Ep.23 - Melissa FitzGerald: Programs to Positively Impact Children’s Health, Gratitude, with

hello and welcome welcome welcome to the podcast eat better food today I'm your host Ken Coan and I'm excited to be sharing insights on why we believe that Health and Longevity begins with the food we eat the goal of this podcast will be to inspire educate and enable folks to live a healthy your life and do it affordably my wife and I have been on this journey for over 10 years and continue to work on it every single day for set of our profits for from this podcast we put towards child hunger with an initial focus on the poor suburban American East Cleveland Ohio as a reminder please be sure to visit my website eat better food today for links from the show videos recipes books and articles our guests provide on this episode we're grateful to have Melissa Fitzpatrick in episodes up until now we focus mostly on food but while food has a major impact on Health and Longevity today with Melissa's insights we'll discuss how mindfulness and well-being can impact our Health and Longevity Melissa is a former D1 College athlete who was fascinated with sports psychology leading to a Masters in Education and sports science after 20 years of coaching Varsity Athletics Melissa became a certified yoga instructor and teaches at Solen high school and Ashlin University she also founded my Ed LLC I met Melissa while she was presenting on Stress Management at Dr pul uh diabetes retreat in February so in this episode we'll explore Melissa's thoughts on mindful living its impact on health and longevity and discuss what continues to inspire her welcome Melissa thank you so first question I always kind of start out with I believe the good start to a day begins with a healthy breakfast so curious what you had for breakfast this morning I actually ate a banana no coffee no orange juice oh well coffee yes yes I always have my cup of coffee and my banana um and I try and actually eat it mindfully as my first me the day so that's kind of the second part of my question so what other morning routines do you have to kind of start your day besides I love that question just like what you put in your body is so important in the morning I feel like a routine is so important um a lot of times we wake up with a negative attitude not wanting to get out of bed so the first part of my daily routine as soon as my alarm goes off I do not get out of bed until I think of three things I'm grateful for and why and the one thing I'm looking forward to most in the day nice and that always starts me off on the right foot I take my shower and I go and make my coffee and my breakfast and I sit down with my dog on the floor and I have my breakfast mindfully I ate it nice and slow and and then I meditate and then I head off to work so that's every day it's a nice routine yes I had another guest he's a chef on the show he talked about mindfully eating your food instead of just kind of zipping through it's a game changer um I mean I I teach Health I've taught health for 30 years and something I always teach is you know the brain doesn't know it's even full for at least 20 minutes and most meals we scarf down in just a few minutes so it's hard to really know um let alone you know actually taste it and enjoy it I had I had a doctor on the show and she was trying to help somebody lose some weight and put her on a diet kept meeting kept meeting say I'm following her diet I'm following her diet and then one day she went out to her car and to bring her something or get something from her and the whole backseat of her car was full of fast food wrappers she goes well we didn't say what I had to eat when I was driving or going somewhere you just asked me to be on a diet when I was home so she was not losing any weight she was going through a drive-thru every every day and then when we're driving eating we your brain can only really focus on one thing at a time so you know that's like really a big basis of mindful eating it's you know we all we do things on autopilot and we just do it in excess and yeah eat a good meal and enjoy it absolutely so um you've kind of had a very busy life getting to this point as far as from college up through um Sol in Ash University can you kind of go through and then and you have your own company I don't know how old your company is right now but can you kind of just give us a little bit of history of how you got from where you started as a as an athlete to to today absolutely well it all started um my dad is my biggest role model on the planet um he was actually a health and physical education teacher at the high school I went to up Arlington in Columbus okay and he was also the girls varsity basketball coach and he just instilled this love of sports and basketball and um and I I just saw him wake up every morning and be excited to go to work on top of the fact he got to wear sweatpants um I'm like that's the job I want and then um actually uh growing up he just really instilled this sense of competition and um teamwork and uh it was our goal to win a state championship it was all my best friends on the basketball team and he was my basketball coach and we ended up winning a state championship my senior year with my dad as the coach and my best friends and I'm like this is it I mean like this is what I want to do and I ended up um being a varsity coach for many many years um obviously I I played Athletics in college um and um became a health and physical education teacher and um so to say I followed in his footsteps is is is an understatement um and I also tell them I blame him for everything um I don't like but um there's really not much I don't like um I get to influence people teaching them about health um mindfulness and getting certified in yoga was kind of a transition um when I decided I wanted to retire from coaching I had a couple kids and um I got into a yoga studio and I just fell in love with the practice and I was also teaching fizet and teaching them yoga but I wanted to teach it right so I found a studio that I fell in love with um just a little plug Cleveland yoga I think is the best yoga studio on the planet at least you know that I've been to and I got certified there and I walked away and I'm like wow I have never been in better shape physically and mentally I had so much Clarity and confidence and I had this vision and I felt like everyone should feel this way MH so that's when I implemented uh a yoga program at Solen High School um I decided I wanted to uh teach these skills to to kids and adults around the country so I'm like well I need to develop a business and that's where my mindfulness and yoga and education stem from um I haven't done a I guess a ton with my business because I am busy with with a full-time job at Solen um but it is also evolved into this um Prodigy program that we offer and we train teens to become yoga teachers that's part of it and I got hooked into University Hospitals with Dr AG who is just fabulous um and I've done some speaking um across the country and a lot more in Ohio I've developed these courses for teachers to teach them how to live mindfulness in yoga and then ways that they can implement it professionally as well um so it's just kind of one project has led to another and kind of landed me here with you um I just think that everybody these are free accessible and really simple strategies that anyone can Implement and it can be lifechanging so you mentioned Dr age was that so what what does Dr age do uh she's the one that runs the program for University Hospitals um she has doesn't want to just treat patients she wants to educate them and she found a grant to allow education to people with diabetes and she has come up with a comprehensive program for free for anyone with diabetes that wants to learn how to manage it better and she has a whole team of people that volunteer from uh and and they feed uh everyone a delicious healthy lunch um snacks and then really teach them how to live a lifestyle because it's not a Sprint you know it's a marathon and these are changes that have to occur every day not just for a short period of time right so I really applaud her and uh for developing this program and she is super passionate about it she very passionate and I'm just feel very fortunate that I'm a part of it that's very cool so we've had um a couple of people on the show um Chef Ben ban Roth he's the one that talked about any mindfully and uh director nutrition Bob Bob Gorman executive director Sarah cunon he's in they talk about how they're working to improve the health of our children in schools um Bob Works um in cmsd and then Sarah works with schools in Cleveland and East Cleveland um working with those age groups and then I think I mentioned you before we started but I just recently listened to a podcast name was Dr Alysa song and she was talking about um why kids are sicker today and she's a pediatrician and she's basically um saying that the question was asked of her during the podcast what's the number one thing affecting children's health today I thought she was gonna say food and what she said is food is number two and stress in the environment are number one right now for for kids especially teenagers so how do you believe your program are positively impacting Children's Health wow I I mean I first agree um it's a changing world there's a lot of pressure out there and with technology it's just a whole new ball game and these kids don't know any different Ian we grew up without it and no there's a difference um this is just how they live and um I'm fortunate that I get to teach health and yoga to teens every day and that's really what we hit I spend a majority of my health class um teaching about mental health and and yoga obviously we we work on it every single day um because uh what they think really truly matters um and it's it's their perspective and that's really the that's their reality so um teaching them some skills to manage and uh with stress management um mindfulness skills um these are things that can last a lifetime and if they can learn it at a younger age it just sets them up for Success it just puts them um so far ahead and that's why I'm really proud too of the the teen yoga program that we have um really giving them the scho skills too for leadership mindfulness Stress Management um it it it it's pretty life altering um and I get to see that at the high school level I get to see that in that program um and then just even reaching out beyond that like in some of the other programs um there's nothing more rewarding to me than to support people with some of these skills and and really seeing it make a difference so give just for listeners give what what's an example like when you do the work with the high school kids or kids and so on what what what what are you exactly you're doing I mean I know what yoga is but beyond that yes um well we teach them about like for example um about self-compassion and what that is and um being able to give oneself Grace um we talk about affirmations and the negativity bias I don't know if you've heard of the negativity bias that we have in our brain that we're really wired for protection and so we tend to focus on the negative instead of the positive but you can rewrite that script just by with gratitude um that's something that I Implement in all my classes we do uh weekly thankful Thursday and then we talk about why is gratitude so important what are the benefits positive psychology is something that's really come around the last decade and they learn like how powerful um you know know even positive affirmations and gratitude can be so these are just simple little things that we Implement um we do like a motivation Monday in my class where um we talk about confidence and self-esteem and ways to build that and sometimes we do motivational videos and sometimes we do motivational flows and um yeah just bringing in some inspiration so these kids you know have hope um and positivity in their lives you Mondays that's a good time to to do something do some motivation for teenagers absolutely we all need it so do you like you you talked about when you get up in the morning you kind of do the Gratitude three things you're grateful for do you you must teach them that as well I absolutely do um I give them all kinds of options like even things like journaling um we do journaling in my classes um both health and yoga and they know research shows that journaling can reduce a lot of stress and can improve in mental health um they know that meditation I teach meditation and mindfulness um sometimes people think that that's woowoo or you know like spiritual and you know it certainly can be but really meditation is just focus and because of technology today these kids it's really a struggle to focus and just taking a few minutes and I even talked to the kids about how it's like why do we brush our teeth in the morning why do we take a shower you got to get all the dirt off all the junk it's no different with meditation you got to get calm and get rid of some of the junk in the brain so you can perform better and um you know those are just simple little things that we can Implement during our school day that can be things that they can take with them nice yeah I kind of I think I mentioned before the whole meditation thing we've been doing functional medicine with the clinic for about 10 years and uh the meditation piece was the one piece I struggled with that I just I just didn't want to do it and then I I got a new manager in the the job I had previously and I was just stressed out and I just I got to do something else because I just can't keep doing this so I started meditating and I've been doing it for probably last years now every morning so and it has it worked for you it has calmed me down tremendously so it it definitely works I wholeheartedly agree even if it's just a short period of time I mean I would never you know suggest to somebody that they sit down and try and meditate for a half an hour right out of the gate um they're going to quit very quickly but even little just chunks of focusing on the breath breath work is something that I also teach the kids um your breath is the remote control of the brain so there's ways that you can activate your parasympathetic nervous system to calm yourself down when you get angry or stressed or anxious and um you know we have kids that have all this test anxiety and anxiety about everything and they need quick little ways to calm themselves down and that's just such a simple technique that can easily be taught and it's something that we need to use the rest of Our Lives um so you know breathing can be part of meditation and and there's some there can be some crossover but focusing really on anything it can be music kids love music so sometimes we'll do like a little music meditation um and uh yeah there's just so many ways that they can utilize that doesn't have to be the typical sit crisscross and you know do the what what people think of when they think of meditation we do walking meditation we do gratitude walks we you know there's a million things that you can Implement and I guess that's why too um you know I only get to teach so many kids so a big focus of mine was working with ashin to create courses to teach teachers how to teach it because the more teachers that can teach it and implement it they're going to get better results right which is really what schools want yeah you get it more broadly I hope more and more people kind of pick that up absolutely from a teaching standpoint just even just a few moments the beginning of class and studies show that if you can just get grounded before you start you're going to have better focus you're going to have better productivity um and ultimately that's what you want I know my wife's an eighth grade teacher she's tried to work with her kids on meditation in the morning not sure where she's at right now I know she has tried so and even making it a competition to see you know getting them to even sit still and and just sit quietly for a short period of time and do nothing which is a lost art yes it is they're just their brains constantly want to be stimulated and and we we know that if we can just calm it and slow it down a little bit that it can have big results did you from uh Co and kind of what happened there what do you see a change in kids from I guess prior and after as far as I don't know social interaction calming down Absolut absolutely they're without a doubt and still say my wife still sings some of the romance of it too um they missed such a major part of their growth emotionally psychologically their ability to connect that emotional int elligence piece um is is a struggle for these kids and some of those are formative years that they missed out on um so I think it's just going to take some time but um there's no doubt I notice a difference and then that all trickles down to you know mental health and stress and all that comes with it physical ailments yeah kind of all instead of just prescribing a pill when a child says whatever how I'm feeling they should look at food they should look at you know mindfulness and other ways other than just describing something yes and it's you know a combination it's right if they can eat right and make sure they get the nutrients they need they get enough sleep y sleep they reduce their cell phone time which is a big struggle and we work on that with my kids all the time and um get enough exercise and get out in nature just doing that alone would have just as much benefit and I'm just going to go out on a limb and say more than actual medication could agree more yeah go for a walk with your dog that's yes yeah for your friends and that's really what we teach I mean it's it's all about coming back to the big three is what I teach it's it's nutrition exercise you know and sleep um if you do those three things you're really going to give yourself a better chance yeah absolutely so how did you how did you get started in SE I mean this is this was new when you started it's not anymore but how did you kind of convince them to even do this to begin with I mean School are typically tight on funding that's a new program Etc so I am very fortunate to work in one of the best school districts in Ohio um and also recognize you know throughout the country um we um are always looking to do things better and I know that um the district was looking to implement some more social emotional learning and they were also looking into yoga in particular and it just worked out that that's what they were looking for and that's what I wanted and it kind of you know came together right at the right time um and immediately after I got certified we developed a committee um of people throughout the district that were also interested in mindfulness and Stress Management andal and we did a lot of work uh pretty fast within a few years it was being infused throughout our entire District um and I I would say I'm really really proud I've had over 250 teachers in the district take one of my classes on mindfulness and um I think that that's helped tremendously because now all those 200 plus teachers are able to infuse that into their own classes very nice yeah and I'm doing a retreat this summer um for educators as well and it we really wanted to take care of teachers because they're all stressed kids are stressed teachers are stressed and um so we're really dialing into self-care meditation mind mindfulness and also talking about nutrition this is one of the first times I'm also infusing nutrition and talking about sleep and and getting a holistic approach to Wellness because if we can't be our best selves then we can't be our best for our kids right right and teachers are notorious for you know being perfectionists and givers um but you can't give what you don't have so that's something else that we're really working on to kind of take it to the next level I think a lot of teachers left the profession during covid because they were just everything you're describing they were just stressed out and just didn't want to go back yeah it's it's it's really unfortunate and it's happening throughout the country um we're losing teachers they're getting burned out um they're not managing I mean it's just a lot of stress and a lot of pressure um the kids are having a harder time and it's really a trickle down effect um so now more than ever I mean we need to take care of ourselves yeah it's kind of like putting that oxygen mask on you know you got to put it on yourself first um otherwise you you are going to burn out it's just a matter of time so on your website um for educators yeah well you mentioned the retreat coming up so I was going to ask about that and you also have a picture on there about it's uh the words mindful living at the top and then you've got gratitude breath meditation kind of in the middle and then sleep nutrition exercise at the bottom so I guess can you just kind of share a little bit more information about the kind of why you created that particular picture yeah I first of all I love pyramids because I feel like um that's also a great way I think about holistic health with you know mind body and you know social or spiritual and um you need them all otherwise you have like an obtuse triangle and you want to have like that perfect triangle at least you know attempting um because that's how we have better health mentally and physically um so that's kind of why I started with the pyramid but the foundation of all well-being is sleep exercise and nutrition it really is how you feel your body I mean we could sit here and argue very easily you are what you eat um and how we fuel ourselves and that's something that I'm going to focus on in The Retreat on day two is about more about wellness and Peak Performance you cannot perform it you're Peak if you're not nourishing yourself with food that's going to give you energy so that's that's a big piece of it um and then obviously getting enough sleep you can't you can't we can't run on fumes especially in the teaching profession um it's just not going to go very well so so that's the foundation and then um that's really the wellness piece and then moving up the pyramid um it's really about now getting the mind right with meditation um mindfulness which is paying attention on purpose in the present moment with non-judgment and just really being here like now um and I I heard someone say before if you're stressed out and you're anxious it's because you're you're you're playing all those Whata if scenarios about the future and if you're sad or angry it's because you're repaying what already happened so like the sweet spot is really here and now yeah and the more we can kind of live in the moment the happier we'll be so there's a lot of different ways that you can live a mindful life and you know that's part of it and then the breathing it's so simple but we don't do it we breathe like 20,000 times a day day but we don't think about it once right right and it's such a simple thing like you can control your nervous system by how you breathe and that's another technique that we teach at the retreat in the classes and the teens and yoga train all of it breathing is a big part of that and and you mentioned it uh Dr batou's her Retreat you mentioned I'm trying to remember now on the breathing it's like fours yes maybe explain that a little bit um th this is great stuff so if you want to calm your central nervous system you want to accentuate the exhale so any like amount of time if you breathe in for three you want to breathe out for six and if you can't sleep at night because your brain's just all over the place which happens to all of us you can focus on your breath because your brain can only really focus on one thing at a time so my favorite way to fall asleep is 478 you breathe in for four you hold for seven and then you exhale for eight nice and slow and if you just keep focusing on that it's only a matter of time um and then there's box breathing if you have an equal inhale and exhale like inhale for four exhale for four what you're really getting to is equilibrium or homeostasis because now you're equalizing your inhale and your exhale and box breathing is super simple you inhale for three you hold for three you exhale for three you pause for three and you can really pick any number but it's just a way to balance out your nervous system and it works your brain doesn't know the difference between real and imaginary so you know what you think matters exactly what you think matter what you focus on matters and if you need energy you can accentuate the inhale and shorten the exhale I wouldn't recommend doing that all the time but more of the Box breathing I say is like water you can drink water all day long it's good for you equal inhale and exhale is really good for you nice nice so any stories you can share success stories like students you worked with or other teachers You' worked with that you've just seen them change in a positive way you know a kid was Restless or not learning or whatever whatever symptom they might have had and then kind of worked with you and you know changed in a positive way oh my goodness I could we could talk for a whole hour on just that um this is why I love my job this is why I'm excited um to go to work every day I'll give you an example of today we did um my kids in yoga at the high school they do a like a final flow and they have to teach the whole period and they have to create their flow they have to stand in their power and their strength and their confidence and they have to speak loudly and clearly and and Lead an inspiring flow with quotes and music and I've had this student for since she was a freshman and she was so she struggled so much as a freshman with confidence and she was more of an introvert and to see her now as a junior taking the class and doing the flow I literally had tears in my eyes she was so confident and was free to be herself and was inspiring and just led the entire period and that's where it's just it's so rewarding and I would say another example is The Prodigy program that I'm a part of in Cleveland yoga it's incredibly rewarding to see these kids go through this immersion it's like 11 straight days all day and just the way they start and the way they come out I I mean it's unbelievable 11 straight days 11 in straight days it's like a boot camp and there's always tears there's always sweat there's always like struggle and when they come out they are literally different people they just have this incredible growth um self-confidence self-compassion they walk away able to they're certified yoga instructors so they can then pass it along to the next person and that's really what it's about is paying it forward M is so rewarding um it it's pretty remarkable and then honestly teachers I love teaching teachers and it's funny because it's almost like they they're always striving to be better teachers better teachers better teachers but I have the opportunity to teach them how to take care of themselves better and then when that really connects and they actually feel better and different um that to me is so rewarding and then that they're now able to also pay it forward right they can take themselves yeah it's just yeah I I I I could not be luckier to have the job I have nice nice [Music] so I'm i g to kind of bring up two things here that are kind of related to I guess the bottom part but I think maybe the whole pyramid you were talking about so um health care costs continue to increase in this company I mean we've got you know debt problems from a national standpoint and a lot of it has to do with kind of what we're talking about I mean it's people are not Healthy mindwise nutrition wise sleepwise there's there's chronic diseases are going up for adults chronic diseases are going up for kids I mean it's things have have to change to uh so I guess just what are your thoughts in general just healthc care costs and kind of what the subject matters we're talking about here with mindfulness and sleep Health Nutrition Etc yeah um meditation is free um mindfulness is free um gratitude is free and can have a life altering effect um I just wish that that's my goal is to just get the information out to more people so I'm also very grateful to you for giving me this platform to do that um but yeah it's it's out of control um I'm also grateful that uh offers the program for free um you know we we need to have more of that there's grants out there um we need to take advantage and uh get healthy living out to more people because prevention is is you know so important um and developing getting it at the younger ages starting it then because you can't wake up when you're 50 and go well I guess I better start eating better I guess I better start you know exercising because it's too hard to change at that point you can still do it but if you start to put in MO motion these life skills at a younger age that's when we're going to see more change because it's really not health care it's sick care right now and that's something too that needs to change um we need more prevention yes and education educ I think the education is huge to get people off of these medications that are off the charts yeah yeah um in regard to expense yeah just this topic comes up a lot in these conversations and it's it's if you look at the advertising that's done on television sporting events Etc it's all focused on a Foods you probably shouldn't be eating to begin with and then B you've got a lot of prescriptions they're advertising it'd be nice to and I talked about this in the show before have some somebody like an athlete say hey I meditate I do mindfulness yes I eat broccoli I mean some you know people that influence children up on a you know on a commercial talking about because they don't I think I like Joe Thomas for the Cleveland Brown the reason he was so successful he did yoga that was one of his reasons that he did not get injured for a long long time so yes I just wish people in in those positions would start speaking about this Kobe Bryant was another one um I he was a huge advocate for meditation and mindfulness and healthy living and LeBron he he does yoga I mean yeah LeBron um I mean we could go on and on I I try and utilize that in my classes because there are a few videos that highlight some celebrities that actually Implement these things I mean you could also talk to Google Microsoft um you know all these companies that are making all this money they teach their employees this why because it makes them more creative and ultimately makes them more money two it keeps them healthier so they're not taking more days off and when you're happier you're more successful right um so yeah I agree that we need more positive influencers yes that could be also a game Cher um and if there was a way to do that I think that would definitely influence a lot of younger people yeah well we're going to keep we're going to on this podc we're going to keep talking about it and I hope to get an athlete or two on here to kind of that would be fantastic because that's where that's where people listen yeah exactly and did you know we're only there's only two countries in the whole world that advertises drugs I and we're one of them isn't that wild I did not know that yeah so I mean a lot of it is influenced by money and advertisement and yeah we need more healthy advertisements yes yes we do um so mindfulness um I know you have teenagers at home we're talking about that earlier so what are your thoughts just in general on encouraging more people to cook healthy eat healthy at home and eat with the family I guess yeah um it's huge I I I was very proud my my son um have you ever watched um about the blue zones there's a documentary on the blue zones fascinating I highly recommend it if if any of the listeners out there check it out just Google search blue zones it's also on Netflix um it touches on a lot of that but um they eat to 80% full right and I'm like what a concept but most people don't know they're 80% full because they don't know how to listen to their body and they don't slow down and they don't slow down right right and if we just slow down and learn to listen to our bodies our bodies give us all the answers it tells us what we need we just have to tune in and we got to get rid of all the extra noise um so I talked to my kids about that and my son I'm not kidding you to this day I'll ask him if he wants more to eat he goes no Mom I'm 80 is% full I'm good um so sometimes just little things you know will definitely um stick m not everything but eating as a family that is mindful turning off Electronics turning off the TV and then adding some gratitude what was the best part of your day can can be very very meaningful because you're hitting connection you're hitting gratitude and you're eating healthy eating y yep out standing going agree more yeah and you're having a conversation versus just mindlessly eating at the dinner table or on the couch or whatever so yes because when we do that I mean most people enjoy I enjoy sitting and watching my favorite show and having you know something to eat but we don't pay attention right right um and if we do that enough that can be really unhealthy um so I always say everything and you know definitely moderation um but I always tell people whether it's kids or adults teachers try and have at least one mindful meal a day where you're doing nothing else but eating and just eat slow Savor the food think about where it came from and like how you appreciate that it got to your table and just chew really slowly and if you can at least do that one meal a day that can just really make a big difference yeah I did a uh like a Fed day fast doctor prescribed and you you ate something you didn't eat a lot every day so like for lunch there were five olives and some crackers if that's all you have to eat for lunch you really appreciate yeah exactly take your time exactly I've never loved oliv so much ever so but you should to your point you should do that more often so and really taste it because a lot of times when we eat fast yeah we don't even taste it and there's so many good foods I there is yeah so enjoy them absolutely all right so the last question I have is about a recipe so I know you're not a cooker not a great but you do cook at home I assume for kids so you must have a so the the ask was under $25 out of 30 minutes for a family FL well I would say probably my favorite thing to eat with my family is we have taco night um and I think even a taco salad is something so simple and yet so delicious um because you can put so many wonderful things in there and I like to use turkey meat okay so I I use ground turkey put a bunch of seasoning on it and um you can cut up vegetables I love black beans um you can my kids and I love to throw in some corn with some onion and definitely you can make a taco salad under $25 get a bunch of lettuce and just throw it all together it's simple like you can make it very very quickly and it makes great leftovers too nice nice I would have to say black beans are probably the number one ingredient that's come up so far I love black beans yeah and they're they're good for it good source of protein they're healthy my only comment there would be make sure you turn the can around and make sure it's just beans water maybe some salt but not 10 other things that are not so yeah looking at the ingredients is really important um and even like looking on a package like even looking at ground turkey like you don't want to look at the front of the package because they can be very deceiving um you want to look on the back and make sure that you're getting what you you know are anticipating and also with like even a a label just knowing what the first few ingredients are is pretty darn important mhm yeah you actually get hopefully get released next week somebody from France we just had a conversation he his father is from New York City his mother's from Paris he grew up in France so just a conversation about the difference in food there versus here and the ingredients like we're talking about the you can buy the same trying to do this without naming company but basically the same box something in the US and something over in Europe and the ingredients are totally different I I was amazed when I I spent um 10 days in Italy never been to Italy and by the end of the trip I'm like we are doing things so wrong everything was fresh farmed to table there's I I didn't eat one processed food the entire time I was there you didn't need to because it was all yeah we were in France for a couple weeks and same thing I mean there's a market in every town and that's where people shop all the stores around it you got the fresh food there and I mean that's that's where everybody's buying there's I didn't see any processed foods but I could tell I could tell when we passed an American just based on they were overweight yeah most of the time so and they walk everywhere I mean and they walk yeah absolutely yeah so it's just it's a different lifestyle and we can learn a lot from that we can yep well thank you for being on the show much appreciate that thank you I could talk shop all day so I appreciate the opportunity good luck and what you're doing and I hope you kind of continue to educate kids and more adults more teachers to kind of you know spread the word on on what you're doing so thank you thank you I appreciate that