Cut The Crap! Eat Like This and Feel Incredible Featuring Toni Julian

Toni Julian: My big thing is where is my higher path? What are my gifts? Am I using my gifts? Can I share them with the world if I'm not the top of my game? No, I can't. And I've proven that to myself many, many times. So if I want to be on that path, if I want to be successful, I have to look at What is my big dream? If you have a big dream and even if you think it's not realistic, it doesn't matter. Have a big dream set that intention. Beat up person at the top of your game, don't be afraid to be that person. Be that person who says this is what I want to be and be fearless about it. Kevin Chang: Hello and welcome to the RaceMob podcast. This is episode number 33. I'm Kevin entrepreneur technology and fitness nerd, and the founder of race mob. I'm joined by master motivator, founder of two legit fitness co-chair of the Taji 100. RRC a certified coach USA track and field certified official. The incomparable Bertrand Newson. Toni is such a fun and inspirational human being. She is an author, sports nutritionist, athlete, figure competitor, certified personal trainer, six time entrepreneur, and was recognized with a women of influence award from the Silicon Valley business journal. More than just the budding accolades or the successful protein foods business that she runs. Toni is genuinely amazing, warm and incredible. She's also very in-tune with her mind, body and spirit. In this episode, you'll learn the disheartening events that influenced Toni's transition into a healthy lifestyle. And you'll learn how she got ready to compete in a figure competition, beating out competitors 20 years, her junior at the age of 48. You'll learn. Toni's take on spirituality and why it's an important part of her wellness routine. We dive deep into Toni's philosophy on nutrition. Including why you should eat like a diabetic, the foods you should try to eliminate. And the macro nutrient ratio that Toni recommends. This episode is brought to you by our free 14 day. Cut the Crap Challenge with Toni Julian. It runs February 1st through the 14th. And we're challenging you to cut the sugar, alcohol, simple carbs and saturated fats from your diet for 14 days. Get access to a shopping list, recipes and a motivated community. Plus access to Toni who normally charges thousands of dollars for consultations. You'll be able to post an emoji every day. You're successful in cutting the crap and you'll be entered to win some prizes worth over a hundred dollars. Just visit race. mob.com/cut-the-crap, all hyphenated. All of the show notes are available online at race mob.com/podcast. And without further ado, here's our conversation. Bertran: Hello, race mob family. You were in for real treat today. We have a entrepreneur business woman and someone who has. And expertise in nutrition and the ability to move the human spirit. Toni Julian Toni Julian: thank you so much. That was just an amazing intro. Thank you. Kevin Chang: Well, I mean, Toni, you and Burchard have known each other for a couple of years now. Right? Can you dive into how you guys met first time? Toni Julian: Yeah, absolutely. I think. It's probably been five or six years through a mutual friend, Bob Anderson, who's the founder of runner's world magazine. And it got to know Bertrand there and then started doing a performance trials. And that that's when we really got to know each other was through a performance trial with, uh, one of my products through a Stanford physician. And. It's just kind of unfolded. That was about six years ago now, Bertrand, Kevin Chang: they had you going through trials, eating nutrition, figuring out how the nutrition affects your performance? athlete because one, the professionalism of the trial, it was, I mean, Toni's. Performance protein. And it was based at a local, uh, high school Valley, Christian. There were multiple subjects or people participating in this study. There was an oxygen test and taking your blood pressure. There were prescribed distances on the track, it was like, wow, this is super cool. And it was multiple weeks, I think, four weeks, Toni thereabouts. You would know better than me. And it worked. I mean, the before and after being able to measure someone's baseline, the questionnaire for the participants was very, very good. And it gave you the opportunity to really look and see what your food consumption was pre-workout post-workout. And, you know, utilizing the old mill pre-workout and then seeing if it did have some level of improvement and being able to sustain your energy, because there's some foods you can take that where you, maybe it spikes your energy and there's a big crash, but the ability to sustain energy and the related impact on performance is profound. And through that process, I mean, Toni has become a great friend. I've utilized her product on multiple races. That is fueled me to multiple PRs and I'm not a paid endorsed athlete and the rest is history. So big fan of Toni's in general is used to putting out so much grace, as we're all fortunate to hear her story today during our podcast. Yeah. So we'll get into the product, in a little bit, but I mean, Toni, you have such a profound introduction into the fitness world in general. Can you dive into that initial story and how you found fitness? Toni Julian: Sure, absolutely. Well, I've always been. Very interested in health and nutrition. And I grew up in a family where nobody really exercised and my mom didn't eat well and she drank too much and she never exercised. I remember saying, I think I was about 10 and I said, mom, I said, why don't you exercise? And she said, I do I vacuum. And even at 10, I knew that that just really wasn't good. A good answer. And so, uh, I was raised in a fairly troubled environment. Our family was terrorized, victims of domestic, domestic terrorism. We had neighbors that threw tear gas bomb in my bedroom window. There was just all this chaos in my life. And we can go into that later. If you like. but I really was just in this situation where health wasn't a priority or there was chaos in my life. So I started getting into gymnastics and gymnastics in seventh grade, and then it took me all through high school was discipline and you go and you work and you feel good. And so you could take yourself out of emotionally charged, potentially negative or damaging or deconstructive situations through, through fitness. And then our also new, just kind of being a, having a sensitive body type. As I knew that when I ate well, I felt good and that also can help elevate oneself through life. So, you know, just kind of clipping along through life. And I started several businesses and I, I get to this point in my life where I started getting sick and friends started getting sick. When I was about 48 years old, I was diagnosed with early stage pre cervical cancer. And I thought, well, wait a minute. I'm thin I'm a size four. What's the deal. And I really had to take a close look at why that was. And my diet. Wasn't good. So this whole thing about being thin and being healthy is really a falsity. You know, a person can be of any size in any body shape, and I believe that, and still be healthy through nourishment through movement and things like that. So that was a big wake up call for me. I went through surgery. And then at that same time, I had a girlfriend. We were best friends since, since the seventh grade. And I had moved to Morgan Hill from San Jose in the seventh grade and she had pancreatic cancer. And as you know, that is not something really, it's not very survivable. And so. She was just one of these people in my life. When I moved to Morgan Hill, I just wasn't popular, had all this curly hair, people had straight hair and I just, just didn't feel like I fit in very well in any environment. And she just loved me unconditional. And I just thought, well, what a, what a wonderful person. So she ended up passing and I decided at that point it was just so tragic to me. Here's this beautiful person and I was sick too, but I couldn't even tell her that I was sick because she had something far worse. So how, how could I, so I was with her and with her children and with her family and, as she passed, it was a little unexpected in terms of the timing. But, you know, I found myself the very next day on a plane to Italy. We had a trip that we had planned prior to that. And I thought, what can I do to take this situation in this experience and turn it into something positive? And so I never really went to church, but I went to, into all of these amazing churches in Italy. I mean, you... I'm sure you've seen them amazing, powerful places. And hardly anyone went in there to pray. They went in to look at all the beautiful art and do, but I went into these little names for prayer and I just put my intention out there. It was like, what can I do to help people? And I knew that I had to make some big shift in my life and not only for her to find some purpose and some meaning out of this, but for myself as well. So I went on this quest to basically change my life, reinvent myself. And I love that word reinvention because we can all do it at any time. Today is a new day. We are in the now and you can make your future, literally, whatever you want. So even if people aren't healthy now, or even if they're not runners now, They can be by perseverance and setting that intention to do it. You know, my diet was really not good. It was, you know, coffee in the morning, no breakfast, lean cuisine at lunch, 300 calories, high sodium, no nutritional value diet Cokes in the afternoon, one at night and I'd come home and I was nutritionally starved by 6: 00 PM. I like. What is already, I was ravenous, you know, not only from a caloric standpoint, but from a nutritional standpoint. And so I wasn't really functioning my best and I was lean and I was pretty fit looking. You'd never ever know, but clearly if you know, you're going to be 48 years old and get cancer something's wrong. And that was a big wake up call. So I just started working with people. I decided to change my life. I decided after I did all the nutrition, I'd start a fitness program for women. I did that for 11 years, three days a week. I totally dialed in my nutrition. I cut out all the crap. I nourished myself with foods that would keep my body healthy and strong. And literally at 48, I decided I hired a personal trainer and he encouraged me to do a figure competition. And I just had what, like, no way I am so shy. I can not get into a little Husky, crystal blinged out bikini still. I was like, no way, but I decided, you know, some people might think about that for a few minutes. Or weeks I thought about it, about 30 seconds. I said, okay, I'll take that challenge. And I said, what better than to push myself out of my comfort zone than to do something like that. And it wasn't at all for being on stage. It wasn't for attention. It was if I can improve my body composition to find, get as healthy as I can be. And if I could accomplish this and it, you know, 48, almost 50. Do well in this and lose fat gain muscle, be strong. That's just icing for what I want to do in life. So it just set me on a journey. And then I started helping people and building a business and my books and everything started focusing around this philosophy around nutrition. And it's kind of a unique one. I have to say it isn't, it isn't it to me. It should be common sense. But it really is based on the last 12, 13, 14 years of doing research of reading of a science-based information experience with myself experience with other people. So I've gotten to really know a connect with people on... it's not just the body, you know, it's not just the nutrition. But I became a certified personal trainer. It's the nutrition, it's the fitness, it's the spirit. It's our mind. It's our, it's our thoughts, our thoughts, our things. It's all of that. So it's, it's led me to, that's a very encapsulated, but I've owned six businesses, but that's a very quick overview into how I got from not being well to being where I am now. Kevin Chang: And I love what you talked about around spirituality. You know, that it sounds like started a lot of the re-invention. That you mentioned going into churches, putting it out there, putting it out into the world. and the podcast itself, you host a podcast as well, and it's, it talks about humanity. It's not just about the body and you know, just what you eat and the fitness aspects of it. It talks about spirituality. So. Can you talk to us a little bit about what spirituality means to you? What you seem like a very soulful person as well. So talk to us about that. Toni Julian: Oh, I would so love to! Thank you for asking me that question. Some people are a little intimidated about going there. You know, it's like because it can be sensitive. I think spirituality is different for every person. We all have different. Ways of being in touch with that. And for some people it's religion. To me, it's not religious. Although I do have religious beliefs in certain aspects, but I think spirituality crosses all people. It crosses all purposes. It just, for me is really being in touch with what our gifts are. It's being in touch with our purpose. And it is living in a space where your head is connected to your heart at all times. So, you're not just thinking about things. You're not just feeling things, but you're connecting those two together. And so what I found is my ability to really appreciate people has become so elevated. The ability to intuitively understand people has just exploded. The ability to connect with people, to help heal people. Like when people have issues. So many people have come to me with depression and anxiety, and I am not a psychologist and I'm not a doctor and I'm not a counselor, but I think there are healing aspects to spirituality when you can connect with people and you can listen to them and understand them and show them that there's a better way beyond what is happening right now that there's a path forward and there's a hopeful path. And so what is interesting is about, let's see, it was probably about five, six, six years ago. I just became very interested in spirituality and I decided to sign up for meditation class. And I've been told Toni, you should meditate. And I'm like, what is this thing, meditation? I mean, I kind of knew what it was, but, but not really it a lot. There can be a lot to that. And so I took a meditation class. And then I took a healing class and it was kind of more of a spiritual healing class and then a physical healing class. And then I took a clairvoyant class and I just started kind of delving more and more. And I was spending four evenings a week for three hours a night while I was taking care of a terminally sick parent. My father was sick. I was spending every day, all day with him helping him through multiple myeloma. And that's. Just, if you haven't heard of it really quickly, it's a serious blood cancer where you develop tumors and all of your bones in the marrow and it fractures your bones. You actually lose the calcium out of them. So everything was fractured in his body. He was in horrible pain. He was given just a couple of months. To live if that, and through nutrition and support and love and unconditional love, he survived five years to the day. So that was really huge. And it was a gift and I was doing these classes around spirituality and helping him at the same time. And we had some great conversations. So dad, do you believe you go somewhere after you die? Nope. Nope, Nope, Nope. And I said, well, you might want to think about that. You know, so without inflicting any of my beliefs on him, we just had some great conversations. And it came to a point now where I am actually clear audience. I can. Communicate a little bit with people who have passed. I can, um, uh, here I actually can get downloads about things and directions in my life. Things to be watchful of. Sometimes I've received visions. Like I received one time, a vision of my father. Like, don't get into the car with your father. If he's driving, like I would drove everywhere and I was able to forewarn my sister the next day, because she was taking him to appointment that I would normally, but I had a business conflict. And I said, Diane do not get into the car with dad. If he wants to drive, let him drive, but say, Hey dad, I'll meet you there. You know, at the doctors and he went off the road, he was going down the freeway. He did all this. If she had been in that car with him, it would have had dire consequences. So I have been able to tap into more than what we can see into this world of energy and you know, it, it has helped me to understand that we are all connected. We are all together. And so it brings me to this space of really wanting to help unify people, to help people connect their hearts to their heads, to have compassion for people, regardless, politically of all the unrest that's going on. All the civil unrest is we need to come together and it, all of this has got to just. Completely stopped. So I am on that mission to do that and the health and nutrition tie into that. But it's interesting. I never knew it would just be a component of this huge picture that really focuses on spiritual. Kevin Chang: That's incredible. You summed it up, I mean, there is the mind, the body and the spirit. So you've, you have to think of the whole body holistically. You touched on a subject real quick there at the end. And today we're actually recording this on Martin Luther King day. We had a little bit of pre-conversation before we got on air. And you had talked about a vision that you had a dream that you had, do you want to share with our audience a little bit about that? Toni Julian: Oh, I'd love to, you know, you can't ask any question of me. That's too personal. I am very, very open. Yeah. So w I was so excited this morning because when we had scheduled this podcast for a trend and I had a conversation and, you know, when do we do this? And I looked at MLK day and I thought, well, it is a really wonderful day, and I will celebrate that. And being able to celebrate that means kind of moving forward. But I did, I had this, dream, I thought the way of celebrating would be to share a dream because I have a dream and I, everybody has a dream in their life that they want to accomplish. And some people think it's not accomplishable, but I thought, why not just go out there and be big? So my dream is twofold. One is a prayer of togetherness and peace. And forgiveness. And then the other part of that is about two or three years ago. I had a dream where Michelle Obama came to me and we were just riding along in a car and I'm driving and she's in the passenger seat. And I just looked over at her like, Hey Michelle, like, Oh yeah. It's every day that Michelle Obama was in her car and I'm like, Hey Michelle. And she said, you know, we need to work together. I said, I would love to do that. And she said, but not for two years, it's kind of like, maybe I wasn't ready for two years. And I, and I wasn't. And she said, yeah, let's, let's connect in a couple of years. I said, great. So this morning I woke up and I went on my Facebook page. I have a page called Toni Julian's group hug, and I posted, you know, MLK day on. And what is your dream? And I posted my dream that I wanted to actually, my dream is I want to work with Michelle Obama. And so today I'm going to email on her foundation website, I'm going to email her and I'm going to let her know that. And I think that there are just so many ways to do that. I know she's been involved in helping communities that are food deprived, food challenged, and here I have a food business. With a long shelf life that's inexpensive. What a, great way to perhaps connect and also elevate people and educate. And so that's my dream. I'll put that out there. I'm going to do that today. Kevin Chang: Incredible. , I think it's such an amazing dream and why not? I mean, six time entrepreneur, one of the most influential women in Silicon Valley, there's no reason why they wouldn't be extremely lucky to have you contribute. And I mean, what a noble and amazing cause. I love that. And I love how, you know, you're visualizing and then going and getting it. You know, we, we talk a lot. Coach B talks all the time about two things, one finding your why, which I think the spirituality really ties into finding your why, but then also a visualization, you know, visualizing for a lot of our athletes. I mean, it's finding that marathon and, you know, visualizing yourself at the finish line for you. Sometimes it's visualizing working with Michelle Obama and that foundation and what that means. And putting it out there in the world, and sometimes it's putting it out there for, you know, somebody higher up to answer, and sometimes it's putting it out there so that people hold you accountable and hold you responsible. So I just, I love that story. Toni Julian: Thank you. And if I can add to that, you know, finding that why, when you visualize. You're actually creating that to happen. And whether you are spiritual or not, you know, visualizing setting intention, people have different words for it. But there was some research that I saw that I was reading just last night, where there was a study where they took two different groups of cohorts and one group had to do some weight training. Right. So, okay. Lift these dumbbells. We're going to work out that bicep. And in X number of weeks, we're going to test your muscle strength. And then they had a group, a kind of a placebo group where they were told don't do that. I want you to lay still for 10 minutes, and I want you to visualize and use all of your senses and make it a very highly emotive, you know, strong feelings around it. You know what you're doing and visualize working that bicep. The people that worked at that bicep. Improved to the same degree as actually doing it. So when you're thinking about something, your, your mind, your body doesn't know the difference between you actually envisioning it and it actually happening. And so it prepares your body to be able to move forward. So if you can picture yourself like this morning, I woke up, I was thinking, okay, I'm going to picture myself running, gliding, like effortlessly and picking up speed and building this muscle. I just pictured myself doing this. And if you can picture it, your body is preparing your mind to perform. Bertrand Newson: I mean, the power of visualization, being able to take yourself there to that finish line, and then being able to draw on the cause you can kind of feel the elation, you know, you can feel the sense of pride and accomplishment. If you take yourself to that. While I just completed in my mind, my very first half marathon or my very first race. I never thought this was possible. And being able to channel and repurpose that energy to a calendar or your support group, or see working out some mentoring to help you get on that journey. But to, to channel again, putting yourself there in the moment and feeling it. Can can be life-changing. It really can. Kevin Chang: Wo things. One, I mean, I want to dive in at some other point about the meditative experience, especially while running. Cause I think a lot of us use running for therapy and. If there's any takeaways or anything that we can learn from that, but I really want to dive into, and maybe that's a whole nother podcast in and of itself because what I really want to dive into his nutrition during this episode. And you talked about back before your 48 eating lean cuisines. Drinking diet sodas, , drinking glass of wine or two. And so what I took away from that is a calorie. Isn't always a calorie, right? Your lean cuisine is 238 calories, but the sodium, the, you know, the, the other macros that are part of that doesn't really nourish your body. So can you talk to us about your philosophy around nutrition, Toni Julian: oh, yes. I'd love to. Right. You know, calories, not a calorie. When you take in food, it breaks down into chemical messengers, which tell your body what to do. So a calorie is not fuel calories are the food breaks down into chemicals in our body and it burns an Ash and it, and it affects our pH balance. Just like a pool, right? Our bodies are so complex. And so, you know, you could take in the right amount of calories. I mean, we've all seen programs about that. You take in number of calories and people get sick and they're almost dying because they're just eating fast food. So we know that a calorie is not a calorie. We can see a person that eats the same amount of calories. That is healthy diet and a person who eats the same amount of calories within an unhealthy diet. I actually have a photo of one of my presentations and it's a woman in her eighties and she's like looking to sunshine and she's vibrant. She's just thriving. And then there's another photo of a woman she's on oxygen. She's frail. Her skin is gray. She was with a Walker and these women are the same age. And so, you know, the quality of our food is probably the most important thing that we can do for ourselves. Portion control is next. Right? So food quality, and there've been so many false assumptions in food. So many people tend to listen to whatever's out there. Carbs are bad. Well, carbs are not bad, you know, the right carbohydrates. So anything white is not good, but. You get into Brown rice and you get into keenwah and you get into some of the starchy carbohydrates and you know, the good carbs of course are also include vegetables and fruits. And so some people will stray away from those because they think they shouldn't eat them. My philosophy toward healthy eating is common sense to me. And that is all of the food groups, all of the whole healthy, natural foods, but combined in a way where all the macronutrients are balanced. And when I say macronutrients, I mean, for people who may not understand the terminology just yet, macronutrients are the macros are lean protein, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats. All right. Then you have micros, which are, you know, some of your vitamins and zinc and things like that. So when you look at the macros. In the food group. So it's the lean proteins would, could be like, you know, chicken and Turkey and seafood and that kind of thing. And we talked about the complex carbs. So it's oats and grains and fruits and vegetables and healthy fats, things like avocado and flax seed oil, ground flaxseed meal, uh, those types of things. So, my philosophy has been is that if you can balance out your macros and every single meal, what that will do for you is it will metabolize slowly so that you don't have spikes in your blood sugar and it will keep you fuller longer. So what happens with people is they tend to graze. Sometimes I was like, I'm hungry. I'm gonna eat an Apple. Great. You eat that Apple you're hungry and hour, hour and a half later, you have to eat again. And what happens in your body is that even though an Apple is a complex carbohydrate and it's healthy, it elevates your blood sugar, it digest quickly. And then your blood sugar drops again. And so you don't stay satiated. So people that tend to like in our lifestyle, it's so grab and go, people grab things quickly and, and eat them. They don't always prepare or what I call assemble the foods properly together, and then they're hungry again and they don't know why they're hungry and they don't know why they have cravings. And those cravings happen because our blood sugar is out of balance. Right? So when you eat something, you don't need enough calories or you're eating foods that are processed or foods that digest really quickly. You get hungry, you run out of steam. You can't think properly and Bertrand, you know, when you're running, you have to have that fuel and that energy that is sustainable. So not only does your energy need to be sustainable, whatever diet you're on needs to be sustainable. It needs to be easy to be able to implement. So my philosophy is eat like a diabetic, so you don't become one and you won't believe how many pre-diabetic people come to me. People that are pre-diabetic or have diabetes. And so if you also look at another component of it, it's people that have health issues or weight issues, or even just energy issues. If you go to different doctors, if you go to a doctor because you have heart issues, they're going to say, go on a heart healthy diet, eat lots of whole grains. Do this, do this, the healthy fats, high cholesterol. Okay, you need to eat more fats that are high in Omega threes, like flax seed and cut out the saturated fats. And no trans fats. And so anyway, you know, if you go to all these different doctors for different health problems, they'll tell you to eat a certain way. So what I've done is I've taken all of that advice and all boils down to whole healthy food in the right proportion at the right time. So you give your body, the nourishment, you regulate your blood sugar, you keep yourself satiated, so you don't have cravings. And that applies to a person that is an athlete or the everyday walking around person who just wants to feel good and be healthy. So it's a whole approach and I've taken it down from the performance trial that we talked to initially, that was to prove my theory of, if you can balance your macronutrients. Then you can not only get sustained energy. We can get it at the end. And that's where that performance trial really kicked in. It was at that end, where everybody ran out of energy until they ate my food product, which was balanced macros. And that's where they were able to sustain it at the end where most people would just fall apart. So I just take that with whole foods. And now I'm writing two books about what people can do to use foods in their homes, not my products. I'm not here to sell products. That's a tool for people who don't have the time is that they can take these whole foods. They can cook them a certain way, portion them a certain way, make it easy they could cook, or they could assemble. And that lifestyle, that way of eating needs to be not a diet, but a sustainable lifestyle choice that makes you feel good. It makes you want to repeat that over and over again. Right. So that's my philosophy. Kevin Chang: I love it. I mean, and you touched on a subject in there about so many people being pre-diabetic . And I think a lot of that comes down to insulin resistance. You talked about blood sugar and keeping that constant and not having these giant spikes where, your body's trying to release insulin into the bloodstream and your body starts becoming resistant to that insulin. And your body has to produce more and more and more, and eventually your pancreas can't produce. It as efficiently anymore. And that's where you become, , diabetic. Can you talk a little bit about the body's processes and Things that we can cut out of our diet as well. Toni Julian: Yeah. I love that question and I am so pleased that you have that level of knowledge to be able to talk about that. That that's uncommon. So yeah, you absolutely. So, you know, what happens in our bodies and we've been talking about that first is when we take in food, especially if it's food that's processed or just a carbohydrate, something that breaks down quickly are circulating glucose in our blood gets too high and our bodies that's dangerous. Right? That's inflammation. So our pancreas excretes insulin and that insulin, for lack of a better word, a lame, I put things in layman's terms, right? It grabs those sugars and it stores it as fat. So we actually have two hormones that are secreted by the pancreas, and they are designed to keep our body in balance. So one is insulin that everybody's heard of and the other is glucagon and that's what keeps our blood sugar from going too low. So we want to stay in this. Really what I call it as the green zone, which is where your intake of food keeps you just kind of modulated in that. So you're not spiking up. You're not spiking down. What happens when we have foods, say I'm just going to take 'em, you know, a donut. Let's just say, for example, so it's high fat, it's high sugar. It's highly processed, no redeeming nutritional value whatsoever. You eat that your glucose kicks in. It's going to spike. It's going to take all of that. All those extra calories. And it's going to store it as fat really quickly. Cause you can't possibly burn them. Right. Then unless maybe you're running like... it's like, I need a spike of extra energy, you know? So, but for the normal person, no, it doesn't really work that way. So it stores it as fat. And then what happens is because you have that high, then you have a low and that low is when a lot of people like three o'clock in the afternoon, they get that slump. Maybe they've had too big of a lunch or something. They get that slump, their blood sugars low, and they feel like they need to have something quick again, which is self-medicating to bring them back up into that, that zone. And what happens is when our blood sugar is high, we store fat. When our blood sugar is low, we lose muscle. And the reason we lose muscle is because our bodies are trying to find that sugar again, somewhere that glucose. And it's gone through the blood and it's not there. And so it's going to go to the muscle because it needs it somewhere. It's a survival thing because our brains have to have glucose to function. You've probably not eaten for awhile and then gotten a headache. Maybe, maybe some of our listeners here today, I've gotten headaches. And usually it's because they have, it's kind of a low-glycemic response to not eating, right? Because our blood sugar is too low. And so what happens is to protect our brains, our body's going to go after our muscle because that's the fastest source of finding that sugar to fuel our brains. And so what happens with people and people that I've coached a lot is that, you know, if you look at that green zone of where you're supposed to be at, and that's, by the way where your blood sugar is between, I think it's 80 and one 20 milligrams per deciliter, all right. It's a nice, safe blood sugar zone above that people will say you're pre-diabetic or diabetic and low people can become hypoglycemic instead of hyperglycemic. So what happens though, is people, if they're not eating properly, if they are waiting too long between meals, if they're not eating the right foods that are keeping them satiated and break down slowly in their bodies, they're usually in the upper zone or the lower zone. And even like vacillating up and down in between. What happens is we are destroying our metabolism because we're losing our muscle mass, right? So we're either storing fat, losing muscle, storing fat, losing muscle, and it's that cycle. So if you can get people to eat small meals, Of balanced macros. So lean protein, complex carbs, healthy fats, and you can do it every few hours. Doesn't have to be three hours or four hours, but basically enough food. So the food has a chance to metabolize and break down. But then your body will tell you if you're in touch with it. If you start feeling hungry again, that's the time to eat again. Right? The benefits of that is that we feel good. We have endurance, we have energy, we are maintaining our muscle, we're allowing our bodies to work optimally. We're allowing our hormones to function. And we feel good. And then we, and we have the energy to do our sports and our running and our weight training and our hiking and, and feeling good. So that's how the body responds. And it's ideal because if someone is pre-diabetic, they can totally reverse that. It is totally doable. I have helped people bring their cholesterol levels down, reverse prediabetes, get back into the right zone and, and, you know, hopefully with that, their pancreas. Becomes healthier. It's not as taxed, right. It doesn't poop out and they're able to help regulate themselves. And our bodies are amazing. You know what? Those two hormones, it wants to help us. But if we keep abusing our pancreas, then that's what happens is that that's the result of it. And Kevin, you asked about what foods are healthy for us. if I can just go into that for a few minutes. Kevin Chang: Absolutely. Toni Julian: That's great. So I always build a meal and I teach people how to build a meal. I always build it around protein first and for somebody my size I'm five, three, and about 130 pounds. And so for somebody my size. I eat about 300 or 350 calories, about four times a day. Someone's Bertrand size. Maybe you want to double that, right? At least. And on days where you're exercising, you know, you have to of course take in more calories. But what I do for every meal is I think of protein first. And so in the morning it could be, I make a smoothie and I use almond milk, that's unsweetened. And I use a protein powder that doesn't have any, anything in it besides protein. And I add flaxseed meal to it. I add greens. And what I do is I take, you know, when you buy greens at the store and it's in this huge container and it's all, all these organic baby leafy greens and it goes bad in about a day and a half. Kevin Chang: Yes. Yes. Toni Julian: Yes. I take half of that out and I put it in a freezer bag and put in the freezer. So what I do is I take, because I want grains, I don't want fresh greens every day. I start my day. That way is I'll take a cup of that and I'll put it in my smoothie. So I'm getting my greens, my complex carbohydrates are my greens, sometimes I'll put oats in it. My lean proteins are, would be the way protein and I also use college and peptides. And collagen is really wonderful. It is also a source of protein. And also as we age, we don't produce collagen as well. Our oxygen doesn't get to those places in our body as readily as somebody younger. So it's important to do that. And anybody over about 55 needs more protein than they did when they were younger, because we're not absorbing it at the same level. So yeah, you do all that. Put it in a smoothie and you've got your li your healthy fat would be your flaxseed meal, or you can put flaxseed oil or olive oil on it. And that allows you to just pack your body in the morning with all these nutrients. Right. And sometimes I'll do that. Sometimes I'll use my own product. If I'm a rush, I don't have time to do the whole blender thing. And then every meal, you know, you, you plan ahead you meal prep. And so that way you always have something on hand, you don't want to get into an emergency where you eat something that's not healthy for you and you throw off your blood sugar. And what I do also is whatever I make for dinner one night is I'll have that the next day for lunch. Right? So you can either meal prep and freeze and all of that. Or you can leverage that. So for breakfast, for example, I'll choose from three things every week. And this is just to make it easy for people. Don't say I'm going to have 20 options for breakfast. What are your three top things are easy for you to do. So if one is my smoothie, number two is my own protein, oatmeal. And number three is I also have pancake mixes that like this morning I had, I made pancakes yesterday. I had a couple for breakfast today, So it's just easy you can eat them cold if you want. So a cup of decaf coffee, and I'm my water with my lemon in it. You know, I use lemon in my water all the time. So you just. Pick three things that are easy for you could be an egg omelet, and then you make little frittatas that you refrigerate and just grab and go. Right. And then, so for dinner, I always build that around the lean protein. And I don't know, let let's do an experiment. Let's pick a, okay guys, let's pick a lean protein. Kevin Chang: Chicken. Toni Julian: Chicken. And what about you, Bertrand? Bertrand Newson: Turkey. Toni Julian: Turkey. Okay. So for you, how many ounces would you each eat for a normal meal? Five ounces. Kevin Chang: Yeah, probably be five, five to six ounces. Yeah. Toni Julian: Five to six. Bertrand, what about you? Bertrand Newson: Agree. Same. Toni Julian: Same. Okay. And then if you want to pick a complex carbohydrate, what would that be? Kevin Chang: Usually like a sweet potato or some sort of vegetable. Usually I'll do something in a air fryer or something. Toni Julian: Ah. Awesome. Kevin Chang: So probably combine the fats with my protein, I'll spray a little bit of fat in the air frier. Toni Julian: That's great. And then let's see, Bertrand, what would be your complex carbohydrate. Bertrand N: Would Brown rice fit in that category? Toni Julian: Yeah, absolutely. So it would be, um, the grains, fruits or vegetables, right. And then the healthy fat would be literally you need at least a tablespoon of healthy fat, and this is where people will kind of go off. They'll focus on those two things, but not integrate the fats into it out of a 300 calorie meal. I like a hundred calories of that to be fat, a healthy fat. And what that does is that lowers your LDL and increases your HDL, your, your healthy fat, right? So it could be off avocado. Like I put on avocado on a lot of things, you know, in your fryer, you could add a tablespoon of... Kevin Chang: avocado oil Toni Julian: Avocado oil. That's perfect. Yeah. So your healthy fat could be something like that and that rounds out your meal, and then you're getting the right amount. That would be for both of you, the right proportion for those meals for you and Bertrand for you, it'd be half of an avocado and Kevin for you. It might be a quarter, a quarter of an avocado, a tablespoon. Kevin Chang: Are you enjoying the show, help us out by sharing the podcast. You can win some cool prizes like headbands, wristbands, training programs, shadows, and more, especially if you're part of an existing running group online community, or have friends that you think will enjoy the show. Get your personal referral link at race mob.com/referral. I love how you simplify this, because I think people overcomplicate this, you know, you've got Hito whole 30 and a bunch of other things, but really what people need to combat is blood sugar levels too often, we are scaling one way or the other with blood sugar. So thinking about low-glycemic index complex carbohydrates, something that will not spike your blood sugar levels, but take a longer time to process and enter the bloodstream. And then the other part of that is. Satiation making sure that you're full enough, which is where the protein comes in, the healthy fats come in and making sure that you're not always hungry all the time, because there is, you know, your stomach is full enough. There's the other hormones probably in your body, like grill in and other things that are telling your body, Oh, I'm hungry at this moment in time. So I love just breaking this down and simplifying it and making, making it easy for people to understand. Okay. Complex carbohydrates. We're doing a three, two, one, I think is what you talk about a little bit in terms of portion control and making sure that you have, you know, three protein, the two complex carbohydrates, the one piece of fat in there and making it simple enough so that anybody can understand, okay, this is the type of meal. And to have that complete meal. That's the one thing that I haven't heard before having that complete three, two, one, a couple of times during the day, rather than snacking on just the Apple or snacking on just, you know, a handful of almonds or, you know, something that doesn't have maybe something more complete in there so that you are more satiated. I love this concept. Yeah. It's. Kind of a game-changer in my mind. Toni Julian: That's great. And just to further explain three, two, one. If someone was looking for a diet that was 300 calories, and then you guys could just of course double this, it's totally scalable, but this is kind of the minimum food. So the three would be three ounces of lean protein, right? For you, it'd be six. You just double that the complex carbohydrates, the two would be two cups of like vegetables. And it breaks down a little bit so that because there are starchy carbohydrates and we were talking about the glycemic load or the glycemic index is that starchy carbohydrates are more calorie dense right? Whereas leafy greens are not as calorie dense. So say for example, a cup of leafy greens is 50 calories. A cup of yams, a starchy carbohydrate would be like a hundred or 150 depending. Right. So it would be two cups of like a like properly or, you know, just brussel sprouts, some leafy green, some sort of greens. What would else would be in there like cabbage or. Dakini, that kind of thing. When you get into the starchy carbohydrates, those are more calorie dense, so you need less of them. And then you've got, okay, you just eat a little less of that, but then you add your healthy fat. And that's where the one comes in. One means one serving. And the reason I kept it to that, it's not like a tablespoon necessarily, but one serving of an avocado people get confused. Well, what's one serving. It's not a whole avocado. It's a quarter of an avocado. And what is one serving of fat? One serving of fat, about a hundred calories is one tablespoon of the oils. one serving of flax seed meal is two tablespoons because it's not as dense. So what happens is if you get those proportions, right, it's a little bit to learn, right. But once people understand that concept, it is really easy and they just think three, two, one, and they build their meals that way. And what that does is you talked about glycemic index. It's they're lower glycemic foods, but if you do have a food in there safe, for example, Brown rice that is calorie dense and maybe higher in the glycemic value, when you combine it, you drop the entire load of that meal, right? So it doesn't mean you can't have higher glycemic foods. You just combine them with the fats and with the protein and a metabolized slowly, and it keeps your blood sugar regulated. So that's where people go wrong. And that's, I think where people think, Oh, rice is bad for you or Keene was bad for you or oats, you know, the whole keto thing, you know, I think it's great. If people buy into a diet that works for them, that's the important thing. Really my goal is to hit the masses of people that are walking around out there that are maybe athletes or non-athletes, but where they're starting to kind of spiral and they're seeing their health erode, they're seeing themselves aging, they're concerned about their mental health, about their energy. Right. And a lot of it, if they just start with the diet and start to turn that around and just implement this basic concept, and then they'll be successful and then they'll feel good that they're successful with it. Right. And so I think that's so important. Kevin Chang: That's incredible. I mean, I think we are what we eat. What we eat is such an important factor into how we feel on a day-to-day basis. And we talked right before we went on this podcast about introducing a challenge for our listeners, our audiences. A collective challenge to cut the crap. And we said 14 day challenge, where we are going to cut out a lot of the things that are making us feel bad. Can you talk to us a little bit about why 14 days? Why do you think 14 days is a good amount of time for people to experience the challenge? And what are we going to cut out of our diets Toni Julian: right. Well, I'm excited about this. This is wonderful. And you're all doing it with me. We're going to do it together. That's when we're successful is when you get people together and you get that energy going and you're not doing it alone. None of you guys are alone out there. Uh, yeah, so 14 days I think is perfect because it usually takes people a couple of days to get their mind wrapped around it. Right. And so they're like, well, I know I need to, I need to get more healthy food. I need a trip to the grocery store. I need to kind of get acclimated to this challenge. And then also I think 14 days, because once people get into it, they realize, Oh, day one, just take one day at a time. Right? Oh, I did that today. I did that a day. That's great. So at the end of a week, your body really starts feeling good. Like I have done this where I'll be on a walk. I will feel absolutely high, like elated because nothing is in my body. That's going to take me down. Right. Not one thing. And so when you eat clean, you feel so much better. It's like, why did I ever do what I did before? And sometimes we'll go back and we'll have that reminder of like, Oh, I drank too much. I'm like, okay. That was a reminder. I know we all do it. I do it too. Sometimes I'll have like too much wine, maybe two and a half glasses of wine. And I just won't feel good the next day. I'm better not drinking it. So. Back to the 14 days. It gives people enough time to feel good. And then they will also see results in their body. They'll notice that their eyelids aren't puffy they'll notice that their skin looks better. They'll notice that they have energy. They'll notice that their pants fit a little better. Right. And I'm not talking about scale weight. It's not really about that, but taking out all the things that bring us down and that makes room for all the good things that we can bring in. So foods for example, that I totally stay away from when I run this, I call it, cut the crap. We can call it whatever we want. Let's cut. The crap is anything that is white and processed. So white rice, white bread, sourdough breads, um, anything that has sugar in it. You know, cookies, cakes, pies, sweet drinks, fruit juices, people really shouldn't eat, drink fruit juices. Anyway, they should just eat the entire fruit because of all the fiber that Senate. , so anything that is, , alcoholic at all. So no beer, no wine, no tequila, nothing like that. My go-to used to be like after a figure, competition would be goldfish and tequila. The thing that I craved so much, right. Crunchy salty. So, and I think people will find when they cut the crap and they eat properly, they won't have cravings. This also takes away cravings, right. So yeah, no sugar, no alcohol, nothing processed and no saturated fats, of course. Right. So the things to eat would be crowded out. Everything was lean proteins. So that means no bacon, no sausage, right? None of those, the high saturated fat and incorporate whole lean foods, foods that are fresh foods that are whole all of the vegetables. And I would design your plate like, I call it van Gogh, veggies, you know, just every single color side by side. And when, you know, when you're getting all those colors, you're getting all the nutrients that you could possibly get. And then lots of healthy fats, whole grains, you to balance out your meals. And, you know, it's surprising people if they find they're hungry at night, sometimes that happens right after dinner. People need to eat. I would tend to go more toward the protein and maybe a little bit of carbohydrate, but we can use our protein while we sleep for repairing. We don't always need the. The calories or the, uh, the carbohydrates as much. So like, a, Greek yogurt. And what I love to do is I love to take out all the saturated fat. So the heavy animal saturated fats and the fats that are in dairy, and I replace it with the high omega-3 fats, which are of course the avocados and nuts and seeds and things like that. Right. It's also good for us if we do that. And, and I would just say we just eat as many meals as it is to satisfy us. And when you're satisfied, the only thing that can get in the way is emotional eating. Like, Oh, I feel like something, this or that, or I had a hard day, I deserve this or that. It's like, well, let's. Rephrase that and to not be a victim, but being a warrior and being successful at, Hey, I did this today. This is great. I made a huge, huge progress I did today. I'm going to go to bed, I'm gonna get a good night's sleep. And, and by the way, that sleep is probably one of the most important things anyone can do, because if they're not sleeping properly, if they're not getting what they need, then that cortisol shoots up in the ghrelin and then they self-medicate and eat all the wrong foods and make poor decisions. So a good night's sleep is I think the foundation to everything else that we do in our lives. So yeah. Kevin Chang: Good stuff. Incredible. Yeah. So we're going to have the cut, the crap challenge in the beginning of February. And we're going to have a couple of prizes for all of you guys that want to participate. I think a gift basket from Toni, as well as. Some coaching from coach Bertrand. We're going to have some directions all the way throughout the challenge, both from Toni and from coach B. So, um, look for that challenge, sign up for that challenge. Tell your friends about that challenge and why not? I mean, you're going to feel better. You're going to feel healthier. You're going to feel sexier for Valentine's day. So let's get into that challenge and help each other out because that community feel is so extremely important. Coach, where are you going to say something? Bertrand New: This is fantastic. Uh, Toni, what's so many people that you have helped in articulating the journey, the path, and what is the right thing to consume. Most people want to eat healthier and it's tough to do you have identified. And we're, our challenge is going to be based on that. What have you seen, what's been most successful for people for it to click and to actually make the physical change. Because again, everybody has in common, the want to, I want to feel better. I want to be healthier. Now we're educating people on what to you, but where is that secret sauce where people are actually able to put in the physical change, the psychological change, where they have a higher success rate. Where have you seen in your experience where it's helped people kind of make that switch? Toni Julian: That's a great question. And I love it because it's one that I have dealt with personally as well. Like what was it for me? And I think it's twofold. One is you have to be prepared. You have to take action. You want to be successful at this. Go to the store or have it delivered, right? This is, these are COVID times. It is harder for people I'll acknowledge that, but it is not an excuse not to eat healthy right now. Like right now is the time while we have this time to focus on ourselves and make ourselves a priority. So be prepared, do a little bit of meal prep. Like I make these soups that are full on soups and I'll share my recipes. I'm writing a book. I have 150 recipes right now. I will share those with you. There are balanced macros. These are tools for success for people. So we will give all you guys. Those recipes and those tools, you have to have the tools to be successful, but you need to take the action. You need to be prepared. Don't allow yourself to be unprepared because if you are, then you're not going to be as successful. And the other thing is, write your foods down. People that journal are 70% more successful than people that do not journal because. We are more conscious and more aware of what we're eating when we write it down. And it's accountability. So grab a buddy in and race mob, right? Grab a buddy. We're here for you too, and just be accountable to yourself. And then the other part of that is more goes back to coach B, which is the why for me, my big thing, and I'm getting goosebumps right now. My big thing is where is my higher path? What are my gifts? Am I using my gifts? Can I share them with the world if I'm not the top of my game? No, I can't. And I've proven that to myself many, many times. So if I want to be on that path, if I want to be successful, I have to look at what you go back to MLK. What is my big dream? If you have a big dream and even if you think it's not realistic, it doesn't matter. Have a big dream set that intention. Beat up person at the top of your game, don't be afraid to be that person. Be that lawyer, be that person who says this is what I want to be and be fearless about it. You know, I didn't get through life and all the hardships and a hard upbringing and terrorism and all kinds of things to get to this point in my life where I'm going to let my nutrition fail me. You know, you have to have that inner strength. And if you don't have it, ask somebody for help to help you along with it. That's why coach B and Kevin are, are our, here is sometimes we just need a little help and there's no shame in asking for help either. Those are the things I have found to be helpful and not fear and not fear-based of cause I've had people come to me. I'm afraid. I'm, you know, I have this, I have that problem. I've got diabetes or whatever. It's... fear does motivate people, but be proactive. Get there before you need to get there. Bertrand Newson: I mean, tell me that's fantastic. And there's so many things that we have no control over. None that it just it's kind of circumstances, but with your health and wellness, you do and diet and physical activity, we are in complete controlled. We own it. You cant outrun a fork and a many cases we can get focused on. Well, I'm going to walk more. I'm going to run more. We can get to the gym more, which is great. We preach that we're all about physical activity, but you can completely sabotage all of that. If your forecasts out working your physical activity about what we eat. And we all see examples of that, but yet we are in complete control. And when you have the support of fellow like-minded individuals in the race, mob community, and Toni has an inspiring person who has. Done the work who can show you the path step by step on what's best to eat that can help sustain your uniformness and ward off illness and sickness improve your mood and sharpness and vitality. It's great. So can't wait for the 14 day challenge to start and to help support each one of you along the way. Kevin Chang: Toni talking about support. Can you give us any useful tips for dealing with them? Family or family members or, you know, like I know you have a family as well. So when you change your diet, do you get them on board? Do you try to garner support from them? And how do you deal with that? I know I struggle with that on occasion as well with my wife, trying to get her on board with some of these challenges that I do, or some of these eating habits. Any advice, any tips? Oh, I Toni Julian: sure do. So, um, I am married. We have four kids blended families to talk about complexities. Our last one just left the house. So I was cooking for two children that had celiac disease, which means they couldn't eat gluten, a husband who loves spicy foods. That are off the charts that wasn't my taste and I ate healthy. And you know, you can only be a role model. I don't think we can necessarily bring people along the way with us. I learned early on that you can't help people that don't want to be helped, but you just need to demonstrate by being that role model. And, you know, Bertrand and I both know too, you know, we've run groups of people, tried to inspire them through fitness and things. And there were some people that want to be helped in some people that don't want to be helped. We do our best, you know, our heart is with everybody and we wish this for everybody, but they have to kind of find that thing that clicks in themselves. And when I first started my healthy lifestyle, I got a lot of guff for it. It was, you're not fun anymore. You don't drink, you know, why don't you eat this you're too thin. And when I wasn't, I was eating 3000 calories a day as a five foot, three person that is a lot. And I just got a really bad time for it. And Oh, you know, why don't you eat this? And, and it's because I think people want company in their bad habits. And so they're going to try to pull you into theirs. So, uh, the first book that I wrote, it was named bite me, change your life one bite at a time. And I called it that because I was really tired of people pushing their agendas on me, uh, when I was trying to eat healthy and they didn't really want me to, you know, did figure competitions. I did a couple of them that were natural. And actually, I don't think I mentioned this, but I tied for. First place in figured age 48 in the open against twenty-year-olds. And I changed my body composition from 30% body fat down to, I think it was like 18 or 20% body fat in eight weeks. So this is how powerful the nutritional aspect is of it. And, you know, I just kind of did the normal, like four hours a week of weight training and I did a little bit of cardio, so it really, really wasn't nutritional component of it. So that, that was huge. I remember at my birthday party, somebody made me an ice cream sundae and shoved it in my face and said, eat this. And I said, I don't want to eat that. That gives me migraines. It's all sugar. That's not going to help me. And so I called it, bite me for two reasons. One was to tell people like, if they didn't like the way I was in my body, I'm the only one that's going to be in my body when I'm 80. Nobody else is. Nobody has the right to push their agenda on me. And so I had to get strong about that. And, and even now, like my husband drink wine, do you want wine? Oh, here's a glass. So just hand it to me. I'm like, I don't really want that. So you have to have strong boundaries around that. And then also to explain to people, look, I'm on this challenge. I would appreciate it. For the next couple of weeks, if you didn't offer me this, like ask for what you need from other people. And if they do, you can gently remind them with love. Look, you know, I asked you not to not to ask me that, you know, I'm trying to really do my best here. I want to be successful in this. And so you can't always have company in your household around it, but one thing that's good, you know, talking about like catching on to other people in the household. I remember when our youngest who's, 22 right now, I remember she picked up a can of food, she was eight years old. How much fat is in this? Like, Oh, good. Okay. So now my kids are fit. I've got one daughter that went into OCS into the Marines, into the Marine Corps, boot training officer camp. She's now in the San Jose police department Academy kicking, but she is like all out. She is ripped she's. Solid strong person. She's a female lawyer and I helped her with her nutrition. So he can't bring everybody along, but the ones that do love and support that, for sure. Kevin Chang: I love that. And I love that you touched on just communication is so key, you know, just having that dialogue, letting people know what your plans are, how you plan to eat. Asking for their support, even if they don't want to jump on the bandwagon, asking for them to support, to help you in that journey. That can be so crucial for seeing success versus seeing failure. So I love that. I love that whole story and that piece of advice. We talked a little bit before that we were going to get into your products because not only do you, this need in the market and you saw the need and yourself, but then you saw you saw that others needed something simple, something easy. And then you went and found the science to go back it up. We talked at the very start of the show, how you recruited people like Bertrand to be part of the whole science behind what you're producing and putting out there. So talk to us a little bit about the products that you have on market. And we know that you have some new products as well. Toni Julian: Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. They, they, food products were really born out of my philosophy and, and it was actually for myself that I started it. I mean, we all, as in, in the fitness industry, we have all taken a bowl of oats and put a scoop of protein powder in it, mixed it up. And it is now nasty. You took that concept cause you know, think about it for kids. I owned two businesses. Four children, a husband and three dogs. And, you know, it's a very full life, right? And so trying to set myself up for success was hard. So I started trying to do like CACs in the kitchen. So meal prep, you know, balancing foods, doing things in advance and trying to accommodate my entire family with different nutritional needs was challenging. But it all worked out over time. So I kind of started off in my kitchen with this, and then I started making it taste better and started like doing the creative aspect of Oh blueberries and coconut and lemon. Oh, you know, that sounds really good. Ah, there's this whole creative process I'm very left and right brain. So I kind of did the scientific food part of it. And then I did the kind of artistic spin into that and just created this food line. It really was born out of this balanced macronutrient. Concept. And it was a tool for me and then my clients, and also people that I started to know started eating it. And I decided to take it to this one place that produced a batch of it. And I bought a thousand pounds. Of my first oatmeal and it was cinnamon raisin and it tasted like sawdust. So I had about a thousand pounds of sawdust to sell And I sold it in five pound things and you know, it just did not taste very good. So I, as my father became ill, started helping him. It was really just a love that came out of this, of, of trying to create food products. That were convenient for people. So I would come home after 14 hours with my dad, hospitals and surgeries, and you know, all this chaos to coming home and working on the labels and the creative and looking at the macronutrients and doing the nutrition profiles. And so I created a line of oatmeal. I, you know, there's never really a word for it. It's not really oatmeal. It's a protein meal, it's a macro balanced meal and it has the lean protein complex carbs and healthy fats. So it has flax seed in it. So it helps. You know, all those things we talked about before the oats are great for lowering cholesterol, it has fruits. It has, they make a threes in it. And so I developed this line and then as I started going, I started realizing, Oh, well not everybody has time to boil water. It's not that hard. Boil water, put it in the cup, but it started evolving. I thought, what else can I do? So I made it into meal bars. And so then the meal bar has allowed me to be able to make it balanced macros and something you can just put in your pocket on a hike. So I was on a hike the other day, I got low blood sugar, got out my spicy mango margarita bar with lime. It was delicious, saved me, got through my hike. So we have these bundles now where people can eat like a little oatmeal in the morning and take a bar with them in their pack for their run or their workout or whatever else. So it's a great grab and go solution, that little bundle. And then I just started with the meal bars and then I started thinking, Oh, how fun I would love to do, like during the holidays, everybody starts migrating toward pancakes, all the healthy food, like when COVID hit, I went to the cereal aisle and it was wiped out all the sugary cereals were gone, but then there's Bob's oats and Toni's protein, oatmeal still on the shelf. Nobody went for the oatmeal because they wanted comfort food. And that's what people do under duress. They want pancakes and waffles. So I decided to blend my oats into freshly ground oat flour in our commercial kitchen and make a balanced macro protein waffle muffin mix. They are amazing. They're so good. You just add egg oil, you know, water. Done. So have that now. And then I made granola clusters that are grab and go also. So everything that I do is, you know, there's no saturated fat, there's no unhealthy fat. There's the omega-threes and Bertrand is showing a picture. Yeah. That's our blueberry coconut lemon flavor. So good. So I have this whole lineup now, and I think what's beautiful about it is that a lot of people don't want to eat mass produced food. These are whole ingredients that we make in our commercial kitchen. And I will tell you that during COVID, I don't have a staff because it's not safe for anybody. My husband who's a CEO comes down to the kitchen and we create all this work together ourselves right now. And I am always in the kitchen. So we're a, it's a small business. It's all we do. All the shipping ourselves. We I've done all the label, design, all the packaging, all the nutrition facts. And it's a tool for people. You know, it's, it's a way for people, like if they don't have the ability to make an omelet that morning, they can do this instead. So it keeps people from those emergency situations. And I know that's what I just one of my three meals. I, my husband, I have a bar every afternoon at about three o'clock and that holds us over for dinner. So our blood sugar doesn't get low. And it's just Kevin Chang: as if writing four books, wasn't enough to keep you busy, starting a whole new business, starting a whole new lines of food, but all in service of helping people all in service of helping those of us who are too busy, who can't get all of this. Figure it out and down to sometimes grab something because you know, if you are busy too, to have something there that is still good for you, nutritional for you, keeps you satiated keeps you full it. Doesn't spike your blood sugar and, and allows you to still continue to live a healthy life. I mean, kudos to you for starting. It we'll have links. In the show notes. I think you even mentioned that there might be a discount for some race mobile listeners as well. Toni Julian: Yes. There actually is a discount. I put it in place right before our call and I rarely do discounts. I think I did one kind of toward, uh, the Christmas holiday season. So it is on my website. If you go to Toni, julian.com and it's too, and I, and we'll have a link. J U L I a n.com. So if you use the promo code, race, mob, all caps, all on word 10 race mob, ten one zero people, all of your listeners can have 10% off my entire line of products that more than covers shipping. So it's almost, it's free delivery. It's touchless to your door. It's safe. And we do have some sampler packs. If people just want to try, like we have variety, a little sampler pack, it's called empowerment. So for all of our meal bars, I have a, an aspiration. So one's discipline. One's fearless. You know, when it's empowered, people can kind of look at, get a little aspiration while they get their meal bars. And then for the, the oatmeals, we also have sampler packs of those too. So people can try the flavors that they like. It's kind of a nice way to get started, you know, for, I think I'm $20, $25, $30, something like that. They don't have to spend a lot to get to sample and see, see what works for them. Kevin Chang: Incredible. So a couple of action items for you listeners. I mean, go check out the line of products. Go sign up for our 14 day challenge here in the beginning of February, we're going to have a ton of support for you guys, and we're going to be there to help you all along the way. And coach BNI will be doing the challenge, keeping you guys updated of our progress throughout that entire challenge. Thank you so much, Toni, for being on the show with us. Where can people find you? How can they reach out to you? , if they have any questions. Toni Julian: Yeah. Welcome direct questions from people and they can email me [email protected]. I'm also on Facebook, LinkedIn. There are just a number of ways. Instagram at Toni's protein meals. So people can reach out in a number of ways. I'm happy, literally happy to help people. Don't have to hire me as a consultant, have a quick question, happy to always, uh, give some Kevin Chan: feedback incredible. And hopefully just the start of our conversation, our partnership, and working together. And we thank you so much for being on the show with us. This has been so incredible. Thank Toni Julian: you. This is really my pleasure, and I just wish everybody wellness and joy and good health out there. Thank you. Kevin Chang: Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the race mob podcast. Check out all of the show notes or find a running buddy [email protected]. Please subscribe to us on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcasts and leave us a review until next time. Keep on moving.