Hi guys! Welcome to episode 487 of the wildly successful lifestyle podcast. I’m happy to be with you as always. Thank you for listening and sharing and just making the world a better place by being the best version of you.
Ok, There’s been a lot of talk about our food in America lately and why there is so much disease, inflammation and obesity. It’s a question I don’t have to guess if you care about it or not, I know you do because either you or someone you know is affected by it. And if nothing else trying to be the best version of you has never been harder but also has never been more attainable because of all the tools we have. The thing I know for sure is no-one can do it for you and staying confused about what to eat and what not to eat is not an option anymore if you want to be healthy now. There’s a lot of reasons why America is in a health crisis right now but we don’t have to figure it out for everyone, before you think that sounds selfish, hear me out. We are so influenced by the people we spend time with. You influence and are influenced. You get super healthy and the people who are looking will seek you out to find out what you’re doing, surround yourself with healthy people and their habits will rub off on you. In return your good habits will rub off on other people. So, Just do your thing, the people who are searching will be inspired by you and the people you are searching for will show up. This is what I think Ghandi meant when he said “Be the change you wish to see in the world”.
My friend Leena who is one of the most fit friends, actually the most fit and healthy friend I have, she and I were talking one day about being healthy and fit and she said so many times people ask her about her workouts and how often she goes to the gym. She looks amazing and so people want to know her secret. She does spend a lot of time in the gym, but what she knows and I have come to realize in the last few years is no matter how much time you spend running or lifting weights or doing yoga, if you’re diet isn’t 85-90% clean, you will struggle with your weight.
We were talking one day in the sauna and she said so many people think she looks the way she does because she spends so much time in the gym and she said you know what? “My body is made in the kitchen”. And you know I’ve never forgotten her saying that.
And I also wish it wasn’t true. But that, like I’ve been saying the last few episodes is just a thought I have to wrangle to the ground. I live in the real world just like everyone else. Right now food has never been more abundant and tasty and available than it is right now. And if you watch tv you get the advertisements that are meant to move you to eat more and more and more. And the food in stores are so addictive by design and along with being addictive the majority of the food Americans eat hold no nutritious value so that your body still is hungry because it doesn’t know what to do with fake food, which is a lot of what the grocery store is anymore. Max Lugavere who has a great podcast on health called “the genius life” says if your local grocery store has a health food section, then what’s everything else? It’s a good question and one that isn’t going to be fixed fast enough by rfk jr or anyone else in the government to turn your personal situation around. Even though I think he will fix a lot, we have to take personal responsibility for our health. Because right now the food companies are paying a lot of money to lobbyist who buy the votes of politicians so a lot of the “so called food” in the grocery store isn’t even really food, it’s made to look like food. So if you aren’t reading labels, you are probably eating a whole lot of chemicals and dye that are causing inflammation and weight gain even though you think you are just eating a yogurt with fruit or giving your kids fun colorful cereal that they saw an ad for on tv but it has food dye known to cause problems. We think it’s safe because it’s on our grocery shelf, but it’s just not going to kill you immediately, eventually it’s gonna make you sick and bloated and inflamed and the answer the Dr will give you is a medication that causes other problems now too. If this seems overwhelming, it should be because we have to get serious about our nutrition. When our functional nutritionist took us on as a client, we had to take a label reading course. It was required…which I thought was silly until you realize the hidden ingredients big food doesn’t want you to know about. The only really safe thing to do if you don’t grow your own food is to only eat whole foods and read labels like your life depends on it, because it does. So, Exercise is great, mandatory even if you ask me but the health of your body, your temple starts and ends in the kitchen. Your kitchen, my kitchen not the fast food kitchen or our favorite restaurant kitchen. Our kitchen.
And that was a hard pill for me to swallow because I for the longest time prided myself on not liking to cook. And now we eat almost every meal at home, with me cooking dinner at home and actually enjoying it. We recently were in the mountains with parents and my mom was talking about her garden and I said you know I believe that’s why we are so healthy to this day is because we were raised off your garden for the most part. And then I said I wish I like gardening because it is the healthiest way to eat and my mom said well you used to tell yourself you didn’t like cooking either so maybe you can change the way you think about gardening. I laughed and said “good point”. So our thoughts also control what we eat. There were a lot of things that have gone into the decision for me and Eric my husband to change our eating habits so drastically but one of the biggest for me also came from my friend Leena when she said I don’t like to eat out because I want to know every ingredient that’s in my food and you can’t know that in a restaurant.
My brain chewed on that thought for a long time before I did anything drastic about it but everything was gradually pointing towards the idea that in order for us to be truly healthy I had to make changes and those changes had to come from my very own kitchen. That was a useful thought to entertain. You see how little thoughts are seeds. When you allow the ones that are useful to marinate and grow, you eventually take action on those thoughts and your life will reflect that. Same goes for thoughts that aren’t useful…they marinate too and you take action on those too and then your life reflects that. So when you have the thought that healthy Whole Foods taste bad, you’re eventually not going to eat them. When you think you’ll never be able to cut back on alcohol or stop eating refined sugar, and you keep thinking that thought and you hang out with people who mirror that thought..the actions you take will reflect that thought and your body will reflect it too. Change starts in your head..every single change you make begins with a thought. A thought seed that you either water or you don’t. Your health is dictated by your mind too. Who knew? And the little hidden gem in this episode is your peer group matters. Two really influential thoughts for me came from my friend, Leena who has a whole lot of discipline when it comes to food.
Change is possible.
I didn’t dislike cooking, it was just a lot easier and I thought more fun to eat out. We have dinner parties now at our house almost every weekend..so fun and I cook! So, change is possible. And yes, we have been lied to and misled about what’s healthy and what’s not, and that’s not cool and there’s a lot of blame to go around for why obesity is such a problem and why when we think we are eating healthy we still get fat and inflamed sorry for the harsh language, but I love you and even though it’s not your fault that food is so toxic, no-one can read labels for you. No-one can lock you in the house for two months and only feed you whole foods without getting arrested. You have to do that for yourself. Show yourself what’s possible.
My challenge to you this week is to learn about reading food labels. There’s tons of resources online, I suggest the food babe’s site for informative sites on label reading and also increase your whole food intake by adding a green smoothie to your day that has organic pea protein, frozen zucchini, micro greens, a handful of green lettuces like spinach and other greens, and then almond milk. You’ll find your appetite is curbed because your body is getting the nutrients it needs so it will curb your cravings. And if you’re first thought is that sounds horrible, that is another good example of an unuseful thought you want to wrangle to the ground. Share this 3 people who inspire you, I love you guys I’ll talk to you in a few days!
