 20% off their amazing green juice formula. They also have a phenomenal red juice blend as well. The gold, that is centered around turmeric is amazing as well. Pop over there. Check them out. Organifi.com/model for 20% off. Now, let's get the Apple Podcast review of the week.

ITUNES REVIEW: Another five-star review titled, "Shawn is the real deal," by Low Haze, "such a valuable podcast, vital to our well-being and peace of mind, met Shawn in San Diego in 2018, and at the 120 Conference in Atlanta at 2021. He is such a genuine guy, man of integrity, with a beautiful family. Love this guy."

SHAWN STEVENSON: Thank you so much. I love you as well. And thank you so much for connecting with me in ATL, and just shout out to everybody who came and said hello. It's so great to connect and to see everybody. We've got a big mission ahead, and this is all driven by you. Truly, us all coming together right now and standing up for integrity, standing up for real help and really helping to usher in a real change to our health care system, and centering things around, you guessed it, real health. And on that note, let's get to our special guest and topic of the day. Our guest today is Jonny Morelli, and his incredible story of transforming his own health and well-being from a myriad of different health issues, and also losing over 60 pounds and becoming an inspirational force, reaching millions of people through his various platforms and educating folks along with his special co-star that we're going to talk about as well during this episode. And operating in his own life as a health coach and a speaker and an inspiration for so many people. And we've been connected for quite some time, but I had the opportunity to actually sit down with Jonny the Juicer and have an incredible timely conversation, so let's jump into this conversation with the amazing Jonny Morelli. Jonny, thank you so much for coming and hang out with us.

JONNY MORELLI: Thank you so much, man. It's my pleasure to be here.

SHAWN STEVENSON: We're basically twinned up today.

JONNY MORELLI: I know. I love it.

SHAWN STEVENSON: For people who are watching the video. I mean, down to the white shoes. All black, and white shoes.

JONNY MORELLI: Love it. And the hat.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, of course. It's the swag.

JONNY MORELLI: Love it.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh, man, your swag is impeccable, your story is bananas, and we've known each other for quite some time, but this is our first time actually hanging out in the same room together, so it's really great to connect.

JONNY MORELLI: For sure, man, I know. I remember the beginning of my journey, I was looking at all these documentaries and stuff, and I actually first found you on the Healing Effect.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Wow. Yeah.

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah, so it was way back.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, I remember that film, is one of those Food Inc-type documentaries I did.

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah. Dr. Joe Furman was in there. And yeah, it was awesome.

SHAWN STEVENSON: That's so cool, man.

JONNY MORELLI: And hearing your story, and I was like, "Wow, this guy is pretty cool."

SHAWN STEVENSON: That's the beautiful thing about media today, it's like you never know who you're connecting with or who you're going to reach. And you're reaching so many people right now with your voice and your perspective and your story, and I want to talk about that for everybody and dig into your superhero origin story a little bit. So, I know that you played basketball for quite a while, but early on, how did you get interested in health and fitness?

JONNY MORELLI: Well, I was always into fitness from a very young age. I played soccer growing up, then as I got into junior high and high school, I got competitive into basketball. Played high school varsity ball for years. I played travel basketball; I was going to Florida, playing... I mean, Dwayne Wade we played against and a lot of these old-school cats. So I was always into fitness, but I always had GI issues, I always had something going on. And I'm Italian, coming from an Italian background. My mom was an amazing cook, with a lot of bread, a lot of dairy, a lot of pasta, so I never really connected the dots that it was what I was eating, especially being young, I just listened to whatever my mom would say or the doctors would say. And when I was in eighth grade, I had my first colonoscopy. And there was...

SHAWN STEVENSON: In eighth grade?

JONNY MORELLI: Eighth grade. And there was Crohn's in my family, so my mom was worried because I was always either constipated or I had diarrhea, and it was pretty much every day. So, this is something that I just thought, "Okay, I was born with." You're just thinking you're born with and, here, this pill is going to help this. So, I had another colonoscopy done my sophomore year when the doctor told me that, "Okay, IBS, you're lactose intolerant." So, I had pills for both of those. So, whenever I would eat, I would take something before that. I was also throughout high school given a hall pass from my doctor, basically, any time. And I used to...

It's funny 'cause my junior, senior year, I used to take advantage of it all the time after lunch. I would be leaving my physics class, and I'd always tell my teacher, "I got to go to the bathroom," which a lot of the cases would be, but I'd always go in my friends' classrooms and their teachers would always let me, and I'd always be messing around. But, yeah, I was always into fitness, but, like I said, my health wasn't always the best, and even playing basketball, varsity, half-times I would always be in the bathroom, in the toilet. And then as I got out of high school, it progressively got worse, 'cause here now I'm going to a junior college, eating fast food. I'm not even eating my mom's home cooking anymore; I'm eating McDonald's and Wendy's and all this stuff. And I turned 21, you start drinking, you start going out partying, your priorities get... I want to get girls, and all this stuff. And I didn't really have a purpose, I was just kind of coasting and just trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And what I found was like, my mom was, "Hey, why don't you become a firefighter?" I had two uncles that were firefighters, so I got my EMT, tried to become a firefighter, and in the process, my uncle got me into FedEx, and I started driving a truck, and I just got in this perpetual cycle of nine-to-five.

And it was a very fast-paced job, so always on the go; you have all these stops you got to make. And whatever was convenient at the time I was getting. So, whether it was Wendy's, Taco Bell, 7-Eleven, Big Gulps with hot dogs, stuff like that, and my problems just progressively got worse as I was getting older.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And so, you also had, during this time you were getting a lot of migraines as well, right?

JONNY MORELLI: Migraines. I was prescribed migraine medication as well. But the crazy thing is I wouldn't take the medication 'cause it didn't work as well as Excedrin Migraine which I was hooked on. 'Cause, it has caffeine in it, so I would pop like... I built up a tolerance to where I was taking like five, sometimes six Excedrin Migraines a day, even when... It was crazy. To the point one time...

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, my eyes are big right now, if people can't see the video. But wow, that's nuts.

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah, so when I would work at FedEx, there'd be times when they would just come out of nowhere; I would never connect what was causing them. So, I would be... At FedEx, I would be at a stop, and I would feel it coming on, and it'd be to a point where I have to be in a dark room, and I'd get nauseous, sometimes throw up. So, I would call my manager and I'd say, "Hey, I'm getting a migraine." And what they would do is, is what they call a sweep, where they'd have another driver come, take all your freight, take it to the airport. And it happened a lot of times. So, this is stuff that happened throughout my whole teen... Most of my teens and progressively got worse in my 20s. And, yeah, man, it was just a toxic cycle.

And then it was pretty much Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I was partying. After I was partying, going out and eating... Chicago, you go to Greek Town, you go get pizza, you go whatever, Big Slice Pizza, and then I would try to recover Monday. And I wasn't eating an adequate diet with good nutrition or anything, so I'd be pounding Red Bulls, Monsters, things of that nature to get energy. So yeah, man, very toxic cycle.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Wow, man. You were pretty messed up. You were pretty messed up. But here's the thing, too, as you were caught in this vicious circle and turning to people who we deem to be the health experts to help you with these issues, but walking away with another prescription, and also finding ways to self-medicate, self-manage, get yourself just out there in the world and able to do stuff. But something happened, man, something turned this whole story around. And now you're one of the healthiest people walking around, inspiring everybody. What happened? What was that thing that...?

JONNY MORELLI: So yeah, it happened when I... I also want to add, with the fitness, I was always into lifting, whether it was... There was times when I was 225, but I was thick. I was taking Cell Tech and Hydroxycut and protein powders, but I never got the results I wanted. I never got as lean as I wanted. So, I would spend hours at the gym, and it was always my diet that was messed up. So, one day, I used to be hardcore into watching documentaries and stuff, like Food Inc and stuff like that, but nothing really inspired me until I saw Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. This was when I was turning 32 years old. And at that time...

SHAWN STEVENSON: Can you talk a little bit about what that is? That film?

JONNY MORELLI: The film. So, it's basically this guy, Joe Cross. He basically goes on a juice cleanse for 30 days, and he's on 21 medications, and he basically is off all medications by the time he's done with the documentary. In the process, inspiring people, like a lady, for example, that I resonated with who had migraines all the time to the point that I did. And then this other guy who lost over 200 pounds. So, I was like, Wow, this is crazy. I never even understood there was a thing as juicing. Like when you say juicing, I thought it was like using a blender. I had a Ninja, that's what I used all the time. I didn't know there was a machine that separated the fiber and you're just getting all these greens and stuff, 'cause I never ate vegetables, I never got greens. If it was, it was like my mom making a little iceberg salad with grape tomatoes and thousand island dressing or Catalina or whatever.

So, to me, I was so intrigued, the next day... I'm a Scorpio, I kind of have this very extreme personality where I'm like, "I'm going to get that same juicer." And I did the next day, went to Bed, Bath and Beyond, bought the same juicer, and started playing around with juicing a little bit.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Wow. So right out of the gate, you jumped on board. But you're coming from primarily the sad, standard American diet, a lot of fast food, running yourself thin, going out drinking, all the things. So, when you saw this film, did you immediately... Did it click instantly? Or did you go through a little bit of turbulence first?

JONNY MORELLI: It clicked instantly. However, I went through a lot of turbulence afterward. So, I went and bought the juicer, and that weekend there was a three-day juice cleanse I saw by Dr. Joe Furman, and it was also with Joe Cross who had the documentary. So I go, "I'm doing this." So, I went out, bought all the produce, made all the juices, jarred it all. And I'll never forget that Monday, my girlfriend at the time was doing it as well, 'cause we both watched and we were like, "This was... " To me, it was the most inspiring film, even to this day, that I saw, 'cause it changed my life. So, we started a juice cleanse together, a three-day juice cleanse. Here I'm at Fed-Ex, got all my juices with me, and we're talking throughout the day. Day one, cool, I'm just drinking nothing but juice. Day two, I wake up, getting ready to go to work, and I have a migraine. And I'm like, "Oh man, here comes the headache; I don't know if I'm supposed to be doing this, I don't know if I... All these thoughts are coming in my head. This isn't normal, I shouldn't be just drinking juice, I need to eat."

So, I'm at my lunch break at work, and I didn't take no pills, nothing, I just had this little bit of a headache. And I'm driving, I'm looking at my juice, and I'm like, "I can't do this, man." So, I go to the gas station, buy a little Excedrin Migraine packet, pop two Excedrin Migraines, go to Culver's, which is across the street... I don't know if you're familiar with Culver's in the Mid-West; it's cheeseburgers, cheese curds, French fries, all this stuff. So, I just went there, and I just slammed all this fast food on day two. So, I stopped the juice cleanse, and my girl calls me at the time, she's like, "How are you feeling on it?" I'm like, "I just had a cheeseburger, and I don't think I can do this, I don't think it's for me." So, what happened was, I kind of went away from it, a little bit after that, because I felt it was too much, maybe because I just jumped right into a three-day juice cleanse. And what... I had that a-ha moment when I looked at pictures of myself, like the one that I shared with you of my transformation, and that was on Christmas when I was 31 years old, and I was just unhappy with the way I looked.

I'm like, "Man, look at me, I don't look happy, I'm not happy, I don't feel good. And here I'm in my 30s, and if I don't change something or make a change, I'm eventually just going to be sucked into this revolving door of pharmaceutical drugs and depending on pills." So that New Year's I made a drastic change. I go, "You know what, I'm going to do a juice cleanse, the three-day juice cleanse, and afterward I'm just going to incorporate a juice every day. Not going to go crazy, not going to change my diet, I'm just going to incorporate 32 ounces of juice." And what 32 ounces is, for people that don't really understand it, it's basically between 12 and 15 servings of raw vegetables. So, it's just a great way to...

SHAWN STEVENSON: The micro-nutrient density.

JONNY MORELLI: Exactly. And that's how it all started, right there, that New Year's set it off.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. You know what, you just said something so remarkable, I don't even know if you realize this, or if people listening. You added something in. You didn't try to fight to get yourself to stop doing a thing or pulling things away. And being in this field for 20 years, running a clinical practice, helping so many people, what I found to be the most successful tenet is helping folks to add things in versus taking things away. Because I think it's a premise of human psychology that we don't like having stuff taken away from us that we enjoy.

JONNY MORELLI: Exactly.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And we tend to fight for the things that, even if they're hurting us, that we enjoy or that we're comfortable with. And so, the beauty was you started to add in this practice, and it started to just kind of naturally crowd out things that didn't resonate with you.

JONNY MORELLI: Exactly, that's what happened. I didn't change my diet at all, I just... Well, what happened was, 'cause I was still even partying on weekends, and even going into that year I was still going out Friday, Saturday, and then what started happening was, "Alright, hey, I'm spending all this money on this organic produce, spending all this time making the juices, what if I stop partying on the weekends, what if I take out alcohol, something I haven't done since I was 21?" So that's when things started changing. I stopped partying, I stopped... I started cheating on the weekends only. But it's funny because even when I was incorporating the juices throughout the week, I would still go to 7-Eleven and think I was eating healthier because I wasn't eating fast food; I would go get Cheez-Its and a beef jerky and string cheese, and I was like, "Okay, I'm getting a little protein here, I'm doing this and I'm drinking my juice, I'm good." So, the crazy thing is, is over time I started... My taste buds started adapting to the juices and I started craving more of that type of food, and, like you said, crowding out the stuff that I was used to eating all the time.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. You know, there's this phenomenon... We talk about the palate changing, your taste buds changing, but recently, it's just within the last couple of years, some really cool science has come out showing how, in fact, the proteins that we produce... Like our saliva is so remarkable. You can learn so much about somebody just from their saliva, for example. Like Maury Povich, "You're not the father," all this... You can learn a lot from saliva. But it's encoded with your DNA, your RNA, your digestive enzymes being able to basically encode that food. And so, as you do change and shift the foods that you're eating, what your body produces in response to food changes too. So, it's a real phenomenon and...

Because we haven't hung out as much... Again, we stay connected on social media quite a bit, but you didn't know that for many years I spent some time... And this is the reason, and so I'm just going to put this out there for everybody. I don't feel like you can speak from a place of true authenticity and integrity unless you've done the thing. So, running a practice, and there were so many different diet frameworks, I felt like I would be out of integrity if I'm telling somebody they can't do something based on my own experience if I've never done the thing. So I would relent to undertake all these different frameworks, and I would do it for a long period of time, like a year, two years, three years; vegan protocol, raw food protocol, Paleo protocol, keto protocol.

You name it, I've done all of it. I tested it off on the number one source. It might be anecdotal, but the number one source of discovery and experimentation is yourself. And, of course, looking at the peer-reviewed evidence on each thing. And the crazy thing is, too, you can find evidence to match up on any different framework. And so, it really helped to push away the dogmatic thinking that I had, and open myself up to know like, "Listen, everybody has unique needs, everybody's different, every human is amazing and beautiful, let's find out what's best for this human right now, right here." And so, one of the things that I did that really helped to shift, and like I said we've got a lot in common... I didn't even eat a salad, not even that iceberg, it was never part of my food vocabulary, I just never touched it. And so, what changed was I did a 21-day juice cleanse.

JONNY MORELLI: Wow.

SHAWN STEVENSON: A 21-day juice fast. This was in 2006, I believe, maybe 2005. So somewhere around that time. And my cravings shifted. The foods that I was attracted to, that same salad that would make me dry heave over a trash can was now the most incredible thing I had ever eaten. And the reason I undertook that, which we'll talk just a little bit about, which is, I saw something phenomenal happen with somebody close to me, which was my wife. But we weren't married at the time yet, but she had this very concerning health issue, and her mom put this protocol together, which she's my greatest teacher, truly, to this day.

And she was already. She had all these raw food cookbooks, they had wheatgrass in their house, I'm just like, "Why are they... What is up with your family? Why is the grass indoors?" Never saw that before. And she put this protocol together for my wife, and she went back to see the doctor 21 days later, and they couldn't find this particular precancer cells, and so I was just like, I didn't know that was a thing. I didn't know that changing nutrition to that degree... Because I knew about it from more of a superficial thing, structurally it can change, I didn't know about disease to that extent. And so, I couldn't in good integrity tell other people about this without me doing it, and yeah, like you said, it deeply, deeply changed me. So, I want to ask you about the thoughts that came up during that time, because I think that's an important part of it, is being able to listen to that internal dialogue and hear that voice that comes up that starts to talk you out of things or talk you into things, and how do you today help to manage that and communicate?

Do you have some practices, is it meditation, is it something to be more cognizant of that voice that's always chattering around in our minds?

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah, absolutely, man. I'll start with just saying how my diet kind of changed over time and how that changed the way I see everything.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes.

JONNY MORELLI: Because like I said, I started incorporating the juices and it wasn't until three months in that year, I read The China Study and I got into being a vegetarian, and I still had a lot of the problems I was going through with GI, and eventually that year I also went vegan and got into raw foods, and it was crazy 'cause even raw foods at the time, I was YouTubing all this information about people who have gone through similar situations and all these success stories and started getting recipes about juicing, and then I saw a guy make a video about juicing and raw foods. I'm like, "What is he talking about? Is he talking about fish?" And then I'm like, "Wow, that totally makes sense." So, the following year, I did a 21-day raw food cleanse. And at the time when I was 33 years old, and I'd felt the best I had ever felt in my life.

Just off that. Mental clarity, focused, everything started changing my relationships, the way I interact with people. I remember in my last year at FedEx, every lunch break I would go to, there was this little lake on my route, and I would just naturally go there, I'd have half a watermelon with a spoon, I'd have a green juice and I'd just go sit out there, take my shoes and socks off, ground my feet, take my shirt off, and naturally, without even knowing the benefits of, for example, grounding, like my body just started wanting to do this stuff, everything started slowing down and I started seeing things differently. And yeah, I started getting into meditation, I started... My whole life... I literally did a 180.

A lot of my relationships changed, like I said, my interactions, I started realizing, man, I started creating content on social media, and I started realizing, man, I'm working a nine to five using all my creative hours in the day, busting my butt, meeting all these different deadlines, when I'm not really fulfilling what I feel like my purpose is, I started feeling like I was finding this treasure of health, I'm in my mid-life, figuring out all these things that I was never taught in school, I was never taught by a doctor, and I wanted to reach more people and that's how I started using social media, and that's when I started realizing, man, what if I started putting more hours into this and reaching more people. So, while I was at FedEx working a nine to five, it was crazy, I started creating content on social media, so I would make videos, I would make posts, just sharing recipes, sharing my story, sharing my journey, and I eventually said, "I don't want to drive a truck no more, I'm done."

So, I got went online and I got my health coaching certificate, I started selling juices out of my house, I just started aligning with things that I wanted to do to help people and spread my message, and it just naturally started turning my passion into a paycheck. I started making videos online and companies reaching out and I'm like, "Wow, I can make more making a video that takes me a few hours to make than working five days a week," you know, so that's when everything started changing, and I remember my mom telling me like "You're crazy or, don't leave this job. You have a 401k; you have a pension." I'm like, "Just trust me, Mom, I'm laser-focused right now, I know it's going to be good." And yeah, man, everything just started changing in that way, and I'll never forget like I hated public speaking, hated talking in front of people, and even school... Could never get in front of the class.

Speech class hated it. And how I started knowing I started falling into my mission was I started meeting people, professional athletes, celebrities, the founder of the school that I got certified in reached out to me, asked me to come speak at his school, and that ties back into the public speaking. I remember going down there and... Yeah, his name was Josh Rosenthal, the founder of Integrated Nutrition. And I go down to the school and he's like, "Yeah, bring your dog. We'd love to have you. You're going to speak; Deepak Chopra is going to speak." And I'm like, "Oh cool, you got some pretty big guys here." Find out two days before I'm speaking while I'm there there's 3000 people, so I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm not doing this. No way." I was creeping out. I told the people that were working with me, I'm like, "I don't know if I could do this," I go, "I've never spoken in front of more than 50 people, like in Chicago, I was doing little events," and I'm like, "I don't know if I could do this, I might get stage fright, I might pass out, I might throw up."

And they're like, "It's fine. Just share your story. It's not about you, it's about sharing your story to help others. Think of it that way." And I remember the night before going to speak, I was throwing up, I got sick and I thought I was getting the flu-like, "Man, I'm not going to be able to speak." But what I felt was, I think I was purging all that fear, because the next day I went on stage and I rocked it, and ever since then, I've been addicted to just sharing my story and just trying to help others get healthier and find their path and mission.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, that's kind of a sign when it's you and Deepak coming out to that gate. That's a pretty amazing, man.

JONNY MORELLI: Well, it's crazy because not only that, I started realizing through social media when I was a kid, Maya, the singer, used to be obsessed with Maya, I had pictures of her in my locker, everything, went and saw our life, and then... We connected on social media, and she actually made a video with me. And then I started helping Tia Mowry from Tia & Tamera and Calvin Harris, I'm communicating with all these people, I'm like, "Alright, I'm definitely on my mission, I got to just keep going harder with what I'm doing."

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, it's sort of going on.

JONNY MORELLI: Everything started aligning.

SHAWN STEVENSON: That's beautiful, man. So, you're listening to the messages because, of course, we've got our internal template, but I believe the world starts to correspond to that song, to that intention. And this brings you back to you listening to that intention, so as you're getting healthier, you're able to see these things more clearly, probably some opportunities that were there already, and also clarity of thought, so being able to hear that voice in your head and deciding, is this true, is this not true, and deciding the way basically that you want to think.

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah, I never... Yeah, I felt like I never had that voice, I was always... I never had that like, if you want to call it self-love, I was always more or less self-sabotaging myself, so I never had that inner voice. And of course, through the fasting and the raw foods and the juicing, I felt like my intuition grew very strong and just knowing what I need to be doing and what my mission is, and also even the way I would process things and process information, especially with what's going on in the world right now. I just feel like intuitively, you just know, especially with having all the experiences you've had with doctors per se, or just all your journey altogether, like coming full circle, you just kind of know.

You just get that instinct, that gut instinct. People say that gut instinct, what is that? Intuition? Right, and if your gut's dysbiotic, you're not going to have that intuition.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right. Oh man, speak it, man, that's powerful. Me being so science-minded, I found a great definition of intuition, which is advanced pattern recognition, and so you just mentioned going through certain things, but are you paying attention to them and gaining that knowledge, accessing that knowledge, catching the pattern? And so you got that piece, but then there's also the thing that we talked about this before the show, the thing that we can't explain, and the amount of times that everybody listening has had these things, the synchronicity, these gut feelings about certain things, and we tend to brush that under the table because they're not necessarily easily replicated, we can't put words to them, but the crazy thing is now we got incredible scientists and entire institutes, if people want to check out HeartMath Institute, for example, that are analyzing these deeper, cognitive and really emotion-based expressions that we have as humans that actually transmit and kind of create substance, even every thought is a physical occurrence as well, and it has an impact on the world around us, that tube Torus, that magnetic electromagnetic field from the human heart, it has a field that expands beyond our bodies.

And so we have management tools now today where we can actually see it and measure it, it's pretty cool stuff, but these are things that our ancestors have been telling us for a long time, and I really feel that it's still not our domain to try to describe it, it's our domain to acknowledge that it exists, at least give it that credibility, and from there, I think it's one of the most human things. Every other animal in the animal kingdom, we kind of acknowledge their instincts and intuition, but for us it's just like, "Ah, get out of here with that Reading Rainbow, LeVar Burton stuff, get out of here with that." And for us, especially times like this, I think it's most important for us to listen to our own hearts, our own internal guidance system and just to honor that, but I think that especially with the world of effects around us, it can start to press down on you and make you ignore that voice, and how often do we ignore that voice that's telling us do this or don't do that, and we end up finding ourselves in a compromising situation? But the beautiful part is that it's still present. And so, I want to ask you about...

Because you actually... Another thing about you that I can already tell off the bat is that you're very giving human being, service-minded, you came here today, and you came bearing gifts, if people are watching on the YouTube channel, you made me a fresh juice right here that I have sitting here on the table.

JONNY MORELLI: This morning, this morning.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Can you talk about what you put together for this juice?

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah, so I went to the Farmers Market, MarVista on Sunday, and this morning I pressed through my Greenstar, which to me is the best cold press juicer out there, celery, romaine, ginger, turmeric, lemon, and a pinch of pineapple and some fresh spirulina as well.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh.

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah. But you'll feel the ginger and the turmeric, it's not too hot, but it's enough to awaken the senses.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, that spice. So, yeah, why go with the ginger? Why go with the turmeric?

JONNY MORELLI: Well, those are both two of the most powerful anti-inflammatories we know. For how many years have we been... Well, actually it's funny, I never even knew what ginger was; like I said, I didn't know what a juicer was?

SHAWN STEVENSON: I thought it was a person, I consider were, a character on like... What is it? The Gilligan's Island, or something like that.

JONNY MORELLI: Or Casino, the movie Casino, being Italian, I could write ginger for Sharon Stone. Yeah, but yeah, ginger has been a staple in all my juices, no matter what, I'm always throwing ginger and turmeric in there for inflammation, and just even post-workout, you just feel... You recover quicker for sure.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. There are some real-world peer review studies on ginger aiding in digestion for example, and helping to accelerate metabolism, it's really cool stuff, and also there's some aspects with ginger and that family that has some effects on a particular enzyme, hormones sensitive lipase that actually opens the cell, enabling the cell to empty its contents. If we're talking about burning fat, how does that process work? Hormone-sensitive lipase is kind of like that enzyme, that enzymatic key opening the cell to start the process. So, so cool, man. And now I want to ask you about this as well. People are thinking about, "Hey, this sounds pretty doable, let me look into this more and start this process, let me add in, let me start doing a fresh press juice each day." Coming from where I came from, and I think maybe it might be similar to you, but would we start off just having somebody knocked down some kale, spinach, celery, and ginger juice straight up, or can somebody start a little bit lighter, maybe adding a little bit of apple, some celery? Let's talk about that.

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah, so it's funny, even when I worked at FedEx the last year and a half, I was always bringing juices to coworkers, bringing juices to people, just letting them try it, and the funny thing is 90-95% of the time, they loved it, they enjoyed it, they loved the ginger, even there was a driver that was an alcoholic, and he was always like, "Man, you got one of those juices with the ginger, one of those swamp drinks?" And I would... And I would bring it, but even when I do my health coaching like you said earlier, I never tell them to try to change their diet, I never tell them to do anything, I just try to tell them to add in a green juice, and I think the best way to do this, 'cause none of us are ready to really...

You could say, "Oh, you got to go eat more fruits and vegetables," and if you told me that in the beginning, I'd say, "No." Like you said, my palate's not there, you can't just eat a salad unless you're throwing a really good dressing under something, so the beautiful thing about juicing is you could throw all these different greens, leafy greens, ginger, things like that, and throw a pinch of pineapple or a Granny Smith apple to sweeten it up and make it palatable, and then you're kind of cheating the process of getting all those micronutrients. So, to answer that, I can say, I think there's... You do anything, you can throw a bunch of greens and just sweeten it with something that can make it palatable for anybody.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And I want to reiterate this point, of course, that number one, I think it's really great to just, literally you kind of flooding your body with these micronutrients, and it's in this liquid form, so it digests pretty quickly, and so keeping in mind the blood sugar management for yourself and what's going to feel good for you, and that's going to differ from person to person, I've always loved this strategy of adding in some protein with the juice like spirulina, for example, bringing in some amino acids which, funny enough, you brought me a juice with spirulina, I don't know if you do that for everybody, but that's more of my vibe and same thing chlorella, E3Live as well. Have you dabbled in those things?

JONNY MORELLI: Absolutely, so spirulina from the beginning has always been one of my staples, I've done the Hawaiian Pacific brand, I've worked with... I've worked with so many different companies, and recently I met a guy who produces... He makes his own spirulina in San Diego, and he harvests his own and he gives it to me and it's only good for like eight days, so I get it weekly. And it's amazing. So, the biggest thing on diet too, that I feel that people get away from is incorporating sea vegetables, I think sea vegetables are very important things like sea moss and dulse, and like you said, spirulina, chlorella, things of that nature. And I always just try to supercharge my juices with things like that, for sure, chlorella and spirulina though are like staples for me, for sure. They've been for the last eight years.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Perfect, perfect, highest protein-dense foods ever discovered, it's pretty cool.

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah, it's made up of like, I think they say 70% protein by weight spirulina.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, yeah, spirulina is and chlorella is somewhere around 50, upwards of 60. And then you've got AFA, Bluegreen Algae as well is kind of right in the middle. There's so many things, and again, these things have been used for thousands of years. Certain cultures have really subsisted on some of these things like I believe is the Aztecs, it might be the Mayans, but who utilized spirulina as a primary protein source. And also, it spans the globe, even in Chad, for example, spirulina is a primary food source for many centuries. So really cool. So you brought me this, you also brought... That my team was like, "What is that?" It looks like a dinosaur egg.

JONNY MORELLI: A dinosaur egg.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And you brought me this incredible avocado as well.

JONNY MORELLI: Yes, yeah. So, I get tropical food, I get all my fruit from the best sources in the US, so MiamiFruit, there's actually a place here in LA called Sasoun Produce in East Hollywood, and they get amazing guanabana and cherimoya and all these different tropical things you can't get in grocery stores, so I always make sure I got the best stuff given. This is the way I live my lifestyle. It's part of the reason I came to California.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Incredible, man. Incredible. And so, there's 1000 different varieties of just avocados alone. I'm probably undershooting it actually, when we think that there's not much variety, just because of the grocery store consciousness.

JONNY MORELLI: Exactly.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And this is... You just mentioned cherimoya, for example, there's so many different things, I'm sure that you've juiced, what's some of the weirdest stuff that you’ve juiced?

JONNY MORELLI: Well, most of my juices, I like eating my fruit, blending my fruit, and predominantly juicing greens, and if I sweeten it, it's like I said, with an apple or pineapple, so the funkiest things I've ever juiced in bulk that made me throw up actually was a arugula and mustard greens.

Didn't realize how powerful they were, so it was super powerful when I threw a whole bunch of them in there.

SHAWN STEVENSON: It just sounds like a bad idea, soon as you said the words, I was like, "I don't know if you should do that."

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah, yeah, my whole journey has been trial and error, I never really... There was never really no recipe book, I went off of, I kind of just molded my own recipes from what I liked and just trying things, you know, trial and error and... Yeah, I'll never forget mustard greens, 'cause I'm the type of person that... I brought that juice specifically to work, and it's like, "Oh, I got to drink it; I'm not going to waste it," and I end up drinking it and sure enough, a few seconds later came right back up, it was a little too much.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Mustard gas, bro.

JONNY MORELLI: Exactly.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Wow. Yeah, man, I've juiced a ton of different things, so when I got into it, you mentioned Greenstar juicer being your favorite, so I got right on to what my mother-in-law had, a Jack Lalanne juicer, and Jack was an OG guy. I think at the time when he started becoming the face of juicing, he was probably in the 60s and doing these incredible feats of strength and endurance, and I think for the 70th birthday, he swam from Alcatraz and pulled 70-row boats or something crazy.

There's like photos of him doing this stuff, and he was doing fitness video when TV was black and white, and so Jack Lalanne was one of those guys. So, we had the Jack Lalanne juicer, and I would juice, of course, the standard stuff, sneaking the greens in there till my palate kind of evolved, but then I've juiced things like burdock root, kind of metallic. I know that dandelion greens as well, that was something that was a little bit abnormal because at the time you couldn't find that in grocery store, but then I came across some data on dandelion greens, I'm just like, "This is crazy, I got a dandelion growing in my backyard." And then I saw some data on some of the compounds in there really dense for supporting the liver and things like that.

So, I'm assuming, of course, dandelion is another one...

JONNY MORELLI: Of course. Yeah, I have a juicing book online, and that's one, like you just said, liver juice with beets and dandelions and carrots, ginger, lemon. Yeah, dandelions are one of my favorite greens to juice actually, it's funny 'cause in the beginning, I wasn't a fan, but over time you just grow to enjoy these things, and now it's gotten to the point with me where I don't really even care about the taste anymore, it's just more about the benefits, especially as you age, you just want all those good benefits coming in.

SHAWN STEVENSON: We got a quick break coming up, we'll be right back.

Hey, I've got to share this revelation with you. Jonny has already mentioned two of my favorite things, turmeric, and ginger. Now, a little fun fact is that turmeric is actually a member of the ginger family. But the matriarch, the big boss, is ginger. And there's a micronutrient in ginger called zingerone, and it's being heavily researched for its influence on body fat. Now, hormone-sensitive lipase, like we talked about in the show, this is responsible for ushering fatty acids out of fat cells. New research has shown that zingerone, in ginger, is able to stimulate the activity of hormone-sensitive lipase and increase the breakdown of stored fat, which is the process of lipolysis. Researchers discovered that compounds in ginger are able to substantially improve the ratio of blood fats, and provide protection against non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is truly an epidemic right now. And that's just for starters, with what ginger has been proven to do.

Data published in the journal, Metabolism, demonstrate that participants consuming a hot ginger beverage with breakfast were able to boost the thermic effect of their food, meaning they burn more calories digesting their meal. And, they were also noted to have reduced feelings of hunger throughout the day. This is why ginger tea has been a storied nutrition source for centuries. The first person that I was exposed to making ginger team was my mother-in-law, and I saw there was just kind of a common practice in her culture after everyone had their meal, the ginger tea would get passed around, and I really didn't understand why, until I looked at the data. And also, just opening myself up, let me go ahead and try and implement a little bit of this ginger tea. And now one of my favorite things to have each day is the ginger tea from Pique Teas, it makes everything so simple, they're doing an incredible supercritical extract, and concentrating the ginger, it's super easy to add hot water, and it's all done the right way with their patented extraction process. And Pique Teas goes above and beyond by doing a triple toxin screening for common nefarious compounds that are in a tremendous amount of tea products.

Another one of my favorite teas from Pique Teas is Pu-erh. I've been talking about pu-erh a lot lately, and it's just because the data is so remarkable. A recent study published in the peer-review journal, Nature Communications, uncovered that there's a unique compound called Theabrownin found in this traditional fermented tea, pu-erh. And it also has been found to have some remarkable impacts on our microbiome. The research has found that Theabrownin is able to positively alter our gut microbiota and directly reduce hepatic cholesterol, so we're talking about a relationship to our liver and also reducing lipogenesis, so the creation of fat. Pretty remarkable stuff and this is what we find from the incredible teas at Pique Tea. Go to piquetea.com/model, that's P-I-Q-U-E T-E-A.com/model. Use the code "Model" at checkout to get 10% off their incredible teas.

Again, this is not talked about enough, but many of the... What would be amazing source of nutrition, if we're talking about these various teas, found on conventional store shelves? Even if it has the stamp of organic, they're not actually analyzing and looking at the toxins that these teas pick up from the environment, whether it's in the teabag itself or contained within the makeup of the tea. But a lot of teas, especially without the organic label, carry pesticides, heavy metals, and toxic molds, and these are all commonly found in various teas. And, again, some even stamped with the organic stamp of approval.

So, Pique Tea goes above and beyond to make sure that you're just getting these amazing nutrients, in super easy-to-use convenient packets. Again, their patented technology to create these concentrates. Simply add it to water and enjoy. Go to piquetea.com/model. Now, back to the show.

But what do you think about the phenomenon that's taken place recently, because when you were doing this, it was still a little bit of a French thing? I know when I was doing it, no one else was doing it in my circle. I started juicing, I lived in Ferguson, Missouri, I can't tell you another person that I knew in my city that was doing the things I was doing. But now, it's hard to go anywhere, especially in LA, man. Like we were doing this... You were in Chicago.

JONNY MORELLI: Chicago.

SHAWN STEVENSON: I was in San Louis; it was very abnormal. But here in LA, it's kind of difficult to go a few blocks without seeing a juice bar, especially seeing fresh-made juices at the grocery store or semi-fresh-made juices. So, what do you think about this evolution?

JONNY MORELLI: Well, to me, it's like a double-edged sword. 'Cause coming from Chicago, like you said, I was one of the only ones in the suburbs that I knew that was doing it or that was selling them out of my house. I didn't know anybody. And just like myself, nobody understood what juicing was. Everybody's just accustomed to smoothies and stuff. So, moving out here, and over the years of helping people and coaching people and being such a big juicing enthusiast, I realized I'm not the biggest fan of these juice bars, and a lot of the little juices they sell, like you said, at Whole Foods. Because, number one, when you make the juices and you know what goes into it, you know that when you look at the back of it and it's saying expires in 30 days, how fresh is that what it's preserved with.

So that, number one. And then also when people... Whenever I'm trying to coach people with this, I find that people that get into juicing and then say it doesn't work are the people that are working like a nine-to-five and then they want to do something healthier throughout the week, so on their break they just go to a juice bar, grab a juice, and they're like, "Oh, it was too expensive, I had 12 ounces, it really didn't do anything for me." So, to me, it's like, you have to do it and kind of do it like you're drinking a coffee every day. Turn that coffee into a green juice every day, turn to 12 ounces into 24, 32 ounces, and just adopt this lifestyle just for about 21 days, and just see what changes, see if your palate does start changing or if you do start feeling more mental clarity, more energy, and you could replace that coffee with a green juice.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So, I want to ask you about this incredible movement, like this has become your last name, people don't even know you as Jonny, you're Jonny Juicer. So, creating this incredible platform and content. And you've got a little co-star, as well. Can you talk about that a little bit? Talk about Noah.

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah, so it was funny. So, my whole intention of creating a platform was just showing that "Wow, I'd never been taught this information before", and this is something that people need to know, 'cause people are suffering. I see it within my friends' circles and within my family. Coming from an Italian background, most of my family's overweight, sick, on pharmaceutical drugs, and they only know this conventional western way of treating symptoms with pills and not really getting under the root cause of what's going on. So, when I started seeing the changes in myself... And I didn't even mention my mom's story because I actually inspired her, 'cause simultaneously when I was dropping this weight and taking myself off the stuff I was taking and changing my life, she had gotten a heart attack. And she was so inspired by how I changed my life, and just seeing how I was just this party animal to turning into somebody of service that wanted to help people get better, that she was open to it. And she went to the Mayo clinic where they wanted to cut her open, she was on seven medications, and I got her on juicing for a month. I'm like, "Mom, why don't you just do this? Just, this is what I did, try for a month incorporating a juice every day." And like you said, Jack Lalanne...

She had a Jack Lalanne juicer. Personally, I hated it, because she was like, "It's hard to clean, it's too long to juice." So, I actually gave her my juicer, because then I evolved into getting the Greenstar. So, every day... Actually, in the beginning, I was making the juices for her and delivering them for her. But long story short, she started juicing every day and she kept going past that month, because she dropped like 10 pounds, started feeling better, didn't really change her diet. But eventually did change her diet, went plant-based, and in a year and a couple of months' time, got off all her medication. And the craziest thing was, is I used to go to the doctor with her and tell the doctor like, "Yeah, I'm giving her green juices, I'm giving her reishi and chaga mushrooms, I'm giving her spirulina." And they didn't understand this stuff, they didn't know the stuff I was giving her. So, it used to frustrate me and it used to ignite this fire even bigger, that like, "Hey, something needs to be said about what's going on right now, because here now my mom just reversed heart disease which is the number one killer in America."

Every time she was going for check-ups, basically, everything was cleared up, they were taking her off another pill and another pill. So, my initial message was getting this out there 'cause people didn't have this information, getting recipes and just sharing my story to inspire people. And what I realized was I was reaching a lot of people at the time, like the algorithm was awesome, where you can meet and connect through hashtags with all these people, and I started building a platform just off that alone. And when I went vegan, I went vegan obviously more so for the ethical reasons, and I saw a film called Earthlings, and they did a whole little segment on puppy mills and stuff, and I'm like, "Wow; I go, I got to go adopt a dog, I think I'm in a place in my life where I want to adopt a dog." And sure enough, I'm in Chicago, go to a shelter, and I see this little Yorkie. Fell in love. I'm like, "That's him, that's him." And I took... And they brought him to the house, made sure it was a safe place, and adopted him. And interestingly enough, I had him on a raw meat diet at the time. My mentor Karen was getting fresh bison for her dog, so I was feeding it to Noah, but whenever I would juice, he'd be going crazy.

He'd be jumping on my leg, barking, going crazy, so I'd give him like a carrot. He'd eat the whole carrot. I'd give him a piece of kale; he'd eat the whole leaf of kale. Cuc, same thing. Every vegetable I gave him he would glom. So, I'm like, "Wow, I wonder if there's something to this." So, I started looking into plant-based for dogs and meeting people online that were feeding their dog plant-based and stuff, so I started feeding him like a predominantly plant-based diet. I actually have a whole recipe book on it, started working with my vet and they were totally cool with it, doing blood work and stuff. So that's when I started saying, let me throw him in a video. And I'll never forget the first video I ever made, I made a watermelon video where I had a giant one and a small one, and I cut it open, and the video is like 15 seconds long, when Instagram had 15 seconds, right? And I cut it open, put a spoon in it, cut open this little one, and made little watermelon balls, and I whistled, and Noah came in the room and started eating the watermelon. And that video pretty much went viral, my first Instagram viral video, and I thought, "Wow, I could use Noah to... "

"On my platform, I could use him as a tool to plant seeds," show that, "Hey, the dog's doing it and showing... Teaching about juicing and stuff." And it's funny, I started making videos on my phone, and it eventually evolved into a business, where Noah's always been somebody who I'm helping... You just use a little humor, and throw in the juicer, throw in some fruit, he's going to get this tool and that tool and eating this kale. And sure enough, I get messages even today where, "Hey, I started following you 'cause of your dog, but I just bought a juicer last year," or I just did my first juice cleanse, or I just went plant-based. So that's how that all started to evolve.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Man, I love this so much. I love the way that you shoot from his perspective. Because I'm thinking about it, I could see it, and it's so freaking good, man. I literally just went on a journey, and just watching the videos with Noah, and it's just so good, man. And this is a thing about you, as well, clearly you just pick up that energy of love, of inspiration, of compassion, and so these being tenets, and you infusing those things into your work, and now more than ever, especially at a time like this, those are still the same tenets. And you were one of the first people early on, and this was literally March 2020, you did a little cute video with Noah, and he had his little surgical mask on his little doggy face, and he had a little thing on the floor saying, "Stay six feet away." And, of course, he had his stockpile of toilet paper as well in the video.

And I think even at that time, again, this was March 2020, you had a healthy bit of skepticism about just kind of what we were tuning into, what we were leaning into, and some things that seemed a little bit fringe, lacking evidence and efficacy, but everybody's kind of doing it. And so, of course, if people are watching the video, they'll get to see that video, we'll put it up for everybody. But that was one moment, and it was still kind of like, "Hey guys, like let's not forget about what's most important here." Was that the reason, that driving force for you to even, all the way, literally at the beginning of this thing, to create something like that?

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah, it's always been my message is just helping people take their power back and stop externalizing it. Knowing that just with everything I went through and going down the rabbit hole of Big Pharma and just things of that nature, and knowing you can heal, have faith, like shut the TV, let's get back to the basics of... And also, just incorporating, like you said with Noah, is humor. People, I felt like, were very scared during that time, they were... Even people that see through what's going on, or however they view what's going on, I felt like there was a lot of fear. It was just a weird time and people needed that love, that something to laugh at, and I just tried to integrate videos with Noah in what we were approaching during that time. So, I even made videos like, "Take your flu shot," which was basically like a ginger turmeric lemon shot. "Shut your TV, go outside, get some sunlight." I was just preaching all these different healthy things that you could do. Just don't focus too much on all this stuff that's going to get you in this state of fear and ultimately make you panic until we really see what's going on.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, you had another video where you came in and Noah's just hooked on the news, like tuning into the news. And you go to turn it off, and he barks at you, and just fully immersed in that fear-based mindset. And one of the things that you've also been speaking up about and standing up about is basically, it's an erosion of logic really. So simply asking the question, "If we're going to shut down businesses, if we're going to shut down schools, what are the side effects that it might have on mental health issues, on rates of unemployment, on rates of suicide?" And one of the crazy things that's overlooked is we have this epic occurrence of unemployment that is taking place, and we tend to look at it as a superficial thing, even though that's concerning in and of itself, if we're looking at rates of poverty, of mental health distress, of suicide. But one of the recent studies I talked about even on the show, and it was from researchers at Duke University, they uncovered that when folks are unemployed, there's about a 35% greater incidence of having a heart attack. And then you look at the data. For me, again, I was sharing this at the very beginning, like, "Okay, this thing exists", and then sure enough once the numbers come out and you see the causes of death in the country, 2020, heart disease again reigning supreme, that on average it was about 630,000 deaths from heart disease.

But in 2020, there was almost 700,000. It took a mighty jump. And, again, I can see... I know where it comes from. So, you having the audacity to kind of speak out about these things, to just say, "Hey, if this thing is happening, if we're closing down mom and pop restaurants, farm-to-table places, and gyms, and we're keeping open McDonald's and the liquor store, maybe there's a conflict of interest."

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah. Yeah, well, that's what I was... I just said in my last post, I go, "Help me make sense of it." We're eventually moving towards where you need to have a vaccine passport in order to eat in a McDonald's. To me, that didn't make sense, and there was all these... In the beginning, like, for example, my girlfriend has a restaurant in San Diego, and we were both kinds of skeptic in the beginning; we were kind of like, "Alright, we kind of waiting and seeing what's going on", even though we kind of figured we knew what was going on, the more it went on, And they did the whole, "You could eat outside your restaurant, just make sure your tables are six feet apart." And then they said, "Now you got to take everything back in." And her, she invested all this money on an outdoor dining, said, I'm not doing that. It doesn't make sense. There's all these inconsistencies. You can fly in a plane elbow to elbow and eat next to a total stranger where you're all sharing the same air, but you can't be six feet apart outside. And like you said, McDonald's, liquor stores.

And even if you do look... See, there's a lot of people that aren't seeing what's going on right now, are just looking at headlines on the news or in the newspaper, they're not actually looking at data that's being suppressed from the mainstream media. And like you said, I think the obesity rate in America went up like 40% over the last year, and we're seeing a lot of the deaths are coming from obese comorbidities. I believe one of the studies was like, I want to say 90% of deaths are coming from people with four or more comorbidities. So why isn't health really being addressed, when... Especially when you come from a place I did. Maybe I wouldn't have been able to see it, had this been nine years ago, but having gone through everything I did with all my GI issues, and even having the flu every year, allergies, things that have been pretty much non-existent for me the last eight years, I kind of saw through it. And then when you look deeper into it, it's like, "Alright, there has to be something more, because we're clearly not addressing health." If anything,... I always say, "You can't inject health", why don't we start teaching people how to get healthy instead of closing hiking trails and the beaches...

To have them get out in the sun? Vitamin D is everything. It's part of the reason I moved out to California is to have that year-round. So...

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, having the caution tape around the parks, the playgrounds, and all these things. And, again, there's a healthy bit of uncertainty that we can have, being a little bit more cautious, but we also need to lean on the very principles of what makes us human. What are the things that our DNA requires for healthy replication, healthy expression of our genes? And as soon as we move away from those things, as a matter of fact, we create mandates that move us away from those things proactively, what do you think is going to happen? And so, yeah, what would be under the guise of this being, this is supposed to be about health, this is... At its foundation, this is supposed to be a fear about human health. Why are we not focusing on health and actually getting people healthier? It's been my rationality... And I love that you said this, and I want to lean into this a little bit more, had you not had the story that you have, and you just continue hanging out in that truck, pulling over, getting your truck unloaded, and sit in the back of that truck or laying down in the back of that black, dark truck to help you deal with that migraine and that continued to be your story, maybe you wouldn't have seen what's happening with a lack thereof focus on health, because we were...

At the time, myself included, we were outsourcing our health to other people outside of us, even though they weren't actually helping us, that's the break in our logic. And so that being the case, since you know what's possible, I think that that kind of lights a stronger fire under you to stand up and speak about these things.

JONNY MORELLI: Of course. That's my passion. That's my passion. I feel like my purpose here is to help people realize the infinite potential that we possess, whether it's through diet, through... I always talk about like, we can do so many things, 'cause people will say, "Oh, being healthy is so expensive," and it's like you can go outside and get sun, you can go do breathwork, you can go walk barefoot, you can go running outside, you could do all these things for free. So these are things that, like you said, it kind of angered me a little bit when I started saying we're not talking about none of this stuff, we're just... This one size fits all with everybody. And it's funny because a lot of the people that I also see within this community of people speaking up are all health-conscious and they all have had something that's rattled them in order to help them drastically change their life, at least in my case and the people that I communicate with, they've had drastic lifestyle changes because they've questioned Western medicine or Pharma or whatever it may be, and when you continually go down the rabbit hole and start following the money and seeing what the bigger picture, you start realizing like, hey, people are being deceived, and it's very easy to do see people who are disconnected from themselves, from eating a crappy diet and just numbing themselves with Netflix and TikTok and all these other distractions we have every day.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, you just said it, I really think it's a perfect chemical soup, and also mind candy as well, that's kind of created the conditions where humans are ripe for this to be very complicit, to be in a state where the... This is supposed to be at its core health issue, but to completely neglect health, anything about it, it's not going to be talked about in the mainstream media, but this is another powerful thing about this time right now, is that it's counter-acted so mightily with people being able to share their voice in such a big way that's never existed before. So I think it's a perfect opportunity because I think we've been asleep at the wheel a little bit even when we transform our own health and us allowing things to continue how they've been going, where our family members, for example, are suffering, where our communities, where our children are suffering, we continue to see these skyrocketing rates of obesity and what it's supposed to be adult-onset diabetes happening in children, and heart disease happening in children and autoimmune issues, and the list goes on and on, and we're just standing by letting that happens. And I think that this is the biggest wake-up call for us to really step up and to do something about this, stop letting this stuff go on automatic like it's okay when it's not. Especially for the people that don't have the ability to make a choice for themselves.

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah, exactly, yeah, and that's what we're seeing right now is... That's my biggest thing right now, especially with seeing the children in the schools, I just posted something the other day with kids all in the school all masked up singing songs about how masks protect them, it's like, is this where we're leaning towards where kids aren't even going to know their immune system works and that we have to be a pharmaceutical by-product or believe in masks is our savior. It's pretty sad. So that's why I think a lot of people, especially parents right now, need to stand up and see what's going on, but the problem is a lot of us are so accustomed to living this life of accumulating all these issues and just like you said, externalizing our power and just going to the doctor and they treat... And they just treat us.

So, a lot of people that are just obeying and complying with what's going on and getting the vaccine are just getting it, 'cause they want to get back to normal, they want to just... They think this is really for their health, but the people that have been through it see through it.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. And we'll put that video for everybody to check out. It's kind of heartbreaking. And again, there can be a level where these things I'm open and I know this is a thing about you too, it's like, it's not that we are neglecting, these things are possible entities that can be helpful, whether it's a mask in a certain context or pharmaceutical medication, everything has its place, but when we start to jump to those things first, and as a matter of fact, these things are propped up and become mandated as the things that are effective when the data just doesn't... By the way, if somebody... If this is the first episode, you're listening to by chance go to the modelhealthshow.com/maskfacts and have a field day on all the studies, because they've broken it down to the nth degree.

And looking at this indoctrination, what happens with our children is, again, they start to see other people as threats we have to protect ourselves from, they start to not understand or trust in their body's ability to protect them, their immune system, which has billions of years of evolution, versus this thing that Malik made at the factory, just so you know that I be like, come on, like, what are we doing? This is basic stuff, not to say that it can't be an adjunct in a certain context, but for our reliance and indoctrination that things are the solution and the way forward, especially for our children who are so like Santa Claus is real...

And by the way, ear muffs, ear muffs kids, if kids are listening, not sand at Santa, but they're so impressionable and we have no idea the havoc that is absolutely, man, it's hard to talk about that's really breaking our children down before they even get a chance to get started, and being disempowered and not having basic understanding of their own sovereignty and the miraculous nature of the human body. Like the reason that we're here is because we've adapted, we've adjusted through nature, and that's where I would see our reliance, but right now, we're living at a time where we're trying to basically supersede nature and we can outsmart nature, pharmaceutical intervention, whatever the case might be, and ignore the nature part, which your cells are screaming for the things you've been talking about, sunlight is free.

You mentioned grounding or earthing a couple of times, and I want to reiterate, I even talked about this in my book, Sleep Smarter, because I couldn't leave it out because the data was so eye-opening, and being able to work with scientists on this, by seeing that simply getting the human body in contact with the earth surface, all these free electrons like the human body just kind of pick them up and it makes sense knowing that we are part of nature, but we're so disconnected from it, but anyway, but one of the studies that I shared in Sleep Smarter had to do with folks grounding and having a decline in cortisol in the evening, literally bring it down, your stress, helping to turn off that sympathetic fight or flight nervous system just by getting in contact with the Earth, but that's so outside of this cookie-cutter paradigm, it could sound a little bit weird.

So, sunlight is free. Even when I lived in Ferguson, I had grass, there was still grass around. And so, this doesn't have to be expensive, and I would love if you could talk about this a little bit more. What are some other strategies? Like if folks are wanting to incorporate getting in that juice every day and knowing that it can be a pricey thing to undertake, especially if you're buying premade juices, which is... That can be an incredible expense, but what can people do to be a little bit more cost-effective, to implement this new strategy, and just anything else that can be with a barrier to entry is like well, you got to pay to play.

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah, for juicing as an example, a lot of people just jump to the conclusion and they make the excuse like, "Oh, juicing is expensive," or "This is too expensive." But in reality, it's really not. You could buy cucumbers, for example. You can buy 99 cent organic cucumbers, you could buy a five-pound bag of carrots, you could start with simply carrot juice, you could do that daily, but ultimately, you'll start seeing and you'll start reaping the benefits and realizing, wow, this is important, and I need to keep doing this, and like you said, the free things that you can do that I always talk to my clients with, and things that in my day I have to do, I can't do my tasks...

I get up early and I do this every day. I make sure I go out and get at least 30 minutes of sunlight, I go to the gym, I meditate, I drink my juice, I do all these things that help me to be who I am in order to create the content I need to create, otherwise, I'm not myself, if I don't do that, and sometimes I even look back at content I create and I'm like, "What was I thinking when I made that? Or how did I make that, or what were my thoughts?" And I really believe it's because of the lifestyle I live, and then also my faith, obviously, that helps me be kind of like a vessel to put this positive message out there. So again, it's just getting back to understanding that there's so much you can do, so many healthy things you can do that can start your journey, and you don't have to just think, "Oh, this is way too expensive, or it's going to be an inconvenience," it's what we got to do is start prioritizing. We got to start prioritizing what's important, because to me, what was important, my old priorities were going out, girls, buying nice clothes for the weekend, and when I started changing that and shifting that, and instead of buying a new TV, it was getting the best food I can possibly get.

Because ultimately, if you're not feeling good... To me, your health is number one, if you don't have that, you have nothing.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Facts, so should people be going to Whole Foods to get their veggies if they're trying to do things on a budget?

JONNY MORELLI: The funny thing is, is if you don't have access to Farmers Markets or if you don't have connections with farmers out here in California when I lived in Chicago, there are little stores that... Organic is becoming more popular.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Just the basic chain stores.

JONNY MORELLI: Basic change stories. There's in Chicago, there's a place called Caputo’s that... And then you make connections with these people, and they give you discounts, you buy a box of bananas, you can get them for 15, 20 bucks, if you buy greens, it's pretty cheap, even out here, Smart and Final has an organic section, all these places, and it's normally cheaper than Whole Foods. A lot of these places are a lot cheaper than Whole Foods now. So yes, just basically going out in the store and looking in that organic section, 'cause I don't recommend people ever juicing unless it's organic, you don't want to be concentrating all these chemicals and pesticides, herbicides and all this other junk.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, thank you for making that point, man. Last thing I want to ask you about is also... Well, there's two things. So number one is, I would imagine that that investment in yourself and getting out of that mindset that this is too expensive for me, and letting money be a reason that we don't do something that we feel called to do, I would imagine that investing in yourself probably is going to come back tenfold or more in success in health, in revenue or access, because I would imagine today you're getting access to things, probably people are just giving you all kinds of stuff that back in the day you would have been paying for simply by you investing in yourself. So that's number one. So, I want you to talk about that. And number two, if you could mention the time requirement because that's a big barrier to entry as well, is the time juicing and cleaning the juicer and all those things.

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah, yeah, it's funny because, from the very beginning of my journey, it was rough, man, it was like I was always hustling, whether it was making juices, health coaching, there was times I had five clients a week and creating content and doing all this thing... All these things, and like you said, it does come back because you realize this is service, this is service for people to have inspiration to get healthier, to help believe in themselves, and yeah, being in California, I mean like I said, I have companies that send me the best fruit I can get a hold of. I have access to all these farmers that are giving me great deals, and ultimately, it's like this cycle man, it's like I'm getting all this stuff, but I'm giving it back as well. The time requirement, I think it comes back to prioritizing. Back then, I would have never... Before I saw that documentary, if I would have saw a juicer and saw the time that went into it, I would have said, "No way, no way am I doing that," but I guess I had to have that breaking point, and a lot of people do, a lot of people don't drastically change their life unless they get a diagnosis or they get something drastic happen or somebody close to them dies and they start looking into alternative things to do.

And when you start seeing the truth in it, that's when you start prioritizing like, "Hey, this is number one for me, I'm making sure every day for the last eight years, juicing is a staple in my diet." No matter what I do with the rest of my day, I'm making sure I'm getting 32 ounces at least a day. I'm making sure I'm getting outside and getting sunlight, I'm making sure I'm getting movement, and like I said, once you start applying these into your daily regimen and seeing the results and seeing how much energy you have to do whatever task you have to do, and seeing how much more clarity you have to get these mental downloads, to be more creative whether you're doing content or whatever it is, that's when you start seeing, okay, my priorities need to shift a little bit and this needs to be what I need to be doing instead of watching this new episode on Netflix or whatever it might be that's distracting us.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. 'Cause we have time, most people, you've got time, but a lot is getting outsourced to these other things...

JONNY MORELLI: And the crazy thing is, I saw a study, I don't remember where it came from, maybe we could look it up, but it said the average American watches four and the half hours of TV a day. I don't watch TV, so imagine if you take those four and the half hours and what you can do with that, and I don't believe in excuses, man, like I said, I worked in nine-to-five busting my butt at FedEx while creating videos with my little guy in order to help me get to where I need to be. If there's a will, there's a way.

SHAWN STEVENSON: I was literally about to say that. If people can hear that I had a W set up for me.

JONNY MORELLI: Your mouth... I saw your mouth...

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. But I was going to say, where there is a will there's 10,000 ways.

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah, I love it.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, so many. And that creativity, you are an expression of that, your heart shines through in the work that you're doing, and that's why one of our recent messaging back and forth, I was like, "No, that's it. We have to connect." You come on the show, and it's been such a joy having you hear, man. Can you let everybody know where they can connect with you? You've got to follow Jonny on Instagram, of course. So let everybody know where to follow you.

JONNY MORELLI: Yeah, my website is jonnyjuicer.com, and all the social media outlets are through there, if you want to get some health coaching, you can go through there, but my main platform is Instagram. So, it's Jonny_juicer. Jonny no h_juicer.

SHAWN STEVENSON: The double N.

JONNY MORELLI: The double N.

SHAWN STEVENSON: J-O-N-N-Y_juicer on IG; man, thank you so much for coming and hanging out with us.

JONNY MORELLI: Man, thank you, so grateful, man. It was a pleasure.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Awesome, Jonny the Juicer. Let's go. Thank you so much for tuning in to the show today. I hope you got a lot of value out of this. Make sure to follow Jonny the Juicer on Instagram. He's one of my favorite people, he's doing so much could work in the world, so creative, so inspiring, and just seeking to be a voice of inspiration and logic right now. And also, again, we're providing a plethora of different tools for people to utilize to up-level their health. There isn't one cookie-cutter way of being the best version of ourselves, and for most of us, it's going to be kind of a patchwork quilt or a variety of different tools, resources, things that we put into play for our own lives to really, again, things that feel good to us, that resonate with this, it might not resonate with somebody else, but my job is to provide you with the tools and insights so that you can choose what works for you.

And at the end of the day, of course, is all about experimentation and taking action, applying a thing in your own life to see, hey, does this feel good, I'm going to go to a different direction, should adjusting this particular tool a little bit tweaked for myself, is that going to work best, because even though it's anecdotal, it's all still, our greatest experience in life is our own experience. It's not going to be coming, that's something from a textbook or from a particular course or somebody that we even look to as a mentor, it's going to be coming from what we experience firsthand, that is our true reality. And so, I'm going to continue to strive to bring you a myriad voices that focus on empowerment, that focus on real health. And I appreciate you so much. We've got some incredible episodes coming your way very soon.

Take care. Have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon. And for more after the show, make sure to head over to themodelhealthshow.com, that's where you can find all of the show notes, you could find transcriptions, videos for each episode. And if you've got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well, and please be sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that the show is awesome, and I appreciate that so much. And take care, I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.