November 8, 2024 • 22 mins
Join me as I dive deep into the world of mindful eating and breaking free from diet dogma! Let's discuss the importance of assessing your diet and health, especially as the holiday season approaches. Whether you've been steadfast in your dietary choices or struggling to find balance, this episode is packed with insights on how to empower yourself to make nutritious and satisfying food decisions.
Explore the challenges of restrictive diets and discover why a balanced, omnivorous approach might be the key to sustainable health and happiness. Learn about the vital role of gut health, nutrient density, and the mental aspects of our relationship with food. Jolene shares personal anecdotes and practical tips to help you navigate the complexities of modern eating habits without losing sight of what truly nourishes your body and soul.
Tune in to gain a fresh perspective on how to indulge mindfully during the festive season while maintaining a healthy relationship with food. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to thrive and become the healthiest version of themselves. Don't miss out on these empowering tips and heartfelt discussions!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Jolene (00:02):
M. Are you frustrated,
uncomfortable, tired, and just plain
confused with all that conflicting health advice out
there? Feeling like you must be broken because
nothing works or sticks? Well, don't throw in that towel
just yet. I'm here to tell you that you are not
broken or destined to be unhealthy, tired, or
sick the rest of your life. Hey, I'm Jolene,
(00:25):
a nutritional therapy practitioner and your
BFF on, this crazy wild ride
here at Holistic Health Made simple, we stop focusing
on the scale and size and take
small steps to reach those healthy
dreams. We combine ancestral wisdom,
science, and good old common sense to find
what health looks like for us.
(00:46):
Grab some water, pop in those headphones, and
let's do this.
Hey. Hey there.
Wow. 2024 is just about
done. There is less than two months
left. @ the time this episode airs.
It's the first week of November. It is
(01:09):
so crazy. But this time of year also
leads us to holidays.
But it also leaves us reflecting
and assessing where we're at. Now. I
know a lot of you did awesome, and
you stuck to your diet and you stuck to
the rules, and that's amazing. And then there's
(01:30):
others who have been struggling. And you know
what? The fact that you're still here and still trying,
that is amazing.
No matter where you're at and which side you're on or
if you're somewhere in the middle, it's the
time of year that as we
assess and evaluate,
(01:50):
we need to really look inward if
what we are doing is something that's going to get
us to the finish line. Now, the finish line
isn't just a number on the scale. If
you've been here any length of time, you know
I'm all about getting
healthy on the inside, getting those
metabolic numbers good
(02:12):
and staying good. What does that
entail? Now, we all know it
entails something different for each and every one of
us. But what I'm seeing far too
often is that
we are following a diet.
We're listening to the dogma of the diet, the
rules of the diet, and we're not quite there.
(02:35):
So we try to diet harder
rather than smarter. Harder
means more restrictions.
Smarter means looking at what our
body needs and adapting and
ditching the dogma for
health. And when it comes to health, it's
those metabolic numbers. But beyond
(02:57):
that, it's our happiness,
our mental health, our
desire to fit in at a dinner
table when we're with a bunch of people,
coworkers, and I know some of you don't
care and you're strong in Your resolve
of being whatever you're doing, I
get that. However, is it
(03:20):
working for you? What do you
do when what you're doing stops
working? And I'm not going to
go into the nitty gritty of, actual diets. What I'm
looking here for is to empower you to
think outside the box. And that
yes, there are people
(03:41):
that stick to these very
ultra restrictive diets, but it's not that
many. And honestly I've even
noticed some that
have stuck to it for years realized they
needed to tweak their diet
and their sources of
nutrition because their body was missing
(04:03):
out on nutrients.
Not macronutrients, necessarily,
micronutrients. Some, macronutrients is
pretty specific. But the micronutrients,
looking at your food and the nutrient
density of it is important.
Looking at what you're
(04:24):
eating and what it's doing to your gut,
health is even more important.
We all know the majority of our
health lives in our gut. And when we go
on an ultra restrictive diet,
no matter if it's vegan or carnivore,
keto, paleo, whatever it is,
(04:44):
we've got to make sure we're feeding our gut
microbiome. And by feeding it,
we're not overdoing it either
because like a vegan
will have lots of fibers that will feed
the gut microbiome. But sometimes
it overreacts because
it's too much. It's too much of certain things
(05:06):
that throw the gut out of balance, that
the bacteria balance. we know there's trillions of
contrillions of different species
of gut bugs inside of us, and we don't want to
throw anyone out of balance. Now being a vegan
can actually throw them out of balance. Being
a carnivore throws them out of balance. Both
of those diets and,
(05:29):
their extreme polar opposites
changes the makeup of the gut
microbiome. Now,
many in the vegan world have
digestive issues because they're getting so much
plant matter their body's struggling to digest
it. Now those in the carnivore world aren't getting
any plant matter and they feel like they don't have
(05:51):
any digestive issues. And their gut's perfect because
they've omitted all the offending foods. And the minute they
have a little bit, they get gut, problems because
both sides, same thing with the vegan. If they
started eating animal products, they'd have digestive
issues. Different digestive issues.
When you eliminate certain
(06:12):
foods altogether,
being plant or animal, your body
stops making the enzymes that break it down. So you're going to
have some digestive problems until your
body learns how to remake those enzymes so
you can actually digest them. So when you're
a vegan vegetarian, you get a lot of those oxalates
(06:32):
in abundance. You get a lot of the
lectins, the anti nutrients that the
carnivores say are killing you and they're not getting
any. So you got two
extremes there. Now when it comes
to both, literally
you can only, you can count how many can
actually stick to it without falling
(06:54):
off at all. I'm, not saying one's
bad and one's good. I'm, saying they're very different
and they're very restrictive. And if you cannot
stick to it, those are not the best
diets for you.
Omnivorous diet of whole foods
primarily is probably the best way for
the majority of the human population to go.
(07:16):
While I'm starting to go off on a rant, I'm going to reel it back in because
I really want to talk about making empowered
choices. Now,
veganism is very restrictive in a
way and carnivore is
very restrictive in a different way. Neither
one of them really leaves you
empowered to find
(07:38):
the best path for you.
It removes foods that are
trouble foods for you. That doesn't
necessarily make your relationship with
food better. Now I'm a firm believer
that if there's a certain food that you
can't stop eating, it triggers binges, it,
triggers all sorts of things that you probably should stay
(08:00):
away from that. But it's often
not a macronutrient.
It's often certain
foods, certain types of
foods, and they often lead back to
being foods that we grew up with and know as
comfort foods. Maybe it's something
(08:20):
your grandma made or your mom made, or you and your mom used
to share, or it was something you used to eat
to hide whatever was happening in your life.
Now I've talked about it in a previous episode,
about how our past traumas often lead us to
overeating or self sabotage.
And, the new year is going to be really enlightening to a lot of
(08:41):
us as we work through all of this. But
for right now, let's work on empowering
these last two months as we
get in situations where we might want to stress eat
to choose not to, as we get into
situations where there's an abundance of sugary
foods and we don't want to eat them, so we say
(09:01):
no, or we avoided sugar for the past
six months to a year and we choose to have a sliver
of cake. Both are okay,
but you have to figure out how
you can gain control. As I've been
on this journey of, becoming healthy
person, it will always be
(09:22):
a journey and it will always be becoming.
But I'm learning that when I
remove choice,
life is easier. Not going to say it's not,
but it's not helping my relationship because
if something triggers me,
I crave that nonstop.
(09:44):
So part of my December
challenge to everybody is
to empower you to learn to
make choices without the
derailment. And I'm going to be honest with you, as I
started this episode, not really sure that this is where
I was going, but we'll go there.
empowering ourselves to make these choices,
(10:06):
evolving as a person, growing as a
person. We
need to be in control
of the food we put in our mouth.
And there's lots of ways to look at it. Is this
nourishing or is it not? And I
know I, probably said it before, sometimes we
(10:27):
choose not. As long
as the majority of the time we're choosing
nourishment, that little bit of the time that we're
choosing not is not a problem
as long as it doesn't turn into the
majority of the time. And yes,
I'm starting to feel like I'm talking in circles a little bit.
But I guess what I'm trying to
(10:50):
say is the dogma
of diets and the belief that
a diet works is good
until the diet stops working.
That's when we as humans have to learn how
to empower ourselves to
make the best choices and
(11:12):
also know that if we choose
something that's cake,
it's okay as long as we empowered
ourselves to have one small piece of
cake or big piece, whatever it is, but one piece
of cake at one event, move on.
And it doesn't derail us. That
is learning to go beyond the
(11:35):
food. That's the mental part.
That is our relationship with food. We don't need the
cake. Nobody needs cake. Cake
is never going to be healthy.
But building a healthy relationship with
food sometimes does involve food
that's not healthy. You might be wondering where all
this is coming from. And I think it's years
(11:58):
of things that have built up inside of me.
Years of people putting
fear of different foods
to me, upon me. you know, I
lived for a very long time m in the keto
world, and I was very fearful
to share the chocolate I ate because
(12:18):
one, I don't digest erythritol.
And back when I started low carb and
keto, there wasn't any
chocolate that either didn't have erythritol
and didn't have sugar, it had one or the other.
And I searched and searched and searched, and I
found a chocolate that had very
low sugar. It was all organic. It was really
(12:40):
clean. But I was terrified of sharing it
because, oh, my God, it had sugar.
It made me feel guilty.
That's not healthy. It made me feel
less than, a failure.
But, you know, I don't need chocolate.
I like chocolate. Chocolate helped me get through
(13:01):
some stressful times. At times as
a female, some m. Times of the month, we just want a
small piece of chocolate. Like, I never overdid
it. I still don't overdo it.
But I realize as I'm looking
back on this past eight years of my health journey,
I only got so far. And then I
(13:21):
started backsliding, mostly because I
had this fear and the
things weren't working. And then I doubled down,
and then I did this. And then life threw
me a major curveball.
And here I am today,
gathering all my healthy habits. That's what
(13:42):
I lean on. But the
ones that are sustaining me are not
keto habits. They're not
vegetarian habits, even though I was never a vegetarian,
because, let's be honest, I like my meat.
But I've been falling back on whole
foods as much as possible. The problem
is when I'm stressed,
(14:05):
when life throws me curveballs, I
often don't eat enough,
and that's a problem. And
that's also where I learned that
calorie counting doesn't always
work. It's not always about calories in, calories
out. It's about fueling your
body and nutrient
(14:26):
density. People nutrient
density. Be talking a lot
about nutrient density.
And when you're in a period of
stress, for whatever reason,
learning to put some of those healthy
habits aside. The biggest
habit I am working on, unlearning,
(14:48):
and it's definitely hard because my body's
trained to have adapted to it, is
intermittent fasting. I am at a
point in my health, for my
age, for the stage of perimenopause I'm in for
the stage of stress I have is that I need to
stop intermittent fasting and eat three whole
(15:09):
meals a day. And you know what I struggle with?
Breakfast. Now, some of you are going to say, well, if you're
not hungry, don't eat. But if I'm not eating
enough at lunch and I'm not eating enough at dinner, I need
that third meal. I
need to get the nutrients
in to fuel my
body to Keep my body running
(15:31):
healthy. With that third
meal, you're going to tell me, just eat bigger
two other meals. That doesn't always work.
Eating enough protein
as an aging female is
my priority. And lately I cannot get that in
two meals. I need that third meal.
(15:52):
But all this is to say
that we have to build the healthy habits, but
we have to learn when to break
them as well. Following the rules
works when it's working. When it's not
working, we need to unfollow the rules and make
new ones for ourselves. For me right now, that means
(16:12):
eating three meals a day, trying to get in a
lot more vegetables so that I'm fueling my gut
microbiome, making
sure I'm getting enough healthy fats so that my
hormones are working well. There is so much
going on, but it is making sure I
am prioritizing my protein, getting in my
healthy fats, getting in enough vegetables,
(16:35):
getting a nutrient dense diet in. And
then you know what? I can be empowered
when I'm out and about and I can
have that slice of whatever. Because the month
of December, it's all about
saying yes to sugar. And you're going to go, huh?
Because that's what I said. We want
(16:55):
to be empowered through the
holidays to choose
or choose not to indulge
and be absolutely okay with it. So that requires two
things. Mentally being
prepared, physically being prepared. Because like
I say over and over and over
(17:16):
again, if the majority of our
diet is nutrient dense whole
foods, that little bit that's not, does not
undo all the stuff that we did with
our nutrient dense whole foods.
Learning how to improve my relationship
with foods, improving your relationship
with food. Understanding
(17:38):
that over restriction
is a form of control. But is
it the right form of control to get us
to a healthy relationship to food? We don't need
junk food. We don't need all the toxic crap
that's in our food. That is not what I'm talking
about. There was a point in time
(17:58):
in this world that people ate whole
foods and that it included some sugar.
Mom would make a cake. I mean, this was before my
mom. My mom. Well, my mom actually did make cakes from scratch,
but they used to make cakes in the 60s and the 50s and
the 40s from scratch. Not out of a
box with all these chemicals in it. From scratch.
(18:19):
Can you believe it? They got flour and eggs and
all this stuff. That stuff is still
whole foods because there's no chemicals in
it. But I'm not telling you
to go make us cake from scratch. That's not where I'm going, I know
I'm going on some rants right now, but we need
to get back to the way things
were and get back to Whole
(18:41):
Foods and making foods for
ourself most of the time. So that,
that little bit of a time where it's not perfect, we're
okay. You might be wondering how I got here.
It was by looking around, looking at my
friends, family, and how two people can
eat the exact same thing and one have issues
and one doesn't. Now, I'm not saying
(19:04):
if you have health issues to go hog wild. What
I'm saying is address,
your health in a way
that's sustainable forever.
A restrictive diet at some
point is not going to be sustainable
forever because your body's going to need
other nutrients that you're not getting. It's going
(19:26):
to adapt and down regulate or
upregulate whatever it is to how
you're eating for a long period of time.
Our body is meant to be dual
fueled, meaning we burn both fat
for fuel and glucose for fuel. That is how
we're built. And when we go from one extreme
to the other, the opposite
(19:49):
side weakens of how we digest it, of
how we process it, of how our body
utilizes it. It doesn't mean that it's
bad because we've gone, vegan
and all of a sudden we eat meat and get sick, or we've gone
carnivore and all of a sudden we eat carbs and get sick.
It means our bodies have adapted to what we're
eating and needs to readapt
(20:11):
to an omnivorous lifestyle.
So to wrap things up a little bit and put a
nice tidy bow, we're
omnivorous, we need to eat a nutrient
dense diet and we need to be empowered
to make healthy choices as well
as sometimes not so healthy choices.
But that not so healthy choices by being
(20:34):
empowered, meaning we have it
and we move on. It is not
something that we start adding in day in and
day out. We are empowered
to live a fulfilled life, enjoying
our friends and family and not always
feeling like the oddball. It's okay
(20:54):
not to eat things, but it's also okay
to eat them as long as you're doing it in a healthy
manner. So let's work on our relationship to
food and our
balance of nutrient density to
make sure we are getting in all the macro
and micronutrients our bodies
(21:15):
need to thrive. The goal
on this is to become the healthiest version of
us and to thrive. And for each
one of us, that's going to be different.
Some people can thrive on a vegan diet.
Some people can thrive on a carnivore diet.
The majority of us, it's somewhere in the
(21:35):
middle. On, that note, friends, I will see you next
time. Be healthy. Bye.
Thanks for listening. I hope you got some nuggets to take
on your health journey. Remember, this podcast
is for educational and entertainment purposes.
No medical advice is being given, and by
listening to this podcast, you agree to the full
(21:58):
disclaimer, which is linked in the show Notes. M. You can
stay connected by joining the newsletter over at
holistichealthmadesimple.com where I
share additional tips and tricks weekly. Once
again, thank you for being part of my community. Until
next time, have a blessed day.
M. Are you frustrated,
uncomfortable, tired, and just plain
confused with all that conflicting health advice out
there? Feeling like you must be broken because
nothing works or sticks? Well, don't throw in that towel
just yet. I'm here to tell you that you are not
broken or destined to be unhealthy, tired, or
sick the rest of your life. Hey, I'm Jolene,
(00:25):
a nutritional therapy practitioner and your
BFF on, this crazy wild ride
here at Holistic Health Made simple, we stop focusing
on the scale and size and take
small steps to reach those healthy
dreams. We combine ancestral wisdom,
science, and good old common sense to find
what health looks like for us.
(00:46):
Grab some water, pop in those headphones, and
let's do this.
Hey. Hey there.
Wow. 2024 is just about
done. There is less than two months
left. @ the time this episode airs.
It's the first week of November. It is
(01:09):
so crazy. But this time of year also
leads us to holidays.
But it also leaves us reflecting
and assessing where we're at. Now. I
know a lot of you did awesome, and
you stuck to your diet and you stuck to
the rules, and that's amazing. And then there's
(01:30):
others who have been struggling. And you know
what? The fact that you're still here and still trying,
that is amazing.
No matter where you're at and which side you're on or
if you're somewhere in the middle, it's the
time of year that as we
assess and evaluate,
(01:50):
we need to really look inward if
what we are doing is something that's going to get
us to the finish line. Now, the finish line
isn't just a number on the scale. If
you've been here any length of time, you know
I'm all about getting
healthy on the inside, getting those
metabolic numbers good
(02:12):
and staying good. What does that
entail? Now, we all know it
entails something different for each and every one of
us. But what I'm seeing far too
often is that
we are following a diet.
We're listening to the dogma of the diet, the
rules of the diet, and we're not quite there.
(02:35):
So we try to diet harder
rather than smarter. Harder
means more restrictions.
Smarter means looking at what our
body needs and adapting and
ditching the dogma for
health. And when it comes to health, it's
those metabolic numbers. But beyond
(02:57):
that, it's our happiness,
our mental health, our
desire to fit in at a dinner
table when we're with a bunch of people,
coworkers, and I know some of you don't
care and you're strong in Your resolve
of being whatever you're doing, I
get that. However, is it
(03:20):
working for you? What do you
do when what you're doing stops
working? And I'm not going to
go into the nitty gritty of, actual diets. What I'm
looking here for is to empower you to
think outside the box. And that
yes, there are people
(03:41):
that stick to these very
ultra restrictive diets, but it's not that
many. And honestly I've even
noticed some that
have stuck to it for years realized they
needed to tweak their diet
and their sources of
nutrition because their body was missing
(04:03):
out on nutrients.
Not macronutrients, necessarily,
micronutrients. Some, macronutrients is
pretty specific. But the micronutrients,
looking at your food and the nutrient
density of it is important.
Looking at what you're
(04:24):
eating and what it's doing to your gut,
health is even more important.
We all know the majority of our
health lives in our gut. And when we go
on an ultra restrictive diet,
no matter if it's vegan or carnivore,
keto, paleo, whatever it is,
(04:44):
we've got to make sure we're feeding our gut
microbiome. And by feeding it,
we're not overdoing it either
because like a vegan
will have lots of fibers that will feed
the gut microbiome. But sometimes
it overreacts because
it's too much. It's too much of certain things
(05:06):
that throw the gut out of balance, that
the bacteria balance. we know there's trillions of
contrillions of different species
of gut bugs inside of us, and we don't want to
throw anyone out of balance. Now being a vegan
can actually throw them out of balance. Being
a carnivore throws them out of balance. Both
of those diets and,
(05:29):
their extreme polar opposites
changes the makeup of the gut
microbiome. Now,
many in the vegan world have
digestive issues because they're getting so much
plant matter their body's struggling to digest
it. Now those in the carnivore world aren't getting
any plant matter and they feel like they don't have
(05:51):
any digestive issues. And their gut's perfect because
they've omitted all the offending foods. And the minute they
have a little bit, they get gut, problems because
both sides, same thing with the vegan. If they
started eating animal products, they'd have digestive
issues. Different digestive issues.
When you eliminate certain
(06:12):
foods altogether,
being plant or animal, your body
stops making the enzymes that break it down. So you're going to
have some digestive problems until your
body learns how to remake those enzymes so
you can actually digest them. So when you're
a vegan vegetarian, you get a lot of those oxalates
(06:32):
in abundance. You get a lot of the
lectins, the anti nutrients that the
carnivores say are killing you and they're not getting
any. So you got two
extremes there. Now when it comes
to both, literally
you can only, you can count how many can
actually stick to it without falling
(06:54):
off at all. I'm, not saying one's
bad and one's good. I'm, saying they're very different
and they're very restrictive. And if you cannot
stick to it, those are not the best
diets for you.
Omnivorous diet of whole foods
primarily is probably the best way for
the majority of the human population to go.
(07:16):
While I'm starting to go off on a rant, I'm going to reel it back in because
I really want to talk about making empowered
choices. Now,
veganism is very restrictive in a
way and carnivore is
very restrictive in a different way. Neither
one of them really leaves you
empowered to find
(07:38):
the best path for you.
It removes foods that are
trouble foods for you. That doesn't
necessarily make your relationship with
food better. Now I'm a firm believer
that if there's a certain food that you
can't stop eating, it triggers binges, it,
triggers all sorts of things that you probably should stay
(08:00):
away from that. But it's often
not a macronutrient.
It's often certain
foods, certain types of
foods, and they often lead back to
being foods that we grew up with and know as
comfort foods. Maybe it's something
(08:20):
your grandma made or your mom made, or you and your mom used
to share, or it was something you used to eat
to hide whatever was happening in your life.
Now I've talked about it in a previous episode,
about how our past traumas often lead us to
overeating or self sabotage.
And, the new year is going to be really enlightening to a lot of
(08:41):
us as we work through all of this. But
for right now, let's work on empowering
these last two months as we
get in situations where we might want to stress eat
to choose not to, as we get into
situations where there's an abundance of sugary
foods and we don't want to eat them, so we say
(09:01):
no, or we avoided sugar for the past
six months to a year and we choose to have a sliver
of cake. Both are okay,
but you have to figure out how
you can gain control. As I've been
on this journey of, becoming healthy
person, it will always be
(09:22):
a journey and it will always be becoming.
But I'm learning that when I
remove choice,
life is easier. Not going to say it's not,
but it's not helping my relationship because
if something triggers me,
I crave that nonstop.
(09:44):
So part of my December
challenge to everybody is
to empower you to learn to
make choices without the
derailment. And I'm going to be honest with you, as I
started this episode, not really sure that this is where
I was going, but we'll go there.
empowering ourselves to make these choices,
(10:06):
evolving as a person, growing as a
person. We
need to be in control
of the food we put in our mouth.
And there's lots of ways to look at it. Is this
nourishing or is it not? And I
know I, probably said it before, sometimes we
(10:27):
choose not. As long
as the majority of the time we're choosing
nourishment, that little bit of the time that we're
choosing not is not a problem
as long as it doesn't turn into the
majority of the time. And yes,
I'm starting to feel like I'm talking in circles a little bit.
But I guess what I'm trying to
(10:50):
say is the dogma
of diets and the belief that
a diet works is good
until the diet stops working.
That's when we as humans have to learn how
to empower ourselves to
make the best choices and
(11:12):
also know that if we choose
something that's cake,
it's okay as long as we empowered
ourselves to have one small piece of
cake or big piece, whatever it is, but one piece
of cake at one event, move on.
And it doesn't derail us. That
is learning to go beyond the
(11:35):
food. That's the mental part.
That is our relationship with food. We don't need the
cake. Nobody needs cake. Cake
is never going to be healthy.
But building a healthy relationship with
food sometimes does involve food
that's not healthy. You might be wondering where all
this is coming from. And I think it's years
(11:58):
of things that have built up inside of me.
Years of people putting
fear of different foods
to me, upon me. you know, I
lived for a very long time m in the keto
world, and I was very fearful
to share the chocolate I ate because
(12:18):
one, I don't digest erythritol.
And back when I started low carb and
keto, there wasn't any
chocolate that either didn't have erythritol
and didn't have sugar, it had one or the other.
And I searched and searched and searched, and I
found a chocolate that had very
low sugar. It was all organic. It was really
(12:40):
clean. But I was terrified of sharing it
because, oh, my God, it had sugar.
It made me feel guilty.
That's not healthy. It made me feel
less than, a failure.
But, you know, I don't need chocolate.
I like chocolate. Chocolate helped me get through
(13:01):
some stressful times. At times as
a female, some m. Times of the month, we just want a
small piece of chocolate. Like, I never overdid
it. I still don't overdo it.
But I realize as I'm looking
back on this past eight years of my health journey,
I only got so far. And then I
(13:21):
started backsliding, mostly because I
had this fear and the
things weren't working. And then I doubled down,
and then I did this. And then life threw
me a major curveball.
And here I am today,
gathering all my healthy habits. That's what
(13:42):
I lean on. But the
ones that are sustaining me are not
keto habits. They're not
vegetarian habits, even though I was never a vegetarian,
because, let's be honest, I like my meat.
But I've been falling back on whole
foods as much as possible. The problem
is when I'm stressed,
(14:05):
when life throws me curveballs, I
often don't eat enough,
and that's a problem. And
that's also where I learned that
calorie counting doesn't always
work. It's not always about calories in, calories
out. It's about fueling your
body and nutrient
(14:26):
density. People nutrient
density. Be talking a lot
about nutrient density.
And when you're in a period of
stress, for whatever reason,
learning to put some of those healthy
habits aside. The biggest
habit I am working on, unlearning,
(14:48):
and it's definitely hard because my body's
trained to have adapted to it, is
intermittent fasting. I am at a
point in my health, for my
age, for the stage of perimenopause I'm in for
the stage of stress I have is that I need to
stop intermittent fasting and eat three whole
(15:09):
meals a day. And you know what I struggle with?
Breakfast. Now, some of you are going to say, well, if you're
not hungry, don't eat. But if I'm not eating
enough at lunch and I'm not eating enough at dinner, I need
that third meal. I
need to get the nutrients
in to fuel my
body to Keep my body running
(15:31):
healthy. With that third
meal, you're going to tell me, just eat bigger
two other meals. That doesn't always work.
Eating enough protein
as an aging female is
my priority. And lately I cannot get that in
two meals. I need that third meal.
(15:52):
But all this is to say
that we have to build the healthy habits, but
we have to learn when to break
them as well. Following the rules
works when it's working. When it's not
working, we need to unfollow the rules and make
new ones for ourselves. For me right now, that means
(16:12):
eating three meals a day, trying to get in a
lot more vegetables so that I'm fueling my gut
microbiome, making
sure I'm getting enough healthy fats so that my
hormones are working well. There is so much
going on, but it is making sure I
am prioritizing my protein, getting in my
healthy fats, getting in enough vegetables,
(16:35):
getting a nutrient dense diet in. And
then you know what? I can be empowered
when I'm out and about and I can
have that slice of whatever. Because the month
of December, it's all about
saying yes to sugar. And you're going to go, huh?
Because that's what I said. We want
(16:55):
to be empowered through the
holidays to choose
or choose not to indulge
and be absolutely okay with it. So that requires two
things. Mentally being
prepared, physically being prepared. Because like
I say over and over and over
(17:16):
again, if the majority of our
diet is nutrient dense whole
foods, that little bit that's not, does not
undo all the stuff that we did with
our nutrient dense whole foods.
Learning how to improve my relationship
with foods, improving your relationship
with food. Understanding
(17:38):
that over restriction
is a form of control. But is
it the right form of control to get us
to a healthy relationship to food? We don't need
junk food. We don't need all the toxic crap
that's in our food. That is not what I'm talking
about. There was a point in time
(17:58):
in this world that people ate whole
foods and that it included some sugar.
Mom would make a cake. I mean, this was before my
mom. My mom. Well, my mom actually did make cakes from scratch,
but they used to make cakes in the 60s and the 50s and
the 40s from scratch. Not out of a
box with all these chemicals in it. From scratch.
(18:19):
Can you believe it? They got flour and eggs and
all this stuff. That stuff is still
whole foods because there's no chemicals in
it. But I'm not telling you
to go make us cake from scratch. That's not where I'm going, I know
I'm going on some rants right now, but we need
to get back to the way things
were and get back to Whole
(18:41):
Foods and making foods for
ourself most of the time. So that,
that little bit of a time where it's not perfect, we're
okay. You might be wondering how I got here.
It was by looking around, looking at my
friends, family, and how two people can
eat the exact same thing and one have issues
and one doesn't. Now, I'm not saying
(19:04):
if you have health issues to go hog wild. What
I'm saying is address,
your health in a way
that's sustainable forever.
A restrictive diet at some
point is not going to be sustainable
forever because your body's going to need
other nutrients that you're not getting. It's going
(19:26):
to adapt and down regulate or
upregulate whatever it is to how
you're eating for a long period of time.
Our body is meant to be dual
fueled, meaning we burn both fat
for fuel and glucose for fuel. That is how
we're built. And when we go from one extreme
to the other, the opposite
(19:49):
side weakens of how we digest it, of
how we process it, of how our body
utilizes it. It doesn't mean that it's
bad because we've gone, vegan
and all of a sudden we eat meat and get sick, or we've gone
carnivore and all of a sudden we eat carbs and get sick.
It means our bodies have adapted to what we're
eating and needs to readapt
(20:11):
to an omnivorous lifestyle.
So to wrap things up a little bit and put a
nice tidy bow, we're
omnivorous, we need to eat a nutrient
dense diet and we need to be empowered
to make healthy choices as well
as sometimes not so healthy choices.
But that not so healthy choices by being
(20:34):
empowered, meaning we have it
and we move on. It is not
something that we start adding in day in and
day out. We are empowered
to live a fulfilled life, enjoying
our friends and family and not always
feeling like the oddball. It's okay
(20:54):
not to eat things, but it's also okay
to eat them as long as you're doing it in a healthy
manner. So let's work on our relationship to
food and our
balance of nutrient density to
make sure we are getting in all the macro
and micronutrients our bodies
(21:15):
need to thrive. The goal
on this is to become the healthiest version of
us and to thrive. And for each
one of us, that's going to be different.
Some people can thrive on a vegan diet.
Some people can thrive on a carnivore diet.
The majority of us, it's somewhere in the
(21:35):
middle. On, that note, friends, I will see you next
time. Be healthy. Bye.
Thanks for listening. I hope you got some nuggets to take
on your health journey. Remember, this podcast
is for educational and entertainment purposes.
No medical advice is being given, and by
listening to this podcast, you agree to the full
(21:58):
disclaimer, which is linked in the show Notes. M. You can
stay connected by joining the newsletter over at
holistichealthmadesimple.com where I
share additional tips and tricks weekly. Once
again, thank you for being part of my community. Until
next time, have a blessed day.
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