00:00:00
Well, hello there. Welcome back. I am glad you showed up today, and I promise you're gonna be glad you showed up today as well, because we're gonna be talking about gut health today. I chose my guest because I've realized in the years that I've worked in the fitness industry, which I've been doing group fitness or personal training since I was 19 years old, so I'm almost hitting 20 years. I know crazy.
00:00:23
I'm 38. I started when I was like 19. So I've been doing this a long time. And one of the number one factors that really irks me is when people make everything seem so black and white, seem like there's only one way. The amount of diets that have come through in the last however many years that have said, this is the answer, this is the way, this is the holy grail, if you don't do it this way, you're going to fail, is astronomical.
00:00:49
And I feel like I see that often even in gut health, in exercise, in diet, in a lot of different aspects where we forget there's a lot of gray and there's more than one way to do things. Nothing makes me more crazy than when I see other professionals online bagging a certain technique and only pointing out the cons. And I'm watching their videos on their instagram handle, and I'm thinking, you are not pointing out any of the pros or anything that that helps if you only take note of the cons. Yes, that looks like a dreadful thing, but it's more about looking at a situation and weighing your own situation against the option you're trying to add for pros and cons and if it is a fit for your life. And that is the piece that we have forgotten.
00:01:38
That is a piece that as consumers, we're always thinking, oh, I'm just going to be told what to do. Sometimes you need to hear the pieces and then kind of mix and match and play with it yourself. And amanda is really good at explaining that with gut health. Explaining that every gut is different and what affects everybody is going to be very different, but giving you ideas at the same time. Amanda is a pizza loving registered dietitian nutritionist specializing in mindfulness and gut health.
00:02:08
From the years of working in the space, she quickly realized that a gut healthy diet is unique to the person, and the gut health goes beyond digestion or microbiome. Good gut health is also about honoring our gut feelings to help nourish the mind gut connection. Amanda is the creator of the mindful gut, which uses science and strategy to help people build gut healthy habits. So today I'm going to have her on, and we're going to break down her mindful gut approach and kind of explain what that's included. And I know if you're listening to the episode, you're going to want to look her up on social media as well.
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Her handle name is Light On Creative Productions , and she has really, really great visuals on her page to help teach you as well. And if you find this episode helpful, don't forget to share it on social media. Tag me. I love to look for those and see them share it with your friends, family. And today I want to give a shout out to Emotional Healthy Legacy.
00:03:06
It's titled helpful. Just listen to the episode on Bloating. Wow, so many helpful tips. I will listen to this show on a regular Elizabeth. Thank you so much, Elizabeth.
00:03:16
And if you have an episode that is helpful for you, please let me know. I get ideas based a lot of times on those reviews. If I'm getting a couple of reviews on a topic, I know that's something I need to dive deeper in or get a different take in or get a different expert in. So please leave reviews, let us know what you think or anything that has helped you. And as you know, summer is upon us, which means we're spending a lot more time outside and we're squinting and we're struggling to see things to make sure our kids are alive in the pool and we're able to do our workouts well on our trips.
00:03:50
For me, it makes it a lot easier when I have gooder sunglasses. I actually stumbled upon these sunglasses probably two years ago. I was at a friend's pool and she was wearing these amazing sunglasses and I was like, I love your sunglasses. Where'd you get them? And she was like, oh, they're gooder, goodr.
00:04:07
And she was explaining, I love them because I'm a CrossFitter and I can jump, I can run, I can do all the things, and they don't slip, they don't slide, they're polarized, and they're not expensive. They are only $25 per pair. I instantly ordered a couple, and I have never looked back for having a couple of sunglasses in my console because, you know, I lose them and I don't feel bad when I lose them, yet they're still good quality. If you want to support the show and get a great pair of sunglasses at the same time, gooder is giving make it simple, listeners free shipping on their first order. The link for that is going to be in the show notes.
00:04:42
Again, that will be gooder.com, simple, and that's going to give you free shipping on your first order. Gooder, good, simple. I love them, and I know you're going to love them, too. Okay, let's get into today's episode and talk about the Mindful Gut approach. My name is Andrea Allen , and I am a mother of four girls under seven, a wifey to a mountain man, a personal trainer and a nutrition coach.
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I love all things in women's health and fitness, but let's face it, the fitness industry is complicated and it's not built for the everyday mom. There's so much conflicting information, and you're busy and you don't have time to figure it out. I hate feeling confused and overwhelmed. So I have made it my mission to simplify health and fitness while creating a welcoming, realistic, and empowering home for like minded women. I'm happy you're here and I hope you stay awhile.
00:05:36
Hey, Amanda. I'm so glad that you are joining us to chat today about gut health. I'm excited, too. Also, I love your shirt, by the way. I know they can't see it.
00:05:46
No one can see it. It says eat more whole foods, but the whole the Owen is a doughnut. It's adorable. I got to keep it classy. So I'm glad you're here today, and I think that we're going to discuss some things that are really important.
00:06:01
I feel like you do an excellent job at sharing some very educational ways of looking at gut health, because in some ways, gut health is another one of those health topics that is really trending right now and buzzing because people are realizing, oh, my gosh, maybe I'm having A, b and C issues because my gut health. So I know that you really address this, so let's start talking about this. First. Tell us about yourself, your background, how you got into this. Yeah, why?
00:06:29
I love your shirts, because that ties into how I got into this. I love food and knew I would never get tired of talking about food because it was literally in high school when I decided to become a dietitian, which is wild. So I knew I wanted to become a dietitian because I loved talking about food, and I was like, I don't know if I want to cook food all the time and be like a chef. I agree with you. When I was in college, I almost became a dietitianist, but then I was like, I think I might like exercise more, but I really like food, too.
00:07:03
Yeah, you find your thing. You find your thing. And so that's when I pursued nutrition as my degree. I absolutely loved it. Was totally, like, freaked out, though, when I found out how much science was involved.
00:07:16
I was like, what does science and chemistry have to do with food? That might have also been why I was like, you know what? Let's go into public health education. Totally blindsided by that, to be completely honest. But I powered through and I still love it.
00:07:34
Gut health came a little bit later, so when I became a dietitian, my first love was really intuitive eating. And I know we'll touch a little bit about intuitive eating, and so that was kind of my first introduction into a specialty. And gut health came after I was having some digestive issues. And the more you talk about it, the more you realize how other people had digestive issues and family. So I started working with people one on one, doing food sensitivity work, and that's kind of what my entrance was into gut health.
00:08:05
And from that time.
00:08:09
At the end of the three months, I usually work with people for a couple of months, and then at the end, I realized, like, okay, like, now what? How do I keep this going? And that is how I started to combine mindfulness and intuitive eating with gut health. And that's when I developed the mindful gut approach, which is helping you find your gut healthy, like your gut friendly and building gut healthy habits at last. Because that's really one of the core things.
00:08:36
Regardless of where you are in your gut health journey is having some foundational things to keep you going and recognizing that your foundation is fluid, which kind of sounds weird at first, but realizing that certain things are going to be more important to you at certain times in your life, and it's identifying what those things are. And so that's kind of how my approach came about, is here's five principles, five things to guide you to figure out what your gut friendly is and to build that gut friendly lifestyle, which you can, again, have different perspectives or different versions of that as you move through your life. I love that. And the thing about that is, I love how you say it's got to lay a base layer. Because I feel like in any field, when you're trying to teach a concept, if you're like, okay.
00:09:22
If you can keep this foundation. You can build, you can mix, you can match, you can move things around, but you can kind of always go back to this base layer and kind of adjust based on thinking those through. So let's talk about your five principles for your mindful gut health. I know that your first one is trust your gut, which we hear all the time to trust your intuition. In fact, just this week, which it'll already be out by the time this airs, I have an entire reel on trusting your intuition with health.
00:09:53
So what does that mean in the nutrition world? Yeah, I think trusting your gut can have a couple of different meanings. One other thing about my perspective around gut health, I think it definitely when I think of gut health, I think of three things. I think of a your digestion, which we most often think of, like how we break down food or how they're pooping. I didn't realize I talk about poop so much as a dietitian, too.
00:10:19
Your microbiome, which we hear so much interesting research about. But the third area of our gut health that doesn't get talked about enough is like what you were saying just a second ago is our intuition and how can we learn to listen to it? Because we all have those gut feelings of like, this feels right for me, or I don't know if this feels right for me. And there's such a strong mind gut connection. So how we feel mentally can impact us physically and vice versa.
00:10:47
So in the nutrition world. Trusting your gut can look like if I wait till I'm really hungry, there's only certain foods that really kind of satisfy my hunger. So one way in which I trust my gut is I'll think like, okay, if I have this food, how will I feel? And I kind of check in with myself to see like OOH, that sounds like it would feel good for me. Or maybe if I had that and said, oh, I don't know if that will be good.
00:11:13
It sounds good, but I don't know if I'll feel good. That's kind of like, one kind of weird way in which I, like, almost. Like, thinking of not just the present moment, like, I want this a second, but, like, long term, how's this going to help me feel in? An hour and 2 hours when I'm sleeping, when I'm running errands or whatever, but almost looking down the road at how you're going to feel and then being aware of that. Yeah, that's like one way in which you can kind of trust your gut and then just kind of following your intuition and even having nothing to do with nutrition.
00:11:44
But really it is impacting nutrition because I had a chat with a therapist and we talked about how sometimes when people are giving too much of themselves away, they might notice that they don't have a lot of boundaries. That they might be like running to the bathroom more often versus someone who's like Bottling in emotions might also be literally Bottling in and feel constipated. So that's why I think trusting your gut has so many different layers and looks to it. But at the end of the day, it is such a core piece of good gut health. So how can women be better at trusting their gut?
00:12:21
I know you said kind of looking down the road, but how can we look at that and how can we recognize if our gut needs healed? That's a good one. So I'll start backwards. So with gut healing, there's kind of two things to look for. A, everyone's gut doesn't need healing.
00:12:36
Let's put that that's like a big I think a misconception is like everyone is rocking around with this sad looking gut. Everyone knows the pictures of the stomach and you're like, oh, the stomach has a frowny face.
00:12:56
I think that's where diet culture kind of starts to invade the gut health space is making think that there's automatically something absolutely wrong with you. Just a side note on that. Thinking about that. So with hormones, with clients, we work with clients who have a hormone issues and one of the first things we say is your hormones may not be off. You may need to address your lifestyle factors of just like sleeping more and drinking enough water.
00:13:23
Yeah, just regular basic pieces. And we're like, you might not need a supplement or a real hormone test yet. Let's do the foundational normal ones. There may not be something wrong with you. Maybe you're only sleeping 4 hours and that's going to mess with your hormone.
00:13:38
So I get what you're saying in that not everyone has this major gut issue, but there's things we can address in the meantime, so okay, keep going. I just had that thought when you were talking. No, I think that's like a beautiful segue to it because you're so right and you can't out supplement your weight out of getting 4 hours of sleep. No, you can't. No medicine is going to erase lifestyle factors.
00:14:03
It can help. If you have a major issue, it can definitely help. It is definitely needed, but you have to kind of do your part too to be like, okay, I'm not feeling good. Absolutely. That is so right.
00:14:15
And the two things, okay, let's say you are getting those foundational things in and you feel like there's something still up. Pain and persistence is usually the two key things to look for, especially when it comes to your digestive issues, when you have gut health issues. So, yeah, with pain and persistence, if you're noticing that this digestive issue is really hurting you, like you're waking up and you're feeling pain in the gut or after a meal, you're feeling a lot of pain, that's generally a sign you need to dig deeper. Something is going on and then that pain can be with or without that persistence. Usually it's with the persistence.
00:14:54
It's not just like a one and done, like, oh, I'm feeling a lot of heartburn. But then you ate like a big thing of chips and salsa, like some really spicy okay, yeah, all right, that makes sense. But if it's happening with the foods that aren't necessarily what you might think of being an issue and if it's happening all the time and it's just really a lot of discomfort, those are signs. Okay, maybe your gut might need to go through some healing and you want to work with someone to figure out what's going on and not just like prescribe you supplements and send you on your way either because you want to dig into the root of the matter. When people are doing that, would it be helpful if they made a list of track like, hey, I'm feeling uncomfortable, what did I just eat?
00:15:42
So this is going to sound really funny and I think I've openly talked about this on the podcast before, I used to get really bad gut pain and I would eat and my stomach would just be so bloated and hurt and hurt and hurt. And I started tracking and I know some people might think this crazy, but I realized I was actually sensitive to coniferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower and I would blow up like a puffer fish after I had them. And so I had to cut them out and instantly it's not a problem anymore. And now I can weave them back in just in small amounts. But I went a couple of months where I was like, I cannot eat these anymore, which is a totally healthy food.
00:16:22
But my gut was like, I saw. Cauliflower pizza crust at Costco the other day. It's everywhere. Yeah, it's everywhere. And I was pounding it like no other because I truly love broccoli and cauliflower, and my stomach was like, too much, too much.
00:16:38
But again, I tracked I only knew because I took time to write down what I was having, and I was like, oh, my gosh. At every meal afterwards, when I feel my stomach distended, that's what it was. And then I removed it, and then I slowly weaved it back in. So that's why I was curious if tracking would be useful in any aspect. You hit on so many good things.
00:16:57
Okay, so, yes, to answer the first question. Absolutely. And a food and Mood journal is one of my most favorite tools for your gut. I actually have which one? Call it a sample.
00:17:08
Like a little template of one that you can download oh, perfect. On your website? Yeah. Oh, perfect. I'll add it in the show notes.
00:17:15
Yeah, perfect. So kind of a template for you to kind of use to figure out some of the things to track because we forget what we eat, like, 15 minutes, five minutes after we ate the food. And so tracking is not it's going to do the remembering for you so you don't have to think back, okay, what did I have for breakfast? How did I feel? So tracking what you're eating and then how you're feeling, but also layer it in with things like sleep.
00:17:40
Layer it in with things like your emotions or how you eat, because that's another aspect that people overlook. Like, why am I feeling so bloated? Oh, for example, I teach, right? So sometimes I'll notice that if I eat right before my class, I feel like I have to burp all the time. Well, that's because I'm taking in a lot of air as I'm talking, as I'm lecturing.
00:18:02
So how you eat, the manner in which you eat can also impact it. And sometimes it's not food, but it could be one of those things that could be influencing it. I have actually heard that about I'm a fast eater, and I've been told you're probably chewing your food twice, and then it's going down the pipe and you want your stomach to digest it. And I'm like, oh, well, shoot, I'll try to eat some. Chewing is legit, the first step of digestion, right?
00:18:27
And so it makes sense that you got to think about that if you're someone who has a lot of stress or if you're someone who's really on the go if you're having stomach pain and think like, am I honestly chewing my food, or am I just like, sculpting it down as fast as possible? So that makes sense absolutely. And if you're stressed and doom scrolling on your phone or watching the news or something and it's like getting you upset or whatever, however you're stressed, you're not going to be in the mode to actually digest your food. Like, blood flow gets shunted away right from the digestive system. So that's another reason why I think layering and how you're feeling in a food and mood journal can be really helpful for you.
00:19:09
And then the other thing too, that you can use it for is to find patterns. So, like you were saying, I noticed after I eat this, that's when I felt bloated. That's when my stomach was like, what are you doing to me? Food in Mood journal is so helpful. And the other thing you mentioned that I wanted to kind of highlight how important it is, is restriction short term can sometimes be helpful for your gut to kind of settle down, right, to like, okay, kind of rework itself to its new normal.
00:19:37
But restriction for the long term is really unhealthy for your gut. The more variety you have in your diet, the better your gut will be, like your gut microbiome and digestion. So I think that's the other thing that you didn't really say, but I wanted to just highlight how important that was, is bringing these foods back in and knowing that if you do have a little bit of an issue, like you don't go ham, right. Don't eat tons of broccoli, you kind of have to find your limit of how much you can eat four pieces of broccoli. That's it exactly slowly increased.
00:20:12
And I don't overdo it anymore. So finding your threshold of how much you can have and how often and that's another thing that your food and mood journal can help you identify as you start to reintroduce foods because there's no standard measurement that's going to work. Like, okay, you can have four pieces, I can have four pieces. Everyone can only have no everyone's so different. So, yeah, that was a lot of good stuff in there.
00:20:38
Your second principle is rest and recharge. How can resting help your gut? And what advice would you give to the mother who seems like, oh, rest is a fable? I read about it in books. I hear about it.
00:20:53
It sounds cool. I'll do. It a friend of mine who's like, I'll sleep when I'm dead. She's running around and it's so hard. Because we know how important sleep is, but sometimes, sometimes it's just it's not happening when you have a kid that's crying or not sleeping or needs all the things.
00:21:12
Yeah. And there's going to be times where it will be a fable. It will be like this magical unicorn that doesn't ever seem to come around. I think what can be helpful is recognizing maybe this is like a temporary part of the light. Like, this is not going to be your life all the time and trying to find little moments where you can grab whatever you can grab.
00:21:40
So whether it's like just one deep breath before you do whatever you have to do, that can be really calming to the nervous system. So I think breathing is one of my favorite tools to help you rest and recharge because it sends signals to the nervous system to kind of help you relax. And you can do it anytime, anywhere. It doesn't require any special equipment. Okay, let's get into that.
00:22:03
Let's talk about the resting for the gut. But I also want to talk about how breathing would help the gut because I haven't heard that before. And I'm a big believer in breathing for core health and for management of anxiety, but I haven't heard that connection to the gut yet. Yeah, and it goes back to that rest and digest mode and it all kind of goes back to the nervous system. Like when the nervous system is calm, then you're going to be in a calmer state.
00:22:29
So that will help with you better digesting food. So if someone is coming into the meal really stressed, one thing that I encourage people to do is to take three deep breaths before they start to eat to shift their body into rest and digest mode. So it's the same reasons you might recommend and just applied to food and to your gut. And again, the reason why the gut can be connected to breathing all again, goes back to that mind gut connection. So how we feel mentally will send signs to our gut and can impact us physically.
00:23:05
So your gut and your brain are best friends. Like, they're talking all the time. So the more you can influence how you're feeling, the more you can better influence. It's not going to be the end all, be all, but it can be a great tool and piece. And that's like there's even research looking at how sleep can impact the gut microbiome.
00:23:25
So all of these foundational things are so critical. So let's now talk about your third principle, which is eating with intention. And I love this principle because something that we teach our clients, when our nutrition clients come in, we do a method with them called naming your plate. And the purpose of that, and I've even talked about it on the podcast before, the purpose of that is to create variety on your plate with proteins, fats and carbs because they are all beautiful, they all have purpose. No one needs to be locked in the corner and shut out of the.
00:24:00
Party like society loves to do. They all have purpose. And so we really push our clients in that direction because we want them to recognize the beauty in proteins, fats and carbs. So how does that play a role into eating with intention? And what are your thoughts on that?
00:24:15
Yeah, I think that's beautiful. I'm a huge fan of protein, fat and carbs. Or well, protein, fat, and fiber, everybody. Loves to be like, oh, that's bad, that's good, that's bad. And I'm like, what does that mean?
00:24:28
What does that mean? You cannot live without carbs. You can't like, oh my God. And it would be a really sad life without some of these foods in there. Yeah.
00:24:41
I am a huge fan of protein, fat, and carbs or fiber. I like to emphasize fiber just because that's a good one, because if you're eating fiber foods, you're going to be eating some really good carbs for you. And given that so many people don't eat enough fiber, I think emphasizing that can be really helpful for people. So, yes, huge fan of that. I love that.
00:25:03
And what I think the other aspect that I love about that is that it gives you kind of like a basic guideline of what to look for. But at the end of the day, you're naming your plate, you're finding your intention, meaning, how can I distill this down into my life? So my protein, fat, fiber might look different than your protein, fat, fiber, but at the end of the day, we both have what we need, what our body needs to support our overall health. So that's the cool thing about it, because the thing I disliked rather about gut health is you'll hear a lot of, like, don't eat dairy, don't eat meat, don't eat sugar, don't eat blah, blah, blah. And it's like, okay, but what do I eat if I'm not supposed to eat all these things?
00:25:47
A, there's no actual list of no foods that you're supposed to have because everyone's gut is different, but you're like, okay, if I don't have to listen to that, what do I eat? And I think that's where that naming your plate or eating with intention comes in. Like, your intention could be, okay, maybe this meal I'm going to be more fiber forward because I know I'm not going to be able to have a snack later, or I have a lot of work that I need to do, so I need to be fueled for longer periods of time. So you're going to maybe emphasize more fiber, emphasize more protein, and then maybe your next meal is like, you know, I want to emphasize more of the fat today. I'm missing out some of that fat.
00:26:25
So you throw some avocado onto something. Well, I think a lot of times people don't realize with clients, when they start to name their plate, they'll be like, oh, my gosh. I got to dinner and I realized I had no protein on any of my meals in any of my meals. Or I realized I was really suppressing the amount of fat or whatever it is. But they've never noticed it before because they've never broken food down in that way.
00:26:50
So the eating with intention, when I saw that as one of your principles, I was like, I just think. We've lost that concept of awareness. Yeah, very much eating. What other tips could you give to someone if they're trying to eat with intention? Like, how could they better do that?
00:27:07
So the first thing would be absolutely what you just said is to start building awareness of looking at your plate, like, okay, get a baseline of what am I currently doing and what does that look like? Because when you look at sustainability of food choices dramatically and drastically, changing how you eat is not going to stick with you for the long term. So the best place to start is where it's easiest. And to find where the easiest place is is to first get a baseline. Okay.
00:27:31
How am I eating? Maybe you're really good with fiber in the morning because you do your overnight oats or something like that. Okay. But maybe you're lacking protein now, so you're going to put like a scoop of, I don't know, collagen or protein powder in there or you're going to stir in some yogurt. So I think getting that baseline is going to be helpful.
00:27:47
Because to get intention, you first need that awareness, like you were saying, and then when you've identified what works and what doesn't work, that's where the intention can start to come into play. Because you can start kind of tweaking what you're already doing and just like taking it to that next level. That actually makes sense to me because that awareness would allow them to adjust. And as you talked about the food journal, like tracking, you may notice, oh, it is all these. So I'm intentionally going to limit that.
00:28:16
Or if you do feel like it's sugar or dairy or whatever the intention of maybe I'm going to cut that out for four weeks and see how I feel and intentionally eat without it and see how I feel. Or weaving things back in, like when I weaved back in broccoli, it's a totally healthy food that people enjoy, but for some reason my stomach was like hard pass. But when I slowly weaved it back in with intention, I was like, oh, okay, this is working. So it kind of goes both ways. I love that you point that out because it does go both ways of awareness and adding awareness and not adding and awareness in creating some balance.
00:28:51
And it's going to change. Like, if you're going through a really busy time in your life and you have really small little ones, you're going to need things that are quick and fast and that's good and that's what you need. You're going to need that quick nutrition so you can keep up with your kids. Those will also change, so your intentions will be fluid as well. Yeah, I agree.
00:29:15
Your next principle is kitchen confidence. And I like this principle. But I have a question about what advice you have for someone who feels like there's just not enough time to get started in the kitchen. So what tips do you have for that person to develop confidence in the kitchen and make it seem like doable? Basically, have you ever seen struggle Meals on taste made?
00:29:37
No. Oh, my God. Okay. I love struggle meals. So they're like budget meals, but part.
00:29:43
Of that too, they call them struggle meals. I think all of my meals are struggle. But he did an episode recently of, like, where you kind of take things that are already made, but you tweak it a little bit to add more nutrition, right? So I think that's like, a really easy place to start some kitchen confidence. Or, like, maybe you grab a pizza at Costco, like I did the other day, but you grab a salad, like, you find ways, right, to work stuff in.
00:30:13
So even if you're buying food that's already made, how can I work more nutrition in? And that's a way of building kitchen confidence, too, is like, okay, maybe I buy my protein or whatever my main dish is, but I got five minutes or ten minutes to chop some zucchini and throw that in a pan, and now I have a vegetable as my side. So I think that's, like, an easy place to start is by using stuff that you already have, even if it's already bought. And making simple sides, I think is a good spot. That's a great one.
00:30:46
Something else I like to teach clients that goes right along with that, and I thought of it as you were speaking, is sometimes people are like, I'm trying to eat healthier, but I already have these meals that my family loves, and they love the flavors, so I will tell them to flip the portions. So, for example, let's say your family loves chicken Alfredo, okay? The pasta, instead of having the base, be a massive pile of pasta, have a little bit of pasta, and put a big piece of chicken and then the sauce. So there's more chicken than pasta. Same flavor, getting more protein in, still getting that taste that you love.
00:31:24
But the actual ratios of, like, now I have more protein in my meal because normally in chicken Alfredo, you're getting straight pasta, maybe 1oz of chicken on the top, and now you're still getting some of that pasta. You're still getting that flavor, but maybe now you're having 6oz of chicken. So I like to tell people sometimes just mess with the ratios of the foods you're already having and increase the portions of the ones that you know are going to make you feel better, give you more energy, or just a little bit more wholesome. More whole foods to mix and not whole foods like my shirt. Whole foods with a donut.
00:32:02
If you have a main dish, if you're having pizza, okay, so add a salad on the side and maybe some fruit, or add something on the side that's going to give you vitamins and minerals just mixing it up. Don't worry about overhauling your whole kitchen and your whole life. Just small steps, small adjustments. I think smoothies are just an easy way to pack. Yeah.
00:32:24
I think if you're starting from not a lot, like, you can buy smoothie packs already made and have that and blend it up and pack in a lot of good stuff there. What do you think for kitchen confidence about eliminating ingredients? Do you have any thoughts on that? Because I know that can make a big difference. Yeah.
00:32:41
So if someone's going if they're doing their food journal and like, okay, I need to take this out. Thinking of that pasta example too. Let's say you're like, okay, maybe gluten doesn't work for me, and I need to eliminate that. But I miss my chicken Alfredo. What do I do?
00:32:56
I think that's where experimenting with different types of pasta, like, maybe you don't do wheat, but you do rice. Or I recently had a coworker give me hearts of palm pasta from Trader Joe's. I don't know if you've had that. I'm going to have to try. Yeah, it's not pasta, though.
00:33:14
It's like hearts of palm, but just like was it kind of like spaghetti squash looking? I don't know. But it was really good, and I had never tried that before. They even make noodles out of I do zucchini all the time. Oh, my God.
00:33:25
And they even have, like, a sweet potato. Noodle, I've seen at Trader Joe's. Yeah, but they're not like the long, skinny spaghetti. It's more like little balls. But you can put the pasta on it with your chicken.
00:33:39
And I like to mix my if you have zucchini noodles by themselves, it doesn't have the right texture, where you're like, thanks, I'm just eating zucchini noodles. But if you mix regular noodles with it, all of a sudden more nutrition, still a yummy flavor. So I love your idea of just saying try a different type of pasta. Try experiment. You're going to have to experiment to take that time, and there's going to be failures 100%.
00:34:02
Let's normalize that fact that there will be some fails. Okay. It's like when you try to get your kids to try something new and. You'Re like, that's exactly what I was going to say. You're like, okay, so I'm the only.
00:34:13
One that ate and everybody else left and is now eating yogurt. There's going to be failures, and that's fine, but that doesn't mean you give up. Just like, you just like, oh, if your kid says, oh, I'm never going to try an apple, do you ever just stop introducing apples? No. You might introduce it in a different way.
00:34:30
So just trying it in a different way and trying again. And yeah, there's going to be some failures, but you're going to get some win. Okay. Your last principle is purpose over perfection. And I absolutely love this principle because I always tell my clients, it's not all or nothing.
00:34:46
It's all or something that's, okay, something. We just got a step, and we just tiny steps keep moving, moving, and it adds up. But we are so set on, like, we have to do it perfect. We have to get it right. And so I love purpose over perfection.
00:35:00
I want you to speak on that principle a little bit. Yeah. So it's really kind of letting go of what you're saying. That all or nothing mentality, like, it's black or white, which is like, I'm either changing my kitchen or I'm not going to do anything about my kitchen. And that outlook really doesn't serve us, even though it's very easy to fall into that trap, and sometimes you don't even recognize it that you're there.
00:35:29
I think digging into, okay, what do I want? That's where that purpose comes in. What am I looking for? What is important to me? Why am I doing this?
00:35:40
Like, digging in to that why will better help you identify that purpose. And every small step that you take, like, you're saying something is a movement, is shifting into the right direction. It might not be at the rate you wish it could be, but at the end of the day, your purpose is what's going to help take you forward, whether it's a small step or big steps or a bunch of small steps that finally get you to wherever goal that you're looking for. And there's going to be some forward movement. Sometimes there's some backward movement, but at the end of the day, it's moving and digging into, like, okay, why am I doing this?
00:36:18
Kind of like, if you're making a food, maybe your why is like, okay, I want to add more variety. So you're trying to build some more kitchen confidence, but you're coming off of some L, some losses, some dishes that didn't work really well, like digging into, okay, why am I doing this? Oh, I'm doing this because I want to improve my gut health. Or I'm trying different pastas because my blood sugar isn't at the level it should be. So I want to explore different options that's going to help move you forward and keep you going, because at the end of the day, it's that slow and steady that's going to get you there.
00:36:52
If we were trying to run a marathon race, we wouldn't be like, okay, day one, I'm going to run 27 miles. 26. I guess it's only 26.2, but I'm going to do the whole amount. Day one done. No, we say I'm first going to learn to walk, then I'm going to speedwalk.
00:37:10
Then I'm going to run 3 miles at a time. Then I'm going to run five, then I'm going to run six. Then I'm going to get to 26.2. We don't overdo it and then say, day one, we're running 30 miles, we slowly increase, and then you realize, oh, okay, I can do this. Last week, I did 5 miles.
00:37:28
This week I'm doing 6 miles. Next week I'm doing 7 miles. I'm not a runner, so runners are probably like, she's butchering this. I was like, oh, wow, she must really love running. I would never do this.
00:37:38
No, I'm not a runner. I have ran in my life multiple times. But the idea is you build up to it. You slowly train, you slowly adjust muscles change your endurance. Your cardiovascular system changes.
00:37:53
You get stronger. You learn how to pace yourself. You learn when to speed up, when to slow down. That's where you start to get fancy with things. Yes.
00:38:03
And it's the same thing with food and some runs. You're like, that was terrible. That was terrible. I had to go to bathroom 1 mile in, and it went way south, literally. So the food is kind of the same thing where it's take your time.
00:38:17
Small steps have a purpose. When it goes bad for you, that's okay. There's a new day tomorrow when everyone hates your meal. It's okay. Listen, we've all been there.
00:38:30
We've all been there when you made a dinner and you're like, no one's eating. Yeah. So just keep giving it your best, and eventually you'll find the handful of things that your kids love to eat, that you love to eat, that are good for all of your bodies and have great vitamins and minerals and a good variety. So I love that purpose over perfection. All right, Amanda, tell us where we can find you.
00:38:54
I love your social media handle, I will say, because you really are educational on it, and you really break down a lot of different food items and how we digest them and the benefits and all the things. So where can we find you? Yeah, so Instagram is probably the best place to find me, and it's at Light On Creative Productions . And so I share a lot of different I think I did an Oat series. I just did a cottage cheese ice cream because that was trending.
00:39:18
So I always try to pick stuff and kind of highlight how it can be good for your gut or different ways you can improve your gut health. And talking a lot, too, about the mind body connection. Also, I have that food and mood journal template, so I'll give you the link so you can share that if someone wants a place to start of, like, okay, what do I record, and how can I go about doing this? That's a nice little spot. And then this summer, I'm hoping to do, like, a little summer series of live classes, so I'll share the waiting list.
00:39:48
So if you're interested in doing a class where I think we're going to do some kitchen confidence and layer in some lecture pieces to it, yeah, that'll be fun. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. I sure hope you found that episode helpful.
00:40:04
I will link in the Show Notes her downloadable chart for tracking your food so you can look for any habits of foods or different things that are going on to where you are noticing pain or distension, bloating digestion issues. As I shared my own experience, I know that tracking that can make a huge difference. And it's ironic because sometimes it's not always the common culprits that get labeled that way. As I mentioned, for me, it was literally coniferous vegetables, it was broccoli, it was cauliflower. So I think that food chart will make a huge difference.
00:40:35
And I will add that in the show notes. If I want you to take anything away from this episode, I want you to remember purpose over perfection. When I saw that as one of her mindful gut approaches, it just sat so well with me, because I think in general, in life, if we could focus on just what we want rather than being perfect, if we could focus on the purpose of doing things rather than it always succeeding, it would make such a difference. I remember listening to a speaker at church one time, and he said, your success is not based on the outcome, but is based on the effort. And I thought that was so interesting because I think sometimes we label our ability to succeed only by the outcome.
00:41:20
And sometimes the effort is actually the beauty. The day in and day out, trying to eat healthier, trying to be better, trying to mix things in, trying new things. Sometimes it going disastrous. But making that effort is actually what's going to make us successful in the long run. So don't overly focus on the outcome.
00:41:40
Come too soon. Give it time. All right, that's it for today. I love you. I mean it.
00:41:46
And as always, you are doing so much better than you think you are. All right, we'll chat next week.