Four Critical Building Blocks for Better Health: 73

Hey everyone, I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow. If you've been here before, welcome back, and if you're new, I am excited that you're joining me today. I'm going to talk about a subject that is near and dear to my heart and something I've been doing a deep dive on for a very long time, but it's a process, right? This whole health journey, this whole process of changing your habits, it's, it's all just a long, extended, and hopefully fun process, and it can be very interesting and it can be fun to experiment on yourself. And so that is what I've been doing for so many years now. But going into the holidays in particular, it's a time where people start to have more stress in their life, more obligations, and it can be a challenging time of year. So I think it's a good time to kind of revisit this topic and share with you some of the things that I've been working on personally myself lately, some of the things that I have been learning, and, uh, just kind of have a conversation about some easy things that you can do to start changing your habits without going overboard. 'Cause what I found in all the years, so if you haven't been around before, you might not know that my background is in psychology. My degree is in psychology. I went to graduate school for a year. I didn't finish, unfortunately, but clinical psychology, all about brain-related function. So that's really what I'm into. And then my minor is in addiction studies. So that can relate to so many things, right? Exercise addiction, food addiction, sugar addiction. So that is a big part of how I've come to this work. So when you look at my background, it might kind of seem somewhat not like a direct route, but part of it is just my own personal health journey, my personal interest in health and wellness over my whole, basically my whole adult life. I've also been practicing yoga and certified yoga instructor for well over 25 years now. And so not only physical wellness, but mental wellness has been a big part of my focus and what I like to learn about and what I like to work on for myself. So the very first one we'll talk about, and it's especially challenging going into the holidays because, uh, your stress levels definitely affect your sleep, and sleep is the number one and is maybe one of the most easy ones in a way to change or to get better at, but the most challenging to be disciplined with. So, uh, if you go on to Heal Nurse Grow and you type in the search bar sleep, I have a really good article there that gives some specific sleep tips. But right now I just want to talk about it more generally and more in relation to circadian rhythm. So circadian rhythm is a big thing that a lot of the experts have been talking about recently and how you can use the natural cycles of light to really improve your sleep and impact your health in a positive way. And so, you know, you probably— a lot of these things make intuitive sense to people and make common sense as well, especially when it comes sleep or, you know, sleeping when it's dark and being awake when it's light. That's pretty basic, right? But it might not always be as obvious in practice how that might look to people. So for sleep, first of all, you want to get the proper amount of sleep. A lot of people kind of trick themselves into believing that they need less sleep, but that is a very small percentage of people. And that's been kind of proven out by studies. Really, if for optimal health, You want to be getting 7 or 8 hours of sleep per night. And as we become adults, that becomes more challenging. Sleep gets disrupted, hormones, habits like alcohol, different things can really disrupt your sleep patterns. So it gets more challenging to get older for that reason, but also because of just the obligations that adults have and the, you know, amount of things that they have to do during the day with children and with work and with trying to fit in a workout. And oftentimes sleep is one of the things that people will most easily give up because they don't see it as important as it really is. But it is such a key important factor in your health that it is not something that I would skimp on. In fact, like, I'm putting this number 1 to talk about because to me it's the number 1 thing that you can most— if you can improve your sleep, it's the number 1 thing that you can most impact your health with. So, and this is actually very interesting that I, I'm talking about this today because I actually have been, um, I was at my dentist earlier today and had a couple of teeny fillings down where my gums are receding slightly from years of crazy brushing. That's a whole nother story. And I've heard some amazing podcasts recently on oral health, which are really fantastic. But the best advice I can give you there is number one, get a really good electric toothbrush and just be very gentle. There's no reason to scrub your teeth. It's really a bad thing. But the other thing that has caused recession, gum recession for me, is clenching and grinding my teeth, and that's generally caused by stress and sometimes by lack of sleep. In my life, I've definitely correlated it with times of stress. I wear night guards in my mouth that, that also contributes to gum recession, but that's really not— I'm just kind of telling you the background here on why. So I've been, you know, I had these fillings, and I've also had this ongoing jaw pain in my right jaw for many years now, and it's a very long story that I won't go into. But one of the things that she suggested to me was, okay, well, maybe you might consider getting some Botox in the, um, I believe it's called the masseter muscle because that is very strong and she can especially see that it's strong and feel that it's strong. And, um, for some people that has been absolutely life-changing, like training that muscle to not be so active can reduce pain. So, but in order to do that, you first have to make sure that you don't have any sleep apnea or sleep problems. And so tonight I'm actually doing a little sleep test where you, um, hook yourself up, you put some electrodes on your face and behind your ear. And it's attached to this thing. It records you all night, so you're recording any snoring sounds, any breathing or lack of breathing sounds, and it just tracks to make sure you don't have any obstructive sleep. Because if you do have obstructive sleep, you really don't— you can't deactivate those muscles because you might cause problems with your airway. So that was a very, very long kind of tangential story, but I think it's also interesting because it will also tell me some things about the quality of my sleep outside of the Oura Ring, which I wear every day, and that Tells me some things about sleep quality. So these are great tools, um, and I actually— there are finally new two new competing rings coming out in the arena. For years, the Oura has really been the only one that's available, but there's two other ones, um, that I'm testing, uh, that I have codes for. One's called the Circular Ring and the other one's escaping me at the moment. But anyway, you can find the link on the website if you go under my shop section. Um, there is the Circular one that I'll be getting shortly and it's got a discount code there. So if that's something you're interested in trying, because it really does— there's there's something about seeing hard data that can help you really change your habits. And so, for example, one of the things that I've noticed since I've had the Oura is that when I drink alcohol, my sleep is really negatively impacted. Um, and so that goes into some things I'll be talking about later down the line here. But let's go back to sleep. So getting your 7 to 8 hours a night, um, and then, you know, if you're having problems with waking up during the middle of night, going to sleep, all of those kind of sleep problems, those are well worth looking into. But there's some simple things you can do. And again, if you go to that article at the website, there's going to be some ideas, but we'll talk about them now. And one of them that most people are aware of at this point are the blue lights, or any lights for that matter, lights in your house. Some people go to the extreme of putting red lights in their light bulbs or just using candlelight in the evenings to help your body wind down. But all of this light coming from the TV, coming from the devices, coming from just overhead light, are all sources of things that are telling your body that it's time to be awake. And so that's not good if you're trying to wind down and go to sleep at night. So the more that you can block out light, probably the simplest way to do it is with blue blockers. And I actually have a pair that I've had for a couple of years from— they changed their name. But anyway, I have a link and a discount for that too. Love this company. They've got great technology. Unfortunately, a lot of the blue blocking glasses you just buy off of Amazon or something like that aren't effective because they don't block the correct wavelengths. And so Why, why I'm not thinking of their name right now is beyond me. But anyway, like I said, if you go to the website, you'll see the name. I have been not very good about wearing those lately myself, and because this is all something I've been kind of, you know, I do this quarterly. I kind of reevaluate my health plan, what I've been doing, what's working, what's not. And especially when we're going into the new year, you know, that's always a time to sort of think about this stuff and, and think about it more critically. And I've definitely— I've been lazy. I have not been wearing them. So that is one thing that starting— well, actually, I'm going to do the sleep study tonight, so I'm probably not going to start wearing them tonight just to not kind of give it a broader picture of how my sleep normally is. But for a lot of people, they'll say they put them on and it's almost like you took a drug. It really just calms your brain down. It makes you ready for sleep. So finding a high quality pair of blue blocking glasses and/or on your devices, most of them now have a light shift so that it tells you at night, for example, on my Mac, I think I can tell it at sunset. You can, you can actually set specific times. I tell it at sunset to switch over to red light so that if I am on the computer late at night, I'm not getting that intense blue light into my eyes. Same thing on every phone, pretty much has that setting now. So those are really great to turn on, but I just, I question really how effective they are, quite honestly. So that's why I think the blue blockers are the best. And the very, very best is just to not be on your devices at all, at least an hour before bedtime. I know that's really hard for a lot of people because you're trying to wind down in some way, but maybe just have a different ritual right before bed. Maybe it's that you, you know, take a nice bath. I mean, reading's okay, but reading can be stimulating as well. If you are going to read, I'd recommend not reading on a device. Obviously, that defeats the purpose. But really doing some things at night to just kind of calm yourself down and get in the— to the mindset that you're going to go to sleep and have a very good night's sleep. Um, the circadian rhythm stuff. So that's very interesting. What a lot of people have been talking about is there are these receptors in your eyes that detect light. It has a lot to do again with the sleep-wake cycle and the amount of cortisol in your body, which is kind of the stress hormone. And when it ramps up in the morning naturally, it's like, okay, you're ready to go. And then in the Conversely, in the evening, it should be ramping down. But sometimes when you're getting improper light signals into your eyes, you're not getting these signals. And so again, this is something I've started doing very differently. I have light-sensitive eyes. Um, so I've pretty much worn sunglasses my entire life. Um, but what I'm learning now about circadian rhythm, about these light-sensing things in your eyes, is that you need your eyes, your eyeballs blank, no contacts, no glasses, you know, nothing in the way, no sunglasses certainly, at least sometimes in the day so that you can have light on your eyeballs so that they get the sense that, okay, it is daytime, we're supposed to be awake right now. And then you want to really get rid of that obviously later in the day. So the most ideal situation— and again, this is something that I have been working on personally, I'm not perfect at it— I, because I'm living in Utah now, and it's quite cold in the mornings for at least half the year here. But the ideal situation would be that when you get up somewhere close to sunrise and that the first thing in the morning, at the very least, you're maybe going out and having your coffee, sitting out on your patio or on your deck or something, and being outside in the light of the morning, particularly the morning and evening signals of light have like a different effect on your circadian rhythm. And so going out there in the morning, making sure that you're looking at the sky, having some sun come right into your eyes, 10 minutes is a great way to start. Even better if during that first hour of light during the day that you can get out and go for your walk or do your workout outside or something like that, that's even better. So the more extended amount of time, um, outside. And then another thing that you can do when you are drinking your morning coffee outside, looking at the morning light, if it's not too cold, obviously you can have your feet on the actual ground of the the earth, because this is something, um, grounding or earthing it's called. It sounds very like hippie-dippy, but it's a real thing. Our bodies are made of electrons and ions, and connecting your feet to the earth, it has like— think of it like an— it works kind of similarly to an electric outlet. This is an electric process, but that you are actually getting negative ions from the earth. And it's the opposite word. It kind of seems weird. It seems like you should be getting positive ions. It would be good, right? But no, you want the negative ions from the Earth, and your body is getting rid of these bad electrons or bad signals through this contact. And so most people, you know, you might go days at a time always having shoes on, never having your feet in contact with the Earth. The other way that I've decided to deal with that part most recently that I've been working on, I've gotten grounding mats also because I love them so much. Got a link for them. Um, so you can also find that over on the website under the shop tab. But basically it's a mat that attaches to your electrical outlet. And when your body, when your skin is in contact with it, it grounds you. And you can test this by using the little meter that they have with it. Um, but that way you're getting grounding, even if you can't have your feet on the ground. Like I said, here it's so, you know, so cold in the morning for a lot of the year that that's a pretty big challenge for me. To actually have my feet on the ground. So the next best thing is to have these grounding mats. Um, I have one under my workspace where I can have my feet on that during the day, and then now I also have one on the bed because that's where you spend a third of your day if you're getting good sleep. And so you can, while you're sleeping at night, be getting the benefit of grounding. So that's the whole thing with sleep circadian rhythm. Um, if you have any questions on any of that, definitely let me know. It's a topic that I wanted to write more about for a while, but I just haven't had time at the moment. I think I've mentioned this in the podcast before. I've been producing this event that's coming up here in October and it's been taking up a lot of my time. So unfortunately, some of my writing projects have been put off. But I've decided— I had an interview the other day with one of my— with somebody on the podcast, and we were talking about— I can't remember the exact topic, but he really answered a question in my mind of sort of what I should be doing. So I'm kind of letting that go going forward after this one and refocus on, you know, obviously this stuff, this health and wellness space is my passion. Sharing my knowledge with people is a passion. Trying to help people on their own personal health journeys and to have them feel better and have more wellness, that's all what I'm passionate about. And I really need to keep that focus for me because it has been affecting me in some way. That's also part of the reason that I'm evaluating this right now, some of the things I've been doing and some of the things I want to change. So sleep and working on your circadian rhythm is a huge thing. I could say one more thing I'll say on that, that I, I think I'm going to try experimenting with as well. And I can't remember the name of the researcher, but there was a study out and it was talking about, um, you know how many of us that do in this low-carb space, you just end up not being hungry in the morning. Or, you know, we've all finally learned that you don't necessarily need to eat breakfast. You know, if you're not hungry, maybe you just go with that, right? And the reason it's easier on keto is because you don't have these big blood sugar swings that can make you kind of hangry and hungry all the time. So you're more easily, more easily able to fast. So a lot of people get into that eating pattern, just skipping breakfast and then eating lunch and dinner. Well, part of the circadian pattern also has to do with waking and eating and kind of revving up your metabolism for the day, that sort of idea. But his sort of thought was he compared two groups' patterns of eating, and so eating within an hour of waking up had some positive effects in the body. It's not something I've experimented with yet, but I think I'm going to maybe do a trial on that, see how I feel. And, um, so that's just something to consider as well. Or certainly if you're very hungry when you wake up, obviously, obviously there's no reason to always— I'm pretty flexible with my intermittent fasting, so if I happen to wake up super hungry one morning, I'll just eat. It's not a big deal. I don't feel like you have to do it every single day. And certainly nature loves variety, right? Doing the same thing over and over and over, exactly the same pattern, exactly the same way as far as eating, as far as exercise, any of those things. It's always best to shake it up at least every few weeks. Do something a little different, go with a different pattern for a while, kind of trick your body, for lack of a better word. Seems to work. So shaking things up a little bit. Okay, so now we really will leave sleep and circadian rhythm. So if you're watching this on video, it'll be obvious that this is a different day. I actually was recording some, a new recipe today. And so have eyebrows on, have some makeup on and stuff, uh, much different than the last recording. But anyway, I realized that when I was talking about sleep, I forgot like the literally most simple, simple thing that you can do, and that is magnesium. And most people are deficient in magnesium due to our food supply. Soil doesn't have great minerals in it anymore. And so most people when they're tested, they'll actually be low on magnesium, and it is such a fantastic thing for sleep. So the kind that I use actually has all 7 different kinds of magnesium in it, which is great because it helps with recovery, helps for all kinds of body processes. Like, if you're low in magnesium, a lot of other things won't be functioning well either, but it's super important for sleep. So like always, if you're going with any supplements Look for the GMP seal, good manufacturing practices, and ideally some third-party testing. But the one that I vetted and I think is the best, and like I said, it has all 7 kinds of magnesium that I've been using for a couple years now, is by Bioptimizers. So if you want to use that, I have a link. It's healnourishgrow.com/bioptimizers. You'll get a really awesome deal on their product, and it has definitely made a huge huge impact on my sleep. So anyway, on to the rest. We'll move to the second thing, and that is exercise. And so everybody knows obviously that you should be moving your body in some kind of way, and I always like to say joyful movement. I think that for the most part you don't want to be, you know, doing things you hate. If you hate running, why, why are you running? You know, that's kind of the one that people always think of because running has become really kind of so pervasive in our society and always thought of as like maybe one of the highest quality exercises. Well, I wish I would have known this years ago before I wrecked my knees running for 17 years and doing it to an amount that was probably detrimental to my health. Um, I was never like a super extreme runner, but I have run one marathon. Um, I used to log, you know, anywhere between 25 to 35 miles a week consistently for weeks for 17 years, and it turns out that probably is not really healthy for you. There are actually some negative effects that can come from that, including, um, calcified arteries. Um, it seems to be much higher in people who do that kind of intensive running training for some reason. Uh, they think it might be more reactive oxygen species in the body, which can be a negative. Um, there's a lot of things, but for the most part Putting an undue amount of stress on your body through exercise is really not the most positive thing. And also what we're learning through many, many research studies with exercise is that cardio— yes, you need a certain amount of cardio, you need to walk or move your body, do some kind of cardiovascular activity every week, um, but people really get addicted to that. They get addicted to the feeling, they get addicted to the routine, and so they will do cardio to the detriment of what really is probably the most impactful thing that you can do for your health, which is strength training. And I've talked about this a little bit in the past. Throughout my life, I've had different bouts of— starting when I was— actually, I remember this— in the 8th grade, we had a weight machine in our garage, and I was a basketball player, and so I weight trained, and I was pretty consistent with it for probably several months. And at some point, got off of that And, uh, then at other various times in my life, I've done bouts with strength training where I'll stick with it pretty consistently for a few months even, and then somehow get back off it again. And always for the reason, because I really do love being outside. I love, even though I don't run anymore, I can now, for the most part, I definitely still have flare-ups with my knees, but, um, can walk or hike pretty much as much as I want with pain-free. And I love being outside. And so for me, I've always joked like I'd literally rather hike for 10 miles than go spend an hour, you know, weightlifting in the gym. And that is the truth. I just, I don't enjoy it. I wish I did. I don't even know if there's any way to like, I should look into my own psychology and figure out if there's a way to trick myself into liking that form of exercise better. But it's just never happened up to this point, unfortunately. But what I have been able to do is for the last Um, since the beginning of August, I started— I think it was the end of July or August 1st— I started strength training again. I'm not trying to be— do anything crazy, just 3 times a week is all I'm looking to be consistent with right now. And so far I've been able to maintain that outside of one week we went away, um, on vacation and, uh, was— we're staying— we're traveling all over the place, moving every 2 days, and most of the hotels we were staying in were like traditional hotels. This was over in Europe, and they were just like more like an inn or a house that had kind of been converted to like an Airbnb situation, but maybe with breakfast or something like that. Kind of more like a bed and breakfast situation for the most part. So there weren't gyms really. Now, we were very active, walked a ton. In fact, one day my Fitbit I think said we walked like 11 miles or something. So it was very active the whole time, but I just wasn't doing any strength training outside of— I think finally one day I decided I was going to do a few push-ups, and then somehow I kind of cranked up my shoulder. So anyway, mainly consistently for 2 months now. I'm hoping I can maintain that. And the reason that I've done this, even though I don't enjoy it— and you know, people always say, well, the best exercise you can do is the one that you'll do, which there's a lot of truth to that. I'd rather have you do anything than just be sedentary. Whatever it is you love, like dancing around, playing tennis, shooting hoops, you know, even running— maybe just don't be crazy about it. Um, whatever you enjoy doing and that you will do, obviously you need to do that. And so obviously I still take my hikes and everything, but what I have done is instead of doing that every single day, I've taken the other days and said, okay, you're gonna work out for this amount of time anyway. The strength training just has so, so many positive benefits, right? It helps our bones stay really strong, so potentially preventing osteopenia or osteoporosis. The amazing thing is that, you know, after I think they say 30 or 40, you just start losing about 8% of your muscle mass every decade. And so if you're not doing something to act— actively maintain your muscle, you're just losing it. And that has an impact on your metabolism. Muscle is the most metabolically active tissue in your body, it is expensive to maintain, and that translates into calories, and it translates into being able to eat a nice healthy amount of food, an amount of food that will, you know, like serve you well and, and make you happy and make you feel like you're eating. Whereas if you get very little muscle and you're— you've got a lot of fat on your body, you're not able to eat that much without, you know, to maintain your weight. You just can't eat that much calories, whereas muscle, like, for every pound of muscle you put on, you're able to burn 50 to 100 more calories. And so maintaining that muscle strength is super important. The other thing that it's really impactful for is just your overall health. There's a lot of data now on sarcopenia, which sarcopenia is basically losing muscle mass as we age. And people that are weak or that don't have a lot of muscle, it's like you are start being able to not accomplish the things you need to do in daily life. Just getting out of a chair, carrying in your groceries, walking, you're more likely to fall. And then once you fall, there's some astonishing statistics on it. If you break a hip, the decline after an accident like that is, is just almost impossible to recover from. And a lot— for a lot of people, it even means the road to dementia, which there's this crazy association between breaking your hip and dementia. I don't know why, but it's, it's been shown in couple different studies. So it's just really important to stay strong as you age. And so strength training of some kind is kind of a non-negotiable thing at this point if you want to stay healthy. So I am making myself do it. I'm not happy about it. I still, every time I go, I'm just like, I'm doing it, but I'm not in. But then, you know what, some things in life, right, you have to do some things you're not happy about. So I just look at it like that. I'm like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to try to stick with it this time. I will definitely give you a report. Maybe, maybe actually talking about this, maybe it'll make— keep— help keep me accountable. You know, there's also something to that. Also, if you can find a partner to go with, um, Peter and I's schedules have kind of been very different. I do much better if I get it out of the way in the morning, especially since I hate it if I wait until the evening, then I'm tired and I'm just so much more likely to blow it off. So, and then obviously his work schedule, he really needs to be really focused in the morning on that, so he hasn't been able to go with me, but in the times where we have been able to go together, I've definitely been much more able to sustain that, 'cause you kind of just, you know, you egg each other on. If one's not in the mood, but the other's like, "Eh, no, let's go," and you go, and then you get it done. So having a partner, that's also tons of studies have proven that out. You're much more likely to stick with any exercise plan if you have an accountability buddy. That's what I like to call them. If you go back to South Park, you'll find that. I didn't make it up myself, but. I always thought that was a really cute phrase for some reason. Um, so exercise, you know, you don't want to just start going overboard right from the beginning. I picked 3 days a week because I knew it's an amount that works for me and that I can maintain because I do have a long history with exercise and always moving my body. But if you're just starting from literally being very sedentary and doing nothing, just something as simple as 5 minutes 2 times a week, that's a great place to start. I always say when I'm working with people on, you know, changing habits, or if it's working on their diet or whatever, the, the reason that most people fail with these changes is because they'll take on too much at once, and so then they can't maintain it. All right, hopefully that didn't have me lose too much of my train of thought. I actually had to stop and do a call, um, but what I was saying was that why most people fail is they try to do too many things at once or take on too much, too many, too many changes at once. Like, I'm going to change my diet, and they just go like hardcore keto from day one when they've been eating a diet that's like full of carbs for maybe years at sometimes at some points. And so they might make it for a few days, they might make it for a couple weeks, but then they just quickly fall back to their old ways because they've taken on too much. Same with exercise, you know, New Year's resolution, I'm going to work out every day. That might last for a little while, it's very tough to maintain when you haven't built up to it. So starting slow is really the best way to approach any of these changes. Outside of sleep, I'd say like get on a sleep schedule, do that, do it every night. That's relatively an easy one, you know, just being— having the discipline to like get into bed at a certain time every night or to put on the blue light blocking glasses. That's a little easier than, you know, going to the gym a certain number of times a week or doing some exercise. So starting with something that's as little as 5 5 minutes a day, whichever one of any of these things that you're trying to change or to make better habits around, is just start slow. And then also tracking your progress in some way, whether it's in an app, whether it's tracking your food for a little while. Some of these ways of tracking just— or writing things down in a journal, that's a great way to also help keep yourself accountable. Having a coach is a great way to keep yourself accountable as well. Just having having somebody to check in with, having your accountability buddy, whatever it is. So now that we've talked through the exercise one, the final thing is diet. So with diet, it's, um, you know, there's any number of ways that you can approach diet. There's all different kinds of ways that people think are healthy, not healthy. What I think everyone can agree on is that staying away from processed foods, it doesn't matter if vegan, vegetarian, you're a dietitian, you're a nutritionist, whatever, everybody agrees that processed food is a negative. And I was actually listening to an interview today with a doctor that works out of Minneapolis, and he worked with the— I believe it's the NIH, National Institutes of Health, for several years doing this study around visceral fat. So the visceral fat is the fat that is highly correlated with all kinds of negative health outcomes, heart disease, all these things., and it's the fat. It's not your subcutaneous fat. So subcutaneous fat is like when you grab an inch on your waist or wherever it is and you can feel that, that's generally like just under your skin, subcutaneous fat. That's what it means. Uh, where visceral fat is fat in and around your organs. There's also this dysfunctional fat that gets in your muscles. So his studies were all around, you know, scanning people to see what their amount of visceral fat was.. And what he found was that in the scans, they would do these diet and lifestyle changes. The change that he got them to make with the diet, and this is what I've always said, I, I do eat keto, very low carb, 90% of the time. Um, but that's not necessarily for everybody. But what is most important about my diet is I eat all whole foods. And that's what usually what I say to people when they come to me for diet advice. Well, do I have to go low carb? Do I have to do this or I have to do that? I think the best thing that anybody can do for their diet is to reduce the amount of processed foods that they eat as much as possible. So if you're starting from a place where you're eating fast food every meal of the day, every day of the week, you're not going to go cold turkey. Again, for the reason I said before of doing things too quickly, that's not going to go well. You just want to start making these small changes that lead up to these bigger habits. So maybe it's for, you know, the first week, maybe you just cut out one meal and you just eat one meal that's whole foods every day, not every single meal. And, or maybe most days of the week you eat one whole foods meal. It just depends on where you're starting from. If you're starting from, you know, a mostly clean diet, you don't eat a lot of processed foods. You just whittle that down even more because anyway, the association was that the less that people ate processed foods, the more impact that they had on their visceral fat and they experienced all kinds of positive positive health outcomes from that, whether it's just feeling better, losing weight, less inflammation, all kinds of positive things. So working on your diet, whether you decide to be— I definitely don't recommend— I mean, I did vegetarian for 7 years, so I know, and I know at one point, like, it's always what the media is pushing at the time, right? And we're still in a very plant-based narrative right now, but the truth of the matter is most people cannot get the proper amount of protein that you need to maintain and build muscle through a vegetarian diet. It's very difficult. And on top of that, a lot of the sources that vegetarians use to reach that higher level protein is very processed food. It's not a naturally occurring food. So even though I wouldn't recommend vegetarian or vegan, it can be done. It's very difficult. But I would just say whichever diet style you choose, whether it's just all whole foods and you don't give too much thought to sugars or whatever, because you're going to cut out all the processed sugar if you're not eating processed food. You might eat whole food sugars like fruit or, you know, starchy things like potatoes, things like that. But it's still going to be whole foods. And that is what I've always said is the biggest impact that you can do is to just eat whole foods. So it doesn't have to be keto, doesn't have to be super low carb, especially if you're coming again from a diet where you have not been very focused on this in the past or have not eaten a lot of whole foods. Just making that simple change. Number one, it's gonna be challenging enough without going super low carb, but number two, it's gonna have a huge impact on your health if you're a person that's eating a lot of processed foods right now. So that I think will end the episode for today. Um, I hope this was helpful. I hope you are starting to think about changes you wanna make in your health going into the new year. Oh, wait a minute. No, I lied. There is one final thing I wanna talk about because I mentioned it earlier in the podcast. And that is the other thing that this doctor said about the visceral fat is drinking alcohol. We all know it's bad for us. I think I already said that, um, earlier in this, but it impacts your sleep, it impacts your visceral fat, it is a neurotoxin, so it's bad for your brain. It is excess calories. There are so many negative things about alcohol, and alcohol use has really skyrocketed since 2020 for obvious reasons, things that were going on in the world. But the good news about that is there is becoming more focus in the health space about people talking about alcohol use, how it affects all different aspects of health, how it's so much better for you without it. There's this kind of whole new sober movement, even in people who don't have what we would typically think of as a drinking problem, but have just chosen because of the negative health impacts to quit drinking alcohol at all or drink it very, very less frequently. So I have been actually focused on that myself, cuz I did notice some of that habit coming in during the pandemic, having more alcohol. It's not necessary. It's not good for you in any way. There is this thing called life balance though. And so obviously, you know, if it's a way you enjoy social time, if it's a way that helps you relax, that there's some, you know, mental benefit to that you could see. Um, but overall you just don't want to be doing it excessively. And so one thing that I have started using is this app called Sunnyside. It's actually very interesting. It's not trying to get you to really quit drinking, it's just trying to get you to be more mindful about it. And I think it's very useful. It has like a daily check-in and you can kind of plan out your days. Like, I'm planning for this day to do none. It's just so it's like another accountability tool. It's another way, another thing that you can use to, um, just improve your habits. And so it's like anything else, like tracking it, like tracking food, um, tracking your workouts. Saying you're gonna go 3 days a week. It's that kind of same thing with alcohol. Instead of just letting it kind of become this thing where it's like, oh, but we have this thing, or, oh, I'm going out with my friends tonight, or, um, even though I said I wasn't going to drink 3 nights this week, all of a sudden it turns into whatever it turns into for you, whether it's every night or whether it's once a week is too much for you. But I would say, again, any amount in general, taking aside that little life balance thing and, you know, enjoying wine with food. Like, obviously the trip we went on was to France, and the wine and food pairings there are so amazing. And so that's something that I am grateful to have experienced and didn't want to, like, say that I'm not going to do that for that trip. Um, but I'd say just life in general, if you're focused on your health, it is definitely a habit that you want to minimize as much as possible. And so if it is, like, kind of a stress-relieving thing or something like that for you, for finding balance, it's good to find some alternative alternatives to that. One of the other things I've really been experimenting with a lot outside of that app is just these, um, I'm actually getting ready to write an article about it. It's kind of like the best, um, alcohol alternatives drinks that are out there, and there's so many more of them now. And I'm focused of course on the ones with no added sugar because that is not something I want to add into my life either. Um, just because you're substituting drinking behavior and then all of a sudden you're gonna drink this mocktail that's got 20 grams of sugar. That's not a great substitute either. But what I have found are some of these ones. One that I really love is Ritual. I have a 15% discount with them, so if you go to healnourishgrow.com/ritual, I love their stuff. I have several mocktail recipes on the website, and they're like spirit substitutes, so you really can use them for in any cocktail that you know of that you like. And I would say the taste, I mean, it's not exactly exactly the same, but it is pretty darn close. Good facsimile. Actually, my favorite is if you happen to like a Negroni, there's a recipe for it on my website that's a non-alcohol Negroni, and that is really delicious. And so, and I love that their name's Ritual because I've often said that about alcohol is that, you know, probably at least half of it is the experience of opening the bottle and mixing the drink or pouring the wine or whatever it is and putting it in a fancy glass and having that kind of thing automatically makes you start to relax just because you know you're about to do it. So whether or not it contains alcohol is not necessarily the biggest part of it, although I have talked to some other people about this and they say, well, I don't even really like the taste of alcohol that much, it's more for me like I want that effect, right? And so some of these substitute ones that I've been trying, one's called Three Spirits, one's called Moment. There's so many of these links on my website now for these alternatives, um, and I like I said, I will have that article up soon. But the things that they're putting in there are kind of like adaptogens, or things that help you relax, or things that help you sleep. So even though there's no alcohol in them, they are putting things in it that are beneficial to you in other ways, or to help you relax in other ways. A lot of them have adaptogens like ashwagandha, or, um, you know, like I said, other things that either help you sleep or relax. So it kind of gives you It's not the same feeling as alcohol, but it's nice. It is relaxing. I've noticed one thing I've noticed that it seems to help with is kind of like relax my muscles a little bit in the evening, which is nice. Um, so there are lots of ways to like approach that and to do these substitute behaviors that are often really helpful when you're trying to change habits. So if your habit is like pouring that glass of wine at night, you're still pouring something, but you're replacing replacing it with something healthier. So these replacement behaviors are really useful. So, okay, now I think I actually am finished with what I wanted to say in this episode. So also, there's another great resource on the website for goal setting. If you go to, if you go to the website and search Ultimate Wellness in the search bar, it's within that article. It is a 10-year goal thing, which I've talked about this before on the podcast. That can seem really daunting, but it breaks it down. And basically the theory behind this is whatever you decide your 10-year goals are, that's going to help you make decisions in the month, in the year, and on a day-to-day basis that help you support that goal. It just makes things a lot more clear. So when you have those goals, you kind of work backwards. Like, say, in the easiest one, the, the example I always use because it's easiest for people to envision is that a marathon— if you're going to run a marathon marathon, you don't just go out one day and run a marathon, although people have done things that crazy, but generally you're building up to it. And so you're creating those habits that you work on for several weeks, several months leading up to before you do the marathon that allows you to do it in a way that's comfortable, in a way that makes sense. So it's the same thing with these goals. You're laying it out so that you're doing these build-up habits to whatever that goal is, um, so that you can eventually get there in a comfortable and easy way. And again, it's that of taking little steps, little habits, little changes that lead up to big results later on. Okay, so let me know in the comments whether you thought this useful. Let me know if you try any of these tools that I've suggested today. Look for the article on the alcohol substitutes coming out because I think that's super interesting and I think it's definitely something that people can use and it's something that will help you, you know, change your habits. Get less visceral fat, be healthier, sleep better. Sleep is the big one, and the Oura Ring was a huge game changer for me in that respect, because when I would see what would happen to my sleep patterns and my heart rate variability on nights that I would drink, it was really enlightening. So, and you don't need a tool to tell you that. I should have— obviously we all know this, but sometimes seeing that data somehow solidifies it, makes it easier to comprehend, easier to make those just so that is why I'm a big fan of the data. Any tools that will help, I'm all for it. So until next time, hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, and, uh, get in touch if you need help with any of these ideas.