Weekly Living Light Q & A Nutrition, Lifestyle and Mindset for the Fall

Hi, welcome everyone. Just waiting to see if anyone else hops on. It's just 2 minutes after, so we'll give it another minute or 2 before we get started.

When we were lovers, I loved you with all my heart.

But now it's getting This song always makes me feel like it's fall. Welcome, Tony. It's such a beautiful day outside today where I am anyway. I wonder if everyone's just taking advantage of the beautiful weather, the last few days of sunshine and warmth and summer. Well, maybe we'll just get started. As people join, we can let them in, and all is good, all is good. There will obviously be a replay as well, so anyone who, uh, isn't able to join live can watch that later on. Um, welcome everyone. My name is Laura. I am the new health coach here at Living Proof. I will be, uh, conducting this week's Q&A and doing a short presentation as well. I was just hoping to get things started as usual by just asking how everyone's doing and if we have any wins we want to share. I love to hear everyone's wins. I think it's a really positive way to end the week. Wins, they don't have to be program-related. It's always nice to hear your, your progress with the program, but it can just be anything in life that you feel proud about, feel like celebrating. I think it just encourages motivation and good spirit and, and feelings. And yeah, so at any time, feel free to unmute yourself, raise your hand, or put your comments in the chat. Whatever works for you is, is great. And yeah, so if anyone wants to share a win, that would be amazing. Otherwise, I can get kick us off. Hi Susan, great to have you here. Well, let me start with, with just a really quick personal win. So my daughter got engaged about a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago now, and this week she and her fiancé finally set their wedding date. So it is super exciting. She is my first child to get married. So I think this is— well, it's obviously a big deal, but I think, um, it's going to be a very fun, full year of getting things prepped and wedding, um, you know, getting, getting organized and getting things all set up, wedding preparations. They got their date. They will be getting married next October, and, um, that was a big big win for them as well, because from everything I hear from other friends of mine who've had their children get married, it's like that the waiting game is huge to get your date. You know, people wait several years sometimes just to get a venue and a date that they want. So it all worked out really, really well. But now, like, the clock is starting to tick, and, uh, October of 2026 is not that far away, considering October of 2025 is literally next week. So we're super excited about that, and I think it's going to be a great event and lots of fun. So thank you, Deepest. Grateful for the sunshine today. It was a very rainy week here. Yes, I think it's finally stopped, so that's a, that's a positive, although we needed the, the rain, so that was also good. Anyone else, uh, want to share a quick win in the chat or on, uh, on mic. Yeah, Annalisa, definitely lots of sunshine, getting out in nature. Wonderful. So, um, I think what we'll do is I've got a little bit of a presentation for us today just on getting ready for the fall season, how to set yourself up from a lifestyle and nutrition perspective, and, um, just, you know, that little bit of a mindset shift that comes when we go from summer into fall. And then we can open it up for any just general Q&As. Again, it doesn't have to be specific to this presentation. It can be anything about the program that you have questions about. Love to hear how you're progressing and if you have any questions. But first, I thought we could just have like a really fast grounding session just to kind of get ourselves present and focused and in the, the the spirit of this weekly Q&A. So I'm just gonna play a bit of a guided meditation for us here, and hopefully this is going to be something that we can hear well enough. If my sound is not great, please let me know. And just get comfortable in your seats. And if you can, I know some of you are at work, if you're able to just get really, you know, present and comfortable, close your eyes and listen. This will be about 5 minutes.

Let's take a moment to create space where you can pause and reset before embracing the rest of your day. Close your eyes and begin with 3 deep breaths. Allow yourself to relax a little deeper with each exhale. As you return to your normal breathing, feel the air move in and out of your nose. Feel the rise and fall of your abdomen. Welcome yourself into this moment right now. You can release everything that has come before this moment in your day, and you can release everything that's to come in your day. Just rest easy in this moment. There's nowhere else to be, just right here. Right now. If any thoughts creep in, as they often do, simply acknowledge that you have had a thought, and you can say to yourself, "Begin again," and return your focus to your breath, to the in and out of your nose or mouth. The rise and fall of your belly. In our mindful practice of bringing ourselves to this moment, we welcome beginning again. The practice is about beginning again as many times as we need to, as many times as we're distracted by a thought or a noise We have the opportunity to begin again and again. And we can apply this to our day. When we need to redo a task or restart a project, we accept that we are very capable of beginning again. In mindfulness, we don't get upset that that we have a thought. Instead, we welcome the practice of returning to this moment as often as we need to, to noticing your breath, noticing the air moving in and out of your nose or mouth, or the rise and fall of your abdomen. When we approach our day One moment at a time, one task at a time, we can stay steady and focused instead of overwhelmed and frenzied. In this respite from your day, notice the calm in this present moment. Where there is calm, there is clarity, and where there is clarity, There is an ability to move through your day with purpose and on purpose. Just begin again and again in each moment to reclaim space and peace for calm, for focus, for presence.

And when you're ready, you can open your eyes and come back to this meeting. All right, so today's presentation is about just this transition into the fall season. I thought it would be timely because this week on Monday just passed was the autumnal equinox, which is the first day of fall, a nice fancy name for the first day of fall. And something else we're going to talk about during this presentation is eating seasonally. I mean, it is the harvest. There are so many great fresh fruits, vegetables, etc., that come out this time of year that we really want to focus on eating as seasonal as possible. And this week as well, the Environmental Working Group released the Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen list for 2025. So it's all kind of tying together, and I'll explain what that means if you're not familiar with, with what it is. But that's why I chose the topic this week. So why don't we just dig right in and get started? Let me just share my screen. Okay, can you see that? All good. Okay, excellent. Okay, so You may, as I said, Monday was the official first day of fall here in at least the Northern Hemisphere. And just given the timely nature of this, I wanted to talk about how we can use this change of season as a natural opportunity for a reset. I love the fall. I don't know about you, but I think it's probably my favorite season. It's not only beautiful, but it just to me feels like a season of change and renewal. It's almost like you know, January is that changeover of the calendar and that fresh start, but to me, fall has that same energy, you know, back to school and I don't know, it's just all ties together for me. The days start to get shorter. We notice that with the light, the air starts to get cooler, although it really hasn't for where we are right now anyway, but it will. And our routines start to shift. And if you think about it, nature is really showing us what to do. Slow down, release, and ground ourselves in what we're doing. And this makes this time of year, the fall, the perfect time for a reset, not just for your metabolism, but for your mindset, your nutrition, and your lifestyle as well. So if we think back to summer just for a minute, it really is a season of expansion, right? There's more daylight, or the days are longer. We typically have more social gatherings. We probably have a lot more activity. We tend to crave and want to eat lighter foods. We're outside for longer periods of the day, and we're just often on the go. You know, summer is very full energy, but as we move into the fall, that energy starts to shift, and our bodies naturally start to crave different things like warmth and routine and grounding foods. And instead of wanting to eat light airy salads and, you know, maybe cold smoothies, we start to think about soups and roasted vegetables and hot tea. And if we actually align that with, with the natural rhythm instead of trying to fight it, we set ourselves up to feel more balanced, more energized, and healthier all season long. One of the best ways to reset this time of year is to eat seasonally. Because it's the harvest, the choices are definitely abundant, and seasonal foods are fresher, they're more nutrient-dense, and usually more affordable too. You will often see the seasonal foods at the front of your grocery store because they are in abundance and they are usually a lot cheaper than they, they would be off season. They're typically local as well, or at least you can see or try to look for local, local produce. Fall gives us an abundance of foods that are grounding and nourishing and that you can choose from based, of course, on the phase of the program you're in. Apples and pears, for example, are full of antioxidants. Squash and pumpkin have beta-carotene, which is amazing for gut health. Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, all those great cruciferous vegetables provide immune support. And root vegetables like carrots and beets and parsnips help stabilize blood sugar. And don't forget the dark leafy greens. That is, uh, definitely a staple. Things like chard and kale are chock-full of vitamins and minerals. So you like seemingly have these endless choices to pick from. And the best part is that these don't just taste amazing right now, they're exactly what your body needs. And if you know anything about Ayurvedic medicine, which is the traditional Indian system of healing, it is believed that eating with the season helps maintain health as well as prevent disease. So just to switch gears a little bit, a question that is often raised is that whole, should I buy organic Is it worth it? Because, you know, it's no lie that organic food is typically more expensive, right? And this decision is primarily budgetary, but it's not always something that you have to do. While organic foods definitely reduce your exposure to pesticides and chemicals, and that is definitely something important for supporting your gut health and hormonal balance, you don't have to necessarily buy everything organic, meaning that it's often better to get in those foods even if they're conventional or non-organic than just to stick to organic if you can't afford to buy everything that way, if it's not within your budget. So a really simple way to make empowered choices around what you purchase is to use the Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists. As I mentioned earlier, this is a list that's issued every year and updated every year by the Environmental Working Group. And they just actually released the list for 2025. So the Dirty Dozen includes foods most contaminated by pesticides. These are the ones you want to focus on buying organic if at all possible. The Clean 15 are those foods with the lowest amount of pesticides and are generally safe to buy conventionally. There's also this middle ground list of foods that fall somewhere in between. They're more discretionary purchases. If you have the budget for them, you may choose to purchase organic. If not, they're not typically as contaminated as the Dirty Dozen list. So this list changes every year based on farming practices, environmental, issues. So it's really important to keep up to date with that. But one thing I do want to just stress is it's not about perfection. It's about knowing where your choices have the biggest impact. So this is this year's dirty dozen list. Funnily enough, or not funnily enough, spinach almost always tops the list every year. It's always on there. Strawberries as well typically are on the top 3, and they, they do rank them by most contaminated to least. So if you just— you can see from this year's list, spinach hits the top of the list yet again. So I would always focus on purchasing organic spinach. And in my personal experience, it's not that much more expensive than conventional non-organic. It's maybe a dollar more if you buy it in the big, you know, the baby spinach in the big tubs. It's not that much more money. And then similarly, the greens— the kale, the collard, the mustard greens— are always a good idea to buy organic. The rest of the list sort of goes through fruits. A lot of them aren't even in season right now. So that's something to keep in mind going forward. Just the beauty of, you know, modern living, transportation, etc. We kind of have access to all these foods year-round now, but they're not in season, so they aren't as fresh. They have traveled a long way to get to you when they're not in season. But also these things, these ones on the Dirty Dozen list, just, just so that you kind of have an idea where they're coming from, they typically are things with like a thinner skin or things that you wouldn't necessarily peel before you eat. So that's why they tend to be a little bit more pesticide-ridden. They— you can wash them, and yes, some of that residue is going to come off, but when you're eating the skin you tend to ingest more of that. So these are always good things to look for organically if you do purchase them. Apples, of course, are in season right now, so that's, that's one for sure on the list to try to buy organic as much as you can. And then we have the Clean 15. So these are the ones that you have a little bit more flexibility with, a little bit more leeway. You don't necessarily have to put your budget towards these. They are typically less contaminated, so you can buy these conventionally. And if you notice, again, these are typically foods that you would peel before you eat. You know, you don't eat the outside of the pineapple, you husk the corn, you, you know, you scoop out the avocado, so you're not getting the shells or the skins where the contaminants tend to build up, which is also just sort of like a good reminder for what to look for if you don't happen to have the list with you handy when you're going grocery shopping. And then in terms of nutrition in fall, your, your body really thrives on foods that are grounding and immune boosting and supportive of steady energy. And you want to focus on emphasizing fiber-rich foods like apples and squash and root vegetables. These help with digestion and blood sugar balance. Going into the winter season, we really want to make sure our immune is well— our immune system is well supported. So you're looking for foods with nutrients like vitamin C. Cabbage and peppers have those. You want to look for foods high in zinc. Pumpkin seeds are a great source of zinc and vitamin A, which you can find in sweet potatoes and carrots. Warming spices are also really nice in the fall if you're making a tea or a tonic. Cinnamon and ginger and turmeric are— they not only taste cozy in fall recipes but also support digestion and circulation. Again, you want to pay attention to what you're eating so that it aligns with the phase of the program that you're in. But just in general, these are foods to look out for. If, as you go through the program and are in maintenance phase, for example, you can eat a little bit more of some of these foods. Just a nice practical tip: if you are eating a lot of raw cold meals now, still, as you transition into the fall, swap those for warm cooked ones. Thinking roasted vegetables, again, hearty soups and spiced teas using some of those lovely warming spices are always nice and taste cozy. But fall's also not only about nutrition and seasonal produce, it's also a season of reflection. Because if you think of the trees, this is the time of year that they let go of their leaves so they can grow again in the spring. So it really is the perfect time to ask yourself, What can I let go of that isn't serving me anymore? Think old habits, negative self-talk, even physical clutter. I know personally, I spent last weekend decluttering my basement. And it was such a productive activity. Just the spaciousness alone that it produced for me, and in terms of a physical, you know, setting and the environment was amazing. But it just felt like like this weight had been lifted off my shoulder with all this stuff that I'd been meaning to get to for honestly years. Once my daughter moved out, a lot of her stuff went with her and it just felt more spacious in general. And then to just kind of go in and clear out some of my own stuff as well was such an amazing activity. I'm going to keep going on this because I just know that the, the relief it gave me almost, and this just expansion that I feel from letting go of so much of that stuff stuff. You might want to ask yourself, where do I need more routine or structure? Identify some of those areas where consistency could support your goals. And what do you want to create space for in the fall season? What new opportunities or habits, experiences or routines can you implement in your environment? And going into the last quarter of the year. I mean, can you believe it? We're almost at the end of the year. So are there things that you haven't achieved that you still want to achieve before year end? This is a really good opportunity and time of year to ask yourself that. If you have the mindset— or if, excuse me, if you have the manual, there is journal pages in there in the Mindset Mastery section you can use to jot some of these things down. You can also Crack a fresh journal. That always feels so great to invest in a really pretty journal for yourself and just capture your thoughts and develop this habit. And along with mind— mindset, lifestyle habits shift with the season too. As the days get shorter, the nights longer, and darkness also creeps in, our bodies crave more rest. This is a great time to really reinforce those good bedtime habits, those good sleep routines. And you know we're all about having a great sleep routine here. Use some of the things you've learned to really implement that. Try to shoot for that optimal score on your Oura Ring. It's going to feel great if you, if you get rest no matter what. Movement, that might adjust as the days get colder, the mornings get darker, and the daylight hours change. It may start to, you know, be time to swap some of those outdoor activities if the weather isn't cooperating for indoor workouts like yoga or gentle stretching. There are amazing practices you can stream online for free. Just, you know, search something into Google and figure out what you want to do, and I'm sure dozens of choices will come up. Stress, stress management, practice grounding. We did just a really quick meditation prior to starting this. I mean, that was 5 minutes, and it just— you can just feel everything sort of release and settle and relax. So there are wonderful apps for that. Calm app is, is a great one. Even on Spotify, there's tons of meditations that you can stream and download. Breathwork as well, that's a wonderful way to just release your stress, manage it. And of course, never negate being outdoors. I know sometimes the weather in fall doesn't— isn't conducive to that, but you can just dress for the weather and make sure you're still getting that daylight, that, that sun exposure and that natural daylight in every day. And then just how can you uplevel your environment, create a cozy, supportive space. A very clean candle is a nice way to do that. Blankets are wonderful. Maybe you can make yourself a, a really restful corner in your house somewhere that you've set up just for you. These little changes can make a big difference in how supported you feel from day to day. So I know we talked about a lot of different things. I don't suggest trying to implement everything all at once. You know, just start with a few things even once a week, once a, you know, once a day if you want to, just to start practicing some of these things. And it doesn't have to be difficult, right? Easy ways to do this: just add one seasonal vegetable to your meals each day. That's one easy way to do it. Or swap one iced drink for a warming tea or even a spiced water. You can add cinnamon or ginger to your water with a little bit of lemon. It's lovely. Lovely. Revisit your goals and your routines for the last quarter of the year. What do you want to carry into winter? You perhaps you want to start with an evening ritual like journaling or reading or having a nice hot cup of tea before bed. These small actions build momentum and that momentum will snowball over time. And just to wrap up, fall isn't a season of necessarily always just cooler weather and pumpkin spice, although we kind of like that too, right? But it's an opportunity to reset by eating seasonally, choosing organic when it matters, and creating routines that ground and support you. You're not just fueling your metabolism, you're setting yourself up to thrive. Fall's about nourishment and balance and letting go of what no longer serves you. When you embrace the season, you create space to reinvent yourself and live your best life. And that concludes my presentation on fall. I hope you enjoyed that. I hope it, it offered some insight. Um, happy to take any questions you might have about it or anything else about the program. Now we can Certainly open up the chat. And we have Deepa here. We have Annalisa here. We've, you've got the whole team. So take advantage if you have any questions at all. Feel free to unmute yourself. You are welcome to put your questions in the chat. Love to hear from you.

Thank you, Laura. That was so enlightening. It's such a great reminder for us to— I'm reading this, this book by a lady named Nidhi Pandya. I did a presentation a few weeks ago on Ayurveda. And one of the things she really talks about is, you know, it's a traditional Ayurvedic practice is aligning our habits with the seasons, right? So as you had mentioned, you know, there's so much that we can learn from the fall, right? Like so many analogies to our own lives, like letting go of what no longer serves us. The trees let go of their leaves, right? They don't serve them in the fall and moving into the winter. So really a great reminder of how not just from a lifestyle perspective or nutrition perspective, but also mindset perspective, how we can really align our habits and our, our lifestyles with the seasons. So that was, that was great, great timing.

Great. And I popped the link in the chat for the Dirty Dozen Clean 15 list. It's just a little PDF guide. You can print it out and they make it wallet size so you can carry it in your wallet just to have when you're grocery shopping. As a reminder of what's on which list if you can't remember.

Yeah, it's a great list to have. I know we used to do it a long time ago. Maybe we should do it again, but we used to print it as a fridge magnet for our clients.

Yeah, that's a great idea.

Yeah, that way it's a great reminder of the foods that you want to try to focus on eating organic as much as possible versus the ones that you can kind of get away with a little more.

Yeah, definitely. And it's a really great website as well for other things like toxic home products, home cleaning products, skincare, sunscreen. They list all the different ingredients and the products that they recommend for buying for clean body care and home care as well as, as food.

Yeah, so important. I know, especially Especially for women, right? I think the stat is in the first couple of hours of the morning, women apply— the average woman applies over 100 chemicals on their body.

So yeah, and I mean, those are changing constantly with so many products being launched all the time, and it's hard to keep up. So it's good to have a place where everything is sort of kept in one spot.

Yep. Yep. And there's also a lot of great apps to think dirty is an app.

Yeah, Skin Deep.

Yep. Skin Deep. Think Dirty. So those are all great apps that can be used to help you find clean products, or you can always reach out to one of us as well. We're happy to share some of the things that we use as well.

Yeah, definitely.

Quiet group today. Any other questions?

Very quiet. I'm not seeing any questions. Okay, well, just as a reminder, you can always reach us, um, in the Practice Better app through the messaging function. We're also in the Facebook group. That's a great place to post questions, comments, anything like that if you are in the Facebook group. I know not everybody loves Facebook. Facebook, but it's there for you and is a way to get in touch with us.

Yeah, and I guess if no one has any further questions, then we can wrap up for today and let people enjoy the beautiful day because it is a, it is a really nice day today.

It's gorgeous. Yes, Susan says she's back on track this week and already feeling better and started Sober October, so no alcohol. Awesome, Susan. Congratulations. That's really, really great.

Congratulations, Susan.

Well, I'm glad you could join us today, Susan and Anne and Tony.

All right.

Well, if there are no more questions or no questions, then we will let you guys go. As Deepa said, enjoy the rest of your day. Get out in the sun. Get some, uh, some sunlight into your— onto your face for a little— for a few minutes anyway. Enjoy it and enjoy the beautiful weather and have a wonderful weekend.

Bye everyone, great, great session today.