In this spicy episode, Dr. Danielle and Aria break down some of the most common health myths circulating in wellness circles. They take a deep dive into the controversial topic of drinking coffee on an empty stomach, sharing personal experiments and scientific insights to challenge the idea that coffee disrupts your cortisol levels or causes blood sugar spikes for everyone. They emphasize bio-individuality and urge listeners to question blanket health statements. The episode also tackles the myth of “adrenal fatigue” and why most people don’t need adrenal cocktails. With humor and hard-hitting facts, this episode is a must-listen for anyone tired of wellness gimmicks and looking for real solutions.
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Transcription
Welcome to the crying in my cheesecake podcast, where we are in pursuit of living life abundantly, not held back by our body size or symptoms, nor are we held back by our hurts, habits, or other obstacles in life. Learn the secrets to crush it in your health, wellness, relationships, and spiritual life. I am Dr.
Danielle. I’m Aria and we are your hosts and practitioners and we thought we would have fun in this next episode. We’re going to talk about popular wellness tips that we don’t follow. This is such a fun topic and spicy. It’s going to be very spicy. I am not sure what’s going to come out of my mouth. So just be prepared because I might offend some other practitioners and I’m not beyond offending.
I’m not, I’m not a trigger warning. Yeah, so maybe a trigger warning if you’re another practitioner, um, just, just listen with an open mind. Yes. Um, I have had to listen to all of your stuff with an open mind, so, um, I’m so mean, oh my goodness. And I know I’ve hurt people’s feelings before, so I’m not trying to make light of this, but I have hurt people’s feelings before, especially on one of the topics that we’re going to talk about.
Um, one of the things that she and that Aria and I do not do, um, Yeah, we’ll see here. We’ll see here. I have, um, like I said, I’ve hurt people’s feelings. They’ve gone to others and I’m just like, you have no data to prove. I have data to prove and also you can’t make a blanket statement for everybody because we’re all bioindividuals.
So la ti da, here we go. Man, I am sassy. Let’s do it. Okay. Number one. Number one, Aria and I do not, or we do, we drink coffee on an empty stomach. Why are you screaming in the microphone? I’m so sorry for your ears. I should have probably given a trigger warning for your ears. That’s my favorite one, because I always detected BS with that one.
So much BS. Who is, we have drank coffee for centuries, uh, millennia, and who, oh my gosh, okay, okay, where do I even start on this, first of all? Okay, so, I’m gonna, why don’t you talk about the history of this little fad. Okay. And then I will go in and kind of move in on some facts. Okay, this is what I think, anyway.
I don’t know where it really originated from, but ever since I can remember, just watching so many videos like on YouTube or even listening to influencers talk on, you know, Instagram or other practitioners, a lot, and even in our NTA course, we talked about this. Oh, we did? Yeah, we did. And we learned that drinking coffee on an empty stomach is a no no because it can raise your cortisol and your stress response, causing blood sugar dysregulation.
That’s what we learned. And I’m not saying that there’s no truth to that. But what I’m, but what we’re going to debunk, I guess, is that not everyone needs to be following this advice. It doesn’t be need to be taken as an advice for every person because not everyone is going to have that same response and you’re not going to know unless you’re like wearing a continuous glucose monitor, or, you know, like testing your finger, you know, you’re not going to know if this is even affects you this way unless you test it.
Yes. So you just led me perfectly in here. So I was quite frankly, I’m going to say it nicely. I was irked by constantly seeing people that I know their only education, like they have not continued any education. They’re only learning from other influencers on Instagram. Like that’s what irritates me is if you start seeing people repeating something that another influencer says, just because it’s repeated doesn’t mean it’s true.
on Instagram. Now, if God repeats it, it’s important. You’ve got to listen. But we’re not God, and neither are these influencers. And neither am I for quite, for all that, you know, whatever. Always do your own research. Yeah, do your own research, please. So, coffee on an empty stomach. I want you to, so I was irked.
I’m using that instead of the P word because I really am. Paid off about it. It got it. My blood is boiling. Maybe I should have taken my blood pressure before we did this. Oh no, you’re going to get a blood sugar spike from this topic. I’m going to get a blood sugar spike from this talk. Oh my goodness.
Okay. This is how important I feel like coffee is in our culture, in our life. I don’t mess with people’s coffee unless they’re putting like umpteen gazillion things of sugar in it. Like you don’t need sugar in coffee, especially if And if you have to put that much sugar in it, then you need to drink something else because you clearly don’t like coffee, like, or you’re getting crappy coffee.
So anyway, so I was upset one morning and I’m like, you know what? I’m going to take my blood sugar before, after, or during, after and continue taking my blood sugar a couple hours after. I woke up, I take thyroid medicine, Aria takes thyroid medicine, and we can’t eat anything for an hour, right? Like we can’t eat for an hour after we take our medicine.
Yeah. Yep. So it’s like, that’s always been our, like my routine. I know it’s been her routine. It’s like, just give, take your medicine, have your coffee and have some Bible study time and chill, whatever, until it’s time to eat. So coffee, or I decided to go ahead and do this. I had black coffee. I didn’t put any creamer because I feel like creamer would have fat and it would obviously slow down the blood sugar.
So I’m like, I’m just gonna leave it black. I’m just gonna black coffee. No big deal. So I go make my coffee. My fasting glucose was like 86. And I’m like, okay, cool. So then, um, halfway through my cup, I decided to break my finger. Magically, my finger was still at 80 or my blood sugar was still at 86. I’m like, okay, well, maybe it’s not long enough.
Maybe it’s just not hit the system, knowing logically that my pancreas is already working, right? It’s there’s stuff in my stomach. My pancreas is obviously going to start working. Okay. So then I take it afterwards, like after drinking my one cup of coffee. And when I say cup guys, I don’t mean eight ounces.
I mean a Danielle size cup. I don’t mean, you know, when I say cup, just that’s a relative term. Okay. So, um, I’m drinking, I finished my coffee. My blood sugar is still 86. So then I continue to move on. I wait the hour. I don’t. I only had one cup of coffee. I normally have two because I’m just like, whatever.
But I’m like, just for this experiment, I’m going to do the one thing. So then I, the hour later, I make my breakfast and my blood sugar goes up to 89.
I’m eating, right? I’m eating. Of course, my blood sugar is going to go up some. And so then, Okay. I decide to have another cup of coffee because I’m like, okay, I’ll have another cup of coffee. It sounds good. This time I put some cream in it. An hour after eating, my blood sugar was, uh, 92. Which is where it is real.
It’s actually kind of low for after eating. Um, but then that was, I mean, it’s normal. Don’t get me wrong. It’s normal, but it was kind of lower for most people and my blood sugar was not affected by the coffee. My stress levels that day were not affected by the coffee. Now, I did have two cups of coffee. I am an avid coffee drinker, all of that.
So maybe if you are new to drinking coffee, maybe that could happen. But also, I’ve had my DNA done and I’m a fast metabolizer of caffeine. When you are a fast metabolizer of caffeine, you can literally pretty much go to sleep after having caffeine because it goes out of you so fast. Now, I’m not saying it doesn’t wreak havoc on your bladder or your kidneys or anything.
We’re talking simply about the stress on the body of the caffeine. Now, my blood sugar wasn’t affected. I’ve done this multiple times. I’ve worn a continuous glucose monitor and my blood sugar literally was like flat, like all the way through. It didn’t move until I started eating. And, and, and in fact, when I exercise, my blood sugar went up more than it did when I had coffee.
So what I’m trying to get at here, Is don’t blame coffee for your stress problem and your processed food improper balanced nutrition problem coffee if you’re again if you’re putting crap in it yes stop please please put putting all the syrups in it all the time like you don’t need that okay or get yourself some better coffee or start drinking tea or something different but Coffee is not to blame for you having a poor relationship with your spouse or your partner in your home or coffee is not to blame or coffee is not to blame for the stress of, of work.
Coffee is not to blame with for your undealt with trauma. Coffee is not to blame for the inflammation in your body that you haven’t yet dealt with. Coffee is not to blame for. anything. So coffee on an empty stomach is not a problem for I’m going to say most people. This is a, this is like worried about coffee.
I literally just told a patient yesterday or Friday, I said, worried about your coffee is like stepping over dollar or I’m stepping over a hundred dollar bills for the dollar bill. Coffee is not a foundation of health. It is not something to worry about. Should you drink coffee on an empty stomach?
You’ll know if you should or shouldn’t. Yeah, you’ll know by, I was gonna say that, um, like you said for most people, I think you would kind of know if you have some kind of stress response that’s correlated to that. Maybe you’re jittery, because I know there’s a lot of people that can’t necessarily handle caffeine, and that’s why they drink tea or whatever.
So, you know, like Danielle said, you’re gonna notice, you’re gonna be jittery possibly. You’re going to feel like some kind of, you know, energy shift, um, for sure. And I feel like this really should be a consideration only taken for people who really have like deep healing to do. Yes. If you have very, you know, very high stress level, HPA axis dysfunction.
That’s when you should really be like, Okay, my caffeine intake needs to be, you know, but for the most part, like, most of us can handle it because of, you know, based on how strong our metabolisms are and things like that. And even though, so like, I want to just quickly say you said HPA axis, it’s the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenals.
And if you do actually have something diagnosed with that on lab work, not just a Dutch, don’t give me a, don’t send me a Dutch test and say, of course, it just depends on the day. Don’t send me those things like if we need a Dutch, I don’t, I have not met one single person yet that needed a Dutch test.
They wanted it because. They were nerdy and I’m like, if you want to spend that money by all means, but I can literally just get like a 9 lab test and tell you if you have adrenal issues or I can just ask you like, how are you feeling? And you can tell me that you’re having some stress issues. So anyway, um, HPA access, access, access problems would have to do with your pituitary, your hypothalamus, and your adrenals.
And there is no such thing as adrenal fatigue, and we’re going to go into that in the next topic in just a second. I almost said that, and I was like, no, she’s going to kill me. I am going to kill you, because this is, this is where I’m going to go, and I’m going to shine. Oh my goodness. Okay. Sorry. I don’t have an ego problem.
Do I? Yes, I do. Um, this is why God does not allow, did not give me a singing voice or rhythm. I will always be clapping off beat and I’ll be singing sharps when it’s supposed to be flat and flat when it’s supposed to be sharp. And like, the wrong octave in the same word. So, um, because of my ego. So anyway, um, so adrenal fatigue is not real cellular or, um, uh, mitochondrial fatigue is real, but there’s no such thing as adrenal fatigue.
Mitochondria are the powerhouse in each of, Every single one of your cells has its own energy source and it is created in the mitochondria. That’s what the little, it’s just the fancy terminology for it. And I had to draw that stupid cell on my exam, my board certification. I’m like, okay, this is fun.
Anyway, adrenal fatigue is not real. So when someone is recommending an adrenal cocktail because you’ve been stressed. That is another thing that Ari and I do not follow. Did I follow in the past? Yes, I fell into the dang hoax. Shoot. I did too, for sure. I fell into it. The adrenal cocktail, people, okay, you explain to people what it’s, I’m going to have too much of an attitude right now.
I need you to explain what the adrenal cocktail is quote unquote supposed to do. Okay. So the adrenal cocktail is a concentrated mixture of sodium and potassium, which is supposed to, and vitamin C, which is supposed to help support your adrenal function. I don’t know how else to explain it. But, so basically it’s supposed to support your cells, right?
Because it’s giving you the targeted sodium, potassium, vitamin C to kind of give you that energy boost or whatever. Because a lot of people take these cocktails because they’re like super drained and exhausted and depleted. But what I think Daniel is going to get into is this is not addressing. the primary cause or reason that you’re having these issues.
So, while maybe it’ll help, it may or may not help. It’s not going to get to the root. And another problem with it is many contain juice and you’re drinking it by itself, right? In the glass. And that can also cause blood sugar issues because of the lack of fiber within the juice of the cocktail. So, there’s a couple, a couple reasons why it may not be the best choice.
And not only you’re drinking it by yourself and it can cause, um, blood sugar issues, and which blood sugar issues then cause adrenal issues and more stress on the body. And then that creates inflammation and so forth. So I would say the average person does not need, the average person that lives a normal life does not need any kind of electrolyte support.
I would. Because if you are eating enough meat, you’re eating vegetables, you’re eating fruits, um, if you are drinking enough water and good quality pure water, you don’t need, and you’re salting your food, right? You’re salting your food. Um, I don’t think you need. The only time that I ever use any kind of electrolyte support is when I’m in the airplane for a long period of time.
And when I mean a long period of time, I’m meaning like seven plus hours. Um, I also use it when I’m hiking and I’m sweating a lot. So when I say hiking, I don’t mean a leisurely stroll on a flat surface. I mean, when I’m hiking, I’m talking about like carrying either a backpack on my back. That’s like 40 plus pounds for backpacking.
Or I’m climbing elevations. Those are the only times I do it because I sweat profusely. I have that part of my, in my genetics that I sweat profusely, so I’m constantly losing electrolytes. Um, those are the only times I do. Now, what are the electrolytes that I use? The electrolytes that I use during those are Body Bio’s E Lite.
Um, I do carry salt with me and keep it, and I keep it on my tongue. Um, and then the other, uh, what else do I use? Um, I think that’s all I use. Oh, and then I use, um, I will bring, like, beef sticks and, like, car um, are they called the bear fruit roll ups? They’re like a bear, um. Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.
They’re just like fruit leathers kind of thing. Yeah, they’re like fruit leathers. I’ll bring those. I think I bought my kids those before. Yep, and I think they’re on sale at Costco once and I’ve been obsessed with them since. And I like Nature’s Bakery fig bars. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The gluten free ones. Um, that’s what I use for my electrolytes and to re, like recharge me when I’ve had those long excursions and I’m sweating profusely.
I do not like Element because Element in my opinion and with labs and people I’ve seen, it does not get into the cell and in fact, it can actually over flush the cell and actually keep you dehydrated. It may taste great, but it has a lot of fillers and it has a lot of things that can cause um, bladder spasms if you, so if you have, uh, what is it called?
Um, it’s not cystitis. It’s, uh, whatever the bladder, if you have this, you know what I’m talking about, guys. I’m, I’m, it’s, I’m blanking on the technical term for it, but it’s like where the bladder will spasm on itself. And, um, Um, don’t liquid IV is not your friend. Um, it has also given one of my patients a, cause she thought she was doing the right thing, whatever.
And she ended up getting a kidney stone and a kidney infection before she left for vacation because she thought she was doing the right thing, getting some liquid IV. So stay away, stay away from anything that an influencer is sharing for hydration. Drink. pure water, salt. I love body bios. Like I think, like I said, I think it’s called Eli.
I’ll make sure I link it below, but those are the things I like. If you are stressed, another way that you can like, I don’t know, come down from your stress, go take an Epsom salt bath. That’s cheap. That’s easy. You’re not raising your blood sugar. Yeah. And your body will absorb all the magnesium sodium from the, and it gives you some relaxation.
Yes. Um, yes. And like, and also let’s circle back to what we’ve kind of been on the theme for the last few episodes is that adrenal cocktails are targeting your instant gratification again. You want a hack that you can quickly do to feel better right now. Not thinking about two hours down the road, but right now.
Yeah, no, that’s true. It’s just like a quick, yep. Another quick fix. And you know, the girls that are hawking these adrenal cocktails don’t tell you their certifications or their credentials. They’re blanket stating this to what about the people that have PCOS or Hashimoto’s like us, that is going to cause even more stress on our bodies or those people with other autoimmune disorders.
This is going to cause more stress on their bodies to give a bolus of minerals, minerals, um, in this. It’s just not a blanket type fix. I also know that there’s something being hawked now called like a cortisol T. Yeah. I’ve never heard of it. And it’s, it’s, I’ll have to look it up. I don’t remember what it actually is.
Everybody thinks they have high cortisol now because of Instagram. Yes. Everybody thinks they have high cortisol. You’re going to see me using the hashtag cortisol because I need more people on it. If people are looking up cortisol. It’s really hot right now. Yeah. And I’m like, honestly, but like, honestly, at some point your cortisol is going to flatline, Which means you are so stressed.
That your body can’t keep up, which means it. Yeah. And I’m just, anyway, so adrenal cocktails are going to fix nothing. If you’re following people and all they are talking about is the adrenal cocktail, you need to let them go. They may be great people. They may have great intentions and really want to help you, but adrenal cocktails are not going to help your hormones.
They’re not going to fix your libido. They’re not going to make you fertile. They’re not going to make you calm. They might give you more energy in the instant you might as well go drink some Welch’s grape juice. It’s doing the same thing that Welch’s grape juice is doing and then you’re going to be done and it’s and you’re just going to continue to cycle.
So there’s that next. thing that we don’t do is we don’t play the if it fits your macros game here. Guys, I used to fast all day, all day, so I could eat a whole large pizza by myself at night. Can I just, how is that healthy? How is that taking care of my scarcity mindset and my addiction to flavor and food?
How is that honoring my body? Like, Anyway, if it fits your macros is not going to make you healthy. Have you ever done that? Have you ever like subscribed to the if it fits your macros? No, no, I was gonna say, I mean, obviously I have calorie counted and macro counted, but you know, with the, with the, um, purpose of like calorie deficit.
So not necessarily in that way, but so my biggest problem with that is kind of like what you said, it doesn’t. One, it couldn’t put you in that binge restrict mindset, right? Because like you said, you were saving up your calories for the end of the day so you could have your pizza. Sure, you can eat whatever you want.
Yeah. One pizza a day. And like, you know, obviously, nurturing you. Um, but another problem I have with it is it doesn’t teach people like very similar to a lot of these weight loss programs, like Weight Watchers and things like that. It doesn’t teach you how to eat properly. You’re just learning numbers and how to not go over that number.
And what are you learning about the nutrition that’s in your food? You know, the nutrients you’re actually getting, like, that’s why I really also, cause I feel like it kind of fits with this is that calories in calories out mantra, you know, calories and food affect everyone differently. So you can’t just go by that, you know, yes, it’s a good metric if, you know, you have specific goals, but if it’s not teaching you what foods actually nourish your body, you could be eating candy bars all day and fitting your macros.
Yep. So, and I’m sure there’s people that do that. Yeah, there are. And like, so I’m not, like, I just want to make it very clear that if you are in the sport of bodybuilding, I’m not talking to you. Although, if you are in the sport of bodybuilding, you’re going to come to me eventually because you’re going to have hormone problems and you’re going to be like, I need to be on hormone replacement therapy.
There’s a gal that I follow on Instagram. I, I love her. She is phenomenal, but I wondered why her shoulders like got so big so fast. Girlfriend’s on hormone replacement therapy because she’s so like her hormones are so low, but I’m like, your hormones are low because you’re eating such low fat. And anyway, it’s, it is a lifestyle.
Bodybuilding is a lifestyle. You have to be. Within certain, I don’t want, like, that’s not what I want, I want to be healthy and I want to be strong, like, functionally strong, not aesthetically looking strong, you know what I mean? It’s all about a type, a body type. Yes. So if you are looking for nutrition advice from a bodybuilder, you need to make sure that that bodybuilder represents the life that you want to live, not just because they look a certain way and you want to look like them.
You’re a, you’re never going to look like them. B, do you want to do what they have to do to maintain that whatever and the consequences of that? Many of my friends are on hormone replacement therapy because they are bodybuilders and they know that that’s part of the. The thing and they like some of the women are infertile because of it as well, and they want to have families and they realize that their hobby takes over their their hobbies take over date nights, their hobbies take over everything.
Is that what you really want. Now, if you are looking for nutrition advice, and you need and you want to like. be more honoring of the body and more understanding of eating real food. That’s where Aria comes in. She is taking paid or clients want a one to one clients for her holistic nutrition package.
And it’s not, if it fits your macros, it’s learning what foods work for you and vice versa included in that package is, um, an HTMA assessment. So we can check your minerals. Um, but also, Lots of, you know, chat support and food logging support and lifestyle support is in that as well. So, um, that package will be listed below in our show notes.
So if you want to check that out, if you’re just tired of dieting and you want to finally just find food that makes you feel good, because at some point you are going to hit an age where you’re like, I don’t care what I look like. I care how I feel. I care how I show up. I care how focused I am. I care about my brain.
I care about being present with people and I’m sorry, but feeling great. Look, it looks and feels better than looking good. You can always find clothes to, you can always find clothes to cover up what you don’t like, right? That’s true. That’s so true. So next would be real foods versus processed foods. So some of the wellness trends that we see are people, um, using like protein powders, meal replacements, even supplements, which are technically processed.
Um, instead of doing a food first approach, Aria, what, what do we do? What is our thoughts behind a food, a real food first approach? Okay. So I always like to say, you know, even when it comes to supplements, like supplements, for anything. Always go to food first and the reason is why. Our bodies were made to process, digest, assimilate food and use those nutrients in order to fuel our bodies.
When we start to incorporate other things, sure it can be supportive, but if you’re having some kind of gut barrier function problem or some kind of intestinal problem, likely you’re not even getting those nutrients from food. So, you then are buying expensive supplements and other things and fillers that are going to do, that are, you’re pretty much just peeing out.
I know we just talked about this in another episode. You’re pretty much just having, I think my doctor was the one that taught me this, my functional medicine doctor, you’re just going to have expensive pee. Yeah. That’s what she used to say. Because you’re just buying these expensive things thinking that it’s going to support the lack of nutritious food you’re eating and, but your body’s not absorbing it because you have other issues you need to address, basically.
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That and like, If you, if we can get you eating real food again, working with Aria, she is fantastic about helping you, um, learn how to start incorporating. So if you’ve been eating low fat for a long period of time, or you don’t have a gallbladder and like, anytime you eat anything fatty, like you get diarrhea or stomach pain or whatever, she can, she is great at helping you with that.
And we work together anyway, behind the scenes and collaborate together. So, um, But like, she is so good about teaching you how to get the real foods and, and then we can check and see if there is a supplement you might need. And, you know, just like with, um, I don’t know, the more restricted the diet, the more, uh, willpower and the more, whatever, the more steam people give you in pride, they give you just because you’re paying a crap ton of money on supplements.
Doesn’t mean that you like, it’s a sacrifice to pay that kind of money. We would rather you eat food. And get your nutrition from food. I will rarely substitute or supplement iron and I’m just like, eat more red meat. They’ve told us for so long to not eat red meat. It’s so bad for you. But then as soon as they took the red meat away, look at how many women started having heart issues and fertility issues and, um, perimenopause issues.
But the more red meat we eat, the better people. feel and so forth. But so a real foods approach, if you are looking to try that, if you’re looking to figure out, okay, well, if I can at least just start with food, then let’s see where it gets you. Honestly, food is probably one of the best places to start with when it comes to, um, trying to get in a holistic health journey.
It is one that You can’t look past. You can’t, uh, you can’t overlook the food that’s in your kitchen and in your pantry and it doesn’t have to be expensive. She teaches you how to eat on a budget, how to eat for a family on a budget. And it’s, you know, It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s not like we don’t need to be spending a gazillion dollars at the grocery store each week, which we’ll get in there.
Um, cause that’s going to lead us to another, it’s going to lead us to another topic, but let’s move into this from the whole processed foods. Cause protein is protein like powders are processed foods. I don’t care if it’s, if it’s the most organic or whole foods or whatever, it’s still processed food. But the next thing that we don’t subscribe to is the the philosophy of everything in moderation.
Yes. This is one that gets me like, makes my blood boil. Because here’s the problem. In America, our nutrition is Obviously very bad. And, you know, the, the standard American diet that most Americans follow, okay, is not one that is bred for moderation. Nope. What I mean by that, we eat a surplus of food to, to, to a fault, right?
Like you go to the restaurant, you get a huge plate of food. Maybe you have the willpower to pack some up and save it for later. But a lot of us don’t even know what our hunger cues and fullness cues are. So we’re not honoring that to begin with. So how can we know when to stop? When we don’t even know when we’re full, you know, like you can only know true moderation if you honestly are honoring your proper portion control sizes for yourself and that’s individual to everyone.
So, you know, the foods that we have here, the ultra processed foods, the ones that we’re going to snack on that we say, oh, those are fine in moderation. You know, no one’s eating those in moderation. You’re over eating those foods. That’s why you’re still buying them. That’s why you become addicted and dependent on those foods, the sugars, the things.
That’s why so many people have sugar cravings. That’s why so many people have diabetes and metabolic dysfunction. Eighty percent of our population is metabolically unhealthy. That is more than that’s almost all of us. Yep. Yep. And this is such a big thing for me because I see it in my own family. I see it in my friends, my age who have pre, who are pre diabetics.
And it just makes me so upset because we don’t have to be this way, but we do it to ourselves because of, and it’s almost, it’s almost like predatory as well because the industry is very predatory. You know, it’s not, we know it’s better for us, but we choose the other things because they’re so easy.
They’re so convenient. They’re so addictive. We don’t really understand what true moderation is, so how can you eat in moderation if you don’t even know what that means? We are the land of abundance. Like, we have been taught in our history books, we are the land of abundance. We have a holiday that’s like all about abundance and it’s Thanksgiving.
Eat until your pants get too tight and then unbutton them and start all over again. Like, like we do. And we’re taught that an abundance of money, an abundance of possessions, abundance of food, like, and, and I understand, like, that’s part of our culture. I get that. But we, have never been taught what moderation actually is.
And that’s why our people in our country struggle with, we can’t even drink. I, I personally can’t drink alcohol in moderation. It’s either I open up a thing of whiskey or bourbon and I’m drinking about that whole fifth or I’m not drinking at all. Like, I’m not like, Oh, I’m good with one. Like, no, that’s not me.
I’ve never been a person that can be like, I’m good with one. No, I went, my, I had to, I have a chicken that’s, um, broody, which means that basically she wants to be a mom. I can’t buy just one chicken to put underneath her, but I had to buy two. Like, I don’t, I have, I started with eight chickens. I have six, 17 now.
And I’m like, I, I do not have, like, it’s funny, but it’s true. When I go, when I go to the store or when I, let’s just say I order pizza for the kid. I did, or I ordered pizza for the kids when Dustin and I went out for a date night. And. I’m like, okay guys, I at least had the self control to say, how many pieces do you think you need?
I would normally have ordered like way too much because there’s this need, like this scarcity mindset. I will never have enough. Or I’ll never get to experience this again. And I’m like, it has taken me, I’m just now starting to feel my hunger hormones. I could feel hunger in the back of my throat. I got to that point, but I could not ever tell when I was full.
I could never tell when I was full. So it’s taken me, I would say an intentional year and a half to try to even have a inkling of what fullness feels like before I’m actually like trying to unbutton my pants. And, you know, we’ve made it easy that we’ve made stretchy pants now fashionable. I don’t wear pants anymore, I just wear leggings.
Yes, so how are you supposed to know until you start seeing your underwear through the leggings or something? But we don’t, I don’t believe that moderation is even a thing. I don’t personally believe in moderation with anything, especially with most Americans now. I, and I would say most people that are in an undated with the Western culture probably don’t know what moderation is.
Um, I, It was interesting, I assumed when I was in England, when I got served food, I was assuming I would have smaller portions. Just because we’ve always been told, all the other countries have better food, and they serve, you know, whatever. I was served just as much, and do you think I ate almost all my plate?
Sure bet I did. Like, I didn’t eat for a long time, but you know what I’m saying? Like, I didn’t, It’s, I think it’s become a Western culture thing, that we just are so, you know, Yeah, and I’m used to overdoing it that we don’t know how to do it at a normal, we don’t know what normal is. We don’t like how we came and define what normal is.
So how are we going to define what moderation is? Yeah, I just feel like it’s an easy way to just be like, do what you want. Mm hmm. And like, and you also annoys me is when I see people, um, talking like these. So I have this one guy, I don’t, I do not know why I follow her other than the fact that she irritates me and I maybe like have this sick thing in me.
Like it’s an irritation follow. She is five foot 10. So she’s as tall as I am, but probably weighs maybe 120. Like she is so thin. Claims she does all these HIIT workouts. She does all the trendy things. She claims that she like has so many perimenopause symptoms. She’s so tired, but she’s drinking so much alcohol.
She isn’t eating enough protein, all this stuff. And she eats peanut butter with chocolate chips in it as her snack every day, which I’m like, okay, that sounds good. But also that was a slippery slope for me. Um, yes, peanut butter is like, it’s a slippery slope. Um, but like, she would be like, everything’s in moderation.
She’d have like a salad and then like, Crappy, like, um, like a Snickers. I’m like, that’s not moderation. Moderation means, like, a quarter of that Snickers bar. That’s moderation. Yeah. Anyway, obviously we have issues with that. So we don’t do anything in moderation here. We’re all in or all out, just like with our relationship with Jesus, you’re either all in or all out.
Like there’s no, yeah. Like moderation is that middle of the road, like I’m just want to stay in the same lane. Yes. That’s right. I don’t want to change. I don’t want to change. If so, if you say, if, if you say moderation, I’m going to hear you say, I don’t want to change. Okay. There we go. We got that. Um, so the next thing that we don’t do is fasted cardio or hit workouts.
You want to talk about this? Cause I might get a little. Yes, I’m also passionate about this. Um, because you know, it kind of goes back to a few episodes ago. We talked about, um, diet culture, right? And exercising and doing these hard workouts kind of go hand in hand with that because it’s like you do HIIT because, I’m not saying this for all, but I’m saying for some people who have this tendency, um, and mindset.
You do it because it’s hard and you burn a lot of calories, right? You’re putting your body through that pain and gain, no pain, no gain, right? If you don’t feel like you’re doing something hard and you’re not sweating or building up a sweat, what are you even doing? Yep. So I say that because that was my mindset.
When I was doing all those diets and things like that, I was doing really hard cardio workouts that I literally hate it. And then it wasn’t until I had my daughter and like, I was, you know, getting back into the workout routines and all that. And I was working out six days a week doing HIIT. And I realized.
This is hurting me. My joints literally hurt after doing, like, my knees hurt. Everything hurt from, you know, doing like burpees and high knees and like all that kind of stuff. Like, I was literally in pain and I felt like I wasn’t recovering. And then that’s when I started learning that, you know, I have Hashimoto’s, it’s an autoimmune disease.
I started learning that women who have autoimmune disease, even if you don’t, women in like childbearing age, I have their period and things like that, we shouldn’t be doing these high intense workouts because they’re too much of a stressor on our bodies. We should not work out. Like a man, basically. Yes, you can strike a scene, but we shouldn’t be killing ourselves because our bodies are not made for that.
It puts us in a high stress place. And yeah, it took me a while to learn that, but I did. And then I said, I’m no longer gonna do workouts I hate because why am I doing this to myself? Well, and that too, like, so hit, the definition of hit is actually a 30 second interval with a rest. So a 30 second interval where you cannot hold a conversation or even speak and you can’t even rest.
So doing burpees is not really a hit. workout doing. Um, so like this is the thing, like, so CrossFit wads are not hit. Those are anaerobic aerobic exercises, but hit is like doing something almost like Tabata style. So like work 30 seconds, take a break for 30 seconds or a minute and then work hard again.
And it’s so hard that you cannot recover. And so what really people are doing are these workouts that are stupid and you look like an idiot. Um, and I’m just going to, Oh man, I just said that, didn’t I? I’m so it’s my podcast. Gosh, I will say what I believe, which is true. You look like an idiot because you were creating more stress on your body.
You are not, you were actually creating blood sugar dysregulation, going back to the coffee on an empty stomach and the adrenal cocktail. You are actually creating more stress on your body than you are helping. So anything hit anything, fasted, cardio, cardio, fasted, cardio, I don’t like I don’t work out before I don’t eat before I work out the fasted cardio is just a gimmick eat if you want don’t eat if you want that that’s just a gimmick so do whatever you want with with cardio with that and cardio is simply anything that like walking counts as cardio elliptical rowing machine even the CrossFit WOD can count as cardio.
But HIT is something that really makes me mad because it’s targeted to women. And what we really need to be doing is lifting heavy weights, lifting heavy weights. Yeah. Yep. That’s for fat loss. That’s for blood sugar regulation. That’s for stress management. That is for increasing our metabolism. Yes. You can increase your metabolism in your forties.
You are not too far gone. Yes. You can do it in your sixties. Even I have women that. Um, are in their sixties working out with me and they are doing fantastic putting actual muscle on the body. Did you know that at 40 you lose 10 percent of your bone mass up to 10 percent of your bone mass at 40? Also at 40 you start to lose access to your posterior chain.
That means your butt, your hamstrings, your, the back of your shoulders. All the way down the backside of you. If you are plopping on the toilet, if you are plopping in chairs, if you are not able to get up off the floor without your hands, and I’m not meaning like the cute people that can get up when they’re sitting Indian style and get stand straight up like my daughter can.
I’m talking about like actually properly getting off the floor without using your hands. You’ve already lost your posterior chain strength. That means you don’t know how to use your glutes, which means that you’re going to lose metabolism. You’re going to lose bone, even more bone mass. So we prefer, um, progressive overload of lifting heavy weights.
Um, the next thing, speaking of working out, we’d also don’t spot reduce for fat loss. Um, I’m sorry, but you can do as many setups that you want. Or you can go, you know, even runners, runners can be fat runners because they are like just putting more stress on the body and whatever, they’re not lifting any weights, but you cannot spot reduce.
You can’t do sit ups and lose lower belly fat. You cannot, um, the only thing you can do is Lift heavy weights in a progressive overload and eat healthy, real healthy foods. That is the only way you can start reducing weight on the body. And your genetics tell you where you’re going to carry weight. We don’t know, but if you are carrying extra weight on, you know, I’m talking about those saddlebags on the sides of your hips.
If you have saddlebags, like on your upper leg, outer hip, that is an estrogen dominance thing. Another estrogen dominance thing is if you have, um, really thick shoulders and upper arms, that’s also an estrogen dominance thing. That’s something that we can fix. We can fix that through root cause stuff. If you work one to one with me, that is something that that is quite easy, honestly, for me to help you with.
Um, another thing we don’t follow is recommended daily intakes from dietitians because dietitians are funded by. big food like Kellogg, Nestle, Pepsi, Coke, all of them, they are going to do what they’re told by the, by their funding. Again, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. So you’re going to do what they tell you to.
And, uh, so we don’t follow the recommended daily intake. Um, that’s just something that is not in our ethos. We also don’t subscribe to having the best of everything. We live in Bidenomics right now. We can’t afford it. No. And I don’t remember who said this, but I love this and I’m stealing it is by the best quality that you can afford.
Like I say that. Was it you? I say that all the time. I probably did, but yeah, like I love that so much because. You can be healthy on a budget. And I hate that we’ve been so conditioned to think that just because we may live in a lower economic status that we can’t support our health. And I hate to say this, but I do think that’s kind of a victim mindset.
And because, you know, it’s kind of like what is projected onto us, right? It’s like, if you live in a lower tax bracket, you’re like told, or if you need government assistance, it’s like, you don’t think you’re worthy of having those things. And that’s not true. You know, you can still go to Walmart. And get the same things you can get at Whole Foods.
Like Walmart, I go there a lot because, you know, now we’re only on one, one income and like that’s such a saving grace for me. Like I’m able to get grass fed meat and things like, and Aldi. I go to Aldi a lot too. I love that you say Aldi. Is it supposed to be Aldi? How are you supposed to say it? Aldi. Aldi.
Well, I say Aldi. Aldi. Okay, that’s fine. And I’m not changing it. But yeah, like I love going there because everything is such a good price, you know, and you can get quality stuff. Aldi has one of my favorite brands of pork. I don’t even remember what it’s called, but they don’t have any nitrates, nitrates, and it is, um, all organic.
Yeah, basically. So cheap. Yeah, I got bacon there a couple weeks ago. I get my turkey bacon there because my kids don’t eat pork Um, i’m trying to think what else but yeah, and I get berries there every week so it you get you can save a lot of money and I know people say like oh, but there’s food deserts and things like that.
But I feel like nowadays I mean I’m sorry. If you are living in one of those areas, I do truly feel for you and I’m not discounting your situation. But I just feel like you can kind of venture a little bit and go to one of these places. You can go to a Walmart. There’s Walmarts everywhere. Like, you know, so I just feel like there’s always a way.
If you’re willing. Yeah. And even, um, so we go to the, uh, what is that called? Farmer’s market. And there is a line that you can get in and that is for you to get your coupons for that week. For if you have, um, food stamps or WIC or whatever, and all of the places that are part that everybody participates, but you can go and use those instead of like, I think it’s just like a one for one swap, but like, they give you a specific price and then those people get the whatever the funds are, so you don’t, you just use the coupon to pay for the thing, um, but even food, um, farmers markets, um, offer that.
I’ve heard that, that they’re starting to take those EBT. Yes, EBT, I couldn’t think of that card. Yeah, yeah. And then, and even WIC and so forth, and I lived below poverty all of my adulthood until my husband retired from the military because the military, nobody cares about us and everybody gives you, you’re basically a second class citizen, and if you’re enlisted, you literally have no money.
Like, I don’t even know how, it was by the grace of God that we were able to afford groceries. Um, but even then, you know, I was able to go to Aldi. I went to Save A Lot, which I know Save A Lot is like really low on the totem pole, but went there and was able to get some things and sure it’s not perfect, but what I would recommend doing is choosing one thing that you’re going to buy the best of.
And for us, it’s butter and it is eggs. And we have the eggs in the backyard now, so technically I’m buying feed for those things. Um, but those are the two non negotiables is that our eggs will be the best quality and our butter will be. And then we will do our best on the other things. And honestly, like, If you can grow your best, like grow some.
They’ve got hydroponics now and I know Amazon’s going to have their, you know, Prime Day or whatever, the Black Friday stuff coming up. I know that those things are things to maybe put on your Christmas list if you want to do a hydroponics garden and, Yeah. And doors now too, like herbs and things like that.
Yeah. There’s so many things. I just feel like people give up so easily because they don’t have the knowledge or the education or the motivation really like, you know, the mindset they’re like, this is just my situation. But like. You know, you may not be able to afford to work with someone who can help you, but you can still find out so much information online and just start with one thing like Danielle said, you know, I’m gonna eat better meat, you know, and do that.
So it just takes starting with one thing. Can I eat? Sorry. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Sorry. Oh, I was gonna say you’ll be saving money from not buying packaged things because those things are cheap. They’re not. Oh, so I’m glad you said that. We tend to, and I think that this, this may just be an American thing, I don’t know, maybe it’s just how we grew up, I don’t know, but we always, I always used to think that I had to like buy the box things, like I always had to buy a box thing to go with every meal to stick to the ribs, just in case we get hungry, or just in case that food wasn’t enough, or just in case, it was always a just in case.
So I was talking to one of our, um, Clients patients that’s also in the wilderness of wellness and I’m not gonna call her out or anything because I didn’t ask her for this But she was like it’s just so expensive to eat whole foods I’m like, okay, but if you’re making meat and potato and some broccoli, you don’t need Rice a roni.
You don’t need Reese’s Cups. I just gave her away by saying that. Um, You don’t need to have chips. You don’t need to have crackers. You don’t need to have all these other things. And she was like, Oh. So when she started adding it up, it ended up being cheaper grocery runs with real food than it was with getting the stuff from the just in case.
All those are extras. And like, I’ve noticed the same thing, like, because I’m trying to get my kids to just stop being so snacky. Yes. All the time. And I think it’s because, you know, when I was working, I was buying, like, going to Costco and just buying everything, whatever. And I think it’s just, they just got used to it, right?
They got used to always having the extras. Yeah. So I haven’t been buying those extras, you know, like instead of buying snacks, we’ve been buying popcorn kernels and we’re making our own popcorn, you know, like all of that saves so much money because I don’t, I don’t want to say, I know this is gonna make people angry.
The fake foods are expensive. Yes. So stick to the real stuff and you’ll save money and you’ll feel better and you won’t need to eat as much. Absolutely. And that, that kind of puts us into the last thing that we’re going to discuss today is the dieting protocols. We don’t, we don’t subscribe to dieting protocols like vegan keto or what have you, because we don’t believe that we can make a blanket statement.
Do keto or carnivore can be therapeutic diets? Absolutely. But that’s. exactly what it is, is a therapeutic diet. It is not a long term thing. And again, if you remove certain food groups from people’s diet, they’re going to become deficient in something just like the vegans. You can, veganism is nothing but, I believe, an elitist movement where Because nobody can be, no, there’s no healthy vegan population in the world.
It is elitist because everything is processed in order to create a like item. There’s Uh, trans fatty acids that once they’re cooked, they are become, or the canola oil becomes a trans fatty acid as soon as it is heated. And so they’re eating trans fats. They’re trying to kill these people and making us eat less meat.
This is why I struggle with paying for the best meat all the time because we eat a lot of meat. Probably, I would say probably four pounds a night of meat in our home. And meat is, there’s a lot of Is something that I know, like I have to according to my genetics, I need red meat, um, but I eat, we eat a lot of meat in our home and, uh, that is something that again is very, like, it’s not therapeutic, it’s needed.
It’s very, um, what is that called? Bio, um, bioavailable. Our bodies know how to eat meat and digest it and absorb it versus like even the vegan things. But I’m also not like super keto or super carnivore unless someone has a massive issue with mold. For example, for mold, um, someone going carnivore would be very helpful, but carnivore is not good long term and it’s not going to fix the problem or food is not going to fix the root cause of your diabetes or your other issues.
You need to realize that your dieting pattern and the foods that you’re eating need to be nourishing you. They’re not going to fix you. Does that make sense? Yeah. It’s like just part of supporting your nutrition and your body. It’s just like for it and to give you fuel. So I realized this episode got really long, but Ari and I went off on a few tangents, but I thought you needed to know who we are, what we believe and how we handle and what we think about these things that we’re asked about often.
Like we’re asked about these things often. And sometimes it’s like, Oh my gosh, are we still talking about this? Are we still talking about spot reducing fat on our body? Are we still talking about coffee on an empty stomach? Do we not realize this is stupid? Like don’t mess with my coffee. Anyway. Clearly I have issues, but we want to make sure you know where we stand on things like this and just give you an opportunity to hear from us.
Like just really kind of raw, just really authentic. And these are things that we as professionals we don’t either don’t believe in or don’t partake take in, or here’s our take on these things. If you are ready to work on your nutrition and bring whole foods into your life, please check the link below to work with ARIA in the holistic nutrition package.
We will run one lab on you, the HTMA, and that will tell us about your mineral intake, if there’s any kind of toxicities in you that we need to take care of and so forth. Um, If that’s you, grab that package up. We want to make sure that you can start feeling better. I mean, it’s some of the best times to start working on it on yourself is now, like literally this fall, because before 2025, we don’t know what 2025 is going to bring us.
You don’t know what stressor is going to hit you tomorrow. You don’t know what you need to be ready for. Tomorrow or in 2025, why not start with a foundation? Now, if you’re ready to work on root cause medicine stuff and, and go deeper on your diagnoses and try to reverse prevent and so forth, that’s when you want to work with me.
Yes. We’ll do nutrition. Yes. Aria. Aria will always be involved in everything, um, but she, like, we will be here to support you. All the links on how to work with us will be below in the show notes. If you have any questions, always find us on Instagram at crying in my cheesecake until next week. We will talk to you soon.
Thanks for listening to the crying in my cheesecake podcast. I hope it encouraged you to make a next best step for your health. Take a look at the show notes for more information or other links I mentioned in the episode. And if you got to this point, come find me on Instagram and send me a DM. Tell me you listened to this episode and what you got out of it.
