The Liz Moody Podcast - The Second Morning/Evening Routine Episode—Peek Inside The Routines of Kelly LeVeque, What’s Gaby Cooking, Laura Lea, and Inspiralized

Episode Date: April 29, 2020

Welcome to our second morning/evening routine episode! In these episodes, we shake things up a bit in this episode by going inside the morning and evening routines of some of the wellness world’s biggest celebrities. You can listen and just enjoy a sneak peek, or steal some of their genius ideas to try at home! In Part 1, I shared the routines of Minimalist Baker, Kale Junkie, Rachael’s Good Eats and The Cutting Veg. This week includes: Kelly LeVeque on fasted workouts for fat-burning and metabolically flexibility & a trick to find the positive in each day Laura Lea on night-time tricks to beat insomnia & an easy trick to keep cortisol levels low Inspiralized on time blocking tips for ultimate productivity & how to keep intimacy alive with kids in quarantine What’s Gaby Cooking on morning workouts & the benefits of skin fasting PS: Healthier Together is officially a number one best-seller! You can get your copy on Amazon 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 Califia Farms. While I love the entire Califia line, their shelf-stable products are coming in CLUTCH right now—they have the oatmilk, almondmilk, creamer, and a ready-to-drink cold brew. You can find Califia products in pretty much any grocery store, but if you’re like me and trying to avoid going to the store, you can order them online! You can get 20% off at califiafarms.com using the code “healthiertogether20.” This episode is also sponsored by GoMacro. GoMacro is always my go-to bar because it’s the only one that actually fills me up. My go-to flavor is the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, but they actually literally JUST released a brand new flavor, Double Chocolate + Peanut Butter Chips. They taste like heaven and I truly can’t stop eating them. All GoMacro bars are made from simple, high-quality ingredients and are Certified Organic, Vegan, Gluten-Free, Kosher, Non-GMO, and soy-free. You can get a whopping 30% off your order PLUS free shipping by using the code “healthiertogether30” at GoMacro.com. Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthyer Together podcast. If you are new here, I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I am a longtime journalist and cookbook author living in Brooklyn, New York, where I have now been quarantined with my husband and my cat for seven full weeks as of today. So happy anniversary to us. We all still love each other, but, you know, we have our moments. As you may have heard in last week's casual couple conversation episode, if you didn't listen to that, you should definitely go check that out.

Zach and I answer a lot of your frequently asked questions. But today is part two of our morning and evening routine episode. If you didn't hear part one, it features people like Dana from minimalist Baker talking about journaling and dry fasting, which I had actually never heard of until she introduced me to it. So super fascinating stuff. Rachel DeVoe from Rachel's Good Eats talks about her workout routine. Jeanette from Shut the Kill Up talks about finding like a gentle attitude with yourself,

even on really hard days. There's so much good stuff in that episode. So I highly, highly recommend that you listen. But you do not have to listen to that one to listen to this one. There is no prior knowledge required whatsoever. As I said in the last episode, I think that morning and evening routines are so important in general, but especially right now. Thanks to COVID-19, we are all spending a lot of time indoors.

We are also, our structures of our days are obviously a lot different right now. So for myself, I've noticed that mornings when I work out, I have a completely different level of energy and so much less anxiety than on days where I just dive into work. Like some days I'm just like, I have so much to do. I should just get my work done right away. And inevitably on those days, I end up getting less done and being less productive than if I'd just taken an hour to work out or meditate or do something for my mental health at the beginning of the day.

So in this episode, I chatted with five of my very favorite women in wellness about everything from time blocking to communicating with your partner well during this weird time to doing fasted workout to tricks to be in insomnia, morning elixirs, so much more. We've got it all in this episode. Whether you want to try these things out in your own life or you just want like a little sneak peek into how these amazing women are staying healthy and happy and nurturing really wonderful relationships and running super successful. businesses, I think you're going to love, love, love this episode. It's one of my favorites. There's just so much inspiration packed into such a short amount of time. So I cannot wait to hear your thoughts. As always, please, please tag me in any of today's guests on Instagram. I'm at Liz Moody. Share what you're doing with your morning routine. I would love to know and I would love to know if anything you heard in either of these two episodes inspired you to try something new or

different. So definitely please screenshot and episodes, take a picture of what you're doing. doing. I would love, love, love to see it on Instagram. And I hope you're doing well generally. And I hope that that this episode brings a bit of light and fun into your day. I hope you feel like we're all hanging out in real life. And if you do love this episode, I would so appreciate a quick rating or review on iTunes. We are super, super close to a thousand, which is very exciting for me. And I would love to get over that benchmark. So if you would be willing to do it, I would massively appreciate it. It takes less than five minutes and it's a great completely free way to support creators that you love during these sort of weird uncertain times. So I would massively love you for it, massively appreciate it.

All right. Without further ado, let's hear from these phenomenal women. Hi, Kelly. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. My pleasure. So for people who haven't heard of you, which I feel like would be hard in the wellness world at this point, but can you just give us a brief introduction to who you are and what you do. Sure. So my name is Kelly Lebeck. I'm based in Los Angeles, California. I am the author of two books, Body Love and Body Love Every Day. And I run a private practice here in Los Angeles for nutrition consulting. Today we're going to talk about morning routines and evening routine. So let's start with morning. What do you look to get out of a morning routine? Like what's the point of a morning routine for you? Oh gosh, a morning routine is so important,

especially now being quarantined at my house. So it's become even more important and such a tool to set the tone of my day. And not only do I have a morning routine going, but we have Chris and I have a midday routine going and then even like a wind down routine. So first and foremost, we finally got Sebastian sleeping until a normal hour. He used to wake up at 5.30 or 6 in the morning. And that was really tough. Now he's sleeping until 7.30 almost 8 sometimes,

which is a game changer because I'm up at six. So I get to have a cup of coffee, check my email, put my mat out, and do a yoga flow. And I have found my favorite yoga teacher, Steve Ross, who used to run Maha Yoga in Brentwood, Los Angeles.

And he is the author of Happy Yoga. I found him on old ox. It's like old oxygen TV show tapings that have been uploaded to YouTube. But what's been so amazing about everyone kind of coming together in this time is that everyone is sharing really amazing online resources for working out. So I have the Body by Simone app on my phone. My friend Todd McCola is sharing, you know, his workouts for free for two weeks for people. I know that Carbon 38 is doing three live classes. Like really cool, amazing teachers are out there. And so I've been doing Steve Ross for the last like two

weeks. I would say that prior to that, I was going to classes and actually moving my body outside of my home. But this has been really, really important for me. It's just kind of like have a little sip of coffee, check to make sure there are no fire drills in email and then just get my body moving, flushing through everything, kind of working through it. I've tried it the opposite way where I don't look at my phone, but it actually creates a little more anxiety for me. I'm not responding or working right away, but I'm just like looking, clearing, filing, and then it's allowing for me to just really find peace on my mat and take the whole hour without feeling stressed. Then it's Bash is up. We're making breakfast. Yep. And so first of all, how old is Bash? He's 16 months,

17 months old. 17 months old. Okay. And is Chris, does Chris wake up at the same time as you? He does. Sometimes he wakes up earlier than me. he can be known to get up in a 530 hour, which is just a little nutty for me. Yeah, that's crazy. But he also goes to bed like a grandpa. Like sometimes we'll be sitting up and I'll be trying to get him to watch a show with me. And he's like, yeah, I'm going to bed. Like, it is 8.30.

What are you doing? Do you wake up with an alarm or do you kind of wake up naturally at the time you wake up? Now that I'm a mom, no, I don't need an alarm. I'm up at six. That's amazing. Okay, so you go, you either go to your yoga or you do it at home, at home practice for about an hour of yoga, right? Mm-hmm. And then do you have a smoothie?

I know you have your famous sort of fab-for smoothies. Do you do that right away or do you wait until later in the morning? So my whole thing is I just always have it before 11 a.m. I find if I'm waiting a little longer than that, it backfires. Like I overeat later. I eat later into the evening. I'm too hungry or shaky post-workout. So if my workout happens somewhere around 7, 7.30, a lot of times at 7 because it bashes up at 8 and Chris has grabbed him, then the smoothie will happen somewhere between like 9 and 10 on average. And then the majority of my – majority of time my feeding window is somewhere between that 9 or 10 o'clock hour and 5 or 6 latest.

So do you believe in intermittent fasting? Are you sort of intentionally having a fasting period from 5 or 6 until – 10 or so. Yeah, I really think it's important to start to feel a little bit hungry. I don't like people skipping breakfast, though, because the research continues to come out. Like there was a article that just came out in March of this year, that, which is this month right now, that again, showed that people who have breakfast have better glucose control, better insulin sensitivity, less obsessive thoughts about food, a lot of things, you know. and generally have like healthier blood tests.

So again, it's community-based studies. These aren't, it's really hard to get a large data set for nutrition-based studies. But again, it keeps coming up even in the light of even with all the intermittent fasting research that's come out. What do you think about doing a workout fasted versus not fasted? Huge fan. I always, I always work out fasted in the morning if I can. It's a phenomenal thing to take advantage of.

You get a surge of human growth hormone and testosterone that oxidizes fatty acids in your body. So it's telling your body to burn its own fat for fuel. It supports you to be metabolically flexible. And I know a lot of people in the past have always said, well, I can't work out. It makes me shaky. That's a sign probably that you're a glucose burner, that you're a sugar burner and that you haven't become, your body hasn't become used to burning fat for fuel. If you practice it and you even start slow, like your fasted workout is walking fast, Maybe it's doing a couple sets of stairs.

Maybe it's just a small 20-minute workout where you're doing a little bit of hit or a little bit of yoga. Eventually your body gets good at it. You become metabolically flexible and it's not hard to work out fast. It's definitely what I recommend. It's really supportive of, you know, great cholesterol ratios, glucose control, all of it. So I definitely recommend it. And then can you talk us through your breakfast a little bit? Sure. So it's most of the time, most often it's a fat for smoothie. And that's a collagen-based

protein powder because I'm an animal eating human. I eat animal meats like chicken breast and steak and fish. So I'm getting a certain profile of amino acids because I eat quote unquote muscle meat. And so collagen is a protein. So it's the protein powder of choice in my smoothie. It's not a complete protein, but it's giving me glycine and proline and different amino acids that I wouldn't normally get if I'm just having just muscle meat, like a chicken breast. So I love a collagen protein in my smoothie. And, you know, I can do vanilla or chocolate or plain. And that is the base flavor of the shake. And then it contains the fat for it. It contains the fat for the protein is the collagen. The fat is either avocado or almond butter most often, unless I have a different nut butter

around like a cashew or macadamia nut something like that. Chia and flax are most often what I'm adding as my fiber source and then a big handful of leafy greens. I would say 90% of the time I'm not adding fruit to my smoothie and I'm enjoying fruit as a whole piece of fruit or a handful of berries later in the afternoon if I feel like that. But occasionally I'll throw fruit in there. I just keep it limited because I'm looking for the smoothie to really be blood sugar balancing something that calms my hunger hormones and keeps me full until lunch, whenever that is. And if my smoothie is a little later, closer 10, 11 o'clock in the morning, lunch might be pushed back somewhere around one or two.

It might be a little bit smaller, especially if dinner is going to be at like six. And is there anything else that you do in the morning to sort of set yourself up to feel more productive or happier throughout the day? Yeah. So I wouldn't necessarily call it a traditional. journal, I'm looking to find the positive. So like I won't write down, I don't like to write down anything negative because I'm trying to create a talk track of positivity and keep the momentum of my positivity. So most often at the beginning of the day, I'm setting the tone for like the priorities.

Like what are the biggest priorities that I have? And making sure that those are smart goals. So a smart goal is like something that is timebound and achievable. And so for me, especially in light of the changes that we've seen in the last couple of weeks and how we're living our daily lives, that for me might be, you know, roasting up a couple sheet pans of veggies when Bash goes down for a nap. It might be getting my protein powder labels approved and it might be moving my body for 30 minutes. It's like three little things that I can do. And then when it comes to tracking sort of how I eat and live, I may write down, oh, I had collagen for protein for breakfast, like kind of almost hashing out exactly what I had, which are the fab for each meal.

And at the end of the day, I'm finding three positive things that, like, really made me happy. It might have been bash laughing at the park when he was kicking a soccer ball. It might have been, you know, seeing an Instagram post of someone sharing like a really positive story. you know, or hearing some good news about someone. Like, I'm looking for what really made me happy. Maybe it was like the taste of that smoothie. It was delicious. And I try not to repeat that.

That's something that Dr. Leco is a functional medicine, doctor that I work with out here in Los Angeles coaches his patients to do. And it's something that's really, really important to me. And that right there creates this momentum. And also, it's a beautiful process because every single day, what you're noticing are things that you never notice. before that make you really happy. Like today, it's St. Patrick's Day and we set up little buckets of fake gold coins for

Bash and we put rainbows everywhere and watching him walk out and his eyes light up and him just be so excited. Like I'm so happy to celebrate holidays with my son. And today was like an example of that. So it hit me while we were sitting there. Just how excited he was about his little life and the day and what we were celebrating. doesn't understand it at all, but it's just like, why are there streamers hanging from the ceiling in rainbow colors? And so that's something that I'll definitely jot down tonight because it's really special memory.

So it's just those kind of things when you start to recognize, it's not just being grateful for my health and being grateful for food and being grateful for my family. Like, I could repeat those over and over again. It's like, it's like, but what in those moments and what really is it that you're so, that is such a special thing that's happened in that day? And that's starting to do that has really made it easy to find those moments throughout every single day. And more than three pop up for me now. Oh my gosh. That's, you've like, you've seen a noticeable difference. A huge difference.

I think we can all be in negative talk tracks and be in a place where we're spiraling or anxious or feeling depressed or whatever. And what this has done differently is it's really, it's, you just, it creates this positive vortex. of finding those little golden moments. And it's really special. I definitely recommend it to everyone. Was it hard at first to find them? Like I feel like when I try to do a gratitude, and I don't think I've been as specific maybe as,

and that's maybe the trick. But like I'm always like, my cat, my husband. But was it hard to sort of the first few weeks train yourself into that? It actually wasn't super difficult for me because what I was looking for was something so specific. It was almost laughable. I remember being like, oh, wow, this is a lot easier than I thought

because I was open to those specific moments. Like even just thinking if you were to stop right now and think about the beginning of your day, maybe you had an interaction with your husband or you did play with your cat or like you had a special cup of coffee by a window or you moved your body, you took a selfie and you were like, I feel strong. Like those specific moments.

Like get that specific. Like you just, I know you just told me before we started that you shared a post, that positive post, right? A gratitude post. Like that's exactly what I'm talking about. Like that would be tonight would be like where you'd write down. I am so grateful that I feel passionate about sharing my gratitude with the world

and passing it on and creating a ripple effect and being a voice of positivity and a time of fear. in a time of fear. I love that. I'm definitely going to try that. Like I just literally got the chills thinking about it. Yeah. Because it's so easy for us to get on right now, especially right now, and be like, I'm scared, I'm anxious, I'm keeping my distance, like, this is so crazy.

I feel alienated. Like, I'm sure everyone is feeling all of those things. But how can we really hone in on these little moments? I mean, it's a really beautiful, beautiful process. And that's, that is, that's been a game changer for me in the last year. I love that. Are there any other things you do in the morning like a supplement routine or meditation practice? Yeah.

So I've been taking my omega 3 with D from now foods for a couple of years now. And I have been taking, I was on a prenatal for, by Thorne for the last two years almost. Bash is my whole pregnancy with Bashin now. So I still have that. I'm taking that and I have seed probiotics. So those three I take in the morning. What else do I take in the morning?

Probiotics. My vitamin would be my omega-3 with D. I also have a D3K2 dropper from Parsley Health. They also do it. Thorne has it as well. Yeah. I do the D3K2 from Thorne. I love it.

That's so good. Especially now for your immunity, phenomenal. Well, and also because we're not going outside. Yeah, exactly. So much as we should be. Yeah. Yeah. And then at night, I'm actually taking Mind Body Green's magnesium.

And I'm loving it. Oh, okay. Okay. So let's switch to nighttime. At nighttime, you have your gratitude practice, which you're physically writing that down, right? Yeah. So I'll write down kind of. it says like breakfast, lunch, dinner, and I just will jot down, like, my protein, my fat, my fiber,

and my greens. If I had a glass of wine or a cookie or something that isn't fall in line there, I won't say, like, I ate a cookie and I feel bad about it. Like, that is negativity to me that I don't need to even focus on. Like, I'm creating momentum in the way that I eat. I'm creating momentum in the way that I move. I'm creating momentum in the way that I think. And it's really different than what most people write down to try and, like, be, quote,

unquote better because you're putting your energy in negativity. So it's about putting your energy in the positivity, you create the vortex to suck you down the tunnel of momentum. That's the point. So for me, it's like I'm like writing down what categories I've fulfilled. And then I will write down the things I'm really, those special moments that I'm grateful for, not generalized, really, really, really specific. And that really creates the momentum to find them the next day. And they just open up. It's very, very easy to do.

And so I will make dinner for Bash Chris and I. We all sit down and eat together. I actually get in the bath with Sebastian and I have since he was born. Oh, that's so cute. Yeah. So every night we're in the bath at 6.30. So eat dinner at 6. 545, 6. We're in the bath by 630 and then we're reading books and I'm putting him down by 7 and then

I'll do one last check of email and then I'll do my journal and then Chris and I will either talk about his story or because he's a creative writer. So he's working on creative things which is a fun outlet for me. We'll watch a show that we love. We'll just talk. there was a, you know, there was a time in which when I was moving my body outside of my home a lot, I might make, make more meals, I might meal prep, I might make a dessert, like a freezer fudge. We might, you know, might have a bite of sweet after that, but because we're stuck inside and there's little movement, I just had a bunch of now foods, organic teas shipped to my house and we're just like having tea time. So we're shutting it down.

We're really kind of locked in on this intermittent fasting thing just because we're just all kind of stuck in small boxes. Yeah, which is fair. What about when you're traveling? How does your, do you adhere to like a morning evening routine when you travel or does it change up at all? Yeah, well, even when I'm traveling, I am always finding a hotel near somewhere where I can get a smoothie made unless I'm sometimes, unless I have packed my. bullet. So I'll pack a bullet, my protein. Really? replies. Mm-hmm. I've done that before, but Zach makes so much fun of me when I travel with the blender. He's just like, who are you? And you look at setting that, what I always tell my

clients is that if you can start your day in a healthy way, something that balances you and makes you feel full and satisfied and helps you to elongate your blood sugar curve, you will make better choices at lunch and better choices at dinner and it is setting the tone for not falling off the wagon and creating this eating style that's going to make that you need to cleanse from or like or fix when you get home like that's not the point so there are places um for me actual hotel locations that all stay in because i know that there's uh like a smoothie place in the area the same with Chicago and Austin and San Francisco. I will always prefer to stay with a friend if I have the opportunity because, one, connection,

two, there's so much momentum created there. I have a friend in New York who loves SoulCycle, who will go to yoga with me, who has a vitamin mix at her house, and I will just Amazon drop off groceries like protein powder, chia, almond butter to her house, and we're doing it together. We're healthier together. It sounds like you think that momentum is like a really key part of adhering to your or like succeeding at your health goals. God, it's all about momentum. It's all about positivity and feeling good about yourself and really, really celebrating those wins.

Because the problem becomes when I have a client with a negative talk track who is like, I can't control my life. I always binge late night. I, you know, I drank too much this weekend and then I was eating and then we were brunching. and then I didn't work out on Monday and then it's like I'm feeling that feels so heavy to me and then what comes of that is them deciding Sunday night or Monday morning

well now I'm going to do a juice cleanse or now I'm going to do intermittent fasting where I only eat between 2 and 6 p.m. and I'm going to eat this many calories or I'm going to sign up for a boot camp and it's just you're beating your body to create your to hit your goals and that is not sustainable.

Like, that's never going to be sustainable. So how can we build sustainable habits? And one of the ways I do that with clients is, and with myself, is we have something called anchor appointments. So let's say that you, if you were to really hone in on what you think would make your life the healthiest, maybe that's sleep, movement, and food, right? Then we need to create three non-negotiable appointments a week

where you do those things for like about an hour. So if your goal is to eat clean food and you think that meal prepping is going to get you there, then every single Sunday or every single Monday or you pick the day of the week and the time based on your schedule, you commit one hour to that. You never let a week go by without doing it. And that way it's not like, oh, I have to do this every single day. And I have to make every meal from scratch every single day. and I can't eat out or I, you know, whatever the case may be, there's no takeout.

It's not the way it works. We just, we have an anchor appointment that is a non-negotiable because that right there doesn't take as much mental strength as thinking you have to be perfect. It's just this is a time that I've dedicated one hour a week to keeping the momentum of my goal. The second would be, okay, if your goal is sleep for me, it's I go to bed at Tuesday night, on Tuesday nights by 9 p.m. I'm in bed. And why do you know people were like why Tuesday night? Why 9 p.m.? Well, because I know that I've watched the bachelor since I was a freshman in college. And I used to have parties where people would come to my house and I'd make freezer fudge and be bad by Chris would make gluten-free waffles covered in ice cream and peanut butter. And you could choose your own adventure. I'd have spa water and he would have IPAs and all I tried to come over and they would talk and chat and they would talk and chat and they would. leave our apartment until 11 p.m. at night. And to this day, I still have a habit of watching that show. And sometimes it's three hours at a time on a Monday night. And it was getting to the point where

I would stay up late on Monday and then I would stay up late on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday because it created this habit. So how can I make sure that I'm creating momentum the day after that happens as long as I possibly can? And what ends up happening is I am either bored and I turn it off or I watch it on Hulu and I don't have as much of an emotional connection. But if I do, I don't want to feel bad about staying up and watching it on a Monday night. So that's where I lock it in on my, my anchor appointment is Tuesday night by 9 p.m. And then, you know, and then if it's moving your body, it's like, when can I move my body no matter what? I'm an entrepreneur. I'm traveling for my book tour, not as much anymore. But, you know, I, how do I move my body and make sure I'm moving

my body every single week. Chris and I have a non-negotiable where, you know, unfortunately now with quarantine, this isn't happening, but we have a non-negotiable where I got to go to a studio yoga class every weekend. It was either Saturday or Sunday. It was the same class at 10 a.m. And depending on if there was a family event or whatever, one of those days, and it was always locked in was an anchor appointment. It's like, I'm going on Saturday or I'm going on Sunday. I'm moving my body and he was watching Bash. You know, we didn't have to worry. Would the nanny be available. We didn't have to worry. Did I have to travel or have a work obligation? It was just like, this is happening no matter what. And what that does is it just kept,

it keeps momentum. You never are going three weeks, four weeks without doing something that you really want to do for your body. And it doesn't take mental, as much mental willpower to keep it going. And what you're doing instead is creating momentum. And do you think that three things is like a good amount to choose for that? I never would put more than one anchor appointment on a day. Okay, so seven would be your absolute max. Absolute max. But what I like people to do is get really clear on if they were picturing their perfect life, if what you felt was the most important to you.

And maybe that's going on dates with your husband. Maybe that is seeing your girlfriends. Like you need to know, get clear on what enriches your life the most. And wellness can be everything from like reading a rom-com. novel to seeing your friends to having an hour to yourself where you're organizing and clearing out your closets like it really doing your finances like wellness can be like literally anything that makes you feel well exactly it can be anything so what i would say is get really clear on who you are and what maybe you write out like a list of one to 15 things but you have to rank them in priority of what

makes you feel the best. For me, leaving a yoga studio class, I will be 90% happier for the following three days. Yeah. Like, it just has that massive effect on me, my ability to communicate with my husband, parent, deal with stress and work stress, financial stress. It doesn't matter. Like, that right there is my church and I'm Catholic. Like, that is my, that is my, it's my happy place and it has been how I process trauma. It's how I process pain. It's really like I know it's what I need. So I have to make time and space for that. For me, the anchor appointment for eating healthy is actually an all green smoothie on Monday mornings. It's non-negotiable. And that's because I've been doing it for so long that I you know there are times when I'm like oh like what just happened to the morning and

I haven't eaten yet or um you know I open the refrigerator and it's Monday morning and I'm like oh my God I have so many things to do right now and work I know how fast it is to make a smoothie but I make that the greenest smoothie I can the most nutrient dense smoothie I can it's more like my spa smoothie and it's setting the tone for this makes me feel really good about how I'm nourishing myself and how I'm thinking about the phytochemicals present in that shake. So that's really powerful. And then for me, the sleep thing was an issue because there was the bachelor.

And I was just with my friends and I was having a great time. And I am like my mom where I can be really re-energized and really throw off my circadian rhythm and my cortisol curve because I get pumped up to like get a lot of stuff done at night. And it takes effort to. to wind it down and to really focus on that for me. Is there anything that you've tried to incorporate in a morning or evening routine and you were sort of like, eh, this doesn't work. I'm going to not do this thing.

Yeah, I can do breathwork and meditate at night or in the afternoon. The afternoon is actually the perfect time for me to do it. I used to feel a lot of guilt stopping my day at like that two or three o'clock hour when most of us feel like, blah. like I used to be like power through caffeine or whatever it was and knowing in my heart of hearts that like that wasn't the right thing to do meditating first thing in the morning for me is literally the most anxiety provoking to do lists that anyone's ever created in their brain like I like I have tried and it is not off the table for me and that's something

you'll hear me say a lot about a lot of different practices is like nothing ever off the table. Like I'm willing to give it a college try for a significant amount of time to see if it works for me. But the best time for me to do it is at that time where my body is naturally calming down and naturally wants a break somewhere between like two, three, four at the later where I'm like, okay, like I'm going to take 20. I'm going to take 20. I've dealt with the majority of the things I needed to do today. If I really wanted to stop my day, I technically could decide to do that. But like, how can I go in and think about really what I need to be doing? It's a great way to reinvigorate and think about what I should be sharing, what I should be researching,

and how I should put myself out there in the world. I love that. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to walk me through those. There's a lot of really interesting information. Oh, good. My pleasure. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast. You all probably know by now that I don't drink coffee, but I am a huge fan of making caffeine-free lattes with super weird flavors like birthday cake, carrot cake, and churros. I have been stocking up on shelf-stable milks to make them recently so I can get away with going to the grocery store less often. And I have to say I am obsessed with the caliphia oat milk.

It is super smooth and creamy. It doesn't separate and it makes the lattes taste really delicious. While I love the entire caliphia line, their shelf-stable products are coming in clutch right now. Those are the ones that you can find in a carton, at the grocery store. store not in the refrigerated section. They have the oat milk, they have almond milk, they have creamer, they have a ready to drink cold brew that Zach is absolutely obsessed with. He drinks it as an afternoon treat and none of them will take away any of your precious fridge space. They're incredibly high quality, carraggingen free and just super delicious. You can find Calafia

products in pretty much any grocery store, but if you're like me and trying to avoid going to the store, you can also order them online and I have a discount code for you. Of course, they have a great website, you can get 20% off at caliphiafarms.com using the code healthier together, 20. That's healthier together, like the name of this podcast, the number 20. If you need help deciding what to buy, definitely hit me up on Instagram. I have lots of thoughts on this in addition to basically everything else on the planet. So hit me up at Liz Moody. I would love to share my thoughts.

I cannot wait to hear what you think. All right. Let's get back to the episode. All right. Thanks for chatting with me today, Loreley. Thank you so much for having me. You're still one of like my all-time favorite podcast episodes. I think like the insomnia anxiety conversation just resonated with so many people.

And I'm really glad to have you back. And I'm also glad to talk. I'm excited to talk about evening and morning routines, especially in the context of all of that type of stuff. So first start off maybe by telling us just like who you are and what you do and what your life looks like. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a certified holistic chef. I went to culinary school in New York in 2013, and basically I make healthy food that is comfort food inspired, good for families, kids, freezer friendly, all that stuff. And I've really tried to kind of bridge the gap between what people think of as healthy and especially what people are used to eating here in the South.

So I teach classes. I write cookbooks and do a lot of, you know, recipe development and that kind of fun stuff. You write like a super huge hit cookbooks, including one that's coming out. out in a few weeks, right? What's that called? And where can we find it? Yeah. So simply Laura Lee is the name of the cookbook. And it will be, should be in most bookstores. It's on Amazon, Burns and Noble and hopefully your local bookstore. So. Awesome. All right. Well, let's start off with you. I kind of want to start off with your evening routine because I think that we've talked so much about you had a really serious struggle with insomnia in your life. And if anybody

wants the full story of that, you should definitely check out Laura Lee's episode of the Healthy Together podcast. But I'm really curious how you set up your night time to have a good night sleep. Yeah, I think it's such an interesting question because, I mean, I can definitely share some of like the objective, easy things. I check off the list. I do try to power things down around like 7.7.30 after dinner. I try to eat a pretty solid meal. I know there's this idea, what is it like eat breakfast like a king lunch like a prince and dinner like a pop or something mine's the exact opposite actually i have my biggest meal at night and that helps me sleep so i have dinner and then i try to chill out after that um i do wear blue light blockers and those have been pretty helpful what brand do you

wear classy classy with a k um i do like them i think like anything you have to be consistent I think I didn't find them helpful for the first maybe 10 days. And then I really try to keep them on once the sunsets and then until I go to bed. Because honestly, I'm not completely off of my devices at that point. And then usually just honestly watch something that's on Netflix or whatever that makes me brain dead and, you know, clean up, shower, whatever. And then honestly, I find that having a snack right before bed has been really helpful for me. It doesn't happen every single night. But if I don't feel like nice and satisfied by the time I'm going to go to bed, it definitely affects how I sleep, not just falling asleep, but throughout the night.

So I try to keep the trifective like fat fiber protein in my mind and do something that has, you know, some kind of healthy fat, some kind of healthy protein. and then the fiber is usually from some kind of carbohydrate source. So what would that? What's like an example of that? Yeah. So an example would be like so delicious makes this amazing like coconut whipped cream that's in the frozen section like basically like a healthier cool whip. So I'll do that with some frozen berries.

That's a really good thing. If I have some kind of like baked good around, whether it's like a loaf or a muffin, I might have half of a slice or half of a muffin with like a nice generous blob of peanut butter on it or just like a very like. easy smoothie. That's just a little bit of protein powder, half a banana, some, you know, milk of your choice. And then do you do anything else to like wind down in the evening? I know we've talked about CBD before. Do you do that at night still? Yeah, I do it sometimes. I don't do

it every day. I do find it effective. But for me, I have to take like three full dropers to make it really effective for me for whatever reason. So I do it selectively sort of on an as needed basis. I particularly find that if I wasn't as thoughtful about my caffeine, that's a good night for me to take some CBD. So I try to stop drinking coffee before noon, but every now and again, it just kind of sits around and I find myself sipping on it. And then I really will notice that come later in the evening. I'm just not as relaxed. I do like essential oils. I have a lavender blend. And I try to put that on not just right before bed, but a few hours before because I think a lot of it is psychosomatically for me, just the smell of it is helpful. So I do that. And

And then one of the best things that I've done for my sleep is I got something called the hatch baby. Have you heard of it? No, I have no idea what that is. So it's a sound machine and mostly it's used my parents for babies. But it is the loudest sound machine. I love white noise. And I adore my cat. She is the love of my life.

She's back there. But she is loud. And I keep her in the bathroom. She's very cozy. She has little bed and stuff. But she's super loud. So the hatch baby sounds like a jet engine. And when I put it on and it has like a nice little nightlight.

So I put the night light on. I put the white noise on. And I mean, you can't hear anything. The downside, I didn't hear the tornado that came through Nashville. Like you cannot hear anything. Wow. That's crazy. That's interesting.

I have a white noise machine, but it's not like crazy loud. And I really worry about noise from sleep. So maybe I should check the hatch. It's four babies. So that's why it's called the hatch baby. Yeah. I mean, it's meant for babies and insomniacs, I think. Yeah.

Okay. Is there any other stuff you'd like, do you sleep in a certain thing or like keep your room a certain temperature, any other sort of factors? Yep. So I keep, I try to keep my apartment about 66 degrees. So it's pretty cool. And I use a weighted blanket. There's a company. I can't remember them.

I can't remember the name off the top of my head. They're based outside of Nashville. and I really love the weighted blanket, and that's really helpful. So you get not only the coziness from the change in temperature, the discrepancy in temperature, but then the effects of the weighted blanket has been really helpful for anxiety. I love that. Okay, let's switch to mornings. What do you do on a good morning where you've, like, slept well and you can do your full morning routine?

Oh, my God, aren't those just the most glorious? And it's funny because it's so true that those are the mornings you need it. You need that routine. the bad mornings of the time where you need it the most, but it's so, so difficult. But typically what I do is I get up, I go downstairs and I make this thing called my sort of morning elixir, which is a fancy name for a combination of lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, a scoop of collagen, and then I may add another thing or two into it, depending what I have, like fresh herbs or ginger or something.

So I go downstairs, get the kitty, feed her, and I just start drinking that. And I really try not to have coffee for a full hour to let my cortisol come down a little bit before I start drinking it, make sure I'm really hydrated. And so then usually go back up to my bed and cuddle with her for a little bit. And that's when I do. Wait, so is that a thing when you wake up in the morning? Is your cortisol high? And does it, is that for everybody you wake up high and it goes down within an hour?

Yeah. My understanding is that your cortisol is highest first thing in the morning and it just slowly decreases over the day. So if you can give yourself a break of about an hour. So it's going to be significantly lower to the point where when you do take in some coffee, it's not going to like jazz your hormones quite as badly. That's really interesting. That's really interesting. Okay.

So you drink your elixir. You cuddle with your cat, which I love. And then do you do breakfast, workout, meditation? So I, oh, I should have mentioned for the nighttime routine. A huge part of it for me is the spiritual meditation part. I do some, you know, some might call it prayer. I do have like a little crystal collection. But there's a session that I do every night, kind of talking out loud, talking about things I'm grateful for all of that stuff.

It's honestly so, I've been, I mean, it's so sort of like wrote for me. I don't even think about it, but it is hugely important. And so, because I don't really do anything like that first thing in the morning, but I think mentally I do a little bit of a gratitude list. And then I typically get up and do like administrative type work first thing in the morning. It's not usually till mid-morning that I then take my first sort of either it's like at-home yoga or taking a walk. I usually walk for like an hour or so every day. And I like to do that in mid-morning. But I usually give myself a couple hours of work first because my brain's just working the best in that way.

Now I will say one thing that I really liked that you posted about. on one of your one of your recent posts kind of like how to work from home is I really do take about 20 minutes to put myself together in the morning put on just like a little bit of makeup put on an outfit just like an adult human outfit it's yoga clothes but it's something and wash my face and all that stuff and I find that incredibly helpful for my mindset yeah just setting the tone for the day um do you do anything different when you've had a bad night sleep or no. I really try not to as much as possible.

I really try not to. I'll be honest, the one thing that usually happens is I am now am I'm not, I'm almost never hungry until like 11 a.m. But when I haven't slept well, I can definitely fall into the trap of just snacking on stuff. And it's like going to be something like carbary or whatever. And it might be one of my like healthier baked whatever's,

but at the end of the day, if you're not hungry for it. And also, like, I will take the simple mills frosting and just, like, slather it and, like, eat it with a spoon. And then, yeah. So that's like that's like that's the first thing that goes probably. Yeah. Sure. No, I mean, I like, it's the only time I'll wake up, like craving a cookie is Ben.

And then that sets you off on this cascading thing. So do you don't really eat breakfast on a normal day? No, I really don't. I haven't probably in about two years. And it's been amazing for me for my digestion. and because, like I said, I found that for me personally, eating a pretty big dinner and then a snack before a bed really helps me with sleep.

But I was in a routine of then waking up and just associating waking up with breakfast. And I definitely found that it was just, it was food on food that my body didn't need. You know, Chrissy Teigen does a nighttime sandwich? You know what's so funny. Yes, I did know that about her. You guys are basically twins. Yeah, exactly. We're essentially the same person and 50 best friends.

Yeah, oh yeah, I held on to that when I heard that. I was like, all right, I'm doing something, right? I got to figure out. And what about you travel a lot? You do like your book tours and stuff like that. Does your routines change when you travel? Do you have like a travel routine you do? So when I'm traveling mostly for leisure, I will definitely let myself indulge

when it comes to food and caffeine a little bit more. But when I'm traveling for. work, I try to be pretty thoughtful about it. I try to stay hydrated. I try to stick to my rule about coffee in the morning. And I do try to bring like healthy snacks with me, especially making sure I'm eating enough healthy fat and that kind of thing. Because if I need to be on, and that's also going to come with some level of stress. And for me, gosh, at this point, I feel like 90% of how I approach the day is based on my anxiety level. And there's, I can tell there's so much. of it right now that's like chronic low grade with everything going on. I actually had to get an

MRI for just checkup reasons a few two days. No, gosh, it was yesterday. And I fainted getting my IV, which has never happened to me in my entire life. And then I had a panic attack in the MRI machine. And I haven't had a panic attack in years. And I couldn't believe it. And I came out and they said, And I had eaten at that point. And I just keep thinking it's just this anxiety that's probably sitting somewhere in all of us, you know? Yeah. I think it's so important right now for everybody to just be so forgiving with how they are feeling and feel what they feel and not feel bad about what they feel at all. Because, I mean, this is like an unprecedented thing for us to take on in our lifetimes, you know?

Right. Yeah. There's no way to know. And there's no way to know how it's going to manifest. So I totally agree. What about, do you have any hacks for getting good sleep in a hotel room? So I will say whether it's the hatch baby or another sound machine, I travel with it. It's really important to me.

Oh my gosh, I can't. I'm so glad you asked that. I forgot my sleep mask too. Not that recently, but maybe a year ago I started wearing a sleep mask. I have found that to be incredibly helpful. But you have to get the right kind. It has to stay on. It has to like not leave marks on your face and not pull your hair.

So I have one that I really love from Amazon. It's not expensive. So I bring my sleep mask, my sound machine, as closed as I can get those curtains. You know, ideally, they're blackout curtains, which a lot of hotels have, but the mask is really helpful. I turn the clock down if I can't unplug it. Any electronics that I can unplug, I do. I've even thrown bath towels over electronics and hotel rooms before. Yeah.

And then I do try to stick, like I keep my, I bring this, oil with me. I bring like my little weird little crystal that I love so much and I try to like maintain the meditation and I try not to go down the rabbit hole like TV because I don't have a TV in my apartment at all. And so it's tempting in hotels, but I try not to. And I don't like, yeah. I'll watch TV in bed in a hotel. Like it's because we don't have it in our room and our apartment either. I'll like eat my pizza in bed. I'll eat my cookies in bed. I'll like watch TV. I'll like look like I have a little nest of like magazines and cookies and I'm just like, This is amazing.

It's so great. It's so great at the time. And then at 2 in the morning, like, I'm binging whatever it is. Because in the hotel, the bed becomes the epicenter of the room. It's like where you do everything. So another thing I try to do is if there's any other chair in the room, I'll try to like just put my computer and watch something on my computer and sit in the chair instead of in the bed and finish up and really only move to the bed like when I'm ready. First sleep. That's interesting.

Do you know the name of your mask offhand? I can look it up right now. That would be awesome. I feel like people are going to want to know that. And I've been through a bunch of them. I've probably tried six or seven. And this one hands down, I've ordered a bunch of them. I will say it's funny.

You can see the face oil that I put on every single night. It does start to like soak into it. So it looks kind of weird, but it's not dirty. Okay, I have it here. So it is by a company called Fresh Me, and it's one word, fresh me. And it's the 100% handmade cotton sleep, blackout mask. It's so comfortable. It's literally become like my lovey. Like I look for it and I'm just like need to hold it. And yeah. Oh my God. I love that. Okay. Is there anything that you've tried

for a morning or evening routine that you feel like didn't really work that you would like not recommend? You know, I actually found and I've tried a bunch of different types. I found that nighttime meditation was not the right fit for me. I'm not sure that I could totally dissect why that. is, but something about what it did to my brain. It didn't, I felt relaxed, but it like, I couldn't turn it off. And somehow, somehow that has just not been the right fit for me. So I think meditation is amazing. I think it can show up in a lot of different ways for me.

I would say like walking meditation has been the best fit. But I would say if that's something that you can kind of forgive yourself for not doing because it may not be the right fit for you. That's one thing. Another thing is getting in bed for me when I'm not. tired at all just because it's like the right time. That's so hard because when you're someone who suffers from insomnia psychologically you so badly want to be in bed and be doing everything right. But if you don't get tired till midnight and you get in bed at 10 o'clock, your body is,

you're going to have a hard time, at least in my experience. Yeah, I agree with that. All right. Well, that's all I have. Thank you so much for taking the time of chat through. Hi, Ali. And thank you so much for taking the time. I know you are crazy busy these days, so I really appreciate you taking the time to chat. Of course. I always love chatting with you. Can you start off just in case somebody hasn't heard of you? Can you just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do? Sure. So my name is Ali Mafucci and I'm the founder of Inspiralized, which was originally a online resource and brand dedicated to cooking with the spiralizer and making healthy and delicious meals with veggie noodles. But I've transitioned a bit and now I'm a brand dedicated to transforming vegetables to make them tasty and

delicious, not only with the spiralizer. So a lot of veggie forward dishes I share. I have written three cookbooks and I'm also a mother of two. So a lot of my content and my brand revolves around being a mother and what comes along with that, balancing, being healthy, productive, and just, you know, being a woman in general. I know, your total mom goals for me. Like I'm like, if I could have kids and have my life be like Ali, like I could have Ali's kids, particularly Roma, because I feel like I could handle her better. I was like, maybe I would do it. If I could just steal Roma from you instead of getting a surprise kid that anything could happen with. And I also love, I think because I've loved your brand transition in spiralides and beyond your most recent cookbook is

definitely my favorite because it's just like everything you can make to replace the carb or like the grains and bready type stuff, which I love with vegetables. It's genius, I think. Yeah. Thank you. Especially now what we're going through. It's just very helpful to transition this way because I feel like I am providing more useful recipes and content for people. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So you are a mom. You have two kids. How old are they? My daughter is 10 and a half months and my son is two and a half years old. All right. So I'm so curious how you, Your morning routine looked like when you had those two kids before COVID-19 happened and then what it's sort of looking like now.

So walk me through. How about let's talk about before a little bit first? Sure. So I'm very grateful that my husband is, I consider him an equal partner when it comes to taking care of the children. I know that's not always the case. And that goes for women and men. Sometimes, you know, I'm sure mothers can also not be equal.

partners in child care, but basically in the morning, our son usually wakes up first, and my husband will get out of bed and go wake him up, you know, do the whole, I don't know how granular you want to get, but, you know, get him out of bed, get him changed, get, go take him to the bathroom, and then they usually sit down on the couch and watch some TV and have a little snack before mommy wakes up with Roma. And she said, that's probably around 6 to 6.30, and then Roma wakes up 630 to 645. And then I get out of bed and I get Roma. And if she wakes up a little earlier, I'll cuddle her in bed for a little bit.

But usually I get up. Yeah, she's a very cuddly baby. And for now at least. So I'll get her. I will change your diaper, get her dress for the day. I breastfeed, so I'll nurse her. And then I come out into the living room and I give the baby to Lou. and Lou kind of hangs out with the kids while I get breakfast ready.

And so I'll get breakfast ready for everyone. I make coffee for Lou and I. So I'll sit my coffee as I am making breakfast. And then we all sit down together. We have breakfast together. And we're very good about like keeping breakfast fun. And it's like a really precious time with the family. And then usually this is pre-pendemic.

Then Lou would go and get ready for work because he works outside the home. He works in an office in New York City. So he goes and gets ready for work, and I hang out the kids, play with them, start to get Luca ready for school because he wasn't school. And Roma is just usually like crawling around somewhere. She's very independent, which I love. She follows up to her mother. And then we have a nanny back home. So our nanny comes at 8 a.m.

So we've done all of that and it's only 8 a.m. So then 8 a.m. comes along. and my nanny comes and she leaves at 8.30 to take a look at to school and she brings Roma with her in the stroller. They walk to school. So at that point at 830 is usually when they've left the house and I'm like pushing them out the door. And then I go to the gym and that's kind of like my time to do it. And I notice if I wait like five minutes, I won't go to the gym. I'll just get to my desk and start working. So I try not to turn my desk on. I try not to turn my look at my phone yet. I haven't looked at my phone.

If I have my phone, it's to take like a picture because I know I want to like post a cute photo of my kids in the morning later. But then I head out the door and I do a workout. I usually get back, shower, do all of that. And I'm at my desk by like nine. And that's when I start my day. My work day. Okay.

So a few things. Did you make the conscious decision to have this family breakfast together? Because I feel like that's the kind of thing that can very quickly go away as people get busier or as people are trying to fit in different things. So was that a conscious choice on your part? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I'm very much about creating good habits with food. It's sort of something that I focused on since I decided to, the way to feed my son and the same with my daughter. I want them to establish this, you know, this enjoyment around food and this enjoyment of cooking and being at the table. I don't want to be something where they're like, oh, I have to sit down at

the table and eat dinner with my parents. I would love to start that as early as possible. So from six months on, we've all set down for as many meals as we can. Always breakfast. I'm always with them at lunch. And then dinner is just me. And my husband usually isn't home yet. But yeah, it's definitely something that we focus on my parents did it as well. So maybe that's why I do it. I love that because I think dinner, it's interesting. I feel like people have a tendency to try to do dinner as a family, but that actually can sometimes be trickier with schedules. And it's interesting because breakfast, you're all already starting from the same place of being home rather than trying to make it home by a certain time. So I really like that. Do you guys all eat the same thing?

And what is it? So it depends on the day. It depends on how late the kids woke up. If they woke up really late and it's kind of, I have to feed them so he can get to school, then I'll make something really quick and easy and simple. But usually we try to eat the same thing. Sometimes I'm just not hungry. And what I like to do is have a little bit of their breakfast. Even if I'm not hungry and I don't want to eat a full-fledged breakfast before I go to the gym, I'll have like, you know, if we're having waffles, I'll have, you know, a couple pieces of waffle or I'll make myself one little single waffle just to have with them. And that I'll be like my pre-workout meal. But if we get up early, like it's a 6 a.m. day and we're eating breakfast by 7, I'll eat a full breakfast with them. So

We make, we love waffles with almond butter and hemp seeds and fruit on the side. We love, I make these blender muffins that people are obsessed with. You've probably seen me make them, Liz. I'm like always making them, but they're great for snacks for adults and breakfast for kids. So I'll have those, and I usually like dip mine in almond butter. I'll have fruit on the side. They have like egg and oats and flat seed and banana and a veggie. So like spinach or beets or carrots or something.

And then they love oatmeal. And I'll always have oatmeal with them because I also love oatmeal. And then we do like eggs and toast with fruit and some Cite Hill cream cheese. They love that. So it kind of varies. I do for I basically rotate in for different breakfast. I like that. Like you kind of,

you don't have to think of something fresh every day, but you get enough variety that it feels really different. Yeah. Okay. And then is there, is there anything else you do to set yourself up for like a calm and productive day? I know that you time block because you introduced me to time blocking,

which has changed my life. Oh, you're still doing it? Yeah. Well, Well, less now, but I do it with less serious strictness, but I still do it. And it's always my most effective, productive days. Oh, good. I'm glad to hear that.

So the one thing that I do to set myself up for success in the morning is actually something that I do at nighttime the night before. So the mornings, I like to be kind of like 100% family time because when they're not, and I'm like doing housework or I'm starting work because I didn't finish something. the night before, I'm always stressed and I always have this like mom guilt of I should be, you know, I have a nanny, right? So I should be spending any time that we're physically together. It should be quality family time. So I hate having anything looming over me in the morning. I just want to like make breakfast, have breakfast, hang out in the living room, like,

giggle and laugh and play. And that's how I have a zen day. So the night before I always do the dishes or if I'm lucky enough, my husband has done them. And then I put them away because having dishes out and not put away is very stressful for me. And then I, obviously, I finished any work that I have and I tidy up the house. So there's no, like, toys hanging around. There's no, like, packages still on the entryway table. Like, everything is put away and clean. The rest of the days is shit show. I don't know if I can curse on this podcast. Yes. Yes, you can. Knowing you, that I probably get. Yes. But in the morning, that's kind of, like I said, I just want it to be family, family family. Or also, I feel mom.

kill up the whole day. Okay. So do you, when you're doing time blocking, do you prep that the night before? Yeah. I do my schedule. I do my to do list and my time block the night before. Okay. So what does that look like? Do you, do you like have 20 to 30 minutes that you sit down and you're like, what do I need to do tomorrow and you do your to do list and then you sort of slot that into time blocking? And what is time blocking for people who don't know what it is? Yeah, sure. It's also life changing for me. So time blocking is in my way to explain it is dividing your time into blocks and in those blocks, you are solely focused on one task. It could be a to-do item list. It could be like a to-do work item list. It could be below drying your hair. It's everything in your day. I mean, I get very

granular with it. I know some people just use it for work, but it's anything. Like if you've an appointment, time block that out. If you have a conference call, you time block that. And basically you're only allowed to do that during the time block. You can't check your emails. You can't check your phone. And it's a way to basically get everything done that you need to do and be organized about it. Because if you just make a to do list and you're like, okay, I have to do these five things today. Chances are you're going to get distracted.

You spend half the day being like, when should I start this project? When should I get to my emails? So for me, it's kind of like I make a to do list every night. And then I set, it's usually my to do list is like 10 items. and I prioritize it. So I'm all about basically tackling the hardest things first and then getting to the easier stuff, letting the easy stuff fall.

Because I feel like if you don't accomplish the important tasks, then your business or brand won't move forward. And you'll just be constantly focusing on your email inbox or editing photos or easy, simple things that you can do all the time. You can do them when you're on autopilot at nighttime. So anything that I need sole focus and prime time, coffee juiced up like I'm gonna attack this first I do that um so I make sure like I kind of star those things like these are the three to four things that I have to get done today um and then I

time block them so I'll time back in the minute a day and then I always make time for nursing for lunch um for a coffee break and then if I need to do something like I have a video call and I have to be presentable for it all time block getting ready so it's everything um because if you don't time block those things, then you'll end up being like, oh, shoot, I have to get my hair done because I have a video call, and then you'll have to end your task earlier, or adjusted or something like that. So I spend a good 45 minutes probably on to-do list and time blocking the night before, but it's something that you can do while you're like on the couch watching Netflix. It's not something that's me like a laser focus for, which is why I like to do it at night.

And if you don't do it at night, then you're losing like an hour, an hour and a half, prioritizing yourself in the morning. Yeah. That's, I'm going to, I've been doing mine in the morning, but that's a really good point. I think I might switch to doing it at night because it's almost like I bet you can sleep better too because instead of your to do list sort of going through your brain and being like, oh, can I remember to do this, this and this, you've cleared it all from your brain and you're just like ready to decompress and go to sleep. Yeah, 100%.

And I also think people are stressed out by people are stressed by how much they have to accomplish in a day. But if you have a plan for how you're going to tackle it, it's way less stressful and more, less overwhelming. and it's kind of the reason I meal, we've talked about this, the reason that I meal plan, because I don't want it to be at 12 o'clock and I'm like, what am I going to make for lunch? I like to know what I'm having for every meal so that when I, it's ready to eat, it's ready when I'm ready to cook and I have that time, I know what I'm making and there's no thinking about it. It just, if there's anything you can do to lessen the amount of, like, the amount of stress.

The decision fatigue, really. You're like taking decisions which is really nice. How do you decide how long for each thing? I know how long it takes me to do my hair and get cute, but if I'm working on a big project that I haven't worked on before, I don't know whether I should spend like two hours on it or 30 minutes on it. So how do you decide that? So I like my time lock.

This is something that you kind of know your breaking point in terms of workload. So how long you can focus for, right? So for me, I know that I can't focus for more than 90 to 120 minutes, like an hour and a half to two hours. Any time block longer than that, I'm going to get distracted. I'm going to find something else to do. I'm going to look at my email. So first of all, that's kind of how I determine the maximum amount of time blocking length. But also, I look at a project and I think I do a like a weekly to do.

And then every day, I obviously go in the night before and a game plan. So what I say is I have a project. and I know it's going to take me like, I'm like, okay, wow, this is going to take me probably two weeks to accomplish. Then that's a really big project. So I'll give it an hour and a half to two hours a day because I know I can't work for more than two hours on it a day. It's deciding how long your limit is figuring that out. And then if it's a bigger project, you do sort of your max limit. And if it's a smaller project, you'll do like a shorter period of time. Yeah. And I'll either do a morning block for it and an afternoon block. Like I'll break it up. So I'm not just working for three

hour straight or I'll just do like an hour and a half, two hour block every single day in the afternoon. And so I know like, okay, this time. I also feel like your mind expects, like it understands, okay, wow, it's afternoon. We're going to work on this big project. And you kind of get used to that flow, which I really like. Is there anything else that you do in the evening that helps with mental health or helps you be the powerful businesswoman that you are or helps you connect with your lovely husband in the midst of having businesses and kids? and all of that? You know, I, I'm always saying that I, my evening routine, not routine is the wrong word,

but like my evening time needs and most work. I feel like my mornings, they're just like I can, they're very easy. But my nighttime, I wish that I had, I invested more time into being productive. And it sounds like I'm productive, right? Because I do this to do list. But I mean productive in my personal life. So my work, I got it, I got it covered. I do the to do list.

I clean up the dishes. I get everything ready and organized. But with me and my husband, I feel like we spend all this time thinking about to watch. We try to start a game and we're like, all we want to do is watch TV. And I wish that I like, I just think we're both our minds. I don't know if it's being parents and business owners or either of them. But I just feel like I'm so mentally exhausted by the end of the day. Just sitting next to him on the couch, I feel more relaxed. And I feel more relaxed. And I feel like, I feel. feel like there's this pressure of like, okay, well, now we have to play this game or like, we have to watch a movie and make this great salted popcorn together and like, you know, have a conversation. And really, I wish that I could do those things because I think that they would break up the monotony of laying on the couch and watching and figuring out what to watch TV. But I also think that something that I do is a physical closeness that brings us together when we're maybe not even talking for like four hours. We're just both like on our phones or watching TV in and out, I think like sitting close to someone is, is quite powerful.

Is your love language, you know if your top love language is physical touch? Do you know what, do you know about the love languages? I do, yes. I took an online quiz. I'm sure there's like a more precise way to determine your love language. But I was acts of service and words of affirmation. I'm words of affirmation too, which probably surprises nobody. Mine and Zachs are like opposites.

What is that? he is physical touch and I think he's acts of service and then I'm words of affirmation and gift giving which I think is the most misunderstood of the love languages because I don't want like stuff. I'm actually pretty much a minimalist but I want like when you go to the grocery store I want you to get me my favorite kombucha because it means that you've seen you like you know me and you see me and you're like always thinking about me. So that's what gift giving is for me. I feel like that's a fuse between acts of service and gift giving. Because he's kind of, you know, so don't feel so bad that yours is.

You know what loses? I feel like every guy I'm just like they're all physical touch. His is acts of service. Oh, so you guys are compatible. We are, but he is zero words of affirmation. He's not like a flowery guy giving compliments, but he will do any. Even though he's like a Latin lover type, he's like, oh, me a more. He moved here when he was 10 to New Jersey, so maybe that washed all the Puerto Rican out of him.

And I don't know. He is totally active service. He'll do anything for me at any time. It could be 2 a.m. And he'll go and get me a glass of water in the kitchen. And I love that. I wish he'd compliment me more, but I can't be greedy because he does do. He's great.

Yeah, that's very sweet. And I love the idea that, like, we can almost put too much pressure on ourselves to do these grandiose things to connect. with our partner, but sometimes that's not even what we need. We just need to use our partner as a safe space to relax. I think there's something really lovely and forgiving in that. Yeah, I think we're both, we're both human beings, we're both individuals, we're working individuals, we're parents. Like, even though we're together, we can still decompress while we're sitting next to each other, but that, you know, that and that involves kind of being okay with doing whatever decompresses you, you know, on your phone, reading a book, watching TV.

Because sometimes I'll read next to him, you know, but just sitting next to him makes me feel better. But we've tried card games and things like that. And usually we'll both be honest, like five minutes into it, we'll be like, do you really want to do this? And I'll be like, no, I just want to watch TV. Fair enough. Also, you've talked, are you willing to talk about the intimacy element at all?

Because I feel like you've shared a little bit about that on Instagram. And I thought it was very interesting how you make time for that, even though your daughter's sleeps in your bed with you and stuff like that. And I thought you had some really good tips there. Yeah. So for, I don't know how into it you want to get, but for a while. I would like like a point of you like in like I want you to draw me a picture so that I can see all of the anatomy, please. So basically after we had Roma, it was like sex was very non-existent. And listen, we have two kids. we had a newborn. That's very normal for parents. You can't even have sex until your six week checkup. So you go six weeks without it. And it wasn't because we weren't like physically

connecting or feeling intimate or feeling sexy. It was none of that. It was the exhaustion bit. And we had like an ongoing joke. And it was like we go without having text for like, I think the longest was like, and this is after having the baby, was like eight or nine weeks. And every, almost every night, because we want to have sex, right? We're just so tired. So every night the ongoing joke, he would look at me. He goes, do you have the strain? And I'd go, I'd look at him.

I wish everyone could see my face. But I would look at him and be like, no, do you? I'd be like, no fucking way. So what happened from that, that like joke, I'm glad that we could joke about it. What happened was I was like, well, when do? have the strength or when do I have the strength and what we realize is we both put the kids down they're down by 730 which if people without kids don't realize yes it's very hard that you squeeze that hard element from like 6 a.m. to 730 and then you can like be alone without without your children

um so at 730 between 730 and 8 was our maximum strength period and basically we decided that 730 to 8 was the only time we could have sex um it went on having to 8. having sex for half an hour, like, you know, it could be six minutes. But I'm just saying like, that's the zone. That's the zone of time, the 730 to 8, where if we don't make a conscious effort to have sex at this time, it's never going to happen. So we started, you know, he would put, it would take a little longer to put my toddler down. So I started doing things like he got out once and I like were lingerie and surprised him.

So we started having a lot of fun with it. And it was kind of, then it became the joke of see you at 730. Okay, not 759. because we can't, you know, and it was just like, it turned it into like this fun game. And we were just having a lot, a lot of stacks. And then the pandemic happened and that kind of put a damper on things in a lot of ways. But that's kind of how we combated or we overcame that kind of like dry spell. I love it because I picture like a video game character where you're like charged the power bars like

it's like it's a really good image. And I just think it's a really fun way to turn something that could become a stress issue into something that's fun and bonding and connected and playful. And I think that's really cool. The pandemic did happen. And it made people's lives a lot harder. I think yourself is included. Obviously, we're very privileged in a lot of these situations. But you used to have help with childcare and now you don't really in the same way. So can you talk about how you're dealing with the changes in your routines because of the pandemic? So we are not at home right now. We are in Florida at a rental home. And I have taken on the child care here. So we obviously don't have a nanny anymore. And it's my husband and I. And, you know, I had to have a conversation with my husband because his business, you know, he owns his company and he has almost 20 people that work for him. So he can't, he doesn't have the flexibility.

like I do with my career, I can jam it into little bursts of time here and there, nap times, nighttime mornings. You know, I can cook during the day and write blog posts at night or, you know, respond to emails on the go. He can't. He has to, like, have meetings with his teams. And so I said I would take care of the kids. So basically, we wake up.

It's kind of the same thing at home, except at 8 a.m. When the kids already have breakfast, you know, I've made them breakfast. We're doing the whole thing. At 8 a.m. Now what I do is Lou watches the kids from 8 to 9. And during that time, I have one of two things that I can do. I can get work done because I know I'll have an hour of time. I have to lock myself in like a room to do it. But either that or work out. So from 8 to 9, I get my me time. And it's actually really lovely. And I'm so happy we have this arrangement because it keeps my sanity going. Because if I had to do the kids from the moment I woke up to the moment, I went to bed, it would be pretty tough. But our parents live here nearby in Florida. So they sometimes, now what we're doing, it's a tricky situation because of this pandemic. And because we're all quarantining, it's very hard to do. But they've been helping out where my kids will go or my kids, my son will go there for the morning.

And then they'll drop him back at our house. So they're doing that a little bit. And that helps me because then I only have Roma. And she still takes a morning nap. So I will get time to time down to do work. but other than that, the whole rest of the day I am with the kids. So Lou usually around 430 or 5, he'll be with the kids so I can cook dinner. Okay, so two things.

One, I just want to clarify, because you clarified this to me when we were just chatting the other day, that you and your family and your parents have been quarantined for more than two weeks and you're not seeing other people. You're getting groceries delivered. You're literally not. You're kind of potted together. You've formed like a pod together. it does if you guys live together in a lot of ways, just in case anybody listening is concerned

about that. And then, too, I'm curious, do you get resentful at all that, like, lose job for very good reasons, but has sort of taken priority in that way over yours? Yeah. So first I want to say, I'm glad you clarified that because it is a very controversial time and people have opinions and everyone's sensitive and every you know people who don't have certain luxuries will get upset with those who do um but you know I want to be open and honest with what I'm doing in motherhood because I don't want people to be like oh why is she able to do all this stuff and keep her sanity she has no help so I want to be honest that uh they are taking him sometimes so um yes I actually I got I got recently I started getting resentful because originally and I'm

sure a lot of people felt this way originally. I thought this was going to be like two to three weeks max. Everything would go back to normal. We'd be done with COVID-19. And so I agreed to the child care thing under that, you know, understanding. So around six weeks, which is like, or no, around like the four-week mark, sorry, the four-week mark. And we've been doing the social distancing. Lou closed down his office right away. So, or quarantining, excuse me. So, you know, four weeks of doing that is when I kind of, it's not a breaking point, but it's when I started getting resentful and having to talk to him about it. And even though he, what he doesn't understand is from a financial point of view, you know, he is a breadwinner in our relationship and our

family. So for him, he, you know, his logic is, well, I have to do this because this is our source of income. And what I tried to explain to him is even though I'm not the breadwinner, I still have a business and if I can't work on it then when we're all done with this I won't have a business and that will really suck and a business built over like a long time almost a decade. Right. I think this will be seven years this year. Yeah.

So he, we recently have this conversation too because I think this is week six now that we've all been, is it week six? I think so, yeah. It's week seven for me and Zach on Friday, which is, or today. Today, seventh anniversary, seven anniversary of quarantine. Correct.

Yeah. So this was kind of like, I'm having this conversation just every day because I do notice that I crack jokes at him. And I'm like, oh, it's so nice you can sit on your laptop and work all day when I have to like run around with the children, which I've done both, right? Because I had a nanny at home. Your children is harder. It's way harder to care for the kids than sit at the desk and work.

Well, at least in my situation. So we're just talking about it and what we kind of agreed on today actually because we had another conversation about it. I said, unless you have something that like you have to get out or you have a call that you have to take, I need to be a little more flexible and give me, you know, a half an hour pocket here where you're watching the kids or an hour pocket here. If I have something important to do, because as you know in our business, if you have a contract with a brand and you need to shoot a video or do an IG live or, you know, shoot content, you need time for that. And if I don't have any of that time during the day, I can't get that brand work or I fault on my contract or whatever. So I think being more honest with him. And I think at first I was afraid to be honest because I was like, I want to be the super mom.

Like, I want to take care of my kids. But now it's week six. And I'm like, well, I do have a business. And I don't want that to go away. So. Yeah. I think that's the communication is, I think, the key to all of it. So, okay.

So I don't want to take any more time here. But you are one of the most optimistic people that I have ever met. We talk about it in your solo episode of the Health Theory of the other podcast. So I definitely behoove everybody to go listen to your crazy kidnapping story and how you cultivated your incredible perspective on life. It is a banana story. Highly worth to listen. But I'm just curious. I'd love to leave everybody on a note on what you're telling yourself or what mental things you're doing to stay positive and optimistic.

stick through this time? Honestly, I see these, it sounds silly, but I've seen this meme before, and I recently shared it because I look at it a lot. And it's like in the year 2036, you're going to be alone in your house and your kids are going to be out of the house and you're going to miss the pitter-patter of their feet running across the ground and you're going to miss the silly games that you did with them because you're going to be all alone. So I try to remember that in terms of the, the motherhood part of it when I get so frustrated with them or I'm just like spent. I try to remember that this time, I'm going to look back on this time and I'm going to be so grateful for this time that I had with my kids. And that brings me peace because I know this isn't forever.

This two fell past. It's like with any hard part of your life. It's not going to be forever. So I keep telling myself that. And I guess the gratitude part, which I talk a lot about in our podcast episode together. But I just, I feel so grateful that I can be with my kids without, um, worry, like without financial worry with without, I'm safe, we're healthy. We're quarantine. So we're not, you know, I'm not fearing my life every day. I just, I'm so grateful that it's hard to feel anything else but positive because I know how bad it can be and how bad it is for so many people. So I, I feel, I feel like a bad person. If I'm, if I, if I, I'm not positive.

It's kind of like I feel like my positivity is I'm trying to be more positive. So the people who cannot be positive, it trickles down somehow, you know. That's kind of the best way I can explain that. I love that meme. I think there are, I think even if you're not a parent looking for those little moments of things that like maybe you have more time to work out because you're not commuting anymore or you have the time with your kids or you have this time to work on yourself. because you don't have social plans. Like I do think there, I don't think this whole thing. I'm not one of those people.

It's like, what a blessing. But I am a person who, I do think there's these little moments that we are getting right now that we wouldn't get otherwise. And I do think there's something there. So I appreciate sharing that a lot. And if people want to follow along with you on your journey in general is, would you say Instagram at Inspiralize is the best place to do that? Yes, definitely. In Spiralize, Instagram. I'm not TikTok famous yet like Liz, so don't follow me on TikTok.

Yes, Instagram, inspirational.com, pretty much all social. I love DMs. I love email, so you can retouch me that way. Yeah, Ali's one of those people who's actually quite personal and like you get like a really nice sense of your life, I feel like on Instagram. So you're one of my favorite follows. Thank you. You're one of my two, Liz.

Thank you for taking the time to chat. Of course. Thanks, thanks as always. Take care. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast. I have tried pretty much every bar on the planet. I am a food editor. It's been kind of my job to try all of these.

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Use the code healthier together 30, and I cannot wait to hear what you think. Now, let's get back to the episode. Hi, Gabby. Thank you so much for coming on this special episode of the podcast. Hi, how are you? I'm good. Your episode is still one of my most commented parts when you were like, I think I had anxiety like one day in my life.

I remember so vividly. We were sitting in that weird business center. I had eye masks on. Yeah, gold eye masks. Hot masks. But people still come up to me and they're like, do you think she meant that? Yeah, I mean, yeah. It's amazing.

It's aspirational. Okay, so for people who aren't familiar with you or have it listed in that episode, can you just tell us a little bit of background about who you are and what you do? Yeah, so my name is Gavi Dolkin. I run a website called Wedgobby Cooking. And it started as just a food blog, probably, I don't know, I don't even know, 10 years ago. And it has since turned into, you know, there's a website.

I have cookbooks. I have a new cookbook coming out end of April. I have a set of product lines that sold exclusively at William Sonoma. So now what's got to be cooking is this whole 360 lifestyle brand that I do full time. I love it. Can you tell us a little bit about your new cookbook? Yes, it is called Eat What You Want, 125 recipes for real life. and it is literally recipes that you want to eat.

Like there's everything in it. It's healthy. It's indulgent. There's pasta. There's salads. You name it. I just feel like in today's world where we have a lot of noise about what we're not supposed to eat or what's quote unquote going to make you fat.

Like none of that is healthy to listen to. So I really just wanted to write something that gave people a permission slip or like was like a pep rally or some freedom to do what really makes them happy. I love that. That's very much like how I eat and cook as well. So I'm very into that. All right. So what do you look for in your morning routine? I know that you travel a lot. And I also know that you work out. And those are sort of like my two things that I associate with you other than cooking. Yeah. So my morning routine looks fairly similar every morning. I am actually making an effort to stop checking my phone when I first wake up. So let's just pretend I've been successful at that. But my morning routine typically I wake up, say good morning to my husband. Don't look at my phone for like 15 or 20 minutes and like just kind of lounge in bed. I have a tea or like a macha or something every morning. And then I usually go right to the gym. I love working out. I think it's my one 90 minute period every day where I get to focus just on me. Like I leave my phone in the locker. Like I don't check my DMs or anything. Like I just get to focus on me and my body. And I think it's so. important for me to start my day like that before I get into the rest of my life. It really kind evens me out and, like, sets me on my good path. And then it's also much easier for me to fall asleep at night because I'm tired. And what type of workout do you do? I alternate. So I either

see, like, I do like weightlifting training with a trainer, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then Tuesday, Thursdays, I usually do Pilates. And my weekend routine actually is quite similar. Saturdays. I go do like the Santa Monica stairs or something with my husband. And Sunday I don't work out, but I will like go for a walk or walk to the farmer's market or something like that. So I just find moving my body first thing in the morning sets me up for success. And then I'm not just like laying in bed until nine o'clock in the morning trying to be like, well, how should I start my day? You know, like I just feel like it really gets me up and gets me moving. And do you ever have problems sort of like motivating to get that workout? And like sometimes I'll just

get on my workout clothes, then I'll just sit on the couch still scrolling through my phone. Yeah, I think I have found two workouts that I absolutely love and I love the people that are there with me. So I like actively look forward to going there. Before I had that, yes, I absolutely struggled. I'm like, I don't need to go to Full Cycle or whatever today because like, I don't know what it's like in New York, but in L.A. SoulCycle was very clicky when it first started. And I live in Brentwood and all the moms. Like, I wasn't a mom. I'm still not a mom. So like they didn't care about me. So I feel like now I have found my tribe of people at both of my studios and I'm just pumped to be there. And also like when you sign up for something, you can't just cancel it because

you'll get charged. So I'm like, I'm there. Yeah, that's totally fair. And when you travel, which you do quite a bit, both for your book and your tour and stuff like that. And also just these like incredible adventures. I love your family's like surprise trip thing. I just think it's the coolest thing on the planet. Basically, really briefly, your parents, like pick a place and then they give you like 12 clues, right? Yeah, we've been going on surprise vacation since we were kids instead of having birthday parties and we get clues like, I don't know, 10 weeks leading up to the actual vacation, one clue a week trying to guess where we're going.

So cool. So when you travel, do you, does your routine change or do you stick to that? It depends. So if I'm traveling, for example, on surprise vacation, my parents are incapable of having a relaxing beach vacation. So like we're always moving. like we're not going to work out, but like we'll walk 30,000 steps around Copenhagen or like go on some crazy nine-hour hike. So it's similar in the fact that my parents like to get up and move.

If I'm traveling with my husband or for work or something, I do still try and incorporate some sort of activity. Like I'm not going to, I mean, sometimes I'll lay around and just like have a leisurely morning on vacation. But I like to like get up and explore a city or if I'm on book tour, I'll try and find like a trainer or group fitness class. that city where I can go in the morning and like kick it off that way. Plus, I eat an incredible amount of food. So I feel like I have to do that in the morning in order to maintain my consumption of food throughout the day. That's fair. Is there any other like standard parts of the morning routine, like a breakfast you always eat or meditation practice or anything like that? Yeah. I don't meditate. I wish I did. I wish I would sit down and maybe that's something I'll do

during this pandemic is learn how to meditate. I do wake up every morning and I check my email and my Instagram DMs and my Twitter and I respond to every single person before I like really start my day. I think that is one of the biggest reasons I have been able to do so much in my career is because I'm so responsive. So I do that every morning without fail no matter where, what country I'm in. And that's it. I do like a nice like face skincare routine before I head out the door also.

Your skin is fabulous. Can you tell us like one or two of the things you do? Because you have like glorious skin. Thank you. I don't wear makeup really. I mean, the only makeup I wear is a tinted moisturizer and mascara on like a regular basis unless I'm filming.

But I do like an ASOP moisturizer every day before I walk out the door. I just wash my face honestly with soap. Like it's really annoying my routine. but it's not anything special, but that's what I do. I think sometimes the less really is more. Like I was trying to talk my husband into a skincare routine and he took it as a sign that he should eliminate even washing his face. And now he does that. And he's like, my skin is great.

So. Wait, he doesn't wash his face or he does? He literally went from his only skin care team being washing his face to not even that. Like he literally now does nothing. One of my girlfriends was just telling me about skin fasting, which is one of the first. you go through like a 14 or 21 day period and you don't put anything on your skin, including soap, lotion, period, nothing. So your skin has time to reset.

She did it when she was pregnant and it like totally fixed all the hormonal acne she was having. So I feel like your husband might be on to something. I want to do that. But what about sunscreen? I wouldn't wash my face, but I put sunscreen on every day. And he doesn't do that. We're in a pandemic. There's no reason you can't go outside.

I should do it right now. That's true. It's a brilliant idea. Okay. So that's morning. How about evening? What do you, do you have any sort of special get ready for bed steps? Yeah.

So before I get ready for bed, I, oh, I ice roll my face every morning. I forgot about that. I love an ice roller. That one's lovely. Yeah. Before I go to, so I shower every night before I go to bed. I like to go to bed with stoking wet hair. It keeps me cold, like it keeps me cool throughout the night.

So I got it super wet, like like a drowned rat. That's what my hair looks like. Oh my God. I can't even imagine being able to sleep with that. I think actually there's a traditional Chinese medic. I was traveling once with a friend who studied traditional Chinese medicine. And I tried to go to sleep with wet hair. And she was like, you can't do that in traditional Chinese medicine.

It's like something about it. I've been doing it since I was a child. And I like I will not sleep as great if I don't shower and wash my hair. It's like a natural air conditioning. It is. It's so great. And like we grew up in Arizona. So I think part of it was a like you just like.

you just like cool down right before you go to bed because it's so hot there but now I just live for it. Um, so before we go to bed, we usually watch MTV, try and put our phones and computers down like 30 to 45 minutes before bed. Um, I shower. I do, um, what's that like thing called that you roll over your face that has needles in it? Microneedling. Oh, microneedling.

I do that in the shower once every couple days. Um, and then I do like, my ASAP moisturizer again before I go to bed and that's it. It's super simple. And do you fall asleep, like reading or doing anything or do you just like get in bed and fall asleep? I get in bed and fall asleep. There was a period of time recently where I was binge watching queer eye, the new like all the new seasons. And so I would fall asleep watching TV, which I had to cut out because I don't sleep as well when I watch TV right before I go to bed. But I don't read when I read, I try and read during the day. So I don't strain my eyes before I go to bed. And roughly what time are we talking about for wake up and for

bedtime? I would say I wake up between 630 and 7. Naturally, I don't have an alarm unless I have a flight or like a call time or something. And then I go to bed in bed by 930, lights out by 10. That's like very grown up and impressive. I love sleeping. All right. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for sharing. Thanks for having me. Everybody check out Gabby's new book. Can you say the name again? It's called What's Gabby Cooking? Eat what you want. Eat what you want. Thanks, Gabby. Thank you. Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you love this episode. I hope you fell in love with all of these amazing women, many of whom I consider really dear friends of mine. So I hope you love them so much. And as I mentioned last week, we're going to be back next week, not in two weeks, with a whole brand new episode. So definitely tune beck in, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts if you were sent this by a friend. And if you are interested in doing a quick rating or review, I would of course very much appreciate that and you would have my eternal gratitude. In the meantime, come hang out on Instagram. I'm at Liz Moody and I would love to see you there. Have a great rest of your day. The mattress that you sleep on is one of the

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