S1 E17: How to Take Care of Your Greatest Asset...YOU! - With Charlotte Crowley

Hosted by Glory Gray of Glory Gray Wealth Solutions

All the money that we saved to live a great retirement will be worth nothing if we don’t have our health. With that in mind, I’m excited to welcome today’s guest, Charlotte Crowley, Registered Holistic Nutritionist and yoga instructor. We'll discuss:

• What ONE change to your diet can you make that will make a big difference to your health?
• What diet is right for you?
• Life is busy! How can you make eating healthy easy?
• What are some smart snack choices?

Resources in this episode:
Healthy recipes from the Canada Food Guide
Charlotte's website
Email Charlotte

Hosted by Glory Gray

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Music
Background Intro music: Positive Determination
Other incidental by Purple Planet Music

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, tax or legal advice. It is not an offer to sell or buy or an endorsement, recommendation or sponsorship of any entity or security cited. Mutual funds offered through Portfolio Strategies Corporation. Other products and services provided through Glory Gray Wealth Solutions.

All content © 2024 Glory Gray.

Transcript

Charlotte Crowley: 0:06

If they just start chewing, and I'll tell you you'll have silent dinners, because you'll be busy chewing. But it really makes a huge, huge, huge difference. So just that one thing, and what I say to people is, you want to be the last one to finish eating at your table. If you could be the last one, then you've probably done the best job that you can do.

Announcer: 0:29

You're listening to the women's wealth Canada podcast with glory Gray, be sure to download and subscribe. Using your favorite podcast and like us on Facebook.

Glory Gray: 0:41

Hello, everyone, I'm glory gray. Welcome to the women's wealth Canada podcast. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you know that I've talked many times about the fact that all the money that we save to live a great retirement will be worth nothing if we don't have our health. In fact, I encourage my clients I say before you retired, start thinking about the physical and mental activities you enjoy and start planning how you will incorporate them into your retirement. With that in mind, I'm excited to introduce you to today's guest Charlotte Crowley. Charlotte is a registered holistic nutritionist and yoga instructor. I've known Charlotte for years and she is so entertaining and fun. Her yoga classes are a real joy to attend. We're heading into the holiday season and a new year so I thought this would be a great time to pick up some tips on how to eat healthy and stay healthy. So come on over and listen in. So Charlotte, there's so much we can do to improve our health. Before we talk about the food side of nutrition, though, I thought maybe we could talk about what are a couple of key non food factors that affect nutrient intake and our health.

Charlotte Crowley: 2:03

Well, there's a couple of things that I find to be the main culprits. One of them is sleep. And for a lot of my life I was a pretty hard driver. I'm probably I was probably a you know triple A personality and I was in sales and people would be proud of not getting enough sleep. They would be "Oh, I got four hours last night." And they'd be like,"Well, I have to get up early and go to my workout" and sleep never was a priority. Now that I'm in the world of nutrition as a holistic nutritionist, oh my goodness, it is it is huge. Most people need seven to nine hours of sleep. That's kind of the average. In North America. This is mostly US statistics, but most of those statistics really fall into Canada to where our lifestyle is so similar. So when I say research, it's pretty well covered all of us. The average person now gets about six and a half hours asleep. And the thing is what this does for you first of all, when you go to sleep at night, your body detoxes itself so it detoxifies everything. Your brain gets detoxified, your liver, all of your organs. It's like a little house cleaning team literally goes in your body and scrubs away and gets rid of all the things that it doesn't need to carry forward. And if you don't get enough sleep, then it's not going to do the job. And so there's going to be things hanging around in your body that don't that shouldn't be there. They're going to be dragging along with you further and further. The less sleep people get the more they are prone to gaining weight. So there's a lot of things that are involved in sleep that are really, really important for just having your body run properly. And so I always emphasize to people when I talk to them, I say hey, how's your sleep? And then I hear it. So I often will talk to people about their sleep patterns and give them some strategies to help with sleep and if they really have serious problems, and I'll say well, you know what, there's a few things you can do and I might refer them on to other people that I know that could help them with that. And the other one and this will be no surprise is stress. Stress is huge. The main thing stress if you want to talk directly about stress and food is when you stress, Your body doesn't know the difference between being chased by a wild animal and feeling the stress of a situation that is causing you mental or anxiety. Your body reacts the same way. What it does is it takes all your energy that you need to get away from it. So it puts all your energy into your limbs so you could run fast if you needed to. And it shuts your digestion down right off the bat. So any any activity that has to do with taking a nutrition and eating your food and getting the nutrition out of it is totally nullified by the stress. So if you imagine that you're in a stressful situation most of the time, then your body never really have an opportunity to deal with the nutrition properly. So you're kind of almost becoming malnourished in a way with a lot of stress, especially if it's chronic stress. A little stress is sometimes good because it really gets you going you know you have to do a talk in public. You feel kind of nervous. If you're entertaining as you have, right? That little bit of your performance anxiety ahead of time kind of sharpens you up and it kind of gets you to do a better job in a way because you really focus on that and everything else falls away from you. But when you're under chronic stress, your body can never get out from under that. And that's when your body never quite gets rid of that. You're wrapped up in a situation where you need a little bit of that stress. When you're done with it, all that stress goes but if it stays all the time with you, then you start having chronic conditions and that's where people start getting gastrointestinal problems. They start getting poor digestion, they start having problems with their intestinal performance, diarrhea, constipation, they start getting IBS IBS is huge in people that have a lot of stress. So a lot of things in your body just can't operate. So there's another thing where I work with people and say, Okay, let's have a look at your stress level. Where are we at? And try to alleviate that sometimes even before we really do a lot of nutrition work. Just Just figure out where we're at with that makes a difference.

Glory Gray: 6:19

So then, let's talk about diet. I mean, if I'm going to make one change to my diet, that would make a big difference. What would it be?

Charlotte Crowley: 6:30

Number one, cut out or cut down on added sugar. It's rampant in society. It's everywhere we go, It's in every processed food that pretty well you can find. And so if there's one thing you can do is just first of all, be aware. Read labels and find out. Let me tell you a little example here. I went for lunch with my mom a couple of years ago went to a local well known place that's known for milkshakes. And she said I think we'll have a chocolate milkshake. Now she was supposed to be kind of on a dairy free gluten free diet for her digestion. And I just went okay, so she orders this while we're waiting and we also ordered food. While we're waiting. I said to the waitress, do you have a nutrition guide? Because I was interested. And she brought it to me. I looked up the amount of added sugar in a chocolate milkshake. So before I tell you the answer here, like how much it was, the amount of added sugar in in a diet for a woman should be no more than about 25 grams a day. That's about six teaspoons. In my opinion, that's still too much sugar, but that's kind of the World Health Organization's recommended, right? So that's 25 grams. One chocolate milkshake had about 75 grams of sugar in it. Well, that's about three days supply that in my opinion is probably a six day supply. And then you look at all kinds of condiments, ketchup, mayonnaise, all kinds of things salad dressing, added sugar. Juice, it's better to eat the whole fruit, right? Because if you compress if you compress the fruit to make a cup of juice, you're going to have what? Four or five of the fruit. It's not concentrated and so you get added sugar without all the other fiber in there that actually helps make it work for nutrition. So that's one thing I would say to people is just be aware of how much sugar that you're taking in added sugars. Anything that would be a label. Added sugar wouldn't be like a banana or an orange a piece of fruit or something or a carrot carrot has sugar in it as well. But the added sugar would be anything that's put in food processed or anything that's processed to become a little bit different than its original form. And that way if you just if you just do that one thing that will really make a difference to a lot of processes in your body. And let me tell you something cool. Health Canada in 2018 decided to change our food labels. Now previously, they would take input from industry, so dairy, beef, grain, etc. are all the players of food in the in the food industry. And they would basically as far as my understanding goes, they would kind of negotiate for how much of food would be in the recommended Canada Food Guide. Whether or not it was actually the best it would be a negotiation between what's the best for the population and then what's the best for our industry so that they you know, we can support them. In 2019 they decided that they weren't going to take input from industry, and they took input from health educators and doctors and all kinds of researchers in the food business and looked at the research. They left out the industry and they said here's what we recommend for people. So as a result, dairy is not a food on Food Guide. It's included in the quarter. If you look at a plate, the new Food Guide is a plate, half of the plate is vegetables the other one quarter is grains and one quarter is protein in general. Fats in there, but that's kind of a generalization, but dairy doesn't have his own category anymore. And beef took a big dip down to it's it's very lightly recommended. So it quite changed a lot. And we also had a big difference between the amount of bread and pastry that was actually on the old food guide it shrunk down. So I was quite proud actually of Health Canada for that. I said okay, I think you're on the right page here. I was impressed with that. I mean there's a lot of times you can be you know, not happy about things come out from government sources. And this one I said okay, I think you're on the right track here.

Glory Gray: 10:45

So is dairy considered a protein now?

Charlotte Crowley: 10:48

Dairy has a combination of things. It is a protein. It also has some fat in it. And for instance, a lot of fruits and vegetables have protein in them. So we're getting a little bit from a lot. So it's not just that one food has one thing in it one food has the other they're co-mingling with different fats, carbohydrates and protein. There's a little bit in different foods, some have none and some have a little of something some have more than one like salmon is a phenomenal source of healthy fat, and of course a source of protein. And here we are on the coast with salmon. It's just a great food oysters have zinc, and they have a great amount of zinc and they have protein. So things are combinations. Oh, I'm circling back to the sugar thing...boy

Glory Gray: 11:31

Oh, okay. So I have an old fashioned way of thinking did I digress there. So the thing they did with sugar, sugar used to be on labels as each individual kind of sugar that was in that thing. So if they had a cane sugar and fructose and natural sugar out of fruit, each sugar would be like on the label individually. So you wouldn't actually see the total amount of sugar. It wouldn't be number one, it would be kind of maybe number two and number six and number eight of that individual sugar so people didn't really know how much sugar was. And there's about Believe me, there are about 200 names for sugar. At the end of the day. It's all sugar doesn't matter what you call it. It's all sugar. What they did was all the sugars have to be together. So now if you have an item that says sugar in the beginning, it'll have parentheses after. It'll then list all the kinds of sugar. back because I remember reading the labels on sugar, and then you got fructose corn syrup. But now they've lumped them in so that we can understand how many grams we're actually taking in.

Charlotte Crowley: 12:36

Yeah, and in a lot of things, sugar moveed to the number one position. A lot of the processed foods whereas before you wouldn't realize maybe say a cereal, a kid's sugary cereal, it might not have been number one. So parents might have said oh, you know, there's grain in here, sugars down here. It's probably not that bad. But now it's going up to the top. So people have a little bit more information to understand what they're actually taking in. So I'm happy about that.

Glory Gray: 13:01

Now, what are a couple of habits which have a major impact in our health?

Charlotte Crowley: 13:06

Okay, when I was a kid, I remember my parents telling me to chew my food. Also, don't chew with your mouth open, right? Don't talk with your mouth full. The other side of that was usually chew your food don't eat so fast. Chewing is massively important. Because when you chew your food first of all, all you have to do see a picture or smell food and your your salivary glands in your mouth start to get going and start to anticipate. What that does is it starts to get your body ready to digest the food. That's the purpose of that. So you get that going then you take in the food into your mouth. You chew the food while you're chewing. And getting masticated enough to start digesting. That's going down into your stomach saying, hey, food is coming. We're going to get it started up here. And we're going to send it down ready for you to finish the job and do the digestion. So your body's getting ready for us you need first of all time for that process, the message to get down there. And you also need time to chew your carbohydrates really, really well so that when they go to your somach, they're mostly digested, or just start your protein because it doesn't get fully digested in your mouth, it gets mostly digested in your stomach. So it really is important to chew your food enough to get the process going. And I find that for people that are having belching and gas and their intestinal performance isn't any good, If they just start chewing...and you'll have silent dinners, because you'll be busy chewing...It makes a huge difference. So I just want to say to people, you want to be the last one to finish your meal on the table. If you could be the last one then you've probably done the best job that you can do. And you also put your fork down and you chew, then you pick it up again so you'll also eat less food, you'll digest it better. And so you're kind of naturally cut down on your intake which if you're trying to watch your weight, it'll help maintain or help lose a little bit as a kindo f side benefit of that. So that's number one. And the other one, and these aren't sexy things, it's drinking enough water. Our brain is full of water and fat. And there's brain cells in there too. But there's a lot of water there. Every body system has water. Your blood needs water to keep its consistency. Your kidneys enough water to function properly. Your intestine I mean every every part of your body needs enough water. So what I tell people, if you can drink half your body weight in ounces every day. So let's say for the sake of easy math, you weigh 160 pounds, you

Glory Gray: 15:59

[laughs] need 80 ounces of water, divided by eight ounces. So that would be like the measuring cup 8 ounces. And that would include things like broth, broth soups, fruits, vegetables, of course have water in them. So that is part of it. Herbal teas. Coffee tends to be dehydrating. So if you're a coffee drinker and I do like my coffee, I just remember that a cup of coffee is going to be a little bit dehydrating, so I want to make sure that I have water with it. Also not drinking with meals is a really great strategy because it doesn't decrease your stomach acid. So if you drink a lot of water with your meal then that can contribute to poor digestion. So, having little sips. Of course having that glass of red wine with a meal can be quite helpful. One glass.

Charlotte Crowley: 16:50

One glass. So, sipping wine, red wine has a lot of health benefits, so if you're a wine drinker and you like your wine, sipping wine with a meal is usually considered fairly healthy. I don't recommend people start drinking if they don't. But any kind of liquid intake spaced out over the day. Not all at once. Don't take it all at once, thinking, "Well, I'm missing four cups, because, you know, you're going to be up half the night...

Glory Gray: 17:15

Making the walk down the hall.

Charlotte Crowley: 17:16

Making the walk down the hall. So chewing, chewing and hydrating. if you incorporate those two habits then that is going to be a great help to improving your health.

Glory Gray: 17:27

Easy, easy changes.

Charlotte Crowley: 17:29

Yeah.

Glory Gray: 17:30

It's just a matter of doing it, right?

Charlotte Crowley: 17:33

Yes, yes.

Glory Gray: 17:36

You were talking about chewing your food taking your time. So I've heard that it takes 20 minutes for your stomach to get a message that you're full or something to that effect. Is there something to that?

Charlotte Crowley: 17:55

There is, and that's a great point. And that goes along with chewing eating at a pace that your body can handle all the processes that happen after it goes into your mouth, all the digestion etc. If you eat at a slower pace than it does take about 20 minutes before your brain actually gets the message from your stomach to say, I've had enough I'm full and if you're a fast eater, it takes longer for that to happen because you're busy eating away eating away. So it's going to be really easy to overeat or to say I'm going to have a second helping because I don't feel full whereas if you just gave yourself a little bit of time to kind of put your fork down and have a conversation, relax, then you might say, "You know what, I don't think I'll have dessert because I'm actually kind of full. So it's kind of being a little bit more conscious of what's going on. Pay attention to what's going on inside.

Glory Gray: 18:58

I have found that when I have dining partners, I tend to eat less and I thought well maybe it's because I'm just too busy talking but it's taking more time to digest and get those messages. And so that's why I'm not eating as much.

Charlotte Crowley: 19:16

Probably. And because when you're listening to somebody talk to you, You're focusing usually on them, and so you're probably not even you're probably not even chewing you think about you put your fork down, they start talking and you stop and you're like, wow, that's interesting. And then you pick your fork up and you start eating again. But if you give yourself a little bit of time and conversation a little bit of slower pace, that's why the other part of this is you know trying to not eat your dinner in front of the TV, do your best to, you know, with or reading a book sometimes, you know, to do sometimes, but I mean just seen as a general thing. Try to really focus on the food and on the enjoyment of the food and that will also focus you on on what you're doing because if you eat the meal with any without attention, then you're probably going to eat more than you would because you're not paying any attention. So mindful, mindful eating is is helpful. And if I circle back to the to the stress piece probably not a good idea to watch the news while you eat dinner.

Glory Gray: 20:24

Boy, isn't that the truth?

Charlotte Crowley: 20:28

There's no good news on the news. If you're getting stressed without it, obviously your digestion is going to go, "Oh..."

Glory Gray: 20:33

And one of the things that we hear on the news are diets like the latest fad diets, there's so many fad diets out there and we often hear conflicting information. So should I should I cut out carbs? Should I go low fat? What's up with that?

Charlotte Crowley: 20:50

So I can I can give you a very long, historical, interesting answer. But, we won't go there because we don't have all this time. But what I do want to say is we've been in a cycle for 50 or 60 years of the diet industry. Dieting is an industry. They know what's going on. A diet will work for anybody as long as you stick to it pretty well. But if you have a diet that's restricted, and you're having you're cutting off your fat, you're cutting your carbs, whatever it is, you think you're doing it and you're Keto, eating a lot of protein, then you're over balancing. I'm all about balance. In my world that is the important thing is balance. So finding the right balance of foods to eat, incorporating all the food groups because our body needs fat. In the 80s there was a low fat craze, because it was like, Oh my gosh, satuarated fat, fat is bad, We don't want fat. And so, it became lowfat crazed. What did they replace fat with? They replaced fat with sugar in industry. It became low fat, sugar went into all our processed food. And our obesity rates, if you track obesity rates starting in the 80s it's like all the way up. Added sugar, the low fat. Of course, now research all these years later finds we healthy fats, it's the kind of fat we want. So on the shelf, a lot of the fats, hydrogenated fats, they've been heated up. There's no nutrition in there. That's what all the fried food is in. And so we've been we've been getting the wrong kind of fat which contributes to obesity. We've been missing out on the actual healthy fats, so now we've got more of a balance, Things like like avocado, olive oil, coconut oil and nut oils, nuts, things like that have healthy fats. On the carb side, lots of really good healthy, ancient grains, all kinds of grains that are healthy, but we want to have the right amount. So if you're trying to lose weight, you might have half a cup of brown rice. Half a cup of quinoa, instead of like your plate is full or whatever it is pasta or or the or the carbohydrate, the starchy carb you will make this little side piece of your meals your body's still going to get the nutrition you need from that food but it's not going to get the big load. And on carbs, carbs are simple carbs which is fruit and the green green leafy vegetables, or they can be complex and the starchy carbs, which are the carrots and potatoes. Those are carbs as well. And then breads are carbs. too. So carbs is kind of a big category. So we don't want to cut them all out. And the problem with dieting and cutting out a food is you probably have like I have, from when I was 16 I was doing all the diets. Whatever diet came along. What did you do? Wow, I lost 10 pounds. What did you do? You gained it back. So this yo yo dieting, which again your body doesn't like this, and it makes it harder as you go forward to lose weight so it's better to have the right balance of the protein, the fat and the carb, a little dessert once in a while. You know, the balance. You can maintain that for a long time if you eat the right foods.

Glory Gray: 24:01

And it's not sustainable to Just flat cut out something because that's the latest fad diet. Would that be a

Charlotte Crowley: 24:07

That's my opinion on that. And yes, people fair statement? can lose lots of weight but it's it's it's heartbreaking to see someone that lost 50 pounds on some diet, and you see them a year later and every ounce is back. It's heartbreaking. It's devastating. Whereas that slow aintenance, a little bit down and then find the balance of ood that works for you. It's b ing mindful of what you're eat ng, knowing what foods are good for you. And there's a t n of foods that are wonderful a d tasty, it doesn't mean we hav to restrict everything do

Glory Gray: 24:48

Yes, you were bakers at one time. You were foodies.

Charlotte Crowley: 24:56

yes. I want people to love to enjoy their You are foodies. food, explore their food. They don't have to be a cook, but to understand what they need for their body. Because there's only two things you do all with your life, you breathe and you eat. You're not in control of your reading because fortunately, it appens, but you're in control of what you put in. You're the o e that's in control of tha.

Glory Gray: 25:20

So people are busy. What can I do to eat healthy if I eat out regularly, I don't cook much at home. What can I

Charlotte Crowley: 25:28

Well, you know what I learned? I didn't do? realize until I became a holistic nutritionist. I did a career change, I studied to learn that field. And so along the way I started looking at menus differently a lot of us

Glory Gray: 25:43

[laughs] And then you go to the table next to you look at the menu and we think,"Gosh, that looks delicious. I feel like eating this." Without any relation to what your body might actually need for that meal, or what you had yesterday or today for food. So I started looking at menus and I would scan them. I didn't have much vegetables today I should have some. Focus on maybe maybe a sal d with protein. I'll pick something that I know is going to fill... something I like, d n't get me wrong, but I will o ten scan a menu and I'll come up with two items on the menu that are appropriate for me at th t meal. And then that's what I'll pick. And occasionally and say "you gonna eat that?" I'll have something that pr bably isn't good for me. Every now and then. I'm just gonna ha e this because I feel like it. But, honestly, most of the time I do the scan, I decide wha seems to be the right thin. And that's what I have from t e menu. So and also looking for he healthiest choices, things that aren't full of sauce nd gravy. Things that don't dig st well together. Hamburgers don't digest well together be ause protein and bread toget er aren't a good thing. There s a lot of tricks like that y u learn along the way. Looking for places that have healthier food. If you have a choice of wh re to go you say you know, t ey've got a really good heal hy menu so why don't we go there Thinking ahead of time so that you're prepared for what you're oing to pick. You know, ofte

Charlotte Crowley: 27:24

But again, it's being mindful, it's being I just skip dessert because if eat slow enough I find I'm not ungry enough for dessert. Or I s y bring me a fork, my husband it's saying okay, you know what, what makes sense here, if you're traveling on the road...also being prepared, so if you go in as to share the point of his pie with me. But then he won' the morning, and you know you've got a busy day...first of all, you should probably always have breakfast do your best to have a have dessert either and so I s y oh, I don't get anyth ng. I get no dessert! decent breakfast protein is great to have at breakfast ,and then say okay, I'm not gonna have time to do much so make sure you've got something with you. Like a piece of fruit, some nuts, some cheese, something that is a good snack or carrots. Maybe a little thing of hummus. Maybe you've got a little bag you can put a little cooler in it. So you're a little bit prepared so that you don't say I'm starving, I'm going to drive through the drive thru I mean, I'm going to get a coffee and a doughnut, which picks you up and drops you like a rock. So it's not good for your blood sugar. So just being a little bit more planned. And then shopping and making sure you've got food available. So plan for your time the best you can. The best you can.

Glory Gray: 28:37

You know one of the toughest places I found to eat healthy is if you're on a road trip. If you're a snowbird and you're heading south for the winter. Oh, my word, there's nothing but drive-in fast food. So, maybe pack some lunches, plan ahead?

Charlotte Crowley: 28:54

Yeah, plan ahead, pack your lunch. Make

Glory Gray: 28:55

That made me think of something else. Even if we're sure you've got some healthy snacks and things so when you get hungry you're in that you're in eat something that you know is healthy for you. That will al o keep your blood sugar stable i you're eating healthy foods, s that you're not going to be a the mercy of your brain say ng, "I need something, give me s mething sugary, and fat rig t away, because I'm thinking. working at home or we're retired, We're getting two or three o'clock. "I want to snooze, I want all the chocolate in the house." What are some healthy snack options if my energy is flagging in mid-afternoon?

Charlotte Crowley: 29:35

We just came through apple season and my mum has an apple tree with my favorite apples on it. So I cut up a piece of apple and I have a few nuts. I usually buy organic nuts because we want to make sure we're eating as healthy as we can. So maybe just a small amount because they're high calorie but they can really give you a boost, so I'll have a little bit of sliced up Apple a bit of nuts and I might even add a little piece of cheese. So I've got some really good taste and I've got I've got the crunch and I've got the flavor altogether. Also some things like carrots and hummus. A little bit of soup is good. If you have lunch and you didn't finish it so maybe kind of salad for lunch, You just couldn't finish it. Because you get you get filled up with some fiber leafy greens, so things like that. Avocado is a Great, healthy fat. Avocado with a little bit of salmon. Healthy fat, a little bit of protein. Protein is good. If you have anything left over from dinner, you maybe had chicken for dinner. A little bit of chicken, grainy crackers, a little peanut butter, almond butter, piece of fruit, yogurt and fruit. Often I'll have a smoothie in the morning but sometimes the afternoon if I didn't have a smoothie in the morning, I'll have a little bit of yogurt put a little bit of fruit and grated nuts on top, and that will coast me through the afternoon. So all kinds of things that are not out of a package and not out of a little bag that you've ripped open That says "healthy snack" on it. Honestly, if it says "healthy snack," or "Natural".... Look at the ingredients.

Glory Gray: 31:20

And you know, these ideas you're suggesting don't take any more time than opening a package, honestly. It really is all about just stepping back and planning a little bit and being more mindful.

Charlotte Crowley: 31:39

Yeah. Grandmothers tell me their families are coming to visit. They tell me, What I always have on the table is a big bowl of fruit for the grandkids. I bring a tray of cut up carrots and celery and broccoli, a little bit of hummus and that's what a snack is for the kids. So anything to get them interested in eating healthy when they're little. And then as I get older, they're going to maybe think a little bit more about what they're taking in. And planning is huge. Have the food available for when you do want to have the snack. I never say don't ever have cookies, but you're gonna have a cookie, first of all, try to make them and then use healthy ingredients. What I often do is I'll google the first word for a recipe I put healthy first, I put"healthy..." and then whatever it is I'm looking for, and you automatically get the list of things that have more healthy ingredients. I found some great little websites that have all kinds of healthy choices for all kinds of things. You can do"healthy, whatever with five ingredients" or one ingredient. Keep it as simple as you can. So you're not over complicating what you're trying to do.

Glory Gray: 33:01

Any final tips, Charlotte?

Charlotte Crowley: 33:04

I think the thing is being realistic and not trying to jump in to do this big huge...change your routine all at once. Which is really, really hard to it's hard to put it into play, and it's hard to keep it going. So it's easier to just say okay, here are some things I think will work for me. That's what I say. If you do nothing else but say "I'm going to chew more," great. Focus on that. And then you say, "I'm going to pay attention to my water drinking." So some people they get several water bottles and they set them around their house in different places so they actually see it right there and think "Oh, yeah. I haven't had water." So they actually give themself clues along the way and then say what else can I do. Everybody knows they should eat fruit. So maybe just make sure that you got a bowl of fruit and you've got the fruit in a bowl on your counter. So in the morning, you think"Oh, maybe I'll have an orange. Maybe I'll have a banana. If you want a snack later, you see there's an apple, so it's right in front of you. So you've got yourself kind of primed with your memory. And you know the older you get, you get distracted you forget your what you're going to do. You need clues!

Glory Gray: 34:28

[laughs] So put it out in front of you!

Charlotte Crowley: 34:36

Have it available so you don't have to work at it. And when you go shopping, don't be starving. I mean that's no surprise. Make sure you're not hungry when you shop so that you make better choices so when you open your cupboards and say "I'm starving, you're going to have something there that is actually appealing for you. And then just do your best and just start to incorporate little things in your diet. For this time of year it works great to make soup so if you're inclined, making soup is not that difficult. I make bone broth regularly and my house smells so good. We have it to drink. You can dump some leftover veggies from dinner in bone broth heat it up in the soup for lunch. Make it easy to do for yourself.

Glory Gray: 35:30

So, Charlotte how can people get ahold of you best and find out more about what you do and how you can help them.

Charlotte Crowley: 35:38

They can email me which is probably the best way to reach me. I do a free consult for you. I do 45 minutes for free for people where we just make the time to sit and do a zoom or just on the phone. Zoom is nice because you see each other. We just have a chat about what's going on and what they're thinking and what their issues are. And my email is healthywisdom@shaw.ca and my website is healthywisdom.ca . So those are two ways of easily getting a hold of me. I have a website, there are testimonials in there. I have information on my yoga classes and information on my nutrition information on how I deal with private clients. I do lunch and learns for companies. So lots of options.

Glory Gray: 36:29

Thank you so much for joining us on Women's Wealth Canada today, Charlotte and we'll put all of the links to Charlotte's web site and her email address in the notes, So thank you so much for being with us.

Charlotte Crowley: 36:43

Well thank you, Glory.

Glory Gray: 36:44

That was Registered Holistic Nutritionist, Charlotte Crowley. I have a secret to share with our listeners...Charlotte and I are partnering up to offer some special online yoga and nutrition sessions in the New Year and theyre going to be free for my clients, their guests and a select group of our podcast listeners, so if you want to get notified of how you can win a chance to be part of those sessions, go to my website, GloryGray.com and sign up for our newsletter and youll be among the first to get a chance to win free yoga and nutrition. Thats all for today, if this podcast helped you, please subscribe and please let others know about it so we can help them too. You can follow Glory Gray Wealth Solutions on Facebook too. Are you going through a life transition and need to find a financial advisor to manage your investments? You dont have to feel intimidated wondering how to find the right one. Grab my free guide, 12 Smart Questions to Ask When Interviewing a Financial Advisor. This guide gives you all the questions and why you should ask them. Just go to GloryGray.com, pop in your email address and well send it right to your inbox. You can also schedule a free 30 minute phone call with me where you can ask your specific financial questions. Just pop over to my website, GloryGray.com and contact us. Until next time, this is Glory Gray, your personal trainer for financial fitness telling you to take charge of your finances, plan for the future but most of all, enjoy today. Bye for now.

Announcer: 38:27

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, tax or legal advice. It is not an offer to sell or buy or an endorsement, recommendation or sponsorship of any entity or security cited. Mutual funds offered through Portfolio Strategies Corporation. Other products and services provided through Glory Gray Wealth Solutions.