Today's episode is going to focus on improving your physical health with meal prepping. As usual, we've got three awesome guests who are going to share their knowledge on how to meal prep efficiently. Just wanted to go over real quick why we do Millionaires Are Made. Got an awesome little quote that kind of was a fundamental of how this show started: 'Every person you meet knows something you don't. There's something to be learned from everyone.' So throughout my life journey, I've met people knowing this and knowing that, and wondering why doesn't everyone share all this information so we all can quickly research and grow together. Hence, we came up with Millionaires Are Made, where we have different topics on each show, and each episode has three guests with tiny little tidbits so that you can improve your life and your journey on each aspect of health. So let's get to it, let's start learning about some meal prepping simple tips. We're going to start with one of our past guests who did a phenomenal job, so we begged her to come back to be a guest again. Welcome to the show, Debbie! How are you doing today?"

Debbie: "I am doing great, and you never have to beg me. I love being here."

Austin: "Well, I appreciate it. Let's start with a quick little question here. Who are you?"

Debbie: "Million-dollar question for Millionaires Are Made. So, I am a transformation and accountability expert. So what does that mean? It means I help people become the best versions of themselves through health coaching, nutrition coaching, personal training, life purpose coaching, and business coaching. Really taking all aspects of life and streamlining them into an approachable plan to get results."

Austin: "Okay, all right. That sounds fun. Are you taking new clients?"

Debbie: "Always, thank you for asking."

Austin: "Always, and we'll get her link. Did it just pop up? Yeah, it just popped up. Check the links. There it is. All right, Debbie, let me ask you the most important question of the day. If I wanted to improve my physical health using meal prepping, what simple tip would you give me?"

Debbie: "Simple is the key. So, I love that you said simple tip because that really is the key to implementation and consistency. My tip is going to be to prep foods that are aligned with your goals. For example, if you're trying to lose weight versus build muscle, the foods that you're going to be ingesting are different. So, you want to make sure that you're prepping and accessing foods that are actually aligned with those goals."

Austin: "Can you give us an example of foods that align with losing weight versus foods that align with building muscle real quick?"

Debbie: "Absolutely. So not to get too technical, but when you're trying to lose weight, you're going to be in a calorie deficit of some sort. That's either fewer calories in or more calories burned. So, you're not going to necessarily need as much food, and you're going to want to focus on smaller quantities. You're going to want to focus on foods that are going to be leaning you out—lean proteins, green leafy vegetables. Conversely, if you're trying to build muscle, you're going to want to be focusing on those macros. Percent of fat down, percent of protein up, and the rest will be carbs."

Austin: "The rest will be carbs. Awesome. Well, where on your life journey did you learn about this? Why do you know?"

Debbie: "I learned about it the hard way, of course. As a coach, I've also been a client. I am still a client of life and of health. I really have gone through the experience myself. I'm extremely busy. I was in the corporate world for 25 plus years before I started my coaching business. I've always been busy, and so I always had health and wellness as a part of my personal values. Tried to food prep along the years, but I didn't really know necessarily what I was doing. It became very costly, time-consuming, and it didn't get me the results that I wanted. Once I became a coach and really learned how to simplify what my goals were and how to achieve them, food prepping and grocery shopping take me less than 30 minutes every week now. So, I've really streamlined that process, and that's something that I share with clients."

Austin: "That's super impressive. If you're having trouble food prepping, Debbie is someone you need to talk to. Thirty minutes for shopping and prepping—man, we need to know your secrets. You have to be on every episode from now on. Deal?"

Debbie: "Deal."

Austin: "Any last tips? Any more knowledge you got? About a minute and a half."

Debbie: "Perfect. Once you know what foods are aligned with your goals, then depending on where you're starting at—beginner, intermediate, advanced—you can start to layer on. When you're a beginner, really focus on your proteins and your fruits and vegetables. That's going to be the leanest sources that's going to get you towards your goals, whether you're really going for muscle or weight loss. Then once you get a process in place that works and you're consistent with it, you can start to play a little. So, try new recipes. I always tell my clients, try to stick with tried and true recipes about 60-70% of the time, and then infuse some new recipes in about 30-40% of the time. So, you're getting some new flavors and textures, but if those don't work out because they don't always the first time around, you still know you have some favorites to look forward to. And then if you're advanced, that would be someone like myself or someone that's been doing this and they've got food prepped down, start to play with new ingredients. Start to research. I just found out about arrowroot. I didn't know what it was. So now that's next on my list to purchase and start to play with to see what kind of a difference that makes instead of using something like cornstarch that might not be as aligned with my goals. So, start simple—lean proteins, green vegetables, leafy greens. Then layer in new recipes, incorporate those, and then you go more advanced with new foreign ingredients that you can really get your maximum bang for your buck."

Austin: "Very cool. Thank you so much. Those are awesome tips. I love that, Debbie. Thank you. Hopefully, we can get some more meal preppers out there. We're going to move on to our next guest here, Samir. How are you doing, my man?"

Samir: "I'm doing well, man. How are you?"

Austin: "I am awesome. At an airport in St. Thomas in a tiny gate filming this show. Let me ask you a question, Samir. Who are you?"

Samir: "I'm Samir Danani. I'm a health coach, a nutrition coach, and a Ph.D. student here in South Africa, originally from the US. Been living in South Africa for many years now. Yeah, and I help people live their best lives, become healthy. I specialize especially in people who feel like they've been jerked around by the healthcare system and feel like they're about to give up hope. I give them hope and get them a new life."

Austin: "So, you said people who feel like they've been jerked around by the healthcare system. We'll talk about that more in a second. But first, I want to hear your answer to this next question. If I wanted to improve my physical health using meal prepping, what tiny piece of information would you give me?"

Samir: "What I'd say is, you know, a lot of people I find—so I work, especially a lot of my clients are people who used to be more plant-based and vegetarian and are introducing meat. One of the tricks we use is when you buy that meat, if you're buying enough meat for the week, whatever it may be, make sure you salt it as soon as you get it. So, take it out. If it's in plastic or whatever, take it out, salt it, and then put it away. Ideally, you would have butcher paper, but if you don't, that's okay. Just put it back in plastic or whatever. It's going to stay fresher. It's going to be tastier. I guarantee you, if you take that, you know, if you have two steaks from the same packet, cook one just like that and put salt afterwards, another one, put salt on it and cook it the next day. You're going to taste a massive difference. So, this is how we make meat, which is, in my mind, proper human food. Everything else is sort of optional. Make it really as tasty as possible. So then your meal prep and your meal prep for like a week, by the end of the week, it still is tasting good and fresh."

Austin: "100%. In fact, it's going to be much tastier. Very interesting. I like it. Oh, we got a great question actually from Sonia. Why are your patients transitioning away from plant-based diets?"

Samir: "So, I don't want to overstate this case, but many of my clients have been sort of vegan. If you eat plants as part of a balanced diet, I think it can be fine for most people. And humans have always eaten some plants. But if you're eating most of your calories in plants, and let's be honest, in a standard diet, that's what it looks like, you can run into all kinds of imbalances. So, we see hormone imbalances. We see mineral imbalances. We see vitamin imbalances. So, I see zinc deficiencies almost every day with my clients. I see many other problems. People suffering from brain fog. They don't even describe it as brain fog, but after working with me for a couple of weeks, they're like, 'Oh, I've been walking around in brain fog for years.' I also see digestive issues—Crohn's, IBS, irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis. We put these people on a no-plant diet, and suddenly they're like, 'Oh, wow, I'm pooping again. I'm pooping properly for the first time in maybe decades in some cases.' So, many different reasons. I know that's going to be one of your questions because I heard your discussion earlier. So, can I talk about how I came to this?"

Austin: "Let me ask the question, and then you can do it. What on your life journey led you and taught you this piece of advice?"

Samir: "In 2017, so I already had a long career working with NGOs—MSF, Médecins Sans Frontières, and some of these other ones you may have heard of—MSI International and so on. And I was between jobs. I got laid off, and a friend of mine said, 'Why don't you join the Ph.D. program here in South Africa?' So, I joined the Ph.D. program. But by that time, I was suffering from a number of problems. I had pre-diabetes. My best friend, who's still a friend, who since passed, he had a very bad cancer diagnosis. So, I went to the medical library instead of to the library I was meant to go to and read paper after paper. I got so angry within about two or three hours because everything I had been taught about food and nutrition, things like eat your fruits and vegetables and so on—I mean, I found out it was complete nonsense. I fixed my own health in a matter of weeks by doing the opposite of that—by eating more meat. I was vegetarian at the time. I quickly became—I quickly understood that meat is proper food. I quickly lowered my carb content to near zero, and I healed all of my issues within a matter of weeks. Then I got sort of pissed off because everywhere I looked around, people needed to do what I had done. But I didn't have the qualifications and so on. So, I took separate courses, nutrition and health coaching courses, to get those qualifications. And now, that's what I do. I work with some of my clients who were, for example, suffering from very serious mental health issues, were considering suicide, and we get them on the proper human diet, and suddenly, one of my clients was considering suicide. Then he moved to Hawaii, started a new life. His marriage ended. His marriage was ending before he met me. But he was able to get through that divorce, started a new life in Hawaii, lost about 40 or 50 pounds. I mean, he was just doing great. When he met me, he was seriously considering going to a state that allowed for assisted suicide. Those are the kinds of stories that are really, I love to see."

Austin: "Yeah, those are powerful stories. But I definitely support moving to an island for your mental health. That's a different episode. But it's funny; he just texted me like five minutes ago, saying, 'I moved back to my hometown, and I put some of the weight back on. Can we work together again?' So yeah, it's always a process."

Samir: "It is, it is."

Austin: "Well, thank you so much, Samir. Austin: We are gonna move on to our next guest here. We've got Michele. Michele, how are you doing today?

Michele: I'm doing great.

Austin: Michele, who are you?

Michele: So, I am a mom of four, a military wife, and I also have my doctorate in physical therapy. A few years ago, I started my own business doing online personal training, health coaching, and I teach yoga. I also Austin my own podcast, "Healthy Beyond 40." I really try to help women find a place to get healthier from the inside out and really find a way to get off all the yo-yo dieting that we have and really find a sustainable way to get healthy and to simplify it. No more yo-yo diets, all right? Transform your health. Website is in the comments. If you don't have any questions, ask us; we'll get you all her contact info.

Austin: Michele, if I wanted to improve my physical health with meal prepping, what simple tip would you give me?

Michele: Yeah, I think one, we have to keep it simple. One of the easy things to do is when you make a meal for dinner is to just make more, so you can have that for your lunch the next day. Really expanding on the idea. Anything you can sort of double or do more of at that same time is going to save you time. It's the same idea even with dinner. Maybe you're making a soup; maybe you can make two of them and save that second one as a freezer meal because you're already having the space and time to chop things up. It makes it a lot simpler and a lot quicker.

Austin: That is 100% accurate, especially like making, I eat a lot of big breakfast, and I cook for the whole week. If I have a lot of veggies, I'll just cook a ton of veggies and then just portion them off for whatever I'm trying to do for dinner, breakfast, whatever. Those are the meals I eat that week.

Michele: I think that's perfect. You can use these certain vegetables or whatever using that week and eat more of those that week, just to make it more simple. Then you can vary it the next week too.

Austin: Exactly, like if it's squash season or something, I'll have yellow and green squash, and that'll be my Asian dinners and my breakfast burritos, all have squash in it until I'm done with it and move on to the next one.

Michele: Perfect.

Austin: Well, Michele, what on your live journey led you to this piece of advice?

Michele: Children. I have four of them, and it was really after my third one that I started to struggle myself. I remember I was only 30 at the time, but going up a flight of stairs, getting out of breath, like this is not what I want. But I felt like life was just so busy, and you're trying to keep these humans alive. So, I really worked on ways to simplify it. How can I still eat healthy and make it simple? How can I exercise and just start with five or 10 minutes? That has really led me in how I work with people. It's how can we simplify this because most of us are too busy. We put ourselves on the back burner. We're not taking care of our health. So, how can we shift that and make things simple and take more of a step-by-step approach instead of drastically changing things that we get burned out on and we can't stick with?

Austin: Oh, I can't hear you; it didn't work.

Michele: Yeah, that's true. Burnout is common everywhere, especially with food. I mean, especially, yeah, all the new flavors, different cultures coming in, and everything. I could never eat the same chicken and broccoli every day forever.

Austin: Yeah, yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much, Michele. We're gonna move on to our Robin section and bring everyone out—Debbie, Samir, you can hear me just fine?

Debbie: Absolutely.

Austin: Great. We're gonna start with Debbie. Can you really quickly refresh what your tip was?

Debbie: My tip was to prep foods that are aligned with your physical goals so that meal prepping assists you in changing your physical health.

Austin: Very cool. Samir, what are your thoughts on Debbie's tip?

Samir: I think it's a great tip. Definitely, we need to be cognizant of our goals and prep stuff that's going to get us there. I think, in addition to that, what I would say is food journaling can be a really important thing because sometimes we assume. So, if we've been told—I mean, you mentioned chicken and broccoli just now when you were talking with Michele—we assume that a diet of mostly chicken and broccoli is a healthy one. But is it? And is it healthy for you? There's a lot of individuality here. I'd like to encourage people to keep a little food diary. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. You could do it on your phone, take a picture of the food, and find an app or something, or just take notes. You know, "I ate this, and this is how I felt afterward." After a couple of days, you begin to see patterns, and you may be able to sense food sensitivities or allergies that weren't there before. I think Debbie's tip is a great tip, and if we add a bit of food journaling, it can be a tip that evolves. What suited me last week may not be what's going to suit me next week. Makes sense?

Austin: On that note, Samir, so I know there's a lot. I have not done this, but I think I'm going to soon. Taking blood samples or DNA samples, they can actually tell you what foods you should have more and less. Do any of you have any tips on that or any advice on that?

Samir: Are we allowed to swear on this podcast?

Austin: Yeah, okay.

Samir: I would say, screw that. I mean, it's really at a very high level. You may be able to get some very basic guidelines. But my Ph.D. is really in human history and the human evolution. We're all evolved from a very small population of something like 7,000 humans who survived catastrophic events at the end of the last ice age. The genetic differences between us are very minimal, and what there is, is epigenetic differences. Epigenetics means above the genes; it's turning the genes on and off. You can actually have control of that during your lifetime. For example, I don't produce the I—you know if you get my DNA tested, it'll tell you that I shouldn't take dairy because I don't have the gene for digesting dairy, which is true. But dairy isn't just digested by the gene. Dairy is also digested by enzymes, bugs, your microbiome. Once I fixed, for a long period of my life, if I had a glass of—or forget about a glass, if I had an accidental sip of milk, I would be in pain, and I'd be throwing up. It would be rough. At the moment, I have milk every day

; I have dairy every day. There's no issue because I healed my gut, and I was able to heal my microbiome. Now I have bugs in my intestines that eat the dairy for me, that digest the lactose for me. So, I don't have to worry about that. Does that make sense?

Austin: Gut health helped you be less lactose intolerant.

Samir: I'm not lactose intolerant anymore; I don't have any.

Austin: That's crazy. Samir, you might be onto something there. That's kind of revolutionary. I like it.

Samir: You see everything as an ecosystem, and then we're going to be able to make progress. If we look at the gene theory, it's true. Genes are important, but if you reduce the issue to genes, I think you're missing the picture. The picture is every human is an ecosystem, and we need to be in balance with that. We're part of the earth; the fact that I spend a lot of time walking around the grass these days here in South Africa in the summertime probably helps too. I'm picking up bugs from the grass too. It's a complicated picture. I don't want to simplify it. The point is that don't be too just because you get a 23andMe that tells you to eat something, don't believe it. It's probably not true.

Austin: Interesting insight. Okay, Michele, to your body, just listen to your body. You will know what agrees with you and what doesn't and how you feel. Case in point, I couldn't eat onions or garlic for years. I would get splitting headaches when I ate them. When I actually detoxed and cleaned out my body through nutrition, I can eat onions and garlic, no problem.

Austin: Two awesome examples. All right, Michele, let's hear something cool from you.

Michele: I don't think I have anything that cool, but I agree with listening to your body. Even with food sensitivity tests, they're not 100% accurate. What matters is how your body is reacting and what you notice. Just like Samir said, gut health rules. There's so much research out there, and our gut health affects so many different other systems in our body. That is super important, the way we function. It affects the way our brain works, mood, and stress. Those things affect our gut health too. We really have to look at our health holistically, not just the food that we're putting into our body, but what's going on in our mind and our stress levels that can be affecting our health too.

Austin: All right, we kind of went on a tangent. I like it. I don't know where we're at. Michele, can you quickly remind us of your tip?

Michele: My tip was to sort of double up. So, double up so you have leftovers. Double up any meals to make it easy. Debbie, thoughts on that?

Debbie: 100% agree with that. I'm a big advocate for batch preparing because, again, it does set you up for success. If you're already making something, you're already in the kitchen, you spent the money, it's way more efficient in terms of time and waste and money to just double up, freeze it, or pop it in the fridge for lunches and other meals throughout the week. Totally agree.

Austin: Very cool. Samir, what are your thoughts on that for food prepping?

Samir: It's good. There are schools of thought that say if you eat the same thing so that we can divide my clients at least into two categories. There are people who are totally cool with eating the same thing every day, and then there are people who want variety. Maybe it's a spectrum, maybe some people are sort of neither here nor there. The people who really rock food prepping are the people who do what Michele is saying but take it to the extreme. It's Sunday, and I'm going to prep the exact same lunch for work every day. Whatever it is, I don't know, cooked spinach and eggs and chicken. I don't know what it is. They have that same meal every day for lunch, and they are the ones at the end of the day. They're the ones who really rock it. They lose the weight and so on because they can do that prep beforehand. That's not everyone, and I think we have to be real to say that's not really doesn't work for everyone. That method, some people want more variety. So, I think doing it for two meals like Michele's suggesting, maybe that's a good balance where you can at least do lunch and dinner the same or similar kind of foods or your leftovers from lunch can be your dinner or whatever. I think that's pretty cool. There's also a school of thought that says if you're eating the same foods for lunch and dinner or for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, your body sort of handles it better because it's used to it. There is some evidence to back that up as well. I think there's a lot of good ideas on that tip, a lot of science behind that tip too.

Austin: Well done, Michele. Samir, did we go over your tip yet?

Samir: No.

Austin: Let's hear it, and let's hear what Debbie and Michele have to say about it.

Samir: Salt the meat and put it in the fridge. This is more like a chef's tip than a health coach's tip, but okay.

Austin: Yeah, I thought his tip was interesting. I don't do that. I am not a chef, but I mean, just we know that salt preserves things. I think that's a great tip and to make it taste better is huge too. So, I love that tip.

Debbie: Absolutely. I think from a flavor profile perspective, salting or flavoring or seasoning is definitely a great tip. I think from a physical health perspective, you just have to be aware of does your body react to sodiums and other types of seasonings well. Take into account any doctor's orders, things like that. Depending again, with the topic being physical health and meal prepping, just taking into account that will agree with your physical health journey based on whatever else you've got going on. Again, going back to your goals and why you're on this physical health journey. From a flavor perspective, absolutely. Austin: I mean like Debbie said, obviously watch your sodium intake depending on your personal self. But I mean, Samir, I think that's a great tip because a lot of the downfall of meal prep people are like, "I don't want to eat the same stuff. The meat tastes bad by Thursday or Friday." So that's a pretty cool little tip to just add a little preservation and freshness so that your Friday meal is just as good as your Monday meal. And, Samir, it's not just preservation and freshness. Like salt actually takes a long time to get into all the places where it's meant to be.

Samir: Listen, I don't know how deep into Evolution you want to get, which is my thing, but traditional humans would have been eating, you know, and even in some cultures now, they make sausages out of blood, right? Most of the electrolytes in the animals we would have been eating are in the blood, which we don't eat generally, right? So you do need to replace that. Yes, there may be some very rare conditions where it's not, it's not going to suit the individual, but most people, including people with high blood pressure, can actually benefit from reducing carbs and increasing the sodium intake of sodium chloride. So, which are two of the three main electrolytes that are really crucial for making sure that every cell in the body functions properly, potassium being the third.

Austin: Wow, well, that's very informative, Samir. Thank you so much. Definitely new news to me.

Austin: Well, guys, we're coming up to our last little portion of the show, one of my favorite parts. We need to come up with our daily challenge. It must take less than five minutes, cost zero dollars, and be available to be done by anyone in the world from Catman do to Fiji. Do you guys have any ideas or suggestions?

Debbie: I'd say pick one of the tips that was shared here today and implement it for 30 days, then report back. What differences did you notice? Listen to your body. What flavors did you notice? Did you save time? Did you reach goals that you maybe weren't reaching before?

Michele: Yeah, that's perfect. We've got to narrow in and focus. I think the other thing that makes a big difference for some people is just to drink enough water daily. So many people don't drink enough water, and then we see that improvement in their gut health, their energy. And we all have access to water, just making sure that we are drinking enough.

Samir: Any ideas for a simple meal prep tip for a challenge?

Samir: Not so much on the meal prep side, but on the meal execution side. So, that food journaling thing is a very powerful tool, and it's going to help with not your current meal prep but next week's meal prep. What suited you? What didn't suit you? What's actually, are you meeting your goals? Looking back at that food journal for the last week and saying, "Okay, if my goal was improved mental health and I felt really tired after I had the cupcake or whatever it is, well, maybe the cupcake isn't the meal prep that I need, right? Whatever it is, I'm picking an obvious example. It could be something else." So, I think just, you know, a lot of us have really good intentions, and it's great to have good intentions. It's January. You know, we've all made the New Year's resolutions, etc. Like, that's totally fine. But what we actually need to resolve to do is to track our own health and to be aware. And I think a food journal can be a super helpful tool to help with that.

Austin: So, Samir, for the food journal, essentially, you eat something, and then you, like, wait half an hour, and then you journal how it made you feel?

Samir: There are different ways to do it. And if that's, you know, if that's the way someone likes to do it, that's totally fine. What I would generally do is take photos of my food and then, five minutes at the end of the day, you look at those three photos. How did you feel after you ate that? How do you feel after you eat that? How do you feel after you eat that? You can't really do it the next day because you won't remember. Okay, so it has to be, you know, five minutes in the evening. I think I like that idea.

Austin: I think that at least let's do it. Let's do at least one meal. If you can do three, that would be great. But take a picture and then take five minutes and just write about how you feel at the end of the day. Does that sound like what you're asking, Samir?

Samir: For sure. I mean, for example, I'll give you an example just today. So, I had a cup of black coffee at a time when I usually don't have it. I do drink coffee with cream and other stuff, butter, and stuff in the morning. But I had black coffee in the middle of the day today, and it didn't agree with me. I had some indigestion. So, I need to note that down and say, "Oh, God, am I becoming sensitive to coffee? What's going on?" Like, I don't know. Should I give up coffee for a month and see how, which I've done before and see if it improves my digestion and so on. So, just little things. And sometimes, if you're looking at those three photos of what you've eaten and drunk and there's nothing that really says, "Oh, I need to note something down," maybe it's okay not to note anything down, but give yourself the opportunity to just sort of reflect and think, "Okay, I had X, and I felt this way after it. And maybe it's connected."

Austin: Michele, Debbie, how do you guys feel about that? Three pictures and then writing down your reflections at the end of the day.

Michele: I think that's perfect. I mean, there's so much we don't reflect, and he also brought up goals a little bit. If we aren't aware of our goals and where we want to go, and we're not reflecting and pivoting or tweaking a little bit each week, we're not going to get there. So, I think that's great to use that at each meal and reflect on the day, reflect on the week as you're going forward. And I think that's a big difference when people start with a health coach or someone. You become very intentional and focused on what you're doing, and that starts to make a big difference.

Austin: Awesome. Well, I think that's going to be our challenge. Take your three photos at the end of the day, take three or four minutes, and just kind of write about how it made you feel. And hopefully, we can get some better diets out there, and that'll help with our meal prep. Sound good to everyone?

Everyone: Sounds good!

Austin: Awesome. Well, that officially is our last task of the day, and the show is now culminating.

Thank you guys for coming out. You guys had awesome tips, great advice. Good to see you again, Debbie, Samir, Michele. Thank you guys for coming, and hopefully, we'll see you guys soon. And that will conclude this episode of "Millionaires Are Made." Hopefully, you got some awesome tips, some awesome information on meal prepping and improving your physical health. And we'll see you again next week for another episode of "Millionaires Are Made."