Weekly Metabolic Q & A [April 28, 2023]

Sam. Good afternoon, everyone. Hope you're all having an amazing day.

Hello.

Hello. Just gonna wait for a few more people to join us. And as you're tuning in here, let me know what you're grateful for today. And if you are in a place where you can turn your camera on, I'd love to see your lovely faces as.

Okay.

Hello, Sarah. Hello, mary. We have two Sarahs here. Okay. Hi, Alice, Sandy, Denise, Dr. Laura, Sophia as well. Okay. Sophia says she's grateful to be alive and healthy. Alice says grateful to be tuning in today. Mary says grateful for her journey to wellness. Thank you for sharing. Doctor Lara says, grateful for having the opportunity to spend with my new granddaughter. Oh, what a blessing. Babies are just so amazing. I'm sure it's a completely different experience when you're on the other side of it as a grandparent rather than a parent. Okay, so can get our Q and A started here today. Before we get started, I just wanted to do a quick little breathing exercise with you all. I find that this breathing exercise can be super helpful when we feel stressed or when we feel overwhelmed. It just kind of helps us put the pause button on things, helps us feel recentered, helps us feel more at peace, more calm. And really I feel like having these sorts of tools and practices in place can go such a long way. Right. Even sometimes when we're so busy, if we just take five to 10 breath and just give ourselves that time to recenter, you'll feel like a completely different person. This breathing practice that I want to share with you all today, many of you are probably already familiar with it. It's basically box breathing. Box breathing can be very helpful and really help shift us more into that parasympathetic state, which is something that we talk a lot about on our calls, is being able to shift into that parasympathetic state. Because that's where all the healing and repair and regeneration occurs. If we're constantly in fight or flight, it's going to be much more difficult for us to achieve our health goals versus if we're in a parasympathetic state. Then it'll be much more easier for us to achieve our health goals. Okay, so we'll do like 10 really, you know, simple breaths with box breathing. I'll guide you through it. You can sit down, you can close your eyes. Find a place where you can be really present. I know some of you are perhaps working while you're, you know, on this call, and if you can't participate, that's okay too. But if you can then, you know, just make sure you have a place where you can just sit down and close your eyes if you, if you feel comfortable doing that. So I'll put a little bit of nice music on here in the background and then get started. I don't know if I'll be able to play that. I don't know why my zoom always resets my audio. Okay, let me try one more time. Like I might be able to share it here.

Okay.

So go ahead and ground your. Put your feet on the ground and you're going to close your eyes and just try to become more present with your breath. Notice your inhale and your exhale. And we're gonna for four seconds. One, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Exhale, three, four. Hold, 2, 3, 4. Inhale, 2, 3, 4. Three, four. Exhale, two, four. Two, four. Hold to 3, 4. Inhale, 2, 3, 4.

Hold.

Exhale, 2, Three, four. Exhale, 2, 3, 4. Hold, 2, 3, 4. Now you're just gonna come back to your normal breath. Just notice your inhale and exhale and then you can open your eyes back up again. Okay. And that was basically five rounds of box breathing. So how did that feel for everyone? You can type it in the chat if you were able to participate. Do you feel more calm, feel more grounded? Relaxing? Sarah says relaxing, Alice says grounding. Yeah. So this is something that is. Your breath is always with you. Right. It's a tool that you can always come back to when you're feeling stressed. It's something that is automatic, but you also have control over it. Right. You can control how fast you want to breathe, how long you want to breathe. Right. And it's a very, very powerful tool. And the way we breathe impacts every aspect of our health and well being. Right. Because when we're breathing properly, we're shifting our body into a parasympathetic state. And when we're in parasympathetic, we're sending more blood flow to the digestive organs. If you're about to eat and you feel like you've been on the go and you're really stressed, this is a great way for you to recenter yourself and shift yourself back into a rest and digest state. When we're predominantly in parasympathetic, we're going to sleep better. When we're predominantly in parasympathetic, our reproductive organs are going to function better. We're going to have better digestion, we're sending more blood flow to the kidneys and the liver, which are our primary Detoxification organs. We're going to optimize detoxification. Even if it's just that was like literally two or three minutes. Right. So even if it's two or three minutes, it goes a long way. Right? Something that simple can really go a long way. How many of you here have a regular breath work or meditation or mindfulness practice? You can raise your hand. Alice, Mary, Sophia, Sarah. Okay, great. Laura, great. Good. Yeah. And it's such an important part of our day to day to day life and our well being. Right. So if you don't have one, highly encourage it. You can do something like box breathing. Right. Which we just went through. Very simple, easy to implement. There's lots of different breathing techniques and we'll kind of share some of these with you each week on these Q and A's. Okay, so with that being said, I'll open the floor up to questions and then I did want to share something else with you all here today as well. So if you have a question, you can raise your zoom hand or you can type it in the chat. And if you raise your zoom hand, I can unmute you and we can have you address your question. Who has questions. Today, please? Questions, comments? How's everyone's program going? I think Sarah K. Had her hand up. I don't know if that was a mistake or not. Laura has a question. I'll go ahead and unmute you. Laura.

Hi. I do have a question about oral health care. And here we're not supposed to be using oils or things like that. I have Primal Life Organics and of course the gumdrops that has oil. So should I not be using that?

Are the gumdrops by Living Libations.

Hang on, let me look. It's the one that Primal Life has. Oh good heavens.

That.

Let me look at. Creamy. Yeah, no worries.

So I know you guys had linked the for the Primal Life organics and you know, their oral health care and everything else. So I ended up getting all that. But then I noticed that their gum drops, you know, that you rub on your gums afterward. I mean obviously it does have oil. So I was just like, oh, maybe I should not be using this.

So let me just take a look at the ingredients in this. So it's extra virgin olive oil, tea tree oil, peppermint oil. So there, you know, a lot of antibacterial type oils. So it is when, when essential oils are in a carrier oil, they're much more diluted.

Right.

So it should be pretty safe to use if it was just the pure oil on its own, then, you know, that would be too strong in this case, but because it is. The essential oils are in the extra virgin olive oil. It would be fine. Okay.

Yeah.

Because I know that good oral health affects your microbiome, affects your overall health. So I wanted to make sure that was good to go.

Yeah. Yep, absolutely. Then that was kind of a little bit about what I was going to share today.

So.

Yeah.

What about their whitening? Because I also have their. I didn't check to see exactly how much oil was in that, but you know what I'm talking about with the mouthpiece and doing the LED lighting. Is that okay? Because I have not started that because I wanted to double check.

Yep, that would be okay as well. Beautiful. Thank you. You're very welcome.

Hey.

Let'S see here. So Sarah has a question about fractionated oil and mct. Okay, Sarah, you can go ahead and. Oh, I need. That's the wrong. Sarah. Sarah, fret. Okay, there we go. You can go ahead and unmute.

Thanks. So my understanding, the fractionated oil is supposed to be for skin care, is that right?

Yes, correct.

And so.

So I've tried it. I just find it super oily for my skin. So I like. It really feels like it's leaving. It's almost too oily. And the cream I use or didn't do that, so I felt like the creams I had are pretty high quality and they felt better on my skin. So I just wondering what, like, what to do about that, because it just feels super greasy.

Yeah. So are you referring to specifically on your face or your whole body or both?

Anywhere I put it, yeah. It just leaves kind of like a greasy feel.

Yeah. So I don't get too. Too picky with the skin care. It is a recommendation. But if you feel comfortable using what you used in the past, and if it was. If it's pretty clean, you can go ahead and switch back to that if you feel like the fractionated coconut oil is not working for you. Okay.

And then the MCT oil, I wasn't sure. Is that something we wait until maintenance?

Okay.

Correct. So MCT oil is something that you ingest orally, obviously, and that would be reintroduced back on the maintenance phase.

It's not a cooking oil, though. It would be just a cold oil. Okay.

Yep. So it could be something that you put in your smoothies or your salads. You want to consume it raw.

So that's what you can make dressings with instead of an olive oil kind of thing. Or do you just add it not as much, I guess. Yeah.

So one thing with MCT oil is if you add too much in all at once, it can cause loose bowel movements. I personally don't use MCT oil. I use like specifically for salad dressings. I'll use, I'll use olive oil. But MCT oil, if you wanted to put like a tablespoon in your smoothies, then that's a good way to use it. Okay. Wanted to, yeah.

And an avocado, because I usually used olive and avocado was my go tos before.

Exactly. Yeah. So for, for oils. I'm glad you're bringing this up. Very important topic. Topic. So something that is ubiquitous in our food supply now, it's seed oils and vegetable oil. And so these oils are very, very inflammatory. So these are oils like your grapeseed oil, sunflo oil, soybean oil, safflower oil. Pretty much anything now that you buy that is in a package is going to have one of these oils in it. It's really hard to find even, you know, some healthy products that you think are, you know, healthy. They're going to have. A lot of the times they're going to have these oils too. Not all the time, but a lot of the times they're going to have these oils too. So it's important to read our label, right? To learn how to read labels. And you know, sometimes it's impossible to avoid them. Like if you're traveling, right, and you have to eat out, most likely a lot of restaurants are going to be cooking with these type of oils, even canola oil, vegetable oil because they're cheaper, but they're very inflammatory, they're very high in omega 6 fats and they can cause a lot of inflammation. Right. So when we have control over what we put in our food, you want to cook with primarily things like coconut oil or avocado oil, even some of these traditional fats that have been villainized, like butter ghee, animal fats that are organic, you can still cook with those because they're going to be a lot more healthy than these vegetable based oils and seed oils. And then for oils that you want to use raw things like sesame oil. So sesame oil, olive oil and MCT oil can be used raw. Okay. So olive oil, you can cook with it at very low temperatures. But if you are going to be cooking at higher temperatures, you do not want to cook with olive oil. So just something for you to be aware of when you do, you know, start introducing oils back in is making, making sure that you're switching over any oils you know previously. If you were using any of those vegetable or seed based oils, you want to make sure you get rid of those and swap over to some of the oils that I just mentioned in terms of cooking oils and you know, the oils to use raw in your salad dressings as well.

Right.

And any other questions? Sarah?

Oh, I'm sure there's lots, but I'll for now I don't have anything pressing.

Okay, awesome. Joanne. Yes. So last week's Q and A would have been emailed to you. So we send a weekly email. I think it goes out on Monday thing. Let me just double check. It might have gone to your spam. But. Yeah, we do send a weekly a week in review. So the week in review email will have the replay from for last week's Q and A. Okay. Okay. Baruch is asking is it okay to take fish oil? So typically any supplements that are oil based while you're on the release phase, we advise that you temporary temporarily stop them. And then as soon as you go on to maintenance, we definitely want you to add the health defects and supplements back in if you were taking them. So yes, I would recommend adding fish oil back in, especially if you don't eat. A lot of people don't eat fish. So if you don't eat any type of fatty fish like sardines or anchovies or salmon, then you will want to make sure you're taking an Omega 3 supplement. You know, obviously many of them are fish oil based. Right. So if you are vegetarian or vegan and you don't want to take fish oil per se, you can get plant based Omega 3 supplements. If you're interested in, you know, a good quality brand, just let us know and I can send you a link to a good quality vegan or vegetarian omega 3 supplement. But yes, I would recommend adding fish oil back in, especially if you're not consuming fish regularly once you finish the release phase. Okay. Leo B. Is asking got one question about the vegan spread Instead of butter, what's your recommendation? My kids are using Earth Balance organic whip spread, but I saw it has palm oil. I'm not taking it as I'm still on the release date. So I always recommend like with some of these I know there's like a big push for like you know, plant based eating and I'm not against it, but I am, I guess if you want to use the word against using processed plant based foods. Right. So if you're eating whole foods, right, like fruits and vegetables and Maybe you tolerate some whole grains or legumes, then those are whole food, right? But as soon as we start adding in some of the processed foods like these beyond meat burgers and you know, some of these like plant based cheeses and plant based, plant based butters and spreads, that's all processed, Right. So personally I would recommend real butter. Right. Butter is healthy, especially if it's a good source. So you want to make sure it's grass fed butter. You know, a good brand is. Gosh, what is it? Kerry Bold. Kerry Bold is a good brand of butter. Let me just find the link here. So kerrygold Grass, anything that says grass fed butter, it's very healthy for you, right? So that's going to be a lot more whole food and healthy than these vegan spreads. Okay. Because when you read like when you read ingredients and when you read labels, you always want to pay attention to what's in it, right? So when you look at something like the plant based spreads, there's probably like five or ten ingredients in it. Some of it which you don't even probably know what those things mean. But when you look at something like butter, the ingredient is like, you know, milk or whatever they use to make butter. Right. It's like one or two ingredients and maybe some salt. Right. So you always want to use that as a rule of thumb that if you are buying something processed, you should know what those ingredients are going into that food and it should be as whole food as possible. Right. Like earlier I was snacking on some almonds. I got these from Costco and if you read the ingredients, it basically. Almonds. It's almonds, olive oil and salt. Those are the three ingredients. Just an example of processed foods. We can still eat our packaged foods. We can still eat packaged foods, but we want to make sure that they're clean. It's literally, it takes a lot of like, you know, knowledge these days to figure out what's clean and what's not clean because all these things get hidden into our food supply. So Mary, okay, for official recommendation, I can put that in the chat here. Mary, you're in Canada, correct? Yeah. Okay, so I'll put that in the chat here. Yes. So Leo says it's very hard for me to use butter because I was raised that it clogs arteries. Yes. These are, this is like.

You know.

A myth that needs to be busted, right? It's more so in terms of artery clogging, like when you're eating things like fried foods and inflammatory foods, lots of breads and pastas and hydrogenated fats, that's where you get into trouble. Right. But something like butter and the amount that you're probably using like that the, your kids are using on, on their toast is like probably so phenomenal. Right. It's not like, it's not like they're putting like, you know, chunks and chunks of butter on their toast. Right. So that's definitely not going to clog our arteries. Right. So there's the fats got a bad rap basically. I think it was like early 2000s. But there's a differentiation in the types of fats we consume. Right. There's good fats and there's bad fats. So the bad fats can clog arteries, but the good fats don't. Okay, Mary, I'm going to put this link here for you. So this is the fish oil that we recommend if you live in Canada. Okay? Yeah. Sarah says grass fed butter is packed full of amazing nutrients. Exactly. Okay. Alice says it helps to show shop only in the parameters of your grocery store. In the middle is where most processed foods are. Exactly. So you know, if you stay around the perimeter when you walk into your grocery store, right, you know it's going to be fruits, vegetables on one side, maybe at the back is going to be your dairy and meats. You know, on the other side sometimes they have prepared foods. And then in the middle is where it's going to be all the packaged and processed foods. Nope, you do not need to keep this fish oil supplement in the fridge. Yeah, it would be fine outside. What other questions do you guys have or ladies have? So the Kerrygold. Lara says Kerrygold is available in most grocery retailers. Even Walmart, correct? Yeah, it's a pretty popular brand. It's out of New Zealand. New Zealand has some of the most cleanest dairy products. So it's pretty good brand. Hey Sarah, you can go ahead and ask a question.

Looks like I'm already unmuted. Yeah, I, I've noticed yesterday today that I haven't wanted to eat my full amount of food. And yesterday especially I was just like, I couldn't finish everything and I just wondered if that's what that's about. Like that's a new thing for me.

What week are you on? I am sorry.

Let me double check. I think this is my, my end of my third week. Oh my God. One, two, three.

Yeah. Okay. Any hunger at all?

Well, not, not super like, like it depends when you're asking me like, yeah, there were definitely periods of start. I felt like I was dying and Then not yesterday and today today, like yesterday I just didn't feel like eating all my dinner.

Okay, so are you eating free vegetables? I.

Well, yeah, and I had salads. So for lunch yesterday I had a salad and chicken and then tomatoes and so it was quite a bit of food. And then I don't know if that maybe filled me up or. And then for dinner I tried just making a curry with chicken and broccoli and cauliflower and. And then I just didn't want to eat it.

So. And you're taking the spray three times a day? Yes. Okay. So basically, if you are feeling like you can't finish all your food, I would recommend sticking to just having the protein, the non free vegetables and the fruit. And then if you're still hungry, then add in free vegetables. So sometimes like your body is kind of adjusting right now. The spray also helps curb appetite and cravings as well. So that could be a part of it as well. But if you. It is a lot of food. Like I find when I do this program that the amount that I eat on this program is actually more than what I regularly eat sometimes. Right. So I find it is a lot of food. And so, you know, I would stick to those three components first and then add in free vegetables after if you still feel hungry.

Oh, I see. Okay.

So it's better to get the three components and then. Okay. Because maybe I'm having too much lettuce or too much.

Okay, exactly. And like the other thing is the foods are not necessarily calorically dense because we're not including fats, but they are fiber dense. Right. And fiber helps fill us up. So when you're eating a lot of these vegetables and fruits and free vegetables, that'll fill you up because the fiber is very dense.

Right.

Okay. Okay.

I don't know if that would comment for me or not. The fish than meat or.

Yeah, so I guess sometimes. I guess. Mary. So depending on. On the meats that you're eating, sometimes they could be a little like we Recommend Lean meats. Right. 93 lean. But meat can sometimes be higher in fat than something like fish, especially like a white fish. So that could also, you know, be more heavy or filling than fish. For example. Okay.

We're trying to limit our fish intake rate two times a week or something.

Is that two to three times a week. And you know, some of the fish that are listed on, on the plan in terms of allowed, they're not going to be ones that are higher in mercury. They'll be, you know, more cleaner Fish. So there is a website, I can pull it up here which basically tells you which fish are high in mercury versus fish that are lower in mercury. So typically your smaller fish are going to be lower and then your.

Is raw tuna.

Okay.

You had canned tuna, but I wondered about raw tuna.

So tuna in general is higher in mercury. So that for sure you want to. This is an old article and I don't know if it's still live, but tuna I would try to limit a little more maybe once every other week or once, you know, a month or so because it is higher mercury. I'm going to try to pull this up, this chart up and see if it works. But there's basically a chart that breaks down fish that's higher in mercury versus fish that's lower in mercury. I'll put the link in and you can see if it loads for you. I'll put in the chat. Okay. So Sophia was asking, do you always need to have non free vegetables in each meal? Yes. So the three components that you want to include every meal and not skip is the protein, the vegetable, the non free vegetables and the fruit. The component that is optional or that you can skip is the free vegetables. But the other three components, you definitely want to try to have those, the 4 ounces of each of those at every meal. Okay. Hummus. So okay, basically if you're not vegetarian, then of course the animal proteins, especially for weight loss, is going to get you better results. If you're vegetarian or vegan, you can do beans and legumes, so you can do 6 ounces cooked. So if you did want to do 6 ounces of cooked chickpeas and make like a hummus out of it, you could do that occasionally. Because I know sometimes for some people, like having the animal protein every day, you get like tired of it. So if you want to switch up and have, you know, some vegetarian proteins, you know, a few times a week, then I'm totally okay with that. Okay, Lara, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you.

Thank you. Okay, so kind of working off of that, not being so hungry. There are times and actually it happens quite a bit. I am so busy during the day, you know, working with clients and doing everything else that by the time I'm done it's like 5:36 o' clock and I hadn't even eaten lunch and it's just like, oh, okay. So I've got to prepare, eat the meal or heat it up and whatever. And so now it's like 6:37 o' clock. And it's like, oh, okay, what about a second meal? And it's just. I don't like eating so late because it disrupts my sleep. And I'm just wondering. There have been a couple few days where I've only had one meal. Of course, then again, I'm not hungry. I'm actually fine. Plenty of energy and everything else. My body is metabolically flexible. I do intermittent fasting on a regular basis anyway. I do omads and even extended fast. So it's like my body is. It works well, but I also don't want to have any, you know, throw off this program. So what do you suggest for that? Like, how soon after another meal or.

Yeah, so. So typically we want you to try to wait at least five hours in between meals. So that's the ideal. Is there any way that you can schedule breaks in your calendar?

Yeah, that gets tough. It's just because I only have maybe a half hour tops. And that can be difficult. I mean, yes, if I prep the food and I've made it work where all I have to do is throw it in the microwave or heat it up on the stove very quickly, but then I end up having to eat, eat a little faster. And I don't like that either, you know, So, I mean, I've had to work it that way. But this is Whole Foods. There is certain amount of prep and everything else. And a half hour really is not a lot of time to do that. To eat calmly, to chill, you know, to do our five Cs of eating and then be prepared, you know, for my next client. So, yeah, it's just. It's not the most ideal, but sometimes I'm working through my lunch and it just, yeah, doesn't work out well.

Yeah. So a couple things is try to make enough of your dinner so that you have leftovers for lunch the next day, even though, like half hour, sometimes it's not enough time to eat our whole meal. But if you only have half hour, then that can be helpful in terms of, you know, having it prepped beforehand. Secondly is do your best. Right. So sometimes I don't know how well this would work. Maybe you can experiment with it is if you can only do the one meal, I know it might be a lot of food, but double up. So see how you do with having, you know, your 8 ounces of protein, for example, or 6 right somewhere maybe in the middle, because that'll be a lot all at once, but maybe like 6 ounces of protein, 6 ounces of vegetables, 6 ounces of fruit and see how you do with that.

Okay, so that would be okay if, if the need arises.

Yeah, I mean, if it's, it's not ideal, but try it out and see, see how you do with it.

Okay, yeah, I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Yeah, very welcome. And Alice brought up a good point here. So when we used to have our physical office, we used to all have something called a hot logic. It's basically like a mini heating plate. So if you do work in an office and you don't want to use a microwave, it does take a little bit of planning because it does take about 30 to 45 minutes to heat up your food. But they have these heating plates that you can just get them on Amazon. Let me just share my screen here. And you just pop your glass container in here. So it zips, it unzips, you put your container in and then you zip it back up and you plug it in. And within 30 to 45 minutes your food is heated. So yeah, that's what it looks like on the inside. So you can see there's like a heating plate in it. But like I said, it does take about 30 to 45 minutes to heat it up. But that is an alternative to microwave if you don't want to use one. Okay. So, yeah. So, you know, for the purposes of this program, and even as you go into maintenance, Sarah, I'm just reading your comment here is try to keep things as simple as possible, right? You know, basically having, even preparing on the weekends if it's challenging for you on the weekdays. So, you know, perhaps cutting up some veggies, you know, having some proteins frozen in 4 ounce portions, right? Pre marinated, put it in Ziploc baggies, put them in the freezer and then in the morning you just take it out of the freezer, put it in the fridge to defrost. So that way in the evening the protein is ready to go. In terms of cooking it even one thing that I found very convenient and helpful is at Costco they sell organic cauliflower rice and it's really quick and fast to saute it. I know it. My husband's like, I don't know why they call it cauliflower rice. Like it doesn't taste like rice. I'm like, it's not meant to taste like rice. It's just, you know, a good replacement sometimes for rice, right? So that could be your non free veggie, right? And then you have it with your protein and have your fruit. So keep things as simple as possible. Even Moving forward right beyond the release phase, keeping meals as simple as possible. I know, you know, for many of you who have kids, like getting them maybe used to some of these new ways of eating, right? So it doesn't always have to be like a fancy meal, right? And our taste buds change every seven days, right? So even with kids, when you're doing this program, the goal is to not have to make so many different things, right? The goal is to try to have the family eat, for the most part, the same foods that you're eating. Maybe you might add some starch, right? Like a little bit of rice or sweet potato or whatever it might be for your family, but just really keeping things simple for you and your family. Okay, Garlic scapes, are they free? I'm gonna have to check. My inkling is that they are free, but I will check for you and see if I find an answer. And then I know Sophia was asking, can you explain protein and apple days? Great question. Basically, I'm going to try to multitask here as I look up the garlic scape answer. But usually if someone is experiencing a plateau, which means that their weight stays the same, the same for three days, three mornings in a row, you can do a protein day. Now, one thing to note is you want to make sure that all the other check boxes are checked off first, right? That you're sleeping well, you're having a daily bowel movement, you're drinking enough water, you're getting in at least a minimum of a 20 minute walk. Sometimes too much activity can cause a plateau too. So trying not to do do too much activity or too intense activity. But if all those boxes are checked off and you're still experiencing a plateau, which is, as I said, defined as three days, three consecutive days of your weight being exactly the same, then you can do the protein day. So protein day is when you have 6 ounces of one type of protein for lunch. So let's just say it's dinner. Sorry, let's just say it's chicken. And then 6 ounces of another type of protein at dinner, let's just say it's fish, okay? So basically it would be just protein that day. No vegetables, no fruit. And then the next day, I would say for about 95% of people, their weight does come down. So if your weight comes down, you can just go back to the release phase. If your weight does not come down, then you would do another protein day. Okay? So that other protein, the protein day, would be the Same again, which 6 ounces of protein for lunch? 6 ounces of protein for dinner. And then the next day, once again you check and see if your weight came down. Usually that second, if you're that 5% that the first protein day it didn't go down, it should go down. But there is a small percentage of people, sometimes the weight still doesn't go down. And in that case you would do an apple day. Okay, so the apple day is when you have. We don't do this very often. Let me just check exactly.

What.

It entails. I don't know Alex, if you remember from the top of your head, I think we had this come up not.

Too long ago, but yeah, I, I'm almost certain it's six baseball apple or baseball sized apples that you're having through the course of the day. And no protein, no free vegetables, no non free vegetables. You're just focusing on those six baseball sized apples.

Okay. Yeah. And I think it's from like 12 to. You start from like 12 to 6 or something like that. I'll have to double check. Here we go. I found it. So the apple day is six to seven baseball sized apples between 12 to 7pm.

I personally have never had to use an apple day for anybody. I think even the second protein day I've used maybe twice in the almost three years that I've been coaching. So very rarely does it happen. And it's usually, I find for women often menstrual cycle related. So if that is the case, just making sure to give yourself some grace, your body is balancing out its hormones. Make sure you are staying active. So like Deepa said, at least 20 minutes of outdoor exercise and making sure that you're also working on your vagal tone. Make sure that your, your body is eliminating properly as well.

Yes. Thank you for sharing that.

Yeah, my pleasure.

Yes, you're very welcome. You're welcome. Okay, Sarah's asking, can you clarify how much balsamic vinegar you can have? So I would say probably about 1 to 2 tablespoons if you're using it in salad dressing, which should be probably enough for you to press your salad. Okay. So Dr. Lara, how do you determine free versus non free veggies? So basically the free veggies are going to be those that are more water based and the non free veggies are going to be those that are, you know, of course a lot of the starchy vegetables are, you know, eliminated but they're going to be more fibrous like something like broccoli or cauliflower than the free vegetables. So I think garlic scapes are going to be free. Like, are you using them more so as a garnish? Sarah?

Oh, well, once I have a csa, so it's a community shared agriculture. So usually scapes are the first thing we got. And. And usually I either roast them or you can make a pesto with them. They're just really yummy.

Okay.

I, yeah, probably just be eating them or making a. Making. I might try to make a pesto or something like to add as a sauce. So if it's free, it would. I'm just not sure how to do that without oil, but.

They should be free. Okay.

Yeah, it's like part of the. It's just the top of a top.

The green part, right? Yeah, yeah. Yep. So it should be free. Okay.

Yeah.

So sometimes the balsamic vinegar can be, you know, depending on the brand, some, not that it has added sugar, but can have a little bit of carbohydrate in it. So if you're doing one teaspoon and you kind of play around with it. Right. So sometimes we have clients who like, you know, use soy sauce and then the next day they have like this water retention. So play around with what works for you and your body. If you notice, oh, I had soy sauce the day before and my weight stayed the same. It could be because it was too salty and you retained some water. Same thing with the balsamic. If you had too much, it could be that it was too much for you. So play around with the amounts. But I think anywhere from a teaspoon to, I don't even think you'll need two tablespoons, but a teaspoon to a tablespoon is probably enough. So the one thing that I wanted to share with you all today is a podcast that I listen to. And one of the things that we, you know, have really been going deep, deeper into is, you know, breathing and dental health and oral health. And so the podcast I listened to the other day was with a dentist. Her name is Dr. Stacy Whitman, and she is more of a holistic, slash root cause dentist. And, you know, there was some really great tips in there and information in there that I think, you know, may be really eye opening for you all if you're not familiar with some of the information that she shared. So I would recommend listening to it. She touched on things like fluoride in our water. And if you think about it, our water, for the most part in most regions is fluoridated. Here in Ontario, it's fluoridated. And you don't know how much you're getting. And there's really not much information on the use of, of oral or systemic fluoride use for preventing dental cavities, right? Topically, yes, there might be, but orally, it's something that's just put in the water without our consent. And what if I drink 3 liters of water versus someone else drink 1 liter of water? I'm getting a lot more fluoride. We always recommend water filtration, which is going to take the fluoride out. So something like a reverse osmosis or a Berkey water filter is going to take the fluoride out, but something like a Brita or a fridge filter is not going to take the fluoride out. And usually, like fluoride, I put in the water to prevent dental cavities. But the number one cause of dental cavities is mouth breathing. So if we breathe from our mouth, then we are going to change the microbiome of our mouth. It's going to become more acidic and it's going to be more prone to cavities. And it's also going to change, as Dr. Lara and I were talking a little bit earlier, it's going to change our gut microbiome, too, because when our oral health becomes acidic and when we change the bacteria in our oral in our mouth, we swallow. I think it's like 6,000 times a day. So that dysbiotic bacteria and imbalanced bacteria that we swallow goes into our gut. Right. So really making sure that we breathe from our nose throughout the day and also at night. Right. So obviously you want to meet yourself where you're at, but that's why we're big advocates of mouth taping. Right. So trying to get used to the mouse tape during the day, you know, if you're not in a meeting or if you don't have to talk, try to wear it for about one to two hours. And as you get used to it, you'll be able to probably wear it throughout the night. And it literally has to be just a tiny little piece just vertically down the middle of your mouth. Doesn't have to be obstructive. You can still talk, you can still breathe, but it's gently reminding you to keep your mouth shut while you sleep. Then the second cause of cavities is going to be our sugars and refined carbohydrates. Right? So that's the best way to prevent cavities is nose breathing, avoiding sugars and refined carbohydrates, and then brushing our teeth and Flossing twice a day at least, minimum. Okay. And not using mouthwash. So if you use mouthwash, it's killing off the good bacteria in your mouth, and that's going to cause that dysbiosis as well. So making sure that you stay away from mouthwash. I make my own mouthwash at home, so I use just filtered water. I put a little sea salt in it, and then you can put a couple of drops of essential oil, and you can just swish your mouth with that. And Alice, put in the comments. Your tongue scraping. Yes. So if you're not tongue scraping, definitely get yourself a tongue scraper. You just want to do it very gently. You know, if you do it too hard, that's not good. So you want to just gently scrape your tongue a few times morning and night as well. Okay. So the podcast that I listen to, I'll put the link in the chat here and you guys can have a listen to that this weekend. If you have children or grandchildren, this is a super important, I would say, podcast and topic for you to listen to as well. So I think she had mentioned that. I don't know the exact accuracy of some of these statistics, but about 90% of children these days have jaws that are too small because we're eating so many soft foods and processed foods. So our jaws are not developing properly. Children now are having issues with sleep. They feel tired in the morning. They have bags under their eyes. Their jaws are too small because when our jaws are too small, it's going to cause our airways to collapse. And when our airways collapse, then we can't breathe properly at night, and it's going to cause us to not be rested in the morning. A lot of children are getting their teeth pulled because they have all this crowding and they're getting braces, but that's not addressing the root cause. The root cause of the problem is not the crowding and the crooked teeth, and it's not a requirement for braces. It's that the jaw is not big enough. Right. So this is something that we're going down this path with our son. At the moment, he has a palate expander in his mouth, a retainer that expands his palate. Because he was breastfed for two years, I made sure he didn't have a lot of processed foods, but he used to be a mouth breather. If I look back at pictures of him when he was younger, I have tons of pictures of him sleeping with his mouth wide open. And he used to drool. Drooling is a telltale sign that you're breathing from your mouth at night, if you have breath. Young children or grandchildren make sure that they're breathing properly at night and even throughout the day. Sophia is asking oil pulling. So tongue scraping. I do morning and night. It's ayurvedic practice. I've been doing it since I was a young child. I do it twice a day. Oil pulling. I think once a day is enough. Yeah. Any other questions? Comments? Okay, well, have a wonderful rest of your day and weekend. We'll see you all next Friday. And if you do have questions, you can put them in our Facebook group or the group chat and we'll get around to answering those. Or you can bring them to next Friday's Q&A. Dr. Lara is saying should you be doing oil pulling during the release phase, it's probably because you're spitting it out and not consuming it. It should be fine. There's probably very minimal absorption. So five to 10 minutes, spit it out, should be fine. Okay. Always wonderful connecting with you all. Have a wonderful rest of your day and we'll see you next week. Bye, everyone.

Bye, everyone. Happy Friday.