The Liz Moody Podcast - Kelly LeVeque—Debunking Healthy Eating Myths, Kelly’s Personal Wellness Routine & What It’s Really Like To Work With Celebs

Episode Date: July 10, 2019

On today’s episode, we dive into all things nutrition with Kelly LeVeque (@bewellbykelly). Kelly is a holistic nutritionist and wellness wonder woman, with a best-selling book, Body Love, and a client list that includes basically every A-lister in Hollywood, including Jessica Alba and Jennifer Garner. She’s also the nicest human being, a total girl next door that you’d want to hang out with on a Saturday afternoon. In this episode, we talk about Kelly’s own health journey, including how she came up with her famous “Fab Four” philosophy. I grill her on the nitty gritty of nutrition, including what types of protein powders are good for you, what supplements we should all be taking, how trendy things like celery juice and collagen fit in and more. Then, we get chatty—I asked her to spill all the dirt on what working with super famous people is actually like, and I was actually really surprised by her answers. We talk about the mega success of Body Love and why her life looks WAY different than most people expect, and we get into her relationship with her brilliant, super hot husband Chris. I’m obsessed with this episode because it’s like a dose of the best healthy eating advice you’ve ever heard mixed in with real talk about relationships, money, and life, with some celeb gossip thrown in. It’s basically my dream conversation, and I hope you love it too. You can find all of the products Kelly mentions in this episode at lizmoody.com/shop. Enjoy! PS: Healthier Together is officially a number one best-seller! You can get your copy right here or at lizmoody.com/cookbook. Please keep sending me your creations on Instagram—they make me so happy! This episode is sponsored by Simple Mills, one of my favorite grain free food brands. I’ve been using Simple Mills products for years, starting with their amazing cake mixes. They’ve since expanded the line, which now includes the original cake mixes, pizza dough mix, brownie mix, bread mix, pancake & waffle mix, ready made crackers and cookies, and more. Everything has only a few simple, largely organic ingredients, and there are no weird gums or emulsifiers. You can use the code “healthiertogether20” for 20% off any order on simplemills.com, and if you need product recommendations, don’t hesitate to ask me for them on Instagram (@lizmoody). This episode is also sponsored by Natural Cycles, the first hormone-free contraception app that’s FDA approved and CE marked in Europe. Natural Cycles has been shown to have effectiveness rate of 93% with typical use and 98% effective with perfect use—for reference, the efficacy of the pill is 91% with typical use. I’ve partnered with Natural Cycles to do a little mini-diary of my experience with it on the Healthier Together podcast. Every episode, I’ll give you an update of how it’s going and what I’m learning about my body and my cycle, as I explore the app in real time. Have questions you want answered? Hit me up @lizmoody on Instagram and I’ll share in future episodes. You can find out more info at NaturalCycles.com. Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I ask all of the most amazing, wonderful women in the wellness world, all the questions that you wish you could ask them from way too intimate details of their personal lives to their health philosophies, how they've overcome wellness challenges. And I have an amazing, amazing guest for you guys today. I'm so excited to share this episode. We have Kelly Leveck, the best-selling author of Body Love on the show.

Kelly is the nutritionist for basically every major holiday. Hollywood celebrity, Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba. Basically, if you've seen somebody walking the red carpet or in a major movie, Kelly has probably worked with them. And she is so incredibly well research. I've known Kelly for a number of years now. I worked with her as an editor and a writer. And the first time I met her, we sat down in a room and she just got so excited about, you know,

how this study related to that study and sort of her theories of turning off hunger hormones and the reasons that people weren't having the success with weight loss that they were having. Kelly spent years as a cancer researcher. And I think it's really interesting because when you talk to doctors and functional nutritionists and stuff like that, a lot of them sort of know like, oh, this study means this or relates to this bit of health advice. And you can kind of find a study to support any bit of health advice. You can find a study that says blueberries are really good for you. You can find a study that says that blueberries aren't so great for you.

You can find a study that says you should do this type of workout. You can find a study that says you should do another type and that original type of workout is actually really terrible for you. So honestly, anybody can find a study to support any bit of information. But what's important is having an overall holistic view of the research. So looking at where the studies were done, who they were conducted by, were they in a petri dish, were they in your body, and how they all interact with each other.

And Kelly is singularly better at that than any other person that I have met on the planet. And I think that's how she's been able to construct her way more nuanced in-depth, interesting approaches to nutrition theory than any person I've ever met. She's also really about empowering women to eat what they want and feel good. There's a point in this episode where I'm sort of grilling her about like, what do you think of celery juice and what do you think of charcoal and all of these trends? And she's like, well, first of all, I want to talk about why people want to eat that. And I also ask her, you know, are donuts okay? Is wine okay? And we get into that in depth in the episode. But a huge part of her philosophy, which is really, really similar to my own,

is to figure out why you want to eat what you want to eat. It's not just like, do you want a donut because it has some childhood memory associated with it? Because you have it once a year. Do you want a donut because every Thursday, you're so sick of work and you just got to reach for your Donate. And I think that especially for women, I would say, really understanding the reasons behind why we want to eat and making it enjoyable and fun to eat the foods that we do want to eat is so, so important. She's also huge on sort of elongating your blood sugar curve.

I talked to Kelly about this maybe three years ago for the first time. And the whole blood sugar conversation has been really, really fascinating for me, particularly because it's played such a huge role in my own anxiety journey. if you have anxiety especially, I mean, if you have like literally if you're human on this planet, you really want to work on elongating your blood sugar curve and making sure that you're not having those crazy spikes and crashes, as you guys have probably heard me talk about on this podcast. And in my book, that is a huge thing behind so many of my own food philosophies. But Kelly was one of the first people who really introduced me to that.

And if you have anxiety, it's even more important because we, when you have anxiety and you have, a crazy spike in a dip, you experience something that would feel a lot like anxiety in your body. And you can have something called misattribution. So you feel something that feels like anxiety. And then your body's like, oh, what am I anxious about? And it finds something to be anxious about. So by minimizing that blood sugar spike and dip, you can actually minimize a lot of anxiety reactions in your body, which is super awesome. And I've definitely felt massive results with my own anxiety just by helping with that blood sugar spike in depth. And I think you guys will too. So we go into way more depth about how she developed her whole food philosophy. What are the

tenants of it? What are the specifics of it? I was like, I love like, you know, the Fab Four and everything she preaches, but let's get as specific as possible. Let's talk about the types of protein you recommend and the protein powders that are okay and what supplements you take and all of that kind of stuff. And then, you know, because this is the healthier together podcast, we get very chatty after that. I asked her to spill. I'm like an us weekly reader. I read People Magazine and I read us weekly every Friday and it is the best part of my week. And when I go to a trivia night, I am the person who has the celebrity gossip on lockdown and I will not apologize for it because I can think it can sit right next to the fact that I like love to read literary fiction and discuss the meaning of

life. I also like to know what the Kardashians are up to. I feel like it's important. So I wanted her to spill all of the dirt on all of her celebrity clients. And I think she actually, she surprised me. She spilled more than I expected her to. And she gave me some insight on what it's like to actually work with these people, which I'm fascinated by. I think there's an interesting sort of like friendship and employee dynamic for a lot of these celebrities where they're like besties with their hairdresser and their nutritionists. And I'm like, are they, besties? Like, can you be besties with somebody when they're on your payroll? I don't know. So I got her to be my real life issue of Us Weekly and people for for a little bit. And that was super fun. And we also

talk about her personal relationship. She has a wonderful, super hot, brilliant husband, Chris. You might have seen his parody Instagram account. She's at Be Well by Kelly and he's at Be Bad by Chris, where he posts like unhealthy stuff that he eats, which I think is really, really funny. And I love them. as a couple because I see so much of myself and Zach in them. They met before either of them had successful careers at all. And they've really been integral in supporting each other. And their careers have sort of mixed in a lot of ways because they met when they were so young and they've been foundational in helping each other sort of achieve the success that they've achieved. And he's been a huge role in her brand. And we talked about that. And the good parts in the

bad parts of that dynamic and, you know, how tricky it can be to support your partner. It's such a wonderful thing to get to, you know, help your partner achieve their dreams. And I think it makes it infinitely easier. But it's also a really tricky dynamic for a relationship. And I've definitely seen that with me and with Zach. So we talk about that a lot, which I was interested in personally, as well as for all of you guys to listen to. I am obsessed with this episode because it feels like a dose of like the best healthy eating

advice you've ever heard mixed in with real talk about relationships and money. We talk a lot about money in this actually, including like the finances of the book world and how much more modest Kelly's life is than maybe you would expect and just sort of all of those dynamics. And it's also like got life and celebrity gossip. And it's basically like my dream conversation. And I hope that you all love it too. Really, really, really, really fast before we get into it. I just wanted to let you guys know. I am on tour right now still. I know it feels like I've been on tour forever, but I essentially like go out on a tour stop and I explore the place because if I love traveling so, so much. And if I am somewhere, I really want to get to enjoy where I'm at. And then I come back

so that I'm not leaving my poor cat alone for too long. And then I go out again. So yes, I'm still on book tour and my Seattle stop is coming up. It's on July 23rd at the Riveter and Capitol Hill. I am so excited to go to the Pacific Northwest. I have never been. I landed there once when I was changing planes. And I, like, looked at the window and I was like, this is the most beautiful place I have ever been in my life. And that was just from the plane landing. So I'm really excited to leave the airport in Seattle and see what it's really like. So first of all, if you have any recommendations for Portland, Seattle, I'm also going to Mount Rainier and to Olympic National Park.

I always want to say Olympia, but it's Olympic National Park. I'm going there for about a week, a little more than a week. So if you have any recommendations of where to eat, your favorite hikes, I love hiking. Like, get me in good nature. Get me hike and like a cute Airbnb where I can make a yummy breakfast and a yummy dinner. And that's my dream day. So we're doing that for like five days in the two national parks. Any recommendations?

Hit me up at at Liz Moody. I would love, love to hear them. And then also I would love to squeeze you and sign your copy of Healthier Together at my event, July 23rd. So it's going to be with Rachel DeVoe, who is at Rachel's GoodEats on Instagram. She's an RD. We're going to talk about healthy eating. We're going to debunk wellness trends. We're going to answer all your questions, talk about, like, healthy cooking hacks, whatever

you want us to talk about. It'll be a really fun conversation. We'll drink yummy organic wine and have snacks. So you can find all the details for that at Liz Moody.com slash events. And I hope to see you there. All right. So you can find Kelly on Instagram at Be Well by Kelly. I am always at Liz Moody.

Tag us as you're listening to this episode. I love hearing and seeing what's resonating with you. where you're listening. I just love to feel like this is a big old community and we're all doing this together and engaged in this fun, awesome conversation together. And I cannot wait to hear you guys as reactions. Without further ado, enjoy this week's episode with Kelly LeVecke. Hi, Kelly. Thanks so much for having me here. Yeah, my pleasure. I'm so excited to have me on the podcast. I feel like I've learned so much from, you know, talking to you over the years about nutrition information and so it's fun to get to like pick your brain on a podcast forum.

Oh, yeah. I'm happy to always help anyone, you especially. So I feel like you've shared your story of how you sort of became Kelly Levec celebrity nutritionist a few times and maybe we'll touch on that later. But I want to know how you became like Kelly Levec healthy eater in the first place. Did you grow up eating? Like what did you grow up eating? Costco.

Oh, yeah. Bagel bites, wikitos, wheat, and, food. Crisketes, frosted animal cookies. Say more. Did you get don't goreos? What? Dunkeros. Oh, yeah.

For sure. When I was seven, I paid for a Costco membership for my family because it's the only place in town you could get dunkaroos and I won dunker's so bad. And my mom was like, I'm not, we're two people. I'm not going to join a Costco. And I was like, I'll save my allowance and get a Costco membership so I can buy my dunkers. Are you serious?

Yeah. That's amazing. So I like gardened and she paid me money for gardening and then I got my dunkers. So like how deeply. a trashy eater I am. That's great. It's great. So you grew up eating like junk food.

Regular. Yeah. I mean, the crazy word is I don't think that my parents would consider that like junk food. Right. You know, it was just faster food that like we could pull wheat and crickets out and a block of tillamook cheddar and apple and like some salami. And my dad called it a health plate. It has an apple. Yeah.

So it was sort of like our version of charcutory. Yeah. So when did you start to be interested in eating well or did you have a health problem? I didn't have a health problem that I knew about at the time. Like I've since been diagnosed with celiac disease. And a lot of people don't know that because I just don't want to be known as like the girl who found out she was celiac and then told everyone to go gluten free. Like I've spent enough time in their research to know that I think the gluten isn't good for anyone. Definitely not good for people with celiac disease because they've already like burned away all of their villi, which are the,

these little hair-like follicles that absorb nutrients in our intestines. But I digress. I got into health my freshman year of high school. I took health class with the hot volleyball player or the hot volleyball coach, Mr. Rap. If you're listening, Mr. Rap, I did have a crush on your freshman year. Sorry, Chris. Yeah. He was, the class was just a lot of fun.

And at the time, I don't think I've ever heard somebody say that. about a high school health class. Like, I don't think, that was like the class everybody dreaded in my high school because you had like the awkward teacher kind of being like, fierce periods and stuff like that, you know, who like wasn't comfortable with any of it and didn't really, I mean, the information was probably not what you would recommend to people now. Oh, it was very USDA triangle. Yeah.

You know, six to 11 servings of grains. Yeah. And unfortunately, I mean, the nutrition courses that I took. took after I graduated from USC at UCLA, I've said this multiple times. I had to drop a couple of those classes because you have to think about the nutrition that they're sharing. It's in, it's published in books. And for a publisher to go back and do a new revision of a book to change it so much,

like even my plate from the USDA triangle to the my plate wasn't that big of a difference. You know, I was really disappointed in like the lack of new information and what was actually actually being shared, you have to look for really good teachers in that space to even get good information. So yes, I was learning probably the wrong information at the time, but it got me interested enough to ask my mom to get subscriptions of women's health and shape magazines sent to my house to go to Barnes & Noble and start reading books like Atkins and South Beach. So that really was like, I guess, the spark in my brain to start getting excited about health and nutrition. And being that, I've just always done a lot better with math and science,

I mean, my SAT scores are, I just like polar opposites. Like my English reading comprehension is just embarrassing. It's the best selling author. But the science and math, this is like almost a perfect score. So it just, it's just the way that my brain operates. And I think my parents really nurtured where I was successful, like whatever I wanted to do, I'd go down that rabbit hole. Sort of like how Montessori schools work, where it isn't a curriculum that is, you know, this amount of time in maths and English and science and, you know. Were you at a Montessori school? I was at a private school, but, and I still didn't do great in the classes that I wasn't very good at. I mean, I remember my parents telling me that if I, you know, if I started reading books at home, like for fun, that they would give me allowance.

Like they're trying to bribe me, you know? Were your parents, like intellectuals or like sort of academic? What did they do? So my mom's a creative. She was, she was my dad's boss. They worked at Allstate when they first met insurance. And my mom was like the boss of all these adjusters, auto adjusters. At the time, and my dad was an auto adjuster and putting himself through USC.

And then my dad became an entrepreneur. So he owned a towing company, storage facility, a random car, I mean, it took him a while to like start to kind of buy up properties and businesses. But yeah, he's an entrepreneur at heart. My mom worked at Allstate was his boss, but her passion has always been photography. So she shot for, she used to shoot like the sports teams at my high school and submit to the saddleback paper or you know the Orange County Register. So just she's always been really good at that. My mom, I remember when we were little and we would draw and we would all have our

crayons and coloring pencils out and whatever. My mom would use pencils and draw us. And our faces, I mean, like, I still have like tearouts of that. And it looks just like our baby pictures. Oh my God. She's really creative. So did you grow up thinking that a creative or more entrepreneurial working for yourself career was an option for you? Well, it's funny because by watching my parents, I knew that that was an option. But what they told me was the exact opposite. it. My dad wanted me to go to USC, go work for a big corporation, work for that corporation for 20 years. It was like, I was, you know how your parents always like want their kids to fulfill their dreams? Yeah. My dad has two brothers. My dad has eight brothers and sisters.

My dad's two brothers, the rest are sisters. The two brothers he has. One's an accountant and one's an attorney. And my dad's dad was a big attorney used to like represent canoots and cottage cheese and like some really big brands. Yeah. Here in L.A. and they grew up. My dad grew up. My dad grew up in a pretty wealthy family where he had like live in help and oh wow and um here in in l. A place called Fremont, um, park in or Fremont place in Hancock Park. And then they ended up moving to Bel Air. But my mom is from the total other side. My dad, like you would say like a working class family. And when my dad started dating my mom, my grandpa was like, you know, this isn't the type of person we, you know, like that I want you to marry or whatever. But my mom, my mom, my mom,

dad was like police officer and my mom's mom in the prohibition my grandma used to like make alcohol like secretly and there's some like really cool stories coming from that but um I watched my parents be creative and be entrepreneurs but I think my dad was just his his dad I think always made him feel bad for not being a professional and right being in a suit my dad wear jeans and a polo and, you know, some white chunky pair of ASICs to work every day, you know. But now I look at him and he's really successful, as successful, if not more successful, than some of, you know, than his brothers. And I'm really proud of him because he hustled.

Like, he showed me the hustle. And I've been able to emulate that and not complain about it and not, you know, when I think about the beginning of my career and not having nights and not having weekends. even now, I mean, like, you came over. You know, I don't think a lot of people were in an apartment. Like, we've been here for almost eight years. Like, we don't have a nanny. We share a car.

Like, we are hustling to live our dreams so that, you know, hopefully we can buy a house. L.A.'s very expensive. Buy a house and, like, provide a life for our children. But it's not just handed to us. And it hasn't been. And I'm thankful that my parents have shown me that example because I remember growing up when our living room didn't have furniture. It had a little Tykes slide and like a little Tykes house.

And my mom was like, this is your playroom. But really it was like supposed to be our formal family or like living room where like the nice furniture that no one goes in and sits on is. But we just, my mom was like, we just didn't have money for furniture. So we just put all your toys in there. So when you were reading women's health and all of that, did you change your diet? And how did you know like what to do? How did you know like Atkins isn't good?

and I don't want it, were you trial and erring on yourself? Oh, yeah. So I would read, like, I would read Atkins. Well, you know, it's so funny. It's like, I can think back and remember reading Atkins with like a bowl of triscuits and like cheddar cheese, you know, and just like snacking and like reading all about like how to eat healthy. Yeah. And then I would finish it, you know, any of these books and think to myself like, okay, I'm going to try this. I'm going to try this.

And I was always athletic. Like I played soccer. and really just was like on the hunt to be healthy, which I think it's a hard thing, especially even now today with the internet, probably even more hard for a lot of people who don't understand the science of it or are just getting caught up in it now

because it can be so overwhelming. And there is no finish line for how healthy you can be. Like it's not, there's no destination. Like it's always constantly morphing and changing as new things come out and people are reaching and grasping for this thing instead of like enjoying the journey. Well, and I think it's because it's an industry now.

So they want, like, I always tell people that people get their information either from the media or from people who are trying to sell products. And both of those people don't want you to reach an end point because they need you to keep clicking their articles and keep buying their products. Exactly. So it's, it's, yeah, I mean, at the time when I look back, it's like I'd read a book. I try to do it for two or three days. I laugh. I mean, that stuff, I was. And were you always trying to be.

healthy or were you ever trying to like be skinny hot yeah or yeah um so when i was growing up i always so i played soccer i danced a little bit until um until i was in eighth grade and then i wasn't allowed to dance i had to pick soccer or dancing i had to like pick a sport sort of a thing and i pick soccer and played club and played loved all my i loved my team honestly like i'm a team player, which is crazy because I'm an entrepreneur and I work on my own. Like, I need to build a team really bad. But that's a totally different subject. But yeah, so I, I don't know. I don't even know what the question was. How did you know what was like, like what was healthy? And then also were you always just like aspiring to be if I was being skinny. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, so yes. So I,

I love performing and I love dancing and I remember going to a Kiss FM concert out here in LA and I had a modeling and acting scout, stop my mom and say, you know, I think your daughter would be amazing in commercials or in catalogs and I'd love to do headshots with her and like, you know, I work for this modeling agency and would she be interested? And, you know, it's interesting because I look back and I wasn't ever. overweight, but I wasn't a stickly skinny, skinny girl. My youngest sister, Chrissy sprouted up, Cameron Dia's body, like, no waist, really thin, naturally, like could eat whatever she wanted. But that wasn't, that wasn't actually me growing up.

Like, I was the roundest of my sisters at the time. And so there was a part of me that was like, oh, like, can I do this? I remember crying to my parents. And like, you can go do it when you're in college. And like, there was a stint when I was a freshman in at USC where I got headshots taken. I went out on additions for Northstrom's, a couple Northstrom's catalog, shoots and stuff like that. And I never got anything and it sort of fizzled and never became anything. But there was, I think for most females, there's like some vanity there where you want to look your best and you start to compare yourself.

And thank God we didn't have Instagram when I was growing up. Like I can't my heart breaks. It really breaks for these young girls and boys who are just learning about their bodies and then having to compare themselves online to, you know, to each other and like just really. Well, and also like documenting themselves. Like I'll sometimes feel like I look really hot and then I'll take a picture of myself and I'll be like, oh, is that what I look like? You know?

And it's so you can have this great self image. And then if you see it reflected back at you and it's not what it was in your head, it can be really disappointing. That's so true. I mean, that still happens to me. Like I was at a wedding this weekend and we got all dressed up. And I was like, all right, mama's bod. God, we're back. Let's do it. And there were a couple pictures where my posture was horrible and

you're squeezing my arm against my body and it looks like twice as big. But you have to have that self-talk that's like, okay, this is normal for me to think this way. But like, that's totally, like I can't be delusional about this. Like I'm healthy. Bash is healthy. Like, and it really is about like feeling our best and being strong and being that example, you know. And honestly, like, I posted a quote a couple weeks ago that was like when you were thinking something negative. You just stop yourself and you're like, girl, we don't have time for this. Like that's how I have. I think that's the self-talk that we have to have.

And for someone, I mean, even with my clients, some of the most beautiful people in the world, the most famous people in the women in the world who have these amazing bodies. And we all are laced with insecurities, you know, especially when they're put up on these pedestals, especially when they're always constantly in the news or on magazines or being photoshopped. And I mean, it's really hard. Like, I wish it wasn't the way that it is. So I really want to be the voice for people that I needed back when I was reading these diet books in high school, which was like, don't give me something I can't complete. Don't give me something. Another thing that's going to make me feel bad about myself. Because if I can't ever do it, I'm going to feel bad

about myself. And I'm going to feel like I'm never, ever able to, like, have the best body or the most healthy body or the strongest body because I can't complete this unattainable plan. Food and health is so intertwined in our emotions and how we feel and what's going on in our life. And, you know, if you're a social person and you have a husband or a wife or a girlfriend or boyfriend or friends or roommates or coworkers. Like, it's not just you. You're going to have these relationships that are going to affect the way you feel about yourself and how you approach every day.

And it's this constant game of self-talk. And so I wanted something where we could pause. It's like a video game where you're just getting all the coins on Mario Brothers or something where you're like, okay, I had some greens. Coin, ding, ding, ding. Okay, I like moved or it went outside or, you know, You know, it isn't like, I didn't do this. I didn't do that.

I'm not going to eat this. I'm not going to eat that. Like, I really want the conversation to change it and be from a place of like, I added sulfur-fane rich foods to my meal. Like additive rather than subtractive. I was just like, subtractive. Yes. Let's build.

Let's add to our plate. Let's work on fulfilling our body, filling up our body, loving our body. Like, body love isn't just like, I just want you to turn around, look in the mirror and say you love your body. Like, I want you to do something to show you. your body you love it. And do you think that that can be, you know, showing your body you love it by eating some really good pizza or something that, you know, those craveworthy foods, not even healthified versions of them? How does that fit into that? Yeah. No, I absolutely think that we need to have

balance. And it really depends on the person. Like I have a couple of, for me personally, like, I have to be able to have a pizza. It's across the street here. Can't I, poor Canada. I'm like shouting out. People are like, what do you crave? Like, Candace Nelson's, she owns Sprinkles Cupcake. She's a friend and a client. And she opened this pizza place here. And they have a buck wheat sprouted gluten-free pizza that tastes like it's out of Sicily.

They use tomatoes that are from Italy. Like, it's the most amazing pizza ever. And I think that is how you love your body with something that is crave-worthy. You know what I mean? And the hard part is, is like you have these foods that really light up your brain in a chemical way, like a twinkie or an Oreo, like I told you I grew up on bagel bites.

I know that if I ate 10 bagel bites right now, I would probably get a headache and feel like crap the rest of the day. Whereas if I had Candace's pizza, I might feel a little bit lethargic, like a lot of carbs. It's a heavier meal in the middle of the day because we're filming and taping this around noon. Like I might, my blood sugar might spike and crash. And I'll be like, I might, feel a little bit more tired, want a little coffee later or something like that, but I wouldn't

feel bad about myself. And it's hard because it's like, I want people, if they really want those bagel, if you know the outcome of it, like, if you know that you're not going to feel that great and it's really, all of those things are meant to feed your body and love your body, they're not really the types of things that do that if they have processed, you know, poor oils or a bunch of high-frogose corn syrup or preservatives because I worry, I worry for the long run. I worry about your mental health, your physical health, your hormonal health, you're, you know, preventing disease. I don't worry about that if you're deciding to have like a fresh pizza, enjoying it with friends or something like that. But if we're at home by ourselves and kind of maybe

binge eating something like bagel bites because we grew up on those and we really want those it's hard and it's case by case. Like, like I said, food is so intertwined with who we are and how we were raised. So of course, like in my, in my brain, do I know what an old-fashioned donut tastes like? Is that what I got every day on my birthday? My mom would go take us to donuts. I'd get an old-fashioned donut until I was probably, I was probably still having them senior year of high school, you know?

And that's a special thing that my mom used to do for us is like, good morning, you have donuts in the kitchen or whatever. I don't want to take those memories away. Like, I don't think one donut for your birthday is that's celebratory. That's celebrating your birthday. I think where we start to pull apart our relationship with food is like, if your office brings in donuts every Friday and you're having that every Friday, like it's not a celebration anymore.

It's really, and it's not about you. It's, why are you eating that? And when I sit down with clients, the conversation becomes, well, I hate my job or I feel really stressed out all week. And when they bring donuts in on Friday, it's like, I treat myself with it. And so really, it isn't about the donut. It's about how we're rewarding ourselves for getting through something we really don't like. And if that's the real issue, then a lot of times we're getting to a place where sometimes

it's the relationship we're in. Sometimes it's the job that we're in. sometimes it has to do with like a relationship with our parents that we're just we've bottled up for years. And then it's really outside of my pay grade or outside of my expertise where I have really amazing people that I can refer out to to kind of pull those things out of people. And what I find is if if you work through those things, then you can make the choice to have a donut on your birthday and not feel bad about it. So do you believe if you like what if you've just had I love my job. I love my life. I have a great husband, partner, whatever, but sometimes I have days that are hard as everybody does. And I want,

I guess, some sort of reward. Do you believe in the concept of food rewards or any, like, what would you use instead? You know, like, because it's not going to be booze, I assume, in your mind. Um, I mean, you know, that's another thing too. I think, uh, people are surprised. I'm fairly normal. Like, you know, I, I do have pretty good balance with food, but I like a dirty martini. glass of wine. I don't think that there's a problem with that. I don't feel like I have a control issue with alcohol. I, you know, it sort of comes in and out of my life depending, I mean, obviously I didn't drink when I was pregnant. And then when you're breastfeeding, it's sort of a pain. So I've kept those to celebratory occasions. But yeah, no, I think that there are occasions

when, like, wow, you just had a week. Like, we need some peasana and we need to open a bottle of red wine. And Chris and I do that, you know, but it's not. on a Tuesday when it might be every day. It's not every day. I need my red wine to get through the day, essentially. No. And when I think about the way that I feel after taking care of myself instead, I use a lot of like we have a place called the massage place here and squeeze.

Allie Webb just open squeeze here in LA. It's like the dry bar, but it's for massages. And we have these affordable little self-care places, whether it's getting my nails done or getting a massage or taking an infrared sauna. Like those are things where that feels indulgent to me and that feels like a reward. So I've tried to weave in those type of rewards instead of using food.

Because when I look at my childhood, everything I did was rewarded with food. We went to church, we got a slurpee. You know, we got in straight A's, like, you know, we got to pick our kids cereal. had a birthday, we got donuts. We scored a goal in our soccer game. We got to decide where we went to lunch. Like, really, like, my whole life was rewarded with food. Well, so you're a mom now. And if you're a parent, you're probably not going to take your kids to, like, an infrared sauna is a reward.

Yeah. Rewards work really well with kids. Is there a replacement for that? Yeah. No, I think that when it comes to Bash, I mean, he's still really, really young. But rewards would be like, Let's go get a new book. Let's go get a toy. You get to pick where we get to go have an adventure, whether that's like going to a museum or going to the beach. You know, my mother-in-law with my husband and her and my brother-in-law used to have them. They always wanted to go to the beach. He grew up in SoCal and they're both surfers.

And they would have to get up and do their chores before they got to go to the beach. I think layering in that responsibility and reward and letting the things that you really love be the reward, is a really good policy for parenting because it really solidifies for children, what they love. Like my husband knows he loves surfing. He has to, he had to work hard for it when he was a kid. He couldn't just, like, get up and run to the beach. Oh, I love that. So that.

I think also a lot of people are out of, like, we know the go-to rewards because we're sort of told, like, oh, you've had a rough day, like, have some wine and have a donut. But I think a lot of people are out of touch. myself included sometimes with the stuff that really like lights us up and makes us feel excited. So I love the idea of using like not only getting rid of food rewards, but getting you in touch with the things that we really are excited about personally versus what you're told to be excited about. I'll tell you what. The minute I became a mom and my time was no longer my own and we don't, you know,

bash had a rough start and we don't have help yet. And we've chosen not to have help and we also are kind of trying to figure out what we would need in because we both have really flexible kind of. entrepreneurial type jobs. But I used to just get up and go to yoga. Any day that I wanted to, I could go to a 430 class if I wanted to, too, if I saw clients during the day. And a lot of times I had like some Skype at night with people who had like long work days.

So my workout hour was either first thing in the morning before my day started or this weird three to five o'clock hour, right? The fact that I could like just get up and go to yoga at 4.30. Now Chris and I are negotiating for like, okay, I've had a hard week and you've had a hard week and you've had a hard week. Like, I get my yoga class. Like, I know that that is a reward for me. And I've, and I would do anything for it now.

Like, it's just like having the time to go, the luxury to go. So many of my mom clients, when I worked with them, I understood, but I really didn't understand the depth of the luxury of that. So how did you come ultimately to the diet that you sort of preach now? And I know it's customized for different clients, but you sort of have like a core diet that you talked about. Yeah, the fab four. The fab four.

The fab four. And you can find that in your book, Body Love. But how did you sort of realize, like, it's not Atkins isn't going to get you the health you want? It's not, you know, I guess keto was a thing then. But it's like not all the popular diets. It's this special thing that you've discovered, essentially. Oh, there was nothing with light structure.

Like, everything out there was this, like, rigid rule, good and bad, black and white, no gray. There was no gray. There was no room for flexibility. If you were vegan, vegetarian, if you were allergic to eggs, if you didn't like fish, if you didn't like dairy, if, you know, gluten made you bloated. Like, there was no flexibility. And what I wanted to look at was I just looked at science in general and looked at it from a 360, you know, 365 or 60 degree view or whatever and like looked at all of it and said, what does everyone need? We all need essential amino acids.

That's protein. We all need essential fatty acids. That's, you know, the omega-3s type of fats from your healthy fats. And we all have gut microbiomes and we need fiber and we need micronutrients, like whether, you know, that's minerals coming from leafy greens or phytok chemicals. And we need to be eating lots of vegetables and plants and fibers to, like, get these things and keep our gut microbiome healthy. So I just created the fab four. It's that simple. I said, okay, protein, fat, fiber, and greens.

I was also really, really interested in the science of hunger because for me, any time I jumped on a diet, read a diet book, tried to do something, I felt deprived and I felt hungry. And that was really important for me to understand what shut that down. And what did I uncover? Well, the physical stretching of your stomach regulates ghrelin, hunger hormone. So like, you need weight. If you just have like a green juice that doesn't have weight, you're not really shutting down those hunger hormones. Fat.

You eat fat, it releases satiety hormones. Protein. Protein regulates sugar cravings in the brain. All of these things actually work synergistically to not only make us feel calm and satisfied, fueled. They help balance our blood sugar. But they're also essentially what our body needs to be really healthy, you know? So did you come up with that when you were at? doing your cancer research when you were in that job?

No, the fat four actually came from when I was, you know, things just, you just have to be open to what's out there for you and things just sort of like land in your lap. And for me, I was helping a client who was not really eating. She's a model here in L.A. and was going out at night and doing the party club scene. And her manager and agent were like, this is not the body that we need. Like she's sort of like getting skinny fat and she's not taking care of herself. And we can't, we couldn't get anywhere. Like she can't, she didn't have the energy to go like do a hit training to like

strengthen her body. And she didn't have the inputs to do that either. So I came over with the idea that she would have a diet shake. And I gave her protein and fat and like fiber like chia and acacia and leafy greens. And it was a vanilla or. a chocolate, almond butter, avocado, chia, flaxia, handful of spinach.

And she wasn't really up on dieting, really, didn't probably know that this smoothie was running her like 600, 500 to 600 calories. Yeah. Probably would have freaked out if she did know that. Ripped all the labels off everything and was like, this is what this is going to do, this is what this is going to do. She started blending it up.

And then she kept calling me and being like, I'm literally not hungry until like one or two in the afternoon. like there's something here and I need to like go deeper. So I started making my shakes that way and having shakes. And before that I probably would just like more of like an egg girl. And I never really got into smoothies before that because every smoothie I had always like made me feel like crap after. Yeah. I just had like a sugar headache or I felt like it was dessert or something like that.

So then I started drinking the shakes for about probably like a year and a half before I even took my business full time. started like thinking about writing a book. But what it opened up for me was this idea of really nourishing yourself with what your body needs and feeling the effects of not being starving. You're listening to the healthier together podcast. One of the most common requests I get is for more easy, quick weeknight dinner ideas. So I'm about to tell you about one of my personal go-toes. I keep a box of simple mills almond flour pizza crust on hand.

When I finish work for the day, I make the crust, which takes about a minute, and then add whatever toppings I have laying around, a jar of tomato sauce, some pastured cheese, any leftover veggies I want to get rid of. In 15 minutes, I have dinner on the table, and it's actually craveworthy, delicious, and super healthy. Simple Mills is sponsoring today's episode, which basically means I get to tell you about a few ways I use their products, which have been in my life for years. I first fell in love with their cake mixes. Actually, my very first post to go viral back in the early days of Instagram was a lavender cake I made by adding dried lavender to their vanilla cake mix. It was so pretty and it was so delicious. What I've always loved about Simple Mills is their super simple ingredientless.

Unlike almost every other product where you have to squint to find the teeny tiny writing, Simple Mills displays their ingredients in a bold font and large letters, which they can do because because each product contains just a few simple ingredients. Their brownie mix has just eight ingredients. Their crackers have just eight ingredients as well. That pizza mix, I mentioned, eight ingredients. Everything is grain-free, but they don't use any gums or emulsifiers, which is super, super hard to find.

The texture is also incredibly good. The cakes are light and fluffy, and the pancakes come out perfectly every single time. Honestly, I've stopped even working on a pancake recipe because the simple mills mix is so good and easy to keep on hand. I like to use it as a base and add different flavors like berries or rose water or chocolate chips. I also love their frostings. They have a chocolate and vanilla, and honestly, they're the only frostings I've ever found that meet my standards for flavor and texture and nutrition facts. They're my go-to for my annual gingerbread cookie decorating tradition, which I always do with my sisters at Christmas. I've been doing it for like my entire life.

And now I've robed Zach's little nieces into it as well. And I also use them for the rest of the year to top cupcakes or cakes. And I keep a jar in my cabinet when I can, so I can like sneak a little spoonful whenever I need something sweet. I do that with a brownie mix too. I'll just whip up a tiny bit and I will not apologize for it. You can find Simple Mills at retailers nationwide or on their website, www.com. If you want specific product recommendations or just to chat about my favorite cookie or cracker flavors, hit me up on Instagram.

I'm at Liz Moody or message them at Simple Mills. Everyone who works there is so nice and they'll get back to you super quickly and have great recommendations, I am sure. I can't wait to hear what you guys think. I've been obsessed with Simple Mills for years and I can't wait for you guys to try them. Now, let's get back to the episode. And it feels really simple, like protein, fat, fiber, like super simple, but how do you approach the stuff that does get more sort of like in the weeds,

like lectins or whether Stevie is good for you or stuff like that? So that's actually funny that you bring that up. So my next book, Body Love Every Day, what the feedback I got from Body Love was like, this is great. And so many people just understanding the science of nutrition and sort of sticking to that light structure, whether they had a margarita on the weekend or a pizza on a Friday, but generally we're like, this feels good to eat this way.

And I'm going to kind of stick to this structure. Saw benefits and saw, I mean, they were losing weight and inches and getting off, you know, cholesterol medication and getting off, you know, like getting their diabetes and check,

whatever the case may be skin, you name it. That was awesome. But what we got, feedback we got was like, we want medium plus structure. Like the light structure is great, but what protein powder do I choose?

And like, how do I eat beans? I'm like, what do I? So I'm giving people that in the second book. But again, it's like the whole point of this is to sort of answer your questions on what I think about Bulletproof coffee and celery juice and kind of the alternative sweeteners and the fads and the oils and all of that.

But it really is to push it back on the client and ask them, what do you like to eat? Because if you're owning it and it's what you like to eat and you, you know, are happy with the meals that you're eating, it can become a lifestyle. And then it's not a diet. I don't want dieters. Like that was my whole reason for, I could have thrown 300 pages worth of science at someone, but I'll tell you what, like so many people out there are not as interested in health as you and I are. I mean, people listen to this podcast might be. And maybe they get, they understand some of the science. But there's a really large country, you know, we have a huge country full of people that are unhealthy because they don't understand and they get on

Pinterest and they look up diets. Yeah. And they get the cabbage soup diet or they go to the fallback of counting calories, which doesn't account for what are those foods breaking down to? How are they affecting your blood sugar? What hormones are being released? How are they affecting your cravings later in the day? I got so much pushback on my book for not including calories because I just feel like it,

if you include calories, it's all people focus on. they're just like, oh, it's this many. And I personally think it's part of the story, but not anywhere near even most of the story. What is your perspective on calories? Yeah. I don't think that people should count them because the research shows us that if people are counting calories,

on average, they're gaining weight because they're not, either the calories are not correct or they're overeating what they think that their caloric intake is. They're actually eating more than that. But it's also discouraging. It really, it's another one of those black and white things. Okay, you burn 1,750 calories a day and you eat 1,700. Great.

You're at a calorie deficit. You're going to lose weight or maintain weight. Awesome. Well, what happens on the day when you eat 1,900 calories? That is the minute that my client turns around and goes, well, I blew it. Yeah. So let me open the fridge, the freezer, in the pantry, and see what else I can eat, and I'll start tomorrow. That is not building a relationship with food that is sustainable at all.

And it's going to make people have anxiety eating out. It's going to make people having anxiety. anxiety, socializing and being with friends. And that makes me sad because when I think about, I mean, when you become a mom, like, all you want for your child is for them to be happy to live life to the fullest, to not have worry to, um, I really just want him to be happy and healthy. Like honestly, like, I don't care if Bash wants to be a surfer. If he wants to be an attorney, if he decides he wants to be a starving artist for the rest of his life. Like I wanted to be happy. You just named all three things that your husband has been.

Yeah, I know. It's true. I want him to be, I just want him to be, yeah, happy and healthy, really. And I think that's what most parents want for their children at the end of the day. And that's what I want for all my clients. And so it makes me really sad that they would be throwing away every day is a gift. Like the present. It's called the present. Like, it's a gift. And we are so lucky to be able to just breathe. and live life and interact with other people and have relationships and try our best to like, you know, for this crazy right of life. So yeah, I just, I hate that that type of considered, like that type of healthy lifestyle would make people not live life the way that they should, not live life to the fullest. And what do you think about the fact that a lot of healthy diets or like healthy Instagramers will post stuff that is very, very, very high in calories? because it, you know, relies on nut butters or really dense calorie sources. Do you, if you're not counting calories, do you think it's, like, kind of okay to eat as much

nut butter as you want? Yeah, I mean, this is a great example. Like, I gave people in my first book, you know, the structure of the, of the Fab Four smoothie is about 20 grams of protein, one to do tablespoons of fat, one to two tablespoons of fiber and, you know, a handful or so of leafy greens. And when it comes to, when it comes to, when it comes to, you know, fat, it is a nutrient dense food. It's calorically dense and nutrient dense. What I like to ask my clients is, do you feel like you have a hard time stopping? Because nut butter can be delicious.

You know, I can open a jar nut butter with a spoon and in a blink of an eye have eaten four or five tablespoons of that without even thinking. Yeah. You know, so we have that conversation just because anything that tastes really good can be something where you're rewarding yourself, or trying to get rid of stress with food. And so what's interesting is if you weren't stressed out and you were feeling relaxed and someone put two tablespoons of almond butter and some celery on a plate for you

and put the jar back in the fridge, you probably have your snack and get back to work. But when we have access to a whole jar and we've had a bad day, it's really easy to do that. And I just say, like, that's normal. Like, there's nothing wrong with you. Like your brain is firing fireworks like the 4th of July, but we will talk about it if I find that if I don't normally do food journaling, but for some people, if they have like a really tight deadline,

then I want to see like, okay, like show me what you're eating or like, why don't you, why don't we talk through? And in our first meeting, we're talking through like, what does day in the life of you look like? Can you run me through? What are the things that like, if they were in front of you, you would just eat the whole back? You know, there's some really healthy things and alternatives out there. They're like, you know, the sioux chips or people have the plantain chips now.

All of those things that are kind of what I call processed or accellular, which means they've been ground down or pulverized out of their fiber cell and made into something else like garbonzo bean pasta. It was garbanzo bean flour first. It's going to have an effect on your blood sugar. You're going to have a hard time with the off switch. Like, that's not your fault. If I were to put a big plate of roasted broccoli and salmon in front of you and it was the whole fish of salmon, you would eventually stop. And the same with the broccoli.

But I could put a whole pizza in front of you in a couple bowls of pasta and you might go till you're sick. It's just a different chemical reaction in the brain. And this is why eating healthier foods or like the Instagramers who are posting them, more nutrient dense foods, if they're in their like more natural state. Like you might stop with nuts, but you might not stop with nut butter. So would you recommend if somebody is like, I can't stop when nut butter? I would say get the individual packets. Okay. I would say try nuts.

Take a few weeks off the nut butter and let's reassess. It's not it's going away forever. It's not that you have to, you can't ever have it. It's not that I'm saying have a jar but only have two tablespoons because we're not in a place of self-control. That's been a food that we've used to, you know, make us, make ourselves feel better around a bad day or it's one of the things that we can just found out of the jar and with your face in the fridge like me after this no just kidding um but i've driven you to the net better i know we're having

yeah but like that's the i always kind of want to keep reiterating to my clients and followers or whoever i was like it's not your fault like we keep it's self-blame i have no self-control it's all my fault like I why can these other people do it and I can't first of all a lot of these people can't we're all human and if someone has a really strict uh relationship with food where they are weighing and measuring and meal prepping and all of that um I were you know like that's awesome but I also worry about their relationships like what are they letting go of what do they not what do they not have in their life because they're so strict with themselves and what what It feels like pain to me.

Like, what's going on? You know? And maybe it is like just the ultimate goal of having the most beautiful physique, magazine worthy physique. But is that really filling them up and what's empty, you know? Yeah. Interesting. So I want to get into it.

Like, I know I know that it like the overall philosophy and you don't want to get in the weeds too much. But I want to just get in the weeds a little bit and like ask you some of the in the weeds questions. I know a bunch of people on Instagram wanted to know what your favorite protein powders were. I love primal kitchen collagen fuel. Okay. Are you pro collagen? I am pro collagen, especially for my meat eaters out there because if you are eating steak, chicken fish, whatever, you're getting a specific profile of amino acids or specific proteins and you're not really getting a lot of collagen. So collagen is a great way to bring in like glycine and proline and some other amino acids that you might not necessarily get just from like muscle meat.

So that's cool. same with bone broth. So I love that. I like bone broth protein as well. Same idea. But I've had clients, like, if you are okay with dairy, weigh is a really clean process. Way is just the byproduct of making cheese.

If you go to make cheese, the watery product that is left over is way. They dehydrated it and that's your way protein. So when it comes to like chemical extractions and stuff like that, that doesn't happen with Way. It's actually really clean. What is collagen very heavily processed? Yeah, so that's going to be like, so the bone broth that I was talking about, that's the same idea.

They make bone broth and then they dehydrate it. Same idea as way. That's really clean. Collagen and plant-based proteins, you are going to have some chemical extraction there. You just don't want like hexane or anything like that. And so I'm pretty particular about checking the consumer reports for protein powders and looking at chemical profiles of those and also heavy metal profiles of those. Because depending on the protein powder, like people are always surprised, but pea protein and plant-based proteins are actually higher in heavy metals and high in heavy metals. And I've had a client who just had her breast milk tested with lactation lab, which is something that I used as well.

And lactation lab will test your breast milk and tell you like, okay, do you have enough vitamin D, B12, protein, what's your calories per ounce for your child if they're not gaining weight? All this really cool stuff. It also will tell you if there's arsenic in your breast mouth. A lot of these lactation bites are made with like pea protein or rice flour or whatever. And we have arsenic coming through in breast melt. So what do you recommend for plant-based protein? So I do recommend a pea protein, but the best thing to do is to go to the consumer lab reports every year. They rank the protein powder and you look at which ones coming in the best.

Are there ones offhand that you know that are like... So now, I partnered with now foods last year because of their quality. So I went out to Chicago. They've been in business for over 50 years. They control all of their own facilities and manufacturing plants. And they have Olympic. There are seals of testing that need to be on packaging for Olympians to use that product. And now Foods is like all of their products are tested at the highest quality.

So you recommend. like just a plain pea protein. Like their pea protein. And yeah, you can do a vanilla or chocolate. But a pea protein or a very minimal blend. I think a lot of people get really excited to get like these companies that have are totally fortified, like how we used to fortify milk or whatever. And it's like all these vitamins.

Well, now we have to worry about where are all these vitamins coming from? All the enzymes. Well, who's producing all these enzymes for you? If it's under five ingredients, I'm game because we know, okay, it should just basically the protein powder, this is to make a whole food smoothie. I want nuts and seeds and fats and leafy greens and whatever. The protein is the processed part. It needs to be the minimally processed, minimally processed and minimal ingredients. And I do have clients who don't want to use a protein powder. I have them use bone broth. You're going to have to probably use fruit in those ones,

like a blackberry or raspberry, something tart, squeeze of lemon. I have clients who want to give it to their kids and they don't want to use protein. That's okay. You can use a, a whole fat Greek yogurt if you'd like for your protein but remember that's coming with some carbohydrates it's coming with some sugar

from lactose and you probably are going to want to keep that a little bit more low glycemic like blueberries that would be like my kind of any type of berry would be like I wouldn't probably pair that with like a mango or a pineapple it's just like a little too high glycemic for that

and then I have had clients who just want to use hemp seeds so there are ways that you can make the Fab For smoothie work for you with protein powders and also with whole foods instead. But I mean, the toned up protein is great too. I think they have an organic pea protein that's just pee and pumpkin seed. There's now pumpkin seed protein out there,

which is really just ground up seeds. And you're pro that. I'm so pro that. I also, I'll put pumpkin seeds just like in my, if you have a Vitamix, it can make quick work of it. Yeah, which is pretty chill. Are you cool with like stevia, monk fruit, all the sort of natural artificial sweeteners.

I'm down with stevia. I'm down with monk fruit. I'm also down with erythritol, which is an alcohol sugar. That's the only one that is absorbed and then you pee it out. So it's not overfeeding. So all of those alcohol sugars are for diabetic so that they don't raise your blood sugar.

But the alcohol sugars that aren't absorbed, like they actually overfeed gut bacteria. So they can have a problem, they can affect, create dysbiosis in the gut microbiome. So you just want to be careful that you're not thinking that all alcohol sugars are free because you're going to have some gut side effects. And I worry about the process of extracting all of them. Like when we're having stevia, we're not just having like a leaf of stevia. We're having this like powder that's so far from what the sevia was.

I like liquid the best. Okay. So when you're using liquid, a lot of times it's coming with, it might be coming with, a little bit of alcohol or a stabilizer, but it's not caked with like a maltodextrin. Right. It's, and those are, because they're leaves and fruit, they are a pure extraction, which is really nice. You're not going to need to chemically extract that. Whereas like if you had a canola oil, that's rape seed oil, it's a very small seed.

It's an industrial seed that needs hexane to remove the oils from that. Like, I always tell my clients when it comes to fats, it's the same thing. Like, could you squeeze an olive and get olive? Yes. Could you squeeze an avocado and get avocado oil? Yes. Like, coconut, yes. Like, okay, well, what safflower, sunflower, sunflower, corn. Like, how are you getting, maybe corn you're getting some oil out of that, but like it's really, they're using the seeds and they're using a chemical to extract the oil out of those seeds. And that's oxidizing that oil and, you know, making it a like carcinogen at time of extraction. So what you cook with in your kitchen,

avocado. Yeah, avocado, olive, coconut oil, ghee. We're on the Bash Exama diet over here. So we're off the dairy, completely even ghee right now. But yeah, the rest are all free game. What supplements do you take? I take an omega-3. I just actually, I was taking a fish oil by omega-3 innovations, extra strength. It's a gram. It's really, really good. I took it all throughout my pregnancy. But Bash has got a thing going on. So it's part of the eczema. What a problem, child. I know. Get in the way your game. So I just switched over to an algae-based omega-3, which is fine. And I take a probiotic. I like seed. That's one of my favorites. I also like Thrive probiotics and Megaspore biotic. Thrive and Megaspor are great for me right now because, again, Vash is eczema. Exima can be related to a number of things.

It can be like bacterial imbalance of yeast and hand dita. It can be food allergies, little things that create flares. So we're really trying to. Is his from his gut dysbiosis from the antibiotics early in his life? Yeah. So what happens is when the antibiotics kill off that healthy gut bacteria, then your body becomes, you know, all of these little things that can create flares. You're now prone to having food allergies.

So not only are we working, we pulled out all the allergies. the allergies that are causing flares or working to re-enoculate that healthy gut bacteria, getting all the probiotics for my breast milk. But also, I want to make sure that I'm, that my breast milk is not too, doesn't have too much sugar in it. So people are surprised, I think that the constitution of breast milk is the same. No, it's just like how if you eat a grass-fed cow, they have more omega-3 because they're grass-fed. You are the one, I'm, I am literally the cow for bash. So whatever I eat becomes his milk. So that's, I mean, eating a high sugar, a high carbohydrate diet.

My breast milk becomes higher in carbohydrates and low from protein and fat. And then his gut microbiome is then affected by my food. That's fascinating. So for me, I'm sticking with the fab four. If I'm having anything sweet, it's like a little bit of dark chocolates and berries. But I'm really sticking to a lower glycemic diet. And I'm, you know, I did my lactation lab. It came back that my calories per ounce was a little bit low.

So I'm upping, I even am upping my fats and upping my protein. So not only am I having like a fat-for smoothie in the morning, I'm having probably four to six ounces of protein at lunch and dinner. And I'm having like four to six ounces of protein between lunch and dinner now. Well, and your breastfeeding too, which is like a very energy consuming activity. And you want to know that like he's getting enough protein and fat to like build every cell in the body. Yeah. He's lucky to have you in love.

Thanks. What other, are there other supplements you take? So I got the omega-3 is a probiotic. I take a, I take a multivitamin. So I've used metabolic synergy from Designs for Health for a while. I like a high B vitamin. Like you think everybody even, I mean, people I think would look at you and be like, if she needs a multivitamin, probably everybody does because you eat so well.

Yeah, but you have to think about the fact that like our B vitamins are coming from our gut bacteria. like if you don't have a really good gut bacteria, you're not actually getting bioavailable B vitamins. Like your gut bacteria is responsible for helping your whole digestive system, your enzymes, right? You're chewing, your starts to chewing, then your enzyme, then the gut bacteria. Like those three little parts are responsible for making sure that you can actually

access the nutrition in your food. And for a lot of us growing up, eating the way that I grew up, eat when I was younger, add on top of that the fact that I was celiac and didn't know it. So I was dealing with a sinus infection or some type of cold two to four times a year where my mom and dad were taught that I should just get a Z-pack and move on, like all the antibiotics use as a child to now like trying to make sure that I have this healthy gut bacteria and I've eaten a certain way for like, you know, over 10

years, I would say. But still, like, I'll get blood tests, know that I have a lot. I'm low B sick. You know, so why not have with a reputable brand or like quality? Like now foods has an amazing like women's multivitamin that I also take. So it's just like I want the B vitamins. I want that base layer that's already pre-methylated that I know is the right form that I can just easily absorb if I'm not getting it from my food. Because B vitamins are the energy of every cell.

if you think about the mitochondria, that's a little machine yourself, the glucose that you're burning or the fat, you know, ketones that you're burning, that's the gas. B vitamins is the oil that makes sure that that engine is working well. So you might be eating really healthy, but not getting, having any B vitamins feel totally depleted energy. And you think about it, like all those diet places like Lendora, they used to shoot people up with B12. Yeah. There's a reason for it. So do you do a separate B vitamin or is just... It's a multivitamin. I like minimal amount of supplements.

Is there an amount that you think that people should aim for for B vitamins to have all of those positive effects? I think you should just aim for at least 100% on all your Bs. Okay. Yeah. And it should just be in your multi. And is that all your supplements? I take a D3K2 dropper from Thorne. Okay.

Yeah. But that's it. Why do you want? I was trying to research this because I don't take D and I should because I live in New York and I'm sad all winter. So I feel like I should anyways. But the K is really important with the D, right? Yeah, well, we used to think that like when you ate calcium, you needed vitamin D to, like, they found out there was a synergistic relationship with calcium and vitamin D to prevent osteoporosis in the bone.

But what they, they were missing a piece of the puzzle in K2 is necessary to help make sure that that calcium is absorbed into bone and not into soft tissue. So we weren't really getting anywhere with the calcium and the vitamin D3. So you need the K2. And K2, you're getting a lot from leafy green. So I actually have, I probably am fine. Not, you know, I'm probably getting enough K2. But I'm like, whatever. Yeah.

Yeah. So switching gears a little bit. You, when I met you was before your book came out. It was before you were like a household name. Your life is, and that was only what, like two years. Yeah. years ago, three years ago maybe. Yeah. So my book came out in June of 2017, right? 2016. What year is it? I think 2017. Yeah, it was 2017. Yeah. And your life, like, how has your life

changed as a result of becoming Kelly Leveg? I mean, I think the only weird part is like sometimes I'll be like at Whole Foods and someone will come up and be like, I drink your smoothies every day. So that's pretty cool. Because I just feel like. that that or like a DM from someone that's like you've this this lifestyle has changed my life or that's really really rewarding um otherwise no I mean it's pretty much the same my friends I mean my friends are my friends like my bridesmaids I think about like they're my friends from growing up they're my friends from playing soccer in high school they're my friends in college you're hanging out with like like famous famous people all the time because

I think they see your client list and they're like, oh, it's like Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba and like, I'm the help. The who's who. Yeah. There might, I mean, I'm lucky enough that they have become my friends from working with them. And, you know, like I'll celebrate Jess's birthday or, you know, she came over when Bash was born and, you know, gave them lots of cuddles and stuff like that. And they're, you know, when you go through tough stuff, like they're there for me. And I've made some really good friends here in L.A. that are female entrepreneurs like Sarah Tuttle, who owns Olive in June,

and Ali Webb owns the dry bar. And, you know, my friend Hannah, who owns the Little Market and just some really amazing women. There's a really supportive community here in L.A. Of female entrepreneurs that really just want to elevate each other and support each other. And I love that. Like, I just, I, and so obviously I'm going to see those people at events. and anything business related, which is funny because in my last life

when I was in cancer and genetics for eight years, yeah, I worked with really famous oncologists or something like that. But it's not like I was hanging out with them on the weekends or going to dinner with them and their wife. Personally, it was always for business. So that's different. That's really changed.

And I really own my career, you know, it's like ownership over like what you've created and what you're giving out and sharing with the world and all of these female entrepreneurs here in L.A. seem to be, which is really supportive of each other. So in that respect, yes, my life has changed. I have an amazing group of women that I can lean on, call if I have questions about like, do you have a web designer to what do I do? How would you grow this part of my business? Or what would you do, that kind of a thing? And that's, I mean,

I'm really, I'm really lucky to have them. Does it feel fancy, though? Like when you're hanging out with these people who are sort of like household names, does it feel different? than when you were not, you know, you're like, you're going to fancy places. They're obviously recognized in addition to you sometimes being recognized. Yeah. I mean, it is, it's fancy in that that they're fancy. I'm like, I would die for half the outfits that I like when I go to dinners with these women, like, oh, my God, Ali, give me all your clothes. Jess, I want your shoes.

Like, things like that. Like, they're just, they live a fancier life than I do. I mean, most of the stuff that I, we talked about this that I wear on TV, it's rented from Rent the Runway. Rent the runway, man. It's like a savior and a half. Thank goodness, right? And I also feel good because it's like I do feel like fashion is, you know, hard on the environment. Hard on the environment and hard on the world.

So I do. If I don't love it that much, like I'll have a few key pieces. And I do like a capsule closet. I like knowing what I own. And so it just works for me, you know. But it's fancy and it's fancy in the fact that it's fancy in the fact that it's, it's sometimes L.A. is bougie and sometimes it's shiny.

But it's also there are some really low key. I think most of my clients are really, really down to earth. Is it hard to navigate the like client friend? I always wonder that with Hollywood because people are like besties with their hairstylists and stuff, but then it's like they're paying you for the interaction. And is it a weird thing to navigate that?

Yeah. I mean, what's interesting is I think we just probably are with them. a lot and you build, like, think about their makeup artists. They're getting their makeup done four days a week. And they see that person all the time and they get quality time with them to talk about like their life or it's also a safe place to talk about things. Like I know Jessica Alba and Johnny Darden are, you know, been friends forever and they

had kids at the same time. And that was, you know, that's Jess's facelist and, um, and good friend. And, you know, I just think it's a natural thing to have happen. I mean, to expect all of these famous people. to be besties with each other when they're all living their own life independently and never see each other unless they're walking a red carpet is a little bit silly. But then I always wonder like, you see, you know, a hairstylist go on vacation with this celebrity. And I'm like, well, did they go on it as, even if they went as friends? Like do they need to be paid for their time of, you know what

just like the whole thing? Like are they paying for friendships? Yeah, kind of like where the, I just think it's weird to be, it has to be tricky to navigate being friends with people who are you are on their payroll or they are on your payroll in terms of like it is any of that stuff yeah i mean i mean if jess or jenn if you're listening to this you want to take me on vacation happy to talk to you about your food throughout the entire vacation um yeah no i well i know like when jess and shawnee go to hawai for spring break like they're just taking their families to hawai together right like there's no exchange there i know you know, like, I don't know the financial details between like Simone being invited with Jennifer Garner to like go on vacation, but she's getting work, you know, she's working out with her every single

day and like, if I could take my trainer or like someone like that with me on vacation, I would too. Yeah. You know, so I think that I think that there's a certain point where it's got to be pretty lonely at the top. And if you haven't built good, strong relationships and a lot of these people, you know, had unconventional lives where they didn't go to college and they didn't have those, you know, I don't know. Like the places you build the friendship. Yeah. Like just think about like sitting over like I think about sitting over like a textbook at one in the morning cramming before a final with like some of my best friends or going to eternity invites or going to a football game at USC or inviting

people home on spring break to spend the night at my parents' house. Like those are kind of like where those are those are those are those are really priceless moments. that you build those friendships. And then they're missing out on. And yeah, and you might just be like, wow, they live this awesome life and they have millions of followers online and they have all the money in the world. But like, how great are those moments when you just can sit down with your like high school or college best friend?

And it's like you haven't missed a beat. You're listening to the healthier together podcast. I have a new sponsor to share with you all and I'm really excited about it. I haven't really shared this on here before, but I had my Morena IUD taken out in December. I realized I'd been on some form of hormonal birth control since I was 15 years old. And honestly, I really wanted to see what my body was like without all of those artificial hormones. But sorry, Mom, I'm definitely not ready for a baby. That's where natural cycles came in.

I've encountered natural cycles quite a bit in my work as a wellness journalist. I have friends who've written stories about it who've become fully hooked. It's a form of non-hormonal birth control that's been cleared by the FDA and CE marked in Europe. Essentially, it's two parts. A basal thermometer you take your temperature with every morning and an app that uses complex algorithms and a ton of user information to tell you what days you can get pregnant and what days you can't. On the green days, you're good to have condomless sex and on the red, you can abstain or use a condom.

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You can really geek out. I've partnered with Natural Cycles to do a little mini diary of my experience with it on this podcast. Every episode, I'll give you an update of how it's going and what I'm learning about my body and my cycle as I explore the app in real time. The good news? This means you can ask questions. Hit me up on Instagram at Liz Moody and I can answer you in my very next episode. For now, though, suffice to say, I am absolutely obsessed. Definitely check out Naturalcycles.com for more information and stay tuned for the next episode where I'll walk you through my setup.

up in my first few weeks using the app. Now, let's get back to the episode. Do you feel successful? As we sit in my apartment and I don't have nightstands. I'm just kidding. Yeah, no, I feel, I feel successful. I feel really proud of the effort that I've put in to growing my brand and my business and really proud of the lives that I've been able to positively affect. It's funny, though, because when people think about success, it's marked by, I don't know, like physical things,

like a house, cars, clothing. I mean, that's how we were taught to think about success. And I don't have a lot of those things. Sorry,

yeah, welcome to California. What is that? It's a gardener with a blower. Oh. If you guys hear something in the background, it's a gardener with a, with a blower.

Yeah. Sorry about that. Yeah. Yeah. So do you, was there like a moment that you felt successful? Like when you were on the Today Show or when your book first came out or something like that or was it something different? Moments.

I think it's a collection of moments. The first moment would be when Jessica Alba had me come do a session with her at her house. Can you just super, super, super briefly tell that story just in case somebody hasn't heard it? Sure. The easiest way to tell this story was I worked a party for free, which was the launch of honest products at Target. I was supposed to be the nutritionist for all the bloggers to be able to sit down in a little furniture vignette and get a few tips. And no one sat in those chairs the whole time. And so then the event production company asked me to go stand by the buffet and talk about the benefits and the food.

And then they thought I was like the caterer. So they were asking for a card for the catering. So I eventually sat down at the end and got myself a plate and was eating my lunch at my little furniture vignette. And this cute little redhead came over with her plate. Do you mind if I sit down? I said, sure, no problem. You're the first person to sit here all day.

And she's like, what? And I basically explained to her. I was supposed to be an experience at the event and no one understood it. And I had spent money on an outfit. I bought a dress at Bloomingy's. I got my hair and makeup. I came like so prepared. I was like losing money on this event. I was not being paid to be there. It was like an opportunity for me to like meet all of these influencers. And, um, she asked what I did. I told her.

She had me, I kind of gave her some tips personally. She was dealing with some swelling in her hands. And it like cut out everything. But she hadn't cut out night shades. And, you know, those can be, uh, an irritant for someone with any type of rheumatoid arthritis or joint inflammation. Ended up that her hand, her hand inflammation went away in like a week. And she was doing Jessica Alba's makeup. And it ended up being Lauren Anderson, which is one of Jessica Alba's friends from high school and her makeup artist. And she emailed introduced us. And like two weeks after that, I was in Jess's kitchen doing a session.

So what do you take from that story? because I think a lot of, it's hard to navigate the boundary between putting yourself out there as much as possible because you never know when that person is going to be Jessica Alba's makeup artist. But it's also, you don't, if you're trying to grow business, you don't want to just give your stuff away for free all the time and use your time in that way so much. Well, I never gave, you know, in the very beginning, I saw half a dozen clients for free. Like, I worked with them to get those testimonials because that's, that's for PR. Like, if I can't, if I'm just learning this, I need to figure out how to. to do it, how to help, how to consult. I need to get those testimonials. I need to get those

transformations. I need to be able to talk about it. You need to go tell your friends. And, you know, it's always hard to get your first client. It's always hard to get your first job. It's always, you know, it's like you have to have experience. It's like when a job wants you to have experience, but how do you get experience if you, you know, can't get experience? It's really hard. So after that, though, I always charge my clients for sessions. But when you think about 30 big fashion health mom bloggers in one location at one time, that was, there was an opportunity there for me to, it was an advertising and PR opportunity that if I ended up being, you know, I was thinking, okay, well, the smallest blogger here is like 15,000 followers.

She's brought in to have a great experience and get all this honest, honest products and talk about them and talk about Target and I thought, you know, it's worth throwing a little bit of money at this and time at this to like see if I can make it happen. I never thought it was going to be Jessica Alba. I thought maybe it was going to be that mom blogger of 15,000 people, you know, which still would have been a benefit. And then you could have still like grown your business from that. Yeah. It just probably wouldn't have been quite a skyrocket. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I know that I owe a lot of my growth to the celebrities that I've worked with and their, you know, their friendships, their word of mouth.

But it's also important for me to feel that success and know that I've been successful in helping them because I shared and taught them the science that allowed them to eat a little bit cleaner, that had them feeling better. That's why they told their friends. So, you know, that used to be something that made me feel a little bit insecure. Like people probably think, I'm famous or popular or this like go-to person because of that because of X, Y, and Z celebrity. But I never would have been on the map if they didn't have success or benefits from that. So I need to continually remind myself that because that's just something that makes me, you know, it should make me feel proud, but sometimes it makes me feel insecure.

So you, that was one of your moments you're standing when you're standing in Jessica Alba's kitchen. What are other sort of moments that you were like, this is it? I was the Marlton Hotel and I was in New York in the West Village. If you know that hotel, I don't know. It's a really cute hotel. And it's the perfect hotel for the wintertime because they have a fireplace. And they have like really, really amazing little restaurant there too.

And I was staying at the Marlton and I had had my book agent. I got my book agent and written my proposal. and we'd gone out on like 20 imprint meetings in three days. And we were supposed to fly home on like a Wednesday after noon or Wednesday night. It was like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And we got snowed in. It was like the biggest snowstorm ever. And people were skiing through Washington Square Park, like cross country skiing.

And we didn't have any snow clothes, but we were snowed in. So like all flights were grounded. And I got the call for my agent. And she was like, your book went to like a bidding. Warren an auction and you have three offers to from three big offers to from Harper Collins and one from Crown and we got to talk about what you want to do and you rejected my publishing house I really liked my I really really liked William Morrow I like my my editor Cassie a lot I'm she is really detailed oriented and it her vocabulary is unending and she is the Yie and

to my yang and I needed that. Like I, I just really, and she's lovely, a lovely human being. So I know I feel like I made the right choice for me at the time. And now today, too, she's the editor on my second book. And so getting that book deal was, wow, like really a huge moment for me and my career. And then I would say getting GMA and sitting there literally felt like I was going to throw up before they pulled me out there. Like, I am. It's live. I think that's the scariest part of it is like if you peed your pants, that would just be on TV. Exactly.

Yeah. So that makes everyone stick to their stomach, right? So that was a huge, huge moment. And I think the success of my first book. Was there a moment where you felt like that was a successful book? Because I think releasing a book is interesting because you have good things happen. And then the next day, another like not a good thing happens. the next day, maybe another good thing happens.

And it's sort of like a weird roller coaster and you don't. Yeah. I mean, I think, first of all, let's dispel the myth. I think people think when you sell a book, you're going to be a millionaire. Yeah, that's one of the things I love to talk about is how little money you make from selling a book. Literally, when I look at my book and we were talking about this before we went on the podcast, when I look at my book, my advance, my agent did a really good job of setting my expectation. She's like, this advance is not your money.

This advance is an advance on. sales and you use this to pay your PR team, you pay any additional editors. You like this goes into making this book a success. This pays for your flights. Any hair and makeup you have to do any hotels you have to stay in for shows. So when I think about my book tour like Portland, San Francisco, New York, Austin, Nashville, like that money's not coming from my publisher. I mean, technically it is because it came from them first.

But they're not like publishers don't usually, like unless you're Chrissy Tegan, maybe or something like that. they don't send you on a book tour. And I think people don't know that. Like I put together my book tour. Oh, I did too. I picked every single city that I went with and the majority of the money that I could have, quote, unquote, taken home from my advance, went directly to my PR team, which a lot of times is really hard too because you're like, ooh, are they doing work for me? I don't know. I was really lucky. I love my PR team. I had a team girl named Jess in New York and Jillian in L.A. I'm obsessed with them. And you don't hear that very often. But I become friends with these. girls. You hear that? Almost never. I follow them personally on Instagram.

Like they, they were, and since one of them has left the company and gone to a different one and I'm like having a total crisis about it for my next book because I'm like,

wait, what do I do? What will I do? But to think that, you know, the thing that it's anything but like a resume builder and a way to reach more people,

like my agent always told me anyone can write a first book. It's you need to, you know, can you write a second book? And, and the success, you know, like anything that you're thinking about taking home is going to be on like a bigger

advance on your next book because you've done well with your first. And only will you be given the opportunity to have a second book if, if you do well on your first. And you show that like you work hard or you hustle or you can get the sales or you can get the TV shows or whatever it is. And so it, you know, in June it'll be two years. And I have been hustling that book for two years. Like I flew, you don't say no to the Today Show, but I got the Today Show in January. Bash came home from the NICU, basically November 1st. He came home on Halloween. And so I'm pumping.

I'm a new mom. I have like my postpartum body. I'm hormonally all over the place. We've been through this like horrible, traumatic first few weeks. And I'm getting the call that like the Today Show wants me to come out. Okay, well, who's paying for that? I'm paying for my flight to the Today Show. I'm putting myself up.

I'm going on the Today Show for 30 seconds to hope that they, like, put a JPEG of my book up. And I think people think it's really glamorous. You know, the Today Show in GMA, they, you know, they make the food for you. They have food stylists. That's great. Every other TV show, I was making the food the morning, over the night before, packing it up in Tupperware or Pyrex, taking it to KTLA, sweating my butt off, putting the stuff out on the table to try and sell, you know,

hoping that 10 people watching the TV. TV show were motivated enough to go on Amazon to buy the book. And so I feel successful that I wrote a book, that I published a book, that it's available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. But I didn't feel totally, I didn't feel totally successful with it until I started making a residual check. And I told you like, my first ever check came last week. Right.

After two years. After two years. And people think like, oh. And after a hundred and twenty five thousand books. And that's crazy uncommon. Like most books don't get residual checks at all. My dad like is always like, oh, like you'll be rich into your 50s from your books. Like we'll be living in the hog and I'm like, no, dad.

Yeah, it's not the way that it works. Yeah. Yeah. You think it's this foundational form of income. You write a book. It's always going to be on the shelf. And what people forget to realize is reprints happen. Like they don't just go print 100,000 of your books.

Like they might print. a thousand, five thousand. They might print 500. Like you have no idea what they're going to do. And they're going to, they're going to print off demand. So if they decide that like there's not enough demand to do a reprint, you're not going to ever get residuals because it's never going to sit on a shelf. It's not going to take up shelf space. And it's just going to die.

Yeah. And so that's, you know, I think it's. And, you know, with the internet, I mean, like bring that big huge beast in. we're talking, you know, a lot of people are buying books anymore. Like, they're listening to it on Audible. They're listening to, like, a blink of it. They're not even listening to the book anymore, you know? It's like they're getting the cliff notes in a form of a PDF from Amazon.

Like, there are so many different ways to ingest this type of information. But, you know, getting a book deal, writing a book, doing some pretty big TV shows because of that book has made me feel successful. but I really felt the most successful with this book when Chris, I mean, I told you the story, but he walked in our apartment and he has balloons that say 1,25K. And I'm like, you know, I have more followers on Instagram. He's not on Instagram really right now. I'm like, does he know that?

I'm like, is he wanting me to take one of those weird pictures outside with these balloons? I'm like, what is this for? And he's like, do you know what this is for? and I honestly, he had to tell me. Like, we were sitting here. He brought my manager who's like one of his best friends from, from college and one of my, one of our my best friends now too. Like, he represents Snooki and like the people's Southern Charm.

And then he like has me, you know, which is like so funny because I don't have a, I don't know, a regular social media manager or anything. It's like, it's like our friend. That's how I like it though. Like everyone who I work with are like trusted friends and family members and like keep in the family. but I didn't know for like five minutes. I'm like, I have no idea what this is for.

And he's like, this is how many books you sold, you dumb dumb? That's crazy. I'm like, that's crazy. So that is crazy. And it's crazy. Like I don't even know I'm, yeah. So it's still sort of hitting me. But even there, I'm like the financials of that are still, you know, it's not like I can quit my job.

Right. So. Has you being so successful impacted your relationship? Am I with my husband? With your husband with Be Bad by Chris? Yeah. So we just have a really interesting, we have a really interesting history. When we first got together, Chris was a big corporate mergers and acquisitions attorney

who, yeah, I remember when Valentine's Day was like, pack your bags. I'm like, where are we going? You know? And we got to the- How did you guys meet? We met through a friend, my friend Todd Watts. I was in the dorms with him and then he knew Chris after college. I went to USC, Chris on T UCLA, and then Chris went to USC for law school.

and we sort of like ran circles around each other, but we never knew each other. And then my friend Todd was like, I think you should meet my friend Chris. I think if you meet him, you'll marry him. And so Todd knows me well. And our friend Aaron Milano had a birthday party. And we met at that birthday party. And the rest is history. It was like one of those crazy things where Kelly's single on Facebook.

She's single. Is Kelly married? Like 15 photo albums of like her and this guy are all. uploaded. So we, I think I knew right away and I think he did too. It was a really special, a really special, just magnetic beginning. But he was a big fancy lawyer. He was in law school at the time. Okay. So when we first started dating, it was like three months of fun. And then he's really, really smart guy and very diligent, really hard worker, really driven. And he was like, so I'm going to have to go away for about two and half or three months. And I was like,

what? He's like, I need to study for the bar and pass it. And I can't have any distractions. So in the next three months, why don't you circle the most important weekends that you'd like to see me? That's kind of smart. So then you're not kind of half hanging out and like ignoring each other, but being together, you know? Yeah. Actually, he could give you his full attention on those weekends. Yeah. So he gave me, I think he gave me like three or four weekends in that period of time. And like one was like my aunt's wedding, which I was like, is this such a waste? She's like, you know, it's like your second marriage and she's like in her 40s or 50s and I'm like, whatever. But it was really fun. And he, um,

So, you know, he always is so generous too. Like we'd be at when our friends were all just like in sales or, you know, in their first couple jobs and he's making a big attorney's salary. He'd be like, I got it. Like you'd buy everyone's dinner or drinks or whatever and always took care of me. And then we got married and 2012 and he came home in 20, you know, I could tell something that was up in 2013. He was like, I don't want to do this anymore.

And I could tell. It was like just really stressful. He's working 14 hours a day. It was a shell of himself. and Chris is such a loving, creative guy. Like, a good example is he plays the guitar. I mean, like, he's smart. He's valedictorian of his high school for, you know,

getting scholarships left and right for academia. And he plays the guitar. So, like, for example, with Bash, like, he'll bust the guitar out and just start making up baby songs. Like, and he'll just play the chords and make up baby songs. And he's just really creative. And he wanted to use those creative, like, juices of his brain. And I said,

don't you do what you love? Like I'm now following my passion and it feels really good and you should just quit. And that's so scary for people because he's put so much time into going to law school and all this money and we still have his student loans hanging over our head, you know, but he is following his dreams and he wrote a full-length feature and it was looked up by UTA and CAA and like some really big places and he's met with some like really amazing people. And, you know, that hasn't been auctioned or purchased or anything like that. But he followed that. And, you know, he's done some, like, lawyering, like, on the side.

He's, like, my in-house counsel. He looks at every contract that comes through, whether it's, like, on my book contract or, you know, contract for speaking engagement. Like, I just did a thing for free people out in the desert where I went and spoke to, like, a bunch of influencers. And that's fun because, like, I get to, like, see all these people that I might be friends with.

But it's, like, I would never have to know how to look at those contracts. So, but it's hard for us. Like, that's not the way that we, the way we were raised is a really traditional way. like our mom's, his mom was like a part-time teacher. My mom was doing the photography thing for like the school. Like our dads bring home the bacon and they were the breadwinners. And so I think, you know, there have been some growing pains with that where, you know, I'll be like, did you eat today?

And he's like, yeah, I mean, I had coffee and then things started growing. I'm like, you know, he just becomes really frugal and that really was something that bothered me. And like, you need to take care of yourself. Like, don't try to be like pinching pennies. Like go from being able to buy yourself whatever you want to now literally like not, not getting food. Like we have money, you know. So and especially for those things.

So we've had to have those conversations of like our health and our happiness is the most important. And we go from there. And we save from there and we grow from there. And, you know, his next idea is like writing. He has like half a dozen children's book ideas and like has written one completely. And I don't think a lot of people know this, but he, I had a situation with my first book where they put me with a ghost writer that I ended up not needing, you know, I couldn't work with at a certain point contractually. And Chris came in and we rewrote my book from scratch.

And it's so much more me because he's, I've been with Chris since 2007. in, like, my best friend. And we saved me on my first book and my, my deadline. And then when we went and got the second book deal, my editor called and said, do you want to get the band back together? And Chris was like, no, no, don't make me. And I'm like, yes, yes, we're doing it. So.

Is it hard for him at all, though, that, like, he's getting money to write your book or that you are making, you know, most of the money in your household or that you are getting recognized the whole foods or anything. that. Yeah, you know, I think, I think there are certain times when it just doesn't sit well because of he just, like any man you want to want to provide and their self-worth is so linked to like their career and how successful they are. You know, there have been times when he's like, your money. And I'm like, that is not allowed. Like, that is not allowed. Like, that'd be like saying it's my son. Like, like you took part and you're a part of this. Like,

wholeheartedly he is I mean right now he's like on the phone with my agent and then my editor and then he's on the phone with our IP attorney and like he does more of like the actual holding the business together I get to have a little bit more of the fun you know and but is he always able to see it that way uh no he's very very very humble and he doesn't want to take credit for anything. And he and so that's the kind of the problem I think is like we feel successful when we are acknowledge our success and we're grateful for it. And he will feel successful when he gets to he gets to do something successful in the space he wants to be successful in, which is writing, writing for himself. Like my, my editor would and my agent like my agents would represent him in a

heartbeat to be a ghost writer. My editor would use him on a dozen other. books if you wanted. He wants to create something of his own. And I want that for him. And I need to always continually remind him of that. Like, we're in a place where this is the family band. Like, it's the family business. And we together, he saves me money, not having to use another attorney or using an agent. I just have a manager, like, or might have a literary agent, but like, you know, I don't have to have a talent agent or anything like that. Like, they do it all together and we were brutal enough to like keep our family this way and I need to continue and I know as I grow

and get bigger and more contracts come through like I'm taking all this time of his or he should be doing something else. And so that's a little bit of a thing that we always need to work on where he's like I'm okay like all like I've just written this year off like I know it's going to be a crazy year your book comes out in December or January you'll get on on tour like we'll figure it out then and it's like no we need to start pretending time now so you can do what you love. And so, yeah, you know, the next thing on our to do list is to look to get someone and I have a call out to someone who is a nanny agency to like just get, you know, we've had a hard, because of our hard start, we've held on tight Sebastian and is just to get help in,

whether that's like six to 10 hours a week where I'm just like, okay, let's free up. So he could just write. So he can just write. He needs to. I want, I've told this before, I've said this before, but, you know, I love him so much that, like, I would give it all up for his success for him to have, like, written a screenplay that's been, you know, produced or a child. Like, that's how much I want it for him. And, like, he's like, no, you wouldn't. I'm like, well, I give up half of it. You know, you know, we both want each other to be successful in what we're passionate about. And the fact that we have these passions that can become careers and can really pay for our life, it's just not as easy as everybody thinks.

They're, oh, overnight success, celebrity clients, or they just have it so easy or whatever. And it's like, I've been, we've been doing this. I mean, I started going back to school for this in like 2011. Right. Like, I was the only, I've been the only income since 2013. Like, this is, this isn't, you know, this is the. struggles of life. But like we, yes, do we have these some beautiful moments where we get to have coffee together with Sebastian on the Tuesday? We do. You know, so. And he's not healthy.

Right. Oh, Chris. Yeah. I'm like, Bash is super healthy. Yes. He, um, be bad by Chris. The is the Instagram handle. And he one day decided that he was going to troll his wife on Instagram. And I which I love. I think it's hilarious. People ask me all the time though, because I'm the healthier together person? Like, what do you do if your partner doesn't want to be healthier together? To be healthier together. What would you say to them? Well, the thing that I do with Chris is we talk about all the foods that he grew up eating. So like chicken parm, um, tacos. Like he just, American diet, like those staples that his mom used to make. His mom made like a chicken curry with rice. Like, I've taken some of her recipes and some of his favorites and elevated them. And the good, the crazy thing,

is, is like, he used to be a lot, be bad, he used to be worse. Like, he used to be real bad. But, like, keep in mind that he's, like, helped me write two health books. So he, like, has the information. He has the information. And that's what I do with my clients is I inform them, and I educate them. And then they make decisions from an informed space instead of just saying, this is what I do, but not knowing why. And so I've seen him over the years, like, just his diet, completely transformed. But every now and then, he's funny. He's like, I don't have any fresh content for a B-Bad by Chris.

I'm like, why? And he's like, because every time I'm bad, I'm eating the same exact foods. I can't just post pizza, burgers, and onion rings every other photo. Yeah, you could. But I do think the remaking of the foods that you actually crave, like that's so, I was telling him to make the, some of the recipes. Yeah, your orange chicken. I'm so excited to make that because that's like, he loved P.F.

Chanks growing up, or not P. P of Changs. Panda Express. I was like my high school after school hang place and I'd get the orange chicken. And I think that if you feel, especially men, if they feel like being healthy is just going to be eating a bunch of salads, they're not going to do it. But if they feel like it's going to be like really craveworthy stuff, they will do it. Totally. You know, and I think that's important. Okay. I have a few questions I ask everybody. Okay. Have you ever been somewhere in the world and been like these people really got it right in terms of living a healthy, happy life? And if so, where was it? Such a good question. Two places pop into my mind. One is San Sebastian, which is

sort of one of the reasons why we named Bash Sebastian. Did you guys honeymoon there? We traveled there a couple years ago. In Spain. In Spain. And they have this amazing culture where everyone goes out at night and goes into these little tapas bars and has conversation and stands and it's lively. And they have this beautiful surf beach there. So it's like this food and outdoor culture that is really communal. And I loved that. And then another place that comes to mind for me is the Greek islands like in Greece. Like meganos, Santorini. Like I think it's just minimal. It feels like a minimalist place. Like it's like you don't need a lot of stuff. You don't need a lot of stuff and everything is like white and clean and the food is like very minimal. It's like veggies and hummus and

fish and veggies and roasted and like really highlighting that Mediterranean diet. It just feels really relaxing to me. And like that picturesque ocean, you just can't go wrong. Yeah. What's one purchase that you've made that's made you healthier or happier? My Vitamix. Everybody says their, what's another one? Everybody says their Vitamix and I need to get them to sponsor the podcast because everybody loves them.

And I love them too. But like what's one other one? Okay. So here's another thing that I purchased. I have Essentia mattresses. Oh, I love them. They're based in Berkeley, which is where Zach's from. Oh, really?

Yeah, they're tree sap. There's no glues, no resins, no petroleum. Literally, they pour tree sap into a, like, a mold. And they're heavy as hell because of it, yeah. They're so heavy and, like, as you sweat and, you know, keep those mattresses, like, heavier and heavier. But you spend half your life on that thing. And it is, I think, the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to, like,

keeping your body healthy. Yeah, I always tell people that if, they can make their sleep place, like a wellness-based sort of like organic cotton sheets. Like then you don't have to wear organic clothes all day, which can be kind of annoying because you're taking care of like literally half of your life. Yeah. In one fell swoop, which I think is amazing. Efficient.

Yeah. What's one big mistake you've made and one thing you really got right? I think the one thing that I'm going to start with the one thing I got right. I mean, I'll start with a mistake. I think a mistake that I've made in business is, you know, it's sort of what I've gotten right. Like I sometimes take business relationships less seriously, like where I need to be having contracts and things in place and having an assistant on payroll and just taking my business

a little bit more seriously. Like when it comes to the relationships, I like, I use a lot of freelancers. And I just take them for, you know, I just for their word or like, whatever it is, it's very, very casual and I need to elevate that because as I grow and become bigger, that can really bite me in the butt. So it's just being a little bit more professional. Like I like to be the girl next door and the normal girl who grew up with this in a normal, like, easy, regular way. And that is who I am. And I'm true to that. But it's like every level, every stage of your life is going to require a little bit more of you and like a bigger, more polished, better version of you.

and I'm at a place where my business is requiring that now. And so I'm finding that like some of the things in the past are, it's, you know, there's some growing pains there and it's cause, it's, it's, I guess a mistake, right? Something I got wrong. Like, you can have all the fun, easygoing relationships in the world. But like when it comes to business, like you got to take it seriously and you got to have contracts in place and expectations and like job descriptions and deliverables. And it's a big time.

It's big leagues, right? So that is where I would say I need to grow. And what I got right is following my passion, like just going after it and hustling as hard as humanly possible and having fun with it. Like I'm really grateful. I think every single day to do the job that I do, I don't take it for granted. And I, if I would get an email from you or some other editor like in your past life, like, hey, I need you to write this for article for Mind Body Green or like, can you answer these questions? I was like, I always turned it around as fast as I could. And I always gave it my all.

And I think I'm feeling the residuals of that now. Yeah, you were great. Like, you never were like, oh, I'm too, you know, busy or famous for this, which is really nice as an editor to have that. Oh, well, I still never felt like I never felt that way. You feel, I think, I think one, I mean, we're done here. But one thing I'd like to say to everybody listening is that, like, you are exactly what everybody would like want you to be you know you're so friendly and so genuinely caring about

people and and the down-to-earth girl next door thing like you actually are that and it's just so refreshing especially in the industry in which you work you know both wellness and Hollywood and it's just you're just delight Kelly thanks Liz how great is Kelly she's just so smart and so informed and also so kind and so lovely and just so fun to talk to we actually talked for like three more hours the day that I recorded this episode at our house. And I wish I could have recorded it all for you guys, but then it would have been like a seven hour podcast, which is long even for me. You can find Kelly on Instagram at Be Well by Kelly. You can also find her book, Body Love, wherever books are sold. And you can find her second book, which is Body Love Every

Day. It's available for pre-order now on Amazon. It comes out in December 2019. So definitely check that out. I also have all of the products that Kelly talks about and recommends in this episode. You can find those on Liz Moody.com slash shop. And you'll see a little thing at the top that'll basically say like recommendations from podcast guests. You can click that and you can see all of Kelly's recommendations and purchase them there. I am at Liz Moody on Instagram. I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. And if you did like the episode, if you wouldn't mind going to iTunes and doing a little rating or review, you have just one second. You can just click the star button. That's a rating. And if you have two more seconds, you could write just two or three lines about why

you like the podcast. It really helps other people find the podcast and it makes a really big difference. And then you can ignore me whenever I talk about this in the future. And you can be like, I already did my good deed. And I am infinitely grateful to you for that. I will see you guys on the next episode of the Healthier Together podcast. We have a really, really good one. A guest I'm super excited about a really interesting conversation about making friends as an adult and a bunch of other interesting health, wellness type things. So I will hope to see you there. And until then, have a lovely day. I love you guys. If you have headaches, allergies, brain fog, skin irritation, or you've been dealing with hormone issues, you are especially going to want to listen to this ad.

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