Introduction

Hello, my name is Libby Wright, and I'm going to be sharing some things with you today. As I let you know, in all of our sessions, we do record our sessions, so if you would like to make a comment or ask a question, feel free to go ahead and put that in the question box. We do keep everyone on mute, all the attendees, just so that we don't get any unwanted background noise. With that, I would like to start our session today. Our last session in our series on Your Best Weight, and that is The Four-letter Word, Food.

Now food is a little bit of an elephant in the living room, but how can you have a program about weight without talking a little bit about food? We've saved it till the end, and I know it can be a touchy subject for some people, but we're going to talk about some practical ways, some practical tips that we can give you to help you make better food choices. Before we get started, though, I just want to remind you my name is Libby Wright, and I'm one of the founding members of supplementrelief.com.

As always, if you're going to be starting a new supplement regimen, new foods, new exercise, or anything we suggest in these programs, please make sure you check with your physician or your primary care provider. It's always important that you share your thoughts with them on what you're going to do and make sure you get their "okay". With that, we're going to go ahead and start.

What is Food?

Now, this might seem like kind of a simple crazy question that I'm asking, but I want to ask you today what is food. We, in America, in modern times, have gotten very confused about what food really is. Our little icon here is giving you a little bit of a clue as to what we're going to be talking about.

Real Food is food that is found in nature that is minimally processed, food that you can look at it and say that's an apple, or that's an orange, or that's a green bean. Highly processed foods like sugars or TV dinners, or pop tarts are really not things found in the natural state.

What we're going to be talking about a little bit today is what is real food. I thought it'd be fun to go to the dictionary, I went to dictionary.com, and actually, ask the question "what is real food" in there.

Now, there are a lot of different definitions here. There were a few that I found that were most interesting. The first one is a noun. Any nourishing substance that's eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth, etc. Then another definition, I found a little farther down the line was anything serving for consumption or use.

I'd like to ask you today, do you eat foods that nourish you, or do you eat foods that are simply something that can be consumed?

We have here a picture of leafy greens that would definitely qualify as something that sustains life, provides energy and promotes growth. What I love about this is it not only gives us nutrition, it gives us some good calories, it gives us lots of good minerals, lots of good vitamins, and it also gives us phytonutrients.

Then you've got things like anything for consumption, and what do we have here? We have a burger and fries, which is very much part of the standard American diet, and what does that give us? Well, it's giving us a whole lot of calories, it is giving us some protein, but it's also giving us a lot of inflammatory properties, sugars, gluten, and a lot of things that are going to cause us problems in the future if that's what we are primarily eating.

A lot of people want to throw their hands up in the air and go, "Okay, what should I actually be eating then? You're telling me the things that I've been eating my whole life, I shouldn't be eating?"

Well, there's a really simple formula to figure out what you should and shouldn't be eating. We want to make sure the foods that you're eating are things that don't cause stress to your body.

Oxidative Stress

Now, what do I mean by stress? Well, there are different kinds of stress, but one of the things I want to touch on briefly is oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is like rust on a car or rust on metal. We get oxidation or almost like rust within our cells, and that causes things like cancer, inflammatory conditions, and autoimmune disease. We want to make sure that we are reducing and eliminating those oxidative stress items.

What are some oxidative stress items? Well, most processed foods containing sugar and flour, fructose oil, that's going to be very stressful on our bodies. Our body isn't made to know how to process that and how to detoxify from that, so it's actually creating a lot of extra work in our bodies. Cooked meats, especially things that have been cooked on high heat. We're talking about things that have been grilled or foods that have been cooked in high heat.

Now, this is kind of interesting, a lot of people say "Well, I cook it in olive oil." Well, actually cooking olive oil and heating it to a high tamp so that it smokes or turns funny, you may even notice a funny smell, that actually is making it turn rancid. One of the big myths is cooking with olive oil is actually healthy for you, it's actually creating extra oxidative stress. If you are going to cook with some oils, make sure they're high-heat oils that are non-saturated fats oils. We're talking about coconut oils. We're talking about safflower oil. We want to avoid things like sunflower oil, canola oil, and as I mentioned, olive oil.

Other oxidative stress items that I talked about are processed foods, things with flour, and gluten, also foods high in sugar. These are all things that are just very difficult for our bodies to know what to do with. Because back a long time ago, our bodies did not get a lot of these substances, so our bodies really are not made to know how to handle them and how to detoxify from them.

Our Natural Habitat

Let's talk for a minute about habitat. In our habitat, let's say we have a goldfish, a Koi. I'm not going to throw a steak into the koi pond and expect the koi to know what to do with it, right? The Koi would be very confused by it, it might be frightened by it, and it would probably just decompose in their tank and cause a lot of problems, right?

Now, just like that we as humans are in our habitat every day, our home, our office, our school, wherever we're at, and what we've started doing is putting foods into our habitat that our body doesn't know what to do. But unfortunately, sugar lights up the exact same parts of the brain as heroin does, so we get a kick and a high when we get sugar, things like chocolate chip cookies. But there are no chocolate chip cookie trees out in nature, and our modern habitat needs to reflect more of that natural food state.

I'd like to ask you and challenge you, what foods are in your habitat right now? Are they processed? Are they whole? Are they natural and raw? Are they mainly things that are in boxes? Are they mainly things that would decompose quickly if they were left out? That's a really good rule of thumb. If it's something that could sit on a shelf for six months to a year, unless it's like a dried lagoon or dried rice, probably you shouldn't be eating it. You need to eat things that will break down naturally. That's another good rule of thumb.

One of the things I like to ask is if you give yourself a rating of your habitat, so don't rate yourself, rate your habitat. One would be everything in your habitat is pretty much totally processed. A 10 would be totally unprocessed. Basically, everything you're seeing in this basket, that's all you're eating. A five is at least half of the food is unprocessed, but you still have some processed foods in your life. Where do you rate yourself? What do you give yourself in the processed food category? Take a minute and think about that.

Changing Foods In Our Habitat

Let's talk for a minute about how to practically change our foods that are in our habitat. There are a few different ways that we can do that really practically.

One is taking one meal a day and eating it very well. I like to start with breakfast just because very often that's one of the easier things to change. Maybe you eat a lot of cereal or a lot of bread or a lot of toaster pastries, or strudels, or doughnuts at breakfast. One of the easy things that you can do to change your habitat would be to say, "Okay, I'm not going to bring any more of those things into my house." And that's item number three, replace those bad foods with better foods and not bringing those foods into the habitat, not bringing the foods into your home or your office or wherever you spend time.

Eggs

I like to start with breakfast. Maybe you can start by cooking eggs. You can cook them at low heat, you can poach them, we've got some great recipes on the website.

Maybe you could move to using shakes or smoothies. But breakfast is a great way to start, and just make a commitment to yourself. Even if it's only for a week and you say to yourself, "Okay, I'm only going to eat healthy, unprocessed foods for one week." And see how you feel. See how you feel eating just eggs without that toast. See how you feel, or maybe if you need to eat two pieces of toast with your eggs, drop it down to one piece or half a piece. Go ahead and do a fruit smoothie. We've got great fruit smoothie recipes right on our website, or you could also use some of our shakes that I'll be talking about a little bit later. That's a great way if you have to have something quick that's processed and you're not ready to move into totally natural foods, a shake would be a great way to move yourself into a better state of eating.

Smoothies

Why do I like smoothies and juice so much and why do I mention them so much? Well, number one, they're great antioxidants. We talked about that oxident stress on our body. It's a great way to combat that. But it also gives you up to 15 servings of fruits or veggies in a single drink. This morning I had a fruit smoothie, and I know that I got all the vitamins and minerals that I needed in a day in that one drink. And the great thing about the fruit smoothie is it is so chopped up and so fine, it's very available to my body. That means my body can very easily take in those nutrients. We can eat a salad and chew and chew and chew. But having it into that pulp form is going to really help you get more of those micronutrients. Again, I mentioned our smoothie recipes are available on the website. I highly encourage you to check those out.

Now, if you say "Okay, I'm really not ready to go to a fruit and vegetable smoothie, what else can I do?"

Protein Shakes

Well, another great option is to use some of our shakes. We've got three different varieties that we really like that we use for NuMedica. We've got Total Vegan, we've got Absolute Protein and Slim Fit. Total Vegan is no animal product at all. It's great for people, especially with dairy allergies, or a lot of food sensitivities, because it's going to be much less inflammatory to you. Absolute Protein is a really good protein shake that is whey based, so it's milk-based, and then you've got Slim Fit, which is going to be a little less than the caloric intake. All of these are low calorie to high protein and high nutrient, so no matter which one you choose, you can really enjoy them. We have the big tubs of them. We also have single servings, and we have many different flavors to choose from, so make sure and check those out.

Why would you use a shake? Why does it work for your body? Well, it's definitely going to have a lot less inflammatory properties than a lot of the other things you can eat, so it's a great meal replacement. It's a good "crutch", and I put that in italics, because basically what you're doing is you're trying to get off processed foods, but it can be very difficult to do it all at once, so it's a great thing to say, Okay, I'm just going to do my total vegan or my absolute protein or my slim fit shake, and I'm not going to eat those more inflammatory foods that I usually eat for breakfast or lunch or dinner or my snack, whatever you choose to replace, and it's a much better use of your calories.

Supplements

Another way that you can get some more nutrients into your life is by using some supplements. I talked about power greens last week, I'll talk about it again this week. It's a great, great antioxidant, and it has most of the vitamins and minerals you're going to need in a day, and you're going to really enjoy the flavor of it. One of our client's favorites is chocolate. They like to put it in their coffee in the morning and then, it makes it a mocha.

Also, you can use Foundation Essentials. What I like about this is it's a single cellophane package, and it has everything that you need in it for a day, so you can slip it into your purse or your briefcase or your pocket and take it with you where you go, and it has all of the different nutrients that you need for the day.

I'd like to challenge you today and ask you, what will you change? I'd like you to pick one meal or one food habit, and I'd like you to commit for the next week to changing that. I'd also like to invite you to our next program. If you've enjoyed talking about food, but you want to know more of the practical steps and the how-tos of food.

When I only have 15 minutes to go over these, it's difficult to get a lot of really good content in, so our next program is going to be actually a six-week long program, and it's going to be focused on the different meals and how to get your calories, the best things to do to avoid gluten, all sorts of great things. We're going to be highlighting our different recipes that are available to any supplementrelief.com members, and membership is free, so bring your friends and family in, and we will have a really great time. I'm going to invite you right into my kitchen, and we're going to talk about what it means to eat healthily, and I'm going to show you some very practical steps to eating healthier.

I'd also just like to tell you that I mentioned that I'd like you to commit to one food item or food habit that you're going to change over the next week, and I'm going to tell you what I'm eating this week in my blog. Every day this week, I'm going to blog what I've eaten throughout the day, because a lot of times people just need a little bit of a roadmap of "Okay, how do I eat healthily? What do I eat?" What do you eat? That's one of the big questions I get. I'm actually going to be blogging this next week about what I'm eating throughout the day to help you understand how you can maybe reconfigure your diet or upgrade your diet a bit to be able to eat healthier.

Questions

And looks like I have time for maybe one or two questions, so I'm going to check my questions box.

Nut Milks

Okay, our first question is from a gentleman and he asks, I've heard that nut milks are good for you. Can you tell me why they are and what your opinion is on them? Okay. Well, nut milks are a little bit of a double-edged sword. First of all, they are much superior to milk. Milk, for most people, is a very inflammatory food, and if you're not getting it whole inorganic, you're maybe getting some things in there you really don't want to get like some Antibiotics, or some hormonal issues. You may want to steer away from milk. Nut milks are a good upgrade. They're going to be much less inflammatory to your body.

Unfortunately, a lot of the nut milks that are out there commercially, also have some inflammatory things in there like sun sunflower oil, like some other fillers, some things to sweeten it, a lot of times they'll put sugar in it, so you want to be careful as you're looking at your nut milks to make sure that it has as few extra added ingredients as possible. Also, you can very easily make your own nut milks, it just involves soaking the nuts and then blending them, and then straining them. It's very, very simple to do. Another thing I like to do that's even an upgrade from nut milks if you don't have time to hassle with creating your own nut milks would be to get some coconut water. Now, coconut water is different because basically if you were to puncture a coconut, that's what's inside of it. Coconut milk blends in all the coconut pulp and fiber and all of that. This is just the coconut water, and I like to use that for my people who have a lot of food sensitivity issues just because you're not going to have as many problems.

What's for Dinner Tonight?

Okay. The other question that I had is, what are you having for dinner tonight? Oh, that's a good one. Okay. What are we having for dinner tonight? Tonight, I am making gluten-free chicken noodle soup, and I've had the chicken boiling all day, and one of the great things about boiling organic chicken all day is as you boil it and it starts extracting the minerals from the chicken bone from the marrow right into the broth. I am making gluten-free chicken noodle soup and if you're interested in it, you can actually go on our website and look for my free chicken noodle soup recipe.

I think that's all the time I have for today. Thank you for your questions, and I look forward to meeting with you next time in our next program. Have a great day. Thank you.