October 9, 2025 • 54 mins
What if cravings were clues instead of failures? We sit down with personal trainer, nutritionist, and author Justine Bassani to decode what the body is really asking for—and how to answer without guilt or gimmicks. From growing up on a family garden to coaching patrons from behind a bar, Justine brings an uncommon blend of street-level practicality and deep nutritional insight that makes change feel doable.
We start with water—how hydration quality shapes energy, skin, and digestion—and why moving away from microplastics and toward mineral-rich sources can make a daily difference. Then we explore the hopeful science of taste: your taste buds regenerate every two weeks, which means you can retrain your palate faster than you think. That unlocks mindful eating tactics that focus on awareness, not willpower, plus a simple “eat the rainbow” framework to cover crucial micronutrients without complicated tracking. Justine shares how cravings map to nutrient gaps, and offers swaps that satisfy the signal—from magnesium-rich options when chocolate calls to smarter approaches when pizza is the siren song. She also previews her Crave Well app, a craving-to-nutrients tool that turns “I want…” into better choices you can act on today.
We also tackle alcohol with clear, kind realism: how it stalls fat burning for hours, disrupts sleep, and compounds cravings the next day. If quitting isn’t your next step, better timing and fermented options can help. Rounding things out, we demystify supplements and cooking fats—why spirulina, chlorella, and liquid chlorophyll can be more effective than a generic multivitamin; when to use avocado or grapeseed oil for heat; and why olive oil shines as a finishing touch. Whether you’re vegan, veg-curious, or simply aiming for fewer ultraprocessed meals, you’ll walk away with grounded strategies to fuel better, feel better, and enjoy the process.
Justine's Book: Eating Lessons
More about Justine:
Justine Bassani is the founder of All Glowed Up LLC, a wellness brand rooted in empowerment, emotional intelligence, and nutrition logic. She’s the author of Eating Lessons, a best-selling anti-diet wellness book that blends science-backed insights with real-life food philosophy—and she’s currently developing the CRAVExWELL app, a smart craving-based wellness platform backed by affiliate grocery and meal delivery partnerships.
Justine is a NASM-certified personal trainer and nutrition coach, known for her honest, practical approach to healing your relationship with food. Her brand includes companion shadow-work journals (Notes to Self Vol. 1 & 2), glow-up tools, and lifestyle merch designed to support real people through transformation—from emotional eating to embodied self-love.
Whether she’s teaching people how to decode cravings, swapping stories with wellness pros, or building AI features that track glow streaks and smart grocery choices, Justine brings humor, compassion, and deep know-how to every conversation.
You can find her on Instagram at @justinebassani or explore her offerings at www.weallglowedup.com.
House of JerMar: houseofjermar.com
Empowerment Fundamentals Course: https://members.houseofjermar.com/empowerment-course
Instagram: instagram.com/houseofjermar/
YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@Houseofjermar
Read Jeanne's Book: Two Feet In: Lessons From an All-In Life
WELCOME TO OUR HOUSE!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
You can choose to put the food in your mouth and
you can choose not to.
You know, is it benefiting youat the end of the day?
We do have healthier options,but I I like to go all organic
and I don't even boil my rice intap water.
So until the restaurant canstart boiling it in spring
water, you know, I just havevery high standards and I don't
expect everybody out the gate totransition into that lifestyle.
(00:24):
It's very overwhelming.
But that's why it's, you know,chapter by chapter, the more you
know, the easier these decisionsbecome.
SPEAKER_00 (00:34):
Welcome to the House of Germar podcast, where
wellness starts within.
The House of Germar is alifestyle brand, empowering
women to live all in throughinterior design and personal
wellness.
We are a destination for womenready to reimagine what is
possible in their homes andlives and then create it.
(00:54):
We are honored to have you joinus on our mission to empower one
million women to live all in.
I am your host, Gene Collins,and I invite you to become
inspired by this week's guest.
Hi, everybody, welcome.
I'm your host, Gene Collins, andtoday I am so excited to talk to
an incredibly beautiful soul,Justine Basani.
(01:17):
Hi, I'm glad to be here.
It's so good to have you.
So, Justine, I'm gonna linkeverything about her in the bio,
but I just want you guys toknow, first of all, this woman,
such a badass female, folks.
Like, she is a personal trainer,she is a nutritionist, and she
wrote an incredible book, whichI really want to share a lot
about her book.
I'm gonna show you for those whocan see it, right?
(01:38):
Eating lessons for those of youwho are watching this on video.
It's a chunky book.
Um, and I leave, I read a lot ofbooks.
I read a lot of books, andsometimes a chunky book is a
little scary to me, plus toothers, but it is not scary.
Do not be afraid.
You talk in real-world terms,you take a lot of technology, a
lot of science.
You make practical ways that wecan think about eating, diet,
(02:00):
exercise, mindset.
And I am so excited to talk toyou.
So welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_01 (02:04):
I really appreciate that intro.
Thank you so much.
You know, it I I appreciate, youknow, that that the hard work I
did is actually being seen andthat you, you know, love it.
I I'm so glad to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (02:17):
Oh, good.
All right.
So before we dig into the book,you talk a little bit in the
beginning of the book about yourbackground.
But for those who've not readthe book yet, I would love for
you to share a little bit aboutyour upbringing and your
background.
SPEAKER_01 (02:28):
Okay, well, um, my mom was born here in America,
but my grandparents were off theboat from Italy and to this day
are still growing a ton of ourown organic food on our family
plot.
And my baby food was grown inthe backyard, and my mom just
(02:48):
taught me all about theimportance and the difference of
between what we were eating thatwe were harvesting versus what
the other kids in school wereeating.
So I was lucky enough to seethat and be a part of the food,
which, you know, so at an earlyage, I was hands-on.
And um, at 15, I started myfirst job at the local health
(03:12):
food store where I learned moreabout like, you know, instead of
taking over-the-countersupplements, how you could use
echinace for immune system.
And my understanding of that,plus with my mom, you know, to
this day, my mom manages ahealth food store.
So it's just been a part of mylife.
And, you know, you can take thatfor granted, you know, but other
(03:35):
people don't know what I know.
And it and so I started, I gotcertified in nutrition and
personal training.
And during COVID, a lot of mycustomers, we had hours on end
at the bar to talk becausenobody could go anywhere,
really.
And so all of the questions thatwere asked to me in those bar
(03:55):
conversations is what actuallyinspired me to write the book
and put it all in one place.
The it started when I was a kid,you know, and then I led a very
healthy lifestyle until Ididn't.
And I was bartending uh a lotand I got into drinking, really.
(04:16):
It was just drinking.
But I watched my mental healthand my physical health decline.
And so eight years ago, I justdecided it wasn't valuable to
me.
And I put all of my energy backinto wellness, but I didn't want
to quit my bartending job, youknow, I was helping people there
(04:36):
too.
So it's been a reallyinteresting balance because I
still am coaching people at thebar, you know, and people who
people always have questions,whether it be about their
drinking habits or their foodhabits.
And even if it's notconventional, I do want to help
people with what I know becauseat that low point in my life and
(04:58):
I had to pick myself up, is whenI realized, you know, there's
one way of doing things that themasses are taught, and that
includes, you know, fast foodand drinking.
And I wanted to fit in and bepart of that, but it it almost
destroyed me.
And I'm sure there's otherpeople who walk that line.
So whether it be weight loss orjust general daily, how do I
(05:20):
take care of myself now that I'man adult human, I wanted to
cover that.
SPEAKER_00 (05:26):
And you do cover off on all of that.
So when I first got introducedto you and I was told about you
and your book and a little bitabout your background, I was
like, oh, this is sofascinating.
And then the person whointroduced me to you and got me
to start following you was like,Oh, yeah, and she's a bartender
at this restaurant in town.
And I was like, and no offenseto this restaurant, but like
(05:48):
it's a Mexican restaurant.
So like if you want to gosomewhere that is like a really
high caloric, high fatteningmeal where you are going to
leave full because the portionsare enormous.
Yeah, you're gonna get your yourlike your weekly salt intake in
margaritas.
Like, this is where you go.
That's true.
And it was so funny to mebecause I was like, this is like
the opposite of the life thatyou're living.
SPEAKER_01 (06:09):
Yeah, I'm like the angel sitting at the gates, you
know, saying, Hey.
Yes, yes, hey, by the way, saltis bad for you.
You have an entire chapter onsalt.
I do.
There are some customers, youknow, that I know shouldn't be
having salt.
And I just saying, you know, youknow better.
We're not putting salt on this.
You shouldn't even be having themarg.
So I'm strict with some of them.
(06:29):
They love it, but it's true.
Um, it is an interestingdichotomy, and people always
say, What do you eat there?
And to be honest with you, Ibring my food like basically
everywhere.
Um, it's everybody knows it.
Nobody cares.
I I know everything about themenu because I've been working
(06:50):
there for 10 years.
So I it's just you can choose toput the food in your mouth and
you could choose not to.
You know, is it benefiting you?
At the end of the day, we dohave healthier options, but I I
like to go all organic and Idon't even boil my rice in tap
water.
So until the restaurant canstart boiling it in spring
water, you know, I just havevery high standards and I don't
(07:13):
expect everybody out the gate totransition into that lifestyle.
It's very overwhelming.
But that's why it, you know,chapter by chapter, the more you
know, the easier these decisionsbecome.
SPEAKER_00 (07:25):
Yes.
And it's an awareness.
Yeah.
It's definitely an awareness.
So before we talk about thebook, I do have a question.
What made you decide to write abook?
Because that is like anundertaking all into itself.
SPEAKER_01 (07:36):
Honestly, that wasn't a hard decision for me.
It's not the first book I'vewritten.
Um, it's my mom actually has amaster's in English.
And I always excelled in, Itested out of English and
writing all through elementaryand high school.
So writing has just always beensomething that I did.
It's always been some, yeah, asan only child with no siblings
(07:59):
to play with, reading andwriting were just plus my mom,
you know, always reading andwriting.
It was just made sense tocommunicate it this way, you
know?
SPEAKER_00 (08:10):
Yes.
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (08:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:11):
Okay.
All right.
So you mentioned water.
And on my list of things that Iwanted to talk about, water is
the first one on there.
And that's probably becausewater happens pretty early on in
the book.
Yes.
So you talk about water in twodifferent formats.
So you talk about water in thesense of like, you know, we need
to drink a lot of water and thegood that water is for our body
and flushing everything out andall of that.
(08:33):
But you also dig a whole lotinto the quality of the water
and the vessel in which you putyour water.
Yes.
Would you mind sharing that withpeople?
Because I knew about this, but Iguarantee you 90% of the people
listening have no idea what I'mtalking about.
SPEAKER_01 (08:52):
So I have a glass vessel that I have a rose quartz
inside.
If you can afford to get springwater delivered to you in glass
bottles, that is the best way todo it because the water is full
of minerals and it's feedingyour body.
We'll talk about tap water in asecond.
(09:14):
But unfortunately,budgeting-wise, I do get five
gallon spring water deliveredand I like to get it out of the
plastic and charged by theenergy of the crystal and the
glass as soon as possible.
It's also a really beautiful wayto present it, you know, on your
counter.
So it's not only you're puttingthe energy into the water,
(09:36):
there's plenty of studies thatshow that water expresses
energy, even if spoken to andfrozen.
So whatever intentions you putinto your water as you drink it
is a reminder of thoseintentions on a cellular level.
It doesn't have to be rosequartz.
You can charge your water withanything you want, but I'd like
to have the love be the firstthings, the self-love, you know?
SPEAKER_00 (10:00):
Yes, which is a good one.
Talk to us a little bit aboutthe benefit of having water in
glass versus plastic.
SPEAKER_01 (10:09):
Well, microplastics, we can't get away from
microplastics from ourmattresses to, you know, the
cars we drive, the every all ofour food is packaged in it.
And it's really unavoidable andit's a global problem.
Any particulates that get in,especially plastics that get
into your body, your body has towork to get out.
(10:32):
And so if you're already taxingyour body with drinking and food
that has chemicals andprocesses, and you're taking
medications and you're notliving a very healthy lifestyle.
And then on top of it, you'renourishing your cells with water
that is full of, I mean, thewould you rather, as some people
say, would you rather havemicroplastics or would you
(10:53):
rather have tap water?
You know, the water that'scoming out of the taps has to,
not only is most municipal waterlargely wastewater that's been
processed and filtered, but itstill has residual medications,
birth control, tons of chlorine,tons of contaminants.
(11:14):
And then all of the pipelines,which are still lined with
Teflon, are constantlycontaminating that as it runs
through.
And the Teflon pipe started inthe 20s with the Industrial
Revolution, and they just didn'tknow.
And that's just the bare minimumon top of all the local like
seepage into our water system.
(11:37):
So getting spring water in glassis the cleanest way to deliver
it because we don't all livenear a natural spring, but
that's the goal.
unknown (11:46):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (11:48):
Yeah.
Wouldn't that be nice?
Yeah.
But one of the things you talkabout in your book, which I
think is really important forpeople to think about, is you
know, the as you say, idealnatural spring water gets
delivered in glass.
You get to put a nice crystal init.
And you talk about differentcrystals and their properties,
and you also talk about crystalsto avoid using as well within
(12:08):
your book for things like that.
So great, great resource in yourbook about that.
But I think what you alsomentioned in your book that I
think is important is you arebringing an awareness to people
about water on all differentlevels, right?
The water that's coming from thetap, the water that's in
bottles, the water, whether youtake it from your tap and then
(12:29):
just put it in a plastic waterbottle.
You're kind of giving everybody,I want to say, the layers to
understand your water.
Yeah.
And then you empower people tosay, the pollen spring,
delivered water, pollen, freshspring water in a glass bottle
might not be attainable.
However, you can do some ofthese basic things to improve
(12:51):
your drinking water.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (12:53):
For sure.
Right?
Yeah.
Even if you can only afford thespring water for your infant if
they're on formula or something,I would never give a baby tap
water.
You know, your animals, I would,you know, you don't know what
that's doing to their systems,too.
And there's tons of cancer inpets these days that there
(13:13):
wasn't, you know, before withall the chemicals in their food.
And if we're not cleaning outour systems and we keep
bombarding it from everydirection, people will continue
to be unwell.
Yes.
Yeah agreed.
SPEAKER_00 (13:26):
All right.
So here's something that Ilearned from your book.
And I'm gonna read it becauseI'm going to read this because I
don't want to misquote you onthis one, but I was shocked by
this one.
This one was so fascinating.
Okay.
Taste buds regenerate every twoweeks.
Yeah.
Wow.
SPEAKER_01 (13:42):
That's amazing.
Well, uh, your body isconstantly regenerating.
And I think that informationreally gives a lot of people
hope when they're stuck.
You know, especially smokers,people, if you're drinking, you
know, all of those things, theheavy coffees, it's killing your
taste buds, the salty foods, theeverything from you know, the
(14:05):
fast food places desensitizeyou.
So giving your whole body achance to regenerate, people
will feel the difference.
I think people are scared togive up what they're comfortable
with because they're afraid tolose their security and not have
any change.
(14:26):
But like that statistic alone ishow quickly you can see change.
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (14:32):
Well, and also I'm gonna tie it to something later
on in the book, which I alsothought was so fascinating,
which talks about cravings.
Oh, yeah.
And and a lot of times, so muchI find for myself, even
personally, for myself.
A lot of times I eat becauseit's lunchtime.
I eat because I love chocolateafter dinner.
Yeah.
(14:52):
But am I hungry?
I I'm not hungry.
So we'll talk about mindfuleating in a minute.
But it's I'm doing it out of apattern of behavior, and my body
is craving the pattern, notnecessarily actually craving the
thing.
Or there's also you have a wholechapter about cravings tied to
your body's lack of certainnutrients and nourishment.
(15:15):
I am so huge on that, yes.
I found fascinating.
So share a little bit about likewhat that means, because I'm
just saying what it is, but talkabout what that actually means.
SPEAKER_01 (15:23):
So your body's sending your brain knows what's
available to you nutritionallyby the food that you're giving
it.
It's if you're giving your bodypizza, macaroni, and cheese,
potato chips, it knows that ifif you haven't eaten in a while,
it's gonna want to crave thepotato chips because that's
gonna be enough calories to getthrough.
(15:45):
But you're never gonna be fullyhungry because your body is
still craving nutrients.
So people who are filling thevoid of nutrition with high
calorie food never seem to feelfull because you're never
actually satiating your hung,your actual hunger.
Exposing yourself to differentfoods one or two times lets your
(16:12):
brain know, hey, there's iron inthat, you know, like raisins.
I always crave raisins when Ineed iron.
It's just like I know it.
Walnuts and raisins, beets, likemustard greens, anything that
lentils.
I'm like, oh, I must be low oniron because it's second nature
to me.
And um, it's not second natureto everybody else because people
(16:34):
think about the flavor of thefood before they think about the
what the food is giving themnutritionally.
And taking the emotions out ofthe eating and understanding it
as a, hey, it need my body needssomething.
Let's think about what it is.
And I know that that might behard for people too.
And I haven't told anybody this,but I'm gonna tell you now.
(16:57):
I've been working all summer andI just trademarked my app.
Oh, cool.
And it's called Crave Well, andI've taken a lot of the elements
from the book, including acraving identifier, which you
can just type your craving into,and it does the calculations of
the nutrients in that and givesyou healthier options.
There's also an integration forlocal foods that offer foods
(17:21):
that fit those nutrients so thatyou can start when you're
hungry, when you're cravingsomething and you want to make a
change, plug it in there andthen have options right at your
fingertips.
SPEAKER_00 (17:31):
So that is so cool.
Yeah.
That is so cool because I I readin your book, and I've seen this
before online too.
People are like, oh, if you'reif you're craving salt, your
body might actually be deficientin, I don't know what it is, but
deficient in something else.
So it's not actually the salt,recognizing it's the signal from
(17:52):
your body that it needssomething.
But salt isn't, salt isn't theanswer.
SPEAKER_01 (17:57):
Right.
Chocolate is always the easiestone for, you know, magnesium.
The list in the book really doeshelp because I give some tips.
But I think that everyone canagree on pizza, you know, as a
common craving.
So I like to use that example alot.
Sometimes when you're cravingpizza, you're craving cheese
because you haven't eaten andthat's a high calorie dense
(18:19):
food.
Sometimes you're craving itbecause you're craving the crust
and that has a lot of carbs.
You know, maybe you haven't beenfueling and you're trying to go
keto.
Those combinations right there,the pizza and the cheese, is
usually because you've waitedtoo long to eat.
Those are high calorie.
Your brain and your muscles needto run on sugar.
You're not giving it carbs in asteady way.
(18:39):
It's gonna crave them.
And so, cheese, in addition tohaving a lot of fat, has
cassene, which is uh affectsyour brain the same way that
heavy drugs or sugar do.
It gives you a dopamineresponse.
Um, so if you're feelingdepressed and you haven't eaten
pita, you know, it's gonna be abig one.
Now, how do you replace that?
And so, again, the tomato sauceaspect, if you're really craving
(19:02):
the tomato sauce, mozzarellasticks and the tomato sauce, you
know, the different things aregiving your body and your brain
different things.
So you could be craving thelycopene from the tomato.
Maybe you haven't had any greenvegetables or any red vegetables
in a while.
And your body will just starttrying to find them from
anywhere your body thinks it canget it.
You know, it's an evolutionarything.
(19:22):
If you're in a place that hasraspberries growing and apples
growing, your body's going tocrave the things that are around
you.
So you have to just like youwould give a child things, you
know, you have to startreintroducing healthy options so
that your body knows where itcan mine the nutrition from.
SPEAKER_00 (19:39):
Right.
No, which is true because it'sexactly like because I was going
to transition to mindful eating.
But so much of mindful eating isbeing aware of the mental part
of it.
And you just said it sobeautifully, you're talking
about food, but I talk about itall the time with my business
from a mindset perspective.
Your brain automatically goesdown the path to which it's been
accustomed and the path to whichit knows.
(20:01):
And so if the path for yourbrain is negative self-talk, for
example, just using mindset andneuroplasticity, that's where
your brain naturally goes.
So neuroplasticity is that youhave to create new neuropathways
in order to get your automaticresponse to be different.
And you're saying the exact samething.
Yeah.
You're just tying it to food,where I use it in my business
(20:24):
for coaching from a mindsetperspective, but you're saying
the exact same thing.
But it's your memory, your brainand your body's memory of foods,
and you have to condition it tohave new memories of foods.
SPEAKER_01 (20:36):
Yeah.
Not only allowing your body toknow that it can get nutrition
from other places, which willjust generally help you feel
better, age better, uh, functionbetter.
But if you're making anychanges, it's probably a lot of
habits that you feel you need tochange.
And things, when people aretold, you know, you're
(20:58):
conditioned to do it this way,you have to change it.
I think they get scared.
So it's almost like you have toopen yourself up to it and know
that you can always, you know,fall back on your old patterns
if you need to know that they'restill there.
But make an effort to say, youknow, I need to do this for
myself.
Because at the end of the day,whether it's food or emotions,
(21:21):
it's all, you know, there's selfself-coping that we use.
And so misusing food can seemreally innocent.
And misusing drinks can causeproblems later on.
But in the moment, you know, youyou are making that choice.
So the more you know when youhave to is really the best
weapon you have.
(21:41):
You know, when you're makingcognitive changes, sometimes you
really do have to say, I'm justgonna do this 30 times, whether
I like it or not, until it's apattern.
SPEAKER_00 (21:52):
Right.
Exactly.
Right.
And your taste bud needs twoweeks to regenerate.
So if you do it for two weeks,you all of a sudden might not
crave it so much because yourtaste buds might be or your
taste buds might actually betasting different things that
you've never tasted before,because you have new taste buds.
So things that maybe didn't seemsweet, like I always find
(22:13):
whenever I do any type of, Idon't want to call it a diet
because that's a bad word, butany type of like really truly
cleanly eating.
And if I really focus on nothaving sugar, let's say for a
week or so, all of a sudden,things that didn't seem sweet
before now all of a suddenactually are sweet, like
nature's sugar, you know, likefruits and stuff, because I've
(22:34):
removed that higher sugar level.
So now my taste budsappreciation of natural sugar is
so much more heightened.
It's a fascinating experiment totry for people who've never done
it.
SPEAKER_01 (22:46):
Yeah, it's true.
Like even your taste buds areonly tasting a very minute
amount of sweet, salty, sour.
Your nose in your olfactorysystem is what's getting all of
the other flavor.
And then your brain is puttingthem together, and then your
memories are enforcing that.
(23:08):
So that's why when people tastethings with blindfolds on, they
can't always immediatelyidentify them because your eyes
are also playing.
You're using all of these thingsto process it.
The problem is the cake can keeptasting good, but you really
only need you could put a sliverof cake with an apple on top and
(23:28):
get a third of the caloriesbecause your tongue's only gonna
taste that one snippet.
So, you know, how much returnare you getting on this
investment with the cake?
Sometimes you have to look at itlike that, you know.
SPEAKER_00 (23:42):
That's a good analogy.
I like that the return oninvestment of what you're
putting in.
Yeah.
All right.
So I've mentioned mindful eatinga bunch of times because you
talk about that in your book.
What is one thing that someonecould do today to start to
embrace the concept of mindfuleating?
SPEAKER_01 (23:58):
Well, I think you know, you have to just be honest
with yourself about what whathunger means to you.
I think you could always set dothe delivery service, set
yourself up for a week of, youknow, whichever subscription
meal, and then you have um uh aweek's worth for you to try
(24:20):
these new foods and new things.
And it's usually 50% off for thefirst week or two.
So you're getting a discount onyour grocery bill, and you're
exposing yourself to a new mealplan.
Uh, you know, you're basicallytaking the the hard part out of
it.
You just have to pick what looksgood because there's so many
(24:41):
that are tailored toplant-based, to uh people who
are athletic.
There's Factor 75, there'sScreen Chef where you have to
cook, there's uh Daily Harvestwhere everything comes frozen.
There's ones that are all fresh.
If you want to save uh 50% onyour grocery bill and try a new
(25:01):
lifestyle, I would say today,just try one of them, you know?
That's a great idea.
Do it for the next six monthsfor every company, try a
different one and you'll havehalf-priced groceries.
SPEAKER_00 (25:13):
That's a good idea.
Well, it also takes the thoughtout of having to cook and it
gets you home more and out of arestaurant because let's be
honest, restaurant cookingtastes really good for a reason.
SPEAKER_01 (25:27):
Yeah.
And and why you're eating out.
And if you're eating out becauseyou're you're lacking social
aspects, you know, or you'reavoiding things.
I know a lot of people come tothe restaurant and weren't ready
to face whatever they want toface, you know, next.
And you don't have to buy anexpensive meal and drinks.
And although that does supportmy, you know, me living here,
(25:50):
it's your business.
There is another side of it.
But, you know, just it all comesdown to why am I doing this?
And being accountable for yourchoices.
But how can you do it and makeit be fun?
You know, it doesn't have to bechange, doesn't have to be
(26:10):
scary.
Because in a few weeks, when youlook in the mirror, you know,
and you start feeling better, itmakes sense.
It's there's no reason to beafraid.
But also, restaurant food willstart tasting salsy.
And once you start having, youknow, coconut oil and avocado
oil instead of the soybean oilon your fries, that's not gonna
(26:33):
taste great anymore either.
The healthier you get, it's likeMaslow's theory of hierarchy.
The higher you get, the youknow, the farther away you are
from the bottom.
And and you you become better.
Like you you function better,your system functions better.
And and food tasting differentis a symbol of your evolution of
(26:56):
that.
SPEAKER_00 (26:57):
Yes, it is.
It is.
Well, and the beautiful thingabout everything you talk about
in your book is you don't haveto wait that long to see a
difference.
You know, like if someone'ssaying, I want to lose 50
pounds, well, sit back becausethe right way to lose 50 pounds
is to give it some time andreally work at it.
But a lot of the things that youtalk about implementing, if you
(27:17):
start to eat healthier just forone week, you will start to see
an impact.
It you don't have to wait monthsand months and months if you
start to implement some of thechanges in your book.
SPEAKER_01 (27:27):
Yeah, I had I had gained 30 pounds when I was like
at my most depressed and I wasdrinking.
And um within three months, Ihad abs for the first time in my
life in three months.
I never expected that kind of achange.
But if you do the math and ifyou're a drinker, changes like
(27:50):
that are so attainable becausenot only is alcohol obviously
very high in calories, but yourbody can't burn fat if you drink
for 24 hours after you've drank.
So anything you're eating isgoing to sit and rot in your gut
or it's going to be stored asfat if you're trying to still
(28:12):
burn through, you know, sticksmargaritas from the night
before.
So taking out the alcoholcalories and allowing your body
to actually burn whole foods asits nutrient source is just as
simple as how you put gas inyour car instead of sprite, you
know?
You just have to put the rightthings in.
And once you realize that it'sthat simple and nobody's trying
(28:35):
to sell you anything, you know,I think it's hard to believe,
but it you just have to do it.
SPEAKER_00 (28:40):
Yeah.
Yes.
And you have an entitled yourchapter on alcohol.
I'm going to read this because Idon't want to misquote you here.
Alcohol booze is making you fat.
Yeah.
Yes.
Hello.
I was like, oh, I got to readthat chapter.
That's interesting.
All right.
I love that.
Let's talk about the rainbow fora minute.
SPEAKER_01 (29:00):
I do want to just say one more thing about booze,
though.
Um, you know, in that chapter, Italk about the history of
alcohol and how it started andwhat it was as a fermented
beverage created by localvillages and tribes as to the
what it is now processed andfull of additives and basically
just bottled ethanol.
(29:21):
Alcohol isn't what it used tobe.
Um, if you want to continuedrinking, or if you want to wean
off drinking, looking for spikedkombuchas, which are naturally
fermented, or umkay, which is aMexican fermented drink, uh,
sour beers, which are fermented,that's a good transition to step
(29:44):
your way towards uh digestingand metabolizing alcohol if you
aren't ready to let go of it.
But the alcohol you're drinkingnow is is, you know, if you're
if you want to be unprocessed inyour foods, definitely look at
what it does long term to justthe Function of how you digest
the food you eat when you'redrinking.
SPEAKER_00 (30:04):
Yes.
And that was, I found that wasreally interesting, you know,
because it's like, oh, if yourbody is focused on having to try
to digest the alcohol, then it'snot digesting the food.
And we all know if it's notdigesting the food, then it's
storing the food.
So it was like you don't need towrite five pages on that, like
to get to understand the scienceof that.
(30:25):
You're like, oh, huh.
And as I've gotten older, I'vefound more and more people my
age, because I'm in my 50s,don't drink at night anymore
because they can't sleep.
And it's the same thing.
Your body can't rest andregenerate because it's focused
on burning the alcohol that youdrank at 10 o'clock at night
before you tried to go to bed.
Yeah.
(30:45):
And you could do it every oncein a while, but everyone I know
do it every once in a while, andyou're like, I had such a
terrible night's sleep.
Yeah.
Yeah, because you're burningethanol all night long.
Yes.
Yes.
And let me tell you, the auraring, which I am like obsessed.
Yeah, right?
Love my aura ring.
Like it knows.
I don't even need to tell it.
Oh, really?
(31:05):
I don't need to tell it that Ihad a drink.
It knows.
SPEAKER_01 (31:08):
It's like you're gonna feel bad today.
SPEAKER_00 (31:10):
It tells it knows.
It just knows because theresting heart rate isn't what it
should be.
Does it actually say alcoholconsumed?
It will say that either youdrank alcohol or ate food too
late at night.
SPEAKER_01 (31:23):
Oh, see, I have a different brand.
I don't have the actual aura.
I have one, a ring con, whichfor my sleep apnea.
So I really just use it forthat.
But that's really interestingthat it can detect that.
It can a hundred percent.
Because it's affecting yourbody.
SPEAKER_00 (31:39):
So obviously, if the ring knows, then the ring knows.
And the ring knows if you'reeating late at night, also,
because of how your body isstarting to digest the food and
it's tracking everything that'shappening every minute of the
day if you have it on.
So the ring actually knows.
Interesting.
So it and it has a way that youcan tell it.
Like, you know, you can put inthere tags like drank alcohol or
(32:00):
ate dinner after a certain hour,ate food after a certain hour.
It has ways that you can tagthings for yourself so you can
start to see trends.
But yeah, when I first got thering, it was amazing to me.
I'm like, the ring knows that Ihad a glass of wine last night.
Yeah, that's that's really goodfor accountability.
It does, but then it also helpsyou realize like, huh, this
stuff I'm reading, it's not justBS.
(32:21):
Like the ring is telling me toothat my body is functioning
differently because I had aglass of wine last night than it
does on the nights that I don'tdrink.
If you start to have anawareness of the patterns, you
can really start to see how yourbody is behaving differently.
SPEAKER_01 (32:35):
Yeah.
You know, you gotta give it thebest, the best opportunity to
thrive with everything comingcoming at us with all the seeds
taken out of our foods and allthe nutrition, you know,
modified out.
SPEAKER_00 (32:49):
Right.
And everything being soprocessed.
So let's talk about eating therainbow because the chapters
that you have about eating therainbow, you give people like
actual examples, you give mealplans, you give so much,
smoothie recipes, like it'sfantastic.
So let's talk about eating therainbow.
SPEAKER_01 (33:04):
Well, it's I think just a very easy concept for
kids to adult to visually seethat the reason your food is the
color it is, is because of whatit contains.
And when you're eating, you'rejust breaking down something and
mining it for what it contains.
You know, we mask that withflavors and and with textures
(33:26):
and and aromas.
But at the end of the day, youknow, again, like an investment,
what am I getting out of this?
The easiest way to try to getall of your nutrients is to try
to eat a color, each color eachday.
Now that could be threedifferent colors in your
smoothie and three in yoursalad, you know, or spread out,
(33:49):
but just the awareness of ifyour plate is bland white, then
there's probably nothing thatyou can get from it.
And if you want your skin tolook young and you're spending
all these money, money on creamsand your skin looks dull, you
know, look at your plate becauseyou need the nutrition that's
making the fruit and vegetableslook so beautiful in your body.
(34:12):
So it's just another way toraise awareness, you know,
because we're bombarded.
I get it.
But you can look around and say,this looks bland.
What do I have in the freezer?
I have some spinach, I have sometomatoes, you know.
Just bring it in little bylittle until you're just no at
the grocery store to look forevery color in your cart.
Yes.
Yeah.
And it's just, it's a training.
SPEAKER_00 (34:33):
It's a training.
I found for myself personally,it's a training.
I tend to eat sometimes the samethings again and again, kind of
like on repeat.
Yeah.
I mean, we all do.
We all do, but I personally dogo back to that rainbow and I'll
be like, huh.
unknown (34:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:47):
When's the last time I had something orange, other
than, you know, a little bit ofcarrot, you know?
And I'm like, that's that's notreally enough.
Or have I had enough greentoday?
I eat a lot of greens, butsometimes I'm not eating enough
greens.
SPEAKER_01 (34:58):
And well, if you're not eating enough greens, it's
also really easy to just take ascoop of spirulina every day.
Contains every every nutrient onearth uh in the algae.
Um, also chlorella every day.
You know, those are two things.
SPEAKER_00 (35:14):
I don't know if we're gonna talk a little bit
about supplements, but we cantalk about anything you'd like
to talk about.
You want to talk?
It's a good transition tosupplements.
Let's talk about supplementsbecause it's a good transition
to that.
I find the older I get, the moreinterested I am in supplements.
And they're kind of becomingmore and more mainstream, but
not all supplements are createdequally either.
SPEAKER_01 (35:34):
Yes, there's a lot of vitamins that can only be
digested or be better digestedthrough the membranes in your
mouth.
Uh, so sublingual, like, youknow, taking a pill of uh, you
know, mashed up vitamins thatyou don't know where the
vitamins came from, and thenhoping your stomach digests
(35:55):
them.
Some of them may need fat todigest, some of them do better
without food, some do betterwith food.
So a block multivitamin usuallydoesn't get people the results
that they think that it will.
But companies want to sell youvitamins.
So, but nature actually has itsown vitamin, uh, like the number
(36:18):
one nature's spirulina, it's analgae.
And you may have seen bluespirulina and green spirulina,
and blue spirulina is just theyextract the blue elements out of
the green spirulina to make itmore visually appealing to use
in recipes, but it it's nowmissing some at some nutritional
elements.
So if you want the fullnutrition spectrum, if you put a
(36:40):
scoop of that into your, I mean,there's other brands that sell
it, like daily greens orathletic greens, uh, green
vibrance has been aroundforever.
You put a scoop in yoursmoothie, you can eat the, you
can play around with it.
Do, you know, just again, get itin your system.
Um, and that's way better thantaking a multivitamin.
There are some store bought thegarden of of life, has a
(37:03):
multivitamin chewable that Iswear by.
So there are some reputablebrands, but by and large,
avoiding those main name brandgeneric multivitamins is is not
doing you any favors.
Chlorella and chlorophyll.
Chlorella is also a seaweed, analgae, um, also containing, I
(37:29):
think it may have a little bitless than spherulina, but both
of them are very detoxifying tothe body, also, which brings in
chlorophyll.
Chlorophyll is in chlorella,chlorella is not in chlorophyll.
Chlorophyll is plant blood.
And the only difference betweenplant blood and human blood is
(37:50):
that there's magnesium wherepotassium is.
And so when we take chlorophyllevery day, not only does it
clean out our system, it'spacked with vitamins and
micronutrients, minerals, but italso takes away body odor and it
really helps all of your systemsthrive.
So, my grandma, anybody who's onmedications, if they're older, I
(38:14):
always make sure they're takingthat because the medications can
put a lot of stress on their umkidneys and liver.
But anybody who wants to be feelclean from the inside, it's like
a number one thing.
I also take the chlora, andpeople say how much?
About a tablespoon of liquidchlorophyll.
I take it with uh two ounces ofpink grapefruit juice and two
(38:36):
ounces of raw cranberry juiceevery day.
It keeps your immune system.
I'm around germs at the bar allthe time.
Keeps my immune systemyear-round, tip top shape.
The cranberry won't allowbacteria to stick to you.
The boost of vitamin C from thegrapefruit, and then all those
vitamins, if you're feelingcrappy, shoot that.
(38:56):
And that's a great way to justperk up and get like most of the
vitamins you need if you don'tget all your rainbow colors.
SPEAKER_00 (39:03):
Perfect.
And you have two colors in thereright there.
So colors that are, especiallyin cranberry juice, that's one
of the harder colors, I find.
Yeah, a lot of people don't likebeets and stuff and things that
are in those colors.
So those are sometimes harder toharder to get in.
Harder to get, yeah.
Yes.
Ooh, that's so fascinating.
Can we talk about macro andmicronutrients for a minute?
SPEAKER_01 (39:25):
So macro, meaning big, are the big things that
people think about fat, protein,and carbs.
And then micronutrients are thevitamins and minerals that lie
within whatever makes up themacronutrient.
So let's use pizza as ourfavorite.
The macro, the macronutrients ofpizza are fat, carbs, and there
(39:51):
is some protein from the cheese,whatever, vegan or regular that
you use.
And then the micronutrientswould be the vitamins that
whatever the crust has.
So if you're using a cauliflowercrust versus a wheat crust, now
those are gonna have verydifferent micronutrients.
Also, that will change yourmacronutrient if you switch
(40:11):
that.
And the fat, the cheese is thefat.
The micronutrients in that wouldbe like vitamin A, vitamin D.
And then the sauce again has theminerals of the tomato and
whatever veggies you cook intoit.
So knowing people focus on, oh,I gotta get my protein.
You don't ever hear anybody say,I gotta go get my carbs, or I
(40:34):
gotta go get my fat.
You just hear, I got, I gottago, I just want protein.
I'm just doing high protein.
Okay, but what of where are yougetting your micronutrients
from?
You know, right because ifyou're eating an animal, that
animal created that muscle frommicronutrients in the vegetation
(40:54):
it ate.
And you're trying to eat thatanimal to get as many
micronutrients through that.
So you're skipping, but at theend of the day, you're mining
nutrients from the sun.
When you're eating, you'reeating nutrients from the sun
that is photosynthesized,whether it's eaten by an animal
and then you eat the animal oryou just eat the plant.
(41:15):
You gotta get it in yourself tosurvive.
And you know, it's necessary.
We can't live on pizza andMcDonald's.
You can't.
I mean, you can if you changeyour pizza every single day to
have all differentmicronutrients.
But um people with busy livesare not looking at
(41:36):
micronutrients.
They are looking at what I canget on the table, what do I have
in the freezer?
But if you're aware when you'reat the store to at least get all
the colors of the rainbow, youshould be covering yourself.
And then just introduce thesmoothies.
You're getting natural sugars.
You're you're gonna be uh yourblood sugar's gonna be stable
longer, your skin's gonna dobetter, you're gonna get vitamin
(41:58):
C, vitamin A from the fruits,you're gonna get probiotic fiber
for your gut, your gut's gonnafunction better, that's gonna
make your skin look better.
And it all works together to getyour body regulated, and then
you're healthier, and thenyou're healthier.
SPEAKER_00 (42:13):
But as you talk about macronutrients, it's like,
and you talk about this in yourbook that sometimes people get
so focused on I need protein andI don't need carbs.
And you talk about how carbs arenecessary in the book.
And same thing with fat.
It's like, you know, I mean, Igrew up in the era of like the
no fat, zero fat.
You know, these products aregood for you because they have
no fat.
What's the fat in it?
(42:33):
It's like, but oh my goodness,so many of those zero fat
products or low fat productshave so much processedness to
it.
And yeah, you need fats.
You talk about that in the book.
Like, you need fats, but it'sabout making healthy choices for
fat.
So just use fat for an example.
For people who don't know, whatare some examples of healthy
fats?
SPEAKER_01 (42:52):
So the like obviously avocado, everybody
knows that.
A lot of people don't realize italso has like five to seven
grams of fiber.
So that's a good one for fat andfiber.
But avocado oil is a much betteroil to cook with because it
tolerates high heat a lotbetter.
Olive oil will break down underheat, and you should only use
(43:12):
that when you're, you know,dressing a salad raw.
Grapeseed oil is another greatfat, especially to cook with,
because mostly people are usingfats to cook with.
But as far as eating fats, don'tbe afraid of nut butters.
Sunflowers, sunflower seeds isanother one that has an
incredible amount.
I think it also has 99% of thenutrients uh that you need to
(43:36):
survive is in a sunflower seed.
Seeds and nuts have fat, but youshouldn't be scared of them.
People are scared of thembecause they are calorie dense.
But when you're eating wholefoods, you can stop counting
calories.
You don't have to worry aboutcounting anymore.
Once you're eating the nature'scomplete package of food, the
(43:56):
ratios of the macronutrients andthe sugars is made your body can
digest them.
And so obviously you're gonnafeel more satisfied.
You're going to meet yournutrient cravings, you're not
gonna be so hungry, you'regetting your fiber.
And uh, at the end of the day,it's finding finding better ways
to feel satisfied.
But the bad fats, we I skippedright right over those.
(44:20):
Obviously, everyone's scared ofseed oils.
And I do want to just say that alot of people are scared of seed
oils, but they don't know why.
Um, I just said seeds are greatand seeds have oil in them.
And it's because when you buy aseed oil, it is processed with
uh hexane and high temperaturesto get it out of the seed.
(44:43):
There are expeller press seedoils on the market.
They're few and far between, butif you just look at the label,
it'll say expel or press, andthat's just ground to the stone
for the most part.
And those are not going toaffect your body the way that a
commercial soybean oil orvegetable oil will, which will
just clog your arteries the sameway that you know red meat and
(45:04):
cholesterol are bad fats.
Humans, all animals makecholesterol, and cholesterol is
necessary in our bodies, butwhen you eat cholesterol from an
animal, it stays in yourarteries.
So people got scared of thewrong fats.
So it's just understanding youcan chew up a peanut and the nut
(45:24):
oil that chew up a seed, andthat's great.
You know, you need to lubricateyour brain, your heart, your
systems.
Baking your French fries insteadof frying them in olive oil
because you think olive oil ishealthy, definitely bake them.
You know, just do if you ifyou're gonna eat oil, try to eat
(45:45):
it whole.
If you're gonna cook with oil,try to get the high temperature.
And then coconut coconut oil isone other really important oil
which can lower the carbstechnically in your food by by
making it a why am I blanking onthe word starch, a resistant
(46:05):
starch?
If if you cook food, rice,bread, anything in coconut oil
after it cools, the starchbecomes resistant, which means
your body doesn't absorb it as acarb, but your gut and your
microbone, right microbiome eateat it.
So it's actually feeding thebacteria in your gut, and you're
getting less sugar spikes fromit.
(46:26):
If you want to start there, justadding coconut oil could reduce
the amount of sugar if you aresugar sensitive.
SPEAKER_00 (46:33):
And I love that.
I bake with coconut oil, but Iforget to cook with it, but I do
bake with it a lot, but Iforget.
SPEAKER_01 (46:39):
You gotta get the Costco one and just sit it on
the counter.
You can't forget about it.
It's 10 pounds.
SPEAKER_00 (46:46):
So, first of all, everyone, I can't ask her all
the questions because we'rerunning out of time.
But you all have to buy her bookbecause you have a huge section.
I just want to give you kudosfor this, and we're not gonna
talk about it, but I wanteveryone to know it's in your
book.
You have a huge section abouthow to read food labels.
Yeah.
And your book is worth the moneyjust to understand how to read a
food label.
(47:06):
So go buy the book for thatpurpose alone, but there's so
much else in there.
But we're not gonna talk aboutit because we can't give away
the whole book and we're runningout of time.
We're running out of time.
All right, so before we do runout of time, I have two
questions for you.
You're a vegan, correct?
Yeah.
Have you always been a vegan?
SPEAKER_01 (47:22):
I went vegan at 14.
My mom was vegetarian at seven.
Um, my grandparents, I told youhow to farm.
They also had chickens andrabbits on the farm.
And my mother was witness to mygrandfather killing them for
food.
Uh, so at seven years old, mymother said, I am not eating
meat.
I don't want any part of it.
(47:43):
And so when I was uh growing up,she had all of the vegetarian
moose wood and whole foods,cookbooks, and things.
And when I was with her, I atevegetarian.
Um, when I was with mygrandparents off the boat from
Italy, they gave me the meat.
They gave me meatballs and pods.
I didn't know any better.
But when I was 14 is when Istarted, I think I saw a
(48:05):
slaughterhouse video in schoolor somebody showed it to me.
And I had all those teachingsfrom my mom.
And for some reason it reallyclicked with me that that was
the right way, you know, and forme, and it it wasn't about
nutrition at that point.
It was an ethical choice for me.
And I started doing protests.
(48:26):
I protested the elephants at thetraveling circuses, which are
now banned.
I hope that me and my friends'efforts protesting help, we
would protest Macy's fur.
And now Macy's, I think, nolonger carries fur.
So those were some earlyefforts.
But as I got older and I joinedthe Screen Actors Guild, and I
was a stand-in and uh bodydouble and background actor, and
(48:49):
I was pursuing that.
The body image, my own bodyimage of having to shrink even
more to fit the looks and sizesof these people, is when my
relationship with food became alittle bit more of a battle with
diets.
And so I read every diet bookthat there was available, and
(49:11):
then I read every naturalhealing book, and I was was
vegan.
And so I was trying to find away to get all of the nutrients
without having to starve myselfuh to fit into this body type.
It took years of of reallyunderstanding how the body works
and how food works, and stayingvegan, you know, there was there
(49:34):
was a few years when I atechicken and fish when I was poor
and I was getting food at thefood bank.
But as soon as I was financiallyback on my feet, I I there I
would never at this point eatmeat again.
That was a very low point in mylife.
I, you know, and luckily I amnot there anymore.
(49:57):
When you have to compromise yourvalues to survive, it's tough.
But I would never put myself ina position uh where that could
be compromised again, uh,whether it be for my body, for
the animals, for the planets.
You know, I like showing peoplethat you can be strong and
vegan.
I mean, yeah, I've got somepretty strong guns.
SPEAKER_00 (50:19):
You do.
And you are in amazing shape.
You are in totally incredibleshape.
And you talk a lot about it inyour book, which is why I wanted
to make sure I mention it.
Because for people that arecurious about becoming a
vegetarian, curious about how tobecome vegan, you talk a lot
about that in your book and howto eat so that you are getting
enough nutrients and you aregetting enough calories and you
(50:41):
are getting the diversity thatyou need.
And you also sprinkle in quite abit of education that might make
people think twice before theygo and buy the meat or the fish.
So I wanted to make sure wecovered off on that because you
can talk about that.
And I think that is a helpfulresource for people that are
curious.
SPEAKER_01 (50:58):
Yeah.
I don't like, I don't wantpeople to think it's only a book
for vegans.
It's definitely a book forvegans, it's definitely a book
for vegan curious, but I feellike I've covered so many things
from the emotionals, even thewater, you know, we all have to
drink that, where our food'scoming from.
If you question the decisionsyou're making, I think you'll
(51:18):
find some answers, no matterwhat you do with it, or it could
help your mom, it could helpyour sister.
I just wanted to get as much asI knew out there so that I could
help as many people as I could.
Yes.
And when is your app coming out?
Any minute now.
I'm I'm just refining it.
(51:40):
I have I have a little panel ofproduct testers.
I'm working on just making surethat I have everything in place.
It's it's harder than it looks,but I have a I have somebody um
just gonna check that everythingis 100% functioning.
And then it takes a little bitof time to get into the app
store, but I'm hoping byChristmas, let's say at the
latest, I want it out by the endof the year.
SPEAKER_00 (52:02):
We will mention it in the show notes, and then when
it does come out, because thiswill come out long before that,
but when it does come out, besure to tag me on social media.
Oh, of course.
And I will bring this show backup to life for everybody.
Uh tag it, and I personally bethe first one out there to run
out there and get get your appbecause congratulations, that's
a really valuable resource.
So I'm excited.
(52:22):
Yeah.
All right.
So, Justine, thank you so much.
It's been such a pleasure havingyou on the show.
I will put into the show noteseverything about you, your
website, your book, how peoplecan buy it.
Um, I encourage you guys tofollow her on Instagram.
Uh, Justine's just a fascinatinghuman, and you just are really
real and authentic andinspiring, and your garden.
There's so much we can just goon and on.
(52:43):
Organic.
Like there's just so muchcontent here.
So I thank you for being a guestand for making the time to
record with us.
It's been truly a pleasure.
SPEAKER_01 (52:50):
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate it.
It really makes me feel likewhat I'm doing makes the
difference.
And thank you for you know allof your questions.
Um, I hope that, you know, wecan spread the word and you and
I can help make some change inpeople.
Exactly.
Okay, everybody, have abeautiful day.
SPEAKER_00 (53:06):
We'll see you next week.
Thank you for joining us foranother episode of the House of
Germar podcast, where wellnessstarts within.
We appreciate you being a partof our community and hope you
felt inspired and motivated byour guests.
If you enjoyed this episode,please write us a review and
share it with friends.
(53:26):
Building our reach on YouTubeand Apple Podcasts will help us
get closer to our mission toempower one million women to
live all in.
You can also follow us onInstagram at House of Germar and
sign up to be a part of ourmonthly inspiration newsletter
to our website,houseofgermart.com.
If you or someone you know wouldbe a good guest on the show,
(53:48):
please reach out to us at thepodcast at houseofgermart.com.
This has been the House ofGermar Production with your
host, Gene Collins.
Thank you for joining our house.
You can choose to put the food in your mouth and
you can choose not to.
You know, is it benefiting youat the end of the day?
We do have healthier options,but I I like to go all organic
and I don't even boil my rice intap water.
So until the restaurant canstart boiling it in spring
water, you know, I just havevery high standards and I don't
expect everybody out the gate totransition into that lifestyle.
(00:24):
It's very overwhelming.
But that's why it's, you know,chapter by chapter, the more you
know, the easier these decisionsbecome.
SPEAKER_00 (00:34):
Welcome to the House of Germar podcast, where
wellness starts within.
The House of Germar is alifestyle brand, empowering
women to live all in throughinterior design and personal
wellness.
We are a destination for womenready to reimagine what is
possible in their homes andlives and then create it.
(00:54):
We are honored to have you joinus on our mission to empower one
million women to live all in.
I am your host, Gene Collins,and I invite you to become
inspired by this week's guest.
Hi, everybody, welcome.
I'm your host, Gene Collins, andtoday I am so excited to talk to
an incredibly beautiful soul,Justine Basani.
(01:17):
Hi, I'm glad to be here.
It's so good to have you.
So, Justine, I'm gonna linkeverything about her in the bio,
but I just want you guys toknow, first of all, this woman,
such a badass female, folks.
Like, she is a personal trainer,she is a nutritionist, and she
wrote an incredible book, whichI really want to share a lot
about her book.
I'm gonna show you for those whocan see it, right?
(01:38):
Eating lessons for those of youwho are watching this on video.
It's a chunky book.
Um, and I leave, I read a lot ofbooks.
I read a lot of books, andsometimes a chunky book is a
little scary to me, plus toothers, but it is not scary.
Do not be afraid.
You talk in real-world terms,you take a lot of technology, a
lot of science.
You make practical ways that wecan think about eating, diet,
(02:00):
exercise, mindset.
And I am so excited to talk toyou.
So welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_01 (02:04):
I really appreciate that intro.
Thank you so much.
You know, it I I appreciate, youknow, that that the hard work I
did is actually being seen andthat you, you know, love it.
I I'm so glad to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (02:17):
Oh, good.
All right.
So before we dig into the book,you talk a little bit in the
beginning of the book about yourbackground.
But for those who've not readthe book yet, I would love for
you to share a little bit aboutyour upbringing and your
background.
SPEAKER_01 (02:28):
Okay, well, um, my mom was born here in America,
but my grandparents were off theboat from Italy and to this day
are still growing a ton of ourown organic food on our family
plot.
And my baby food was grown inthe backyard, and my mom just
(02:48):
taught me all about theimportance and the difference of
between what we were eating thatwe were harvesting versus what
the other kids in school wereeating.
So I was lucky enough to seethat and be a part of the food,
which, you know, so at an earlyage, I was hands-on.
And um, at 15, I started myfirst job at the local health
(03:12):
food store where I learned moreabout like, you know, instead of
taking over-the-countersupplements, how you could use
echinace for immune system.
And my understanding of that,plus with my mom, you know, to
this day, my mom manages ahealth food store.
So it's just been a part of mylife.
And, you know, you can take thatfor granted, you know, but other
(03:35):
people don't know what I know.
And it and so I started, I gotcertified in nutrition and
personal training.
And during COVID, a lot of mycustomers, we had hours on end
at the bar to talk becausenobody could go anywhere,
really.
And so all of the questions thatwere asked to me in those bar
(03:55):
conversations is what actuallyinspired me to write the book
and put it all in one place.
The it started when I was a kid,you know, and then I led a very
healthy lifestyle until Ididn't.
And I was bartending uh a lotand I got into drinking, really.
(04:16):
It was just drinking.
But I watched my mental healthand my physical health decline.
And so eight years ago, I justdecided it wasn't valuable to
me.
And I put all of my energy backinto wellness, but I didn't want
to quit my bartending job, youknow, I was helping people there
(04:36):
too.
So it's been a reallyinteresting balance because I
still am coaching people at thebar, you know, and people who
people always have questions,whether it be about their
drinking habits or their foodhabits.
And even if it's notconventional, I do want to help
people with what I know becauseat that low point in my life and
(04:58):
I had to pick myself up, is whenI realized, you know, there's
one way of doing things that themasses are taught, and that
includes, you know, fast foodand drinking.
And I wanted to fit in and bepart of that, but it it almost
destroyed me.
And I'm sure there's otherpeople who walk that line.
So whether it be weight loss orjust general daily, how do I
(05:20):
take care of myself now that I'man adult human, I wanted to
cover that.
SPEAKER_00 (05:26):
And you do cover off on all of that.
So when I first got introducedto you and I was told about you
and your book and a little bitabout your background, I was
like, oh, this is sofascinating.
And then the person whointroduced me to you and got me
to start following you was like,Oh, yeah, and she's a bartender
at this restaurant in town.
And I was like, and no offenseto this restaurant, but like
(05:48):
it's a Mexican restaurant.
So like if you want to gosomewhere that is like a really
high caloric, high fatteningmeal where you are going to
leave full because the portionsare enormous.
Yeah, you're gonna get your yourlike your weekly salt intake in
margaritas.
Like, this is where you go.
That's true.
And it was so funny to mebecause I was like, this is like
the opposite of the life thatyou're living.
SPEAKER_01 (06:09):
Yeah, I'm like the angel sitting at the gates, you
know, saying, Hey.
Yes, yes, hey, by the way, saltis bad for you.
You have an entire chapter onsalt.
I do.
There are some customers, youknow, that I know shouldn't be
having salt.
And I just saying, you know, youknow better.
We're not putting salt on this.
You shouldn't even be having themarg.
So I'm strict with some of them.
(06:29):
They love it, but it's true.
Um, it is an interestingdichotomy, and people always
say, What do you eat there?
And to be honest with you, Ibring my food like basically
everywhere.
Um, it's everybody knows it.
Nobody cares.
I I know everything about themenu because I've been working
(06:50):
there for 10 years.
So I it's just you can choose toput the food in your mouth and
you could choose not to.
You know, is it benefiting you?
At the end of the day, we dohave healthier options, but I I
like to go all organic and Idon't even boil my rice in tap
water.
So until the restaurant canstart boiling it in spring
water, you know, I just havevery high standards and I don't
(07:13):
expect everybody out the gate totransition into that lifestyle.
It's very overwhelming.
But that's why it, you know,chapter by chapter, the more you
know, the easier these decisionsbecome.
SPEAKER_00 (07:25):
Yes.
And it's an awareness.
Yeah.
It's definitely an awareness.
So before we talk about thebook, I do have a question.
What made you decide to write abook?
Because that is like anundertaking all into itself.
SPEAKER_01 (07:36):
Honestly, that wasn't a hard decision for me.
It's not the first book I'vewritten.
Um, it's my mom actually has amaster's in English.
And I always excelled in, Itested out of English and
writing all through elementaryand high school.
So writing has just always beensomething that I did.
It's always been some, yeah, asan only child with no siblings
(07:59):
to play with, reading andwriting were just plus my mom,
you know, always reading andwriting.
It was just made sense tocommunicate it this way, you
know?
SPEAKER_00 (08:10):
Yes.
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (08:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:11):
Okay.
All right.
So you mentioned water.
And on my list of things that Iwanted to talk about, water is
the first one on there.
And that's probably becausewater happens pretty early on in
the book.
Yes.
So you talk about water in twodifferent formats.
So you talk about water in thesense of like, you know, we need
to drink a lot of water and thegood that water is for our body
and flushing everything out andall of that.
(08:33):
But you also dig a whole lotinto the quality of the water
and the vessel in which you putyour water.
Yes.
Would you mind sharing that withpeople?
Because I knew about this, but Iguarantee you 90% of the people
listening have no idea what I'mtalking about.
SPEAKER_01 (08:52):
So I have a glass vessel that I have a rose quartz
inside.
If you can afford to get springwater delivered to you in glass
bottles, that is the best way todo it because the water is full
of minerals and it's feedingyour body.
We'll talk about tap water in asecond.
(09:14):
But unfortunately,budgeting-wise, I do get five
gallon spring water deliveredand I like to get it out of the
plastic and charged by theenergy of the crystal and the
glass as soon as possible.
It's also a really beautiful wayto present it, you know, on your
counter.
So it's not only you're puttingthe energy into the water,
(09:36):
there's plenty of studies thatshow that water expresses
energy, even if spoken to andfrozen.
So whatever intentions you putinto your water as you drink it
is a reminder of thoseintentions on a cellular level.
It doesn't have to be rosequartz.
You can charge your water withanything you want, but I'd like
to have the love be the firstthings, the self-love, you know?
SPEAKER_00 (10:00):
Yes, which is a good one.
Talk to us a little bit aboutthe benefit of having water in
glass versus plastic.
SPEAKER_01 (10:09):
Well, microplastics, we can't get away from
microplastics from ourmattresses to, you know, the
cars we drive, the every all ofour food is packaged in it.
And it's really unavoidable andit's a global problem.
Any particulates that get in,especially plastics that get
into your body, your body has towork to get out.
(10:32):
And so if you're already taxingyour body with drinking and food
that has chemicals andprocesses, and you're taking
medications and you're notliving a very healthy lifestyle.
And then on top of it, you'renourishing your cells with water
that is full of, I mean, thewould you rather, as some people
say, would you rather havemicroplastics or would you
(10:53):
rather have tap water?
You know, the water that'scoming out of the taps has to,
not only is most municipal waterlargely wastewater that's been
processed and filtered, but itstill has residual medications,
birth control, tons of chlorine,tons of contaminants.
(11:14):
And then all of the pipelines,which are still lined with
Teflon, are constantlycontaminating that as it runs
through.
And the Teflon pipe started inthe 20s with the Industrial
Revolution, and they just didn'tknow.
And that's just the bare minimumon top of all the local like
seepage into our water system.
(11:37):
So getting spring water in glassis the cleanest way to deliver
it because we don't all livenear a natural spring, but
that's the goal.
unknown (11:46):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (11:48):
Yeah.
Wouldn't that be nice?
Yeah.
But one of the things you talkabout in your book, which I
think is really important forpeople to think about, is you
know, the as you say, idealnatural spring water gets
delivered in glass.
You get to put a nice crystal init.
And you talk about differentcrystals and their properties,
and you also talk about crystalsto avoid using as well within
(12:08):
your book for things like that.
So great, great resource in yourbook about that.
But I think what you alsomentioned in your book that I
think is important is you arebringing an awareness to people
about water on all differentlevels, right?
The water that's coming from thetap, the water that's in
bottles, the water, whether youtake it from your tap and then
(12:29):
just put it in a plastic waterbottle.
You're kind of giving everybody,I want to say, the layers to
understand your water.
Yeah.
And then you empower people tosay, the pollen spring,
delivered water, pollen, freshspring water in a glass bottle
might not be attainable.
However, you can do some ofthese basic things to improve
(12:51):
your drinking water.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (12:53):
For sure.
Right?
Yeah.
Even if you can only afford thespring water for your infant if
they're on formula or something,I would never give a baby tap
water.
You know, your animals, I would,you know, you don't know what
that's doing to their systems,too.
And there's tons of cancer inpets these days that there
(13:13):
wasn't, you know, before withall the chemicals in their food.
And if we're not cleaning outour systems and we keep
bombarding it from everydirection, people will continue
to be unwell.
Yes.
Yeah agreed.
SPEAKER_00 (13:26):
All right.
So here's something that Ilearned from your book.
And I'm gonna read it becauseI'm going to read this because I
don't want to misquote you onthis one, but I was shocked by
this one.
This one was so fascinating.
Okay.
Taste buds regenerate every twoweeks.
Yeah.
Wow.
SPEAKER_01 (13:42):
That's amazing.
Well, uh, your body isconstantly regenerating.
And I think that informationreally gives a lot of people
hope when they're stuck.
You know, especially smokers,people, if you're drinking, you
know, all of those things, theheavy coffees, it's killing your
taste buds, the salty foods, theeverything from you know, the
(14:05):
fast food places desensitizeyou.
So giving your whole body achance to regenerate, people
will feel the difference.
I think people are scared togive up what they're comfortable
with because they're afraid tolose their security and not have
any change.
(14:26):
But like that statistic alone ishow quickly you can see change.
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (14:32):
Well, and also I'm gonna tie it to something later
on in the book, which I alsothought was so fascinating,
which talks about cravings.
Oh, yeah.
And and a lot of times, so muchI find for myself, even
personally, for myself.
A lot of times I eat becauseit's lunchtime.
I eat because I love chocolateafter dinner.
Yeah.
(14:52):
But am I hungry?
I I'm not hungry.
So we'll talk about mindfuleating in a minute.
But it's I'm doing it out of apattern of behavior, and my body
is craving the pattern, notnecessarily actually craving the
thing.
Or there's also you have a wholechapter about cravings tied to
your body's lack of certainnutrients and nourishment.
(15:15):
I am so huge on that, yes.
I found fascinating.
So share a little bit about likewhat that means, because I'm
just saying what it is, but talkabout what that actually means.
SPEAKER_01 (15:23):
So your body's sending your brain knows what's
available to you nutritionallyby the food that you're giving
it.
It's if you're giving your bodypizza, macaroni, and cheese,
potato chips, it knows that ifif you haven't eaten in a while,
it's gonna want to crave thepotato chips because that's
gonna be enough calories to getthrough.
(15:45):
But you're never gonna be fullyhungry because your body is
still craving nutrients.
So people who are filling thevoid of nutrition with high
calorie food never seem to feelfull because you're never
actually satiating your hung,your actual hunger.
Exposing yourself to differentfoods one or two times lets your
(16:12):
brain know, hey, there's iron inthat, you know, like raisins.
I always crave raisins when Ineed iron.
It's just like I know it.
Walnuts and raisins, beets, likemustard greens, anything that
lentils.
I'm like, oh, I must be low oniron because it's second nature
to me.
And um, it's not second natureto everybody else because people
(16:34):
think about the flavor of thefood before they think about the
what the food is giving themnutritionally.
And taking the emotions out ofthe eating and understanding it
as a, hey, it need my body needssomething.
Let's think about what it is.
And I know that that might behard for people too.
And I haven't told anybody this,but I'm gonna tell you now.
(16:57):
I've been working all summer andI just trademarked my app.
Oh, cool.
And it's called Crave Well, andI've taken a lot of the elements
from the book, including acraving identifier, which you
can just type your craving into,and it does the calculations of
the nutrients in that and givesyou healthier options.
There's also an integration forlocal foods that offer foods
(17:21):
that fit those nutrients so thatyou can start when you're
hungry, when you're cravingsomething and you want to make a
change, plug it in there andthen have options right at your
fingertips.
SPEAKER_00 (17:31):
So that is so cool.
Yeah.
That is so cool because I I readin your book, and I've seen this
before online too.
People are like, oh, if you'reif you're craving salt, your
body might actually be deficientin, I don't know what it is, but
deficient in something else.
So it's not actually the salt,recognizing it's the signal from
(17:52):
your body that it needssomething.
But salt isn't, salt isn't theanswer.
SPEAKER_01 (17:57):
Right.
Chocolate is always the easiestone for, you know, magnesium.
The list in the book really doeshelp because I give some tips.
But I think that everyone canagree on pizza, you know, as a
common craving.
So I like to use that example alot.
Sometimes when you're cravingpizza, you're craving cheese
because you haven't eaten andthat's a high calorie dense
(18:19):
food.
Sometimes you're craving itbecause you're craving the crust
and that has a lot of carbs.
You know, maybe you haven't beenfueling and you're trying to go
keto.
Those combinations right there,the pizza and the cheese, is
usually because you've waitedtoo long to eat.
Those are high calorie.
Your brain and your muscles needto run on sugar.
You're not giving it carbs in asteady way.
(18:39):
It's gonna crave them.
And so, cheese, in addition tohaving a lot of fat, has
cassene, which is uh affectsyour brain the same way that
heavy drugs or sugar do.
It gives you a dopamineresponse.
Um, so if you're feelingdepressed and you haven't eaten
pita, you know, it's gonna be abig one.
Now, how do you replace that?
And so, again, the tomato sauceaspect, if you're really craving
(19:02):
the tomato sauce, mozzarellasticks and the tomato sauce, you
know, the different things aregiving your body and your brain
different things.
So you could be craving thelycopene from the tomato.
Maybe you haven't had any greenvegetables or any red vegetables
in a while.
And your body will just starttrying to find them from
anywhere your body thinks it canget it.
You know, it's an evolutionarything.
(19:22):
If you're in a place that hasraspberries growing and apples
growing, your body's going tocrave the things that are around
you.
So you have to just like youwould give a child things, you
know, you have to startreintroducing healthy options so
that your body knows where itcan mine the nutrition from.
SPEAKER_00 (19:39):
Right.
No, which is true because it'sexactly like because I was going
to transition to mindful eating.
But so much of mindful eating isbeing aware of the mental part
of it.
And you just said it sobeautifully, you're talking
about food, but I talk about itall the time with my business
from a mindset perspective.
Your brain automatically goesdown the path to which it's been
accustomed and the path to whichit knows.
(20:01):
And so if the path for yourbrain is negative self-talk, for
example, just using mindset andneuroplasticity, that's where
your brain naturally goes.
So neuroplasticity is that youhave to create new neuropathways
in order to get your automaticresponse to be different.
And you're saying the exact samething.
Yeah.
You're just tying it to food,where I use it in my business
(20:24):
for coaching from a mindsetperspective, but you're saying
the exact same thing.
But it's your memory, your brainand your body's memory of foods,
and you have to condition it tohave new memories of foods.
SPEAKER_01 (20:36):
Yeah.
Not only allowing your body toknow that it can get nutrition
from other places, which willjust generally help you feel
better, age better, uh, functionbetter.
But if you're making anychanges, it's probably a lot of
habits that you feel you need tochange.
And things, when people aretold, you know, you're
(20:58):
conditioned to do it this way,you have to change it.
I think they get scared.
So it's almost like you have toopen yourself up to it and know
that you can always, you know,fall back on your old patterns
if you need to know that they'restill there.
But make an effort to say, youknow, I need to do this for
myself.
Because at the end of the day,whether it's food or emotions,
(21:21):
it's all, you know, there's selfself-coping that we use.
And so misusing food can seemreally innocent.
And misusing drinks can causeproblems later on.
But in the moment, you know, youyou are making that choice.
So the more you know when youhave to is really the best
weapon you have.
(21:41):
You know, when you're makingcognitive changes, sometimes you
really do have to say, I'm justgonna do this 30 times, whether
I like it or not, until it's apattern.
SPEAKER_00 (21:52):
Right.
Exactly.
Right.
And your taste bud needs twoweeks to regenerate.
So if you do it for two weeks,you all of a sudden might not
crave it so much because yourtaste buds might be or your
taste buds might actually betasting different things that
you've never tasted before,because you have new taste buds.
So things that maybe didn't seemsweet, like I always find
(22:13):
whenever I do any type of, Idon't want to call it a diet
because that's a bad word, butany type of like really truly
cleanly eating.
And if I really focus on nothaving sugar, let's say for a
week or so, all of a sudden,things that didn't seem sweet
before now all of a suddenactually are sweet, like
nature's sugar, you know, likefruits and stuff, because I've
(22:34):
removed that higher sugar level.
So now my taste budsappreciation of natural sugar is
so much more heightened.
It's a fascinating experiment totry for people who've never done
it.
SPEAKER_01 (22:46):
Yeah, it's true.
Like even your taste buds areonly tasting a very minute
amount of sweet, salty, sour.
Your nose in your olfactorysystem is what's getting all of
the other flavor.
And then your brain is puttingthem together, and then your
memories are enforcing that.
(23:08):
So that's why when people tastethings with blindfolds on, they
can't always immediatelyidentify them because your eyes
are also playing.
You're using all of these thingsto process it.
The problem is the cake can keeptasting good, but you really
only need you could put a sliverof cake with an apple on top and
(23:28):
get a third of the caloriesbecause your tongue's only gonna
taste that one snippet.
So, you know, how much returnare you getting on this
investment with the cake?
Sometimes you have to look at itlike that, you know.
SPEAKER_00 (23:42):
That's a good analogy.
I like that the return oninvestment of what you're
putting in.
Yeah.
All right.
So I've mentioned mindful eatinga bunch of times because you
talk about that in your book.
What is one thing that someonecould do today to start to
embrace the concept of mindfuleating?
SPEAKER_01 (23:58):
Well, I think you know, you have to just be honest
with yourself about what whathunger means to you.
I think you could always set dothe delivery service, set
yourself up for a week of, youknow, whichever subscription
meal, and then you have um uh aweek's worth for you to try
(24:20):
these new foods and new things.
And it's usually 50% off for thefirst week or two.
So you're getting a discount onyour grocery bill, and you're
exposing yourself to a new mealplan.
Uh, you know, you're basicallytaking the the hard part out of
it.
You just have to pick what looksgood because there's so many
(24:41):
that are tailored toplant-based, to uh people who
are athletic.
There's Factor 75, there'sScreen Chef where you have to
cook, there's uh Daily Harvestwhere everything comes frozen.
There's ones that are all fresh.
If you want to save uh 50% onyour grocery bill and try a new
(25:01):
lifestyle, I would say today,just try one of them, you know?
That's a great idea.
Do it for the next six monthsfor every company, try a
different one and you'll havehalf-priced groceries.
SPEAKER_00 (25:13):
That's a good idea.
Well, it also takes the thoughtout of having to cook and it
gets you home more and out of arestaurant because let's be
honest, restaurant cookingtastes really good for a reason.
SPEAKER_01 (25:27):
Yeah.
And and why you're eating out.
And if you're eating out becauseyou're you're lacking social
aspects, you know, or you'reavoiding things.
I know a lot of people come tothe restaurant and weren't ready
to face whatever they want toface, you know, next.
And you don't have to buy anexpensive meal and drinks.
And although that does supportmy, you know, me living here,
(25:50):
it's your business.
There is another side of it.
But, you know, just it all comesdown to why am I doing this?
And being accountable for yourchoices.
But how can you do it and makeit be fun?
You know, it doesn't have to bechange, doesn't have to be
(26:10):
scary.
Because in a few weeks, when youlook in the mirror, you know,
and you start feeling better, itmakes sense.
It's there's no reason to beafraid.
But also, restaurant food willstart tasting salsy.
And once you start having, youknow, coconut oil and avocado
oil instead of the soybean oilon your fries, that's not gonna
(26:33):
taste great anymore either.
The healthier you get, it's likeMaslow's theory of hierarchy.
The higher you get, the youknow, the farther away you are
from the bottom.
And and you you become better.
Like you you function better,your system functions better.
And and food tasting differentis a symbol of your evolution of
(26:56):
that.
SPEAKER_00 (26:57):
Yes, it is.
It is.
Well, and the beautiful thingabout everything you talk about
in your book is you don't haveto wait that long to see a
difference.
You know, like if someone'ssaying, I want to lose 50
pounds, well, sit back becausethe right way to lose 50 pounds
is to give it some time andreally work at it.
But a lot of the things that youtalk about implementing, if you
(27:17):
start to eat healthier just forone week, you will start to see
an impact.
It you don't have to wait monthsand months and months if you
start to implement some of thechanges in your book.
SPEAKER_01 (27:27):
Yeah, I had I had gained 30 pounds when I was like
at my most depressed and I wasdrinking.
And um within three months, Ihad abs for the first time in my
life in three months.
I never expected that kind of achange.
But if you do the math and ifyou're a drinker, changes like
(27:50):
that are so attainable becausenot only is alcohol obviously
very high in calories, but yourbody can't burn fat if you drink
for 24 hours after you've drank.
So anything you're eating isgoing to sit and rot in your gut
or it's going to be stored asfat if you're trying to still
(28:12):
burn through, you know, sticksmargaritas from the night
before.
So taking out the alcoholcalories and allowing your body
to actually burn whole foods asits nutrient source is just as
simple as how you put gas inyour car instead of sprite, you
know?
You just have to put the rightthings in.
And once you realize that it'sthat simple and nobody's trying
(28:35):
to sell you anything, you know,I think it's hard to believe,
but it you just have to do it.
SPEAKER_00 (28:40):
Yeah.
Yes.
And you have an entitled yourchapter on alcohol.
I'm going to read this because Idon't want to misquote you here.
Alcohol booze is making you fat.
Yeah.
Yes.
Hello.
I was like, oh, I got to readthat chapter.
That's interesting.
All right.
I love that.
Let's talk about the rainbow fora minute.
SPEAKER_01 (29:00):
I do want to just say one more thing about booze,
though.
Um, you know, in that chapter, Italk about the history of
alcohol and how it started andwhat it was as a fermented
beverage created by localvillages and tribes as to the
what it is now processed andfull of additives and basically
just bottled ethanol.
(29:21):
Alcohol isn't what it used tobe.
Um, if you want to continuedrinking, or if you want to wean
off drinking, looking for spikedkombuchas, which are naturally
fermented, or umkay, which is aMexican fermented drink, uh,
sour beers, which are fermented,that's a good transition to step
(29:44):
your way towards uh digestingand metabolizing alcohol if you
aren't ready to let go of it.
But the alcohol you're drinkingnow is is, you know, if you're
if you want to be unprocessed inyour foods, definitely look at
what it does long term to justthe Function of how you digest
the food you eat when you'redrinking.
SPEAKER_00 (30:04):
Yes.
And that was, I found that wasreally interesting, you know,
because it's like, oh, if yourbody is focused on having to try
to digest the alcohol, then it'snot digesting the food.
And we all know if it's notdigesting the food, then it's
storing the food.
So it was like you don't need towrite five pages on that, like
to get to understand the scienceof that.
(30:25):
You're like, oh, huh.
And as I've gotten older, I'vefound more and more people my
age, because I'm in my 50s,don't drink at night anymore
because they can't sleep.
And it's the same thing.
Your body can't rest andregenerate because it's focused
on burning the alcohol that youdrank at 10 o'clock at night
before you tried to go to bed.
Yeah.
(30:45):
And you could do it every oncein a while, but everyone I know
do it every once in a while, andyou're like, I had such a
terrible night's sleep.
Yeah.
Yeah, because you're burningethanol all night long.
Yes.
Yes.
And let me tell you, the auraring, which I am like obsessed.
Yeah, right?
Love my aura ring.
Like it knows.
I don't even need to tell it.
Oh, really?
(31:05):
I don't need to tell it that Ihad a drink.
It knows.
SPEAKER_01 (31:08):
It's like you're gonna feel bad today.
SPEAKER_00 (31:10):
It tells it knows.
It just knows because theresting heart rate isn't what it
should be.
Does it actually say alcoholconsumed?
It will say that either youdrank alcohol or ate food too
late at night.
SPEAKER_01 (31:23):
Oh, see, I have a different brand.
I don't have the actual aura.
I have one, a ring con, whichfor my sleep apnea.
So I really just use it forthat.
But that's really interestingthat it can detect that.
It can a hundred percent.
Because it's affecting yourbody.
SPEAKER_00 (31:39):
So obviously, if the ring knows, then the ring knows.
And the ring knows if you'reeating late at night, also,
because of how your body isstarting to digest the food and
it's tracking everything that'shappening every minute of the
day if you have it on.
So the ring actually knows.
Interesting.
So it and it has a way that youcan tell it.
Like, you know, you can put inthere tags like drank alcohol or
(32:00):
ate dinner after a certain hour,ate food after a certain hour.
It has ways that you can tagthings for yourself so you can
start to see trends.
But yeah, when I first got thering, it was amazing to me.
I'm like, the ring knows that Ihad a glass of wine last night.
Yeah, that's that's really goodfor accountability.
It does, but then it also helpsyou realize like, huh, this
stuff I'm reading, it's not justBS.
(32:21):
Like the ring is telling me toothat my body is functioning
differently because I had aglass of wine last night than it
does on the nights that I don'tdrink.
If you start to have anawareness of the patterns, you
can really start to see how yourbody is behaving differently.
SPEAKER_01 (32:35):
Yeah.
You know, you gotta give it thebest, the best opportunity to
thrive with everything comingcoming at us with all the seeds
taken out of our foods and allthe nutrition, you know,
modified out.
SPEAKER_00 (32:49):
Right.
And everything being soprocessed.
So let's talk about eating therainbow because the chapters
that you have about eating therainbow, you give people like
actual examples, you give mealplans, you give so much,
smoothie recipes, like it'sfantastic.
So let's talk about eating therainbow.
SPEAKER_01 (33:04):
Well, it's I think just a very easy concept for
kids to adult to visually seethat the reason your food is the
color it is, is because of whatit contains.
And when you're eating, you'rejust breaking down something and
mining it for what it contains.
You know, we mask that withflavors and and with textures
(33:26):
and and aromas.
But at the end of the day, youknow, again, like an investment,
what am I getting out of this?
The easiest way to try to getall of your nutrients is to try
to eat a color, each color eachday.
Now that could be threedifferent colors in your
smoothie and three in yoursalad, you know, or spread out,
(33:49):
but just the awareness of ifyour plate is bland white, then
there's probably nothing thatyou can get from it.
And if you want your skin tolook young and you're spending
all these money, money on creamsand your skin looks dull, you
know, look at your plate becauseyou need the nutrition that's
making the fruit and vegetableslook so beautiful in your body.
(34:12):
So it's just another way toraise awareness, you know,
because we're bombarded.
I get it.
But you can look around and say,this looks bland.
What do I have in the freezer?
I have some spinach, I have sometomatoes, you know.
Just bring it in little bylittle until you're just no at
the grocery store to look forevery color in your cart.
Yes.
Yeah.
And it's just, it's a training.
SPEAKER_00 (34:33):
It's a training.
I found for myself personally,it's a training.
I tend to eat sometimes the samethings again and again, kind of
like on repeat.
Yeah.
I mean, we all do.
We all do, but I personally dogo back to that rainbow and I'll
be like, huh.
unknown (34:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:47):
When's the last time I had something orange, other
than, you know, a little bit ofcarrot, you know?
And I'm like, that's that's notreally enough.
Or have I had enough greentoday?
I eat a lot of greens, butsometimes I'm not eating enough
greens.
SPEAKER_01 (34:58):
And well, if you're not eating enough greens, it's
also really easy to just take ascoop of spirulina every day.
Contains every every nutrient onearth uh in the algae.
Um, also chlorella every day.
You know, those are two things.
SPEAKER_00 (35:14):
I don't know if we're gonna talk a little bit
about supplements, but we cantalk about anything you'd like
to talk about.
You want to talk?
It's a good transition tosupplements.
Let's talk about supplementsbecause it's a good transition
to that.
I find the older I get, the moreinterested I am in supplements.
And they're kind of becomingmore and more mainstream, but
not all supplements are createdequally either.
SPEAKER_01 (35:34):
Yes, there's a lot of vitamins that can only be
digested or be better digestedthrough the membranes in your
mouth.
Uh, so sublingual, like, youknow, taking a pill of uh, you
know, mashed up vitamins thatyou don't know where the
vitamins came from, and thenhoping your stomach digests
(35:55):
them.
Some of them may need fat todigest, some of them do better
without food, some do betterwith food.
So a block multivitamin usuallydoesn't get people the results
that they think that it will.
But companies want to sell youvitamins.
So, but nature actually has itsown vitamin, uh, like the number
(36:18):
one nature's spirulina, it's analgae.
And you may have seen bluespirulina and green spirulina,
and blue spirulina is just theyextract the blue elements out of
the green spirulina to make itmore visually appealing to use
in recipes, but it it's nowmissing some at some nutritional
elements.
So if you want the fullnutrition spectrum, if you put a
(36:40):
scoop of that into your, I mean,there's other brands that sell
it, like daily greens orathletic greens, uh, green
vibrance has been aroundforever.
You put a scoop in yoursmoothie, you can eat the, you
can play around with it.
Do, you know, just again, get itin your system.
Um, and that's way better thantaking a multivitamin.
There are some store bought thegarden of of life, has a
(37:03):
multivitamin chewable that Iswear by.
So there are some reputablebrands, but by and large,
avoiding those main name brandgeneric multivitamins is is not
doing you any favors.
Chlorella and chlorophyll.
Chlorella is also a seaweed, analgae, um, also containing, I
(37:29):
think it may have a little bitless than spherulina, but both
of them are very detoxifying tothe body, also, which brings in
chlorophyll.
Chlorophyll is in chlorella,chlorella is not in chlorophyll.
Chlorophyll is plant blood.
And the only difference betweenplant blood and human blood is
(37:50):
that there's magnesium wherepotassium is.
And so when we take chlorophyllevery day, not only does it
clean out our system, it'spacked with vitamins and
micronutrients, minerals, but italso takes away body odor and it
really helps all of your systemsthrive.
So, my grandma, anybody who's onmedications, if they're older, I
(38:14):
always make sure they're takingthat because the medications can
put a lot of stress on their umkidneys and liver.
But anybody who wants to be feelclean from the inside, it's like
a number one thing.
I also take the chlora, andpeople say how much?
About a tablespoon of liquidchlorophyll.
I take it with uh two ounces ofpink grapefruit juice and two
(38:36):
ounces of raw cranberry juiceevery day.
It keeps your immune system.
I'm around germs at the bar allthe time.
Keeps my immune systemyear-round, tip top shape.
The cranberry won't allowbacteria to stick to you.
The boost of vitamin C from thegrapefruit, and then all those
vitamins, if you're feelingcrappy, shoot that.
(38:56):
And that's a great way to justperk up and get like most of the
vitamins you need if you don'tget all your rainbow colors.
SPEAKER_00 (39:03):
Perfect.
And you have two colors in thereright there.
So colors that are, especiallyin cranberry juice, that's one
of the harder colors, I find.
Yeah, a lot of people don't likebeets and stuff and things that
are in those colors.
So those are sometimes harder toharder to get in.
Harder to get, yeah.
Yes.
Ooh, that's so fascinating.
Can we talk about macro andmicronutrients for a minute?
SPEAKER_01 (39:25):
So macro, meaning big, are the big things that
people think about fat, protein,and carbs.
And then micronutrients are thevitamins and minerals that lie
within whatever makes up themacronutrient.
So let's use pizza as ourfavorite.
The macro, the macronutrients ofpizza are fat, carbs, and there
(39:51):
is some protein from the cheese,whatever, vegan or regular that
you use.
And then the micronutrientswould be the vitamins that
whatever the crust has.
So if you're using a cauliflowercrust versus a wheat crust, now
those are gonna have verydifferent micronutrients.
Also, that will change yourmacronutrient if you switch
(40:11):
that.
And the fat, the cheese is thefat.
The micronutrients in that wouldbe like vitamin A, vitamin D.
And then the sauce again has theminerals of the tomato and
whatever veggies you cook intoit.
So knowing people focus on, oh,I gotta get my protein.
You don't ever hear anybody say,I gotta go get my carbs, or I
(40:34):
gotta go get my fat.
You just hear, I got, I gottago, I just want protein.
I'm just doing high protein.
Okay, but what of where are yougetting your micronutrients
from?
You know, right because ifyou're eating an animal, that
animal created that muscle frommicronutrients in the vegetation
(40:54):
it ate.
And you're trying to eat thatanimal to get as many
micronutrients through that.
So you're skipping, but at theend of the day, you're mining
nutrients from the sun.
When you're eating, you'reeating nutrients from the sun
that is photosynthesized,whether it's eaten by an animal
and then you eat the animal oryou just eat the plant.
(41:15):
You gotta get it in yourself tosurvive.
And you know, it's necessary.
We can't live on pizza andMcDonald's.
You can't.
I mean, you can if you changeyour pizza every single day to
have all differentmicronutrients.
But um people with busy livesare not looking at
(41:36):
micronutrients.
They are looking at what I canget on the table, what do I have
in the freezer?
But if you're aware when you'reat the store to at least get all
the colors of the rainbow, youshould be covering yourself.
And then just introduce thesmoothies.
You're getting natural sugars.
You're you're gonna be uh yourblood sugar's gonna be stable
longer, your skin's gonna dobetter, you're gonna get vitamin
(41:58):
C, vitamin A from the fruits,you're gonna get probiotic fiber
for your gut, your gut's gonnafunction better, that's gonna
make your skin look better.
And it all works together to getyour body regulated, and then
you're healthier, and thenyou're healthier.
SPEAKER_00 (42:13):
But as you talk about macronutrients, it's like,
and you talk about this in yourbook that sometimes people get
so focused on I need protein andI don't need carbs.
And you talk about how carbs arenecessary in the book.
And same thing with fat.
It's like, you know, I mean, Igrew up in the era of like the
no fat, zero fat.
You know, these products aregood for you because they have
no fat.
What's the fat in it?
(42:33):
It's like, but oh my goodness,so many of those zero fat
products or low fat productshave so much processedness to
it.
And yeah, you need fats.
You talk about that in the book.
Like, you need fats, but it'sabout making healthy choices for
fat.
So just use fat for an example.
For people who don't know, whatare some examples of healthy
fats?
SPEAKER_01 (42:52):
So the like obviously avocado, everybody
knows that.
A lot of people don't realize italso has like five to seven
grams of fiber.
So that's a good one for fat andfiber.
But avocado oil is a much betteroil to cook with because it
tolerates high heat a lotbetter.
Olive oil will break down underheat, and you should only use
(43:12):
that when you're, you know,dressing a salad raw.
Grapeseed oil is another greatfat, especially to cook with,
because mostly people are usingfats to cook with.
But as far as eating fats, don'tbe afraid of nut butters.
Sunflowers, sunflower seeds isanother one that has an
incredible amount.
I think it also has 99% of thenutrients uh that you need to
(43:36):
survive is in a sunflower seed.
Seeds and nuts have fat, but youshouldn't be scared of them.
People are scared of thembecause they are calorie dense.
But when you're eating wholefoods, you can stop counting
calories.
You don't have to worry aboutcounting anymore.
Once you're eating the nature'scomplete package of food, the
(43:56):
ratios of the macronutrients andthe sugars is made your body can
digest them.
And so obviously you're gonnafeel more satisfied.
You're going to meet yournutrient cravings, you're not
gonna be so hungry, you'regetting your fiber.
And uh, at the end of the day,it's finding finding better ways
to feel satisfied.
But the bad fats, we I skippedright right over those.
(44:20):
Obviously, everyone's scared ofseed oils.
And I do want to just say that alot of people are scared of seed
oils, but they don't know why.
Um, I just said seeds are greatand seeds have oil in them.
And it's because when you buy aseed oil, it is processed with
uh hexane and high temperaturesto get it out of the seed.
(44:43):
There are expeller press seedoils on the market.
They're few and far between, butif you just look at the label,
it'll say expel or press, andthat's just ground to the stone
for the most part.
And those are not going toaffect your body the way that a
commercial soybean oil orvegetable oil will, which will
just clog your arteries the sameway that you know red meat and
(45:04):
cholesterol are bad fats.
Humans, all animals makecholesterol, and cholesterol is
necessary in our bodies, butwhen you eat cholesterol from an
animal, it stays in yourarteries.
So people got scared of thewrong fats.
So it's just understanding youcan chew up a peanut and the nut
(45:24):
oil that chew up a seed, andthat's great.
You know, you need to lubricateyour brain, your heart, your
systems.
Baking your French fries insteadof frying them in olive oil
because you think olive oil ishealthy, definitely bake them.
You know, just do if you ifyou're gonna eat oil, try to eat
(45:45):
it whole.
If you're gonna cook with oil,try to get the high temperature.
And then coconut coconut oil isone other really important oil
which can lower the carbstechnically in your food by by
making it a why am I blanking onthe word starch, a resistant
(46:05):
starch?
If if you cook food, rice,bread, anything in coconut oil
after it cools, the starchbecomes resistant, which means
your body doesn't absorb it as acarb, but your gut and your
microbone, right microbiome eateat it.
So it's actually feeding thebacteria in your gut, and you're
getting less sugar spikes fromit.
(46:26):
If you want to start there, justadding coconut oil could reduce
the amount of sugar if you aresugar sensitive.
SPEAKER_00 (46:33):
And I love that.
I bake with coconut oil, but Iforget to cook with it, but I do
bake with it a lot, but Iforget.
SPEAKER_01 (46:39):
You gotta get the Costco one and just sit it on
the counter.
You can't forget about it.
It's 10 pounds.
SPEAKER_00 (46:46):
So, first of all, everyone, I can't ask her all
the questions because we'rerunning out of time.
But you all have to buy her bookbecause you have a huge section.
I just want to give you kudosfor this, and we're not gonna
talk about it, but I wanteveryone to know it's in your
book.
You have a huge section abouthow to read food labels.
Yeah.
And your book is worth the moneyjust to understand how to read a
food label.
(47:06):
So go buy the book for thatpurpose alone, but there's so
much else in there.
But we're not gonna talk aboutit because we can't give away
the whole book and we're runningout of time.
We're running out of time.
All right, so before we do runout of time, I have two
questions for you.
You're a vegan, correct?
Yeah.
Have you always been a vegan?
SPEAKER_01 (47:22):
I went vegan at 14.
My mom was vegetarian at seven.
Um, my grandparents, I told youhow to farm.
They also had chickens andrabbits on the farm.
And my mother was witness to mygrandfather killing them for
food.
Uh, so at seven years old, mymother said, I am not eating
meat.
I don't want any part of it.
(47:43):
And so when I was uh growing up,she had all of the vegetarian
moose wood and whole foods,cookbooks, and things.
And when I was with her, I atevegetarian.
Um, when I was with mygrandparents off the boat from
Italy, they gave me the meat.
They gave me meatballs and pods.
I didn't know any better.
But when I was 14 is when Istarted, I think I saw a
(48:05):
slaughterhouse video in schoolor somebody showed it to me.
And I had all those teachingsfrom my mom.
And for some reason it reallyclicked with me that that was
the right way, you know, and forme, and it it wasn't about
nutrition at that point.
It was an ethical choice for me.
And I started doing protests.
(48:26):
I protested the elephants at thetraveling circuses, which are
now banned.
I hope that me and my friends'efforts protesting help, we
would protest Macy's fur.
And now Macy's, I think, nolonger carries fur.
So those were some earlyefforts.
But as I got older and I joinedthe Screen Actors Guild, and I
was a stand-in and uh bodydouble and background actor, and
(48:49):
I was pursuing that.
The body image, my own bodyimage of having to shrink even
more to fit the looks and sizesof these people, is when my
relationship with food became alittle bit more of a battle with
diets.
And so I read every diet bookthat there was available, and
(49:11):
then I read every naturalhealing book, and I was was
vegan.
And so I was trying to find away to get all of the nutrients
without having to starve myselfuh to fit into this body type.
It took years of of reallyunderstanding how the body works
and how food works, and stayingvegan, you know, there was there
(49:34):
was a few years when I atechicken and fish when I was poor
and I was getting food at thefood bank.
But as soon as I was financiallyback on my feet, I I there I
would never at this point eatmeat again.
That was a very low point in mylife.
I, you know, and luckily I amnot there anymore.
(49:57):
When you have to compromise yourvalues to survive, it's tough.
But I would never put myself ina position uh where that could
be compromised again, uh,whether it be for my body, for
the animals, for the planets.
You know, I like showing peoplethat you can be strong and
vegan.
I mean, yeah, I've got somepretty strong guns.
SPEAKER_00 (50:19):
You do.
And you are in amazing shape.
You are in totally incredibleshape.
And you talk a lot about it inyour book, which is why I wanted
to make sure I mention it.
Because for people that arecurious about becoming a
vegetarian, curious about how tobecome vegan, you talk a lot
about that in your book and howto eat so that you are getting
enough nutrients and you aregetting enough calories and you
(50:41):
are getting the diversity thatyou need.
And you also sprinkle in quite abit of education that might make
people think twice before theygo and buy the meat or the fish.
So I wanted to make sure wecovered off on that because you
can talk about that.
And I think that is a helpfulresource for people that are
curious.
SPEAKER_01 (50:58):
Yeah.
I don't like, I don't wantpeople to think it's only a book
for vegans.
It's definitely a book forvegans, it's definitely a book
for vegan curious, but I feellike I've covered so many things
from the emotionals, even thewater, you know, we all have to
drink that, where our food'scoming from.
If you question the decisionsyou're making, I think you'll
(51:18):
find some answers, no matterwhat you do with it, or it could
help your mom, it could helpyour sister.
I just wanted to get as much asI knew out there so that I could
help as many people as I could.
Yes.
And when is your app coming out?
Any minute now.
I'm I'm just refining it.
(51:40):
I have I have a little panel ofproduct testers.
I'm working on just making surethat I have everything in place.
It's it's harder than it looks,but I have a I have somebody um
just gonna check that everythingis 100% functioning.
And then it takes a little bitof time to get into the app
store, but I'm hoping byChristmas, let's say at the
latest, I want it out by the endof the year.
SPEAKER_00 (52:02):
We will mention it in the show notes, and then when
it does come out, because thiswill come out long before that,
but when it does come out, besure to tag me on social media.
Oh, of course.
And I will bring this show backup to life for everybody.
Uh tag it, and I personally bethe first one out there to run
out there and get get your appbecause congratulations, that's
a really valuable resource.
So I'm excited.
(52:22):
Yeah.
All right.
So, Justine, thank you so much.
It's been such a pleasure havingyou on the show.
I will put into the show noteseverything about you, your
website, your book, how peoplecan buy it.
Um, I encourage you guys tofollow her on Instagram.
Uh, Justine's just a fascinatinghuman, and you just are really
real and authentic andinspiring, and your garden.
There's so much we can just goon and on.
(52:43):
Organic.
Like there's just so muchcontent here.
So I thank you for being a guestand for making the time to
record with us.
It's been truly a pleasure.
SPEAKER_01 (52:50):
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate it.
It really makes me feel likewhat I'm doing makes the
difference.
And thank you for you know allof your questions.
Um, I hope that, you know, wecan spread the word and you and
I can help make some change inpeople.
Exactly.
Okay, everybody, have abeautiful day.
SPEAKER_00 (53:06):
We'll see you next week.
Thank you for joining us foranother episode of the House of
Germar podcast, where wellnessstarts within.
We appreciate you being a partof our community and hope you
felt inspired and motivated byour guests.
If you enjoyed this episode,please write us a review and
share it with friends.
(53:26):
Building our reach on YouTubeand Apple Podcasts will help us
get closer to our mission toempower one million women to
live all in.
You can also follow us onInstagram at House of Germar and
sign up to be a part of ourmonthly inspiration newsletter
to our website,houseofgermart.com.
If you or someone you know wouldbe a good guest on the show,
(53:48):
please reach out to us at thepodcast at houseofgermart.com.
This has been the House ofGermar Production with your
host, Gene Collins.
Thank you for joining our house.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.