TRANSCRIPT

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Tenacious Living Radio Show. It is wonderful to have you with us today. We are I am broadcasting live from Calgary and my guest is sitting in our virtual greenroom and she is coming to us live from Vancouver. Before we get into her bio and the conversation that we’re going to be having with her I just wanted to touch base. And just welcome all of you to the show. For those of you who are listening for the first time, thank you for, for opting in and choosing to listen to with us spend the next hour with us while we talk. And for those who are you are returning. Thank you so much for coming back. It’s so great to have you with us again. So today our topic is all about healthy eating habits during the holidays. And our guest today is biologist and holistic nutritionist. Alesia Azaria Anderson, and she is a biologist and registered holistic nutritionist. She has taught at several universities and colleagues in the Vancouver area for over 20 years. Now she is dedicated to educating and empowering people to learn and apply a simple, safe and sustainable, holistic lifestyle program that is truly sustainable throughout their lives and will create happy, healthier families, individuals and children. Alicia, welcome to the show. How are you today?

Thank you very good, how are you?

I am so excited to talk with you. I am doing wonderful. Last week was my birthday. And we also had some early Christmas celebrations. So this topic has is very near and dear to me after last. It’s how do we maintain those healthy eating habits? And how do we develop those healthy eating habits? I’m excited to hear what you have to say about it.

Oh, absolutely. I think everybody has that question like how do we move towards healthy living? And how do we actually keep it for life? And what do we do when the holidays come and there’s all this food and all this chocolate in front of us? And it’s still it but it’s so good. But it is doable, isn’t it? It is doable, it is doable. So before we get into that, I just want to find out a little bit more about you, you and I we met at a couple of retreats that we’ve you and I have been on similar journeys with building our paths. So we’ve met, we have the same mentor when it comes to marketing and workshop design. But a lot of people don’t know who you are, and want them to learn who you are. So can you give them a little bit of background on who is Alicia?

Sure. Here is my background in brief. I was raised and born in Mexico City and I came to Vancouver to do a PhD in botany and drumming old before I graduated, I’d met my husband. I’ve been in Canada now for 28 years. I am a mother of three teens. And about three years ago, I decided to switch my career a little bit although I still teach many biology courses. And I became a registered holistic nutritionist, which was my dream. It was my dream my entire life. And basically what I did is I took all my background and now I apply it to nutrition in a way that we I’m loving what I do. It changed my life. It definitely changed the life of my family. And it has been I’ve been helping so many families change the way we do things nowadays that it is so empowering and it is so rewarding to see these, this shifting and this switch of people into wholeness and when we say we’re here Mr. nutritionist, because we talk about not only what we eat basically our whole bodies, yeah, our whole entire body needs to change from the way we move to the way we think, to the way we eat everything together. And so now for me, this is, this is what I want to do. This is what I wanted to do the rest of my life, just empower people and just show them that this is doable. It doesn’t matter if there’s holidays, or not.

So true. But it definitely is more forefront when the holiday season is around, isn’t it? Oh, I know, we’re so afraid of all this food in front of us. But there’s always healthy choices. Wherever you are. There are always healthy choices. And there’s always you have the choice, for example of finishing the whole box of chocolates. Having one and saving another one for it tomorrow.

Oh, yes. Oh, my grandma might have been onto something when she said you don’t have to take everything you see.

Oh, yes, she was absolutely right.

You just said that you’ve always wanted to be a holistic nutritionist. What was what’s behind that? How did that? How did you even work? Because a lot of us didn’t even know about this. So what was what was your driving? How did you get interested in it?

I’ve always been interested in it. But it just so happened that biology was easy for me to get into. But within biology, like I teach all kinds of courses from ecology to human body, to how our normal Flora actually works. I actually teach at the Boucher Institute of naturopathic medicine, where I teach them microbiology, like we are a walking colony of bacteria, basically, in short, and if we don’t fit them, they’re not going to be happy. And if they’re not happy, we are not happy. So basically, it’s all linked together to how we what type of food we actually put inside our bodies, how we break down, how we absorb it, how we use it, how we assimilate it, and the amount of energy that we get. I am just, in brief, just I can tell you, I’m 53 years old, and now I have more energy that I had when I was 35. How is that possible?

How is that possible?

It’s just the it’s just when you actually take the like, right nutrients that your body actually wants and needs. It’s basically you it’s possible, because then you’re changing your whole body, you’re sleeping better, you wake up very easily, you know, as soon as light is on, you’re up. And it’s really amazing. It’s really fun. I wouldn’t change it for the world. I’ll just tell you that.

So, you said that it’s made some like you alluded a little bit, you have more energy now than you did when you were 35. And just for the record people, this woman does not look 53 When I when she told me that I was like there’s no possible way she can be that age. So just so you know, Elisa, you look younger than then you are as well. Just feel younger. Thank you for that. So we’re at 35 When you had so liked this lack of energy, where did you find yourself when you looked in the mirror? What did you see? What were you feeling and thinking about yourself? Well, if I don’t mind sharing, I don’t mind sharing. And at the time, I always use 35 Because it’s the opposite of 53. But I mean, that was cool. I have baby I know. I had the babies. I mean, I had babies when I was 3337 No 3030 3335 and 37. My kids are very, very close in age. I was exhausted, I was exhausted of just even having babies at that age. I have mental blocks in my mind when they were little because they were all so young. And at the same time, it was really hard to my energy was very drained. But later on like not long ago when I definitely changed my diet. I my whole energy changed. I had this problem and I can share this with you I’ve I grew up in Mexico and I’ve been very constipated person my whole entire life. And this is funny because all my clients love me because I talk a lot about poop and reading your poop. But it seriously basically changed my life just basically. By the time I started digesting properly, eliminating properly getting rid of toxins from my body, my whole body changed. I ended up having plantar fasciitis I don’t know if you know what that is but that is basically, I had a ball on my on my feet and he was really hard to walk on that. And I tried endless things I tried new shoes and insoles. I’m all kinds of things and nothing worked. But as soon as I changed my digestion and the word I eliminate, the whole thing was gone. And like how can my foot be related to my gut, and everything is related to our God, the way we think our, everything, our emotions, everything is basically related to our God, that is the first place where we’re actually in contact with the with the world. It’s like whatever we are putting inside our bodies. And however we are feeding our normal flora that I, that I mentioned before, is your point, our biochemistry changes, you feel more energy, you feel happier, your moods completely change. And basically, you enjoy every minute of your life. And that’s the way I look at it.

So who wouldn’t want that? Oh, I know who wouldn’t want that, right? I think if we all could actually turn around and say, hey, I was here before, and now I’m here. You know, I’ve been tenacious enough to be doing this for the rest of my life. And this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

So let’s talk a little bit about that. So you went from biologist to holistic nutritionist, you’ve just filled us in on how it’s how changing your eating habits has completely altered your life, and has really empowered you to share these, these secrets. So quote, unquote, secrets was pupil on how to develop healthy eating habits. So just in general, what areas do you think people have trouble with when they’re trying to help themselves or teach their kids how to become happier and healthier?

I truly believe that one of the things that we actually have as adult is like that we don’t really deal with our own stuff. For example, we have a lot of unresolved issues. And we really need to deal with those first. I in the courses that we teach, we definitely offer to people, the first thing we offer to people are hope. Which is basically it’s one of our pillars, and another one that I love is education. Because through education, you definitely can work on all these unresolved issues that you are dealing with. And, of course, we give people a lot of courage because it’s like, you’re swimming against the current. And people it’s really hard, right? We are we’re changing the norms of society. And it’s not easy. But something very important is that we empower our all our participants to really work harder, and we give them a lot of the tools. And we give them a lot of the support that they need. Because it’s a journey. And another important thing that I believe that parents have trouble with is not giving the kids a safe place. And I would like to share story here with you. When I was, I was younger, okay, I already had three kids, and my moods were crazy. I would start you know, telling the kids Oh, I’m tired that all your toys are on the floor, clean them up, you know. And later on in their lives, they finally told me Mom, you were really scary when you get really mad. And I thought that was normal. Because my mother was like that. And I thought he was genetics. And when I finally got rid of those moods, it’s amazing. Like, I could not believe my kids did not have a safe place to be when I could. And when you can change your moods that way. I think that’s the best, most important thing that people feel empowered. It’s like I can do this. Why not? Let’s give the kids the safest place where they can live in.

And really, when you when you provide a safe place for your kids or your family, you’re also providing a safe place for yourself. Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. For the whole entire family like yeah, sorry, family dynamics change. Absolutely.

So something that you said really caught my attention. You said your mom was that way and you thought it was just genetic. With for those of us who are going into the holiday season, and we’re going to be spending more than normal time next time. Love you guys immensely. But you know, we all like you said unresolved issues, everything sort of starts to surface during the holiday season. So how is how did genetics play in that, compared to what you’re starting to talk to us about?

Well, genetics definitely has a key role in our whole entire body. But there’s something nowadays we call it epigenetics. Epigenetics basically is how our environment change. are our genes. And I truly believe that the environment is the one that switches some genes on and off. And for example, everybody, everyone listening, I mean, we know the holiday season is coming. You want to have everything ready, everything perfect, you have people over, you don’t have enough time. And of course, its environment, its environment, triggering all of these things, I do highly recommend that before you actually start getting moody and or stressed and all that stuff, take a break, take a couple of deep breaths, and stop for a second and say, is this really worth it? Just take it easy, do you know just don’t put too much on your plate, give yourself and it only takes one second, to actually have a deep breath. And just go back to the safe place for you and your kids to be at and thinking whatever you have to do.

Is that so just taking a deep breath and just starting from so okay. Yeah, so many questions. I want to go back to the epigenetics, how the environment changes? Is it being it kind of beach? Can it be a seasonal change? Or is it like more of a lifelong, you’re in this this environment? Change your entire? I’m really curious about that, at least Yeah, can you talk just a little bit deeper about that?

Sure. Um, when I talk about environment, I talk about everything that we’re exposed to. Okay, in short, I’m going to go back to the air that we breathe, the water that we drink all the water that’s around us, the soil, basically the Earth. Basically, whatever we put in our mouths, mouths come from the earth, and then fire the sun. You know, being in the sun makes you a lot happier than if there’s no sun, right? Here in Vancouver, for example, it’s getting really dark very early during the day, and the sun doesn’t come out until fairly late in the morning. So these are fairly short. And of course, that is an environmental trigger that affects our moods. And our environment, environmental trigger that is affecting our moods is what we ingest, we’re ingesting a huge amount of sugar, a huge amount of refined carbohydrates, wheat, all kinds of additives, and all kinds of pollutants that we’re ingesting, that’s also environmental. And there’s a lot of environmental stuff that’s affecting us lots of chemicals, anything from hormones, genetically modified organisms, I can keep going and going on and on. A huge one where people always ask us is like, what is that environment around us? We talk about what are called electromagnetic waves, Wi Fi, we’re all exposed to that I’m in front of the computer talking to you. I’m receiving all of these, all of these combined, imagine this huge amount of stuff that we’re getting nowadays. It’s affecting our genes. It’s affecting how we respond to that environment. We cannot just say, Oh, it’s a genetic disorder. No, you have to think about how the environment and the genes interact with each other. That’s what we call it B genetics.

So how does that relate now to nutrition?

Well, simply because when you think about nutrition, and when we think about holistic nutritionists, we don’t only think about what we ingest, we think, as I said about a whole body. And it’s not just CRF environment that we work on with, with our clients. We work on many other things that are also affecting us at many different levels. For example, we talk about the physical level, at the physical level, for example, we know that we’re lacking a lot of exercise. And by the way, people that are going to be on holidays, I know we love watching movies with our kids, but I highly recommend that you also do some activity in between in between movies or whatever just go out for a walk or you know, take the kids out skating or do something like that, that you actually need to move. So when we think about our physical body, it’s we there’s a lack of exercise, we are basically couch potatoes, just watching you know being on the internet or watching movies or whatever. So highly recommend that move through the holidays. When we talk about the physical environment, we also talk about sleep. Not only the quantity because now we know I know in this world Oh, we are not sleeping enough hours during the day, but also the quality of sleep. Are you waking up rested? Are you waking up like with energy I do now, like I didn’t know before, but I’ll just tell you a story before I used to wake up in the middle of the night. So I decided that it was very important to know what time I woke up. So there you go, I got an alarm clock with a light. So I would know exactly what time I was getting up at night. But that disrupted my sleep. Because, of course, when you sleep, you have to be in darkness. So when you are not in complete darkness, basically what’s happening is that you break your night. And if you break your night with a little bit of light, the problem is, is that you wake up in the middle of the night, and it’s very hard to go back to sleep. Whereas nowadays, if I have to get up in the middle of the night, I get up with my eyes closed, come back to bed, and I fall asleep right away. So as I said, there’s a lot of the areas where we work with families, not just environment, also physical. We talk a lot about and of course, all these physical things are also changing our genes, our epigenetics as well, because it’s all environment, there is absolutely nothing wrong from going for a walk, which I actually did just before I came into the show just to get fresh air and I really lost sorted I just invigorates you and just breathing in, you know, fresh air really helps everyone, you know, the kids, especially I think the kids really need to be outdoors a lot more than they are nowadays. Yeah, so, um, quit. Also, let me just tell you one more thing, for example, there’s so at the mental level we talk about a lot of the families that we work with, are, as I said before, they’re going against the current, they’re moving from consuming less sugar, for example, to consuming what we call real food. By real food, basically, what we call real food is food that we can actually harvest from the soil and eat it, not just something that comes in the package. And unfortunately, things that come in a package are have a lot of additives. One of those main narratives is sugar, which nowadays they change the name and they have different names, for example, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, or any other food additives, or you know, all kinds of things, things that we call junk food. So when we consume huge amounts of junk food, our mental alertness completely changes. I have, you know, lately looked at what’s happening in schools nowadays, for example, there’s a lot of kids that are hyperactive. One of the problems that they these people have, when they’re hyperactive is, yeah, let’s feed our kids sugar in the morning. So let’s send them to school. And I feel sorry for the teachers because we have to deal with all these kids all day. But the kid’s kind of sit down right. So we decided to label these kids and call them kids with a DD or ADHD. And when you actually reduce the amount of sugar they have in the morning, of course their moods are going to change, they’re going to have been more alert in school, they’re going to do a lot better in school. And it’s set them at that mental level that you can actually change the way they’re eating. And so in short, we talk about in there where we talk about how to decrease all this toxicity in our lives. We talk about the physical, environmental, mental, and one more level that we talk about is emotional.

So sorry, hold on. So the levels to toxicity are physical, mental, and so environmental, environmental, and emotional. And mental and oh, sorry, not mental and physical, environmental. emotional, and mental. Yeah. Okay, thanks. No, it’s good to know because purse, I thought emotional and mental would have been the same. So what’s the difference between the two?

When we talk about okay, when I was saying about mental is like mental alertness, being aware of your environment, kids with a DD, ADHD, all of this all of these sugars. I mean, you can actually notice if over the holidays, for example, you leave the chocolates open for your guests. The kids are going to go for that. You’re going to see Changing the kids, as soon as they have sugar. I mean, nobody can deny that kids can really, really hyper, anybody will get really hyper with too much sugar, right? But that also decreases. When you have too much sugar in your body. It basically your sugar levels can go can go really high up, and then come down very fast. So how do you feel after a sugar rush in your body, you feel really tired afterwards. So you need more sugar. So they go, it’s like an addiction, they need more sugar, they go for more sugar, until there’s more No more sugar. So I’ll just tell you the day after Christmas, they’re going to be exhausted, just that high rush of sugar in their blood. And that changes at the mental level completely. Now, at the emotional level, we talk, we, we basically tell our participants that how to communicate with their kids. I truly believe that communication is key for any relationship that you have. I truly believe that communicating with your kids. It’s amazing. I’ll just tell you a story I had. I have three teams, and I’m How old are they? They are 1618 and 19. Almost 20 Oh my gosh.

I know. And I love the teen years, I’ve just can tell you this. I mean, the kids don’t like me talking about them. But I truly, truly I love the teen years. I never fear them. They’re were really open we talk about everything that’s going on in their lives. And but communication needs to be nourished. It doesn’t just come overnight. I usually tell people, hey, if your team is not communicating with you, I can just tell you something go out for a drive. Why? Because teens don’t like seeing you. They don’t like looking at you in the eyes. And so when they’re driving, they’re not looking at you. And the I think I hear a lot of things from the minute I pick up my son at school till I get home. It’s only 10-minute drive. But in those 10 minutes, I know exactly what’s going on daily in daily, you know, in his life. And people go oh, you know, let him take. Let him take the bus home. And I’m like, no, I really enjoy my 10 minutes with him. That’s it. And yeah, you know, it’s a drag to go pick him up. But on the other hand, look at this pressure, like the most amazing tenants I have every day with him alone. And he just tells me everything that happened through the day. So communicate with your kids. If you don’t have a car, you don’t own a car, the best way to do it is gone for a walk. When you’re walking, you’re not looking at your kids on the eyes. So they love it. They really, really start talking. I’ll just tell you a story when my daughters were in grade four and five, I believe. We used to go out for walks around the block. And it was a fairly big block that we went around. And so one day we just started walking and the oldest was talking, talking, talking and after 111 ways around the block. I said, okay, let’s go home. And then the youngest one just turned to me. I’m like, we can’t go home and I’m like, why not? And she goes, I haven’t talked yet mom. So I said OKAY, let’s go another round around the block. And I told the other one. Okay, now you need to be you know, be quiet. Let’s listen to her. So she walked the whole way around. And then she told me OKAY, Mom, we can go home. So looking at them in the eyes for teens is just amazing.

Yeah, what do you think that is?

I don’t know, kids, teens or teens are open when you’re not looking at them directly to the eyes. In this society. I find that especially in Canada. Believe me Latin people. We’re not a lot like that. We use a lot more eyes than we do in Canada. Kids don’t like you to look at them in the eyes, but they open up when they don’t look at you in the eyes.

So cool. That’s such a neat way to figure because it I’m guessing it would apply to people you know, because we’re always like, oh, they’re not looking at me. They’re so rude. Where does that perception come from? Like, so we’re moving into holiday seasons and we’re going to be meeting people. Is it a bad thing if they want to talk to you but they don’t want to look you in the eye?

I don’t I don’t I don’t know the psychology behind it. I guess not even works. So as you said, you know why? Why is it that sometimes you know after you watch a movie, you’re still staring at the screen and they start talking. Yeah, I don’t know teens are like these are older kids now are a lot like that too.

So weird. So weird. Um, I just find it. It’s quite a unique conversation to have. But we’re here to talk about nutrition to say, okay, yeah, totally off track there. But it’s all good. I like it. I think it’s a really good conversation to have. Because that’s one of the ways that something that you develop a set holistic lifestyle, right? It’s not just about nutrition, it’s. So what I’m hearing you saying is there’s more to a holistic lifestyle than just than just nutrition? Oh, absolutely.

When we talk in our programs, we use the acronym balance. And of course, the last II of balance means it for health. So yes, there’s a nutrition aspect to it. But when you take a look at the word balance, can you have another five letters, that means something else? What do they mean? Okay, the B means body. Yeah, it’s really interesting. The B means body type. And by body type, we basically show our participants that we’re all different, we don’t need the same amount of nutrients, we’re all different, you might be a protein body type, or carbohydrate body type. And your body needs different nutrients. Just to give you an example, one of my daughters is a mixed carbohydrate body type. And the other one is the mixed protein body type. And the protein body type needs way more protein than the other one. But mentally, she does not function.

So when you said body type, I was thinking more slim build, you know, normal?

Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, this has to do more with how your body uses nutrients. So carbohydrate or protein body type, body type, or mixed body type. And depending on that is you when you your body eats the right, the right quantity, quantity and quality of nutrients. You basically the only side effect is that you lose weight.

So I know this may be more knowledge than we can share on the road, or on the show right now. But how does someone I don’t know my body type, I guess I have an idea. But how would one even know where to start to define that? Well, we use we use questionnaires to find out what your body would like better, and how you work and, and also that has body type has a lot to do with emotional aspects as well. It’s not just you know what my body likes better. But yeah, it’s the way we use the food. Some people, some people are very, very good at breaking down protein. And some people are not very good at breaking down protein. So it all depends, like we’re all very, very different that way. So yeah, it’s amazing. So the B or B, the B for balance is extremely important. That’s where we start at the first day of balance, we it’s attitude, we talk a lot about attitude and emotions. Because when people are eating better and changing their eating habits, there’s a lot of emotions going on. I’ll just I can just tell you that. The L for balance means laughter and play. Because we need to have fun in life. I’m sorry, if you’re not having fun in life. And if you’re not having really, really good laughs, you’re not enjoying life, like, like, basically. And if you have, I don’t know, when was the last time you had a really, really good laugh. But when you have a really good laugh, you burn so many calories. That is the best antidote forever anything really like that? Yeah.

The next eight-day imbalance is activity. As I mentioned before we talk about exercising and moving. And so we teach our participants how to find the easiest exercises and to tell you the truth, some people that are really overweight that don’t that don’t even want to move at all. All they really need to do is do a smarter exercises 20 minutes a week. That’s it. That’s it. It’s not very much. I’m sure every but everybody can find 20 minutes a week to just to do smarter exercises. Just okay.

So just want to I always thought it was a minimum of 20 minutes per day. But yeah, I’m hearing you say it’s a total of 20 minutes per week.

Yes, when you do this, exercises, the smarter exercises don’t take long and you start at 20 minutes per week. And then once you can move more than you move more, and believe me after a while you crave the movement, you crave activity. Just to give you an example I was never I never exercised in my life where I would exercise, I would stop and I would do something else. And I would stop. And I was like that my entire life. My parents didn’t really promote a lot of sports in my family. And I live, I come from a big, big city in that big city, there’s no places where you can actually go for a walk. So you know, right now, it’s not even safe to go anywhere. So I did not exercise for the life of me. And finally, I finally I decided, you know what, I have to do something. So I got myself I invested in an elliptical, which is in the worst part of my house, because it’s in the middle of everything. But you know what, I do my elliptical nowadays, 20 minutes a day, as you said before, and if I don’t do it, I crave it. And the way the way I got hooked to it was, I had to do it for 30 days without stopping doing it. And I got it became a habit in just a month. And now if I don’t do it, oh, I feel like I’m missing something.

So you start out with because this sounds very similar to what a journey that I had and how I ultimately ended up being coming in Ironman triathlete was I just slowly started introducing exercise into my, into my week. And then it got to the point where I was doing it daily. And it’s exactly what you said, you actually crave it. Like, why am I sitting here when I could be moving?

I do crave it, you crave it. For short walk, you know, you end up craving it, you crave it. And your body’s asking you for it. It’s something Yeah, but it doesn’t just start just like that. Right. So Oh, yeah. Wow. Eating a habit. Absolutely.

Excellent. So there’s, I’m just going to there’s a little bit of tenacity involved in this the balance word Yes, sir. Yen is for good night’s sleep. Like night sleeping, quantity and quality extremely important. Not only the quantity of sleep has decreased, the quality of sleep has decreased. And just to give you an idea, just think about it. If you are working your computer and to relate, turn off the computer and go to bed. Your brain is going to take at least an hour to shut off. It is the worst thing you can actually do have the kids are like, oh yeah, let’s watch the movie, turn it off, go to sleep. That doesn’t work. Imagine the amount of information that’s coming through your brain. You need to stop, turn off all electronics at least an hour before you go to sleep. happen. Half an hour to an hour even for little kids an hour is awesome. For little kids were forgetting about you know, reading in bed or a bedtime story for the little kids. It’s so important to do that, that. I would totally encourage that. To go back into creating a routine. And then the C the C comes from clean water. Water is what we drink. Water is what I crave my body craves water. People ask me Oh, would you like you know when we go out and stuff? Do you? Would you like some wine? Or would you like some tea or coffee or whatever? Nope. All I want is water. And if I don’t have the amount of water that I need, by three o’clock, I’m exhausted. I am really tired. If you feel tired by three o’clock in the afternoon, I can guarantee you something you’re dehydrated. You need to have water. And I know people love coffee. Especially over the holidays people I don’t know why people like hot chocolate and coffee. Well, at least coffee dehydrates you. So for every cup of coffee that you have an extra glass of water.

An extra glass of water. Yes. So does. Okay. So let me ask you this, because this is something I want to know. So I’m going to ask Does the type does your body type determine how much water you require? Or is that consistent regardless of your body type?

No, that is that’s independent of your body type. Okay, so that you need of course very easy. If it’s hard if you’re sweating, if you’re exercising if you’re sedentary, if you’re you know like nowadays here in Canada, we have all this heat coming off. And that really dehydrates you. So, in short, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter really what your body type is, if you’re a protein or carbohydrate, you still need to drink water. eight cups of water a day is the ideal.

eight cups, eight cups or so. Question then about toxicity and stuff like that. At what, how do you feel about bottled water versus filtered water versus tap water?

Whoa, that’s a whole different topic. Just about water. But here you go. Short, short. Okay, tap water contains a lot of chlorine. And in many places in Canada, I found out a lot of fluoride. That is not good for us. That’s not good for good for normal flora. So tap water is not ideal for people that can’t afford filtered water. There are many filters out there in the market. There are filters that get rid of the chlorine and fluoride and many organic chemic chemicals. There are filters that get rid of microorganisms, there’s a whole bunch of things about filters, but try to get the best filter, you can, Brita for example, Brita filters, get rid of some chlorine and some things but it doesn’t get rid of a lot of things. There is a lot of information about Gabor filters. So as I said, that’s a whole different topic. But definitely filtered with filter water would be the best. The and bottled water, it’s very interesting because we have bottled water in plastic. So environmentally, that is a huge, huge risk. And let me tell you why. Because as soon as the plastic is warmed up or hits, the light starts degrading. And when you start degrading starts leaching things inside the water. So we are drinking water that is not pure water, we’re drinking water with a lot of contaminants that we cannot recognize. The other day, we went to a party and I forgot my bottled water and I’m like, oh my gosh, well, somebody gave me a bottle of water and I was really thirsty. So I had it, I could not believe the taste of it, I could taste the chemicals in it from the plastic. So it’s not the water that is bottled is the plastic that the words are bottled in. And they’re cheap plastics that are out there in the market. So that is definitely a huge environmental problem. And the only way to decrease it is filtering your water and carry your water around, I usually use a glass jar to carry my water around instead of plastic. Stainless steel is not that bad. Never use an aluminum bottle. And, and avoid plastic at all at all cost. So in short, that’s very short. But permission about it.

No, that’s great, because, because, like me, I was traveling quite a bit and I didn’t want to be drinking pop and I don’t drink Coke. Or you know, or I mean coffee and tea and stuff like that. I try to avoid that. But when I’m driving, when I’m driving or traveling, I end up drinking more bottled water. So it’s for those of us who are traveling and who may normally use filtered water and going to a place where they don’t have filters. It’s just it’s a good conversation to have, especially around the holiday season. So it’s really cool. Really, really cool. So what does e stand for?

The E stands for the B E for health. So when we eat for health, we basically what people learn through our programs is that they learned to eat less junk food and eat more real food and buy more real food. We concentrate mainly on vegetables, and protein and good fats. And we decrease the amount of sugar intake our food pyramid actually separates the fruit from the vegetables just because most of our diet should be on green vegetables. And I am so addicted to those right now that I basically consumed them at every meal. And people asked me how do you have you know vegetables for breakfast? Oh my god, they’re so good. They’re so good just but a whole bunch of spinach and this morning I made I made eggs with spinach and zucchini and tomato and celery and I love that and then at noon I made soup with whatever vegetables I could find I had purple potatoes, I had carrots, celery, broccoli, whatever, whatever you have green beans, and I made soup. And basically that was my lunch or I make some for dinners or and at dinner time we always have salads or soups or stews or something with lots of vegetables. So how do people ask me how do you increase the number of vegetables that you eat? And I have a really good tip for you guys. One is I usually what I do when I set the table is the first thing that comes first are the vegetables. So there are always vegetables on the table before I, I’ve prepared dinner. And it’s so funny how the kids, you know, just when dinnertime comes, they start getting hungry. And so they want something to eat. So I always tell them, you know what, start, you know, you can start with those things that are on the table. So my kids used to have a lot of vegetables before we even sat down. And a lot of times, you know, the tomatoes, the cucumbers, the carrots, were all gone. And people would ask me, oh, but, you know, how did they how do they do that? I’m like, Well, it’s simple, if you’re hungry, and that’s what’s available. And for the, for the, for the holidays, don’t take out the cookies, first thing, put the cookies away, just start them with snacks of vegetables, they will have enough vegetables, and then give them a cookie when the by the time cookies come, they’re going to be they’re not going to be as hungry. They might have one or two. And that’s it. So there’s a lot of things you can actually do over the holidays there. For my teens, I just love opening the fridge and finding something ready to eat. So having those veggies ready just for grabbing, it’s really good. It’s really simple. It doesn’t take long, I just, you know, usually have several things, but whenever they open the fridge, they’re ready to eat, instead of looking for things that they’re not supposed to. So you can definitely survive the holidays with that.

Can we talk a little bit more? I’m hearing a little bit background. So sorry about that. People? Can you hear it as well? At least? Yeah, yeah, I can hear you.

Okay, so I’m just hearing a bit of feedback. So can we talk just we’ve got about 10 to 12 minutes left. So I really want to kind of talk about the food that’s good to eat during this time, and how can we make it fun and exciting during the holiday season and still feel like we’re, we’re treating ourselves. It took some fun, but also respecting our body. And really, you know, letting our body know that we respect it as well.

Sure, um, say for example, I’ll just put you an example. Because I think it’s a lot easier for people to understand that, you know, during the holiday season, there’s parties, you go to parties, and then you start, you know, you eat a lot of sugars and stuff like that. Something that you can actually do is if you were if you had a meal that was not very healthy, say the night before, with a lot of starches in it, a lot of sugar in it. Next morning, do try to attempt to eat vegetables. And the next day try to attempt to put in the vegetables whenever possible during the holiday season. In our program, we call something for example, for cookies and sweets, we call those sometimes food. And sometimes food is a little bit more prominent over the holidays. But they don’t need to be the way we need to feel our body through the holidays. I truly believe that it’s not impossible to switch to eating real food, real protein, beans and stuff. There’s a lot of vegetable proteins out there that can be that can be used and consumed over the holidays.

Based on a few of those, do you mind? Caz not everyone understood? Not some of our listeners may not understand that they can get protein outside of meats, or they’re aware of it, but they don’t know what to look for. So what would be some of the items when they’re in the grocery store? Could they look for sure, if you go grocery shopping, you’re going to find that there are a lot of things that that have proteins, which are from a vegetable origin, and they are called seeds. Within seeds. You find all the legumes so all the beans, the garbanzo beans, black beans, or pinto beans, all of all of those beans are full of protein. Lentils are excellent, excellent sources of protein. They have a lot of vitamin B in them. You can also even vegetables do have some protein in them as well, but it’s more concentrated in seeds. And its super food that we actually have nowadays is quinoa, quinoa, which comes from the Andes in South America. Quinoa is actually a superfood because it contains a lot of protein. It’s a seed, it’s not a grain, it’s a seed so it contains way more protein than simple carbohydrates. So that’s really good to consume as well. And what else can What else can be of animal origin? It’s mainly, I’m sorry of plant origin. It’s mainly seeds, whatever seeds you can consume, they contain a huge amount of protein. So, yeah, so a bag of sunflower seeds,

a bag of sunflower seeds, absolutely sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, any types of seeds. Chia seeds are extremely good because they have a lot of oil. Hemp seeds have a lot of good oils. There is a lot out there in the market nowadays that has, I have a question about almonds and nuts and peanuts with those are those fats or those proteins, they have both proteins and fats that make borders, right. So when you’re in a bar, you’re taking all the oils out of the peanuts, just I for people that love peanut butter, I highly recommend you take a look at the label. And make sure that you’re that your peanut butter does not have sugar added. That will be the best thing about peanut butter. But almond butter is very it’s very good nowadays. And almonds, you can use almonds for baking as well. Almond milk for baking. It’s high in protein. And it’s not it’s very, it’s actually very good. When I make now my cookies, I have transformed my cookies from using wheat flour to now using almond meal or adding a little bit of rice, rice or coconut flour. And those are way more nutritious than just a wheat with a wheat. Cookie.

Would you be willing to share that recipe with me? So I can post it for everyone who’s listening?

Oh, absolutely. I’ll email you a really nice recipe. Yeah.

Awesome. So everyone, we’re getting a free recipe for Christmas. It’s going to be great. Yes. Um, yeah, I like what you’re sharing is just, it’s so much more than just what food we’re putting in our mouth. Like it’s absolutely astounding what we can do to influence our lifestyle and how we can move into the holiday season, knowing that we can empower ourselves in more than one way.

Oh, absolutely. And the responses we have seen in our participants and the families that we have worked with. It’s what can I tell you? It’s amazing. We have definitely seen people or families with increased energy, improved digestion, regulation of blood sugar levels, they’re managing their stress a lot better. And for me, the big one is balancing moods, we definitely have seen that in families, in kids, in teens in everyone. It impacts everything, doesn’t it like the value the benefit of choosing just to enjoy, just to, you know, change, introduce a little more laughter in play and start doing 20 minutes a week. We can do that people you spend more time in that in the Tim Hortons line?

Yeah, just think about it. I mean, you’re going to go Christmas shopping, you’re going to spend more time just the lines that you will do moving and exercising? Yeah, absolutely.

So, you know, we never really touched on it. But you’re you obviously have a huge passion for helping families and kids. Where does that come from? For you? What, what really what strikes your heart so close when it comes to this because you can hear it when you’re talking?

Well, I think it’s my Latin blood coming from Mexico family is extremely important. I’m so passionate about, about kids, you know, because I don’t know if you have heard the news. But it’s very serious that these, these a generation of kids are going to live is the first generation that are going to live less than their parents. So by the time kids’ little kids are my age, they’re going to feel like they’re 85 years old. And that if we can change that, now when they’re younger, and we can empower them to you know, to be better, like at a very young age, I think we can make an impact. And I am so thrilled about sharing this with the world that I am actually translating the whole program into Spanish, which will be available in January online. I want to impact every single Spanish speaking person in this planet and believe me, we’re a lot of Spanish speaking people in the planet. It would just it just amazing the results we’re going to get. I’m really excited about it.

I’m so excited for you and I remember you know, it’s just such a to bring this this concept in this idea into a whole mother country that that It’s into your home country is just absolutely. So, so amazing, at least Yeah. And to share it with everyone here too. I just, I just think you’re the greatest woman.

Thank you. I think the same of you, you know, that tenacity. That’s both of us, right?

Yes. So we’ve got just a couple more minutes left Alesia, you know, I’ve just absolutely, this whole hour, I can’t believe we’ve only got a few minutes left. How do people find out about you? How, where can they find you?

You can find me at my website, www dot nature’s heal.ca You can also email me at Lisa at Nature’s heal.ca We are really working together with another group. You can also find us at www imbalanced. lm.com Send us an email, you know, tell us if you’re interested. We offer online courses in English and very, very soon in Spanish for kids, families, adults, corporations, whoever is willing to join us in this movement in the world. You definitely can find answers. So I really hope to hear from you guys.

I’m so excited. I’m looking at your website right now the nature the nature’s heels. And you can click here to download for free recipe booklet got free smoothie recipes. Got a whole you got a whole bunch of articles. Oh, there’s one on water people. You’ll want to read that.

There’s more coming. There’s definitely more coming.

It’s great. So natures heal. So an t u r e s h e a l.ca? Yeah, yes. Oh, it’s just to have anything else when anything you’d like to leave our listeners one takeaway that you hope that they get from all of this? Well,

I just want to tell everybody, express your gratitude over the holidays. Be thankful for the body that you were created in and take care of it.

Thank you so much, Alicia, your thanks for having me over. And we’ll have a pleasure and an honor to be in this in this with you.