E39 - Wk 2, The BWW Masterclass
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I welcome you to week two of the Brain Warriors Way Masterclass. um And this is week two, lesson two. We're gonna be working on creating new habits, focusing specifically on nutrition and hydration, looking at water. um And so now where are we? Well, last time I explained at the end of the overview and the end of week one that you should start to get ready to look at your pantry. So not to do anything crazy, don't overwhelm yourself, but just make sure you start to look at your pantry. So today we're going to actually dig deeper into it. And I want you to be able to, when it comes to food, know exactly what you're supposed to be doing, understand why you're doing it from the brain warriors way of perspective. And then if you need any help with any of that, and our next appointment on our week three, we can kind of debrief around, okay, well, what did you learn? What were you told you were supposed to do? What were you supposed to know about your pantry? And then from there, um what is it that you are struggling with?
Okay, so we've got to get the information in first. And let me just be clear about something. You want to get your brain in a healthy place. You want to get your brain in a place where it can receive this information. It can um be healthier, happier, all those good things before you start trying to make a lot of changes. So the supplements that we've done, that's the whole idea is we're trying to...
Get your brain in a place where it's healthier, it's happier, it's getting what it needs. um And then from there, we can start making a whole lot of lifestyle changes, changing the food, changing the exercise. um Gosh, doing a lot of mindset work, kind of reprogramming things. It takes a second for the neurology to get to a place where it's stable before you can start making the changes. So that's why the order of events.
Okay, so we have this overview of mindset assessment, sustenance, training and habits, essence, responsibility and years long. So we are currently on sustenance and habits, sustenance and habits, okay? Because just getting um nutrition under your belt, getting the hydration under your belt, those are new habits.
And I think we don't spend enough time talking about these rhythms and how challenging these rhythms can be. So how do people change? People don't change when they see the light. They change when they feel the heat. We tend to take the worst times in our life and create something special out of it, a gift. And that I have been doing this. I have been helping people change their behavior, improve their health since 1998 this has been the work that I do in the world. I've been doing it since 1998. And very rarely do I find that people actually change because all of a sudden they've had an epiphany. They are actually changing usually when something is going wrong. And it just tends to be human nature, right? Because changing can be uncomfortable. So we don't tend to change unless we're uncomfortable and we're trying to get out of that discomfort.
And so we want to have the right mindset around those expectations. Okay. So let me just make sure tech wise where I can move through my slides. can't. Okay. So now the question becomes, how do we approach change? How do you approach change before we get into change? Now I told you we had to get the neurology in the right place, get it stable, get it healthy. How do we change? We change when we're uncomfortable.
So we've got that part figured out now. It's how do we do this now? Most of the time when I'm working with people they're wanting to just take baby steps and there's this attitude of just kind of all things in balance and and You know, we should do one thing at a time. I don't want to get overwhelmed The amen clinics are saying that one thing at a time is hogwash Okay
Don't do that is what the Amen Clinic is saying. The brain research and neuroscience finds that that is not the best way to do things. So Dr. Amen and his wife, Tana Amen, would say drink more water, start walking and adding in weights, eat right, um take your supplements, go for it. Learn a new language and lose the weight. Do everything at the same time. Don't do one thing at a time. If you're sick, or you have urgency, you don't have the luxury of one thing at a time, okay? Now, I'm hoping that you're in the brain warrior's way because you have urgency. I'm hoping that um we don't have this attitude of I have time. um I'm hoping that you're like, let's get this done. I'm hoping that you wrap this five-week masterclass, go into the next phase of life. whether you're doing this with me live at the end of this year here going into the next year or if you pick this up and replays and This is a kind of a replay program You go into this next phase of life saying it at the six-week mark. I want to be making some serious changes. Okay? So I hope you have urgency and I have personally found that having urgency Really changes things. I've been able to make dramatic changes in my life when I've had urgency. So little lies that drive aging and illness. And if you have a child that you're taking through the brain warriors way, you're thinking little lies that drive focused struggles, problems in school, um substance use and abuse issues. I have different people using these programs for different reasons. um Little lies. My memory is no good. That's normal.
Again, everything in moderation, it's too hard, I don't wanna deprive myself, I can't eat healthy because I travel. And these are things that I've heard over the years people will tell themselves about this change process that just aren't true, right? They just aren't true. So these are the little lives that will drive the aging, the illness, the focus, fogginess issues, the fatigue issues.
And so we have to know how to contend with these. And so let's go into our food tips. Okay. So you now know we need urgency. We have now set your brain up so that you have everything that you need from a brain balancing perspective. Now we've, we've said some different things to the brain. Now we're going to actually look at how do you feed the brain? Okay. So food tips, big picture.
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Breakfast is supposed to happen within one hour of waking, and that's gonna be a protein fat breakfast. Now, if you're doing the Brainwaters Way program, you are not intermittent fasting, because I know we're in a world of intermittent fasting. People are on keto programs. You might be in ketosis yourself. And so eating within one hour of waking up, protein and fat does not work for those programs but we're assuming that you're following the Brain Warriors Weight Program where we're going to be doing protein and fat. You're gonna eat every three to four hours. I would push that out to the four hour mark. So you're gonna eat every four hours. um You're gonna measure out your portions, shake hands with protein, uh meaning that you want to get used to eating protein consistently and you want to have kind of the palm of your hand of protein.
Okay, protein is going to be the game changer for you. Protein is going to change your brain. It's gonna heal your body. It's gonna help you to focus. It's going to help with immune system problems. Protein is a big piece of what you need. ah You wanna cheat with protein and fat, not carbohydrates. Now don't like using the word cheat, but this is the Brain Warriors program that I am licensed to use here.
So that's why we use the word cheat, but you're going to splurge with protein and fat, not carbohydrates. That's how problematic carbohydrates and starches are. And if you don't know what carbs and starches are, we'll talk more about it. But um that's how problematic carbohydrates can be when it comes to brain health and brain function. So you really do want to splurge on protein, splurge on fat. So if I'm ever the way I eat and the way I have brain warriors eat, if I'm ever going to have somebody splurge on something, it's going to be on nuts or jerky or healthy proteins. uh That's what I'm going to have them lean into most. um More so than sweets and starchy things. um Things of that nature are actually going to unfocus the brain. oh
Use one day a week to prepare for the week. So that means food prep on the weekend or food prep on a Monday. Try to get yourself together for the week um in advance. um The other thing you can do is food ordering services. So food ordering services. So I have a lot of clients that will do clean eats.
um I have an Alzheimer's program that I run and within that Alzheimer's program, there's a food delivery service. um I've got people doing all kinds of things, you know, but a lot of people are either having someone come in and prep their foods for them or they're actually getting food delivered for them in advance from a food delivery service. So you want to take some time in advance to work on the food and really what this tip is saying is not to kind of react to the day and say, well, what do I need to eat now? That is the kiss of death. If you are reacting to your day and saying, well, what do I need to eat now? I haven't planned. I'm not prepared. You're going to have problems with the success. You're definitely going to have problems with success.
Another tip because of carbohydrates I said, hey, oh hey there. Okay. Let me put you on mute. Welcome. Welcome. Okay. One thing we don't want to be doing is leaving, well carbohydrates. me complete that thought. Don't let the waiter leave bread on the table. So bread is a carbohydrate. And so what we're wanting to do is not snack a whole lot on starches, carbohydrates, from a brain warrior's way perspective, that is a great way to be unfocused, the chips on the table, those kinds of things. And so what you do is once you sit down, you just say, you know, no bread, or please, you know, go ahead and take the bread away. You can take the chips away. I'm good to go. Thank you so much. They will look at you strange. I do find even to this day, um my in-laws really love them a steakhouse.
Like we always end up when I visit them, we always end up at a steakhouse. And it's always so funny to me that it throws the server off that we don't have the bread at the table. But you just get used to saying it and it definitely will save you a couple of things. It'll save your waistline, it'll save your blood sugar, but it will help you to stay more focused and you have room to fill up on the protein and the fat at the meal. Okay? Read labels.
Now I could teach whole five week trainings just on label reading. It is that involved. So the simplest thing to tell you to do is try to eat foods that don't have labels. What you're trying to do is eat foods that don't have a food label. So an apple doesn't have a food label. um Chicken breast doesn't have a food label.
um You know greens and spinach and bags of salads and sweet potatoes There is nothing in there for you to even read and that is the simplest advice that I could give you from a brainwaters way perspective Okay um Okay, so what what makes up this concept of sustenance? protein, Healthy fats to make you feel full and focused. And I'm happy to take any questions when we get to the end of like, I don't know what you're talking about, Tiffany. I don't know a protein from a healthy fat. I don't know starches and carbohydrates. This is all very confusing to me. And I find that's why I'm doing the Brain Warrior's way. I find that people who have been working with me for months or a year or two don't understand the foundation of some of the things we're doing. They don't understand how to put a plate together.
They don't understand how to begin to feed their family. And that's part of why you now, you know, we'll have this program and your repertoire here in your toolbox, because I want you to know how to do the basics. Okay. So we want protein, healthy fats to make you feel full and focused. We want veggies. We want um fiber and water, lots of fiber, 50 grams of fiber a day, if possible. We want half your body weight in ounces of water. Let me jump to that slide real quick. This is a slide for water. Water your brain. Drink half your body weight in ounces. Avoid drinking your calories. So what is that? That's apple juice, that's orange juice, that's alcohol, that's soda. You really wanna avoid drinking your weight and calories, or drinking your calories, excuse me.
Gosh, the statistics on sugar. The average American male should consume 30 grams of sugar a day. The average female should consume no more than, I think it's 20 grams of sugar day, and then children, it's 25. Most people in my practice, when they first come to me when I do a sugar audit, are consuming 90 grams of sugar easily a day.
Easily a day and a lot of it is coming from these strengths a lot of it And I think I've said in so many of my free workshops the easiest thing you could do is just stop drinking sugar Stop the juice stop the soda stop the alcohol stop the Starbucks All the fun drinks stop all the Starbucks just go to Starbucks just get tea when I love going to Starbucks to meet a friend or to do some work. I get a green tea, I take my stevia. They have stevia, right? They have great just teas with tea bags. You can just do black coffee. You can do decaf coffee. um If you really want to sweeten your drink, you can do a sugar-free sweetener. I even endorse that. But don't go in there and blow 50 grams of sugar on a drink because that makes your brain foggy. It makes it unfocused. It makes you tired, it makes you fatigued. And weight loss, if that's part of what you're doing here, or like I said, I know a couple of people are doing this program for their children and you're watching the replay. If your child is having a problem with focusing, your first place to go with all of that sugar because the kid ends up on this blood sugar roller coaster all day long and it makes it very difficult to be focused. It makes it very difficult to be focused. Okay. Um, okay. And then let's see what a couple of fun facts. Um, staying hydrated improves your cognitive function. And then they've done some, they did this with the military. They've done some research around this, but you can improve your strength by 19 % by being properly hydrated. Right. So just being properly hydrated, makes you stronger and just being hydrated improves cognitive function. oh All right. So let me go back up. I jumped a slide from the food tips. Okay. So that's one. Okay. And then supplements that turbocharge your success. You should have received your protocols, like I said in the intro here. And so you should have like a multivitamin and a mega. I didn't put you on a probiotic. I'm gonna talk about microbiome here shortly. I don't like to just put people on probiotics without doing stool testing because I find that you can be on a probiotic and you don't need one. um There's so many stool tests. Like I did one this morning. I reviewed one this morning and the person had great healthy microbiome. They didn't need a probiotic and I have one coming up here this evening and that person doesn't need a probiotic. So I like to actually test because probiotics aren't cheap.
and you can overfeed the good bacteria and not need to, um but enzymes and probiotics can really add up for people and not everybody needs them. So if you need a probiotic, then you need to be on a probiotic, right? And vitamin D, almost everyone could benefit from vitamin D. The Amen Clinic does a lot of research around vitamin D intake and most people are not high enough in their vitamin D and the Amen Clinic likes to have you at 80.
So when you go and you get tested, they want your levels to be at an 80. And most people, if they're lucky, they're coming in unsupplemented around 40. I've had people in the teens. I've had people in 20s, 30s for their vitamin D. um And then Neurolink is um a supplement that is actually very brain balancing. works on many lobes of the brain. I have found a lot of success with the Neur0link from Dr.Amen, and that's a good balanced supplement.
So when we look at this category of sustenance, we're looking at protein, fats, veggies, fiber and water, and then the right supplements. uh All right. then, m temptations and triggers are everywhere. I don't need to tell you this. This program is being recorded during the holidays. It is really hard this time of year.
And I just want to normalize, this slide is meant to kind of normalize that we are going to be outnumbered. One, we're not paying attention and aware, and we're outnumbered by all of the food pushing. There are more people eating the foods that are on this slide than the foods that I am telling you to eat. So these processed things that are full of carbohydrates and high in saturated fats,
There are more people who are gonna eat like this than the way I'm asking you to eat. But that is why disease is at the level that it's at. That's why Alzheimer's is at the level that it's at. It's part of it. It's not all of it. There are environmental toxins and there are other things. But the reason that we're having such a hard time with our brain health, we're having the levels of ADHD and we're having all of these struggles is partly because of the diet.
And we do, we have a constant stream of negative influence that advertising is slick, it's effective. I'll sit and watch like a basketball game with my husband. And I'm just, cause I'm always studying or in an appointment or doing something like this, or I like to watch things on streaming. like a TV, like a series or a movie. So then every once in a while, like I'll watch basketball and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is just nuts. It is just so nutty.
how many commercials there are for like food and then how pervasive that is and how slick and how effective it is, you know? And you don't even think about it. And I'll say, wow, that looks really yummy. And I might not have had that thing and I don't know how long and I'm not gonna run out and go get it because I'm very mindful and I'm a brain warrior. But can you imagine if you don't know?
If you don't know any better, it can be really tough. And so if you go to the grocery store, amusement parks, airports, you've got these really large portions, a lot of fake food. um And what will happen, because Dr. Amen can be a little extreme in his language, you're going to buy something that's going to kill you sooner is how he looks at it. So when you're at the grocery store checkout or you're at the movie theater, think about the movie theater, right?
If you're just not mindful, it can be very easy to find yourself getting something like what we were picturing earlier. And so you're trying to get away from these types of foods and get into the cleaner foods, the higher protein, the higher fiber foods. And you're not looking at this as deprivation. You're looking at this as a healing opportunity. It's shifting your brain to the place where you're looking at food as medicine and healing. Okay?
Okay, so then this next one I'm jumping a bit. So just again, let me frame this because it can feel like especially this time of year we're giving up foods that we love and all this. Let me frame this a little bit. You make better decisions when you know your why. Why are you here? Okay. Why are you spending time with me right now? Why are you watching the replay? Why did you invest your money?
Why are you buying supplements, right? ah I know a lot of people make their money off of their cognitive function, right? If your brain doesn't work, you can't pay your bills. It can be that simple for some people. It's like my brain isn't working as well. I am tired after I eat lunch. I'm unfocused. I'm starting to get in trouble at work. I have people whose children cannot get from second grade through to third grade or third grade into fourth grade. We start having EOG's and so then they come to me because their kid can't function. They're being told you're gonna need to put your child on medication. They cannot sit in the classroom, right? You feel like something's going wrong with you and your connection with your family. You wanna be able to be there for your grandchildren or for your spouse or for you know, going and finally enjoying this phase of life, you've got the resources to go travel and do things and your brain's not working very well, or you feel really tired all the time, you gotta tap into what your why is. So you'll make the right decisions. I went to Europe for, gosh, I was in Europe for eight or nine days, I was traveling for a total of 10 or 11 days, and I was very different than the people I was traveling with when it came to what I was choosing to eat and why I was eating what I was eating and these sorts of things. And they didn't understand why I was eating the things that I was eating. And so I had to explain why I eat high fiber, high protein, low sugar, um low carbohydrate, right? Why I was eating that way and why I wasn't going to eat certain things. I didn't have to, but I chose to explain. Then what? You've got your why, then what? If I do this, then what happens?
If I eat this high protein, high fiber meal, then what happens? If I eat the food that's high in fat, high in sugar, high in starch, then what happens? If I eat ice cream, then what happens? So Dr. Amen is a brain specialist. So a lot of what he's gonna ask us to do is turn our brain on. We need the prefrontal cortex on. And so knowing your why and then what, turns on the prefrontal cortex. Okay? Then what? Because you know what happens, and I have been talking to people about food, like I said, since 1998, 1998 for sure. What happens is you see the ice cream and you go, ooh-wee, woo, like woo, that's, I want some of that, right? You get excited.
That is not the prefrontal cortex. That is not the front part of the brain. That is the back part of the brain. And so Dr. Amen knows that. So he's saying to say, then what will happen to try to get your prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of your brain, the evolved part of your brain, the part that separates you from animals, trying to get that turned on. Because that's what makes us different. And then you want to...
Avoid your food triggers and there are going to be certain things that trigger you. So going past um Krispy Kreme and the light on the hot nail lights on that is a trigger. They know that they know that they know it is. um When you go to the grocery store and they have all these samples out. Right. Some places are really really bad about having all those food samples out. So you might need to avoid those triggers.
You might not need to be, like I go to the movies, I love going to the movies. I don't go to the movies hungry or I take a snack with me that's on program, something like nuts or jerky. A food trigger would be going to the movie hungry without my own snack. Okay? So you have to know what makes you vulnerable and don't judge it. I really tell people, I don't need you to have like a will and an iron of steel. Like I just need you to be smart about this, right? You shouldn't just be more disciplined. No, just do, put yourself up for success. Don't do things that are really hard. Save the energy that you would use to make 50 decisions at the movie theater and decide in advance you're going to take your own smart pop popcorn in your purse.
You're gonna take something in there that keeps you on track with a high protein jerky or something like that. So avoid food triggers. I have a lot of people going into Thanksgiving right now where I have coached them what dessert are you gonna have there for you? I am hosting Thanksgiving. I think I've mentioned this. I have bought tons of food that are not appropriate for me. There are things that I'm not going to eat. I have foods for me to eat.
So I have my appropriate dessert and I have appropriate desserts for my husband and I have um sides that make sense for me and the way that I eat. So you have to, you really do have to just try to set yourself up for success um and tell yourself your why. There's a reason for why I'm eating the way that I am at Thanksgiving. Stable blood sugar, eat frequently enough. Eat often enough. Don't let your blood sugar drop. Nothing good happens on the other side of a drop in blood sugar. Sleep seven to eight hours. We're going to talk about sleep next. The cap on alcohol weekly is two glasses of alcohol a week before there are brain changes that are problematic. Okay. Two glasses of alcohol a week before. Dr. Amen has found that there are brain changes that are problematic. um healthy vitamin D and omega-3 levels. So your protocol probably has vitamin D in it. If not, you know, I want you to take vitamin D3K2. So if you don't have that in your protocol and you know that your vitamin D is low, you need to be taking vitamin D3K2. And then I have you on fish oil. I everyone's protocol has fish oil in it. Avoid trigger foods, dairy, sugar, wheat.
People will say, what is wheat? So that's bread, that's pasta, that's muffins, that's cookies, that's the donuts. um All those things uh can be a problem, can be food. All of those carbohydrates can be triggers for you. So that's wheat. What else? um Gluten is also added to things as like a uh binder because it's a protein. So you wanna avoid things that trigger you. And it's really deceptive. It's actually quite a bit of your food, sugar, dairy, and wheat. So you want to be aware of that. um We could talk about food every single week of this um master class. The food is so complicated. Surround yourself with like-minded people.
So, you know, connect with somebody that told you about this program, connect with somebody else in the program if that would be helpful. Connect, um go online and join a Facebook group. around, there's something called mirror neurons in the front part of the brain. We don't mean to do it, but we mimic the people around us. We just mimic the people around us. So I have many, many mentors that live the way that I do and have kind of modeled this for me over the years. The Amens have a podcast, the Brain Warriors Way podcast. You can listen to the podcast. That's kind of like surrounding yourself with like-minded people listening to them preach about this lifestyle all the time. You can find communities where people are doing this. And at the first part of the year, especially, people start to fast.
And the Daniel Fast is something that Dr. Amen actually helped create and planted in a lot of the churches. So people doing the Daniel Fast is actually Dr. Amen coming together with a couple of other thought leaders. And so now you have other people basically living the brainwaters way, nutrition plan at the first part of the year, your community is doing that. Surround yourself with like-minded people and eliminate those little lies that we talked about earlier that are gonna drive that failure, okay?
So you make better decisions when you're doing these things. I really wanna highlight, keep your blood sugar stable, make sure there is protein at every meal. What is protein? Protein is chicken, fish, it's going to be um eggs, as long as you can tolerate eggs, turkey, m animal proteins. um I don't tend to push dairy very much because people can be quite sensitive to dairy, it can cause a lot of mucus.
It um dairy protein and gluten proteins break down to look like morphine peptides in the brain. That's why pizza is so seductive. It's why people love pizzas because the combination of gluten and dairy together actually feel like, look like morphine to the brain. Quite addictive. That's why so often our little ones are addicted to mac and cheese and all they want to eat is pizza and they only want to eat you know, beige food, want cheesy things and bready things. It's because these things really change the brain. Okay. So I want you to know that this is not about feeling ashamed. Dr. Amon understands that you have been marketed to and your brain has been unbeknownst to you kind of addicted to these substances and that is why you feel foggy and unfocused and fatigued but uh I promise you mental clarity and increase in energy or on the other side of changing your diet absolutely promise you if you don't believe it you do what we're talking about here for two weeks and tell me you don't feel different okay you just will
And once I got to the other side of all this, I didn't look back because I'm a person who makes money, who makes a living, who takes care of myself and my family with a healthy brain. And if my brain is unhealthy, I can't do my job, right? And no one wants a uh therapist who's foggy and unfocused. Nobody wants their naturopathic doctor to have their session where they're...Blood sugar is dropping after lunch and they're fogging and unfocused. It's never a good time to have a bad brain. Okay. So let's talk about sugar. The average American eats 150 pounds of sugar a year. So that is 150 pounds. Sugar damages you and feeds cancer cells. It really does. It does feed cancer and a lot of inflammatory processes.
Sugar makes you less smart. ah It's because of the inflammation. Sugar increases your rate of depression. Again, it's quite inflammatory. And there is hope. You can reverse the damage by consuming omega-3 fatty acids. That is why you're on a fish oil.
And that is why we actually need to be eating ah salmon three times a year, three times a year, goodness. I saw that 150 pounds a year, three times a week. I really wish you could have salmon three times per year, but no, it's three times per week, three times per week. That is why we need to. So, omegas damage, ah recover the damage from the sugar. Omegas recover the damage from the sugar. So here's what I want you to know recover the damage from those fried foods, those high inflammatory fried foods, um from some of the canned foods. The high omega foods are really, really reparative, restorative. So lean into those. If you like sardines, lean into those. Okay, lean into those. um Okay, so that, let's talk a little bit more about sugar. Why is it so addictive?
Let's talk about why it's so addictive. me move these slides along. The brain has a pleasure button. So this is the reward center of the brain. So this little place in the brain, it's a couple of places, but the acupoints in the brain are where you have your pleasure button. So there's literally a place that sugar taps into, and it's the same place as cocaine, meth, heroin.
It really pushes that button. Sugar pushes this button, but harder. It makes you want more. And they've done the research on this over and over again. it's the drinks, like I was talking about. It's the candy. It's the cakes. It's really hard to not hit this reward center and then keep looking for sugar.
it's really important to back all the way off of sugar and then figure out like natural sugar, figure out stevia, do things like that, that don't raise your blood sugar and don't hit this button as hard.
But the nucleus accumbens is where that pleasure button resides. So that's that little place towards the front part and middle of the brain. So sugar is a legal recreational drug. It's another drug you have to try to control and it's all over the place. And it really, really is. So I want you to know that the Amen Clinic's perspective is that you have been kind of hustled.
Over time with these foods and you're having to undo this addictive process that's occurred in your brain. Okay. um Where's their hidden sugar? So alcoholic beverages, ketchup, lunch meats, store-bought bread and dressings and breadings, salad dressings and breadings, hamburgers, they add it to hamburgers to make sure they don't shrink.
And they even add sugar to certain fast food grilled chicken. It's everywhere.
So there's the sugar you're aware of and then the sugar you're not aware of. Okay, so that's why we're having such a hard time.
And so our bodies have two states. There's low blood sugar, high blood sugar, and the body hates low blood sugar the most, right? So there are these two states that the body really hates, okay? Low blood sugar and high blood sugar, and the body really dislikes when it drops low. In a low blood sugar state, you crave sweet things that get you out of the state quickly.
And if you eat the wrong type of sugar, go into a state of high blood sugar.
So when you take in sugar and alcohol, your blood sugar spikes, your insulin spikes, insulin shows up and it helps to try to pull sugar into the cell. Then your blood sugar crashes and you end up with fatigue, irritability, headaches, shakiness, and more cravings for sugar or alcohol because alcohol is a sugar.
So that's why we talk about blood sugar so much and eating the protein at intervals throughout the day so that your blood sugar stays stable. You don't want your blood sugar unstable. So there's sugar everywhere and then there's hypoglycemic problems and so that's why we end up with these struggles, okay? So um tips for conquering sugar addiction. So you wanna try to eliminate processed foods and sugar. Carbs that turn into sugar. So that's gonna be the bread pastas, even gluten-free foods. So gluten-free foods turn very quickly into sugar. um And there is a YouTube video called Sugar, the Bitter Truth. There are a lot of um videos now on just really what's going on with sugar and how serious it is and what it's doing to us. um So there's no end to all the research that's being done on sugar and the impact of it on your brain and body. You must have protein and fat at every meal. I promise you, if you just increase the chicken breast, the turkey, the um grass-fed ground beef, if you just increase all the healthy proteins and you increase the healthy fat, the olive oil, the avocado, um the walnuts, the almonds, if you do that, you have less room for sugar.
Stay hydrated. Half your body weight in ounces um of water. Half your body weight in ounces of water. Okay, so stay hydrated. Green drinks are great. Now not the pre-packaged ones, but making the green drinks at home um or going to a juice bar where they let you watch and you know exactly what they're putting in there. Green drinks can be great. Make sure you're taking in supplements. Those things will help you to conquer your sugar addiction.
Now I said this earlier, but this all needs to be repeated. Eat breakfast within one hour of waking up.
Because remember, we have to keep the blood sugar stable. And if you're waiting too long to eat breakfast, you're letting your blood sugar drop.
Recovering from sugar addiction typically takes three to seven days. It's different for everyone. I have found that you are addicted to things you have exposure to. If you stop exposing yourself to sugar, you'll stop being addicted to it. So just like someone in recovery from alcohol addiction will stop drinking as long as they don't drink.
And as long as they replace the alcohol with healthy habits, and that's what we're trying to do here, we're trying to replace the sugar with things, they don't relapse on the alcohol. The moment you reintroduce sugar into the diet, you activate the nucleus accumbens again, and now your reward center is wanting more sugar. um Minimal use. Honey, because we always get asked about this, maple syrup, coconut crystals, rice syrup, all sugars that elevate blood sugar and insulin. So I thought honey was good for you. Well, it is. And it helps with allergies and all the things, but it is sugar.
And so there are other ways to get sweetened. Fruit is a great way to get sweetened. Stevia, especially the kind that doesn't come granulated in the packets, but the liquid stevia, these are better ways to get sweetened.
Okay, tips to keep in mind. So again, beating these same drums over and over again, high fiber diet. So 35 to 50 grams of fiber a day. Decrease high glycemic foods. So a high glycemic food is gonna be the stuff that we talked about before, the crackers, the cookies, the pasta, the bread. You wanna have things like rice, you wanna have potatoes, you wanna have root vegetables.
You want to have lentils, um quinoa. These are going to be um low glycemic foods. That's what you want. You want peas. You want corn, but you want to be very careful with the corn because it needs to be organic and all that. But you want to eat those types of carbohydrates. Sleep seven to eight hours and just choose the right foods. Like I've been saying, food is medicine or it's not.
Okay. And so let's see here.
So I wanna talk about gut bacteria. Do we have questions about what I said so far? Do we have any questions? I do wanna help answer the questions before we do a deep dive into the gut bacteria. I've got some grocery shopping tips coming. And then we're almost at takeaways. Oops, there we go. Do we have questions? If you wanna ask a question or you can put a question in the chat, feel free.
Okay, okay. Okay, so what is gut bacteria? Why do we care? And what increases it? So I know you have seen commercials about probiotics and prebiotics and we didn't know, gosh, I'm trying to figure out when they started to understand the gut microbiome. I think it started, cause this is 2023. I think this was about 20. A little over 20 years ago that they really started to take it much more seriously. Now, HealthNuts and health food stores have been talking about all of this fermented food and uh kombucha and all the different things for a long time. But when it comes to like neuroscience and mainstream like research, it started to pick up about 20 years ago. Cause I remember when I might career, everybody started to come and asking about a probiotic. just remember like marketing was going crazy and people got it. So what are prebiotics? Prebiotics are actually in the large intestine. You cannot grow your own prebiotics on your own. You can't take a probiotic to feed the prebiotics. They're actually the bacteria in your large intestines that help you to take nutrients out of food. They help your digestive tract to be healthy, prebiotics especially in the large intestines help you to have normal stools and help you to not be constipated. So that's why I do stool testing because I wanna be able to look at the level of prebiotics in somebody's gut. And I can test on there just the prebiotic health of somebody's gut. I can test probiotics and I can test prebiotics and then I can tell you what strains we need to feed. But most people need to support their gut bacteria what feeds it. So apples, beans, any kind of beans, cabbage, cabbage especially is so good for so many things. Cabbage detoxes the liver, cabbage fixes, helps with leaky gut, it fixes leaky gut, but it also helps with the good bacteria in the large intestine. Cilium is a type of fiber. So cilium seed husks is something that we talk about a lot. So that's a type of fiber. That's really, really a good prebiotic artichoke, garlic, onion, leeks, asparagus is really good for prebiotics, and all the root vegetables. So that's so exciting. The sweet potatoes, the yams, the squash, the jicama, the beets, beets are so good for so many things and eat the stalk of the beet as well. The stalk of the beet, if you have high blood pressure, there's so much, we could talk about food for like a month.
If you have good food, all the things you need are in food, I promise you. If you have high blood pressure and you start to eat the stalk of the beet, the amount of potassium in the stalk of the beet is something like 4,000 milligrams or something. It is nuts. And everybody thinks they need to eat a banana. And I don't push bananas in my practice. They're very high sugar and people are like, well, Bananas have potassium. Bananas have 99 milligrams of potassium. The stalk of the beet was 4,000 milligrams. The banana has 99. The stalk of the beet is gonna help you detox your liver. It's gonna feed your large intestine like it is doing triple duty, right? um All that potassium. You can eat the stalks of the beets and lower your blood pressure.
You really put the diuretic that you were on the stocks of the beats. If you just take them and you clean them and you steam them and you just made that your commitment to just do that and make salads out of them and all kinds of things would change your life. Everything we need is in our food, but we have gotten so far removed from eating naturally and we don't understand our food anymore. We have gotten ourselves into illness, you know, and I'm right there. I had to learn. had to learn. I'm undeveloped. breast cancer at 40 years old. I grew up eating a lot of fried foods and freezer foods. It was always get a frozen burrito or she was frying chicken. Like I grew up very normally and I saw that people died very early in my family. People didn't make it out of their 60s. My mom had breast cancer at 40. um
There's a lot of Alzheimer's in my family. I have the genetics and genetically predisposed. I've run my genes. I have the APOE4. I know that I have the genetics for Alzheimer's. So I believe everything I'm asking you to do. I live it, right? And I had to unlearn all the same things and then I had to figure out how to eat like this and it has changed my life, right? So I understand how hard I'm asking you to do is.
But nobody told you that you could just eat greens and not have to worry about your blood pressure. And they probably should have told you that, right? um Carrots, turnip greens, right? If you just want to save your life, eat greens all the time. Just eat all kinds of turnips, right? Like the vegetables have all the minerals and have all the good stuff that we need to really heal our bodies. And I think it's just so exciting that you...
You could lean into vegetables and have so much of what you need. And we can all eat more veggies. And sometimes I don't take in enough um and I'll do like a greens powder. I'm gonna be honest, like I'll cheat sometimes and I'll just do a greens powder to try to get all the things in, cause I know that that's what's good. And I just, I don't eat enough of it sometimes. Okay. ah Okay. Let's see. Let me go to this next one. ah What increases it? just told you.
Okay, probiotics such as fermented foods that contain live bacteria. now probiotics are the small intestines, prebiotics are the large intestines. If you're constipated or you feel like you have a sluggish gut, you probably don't have enough prebiotics. That was the last slide. Probiotics are gonna be like you're not digesting well, you're gassy, um you're bloated after meals, things just don't settle well, you have a sour stomach. And so that's gonna be kefir.
So that's a fermented kind of dairy product. Kombucha is a drink. Unsweetened yogurt. So fermented goat or coconut is really what we prefer. You know, so it's yogurts, right? Kimchi is um fermented vegetables that are spicy, pickled fruits and vegetables. um Cultures have been fermenting foods as far back as you can think of. Think about how far back you've been hearing about like,
sauerkraut. Okay, we have been fermenting foods and understood for centuries and cultures that there was something in that food that extended our longevity and we've gotten away from what we used to know because our lives are so fast and everything's packaged and we got addicted to the way things taste and we just we don't know any better anymore so I'm just getting us back to what we used to know.
And then you can take probiotics and prebiotic supplements. Okay, so we can do that. um
Eating cheap doesn't mean eating poorly. So it doesn't mean that you have to spend a ton of money on these foods and eating less expensively doesn't mean you have to eat poorly. We can figure out a way to do this. So I just want to put that out there. Being sick is expensive. One of the most expensive things I did was develop an autoimmune disorder.
Developing lupus became very costly, very costly. Now I put lupus into remission, which was very costly. Okay? And so now I'd like to stay here and not spend so much money on being sick. Okay? So you can buy based on a budget. You want to know what has the highest quality, which products have the highest quality, right?
ah which products can be bought at a cheaper store. All these is a cheaper store that you can go shop at that has organic foods. We get everything from Costco and that has been a lifesaver because you can get all this organic healthy stuff and it is not awful. You need these massive bags of organic vegetables and it's like $9 for like these massive bags of frozen broccoli that doesn't go bad, right? So it doesn't have to.
When I started doing this 20-something years ago, it was expensive. It's not like that anymore. You can find what you need and not have to break the bank. So how can you find a balance? How can you compromise, right? And if that's an issue, please let me know if you're like, just costs too much. And remember, yet again, read the labels if we're eating foods with labels. um I'm going to just blitz through this.
When you're talking about eating out and eating foods as entertainment, the Amen Clinic is saying, try to avoid this as much as possible. Take your lunch where possible. Eat the foods that you have brought with you. You can control. Order water instead of sodas. Skip the appetizers. Appetizers are usually very problematic. They very much are. Rarely do I go anyplace where an appetizer makes any sense. It would have to be like a shrimp scampi or it would have to be a grilled something or other. Usually the appetizers are a problem. The meals are oversized, so you would split your meals. Avoid the expensive coffee drinks. Skip the popcorn and candy at the movies, okay? So this is a simple way for you to, one, save money and not find yourself getting into so much trouble. Tips for the grocery store. Avoid being in zombie mode when you go to the grocery store. Have a list.
Plan your meals, stick to the list. Don't just kind of go through and like, woo wee. You can't be in the back part of your brain. You've got to be thinking like, you know, what am I here to get? Shop after you've eaten. You know this, you've heard this for years. Look for foods that are on sales and then look at the sell by date. So we're talking about trying to save money. Okay, trying to save money. And then look at the sell by date to kind of have an idea of where you need to be with that item.
Become freezer happy. Get used to, like I just said, frozen vegetables because then those things don't go bad so quickly. It's completely fine. But please stay away from the things in cans. Buy from bulk bins so that can really help you. Buy seasonal. When you buy things in season, they're not as expensive. We get our meat in bulk. That really helps us because we're getting organic meat. So if we can get it in bulk, that's very helpful. Get a club card, please.
Costco memberships, I really should have some sort of partnership with them because that has changed our life. I still like getting specialty items from like a Whole Foods or a Fresh Market or something like that. But that's nice to have, not a need to have. And shop online. You know, I do a lot of shop and pick up, know, shop and deliver as well. Okay.
We talked about these things. So we are, I think we're at the end and we're at the end time wise.
Okay, takeaway, just try to start one thing today. Just try to start one thing. um You're cleaning your pantry, you wanna really focus on improving these food choices, you wanna be consistent with the supplements we started on, and you wanna improve the quality of your decisions, where you go, what you're choosing to eat, all of those things. A basic plate is going to have your protein options, your vegetables, your healthy fats, your healthy carbohydrates, your chicken, your turkey, your beef, your fish. You're going to have your sweet potatoes, your quinoa, your black beans, your legumes, your lentils. You're going to have your olive oil, your avocado, your, I'm trying to think of avocado oil, your different fats, and you're going to have lots and lots and lots and lots of veggies.
If you could eat half your plate and veggies, that would solve most of our problems. Half your plate and veggies, right? And then your healthy fats and your healthy proteins. Okay, so I wanna thank you. If you have any questions about this, please um send in an email for extra support. I'm gonna conclude this recording. All right, I'll see you next week. Take care.