Realfoodology - 1: How Realfoodology All Began

Episode Date: September 9, 2020

Welcome to Episode 1 of The Realfoodolody Podcast!  I thought I’d start out this podcast giving you my background into how I got into health and ultimately pursued it as a career.  It started with childhood and an undergrad in communications.  I then took a detour through band tour managing with bands like 3OH!3, Third Eye Blind and Tove Lo which finally lead me to where I am today.  I'll be using my Masters of Science in Nutrition & Integrative Health to break it down with you, make it more digestible and easier to navigate.  Let’s get back to real food!

Hi, guys. Welcome to the first episode ever of the Real Foodology podcast. I'm Courtney Swan, and I'm so happy that you're here. If you follow me on Instagram, maybe you saw my stories the other night where I was speaking about my conundrum with the greeting, hey guys. I want to be clear that when I say that, it is gender inclusive. But I have kind of a funny story about the reason why I don't use y'all. So the other night of my stories, I brought up, I said, Hey guys. And then I said, you know, I actually want to talk about this because how else do we address people? And I kind of consider guys to be gender fluid at this point, just in the context of the greeting itself. And it goes back to tiny little Courtney growing up in Texas. So when I was little,

I grew up, I was born in Texas, but we grew up going back and forth between, between Colorado and Texas. And for some reason, when I was in Colorado, Colorado kids love to make fun of kids from Texas. And little Courtney thought that if I didn't say y'all that no one would know that I was from Texas and still in my thirties, it's stuck with me. Obviously, of course, now I'm not worried about people knowing I'm from Texas. I'm very proud that I'm from Texas, but it stuck with me. And now I don't use the word y'all. So I'm just going to, I'm going to keep addressing all of you guys as guys. And I hope everyone is okay with that because I tried to everyone and it just doesn't roll off the tongue, you know, the same, it just hits different.

Do you want to hear the biggest discovery of our time for promoting healthy aging? Of course you do because all of us are concerned about aging. There is a class of ingredients called senolytics that were discovered less than 10 years ago, and they are being called the biggest discovery of our time for promoting healthy aging and enhancing your physical prime. Now, when I'm talking about aging here, I'm not just talking about on a superficial level, wrinkles and saggy skin. I'm talking about energy, joint pain, your ability to show up for your life, cognitive function. I'm talking about the real effects of cellular aging on the body and what it does to our body as we age. Now, as we age, everyone accumulates something called senescent cells in their body.

They cause symptoms of aging, such as aches and discomfort, slow workout recoveries, sluggish mental and physical energy associated with that middle age feeling. They're also known as zombie cells. They're old and worn out and not serving a useful function for our health anymore, but they're taking up space and nutrients from our healthy cells. Much like pruning the yellowing and dead leaves off of a plant, qualia senolytic removes those worn out senescent cells to allow for the rest of them to thrive in the body. And you just take these supplements two days a month. That's right. Just two days a month. Qualia Synalytic is an amazing product that helps to remove these senescent cells. And if you want to hear more about the product and more about these senescent cells that affect aging, go back to the episode that I did with

Dr. Greg Kelly of Neurohacker. So you can dive more into the details of all of it. But the formula that I'm talking about qualia synolytic is non GMO it's vegan, it's gluten free, and the ingredients are meant to complement one another factoring in the combined effect of all the ingredients together. If for some reason you don't like the product, you're not feeling the effects of it. It also has a 100 day money back guarantee. If you want to resist aging at the cellular level, try qualia synalytic, go to neurohacker.com slash realfoodology for up to a hundred dollars off and make sure to use code realfoodology at checkout for an additional 15% off. That's neurohacker, N-E-U-R-O-H-A-C-K-E-R.com

slash realfoodology for an extra 15% off your purchase. Thanks to Neurohacker for sponsoring today's episode. This is really exciting. Organifi now has kids stuff. They just released two kid products. One is called Easy Greens and it's a refreshing green apple juice where kids will never know that it's packed with veggies. And the other one is called Protect. It's a delicious wild berry punch like the Kool-Aid that we used to have as a kid, but without any sugar. This is really exciting. And if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you know that I'm a huge fan of Organifi and most specifically because every single product that they make is glyphosate residue free. So you know that you're going to be able to give these powders

to your kids and know that they will be able to consume them safely without any glyphosate in it. So let's break down each one. The easy greens is a nourishing and delicious blend of superfoods and veggies that provides essential nutrients, probiotics, and digestive enzymes to bring balance to kids growing bodies without fillers, additives, or junk. It helps to fill in nutritional gaps, aids in growth and development, supports digestive health, has a rich micronutrient profile, and includes digestive enzymes. This would be a great way to sneak in greens for your little one without them actually knowing that it's healthy for them. And the second one, which is the wild berry punch similar to Kool-Aid is called Protect and it is to support

your child's daily immune health with food derived nutrients that work to strengthen their body's first line of defense. I know just through girlfriends of mine that have children that when your kids are going to school, going to daycare, they're coming home sick a lot more often just because they're getting exposed to different kids and different viruses when they're out in the world playing with kids. So this would be a great way to help to support your little one's immune health. It's organic and it's also made with real whole food ingredients. It has a delicious berry taste and it's low sugar and it's gentle enough for kids to take every single day. And I really love the ingredients in this one. It's orange and acerol cherry, which is a powerful source of vitamin C and antioxidants, astragalus, elderberry and propolis. These are all really great for overall immune health. If you want to try the

products that I talked about today or any of the Organifi products, go to Organifi.com slash realfoodology and use code real Foodology for 20% off. Again, that's Organifi. It's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash Real Foodology. So anyways, hi, welcome. This is my first episode ever. And I wanted to spend this episode giving you my background and how I got into nutrition and health and wellness. It all starts with childhood actually. So I was that kid. I'm sure everyone had at least one of these friends that my, my mom was always buying. She was shopping at the like little organic grocery stores. We had a grocery store called Sun Harvest. It actually later was bought out by Whole Foods, but this was before Whole

Foods was really even around. And she only bought, my mom was way ahead of her time. I don't know if foods were even labeled as organic yet, but we had all of the natural food brands. So all the natural cereals, I didn't get all the sodas and the Dunkaroos and like all of the fun junk food of the eighties and nineties. I'm revealing my age right now. And I was that friend that when I would go over to friends' houses, I would raid everyone's pantry. Um, because I didn't get any of that kind of stuff as a kid. So when we would have sleepovers and stuff, I was always like going after the Dunkaroos, the cinnamon toast crunch, like everything. And it's funny because at the time I threw a lot of tantrums about it. I had a girlfriend who

would get Burger King like two or three nights a week. And my mom cooked everything from scratch. We had homemade meals every single night, which I have grown up to realize is such a week. And my mom cooked everything from scratch. We had homemade meals every single night, which I have grown up to realize is such a privilege. And I'm so grateful for it. But as a kid, all I wanted was a McDonald's. I wanted Burger King. And at the time, obviously being little, I didn't realize how, how much that impacted my health. And I'm so grateful now for my mom doing that. And that was, so in the beginning I was resistant to it, of course. And then fast forward to 17, I go off to college and I do what any college kid does. I binge drink a lot of beer and I started eating all of the fast food, all of the stuff that I never got to experience

as a kid. It's my first time on my own, my first time learning how to feed myself, like truly on my own. And I come home after my first semester and I had gained probably 15 to 20 pounds. And this is not about the weight here, but this was when I started to finally make the connection between what I ate and what am I, what I put in my body and how I felt. And it took me a while to really come to that realization because at the time I still, um, was eating pretty crappy. I also had a major sugar addiction. I could not go a day without drinking a vitamin water. Do you guys remember those? I don't even know. I think they still make them. And some sort of either gummy candy or Reese's, like you name it. I just had to have some sort of sugar every day. So fast forward to maybe my junior year, my mom started sending me newspaper clips in the like

physical mail because when I was in college, we had email, but it was not big like it is now. You know, like you can go online now, email someone a newspaper article and that's it. So my mom would physically cut out these newspaper clippings and she would place them in the mail and send them to my apartment in Colorado, which is where I went to school. I went to CU Boulder, University of Colorado. And it was looking back, it was the best thing that she could have ever done for me because she was just slowly introducing little things here and there. I will never forget this was, it had to have been 2005 or 2006. So my mom was really, really on top of it. And she sent me this article about something

called hydrogenated oils, or what we know now as trans fats. And it was this article about how they wreak havoc on the body. They're really not good for us. Um, they're terrible for the cardiovascular system. I mean, they're just terrible. We know now actually the USDA has now banned trans fats or hydrogenated oils from our food because we know that they're that bad. And this started as she slowly started sending me these articles, it started to spark my interest in nutrition. So my senior year, my very last class of college, I majored, I was an undergrad in communications because I was one of those kids that went to school at 17 and was like, I have no idea what I want to do with my life. So I did what most of us did then in that position. And I majored in communications, which I'm actually so grateful for now because it's

really where I learned how to hone in my craft of writing, which I'm so grateful for. It's so amazing how you look back and you see how your life kind of all the pieces come together and how it just works so perfectly. So anyway, so I'm graduating. The last class that I take in my undergrad is a nutrition class. And I remember calling my dad and I was like, dad, I fucked up. I should have majored in nutrition. I'm so interested in this. And I was so excited about this class. And he's like, well, Courtney, it's too late. Please graduate. Get through this last class. So I did.

And then I moved to LA. Shortly after that, I remember my mom sending me a book in the mail. And so I should rewind back a second. I moved to LA because I had always wanted to work in music. Music has been my passion since for as long as I can remember. And I thought I would work in music. So I moved to LA. I lived here for a year. I really couldn't figure out how to make it work. And so I actually ended up moving back to Colorado, but more on that in a second, I'm going to piece all of this together. So my mom sends me this book and it's called you are what you eat. And this was when everything

finally clicked for me. Basically the book I'm, I'm assuming I'm hoping it's still in print, but I'm not entirely sure. But basically it just explained the way, way how we the food that we put in our body and how it affects ourselves and our energy and just how important real food is and the impact that it makes on our bodies and on our health. And I don't know why it took me so long to make that connection, but it was, well, it was a series of things along the way, but this was kind of like the missing puzzle puzzle piece where I was finally like, okay, it all makes sense. So this book actually, um, it talked, it, it encouraged, it encouraged me to go vegetarian. So I was vegetarian for almost five years because of it. Um, I think it's so funny. I've talked about this with friends before it often, when people start getting really, really into health, there's kind of this like progression of it. Right. And usually

that first step is going vegetarian. Some of them stay vegetarian forever. Others go on to go back to eating meat. But at the time in that book, I was reading about the horrors of factory farming and the way that we treat animals in this country, the antibiotics, the hormones, also just the horrible treatment of them. And I didn't want any of that in my body. So I decided right then and there I would be vegetarian. And then about four years into being vegetarian, I found out that I had a wheat allergy or otherwise known as a gluten allergy. So I remember sitting in that nutritionist office, looking at her going, I'm sorry, what was that word that you just said? Gluten? Because at the time this was before the gluten

free craze. So we didn't So no one really yet knew about it. It wasn't in the mainstream yet. So many listening may not know this. I'm assuming most of you guys probably already do. But gluten is a form of protein. So being vegetarian, gluten was a major part of my diet at the time with the bread. And there was a lot of these like, um, vegan nuggets that were made out of seitan or wheat gluten essentially. And after having to cut that out after time, my body was starving for meat because I started having dreams about

eating meat. I'll never forget, uh forget waking up in the middle of the night, air feeding myself. What I was dreaming were chicken nuggets. I called my mom the next day and she's like, Courtney, you have to listen to your body. Your body is literally telling you that it is screaming for meat. So that was my journey into health going vegetarian. I finally, I ate meat shortly after that dream. And I did not realize until I started eating meat again, looking back that I had, I had gained a lot of weight, which again, this is not fully about the weight, but I felt super fatigued. I was starving all the time. I could not get satiated. I could not get full for whatever reason. And the second I started eating meat,

I gained that energy back. I could go for hours in between meals, which is a very important thing. And I will probably, you will hear me talk about more of that in later episodes, but you want to give your digestive system a break in between meals in order to digest and relax. This is just my journey with the vegetarian diet. I'm not telling this story to talk badly or discredit the vegan and vegetarian community. I really want this podcast to be all inclusive and it's not a podcast singling out any diet is good or bad. The whole point is that we are bio individual and what works for me may not work for you. And the truth of the matter is that vegetarian and veganism works for people. It didn't work for me. And that's just my journey. And I wanted to tell it because it's part of my

story, but I don't want to single anyone out. Again, I want this podcast to be very inclusive. And I do only eat organic and grass fed meats now after learning about the horrible treatment of animals in this country and the growth hormones and antibiotics and pharmaceutical drugs that we put in their bodies. I decided that I didn't want that in my body. And I am very careful to only eat organic and clean meats now because of that. Now, I mentioned earlier that I was very into music and this plays a role as well in my past. So when I was graduating from Boulder, my senior year, I became really good friends with these two guys. Their names are Nat and Sean. And they had started

this band while we were in college. It's this band called 303 and they came out of Boulder. And as we were graduating, their band started gaining national recognition. Imagine having a metabolic coach in your pocket that you could access at any point, any time in the day, whenever you want. That's what Lumen is. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach. It's a device that measures your metabolism through your breath. And on the app, it lets you know if you're burning fat or carbs and gives you tailored guidance to improve your nutrition, workout, sleep, and even stress management. I have so many podcast episodes about metabolic flexibility and why it is so incredibly important for your overall health and longevity. And now thanks to Lumen,

you can actually see in real time, your body's ability to efficiently switch between using different fuel sources like carbs and fats. There's preferred times to use each and how well you can switch places between burning carbs versus burning fats. We'll tell you a lot about what is going on in your metabolism and where you are in the metabolic flexibility spectrum. All you have to do is breathe into your lumen first thing in the morning, and you'll know what's going on with your metabolism, whether you're burning mostly fats or carbs. Then lumen gives you a personalized nutrition plan for that day based on your measurements. You can also breathe into it before and after workouts and meals so you know exactly what's going on in your body in real time. And lumen will give you tips to keep you on top of your health game. Why is this so important? Your metabolism is your body's engine. It's how your

body turns the food you eat into the fuel that keeps you going because your metabolism is at the center of everything your body does. Optimal metabolic health translates to a bunch of benefits, including easier weight management, improved energy levels, better fitness results, better sleep, and more. Now this is a really cool feature too. It can actually track your cycle as well as the onset of menopause and adjust your recommendations to keep your metabolism healthy through hormonal shifts. So if you want to take the next step in improving your health, go to lumen.me and use RealFoodology to get $100 off your Lumen. That is L-U-M-E-N dot M-E and use Real Foodology at checkout for $100 off. Thank you so much to Lumen for sponsoring this episode.

Did you know that most cookware and appliances are made with forever chemicals? Yes, that means your nonstick pans, your air fryers, your waffle makers, your blender could possibly have PFAS. And yes, even our beloved crockpots and pressure cookers. I have actually been talking about this for so long. Back in 2006, my mom came to my dorm room and made me get rid of all my nonstick pans because she was concerned about me being exposed to something called Teflon. Teflon is a coating that is used on nonstick pans and a lot of these appliances that I just named. So I've avoided Teflon, nonstick,

PFA coated appliances, pots and pans, you name it for a very long time. And the only option for the, for a very long time was just stainless steel pots and pans. So I was really excited when a company like our place came out because they started creating really beautiful cookware and appliances that are like pieces of art. Every appliance that I have from our place, I legit want to store it on the counter. And I'm the type of person that does not want anything on my counter. Cause I like it to look really just clean and minimal, but I'm so obsessed with all the art place products that I have so many of them displayed on my counter because they are legit pieces of art. Our place is a mission driven and female founded brand that makes beautiful kitchen products that

are healthy and sustainable. All their products are made without PFAS, which are the forever chemicals, and also made without PTFE, which is Teflon. If a company is not outwardly stating that they don't use these chemicals, then if they are using nonstick coating on their appliances, they are absolutely using forever chemicals. And there's been increasing global scrutiny for their impact on the environment and our health. And recognizing this impact, the EU plans to prohibit PFAS by 2025. Our place has always been PFAS free and they offer durable toxin-free ceramic coatings, ensuring a healthy, safe cooking experience. And let me tell you, you guys, they are changing the game with non-toxic

appliances. They have a blender, they have an air fryer, they have a crock pot, not to mention their amazing always pan. They have a perfect pot, which is just the perfect size for soups. And they also just came out with a cast iron that I'm loving as well. And I more recently replaced all of the bowls and plates in my kitchen because I really needed an upgrade. My other ones were so old. So I got some from our place and they are so beautiful. The ceramics are beautiful. The colors are amazing. Like I said, everything is like a piece of art. If you want to try any of the products from our place, go to fromourplace.com and enter my code realfoodology at checkout to receive 10% off

sitewide. That's fromourplace.com, code realfoodology. Our place offers a 100-day trial with free shipping and returns. So I graduated. Like I said, I moved to LA for a year. I came back and they had gotten an offer to do this tour called Warped Tour. They called me and because I had actually, because I knew I wanted to work in music, I was doing a lot of internships for record labels when I was in college. I used to work the door at a couple of different venues in Boulder and in Denver, just to kind of get my, get my foot in the door. So they called me and they said, Hey, we know that you really wanted to work in music. Do you want to come tour with us? And I was like, duh, of course I've been waiting for this my whole life.

So I show up the first day of Warped Tour, their manager, who was a good friend of mine, pulls me aside and he goes, Hey, congrats. You're the tour manager. Good luck. I was like a year fresh out of college and was like, oh shit, I don't even know what that means. But thankfully, because I had all these connections from working the door at venues and working for record labels, I knew people that worked as tour managers. I also knew some, a couple of people in touring bands. I called everyone I knew and I was like, all right, give me everything you got. Send me all your spreadsheets. Tell me what I got to do. Thankfully, I had a couple of those friends that happened to be on work tour and I would sit on their bus every night with them and they would

just show me all the ins and outs of everything I needed to do. So that actually propelled me into almost five years of being a tour manager. Started out with 303. I was with them for a little bit over two years. And then I started working for this band called the Somerset out of Arizona. And finally, so as I was on tour with the Somerset, at the same time, I just started, I mean, pretty much throughout all these years that I was tour managing, I just kept getting more and more interested in, into nutrition. But at the time I was really happy tour managing. I love to travel.

I loved the touring lifestyle. It was really fun. And so I would just kind of thought like, oh, this is, this will just kind of be my hobby and I'll help friends on the side. So finally it came to a head. And after two years with the Somerset, I, I remember I was reading a book on one of the last tours I did with him. It's a book from Michael Pollan called In Defense of Food. And I remember I read that book in like two or three days. I was just so intrigued by it. It kind of, it's all the ins and outs of the industrialization of our food

and how we got to where we are today. And you know, it really was just like, he just preaches real food. He's like, we got to get back to real food. And it resonated with me so much that finally I just was like, you know what? I need to get back to real food. And it resonated with me so much that finally I just was like, you know what? I need to go back to school for nutrition. This is really where my passion lies. And this is what I want to do. So I quit the band. I moved back to Texas. My parents are in San Antonio and I didn't want to go to San Antonio. So I moved to Austin, which is like a little bit over an hour away. And because my undergrad was in communication, I didn't have any of the sciences that I needed in order to even apply for the master's program for nutrition, which would be the RD path, which is a registered dietitian.

And I will dive more into that in a second. But so I proceeded to dive in headfirst after not being in school for five years to all of the prerequisite science classes that I had to take. Not going to lie. It was brutal. Chem one, chem two, organic chemistry. I'm going to be honest with you guys. Chemistry is really not my strength. It wasn't until we got to biochemistry that it all started to make sense. I was like, Oh, because in biochemistry, we apply all of the chemistry that we learned prior to the body. And that's when I knew that I was on the right path because I was like, okay, now this makes sense. We're applying this to the body and how it works. So I get through all of those classes. And at the time, the only way that I knew to get credentials

in nutrition was to go the RD route. Like I said earlier, registered dietitian, that is the standard way to get certified if you want to be a health professional, as far as if you want to help people with their diets. So I start on that path. But as I was taking these classes, I was at Texas State. And I was on my way, I started taking nutrition classes. And basically, after you finish your prerequisites, they start you on the path and you start taking these nutrition classes coinciding with your prereqs. And then you apply to be a part of the program. And as I started taking these classes, I realized that it was not perfectly in alignment with

what I really wanted to study when it came with nutrition. And I want to be very careful to say this, that I am not at all talking shit about the RD program. Honestly, it's still to this day is the gold standard for credentialing. Had I figured out for my undergrad that I wanted to study nutrition, I would have gone the RD route, but I felt like for the time and place that I was at, like I was going back to school at 26 and I knew that I wanted a more alternative, integrative, holistic, naturopathic approach to nutrition and the RD program, at least when I was in school, I don't know updated now how it is, but, um, it's notoriously known for some of it to be a little bit outdated. Um, when I was in those classes, they were telling

us that we need to put our client or our patients on low fat diets. We now know from the studies that low fat diets are really not good for our bodies. I mean, our brain is something like 60% fat. And when we take fat out of our diet, it impairs our cognitive function. Fat is what satiates us. It keeps us full. And so there were little things like that, that I was like, I don't know that I want to do this. And then I know the, um, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is at least at the time when I was in school, I haven't looked this up recently, so I don't know if this is still to date, but they would have these expos every year and they were sponsored by Coca-Cola, General Mills.

And I was very turned off, turned off by that, to be honest. So I decided, well, and I actually, I want to say one more thing about the RD route. At the end of the day, the really amazing, cool thing about going the RD path is that once you have those credentials, you can literally do whatever you want in the nutrition realm with them. So if you're listening to this right now and you want to go the RD path, I love it. Just know that if you're interested in the more like integrative, um, holistic side of nutrition where real food is like really, really the focus, um, you just, you may have to do more schooling or you'll, you can study on the side. Um, but I, I still think, I mean, RD credentialing is still the gold standard for the US. I ultimately

decided not to do it because of what I said earlier. And also, if you want to work in a government setting, hospital, school, nursing home, you have to have the RD credential. So if that's the route you want to go, the RD is the way to do it. But I had decided that I wanted a more integrative holistic approach. So, but I was, I was really torn because I wanted, I wanted to make sure that I really got a, I wanted to get a credited, um, I don't want to say certification, but I just basically, I really wanted to make sure that I knew what I was doing. And part of that means that I really needed to have my science down and I needed to know the ins and outs of the body. And so I didn't want to just do some sort of like coaching online program, like a 15 hour coaching program. And then I didn't want to just do some sort of like coaching online program,

like a 15 hour coaching program. And then you're a health coach. I am not talking badly about that at all at all either, but something to keep in mind, if you go that route, there's a limit on how much you can help people in that realm. And that's okay. If you want to just help with like meal plans and diet, it is like a great route to go. But I knew that I wanted to be able to order labs and read lab work and be able to sit down with patients that suffer from diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and you need to really know your stuff and you need to know how to read labs because I personally think that lab work is, um, it's, it's really important. It's how we see what's going on in the body. So I basically, I wanted to really know my stuff. So I took a year off and I started,

um, researching different options outside of the RD route that I could do and still be taken seriously and have a real credential behind me. And this is what I found. So you can do, there's a couple of different options. The ones that I decided to pursue. Well, one, I knew that I wanted to get my master's in nutrition. So I landed on a school where I could get my master's of science in nutrition and integrative health. And then from there, there's different credentialing associations, boards that you can go through. Basically, what you do is you do a certain amount of internship hours, and then you sit down for the board-certified exam, and then you're credentialed. So the one that I decided to go after was the CNS, which is a certified nutrition specialist.

And there's also the CCN, which is the certified clinical nutritionist, which I may pursue that as well one day because I kind of feel like you can never have too many letters behind your name. So I landed on two different schools, Maryland University of Integrative Health. And the other one was, ooh, I should have looked this up before. I believe it was Western States. I'll add it in the show notes. And ultimately, to be honest, it was years ago. I don't remember why I landed on MUIH, Maryland University of Integrative Health. It was just, I think I looked at the classes and I liked the program. And I liked that they had a physical school as well, because a lot of these are online too, which is totally fine. But I liked the option that I could maybe go on campus. But I ultimately ended up doing the online course because I, in a funny, weird twist of events, even though I wrote off the road, I ended up back on tour. So I'm in school and at this point I'm, I think a semester in, and because of all the years that I worked in

music, I have a lot of friends that still work in music. And I have a friend that was tour managing for this band third eye blind. They're playing a festival in the city that I was living at the time. And I show up and I go backstage to say hi to my friend and the singer Steven is there. And I was kind of blown away. I wasn't really expecting to even meet him. And he comes up to me right away and he goes, hi, I'm Steven. How do you know Kyle? Kyle's our tour manager. And I said, actually, I'm a tour manager and Kyle and I used to tour together back in the day.

And he looks at me and he goes, I'm going to need your number because we might need a new tour manager soon. In my head, I was like, okay, this guy's trying to get my number, but like, sure, I'll give it to him. Well, sure enough, a week later, I get a call from Steven, the singer of Third Eye Blind. And he goes, Hey, Courtney, you want to send me your resume? We're going to need that tour manager. And then I think it was literally the next day after that, he calls me and he goes, you're hired. All right, you start next week. And I was like, what? I remember calling my boyfriend at the time. And I was like, I don't know what to do. I said I would never tour again. I was done with the road. I'm a, you know, a semester into school and really pursuing what I know I want to do for the rest of my life. But I was like, this is third eye blind. This is third

eye blind. I can't say no. So I did it. And I ended up touring with them for a year and it actually worked out pretty perfectly because they were at the time doing what we call weekend warrior touring a lot. So we would basically be home for the majority of the week. And then we'd fly out on the weekend, play a show, and then be back home by Monday. So it allowed me to do my school during the week. Then I would fly out. We would do a show. And then I'd come back.

There were sometimes longer stints. But for the most part, it was really like I was home during the week, which was great. So a year in doing that, I get an email from a friend of mine who I also had known for a really long time through touring. And he goes, Hey, Courtney, he's like, so I'm touring with this artist Tove Lo. Maybe you've heard of her. And I remember literally laughing out loud because I was like, of course I know who that is. I love her. And he proceeded to in the email, he basically was like, Hey, I know that you're doing nutrition now. And we're looking for someone who can basically come out on the road, keep everyone healthy, help a little bit on the side with kind of anything that Tove

really needs, like personal assistant type stuff. Um, and we obviously of course wanted someone that has touring experience. And I know from experience of touring with you that you know what you're doing. So I write back and I'm like, of course I want to do this. And so then I mean, fast forward. So I ended up being with Tove for four years and that job, I spent all four years basically just pinching myself because I, well, one, I was able to finish. So I finished school on the road with her and my main job when I was on the road with them was to keep everyone healthy. And as I mentioned earlier in the episode, I love to tour. I love traveling. Um, when you're with your, we call like touring family,

the band that you tour with, it just, it's really fun. It feels like you're, you're traveling the world with your family. And I've just, I was so excited to have this opportunity anyways. So basically for her, what I would do is my main prerogative was to make sure that everyone was really healthy and her, so Tove and her band are from Sweden. And I'm assuming I, I'm going to assume that pretty much everyone listening to this knows that almost every other country eats a lot better than we do in the US. And Sweden in particular, they are very good about kind of monitoring what's allowed in their food over there.

Like a lot of American foods that are imported are not even allowed to be sold in Sweden because they don't allow a lot of the ingredients that we put in our food here. So when they came over here from Sweden and started touring, they were kind of blown away. Like they, after one tour said that they left and went back to Sweden and they had all gained so much weight. None of them could button up their pants. They felt really fatigued and sick and they just didn't feel good. And they were kind of blown away by it because they, in their minds, hadn't really eat much differently than how they were eating at home. But the problem is, is like I mentioned a second ago, we have very different ingredients that we

allow in our food here in the United States versus like, say, Sweden. After one tour of being with them, Tove's parents came out to the very last show. And I feel like I might get teary-eyed saying this because I just was so, I was so touched by this. Her parents pulled her aside and they said, what are you guys doing? Everyone looks so healthy. You look like you haven't partied a day in your life and you just look like you feel great. And she told them, she was like, honestly, it's, it's all Courtney. So I want to tell you guys a little bit about what I did on the road with her because, um, it was little changes, but I, it made all the difference. So hopefully most of you guys listening to this are already a little bit familiar with me and know

that my biggest thing is real food. I think we need to be getting back to eating more real food, less stuff in boxes, processed packaged foods. And that's kind of how I approach, um, when I help clients is I really just try to get everyone to getting back to eating as much real food as possible. So when I was first brought on with Tove, um, I asked them to send me her rider and what a rider is, is essentially it's a typed up list of all the foods that you want at the venue before you get there that day for the show. And you'll have a different, um, you can't, you'll have one that you just send out to every single venue. Or if you have someone like me helping, I would revise it every couple of days that we wouldn't get bored of stuff because

whatever we didn't eat while we were at the show that day in what's called the green room, we would bring all the rest of that and put it on our bus. So I took their rider. I took the Doritos sodas, like all the just sugary junk off of it. And I replaced it with healthier versions of stuff. So it wasn't boring by any means. We still had chips and we had, you know, all the fun stuff, but I would have them get the organic versions of it. They were cleaner, had less junk in it. I also made sure that we had more veggies, just like healthy options on there. And then I would just load the tour bus with all healthy foods. And then there was, so another part of touring is advancing what you're going to eat. And generally we do catering. Generally when you're

touring, you advance catering. And I would always, when we were in Europe or other countries, I would say like, yeah, give us the best catering. We want to eat, you know, your amazing local food. But whenever we were touring in the U S I always insisted, I was like, I do not want catering because touring catering here in the U S is notoriously really disgusting. Um, it's kind of like Cisco catering, just like, I mean, they usually just give you like pasta or like lasagna, just loaded with cheese, which I am not talking shit on any of that, but I just know that the ingredients are not, they're pretty subpar. So I would say, give me per diems every day, which is cash. And then I would get a menu from a local, hopefully organic place nearby that was healthy.

I would give the menu to the band and crew crew and we would send someone out to go pick up food nearby and just use that cash to buy the food. So that is my story of how I got here. I was with toe for four years and that's what I did. Amongst other things, I also did some personal assistant stuff for her as well, basically anything that she needed help with. But my, my main focus was really helping keep everyone healthy on the road. And I left Tove sadly last September and it was tough decision, but it was also like, it was time because I knew that there were so many things I wanted to do. If I was, well, I mean, we're in the middle of a pandemic, so we wouldn't even be touring now anyways, but I was going to say, I wouldn't have time to do this podcast. I just knew that there were so many other things that I wanted to do.

And I'm so happy because now I have time to do this podcast and update my blogs and do my Instagram and really hone in on my own personal health. So that is my story, my touring side and my schooling side. But while all that was happening, simultaneously, I also started Real Foodology. And this was back in 2011. I was back in Austin. I had just quit the road. I left the Somerset, sadly, but I was working at Whole Foods actually. And I was starting all of my prerequisites for, for the nutrition program. And I just, I needed an outlet to talk about all the things that I was learning. I felt like it was information that was so important. And I know every we're all so confused on how to eat well in this country and learning and knowing the things that I know now,

I just felt like it was so important and I wanted an outlet to talk about it. So this is when I started real foodology. It started as a blog. This was, uh, Instagram had barely just started. So at the time I didn't even have an Instagram for real foodology. It was just fully my blog. I didn't even have a name for it. I remember when I started the website, it was nameless for probably a week or so. Cause I just could not think of what I wanted to call it. I just kept coming back to real food. I was like, I know, you know, I just, I want the focus to be real food and I'm studying science. And then I was like, Oh, what is the study of science ology? And that's where I came

up with real food ology. And it has now obviously progressed into my Instagram. And now here we are with the podcast, which I'm so excited. Okay. So I started a blog and then as Instagram got bigger and bigger, I had a girlfriend one time tell me, she said, Courtney, you have to start an Instagram for your blog. And when I started, it's so funny because you can probably shouldn't tell any of you guys to do this, but here we are. You can scroll back far enough and see the horrible photos that I was taking back then. This was before I learned really how to take good food photos. And at the time it really, this was back in when Instagram was just about the like Hudson filter. Does anyone remember that? And it was not so much about the photos. It was more just about, I don't know, just, we were all so excited about posting on Instagram and I

would just post recipes on there and little like tidbits of information I was learning in school and how to be like healthier. And then as that started kind of growing, uh, it, it just, I don't, I just started getting momentum and I started posting more recipes and that brings me up to date today. That's how I got my Instagram to where it is now. So that is the story of Real Foodology and all the ins and outs of how I got to where I am with this podcast and my Instagram. And I'm just, first of all, I want to say I'm so happy that you're here listening. I'm so excited about this podcast.

I have a lot of amazing guests coming up. I've been recording a lot in quarantine, if you will. I live in LA. And I've been using this downtime to record a lot of podcasts. So what you can expect from me in this podcast is a lot of science, but I want to make it easier, more digestible. And I just, my hope with this podcast is to really bring us back to real food and make it easier. We all know that when we all want to be healthier and we all know that it's going to improve the quality of

our lives. But so many of us are confused about how to do that because it's hard. We make it hard in this country. So I'm really hoping to bring on really amazing guests to make it easier for you. Um, and just kind of dive into like the fun science behind it and food. And I just, I'm very excited for, for you guys to hear these episodes. So a couple more things. I am currently in the process of a full rebranding for my website. Hopefully by the time you hear this episode, the website will be up real foodology.com hadn't changed it in a really long time. It was due. It was time. She needed a little, a little rebrand. And there's something really fun that I want to start doing with this podcast, but it's going to require your participation.

I want to start answering your questions on air. I think initially what that will look like is I will just pull some questions off of my Instagram and just answer them. I'll read off, read off the question, answer it. But what I'm hoping to do eventually, if some of you guys will do this with me is have you call and record it and we will answer it. We, me, I will record, I will answer it in real time for you. So if you have a question and you would be okay with recording, of course it would be over zoom or something like that. It would be virtual, but if you would be okay recording it live, I would love to have a conversation with you. Email me at real foodology podcast at gmail.com. Oh, guys, we're at the end of the episode. Cue the crying noises.

No, I'm so I'm so grateful that everyone is here listening. Please make sure to subscribe. I'm on all major podcast platforms, Apple, iHeart, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, you name it, I'm probably on it. So I hope that you will subscribe and you can expect a new episode every Wednesday. I'm so excited. Thanks, guys. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast.

The show is produced and mixed by Drake Peterson and Christopher McCone of Peterson McCone Productions. My theme music is by the singer Georgie. Please subscribe, rate, and comment on either Apple, Spotify, or any major podcast platform. If you want to find me on IG, my handle is realfoodology.

Thanks, guys. See you next week. I know that smile is funny.