Hello hole health participants. Here we are in week two. I wanted to start this webinar by reviewing what you're going to be receiving for week two. So of course, you're going to be getting your done for you a menu plan with your recipes and grocery list. But you're also going to be receiving some other great handouts. So those things include cleansing and detoxification.

There's actually a questionnaire in there that allows you to go through and answer some key questions and then tally up your points and it really gives a good indication as to your level of toxicity. So it's neat to do that questionnaire at the beginning and then again at the end to see how your levels have changed. You're also going to be getting information about how to kick the sugar and there's another questionnaire in there that helps you to determine how sugar addicted you are how insulin resistance you are So make sure you do these questionnaires because they're a really big part of helping to determine your current status in these areas. There's also information on supplements, basically guidelines and recommendations for different things that you can supplement along with a great diet. And I'm going to be covering some of that information in today's webinar as well.

So we'll get into some detail about that. And hydration, the importance of water and the role that it has in our body and what happens when we are dehydrated, and how to overcome your roadblocks to weight loss. So really important to determine if there's any underlying causes in your weight loss journey and the reasons why you're not losing weight if you need to lose weight, how to survive dining out. So there's some great information in there and I'll be touching on that in the webinar too. It's important that we keep on maintaining our social Life and things are always going to come up events. And it's going to force us to go to restaurants or people's homes to eat.

So I'm going to give you some key strategies and tips of how to survive that and keep on eating healthy. And not let these events and, and things sabotage your journey. And finally, we're going to cover the good, the bad and the ugly fats. So really important that you understand what kind of fats you should be eating, what kind of fats you should be avoiding. I'm going to help you navigate through all of that information. So let's get started.

I'm going to share my screen again and get the webinar begin began. So here we go hydration. So we're going to start off with water. This is really important. I would say that I have seen many, many, many issues, health issues turn around, just by people change Doing what they're drinking. So number one, a really great challenge for yourself is to identify what it is you're consuming and fluid for.

So if you're consuming pot, juice, milk, all of those need to go. Those are not things that you need to be drinking, they're not benefiting your body in any way. Water is key. A lot of times people have problems because they don't like water, or they don't remember to drink water. So I'm going to be sharing with you some tips about how to make it easier for you. But I think it's really under important that you understand why you should be drinking water and what happens when you don't.

So it's estimated that up to 60% of the human body is actually made up of water and your muscles are made up of 75% water your brain cells are made up of 85% water, your blood is 82% and your bones are 25%. So you can see See that much of your body is actually made up of water. proper hydration helps to promote proper digestion, it actually takes about two liters of water to just digest a meal. So your body will utilize the internal water that you have inside of you to die to digest things properly. So if you're not properly hydrated, your body will basically reserve the fluid that it does have for the vital functions of the body. So what that means is it's going to sacrifice the water that you need for digestion so that you can keep on breathing so that your heart can keep on beating.

So a lot of times people have digestive issues just because they're hydrated or dehydrated. So constipation is of course a big one. Even sluggish digestion or taking a long time for things to travel through your digestive system, bloating, gas, all of those things can be greatly helped by consuming more water. Water also, of course helps to detoxify the body and skin. So skin conditions big problem with dehydration. If you are not flushing your body on a regular basis, then toxins are building up in your system.

And the skin is said to be the second liver. So as things accumulate in your body and your liver just has way too much of a job to do and it it can't get it all done, it will hand over some of the job to the second liver, otherwise known as the skin. And that's when problems can start showing up on the skin. Things like xima, acne, dry skin, all of those things can be greatly improved by drinking enough water energy. So did you know that most people's low energy is actually from not drinking enough water so if you're Struggling throughout the day, especially in the afternoon, I really want to challenge you to increase your water intake and then document how your energy changes, joint issues. So water lubricate or joint spaces really important that we keep our bodies well oiled with water.

Many people will have what feels like arthritis, or joint inflammation simply because they're dehydrated, brain function and memory. So if you're feeling foggy, that can be because you're dehydrated. Like I said earlier, your body will reserve the water that it has for the vital functions of the body and brain function and memory is not a vital function. Staying alive is a vital function. Whether or not you remember where you put your keys or what you walked into your bedroom to grab is not a vital function. So you can see that a lot of different things in the body can be greatly improved and solved just by drinking enough water.

So here's some tips about how to get started on increasing your hydration. So you want to keep a bottle that measures your fluid ounces at home or at your desk if you're at work, so that the counting is done for you. So it's important that you have water accessible to you at all times. If you are not a sipper, so some people are fine sipping on water throughout the day, and other people just can't remember to do it. So if you're a sipper, that's great. But if you're not then you need to become a chugger.

So that means is you need some key times in the day when you know you're going to chug one or two glasses of water. So that might be first thing in the morning drinking two glasses of water before your lunch before your dinner, maybe at night, but You're going to have to become kind of more regimented in making sure that you're getting those glasses of water. If you're not sipping it throughout the day. You can keep a post it note on your fridge or your desk reminding you to drink water. Sometimes we just need that constant reminder and then it makes it easier for you. If you're someone that doesn't like water, you can add different things like you can add in slices of lemon or orange or lime.

Any type of fruit works really well to give water a little bit of flavor. And your goal is to drink half of your body weight in ounces of water. So if you weigh 150 pounds, your goal is to drink 75 ounces of water per day. Now that might sound like a big undertaking if you're not currently drinking much water and it actually is. So you should slowly work up to that goal. So if you're only having a half a glass or no water or one glass a day and now you need me, you know you You need to eat or drink eight or nine glasses of water, then you're going to want to slowly work your way up to that.

Start by doubling what you're currently doing. So if you're having one glass, your goal for a few days is to have two glasses, and then double it from there and double it from there until you reach your goal. So slowly work your way up to that. So do the calculation in your head right now of how much you weight, divide that in half. And that will help to determine how much water you need in ounces. There's a really great app called the water log app that you can download on a smartphone.

And it has reminders that will bring you throughout the day to get you to drink water. So that's been really popular with a lot of my patients to get them to drink water. Very, very helpful. And sometimes we just need to just have a little reminder set throughout the day until it becomes more of a habit. The End Interesting thing with water is that the more you drink, the thirsty year you get. It was interesting because I went away a little while ago with one of my friends and her sons and my son's.

We went on a little four day trip, and we were talking about how her son and does not drink any water. In fact, really all he drinks is pop and iced tea. And he's about 13 years old, and he has been suffering with a lot of different injuries. So he's a really good soccer player. And he had injured himself several times over the past couple of months, which isn't too uncommon for an active 13 year old boy. But the uncommon thing was that he wasn't healing.

So, you know, he would roll his ankle or strain into muscle and these injuries just weren't healing. So I was explaining to her how probably his body was really dehydrated, which was setting the stage for inflammation. Making his muscles ligaments and tendons very rigid and almost dry like which set him up to injure himself that much easier. And so throughout the course of our four day trip, I challenged them both to drink only water. And he said, You know what, I don't even get thirsty. I don't like drinking water.

And I said, well, let's just see what happens over the next few days. So he started drinking water. And sure enough, within about a day or two, he his body started urging him to drink water. So as he drank, he actually got thirsty or his thirst mechanism kicked in, and he started wanting water and just his body reminding him was a really great, great way for him to get into a new habit. So that was about a month ago, and since then, he's continued to drink water. He's allowed to have a different drink on the weekend as a treat.

But during the week, he's only allowed to have water and all of his injuries have healed So he's back playing soccer and everyone's happy. And the only thing we did was water. So it's very therapeutic kick the sugar, this is the biggest thing for people. A lot of health issues can be changed by getting rid of sugar. I think it's really hard if you are addicted to sugar to cut down on sugar. I always think of that as an analogy with an alcoholic.

So maybe you know some have you know an alcoholic or a struggling with that and you know that when you're struggling with an addiction, the goal isn't to cut down. The goal is to completely go off. In fact, when you cut down on something that you're addicted to, you will just end up having worse cravings than you currently are. So if you are having problems with sugar like many of us Then the goal is to have none, not less, because having less will set the stage for cravings that make it really difficult to stay away from. Information is power. So if you can understand what sugar is actually doing in your body, then you're going to have a better chance of making a good decision.

So the average North American consumes more than 100 pounds of sugar a year. Now, when I look at that, I think to myself, well, I don't eat sugar, so that means someone else is eating my portion. So there's people out there that eat much more than 100 pounds, but that's a lot of sugar. I really want to make sure that you take the blood sugar instability questionnaire in your handout. Now if you've answered five or more questions with a yes, it's highly probable that you are having issues with blood sugar instability. So some of the symptoms that you might be struggling with can be completed.

Solve by kicking the sugar. So I want to give you some tips on how to eliminate it. And the problem with sugar is that it sneaks in, like some people will say to me, Well, I actually don't eat any sugar. And I'll say, Okay, well, let's take a look at your diet diary and see what's happening in there. And so I'll look at the diet diary and they're consuming a lot of foods that have hidden sugars in there. So once you have the information and you can get away from eating those hidden sugars, the cravings get much less.

So step one, of course, is to stop actually adding it to your foods. So if you're adding it to your drinks, your coffee, your tea, your cereal, your baking or whatever, that needs to stop completely, no sugar, and some of my patients will say, but I don't like my coffee without sugar, well then maybe you shouldn't drink coffee. So if you want to have coffee, you should be having it black and white. at all, but certainly don't be adding sugar to it. Most people start their day with coffee. And so if you're putting sugar in your morning coffee, you're sending your body a message of cravings for the day.

And don't be fooled by healthy sugar disguises, there really is no such thing as a healthy sugar. If you have problems with sugar, if you're truly addicted to it, then you shouldn't be having sugar in any form. Now if you don't really have problems, but you just want to eat healthy, or there are some sugars in your handouts that are better than others. So things like stevia is a really good example. Even stevia though there's a lot of stevia products out there that are highly processed. So you want to make sure that what you're getting is actually a good source of stevia.

Make sure that it's a pure green leaf, stevia If that's what you're going to be using, so other great choices would be things like coconut palm sugar, which has a lower glycemic index. So if you're someone that doesn't necessarily have an addiction to sugar, but you just want to have less of it or a better choice in your home and things that you're baking for your family, stevia or coconut palm sugar or better choices, pure raw honey nine talking about like unpasteurized, raw honey, so not the kind of honey that comes in a jar shaped like a bear. That would not be healthy honey, raw, unpasteurized honey kind of looks creamy. And so that has all of the enzymes intact, or manuka honey, which is very healing and antibiotic. It contains different therapeutic ingredients in there that help with ulcers. It can be actually applied topically as an antibiotic, if there's any Any wounds or anything like that quite an amazing product.

So if you are going to be getting manuka honey, the key is to get the highest number you can find. So when you go into the store, you're gonna see manuka honey, and it's going to have all sorts of numbers on the front, what you want to do is make sure that you're getting a number that's higher than 15. And so that will give you the most enzymes and nutrients and antibiotic properties. And beware of artificial sweeteners. We touched on that in the first webinar, but I really want to reiterate the dangers of artificial sweeteners. There's so many people that are still consuming Diet Coke and different things like that.

Putting different things in their water, like I have lots of patients that come in and they say, Oh, I'm putting like Crystal Light or something like that in my water because I don't like the taste of it. And if I add Crystal Light, and then I'll actually drink the water. Well, I'm afraid to say that you're actually Better not drinking anything than to be putting an artificial sweetener in your body every single day. Don't be fooled by fat free snacks or anything else. So fat free just means low fat, high sugar. So often you'll see that in the form of yogurt.

So patients will say, well, the yogurt that I'm having is a strawberry fat free yogurt, so it's the best one that I could find. And I will explain to them that fat free basically means they've removed the good part of it, which is the fat that's actually good for us. And then they've had to alter it a little bit. So certainly they've had to add more sugar in to make it taste better, but also to stabilize it. Think twice before getting your morning fix. So this is absolutely important.

Every time you eat it's a biochemical message especially in the morning. You want to think to yourself, okay, what kind of message do I want to give my body for the day. So if you are starting your day off with a coffee that has sugar in it, and then a Danish from a drive thru, and then you get to work and you have another coffee and maybe a fat free yogurt, that's a lot of sugar and it's not even 9am. So the message to your body is going to be cravings. It's going to be blood sugar instability, you're going to have mood swings and energy dips throughout the day. So absolutely, try your best to not consume sugar at all, and especially not in the morning.

Reduce or eliminate processed carbohydrates. So this is another source of hidden sugars. So processed carbs, so whether you're consuming things that come in boxes or packages, crackers, Cookies, anything that's packaged is going to have a lot of sugar in it. And I'm going to give you the math equation to help you actually decode what the back of the label means. So you need to become a label reader, but you actually need to understand what the label means. So I'm going to give you the equation on the back of any packaged food, there's going to be a nutritional label.

And so when you scroll down, you want to scroll down and find the one that says sugar. And then you're going to see some grams. So it'll often say 20 grams of sugar, but what's really important is that you know what the serving sizes so we'll use something like the strawberry yogurt. So if you've got a one of the bigger containers like a family size container, the serving size is usually a half a cup or a cup. So let's take a half a cup serving. Usually there's around 20 grams of sugar in there.

So what you want to do is you want to divide the grams of sugar by four. So 20 grams divided by four equals five. So you need to know your four division table. So 20 divided by four equals five. That means there is five teaspoons of sugar in that half cup serving. So just to review, turn the package over, look at the label come to two things you need to know what is the serving size, and what is the grams of sugar.

So whatever the grams of sugar is divided by four, and then you'll know how many teaspoons of sugar is in that serving size. So oftentimes, it becomes quite startling when you know that equation. Most specialty coffee drinks contain between 40 and 50 grams of serving for Agron de size So that is greater than 10 teaspoons of sugar. So if you're having one specialty coffee drink a day and you're not really considering that to be necessarily a bad choice, once you can actually picture how much sugar is in something, it's going to help you make a better decision for sure. The same is true for sauces. So a lot of people will say, well, we eat stir fries at night and so the first thing I want to know is what are you putting in that stir fry, what kind of sauce is going in there is there teriyaki sauce, barbecue sauce, some type of condiment, because, again, flip the bottle over and see what the grams of sugar are oftentimes in just a tablespoon of teriyaki sauce.

There might be three or four teaspoons of sugar in there. That's a lot. These are these hidden sugars that are keeping you addicted and keeping you wanting more and fruit juice. That is a huge source of sugar. And on the weekend, my son convinced me to buy him some organic orange juice. And it was for him and a bunch of his cousins.

And so it was really interesting because he had a couple of servings of this orange juice, which my kids never get juice, so all they get is water. So it was a big deal. And I got the best time that I could and I kind of caved and I was like, Oh, fine, have some organic orange juice. But I wasn't really watching him and he ended up having quite a few servings of it. And when my husband and I were trying to figure out why his behavior had absolutely exploded, I mean, he was out of his mind. We ended up having to put him to bed at 530 and he slept until the next day.

He just went on such a sugar race. High and then crashed and burned, basically ruined his whole evening, the poor guy. And he's only eight so he just couldn't process it all. But when we did the math, each glass of orange juice that he was having, which was quite small, had 44 grams of sugar in it. So that is 11 teaspoons of sugar and he had three or four glasses. So he had like 40 teaspoons of sugar, the equivalent to that.

So no wonder he couldn't handle himself. And so eliminate the fruit juice. Don't bother with it. If you're going to consume juice, juice it yourself like get yourself a juicer and make juice that way but if you're doing that, make sure you're doing 80% vegetables and 20% fruit, otherwise it continues to be really high in sugar. So the goal with sugar is to go cold turkey just Make the decision go through the two or three days that you're going to have once you quit the sugar, where you'll have a few cravings, but once you get past a three, you're going to have very few cravings. After that, it all becomes just psychological just habit.

And that's easier to break than your body physically craving the sugar. good fats versus bad fats, so not all fats are created equally. And our bodies basically process and utilize fats based on their composition. So some fats are detrimental to our health, while others can have very therapeutic benefits, such as decreasing inflammation, improving our skin quality and increasing brain power. So some of the fats that do these things are things like omega three or omega six fats, they can have a great benefit to our body, and fat got a bad rap probably back in the 80s. When everyone was eating a low fat high carb diet, and now we know that fat is one of the best macronutrients for our bodies, and so the goal certainly is to not have a low fat diet.

In fact, the more fat the better, but the type of fat is very important. So when you're cooking, there are certain oils or fats that are much better than others. Coconut oil is probably the best. So it can be heated to one of the highest temperatures. And that's what we use in my house is coconut oil. There's there's a couple different kinds of coconut oil and they don't all taste the same.

So if you're not a fan of the flavor of coconut, try different brands because there's different ones that have very little coconut flavor to them. So if you're cooking anything in a frying pan, coconut oil is the way to go. Go Next on the list would be butter and I mean real butter. So organic grass fed butter, it's hard to find. And if you do find it, buy a couple and freeze it because who knows when you're going to be able to find it again, D is basically a derivative of butter so people that have a hard time digesting real butter often do much better with ghee and it can also be heated to a really high temperature and anywhere from 425 to 480 degrees Fahrenheit has a really nice taste to it, so that's a good option as well. cold pressed olive oil another great option but it can't be as high as coconut butter or ghee.

So if you're satiating something at a lower temperature, olive oil is great. Avocado oil is great as well also remains table and I said use sparingly and occasionally partly because it's really expensive and it is very, very, very high in fat, which I said was good but you don't want to to too much of a good thing. And I always think that avocados on their own tastes so good that I would want to just eat the avocado versus always exclusively having avocado oil. Sesame oil is quite stable as well at 410 degrees Fahrenheit, so that's another good one to use for cooking. So to recap, if you're cooking Coconut oil is top butter or ghee if you can tolerate those things. A lower temperature would be olive oil, avocado oil and sesame oil also good choices.

So healthy oils that you can consume that you should not heat are flaxseed oil or any nut oil, especially macadamia walnut or pecan. So these are all Very healthy oils to consume, but you absolutely do not want to keep them. So these are great added to foods are used in salad dressings. So if you're making a homemade salad dressing, that's a great choice to use, and unhealthy oils that you want to avoid. So anything that is hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated really want to make sure that you avoid that canola oil and corn oil. Both of those oils are genetically modified.

So unless it's an organic version of it, you would be consuming GMO canola oil is in everything. Oh my gosh, I go to the grocery store and I pick up something and I look at it canola oil. Okay, this is a GMO product. Just stuff right? They're totally genetically modified grapeseed oil, soybean vegetable oils like safflower sunflower, straight up vegetable oil or rice bran oil. None of these oils are healthy for us and they should be avoided as much as possible.

The problems with consuming bad fat is that our body's antioxidant levels get destroyed by doing this. And so they can actually become pathogenic in our body, meaning that they can create inflammation. They can create digestive upset, and all sorts of things in our body. So especially if you're consuming these on a regular basis, your body should be able to handle exposure to something once in a while, but whatever you're doing on a regular basis, those are the things you want to pay attention to. And tips for dining out. So dining out can become a real issue for many people, especially when it comes time to making the right choice.

And so here are some great tips to avoid dining disaster. And this is really important for people that do a lot of travel with their work. I have lots of patients who are trying so hard to eat healthy, and but part of their job is to dine out with different clients or to travel and it's hard for them to stay on track. So these are some things that you can do on a regular basis to help you survive and still have a good time. So number one as much as possible. I know life doesn't always happen as planned, but try your very hardest to not arrive starving.

So if you know that you're going out for a late dinner with a group of friends that say seven and normally you eat dinner at 530, well don't have nothing and don't arrive at seven starving because you know, you're not going to get your food until eight or 830. So make sure you have a snack or a smoothie or something around 530 or six so that when you get there, you have your wits about you your blood sugar or sugar isn't so low that you can't make a good decision and avoid appetizers These are I mean, at home, you're not having appetizers. So why do we do that when we go out, of course, because they look so delicious. But really just have your meal, have a good healthy meal, make sure that you're drinking water. And so as soon as you get to the restaurant, get some water, drink a glass of water and get that refilled.

Because if you're thirsty, that can be mistaken for hunger, and then you can end up ordering something that isn't great. Pass on the bread. This is something that we do. Of course, well my sons are celiac, so they can't have any wheat. But as a rule, we as soon as we sit down, if we're in a restaurant where we know they bring bread, we say please don't bring any bread. So if it's in your face and it's sitting there, it's gonna be really hard to pass up on, especially if you're hungry.

So just simply ask the waiter or the server to not bring any bread to the table. And then that temptation won't be there for you. When you're looking at the menu, look for grilled, grilled or bake options. Those are all much better ways to consume proteins versus something that is deep fried. Avoid the sauces. So if you're getting a stir fry, and it's like a teriyaki chicken stir fry, either ask for no sauce or ask for the sauce on the side, or at the very least ask for half sauce.

Skip the carbs and double up on the veggies. This is what I do all the time. So when I'm going out to a restaurant, I'm looking through the menu. First of all, I will look to see if there's a low carb option on the menu. So often menus now we'll have like the low carb zone. And often those choices are really great.

So things will be baked, they'll have lots of vegetables in them. And if that's not an option for you, you can always make your own. So what I will do is I will look for the healthiest stir fry on the menu I will ask for no sauce, no rice, but double vegetables. So I still get this great meal that's loaded with protein and vegetables. I feel completely satisfied when I'm done. But I haven't eaten any empty carbs that I don't need.

So in your handout, you have more information and more tips on each of these topics. So make sure you do read through your handouts. In the tips for dining out, there's a lot of more great information in there for how to survive. So we're going to move on to supplements. supplements are a great way to support the body's natural processes, and they can be of tremendous benefit. So there's something called the foundational supplements and these are considered to be the best building block nutrients necessary for optimal health.

So there's four things and these are the things that everyone should be taking. No matter where you're at in life. Everyone should be taking these So a good multivitamin, vitamin d3 mixed with K two omega threes and calcium and magnesium. So your might multivitamin, and if these things are something that you're taking on a daily basis which they which they should be, then you really want to consider the source and the therapeutic levels in the multivitamin and the brand. So not all supplements are created equally, you want to consider where you're purchasing them from. And if you're purchasing your supplements from a drugstore or a superstore, something like that, you're probably better off taking nothing than taking a poor quality brand, because you're taking these things every day.

So you don't want to take something that has dyes in it or that has a lot of nasty harmful fillers and binders and a lot of local Quality supplements have all of those things in them, they end up being more harmful for the body than actually beneficial for the body. And so for a multivitamin in your handout I've listed on some of my favorite choices. And this these choices and these recommendations is certainly backed not only by research, it's also backed by being in practice for 13 years. So being in the trenches with patients and knowing what works, what people don't react to what people feel good on. So some of my favorites for women are the women's nutrients or the multi end cap. So and then men is the ultra nutrients or the multi end cap.

So either of those choices are great. Now there is really no such thing as a one a day. Usually with multivitamins that are deep You have to take a few a day to get enough benefit. You can't get enough of a therapeutic dose in one pill. And whatever you're taking, you want it to have a therapeutic effect on your body. You don't want to be taking something and not have it change how you feel.

So taking a good quality product a couple of times in the day for a multivitamin is going to help you with your energy and you will feel better taking these things. Vitamin D is one of the key things to take. Every single human should be on this. One of my favorite products is the vitamin d3 k two by storm. It's a liquid and I love it because you can get a good job in a liquid form. It has no taste to it.

It's very easy to take you can change the dosing very easily depending on the time of year. You can Give it to your kids, which is great. And economically it is much cheaper than consuming vitamin D in capsule form, especially in Canada because in Canada we can only get 1000 International unit capsules. And for an adult, the recommendation is four or 5000 international units per day during the winter month. And then during the summer months, if you're actually getting exposure to sun, then you can decrease that down to 1000 international units per day or you can even take a break for me in the summer. We go camping for a few weeks in August to the Okanagan.

So we're in the sun the whole time. And so I don't even bring my vitamin D with me, but I certainly once fall rolls around, I'm back on my 5000 international units per day and I take that daily all the way through until like late spring. Vitamin K is really important to be in there because it helps with the absorption Have vitamin D, and omega threes. This is really important. We can't necessarily get enough of this from our diet. I mean, if you're eating cold water, wild fish three, four times a week, then you're probably getting covered but a lot of people aren't doing that.

So taking an omega three is going to be very beneficial for your skin for inflammation for your brain health for your heart, so much benefit. One of my favorites is called OPT omega three and EPA 1000. So these are both listed in your handouts. The opt in Mega three is really neat because it has vitamin D in it. So you're actually getting 1000 international units of vitamin D in each capsule, which is great. And then the EPA 1000 is a higher therapeutic strength, omega three that's really designed for people that have some type of inflammatory process going on.

You want to be really careful with omega threes and where you're getting From because you could end up doing more harm than good. And a lot of omega threes are tainted with heavy metal toxicity. And so you really want to make sure that you're getting clean source omega three. So don't always trust the vendor make sure that you're wherever you're purchasing it from that they can back up the fact that these are clean products with the products that I recommend, there's third party testing that comes in so an unbiased source will come in and test the products randomly throughout the course of the year making sure that what's in the bottle what it's what says is in the bottle is actually in the bottle and that there are no toxic levels of any contaminants in there. And calcium magnesium, very important foundational supplements, and I like a product called calcium magnesium citrate powder.

So it's great because you can have a Pretty heavy duty dose of the best absorbable forms of calcium magnesium in one scoop that you add into water. And so you can drink that once a day and you're getting a nice dose of that. And the key with calcium and magnesium, especially calcium, you want to make sure that you're taking calcium citrate and knock calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate is basically just like chalk, and it's really hard to absorb. And so what can end up happening is it can pull in our joints and start causing problems. And so calcium citrate is the best kind of calcium to take.

So supplementing for success, and there's a course other supplements that you can take beyond the foundational issues now, if you're having problems with digestion, energy, metabolism, cravings or stress, I find that these five areas are the best biggest things that sabotage people. So if someone's trying to eat healthy, and they're trying to get things on track, but they've got a digestive issue, it's going to sabotage them, they're not going to want to put the effort into eating well, because their digestion is so upset. The same is true for energy. If you thought really compromised energy, it's going to be difficult for you to do what you need to do to get healthy. And if you're going along and you're doing all the right things, and your metabolism is so slow, chances are that you may just throw in the towel and say, forget it. I'm not getting anywhere.

Or if the cravings are so fierce that you can't help but succumb to them. That's going to sabotage your efforts on a continuous basis and stress. So we all know the awful impacts that stress can have on our life, but stress can Absolutely throw even the strongest person off track. So a lot of patients will come in and they're so well intended. And then they'll say, but then this happened, and then I couldn't eat well, and then this happened and then I couldn't exercise. And so what we really want to do is if you're having issues in these areas is refer back to your handouts.

I've put in some great and it shows you exactly what to take. So if you're having digestive issues, it tells you exactly what to take. If you're having energy issues. It tells you exactly what to take metabolisms craving, stress, these are my top choices. These are the best possible things that you can take, you will feel the benefit of taking these things. The great thing is is because you're a member of the whole health program, that you get a discount on all these products.

So you know, you can Nice discount on any of these products. When you go into the online store, if you click on any of the products that you're searching for, there's a great description and information on how to take the product as well. And make sure that you're utilizing the Facebook group. So if you're having a specific issue, and you're wondering, what can I take for this posted in the Facebook group? And I'm going to answer it, I'm going to recommend it. Chances are someone else has the same question as well.

So never be afraid to ask the question in their roadblocks to weight loss. This is a big one for people. So one of my books is actually based on the roadblocks of weight loss. And when I wrote it, the person that I had in mind was the person that was doing the right stuff. So I had had so many patients that were coming in and they were eating well, exercising on a regular basis, but the scale was not moving. I mean, these people eating Great.

So I started thinking what on earth, what is preventing them from losing weight and I really discovered seven key things. And so I want to share this information with you. And there's opportunity throughout this program for you to really discover if you are one of these people, if you've been trying to lose weight you've been eating while you've been exercising, but your efforts are not paying off, then chances are one of these seven things is possibly causing what's called weight loss resistance, so your body just won't let go of the weight. The first thing is an underactive thyroid. So imbalances in the thyroid are connected into many hormonal issues, specifically, more so for females, but males also do suffer from an underactive thyroid. So some of the symptoms that can happen if you have an underactive thyroid can include weight gain, even breast cancer.

Fibroids, ovarian cyst, endometriosis, fertility, postpartum depression, miscarriage, PMS cycle abnormalities, and the symptoms that can arise that are that you feel cold all the time that you have a level of fatigue that never gets better. It doesn't wax and wane throughout the day. It's basically flatlined all day long. And you might have anxiety or depression, definitely a low sex drive, weight gain and difficulty losing weight. So maybe you are being more careful with your nutrition and exercise. And not only are you not losing weight, but maybe you're also gaining weight, fluid retention and puffiness.

And I had a patient that just came in a little while ago and she had been suffering from what's called idiopathic edema, which is basically we don't know why your body is swelling with fluid. So she had been to several different specialists and doctors just turned it idiopathic, otherwise known as no cause, but her body was collecting fluid between five and 10 pounds per week. So it would just go up and down and up and down. And she was totally reliant on herbal diuretics to get the fluid out of our system. So we ran her hormone test, and sure enough, her thyroid was very underactive. So once we got that balanced, no more problems with the fluid accumulation, and she didn't have any other symptoms of thyroid issues.

That was the only thing that she had. So there's so many symptoms that you can be suffering from when it comes to thyroid, you might have all of them, you might have one of them. Maybe weight loss is your only issue. Maybe dry skin is your only issue. Maybe constipation is your only issue, but we really want to make sure that that gets ruled out. Some of the other symptoms that can happen is hair loss.

Specifically the over third of your eyebrows, brittle nails, and aching muscles, especially in the leg, excessive earwax, a hoarse voice, elevated cholesterol issues and brain fog. Like you can't remember anything you can't concentrate, you just feel like you're in a haze. The best thing that you can do to determine if you have a thyroid issue, there really isn't a questionnaire. And, you know, you're you can look at the list of symptoms in your handout. And if you identify with a lot of those, then it's really important to get the proper testing done. And in week four, I'm going to be talking in great detail about the testing and making sure that you guys have access and information to the proper kind of testing adrenal function.

So next week, I'm going to give you a questionnaire that is very detailed and it really helps to show whether or not adrenal dysfunction is a problem for you when it comes to weight loss or really any issue. So your adrenals are two little glands that sit on top of your kidneys, and they produce hormones in response to stress. So when they become fatigued, it's really hard to lose weight, food allergies, I touched on that last week, we went through and talked about the top foods that can cause allergenic issues. And one of those things is definitely weight loss resistance. I gave you the example of the patient who found out she was allergic to eggs, and all she did was stopped eating eggs, and she lost 23 pounds in a couple of months. And that was it.

She didn't do anything else. Her body just said thank you so much for not consuming this food that I'm so allergic to and just let go of the weight. hormone imbalances. And in week four, I'm going to go into great detail all about hormones and What you need to determine if you have issues and what you need to get tested properly. Insulin resistance, you got the questionnaire this week that was all about your blood sugar. So to recap, if you answered five or more points on that test, chances are that you have issues with blood sugar instability, and you want to go through and incorporate the tips that I've included and just get rid of the sugar candida overgrowth, so Candida is a commonly overgrown yeast in the body, and it can cause absolute weight loss resistance.

And time and time again, I've seen this with patients on the food allergy panel that I run as part of my practice, can beat it is included in that because often that can be a big problem for people. It's basically like a systemic yeast infection and when It breaks through the places that it normally lives and starts kind of spreading throughout the body. It can cause a lot of issues and it can cause weight weight issues. There's a questionnaire that you can do that I will show you where to get it in the end, and you can take that questionnaire and it can really helped to show whether or not can be an issue for you. liver toxicity. So you have the detoxification questionnaire this week.

So go through do that questionnaire, if you're scoring high on it, and you're not losing weight, then there's a good chance that liver toxicity can be an issue for you. So then you want to go through the steps and detoxify your liver. You can do that through food or different supplements. If you want more information on that, post that on the Facebook group and I will address that in more detail. But take that questionnaire and see if your toxin status is high. So these are all about The things that can get in the way that can sabotage people's efforts when it comes to weight loss.

So it's really important that you don't just give up that you dig deeper, take some of these questionnaires I have provided for you to help you determine what is your underlying cause of weight loss resistance, all of these things can be reversed. That's the good news. No matter what you have on this list, it can all be solved, resolved and healed. That is the good news. It's not like you're gonna say, Okay, well, now I know what I have, but there's nothing I can do about it. That is not true.

All of these things can be helped. So how I started eating healthy, sometimes baby steps are best. So in your handouts, you've been given all of this information. And basically, it's like a stepping process. You can see in the handout that the left column shows your patient choice, then a better choice and then an optimal choice. So of course, the goal for everyone is to live in the optimal choice category.

But we can't always get there. Right away. Sometimes people need to slowly immerse themselves into the deep end, and other people want to jump off the high dive and just get to it. So honor who you are, if you do better with slow choices, then make the decision that you're going to no longer consume the foods in the poor choice column, that you are going to consume the foods in the better choice column. And then when you're ready, you're going to move into the optimal choice column. So these are all improvements, better choices that you can make of things that you are commonly eating now.

So this handout goes through breads and pastas and cereals and gives you better options of what you can be doing. And hot dogs sugar. Non organic dairy products, canned frozen fruits and vegetables, condiments and marinade. So there's so many choices in here, so much better information of things that you can be having. You don't necessarily have to cut something out. And that's the end of it, you can trade to a better version of it.

It's like someone will say, but I always have a sandwich for lunch. And it's white bread and Bologna. And it's like, okay, let's make sure that you're continuing to have a sandwich for lunch, because that's what you're comfortable with. But let's change your bread. To make it healthier. Let's change your Bologna to a healthier choice.

So that you're still comfortable, you're still having your sandwich, which makes you happy, but it just is such a healthier version of what you're currently doing. So a day in the life I love this area of the handout because it just gives you a whole bunch of quick, easy ideas, things that you can have for Breakfast, you've got your detailed menu plans. And sometimes life doesn't always go as planned. And you need some quick little ideas that you can throw together things that you may not have thought of. So these lists, take you through in your handouts and show you quick things that you can do for breakfast ideas, lunch ideas, snack and dinner ideas. So there's a whole bunch of different ideas all through here, things that you can throw together and some of the things require a little bit more preparation, but there's a lot of things in here that are quick and easy.

So the 10 tips for optimal nutrition. This is your challenge for the week. So I want to go through this list and give you some tips on how to incorporate better nutrition into your life. So number one is to avoid the health robbers so they're certainly Things that not only are bad for us, but they also steal nutrients from our body. So there's a cost to eating these things. It's not like they're just bad for us.

And that's the end of the story. No, they actually deplete our nutrients. So these are things like preservatives, food, dyes, chemicals, bad fats, some of those things we touched on. These are commonly found in box cereals, processed breads, crackers, muffins, condiments, margarine and luncheon meat. I want you to become a label reader. So take note on the shelf life of the products you're purchasing, and the number of unpronounceable ingredients.

If you cannot pronounce it, don't eat it. It's not even a food to your body. So becoming a label reader is really important. Pay attention to what you're purchasing for you and your family to put in your bodies. Tip two is saying no to white. So one great way to jumpstart your healthy eating lifestyle is to eliminate white foods such as all flowers, sugars and most dairy products.

Go gluten free. We talked about gluten last week, but this is just I want to reiterate it and remind you that gluten is implicated in numerous health disease issues. And that gluten free grains are things like rice, brown and wild rice is best keema, buckwheat, amaranth, millet, teff, tapioca and some oats. So the goal when you're going gluten free is not to go out and purchase a whole bunch of processed gluten free items. These are no better than the food items that contain the gluten in the first place. In fact, often these things are higher in sugar and higher end carbs so you're not doing yourself any favor.

The goal when you're going gluten free is to choose from foods that are naturally gluten free, not foods that Nan has turned into gluten free. So what I mean by that is foods that are naturally gluten free would include clean main proteins, and eggs, nuts and seeds, lagoons, fruits and vegetables. All of those things are automatically gluten free. And what I want you to avoid is gluten free bagels, gluten free breads, gluten free pasta, like all those processed things that someone has taken and turned into gluten free. Now you might have those things on rare occasion, but don't have them as a regular occurrence in your diet. Timing is everything.

So making sure that you are eating on a regular basis. skipping meals is very stressful for the body. And it just sets you up for failure for your next meal. If you're skipping a meal, the next time you go to eat, your blood sugar is going to be so low that you're not going to be able to make that Good decision. So eating smaller and more frequent meals throughout the day, it that has been shown to be the healthiest way to eat. So four portion is to use one cup 10 for your snacks, and two cup tans for your meals.

Now that kind of gives you an idea of how much you should be eating and make sure you're eating around every three hours so your body does not go into starvation mode and end up storing everything as fat. So there are some specific diet out there that are different from this information. But for general health for people that are getting started on eating healthy, this is the way to go making sure that you're having breakfast lunch and dinner and one or two snacks in there. And it doesn't have to be a big huge snack. It can literally be 12 almonds that can be one of your meals that you eat within a three hour period. Shop the perimeter of the grocery store.

So all of the nutritious foods are located along the outside is The aisles in the middle commonly contain, of course, the processed foods. So if you avoid those aisles, you won't be tempted. And don't go grocery shopping hungry. Eat your breakfast. So even if you're one of those people who does not feel like eating in the morning, do it anyways, I'm telling you, I do not like breakfast. I am not a breakfast person.

I would be absolutely happy. Just not eating anything until lunch. But I learned years and years and years ago that that was no longer working for me. And so because I don't like chewing in the morning, I don't want food. I don't feel like eating. I have a smoothie.

So I've been doing that for oh my goodness, probably 12 or 13 years, and I have a smoothie every single day in the morning. I feel so good. I put so many great things into my smoothie. It's not an inconvenience for me. It takes me a couple of minutes to make my smoothie and then I just carry it around with me and sip out of a straw. As I'm doing my morning routine with my kids and getting everything ready to go, so breaking the fast or breakfast will kickstart your metabolism and set the stage for the day.

And remember that eating protein for breakfast will allow your body to burn 35% more calories throughout the day. So if you're starting your day with toast or cereal, you are totally losing out on an opportunity to burn 35% more calories throughout the day. You need to have protein in the morning. Whether that's a smoothie or something like eggs, make sure you're getting protein. All of your meal plans that I've given you are designed to have high protein breakfast and eat six to 10 servings of vegetables per day. That is one of your biggest challenges for the week.

So I want you to really focus on making sure that you are getting lots of vegetables in If you're eating all those veggies there isn't going to be room or time to Penny put any of the bad stuff in. A serving size is a cup. So if you think about having like a plate full of salad right there is like six servings of vegetables. So it's really not that hard to get that many servings of vegetables in a day. In your smoothie in the morning, you put a couple handfuls of spinach or some type of leafy green in there, there's two or three servings right there. Number eight is to ditch the sugar.

So we talked about that earlier in this webinar, and really important so if the first or second word in a nutrition ingredient list is glucose, sucrose, white sugar, fructose or high fructose corn syrup, then the product is loaded with sugar and compare impair your immune system. And remember that one teaspoon of sugar is equal to four grams. So divide the total grams of sugar by For and that will tell you how many teaspoons in that product. Just one teaspoon of sugar can impair your immune system for four hours. So if you're struggling with constant colds or allergies or catching everything you just feel rundown and you're consuming sugar, you're literally obliterating your immune system, you have no fighting chance. The sugar is shutting off your army.

There's nobody to help you to attack, you need to get rid of the sugar so that your immune system can come back to life and do what it's supposed to do. Number nine is stop counting. I definitely don't want you to be counting calories or weighing your foods or anything like that focus more on the nutrient quality of a food rather than the calories. calories are not all created equally. nor are they all used in the same way in the body. 300 calories of junk food has a very different effect.

In the body, then 300 calories of fruits and vegetables, eat to nutrify change how you're thinking about food. When I'm creating a meal, I'm thinking to myself, how can I get the most nutritional bang for my buck? How What can I put on my plate that will nutrify my body. I want my food to be therapeutic to my body. I want it to nourish me. I want it to give me energy and make me think clearly and be sharp for the day.

I don't want to eat foods that's going to drag me down and make me feel bloated and have a headache and want to go to bed. Eat to nutrify look at your food differently. Don't look at it as something that's just filling a hole because you're hungry. Choose foods that are nutrient dense. I have not counted calories, I do not count calories. I do not believe in doing that.

I choose foods that are nutrient dense, and I know that my My body will utilize those things, and therefore I don't have to count calories with dieting is the last tip. So if dieting to you means doing something drastic for three to four weeks, and then just going back to your old eating habits, then you need to start with a shift in your mindset. Truly true health benefits and fat loss can only be maintained through healthy lifestyle changes. This is so important. I've so many patients that come in and they say I've tried every single diet, and I lost this much on this one and this much on this one and this much on this one and then I gained it back gained it back at back plus some. So let's take diet out of our vocabulary.

Let's never do another diet again. Instead, let's adopt a healthy lifestyle mindset. So for the rest of your life, choosing foods that are nutritious for you Most of the time, of course, there's going to be times in your life where it's your birthday and you want to have a piece of cake, or life didn't go as planned and you end up ordering pizza that's going to happen. Let that be your 10%. Let 90% of the time be where you're living in decisions that are good for you. Okay, so the goal is not perfection.

And it might take a while for you to get to the point where you need to be and that's okay. As long as you're creating momentum in your nutrition and you're moving forward and you're making improvements. It doesn't have to be perfect to count. A lot of people will say, Ah, I bombed my diet. I blew it. Forget the whole thing.

I'll start again on Monday. It's like no, no, no, no life got in the way. You made a poor decision for that one meal or that one. snacker that one moment, just get back to good decisions. The next time you put something in your mouth, don't think that you're on some plan and then you're off some plan. Choose good things all the time.

Always be considering your food, really adopt that, that lifestyle mentality. These are your challenges for week two. So I want you to follow the menu plans provided for you for week two, I want you to stop dieting, and really adopt a lifestyle mentality and just want you to really think about how you think about food and diets and all the rest of it and really, just take the pressure off of yourself and just say, you know what, I'm going to eat well, most of the time and some of the time. It's not going to look perfect, and that's okay. There's no shame or guilt in that. challenge for the week also is to cut out sugar.

That was a challenge for last week as well. But it's going to be a challenge probably for every week, I'm going to keep reminding you to cut out the sugar, and eat six to 10 servings of veggies per day. And make sure you're taking the detox and sugar questionnaires to determine what your underlying issues are. So the information today, a lot of it is also in this book here the ultimate metabolic plan. So this book also has all of the questionnaires in it and it goes into a lot more detail than what's in your handouts. So if you want more information, you can order this book on Amazon or you can order it from my clinic or you can come into my clinic and pick it up.

And as a reminder, I also have the ultimate hormone balancing guidebook. We're going to be really diving into hormones in week four touched on Candida and I told you that it's a common overgrowth of yeast. And I said that there's a questionnaire that you can take the ultimate Candida guiding cookbook contains that questionnaire. You can also go online and Google can beat a questionnaire and it will pop up and you can take the questionnaire online to help you determine if Candida is an a cause for you. If it is, let me know and I will set you up with this book because it takes you through on how to get rid of it. And my ultimate gluten and dairy free book is really great and great family recipes.

So that's it for week two. Enjoy your menu plans on make sure that you're posting in the Facebook group. I really want to support you guys as you're going through this. Make sure you're taking advantage of that. I really want it to be a positive place. It's fine to post your struggles and we're going to build each other up.

And and if there's lots of questions, I will pop in on Friday and do a facebook live feed to just answer all those questions and I'll do my best to answer them along the way as well. So take care and I will see you all next week.