Health Expert Eric Edmeades On Why To Prescribe Diets, Not Pills Eric Edmeades, the creator of Mindvalley's WildFit Quest, will change your relationship with food so that cravings disappear, weight loss comes easy and you feel healthier than you've ever felt before.
Why Doctors Want To Prescribe WildFit Eric Edmeades might just be the most interesting man you've ever met. He's trekked through the jungles of East Africa. He's spoken on the same stage as Tony Robbins and U.S. Presidents. And he's a serial entrepreneur, international speaker, and world-class health expert. Now he's ready to overhaul the medical and food industries. When I meet Eric one late morning in San Diego, he's so earnest, interested, genuine that I like him within moments. His beaded necklace reminds me of a modern-day Indiana Jones — fitting, since he often goes on anthropological expeditions in Africa to find out how early humans ate and lived. Eric Edmeades has taken several trips out to Tanzania to meet the Hadza tribe, one of the last truly hunter gatherer societies on earth. He trekked through the East African terrain for 27 miles and then repeated the mileage the next morning. After the hunting expedition, he realized that every member of the tribe was incredibly fit. Eric Edmeades with the WildFit Team and the Hadza people of Tanzania. And what was the reason? Their diet supported their active lifestyle. They wouldn't have been able to walk 20 – 30 miles every day if they were drinking Coca-Cola and eating McDonalds. They used foods like vegetables, fruits and meats to fuel their energy. Eric's program, WildFit, is based on what he's learned through experience and research. WildFit is a powerful health methodology that uses behavorial psychology and evolutionary science to change the way you eat.
It's by far one of our most popular Quests. Over 3000 people have taken Mindvalley's WildFit in the last 12 months and changed their health trajectories. They have lost an incredible amount of weight, relieved themselves of many symptoms and reduced their dependency on prescription medicine and supplements. Needless to say, the WildFit reviews are outstanding. (Watch the Masterclass with Eric Edmeades and Vishen Lakhiani here.) "How did you come to be a legendary health expert?" I ask him. "What made you decide to design WildFit?" "Like a lot of things, it happened by accident," he answers with a grin. "I might question legendary but still" — he gives a small laugh — "from a health perspective, I was one of those kids that was just sick all the time." At 21 years old, he was suffering from cystic acne so severe that it was painful for him to laugh, smile, or turn his head. His throat infections were so debilitating that doctors suggested removing his tonsils. And his stomach cramps were so intense that it was practically impossible for him to think. But he was inspired by Tony Robbins and a good friend of his, Tim Ames, to run through a 30-day experiment to change his eating patterns. Instead of eating processed and sugary foods, he returned to the more natural foods of our ancestors, like meats and vegetables.
Poison disguised as food. In about 2 – 3 weeks, he woke up to find his acne gone, his stomach cramps gone, his throat infections gone. He had lost weight and gained more energy. After that, he realized that he couldn't end his "30-day experiment." He wanted to know why the doctors hadn't suggested he change his diet. They had been writing prescriptions for the short-term and suggesting surgeries for the long-term. "At that point, I started asking some of the doctors I knew, including the members of my own family, how much time they spent studying food when they went to medical school." As it turned out, the answer was none. And in modern times the unexamined diet is a massive problem. The annual global cost of obesity is $2 trillion dollars — more than the combined costs of war, terrorism, and armed violence. At this point, Eric says, the food manufacturing and marketing industry is more evil and manipulative than the tobacco industry ever was. "The problem is that the food industry, the pharmaceutical companies, and the medical industry are based primarily on profitability and not on quality of life."
And then, one day, he was on the plane, reading a magazine story that mentioned that elephants in zoos were not living as long as elephants in the wild because they weren't being fed the right diet. It occurred to Eric that just like every other species on earth, humans must also have a specific diet. So when Eric Edmeades designed WildFit, he wanted to improve people's lives in the way the current medical system can't. He believes that pills, surgeries, and yo-yo diets aren't the solutions we need for a healthy and fit life. Instead, we need to return to the natural human diet — the foods that give us the most nutritional value based on what we've evolved to need. Doctors have now began to catch onto this massive health transformation.
They've noticed their patients became healthier, fitter, and happier after going through the WildFit program. Many of their patients came off of medication they were expected to need the rest of their lives. So over the last couple of years, several doctors have approached Eric to ask, "How did you do this?" And because an increasing amount of doctors want to bring their patients through WildFit, Eric Edmeades has decided to launch a medical outreach program where doctors can prescribe WildFit instead of pills and subsidize it for low income patients. Eric was brought to Mindvalley when the founder, Vishen Lakhiani, went on the WildFit program in March 2016 and was astounded by the results, which he publicly shared. His body fat, for example, went down from 22% to 15%. His body shape and size transformed radically, making him look years younger. And he received a major boost in energy. Vishen Lakhiani helped introduce Eric Edmeades to the the world by putting him on stage at Mindvalley A-Fest, where he was voted Best Speaker. We also brought the WildFit program to Mindvalley, which became a runaway hit.
Eric getting up close and personal with one of his program attendees.
A WildFit Case Study In Radical Transformation After hearing about the thousands of amazing WildFit reviews, I wanted to learn more details. How does WildFit exactly transform someone's life? But when I ask Eric to tell me the details of a client the program had a big impact on, he groans. "You can't make me choose just one! I want to tell you a thousand of them." He waves his hands to signify comedic exasperation. I laugh and shrug. “Unfortunately, we can’t write a thousand cases into one article. But next time, maybe we’ll try.” “I'll write a book,” he jokes, “I’ll write a book.” He concedes eventually and shares one of his early success stories, Kert Loide. "He came to us when he was really, really overweight, like not going to make it through his 60s overweight." In 90 days, Kert's transformation was so radical that when he bumped into a friend of his from the military, that friend told him that he hadn't changed a bit since he was 19. And when Kert showed him a picture of what he looked like three months before, his friend almost fell out of his chair.
Kert before and after completing the WildFit Quest.
Then came more life-transformative effects. After trying out several fertility treatments, Kert and his wife had given up on having more kids. "But a little on the embarrassing side, they actually named their kid Eric. I’ve won different awards and accolades over the years, but I don’t know if there’s anything higher than that," Eric tells me. One day, his wife called him and said, "I'm pregnant and it's Eric's fault." But Tim joked that he checked Eric’s schedule and since Eric wasn’t in Estonia at the time, it couldn’t be Eric’s fault. But with all of these projects, a 1000% growth in his company, and his own newborn daughter, the past year has been intense. Lots of excitement, sleep deprivation... and, of course, stress.
Which is why I wanted to know what motivates him when times get tough. His answer: reading all of the positive WildFit reviews and thank you letters from cliets who changed their lives — and waking up to see his 1-year old baby girl, Zoë. Thinking of all his crazy times, hard times and good times, I ask him one final question, "How would you measure success at this stage of your life?" He's quick to answer. "I measure success in the simplest way possible. I think that the only real measure of success is the number of days you are truly happy.” Thanks to Eric and WildFit, 3,000 Mindvalley students have dramatically changed their bodies and health, and are now living truly happy lives.
If you’re interested in learning about WildFit, go ahead and sign up for a Masterclass with Eric.