Weekly Living Light MRP Q and A [Nov 15, 2024]

Sa. Happy Friday, everyone. Welcome, welcome. So nice to see you all here. Welcome, Beth. Welcome. Jennifer, Julie, Irene, Susan, Lisa, Lindsay, Becca, Nancy, Denise, and Diana. And if possible, I invite you all to turn your cameras on and so I can see your lovely faces. And as you're tuning in here, let me know what you're grateful for today on this beautiful Friday. Hi, Susan.

Hey.

I know you're at work, so you'll be off camera. No worries. Type it into the chat. Let me know what you're grateful for today. Irene says I'm grateful for the progress. Okay, wonderful. Lindsay says she's grateful for sunshine. Diana says I'm grateful I'm very close to my desired weight. Great work, Diana. Julie says, I'm grateful to have found this program. I feel like I'm making real progress for the first time in years.

Yay.

Congratulations, Julie. Lisa says grateful for my supportive husband and excellent progress on my journey. Wonderful. So nice to have a supportive partner or friend or spouse along the way for sure. That definitely helps. Jennifer says, I'm grateful my engagement ring fits again.

Wow.

That's nice.

Very nice.

That's a huge win. Susan says, grateful for so much weight release inflammation gone down several sizes, more energy and now going to change my goal weight. Also, my acupuncturist was so surprised when I went for maintenance that I had no pain. She will reach out to you to join as well. Amazing. That's so nice to hear. Yeah, it's always, you know, the physical transformation is always nice. But I'm sure you're super happy not to have any inflammation and more energy. More so than the weight loss, right? Of course. That's the cherry on top. But all the other non scale victories are what we are so excited for and you know, that's what's gonna help us achieve our goals and do more things and live longer. Okay, so. Give everyone just another minute or so here and then we will continue with I am living Proof.

Exactly.

That's why we call it the Living Proof Institute. So for those of you just tuning in, let me know what you're grateful for in the chat. Okay, so we are going to start off with just about. We'll do about five minutes of a mindfulness practice. So let me pull that up here. So just get into a comfortable spot, make sure you're not distracted. I know some of you multitask when you're on this call, which, you know, if you have no other choice, that's fine. But if you can get into a nice comfortable spot, we're just Going to do five minute mindfulness practice. Let me.

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When your body feels ready, you may gently close your eyes.

Can everyone here 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 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.

Hey, how was that for everyone? Let me in the know in the chat how you feel versus how you felt when you first entered the room. Lisa says more relaxed. Diana says very calming, very much needed present. More relaxed, clearer. Okay, great. And who's doing this on a regular basis? Some sort of pause in their day or mindfulness meditation type practice. Anyone doing this on a regular basis? Good. Excellent. Yeah, that's what I really want to encourage you to do is to take those pauses throughout your day. Right. It helps in so many different aspects of our life. Helps us be more focused, helps with sleep, helps decrease cortisol, helps us make better decisions. So I invite you all to take more pauses throughout your day like that. Okay. And you know, in terms of time, like, I know time is limited for all of us, right? But the way I like to tie this in is either first thing in the morning or right before bed. And literally just start with like two to three minutes.

Okay.

And you don't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be every single day. But you know, if we can at least try to do this a few times a week, is it. The more you do it, the more it benefits you. Okay, awesome. So today I had a meeting with Diana earlier this week and she's like, she was asking me about food labels and I said, oh, okay, that's a good topic for a Friday call. So of course, I guess let me just pull up my slides and then we can talk about it. Give me a second. Okay. Okay, give me a second just to. Let me just get my screen set up here. Okay. Can you all see my screen properly? Yes. Okay, perfect. So, you know, some of this is going to be more of course relevant when you're on the maintenance phase because on the release phase, not really needing to read food labels because you're eating food that doesn't come in a package, right. For the most part you're eating whole foods, real foods, fruits, vegetables, things like that. I think where food labels may play a role is if you are using any sort of sauces or things like hot sauce maybe, or even maybe some salsa or seasonings, right. That that's when food labels are going to be pertinent as well. But we'll talk a little bit about what to look out for. Okay. So, you know, food labels matter for obviously a variety of different reasons. Number one is we want to really know what we're eating, right? What is, what are some of the ingredients on these food labels, right? And products that we might be consuming. Because a lot of these additives and preservatives can impact our health, right? And labels really reveal very pertinent information about a product's impact on our inflammation, even gut health overall well being. So it's really important for us to know what we put into our bodies, right? So an example of a product might be something like, you know, it's a pretty common product that you may come across is the silk creamer for your coffee, right? There's almond milk creamer, there's coconut milk creamer. And you know, a lot of these creamers contains an ingredient called carrageenan. And carrageenan is disruptive to your gut, gut health, right? So even something just that minor can have an impact on your overall health. So really want to become more conscious of what you're putting into your body, right? And especially on the maintenance phase after you've done so well on the release phase, right? We don't want you to just go back to doing what you're doing. We want you to be more conscious of the foods you're eating and what you're putting in your body. So food labels are really broken down into a variety of different sections, right? So I, I brought a few products here so we could, you know, do some real, real life breakdown of a food label. So basically, when you look at a food label, it's going to give you the serving size. It's going to tell you how many calories are in that specific serving size. There's going to be a breakdown of the macronutrients, so fat, carbohydrates, protein. There's going to be an ingredient list. And then in that ingredient list, you'll have a little bit of insight in terms of whether there's any additives, preservatives or sweeteners. And then, you know, in some cases there's going to be some information around some nutrients such as potassium, calcium and iron as well. Okay? So when it comes to the serving size, this is where it can be really misleading. Okay? So an example is dark chocolate, right? So you might go to the store, you might pick up some dark chocolate, thinking that you're doing, you know, making a healthier choice, right? But what you have to be careful about is the serving size. So oftentimes, even though something like dark chocolate, you think you're making a healthier choice. If you look at the food label, there are certain brands where one square, which is a serving size is going to have an imbalanced amount of sugar, for example, right? So you have to like, basically, you know, if you were to eat one square, it might have, let's say, five grams of sugar, right? But who eats just one square?

Right?

So if you ate three or four squares, that's 20 grams of sugar, right? So it adds up. So this is what you have to pay attention to when you're purchasing something like dark chocolate, right? That's just an example I wanted to give is that you have to pay attention into the serving size and then multiply the amount of sugar or fat or whatever it is by that serving size. Okay? So that's something that food companies are very conscious of, is how to manipulate the serving size to make it seem like there's not really that much sugar. But the serving size is probably so minuscule compared to what you'll actually eat. Okay. Another thing you, you know, you may want to look at is calories, right? Of course, we know all calories aren't carbs created equal, right? A bowl of chips has the same amount of calories as an apple. And we all know that the apple is way more nutrient dense, right. So we really want to focus on nutrient density rather than just the caloric amount, right? And that's kind of what we've been trying to teach you through this program, right? Is that naturally, when you eat whole foods, they're going to be. You're going to be consuming less calories, right? Because something like lettuce is very, very low in calories, but it's very, very nutrient dense, right. So really focusing more on nutrient density. Macronutrients, right? We want to make sure that we have a balance of fats, carbohydrates and proteins. And, you know, in terms of macronutrients, some people will say, well, how much fat should I eat? How much carbohydrates should I eat as a percentage, how much protein? It is very individual, okay. Because it does depend on our genetic makeup as well. But in general, one thing that I always emphasize is, you know, an easy way to know how much of each macronutrient you should eat is you want to have half your plate and vegetables, quarter of your plate protein. A quarter of your plate could be a starchy, complex carbohydrate like sweet potato or some beets or carrots, or even if you tolerate grains well, like a brown rice or even legumes, chickpeas, things like that, and then one to two servings of fat. Okay. Ingredient lists. So in terms of the ingredient list, we really want to make sure that we're looking at the order, okay. Because the ingredients are listed in descending order by weight, right? So once again, going back to the dark chocolate example, if sugar is the first ingredient, that means that that's the most dense ingredient on in that product, right? More so than maybe the cacao, which should technically be the first ingredient. Okay. Another thing is daily percent value. This can be used as a rough guide, and it's generally based on a 2,000 calorie diet, okay. Which for some people might be enough. For some people, it might be too little. So next is the ingredient list. Okay. The general rule of thumb is that less is more, right? You want to look for foods with simple whole ingredients. So if you purchase a food product and it has ingredients on there which you can't pronounce or you don't know what it is, then that's probably something you want to stay away from, right? Because if you don't know what it is or if you can't pronounce it, then it probably isn't good for you. Okay. So you want to really prioritize foods with recognizable ingredients, right? Like almonds versus something like hydrolyzed vegetable protein, for example. Okay. You also want to avoid red flag ingredients. So added sugars are a big one. So corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup. These are all foods that are really going to like, spike your blood sugars. Okay. These are foods that are going to contribute to things like fatty liver. Right? So really decreasing your consumption of added sugars. You also want to try to avoid artificial additives and preservatives as well.

Okay.

And also highly processed oils. So seed oils have become rampant in our food system. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to avoid them unless you just eat at home, which is, you know, one of the best ways to control what you're eating. But if you pick up, you know, let's just say something like seaweed, Okay? A lot of people eat that roasted seaweed, which in general is a healthy snack, Right. It's not really that processed. But most roasted seaweed is going to have canola oil or sunflower oil or some sort of inflammatory seed oil. Okay. There are brands now that you can find that are, you know, cooked with olive oil or avocado oil, which are going to be healthier oils. Okay. So even when you're transitioning to maintenance phase in terms of cooking oils, you want to stick with oils like avocado oil or coconut oil or olive oil is a great healthy oil. But olive oil, its smoke point is very low. So you want to use olive oil more raw rather than with cooking. Okay. Unless you're doing very low temperature cooking, you can use a bit of olive oil. Okay. And then you want to avoid the processed oils like canola oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil. What are some of the other ones? We. We have them in the Facebook group there. There's about eight of them. Okay. And you really want to make sure that you prioritize once again, whole ingredients. Okay. Remember, the fewer the ingredients, the better. Okay. Another thing you want to watch out for is hidden additives, right? Sometimes these additives can be disguised under very vague terms like natural flavors. Right? What does that mean, natural flavors? Right. We don't really know what that means. So you want to try to avoid these vague terms.

Okay.

Next is spotting hidden sugars and artificial sweeteners. So sugar, you know, can comes in many names on food labels. So an example is glucose, sucrose, fructose, maltodextrin. These are all sugar, essentially. Okay. And so you really want to make sure that you try to avoid added sugars as much as possible, because high sugar intake can lead to inflammation, it can lead to insulin resistance and energy crashes as well. Okay. I had a call with a client this past week, and I think many of you have written in the comments as well that you feel like you have more energy. Right. And the reason why you feel like you have more energy is because your blood sugars are balanced, because you've taken out a lot of these added sugars. So your blood sugar is no longer doing this roller coaster up and down, up and down. Your blood sugar is staying more stable, which is going to keep your energy levels more stable. Okay. Artificial sweeteners is a big one. So artificial sweeteners are, you know, also very hidden in many products. So these are things going to that are going to be sucralose, acosulfan, potassium, splenda. Right.

Are.

Those type of artificial sweeteners are going to impact your gut health and they're going to cause cravings. So you really want to take out all the artificial sweeteners. Okay. If you are going to use some sort of sweetener, it's better to use things like honey or even stevia. Those are going to be much better natural sweeteners. Okay. So really aim for products with little to no added sugar. Okay. So Sugar has over 60 different names on labels. Right. Anything ending in O, S, E or any type of syrup or concentrated fruit juice is going to be pretty much sugar. And you want to limit added sugars to no more than 25 grams per day for women and 36 grams per day for men. Okay. That's a recommendation by the American Heart Association. But I would probably say if you can even get even lower, the better. Okay. And like I said, the artificial sweeteners, aspartame, sucralose, these are all going to disrupt gut bacteria, which is then going to lead to cravings and imbalanced gut bacteria, which is going to cause issues with gut health. Okay. So you want to choose labels, product labels, perhaps, that say unsweetened or maybe naturally sweetened foods that are sweetened with perhaps dates or stevia. Right. But once again, even though it says Unsweetened or naturally sweetened. You still want to make sure you read the label.

Okay.

Next, healthy fats and unhealthy fats. So healthy fats are going to be your olive oil, like I said, avocado oil, coconut oil, omega 3 fats, right? So these are going to be your fatty fish, like salmon, flax seeds and chia seeds also contain a lot of omega 3 fats. And then your olive oil and avocado oil are going to be more of your monounsaturated fats, which are very healthy for you as well. Okay? You really want to avoid the processed oils. So things like I said, the canola oils, the vegetable oils, soybean oils, hydrogenated oils, because they are going to cause a lot of inflammation in the body. So many of you have probably noticed that you feel less inflamed, okay. And chronic low grade infl. Inflammation is at the root cause of so many diseases, right? Heart disease, diabetes, gut issues. Right? Any type of disease that ends in it. S Itis. That's is. That stands for inflammation, right? That. That basically means inflammation. So you're probably noticing a lot less. Like rheumatoid arthritis, right? Rheumatoid arthritis is inflammation of the joints, right? So I had a client this past week that I spoke with who has. All of her joint pain has disappeared, right? She got recently diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Her doctor said she has to take medication. She said, can you please give me three months? And so she decided to do the program and she's going to go see her rheumatologist next week and let's see what her doctor says. I'm pretty sure she's going to say you don't have to go on medication, right? Because she's not symptomatic anymore, right? So it's not that fats are bad for you, right? We want you to eat fats, especially, you know, as you enter the maintenance phase on the release phase, we have you avoid them for a very specific reason. But as you enter the maintenance phase, we want you to introduce the healthy fats back in. Fats are essential for hormonal health and brain health. And we really want you to choose minimally processed fats, okay? So the quality and the quantity matters. Okay? So you really want to make sure that you avoid foods that are labeled low fat or fat free because these are often replaced. The fat is with sugar and fillers. Okay. So you want to choose the right types of fat. Okay. Next is additives and preservatives. To watch out for. So common additives are going to be things like msg, sodium nitrate, artificial colors and flavors. And the main concern with these additives is that, um, they are linked to headaches, they're linked to metabolic disruption, they may impact digestion, mood, and they may cause a lot of inflammation. So you really want to make sure that you avoid things like artificial colors, right? These are things like red, 40, yellow, 5. A lot of these food colors have been shown to increase hyperactivity in children. So adhd. You know, a lot of times when parents cut out the artificial colors, their children's behavior improves. They're able to focus more. Another one is sodium nitrate. Sodium nitrate is found in processed meats and it's associated with an increased risk of cancer. So really making sure that you're eating, once again, whole foods, right? Minimally processed foods. So really, you know, avoiding ultra processed foods when available when possible, because ultra processed foods are going to trigger inflammation and disrupt the gut microbiome, okay? So try your best to avoid them. So ultra processed foods, the more we move away from the food's natural state, the more it's processed, right? So an example is Doritos, right? Like Doritos. I don't know if they're derived from corn. I haven't had them since I was a teenager probably. But it looks nothing like it's original. You know what that food was derived from, right? So the more whole food and very minimally processed food, like oil oils are processed, right? But they're minimally processed, right? Where something like I'm talking about healthy oils, right? Canola oil is ultra processed, but something like olive oil is very minimally processed, okay? So you want to try to look out for organic, non GMO and natural labels, okay? So organic foods avoid synthetic pesticides and hormones. And automatically when something is organic, it means that it's not genetically modified, okay? Non GMO means that it's free from genetically modified ingredients. So common, you know, if you don't buy corn organic, it's a very commonly genetically modified crop. So is soy. Soy is a very genetically common, genetically modified crop. So you have to make sure that you buy those foods organic, okay? Natural. Natural can be misleading, right? So you want to really make sure that, once again, you read the labels and that the food is not highly processed, okay? And then organic and non GMO food choices in general are going to have way less additives, chemicals, sweeteners. So in general, they'll be healthier than your conventional foods. But, you know, once again, you still have to kind of look at the ingredients. So in terms of shopping tips, aim for whole foods. Okay? Your whole foods are primarily going to be found the perimeter of the grocery store. Once you start going into the aisles, that's where most of the processed foods are going to be found. So try your best to stay in the perimeter as much as possible. You're going to want to avoid items with a long shelf life, right? Because they're usually packed with a lot of preservatives. So make sure that you prioritize simple ingredients. As we said, less is more, right? The less ingredients something has, the better it is. You want to look for labels like specifically when with regards to your proteins. So pasture raised chicken. Right? Pasture raised eggs, grass fed meats, wild caught fish. Right? These are going to be much better quality animal proteins. Okay. You also want to make sure that you stick to foods with minimal additives. Okay. And batch cooking or meal prepping, of course, as you all have been doing for the release phase, really reduces your reliance on having to gravitate towards processed foods because you always make, you're always making sure that you have food on hand. So key takeaways is read labels for hidden sugars, unhealthy fats and additives. Make sure you choose whole, minimally processed foods. Make sure you make informed choices that align with your health goals. Right. At every bite that we take, we have a choice. Is this going to move me further away from my goals or is that food going to bring me closer to my goals? Right. So we always have a choice. Not always, but 99% of the time we have a choice. So really, you know, once again, every bite that you take is going to promote healing and balance or take you away from that. Right? And food labels, we want to view them as empowering ourselves, right? We're empowering ourselves with new knowledge, new knowledge to navigate our food choices much more confidently than we may have in the past. Okay, so start reading labels at home and experiment with healthier swaps. Okay. Start reading some of the things that you might have in your pantry and you probably will be surprised. And you probably. This is a good time of year to maybe, if it hasn't expired, donate some of those things to a food kitchen or a soup kitchen. Okay, so I am going to stop my screen here. Did everyone find that helpful? Okay, so any questions? Let's take some questions. It doesn't have to just be around the food labels, it can be around anything. But we'll open it up now to some questions. So if you have a Question. You can raise your hand, your zoom hand, or just raise your hand, wave me down and I can unmute you. Hey, Michelle, go ahead and unmute.

Thanks heaps for that. Deepa. I have two quick questions. I'm on the release phase still.

Okay.

And maybe I'm being paranoid about this, but if, for example, where you're limited, like say 4 ounces of your unlimited vegetables, because sometimes it's hard to get it so exact. What if you go 4.1, 4.2, is that. I don't mean like all the time. Is that okay?

Yeah, yeah.

That's.

As long as it's close to the 4 ounces, you're fine.

Okay. And then the other day, this is the first time we did this. We just had a little bit of the MCT oil added in.

Okay.

Is that okay? That's like out of my whole time. That was only the one time. Yeah, like a little sprinkle.

If it's. You know, what we really want you all to, to really focus on is progress over perfection. Right. We don't expect you to be perfect. You might have to travel. You might have like, you know, an event to attend which, you know, you may not have control over what you're going to eat. It might be cooked with oils, but the key is that you get back on track, right? So you might have had that little bit of MCT oil, which pull it very slow out of all the oils. I would say that's probably one of the best ones to have because it bypasses the liver. But then like I said, next meal, you get back on track. Okay, perfect.

And I have a couple more questions about with respect to the maintenance, which I'll be going on soon, but I'll. I'll go after other people. Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, no worries. No worries. Who else has a question? Denise, go ahead and unmute.

Hi. Sleep is my struggle and, you know, stuff is coming in. I'm, I. Today I'm done with maintenance. I'm happy with my results. You know, the learning. Keep going back to and reviewing some of the stuff has really been helpful to me. My question with the circadian, some in Chicago, but it's like, been really dreary for the last few days and stuff. And I did ask this question in the group, but what I'm thinking is like, I have this happy light and how you recommend to go out like in the morning and at noon and in the evening to get. Or before sunset to get, you know, without my glasses on and stuff like that. And I've Been trying to do that, but here we are and I work in the office most of the time, so I'm under fluorescent lights. I'm not by a window at all. Even though that I don't know how much that would help. So if I use that happy light, would it be beneficial to use it like for 15 minutes when I get up in the morning and 15 minutes at lunchtime and then 15 minutes before sunset?

Yes. Yeah, that would definitely help supplement the right type of light. So, yeah, if you have one, I would recommend using it throughout, throughout the day, like you have mentioned, especially because you live somewhere, you know, where we're now going into the winter and it can be really dreary and gray. One thing to note is that even though it's. There is, there's. I know there's always so many apps, I apologize, but there is an app called. I know there's. There's the Circadian app which I've recommended, but there's a new one now called My Circadian. And that one there, when you download it, it has something called a lux meter. And lux is a measure of how intense light is. So basically when you're in an indoor environment, the lux is probably going to be, depending on the time of day, pretty low, like in the hundreds. Okay. When you go outside on a sunny day, the lux is going to be a hundred thousand. Okay. And on a day where there's cloudy and there's not a lot of sun, it's still going to be in the thousands versus the hundreds. So even though it's cloudy and it's not super sunny, we may not get a lot of UV light, you know, especially living in a northern, northern hemisphere. Like the UV index where I live in, in Toronto is about one or two on any given day in the, you know, as we move into the winter here. But the lux is still going to be high and the LU is what's really going to help with our circadian rhythm.

Okay.

So even though it's gray, I would still encourage you to get out throughout the day for two to three minutes if possible.

Okay. One, one other question. Really the same because you did send me the on charge link or you put that in the group there. So even more than just that little light that comes on for, you know, I don't know, it recommends like 15 or 20 minute cycles. It's just got a button on there. Would it be more beneficial to try to have a bulb in my work area that is like constant all day or is that gonna. If when at 4 o'. Clock. Shut it off because I'm gonna go home in the dark anyway soon.

Yeah. Using the happy light is gonna be beneficial for you and then so you work in an office environment. Yeah, yeah. So it is a little more challenging because you're probably, like you said, exposed to fluorescent.

Fluorescent all, you know.

Yeah. One thing you can do during the day is the viva rays, the blue blocker glasses. There's three different lenses. So one of the lenses is the yellow lens. So that's, you know, block a lot of the blue light that's coming from the fluorescent bulbs.

Okay. There's some. Something in my prescriptions. Are those available with prescription?

Yes.

Yeah. Okay.

Yep.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Very welcome. Julie, go ahead and unmute.

I just looked on the app store for the My Circadian app, and there's an app called My Circadian app and then there's one that's called My Circadian that has a sun. Which one is it?

Yeah, so the. My circadian one is going to be blue with like a half circle and a full circle. Let me show you what it looks like.

Okay. Okay. It's the one that says my Circadian app.

It's gonna look like this.

The.

It's going to look like this.

Okay.

Okay, great. Thank you.

You're welcome. What other questions? Lisa, go ahead and unmute.

Do you pay any attention to the stats in the Renfo scale app? Is that something we take into consideration? The main one I'm looking at is my body water. It is been low since I started and like my husband's is 55% and mine is like 44.2. I think I started out at 42. So it is gradually increasing every day, like 02 or 04. But is that something I can be. Should be concerned about? Because I know low body water. Can't that interrupt like glucose and cortisol and that kind of thing.

So basically with body water, one of the things that you're going to want to do, I don't know if you're already doing it, is making sure that you are adding a pinch of salt every time you drink water because that's going to help increase hydration.

Yeah, I do that every time. I also take like an extra potassium every day and have taken magnesium forever. I usually put a couple drops of iodine in my water and iodine, the metabolic activator from cellcore.

Okay.

And so a lot of minerals and I'm taking CT minerals as well. So. Yes. Confused why it's so low, you know?

Yeah, you Should. If you're seeing it trending upward, then that's good. So just pay attention to it. Make sure that you keep seeing it improve. The thing with the scale is the numbers, you know, may not be exactly accurate, but what we want to look for is the trends. Right. So even someone's asking about the visceral reading on the scale. We want to look at the trend over time. Right from when you started to where you are at now. Right. Like, I had a client who's, I think I posted it on my Facebook, but she started at a nine, the visceral fat. And through the program, she's now down to five. Right. So that's what we want to look at is the trend. Like, how is it moving?

Okay, I'll keep an eye on it. And yeah, I did add in some electrolytes every day too, because I was feeling pretty lightheaded for a while there. A little shaky. Like, my hands were shaking and my knees were wobbly. So, yeah, suggested add electrolyte. So I was like, I don't know how I'm still demineralized because I take so many minerals every day, but somehow it still seems to be happening.

So, yeah. So one of the things, the reason why we recommend the sea salt and even for some people, they're gonna need an extra electrolytes, is because when you do this program, you become more insulin sensitive. And when you become more insulin sensitive, it creates a lot of salt wasting. So that's why people will feel, like, dizzy or, like, lightheaded, which is why you need to add those extra electrolytes in.

Okay. I'm also struggling with in the middle of the night. I have for years woke up around. It's. I sleep for five to six hours, and then I wake up and I'm wide awake. Like, I come fully awake in bed. It's not, you know, typically because of some noise or I have to go to the bathroom or anything like that. It's just I come fully awake and it'll take me two to three hours to fall back to sleep. And I was hoping that would kind of correct itself as I was doing this. I'm two weeks in now. I'm not seeing a whole lot of change in that. How long would that take to regulate, do you think?

Yes. So basically waking up at night, like, that is definitely an indication of adrenals. Right? So your adrenal, your cortisol spiking, which is why you wake up and you feel so like, oh, I'm ready to start the day right and then you have a hard time falling back asleep. So I know it's not release phase approved, but what you could try, even though you're on the release phase, it's just for a couple of nights, is you could buy, like, some orange juice. Make sure it's, like, real 100% orange juice. You can put a quarter teaspoon of. Of sea salt and a quarter teaspoon of cream of tartar. Drink that before bed.

Okay.

Okay.

Do that for a few days and let me know how it goes. Yeah.

I also had, like, a thyroid test right before I started this program, and my thyroid, my T3 and T4 were really low, and so I didn't know if the thyroid could be affecting my sleep as well. They did say that could affect cortisol, and I don't know if that will. I did buy. I purchased some thyroid support supplements that Natalie recommended, and I'm just waiting for them to come in the mail. Okay, that'll help a little too.

Yeah. Yeah.

Hopefully that will help as well, because that can definitely impact it as well.

Yeah.

It would just be great to be able to sleep through the night and get eight straight hours, not have that interruption, because it feels like a waste of time in the middle of the night to be awake, you know?

Exactly. Yeah. Especially if you can like it. You know, I think the main thing is sometimes, you know, some people will wake up, but the key is being able to fall back asleep. Right. So if you're having a hard time falling back asleep and up for like an hour or so, then that, of course, is not good. We want to fix that. So, yeah, let's. Let's see what. How you do with that little concoction.

Okay, I will try that. Thank you. And that was a quarter teaspoon of salt and a quarter teaspoon of tartar.

Okay. Yep. Cream of tartar. Yep.

Will do.

Okay.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Nancy, go ahead and unmute.

Okay, so my question is I'm on day 42, and so I'll be heading into maintenance phase pretty soon, and I'm curious about when I can put in my clean skincare products again that I've taken out through the release phase.

Yep. Great question. Yeah. So you can. You can pretty much start them, I would say day 46, when we're adding.

Fats back in and. Correct.

Okay. Yep.

Thank you.

Welcome. Any other questions? Okay, Michelle, go ahead and unmute.

Well, just let Julie go first. I know I raised my hand after, but I saw Julie's hand was up before I'll let Julie go first if that's all right.

Okay, Julie, go ahead and unmute.

That. I don't have a question. So if it's. If there's another Julie. Oh, that had a question. That'd be great.

Oh, Julie Reuter. Okay, give me one second. Sorry about that. Okay, go ahead and unmute.

Okay, now I was getting an error that I wouldn't allow me to unmute. Thank you so much. And Michelle, thank you. I appreciate that.

Quick question. So I'm in the.

Really, I'm in the beginning release stage. I'm just curious. I know we have the free vegetables and then we have the four ounce vegetables. Can you explain why those vegetables are limited to 4 ounces? What's behind that where we're limited with those?

So the free vegetables are unlimited. The non free is limited to the 4 ounces and it basically we. We don't have you on the program really Count your macros. So it's a pre calculated amount that is going to take the macros into consideration without you having to think about it.

So they may have. Because I know the free vegetables are water based. So the other ones may have more macros in them. And so we're gonna keep.

Sorry, it's my cat.

We're gonna keep that at a minimal.

To 4 ounces, correct? Yeah.

Okay, great. That's all I needed. Thank you so much. I love it, by the way. I'm loving the meals.

They're.

Okay, good.

So thank you.

Good.

I'm happy to hear that. You're welcome. Okay, Michelle, go ahead and unmute. Excellent.

Thanks, Steve. It's just about the maintenance phase, but I just realized I had another quick question for the release phase. Are you able, or I should say not you. Are we able to eat pork chops?

Chops? I believe so, yes.

Like lamb chops? Pork chops. I was looking in. I know you can't list everything, but I suppose I'm so paranoid that it's.

Like I don't want to. Yeah. So pork. And there the approved proteins. It says lean loin or lean loin chop.

So all that.

Okay.

Yep. Lamb is not allowed though.

Lamb is not allowed. Okay. And with the maintenance phase. I know, I know it's funny because I know when we're adding back things and I know I was reading that it gets easier, but ironically enough, I reckon it might be harder. Only because then you don't want to like go like. You know what I mean? Like on the release. Even though it may be strict, but I reckon it's actually easier in some ways because when I'm looking at my little handy guide here, going back to the maintenance phase, I notice that the free veggies and the approved veggies are now one.

Yes. So we say six ounces of vegetables in total.

Six ounces of veg.

Okay.

And whenever we speak of the ounces, we're always speaking of uncooked or cooked.

Whatever that state is that you're going to be eating in. So if you're eating it raw, then it would be 6 ounces raw. If you're eating it cooked, it would be 6 ounces cooked. Okay. Okay.

And then I noticed, okay, like, with the one tablespoon of fat. And maybe it's me just being, like, really, like, weird about it, but it's like, when I look at the fat, I see salmon there. But I don't think you're referring to eating 1 tablespoon of salmon, right?

Yes. So the salmon would be, you know, 4 ounces. Basically.

It would be 4 ounces. Okay. So then we're still sticking to, like, the. Like, I'm just looking at. So before ounces of protein, then half the plate of, like, any of those veggies and the starchy veggies, if it's optional, would that be. It's a quarter of your plate or like, how many ounces would that be?

Typically we say like, about a quarter cup of starch or a quarter. Like a quarter of your plate. Sorry, not a quarter cup. Half a cup cooked.

Half a cup cooked of this. Of these optional starches?

Yeah.

Okay. I'm just gonna write that you said 1/2 cup cooked.

Correct.

Okay, I reckon I got everything. And then for this, seeds. I know they were saying when you're adding back in nuts, you can do a handful of nuts. And then I was seeing here, though, a tablespoon of seeds. Before I started this, I used to put pumpkin seeds, like organic raw pumpkin seeds in my salad. So would that mean I'm only allowed 1 tablespoon of pumpkin seeds? Or could it be like a. Like a handful?

I mean, play around with it. Right? I would say start with a tablespoon, especially when you're first introducing fats back in after the release phase, because your body hasn't had them in so long, if you add too much fat in all at once, it can cause loose bowel movements. So just start with a tablespoon, and then you can maybe increase it a little bit from there. Okay, perfect.

And it's safe to say, based on the maintenance phase, the. The two Veggies that are mixed together now, limited and unlimited now just becomes one thing. So you can, you can, you can actually eat more of the limited veggies now.

Correct? Yep.

In the maintenance phase. Okay.

Yep.

Thanks heaps for that.

Thank you. You're very welcome. Irene, go ahead and unmute.

Hi, Deepa.

Hi.

I, I was just, I'm still in.

The release phase very early and I forget which module. I just watched it this morning. But you had mentioned something about your morning elixir and I was just curious to find out what that was. Oh, okay. So it's not release phase approved, but you can definitely have it once you're in the maintenance phase. It's actually kind of changed now, so I should actually edit it, but because there's a product now which has everything in it and I don't have to like mix all these different things in together. So the, the product that I have in the morning, it's called Kakao Calm. I'll put a link here in the chat. But it's basically like a very delicious and healthy hot chocolate and you can, if you drink coffee, you can add coffee to it as well.

Okay, so after the release phase.

Yes, after the release phase.

Okay.

All right.

Yep.

Thank you.

Very welcome. Any other questions?

Comments?

Michelle, go ahead and unmute.

Sorry, I forgot to ask you this. With the spray that we use, I don't know if I recall, what is the rationale with the spray? Like what the effect of it as you're in your release phase and then when you go into the maintenance phase, then that's when you stop using it.

Correct. So the spray is designed to re establish your new metabolic set point. So that's why you stop it after day 42. And for most people, their weight is going to stay the same plus or minus two to three pounds. Unless of course, you like go off the rails and start eating like pizza and french fries and hamburgers. Then of course your weight's going to go up. Right. But if you stick to something very similar to what you're doing in the release phase, for most of the time your weight will kind of stay around the same because your body's now established its new set point.

Thanks Heaps, for that.

You're very welcome.

Any other questions? Jennifer, go ahead and unmute. Hi, Duba. Hi. How are you?

Good, how are you?

Good.

I was wondering, I know you mentioned, what was the name of that cacao drink again you mentioned?

It's called Cacao Calm. I need to get the. Yeah, okay.

I'm gonna Write that down. Because I remember looking it up before and it looked delicious. But along the same lines, have you ever tried or do you recommend or not Mud Water?

So mud water is like a coffee substitute, right? I have not tried it.

It's kind of the same thing that you're describing as the Cacao calm. It doesn't have coffee in it. It's got cacao, it's got, you know, mushrooms, it's got chai. They advertise it as if like chocolate and chai had a baby. Yeah, a healthy baby. Like, it's got all kinds of like adaptogens and.

Yes, all kinds of stuff.

Yeah. So I think it is very similar. I haven't tried it, but I have a feeling that the cacao calm is going to taste better.

Nice.

Yeah. So you could try both and see which one you like better. It's. It's caffeine kind of coffee free coffee alternative, so to speak. Right. For people who want to kind of wean off coffee or decrease their consumption, then those kind of products are definitely going to be helpful.

Mm.

Yeah.

And they have the adaptogens in them too, so. And how have you been doing? What. You're done? Your. You're done.

I have one where this is the end of week nine.

Yes.

So I have one more week and I'm down £37.

Oh.

Amazing. Congratulations.

Thank you. Yeah, it's pretty. It's pretty awesome. So I'm. I've. So I'm. I'm going to do it again in January. I. It's funny because I didn't plan it this way, but every year I take an entire week off to bake for Christmas. And baking week starts the week after I finish the program, coincidentally. So I will have baking week as a week off, which will be interesting because I don't generally eat a lot when I'm on baking week because I'm just busy. But I'm going to take Christmas off and hopefully not, you know, go completely off the rails. I'm really looking forward to a glass of wine. I'm really looking forward to a glass of wine.

Yeah. So pay attention to how you feel. Right. And. Oh, you know it. Go ahead.

Speaking of which, sorry, I had. So yesterday. Yesterday was Starbucks red cup day. And my daughter was like, you have to go get me a Starbucks red cup. So the only way to get a Starbucks red cup is to get one of their featured items for the holidays. And I asked when I got there and they cannot make any of them sugar free. So I reduced the amount of syrup in it and whatever. I thought, all right, it's one. Like, this is the first amount of sugar that I've had in three months. Like, it's probably like, we'll see. Right. This is maintenance phase. This is when I'm supposed to be trying things and see how I react to them.

Right.

So it had almond milk. So it had almond milk in it. And it had some of their sugar syrup. I felt horrible all afternoon. I felt like I was going to be sick. Like, I felt very full. I didn't have a big coffee. I felt very full. And just, I just. My stomach was up so much so that, like, I. I only had like, an egg for dinner last night. Like that. Like an egg and a tomato. Because it was like, it was hard.

Yeah, yeah. So. So, yeah, pay attention. It's a learning lesson. Right. Because who knows what other, like, additives might have been in there. So just to see how you feel and how your body reacts to these things. Right. So, you know, I think for most people when they have that kind of direct feedback, it just reinforces, okay, this is why I need to keep the course. Right, sure.

But I don't know. I mean, I know, like, I had almond milk and I had sugar together, and so now I don't know if it was the almond milk, if it was the sugar, or maybe both. But. So anyways, I. But is that, like, common to feel, like, upset to your stomach after something like this? Like, this is what I was afraid. Like, I don't know if you recall the last time we were on a call together and I said I was just entering maintenance phase and I said that I was nervous about adding in new things.

Yep.

This is why.

Right. Well, you know, the main thing is, I think, just using it as a learning lesson.

Right, Right.

In terms of how it made you feel. Right. And so that, that's like, now you have that increased level of awareness, which is going to help you make more informed choices. Right.

Okay.

I have to figure out if it was the sugar, if it was the dairy, because life without dairy doesn't sound fun to me.

Yeah, yeah. A combination of both. But perhaps more likely the dairy, I would say, if it caused stomach upset. And I did put a link in the chat for a website where, you know, it's all gluten free. It's like, healthier recipe. Thank you. Your baking week, if you want to try some of those out.

Thank you. I will definitely try some. Yeah, that'd be good.

Okay. Any other questions? Comments? Okay. Well, you are all doing amazing. So keep up the great work and we'll see you next Friday. Bye, everyone. Have a great weekend. Bye.