The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Melissa Urban Gets Candid On Whole 30, Diet Culture, Sexual Assault, & Addiction Recovery

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

#440: Melissa Urban is the co-founder and CEO of the Whole30 program, and a six-time New York Times bestselling author. On today's episode Melissa joins the show to share her journey with Whole 30 and her struggles with addiction recovrery and a traumatic sexual assualt. We also discuss diet culture and healthy habits that can set us up for long term success. 

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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! We have been told for a really long time by the media and society and the patriarchy and diet culture that women especially should be small.

And our worth is tied to our body size and shape and that number on the scale. And that the only reason we should change the food that we put on our plate is to make ourselves smaller and that the smaller that number is the better. And it's been incredibly damaging. Hello, Melissa Urban is on the podcast today. She is the co-founder and CEO of the Whole30 program. This episode goes all over the place. We talk about addiction, recovery, sexual assault, diet, wellness, health, food, all the things. This is like a medley of an episode. But before I get into this episode with Melissa,

I have an assignment. An assignment for you guys. Okay. So I did this post on Instagram. It's on my feed. And basically, it's this bar. It's Oz's birthday party. And it says, Mommy's Boozy Pineapple Bar. And the bar is super cute. It's by Archive Rentals, which I have to shout out because it's a small business. If you need rentals for a party, Archive Rentals is where it's at. They have all different kinds of things, just like a side note tangent. They also did like all of Zaza's pink couches at her party, her candy bar, all the different things. Anyways, there's this white bar that they did. They did it custom. It's super cute. You can get like whatever writing you want on it. Big bar area. We had Alce, my dad's restaurant in San Diego, cater and bartend the event. That's just a side note. But on this post,

I said to you guys, hypothetically, if we were to design skinny confidential merch, what's the ideal tagline? What is your ideal tagline? So this is the assignment. I want to know what you guys would want on Skinny Confidential Merch. I've never done merch. And I think it would be fun if it was the right fit, style, feel. It needs to feel like butter. And it had the right tagline. I've only wanted to launch merch if it's community-driven and you're involved. So I'm asking you. A bunch of you guys told me some slogans on this post, but I want to just ask the podcast audience too, if you guys have any ideas for something cute and simple, let me know on my latest post at Lauren Bostic or DM me or go stalk that post that I did with Archive Rentals where it says Mommy's Boozy Pineapple Bar

and let me know there. Lots of options. Anyway, that's the assignment. We got to get some skinny confidential merch out there. We got to get it out into the wild. On that note, let's meet Melissa Urban. I think you're going to love this episode. I was captivated the entire time, like on the edge of my seat. She is the co-founder and CEO of the Whole30 program and a six-time New York Times bestselling author. She's been featured on Dr. Oz, Good Morning America, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, People, and Forbes. In this episode, she's super vulnerable. So definitely go give her some love on Instagram. And at the end, we will do a giveaway for her book. With that, Melissa Urban, welcome to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her.

I have also had that experience. You know what? In fact, let's kick it off with that. Hi, Melissa. What's your tampon story? How do I always partake in these tampon story conversations? I feel like you secretly like them. Like you like when I tell a story about a tampon.

This will be the third or fourth of these that I've heard. I feel like that's more, I hold the record for men hearing these stories probably. I think it's good for men to hear these stories. We need to normalize the idea that like we have periods, people have periods and sometimes they're not that fun. Michael goes yesterday because our dog has its period. And he goes, oh my gosh, her vagina looks like a penis.

That's not what I said. I said, well, I just was like- What did you say? Oh my God, I'm going to get crucified. I was like, why is it all bigger, right? I was like, what's happening? And she's a very tiny little chihuahua. We just got her.

She hasn't gone through her process yet. So I was just, and we have another dog and he was a rescue and he happens to be neutered. Was that neutered, fixed? No. And he was like trying to mount. And I was just- He was trying to, welcome to the podcast.

Yes, thank you. I was just like, what's happening here? Can you open this for me? Okay, perfect. Melissa, you have such an incredible story, but first talk to us about where you grew up, what your childhood was like. Yeah. I grew up in Nashua, New Hampshire. I had two parents. It was a very kind of traditional household where my dad worked and my mom stayed home with my sister and I. She's two and a half years younger. I was like a really good kid.

I was very much a nerd. I loved books more than people. I probably still do. I, you know, got really good grades in school. I didn't get into any trouble. I had just kind of a few close friends in the neighborhood. My parents always had to like encourage me to make more friends because I would rather just stay home and read.

It was like a very kind of, I had this huge Catholic Portuguese family that was on my mom's side. So I grew up with tons of aunts and uncles and cousins around. My uncles taught me to play poker when I was little. We always had these huge holiday gatherings with like dozens of people. So it was a very rich childhood. And in the moment, like I felt for sure, very cared for and supported. My parents were strict, but fair. I look back now on some of the rules that they had and I was like, yeah, you guys did good. So yeah, it was. What's a rule that's strict, but fair so I can get inspiration.

Oh, okay. So like we, so my parents did the best they could with the information they had when it came to like diet and nutrition, right? We ate dinner together every single night as a family. My mom always cooked meals, but like I could have Pepsi, but I could only have like half a glass or I could, I remember this was the biggest rule is that we could have a Klondike bar because they were in the fridge and those were like my favorite treats, but you could only have a half. We would buy frosted flakes, but I could only eat them as dessert. I couldn't have them for breakfast. So like breakfast had to be like Cheerios or rice checks or like a healthier cereal. So we always

had limits. We always had a vegetable with dinner. Again, my parents did the best they could with what we knew back then. We're trying to have dinner every single night together as a family. Do you have any tips on that just the way we're on this subject? Yeah, I do that with my son quite a bit, but we'd have non-traditional meals. So if it's just he and I, I'll often stand at the counter and he'll be sitting and we'll like play a board game or a card game while we eat dinner. So for him, that's a way to stay engaged.

We have a really good time, but we're not just like forcing each other to sit looking across the dining room table. So I think that's fine. And then some nights we like sit on the couch and eat dinner while we watch a movie together because I think that's fun too. So it's more about just like being together.

Yeah, I think that it is. And then also I like the idea for kids at least of kind of scheduled mealtimes. It just makes it a little bit more predictable and routine. So what's the time that you guys eat dinner? Just so I know. Usually about 6.30 because my son goes to bed early. He's eight, but he goes to bed by like eight every single night. I love him. We are rigid about bedtime. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. But we in bed by 730. I very often go to bed toddler early myself. Like I'll put him down and then say to my husband, like, okay, I'm going to pack it in now. It's glorious. I want to talk about the first time that you

tried drugs and alcohol. If you knew immediately that it was something that you liked or if it was like a slow progression. Yeah. So alcohol, not so much. Basically I didn't drink or do any of that in high school. I like, again, was not a problem child at all. I didn't drink or do any of that in high school. I like, again, was not a problem child at all. I didn't really rebel or act out. But I was sexually assaulted at 16 by a family member. And it was like a record scratch, right? Night or day in terms of my behavior.

I began acting out. I began getting in trouble at school. I began getting in trouble at home. I withdrew from everybody. It was, and that was the point where I really started looking for something home. I withdrew from everybody. And that was the point where I really started looking for something to take me outside of that experience. I didn't want to talk about it. My family didn't handle it well. It was just kind of a big nightmare of a situation. So I tried drinking. That was the easiest thing I had access to in high school. And it didn't stick.

I didn't like it. It didn't work. I don't know what it was about it, but that wasn't going to be it. I tried restricting my eating. That did not stick at all. That just wasn't going't like it. Like it didn't work. I don't know what it was about it, but that wasn't going to be it. I tried restricting my eating that did not stick at all. Like that just wasn't going to do it. And it wasn't until I smoked pot for the first time as a senior in high school that I was like, oh, that's it. That was it. There was no slow creep. There was no kind of tipping, dipping the toes in. That was the thing that I knew was going to take me away from what I didn't want to have to deal with. And I dove in as hard and fast as I could. And when you were sexually assaulted, did you immediately tell someone or was it something that you kept inside for a really long time? I didn't tell anyone for a year. It was a family member. It was someone I was really close to. It

was someone I trusted. My parents left me in their care when they had gone away. We had this really close family. So I didn't tell anyone for a year when I finally did, because it was, I was so like, obviously something was not right. My family just didn't handle it well. Again, I try to give grace and just say they did the best they could, but like, they didn't want to tell anybody either. And the idea was just that we were going to keep it quiet and not disturb the peace. And is that, they didn't want to, I mean, obviously like the optics from perceiving outside judgment, but was it also like an element of trying to protect both you and that family member? Or was it like, how did that manifest within the family? It's so hard. It's so hard for me to

look back on it now. And again, I try really hard to have like compassion and grace, but the underlying current was this would destroy the family and we can't let that happen. And so I felt very much like I was sort of abandoned. You have to carry the burden for everybody. Yeah, I did. You know, I spent the next two years going to Christmas dinner and Easter dinner and family events with this person and like just trying to pretend like everything was okay. But every, and people knew? A few people knew, but very few people knew. And those people that knew also just really wanted it to be okay. So I would just put on a face and be like, nope, it's good. I'm over it now.

It's fine. And everybody wanted to believe that so much that nobody ever pressed me. My parents put me in therapy, but I wasn't in a place where I could really talk about it. And my family dynamic wasn't set up to be supportive. So therapy wasn't particularly helpful. So I just felt like I ate it until I went away to college. And, you know. What would you advise a parent who is dealing with your situation now? Is there something that you would tell a parent like is important to immediately nip it in the bud and confront the person? What do you think after going through that is the best way to handle that?

It's so hard because I remember saying to my parents, I don't want you to tell anyone. Except that now as a parent with a son who's eight, I recognize that like, I know you don't want to because of all of the things that you feel, but like we have to stand up for you and protect you and do what's right. And that means involving other people, involving the authorities, getting you the counseling you need, letting you know that like, it's not your fault and you didn't do anything wrong and you don't have to be ashamed. And here's how we're going to support you in it. And so those are all the things that didn't happen to me. And I, again, I understand it's a difficult and really challenging situation, but yeah, I would do it very differently, I think.

Well, unfortunately, I feel like this is more common than people realize, right? Yeah. And I think you just highlighted a lot of the reasons why we don't hear about it more, right? There's so many dynamics that you got to kind of navigate through and you're put in a very, very difficult position where all of a sudden, especially if it's within family, it's like, you don't want to ruin the family dynamic. You're like, also, you don't want to bring undue attention to a child who's already been through something tough. I've heard from friends too, there's a part, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a part of the person who has been sexually assaulted that almost feels

guilty for the person who assaulted them. Oh, yeah. Oh, I had so much responsibility and so much shame around it. And yes. And then you're told either kind of inadvertently or directly by grownups who don't know how to handle the situation. Like, what did you do? What did you do? Right? Like, like, almost like you invited it. Yeah, I was 16. Right? He was 10 years older than I was. But there's a reason that most sexual assaults go unreported. And there's a reason that the process of reporting and going through it is like, so it's like re traumatizing for the victim. So again, you know, I really didn't want to have to talk about it with anybody. But at 16, I didn't know how to best advocate for myself.

And so... As a parent of a daughter, what is the advice? Are you just really careful with your son? What are some things, tools that you reach for having gone through this? I know. It's so challenging because you want to prepare your child. But my kid is eight and I don't want to so challenging because you want to prepare your child. But like my kid is eight and I don't want to terrify him or make him afraid of everybody and everything.

We have conversations about like your body parts that are like just for you and private and what to do if someone makes you uncomfortable. We have a lot of conversations about boundaries. My kid and I have been talking about boundaries since he was two years old. I've been setting boundaries with him and he's felt comfortable setting boundaries with me. And that's huge. Nobody gets to touch you without your consent. Not even mom. Do you want to hug? No. Cool. We're not going to hug right now. Grandma wants to hug you. Do you want to hug grandma? No. Okay. How about a fist bump grandma? So those are the kinds of conversations I think that can be helpful. Really good advice. That's really good advice.

Oh yeah. I mean, it's definitely pissed grandma off once or twice, but like my kid is entitled to autonomy at that age, even at the age of three or four. I think that's so smart. We had Alexis Haynes come on and she was sexually assaulted when she was young too. And she gave such a good tip. It's worth repeating. She said, as young as you can with your children, call the body parts by the real name. So instead of saying like, that's your woo woo and that's your hoo hoo and your ha ha, like just say, this is your vagina, this is your boobs,

this is the penis, like this is whatever and just be very clear on what the name is so there's no murky waters. Yeah. I think that's really good advice too. Or no confusion on like

if somebody is making an inappropriate advance, whatever it is, like you can actually describe what they're trying to do or what they were, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. And just the idea of like, if you're uncomfortable with something, just say so. It's okay to say that you're uncomfortable with something or that you don't like something or that you want me to stop. When we, or when he was younger and we would play games, he would like to be tickled. And he couldn't say no, no, no. Because when he said no, he often meant okay. And I was like, okay, but we need a word that you, where you tell me I don't want anymore.

And we came up with our little word. And he would say, no, stop, stop. And then he would use the word and it would be like done. So we're, again, just trying to teach the idea that like your body is your own. You have the right to say no. And as he gets older, I think we'll probably add to that. Everything from like, don't go look at the stranger's puppy in the car. But like, hand to God, if someone approached my kid and said like,

hey, I've got like a new Minecraft world on my iPad in my car, he'd probably go. So it's a little terrifying as much as you try to caution them and warn them like not to that, you know, they're maybe vulnerable like that. I think the boundaries conversation though, that's such a smart tip. I'm going to start doing that even though she's two. Yeah. I think that's such a good tip. It's a really good way of practicing.

And I've written about this before, but it's like, just tell your kid, hey, when you say goodbye, you have to be polite. So you have to say goodbye, but you don't have to, you can hug, you can kiss, you can fist bump, you can high five, you can elbow bump, or you can just wave. Which would you prefer?

And that's like a great way to get kids introduced to the subject of boundaries. I love it. Yeah. I am extremely, extremely, if you don't hear it in my voice, excited for the return of one of our first partners of the Skinny Confidential, Liquid IV. We love this stuff. I think we've been taking it since 2016, 17. It's been a long run. We've had it in every place that we've been. It's incorporated into our fitness routine, to our morning routines, everywhere. And that's because this stuff never fails to deliver. So if you've been living under a bridge and you don't know what liquid IV is, let me educate you.

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That's 25% off anything you order when you use promo code SKINNY at liquidiv.com. Experience better hydration today at liquidiv.com, promo code SKINNY. So after all of this happened I'm sure this helped manifest with the drugs and alcohol like I'm sure this this event in your life yeah contributed is that correct I mean I don't know that I ever would have gotten as deep into I don't think I would have gotten into drugs had it not happened I was I was looking for a way to escape I did not want to be in my own body. And alcohol was never really part of the journey, but drugs certainly were. And I spent the next like five years essentially trying everything I could. I did every drug I could get my hands on. I only dated drug dealers for a couple of years. I dropped out of college. I bounced between

households. Like basically every story you could imagine is where I went with it. I don't want to say functioning because that's not the right word, but what did your family think? Were you a typical drug addict that you're like, whoa, they got a real problem or be able to hide it and function and be professional? How did it look for you? I think it's super important to recognize and to like de-stigmify the idea of like what an addict is, right? So it's not just the, you know, person who's super strong out in like the house. It was me who was, I held down a job. I had friends. I had a boyfriend who didn't know the extent of my using. I still saw my family. I was highly functional and completely addicted and the

wheels fell off my bus at some point. But yeah, I think addiction can look a number of different ways. And for me, for a while, I managed to keep it together to the point where I could tell myself I didn't really have a problem. Yeah, I would almost argue. And the reason I asked this, because I kind of had that feeling from you is, I think that this is actually one of the more dangerous types of addicts. Because people from the outside look and say like, oh, they have all their shit together. You don't have to worry about them. You have to help them. You don't have to intervene. You're just like, they're good, right? Our life has been touched by addiction in different ways. And I think it's always those

cases where it's easy for the family or friends to step back and be like, I don't need to even worry about this or do anything because everything on the surface looks put together. Well, and my family had literally zero experience with addiction, right? Nobody drank too much. Nobody used drugs. My mom had never even smoked a cigarette. My parents didn't drink to excess. I think I only saw them drink a beer once in a while. So they didn't even know what to look for. They saw that I was sometimes behaving erratically or sometimes withdrawn, but that was kind of par for the course for me at that point. And there was nobody close enough to me. And then like my friends who knew I would use with them, but they were using too. And they were just using casually. And I would just have

to hide like the rest of it under the surface where they couldn't see. So for a really long time, I fooled an awful lot of people into thinking I was doing okay. And my parents were divorced at this point. And when I was living with my dad and he and his wife started to suspect that something was like really wrong with me, I just moved in with my mom. And when my mom started to suspect, I just got my own place. So I like bounced around and managed to kind of evade any direct questioning for a really long time. When did your parents realize something was wrong with you where this is like we need to intervene? Or was it something that happened to you where you had a rock bottom where you felt like I need to do something about this?

Yeah, I don't, I didn't, I wouldn't say I ever hit a bottom and that's great, right? I didn't like, you know, I never got arrested. I didn't, I didn't overdose. Well, I didn't like super overdose at least. My stepfather at the time, so my mom was remarried and I was living with them for just a few weeks while I found a place back in New Hampshire. And at one point, my stepfather looked at my mom and said, like, your daughter's on drugs. You know that, right? My mom was like, absolutely not. She got so mad at him for even suggesting it. And that was when I knew I had to leave because he was onto me. He had a lot more world experience and understood. It wasn't until my live-in boyfriend at the time basically gave me this ultimatum. He had been really

struggling with my behavior. It had been growing more erratic. I mentioned like the wheels falling off the bus. I was having panic attacks. I was drug seeking with my therapist. What does that mean? I had a therapist and it was so good because I was saying to my boyfriend like, but I'm going back to therapy. Like I'm going to be okay. But then at the therapist, like I know exactly what to say to get exactly what drug I wanted. So I was on Klonopin and Ativan and everything you could, you know, ask for. It was a new therapist. She didn't know. And I could always go in with a sob story that like, oh, I had this trauma and I'm having a really hard time sleeping. Like I was a very good liar. Yeah, very much. And he just said to me, like, if you, if I can't check

you into a rehab facility, like if I can't get you help, I'm going to leave. It's interesting that you picked that kind of boyfriend though, instead of, because you mentioned earlier drug dealer boyfriends. It's interesting that you were attracted to someone who called you out. He was like the good one. I still to this day call him my favorite ex-boyfriend, Nathan. I don't have a favorite ex-boyfriend. That's good that you have a favorite. He is. I feel like he saved my life. He was the one, after all the drug dealers, where like he was just a good, nice, stable guy. He used, but only casually, recreationally.

He had a good job. He had ambition for his job. He was responsible. And I was really drawn to that, thinking maybe he can like help kind of steer me in the right direction. And instead, unfortunately, as it normally works, like I only kind of pulled him down.

And once he realized that it was untenable, he was like, I physically can't watch you do this to yourself. Like you're not helping yourself. You're not doing the work you said you were going to do. I can only do so much for you. So this is kind of what kind of like, I guess, poor behaviors are taking place. Like what is, what is making a boyfriend step in and be like, Hey, I can't deal with this anymore. Yeah. I would be out. I'd go out at night with friends and just knock them home and not call and not text. I remember being in the grocery store with him and he went in another aisle and I couldn't find him. And I had a full-blown yelling, screaming, panic attack, just real erratic behavior. My sister tells the story of me showing up shortly before I went to rehab at her

21st birthday kind of dinner with the family. And I came in clearly already high and was telling a story about how I had like keyed the car next to me in the parking lot because they had parked too closely. Like just really, it was just wild at that point. I don't remember that evening at all, but everyone kind of tells me the story. And he had tried to set boundaries with me in the past. He had, if you're going to stay out, just call. Let me know that you're okay. Or if you're not in a good place, like I'll come get you. Or, you know, I really, I'd love for you to go back to therapy.

He was in therapy at that point too, you know, for his kind of his own mental health. And I just wasn't capable of doing any of that. What did the day that you went to rehab look like? I had just received my paycheck. It was at night. I was sitting on the couch. He was standing behind me by like the desk

where we had our phone. I was facing away from him and he says to me, I need you to go to rehab or I'm going to leave. This is like, I can't do this anymore. And I remember running through my head how much money I had in my bank account and how much heroin I could buy with it. I could buy a lot.

And I remember thinking to myself like, okay, he's going to leave and I'm just going to like, let what happens, happens. And I had a moment of what can only be described as divine intervention. I felt my grandfather's presence in that room. And it was just this, this moment where I was like, I literally just said out loud, like, I'll go. You felt his presence in the room. Like you could feel, that's very like, out of all the people in your life, you feel your grandfather.

My voo-voo, yeah. Why do you think? He died when I was young. I never really got to say goodbye to him. He had cancer. I was too young to kind of see him in his worst state, but we had a very good relationship. We used to play cribbage together all the time. He was just a good, good man who always prayed for me. And I have since felt all of my

grandparents are dead at this point, but they have popped back into my life regularly. I feel their presence regularly. And in that moment, that was just who showed up for me. Maybe it's because he was someone that you felt would protect you from everything that was going on in your family and would have stood up. Because that's an interesting person to feel, like a strong male presence like that, your grandfather. He might have. He was, of course, a very strong presence. He knew me when I was a little girl, when things were just easy and sweet and good. And maybe there was something in that that reminded me that like I was still that person. I felt so unlovable and unworthy and unwanted

and just valueless at that point in my life. I did not care whether I lived or died. And he showed up in my heart at least to remind me that like I was worth saying, yeah, I'll do this for you for me. So then you went to rehab. We went that night. He called. There happened to be a bed available at our local kind of private rehab facility.

And as he's like, OK, I'll bring her in. I'm already like, how about we just go tomorrow? I need one more night. I got to pack my stuff. And he was like, get your shit right now. Like we're leaving. And I threw whatever I could in a bag and we drove and I had to call my mom at like midnight from a rehab facility and be like, Hey, I'm here. Kind of have a problem. I'll talk to you when I can.

So when you get there, what is that experience like? Is it one of those things where you're automatically sober and you're like on the up and up or was it a struggle within rehab? I was, it was a struggle. I had really good insurance at the time. There's like so much privilege in my recovery story that I have to acknowledge. I had, I worked for an insurance company as part of my like functional addiction. I had great insurance that paid for not only detox, but rehabilitation and counseling afterwards. So I had this awesome support system. My family was incredibly supportive. Like, holy shit, we didn't know you were going through this, but like, okay,

whatever you need, we'll be helpful. Rehab was a couple of weeks and it was a blur. And I went through AA and I did all my steps and I went back to therapy and collected my chips and punched the clock. And a year into my recovery, I relapsed. And what did that look like? It looked like me being in a bathroom, looking up from a sink, looking into the mirror, feeling something dripping down the back of my throat and going, what the hell did I just do? It happened like that. So it wasn't something that you,

because I hear so many different stories about this. It's not something that you were thinking about, fixated on for a while. No. It was just like this. I felt fine. I had just collected my like one year chip. And like I said, I was very much punching the clock.

Like, you know, the only thing I had really changed in my life was that I wasn't using. But I showed up at this party and there were some people there that I didn't expect. And I got an invitation and I went in and like, I mean, again, I don't know how it happened. I don't even know what I took. And at that point I was like, fuck it. And I was just off and running again. And I only used for another few weeks before I self-arrested and was like, you had a

year and this feels awful. And like, you will die. You will die this time. Something really bad is going to happen. And I called my rehab therapist and I was like, can I check myself back in? And they were like, yep. And when you start using, is it like when you start, you just keep going, going, going, or is it like you're picking days periodically or how does it look for you? It's 24 seven. And I picked up right where I left off. That's the thing about relapses is that there's no like slow roll back into it. And it felt awful. Oh, it felt awful. I thought that maybe it would be like good or exciting. I had, I told myself this story that like I could handle it this time and it would

be different and it was awful and I hated myself for it. And I just got really lucky that I had the presence of mind at that point to be like, okay, we're going to stop. At this point, like most people have been touched by addiction in some form, whether it's a family member or a friend or whatever. I think that's a very scary thing and worth mentioning when people relapse, they go back to either like the same substance or the same amounts that they were doing at the end of their, you know, first recovery. Right. And then all of a sudden, like your body can't handle it anymore. It's dangerous. Yeah. It's very dangerous. Again, I've been so lucky in my experience. Like I never

got arrested. I had friends who died, but I didn't get hurt. I didn't die. I didn't run someone over with my car. Like there's so much about my experience where I was like, God, I had the luckiest addiction that anyone's ever had. So your second time in rehab, what did that look like? And what did it look like afterwards? Yeah, I went back just outpatient.

I didn't check myself back in, but I went back into kind of three nights a week of a couple hours a night of this outpatient group. And that was when I really got back into therapy. So I had been in therapy while I was in rehab, but like didn't really want to talk about my stuff. And at this point, I was like, okay, I had this therapist. He really seemed to like want to call me on my shit. He was very, he would not let me get away with the stuff that most other therapists let me get away with. And I liked that about him. And so that was the point where I

really just started diving back into like my trauma and unpacking everything that led me to use in the first place. At what point do you start to get into health? Because you're, I mean, I think that you are one of the pillars in the community of the wellness community. Thank you. When do you start to dip your toe into that? It was then. It was after I entered recovery for the second time. I recognized or had this feeling that I was going to have to change absolutely everything about my life if I was going to stay in recovery. Everything.

I changed my friends. I moved. I got a new job. I got rid of clothes. I changed the music. I moved. I got a new job. I got rid of clothes. I listened to the changed the music that I listened to. I, I changed absolutely everything. And part of that was that I decided I was going to start going to the gym and eating healthier. I it's, I now know it's called a growth mindset, right? Where you recognize that with effort and determination, you can change or be anything or do anything you want to do. But at the time, I just thought, I don't see myself as a healthy person with healthy habits.

I'm struggling to see myself as anything but this worthless, unlovable drug addict. But if I want to be a healthy person with healthy habits, then I have to act as if I am. And what would that person do? And I thought, well, that person would start getting up at five in the morning and going to the gym. Nobody goes to the gym in the morning unless you're a healthy person with healthy habits. So that's what I'm going to start to do. So I did. I got this new job. I started waking up in the morning and I'd go to the gym five mornings a week and I showed up five mornings a week. And then I started paying attention to what I ate and I started eating less processed food and started going to bed earlier. And that was really where my health and fitness journey started was,

I need to reinvent myself. Where can I do that? And the answer was really like at the gym. Michael and I recently got our blood tested. We got this blood prick test and the doctor was telling us how important it is to take your probiotics. He said, out of everything, that is number one. And so I was very, very happy that I have Just Thrive.

This is something I take every single morning with hot water with lemon. I think it's a no-brainer, especially if you want to encourage a strong immune system and support the gut. We are learning, and we have been learning over the past two years how important the gut is. We had the founder, Tina Anderson of Just Thrive Probiotics on this podcast. And then we also had a microbiologist and they broke down all of the things that the gut does. The reason that I personally like Just Thrive though is because of the survivability. So what we learned is that most probiotics, when you take them, they don't survive the trip to your gut. And that was wild to me. It was like, oh my gosh,

there's so many people out there who are taking probiotics thinking they're reaping all the benefits and the supplements not even hitting their gut. So with Just Thrive, their main thing is that it survives the trip to the gut, which I love. I also think that it's important to look at what's in your probiotics. So the one that I take by Just Thrive is vegan. It's non-GMO. It's gluten-free. It's dairy-free and free from anything artificial. It's so safe. It's even safe for kids. I give it to Zaza. How I like to give it to her is I'll do a smoothie. So if I'm home, I'll just sprinkle a little bit. I'll open the capsule and sprinkle a little bit into her smoothie. And then I'll have some and she has some and we get our probiotics in. Probiotics, if you're unaware, are everything. The gut is so important when it comes to the

immune system, beautiful skin, better sleep, and they also help with easier weight control. If I had to take one supplement or recommend one supplement, it would be a probiotic. I just think that it's so important to have your best immune system, digestive health, and also emotional health. And a probiotic does that for you. So my advice is if you're taking a probiotic, look into its survivability. If you want to try the one I take and save 15% off, you're going to go to justthrivehealth.com slash skinny and use promo code skinny. That's justthrivehealth.com slash skinny and use promo code skinny. That's just thrivehealth.com slash skinny promo code skinny. Have you met Khalil from Sun Life? No. Oh my God, you have to meet him. Okay.

You guys have similar, not similar addiction stories, but similar recovery stories. He said he would get 1% better every day. I feel like you would really like him. You guys should go to Sun Life. Just this is a side note tangent. I would like you to go to Sun Life because I would like you to tell me what your whole 30 order at Sun Life is so I can copy you. I'll text you after. Okay. So then at what point do you start to almost like eat, live, breathe health and you start to be like, okay, wait, this is something that I don't want to just dip my toe and I want to go full force. So interestingly, I would say the first like six months that I started working out, I probably worked out to an unhealthy amount, right? It's really hard to give

up one addiction without like replacing it or wanting to replace it with something else. And had you been like involved in fitness or workouts before? Like never. I had never gone to the gym. I didn't play sports as a kid, like not really. So no, I had no experience whatsoever. That's the best though, because when you don't do that and then you like discover it for the first time, it's like you can, now that you, now you can't like ever get back to the place. I was really into it. I remember I did like the body for life workouts for a while. Like I didn't really know what to do. A friend of mine, so a friend of mine would come to the gym

and show me how to use the machines. And I did a couple of these different workouts. I never set out to like be a super fit person. For me, my only goal was like show up. Every single morning you got to show up and go to the gym. I didn't care what I did when I got there. It didn't matter how good my workout was. I didn't have like a structured program.

My point was that when I got to the gym in the morning, people would look at me and go, oh, there's another early morning gym goer. Nobody was like, oh, she's an addict or oh, she's new to recovery. Nobody there knew my story. So I could be this healthy person who goes to the gym and runs in the morning, right?

And that was the important like grounding anchor for me. It wasn't until I would say 2006 when I found CrossFit and kettlebells that I was like, this is fun. Like, I really want to get into this. I want to see what my body can do and get stronger and try these different modalities and like push myself. And so that was really where I think the kind of career in fitness came in. But in the beginning, it was like, just show up, meet some people who are healthy, get used to the idea that they see

you as healthy and like use this as your touchstone. So Whole30, how does that idea become a seed and then how do you grow it? Yeah. Whole30 started in 2009. I was heavily into CrossFit at the time. I owned my own CrossFit gym and was into kind of a zone style of eating at the time because that was popular in CrossFitville. That is vintage. Zone is vintage. I remember they had the zone. In high school, I would have the zone chocolate bars at Jimbo's. Yeah. You had to like count your blocks and sometimes you could move like carb blocks to post-workout. It was like very old school.

Oh, that's exhausting. Yeah. Oh, it was. And I hated it. And then paleo was kind of coming on the scene at that time, right? Rob Wolf was doing the CrossFit nutrition search talking about paleo. And I was like, you know,

I kind of eat like that anyway, like mostly whole foods. And so in 2009, after this really difficult Olympic lifting session, my co-founder and I were sitting around. I was eating Thin Mints out of the sleeve at the time because I had just exercised and I was like, I deserve these. I still do that sometimes.

Yeah, they're good. They were at the mall the other day. I almost had a breakdown. Oh, those Girl Scouts are relentless. You didn't get me Girl Scout cookies pregnant. You didn't give me Samolas. Let's keep the conversation going. That is rude.

Anyway, so my co-founder says to me, why don't we do this super squeaky clean kind of paleo-ish experiment, this dietary experiment? Let's see what happens if we cut out that 20% of stuff that we're eating that isn't... I thought I was eating pretty healthy already. And the thing that made me a really good addict makes me really good at challenges like this because I was like, yep, let's do it. And he's like, how about we start right now? And I handed my Thin Mints off to my friend Zach and I was like, yeah, let's go. So the Whole30 really just started as a way for me to dial in my nutrition a little better. And mostly I was interested in like, could this help my performance and recovery in the gym?

I didn't have a weight loss goal or a body comp goal. I thought I already felt great. I already ate really healthy. And is your body like in tip-top shape at this point? No, I was super skinny fat. Okay. I've always been pretty skinny, but I didn't really have a lot of muscle and I wasn't particularly strong.

So people always thought that I was fit, but like I wouldn't say I was, you know, super healthy. I was probably overtrained and like underfed back then. I wasn't purposefully restricting eating, but diet culture makes you want to just eat less all the time. And so I probably wasn't eating enough. So I did this whole 30 and two weeks in, my energy is through the roof. I'm like a freaking energizer bunny. Constant, no more 2 p.m. head-on-desk slump at the office. I'm sleeping like a baby, which was incredible.

My performance in the gym and my recovery both improved. People at the office started asking me, like, what have you been doing? Because I was like so much friendlier and I was in such a better mood. But what my first program really identified for me were all of the like lingering ways that I was using food like I used to use drugs, which wouldn't have occurred to me at the time. If you had asked me at the time, what's your relationship with food? I would have been like, great. I eat healthy food as fuel. But in the absence of some of those comfort foods that I used to eat, I was like, oh man, I use food to reward myself. I use food to punish myself. I use food to self-soothe and relieve anxiety and show myself love and eat it when I'm bored. Like I use food to punish myself. I use food to self-soothe and relieve anxiety and show myself love and eat it when I'm bored. I use food for all of these things and I don't really have another

coping mechanism. And it was such a powerful experience for me. I feel like it permanently transformed my relationship with food. I have not looked at food or my relationship with food or my body or the scale the same way again, just from those 30 days. After the 30 days are over, are you like, oh my gosh, I need to create something around this? No. And Lauren, for me, for the ignorant at the table, myself, what does this 30 days look like? Yes. Like specifically. So he can do it and get in a really good mood and not have Panda Express. I mean, obviously, I think for me, where I struggle probably the most is with diet, right?

Like I just, like my team always makes fun of me. They're like, you got to like eat better, eat more. And I'm thinking like, maybe this could work for me. I mean, I think maybe it could. Millions of people seem to think that maybe it could. It's not without challenge, however. Like Michael, she has like a cult fall and people are obsessed. I don't even call it a diet to me.

It's like a lifestyle. We call it like a program or a reset. It really is more like a self-experiment than a diet. Is this something you do consistently or is this like this, or like you said, it's a reset? It's a reset. So think of it like, okay, every dietitian in the world says, there's no one size fits all approach to diet. You have to figure out what works for you. And you go, cool. That resonates. Makes total sense. How do I figure out what works for me? And Whole 30 is the answer to how. So it is a 30-day self-experiment to help you identify which foods do and don't work for you in your unique context. So what you're going to do is eliminate foods that are commonly problematic

to varying degrees across a broad range of people, and you're going to pull them out of your diet for 30 days. Alcohol, processed food. Correct. Added sugar, alcohol, grains in all forms, legumes, so beans, peas, soy, peanuts, and all forms of dairy. You're going to pull those out for 30 days. Not because they're bad, but because they can be problematic for people. And we want to figure out if they're problematic for you. You pull them out for 30 straight days, 100% out of your diet. It's an elimination diet, essentially. So you have to be pretty rigorous about it. And you're going to see what happens, what happens to your energy, your sleep, your mood, attention span, joint pain and swelling, skin, migraines, asthma, allergies, what have you.

Are you recording this and just writing this down? Are you measuring? Are you taking blood tests? How are you kind of figuring this out? For me, it was literally just self-reported. It was pulling this stuff out of my diet and noticing what changed. And I didn't know to look for any of these things. I just happened to notice as I'm going along that like, oh my gosh, I have more energy than I've ever had in my life eating this way. What foods are you leaning into? If you're taking the ones out, what are you leaning into? What are you eating during the 30 days? I love that question. You're eating whole real nutrient-dense food. So meat, seafood, and eggs, tons and tons of vegetables and fruit, natural healthy fats, herbs and spices. Can you eat sourdough toast? No. That would be toast.

That's a grain, sourdough. Correct, yes. So no grains. You would know no bread, no pasta, no cereal, no oatmeal, no rice. But remember, it's just part of the 30-day elimination. We're going to pull this out just to see how it works for you. What, are there any carbs? Yeah, tons from vegetables and fruit. Okay. I can deal with fruit. If I get fruit, I can deal with that. Any fruit. Yeah. Any fruit, any fruit you want. And any vegetable you want with the exception of corn, because technically it's a grain and like lima beans, because technically it's a legume. I might be missing like one veggie in there, but that's, it's basically like most, almost any plant you want. Sweet potatoes, potatoes, all that's basically like almost any plant you want.

Sweet potatoes, potatoes, all that. So after- Sweet potatoes, potatoes, plantains, yeah. Okay, so that doesn't sound that tough. You say that and then- I mean, it sounds tough. No, it doesn't sound tough. It sounds like a commitment to your health. Well, it definitely sounds like a challenge,

but it's not like, hey, you don't have carbs. It doesn't sound like, can you eat as much as you want? So yes, that's the other thing. We're not counting calories. We're not restricting calories. We're not tracking calories. You're not journaling. There's no MyFitnessPal.

You're literally eating to satiety. We give you a meal template to make sure that you're eating enough. So it's like, hey, like one or two fistfuls of protein in your meal. Fill your plate with vegetables. Eat at least this amount of like fat. And you're serving and eat to satiety. So you're never hungry. You eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full. And it's all really good, healthy, nutrient dense food. And it's only 30 days.

So let me pretend like I'm your client. I have like little tiny question. Am I going to be hungry? You shouldn't be because you are, you can eat something. Okay. And then after 30 days, do you just slowly incorporate each one in? That's exactly what you do. Because the second part of the self-experiment is reintroduction. So you're going to bring back each of the food groups that you've eliminated one at a time, carefully and systematically, like a scientific experiment and see how it impacts you. So if you take dairy out and your allergies clear up and you're like, wow, I can breathe good. My eyes aren't itchy. And then you reintroduce it. And on the day you reintroduce it, your allergy symptoms come back.

Now you have really valuable information about how that food works for you. And you get to decide how much or how often or in what context dairy is a part of your ongoing diet. And if you like your wine, you can't do that for 30 days, but can you implement it later? Yeah. But that would be a separate category. Correct. Yeah. Alcohol would be the thing. Yeah. Wine's causing you to have, sometimes red wine makes me have histamine. Yes. Histamine responses, headaches, trouble sleeping. You know, you would reintroduce wine one night. So your dinner would be Whole30 and you would just have a glass or two of wine with it. And now you have this really comparative experience where you're like, I know how I felt with the Whole30 dinner. Now, how am I going to

feel with the Whole30 dinner plus wine? And then you get to come to the part of the Whole30 where I, what I call awareness is a bitch, where you are like, oh crap, this wine like makes me feel like this or gives me headaches or gives me a histamine response. And then you get to decide whether or not you want to re-include it back into your diet, right? That's always up to you. How much weight loss are you seeing from people? Because I know that's not the main reason to do your lifestyle, but I know that is a byproduct of it. It can be. It can be. Or it cannot be because you're eating to satiety. We're not a weight loss program. I don't want people to do this for weight loss. In fact, what I invite people to do on their Whole30 is just take a well-deserved 30-day break from focusing on your

weight and the scale. Because what happens when people come into a program like the Whole30 thinking about reset or thinking about weight loss is that the scale is their only metric of success. And this is what I hear because I've heard it a dozen times. I did the Whole30 and it didn't work for me. And I'm like, oh no, what happened? Well, my energy was great. I was sleeping better. My pants fit better. And I no longer like my knees don't hurt when I walk anymore, but I only lost three pounds. I'm like, oh, so that's not working for you. So what happens is we get so fixated on that number on the scale, which doesn't really tell us much about our overall health or the factors of our wellness or vitality that are really important to us. And it really blinds us to the impact of changing the food we put on our

plate. And you can get so hyper-focused on the scale that you can end up taking your Whole30 to an unhealthy place like, well, I'm doing the Whole30, but I really want to lose weight. So I'm just going to cut carbs back, or I'm going to do the Whole30 low fat, or I'm going to skip breakfast. And then all of a sudden the program isn't doing what it's intended to do. So we really want people to not think about weight loss on the program. We're not a weight loss diet. We don't instruct people with how to lose weight. If that's what you want to do with your body, I fully respect that, but don't come to the whole 30 for that because that's not really what we do. Carrie Uma. Okay. Remember that name. These shoes have helped me so much. So I had to get new shoes when I hit a certain time in pregnancy

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free returns, which I'm very much about. Try it on, see if it works for you. And for a limited time, the skinny confidential listeners can get an exclusive 15% off your pair of Keri Uma shoes. All you're going to do is go to cariuma.com slash skinny to get 15% off. That's cariuma.com slash skinny for 15% off only for a limited time. as someone who's so in this space, what do you see? And you don't have to give specific, but what do you see wrong with these diets that do promote weight loss? Well, I mean, where do I start, right? We have been told for a really long time by the media and society and the patriarchy and diet culture that women especially should be small. And our worth is tied to our body size and shape and that number

on the scale. And that the only reason we should change the food that we put on our plate is to make ourselves smaller and that the smaller that number is, the better. And it's been incredibly damaging for our relationship with food, our relationship with our bodies, our relationship with ourselves and other women. And of course, you see people taking dieting to a really unhealthy place. Any restriction can promote disordered eating habits, even the Whole30. And we caution people, if that's your history, the Whole30 may not be the right program for you because it is restrictive. But when you think about dieting for weight loss and the severe caloric restriction that most people are under when they are on a diet, it leads to metabolic changes. It leads

to crisis of willpower. It leads to feeling like a failure and realizing or thinking that you need to do the diet again. And it's just not a mentally healthy or physically healthy place to be. And we haven't really had an alternative to that, right? If you want to change the food that you put on your plate, you're either going to diet or what? You're going to try to figure something out on your own. And I really want Whole30 to be that alternative for people who want to dial in what works best for them, for their health and for their wellness, but they don't want to do it from a place of diet culture. What are some success stories that have blown your fucking mind? I'm sure you've heard some wild stories. Can you give us a few of those? Yeah, I have. I mean, we have so many incredible stories published on our website from people who are doctors who are using the Whole30 with their patients and reversing type 2 diabetes.

I remember being at a seminar many years ago and mostly CrossFitters kind of at my Whole30 book signings and younger, healthier people at that stage in the Whole30 journey. But I remember when it came to question and answers, an older gentleman stood up. He was probably in his 60s. And he said, I've had knee pain for many, many years. I can't play with my grandkids. I can't walk with my wife. My knee hurts so much. In the middle of my Whole30, I realized two things. One, my knee didn't hurt anymore. And all of a sudden I could do all of these other things. And two, I mostly eat junk food because my knee really hurts and I'm in pain and I don't know what else to do. And the Whole30 has really helped me not only identify what's going on with my knee

pain, but helped me figure out what else I can do when I'm in pain. Like the whole room was just moved. Yeah. You're seeing a lot of like probably autoimmune pain. You said diabetes kind of switch over just because the foods they're eating. Yeah. I mean, your blood sugar regulation is powerfully impacted by the food that you eat. We've had a lot of testimonials from type one diabetics who find that their blood sugar and insulin are much better managed with a protocol like the Whole30. Lots of stories about things like allergies or asthma and just being able to identify the triggers. Like I used to get migraines and I didn't know why, and I did the Whole30 and now I know. And now I know that if I avoid these foods, I can avoid the majority of my migraines. Like that's such an incredibly freeing experience.

We published a story from an older woman who has a cat and she used to love to take her cat for walks in this cat stroller and she couldn't walk. I love her. Oh, we loved her too. Oh my God. And she couldn't walk for a really long time and she was really bad. And she did the whole 30 and she sent us in a picture of her taking her cat for a walk because now she was pain free and could walk again. You know, sent us in a picture of her taking her cat for a walk because now she was pain-free and could walk again.

You know, we're not a medical program like that, but changing the food you put on your plate can have such a powerful experience in ways that you might not even connect to your diet. So let's just say you do the whole 30 for 30 days and then you implement cheese and you're fine with that. So then on top of that,

the next week you would do beans. Like, how does that work after? Do you take the cheese back out? Yeah. You take it back out. So day one of reintroduction, you reintroduce red wine. We do it just like I said, you eat a whole 30 meal and do wine. Then you go back to the whole 30 for two days. Because if you do have any symptoms from that, if you do have like a lingering headache or GI distress or your skin breaks out, you want to let that calm down before you reintroduce the next food group. So the next food you reintroduce might be non-gluten grains. So with breakfast, you would have a corn tortilla, and you would have white rice with dinner, and maybe some quinoa with lunch.

And see what happens. And then you take two days and go back to the Whole30. So there's just really carefully crafted schedule that's very well laid out that should give you all the information you need, or at least a good starting place with how these foods are impacting you. So how long does the entire process take with all the testing, right? Because like the 30 days of removing. Generally about 10 for reintroduction. We have a fast track reintroduction schedule that's like relatively, it's about as quick as you can do it and still do it right. But what we say to people

is the more time you spend here, the more you're going to learn. So if you suspect that you have a histamine response with red wine, you may also get that same histamine response with corn. So maybe you break corn out and one day is a corn reintroduction day where you eat popcorn and corn on the cob and tortilla chips, and then you separate out your non-gluten grains for another day. That's so interesting. I bet you find a lot of people are gluten intolerant. I think people do find gluten intolerance in a way that isn't necessarily linked to digestion. So you don't have to be celiac, obviously, to have an intolerance to gluten. But for some people, it's joint pain and swelling. So I had one person who has rheumatoid arthritis and she was like, that's it. It's gluten. I ate gluten the next morning. My joints are so swollen and painful

that I can barely move them. For me, gluten makes me break out, which is so rude. But that's the one food group where if I reintroduce it, guaranteed, I'm going to break out the next day. I have the best gluten-free sourdough for you. You probably already know it. I will take it. Bread, seriously. Oh, really? She homemade makes it. I'll send you the link to it. It's the red one. Okay. And she also does a raisin bread. And I'm telling you, it's gluten-free sourdough and gluten-free raisin bread. It is the best. We've been doing Canyon Bakehouse at home, which I think it's also pretty good. No, but this is like, this is blow your mind. Yeah, I'll take it. Okay. Okay. I will take it because gluten is the one thing that I really don't eat often because it's really just like not worth it.

And there are so many really good gluten-free alternatives. So when did you start to realize that this diet was going to become so popular? Because it sounds like you went into this with the intention to help yourself and then help people. Yeah. When did you start to really realize, oh, holy shit, this is really, there's momentum here? So about three months after I did the original Whole30, just my co-founder and I, two people,

I remember I had such an incredible experience and it really like lasted. It stuck with me. And I remember calling a friend and being like, I think I want to write about this for my like little CrossFit training blog. I want to tell people what I did. Do you think anyone would want to do it? And she was like, yeah, I think some people might want to try it. So I was like, okay. So in July 2009, I wrote up a very kind of rudimentary post where I was like, here's what I did. I didn't, they didn't, there weren't even really rules. It was just sort of, here's what I did.

If you want it, does anyone want to follow along? And maybe a couple hundred people on my blog were like, yeah, I would try it. And I was like, oh, cool. And we got to the end of that month and testimonials started rolling in. And like when one or two people have really good results with something, you're like, interesting. When a hundred people come back and they report remarkably similar, equally amazing results, that was the moment where I was like, oh, this is like a thing. We have a thing here and it could be really, really good. So as the business has grown, can you talk us

like through that trajectory? Talk us when you thought, oh my God, there's something here to now. Because now I see this everywhere. I see, if you look at a lot of recipe books now, there's a sticker on some of them that says Whole30 approved. It's almost like Oprah's book club, but for eating. We do. So I want to know what took you from there to now here we are with stickers on recipe books. I know. So 12 years, giving a lot of stuff away for free. 12 years. Yeah. I didn't know it was that long. That's a long time. Yeah. Started in the first kind of, I quit my job in 2010 to take Whole30 full time. So 12 years, giving a lot of stuff away for free.

So we traveled incessantly and did workout, you know, workshops for various CrossFit gyms because we were still really well connected to the community every single weekend. We would sit, people would sit in like metal folding chairs and listen to us talk about Whole30 for eight hours, an eight hour nutrition seminar. And they might pay us like 30 bucks or 50 bucks or something. And we'd drive home and kind of do it again, working on the blog. And then I think our first Whole30 approved partner was 2010. This little company, they're no longer in business, but they were making like a jerky dried fruit kind of primal packs, they were called. And they happened to be compatible with the program. They didn't

use any added sugar, which you couldn't find jerky without added sugar then. So I remember calling the owner and I was like, hey, Matt, do you want to like, could you be like Whole30 approved? Like we would talk about you to our community because your product fits and like you could talk about the Whole30 with your people. And he was like, yeah, sure. So that was how our Whole30 approved licensing program grew. And you'll find it now like on bowls at Chipotle. And we had a partnership with Sweetgreen last year and, you know, Waterloo and Siete and all of these big brands. You have to meet Sun Life. I swear to God, I feel like it's a total fit. We might. Okay. I love everything you're saying is on brand. Keep going. Yeah. Sun Life, call us. We'll set it up. Yeah. I love that. Khalil, listen to this. Do the goodness. And then I wrote my first book in 2012. It was published in 2012.

And it did pretty well. It hit the New York Times list, which was super exciting. That's huge. We were really, really excited. And then the flagship Whole30 book came out in 2015. And that's the one that hit number one on the New York Times list. And it's gone on to sell like a million and a half copies. And that was a really big turning point, I think, for the brand, just to have the book out there. We had a ton of media at the time. And it's kind of just grown from there. But I mean, it started off just like any business starts off, right? A lot of hustling, a lot of giving stuff away, a lot of connection to the community and figuring out what they needed and providing it

for them and a lot of listening and staying true to, I think, the origin and the spirit and the intention of the program, which is just helping people change their lives. I want to ask you about that a little bit because I think when I listen to you talk, I mean, obviously this is a diet, but it's almost like to me, it's more of an audit, right? It's more of like a what's working, what's not. So it resonates. When I hear it, I'm like, ah, I think there's this, you know, and I start to think back on those early days, 2009, 10, like a huge health boom, especially online and keeping that spirit. I also think there's a lot of people that are so overwhelmed and tired of like diet culture and diets and what

do they do and how do they stay in shape and what does it mean to be in shape and all of these things that there's a segment of the population that's kind of gone the other way where it's like, we're not going to think about health anymore and I don't want to hear about it anymore. And I'm going to push back on diet culture and like and I'm happy with who I am, how I am, which I understand. And there's an element where you want people to feel good and feel confident, but also there's a practical side where it's like people need to be healthy. How do you navigate that when people probably, maybe they give you a little pushback or they're saying you're participating in diet culture? What's your response to that? I'm always very interested when people talk about how the Whole30 is continuing to perpetuate diet culture because

I am unlearning diet culture along with everybody else. And I don't always get it right. I read an Instagram post recently that was incredibly critical of the Whole30 saying, they say they're not about diet culture, but this is from an article that they wrote. And I immediately went to my team and said, they're right. Wow, this language is like problematic. And I didn't even realize it when I wrote it. How can we think about it? How can we rewrite it? How can we show up differently? So I appreciate when people point out the areas of Whole30 that might still be supporting diet culture. There are some disagreements, I think, as to the nature of restriction. You'll have some folks that say any restriction is diet culture. And I don't know necessarily that I agree with that. I restrict certain things from my diet

because they don't make me feel good. And it's not based on diet culture. It's just based on me coming from a place of self-care. Well, I think like to that point, like I think that we all know, like we all have enough common sense to know that if I was saying, hey, just eat as much McDonald's as you want. I'll just pick on McDonald's. Or eat as much fast food as you want.

McDonald's is going to sue me now. Eat as much fast food as you want. I love McDonald's. I happen to love McDonald's. Don't screw. I like a happy meal just cheese and meat with a small diet Coke. Don't screw that up for me.

McDonald's or fast food makes you happy. Like it's fine. Do it as much as you want. Like that maybe is irresponsible to tell people because there's a certain demographic going to say, you know what? I'm just going to go all in and it's going to harm their health. But I think there's a place for that. And this is an area that I'm trying to understand more, which is if you've come from a place

of disordered eating, maybe what you need to be told is eat whatever the hell you want. Or intuitively eat. Yes, which is a big part of intuitive eating, right? I also think there's a responsibility to the person, like to the person who is seeking out these things to do their own research and be their own guru. And I feel like I keep having these conversations, like if I'm triggered by a diet, it's not the diet's fault. It's I need to figure out why I'm triggered by it. And I need to go do work on myself. Like I, for me, and I'm talking about for me,

I take accountability if I feel triggered instead of pushing the accountability on the diet culture. And that's a conversation that I feel like we need to have more. Yes. I want there to be both. I want you to take accountability for recognizing that any approach is not the right approach for you. And if that's the whole 30, I am so pumped that you recognize that and now you can not waste your energy on it and have it not serve you. The last thing I want is for someone to do the whole 30 and have it bring them worse mental health or less healthy behaviors. At the same time, I don't mind you saying to me, this is triggering to me and here's why, so that I get to introspect

and go, is there anything in this that in my integrity, I think we could do better? I don't mind that. I love the theme of accountability here on all ends. Yes. Yeah. I don't mind that. I love the theme of accountability here on all ends. Yes. Yeah. I totally. And sometimes people will say to me, the Whole30 is totally like representing diet culture because of this and this.

And I look at it and go, I can't find that. Honestly, in my integrity, I can't see that. We're obviously approaching this from a different mindset, but I'm always happy for that accountability check. I always want to look into it and make sure that we're actually doing the best that we can. The way you just described it to me, I'm always happy for that accountability check. I always want to look into it and make sure that we're actually doing the best that we can. The way you just described it to me, I'm a woman.

Yeah. And I'm going to have to lose weight after this baby because I want to. Not because anyone's telling me to. It sounds like this is a diet to have yourself be a human guinea pig to realize the foods that are maybe in the way of your goal. I don't want to have allergies all day. I don't want a histamine response. If you do want that, then continue to eat the foods

that are giving you that. For me, this seems like a little test on myself, like just to see almost like blood work. Yes. Yeah. It's honestly a self-experiment like that, but not everyone has the privilege of being able to work with a registered dietitian or go get expensive lab work or work with a healthcare provider that understands the impact of diet on health. So if you don't have access to those resources because they're very expensive and time-consuming, here's a little free, by the way, Whole30 is totally free self-experiment that you can do and see if you can determine a way to dial in your diet in a way that works better for you. I love experimenting on Michael. I set traps everywhere. You never know when there's going

to be an experiment. No, the reason I ask you these things is because I consider you, especially now after talking to you, an authority in this particular space, right? And I feel like for the message that you're sharing, I would want to be able to hear that full message without you kind of censoring or worrying about how it made me feel in a way, right? I understand you have to deliver it. Same thing we have to do on the show. You have to deliver it in a way that's digestible and empathetic, but I wouldn't want you to not give me your actual information of what you really believe would work in this particular diet, right? Like if I'm actually going to do the work with you, I'd say like, okay. And I think

that's sometimes where people have a problem with a lot of different dietitians. It's like, especially now people are very careful. It's like, tell me what you really are thinking here. And if I disagree or I don't like it, I get it. But I want the information. And I think we got to be careful that we don't get away from it. Not everyone's like you. Do you get what I'm saying? I don't want to get away to a place where I can't actually get what you really think. So one of the things that the Whole30 is famous for is our tough love. And back in the earliest days of Whole30, early post-recovery,

CrossFit days when I had no empathy for myself or anybody else, you would have known exactly what I thought. And I would not tell you what you wanted. I would tell you what you needed. And I would couch that in a perhaps not kind way, but it would always be very direct. And Whole30, I think, is still famous for our tough love right now, but we're heavier on the love. So I'm coming at it from a place of empathy and compassion, understanding that people have different lived experiences. And I want to be sensitive to those lived experiences. I'll still tell you what I think if you ask me. If you ask me, I'm always going to be direct and I want to be sensitive to those lived experiences, I'll still tell you what I

think if you ask me. If you ask me, I'm always going to be direct and I will always tell you the truth. But I'm going to do that from a place of clarity and kindness. And I think that's the difference now compared to earlier, Melissa. You know what I mean, though? You see people, you know what I mean, though. It's like you see certain businesses change their business models to appease not stepping out of line in diet culture. And like those ones, I'm like, there has to be some, like, just tell me what you really think, what you really want. And then I can decide like, does it work for me or does it not? But like, I think this is where you get into a dicey situation. I agree. So I'll give you one really good example to what you're speaking to. One of the criticisms sometimes is that

Whole30 upholds diet culture because we're restrictive. We're based on an elimination diet. An elimination diet has been around since the 1920s. It's still seen by many healthcare practitioners as the gold standard for identifying food sensitivities. We're never going to not have an elimination program because that's the heart of what we do. However, if I use words in the description of the program, like good food or bad food,

I'm going to actually take a look at that. And someone calls that out, I'm going to look at that and go, oh, you're right. That's actually not the way we want to describe the program. And I'm going to change those words. So to some degree, yeah, we're going to, as we learn more and as we know more, we're going to do better. And we're making a huge effort towards inclusivity and representation and diversity and equity. Yes. But the tenants of the program are not going to change even if people don't like them because this is the program that's been so effective and this is the program that we believe. That's what you found to work

for you and your clients. Yeah, exactly. Yes. Yes. And I'm perfectly comfortable with the fact that it won't be right for everybody. And I'll be the first to tell you that it's not right for everybody. And if I don't think it's good for you, I will tell you that as well. No, I think it's a smart and responsible approach. I just ask because I know you are probably in a position where you get pushback in some regard with this kind of stuff. Oh, we do quite often, yeah. But again, I welcome it

because then I have to challenge myself in, what do I really think about this? What do I really think about this language that I used? And if the language is appropriate and I can sit in my integrity and go, no, this is really how I wanted to say it. I'm comfortable with that, even if people don't like it. And if it's not, I'm happy to have the opportunity to adjust it. I also think when you put yourself out there in any capacity, you're going to get pushed back. It's part of the game. It's part of the game. You want to play on

the game board, you're going to get pushed back. You said something earlier in this interview that I want to touch on, growth mindset. Yeah. Talk to me about the difference between growth mindset and scarcity mindset. I'm obsessed with this subject and I would love to know your take on it. Interesting. Well, growth mindset is usually positioned opposite fixed mindset, right? Fixed mindset is like, I'm bad at math. I'm just bad at math. I'm never going to get good at math. I'm bad at it or I'm bad at sports, which is what I told myself, you know, earlier in my life. Whereas a growth mindset is I'm not good at sports now, but if I work really hard and I practice, I'll be able to get better, right? Scarcity mindset is this idea

of not having enough and the fear and the anxiety that comes from not having enough. And in my experience, at least, recognizing that it will never be enough because what you are fearing or what you're anxious about cannot be satisfied with more or any specific quantity of that thing. I love that. I want to switch gears and I'm sure you're going to love what I'm switching gears to. More tampons? No more tampons. No more tampons. I feel like you've heard every tampon. Unless you do have a tampon story. I mean, of course I do.

I'm a woman and I have a period. It's not good. I just remember the podcast you did, I think, with Claudia where you were talking about tampon horror stories. We've talked about every kind of horror story. It's a viral TikTok video. I actually want to switch gears to entrepreneurship and business. on horror stories. We've talked about every kind of horror story. Poor Michael. It's a viral TikTok video. I actually want to switch gears to entrepreneurship and business.

How do you run your business now? It's so successful. You've got so much going on. You can't be everywhere. I'm learning that you got to work on the business, not in the business. What does your role look like with Whole40? Yeah, it could be 40.

Well, you just did a 40% off. What does your role look like with Whole30? Yeah, it could be 40. Well, you just did a 40% off. What does your role look like with Whole30 now that the business has grown so large? It's funny. I'm in a huge evolution with that right now in the middle of it and kind of on the tail end of the good part of it. But I recognized for a really long time, my team has always been very, very small and very nimble. We've done a lot with just a few people. And I ran every aspect of the business and every aspect of the day-to-day. And I wrote the books and I was the face and managed it all and it was good. Then we started to grow to the point where we really needed more structure and accountability.

We needed KPIs. We needed a budget. We needed a strategic plan. And I didn't want to do that. That's not what brings me joy. That's not my thing. I get it. I'm not a profit motivated CEO.

No, it's not me. I want to write the books. I want to do the TikToks. I want to like do speaking engagements. I want to meet people like you and do podcasts. And I want to be the North Star and the guiding voice. And I want that presence. The visionary.

Yeah, I do. But I don't want to be the North Star and the guiding voice. And I want that presence. Yeah, I do. Yeah. But I don't want to be the executor. So we had this conversation over the course of the last, I don't know, a couple years where I was like, I think I want to bring on like a president, someone kind of under me. And then after a few conversations or even maybe another year,

I was like, I think I want to bring on a CEO. I don't think I want to be CEO anymore. I have no attachment to that title. And if I could bring someone on who could really run the business and grow the business the way I want it to be grown, mission-driven, staying true to the origin, and would free up my time to do all the face stuff and all the stuff I love. But also, I'm the only one that can do that. No one else can come and talk about the story with you. So that was kind of the thought process.

And then what we ended up doing is bringing someone who had been working for me for a couple of years, my general counsel person and business development. And we had a conversation one day and she was like, let me do it. I was like, what do you mean, let you do what? And she was like, let me step up and take on some of the day-to-day. Like, let me be your interim president. Give me six months and let's see how it goes. And I was like, that's a great idea. I know her. I trust her. We work well together. She's like ready to grow this rocket ship. I get to take, you know, my self back out of the day to day and do the things I love best. I know the company's in great hands. Like, let's go for it. And that's where we are right

now. It sounds like she has a growth mindset. She does have a growth mindset. Very motivated, very driven and likes all this stuff that I don't like. I love that. I think that's an incredible story. Your whole story is insane, amazing. Where can everyone find you and follow you and then follow the brand? And then if they want to try Whole30,

how do they do that? Okay, I am active on Instagram at Melissa U, and that's my website as well, melissau.com. Everything Whole30 is just at Whole30, W-H-O-L-E and the number three zero. We have two Whole30 tracks. We have the original track and we have a new plant-based track. So if you're a hundred percent plant-based and you want to do the Whole30, we have a version for that as well. You just go to the website. It's totally free and we walk you through how to get started. Amazing. Wealth of knowledge. I cannot wait to go consume Whole30 content

and my last question you can just say yes or no can you do Whole30 during pregnancy yes cool check with your doctor always okay I had to ask that disclaimer

check with your doctor after you listen to this podcast every single time you listen go check with your doctor this is a disclaimer to everyone always people say you're not a medical expert. No shit.

Thank you for coming on, Melissa. Thank you so much for having me. Do you want to win a copy of Whole30, Melissa's book? It'll be signed by her, sent straight to you. All you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram at Lauren Bostic. And make sure you've rated and reviewed the podcast on the podcast app. Takes five seconds. And on that note, we'll see you on Monday with another

very exciting, interesting, like medley of an episode. It's going to blow your mind. See you Monday. you