Well with Arielle Lorre - 86: Kelly LeVeque - Wellness Without White Knuckling + How Our Food Choices Affect Our Bodies

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

In this episode I am talking to Kelly LeVeque - holistic nutritionist, wellness expert, celebrity health coach and founder of Be Well by Kelly - about her lifelong passion for science and wellness; having an online wellness brand and dealing with backlash for sharing her positions; the idea of wellness and balance being ever-changing vs. constant; her food philosophy; blood sugar control and the science behind effects certain foods have on our bodies; how to create a life of wellness without having to white knuckle it; how our emotions affect our health; and so much more.   www.helloned.com/BLONDE for 15% off your first one-time order or 20% off your first subscription plus Free Shipping! www.Sakara.com with code BLONDEARLYACCESS for 25% off your entire order! And visit www.Nurish.com to take a 5-minute assessment and get a supplement recommendation tailored specifically for you!   Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The following podcast is a dear media production. Hey, welcome to the Blond Files podcast. I'm your host, Ariel Lori, and I'm here to talk all things wellness. From how to achieve optimal health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything in between, no topic is off limits. I know there is so much information out there, so I'm here to help you navigate it all and live your best life. Thanks for listening.

Let's get into it. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. Today's episode with Kelly Levec is a long one, but definitely listen through because the end gets super fascinating, super sciencey, and we get into all things blood sugar and how specific foods affect our bodies, which a lot of you guys asked about prior to this recording, which was actually a while back. It was when I was in New York, so maybe like six weeks ago. So Kelly is a holistic nutritionist. She is a wellness expert. She's a, a celebrity health coach. She's based here in L.A. and she's the founder of Be Well. So Be Well grew out of Kelly's lifelong passion for health, the science of nutrition and overall wellness. Guided by a practical and always optimistic approach, which I love, Kelly helps clients improve their health, achieve their goals, and develop sustainable habits to live a healthy and balanced life.

She has a fascinating journey from majoring in business and undergrad to working in the medical field for Fortune 500 companies and doing tumor gene mapping and molecular subtyping with oncologists to then getting a postgrad degree in clinical nutrition. And we talk a lot about the education process and kind of about her struggle to validate herself in this community since she didn't get an MD or an RD, which I was fascinated by since I'm exploring my own degree options now. But anyway, she's super smart and this episode is fascinating when it comes to all things. Wellness, we cover everything from how our emotions affect our health to her food philosophy and how to eat healthly and live a balance. lifestyle without white knuckling it and restricting. And then, as I mentioned before, we go way into blood sugar in like the last third of the episode and talk all about satiety and sugar and sugar replacements and how to balance it all. So enjoy. All right. So welcome, Kelly. I'm so happy. We're finally talking. We've been trying to do this for a while now. I know. It's totally my fault.

I mean, we've had some personal stuff going on with my husband's father and he's, you know, having some health issues, not COVID, but other health issues, which is not a fun time to have health issues at all, be in a hospital or a nursing home or anything like that. So I've been a stay-at-home single, full-time working mom and deciding to launch multiple business platforms this year has been, it's been a little crazy to schedule with people. So I just like really appreciate you. Oh, yeah. Working with me to make it work.

I am like 2020, I'm like, I'm flexible. Whenever works for you, like, and it's not just you. Like so many people will last minute, you know, five minutes before a show, I've had to do it to guests last week. My Wi-Fi went out and I was like, I got to cancel, like right before. And I'm just kind of like, you know, time right now. It just doesn't really exist. And like, you know, things aren't as urgent.

as we think they are probably. So, you know, when it comes to this kind of stuff, so. Totally. So why don't we start off by just, you know, having you tell the audience, like, how you got into nutrition. And I would love to hear kind of what your lifestyle was like throughout your life if you were always interested in this, if you were always healthy, or how that developed along with your interest. Yeah. So I'll just kind of go chronologically because that makes maybe the most sense. I grew up in Orange County, California. So if you ever watched the OC growing up. It's more like Laguna Hills or Laguna Beach or whatever. It's a beach community. It's suburbia. You know, my mom's mom and dad shopped at like Costco and Ralph's and

healthy in our house was chicken, rice, broccoli and like an iceberg salad with either the Italian dressing that you mix up with vegetable oil or like Hidden Valley Ranch. And that was sort of like the veggies on the plate. And I would say a lot of my childhood, I could really eat whatever I wanted. I mean, it was like goldfish, bagel bites, tequitos, like whatever was kind of coming home, like Pop-Tarts. There's always candy around. And it's kind of amazing to me because I've really worked pretty hard with my family, with my parents specifically in like changing their habits and lifestyles, but, you know, habits sometimes die hard. Like, I'll go to their house and they still buy the pink and white frosted animal cookies with sprinkles on it. And there are no kids in the

house and like, Bash is not getting those. You know what I mean? So there's a little bit of compromise that obviously happens at Grandma and Grandpa's house. But what's amazing is places like Costco where my parents shop now have simple meals crackers. And, you know, we can nitpick. some of these healthy foods is like, oh, what oil are they using or what X, Y, and Z? But really, it's just like trying to introduce my family to new things. I mean, my mom's had a Fab For smoothie for probably like five or six years now. And she used to start her day with a can of red Coke. Like she wasn't even a, she wasn't even a coffee drinker, you know? So, wow. And it's, you just have to like, I'm really consider where nutrition information is coming from. You know,

my dad will read a headline that he gets diagnosed with some pre-diabetic numbers, some elevated cholesterol and triclycerides, which comes with elevated blood sugar. And his doctor says, oh, Steve, I think you should take a lipitor or a crestore, and I think you should cut out the red meat. And I'm like, Dad, we can turn these numbers around in five minutes. You stop eating like the frosted animal cookies and we pull back on the processed carbohydrates and sugar. Your liver will metabolize all of this. in a totally different way. You'll recycle old cholesterol. All these numbers will come down and it would take us probably like six weeks. Like we don't need medication for this and we just need a lifestyle change. So what's cool is they had like started to come around. But that was my childhood. It was very

much who I was. I was really active. I played soccer, club soccer. I had, I played in the United States and even like played a few tournaments abroad. And I went to USC for undergrad and my dad was a business major. I have 26 relatives who went there. It was sort of like a, you will go to USC. You're the oldest of three girls. I remember my dad specifically sitting me down at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory of all places. He got a coffee and we were sitting outside of it. And he was like, so, I was like, you know, going into my junior year or whatever, we have to devise a plan to get you into USC, you know? And it's like, he had always been pretty chill. And then he got like real serious me towards the time when we were applying for colleges. And it was not like,

I mean, we went and saw other colleges, but in my head, I'm like, oh, that's where I have to go. Like my whole family went there, I have to do business finance like my dad. But if I really started to think about what I loved, like, I read all the diet books. I had subscriptions to like women's health and self and shape. And my favorite class in high school was health. My favorite class at USC was nature of human health and disease, which, you know, I wrote my final paper and thesis on diabetes. So if that gives you an idea of like my obsession with blood sugar and when it started, it's funny because when I look back, I would read the South Beach diet with my arm halfway

in a container of goldfish. So it's like, you know, I think it makes it, it's interesting. I know that there are people who have these really healthy parents who get into health and nutrition because your mom's in, you know, a Reiki specialist or they're dad is like a psychologist and understands how food affects the brain. Like, I don't know. You know, people have their, their ways of getting to it. I just, like, really loved the science. And I remember calling my dad in college and tears and being like, what am I doing? Like, nature of human health and disease, this course, like, I didn't even have to study. Like, I read a sentence and it stuck.

It makes perfect sense to me. I mean, I was always a math and science person. And if anyone's followed me for a long period of time, they know my, I'm continually, working on my grammar and my spelling. And like five paragraph essays growing up were like the death of me. But I could talk to you forever. I could do a geometry proof. I could balance your checkbook. And I could talk to you about cells, hormones, and neurotransmitters all day long. So it is an interesting, it's interesting because I think most men lean math and science and females lean like literature and grammar. and, you know, but I was the opposite. And so my dad sort of laughed on the call and was like, Kel, like, you've been, you know,

we've supported you and you're lucky that your college is paid for. But like, I'm not going to pay for extra years for you to like go back and switch to premed or be an RD or go into kinesiology. Like, you need to find a way to pair this with your business degree. This episode is sponsored by Nourish by Nature Made, the number one pharmacist recommended vitamin. and supplement brand. Nourish offers a monthly subscription service that is both convenient and customizable to make sure you are getting the proper vitamin intake. Backed by 45 years of science, Nourish removes the guesswork from you trying to figure out

what supplements are right for you. Nourish packages are personalized and delivered right to your door and their convenient subscription service can be adjusted, paused, or canceled at any time. Packs are customized to your needs and are affordable. On average, it costs less than $2 a day to get your nourish vitamin intake. Visit nourish.com to take a quick five-minute assessment and receive a supplement recommendation tailored specifically for you. Hi, I'm Pia Barangini, the creative director of LPA, an entrepreneur, a wife, and a dog mom

based in Los Angeles. This is my new podcast, Everything is the Best, where we basically ask interesting people, how did you go from zero to yacht? I'm always curious how to help people became successful, and I figured you would be too. Get on the internet with me. Let's laugh, let's cry, let's overshare, and let's get inspired to live our best lives. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. It's all for you, baby. Thanks for listening. Love you, mean it. I ended up taking an internship at a pharmaceutical company like the summer after my junior year and sort of pairing that with, I like worked in Northstrom's shoe department actually to

get like mission-based sales and then was like here's my sales experience here's my pharmaceutical experience now let me get it you know let me in because a lot of times when you go to apply for johnson and johnson eli like any of the big biotech or pharmaceutical companies you have to have sales experience a lot of people get it in like i don't know they're selling um hr solutions or they work at like for a food company like craft or gallo wines like i think there were some pretty big, amazing companies that had some awesome sales programs, but I finagled my way into J&J and then ultimately realized it was basically like a bad episode or the movie Love and Other Drugs. And I was like, this is depressing. I'm a glorified cater. They could care less about me.

And I need to get into a more specialized role so that I could have like really elevated conversations with physicians and be of a value ad. So I just, I worked my way through pharmaceuticals. I was only, I was doing that for about a year. And then I worked my way into cancer and genetics. And it was an awesome education. I had a career in cancer and genetics for eight years. I led teams. I, you know, covered the eight West Coast states at points where I was flying like four or five days a week and sitting in on surgeries, sitting in on tumor boards, which is basically like when people have cancer, their circle of care, they're doctors, all of their doctors, radiation oncologists, oncologists, surgeons, surgical oncologists,

they all get together and they talk about the case. Like, this is what the MRIs look like or the PET scans. This is how the tumors responding to chemotherapy. These are the genetic tests. And then you're kind of like a player in the room, but you're the person who understands the technology that they could be using to have more efficacious. treatment because all of the stuff that comes out, you know, every year when studies are approved and when new technology is available, these doctors didn't learn in residency and fellowship and

undergrad, you know, it's like they have to, they have to rely on specialty reps to support them in that process. And so it was really fun. Like I could have been in that career forever, but, you know, every, I don't know, a couple months, six weeks, couple months, I would look into, I would look into schools or programs to go back to school for nutrition. And it's a really interesting space because you can go back and become a registered dietitian. And I don't think a lot of people realize that that was started by Seventh Adventist, which is like a primarily vegetarian, vegan-based community. So a lot of the studies, a lot of the teachings, people come out, like very plant-based.

And that's totally fine. But it's also like a little some of the research depending on the school and some of the even like the books and you know, you have to rely on publishers to keep information up to date, things like that. I was just a little disappointed. And only because when you think about the career that I was in, like I was talking about studies that were coming out like two days prior, two weeks prior, two months prior. You know, I was just so much more. It was if you think about like what they call like the sales. of like early adopters and late adopters. Like on average it takes a it takes physicians who are practicing 18 years from when research comes out till they start till they start actually using it in their practice. So it's, um, it was an interesting thing for me. And it's something that I, you know, when I've had candid conversations on podcasts before, but it, it's something that I love and respect so many of the physicians and MDs that I work with that I interview on my podcast. Um, it's definitely been something that society tells you, like, if you don't have letters behind your name,

then you haven't, you know, that you're not worthy or that you're not an expert. And, and so it was something that I personally had to get over and I can, like, for the life of my career, like, literally have gone back to school again and again and again and again and think, like, I need another certification. Like, people would laugh at the certifications that I have. Like, I'm like 200 hours in yoga, like certified personal trainer, Equinox Academy, like, all these things that I don't use and I'm like, but I need to have that. Wait, so can I, what did you end up majoring in an undergrad? Did you major in business?

That was business finance and nature of human health and disease. So I ended up like getting some more science under my belt and then spending, really, it was like on the ground education with learning how to read PubMed research articles and studies, looking for study design, P values, really understanding, like, you know, is this, is one of the authors of this study being paid? Is this a biased study? You know, like, as a community-based, is it, you know, double-blind? I mean, there's so many things to look at when you get a headline that comes out in USA Today that's like, coconut oil is going to kill you. And you're like, right, right. Like, it takes me five minutes to pull up the study and be like,

come on. Like this journalist, like, okay, headline, good for you. What are some of the most outrageous published claims that you can think of off the top of your head? Well, it's funny because there are so many published claims that you're like, okay, this is, this is an over-exaggeration or this is like completely wrong. You know, and you look at like the FDA and you look at, you look at the recommendations that are made through associations like the American Heart Association or, you know, whatever it may be. And you look at the studies that support those claims and recommendations and sometimes they are just built on straw houses. Like it's so disappointing. And I just, unfortunately, it's the dissemination of information to the people.

making recommendations that really scares me. Like, for example, my brother-in-law, you know, he is around my age and he, my sister sent me his blood test yesterday and it's like, okay, some elevated cholesterol, some elevated LDL and some elevated liver enzymes. And I look at that and she's like, his doctor just said he needs to do cardio and stop eating red meat. And the fact that like red meat right there, like that that recommendation is being made and I get those blood tests and look and I see the cholesterol ratio is totally normal in the healthy range, which means that there's no chance that he's going to, you know, that first of all, it's just like no indication of inflammation or like poor, a poor ratio is what we look for when they're, when you have a real issue.

He's not calling for particle size at all. He's looking at like top level general blood tests, not actually looking at cardiovascular markers that would indicate any type of real disease and making food recommendations that even the FDA in the last couple of years have said saturated fat and red meat, saturated fat specifically is like a nutrient of no concern. And when we look at cholesterol, it's like someone can change the cholesterol that they're eating and it won't even change their blood tests. at the max it would ever change anyone's blood test is about 8%. And, you know, like all the recommendations for the medications like Lipitor, Crestor, and all

these are not even changing, you know, like they're maybe changing at the same amount. And it's not even those are proving to be more harm than good in regards to like predisposing people to neurodegenerative diseases and like restricting cholesterol to the brain, which is like, you know, really anti-aging and anti-inflammatory and like a solid nutrient that we need. So, you know, I worry because I'm like, okay, his doctor probably graduated school 20 years ago or 30 years ago. And he has so many patients and he has poor reimbursement. And he's probably not making what he thought he'd be making. And his, you know, he's just seeing patient after patient after patient and making these like two-minute recommendations. and people are, you're like, my doctor said, and it's like,

right, you know, that's just, that for me is hard because I'm like, Kate, elevated liver enzymes, I'm curious, like, about the things that are metabolized in this liver. Is he taking a lot of over countermedications, Advil, you know, anything like that. Is he, are you guys drinking a lot? I mean, it's COVID, you know, and she's like, you know, we're drinking wine. We're drinking wine. You know, they have a six month old. I'm like, okay, like you're barely getting sleep. You're drinking wine. You guys aren't working out like you used to. Is there more carbohydrates and sugar happening? Like, is there more fructose happening in general? Like, you're metabolizing that in your liver. Like, I look at that and I go,

his liver is probably like doing a lot of work on things that, you know, we need to just like give his liver a little bit of a break so that we can recycle some old cholesterol and bring that number down naturally. So let's up his fiber. Let's get him like there's some awesome studies on cillium husk powder. And I like, you know, I think you can get it for like 10 bucks from now. Foods on Amazon. It's just a totally reputable company that has an amazing quality control. We have a pharmaceutical grade testing. So you throw like a tablespoon or two of that in his fab for smoothie or and then like pull back on the wine a little bit. And like if you guys are drinking a lot of wine, like invest in a cleaner wine that's not using added fructose.

and, you know, like, maybe shrink his hours, have him eat dinner a little bit earlier so he can, like, do a little bit of this good work when he sleeps. This is, you know, it doesn't need to be rocket science, but we can, like, turn these numbers around in six weeks. So it's bio-individuality where, like, you know, everyone that has a little bit of a different case, and I think that that's so interesting. But it is frustrating when people make blanket claims off of incomplete information, and they're not even really looking. at the blood test right. But, you know, on average, most doctors even graduating today are getting 19 hours of nutrition in 14 years of school. Crazy. I don't know about you guys, but all I want for the holidays this year is some peace and quiet, serenity, some good sleep, you know, not asking for much here, right? I mean, seriously, this year has been a lot, but it's almost over. And I think we're all

just needing some tranquility. So Ned CBD is here to save the day. Whether you're feeling overwhelmed or you want to give someone the gift of peace, they have such an amazing range of products to try out. So I love the full spectrum CBD. I've been sharing about it for a while. It's the only CBD I will use given my history, my sobriety, and I'm 100% comfortable with this given their transparency and the fact that they use the absolute highest quality CBD and extraction process. I also love their sleep oil. Whenever I have an issue with insomnia or waking up at like 4 a.m., which is my thing when I'm stressed, this does the trick and I sleep like a baby.

So they also have a complete line for women specifically geared at hormone balance and natural management of PMS symptoms, which is amazing. They have an energy roll on that I love. They have lotion for sore muscles. It's all great. So Ned, as I mentioned, uses the highest quality CBD from an independent farm in Colorado. They are science-backed and naturally sourced and they are fully transparent. They share third-party lab reports on their site.

And they also are just really caring and thoughtful when it comes to their products and also their consumer, which is what you want in a CBD company. So if you want to check out Ned and try their CBD for yourself, We have a special offer for the podcast audience. Just go to www.com slash blonde, B-L-O-N-D-E or enter B-L-O-N-D-E at checkout for 15% off your first one-time order or 20% off your first subscription order plus free shipping. That's hello-ned.com, H-E-L-L-O-N-E-D-com, slash blonde, B-L-O-N-D-E for 15% off your first one-time order or 20% off your first subscription order plus free shipping. I'm so curious, like, because I'm going back to school now.

I mean, I never finished undergrad because I was a raging alcoholic and addict. I'm glad of you, girlfriend. Thank you. Those people that go to school when they're young don't know what they want to do anyways. So you maybe save yourself a little. a little flip-flopping anyways. Exactly. I mean, I would have probably wanted to go into like a fashion PR or something, like something that's totally not interesting to me now. So, you know, now I am considering like a dietitian, you know, maybe medical school because I don't want to have kids. You know,

I kind of, I have the freedom of like not having that be something that's weighing on my decision. And so I have a lot of math and science to catch up on and everything. So I'm really interesting. interested, but it is like, I feel like there are a lot of knowledgeable people who don't have an MD or an RD, but it is kind of like you have to like prove yourself over and over and over again because those letters are very validating. And they're, but, you know, conversely, like there are also so many like certifications, not like what you've done, but, you know, nutrition certification, five hours and you're a quote unquote nutritionist. So like people have to be really careful that the person that they're working with is actually qualified.

Yeah. Well, I mean, so for me, I wanted to cherry pick classes. So I did a certified clinical nutritionist and I was able to pick classes from UCLA and from UC Berkeley Online, obviously living in LA, couldn't go to campus. But classes from Berkeley Online, I took a couple of my undergrad sciences that I needed to like, I'm old, so the classes that I had taken at USC, some of them had expired timeline-wise. And then I got to cherry-pick my nutrition classes too. So the interesting thing is, is you have a little bit of basis of understanding, then you can start to make and decipher between instructors and what they're pulling from the book and what is interesting and the studies that are referenced in the book. And I think that is, that is key.

So I've said this again on probably other podcasts, but Nutrition 101 at UCLA, it took me like, it was like my third try before I like read the teacher resonated with me and wasn't talking about plant, sterols, and margarine lowering cholesterol, you know? So it's, you got to really think about like a lot of the nutrition, the textbooks that are coming out of public, publishers are based on the my plate now, you know, and it's like. I have heard that because I know RDs who are like, yeah, it's pretty like antiquated information. And if they're not, yeah, and if they're not saying that it is, it's because they're defending that degree. And it's like, you have to look at nutritionists who do clinical work, who work with a functional MD. Like, I'm pregnant. I have

eight weeks left. I interviewed Lily Nichols. I think you should interview Lily Nichols for your podcast if you have, and I know you're not going to ever be pregnant. But like, this is someone who is an RD and literally worked in private practice with a functional OBGYN, specifically with women who get gestational diabetes and was like every single one of the recommendations for pregnant women is completely false. And we haven't updated these recommendations. And this is why it's wrong. And this is why it's perpetuating disease. And this is why it's backed by big, you know, big business. And this is, you know, like you have to kind of look for the people who are still doing the work. You can't just get the letters and stop doing the work. And that's like, that's the interesting thing is like,

when you're getting the letters, are you learning to do the work? Are you learning to read the studies? Are you learning how to do like Google alerts to your email inbox that is giving you the alerts on the things you're interested in. For me, it's like metabolic syndrome. It's female disease states like polycystic ovarian syndrome endometriosis. I'm looking for like, I have alerts now for pregnancy. Like there are just things that I get really interested in and I'm like, send me these studies. And Google Scholar and PubMed sends me the studies and I'm able to look at them. Like if they don't, they go to two years of school and graduate and don't know how to do that, but they can tell you like calories per gram of fat like great but like how are we helping people

in a holistic way and you know to this day like I said there's like a very insecure part of me that I know people will go like yeah but she's not an MD yeah but and it's true like I'm going to need to prove myself over and over and over again. And it's like a little bit annoying, a little bit, but it also like, I don't fall back on my laurels and go like, I have letters. Yeah. I have to like continually come out with good stuff. What I think is really interesting is that there are people who can go back to and just say like, hey, I'm young. I went to school or I'm not having kids. I went to school for undergrad. I'm getting my RD. I'm going to go into functional become a functional nutritionist or functional dietitian. I'm going to go start to work with a

functional MD and work with a functional MD. I'm going to start to learn the blood tests. I'm going to be able to make recommendations based on diagnostic testing that's coming back. And I'm working with you from a holistic approach. Someone who's doing that with some high level of executives is my friend Bridget, who I, you know, being Bridget as her handle, I interviewed her on my podcast. Like, she's an example of another RD which I'm like, so much respect for you and what you're doing and how you're, how you're sharing information because it's really, you know, the hard part is is when you are with an association or you do have a certain level of, or like, responsibility to fall in line. Right. And that's hard. So, so it's a catch 22.

too. Like, I'm sure if I had gone back to become an RD, like right after school and didn't spend eight years in industry, I would probably be more really defensive of it. Like, it was a great learning opportunity. You know, I think you can see both sides of the coin. And I think there are definitely nutritionists and health coaches and different types of certifications, you know, from an herbalist to an acupuncturist that do exactly the same thing. They go get their like, cert and then they're don't do the work. Since we're talking about all things nutrition and wellness, I want to tell you guys about one of my favorite life hacks, Sakara. This time of year is so hectic, even or maybe especially in 2020. And instead of ordering Postmates 24-7,

Sakara is coming through with the delicious, nutritious meals. So Sakara is a nutrition company that focuses on overall wellness, starting with what we eat. They have organic, ready-to-eat-eat-meals made with powerful plant-based ingredients, and the menu is crafted by chefs weekly, so you'll never get bored. They have breakfast, lunch, and dinner all made with ingredients designed to boost your energy, improve your digestion, and get your skin glowing. This week, I am doing the superfood mac and cheese. I mean, hello, I'm doing the acorn squash with mushroom stuffing, perfect for this time of year, banana bread, tomato bisque, I mean, it all looks amazing. And along with delicious meals, Sikara also has daily wellness essentials and herbal teas to support your nutrition. To boost

results, you can try the best-selling metabolism super powder. It's an all-natural remedy for bloating and fatigue. It's amazing. And you also have to try their bars if you haven't yet. They are my favorite. So for a limited time, Sakara is granting you early access to their only sale of the year with 25% off site wide with the code blonde early access. That is 25% off your entire order site wide when you go to sacara.com, S-A-K-A-R-A-com, and enter code blonde early access. That is B-L-O-N-D-E-A-R-L-Y-A-C-C-E-S-B-E-S, blonde early access for 25% off site-wide. I'm thinking of a few people who I know who have masters in nutrition,

who have said, looking back, they wish that they had done an R-D, not because of what they learned, but because of how it validates you in other people's eyes, which is kind of too bad. Yeah. I mean, it's, and that's, that's, I mean, if I haven't alluded to that, that's sort of like how I would say that I feel. Like it's, and I'm sure there's a part of you who, you know, you didn't finish your undergrad and you were having a hard time with, you know, maturing or getting, you know, addicted to substance.

And that's a really hard road. and like you've made a massive recovery and you've like dedicated your life to wellness and you're I'm sure looking at your past going like I need to go back to school like I need to do this for me because I need to prove it to the world but prove it to myself and at a certain point you it's all about us it shouldn't be about other people anymore it should be like is this affecting you because there were definitely times when it was affecting me like where I I wouldn't share as much or I'd get in this, like, I'd get in this loop of I want to prove to people that I know what I'm talking about and I want to share study after study after study after study

or be controversial or like, I'm not controversial in like a bad way, but like I do have this memory of sharing my first ketogenic article with Bertie, which is like, you know, a who won't wear birdie, my domain was like a click media. You know, it's like their, their blog. back in 2014. And it was back when we were looking at like the ketogenic diet being supportive of, you know, preventing seizures and for brain injury and for, you know, inflammation and for all of these things. And I just like wrote this very, I should have known better, but I wrote this article and this is back when they would share their articles on Facebook. And it was like so scary, the comments, like, get a real RD. I'm a nurse. This is absolutely.

like so dangerous and irresponsible. And it's like no one back then knew that there was such a thing as nutritional ketosis versus ketoacidosis. They just figured that like if I'm talking to be about ketosis, this is like a dangerous state that happens to diabetics when they have elevated blood sugar and elevated ketone levels. That is really dangerous. Like that is a really dangerous state. But I'm telling you like in the absence of carbohydrates, like a ketogenic state can be all of the following. and, you know, like, I went into that, I want to say like chat room, not chat room. I went into that chat and was like sharing study after study and like trying to defend myself. I remember crying my eyes out to Chris being like, I'm just going to start sharing smoothie recipes again.

And I'm just like, I can't really handle this like backlash, you know? And then you get that guts again and you share something else. and I'm like sharing some studies on estrogenic effects of soy and certain genetic populations on chalkboard magazine, and the same thing happens. It's like, get yourself a real RD, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so like I know if I had those letters, then I would say, I am and you can basically like pound sand

instead of feeling to be like, well, here are the 35 studies that I used to reference when I was in breast cancer in the last 10 years. It's like you have to do the project for work. That's so frustrating. Yeah. So, I mean, it's, it's humbling. And it asks of you to believe in yourself and to do the work and to,

like, put your big girl pants on every once in a while. And then it's sort of like whack a mole. You get whacked down and you wait a minute and you pop back up. So. I mean, that was what 2014, you said, I can only imagine because of just the climate of everything right now. I mean, it seems like if you post a carrot, you get people saying carrots are bad. And if you post a tomato, you can't do anything right. I get the weirdest.

I'm sure you get it more because, you know, you do post like informational stuff and people tend to be really opinionated about that. But like, yeah, I get the weirdest back. about the most random things. I'm like, ooh, okay. It's tough. It's tough to navigate right now. It is. It is. And I think it totally depends on the day. Like, I'm pretty, because I've been doing this for so long. You know, I'm pretty even keeled and mellow when someone who I know is trying to rally me, like, you know, rile me is leaving a comment or DMing me or telling me, whatever, you know. And then there are certain days where I'm like, hi, my son woke up at 445 and didn't go back to sleep. I just heard from my protein powder producer that we have a worldwide organic vanilla powder

shortage. I just, you know, like it can be the perfect storm and then someone can say something that like you're like, I feel like crying. I feel like crying and also yelling at you in comments back because I think that it's just, you know, it's it. And that's why cultivating. like a wellness practice on your own, I think is so important. It's that silly saying or that, you know, the beginning of, it's the safety recommendations on any flight you take. It's like,

you put your oxygen mask on before you put anyone else's on and to really like be able to help people. You have to help yourself. And I'm human. There are times when I'm burning the candle at both ends and the way that I want to take care of myself isn't as strong as I want it to be. It isn't as really like that foundational start to my day and I need to, I need to rebalance. And I think that that's really interesting too because I think people think like, oh, well, you just create balance. I'm like, no, balance is this constant dance that we're like all trying to achieve over and over and over and over again. And like little habits make it easier or, you know, little things getting excited about something and then just not having to put out the

effort to do it, but really just loving it really helps to do that too. And setting up your environment in a certain way. And I know people have probably read James Clear's book, Atomic Habits, but a lot of what I use with my clients and a lot of the Fab Four and a lot of like the practices that I use, I read his book and I kept being like, yes, I use that with clients. It's like little things. We can get into the science all day long, but it's like if they're going to their favorite coffee shop and they end up getting a pumpkin spice latte and the pumpkin, you know, cinnamon, maple scone, and then they tell themselves, I'm not going to get that next time. I'm not going to get that next time, but they keep like torturing themselves by driving there and failing. It's like, let's just pick a new coffee shop for six weeks. And then when you're feeling like, oh, I have a little bit more control over that or I'm, you know, today's the day. I'm going to go and like order my little like almond milk cappuccino instead and create a new habit. Sometimes it takes a minute to step away and come back into it.

And so it's like those are the kind of things I think that really support people to find happiness and not stress out. And you know, I think there's a lot of fear mongering and a lot of like really big goals. Like here, let's write up 50 things we're going to do today. And like this is my exact. perfect day and perfect plan. It's like you got to be you got to be a little bit more fluid. Yeah, I love that. And I love that I love what you said in the beginning, that balance has never really like achieved. It's constantly, it's like a constant state of change. And like, you know,

I'm thinking what did what worked for me yesterday did not work for me today. And it's, you know, it's going to be different tomorrow. So let's talk about nutrition and the fab four and your kind of food philosophy. Yeah. So I'm a glass half full person. I kind of think my dial is set that way. I've been that way a bit of my whole life. It's been something that at certain points has been like a slap in the face. Like, oh, I just thought everything was going to work out. And it doesn't. But I would say when it comes to nutrition, you know, having a history of reading a bunch of diet books and loving all my nutrition courses and like really trying to sort of see the overall arching themes and to really simplify the science. Not only was it something that I love to do,

it was very much a part of my career in the first eight years that I worked in cancer and genetics because when you think about a limited amount of time with someone to explain a topic, you need analogies, you need studies, you need to be able to say, this is technically what's happening in your body. And if you can remember that, then you can make choices to support that. And so the fab four came out of the work. I think a lot of, you know, young nutritionist, dietitians, like health coaches will ask that question of like, how did you develop the fab four? It's like, well, I didn't just like put up a website and go like, what's my shtick? You know, it was sort of like, what are people missing? What is the research

telling us? And I really loved a course at UCLA called Food, Mood and Behavior. It was one of one of my favorites. And as you know, USC, my favorite class was nature of human health and disease. And I had done my thesis on diabetes. So I really had always loved blood sugar. But I also really was interested in satiety because I was coming out of the age of like calories being everything and people being like, you know, diet Italian dressing and, you know, don't have fat and all of these things. And when you look at the research around like balancing blood sugar, supporting blood sugar balance, satiety hormones, fats integrating into cell membranes, all of that was really interesting to me. And I was like, wait, like, how can I, how can I give people like a short hit

list that is like, these are the things that not only satisfy your hunger hormones and make you feel the best like emotionally and mentally, but also really support blood sugar balance to the best that it can, and you could really be any diet or lifestyle. I looked at those things and I said, research tells us that we need protein, we need essential amino acids from our food. So that's really important to me, whether someone's vegan or vegetarian, paleo, keto, whatever, essential fatty acids is the same thing. You have to get your like omega-3s. People talk about all the time or, you know, your omega's from your food. And that's something we need, like, we need to eat those to get them. Our body does not synthesize them on their own.

We have to create them. And then for me, the fiber and greens piece was really phytochemicals, fiber, water, like the ways to feed your microbiome, the ways to stay full because certain hunger hormones like ghrelin really are affected by the stretching of our stomach. Take yourself back to like 2010 and like 2009 to 2012 was really like me being like, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to go back to school. I'm going to, you know, really, I'm going to start really helping people.

I'm going to start my practice. And, you know, the official start of my practice was like 2012. But when I was thinking about it, it was like I started working with clients and someone may just, you know, have a juice or some client may be under eating protein and then was hungry an hour later. And so I started to kind of see these themes pop up with clients. And I was like, you know what, let's just use this little short list. I want you to look on your plate for a source of protein, a source of fat.

because you have to get that from your food. Plus, they're really satisfying and they support blood sugar balance. And then I really want you to eat like veggies that have fiber in them, that have water in them, that have phytochemicals in them that are like supportive of digestion and filling you up and stretching your stomach to make you feel calm. And just focus on those four things. And in the very beginning, it was very general. It wasn't like, I want you to get 20 grams of protein. I'm looking for a couple tablespoons of fat. I want two to four cups of veggies. Like it was really more just like it is a checklist. And it still to this day is a checklist for me. I think so many of my clients and so many of the people that I've read my books and found success with

the fab for for them because it isn't about perfection, but more about what you're putting on your plate to crowd out what maybe shouldn't be on your plate or even just putting things on your plate so you don't feel bad about what is also ending up on your plate. But even for me to this day, it's like I'm looking at those things and I generally know where I'd like want things. to be, but sometimes it's like a cup of broccoli and Bash and I are having chicken and broccoli with some pesto for lunch. And it's like, I'm like, oh, I didn't get that a full two cups or, you know, it's like I'm not as much of a stickler as I think some people really want rules. And I just was like really anti-rules. I was so burnt out by the number, like I said, of diet books that I had read or

things that I had tried to follow or recommendations, a podcast I had listened to. And I was just kind of just like, we just need to simplify this because we're all in fear. We're all trying to follow things and diets that are not our own. We can't make it our own. You can't decide today that you want to be plant-based and tomorrow that you want to be meat-based. We identify with these diets like there are religion and that makes it very hard to extricate ourselves from our beliefs. It's been for me, like the fab four was what I needed and it came out of the work and I was, I, I, want to say it was accidental. It just sort of, the more I read and the more I learned, I was like, wait, like, what if we just gave people a checklist? So instead of getting up from a restaurant

with their friends and feeling guilty that they had a piece of the flatbread and a sip of wine, they can get up and say, like, I had the Mary's Roast chicken and that Brussels sprout dish, and I hit my fab four, and I feel great. Right. And I'm not focused on the stuff that's going to make them feel shame and guilt and spiral them into their next cleanse or restriction. because like I say over and over and over again. Like I just, the clients that do the best, I'm telling you, have worked with some people since 2012

and the clients that maintain their weight, feel the best, don't feel these knee-jerk reactions to yo-yo diet, are the ones who can get consistent and they focus on the positive, the little wins, they have habits that help them get there. Do they drink a fad-for smoothie every day? No.

I mean, they've had months where they didn't. or maybe they tried a little intermittent fasting, but they just had that general, like, slight structure of, okay, my body needs these things, and this is how I'm going to get it from plants or animals or a mix of both. Right.

Yeah, that was going to be my next question, what is the quality that you see the, you know, the most consistently in your most successful clients? But it makes sense that that would be it because I think it's been proven over and over again that anything, you know, slow and steady wins the race, right? Like anything fast. I had a nutritionist on a few weeks ago, and she was like fast and slick, like is sexy, I guess, or I can't remember exactly how she phrased it,

but she was saying the same kind of thing. You know, it's like to have any kind of sustainable result, sustainable lifestyle, you know, it has to be positive, you know. Nothing good comes out of like punishing yourself and rules. And I, you know, I really agree with what you were saying. about people identifying with their whole being to these diets, you know, and that does make it really hard for them to deviate from that. I think there's a really hard, it's really hard to listen to and check in with yourself when you identify so strongly with something. And it's hard. Like it just, you need to have flexibility. And I also think sometimes it's just not about the food. Like, it really, I think we look at food as an easy dial that we can control. It's an easy thing that we can fall back on and create some stability, some control, and some structure in our life. And when that structure makes us feel safe, then it's easier to identify with it. And a lot of times when I sit down with clients, I can look at like what I ask them to do is like list out their goals, like, talk.

three, top five max, but like, why are we talking? Like, why are you here? And then it's like, can you put me in your body? I want to do day in the life of you. Do you set an alarm? Do you not set an alarm? You know, sometimes people are like, well, the weekends are so different than the weekday. Fine, give me both days. Put me in your body. I just want to be you. Like, I want to know what it feels like. I want to know what the day looks like. I want to, you know, and what ends up happening is a lot of times we'll get to this point where there seems to be some emotion, like emotional charge with something. And I joke that I'm like, I'm not woo.

Like I'm really more science-based. But there is a part of me that like sometimes it's a shitty boss, a bad relationship, a trauma, you know, something that is like unheeled that is causing this, this obsession with food and control. And when we can pull ourselves out of it, you know, if it's a job that's making you really stressed and you can't stop eating processed foods, is it the fact that you don't, you're not a good person and you can't control your eating behaviors? Or is it actually because the stress that you feel in the job that you've chosen,

there's some misalignment there. And maybe we need to consider what other types of careers there are for you, even thinking like that is so scary or, but like the iterations of how your life could be different to create this life of wellness without having to white knuckle force it. And I think that's really a part of like my practice with working with clients and just sharing online and in my books is like having grace with yourself. But then also realizing the situation that you're in, whether it's perpetuating these behaviors and if we need to look outside of the food. When I was about a year sober, I started having really bad gut issues. And I think that you know, I'm still dealing with some of them kind of sporadically. I think I did a lot of damage to

my body, obviously, when I was using drugs and alcohol and I was, you know, bulimic and all these different things. But I started dealing with gut issues and anxiety and other like physical manifestations. And I was going to all these doctors and I couldn't really figure it out. And I was in a relationship, like a long relationship at that time. And it was not the right relationship for me anymore because I was sober and, you know, this person wasn't, nothing bad about him, but like, we just weren't. And I was so out of alignment and I'm not woo-woo either. But when I terminated that relationship, like 99% of that other stuff went away. There's so much to be said for, you know, kind of, I don't know what other word to use, like living authentically,

like recognizing where you can make changes and doing so. Yeah, and a lot of those changes are scary and they come with heartbreak and they come with like moving through those things. And but that's like the perfect example of coming to grips with your evolution and realizing that like you aren't a caterpillar anymore. Now you're this beautiful butterfly and you kind of need to fly and you want to hold on to that past life. But you also need to you need to be respectful of yourself and and. what your aspirations, your goals, what you really want your lifestyle to be. Because when we do look at research and we do look at how people live their life, it is so highly influenced by the people around them.

Like, who's your spouse? Who are your friends? How can you change in an environment where 90% of the people you surround yourself with want to drink on a Tuesday and a Wednesday night? They want to stay out at a restaurant and do happy hours. and it's not, it's not balanced. Like people want community, they want friendships, they want love, like more than they want mostly anything, because that's the human experience.

And so it is really, like that's some of the most difficult things for me to work through with people is when there is this misalignment or when the people in the community that they surround themselves with aren't open to change. Like I am really lucky that, and I think, a lot of us are that looking back and being in college in the early 2000s and then, you know, being in my 20s and having people are like, I love to dance. Like I would dance at a club sober. Like I love to dance and like used to love to go out and like stay up late. And as you like start to get older and you're like, this doesn't really align with me anymore.

The same people that I used to have dinner parties with late or want to go dancing, with on a Friday or Saturday night are the same people now today that are like, hey, let's meet at Pilates on Sunday morning at 9 a.m. And I'm really thankful for everyone's evolution. And I think that really takes people in their friend groups, being accepting of other people's behaviors, but also being that leader and really trying to like share the health and get people excited and be the person that brings the funky, weird, healthy brownies to the party. And it's like, yeah, you can have black beans and your brownies if you want like you know i just think of like all of those all of those little things that start to like tentacles like reach their way into your friend group or your family

and like sometimes the alignment just doesn't work and i've definitely had experiences working with clients for a few years having some massive transformations in how they feel how they look how they show up at work and then getting the call or the text that like they're getting a divorce and you're like, am I responsible for this? Like, you know, there is a little bit of guilt and a little bit of, but it is, it's part of life. And like, it is part of evolution. And I think how we approach those types of conscious uncoppelings or the pain and, like,

working through it, we have to find like the therapies that work best for us to move through that stuff. But yeah, it's wellness isn't just. the food you eat. Yeah, it's so true. I mean, I'm thinking back to that situation, but also other, like, I'm, I'm so sensitive, which is kind of a blessing and a curse, but my body responds so much to any kind of like emotional turmoil. And I'm thinking of other times when I've, like, had physical manifestations of emotional stuff. And like, I can look back on it now and, and see how, like, I was desperately trying to attribute it to food or hormones or whatever. you know, and it's like, so I'm supplementing and like green juicing my way.

You know, it's like there's no amount of like green juice that can get you through something, you know, when it's emotional. Like you just have to, you have to like do the work to identify it and work through it. So I want to kind of go back to nutrition a little bit because I got questions from people and a lot of them were kind of similar. but a lot of people want to know about sugar. So obviously you're big on, you know, controlling blood, or balancing blood sugar. Is there any sugar that's better than another?

Is coconut sugar, maple syrup, honey, whatever, better than cane sugar. Are sugar alternatives like, you know, monk fruit or stevia? Are they okay? Or what are, what's your opinion on that? Yeah. So let's just like talk about sugar in general. So when you look at sucrose, which is sugar molecule, you are going to get one glucose and one fructose molecule.

And like that's like a white sugar, right? And so glucose will go into your bloodstream and elevate your blood sugar. And then fructose will be metabolized in your liver. And so when we look at different types of sugar, there are sugar. that are higher in fructose and lower in glucose, meaning we're doing more work on our liver and having less of a glycemic effect. And at a certain point, those were really popular, like Gave.

Gave was so popular. Well, that's because it's more fructose than it is glucose. So you're not going to have that blood sugar spike and as much of a crash, but you're actually asking your liver to do some metabolism of that fructose. and it's actually one of the closest sugars to high fructose corn syrup. So what I want to say is like when it comes to science and research and what's popular, this is why doing the work and like continuing to understand how the story is evolving

instead of having knee-jerk reactions and like fear-mongering and smearing, shmearing certain things. Like that's so bad for you. Like just I always go back to the science. Like what's really happening here? Why is this being told? Why is everyone being told it's good? Right.

Why is everyone being told it's bad? And generally a lot of the sugar is whether that's like coconut sugar, cane sugar, maple syrup, honey, you're going to get generally like the same amount of glucose and fructose and some are a little higher in fructose, some are a little higher in glucose. But generally it's like, okay, an unrefined chemical free process is something that I think people should look for, like a maple syrup, a honey, something that. may come with more quote-unquote nutrients, have more magnesium, just have antiviral properties, you know, how is it produced and what's in it? Now, I never look at sugar as a source of nutrients.

I'm really not. Like you wouldn't look at it and be like, well, I'm doing a tablespoon of maple syrup because I'm getting magnesium. It's like, whoa, like let's not go there because we do want to understand that when it comes to your body, your body constantly wants to maintain what we call a homeostasis of your blood sugar. And we talked about balance, right? I always think about blood sugar when I think about balance because it's this symphony of hormones in reaction to, in, you know, having a reaction to the things that we eat. So we can eat something that spikes our blood sugar really high, and then it's like a high-pitched note. And then our body responds with a massive flood of insulin, and it brings our blood sugar down. And then, you know, we might

release so much insulin that we become hypoglycemic. We get to a low blood sugar state. We're a little shaky and irritable. And then we eat and we bring ourselves back up. But like certain foods, let's say it wasn't like a processed flour-based carbohydrate, and instead we decided to have some blueberries. the effect of that blood sugar it's more of like a mellow note and it's easier for our body to respond because it's wrapped in fiber. The release of that sugar happens slower

and the drop in blood sugar doesn't happen as aggressively because our liver or our pancreas didn't go like oh my God, release all the insulin. So you start to see that like the vehicle in which we're eating our food matters, whole foods, cellular foods, that matters.

So my favorite form of sugar would come in a cellular carbohydrate, something like a sweet potato, berries, things like that. But I also grew up a Costco kid who ate like those poppy seed muffins for, I don't know how long. I also know that like I want to live a life where I can have a brownie or I can have a cookie in my life and I just want to make a healthier choice. So yes, a more unrefined process that doesn't require chemical extraction that doesn't have as much processing is better for you because it's retaining nutrients, but it's not better for you because it still might spike your blood sugar just as high as cane sugar. So when you think about how is it affecting your blood sugar, they're all kind of refined in their own way. So when it comes to sugar, sugar, I would say, you know, organic coconut sugar, maple syrup, Yukon syrup, honey, they're all just slight variations of one another. And I would say,

try to source the highest quality in your budget of one of those. And when it comes to things that are really high in fructose, like high fructose corn syrup and agave, I do worry. about those elevating liver enzymes. I worry about those because what's so interesting about blood sugar is people, like I'm the person who tells you that elevated blood sugar can be really hard on your body because pre-diabetes, PCOS, just the cravings that happen, the blood sugar roller coaster, okay, okay, okay. But you also have a liver and muscles that can take care of that really quickly. And if you're like, hey, I do yoga and I feel like having, you know, a cookie, you have the cookie, your blood sugar spikes, it's insulin's released, you know, pancreas releases insulin, insulin

supports blood sugar to be absorbed into your liver and your muscles, you go work out, you dump your muscles of stored sugar, done. Like, not the end of the world. Like, your body is so capable of managing so much of this, it's just we don't want to ever overload it to the point where we have chronically elevated blood sugar and hyperinsulinemia and we have fatty liver, you know, the fact that like So many young children have fatty liver disease is heartbreaking to me. It's like the number of children that are being faced with these lifestyle diseases based on the amount of sugar they eat is is dangerous. And it makes me upset. So that I'll segue into alternative sugars. So alternative sugars are multiple options that you can, you know, different types of of sugars, right? So you

alcohol sugars. The majority of alcohol sugars, they do not affect blood sugar. These are like in diabetic candies. They're now in a lot of keto products. They don't affect blood sugar. What they do do is they can ferment some of the bacteria in your gut. So I think when people think like, oh, alcohol sugar, it's free. It's not. Like it's having a little bit of an effect on your gut microbiome and you need to be aware of that. And I would always say like, you feel like you're getting in the habit where you can't go a day without this X, Y, and Zee, like chocolate bar that has erythratol or xylitol in it, then we maybe want to consider, I don't know, we just want to look at, we want to look at maybe taking a break and like bringing it back in at a more balanced,

like it's like the coffee shop thing. Just take a break for a little bit and then bring it back in when you feel like you might have a little bit more balance with it. But it is an option. And it's definitely something I use with clients. Like there are specific products, the good chocolate company or Chalk Zero and like certain things that I'm like, hey, like, every now and then you want like dark chocolate with almonds and sea salt, but you don't want the effect on blood sugar and you're not being super active right now and you're drinking wine. And then like, yeah, I'd probably have you have this one over one that actually has an effect on your blood sugar.

So it's kind of, again, it goes back to like the client and what's kind of going on in their life where I would make specific recommendations. but when it comes to stevia and monk fruit, they've been used for a really long time. And stevia, you have reb A, red B, which are the two chemical compounds in stevia, and then you have like whole stevia leaf. If you're getting reb A and red B together and you're getting like the whole leaf, you're going to have less of that bitter aftertaste that you get with stevia. So whenever you're using a stevia product and you're like, I hate stevia, it's so gross. Like if they're only using one derivative and they're getting that bitter aftertaste, they're probably

paying less for it, making it a cheaper product, and you probably are going to love it. Right? So I think, you know, it really comes down to personal preference. Munk fruit's going to give you more of like a sugary taste and less of a bitter taste. But again, it's like back to the back to quality. I think some organic stevia drops or organic monk fruit drops into a coffee to me is a better option than a tablespoon of sugar or honey or maple syrup. Because what I see there is like a blood sugar spike and crash because it's a liquid being metabolized really fast and then all of a sudden you're deciding that you're going to whip up some waffles or you know like it's it's the reaction that happened later that I'm more a little bit more

concerned about so when it comes to using among fruit or stevia like I just did my I have a pregnancy course on nutrition that I launched and I was like trying to run some numbers on you know if someone just added like a ticker or something. tablespoon of sugar to their coffee every morning. It's like, that's like over 3,500 grams of sugar over 40 weeks. And people don't really recognize like how it adds up. And so I'd much rather have someone use like a monk fruit or stevia, a couple drops. Like I said, the research is pretty, at this point, it's pretty sound. It's just like, hey, you, it is not halivating blood sugar. It's not affecting the gut microbiome at this point. What is it doing? Well,

it tastes like sweet, so this is something we need to recognize. Something tastes like sweet and we don't have to pay off at the end of actually getting the sugar, we may be increasing our cravings. And that is based on your personal experience to that and how are you being, how are you responding to that? So my whole question with clients is I'll start to again, look at their day. I love being like put in their body. And if I notice that they're like, well, I added stevie drops to my coffee and then my protein powder didn't taste sweet enough, so I added it to my smoothie. And then I put it in my tea in the afternoon. And like, sometimes I make this like chocolate, cacao, avocado, moose at night with Stevia. And then I'm like, whoa, like, your body's never getting the payoff here. And then you're

really loving it. And so I might say, like, look, you need to take a break, sis, because what can happen in, and they did this research in chemical sweeteners like Splenda and Sweeten Low and stuff like equal, that crap. Don't ever use that. Please don't ever use that. That research is just horrendous and you don't want to be using that stuff. No diet sodas. Like make the swaps. There's awesome options on the market now or at at least better options on the market now. But when I see that the payoff's not happening and we look at the research from chemical sweeteners, we know that if people sit down to a Diet Coke and then their meal comes, they eat twice as much and they really want that like satiety payers. And they really want that like, satiety payoff of the carbohydrate, the salt, the sweet, the fat. They really are looking for that

like dopamine hit and they end up eating more. So it's like, would it have just made sense for you to get like the Mexican cola if you really wanted to Coke every once in a while, had it with your meal, you're having a little fat, you're having a little protein. It's the small bottle. It's not like a 7-11 super size me and you aren't doing it all the time. Like that actually may have been a better option for you because then you wouldn't have eaten the whole basket of fries and, you know, ended up still wanting more after your meal. So it's nuanced. And I think that's what makes it, that's why podcasting is so cool. Because for me to think about sitting down and writing that article, I'm like, oh, no, that's a lot of work. Don't make me write that five paragraph essay.

But it is, it's just the way it is. So like I would say, try to. pick a clean source if you have it occasionally, meaning like that Mexican Coke or that like Who style chocolate, like good quality ingredients, even though it has real sugar in it. Or if you're like, I'm someone who needs it a little bit more often, but I'm not having stevia monk fruit or alcohol sugar 13 times a day. It's just like a once a day hit for me and I'm good. Then maybe you lean on that and you have that four or five days a week, not every day. Amazing. Well, I could talk to you forever. We're at like an hour. So let's see. Well, I like to close my podcasts by asking people, what is one thing you wish people would stop doing when it comes to their health? And what is one thing that you think people should start incorporating that they might not be doing? Yeah. This just came to mind for me. Something I wish people would stop doing is using a timeline or using. time against their deadlines. Like, I think so many times when I sit down with clients, what if time

didn't exist? What if the days of week and the first of the month and the first of the year did not exist? And you just felt like, I'm just not feeling myself. Like, I'm sort of feeling lethargic. I'm sort of feeling tired. I'm noticing that my eating habits are affecting me. And instead of saying, like, I'm going to start tomorrow morning on a fresh, bright new day, or I'm going to start on Monday if you stopped using time as an excuse and you started pretending that time didn't exist, what and how would you take care of yourself differently? It'd probably be at your next panel. I love that.

That's so good. That is just so much wasted time, I think. And if people could do that, that would be amazing. And get in the habit of doing that would be really cool. And then when I love for people to start doing or adding, would be positivity tracking. So my editors at Harper Collins were like, we really want you to make a journal, a food journal,

like people love the Fab Four. And I was like, okay, but like, you're going to follow my rules. And the rules are when any of my clients are food journaling, they journal the positive stuff. It's like, for example, this morning, I made a chocolate almond butter fat four smoothie with some fiber in it.

And, you know, Bash had some of that. And then he also had some banana and almond butter because he gets real hungry real fast. And that's a real easy little like, here, stand up in your tower and start eating this while we make this smoothie together. And, you know, I think clients who read my book would be like, oh, my God, she had, like, because I had a couple of his little peanut butter bananas. And I think people would be like, she'd never do that. Like, and oh, my God, I'm a bad person, you know. And so I think if you want to track your life or track the food, you need to create something that's going to create momentum in your life. And it's not that I'm saying like those bites didn't exist or it's that I'm not getting power to that. I'm looking at the Fab Four as a way to be like, I feel really stoked on myself. It's like when you say I drink eight glasses of water or when you say I worked out today or I journaled or I meditated. If you want to add food journaling, food tracking, or like gratitude tracking to your life.

Like get in the habit of writing down like what is going well. Because that's when you start to see it. And without even working with effort, you start to eat that way. You start to notice those positive things that you want to feel grateful for in your life. And you start adding more veggies to your plate. And it is really automatic and habitual instead of taking energy and life source from you that could be used, changing the way.

world celebrating an anniversary with your spouse doing something fun with your kids like we just we have bigger and better things to do yeah i love that well then i'm going to be proud of my cinnamon raisin bagel slathered and ghee this morning yeah that sounds delicious i'm in new york was so funny i saw a funny video maybe it was on diet starts tomorrow on their instagram and it was like breakfast in L.A. versus breakfast in New York. It was like so spot on. It was hilarious. That's amazing. I need to go find it. The L.A. like, favorite. She's like, like, kale. I can't even remember, but it was the most like L.A. thing you could imagine. And then the New York one was like, give me a bagel and I need it in like 30 seconds.

I got to get out of here. Kind of thing. When in New York. Yes, one in New York. Well, thank you so, so much for coming on. I hope everything with your family goes well. And I can't wait to chat on your podcast. So where can everybody find you? Yeah. So I'm socially on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at Be Well by Kelly. And my podcast is at Be Well by Kelly. And we're doing a podcast swap. So I'm excited to hear your story as well. And I've written a couple of books. My whole book series is Body Love. So the first one was Body Love, the second one came out last year was body love every day. And then the body love journal is being released in December. And if people hate books and podcasts, I have video courses online about nutrition

throughout pregnancy and nutrition if you just are looking to understand blood sugar balance and inflammation and satiety hormones. Amazing. And you are hustling through your pregnancy. When are you do? It's this little baby is a turkey. Thanksgiving coming, like between Thanksgiving in the first week of December. So, um, so yeah, it's, it's crazy, but it's kind of what happens. I feel like when you have a deadline and you want to take time for your family, it's just to make sure that everything sort of wrapped up. So, so yeah, it's exciting.

I admire you so much and loved chatting. So thank you again. My pleasure. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you liked it, and if you like the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes a long way, and it's actually the best way to support the show. Also, if you want to see more about each episode, you can head over to The Blonde Files podcast on Instagram. I'm always posting about each episode there or over on my personal page at Ariel Laurie.