Episode 101: Food and Mood: Learning How to Eat, Not Just What to Eat with Jenn Trepeck

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Natalie: food and mood science-based tips and tricks for achieving wellness without sacrificing your favorite.

Natalie: Hi friends, it's Natalie. So glad to have you here today. I wanna talk about how food impacts our mood, and yes, it most certainly does. Be honest with me. How often do you reach for chips? Ice cream, maybe chocolate when you're stressed or busy, or how about those salty french fries?

I'm so guilty. I'm with you on all of this. I particularly go for salt when I'm stressed, but there are those times where I have to have chocolate, sometimes even salty, dark chocolate. I have an expert today who's gonna tell us what this all means and wait until you hear some of her ideas for overcoming this type of eating.

We're gonna explore the role of. Salt and fat in making some of these foods we love so much, so irresistible. Also, how our taste buds adjust to these things over time and how kids are affected by these type of addictive tastes. And we're not gonna just talk about the problem today. My guest from about to tell you about has solid solutions for us, like when to eat, what food groups are most important, and how to make it all easy.

you are going to love Jen Treck, Jen's podcast Salad with a side of fries. It clears up myths, misinformation, bad science and marketing surrounding nutrition and what she's gonna share with us today is really going to help. So, buckle up. Let's get started.

Let's get past stress eating and let's use food to feel.

Jen, thanks for joining me today.

Jenn: Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to chat.

Natalie: Okay, so we talk a lot about food. I talk a lot about nutrition, but mostly I like to talk about being healthy and sometimes we go right for the stuff that's not healthy because we think it's gonna help our mood. ,

Jenn: we think we have the best intentions we want it to, right?

It maybe works for a hot second and a half , and then

Natalie: we taste really good when I'm

Jenn: eating it. , right? And then sometimes before we're even done, we're going, oh no. Yeah, why did I do that? Right? Uhhuh, , Uhhuh, . And the interesting thing is, ? Well, a few pieces. I mean, a lot of the foods that we gravitate towards, especially when we're stressed and you know, looking for escape and a lot of the things that we associate as comfort foods and all of those things, yeah, have chemicals in them that turn off =our brain's ability to know when we're full.

So it is not a coincidence. that you can't have just one. What was that? Pringles, right? Once you pop, oh yeah, you can't stop. Remember that? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm. , no coincidence, right? . So it's not our lack of will. It's not that we, you know, are lacking or have some moral failing. It's these foods are formulated.

For our taste buds and our brain to not. , they can turn off our ability to know when we're

Natalie: full.

So let's talk about what some of those foods are. I mentioned chips because Yeah, I go for salty crunchy when I just, maybe some of it's emotional, but let's talk about other things that have those chemicals that we tend as we tend to go to for comfort.

Jenn: Sure. Well, that perfect balance of the salt and the crunch and the whole Right, and the fat and the sa like mm-hmm. , it hits all the right spots on the. . Mm. For the brain to go More, more, more. Yep. More definitely. Right? Yep. , sugar and salt and fat are all addictive. Tastes. Yeah. Which means they're also acquired, so that means that we learn they taste good.

Mm-hmm. , it also means that our bodies adjust. The more we have them, the more we want. and the more we have them, the more it needs to be. We have a higher threshold for something to register as sweet or salty or fatty or something. So you know the people who start with like one Splenda in their coffee and then fast forward they're at three four, right?

It's cuz our taste buds have adjusted one no longer taste sweet. We need more in order to hit that same threshold. Boy

Natalie: that's. , right? Yeah. Yeah. That's why my, that's why my son eats a lot of candy . Yeah. . I find little wrappers under pillows in his room. I'm like, what's going on here? And there's three and four wrappers and so, you know, all the Halloween candy we're still dealing with.

Right. But, and for kids that, that can really be a problem too, because they might be getting sugar, you know, a little bit here and there, but does it happen the same way for

Jenn: kids? Absolutely. Mm-hmm. ? Yeah. So, Again, part of it is about what we're used to. Part of it is also, you know, with kids, the conversation that we have around it, I have a kids and family program and it's a delicate balance to not create fear foods.

Yeah. Or to not create, you know, a disordered relationship, but also to enjoy within reason. Right. So sometimes it's like, , are you done with dinner cuz you want dessert or like, are you really full? Yeah. I often say to people too, like if the only thing that sounds good is a cookie, we're probably not stomach hungry.

Natalie: Oh yeah. That's good. Yeah.

Jenn: Right. If you need broccoli, we're hungry. . Yeah. You know? Yeah. And we have hormones so similar to the way we can become insulin resistant. , right? We know that to be diabetes. We have hormones that tell us when we're hungry and when we're satisfied. Those are called graylin and leptin.

Hmm. And the same way we can become insulin resistant, we can become resistant to those hormones, so we might not respond. So think about all the times we've been told to eat less and move. , our body is sending us the hunger signal and we're going, la, la, la, la, la, la. Like, I'm not listening to you. I was told to eat less.

Mm. Right. Yeah. We're not responding to the graylin and we are creating or contributing to over time a resistance to this hormone. Hmm. That can happen with kids too. So it's also a balance of saying, you can stop eating when you're full. , but also learning some of those signals of saying, am I hungry again in 30 minutes?

Am I hungry again in an hour or do I just feel like eating?

Natalie: Yeah. . That is so interesting. I, I mean, really good body awareness. And that's one of the other things I wanna talk to you about is learning to listen to what we are really needing. Are we eating ? And sometimes we like to say in our family, like, it's fine to indulge every once in a while.

Yeah. But know that you're doing that for fun, not for nourishment.

Jenn: Well, it's just a different kind of nourishment, right? We're nourishing something other than. energy. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. this is sort of one of my pet peeves with the whole like, wellness culture these days. Mm-hmm. because I feel like it's made it's made food the enemy.

If we're looking for something, anything other than fuel. Yeah. And let's just be real, like find me a culture that doesn't use. For connection or celebration. Right. Or grief or j Right. Every emotion. . Yeah. In every culture. Right. Right. Uses food. So to try to pull that out entirely is also, uh, in my world, I think a bit misguided.

Right. And to your point, I think it's a lot about the awareness. Mm. and understanding, and then I'm a big fan of how versus what. Right. So

it's not what to eat, it's how to eat, tell. So we could eat, tell about that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, Taking a step back, whether we are burning fat or storing fat is a function of blood sugar.

If our blood sugar is too high and if our blood sugar is too low, we're gonna store everything we eat as fat. Hmm. So, Our objective is to keep our blood sugar in this middle zone where we're never storing fat. Now, that also is when we are metabolically healthy , which, and the research now shows us that metabolic health is connected to complete overall health.

You know, our immune system, our cardiovascular health, our cognitive health, all these pieces. so we wanna keep our blood sugar balanced. When we start our meal with something high glycemic, something that will spike our blood sugar. Like we sit down at the restaurant and we start with the bread basket , which is so American.

Oh yeah. We're human, right? We live in this world, and by American. We have then, you know, transported that around the world, . Oh, oh, sure. True. Yeah. So, even if what we ordered for dinner or any meal right. Is like textbook steamed fish and vegetables. Mm-hmm. , our body's gonna store that steamed fish and vegetables as fat.

Natalie: Because we started with the

Jenn: high glycemic. Exactly. Because it's like flipping a switch. that high glycemic start right has now spiked our blood sugar. and we're gonna store the steamed fish in vegetables as fat. If we don't eat all day, whether on purpose or because we just had a really busy day , and we sit down to eat our body in its infinite caveman wisdom says, oh, it must be a time of famine.

You're not gonna kill me. I will survive. I'm gonna take whatever you give me. I'm gonna store this fat, and the next time you don't eat, I'm not gonna die. Right. I got something there. Oh, wow. So we don't eat all day. We sit down at the restaurant. We eat the same textbook, steamed fish and vegetables. We store it as fat.

Oh boy. So think about, you know, Thanksgiving in America is another one, right? We have this big meal and then we wait a while and then we do dessert. Mm-hmm. dessert separately is like sugar bombing our body. Mm-hmm. , the way we can blunt the impact of something higher glycemic is protein. Fiber and quality fat.

So if we eat a great quality nutritious meal and have our dessert immediately after, or have the bread with the meal mm-hmm. instead of first. Mm-hmm. , it's like blunting The impact, yeah. Of that. So like if you think of high glycemic foods as the color red and low glycemic foods as the color, We mix 'em together and we get pink.

Pink. Not as red. As red, not as white as white. We're somewhere in the middle. If we do more of the white stuff, the less of the red stuff. We get a lighter pink. Yeah. Right. So it's even for our kids, like, cool, let's have two of the minis. Yeah. Right after dinner. Yeah. And onward, right?

Natalie: But not right after school, an hour before.

I'm about to give you a healthy.

Jenn: Right. Well, so likely what's happening, right when we're likely there's low blood sugar, they're actually really hungry. Absolutely. Yeah. Right. So it's, Hey, if you're actually really hungry right now, let's have X, Y, or Z. Yeah. And keep those for, you know, right after dessert or whatever.

Right, right. Again, if the only thing that sounds good to. is the candy bar. We're probably not actually hungry. Mm And so it's just sort of, it's thinking through, well what, what do we actually need in this moment? Mm-hmm. , one of the things that we teach our kids and families is fridge first. Food is found in the fridge.

I

Natalie: have threatened, I haven't done it yet, but I have threatened to put a lock on the pantry. Yeah. Because the, when they come home, the first thing they do is raid the pantry, which is all of the sugary things or cereal or chips. Right, exactly. Fridge first.

Jenn: I love that. Fridge first. Food is found in the fridge.

Hmm.

Natalie: Okay. Will you walk me through then? a good day, and I'm focusing right now on fueling myself with protein, so, great. I've got all these little tricks. I wanna ask you what you think of 'em in a minute. Okay. But, okay.

But give me a good day. Give me a, just, okay. And everybody's gonna vary in what they like.

Jenn: Exactly. You need the

Natalie: balance of the order

Jenn: in which you do things. Okay. So this is probably less specific than you want it to. , but , that's okay. We'll make, here's how we do this. Here's how we do this. Protein and fiber at every meal. Okay. Makes you moving fat. No big deal. Okay? Okay. Protein and fiber at every meal makes you moving fat.

No big deal. Protein is clean. Lean protein, I don't care what you want it to be. Fiber is vegetables and sometimes fruit. And a meal is really every time we eat, meal, or snack. The only difference is how much we have at a time. The other thing you want a couple times a day is quality fat. One day I'll figure out how to get the fat into the fun sentence, but for now, , protein and fiber at every meal.

Okay, so breakfast might look like a veggie omelet. Mm-hmm. or eggs with a salad. I'm a big fan of a breakfast salad. , you're gonna think I'm nuts. I'm telling you, just try it every time. My clients are like, you want me to what? And I'm like, just, just trust me on this one. Okay? Whatever greens you have, throw 'em in a bowl.

Okay? Whatever veggies you have, chop 'em up. The body loves variety. Mm-hmm. . So anything. You got a little bit of all of it, right? Throw it in the bowl. Cook your eggs so that the yoke is still running. Put 'em on top of the salad. The running yolk becomes like a creamy salad dressing. Oh, yum.

Natalie: So like a, like a, a over easy egg.

Sure. Or, or even scrambled, but something that just where it runs

a

Jenn: little bit. Yeah. And throw a running yolk creates, A salad dressing. You can add a little bit like I like to, you could do everything. Bagel seasoning you could do. Um, I like to use nutritional yeast cuz it kind of tastes like cheese but adds a ton of protein.

Yeah. Um, you could add a little bit of avocado to it. You could add, um, a little balsamic vinegar cuz then the vinegar with the egg yolk is, Dressing. Oh

Natalie: my goodness. Sounds delicious. So this is your delicious breakfast salad and when? Vegetable breakfast salad. When you say grab whatever you've got, you're talking about like some spinach, some mushrooms, carrot, celery, like

Jenn: you name it?

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Natalie: See, I do that with stir fry at night often. Yeah. Whatever I've got. Just throw it in an add an egg and some rice maybe or something. Yeah. But I've never thought about that for breakfast. I don't know if I could get my 13 year old son to do it. How would you get a kid to be okay with.

Jenn: Okay, so maybe not quite the breakfast salad as I just described it.

So for the kids, we'll do what we call like an omelet muffin. Mm-hmm. . So use your muffin tin, scramble some eggs. Chop up a ton of veggies, stick the veggies in all the muffin tins, and you could do different flavors, like do this one with like sundried tomato and feta, and do this one with, you know, a little bacon and cheddar and whatever, veggies in any of.

pour your, you know, scrambled eggs, you know, raw into them and bake them. They do take a little while to bake, so do like a whole tray, then stick 'em in a Ziploc, put 'em in the fridge, right? Grab a couple in the morning, heat 'em up, throw them on top of a plate that's lined with raw spinach. Mm-hmm. or something.

So it's just adding a little bit more veggie and texture and whatever. And you'll be surprised, like kids will eat it. .

Natalie: Wow. Yeah. But to focus on the fiber and the protein that sustains them through lunch. So now let's get to

Jenn: lunch. So lunch and dinner, you're the same thing? Yeah. Protein, fiber, quality, fat.

Natalie: Okay. Quality fat. You're, I, I am imagining you're saying like olive oil.

Jenn: Uh, olive oil. Avocado oil. Okay. Avocado. By the way, a serving of avocado is half of the avocado. A serving of nuts is like a small handful of nuts. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody thinks they're eating too many nuts. I promise you. The nuts aren't how we got here.

right? . Like if we're in a place of counting almonds, we're in a really good spot. Right? so, maybe on your salad you're doing. , you know, adding nuts or walnuts. I think I find few things more satisfying than walnuts. So like I could add walnuts to something and it becomes infinitely more satisfying. Yeah, yeah.

Right. Yeah. And sustains us or a snack, walnuts and raspberries together, actually walnuts and any berry. I feel like it's such a delicious snack. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Right. So, which brings up. You know, we're gonna build all our meals the same way. We're gonna build all our snacks the same way. Make it easy, right?

Yeah. So here's how we wanna think of it in terms of getting through a full day. I want you to eat something within like an hour to 90 minutes of waking up. , don't start with coffee. Okay. An hour tonight. Many minutes. Okay. I'm

Natalie: already in trouble. Right? All right. Really, really, even if it, like, I do put like whole milk in my coffee to give

Jenn: myself like more, yeah.

It's more of a function of what happens with, the caffeine and our hormones on an empty stomach, especially for women. So, okay. That explains a lot. Just eats something right? . So just eat a little something. so a meal is gonna last us four to five and a half hours, depending on how much we have.

A snack is gonna last us like one to two hours, depending on how much we have. Okay? We wanna finish food two to three hours before bed. . So within that, we can figure out what it's gonna look like for us. So a lot of people are like, I'm not a breakfast person. Like, don't make me breakfast. Okay. But we gotta get something in our system.

Mm-hmm. to let our body know that it is safe and that it can burn fuel. Right. It's not a time of famine. Yeah. So maybe you start with a snack rather than starting with a big meal. If we start with a snack, that we know is gonna last us maybe one or two hours. We're just sort of shifting that a little bit, right?

Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . So we start with a snack, maybe a couple hours later, we're having a bigger breakfast, which might mean that our lunch is actually a little bit later. Yeah. Yeah. Totally fine. It's more about saying, okay, does this timing make sense based on how much food I have? Yeah. So when we're sort of figuring some of this out, it might make sense to set an.

You started to talk about before, like checking in with ourselves and figuring out what we're feeling, right? Mm-hmm. set an alarm. If I ate a snack, right, and I'm gonna need another meal, maybe I'm setting the alarm for an hour. When the alarm goes off, it's like, how am I feeling? Do I feel like I need food?

Okay, I'm cool. I'll set it for another hour. Or sometimes at that hour we go, I don't need it right now, but I could probably use it in about a half hour. Right. We can set that next to one.

Natalie: That's certainly something I've learned is to get ahead of the hunger, because by the time I'm hungry, first of all, it's when we all make bad decisions.

Right? So to just get ahead of it, to have a handful. And that's even, and maybe, maybe you feel differently, but Yeah. Okay. So I should be hungry about not, but I'm not. But if I go ahead and have that handful of almonds, , I'm gonna be okay. Come lunchtime, I'm not gonna be eating the bad thing.

Jenn: Right. And that's chemical too.

Hmm. Right. It's not that we suck when we're hungry. . . It's that our blood sugar is low. Mm-hmm. , our body is saying, I need fuel. Our brain is saying, I need fuel. The fastest way to get fuel to the brain is with a higher glycemic choice. Yeah. Which means that the C. . The candy, the bread. Yeah, the pasta. Yeah. Are all gonna look more appealing Yeah.

Than the vegetables and the protein, because that takes a little bit longer. Mm-hmm. . So it's chemical that those things look good to us, recognizing that. Right. So I used to work in hedge funds. I built my coaching practice on the side, and I worked in hedge funds. when I was, you know, in the process of all of this.

So I remember before learning everything , I, Monday mornings, they had a, um, free breakfast in the kitchen that was like the mini pastry things. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. and some fruit. And then, Fridays was free pizza and salad for lunch. So inevitably Monday morning, like we all do, right? Monday is like the universal start day of anything.

So Monday morning, come into the office and I'm like, I'm not gonna eat the things. Right. Walk in the kitchen to get some water. And there they are. Yeah, they're calling your name. Oh, they have a voice. You know that voice. I know . I know. So they're screaming at me. And I remember the day that I was like, wait a.

I get why that's really appealing to me right now. because I woke up however long ago. Right. I've gotten ready, I commuted to the office. Now I'm here. I still haven't eaten anything. I'm hungry. Mm-hmm. . That's why, that's really appealing. Mm-hmm. So what I actually need to do is go eat the thing that I brought and then if I still want the mini croissant, , I'll deal with it then.

Mm-hmm. . But let me at least just start with the thing that I brought. Yes, yes. And then lo and behold, I'm like, I don't really want that. Yeah.

Natalie: Oh, I, so I so see that that's so

Jenn: common. And I think for me, the big shift, right, was like in understanding some of these things about the hormone side of it and the blood sugar side of it.

Mm-hmm. and what it was like all of these food decisions. Switch from being emotional to intellectual. Mm-hmm. . Yeah.

Natalie: So, um, a few episodes ago, I did a deep dive into, maybe you saw it on intermittent fasting, and I know it's all the rage and I know people who are very successful with it. I've gone in and out of, but I feel like when I do that, I'm like, another hour.

Okay, another hour. Like it turns into a mental game of can I make it and. I've been okay. Not making terrible decisions, but I'm really struggling through that. Yeah. Do I have a feeling you're gonna say not a good idea? ?

Jenn: I'm not the biggest fan of intermittent fasting, especially for women. We'll come back to that in a second.

Here's the fasting. I like two to three hours before bed. It's about an hour and a half after waking up. Okay?

Natalie: So go to the office and eat. When you get there. You don't have to eat right when you. .

Jenn: Yeah. Like within an hour, an hour and a half of waking up. Mm-hmm. , we're gonna get something in our system.

Mm-hmm. and we're gonna not eat within a couple hours of going to bed. That time in between, that includes when we're sleeping, is our fasting

Natalie: time. And that's about if you're going to bed at 10, so say you stop eating at eight and you don't eat again till eight or nine, you're at 12, 13 hours, which what?

Fasting is like 15 to 17 hours, so you're not that far off.

Jenn: Yeah. And by the way, The idea, first of all, the average American, the average person anywhere in this planet does not get sufficient vitamins and minerals and nutrients. Mm. Given 24 hours a day to eat, the idea that we're going to get that in seven hours isn't how the B number one is not how the body works, but number two.

it's completely misguided. Yeah. In thinking that we're gonna get everything the body needs and less time if we can't even do it in all the time in the world. Yeah.

Natalie: Right. Well, and I'm hearing you say with uh, with your body storing it after 17 hours, you're gonna be like, your body's gonna hold on to everything Yes.

That you've eaten after that 17 hours cuz it's afraid you're not gonna eat again anytime

Jenn: soon. Right. And there is some research around, um, what some fasting can. . A lot of times we use that in specific situations, not for forever. Hmm. And it's one of those things just like keto, where there's some really great research that has snowballed into something really inappropriate.

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Natalie: Okay. So talking about keto, I know a lot of people follow

strictly and, um, some people they just are careful of it. So when you talk about don't eat the bread first, or, you know, let's talk about pastas and rices and mm-hmm. and all of those things, what do they do? Especially since we, we wanted this to be about, diet and mood.

yeah. Can you tell us about those things and when they're Okay. In a balanced diet,

Jenn: Yeah. So as long as we're balancing those higher glycemic carbohydrates with protein, fiber and quality fat, so it's not spiking our blood sugar. Mm-hmm. , we're fine. Right. The average person eats more grain than an Olympic athlete is recommended to eat on race day.

Mm. So our culture has this imbalance of where fuel comes from and what fuel looks like. Grains in general. When we look at their nutritive value, I describe them as like inefficient. For example, a cup of raspberries has like nine grams of fiber, okay? A cup of brown rice has like three and a half. So if I'm supposed to get my quality fiber from the rice, yeah.

I need three cups of the rice to get what I could get for some raspberries. Yeah, yeah. Right. It's inefficient if we're looking for protein. Right. So thinking about it in that way, it's not that they're the enemy, it's that they have a different proportion in our society. Mm-hmm. than actually what promotes health.

Yeah. Sugar, refined carbohydrates. Lack of omega three s come together to reduce what's called brain-derived neurotrophic factor B D N F. B D N F is like the precursor to most things. Cognitive . Mm-hmm. , right? So our neurotransmitters require amino acids, which are in. to build, we need proper nutrition, vitamins, minerals, right.

Menino acids in order to function and create hormones and create neurotransmitters and all of the things that allow us to think clearly. Yeah. That allow us to create memories that allow us to enjoy our lives, to experience things as they're happening. Mm-hmm. , right? So if what we're constantly feeding ourselves are food-like substances, rather than actually food.

It tracks then that we're gonna be low in mood, that we may have some other struggles that we're not gonna feel good energy or mentally, or emotionally, or any of these pieces, that everything is gonna feel like climbing Mount Everest naked and barefoot. Hmm, right.

Natalie: Horrible. Yeah. .

Jenn: Yeah. our food supply is the other piece of the problem.

Mm-hmm. . Because a lot of times, um, like for example, even with the pasta thing, I can go to Italy and eat pasta every day and not feel the same way. I feel eating it once in a while here. because the quality of their flour, the quality of their raw ingredients, they're using different things than we are here.

Yeah. Yeah. So some of it is also about what's allowed to be in our food , as much as it's about what we're having, when we're having it, how we're having it, that kind of stuff.

Natalie: Yeah. Yeah. But to be safe, if you really want to do yourself good, eat from the fridge. Right? Yep. Fridge first. Fridge first, and then see if you're hungry for other things.

Okay? Yeah. I wanna tell you about my favorite snack right now. Um, I hope you like it because I love it. . I hope I'm not gonna get a pig. No. Okay, so I think I saw this on TikTok. I'm not the food police, so that's okay. I know, but I wanna know that it's okay because I'm doing it right. Really have, I have a sweet tooth, and I particularly have a sweet tooth.

When I'm working at night, um, you know, I'm, I'm, I'll tell you

Jenn: why. Yeah.

Natalie: Okay. Go ahead, . Uh, okay. So I just, I, I'm, I get muy and so instead of chips or sometimes almonds or nuts or something, but I just, I, it's not gonna cut it yet. I go for a cookie, so I don't buy cookies. However, what I've been doing is, and we didn't talk about different forms of protein, but I've been doing a protein shake.

Okay. So, and, and a couple hours before bed, an hour or two. I don't think I'm going past that too much, like seven. Six or seven ish. Okay. So I put it in my mini blender with two tablespoons of sugar-free pudding, , which you're probably gonna tell me it probably has fake sugars in it. That's not good. I'm not, I have to check that.

And then I put it in the fridge with some, blueberries or strawberries or something, and it. Solidifies. So it's like 13, it's like 30 grams of protein, but it tastes like pudding cuz it turns into pudding with fruit in it. And I feel like I'm having the most luxurious dessert ever. I love it. It's got a lot of protein.

Jenn: Are you gonna, all right, I'm gonna give you a little bit of the hat. Gonna tell me bad? No. Okay. , no. First of all, okay. I'm not the food police. Okay? Everybody, you're gonna make the decisions that work for you, right? But I wanna make, but

Natalie: I wanna make informed decisions. Yes. So that I'm, I'm.

Jenn: Yes. And we're gonna make different choices at different phases of the process.

Okay? Right. So right now that pudding for you might be killer . And when you're ready, you could go, this probably has a lot of fake stuff in it, which is what I call the food-Like substances?

Natalie: Yes. In the protein shake and in the jello or the pudding?

Jenn: Well, who knows? It depends on the protein powder that you're using.

Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . But what? . Maybe I'm using a different protein powder. I don't know. The one you have might be totally fine. Okay. And then what if I use chia seeds? Okay. Instead of the pudding. Okay. To turn it into a pudding.

Natalie: Okay. And blend it. Like let it, yeah. Let soak So they kind of

Jenn: puff up and let 'em soak up.

Yeah. Sit in the fridge. Okay. Right. Make the protein shake. Okay. Throw the chia seeds in. Let it sit in the fridge. Turn into a pu. . Okay. Add the fruit on top and eat it the same way. Maybe you use a touch of honey. Mm-hmm. if the protein powder or whatever. Or monk fruit extract. Right. A lower glycemic box.

Yes. Yeah. Uhhuh sweetener. So we could still get a little bit of that sweetness without all the chemicals that are probably in our. instant pudding or whatever, it's, yes. Okay. And by the way, this is someone like I used to make the jello instant pudding. Oh, I know. With half milk and half water. So that I didn't have all the calories of all the milk.

I mean, like I have done it all, you guys like, I promise. Right. But we get to a point where like, okay, right now the protein shake pudding, is like the thing for you, and eventually you might be like, you know what, let me try, let me try the cheesy thing.

Natalie: I'm always willing to improve on it. Exactly. I just saw someone else do this and I went, oh, so I love that idea.

I'm get, can you have too much chia? Like, can I let it,

Jenn: you'll know, you'll

Natalie: know , so I can let it kind of soak up and turn into like a tapioca and then maybe put it in the blender to smooth it out, or I mean to try it. I,

Jenn: I don't even, hundred percent. You need to put it in the blender. Okay. Like it's gonna have a little bit of crunch and texture.

Yeah. When you go to eating, but it's add some nuts. Love. Add some berries. Right. Do your thing. Also, life hack frozen berries. Okay. When you heat them up, create a syrup like the water. Like the water that melts Yes. Ends up tasting like berry syrup. So like throw that on top of delicious. You're pudding, right?

Yeah. Like use that as the sweetener. Yeah. In it or whatever. . It's delicious things. I love that. Yeah. But thinking about too, like this is where we are right now. This is the next step. Mm-hmm. . But the idea of saying, oh, I'm gonna go from here to not eating at night, and then we think we're failing at life because we ate something.

Yeah.

Natalie: And we're, we're all just learn. I mean, that's why I love podcasting. It's like we're learning as we go. So yes, take the tips, try something else. Keep trying, like just don't stop trying

Jenn: everyone. Just pick one thing. Yeah. One thing to try, then the next thing to try. You don't have to do everything all the time, every day.

Like that's setting ourselves up, I think. And that's when

Natalie: we go, I give up and we go for the trip. Right. Because it's just

Jenn: too hard. Right. So try one thing. Speaking of we're hungry at night. Mm-hmm. , because we're. Okay. That's what you were

Natalie: gonna tell me is

Jenn: Yes. Why I'm tired. Yes. So we're hungry at night.

Mm-hmm. , because we're tired. Okay. The computer screen, the tv, our phone, all the devices on top of the fact that we're still trying to use our brains. Yeah. And I say this with all the humility in the world because I am the worst at this. I work too late. I watch TV too much. Mm-hmm. like all the things. Okay.

All of those, the blue light, we've heard how terrible blue light is, but the reality is, Seventh grade science light spectrum blue light is the closest to daylight our circadian rhythm of sleep. Wake cycles number one, are set by daylight. So what's happening? Our body's tired, our eyes. Those receptors for the daylight are in the eye, in the brain connected to the eye.

our eyes are getting daylight from our devices, from the tv eight, nine o'clock from all the things. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. . And our body's going, but I'm tired. How can you tell me it's daytime. So what do I do if I'm tired and I'm getting signals to be awake? Give me fuel. I'm gonna tell you I'm hungry. Yeah. So that I can stay awake.

Cuz I'm being told I'm supposed to be staying awake. Yeah. So sometimes at night, like we're hungry cause we're just. . So it's, but our body thinks we're supposed to be staying awake. Right. Yeah. You know, but sometimes it's like shifting just little things. Mm-hmm. to eventually say, you know, do I wanna do this?

Could I go to bed? Could I at least just stop with the screen? Mm-hmm. , I don't know, like I work late at night a lot. Also, creativity happens a lot late at night. Yeah. Because we're tired and so the judgemental side of the brain turns off. So a lot of times when we wanna do all our creative stuff, it happens more at.

So you know there's that. What very Well maybe just

Natalie: limit it. Not every night. Yeah. I'm gonna give myself this night, so, oh, I love your ideas. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, so we wanna learn more. I follow you on Instagram and I know you have several places people can find you, and I would love for you to share that with everyone.

Jenn: absolutely. So my podcast salad with a side of fries. All of this and more , all social media. I am at Jen Tpic, j e n n t R E P E C K. And my website is a salad with a side of fries.com. So reach out to me like nothing Makes me happier than hearing from you. Uh, what was new, what have you tried, what are you like?

I don't agree. Right. I love having these conversations. Um, this is also the easiest way to learn more about working with me as your health coach. And, We can give you a link for everybody to get a, complimentary wellness discovery call. we'll put that in the show notes.

We'll send you that. Yeah, send and then

Natalie: send. That'll be easy for people to link and just such great ideas and inspiration. You. You explain it in such a, just a real way and I appreciate that. Love the name of of your website and everything you do too, as long as I can. Well, thank you you so much. Have

Jenn: a fry every once in a while.

It's okay. I mean, who wants a life without fries? I know. I know. I know.

Natalie: Just eat the salad first. Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much, Jen. It's been such a pleasure.

Jenn: Thank you for having me.