Jonathan: Neeli, difficult time getting protein requirement being vegetarian. Neeli, I’m so glad you asked this question, because a question came a while back about vegetarian and veganism and I did a poor job of answering it; because there is actually a very simple way to increase your protein intake if you cannot eat any animal products.

So let me just be very clear. There is a huge difference between being a vegan and a vegetarian, as Neeli and everyone knows. Vegan means no animal products at all. Vegetarian means no meat.

Not being able to eat meat is in no way, shape or form a problem-or I would argue even a challenge-when it come to Sanity, because the most Sane nutrients and sources of proteins in the world are not meats. They are not meats like most people eat, like liver is an optimal source of nutrient dense protein but most people don’t eat those; whereas, seafood, fish, salmon, clam and oysters and basically any fish–super optimal source of nutrient dense protein. So if you eat fish, if you’re a pescetarian, you’re good to go, done.

Then you’ve also got all natural Greek yogurt, you’ve got cottage cheese. You’ve got egg whites mixed with whole eggs because that’s not meat.

If you’re a vegetarian than soy meal bars. It’s good for you.

If you’re vegan then it becomes hard. Everything I just mentioned that goes off the table, because those are all animal products. Then you’ll say, ‘What’s your answer now, Mr. Smart Pants?’

If you’re a vegan, it is harder. I’m not going to–My recommendation and you can find these in the same store if it’s helpful is pea protein, hemp protein or rice protein, potentially in that order.

My preference is pea. Pea has a great amino acid profile for a plant. I recommend the clean Pea Protein available in the same store. Not because I own the company but because it’s very hard to find the Pea Protein where you look at the ingredients and it’s just like, ‘Pea Protein from pure Belgian wonderful peas.’ Same thing with rice or hemp protein; these are great ways to augment your protein intake if animal foods are completely off table.

Thank you Kitty for the kind words here. And Neeli, hopefully that helps a bit. If it doesn’t – boom — chat it up. Let me know.

Let me jump over here to the written in questions. This is a really long one. This individual is 73-years young, which is awesome. Thank you so much for being here. Body is full of inflammation severe arthritis from a head-on collision in the twenties, degenerative bone disease in ankles, insulin dependent diabetes Type II, and asthma. This individual is going through a very, very hard time. They also care for their husband who is 83-years old, who is struggling. Essentially this individual is going through a really hard time.

I’m sorry guys for getting a little quiet here, but this individual is–I guess it’s less of a question and more of a general cry for help. I want to say thank you for the trust. I hope you are here. I hope you’re in the chat and I hope you’re seeing the love that this community and that the members of this community have to offer you.

What I would recommend right now, is to copy and paste what you wrote here and please put this in the SANE Support Group. That’s why it’s here. Start your SANE journal. Put this in the SANE Support Group and take advantage of the amazing people and the resources that are here in this community. You’re not going to find a more sound science and love and care together in one place, than you’re going to find in the same Support Group and the SANE Family in general. So please let us help you there. If you haven’t already started your SANE journal, please do that.

We see all these ads in magazines like, ‘This magic pill will make you lose more weight and blah-blah.’ It won’t, or if it does it will cause horrible side effects. Two things right now; writing down where are you starting from, where you want to go. Taking five minutes per day and updating your SANE journal. You just sign into your Ignite program. Click on Coaching, start New Discussion something title it ‘My Journal’ and put it in category Journal. Tell us your story and update it. It’s like making a public commitment. It’s a fact that the more people involved in any life style change, the more success you will have.

We see these ads on television or magazines. ‘You’ll lose 17%more weight. It’s only $8000.’ A lot of people throw money at that, or they watch television and there’s this news like Raspberry Ketones. Throw money at that. That isn’t going to do it.

There is proven, rigorous, science over decades that say two things. One, the more people you involve in a lifestyle change, more supportive people-and that’s why we’ve got the same Support Group- the more successful you will be. If it’s like, ‘Ah, I don’t want to post this.’ You will be X% more successful if you actively engage others with it.

The other thing is having a buddy do it with you. Reach out in the same Support Group. Reach out in your community. Reach out in your church. Share. Teach other people what you’re learning. Make the commitment not so much that, ‘I have to learn this for me.’ Imagine that you are going to teach this to the people you live with.

I know for a lot of us. I see this a lot in parents especially. It’s much more difficult for them to do something for themselves, than it is for them to do something for their family. My parents are a great example of this. They are about as middle class as you get. And if they had a medical issue, it was like, put some Robotussin on it. I will do anything to take care of them.

Macro point is it’s hard for us to do something for ourselves. But it’s much easier for us to be motivated to do that for someone else. Use that with your SANE lifestyle. This isn’t for you. You’re not learning this, you’re not going through, and you’re not completing this one step in your step-by-step program per day for you. You’re doing it because it’s going to be your dinner conversation. You’re going to share it with other people. You’re going to help them and you’re going to make their lives better. So jump to the Support Group and help others in the Support Group and in your own life. I think it’s going to be really helpful specially based on the challenges you’re facing. Thank you for being here. I think it’s amazing what you’re going through.

Let’s see what we’ve got here, lots of good stuff coming in. I’m trying to keep up with it. I’m so sorry. Nancy’s got a good question here. She says, ‘I read the article linked to the fact about prognosis for changes in post-menopausal women. As a 65-year old I was disheartened to read there was a minimal weight loss unless you’re very strict. Can you comment on the perspective for the over 65 group?’

Nancy I ‘m terribly sorry for that article. I think you’re referring to an article written by Dr. Kathy Patel, who is an amazing member of the same community. I’m terribly sorry if that came off as negative. What we were trying to communicate is that we have to give ourselves permission to celebrate who we are in the position we are individually, and not others. Here is why I am saying this. Everyone who does this loses 7 pounds in 7 days. Even if you recall from your SANE planner, where there is like a bunch of questions; we have to know more detail about the individual. Your metabolism changes radically as you age.

Think about it this way, when people are born obviously very few sex hormones. If you look at an 8-year old girl and an 8-year old boy; they don’t look that different. Why? Well, because their hormonal make up isn’t that different. Now that changes. Of course, that’s what we call puberty. At puberty, the visual appearance of males and females goes like this. Why? Because their hormone levels are going like this.

As we go through life, obviously our hormone levels change. They peak. They fall. After we hit 40 or 50, men go through something called andropause. Women go through something called menopause and the level of sex hormones changes.

The point of that is not to say that once you hit a certain age, prognosis is not possible. It’s absolutely not to say that. We need to give ourselves permission. It’s going to take a little bit longer. I would argue that it is not natural-forget about healthy-for a 65-year old man or woman to be able to see their abs. A 15-year old guy sees his abs–it’s totally fine. Because that is a normal healthy weight for that age.

You would agree that what is normal and natural and healthy, as we mature, changes. Just like the level of muscles that a male will maintain, that is natural for a male to maintain will go down over time. It’s a fact based on hormonal changes that our bodies become more inclined to store fat and less inclined to hold onto muscle as we get older. Doesn’t mean we can’t make progress. We can make progress.

What we need to do is we need to give ourselves permission to understand that wild success for a 65-year old woman looks very different-and I use ‘looks’ intentionally-looks very different from wild success for a 25-year old woman. I hope everyone who is on this call and everyone who is watching does not see that as bad news. Because brilliant and amazing at 65-years is not the same as brilliant and amazing at 25 and it shouldn’t be. Seeing a 65-year old dressed like you’re twenty-three is not amazing. It is not beautiful. It is not attractive.

I would argue that living an optimal, SANE and eccentric lifestyle, and enjoying the best version of yourself at sixty-five is not going to look like a 25-year old. But it shouldn’t. Anyone who is worth a dime will know that and will appreciate that and will love you even more for manifesting that. I hope and I pray that I get the opportunity to grow old with my amazing wife Angela, and that when she is sixty-five she looks like a radiant 65-year old.

I hope this is making sense, but if we had a goal for our 8-year old son to become stronger or to become better with football. We’re going to have very different goals for an 8-year old child to build muscle than we would for an 18-year old man to build muscle. And it’s not sad, it’s 8-year old versus 18-year old. It’s different.

So please. Throw away the nonsense magazines. Throw away this toxic garbage. That makes us all feel like we need to fit into this little box. At one point in time that box was appropriate but it isn’t appropriate now. I’m the worst at this. I see someone who has got a family. They’ve got so much responsibility. They’ve got familial responsibilities. They’ve got professional responsibilities. They’re just crushing it in terms of things that actually matter, rather than things that people will remember you for when your time on this earth is done.

No one is going to be at your eulogy, ‘Sally had such great abs. That’s what I remember her for.’ You’d probably like ‘Sally was an amazing person who made the world a better place, and who enhanced the lives of everyone she interacted with.’

Those things — if you’ve got those dialed in. No. There’s going to be someone out there who spends all their time weighing their food and spending three hours per day in the gym and its fine. If that’s how they want to spend their lives, yes. For trading everything else in their lives, so that they could be sixty-five and have a six pack. If you’re going to be sixty-five and you’re going to be a healthy optimal weight, you’re going to look beautiful and you’re going to feel beautiful. You’re going to rock the things in life that actually matter. That’ what we call Nutritional Serenity, and that’s what we’re after here. Hopefully, that’s helpful. I’m going to step out of my self-box a little bit, but I do hope that helps.

I’ll have take peek at the written-in questions. Alright question here, ‘I love the concept of process school versus result schools.’ Ten points for paying attention to the last session. ‘I think it’s a really helpful way to achieve progress, not perfection.’ Another 10 points for using one of our terms. ‘And to stay encouraged to get better day after day and meet your goals too. I would love to hear another example of the SANE Spin on Traditional Diet principles or behaviors that promote sticking to a program and creating new habits but in a much healthier way.’

SANE spin on traditional principles, got you. For example, the SANE spin on goals is to take the more SANE approach, which is to focus on that, which you can control, which is the process, the actions you take and not to focus on the goals. For example, if you want to become a better free throw shooter basketball, you can control how much time you spend practicing. You might not be able to control how your muscle memory adapts to that practice, because you can’t control your muscle memory. Same thing sometime applies to other aspects of our bodies, specially our waist line and things like that.

Put me on the spot. So what’s another example of that? I think we touched on this earlier, but this is actually really important. In the Traditional model precision is super important. This is a really important distinction when you count calories, by definition, every single calorie counts. That’s why we see so many questions about what’s the serving size, and is it two serving or one serving, and what the servings here are. Those are great questions and I totally understand them.

These questions are a manifestation of the belief that your body is dumb-for lack of a better term-and if you over-ate 10 calories per days for a year and gained a pound per year. For fifty years you would gain 50 pounds. All because your caloric balance wasn’t precisely managed down to the calorie. That sounds ridiculous but pick up any popular health magazine and it’ll be like, ‘Just by chewing gum for 3 hours per day you’ll burn 17 more calories, which by the end of the year will mean you’ll 7 pounds.’

That’s not how the body works. We know the body is a homeostatic system so it’s going to respond to more calories in and more calories out, and more calories out and more calories in to a point. So what is the SANE approach here?

SANE approach is not to be focused on precision. Not to be focused on the micro. SANE approach is to be focused on the macro. Let me give you the perfect example. Calorie counting: How many exact calories did you burn and how many exact calories did you eat? SANE approach is answering the three questions for me. How many exact calories did you eat? Did you eat double digit servings of vegetables today?

Actually I’m going to make it simple. One question, today, is the volume of food you consumed in this order: The highest volume of food I ate was vegetables; the second highest volume of food I ate was nutrient that’s proteins; and then the third highest volume of food I ate was whole food fats, and low fructose fruits. Anything else if I ate at all, I ate much smaller sized quantities than any of that stuff.

If you do, non-starchy vegetables, nutrient dense proteins, whole food fat in that order, every time you eat. You will achieve radically better success, than you ever would by precisely counting calories. You would avoid neurotic eating disorders that come along with trying to be perfect. That’s what calorie counting is saying. It’s demonizing food. It’s saying food is bad. Food is to be avoided. It’s saying your body is stupid, and if you don’t precisely manage this. It’s going to go bonkers, which for so many reasons is ridiculous. You don’t measure how many vitamin C you eat per day, and how much vitamin C you excrete out in your urine or in your sweat, but somehow you body maintains adequate levels of vitamin C by eating healthy normal foods? How does that work? It’s because your brain is a really smart thing.

The calorie counting model makes it seem like it’s precise. It also makes you neurotic, because it tells you to pursue perfection and precision. Then it makes you crazy so you’re like, ‘I cut the 37 calories and I didn’t lose 25 pounds in 25 days.’

So that’s a SANE example of where the traditional approach is about precision. The SANE approach is about focusing on getting the big things right. I literally don’t even want you to personally until you have rocked the vegetable, protein and fat, thinking about, ‘Is Xyletal or Erithretal better?’ Doesn’t matter.

If your car’s burning in your drive way, it doesn’t matter if the wind shield’s dirty. The car’s on fire. Let’s put the car out first. Whereas the calorie counting approach is just like, ‘It all needs to be taken care of right away. It has to be precise and perfect.’ Nonsense. So anyway, it’s the SANE approach to that question.

Alright let’s see what we’ve got here. Lots of good comments coming in; Kate had a good suggestion for the popcorn. This is not something that I would recommend you eat every single day, but until we get our SANE alternative ready for you. Again I’m not saying this is SANE, this is possibly a SANE-er option than popcorn, soy nuts. Soy nut especially for men might not be the best thing in the world. Soy nuts or you could do toasted legumes. Corn is a starch; it’s on the same spectrum. Legumes are SANE-er than starch. Eat it with something else. Eat it with proteins, vegetables, fats-in that order; some really neat snack options for legumes that are toasted and crunchy.

Also some options there on the Amazon link I provided earlier, in terms of SANE and crunchy things. There are kale chips which are incredible super SANE. If you try to buy them, its $5 for a bag this big, so make them yourself if at all possible.

That might be thing possible to take those robust vegetables kales, kala greens, things like that and make chips out of those; a lot of great recipes available for that, so I think that would be helpful.

Kitty is asking a good question here. She may need someone to do that for her possibly, not knowing if she can navigate the Support Group. That may be the response which I appreciated in the question earlier about the individual who–So if you don’t know how to use the Support Group, or are not comfortable using the Support Group, please shoot us an email. We’ve got a how-to video that’s going to show you exactly how to do it. If you were able to attend the master class, and were able to fill out the survey here, you can use the Support Group. If you were able to submit a question here, I know—

If you’re 73, that just means you’ve got 73 years to crush it and to learn a lot. You are smart–the fact that you’re doing what you’re doing right now, you are every single day doing things harder than using the Support Group. So if there’s any challenges with that shoot us an email and we’ll help you with it. I promise you its super easy.

Fran’s got a rocking recipe for how to make kale chips in the Support Group. That is awesome. Then Kitty again saying, ‘Surely, Jonathan I don’t expect to look like my 11-year old.’ Yes, obviously. That is awesome. I love that. That is great.

Michelle’s asking, ‘Where do I find the Live Coaching recordings?’ I will send you a link probably tonight. If not tonight then early tomorrow morning and that link will just link to all of the recordings. The answer is if you log in to you Ignite program and go down the bottom in the footer, you’ll see a section called ‘Stay Motivated’ and that’s where they are. You’re going to find them in that section called ‘Stay Motivated.’

Some more questions back to back. ‘I’m afraid I’ve gained weight eating all of the suggested portions.’

Important great question. If you eat all of the suggested servings-12 servings of vegetables, 3 to 6 servings of nutrient dense proteins, 2 to 6-depending on where you’re at-servings of whole food fats, you will not gain weight. It would be somewhat impossible for you to gain weight, specifically if you focus on the vegetables first, then the proteins and less of the fats. You’re already full. The reason for that is the food is so nutrient dense and so satisfying.

Just try to eat 12 servings of vegetables and 4 servings of nutrient dense protein. Those are not energy rich. Those are nutrient rich. That in itself could not possibly provide you enough calories to gain weight. Calories exist, and if we over-consume them chronically, we will gain weight. Calorie myth is that calories don’t exist. It’s that focusing on calories rather than the quality of what we’re eating, that’s a myth. That does not work. It leads to craziness and inSANity-lower case and upper case.

I promise you if you focus on it in the order and not like they do what’s common on the internet is that people take bits and pieces from different lifestyles. ‘I’m going to add 700 calories to my coffee, and I’m not really eating any vegetables.’ You’re not eating low carb healthy vegetable, then yeah though you’re eating healthy fat, but you will gain weight.

The calorie to nutrient ratio is off there, but if you do SANE non-starchy vegetables, nutrient dense proteins and whole fat in that order. A lot of people are too full, if you’re too full, I promise you it is physically impossible for you to gain weight. If you are, please let us know exactly what you are eating in the Support Group and we will help to troubleshoot.

Vegetarian portions measuring recipes–I hope I answered that question for you. If I didn’t, please post in the chat box.

‘What impact does age have on this plan?’ Boom, we already covered that one too, so that is good stuff.

Let’s go back to the chat. Sherry, thank you. Sherry says, ‘Great answer’ for my previous answers. This is coming from a 62-year old woman. Thank you, I appreciate that. Thank you everyone. These are always nice calls. I’ve actually had a very hard week so far, so it is refreshing support here. You guys support me which is why I’m supporting you, because you’re showing love and your amazing success. I really appreciate that. I honestly do. I like to have these at the end of the day, because it’s the perfect way to close the day.