Episode #41: Interview with Lynne Bowman
Why should brownies kickstart our day? Join us as we chat with the author of "Brownies for Breakfast"! Don't miss this delicious conversation!
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Show Notes:
Guest Introduction
Lynne Bowman, author of "Brownies for Breakfast," a cookbook focusing on healthy eating for diabetics and everyone who wants a healthier diet.
Key Discussion Points
Lynne's Philosophy on Aging and Health:
Emphasizes the joy of aging with good health.
Importance of regular movement, including aerobic and strength training.
Advocates for a diet rich in whole foods and mostly plants.
Lynne's Approach to Healthy Eating:
Focus on adding nutritious foods to the diet rather than on deprivation.
Importance of incorporating greens and colorful vegetables into every meal.
Lynne's method of tweaking familiar recipes to make them healthier.
Cookbook Highlights:
"Brownies for Breakfast" contains simple, quick recipes with whole, real foods.
Features alternatives to traditional ingredients (e.g., nut butter, pumpkin).
Use of natural sweeteners like allulose instead of sugar.
Lynne's Tips for a Healthy Pantry:
Guidance on essential pantry items and reading food labels.
Advises removing certain items from the pantry that don't contribute to health.
Importance of Sleep and Emotional Health:
Stresses the need for quality sleep for overall health and healing.
Discusses the role of emotional well-being and social connections.
Family and Community in Relation to Food:
Advocates for shared meals and cooking with family.
Views food as a means of building community and strengthening family bonds.
Favorite Recipes from Lynne:
Ingenious soup, deviled eggs, potluck slaw.
Emphasizes the nutritional benefits and simplicity of these recipes.
Key Takeaways:
Holistic Approach to Health:
Health is not just about diet or exercise; it includes sleep, emotional well-being, and social connections.
Adding Nutrients Over Deprivation:
Focus on adding healthy, colorful, and diverse foods to your diet rather than restricting or depriving yourself.
Importance of Homemade Cooking:
Cooking at home with whole, natural ingredients is key to a healthier lifestyle and diet.
Adapting Traditional Recipes:
Traditional recipes can be modified with healthier alternatives without sacrificing taste.
Family and Community Integration:
Meals should be a shared, communal experience, promoting family bonding and emotional health.
Learning and Experimenting with Food:
Encourages trying new recipes and techniques, and involving children in cooking to foster healthier eating habits.
Transcript:
Welcome back to Better Than A Pill. Today, I'm so excited to have Lynne Bowman with us as a
guest and Lynne is the author of the Amazon bestseller Brownies for Breakfast and Lynne has
been featured in women's expos throughout the country. She's teamed with actress Deirdre Hall.
She's done quite a bit. And so I'm honored to have her here as a guest on our show, we are
going to be talking about Brownies for Breakfast. So welcome Lynne.
I'm so happy to be with you, Cari. And I have some news for everybody. The book is now
available in Audible. So you can listen while you're working out. What could be better than that,
right?
Oh, that is great. That is really awesome. And yeah, I'm so excited to, so, you know, tell us a
little bit about just to start off, you know, your story and what, you know, kind of drove you to
write this book.
My story is long. I mean, and then, let me start at the end. I'm old, I'm 77 and, and that's the big
story. I want that for everybody.
I want all of us to be old and have fun and feel good. And for you ladies, especially you pals who
are in your 30s and 40s and thinking, Oh, my God, I had no idea it was gonna be this hard. The
kids, the relationship, the job, all that stuff. It's so hard. Yes, it is. But it gets better, you know,
what your 60s and 70s are like.
Oh, yeah, big fun. Uh, but the secret is you have to be healthy. So that's why we're all out here
talking about it. And, um, hopefully, if you're not already seriously started. Maybe today will be
the day you'll hear this and you will get on it because it makes literally all the difference in the
world. I was just listening.
I'm sure, you know, Peter and his work and, um, his new book outlive, uh, is full of just super
nerdy stuff crammed with facts and figures. But let me save you several hundred pages and tell
you that. The science is so there, if you move every day, if you have some kind of aerobic and
strength training and you stay with it, your chances of being healthy into very old age increase
hugely, it makes all the difference.
It really does. According to science and according to grandma here, uh, it's what you need to do.
Yeah, I'm with you on that. And yes, I've heard that, that, you know, it's amazing to me that that
is the key. One of the top things we need for longevity. Uh, you know, it's amazing. I do it for a
living, but I can't believe it is the number one thing we need.
That's awesome. It is the thing. And it's so interesting, Carrie, to hear, I know I'm supposed to be
telling my story, but you know, I get bored with my Right. And I'm so interested in other people's
stories. And what I'm finding fascinating right now is that MDs are starting to be the ones out
there going, you know, um, medicine isn't what we thought medicine is not necessarily helping
us to be what we want to be and to cure people and to make people feel better.
Um, what it is doing is food. Yes, that's my corner sort of, and movement, and another super
important one, sleep. Mm hmm. So we can talk about that if you want to today, happy to, I'm a
recreational sleeper, um, and I encourage other people to really get into sleep and enjoy their
sleep. Um, so there's that. And then, the fourth is emotional health, which I think just is, comes
from doing the first three to a great extent.
And I'm sure you will agree with me on that. Part of the joy and the benefit of working out is
doing it with some people that you like making it a social thing. Uh, and. I live in a little bitty
town, 600 people on the coast of California. And so we know each other, we see each other on
the street and so on.
And there's a wonderful group of women who are pretty well connected to each other. And we,
several of us, of course, work out together in our little neighborhood gym, uh, right downtown.
And of course that's where all the news gets put back and forth and so on, but. That just a little
bit of contact with my friends working out, it gives me so much joy and connection and makes
me want to go back.
You know, it's not torture to go and get pumped up in a, in a nice room with nice people that you
like and a good trainer. It's fun. It should be fun and we all, and Americans are so all about work
all the time. And I'm guilty. Yeah. I've been there and I've done that. I still do it and I don't have
an excuse anymore, you know, but I do it.
Um, but having fun is maybe the healthiest thing we can all do. And if that fun involves moving
your buns, dancing, playing a game, pickleball, golf, whatever, so much the better. But I think we
can't underestimate the social aspect of moving. You know, if you're sitting at your desk or sitting
in your car, you're not doing your social life in a good either, you know, or your spirit or your
emotional health, so all those additional reasons for getting up and moving.
Uh, and getting on your treadmill and listening to my book on honor. It's a great thing. Great
workout. So yes, back to your book, talk a little bit about that. Like what brownies for breakfast,
by the way, I love that name. And I want to tell you that I did get a copy of your book. And I also
want to share with you that me and my kids made the brownies last weekend.
Okay, great. How'd it go? I was super excited, Lynn. They turned out really tasty. You doubted
me. No, I'm really excited. In fact, we're going to do it again. We're going to add in the chocolate
chips. Um, yeah. So a healthy brownie that I could eat and I, you know, gluten free that's good
for, and they liked it.
Oh my gosh. Thank you. So that was a win right there. I just wanted to. Great. And did you have
them make them? I mean, you know, that's part of the deal too. Yes. Because getting your kids
to cook and cook with you, um, is huge. It goes such a long way to having a healthier home and
family and having your kids learn what they need to know about food.
Yeah, and I hope you'll try some of my other recipes. And I hope all of y'all at home will sign up
for my little email thing. Just go on my lynnbowman. com, sign up on the front page, and not
often, once a month, maybe Twice a month and a good month. I'll send out one of my new
recipes because I'm always experimenting and finding new things.
Uh, and, and I love getting feedback and pictures from folks. So Cara, I'm looking forward to
pictures. Next time you make your brownies of how beautiful they are, how good they try. I will
do that. Absolutely. Yeah, I know. And yeah, so for those of. You don't know, um, well, tell us a
little bit about what this brownies for breakfast is Lynn.
So, cause I know people are like, what the heck are they talking about? The whole idea of the
book is, and the, and the full title is brownies for breakfast, a cookbook for diabetics. And the
people who love them, which if you think about it, that's kind of like the whole world because half
of us are diabetic or pre diabetic now, and the other half have some sort of heart situation or
fatty liver or something.
And the prescription is the same for all of us. As far as food is concerned, it's really very simple.
It's whole food, real food, mostly plants, which is not entirely plants, but it pleases more plants,
everybody. Um, and that's it. So, the cookbook is really simple. Book, uh, done by an impatient,
messy cook myself.
And I took the photographs specifically so that I could say to you, they're all just taken with my
iPhone. This is what it will look like when you make it. No stylists were harmed in the making of
this book. It's the way we cook. It's real moms, real grandmas, real dads, cooking real food. And
it's fast, because that's the way we live, right?
Easy. It's as cheap as you can possibly manage to do. People are always saying to me, isn't it
more expensive to eat healthy? How are you? No, it's not. If you stop throwing away food, if you
use up what you have. If you learn how to use carrot tops to make your pesto instead of
throwing them away, that's huge, right?
That's, that's some of the best food you'll eat. And I want to encourage everyone to grow a little
bit of food in buckets, little pots on the sink or in your backyard or whatever you have, grow
some food. Your kids will love doing that and kids will eat. What kids grow and what kids cook.
So the problem was solved.
Problem solved. Problem solved. Um, so this cookbook. It's just very basic, very simple. It's
American sort of fusion, California, and it's got some little Mexican stuff in it, but it's, it's just easy
stuff that you can do in 15 minutes and you can do ahead if you want to, And you can do for a
potluck if you want to, and it's familiar recipes that you'll, you'll look at them.
You'll go. Oh, wait. Yeah. She just didn't put in the sugar and she just did it. That's right. You
don't have to change the way you eat. You just have to tweak some stuff. So you're not eating.
Ingredients, hidden ingredients, stuff, chemicals that you don't need, sugar that's added to stuff,
extra. If you're making your own real food, whole food, it's fabulous.
It's more beautiful. It has a better texture. It tastes better. All good. You're not creating, uh, trash,
you know, when you think about it, there are just so many benefits. The downside. Okay. Here's
the downside. You're ready. You have to go in the kitchen. And you have to cut something up
and you have to actually put it in a pot, but 15 minutes 20 minutes, you know, there you go.
You cannot do it driving through. No, not going to happen. So, although I do have a recipe in
there for a driving through hack. Here it is. In my little town, we have a fabulous. It looks like a
gas station, but it's a fabulous taqueria, and I get it. One, and it's, they know us and it's like, hi,
and they know what we're going to order.
So I didn't have to say anything. I just walk in and the order is placed. It's a burrito, all the rice,
shrimp, shrimp, burrito, no rice, all veggies, beans, good stuff. I take it home. I cut it in half. I put
half away for the next day. Half is going to be plenty. And I put it on a bed of prickly chopped
cabbage.
Two colors is good. Purple and green are good. If I have arugula, I chop some of that. I put it on
there. And I sprinkle a little bit of, usually what I have is a plant based mozzarella. Or some other
cheese that I'm, I think is good. Sprinkle it on top, put a little more green salsa from Trader Joe's,
in my case, on top.
It's gorgeous now. It's this beautiful plate, you'll see it in the book, of these green and purple
leaves, and it looks so nice with green sauce and the sprinkle on top. Nuke it for a minute, and
now you really have a meal. You have lots of good green vegetables and color, and you have
the shrimp, because the shrimp is not fried.
It's just shrimp right out of the ocean on a grill. Wonderful. So you have to figure out what's
available in your town, where you are, but then turn it into good food. You know, you can do that
if you're just conscious of going, okay, how can I get green stuff in my plate three times, two
times a day? Now, a lot of us are not even eating three times a day.
Anymore twice a day, probably. Um, but every time I sit down to eat, my question is okay. Have I
got greens here? How many colors do I have here? Am I eating the vegetables that I need? It's
not a question of deprivation. It's a question of adding into your diet the nutrition that you need.
And so when it comes to, because people automatically think, oh yeah, diabetic, I'm pre
diabetic.
I need to stop. I need to eliminate that. No, no, no, no, no. You need to start adding really good
food. Think of it that way. Frame it that way. It'll work. That's awesome. And yeah, so I love that
you have this cookbook and I'm going to obviously have to look more into it. We did one so far,
but you have simple things that are under 15 minutes and you can use the microwave if you
need to.
And you know, it's simple shopping too, right? The ingredients and. Yeah. And I give you all of
that. I tell you what to take out of your pantry. Yes. That's me, grandma, standing behind you
going, get rid of that. It's crap. Because you do, there are things in your pantry. I know that I just
need to go, just stop.
Uh, but I'll tell you what needs to go into your pantry and you'll go, Oh, really, really? No, you'll
like it. It'll be good. Um, and I, I talk about reading labels and what the labels really mean and
how to read the label because when you read a label, it always says so much protein and so
much carbohydrate.
Ignore that doesn't matter. And it's BS. It's not the truth. Anyway, because you can't literally, you
cannot measure those things in food precisely the way that you would think looking at that label.
What you want to read is ingredients. What's in it? And you've heard this from other people
besides me, if you can't pronounce it, don't eat it.
You know, if it's more than three or four things. What is it? So I will talk about all that stuff. I hope
with some humor and some joy, uh, so that it's not an icky read, you know, a lot of us have been
out there reading all these texts on nutrition and exercise. So you don't have to, because they're
not fun to read most of them.
Um, but I, I tried to make this cookbook something that you would enjoy and go back to and
keep out. In your kitchen, um, open to the picture to inspire you to go make something else. So
it's full of savory things too, uh, and, um, you know, just ordinary things. It's deviled eggs, uh,
because, excuse me, but my deviled egg recipe is the best in the universe, just so you know
that.
And, and eggs. are great food if you have chickens that are real chickens, happy chickens,
college educated chickens, laying beautiful eggs, healthy eggs. That's great food. So, um, try
my deviled egg recipe and I won't give you the secret of that, but a lot of the pastries, the
difference is that instead of using flour and sugar and oil, we use.
Nut butter and pumpkin. Mm hmm. Pumpkin. Yeah. And pumpkin, of course, is great when it's
pumpkin season and I love pumpkin flavor and pumpkin spice and all that. But pumpkin also
turns out to be this magic ingredient that becomes the best chocolate you've ever had. And
these brownies, the brownies are made from the pumpkin, the nut butter, cocoa, all good food.
And I'm sweetening it now with allulose. Which I encourage everybody to try. Allulose is what's
called a rare sugar. It's a natural thing. It's not a chemically created thing that the guys in the
buildings in New Jersey make to addict you. No, no, no. It's just, it's good food. Has a bad
name. But allulose is very good food and it doesn't give you a blood sugar spike and you won't
react, your chemistry will not be disturbed.
It's a great sugar substitute. And a lot of people kind of, it's up at sugar substitutes. But if like
me, you've been diabetic your whole adult life, pretty much since I was, I had my kids in my
early 40s. Um, I knew that sugar was the enemy even back then, so I know, but I crave sweets. I
want something sweet, and I don't want to ever eat a brownie or a cookie or a cake again.
So just make them the healthy way, and they're delicious. And you don't, you're not deprived of
anything. There are certain things that I haven't been able to recreate yet, just because I haven't
had time. I need more time. Um, I need to learn how to make a great buttermilk lemon pie with
no sugar. And I'm not there yet, but I'm working on it, girls.
Um, we all have those things, you know, that, that, that go back to childhood or whatever, that
are our definition of fabulous. delicious, the thing that you wake up in the middle of the night
going, Oh my gosh, I really just want strawberry shortcake or whatever it is. But almost all of it,
you can make my way, um, just substituting things.
And what you find is that the healthy way to make it is very often better than the way your mom
might've made it. Um, we can make beautiful, my orange snack cake, which is not in the book,
but you'll get the recipe if you sign up on my, um, list. It's made with a whole orange peel and all.
It's fabulous. And it's made with pumpkin and, um, spices and it's fragrant.
I mean, orange cake, right? Moist, wonderful, super healthy. And a little creamy frosting on it.
Nothing better. So you will not be deprived of anything if you make a decision to stop eating
crap. Yeah. No, and it sounds like, even though the book is Let's just say good for diabetics. It's
good for other people too.
It's good for people that have an autoimmune disorder or, um, gluten free. I'm just talking low
carb, keto, paleo, kind of speak on that a little bit. Yeah, because it's, it's kind of all the same.
Um, if there's certain things, if you just take commercially baked bread out of your store. diet. If
you just say, just start there, just say to yourself, okay, no more white bread from fast food or
from the market.
Just, just know that right there is going to improve your health dramatically. And those of you
who have, um, issues with gluten, whatever, now there's a lot of gluten free labeling on stuff, but
you have to. Be very careful about that because so often the gluten is gone, but the sugar is still
there. So it's a thing that we need to kind of be cautious about.
But yeah, huge. Just take and in fact, take the wheat out of your diet. If you can just. Take the
wheat. There are people who want you to take all the grain, I won't go that far, but if you can
take the wheat out of your diet, because the wheat that's grown and processed today, in most of
the foods that are available for you to buy, is not worth eating.
It just has no nutritional value that you need or want. So, it's a game that you can play with
yourself. It's okay, I'm just going to stop eating wheat. And, and then, and then you're going to
eat, you're going to read all the labels and you're going to go, oh, yeah, that had weed in it too.
Yeah. And that had sugar in it too.
Um, so becoming aware is. That's a huge first step, Carrie, don't you think? Just really thinking
about it and focusing on it. But I want everybody to know that it doesn't mean you're going to not
eat good stuff and you're going to, it means you're going to eat better. You know, you'll, you'll eat
a wider variety of food once you get off your old path of driving through and whatever you were
doing that was not here, you know, the grab and go idea now in the front of all the
supermarkets.
I've known and I. I will stay out of a supermarket if I possibly can. I have PTSD from being a
single mother of three kids, right? And the 10 o'clock at night forays and you're exhausted in the
grocery store. Uh, um, but now when you go into the grocery store, the whole front is grab and
go plastic. And prepared food because y'all don't have time, right?
And you want to just grab that thing and take it home and put it on the table for anybody that will
sit at the table. That's the thing we should talk about too. I was hoping that this book would help
people think about how food is not just food. It's a connection. It's a community. It's family. It's
friends.
And I want you to sit down with your family and your friends. We are eating in the back of a car.
The kids are eating at the steering wheel. I see you out there. Stop lights. I know you're doing.
Um, and that is doing nothing for your emotional health or your physical health or your strength
or anything.
It is not nourishing you. So. I hope that these recipes make it possible for everybody to eat the
same food at the same time. You know, no more of this. Well, Mary Ellen just won't touch
anything, but you know, and Grandpa, he wants to have his, and my husband doesn't want
anything, but no, no, no, no. Everybody at the table with a meal, you know, if Grandpa wants to
put more salt on his fine.
But this, it's crazy to think that each person at the table is going to have a different menu. You
know, no, come on, we don't have enough to do. Exactly. Yeah. No, that's a great goal. I love
that, that you, that you have incorporated that into your message today. Yeah. A hundred
percent. Well, it's, it's practical, but it's also.
You know, if, if we are going to improve our health, all of us, and first, and we are talking, I think,
primarily to women today, not entirely, but, uh, largely to women, and it ends up in our laps, you
know, we're the ones who end up enforcing it and making it and wrapping it up and. Making sure
that everybody has theirs when they go out the door, all that sort of thing.
It does wind up being up to us to a great degree. So, uh, make it simple for yourself. If you can
make a genius soup recipe in the book once a week. And you have meals for three or four or
five days because what you have is a great big pot full of delicious broth and vegetable soup.
And then Tuesday night, you put some tortilla chips and something in it and you make it a taco
soup.
And Wednesday night, you can turn into Greek soup. And Thursday night, you can have some
pasta there. And each night, you've got this beautiful, healthy vegetable base. That you can just
add a few things to and have a warm, wonderful meal in front of everybody in a few minutes.
And yeah, you cooked, but come on, you know, throwing a couple of things in that pot, the
cooking, you had to chop the vegetable, you had to make the genius soup, which is easy, but it
does take a few minutes and you're using up all the vegetables out of your crisper.
And I, and I've seen what's in the back of your crisper. I know what's there, that cabbage that's
kind of like, Oh, you know, and, and the arugula that you bought well intentioned, it's kind of. Not
looking good. Well, you take all that and you make soup and then you've got meals, whole
meals, ready, warm, fabulous.
Excellent. Yeah. No. And you know, a hundred percent. I agree with you and eating this way and
eating, even if things from your book can help reverse chronic disease and, and that's been your
experience. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's, it's the combination of eating this way. Moving
your bones. Okay, one, two, and then three.
Sleeping, which again, especially if you're a parent, it's hard, right? Because the only time you
have to yourself is after everybody else is asleep and fed and everything. Um, but I don't know
anybody who doesn't wish they could just Yeah. Just lie down at eight or nine o'clock at night
and be quiet. And then what you do is you watch stupid stuff on TV, right?
And um, which does not rest you at all. It takes our mind off of things, but I would caution you
that it's not a rest. And a thing that I want everyone to know, if you don't know this, know it now.
The only time your body heals. And that's either little boo boos on your arm, you know, that
you've gotten, or a chronic illness that you're trying to improve.
Any healing that goes on in your body only goes on in your deepest sleep, in REM sleep. And
that's when your cells get busy and do all the little housekeeping stuff, you know, and throw out
the bad ones and recycle the good ones. Autophagy is one of my favorite words. I love that
word. Sleep is not just absence of activity, right?
Sleep is this magical ability that we have to renew ourselves. And if you are not now getting at
least seven or eight hours of good sleep, darkened room, quiet, no electronics of any kind, then
I want you to do whatever you need to do so that you can. And if that is enlisting a spouse to do
a little more, you know, or something, and I know that's hard, but that sleep is not just a, well, if I
can kind of thing, that sleep is a, you must, so you must get better nutrition.
You must move every day, at least a little bit, and you must sleep. And then you must have fun.
You must have a social life and emotional life. That's good. Those are worth it. Yeah. So it's all
encompassing. And obviously nutrition does play a big part in it and, you know, and, and so with
just to kind of.
Wrap it up. I just would love for you to share, like, are there like a couple recipes that resonate
as your favorites that you would say are a good starting point for people in the cookbook? Like
where, you know, where, you know, just what are your thoughts on that? Well, we've, we've
already hit a couple of them because these are the things that I've been doing for years and I do
them over and over and I think that's how we cook.
You know, really, realistically, you do the things that you, you have memorized and that you don't
have to think about. You just do them and ingenious soup is huge. I mean, I, I highly recommend
that, that you give that a try. And then the brownies. You know, yeah, who doesn't love a great
brownie. I mean, that's just so good.
I make the deviled eggs a lot. I'm going to make them this weekend. We've got people coming
over. And then I have one called potluck slaw. Uh, which is, is called that because you can leave
it out. It doesn't have mayonnaise in it. It's simple. I actually think, did I call it? No, it's potluck
slaw. I have two claws in the book.
One that has Vegenaise, which is, you know, that more creamy kind of coleslaw. Uh, but the one
that I'll be doing this weekend for our outside picnic event is very simple and it's sliced up, uh,
cabbage. And here's the trick, a really, really good balsamic vinegar that has some sweetness to
it. And I get mine at a local market called Sagona's and they have a Gravenstein apple flavor
and they have a Blenheim apricot flavor.
So just a bit of that great balsamic vinegar is all in salt and pepper. And then some sliced up
carrots. Uh, and, and I always put some, I have nasturtiums growing all the time in the yard, so I
decorate it with some nasturtiums and people go, Oh, that's all it takes. Um, but we, our food
needs to be beautiful and, and we enjoy our food with our eyes to a great extent.
And that actually helps. Digest the food. If your body goes, Oh, I'm going to get good food,
things chemically start to happen in your body so that the food goes down better and gets
processed better. It's like, it's a thing. So making your food pretty. I think is, is a good habit to get
into too. And it's not hard.
It's easy. Just a few extra seconds. And then having, having a little pot on the sink with Italian
parsley, for example. You, you buy it at the grocery store if you're not growing it. Snip off the
bottom. Put it in a little vase that's pretty. On your sink. Your scissors are handy too, right? You
always have scissors in the kitchen, and just snip off that beautiful Italian parsley on top of
anything you're eating.
It is so nutritious and tasty and pretty. Seconds. Right. But so much more nutrition and it looks
more appetizing. It smells great on top of soup on top of a sandwich on top of eggs, anything
that you're doing. So I could go on and on with my tips, but there's a couple. Yeah. No. Thank
you so much for sharing that.
And yes. Uh, so for you guys that are listening today, I'm going to be including the link here in
this episode to Lynn's website so you can find her book. And also the audible version is on
Amazon, as she mentioned. And um, thank you so much for coming on Lynne. This has been
great really in sharing all this information with us.
I love being with you, Cari. So, and I hope you'll holler when you want to talk again, because
there's always so much more. Um, and you and I both are finding out new stuff all the time that
we like to share.
A hundred percent. And remember everyone, we do new episodes every week on Wednesday, and I look forward to having you join me then.