Episode four fifty three is episode two thirty eight, What Diet Culture is Costing You.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live a life here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jell, and today we are re airing an episode that was one of my favorites. And normally we only reair our most popular episodes, but there is maybe once a year where I pick one that was just one of my favorites and we reair that one instead.
Because it's our podcast, you get to do what you want.
I mean, it's all of our podcas you listening included, but we have like big sister energy, so we're going to guide you also in the direction you may not want to go, but we believe is a good place for you to visit. And that's what this episode is. It's talking about our ideas of diet like diet culture. But since this episode even aired, we've found a lot of correlations between how we think about spending money and how we think about consuming food because both are consuming.
You're consuming products and services with your money or you're consuming food with your body, and because nobody talks about spending money, we just use these unhealthy ideas that we have from diet culture that has been drilled into us for decades. We use those same ideas to influence how we can asume products and services with our money. And so that's something we talk a lot about, not a lot, but we do touch on in our book by What
You Love Without Going Broke at buywolovebook dot com. And so we wanted to re air this episode just to reinforce the fact that this hasn't changed. We first aired this episode two years ago and it still has a lot to do with how you spend your money, honestly. So. But first, this episode is brought to you by losing weight. No, not on your body, the weight of fees on your
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So that's great, so true. So this episode is very near and dear to my heart as somebody who has been literally like hit over the head with this stuff since I was probably eleven, maybe younger, I don't know, uh, And we're looking today really at the side of what it's costing you now in adulthood. But I've also been really fascinated at the correlation between how it impacts our
consumption and our personal our understanding of personal finance. And so that's what we talk about in the book We don't uh, and we we do talk a little bit about this. So even since and we'll talk about some updates after, even since this aired, this was pre ozembic, So so this is and that has been a topic. Even so in twenty twenty three, GLP one drugs were the scientific Discovery of the Year, and again in twenty twenty four they were the Drug of the Year site.
I don't know. It seems like you can't win that award twice, So I don't know how that happened. But it's so so much money is being poured into weight loss drugs, and so this episode was even pre all that. So it's an.
Important one approaching this to with the understanding, like approaching this episode with the understanding that mindset is mindset across
the board. And so if we've got a mindset around diet culture and non beneficial ideas about the way that we approach caring for ourselves, that mindset's going to carry over into the way that we budget, so not even I know we talk a lot in this episode that we're about to hear on just the ways diet culture costs us, but adding in this extra layer and lens that you can take with you into this episode of and in what ways does it also carry over into the ways that we look at and approach finances if
this is our mindset around our physical health, So that I think is really helpful to recognize we are whole people. We say it all the time. So if we've got a non beneficial mindset in one aspect of our lives, more than likely it's going to impact this other area of our lives. So when we are able to align it in a beneficial way and experience helpful patterns of thinking, it will cause benefit in all other areas.
Yeah, so that was a super long intro. Sorry for that, but let's stop bearing the lead. Let's get into it. So diet culture, this one hits very close to home for me because I grew up in a house where we were always be like, we were always giving into the lie that we needed to lose weight all the time for whatever reason, and nobody in my house was
like obese. But still because of just growing up in the nineties, early two thousands, my parents, like in the seventies and eighties, like thin was healthy and so like, we have these mindsets about health and wellness that have been ingrained in our heads for decades and enforced by our parents and our insecurities, and so much of it
transfers into budgeting. So I really am excited to look into this because even with the rise and body positivity, which is amazing, Like I'm I'm so glad that the next generation is growing up with this, the diet industry is still a seventy two billion dollar and growing into it is still growing and that's the weight loss specific
part of it. And so while the trend to body positivity is great, like, we really need to identify and reprogram our mindsets around health and wellness so that we can opt out of the unnecessary part that just praise on our ever present insecurities and prioritize the life giving parts of actual wellness that are worth spending money on.
Yeah, there's I think at the end of the day, it's going to be no shock to people that we land in the radical middle on this. But the extremes go so far in so many directions. I wouldn't even say that it's a linear spectrum. It's almost this cube spectrum of where people can fall in the midst of this,
and that's fine. We're all on a journey and hopefully finding the thing that are going to point us as individuals towards well being and an acceptance and a care and value for ourselves as we care and value others around us. I think the thing that I see in our generation and maybe the younger generation, it's not as much the counting calories get super thin, which is fantastic, but it's not as if, oh, now we've landed on the exact right thing. There's also this whole how healthy
can you get and be? And there's still some shame wrapped up in that too, like if you're not doing the latest whatever it is that helps you identify health, whether it's oh, you're you're doing smoothies instead of juice.
Or your Yeah, I definitely think it's a The goal is to combat the extremist of anything, because that's what gets you spending more money. So like whenever any anyone's like, how do I eat healthy on a budget? I kind of laugh because it is not expensive to eat healthy, but it is expensive to be on a diet, to follow a to follow the food on a diet plan,
for sure. And so it when we reject the extremism of diet culture and we can find our own radical middle, our own balance, then we can not just I mean not just save money, but just overall feel like a lot better about ourselves and about people, and we can
focus that energy that we focus on. And I'm when I say we are you like I am directly talking to me like I should probably have a mirror in for I could I could just look at myself in the zoom screen and say, like, if you spend as much energy like thinking about things as you do about like walking by the mirror and twice a day, one time saying like, oh wow, I look great and the other time saying like, dang, if I could just like get that last ten to fifteen pounds of baby weight off,
then it would be perfect. And even before I had Kai and I was still saying, oh, if I could just get like ten more pounds off, Like if you spent as much energy building your income study like learning how to invest in all that as you did on worrying about being the perfect size then you could get so you could reach financial freedom. Probably a year too faster. I won't say it's like decades, but a year or two.
Yeah, Yeah, just well being in a version of kindness to ourselves rather than shame and yeah, putting ourselves down constantly. Of course, there are so many caveats to be mentioning, and we're gonna we're not gonna get them all. And so here we are we're talking to ourselves and anticipating that the general population is listening to us. So of course there's a ton of ways that the term diet can be used. We are using it primarily in reference to a choice that we make for like the main
goal of losing weight. Of course, there's a way to use the term diet that talks about just the type of food that you need to eat because you know it's best for your body. Like we're not discounting if you need to be gluten free, dairy free, whatever free because of an actual medical concern, or you just know yourself at this point in adulthood that that's not the best thing for you. That's not what we're talking about here.
And of course, where there are even greater levels of concern where we know that body dysmorphia and food difficulties and eating discord are a very real reality for a good portion of the population. And we are also not talking to those more acute needs and concerns. That's more where the mental health clinician, therapist, counselor support system community is going to be helpful. We're talking general diet fads and what it's costing the general population. So there's my caveat.
As much as I can make it, I know that I'm missing something in there. So please have grace on us in this conversation about food because it's very layered.
Yeah, and we are not nutritionness. We are not personal trainers, so we are not This isn't a alternative, This isn't a health episode. This is how can we rewire some of the mindsets that might be unhealthy and be affecting us financially and which will naturally bleed over into some other things. But we are focusing on the financial aspect. So this first article that we've got is called do or Diet. It's for money Guru, and it's the true cost of diet culture. And this is money Guru is
a UK site, so everything's in euros. But after some research, I saw that the numbers that they're using are almost identical if you just switch out that little euro sign for a dollar sign. So yeah, what did you think about this one, Jill?
This was really shocking, and I loved how it began because it does feel so congruent with what I see on social media. I mean, I blow right past ads. I actually did a little bit of a research project yesterday where I'm like, what are the ads that they're trying to target me with? Because I can't honestly remember any of the ads, which is a problem. But also
I never purchase anything, so it's obviously not working. But I have seen this where or they're like this new and effective way to get the body that you want. This is the absolute last method that you're ever going to engage in, because we promise long term results and if you're doing this, it's wrong. And if you're doing this,
it's wrong. Like all these like tried and true methods that you've heard for decades, all of a sudden, someone's like that's out the window, and you're going to discover that the problem is really you, and it's just like, oh my gosh, this is the messaging, like they nailed it, and for that reason, it can draw us into whatever it is that the person is promising us, whether it's a product or a method or a gym membership or whatever, just a lifestyle that we want to engage in. And
how over the years this can cost money. And I appreciate how they pointed out not just the cost of joining something like a weight watchers, but what it can all cost us in the rest of our lifestyle and long term effects related to whether or not it was actually good for us, Like they talk about there being a reality to some of these fads not actually being good for all parts of us and leading to various
medical issues that can also cost money. So there's almost this element of we may never know the true cost of this, yo, yo, this pendulum swinging, this chasing after like the next thing, but at least at the lowest level, even if we're just okay buying this product, buying that method, buying that membership, there's a cost to that long term that's massive.
Yeah, So in this one, and I did, I did verify some of this, like just to compare to the US. So first he looks at these actual like memberships, so he uses weight Watchers and Slimming World. So I didn't look at Slimming World because that's not in the US, but weight Watchers is. Uh. And so if you're doing face to face meetings, you're going to spend about two hundred and twenty eight dollars for a six month like membership and one hundred and thirty one if you're doing
just digital and so they they worked that out. Plus, if you're getting a gym membership every month, which is about average of forty dollars a month in the UK. For the US it's about thirty seven, so close enough.
And they said, if the average person works from eighteen to sixty, so we're looking at the average working life, then if you're doing every month of gym membership and weight Watchers, which doesn't include the food, then you could be spending over thirty thousand dollars on this stuff over your working life, which is crazy and typically nobody's going
to be in Weight Watchers from eighteen to sixty. But this doesn't count like cookbooks or like food and magazines, So like if you did something like Jenny Craig, then you're buying food from that place, or if they even say weekly raffle tickets, I don't know what that means, but like there are extras, and so no, you're probably not going to be part of this for decades at a time, but take a few, like take some years off, and then add the extras that you would also pay
on a monthly basis, And it's not crazy to think that this is about the number that somebody could be spending.
Right yeah, in a variety of things. I know we're using weight Watchers or Jenny Craig as examples, and I recognize that that may not be the case for those in like the millennial or the gen Z populations, those maybe aren't the brands that they're going for.
They are Jill. I Now, since doing this research, I have gotten so many Instagram ads from not weight Watchers, but it's Instagram influencers and they're promoting weight Watchers. So weight Watchers is putting money behind it, and they've like rebranded to like WW and and there are people like it is still common, like it is not just our mothers.
Right, Well, I mean I'm not and maybe it is that exact brand, but I'm also saying there's other options out there too for this type of engagement in diet culture, and the research is showing that more than half the population would consider themselves to be on a diet for some of those reasons, like you know, losing weight and wanting to look a certain way is like the primary reason in that regard, again, not just using the diet and like the oh, I'm cutting out sugar kind of way.
And again, yeah, I think we can get caught up in the trap of well, if I'm not on one of those other big brands, then this doesn't apply to me.
But yeah, if you're like doing the juicing thing, or you purchase something to do a thirty day cleanse, and you're buying the books, and you're like, that's part of what we're talking about here, and I'm again, I'm down with the journey for understanding what your body needs and health, but also keeping a pulse on how far does it go and how much money are we actually putting into
this and does it work? Because this article is also talking about how long term these things don't actually give us the results that we want, which is mind boggling. And some of that has to do with what the articles also pointing out that our weight does not equate to how healthy we are. Just the measurement of BMI doesn't actually dictate whether or not in many cases we are quote unquote healthy. And again that's part of the societal messaging of here's what the body needs to look like.
And we realize, we're coming to realize, thankfully, that there's so many different body types that can be healthy and look different, and so for that reason, we need to be able to engage in a lifestyle that works for us, because it's not a one size fits all.
Yeah, And they're saying, so the some of the negative effects from these fad diets, Like, so I will I will start with this and say, like I've been listening to this podcast called fed Up about this woman who has a fad diet which is like all fiber and how bowl are wrecking their digestive systems because they are in taking too much fiber and that's gonna have long
term negative effects. And so typically these fad diets will just latch onto one really healthy nutrient, whether it's protein or fats or fiber and really emphasize that as the cure. All this is what you've been looking for this is what's going to help you lose weight. And yes, it will because you're cutting out foods that have typically carbs. Uh but yeah, but they will inherently have long term
effects if you do it long term. Thankfully, like not a lot of people stick with these things long term. But if you go hard and heavy or you know, do it for a long time, that can have negative effects. And so some of the negative effects that they're saying that these diets have is it can weaken your immune system.
It can cause dehydration, especially with the that's the one that got me thinking with the fiber one, because if you're just excreting everything all the time you were going to it doesn't matter how much water you're drinking, you were gonna get dehydrated. It can damage hair and skin, It can disturb your bowel habits, and it can make you grumpy and irritable. That should probably be number one.
Number one reason, not to number one reason.
I am always grumpy and irritable if I don't get carbs. So that's man. I wish they just had a carb carb lifestyle. I wish they had a carb lifestyle magazine.
It would be and I think what's being highlighted. Here is just some red flags, like some water marks of fads that would indicate it's a fad and maybe not for me if it is just focused on one thing, like we found them magic trick and it's fiber. We've found the magic trick and it's protein. We found the magic trick and it's magnesium. Like whatever it is, it's probably not just one thing, because our bodies and our lifestyles need more than just one thing. So there you go.
Red flag number one. Number two is if it requires a lot of will power. I know when it comes to dieting and exercise, a lot of times willpower gets thrown around like this morality term, like oh I didn't have the willpower. You need to have the willpower to do this and this very pull yourself up by the bootstraps. And in reality, willpower can only go so long. Willpower is something that yes, we can harness, but for a very short period of time. There's not much longevity to it.
And it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with us if we can't stick to something really extreme for a really long time. So if it's requiring that, there you go. There's another red flag that you know what, maybe this isn't for me. Maybe there's a way that I can care for myself and value myself that doesn't require extremes.
Yeah, I will leave. I have one last thing that I wanted to highlight from this episode, and it doesn't It doesn't cover the long term medical effects on the costs of these long term effects, because it could be different for everyone. But I love that it's it's mostly focused on like kind of the immediate costs. And so this one says almost half of all new gym members stop going to the gym after six months, wasting about
two hundred and forty dollars a year. And it says that of one hundred percent of gym members, twenty nine percent are actively going, twenty seven percent are going like four times a month, so they have low usage, and then forty four percent drop out completely and so annually they've it's been proven annual plans won't motivate you to go to the gym. So this is one of those if you if you do want to start a gym membership, which is great, like we fully support I fully support
gym memberships. I go to CrossFit, I pay much more than forty dollars a month for CrossFit, but I love it. I use ego four times a week. Don't choose an annual plan unless you have proven that you will go for six months or more. Pay more for the monthly plan and prove to yourself, Okay, yes I will go, I will continue. This is something I love and enjoy
and want to do. Then sign up for the annual plan because and this is honestly with a lot of things that have annual plans, it is worth the money to pay extra per month to do the monthly plan so you can figure out if you like it and you'll stick to it because most of the time you don't get that unused money back. So yeah.
Gym memberships too, can be the hardest thing to cancel because if you're realizing I'm not utilizing it, to cancel it means to almost relinquish the fantasy of self that someday I'll get into it. So yeah, starting off small is helpful making sure that you're going to go and utilize it, but then also giving yourself grace if you're realizing, you know what, this isn't the style or method that's
working for me. It's not a failure I've just learned more about myself and I am going to cancel regardless of like whatever meaning I may attach to that. If I'm not going, then it is wasted money.
Yeah, so I think this article really emphasizes that the diet portion. Yeah, it can be expensive if you're doing like a diet. If you're just trying to you know, eat, then you can get like an unprocessed food for a similar price as a processed food, and like, especially if you're looking at frozen and stuff like that does take a smidge more work. I understand that. But there are ways to eat healthy for not a lot of money, but not if you're following like a very specific rigid diet.
If the definition of healthy eating to you is no carbs or no this or know that, and you have to get specialty stuff, that is going to be more expensive. Now I will say a caveat to that are meats. Obviously, if you choose to go you know, the organic, free range that sort of thing, then that is quite more expensive. But even if you're choosing to do organic produce and doing just the dirty dozen, then it still can be affordable, especially if you're choosing more like vegetarian.
But chances are if you are someone who is operating under a more strict diet cutting out certain things prioritizing you know, organic grass fed meats, then it's probably a high value and values based spending. There is room and permission for that. Depending on what your income looks like, it might mean cutting other things, but if it's something you want to afford, then we can look to find ways to be able to do that.
Yeah, that's such a great point because if you're if you highly value that really high quality meat and produce, and you're asking, how do I save money on groceries I only want to get like free range, grass fed organic wag, you like, that's not where you should be asking, because you've already decided what you want. You've already decided what you value, and the question is how do I cut other things out that I care less about to
afford more of what I want in this area? So you just I mean, there's a place for everyone to eat healthy, and eating healthy isn't one type of grocery list. It can look there can be hundreds of different grocery lists and they can all be healthy, And I think that's what we really want to get through. That's the radical middle of health. When it comes to to being healthy with food and then also getting active, you can there's an array of things to move your body.
Yeah, oh yeah, there's not.
One type of workout that is better than another, or that will you know, solve all your problems where another I see I see all the time, like these these YouTube ads scream at me like cardio, stop doing cardio, tolose Wait what is with that push right right now right? I'm like, okay, I get their marketing. I understand where they're basing it off of, but I was like, that's not the whole picture. But of course you're not going to say the whole picture because you want to be
like revolutionary and extreme. So yeah, like it's about what you're going to do and extremes sell.
So even I mean, I know we mentioned a couple of episodes to go back to, but even also going back into our archives to the marketing episodes, recognizing that we are being marketed to people aren't necessarily just looking out for our best interest in what's going to be most healthy for our bodies, Like they are trying to sell something extreme, sometimes not caring about how much it's going to mess with our bowel movements? But what's going to make the most money Because it's just an ad.
They're just they're selling a product.
They know they can pray on insecurities and they're doing it. And that's why we spend money every year at an increase rate. Like the weight loss industry is a growing industry, and now some subsets of that have decreased, like boutique weight loss like centers, you know, those are getting less popular. But it's just the rise of like internet, like online courses for different fad diets are increasing, so you're just seeing like different the money is just going to different places.
So let's just get off of the bandwagon. Let's just leave.
Just let's leave.
Yeah, and there are but but when you say just leave, it's like where do you go? Like where? How what do you do? Because we've got decades of programming to say thinn is healthy or extreme diets are healthy.
So this is just.
Like one option that we're going to like throw out here. And this is an article from Healthline and it's called a Quick Guide to Intuitive Eating. And people call intuitive eating the anti diet, and I think, I mean, I thought, because we're very on board with intuitive spending, kind of like values based spending and intuitive spending, that this might be a good thing to go through to start to at least start to get in I don't know, not in control, but just like mindful about what you're eating
and how you're eating. Because for so many years of counting calories, counting macros, we've been relying on other people to tell us what to eat and how to eat, that we have not developed the skills needed to identify hunger, to identify fullness, to identify foods that make us feel good and ones that don't.
Like I think, you know, yes, this is one method, but I feel so much like this isn't just another fad. Of course, put whatever word you want on it, but to me, this strikes me as back to the basics. If we were to throw off all the trappings of societal messaging and marketing and extremes and what we as women feel we need to be looking like, acting like, sounding like, then this is it. What does healthy relationship with our behaviors and the things that we engage in
and how we nourish our body look like? How do we pay attention to ourselves and our needs as we move through the world, So this doesn't This isn't like, oh, here's the next new thing. This is just how have we done it in the past, Like what how do we eat again? Like how do we get back to the basics of just like not making this super complicated. That's how this article is striking me.
Yeah, it's like, how do I find what's right for me? Because I don't know what's right for me because I've been listening to other people tell me what's right for me, which sounds like the same thing that we say about spending. Even this first part where it's like, first you need to distinguish between physical and emotional hunger, So the biological urge telling you need to replenish nutrients versus hunger driven
by emotional needs, and the same thing. It's like, we need to figure out like needs and true values versus emotional spending.
And listen just like spending, just like money, just like budgeting. This is calling us to the deeper messaging, the deeper ideas mental that it's not just about the behaviors. It's not just about what exercise regimen you engage in, what food you eat, but your association with those things. The relationship that you have with yourself and with your ideas about food, with your ideas about body movement. And so this idea of intuitive eating, it's promoting a healthy attitude
towards food, towards body image. It's getting at some of those deeper things, and for some of us maybe relearning how to trust ourselves, how to be in tune with our body, with how the various stimuli around us again, whether exercise or food or otherwise is impacting us, and how then we want to respond and engage with that thing. But before the behavior, learning these things, and so they go through ten key principles, which I think are fantastic.
I think it's worth us going through all ten. Yeah they're very short, Yeah, yeah, exactly, there's not paragraphs attached to it. And so the first one is this need to reject a diet mentality that that extremist thinking that we've been talking about, that it's not necessarily a diet that's going to work for us, and diets don't have long term sustainability. Maybe it's like a quick fix, but we want a mentality that is for a lifetime sustainable rhythmic.
So that's we talk a lot about mindset that's going to be part of that, that we're not on a diet, we are just engaging in our life in the world around us.
Yeah, part I mean it sounds like I don't know, honestly, part of me doesn't want to give up the diet mentality because I feel like I can be part of the five percent that can succeed, like one hundred percent of people feel like they can be part of the five percent that actually like succeeds with a diet, which is so funny and that statistic made me laugh because
that's me. And but it is in order to have like to be fully okay with your body that you have to give up the diet mentality, like they don't. They cannot coexist.
Yeah, because I hear you in that, Jen, But then is it for the diet or is it for you? I think sometimes we have to look at how much of this do I want to do this just for achievement or to say that I did this to or is it actually to aim at health and well being.
It's not to aim at health and well being for sure, absolutely not. I can tell you that.
Yeah.
So that's just starting off with the first one is going to be very hard. Two is to honor your hunger. Hunger is not your enemy, so respond to your early signs of hunger by feeding your body. If you let yourself get excessively hungry, then you are likely to overeat.
Yes, and this comes with preparation, same with how we approach impulse spending, having some of those foods prepared already that you know you're gonna enjoy, that you feel good about eating, and eat when you're hungry.
Yeah, and it'll It can also help you, like save you from takeout, because if you eat when you're hungry, then you don't let it bottle up all day so that you just like get so hungry you want to get takeout instead of eat the food you have at home.
The third one is make peace with food. I love how they just say call a truce in the war with food. Getting rid of ideas about what you should or shouldn't eat again. Oh gosh, there's so many correlations and parallels to money, like thinking money is good or bad, or debt is good or bad. It's neutral, how do you want to engage with it? Food is neutral? How do you want to engage with it?
I loved this Instagram post that I read and it's from I think it was from kids Eating Color, but it's one of the toddler like eating profiles and it was like how to explain foods to your kids, and it's like a series and I think this one was for like cupcakes or something or dessert, and it's like, the foods are neutral, but some foods give us more
energy and longer energy than others. Cupcakes give us energy for a short amount of time, but we also need to eat foods that give us energy for a longer amount of time. So all the foods are neutral. It's just let's make sure we're getting enough energy. We're getting enough of the right energy.
Yes, I love that. Not late food is good or bad. That's like not the best version of messaging for ourselves or our children.
Yeah. Four is to challenge the food police again. Yeah, food is not good or bad, and you are not. You are not good or bad for what you eat or don't eat. Yeah, because you are the food police. You are the food police in your head, and you are not good or bad for what you eat or don't eat. So challenge the thoughts that tell you otherwise.
This is I feel like this, you're speaking directly to me, particularly how I might police my loved ones. Sorry, Eric, mostly my husband. He does want to eat so many French fries though, and I support that. But you know, like anything in excess is excessive.
But you know what value you? Too much of it? Yeah, it's too much of anything is no longer a special thing.
Watch I'll find out that like according to his body composition, like he needed so many potatoes and salt, like it's what he actually got. I mean, look at.
Him, he is tall and thin, and I assure you he probably needs more French fries than you think he does. All right, all right, one for you.
Yeah, there you go, Eric, I'll stop being your food police. Number five is respect your fullness, And this is going to come back to a more mindful approach and connection with our whole selves and our personhood and learning to trust our body. I know some of that might sound like a little out there, but I think we are connected.
These things don't exist in a vacuum, and so learning what it feels like to be full, slowing down, enjoying the food that we're choosing to put into our bodies, and then noticing, Okay, I think that's enough, that's gonna be helpful. Versus blowing past all of those natural boundaries and warning signs can so many correlations to other parts of life. We just aren't paying attention, and we blow
past ourselves and end up potentially hurting ourselves. So slow down, be mindful, pay attention, and honor your fullness.
Yeah, you do this so well, Travis and I do not, and Travis especially he will. So everyone was taught like clean your plate, like everyone had to finish everything on their plate growing up, and he lives by that now. He can't just finish his plate. He has to make
sure all the plates are clean. And like, I know there have been times where I have made enough for us to eat meals and then have leftovers for each of us the next day, and I'll go to package and there's only one meal worth of leftovers, and that's like, I mean, that means one of us is buy and lunch the next day. So it's like a financial thing too, Like when you are in tune with your fullness and you can identify I'm full, I don't have to finish what's on my plate. I can package it up and
eat it tomorrow. That's like another way to save money. And obviously eat until full, but I know so more often, like nine times out of ten, the problem isn't not eating enough, it's eating too much.
Well that's the thing that I'm Yeah, I think it's tied into number six too, the satisfaction factor. I don't even know if it's eating to fullness. I think it's eating to satisfaction, Like I don't eat until I wait until I feel stuffed, Like I eat what I believe is it a reasonable amount of food for me? And I don't keep going until it's like, oh yeah, roll me out of here. And I think that's a mentality
thing too, that I mean I've developed over years. But I think it's connected to this concept of like learning what what we need? What's enough, gollee. We got to learn that with our money, what's enough and be satisfied in those things. Learn degrees of contentment while learning yourself. But yeah, and we're not going to know that that we're full or we're satisfied until we've given ourselves time to like sit with it versus like shoveling shoveling food in. Yeah,
but that so the satisfaction factor too. I want to talk a little bit about that, not just eating until like yeah fullness and just what's satisfying, but also engaging in an enjoyable experience with food, like making sure that what we're eating we can enjoy, and even if it's just veggies, there are some fantastic ways to make veggies
taste really good. One of the things that's also helped me in this satisfaction factor is if I'm craving something, honoring that craving, recognizing like I can have that thing even if it's labeled by society as bad or not good for you or something to avoid. I can have it, but have it just for the purpose of the satisfying flavor,
not that I need to have the whole thing. So a lot of times this is like dessert for me that I personally don't have, like a big sweet tooth, but like catch me with some bread and butter, and that's going to be where I struggle. But sometimes I'll want something but it doesn't mean that like I need a whole big handful of cake. I just want a bite of it. It doesn't mean I need a whole chocolate bar. I just want a bite of it. And I'm not saying that that's going to work for everybody.
But that's how the satisfaction factor has looked for me, is just a little taste of the thing that I want and being satisfied with that while also eating all the other nutrients that I need. I'm not saying that I'm starving myself.
Yeah, I'm paying attention to how you feel after you eat and when you wake up in the morning. Like, I think, a big problem. And I don't want to throw Travis under the bus, but he has I mean, he eats a lot of unhealthy food that doesn't make him feel great, makes him feel tired, but he doesn't want to admit that that that's why he's tired and
that's why he's flemmy and stuff. So he has like total capability of changing and stopping food and he will eat healthy like when I cook for him, but it's it's all the other it's when he's out in the wild you mean work, Yeah, So like I mean, also pay attention to how the body feels after eating something,
because if you feel yucky, that's not satisfying. And I think that's what's going to move us more in the direction of healthier food, especially for somebody with a I think mindfulness and intention about that observation is what can steer us in the direction of foods that have longer lasting energy sources. So seven is to also honor your feelings without using food. This one will save you money too when you use free ways to honor your feelings.
So whether it's like a negative feeling or a positive feeling, so taking a walk, meditating, journaling, and calling a friend versus eating, then you can also become more like become aware of the times when a feeling that you might call hunger is actually emotion based, and this helps with that too. And it's just identifying so that we don't because out of emotion, we're never going for the foods with more energy. We're always going for the short energy foods.
So I think this is a really good one.
Yeah, we can spend, we can eat unnecessarily. There's so many things we can do when we're sad, but finding the coping strategies that are going to work, and then respecting our body rather than criticizing ourselves for how we look or perceiving it as wrong. This is a mentality shift of gratitude for what is your body capable of what are the parts that you like about how you're
formed and the uniquenesses of who you are. And as we can be grateful for our abilities and respect ourselves, then we are likely to move into better relationships with food and body movement behaviors and all that kind of thing. But again, it's going to start with our minds and the story and the narrative that we're telling ourselves. There was a recent podcast where the book where we talked about books book Club, and I was talking about children's books.
So I remembered another one that I almost mentioned on that podcast. But here you go. Here's another children's book that I love that breaks down this concept. It's called I Like Me by Nancy Carlson. I was just at my mom's house recently going through like old childhood books, and this was one of my favorites as a kid, and she read it to me often. And maybe it's
a part of why, like a small part. There's probably a lot of layers, like I do feel like I've got a good relationship with food and myself, and like, thank you mom for reading books like this to me as a young kid. It's like this little piglet who is just like she likes herself, and it's all the things that she lists off that she likes about herself. Of course, you know, we could go to extremes with that of like, oh man, you're thinking so highly of yourself,
But I don't know. I think it just promotes such a positive outlook and a tempered approach. So there you go. If you want a message for yourself or for your kids. It's a really cute little book.
I agree. It's much better than my dad like every month saying we all need to get on a diet. That was what I grew up with during childhood.
I'm gonna come over. I'm gonna read you that book, Jen.
Oh, thank you. Respecting your body can also save you money on clothes, because I know we're all holding onto clothes that we want to fit into that we used to. We're all holding onto this like you know, former self, I don't know. Or buying goal pants, which is something I did as a teen, Like I would buy something that was a little too tight and be like, oh, I'll work and I'll fit into them, and I never
did because I was a growing human. So this and just buying things that look good in other people, but and you want them to look good on you because you want to look like other people. But your body isn't like theirs. So respect your body and dress it how you feel good about, not what society is telling you to look like or what you know you have an idea of how you should dress and look like.
Yeah.
Ninth is to exercise. Move your body. This is like very very important. And not to move your body for the sake of burning calories, but to move it because of all, because you want to move it in a way that you want to. Whether it's you know, whether it's the running that's gonna you know, burn a bunch of calories, or maybe just some light yoga like consistency is key. So move your body in a way that you enjoy and that you will stick with sustainably. So it may that the season you are in life may
determine how you're moving your body. Yeah, but just just do something that you like and can actually fit into your schedule.
With my counseling clients, I've called exercise body movement. At this point, I think we have such a poor association with the term exercise when really it's learning ways to move our body that we enjoy, there will be no
sustainability in it unless we enjoy it. So if you like playing soccer, or playing tennis, or swimming, or if you like running great, if you like the quick spurts, like hit whatever it is, biking walking, find something that you enjoy and move your body and call it that if that helps, get rid of the vernacular if it's becoming a hindrance. And then finally, number ten, honor your health. And I love this term gentle nutrition. This speaks such kindness.
Finding the foods that taste good to you, make you feel good, recognizing that one meal, one snack isn't gonna make or break your overall health. Just be kind to yourself. And you know what else is kind?
Something that allows me to move my body and gives me so much joy and fulfillment.
The bill of the week.
That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Buff bills, Buffalo bills, bill clon, this is the bill of the week.
Ladies, Have I got build a week for you. I recently left my job, which was very tough because I thought did provide a free cell phone and I just you know, working there was not worth a free cell phone bill.
So I just left that job and got a new one. And my bill of the week is that I had a cell phone bill and you know what I signed out with me and it is just twenty five dollars a month.
Have to deal with those people, and it is a great bill.
And I'm not happy to have a cell phone bill, but I'm happy to have a cell phone bill. If it may also I doubinite don't come in the last years, just simply because I left physicians that were not good fits and I was not afraid to make the switch and did not feel modicing. So that might make me selfish.
Or I don't know something, but it worked out.
So that's the bill.
Wait, I am celebrating with you. This is so exciting. I think when people find the freedom and the flexibility to leave a work environment that is not good, not sustainable, not going to be helpful long term, and recognize like the things that are keeping you there, and eventually it was just like a twenty dollars a month reason to stay. Yeah, staying for a paid cell phone bill If it is ruining you mentally, physically, emotionally, it's not worth it. And
I am so thrilled and celebrating with you. And it sounds like you found yourself in an even better environment, doubling your income now paying for a bill, but finding a great provider. Thanks Mint twenty dollars a month. That's fantastic. Improved work environment, improved mental health, and pay in that cell phone bill, but love and every minute. Congratulations.
Yeah. I think a lot of people overestimate some of the benefits offered by employers, and it's always a good idea to actually list out the benefits you're using the cost per month that they are on their own, uh, and then using that as a template to go out find a higher paying job. Compare benefits to benefits to see what else you could get by not just improving your work life, but like you could get improved benefits
and improved pay. But sometimes people will hold on to a job that they hate for you know, a free laptop, which is you know, eighteen hundred dollars. If you could get a two thousand dollars a year raise, you've gotten the new laptop, and then every year beyond that the extra two thousand dollars like or a car or a cell phone. So sometimes they are worth it, but you really have to write down the whole picture to get an idea of you know where to go and how to proceed. So I am I'm glad you did it.
I don't think it's selfish at all.
If you all listening have a similar story. If you've got a bill you don't mind paying, or a bill that you're not paying anymore, you know, sky's the limit. Submit your bill of the week at Brugal Friends podcast dot com slash bill. We are ready for it, and now it's time for the round.
So I like this one. If you could only eat one thing for a year, what would it be?
Are we assuming that like it's giving us all the nutrition, that.
All the nutrients, or so I like maybe this version better. If you could have an unlimited supply of one food, what would it be? Don't say gum. You cannot consume gum. Gum's not your answer, thank you.
I really believe that I could subsist off of bread and wine, like bread, bread, butter, bread and salted butter and wine. Ah, that would be if that, if that provided, like I didn't need anything else and it was like all that my body needed. God, I love bread.
All right Jesus, So for me, just take a communion every day so everything? Wow, you are you are really someone to be looked up to. Uh, Mine is not as biblical. Mine is the tear massou from public and people who only people with publics will know, and only a certain number of people with access to publics will know. But if you know, you know, the tier messou from publics is tops like it is sometimes better than actual
tear missus. It's not like authentic Italian like if you're looking for authentic Italian tear missuit, it's not this, but it is so good it's sometimes like better than that.
Okay, but like, are you understanding the question, like could.
You unlimited apply all day every day.
If you only ever could, if you could only eat that for a yearly I get it that it might be your favorite dessert, but like no, could you eat it all day every day?
Yes?
Wow?
Yes, yeah, I feel I feel like the way more practically don't.
Like bread is like enough that you know, there's it's just bland enough but just flavorful that Like, I don't think I could ever get tired of it, But you don't think you could ever get tired of tira massou.
I won't say that, but I will say if I think of all the foods out there, yeah, it would be the last one for me to get tired of.
That's amazing. Wow, Okay, I don't think I realized how deep this went for you.
Yeah, it's good to know it's deep. And if you're ever at a Publix, go to the bakery refrigerated section, just a little tear massous with little chocolate corners.
It's in the bakery section at Publics.
Yeah, in like yeah, so yeah, that's my place. Puglis doesn't pay me to say that.
But if they want to, apparently they could. They could give Jennie I please and then just like keep sending baggettes my way. Yes.
So, I do have some sad news that Publics did change its recipe for tear missoux, so it is not as good as it used to be. I will In the past two years, that was always a fear everything good. There was my favorite muffin at Kawa for years, and that one changed its recipe and then now publics with the tear Missus. So I have moved on from that, but I do fondly remember that tear Missus.
I could still live on bread, wine and butter.
This is so true.
Nothing's changed for.
Me except you started making sour dough since this episode. Have I Yeah, yeah, I think I don't think you were making it when we recorded, and you have. Yeah, it's in your French.
Wow, I've just dove even deeper into my session. I'm not making my own wine or butter yet, but stay tuned.
Yeah, but so thank you so much for sticky through this episode. It's a it's a little diversion, I think from what we normally talk about. It's a little maybe even controversial, I don't know, but it is when we
need to. We need to challenge our mindset around these things that are peripheral to finance, because, like Jill said, we are whole people and while it is peripheral to finance, it does have a direct effect on how we think about it, just because we talk about stuff like this a lot more openly than we do about money, and honestly, I think it should be opposite way. I think we should talk a lot more openly about our money and how we're consuming products and services than how we're eating.
But I have I still believe that the intuitive eating thing and the intuitive spending it's it's a great way if you can, and I think we tried to do in buy what you love without going broke. Maybe set up like values based spending is almost like a cousin to intuitive eating. It's definitely not intuitive spending. I wouldn't call it that, but I think they share the same root belief that you can consume anything. Nothing is inherently
good or bad. I mean, there are some things, maybe like bad chemicals that hurt people, that's probably inherently bad, But for the most part, it's just how you consume things. And so we're looking at root costes about of why we consume. And when you can look at that, that's a much better way to improve spending habits, improve eating habits than just getting down on ourselves for how much we eat or spend.
Why creating rigid diets or rigid budgets, they're not going to work. We need to find the radical And for those of you who love the radical middle that we talk about, thanks for leaving your kind reviews like this one from Samantha Paris well Rounded Financial Advice five stars.
I imagine I'm probably on the younger side of the Frugal Friends podcast listeners at age twenty six, but I find the content Gen and Jill provide completely applicable to my life, potentially even more so since I have the time to implement various strategies for which I will reap the benefits over time, like investing. Gen and Jill are relevant, witty, and have great values that align with mine. I love the focus on living a generally low waste, environmentally conscious,
but not restrictive lifestyle. Out of fear of sounding cheesy, Gen and Jill legitimately make frugality fun. Recommend this podcast one thousand percent. Yes much, Samantha Paris, Oh, I love that line. Generally low waste, environmentally conscious, but not restrictive. That is such a good summary.
You get us you do at twenty six, at the ripe age of twenty six.
Yes, I'm so glad that you found advice that works for you at this age. You are in great shape for the rest of your life, and I'm just overjoyed about that. Yeah.
Okay, if you are also in your mid twenties and you would like to leave a review because most I think most of our audience does generally skew from twenty five to fifty five. So if you find yourself on the fringe, a little younger, little older, and you want to say, hey, this is for me too, let them know leave a review us to help people get an idea of if the show will be applicable to their life. See You Next Time by.
Gorugle.
Friends is produced by Eric Sirianna.
Did I tell you the chickens are gone? No spill, no more chickens. Yeah. So after learning that the chickens that were terrorizing our little neighborhood aren't any one side chickens, they don't believe. And it's not just it was the rooster right there, there was one rooster, four chickens. The rooster would cock at all hours of the night, not just the morning.
I I really you talked about it on the show, but I didn't believe it till I saw it. How they were wrecking your.
Front lawn and they were reckless.
Oh my gosh, it looked like a hurricane had through, like.
A tiny tornado just through the front yard. It was yeah much everywhere. It was insane. Well turns out it wasn't anybody on our roads. So we have neighbors next door that have nine children. They were the ones who I thought that they had gotten the chickens, and they didn't. But they usually keep their windows open at night, and it's waking up all of the kids, the parents through the night. And again, once they knew this isn't anybody's
actual chickens, they rounded them up. Apparently they texted us that they captured the chickens and just took them to another park. They just relocated them a few miles away, probably to terrorize some other neighborhood.
Another countryside. They come to the animal rescue. If you were gonna go through all that work, why not take them to a place.
Don't you know that they knew. It's just you know, true. An eight year old and a ten year old, and a fourteen year old and a sixteen year old, I'll just problem solving, that's what they decided to do. I would love to have that video footage though, of these kids capturing chickens.
Chickens are not that easy to catch. I mean, you're not. They're vicious, but.
They did it, and we haven't been woken up in the middle of the night anymore. I should get on the next door app and see if our neighbor's a few miles away are now complaining about a mysterious route.
You know, honestly, you know that's what happened. They were someone else's and they took them to the park by your house to drop them off.
Huh.
And then it was your problem. And those kids were like, m m, it's not my problem anymore. Make it somebody else's problem. And they're just gonna neighborhood hop.
Yeah, until we see all the little chickies show up someday.
Oh, they're gonna multiply. Wow, Well, good job. I mean, I didn't do anything.
I've just been here for.
Saying to them, like good for them. They really they banded. They could get so much done banding together. If they choose good. Typically they choose evil. But when they choose good, they did.
Public service for the whole neighborhood, not for the neighborhood a few miles away, but for us. They took that problem to their own hands and solved it the only way they knew how. I hope if you imagine seeing a bunch of kids walking down the road holding chickens.
They couldn't even.
They wo.
To a different park.
That's right. I didn't think about that. Wow. Good for them. Make them some cookies or something.
Wow, Florida, So thank you Colorida Life. Yes, that's a good idea.