The Liz Moody Podcast - Rachel Mansfield—Real Talk About Money & Entrepreneur Life, Dealing With Body Shamers & Life As A New Mom

Episode Date: June 26, 2019

Rachel Mansfield (@rachlmansfield) is an Instagram sensation, with more than 300,000 followers tuning into to see her delicious kitchen concoctions, and more recently, follow along her fertility journey and life as a new mom. None of it has been easy—in this episode, Rachel shares the challenges of birth and new motherhood (including a never-before-heard breaking point moment). We also talk about her body image struggles before and after pregnancy—the latter of which will definitely surprise you. We get into life as an entrepreneur, and have a frank and honest discussion about money in personal businesses and in relationships. Finally, Rachel shares some of her behind-the-scenes life, including what she actually eats in a day, how and when she takes her food photos, and her plans for the future. 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 brought to you by one of my favorite food brands, Love Beets. Love Beets, which is found in the produce section of most grocery stores, makes cooked beets with no preservatives, that taste really fresh, just like a beet you would actually make yourself. They have plain beets, but also a ton of different fun flavors, including Beet Salsa, Wine & Balsamic, Honey + Ginger, and Sweet Chili. You can find Love Beets in most retailers nationwide, including Whole Foods, Kroger, and Costco, and you can also buy their beet juices and beet powder online at lovebeets.com—use the code LIZ for 20% off. You can also follow @lovebeets on Insta for more recipe ideas—and as always, you can DM me if you need recommendations or ideas for what to do with them! This episode is also brought to you by one of my all time favorite brands, Garden of Life. I’ve been taking Garden of Life probiotics for more than four years. Their Mood Plus probiotic is formulated specifically to help with stress and anxiety, and it’s made a huge difference in my mental health. Zack also takes their Once Daily Men’s probiotic, and their RAW Vaginal Care line is an amazing secret weapon against any UTIs or yeast infections. I also love their prebiotic, which has five clean, organic ingredients and provides food for the probiotics in your gut. You can check out all of my Garden of Life picks at lizmoody.com/shop. If you need recommendations for specific products, please DM me and I’ll help you figure it out! I can’t wait to hear how they change the health of your whole body and mind! 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. I'm a writer and cookbook author living in Brooklyn, New York. And speaking of the cookbook, the healthier cookbook, I just wanted to start off by saying a really quick thank you to all of you who've bought the cookbook, who've supported the cookbook, who are cooking from it. You're all so wonderful. And you send me photos literally every single day of getting the cookbook on Instagram

and being like, oh, I'm so excited to cook from it or sharing the food that you've made from it. And you tell me stories about cooking with your partners or having a dinner party and all of your friends come over and then they also buy the cookbook or buying it as an engagement present or a wedding present for people or Father's Day or Mother's Day. A ton of you guys bought copies for people. And it's so, so touching and it's so much more than I could have dreamt of or hoped for. And so just from the bottom of my heart, the deepest, deepest thank you. It means more to me than you guys will ever understand.

and I'm just so, so appreciative. I've also been having so much fun meeting all of you in real life at my tour stop. So I have one coming up. The next one is the Seattle Tour Stop, which is July 23rd at the Riveter on Capitol Hill or in Capitol Hill. I've never actually been to Seattle. I'm really, really excited to check it out. So if you have any advice on things to see or eat or do, definitely hit me up on Instagram.

I'm at Liz Moody. And definitely come to the Riveter on July 23rd and hang out. I'm going to have a special guest, Rachel DeVoe, who is Rachel's Good Eats on Instagram. She's a registered dietitian. She's a workout phenomenon. She has her wonderful workout programs, and she's just awesome. So we're going to talk about healthy living, healthy eating, healthy movement, all of that. And I hope to see you there.

You can get all of the details for my events at lizmoody.com slash events. And, yeah, I hope to give you guys a hug and sign your books and meet you in real life. All right. Let's get into today's guest, who I am super, super excited about. Her name is Rachel Mansfield, and you may be familiar with her for her amazing, amazing recipes that she's very famous for. She makes the most delectable baked goods, just like delicious treats that you need to eat right then, that you save.

And you're like, oh, my God, I need to make brownies immediately. She has a cookbook coming out in spring 2020 called Just the Good Stuff, and I'm so, so excited about it. And she's also a good friend of mine in real life. So I think it's really fun to get to sit down with somebody that I actually know and that I actually love and get to share a little bit of that relationship dynamic with all of you guys. I think those are some of my favorite episodes because it really feels like you're sitting down and you're hanging out and you're chatting with us and all of that. Rachel is also a new mom. So we definitely get into how motherhood has completely changed her entire life.

We talk about her birth story and recovering from birth in those first few weeks. And I don't know, some of the things about I'm fascinated by birth. stories and the whole process of bringing a new human into the world. I think it's one of the biggest life changes that we can go through. And even though I haven't gone through it myself, I love hearing other people's stories. So we get into all of that, including some like of the details you might not hear often, stuff about like pooping and the messier stuff and all of that. So I love that Rachel was willing to go there. She's very open and honest, which I absolutely adore. We also talk about money in a very frank and open way. Rachel is a incredibly,

savvy business woman, which I think a lot of people don't know about her necessarily. You know her for her, like, beautiful, drippy peanut butter and her chocolate and what she does with food, which is obviously so genius, but she actually thrives on the business side of her business. And I think that there's a lot to learn there and there's a lot to be inspired about there. So I loved how much she shared all of that. We also talk about money dynamics and partnerships, like what happens in relationships when one of you is making one amount of money and another person's making another amount of money and like how you can get on track with sharing life goals around all of that stuff. I think that money dynamics and relationships are so, so, so fascinating.

And so I will talk about them until the end of time. And Rachel was very down to have all of those types of conversations. So I hope you love that. We also talk about her relationship with her husband, Jordan, in general. You kind of see little bits and pieces of him on her Instagram, but we talk about, you know, how they met and what their relation, what they fight about and just kind of like the progression of their relationship over time. Let's get into some Instagram stuff.

Rachel is, as you guys probably know, pretty much an Instagram superhero. She has hundreds of thousands of followers and she posts incredibly beautiful pictures. So I drilled her about how she actually edits her photos, how she actually takes her photos, what a relationship is like with Instagram and all that, and where she hopes to go with her business and her brand in the future, which actually really surprised me. It wasn't what I expected. So I love Rachel so much. I find her to be one of the sweetest, warmest, most authentic and lovely human beings on the planet.

And I hope that you guys get to see all of that in this episode and you get to enjoy her as much as I absolutely enjoyed this conversation. You can find her on Instagram. She's Rach L-M-A-M-S-F-I-E-L-D. So R-A-C-H and then L-N-S-F-I-E-L-D. And of course, I'm Liz Moody on Instagram at Liz Moody. and I would love to hear your thoughts on the episode or what you were doing when you listen to it

or what like a few takeaways that you had from it. So I love when you guys share all of that and tag me for sure so I can see it. And I hope you guys enjoy. All right, Rachel, welcome to the podcast. I feel like I came into your house and you instantly just started taking care of me, which is really lovely.

She's offered me a spindrift at this point and snacks, which is really lovely. I wanted to have a snack spread, but then I had one thing after another. I'm like, you know what? You're going to have a snack. What would be on your snack spread? I love making those like charcutory boards in the non-traditional way.

I would put like little dark chocolates, grape free crackers, some hummus. Should we stop and let you make a spread and then I can come back in? You could do a happy hour one one. Oh my God. I think that would be so fun. Okay. So since we last spoke, I actually, so as a little bit of background, I recorded an episode with Rachel.

last year. And then for reasons they can't really talk about here, wasn't able to release that. But when we were here last time, it was really interesting because we talked offline about your fertility struggles. And then I turned around and you were, I felt like I texted you too when you announced your pregnancy. And I was like, were you pregnant the whole time we were talking about your fertility struggles. I wasn't right. You weren't. You were like I literally got pregnant like a month later, which just feels crazy how the world works. So you were here in May then of last year. I think so. I got pregnant.

I conceived Ezra June 2nd. You know the date? It's very romantic when you do infertility treatment. Oh. So I knew. It's because in June 2nd, it's my birthday. So I had like a procedure that morning. He was conceived on your birthday?

Yeah. That is really cool. That's very like circle of life lying king style. And I found out I was pregnant with him on the day that I had my bat mitzvah, which is not as cool, but it's still like meaningful times. No, when you became an adult. in the Jewish tradition. And then it's like becoming an adult and then becoming a mom.

Yeah. Yeah, I like that perspective on it. Yeah, true. So how has your life changed since becoming a mom casually? Where do I begin? So for those of you who don't know, I have a son named Ezra who is 15 and a half weeks old. So he's a little over three months. He's a tiny baby.

He is tidy. He came four weeks early. So I had him on when I was 36 weeks pregnant. My water busted everywhere. And since January 26th of 2019, I have not slept. You just, everything changes. Your whole life changes in every way possible. I always wonder if part of the reason your life changes when your new parent, though, is because you literally haven't slept.

Like, I know how I felt when I've struggled with insomnia for, you know, significant amounts of time. And I'm like, are a lot of the changes literally just because you go crazy if you don't sleep for a certain amount of time. Yeah. And also just, it's definitely that. The sleep deprivation, I reached my point of breaking around 14 weeks. Pretty recently. Yeah. I finally reached my breaking point.

I'd never, I've never really, I've never been someone who had suffered from anxiety or, like, I get anxious and nervous about things, but never took the point where it consumes my thoughts and I couldn't mentally control them in a way. And I actually, I haven't even told anyone else, but I was like my mom and Jordan, because he was lucky enough to be here. I was, we put Ezra down who is, you know, he's amazing, but he's been a very challenging newborn to have. He doesn't, he doesn't really like to sleep. He just likes to eat, cry, and, you know, be the center of attention, which is great. But we put him down and I remember looking at the clock and it was 7.45. I was so excited. I looked at Jordan.

I said, I'm going to bed. It's 745. I'm going to bed. I'm going to brush my teeth. I brush my teeth again to bed. I closed my eyes. We turned the lights off. 822. He's sorry. to cry. And I just, I had lost it because it's not like when he's awake. And I don't want to talk badly about my son. But I guess it's just, you know, the struggles of motherhood in the beginning. We all like, we know you love your son to bits him. Yeah. We pick him up and Jordan goes, maybe he's still a little hungry because he didn't eat a lot in his last feeding. And so I pick him up to feed him. I am currently breastfeeding. So I start nursing him in bed, something we do every night so it wasn't like out of the ordinary and he's just screaming at me like nonstop yelling

when Jordan happened to be in the shower and I don't even know what I said like I've no idea but I screamed so loud back at him that Jordan jumped out of the shower at Ezra you're screamed back at Ezra yeah Jordan jumped out of the shower with the shower running and thought that I like had a heart attack and because I screamed so loud like like he came dripping into our bedroom and he took Ezra away from me and I he was like, let's just not have you near Azar for the next like 12 hours or so. And I, and I stayed to myself for the next, that was around eight and I didn't see him until the next morning.

Well, I have a few friends that are moms and they always talk so highly about being able to take some time for themselves when they are able to do so. Like, I think that that's almost something that society tells you like you shouldn't want to do or you should just like want to be with your baby all the time. But I think that having that time not with your baby is equally important. It's really important. I mean, you were just talking previously depressing record that I didn't really take much of a maternity leave. I think that definitely added up to my like mental capacity of only handling so much. But I needed a sense of myself still. Like that was something that I knew going into motherhood. I didn't want to lose.

And I'm so grateful for having my own career. And that gives me a sense of myself that I think that when you're trying to merge both of those together, it does get very overwhelming. But it's so easy to get consumed in the mustard colored poop in his diaper. And did he burp yet after feeding out? Oh, my God, it's been two hours. Like he has to eat again. He's a preemiest.

So frequently, being able to have my own outlet of sorts has been amazing. So when we finally had what I call Ezra care, someone who helps us look after Ezra, I felt like almost alive again because I was able to go out and get a manicure. I'm like, I want to go to the grocery store by myself. And we had as when it was 15 degrees out, it was freezing. And he wasn't allowed to go outside for the first few weeks he was warm. So when Jordan went back to work after two weeks, it was just Ezra and I in this apartment, which while I love my apartment, it's not really fun to stay in here for 24-7,

which is what we were doing. So it just, it adds up. And it takes a toll on you mentally. Was it? When he was born and he was a preemie, was that really scary? Like that he was, I mean, all babies are fragile, but he was much more fragile even. Yeah. What's weird is I wasn't scared. I think because he was in, he was like inside my womb that I knew. I knew he was coming early. I wasn't surprised at all. I had lost something called the mucous plug, which I never even knew existed. but I lost that around 35 weeks and my contractions went from the Braxton Hicks contractions to legit contractions.

And even my OB had said, no, you're still just getting Brax and Hicks. You're only a centimeter dilated. You're fine. What's the difference between like how to what makes it real versus not real? Like a Brax and Hicks versus a real. For me, Brax and Hicks just felt that my, my uterus area was just tightening and cramping a little bit and then real contractions felt like menstrual cramps on steroids out of control cramps. And I, and they're also like very timely and consistent.

So you would get them for a minute or two and then they would stop for 30 seconds. Then you would get them for another minute or two and then they would stop them. I started having them on a two, it was a Tuesday actually. And I was before I was even 36 weeks. And I had them every single day. And I was losing my mucous plug at little bits of it every single. single day. And my doctor had put me on like a mini bed rest. And from that Tuesday, though, to that, I went on bed rest Wednesday. Friday night, my water busted. And I knew that he was coming.

I was not surprised. Were you scared or were you excited? Or what was sort of your mental frame at that point? I was so excited. I was just finishing putting all the diapers in the diaper, like the table. I had our bags packed because my parents know I'm not like a hypochondriac. When I'm sick, I'm like, I'm fine. I'll keep doing it. So when I call my parents, earlier that week and they were in Florida, I said to them, he's coming. He's coming a lot sooner. You need to come home. And my dad had said to my mom, you know, she's saying that, like, we need to go home. She's not like, she wouldn't just say that. And so everything was packed and ready and Jordan was brushing his teeth. And I got into bed. It was 10 o'clock. And he shut the

lights off. And I said to Jordan, you know, I feel like my water is just going to bust tonight, not based off any physical symptoms. Because my doctor said, the contractions were fine. It doesn't mean I'm going to go into labor. 10.04. It was like a cork, like the popping off of the champagne bottle. That's truly what it felt like in my uterus. And I exploded everywhere and I just ran right to the toilet. I sat down because you just keep going. It was like an avalan. She kept falling, falling, falling, falling. And Jordan was speechless. He didn't know what to do. I thought he was going to pass out. And I just said to him, I called my doctor who happens to be at the hospital at 10 o'clock at night, which was amazing. I said to him, grab the

three bags, grab eight perfect bars from the refrigerator, literally my priorities. I'm on the phone with the doctor. I hadn't washed my hair in eight days. I said to her, can I take a quick shower and just wash my hair before I come? Because I thought, when your water breaks, you have 24 hours. And she said, no, you need to come to the hospital. And so we drove up to the hospital. I got into, like, the wheelchair. It was so cool. I videotaped the entire thing. And the see. And the see. security guard said to me, your husband doesn't look too good. And I said, oh, I know, he's a little nervous. He didn't talk the whole car right to the hospital. 35 minutes should be silent. Was he nervous about your pain? Or was he nervous about, like, becoming a dad? He was nervous that

Ezra was coming early. Okay. But I guess I never really thought about it. I was not fazed that he was coming early. Is it a time when doctors are nervous about it? It's preterm. It's risky. Yeah, he's a pre-me baby. So he was born five pounds on the dot. He was born in the line. He was born like so blue. That's why I call him like my little blueberry because he was just blue. Um, he had to be on like the warmer and they do a lot more precautions for him. I had to get extra like steroid shots and stuff to like, because they're, they're not fully developed yet, not mentally or physically. Their skulls are softer, you know, from a GI perspective, their stomachs aren't fully developed. It's not as scary as, you know, God forbid going into labor earlier than that because they did have 36 weeks,

but it's not the doctor my doctor didn't want me to have him at 36 weeks she wanted me to 37 how is the birth for you so i had a c-section asra was breached he was stuck in my right rib cage from i would say really early in the third trimester and he was not moving he was so stuck and so stubborn in there he just was curled up in this perfect little ball on the right side of me so the last few weeks that i was pregnant got to be pretty uncomfortable it would take me 40 something minutes to eat a meal because I would swallow and then I just like felt like I was going to throw up because there was no room and that was like compressing your or your stomach sort of. It was so bad. I'll show you a picture. I also just look discombobulated. I was literally

pregnant on my right side. That's so interesting. It was so funny. So you knew going into it, you're going to have a C-section. You're like when I go into labor, they were just waiting, waiting for you to go and they didn't schedule this C-section because it was scheduled. But for later. February 22nd is due date, which is the day. Which is the, day I got engaged, so I thought it was cool. And at 7.30 a.m., like the first one on the thing. And luckily, it was still my doctor that happened to be at the hospital, like, on call. So, yeah, 10-4, my water broke. And at 110, he was born. So it was really fast. I personally loved having a C-section. I think they don't have a good rep in, especially the wellness

space in and of itself. It was amazing. What was amazing? So the team I had around me was awesome. I was talking about like grass-fed meat sticks with the anesthesiologist as Ezra was being like torn out of me. But basically you weigh down on a bed and, you know, they give you like the epidural or whatever it is for the C-section, that whatever the version of that is. And they place like a curtain from like your boobs down and they numb your body. So you can't feel anything. You just feel like tugging though, right? But it's so gentle.

You feel more like I, like you wouldn't like I can't even. impersonate it for you because it doesn't feel like you don't have so i always feel like i would have like a panic attack though being awake a fear and then like knowing that my internal organs are exposed a foot away did that not terrify you no i think it's like a stoner's dream it was awesome because they're you're on all these drugs and stuff i guess but i mentally was fine it just you're so can i was so consumed to being so excited to meeting you're gonna have a baby i didn't give a shit i'm like as long as he's healthy i'm fine we're making this happen and i'm like as long as he's healthy i'm fine we're making this happen. I just was so, like, kind of free. And how is the people often say that the recovery

from a C-section is much harder. It sucks. So that was hard. Yeah. And my scar is twice as long as most because of where he was. My doctor couldn't get him. They like literally had to like cut up to get. Oh, that's crazy. And can you like not? So it's a major surgery. So can you like not walk, not like. Yeah, I had no idea how major was until the next day. And your, uh, your, you're, basically, you can't even bend down to pick up your baby. You're not supposed to bend over. You're not really supposed to do anything. I couldn't walk. I looked like the hunchback of Notre Dame walking around to the hospital. Could you go to the bathroom? So you have a catheter in you for a few hours and you like hover to the bath. It's not easy. I remember Jordan, my husband, asking me,

do you have a catheter in you? And he's saying no. And the nurse is like, yeah. It's a major recovery process. It is. But when did your body start to feel like your body again? I was able to walk comfortably. I would say two weeks after. And by walk, I just mean not be so hunched over. You really, I wasn't able to do much. I couldn't really shower because you couldn't get one. Do I'm not going to get the incision like what? You couldn't take like a real shower. I could take like, you know, like a fake type of sponge bath type shower. Um, but it was, I don't, it was a really speedy recovery, I think for me. And it was hard to breastfeed and go through the, like, trauma we did with him and the NICU while recovering because I was being rolled around in a wheelchair all day. But you're so focused on

your baby and his health, him or her and their health that you just don't even care anymore. Did you like being pregnant? I loved being pregnant. I want to be pregnant tomorrow. Really? Oh, my God, I loved it so much. Do you think it was because of your fertility struggle, so it felt so earned? Yeah. I don't know, not earned, but like it just felt like something even working towards for like a very long time. Yeah. And it just made it even more special. And I think that, you know, I would like to think that most women are really grateful when they're pregnant and they're excited and they're embracing their bodies too. But I know that not all women have an easy pregnancy. I mean, look at Amy Schumer. She threw up every single day for her entire pregnancy. And knock on wood, I had the best pregnancy ever. I was never sick, never threw up. Fells amazing the whole time. I can't complain. I felt more sick doing infertility treatments than I did while pregnant. So the next time around, will I have an easy pregnancy?

Well, you'll even be able to get pregnant. Like, who knows? But is it easier? Like, so you've had fertility struggles in the past and then you got pregnant. Do you need to do all that fertility step again? Likely, if you have another baby or? It depends if my body bounces back. And they say the female body kind of restarts after having a child.

So if I get a men. cycle and I start ovulating on my own, then hopefully I can get pregnant. But if not, you know, I have an amazing doctor. I know that what we did work the first time with such low chances, if maybe that would work again. And if not, then we would try other methods to get pregnant. I don't know. We want a lot of babies. How many babies do you want? I want four. How many of this Jordan want? But no, but I want four. He wants three so we could, we could fit in a car. Oh, okay, but like the car thing. The car thing, though, you can let, well, I guess you live in New York City and there's a lot of taxi situations and stuff like that.

I was going to say you could just get one of those big minivan situations. I don't think I would drive a minivan, but... No, never say never, though. Once you have all the kids and you got to put them somewhere. I get a nice big truck. I'd rather drive an escaline. I would say three to four. Like, Jordan and I are both one of two, and both of our moms wish that they have more kids.

Why? What's the day? Like, not to sound insensitive, but like once you have a few, what, yeah, what changed us having three versus two make or four? My mom always wanted three, I know. And my brother was really challenging. So he almost just put her over the top and he was enough to handle. She didn't want to keep trying.

She was tired. So. Fair enough. She said if she had another baby like me, which is, so I always thought the first baby's, like, first born child is like easy, like, very easy going sleep. like sleeps, eats, poops, like listens to the book. That's what I did as a baby. And that hasn't been Ezra. So if I have an Ezra again...

You might be kind of tired. I don't know. I mean, we'll see. But the fact that I'm even saying I still want more babies after having him, oh, you're nuts. Yeah. I'm just like, no, you... There's light at the end of the tunnel.

He turned a leaf at 14 and a half weeks. He felt my panic attack and he knew it. It was right after, right? Two days. Wow. That's really interesting. Yeah. He knew. Because I'm, I mean, I've had people here. Like, I mean, I've never lost it with him beforehand. So it took me that long. I've never raised my voice. He'd be crying. My face would look like this. Okay. You're fine. Everything's going to be okay because I never really wanted to show. And I never, actually, I never really felt stressed about him crying. It just, it is what it is. But I would have, you know, my mother-in-law was here once. I remember she was starting to raise her voice with him and she was here for 20 minutes. Like, no, he's fine. He's a baby.

But you reach your breaking point, I guess. When you're going through all that and recovering from your C-section and going through having a baby in the NICU and all of that kind of stuff, what does that do for your and Jordan's relationship? For us, it didn't change much about our relationship. Jordan is a very caring and warm and loving person. And by going through this, it just brought out those qualities of him even more. Really?

Yeah. It didn't. It hasn't been an adjustment to like be. parents sort of instead of just partner and partner? You know, there's some things we don't agree on, like, when, in terms of when Ezra's crying and he spits out the pacifier when he's sleeping and Jordan wants to run in there in seven seconds. And I go, give him five minutes. See if he actually needs it.

You know, I don't want to raise a princess. I want him to be a little bit stronger. And there's just different parenting styles in that sense. But our, like, general approach to everything has been very similar. and I'm grateful for that. But I also kind of like, you know, I knew that going into it. We're a team. So you want that's best for your child.

And I'm sure, you know, they say that married couples fight the most about money and parenting and blah, blah, blah. I'm sure there's a lot more to come with that. But so far, we're good. And I think if Jordan wasn't helpful, I don't think we would be okay. But he's, I was joke. He's more maternal than I am. Like, he's literally like the mom and I'm the dad. What do you guys fight about?

Our first things that we used to fight about were money when we first moved in together. And for anyone who doesn't know, Jordan and I have been together for nine and a half years. So since I was 19, like we've been in each other's lives for a very long time. So at first we didn't fight at all for the first, I would say, five to six years. Wow. Never fought. That's crazy. Then when we moved in together, then you start fighting about the cliche things like money.

jobs, things like that. But not, we don't really fight about that. Was he nervous when you were trying this sort of a traditional career when you were like, I'm going to not, because we all, like, a lot of people know your story briefly, but like you, you got fired and then you kind of turned it into this huge positive in your life. And you created your personal brand and all of that. And if you guys were already fighting about money, was he nervous about you sort of leaving behind the salaried world?

For the unsaloried world? No. Jordan knows that I don't stop until I'm given yes as an answer. He knows that I won't sleep till it's done, I guess you could say. So him and my parents were, there are the main reason why I even started doing this full time because they both said, just do it. Put yourself out there. You were so ambitious.

Just do it. And I didn't have the confidence in myself to do that whatsoever. So, and he knew that I would not be the type person just sitting on the couch, binge watching real housewives all day because I just, I just, I don't. don't even like to sell the couch and watch TV when I have to, when I'm nursing Ezra as something to do. So he just knew that I would never be able to like not do something. And since you left your job to have your brand full time, has it always been, you know, kind of smooth sailing and where you're like, I'm going to make enough money this year to live

or, and does something always pull through? Or like, have you had times that have been genuinely like this was not a good decision? I should not have done this. That's a really good question. Knock on wood, no, I haven't had any issues financially since doing this full time. I have grown my business exponentially year over year since 2016. Yeah, I mean, at this point, financially I'm doing better than I would have working at my last job for two decades in the last three years. So I didn't expect that. I set out doing this and just said, you know, as long as I make that baseline salary that I was

making at my job, that's all I need. Right. Do you guys share money? Finally, yeah. That took me a really long time. I was making pennies when Jordan and I got married and I asked him for a pre-up. And my parents were like, why the fuck do you? Can I say my curse?

Yeah. I'm like, why the fuck do you want a pre-up, Rachel? And I just, I've always been that type of independent. We didn't have one, but because I had nothing to keep for myself. But do you make more money now or does he make more money? I do. Is that interesting on your relationship? I have that situation right now, Zach,

and because he's, you know, starting his own company. And it's been interesting to me the ways that it manifests that I would not have guessed that it would manifest. You know, like, he's such a feminist. Like, he's from Berkeley. But I think that there's this inherent part of men where they want that we'll have like little tiny moments where I'm like, oh, that's interesting, you know. It's interesting. If I was the man in the relationship, like, the man with the penis in their relationship, I think then mentally I am in a lot of ways,

but that's just how it's always been for us. I would feel emasculated, but he doesn't. No. That's cool. That's very like... Yeah. But sometimes I wish I think it. I feel like, that's great. I keep saying that I want to retire around 35. No one believes me. I'm 29 right now. It sounds pretty good being retired at 35. I don't know if I could financially afford that by 35, But you also, it's not, how would you do that? You were just saying, like, I can't. You seem like it was such a drive. So what do you, when you picture a tiring at 35, what do you picture doing with your time?

Taking care of my four babies and going to their soccer practice or whatever they're doing and maybe doing part-time work. But I don't know if I'll be the best mom when my children, you know, are children and not babies that I could be if I worked doing what I'm doing full-time. I have no life when it comes to work like, I don't believe in balance, but I have no work life balance. What does that mean? Like, you don't do stuff that's just fun?

I do stuff that's fun, but I'm so business driven that I think I'd be doing my family disfavor if I kept doing what I was doing, what with a full family. I just don't think that my kids would get the time that they deserve. I mean, it's a struggle for me with Ezra right now. I can't imagine four, three, or two and still doing this. even when we're on a trip or on a vacation. And if it's something I'm doing like in a collaboration with the hotel, I have it's hard to even enjoy the hotel with a family vacation.

And I've come a long way and being able to have a better perspective on that. And who the hell knows we're Instagram and blogging to me in five years? So I'm kind of like, let's hustle really hard now. And by the time my kids are doing their activities and they're in school and everything, I'll be able. All right. That was just UPS.

I've been told. So does that mean that you're a big saver of money? Yes. You're stocking it away so that you can potentially do that. We live well below our means. That's interesting. I like to live. Oh yeah, I tell Jordan we basically are living in a lifestyle in many ways not to this extent.

But, well, no, actually in many ways we are like from like a mortgage perspective and car payments, etc., just living off of Jordan's salary. And then all of yours can just be put away. Basically, I mean, it's not because the government takes all of it. But yeah, I mean, I just, I don't know the longevity of what I do. So from my perspective, like in my head, I say, okay, so if I make this amount this year, that could be like three years worth of work when I'm not working for some, you know, if that makes sense. And I don't want to be someone who, like, I don't want to have a family that, you know,

we're living this lavish lifestyle. And all of a sudden I'm not making. making money and then we have to like go down, which is so much harder psychologically than like, like we, because humans become adjusted to whatever their circumstances are, whether they're good or bad, we're just so resilient. So if you go up, you adjust to up. But if you never go up, you don't have to adjust to it. I don't even like buying a water bottle on the street, which I know I shouldn't because of plastic, etc. I'm always, I'm hesitant to the point where it's annoying. I just, but when I want something that's nice, I'll buy it, but I don't like spending,

I don't spend money frivolously. Like, I like to live well below my means. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast. I am so, so excited to introduce you to this week's sponsor, Garden of Life. I really use and love all of my sponsors in real life, but Garden of Life is truly one of my favorite brands and it has been for years. I first fell in love with their products after spending a period of a few months working on a gut health story.

I'd interviewed a ton of doctors and read so many studies and Garden of Life was one of the few brands that actually passed the test for ever. every single thing that I wanted in a probiotic. I think the first product of theirs that I bought was their mood daily care, which contains the specific strains of probiotics that have been studied to help with anxiety, in addition to a number of strains that support gut health, which is so, so important because that gut-brain connection. The mood daily care was formulated with Dr. Perlmutter, who's an amazing functional doctor

that I've worked with on a ton of stories, and I trust him quite a bit, and I still take it every single day to this day. I also have to tell you this might be a little bit TMI, but. I have to tell you about their raw probiotics vaginal care line. Suffice to say, anytime I've had a hint of a yeast infection or a UTI, you know that feeling when one is like just starting. I take these and it goes away completely. I recommended it to my friend who was having chronic yeast infections and they helped

her so much. It contains 38 strains of probiotics that are designed to balance both your gut bacteria and your vaginal bacteria. I know so many stories of this working when everything else failed. So it's just like an amazing one to keep on hand. and ready to use whenever you need it. One of the things I love so much about Garden of Life is that you can buy really targeted products.

When you take probiotics, they're training the bacteria in your body more than they're actually populating your body. So you get the best effect from them by taking something that's specific to your actual needs. Garden of Life has prenatal probiotics, mood probiotics, men's probiotics, women's probiotics, urinary tract probiotics, and a ton more. And if you're trying to figure out which one is best for you

or your specific problem, is definitely definitely message me on Instagram. I'm happy to talk about all of it. I'm at Liz Moody, as always. You can find Garden of Life probiotics at pretty much all local health food stores on Amazon or through lizmoody.com slash shop. At Lizmoody.com slash shop,

I've also curated all of my favorite products from the line and I'll tell you why I love them, so I definitely recommend checking out there. I can't wait for you guys to try these probiotics. They've made such a huge difference in my gut health and in my anxiety. and definitely come back and tell me how you're liking them. I can't wait to hear how you get on.

Now, let's get back to the episode. What do you like spending money on? Food, good quality food. I spend a lot of money on food. I do because I love it. It makes me happy, which I hope you're keeping track of for your taxes. Speaking of the government, taking your money. Oh, no.

Okay. That is like maybe one of the most annoying parts I think about writing cookbooks or being a food blogger is you spend an outrageous amount of money on food. Like when I got my cookbook advanced and then I paid my photographer and then you pay for the ingredients to make and the recipe testing, which we've talked about is it's insanely expensive. But the only good thing is then you get to eat that food and then the money you spent on it is a write-off. So that's like the tiny upside of it.

Yeah, the right-off doesn't out pay, outweigh the amount of money still. No, but it's a teeny tiny upside. It helps a little bit. I would say food, I do like. like manicures and massages and little forms of, I hate the term self-care. It's so, it's been murdered 10 times over again,

but vacation and trips, we like spending money on. I don't know. I mean, we don't spend money on going out to dinner a few nights a week. For example, this morning, I called Jordan, go, oh, shit,

I gave you the last, like, prepped meal today for lunch. I have to figure out what to get, give you, make you for lunch tomorrow. He goes, I could just buy lunch. And I said, oh, no, no, no. Like, I'll make something. Like, do you make your guys, like, you guys, you make yourself like a breakfast, lunch and dinner for you and for Jordan. And I guess for Ezra, because you're making it in your body. Yeah, right. Jordan gets packed breakfast lunch and snacks every five days a week. He gets dinner at work, which is nice because he works usually until about, I mean, it varies. But it could be like, we didn't work from like 7 to 10 p.m. What does he do again? He does account operations at a hedge fund. Okay.

I don't really understand what that means. Yeah, but he does that. So they give him like X amount of dollars for seamless for dinner, which isn't like, you know. Is he healthy for that time? Like Jordan is. He'll eat healthy. I assume when you're making him food. No, he's been having a better perspective on like eating healthier food for longer than I have.

Really? Never like soda doesn't really. He could go days without dessert. I cringe without cookies all day. Yeah, he's very, you know, he is the best approach to food in someone I've ever met in my life, which saves me in so many ways because I can definitely let food psychologically take over in a lot of ways. Like, you know, especially when I was overcoming a lot of things in my past about it. And he's the type of person who will go out for dinner on a Friday and he'll get like the cheeseburger and french fries and whatever. heck he wants. But the next night, he's home and he's having, we're having roasted chicken, sweet potatoes and, like, rice, you know, he just has a really great outlook on food, which is also like balanced to live your life, but nourish your body when it's appropriate. But like if we were in, like, when we're traveling, he tries all the food and like wants anything and everything. You've had eating, disordered eating in your past, right? Yeah, I never really labeled it in a sense. I think it was more body image.

struggles than an eating disorder. I had this vision of what I wanted to look like and was willing to do whatever it took to get to that body. And then by the time I did, I thought that how I was eating was going to keep me at that body and it ended up just milking it all from me. And then when I reached that kind of rock bottom, I didn't, for me, it wasn't really like an eating disorder, which for it took me a while to actually realize. It was just I didn't like how I looked and I wanted to look and feel better.

So I was when I started to gain weight and the size that I am now. And was that hard for you at all postpartum? Did any of that bring back those? How were your feelings about your body during pregnancy and then after pregnancy? I had never felt more beautiful than when I was pregnant. I loved it. I didn't gain a lot of weight while pregnant. I don't even know how much weight I actually gained.

The doctor weighs you like every time you go. and I hadn't been weighed in years because I don't know. Like, I don't have a, like, when was I being weighed? And when I had Ezra, I actually, I haven't spoken about this. I spoke about it at my event in San Francisco a few weeks ago, but I haven't opened up about it yet. But when I walked out of the hospital, I walked out of there weighing less than I did before getting pregnant with Ezra. So I had almost like the opposite postpartum. We don't know.

But my doctor, they just don't know. I got like a whole panel tested. I had like Dr. Lipman look at the panel to make sure that my thought, like everything was okay. I personally think that it was the stress of Ezra and the NICU. And how long were you in the hospital far? Four days. Okay. It was so much.

It could have been a hell of a lot worse. And especially with like what he, we were like dealing. It just, it could have been a lot worse than it was. But yeah, I walked out of there looking like a malnourished child. Like, I wouldn't see people for days, weeks. And then did you do anything specifically to get back up to a healthy weight? I just ate a lot. I think it was my body's reaction to breastfeeding and the stresses of just being in the hospital.

But yeah, it was scary. And then do you feel, I don't know, is there any judgment from that on Instagram where people are not happy with the way, like, people are looking at your body and maybe their body didn't look like that after they had a baby. And how do you deal with that? And what happened? I had a lot of heat. Yeah. But I also didn't show what I looked like on Instagram besides my face for a while, which I don't think many people noticed. And you did that intentionally. Yeah. My mom told me, too. She was like, you are not showing what you look like. Because I remember her hugging me. in the hospital and her like tapping my back and hers being like oh boy because I mean it was

scary but at the same time I'm so focused at that time like on Ezra and like doing what I need to do for him but then by the time we got home and we were back in the swing of things and I'm like back with all of like food in the pantry and I'm surrounded by the things that like are able to be eaten relatively quickly I just had to amp up the eating but since breastfeeding I've had to double the amount of food that I was eating before breastfeeding to stay afloat. So my body had a very crazy reaction to breastfeeding. Well, that's one of the questions I put out a thing on Instagram and I asked people what they wanted to ask you.

Oh, yeah, I'm curious. One of the questions I got a lot was how you eat the amount of food that you post and the type of food that you post on Instagram and still have the body that you have, which is quite thin and fit. And so could you speak to maybe what that looks like both before you were pregnant And then now. Yeah. Oh,

thank you for calling me fit. I'm more than happy to show you my sag. Yes, after this. I see you at the class. You're like getting your, you get in your exercise on. I know.

I like need to start doing like toning things though, like to build muscle. Because I lost all my muscle like post C-section recovery, which I didn't have enough to begin. Yeah, well, because you can't. I mean, it's a major surgery. You can't move. You know, literally you're better. Yes.

But, yeah, while breastfeeding, it's, it's been an adventure for me to the point where I remember my dad is very like old school perspective in the sense of like counting calories in that way. And I've dabbled in calorie counting in college and it's just not really the lifestyle that I'm trying to like live or talk about. Um, but he had said to me, you know, Rachel, like, I know you don't like calorie counting, but can you just make sure that you're eating enough calories like whatever? So I, I did and I was eating over 3,500 calories a day. And that's the amount that I've had to continue to eat since having Ezra. So I've learned to kind of tune out the comments from people because A, I don't

give a shit. B, they have no idea what I go through to try and stay aflo while breastfeeding. See, everyone's body's different. So I have friends that are, you know, my one friend just had her second daughter and she is, she breastfed for both of her babies. And she's having difficulty dropping the last like five to 10 pounds. Like everyone's different. My other best friend that lives in Holboken, she had her son is three weeks younger than Ezra. And she's not hungry while breastfeeding. If I don't like eat something within like minutes after feeding him and making sure I eat enough before, I get so nauseous. I want to throw up. There's been times when Jordan's had to like come on like the street to walk me home because I'm not comfortable and I'm seeing stars. And it had only been an hour

since I was eating. Wow. And it's not like I'm eating like a nibble of granola. It's like, you know, banana and peanut butter sandwiches. Every day I eat a gluten bagel with like whatever type of spread and I want. Like before you go out here, I had a bagel and apple and now I'm eating my Hugh Kitchen chocolate. Like I'm, you know, it's everyone's different. So you can, anyone can judge someone and their body. And I used to look at in quotes like thin girls when I like was a little pudgier. And I was like, damn, how do they eat that and say like that? And now I finally understand. It's just sometimes your body just, I don't know. And do you think that was the case before you were pregnant too?

Because you would, you know, you eat stuff that looks very decadent, you know, like covered in the peanut butter and covered in the chocolate and all of that. And I sometimes look at it and I'm like, I wish I could eat like that. But I don't even, you know, I'm, I think I have a naturally curvier body than you do maybe. But I don't even. I have no curve. Even when I like gain weight, I have no curve. But so you, you like, what? One, do you eat everything that you post on Instagram?

If I don't eat it, I don't post it. Okay. That's like that was a very well often received question. You eat everything you post and you eat it in the state you posted it with like all the bean butter and chocolate and all that. Yeah. But like if it's a big bowl, sometimes it's two servings. Right.

You know. And like if you put out like 16 brownies, you're not going to sit and eat 16 brownies. And that's like what I always try and explain to people is that, you know, if you're going to be actually listening to your body and like if I'm full. halfway through eating that. It's going in Tupperware and I'll finish it tomorrow. Totally. You know, and it's just, I think that people, it's that sense of the comparison trap and almost

like envy of something you see on Instagram, but you can't like look at something and believe everything you see. Yeah, I think it's like a lot of people who are like, I wish I could eat that breakfast and then look like Rachel, you know? I think that's where and then maybe that manifests as like a mean comment or something like that. But it's just this like jealousy of wanting to eat. that and have this, you know, you have a really thin, healthy body, you know, and they're jealous of that.

But I look at like fashion bloggers or whoever and they leave the apartment like, oh my God, they look so beautiful. And it's like, I know that those are pictures. Like that they probably have bags under their eyes too like I do. And it's just, I don't know. That's like this part of Instagram and social media that I hate. And a lot of the times people ask me to do those like what I eat in a day post and video. I'm so anti them.

Like I hate them. Because if I did something like that, A, no one would believe me. B, people would think that's what they needed to eat to, like, look a certain way. And see, I can't tell you what to eat. I have no idea. Like, I'm learning every day had to fuel my own body. How am I supposed to, like, tell people what they should be fueling their bodies with? Right.

So, I'm so tempted to ask what you eat in a day. I immediately like, I'll be. I can tell you what I've eaten today. Yeah, what I'd be in today? It's so 2.23 p.m. Okay. This morning I had overnight oats. With banana, blueberries.

And then I'm lately, I've been mixing tahini with peanut butter. And it's like a very interesting, like bitter and a little. Yeah. But I'm really into it. I had that for breakfast. Then I had the magica, like lactation bite, which is almost just like a nut and seed ball, like for anyone wondering. And it's supposed to help with like a healthy milk supply. Milk supply.

Then I had a cup of bone broth from bone. that I heat up at home. And then for lunch, I had a bagel with chai cream cheese with arugula and avocado, like mashed. It's just a really quick and easy, like random lunch. And what's going to be for dinner? Oh, wait, no, you're so going. We're not done. Sorry. Sorry. Excuse me. And then I had a honey crisp apple that Jordan so kindly brought home for me from the city because I couldn't find any here yesterday. And then I had half of a hue, and I have one bite left of my dark chocolate bar, the crispy quinoa one from Hugh. Yeah, I love that one. It tastes like a crunch bar, but like fans fair. It's so good.

So then what's going to be the rest of the day? Like, what are you going to eat for dinner? So thank you for asking because Jordan and I were just talking about that this morning on my walk home. I roasted the biggest sweet potato I'd ever seen in my life. Bigger than Ezra. It's bigger than Ezra. Yeah. And then I have these like frozen grass-fed beef burgers that we are going to do with like some avocado. probably tortillas because I like making the randomness, most random dinners in the entire world. Like, I call them bowls,

but I don't like to actually say that all the time to people because I think it's actually such a basic bitch thing to eat a bowl or something. But I love putting like leafy greens in with like whatever vegetables we have, avocado, some goat cheese in either like tortilla chips or tortillas and crackers and like a protein and condiments and just like eating that for dinner. Is that something you'd post on Instagram?

Yeah, on my stories, not on my feed because it's the ugliest thing. That's always going to ask if like feeling the need to eat stuff that's photo, like I haven't quite, I don't know, I haven't quite figured this out since I'm now doing, leaning into my food career and my writing career for myself more full time. But I do sometimes feel like if I'm eating something, it's ugly. It's like a waste because I should be creating content whenever I can because I'm going to have other stuff to do later and I won't be able to create content then. and Instagram feels like this sort of like hungry dragon that you can never have enough content to

feed. So I am struggling with like, do I need to only eat beautiful things so I can photograph it all the time? Or can I eat my ugly weird meals? I think it was yesterday I posted my lunch and it literally looked like mom it. Like it was like scrambled sausage like feta and like eggs with like avocado and like a pile of crackers next to it. Right. It's just ugly, but it's good. Do you feel the need, do you feel like it's hard to get the amount of like delicious, you know, brownie cookie overnight oatmeal content to keep posting to keep your account and your blog and all of that tip top shape? At first, yes.

But I think Instagram is a different place then than it is now. And when I first started, I was posting three times a day. Yeah. Now I post once today, if that. I know a lot of people, though, who say that, like, I have a friend who's just started growing quite a bit. And she today, like this day and age. This day and age.

Yeah. Mauseltov. Simply Kina, you know her. Alyssa. And she posts three times a day. And she posts probably like recipe content, right? Yeah. But it's work.

She's grown like a ton by posting a ton of content. Yeah, which I thought was really interesting. Maybe it's time to dabble on that again. So I don't know. But you don't feel like you need to post three times a day to like keep Instagram happy. I need to keep myself happy. Yeah. Before Instagram.

And Instagram's ever changing. Yeah. By the time I get the hang of things, they switch and change it up on me again. So I don't know. I think that I don't post a lot of my dinners and my lunches because I like to sit down and enjoy them. I don't want to worry about taking a picture. I'm really overeating my eggs when they're ice cold. They don't taste as good.

Do you have like one day where you do a bunch of breast of peas and shoot them all? Or like what does your sort of schedule look like in the day and in the week? So before Ezra, it was a lot more, it was a lot easier to plan ahead. I would do like three to four recipes in a day and just bang them out in like six hours in the kitchen. I only have about an hour and a half to two hours at a time before really having to like feed him and then feed myself. And it's a lot more. So now I'll do like one to two recipes in a day, which is fine. I want to do less work at this point anyways. I don't, I don't want to keep creating so much content at once because I want to save it. Like, you know, there's a, I used to feel so rushed to post everything. And like,

I would be so excited about a certain recipe idea. I would want to get it out ASAP because I didn't want someone else to get it out before me. Now, I don't really care. I'm posting in a couple weeks or it's just less content each month than I used to do. So for me, I do content when it's rainy out. So a day like today, I would never shoot content because my marble doesn't look as like it's like changes the tone of it. So anytime it's rainy and cloudy, it's like, the best weather, snow is like the absolute best. Really? Yeah. So on content on days like this, we got lucky because this is usually like my recipe time, which is a gamble for me when I'm scheduling something. But it's nice that otherwise, I would be doing content five days a week.

But in that sense, now it's like probably one to two days. What are you doing in the summer when it's sunny like every day? It's not as sunny as you think all day. There's a lot of clouds that come by. I always got nervous about that. But no, there's always clouds. And even if not, at this point, I'm a lot less particular and a perfectionist than I was in the beginning. So if the marble tone doesn't look as good and I really, I have a deadline, I shoot it anyways. Do you edit it in Lightroom? No, all on my phone. What do you get? So what's your photo situation? I use that VSCO. Yeah. Camera. I never know whether you're supposed to say Visco or same. I say Visco. Like what was a kid's pet? I thought that it was wrong, but I butcher everything. So I probably was wrong. So you take, but like to start, you're taking the photos on

camera. Every single photo. On the VSEO thing. On, you take them with the VSCO camera. Yes. Okay. I just have been doing this in the beginning. I think that it like works best for it. And then you edit it on that. On SNAPSeed. Okay. I love SNAPSeed. What do you do? Like normally. Just like how I edit it? Yeah, like roughly. Yeah. I changed. Was that a question from people? No, that's me. Oh, I was like, no one's ever asked me this before. Um, I'll touch like the brightness, the contrast, the saturation. I kind of just go through the like tools. I go through. Are there ones, though, that you're like always, you're like, brightness is always going to go out of contrasts or like a tricky, like, I've learned recently that I like my

photos more when I put highlights way down and I hadn't learned that before. Yeah, like shadows down and highlights up. Interesting. Which could ultimately kind of look like a similar thing. I don't, I don't know. I'm not like, I'm not very good at it. I'm not a photo part drives me nuts. I mean, everybody's probably heard me talk about this ad nauseum at the podcast, but like I

just, I hate it so much. And I, and I sometimes I'll pull. up your photos and I'll show my husband and I'll be like, she lives in New York City. She can get light like this. It's cloudy. I don't know. But like when it's cloudy, when I take photos, it looks so dark that the food doesn't look crisp and delicious and bright.

Your window space. West. Think same as yours. I literally like my apartment setup is very similar to yours and that there's only light coming from the West. And I go to these people in L.A.'s apartments. It's like those huge windows. It's like a light box.

Yeah. And I'm like, or I'm like, if I lived in Indiana, I'd be a great food photographer because I'd have like coming from every direction in my house. But like, your photos are fascinating to me because you have the same constraints that I complain to my husband about. Yeah. And your photos are like gorgeous. Thank you. You don't know what that. Why?

I would say between the hours of 11 to 3 or golden in the shadows. Not earlier than that. Clouds. And you're right by the window. next to the window, like in the window. Like if you're outside, you can see me. Hang out outside, Rachel's apartment. People see me.

Yeah, no, I definitely put like 11 to 2, 11 to 3. Before 11, it's not the light, unless it's like a brighter, cloudy day if that makes sense. Like, it's like not dark clouds. The lighting is just not as good. I'm not, I'm not obsessed with lighting this apartment. But it does the job for now. Yeah.

It works for the time being. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast. This episode is sponsored by one of my favorite food brands, Love Beats. You may have seen them in your local grocery stores produce section. They're in the cute little packages with all the little hearts all over them. We all know how good beats are for us. Their anti-inflammatory powers have been shown in study after study after study. But truly, they are so messy to prep.

When you're done, your kitchen kind of looks like a murder scene. The first Love Beats product I had was their plain cooked beets, which are grown in the U.S., certified organic, and verified non-GMO. And these aren't like the gross canned beets of yore. They're just cooked beets, no preservatives, and they taste really fresh, just like a beat you would actually make yourself, which I'm super, super picky about, as you guys know. I keep a stash in my fridge, and I use them in salads, and often I'll put them in my freezer for smoothies. With some cacao, it essentially makes like a red velvet flavor that's so delicious. Recently, I've also been getting more into their flavored packs.

The beet salsa is sweet and spicy and so good. I love throwing it on a stir fry or a grain bowl as a topper to elevate all the rest of the flavors. They have a ton of different fun flavors. Wine and balsamic, honey and ginger, sweet chili, and even my mother-in-law who honestly hates beats, she won't even make the beet recipes in the healthier together cookbook, but she will eat the flavored one straight from the fridge. I think the wine and balsamic are her fave. You can find love beets in most retailers nationwide, including Whole Foods, Kroger, and Costco. And you can also buy their beet juices and beet powder online at Love Beatt.

You can use the code Liz L-I-Z, like my name, for 20% off. There have been a ton of studies showing the benefits of beet juice for lowering blood pressure and improving athletic performance. I personally love to use it mixed with sparkling water, like a half-and-half situation, to make a beet soda, and they have a ginger version that's especially good for that. The powdered beet is also a great option for those red velvet smoothies that I mentioned. It is so, so good. You can also follow at Love Beats on Insta for more recipe ideas.

and as always, you can DM me if you need recommendations or ideas for what to do with them. I'm at Liz Moody on Instagram. All right, I hope you guys love Love Beats as much as I do, and I cannot wait to see what you guys make with them. Now, let's get back to the episode. And what other sort of, like, wellness-y stuff do you do these days? Nothing. I go to the bathroom every day. That's great.

Yeah, it's like, pooping is literally my favorite hobby. Do you do anything to ensure that you poop? No. I'm just knock on whatever, really good system. Probiotics. Oh, yeah. I mean, I take Garden of Life probiotics. Yeah.

Every single night before I go to sleep. Which one? They have like 80 million. The once daily women's. Yeah. Not blue. The pink one. The pink one.

And Jordan takes the blue one. I did take their prenatal ones while pregnant and they weren't strong enough for me. I like wasn't going to the bathroom, which is a common issue while pregnant. With moms. Yeah. So I did. And that was like really rough two days, like really rough when I couldn't go to bathroom for two days. I was a vicious, like so bad. I wanted to take a laxative so bad.

I do you think that the feeling after taking like a really good poop is maybe the best feeling in the entire world. It is. I could have been president after going to the bathroom in the morning. It is. And I'm so awkwardly working about it in front of each other. So we talk about poop a lot. Yeah. Again, we've been together since I was 19. So it's kind of inevitable. And if you've been pooping every day since you're 19, that's like a lot of poop. So, but a funny story is that when my, when I was in the hospital and they were getting me ready for the C-section, I had free labor runs the night before my water broke from what I thought was food poisoning, which is weird because I'd never had food poisoning before. But I was nonstop having like the runs, nonstop that Friday. And I get to the hospital

and they're like prepping me whatever. They're about to wheel me into the thing. I'm like completely undress in the little gown. I have the IV hooked up to me. And I said to the nurse, I really have to go to the bathroom. Like, can I go to the bathroom? She goes, no, like you can pee? It's fine. I go, no, no, no. like I have to go to the bathroom. I have to poop. She goes, that's the baby wanting to come out. You can't, like, it's fine. She goes, we don't want a bathroom baby.

I said, listen, this baby is so far up my rib cage. It is not coming out of my ass. So I'm going to the bathroom. Oh, because, so they basically think the sensation where you need to poop is like you wanting to push the baby, but you're like, no. Like, the baby's in my rib. Like, what are you not understanding? And Jordan looks at the nurse.

She goes, no, she has to go to the bathroom. She needs to go to the bathroom. So Jordan holds my IV, wheels me into the bathroom. I have explosive runs for like 10 minutes straight while he's there. Oh, he's closer than you and I are sitting right now. Which is like two feet apart. Yeah. Oh my God.

That was the first time you've ever like I've ever. Were you embarrassed or was it just like this and my body is a machine right now? I was like dying of laughter. I thought it was the coolest thing ever that like I was because you know, after you have a baby, people are going to think I'm the craziest person ever after this. But after you have a baby, you don't go to the bathroom for days. So I was so excited. Well, they really monitor you in the hospital.

Like, I didn't go for a day and a half, which felt like a year and a half in my life. But I was excited to keep going before because I knew that I wasn't going to be able to go for a while. And I just kept going and going and going. And he was just staying there. He didn't care. You just, I don't know. Get over it. Will he poop in front of you?

Yeah, but I would never let him. I looked like we had to. I mean, I hear him. We live in a four-a-year-square of an apartment in Chelsea for two years. for two years and then another studio the next year. So like it's not really, if I need something in the bathroom and he's taking a shit, I'm going in there to get it. Right.

We're not very like private. We used to be more. I mean, we wouldn't poop in front of each other, which I think is nice because I still want to like have sex with him. No, there's no reason to poop in front of someone else. Right. But we did stay in a hotel once in. I think Sweden that it had just like a glass door for the bathroom.

Oh my God. And I was just like, is this like the cool Scandinavian thing or what? And then another one in France where it just had a curtain. And so we would, and this is when we were, we hadn't been dating that long. And so we would make the other person like put on headphones and listen to music when we were going to the bathroom. Which I do think it's funny that you like know what's happening, but you don't want to like hear it. You know what I mean? You're like, I'll, I appreciate what you're doing, but I don't want to be involved in it.

See, neither of us are loud. So like, you'll never hear it. Like, you'll never really. Have you like lost any sort? Like, do you, are you cool with? body functions in all ways since becoming a mom? Does that change your perspective on that kind of stuff? I've always been really like whatever. If I wasn't doing what I was doing, I think I'd want to be an OB. Really? Yeah. I love like bodily things. I'm so weird. I don't like, I don't love blood,

but it doesn't make me like I'm. Will you like fart in front of people? I don't fart. That's a really fun fact about me. I do not fart. Even when I was pregnant, I would very rarely fart. Like you, can you remember the last time you farted? No. I don't fart. I really don't. I don't know why. I don't the average,

there's some stat that seems insane that's like the average human farts like 12 times a day or something. And I'm like, when? But I do fart. But like the average human fart. I'm not gassy. Like I burp after having kombucha. That's so interesting.

Yeah. I mean, if I eat. That's like a secret. Like talent. I don't know. What would be like sun chokes or brusel sprouts? So I haven't ate brusel sprouts. since before Ezra because that was my biggest pregnancy aversion.

But I don't recall them making me far before that. That's so interesting. That and see-at-day chips. Oh, man. Thanks. Which are now back in my life. So you don't meditate? No, I should, but I don't.

You don't work out in the way you do the class. I go to bar class. I haven't been to going to the class much because it's very heavy cardio. And I don't think my body needs too much cardio right now. I'm really trying to build muscle and, like, you know, be a little, I know I really want to try weightlifting. Not like like, like, oh my gosh, really. In an intense way, but just like they say that it's like a really good thing for women's hormones to like, you know, pump a little.

My mom likes weightlifting. It's supposed to be really good for women. I like bar. It's fun. It's like dainty, but I sweat, you know. Yeah. It's dainty. I'm so dainty right now.

I used to be a lot better about my phone at night. Yeah. Now that I'm pumping and breastfeeding, there's nothing to do. 5 a.m. and 3 a.m. when I'm pumping. I know. I feel like sometimes you'll like DM me on Insta. And I'm like, what time is it? I remember you call me.

I literally was like, that is a weird time of day. I don't even know what time it is anymore. Wellness-y things, not really. I'm not a big, trendy wellness person. I just, I keep things basic. I drink hot water with lemon. Oh, that's very trendy. I mean, it's like a classic trend, but it's like, it's a thing that you know.

It's a wellnessy thing to do. We don't look at our phones during dinner. We try to like be technology free. Do you have dinner after he comes home at like nine? Gosh, no. If he's home after seven, I'm not waiting. Okay. Because I put Ezra down at seven now and then I eat dinner.

And then the last two nights, it's been glorious because he's getting more on a sleep schedule or he's in the crib from seven to seven. when we go in and feed him like two to three times during that time. But I have like two golden hours to myself at night now. So I eat dinner and I work, which some people would say isn't the best thing for me. I love it. And it helps me like get the finally like the last night of things off my list for the day. And no one's really emailing me at that hour of the night. So I can respond to all the emails at that hour and not be like overwhelmed with emails back.

I'm going to ask you a question. I get a lot because I just released a healthy cookbook. and you are going to be really saying a healthy, it's a cookbook memoir sort of situation, right? And that's next spring. Should be February 11, 2020. So exciting. Everybody, save a day.

So the question I get a lot is like what makes something a healthy recipe and particularly what makes something a healthy dessert? So I tread very lightly for the term healthy. because I think it means so many different things to everyone. For me, it's just what makes me feel good, I think is the easiest way to define healthy. So I try and limit heavily processed ingredients and foods. So from like a dessert perspective, I don't ever bake with cane sugar. Most of the things are all like coconut sugar, manuka honey or organic maple syrup.

Like that's what I use for a sweetener. I am someone who needs dessert every single day. I have chocolate after lunch every day, and then I have like an actual dessert after dinner. So, and that type of dessert just varies. Like right now, it's actually some of the oatmeal cookies I have on the side for you. And so a healthy dessert is just something that doesn't, you don't eat it after and you don't feel guilty. I don't want anyone to eat dessert and feel guilty after because dessert is meant to be enjoyed.

It's like supposed to be this like sweet, but in my opinion, not overly sweet something. Like if I order a chocolate lave cake at a restaurant and I eat it, like, it does not taste good to me. It's too sweet. So you not only use different sweeteners. You use like maybe less of them than a traditional dessert might call for. A thousand percent. I don't, like, I don't bathe in sugar. I don't.

And what about stuff like how do you decide what types of flowers are okay? Like how why is almond okay and do you spell? You know, like how do you make those, all those types of decisions? I'm an equal opportunist in the flower department. I don't use all-purpose flour because I just don't see the nutritional benefit from using it. I love almond flour, but I love oat flour. I love sprouted spelt flour. I'll use like tapioca and hour root in some recipes, coconut flour. I try and do a good blend of recipes that are grain-free and then some that are just gluten-free or even just sprouted gluten. I like to dabble in a little bit of everything. I think, healthy for me is just not having canola oil and like vegetable oil. I don't eat soy. Just nothing that's so heavily processed.

Does that make sense? No, that's good. I feel like you, when you get that question on your book tour, you'll have a good answer. Thank you. Yeah, you pass. Thanks. Okay, so I'm going to ask you a few questions.

I always ask everybody because I could talk to you forever, but I'm trying to be cognizant of time because a baby is going to burst in the door really soon. I know, I wonder when he's... Which I'm really excited about. What do you think is... the best way to spend 20 minutes every day in terms of the... Oh, the baby is bursting in the door right now.

No, no. You can come in. All right. So the baby did come home. And he's eating right now. We have a baby on the boob. All right. He's giving me the middle finger.

I'm not getting you. He's like, F you, Mom. I should have had the boobs sooner. You made me wait. What, in the name of being healthier, what's the best way to spend 20 minutes every day? 20 minutes every day in the bathtub. Ooh, you're like a bath girl? Yeah.

I can't. But I don't like disconnect from my phone in the bath. That's actually when I go on Instagram is when I'm on the bathtub. So we should like picture you naked in the bath when you're on Instagram. Yeah, it's a very sexy scene. Let me tell you. I'm perfect sweat because I make the bath water so hot. I'm just like they're too hot and then they get too cold.

And then I feel like overheated and like nauseous. I bring a space heater in there. I make that shit a sauna. Interesting. That's an interesting technique. Okay. What is one purchase that you've made that's made you healthier, happier? Ooh, I love that question.

And you had to have bought it and have been sent it. It can't just be a thing. You had to have, like, thought it was worth the money. She's looking around the apartment. My water filtration. Okay. What do you have? A burkey.

And you like it? You think the burkees worth money. I love it. I won't drink tap water unless I'm, like, out to dinner because I'm in a way and I'm not going to be like, oh, can I have a bottle of water? Yeah. It tastes so good. And when I go to my friend's apartments and they don't have filtered water, I cannot drink it.

I know. I have talked so many of my friends into actually buying filters so that when I go to their apartments, I can just like drink filtered water, which is really nice. Actually, I love with like a gallon of water to people's apartments that I know have shitty water. Like I'm like very, very picky about my water. Yeah, I am too. Which, I mean, if you, for gut bacteria and stuff like that, like especially I always help people, if they have anxiety, they really need to pay attention to their water because chlorinated

water decimates your gut bacteria. Especially water is just so important in general. Like, I'm always, always, always drinking water. so it needs to taste good and it needs to be like really pure. What is one big mistake you've made and what's something you really got right? Right now, I think what I've gotten right is running my business and my brand partnerships. I'm really grateful for this position that I'm in right now, like knock on wood. I think I'm like in a nice place where I have really good relationships with all the brands that I work with.

And, you know, we don't email, like be texting me call on the phone. Like my friend runs like social media and PR Garden of Life. I talked to her more than I talked to my friends from college. I talked to her every single day. Yeah. And Lisa. Yeah. She was really excited when she found out I was interviewing you today.

I know she called me this morning. Like I talked to her all day every day. Yeah. And things like that I'm really grateful for because that started because I picked up a bottle of vitamins in Whole Foods, took a picture of it. And it was Garden of Life vitamins and asked if anyone had tried it and they happened to have seen it. And from there,

working together for almost three years now. That's amazing. So I think that's just like beautiful. Like my parents live five minutes from her and Jupiter. So when I go to Florida, I see her a lot. She comes over for dinner. She was here last week. And it's not, we don't talk about work.

We talk about like life. Like her sister just had babies. And she just got married. Yeah. It's just, it's so nice. Like today's her dog's fifth birthday. It's like I text her happy birthday. Happy birthday to Charlie.

Something I didn't get right is definitely not knowing how to shut off. my brain when it comes to work. You know, I think every time I finish my to-do list, I think of something else that I want to add to it. I got called Jordan yesterday and I said, I want to make a list of every brand I have affiliate marketing with. And I want to make a spreadsheet on how much in making each month to really understand this and like what the maximum potential is. And he's just like, slow down. Does he help you with any of the business stuff? Or is it all you, like who's sort of, you know, doing the back end and the website and the invoice seen because a lot of times they're sort of the Instagram husband doing all of that.

It is on me. He helps with taxes and he helps set me up with like with QuickBooks. He'll help with anything I need. He'll help clean dishes. Like he will help, you name it, he'll do it. And I feel like the theme of this podcast, everybody's going to be like, I want a Jordan. He is amazing, but he's mine, bitches. He would help with anything.

But on a daily basis, no, but he's, you know, he's my support. him and, you know. Do you have a team at all? Or is it just you? It's just me, which, yeah, I've been told is recently someone said to me, you know, that's not good of you. That's like a not good business for you, not to hire someone. Like your business would be growing even more. And I was just kind of like, who the fuck are you to say that to me? And then I said, you know, I'm paying for care, child care for my son, which is already a decent amount of money living where we live. And that's my priority right now. Like, I'd rather do less for my business and focus on my child. And also it's like what is our insane obsession with like you're doing really well?

Why does it need to be even more than that? You know what I mean? I'm not easy to work with. So I don't think someone's going to want to work with me. And I get a lot of emails with like people that want to be my assistant and help and intern and whatever. But I'm not trying to babysit. I have a real baby to sit on right now. Yeah.

I don't I don't know. It's maybe down the road. If I ever launched a product of sorts or did another. innovated in a different aspect of the business than I think I would need in a system, but I like cleaning my dishes. I like doing what I have to do. And I like, I don't have a manager or an agent. It's all me.

I love the business aspect of what I do. It's my favorite part. I like it more than the recipe development. Really? I love the negotiations and the planning of everything. I love doing it. I thrive off of it. Hi.

Hi, Visra. Are you telling everyone hello? Yeah. He's so cute. Is he good? He's good. He's just a loud eater sometimes. What does success look like to you? So success, I would say, well, first of all, everyone defines success so differently. But for me, it's just having my family and my friends healthy and my business continuing to grow and just enjoying every moment of that, I guess. Final question. Is there one place in the world that you've been where you're like, these people really got it right in terms of like, live in a good life. The last time you asked me that, I had said Maui, which I do think they do ever right in a lot of ways, but how could you not when you love on an island with, you know,

all food that's grown there and beautiful weather and happy people? But I think there's aspects to living anywhere where people have it right. You know, if you live in the middle of nowhere and you have like you were just like saying access to nature, that's great. But then there's people who live in the Manhattan area and like, you know, we get shit done. Yeah, we have no work-life balance, but we get it done. And a lot of people here, that's why businesses are here. It's a successful area. And that's why it's expensive to live here.

But I think there's different aspects to every part of the world where people have it right. I don't think there's one perfect place where people have it 100% right. I love that. I kind of just twisted your question. No, I like it. I think that's a really cool answer. Do you think you guys are going to stay in New York long time? I have to make a lot more banana bread to be able to afford a family in this area.

You know, we do live in Hoboken, so I love it here. But even, you know, having a four-bedroom apartment here is not affordable for us. Even if we are living off of my income, like, it's just not. Yeah. I think we do talk about living in Florida. Because your family's already there six months out of the year. I think that it's a great lifestyle down there. I think it could be too slow for me.

but when I'm having all of my babies and I want a bigger house and sunshine, I'm miserable in the cold. I'm also allergic to the cold where my face turns bright red and I have like allergy to it, which I thought was fake until my doctor told me was actually real. That you can actually be allergic to the cold. I'm allergic to the cold temperature. I mean, I can't stand the cold. I'm from California.

So like it's, the writing off six months a year because it's miserable out is insane to me. Yeah. No. I would love to live in California. but Jordan will move. Not to, he's like he'll move to Florida, but he won't move to California. Yeah.

He doesn't want to be six hours away from his mom. Okay. That's kind of sweet. The one downside to Jordan is that he won't move to California. But because he wants to be close to family, not because he has anything against California. No, he also doesn't have the same, like,

love and passion for it that I do. I mean, I'm never going back to San Francisco after our car was just broken into. I know. I'm so sad about that. I do love Southern California. Yeah. I do love all parts of Northern California, though,

just not San Francisco. I know. I just feel like I'm, I'm from San Francisco or from the Bay Area. And the fact that my city treated you like that just makes me really sad. Oh, it's fine. He brought home my three loaves of bread from the mill. So we're fine. Like, we forgive. We forgive San Francisco. But if anyone sees Jordan's laptop, watch your earbonds. Oh, and his old shoes, let me know. We'll track them down and we'll get the stuff back. Well, thank you so much for having me over. And I'm really excited to go cuddle as right now. Thank you for having me on the podcast And thanks everyone for being patient with Ezra Oh my gosh, okay, I'm gonna go cuddle Bye And that is it for this week's episode

I hope you guys loved it How cute is little baby Ezra at the end I got to cuddle him And I got to smell his little baby head afterwards Which was amazing Babyhead smell like magic They're like one of the best smells on the planet I love them

You guys did like this week's episode I would so appreciate if you guys could go over to iTunes And do a rating or a view even one or two sentences helps a ton. It helps other people find the podcast. And if you could tell other people about it, I would massively appreciate it if there's somebody that you feel like would benefit from something in this episode or would just really enjoy it, enjoy it.

Enjoy being part of the healthier together. Fam, I would love, love, love if you would share it with them. And yeah, I'll see you guys for the next episode. Have a great 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. into this ad. Every single thing that I just listed has been linked to chemicals and household

cleaners. One study found that regular use of cleaning sprays was associated with a lung function decline comparable to smoking 10 to 20 cigarettes per day. Synthetic fragrances are a well-documented migraine trigger and a number of studies have linked ingredients in common household cleaners to fertility issues, thyroid dysfunction, mood changes, and more because of their impact on our endocrine systems. Luckily, you can just make one simple swap and you can eliminate all of those risk factors that you get from common household cleaners. Branch basics makes cleaning products that are plant and mineral based, completely fragrance-free and made safe certified, meaning they are screened against thousands of known and suspected harmful chemicals. And best of all, you literally use one product,

but you mix it with different amounts of water to make your kitchen spray, your bathroom cleaner, your laundry detergent, your produce wash, your glass cleaner, literally everything. It does not smell. It does not give me headaches. It does not give me rashes or itchiness from clothes because you are. Remember, we're using this for laundry. We're using this for literally everything. And it works so well. Everything gets so clean. And I know that I'm protecting myself from all of those long-term issues too. And I'm protecting my kittens who are much tinier than me. So anything they're exposed to has a much greater impact on their little tiny systems. And they're running around on their little paws and then they're licking them.

So I'm protecting them too. Branch Basics is now available at Target, Target.com, Amazon and branchbasics.com. So it's easier than ever to make the switch. And if you want to grab their premium starter kit, you can use code Liz Moody for 15% off at branchbasics.com. That's code Liz Moody for 15% off the premium starter kit at branchbasics.com. And when they ask you where you heard about us, please make sure to mention the show. That is branch basics.com and use code Liz Moody. When it comes to wellness, you're going to get the best results by focusing on the big needle

movers. A lot of us spend a lot of time trying to optimize that last 1%, which creates a ton of stress and it actually doesn't help our help that much. At the top of the needle mover list, sleep. And one of the best ways to optimize your sleep is to optimize your mattress, which is why I love avocado green mattress so much. First of all, this mattress is so comfortable. I have the one with the pillow top, which is medium firm, and it's just a dream. I miss it when I travel. It's better than even the fanciest hotel beds. Having a mattress that supports your joints and your body and feels good

is going to help you get more sleep and better quality sleep. But then, on top of that, avocado mattresses are made with certified organic cotton wool and latex, and they are made safe and green guard gold certified. They're also Okotech certified, which is the gold standard. I look for it in any mattresses, sheets, or towels that I buy, which means the materials have been rigorously tested for harmful substances. You can actually look for the Okotech standard 100 label right on the product, and I love this part. It includes a traceable certificate number and the name of the testing lab so you know exactly what you're getting. There are no toxic chemicals, there's no harmful off-gassing, it does not smell like it's going to kill you when you unbox it. This is what I mean. I'm not going to

swap out all of my clothing, which is that top 1% of optimization. But by making sure that my mattress and my bedding are as good for me as possible, I literally reduce my exposure during a third of my life, which is a huge needle mover for a one-time swap. I will also note, and this is a me thing, but I sleep super hot and avocado's materials are really breathable, and it makes me sweat the least of any mattress that I have slept on. And avocado is a certified B-Corp and a 1% for the planet member. because caring for yourself and caring for the planet do not have to be separate things. You can get up to 20% off organic mattresses and more by shopping Avocados President's Day

sale right now at avocadogreenmatress.com. That is avocadogreenmatress.com. No code needed.