Weekly Living Light MRP Q and A - Stress and Breathing Techniques to Cope with Stress [Nov 22, 2024]

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome, welcome. Hope you're all having an amazing day. I. I switched computers and I just want to double check. Yeah, okay. The. It's recording. Okay, great. Awesome. Well, so great to see everyone. Welcome. Beth. Welcome. Shelley. Welcome. Julie. Welcome. Lisa, Lori, Dorinda, Mira, Robina, Julie, Sachel, Nancy and Quay. So as you're all tuning in here, let me know in the chat what you're grateful for today. Hey. So Shelly says my sister in law is visiting, visiting me and makes me laugh. Grateful for her energy. Oh, that's wonderful. Laughter is such good medicine, right? Julie says my determination. Yeah, Congratulations. Seal says I'm grateful for my vacation coming up next week to Italy.

Wow.

Lucky you. Lori says lost two pounds from yesterday. Also, we finally have cold weather here in Florida. Oh, I'm sure it's nice to get a little. Little break from the heat. Julie says she's grateful for coffee.

Okay.

Lisa says grateful for all. Grateful for all the progress I'm making. Robina says I'm grateful for the rain. It forced me to pause and stay at home. Okay, good. Sometimes nice to have that down time. A nice cozy day at home when it's a rainy day. Beth says started maintenance on Tuesday and it's going well. Good. Dorinda said I have had a few weeks of great travel and spending time with my grown children and littles. I still have the glow from my visit with them. Oh, amazing. Koi says grateful for this program. Oh, he just got back from Italy. Wow. Nice. Where were you in Italy? Can go ahead and unmute.

There we go. It was a quasi. It was kind of a honeymoon. I just got married in June, so we. Yeah, yeah. We flew into Milan and then Florence and then Rome and then Sorrento.

Oh, wow.

We. It was two weeks and it was really intense. It was good, though. It was good.

It was beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah, we were. We did a similar trip. When was it? See, it feels like so long ago now. August 2023, we went, we did Rome and then we went to the southern coast to Sorrento and Amalfi coast and then we went to Florence and Cinque Terre and then Venice. So.

Yeah, that sounds fun. I'm in Texas, so to see that kind of beauty around it was just really refreshing.

Yeah, it's very different from life here in the west, right? Yep. Okay, awesome. Well, I'll let everyone just settle in here, so just let us know in the chat what you're grateful for today and we will get started here shortly. So we are. We're not Going to do a breathing today because the actual talk that I'm going to present to you today is all about breathing. So we'll kind of try some of these breathing techniques as I talk about them. Okay. I'm just going to put a quick reminder here just for. I want to join. Give me one second. Right, so let me pull up my slides here. Okay. All right, can everyone see my slides? Okay. Yep. Okay, so who here has stress in their life, Some level of stress or has had stress? Everyone. Right. So we all need tools to help us cope with stress. And, you know, one of the most impactful and effective tools is using your breath. Right. The breath is the steering wheel of the nervous system. And we can either choose to breathe consciously to shift our nervous system more into a parasympathetic state, which is the rest and digest state, or we can breathe in a way that's going to shift our nervous system more into what we call a fight or flight state. So the breath is a very powerful tool that we all have conscious control over in terms of regulating our nervous system. And my son, he goes to a Waldorf school. And yesterday, we went to a talk yesterday evening, there was a technology expert and it was about technology amongst children. And, and, you know, the, the responsible use of technology. And you know, one of the main things that when technology isn't used in a responsible way, it can, especially for children who are so vulnerable, so open, don't have, you know, the development of the prefrontal cortex to be able to have these, the, I guess the, the wherewithal to know when something is perhaps not necessarily, you know, good for them to be exposed to in terms of technology. And so as parents, we really have to be guardians of technology use with children. And one of the reasons is because it can really impact our nervous system either in a positive or negative way and in many times a negative way. Right. A lot of these tech, you know, a lot of this technology, especially social media with kids, is designed to be habit forming. It's designed to get them addicted. It's designed to hijack their nervous system. So self regulation is super important for us as adults to model to children and, you know, for ourselves as well. And that's one of the things that breathing really helps with. It helps with self regulation. And, and this may be a little off topic or on topic with this conversation, but the speaker, I, I felt like her talk, the essence of her talk was really embodied with a experiential experience that she had us all go through. So she basically had an actual beeswax candle. So she lit the beeswax candle and she just had us like, you know, we dimmed down the lights and she had us just focus on the candle and focus on the, the feeling that the candle perhaps evoked and just like the properties of the flame and you know, really being present with the candle. And then she had, you know, those little fake candles that you can get from Amazon now with a little battery operated candle. And then she had that battery operated candle in her other hand. Have any of you seen those battery operated candles? So when you put those two side by side, it's just a stark, you know, difference in terms of the mood that each of those evokes, right? One is made from plastic, it's man made, one is essentially, you know, made from nature, right? It's beeswax, there's a cotton wick. And so for children, when we expose them to a lot of these man made, I guess, you know, things that we're all exposed to now, it's a very different experience for them in terms of what they take away from something that's man made versus something that's natural, right? And I think this is an important lesson for adults as well, right? Maybe today if you have an actual candle and if you have one of those fake candles, put them side by side and just notice the difference, right? Notice the difference in terms of the feeling and the energy that one evokes versus the other, okay? So all that to say is that we are even adults, right? Technology use is quite addicting for adults too, right? And it can really hijack our nervous system as well, right? We're exposed to so much more than our parents or grandparents were ever exposed to, right? We carry the burden of the entire world on our shoulders because it's so accessible through this little device, right? Whereas 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 years ago, you would never really know what's going on in another part of the world, right? Or what, you know, you're, you're just bombarded with so much information and you know, a lot of the times that information is, is designed to be hijack your nervous system, create fear. And so you really have to be a guardian of what you consume, right? A lot of the times we talk about what we consume through our mouth, right? But we also have to be guardians of what we consume through our eyes and our ears as well, okay? Because that all is going to impact your nervous system and you know, we'll talk about it in, in the coming slides here, but it essentially impacts our Health down the road, right? So, you know, we all have stress, right? Whether it's work, whether it's relationships, you know, sometimes stress, whether it's aging parents, whether it's, you know, whatever that may be. Right. And so we really have to be able to have techniques to help us cope with this stress. So just to, to kind of bring you back to the basics, what is stress? Right. Stress is essentially the body's natural response to challenges or demands, right. And it can often result in physical, emotional or mental tension. So stress is, is normal to a certain degree for us to experience. Right? There's good stressors, there's bad stressors. Good stressors are called eustress and it may cause a temporary increase in a hormone called cortisol, which is essentially our stress hormone. But if we have enough resilience, we want to be able to bounce back from that stress pretty quickly. But what happens for many people is that they are exposed to stress chronically on a day to day basis, which pushes them into a period, pushes them into experiencing chronic stress over time, which is long term stress. And that long term stress can really disrupt balance or homeostasis. Okay. So we have acute stress with short term immediate reaction. For example, if you were driving, if you heard a siren behind you because you were driving too fast, your heart rate would start to increase, right? Your respiratory rate might become more shallow and increase. And there's a variety of different physiological re reactions that occur, you know, help you deal with that acute stress. But eventually, you know, if that police ends up pulling you over, you end up getting a ticket like that. Stress will eventually, you know, you'll be able to come back to your regular baseline. Right. The chronic stress is the one that gets us into trouble, right? This is long term persistent stress. Whether it's a job that you, you know, have that just, you don't really enjoy and you know, it just creates so much stress for you. That's what's going to disrupt the homeostasis, which will eventually lead inflammation, lead to issues with your gut. Right? Hormonal imbalances. When we have chronic stress, right? And chronically elevated cortisol levels, that is going to divert blood flow away from the trunk and into the hands and feet. Right? So no wonder, you know, a lot of people who are under stress, they don't digest their food very well, right. They don't have good digestive capacity or function. Right. And this chronic stress really impacts every system in the body, right. The digestive system is just one example. It can affect your cardiovascular system Right. Over time, chronic stress, you know, you think about that example of the police, you know, the sirens going off, your heart rate increases, right? Blood pressure increases. So over time, if you have chronic stress, you know, that's one of the number one causes of something like high blood pressure. Right. Even high blood sugars. Right. These are all things that are, you know, usually a result of chronic stress being, you know, a key contributor to some of these issues that we face down the road. Okay. And you know, what is, you know, in terms of what causes stress? As I said, it could be work related, it could be relationships, financial concerns, health concerns. All of these things can contribute to chronic stress. So when it comes to stress, there's different types of stress, right? There's internal stressors, there's, and there's external stressors. So internal stress stressors are going to be things like nutritional deficiencies. So perhaps, you know, magnesium, for example, is a very common nutritional deficiency. Over 80% of the population is deficient in magnesium. Right. That's going to cause stress, internal stress in your body, okay. Or gut health. So imbalances in your gut bacteria or even leaky gut, hormonal imbalances. These are all internal stressors. External stressors are going to be things like perhaps environmental toxins, right? So if we're exposed to a lot of plastics or heavy metals, these will eventually disrupt your hormonal system, Right. They're called endocrine disruptors, which endocrine really means hormonal lifestyle factors. So perhaps sedentary habits, if you overwork, if you're not getting enough sleep, psychosocial factors, so perhaps trauma or unhealthy relationships. These are all external stressors. Okay. So kind of have to look at both of these when it comes to stress. We talked about it a little bit here, but in terms of impact on the body, you know, stress can really have physical effects on, on the body. So increased heart rate, as, as I said, high blood pressure, high blood sugars, fatigue, headaches, digestion, sleep related issues, you know, long down the road, this can contribute to heart disease. Chronically elevated cortisol is going to suppress your immune system. So you have to think of, you know, the way I like to think about stress is if a lion was chasing you, would immune function be important at that time? Would digestion be important at that time? Would reproduction be important at that time? No. Right. All of those systems would shut down because when you're in fight or flight, your body is literally trying to just survive. So a lot of those other processes that occur in the background that we're not even aware of are going to be shut down under chronic stress. Of course, stress has a huge impact on our mental health. So anxiety, irritability, difficulty concentrating, burnout, depression. When we're chronically stressed, blood flow moves away from the prefrontal cortex, which is our. Are the part of our brain that's responsible for higher thinking, and it moves to our reptilian brain. So this is why we may become very reactive. Right. This is why we may get irritable. Okay. So stress really does have a. Impact on every single organ in the body.

Okay.

It's also going to impact our ability to produce energy in our cells. So the mitochondria of our cells is what's responsible for energy production. And when we have too much stress, it's going to be very difficult for our mitochondria to produce energy, which is going to contribute to fatigue down the road. Okay, so we kind of talked about it a little bit here. But as I, as I mentioned in the beginning, breathing really does have a huge impact on our nervous system. Right. We can breathe in a way which will induce fight or flight. So if we breathe rapidly, shallow breaths through the mouth, that's going to activate the fight or flight. Okay. Whereas if we take conscious breaths through our nose, slower breaths, that's going to shift us more into that rest and digest response. Okay. So breathing techniques are super effective with lowering cortisol, slowing the heart rate, promoting relaxation and better sleep. Okay. So conscious breathing really helps to activate the vagus nerve. We've talked about the vagus nerve before, but the vagus nerve is one of the main nerves. It's cranial nerve number 10. It runs from the back of our brainstem, all throughout our trunk organs. Stems down with vagus means wanderer. And when we activate the vagus nerve through conscious breathing, it really helps calm our nervous system. Okay. And breathing can also. Conscious breathing, especially when we breathe in a way that activates the parasympathetic. It can also reduce inflammation in the body. Okay. It can also balance PH levels and it can also improve oxygenation to all the tissues in our body and optimize energy production as well. Okay, so we are going to talk about four main breathing techniques. And so we'll kind of, you know, I'll, I'll talk about them, and then we'll actually do some of these as well. So you know how to do them. Okay. So the first one is diaphragmatic breathing. Okay. I know some of you might be driving or doing other things, but Those of you who are able to participate, I would encourage you to participate. So with diaphragmatic breathing, you want to sit comfortably and you want to place one hand on your chest, usually your left hand on your chest and your right hand on your belly or your stomach. And you want to inhale deeply through the nose, ensuring the tongue is at the roof of the mouth and just behind the two front teeth. And you want to really expand the belly as you inhale through the nose. So you should feel that right hand. You should feel, you know, that feedback as you inhale, your belly expanding. And then you're, you're going to exhale slowly through the mouth. And as you exhale slowly through the mouth, you should feel your belly gently recoiling back. Not a forced exhale. It should be a gentle, natural recoil. So let's practice about five breaths this way. And we're going to try to inhale for about five seconds and exhale for five seconds. Okay. This creates a very smooth rhythm in your breathing. And this is going to optimize for those of you who have an aura ring, it's going to help optimize your heart rate variability. Heart rate variability is a measure of how resilient your body is to stress. And the higher the heart rate variability, the better. Okay. This type of breathing, when we breathe in for five seconds, breathe out for five seconds, also is going to reduce cortisol and it's going to really shift you more into that parasympathetic state. Okay, so let's put our left hand on our chest, our right hand on our belly, and let's breathe through the nose for five seconds for the inhale. Ready? One, two, three. And exhale through the mouth. And inhale through the nose. And exhale through the mouth. Inhale through the nose. And exhale through the mouth. Inhale through the nose. And exhale through the mouth. And we'll do one more inhale through the nose. And exhale through the mouth. Okay. So this type of diaphragmatic breathing is something that you can do at any time during the day, even when you're driving. Right. You don't necessarily have to put your hands on your belly and your chest. You could practice that five second inhale, five second exhale. And this is really going to help reduce your heart rate. It's going to help promote relaxation, and as I said, it's going to help reduce cortisol. Okay. The second one is box breathing. So box breathing is when you inhale for four seconds, you hold your breath for four seconds. Then you exhale for four seconds, and you hold for four seconds. And you, you, you. Four seconds is a great starting point. And then you might play around with, you know, five second intervals or six second intervals. Okay, so let's try this one once again. For this one, you can inhale and exhale through the nose. So you're going to inhale for four, and I'll kind of guide you through this. So inhale, one, two, three, four. Hold, three, two, one. Exhale, four, three, two, one. Hold. One, two, three, four. Inhale, 1, 2, 3, 4. Hold, 4, 3, 2, 1. Exhale, 1, 2, three, four. Hold, 4, three, two, one. Inhale, 1, two, three, four. Hold 4, 3, 2, 1. Exhale, 1, 2nd, 3, 4. Hold 4, 3, 2nd, 1. We'll do last round. Inhale, 1,2, 3, 4. Hold, 4, 3, 2,1. Exhale, 1, 2, 3 million 4. Hold 4, 3, two, 1. Okay. Some of the benefits of this technique is it's going to really improve focus. It's going to really reduce anxiety as well. So for those of you who do struggle with anxiety, this is a really great technique that you can implement. And you only have to. For a lot of these. Like, literally, it's like one to two minutes, if that. Okay. So five to 10 rounds of this will really, you know, sounds very simple. Sounds very, you know, are you sure that's gonna create a shift? But it really does. Okay. Okay. Third one is alternate nostril breathing. So alternate nostril breathing is a ancient Ayurvedic practice, and it really helps to balance our energy and calm our mind. So when we inhale through the left nostril, that activates the right side of the brain. And the right side of the brain is, gosh, how am I going to get this right? The right side of the brain is more associated with creativity. And when we inhale from the right side, it activates the left side, which is more of our logical brain. Okay, so for this one here, you can use your thumb and your middle finger. And you're going to close your right nostril, and you're going to inhale through the left. And then you're going to close the left and exhale through the right. And then you're going to inhale through the right and close the right. And exhale through the left. Inhale through the left and exhale through the right. And inhale through the right. And exhale through the left. Inhale through the left. And exhale through the right. And inhale through the right. And exhale through the left. Okay. And you might notice that one side is perhaps more congested than the other side. And so the more you do this, the more you'll notice that those nostrils open up. Okay. Some people have a very hard time with nasal breathing. It's one of those things where if you don't use it, you lose it. Okay. So the more you breathe through your nose, the more you'll be able to open up those nasal passages. Okay. The next one is the physiological sigh. Okay, so the physiological sigh is a really effective technique to promote instant relaxation and stress relief. So if you're feeling really, really overwhelmed or you're feeling like you, you know, have a lot going on, you can literally do this in like 10 seconds. So what you're going to do is of course, sit comfortably. You're going to inhale deeply through the nose and expand the diaphragm. And then you take another sip of air and one more, one more inhale, and then you extend the exhale with a loud, audible sigh. So. Through the mouth. Okay. So you inhale through the nose, take another sip of air through the nose and another one, and then extend the exhale through the mouth with a loud, audible sigh. Okay. And you can do that two to three times. And what you'll notice is immediately you'll notice that you feel an immediate relief of stress, especially that loud, audible sigh. It really helps with just letting everything go. Okay. Really relax the shoulders, relax the jaw when you're doing that loud, audible sigh. Okay, so does anyone feel any different since practicing? Some of these feel less stress, maybe less tension in your shoulders, maybe less tension in your jaw. More relaxed. Okay, good. Okay, so some additional tips for managing stress. Of course, some sort of mindfulness or meditation practice can be really helpful. Okay. Once again, does not need to be 10, 20, or 30 minutes. It can literally, literally be two to three minutes engaging in regular physical activity. So primarily I would say going for walks in nature, maybe some light yoga or stretching, like all of what we kind of, you know, guide you to do more. So while you're on the release phase. Right. Things that really support the parasympathetic. We're not asking you to do like some crazy high intensity, intensity, interval, interval training. Right. We want you to focus on activity that's going to support the parasympathetic. Okay. Maintaining a healthy diet. Right. So once again, this is one of those internal stressors. If we're eating a lot of inflammatory, processed foods, that creates a lot of stress on our body. So, you know, with many of you, we, we Spoke about how one of the main goals of this program is to shift you into a parasympathetic state. And we do that through breathing, we do that through the nutrition plan, we do that through sleep. Right. I think someone had mentioned in the comments here that I'm grateful for finally being able to get restorative sleep. It's been amazing, right. That's going to shift your body into that parasympathetic state. That's where the healing and repair and regeneration occurs. That's when weight loss becomes more effortless. Okay. Getting adequate sleep. Right. Seven to at least striving for seven to eight hours. Right. Sometimes we think we're getting enough sleep, but then for many of you, you get your aura ring and you look at the data and it's like, whoa, I'm not really sleeping seven to eight hours. Right. So really trying to focus on getting more sleep. Right. It's just going to make you more productive the next day. So that big long list of to dos, if you get a good night's sleep, you're going to be way more higher functioning the next day. Okay. And then of course, if you have a lot of, you know, major stressors, you want to maybe seek some support from friends, family or professionals.

Okay.

Other external stressors you want to be mindful of is min minimizing exposure to toxins. So really switching over your personal cleaning products to more natural products. Makeup, eating from, you know, storing food in glass or stainless steel, avoiding plastic containers, plastic water bottles. Right. All those toxins are just, you know, an additional external stress on your body. And for some of us, sometimes we need some supplement support as well. Right. So on the program, we include the Reishi mushroom, coffee, tea or capsules. Right. You all would have chosen one of those options. And that's because Reishi is a very powerful adaptogenic. It helps shift our body more into that parasympathetic state. Okay. Things like magnesium, Athenian ashwagandha. These are all supplements and herbs that can support the parasympathetic state as well. Yeah. So as I mentioned, these don't have to take a lot of time. Right. You can do it during a break, you can do it before bed. You can do them right when you wake up, when you're feeling overwhelmed. Right. And consistency is definitely key when it comes to lasting benefits. Right. You want to really make sure that you do these on a regular basis. Right. Perhaps once a day. Right. You can even use certain apps like Calm or Headspace. I really like Insight Timer. Right. HRV trackers. Heart Math is another one. I don't know if any of you have heard of Heart Math, but that's a great tool as well. So these are all, you know, technology tools or wearables that can really help as well. There's also another one called the Oxa Band. That is a really great one. The Muse Headband. There's so many out there. So try to perhaps use something that doesn't have to be something you have to purchase. A lot of these apps and tools are free, right? They don't really cost anything you can do use the free versions. Right? Insight Timer, there's a free version. So, you know, it's not that we can completely eliminate stress. Right. That wouldn't be healthy for us either. Right? The stress is what makes us grow. It's what makes us get through challenges and become stronger. But the key is that we want to be more resilient to stress. Right? We want to be able to bounce back from stress rather than have it take us down this whole spiral of, you know, poor health and mental health. We want to be able to become more resilient. So one of the key features on the Oura ring, when you open up the app, if you go. They recently changed the app, but if you go to the bottom, it says my health. And there is a tab there that says resilience. Okay? So it has basically rates you as limited, adequate, solid, strong, or exceptional. So you want to be in the strong or exceptional range. And for a lot of you, as you go through the program, you'll probably notice that that line starts to go up, right? Because you're becoming more resilient to stress. Okay? When we lower weight, when we lower inflammation in the body, that's going to decrease that internal stress on the body, right? So the HRV starts to increase, the resting heart rate starts to decrease, and the resilience starts to move into the strong or exceptional range. Okay? So I will open it up to questions. You can either raise your hand or you can type it into the chat if you have a question. Anyone have a question? Okay, so couple of. Okay, so I know Shelly put something in the chat. I'm going to unmute Jen first and then we can talk about heart rate variability. Hey, Jen, go ahead and unmute.

Hi. How are you?

I'm good. How are you?

I'm good. So this is my last week. So this is week 10. So I know this is really specific, but which day is my last day? Is it today? Is it Sunday?

Is it? And then the last day of the Program is usually like day 70, basically. So.

So if I start on a Saturday, I would finish on a Friday.

Yes, Correct.

Yep.

So that would be today.

Yeah.

So it's funny because a lot of people have asked me like, okay, well, then what? Because I was like, well, there's, you know, three phases. And then. And they're like, yeah, and then what? And I'm like, well. And they're like, what? Do you just go back to eating normally? I'm like, well, this is a new normal.

Right.

But it's true. Like, so in the maintenance phase, I've been testing a lot of things. And we had an event at work yesterday. It was like a chili day event. And chili on its own is great, but the cornbread muffins and the chocolate chip banana cake with the cream cheese frosting and the corn chips were not good. And I thought, this is the week. This is. This is the period for trying things. So I'm going to try things and see how I feel. I was. It was awful.

I felt so terrible.

And I didn't have that much, but I did. I felt really awful. I felt sick to my stomach. I ended up taking, like, digestive enzymes. And I actually sent Annalisa a note. I was like, okay, it's been four hours and I still feel like crap.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So none of this surprises you?

Yeah. No. So. So like, basically, you know, those type of foods create a lot of inflammation in the body, Right? They create a lot of stress on the body. And because you've kind of removed those foods from your, you know, over the last 10 weeks, you've removed those foods. When you do have them, it might feel like it's a really exaggerated response. But sometimes if you think back to how you were feeling even before starting the program, for a lot of people, they were experiencing day to day bloating and digestive issues and, you know, fatigue. And a lot of that is because of whatever they may have been eating prior to the program. So when you take it out and you try it again, it seems like a stark contrast because you were feeling so good, doing so good, and then you eat something like that and it's. There's such a huge difference in terms of your. Your new baseline versus how those foods make you feel. Right. But if you think about it, you probably were feeling some level of that prior to starting the program. Right.

Maybe I just wasn't focused on that because there were so many other things that I was worried about.

Yeah. And that was kind of your normal at that time, Right? So when things like that happen, when people try things and that type of reaction happens, it's a great way for you to be able to reaffirm that. Okay, I need to just, like, stick to this. Right. When you don't get those kind of reactions, some people don't. Like, they're just not.

Well, it's funny because I've been trying little things here and there. Right. Like, I've had a little bit of cheese and I've, like, I haven't had yogurt or anything like that yet. But, like, I haven't had a glass of milk. But, like, I haven't. I haven't had. I. I love all things creamy, and I haven't had anything super creamy. Well, that's not true. I had a Starbucks drink, and it literally, like, sent me over the edge. And. And it even. It didn't even have, like, it had almond milk in it. But I don't know, it's their almond milk or whatever because. And. And it was. And I had them, like, reduce the amount of sugar in it and everything anyways, so it's just. I'm actually really grateful. As much as I felt like crap yesterday and I haven't eaten since then, actually I actually feel really grateful that that's what my body's response was, because it would be bad if it didn't respond that way because then I would have been like, oh, great, I could just, like, eat whatever.

Exactly.

That's probably a good thing. But the question is, like, like, so I. I guess it's just Continue to go slow.

Yeah. And.

Or whatever. Like, do I still need to worry about, like, weighing my meals and, like, weighing my. Like, I don't want to continue to weigh my stuff out, but obviously, like, I also. Portion control is one of my issues. I also don't want to fall off the rails when it comes to that.

So.

I know the quarter.

Quarter.

Half. Yeah. Is a good guideline to go by, but I don't know, is there anything else that I need to, like, worry about? Like, I'm. I'm having a glass of wine tonight. My. My. My brother was like, make sure it's a good glass of, like, make sure it's a good wine. Not too good of a wine, but better than 25. Like, it's a to $50 range.

Yeah. So, like, this is where you're, like, going to pay attention to your aura data. Right. That. That's where, like, okay, when you have the wine tonight, the next day, for most people, just because alcohol is very inflammatory for the body, it's. You're probably going to notice your HRV drop, your resting heart rate, go up your REM sleep, like, be obliterated, Deep sleep, be like. So like. Okay, the key is to, that's why we give you those tools and to give you the objective data. Like, the data doesn't lie. Right. So if someone else was to tell you, oh yeah, you know, alcohol is going to trash your sleep. Like, you may not believe them, but your ring will tell you.

Right?

Right. So pay attention to those kind of markers. Right. In terms of what it's telling your body. Right. And how those markers, you know, with certain behaviors might improve with certain behaviors, you know, may drastically change for the negative. Right. And in terms of like, what to do beyond, like the maintenance and you know, after the 10 weeks when you go into your modules there, there is a module on. I don't know if you've got it yet, but if you haven't, we can unlock it for you. So it's called guidelines to follow during and after Maintenance. And then there's a link for a Google Doc and that's going to kind of give you a little more detail in terms of. Let me just share my screen. So here. So the, you know, it's very similar to what you're doing on the release phase. Right. Where you're perhaps, you know, for some people, they may choose to introduce breakfast a few days a week or they, you know, and I always say that you can still fast. It might not be 16 hours, but.

But I like the 16 hours.

Yeah. So then you can continue. If you feel good with it, if you feel like it's working for you, you can continue. And then lunch is going to be protein, vegetables, fruit and a fat. And the proteins here on the second page is, kind of gives you the options.

Right, Right.

And so, you know, some people will say, do I still need to weigh? Right. And for people, I find for most people, they need some sort of structure.

When you say weigh, you mean weigh the food or weigh yourself.

Weigh the food.

Okay.

So, you know, it's not like you have to do it every single day. Some days you might eyeball it, but for the most part, I feel like for most people, the structure is what really helped them get the results for the release phase. Right. So the more we can stick to like a structure.

Yeah.

Once those guardrails come off, then, you know, it can be more difficult for people to maintain the results. Okay.

I have one other question, but you can get to other people first and come Back to me.

Okay. Okay. So I'll just answer Shelley's and then I can get back to you. So Shelly was asking, can you talk a little bit more about heart rate variability? So heart rate variability is the time in between heartbeats. Okay. And for a lot of people, they think that that time in between heartbeats is exactly the same, and it's not. It varies. And the more it varies, the better. Okay. So the higher the heart rate variability, the better. Okay. And heart rate variability is an excellent measure of how resilient our body is to stress. So it's an excellent measure of longevity, of our resiliency to stress. And there's no real. I would say, you know, it's very variable from person to person. Okay. Some people's HRV will be in the dumps. It'll be like tens, twenties, thirties. So the higher we can get it, the better. Okay. I don't like to give, like, specific ranges, but, you know, you can. And what you'll see if you have something like an aura ring over time is you'll see the. What I tell people to do is if you open up your aura app and you click the three bars on the top left hand side and you go to trends, and you go to readiness, and then you go to heart rate variability. And at the top, if you'll see weak. When you're on the program, you want to see the hrv, the. The line going up and increasing. Okay. And that's what most people will see when they're on the program. Okay. So, yeah, so that's. That's a little. I don't know if you have any further question. So Deepa, then. No, that was great. But. So there is no real range, like, if you look at it to say, okay, well this. You're just looking to see what the trend is. Exactly. Okay. The trend is what we want to, you know, obviously, like I said, the higher the better. Right. So. But overall, we want to see the trend. Right. Especially as you go through this program, like I said, for like 99% of people, they're going to notice the HRV start to increase over time, which is. Which is a good thing. Is which.

Okay.

All right. Perfect.

Okay, thank you, Jen. I know you had another question.

So my other question is, I plan on renting. Doing the whole program again, starting in January.

Yep.

And now that I know what I'm doing and what I'm getting myself into, I cannot imagine eating 5,000 calories a day in the loading base. I. I like, it was hard before and Like, I'm an eater, I can pack it away. But like just that experience yesterday and having like a medium coffee, like creamy coffee from Starbucks, like, it blew my mind that I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to be able to do that. I know, start early, eat often, graze throughout the day, that sort of thing. But like, really?

Yeah. So I would say try to aim for at least 3,500 to 4,000. And eating foods that are higher in fat are going to get you to that calorie range a lot quicker because fats are more calorically dense. So things like, you know, your healthy oils, like olive oil, coconut oil, nuts, seeds, avocados, those type of. Yeah, those type of foods are going to get you to the caloric range faster. It is definitely a lot harder the.

Second time as I did try like the first time I did try to like, I wasn't eating chips and whatever. I know on the second day I was at like 3800 and it was 7 o' clock at night and I was like, oh no, what am I going to do? And my daughter went out and got us all blizzards, so. And that's good for like a thousand calories. Just a medium blizzard is like. But I did try to eat like good food. Like it's easy to get to 5,000 if you're eating bags of chips and whatever, but I don't want to do that. So it's hard to get 5,000 calories of high quality food.

It is a lot harder. Yeah. So sometimes, you know, if like the, the, the, the. Another way to get calories in, in a healthy way is like a really dense smoothie.

Yeah.

So putting in like a lot of, like you could put in a drizzle of olive oil and nuts and like hemp seeds and just really making it like.

I didn't think of the hemp seeds.

Yeah, like making it really dense and then that's something to sip on.

I know one of the things that I did before was I put like protein powder into my coffee and like coconut oil. So like, I tried to make everything sense.

Okay.

So, yeah, I guess just doing okay.

Yeah. So the unhealthy foods are definitely going to get you there faster because they're just, you know, even restaurant food, like, it's just a lot more calorically dense. Right. So, so those type of foods will definitely. But then they, I think either way, on the loading days, you're gonna feel like crap, but if you eat cleaner, you feel less crappy.

Got it. Okay. So even like 3, 800 or something will still be fine.

Yeah, yeah, I would say get us 4,000. 4,000, yeah. As you can. Yeah.

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

You're very welcome. So the purpose of eating so much on the loading days is basically to really. For several reasons. So number one is to. One of the main reasons is to really benefit from something called the thermogenic effect of food. So when you eat a lot of food, it really, like, increases thermogenesis, which is like your body's ability to like, burn. So that's one. One reason. And then another reason is it's kind of like a bear in the summertime, Right. The bear in the summertime is eating a lot of food and kind of loading up on calories, so to speak, to kind of hold them over into the winter when they're not going to be eating as much. Okay. So there's kind of twofold reason for the loading days. Hey, any other questions? Comments?

Okay.

Oh, Quay had a question. Yeah, go ahead, Quay. Go ahead and unmute.

Yeah.

Hi.

How are you?

Good.

How are you?

Good, good. This program has been really challenging for me. You know, this is my second time doing it. And I think part of it is because I hold so much stress and. And so that's really impacting my ability to lose weight. And, you know, I'm. I would say I probably follow the program about 90%, you know, and. Yeah, like, for instance, if I go, you know, I like to swim, you know, so I'm doing the fasting, right? So I'll eat at 11am and then, you know, and then by 7pm, like starting between 5 and 7pm my second meal. But if I've gone to the pool, you know, I need to have something. So like I have a protein bar or something like that that's like low sugar because I need something when I. Otherwise I'm feeling weak week, you know, when I get out of the pool. So I don't know what suggestions you have, you know, like, what I'll tell.

You is like the release phase is six weeks, right. And if you talk to someone like Jen, like, the more you follow it, like, it's literally just a short blip of time and the more you follow it, trust me, she lost 30 pounds. So if you do or more maybe by now. So if you follow it to a T, you will get 20 pounds minimum of weight loss for like 99 of people. Right. It's. I know sometimes it's hard to have a period of time where it's six weeks, where it, you know, you may have a little bit of travel or whatever it might be, right. But, and that's okay if it's like three or four days, but if it's going to be extended, travel like two weeks or whatever it is, like, I always advise holding off until you can find that period of time where you can stick to it for six weeks. If you're finding that you're doing swimming and it's making you hungry, don't do swimming, go for a walk. It's literally six weeks that you have to just shift your behavior slightly. Right. The goal of the release phase is to get as much weight off as possible. And then on maintenance, that's where your weight will stay around the same plus or minus two to three pounds. So if you eat that protein bar, it's probably not going to make a huge impact on your weight. It's, it's, it. But the release phase, the more you follow it, the more you stick to it. And I know we've had these discussions before, it'll work. Right, so then you don't have to keep doing it three, four times, right? Just do it that one time, do it properly and get that £20 off. And then you may never have to do it ever again. Right. As long as you stick to something similar to what the release phase.

I think part of the problem is because I'm so stressed all the time that I, you know, that it's, it's hard to have the willpower and the discipline, you know, to follow it. So now I'm probably. Can you, Can I extend the release phase for another week? No. Okay, so. All right, so I've lost 13 pounds.

And this is good. That's great. Right below.

It's like that.

Yeah, yeah. And if you feel like, you know, the willpower is more difficult, like that's why we offer for, if you do go through a second round for you to either, you know, you don't have to buy the whole program again, but you can add those optional services where you can get additional support a la carte. Right. So if you wanted the journal checks or if you wanted one on one appointments, you can purchase that in addition to the spring.

Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna go into maintenance now and then how long do I have to wait before maintenance ends? Because, because I feel, I, I feel like if I really, you know, just focus and concentrate and commit for just when you say six weeks, it's like, oh, I could do anything for six weeks.

Exactly.

When you're in it, you know, it's like, oh my God, like I'm pulling my hair out. Like, you know, it's okay. I need.

Yeah, come to the calls, right? Come to the weekly calls. Get that additional support if you feel like you need it. And that's going to help you stay on track. Right. Yesterday I had a client who messaged me. She just started this week and she's like, oh, like I'm having a craving. Like, you know that that's part of the support, right? I messaged her back and I told her, have some tea, go for a walk, maybe journal about it and it'll go away. Right. You don't have to react to every single urge or every single. And that's what the support is for. Right. And I gave her some encouragement and she was able to get through it. Right. So if you feel like you need that kind of support, right. And we're all different, right. Some people don't need as much support and some people do, and that's okay. Right. And if you feel like you need more support, then it's available. Right. So I would recommend if you are going to do a. When you are going to do another round to. To get support.

I'll wait until January.

Yeah.

And yeah, yeah.

If you're going into maintenance now, just wait until January, which is close to when it's going to take you now anyways. Right.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Well, very welcome, Kwei. Thank you. Okay, well, we are at 106, so I'll let you all have a wonderful rest of your Friday and we'll see you all next week. Bye, everyone. Have a great day. Bye.