Liquids till Lunch: 12 Small Habits That Will Change Your Life for Good

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Dedication

To my mom,

who literally showed me,

by strong and loving example,

how to move forward every day

and

to my father, Richard; my brother, Daniel;

my husband, David; and my children,

Ethan, Elliot, Jacob, and Grace

Contents

Crystal Chow

Introduction

Moving forward through the chaos and uncertainty that exists in this world can be so challenging. Or your day-to-day might be difficult even when you don’t have any real struggles. You could be about to enter a great new phase in your life, but its fast pace and tricky challenges force you to work hard and develop true self-mastery.

Whether your situation in life is wonderful or awful, it’s easy to feel paralyzed or scared if you don’t have a road map, can’t summon your power, or worry you might fail or fall behind. When you’re faced with a hurdle to clear or a mountain to climb, you might be tempted to crawl into your bed, turn on the TV, and stay there forever. But you can’t. You’re worth more than that. Your life can be so much better than that, so you must get out there and make great things happen.

I have some fantastic news for you. You don’t have to conquer all your challenges in one day. You also don’t have to be rich, have a fancy degree, or have loads of free time to come out on top. To feel happy, accomplished, fulfilled, or like you’re putting good out into the world, all you need are a few daily fundamentals that will help you gain momentum, operate to your highest-functioning degree, and move forward to whatever your goal or purpose is.

It’s all easier than you think. You just need to boil the process of moving forward down to the essentials. The actions that will allow you to dislodge yourself from whatever’s slowing you down or dimming your energy are as basic and straightforward as taking your daily vitamins.

I can show you how.

When I was twelve, my beloved forty-two-year-old dad died suddenly of a heart condition we didn’t know he had. My dad ran our family business and, my whole life, I’d never known a weekday when Richard P. Boehmer hadn’t been pacing around the house scratching notes about work on a yellow legal pad with a red pen. On weekends, he and my mom got up early and loved to play golf together. He was always buzzing, chasing, and dreaming . . . and then he was gone. Our house was very, very quiet after that.

I’m the classic oldest child—organized, driven, and focused—and my dad always pushed me to hold my chin up, be a leader, and succeed. After he died, I assumed that going to school, making good grades, and getting into the right college would be enough to help me recover. I did all those things on top of helping my mom around the house, nurturing my younger brother, Daniel, and acting as a shining example of strength and courage for my family. I was just putting one foot in front of the other, though, not thriving. To top it off, I was crushed by grief.

When I was twenty, I came home from college for Easter break and was in my bedroom when I heard my mom screaming at the top of her lungs. I ran out of my room and saw her in my seventeen-year-old brother’s bedroom, standing above his motionless body on the bed. Then I watched her drag him to the floor and start to give him CPR. But it was too late. He was dead, clutching a phone he’d been trying to use to call for help. We didn’t know it, but Daniel had developed a heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Suddenly, the hole in my chest that I thought the passage of time had helped heal opened up again, and now the wound was even bigger. My brother had been my best friend. Daniel came to all my basketball games in high school. He made me countless playlists of the best songs to listen to, and he made me laugh about everything, especially during our summer vacations on the Jersey Shore or at Lake Nebo in Upstate New York.

I knew I had to keep going, though, so I went back to college soon after the funeral and worked as hard as I could to prepare for my final exams. I studied abroad in Italy that summer, and when I got back to school, I focused on graduating on time with the rest of my class. If I could succeed, wasn’t I living my best life?

Just over a year later, my mom went to the doctor to talk about the right-side facial spasms she’d been having, and she left with a diagnosis of two brain tumors. When she told me, I went numb. My entire family is going to die, I thought. I’m twenty-one, and I’m going to be the last one left. I didn’t feel cursed or unlucky; my pain was physical, like a two-ton weight was sitting on my chest.

My mom endured one painful craniotomy surgery followed by another seventeen months later. Luckily, doctors determined that both brain tumors were benign, but the part of her brain that controls motor function had been damaged during the second operation, and she became partially paralyzed on her right side. During her long months of rehabilitation, I drove home on the weekends to help take care of her. It wasn’t always easy but being present for my mom taught me I had a greater purpose: I wanted to help people live healthier, more fulfilling lives.

I went back to school and earned certifications as a health educator and professional business coach. I loved being a student again and I dove into research, soaking up everything I could about health, healing, and the human body. The benefits of healthy food, exercise, alternative therapies, and fasting fascinated me; the interconnectivity of negative emotions and chronic pain opened my mind and showed me things I’d never thought of. I applied all this knowledge—and so much more—to nursing my mom back from her paralysis and into normal life. It was the best unpaid job I could imagine, and waking up in the morning knowing I could make a difference for someone I loved was thrilling.

Life was moving forward, and my mom was getting better. We 100 percent believed the worst was behind us and that nothing as bad could happen to us again. Then, in late 2008, Lehman Brothers crumbled, the housing market collapsed, and the Great Recession exploded like an atom bomb. Our family’s lumber business plummeted and, over the course of the next two years, my mom had to shut down five locations and lay off 250 employees. She sold our house at a 50 percent loss, borrowed money from friends and family, and started living off credit cards. Within a few years, she was a whopping $700,000 in debt. It was technically her debt, not mine, but we were family, and we were sticking together through thick and thin.

If you’ve carried significant personal debt, you know how hopeless it can feel. I carried around the weight of that debt in my bones, and every day I woke up tired. But then I jumped out of bed with a smile on my face, went to my job as a Manhattan real estate agent working with my mom, made good money, and surpassed all my company’s earning benchmarks. After writing our rent check and buying groceries, we gave every last cent of our paychecks to the debt-management program my mom and I had enrolled in. Then I went back to work trying to sell more, network more, and earn more. I felt like Sisyphus, pushing a boulder up a mountain all day long only to have it fall back on top of me when the sun went down. Sure, I was putting one foot in front of the other, but I was getting nowhere. I liked my job, but I didn’t love it. And without real fulfillment, I knew my mom and I would never do more than tread water.

This is it, I told myself. I’ve had it rough for a lot of years, but this is rock bottom. Time to move forward.

I put my neck on the line, quit my job, and bought an ad on Facebook that offered free fifty-minute nutritional consultations. I’d developed a simple, free, complete system to help people lose weight, overcome pain, develop better energy, and improve overall health, and my plan was to prescribe it to my future clients, then get them to sign up for a three- to six-month program. I knew I had the tools, advice, and program to help people heal physically, spiritually, and emotionally, and I was more than ready to share them. When my ad went live, I moved my office into a small space in Midtown Manhattan on 47th and Third, waited for the phone to ring, and began doing consultations.

Things were really tough at first. I worked from 9 a.m. till 11 p.m. every day and didn’t pay the rent on my apartment for five months. In 2013, I got married on a shoestring, and a few months later I had a miscarriage while I was at work waiting for a client. I still met with them because I was terrified that if I canceled their session, I’d lose the $250 we desperately needed to buy groceries that week. Slowly, day by day, I moved forward, and life started to get better as I chipped away at our debt. Within a year I had eighty to a hundred private clients and was signing up about twenty new ones a month. Best of all, I was happier than I’d been in years. I texted my clients all day long, not just because I wanted to check up on them, but because I truly, deeply cared about them.

I covered everything related to health and nutrition. How to lose weight. How to have more energy. How to build lean muscle. How to sleep better. How to let go of addictions and bad habits. My clients were successful individuals who came from the fields of finance, fashion, media, real estate, and more. Even though many of them had access to the best treatments and the most elite professionals—aestheticians, integrative doctors, cryotherapy, ozone therapy, salt tanks, you name it—they couldn’t devote hours a day to their well-being because they were so busy with their careers.

Luckily, I kept things simple for them. My program directed my clients to implement twelve small behavioral changes rooted in foundational health principles into their routines every day. When they learned how to master them, they immediately felt better, developed more energy, and achieved balance. Their health moved forward—and then their lives moved forward—despite whatever obstacles they faced. These twelve actions improved them at the cellular level, which allowed them to operate at their highest-functioning degree. They started to find it easier to self-regulate, modify behaviors, enact change, get out of their emotional ruts, and take their lives to the next level. Each of my clients found the twelve actions basic and doable, yet they uncovered fundamental concepts that were profound and life changing. Best of all, these concepts helped them achieve results that were nothing short of miraculous. They got promotions. They increased their salaries. They married the loves of their lives. They overcame addictions and illnesses and challenges that were standing in the way of happiness and health.

What was fascinating about my clients, though, is that the things that improved their lives the most weren’t the expensive regimens or protocols in which they indulged. Instead, their health and happiness took root and blossomed because they used the free, accessible, and universal tools I offer in this book.

A Program of Micro Actions That Leads to Macro Change

My program covers basic health principles that you can tackle within a twenty-four-hour period. Each of the twelve actions is rooted in self-care, allowing you to focus back on yourself and your healing process. The actions may seem small, but they hold the key to making big changes. As you integrate them into your daily routine, everything from your digestion to mental clarity to sleep to immunity improves, giving you an overall feeling of well-being. This better sense of self permits you to function at a higher degree, helping you harness the power to tackle any obstacle life puts in your way.

I’m goal oriented, and if you’re reading this book, you probably are, too. Your goals don’t have to be huge to get something from my program. When I was in the throes of grief and loss after the death of my brother and during my mom’s financial collapse, the twelve actions allowed me temporary freedom from pain. That little bit of momentum allowed me to move forward. A therapist I saw after my brother died backed up this notion for me.

What’s your definition of happiness? I asked her, searching for something she could point to that would take away the hollow feeling in my gut.

Satisfaction and happiness are different, she answered. "Satisfaction implies that you’re fulfilled, so you don’t really need more of anything to feel okay. Happiness is having some moments in your day that are happy, even if there are a lot that are sad. But these happy moments stand out, then illuminate and inform whatever the path to your life purpose is."

Let me give you an example. Immediately after my brother died, I was prepared to encounter the kind of pain I’d known when my dad passed away. I braced myself for an onslaught of soul-level pain: a wound that cuts on the spiritual level, affecting every action from the moment of injury forward. Some people say that kind of hurt only happens when someone you love passes away. All other pain in life is ego based, and it may bruise you—even deeply—but your natural inclination is to heal over time.

That’s not the case with soul-level pain. It can cause you to lock yourself inside your house and get ready for the next painful moment. Christmas? It’s going to be painful, so you just avoid it. Your brother’s birthday? You know it’s going to be torture, and it is. I wanted my mom and I to power through that pain, so without even telling her, I booked some time for us at a health spa after Daniel’s funeral. While we were there, we did small things that comforted us even if they didn’t take away the ache we constantly felt. We walked outside in the sunshine. We took naps. We drank warm herbal tea and ate healthy food. We weren’t looking for satisfaction; we were embracing the notion that micro actions of self-care are the tiny drops of happiness that can, one day, fill up a bucket of blessings. Our little moments of healthy living nourished us ever so slightly, clearing the path to allow us to see the work that still needed to be done in our lives in order to move forward toward happiness.

Let me be clear on one thing. After Daniel died, my mom and I were still fortunate to make a solid income from our family business. We weren’t in debt then, and I’m so grateful we were able to spend money on our health and self-care. But you don’t have to have any money to take care of yourself and, in this book, I won’t ask you to. These twelve actions are free.

Why Start with Liquids till Lunch?

The first action in my program directs you to consume only liquids from the time you wake up until the time you eat lunch. In the next chapter, I’ll get into the nitty-gritty of why Liquids till Lunch promotes better digestion, gives you more energy, and helps you lose weight—among other benefits. But, right now, I want to show you how this concept was a catalyst for my program and my company, MaryRuth Organics, and why it’s a great starting place for this book.

Not long after my clients began doing Liquids till Lunch, many of them complained that taking vitamin capsules on an empty stomach made them feel queasy. That made total sense to me, so I figured: Why not make a liquid multivitamin using wholesome ingredients and no sugar? I searched and found a formulator and packager, then commissioned ninety bottles of a liquid raspberry multivitamin. (Ninety bottles isn’t a lot, but we were still in debt.) I gave them out to my current batch of clients and crossed my fingers. Guess what? They loved it and reported that they’d had no nausea while doing Liquids till Lunch and taking the liquid multivitamin. Even better, they felt an instant boost of energy that prepared them for the day ahead.

I commissioned more bottles and decided to sell them on Amazon. When my liquid morning multivitamin went live online, it quickly got a good amount of five-star reviews. Because I was making a sugar-free liquid multivitamin, and similar products contained sugar, mine shot to the top of the Amazon algorithm and first page. Within one year, it sold well and helped so many people achieve better health and increased energy. MaryRuth Organics had been born!

This company freed my mom and me from $700,000 of debt within a few years, with zero outside funding and no investors. Seven years in, my family and over seventy employees are giving back by helping millions of Americans develop more energy, regain their health, heal themselves, and move forward in their lives. What I do gives me great contentment and satisfaction, and I’m moving forward every single day.

The beauty of Liquids till Lunch is that liquids are so much more absorbable than solids. They seep right into your cells, giving them all the good stuff that helps you function. They’re also a refreshing start to the day: your first very simple and energetic move that provides the momentum for you to move forward.

That’s why Liquids till Lunch is the perfect anchor for this book. The simple act of starting your day with only liquids is accessible to everyone, easily digestible, easy-to-follow, and free. Like the program I’ll present to you in this book, you can seamlessly integrate it into your life without much effort or thought. As with every component of my program, it’s completed within a short period of time, so you don’t have to worry that you’ll be toiling away or starving if you decide to follow the advice in this book. Liquids till Lunch was the start of one of the best things that ever happened in my life, and I hope, as the framework for my program, it can lead you down the road to a great quality of life, purpose, and happiness, too.

Move Forward Every Day

Claire was a busy working mother of two. She had a great job on Wall Street and enough money to hire a nanny and housekeeper and take cabs to and from work. A banker’s salary can pay for most things, but what it can’t buy is time, and Claire had none of that. Her early mornings were devoted to catching up on the previous night’s emails and spending quality time with her children. Every second of the workday was devoted to clients, meetings, or phone calls. If she was lucky, she left work at