Well with Arielle Lorre - 35: LIZ MOODY - Overcoming Anxiety, Trauma, Loneliness + Getting Healthier Together

Episode Date: December 11, 2019

In this episode I talk to Liz Moody, cookbook author, writer and wellness influencer, about overcoming debilitating anxiety, PTSD from substance-induced seizures, trapped trauma, loneliness and how she turned it all around starting with food. Liz is a refreshing voice in the world of wellness and although we discuss heavy topics we also chat about connection, creating healthy habits, the benefits of orgasms, the power of gratitude and so much more.  I also was interviewed on her podcast, Healthier Together, so be sure to check that out as we recorded these episodes to be listened to together.  From 12/11 through 12/18 we are running a $400 Amazon Gift Card giveaway! Simply leave a review on both The Blonde Files Podcast and Healthier Together and let us know when you've done so on our Instagram post about the contest.    For more about Liz: www.lizmoody.com www.instagram.com/lizmoody   For more about Arielle: www.theblondefiles.com www.instagram.com/ariellelorre   Follow the pod! www.instagram.com/theblondefilespodcast   See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the Blonde Files podcast. I am your host, Ariel Lori, and I am so excited that you're here. I am so excited about today's episode, and I just adore my guest, Liz Moody, and I know that you are going to fall in love with her, too. Liz is the author of two healthy cookbooks, healthier together, and glow pops. She is a longtime writer, editor, and healthy recipe developer. She is formerly the food director for Mind Body Green, a leading one. wellness website and she is currently the contributing food editor for Mind Body Green. Her work has been featured in goop, glamour, vogue, women's health, and many more. Liz is also the host of the hit wellness podcast, healthier together and she just has an amazing Instagram and website where she shares healthy recipes and lifestyle tips and she's just such a breath of fresh air in this wellness space. So Liz and I spent a few hours together recently where we did a podcast swap. So I went on her podcast, healthier together, and then she came on mine. So in this episode, you'll probably hear us

referencing things that we talked about on her podcast. So they were really kind of meant to be listened to in tandem. So since you're here already, listen to this episode and then go over to her podcast and listen there if you haven't already. Also, if you enjoyed this episode, or if you just like the podcast in general and want to support it, please rate, review, and subscribe. It takes one minute tops. It's such a simple thing and it really, really helps to get the podcast out there and keep this train rolling. So without further ado, Liz Moody. And ready? Yeah, it's done. All right. So I am here with Liz Moody. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so for coming. Yeah, I braved the rainstorm to get here from Brooklyn. And you flew here from

Colorado. I've gone by many. I think I took a train at one point. There's probably a boat in my mind. Yeah, all the sources of transportation. Well, I'm so excited to talk to you and talk about healthier together and everything that you've created with the brand. And I want to talk about your journey to get here. Yeah, it's been a long one. Yeah. So let's read you. rewind. This is how I like to start all my interviews, kind of talk about young Liz, were you always interested in wellness? No, no, not even a little bit. I was a very trashy eater as a kid. I always talk about my recipes as sort of, you can tell in my book that I think I'm like a trashy eater because I'm like, how do I make like lasagna healthy? How do I make takedos or I just like

really trashy food? I didn't, I think I ate my first vegetable when I was 18 or 19, like literally. Wow. My parents were divorced. Neither of my parents are really interested in food. They're very like eat to live people. Yeah, eat to live people. And my mom, I would, I just, she'd like serve me boiled hot dogs for dinner most nights. We would microwave a kosher hot dog and then I would eat that for dinner.

And it wasn't until I met my husband, my now husband. I hate, I kind of hate that there's like a male savior galloping in on his, on his horse. but he grew up in Berkeley. I met him in college, and he'd grown up with, like, an edible schoolyard, which is Alice Waters program to get kids eat vegetables in his elementary school, and he grew up going to farmers markets. And the second day that we met, or our second date, our first date was, like, drinking and me inviting 30 people back to my house so that I could have an excuse to invite him back to my house.

But my second date with him, he had just found this, like, macrobiotic cookbook at a at a little bookstore and so he made me like macrobiotic vegetable pancakes and he wasn't like particularly interested he just found it interesting and unique and stimulating and exciting so that was my first vegetable he served it to me wow um and I fell in love with them with vegetables or with him I well I didn't know they could taste good I think that was a really big revelation for me I thought that things that tasted good were like the bucket-sized cake batter ice cream at Coldstone, and I didn't realize that kale, when prepared properly, could also taste really good. So that's a huge part of my message now is, like, eating vegetables isn't a sacrifice.

Eating vegetables is also something that can taste really good and be fun and not deprivational at all. But, yeah, I fell in love with him. I fell in love with that way of life. We started going to farmers markets together, which I loved. And I just realized that food could be this really exciting tool for connection. And then, I don't know if you want to keep rewinding or fast forward a little bit, but when I dealt with my really severe anxiety when we lived in London years later, I sort of started researching food as a way of healing.

And that's when I really got into caring about healthy food versus just like, oh, vegetables are fun and they can be a different, unique part of your plate. I love that you're like shifting that paradigm because I think so many people still, have that common misconception that eating healthy is restrictive and it's boring and it's kind of like a punishment. Yeah. And I get people on my Instagram all the time like asking like, like, don't you, don't you miss X, Y, or Z?

And I'm like, no, because it can be so nourishing and tastes so good when you prepare it the right way and it doesn't feel restrictive at all. Totally. And I also don't believe, I think if you have a specific issue that you're trying to solve, if you have gut health issues, if you have CBO. if you have, you know, an autoimmune condition, you should eat for that specific condition. I work with a doctor called Will Cole for a lot of my stories, and he talks about sort of figuring out your own personal threshold. So some people will have a threshold where they can eat some pasta

and drink some wine and they'll feel great. And that's totally fine. And I see no reason for that person to eliminate those things. But other people have a different threshold where the pasta will make them feel like crap the next day. So I think for me, it's about figuring out people personal thresholds as much as possible. So you can have as many diverse foods in your diet as possible because the most studies of any type of nutrition success point to diversity being the key to having a really healthy diet and having better long-term outcomes.

Yeah, and I think another misconception is that I had too, is that if you're healing your gut, you have to restrict whatever foods for the rest of your life. And it's like the point isn't to do that. It's to heal yourself to be able to have diversity and incorporate a lot of different foods in. Well, and if you restrict them for too long, honestly, you can cause more damage. One, because you're not getting that diversity again. But two, you can become less tolerant of it if you don't consume it.

Yeah. Side note, I love Will Cole. Yeah. And I just got his book, The Inflammation Spectrum, because I've been going through, like, just flare up after flare up. You should have him on the podcast. I know. I really want to. He's like such a little smarty pants, and he's also just the nicest human in the world every time.

So he comes to New York a lot, and he always brings his little kids with him, and it'll bring one at a time so that they get like special dad time. And it's just, he's the sweetest human on the planet. And now I have a connect. So I will hook you up with Will Cole. I love it. So kind of to that point, I'm curious, like growing up without eating vegetables and kind of having a processed food. best food diet, it sounds like. What was your health like?

Did it have ramifications? I'd say my anxiety was probably the biggest health thing. I actually feel pretty lucky. I grew up in Arizona until I was 14, and then I moved to town Comodesto, where I believe like 50% of the town has asthma and the air quality is really, really bad. But Tucson, Arizona, where I grew up until I was 14,

is one of those places where people move when they're sick, and they move there to just have, like, total, I guess it's like a very sanitary, good air environment. So I grew up in that and I didn't have any sort of like autoimmune conditions or anything like that. But I always had anxiety from a very, very young age. And now I think that has obviously something to do with my gut health at the time. I also had a pretty intense trauma when I was two years old. My mom went horseback riding.

She went on like a sort of trail ride in Yosemite. And she wasn't a horseback rider or anything. It's just one of those things you do on a random day. And her horse took off and bucked her when it was over cement, and she wasn't wearing a helmet. So she was in a coma for a year in the hospital from when I was basically two to three. So I do think it's interesting. And then she had to sort of relearn to do a lot of stuff after that. And then that accident resulted in my parents' divorce.

And so I do think it's interesting, and I'm sure you've experienced a lot of this in your life, but we talk a lot about the physical things that hurt us, and I don't think we sometimes put enough credence to the mental things that hurt us or the psychological things that hurt us. So I think when I think of the defining health issues of my childhood, I think of the mental health implications of that more than the physical health implications of not eating enough vegetables. Right. That's so important.

And there's so much, there are so many studies coming out that show how adverse childhood events affect our health even later in life. Yeah. And I'm going on your podcast after this. So I'm sure we'll talk about the trauma, but I had trauma too later in life. But it definitely made me sick. And it still is, you know, I'm still processing it. So it still, I think, is manifesting in different ways. But I really believe in like trapped trauma energy.

I do too. And there's some really interesting, like even, I was listening. seen to, it's like a New York Times podcast or something, but it was with a woman whose husband had died and she started having seizures because her grief was so intense. And I do think that there's, it's not just sort of, I'm not a very like woo-woo person and it's not just in the totally alternative health world. There's the very Western world where people are like, why is this happening? And I think it's fascinating. Yeah, no, it really is. I was listening to armchair expert. I don't know if it was. I love armchair expert. And he had the

surgeon general from California. She's a woman, a pediatrician, and she's trying to enact something where every, I'm going to totally butcher this, but it was like every patient under the age of 13 that goes into the doctor's office, they have a checklist. And I think their parents have to fill it out. And it asks if they've had X, Y, and Z happen certain things that could be traumatic or be perceived as traumatic because they see these things manifest in health issues down the line. So they're like, we can't just ask, like, if they have a cold, we have to ask how they're doing otherwise. I mean, it's just fascinating.

That's really interesting. I think it's, there's a statistic, like if you've had two or more or maybe just one adverse childhood event, you're two times or three times more likely to develop an autoimmune disorder. Yeah, so there are all these statistics. I know. Because I like I do feel like I had a very like lucky childhood in a lot of ways like I had two parents that very much love me and You know I had we were middle class to upper middle class depending on which parent I was with

So I do feel lucky in a lot of ways but also My mom's accident was such a huge thing and so when I hear these things about And I always also with the vegetables thinking even I ask well Cole all the time like how long will it take of me eating healthy? I and do the fact that I didn't eat healthy for 18 years. And he's like, it's not an exact thing. It's like, stop looking for. And I'm like, I know. But I just, I want to know how good it's even possible for me to be now when I had the background that I have.

You know, sometimes I feel like I'm screwed from the beginning. I think you're doing okay. And I think in this podcast, the adverse childhood events that they were talking about were like abuse and sexual abuse and stuff like that. So I'm sure there's a spectrum. Anyway. Okay, so I want to talk about your anxiety and kind of how you dealt with that. That's something that I struggle with and a lot of my listeners do too. So you went from Berkeley to London?

No, we went from Berkeley to San Francisco, got like our real jobs. We both graduated into the recession, so that was super fun. And then we moved to New York City and we lived here for a few years. And then my husband got into sort of his dream grad school program. London. So we weren't married then. We became domestic partner so I could get a visa. And I remember being really mad at the time because I was like, you should just want to marry me. And now I'm really glad that we didn't like get married to get a visa. For that reason. Yeah. Romantic. So romantic. So we moved to London and it was all really good at first. I was freelancing and working with a lot of the companies that

I had worked with back in the U.S. and also doing a lot of writing stuff. But I was also working on a novel. I wanted to be a novelist since I was five years old. I was a professional writer from when I was 16. I got my first newspaper column, which ended up running nationally for seven years, which I don't know, like reading those sometimes. When I met my husband, this is a quick side note, but when I met him, it was right after Valentine's Day, and I'd written this, like, defiance post about how happy I was to be single on Valentine's Day, and it was just such like reading. It was like the sad girl being like, No, this is what I wanted. What was the name of your column? It's called Out of My Mind, which my dad came up with. It's a very dad joke of a name. But it's just, it's like you can't find many of them on the internet these days, thank God, because it was all in print. But very embarrassing to have those years of your life product hold for that meeting people.

I can't imagine. That's amazing, though. Yeah, it's really cool. I just feel like it's probably how people, not the child stars who are crazy now, but the ones who are, successful look back on their like early interviews and they're like oh god why was I talking about that but so I still doing a lot of writing and I was working on a novel and I didn't want to sort of get an out of the house job because I was like this is my chance to pursue my dream I don't want to just go get a night to five and I think that was a huge mistake looking back on it so my husband would go

to his program from seven in the morning until often like midnight it was a very rigorous program and also, if you're familiar with London, it's incredibly spread out. It takes often an hour to an hour and a half to get between neighborhoods. And so it took an hour and a half to get from our house to his school. And he would try to sort of include me in things. He'd be like, oh, hey, we're going to, you know, hang out after class. But it would literally take me so long to get there that by the time I got there, the hangout would be over, essentially.

So I just became more and more and more isolated. And I had always been neurotic. Like my dad said I was sort of Woody Allenish, back when Woody Allenish just met Narada. And but I started having like more and more panic attacks. And then I was in Finland on a trip with my mom and I was eating, we were like eating in a restaurant. And I suddenly felt like I was like on a boat. My whole body was rocking and I'd never felt something like that. And I thought I was, I thought I was having a seizure, which is a slightly greater story.

I've had two substance-induced seizures in my life, which we'll probably also talk about on my podcast because I know that you have as well. And it's really, I've heard you talk about them. And you're so almost like casual. You're like, oh, yeah, I had this seizure then and this seizure. And like, for me, those two seizures were hugely traumatic events for me, particularly the second one because I was very underweight, if not intersex. I weighed like 83 pounds and I'm five foot two.

and I was by myself in Brazil and I was smoking a joint that I'd got in a favela, which is sort of like the ghettos in Rio, and I was smoking it on the beach by myself. And I got up to, I like suddenly felt so hungry. I was like, I need to eat food right now. And I got up to order a burger,

and then I had a seizure in the burger. I remember being like, only ketchup on the burger, Solomente ketchup. And then that was the last thing I remembered, and I woke up a night out of seizure, and they took me to, one of the public hospitals, which you really don't want to go to, I think, in Brazil,

just because I didn't have any money and they didn't know who I was. So there's a person bleeding out on a metal tray next to me. And at the time, I was sort of partying a lot, and I didn't make the connection that anything I was doing could have caused a seizure. So I was like, oh, I just have seizures out of the blue. And I think that that really messed with my mind for a long time because I was like, oh, I can just be walking down the street and have a seizure. I can just be drinking my coffee and have a seizure.

And it took me a really long time to be like, no, I was deeply unhealthy. And that's why I had a seizure then. So when I was in Finland, I had not yet gotten there. And I thought I was going to have a seizure again, which was truly my biggest fear. And so I went to the hospital, and the Finnish nurses were like, here's your paper bag to breathe into you're clearly having a panic. They thought I was, I think, quite ridiculous. but that was sort of a

a wake-up call for me in the sense that my anxiety could impact my life in such a great way because before I was just sort of like, oh, I have anxiety, I'm not going to go out tonight, or like just little things. And then from there it just sort of spiraled. So I went back to London, and I just started going out less and less and less and less.

And then there was one day where it was during a weekend and Zach, my husband had invited me to go to watch a rugby game with some of his friends. And I was getting ready. And I realized that, like, I couldn't leave the house. Like, I was so anxious at the idea of leaving the house that I started to have a panic attack just by thinking of it. And I told him that, and he was really freaked out.

And I ended up basically, like, I started therapy then, but I would only leave the house for therapy. I would have a panic attack on the way there and a panic attack on the way back. But I always made it to therapy. And that was really, really helpful. And then the rest of my time I literally spent in bed because I just felt like if I was in bed,

I would be safe if I did have a seizure. And, yeah, so I just spent all of my time in bed. I convinced myself at one point that if I had to live the rest of my life in bed, it would be fine and I would be okay. And I was like, I have my Netflix, I have my books, like, this is a good life. But also it was a time where I was so deeply uncomfortable in my body, which I haven't yet experienced and it's probably my biggest fear

that that sense of discomfort would come back that it's the only time I felt that if I had to feel this way for the rest of my life, I wouldn't want to live the rest of my life. It was just waking up every day and every moment was so uncomfortable and I didn't see an end of it. So that's when my anxiety got really bad.

But I guess the upside is that I had a lot of time to be on my computer. I still had all of my journalistic instincts and background. And so I started emailing like doctors and professors. I emailed the head of neuropsychology at Stanford and asked him a bunch of questions. And he replied. I was like, how likely am I to have a seizure? Are there foods that I can eat that would like lessen the, yeah, I sort of pretended I was almost like writing an article.

And I did research into my own health. And that's when I started cooking for myself. because I couldn't do much else. I'd still have, when I started going to the grocery store, I still have a panic attack, especially in line. I think a lot of people have anxiety. Waiting in line feels really trapping. And I remember just dreading the idea of waiting in line.

If there's a long line, I would not go wait in it. But I started cooking for myself. I started doing my green smoothies. I started meditating. I started doing yoga. And that was sort of as I began to climb back up. I can relate to that so much. And I think going back to what you said in the beginning,

like I can kind of, I feel like I'm kind of detached from my seizures. Like mine were, I mean, for the most part, I don't really remember them. But my fear of, once I had one seizure, my fear of having another seizure dictated my life to the point where I also could knock it out of bed. But it also like perpetuated my addiction to Xanax. because I knew that Xanax would keep you from having seizures. So I got heavily addicted to that. But then, like, doctors were very cautious about prescribing benzos.

And I think I had a pattern, I'm sure, and I was doctor shopping and everything. So then I would withdraw from the Xanax and have a seizure. But I think now I think it's also part of the trauma of it. Like, I'm just detached from it. So I'm, like, very flat. But, yeah, it's fucking scary. I worry about it even in the way of, like, like, ayahuasca is really trendy now. And they're like, yeah, you confront the thing you're most afraid of.

And I'm like, well, I don't want to do it because what if I have to confront having a seizure to, like, get through it? It's still, like, the worst fear of mine. And sometimes I feel like the only reason I've gotten to even, like, a positive state of mental health is because I'm so convinced myself that I'm not going to have another one. And for me is clonopin. I took a lot of clonipin during that time. Oh, yeah, I did that too. Because, yeah, it's supposed to, they actually gave me clonopin in Brazil when I had the seizure. They were like, my blood sugar was super low, which is basically why they think it was caused

because weed can cause your blood sugar to plummet, especially if you don't weigh a lot already, which I didn't. And so they gave me a bag of potato chips and then they gave me a clonopin. And they were like, good luck, go on your way. And so I took the clonopin because they told me to take like two weeks of it to not have seizures. And I was like, wait, I feel really calm. Yeah, it's like a warm blanket. This is great.

And they didn't even tell me as an anti-anxiety drug. And I remember I flew during, I flew to Salvador. And I was like, I'm not afraid of this flight. Like, why am I not afraid of this flight? Because I've always been afraid of flying. And so that's how I started my Klonopin journey, which, thank God, didn't get that bad and not nearly as bad as yours. My dad's a psychologist in one of his main parts of his practice

is dealing with people withdrawing from Klonopin. And it is a gnarly, a gnarly thing. You don't end up in a better. place than you were before you started it. I think that like definitely alcohol withdrawal is horrible. I never got into like heroin or pain or opioid or anything. But the Xanax, clonopin, any kind of benzodia withdrawal is like crawling out of your fucking skin dying. Like just, ugh, awful. So on that happy now. So I'm sure. Don't start benzos kids. Yeah, exactly. So what were some of the things?

that helped you the most. You mentioned meditation and yoga. Do you still do TM? I do. I do. I do, yeah. I do, I do. I think actually, so I have a, I'm a huge advocate of TM for two reasons.

It's transcendental meditation. It's also called Vedic meditation because of some drama in the 80s that we shan't get into here. But they're the same thing. And I'm a huge advocate because, one, it costs money to learn it. It costs like almost $1,000. And that's an insane amount of money. But I think that's why people do it.

Like I think in some reasons, that's the reason it has the stickiness it has is because, at least for me, I was like, I spent $800 on this. I'm not going to not do it. It has to be worth my money. And I had that thought for long enough that it kept me going in it. And then also for me, I have a super monkey mind, I guess. And so having a mantra to focus on instead of focusing on just my breath or nothing was really helpful, like having that anchor. So I love it. And if you can't afford it, just do like a so hum, I think is a great mantra to do.

But I think having a mantra was a game changer. I tried to meditate for so long before I did. I did Vedic. But like, yeah, it changed the game for me completely. Yeah, I did the same thing. I used Headspace and Ananda and a bunch of different apps. And I felt like, and I did it for like two years. And I felt like it was just another distraction, like just something else to listen to.

And I also fell asleep every time I did head sleep. Really? Yeah. Andy Pudding Combs, his voice is like so calming. And I was just like, this is a nice way to fall asleep. Yeah, I think a lot of people, at least people who follow me and ask about TM are kind of put off by the paying aspect of it. But you're right, it does incentivize you to stick to it. Yeah.

I mean, I think it's a huge, I thought it was a huge negative because I'm truly like the cheapest person. Like I agonize over spending $30 on something. But, yeah, it makes it sticky. Yeah. And the other thing is they're kind of on like a scale. So it depends how much money you make. They're not going to check your tax returns or anything. It's like honor system, right?

And I think I had a girl. They asked me if I could scholarship a girl or something who couldn't afford it. She was brand new in recovery. And so she sat in on my lessons, not when they gave me the mantra, but the ones after that. And they'll work with you. That's awesome. And yeah, and I do think there's something to be said for learning meditation from a person. so you can ask them all your questions or be like, should I be discouraged by this?

Or I think a big one for me was always, does this count as meditation? And they can answer those for you. And I think that's really nice. And something that I like that you said about meditation, because I was kind of going back on your website last night was celebrating the fact that you do one. Because TM is 20 minutes twice a day. And I know for myself, I will beat myself up if I don't get the second one done. Yeah.

Because I tend to be like super rigid and like perfectionist. And when I read that, I was like, oh, yeah. Like that's a huge fucking deal that you can sit there for 20 minutes and silence with your own thoughts. Or even 10. There's been such interesting studies on meditation that show how much power even to five, 10 minutes. And I think it's because we just have no moments of stillness in our days at all.

And so to put in even these tiny moments of it, you're still working out that muscle. Like, Dan, oh, God, what's his name? He's the ABC anchor who wrote the really... Rather? No, he wrote 10% happier. Oh, oh, oh. His name's Dan. He's wonderful.

He's also really cute, and I kind of have a crush on him. But he is, I interviewed him a while ago. Dan and Rather. So hot. No, he's, and he's trying to meditate like two hours a day, but he does it all in tiny increments. So he does like two minutes in a cab, then. two minutes, you know, before a meeting. And I think Will does that too. He doesn't sit down for a time. He just finds these little spaces in his life to pause and have a moment of stillness. And I think

especially when you look at that in contrast to what we would be doing otherwise, which is having our phone out and scrolling through this bombardment of stimulating information, it's so powerful, even if it's just in these tiny, tiny, tiny little bits. Yeah. So how do you manage having a business that is kind of predominantly online? I mean, you have your book and your podcast, but it's very digital, right? So how do you kind of maintain boundaries and not let that? Because I know for me, if I sit on Instagram, even for five minutes, my nervous system is jacked up and I'm so anxious. How do you manage it?

Well, it's an ongoing journey. Some days I'm really good. Other days I'm not. I make sure to not start my day on my phone because that kind of sets the tone for me. There are days where I do and, like, that's okay. but I try to be off at a certain time. I try to, what do I do? I don't know.

I'm just trying to be more cognizant of not automatically reaching from my phone because it's a reflex now. So like you were saying, like either, like if I'm in a cab here and I have 10 minutes, I'll close my eyes and do my mantra instead of reaching for my phone. Something my husband does

that's starting to rub off on me is like he's not on social media. He's not glued to his phone. Does he have an account or any? No, no, nothing. He doesn't even really know what it is. I know. I'm so jealous. The dream.

He only uses his phone to like check his email like every now and then. So he's very detached from it. And he like where we're all pick up my phone at any free time. He carries a book around with him and he'll just open the book up. Well, and that's what we did. That's what we did in the old days. Yeah. You know?

Like I was, I used to read on the bus. I used to read in the shower, which wasn't a great idea. I used to read in all those interstitial moments that we now fill up with our phone. And I used to read so much more. So I'm trying to do that as well. I think that's a great tip. I also, so I have a little bit of a tricky situation because I work in the wellness world as an editor and a writer. And so I really need to have a certain awareness of trends and who's doing what in the space.

So I have to follow a lot of people that I would not necessarily choose to follow. which isn't great for my mental health. I try to combat that with following as many people who make me feel really good as possible. But I do, I find that really tricky. I get, I'm very prone to jealousy. I'm very prone to feeling like no matter what I do, it's not good enough compared to what other people are doing.

So I have to be very careful at that side of myself. I do, I do the book thing that your husband does. And I also have started a rule where I can't look at my phone in the morning until after I've done a workout. and I'm like the laziest person on the planet. I just like would rather slug out at almost all times. And so I used to sit there, especially once I started working for myself, until like 11 and be like, go work out, Liz. And I wouldn't let myself start my work day until I worked out.

But then I'd just be on my phone doing like bullshit. And so now I've taken that away. I can't lay in bed and scroll anymore. And so if you're laying in bed and you're awake, you're just sort of quickly bored. So I'll get up. I'll cuddle my cat, cuddle my husband, and then I'll get up and I'll work out. And it's worked miracle. So now I'm a workout person.

I saw your post a few weeks ago and you were like, I've worked out even just for 20 minutes. I also think the 20 minute is such a game changer because I used to try to go. When I started working out, I was still full time at MBG. And everybody who works there is like so healthy and so fit. So we'd like go to the trendy yoga classes and stuff. But that's two hours out of your day. It's a half an hour there, an hour there. an hour at the class and a half an hour back and it's like $35.

So I'm a big fan of like 20 minutes is all you need. Will Cole says if you just, I feel like I just interviewed him. So he's very in my mind. And we did an interview. I asked him all of like my burning health questions. But he says it's your sweat threshold. So it's the time where it takes you to break a sweat. And that's how much you should be doing and the intensity level you should be doing.

And if you hit that every day, you're like good to go. Interesting. Yeah. So I try to get sweaty every day. Sex counts, you said. Oh, great. I just did a podcast episode on Tuesday about sexual wellness. And I was like, wait, orgasms, like flush cortisol out of your system.

I'm like a huge advocate. I know you had Courtney Swan on your, and so we always talk about how good about ourselves we feel after we masturbate. Right. Because I just feel like I've earned like a gold star for my like hormone balancing and my cortisol and stuff. Yeah. I think it's honestly, it's one of my favorite, not, I won't. wouldn't go masturbate if I was having a panic attack. Right.

But if I feel like that low grade sort of buzzy anxiety, I think actually going to masturbating does a ton masturbating and a shower. Like you feel like a different person after. Yeah. And it's kind of like people, I don't know if they still say this, but like it was kind of like a derogatory thing. Like if someone was like anxious, you'd be like, oh, go like rub one out. Right?

Oh yeah. Like it was more for like guys. Like or they would joke about it. But it's actually it's actually. it's actually really good for you. Well, the part of wellness that people don't talk about.

Because I was also interviewing, do you know Dave Asprey? He's like the Bulletproof guy. And he was talking about how there's this theory, especially among, I think Tibetan monks, that for men, having an orgasm is sort of detrimental to your health.

So if you want to live forever, you should only have an orgasm like once a month. I've heard him talk about that, yeah. Yeah, which is so interesting. So I was like, so for guys, you shouldn't actually go rub one out. Right.

For women, but he's like, women can have infinite orgasms and that's super great for your health. I said it to my husband and he was like, I do feel depleted after I have an orgasm. Yeah. But I don't think enough that he wants to. Right. So I'm going to change the lifestyle. But he did say he felt depleted, which I thought was really, because it is when you think about it, men are actually creating like a fluid. Like they're creating something from nothing and women aren't.

so you wouldn't deplete yourself in the same way. Yeah. It's so interesting. And it's so interesting that it's still like so stigmatized to talk about it and like shameful. And it's like such a big part of the puzzle. And like people just refuse to talk about it. Yeah. I mean, I've always been.

We're going to talk about this on my podcast with you. But like I've been a person with like no boundaries, no shame, no filter. And it's one of the reasons I like often hanging out with other people when they're drinking. is because I feel like sometimes it takes other people a few drinks together. So I'm very curious how you get there, you know, conversationally without that. We'll find out. Yeah, we'll find out. Okay, well, switching gears from orgasms to healthier together.

Yes. Can you kind of talk about how, like, your brand came to fruition and all of the amazing things that you've been doing? Yeah. Okay, so I was, let's see, I was, I had. this crazy bad anxiety and then I started healing myself from that and then it started being the thing where I was talking to a lot of people about it and I've always been that person where like if I like my dentist then like all 10 of my friends will start going to my dentist and so I'd start evangelizing green smoothies which is great because my dentist gives me like a $25 Amazon gift card

when my friends show up so nice I've gotten like some good stuff out of this um but uh I started like evangelizing green smoothies and then people were asking me for the information so I just created a website to house the information that I was learning. And I also started, I was already freelancing for a number of different publications, but I started talking about wellness and food because those had been such a big part of my journey. And I also started writing down the recipes that I was creating as part of my journey. So I ended up pitching a healthy popsicle feature to women's health. And I did it.

They were like, yeah, that sounds great. And so I did it. And then I was like, oh, this would be a really interesting book just because I haven't seen a book about Healthy Popsicles. So I googled how to write a cookbook proposal. And I found a sample proposal. And I copied the format of it. It was a Heidi Swanson proposal, actually.

And I've gotten to meet her now, and I love her, and she's wonderful. But I copied the format of that. And then I already sort of knew the process of getting an agent from my, my fiction years. I had gotten agented, actually, this is a whole other story, but I got agented for five books, different agents.

And each time they weren't able to sell it. And if you know the process at all, getting the agent is supposed to be the hard part because they're taking the numbers down from like, like one of the agents that I got, she'd get like a thousand submissions a week and she'd take on five new clients a year. So that's supposed to be the hard one.

And then you're supposed to, every time I was like, this is my big break. I'm going to be famous. I'm going to be novelist. but none of those worked out. And it wasn't until I pivoted to cookbook writing that I was able to publish, which I always think is really interesting, this moment where you're like, I can achieve a dream, but it might not be the dream that I thought I was.

And I think that's true for so many people that if we're willing to be a little bit more flexible with our dreams, we're so much more likely to be able to achieve them. So I sort of knew about the process of querying. I sent it out to an agent. She loved it. sign me and then within a week we had seven publishers bidding on it which was crazy after the experience I'd had with the first five books I was like going to the meetings and I was like wait are you sure you want this and so I wrote that book and then

I wanted we moved back to New York and I wanted to get a full-time job so I ended up applying to the job at MBG I started off as the food editor I left is the food director which just means I'm the person who, at my buddy green, not MBG, I'm the person who runs all of the food content for the site. So whether it's the video or the branded content, I just have my hands or anything you'd read on the editorial site, I have my hands or I've written anything that you see in that capacity. So at that point, I had my first book out. I was sort of very immersed in the food world. I, through my job, was lucky enough that I got to sort of interview the country's best chefs about their different culinary techniques, but I also got to interview the

country's best doctors about how they eat healthy and different healthy food practices. And I always view myself as like the marriage of those two things. Like the healthy chefs have such good food ideas. Like I was talking to Renee Redepi, who's from Noma, and he like taught me about fermenting blueberries, which I never would have thought of. And then you can use that as like a glaze for vegetables or salad dressings and stuff like that. But often they don't really know how to make stuff accessible for home cooks because

That's what you go to a restaurant to have experience that's so above and beyond what you get at home. And they're not necessarily focused on health. And then the doctors, they know their shit for the studies and what's working in their practices and what's really healing. But they're not necessarily as good at marrying flavors or using all those techniques. So I view myself as the bridge between those two things where I make really delicious food that has all the latest health information kind of packed into it. but you can also make it at home. All my stuff is very easy. My ingredient lists are very short.

And around that time, I started thinking about what was missing from the health messaging. And from my experience in London, when I'd been so isolated, and that had had such a huge detrimental effect on my psychology, I really am focused on community. And I think that community is one of the biggest missing elements in the health conversation. I think we're in an epidemic of loneliness. I think that a lot of people are really sad and embarrassed to say that they're really sad. And that was definitely me in London.

There was something that was really shameful about being like, I don't have friends and I want friends, you know. And it's hard to make friends as an adult, whether you're in a foreign country or not. And so I really wanted my next cookbook to be about bringing people together, about using the food that we eat to reinforce. the healthiness of our relationships, but then also using the healthiness of our relationships to reinforce the food that we eat. Like, as you know, probably because you and your husband have this sobriety thing together,

like when you have something like that, it makes it so much easier for you to adhere. So if you're hanging out with somebody who's eating crappy food all the time and encouraging shitty choices, it's really hard for you to fight that. But if you have somebody who's excited about coming home and making, you know, cookies, but they're with healthier ingredients or something like that, and they're stoked on that. I think that's such a different experience. So that's where healthier together came from.

It's something I'm really, I'm proud of the recipes in my cookbook, but I'm also really proud when people say that they never cooked with their partner before and now they're able to, or that they're using it to stay in touch with their mom who lives far away, or that they have friends over now to cook and have fun over that, and they used to go to bars and feel really shitty or something like that. So bringing that community into the world is, I'd say, my biggest passion and purpose. I think health trends change, but I don't think that's ever going to change.

Yeah, I love that community aspect of it. And it is such a kind of missing thing in the wellness world right now. And like we are, we can be so isolated, like, just with technology and everything. But I think wellness itself can be. isolating. Like I think if you're like, oh, I can't go out with my friends because I'm going to feel bad about what I want to eat or I need to meditate so I can't like go to this party or something like that.

Like I think that wellness can be isolating and I want to be like wellness. My biggest motto in life is that like wellness is a tool not an end to itself. I also have never be the one to say no to yourself. But when wellness is making your life worse, it's not wellness. It's literally fundamentally not what wellness is. So I'm big on using the principles of wellness to make your life as lively and vivacious and satisfying and delicious as possible. I love that. Yeah, I'm curious what your thoughts are on the wellness industry right now in general.

I have thoughts. I think it's tricky. I think that anything that's an industry is driven by capitalism. and I mean that's inherent in the word. And so I think there's a lot of people who have a lot invested in getting people to buy things, whether that's at an editorial site that's driven by advertising dollars or whether that's a doctor who has a line of supplements or just even wants you to go visit their practice and have certain treatments done or whether that's selling books or supplements or, you know,

like stupid products that you don't really need. So I think it's a really hard world to navigate. I think I always recommend that people find a few people that they trust and resonate with and kind of stick with them. And I also recommend that if anybody's buying anything, it should always be for a reason. They shouldn't just buy it because they saw it on Goop and it's cool. Sorry, Goop. I love you. But I think if you're buying, like, if you're like, oh, cool, there's this Ashwaganda. Somebody's taking Ashwaganda.

I don't think you should be like, oh, I should take Ashwaganda. I think you should be like, do I have an issue that Ashwaganda would address, which would be probably anxiety, although it interacts strangely with some sort of thyroid and hormone stuff. So you want to be careful about all that stuff. So I think you should be able to look in your kind of wellness toolkit and track everything in it to something that you're trying to fix or something you're trying to achieve, whether it's longevity, autoimmune, gut, anxiety. But nothing should just be in there just because. Right. It's kind of like practicing mindful wellness. Yeah. And mindful consumption generally. I do think that we live in a world where we're constantly bombarded with all the, it's really the ways that you're shitty and the ways that you'll be

better if you spend some money. And I mean, fundamentally, like, you're not shitty and you don't need to spend the money to be better. You're awesome. And the money that you spend won't make you more awesome. Yeah. It's like we're kind of living in this time where we're like, constantly looking for things to fix. And so it's like, what is, what story is that telling ourselves? Like, I always say, like, if I'm constantly looking for something to fix, I'm always going to feel broken and feel, like, not complete. Yeah, it's like, it's, the world doesn't want you to feel like you are enough.

Right. And I think that one of my biggest practices, um, I went to this like retreat thing. I actually wrote about it in this month's Marie Claire, um, called on site. And there's this one time where. it's a mental health. Is that in Nashville? Yeah, it's just outside of Nashville. It's awesome.

I highly, highly, highly recommend it. But it's like a mental health retreat, and people go there for personal growth or they go there's like a second stop for different addiction issues. And there's this one time where you all sit in a circle and half of the people stand behind the circle and half the people sit and then you trade.

And the people standing behind go around and whisper in everybody's ear, the thing they wish they had heard as a child, but they didn't. And so you have all of these people whispering these things in your ear and then you get to say, you know, 40 times, I think you wish you'd said as a child. And the thing I said was you are enough exactly as you are. And I think that's been my work in my life is to feel like I'm enough because I think I do tend to be like,

oh, if I write a book or if I get this successful or if I have this many fans, maybe then I'll feel whole. And I think none of it has so far. And I also have been lucky enough to meet people who have eight million times the success I have and none of that makes them feel whole either. So I do think it's a practice but it's something I'm working on. Yeah and I think I think that's such an important message for people to hear and like if you're constantly looking for validation outside of yourself and for something outside of yourself to complete you like it's never going to be enough because even if you do get you know the five million followers and the X amount of book deals and the money, you're going to be looking for the next goalpost, essentially.

It's crazy how fast it happens, too. It's like one moment of like, like, I remember when I published, Healthier Together really is like my book that I feel so proud of. I feel like it is me. I love Glow Pops too. It's like my first baby, but it was like a single subject. And healthier. And I remember when I published Healthier Together, I was so proud and so happy.

And I saw it in Barnes & Noble. And it just felt so good for like a day. Right. And then I was like, okay. well, what's next? Isn't that so frustrating? It's crazy. There have been certain things in my life, too, where I'm like,

this is going to make me feel really good. And you work for it and work for it. And then it just is kind of like... Inside job. Yeah, I know. It's hard. It's really hard. Are you good at that?

Do you feel like you're enough? No, I'm so shitty at that. I mean, and I'll talk about this on your show too, but like I've kind of just been coming to the realization lately where like I did I did get everything that I thought I ever wanted. And when it dawned on me that it didn't move the needle at all, I was like, oh man, like I have some work to do. That's interesting.

Yeah. There's actually been some studies that, you know, I'm sure you've heard of the study that's like happiness peaks at $70,000. It's like a bell curve, $70,000 a year, which I don't think applies to New York because $70,000 doesn't go as far in New York. but it's a bell curve, and people at the lowest end of the curve tend to be really unhappy, which I think everybody understands in so far as income. The people at the highest end of the curve also tend to be really unhappy,

which I think a lot of people don't understand because they're like, oh, if I had a lot of money, I could buy things I wanted to make me feel happier, which I think is true to an extent you can pay for therapy and stuff like that. But the reason for it is because they feel guilty that they have everything they're supposed to need to make them happy and they're still not happy. And so then on top of the normal feelings of being a human being, you're berating yourself for not feeling happy

when you should have everything you need to feel happy, which I've definitely felt at times in my life. Like I'm not, I'm, you know, I have the money to pay my rent every month. I have a husband that loves me. I have literally the cutest cat on the planet. I have really great friends and some days I'll just wake up and I'll feel crappy and I'm just like, who are, like how dare you? You know what I mean?

to feel shitty when you have all this. Yeah, it's something that I really struggle with too. Like, when I first got sober, it was really easy for me to be, like, so overwhelmed with gratitude every day because I literally, like, almost died. And so I felt like, okay, I have the second lease on life and, like, Carpe Diem. Yeah. And then, like, as time went on, that kind of wears off a little bit. And I totally know what you're talking about.

like as I've again kind of like gotten all these things right the external things I've just found it harder and harder to access that gratitude and I'm like what is wrong with me I have so much to be grateful for in my life and not just things you know like a happy marriage and healthy relationships and friendships and it just gets harder like it doesn't come naturally to me and I feel like a bad person because of that sometimes so it kind of like perpetuates this shame cycle which never leads to anything good. How do you deal with it? I mean, meditation is huge for me journaling.

I journal a gratitude list every morning and every night. And I pray, like I'm not religious, but I pray all day long. And I ask the universe like every single day to help me feel present and grateful. And that really works. I think maybe because I'm like setting an intention in my mind. I don't know. I like that. Yeah.

And I do a lot of service. to like volunteering and helping people that have nothing. Because that always puts it into perspective. And there's been a ton of studies on that too. My uncle actually wrote a book called The Power of Half, where it was about how his family downed their house. They went to a smaller house and they used half the money from their house, the sale of their first house for charity.

And they didn't like just give the money to charity. They became really involved with this charity called The Hunger Project. and the book isn't about like, oh, you should, here's how to use half of your money for charity. It's about how much it changed the dynamic of their family. And it brought them so much. And I can attest to now they're the closest, coolest family I know. And they attribute it to that to doing community service projects together. Yeah, it's so important, I think, for everybody, just however they can.

Well, I think selfishly. Like, I think everybody's like, oh, you're such a do-gooder, you do charity. And it's like, no, like, if you think of it as, like, for you. and it's great for them, but like, it's really good for you selfishly. Yeah. I mean, in recovery, like, I learned that most of my problems arise from, like, constantly thinking of myself and my needs and my unmet needs and my this and my that. And so, like, my wellness pretty much depends on, like, how much I'm thinking about

others and what I can do for them. And in any situation, like, how can I, and I do that with work, too. Like with Instagram, when I get really into the weeds and I'm like, the algorithm and this and that and brands and but and I'm like really agitated about it, I come back to like, okay, I started this account as a hobby and I liked to write and share because other people were connecting to it and it like helped other people. And so when I make that like my goal, I don't get caught up in like the bullshit of it. Yeah, that's really. And I do think that those are the people who tend to have the most success. although like the Kardashians thwart that narrative for me. Yeah, completely.

I know. How does that fit in? I never thought about that. Yeah, there are those unicorns, right? You see like the girls with millions of likes on one photo and it's just an ass shot and it's like, okay, what are you doing for the world? Exactly. Giving it a little bit more booty, I guess. It's a service.

Well, I think we should transition to my, so everyone go listen to healthier together. after this. Yeah, we should post the same week so that people can just go from one to the other. Yeah, we'll coordinate. You get a double dose. Okay. So where can everybody find you? I am at Liz.

I'm either, you need four words to remember me. I'm Liz Moody and Healthier Together. So I'm at Liz Moody on Instagram. My website is Liz Moody.com. Lots of recipes, health tips, honest talk about anxiety, all of that kind of stuff. And then my podcast is healthier together. And my book is healthier together. So you can find me with those four.

or magic words. Thank you so much for being on. Thanks for having me. Yay.