Podcast Episode #96: Cortisone Injections, Legumes, Adrenal Imbalance & Weight Re-Gain Fears

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Topics:

1. Thoughts on cortisone injections [16:11] 2. To legume or not to legume, that is the question [21:14] 3. Pickled or fermented? [32:00] 4. I use Coconut oil and I still have dry skin, help! [36:20] 5. Adrenaline and adrenal imbalance [45:50] 6. Scared to eat “normally” and regain weight after losing it on Paleo [52:08] [smart_track_player url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/balancedbites/BB_Podcast_96.mp3″ title=”#96: Cortisone Injections, Legumes, Adrenal Imbalance & Weight Re-Gain Fears” artist=”Diane Sanfilippo & Liz Wolfe ” color=”00aeef” social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” ]

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Liz Wolfe: Hey, everyone. Welcome to Episode 96 of the Balanced Bites Podcast! Lots of off-the-air chit chat as usual. Diane?

Diane Sanfilippo: Yes?

Liz Wolfe: What's up?

Diane Sanfilippo: Good morning. I think I still have a morning voice.

Liz Wolfe: I think you do, too. Actually you sound like Phoebe when she got sick in Friends and she was like: I have a sexy voice.

Diane Sanfilippo: But then she could sing better and then got upset when it went away and Smelly Cat didn't sound quite as cool.

Liz Wolfe: I feel we've… I'm having deja vu. I feel like we've talked about this before.

Diane Sanfilippo: Maybe. I'm so old that my memory is not that good.

Liz Wolfe: Back in my day…

Diane Sanfilippo: Actually, can I tell you why I discovered that I feel old despite being… I mean, I'm a good, at least 5 years older than you, but it's because I feel like I've had so many lives already. I know it sounds really crazy, but I've had probably three different careers, so it's like I'm on my third or fourth life here, and that's why I feel so old. Isn't that weird?

Liz Wolfe: Is that why you've seen Pretty Woman so many times, because you've had three lifetimes to watch it over and over again?

Diane Sanfilippo: One of them did not include a career as a streetwalker. Don't worry.

Liz Wolfe: Thankfully.

Diane Sanfilippo: This podcast has gone awry 3 minutes in.

Liz Wolfe: It's OK. It's the summer. Everybody's on vacation. Nobody's trying that hard.

Diane Sanfilippo: OK, good. Let's talk about you.

Liz Wolfe: Actually most people are not on vacation. That is a lie. But my mom's a teacher.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yep, mine too.

Liz Wolfe: And I grew up going to school, so there were always summers off.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yep. I grew up with a teacher mom, too, so I always wanted my summers off.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Too bad I've now for the last two summers basically missed the entire summer by sitting inside working on books. Whoops. But I digress. What's up with you? I don't ever get to talk to you.

Liz Wolfe: I know. It's because I'm always outside fixing something. And by “fixing,” I mean…

Diane Sanfilippo: Messing it up further!

Liz Wolfe: Messing it up worse! I have many, many unfinished projects that probably never needed to be projects in the first place. But right now, I'm looking on Craigslist for staircases.

Diane Sanfilippo: I don't know what that means or how one would sell a staircase.

Liz Wolfe: I don't know. I just figured that would be the place to look, like maybe I'd find a stair car, like from Arrested Development. Maybe that would be on there since the Netflix season bombed so hard maybe they're selling it on Craigslist. But it's for the goats because if you don't give the goats something to do, they'll start trying to escape, I've learned.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. So I saw this. I was watching some show that Gordon Ramsay has. I remember last summer my background television of choice on Hulu was called The F Word, and it kind of meant “food” but whatever other F-words Gordon Ramsay says. And each season he would have a different set of sort of backyard farm animals, which was actually pretty cool. You should watch it. But he did set up, like, hay bales so that the goats could climb on top of that.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Maybe that would be helpful.

Liz Wolfe: I hadn't thought about hay bales.

Diane Sanfilippo: You could just stack a whole bunch up.

Liz Wolfe: I don't think we're going to be able to hay our acreage, but…

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh. Anyway. That's what I learned. That's about as much as I know about homesteading!

Liz Wolfe: No, that's good. Hay bales… I wonder if he, like, hayed his acreage and just deposited it there because you actually need some machinery.

Diane Sanfilippo: Honestly, it looked like he just bought them off of eBay, so I don't know.

Liz Wolfe: Like the big ones?

Diane Sanfilippo: They were really big, and he maybe… Look. You can on Hulu. It's called The F Word. It's probably still on there somewhere. It's actually a cool show. I mean, there's a lot of cooking, so you might not be that excited about it.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, not so much.

Diane Sanfilippo: He was, like, teaching his kids about how these animals are going to be food. And he's like: OK, don't get too excited about them. I think it was turkeys and goats and one other kind of animal one year, a couple of pigs, maybe.

Liz Wolfe: Well, speaking of turkeys, I was thinking today I have to blog eventually. Someday I have to blog again, and I was thinking about my blog post on all these birds I have in my garage, and we have these guinea fowl that look kind of like turkeys… This is totally random. I don't even know why I'm telling you this, but basically they have two states of being. One is like: I'm about to get murdered. And the other one is, like, sleeping.

Diane Sanfilippo: [laughter]

Liz Wolfe: Not getting murdered. It's kind of funny when you think of it in pictures, like: Getting murdered! … Sleeping, not murdered. I don't know. It's not fully developed yet, but I got a little laugh out of you, so maybe I'll work on that.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think I know people who are like that, like, they're so stressed out all the time or they're asleep.

Liz Wolfe: Or they're asleep! That's the guineas to a T. And the chickens are just like: I'm gonna scratch my pine shavings into my water! And that's it.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh. Wow.

Liz Wolfe: The full nature of birds.

Diane Sanfilippo: Do you have any of those, like, fainting goats?

Liz Wolfe: No! Man, everybody asks me that, and I'm like: Sorry my goats don't meet your expectations.

Diane Sanfilippo: I'm not interested in your goats anymore if they don't faint. Or aren't there some that laugh?

Liz Wolfe: Oh, my God! What do you want from me, man?

Diane Sanfilippo: Look. I'm not coming to this farm unless you have fainting and laughing goats.

Liz Wolfe: Fainting goats, laughing goats, hay bales from eBay, which isn't going to happen.

Diane Sanfilippo: Or bacon. Do you have bacon there yet?

Liz Wolfe: I do have some Pete's Paleo bacon hanging out here.

Diane Sanfilippo: Ooo.

Liz Wolfe: But it's not homemade bacon.

Diane Sanfilippo: It's their homemade!

Liz Wolfe: It's their homemade bacon.

Diane Sanfilippo: I'd rather Pete make my bacon than I make my bacon. I'm not going to lie.

Liz Wolfe: I'm going to agree with you on that. I've actually been hoarding it a little bit. Like, it's kind of shoved to the very back of the meat drawer because I don't want my husband to know about it.

Diane Sanfilippo: So Cave Husband doesn't find it?

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, exactly. Oh, it's so good. But speaking of killing your own food, I got sick of staring at the computer yesterday, and so I turned on the TV for a minute. You know, to give my eyes a break, I was going to stare at a screen that was farther away, and it was Cold Mountain. Remember that old movie, Cold Mountain, where Renée Zellweger was all… she had a lot of gumption, and Nicole Kidman was super Botoxed out even though it was 1822.

Diane Sanfilippo: I've never seen this movie.

Liz Wolfe: Jude Law wasn't bald yet. Anyway, so I turned it on to the scene where Jude Law is in the woods and some lady is helping him out, and this lady has a goat. And the lady's talking about how goats are such great company and they provide all this stuff, and then she just slits its throat and bleeds it out and then they eat it.

Diane Sanfilippo: That's pretty paleo.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, it's legit. And Jude Law was acting all grossed out by it. Like, yeah right, man. If I was in the 1800s and my boyfriend got all sicked out at killing a goat, I'd be all: Go back to Hollywood. Go shine your shoes. Get out of this movie. I mean, there were no vegans in 18-whatever. Just saying.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. OK.

Liz Wolfe: Anyway. So what's up with you? You can see I haven't talked to anyone in days!

Diane Sanfilippo: You're forgetting how to relate to other people outside of your farm. I'm a little nervous.

Liz Wolfe: I am. I'm forgetting how to have a conversation. My husband called me the other day and was like: So, how was your day? And I was like: Good.

Diane Sanfilippo: [laughter]

Liz Wolfe: Hung up, called him back, like: Sorry. I forgot to ask you. So what's up with you?

Diane Sanfilippo: I mean, I'm alone a lot of the day except a couple hours a couple days a week my intern will be here, so that's good.

Liz Wolfe: Are you paying her to be your friend?

Diane Sanfilippo: Basically.

Liz Wolfe: [laughter]

Diane Sanfilippo: No, she's helping a lot. What's up with me, besides the hole in my pinky right now from, like, roughly one million snatches yesterday… Sometimes I feel like I'm one of the only people who teaches about paleo who still does CrossFit.

Liz Wolfe: Oh, man.

Diane Sanfilippo: I feel like almost none of our friends and pretty much almost none of the other educators out there, either they've broken ties over bad juju or who knows what, but yeah, anyway.

Liz Wolfe: I'd totally do it, but selectively. Like, I skew heavy. I do less. I walk more. I do some yoga. You know that I'm CrossFit certified? That's pretty much why I don't do it.

Diane Sanfilippo: I do know that you are, but I think the difference is just, like, my gym.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, totally.

Diane Sanfilippo: People who come to my gym are like: I want to train here. I want to hang out with these people.

Liz Wolfe: That makes a huge difference.

Diane Sanfilippo: It does!

Liz Wolfe: There's a book about that, The Power of Community: CrossFit and the Force of Human Connection.

Diane Sanfilippo: There are so many people who come on my Facebook page, and they're like: I'm scared to try it! And I'm like: You know what? There's really nothing to be scared of. And at the same time, if you don't have great gyms in the area, and it's all about the people and the way that they want to coach and all that, but if you don't have a great gym in the area that's supportive and nurturing but also going to push you, it is tough. So you know, it takes some time to find that. Everybody could just move to New Jersey and come train at Brazen Athletics.

Anyway, so that's literally what's up right now. I'm looking at my hand thinking: OK, I hope this thing doesn't last too long. I don't know. I've been doing whey protein. I know you and I are totally the anti-protein powder people, but I was like: Let me just try it and see how I feel. I'm not going, like, just try veganism and see how I feel, so nobody needs to worry about that. But I just wanted to see if I would feel a little bit better, if my workouts would feel better, if it would do anything sort of negatively, like if I would feel like I was gaining a little bit of weight just from adding that little bit in. I mean, it's probably not even 200 calories after the workout, it just depends on what I mix it with, but I did a video on it, and it's 100% raw, grass-fed, organic whey protein, pretty much what I consider the best I can find, and it's just 100% whey protein. There's no flavoring, no sweetener, nothing. So I put up a video on YouTube about it, and I've been doing that after my workouts, and I don't know. It feels pretty good. It's so hot right now that when I finish the workout, the last thing I want to do is go home and cook. I do go home and cook, obviously, but I kind of sit around the gym for almost an hour sometimes after a workout just to cool down and hang out, and I do find that that helps me not wait too long to get something in. So I guess it does kind of depend on the situation.

I have a whole post on the blog, like a frequently-asked-questions post about protein powder. And one of the sort of qualifying points I have for people is, where are you with your body composition and your goals around that? I'm at this point… We talk about this until we're blue in the face, but I could be leaner for sure, aesthetically, whatever, if I just am being picky about myself – and we kind of have a question that plays on this a little bit later – but if I want to get there, I have to diet to do it. I have to be really strict or I have to look at what I'm eating a lot more carefully versus just kind of free eating paleo foods the way that we do and having something like almond butter now and then or even some dark chocolate and all of that. And unless I'm super strict with my food, I just kind of will put on that extra 5 pounds that – you and I talk about this a lot – It's a healthy weight. It just may not been in our own mind where we think we should be or something like that.

Anyway, long story short, I'm feeling strong, like, my lifts are getting better. I'm pretty fast despite the heat, for me, and so I'm doing it. It's been a couple of weeks, so I'll report back if there's anything else on that that I'm noticing negatively. I seem to be digesting it just fine, and I don't think it's doing what regular dairy would do to me. I feel like dairy makes me just a little bit puffy all around, although I really love it. So yeah, that's kind of the possibly anticlimactic story of the whey protein currently.

Liz Wolfe: I like it. We were talking, I think we were texting a little bit about potentially how it was affecting your glutathione status and how that might be impacting your… I don't know. Nerd! Never mind.

Diane Sanfilippo: No, I mean, that is one of the reasons. Whey protein is really rich in glutathione, which is a really potent antioxidant. That's one of the reasons why… you know, this is what we do with all of our food, right? We're looking for nutrients, and we're trying to figure out if our body does well with it. It's the same thing with raw dairy. I was eating raw dairy for a few months… or not raw dairy, but grass-fed, non-homogenized yogurt. Yogurt kind of isn't raw anyway once you ferment it. I mean, I guess it might be a low temperature. But I just tried to see how I felt because there's tons of nutrition to be had in grass-fed dairy – vitamins A, D, and K2 – so if you can tolerate that stuff, you're getting a ton out of it. It's not the same as Dannon yogurt from a grain-fed cow that's not organic and whatever. It's a totally different food. So I was trying that, and that's kind of the reason why I'm trying the protein. There are some health benefits to be had from good quality whey protein, but if I don't digest it, heck no, I'm not going to use it. And if it does negative things to the rest of my system, it's not just going to be part of my routine. But I don't know. It feels pretty good, and we'll see what happens.

Liz Wolfe: Sweet.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. I also tested not eating eggs for two weeks, which I actually messed up because I had a little bit of our paleo mayo that I had in the fridge that I forgot why I had stuck it all the way in the back of the fridge, which was like: Diane, don't eat this for two weeks. And I forgot that I did that! But I didn't eat any eggs, any actual eggs for two weeks. I'll blog about it. I didn't have anything major to call out from that, but I'll talk about the experience a little bit.

Liz Wolfe: Way back in the day, I did a little autoimmune paleo thing, and I really didn't see… It just wasn't what I needed at the time, so I didn't see any effects from it individually, but that's why we self-experiment, because somebody else's experience isn't necessarily going to be ours.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, for sure.

Liz Wolfe: Which we'll talk a little bit more about in one of these questions from today.

Diane Sanfilippo: Shall we roll in?

1. Thoughts on Cortisone Injection [16:11]

Liz Wolfe: Sure. All right, here's our first question: Thoughts on cortisone injections. Susan says: “I have a quick question about the use of cortisone injections for a chronic tendon problem. I have a trigger thumb that has gotten worse in the last month in spite of any anti-inflammatory tweaks to my already-solid paleo diet, been paleo for 2-plus years, and attempting to rest it. My conventional doctor wants to try the cortisone injection, and several people I know have had it, and it resolved similar hand tendon problems. I'm frightened to try this without asking around the paleo world. Is this something I should try or avoid?”

Oh, that pesky “asking around the paleo world” situation.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.

Liz Wolfe: I see a lot of those in my newsfeed these days. Paleo groups questions, PaleoHacks, all that.

Diane Sanfilippo: And some of them are really great. I actually really love the IPMG group. It's a really supportive bunch of people who are pretty smart and not going to jump on you for not knowing what's up yet, in a sense. Like, when you're kind of newer, it's a pretty nurturing group. And I think it's a closed group, so you have to ask to be in it.

Anyway, my first thought on this… and I think one of the things we always do is kind of think: Well, what would I do, or what would I recommend to a one-on-one client with this question? I would actually look into something like ART, which is Active Release Technique. And it may seem like I'm pretty biased right now since my boyfriend is a chiropractor and does ART on people and has a lot of success with that, but this is the kind of thing where if you have some kind of chronic pain and there are issues with mobility and different pain in your body, and you're eating well and you're trying to do all of that stuff to work on it from the inside out, there could just be pain referral that's happening or some kind of repetitive motion or strain that's going on. I don't tend to think that the injections are the solution. It's really a Band-Aid, but getting to the root of it can really help. And you're anti-inflammatory diet is definitely a great place to start. I mean, that's what got rid of ankle tendonitis that I had for a long time, just changing my diet. But yeah, I would seek out an ART practitioner. I've been getting ART done since my half marathon days, which that was one day.

Liz Wolfe: [laughter]

Diane Sanfilippo: No, not one day! I mean, I trained for a long time, but I only ran one half marathon. But back when… it was probably 2007, I was getting ART done a lot. A lot of different points in the body that can hurt that just really need to get worked on, whether it's scar tissue or just issues with mobility. So that's what I would do, a good ART practitioner you can find… I don't remember if the website is… Let me look it up… ActiveRelease.com is their website, so you can find a practitioner near you. A lot of times they'll be a chiropractor. Sometimes it's even a masseuse or a personal trainer. The one that I went to back in San Francisco, she was a personal trainer who had massage certifications, and she had full-body ART certifications, and she was amazing. I loved that she was an athlete, so she kind of knew what was going on in my body, but if you're not dealing with something that's an athletic-related issue, I think, just kind of anyone who's ART certified can really help with that. So that's what I would do. What would you do, Liz?

Liz Wolfe: I have no idea. I really don't know, because you get to that point… This kind of reminded of, I've had some questions lately about perioral dermatitis, and not that they're in any way related, but there are some things that I just don't have a great answer to. If you've been suffering with something for a long time and you've tried as many things as you can, and if Susan tries ART and it doesn't seem to offer any relief, then I can't say that I wouldn't go the cortisone route. I know that's a controversial thing, and the same with perioral dermatitis. If you can't take care of it via natural or alternative means, I've said: You know what? Maybe going to dermatologist…

Diane Sanfilippo: I have no idea what that is.

Liz Wolfe: Well, it doesn't matter. If you've had it, you know. But it's one of those things where at some point you can't feel bad about going the conventional route if that's what right for you. But yeah, ART. Give that a whirl, and let us know what happens. If it doesn't work, then trust your gut.

2. To Legume or Not to Legume [21:14]

All right, next up. To legume, or not to legume: that is the question. This is from Micki. “Hi, Liz and Diane! I'm a nutritionist new to the fray of paleo template, so I'm just finding my way around. I'm a big fan of your podcast, cookbook and blogs, and also get a lot of information from Chris Kresser and Robb Wolf, and really like the no-zealots and rational approach to paleo. I'm keen to hear your thoughts on legumes for people who have no digestive issues, metabolic problems, and are just keep to eat a natural, clean diet. I've heard of the ‘soak to remove antinutrients' angle and also have heard Mat Lamonde…” Unless there's a different paleo-oriented French Canadian out there, I'm pretty sure this is Mat Lalonde. Diane, would you agree? Or is there some expert out there that I don't know.

Diane Sanfilippo: Nope. I'm pretty sure she means Mat Lalonde with an L.

Liz Wolfe: OK, very good. “…talking about their relatively low nutrient density. However, for example, canned legumes have just the legumes and salt added and they're soft. For people as I have described above, are they problematic? As I said, I'm a newbie here, and my dietitian colleague and myself are trying to figure out the whole thing. For myself, a review of what I was eating in response to a health scare made me realize how bad all the processed food I was consuming because of traditional nutrition concepts I was taught and teach myself, now with some adaptations. I've not eaten legumes in line with paleo/primal ways of eating, but aside from what I've mentioned above, I can't back this up with evidence as to why it's a problem for people who have no metabolic dysregulation, and in my job, I need to be able to qualify my position, and I want to for myself, too. Thanks, guys. You're awesome.”

I think this is kind of a fun question. I think if you really wanted to insist legumes were bad for you, there is some evidence out there that you could pull up and use. But if anyone has read Chris Kresser's recent post on reading and understanding scientific studies, those concepts apply to almost any study that you call up to prove your own points. To me, a lot of the so-called studies on, for example, dairy and maybe even legumes, really kind of don't hold up to scrutiny. For example, if you're looking at a study that we think proves something about dairy, well, what kind of dairy are we looking at? Who's drinking it? Where is it from? Is it raw? Is it grass fed? What was the cow fed? Etc., etc. It's a little different with legumes being plants, but I honestly just don't think that legumes are inherently bad, but I do think they're slightly less useful. That's a little outside the orthodoxy. I don't tend to eat a whole lot of legumes. I do some cashews, which I think they're legumes or maybe in that family. I'm not 100% sure. But I don't know. I don't think it's any worse to eat legumes, for the most part, than a huge quantity of nuts, and I just had a bowl of PaleoKrunch for breakfast, so there you go.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, I think of case against legumes, in my opinion, is more based on a couple of things. And these are the two things that I almost always go back to. It's digestive function and blood sugar regulation, and those can kind of be at the root of what's going on with people's issues. For example, if you have someone who comes to you and says: Here's what I eat. And what they eat looks like a pretty well-rounded diet and includes lots of animal proteins and varied types and some wild fish and some veggies and all that. And they're also eating legumes, and they tell you that their digestion is great and their blood sugar seems to be fine all day. They're not spiking blood sugar. They're not dropping and hypoglycemic. I don't have a great argument as to why somebody who is healthy and in the context of an overall well-balanced diet that a legume in and of itself is problematic.

The issues as she is mentioning with things like lectins that Mat Lalonde has said… He actually has said the lectin content of foods like legumes really is reduced very significantly by things like soaking, sprouting, and cooking. Then the issue doesn't become that the argument against legumes is very strong if you're just going from the antinutrient angle. So really my angle on it is, who's the person trying to eat them, and are they displacing other more nutrient-dense foods with the legumes, which is what tends to be the case. If you went out and had Mexican food, and you had beans and rice and maybe some meat, you wouldn't then eat also a ton of veggies. Maybe you would, but that's where I'm saying the context of what else the person eats really matters, because if this person is eating tons of other great nutrient-dense foods and just wants to add a few bites of beans and they feel great with that, it's not inherently a dangerous, unhealthy food. It's just the way that it plays into the bigger picture. And if you were looking at somebody who's eating kind of a more standard American diet or even what we would consider the conventional wisdom of healthy, so like, lots of whole grains and low fat – that's kind of what we consider conventional wisdom – again, are they displacing more nutrient-dense foods with beans because they think beans are a really healthy food, but yet they're not getting in nutrient-dense saturated fats that we think are very healthy?

That's kind of my take on it, and there really isn't a great argument if a person says they're healthy. Now, if somebody is not healthy, if they have an autoimmune condition, if they have metabolic damage, if they say that they want to lose weight or really significantly change their body composition, then I don't think legumes are the best nutritional vehicle to get there. So if that makes sense, you're not getting a ton of nutrient density, you're getting a lot of carbohydrate without a lot of other richly bioavailable nutrients, and you're also really just not putting the most… what I think of active, alive types of foods into the body with colorful… I can't even put a word on it! But just something that's a lot more vibrant. Like, if you think about fresh vegetables versus beans that may have been sitting somewhere for who knows how long. If they're dried when they get to you, it's such a dead food by that point. And if it's canned, you have no idea how long those foods have been in a can or on the shelf. I don't like for people to base most of what they're eating on things that are not fresh, and that's kind of how I feel about legumes. I need to have blog posts that are the cases for and against all of this stuff just so people understand the balance of what we're really looking at here and that it's not just that legumes are killing you. I feel like people who are very zealous about paleo in the beginning are like: Grains and legumes are killing you! Don't eat that stuff!

Liz Wolfe: They're not paleo!

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, and it's just not really an accurate depiction of the whole story. I understand that when you're trying to help somebody learn about this in the beginning you just kind of tell them don't eat it, but you really do need to understand the full picture here. So anyway, long story short, I really don't eat beans. I think they give most people gas, and foods that give you gas are not ones that you digest well, so those are some pretty good signs!

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, speaking of that, I think we actually lack the endogenous enzymes to digest some of the saccharides in beans. I might be speaking out of turn. I wrote about that a little bit in my book, which will be out eventually. But yeah, I think that's a pretty good point, maybe not so much coming down to whether this food is going to kill you or not, but like you said, digestive function and just that we can do better. You can do better than beans!

Diane Sanfilippo: Word.

Liz Wolfe: Word. And sometimes as a practitioner, if people are really hanging onto something, like somebody really wants to have their Greek yogurt… OK. I mean, that's not the worst thing you could do. But what if we make a couple switches just to see how you do with it?

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. I think people also need to understand that it's not as healthy as they think it is.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: With the Greek yogurt, I have another post brewing on that. But with legumes and Greek yogurt, people think they're healthy because they've always been told that they're healthy, but are they really that healthy? They might not be that bad in the grand scheme of things. It's not like the Yoplait sweetened yogurt and Wonder Bread.

Liz Wolfe: Jamie Lee Curtis yogurt with the dead probiotics added.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, Jamie Lee Curtis.

Liz Wolfe: Oh, Kristen Wiig as Jamie Lee Curtis!

Diane Sanfilippo: I haven't seen that!

Liz Wolfe: Oh, my gosh.

Diane Sanfilippo: Does she fake do the commercial? The Activia commercial?

Liz Wolfe: Uh-huh.

Diane Sanfilippo: I saw Jamie Lee Curtis when I was in LA for AHS a couple years ago, like, just in the organic co-op. I was like: That's Jamie Lee Curtis!

Liz Wolfe: No way.

Diane Sanfilippo: Way. Yeah, way.

Liz Wolfe: Oh, my gosh.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think I also saw Andie MacDowell in Santa Monica or something. I was like: I feel like I'm in an US Weekly issue, spotting all these random celebrities looking really scary.

Liz Wolfe: They're just like us!

Diane Sanfilippo: They look really scary without hair and makeup, by the way.

Liz Wolfe: That makes me want to watch True Lies and Groundhog Day… both… after we get off the line here.

Diane Sanfilippo: OK, let's go on.

Liz Wolfe: Let's do the next one.

Diane Sanfilippo: We thought this was going to be a quick podcast, but we've rambled.

Liz Wolfe: It's not. By the way, I was coming out of the commissary the other day, or I was in the commissary on the military base, and my card swiped and it got approved, and I went: Approved!

Diane Sanfilippo: [laughter]

Liz Wolfe: And I thought of you while everyone thought I was weird.

Diane Sanfilippo: Approved!

Liz Wolfe: I love weddings!

3. Pickled or Fermented? [32:00]

OK. Next question. Sorry, everyone. I'm sorry. Pickled or fermented? Nicole says… Wow, this is a very short question. Nicole says: “I'm wondering if I can add cauliflower to the carrots and jalapeno recipe for sauerkraut to make it more of a…” Ugh. I'm not going to say it right.

Diane Sanfilippo: I don't know how to pronounce it.

Liz Wolfe: G-I-A-R-D-I-N-I-E-R-A. I know what it is. I'm just not going to try and pronounce it. “What is your opinion on pickled rather than fermented foods?” And I think that's actually more the question: pickled versus fermented foods.

Diane Sanfilippo: Giardiniera? It sounds like Giardia!

Liz Wolfe: Giardia. Oh, the life of a nutritionist.

Diane Sanfilippo: It's funny because I just saw this on The Food Network. I don't remember what show it was, but it was an amazing farm-to-table restaurant that makes their own. It's basically like a pickled veggie salad, and you probably have had it at restaurants before.

Liz Wolfe: I've had many of them inside of Bloody Marys.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, Liz. Pickled versus fermented? I mean, pickled foods are not probiotic foods, so they may taste great, but they're not the same as fermented foods. I don't think fermenting cauliflower is a good idea!

Liz Wolfe: [laughter]

Diane Sanfilippo: I don't think it's going to turn out well. I actually think you pretty much want to be pickling when it's cauliflower. When you pickle, you're using vinegar and usually some sugar, and it does not ferment out the way it would in something like kombucha. It stays there. And then usually there's some kind of spices. I don't have an issue with a small amount of sugar going into a pickling brine, basically. I think it really just, again, depends on the person. And typically when you eat that, you're not shoving it down your face, feeling like you're eating sugar. It just has that sweet and savory kind of background flavor. In my opinion, I mean, they're both delicious. I don't think you can ferment that dish that you're talking about. I'm pretty sure it's just a pickled dish. It's just a different technique, and it has a completely different result nutritionally. Pickled foods are delicious, but they are not probiotic foods. And everyone needs to watch the Portlandia clip “We can pickle that!”

Liz Wolfe: Oh, my gosh.

Diane Sanfilippo: I just laugh. Every time somebody asks about pickling, it's all I can think about. They're just pickling everything. Shoes… broken records.

Liz Wolfe: Why wouldn't you, though?

Diane Sanfilippo: I'm going to have to link to it. I think there's a clip on YouTube for it. It's just hysterical.

Liz Wolfe: See, this always confuses me because I keep thinking about getting a Pickl-It. I don't have one. I know a lot of people do. But the lacto-fermentation and the anaerobic fermentation, the aerobic fermentation, and the brining and the pickling – I get a little confused between pickling and brining.

Diane Sanfilippo: I mean, you can still make pickles or things that when you eat them, they taste like they're pickles, as fermented. There can be fermented pickles, and that's different… The word “pickle” now is sounding really funny to me!

Liz Wolfe: Pickle! Like Aunt Bee's pickles when she was entering the pickle contest, and they're terrible… Never mind.

Diane Sanfilippo: I have no idea. This is, like, the theme of our podcast, is Liz makes pop culture references that Diane does not understand.

Liz Wolfe: They're not pop culture references. They're past culture references!

Diane Sanfilippo: [laughter]

Liz Wolfe: They're popped already.

Diane Sanfilippo: You live in, like, the '50s or now, and I live in the '60s to the '80s, in case you were wondering.

Liz Wolfe: Pretty much.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, so you can make pickles that are fermented, but I think generally the dish that she's talking about is a pickled dish. I mean, I eat pickled herring. That's not probiotic. There's some sugar in it, but look, if you're going to eat herring and it's pickled, I have no problem with that. Anyway, let's move on.

4. I use coconut oil, and I still have dry skin. Help! [36:20]

Liz Wolfe: OK. All right, next one. This one's for me. I use coconut oil, and I still have dry skin. Help! Rebecca says: “My skin feels drier, more irritated, and more clogged now than ever before after starting to use coconut oil, jojoba oil, and castor oil blends. I only use a small amount of castor oil twice per week. The rest I've been using most coconut. I feel the silkiness of the oil, but my skin feels extremely dry otherwise. I've also developed this red, irritated, extraordinarily dry ring around my mouth-nose area.” Just a little aside here: It could be perioral dermatitis. We were talking about that earlier. “I've never had this before, and I can tell that I have more clogged pores now than when I did using any other commercial products. I do use baking soda in the shower to exfoliate and an apple cider vinegar toner after that. Otherwise, I've tried some of the Primal Life Organics skincare wash, serum, and moisturizer, all to the same effect. I feel more dried out now than ever before. I don't want to give this up, but at what point do I toss in the towel on the coconut oil and try something else? I really cannot take this much longer. I was hoping it was just part of the skin detox phase, but now I'm not so sure. Beyond that, I do eat paleo with lots of healthy fats, and I've started to supplement and eat super-foods based on the recommendations in Skintervention as well.”

OK, so I kind of hate to approach it this way, but I don't think I really have a choice. Given the information I have, honestly I'm not really sure what Rebecca's doing. I'm not clear on whether she's using castor oil by itself and then coconut oil on other days, which you don't want to use castor oil by itself. The information I don't have is kind of the most glaring thing here: what the state of her skin was previously; what she was using previously before she switched over, prescription or otherwise; what else might be going on with digestion; how long she has been making this switch to supplementation, eating super-foods, as she says. I mean, it's really hard to draw a definitive cause-and-effect connection, and it's impossible to say whether these things that she's pointed out that she's doing are actually responsible for what's going on at all. I'm not trying to minimize the experience, but there's just a ton of other factors that go into this or could go into this, because I find 99% of the time with a client or with someone who's asking me questions about some of the skincare stuff, it's usually something that they haven't told me in their initial story. Most of the time, it takes some poking and prodding to figure out what else is going on. Some people toss away, like, 15 prescriptions to start a natural regimen, just stop using them cold turkey, and that can be really disastrous. I don't recommend that. I don't know which, if any, of those factors may apply to Rebecca, but it would be interesting to know. But I do want to try and do my best to help.

First, with this whole skin detox thing, Trina from Primal Life Organics wrote a really good post about that. And what I love about Trina is that she is a big-time nurse anesthetist. I probably said that wrong, but she's very familiar with the physiology of detox and how the body stores and processes toxins because she kind of has to know those things because she's putting people to sleep, waking them back up, putting substances in and knowing how they're processed within the body. And Trina is totally sold on this detox idea, that some people actually do go through a legitimate detox period when they stop putting crap in and kind of piling it in there and pushing it down, and the body can't process it, and they start to release the toxins and all that bad stuff that really hasn't had the opportunity to come out. But really the only real way to know if something is a detox or alternatively that it's just not working is your own gut feeling about it, and educating yourself a little bit on what a detox period is, what it's not, what to expect, is really the best way to decide whether that's what's going on with you or if it's something different. I totally understand that unsure feeling about it, and of course, I have compassion for it and what Rebecca's dealing with. But I think looking at those other factors, like the state of the skin before, the goals, what was being used before, what else is going on, what's coming out, what are the different shifts that all going on at the same time, that's really the way to evaluate this whole situation.

So hopefully that's vague enough. For the sake of argument, let's assume this really isn't working, it's not a detox period, this whole thing is just not going to work, and we'll assume that – and this is highly unlikely – but let's assume that 100% of the problem is external and based on what's going on topically. It's just the oils or it's just whatever she's doing on the outside. Some people legitimately don't tolerate coconut oil. It's rare that people don't tolerate jojoba oil, but I think the next thing to try would probably be a tallow balm, maybe also the body balm from Green Pasture. I've found that very similar to the GAPS Diet concept, some people that are really in need of intensive healing tolerate animal products best, and topically is no exception. When you're on the GAPS Diet, you're really focusing on slow-cooked veggies, animal fats, animal products, broths and stuff like that because the body seems to accept those animal products best, and it's really the same topically.

Backing up a little bit, sometimes we just need to take these transitions a lot slower. Some people make so many changes so fast, the body just doesn't respond to it too well right out of the gate. Sometimes you can fight through that and come out the other side better than you started, and sometimes the transition is just too frustrating and not manageable. So it's kind of that “rip off the Band-Aid” thing that people assume is always better, but it's just not always better for everyone.

And from there, I think the last and most important thing to point out is that I don't want people to feel obligated to see out a particular strategy if it's clear it's not going to work for you. Sometimes, I think, people feel like they have to make something work, kind of trying to fit the square peg in the round hole, because they feel like they're supposed to be able to replicate the results that other people are getting. But just because something tends to work fabulously for lots of people or maybe because something is what the trend that people are talking about in the community, just because a lot of people in your Facebook news feed are trying the oil-cleansing method or trying the no ‘poo, no shampoo method, just because the loudest people – like me – happen to be talking about something doesn't mean it's going to be right for you. And that's OK. I use the oil-cleansing method, and I have great results. I recommend lots of oils in the Skintervention Guide. Some people have immediate success with oils. Some have to experiment a little bit to find the ones that are right for them. That's part of the reason I recommend spot testing to be sure something is going to work on your skin. But some people just do better with some of the other strategies I list. I use no ‘poo, but that doesn't mean it's going to work for everyone, and that is OK. Diane, you tried it for a little while, and it just wasn't going to be your thing. And that's cool.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, we'll see. I might try it again at some point. I also was doing it wrong, so…

Liz Wolfe: You're doing it wrong! [laughter] So long answer to a short question, yeah. Just keep working your way through the book, and keep in touch with us – or, you know, with me – on the whole thing. You can go over to CaveGirlEats.com and leave me a comment and let me know how you're doing. But it's just tough to know. Do you have any thoughts on that, Diane?

Diane Sanfilippo: Not anything further. No.

Liz Wolfe: You're like: I was online shopping while you were answering that question.

Diane Sanfilippo: No, I mean, I went through the whole detox thing with oil cleansing, where the first couple weeks I was like: Oh, no. This is definitely not good. But I did have the sense that it was a detox thing, just pulling all the gunk out of my skin, so I don't know. I barely wash my face anymore. I don't oil cleanse unless I had makeup on that day. Otherwise, I just basically wipe it down with water.

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm. No, I feel like at this point in my whole skincare journey, like, for several years I was very, very vigilant and repetitive about things. And I still use the same methods, but I feel like I've gotten to a point of balance where I really can do less and be fine. And isn't that kind of the goal?

Diane Sanfilippo: I hope so.

5. Stressful Job, Adrenaline, and Adrenal Imbalance [45:50]

Liz Wolfe: I hope so. All right, let's do the next question. Stressful job, adrenaline, and adrenal imbalance. Miss G says: “I apologize if this is overly long.” It's not. Don't worry. “I'm a law enforcement officer, and for the most part, I love my job. There's one thing I've never enjoyed, however, and that is arguing and conflict. I've always held my own; I just doing enjoy it. However, the last month or two, I've noticed that when someone argues with me, I have a huge adrenaline kick. This is new, but then over a month or two, it's gotten even worse, to the point where if I think someone is going to get mad or argue with me, I get the same reaction. So it's getting worse, and obviously I can't do my job as well as I used to. I'm not afraid or anything, but as soon as I sense conflict, that adrenaline kicks in. I'm wondering, because this is new and getting, if it could be related to an adrenal imbalance or adrenal fatigue. I don't feel particularly stressed, but I am doing graduate courses, so maybe I am. Nutrition wise, I'm not as strict paleo as I should be and cheat often, some potato chips or junk food. I've noticed my cravings have really increased as well. I don't eat bread or gluten for the most part. I take astaxanthin and fish oil two pills a day. I guess my question is if this could be fixed nutritionally or if it sounds like an adrenal issue. That's for your help. I need to get back to normal.”

Diane, I just think this could all be fixed by substituting sardines for fish oil.

Diane Sanfilippo: [laughter]

Liz Wolfe: Just kidding. I think this is probably a couple of things, and I'm interested to hear your take on it, Diane. But I also think part of this is probably an element of a learned reaction, kind of like, you know, neurological pathways have been carved out over time, just kind of an anticipated response that the body likes to repeat, that whole neuroplasticity thing. But I'm interested to hear your take, so what do you think?

Diane Sanfilippo: I think that's a really important call-out. I talked about this a bunch. I would recommend that Miss G go back and listen to the adrenal fatigue episodes that we've done. I want to say there are three now. I don't know if we had somebody talk to us. It was so long ago… if we talked about it with Dan Kalish. I can't remember what we talked with him about. But yeah, there's definitely a huge element of that neuroplasticity where we basically… The example I always give is if you're sitting in traffic and you normally are on your way to work and that's a stressful situation because you need to be there at a certain time, but then you take the same route on a day where you don't need to be anywhere and there happens to be traffic, but you get that same reaction because you're so programmed to have that stress response. So I think part of it's that. I think part of it could absolutely be school. I remember when I was learning about the complexity and leaky gut and just kind of getting more in-depth information on that from Dr. Kharrazian. He basically said if you're a student, you always will have a leaky gut while you're a student. I mean, I think that was a bit of a broad statement just kind of implying that the stress that comes with being a student is going to promote that leaky gut. And I think the stress that comes with being a student, that comes with maybe being a parent, that comes with writing books – all these different things that are mentally stressful that we're like: Oh, I feel fine! We don't recognize that underlying imbalance that it creates in our body.

She's asking, can it be fixed nutritionally? I don't know that this has so much to do with the nutrition. I definitely think avoiding sugar helps anytime we're feeling stressed because the issue arises that we start to crave more sugar. An increase in this adrenaline response, it actually does burn more glucose, but that doesn't mean you need to eat sugary things. It just might mean making sure you're not too low carb. There are tons of carbohydrate-rich foods that aren't sugary and sweet and make you spiral out of control. I think this might have a little bit more to do with some retraining of the brain, some meditation, some quiet time, some really active and engaged methods for dealing with it. I used to get that stress response a lot while driving in traffic, so maybe that's why I like to use it as an example, but there was a point in time when I had the real awareness of it, which it sounds like Miss G has, and I said: OK, I'm not going to let that response happen anymore. This is something I know I can control. This is my own brain, my own thoughts, and thoughts are what really control everything. So if you really just catch yourself when you're noticing that it happens and take some deep breaths, breathe in slowly and breathe out slowly, and just kind of reset your brain to say: I'm not stressed. I'm not going to let this raise my heart rate. I'm not going to let this whole adrenaline thing happen. It's going to pass. And you just start to give yourself that new signal to your brain. I'm calm. This is not going to push me over the edge. And I think when you do that, it really does become self-fulfilling the same way the previous response became self-fulfilling, where you keep reacting that same way. You really can control this.

But yeah, I think those are some approaches to take, whether you do a meditation outside of the time when you're at work to just kind of get your brain to calm down a bit or if it's just a matter of an in-the-moment kind of zen-out type of thing and just talk yourself off the ledge. There are some supplements that people can take for this, but I think at this point… I mean, I talked about them on the adrenal health podcast, so you can go back and listen, but it's not what I want to call out first for her because I think it's definitely stuff that she can reprogram her brain consciously to change.

6. Scared to Eat Normally and Regain Weight After Losing it on Paleo [52:08]

Liz Wolfe: Yep. Cool. OK, well, this is the last question. We like this one. Scared to eat normally and regain weight after losing it on paleo. This is from Lucy. “Hey, Liz and Diane! I hope you guys don't think this is a dumb or annoying question.” No way! “But I think it could be helpful to others as well, maybe as more of a discussion topic if you don't feel like reading the specifics.” OK, here are the specifics. “I've lost about 35 pounds since beginning paleo and more recently CrossFit, 5'5″, 160 to 125 pounds now. In the beginning, I definitely watched what I ate as far as portion sizes and carbs, limiting starchy veggies, fruits, nuts, did not add lots of extra fat, etc., because I needed to lose weight. Since I've gotten down to a healthy weight and now workout much more, I've loosened up the reins on my eating a lot. I still stick to paleo foods all the time, but I've been eating pretty much whatever I feel like within reason and also trying to listen to my body and eat when I'm actually hungry. I don't count anything anymore, and I know I'm getting quite a lot of carbs from fruit and starchy veggies. I've actually leaned out even more since adding these foods back in, so commonsense tells me that there is no problem, but it's hard not to worry that I'm going to gain weight when I sit here eating a snack of dried apples and macadamia nuts. I know that this worry and stress is not benefitting me in any way, so I'm hoping you two can help. All I read about in the paleosphere is to limit fruit, carbs, nuts, etc., and it seems everyone has a different opinion on what to eat and when. For example, should I really make sure I have sweet potato only post workout? Or is it fine to just eat what I feel like eating, which may be sweet potato in the morning and fruit after an evening workout, and maybe the next day no starches or fruit, but nuts if that's what I feel like? Just random examples. I do try to make my main meals meat and veggies, but other than that, I've just been eating whatever sounds good at the time. I really want to believe that if I stick to whole, paleo foods, I will continue to be fine. However, I can't help but feel like if I become complacent, I'll end up back where I started, which I never want to be at again. I always hear that if you were overweight once, your body always wants to get back to that weight, so you have to work harder than someone who has always been lean. Is this true? Can you guys talk about maintenance on the paleo diet? My goals are just to continue getting stronger and stay fit. I'd really like to start thinking about specifics of food less so I can focus on other things and enjoy a more well-rounded and lower-stress paleo life. Thanks so much.”

Diane?

Diane Sanfilippo: I like this one because I feel like I'm the same person… except I'm shorter and weigh more as the “after.”

Liz Wolfe: [laughter]

Diane Sanfilippo: I'm like: Wow. Good job there. Is that really just 35 pounds? It seems like more than that. Maybe it is. Anyway, a couple of things here: The first thing is if something's working for you right now and it doesn't require you stressing or worrying or micromanaging when you're eating things, and you're doing OK and you're not gaining weight, don't worry about it. I just think that's where you want to be, right? You want to be at this place where you don't have to overthink it. Now, if she was going to become a competitive athlete, the timing of the nutrients, I think, is a little more important to make sure you're replenishing, but if you're a normal person who is training and you're eating carbs at different times of the day, listen to your body. I think that's a really great approach.

The second thing that she was asking about is like: Should I not eat too much of this? Should I not eat too much of that? That's really for people who are working on their way to their way to their goal. So if you're where you want to be, then I don't think it's important to be stressing about it at all. If your digestion is working fine and you don't seem to be dealing with cravings and all of that, just free eat. I think that's… it's almost like that Holy Grail if you can free eat paleo foods, healthy, real foods, and not think too much about it and stay where you were. We'd all love to be there.

The other part to this, which is the thing that I definitely relate to, is once you've lost the weight, the fear of regaining it is crazy. I was about 165 pounds at one point. I don't think everyone knows the story, but I gained weight in college. I was eating pizza and wings and all the stuff that people might eat in college, and I was not working out, but I had always been an athlete before that. And is way before I knew anything about paleo or what was healthy. I'm pretty sure I knew pizza and wings weren’t the best to eat, but I don’t think I really thought much about it. So I was up to 165 pounds, and I'm probably now around 135, maybe a little more than that – I don't even know; I don't have a scale – but l'm 5'4″, and so losing that weight, it took a couple of years. And at this point, luckily I at least have a little bit of a different perspective where I know that being super lean is not always healthy because when I was super lean I didn't have a period, so I've gone to the other end of the extreme to see where I don't want to be in that regard. But having that back-of-your-mind fear, it's always there, but at least for myself I can say that once you have this different way of eating, first of all, you won't just somehow because you're eating too much fruit and nuts gain 20 pounds. It just won't happen. It won't happen in a couple of weeks or a month. The way that your body is going to respond to real food is so different from the way it's going to respond to inflammatory foods rich in sugars, void of many nutrients. It's just not going to happen like that.

The way I rein this in is that if I just notice my clothes are a little tight or I haven't been training as much and I'm still eating as much as I do when I train, or I'm more stressed right now and I've found myself making more grain-free cookies or whatever it might be, you just check in with yourself. I don't think it's abnormal to have that fear of going back there, but I think it might be nice to hear that it's probably not going to happen because you have a really different awareness now of the foods that are going into your body and how they affect you, and it won't happen as quickly. In somebody like me, my body type, for better or for worse, when I gain weight, it's all over. It's not like all of a sudden I have a gut or my face gets bigger or whatever it is. It's really all over, so it's very hard for me to see when I gain 5 pounds. So 5 pounds may not be a big deal, but what if that 5 continues on to 10 versus me catching it? So I think it's important to also know your body and know where it will show up if you're taking yourself off the rails too much and you're not doing what your body really needs. I think it's also important to pay attention to the fact that that might change over time. Right now I've been training pretty regularly because I've been at my gym a lot. I am pretty stressed with writing books, but my training's been pretty good and I've actually been showing up and increasing in strength and all of that because I'm able to manage my stress with book writing a little better this year than I was last year.

For me, I know my body tends to do better when I eat lower carbs in terms of body composition, but in terms of performance, not so much. Those are the kinds of things you also want to pay attention to. If you're training more, which it says “more recently CrossFit,” you don't want to skimp on carbs just because you're worried about gaining weight because eating those will probably make you feel better and perform better, and your weight probably won't change. But just pay attention to what's happening, how your clothes fit, and I wouldn't really pay as much attention to the scale. I don't think the scale is going to tell you as much, especially once you've lost the weight and you start training, you might gain weight that's just muscle. But just look at what's happening to your body, and if you need to take pictures to make that a little bit easier, I think that's fine, whether it's how your clothes fit or some pictures, because that can really tell you a lot more. Especially, I think one of the things that happens when we've gone through this big change in our body is that we don’t even really know what we look like anymore. And I think that's kind of a scary thing. I have no idea. If you put one of those line-ups… Have you seen those things, Liz, where it'll be a line-up of six women and they ask the woman to place herself where she thinks she fits in terms of size and scale?

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: I'm pretty sure I would not know where I fit. I'm pretty sure I would think I'm bigger than I am some days, and some days I think I'm smaller than I really am! You know?

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: And I think that's kind of a nice thing, that I don't think I'm that big some days and then some days I'm like: Oh, my gosh. I can't believe I'm not paying attention and just puffed up a little. So it's one of those weird and scary things that happens, but sometimes taking pictures and just kind of checking in, that can be more helpful.

Liz Wolfe: But if you share the pictures on Facebook, make sure the room around you is clean, because that's what we're really looking at. If you take a selfie, make sure your panties are picked up off the floor.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, my goodness.

Liz Wolfe: I'm telling you, that happens a lot. I just ruined all of the wonderful things that you just said.

Diane Sanfilippo: No, it's cool. I actually recently took pictures in a sports bra and shorts just because I was like: I don't know what's going on. I know what's going on. I know I'm just stressed out, but it's really hard to think that sometimes the things that change in our body composition are almost completely unrelated to what we're eating.

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm, totally.

Diane Sanfilippo: They're not completely unrelated because if I wasn’t stressed, I probably wouldn't eat certain things as much, but it's weird. Sometimes you have to cut yourself some slack during different points in time and not worry about 5 pounds, but I think as you go through seeing that your body might go up to 130 at some point and then it maybe drops a little, you know, it teeters and the composition is still good, you have to know that that's not the same as creeping back up to 160 for you.

Liz Wolfe: Right.

Diane Sanfilippo: And side note: Some women are probably 5'5″, 160, and super strong, so that number is not everything.

Liz Wolfe: Agreed. Pretty good.

Diane Sanfilippo: That is it!

Liz Wolfe: That's it! We'll be back next week. I think next week we're talking to Jill. Is that right?

Diane Sanfilippo: I think she's Episode 98, maybe? Or was she 97?

Liz Wolfe: Can't remember, but we have some good stuff coming up. That's the point. But until then, you can find Diane at BalancedBites.com. You can find me, Liz, at CaveGirlEats.com. Thanks for listening! We'll be back next week.

Cheers!
Diane & Liz