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Topics:
1. Diane’s Updates [4:52]
2. Liz’s Updates [11:33]
3. Liz’s apology [17:23]
4. Why many people are more successful eating with rules or a “yes/no” list (or: Neuroscience, the president, and choices) [18:14]
5. Feed suggestions for raising little piggies[33:05]
6. How salt makes your food taste better [38:55]
7. Should I stop washing my hands with soap? [46:25]
8. Problems with post-workout fatigue [52:42]
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Liz Wolfe: Hey everyone! Welcome to Balanced Bites podcast episode 134. Why are you making me laugh so much, Diane?
Diane Sanfilippo: 134. What?
Liz Wolfe: I know, that’s weird. You know how, in elementary school; oh my gosh, elementary school, really? How in high school, you gauge your relationships by like, “we’ve been together for 8 months,” and that’s like super long?
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: We’ve been together for 134 podcasts. And that’s like, super long.
Diane Sanfilippo: That is basically; we can measure our friendship in podcasts.
Liz Wolfe: Yes, we can.
Diane Sanfilippo: Because I basically just forced you to be my friend, initially.
Liz Wolfe: Your sidekick.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Like Barney sidecar. You’re the motorcycle and I’m the sidecar.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} I love those little sidecars.
Liz Wolfe: I do too. Alright, sponsors. Pete’s Paleo, bringing fine dining to your cave. If you’d like to make eating paleo a little easier on yourself, definitely check out Pete’s meal plans. They are great for those nights when you’re on the run, out of time, and you need real food fast. Pete’s Paleo is very generously offering our listeners a free pound of bacon with the purchase of any meal plan. The code to enter is BBLOVESBACON at petespaleo.com. That will take one cent off your order, but they will throw in your bacon. Chameleon Cold-Brew, available at lots of grocery stores nationwide. Check out their website for a store locator. Or, you can do as we do and order it online. CCB is organic, fair trade, smooth, and rich. We love it iced; I’m actually not drinking my iced coffee today. But, yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: I had a giant glass.
Liz Wolfe: Shocking.
Diane Sanfilippo: With coconut milk. And hashtagged it, coffee with Ben.
Liz Wolfe: Of course you did. For our listeners, enter the code BALANCEDBITES at checkout at chameleoncoldbrew.com to save a whole bunch off your order; it will easily cover shipping, so you don’t have to leave the house. Thank goodness. If you have HBO on demand, and you haven’t watched Girls, or Game of Thrones, or True Detective yet, stay home, just order this stuff online.
Diane Sanfilippo: Well, we have a new podcast sponsor, as well, which I’m really excited about. They’ve actually been kind of waiting in the wings, and wanting to sponsor the podcast for a while. They’re big fans of ours and of the show. It’s Rickaroons . If you haven’t heard of Rickaroons, I believe they are one of the paleo friendly approved macaroon products out there. When they first sent me some to try, quite a while ago, I don’t know what was going on, I was probably on a 21-Day Sugar Detox at the time, and I was like, ok, I can’t try these right now. And so they kind of sat there in my office for a while. And then one day, I looked at the box and I was like, let me try these. I was amazed! I loved them. A lot of different flavors; let me see if I can tell you guys some of the flavors. Chocolate Blonde; so it’s like a white macaroon with chocolate chips. They have a double dark chocolate, they have a dark chocolate espresso. They have a superfood one. All different flavors, so you can check them out at http://www.rickaroons.com/. I’m not sure what our promotional code is yet because they’re new, and I have to speak to them. We’re recording this episode a little bit ahead of schedule. So, checkout the Balanced Bites website podcast post, and there will definitely be a great discount or offer for you guys, all of our listeners on there. Again, it’s Rickaroons, so it’s like macaroons, but the name Rick. So http://www.rickaroons.com/. And, let’s see if there’s anything else I want to tell you about them. Oh, so they’re 100% organic, vegan, gluten and soy-free, paleo friendly. It’s a family owned company, so definitely check them out. And I’m sure we’ll probably get to know them a little bit like we did with Chef Pete a while ago, so stay tuned for that.
1. Diane’s Updates [4:52]
Liz Wolfe: Very good. So, tell me your updates, Diane?
Diane Sanfilippo: My updates?
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I can’t wait to hear them. Like, we haven’t been talking for an hour and a half, off the air. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Should I talk about the podcast? Yeah, let me talk about this. So, one update I just want to kind of throw out there because, I don’t know why it’s still kind of… I don’t know. I still see reviews on iTunes, or whatever, because I like to check out what folks are saying and, of course, what they’re doing while they’re listening, that some people are just, you know, they’re not into the pre-question and answer part of the podcast. Which, that’s totally fine. I want to just kind of lay down what the expectation should be from this podcast going forward, because 134 episodes in, some things might change from what happened in the very beginning. So, if you’ve been a longtime listener, and we’ve had a little bit more of a straightforward, just a couple of minutes of updates and then Q&A, well, we have more stuff to say now, because maybe when we first started we didn’t have as many projects going on. So, I wanted to keep everybody updated on that because that’s really, when it comes to reaching our fans and followers and readers and all of that, this is one of the most effective mediums that we have. Because unfortunately with things like Facebook, it’s really hard to be able to know if you guys are seeing the information. So we find that this is a really effective way to stay in touch with all of you, and we absolutely value your time, and want to make sure you’re not only getting content in terms of questions and answers, but also getting the best information about where we’re going to be and what’s going on, because the saddest thing in the world is when we post about an event, and then the Monday after the weekend, we see a comment that you didn’t know we were in town. And that’s really heartbreaking, because it’s tough for us to get everywhere. So, stuff like events and all of that, we do want to tell you guys about on the podcast, as we’re going to do in just a moment. But also, I think one of the formatting shifts that we’re going to have here is that, obviously we talk about our sponsors, and usually we have some updates, but we may have topics that we just talk about in general before we get to questions and the reason we do that is we get so many questions that will either come from Facebook or through our email, or maybe they’re submitted to the podcast, and the collection of those ends up being where, out of 100 questions, 5 of them, or 10 of them, may sort of be on the same topic. Or they’re just issues that are coming up that it’s easier to just address the topic as a whole versus one specific question. So, even though we may talk about a topic in general, it’s something that really is answering a lot of people’s questions that are coming in. So I just kind of wanted to throw that out there that Liz and I really, we have stuff that’s coming up all the time that we’re like, you know, we should really talk about this on the podcast. It may just not have one question that is cut and dry, easy to say this was the question, this is our answer. So we’re probably going to continue to address certain topics that way. I know we have one today that we’ll be talking about. I know we’ve done it in the past, but I just wanted to give you guys a heads up that that’s something that you can expect and, as always, we put time stamps on every episode. So, checkout the podcast show notes, checkout the blog posts, and if you’re somebody who just wants to get to the very specific listener questions and answers, or you just want to listen to the interviews we’re doing, feel free to just skip ahead to that timestamp marker and totally be our guest in that way. We definitely want to make sure that; somebody said they didn’t want the emails that I was sending anymore, because I never come to the Boston area. And I was like, never? I’ve been there a couple of times, and I’ll probably be there again. And I really want you guys to know when we’re going to be in certain places, and maybe you have friends and family somewhere that you can tell them about it. So, anyway, just kind of wanted to throw that out there because we really love our listeners. We want to give you guys amazing content, but we do want to make sure that you’re staying updated on, not just where we’ll be and what we’re working on, but just stuff that’s on our minds because I think it’s relevant.
Liz Wolfe: I think it is too.
Diane Sanfilippo: Thanks friend.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: So what’s going on over there in tick-land. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Well, I’m actually in the city now.
Diane Sanfilippo: What?
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Well, did you want to give the rest of your updates, and then I’ll launch into my quick ones, and then we’ll kick it back over to our very interesting neuroscience post talk.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} What updates do I have? I’m trying to think about what I want to talk about. I was a business marketing type of conference last week, and it’s actually spurred a little bit of the stuff we’re going to talk about here in a minute. But, really exciting and motivational. You know, I’ve been on a little bit of a low for a couple of months. You know, we had the tour in Jan, and have had some other events since then, but after working on releasing a couple of books at a time, I just had this point where I really needed to kind of take some time, and watch Real Housewives and do what I consider to be rest, and actually learned a lot about myself that for me rest doesn’t’ look like what I thought it should look like, and that resting by not getting things done and trying to relax about timelines and maybe watching television, I know it sounds weird, but it actually didn’t make me feel any more rested, it made me feel a little bit more stressed. So I’m, you know, I think it’s important to learn how we all handle not only food choices, but lifestyle and stress management choices. So that was really interesting to me, to kind of figure out that for me, rest might be traveling a little bit, going somewhere, learning something different that’s not about nutrition. Or just seeing friends, or maybe just changing up my schedule. Anyway, that was kind of one thing. I feel like I talk about this a lot, but it’s because it never gets old to me, and I’m always deeply, deeply appreciative and excited about it, that Practical Paleo is back on the dining New York Times’ list, so it’s a monthly list that comes out, and our friend Danielle Walker is also on the list, so really exciting to see that happen and I just want to thank everybody again, and give you guys a heads up that Practical Paleo is going to be very well restocked in all Costco stores. I know a lot of you love to grab the book there, their prices are amazing, so you can keep an eye out for that. I think that’s pretty much it. You and I are both going to be at PaleoFx coming up in Austin. And the talk that I/We are doing, I think I’m going to rope you into that {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, totally. I’m like, Liz, come do this! Reintroducing non-paleo foods. So, it’s a short talk, 20 minutes, and I think 5 or 10 minutes of Q&A, but it should be fun to just kind of review that stuff with folks. And that’s it.
2. Liz’s Updates [11:33]
Liz Wolfe: So I announced in the last podcast, or I guess, yeah the last podcast, the one from April 3 with Stefani Ruper about her book Sexy by Nature, I announced that I would be at PaleoFx for just one full day, so that would be Friday. I will be signing books on Friday, and jumping on the talk with Diane in the morning on Saturday, but then I gots to go. I have to come back to the farmstead and do some military stuff with my husband, so that’s the plan. I’ll be there. So if you see me, come say hi, because I’m super awkward in person, and I’m just not good with introductions. So don’t feel weird; stare at me and then come on closer, and come on closer.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: And then, you know, give me a little pat on the butt, or something like that. Ok.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Everyone’s going to be touching your butt now, Liz.
Liz Wolfe: Oh my god.
Diane Sanfilippo: Do you realize what just happened?
Liz Wolfe: I’m going to have wear like 6 pairs of spanx just to keep it one place.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Hilarious.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Oh my goodness. Didn’t we say we’re not going to edit this post?
Diane Sanfilippo: We never edit our podcasts, so.
Liz Wolfe: Never. It’s always just organic, whatever comes out goes up. Ok, so this is something. I might; I have not fully figured this out yet, but I have a tentative might have a few one or two basic consult client openings. I have not had my client queue open for a really long time. I have a couple of different tiers of consults that I do, and this is really the most basic tier consult for folks that are really just getting started, that need questions, that need to bounce some ideas, and stuff like that, needs some guidance on getting started and keeping going on a more nutrient dense diet, maybe needs some healing and some help. So, the way to hear about whether or not this is actually going to happen is to be on my newsletter list. You can subscribe/unsubscribe at will, no big deal. I’ll know for sure within the next couple of weeks what’s going on, but join my email Monday newsletter list . Every once in a while, I send something out not on Monday, but not usually. But I will tell folks there, because if I do it on Facebook, people are going to miss it, etc. So, sign up for the newsletter list. You can do that at Realfoodliz.com. And all of this is thanks to a new, I guess, the new member of my team, the Real Food Liz team, I just finally bit the bullet and brought on an assistant, and it has completely changed my entire life. We’re calling it the Amy effect.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} You’re already a way better person.
Liz Wolfe: I am a way better person! She’s just, insanely amazing, organization, blocks out times of day. Like, no, you can’t move that around Liz, you’re just doing that because… you just need to focus on this right now, and breaking things up. I mean, A to Z, she’s doing everything and it’s incredible because, you now, for a really long time, I was like, I’m not going to get an assistant. This is just me, this is my passion project, and then finally realized that 5 years ago it was a passion project and now it’s a business and now I really do have the opportunity to speak to people, and this platform is one that I think I’m really fortunate to have, so anyway. I finally bit the bullet and did it, and it’s been incredible, and now I have the opportunity to actually generate content instead of just trying to keep up with the day to day.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: So it’s been incredible.
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s like you owe it to your readers, and fans, and followers to do the thing that will help you be more effective at what you’re best at.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, I think so.
Diane Sanfilippo: And sometimes it’s hard to make that leap.
Liz Wolfe: Well, it was hard for me to even own the fact that this is something that maybe I am good at.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: And, you know, not apologize for it, which is…
Diane Sanfilippo: And it’s a business.
Liz Wolfe: It is. Yeah. And I’m treating it that way, finally. But, this is so interesting because off the air, Diane, you and I were talking a little bit about this but, what this has made me realize. For the longest time, I resisted this idea of having someone take the organizational stuff, the task stuff, the do this, don’t do that type stuff off my plate. Because I really thought that was, I don’t know, what’s the word… it’s like icing. It’s frosting. Why do we need to do that, there’s no justification for that. But there absolutely is, and it’s enabled me to get a clear understanding of the direction that I want to go, and what I want to do with Skintervention, and what I want to do with Good Food for Bad Cooks, and all of this stuff. So, you’re going to talk about this in a minute, but what this made me think about was another thing I might have been wrong, or at least unclear about, in the way I’ve been presenting my opinions on, say, 30-day challenges. So, I think that I have not necessarily been wrong about 30-day challenges being ineffectual for certain people. Actually, no, I was wrong about that. I don’t think it’s wrong to not want people to just sit in 30-day challenge land and never learn another thing, and only live by this set of “yes/no” rules, and not knowing why. But what I’m realizing now, is that sometimes we do need to take some of the agony off our plates for a while.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.
3. Liz’s apology [17:23]
Liz Wolfe: So we can get some true direction and move forward. So I think what I need to do is say now that I apologize
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: For being a little bit one-sided about this idea of challenges and short-term, change your diet, yes/no list type of thing, and say that I’m understanding now that there’s a difference between dogma and blind rigidity, and just doing something because somebody tells you to do it versus giving trust to a program that has been proven to work as you progressively learn why you’re doing what you’re doing, freeing up mind space for continuing to evolve, and move towards self-knowledge of what works using that as a tool.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yes.
Liz Wolfe: So, that’s where I am now, and now you’re going to talk a little bit about this.
4. Neuroscience, the president, and choices [18:14]
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, I’ll talk about this in a few terms. So, this is something Liz and I kind of jumped on, and we chit chat a bit before we start recording. After the conference that I went to; Liz and I share this, I don’t know if it’s an issue of being an entrepreneur and a creative person who has lots of ideas where you realize at some point that somebody else telling you what to do; now, of course, as an entrepreneur, you want to make your own schedule, in a lot of ways, right? And I mean that in terms of, you need a day off because it’s your family time, or whatever? It’s the most amazing thing to not to have to answer to anyone else or whatever. That’s the freedom that we give ourselves by working as hard as we do the rest of the time. But, I learned something about the science of why actually having structure and having rules can be empowering and liberating. So, there’s a couple of things going on here. One of the things I learned, and this is a little bit of an anecdotal story about the president, and I’m sure this applies to many presidents or other people who have to make a lot of, sort of important decisions, and this has nothing to do with your politics or whether or not you like President Obama, it’s irrelevant to me. But, apparently a reporter or somebody followed him around one day and saw what his day was like, and discovered that he does not pick his clothes, he does not pick what he eats. Because, as you can imagine, somebody in that type of position has a lot of big important decisions to make. Again, regardless of your politics.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} You can probably understand that choosing what pants you’re putting on, what that does to your prefrontal cortex. So, in your brain, the part that is responsible for impulsive decision making, the small short-term decisions that we make every day. The more we tax that part of the brain, the less capacity we have for actually thinking and making important decisions. And so, one of the things that really clicked for me, because right now what I’m doing, and I’ve done this before, is a specific type of low-carb, sort of like a 21-Day Sugar Detox but it’s actually a little bit more rigid than that, it’s a low-carb paleo approach. And, I do this for 5 or 6 days of the week, and one day I kind of eat whatever within what I normally eat. And it was really interesting, because at this conference, I learned about this whole effect of what’s happening with the prefrontal cortex, and I was looking at why I feel less stressed about food while I have this program in place. I’m like, here’s what I’m doing right now. Because what it does for me is it takes away so much of the decision making, and I can look at what I’m doing and be like, well, here’s what I eat right now. And it’s just what I do. And I’m sure a lot of people, you’ve probably known fitness competitors or bodybuilders who, when you say, well isn’t that so rigid, and how do you even like eating that way? Because they have really strict eating plans. And most of them will tell you they don’t mind it at all. And when you discover that this is real neuroscience, that for a lot of us. Sorry, there are a lot of trucks driving by. For a lot of us, it actually is less stressful. It’s easier. We feel more relaxed when we don’t have those decisions to make. And I’ve talked about this before with clients who’ve come to me eating 7-9 times a day, because their blood sugar is so disregulated, and I ask them, is that fun for you, or is that stressful? And they say, it’s stressful. And this is exactly why. Because every time we need to approach a new decision, we’re using up our brain power. And so if we can automate the process of what we’re eating, it becomes easier and less taxing. Now, the thing that Liz and I totally agree on is that while there’s a time and a place for what I would call a yes/no list or these rigid sets of rules, which is what I’m doing right now, it’s very rigid during the week, that can be extremely liberating. I feel confident doing that, because I understand the why and the how of it. I understand the context for it. I understand the food that I’m eating, and I’m not choosing, you know, more protein and fat blindly just because somebody said to do it. Now, I think at first what happens, obviously with a program like 21-Day Sugar Detox, I’ve written the program, I’m, to whatever level, an expert on the way that this stuff is going to work in your body. Based on my experience personally, based on my clinical experience, based on my experience with literally 10s of thousands of people running through this program, so at some point, you have to say, I’m going to trust that this will work. Because there’s something that I’m not doing right. Anybody that comes to the program, there’s a goal that they have that they’re not reaching on they’re own. So they’re going to trust me to tell them, here’s what’s going to work if you do it. It’s a proven program; here’s what I’ve outlined for you. I’m going to take the stress off of you from having to think about what to do, and I’m going to tell you, here’s what you eat, here’s what you don’t eat; go ahead. And what that really does, and I realize this happens with meal plans too, because I’m like, ugh, don’t give me a meal plan, that’s stressful for me to tell me this time this day this is what you have to do, but I realized what is not stressful for me is to have a pretty confined structure of these are foods you are eating right now, these are foods that you are not eating right now. And guess what? We’ve actually already done that when we start looking at Twinkies at not being food. Nobody told us, point blank, you don’t drink diet coke and you don’t eat Twinkies. But we learned along the way, and now that’s actually a pre-program automated decision; that’s our own yes/no list, right? There’s so many foods out there that we’ve already decided are no foods. So I think sometimes it gets dicey when we’re in this paleosphere and there’s some foods that maybe it is real food. Like, quinoa is a real food. I’m not going to argue that that’s not like a highly processed, horrible killing people kind of thing. I do think that maybe there’s a time and a place to not eat it, or consider including it. That’s something for each person to figure out. But I think when you’re trying to learn what works for you, having a proven plan, having something that removes the stress of those impulsive, prefrontal cortex decisions every day is extremely powerful. And that was something that I kind of learned a little bit more. I also have a really, really good friend of mine who is a neuroscientist. And you know, we can read studies on all kinds of things, so I was like, you know, I’m just going to ask her over lunch. I was like, hey, is this legitimate? And she even said to me, she’s a fellow crossfitter, she lifts heavy. She’s gone through different cycles of different nutrition plans, and she’s like, absolutely. That’s real science, and she also does it herself. She will put her food on automatic a lot of times, because we’ve got bigger decisions to make. So I think whether it’s imposed by someone else or someone else’s program, or eventually self-imposed, we all do this to some degree. So, I think just acknowledging and observing where we are on that spectrum, whether it’s imposed from the outside, and then we learn more about it, and then it becomes self-imposed, and it’s not in a rigid “I can’t” or complaining about it way, it just becomes automatic. I just don’t drink beer. I never liked it, and then I learned more about why it’s not good for me, and it’s automatic for me. It’s not something I have to constantly make a decision about every time I’m faced with it. I think it’s really interesting just to learn that there’s a power to it, initially. I think there’s a great rationale for the deeper understanding of the why, and then there’s integrating both. So, I think you and I have talked about both sides of those things for a while, but this kind of just gives it a little more grounding.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I definitely acknowledge that I didn’t see the whole picture at the beginning {laughs} at the beginning, as of yesterday, but it’s funny. It’s just so funny that hiring myself an assistant has done this for me. But like these programs that I feel like I identified previously as being overly rigid without reason, I’ve totally thrown my trust to Amy, to the “Amy effect”
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: And I’m doing things her way, and it’s working. You’ve heard how excited I am the last couple of days. And we’re going to evolve together, you know?
Diane Sanfilippo: Right.
Liz Wolfe: And at some point, I will be more self-determinate, and our work will go more quickly, and will evolve and move forward into new projects together thanks to that baseline experience. And the key is, you know, we’re not going to live in this beginning space forever. We’ll move forward, we’ll adapt, we’ll keep learning, having brought these tools into our experience. And I completely get that now. It’s just really cool to hear that there’s this science behind it.
Diane Sanfilippo: It was also cool for me to hear that there’s science behind why I put the same sweatpants on every single day {laughs} I was like, well I’m just taking one more decision off my plate, yay me, patting myself on the back as I sit here in the sweatshirt I’ve worn for the last 3 days. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Why, because the science of not wanting to do laundry?
Diane Sanfilippo: Obviously.
Liz Wolfe: Obviously.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m not making those decisions every day.
Liz Wolfe: Mmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: You know, I pick up the pants that are sitting closest to me that seem like they’re going to work, and I try not to think about it too much. I just think that’s interesting. I think for all of our listeners who are going back and forth between a challenge or not, and I think you and I have consistently taught in our seminars, and on this podcast, that we want you to understand the why. Because I think we’ve both seen too much of the dogma/blind rigidity following.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: “because so-and-so said so” I don’t want somebody to, for years and years, eat this not that because I said so. Maybe that’s why they did it at first, but I really truly want them to understand why it works in their body, why it works in general, and let that be something that guides them, and at the end of the day, that it works for them, whatever their goal is, is what should be the driving force. So, even for me, with what I’m doing right now, this kind of comes back to a bigger topic that I don’t know that we have as much time to get into today, but we’re going to talk. I’m also on a panel at PaleoFx about ancestral health for women, and how that may or may not be different from the approach we take men. But this was a big one for me, that when I decided about 2-2.5 weeks ago, to change what I was eating… I know what to eat. {laughs} Right? I understand what I’m eating and what I’m doing. I’m at the point where I wasn’t making those decisions in the prefrontal cortex anymore. It was happening on automatic, just going. But guess what? There comes a point, sometimes, where the goal we have with what we’re eating and how we’re behaving changes, and if we think that keeping that part of our lives on automatic and expecting a change to happen is going to work, it’s not. So, if I wanted to keep going the way I was going completely, just continuing to eat the same foods, but I wanted to do something different for my body. I wanted to shift things around a little bit. See how my energy could feel. See how my workouts would feel. See how my body composition would respond. I had to understand enough to know that I had to put some rules into place and really follow them, because based on what works, I have to really do that. I can’t just go on automatic anymore. Now I have to shift to a different automatic. If that makes sense.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s kind of a little out there, but you know, just knowing what to eat doesn’t always make you do what’s right for the goal that you have at the time. That’s kind of big and out there, but.
Liz Wolfe: At some point, I’m going to have to publish my old school diet-obsessed charts that I made
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: That charted out every single calorie, carb, gram of protein, gram of saturated fat, what time I ate them, how many calories I burned. That is a very different thing. That’s rigidity.
Diane Sanfilippo: Well, but here’s the thing. That’s rigid, but guess what? For as long as we’ve done this podcast, I’ve said; sometimes people need that. They need to see what they’re doing, because it helps them have a better understanding. So when I do what I’m doing now, which is really, really low carb most of the time, a lot of the days I do enter it into FitDay. Does that mean I don’t understand deeper? No. It just means that I love food so much
Liz Wolfe: {Laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: That I will eat more than I need to eat, because I just love food. And some people under-eat because they don’t realize that they need more, and some people overeat because it’s there and it seems like not a big deal. But if I have a goal, I have to be more aware of what’s going on. It’s complex, I think. I don’t know.
Liz Wolfe: Well what I was doing then, was obsessively trying to cut calories
Diane Sanfilippo: Right.
Liz Wolfe: To many, many volumes of calories below my basal metabolic rate by being really obsessive, and not knowing why.
Diane Sanfilippo: Right.
Liz Wolfe: And that, I think, is that… that’s different, you know.
Diane Sanfilippo: That drives a negative response.
Liz Wolfe: Yes, exactly.
Diane Sanfilippo: Versus this.
Liz Wolfe: Mindset.
Diane Sanfilippo: Because then you’re thinking about it all the time, versus for me, if I spend 5 minutes and I enter what I ate, it literally, as soon as I finish doing that, a freedom comes to my brain. Like, ok, great. That’s what you ate, that’s what you’re eating next. Decisions are made, no more thinking about it. It’s really interesting.
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Diane Sanfilippo: I honestly feel like it’s helping me stay focused and be more productive right now, too. So, we all need that.
Liz Wolfe: Just to be clear, I don’t do that. I mean, you know, I’m not completely reversing every behavior and jumping on some other train here. I’m just identifying where I think I was mistaken, but just for what it’s worth, that’s not something I need. I’m good.
Diane Sanfilippo: And I think that’s why we’ve had those different perspectives, you know?
Liz Wolfe: Right. Agreed.
Diane Sanfilippo: Because I don’t need it, in a lot of ways, but I’ve found it’s really interesting when it becomes effective and then I learn what happens. So, for you what just happened is somebody is making different decisions for you now.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: That’s freeing up your space to be more productive in other things.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: So that’s what’s happening. It’s the same thing, just in a different area of decision making. Like a different topic of making decisions. Like, when to feed the animals or not.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} When to feed.
Diane Sanfilippo: Or workout or not. I’m sure they dictate when they get fed. Which leads us to our next topic. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. The question.
Diane Sanfilippo: We’ve officially done that topic.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, I think we’ve done it.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
5. Feeding little piggies[33:05]
Liz Wolfe: Alright, so here’s the first question. Interesting segue. Feeding little piggies. No, really. Andrea asks, “I have a homesteading question for Liz. I’m planning on getting two piglets to raise for meat in a couple of weeks. I’d love to pasture them, but we don’t have the resources yet. As far as supplemental feed, do you think “GMO free” or “soy free” should be a priority, or “organic”? Not really sure the implications of feeding them organic versus non-GMO and what the difference is.” So, I’m not an expert on this topic. I’m trying really hard to learn as much as I can as I go, but we have two large black hogs, and we chose that breed because they are a heritage or an ancestral breed that’s endangered, and we chose it for certain characteristics, the fact that there’s a person in our state that’s actually raising them and can help us understand how they do in the climate and with the resources we have. So we chose our pigs based on how well we felt they would do with the resources we have. So, I’m sure Andrea has done this, and has chosen the pigs she wants for a reason, and they happen to do well on one thing or another. But there was actually, really recently, an email that came out from a gal that I follow, and now I can’t remember what her name is, but it was basically about choosing a heritage breed. It was a really good email; I’ll have to see if I can dig that up. So, as far as supplemental feed. I was answering someone’s question about whether or not I give our goats grain, especially during the winter. I really do think, and maybe it’s different with pigs, I don’t know, we haven’t really gotten that far yet. But, with the goats, we do give them a little bit of non-GMO, soy-free, organic grain. Because, number one it keeps them responsive to us, and number two, goats are so extraordinarily stubborn that even though we got them the best hay that we possibly could through the winter, because there is really just not enough forage for them through the winter, we got them the most amazing hay, and they just weren’t interested. And it was becoming a problem. I was really worried that they were becoming malnourished, and you just have to strike that balance, because a lot of times you just can’t make these animals bend to your rules. So, I think there’s a place for a little bit of GMO-free, organic, etc, etc, as long as you’re working towards getting them on an as natural a diet as possible. Now, the thing about pigs is that they are monogastrics. They can handle almost anything. And part of the reason pigs are so fantastic as a homestead animal, as a self-sufficiency animal, is because they will eat absolutely everything, they’re equipped for it, and they want to. Now, I’m not saying they want to eat some soy-based frankenfood or anything like that, but I am saying that you can give your pigs the scraps from your kitchen, I imagine if she’s listening to this show and writing in a question, she probably is on some kind of nutrient dense, high quality diet, and those pigs can eat almost anything and do really well on it, by my understanding. Or most can. So, not only can you do that, but you can also, you know, of course supplement with some GMO-free, soy-free feed, and that’s usually a little bit more expensive. Just for the nitty gritty of this question, I believe that organic is also by law GMO free. But I could be wrong about that. Do you have any idea, Diane?
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s supposed to be.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: But, I’m not sure if anything has changed there, or how closely that can really, really be monitored. But it’s supposed to be.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Well, just find…here’s what we did. For the goats, in particular. We found, where we actually got the goats from, which was local, we asked them where they were getting their feed from. Because they’re very clean, non-GMO, soy-free, blah, blah, blah, and we basically started using that same stuff. So, do that. Just ask somebody local where they get their feed from, because you’ll call around to feed stores, and a lot of them are like, huh? If you’re in the same state as I am, anyway, that’s definitely going to be the case. This is an agricultural area. But I think, usually, the good stuff will be both GMO-free, soy-free. Oh, actually no, I’m wrong about that. Because we got some supplemental chicken feed, and my husband went and picked it up, and he was like this is GMO-free and it’s organic, and blah, blah, blah, and I checked the ingredients and it did have soy in it. So that kind of bugged me. So you do need to ask the questions, but I think for the most part you’ll see GMO-free and soy-free together, but I could be wrong. But they could be wrong.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Ok. That’s that.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, boy.
Liz Wolfe: Alright. Next up.
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s like, anybody should know that in order to fully comprehend this podcast, watching the movie Mean Girls at least 4 times is a prerequisite.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: Otherwise, inevitably we will say things and sound completely ridiculous until you’ve seen it.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Pretty much. I hated that movie the first time I saw it.
Diane Sanfilippo: Uh, I felt that way about Something about Mary and Billy Madison.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I felt that way about Napoleon Dynamite.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, I think that some of the slightly mean humor is not funny when you first see it.
6. Himalayan Salt [38:55]
Liz Wolfe: Right. So, this next question is one, we kind of debated whether we had answered it already, and sometimes we see these questions come through and we’ve read them, but we haven’t answered them, but they sound familiar, but anyway. It’s one that comes up quite a bit, so we’re going to answer it. {laughs} {accented} Again, or for the first time.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: That’s also a movie quote, but you don’t know where it’s from.
Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t.
Liz Wolfe: Shawn and Suzanne will know.
Diane Sanfilippo: Like a Monty Python thing. I don’t know.
Liz Wolfe: Its from the Birdcage.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh. I’ve seen that! Just not enough times, obviously.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, so good. Alright, this question is from Laura. “I’ve been hearing a lot about Himalayan salt. Do you have any thoughts on this. Is this something I should be incorporating into my diet, and what are the benefits of this type of salt?” Diane, did you get the Himalayan salt lamp? Or was that Hayley?
Diane Sanfilippo: I didn’t. Hayley and a bunch of other folks have gotten them. Did you get one?
Liz Wolfe: No.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, no. I don’t know. But it seems like it’s a calming thing.
Liz Wolfe: I have an old lava lamp, is that the same thing?
Diane Sanfilippo: I think so.
Liz Wolfe: Ok.
Diane Sanfilippo: Obviously.
Liz Wolfe: I’ll bring that out.
Diane Sanfilippo: Especially if you break it and ooze whatever was in there all around.
Liz Wolfe: Eww.
Diane Sanfilippo: Eww gross. {laughs} Lava lamp. I could use that, kind of before bed. That would be helpful. I don’t think I would like that during the day, because I don’t want to calm down during the day. I want to get some stuff done and be amped up. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah, you do.
Diane Sanfilippo: Because I need to be amped up, obviously.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, you need more rainbows spewing out of your brain waves.
Diane Sanfilippo: So, we’ve talked about salt I think a bunch, and she’s asking about the Himalayan salt. I think this can apply to a lot of different types of salt that are naturally occurring. And, interestingly enough, that we would get this one now. I listened to a podcast, like how stuff works or something like that?
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: And it was, how salt works. It was just all about salt. So, I just listened to that on a flight recently, so maybe recommend listening to that one. But thing about salt and a paleo diet is that when you eliminate processed foods, you get rid of pretty much most of the sodium from your diet. Sodium is not a bad thing, and neither are the complement of minerals that we’re getting from salt. So, we do want to get some sodium in our diet that’s naturally occurring in things like Himalayan salt or sea salt or real salt. Any or all of those, and some mix of them is good. And they’re all going to have different mineral content and balances of different minerals, and pretty much it’s trace minerals. It’s not like a huge dose of magnesium, for example. But, they’ll have some minerals that will help with some electrolyte balance, as well. When I tell people about how to incorporate it into your diet, is you’re going to be cooking most of your food from home, I would presume, because once people go paleo, they’re usually cooking one or two meals, or have them cooked ahead of time at home. So, salting your food while you cook is just the best natural way to do it. And doing that to taste, and that can vary very highly because somebody who is dealing with adrenal fatigue might need or want more salt than somebody else. And I think you have to listen to your body on that one. If you are eating food, and you feel like it needs more salt, go for it. Add more salt. When you’re adding it in this way, it’s really different from the sodium that’s added as a preservative to packaged processed foods. So, generally, I don’t have one amount that you should be getting, because it’s really going to vary based on your needs, but I do think that salt is pretty important. I don’t think food that is cooked should really, mostly, exist without salt. One of the things I learned in that podcast is what the salt does, which most of us kind of know this by watching what happens when they salt the ground, for example, if it’s been precipitating and it might be slippery or icy, is that salt is going to extract water from whatever it’s near, so that’s actually how the salt works to make your food taste better, is that it actually pulls some of the water from the food and sort of concentrates the flavor. So, you’ll notice if you were to start sautéing mushrooms, for example, which are very, very loaded with water. If you allow them to sauté at first without some salt, and then you add some salt, it kind of helps the process a little bit because the salt is what’s extracting more water, and that can actually put more water into the pan. It’s just an interesting process to learn what the salt is really doing. But, in general, the benefits are that you are getting trace minerals and some support in electrolyte balance, which a lot of athletes find that if they strip all the salt out of their diet by following a very strict, “the paleo diet” approach, which is a little bit lower in salt, they strip that away, and they’re trying to workout and train and they’re getting muscle cramps, or they’re just fatigued. And so I would tell people to make sure they’re salting their food, and even potentially put a pinch of real salt or sea salt or Himalayan salt into their water that they’re drinking for sports. So that’s totally a good approach, as well. That’s kind of my take on it. As a foodie, cooking just doesn’t happen without salt.
Liz Wolfe: As a non-foodie, I can tell you, yes it does.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Just kidding.
Diane Sanfilippo: Badly?
Liz Wolfe: This is, yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: Well, sometimes when people also say, I made this recipe, and it didn’t taste like it had that much flavor. It’s like, well what you need to do is salt it along the way, which is why most of my recipes will indicate when to add salt and pepper to taste, and usually you can taste it again a minute later after you’re stirring something, but you can’t really just put salt on your food at the end and expect it to taste the same as it would if you had salted it along the way, and it’s because of that water extraction that’s happening along the way. So, I think it’s important to know that adding a real form of salt, this is a non-white, non-processed. It may be white in color, but it’s not a table salt or an iodized salt specifically. I’m just looking at the real salt, and the trace minerals: calcium, potassium, sulfur, magnesium, iron, phosphorus, iodine, there’s some, very small amount, manganese, copper, and zinc. I think the copper content of different salts makes it pink. Interestingly enough.
Liz Wolfe: Mmm. Are you sure it’s not because the salt is eating so much shrimp?
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} So funny.
Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t even; I feel like I’m missing something.
Liz Wolfe: Isn’t that why flamingos are pink, because they eat so much shrimp, they have astaxanthin?
Diane Sanfilippo: I have no idea.
Liz Wolfe: This is when we need a little sound maker, and it can go bum-bum-buuum.
Diane Sanfilippo: Womp-womp.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: Sad trombone. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Sad trombone. I have a whole section on salt in my book, and I think it wraps up with a quote from, oh gosh I can’t remember, somebody that wrote a great book on salt and it was either…
Diane Sanfilippo: See what happens after you write a book? You forget what you put in it.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s like you blacked out after you wrote it.
Liz Wolfe: I did black out. I was expelled from the vortex. I still need to get my bearings, but I think it’s eat as much salt you like, as long as it’s you doing the salting. Which basically means, as long as it’s not a processed food company.
Diane Sanfilippo: it’s like a pickled…
Liz Wolfe: No. Never.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Bitterman maybe, I can’t remember.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok.
7. Washing my hands of soap [46:25]
Liz Wolfe: Ok. Next one. This one is for me. Washing my hands of soap. Amy says, “Hi gals! Liz, I’ve read the Skintervention Guide, and of course, I’ve heard you guys talk about your skincare routines. Not relying so much on soap because it strips the body of its natural oils and moisture. But how do you guys handle hand washing? I love cooking, and especially on weekends, I might be in my kitchen for a few hours dealing with raw meats, grass-fed and local, etc. I find myself washing my hands constantly, and as a result, the skin on my hands suffers. I even recently woke up in the middle of the night because they were so dry and painful. I have a great organic hand salve that I use at night, and when I remember during the day, but when I’m cooking for an extended period of time it doesn’t make sense to constantly stop to put salve on, and then try to hold a knife. Any tips or thoughts on how I can keep my hands as healthy and supple as the rest of my skin? Perhaps I should chill out on all the hand washing with all the cooking, since my foods aren’t as risky as conventional meats and vegetables.” The reason I wanted to answer this is because it sounds like, not like a weird question, but it’s like…I actually think about this all the time. I think about, I strategize how I wash my hands to keep them from getting too …
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Dry, because. I mean, man. Since we’ve moved out to…
Diane Sanfilippo: I think you should move that out of the prefrontal cortex.
Liz Wolfe: Maybe I should.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} I’m just kidding.
Liz Wolfe: But since we moved out to the farm, my hands have just been a disaster. I mean, there’s cuts and bruises all over. So I actually am being more vigilant about keeping certain things out of these cuts, and whatnot, so I’m pretty careful about this. I think that, number one, as I’m cooking, if I’m using a cooking fat, I always just kind of spread it on the tops of my hands. And what I generally do is I actually take a bar of soap and I’ll just wash my palms. So, those seem to have, well, they do have a lot more resistance to dryness just based on the way the skin is there. So, generally, that’s kind of the part that’s getting mucked up anyway as you’re cooking, and that’s the part that you need to be able to grip with. So I’ll just wash and run my palms under the faucet, dry them off, and move on. So I’ll do that a couple of times as I’m ripping apart pieces of raw meat and stuff like that. So, that’s kind of my take on it, but I also tend to rub any kind of cooking fat that I’m using, any extra at all, I’ll rub it into the tops of my hands. So that’s my strategy. Diane, what’s yours?
Diane Sanfilippo: What kind of soap are you using?
Liz Wolfe: Just a regular old Dr. Bronner’s bar soap.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mmm.
Liz Wolfe: I do not use antibacterial soap. It doesn’t do what we think it does. It really doesn’t. And it actually, probably opens the door, especially the ones that contain triclosan, opens the door to the colonizing of bad bacteria more so than anything, so if you’re really worried about battling bacteria rather than just washing it off of your hands or whatever, just get a little probiotic spray from protection and probiotics, I think the website is PIPproducts.com, but you should just Google Protection and Probiotics. They have a little spray, and I’ve used it on the skin of my face, on my back when I was dealing with some acne there, and it’s really helpful. So if you want to just wash with a normal soap, and spray with a little spray of the probiotic spray, or use some kind of alcohol based anti-bacterial if you have to, but don’t use an antibacterial soap with triclosan. That’s just bad news.
Diane Sanfilippo: I wash my hands with Dr. Bronners. Or, I have a kitchen soap that’s some other, natural, it’s got some kind of coconut oil based, I don’t know, activator.
Liz Wolfe: I saw that. I read the ingredients on it.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. Was it ok? I don’t remember.
Liz Wolfe: No. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: Not ok?
Liz Wolfe: It’s ok.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok. Dr. Bronners is pretty much; my mom has scattered random antibacterial soaps in the house.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: And, like she’s going to use them when she comes here, but I have a bar of Dr. Bronners and also liquid Dr. Bronners.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: In most places, and we actually wash the dog with the Dr. Bronners.
Liz Wolfe: Harper.
Diane Sanfilippo: yeah, we wash her with that. We don’t have to wash the cat, because I’m going to remind people that cats are self-cleaning animals.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: Even though my fiancée seems to think that they’re dirtier than dogs. I’m like, really? Your dog is really dirty. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: We don’t have to, I’m on Scott’s side. Sorry.
Diane Sanfilippo: I get the same, totally. I don’t care that they’re dirty, I’m just like, don’t try to make it sound like my cat is dirtier if he’s….
Liz Wolfe: No, Mason is not dirty.
Diane Sanfilippo: Consistently cleaning himself. But I do the same thing where when I wash my hands I pretty much and just try to wash my palms, and then when I moisturize, I only moisturize the back of my hands. So I rub in whatever balm I’m putting on my hands with the backs of my hands.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: And so, I try and keep the oily stuff off my palms and I try to keep the soapy stuff off the back of my hands. And that’s about the size of it.
Liz Wolfe: Sometimes at night, I will actually. I can’t sleep in socks or gloves. I just can’t do it. I prefer to sleep in nothing, I think it’s good to just kind of be in nothing, now and then, but literally, if I will not fall asleep if I have socks on, which has caused problems in the past because sometimes with temperature extremes, I’m so super cold that I feel like I need to put socks on, and I can’t fall asleep. So, feel sorry for me.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: But, if you can sleep with gloves on, you could, spray them with rose water or some kind of; or not rose water, something calming. Maybe tulsi hydrosol, or something like that. And then maybe put some nice thick balm over them, maybe even lanolin or, I’m loving the buffalo gal grass-fed tallow balm, it’s from water buffalo, it’s amazing. I absolutely love it. You put a little of that on, and maybe put some gloves on. Some, I don’t know.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Some kind of gloves that are going to seal in the; what were those borghese gloves?
Diane Sanfilippo: I know. I don’t know, and I do the cooking fat on my hands thing, too.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: You know, cooking, especially with coconut oil. We did that when you were here. We were both like, wipe the extra that you don’t need in the pan. Just wipe it on your hand.
Liz Wolfe: Oh yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
8. Problems with post-workout fatigue [52:42]
Liz Wolfe: I’m all about it. Ok, next up. Help with post workout fatigue. I’m going to say this wrong; Shayline, I think that’s what it is. “Hi Diane and Liz! I have a question about post workout fatigue. I started Crossfit two months ago, and go twice a week at 5:30 a.m. I absolutely love the workouts, and I feel like I’m getting stronger. The problem is, a few hours after working out, I’m mentally and physically fatigued. I feel lightheaded, my muscles are exhausted, and I’m just plain hangr