MRP Q & A with Anna-Lisa - Mastering Meal Prep: Simplifying your Meal Prep Routine [Mar 14, 2025]

How are you today? Hi.

I'm good. How are you doing?

Good. Is the music playing or not?

I cannot hear music.

Wow. Don't it always? I always get. This is so tricky. Always try to figure it out. Never can figure it out. I almost have to share the screen with the audio. Wait, is it sharing now? No, no, I think I just have to share the screen someday. I'll figure it out.

Share.

You're way ahead of me.

That's okay. I know. Share my screen on different things. But now can you hear it?

No.

Oh, my gosh. I don't know what's going on. Okay, well, we'll just go with the flow. How are you today?

I'm great. How about you?

I'm excellent. I'm going to stop this. It's too distracting. I'm excellent. We're going to go through a few things today. We're just going to wait a few minutes. So the key thing I would have you focus on is what is your most relevant thing from gratitude from this week or your win? What do you, you know, think about those wins? And they don't have to be big. Right. They could be a very small decision you made that's going to propel you forward. And so that's something we're always wanting to do because we often, as women, don't celebrate ourselves. Right. We often will make, you know, celebration for everyone else, but for us as well. Let me just let others in. Yep.

Okay.

We have a few. Adil, good to see you. Deanne Corinda, excellent. Good to see you. Those of them don't know me. My name is Annalisa Kinch and I'm a health coach with the team. Oh, Jennifer's on. Great, Good. So while you guys are waiting, as we other people are joining, really focus on what was your win for this last week because that's going to be key for us to celebrate ourselves as we're moving forward propels us to look in the future and move towards the goals that we're accomplishing and want to accomplish as we're going through. So let's start with our wins. Then we're going to go into a little bit of a meditation, and then I'll go into our topic for today and then we'll go into Q and A. So, Amy, since you were here first, you get to start.

My win was having establishing an accountability partner this week for business, for something. For some business projects. So that's going to help be very helpful for both of us.

And so this is how we celebrate Each other as we're going through and doing our client wins. So, Adil, what's your win for this week?

Hi and hello, everyone. I started the program this week, so I'm on day four or five at this point, so it feels about as big a win as ever. And now I have this tiny plate of chicken and big bowl of leafy greens beside me. So happy to be on the journey. Yay.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Jennifer, what's your win for the week? Can I have two? Oh, you absolutely can. How it's done.

Okay, so, Adil, pay attention. So my first one is I was able to reconnect with a friend. I had lunch with her yesterday. It's probably been a year since I've seen her and obviously a lot has changed for me since then. This is the part that might appeal to Adil. Today is the last day of my second round. In my second round, I've lost 31 point something pounds, which is slightly down from my first round, which was 38.4. So it's totally possible. It's.

It all.

It's just about your consistency and your motivation and your diligence and you can absolutely do it. You can absolutely do it.

Fantastic. Congratulations, Jennifer. That is amazing. To do the first round and the second round and lose almost the same amount. Like, you're very close to doing that.

It was. It was definitely. It was both harder and easier the second time.

Yes.

For different reasons.

Yes.

But anyways. Yes.

Yes. Congratulations. That's exciting. And that gives hope to everybody else who's here.

Do it. Keep at it.

Definitely. Most definitely. You can do what you did the first round in the second round as well. Congratulations, Jennifer. That's amazing. Alice, did you want to go with your win for the week? Oh, I don't know if. If you can't come online, you can also just put it in the chat and we'll celebrate you there. How about Becca, what's your win for the week? Know if we have.

I know. Okay, there I am. Yeah, I got an accountability partner who's here on this call and seems like it's helping. Like, I'm just more focused and I'm getting things done more. I'm just more productive. So I've been really happy to. To do this, to give this a try, and it's been working out so far. It's only been like two days. Today's the third day.

Well, today's the great day. The first two days, of course, as we know, is the hardest part of the program. Trying to get to that 5,000 calories is tough, but as you move into the release phase, it gets a lot simpler in moving forward because you're doing something the same every day. So once you build those habits and you get that habit strength going, it just makes it easy. I think I'm in my almost coming up on my third year of doing the same thing, and it just becomes lifestyle as you move forward. So congratulations, Becca. That's awesome. Corinda.

Hi, everybody. So my win for this week is actually couple of things. One of them is getting back my little one, who's seven years old, back on track. He was away for a week during the school vacation in Florida visiting his grandfather. Had a lot of fun. So coming back to the routine was a little bit difficult to get him back to, but he's doing great. He's falling back into the routine, doing, cooperating. And then another win too, is that I've been more active as of late than I normally would have been.

Oh, that's exciting. Way to go.

Thank you.

The weather. I'm in Florida for a month and the weather is great here. So we're getting out and doing activity, which is also good in Toronto. And of course, there's lots of snow there. Right, Adele, it's still snow. Sunshine, but still snow. Yeah. Deanne, what's your win for this week?

My win is definitely getting outside more with the warmer weather, spring weather, to, you know, just ground in nature and move my body more consistently. So that has been my biggest win in the last week.

Congratulations. That's exciting. Thank you. Joanne, I don't know if you can unmute. I can see you.

There we go. Hello. I didn't do round three. I'm actually just maintaining, but I'm getting out and walking like 7 to 10,000 steps with the dog, so that's great. Pain free, of course, is even better. And I don't know why I can't hear you, but I hope you can hear me.

Yep, we can hear you. You can't hear me.

I can hear you now.

Okay. Perfect. Awesome. Yeah. Congratulations, Joanne. I just. I love your story from the beginning of where you were to where you are now. Fantastic to be able to get out. And 7,000 steps, pain free is the most important thing. So congrats.

Thank you.

You know what, you choose when you're going to do the next round, right? And I usually recommend even Sachin and Deepa. They do a week every year. Sometimes they'll do one in the spring and one in the fall just to restore the Body. Right. This is all about restoration and healing of the body. And the side benefit is weight loss. So that's why from a maintenance perspective, we're able to maintain better because we lose the weight, we're healing and restoring and then the weight comes off right in that process of what we're doing. So.

Right. And it certainly identifies what your inflammation foods are because I do notice I could get achy hips when I add back dairy. And I'm like, okay, dairy is not my friend, but I love it.

Yes, I know. But you can do alternate dairy. Right. You still can enjoy dairy, but in a different format.

Exactly.

So it's a good awakening. Yes. And it's just finding those things that you like that will serve the same organization similar purpose, but don't cause the problems.

Yeah. I'm gonna do round three, maybe after Mexico in May. Oh, congratulations.

How long you going to Mexico for?

Just eight days.

Oh, lovely. It's such a blessing to get away and have the sun.

Oh, gosh. Yeah. Ocean in the sun. Healing.

We're going to the beach tomorrow. I'm excited. One of the top 10 beaches in the world. I think it's called Siesta Key.

Oh, nice.

Yeah.

So I'm. I'll take pictures. Hopefully. It's going to be great. Randy, I don't know if you can unmute. Oh, maybe not. And I found Saw Alice posted. Let's celebrate. Alice on the move right now. My win is making a bunch of my own personal care products. That's amazing. Way to go. Hey, Randy, can you share your.

I can. I'm just walking into my office. So my win this week. Let's see. Sorry, I'm on the move.

That's okay.

So I say on this, I'm still on the. I'm on doing maintenance phase. But what I've loved is just this return to vegetables. I had done carnivore animal based for quite a while and like this whole process has really helped me. I wouldn't even say balance. Just a return to like vegetables. And I find that I love the taste of them. I love eating them salads and just feel more. I don't know, complete whole. I guess that's the best word.

And.

Yeah, just maintaining the weight that I want to be now. It didn't take long. I usually shed weight pretty quick, but just maintaining and doing all the other. The breath work, the light, it's just. It's fantastic. So that's my win for the week.

Awesome. Congratulations, Randy. That's exciting. And Anna, did you want to Share your win for the week.

Yeah, sure. Hi, everyone. So, actually similar to what we've heard from a couple people, so one is that, you know, I've been dealing with some back issues, but I feel like I'm, you know, almost there now. I'm at about 80, so I've been able to re. Incorporate walking, which has been amazing. And then it's so funny, right, with exercise, I mean, a lot of people don't like exercise and they're like, oh, my God, I have to exercise. But I'm telling you, when you can't move and then you can move, you're like, oh, my God. Like, grateful for exercise. Right? So that's been. That's been really good. And then I'll say I've enjoyed reincorporating the fats, so I found that I really missed the fats. Although it did. It did force me to figure out, like, I don't know, how am I gonna saute some spinach? Because I normally throw in a splash of olive oil or whatever. So it did kind of force me to, like, you know, think of other ways to do that kind of stuff. But I. I'm not gonna lie, I'm enjoying having, like, you know, oil on my salad and that kind of thing, so. Oh, you might. You might be on mute now.

Yeah.

There you go.

Congratulations, Anna. That's exciting and I'm so glad for you. To be able to get up and out, not great when we can't because that slows everything down, but to be able to be up and moving and just. That's such a blessing and we sometimes we take that for granted for. Right. Who can get up and get around. So congratulations. That's exciting. So for. I think that's everyone for today, so let's move on. I'm just going to. One sec. We are going to do a meditation first. Hopefully the sound comes through. I had trouble earlier, so let me just share my screen and share sound so it should work. So just get in a comfortable position and then we're going to go through a little bit of a meditation and then we'll get into today's training.

To begin this mindfulness meditation, just let yourself get into a comfortable position, whatever that looks like for you. When your body feels ready, you may gently close your eyes. With your eyes closed, take a moment to tune inwards first, simply noticing your body tuning into the weight of gravity, the points of contact between you and the surface on which you are resting. What else do you notice? What is it like for you to be in your body right now. As you observe this, you simply accept and allow whatever it is you notice, harboring no judgment, just being mindful, noticing what is with a sense of compassion in your heart and letting it be. Continue to do this now with your breath as well as your body. If you haven't already, begin to tune into the sensations of breath, breathing, What do you notice? Just observe, accept and allow no judgment, just letting everything be how it is. As you stay mindful of your breath and your body, with a sense of compassion in your heart, Keeping your eyes closed, you allow your awareness to expand to include the space around your body. It's as if you can sense the air around you, the objects around you, and you just allow them to be as you simply are. There's nothing to do, there's nothing to judge. If your mind wanders. That's okay, don't judge it. Just return your focus to what is being connected to your breath, your body and your sense of presence in the world around you. You let everything simply be, including yourself. You now begin to let your attention travel back, becoming more and more aware of physical sensations by rolling your shoulders, wiggling your fingers and toes, still being mindful of what is and taking this present moment awareness with you as you slowly begin to open your eyes back to the world around you. Wonderful job doing this practice. We hope you enjoy the rest of your beautiful day.

Amazing. What I love about that is can you hear the binaural beat? There's, there's. I don't know if any of you use my noral beats. I've used them for a very long time, probably since like 2012, just to help with healing and to rest and sleep because I often couldn't turn off my monkey mind and I. You hear that above and then the music below. Amazing. Amazing. Just helps that for us to get into that state. So for today's conversation, we're going to be doing meal planning. We do have the expert in house, which is Jennifer. I always like to have her here. Let me just start the show. So we have a few things for you today I'm going to share with you in the chat. Let me do that. I'll do that at the end. I'll share the link to some of the tools and things that we have available for you. But of course, meal planning. Sometimes when we're first coming into the program or we're unsure of, you know, all the pieces that have to go together, I always say, you know, on your first time going through, really focus on the plate, what Am I putting on the plate? What is the 4 ounces of protein I'm going to put on the plate? What is the 4 ounces of approved veggies? Maybe you pick, you know, if you' if this is your first or second week, maybe you just pick from the proved veggies, you know, three or four that you're going to rotate through. Because that's kind of the, the way to help you simplify this in being able to accomplish same thing with fruit. Pick, you know, two or three fruits that you're going to rotate through so that you have an idea of what are the key things that you're going to do from a preparatory standpoint. And then unlimited veggies. Focus on just adding some salad. If you look at the free veggies, a is greens, right? Greens, cucumber, you know, adding in some green onion or some peppers or mushrooms to your salad. Just make it simple in the beginning and then that allows you to be successful as you're moving through the program. Meal planning matters. Why it allows us to be more time efficient. I'm just gonna bring up my notes here so you be more efficient in your meal prep, which does involve some planning and preparation. I once saw a group that put together popsicle sticks. They put the recipe names on the popsicle sticks, especially if you're, you know, you, you kind of rotate through a similar set of recipes on an ongoing basis. And then in order to do meal planning, they put all the popsicle sticks in a container and then pulled out five for the week. Because on weekends they just kind of do leftovers. But Monday to Friday, whatever popsicle stick came out, that's what they're cooking Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. They're made it easy and fun for them to be able to select and put together what they're going to be doing for their week. And it allows you to, if you prep, a lot of people will do grocery shopping, come home, you know, clean all the vegetables, cut them all up, put them in containers and get them ready to be used for the week so that you're, you don't have to cut all the time. The other thing we often recommend is what you do for dinner, you have for lunch the next day. So you're only really prepping and cleaning and getting ready for one meal a day. So again, that's time efficiency. Because in the past we were probably snacking, eating three, four meals a day, doing all that. Now we're doing two concentrated, nutrient dense meals. Healthier eating. When you plan and prep ahead and get the vegetables ready, it's easy to just use them in the beginning. Maybe it's just frozen veggies. You know, I know at Costco you can get organic frozen veggies and organic frozen fruit. If that makes it easy for you to be able to get and put together things, then do that. From that perspective, it's also cost savings when you buy ingredients in bulk for meal prep. Makes it more cost effective than purchasing individual or going every single day to purchase. And then reduce stress because you know it's ready and you don't have to worry from that perspective. And we often can get decision fatigue. I don't know if you in, in the past, if you've ever done a program and there are too many things that you needed to do. I, I can remember before I got this, an understanding of how simple this program was. I did a previous program where every day was different and then it was confusing because I didn't know what day I was on. And then you're stressful and then you're making, trying to make decisions and you get decision fatig fatigue. So if you meal plan, your decisions are already made for you and that's one less decision you have to make for the day. Makes it just easier. And then getting started, what do you need to do in order to get ready for meal prep? Well, set aside some time. Often if you do your shopping on Saturday, maybe on Sunday, you spend an hour just cutting vegetables and putting them in glass containers and getting them ready. So all you do is pull out. I once heard of a group, they had a plastic container and then they put individual glass containers in. So it's almost like going to a salad bar and they put the lid on so that every. And then they would take it out. So it'd be like a big, big container, but it had all these little containers in it with all the ingredients. They take the lid off, grab what they need to make their salad, and then put the lid back on and put it in the fridge. And they had that for the week. And every day could be something different, right? As far as your salad or your things that you're picking from that, or if you do it as a stir fry or a stew, you just pick the things out because they're already ready to go. Assess what you already have. This also helps if you plan ahead and you pick the recipes you're going to be doing. You can go and look and say, oh yes, I have all these ingredients. And then you can write down, here are the list of ingredients I need to get. And that way you don't have food wasting as well. You're assessing what's available in your own pantry and then plan ahead. Plan your menus ahead using the Popsicle stick thing or even. I'm going to share with you one meal plan or kind of a meal plan, a weekly meal plan template that you can use and you can use it for whether you're doing the release phase or I have it also for the maintenance phase. And you can pick and choose what you do there and then smart cooking strategies. So batch similar foods often. If you are vegetarian and you're doing lentils, you can do up a pot for the week and you have those available for you. Doing roasting. Broccoli, mushrooms, brussels sprouts, you can do cooking squash and carrots, maximizing your own efficiency. The other piece you can do is protein preparation. If you prep ahead of time and then put them in, I know some people will prep and put them in 4 ounces. Guys, please. Rob. Rob. Sorry about that. We have an electrician here. He's taking a look at the electrician. Protein preparation is preparing enough for the week, so you have them ahead of time. And some people will store, you know, the 4 ounces already done cooked in a container. So you just take it out. Especially if you're busy working during the day, that can help with getting ready. And again, pre cutting produce and getting it ready. If you're traveling to work and preparing your lunch, get your fruit together as well. Often you can just take an apple or an orange. Those are a pair. They're individual. If you're taking berries, I like to do frozen. They're so easy. You throw them in and away you go. Flavor enhancements. This is key. I wouldn't suggest in the first week or two unless you're a cook. For me, I'm glad my mom cooks for us and she did the program so she knows what to do, which is amazing. But if you're a cook like Jennifer, you'll start to add and make these things. Making your own homemade dressings. There's so many recipes in the guide on how to do it without oil. And then I know Alice shares a lot of different ones in the Facebook group that do contain oil. So you can then prepare some homemade dressings. They can stay in the fridge sometimes for three, four days at a time and just make enough that you can reuse. Adding in spices. The only key thing is making sure your spice doesn't have sugar or oil in it for the release phase. As you move into Maintenance, you can shift and adjust and use some that may have oil in it. But experiment, you know, maybe as you get to week four, when you're bored of the same thing for the first three weeks, in the fourth week, try something different. And adding in some spice blends. Fresh herbs are also amazing. I know in the summer we. We grow our own herbs in our little container that we have. And cutting those up and adding them to stuff, oh, just adds that amazing flavor. The other thing you can do, these are some examples. Jar salads. If you're in a rush or you're struggling, I'll share these templates with you. But the jar salads are fabulous. I did those with for my husband. When we're working, we just take it out. I set it up so that you can layer it in the proper way, because if you put the dressing at the top, then everything gets soggy. So you want the dressing at the bottom. You want to have some hard veggies in that don't get soft in the dressing. And then you'll just layer each one of the items in there. And then, you know, if you're in maintenance, you can add in some sunflower seeds or other nuts or things on top of as part of that process of creating that. But this is the jar salad that you can use for the release phase. Sheet plan meals are often much better for when you're in maintenance because you just put oil on it to allow it to cook properly. I would, if you're in the release phase, if you put some broth on the pan and then maybe cover so it doesn't get dry. From that perspective, you can do sheet plan meals. And I love this because the cleanup is easy. You put everything on the sheet plan, you wash it, you're done. It's so simple to do. And then power bowls. This one is a newer one that I just created that took the release phase and kind of gives you a sense of how you could actually put together a bowl, right? If you had the salad bar in your fridge, you take it out, you create your power bowl with all the different things, and away you go as a way to just change up what you're eating and to get variety. Because that's the other thing. When we keep eating the same thing every day, we're only getting the nutrients from that which we're eating. If we can switch it up and try different things, then we're getting a variety of nutrients. And then building your meal prep toolkit containers, glass containers, is what we do recommend using, especially since Plastic will leach into your food. Using sheet pans for efficient cooking. And I'll share a tool prep that you can use. It just has a list of things that we recommend having your measuring. When you're cooking your or measuring your meats, you're going to do 5 ounces of uncooked and 4 ounces of cooked. So what I'll often do is just put a piece of, oh, what do you call that, the wrap stuff on the, on the, or a plate and then you tar it so that you zero out the plate, put on your meat, and then you'll be able to measure from that perspective and then create a planning system that works for you. You know, if you don't have a lot of time, schedule things in. So it just makes it easier for you to go, oh, yes, today I'm doing this from that perspective. And this is the tools for meal prep. I'll share all these in a minute with you. These are the weekly plan where you can kind of put in what you're for each time frame. And then your shopping list is at the bottom of the things that you need to pick up or if you can, you know, kind of go through. These are the proteins that I have. This is what I need. So then you kind of get a sense for your week and the plan ahead. Start small and grow gradually. Don't try to take it all in at the beginning. Just focus on one thing, like I said at the beginning. Focus on the plate. What are you putting on your plate? I always say 4, 4, 4 and some unlimited veggies. Right. If you think in that terms, it makes it easy to think about the 4, 4, 4 you're looking for to put on. And then as you move forward, you know, maybe in week three, week four, you start adding in some spices or maybe you start adding in how you prepare for the week. Right. And then create the habits so that long term you'll be able to maintain the success of what you've accom going through the program. These are lifestyle habits we're learning every day just to help us move forward and accomplish the goal that we want, but more importantly, maintain the goal that we have accomplished. So that's what I had to share for today. Anything else, Jennifer, that you can recommend? I mean, you are the queen of meal prep.

Thank you. Yeah, a lot of what you said totally resonates. There's things that I would do. Like I was very conscious about like planning for grocery shopping and that. So for example, I would buy a cabbage. And at the beginning of the week. I would use the, out the, the whole cabbage leaves as like a bun for a burger, which was absolutely one of my favorite things to do. Or like so. Or if I wanted to use the outer leaves for like cabbage rolls or something like that. And then so more typically if I would use like the outer leaves as a bun, then once I'd done that, then I could cut it up and then use the cut up cabbage for like a one pot meal or in a soup or something like that. So really like maximizing your vegetables like you said. And I would probably get like three or four vegetables fruits a week and then I would just kind of like mix them up. And usually towards the end of the week it was like, all right, well I've got, you know, an ounce of cantaloupe left and I've got 2 ounces of strawberries left and I've got, you know, I'll fill in the rest with blueberries or whatever to just try and like get to the 4 ounces. But yeah, it's honestly the thing that saved me the most time was pre planning my proteins that more than anything I would buy like a big container of whatever my proteins were and I would portion them out. I would lay them really flat in my freezer and I have them all like, they're like little soldiers. They're all like lined up. So I've got, you know, extra lean ground beef and I've got ground pork and I've got fish and I've got things, you know, chicken breasts that I've marinated in like dill pickle juice and things like that. And so then I can just take them out because there's so little. They're. They take almost no time to thaw. And then I can, you can just add it to anything. The other thing that I would say that maybe you didn't touch on is use if you can. I know it can be more expensive, but if you can utilize the pre shredded things at the grocery store or pre cut things at the grocery store. So there's this one dish that I make. I use like a little bit of extra lean ground pork and then broccoli slaw and coleslaw and shredded carrots. And I throw. And maybe some mushrooms, like pre sliced mushrooms or whatever. I throw it all together with some soy sauce and ginger and garlic. And it's amazing because it tastes fantastic. It's very quick. It comes together really fast. I can do that in minutes. And it's so flavorful. I get bored very easily with Food. So I'm always making new things. So spices that don't have sugar in them, I found at Costco, I found a dill pickle seasoning and also a chimichurri seasoning that don't have sugar in them and are totally like, everything in them is like release approved. So if you like, you know, things with a little bit of a kick, that chimichurri spice, you can add it with, you know, some vinegar and some fresh herbs and it's really, really great for just adding on to. You can throw it on fish, you can throw it on chicken, you can add it to a sauce. You can. It's great. So yeah, the egg roll in a bowl, Deanne. Absolutely. That's exactly what it was like. And it was fantastic. It's so good. So and then obviously cooking for, I always make two portions of something. I don't, I don't like to waste cooking time. So like I'll make a double batch of chili or I'll make a double batch of like I'll use my palmini noodles and make like spaghetti sauce with them. I really, really take advantage of the food free vegetables. The fact that tomatoes are free literally like opens up the possibilities for all kinds of like hearty, warm meals. Or like gazpacho or like you can literally make anything.

It's great. Awesome. Thank you so much for that share. I'm. I'm gonna try that chimichurri.

It's great.

I'm excited.

Yeah.

Because normally we do like the Frank's hot sauce because you can add that but you need. The chimichurri has different flavor. So thank you so much. Anybody else have anything to share on meal planning that they do? Just go ahead and unmute and you can chat.

I agree with Jennifer on having consistently the extra protein on hand and making when I'm cooking like a soup or anything, doing a double batch and then I portion it out and freeze it in small meal size containers so I can literally just grab even from my freezer and defrost or whatever. So when I don't have time, it just is a quick fix.

Great idea. Yeah. And then you have less decision fatigue. Right. In being able to have that prep ready to go. Absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for that share. Anybody else have any suggestions on meal prepping or things that they have learned that have made it easier for them to make it through? Don't be shy. From a perspective of questions for the program, if there are any, I'll take those now and we'll walk through and I can answer. Let me just check the chat to see if there's anything that's come in. There's no questions in the chat, so if there's any questions, go ahead. Becca, Sorry.

I was wanting to share what we did on the release phase, and I say we because my husband really is the cook. But I did a lot of cooking, too, and I do not like cooking. I just don't. And so I did the batch cooking for sure. I went to Costco. I would get the. My favorite was the ground turkey because it was already 7% fat, so I didn't have to worry about draining fat. And then I would get the two organic cabbages there from Costco and I would use basically a pound and a half of ground turkey or all three pounds of the turkey because it comes in a two pack with the cabb is unlimited. Make that with spices and water and all that. And then I could freeze it. And that saved my butt so many times. I can't believe it. And then the other thing that we were just thrilled. It took us a while, like maybe three or four weeks in to realize, oh, we can make curries. Because I'm of Indian descent and we're like, I like the intense flavor of curries. And you can do that with tomatoes and red onions. And I was like, wait a minute, we can make curries. You just blend it up and fry all that with the spices first and then throw in the meat and whatever vegetables you want that's free. And I would portion. Sometimes I would portion out. Like, I make everything in the big batch as long as it didn't have the. I kind of started cheating putting the. Not what's the vegetables that are required, the 4 ounces of vegetables, because once you mix that in with a protein, it's harder to separate that into the 4 ounces. But yeah, so towards the end, I was just like, you know what? I'm not going to worry about it. I know that I have four servings of meat here. Just spread it evenly between four containers and then I put it in the fridge for the week or the freezer in a big batch if I had a lot of it. So that. That's what got us through.

But are you still doing that today?

Oh, when I was saying about the accountability, it wasn't. Didn't have anything to do with it. Just had to do with life path, not the.

I'm just saying, from what you learned going through the program to be prepared. I've used that habit of doing that on an Ongoing basis, just so that you have your. You kind of have the idea. I know you don't need to weigh food anymore because what so nice. When you go through the release phase, visually, you get a sense for how much 4 ounces is on your plate. But have you been able to keep up doing and prepping and helping yourself through that process?

We do it once in a while. Like, we'll freeze food on the weekend. We've always kind of done that, but it's not ever consistent. And then because I'm not the one that really cooks, it's really up to my husband if he's going to do that. But I kind of am. I'm very inspired to do the. I like this meal planning idea because I'm always going through my fridge and like, hey, honey, can you make this? Because it's going bad. It's like, why can't we be organized about, like, what we're going to make? He's more spontaneous, I'm more organized. So I think I'm gonna have to. I know that I need to take more participation. At least I make the salads. I will tell you that. I make the salads. He doesn't like to do that. And I think I will try your idea of cutting some stuff ahead of time and seeing if. I'm sure that's going to save me lots of time.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I. I've always loved that salad box. I've never done it. I've done individual and I've done jar salads, but I've never made the big box with all this stuff in it. That's something that's on my list to do. But while we're in Florida, that's not something we'll be doing. Amy, what has.

What have y' all found? Is a great way to keep your veggies once you have prepared them.

Yeah, that. That's one thing. So what I've learned through a course I took on meal planning is one of the key things is to clean them and using, like, a water with a little bit of apple cider vinegar, just to dump them in and clean them out before you do them. Cut them all up and then put them in a glass container with. What I'll do is put a paper towel down, put the vegetables in, put another paper towel on top because the air and water ruins them quicker. So if you have an airtight container that you put them in, that will help to keep them longer. Anybody else suggestions? Samples of. Oh, yeah. If you want to. Do you want to Share those right now or you'll share them in the Facebook group, Jennifer.

No, I was just going to lift them up and show you. Because they're melting. Oh, yeah, okay.

For sure.

So just what I was talking about, these are like my little samples.

Oh, amazing.

Yeah. So I'll just like.

Yeah. And see what you're doing is vacuum sealing that.

Yeah, so I'm vacuum sealing them.

Yeah.

So you're right, you need to pull the air out of things. But it. How you store your vegetables is dependent on which vegetable it is, like how much water it has and stuff like that. The other thing that you want to be careful of is that vegetables, as soon as vegetables and fruit, soon as you start cutting them, they start to lose their nutrients. So the more you can keep them whole longer, the better. Like if you chop everything on Sunday and then you're not using those vegetables until Friday, like, even if it's something like carrots, it's still like they're, they're not going to be as great for you as they would have been on Sunday.

So what I've seen some people do is meal bags. So they use the vacuum sealing, but they'll put everything in. So they'll do their meat in a separate bag with, with like, if they're doing any kind of seasoning or anything, they'll seal that and then they'll put the meat in. Then they'll put their vegetables in. So they'll cut up, then they'll put the greens in and then they'll seal it and put it into the freezer. So it's a meal in a bag. So you just out, you can dump it in. If you're doing like a stew or a stir fry, it's already ready to go. You just take it out, dump it in, and it doesn't take long to prepare.

Yeah, you have to be careful if you have softer vegetables there because they can overcook while you're waiting for the proteins to cook. So. But yeah, one of the things that I super love is like one pot meals or soups or, you know, anything you can do in a crock pot or whatever. Because then you can like if, if you're meal prepping, you can like have something cooking on the stove, something baking in the oven, and something cooking in the crock pot. And you can have like three things going all at the same time. And then you can have like your meals done for the whole week in not very much time if you just plan it. Right.

Absolutely. Excellent suggestion. Any other questions? Anything is Open. You can talk meal prep or you can ask questions about the program success. All of those. Thanks, Alice. There's an amazing YouTuber that has awesome content on all of his. Oh, downshiftology. Yeah. I've seen you post a lot of her. The recipe from that. So that's another area that you can pursue downshiftology, which is great. Yeah. Just getting comfortable with prepping and preparing meals is going to be key for long term success. Becca?

Yeah. My husband and I will do a second round pretty in a couple weeks and I had a question like we. When I did it before I just did meat as my protein. Can we mix it so that if I'm not a vegetarian that I can take. Okay. So I can do vegetarian meals and use the protein that's off that list?

Yeah, correct. A lot of people do that. I've had many clients. They'll do. Some days they might just do an all protein day. Some days they'll do one meal that's vegetarian, one meal that's meat. So you can mix and match. As you're going through, just know that with the vegetarian protein there's a lot more carbs. So what we do find is for vegetarians often they won't lose as much because they have. Because the proteins have more carbs in them as you're going through. So from that perspective, is there any.

Proteins on their list that doesn't have as much? Because I know they have legumes I think. Right. And I'm going to stay away from legumes but I think they have cottage cheese. I don't know if that has a lot of carbs. Ok. Yeah.

The only thing with cottage cheese is just if you're sensitive to dairy that that can affect you. If you're not sensitive to dairy, you've gone through the program already and in maintenance you had no trouble reintroducing dairy. Then you could use cottage cheese as part of that.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions for today? Go ahead, Jennifer.

Sorry, I have a question not related to food. So I recently started doing castor oil packs and I was not sure how to know if they're working or being effective. What are some like cues that I can look out for?

Alice, have you done castor oil packs before? I think you have. Are you able to unmute? I know you're driving. Amazing bowel movements. There you go. It.

Okay.

I know I've not, I've done it a couple of times but essentially it's, it's just really. Castor oil is designed to Clear all the stuff out. Toxins help with just the liver. You could put it on your liver. I've done it on my thyroid. I don't know if that helped. My thyroid tumors have reduced in half. So I don't know. It's part of the process what we're doing. Plus using castor oil I think has helped with that. So. Yeah. What are you experiencing? Anything or nothing or not?

Well, I, I guess I'd like more context on what amazing is for bowel movements. Like, because there's definitely like, oh, Randy's got some ideas I'd love to hear.

Go ahead, Randy.

I was just going to say what I've seen and what I've seen from patients is if there are any challenges with the lymph, the castor oil is fantastic for helping to move the limb. So any areas of stagnation that you may feel in your neck, the breast area, inguinal area, when you start using castor oil, it's helping to stimulate that lymph movement. Because it's, because of how it's also helping with the liver. I will say with the bowel movements. I've had people experience just again, easier bowel movements. If there's constipation, it's helping support that, that whole process. So it's more normal. And then there's also with the castor oil, it does stimulate the, that ventral vagal tone as well. So it's helping support the parasympathetic side of the body. And I think that takes more consistent use. That's not just like a one time thing. But as you consistently use castor oil, it is supporting that parasympathetic state because of all the nerve fibers in the gut area. So generally just for detox purposes, I have my patients do this often and it's so beneficial for them when they do it. They start first to notice better bowels and then if they've had any areas of lymph stagnation, they just start to see an improvement. Slowly, but still an improvement in that.

Would you recommend, Randy, going slow? So start with an hour maybe or.

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't do it overnight. The first time I had some people do that and it was like, it was like too much. They just felt more of a detox effect than more gentle.

Yes.

And I would say along with the castor oil, some things you can do just topically is where these termini are here for the, the lymph, like all the lymph flows right back into these. Terminate here in the neck is to very gently. Like on.

Yeah.

Or like if you're. If you're touching a. A tomato and you're not gonna bruise it, whatever. Just very gently, like doing this motion on, not tapping, but you want to, like, move it in the. In that termini there. You can start there. You can do the neck. You can go to the chest, under the armpit, the gut. So that'll all support as you're using the. The castor oil and just a way to support that. But this terminy is always like. Like anytime I do any lymph work, it's the first and the last thing that I do because all the lymph is flowing right into here into this superior vena cava.

So, yeah, even when you dry brushing, start with opening this and then dry brush so that this is open and can flow out. Otherwise you can get blocked. Yeah. Amazing. Thank you, Randy.

Annalisa. I have a question about that. Then it's Anna.

Yeah.

So I got a dry brush this past week based on last week's call, and I was super excited to try it. But it did say. And I thought what we talked about was starting from the bottom, like, starting from the feet and then going up to the heart. So did I just hear something different?

Each person experiences differently. I just know. And I guess, Randy, you can comment as well from a lady that I is a physical therapist. She often said to open this area, and then. Yes, you go from your feet up.

Okay.

You're pulling towards the heart.

Okay.

Can I. Can I disagree with that? Sorry.

What?

I.

So, okay, I disagree a little bit because, like, if you have something backed up and you're starting from the end of the line and trying to move forward, it's kind of like a car collision. And if you're way back and you're just honking your horn, it's like you're not going to clear anything. So what I've seen and I've heard from some people that all they do is focus on the lymph is you want to start toward the midline, and then let's just take the arm. Right. So if you're starting towards the midline, you're moving in, and then you're going out as you are rushing. Does that make sense?

Okay.

Okay.

So if you start here, you're essentially the person in the back of the line honking the horn, and it's. You may not be clearing things in the lymph that are closer in, so you're just pushing up against that block. Whereas start midline. You're always brushing towards, you know, here. You're never rushing away, but you just start midline and then move, move out.

Okay, and then what about like and then do. And then. So are you also suggesting starting at like the top of your body and working down so like your feet would be last then?

Yeah, essentially. And you could. Sorry, no, I was just going to say too. You have terminus here, but you also have them in your groin. And so everything moves towards your groin. You're going to open that area first and then move. Whether it's the tops of your legs, you move the the tops of your legs first and then bottom to up and then your top again so that you're moving it through. And similarly on your butt, you're going to go around into the terminus in the groin area as well. Well, okay.

All right.

Well FYI, if anyone's interested, I don't know if anything happened to my lymph but. Or lymph but I did feel like super energized after I did it like a couple times. It was like oh my God, like I'm awake and alive like versus feeling like dead.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Often we'll go in the sauna, then when I come out, just before I go in the shower, I'll do my dry brushing and then have my shower and. And then finish with cold at the end of your shower. And then you feel like I'm ready to go.

Yeah.

Any other suggestions, Randy? No. Okay, thank you. Awesome. Appreciate your help on that. Any other questions for. Yes, hydration. Thank you Deanne. Hydration definitely. When you're moving lymph to help clear things out and detox. Totally important from that perspective. Excellent. Well, I'm happy to have had the opportunity to share with you today. Great conversations. I love you all. It's been wonderful. Adil, I hope you learned something new today since you're just getting started.

Woohoo.

And congratulations everyone. As you're moving forward, success is coming for you. I have loved everything about the program except loading but the process of regenerating my gut. I went through so many issues and hospital so many times. To be gut free or pain free has been the blessing. Same Joanne, your ability to get out of walk like so much for you guys just a blessing. The change that we've all gone through. So Adil, this is what you have to look forward to. Can't wait for you. I'm excited. Thank you.

I'm excited for it.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, have a great week everyone. Remember to celebrate yourself even just the smallest wins is the most important. Celebrate and congratulate yourself each time you do one little step because that increases your dopamine. You feel great, and then that helps you continue on your trek. So have a great week, everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Love you.

Love you all. Bye bye.

Bye bye.