7 Myths About Health You Can Easily Avoid

Table of Contents

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Real-Life Insights and Takaways

  • Myth #1: You are never allowed to eat any carbs, breads, rice, or foods you are used to eating.

    • In reality, SANE is not a set prescription. You can eat more or less healthily depending upon your goals.
    • Eat the carbohydrates that give you the most vitamins and minerals, which would be non-starchy vegetables.
    • Eat whatever you want on the spectrum. If you are eating a certain way and you are getting the results you want, then you are making a choice that works for you.
  • Myth #2: You have to eat a lot of meat.

    • The preferred source of protein is seafood. You can achieve optimal SANEity without ever eating meat if you just eat seafood.
    • Protein is beneficial in weight loss because it satisfies and helps with lean tissue. Something is a good source of protein if it has more protein than other things, like carbohydrates or fats.
    • You can pick anything you’d like from the protein list: Eat 3-6 servings of 20-40 grams of protein per day depending upon your activity level. How you do that is completely up to you.
    • The goal of SANEity is to make you feel good. If there is something that doesn’t make you feel good, then focus on other sources of protein that work for you.
  • Myth #3: You have to eat protein bars and protein powders.

    • Protein bars and powders are convenient ways to get protein into your diet, but they are not necessary.
    • We should seek protein sources from nature first, but they may not always be available or easily accessible, and in those situations we can opt for a protein bar or powder.
    • Be sure to choose a protein bar with minimal and quality ingredients.
    • We can weigh the options and consider our situation. If we are in the airport and there are only unhealthy options available, a protein bar is a great choice.
  • Myth #4: You are only allowed to exercise a few times a week.

    • You should be as active as possible and enjoy the activities you love.
    • It is physically impossible to do SANE eccentric exercise often.
  • Myth #5: SANE is a lifestyle that just won’t work for everyone.

    • The goal of SANE is to share what science shows are the foods that will provide you with the most of what you need to thrive and the least of what is addictive and toxic.
    • We can change the quality of our food bit by bit and make it work for our own families.
    • Sometimes we have to decide, “What’s more important? This or that?” For example, some cars are safer than other cars, but we decide what is best for ourselves/our families.
    • Do the best you can with what you have. As you start making better choices and feeling better, you start to place more value on what you eat.
    • Whatever your situation, there is always a way to eat more SANEly.
  • Myth #6: You are not relatable.

    • The more outstanding of an individual you are, you are more than likely less relatable.
    • Just smile and laugh about other’s reactions to your eating habits. Others may follow your lead.
    • When others see the benefits and results in your life, they are going to ask you what you are doing.
    • Let the results speak for themselves.
  • Myth #7: You will never have any fun or variety in your diet ever again.

    • If you cheat on something, it means you are not satisfied with your choice.
    • Fatty, salty, savory, sweet, bitter—all of those flavors are completely enjoyable within a SANE lifestyle. All the flavors you love are still there for you, you are just doing it smarter.
    • You can eat delicious food that feels like an indulgence without feeling horrible afterward.
  • Invest in yourself and your health and you will find that the returns are phenomenal.

—NEXT ACTION—
Learn to make one SANE meal that your whole family loves. Take ten minutes and find a recipe that you think your family will enjoy. You could also take a family staple that everyone loves and find a way to make it SANE.

Reflection Questions

  • What are the best kind of carbs to eat?
  • Can I live SANEly if I don’t like to eat meat?
  • Do I have to eat protein bars or protein powders if I go SANE?
  • How should I exercise when living a SANE lifestyle?
  • How can I make SANE work for my situation?
  • What if going SANE makes me different from everyone else?
  • Will eating SANEly keep me from enjoying all the flavors I love?

SANE Soundbites

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  • 2:04 – 2:33, “It’s only reasonable for people to think that because there are things in life—like you can’t be kind of pregnant, right? You either are or you aren’t. You also can’t be kind of vegetarian, right? If you eat a little bit of meat you are not a vegetarian. SANE isn’t like that. Call it Healthy 2.0. You can eat more or less healthily. It’s a spectrum. So you can eat more or less SANEly.”
  • 4:22 -4:51, “…as I was reading the book, The Calorie Myth, I realized, vegetables are carbs and you are eating way more vegetables than anyone has ever encouraged you to eat before. I’m not eating a low-carb diet, I’m just eating a different kind of carb. And I think that is just one of the things I want to say is when people come to me and say, “So, you’re not allowed to eat any carbs?” I say, “Never mind, you can eat whatever you want. You don’t have to eat this way but if you want to eat most SANEly, you’re going to get your carbs mostly from non-starchy vegetables.”
  • 5:20 – 5:42, “Hey, I try to eat the carbohydrates that give me the most vitamins and minerals.” It’s pretty hard to argue with that, right? I try to eat the proteins that give me the most vitamins and minerals. And I try to eat the fats that give me the most vitamins and minerals. So you can eat whatever you want. It’s a spectrum. And if you want to eat the most nutrient-dense carbs we can show you how to do that.”
  • 5:42 – 6:07, “I love, too, how you are saying if you are eating a certain way and you are getting the results that you want—you are energetic, you are feeling great, your blood work is good, you feel great—okay, then you don’t have to change anything. But I love the invitation –if you are not getting the results that you want, let’s try going more toward the SANEst side of the spectrum, which is going to be more vegetables for your carbs.”
  • 7:19 – 7:46, “If you actually read anything about SANity, it tells you the preferred source of protein is seafood. Grass-fed meats are great, but the preferred source of protein in a SANE lifestyle is seafood. So, bottom line, you could actually achieve optimal SANity, not just SANE—if you were after perfect SANity, technically, being a pescatarian, meaning that you actually don’t eat meat but you do eat fish, you could achieve the golden standard of SANity without ever eating meat.”
  • 8:38 – 9:13, “Protein is extremely important to not only human health but if your goal is weight loss, increasing your consumption of protein is unequivocally beneficial because it is so highly satisfying and it will support you maintaining your lean tissue while burning off fat tissue. So the first thing that would be very important is things that people will consider sources of protein just mathematically are not good sources of protein. So, beans and nuts—very simply, something is a good source of protein if it has more protein in it than it has other things.”
  • 10:22 – 10:46, “The key part of a SANE lifestyle is eating between three to six 20-40 gram servings of protein throughout the day, depending on your goals, depending on your size, depending on your activity level, because that is really going to help your body heal itself. How you do that is completely up to you. There are a bunch of different sources. You can eat none of some of them, all of some of them, totally up to you.”
  • 12:04 – 12:35, “So clearly, the goal of SANity is to make you feel good and to live well. We talk about spinach a lot. Well, there are some people that have problems with oxalates, which are very high in spinach, so they are not going to eat spinach. So, for Spencer, or for anyone else out there, if they eat turkey it makes their eyes explode (laughs), or some other unexpected result—if egg whites do the trick for you try egg whites. If Greek yogurt makes you break out in hives, stop eating Greek yogurt, and find a different source of protein.”
  • 14:06 – 14:30, “They are unequivocably the most healthy protein bars and protein powders out there, but would I tell you to eat them in place of eating food you find directly in nature? Absolutely not. Will you always have access to food you find directly in nature? No. So, instead of eating garbage that you are going to buy at the airport, it might be a little bit better to eat a SANE meal bar.”
  • 16:10 – 16:43, “Now, when it comes to the type of exercise I recommend, you are welcome to try to do it frequently, it is just physically impossible to do it frequently. If you lift heavy weight, it is physically impossible to lift that same amount of weight the next day. It is just not how your body works. So again, just five minutes into the actual “what SANE eating and eccentric exercise is” clarifies this, and that there is activity which you should do as much as you can of, and then there is smarter eccentric exercise that is just physically impossible to do a lot of.”
  • 19:03 – 19:35, “The goal of SANE is to just tell you what science shows are the foods that will provide you with the most of what you need to thrive and the least of what is addictive and toxic. That is what SANE will do for you. SANE isn’t the most cost-effective way to eat, nor does it claim to be, nor should it. That’s a totally different thing. That’s a totally different goal. That’s what SANE can offer for you.”
  • 20:51 – 21:26, “But it has just been neat to see how I think the goal of every family is to eat so that the food isn’t going to kill us. I don’t think that there is anyone who would disagree with that. Yes, there are more fine-tuned goals there, but if we are eating the foods that are going to help us to be healthy, that can apply to everyone. Now, is everyone going to want to eat the exact same SANE foods with you, and eat a big salad with me at lunch? Well, no, they might not want to eat all of that, but as our family moves closer and closer and closer to being SANE together, I’ve been really impressed to see how it can apply to everyone in the family.”
  • 22:56 – 23:24, “…we want to acknowledge, if you are just trying to make ends meet and you really cannot afford a certain amount of—your grocery budget is really limited—then you do the best you can with what you have. And then what you are going to find, though, is that as you do the best you can with what you have, and as you start feeling better, and as you start making wiser choices, pretty soon you start putting more value on food than you do on fancier shoes, or whatever else it is.”
  • 27:35 – 27:57, “…once you see these results, which you will, it’s just science, people are going to say, “What are you doing? And how can I do it?” You see someone who looks completely different and acts completely different and thinks completely different, and “you’re crazy” quickly goes away. If you can just keep it a secret long enough to just let the results speak for themselves, it becomes a lot easier.”
  • 28:44 – 29:02, “There are a certain number of flavors, right? There is fatty, salty, savory, sweet, bitter—all of those flavors are completely enjoyable within a SANE lifestyle. I eat sweet things every day, I eat salty things every day, I eat fatty things every single day. So all the flavors you love are still there for you, you are just doing it smarter.”
  • 29:57 – 30:27, “Now, is it a little bit of a change in your taste? Yes it is, but there are some things that I have been making, like this Greek yogurt that has peanut butter and vanilla and some stevia in it, and I feel like I’m eating ice cream in the morning for breakfast. It was so good, and I get kind of giddy when I’m eating it. So I think it might seem initially like there is no variety or there is no fun, but that just means that there is something you don’t know yet. And then you can research that and find that it really can be fun.”
  • 31:34 – 32:04, “Stretch goal is to learn to make one SANE meal that your whole family loves, that tastes good, that doesn’t cost a lot, that’s pretty easy to prepare—that’s your stretch goal. And you might think, “Well, is that even possible?” Yes, it totally is possible—it might take a little bit of research. And the next action for this is to take ten minutes, go online and start doing a search. Sanesolution.com has a Pinterest board with a thousand and one recipes that are SANE. You can go check those out.”
  • 32:33 – 33:00, “And honestly, when you are willing to invest a little bit of time, you are going to find that the results are really exciting and I just want to encourage people not to just say, “Well, if you don’t have it just ready for me right this second, if I can’t just find it in five seconds and pop it in the microwave in three minutes, then I’m not doing it.” Well, you get the return on your investment. So when you invest time and energy and effort, you are going to be able to find some pretty great things to eat and enjoy for your whole family.”

7 myths about health

Jonathan: Hey, Jonathan Bailor here, and welcome to the SANE show, where starvation isn’t healthy, where the dinner table is for family and food, not calorie-counting and math, and where we eat more to burn more and heal ourselves so that we can enjoy radically more vibrant and fulfilling lives. Oh yes, and the SANE show is brought to you by not a bunch of advertisements. Instead, we would love to help you save time and money getting the healthiest and most healthful super foods on the planet delivered to your doorstep at store.SANEsolution.com.

Hey, what’s going on everybody? Jonathan Bailor and April Perry back with another SANE show and this is actually going to be a continuation and a more concrete version of our last show because today we are going to go over seven reasons that people think going SANE is crazy, versus the amorphous metaphysical reasons we talked about last time.

April: If you haven’t heard that podcast yet go back and listen. It’s a great foundation.

Jonathan: Alright, April. So, what is our first of seven reasons that people think SANE eating is crazy that we can help folks with?

April: Number one is that you are never allowed to eat any carbs or bread or rice–anything that you are used to eating. Now, I want to start out with the word allowed, because this is something that I have loved in getting to know your philosophy on this is, most people think that when you start going SANE this prescription is a box you are stuffing in, you now have someone to look over you who is telling you what you can and cannot do. “Does Jonathan allow you to eat this? Does Jonathan allow you to eat that?” I hear that all the time. And so, what do you have to say to that, Jonathan?

Jonathan: It’s only reasonable for people to think that because there are things in life—like you can’t be kind of pregnant, right? You either are or you aren’t. You also can’t be kind of vegetarian, right? If you eat a little bit of meat you are not a vegetarian. SANE isn’t like that. Call it Healthy 2.0. You can eat more or less healthily. It’s a spectrum. So you can eat more or less SANEly. Like a ketogenic diet, for example. You are only on a ketogenic diet if your body is in a state of ketosis. It’s binary. It’s black or white. It’s not bad, it’s just that’s not what SANE is. SANE is a spectrum. So saying, “You are not allowed to do something”–it is not even a complete sentence. Now, if your goal is to be perfectly SANE…

April: Eating optimal sources, then you wouldn’t be eating a lot of those carbs.

Jonathan: Exactly. But it is never that you are not allowed, it would just be it is not compatible with the goals that you are after. That is the first key distinction. The second is we have to delineate bread and rice from carbs because actually, the number one most important thing that you could do if you are trying to be SANer is to eat more of a certain kind of carb, and that is nonstarchy vegetables. Nonstarchy vegetables are carbs. Most people don’t realize that.

April: I never knew that until you said it.

Jonathan: Most people—this is actually a cool thing—in your mind, most people think of protein as meat and fish or eggs.

April: And fat. And beans. Most people put those into protein, too.

Jonathan: Yes, they sort of have a concrete view of what they think meat and fish are—it’s protein. And like fat—“Butter is a fat, yada yada yada. Bread is a carb, rice is a carb.” But then you ask them, “What is a vegetable? How does it fit in the three macronutrients?” “Vegetables? I don’t know.”

April: I love that because I was always afraid of something like a low-carb diet. I didn’t’ want to label myself as something. And so, as I was reading the book, The Calorie Myth, I realized, vegetables are carbs and you are eating way more vegetables than anyone has ever encouraged you to eat before. I’m not eating a low-carb diet, I’m just eating a different kind of carb.

And I think that is just one of the things I want to say is when people come to me and say, “So, you’re not allowed to eat any carbs?” I say, “Never mind, you can eat whatever you want. You don’t have to eat this way but if you want to eat most SANEly, you’re going to get your carbs mostly from nonstarchy vegetables.” That typically solves it and then we can go on. Anything else you want to say on point number one, though?

Jonathan: The key thing is it’s not about low-carb, high-carb. It’s actually not about low-protein or high-protein either, and that ties into some of the other stuff, when we talk about low-fat or high-fat. Honestly, the easiest way to describe this to another human being or another nonhuman being—for example, if you are speaking to your cat or your dog (laughs)—just say something like, “Hey, I try to eat the carbohydrates that give me the most vitamins and minerals.” It’s pretty hard to argue with that, right? I try to eat the proteins that give me the most vitamins and minerals. And I try to eat the fats that give me the most vitamins and minerals. So you can eat whatever you want. It’s a spectrum. And if you want to eat the most nutrient-dense carbs we can show you how to do that.

April: And I love, too, how you are saying if you are eating a certain way and you are getting the results that you want—you are energetic, you are feeling great, your blood work is good, you feel great—okay, then you don’t have to change anything. But I love the invitation –if you are not getting the results that you want, let’s try going more toward the SANEst side of the spectrum, which is going to be more vegetables for your carbs. Sound good?

Jonathan: I love it. What is number two? We just cranked through number one.

April: Number two is that you have to eat a lot of meat. Now, I actually have a canned response in my email just to answer this question because I get it from pretty much every friend I’ve ever met in my whole life that is now emailing me and saying, “Hey, April, I’m hearing your podcast with Jonathan, I’ve been checking out all this stuff you have for SANE families. What are you doing about all this meat? I don’t want to eat all this meat? How are you doing this? I know you don’t like to eat a lot of meat either.”

And so, that’s just a question that is coming in so commonly. So one is just for people who don’t want to eat a low of meat. Number two, I actually got an email from a mom named Amber and she said, “I have a child with severe allergies to dairy and nuts. Can you talk about how to live SANE without meat, eggs or dairy?” So maybe we should take the first part of the question as far as having to eat a lot of meat.

Jonathan: Absolutely, we should start there, because some people actually ask me, “What’s the difference between SANE and Paleo?” And the most easy difference is—Paleo has become very diverse in its definition over the past three years—but anyway, when a lot of people think of Paleo they think of eating a lot of meat. If you actually read anything about SANity, it tells you the preferred source of protein is seafood. Grass-fed meats are great, but the preferred source of protein in a SANE lifestyle is seafood.

So, bottom line, you could actually achieve optimal SANity, not just SANE—if you were after perfect SANity, technically, being a pescatarian, meaning that you actually don’t eat meat but you do eat fish, you could achieve the golden standard of SANity without ever eating meat. So that’s the answer.

April: Yes, I think that’s brilliant. And this is another thing that I have added for people is, when you look at the list and you get kind of more animal products and so it’s things like plain Greek yogurt or low-fat or fat-free cottage cheese, we have eggs, of course fish—I’ll do tuna or salmon patties or things like that. So, in essence, I could eat eggs for breakfast, have some tuna for lunch and have Greek yogurt and salmon for dinner, and I am not eating really red meat or chicken, and a lot of time people are good with fish and eggs—everyone kind of has their own opinion.

But if you are trying to get this protein, protein is important to the SANE diet. So we need to talk a little bit about that, because what if someone says, “I just don’t want to eat meat,” or “I have an allergy to nuts, eggs,” these types of things. What do you suggest?

Jonathan: Protein is extremely important to not only human health but if your goal is weight loss, increasing your consumption of protein is unequivocally beneficial because it is so highly satisfying and it will support you maintaining your lean tissue while burning off fat tissue. So the first thing that would be very important is things that people will consider sources of protein just mathematically are not good sources of protein. So, beans and nuts—very simply, something is a good source of protein if it has more protein in it than it has other things.

And let me be very clear about that. If a food is 70% carbohydrate you’re going to have to eat a whole lot of carbs in your effort to get protein. So, imagine, white rice has protein in it. Everything has protein in it. But if you were trying to eat 30 grams’ worth of protein from rice, you would have to eat a couple of thousand calories’ worth of rice. Everything has protein in it, the question is how much protein does it have in it relative to other things? So, when we say good sources of protein, or nutrient-dense sources of protein, we’re identifying things that have more protein then they have carbohydrate or fat. And that is actually a relatively short, easy to think of list. It is meat, fish, egg whites because whole eggs are actually more fat—that doesn’t mean that they’re bad, it doesn’t mean that they’re bad, no one freak out on the Internet.

And then there are certain forms of dairy which have more protein in it than anything else. So, you can pick anything you want from that list. It isn’t like you have to eat all of them. The key part of a SANE lifestyle is eating between three to six 20-40 gram servings of protein throughout the day, depending on your goals, depending on your size, depending on your activity level, because that is really going to help your body heal itself. How you do that is completely up to you. There are a bunch of different sources. You can eat none of some of them, all of some of them, totally up to you.

April: Before we go on to number three, I’m going to give you a case study, because I’m actually in this situation. I have one child who has a hard time eating protein—Spencer. He is eight. When he eats meats he says his stomach hurts. He can do eggs, but he just has a really hard time, he doesn’t like it. He says, “It makes me feel sick.” So, I’m not going to force him to be eating the regular protein, that type of thing, because it makes him feel sick. So, what would you do to help your child be on the SANE end of the spectrum if you are not giving them a lot of those things, if they have an allergy, or some sickness, or something like that?

Jonathan: For the long-time SANE listeners out there, they know one of the key things about protein is that it is inefficient, meaning it is the E in SANE. SANE stands for something. It is not just a marketing term, it’s an acronym. So, the E in efficiency means that protein actually is the hardest of the three macronutrients for your body to digest. That is why, for example, if you are someone who is very old and you are having a hard time with your digestive system, you are not to be eating a whole lot of protein. If you are a newborn infant they structure when they introduce certain foods because of your digestive system, so on and so forth.

So clearly, the goal of SANity is to make you feel good and to live well. We talk about spinach a lot. Well, there are some people that have problems with oxalates, which are very high in spinach, so they are not going to eat spinach. So, for Spencer, or for anyone else out there, if they eat turkey it makes their eyes explode (laughs), or some other unexpected result—if egg whites do the trick for you try egg whites. If Greek yogurt makes you break out in hives, stop eating Greek yogurt, and find a different source of protein.

And if there are none, if you go through the whole list, I would recommend seeing a nutritionist or some sort of food allergist specialist, because if you have no source of meat, fish, egg white or dairy that your body doesn’t react to in some sort of unusual way, there might actually be something else going on, because that is pretty uncommon when you look at the historical record of people and what people ate. So that might be something to check out.

April: Okay. Well, we won’t go too deep into that, but just kind of building on that is number three, which I’ve actually received emails about—I’m just going through my email now and telling you all the things I’m getting (laughs)—that you have to eat protein bars or protein powders. I’ve had someone email me and say, “I am so angry you are supporting SANE because it is all unnatural foods. Jonathan wants you to eat protein bars and protein powders and I’m not going to do that to myself.” So what do you say? Is that crazy? (laughs)

Jonathan: (laughs) No, of course you don’t have to eat protein bars and powders. There are convenient ways to get additional protein into your lifestyle but there are going to be people who are going to say everything is crazy. There are people that claim that certain celebrities and politicians have done and said things that are completely false. Like this is just completely false. Now, do I sell protein powders and protein bars? Yes, I absolutely do.

April: And they are low-sugar, and they are high-protein.

Jonathan: They are unequivocably the most healthy protein bars and protein powders out there, but would I tell you to eat them in place of eating food you find directly in nature? Absolutely not. Will you always have access to food you find directly in nature? No. So, instead of eating garbage that you are going to buy at the airport, it might be a little bit better to eat a SANE meal bar.

April: Love that. Okay, crazy reason number four is that you are only allowed to exercise a couple of times a week. This is one I’ve heard from so many people because the front of your book says, “Eat more, exercise less,” people are like, “Jonathan only wants me to exercise twice a week. Doesn’t he know our bodies need to move? Doesn’t he know that we need to be active? Why would he want to slow down my exercise?” So, what do you have to say about that?

Jonathan: This goes into the category of things Jonathan has never actually said, which is great, actually. I recently came to the realization that the more times I hear this—actually it is a great sign that you are making a difference in the world because the more people who call you crazy or get angry about you, that shows that you are actually getting out there a little bit. There is actually a whole syndicate on the Internet which is like, “Jonathan Bailor says calories don’t matter at all and that you can eat 10,000 calories and not gain weight.”

Anyway, so this falls into that category, and the easy way to distinguish this is moving your body—standing up, I’m standing right now, I work at a standing desk, I walk as much as I can, like that is an exercise. There is a reason that when you walk from your car into the gym it’s not like, “Oh, that was great exercise.” You know in your brain that exercise is this very unnatural, deliberate thing that people only started doing, honestly, in the past 30 years. Go on the Internet and type in 1930s exercise and look at what exercise used to be [crosstalk 15:59]. Moving your body, playing with your kids, walking, standing—that’s not exercise, that is activity, and you should do as much of it as you possibly can.

Now, when it comes to the type of exercise I recommend, you are welcome to try to do it frequently, it is just physically impossible to do it frequently. If you lift heavy weight, it is physically impossible to lift that same amount of weight the next day. It is just not how your body works. So again, just five minutes into the actual “what SANE eating and eccentric exercise is” clarifies this, and that there is activity which you should do as much as you can of, and then there is smarter eccentric exercise that is just physically impossible to do a lot of.

April: So, if I want to go roller-blading every day, you are not trying to stop me, right?

Jonathan: No, I would encourage you to wear a helmet and wrist guards, but yes, absolutely.

April: I do, and my kids say, “Mom, please don’t skate by our school. Please don’t let anybody see you.” I look a little ridiculous. Okay, so that is number four.

Number five is, the reason SANE is crazy is because you are following a diet that just can’t work for everyone. And this is a direct quote from an email I got. She said, “Can you talk about grains and legumes in your diet? I’m really having a hard time seeing the SANE spectrum as applying to everyone. For example, if no one in your family has extra weight, if you barely have enough money to buy food, how does SANE apply?”

And I think this is such a good question, I was really excited to talk to you about it, because if people are thinking about eating SANEly and they have a family, which a lot of people do, and the question is, “Is this going to be something that only I am doing and everyone else is eating differently, how can I possibly get a whole family to eat SANEly?” I’m getting this question constantly. So, what do you have to say about that?

Jonathan: The key part of this question is the phrase, “Applying to everyone.” And that is really important because, for example, imagine that we tried to say, “Hey, for all athletes, I don’t care whether you are a shot-putter or a marathon runner, or a cross-country skier, this one exercise is the one exercise that everyone should do regardless of their goals.” And of course, that’s crazy. Or, “Here’s the one subject that everyone should study in school and if they study that they will be successful at any job they want, and that’s the only subject they need to study.” Everything in life is goal-specific. It’s always goal-specific.

The goal of SANE, for example, isn’t to avoid animal foods. That’s the goal of vegetarianism. The goal of SANE isn’t to put you into ketosis. That is the goal of low-carbs diets. The goal of SANE isn’t to eat like people eat in Mediterranean regions. That is the goal of the Mediterranean diet. The goal of SANE isn’t to be the least expensive way to eat. The goal of SANE is to just tell you what science shows are the foods that will provide you with the most of what you need to thrive and the least of what is addictive and toxic. That is what SANE will do for you. SANE isn’t the most cost-effective way to eat, nor does it claim to be, nor should it. That’s a totally different thing. That’s a totally different goal. That’s what SANE can offer for you.

April: One thing I’ve found, and I’m kind of excited about this, is that I looked at my grocery budget about a year-and-a-half ago and then I did some research on line and figured out how I could totally decrease my grocery budget by eating mainly greens—that’s kind of what we were doing and so we didn’t have that much produce, didn’t have that much protein, was able to lower my grocery budget. As I did that, I became more and more depressed (laughs) and more and more frustrated with my body and my exercise. I went SANE and initially had a big spike in my grocery budget, and then now I’ve been able to bring it back down to actually where it was about a year-and-a-half ago.

It’s been kind of interesting to see how that has happened, how I kind of looked at the different end of the spectrum and it’s kind of exciting lately when I check out at the grocery store because my husband just said, “April, what are you doing to our grocery budget? This is kind of crazy.” So I actually started paying closer attention and weighing things and it is just different, I’m buying different foods. I was actually able to make it totally manageable again, so that has been really exciting for me to see that we have been able to change the quality of our food. I’m not buying a lot of boxed foods, a lot of prepared stuff. We’re doing more of a chopping and cooking our own.

But it has just been neat to see how I think the goal of every family is to eat so that the food isn’t going to kill us. I don’t think that there is anyone who would disagree with that. Yes, there are more fine-tuned goals there, but if we are eating the foods that are going to help us to be healthy, that can apply to everyone. Now, is everyone going to want to eat the exact same SANE foods with you, and eat a big salad with me at lunch? Well, no, they might not want to eat all of that, but as our family moves closer and closer and closer to being SANE together, I’ve been really impressed to see how it can apply to everyone in the family.

Jonathan: Yes. For example, I think we could agree that there are cars that are safer than other cars. So, you could drive a 1988 garbage car that doesn’t have air bags and whose brakes are about to go out, and it is less expensive, but it is less safe. And at some point we just say, “What’s more important? This or that?” And you are exactly right. I spend less money on my grocery bill because I’ve been doing this for so long with so many people.

I mean, I’ll be transparent—I’m sort of tired of explaining how SANE can be something that is—here is what Sane is. SANE is just, “Here are the foods that provide you with the most nutrition and the least of everything else.” And grains and legumes are really cost-effective—they’re great. But they are not as good for you as vegetables. That’s all I’m saying. And that’s all SANE is saying. So eat whatever you want. Eat all the grains and legumes you want. And if you can’t find a way to make SANE cost-effective then just understand that you are choosing to save money on your grocery bill over the amount of vitamins and minerals and nontoxic stuff that your food is providing for you. And there are ways to make it cost-effective, but that’s not what SANE hangs its hat on.

April: Yes. And I think that’s brilliant. And I think, also, we want to acknowledge, if you are just trying to make ends meet and you really cannot afford a certain amount of—your grocery budget is really limited—then you do the best you can with what you have. And then what you are going to find, though, is that as you do the best you can with what you have, and as you start feeling better, and as you start making wiser choices, pretty soon you start putting more value on food than you do on fancier shoes, or whatever else it is. Because it is really interesting to hear someone say “I can’t afford that,” but then they go build a pool, or something like that. It’s very interesting when you watch people talk about what they can’t afford and what they can afford. So, I think that is a really good way to put it.

Jonathan: I will say just one last thing, and I know we are running short on time, but to me, you are exactly right. During the greatest recession that this country has ever seen since the Great Depression, the sales of i-Phones and other high-end electronic devices sky-rocketed. But I personally think the lack of availability of food—if you don’t have a refrigerator and you don’t have a stove, and you don’t have a place to buy fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, fish—that is the thing that is, to me, a really, really valid excuse.

We have food deserts in this country. If you are constantly traveling, that is the real sticking point. But I really think—like when I was at the University—there are ways that you can be SANE using canned forms of protein, using nuts as your primary food source. I bought rotisserie chickens like a champ when I was going through college because it was a great way to get protein and it was inexpensive. But I think the one excuse that is really, really valid, and I just want to give a disclaimer for folks, is that if you just can’t get at these foods, or if you have no place to store these foods, that is something that, as a culture, I think we need to address.

April: Yes, exactly. But there are still ways, wherever you are in your situation, there is always some way you can be more SANE, and I think that’s what we are working toward. So, it’s okay if you can’t eat just like Jonathan eats (laughs), but we’re moving toward that.

Reason number six. “You are not relatable.” Now, we talked about this in the previous episode, so we won’t cover this one in depth, but I was asking my daughter, “What are the reasons people say going SANE is crazy?” She is 15, she is a SANE champ out there, she is getting so many people to join, and she said, “People will come to me and say, ‘What are you doing? Well, what can you eat? Why are you weird?’” And so, I think we have covered that sufficiently in a previous episode in depth. Anything else, though, you would add to that?

Jonathan: I would just say, the more outstanding—and I use that word intentionally—the more outstanding of an individual you are, the less relatable you are. Gold medal winners—very nonrelatable. Nobel prize-winners—very nonrelatable. Not super-relatable people. But I’m sure if you met them, they’re probably nice, and then you would say, “Oh, okay, they are relatable, because actually I see below the surface.”

April: One story we have to tell before we move on to number seven. You told me about when you were on the football team in high school that you started to eat more healthfully and the reaction of your teammates wasn’t necessarily positive initially.

Jonathan: No, it wasn’t at all, and it continued to be that way even when I was at Microsoft. I would bring in my green smoothies in the refrigerator. “Oh, your green smoothies, you think you’re better than everybody.” And I would just say, “Yes, I’m silly, I’m crazy. You’re right, I’m crazy.” That’s another really easy way to deal with this is to agree with them. “Oh, yeah, I know, it’s crazy. I’m such a crazy guy, ha-ha-ha.”

And then pretty soon, there is a bunch of other green smoothies in the frig, and it was like the green smoothies had little baby green smoothies and they just started multiplying, because I think once folks got over the initial shock they thought, “Hmm, I know I should eat more vegetables, and Jonathan is able to just drink that in meetings and it seems pretty convenient. Hmm.” So just smile and say thank you and laugh about it and then you’re going to smile really big when in three months they just start doing it.

April: And you said it was kind of a similar thing when your football team, once they saw how fast you were and how it was affecting your athletic performance that they wanted to find out a little bit more about what you were eating, as well.

Jonathan: Yes, and it’s really good news, too, because once you see these results, which you will, it’s just science, people are going to say, “What are you doing? And how can I do it?” You see someone who looks completely different and acts completely different and thinks completely different, and “you’re crazy” quickly goes away. If you can just keep it a secret long enough to just let the results speak for themselves, it becomes a lot easier.

April: Okay, love that. Number seven, I’m actually excited to talk about this and we will close on a good high note. Number seven, the reason why people think SANE is crazy is because you will never have any fun, or any variety in your diet, ever again.” So, do you want to start? And I will share my little testimonial here?

Jonathan: Sure. The best example of this I can give is, I think the concept of cheat days is ridiculous because when you actually go SANE the way I write about and talk about it, you don’t—cheating means you are unsatisfied with what you are doing. When people cheat on their spouse they are cheating because they are not satisfied on some level. When someone cheats on their diet it is because their diet isn’t meeting their needs. There are a certain number of flavors, right? There is fatty, salty, savory, sweet, bitter—all of those flavors are completely enjoyable within a SANE lifestyle. I eat sweet things every day, I eat salty things every day, I eat fatty things every single day. So all the flavors you love are still there for you, you are just doing it smarter.

April: Love it. And you know, I’m so excited because we are recording this in the fall and we had some requests in our SANE families program. People were asking, “Hey, anything pumpkinish? What can you make that is pumpkin? I’m used to pumpkin bread.” Now, I used to make a pumpkin bread that, honestly, my one recipe, one batch had two cups of sugar, and I think a cup of vegetable oil, and loaded with chocolate chips. And I would eat like half a loaf. I’m totally embarrassed to say that, but I would. I loved pumpkin bread. And I had to give it away or else I would just eat the whole thing.

But we found these awesome pumpkin muffins using coconut flour, using coconut oil. They are delicious. Grated carrots—you can put those in there. They are delicious. And we have been so excited just seeing that there is such a variety, you just get online and start searching. And we have been just having people come together and sharing their favorite recipes and it has been so fun to see there can be a huge variety.

Now, is it a little bit of a change in your taste? Yes it is, but there are some things that I have been making, like this Greek yogurt that has peanut butter and vanilla and some stevia in it, and I feel like I’m eating ice cream in the morning for breakfast. It was so good, and I get kind of giddy when I’m eating it. So I think it might seem initially like there is no variety or there is no fun, but that just means that there is something you don’t know yet. And then you can research that and find that it really can be fun.

Jonathan: In fact, I love that you brought up the ice cream for breakfast story, because it reminds me, one of the things, and in a lot of ways SANE, once you get it down, is more fun because, just by way of analogy, for folks who might drink too much there is this thing called a hangover afterward, and that’s not fun. And there is something similar with eating bad food, right? We have all had instances where we eat garbage food…

April: Like a bag of Cheetos? It was awful! (laughs)

Jonathan: But imagine, there are always these Internet ads—“You can drink without getting a hangover.” And of course, that’s never true. But you can eat delicious food that feels like an indulgence without feeling horrible afterward. You can literally have your cake and eat it too, and not be diabetic if you make it with coconut flour and SANE sweeteners (laughs).

April: I love that. Okay, so those are our seven reasons people think SANE is crazy. I think we covered them pretty well, I think that was fun. But continue the conversation on social media, if you have any other questions or want to ask more questions, I have a stretch goal for us. Shall we talk about that and our next action?

Jonathan: I’m ready.

April: Okay. Stretch goal is to learn to make one SANE meal that your whole family loves, that tastes good, that doesn’t cost a lot, that’s pretty easy to prepare—that’s your stretch goal. And you might think, “Well, is that even possible?” Yes, it totally is possible—it might take a little bit of research. And the next action for this is to take ten minutes, go online and start doing a search. Sanesolution.com has a Pinterest board with a thousand and one recipes that are SANE. You can go check those out.

And my daughter, Alia Perry, has a whole Pinterest board of her favorite SANE snacks. There is a whole lot of stuff out there. You can also do searches like some of the low-carb, or low-sugar, or diabetic-friendly—there are a lot of things you can start searching. Or you find a great recipe and you just add more vegetables and take out sugars and starches. But take a little bit of time, invest a little bit of time trying to find a recipe that you know your family would like. Take a family staple that they love and just try to find another version of it.

And honestly, when you are willing to invest a little bit of time, you are going to find that the results are really exciting and I just want to encourage people not to just say, “Well, if you don’t have it just ready for me right this second, if I can’t just find it in five seconds and pop it in the microwave in three minutes, then I’m not doing it.” Well, you get the return on your investment. So when you invest time and energy and effort, you are going to be able to find some pretty great things to eat and enjoy for your whole family.

Jonathan: I love that April. You get out what you put in, and just like anything else in life, if you know how to play the piano, or if you have wonderful happy family, or you have a beautiful relationship with someone, I’m sure you believe that the time you put into that was well worth it over the long-term. It is an investment, and the returns are phenomenal.

So, I love it. Jonathan Bailor and April Perry with another SANE show. And remember, stay SANE.

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