The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - #107: Sakara Life Founders Whitney Tingle and Danielle DuBoise - Healthy Vs. Unhealthy Diets, Building a business with minimal resources & Passion Vs. Mission

Episode Date: March 27, 2018

On this episode we are joined by Whitney Tingle and Danielle DuBoise, the founders and creators of Sakara Life. This episode covers a ton of ground in a variety of topics ranging from diet, building a business and brand from the ground up, healthy meal delivery, unhealthy diets and misconceptions and how to build a business with minimal resources.  To learn more about Sakara click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE This episode is brought to you by MATCH.COM. Online Dating can be hard but Match.com is making it a lot easier. Match.com is the #1 online dating platform in first and second dates, leading to more dates, relationships, and marriages than any other app/site. MATCH.COM is offering a 7-day free trial to all TSC listeners- just register & download the app and you'll be on your way to a meaningful relationship.  Go to www.match.com/skinny for a 7-day free trial on the leading online dating platform.  This episode is brought to you by THRIVE MARKET. We use Thrive for our online grocery delivery on a weekly basis. They provide the highest quality products and ingredients delivered straight to our door with unbeatable prices.  Be sure to grab our deal by going to to https://thrivemarket.com/skinny to receive $60 of FREE organic groceries from Thrive Market + free shipping and a 30 day trial!" Keep in mind that Thrive Market's  prices are already 25- 50% below retail because they cut out the middleman. And now they are offering $60 off free organic groceries!  

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. that in-between stage, you know, nothing desperate, just a confident girl who's looking to meet a cool mate. Anyway, it can be hard on the internet out there. So I've heard, but match is making this situation a lot easier for you guys. Match is the number one in the first and second dates, leading to more dates, relationships, and marriages than any other app or site. If you're single and ready to mingle, it's time to take control of your dating lives through a process of smart matching that is super tailored to the customer. So go to www.match.com slash skinny to receive a seven day free trial to all TSC listeners. Just register and download the app and you'll be on your way to a meaningful relationship. Again, that's www.match.com slash skinny.

And if you guys end up getting married, make sure you announce at your wedding that the Skinny Confidential set you up. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic

are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her. Aha! Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. This week, live from Paris. Well, actually, Lauren and I are live from Paris, but our guests are not because, you know, we record these, you know, in studio. This week, we have the founders and creators of Sakura Life, Whitney and Danielle.

We dive into a variety of topics. This conversation really kind of goes all over the place in a good way. With them including diet, founding of a company, the stress of Wall Street, and a lot more. I really enjoyed the conversation and I know Lauren did as well. So we're live from Paris. You have me, Lauren Everett, the creator of the Skinny Confidential and my husband, Michael Bostic, who is an entrepreneur. Today's episode has so much value, you guys, and we're in Paris and we got to go get a hamburger at this little place called Ferdy. So we're going to hop right into it.

But first let's talk about match.com. Okay guys, so let's talk dating. So there's like 30,000 insane amazing women in the Skinny Confidential secret Facebook group and I feel like a bunch of them are single. And if you're wondering how I know this, I am a stalker. I stalk the group daily. I'm in there like reading and liking and commenting, always creeping like a gargoyle. I know a lot of the women in there are looking for a cool mate. And I just feel like after I'm reading these comments and these posts, it seems harder with

social media. So I know there's a lot of meh dating sites out there, but intermatch.com. So match is legit and streamlines the whole process. You know, I love a streamlined process. In fact, if I was single, I feel like I would sign up for match. It's just, it's efficient. It's streamlined. Just how we like it. Here's a couple of fun, festive facts for you. One in three dates, relationships, and marriages begin online, which is nuts. When you know you want more than a one night stand or a quick hookup, but you don't want to be told who to marry tomorrow. This is the app for you. You know, a lot of Michael's friends are on the swipe dating apps and I just feel like they're there for a good time and not a serious

time. They're kind of just on the app for a one night stand. I think his friends that go to match.com are there because they want a meaningful relationship. They're a little bit more mature, you know, ready for a commitment. So match.com is the number one in first and second dates leading to more dates, relationships, and marriages than any other app or site, which is nuts. I love this fact specifically for the TSC Facebook group. So yes, dating can be tough. I mean, I don't know, but I've heard and I've seen. So if you're looking for something meaningful and real, match.com is the place to go. It's time to take control of dating and feel empowered with match.com. Really though, guys, go to match.com slash skinny and sign up for the seven day free trial, register and download the app. Again, that's www.match.com slash skinny. Happy dating.

All right. Let's do a quick him and her tip this week. So my tip this week is also a tip that comes with an ask. It's kind of like a half tip, half in. Is that okay to say? Did that sound a little pervy, a little creepy? I just realized that. Okay, let's start over. My tip this week is something I learned from my friend Thomas, him and his wife on the wildly popular blog Gal Meets Glam. Anyways, he messaged me the other day and asked if I had heard about Airtable. Have any of you guys heard about Airtable? Anyways, Airtable is an online tool that describes itself as part spreadsheet, part database, and entirely flexible. Teams use Airtable to organize their work their way. So I was immediately intrigued because we

have so many different projects going on and I'm always looking for productivity hacks and organizational tools. And I've heard a buzz around Airtable, but I hadn't gotten around to looking into it. So I'm now diving in because it has a lot of unique functions and integration. It integrates with Slack, Trello, and Google calendars, which we're already using as a team. So I thought that'd be super useful to all put it into one place. You can customize it for product release dates, for your bloggers, editorial calendars, marketing campaigns, podcast schedules. So right up our alley, right? Anyways, I'm in the early phase of kind of figuring out the platform to see if it's a fit for our team and just to kind of play around with it and see the different functions and how we can use it. So you can also use it as an individual.

Try Airtable and let me know what you think. If any of you are using it already and find it to be useful, please shoot me an email or message. Let me know all the tips and tricks around it. I told you this tip wasn't pervy. It's all about an actual tool. And so that's it. My tip is to try this new tool, Airtable. It's getting a lot of buzz. A lot of people are saying a lot of really great things about it. Integrates with all of the different tools that we're currently using. And as I dive into it later this week, we'll learn more functions. But if you guys are using it, please let me know and let me

know how you're using it. That's my tip this week. Tip actually from my friend Jackie Schimmel of the Bitch Bible. So Jackie is a huge fan of rose hip and rose water spray. She picked up the tip in London, I think from her grandma. Basically it's this magical spray that balances your skin and improves the texture and tone, which, you know, I just really need that with my hyperpigmentation sun mustache. So you guys know I love skincare. It's obviously no surprise that I'm a fan of this. Rosehip oil is loaded with essential fatty acids, antioxidants, and vitamins to hydrate your skin. It's also very, very soothing. I might add, I even add it to my neck and my hands and my arms, you know, all over my body. You can use it as an all over body moisturizer and after sun skin mist or an anti-aging body treatment. I personally like to use it when I'm traveling.

You know this if you follow my Instagram story. I just feel like everyone needs a mist, like you got to carry it. When we were traveling recently to Paris, I kept it on my carry-on and sprayed it all over Michael's face when he wasn't looking. It's like this little bottle that you can add to your carry-on because it's under three ounces. I'm very specific about which kind I use. There's two brands I like. So I love the Kopari one. It's pretty and looks cute on the vanity. And I also like this other organic brand, which, drum roll please, you guys can get for free. So back at it again with Thrive, they're extending you guys $60

in free organic groceries plus free shipping. And you can add this organic rosehip oil to your cart. You can shop it at thrivemarket.com slash skinny. So not only will you guys get your own organic rosehip and rosewater spray, you'll also get $60 in groceries with free shipping. So when you're adding your free $60 of groceries to your cart, make sure you add the nourishing organic rose hip spray. They also have an argan oil and a face toner. So much goodness. If you're looking for more items to add to your cart, you can throw in a tongue cleaner. You know how I feel about that. I love a tongue cleaner. I do it every single morning and night and I make Michael do it. Also get some raw

apple cider vinegar. Their boom Boom Popcorn is so badass. And I love their Aztec Healing Clay Mask. You can mix that with the raw apple cider vinegar and make this heavenly mask. It's great. If you want to get even more excited, the same brand that makes the rose hip spray also makes a rose butter, which is heaven in the shower. So you can take a shower in rose butter, come out and mist your face with rose hip spray. What is actually better? I'm all about helping the skin be all moisturized. And this brand, like I said, has a bunch of different

standout products. They're all available on Thrive. You can basically just go and get all your skincare essentials with a tongue cleaner on Thrive for free. I seriously give this link out to everyone in the Skinny Confidential Facebook group. I give it to all my friends, my family. I gave it to my dad and my dad's trying to get the dog to use it. The link Thrive is extending to you guys, like I said, is thrivemarket.com slash skinny. Again, it's freaking free, $60 in groceries plus free shipping. Get the spray, get the mist, get the butter. Enjoy.

So Curl Life girls, Whitney and Danielle, were fed up. We'll get to why they were fed up, but basically the food industry was making them sick. They started delivering clean, organic meals by bicycle to their friends. Fast forward today and they have recruited an incredible team of 80 and delivered to 48 states across the country, helping people transform their own lives through the power of food. The Saqqara Life organic meal delivery program is based on a whole food, plant-rich diet that includes fresh nutrient-based and delicious ingredients. I sure love their watermelon jerky. Their nutritional pillars form the basis of each and every meal that arrives straight to your door. In this interview,

you'll get to know the two bad asses behind Sakara Life who knew there had to be a better way to eat. And with that, let's hear about their journey to provide everyone with fresh organic plant-based meals. This is the skinny confidential him and her. So what was life like for both of you before you had your own brand? Give us all the juice. We call those the dark days. No, well, you know, Saqqara didn't start out as a business. It started out because we both were struggling and hit rock bottom. So, you know, they were times of a lot of lessons and a lot of learnings, but it was definitely some dark times. I moved to New York to study medicine and Whitney came shortly after to work on Wall

Street. Yeah, which, which you know that's a whole different lifestyle in itself and so danielle and i grew up together in sedona arizona very different from new york city have either of you guys been yeah we went there oh yeah where do we stay what's the hotel the little bear it's a beautiful place and enchantment's really beautiful too but it's very spiritual hippie we grew up with kids that only eat sunshine they call them the aryans it's like lots of people meditating out on the rocks doing yoga um in my school i i grew up we didn't have pe class we had tai chi instead

that's pretty cool it was pretty cool it's very different you know and i thought it was normal i thought that everybody got to do tai chi instead of PE class, but you know, and then we came out to New York and it was totally different. It was just that fast paced, go, go, go nonstop fell into the 80 hour work weeks right off the bat. You're running out, trying to find something to eat for lunch. You have 15 minutes and you're already exhausted for making decisions all day. And then, so you make wrong decisions when it comes to what you're eating. And then you're stressed out. You go out after work, you're drinking, you're networking, you're trying to keep up with all the big boys out there and not sleeping. I would get into the office at 730 in

the morning and then at about around 630, my boss would say, all right, Whitney, it's time to go down to the bar. And that would be the continuation of work where, but just doing it down from the bar and networking and drinking. And I put on about 15 or 20 pounds just right off the bat working in New York. And you think that's from stress or drinking or eating a combination? A combination. It was the food. It was the drinking. It was the not sleeping, the stress, all of that just started to pile up. And what exactly was your, was your job title at that time? That, you know, I was the low man on the totem pole. I was 22 years old, had just gotten out of school. It was the title of I'll do whatever you need me to do.

Yeah. And it was a finance or was it? Okay. So I got a job at Merrill Lynch. Okay. And that was in 2008. Oh, best year to get a job in finance. Exactly. But it was, it was crazy times. Literally somebody came in one day and locked the windows. We were up on the 41st floor in the world financial center and they came in and they

locked the windows because people were getting that stressed out. They want to make sure nobody would be jumping. But I mean, times were bad. Times were really, really rough. But, you know, and for me, what I got to see was what that type of lifestyle really looks like and what, what people are going through, what I was going through. Um, and know, I ended up, like I said, 15 or 20 pounds heavier than when I started and terrible cystic acne all over my face. And I had been battling with this acne since we were in high school, really. But at that point, it was just at its worst, big red cysts all over my face. And but I thought, you know, I'm in New York City. Somebody here is going to cure me.

And I know you've done a lot of skin treatments. And now, Michael, you're getting into it. I'm working on it. You're working on it. We're trying to pull his forehead out of his eyes. I'm trying to get away from the old weathered saddle look. No, it looks good on men. It's not fake.

It does. You know, a little bit of wrinkles are good on men. Everyone keeps trying to get these needles in my face. And I'm like, not today, Sadie. Just baby Botox. Just a little bit of good on them. Because everyone keeps trying to get these needles in my face. And I'm like, not today, Sadie. Just baby Botox. Just a little bit of baby Botox. We had dinner last night and I had another advocate and she was like, no, you don't need to do that. Okay.

All right. Well, I literally tried everything out there. I was doing, you know, I bought all the creams and everything off of the infomercials. I did all of the lasers. I did this one laser where they put this levulanic acid on your skin, which is a naturally produced acid from your body. And then you sit in front of this light and it basically burns a layer of skin off your face. It's used for people with skin cancer, right? Right. You know, the whole time you never thought

maybe it's what i'm putting in my body and the life oh no we thought that too you thought that too yeah and you know i was trying other things i was trying acupuncture i was trying taking different vitamins i had eliminated dairy and nuts and you were trying different things oh my god i had tried everything um this is like a decade old yeah at this point so right you tried a lot i tried a lot over a period of a decade and none of it would work and i i even did accutane which wow you know dermatologists these days just hand out accutane prescriptions for accutane like it's nothing but accutane is a really serious drug and with with the Accutane, they also gave me a prescription for Prozac because suicide is a common side effect.

And they put me on two forms of birth control and synthetic hormones and had me sign a contract saying that if I got pregnant, I would have to have an abortion because my baby would come out with birth defects. And all of this just to solve some pimples on my face. And yes, it was, you know, it was really affecting my life. It affected my confidence. It affected how I was at work, how I was in my love life. And it was painful. But I mean, what I went through trying to fix it was serious. But nobody was talking to me about, you know, what are you eating? Are you going to the bathroom every day, which is a vital sign. And I wasn't. But none of the doctors I was talking to was asking me that question. Nobody was asking if I was stressed out or if I felt fulfilled in life.

I think all of those different things play a role in skin and in acne. And so, you know, I found myself in the lowest of lows trying to find the solution and getting frustrated by all of these different doctors just wanting to hand me another prescription, another prescription for Accutane, another prescription for antibiotics. And finally, just this voice inside of me said, don't do it. It's not the answer. You need to go inside and find the root cause. What is causing all of this that are just symptoms?

There has to be a root cause. And so I decided to go back to my Sedona roots and partner up with Danielle. And we were also, we were roommates at the time, and I was just graduating from studying biochem and I was about to go to med school. And my story is much more around body image issues. I've been dieting, I think, since I was like nine years old. I have this memory of going to Costco with my mom and we were walking through the vitamin aisle and I saw these diet pills and I tried to hide them in the cart. And, you know, obviously I was not a sneaky child because it's Costco and you can only buy like 4,000 pill things. So I got caught. But it's just so telling to me that at a young age,

I didn't feel like I looked pretty enough or thin enough or enough just in general. And so the way that manifested over my life over the following, you know, 10, 15 years was dieting. What do you think the root cause of that is? Is there like some event or something that happened that age that made you start thinking that way? Yeah, for sure. You know, like kids are mean. Like I remember my mom would pack me these, when he has these stories too, but my mom would pack me like healthy lunches and there'd be like a banana and an orange. And I remember this kid making fun of me cause my lunches were really big. And so then that got into my head. And then, you know, you just, as a young girl and more and more boys too, but as a young girl, you're surrounded by young girl and more and more boys, too.

But as a young girl, you're surrounded by images of what you're supposed to look like. Even if you're too young to really understand, you think that one day you're supposed to look like that. And girls were also talking about it. Like girls at nine years old when I was that age were talking about dieting. And, you know, we were reading the magazines and all the magazines were like, how to get abs, like you're nine years old. Um, and so I didn't know what to do. And so I didn't know, you know, how to get that body that I thought I had to have or that I didn't have. Um, and so I just turned to, okay, well, it must be what I'm eating. And so I tried everything. Um, I was a vegan. I was a raw foodist. I was on Atkins.

I was on the Master Cleanse. I was on the cookie diet, which is not as fun as it sounds. The cookie diet? Yeah. We used to be able to get these cookies at Walgreens or something like that. And you would just get, you would have like two a day or something like that. It was absolutely terrible. You'd have like a 10-year shelf life on them. Yeah. It was like the worst. No refrigeration needed. I remember SlimFast. And you know, my mom, when she had me, she was 40. So she was also of an older generation where, you know, it was still

like low fat. So you could have anything that was low fat. Nobody was talking about, you know, what are the ingredients? What are the preservatives, organic, sugar, any of those things. So it was also a household where I was sticking to what my mom had learned and that didn't work. And so by the time Whitney and I were living in New York together, it was just at it. I was at an all time low. I tried everything. I felt like an alien in my body. Food had really become the enemy because after over a decade of dieting, you learn that food is about calories and carbs and points and pounds. And if that's the case, then less is always better. So finally, I did a diet that put me

in the hospital. It was this retreat in Southern Arizona and it was 21 days and the first seven days were a water fast. So you're just having water, no juice, nothing, just water. And it's like 120 degrees, Southern Arizona, meditating for six hours a day. What age was this? 22. You've just been like a little bit older, like 23, 24. How did they get away with that? You know, what's funny is that I would go back now because I think that it's, if you have a healthy relationship to your body and to your plate, that it can actually be quite

transformative and the spiritual experience, which I had just not in the way I thought I would. And so, you know, it was medically- You would go back for the, just for the mental clarity? She would go back to the same diet because she has a completely different relationship with food now. And I wouldn't look at it as a diet. Like when I went at that age, it was like an excuse, like, oh good, I won't have to

worry about food for 21 days. And obviously like it's a water fast, so I'll lose weight. And, you know, all of my neuroses and my issues around food kind of culminated in that moment of making the decision to go basically starve myself for 21 days and um so i got really really sick i did it yeah i hardly walk i got back to new york and i was seven days i could barely walk um and how much weight dropped like in those seven days? Because I know that's, it's not healthy. So it's probably a lot. I don't know.

I had stopped looking at the scale because it was not my friend. Yeah. I'm asking more for the reason, just like to lose, to, to not eat for that long and then lose that kind of weight. It really can't be good for you. And I just want to like see how drastic it was. It was drastic, but it wasn't, um, like I didn't look malnourished. Actually everyone around me was like, Oh, you look amazing. Like your skin's like glowing. Um, and you know, there are people

that believe in the medicinal powers of water for a few days. Um, and then the following two weeks were all raw food. We were like living off the land. But, you know, I just, I knew that all of my issues had bubbled up in that moment. That like I couldn't hide behind them anymore. I couldn't hide behind a diet. It was like it almost stripped me bare in this really important way now, I understand. But at the time, it was probably one of the toughest times of my life. And I get back to New York and Whitney's like, I'm taking you to the hospital right now. Like, you're sick.

You're clearly not okay. She wasn't getting better. Yeah.'s like, I'm taking you to the hospital right now. Like, you're sick. You're clearly not OK. She wasn't getting better. Yeah, I just I couldn't keep food down. I kept getting like cold after cold after cold. And so I went to the hospital. I had a major gut issue and imbalance and I had pneumonia. So they had to put me on antibiotics and I had to go on all this medication. And it was just my aha moment where, you know, it, it really scared me because I realized how far I was willing to go and how much I was willing to hurt my body to get this body that I thought I didn't have.

So that was when I changed my path. And instead of going to med school, I went to study nutrition. And throughout that following year is when Whitney and I just devoted that time to getting better ourselves. You know, we weren't talking about starting a business. We were like, we need to heal. So, and I was learning a lot of cool stuff in school, you know, like the study of the microbiome and the six pounds of bacteria in your gut, that's dictating everything from your hormones to how many calories you absorb from your food, your sex drive. You know, like 95% of serotonin is made in the gut. So how happy you are in the world and what matters for your gut is what you eat. And, you know, that was before anyone was really

talking about it. Yeah. But what I realized was through this process, I realized I didn't have a skin problem. I had a gut problem. And if I could heal my gut, I could heal my skin. I hope everyone out there that's listening that has any skin problem can hear what you just said. Cause I think that's so important. Can you expand more on the gut? Like I want to hear everything about it. If someone's starting out, like what's a good place to start healing the gut? Yeah. It really starts with what's on your plate. And yeah, you know, the gut, the gut, the only thing that the bacteria in your gut eat is fiber and that's what they need.

And getting the right kinds of fiber from foods is really important. So that doesn't necessarily mean just eating fiber crackers. But GG crackers aren't going to cut it. I mean, they certainly don't hurt and they certainly help and they're certainly better than, you know, yeah, a fiberless cracker for sure. But eating a plant-based diet and for us, you know, that means eating mostly plants, basing your plate, basing your diet off of plants is the number one thing you can do to have a healthy microbiome everyone is looking at you so what's new a shake shack hot

dog yesterday is not doing anything for your body i had a burger that's true no i listen i'm not the best i'm not the best eater for sure i'm not gonna there's no surprise here okay if you're doing mostly plant-based any meat fish yeah yeah i eat some meat and some fish it's really about listening to your body and getting it to a place where you can listen to it and so that means cleaning out the things that are sending you the wrong messages food can actually hijack your brain if If you're eating Cheetos and Doritos, these things are some of the, I consider them some of the most sophisticated foods on the planet because millions of dollars have gone into creating the formula to get them to just the right amount of cheesiness and meltiness so that it hits the bliss point in your brain and actually makes you feel addicted and high and want more of them. But if you can start stripping down some of that noise, some of the bad signals, then you start listening to your own signals in your body and your body will tell you what it needs. It'll tell you when you're hungry, when you're full, and actually which ingredients you need to be eating too. We've had a lot of, I'd say,

experts at this point on on the subject of let's call it diet but it's more food because you know diet's a way of eating and not food specifically what is some like really good advice that you think that you can apply to everyone and what is some really really bad advice that you hear all the time? So I guess we'll start with the good. Yeah, good. I would say the, oh, go ahead. Did you have something? Oh, I would say the universal piece of advice

is get at least six cups of greens. Leafy greens. Leafy greens into your diet every single day. So if you're making a smoothie in the morning, throw a handful of spinach into that smoothie. If you're eating your Shake Shack burger, can you put some hot dog? No burger. I had a bite of the hot dog. She doesn't believe you. Yeah. You know, and can you put some leafy greens on that too? And studies show that the way your

body and specifically your microbiome deals with foods that we might typically think is bad foods. So burgers, hot dogs, whatever, that the way your body assimilates that food and digests that food changes based on what else you've eaten even that single day. So I think a lot of times people think, especially dieters like myself, I thought once I fell off the wagon, I might as well just fall off the wagon and eat whatever I wanted. And it's really not true. And that's really what we try and help people understand is that there's no such thing as the wagon. There's no such thing as eating perfect. Just try and get as many plants into your diet every single day. And that will

fundamentally change your biology and how your body digests food. That's a common theme off across all the podcasts that we've had. People say, get as many greens as you can get in to push other things not off the plate but to what is the stuff i just got it's like not because i tried i'm trying i'm working my way up to the greens but i got this like powder that yeah what do you think of these powders but it's um she doesn't love it what the hell is it called i just got it it's like green vibrance green vibrant green yeah yeah i? Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm talking about? I like that. It certainly doesn't hurt at all. I just put in my water in the morning. But yeah, that certainly doesn't hurt.

And I think that's a great addition. Baby steps. Baby steps. But eating fresh leafy greens is the number one thing you need to do. Because remember that your microbiome needs that fiber, that plant-based fiber and water that you're getting from those greens. Okay. And bad advice.

Well, bad advice I would say is, um, a lot of people like to focus on what you need to be removing from your diet. And you know, when they hear that I've had this skin transformation that I was able to cure my acne, they want to know, Oh, what did you eliminate from your diet? What was the key thing? And I say, no, it wasn't what I eliminated. It was what I was adding in. I wasn't getting enough nutrients. I wasn't getting enough of that plant fiber, those live living foods into my body, enough hydrating foods. So we thought we were eating healthy.

We were eating high fiber cereals. We were eating with almond milk. We had cut out dairy. We were eating Ezekiel toast with coconut oil on it. But these things are really dehydrating to your body. It takes hydration out of your system in order to digest the foods. Instead of eating foods like leafy greens or broccoli and things that will add hydration, cucumbers that actually add hydration into your body and flood your cells with that hydration.

And that was really, you know, my transformation around food was I spent a lifetime thinking about calories and carbs and points and pounds and what not to eat. And my switch after, you know, eating this way was if you think about food as nourishment instead of food as the enemy, then you actually think, am I getting enough every single day? And that switch in my brain was what really helped me learn how to, you know, have a good relationship to my plate and even better relationship to my body. How important in this equation is your daily probiotic? Is that something that's, it's very important. It is very, it is very important, but you know, Whitney eats well.

So one thing is usually probiotics are not the things that are going to go into your gut and stay around. The bacteria that's in your gut now and from when you were born is usually the stuff that sticks around. And so you need to, one, crowd out the bad bacteria. And the only way you do that is by starving it. And you starve it by not eating so much of the sugary foods or the processed foods or whatever. And then you can help crowd it out by getting good bacteria. But that good bacteria only sticks around if you're feeding it the right things, which is getting enough plants every single day. So it's just part of the equation. It's part of the equation. It's not the answer and it has to be matched with a healthy diet. So if they're out there, they're listening, which probiotic should they get?

Is there one that you guys give your stamp of approval on? We actually offer one on our website that is a probiotic, prebiotic, and digestive enzyme in one. I like to take a prebiotic too to help feed that good bacteria in your gut. And then the digestive enzyme helps to digest any leftover food in your digestive system that could be creating bloat. And then ours actually has an enzyme in it that helps with candida. So candida, it really sticks into your intestinal walls. And this enzyme helps break down that, what's binding it into your wall so that it can be eliminated out of your system.

We'll leave that link in the show notes because I want that. It's just one pill that has all three things in it. Yeah. And you take two to four a day depending. And that's an amazing like every day, you know, like we take it every single day. Yeah, it's maintenance. There are other ones that are really powerful that you can get from your pharmacy that, you know, we call it like a probiotic bomb. Like if you really need to fundamentally change the bacteria in your gut, that it's great to do a couple weeks of those too.

I want to go back to the beginning when you guys decided that this is what you were going to do. I want to hear the process of how you guys worked this huge idea out. Did it start as something that you knew would turn into what it is now? Well, it started because Whitney and I both had that aha moment about three weeks after eating this way. And that was a year after my schooling. Um, we came together and we're like, okay, you know, you're learning all this stuff. I'm learning all this stuff. Let's, let's put it into a meal plan for each other because we're not getting any better. Um, and so we, they're now calling it our pillars of nutrition and it's all the things we're talking about, you know, mostly plants, getting enough greens, organic produce.

Um, and we ate that way for about three weeks. And we spent all of our time either in the grocery store or in the kitchen. So it was a lot of work. But we had a transformation in three weeks. And that was that moment that Whitney said, I don't have a skin issue, I have a gut issue. And I realized that food had to be about nourishment in order to really help me create my best body.

Um, and at the same time we had friends around us asking like, what are you guys doing? You look different, you seem different. And we had one friend in particular, it was like, whatever you're doing, I want it. Can you just deliver it to me? And so we thought, uh, okay, I'll just try delivering it. Um, and then one friend turned two. And very early on, we realized that we had a huge transformation and we felt like we had found the answer and it was too big to keep to ourselves. And so we had no idea. We were young. We were broke. We didn't really have any business experience. We had no idea how to go from that thought of this food is the answer to how do you get it in the hands of people all across the country. But we did have this really strong conviction that we were onto something and that we felt really tied to this mission of people want to feel better. And we met a ton of people that wanted to feel better. All our friends wanted to feel better, but nobody really knew how. People were, you know, trying Atkins. They were on the

juice cleanses. They were on all these things just like I was. Or even ordering Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem. Yeah. People that I worked with on Wall Street who had plenty of money were very well-educated people and they were eating boxed frozen foods in order to lose weight because you know they had certain issues and they needed to lose weight in order to feel better and they didn't have any other solution and this was crazy to me that people were going to eat fake foods in order to get that result because there was no other option what's crazy to me and i'm working on getting better i know yesterday is not a good example. It's actually a terrible example, but working on getting better is you have all these high performers that are, you know, like you said, successful, smart people, all the resources in the world. And when it comes to their diet or their

fitness, they're completely out of whack. But then if you ask, you know, in the professional life, they're killing it. It's like what I'm learning. And the reason that it's super interesting to me now is if you fix the nutrition and you fix the fitness and the diet, then you're going to be better at everything else. Absolutely. And then you think if I don't fix it, then all the stuff I'm doing is going to be worthless anyway, because it might not be around too long. Yeah. And the body's amazing. You know, it adapts to circumstances quite quickly and quite well. And so if you're not eating well, like it's going to do its best to get you by and get you through. And I always say one of my aha moments building this company was I didn't realize how many of us

were walking around being okay with just feeling okay, you know, and that people didn't know that they're, that you could feel better. I mean, I certainly didn't when I was hopping from diet to diet. I thought I always was just kind of supposed to feel tired and like crap and bloated and all of these things. And part of our mission is just to help people understand that you deserve to feel like your best self. And we can get you 90% of the way there just by changing your diet yeah but what I was seeing on Wall Street was that people were very well educated or they even knew what they were supposed to be eating but making the decisions or getting access to it was difficult and so

you know when we first started Sakara we we thought about should we just create a blog should we write a cookbook? But we had read all the blogs and we owned all the cookbooks and it didn't solve our problem until we had the food ready to go right in front of us and where all we had to do was open it up and eat it. And so we decided that that was going to be our service to the world was to make this food for other people so that it was easy enough. All they had to do was open it up and eat it. So let's, let's talk about the business a little bit in first steps. There's a lot of young people out there that are, were probably in the same position that you were in back then. Obviously massively successful now. What were some of the first steps that you guys took in

the beginning when you had those little resources? There's a lot of people think they can't do it because maybe they don't, they don't have the resources. I know a lot of us didn't have resources when we started. So what would you tell those people? A few things. I always say, you know, people come to us and they're like, I want to start a business and here's what I'm passionate about. And one, first I always say like working for an incredible brand is just as rewarding and being an entrepreneur where you get to have autonomy and you get to help grow a brand you believe in. That's the best word. Yeah. Entrepreneur. Yeah.

And it doesn't, you know, being an entrepreneur is like the new celebrity. And I'm like, I don't think it should be because then people think that it's, it's idolized in this way. Like it's easy. And,

you know, Whitney and I have given, you know, eight years of our life, like blood, sweat and tears. It's been the hardest thing we've ever done. Obviously, incredibly rewarding. The other thing I say to people is, you know, you can find your passion, but I don't know if your passion really like keeps you going in the darkest days. Your passion is usually something you really enjoy doing. It's something you feel connected to.

But early on, Whitney and I felt like we were on this mission and the mission is really different because it's bigger than you. So early on, it was like we're on this mission. So whether or not we're successful or not, it's like it's not about us. It's not about our success. It's not about, you know, doing all these things that, you know, you think you typically need to do when you build a business. It's we just have to keep going no matter what, even when it was so incredibly hard. Because delivering, I will tell you, delivering fresh organic food to people all across the country in 48 continental states, not frozen, not processed, is probably one of the most difficult businesses in the world. And so there have been really, really tough days, weeks, months. And what keeps us going is we're on this mission

to help people understand the power of food as medicine. And you get, you receive that back, you know, you receive that back in the form of testimonials of how, you know, you've helped a new mom going through cancer, or you've just helped a new mom feel like herself again The spectrum is quite large. And so that's what keeps you going You need something deeper and bigger than yourself and your own passion to keep you going you have a why? Yeah, no, I think one of the my favorite things you said in there out I like a lot of which that there's extremely smart on this show. We try to not always preach entrepreneurship i actually very careful there's a lot of great people that work for us and that are killing it and i think that's important to acknowledge as well i think putting putting it out there that everyone has to have their own

business and being entrepreneurs is a very dangerous formula and i get really off put and we've got a lot of requests for the show that we've denied of like the life coaches and the people that are selling these courses for everyone to be their own boss there's no not everybody wants to do that i mean i would say 95 of what i do is putting out fires and dealing with shit all day right like absolutely some problems all day long and there's nothing wrong with that i think that that's the position i like to be in and i'm equipped to to handle it emotionally but not a lot of people want to do that like a lot of people want to show up and do a kick ass job and then go back and do something else. And I think it's important for people to understand that that's not just okay. That's great. Like you don't want to put yourself in a position where you're unhappy. I'm happy as

dealing with that shit. And I think Lauren is too, but not everybody is. I think a lot of people say they want to be their own boss because they want to get away from their boss. And they think that if they start their own business, that they're not going to have to deal with people and these issues. It gets worse. It gets worse. You're in charge of managing all the relationships then. Not just one directly with your boss, but all of the relationships in the company with your employees, with your investors, with your vendors. And you have to deal with lots of different types of personalities.

And it doesn't turn off is the other piece. Listen, the number two at Facebook's doing just fine. Yeah. And I think that there's a lot of value in being on a really great team. It doesn't matter what your role is in the company. If you are enjoying the people that you're around and you're on this mission and you enjoy the work that you're doing every day, that's really rewarding. And I also think people have this idea that like, oh, I just want to be happy in my job. So I'm going to work for myself. And that's certainly not the formula. Like working for yourself is harder. It gets harder. And, you know, those things that you had or have at your job right now that are issues for you, they will follow you. So

it's not like just because you don't have a boss that those issues you had in the workplace don't follow you. You know, Whitney and I talk about leaning into what's uncomfortable, leaning into what's really hard, which usually means, you know, that it's personal. Like it's, I think that work and personal life are meshing in this crazy way. And especially with this new wave of wellness and spirituality and people wanting to better themselves, it's like in the workplace, you know, if you're having an issue with Jane, it's like, what are you doing? And as a boss, you know, we have 100 employees now. And I will say that managing people is absolutely the hardest thing

that I think we've ever done. I was just going to ask you what your hurdles are. Can you kind of expand on that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, we have an incredible, incredible team and we would absolutely not be here without them and we care about them. And so they all come with their own hopes and dreams, how they like to be communicated with, how they like to be spoken to, how often they need to be told they're doing a great job

or do they want really, you know, straight feedback or some people needed a little sugarcoated. And, you know, not everyone, not everyone runs a business like that. You know, you can be more militant where there's just kind of this sweep of how you manage, but you know, we're, there's 30 women in our office. Um, and you know, how do you run a business that is coming from a more feminine place, not necessarily just from women, but from a more feminine place where, you know, I think about business being typically masculine because it's been built by men for the past many years. And it tends to be more 90 degree angles and the feminine approach tends to be more circular. And so how do you manage in a way where you still have incredible productivity, you have incredible relationships with your team,

but there's a little bit more give and take. It's a little more fluid. And so you do worry about people and think about people as individuals instead of having this one way of managing across a hundred people. I think it's important when you're running a business and managing people to just set up a, like, I look at my job as setting up a framework for these people to be as successful as they can possibly be within that organization to build the organization, but you give them the reins to build them, to build their departments or build their team or whatever it is to have as much success as they can have to help the overall brand. Because as the, as the head of something that, that obviously benefits you in the business, but to, to be able to give people that freedom to really scale themselves and their creativity and their productivity and not do it in a way where you're like limiting

them and putting them in this box. I think that that's where I see a lot of, you know, you're talking about like how men built things. Yeah. People start business thing. Oh, that's how it used to be done. And you got to show up at this certain time and you got to do it this way. For me, I know a lot of the people I bring on are much better at whatever they're doing than I am. Right. That's why I want them to be on the team because they can do that element hopefully better than me. And so then the only job is how do I help them thrive? How do I, how do I create an environment that makes them feel inspired and successful and, and, and driven? I think that's good management, not this thing where it's like putting them in

a box and saying, this is how it's done. It's my way. Like as an, as an entrepreneur, you're, you might have an idea of the direction where you need to go, but your way may not be the right way. Absolutely. And, you know, there's no school for that. There's no school for going from, you know, Whitney and I started with $700, you know, with three people, we ended up hiring our first time employee a year in. With three of us, we built it to a multimillion dollar company with $700. But then from that point to now, three people to a hundred people, there's no school, there's no lesson on how to go from being an entrepreneur at that stage to an entrepreneur at this stage. And I think one of the biggest lessons has been, you can't keep things too

tight. You can't say, oh, well, this is, you know, this is my baby and this is what it has to be. You hire the experts and you hire people that are smarter and better than you are in certain areas. And exactly what you're saying, you give them the tools they need to have autonomy and to really run with it. As an entrepreneur, I want to know how you guys balance your personal life with this, because I have a real big problem and I would love your tips and tricks. It's hard. It's nice to have each other. It's nice.

You guys have each other. Sometimes, sometimes he's a little annoying. We go back and forth. I'm like, when do you, when you turn it off? Well,

I will give you guys props because I don't think I could ever start a business with my husband. Yeah. At midnight when he's asking me questions about finances. I mean, it's like, no, it doesn't stop. It doesn't stop.

It doesn't stop. Danielle and I, we would go out for drinks with friends and we'd be, you know, it'd be midnight and we're talking to each other and we're talking about business. And our friends would be like, you guys are with each other all day long. How do you still have something to say to each other? You're just talking nonstop. Because the work never stops. Yeah. And we're passionate about it. We really are. And we

care and it goes back to that mission where we feel like we have something that we have to put out into the world. This is our purpose. We have to build this. We have to tell people about it, about this knowledge and understanding that eating this way can change your life. And, and so I think that really drives me. um so when I think about balance it's um it's always a moving thing and it's finding your edges and knowing where your burnout point is and making sure that if you're on your way to that burnout point that you have your tools for getting back to that place of balance so that you swing the pendulum in the other direction. And for me, you know, food is my best tool where if I am not eating the right foods, I swing out of balance. I get low energy. I get, you know, I'll start to get a breakout.

I'll start to get sick. And so having really good, healthy food, eating my Saqqara meals helps keep my body in balance so that I can be better in work and in life. Yeah, for me, I mean, it's been interesting even being pregnant for the first time and trying to find balance. And I think it's hit me that like as an entrepreneur and especially in your case and in our case where it's like you're also the face and the soul of what of what we're doing. It's like if I'm not feeling good, then I'm not being authentic and I'm not on my mission. And I it's harder to get through the day. And so it's hard to it's been hard. And I'm just learning this lesson six years later that part of my work is actually taking care of myself. And I think that's true for everyone. But especially when you're front facing, especially when, you know, you have to go out and speak to people about how to have balance and how to eat really well, making sure like I'm coming from this authentic place that I've done

the work myself. And so I think it's, you know, everything is, I think about things in terms of priorities and there are a lot of things I have to get done every single day that are really important. And then some of the things I think, you know, is it better if I just take this hour to go do a Pilates class? Is it better if I just step outside and take a walk? And it's forming new habits, especially for me, where, you know, we're in an office and we have food in the fridge all day. So, like, we never have to leave. We never really have to do anything. Everything's there for us to really think about what are the things that make me feel really good and how do I make sure they're part of my time every single day.

Yeah, scheduling it into your calendar in advance is something that I do. How do you guys really practice self-care? Do you meditate? Give us some little tips and tricks that they can do at home. Yeah, I like to go to classes. I find that if I go to somewhere and I put it into my calendar first, then it locks me in. I'm accountable. I actually show up. I make the time I go to somewhere and I put it into my calendar first, then it locks me in. I'm accountable.

I actually show up. I make the time I do it. And you don't have to think. I feel like all day long as an entrepreneur, you're thinking. And then at a class, they can just tell you what to do. They take the wheel. Yeah, exactly. So I like to go to different types of classes.

I love yoga. I love Sivananda yoga. I don't know if you guys have heard of it. I've never heard of Sivananda yoga. I don't know if you guys have heard of it. I've never heard of Sivananda yoga. It's a little bit far out there. It's more religious type of yoga, but it starts with pranayama breath work and with chanting. Okay. And it really gets you into the zone first before you do yoga.

And for me, it just, it totally clears my mind. I'm able to get into my body more. And by the end, I am just on a completely different wavelength. My body's vibrating at a different level. I want to try that. Yeah. They have one out here. They do?

Yeah. I want to try that. They have different ashrams all around the world. I would love to try that. What's next for you guys? What's next for you guys? What's next? Well, so we've, we've created our nutrition program and then we give different types of products along with the nutrition program. I know you've tried our beauty water before and we have our detox water. Um, we just launched these brand new plant-based protein bars,

which are amazing. We were trying all the different bars out there because we travel a lot. And so when you're running to the airport or wherever else, you need something that you can just toss in your bag. But we were really disappointed with the options out there with the ingredients, um, with the taste. And so we created these bars to not just be something that we can snack on on the run, but to actually be functional too. So we have a detox bar that has blue spirulina in it. It's bright blue. Sometimes

it scares people because it's bright blue, but it's really good for you. And it helps with detoxing the body, which is great for on an airplane, that radiation and air quality, you need that detox process and then an energy bar i feel like you'd love our energy bar michael yeah hook it up yeah it has um nootropic vitamins in it so b vitamins l-theanine um it's great for that afternoon slumber before you go to work out so like ditch the hot dog and get the bar listen i have one fuck up okay i'm back on the water it's okay you can just eat a detox bar it'll help clean that up i love your watermelon jerky more than life i i make it for michael for dinner i told you guys this earlier i put it on a plate

squeeze a little lime add a little cayenne and it's like a home-cooked meal now just add greens yeah add greens right yeah i want to know about all the little snacks that you guys have because you have zucchini chips, which I have. What else do you have that people can snack on? Yeah. And I think that this is, you know, we want to be able to give people little tools throughout their day so that they can still live their daily life and be healthy. Well, little tools throughout the day. But, you know, if I think about where we're going, it's, you know, we have our nutrition program, um, and it's powerful and we deliver to all 48 States. And, you know, at this point we've delivered millions of meals and it's just that not everyone either wants to do a meal delivery, um, or they can't afford it. And so

what does it, how do we help those people? How do we help those people, you know, feel the transformative effects of food as medicine? So you have to meet people where they are. So that's really where the snacks and the bars and the supplements come in is, you know, just going from a crappy bar to a bar that's not full of crap is actually a really big change. And I think, you know, I'm definitely somebody, you know, because I have that dieter in me, I'm like, okay, what is it? I'm going to do it all. Um, and I want to do it perfectly. I want to eat perfectly, but not everyone is like that. And, you know, I want to make sure people understand that making little changes actually really, really matter. Um, because back to our

earlier point of, if you can just get healthy foods into your diet also, that changes fundamentally how your body digests and assimilates nutrients. What's one meal that you guys would recommend everyone has to try that you serve? Well, our red beet burger Is a fan favorite. One of my favorites is called the mermaid salad and it has like all this seaweed and nori, a bunch of greens, but then it has this insane truffle dressing that is just to die for. We're getting you a beet burger. Screw Shake Shack. Beet burgers and truffle oil.

Where can everybody find you guys? You just go to our website, sakara.com, S-A-a-r-a.com and what are your instagrams i'm at whitney tingle and i'm at danielle dubois and we're both at sakara life you guys are amazing thank you so much for coming on thank you that was really fun you guys are great thanks guys wait before you take off do you want to get a short email from me? Tipsy Thursday is a quick email with lots of value that includes five tips from me. My favorite song of the week, show, book, wellness tip, random tricks, and of course, lots of easy beauty hacks. It's super short, straight to the point, kind of like a TSC aperitif for you, a little Aperol spritz.

To check it out, go to theskinnyconfidential.com and click Lauren Everett's and then subscribe. Drop in your email and we'll get you the next one. Secondly, giveaway time. To win a TSC pop socket, simply tell me your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram and I will DM a couple of you to win a TSC pink pop socket. And lastly, as always, if you rate and review the podcast, please, please, please screenshot it, email it to asklaurenattheskinnyconfidential.com, and we will send you my five top beauty hacks straight to your inbox. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next Tuesday. This episode was brought to you by match.com. Okay. So like I said, there's tons of TSC readers who want more than a one night stand or just a

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