Rich, Fit and Happy Show
Crystal O'Connor is the creator of 'Moxie Entrepreneur' and programs like High Ticket Mastery, Rich Fit and Happy and Ageless Ambition. Author of Unleash Your Moxie endorsed by Barbara Corcoran from Shark Tank. Crystal teaches women and small business owners all over the world how to create 6 & 7 figure incomes by applying online strategies to grow your database and business' presence.
Rich, Fit and Happy Show
54 | From Kitchen Hacks to Optimal Health: Unleashing the Power of Food with Mareya Ibrahim, the Fit Foodie
Today I'm with Mareya Ibrahim, The Fit Foodie. She is a nationally recognized food expert, and author of the #1 release book, “Eat Like you Give a Fork: The Real Dish on Eating to Thrive" Mareya is a chef, holistic nutrition coach, author and award-winning entrepreneur and inventor and is the founder of Grow Green Industries, INC. and the co-inventor of the eatCleaner® line of food wash and wipes. Mareya is a signature chef to the NY Times bestseller “The Daniel Plan: 40 Days to a Healthier Life” by Rick Warren, Dr. Daniel Amen and Dr. Mark Hyman and a contributor to Recipe Rehab "The Fit Foodie", has appeared in Edible Orange County Magazine since 2011. Mareya is also the host of the podcast "Recipes for Your Best Life", was a featured chef on the Food Network, eHow.com, Livestrong.com. and the Emmy-nominated cooking show, Recipe Rehab. Find her at chefmareya.com and at @chefmareya on social media.
Discover the secrets of food safety and shelf life extension as Maria delves into the world of clean eating. She discusses her brand, Eat Cleaner, which provides food safety products for home and the food industry and are USDA bio-based, biodegradable, and awarded an EPA safer choice label. We also discuss Maria's eight-step approach to eating better, found in her book 'Eat Like You Give a Fork', which includes tips for resetting our taste buds, going gluten-free, and embracing intermittent fasting.
Maria gets real about bodybuilding and muscle maintenance for women over 40 and offers advice for building muscle on a plant-based diet. We're also excited to explore Maria's meal planning tips and tricks, using Google Calendar to plan, shop, and prep meals ahead of time to save time during the week. Plus, we chat about Maria's astrological sign - Capricorn - and what it says about her food-loving side. Don't miss this episode packed with powerful insights and practical advice from the Fit Foodie herself, Maria Abraham!
Find more about Eat Cleaner/Mareya Ibrahim at:
- Website: chefmareya.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/chefmareya
- Facebook: facebook.com/chefmareya
Sign up with Ageless Ambition by visiting https://www.AgelessAmbition.com
You can also schedule a call with me or one of my team members at https://www.calendly.com/wealthy-wellness
Health and Wellness practitioners: you can learn more at http://www.WealthyWellnessAcademy.com
When you reset your taste buds, you can cut the cravings of sugar and highly processed foods and really start to crave differently. But it requires you taking certain things out and putting other things in. So I walk people through that. I talk about how to go gluten-free, how to mix up your diet a little bit by doing intermittent fasting. I have a sound approach to doing that which doesn't screw up women's hormones. You know a lot of people want to jump into intermittent fasting and do it every day, but if you're over a certain age like it's actually counterproductive. So I talk about that and so much more. And really the whole point is again knowing your body and understanding that at different phases of life and you know men versus women and different activity levels we all have different needs, but there is a base common denominator, i would say, for everybody.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Rich, fit and Happy podcast. I'm Crystal O'Connor, where we want to take you from drab to fab in this beautiful life. Let's go, hello, hello. I'm so excited I brought on someone really fun today. She's known as the Fit Foodie And her biography is so long that I got to put on my glasses here. Okay. So, maria Abraham, and I knew that I would do that to your last name and I'm so sorry. It's okay.
Speaker 2:Abraham is the Fit Foodie. She's a nationally recognized food expert, the author of the number one release book, eat Like You Give a Fork How cute is that? The real dish on eating to thrive. She's a chef, a holistic nutrition coach author and a word winning entrepreneur and inventor, and is the founder of Grow Green Industries Incorporated and the co-inventor of The Eat Cleaner, which is a line of food wash and wipes. So I can't wait to hear about that. She's a signature chef and a New York Times bestseller, and that book is called The Daniel Plan, which, of course, i've heard of over and over. 40 Days to a Healthier Life by Rick Warren, dr Daniel Amin and Dr Mark Hyman, and a contributor to the recipe Rehab, the Fit Foodie. She's appeared in the Edible Orange County Magazine in 2011,. And I can just go on and on, but let's just get started, because there's just so much to say here and it's more fun to have just casual fun talk.
Speaker 1:So Definitely, as I mess my light up here. Oh, that's fine, it's a whole lot of stuff, but really the bottom line is I've been in the world of food for as long as I can remember and I really feel very passionately about helping people understand the true role that nutrition plays in their lives, because there's no pill, there's no quick fix, there's no amount of therapy that you can go through that will do what a good diet can do, and I am thing proof of that and so many people that I have coached over the years. So I mean, if you think that food is not like it's just sort of a thing that we do, you're so missing the point, and that's really the fun conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i started with my first company called the Moxie Entrepreneur, and I use the term Moxie because energy I feel like it's everything, and food should be energy. It should be giving you energy and not taking it right. So at what point were you considered you were a chef, but at what point did they start calling you the fit foodie? or did you do that to yourself?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, i made the shift from being a classically trained chef to becoming more of a holistic. You know, taking that holistic route about gosh. It's been about 15 years now And it was really then, you know, i was doing a lot of segments on television and I would go on. They'd be like everything you're making is so healthy. And I have always been an athlete. I've always like trained, whether it's, you know, cycling or playing soccer, or now I'm bodybuilding. But you know, that fitness side of me has always been something very important too. So that's kind of how the fit foodie came along, because I'm a foodie, but the food that I crave and love is what feeds you to the core, and really the secret or not so much a secret, but the way you get a fit body is through your food. That's 80 to 90% of your success. It's the exercise just kind of does the fine tuning.
Speaker 2:And it sounds like you're really setting a powerful example for women in the food industry. Tell me what that's all about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, when I started my company, you know, and we make a line of patented and lab proven food safety and shelf life extension products for home use and for the food industry, for food service, our brand is called Eat Cleaner. You can find it in many grocery stores but online and on our website as well. And Eat Cleaner is really about helping people remove the residue on your fresh fruits and vegetables that water can't, that can make you very sick, and also helping to extend shelf life. And then we make a number of different products for the food industry on the processing side to help food last longer, naturally and to be safer.
Speaker 1:But you know, for me, like The root no pun intended, but really the root of what we should all be eating comes from the ground. It comes from fruit and vegetables. And we get it twisted a lot of the times. We want to lean into all of the convenience foods that are supposedly healthy, or the packaged items or you know, going out to eat and eating what someone else has made for us that's healthy.
Speaker 1:The problem is is we have no control over our food at that point. We don't know what oils they're using, we don't know if the protein's been sourced sustainably. We don't know if the produce has been cleaned properly. So for me, i really want people to think about stripping all of that back to like the ground level. And if the majority of what we should be eating fruits and vegetables are not being handled correctly and that's what you're getting the volume of your calories and your micronutrients from, then we've got to fix that. There's a whole lot polluting our produce nowadays, from the conditions of the soil to the pesticides and fungicides and herbicides that are sprayed, to the chemicals that are being coated on the food, and the list goes on.
Speaker 2:You sound really knowledgeable about that. Did something happen? How did you become aware of all of that? And I like to think that we're all kind of aware, but not on this deep level where it propelled you to actually start a company to solve this problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it really started almost 29 years ago now. When I started in the food industry I was in my early 20s and I just always loved food and I've always loved the topic of food and I went to cooking school. But what I found out is that, you know again, there are a lot of dirty secrets in the food industry. And as I started to learn more and more I was an editor for a monthly magazine As I started interviewing people and kind of peeling the onion back, i learned a lot. And you know, fast forward, about 15 years later, my dad got cancer And when he got cancer he was told to avoid all raw food because of the risk of foodborne illness. And you know, anybody that has an immune you know is immune compromised knows that. You know, eating raw things can really wreak havoc on your health. I mean, how many pregnant women here don't eat sushi? I mean, why are we like not supposed to eat certain things when we're in that condition? So the same thing happened with my dad And when we were told, like, avoid raw food, including raw produce, i had a real problem with that, because the way to heal and to keep a healthy gut is through a lot of produce, especially raw produce. We need those enzymes and those probiotics and prebiotics to feed a healthy digestion and keep our immunities high. So I really wanted to find a way to have him eat a salad safely.
Speaker 1:You know, and it kind of is very like paradoxical that the thing that we should be eating could make us the most sick. But there's a lot of filth in the ground. You know there's a lot of filth that gets embedded into the little nooks and crannies of piece of kale, for example, or a spinach leaf that if you've ever tried to like just clean something with water, you know it doesn't remove grime, you know it doesn't remove soil and it definitely doesn't remove anything that is oil based, and most of the very toxic pesticides are oil based. So all of this research over the last, you know, 29 years of being the food industry when I started the company. We've been around for 10 years, but we really started 13 years ago developing the patent and testing formulations, and I did that hand in hand with my dad, and so we are the dual patent holders of our formulas. Wow.
Speaker 2:Okay, so where do they find this and how does it work, is it? it sounds like it's a wipe of some kind.
Speaker 1:We actually have a number of products. So Eat Cleaner and you can find everything out about us at EatCleanercom We have a liquid that comes in the form of a spray and a refill. We also make a concentrate formula that you can add to water. We have a powder formula that also can just be added to water, and then we have biodegradable wipes, so you can use a wipe to clean, you know a piece of fruit and you can use it on your hands, your mouth, but the point is it's food grade, so anything it comes in a contact to that touches your mouth, it's safe.
Speaker 1:Unlike most of the wipes that are out there that are full of chemicals and you would never want to use it on anything near your mouth, i know, and all of our products are USDA bio based, so they are biodegradable. We just got our EPA safer choice label, so it is EPA approved And, like I said, it's patented and lab tested. So a lot of the products out there don't go through the rigor that we have gone through. I really think people can feel confident in that, knowing that it actually really does work and that it's safe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not a gimmick, it's actually Good for you, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, I had a call today with somebody who was like I have been juicing for literally over a decade and started using your product and I cannot believe the filth that's in the bottom of the sink, like thinking all these years that we have been washing our produce and we have just been doing it with filtered water, Like it's nothing, like what I'm seeing here. You know so it does make a difference.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I was going to ask next, like where would a person start and it sounds like there like just washing your produce differently? You know, years ago I would see something in the grocery store. It was a certain kind of cleaner. For this, I don't know, I'd have to see the packaging because I just stopped making it a habit of buying it. But I also stopped seeing it in the grocery store to buy. So it was like right there by the produce.
Speaker 2:But you know, I thought when I was changing my diet years ago and starting to juice and eating more fruits and vegetables and just having them on hand, I thought, oh, I'll never remember to do all this. But it was just a little bit at a time and drastic change was made just by creating little habits. And some of that was just when I would go on Sundays, like I'd pick one day a week and made that a habit of grocery shopping on Sundays And immediately getting it all out and putting it, cleaning it in with just water. So I'm going to have to change that And then putting it away makes all the difference in the world. That leads to the next habit of me reaching for it because I can see it.
Speaker 2:So for those of you that think that, oh, you can never remember. you know, it's just one more step. Oh, it's so worth it.
Speaker 1:It's so worth it, So I think what you're saying is so important because we can have the best of intentions, but if we don't have a ritual behind it, you know something that we do that's ritual every time then we forget about it.
Speaker 1:You know, and I really like what you said. You know, i encourage people and we have a lot of tutorials and videos that we post both on my Instagram and Facebook, at Chef Marea, and also on Eat Cleaner, where we show people what to do. You know, and it doesn't have to be hard Literally come home from the market, or the farmer's market is where I love to get the majority of my produce. I have a collapsible basin that I put in my sink. That is always clean, because your sink is one of the dirtiest places in your house and the powder goes in there, the water goes in there, i do a few loads, i put everything out on a drying mat and once it's dry, it goes in clear containers with a paper towel on top and that's it, and you just do that over and, over and over and over again.
Speaker 2:It's satisfying isn't it.
Speaker 1:It just makes eating so much easier because you don't have to think about doing it in the moment. You don't have produce rotting in your crisper, you know right.
Speaker 2:In those plastic bags.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it makes eating better so much more convenient, hey you know, so years ago I read a book that led me to juicing and I had never, you know, heard of it until I read this book and it did change some problems that I was having like quickly. But then after I just kind of stopped doing it because it seemed like a big hassle, i kind of stopped doing it. But I would hear opinions about juicing versus just eating it raw and how juicing takes all of the fiber out. What is your opinion about that?
Speaker 1:Well, i think that both can be done. You know, i really like juicing from the perspective that you can get a lot of micronutrients in a glass. I mean talk about concentrated nutrition, and in some cases you can't really eat the fiber, like ginger for example, so juicing it makes a lot of sense. Same with like carrots I mean carrots. You can get so much nutrition in a glass and it's hard to like actually get all of that fiber down. But I like smoothies too, so I'll do a combination, like I just took a juice shot myself and it's got cherry and beet in it, which I love, but then I'll make a smoothie and I'll add fresh produce to that as well. So I think you can accomplish two different things in two different ways. You know I like to get.
Speaker 2:Tell me about the cherry, and why do you do cherry and the beet? What are those two So?
Speaker 1:cherry helps with pain management. It's a natural pain reducer and it helps to oxygenate the blood, So this is excellent for posts like exercise recovery. That combination helps to lower inflammation also.
Speaker 2:What book can people find of yours about things like that, so they know what to buy? and so just going and buying a bunch, but just having, like you know, doing a juice shot and having them even ready And I know that you shouldn't do too much and keep it in there for days because the enzymes die right.
Speaker 1:Right, and there are a lot of other people that are more like juicing experts, but I would say like for just general tips and a guideline on how to eat. Definitely my latest book, eat Like You Give a Fork, is not just a recipe book. It has over 80 great we say forking delicious recipes, but also an eight-step approach to eating better. You know everything from helping you with your habits and rituals to adopt the healthy lifestyle, resetting your taste buds. This is something that I have helped bring to a lot of people, which I think is really powerful. When you reset your taste buds, you can cut the cravings of sugar and highly processed foods and really start to crave differently. But it requires you taking certain things out and putting other things in. So I walk people through that.
Speaker 1:I talk about how to, you know, go gluten-free, how to mix up your diet a little bit by doing intermittent fasting. I have a sound approach to doing that which doesn't screw up women's hormones. You know a lot of people want to jump into intermittent fasting and do it every day, but if you're over a certain age, like it's actually counterproductive. So I talk about that and so much more, and really the whole point is again, knowing your body and understanding that at different phases of life, in you know, men versus women and different activity levels, we all have different needs. But there is a base common denominator, i would say for everybody And that's really what this book is about is the common denominator that works for everyone. And from there I have lots of different programs you can find at chefmareacom One's for women over 40. It's fit and fab over 40. That helps you manage your hormones.
Speaker 1:I'm 54. I turned 54 this year and I can honestly say like it's not easy to deal with changing hormones but it can be done without going on medication. I'm not vilifying medication, i'm just saying for those people who want to try and do a natural approach, it can be done. I help people with sports recovery. I train with a torn ACL and meniscus. I never had the surgery but I'm still bodybuilding and weight training. So there's definitely the body's ability to heal is unbelievable but we have to unlock its potential.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that. So when did you get into bodybuilding? Just recently this year, yeah just recently.
Speaker 1:I started last year And so I'm definitely a novice, but I can say truthfully like nothing has changed my body more than lifting weights.
Speaker 2:I bet Just a little that I've done in my life. I know that that was the fittest that I was. When I was able to leg press 200 pounds, i was like I couldn't believe what I was doing it First of all, and how easy it got and how much stronger I was. But I'm 53. And so I'm right there with you that it becomes a lot more trick. It's just trickier to get the muscle and maintain it. So do you teach how to do that And I'm sure you share?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's part of my fit and fab over 40 program is really how you change your diet too, Because I mean women we just tend to crave carbohydrates more than protein. We just were genetically predisposed to that because it's quick energy and we're always on the go and we're always talking and we're moving And so we want quick fuel. But if you can recondition your body to eat more protein and more slow burning carbohydrates and good fat, you definitely change the way you build muscle, especially the protein, And that you know. Any bodybuilder will tell you that that's the most important part. I mean, I saw the difference in myself. I went plant based for two months And it didn't work for me. I love eating plants and I eat them every single day, but just to like cut out all animal protein for two months, It didn't work for me, Not to say it doesn't work for other people. It's just a very personal thing. I needed the animal protein to be able to build muscle for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, i have some ideas, or not ideas, but I have some opinions about that and I can't. It's not healthy. And I'm going into mom mode. That's where my mind is going, because I have a daughter that does not like to eat protein And I literally send her texts and break down, because she's nursing right now a baby And I'm like you should be getting this much protein, like I map it for her, and so I think she's starting to understand. But when you break it down, it's easier to get to a certain number of macros.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, but Well, i mean, you have to think about amino. Okay, protein is made of essential amino acids And those amino acids are called the building blocks of humanity. So wrap your head around that. Like it's got that title, then I should probably start with that as my foundation. You know, that's where you build your house is on the building blocks of humanity. I love that. I love that.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I know, just like with anybody that has achieved success and it sounds like you just have on so many levels We also have to face failures. Can you name a failure to that you feel like you've learned the most from, and would you like to share it?
Speaker 1:Wow, so many. And you know I like to I'm not trying to sound Pollyanna, but I like to call them like challenges because you know, a failure to me is when you never get back on the horse. Like you failed, you never tried again, and I look at these challenges, these obstacles as things that like make me get back on the horse but make me smarter and stronger, because I have overcome something. I won't name any names, but we were working with a company and we had a very longstanding working relationship And we didn't have a signed agreement on something and they completely reneged on it And it cost us almost a million dollars And it just hurt more than anything.
Speaker 1:You know money is something that you can always go back out and make, but it hurt that they didn't value our partnership at all And I just, you know as much as I wanna just trust in business. You gotta dot your eyes and cross your T's And no longer do we live in this world where it's just a handshake. Sadly, you have to like go the distance, and I got taken advantage of and I will never do that again. So that was definitely a challenge that hurt in more ways than one, but I learned from it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:Okay. So this question is cute. If you were ever on a deserted island and you could only bring three things to eat, what would those foods be?
Speaker 1:Okay, so it might change by the season, but very, very important. I would bring eggs, because eggs are like an incredible form of protein. They're easy to make, you can have them a million different ways and they cook so fast You can even eat them raw. So definitely eggs. I would bring tins of hand seafood probably tuna or sardines, mackerel, any combination of those because they're excellent omega-3s, high in protein, they last forever and they're always wild caught. Just make sure they're in BPA-free cans or pouches. And I would definitely bring something green I love seaweed and seaweed will last.
Speaker 2:You love seaweed.
Speaker 1:I love seaweed because it's rich in essential minerals which are really important for women iron and manganese, and magnesium and selenium. Oh, magnesium has been like my lifesaver. Yes, i agree, i've gotten older, like so important. So it's rich in all those things and it's shelf stable. So, again, if I'm on a deserted island and I don't have a way to refrigerate things, that's probably gonna be my vegetable.
Speaker 2:That's so cute. I never really thought. I mean, I don't know how to incorporate seafood into my diet, So could you give me a tip on that Cause I was thinking Oh yeah, so easy.
Speaker 1:I mean everything from tossing it into a salad to wrapping it up in a piece of seaweed. That's kind of like my cheap and cheerful sushi that I like to do at home. I'll just do like a tuna salad or a mackerel salad and add it to some rice and wrap it up in seaweed And that's just an easy hand roll. Let's see what else I make. All kinds of things I'll do like rice cakes with a tuna salad or a seafood salad.
Speaker 1:I have an amazing stuffed avocado that's in the book. It's a seafood salad, stuffed avocado, which has that great fat and all of that protein rich seafood combined. And again, what I love about it is it is shelf stable. So it's one of those things that you can just grab at any time. You don't have to like go to the store, make a concerted effort to go buy that ingredient And it's relatively inexpensive, which seafood's very expensive nowadays. So it's an easy thing to just kind of blend into a lot of things, make a wrap with it, yeah, so there's a lot of ideas in the book too.
Speaker 2:Okay, good, i'm gonna have to go get that book. So I pretty much eat spinach every day because I put it in my eggs. I met someone the other day that says that she can't eat eggs and I wouldn't know what I would do if I couldn't eat eggs, cause again. there's so little to eat, Oh I know It's like my mainstay, yeah, so you've shared a couple of different recipes. What's your favorite recipe? Like your one that maybe you created yourself? that was a big hit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i mean so many cause I've been doing this for so long. But can I give you a hint on what you just said, cause maybe that's one of my favorite like simple morning things is I blend spinach into my eggs and I'll do just like a green omelet And it's a nice way to get everything kind of incorporated. Just mix them in the blender And then I'll stuff them with feta.
Speaker 2:So you put in the blender, you put the egg and the spinach, yeah, and feta.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, the feta goes inside, so I just blend the spinach with the eggs. Okay.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna do this tomorrow And then pour it in and that becomes my omelet. Or you can make it thin and do it like crepe style And then I'll fill it with feta cheese, sometimes sun dried tomato, sometimes some chicken sausage. I'll do roasted red pepper tomatoes and then drizzle that with a little salsa. It's like so easy, it comes together in no time and you can have that for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I love that. It's a pretty easy dinner too.
Speaker 2:So your program, what is it called? again fit.
Speaker 1:Well, i have a few. I have several, but the one that I was mentioning was fit and fab over 40, specifically designed for women over 40. To help you Put it online. Yes, so you can find that at chefmareacom. I also have a program called Eat to Thrive And it kind of follows my book, so it breaks down the chapters of my book more succinctly. And then I have a meal prepping program also, so it gives you 12 weeks of meal prep programs and you get the calendar, you get the shopping list, you get all of the macros figured out, and all of those are on chefmareacom.
Speaker 2:Okay, I love it. One thing that I almost forgot to ask is so your weightlifting so now maybe you've increased it, but in terms of protein and macros, do you have kind of something that you try to hit every day?
Speaker 1:Yeah, So my goal is to hit about 120 grams of protein a day.
Speaker 2:It's a lot but the goal is That's where the tuna comes in handy, isn't it? When you-.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I have my hacks too. So, like, if I do yogurt in the morning and right now I'm bulking, i am not cutting. Yet When I cut like, then my calories go way down. But just in eating more, my goal is to try and get you know 30, 30, 30 at each meal and then another 30 in a protein shake. So I'll do like yogurt with protein powder mixed in, or I'll do oatmeal with protein powder.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, i just want to call it in the bodybuilding world, and sometimes I'll add egg whites to those, or I'll do eggs with chicken sausage or something like that in the morning, and then for lunch I almost always do a salad, so it's a salad with chicken breast on it or some kind of seafood, high protein, and then hard boiled eggs I'll add to that and beans also, so I'll just load it up And then usually in the evening.
Speaker 1:It's so many different things, it just kind of depends on the day, but my go-tos are usually lean, some kind of lean meat, whether it's chicken or turkey, or pork tenderloin, like a white meat pork. I love seafood, so that's usually my preference. And then I'll just mix up a protein smoothie with water, protein powder. Sometimes I'll add a little bit of peanut butter or I'll do just a little scoop of sunflower butter. That's how I reached that goal. Cottage cheese has been a big part of my, because I kind of got sick of yogurt, so I've been doing cottage cheese and like half a cup of cottage cheese is 15 grams of protein, so I can eat a cup and hit my goal for the meal.
Speaker 2:I love it. I remember when I started really thinking about how in the world am I going to hit 90 or even 100 grams? I thought it sounded impossible. But what it does is it forces you to start getting creative, And your book sounds perfect for that.
Speaker 1:You got to get a little bit more creative It forces you to also really think strategically about your meals instead of just eating.
Speaker 1:You know, i think oftentimes we just get into this mode of just like, oh, i'll just grab whatever looks good, but without a plan you can't really plan to do what you want to do.
Speaker 1:So I think having that meal plan, or at least sketching out what your meals are going to look like, gives you a roadmap. You know, and if I go out to dinner, i know that if I'm going to order a quarter to six ounce piece of seafood and I'll get what I need to from that protein, or I'll have like a chicken, you know, something with like a salad And I'll add the chicken on top. So I know I'm getting it. And if you just know your numbers at least have some guidelines on your numbers then it makes it a lot easier, because otherwise you're like well, i don't even know how do I get 20 or 25 or 30 grams of print? What does that even look like to me? And there are apps like my fitness pal and stuff, but I kind of like a ritual. So that's why I like meal planning, is it just helps me know and plan for the week.
Speaker 2:You know I use Google Calendar for like on Sunday I'll sit for an hour or two and plan everything out, just like I planned this interview. And then I had color coded But what I started doing, which I hadn't thought of doing, i would sit with my app and kind of plan out, you know, to try to get the numbers in there, but then I started putting it on my Google Calendar And so my menu is there. So then I started doing all my grocery shopping and planning that out. I can't believe how much time I feel like more time that I feel like I have during the week by just doing those simple things.
Speaker 1:Yeah And people would go wow, you spent an hour or two doing that, that's a lot.
Speaker 1:But no, we spend more time wandering the grocery store trying to figure out what to eat, or sitting in a line at a restaurant or waiting for a table or whatever Like. And I'm not saying don't go out to eat, don't enjoy those things. Life is about also celebrating but having balance. And if you kind of, instead of eating out more or door dashing more, you actually prep your meals more, you're going to see a huge difference, because you can't even believe how much fat they're using, how much seed oil, how much butter, how much sodium. Like as a chef, i can tell you, like the way you create flavor is through butter and chicken stock, and then it's a whole lot of butter and a whole lot of salt. So when you do it yourself, you know and you're in control, instead of just assuming or thinking that what you're eating is true. Because actually most of the numbers that are reported on, like calories and macros at takeout meals or quick service restaurants, are wrong. They're actually understated.
Speaker 2:They're understated. I actually noticed that even in my fitness pile there were a few that were way off, and I hadn't noticed it before. So I had been counting wrong And I thought how are they wrong in my fitness pile? but someone entered it. I don't know how that works. Yeah, because it's human error.
Speaker 1:You know people putting stuff in there, Yeah, Yeah, kind of like chat GPT Interesting. Yeah, yeah, i mean listen, i believe in like some things being automated, but we can't like hand it all over. We have to have a.
Speaker 2:Well, have you used chat GPT for menu planning? No, It's kind of cool. Not that I have, I've not used it for that but I can totally see how it could work.
Speaker 1:Yes, i could see how it could work, assuming that the inputs are right.
Speaker 2:Yeah Yeah, you got to double check and triple check maybe. Even So, there are so many things that you offer. I love the idea of getting creative with my food, because there's nothing worse than getting bored with your food, and I don't know about you. But when I get bored, i start eating all the bad things, which almost always ends up being sugar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i mean, it's easy to get bored. I think it's also like you can change things. I have a chapter in the book called convertible meals And it's all about taking like your staples that you use all the time, but changing them up with spice and different sauces and flavors. So I think that's where you can get dynamic, like you can take, you know, a chicken breast one day and have a Mediterranean approach to it with oregano and rosemary or basil or cumin.
Speaker 2:You're making me hungry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i know I'm really hungry, it's time to eat And the next day you go more Indian with the spices and turmeric and you know curry and things like that, so you don't get bored And your spices. There's so much functional medicinal quality to spices that are inherently so good for us in addition to the flavor. So I think when you can play with that, that really opens up your palate too.
Speaker 2:So is there a brand of spices that you feel like are better than others?
Speaker 1:I'm not going to recommend one brand or another, but I do think that you can definitely taste a difference, you know, and switch out your spices, like if you're not going through them. They do lose a lot of flavor. Yeah, the oils that are active tend to, you know, go rancid and stuff. So you don't want to use spices past their prime either. But generally good spices are a little bit pricier, but it's worth it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you said something really important that not enough people talk about and it's almost like this hidden little gem or hidden secret, and that is amino acids and there's a test that you could take that I found And it was like it's through life extension online and you can order your own like test labs and find out if you're low on amino acids, but it's something that you can actually add. Obviously, we want to get minerals and vitamins from our food that's most important, but some supplements can help. Do you use supplements sometimes, every once in a while, to hit your amino acids and have you?
Speaker 1:I use supplements every day. I mean, and I'm not shy to talk about it I think that there's a lot of schools of thought. But having studied food and agriculture for a long time, i know that also a lot of our soil is not Not organic. It's well. Not only that is a lot of the mineral and composition of it has degraded over years of erosion and use of pesticide residue and run off and whatnot. Also, the fact that our food comes from all over the place. That's why I really like to buy local. I can and support farmers markets because I know that it's coming from a local source and it's not traveling from all over the place.
Speaker 1:Because certain vitamins degrade over time. Like once you cut it off the root, the clock starts ticking. So by the time we get an orange from Florida, if it's traveled six to eight days, it's lost like 40 to 60% of its vitamin C. So the more you can support local, the better. But anyways, on the subject of supplementing, i really feel strongly that our bodies are so complicated and at the same time they're also very smart. So if you take a multi vitamin and you're eating well, it's sort of like the safety net. It's not going to save you if you have a crappy diet. Let me just make that clear so you can't just eat junk and then take your vitamins and think you're going to be healthy. But it's sort of like the trapeze artists that knows what they're doing and they're skillful, but then has the net underneath. It's just going to catch them if they fall. That's how I use vitamins.
Speaker 2:I like to think of it as, when I'm taking my vitamin, that it needs the food to actually work, and for some reason I got that into my head and it helps me eat better, because And there's good vitamins and there's vitamins that you're just going to pee out.
Speaker 1:So I always say make sure your vitamins are food based. Make sure you know try and use organic as much as possible. Try and use fermented vitamins, because the fermentation is like food, so your body will metabolize them and use them like food. That's very important. And try and get something where you know you don't have to take a handful every day, because that's not realistic for a lot of people. I know a lot of people who are like I can't swallow a bunch of vitamins. So find one that fits your lifestyle and what you're going to take ritualistically, because if it just sits there on your counter and you're not using it, then it's obviously not doing much.
Speaker 2:I do the gummies. I do the gummies, the concentrated food with concentrated food, it says, because it's like candy, and I know that I'll eat a piece of candy is not pathetic. Do they have sugar added? that I don't know. But they're from a good source, alive, they're called. So when I say I'm a good source, a good, reputable brand, i feel like from the health food store. They're expensive, so they better be.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's just something to consider. Not that you can't have added sweetener, but as women we want to try and limit our grams of sugar every day to no more than 25 added grams of sugar. So just keeping that in mind shows up in so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you say 25 grams of added sugar, you mean sugar, not carbs, right Correct, i mean added sugar. Hey, can I ask you how many carbs do you take in a day?
Speaker 1:It totally depends on where I am in my training. Now that I've gotten a little bit more serious about kind of this goal, you know I eat carbs. I'm carb loading right now because you need carbs to build muscle, so I'm not limiting my carbs extremely. But once I start cutting, which will be 12 weeks out from my competition, then I have to limit it Again. It's everybody and their goals. I mean I don't think there's definitely not a one size fits all, but also this idea of being scared of carbs, something people need to get rid of. People need them. How much we need and how often we take them in is what is going to change, depending on your goal.
Speaker 2:Good stuff. You're just like a loaded with good information.
Speaker 1:You know, i came from a place where and I want people to know this and I'm very honest about it and open that I had a really severe eating disorder for almost a decade. So I come from a place of healing, from a food issue with food, and really that comes with knowledge. Because you know I think this is true in life when you don't know enough about something, you have a lot of fear of it because you don't know how to control it. But when you know about it, you can control it. And so once I understood it and I came to terms with, like, what it takes to operate this amazing machinery that we get to live in every day, then it was just like ah, okay, i am hurting myself by starving myself. I am not doing myself any justice right now.
Speaker 1:When you figure that out and you accept that, you realize like, okay, i need the food to fuel the machine. Your body wants to burn and when you deprive it, it holds on to fat and it doesn't burn efficiently and you actually end up doing the counterproductive work. I can't tell you how many people I've met who are like I can't lose the weight. I've got this like tire around my stomach and I'm like what do you eat? And they tell me and I'm like you're not eating enough. You're absolutely not eating enough calories, so your body is holding on to it. So I think it's very important that we know that, especially women women have the hardest time sometimes eating because they think they're going to gain weight, when the truth is, if you don't eat enough, you are going to gain weight too, because your body is going to think it's in crisis mode.
Speaker 2:And all the wrong places, places you don't want, exactly, yeah, okay, maria, thank you so much for being here and I am going to put all of your information in the show notes so people can click and go directly to you and sign up and buy your book and learn more. Change their life. Is there anything you want to?
Speaker 1:add Awesome. Thank you, i love that And if it does resonate with you, come join me too on social media, on Instagram is where I'm going to put all that there and Facebook, because I am very open with answering questions too. So if anybody needs some guidance, i'm here.
Speaker 2:I have to ask one fun thing Are you a tourist? No, i'm a Capricorn. Oh, you are Okay. I didn't expect that. In astrology they talk about tourists being the foodies and they love food, and I thought you just sounded like one. No, i'm a goat, you're okay. Okay, And thank you so much. Have a great day, everybody. Thank you, bye, bye.
