Lifestyle
Cheese and Crackers (and the evolution of Lauren's relationship with food)
In this episode of Recibly Fit, hosts Jason and Lauren explore Lauren's evolving relationship with food, particularly her newfound love for cheese and crackers. They discuss the emotional journey...
Cheese and Crackers (and the evolution of Lauren's relationship with food)
Lifestyle •
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Interactive Transcript
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Okay, with that said, let's get into today's episode.
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Hello, hello, hello.
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Welcome back to another episode.
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We're back.
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So recently last weekend I went on a solo adventure with Kendrick, our son and we went
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to the Pokemon Go Fest in New York City as a Randall's Island and I've never been there
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before but it was like just tons of open space and fields and they did an awesome job.
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I feel like oftentimes you go to these events and it's kind of just like a couple of things
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here and there and it's just like a money grab basically for them to just kind of put
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on an event and kind of mail it in.
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But it was a very well thought out event.
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There were so many different like attractions there and they had giant Pikachu's and different
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little exhibit areas where you could take pictures and Kendrick was so thrilled.
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So we play the game Pokemon Go which I'm sure basically everyone is aware of what it is.
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But you kind of like in a phone app setting you're kind of catching Pokemon but you're
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kind of walking through real life as well.
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So it's a really nice way to encourage physical activity while also having us enjoy the
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whole Pokemon theme behind it.
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It was like early on with when Kendrick started to get into it it was like the only way
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we could get him to go on walks like we're actually struggling to get him.
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He's not a he's not like motivated to go outside like he's just not that kind of kid.
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Kindsly every day is like outside outside outside and Kendrick's just not he'd rather like sit
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and play with blocks and like build stuff but we obviously wanted to promote some activity
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and going on family walks and so that was one of the ways that we were like okay well let's go
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get some catch some Pokemon and he'd like start running.
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Running just like if his face would be so red but the funny thing was I thought you would be
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just like on the phone like catching all the sorts of different Pokemon that were available
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that day but he actually just handed the phone back to me and he was just taking it all in.
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I think he was so excited that not only kids but also grownups everyone had their Pokemon shirts
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and gear on and he was just really excited and he would be pointing out people and he's like oh
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he has a charizard shirt on and he was just really enjoying the whole thing and it was great.
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So it's nice to be able to I mean Kendrick we would go on 10 to 15 minute car rides when he was
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younger and he would just go ballistic the whole time but to go on basically a five hour trip
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there and then five hours on the way back and he was totally fine he just enjoyed every second of
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it so it's great. It's so awesome he's such a big kid. Big kid yeah. Speaking of big kids
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Kindsly or youngest is turning to this weekend. Oh yeah so that's all the big number two.
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Big a big deal. I feel like that's a like for for me personally just having had two babies who
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have now become toddlers and now preschooler. I really like the toddler preschool age a lot more
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than I love the newborn infant stage. I'm not saying I don't love babies but I really enjoy toddlers.
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You can talk to them you can reason with them kind of a little bit and yeah they're just a little
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bit more independent. Yeah and they're just funny. They're just so funny. They're so funny they say
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really funny things and I'm just loving this stage for both of them and we're excited for
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Kindsly second birthday so kind of planning a couple things it's gonna be a beautiful day so we're
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gonna have some friends over do some activities outside. I imagine this is probably the last
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birthday for a little while where we're gonna be hosting it at our house. Yeah because now Kendrick
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wants to have all of his school friends and like go to a trampoline park and things like that.
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Yeah so yeah so I think it should be a lot of fun and I can't believe they're getting so old.
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And I'm sure we're gonna have a lot of cheese and crackers which is the eve of today's episode.
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The crux of today's episode. So okay today we're gonna talk about cheese and crackers and it's
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gonna go probably deeper than just cheese and crackers but we have been having this discussion we
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just had it the other night about the fact that I mean I kind of had a revelation which is
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ridiculous because I this is something I do every day but all of a sudden I was like I eat
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cheese and crackers every day and you were like I know and I was like I love I love it I do it
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while I meal the kids food for dinner so it's like consistently around 4.30 pm I pull out a block
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of cheese and so I rotate my crackers so I I wasn't like a big was it townhouse kick for a
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little while just like those you know party what do they call like party crackers. Well you come
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through yeah club crackers club that's what it's like club crackers then I went to wheat
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things right now I'm in a big trisket kick so I get my block of cheese and my crackers whichever
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flavor of the month I'm feeling and I as I'm prepping their food I'm snacking on cheese and crackers
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and I had this revelation because I was thinking about protein and I've been thinking about like
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am I getting enough protein in my diet not in a overly analytical way but just like could I
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are there holes like are there places where I could increase my protein intake because I am you know
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training hard in the gym and I want to make sure that my muscles are recovering and I was like you
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know I think most of my protein comes from cheese and then I've like really thought about my diet
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and I was like I'm not joking I think all of my protein comes from cheese I mean I eat eggs I
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eat meat obviously but a lot of my protein comes from cheese and it kind of got us talking about
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how much of an evolution I've gone through emotionally mentally physically all these different
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things to be at a place where I can even stay on a podcast that I eat cheese and crackers every day
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never mind doing it never mind embracing it and enjoying it and we just wanted to talk about that
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today yeah I mean when I first met Lauren like snacking in general was almost like a taboo sort of
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subject with you you would be let's say in your dorm room alone you you had dorm roommates obviously
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and you know let's say we would come in and it would be as if we caught you with like drugs or
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guns or something like that the way you would like quickly like kind of like wrap up your snacks and
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be like it's just pretzels and hummus this is just like my diet thing and to now have this come full
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circle and have you not have any sort of panic around food and snacks and this idea that you're
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eating cheese and crackers every single day is just a complete 180 yeah I mean I so I've obviously
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on this podcast if you've ever listened to it before I've discussed my history of eating in general
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and just like my like emotion around food and going through disordered eating patterns and
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the one of the biggest things for me was hiding what I ate and feeling so much shame around what I ate
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and snacking was always one of those things that was like whenever you would hear like diet advice it
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was like in the biggest thing for me which is why I think this new revelation about cheese and
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crackers is funny is that it was always about like mindless eating and you're not weighing you're not
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weighing out exactly what you're eating or measuring it all out and like if you're going to be snacking
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you have to measure out that it's only 12 almonds because that equals this many calories and here I am
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just like cutting up cheese until I feel good not worrying about how much of the block of cheese I ate
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or how little of it at I ate or whatever it's just about this is a ritual for me that I enjoy I feel
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good there's no emotion or shame around it but that is not where I was 15 years ago when we met
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and if anything yet there was a lot of hiding and pretending that I didn't eat certain foods
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when I was speaking to people but then eating those foods in private alone in this like shame spiral
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like every time I did eat pretzels in hummus was like a big one I either had to make an excuse
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for why I was eating it I've talked about this before on the podcast as well but I would always and
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anytime it was carbs at all I would always be like oh I worked out I went for a run an hour
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ago so that's why I'm eating these carbs and I would say it to my roommate who would as well
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as I could literally care less about what you're eating or why but I always felt like I had to
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explain myself of why I was eating this and why it was healthy like even if it if I wasn't doing it
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for a health promoting reason even if I was just hungry and wanted a snack I had to create a
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story around why this was actually something that was healthy and something that was I was doing
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purposefully in order to be a healthier person and like proving myself to other people who weren't
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asking me to prove myself to them but I felt this pressure to do so so that nobody would judge me.
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Yeah and you know being with you at the time I would feel this sort of like panicked aura around you
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where you it's because you didn't want people to see and so you would eat it like really quickly
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and kind of like ravenously and then also feel like you also restricted a lot of days as well and
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so that when you did do it you would kind of binge and over and doge and then afterwards you would
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just feel so full and be like why did I do that and get so upset with yourself and then you're also
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explaining to other people who don't know you quite as well why you're eating it and so there would be
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so much panic around it but now when I come back home and I've gotten the kids you just have
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sonos on you've got norijones playing you're just casually chopping up some cheese while you're
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making up making their dinner and it's just such a relaxed event and it's like yeah you just
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be till you're satisfied now and you just feel good about everything. When you said that it reminded me
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too of holidays so my family I should say a lot of eating is cultural right and like
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that people talk about it with all different you know types all different cultures and why you
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should include cultural foods in your diet because not only for like health benefits but emotional
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benefits and cultural benefits and connecting and all this stuff and I come from a family of
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cheese eaters. Heavy, heavy cheese eaters. Jewish family, we eat a lot of bagels and cream cheese
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and we eat a lot of just cheese like my family loves cheese and we could all all of my like my mom
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and all of her sisters and cousins like they would all agree that we would rather eat a
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charcuterie board for dinner than any other meal like that would be our preference would be
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cheese and crackers and pepperoni and all you know dips and chips like those are just
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what we connect over with a glass of wine and like that's how I grew up is that that was like
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family bonding over a cheese board. The very first time I had dinner with your family like your
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whole extended family and all that I think it was other I think it might have been Passover
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because I think it was a satire but basically I didn't understand how much food was going to be
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involved that day and your family goes hard on apps. So there were cheese and crackers or meatballs
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like so many and I was full by the time the main like we even sat down I was like oh my god I really
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overdid it completely like this family loves their cheese. We love cheese so anyway what I used to
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do when it came time for holidays again was I wouldn't just go and enjoy the cheese and crackers the
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way I do now pretty much every night I would completely binge like a hundred percent it was an
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out of control feeling of I've been depriving myself of this for months because I'm I know it's not
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quote unquote healthy I know it's not good for me I know it's not going to help me lose weight and
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that was all I cared about at the time so I would be restricting restricting restricting and I
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would get to an event like that and I could not leave the counter like I couldn't go talk to
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anyone else I was like this is my moment to get as much of this in as I can and enjoy it as much
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as I can to the point of complete discomfort like you said like you didn't do it because you were
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binging you did it because you're hungry and then just didn't pace yourself well but I was truly
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uncomfortable and it was because I had been restricting or in this mindset of this is bad for me
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and I can only do it on this special occasion so I have to make the most of it yeah so it's now
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a justified thing you don't feel like you're being judged because it's a family holiday event
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right and I would do this like pretty much anytime there was an event like we had a if we had a party
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if we went out to dinner like anytime that anything felt like there was a reason to justify
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eating more because it was special because it was like a different kind of a day than my regular day
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I felt justified and being able to be like well I don't do this every day but I'm going to be bad
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I mean literally that's like the thing that now when I hear it I my heart breaks for people who
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say that because I know what that internal dialogue is when they sit down at the table and they're
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like oh I'm gonna be bad in order the pasta I'm just like oh my gosh my heart is breaking for
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you right now because to other people they might be they might roll their eyes they might think
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like whatever that's like annoying I'm my heart breaks when I hear that because it's like
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what are the things that you're saying in your head about yourself to make it so that you have to
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announce that this is out of the ordinary for you instead of just ordering the pasta and just
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getting on with dinner it's like it has to be this big announcement and this big deal because you're
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so mean to yourself that you have to like you have to justify it basically yeah it's funny we
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became personal trainers and at the time this was around 2008 2009 a lot of it was like the
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marketing was around eat this not that they were very like very strict rules or just like very
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strict like guidelines around eating like eating making sure you're only eating foods in the
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outs the outside edges of the grocery store and having produce and like you're like people would
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put together recommended foods to get and it would just fit on one page right there would be a
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column for protein there would be a column for fats there would be a column for carbs a column for
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veggies and it just all fit on one sheet and so us as trainers were like oh we can only be good
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trainers if we shop on the outskirts of the grocery store and we eat only these foods that fit on
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this page you know never mind cultural differences socioeconomic differences like never mind
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all the different factors like goes into food in general it's like restricting to this one
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page of different foods that are quote unquote deemed healthy yeah it's always delivered as this
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extremely simple way to look at food which is appealing like it's really appealing to be like oh
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I can just look at this list and I just pick my protein I pick my grain I pick my veggie and like
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and that's all I have to think about until you get into a million different situations where
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that's not how food is presented to you right like when you're cooking for yourself that's
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it can be a helpful strategy to use and we've talked about this with the meal prep episode is that
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that kind of is the strategy we use when we're making our lunches and dinners as we kind of like
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put a base of protein and then we add a carb and we add a vegetable and we have a little bit of fat
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in like some sort of dressing or even the oil that we use to cook it and like that's our meal and
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we put some spices on and make it taste good and that's a nice way of approaching cooking for
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yourself meal prepping it's simple it's easy but when you try to approach your entire life in
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that way it gets overwhelming really fast when you're in a situation where you don't have 100
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percent control over every single ingredient that goes in or when it's not what you want
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or when it's not what you're like in the mood for right yeah I remember during that sort of
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early days of us being personal trainers like what we would often eat is brown rice
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khus khus khus khus khus khus khus khus khus khus khus khus khus khus khus is like pasta I would have
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met I wouldn't be caught dead eating khus khus when I was in college because that's yes what trust me
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khus khus is like pasta that is that is in like the shape of rice uh-huh and to me I'm not
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oh just to be clear to the podcast listeners I'm not saying there's anything wrong with khus khus
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now but I knew every single grain and what it was made of and what was quote unquote the healthiest
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versus the least healthy khus khus was down there because it was actually pasta hiding as a grain
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ooh concealing itself you're talking about quinoa quinoa quinoa I mean we had like barley
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like ridiculous so we'd have that and we wouldn't have red meat we would have ground turkey ground
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chicken like grass-fed ground beef sometimes and it was funny going back home my parents own
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cream barbecue restaurants which they're very proud about and I would go in and be like well I don't
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eat white rice anymore um I only eat brown rice like you guys have brown rice and my mom's like
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what are you talking about I'm like I don't eat like I don't that short rib is too fatty like I only
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ground turkey now and ground chicken you like this is our restaurant this is a cream barbecue
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restaurant this is our culture and it's just funny now looking back me like like just the fact that
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I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that all of the world isn't just going to conform to my
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diet that I found on a piece of paper in a magazine it's just really funny for me to think about
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now as we were talking about this episode yeah and there's like you'll you'll just get in your head
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when you're in that mindset of like I can't eat these things like these things will completely
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wreck my health they'll completely wreck my physique like all these things you are so in your head
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about these rules and think that any deviation from that piece of paper list of ingredients that
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you're allowed quote unquote to use is going to result in either crazy weight gain or muscle loss or
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bad health like all these things that are really like there's just so much more to your health to
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to your physique to your well-being than every ingredient that you put in your body but people do
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make it out to seem like that there is no room for deviation from these perfect ingredients yeah I
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feel like there's especially there's so much content now like people making content and grocery
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stores and you like you see this food it's filled with chemicals and toxins and it's like so bad for
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you you can't feed it to your kids like there's all that you know but there's also on the other
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side of it there are more voices out there on social media they're talking about how there are
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there's no such thing as good foods or bad foods or healthy or unhealthy it's just kind of like
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more matters in the grand scheme of things depending on what you want to do and all that so at least
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there's a little bit more backlash against that yeah I do feel like there was more like without
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social media it was mostly books at the time and so I would get a book or a blog and I wouldn't see
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when you're reading a book you're not seeing any comments or any feedback on that book you're just
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reading the book and so you don't really get any other opinions on or or see any other options
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for what you maybe are missing what this book is maybe missing right it was just like I'm I'm
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thinking about one book in particular that had a diet and recipes and I followed it so specifically
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so to a tee every time I did it for 30 days some of you might know what I'm talking about when I say
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30 days but every single time it was like 30 days on this like super intense thing and then I couldn't
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take it anymore like I was so tired of making sure everything was perfect that then it would be
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30 days completely off instead of just being like okay what is the reason that I can't have
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carajena in my coffee creamer like who made that rule and what even is that ingredient I blindly
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just took all of these I don't even know if that's how you say that ingredient but I remember
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that one specifically because it was in the coffee creamer that I liked and I like coffee creamer
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and I was like forcing myself to put a whole milk or not a whole milk they wouldn't do
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cows milk either it was like forcing myself to do almond milk in my coffee and I hated the taste
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of it but I was forcing it anyway instead of just a very small pore of coffee creamer that had
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this one random ingredient that people deemed toxic in this book and I was like well I'm going to
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kill I'm going to die if I eat this ingredient like that I'm so I'm a bad person I'm going to be
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so unhealthy I can't have this one ingredient and there wasn't anyone saying the doses in the poison
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what's the what's the quote the poison the dose makes the poison
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like when people sorry there's got a little bit off the rails but like when people in those grocery
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stores are talking about like this is toxic this is toxic this is toxic people who actually understand
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food science will respond and say the the poison the dose makes the poison isn't that one
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or the poison is in the dose one of the like something like that basically being like water is
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poison if you drink too much of it yeah you can call anything toxic if you have too much of it
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and it's for everything from water to vegetables to protein to like anything could be quote-unquote
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toxic and so to not give any context to what you mean by this is toxic or this is a poisonous
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ingredient and just to make that claim without giving like if you eat it in this incredible
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quantity that nobody could possibly eat it in then there is it's only fear mongering and there's
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no truth to it yeah yeah you know you talking about coffee kind of got me thinking about your
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coffee evolution as well so Lauren and I we met in college and you know we would often bond over
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ice coffees a Dunkin Donuts and Lauren would have a couple of sweet and low in there and we'd also
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have those like cooladas sometimes on special occasions but not credible but then you went sort of
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like hardcore in multiple different directions at times sometimes you would go completely green tea
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because green tea was a big thing at the time green tea and you cut out coffee you love coffee but
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you cut out coffee to get your green tea and then you were like well you know I should cut down on
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my sugar or my artificial sugar and so like you would get this special sugar you would order it
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it was like it wasn't stevia it was something different it was pre it was was it splenda
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yeah no maybe it was stevia it wasn't splenda yeah because nobody even knew about stevia yet but
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I had heard about it yeah yeah so this is better than splenda so you know period like I'd bring it
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with me I oh my god what a weird memory unlocked I use to have a person of stevia oh my god that's
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so weird so you do that and then sometimes one time you tried black coffee because I would
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drink black coffee because I actually liked it and you would just be so miserable after like when
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you watch Lauren drink coffee now she's got two hands on her mug she's just enjoying every single
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second every single sip but yeah back then you go through all these sorts of iterations because
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you didn't want to drink at the time which was really prevalent empty calories right that was a
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big phrase so like obviously so does juices were out but it's like okay coffee is like where can we
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cut cut some like calories at coffee and so you'd go through this like black coffee like trying it
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out and then you eventually kind of had a gateway into what you're drinking now you're drinking
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Grande Soy Latte's now you know without any issues but before the gateway was a Grande Soy Misto
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yeah what was the reasoning behind that a Misto is mostly coffee this is specifically Starbucks
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I think it's called a cafe O.A I don't know why Starbucks has like its own name for it
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so I never know yeah but it's a cafe O.A is mostly coffee with steamed milk on the top so it's
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basically just like coffee with a little bit of milk but it's steamed so it feels a little fancier
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okay and a latte is espresso not coffee it's espresso on the bottom which only fills up like
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you know a couple inches of the cup and the rest is soy milk or whatever milk you use right
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so it's a lot of milk yeah and it's so much more delicious I mean when I do drink yours it's delicious
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but it feels more like milk with the side of coffee now this one but it's just funny to think
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about the evolution of you know you kind of drink whatever coffee you wanted then you went
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completely cold turkey but then you kind of had a little bit of a gateway coffee into what you
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currently drink which is Grande Soy Latte which from that's from Starbucks at home I just drink coffee
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with a splash of creamer yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's just funny no oh it's funny and I will I want
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to acknowledge like real feeling so when you're saying that my first reaction was like I don't
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want like I don't want everyone to think that I drink in a whole like latte every single day or
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that that I think that that's a good option or a healthy option that was my first reaction I'm like
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but I but I do yeah yeah and why do I not feel okay saying that even though I'm already talking
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about eating cheese and crackers every day like but I do I just have this like I'm so programmed to
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want to give optimal like advice or to help people like well maybe that is a place where you could
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try to be like where I could try to be a better better like maybe I should go back to a cafe
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away like when I'm really thinking about it like that's a lot of soy milk like maybe I shouldn't be
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and I do I go there initially because that's how I'm programmed and I think that's how we're all
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programmed is to like look at what we're doing in a little bit of a negative light or in like a
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way that we should be ashamed of instead of just being like I'm very happy in general with like
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how I feel on a daily basis like I don't and I will say like during that time where I was
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restricting and binging I had so many digestive issues yeah from things that now I eat on a daily
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basis or so I thought then right like I went through a gluten free phase I went through a dairy free
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phase because I was constantly feeling physically ill and not just because I wasn't pretending like
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I was physically ill yeah after everything I ate because there was I don't know for sure why
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but there was so much emotion wrapped up in those foods for me and that there was so much thought
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that they were bad that I think I was physically making myself sick because there's not a food now
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that I eat that makes me feel that way anymore even though it was I thought I was gluten free I
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thought I had to be gluten free I thought I had to be dairy free I thought all these foods were so
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bad for me that I couldn't even eat them because I would be physically sick now they're they don't
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affect me physically and they really don't like how is that it's pretty well yeah I mean we would
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go to the North end which is sort of like our little Italy section in Boston and you know you'd get
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like a nookie or something like that and you come back and everyone's like hanging out like
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drinking partying and you'd be like on the couch doubled over clutching your stomach because
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you were in pain yeah I was sure I was sure I had celiac I went I had multiple endoscopies they
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came back inconclusive like they were like we don't think we do you don't have celiac but like
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maybe you have a sensitivity so you should just kind of cut it out and then when that didn't work
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I cut out dairy when that didn't work I cut out soy like I did fadmaps I did all of these things
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that I thought were causing these like really intense pains like I was so I was in so much pain
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and the fact that I didn't have surgery I haven't nothing physically has changed except for the
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fact that I gradually let myself eat those foods and stopped panicking about those foods and now I
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can eat them all again I'm not a doctor and there are people who obviously have very serious food
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allergies and I'm not saying that people should just start eating those foods like absolutely not
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100% want to put that like disclaimer out there but I do think that there was something in my personal
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like experience that having a mindset shift around foods and their effect on me really had a physical
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shift created a physical shift as well yeah definitely and I would say you know we want a
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per coffee we want a recheezing crackers one other sort of I guess notable sort of difference
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has been something sweet after dinner right and yeah you wanted to go into it well I mean
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do you want to describe what I used to make after dinner I want to hear from your perspective
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so yeah during this phase Lauren would be on this kick of quote unquote healthy or at least not
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quite as quote unquote bad desserts and after dinner she would come she would create all these
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sorts of concoctions like one of them a staple was this little bowl of coconut flakes and dates
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and maybe even some chocolate chips potentially and something else in there and she was just like
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mixing all together and she would have this sort of like rabbit bowl of like random naturally sweet
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sort of items and maybe there was maybe it was like dark chocolate chips or something like that
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just to make it a little bit healthier so she would have that sometimes she would have sugar-free
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chocolate pudding there were a couple of other ones that I'm forgetting now but they were like
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masquerading to kind of to fulfill your whole like a sweet tooth at the end of dinner yeah I've
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always just wanted something sweet after dinner and I think I don't think I'm alone in that I think
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a lot of people kind of crave something a little bit sweet after dinner and I was so in this like
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swap this for that kind of like mindset that it was like instead of having chocolate instead of
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having like ice cream at dinner have this sugar-free jello and in theory or sugar-free pudding and in theory
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that sounds like oh yeah it's both they're both chocolate they're both sweet like that's a good swap
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but the things the thing that was starting to happen for me was that I just it was like
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with the sugar-free pudding stuff like it's so unsatisfying but I would eat a lot of it to try
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to satisfy myself right so I was eating like an entire like carton of it instead of like the one
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serving that you're supposed to eat because I was like this isn't actually good but I want it to
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be good it's not actually sweet but I want it to be sweet so I'm just gonna eat more of it and then
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the other thing that I would do was like trying to make things out of healthy quote unquote ingredients
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but it was like nuts and coconut and crazins and think like with the dates the things that you're
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describing but yes they are they are all healthy but I was putting them together in this dense
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bowl that was like thousands of calories like 900 thousand calories for sure a lot of food it was so
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dense and I was doing it because I wanted to eat something sweet in a healthy quote unquote way
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and I felt really justified in like doing those things because I was like being a healthy personal
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trainer and like I can eat all this stuff because it like whatever it's healthy and now I'm like
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all I need after dinner is one square of gear deli chocolate caramel preferably salted caramel
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preferably um and I'm completely satisfied with that and it's 70 calories not that calories matter
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and I'm not saying that that's what matters but like ultimately I was putting so much more into my
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body than I needed because I was trying to fill this whole of something that really wasn't that big
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like it was like a small hole and I was just like shoving like boulders into it instead of putting
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a little pedal on it like it was like it didn't need as much as I was giving it but because I was so
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like worried and I was using ingredients that didn't have any like well sometimes not any
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nutritional value when it was the like sugar-free stuff or sometimes just like not the like it
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wasn't actually satisfying the craving of something sweet it was like pretending to be something sweet
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I just wasn't getting what I was when my body was like asking for which is like one small something
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sweet yeah I feel like there a little bit of a bridge to get moment was we started experimenting with
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just the most extremely dark chocolate possible we would have these like 80 to 85 percent dark
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chocolates chocolates and we'd be like chewing it we'd be like like like like like like like
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like like like like like like like like like like I think we got to graduate it towards like
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different types of chocolates and then finally you're like these gear deli squares they're pre-packaged
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in this like little format and it's perfect for me and you have one after dinner without fail yeah
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and it's great yeah and I'm not embarrassed about my like when you see me eating one I'm not
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hiding it like I'm just like this is part of my daily routine and I'm very comfortable with it
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and I move on like it's it is what it is isn't it it's a love island uh not get for you if you
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watch love island you say um but yeah I think we've kind of gone through all the different journeys here
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you know one other thing that we do also that really works well for us we've talked about on the show
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before is for breakfast I would say the majority of the days we often just have a perfect food bar
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yeah right and it's perfect food bar you tell a personal trainer like from the 90s about this
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bar and then be like what it's got 350 calories just made of peanut butter and chocolate and like
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it's got all this in it and for us it just works it helps keep us full it's so convenient because we're
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really frantically working in the first few hours of the day like answering emails I'm like going
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through the Facebook group and just like doing a lot of stuff and we honestly just just haven't
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said enough time aside to make eggs or make a bowl of oatmeal and sometimes we we will do that when
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we get sick of it but again it's just something that works for us that isn't necessarily optimal or
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what some people might deem as unhealthy it's just things that work for us and fit into our schedule
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in a very sustainable way yeah and I think that what we're basically trying to say and we honestly
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we didn't plan out even what we were gonna say in this episode we said let's start with the story
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of cheese and crackers because it was a funny moment that turned into like a pretty serious
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realization about just like a lot of things when it comes to how we approach like food and health
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in general but if there's a takeaway from this episode I think it's just to take a look at the
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things that you're doing on a daily basis that you maybe have some shame or guilt about when
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it comes to eating and first of all just ask yourself why who put that in your head why is it there
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second of all ask yourself is it something that doesn't feel good physically because there are
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reasons to make changes to your diet right if you are doing something where afterwards every single
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time you feel like overly full or you sluggish or things like that then like maybe it's not great for
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you but if you're in a cheese and crackers Lauren situation where you do this thing every day it
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feels good you're happy you move forward with your day you realize oh I'm getting a little bit of
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extra protein in that I kind of wasn't even thinking about nothing's wrong with that and to let
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that stuff go because the more you can let it go the more you can focus on just the things that
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bring you joy in life the things that make you feel physically good and just don't worry about
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the small things that aren't as significant as we tend to make them in our heads and you know there's
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going to be people who still struggle with like well that's still not optimal that's still not
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healthy you could trade out that cheese and crackers for carrots and hummus and I am one of those
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people who has gone through that thought process right of like every time things like this come up
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my first reaction is oh should we even really should I even really say that because what if somebody
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then starts to eat cheese and crackers and it's like wait what's the problem with that like I think
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that there's just so much fear around not doing everything optimally not doing everything perfectly
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not having every single ingredient be you know from the earth and it doesn't have to be there and
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once you take it away oftentimes it actually leads to such better outcomes in your overall
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wellness and well-being so eat your cheese and crackers if you want don't if you don't want to
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have your lattes drink your lattes have your chocolate do the things that make you feel good
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try to do the things that make you feel healthy and balanced and all of those good things
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um but don't sweat the small stuff yeah and I think that's what we got for you today
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yeah just an unplanned off the cuff off the cuff off the
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cuff off a v cuff episode um but I think this is what we are planning on trying to do moving forward
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is just to be a little bit more off the cuff a little bit and kind of talk to you about some
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personal anecdotes that have some connection to bigger messages and stuff like that and so it was
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uh it was fun for us to do I think yeah actually like stories came up that I hadn't thought about
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in a long time and I think that that is helpful to I think sometimes when I when I especially
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talking about these sorts of topics I feel like an episode has to be so perfectly planned out
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every story has to already be ready to go and curated and it doesn't feel as real and I think
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this was like like the reminder of carrying stevia packets in my purse was such a hilarious like
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moment and I just want more of those moments because I think it's hard to explain in one curated
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podcast sort of how this all this whole evolution to being more reasonable when it comes to fitness
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when it comes to nutrition when it comes to wellness as as a whole like how did that happen and I
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think just talking it out and remembering moments in between then and now is going to be really
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helpful for us and helpful hopefully for the listener to know that it isn't a like point a to point
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z there's a lot of stuff that happens in the middle and getting to this more reasonable approach
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and and feeling comfortable in this approach and yeah hopefully just like storytelling and
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remembering moments is going to help us get there yeah so I think that's about all for today if
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you want to mind leaving a waiting and review on whatever streaming platform podcasts for new
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platform you listen to this from that would be amazing yeah and until next time so that happy