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You’re listening to the Balanced Bites podcast episode 256.
Welcome to the Balanced Bites podcast with Diane Sanfilippo and Liz Wolfe. Diane is a certified nutrition consultant, and the New York Times bestselling author of Practical Paleo, The 21-Day Sugar Detox, and co-author of Mediterranean Paleo Cooking. Liz is a nutritional therapy practitioner, and the best-selling author of Eat the Yolks and The Purely Primal Skincare Guide. Together, Diane and Liz answer your questions, interview leading health and wellness experts, and share their take on modern paleo living with their friendly and balanced approach. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content within this podcast are intended as general information only, and are not to be considered a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Liz Wolfe: Hello everyone, it’s me Liz with Diane. Hi buddy.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh hey! How are you?
Liz Wolfe: Oh hey. I’m the same as I was the last time we recorded, which was yesterday.
Diane Sanfilippo: Was that only yesterday?
Liz Wolfe: Right? Ah, it might have been Monday.
Diane Sanfilippo: It might have been a week ago; that’s what people think. Usually it’s every week {laughs}.
Liz Wolfe: I’m lost in the vortex. I saw a DeLorean the other day and I think it altered my space/time continuum.
Diane Sanfilippo: Nice.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Anyway, let’s hear from one of our sponsors.
Diane Sanfilippo: Pete’s Paleo has opened a new location on the East Coast. Since they’re still operating out of San Diego, as well; this means local produce and meat coming from both coasts. And drastically reduced shipping prices. Check out their new and improved website, www.PetesPaleo.com to take advantage of low shipping rates; and be sure to use coupon code 1FREEBACON. That’s the number 1; free bacon, and receive a free half pound of bacon with the purchase of a meal plan. Go to www.PetesPaleo.com.
1. News and updates from Diane & Liz [2:04]
Liz Wolfe: Alright. You know what, Diane? I really struggle in that little introduction to say something interesting because I feel like I should, but maybe I should just skip straight from, “Hey buddy!” to “Let’s hear from our sponsors.” Do you have a vote there?
Diane Sanfilippo: I like the tidbits.
Liz Wolfe: I used to do pretty well with them; now I’m just ugh. I’ll do better, I promise! I’ll do better.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: “You have to do better, Gilbert.” Ok. So what’s up with you?
Diane Sanfilippo: I wasn’t grading it, so we’re all good.
Liz Wolfe: Or at we at a Waldorf school where you don’t get grades?
Diane Sanfilippo: Is that what that would mean? Then yes.
Liz Wolfe: Actually I don’t know, but I do love what I know about the Waldorf philosophy. So if that’s the case, then awesome; we’re doing a good job.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Whole other topic. Whole other ball of wax; grades.
So what’s new? You know, I have some really exciting news that I can’t share but gosh I’m really bursting, and I feel like it was probably why I was so hopped up on the last episode. Because remember you were like; why are you so hopped up? I thought it was the green tea. I think it was just because basically we found a solution to a problem in something that we’re doing on a project, and it’s a total surprise project, but as we like to tease our podcast listeners, you guys will probably hear about it first, but I probably won’t be able to announce it for at least a few more weeks until a little bit further under way. And I will say this; it’s not like a program or a book or any of that. There’s no, “this is giving Diane more work and now it’s going to take her a year and a half or two years to finish.” {laughs} Which is kind of like our Master Class and Baby Making and Beyond. So it won’t be a thing that I tease for the next 2 years, I promise. But anyway, it’s got something to do with the book, and that’s all I can say. And it’s exciting; very exciting for me. So that was news that didn’t say anything. {laughs}
So how about updates; really the same updates as last week. If you guys are new to the show and you didn’t hear last week’s episode, we’ve got a tour coming up, a book tour. Myself and Cassy Joy Garcia of Fed and Fit, who her brand new book releases; does it release next week? It releases really soon. I don’t remember the exact date, but it releases really soon. So we’re going to be touring. We’ll be here in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, Sacramento, Phoenix, Kansas City, Denver, Boulder, Chicago, Paramus, New Jersey, and Austin, Texas. We will have Juli from PaleOMG with us in Phoenix, Kansas City, and Denver, and also you, Liz, will be with us in Kansas City. So Kansas City is pretty much stacked. There’s four of us; if you’re anywhere in driving distance, you should really make it to Kansas City that day. That’s September 15th; but you can get all the dates over at http://blog.balancedbites.com/events. RSVP for free. RSVPs are great because they help us make sure we have plenty of books, plenty of seats, and also you’ll get a reminder. I want to say it’s like 48 hours ahead, which is great because we’re still about 5 weeks out and you want to make sure you’re getting that reminder so you don’t forget when to come show up and give us hugs.
So that’s kind of the big; probably the biggest news. I’ll probably forget something else but I think that’s really it. Facebook live every Thursday; don’t forget. I think I’m going to shift back to 5 p.m. Pacific, 8 p.m. Eastern. I got some feedback that it was a little too early for some folks to catch the video, so definitely still give me your feedback when you hop on there live. And I’m not sure what next week; I think I’m going to be in Dallas next week on Thursday, so I’m not sure what’s going to happen. I might have to either go live earlier or later. I might actually be traveling at that time. Anyway, stay tuned, check me out over there. That’s it. What’s up with you? {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: I know. I know.
Liz Wolfe: I don’t know. Oh, we have baby turkeys again.
Diane Sanfilippo: I love that my updates are so business, and then it’s like, updates from the farmstead.
Liz Wolfe: We have; but it’s really sad, though because we had baby turkeys, I don’t know, a couple of weeks/months ago, and we were just never able to corral them into a safe place. It’s really hard with these turkeys because their mommy’s are so huge and the babies are so tiny, so we could get the mom’s in our little pallet house, but the babies would slip right outside in between the slats.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh no!
Liz Wolfe: And we can’t get the babies into a little small space because the mom would never go in. So basically, we like to let our animals do what they want to do, but these little baby royal palm heritage turkeys are just really fragile, and predators absolutely love them so we actually ended up, we’re guessing, losing all of the last round of turkey babies.
Diane Sanfilippo: Aww.
Liz Wolfe: And that was real sad, but then the other day I saw at least 5 baby turkeys. Mommy just leading them around, trying to teach them about life and of course you see literally the buzzards and the vultures circling. So we’re looking for a solution. If anybody has any brilliant ideas, that go beyond putting a bunch of food and water out and hoping they walk into it and stay there, I’d greatly appreciate it. Because these birds, they like to disappear. They’re not as much like chickens, and you can’t; they just need a little bit more space than that. So we’re just kind of struggling to keep these little babies alive, so if anybody has ideas, I would definitely love to hear them. So you could post on the Instagram post for this podcast at the @BalancedBitespodcast; is it @TheBalancedBitespodcast or @BalancedBitespodcast?
Diane Sanfilippo: Just @BalancedBitespodcast.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Post there.
Diane Sanfilippo: Do you even follow it? I’m just kidding {laughing}.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. {laughs} I don’t know. I have no idea. So speaking of Instagram; what is this thing, what is this Instagram stories thing?
Diane Sanfilippo: Ugh.
Liz Wolfe: Am I having Snapchat forced on me, because I really don’t like that.
Diane Sanfilippo: It appears so. It appears that Instagram is doing what they did to Vine; also, how they stole the 15 second video idea. Which now obviously you can post much longer videos on Instagram. And how Facebook basically stole the Periscope idea. You know, they do this because they already have all the users. It’s like, any of these companies like Google that has all the money already, they just kind of do whatever they want. So, you know it is what it is.
Most people are on either Facebook or Instagram, and like being there. But yeah, I don’t; basically it is sort of like Snapchat. It’s not as good as Snapchat yet, because they don’t have any of the fun face filters, which is kind of what makes Snapchat really fun and silly, and a little bit more of an escape than normal social media. I think normal, {laughs} “normal social media”, like Facebook and Instagram are so curated, meaning; especially with Instagram, people are just so particular about what they post and some accounts are just beautiful pictures all the time. And the fun thing about Snapchat is it’s just you, on camera, or whatever you’re doing on camera. And so I don’t know.
But yeah, it’s a live story, kind of, like quick little story that people can flip through, which is cool. But my beef with it is I follow over 500 people on Instagram; I don’t want to see 500 stories. I probably follow maybe 20 people on Snapchat, and that’s about as many people I’d like to see updating a story here and there for a couple of minutes a day. Anyway, it is what it is. If you’re seeing it, that’s not really how Snapchat is. Snapchat definitely is better than that. Sorry, go ahead.
Liz Wolfe: No, I joined Instagram really late, so I think I joined after it started to move away from beautiful, curated, filtered, you know, amazing pictures, and now it’s like I kind of don’t see much of a distinction between what I would put on Instagram and what I would put on Snapchat, so I think I’m a little late to the game because I know some people are a little ticked off that it’s not this beautiful feed of gorgeous curated pictures anymore, and I’m like putting pictures of my spice drawer on Instagram.
Diane Sanfilippo: No, I mean.
Liz Wolfe: Apparently that’s not what I’m supposed to do.
Diane Sanfilippo: Honestly…
Liz Wolfe: I should add a filter, huh? A sepia filter to my spice drawer.
Diane Sanfilippo: That will just make everything better. No, I actually think the way Instagram was intended, which is what I liked. I like when things kind of be what they are; are what they are. I don’t like when these apps continue to {laughs} I don’t like when things change! I posted a Seinfeld video of George Costanza complaining about worlds colliding and it’s so perfect. It’s so perfect.
But no, Instagram meant “instantly.” I take this picture, and I post it for you to see instantly, so as soon as the upload function got enabled on Instagram, and you no longer had to post just a capture live from your camera directly to the app, then you lost the instant moment. Which I really appreciated just the moment, you know of whatever was happening. There used to be a hashtag “latergram” if you post something that you took earlier and you posted it later; nobody ever does that anymore because now it’s…
Liz Wolfe: Oh; I didn’t even know about that.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. You joined so late…
Liz Wolfe: I joined #latergram.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Yeah, you joined so late that you were after this. But no, now is kind of the more curated, more beautiful images or just funny meme’s, and I think what you do is the essence of what Instagram always has been. So don’t change what you're doing. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Ok. Because I’m not gonna. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: No. I personally think that the folks who are on Instagram are following for the purpose of seeing a quick snapshot. I think we go to the platform that we go to because that’s how we want to interact, and we make that choice. And I like that there’s fewer people on Snapchat. I like that it’s people who are like; you know what? I want to see what you’re up to. I don’t want people who don’t want to see that to kind of be forced to see that or to have that in their face as something to look at if they never really opted in.
So I’m hoping that Instagram makes it possible to just select or deselect accounts that see a story from, as well. Because I don’t want to see 500 people’s stories; maybe 20 if I feel like watching them. And truthfully I watch stuff like that over TV sometimes. I’ll rarely turn shows on, sometimes on the computer. But I’ll just see what my friends are up to, and it’s just kind of a way to stay connected that way; but anyway. That’s what it is.
Liz Wolfe: Ok. Well, thank you for that.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} You could post little snippets, and you probably won’t, I’m sure.
Liz Wolfe: No. I tried Snapchat, I did it once while I was in D.C. That’s about as far as it got for me. So I’ve just got to stick with what I’m doing.
Diane Sanfilippo: Here’s a cool thing you could do because I noticed you did a Beautycounter thing, you could do something where you post it as part of a story and it lives for 24 hours, you don’t have to remember to come back and delete it. It will just delete in 24 hours; so that’s kind of a cool function. It’s a little bit more of a living thing, but it only stays for 24 hours.
Liz Wolfe: Oh. Oooh. So if I wanted to give away a charcoal bar for 24 hours; so for Snapchat I don’t have to worry about it.
Diane Sanfilippo: Right. You could do that as part of your story. Yeah, and then only people who are like; I want to see what Liz’s story is, would see it so it kind of curate down the people that are seeing it. I don’t know.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: I try to be positive.
Liz Wolfe: The fact that we keep our kid off of social media, and that’s basically all I look at all day, I just cannot think of anything that is front of my phone besides her, taking pictures of her. So I just don’t know that I’d have that much to say. We’ll see.
Diane Sanfilippo: We’ll see.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. We shall see.
2. Shout out: @Shannon.Uplifted on Instagram [14:10]
Liz Wolfe: Alright, so I have a shout out.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok.
Liz Wolfe: Ok. I want to shout out to @Shannon.Uplifted on Instagram, speaking of Instagram. She tagged me in a photo that I; I don’t get all the tagged photos but I try and check them. But this one was actually a quote from my book, Eat the Yolks, and she’s using it as part of a coaching course, which I’m super, super flattered about. It’s so cool to know that several years later, my book is still relevant to people, and still being used. And she really just kind of reminded me of what I set out to do with my book and my work, beyond that, with this quote that she chose, which I thought was really awesome, so I’m going to read it.
So the shout out is to Shannon, but it’s kind of to me. The quote is, “It’s not about dogma, it’s about knowledge. It’s about choosing food that makes sense to your body, mind, and soul. It’s about the intersection between good science, history, and common sense.” And that really kind of sums up my book. It’s the way I eat and why I eat that way, and why it makes sense. So thank you, Shannon.
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3. Question about cravings [16:08]
Liz Wolfe: Alright, so on that note. Today’s topic; well, first we’re going to read a little question about cravings, and then we’re going to use that as kind of a segue into the topic, yes?
Diane Sanfilippo: Yes.
Liz Wolfe: Ok. So, cool. This one is from Lauren; “Hi Diane and Liz. I have a question for the podcast. I love your show, and I’ve learned a ton listening to you every week. Thanks for continuing to provide this resource to us for all these years. My question is about cravings. I eat super clean, gluten free, mostly paleo. I do consume gluten free bread on occasion, and have for the past year or so. Recently, I’ve been experiencing these huge cravings after dinner. I don’t stock my house with snack foods, but all I want is chips or ice cream. I’ve tried to keep some healthier alternatives, like Jackson’s Honest or Talenti around, but I have no self-control. I’m a terrible moderator, and if/when I give into the craving, I get disappointed in myself. Since I’ve been getting these cravings, the one thing that does sort of do the trick is a Quest bar and tea, but I really don’t want to be eating the Quest bar, so what I’ve been trying to do is eat pickles, or rice, or frozen mangos, or salted pumpkin seeds, but they never satisfy the craving. I’ve also been experiencing heartburn, which is really abnormal. I generally avoid eating out, and I cook with non-vegetable based, except for cold-pressed olive oil and coconut oil.”
First question, Lauren are you pregnant?
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: That would be real funny.
Diane Sanfilippo: It would not be the first time that somebody has asked me a question, and it was completely beyond them to think about it, and it was the first thing I asked them back, and then they respond like 4 days later; like, oh shoot, yes! You know.
Liz Wolfe: That’s funny.
Diane Sanfilippo: I hope we’re not discovering this for her. So I’ll jump in on this one first, because I think there’s a lot going on here other than the craving. So let’s put this one thing kind of out there first before I dig into this, whatever Lauren is doing as alternatives to just eating more real food. If you are having this type of craving, I think there can be two things going on. Number one, most obviously you’re probably just not getting enough food. And this definitely happens to me. I don’t know what her training is like; I don’t know if we had… Oh, she posted this one on the blog, so we didn’t have the additional questions that we sometimes ask about what else they're eating, and their training, and all of that. So we don’t know what her training is like, but if your workouts have changed, perhaps you might just need more fuel.
I think that a lot of times we get this kind of deep; when it’s not an emotional craving, and I’ll address that in a second. But when we get this real craving that I call it almost like a muscle craving; you can feel in your core you need something else. You needed more food, you needed more fuel, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you probably needed more carbohydrates. Because what you tend to crave is sugar and carbohydrates; that’s what we’re craving here. Maybe fat a bit, when she talks about what she’s eating instead, like chips or ice cream, so that’s another question. Are you skimping on the fat? Do you need more fat, or do you need more carbs? You have to see what you’re eating and really break it down.
We’ve talked about this countless times where, for some folks weighing and measuring puts them on a bad track; for some folks weighing and measuring is completely illuminating to the fact that you're under eating. So if that’s the case for Lauren; if you’re under eating, you should discover that pretty quickly and start eating a bigger meal at dinner, or plan a snack for after dinner. Plan something that you can buy that you will enjoy snacking on that you feel good about that’s going to be satiating, maybe has some protein, some fat. Maybe it’s avocado and something else that you enjoy eating that doesn’t feel just like broccoli and something that’s not even going to give you many calories to begin with; and know that it’s not a big deal to have more food after dinner if you need more food.
I think we get really wrapped up in this mentality of, you know, “I shouldn’t be eating at this time,” and that’s not really the most important thing to pay attention to. Because if you’re hungry and you don’t eat, it can be really stressful for your body.
The other thing is, if she’s having emotional cravings, which if there’s something going on an you’re feeling lonely, or you’re feeling sad, or you’re feeling anxious or stressed and that’s causing the cravings, then that obviously really doesn’t have anything to do with the food, and addressing what’s going on there will help. You know, I think sometimes; I think we all go through different reasons for having cravings, and some of which are real, physical; we need the food, we need certain nutrients, we need calories, whatever that is for that specific person. But when we can discover if it’s a boredom or an emotional issue of something that we’re trying to soothe with the food and we feel like that’s a craving; like, I just want something but physically I don’t feel hungry for it, then you have to figure out what you’re actually hungry for emotionally. And that takes a lot of introspection and a lot of work that neither myself nor Liz is really equipped to kind of coach someone through.
But, here’s the slippery slope that I’m seeing, and this is something that I’ve definitely experienced, and I haven’t said anything about the heartburn there, but I don’t know really where that’s going to come into play at this point, other than it could just be stress and the stress could be causing a lot of this. Is that she’s kind of beating herself up for this potential hunger or lack of nutrition, and if she needs more food she should eat more food. And I see a lot of this kind of; I don’t know, just beating ourselves up for being hungry and feeling like we need more food, and eating it at a time when someone said that we weren’t supposed to eat it. And this kind of ties back to our accidentally dieting podcast, and also kind of what I want to get into today; just some of the diet mentality that people have and what’s going on there and how to maybe, I don’t know, more safely move through changing your nutrition without it becoming this, like you just said in your quote about nutrition; without it becoming dogma and losing sight of who we are and what we know about our bodies and what we really need, while we’re making changes to our nutrition. Does that make sense?
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Diane Sanfilippo: We’re making changes based on something someone else says, because it’s input and sometimes it’s great because we’re learning from it, right? Somebody reads your book and they learn they should eat more fat, or they want to try to eat more fat, they then have to see how that feels for them. This is not a religion. But I think there’s a lot of craziness that kind of happens as a result. So I don’t know if there was anything else that you wanted to say specifically on this question from Lauren, or if we want to get into some more of the topics that kind of come in with the dieting mentality.
Liz Wolfe: The only thing I wanted to throw in there, since I got up for a second there while we were talking about this one earlier, you might have said it already. But sometimes these squeaky clean paleo diets can be pretty skinny on the salt, and I’ve actually found that a super low-salt diet can be sort of a culprit in heartburn, and I couldn’t tell you what the biology is there, but just making sure that you do get enough mineral-rich sea salt, I think might be kind of helpful, a thing to watch out for. But other than that, no. Don’t have anything else.
4. Diet program dogma [24:18]
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok. So, a couple of things that I want to talk about are the ideas that people give each other when they’re in a scenario of a certain way of eating that has rules around it; right; so this is totally true of paleo. Like you were saying, if you’re doing a strict challenge, or a Sugar Detox, or whatever it is, or something like what I’ve been trying lately, I tried over the winter and then getting into it again now with a macros based approach to what I’m eating. And I’m quickly seeing; and this is in every community in some way, so this isn’t specific to folks who follow a macros based plan; it’s not specific to just paleo or Sugar Detox or anything. It’s not specific to any of them; it’s honestly specific to all of them.
But we somehow decide that the rules should over ride what we know about ourselves. And I think to some degree, there are certain elements; ok, so you’ve got a night that’s tough and you’re craving a drink, and the rules say no alcohol. I feel like that’s one of those situations where listening to your body is not what’s happening. This is emotions talking, and your emotions are saying, “I can’t handle this and I might want a glass of wine. But the rules of this program; I’m not supposed to have wine on my Sugar Detox.” That’s not what I’m talking about here. I think that’s a pretty unique situation, and I feel like if you’re taking a challenge and it doesn’t include alcohol, I think that’s a healthy thing, to be like, I’m not going to have the alcohol.
But if you are saying to yourself; “well, I can’t eat because I’m not supposed to eat for another 2 hours,” or, “I’m supposed to only eat X amount of this today,” they said this is the serving, whether it’s X amount of fat, the portions should look like this, the portions should look like the palm of my hand or whatever it is, and that’s what I ate, but I’m still hungry; what I’ve seen kind of run rampant is people giving each other ideas of how to distract themselves from being hungry. Whether it’s drinking a ton of water, chewing sugarless gum, eating pickles or something with very few calories, you know, just munching on who knows what; and this happened pretty recently where I made a comment about something and that kind of was the response that I got, and there are no specific people that are to blame in this, it’s just this is herd dogma mentality around dieting.
And honestly, it was a huge red flag to me. I was like, I need to bring this up on the show, because; I mean, I know I texted you when it happened. I was like, this is a bit intense for me, because if I know that I’m feeling anxious because I’m not eating enough, and all it would take to kind of remedy that is an extra serving of something. My gluten free oats or whatever it is; because I’ve been here before. I know how my body should feel. I know what being a little bit hungry and not stuffed feels like, right? I know what it’s like to not just over-indulge, but I also know what it feels like to be anxious because my body is saying it needs more food. And this isn’t a safe place for me, it’s starting to feel like it’s stressful. It’s not just; “Oh, I’m a little hungry. Ok, in an hour I’m going to eat,” or whatever the case may be.
So I just wanted to bring that up, because I feel like we’ve probably got lots of listeners who have been in that scenario, and who felt bad or wrong for wanting to listen to their bodies, and wanting to not follow some kind of plan or rule because it felt like it was making them a bad person or wrong for not following. Does that make sense?
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t know how much of this you’ve seen just in your life or in practice, where you’ve had folks coming to you where they’re kind of trying to get out of this mentality, or if there’s something that’s some other cue that you’ve seen folks saying or some other way that we can present that.
Liz Wolfe: Oh man. That’s a really big, broad topic. I feel like I’ve; I don’t want to use the word evolved, because that sounds self-important, but I feel like I’ve, even in my practice over the last couple of years that it was actually open and I had a physical office, I think I probably was doling out a little bit of advice like this. Because I think at that point I probably still had this idea that cravings were abnormal. Like, your body misbehaving. Like, you’re doing something good for your body, but you’re craving stuff, so body is being bad versus; ok, what is this telling me.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mmm.
Liz Wolfe: And what is the larger context of my intake telling me, as well. So this person that’s talking about cravings, Lauren, says she’s been eating squeaky clean, and that’s great. So if she came into my office 3 years ago; I probably would have said, well, you’re eating great, you’re eating really clean, I think that’s awesome. So you’re doing everything right, therefore your body is just misbehaving, so maybe some herbal tea. Or, maybe some yeah, salted pumpkin seeds, frozen mango; something like this. Instead of what I would do now, which is to say; ok, where do we have issues sometimes on these “clean” plans or diets. Maybe are we skinny on sodium, are we low in magnesium; are you just not freaking eating enough?
And I think to connect this with what maybe you’re witnessing in the community that you were talking about is feeling like we can micromanage things; this is kind of a funny way to put it, but micromanage things from a macro perspective. I think you probably were seeing a lot of people who are very much like; protein, fat, carbs and water.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mmm.
Liz Wolfe: Like, those are your 4 macros.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, I have the answer. It’s this.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Play with one of those; play with one of those macros. And if not, just chew some sugar-free gum or eat something with 5 calories or less per serving, which is why I used to eat a ton of pickles, and a ton of vegetable broth. I used to drink a ton of that.
But what we so often neglect to think about is obviously the mental stuff, which we talked about in the episode about accidentally dieting, and the stuff that you alluded to before; or didn’t allude to, that you described before. But we don’t talk about common deficiencies, or magnesium, or these kinds of self-diagnostic tidbits of knowledge that we have to help people get to know themselves a little better. And what’s hilarious, to me, because I’m a dork. I don’t know who else in the entire world besides you would probably find this hilarious. But what’s hilarious to me is folks that are nursing all these macros, and if they were to really manage something that made sense, they would be managing 50,000 different inputs, and that’s impossible.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mmm.
Liz Wolfe: You know?
Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: It’s impossible to manage magnesium, selenium, taurine, iodine.
Diane Sanfilippo: Right. Micronutrients.
Liz Wolfe: You just can’t do it.
Diane Sanfilippo: Micronutrients, yeah. Micronutrients are really hard to micromanage.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ha! Micromanage.
Liz Wolfe: Right.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think also what happens, and I see this in the 21-Day Sugar Detox community, too. I want to be clear that this is not; I’m not trying to poo-poo; I’m still currently following a plan that’s based on a certain macronutrient breakdown. This is not me poo-pooing on the approach; what we’re trying to get into is this kind of herd mentality, the dogma, the perhaps inaccurate way of helping ourselves because we do get into a community and we sort of crowd source feedback. I mean, when I pulled the trigger and made a post, just kind of saying here’s how I’m feeling; it was kind of like I was just curious if other people had felt the same way, and if it was something that was kind of normal in my past. That’s really all it was. But I ended up getting a lot of advice back, which I actually didn’t even want. I very rarely want advice. {laughs} When I want advice, I ask somebody very specifically for advice, frankly you know.
I do; I say, tell me what you think, or I need some advice. I did it just before this podcast; I asked a friend for some advice. Because I value that, and if I were working one on one with somebody, I feel like that’s the person I would ask. Say hey, this is how I’m feeling, because here’s what’s happens. They get a context of who I am, the way I approach things, I can tell them exactly what’s going on, and it’s not a broad-based, everyone needs to be drinking this many ounces of water a day, and if you’re not checking all these boxes first then the fact that you’re hungry, we can’t even address your hunger until we know that you’re doing all of these things also. And I’m like; no, I’m really just hungry. I don’t even believe in the drink this much water every day check box. I don’t believe in that. So let’s put that aside; let’s back burner that one, because I’m never going to drink as much water as you tell me I “should” drink. So there’s that.
But when I’m hungry, and I feel it physically, I know I’m hungry. It’s not a craving because it’s emotional or I just want something sweet; I don’t get those cravings. And I’m not saying that because I’m better than anyone; it’s been years of figuring out how to feed and nourish my body so that I don’t have those cravings and I’m not freaking out, like just give me sugar. But I do know when my body is craving carbohydrates, and what I eat is something that’s carbohydrates, and that feels good. And it’s not about sugar, and it’s not about a sweet taste, and it’s not about all the things that have been resolved over years of several times running through my own program with the Sugar Detox and getting that; like, I just need something sweet all the time kind of thing gone. But really tuning in to; well, what happens if I do eat that thing? Do I still want more, or am I quenched? Is my body saying, “Ah. That is what I needed.” And that’s what happens for me.
So, you know; I kind of went against what I knew was the right thing to do and I kind of put it out there for crowd sourcing, and I knew. I know myself based on what’s happened in the past when I’ve done a similar plan. I knew I just needed some more food and I wasn’t trusting myself for that, honestly for like 10 minutes. {laughing} It was about 10 minutes, and then I pulled the post down because I was like, “I can’t even deal with more feedback.” Because you know what, I know myself. And I know I just need to eat this, and that’s probably going to feel good. And guess what? I ate that; I ate that 30 extra grams of carbs or whatever it is. So yeah, here I am micromanaging it, but the truth is, on a macro level I know how my body is going to feel and when I eat that thing, honestly.
5. Listening to your body [35:44]
Diane Sanfilippo: So this is the other thing I wanted to talk about from just the reality of how it feels to physically be craving something. I was feeling really anxious basically most of the morning yesterday because of the way my nutrition kind of panned out for the day. It was technically a rest day, and I didn’t have much carbohydrate in the day. And the way I’m eating right now, that’s much lower in fat relative to what I would normally eat if I were free eating and not kind of counting anything. I know that my body needs more carbohydrate to feel good and not feel stressed, and you and I talk about this a lot too with the topic of adrenal stress and how that can cascade into thyroid problems; which is something I’m really curious about for myself. I had some blood work done recently, I’m just kind of curious what’s going on with my hormones and stress and all of that just based on; I don’t know, having been extremely stressed for about 5 years {laughs}. And it’s kind of a red flag to me; if I’m feeling anxious and stressed, and I know that one of these inputs causing that is perhaps some restricted nutrition, that if I eat something, my body responds and it feels better and it can kind of breathe that sigh of relief that I need to trust my body.
So, the message here is if you’re following something; even if it’s the 21-Day Sugar Detox, you’re following my program, and your body, you’ve been told “here are some portions to go by.” Here’s the thing; we don’t ever actually limit you on how much you can eat of anything. Certain things are yes foods and no foods, but actually the no foods, some of them become yes foods when you’re exercising. But no one, and none of the coaches in my group, none of my moderators, are going to tell you if you ate an extra cup of beets or any of the foods that we want you to be eating, that if you're body needs more that it was the wrong thing to do to eat more. That’s not a mentality we want to promote. That’s one of the reasons why I don’t give a lot of portion guidelines a lot of the time. You know, I have portion guidelines in the books in some way; it’s like, there’s this many servings per recipe. It’s in Practical Paleo; here’s a range for servings. But I don’t like to be prescriptive, because being prescriptive is very individual, and even from there there are nuances and fluctuations.
Anyway, I really wanted to put it out there that I think, especially as women, but all of us need to pay attention when we have these cravings if we’re in some kind of setting where there are rules; are we letting those rules override what we know about ourselves and how we know we feel? You know what I mean.
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} It’s a big topic, and I think; I mean, we see it all the time. I want people to kind of step back and not relinquish all of their power just because they’re following a program; you know? I think that’s kind of at the crux of it. And to go back to the question that’s not really; this was just spurred by Lauren’s question, because it reminded me of what had happened, because people want to just distract from the issue at hand. But anyway, we could open up a huge can of worms with that one.
I’m really curious what our listeners think; what experience they’ve had with programs and limitations and being told to do XYZ, and then kind of going against that, and resolving the issue, you know? Going against, “I’m only supposed to eat X number of grams of fat, or whatever, per day,” And it turning out just fine, you know. And feeling like they did the right thing by listening to their bodies, and learn the lesson that sometimes the rules are there for a reason and sometimes you need to bend them or break them, because your health is kind of worth more than some silly rules, right?
Liz Wolfe: Yes. {laughs} Wow, yes. Yeah. I mean, isn’t that what we try and say, I swear, like every single episode? Your health is more important than rules.
Diane Sanfilippo: Basically. Like, if we had a tagline for our podcast, maybe that would be it?
Liz Wolfe: Oh man, that’s actually really good.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think we always want to enable people and empower people to get more information, more education; that’s one of the reasons why we’re creating the Master Class the way we are. It’s a Master Class; it’s a class that people are going to take, but it’s a self study. There’s a journal, there’s worksheets that each person gets to do for themselves, and when we guide people through that, there is no, “here are the rules, here’s the program you’re all going to follow.” It’s very independently focused.
And you know, unfortunately for some people, it puts a lot of pressure on you to figure your stuff out and try and resolve it with the information that’s given to you. And I think that for a lot of us, that’s hard. It’s easier to be like; here’s what you're supposed to do, and do it, and if it doesn’t work I can blame the program and I don’t have to blame myself if it doesn’t work. But I think part of it is that we have to input ourselves into those programs pretty significantly and not take everything at face value.
So we want to hear from you guys; come comment over on the podcast Instagram; you can comment on the blog post over at http://blog.balancedbites.com for this episode, which is number 256, or if you’ve got something more personal you want to share and you don’t want to air it as much publicly, feel free to drop a line. I think on the podcast page, we’ve got a form that you can fill out. I know we have a form; I think that’s where it is. But you can fill out that form, and then it’s much more private. You don’t have to post information publicly. But we’d love to hear from you guys. Because I think sharing more experiences of when you’ve listened to your body and it’s been the right thing to do; I think it’s really going to help a lot of our listeners.
Liz Wolfe: The Balanced Bites podcast is sponsored in part by the Nutritional Therapy Association. The NTA trains and certifies nutritional therapy practitioners and consultants, including me, I’m an NTP, emphasizing bio-individuality and the range of dietary strategies that support wellness. The NTA emphasizes local, whole, properly prepared nutrient dense foods as the key to restoring balance and enhancing the body’s ability to heal. Nutritional therapy practitioners and consultants learn a wide range of tools and techniques to assess and correct nutritional imbalances. To learn lots more about the nutritional therapy program, go to http://www.NutritionalTherapy.com. There are workshop venues in the US, Canada, and Australia, so chances are you’ll be able to find a venue that works for you.
6. 5 years of the Balanced Bites podcast [42:52]
Liz Wolfe: Alright. Diane, before we go to our treat yoself segment, I wanted to let you know that 4 episodes from now, we will be rounding 5 years of this podcast.
Diane Sanfilippo: Shut up! Seriously?
Liz Wolfe: That will be episode 260. Yep.
Diane Sanfilippo: Wow.
Liz Wolfe: Unbelievable. We should think of something special to do.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} But not a live episode, right?
Liz Wolfe: No, not a live episode.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: That’s just unintelligent.
Diane Sanfilippo: Wait, is that going to be; will we be Kansas City then? Where will we be?
Liz Wolfe: I think that’s the week after.
Diane Sanfilippo: Alright, well maybe we can do something special while we’re there.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: We’ll see what happens. Very cool.
Liz Wolfe: We’ll see.
Diane Sanfilippo: Wow; I’m curious also. I would also ask for comments on anyone who has listened to all 200- at that point it will be 260, but anyone who has heard every single episode. I want to know.
Liz Wolfe: Oh man.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m dying to know, if you’ve been with us from the beginning or if you’ve listened.
Liz Wolfe: I want to personally apologize to that person, if they exist.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing} Crazy, crazy.
7. #Treatyoself: Eye gel patches [44:03]
Liz Wolfe: Alright, so what is your treat yoself today.
Diane Sanfilippo: Alright, so my treat yoself today, and I’m wearing it right now; I’m doing it now. You can’t see, but you introduced me to these; did my voice just crack? You introduced me to these.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, Peter Brady, it did.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} “Oh my nose!” You introduced me to these, I don’t know, probably 4 years ago, these eye gel thingamabobbers.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: Now, there’s a lot of different brands. There’s a company that sent me a bunch of them. At this moment, the brand is not really that relevant, because I’ve used others and they’re fine. But first of all, I was putting them on backwards. The skinny part is supposed to go under your eye, and the fat part is supposed to go out by like your crow’s feet, which I’m old enough to have crow’s feet. You probably don’t know what those are. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Sure I do.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m just kidding. But yeah, these gel eye patch things. I don’t know if they’re as miraculous as I think they are, but they feel really good, and I’ve got this thing where I feel like my eyes look a little tired, and I’m loving them. I feel like it’s a little mini at home spa treatment where I stick these under my eyes and I leave them there for; I don’t know, until I need to do something. Or just wear them out to the store. No, they’re a little bit frightening to look at. But, yeah, so some kind of hydrating eye gel. I’m going to recommend that our listeners find some and try them out and tell me what you think. I just think that they’re fun and they feel really good. What do you think? Do you use them? You used to.
Liz Wolfe: Do I use them?
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Now, no I don’t.
Diane Sanfilippo: Didn’t you back in the day? Wasn’t it you that told me about them? Maybe I’m making that up.
Liz Wolfe: I think you found them through something else that I was using.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh. Yeah. Maybe.
Liz Wolfe: Like Frownies, or something.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, yeah. I think; the first ones I had were Frownies brand. I was like, those look good. But those were crazy expensive.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I don’t remember to do anything now a days. I used basically the charcoal bar, and that’s about it. The charcoal bar, the C-ex, and the coffee bean when I remember. I just have no routine now, and I slept in; I put on makeup like 3 days ago for one reason or another, and I just haven’t wanted to waste it, so I’m just waiting for it to come off on its own. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing} that’s what happens with my eyeliner. If it’s there, it’s because I put it on one day last week and then just didn’t touch it.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Oh man. I would have, several years ago, I would have just lambasted somebody who told me they slept in their makeup. But now; I just understand things differently.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: It’s all good.
Diane Sanfilippo: Love it.
Liz Wolfe: Alright. That will be it for this week. You can find me, Liz, at http://realfoodliz.com/ and you can find Diane at http://dianesanfilippo.com. Join our email lists for free goodies and updates and news that you don’t find anywhere else on our website or on the podcast. While you’re on the web, leave us an iTunes review please. See you next week.