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30. The Nutrition Advice No One Ever Taught Us with Jenn Trepeck
71 Plays4 years ago
How can we achieve our health goals without falling into the same patterns of unhealthy crash dieting? In this week’s episode, we chat with Jenn Trepeck, an optimal health coach and business consultant, all about the science behind blood sugar and metabolism, and how these elements play a key role in our wellness and weight management. Jenn shares why the “calories in, calories out” method is not a healthy approach to food and nutrition, along with:
- How to identify hunger vs. cravings
- Tips for navigating the gray areas of our lives
- Dieting myths we grew up with
- Why we self-sabotage and how to stop ourselves from doing it
- How we can learn to be motivated by the positive
- And more!
Jenn is also the host of Salad With a Side of Fries, a podcast that explores wellness in real life and debunks the dieting myths that permeate our culture.
If you enjoy this episode, please feel free to rate and review the podcast on whatever app you’re listening on, and share with a friend!
Connect with Jenn:
- Website: BetterLifeNowLLC.com
- Podcast: Salad With a Side of Fries
- Instagram: @jenntrepeck
- Facebook: facebook.com/jenntrepeck
- Twitter: @jenntrepeck
Connect with the show:
- Website: WellnessAndWanderlust.net
- Instagram: @wellnessandwanderlustblog
- Facebook: facebook.com/wellnessandwanderlustblog
- Twitter: @moses_says
Other Resources:
- Get 10% off a Begin Within journal to record your wellness journey with code WELLNESS10
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode is sponsored by Anchor, the official host of wellness and wanderlust. Anchor is the easiest way to create your dream podcast. With Anchor, you can record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer. Anchor will then distribute your podcast for you so it can be heard on Spotify, Apple podcasts, and other popular podcast apps.
00:00:20
Speaker
You can even make money from your podcast using Anchor. Anchor is your one-stop shop with everything you need to make a podcast. Download the free Anchor app or go to anchor.fm to get started.
Podcast Introduction and Host Experience
00:00:36
Speaker
Welcome to the wellness and wanderlust podcast. We're here to demystify wellness and help you add a little adventure to your life. Tune in for a new episode every week, where we'll hear from incredible guests and talk about ways to be happier and healthier in our new normal. I'm your host, Valerie Moses. Let's get started.
00:00:56
Speaker
Hey, Hey wellness and wanderlust fans. Welcome back to the podcast and thank you so much for joining me again for another incredible week. I am so glad that you found the show. Now this time last week I was on my way to get my second Moderna vaccine. So of course I promised to share my experience with you all. Now, first off, I had both of my vaccines at the Walmart pharmacy, and I have to say that I highly recommend it if you haven't already scheduled yours.
00:01:20
Speaker
Now, it was really easy to do. I created an account on their pharmacy site, and then I hung around until about midnight when new appointments started to open up about six days out. Now, this was before the whole state of Florida had opened up, so I know that there are more vaccines available now than there were when I was originally scheduling this, but that was how I was able to get my first appointment. So if you're having trouble, I highly suggest going that route. Now, both times around that I went to the Walmart pharmacy, they were incredibly efficient.
00:01:47
Speaker
They took me earlier than I was scheduled. I was in and out pretty quickly and everyone was really friendly and organized. My post vaccine symptoms for the second shot were actually pretty mild compared to most of the people that I've talked to now. By no means was I feeling amazing. I didn't run any marathons in this time, but you know, I was really sore at the injection site and that took a few days. But for the most part, I just had a lot of aches and pains, especially in my back. Now, before getting your second shot, I strongly suggest stocking up on heat packs.
00:02:17
Speaker
so that you don't have to rely as much on the Tylenol since that can affect your immune response. My temperature was a little elevated the first night, but I tend to run a little low most of the time anyway, so it really wasn't that bad. But mostly, I just felt extremely tired for a few days. I slept, I napped a lot, I binged probably half of the first season of Lost, which who knew I'm addicted to a new show.
00:02:40
Speaker
So I highly recommend when you get the vaccine, take the time off of work, pick some things on Netflix, Hulu, whatever it is that you want to watch, sit back, relax. I also found Pedialyte to be really helpful and I'm really glad that I had a lot of it in the house just to keep me a little more hydrated. I had the vaccine on a Thursday morning and I felt significantly better by Sunday night. I was back to working out on Monday so
00:03:04
Speaker
I hope sharing my experience helps somebody who is listening since I know it can be really scary and hard to know what to expect right now. Before this year, none of us had ever gotten a COVID vaccine. We kind of know what to expect after the tetanus shot, flu shot, but this is something entirely new for so many of us, but I think so important for stopping the spread of this virus that has taken so much from us.
00:03:28
Speaker
If anybody does have any questions and doesn't have anyone to ask, you know, my DMs are open and I am happy to share more about what my experience was like and answer any questions that you may have to the best of my capabilities.
Guest Introduction and Wellness Expertise
00:03:42
Speaker
Now shifting gears here, I am so excited to introduce you to this week's guest, Jen Trappik.
00:03:48
Speaker
Jen is an optimal health coach and a business consultant who has been described as a force of nature in the wellness space. She is also the host of a fantastic podcast, Salad with a Side of Fries, which I totally encourage you to check out after you listen to our conversation.
Nutrition Myths and Realities
00:04:04
Speaker
And this week, Jen and I talk about the science behind blood sugar and metabolism and why the whole calories in, calories out is not really a healthy approach to food and nutrition.
00:04:14
Speaker
She shares all of the information we wish we knew about healthy living, and we get into some techniques to help us develop a more intuitive style around eating. We talk about how to identify hunger versus cravings, avoiding self-sabotage, and learning to be motivated by the positive and to find some balance in our lives. I know that you're going to love this one. Enough from me. Let's hear from Jen Trappik. Hi, Jen. Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Hi. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited.
00:04:43
Speaker
I am so excited to have you. Now, why don't you tell our listeners a little about yourself and your wellness journey?
00:04:49
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm a health coach now. I have a specialty in weight management. But I call it a saga, right? So my story really started, I guess, growing up. I grew up a dancer. And I joke that I was the skinny one in a family of dieters. But the reality is I was just on a diet my whole life, and I didn't realize it.
00:05:15
Speaker
And I think as a dancer, too, I was more aware of my body than the average person. And in that process, growing up, I ate when I was hungry. I didn't eat when I wasn't hungry. And I danced six, seven days a week. Then between high school and college, everything changed.
00:05:39
Speaker
I started birth control, so I think that played into it. I moved to college. I wasn't dancing. Food was totally different. All the things, it was the perfect storm. And I started to gain weight. And I was like, okay, interesting. Do I go to a gym now? I think I go to a gym. I think that's what people do when they're not a dancer, you know? Yeah.
00:06:04
Speaker
I was like, on the food part, cool. I watched my family do this my whole life. I know what to do. And I started every diet under the sun, like gained and lost the whole nine over and over and over. And it was like every time, right, trying a different diet and doing a different thing. And that's what you did. And then, and there were times where I just remember feeling so defeated.
00:06:29
Speaker
Like what is wrong with me? Why can't I just lose the weight? Right? Why does it always come back? Why do I feel like I breathe and gain weight sometimes?
Exercise Misconceptions and Health Strategies
00:06:41
Speaker
And even when I first learned about the program that I now teach,
00:06:46
Speaker
I was like, no, no, no, that's okay. I've got my thing. Like, I didn't need their information. I had my thing. My thing was this crazy roller coaster merry-go-round. But I had my thing, right? And I remember...
00:07:04
Speaker
This was like 2007, I want to say. Like early 2007, I saw people who were following this program. And like I said, at first, I was like, no, no, no. And then I kept seeing them. And they were keeping the weight off. And then this one woman was telling her story.
00:07:24
Speaker
And I wish I knew who she was. Literally all I remember is she was telling her story of losing like 150 pounds. Everything she said after that sounded like the teacher and Charlie Brown, like there were no words, right? I was like all in my own head staring at her because I couldn't see where 10 pounds could have been on her body.
00:07:49
Speaker
And she's telling me that another human was attached to her, you know? And I'm like, what? Like, this does not compute. And I remember having a moment with myself of like, Jennifer, they know something you don't know. Maybe you owe it to yourself to see what that is.
00:08:10
Speaker
And I worked with a coach. I followed the program. It completely changed my life. Like the only thing that's allowed me to say I've kicked my food issues. And from then on, I set out on a mission to pay it forward and help people help themselves with this information. Because I felt like it was the nutrition education we're all supposed to know and no one ever taught us.
00:08:32
Speaker
And I learned that it actually wasn't willpower. It was all a lot of science, but not the science that we've been led to believe.
Emotional Eating and Food Sensitivities
00:08:43
Speaker
And so I started working with clients late 2007 on the side of my full-time job. So I built a health coaching business like nights and weekends.
00:08:54
Speaker
And it wasn't until July of 2019 that I left my full-time job. That's when I launched my podcast Salad with a Side of Fries that August. I love that name, by the way. Thank you. Thanks. And I guess, fast forward, now I'm here talking to Valerie, right? Talking to you. That's awesome. And I think there are so many marketing myths out there and so many conflicting messages.
00:09:20
Speaker
You have some people saying that it needs to be whole grain. Some people say you need to cut out gluten no matter what's wrong with your health. And some people do keto. You hear pretty much every diet under the sun. And I've certainly tried probably about half of that. Right? Yeah.
00:09:38
Speaker
There's a club for us. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think we need a support group. What did you learn when you were going through this program? What are some of the things that we just don't know that would help us when it comes to weight loss? And I think what's even harder sometimes is keeping it off.
00:09:58
Speaker
Yeah. So a couple of things. I mean, first, understanding that metabolic health, our metabolism, is a snowball to our overall health. There is a direct correlation between
Diet Myths and Motivation Strategies
00:10:12
Speaker
metabolic health and immune health and reproductive health and cardiovascular health. And every system in our body comes back to our metabolic health in some way.
00:10:23
Speaker
So when we think about what we're doing and what we want to focus on, we really need to remember, you and I were talking about this before we started recording, that it really is over all health that we're focused on, and the weight loss is the byproduct.
00:10:40
Speaker
That's the side effect. It's sometimes the primary goal, right? Because we notice when our pants don't fit, we notice when we feel crappy, when we have no energy, but it's a snowball to everything else. And when we get a diagnosis of something else,
00:10:58
Speaker
It often, you know, if we roll it back, it comes back to these fundamentals. So I think that's the first piece of recognizing that, you know, our weight is not in isolation. A diagnosis of pre-diabetes or, you know, a cardiovascular issue or cholesterol challenges or anything else showing up does not exist in isolation. Everything in the body is connected. So then when we roll it back,
00:11:27
Speaker
There's so many things my brain is like overwhelmed in this moment So I think one of the first things for us to understand is that whether we are burning fat or Storing fat. It's a function of blood sugar Okay
00:11:43
Speaker
So if our blood sugar is too high, and our blood sugar could be too high because we've eaten too much at one time, or we've eaten foods that spike our blood sugar, like the croissant, the cookies, the cakes, a giant bowl of rice, they're delicious. Or we sit down at the restaurant and we start with the bread basket. So back when we went to restaurants often,
00:12:13
Speaker
One of the good old days. So this is sort of an old reference, but do you know the show I Love Lucy? Yes. Okay. Do you know the episode where they're in the candy factory? My favorite episode. Okay. So tell us what's supposed to happen and what actually happens.
00:12:33
Speaker
they are they have the chocolate on the conveyor belt they're supposed to be putting everything together kind of one at a time it's completely piling up and they end up eating half of the chocolates just trying to get you know keep a pile up from happening on the conveyor belt basically
00:12:49
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah, their job I think was to like wrap the candy and then it had to go to the next station and it was like they were doing anything they could do so that an unwrapped candy didn't get to the next station because they were going to be fired. So then they started like, as you said, like they were shoving the candy in their hat and their pockets and their mouth like anywhere so that they didn't get fired. Yeah. So our body sort of kind of exactly works the same way.
00:13:16
Speaker
So when food and fuel come at a nice even pace, when that conveyor belt starts out slow and it's moving at an even pace, our body can do what it's supposed to do. We break down the food, insulin is produced to carry that fuel to our muscles and our cells to be used. When we eat those high glycemic impact foods, when we sit down at the restaurant and start with the bread basket,
00:13:42
Speaker
It's like flipping a switch and it speeds up the conveyor belt. And so our body overproduces insulin because it's like, oh boy, we got a lot to do here, right? So our body overproduces insulin.
00:13:56
Speaker
And our muscles and our cells are taking in the fuel, but they can only take in so much at a time and they close. So then our bodies left with all this extra fuel and extra insulin, all of that is stored as fat because our fat cells never close. Lovely fat cells. So all of that extra fuel and the extra insulin is stored as fat.
00:14:19
Speaker
So let's say we sit down at the restaurant, we order steamed fish and steamed vegetables and we're like, good for me, right? Oh, I'm starving. I'm just going to have that one piece of bread. That piece of bread flips the switch on the conveyor belt and now your steamed fish and vegetables is being stored as fat.
00:14:39
Speaker
Wow, I didn't know that. It's crazy. So it doesn't mean we're never eating bread again, right? It's about how do we put everything together so that we can keep our blood sugar levels even. I'll come back to that in a second.
Consistency and Personalization in Wellness Routines
00:14:53
Speaker
Let's go to the other extreme of if our blood sugar is too low. So this could happen because we just get busy and we forget to eat, or we've heard a million times like,
00:15:08
Speaker
calories in, calories out. So we think, oh, I'm supposed to eat less, right? So we sort of don't eat enough or we don't eat for long periods of time. I see it a lot with men where they tend to like not eat all day and then have a big dinner. So our body's biology is still the same as hundreds of years ago when we were hunters and gatherers. Like our caveman biology has not evolved to modern society.
00:15:38
Speaker
So what's happening is our body without getting fuel says, oh, it must be a time of famine, right? Hunter-gatherer, if I don't eat, it's because there isn't food to eat.
00:15:53
Speaker
So whatever I get next, I'm going to hold onto for survival fat as fuel stored to be used later. So the next time I get something, I'm going to hold onto it as fat so that I can survive in this famine and in the next famine.
00:16:11
Speaker
And so funny you mentioned that because I've done the crash diets where I was eating, you know, 800 calories a day, lost a lot of weight really fast. And then it started coming right back up. Yes. And the science of what happens when we do that. So the reason the scale goes down in the beginning is because we're losing water and muscle and that stops and sometimes even bone density. Right. So then the number on the scale goes down, but then it stops.
00:16:40
Speaker
And we get really frustrated. And then we go back to these old eating habits because whether it's eating 800 calories or cutting out whole food groups or whatever crazy thing we did, and I say crazy and we because I did them all, whatever we did to make that number and the scale go down is not sustainable.
00:17:03
Speaker
Yeah. So when we get frustrated by not seeing the scale change, we go back to these old eating habits and we add in all the things that we cut out. And now we have less muscle on our body to be burning that extra fuel. So muscle is metabolically active.
00:17:19
Speaker
Losing muscle is the opposite of what we want. So now we go back to these old eating habits. We have less muscle on our body. We're eating all these foods again. We gain the weight back. We might end up at the same number on the scale as we were before, but by body composition, we're actually fatter at that same number than the last time we weighed that number. So this brings us to a few things, right? So if you're a note taker or whatever, I want you to write this down. Number one, muscle dictates metabolism.
00:17:49
Speaker
You want to burn more fuel all the time, build more muscle. It doesn't mean that you have to tomorrow become a bodybuilder, but we do have to build muscle because muscle dictates metabolism. And I think another big misconception about weight loss is cardio for weight loss. Build muscle.
00:18:09
Speaker
And then the other side of this, of what we've been talking about, is measuring body fat percentage. So the number on the scale, that total number on the scale, is one of the worst barometers of our progress and our health. As is BMI, by the way, because BMI is just that total number in our height. I hate the BMI. I can't even. I did a whole episode about how bad it is.
00:18:38
Speaker
the original scientist who created it. Like it was never designed to measure individuals. It was designed to measure populations over time. Oh, wow.
00:18:47
Speaker
So anyway, I can't even with that, but that one's called BMI is BS for anybody who wants to check that one out. I'm definitely tuning into that because you're so right. And even with weight, I've been the same weight at many different times and my health has been very, very different. Exactly.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:19:05
Speaker
And so that body fat percent is a much better indicator of our health and our outcomes than that total number in the BMI. That makes total sense. Yeah.
00:19:16
Speaker
So then with the food thing, how do we eat if our blood sugar being too high and our blood sugar being too low both put us into fat storage mode? How do we keep our blood sugar levels even and in this middle range where we're never storing fat? Here's another one for the note takers.
00:19:38
Speaker
Protein and fiber at every meal makes removing fat no big deal. Protein and fiber at every meal makes removing fat no big deal. So yeah, protein is clean lean protein. Whether you want that to be animal or plant, whatever, clean lean protein.
00:19:54
Speaker
Fiber is vegetables and sometimes fruit. And the meal is really any time we eat. The only difference between a meal and a snack is how much we have, how long it's gonna last us. So when we focus on the protein and the vegetables and the fruit.
00:20:10
Speaker
our body gets nutrition, vitamins, minerals, all the macronutrients, right? So you have micronutrients of vitamins and minerals, macronutrients of protein, carbs, and fat, right? When we focus on getting those things in a day, and you don't have to start counting macros, like I don't count anything, I don't measure anything, you don't have to. Because when we're eating foods that give our body nutrition, the quantities will take care of themselves.
00:20:40
Speaker
And it seems crazy because we're like, no, I eat too much. Like, look, nobody ever died from eating too much spinach and kale and arugula and broccoli and cauliflower and Brussels sprouts.
00:20:54
Speaker
Right? Like, you know, I make the joke like nobody died from eating too many bananas, right? Eat the banana. It's cool. So we don't want to lose our common sense when it comes to this stuff about our weight and the thing with quantities and that in air quotes, right, like self control. So our body can regulate itself when it's getting nutrition, right? Our body only has so many signals that can send us.
00:21:23
Speaker
We have hunger, we have thirst, we have sleep, right? There's only so many signals that we get. If we're giving our body food that is devoid of nutrition, so we're eating a ton of what I call like food-like substances, right? A lot of processed food where it seems like food, it tastes good, but it's not actually giving our body anything it needs. Our body takes it in and says, huh, I don't really know what to do with these chemicals.
00:21:52
Speaker
What I actually need are vitamins and minerals and some protein. So I guess I'm gonna tell you I'm hungry because that's what I'm looking for and I don't know what to do with this stuff. So we keep getting these hunger signals because our body doesn't know what to do with what we've given it. It's not giving our body what it needs. And a lot of those foods that are processed and coming out of a box or a bag,
00:22:20
Speaker
have chemicals in them that turn off our ability to know when we're full. So it's not you. You don't suck. It's not that you have no willpower. It's actually very chemical.
00:22:32
Speaker
Well, I'm so disgusted by so many, you know, I mean, they're geniuses, but the food scientists out there, you know, being able to know exactly how many bites you need to take before something almost becomes addictive. And it's really scary. And it is, you know, people talk about moderation all the time. It is really hard to moderate what the chemicals are telling you to keep, you know, to finish the bag. Right. Exactly. And that's the whole thing. Like, that's when we start to think it's us.
00:23:02
Speaker
It's not us. It's not you. It is amazing. And there is an economic drive for those companies to make it so that you can't eat just one. That's not you. That was by design. And so I think a big thing is also like, let ourselves off the hook for a second.
00:23:24
Speaker
You know, like it doesn't have to be so much pressure. Yeah. Now what I'm wondering too, I think that you bring up some good points with this. As far as, you know, those hunger signals, how can we tell when we're actually hungry versus, you know, your emotional, maybe hangry little bored? How can we really distinguish that? Great question. Does broccoli sound good?
00:23:49
Speaker
Actually, yeah. Then you're hungry. If the only thing that sounds good is chips and cookies, we're probably not actually hungry. So the question to then ask yourself is, where am I not being fed? And I know that feels a little loaded, but where am I not being fed? Do I need a break? Do I need to just take a rest? Do I need to go for a walk and get some fresh air?
00:24:18
Speaker
What am I actually what purpose am I looking for this food to serve? You know, that's so true because I think about all of the times where maybe you need a break from work or something like that. And so the thing that makes sense is walking down to the break room and getting something out of the vending machine rather than maybe
00:24:35
Speaker
I'm going to walk a lap around the building or something like that in the same amount of time. It's really that I needed the break, but the first thing that comes to mind is, well, I can go get a snack. Exactly. I think we've justified not working if we're eating. We haven't justified not working to legitimately give ourselves a minute for our brain to recuperate.
00:24:59
Speaker
And the funny part is like we justify not working when we eat, you know, to eat, but then we eat lunch sitting in front of the screen. A hundred percent. You know, it's really like we're very complicated as humans. Yes.
00:25:16
Speaker
Yeah. And I know I am definitely someone who's guilty of that. I have to sometimes remind myself, especially right now, working from home for the next couple of months before we start heading back and working at my kitchen table. I've had to designate another weird spot to eat just so that I'm not anywhere near my laptop. Exactly. Exactly. And the other thing to realize with all of this is hunger and satiety
00:25:46
Speaker
are chemical. So there are hormones in the body that tell us, right, that signal hunger. That's called ghrelin. And then there's a hormone that signals satiety, like when we're done eating. That's called leptin.
00:26:01
Speaker
And just like we can become resistant to insulin, right? We know that as diabetes. We can become resistant to the hormones that tell us when we're hungry and when we're satisfied. So over time, if we're continuing to not listen to those signals, we become resistant to those hormones. And so again, it's super chemical that maybe you don't feel hungry all day, right? It's kind of a red flag.
00:26:30
Speaker
Or once you start eating, then you find it difficult to stop. And you're eating the healthful choices where you should be, and I hate the word should, right? But we're in theory, our body can regulate, but we're not. That's an indication of leptin resistance or insensitivity. And so we want to retrain our body to properly respond to those hormones.
00:26:58
Speaker
And we can do that with our food choices and some supplementation and things like that. But so you're not doomed, right? But I share this to say it's all super chemical. When we feel like we're hungry, but we're not really, you know, because we want to eat those other things like cortisol, the stress hormone creates creations. You know, there's a lot going on. And I share it all in the context of saying like, it's
00:27:25
Speaker
Chemical it's not you it's not your brain. It's not your heart. There's nothing wrong with you right as a human It's very chemical Yeah, you know, I think that's why a lot of times when I am eating the processed foods and I decide okay It's time to really cut back on some of this willpower or not. You feel hungover for a little bit. Yeah
00:27:47
Speaker
Absolutely. I used to call it the food hangover. Oh my gosh. It's terrible. I experimented with Whole30 a little bit getting out of college. I have some autoimmune issues, wanted to see what foods that were good for me versus what foods my body didn't like. And I always joked that nobody come anywhere near me in the first week of the whole
00:28:09
Speaker
because I'm not going to be very nice. Now, granted, if I was eating fairly healthy leading up to it and it was just kind of a reset on sugar, then maybe it was a little bit easier. But if I was, unfortunately, a lot of times I did kind of start it around New Year's.
00:28:25
Speaker
And you're coming off of the holidays and maybe had a few drinks on New Year's Eve and it's New Year's Day and you were starting off and you were truly, you know, it is so hard to get your body back to that. But I think that, you know, not blaming ourselves and knowing, hey, this is what the chemicals are doing to us. I think that does help you through it a little bit more.
00:28:45
Speaker
Exactly. I'll do a detox with my clients as well and very different than what a lot of us think when we hear detox or cleanse or whatever, but it's really interesting what happens when we get all this stuff out of our system. The other side to that is when you are a little cranky,
00:29:04
Speaker
in those moments, or you have that headache, or you are a little extra tired. It's a really good sign. It means that what you're doing is working, right, doing its job. And then we get to move forward on the other side of it, almost from a different baseline. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
00:29:23
Speaker
Now, as far as blood sugar goes, how often should we eat? We hear so many different articles where it's like, you have five tiny meals a day versus three square meals a day. And I know maybe this could differ by person, but in general, how often should we be eating? Yeah, this is a
00:29:43
Speaker
It's definitely very individual. And here's how I talk about it. We want to get something in our system within an hour of waking up, right? That signals our body to start moving. You're going to get fuel, and they want you to perform, right? It's not a time of famine. So we're signaling our body that it is OK to burn fuel. And think about a snack lasting
00:30:11
Speaker
one to two hours, depending on how much you have. And a meal lasting maybe four to five, five and a half, depending on how much you have. And then go about your day. So like if you, let's say it's a weekend and you wake up at 11 a.m., don't eat every hour in an effort to try to get all the things in. You're not awake for that many hours, right?
00:30:38
Speaker
Yeah. So we want to eat according to our day and according to, you know, like how much we're having. And then we want to end our day, right? Last food should be like two hours before bed. So if we sort of time it that way, some people, you know, might feel better having a handful of smaller meals throughout the day.
00:31:05
Speaker
Okay. Some people feel better having a larger meal here and there. That's the part where it becomes experimentation person to person. Like take the guideline, right? And sort of the bookends and then play it out and see how you feel. And then even within that, how do you feel differently if lunch or breakfast are your big meal of the day versus dinner being the big meal of the day? What do you notice?
00:31:33
Speaker
And when I say what do you notice, we want to look at our energy, our confidence, our mood, our mental clarity, right? And our ability to do the things that we need to do. Those are really our better barometers along with body fat percentage, but those are really our better barometers for if something works for us.
00:31:55
Speaker
I could not agree more. I know that a lot of times when we think of weight loss and we think of optimizing our health, we do think of that number as being kind of the number one sign that what we're doing is working. But I think so often it really is. How am I feeling? Am I crashing at 2 o'clock in the afternoon? Because the weight is going to come off with all of that. But truly, how am I actually feeling? Because temporarily, the weight could come off doing a crash diet or something unhealthy as well. Totally.
00:32:25
Speaker
And here's the thing about diets, any diet will work.
00:32:30
Speaker
any and every diet out there works. The question becomes two things. One, how long-term is it? And two, how healthful is it? Is it supporting our long-term health and the health of all of our organs, right? Not just the number and the scale going down. And that's where you get to the difference between all the things that we've heard and all the different plans out there.
00:33:00
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I've definitely noticed times where I was losing weight pretty rapidly, but at the same time, my blood work showed that I was pretty much malnourished. And other times I'm eating pretty clean, maybe a little bit larger portions, and maybe that number might be a little bit higher, but cholesterol has lowered. All of those numbers have gotten better. And I think
00:33:23
Speaker
I get through my day a lot easier. And again, I'm not falling asleep the same way at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. But I think there are a lot of marketing myths out there. I think that every diet company is trying to sell something. And we have a lot of conflicting information. What would you say are some of the biggest myths that we need to look out for? And how can you debunk some of those marketing myths that we see? Yeah. So I think the first one, which we sort of talked about before, but I'm going to say it explicitly,
00:33:50
Speaker
It is not calories in, calories out. It's just not. We can't tell our body to burn the M&Ms and our body eating 300 calories of the M&Ms or 300 calories of cucumbers. Now, that would be a lot of cucumbers. I don't recommend that. But just for our human's sake, right? Like our body doesn't use those the same way. So it is not calories in, calories out.
00:34:16
Speaker
It is quality in, quality out, get up and move more. So that's number one. We talked about it before, but like cardio for weight loss. You know, cardio is really important. The purpose of cardio is to use our heart as a muscle. Our heart is a very important muscle, right? If that muscle doesn't work, we got problems. Yeah. But if we want to improve our metabolism,
00:34:44
Speaker
and burn more fuel all the time, whether we're sitting at a desk, laying on the couch or working out, we need more muscle. So muscle dictates metabolism. So I think that's another one. And you mentioned it, the idea of, oh, we'll go gluten-free even if you're not gluten-free, or you don't have a medical need to be gluten-free. Yeah. And here's the thing. When we cut out whole food groups,
00:35:13
Speaker
our body will stop knowing how to process them. And just because something doesn't have gluten doesn't mean it's inherently healthier. So for example, rice doesn't have gluten. A lot of gluten-free packaged products are made with rice flour instead of a different type of grain flour.
00:35:38
Speaker
Well, rice, and rice flour in particular, is higher glycemic than other whole grains. So we're not necessarily doing ourselves any favors by eating this processed food that's gluten-free and made from rice flour that's going to spike our blood sugar and put us into that fat storage mode if what we really could have eaten was some whole cooked barley and given ourselves that nutrition. Yeah.
00:36:09
Speaker
Yeah. I, you know, and I see so many, you know, I, so I am gluten free at this point. Um, not celiac, but pretty sensitive to it. I find that when I do occasionally I'll be like, maybe it's not that bad. And of course I get the migraine I get basically look pregnant and, and with the auto-immune issues in general, my doctor had told me to kind of avoid it, but being gluten free now versus gluten free in 2014, I think was the first time I did a whole 30. There are a lot of
00:36:37
Speaker
There are really delicious options out there and they're really great if you need something, you know, you're bringing a dessert or something like that. You want to have it. I'm so glad for the options out there. And if I want starch, there are starches that, you know, that now I can have and I can feel like part of the crew, but at the same time, definitely not as healthy as, you know, replacing it with a vegetable.
00:37:01
Speaker
It's definitely not necessarily the healthy option, but I see so many people like, well, it's the gluten-free one, so it's going to be healthier. It's like, no, my body will respond better to it. I won't have a migraine. I won't get sick from it, but it's not really serving me either other than maybe mentally a little bit.
00:37:21
Speaker
Exactly. And so that brings up too, right? There's food sensitivities and there are food allergies. So a big piece of this is noticing how you feel. Like you said, you notice feeling bloated and you get a migraine. I have some food sensitivities like cashews. Cashews give me that food hangover. Did a blood test. It's a food sensitivity. No wonder why. Yeah.
00:37:45
Speaker
So I happen to avoid cashews. All other nuts are fine. Cashew's not great for me. But in those moments, the tricky thing about understanding food sensitivities and food allergies, to test for it, you need to pull it out entirely for about two weeks.
00:38:06
Speaker
Then you have one type, one serving, one meal, and then not again for three days because the symptoms are often not immediate. It can take up to three days for those symptoms to occur. So if you notice that you're not feeling great, it's not necessarily what you just ate or what you ate that morning or what you ate that day. It could be something that you ate three days ago.
00:38:34
Speaker
So that makes the argument for tracking and journaling. And I know a lot of us have a lot of resistance to doing it. I did too. But when we think about it in this way of being able to just collect the data so that we don't have to keep it all in our head, because let's be real, you might not be doing it on a piece of paper, you're doing it in your head. It's not that it's not happening. And the thing for me is that when it was on the paper and I didn't have to keep it in my head,
00:39:04
Speaker
All of a sudden, I had capacity in my brain for things that mattered. And everything else in my life got better because I wasn't trying to keep track of all this food stuff in my head. I love that. We had a guest on the show not too long ago talking about journaling for autoimmune health, but for other things as well. And just the power of being able to see that on paper and getting that out. And yeah, I think it really does make a difference.
00:39:33
Speaker
And then it can become, especially when we're tracking food, right? Then it can become a menu of saying, okay, what was that week where I felt awesome? Let me try that again. Yeah. Right. And I know exactly what that was. That is such a great idea. Yeah. Or it can become your grocery list or it becomes the tools and the data to understand the results and the feedback.
00:39:58
Speaker
I love that. I really do think it's all about feeling good. Our food is our fuel. Amen. I think that so often we do think about health and weight loss in a very punishing way. I talk a lot on the podcast about approaching it from a place of love, and I really do feel that way. I think for some people, sometimes that weight loss, that is
00:40:21
Speaker
coming from a place of love and it's coming from a place of wanting our bodies to operate better and we want ourselves to just feel better. And unfortunately, you know, I think that the industry, they do prey on, I think, our insecurities and the fact that there is so much information out there. And how do you, how do you counsel your clients on this about, you know, approaching that weight loss and approaching health goals from a place of love and productivity rather than kind of feeling bad about yourself?
00:40:50
Speaker
Yeah, so it's a process and this comes in, I see this come in the most.
00:40:58
Speaker
when we've hit a plateau or we've been at it for a little while. Because when we start, we're really highly motivated, right? We have our reasons, whatever that is, we have our reasons. And then we start to see some results and maybe the results are slowing down or this is feeling like old hat and we're like, no, I got to push. I got to push to keep going, right? Mm-hmm.
00:41:23
Speaker
And I think what happens, and now this is my own theory, this is not actual science. Make it very clear. I have a theory that when we're looking to reclaim that motivation, to push ourselves to keep going, we think back and say, well, what motivated me in the beginning?
00:41:48
Speaker
Right? What was happening when I was so gung-ho? And we think, oh, I was really unhappy. OK. I was really miserable, and I don't feel that miserable now. But in an effort to try to motivate myself to keep going, maybe what I need to do is beat myself up enough to feel as bad as I felt in the beginning, because that's when I felt super motivated.
00:42:12
Speaker
That is such a good point, and I hadn't thought about that before, but sometimes it can be a little scary when you're feeling that good about something that you weren't feeling good about before.
00:42:23
Speaker
And we know what it's like to be somebody who needs to lose weight. We know what it's like to be somebody who's on a diet. We don't know what it's like to live where this isn't a thing. So part of this process is to learn to be motivated by the positive instead of being motivated by the negative, right? Because in the beginning, we're motivated by how crappy we feel sometimes, right? Or that our pants don't fit. And now our pants fit.
00:42:52
Speaker
So now it's about saying, well, how do I want to feel? I want to have energy. I want to be able to do the things with my friends. I want to, or my kids or grandkids, right? Like I want to be able to get on the floor with grandkids and then be able to get back up and not need help.
00:43:08
Speaker
Yeah. You know, I want to be able to go up and down stairs and not even notice, right? Not be out of breath at all. It's about choosing what we do want and then saying, okay, what do I have to do to feel that way? That's what I do want. I feel great. Let the positive get positive and start a snowball in that direction.
00:43:31
Speaker
instead of being on this merry-go-round of like, no, it's the negative that got me to the positive result. So it's like we're in this twisted place. So I think that's a big thing when we talk about the motivation and the beating ourselves up and all that kind of stuff. And then the other side of it is a lot of us,
00:43:54
Speaker
have this very black and white mentality. We're on or we're off. It's good or it's bad, right? Whether it's a food choice, a behavior, a habit, right? It's on, off, good, bad, black, white.
00:44:07
Speaker
That's me. Right? Our job, along with learning to be motivated by the positive, is learning to live in the gray area. The gray area is where this is forever. The gray area is where this is life, where it's like, okay, so my elementary school classroom had like the chalkboard went all the way along one wall.
00:44:30
Speaker
And above the chalkboard from one side of the room to the other was the alphabet lined up A to Z. When we live in this black and white world, our pendulum is swinging from A to Z. We're on or off. It's good or it's bad. Our objective is to learn to live with the pendulum swinging from like K to O. Yeah.
00:44:53
Speaker
Right? So it's about being flexible, living in the gray area, saying, OK, well, this didn't really go as planned. What can I do? OK, I'm eating out. What would make me feel great? I'm going to do a couple of veggie sides and an appetizer to get my protein in.
00:45:13
Speaker
Right? Okay. Workout didn't happen this morning. I don't have a big chunk of time later. I'm going to do 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, and that's going to be what it is today. That's living in the gray area. That's the pendulum swing from K to O. It's a holiday, right? Like we just had some holidays. It's holidays and
00:45:34
Speaker
That holiday is really just a day or a meal, not becoming a hollow week, a hollow month, and a hollow year. It doesn't snowball down the hill. It's like we enjoy these things, we celebrate with the people, we have the holiday, and we keep going. That's gray area. That's when this is forever. That's the pendulum swinging from K to O. And it's a practice.
00:46:00
Speaker
Absolutely. I think that all or nothing thinking, Gretchen Rubin, if you're familiar, she talks about her moderators and her abstainers. I am 100% an abstainer. I've always been very black and white, but I have found too, and I talked about this in an episode about healthy living around the holidays, that
00:46:17
Speaker
You can have this special thing on Christmas or on Hanukkah or what have you or on your birthday and it doesn't actually last for two weeks. That's one meal or one day if you want to, you know, take it to the full day. But having one less than perfect food group, you know, it doesn't have to extend past that meal. You can enjoy it because that is life. It is going to come up.
00:46:43
Speaker
Yeah, and I think the thing, we have this idea that we've ruined it. And the truth is, going back to even what we talked about in the beginning of this episode, when we're managing our blood sugar, when we're consistent keeping our blood sugar in this middle range, our body is better equipped to handle the occasional spike. So you can have the birthday cake, you can have the holiday pie, the whatever you want.
00:47:08
Speaker
and it doesn't impact your body the same way as it might right now. Because right now, we're already in this place of everything is being stored as fat. But when we're consistent keeping our blood sugar even and building muscle,
00:47:23
Speaker
our body can handle that occasional spike much better than it does in this moment. So like I said, you're not doomed. You're not going, like PS, my podcast is salad with a side of fries, like a life without French fries, no thank you. I almost called the podcast French fries and cookie dough because those are things that I will never give up, right? Yeah.
00:47:45
Speaker
a life without cookie dough. Peace. I'm out. You know, so it's really about learning to have those moments and keep going. Yeah, that is so true. Now, you mentioned I think a key word there consistency. Yes.
00:48:03
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that can be really intimidating, especially if you are someone who is, you know, maybe even identifies as really, really busy. I know that you, you were managing hedge funds at one point and a business and you manage a podcast, of course. And so many of our listeners are, you know, maybe juggling a few different things and it can be really hard to know even where to get started, whether that's with food or working out. How do you recommend getting into those routines and
00:48:33
Speaker
being consistent with them. Yeah, so it's interesting when we're busy, right? And we all have very full lives, whatever they're filled with, we have full lives. And we tend to think of our lives as like these Venn diagrams, right? We have work, we have family, we have health, right? And like somehow we're trying to juggle all these balls. The way to start
00:49:01
Speaker
is to first merge all the Venn diagram circles into one circle and recognize that how I show up anywhere is how I show up everywhere. So if I'm not showing up with energy, right, it's a function of all of the pieces, not just one.
00:49:24
Speaker
I'm a big fan of starting with the fuel and a bit of the nutrition stuff because I think it has a bigger snowball effect. It doesn't mean that all of a sudden tomorrow we're never eating sugar again, right? Start by just adding more vegetables. Every time you eat, have a vegetable and a couple times a day have a fruit. See how you feel. What do you notice?
00:49:46
Speaker
And what do you want to try next? So small steps in the same direction lead to huge distance over time. We can try to take a giant leap up the mountain. But if we take a second and see that there's stairs a few feet away, it's a whole lot easier. So start with some small steps. Start with the vegetables. See what happens.
00:50:08
Speaker
then maybe it's about looking at, OK, how can I get some more movement in here? Because while we feel like we're exhausted and we can't move, moving actually gives us energy and releases those endorphins. And we start to feel good. And the funny thing, going back to the all or nothing piece, a lot of times we think that if we can't get in a full hours workout, it's not worth it. Or we only have a few minutes. I can't do the six mile walk.
00:50:36
Speaker
So I'm just going to not do anything. And one of the things to remember is like a lot of us have heard these days, sitting is the new smoking, right? Like our bodies were not meant to sit all day. Yeah. Similarly, our bodies were not meant to sit all day and then go berserk for one hour. Yeah. Like that's not human either.
00:50:56
Speaker
So what if we could look at it as saying how I'm going to get my exercise in is 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there and five minutes another spot and setting an alarm to just stand and walk around for three minutes. It doesn't have to be these giant moves.
00:51:16
Speaker
That makes so much sense. I mean, I even think about, you know, I look at my Fitbit and will tell me, you know, if I've gotten my active minutes for the hour and working from home, you know, you don't get that the same way because you can very easily like not leave the desk for the whole day. And now a lot of times, midday, I realize
00:51:34
Speaker
I really need to get up and I will, instead of walking the short distance to the mailbox, I will go the long way around the neighborhood to get my 10 minutes. And I'm like, even taking 10 minutes away from my desk, that is going to fuel me through my work and through the rest of the day so much better than if I were to just sit here. I'm going to get way more done, but I'm going to feel better. Absolutely.
00:51:55
Speaker
But I love the idea of setting alarms too, just to, you know, cause you can easily get into a flow with something and then realize, you know, wow, it's tomorrow. Exactly. And by the way, if you forget to eat, set alarms and the alarm doesn't have to be eat now. The alarm could be just to check in with your stomach. So we talked about before, like a snack is probably going to last us like one to two
00:52:24
Speaker
hours. So set an alarm for an hour that alarm is check in. Hmm, how am I feeling? Right? What are my early signs of hunger? For me, I've learned that my early signs of hunger are not being able to concentrate like getting easily distracted.
00:52:42
Speaker
and getting easily frustrated. So I'm working on something, the text comes in, and now I'm annoyed by the text. Like, why do they need this right now? They don't need it right now. I'm cranky because I'm hungry. They sent a text, right? They don't know what I'm doing. So noticing our own early signs of hunger is part of the learning.
00:53:04
Speaker
Set the alarm to check in. Okay, it's been an hour. How do I feel? I'm good. Okay, let's set the alarm for 30 more minutes and then I'll just see how I feel in a half hour. Or I ate a meal. Cool. I'm going to set the alarm for three and a half hours just to check in. See how I'm doing. I love that. I think checking in with yourself and that's going to help you to develop that intuition with your body. Exactly.
00:53:31
Speaker
I love all of these tips and I would love to switch gears a little bit and dive into some of our rapid fire questions for our listeners to get to know you a little better as well. Awesome. I can't wait. Awesome. And you are a little bit of a guinea pig. We are changing up some of the questions this week, so you will be the first one to answer a few of these. Oh, I'm excited now. Okay. Yes, it is a big week. So first, and this may be a difficult one, what is your top wellness tip?
00:54:01
Speaker
Oh gosh, this is a hard one to ask me. You deserve it and you are worth it. I love that. Where is your favorite travel destination? Ooh, I think Rome, Italy. Oh, it's beautiful. I love it there. I need to get on a plane. I can't wait. Yes. If you were an animal, what animal would you be and why? Oh, this one's tough.
00:54:31
Speaker
I don't know what's weird, and I have no explanation for this. Maybe it's some weird cosmic universal thing. So when I was a kid, I collected elephants. Ooh, I love them. Like figurines stuffed animals, but I don't know why I had a thing for elephants when I was a kid. And yesterday, I was walking down the street, going for my walk, and I walked past. I don't know if it was a framing place or
00:54:57
Speaker
I don't know even where I was walking, but this giant picture of an elephant caught my eye in the window. So I'm going with elephant, but I wish I had a better explanation for why. Maybe somebody out there can tell me the significance of elephants. They're supposed to bring good fortune. I know that.
00:55:18
Speaker
So that's a good one. Yeah. There was something to do with the trunks pointing upward, I think is good, is supposed to be good. If they're pointing downward, it's not, but you don't really see any where they're pointing down. Interesting. Once somebody told me that in the antique shop and I started looking for the trunks pointing down, I haven't seen it. So I'm pretty sure they're all supposed to be good fortune. And if they're not, I'm going to go with it. I like it. I'm into it. Let's go with that. Awesome.
00:55:46
Speaker
Now, if you could master a completely new skill, what would that be? So I always joke that I want to play guitar, but I have no interest in learning how to play guitar. So if I could just magically have a new skill, I think that would be it. That's so cool. Just wake up the next day and you can play it. Yeah. That's awesome. I love that. And what is next for you on your bucket list? Oh.
00:56:14
Speaker
So in business, one of the objectives or bucket list items for 2021 is to help 2021 people in 2021. So that's the mission that we're on. And personally, I just can't wait to getting back to travel and seeing everybody that I haven't seen in a year.
00:56:36
Speaker
I love the handful of people that I've seen, but I am ready to see all those people. 100%. Who would have thought that that's a bucket list item now? I know. I have not been on a plane since 2019. And it just feels so wellness and wanderlust. We have not really focused on the wanderlust in a long time. I honestly can't wait to get out to probably many of the beautiful places people mention in the rapid fire questions.
00:57:05
Speaker
Seriously. Yeah. Well, that is awesome. And thank you so much, Jen, for joining us. I know I have a lot of good takeaways for things that I want to start doing in my own wellness routine, and I really appreciate you coming on and sharing with us today.
00:57:20
Speaker
Oh, Valerie, thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure. I feel like we could talk for hours. So this was awesome. Can you tell our listeners where they can find you and connect? Of course. So easy. I'm generally on Instagram, but all the platforms at GenTrepic, J-E-N-N-T-R-E-P-E-C-K, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all the places.
00:57:41
Speaker
And my podcast is Salad with a Side of Fries. You can find it wherever you're listening right now. And my website to learn more about me and working with me is BetterLifeNowLLC.com. Wonderful. I will share all of that in our show notes so listeners can connect with you. And once again, thank you so much for joining us today. Oh, thank you.
00:58:05
Speaker
I had such a blast talking to Jen and learning more about her and her story when it comes to wellness and weight loss. Now, as someone who has experimented a lot with crash dieting when I was younger and with all of those trendy diets that were out there, I feel like I tried at least half of them. I always found it to be so disheartening when it felt like nothing I tried really worked.
00:58:26
Speaker
I love Jen's practical, no nonsense, positive approach to a diet and weight loss. I know that weight loss can often feel like kind of a dirty word these days, especially in the wellness community. And I think that's because of that toxic diet culture that we've been surrounded with for most of our lives. But I do think that you can approach weight loss from a place of love. I think that's exactly what Jen preaches on her show and in this conversation. And I think overall, it really does come down to giving our bodies the nutrition that they need and really nourishing ourselves.
00:58:55
Speaker
and asking ourselves, where are we not being nourished in other areas of our lives as Jen talked about? I've linked all of her information in the show notes so that you can learn more from her. I hope you do connect. And I highly encourage you to check out her podcast Salad with a Side of Fries for more helpful nuggets of wisdom. Her show is fantastic. Thank you as always for sharing a part of your day with us here at Wellness and Wanderlust.
00:59:19
Speaker
And if you enjoyed this episode, it would mean so much to me. I say this every week. I say it again. If you rate and review the show on whatever app you're listening on, if you have a topic you'd like to see, shoot me an email at Valerie at wellnessandwonderless.net.
00:59:34
Speaker
And don't forget to share on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, whatever social media that you're on, share it with friends, let them know what you're listening to and let me know what you're thinking. I hope to hear from you soon. Have a wonderful day and I will see you next week.