No matter what your health goals are, whether you are looking to lose weight or build muscle,
protein is key.
And sometimes a chocolate protein shake just sounds so much better than chicken breast.
Many of us turn to protein powders, which unfortunately may not be as clean as you think.
Looking at a leading brand's label, I'm seeing artificial flavors, Ace-K, which is Ace Potassium
and artificial sweetener, Soy, the list goes on.
So when you're choosing a protein powder, keep it simple and keep it clean.
First, look for whey isolate, it's lower in carbs and higher in bioavailable protein
that your body can actually use.
Next, make sure that it's grass-fed and pasture-raised, and always choose natural over artificial
anything.
Be careful with the labeling.
Natural is not a regulated term, so make sure that you're getting a good, clean protein
shake from a company who you actually trust.
My go-to is Kian Clean Protein because it checks all the boxes.
It's premium whey isolate that comes from grass-fed and pasture-raised cows, and it's
made with organic natural flavors.
And if you guys are concerned about the natural flavors in their protein powder, I encourage
you to listen to the podcast episode that I have with the founder of Kian, where we talk
about the sourcing of his natural flavors.
And let me tell you guys, it tastes amazing.
I really love the vanilla and the chocolate, depending on the day and what type of smoothie
I'm wanting to make.
The rich chocolate is really good when you want more of a chocolatey shake, and the smooth
vanilla just goes with everything, especially my favorite, is doing the strawberry probiotic.
It's really simple.
DME, if you want to know, it is so good and so tart.
If you are ready to indulge your health with Kian Clean Protein and you want to save 20%
on monthly deliveries or 10% on a one-time purchase, go to getkian.com slash realfoodology.
That is G-E-T-K-I-O-N.com slash realfoodology to get Kian Clean Protein.
Hi friends, welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology Podcast.
I'm your host, Courtney Swan.
I am an integrative nutritionist, my master's of science in nutrition and integrative health.
And I also run an Instagram account called Real Foodology, which started out 11 years
ago as a simple food blog where I was posting recipes and I was sharing what I was learning
in school.
And I was just feeling so inspired to share all of this knowledge that I was learning
about nutrition and health and our food industry.
And I am just so passionate about helping others.
And I wanted to share this information that I felt was not being shared with the general
public about our health.
So that's how I started Real Foodology 11 years ago in my small apartment in Austin,
Texas.
I'm now in LA for context if you guys don't know too much about me.
And it eventually morphed into my Instagram account, Real Foodology.
And here I am.
I have this podcast.
I've been doing it for about two years now.
And I have not done very many solo episodes.
My very first episode that I released about two years ago, which I cringe thinking about
going back and listening to because I really had not found my voice then.
And I was saying a lot of umbs and I was feeling pretty uncomfortable and did not speak the
way that I do now.
But I'm so grateful that I started because we all have to start somewhere, right?
So I have been inspired more lately to record some solo podcast episodes.
I have been going through so much of my own personal growth and I feel inspired to share
some of it.
So today's episode is going to be all about my food journey.
So this one's not really so much about everything that I've been going through in my own personal
life and my emotional world.
But I feel very inspired to share my whole food journey with you guys.
Where I started, how I got super into health, all the different iterations of being too
strict and rigid and going through really unhealthy periods of my life and then finding
my groove.
And I just feel really inspired to share this because so many of us, especially women, especially
women really struggle to find what works best for our bodies.
And you know, of course, a lot of that has to do with societal pressures and feeling
like we need to be a certain size and a certain weight.
And I'm not here to talk too much about that today, but I wanted to share my personal journey
and where I started and hopes that maybe it can help you find your way and find what works
best for you.
If you're new here, I would love to reiterate what my overall messaging is with real food
ology.
Whenever I talk about food and health and all of this is that at the end of the day, it
really doesn't matter what I say or what any expert in the health and wellness world says
or anyone you follow on Instagram, it does not matter if it doesn't work for you.
I'm a huge proponent for trying all the things, try what you feel intuitively called to do.
Let's say you follow someone on Instagram and they're promoting keto really hard and
you're like, I'd love to try that.
They're speaking my language right now.
I feel like that might help me.
I am a full supporter of trying it and seeing if it works for you, but it also takes a level
of discernment and knowing when something is no longer working for you or if it's never
worked for you.
So just make sure as you are on your health journey and learning what is best for your
body to never give away your power to someone else.
And that's a doctor, a nutritionist, health expert.
At the end of the day, something that works for someone else may not work for you.
We are also bio individual and you are the only person that lives in your body and you
are the only one that really knows what's going on in your body.
You are the authority on your body.
If someone's telling you that a vegetarian diet is the healthiest thing for the planet,
it's the healthiest thing for human bodies and you're eating vegetarian or you tried
vegetarian and it wasn't working for you.
You were feeling lethargic, tired, then it doesn't work for you and you need to listen
to your body because our body is very smart and our body knows what it needs.
But it's our job to tune into that and listen and do what's best for our own bodies.
All right.
Well, now that I've said that, let's dive into my personal health journey.
You guys may have heard me talk about this before because I've definitely shared this
on other podcasts and on my Instagram, I feel very fortunate that I grew up in a household
where health was very much a focus of our meals.
My mom has always been really, really healthy since I can remember.
She made pretty much every meal from scratch.
We rarely, if ever, ate out.
I barely ever had fast food.
Every single night, I would come home to a home cooked meal from scratch by my amazing
mom.
She lived in Boulder for a long time and learned really about this alternative, holistic, more
preventative root cause approach to our health into eating.
So she was making all of our meals from scratch.
And at the time, as all of us do when we're young, I really didn't have a concept of how
lucky I was and how pretty rare that was, especially now.
Most people are not making and cooking their food from scratch.
I remember too, my mom was always shopping at these natural food grocery stores.
We had a place called Sun Harvest and this was before Whole Foods and then Whole Foods
came in and ended up buying out Sun Harvest.
So as a kid, we were going to these, at the time, what we call these crunchy, hippie, natural
food stores.
And I was getting all these off brand natural cereals and the natural peanut butter.
I remember I was so obsessed with Peter Pan peanut butter.
I actually don't even know if that exists anymore, but it's like Jiff Skippy.
And it was, oh my God, I have an obsession with peanut butter already.
And it's, anyone listening knows what like Jiff Skippy tastes like.
We know that it's terrible for us and my mom would never let me buy it, but every once
in a while as a treat, she would buy me a jar.
And if I like did something really well in school or we wanted to celebrate something,
she would let me have like a couple spoonfuls of it.
And I'm just sharing this with you guys to let you know that really like this was where
how it was in my household.
I was not allowed to have sodas and there was just a real focus on having nourishing
healthy foods in the house.
Now as a result, as a kid, anytime I went over to my friend's house for sleepovers, there's
this one friend in particular that I was so excited to go to her house.
Every time we went there and I had like a sleepover, her pantry was just stocked with
everything.
I mean, gushers, Dunkaroos, all my favorite cereals like Captain Crunch and Honeygrams
and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, all of that stuff.
And I remember I ran into this friend's mom maybe like five years ago and she was like
Courtney, I cannot believe that the girl that used to come over to my house and like
ransack our pantry and eat all of the like junk food that she could get her hands on
is like, I can't believe that this is the profession that you're in now.
And so we were making a bunch of jokes about how I would just come over and just ransack
their entire pantry and eat all of their junk food.
And I think some of you guys listening may think like, wow, that doesn't sound super
healthy.
And I know when people start having kids that this is a huge conversation of how far do
we go to protect our kids from all this processed junk food while also allowing them to live
and be kids.
And I don't want to go too far into this conversation, but I do want to say as an adult, I am so
incredibly grateful.
And I tell my mom probably once a week still that I am so grateful that she did not allow
me to eat all of that processed junk and crap on a daily basis.
Yeah, I would go to my friend's house and I would while out and eat a bunch of it, but
I wasn't eating it on a consistent basis.
And that is really where we're seeing this influx in obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular
disease, and we're seeing it younger and younger and younger because it's not just that we're
having that like spoonful of Skippy peanut butter every once in a while.
Like I did with my mom, kids are eating this processed junk all day every day and it's
making up like 70% of their diets now.
And we know from research that what we feed kids, not only is it during incredibly pertinent
time of their life, their brains are developing, their bodies are growing, they need nutrition
more than ever.
But there's also this emotional component there that the foods that you ate growing up,
when you get older, there's a part of our brain that equates those foods to our parents'
love.
So let's say that your maybe like every Friday night your mom made you like a, I don't know,
velveeta mac and cheese or something.
And as you grow up, you probably equate that mac and cheese, the velveeta mac and cheese
as a comfort food.
And there's a chemical reaction happening in your brain there where like basically we
equate that with like our mom's love or our dad's love, you know, maybe those are dad
that was making it for you.
It's incredibly important that we prioritize healthy foods for growing bodies and growing
brains.
So at the time, I remember fighting my mom on stuff and I was bummed that I couldn't
have McDonald's and like Burger King every day, like a bunch of my friends.
But as I got older and I realized the importance of nutrition and health and I realized that
I had this foundation of health that so many of my peers didn't have and they had to
learn it on their own.
I am so grateful for that gift for my mom.
All right.
So I graduated high school and I had just spent the last 17 years in my house with my
parents where every almost every meal was made from scratch, homemade, organic, natural,
not really eating fast food every once in a while.
I'm like weekends and stuff in high school.
I would with friends, but it was really not.
It was a pretty rare occasion for me.
So I go to college and I am on my own for the first time in my life and I go nuts on the
fast food, eating out, eating in my school cafeteria, obviously because I didn't have
any other choice in that.
And it was the first time in my entire life that I was exposed to really highly processed,
highly palatable foods on a consistent basis.
The cafeteria food in of itself was not healthy.
Even if I was eating salads, those salad dressings were made with canola oil and they had a
frozen yogurt, like a soft serve station every day.
And I think I ate it every day grilled cheese, french fries.
I mean, yeah, it was so you add that on top of drinking very heavily.
I drink a lot when I was younger because it was that scene.
I went to school at a Boulder CU, the University of Colorado.
And it was a pretty heavy party time in my life.
So I do want to say that there was a lot of drinking involved.
But on top of that, I was eating highly processed foods and then I was also getting the fourth
meal at Taco Bell pretty much every weekend.
There was a Taco Bell that was like a block from my dorm room.
And actually I found this out later that apparently, I don't know if this is true now,
but when I was in college, this Taco Bell was one of the highest grossing Taco Bells in
the United States.
It was a block for my dorm.
And we used to, when my friends and I would walk home late at night, we would go stand
in the drive-through line in order, like we would just stand in line with the cars in
order because they were closed on the inside.
And then we got in trouble and they stopped letting people do that.
And so then we would like hand people cash and they would drive through and pick us up
Taco Bell.
The fact that this is even coming out of my mouth right now is crazy.
It's so funny because it feels like I was such a different person back then because at
this point, I had not made the connection yet because I had a backwards awakening that
most people have.
I feel like most people grow up on the standard American diet and then they start dealing
with all sorts of health issues, whether it be eczema or digestive issues or whatever
it is that you're dealing with.
And then you start heading down this path of healing and learning about food and nutrition
and the importance of it and how it affects our bodies.
Well I was the exact opposite.
So I was coming off of feeling, knowing what it was like to feel really good and super
healthy in my body and eating whole real foods my whole life, to go into college and
gaining the freshmen, I probably gained 30 pounds my freshman year.
And I don't say that to like, look, I know weight and body shape and everything is a
very sensitive topic.
And so I'm not trying to make it about that.
My point is that like I gained a lot of weight in a really small period of time and you know,
not only was it uncomfortable but I felt sick all the time, I felt fatigued.
I actually had what I think now looking back on was if it was either psoriasis or eczema
but I believe it was psoriasis on the back of my scalp.
It was so raw and so itchy and like basically scab the whole time at the base of my school.
And this was going on for years and I eventually, which I'll get more into this story later
down the line but I eventually went gluten free years later and it completely went away
when I went gluten free.
So I'll share more about that later.
But it's a great testament to what we put into our bodies then goes on to reflect what
else is going on in our body.
So if you're dealing with digestive issues or skin rashes or your hair is falling out,
I would start looking at your diet and seeing what you're feeling your body with.
All right, so back to college.
So at this point, you know, I gained a bunch of weight.
I was feeling really bad, like just sick, fatigued, all the things I just mentioned.
And I started trying to lose weight and I did what everyone was doing back then.
Maybe people are still doing this now but I don't know if they still sell it.
I was eating slim fast bars every day for lunch and drinking the slim fast shakes for
breakfast every morning, which is horrifying to me now because I look at those ingredients
and I'm like, oh my God.
That was such a reflection and testament of how we treat health in this country and anyone
that wants to get healthy and like lose weight, go on this diet of like highly processed packaged
foods.
And I think this is definitely changing.
But do you guys remember there was like all these iterations of like there's lean cuisine,
which I think still exists.
There was that South Beach diet.
I think that's what it was called.
And they had bars and like, I think they might have had like meals and stuff too.
And then there was slim fast.
And I remember all my friends back then, we were all trying to like quote unquote get
healthy and I say quote unquote because obviously this was not healthy eating slim fast bars
and I was drinking the shakes.
So I'd have a slim fast shake in the morning and then I would try to just have a slim fast
bar for lunch and then would not understand why I was absolutely starving all day.
And then I would just gorge myself on like anything I could get my hands on later in the
day because I was not eating enough calories number one and two.
I was not eating foods that were actually nutritious for my body.
And it's so crazy to me that I did not make that connection because it's something that's
so simple and I say this with no judgment too because obviously I thought this way at one
point and it made me so upset when I started to connect these dots that we do not teach
this to kids in school.
This should be something that we are teaching kindergarteners like, Hey, the foods that
you put in your body build yourselves and they're what provide fuel for you and they
provide cognitive function they help with your brain and help your brain to function
better and give you energy and can also help you sleep at night and the healthier foods
that you put in your body the healthier that you're going to be and the better you're
going to feel.
And it's so crazy that we didn't make that connection for kids at a young age and I still
don't think we're doing that now.
I had to learn this the hard way.
So I went a couple years struggling really hard doing all of that.
I was eating lean cuisines and drinking muslim fast.
I remember I went through a phase of drinking vitamin waters.
Do you guys remember vitamin waters?
There was a time where they were like super trendy like back when my space was a thing.
We were all like posing with our vitamin waters and our my space photos like what?
So it was like a cool drink to have and I thought it was being really healthy and I
look at those now and they have 50 grams of sugar.
I was drinking one or two a day 50 grams of sugar.
It's the same amount as like a can of Coke.
So my senior year of college my mom well actually throughout all four years but I feel
like my senior year is maybe when it really started to click for me.
My mom would always send me little articles in the mail because this was before y'all
I'm old.
The internet was definitely a thing when I was in college but it was not how it is now.
So it's not like there was just articles online that you could just email or text someone.
So my mom would cut out articles that she would find in the newspaper or like magazine
cutouts or she would send me books sometimes.
I will never forget this.
I don't know why this one in particularly really stuck with me but she sent me a little
cutout from the newspaper and they were talking about hydrogenated oils, trans fats.
And this was this would have been in 2000 let's see I was living in that apartment in
Boulder and Taft.
So this would have been 2003.
No 2005 2005.
That's how much my mom was on this stuff.
Hydrogenated oils have now or sorry I'm I don't want to miss speak this because I just
got in trouble speaking about this.
I didn't give all the nuances to it in a TikTok video.
Partially hydrogenated oils are trans fats.
And there was an article that was written in the newspaper and my mom was like hey make
sure that you are avoiding hydrogenated oils because these trans fats are really bad for
cardiovascular systems are really hard on your heart.
And I started avoiding hydrogenated oils in 2005.
That was crazy to think about.
Partially hydrogenated oils were only more recently phased out of our food in the last
couple of years.
I don't remember the exact date.
So don't come for me guys.
I don't remember the exact year.
But basically the FDA might have been the USDA realized that hydrogenated oils are absolutely
terrible for us and they required food companies to phase them out of their food.
So you could no longer find partially hydrogenated oils in your food.
How much would you love to have a healthy red Thai coconut curry dinner ready and on
the table in under 20 minutes without having to do take out and knowing all the ingredients
that are in there.
So the size Thai makes authentically Thai marinades and sauces.
These recipes are based on the founders Thai grandmother's recipes.
She actually grew up in Thailand and they're made with fresh natural ingredients.
There's no additives or preservatives.
They're lower in sugar and sodium and many of them are whole 30 approved vegan paleo
and keto.
So you know you're getting a really good high quality product with ingredients that you
know and can eat and they're also incredibly convenient.
So I have this red Thai coconut curry that I'm going to make for dinner later and it's
super simple ingredients.
All you have to do is mix in your favorite veggies and protein and then serve it over
rice.
So you heat it up and you have a meal ready to be eaten and be put on the table within
20 minutes.
It is so simple and you know that you're going to be able to feed yourself and if you
have a family or maybe your roommates, a good healthy warming meal.
We all love Thai food, right?
Oh my God, it's so delicious.
But we don't always want to do takeout and it takes a lot of different ingredients to
make from scratch and many of us are busy.
We're working all day and it's harder to make stuff from scratch.
So yai's Thai has you covered and they also so kindly shared a code with me to share with
you guys.
If you use code real foodology, you're going to save 20% on any product or bundle when
you order on yai's Thai.com.
That's spelled Y-A-I-S-T-H-A-I dot com.
You can use code real foodology.
I want to take a second to talk about some of my favorite organifi products and why
I love them.
When I first started getting into health, I was an avid juicer.
I was buying fresh veggies every couple days and wearing out my juicer and also wearing
out myself by trying to constantly juice vegetable juices because I wanted to flood my body
with all of the nutrients, the phytonutrients that you get from green juices.
But after a while, I was like, I cannot keep doing this every day and also maintain my job,
my social life and everything else.
But I really wanted to make sure that I had a good high quality green juice that was organic
and I knew that I could trust came from a good source.
So when I discovered organifi, I was so happy.
They not only have a green juice, but they also have a red juice and I really like to
mix them together because it really helps with the flavor profile.
And you're not only getting all of the green phytonutrients from the green juice, but
you're also getting all the antioxidants from the red juice.
So it's like a win-win situation.
I also really love their chocolate gold.
It's their low sugar hot chocolate mix and it's loaded with ingredients like lemon balm,
turkey tail, magnesium chloride and racy.
There's also turmeric in there as well.
So it really helps to calm down your nervous system before bed and it really makes me sleepy.
It also helps the digestion because you have the turmeric in there.
You have cinnamon, you have ginger, black pepper.
So it's helping with the digestion and inflammation.
I'm a really big fan of this.
You can also put in your coffee in the morning and it kind of helps to balance out the jitters
that you might get from your morning coffee.
And then another product that I'm really loving and taking every single day is their
liver reset.
Modern living is incredibly taxing on our liver.
Like just existing is hard on our liver because we are constantly being inundated with pesticides,
heavy metals, environmental toxins, not to mention if we drink alcohol that's also going
to put a strain on our liver.
So I think it's incredibly important that we take something every single day to support
our liver health.
This product has trifala in it, it also has dandelion, milk thistle and artichoke extract,
which all have been scientifically backed and proven to provide protection for the liver.
And then of course the most important part about Organifi products is that they are
all organic and they go a step further by guaranteeing that they are glyphosate residue free.
Glyphosate is a known herbicide that is sprayed on a lot of our crops these days.
It's also sneaking into organic foods and it is a known carcinogen.
So it's incredibly important to make sure that we limit our exposure as much as possible
to glyphosate.
If you guys want to try any of the Organifi products and get 20% off, go to Organifi.com
slash Real Foodology.
You're going to see all of my favorite products in that store and you're also going to get
20% off.
That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I dot com slash Real Foodology.
So around this time my mom's sending me all these articles and it just started to click
for me.
This was when I really started to understand that the lean cuisines and the slim fasts
in all this junk were not serving my body and they were not real food.
These are all processed packaged foods just filled with a bunch of preservatives and
ingredients that we don't need.
And I started to really make that connection and so I started chopping in whole foods and
I mean this is another thing I'll go into as I share more of this story but you know
I was prioritizing different things and budgeting because I didn't have a lot of money back
then but I was really prioritizing shopping in whole foods and buying whole real foods
because I started to see the importance of it and started feeling a lot better in my
body.
So my very last semester of college, I take a nutrition class and I am blown away by how
passionate I am about this and I was also so upset because I spent the majority of my
undergrad really struggling to figure out what I wanted to study.
I almost took time off just because I felt like I needed a second to really figure out
what I wanted to do but everything always works out.
It's so amazing how your life just comes together even when you feel directionless and you feel
like you don't really know what you're doing.
I ended up doing an undergrad of communications and at the time I was like I don't know what
I want to do, I guess this is like my advisor had advised me that this would be a good
degree just to have.
Well I'm so grateful for it now because it made me a really great writer and it really
honed my communication skills which obviously now as I'm podcasting for you guys has really
served me well but at the time I was not able to see how this would all unfold and I take
a nutrition class and I remember calling my dad and I'm like oh my god dad I love this
like this is what I want to do and he was like Courtney just graduate at this point
because my dad was just so focused on me graduating and getting that degree that he
was like oh god he's like you have been struggling for years to figure out what you want to
do and now your last semester you want to pivot.
I ended up graduating and then did not do nutrition for a long time actually and if you guys
want to hear more about my career path go and listen to the very first episode I will warn
you that it's cringe for me at least because I had not really found my voice yet and I don't
feel like I was great at podcasting then it was my very first episode so just give me
little lenience there.
But anyway so I moved to LA for the first time I ended up leaving and then coming back
and my mom sent me this book when I was living in LA and it's called You Are What You Eat
and this is when it finally really fully clicked for me and this is when I really started to
hone into my passion of health.
Now this is where my health journey gets a little juicy.
The book encourages you to go vegetarian and around the same time I'd read a couple of
other books similarly I can't remember the name of one of them one was called Eating Animals
and then there was another one where they go into the gory details of factory farming
and this is why now I'm incredibly passionate about buying organic pasture raised high quality
meat and buying from farmers and from companies that you know are treating these animals with
integrity and inhumane ways because there is a way to do that.
So anyways this is when the vegetarian portion of my life enters the chat.
I think I hope that this is changing but I did see a trend for a long time that whenever
anyone started on their health journey and they really started to get into health and
nutrition and what they were putting in their body there's like phases of it.
There's different steps of it and I came on the scene when it was really really heavily
promoted to go vegetarian and I know that's still happening now on like a big scale but
I think the people that are getting more into like holistic preventative root cause nutrition
and health now are maybe taking a different path but I feel like still the first step
of discovering your food and having a desire to want to eat healthier you go vegetarian
first.
So I went vegetarian.
I ended up being vegetarian for four years of that.
I tried veganism for a little bit.
It was not for me cause I needed eggs.
I love eggs and I could not give them up and so as vegetarian for those four years the
last year I started incorporating fish because this is when I really started going downhill
with my health.
But I was so committed to being vegetarian and my experience in being vegetarian is the
reason why if you guys follow me on my Instagram that I am so outspoken now about vegetarian
diets and it's funny because I hear like messages from people or people tell me in real
life sometimes where they're like man you're like really against vegetarian vegan diets
and it's funny it's not that I'm necessarily like vehemently against them because I really
stand by what I said at the very beginning of this episode that everyone needs to figure
out what's best for them.
What I don't like about the vegetarian and vegan diets and I feel the same way about carnivore
diets, keto diets, all the diets but I'm just going really hard at the vegetarian diets
right now because there is a lot of conversation in mainstream media and there's a huge, what
feels like a huge push from all these like huge marketing companies like Beyond Meat
and Impossible Burger to get people to go vegetarian.
So I'm really outspoken about my feelings around that it is not for everyone and to
not get duped into this one size fits all blanketed diet for every single human being
that we're marketing as being like the healthiest diet for people and the best for the planet.
And what I don't love about labeling these diets in general like veganism, vegetarian
is that they become almost like a cult or like a religion and I was a part of the vegetarian
cult you guys like I am a reformed vegetarian cult member.
I was telling everyone in my life how amazing being vegetarian was I was telling my parents
that I was going to raise my kids vegetarian I remember sitting at the Thanksgiving table
with my parents friends one year just preaching to everyone about how important and healthy
it was to be vegetarian.
Now for me mine was more about I do not like the idea of another animal dying for my life.
So mine was more about the ethical side of it which made it that much harder for me to
transfer over the beginning I thought it was really healthy and then I just became so passionate
about the animal on the ethical side of it that that was really what it was for me.
But I remember my health really started to decline.
So the beginning when I first went vegetarian I thought it was like a miracle diet.
I lost like 20 pounds almost immediately so I lost all that weight that I gained in college
just effortlessly.
I literally I did not even know that I had lost the weight because I was not even paying
attention and it was my roommate that one time was like how did you lose so much weight
and I was like oh I guess I did.
So my mind was not even there like I was not even trying to and so I remember being like
wow like I have so much energy I lost all the weight that I gained in college so then
I was back to the weight that I felt more comfortable being in and I felt great and I
thought I was doing great things for the animals and thought I was doing great things
for my body and that it was super healthy.
So that went on for about two years and then I started gaining a ton of weight and I probably
in the four or five years I was vegetarian I probably gained like 20 to 30 pounds and
again it's not about the weight I'm not trying to make this about weight I'm just trying
to give you a picture of my journey and I'm just sharing what happened with me that's
it I'm not trying to make this about weight.
The biggest thing for me was that I realized looking back I wasn't even aware of it in the
moment but I realized there were a couple different things happening well one I was absolutely
starving 24 seven I mean I could not ever get full so I felt like I was eating all the
time I was just constantly snacking trying to get like whole balanced meals and that
filled me up and sustained me and guys this is when I was really starting to get heavily
into nutrition so I was reading all these books and I was buying whole real foods I remember
like I was food combining I was putting rice and beans together I was being told by other
vegans and vegetarians that I just wasn't doing it right and that I just needed to keep going
and again this is why I am so outspoken about this because there is this narrative of like
oh you're just not vegan enough you're just not going hard enough with it or you're not
taking the right supplements or you're not doing the right food combining or you know
etc.
added to the list so then I was fully indoctrinated into what I thought I was supposed to be doing
because I was getting all this outside intel from people and not listening to my own body
and this is why I talk about this all the time on the podcast and I said this at the
beginning of the episode it is so incredibly important that we check in with ourselves
in our intuition and we check in with our bodies because our bodies tell us what's up
if we really tune in but it's so hard now because we have Instagram we have all these
experts telling us on Instagram like oh you need to do this diet or this diet is the
healthiest for the planet or this is the the healthiest diet for the human body and then
they everyone has all this research to back it up right but the problem is is that it's
it may not work for you and it definitely didn't work for me but I was listening to
all this outside noise going why the hell do I not feel good and I'm starving all the
time and oh my god you guys the cystic acne that I had during that time was unreal I never
had pimples in high school and then about a year or so into being vegetarian I had all
these cystic acne pimples on my chin that were relentless it was like the second that one
would go down literally the next day another one one would pop up I never had a moment I
never I never had a reprieve for four years I just constantly had and they were the really
deep cystic acne on my chin it was painful it was embarrassing I could never like fully
cover it up with makeup and I could not for the life of me figure out what's going on I
saw the dermatologist they put me on the creams and they were doing the injections in there
and I will tell you guys that I never solved that problem until I started eating meat so
the last straw for me was I chaired a few guys that I was really I was really in the
vegetarian cult and hey by the way I share all this not to like make light of it or make
anyone feel bad about it I stand by what I said if this is how you eat and you feel good
in your body and it serves you well then I love this for you okay I'm just sharing my
story so I had I was clearly suffering with my health and so my mom gets me an appointment
with this nutritionist and I I go and I sit in her office and she proceeds to tell me
very like just bluntly she was like you're a vegetarian she goes you need to eat meat
and I remember I left her office crying I cried to her in the office and I was like
I could never I could never and she goes she just looks at me and she goes okay well there
will be a day that you will be fighting for your life like for yourself and that's when
you will decide to eat meat again and you'll you'll do it on your own time and she was
right because I hit a point where I was so sick and I was literally craving me at this
point my body was screaming like you need to eat meat I will never forget I started having
dreams about eating meat and there was one time that I had a dream that I was eating I
think it was like Wendy's chicken nuggets I woke up in the middle of the night literally
I was air feeding myself chicken nuggets like I was dreaming that I was eating them and
I wake up and I'm literally like putting my hand to my mouth and I remember telling my
mom the next day about the dream my mom goes Courtney please please eat meat your body
is screaming for it you're having dreams about it now and I remember at that point it clicked
and I was like okay all right I'm gonna do it and ever since then I made a commitment
to myself that if I was gonna start eating meat that I would eat organic grass fed pasture
raised the highest quality meat that I could find from places that I know are doing it
in a humane way and that's how I made peace with it so almost immediately when I started
incorporating meat back in my diet all that weight that I had gained when I was being
vegetarian basically just flew off like I didn't I didn't even have to work for it it
was just like my body was starving on a nutritional and cellular level when it finally started
getting all the nutrients that it needed it was just like oh thank God you know I mean
like my body was like thank God like the cells are getting like fuel again so I felt like
I wasn't starving 24 seven because my body was satisfied and protein is really really
filling and super satisfying for the body it's also full of a ton of different minerals
and vitamins that are imperative for health not only that my cystic acne went away I had
to deal with a couple hormonal imbalances but interesting story when I went back to
get my master as a nutrition I had several not just one several of my professors tell
me that in their experience when they had clients because a lot of my professors were
either practicing also clinically or had in the past they told me that every single
woman that they had in their clinics that had a history of being vegetarian or vegan
had some sort of hormonal imbalance and that's what was happening with me with my cystic
acne is that my hormones were all whacked out and imbalanced because of all my nutritional
deficiencies because I was not getting enough what I needed in my diet because I was eating
vegetarian so my cystic acne went away my hormones balanced and I got energy back I
felt like for the first time and ever my brain fog lifted I could concentrate again I had
energy and I felt so good while we're on the subject to of the cystic acne I do want
to share something that I think really helped me clear that out as well I started really
focusing on my liver because sometimes acne can actually be a sign that your liver is
a little bit overworked or clogged so I started taking milk thistle and dandelion actually
there's a pill called or a supplement called liver rescue and it has all these elements
in here I can't remember everything that's in there but it's like milk thistle dandelion
and a couple of other things and I started taking that I also was taking calcium de-glucarate
and glutathione and both of those helped to bind to excess estrogens in the body and
pushed them out through the liver also glutathione is the body's master antioxidant and it is
incredibly good for your liver and also for supporting your liver detoxification pathways
and I also think taking those really helped to balance my hormones and just helped me
support my liver so that I could start getting all those excess hormones out of my body and
my cystic acne went away also I had this like stubborn lower belly fat that I felt like I
could never get rid of I was always like I was always like a little like bloated and just
kind of like puffy around my midsection and when I started eating meat again a lot of
that went away I will say another element of this in part of my journey I know this is
not food related but I think this is really important to share as part of my journey that
helped me so I went through a phase this was definitely after I started eating meat again
where I was very very into cardio working out I would sometimes do two cycle classes a day
I was working out seven days a week I was definitely what you would call exercise obsessed
if I missed one day I would kind of spiral out and be like oh my god I have to do two
classes tomorrow now since I didn't do anything today and looking back on that time period
I'm actually I feel so much more confident and healthy in my body now and I don't do
like any of those high intensity workouts anymore because I got so burnt out from that
and I realized that doing those really high intensity cardio workouts while it may feel
good in the moment and feel like you're doing something good for your body by like really
exerting yourself and like really pumping it out and sweating a ton and just like burning
yourself into the ground what you're also doing is you're releasing a lot of adrenaline
and a lot of cortisol and if you have too much of that in your body it's gonna lead
to bloating and also for me another thing that it manifested in was really high anxiety
I'm already a pretty anxious person as is because of a lot of the trauma that went through
as a kid which I share in another episode if you guys are interested in listening and
hearing about that and I noticed that my anxiety was really really heightened and then my core
so because my cortisol was crazy and then adrenaline from these really high intensity
workouts and I was really bloated around my midsection and I think that that not even
I think I know from what I've read that that was excess cortisol and adrenaline running
through my body so also another thing to consider that if you are dealing with a lot of bloating
there's no shame in that and there's nothing wrong with it it's just another iteration
of your body trying to tell you that something is a little imbalanced.
Bloating after a meal is one thing, bloating constantly and always kind of feeling like
you have just a little like excess like water around your midsection is usually your body
telling you something either you have excess hormones going on or there it could be a lot
of different things but it really caused me the anxiety pieces really what caused me
to reflect on my exercise choices so I basically went cold turkey from doing like seven soul
cycle classes a week sometimes more to just I decided one day I was like you know what
I'm not going to do these anymore I'm burning myself out I was also exhausted I was so fatigued
and I decided I was just going to hike every day and this was oh my god I think this was
four years ago now that's crazy to think about we also lost two years in the panty so I feel
like those don't really count but I started just hiking every day and that's all I've ever
done since more recently I've started incorporating in strength training so I've been doing more
weight exercises I there's a class called boondah that I love where they do the stairmaster
and weight training and I'm a huge fan of that but for the most part the last four years
all I've done is hiked and I feel very fortunate that I live in an area where I can drive like
ten minutes and be on a hike and I know not everyone has access to that but you can do
a walk around your neighborhood I think it's so important that we just move our bodies
in the way that feels good for us and that brings us joy you don't have to force yourself
through a workout just because you feel like it's good for your body the best workouts
for you are the ones that you're going to do consistently and the ones that you're going
to do consistently are the workouts that you love and I realized for me I really love to
hike so I hike almost every day and it's not like out of I feel like I have to and I'm forcing
myself to and then I feel fatigued and like messed up afterwards it's actually that it's
a genuine joy for me so I usually do that or I walk the beach every day and ever since
then I really outside of having like a really big meal or maybe sometimes like around my
period I don't really deal with a lot of bloating anymore and I think that's for a multitude
of reasons and one of those being this exercise component also another so this will bring me
into the gluten-free conversation that I promised that I would have with you guys also I just
want to acknowledge I thought this episode was going to be like 20 minutes and here we
are so I was in my vegetarian journey still at this point and I'm like for you I guess
this was around this was around when I started incorporating fish okay I'm starting to remember
this now so I had gone and seen that nutritionist that I had mentioned actually this is a woman
that told me that like when I was ready that I was going to start eating meat again for
the health of my body because she was like you're so sick you need to eat meat but I
was not having it I was like no I'm going to be a vegetarian forever my kids are going
to be vegetarian I was not ready to hear it yet so we did a bunch of testing and she found
out that I was allergic to wheat more specifically gluten now this was back in 2011 and I was
like I'm sorry I'm allergic to what this was before there was like really any gluten-free
products when I first found out that I had a wheat allergy and then I had to go gluten-free
there was like five products on the market that were gluten-free it was miserable but
I had gotten to a point with my health where my stomach after every single meal I ate would
hurt so bad that I would have to curl up into a ball and just lay on the couch like
curl up into a little ball I remember one time I was at a show I was at a concert with
a friend of mine and my stomach hurt so bad that I had to go out to her car and lay down
in the car while the concert finished and so when I found this wheat allergy out I was
determined to go gluten-free because I was in so much pain that I had no other choice
so I went gluten-free and after going gluten-free my stomach issues went away things like my
psoriasis that I told you guys about that I had never even made a connection to my diet
at the time completely went away I had a little bit of eczema under my eyes that went away
when I went gluten-free and none of this stuff has ever come back there was one time
like two years ago I was dating this guy and he was really sourdough happy you remember
during lockdown where everyone was baking bread and making their own sourdough starter so
seeing this guy that was obsessed with sourdough and we were making sourdough he was making
sourdough pancakes sourdough bread sourdough pizza and I was like I'll give it a go sourdough
is like lower in gluten and I know some people that have gluten allergies can have it and
I went really hard for like a week on it I mean I was having sourdough pancakes for
breakfast sourdough pizza for lunch and we were having like sourdough bread sandwiches and
the psoriasis in the back of my scalp came back and the second that I stopped eating
it again it went away almost immediately so I was able to make that direct connection
which is pretty cool so if you're dealing with any sort of like skin issues like that
or like digestive issues I would recommend trying out going gluten-free because you might
be shocked to see what things you're dealing with and suffering from that are connected
to gluten so I've been gluten-free since 2011 a lot of people probably don't know this
but gluten is actually a really big source of protein when I was vegetarian I used to
eat these chicken wings at this vegetarian restaurant and I found out later they were
made with just straight wheat gluten no wonder I was getting these crazy stomach aches every
time I ate them because it turns out I was allergic to gluten to wheat so when I went
gluten-free all of a sudden my need for protein I really started to feel like gap and this
was when I incorporated fish so I told you guys the beginning I was vegetarian for four
years and then the last year I started eating fish and this was when I had that gap in my
diet from the gluten and felt like I needed more protein and my body was literally craving
it and then eventually I started just incorporating meat all together because of the dream and
everything I told you guys about so now we are pretty much all up to date because the
last like six years or so I've been pretty just in flow and in balance but I had to go
through all those iterations of finding out I had to be gluten-free and going vegetarian
and first learning about my body to get to the place where I'm at now and it took a lot
of different experimenting and trying different things and trying different diets actually
even after I started eating meat I did keto for a little while although I never went full
keto but I definitely tried that for a while and I realized that that didn't work for me
either. I was very fatigued. It's interesting I'm noticing a pattern a lot of these different
diets have manifested in just feeling like fatigued and brain fog and all that but it's
a great reminder to just listen to your body and really tune into what your body's telling
you. So what do I do now? I eat a pretty I would say a lower on the carbohydrate side
but I'm by no means like no carbohydrate and I'm very intuitively driven with how I eat.
So I get messages all the time on Instagram people asking me well how many carbohydrates
should I have a day or how many grams of protein should I have? So there's obviously
the recommendations with the RDA which is the recommended dietary allowance of what the
average American should be getting and if you're really concerned about that you can look
at those direct numbers but I'm here to tell you what I do and I'm very intuitively driven
and led now because all those different iterations of trying different diets and doing all these
different things along that journey and along the way I learned a really valuable lesson
I learned how to listen to my body I learned how to tune into my intuition and a lot of
that I will say the beginning stage is the most important thing is to cut out all the
processed crap so cut out all the foods that really are they're highly palatable, highly
addictive, highly processed, have no nutritional value whatsoever and they're really wrecking
our health and they're hijacking our pallets. So before you just try to be intuitively
led and listen to your cravings I would say that your cravings right now if you are coming
from that place are hijacked and they're not really what your body needs it's more what
your body is addicted to like for example sugar if you're craving a lot of sugar that's
not necessarily your body being like we're deficient in corn syrup it's like no you're
addicted to sugar. So I would say first things first cut out all the noise get back to eating
whole real foods and I'm not saying that you can't eat any foods and packages but focus
on foods I'm going to share this all the time on my Instagram focus on foods they come
in packages that are really simple ingredients these are ingredients that you look at the
label and you could technically buy all those ingredients in the store and make this at
home I'm not saying you have to but just if you're like oh yeah like these crackers like
oh I know what almond flour is and salt and baking soda I could buy all these ingredients
in the store and I could make this at home well and that's a package that's fair game to
buy so start prioritizing more foods like that that look like more whole real foods and buy
as many whole real foods in their natural state as possible because this will help to
change your palate and then you're able to really listen to your body and tune into your
intuition and what your body really needs. So now for me when I'm building a meal my
main focus is around protein and fat because for me personally that is what I have found
has helped me the most and feeling my body and then I always make sure that I have carbohydrates
but this one more in particular is very intuitively led for me because there will be days where
I will eat a ton of rice or I really like this organic sourdough gluten free bread that
I get from this local bakery here in LA and I love to spread butter on it but I fully
go by my cravings the serving size that I do every day is very dependent on how much
I feel that my body needs and I know if you're newer on this journey this may not feel super
helpful for you but my hope and my encouragement for you is to get to a place where you are
really tapping into your body and your own body's needs like I'm not here to be like
yeah you should have a cup of rice a day and like one slice of sourdough because every
single day looks different for me one day I'll wake up and I'm like damn I'm really really
hungry I'm gonna have three eggs and like two slices of sourdough bread and then there
are other days where like maybe I just ended my period and I'm like not that hungry I'll
have like maybe half a slice of sourdough bread buttered or a little bit of rice like
smaller than I would normally eat so when I'm building a plate I like to make sure that
I have a really good high quality protein so whether that be pasteurized eggs I love
bison or organic pasteurized ground beef I don't eat as much chicken but when I do eat
chicken I make sure that it's organic and pasteurized I love bacon occasionally but
only if it's organic and pasteurized and I'm not a huge fan of turkey so I don't really
eat a lot of turkey I'll eat turkey bacon sometimes but I'm not really a big fan of
turkey in general so I focus on a really good high quality protein and then I make sure
I get a really high quality fat in there so it depends on what the meal is if it's breakfast
I'll do avocado or organic grass-fed pasteurized butter if it's a pasta dish I'll make sure
that I get a really good high quality olive oil all lives are a great option salmon any
sort of fatty wild caught fish is a really great source of fat I know that this is a
little polarizing and controversial if you will I love nut butters I'm obsessed with peanut
butter and I know a lot of people don't like to eat them because of the micro toxins and
whatever but I really like to get organic peanut butter so I find joy in it and I also like
to I like to eat what I like to eat you know I think this is a really also really important
part of this conversation that Austin Perlmutter and I had recently on a podcast is that you
also need to make sure that you are eating things that excite you and make you happy
and give you joy but I say that in the context of like whole real foods right like if you
love Oreos hey no shade Oreos taste amazing but I don't eat that kind of stuff because
it makes me feel really bad so if I'm really craving like a cookie of that kind of caliber
I'll find this like organic gluten-free version of it that makes like a like a healthier
Oreo version or whatever so that's also another hack that has helped me a lot over the years
if I'm really wanting a cookie or let's say I really want pizza one night I don't deny
myself a pizza I either order it from a place that I know uses really good high quality
dough obviously I have to get gluten-free and that they use good cheese and good meat
or I make it at home I'll buy a healthy crust and organic marinara sauce buy some organic
passchades cheese and some nitrate free organic pepperonis and make it at home so this is
not about denying yourself of things that you love and bring you joy it's all about
prioritizing more whole real foods as close to their natural state as you can possibly
get there's a huge difference between buying like an organic pizza crust versus buying
a tostinos party pizza that has a bunch of fillers preservatives artificial ingredients
in there that your body does not recognize as food it does not recognize that as real
food so the whole prerogative here is to try to eat more foods as close to their whole
natural real state as possible because that's what our body recognizes real food and that's
what our body is going to register as nutrition and so it's going to feed ourselves and this
is how we feel better in our bodies and this is also how we change our pallets we change
our cravings as I started eating healthier and prioritizing more whole real foods and
eating less sugar my body started craving more of these foods and then you just get
in a groove so the last like six years I've really just been in this groove of craving
healthier foods prioritizing eating healthier foods and now this is not to say that I don't
ever like I hate to say the word cheat because I don't I don't consider this like a cheat
but this is not to say that I don't ever eat this stuff I mean it's rare I will tell
you guys it is really rare but if I find myself at a friend's party and they have out like
a bowl of lays chips or something sometimes I'll eat them I'll have a couple bites I'm
mindful of not like eating the whole bowl although honestly I'm human and sometimes
I'm like oh my god I'm like this is why I never eat these because once you pop you can't
stop I'm human and I'm by no means sending her claiming to be perfect at all at all I
just have gotten to a place where I really only crave healthier stuff the most part and
when I'm craving the junkier stuff I try to buy healthier versions of it alright the last
piece that I want to speak on is something that I've also done the last couple years I
did a podcast episode with Mark Sisson about this actually if you guys want to go listen
more in the detail about all of it I believe it was called argument for two meals a day
so I practice what I call intuitive intermittent fasting I actually got that from Dr. Wilkoll
the term I intermittent fast but I don't I'm not rigid or strict about it by any means
so let me explain what I mean by that I really try to finish eating a couple hours before
I go to bed one because it doesn't feel good when you lay down and your body is still digesting
like that feeling of being really full and trying to fall asleep I mean it's almost impossible
not to mention there's a lot of research that shows that if you give yourself if you give
your body enough time to digest your food before you go to bed it's a lot better for
your cognitive function it's a lot better for your brain because then instead of your
body focusing on digesting your food your body is putting all of its manpower to cleaning
up your neural pathways in your brain categorizing memories also autophagy which is a cell die
off like cleaning off old bad cells and replacing it with new cells so there's a lot of things
that happen when we're sleeping and when we're in repair and if we're also digesting
food then we're going to be taking away from those vital hours of repair for a brain and
for a body so I try as much as I can to not eat a couple hours hours before bed again
I'm not perfect if I'm out late with friends one night and we decide that we want to get
some late night food I sometimes indulge but it's pretty rare so I will generally stop
eating I don't know around like let's say like 7 or 8 p.m. it varies every day because
I don't hold myself to a very like rigid strict clock go to sleep usually on an empty stomach
and when I wake up in the morning I really like to practice fasting for a couple of hours
after I've woken up so I'll drink a bunch of water and here's the caveat and this is
where the intuitive intermittent fasting comes in and is incredibly important especially
for women because there's a lot of conversation out there that intermittent fasting is not
good for women and not good for hormones so I think the intuitive part is really where
it comes in that's incredibly important if I wake up and I'm hungry I'm going to eat
I don't keep myself from eating I don't sit by the clock and go oh my god I can't eat
until noon and like starve myself until then especially this is like around my period so
when I'm like maybe a week and a half out from starting my period my hunger really really
ramps up and that's why I'm eating more calories daily and by the way I don't count calories
I'm just saying that like my caloric intake goes up I end up eating way more food during
that time period and that's usually when I wake up hungry but right after so after I
start my period and then maybe like a week after my period I'm the exact opposite where
like my hunger is really pretty low and I don't really think about I'm not as like food focused
and that's usually around the time when like I'm waking up in the morning I'm not super hungry
I just drink some water in about 30 minutes to an hour in I drink my coffee now more recently
I heard Andrew Huberman talk about this that it's better to wait a couple of hours after
you wake up to have your caffeine because I guess there's something about it helping with
your energy and keeping you from having that afternoon slump so what I've been doing more
recently is I've been trying to delay having my coffee for I'm gonna be realistic I usually
have it with like an hour of waking up but he says to wait I think like two to three hours
so I'll have my coffee about an hour in I usually add in a little bit of butter sometimes
I'm some MCT oil and I always add in collagen but more recently I've just been doing collagen
actually I've just been doing collagen a little bit of coconut milk and coffee and then I don't
eat until I'm hungry and that varies almost every day this is where the intuitive fasting
comes in I'm never waiting by clock I just wait for my hunger cues and that varies from
day to day sometimes I'll be hungry by 11 sometimes I won't be hungry until 2 and I
follow those cues so that's how I practice intermittent fasting it's gonna look different
for everyone like I keep reminding you we are also bio individual that what works for
me may not work for you and vice versa so you really have to experiment and figure out
what works for you and allow your intuition to lead you we do not give our bodies enough
credit our bodies are so smart and they really know what they need it's up to us to learn
how to tap into that intuition but like I said first of all we got to get out all the
junk and the processed foods and those cravings that are really driving our brains to want
to crave this highly palatable junk foods but once we clean that up you're more in tune
with your body and you're able to really listen to your body and your body is able to really
tell you what it needs so yeah that is my health journey and that's where I'm at now
so I really hope that you guys enjoy this episode this is the first solo episode that
I've done and I think two years I'm feeling I'm just gonna share this because I'm trying
to practice more vulnerability and I don't know why I'm feeling this way right now but
I just want to share it because I'm really trying to practice being more vulnerable in
my everyday life but I'm almost feeling like I just over shared I think it's because I
went into this episode thinking that I was just gonna be really short and quick and just
share with you guys like okay this is my eating journey and it was gonna be like 20 minutes
and I'm almost feeling like I way over shared but what I love so much about having a podcast
versus like my Instagram account and I love both of them for different way for different
reasons and different in different ways there's so much nuance to be talked about when it
comes to health and nutrition there's so many things to be said that there's not enough
time and like a reel to get it all in and I love with the podcast is that I can really
speak to all those different nuances in the different corners of the different diets and
my experience and I just really wanted I've been wanting to share this for a long time
simply because I get so many questions from people asking like well what do you eat or
what do you recommend what is a day in the life of eating look like for you or how did
you get to this place and so I wanted to share my whole journey with you and so that you
could see all the different iterations because I think so many of us myself included we tend
to see someone out of a certain not tend to we see someone out at a specific point of
their journey without having a recognition for all the things that they went through
and all the things that they did just to get there and you can apply this to everything
in life you know I'm not just talking about like my food journey but it is important to
remember that if you are newer on your health journey to not compare yourself to people
that are further down the line you know and we do this with every area of our life like
careers you know I look at people being like wow like this this woman is doing amazing
things and she's so much further than me in my career and I see that as inspiring but
I'm just saying that I forget that there's so many things that she went through to get
to that place and for me I think because I'm at a certain place my health journey you know
people see this on my Instagram they see the meals that I make and I share often that I
really feel that I'm at the healthiest place of my life as far as the combination of mentally
and also really having my diet dialed in I don't I really I'm very happy with my body
I feel balanced I feel good I feel very balanced and confident in the choices that I make around
my diet and I was not there for a really long time I really struggled through those different
iterations of the gaining the weight and then losing weight and then gaining weight again
and feeling super fatigued and I had brain fog and concentration issues so I guess I did
share it but I didn't I didn't really put a lot of motion into how much I really really
struggled along that journey and I struggled a lot with loving my body during that time
too and I think many of us especially women go through phases where we really were very
hard on ourselves and our bodies and have a hard time loving our bodies and where we're
at in our journeys and I'm happy to say that right now I'm in a place where I'm I love
I really do I love my body and I feel incredibly balanced emotionally balanced as well I don't
have any sort of hang ups around food or any sort of like concerns or anxiety around it
oh man you guys there's one more thing I really feel like I need to share as I'm getting into
this conversation but I can really talk give me a microphone and I just go when I first
started getting into eating healthy and eating organic it was very stringent and very rigid
about making sure that everything I ate and everything I put in my body was organic and
it was to the point where I shared earlier that and this was around the same time when
I was so I was touring full time with bands and if you guys want to hear more about that
side of my story I also share that in my first episode ever and we were living out of hotel
rooms we were living on a tour bus we were flying everywhere so a lot of my meal choices
were contingent all of them were contingent on eating out and so I would buy all my groceries
from Whole Foods and like concoct these little meals on the bus on the tour bus and I was
denying myself of going out with my friends for dinner so what I would do is I would like
make these little like half-assed meals that were all organic on the bus but then after
a while I really started struggling with the mental aspect of that because I was being
so stringent and so rigid on my diet that I was missing out on the connection with my
friends so all my friends would go out to dinner and I would sit on the bus and like
make sure that I ate all this organic food and look it was not to say that I never went
out to eat with them but I would often eat that food on the bus and then I would go with
them and then just like have drinks and not eat anything and then even when I was not
touring anymore for a while if my friends like planned at dinner I would eat dinner before
because I didn't know if the food there was organic or not or I knew that they used canola
oil or something and then I would just meet my friends out for drinks and I had a moment
with myself where I was like I no longer want to live this way because I don't want to live
in this place of such rigidity and fear and anxiety around food that I was denying myself
the joy of connecting with my friends over a meal that was cooked for us so that's another
aspect of balance that I found in my life where all the groceries that I buy for myself
and at home and any sort of decision making that I have control over it's all organic
pasture raised high quality meats but when I go out with my friends I mean I just went
to dinner on Saturday night with my friends we planned a dinner and I eat the food out
even if it's not organic even if I don't know where the meat came from because I feel comfortable
knowing that the majority of the meals that I'm consuming are organic and as clean as possible
and then the rest of it I'm like you know what it is equally as important to enjoy my time with
my friends and connect with my friends over a meal so what I was sharing before I went
into that tangent was just that I am very happy with the balance that I found in all of this I
don't stress about the foods that I'm eating out I don't even think about it I'm just like
you know what I'm doing the best I can but I'm also going to enjoy my time with my friends
and even at home like I just I'm basically what I'm trying to say is that I feel like I've really
found balance in my diet and I'm very happy with how I feel I'm very happy in my body I have energy
I feel great and I feel like I finally found balance in all this after going through just a rollercoaster
of my health now that's not to say that it won't change I hope to have babies one day and I know
that my dietary needs are going to change my cravings are going to change my body's going to change
and I'll face that when the time comes and it's also something important for us to all remember
that it's always changing you know also our needs are always going to change dependent on where we are
in our lives if we're breastfeeding breastfeeding moms require way more calories way more nutrients
and so it's all about accepting where you're at in this part of the journey so right now I'm really
happy with where I'm at and I hope that you found this episode valuable I'm going to start doing more
solo episodes I don't think that they will be this long I don't know we'll see I can't make any
promises guys but I have a whole list of things that I want to start sharing and a lot of it is
more about my personal life and my personal growth and the things that I have learned over the years
about myself and just about life that hopefully will resonate with some of you guys so please
write me on instagram and let me know if you liked this episode and please let me know if you want
me to do more solo episodes I mean I'm gonna do them regardless but I mean I'm not gonna do them
if you guys all hate them if everyone's like boycotting like no more solo episodes but my plan is to
continue doing more solo episodes so I hope you guys love this please let me know on instagram and
if you liked this episode please share it and tag real foodology bye guys thanks for listening
I'll see you next week love you thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the real
foodology podcast if you liked the episode please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know
this is a resident media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry the theme
song is called heaven by the amazing singer Georgie Georgie is spelled with a J for more amazing
podcasts produced by my team go to resident media group.com I love you guys so much see you next week
the content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only it is not a substitute
for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider-patient relationship
I am a nutritionist but I am not your nutritionist as always talk to your doctor or your health team
first do you suffer from IBS or other digestive issues are you looking for a new podcast to listen
to from the producer of the real foodology podcast comes the all new health and nutrition podcast
digest this hosted by Bethany Ughardi you may know Bethany as the face of the popular instagram page
little sipper or you may have even read her book now you can find her wherever you get your
podcasts on digest this Bethany examines topics such as gut health nutrition the food industry
and highlights specific ingredients that can be beneficial or harmful to your gut health she
also explores non-toxic options and beauty home and cooking essentials if it has to do with your
health digest this is talking about it each episode features an interview with health experts
doctors and wellness advocates and delivers you information that is well easy to digest
Bethany also delivers a weekly segment every episode called bite of knowledge where she highlights an
ingredient commonly used in food skin care household cleaning you name it and gives you the low down
on the benefits or dangers that ingredient might have in your everyday life from Botox
potassium olive oil and magnesium all the way to those ingredients you can barely pronounce on the
back of your cereal boxes Bethany has you covered there's a reason why it debuted at number two on
apple podcast nutrition charts check out digest this on your favorite podcast app new episodes
every Monday and Wednesday, produced by Drake Peterson and Resident Media.