[Kevin]
Hey, Michelle, how are you doing?

[Michelle]
I'm great, Kevin. We have gorgeous fall colors right now.

[Kevin]
Yes, it is that time of year.

[Michelle]
And it's still really, really warm, which, you know, I'm not actually into my autumn foods yet. I'm still eating like it's summer.

[Kevin]
Still thinking like it's summer, exactly.

[Michelle]
We're going to dive into a podcast listener's question.

[Kevin]
Yes.

[Michelle]
And center our conversation. I'm very excited. So, shoot, give it to me.

[Kevin]
Yeah, don't steal my thunder. So, we got some feedback from a listener. So, thank you very much, Jonathan from Toronto.

And Jonathan wrote us and asked us if we had any suggestions. One of his challenges is, to paraphrase, to break the habits. So, his idea was, if you've been eating a certain way, and we'll say, you know, more carnivorous, maybe more fast food, more processed food, etc., etc. You've been eating a certain way for the first 20, 30, 40, 50 years of your life. You've got some pretty ingrained habits. And, you know, we all cook the same things.

You know, we all have our little repertoire of recipes, our go-tos. And we go to those, and it really is a lot of work to break a habit, as anyone who tried quitting smoking or anything would know. So, Jonathan was asking if we have any suggestions on how to break these habits, and how to actually, kind of when the rubber hits the road, how to actually make some of these changes that they will stick.

And it won't just be, okay, I can do one meal. Oh, but that was actually a lot of work to make it. So now, like, oh, I can't do that, and I can't get this ingredient regularly, and blah, blah, blah.

There's so many excuses why it wouldn't work. So, do you have any practical solutions or suggestions for how to break some of these habits, and how to actually make some of these new habits that we want stick?

[Michelle]
Yeah, you know, behavior change is a big deal. It doesn't matter what it is. If you decide that you want to exercise more, you decide you want to eat better, you decide you want to learn to play the violin, you know, you have to really make it a very conscious endeavor, and you have to decide to do it.

You have to commit to it. This is like the biggest thing that I have to tackle with every single nutrition client, because some of it's just, we don't have the mindset of approaching this as serious. Like, we know that we should eat better.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
But we don't actually really want to. Do you know what I mean? It's like, you know, years ago, Kevin, when I used to smoke, and I was not even a very – You used to smoke?

Oh, come on. I knew that.

[Kevin]
We just don't talk about it these days.

[Michelle]
Well, you know, it was sort of a cultural work thing. It's sort of what you did to let go of your stress and, I don't know, be rebellious. I think it started out as a cool thing as a teenager in high school or something.

[Kevin]
Of course.

[Michelle]
And I never smoked a lot. Like, I was never like a half a pack or a pack a day smoker. It was more of a social and a stress thing or a work thing, because you just – that's what you did, right?

[Kevin]
Yeah, take a smoke break and socialize.

[Michelle]
I think I tried quitting like six or seven times, and I did the patch. I did the medication. I did – I can't remember.

I tried the cold turkey, the reward jar. I remember this guy I worked with. We had a – actually, I think you were in that office.

I think we were working in the same office at that time. I had a reward jar with Jeff where any time that we slipped and we smoked, we had to put $5 in the jar or something like that. So, it was supposed to be a financial penalty, and then we both broke down under a fit of stress one day, and we used the money in the reward jar to go buy more cigarettes.

So, that didn't work. But the thing is I didn't – we didn't – I didn't have a strong enough why. I didn't really want to.

I think at the end of the day, and you – so, if you don't have that really strong connection to why should I want to change my behavior and give up some of my favorite habits or modify – giving up is not the right word. We're not really giving anything up other than we're moving away from less healthy foods and towards healthier foods, right? Like, let's say we're not talking about the person that's, you know, going to go like vegan.

But even just letting go of the pop in the chips or the excessive amounts of coffee or the added sugar or, you know, where the steak is the center of the plate. Even those changes can be really, really hard, especially if they're childhood – and we talked about this in a previous episode. If they're linked to childhood memories and comfort and the way that mom used to make or traditional dishes from my culture or whatever, it can be a really big change.

[Kevin]
And just to – something you said a minute ago really stuck with me, that there is this idea of giving up.

[Michelle]
Yeah.

[Kevin]
I'm giving up on something. I'm giving up meat. I'm giving up dairy.

I'm never going to drink milk again. I can't have cheese. I can't have pop.

I can't have French fries. And there's this idea that I need to replace it with something else that's maybe equally bad.

[Michelle]
Yeah. So the challenge is to move it away from being a negative experience. I am losing something.

I am being – I am punishing myself in some way and turn it around into a positive experience. Changing our relationship with food to say I am moving towards food that is going to love me back, behaviors that are going to support my goals. And it's going to – a lot of it is going to hinge on how you feel about yourself to begin with.

So if you are a person that is, you know, has a lot of negative self-talk, like where you are unkind to yourself, you refer to yourself as, oh, I'm weak. I'm stupid. I'm lazy.

I'm fat. I'll never be able to do this. But you have to really have a strong connection to a strong why, and you have to start with the voices in the head.

Let me just tell you a really brief story. And some of the listeners who know me may know this story if they've been in my Flourish program or they've studied Reiki with me because I often tell people how I transformed from being an exceptionally unhealthy eater, smoker, stressed out, you know, just really not caring for myself at all to being this like uber health convert in a big way. And it started when I lost my dad to cancer.

And then within the same year, I lost one of my dear friends, Debbie. And their dying experiences were extremely different. Technically, my friend Debbie had a – I'm going to put quote unquote worse cancer than my dad.

My dad, though, was older, like he was in his late 70s and he was 80 when he passed away. And I watched my dad deteriorate slowly, very painfully, you know, conventionally. And Debbie was like she really took the reins and was really focusing on diet and meditation and tea and had gotten rid of a lot of things.

You know, that is a strong why for someone right there, right? She had a strong why because – and that's often what we see, right? It's not until someone has a diagnosis before they really take their lifestyle changes seriously.

Well, in my case, I was an observer of all this. And I think I was still very grief stricken and mesmerized by how vibrant Deb looked with this very serious stage four late stage diagnosis and was throwing parties and going for lunch. And, you know, she was just trying to buy herself time.

And I think in a perfect world, she was seeing a Chinese medicine doctor as well. And that helped immensely. But she was also paying attention to her oncologist.

So it's not like she went crazy off the deep end.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
She was taking advice from everybody in her circle. But she was focusing on supporting her body's immune system and her body's ability to heal rather than just relying on drugs or things to lessen symptoms. Do you know what I mean?

[Kevin]
Yeah, yeah. A more holistic approach.

[Michelle]
It was my first introduction to that way of viewing the body. What do you mean the body can heal itself? What do you mean food can make that much of a difference?

And I started asking her all these questions, not just about the food, but about the Reiki. It sort of characterizes my entire transformation, which is, you know, a very big story. But just to stay on the point of the food and the other things, I started to see her Chinese doctor.

And I was having acupuncture and some other treatments. But she really was trying to talk to me about my diet. And it was the only thing I wasn't willing to do.

I was willing to lay on a treatment table for an hour and have her do whatever. It was very relaxing.

[Kevin]
Poke needles in you, yeah.

[Michelle]
And I was, you know, I was willing to go and buy any herb or any supplement or anything. The last thing I was willing to do was change my diet because I really didn't believe it mattered. And finally, this doctor said to me, very blunt, you can come here as much as you want and I can treat you.

But unless you change the way you eat, I can't help you. And I remember it hitting me like, what do you mean? And Kevin, I wasn't even sick.

Like I didn't have a diagnosis. I was really just trying to understand why this person looked like this. And I had just been through a cancer death and it looked very different.

[Kevin]
Yes.

[Michelle]
And it was mind-blowing to me. So I walked away. She did eventually, the cancer did eventually, it was late, very late stage.

It was a secondary cancer. There's a whole bunch of reasons. But she lived more than five years beyond her, like what the oncology originally said, expected of her.

And they were vibrant quality years until the very, very end. That was what was most mind-boggling to me. Actually, there were times I went to see her that she looked healthier than I did.

And I didn't have cancer. Because she had energy. You know what I mean?

She had energy. I was feeding myself McDonald's and coffee and cigarettes. And she was eating fruits and vegetables and meditating and rooibos tea and green tea and all these other things.

My mind was blown. So I was at her funeral. And I was just processing everything I had observed and participated in.

Myself and three other good friends took care of her in her last two weeks. And in those last two weeks, what a gift. All we did was talk.

And we talked about what she wished she had known. What she wished she hadn't enabled her friends, like setting up a smoking area at parties and things like that. What she wished she had done to respect her body when she was younger.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
And I just sat there thinking about the whole thing and thinking about the fact that I had two small children and I was a single mom at the time. And I thought about not just what if something happens to me, who's going to care for my kids, but what am I teaching them? What's my legacy going to be as their mom?

And I was sitting there smoking a cigarette, looking on the sidewalk because you had to be so many meters away from the building, right? And I was just looking at the funeral home and a rainbow sort of formed over top of the building while I was watching it because it had been raining that day and the sun came out. So it was just a timing thing, but it just seemed like God was sending me a message.

And I just went, hmm. And I put my cigarette out and I put it out with my foot and I said to myself out loud, I'm done. And in that moment, I never smoked another cigarette.

I never drank another coffee. I never walked into another fast food restaurant. I started learning to cook.

I started buying only healthful food. There were no more chips and pop in my house. My kids didn't know what happened.

They were like, what?

[Kevin]
They were like, oh, mom's gone off the deep end.

[Michelle]
But I mean, that was my why. It came crushing down to me in that moment. And I realized I don't want to get sick.

I want to be around for my kids. I want to set a good example. I don't want to teach them to eat the way that I eat.

I don't want to teach them to live the way that I live. I want better for them. And I've seen my friend, even though she passed away, she showed me another way.

And so that was the beginning of my education. I enrolled in school and the rest is history. But I mentioned that story because the why is so important.

And I had tried even just to quit smoking before that and I never could. But in that moment, I didn't just change smoking. I changed every bad habit that I had because my why was just that strong.

And it might take more than one shot at it. Start doing better today. And include one more portion of fruits and vegetables into your diet today than you did yesterday.

And applaud that. Don't beat yourself up for what you didn't do. Congratulate yourself that you did that.

And then the next day, add something else in. Or the next week or whatever. And you know, there's two kinds of people, Kevin.

There's the people that do better with slow, accumulative changes. And sort of adding more in and letting go of things. There's some people that do really, really well with that slow change because it's comfortable for them.

But there's other people, and I think I'm one of these people, that I had to just go cold turkey.

[Kevin]
You need the drama.

[Michelle]
Well, you know, I characterize it as, like, I was really, I was an addict. I wasn't just a cigarette addict. I was addicted to junk food.

I was addicted to sugar. I was addicted to coffee. And you wouldn't tell a cocaine addict it's okay to just have a little bit of cocaine and taper off, right?

[Kevin]
Right, yeah.

[Michelle]
So there are some people like me who just do better if they just decide, nope, today is going to be different. And it's not like I went to being, you know, the best eater in the world in that moment. I cut out a lot of the bad stuff, but I wouldn't say I was still entirely an optimally healthy eater.

I was just doing better.

[Kevin]
Right. I mean, because there's a learning curve, of course, and you can't possibly go from 0 to 100 overnight. So it sounds like one of the first steps is to know yourself and understand how you react to change and how you can develop good habits and or break bad habits.

And maybe it's the incremental approach or maybe you need to consider more of a cold turkey approach. Yep. And not beat yourself up either way.

And to celebrate the small successes of buying the fresh fruit and vegetable when you go to the store instead of jumping straight to the chip aisle like I do because I'm a sucker for chips.

[Michelle]
Lay's potato chips are my Achilles heel. Like, plain Lay's. It's the crunch.

It's the salt. It ticks all the boxes in terms of minimal ingredients.

[Kevin]
Yeah.

[Michelle]
It's really just like potatoes, oil, and salt.

[Kevin]
Yeah, yeah.

[Michelle]
And you're like, it's less than five ingredients. It's practically healthy.

[Kevin]
It's perfect, exactly. Just like the pioneers used to make potato chips.

[Michelle]
I know. But that's the thing. If I really want to have some potato chips, I make it a very conscious choice in that moment.

And you keep the main thing the main thing. I focus on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes. I focus on that plate, that 50% fruits and vegetables, good quality protein sources, which includes legumes and things like that, but also whole grains, intact grains.

And low or minimal oil and lots and lots of water. All those things that we talked about in Canada's Food Guide. But if I want something, I don't treat myself like I'm punishing myself.

I really think about it. And I think about, is this just an emotional reaction I'm having to something? Or do I actually really just want to have that food and or that junk food?

And if I really decide that I want it, I don't keep it in the house. I have to drive out and go get it.

[Kevin]
Right, right.

[Michelle]
I'll drive to the store. I'll go get it. I'll have that one bag.

I'll enjoy it for probably the first five minutes. And then it starts to feel like a lump in my stomach. And I'm like, oh, my God, I shouldn't have eaten that.

[Kevin]
What did I do? What did I do?

[Michelle]
But you know what? I enjoyed it while I was eating it. I wanted it.

I made a conscious choice. It's like, you know what? Don't need that anymore.

So I do that like maybe once every six months or something. Because it's more the idea of that food that I'm nostalgic for.

[Kevin]
Yeah. Well, you just mentioned something. You just talked about the emotion.

Like, is it an emotional reaction? And I think that's also important to consider. Because I think especially with eating, a lot of times, as you mentioned earlier, and we've said in previous episodes, there's often emotion connected with food and eating, whether it's comfort food or the way grandma used to make it or whatever.

And I think sometimes people might think that that is a bit of a loss. That if you're, you know, and I'll put in air quotes, something that brings you emotional joy from eating, that really feels like loss. And that's something that people struggle with.

I know that's something I've struggled with because there are a few things that I have very close emotional ties to that really aren't very good food. But once in a while, I need that because it truly is like quite literally comfort food. It makes me comfortable.

It gives me comfort when, you know, I'm feeling down or whatever. And I think that's tough.

[Michelle]
We can make all kinds of great comfort foods that are more healthful. So one of the things, one of the strategies I use is taking that handful of recipes that are part of my culture or part of what my mom used to make on the farm or my grandma used to make and just learning to substitute ingredients to make them healthier. So there's this one particular dish that my mom used to make.

It was like some sort of a baked bean, maple bean thing. It was actually very much an autumn food. It's making me crave it now.

But there was always, it was always bacon on top. And so, so instead of bacon, I mean, it wasn't going to cut it for me to go and get turkey bacon or something like that because that was, or turkey bacon is a bad example, like the tofu bacon or the tempeh bacon.

[Kevin]
Yeah.

[Michelle]
But any kind of bacon substitute was not going to cut it because it was never going to be, it was going to be trying to be similar but not.

[Kevin]
Trying to be something that it can't be.

[Michelle]
I wouldn't enjoy it. So I just thought, how can I look at this dish differently? What would really go really well?

And I put sun-dried tomatoes on top.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
Oh my gosh, it was so good. And so I had these wonderful, flavorful, it brought a new dimension to the dish. But I still had that maple bean, lovely experience.

It just didn't have nearly as much sugar. And it didn't have nearly as much fat. And it was so full of rich legumes.

So, you know, here, let me tell you a fun statistic.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
Hit me. When it comes to those favorite dishes that we like to make or that we've always made or always eaten, data tells us that the average person rotates the same 10 meals.

[Kevin]
I certainly do.

[Michelle]
And so, really, you can just simplify the change and take a little bit of anxiety away by saying, if I just allow myself a period of experimentation and substitution, or even trying new things that I haven't tried before, I really only need to find 10 things.

[Kevin]
Right. And also, if you're one of these people who can change habits in small doses, you can just maybe work on one recipe at a time. Keep nine intact, start with the easiest one, the low-hanging fruit, get used to it, perfect it, and then move on to the next of the 10.

[Michelle]
Right.

[Kevin]
And before you know it, in six months or something, maybe all 10 will have shifted and you didn't really even notice it.

[Michelle]
Well, some people like to do, like, the meatless Monday thing.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
My favorite way of approaching the behavior change is to go meal by meal. So, I start with breakfast. So, start with making your breakfast healthier.

Because you can gain an awful lot just by getting rid of commercial cereal and things like that.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
And relying on toast and pancakes, even though you can make very delicious, healthful pancakes as well. But a lot of our day in Western culture begins with sugar.

[Kevin]
Yes.

[Michelle]
With our standard American diet. So, just shifting that meal alone can make a profound difference to somebody's day. And breakfast tends to be a less intimidating sort of meal to convert.

Do you know what I mean?

[Kevin]
It's generally a little simpler.

[Michelle]
Yeah. Yeah. So, we start with breakfast.

And, you know, so start just doing a really conscious breakfast every day and don't put pressure on yourself. And then, you know, move into some other things. The beautiful thing about us being this complex adaptive system is once you start to nourish the organism more, and I'm calling us an organism.

[Kevin]
We are.

[Michelle]
Then the organism starts to crave more nutrient density.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
The more that you remove the sugars and the fats and the salt, as we know, the microbiome starts to convert. And it starts to, those old species start to die off. And those cravings start to dissipate until they're gone.

And then we start to crave more of the good stuff. Alan Goldhammer, who's the doctor, the founder of True North Health Center, and they do a lot of medically supervised programs. And they specialize in water fasting in order to facilitate very, very sick people towards getting their body back in balance and making that change.

They do it with a water, like a one month water fasting thing. But he always, he's always a fan of the cold turkey, which is the way that I did it. Because he said that, you know, you want to change the microbiome and just do it so that you're not going to be constantly fighting cravings.

So like, again, there's the two philosophies. And I've seen Dr. Goldhammer on panels, like at nutrition conferences, where there will be another really reputable, wonderful physician who helps, you know, thousands and thousands of people as well with a different view on that. Who will say, well, I don't really find that works with a lot of my patient population.

And, you know, the slow staged approach works better for some people. So like you said, know yourself, but set yourself up to succeed. So do you want to talk about some success tips?

[Kevin]
Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about success tips. I think that's where the rubber hits the road. Let's get that rubber hitting the road.

[Michelle]
Sure. So the first thing I mentioned is having a strong why. Really being clear with yourself.

Do I really, really want this? If I really want this, why do I want this? What's the outcome that I'm looking for?

Almost putting on my project management hat now as to what are the actual goals and objectives of the project? What is the need that we're trying to address? You want to make sure that you have that strong why and that you're being honest with yourself about it.

[Kevin]
Can I just ask, I'm assuming that that should be very concrete. Yes. Meaning, you know, a lot of people say, oh, I know I should eat healthier.

[Michelle]
I should.

[Kevin]
That's not enough of a concrete reason. It needs to be more, I want to be healthier. Or, you know, I have kids and I don't want them to be orphans or my dog to be an orphan or whatever.

But something much more concrete than just I should eat healthier. Is that correct?

[Michelle]
Well, yes. There's two things there. Often it's easier for us to make a connection to that change when we do think about it as something outside of ourselves.

Like for our kids, for our grandkids. And that brings us back to let's talk about valuing and loving yourself more. Because you should be enough reason.

You should be enough reason to want this for yourself. To want to love yourself and, you know, do it for you. If doing it for somebody else is easier for you, then that's a good way to start with your why.

But work on the self-talk. Because you're not going to be able to sustain the change if you're constantly telling yourself you're not good enough.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
Oh, you know, you're just going to beat yourself up over and over again. So things like I should eat better is not an affirmation. Right.

That is not an affirmation that actually has an action behind it.

[Kevin]
Right. And I think that's the point I was trying to make. It's very generic and almost theoretical rather than concrete and practical.

[Michelle]
Yeah. And that's why I hate the word moderation. People, oh, everything in moderation.

Moderation means you're going to do whatever you want when you want. It doesn't actually mean there's no measurement around what does moderation mean. Does moderation mean this much or does it mean this much?

Usually moderation means I saw it, I wanted to eat it, and I thought, oh, I ate a vegetable on Tuesday. I'm going to go ahead and have that donut.

[Kevin]
It's a good justification.

[Michelle]
Yeah. So we need to be more concrete with ourself, more planful with ourself. So being kind to yourself, we already mentioned.

And then the third recap, just before I get into the new things, was understanding your microbiome, understanding that not every craving that you have is something that your body needs. There's some people that believe, oh, I eat intuitively. Well, that's fantastic if you have a microbiome that is populated based on healthful foods and not based on your previous diet.

Right. Because you are going to crave sugar. You are going to crave fat.

You are going to crave salt. And that's not an intuitive eating metric in terms of that I need sugar, salt, and fat. That's just what my microbes are populated.

It's based on my previous diet.

[Kevin]
It's you are what you eat yesterday.

[Michelle]
Yes. And we have this gut-brain connection where your current diet is sending signals to your brain today based on what you've been eating.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
So you have to be patient. Be patient and allow your body to go through that transition.

[Kevin]
Especially if it's been years and years and years and years and years and years of eating the same similar diet.

[Michelle]
Yeah.

[Kevin]
The microbe environment is very, very solidly set up on your past history.

[Michelle]
Exactly. Okay, so now other things, setting yourself up to succeed. So if I was attacking this as a project, one of the first thing we would have our strong, you know, objective statement, and the need that we were trying to address, and what we were going to do to meet that need would be the next thing.

How are we actually going to achieve those goals? One of the things you would do is what you would set up your environment for success, which would mean if you're trying to change a behavior you have today, then you can't keep the things in the cupboard that you had yesterday, right? You've got to remove all of those triggers and those unhelpful foods.

So this is a big miss on people, Kevin. And I it's very telling for me, every time I run my program, I have this clean sweep, which is usually part of week two that I introduced that in the in the flourish program. And I can tell the people that do the clean sweep are going to have success.

The people that don't or don't get around to it or Oh, but I spent all this money on this food. I don't want to I want to use it up. You know, that kind of mentality, right?

[Kevin]
Yeah.

[Michelle]
Why do you want to use up something that you know, is contributing to your poor health, right? Why do you want to use up something that you know, is going to detract from your goals? Why did you, you know, clearly your why wasn't strong enough if you have a stronger connection to your money than you do to your health, right?

And that money's already sunk. Like it's already gone.

[Kevin]
It's a sunk cost. Exactly. You've already spent the money.

[Michelle]
It's not going to make any difference to you. Really, if you don't eat that food, then if you do eat that food in terms of a monetary aspect, because that money is history, right? What we should be doing is reaching for something different.

And it's going to be really hard to open the refrigerator and pull out those fruits and vegetables that you bought because you wanted to do better when you're staring at a box of doughnuts. Or, you know, what, whatever, whatever it is, whatever that advice is, or, you know, pulling out the whole grain, the beautiful whole grains that you bought, and they're sitting next to a bag of chips.

[Kevin]
And the box of Froot Loops. Yeah.

[Michelle]
Yeah, having the courage to try to make something with more legumes. And you know, when you've got a can of chickpeas next to Oreos.

[Kevin]
Yes.

[Michelle]
Right? So you have to remove those things. So it's like, if you were trying to quit smoking, you wouldn't carry a pack of cigarettes around with you.

[Kevin]
Exactly.

[Michelle]
If you were really trying to. So if you were in the AA program, you wouldn't go meet your friend at a bar. So you've got to set your environment up to succeed.

And it's this basic principle we talked about in the very, very first episode of our podcast. We are a species that's designed to reach for the most nutrient or calorie density with the least amount of effort. And we're very attached to things that are brightly colored, and sweet, and all of those things that are pleasing to our senses.

So all of those foods that are the Lay's potato chips, the Oreos, the brightly colored donuts, Froot Loops cereal boxes, they're all designed to evoke those triggers for us.

[Kevin]
You can't escape that toucan.

[Michelle]
They have neuroscientists and chemists and things like that on staff.

[Kevin]
And marketers.

[Michelle]
And marketers in order to elicit for those things to jump off the shelf at us and make them attractive. The broccoli is not that attractive. I mean, it is to me.

[Kevin]
Oh, poor broccoli with its curly little head. It's so cute.

[Michelle]
We I think we did this riff before on broccoli. So yeah, so setting up your environment to succeed and making the most nutrient dense stuff the easiest to reach for. So that leads us to a next behavior, you're going to have to do something different in your routines in order to do that.

So maybe instead of a bowl of candy on your desk at work, or on the center of your coffee table, as a lot of people have, I know we used to have one. It's a bowl of fruit, a bowl of nuts, something like that. And start batch cooking things.

That's that's a number one strategy for me. I know that because I'm a very, very, very busy person. And one of the reasons one of my crutches and my excuses for not doing better when I was younger, was I'm too busy, I have to drive through or it has to be microwavable, or I have to be able to open it and, you know, put it in a pot, right?

I was very resistant to doing any food preparation. If you really, really, really want to make this change, you have to and you aren't a person who prepares food, you're going to have to start to be willing to change, you have to be willing to adopt some new behaviors. And the way that I did that in a way that, you know, the data has even told us a lot of people are more successful, is it's not burdening yourself to say, now I've got to be in the kitchen all the time, making breakfast, making lunch, making dinner, and repeat that every single day, three times a day, because that's a lot of time, right, is that we batch cook.

So I just made this morning, a huge batch of steel cutouts, and then divided it into portions that are going to be for the rest of the week. So that I'm always just going to be able to grab it. A couple of days ago, I made a huge batch of this one pot meal with hat that had some long grain rice, and it had carrots and onion and potatoes.

And I put some curry powder and a bunch of other things in there and some fresh basil off of my garden.

[Kevin]
What time's dinner?

[Michelle]
We've been eating that for three days. And my daughter loves it. My husband loves it.

And so I mean, it's not like I'm cooking all the time. I'm when I cook something, I make it in a batch, right?

[Kevin]
So that's a easy behavior, which a lot of people are already doing now. Probably. It's just they're making different things in a batch.

[Michelle]
Exactly. And some of those things that you're doing, you can make them healthier, like chili.

[Kevin]
Right. Exactly. Exactly.

[Michelle]
Yeah. I know that you are famous, Kevin, for your huge batches of delicious granola, homemade granola.

[Kevin]
Yes. Yes. I don't make it as much recently, just because it was taking a lot of time.

I'm more into overnight oats now.

[Michelle]
That's another great one.

[Kevin]
Oh, it's so, so easy. And I do the same thing. I make the, I actually soak them overnight each night, but I just mix up my dry ingredients and put it in a huge, big Tupperware.

And then I just pour a little bit in a bowl every night, cover it with my oat milk, and it's done. So easy.

[Michelle]
See, I love the strategy that you just mentioned, because there's a myriad of overnight oats recipes out there, and most of them are about, you know, get some mason jars or whatever, and do this little batch cook of different jars. But what you mentioned is slightly different, and I really like it, is that, you know, you aren't doing it on a portion by portion basis. You're doing a batch of the dry ingredients.

[Kevin]
I'm mixing the dry ingredients, and they're shelf stable, so they're not taking up room in my fridge.

[Michelle]
Yeah.

[Kevin]
And then I just pour a little bit, I eyeball it, because by this time I know how much. I have one particular bowl that I use, and I know exactly how much I need to fill it up. And it takes literally less than a minute to do it, because I've already got the oats, and I put chia seeds, and some hemp seeds, and some flax seeds in it, shake it all up, and then it's just sitting in my pantry.

And it, and that lasts about two weeks, honestly. And it's so easy.

[Michelle]
That's amazing. See, that's a great tip. And then you just add some fruit to it, or maybe some nuts, and some maple syrup, or whatever.

[Kevin]
Yeah, and it's done. It takes no time at all.

[Michelle]
Awesome. That's, that's amazing. So I love, I love the batch of the dry ingredients.

You know, there's a chef, I'm trying to remember what the chef's name is. She does that with her plant-based vegan mac and cheese recipe. Okay.

You know, she, it's kind of like she's made her own version. You know how Kraft Dinner comes with those little packets?

[Kevin]
Yeah, yeah.

[Michelle]
So she makes, she mixes all of the dry ingredients of the nutritional yeast, and the spices, and the other things that make the, the cheesy characteristic.

[Kevin]
And then just has to throw, cook some macaroni and throw it in.

[Michelle]
Yeah. So, so it's basically, she just made a healthier version of Kraft Dinner.

[Kevin]
Sure.

[Michelle]
Because her kids love Kraft Dinner. So I love those kinds of tips. And that this is really something people need to explore on their own.

I want to just talk for a second on that tangent about meal plans. Because let me tell you something that I've learned over 15 years of practicing nutrition. There's a big emphasis in nutrition school about meal planning and customizing meal plans for every client and you know, mapping out for them what they should have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and snacks on Monday and on Tuesday.

What I've learned is that most people don't want you to tell them what to eat. Really, they don't really want to follow your meal plan. What they want is a list of ideas of what they could eat.

Right. And then they want to decide for themselves. Right.

So I don't make meal plans for people anymore. I really just sort of expose them to cookbooks, to YouTube videos, or lists of, you know, quick meal ideas, or I share pictures in our, in our group of what I've made to eat. And it's really just teaching people like, you don't have to be me.

You don't have to eat what I eat. You should eat what you want to eat. But here's what I did with something and then get and that's really how it worked for me to Kevin is that, like I said, I started to learn to make a few things that I really liked.

I think my first staple was making a really excellent tofu scramble and to, to replace, you know, scrambled eggs and other egg dishes because that was a big one for me. I used to eat a lot of eggs. I used to love, I called it having breakfast for dinner.

I just love having eggs. So I just had, I just had to figure out this is that this would have been one of my 10 things, right? I used to really love having eggs and eggs on toast or eggs on a, on a, an English muffin or something like that.

So I had to find out how can I do this really well. And once my taste buds convert with the eating the healthier food, I started to really love the taste of this. And sometimes I make it more Italian styled.

Sometimes I make it slightly curried. Sometimes I just make it really cheesy. And sometimes I make it spicy and there's so many ways to do it.

And that's another thing that I will batch cook.

[Kevin]
Yeah. Because I find that there's so many ways now that you can go online and say, I'll, I mean, I'll just talk about something that I've been working on recently. One of my go-to recipes, we have a lot of Caesar salads and everyone loves Caesar dressing.

And I have an amazing recipe for a kale Caesar to try to get that cruciferous vegetable because Romaine's kind of Weebly, but it's a traditional, I've always made a very traditional Caesar dressing with boiled eggs and blah, blah. I actually found one to use boiled eggs because I didn't like using raw eggs, which is really the one, but I've gone online trying to investigate ways to create a healthier Caesar dressing while still maintaining the core taste pattern. And I've actually found one now that has surprisingly for a big, huge batch of dressing, because we go through a lot, it has exactly one tablespoon of oil in it.

And that's it. Based on our discussion about oils. Now it does have dairy, so it's still not there, but it's so much better.

It has no egg and it has virtually no oil, but you honestly can't tell the difference taste-wise.

[Michelle]
So that's a perfect example of how you've taken a step to make something healthier, but still palatable to where you're at.

[Kevin]
Yes. And it will continue to evolve over time once I figure out how to get the dairy out of it.

[Michelle]
Yeah. And it's easy. It's easy to do.

I can shoot your recipe for you.

[Kevin]
Okay, good.

[Michelle]
Yes. Please do. Please do.

But don't say, oh, it still has dairy in it. Look at how much healthier you've already, if that's something that you really, truly do consume that often by making that change, making that one thing healthier, yay you. That's fantastic.

That's a great example.

[Kevin]
I am super proud of myself.

[Michelle]
I'm proud of you.

[Kevin]
Because one batch used to have, one batch, which was maybe six or seven salads worth for all of us, had a half a cup of olive oil.

[Michelle]
Right.

[Kevin]
And now it has that same six or seven salads has one tablespoon of olive oil.

[Michelle]
Yes.

[Kevin]
So for me, that's like, I don't know how many thousands of calories. I mean, you don't eat it all at once, obviously, but over the course of those six or seven salads, we've completely reduced the amount of oil and fats and such and everything. Go back, listen to our oil episode, everyone.

So I do feel very, very good about it. Now, I want to get rid of the dairy because of me, because I don't want to eat much dairy, but it is a process and I am working on it and this has taken time and it's moving in the right direction.

[Michelle]
And the other thing I would say is I'm willing to bet that that Caesar salad is one of the only delivery mechanisms that your son will eat a significant amount of greens. Am I right?

[Kevin]
Why do you think we eat so many?

[Michelle]
Exactly. So what I would not want to do is I would not want to try to push that behavior change to an uncomfortable level where he's now not going to get those greens.

[Kevin]
Right. Right. Which is why I'm a fan of the baby steps rather than- You're making it a reward.

[Michelle]
Look it. I've done it. And you don't even need to comment on the healthfulness of it with him.

[Kevin]
Oh, I don't. He doesn't know. He doesn't know.

[Michelle]
I have this great new recipe for this great new Caesar salad dressing and it's so good. I'd like you to try it and then you do that again and you'll just sort of sneak it in there. It's kind of like, what did I do with my kids?

I started making the chocolate chip cookies with the chickpeas in it. I would say it's so that to get more legumes into them.

[Kevin]
I've started using unsweetened applesauce instead of oil in, not that I bake a ton, but in all like any cake I make or any quick bread I make, I don't add oil anymore. It's all applesauce and occasionally black beans, but I find applesauce is just a little bit easier to use.

[Michelle]
And there's so many recipes where, believe it or not, you can just leave the oil out and it turns out it doesn't make any difference whatsoever. The fat actually ends up covering some of the flavor and sometimes omitting it. You can brown onion and sliced mushrooms and things like that just so beautifully without any oil at all.

Either with a little bit of vegetable broth or sometimes if you just have a really good quality, no stick pan, you don't need to add. Remember every serving of fat is like nine calories per gram. So that's nine calories per gram.

However many grams you eliminated, that's how much fat you've eliminated. That's just pure fat.

[Kevin]
Every little bit, like one tablespoon at a time does actually, it doesn't seem like it. I think that's part of it. You also have to remember that one tablespoon of oil at a time doesn't actually seem like a lot, but it is actually huge in terms of caloric intake and all of the bad fats.

Well, I know all fat's bad, but anyways. But it really, truly does make a difference, even though it might seem insignificant.

[Michelle]
It does. So we've eliminated some of the calorie density and replaced it with more nutrient density. And that's really the key to this behavior change is to focus instead of on counting calories, focus on counting nutrition.

So look at how many nutrient dense things you're including in your diet and try to replace some of the more calorie dense things. So if you're, I mean, I don't eat a lot of bread anymore. I still enjoy some whole grain bread and some, you know, on a particular sandwich or something that we do.

But I don't, I used to eat a lot. I used to eat a lot of bread. But starting out, if you told me to cut my bread out, I would have been what am I going to eat?

Because, you know, sandwiches, toast, everything, everything was focused around either bread or meat, right? So choose better. Choose better bread.

Get rid of the Wonder Bread, the spongy stuff and develop a taste, develop that an admiration of the flavors of what whole grains taste like. That's a good tip. All right.

So another thing that we can do, this is a great conversation, Kevin. I'm just enjoying myself so much.

[Kevin]
I'd like to think so.

[Michelle]
Know your triggers is another thing. So you, if you know that you have particular triggers, then plan a response to that trigger, right? So just the same way we would in the business world with a project, we would look at our risk triggers and we would plan a response for them.

So we need to do the same thing with our own behavior. So, for example, if you know your routine has always been to drive this way to work and you're always going to go by that place that you always stop and you're going to really be triggered and really be tempted, then take another route. Right.

Avoid that trigger.

[Kevin]
It's such a simple solution, but it works.

[Michelle]
Or, you know, a certain friend that you love to hang out with is a really bad influence and you're going to meet up with them for a drink or something. Then eat before you go.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
Eat before you go. Enjoy having a drink with your friend, but don't put yourself in a situation where you're going to feel like you have to order something off that menu and you know that nothing on that menu is going to support your goals.

[Kevin]
And that can even be don't walk down certain aisles of the grocery store as you go shopping. Yeah.

[Michelle]
Shop around the outside. Yeah. Not the inside.

[Kevin]
I've noticed that often the bad aisles tend to be like universally bad. I shouldn't say bad. No food is bad.

But, you know, the the less nutritionally dense aisles, all that food tends to be grouped together so you can easily avoid a few aisles and just not be tempted by, oh, that looks so good. A box of Oreos or whatever. We shouldn't pick on Oreos.

They're going to sue us. But, you know, a box of a box of cookies or whatever or chips or, you know, whatever your particular weakness might be.

[Michelle]
Yeah. And take a look at your cart. I mean, it's it's astounding to me now when I'm in certain grocery stores and I see what other people have in their cart and there's like a case of pop and three or four bags of chips and a bunch of boxed foods.

And it's amazing how many people don't have any fruits and vegetables in their cart at all.

[Kevin]
Correct. Maybe a few potatoes. That's it.

[Michelle]
There was something really astounding when I remember I was in nutrition school. I'm going to say. Around 2007 and where I live in London, Ontario, I remember a headline in the newspaper that there was a school where they did a pilot program of bringing in fresh fruit and having it available in the classroom for all of the kids in this school.

It was in a lower family income demographic neighborhood where probably it's harder for them to have more expensive fresh foods in their grocery cart. And there was I can't remember. It was a very large percentage of the kids in that classroom.

I think it was a grade three, four classroom had never seen an orange.

[Kevin]
Really? Wow.

[Michelle]
I remember that. I remember that headline. They had never had an orange and had to peel an orange before.

So that's how different our society is. That's how different the experience is for some young people than it was when we were kids.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
There was no other way to get an orange was except for your mom to buy it and peel it. And it was something we always had in our lunchbox. Right.

I think oranges were often like cheaper than some other food at times. And plus, we only got them when they were seasonal. They didn't have oranges all year round.

[Kevin]
But that's just as a side note, though. I mean, you know, that does highlight another issue that very often what I'll call like fresh, healthy food, meaning generally fresh fruits and vegetables, are often more expensive than, you know, the prepackaged frozen dinners or whatever or, you know, drive through at, you know, choose your fast food outlet of choice. So for people who do have income issues, it can also be challenging.

[Michelle]
It can.

[Kevin]
For them to get that to really focus on the fresh food. Now, there are options and, you know, but possibly some education is required to help them choose the right foods that are, you know, dollar for dollar, you know, nutritionally dense, given, you know, how much they can afford. And that's, I mean, we can't solve that issue here.

And that's a whole other issue. But I do just want to point that out. And I know you're well aware of that as well.

[Michelle]
Yeah, because we I think we talked about that in episode one or two about the way that our government subsidizes certain industries causes that if a hamburger costs what a hamburger actually costs, and a salad costs what a salad actually costs to produce, we wouldn't see that disparity. Exactly. But let me, here's the thing, though, if you look at the whole picture of really, if you really had a strong why, and you really wanted to embrace the things that we're talking about in this podcast, if you no longer are putting cheeses in your cart, you are no longer putting huge focus on meat on your plate in your cart.

So you're minimizing that the quality protein to small amounts of animal based protein and including more protein sources like legumes and nuts and things like that. And you're increasing more vegetables on your plate, just by reducing the amount of meat because really good cuts of meat are very, very expensive. If you're really consciously reducing the fat that that's your largest source of saturated fat and inflammatory compounds, and cancer and group one carcinogen, if you stop buying bacon, group one bacon, group one carcinogen, hot dogs, group one carcinogen, processed hamburgers, group one carcinogen, meaning that they're just as cancer causing as cigarettes.

If you're eliminating those things, and you're eliminating cheeses and yogurts and buying more fruits and vegetables and a big bag of grains and a big bag of beans, like you can feed like for less than $20, you can feed a family four for like a month on a giant bag of beans and rice, right?

[Kevin]
Oh, no, absolutely. And you're you're right, you do offset that. That's all I'm saying that some education is required, though, I think to help people understand this math, and to understand that cheese and meats expensive, but you can offset that with other things that are healthier for you.

[Michelle]
When I got my husband on board to try eliminating the meat from the plate and said, let's let's try this and see how we feel. My approach was from the health approach, his approach, what what got him to buy in was the impact on climate change, the impact on land use and water use and emissions and things like that. So that was that was sort of his why my why was purely the health aspect because you don't care about the environment.

[Kevin]
I know that's I do.

[Michelle]
You know, I care deeply about the environment, but but that's not what brought me here, right? I'm all about that now. And everybody has a different path to it, right?

For some people, it's it's that but our grocery bill went down like almost $150 when we were no longer buying the ground beef and the steak and and the and the breasts of chicken and grass fed like because when you do move in that healthier direction, usually your first step is buying better quality meat, like grass fed, grazed, local, organic, all that stuff. That stuff is very, very expensive.

[Kevin]
Yes, it is.

[Michelle]
And when you move away from cheese slices into better quality cheese, very, very expensive, right? So then if you can kind of eliminate those and focus more on other things, and you don't need, you have to convince yourself you don't need that much cheese flavor, but you can still have things made with sauces with like I said, that nutritional yeast, which isn't really a yeast. It's actually it does have some b12 and things like that in it.

I don't even know why they call it yeast. It must be because of the chemistry of it. But it's cheesy, and it's delicious.

It's very light, you can make great things with it.

[Kevin]
I use that to add flavor to things. Sometimes it always goes to my chili, always.

[Michelle]
And cashew based cheeses and other nut based cheeses. There you can make them yourself in a Vitamix or there's, there's never been an easier time to incorporate more of those things. So we'll still have grilled cheese and soup sometimes.

We just have it with a nut based nut based cheese and a nice whole grain and we make it in a panini press. It's quite delicious.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
Yeah. So there's so much more I could say on this topic, but I think that I'm going to end it there. And you know, maybe we can talk a little bit more maybe about conscious eating in another episode.

[Kevin]
Absolutely.

[Michelle]
That sounds good. Because there was some stuff I wanted to share about that. But I think we covered a lot.

[Kevin]
We definitely did. But if we haven't covered a particular topic that you've been thinking of, feel free to drop us an email. And you know, I can put it in front of Michelle and she will answer it or make up an answer.

Who knows? But she'll, she'll answer it. So feel free to drop us an email.

That's n4noobs at gmail.com. And we're happy to answer any or all of your questions about nutrition, about travel, maybe about relationships. I mean, this podcast is ever evolving, it seems.

[Michelle]
We can cover it all.

[Kevin]
Exactly.

[Michelle]
Yeah. Okay, that's great. Well, thank you so much to the listener that asked the question.

Thank you for listening. And thank you, Kevin, as always, for creating this opportunity and giving us this platform.

[Kevin]
Well, and thank you for the excellent suggestions and very down-to-earth practical suggestions. I think that's honestly, I've taken away a whole lot from this conversation. So it's good.

It's forcing me also to think about some of the choices that I made.

[Michelle]
And I learned from many of your examples as well. We're all eternal students.

[Kevin]
Exactly. So of course, this podcast is also the Bad Dad Jokes podcast. So are you ready?

[Michelle]
I am excited today for some reason.

[Kevin]
I'm very sorry to hear that. Don't get too excited. So it's a walk into a bar joke based simply on my recent travels to Ireland.

I spend a lot of time in bars. So a tree walks into a bar and the bartender asks, what'll you have? And the tree replies, anything but a lager.