Why Food Labels Are Important [and how to understand them!]

Episode Overview

We’ve been misguided when it comes to reading food labels. In this episode, Jen Smiley is joining me sharing why food labels are important to understand for your overall health! Jen is an expert food coach and has created Wake Up and Read the Labels out of her own health journey. In this episode, we hope to bring a little awareness to everyone who’s listening and help somebody else be able to eat the foods they love and finally feel good!

 

Questions Answered

  • Why food labels are important to understand to guide your overall health?
  • What is the number one ingredient to get rid of when starting to clean out your pantry and fridge?
  • What’s a good first step when trying to eat cleaner?
  • How to clean up your morning routine to avoid bloating and set your morning up well?
  • Where to look to find the cleaner brands in the grocery store?
  • What is the most surprising discovery when people learn how to look at labels?

 

Action Items

  • Check out Jen’s Free Morning Guide to learn the 3 most common foods that are killing energy and ruining our days.
  • Follow Jen on Instagram for daily inspiration on how to eat clean and understand what’s in the common foods we eat.
  • Start with your morning routine and look at the labels for your go-to items. For any that have ingredients you can’t pronounce, find a healthier swap.

 

Key Moments in the Conversation

[10:37] We have been taught that these things are healthy when in fact they’re not. The most important message here is there’s always a swap.

[15:51] America is sick. Our food is toxic and people are now dying slow and living short instead of living long and dying short.

[19:06] We’ve been taught the wrong way and it’s only failing us and getting us deeper, sicker, and more inflamed. It’s time to take three steps back, reevaluate and do something different if we want to feel different.

[31:29} A lot of people don’t even realize how great they can feel until they start cleaning up what they’re eating.

My new Program, Revive Now, starts September 1st. Get on the waitlist and be part of the first group!

 

Welcome back to Well and Worthy Life Podcast. I’m super excited today. I have a guest with me. I have been doing all these solo episodes and now I finally have a wonderful guest that actually I’ve been wanting to have on the podcast for a long time she finally has some time and so I’m so excited.

Her name is Jen Smiley. She is an expert food coach and she has created wake up and Read the labels I love this title because hello we should all wake up and read the labels right yeah absolutely it’s something that we have not been taught the right way to do nor program to do so hopefully we could bring a little awareness to everyone who’s listening today and just help somebody else be able to eat the foods they love and finally feel good Exactly.

Exactly. So I want to start off though, but for you to share your story, because I know you didn’t just wait, wake up one day and read the labels. You have a story to share. So why don’t you start there? Of course we can make this a two minute story. We can certainly make this a 20 minute story. So I’m going to probably go somewhere in between.

What had happened was I was a newlywed in my mid twenties and my husband was really into running and I’m trying to be, you know, the housewife cooking. Luckily, I was not working at the time either, and I am working out because that’s what you’re supposed to do, right? That, that makes you healthy and age better and yada yada.

But anyway, my husband comes home one day and he’s like, Hey. Do you think that we can go vegan for a little while? And I’m like, what does that even mean? And why would we do that? And he says, let’s go vegan because he read somewhere on a blog about how to get a better time for running. And so I’m like, OK, what are we going to eat?

Like pasta, bread, all the things. But. Fast forward a little bit, we try vegan and we do find a little bit of relief in just how we feel after a meal, I would say, but it didn’t make his running time any quicker. I was struggling with weight in my mid twenties. I’m going to get scopes at the doctor to figure out why do I have acid reflux?

Why am I getting prescribed all these medications? I’m on an inhaler. Every time I’m working out, I’m looking for an inhaler at the bottom of a bag. My husband’s taken acid reflux medication as well. And we’re kind of looking at each other in our mid twenties going, wait, why, why is this happening? We are in our mid twenties.

Why are we being prescribed medication? Why are we sitting at the doctor’s offices? Why don’t any of my clothes fit? Why am I looking for makeup just to go make my coffee in the morning because my skin is breaking out, right? And I think for a lot of people listening, they probably can relate to this because they’re like, yeah, I am frustrated.

Why am I going to the doctor? I am getting prescribed medications. I am dealing with stomach issues, things like that. So once my husband brought up this fact of like, try to change your food, I was walking home from a workout one day and I stopped and looked at my protein that I was drinking. And it was, in fact, it was premier protein.

Like a protein shake on the go pre made and as I was walking, I read, you know, it has this many calories and it has this much protein and it has this much carbs, yada, yada. But something that dawned on me that day was I actually flipped it over and I started to read the ingredients. And here’s where it got me.

I started to read it. And then I realized after like the third ingredient, I no longer could pronounce these things. I no longer could recognize what these ingredients were. And in that moment, I felt like my, my heart sunk to the floor. I felt great clouds and I immediately ran into. my kitchen, open the pantry, open the refrigerator, start to read all my labels.

I’m looking at coffee creamer. I’m looking at my syrups. I’m looking at my dressings for my, you know, healthy salads, thinking what’s going on. And do you know, especially everyone listening, if you start to go in your pantry and your refrigerator and read the labels, you’re going to notice that a lot of these same chemicals, these same additives, these same weird ingredients you can’t recognize exist all over.

Doesn’t matter. If you’re eating a salad dressing, it doesn’t matter if you got a spice rub for your meat, your barbecue sauce, your protein powder, your bread, it’s all the same and it’s promoting inflammation. So with that being said, do you want to know what I did next? Yes. Yes. Yes. I want to know. Okay.

The crab is wild. No, I’m just kidding. Okay. So I was on a mission. First of all, I threw away everything with ingredients. I could not recognize. And I always tell people at that, Oh, heck yeah. You threw everything out. Everything. And I said, you know what? If you don’t recognize an ingredient, neither does your body.

And that stuck with me. I’m like, why would I eat something that I don’t recognize? What is my body supposed to do? That’s when your body bloats. That’s when you run to the bathroom. That’s when you have arthritis. That’s when you’re fatigued. That’s when your skin breaks out. That’s when you get inflammation.

So why would you want that? Right? So I set out on this mission. Why I call it wake up is because every morning I woke up. I went to the store to read the labels. I was on this mission of wake up and go find a clean label. So I started with one category. It was like this week, I’m going to find bread this week.

I’m going to find coffee. And it took many years of research. It took a lot of time years. I would say three to four years to figure it out. I traveled regionally to many grocery stores to go find it. Then I started. contacting these brands, asking them, you know, how do I get more of this? What do I do with this?

But when I tell you that I figured out all of it, when I figured out all of it within one week, my inflammation was gone. My pants are fitting looser. I’m no longer having to feel like I need makeup on. My skin’s actually glowing when I wake up in the morning. My husband is running like a gazelle at this point.

Okay. We’re not tired. We’re not bloated after our meals or when we wake up. And so I used to be the girl in the back of the workout class. out of breath, looking for my inhaler, can’t keep up with the class to the girl in front of the class. And then I raised my hand one day, Hey, I’d like to be I’d like to try out.

I’d like to be an instructor. Okay. Cause I’m looking for something to do with my time. Yeah. And so I go and be an instructor. I’m instructing women between the ages of 40 and 60. And they’re coming up to me saying, Jen. How can you do that? What, what are you eating? I see on your Instagram, which by the way, I had 200 followers and they’re like, you’re posting turkey sandwiches and ice cream and meatloaf.

What is that? So I start, they asked me to take them grocery shopping. I take them grocery shopping. And within a few days, there’s the, the gym was on fire. Everybody was saying. My pants fit better. My endurance is better. My sleep is better. My food is better. In word of mouth spread, I think everyone in the gym was a private client.

Then I started developing groups. Then I developed a course. Yes. There we are. There we are today. Wow. Wow. And I love all this that, I mean, you didn’t really have any formal training, but you took what your problem was. And I have so many people that come on this podcast and I’ve done even the same thing.

You take your mess and make it your message, right? That you know, you didn’t. You didn’t want to live like having to go to the doctor all the time with that inhaler all the time and feeling bloated. And that you took control at a young age. I mean, I really think in your twenties, it’s very I think that, you know, to, to recognize that and sometimes.

People, cause I’ll be honest with you. When I was in my twenties and even in my thirties, I got away with a lot more. I didn’t, I didn’t even understand, to be honest with you. I probably didn’t get away with it. I probably just wasn’t a big enough deal. Cause I didn’t have. I wasn’t going to the doctor. I was busy chasing three little boys around.

That’s what I was busy doing. And and consuming. When I look back at some of the food that I was consuming and feeding my children, it just blows me away. And it’s funny cause now my oldest son not my oldest son, my youngest son, I just visited him in Seattle and I saw some goldfish in his Pantry.

And I said, Oh, what’s that? I’m like, Hmm, you know, those probably aren’t the best thing you could have. And he was like, mom, I know it’s your job, but I don’t need to know. I ate them when I was younger. And and so they’re just fine for me now. And I was just like, and you’ll see, as they get older, it’s like, Oh, you’re going to have to figure it out for yourself, you know, for everyone listening.

They’re like, wait, what’s wrong with my goldfish? Goldfish has caramel color, which is a possible carcinogen artificial dyes that have been shown in studies to to emulate or cause or have effects of ADHD. So these are ingredient and there’s enriched flour. We can really dive into that one, but I want everybody to know that.

This conversation that we’re going to have today isn’t here to say everything you’re eating is not clean. It’s all dirty and you’re it’s it’s your fault because it’s not if you go and look at goldfish, it’ll say, you know, it’s got veggies in it and it’s made with whole grain wheat. And so by design, we have been taught that these things are healthy.

When in fact they’re not and the most important message here is there’s always a swap. So you don’t have to get rid of Goldfish. You just have to understand which product out there. So for that one, I know Simple Mills makes a cheddar cracker that tastes just like Goldfish and it’s made with six simple ingredients your body can recognize.

There’s always a swap for everything. Yes. And that’s one of the things I love about your course that you offer these swaps because It’s like you said, it took you three, four years to go through. I can’t even imagine, honestly, I can’t imagine the time you spent. Oh, sure. But yeah, there are new products.

There are new studies coming out all the time. So what would you say though, when you, when you’re working with clients. And they’re like, I can’t clean out everything. What would you say is the number one thing they should start with? Yeah. First thing you want to get rid of. from your life and from your pantry is canola oil.

It’s in everything. And that’s a really good indicator to figure out if the product in your kitchen is clean or not. So when you start diving into the labels, you know, things in your refrigerator, your condiments, your creamers, and also things in your pantry. you’re going to realize like, Oh my gosh, this, this label has, you know, 30, 40 ingredients.

How am I supposed to know all this? Well, I’m here to let you know, if you read canola oil, vegetable oil, sunflower oil, corn oil, peanut oil, these are highly refined oils. They’re raised in omega sixes in your body, which is. promoting inflammation you want more omega threes. Omega threes is anti inflammatory, which is why they say the Mediterranean diet, you know, is anti inflammatory is high in omega threes.

So you’re looking for extra virgin olive oil or you’re looking for avocado oil. That’s another really good one. That’s the first thing. The second thing that you should do if you don’t know where to start. All right, I’m going into grocery. I don’t know where to start. Start with your morning. What is your morning ritual?

Is it coffee? Is it tea? Is it a smoothie? Is it breakfast? Clean that up first and do that for a week. That is going to make you not have cravings throughout your day. You might finally have your morning ritual and you’re able to button your pants after. You might finally have your morning ritual smoothie and you’re not running to the restroom right after.

You might finally have your morning ritual. and you don’t need a snack before you make it to lunch. It might actually keep you fuller longer. These are all signs of your eating food that your body loves. Oh, I love that. I know a lot of people start with their coffee and I was one of those people who, man, I had to have that coffee creamer and it was that coffee mate vanilla and I had a heavy hand because coffee, black coffee.

Oh, no way. Right. And I got a reason for that. Why do you know why coffee tastes so terrible black? Now what’s bitter? I don’t know. No. Yeah. So most people, they, they, they taste black coffee and they’re like, that is God awful. That is so bitter. How can anyone do that? It’s because there’s another going to drop a bomb.

Most coffee has mold and toxins in it. That’s why when you drink coffee, it gives you the jitters. That means your coffee has mold and toxins in it. You don’t want that. That’s going to lead to harmful, harmful things for your body. It’s going to cause havoc on your body. It’s going to disrupt your hormones.

It’s going to disrupt your gut. It’s going to also force you to put some really heavy creamer in there. When you find a coffee, a really good one you’ll find at the grocery is called Bulletproof. It’s third party tested for mold and toxins. It is super smooth. All of a sudden, my clients taste it and they’re like, Whoa, Jen, this coffee is really, really good.

So you don’t need as much sweeter. You don’t need as much creamer. But if you are looking for one layered in the bag, it’s powdered. It’s sweetened with coconut sugar. It has no additives, no oils. It has no artificial ingredients, no preservatives. It’s made with coconut milk, so it’s not free. But they have a vanilla one as well.

You’re looking for coconut sugar because it’s less refined. It’s lower glycemic. It’s going to keep you fuller longer and it’s just an overall better sweetener for you. Oh, I love that. I think that that’s so, so important and it is how we start our mornings off. I talk about this all the time with my groups about how we start our mornings, no matter what we’re doing, our morning routine, and then the first thing that we put in our mouth is so important because it sets us up.

And just like you said, those cravings, people start their cravings. I mean like, okay, let’s say you start your morning off with Pop tarts are you. You give your kid pop tarts. I mean, guess what? You’re going to crave sugar the rest of the day too. And you’re going to feel yuck. But then, then there’s so many things that look healthy.

I think that’s what’s so confusing. There’s the marketing messages are so bad. Oh, it’s screenwashing. I like to tell people that, Hey, look, America is sick. Our food is toxic and people are now dying slow and living short instead of living long. In dying short, they’re dying long living short. That’s it.

Young people are getting diagnosed with adult diseases. There’s more obesity, more diabetes than today. And you and I are both southern girls and we’re surrounded by bad foods. We’re surrounded in the most obese areas of America. And it is because of our food. It is the supply chain. They’re putting things in our foods now in order to get it from point A to point B in order for it to extend the shelf life in order for it to taste better so that you eat more so they can sell more units.

When you are at the grocery store. And first of all, you go to brand awareness, right? People are picking up oatly because it’s on billboards. It’s on buses. Oprah Winfrey invest in oatly. So there’s a lot of money behind it. When you go look at the dairy free section, you’re picking up oatly, Blue Diamond and what’s another in Califia Farms.

There’s one more I’m trying to think of. But anyway, when you look at the freezer section or the refrigerated section, Those brands are at eye level, and they’re paying for more rows and more columns, so they’re kind of, they’re taking over in a sense. The clean brands don’t have, they’re using higher, higher quality ingredients, so their margins are smaller, and they don’t have the funds to go out and get sponsors, they don’t have the funds to pay the grocery store to get that eye level, so often when you’re at the grocery, you need to look.

Either up top or you need to look at the bottom to find those cleaner, smaller, more ethical brands that here at Wake Up and Read the Labels, we’re trying to bring awareness to. Yeah. Oh, I love that. And you know, just like you were saying, and it’s, it’s sad because when you go I just went to Europe in May and I was in France and Italy and you don’t find all the junk you find.

In America, and that’s sad. Oh, yeah. And their flowers made different. That’s why you can go and eat their pasta and all that. They don’t have the pesticides. But quickly with the product, you have to think about this. The product, 98% of the exterior of that product is marketing. So That is their billboard.

That’s how they sell you. They got about three seconds when you look at it to sell you. So they put things non GMO, gluten free, organic, no additives, no artificial flavors, nine grams of protein, zero carbs, right? These are all designed to make you think it’s healthy. And then if you flip it over, we’ve been taught by the food industry.

We’ve been taught by diet culture. We’ve been taught by, you know, the, dietitians and the nutritionists to look at your nutrition facts. Everything is a nutrition fact. People are at the grocery, put it in all these numbers. It’s like, Hey, why don’t we start counting the chemicals? Why don’t we start counting the ingredients?

What if a product said made with 60 ingredients, your body cannot recognize, would you stop in your tracks and be like, yeah, I’m not going to be getting that today. No, you wouldn’t. Or yes, you would actually. So it’s important to understand how we’ve been taught and understand that we’ve been taught the wrong way.

It’s only failing us. It’s only getting us deeper, sicker and more inflamed. And so you got to take three steps back, re evaluate this and do something different if you want to feel different. And I do think I think food is so powerful and it goes back to that food is medicine and, and it helps us to feel good or helps us to feel bad.

Yeah, it’s, it can be, it can be healing on your body or it can be an assault. And what most people don’t realize is that. America doesn’t even most people do not even understand the correlation between food and health. So they don’t really know the power behind the food because the food has only failed them.

And so it’s important to, yeah, it’s important to like step back. Do it. You could do it for 24 hours. You’ll feel a difference in the proof is in how you feel. And see, I love that because it’s, it’s, it is so true. Food has failed us because we’ve eaten. And then we’re like, wait, we’re got extra weight or we just don’t feel good.

And what do we do? So the doctor, right? Yeah, exactly. Go the doctor. Paying attention. Go ahead. You know what’s funny? What did they call, what did they call our system here in America? It’s the what care. Health care. The what? Health care. Health care. How do you, how and why do you make an appointment to go to the health care system?

When you’re what? Sick. When you’re sick. Exactly. And when you’re sick, you get an appointment. You get to see somebody for about 15 minutes. Nobody talks to you about why you’re eating. They look at one isolated region of your body. And then what happens is you leave. Does anybody teach you how to be healthy?

They give you a prescription, right? I mean, they give you a prescription. And so that’s why, yeah, that’s, that is, that is really sad. It boils my blood. Oh, I mean, I try, I try to explain this to, at least your husband’s on board. Look at my age, trying to get my husband on board is really hard. I’m like, Oh, I tried to explain this to him just the other day.

And it is, and even my children, like I said, you know, my son’s like, Oh yeah. Right. Whatever. I I’ve eaten it. I feel okay. But my son, my youngest son had IBS growing up. You know, can I tell you how many doctors I took him to? They couldn’t find anything. They just say IBS. Well, IBS is like, what could be.

Anything. They don’t have a cure for IPS. Right. Now he thinks he’s outgrown it. I’m like will you still take acid reflux medicine? Yeah, it’s off it. I know. And look for everybody listening, the, I, they always. People have excuses why they can’t eat clean, right? They say I’m either too young, I’m either too old, my kid won’t get on board, my spouse, it’s hard because I work all night, it’s hard because people bring snacks into work.

Well, here’s the thing, it starts with you. You start with you and everyone around you will take to it when somebody notices you have extra energy, you’ve lost weight, your skin is better, your blood works better, you’re not taking that medication anymore. Then they start looking at you going, Hmm, how can you eat a cheeseburger and ice cream and you’re getting all of these benefits and you’re looking this way.

That’s when that spouse or that child walks up and says, Mommy, or honey, can I have a bite of that? And they taste it and they like it. And then you just continuously bring those clean things back in. Right, right. And I, you know what? I think that that is the best thing because we can want to change people all day long, but it has to start no matter what we’re doing.

It has to start with us and setting the example and then people will come around if, if they decide they want to feel better. Right. I mean you know, and then if they don’t, if they just sit around and complain about how they feel, well, then they’re just going to be a victim. Right. People don’t like change either.

They don’t like change and people need information. Information is power when you’re going through change. So you need to understand these things and you need to understand how it works and how to implement it. Yes. So let’s go. What is the most surprising thing to people when they’re like, Looking at the labels, you think I would say the most surprising would probably be the canola oil, but I can bring up something else that is surprising to people is a lot of people out there eating oats and oatmeal and oats.

The crop itself here in America is highly sprayed with pesticides. So your Quaker Oats, I’m here to let you guys know, ring a bell, ding, ding, ding, time to stop buying Quaker Oats because it does have a pesticide called Glyphosate, which is the same thing as Roundup Weed Killer, and it’s disrupting your gut microbiome, it is making the holes in your belly bigger, that’s causing you to bloat, that’s bringing toxins into your body and just disrupting the whole system and what happens to oats when you put them in water?

Blow up. There you go. They blow up. That’s what happens to your belly. I got a funny story. Her name is Wendy. She’s the architect of my house that I’m currently renovating. And Wendy, if you look at her, she’s 50 years old. She is very attractive, just like you. And she looks in shape. She’s just. Got everything together and she comes over one day and she’s like, Hey, I got your newsletter.

And it talked about how we shouldn’t be eating oats and that they make you bloated. And I said, Oh, do you, are you bringing this up? Cause you eat oats. And Wendy’s like, yeah, I do. And if you look at her, she does not look bloated at all. I don’t know any of her health history, anything. And I said, she goes, it doesn’t make me feel bloated, kind of offensively.

And I said, Oh, well, good. Then your gut must be healed. You’re good to go. Don’t worry about it. Well, fast forward four weeks later, Wendy comes up to me next time she’s at my house. And she’s like, Hey, I got to share something with you. And I’m like, okay, what’s up? She says, I just wanted to try the no oats thing to see if there was something to it.

And so I kind of got excited because I, I work with thousands of women and anyone that cuts out oats feels an instant difference. So I thought, okay, Wendy’s telling me this. There’s gotta be some good here. So I said, Oh yeah. Did you notice a difference? I’m confident. I know what she’s about to say. And she goes.

I can’t believe it. I’m so less bloated and she dealt with IBS and Crohn’s and she told me no more flare ups. And so every time she came over, she’s like, can you like cook something? Can you have them? Because I told her it all works with Crohn’s. It all works with IBS. It all works with colitis. And so, or ulcerative colitis.

And so she was blown away and I’m like, thank you, Wendy. You’re another one box checked. But yes. Oats is something you want to wait till your gut is completely healed and then when you reintroduce it, you want to make sure it’s organic so it doesn’t have a pesticide. You also want to make sure it’s sprouted because that means it’s easier to digest.

Okay, so talking about oats, I can’t help but bring up oat milk. So many people, yeah, exactly. So I want people to understand oat milk. They’re, they’re putting them in their in their coffees like crazy right now. I mean, you go to Starbucks where it’s all toxin anyway, toxin coffee, and then you’re loading it with the oat milk in the, in the middle of the day and you wonder why you feel so bad.

This kind of, people listening, this’ll, this’ll get their attention, this’ll blow them away, right? So, when you go to Starbucks, and you’re like, Hey, can I get the dairy free cappuccino made with oat milk? Here you are, you’re thinking you’re being healthy, and I’m here to let you know it’s not your fault.

But, you’re drinking mulled, intoxin infested coffee, number one. Number two, here’s the ingredients of your oat milk. Drumroll, get ready. Oats, water, canola oil, di potassium phosphate, calcium carbonate, tri calcium phosphate, sea salt, di calcium phosphate, riboflavin, vitamin A, vitamin D2, vitamin B12, water, coffee, and then crazy reason, they have extra virgin olive oil.

I’m shocked. But I ask people, do you want a plate of tri calcium phosphate for Thanksgiving? Do you want that? No. Is that still not appetizing? No, right? No. Oh my God. That makes your belly bloat. It just, it’s like, no, if you’re going to eat oat milk, then do water oats and maybe some sea salt or maybe some dates.

That’s, that’s truly how you crack the code everyone. And that is how you get rid of your inflammation. You get control of your life. You get your energy. You get your You get to find a hobby for the first time in your adult life. You get to fit in your clothes. You get to love your spouse again, love yourself again.

You get to stop going, get Botox and filler because your face is glowing and your skin has collagen in it. This is the way to help. Yeah. And you don’t have to count calories and macros and all that other stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Freedom. Freedom. Food freedom. Yeah. I love this. I love this. Okay. Anything else that we’ve missed that I really feel like that you really feel like we should hit on Jen?

Because I feel like we have covered a lot, but you know, I just, I know that you, you know, so much more about all of this than I do. I know I have learned, but it di it took me till I was in my fifties to learn some of this stuff, and, which is such a shame, I spent so many years feeling bloated. And then when you hit perimenopause, oh my gosh, I don’t know if you’re there yet.

How old are you? My hus, my husband says I am. I’m like, no, I’m not. I’m 37. No way. Right. Well, you could be honest. My mom, my mom didn’t get menopause to like 54 ish. So I know it’s crazy, but with all the chemicals, since you stayed away from all that, probably not. But nowadays more and more women are entering perimenopause and having more, a longer perimenopause Journey to menopause than ever before.

And a lot of women are hitting it in their late thirties, which is crazy, but it is because of all of the junk that we put in our bodies. So luckily you’re not having any symptoms and probably won’t because you have kept that stuff out of your system. But but you know, one of the signs of perimenopause or bloating You know, feeling fatigued anxiety, which we know food, all the chemicals in food can cause all the anxiety, right?

Yep. It’s clean eating. It’s for everyone. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you believe in. We all eat food. You’re going to eat food today. You’re going to eat food tomorrow. You’re going to go to the grocery. You’re going to order Uber Eats. You’re going to go out to eat. So the time to do it is right now.

And it just starts with you saying, okay, I’m ready for this. It doesn’t have to be perfect either. I like to make this analogy of. Let’s say you work out five days a week and you take off two days a week. Well, your endurance is going to get better. You’re going to build some muscle. You’re going to, you know, build momentum, get in shape.

But if you flip it around, you only work out two days a week and you take off five. Well, you’re probably never going to get faster. You’re probably not going to build muscle. Each workout is going to be as hard as the first. And so clean eating is the same way. If you are clean eating like 80%, then those times you go to your in laws, you’re at a work event, you’re at a function, you’re somewhere where you’re traveling, you can’t control the food, you might feel a little funky, your symptoms may come back, but you won’t lose your progress, you can get back on.

And you’ll want to, that’s the most important thing you’re going to want to, because then you’re going to realize even more so when you start feeling so good, just like Wendy, who didn’t, didn’t even realize it right until she took it out. And I think a lot of people don’t even realize how great they can feel until they start cleaning up what they’re eating.

So for sure. But for anyone listening, if you want to know three common foods that are killing your energy and ruining your day, you can head on over to free morning guide. com. That’ll show you three foods that are killing your energy and ruining your day. You can also follow me on Instagram at wake up and read the labels.

Love this and I definitely tell you guys you’ve got to follow her because you’re going to want to see everything that she is sharing. So much great information. I love your Instagram. It’s where I have learned so much. And then like I said before, I’ve taken your course. I love all your swaps. It, it saves.

I mean, it took you so much. Time to do that. I can’t even imagine. So it’s well worth the money because I don’t have to go do that. And you continue to do that. And I just, I thank you. I thank you for bringing this to the attention to everyone and I thank you so much, Jen, for being here on the podcast with me today.

Of course. I’m so glad you reached out. I appreciate you, and hopefully together our conversation can help some people. Yes, that sounds great. Well, have a great day.

About the Host

I too, struggled in my late 40s when I hit peri-menopause! I was experiencing all those not-so-fun physical changes in my body, as well as mental and emotional fatigue. What worked for me before was not working anymore. 

And the mainstream wellness advice I was following was not for women my age but for women years younger. I also realized very quickly that there is no one formula that works for all women. We are all different and need a customized approach. This aha moment was the first step to my transformation…

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