Treat Yo Self with @lauraleabalanced

inner picture of our outer self. Healthy behaviors play a much bigger role at all health than the actual number on the scales. Internal dialogue could be so powerful, and often it's super negative and critical in a way that we wouldn't talk to other people that we care about. When you start to share your story, that gives other people the courage to share theirs. I know you would be proud now of how far you have come in your relationship to food, exercise, and to yourself. I felt freedom,

I've gained relationships. I've found my true sense of self worth. There's one thing I need you to take away. You're going to be okay. So I'm excited to have my friend Laura Lee on for today's episode. Amy here. Lisa is not on this episode. Just me and Laura Lee say, Hey, hi guys. She came over to my house and when I opened the door, I saw she had tup aware with her, but I didn't know exactly what it was.

And then she told me that she made s'mores bars, and of course she brought some with her, which I think last time we did a whole cooking thing together a long time ago and I got to take home tons of amazing food from your house. But really, Laura Lee is the type of guest to have over to your house because since she's a chef, she brings things I can't not. I I feel like naked if I show up with nothing. So yeah, so now after this,

I have s'mores bars to enjoy. Now, if you listen to the special Outweigh series that we did on my four Things podcast, we had people share their stories and Laura Lee was one of the stories shared in the four part series. But now Outweigh is its own podcast, so she's coming back on as a guest, and I'm thankful she took the time to do that because I spotted something on her Instagram that I think she's doing.

That's pretty cool. That is a perfect example of food freedom, and I wanted her to come on and talk about it. So I think the first video I saw you do, and you call these treat videos, right, the first one I saw was you eating a Chick fil A sandwich. Now, I think you maybe had done some before, and I

know you did some after. I don't always see every single one, but I watched the whole thing and I was like, there she is eating an entire Chick fil A chicken biscuit for breakfast, just talking to people, and you're not focused on the sandwich the whole time, but you sit there and eat it. So I'll get into my own Chick fil A biscuit story in a second, but I want you to share when you were first inspired to do a treat video and why and what you hope people will get from it. Absolutely, so thank

you for having me. So I have a story with disordered eating, and I talked a little bit about that, and one of the things that really helped me create this relationship with food that is really healthy now is watching what is considered like cheat videos on YouTube. There's all these cheat YouTube YouTubers, and I didn't love the word cheat, but I really enjoyed the content of these

videos where they would do something similar. They would get donuts or what are considered fear foods to a lot of people and hang out with you and they enjoy the food, but as you said, that's not the primary focus. So that was really helpful for me in my recovery. So I wanted to create something similar but call them treat videos, just to get away from that stigma of

a cheat. And I just hope that people have a similar experience to them that I had and how it helped me just watching them and normalizing these foods that are fears for people. And in the health food we're old.

I mean, I'm trying to move away from that kind of health language as much as possible as time goes on, because there's a lot of people who have quote food freedom, but it's still sort of like a paleo banana bread or you know, a sugar free chocolate chip cookie, but God forbid, like candy or sort of you know, fast food, which I don't recommend on a regular basis, but there's still a lot of foods that I think are off limits.

To people. So those are the kinds of things. And also, like you said, timing a chocolate cake, I ate that for breakfast, that can really mess with a lot of kind of traditional food rules and breakthrough for people. And diet culture has told us you can have cake, but if you have cake, you probably need to have it once a year or once a month, or only if

you're celebrating something. And if you do, then you better work out or you better restrict the next day, So eat all you can at that moment kind of mentality where you're being a part of breaking that mold of saying cake is just cake, right exactly. I mean, I think that's so much of it is when we get into where a piece of cake turns into a whole cake.

And I'm not a medical professional at all, just from my personal experience, it's because of the stories we're creating around what it means to be eating that slice of cake. It's not necessarily that we want the rest of the cake, but we create a story like you said that, well, this is a treat that I can only have one severy however long, and so I might as well, with the scarcity mentality, get as much as I can. So it's not the food content itself. It really is the

stories that you're making up around it. And I think what you said about just that kind of all or nothing mentality is really important as well. And one of the reasons I wanted to do the treat videos is to see that that can be incorporated into what is otherwise a sort of traditionally quote traditionally healthy day. And it doesn't have to become a treat day or a quote cheat day. It can just be a day where I also a cake particulately, and it's that makes it cake.

It's cake, it's a salad, it's pizza, it's broccoli. Everything is on the same. Now, we do have inner and outer wisdom, which is something that Lisa and I get into a lot. She's a registered dietitian and I co host with her, so she has all the education and and why is a dietitian how she'll approach certain things with clients, Because nutrients is a big deal. We're not just throwing that out the window. You can educate yourself on certain vitamins and nutrients and minerals and things that

your body needs. But we've just done such damage in you know, separating good foods and bad foods to where you know, then we have this list and all these rules and all these things that society says this is how you're supposed to live. And then if we do something bad, then we have the guilt and the shame, and then there's this cycle depending on what you're disordered habit is of you know, binging and restricting or purging and whatever form working out too much, which some people

don't think of. They may think of purging as binging and purging of like if you actually were to get rid of the food somehow, whether it's throwing up or we talked about laxatives here on the show too, of what people use, but also working out for hours at a time that is a form of purging. So really, what I love back to your videos is that you're being a part of helping normalize the food like it

is what it is. You ate the cake for breakfast that day, I bet because of where you are in your journey, it didn't shape anything else that you did the rest of the day. If you wanted salad, you ate it. If you wanted bread, you ate it. If you wanted to work out you did. If you didn't, you didn't. I mean, I think that emotional neutrality around it is so key, and it does kind of go

back to what are your thoughts around it? And if your thoughts are just to be present with it, and when it's done, it's done and it doesn't hold some kind of meaning or control over you, then you do go about the rest of the day. And again just speaking from my own experience, your body, my body regulates itself. My body is usually if I'm having a piece of chocolate cake for breakfast, I probably don't want it for

a lunch and dinner. And if I did, that would be okay, because at some point I found that my body will start to crave those nutrient dense foods and it will balance it all out. And that is a huge part of what I'm trying to do is just redefine you know what that balance means. And I can't even begin to tell you how really, what an amazing feeling it is to have that kind of relationship with food.

And I get it, guys, like I get that. It's scary because I think your instinct after going through disordered eating is to hold on to everything and to worry that your body won't regulate and your hunger cues won't kick in, and you will end up eating the whole cake. But most of the time, in my experience, that hasn't happened to me. But if it does, that's okay too. And really just putting a lot of faith back into into your body and then just practicing it. I mean, really,

that's part of the treat videos. It's a practice like anything. The more we practice that, the easier it gets. So you know, before I used to film them. This is something I would do by myself, but without filming it. And the more I practiced, whether it was a croissant or starbursts. Again, candy was sort of like extra scary for me, you know, packaged and processed foods. The more

I did it, just it just got easier. God, you brought that up, because when you made your Chick fil a Chicken biscuit video, that is a food I chose to practice on early on in my recovery. And I know it was a Saturday morning and I had had therapy that week, and I don't really know for sure if it was a challenge from my therapist. I don't even know that she would use the word challenge because or more of a homework assignment of go and practice

eating the foods that you're scared of. And I love Chick fil A's chicken biscuits, but I'm scared of them. And back in the day, if I would have had them, I would have done an hour and a half beakroom yoga class hot then I maybe would have gone on a walk later and I would have done green juice because I was scared that I wasn't practicing allowing that

food to properly be in my life. So I remember the Saturday that I woke up and I drove to Chick fil A by myself, went through the drive through, got my sandwich, went home, put it on a plate, cut it in half. I like to do grape jelly on one side of the biscuit and strawberry jelly on the other side, so you got that grape strawberry mixture, and then I cut it in half, and I sat down and I turned on the news, and I sat there and I ate it. I don't know where. I

think my husband had taken the kids somewhere. They were out of town. So it was a Saturday morning that I had to myself, and that is how I chose to spend it. I didn't choose to go wake up early and hit up a yoga class or anything. This was my self care, if that makes sense, because it was part of me putting in the war work. Because it does take work. I'm sure you'll back me up on this, just to be encouragement that it doesn't happen overnight.

Like you said, you may not know, Oh, trust yourself to stop to eat the cake or what's going to keep me from going back and ordering more Chick fil A. But your body does start to talk to you more, and that whole intuitive things starts to kick in. But it does take work. The stuff we've been brainwashed with is very powerful, so that'll start to kick in and the lies. But then you have the power to rewire. Yeah, definitely, and I think that's awesome. I'll have to try the

strawberry grape jelly combo. I think I put honey on mine um, which it's just the sweetened savory is like epic. But yeah, I think that's really really interesting. And for me, an exercise that I use is really asking myself because

so much of it comes down to that. On the wagon off the wagon mentality, and if you realize that there is no wagon, then all of a sudden you realize that the reason you're where a out of that fear comes from is that, well, this is an off day, so I might as well do X, Y and Z and then make up for it. And so it's just asking yourself what the thoughts are around it and then

just kind of like myth busting them. Yeah, So if you want to check out one of Laura Lee's treat videos, they're on her Instagram on the I G t V part because sometimes you're sitting there for ten minutes just talking and eating bye bye bye, And her instagram is at Laura Lee Balanced, so I definitely encourage you to follow her. I have some food questions for you, since you're a chef. Lorely has her very own cookbooks, like

she's legit. Like I've talked about your cookbooks plenty enough on the podcast, but in case we've got some new people, your latest one is Simply Laurely, which I love. And then as your o G is the Lorely Balanced Cookbook, and that is in the o G one is where you have that vegan Caesar salad dress saying I'm obsessed with I still I've been making it for years. Oh and you have some black bean brownies in there, but it's more the sauce. It's so good, you just pour

it over that they're so good. But the newest one is simply Laurally, So I encourage all to check out that as well. But I want to talk to you about food since I have you here, and I've got some questions, especially you know, during this time. I think a lot of us have been looking for comfort during the pandemic, and some people feel again guilt of using food is comfort. But no, that's totally fine. Emotional eating

is okay. That's when again you need to break that unhealthy mindset and know that food can bring you comfort, just like a hug or a bath, or a phone call with a friend or getting some good sleep. So my question is what food have you been making that has brought you comfort during the pandemic, whether it's one of your recipes or somebody else's. I love that it's so true. There's no definition of comfort food other than what brings you comfort. There's no connotation that it has

to be traditionally healthy or unhealthy. And I will say I noticed for myself and a lot of people in my community that what we've been craving in the last year is different than usual. It is more sort of like hardy maybe some more carbohydrates that kind of less vegetables. And I think there's there is a little bit of a myth and Lisa could speak to this more. But I know that when I'm stressed out, my body is not going to digest like a really veggie packed raw

meal that well. And so I've actually felt better eat listening to my body and eating a little bit maybe

less vegetables than usual. So my formula for comfort food in the last year has been what is the vehicle that I'm craving And for me, a lot of the time it's been pasta or rice or you know, like a pasta but in like a lasagna form or a taco and take that food and then just ask myself, how can I infuse maybe one or two veggies into that but still allow myself to have I do eat meat, cheese, I eat a little bit of everything and include some

of those things. So I've done a lot of pastas that have veggies added into them with a sauce sometimes it's creamy, sometimes it's tomato based, that kind of thing. And what are some necessary ingredients in your kitchen? Like if you had to pick three spices or ingredients or things that you could only have three wet three, are you picking? Oh my gosh, well assault honestly I would.

I would make sure that I have some toasted sesame oil is something that I highly recommend having around because it makes every if you like Asian food, um, a lot of takeout dishes. What makes it so delicious is toasted setsamy oil. You can add it to anything, any kind of savory food, and it's going to be phenomenal. So like for a dressing or you cook with it. I would use it for a dressing. I wouldn't use it as a cooking oil, just be because one, I

think it'll oxidize pretty easily. But um, it's a really strong nutty flavor. It's this toasted nutty flavor that's so signature of Asian inspired takeout food. And so whether it is tossing it on roasted broccoli, or on pasta, or on eggs or something like that, you you get this sense that you're eating takeout food when you have toasted sesame oil on it. So it's a go to for any Po's glad you brought that up because I've never had sesame oil in my house ever, so now I

have to go get some. And then because you said salt, I want to clarify what's your go to salt that you recommend. I'm not a huge stickler about really anything. I'm just not a purist. And it is great if you can get like a cool Celtic sea salt, and you can now find them for not a lot of money, especially on thrive market. There's a really great brand that's a fine ground. So I do like a fine ground

Celtic sea salt. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly because it's spelled like Celtic because what I say, but I think it is. I don't know. I think it just depends on who said it originally, the first person I heard say so something like that. But also, just like a medium ground kosher salt for sprinkling on top is is great as well. Okay, so we've got salt, we have sesame oil, and what's the third thing? Oh gosh, I mean, I know it's hard to choose peanut butter.

Probably no. I would say for me, gosh in the same kind of vein is sopos to sesame oil. Kimchi, a really good kimchi around is phenomenal, and you can just add it to so many dishes to elevate them, and it sounds fancy, but it's really not. I've been getting some at Walmart, I get it at Trader Joe's, and you can you can throw it onto whether it's breakfast, lunch,

or dinner in a bootable. This past year, when I have not had the mental and emotional energy to make a vegetable, I literally just open up my jar of kim chee and dollop some on and it's so nutrient dense and has a lot of probiotics in it. It's just a really delicious food. To add this stuff. It's funny you said kim chi. I did not have quote unquote kim chee today, but I had fermented sour krout,

which is very similar, right, very similar. Yeah, I mean it's a I think it's like a it's it's the same process but from sort of a different cultural background. So I think sauer kraut is more from like I don't know, but I had similar like they have. It was a flavored kind, which again I think it does your You may be hearing us say kimchi and fermented sauer kraut and you're like, what, Okay, well this is not in my wheelhouse, but it really is more accessible

than it used to be. And Lorley's right, you really can throw it on whatever. I had it today and uh, I made a rice broccoli bean bowl and then I had a it's like it was a jalapeno flavored and sauer kraut fermentation situation, and I scooped it up in there and it just added this right kick. But also, yes, I knew it was going to do some good healthy stuff from my gut. Yeah. I mean, it really is like just a really intense dose of nutrition that is

easy to find. Um, and I think it's really delicious. And I just want to say, I mean these do sound like specialty will not salt, but I mean I obviously keep the staples around and all that, but I wanted to suggest some things you may not think of

that are actually really assible, and that's what I appreciate. Like, I'm not if you're like, okay, well, catchup Mustard Mayo and I like Austin, thanks thanks for joining us, appreciate you helping us, Like thanks o our kitchen, but you did, I just will do a bonus one you did throw out peanut butter. Do you have a favorite brand of peanut butter? Oh? Yes, I do, so I'm kind of

an equal opportunity peanut butter lover. But there is a brand called Santa Cruz Organics which you can get at Kroger and it They have a dark, roasted, creamy and crunchy organic peanut butter that's not wildly expensive at all, and it is so much better than any other peanut butter ever in my opinion, So Santa Cruz Organics highly recommend. Okay, I honestly think that's what we have. We have a bottle of Justins, and then I think we have a bottle of Santa Cruz. Is it? Like, yes, that's it.

The labels white, green, top. Okay, I can yes, that's Stevenson, my son. That's is go to peanut butter. Actually, one time when I was not in my healthiest state of mind, I had a lot of growth and therapy, and I thought it was like hormones. But there was a time about a year ago that I had a different peanut butter and I gave it to him and he said, I'm not eating this, it's not the ripe peanut butter. And I again, it was really nothing he did. I

just was in unhealthy space. And I remember I got the bowl of what he was eating and I grabbed it and I threw it in the sink and I was like, you're not eating I mean, it was not saying. It was like the best reaction ever. But I just thought, my kids are not going to complain about what kind of peanut butter they get. And then I decided at that point I was going to it was like peanut butter Gate at our house, that I was going to get the Santa Cruz jar and fill it with another

brand of peanut butter. And then he would just see me getting it out of that and then sort of like his brain would think, oh, it's the same, so it's going to taste the same. He still was like, this tastes funny. I don't know, and then sure enough I I did a taste test and he's right, the Santa Cruz was better. His little child brain though wasn't. He wasn't trying to be super disrespectful, although it definitely did come across that way because sometimes children don't know

how to act. But I also didn't know how to act because I went all crazy on him all because of peanut Better. But that's when I realized I needed to breathe more and I needed to maybe work through some emotions that I was storing up that were manifesting is rage, which led to me like throwing a bowl in the sink. So that's my random or confession. But

I will back you up. When you first said it, I was like, I don't know if I know that brand, and then I was like, oh my gosh, I know that brand all too well, and it's in my pantry right now. Oh my god, that's so funny. Yeah, it's funny. I'm I'm very covetous of some of my favorite things that will make and so I still sometimes if my boyfriend finishes the container of it, I just mentally have to be like, it's okay that he finished it, um,

you know, and just kind of work through that. So I totally get making them outain out of a mole hill about something food related when it's been a big part of your life mentally like that, sometimes it just it just feels bigger than it is. Yeah, and um, I would recommend if anybody else has had a similar moment, taking time for for some breathwork is good. And then yeah, maybe reaching out to a professional because we don't need

to be freaking out about stuff like that. Well, Loreally, I appreciate you coming on and talking about those treat videos and I really hope people check them out and that you do like I did, and do like Loreally did and start practicing. Maybe even start today or tomorrow, put it on your calendar of like, hey, today I'm gonna go to the grocery store. I'm gonna buy something that I never would have bought. And I do that

now too. Like I this was weeks ago, but my sister was coming down with all her kids and I thought, oh, I'm gonna get a family sized pack of Oreos and have them in the pantry because that'll be awesome. And I used to not be able to trust myself to

have that in the pantry. I still do the same thing every now and if I'm a target or something like Flavor Blessed goldfish I love, and so I'll just grab those, Yeah, just little things like that, even sometimes just buying it and just kind of look at it for a little while and just like get comfortable with having it around. I think that's awesome advice. So and then celebrate your accomplishments. Celebrate like after you if you eat chocolate cake for breakfast, like Loreally, celebrate that and

be so proud of yourself. I was proud of myself the other day for something so small, um tortilla chips. So I had made a bowl and I had crushed up a bunch of tortilla chips and sprinkled them on top. That's chef worthy, right, And basically and basically Loreally here had a little like Mexican with some lady chillula on top,

which is so good. And I probably had maybe one more little serving of crushed up things, and I think normally I would have been like, I'm just going to dump it all on here because I'm probably not going to have chips again for a while, or I'm just gonna throw it away because now I'll be tempted to put this on my bowl again, and I don't need to have tortia chips again, you know. But for me, I folded up my tiny little serving of crushed up

tortilla chips. I put a clip on it, and I put in the pantry and it's been in there for a week and I'll eventually get to it. But that is a very small example of where I hope if you were stuck in a place like me, where if you bought tortilla chips, you only had them in your house that day, they either ended up in the trash or totally eaten, you know. And then now I'm to the point where I can save little bags of chips

and it's no big deal. I completely understand your whole thought process around that, and that is for sure victory. I'm sure that would sound really strange to people who haven't gone through some of this, but um, I totally get it, and I'm very proud of you. Thank you for that. So yeah, laurent Ley, and I want to be an encouragement to you to go buy the foods, have your little treat sessions. You don't have to make a video like loreally, but sit down with your plate,

have your moment, and then celebrate it. And if you do it, make sure you let us know about it. Again. She's at Laurely Balanced on Instagram and I'm at Radio Amy. We would love for you to let us know and our hit us up in the direct message d m s and let us know how how you're doing with all this and maybe what it is that you chose to eight chose to eight. I can't even talk what

it is that you chose to eat. And then I'll quickly just shout out your website too, because I know that you have and people can like look it up. But I have noticed on Instagram two that you have these amazing new meal prep plan situation. Yeah yeah, and so yeah, quickly sure about that, but it's lll balance dot com is the website, right, yeah, well, llo balance

dot com is my main website. Um, the meal plans are simply laureally dot com slash meal plans, but if you go to l balance dot com there's a page where you can learn about it. But basically, I'm creating meal plans that are actually accessible and affordable to people using a batch cooking method, which I just didn't see anywhere else. So I'm just I'm just trying to fill a gap for people who still find the question what's for dinner very stressful? So I love that bring it

up Okay, yeah, no problem. Thank you for coming on, and we hope y'all have a great rest of your day.