On today’s episode, I’m taking all of your amazing feedback and working through your 5 biggest pain points of 2018! My goal on this episode is to take these common struggles, and to help you find simple strategies to move forward and beyond what’s holding you back. I hope you love it!
We’re back with our 184th episode of the Fed+Fit Podcast! Remember to check back every Monday for a new episode and be sure to subscribe on iTunes!
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Episode 184 Transcription
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Cassy Joy: Welcome back to another episode of the Fed and Fit podcast. I am your host, Cassy Joy Garcia. And I am thrilled to have you here today. Thank you so much for dialing. I am jumping into this episode with a plan of action. I want to tackle your biggest pain points. If you follow me on Instagram, over at Fed and Fit; pretty simple name. If you’re listening to the podcast, you probably know the name. {laughs} Try to keep it simple across the board.
If you follow me over there, and you watch my stories, you saw recently I asked you a question. I wanted to know what has been your biggest healthy lifestyle pain point of this year? And the feedback that I got was wonderful. If you’re listening and you did provide feedback; thank you very much for participating. It was very interesting, enlightening. And what we learned; we studied, we downloaded all of your wonderful responses. Thank you for being so candid and honest, because it really helps us figure.
I respond to your feedback like that in two different ways. The first way, of course, is as a human being. Because a lot of your pain points are also my pain points! And I feel them on a very personal level. And then I also respond to them from a business perspective. Because we at Fed and Fit, we are really working hard to make sure that we’re helping to address those pain points and maybe make light, or provide new alternative solutions, or a new light, or a new perspective on some of these things that we keep running up against.
So that’s kind of what we’re going to talk about today. We found that a lot of y’all’s feedback fell into about five, roughly five different buckets of pain points, with varying subtleties amongst all of your answers. But I think it’s a great opportunity to tackle these five. And I’m not approaching this conversation as a; here are your answers! Here are your solutions {laughs}. Because I don’t have all the answers and all the solutions. But what I can do is I can maybe provide some talking points around some of the feedback that you provided. And maybe, just maybe, it helps establish a slightly different perspective on something that’s so perplexing.
Because what I have learned in my own life is it’s often those questions that I puzzle with, and I puzzle some more. If you think of the Grinch who Stole Christmas. When I’m puzzling and puzzling some more, I have a hard time seeing the forest through the trees, so to speak. We’re lost so far in the trees that we have a hard time seeing things for what they really are anymore.
And; not to layer an analogy on top of an analogy, forgive me. But it also makes me think of that commercial where the girl is talking about where her head really hurts. And her boyfriend, or husband, whoever it is, says, “Well you have a nail in your head.” And she says; “It’s not about the nail!” And I absolutely get that.
But, I think that it can be really hard to see when we have a nail in our head. Or it’s really hard to see the landscape of the forest when we’re so lost in the trees. So maybe, hopefully, today’s quick conversation can help provide a little perspective. A little bird’s eye view on some of these really perplexing things that we all, as humans, struggle with.
So the first pain point; one of the biggest ones that came up was about time. And the subtleties here were essentially; I don’t have time. I don’t have time to workout. I don’t have time to cook. I don’t have time to be a mom. I don’t have time to take care of myself. I don’t have time to do it all. And I absolutely understand that.
One of the ones, finding time for example to exercise, and cook healthy. She said, “Right now, it’s one or the other.” And I absolutely get that. And my response; I’m going to come with a couple of responses to each of these. But I would say, if you’re having a hard time finding time to both exercise and cook really healthy, nourishing foods for yourself and for your family; my recommendation is what about batching your work?
I have, for example, on a slightly different note. When it comes to work, the to-do list is never ending. And it’s always growing. It’s pages long. And it feels a little overwhelming sometimes. And it’s almost as if I feel like I don’t have time to do it all. Because I don’t. Nobody has time to do it all. Right? Because if I sat down, and I just ticked through my to-do list from start to finish, I would never get to the end of it. And I would miss entire categories.
If all I did was work on the blog. I worked on blog content, brainstorming, photographing, testing recipes, writing posts, editing photos. So on and so forth. Telling y’all what’s on the blog. Publishing it to social media. Putting it up on Pinterest. You name it. All of the work and the grind that goes into having a food blog.
If I did everything I could to finish in its entirety the job that I have of being a blogger, I would never have time to then turn around and work on a book. Or turn around and work on some of my affiliate partnerships. Or turn around and; goodness, what else? Dream up ways we can improve our online program. Or dream up new ways that we can serve you that we’re not currently doing. Or spend time on social media. There would be no time.
So instead, what I have to do, is I have to batch my work. And I say, for example, on Mondays, I work on the blog. On Tuesdays, I work on the program. On Wednesdays, I record podcast episodes. And so on and so forth. And sometimes it’s broken up into buckets like that. Other days, it’s broken up into; I will spend 2 hours this morning answering emails and then I’m turning off my email and I’m going to go jump into the recipe test kitchen, and I’m going to work on testing recipes and photographing, if they turn out great. Right?
So the work is never done, necessarily. But because I’m able to batch, I’m able to touch all of those areas. So it’s a really drawn out analogy just to address; if you’re finding a difficult time finding time {laughs} for the different healthy living areas that you really want to focus on; personal care, eating well, cooking, exercising. Know that maybe what we’re doing is we’re trying to see one to completion, instead of just touching on things as we go.
Because maybe you got in a workout this morning, because Monday, Wednesday, Friday you said; those are the days that make a whole lot of sense for me to go to the gym and workout. But because I did spend that time going to the gym and working out, I did not have time to cook. So I’m going to have to pull out a freezer meal on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Right? Because you have batch, and you prioritized a workout on those days. Therefore you can maybe downplay a little bit the cooking healthy for your family on that day. Or maybe it’s still healthy, but it’s not necessarily fresh. So I would say something like that.
Also, I would encourage batching by week or by month. And implementing some safety nets. Maybe on Sunday; a lot of people like to meal prep on Sundays, because they find that they don’t have time. And I know that I’m preaching to the choir here. But they don’t feel like they have time to cook throughout the week, so they do a whole bunch of meal prepping on Sunday. And then they eat that food throughout the week.
Or maybe one Sunday, instead of meal prepping for the week, you challenge yourself every time you do sit down to do some meal prepping, you make an extra casserole just for the freezer. And you put it in one of those tin containers, and you seal it up, and you write its name on there; buffalo chicken casserole. The recipe is in our book. We have lots and lots of casserole recipes on the blog. And you seal it, and you save it in the freezer for those days when you did workout, but you don’t have time to cook. You’ve got that safety net built in.
So those are some of my recommendations there. Someone else, for example responded, “too much work and mom stuff to juggle and include time for taking care of me. Prioritizing is really hard.” I absolutely get that. And my response to this, as far as not having time and how to prioritize is; I would encourage you consider setting some rough movable boundaries. And I know that boundaries is a really hard word when we’re talking about family; especially when we have young kids. Because they will always come first.
But, what if at the end of the day, instead of the temptation to; let’s say the kids go to bed. You’ve got them bathed, they’re fed, and they’re read to, and they’re in bed and everything is great. And you have let’s say an hour and a half before you yourself go to sleep. What do you do with that time? Do you spend that time now hurriedly folding all the laundry and tidying up the house? And helping you feel a little bit more rushed while you’re not necessarily prepping your healthy breakfast for the next morning. Something that’s going to really make you feel great. What are you spending that time on?
I would encourage maybe a consideration is spending those evening hours, or those early morning hours before the kids do wake up, on yourself. Spend that time working out. Spend that time taking a relaxing bubble bath. Maybe you meditate. Maybe you do some yoga. Maybe you just sit down and read a book. And I would say do that by setting some boundaries.
After the kids go to sleep; and these are personal, internal boundaries, right? After the kids go to sleep, I do not open my computer. I do not look at my email; email can wait. I do not start another load of laundry. I do not busy myself with another task that can wait for tomorrow. But what I cannot do tomorrow is I cannot read this book. That’s not going to happen. I cannot take a bath without worrying that someone is going to need me. Right? So I would take that time for that.
Another one under time; making time to meal prep. “We need easy-peasy quick ideas for week days.” Well, we did come up with a really, I thought, really wonderful new revolutionary concept for meal prep that folks really, really enjoyed this past January. It was called cook once, eat all week. And if you haven’t heard, it was actually so wildly successful on the blog that we are writing a book for it now.
So that book will come out this spring; we’re very excited about it. You can stay tuned and get all that goody. But we have four weeks worth of easy meal prep on the blog right now. If you just Google Fed and Fit cook once, eat all week, it should come up.
One of the next pain points we received was about healthy eating. Someone wanted to know; how do we fit in more veggies? Eating enough in general and making sure that includes vegetables. This is a really great question.
For folks like this; you’re having a hard time fitting in enough vegetables, what if instead of; if meal prepping on a Sunday and then maybe again on a Wednesday. So you’ve got food for every single day of the week. If that is way too labor intensive, and it’s just not practical for where you are right now; what if you rethought meal prep and instead of meal prepping all of your meals, you meal prepped your veggies. Especially your green veggies.
So what if you like to more fly by the seat of your pants when it comes to getting dinner on the table. You like to go out to the deep freeze {laughs}; I’m thinking of my own life. I go out to the deep freeze. I grab a protein that looks great. Maybe that is a pork tenderloin. And I go inside and I’m going to defrost this pork tenderloin, I’m going to pan sear it, stick it in the oven, and then I’ll probably serve it up with white rice. Because I always have white rice, and I always have protein in the freezer.
But what kind of vegetable do I service it with? Well, if I meal prepped my vegetables earlier in the week, those are already ready to go. Then I can just easily take care of that. For example, early in the week I will buy three to four heads of dino kale. And I will destem it, wash it, dry it, roughly chop it, and put it into a breathable bag in my refrigerator. This way, I can just reach in there, grab a handful of greens, and sauté them in a pan on the stove, and they’re done before the protein and the rice is done. Right?
Spinach is another great option. Asparagus. When you’re grocery shopping, try to load up your cart with all kinds of green vegetables or crunchy vegetables. Thinking peppers, Brussel sprouts, other cruciferous vegetables that you can just easily incorporate with your meals. I would say just try to keep that top of mind.
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Cassy Joy: Another healthy eating pain point; trying to eat enough calories from whole food sources. This is a really interesting point. If you’re having a hard time really filling your plate with the majority of your calories coming from real foods, I would strongly suggest you take a look at what the other foods are on your plate. But fats and proteins are especially important that they come from real food sources.
For example, pastured meats. Grass-fed cows, pastured chicken, pastured pork. All of those are really great options to have from healthy sources on your plate. Another one would be healthy fruits, healthy fats like avocados, olives, pomegranates, for example, are in season right now. That would be a really easy one to put on your plate. And those are all wonderful calories. Carbohydrates, proteins, and fats that can come from real food sources.
And then another healthy eating question was; “My work schedule changes. I prep meals, but I might be on the road so I resort to bars.” And my response to this is; that’s ok. If you’re on the road, and the only option you have is a bar; that’s alright. That really is ok. I think sometimes we just need to know that it’s ok, or we need someone else to tell us. That’s alright if you’re having an RX Bar. That’s alright if you’re having a Perfect Bar. Because it’s better a Perfect Bar than maybe the drive through that you just passed that probably would have had some rancid oxidized oils that they boil their French fries in, or something like that. And it’s not the end of the world if you do have the French fries, anyways! I would give yourself a break. When you’re on the road, sometimes you just kind of have to survive it.
The third pain point would be snacking. We got a lot of snacking pain points. For example; craving less healthy snacks because raw veggies just don’t excite me. And I hear you; raw veggies do not excite me, either. For example, I always say that I’m not a salad person because raw veggie salads; when you just picture the classic sad salad, that just doesn’t sound exciting for me at all. So what I want to remind you of is that snacks can be much more exciting than raw veggies.
I know when we think back to school times, when we thought of a snack is was probably a carrot stick and a celery stick and maybe some peanut butter that you dip it in. But a snack can actually be fruit. It can be leftovers. A very small serving of leftovers. It can be jerky, like Lorissa’s Kitchen for example is one of those dried meat snacks that I really enjoy.
Stuff like that can be snacks that’s not crunchy, raw vegetables. If you really need a snack, and you need the extra food, maybe think outside the box. Maybe have some pomegranates that you take; already deseeded pomegranate seeds that you’re able to take to your office and keep in a cup. And for a snack instead of the veggies, you have a couple of spoonfuls of those, instead.
Another one is senseless snacking while at work staring at the computer screen. I really get this one. And what I would encourage them is; what if, when you’re ready to reach for that bowl of pretzels, or whatever it is you tend to gravitate towards for your snack that you feel is senseless. What if, instead, you got up and you made yourself a mug of herbal tea. And you did that in the morning.
So when you’re ready for your mid-morning snack, because you just want something to busy yourself with. What if you made yourself a caffeine free mug of herbal tea? You boiled some water; you can just microwave a mug with water. And you put a pouch of Traditional Medicinals herbal tea in there. The ginger tea is one of my favorites from them. And that became your mid-morning routine.
And then in the afternoon, instead of senseless snacking between lunch and before you go home from work, what if when you craved a snack at that point in time, what if instead you poured yourself a glass of sparkling water? It’s what I personally do. So I would say just try to swap in alternatives that you would feel great about.
Ok. And then the fourth pain point that we received a lot of feedback on was consistency. And it was really interesting to me, because a lot of people said something very similar to this. They said; taking action and having consistency. I know what I need to do; go for a walk, meal prep, etc. But I don’t do it.
And I get this on such a deep level. I really, really do. A lot of us; probably a lot of us listening to this show right now, can really identify with this. We know what we need to do. I know what foods to eat. I know what foods to avoid. I know that I need to move my body in a certain way. I know that I need to drink water. I know I need to maybe not be on my computer so late at night. Maybe I need to get better sleep. So on and so forth. But we don’t do it.
We know better, but we don’t do better. And I think part of the rub here, and part of the reason we don’t actually do it, is because when we’re looking at doing what we would consider to be the right thing, I think that decision to move forward is encumbered by the guilt that we have not been doing it so far. And then also, maybe we’re a little bit all or nothing. Right?
So if we’re going to start working out; I’m going to get up and I’m going to go workout tomorrow morning. And I’m going to go ahead and have my best breakfast. I’m going to have lemony kale for breakfast and some seared sausage and maybe a baked sweet potato. That’s my best breakfast. And maybe a piece of fruit. I’m going to do that tomorrow morning.
But we don’t think; I’m going to do that tomorrow morning, and then just let life roll. We probably think; tomorrow morning is the morning I’m going to do it for every morning for the rest of my life {laughs}. Tomorrow morning, life begins again. I’m going to do the thing. And then when we do that thing, then we drink the water. And then when we drink all the water we need during the day, then we avoid our computer screen at night. When we avoid our computer screen at night, then we follow the best sleep practices. And we feel great. And we’re finally doing the healthy lifestyle thing.
But right when one of those things does not go as planned, maybe we get in our car and we’re headed to our workout, and we get stuck in traffic, and we miss our workout. If you miss your workout, are you still going to go home and have that healthy breakfast? Or instead are you going to pull in and do drive through Chick-Fil-A and have one of their biscuits for breakfast? {laughs} Which is fine. I don’t want to shame that.
But what are you going to do in that situation? And I think that people; myself included. Those of us who struggle with consistency and struggle with applying healthy lifestyle decisions is because we’re very much all or nothing. And what I want us, myself included, to remember is that; you know what, it’s ok. If at the end of the week, we look back and we think; well, I ate well for the most part; four out of the five weekdays. I worked out twice. And even though I wanted to workout four times, I still did go twice.
I want us to be ok with moderate success. We don’t have to have an A-plus-plus on healthy living in order to do it at all. So, I’m just kind of talking around the issue right now, but I hope something around there resonates with those of you listening that you identify with this as a pain point.
And then I would also say, instead of looking at it and thinking; tomorrow is the morning that I workout and I’ll look back on this moment as, that was the day I started working out every day for five years. Or whatever it is, right? Because I know how our brains work. What if we just look at it, and we say we’re going to do it for one week. One week. What if we take the fruit, we put it on a lower limb, we make it a little bit easier to grasp. And we say for one week, I’m going to get up and I’m going to do the things that I know I need to do. I’m going to go for a walk. I’m going to meal prep for one single week. Because I can do anything for seven days.
So we do that, and then we reassess. And then maybe we do it for one more week. But we don’t jump in and think; 2019 is the year that I always meal prep and I always go for daily walks and I always workout and I always do all these things. So I would say let’s set our sites in a more micro sense on how we’re tackling stuff.
And another person says; being consistent in health food choices. And I would definitely; again, very similar. But I would say; adopt a “I’m doing my best” mindset. Not necessarily, “I’m perfect at this.” The people who I think struggle with consistency are the people that are perfectionists, and the baby is out with the bathwater as soon as something goes awry. So I would just encourage those of us to adopt instead a different mindset around; I’m doing my best and my best just looks like this this week. And give ourselves a break. Pat ourselves on the back. I would say set smaller goals.
And then the last pain point that we received; major pain point that we received that we’re going to talk about today is all about sugar. Sugar, sugar. So one of them, for example submitted sugar cravings after you eat a meal. I get this. I’m a dessert person. And there’s something about finishing a meal that I’m ready for my dessert.
Something that those of us who feel that way can do, is we can start buying some really high quality dark chocolate. Dark chocolate has this amazing ability when we have maybe a square or two. I’m talking 80% or higher of dark chocolate. So it’s not going to be super sweet. But it is going to taste very strong, and there’s a good chance we’re not going to want to eat the whole bar because it is very strong. If you have a square of dark chocolate and then maybe an herbal tea after your meal, you have established a new routine after the meal. Because, yes. You might be sugar addicted. Metabolically your body is like; alright, I’m ready for my sugar hit. After a meal. But we can change the behavior first and then our body and our addiction, so to speak, will follow.
So what if we replace that after meal dessert with, like I said, a square of dark chocolate. And if that’s just not enough, then you also make yourself an herbal tea. Maybe it’s a ginger tea. And after your dinner, you’re like; alright, it’s dessert time. I’m ready for my herbal tea and my square of dark chocolate. And that becomes kind of the new normal. So I would substitute with something like that.
Another one; if you experience headaches, dizziness between meals, she says, “AKA, my body is craving sugar; AKA I’m hungry.” And ding, ding, ding on the last one. If you have headaches and dizziness between meals, and you think that you are hungry, and your interpreting that as your body just needs sugar, there’s a really good chance that you just need to be eating larger servings at your meal. So I would say up the protein and the fat content at your meal. Maybe put a quarter or a half of an avocado on your plate. Or maybe an extra slice of whatever protein your having. Or an extra egg if you eat eggs.
Outside of that, I would say also make sure you’re having some sort of a starchy vegetable or starch of some sort like rice, or polenta, or quinoa, whatever floats your boat. At least one serving a day. And that will kind of help even out some of those cravings. Sure; yes, you may be addicted to sugar, also. But you can help circumvent that sugar addiction as your body gets over it by making sure that you have enough really good, healthy foods on your plate during mealtime.
And then the last one, subcategory here, is recurrent sugar addiction. And I just want; for those of you listening, and we’re smack in the middle of the holidays. We’re eating lots of cookies, and pies, and cocktails, and all the good things. It’s all wonderful. It’s the most wonderful time of the year and I really love it. Know that coming off of sugar, like we probably will do after this season is over. It’s going to stink. It does. Because we’re probably going to be hangry. We’re going to be irritable. But this too shall pass. And if you really stick to trying to not have super sugary desserts every day, because you might be doing that right now. Let’s say, come January, you’re going to feel better after 5 to 10 days.
So just know that this will pass. Coming off of sugar stinks, but you can absolutely do it.
Alrighty folks; that’s it for today. Thank you so much for dialing. As always, you can find a full transcript over at www.FedandFit.com. And as always, we’ll be back again, next week.
