Fill Up On The Good Stuff!

Welcome to the Grow youw Self podcast. Surprising stories about the food we eat and inspiring conversations about what it really takes to live the whole and happy life we're all craving. My name's Nicole John C. Burke, and I'm the owner of Rooted Garden and gardenary Incorporated and author of the upcoming book Kitchen Garden Revival. Is it obvious I'm kind of obsessed with the kitchen garden. Each week here on the Grow youw Self podcast, you're going to be shocked at the things you'll learn about foods you eat every single day. And you'll feel encouraged to take little steps in your own busy schedule to create a more whole and happy life for yourself. So turn up the volume and let's take a walk, go on a drive, or just hang out in the kitchen garden together. Every time you listen, I promise you'll learn something that will help you grow yourself in a new and exciting way. Sound good? I think so. Now let's dig in. Our current food culture is absurd, obsessed with one word these days. Have you noticed the word is N o no. No fat, no sugar, no gluten, no salt, no dairy, no carbs, no nuts, no meat, no processing, no trans fats, no saturated fats, no hydrogenated fats, no trucked food, no packaged food, no GMOs, no nitrates, no sulfates, no artificial colors, no artificial flavors, no hormones, no. No, no, no and no. That's the word that's in front of nearly every category of our food these days, and I'm a little tired of it. We're all hearing, and have heard for decades, all the things that are a big no no when it comes to eating. But in today's show, I'm proposing a totally new perspective that I learned way back when my toddlers were sitting in high chairs and I was just starting to kitchen garden. I can't wait to share this new perspective on food with you and hopefully break out of the no no's. Let's dig in. Let's kick this episode off with a little bit from the intro to my new book, Kitchen Garden Revival. If you missed it, I tell you all about my new book in episode number two of the Grow youw Self podcast, and I read you more of the preface and the introduction. This is from the preface. I believe beyond appreciating your particular plot of Garden, you're going to soon start thinking of food as a wonderful nothing short of supernatural, not something to avoid, not a calorie to count. After you watch a tiny seed become a huge basket full of delicious Salad or a little plant become a giant bowl of soup. You will not be able to unsee it, and you won't want to. A carrot is about to become a unicorn to you, and it is the very best feeling in the world. Okay, guys, I have to warn you, this is kind of a big deal to me. I'm a little tired of the word no surrounding our food culture. I'm a little tired of showing up to parties and everyone talking about what they can't eat, what they don't eat, what they won't eat, what they aren't eating for 30 days. I'm kind of tired of all this deprivation, all. All this no around our food. I want my body, I want my family, I want my community and my planet to not be saying no so much to food, but instead to be filling up. To be filling their bodies up with good stuff. So in today's episode, I want to introduce you to this concept and see if you might buy in with me and join me on a very different way to view our food. Not something for us to avoid, but something to. To completely fill up on. Fill up on the good stuff. That's the philosophy that has shaped the last decade of my life. It's less about what I'm doing less of and more about what I'm doing more of. And by the way, I have a pretty bad cold, so if I'm sounding a little more, should I say stuffed up, it's not just my attitude, it's my nose. But I'm pushing through and recording this podcast because this is a message I have to get to you. So fill up on the good stuff is an idea of being so completely full of good food, good thoughts, good intentions, good feelings, and good actions that there's really, like, very, very little time for anything less. It's a concept centered around positivity and freedom, not negativity and exclusion. It's a lot less about all those no's and a lot more about kale. Yeah, sorry, had to sneak a garden pun in there, you know? So here is why this matters to me and to you and to the world. The no's that we've put around our food, they're just not working for us. Think about it. For all of our no fats, no glutens, no sugars, no salts, no carbs, no GMOs, no processed foods. Are we, as a culture looking any better for it? Do you see our health improving? Now, let me just start out with a little. What's that word? Like exception. I'M not at all referring to people who have food allergies. So that is a totally different subject matter. And I, for one, is someone who's had food allergies all my life. So I'm not at all harping on people who have gluten intolerance or can't eat nuts because they're super allergic to. That's not what I'm talking about at all. So if you're allergic, just don't even. You don't even have to worry about what I'm saying here. This is for all of us who just put rules around our food because we want to or the culture tells us to, or we feel like we should. So as a whole, all these no's don't seem to be helping us very much. In general, all the reports seem to point to that we're getting less healthy as a culture, not more so. I'm not going to go into all the facts, but in general, I would say that we could generally agree that this no. All these no nos aren't really working for us. Think about it. And I know why. So I studied this theory actually intensely for about eight years during a period of my career. This was a super important period of my career. I call it the toddler and preschooler motherhood portion of my career. This is when I was paid pre much the least I've ever been paid in my whole life, but was working harder than I've ever worked before. I had four children under four and a half, all under the same roof with me every single day. The lessons I learned during this period of time are priceless, and hopefully one day I'll have enough energy to remember them all. But this was perhaps the biggest lesson I learned. Despite the fact that I was actually a pretty much picture perfect mother. As I'm sure you can imagine, I somehow ended up with kids who were, well, you know, a little bit less than perfect. I don't know how that happened. In fact, the minute they could actually move their bodies on their own, it turned out that they were like hell bent on doing all the things that their perfect mother, me, didn't want them to do. They wanted to bite me, make a huge mess, spit out their food, hit their little sister, and even jump out of their crib. Before long, my position as the professional toddler mother, my vocabulary narrowed down to just one word. Can you guess it? No, no, no, no. Don't do that. Nope. And once more, no. No matter what voice I used, what inflection I had, what seriousness or gaze of my eyes I sent to my children. Somehow there was just something innate. And though I could have sworn that they were angels, when they were born, they had a serious aversion to the word no. It was almost like they heard me saying go instead of no. Have you ever experienced this with a child? No matter what I said no to, it was like it gave them more energy to do that very thing again and again and again. The more I said no, the more, the more they could not resist doing that very thing. So if they were putting their hand in the toilet and I said no, they would reach down further. If they were hitting their baby sister and I said no, they would use the other hand and go for another punch. And if they were throwing their food on the floor, well, they do it with even more energy and a bigger mess when I told them to stop it. So with four kids under four and a half, all under my supervision, I was quickly outnumbered and basically tired and exhausted and overwhelmed. And I realized we had a serious communication challenge because every time I said no, they heard go and it just wasn't working. So it took me a few years, but I finally came upon the method to, to get them to actually stop doing some of these things that I really wanted them to stop. So it went like this. Instead of saying no, I would say try this, or hey, look at this. Or what about this? Or do you think you can do this? So instead of telling them no, I instead gave them an alternative to that activity that I really wanted them to quit doing. So it would be like, hey, let's play patty cake with your baby sister instead of shaking her like a maraca. Or oh, I got an idea, let's close the toilet lid and just bang on top of it like a drum instead of sticking our hands deep down in the nasty water. Or ooh, I see the sun and the clouds outside, let's go play out there instead of obsessing over the next door. We can watch. Or hey, let's just hit ourselves in the face instead of hitting our little brother. No, just kidding, I didn't do that last one. But anyway, I learned quickly that turning my kids attention towards something different, a new alternative, a new option, rather than just telling them no, was the key to not pulling my hair out as their mother. Honestly, the no rarely if ever worked when I wanted them to stop some kind of activity or bad behavior. The no just almost always reinforced what they were already doing. So the better solution was to fill their hands and their minds with a let's do this and then under my breath say, and not that. I rarely let them hear the not that part, because as soon as they heard that, I'm sure they go right back to doing the thing I did not want them to do. So this was a solution that helped me survive my first decade as a mom. But this is the thing that I actually discovered as I moved into the professional space and especially into my business of creating and helping people learn to garden. The fact is that all of us, me included, kind of still have a toddler brain when we hear the word no in all areas of our lives. Really? Like, let's try this one, for instance. Put your phone down. Doesn't the very first thought in our mind be like, no way I'm keeping my phone? So the word no in regards to the food that you and I can and can't eat often triggers a more like, go message to us as well. It's like the minute our brain hears that we cannot have sugar, that we cannot have carbs, that we cannot have dairy, all of a sudden, our brains just can't stop thinking about sugar, about carbs, and about dairy. And discovering this reminded me of a moment way back in my own childhood days. So I was in this really fun creative thinking class in elementary school. I have to give props to my amazing teacher. Her name was the coolest Ms. Pickle. Could you imagine that being your name? I mean, she was just bound to be the best elementary school teacher ever. So she led us in this fun exercise, and I want you to do it with me, too, now. Okay? You ready? So close your eyes. Unless you're driving, then please, please, please keep your eyes open and keep driving with your eyes open. Everyone else, though, please close your eyes. Okay, now, whatever you do, whatever you do right now with your eyes closed, do not, you cannot, you will not. You should not think about a panda. Okay, now open your eyes. Now, tell me the truth. Was the very first thought of yours a panda? Did you, like, immediately picture him there with his black and white fur, munching on a bamboo pole? Did you see the round belly and the cute black eyes? And just think, panda, panda, panda, panda, panda. Even though I told you not to. Of course you did, because you had to think of the panda first before you could think that you can't think of a panda, because you literally cannot think of a panda without thinking of a panda. Is it crazy? Yeah. Are you with me? I know this is a lot. Toddlers, Pandas, like, where am I going with this? Okay, stay with me. We are eventually Heading back to our food. I promise. So all this toddler and panda talk actually has a point. When we tell ourselves not to think about a certain drink or a certain food or a certain element in our food, our minds immediately have to focus on that restriction just to keep us in check. We have to think about the panda, to not think about the panda. Which means all that no sugar focus or no carbs focus is going to make you think a whole lot about sugar and carbs. So when we surround our food with the word no, all our minds can do is think about and obsess about all these things that we're supposed to not be thinking about. And then suddenly we want to eat them or just obsess about them or make a big deal about us not eating more than we should. This is just human nature. You can ask my kids. Actually, you can ask me because this has been my story for the decade before I became a mom. So before my career as the professional toddler mother, I started super young with no's around my food in O kind of no. So my first idea came. I think I was about 15 and I could tell my body was changing and I didn't like, I didn't like the way my body was spreading out and getting bigger and heavier. And I decided it was time for a diet. So my first idea, my first no was no solid food. That's always a great one, right? So I figured no solid food for at least one meal a day. And I'm sure I would go back to my tween size. So it was slim fast for me. Do you remember that drink? Is it still around? I don't know. But the idea was don't eat a meal, just drink a sugar dairy drink instead. I'm sure that's going to help. Well, that didn't really change anything. In fact, I'm pretty sure I got a little bit bigger during my slim fast diet. So the next one I tried was the fat free diet. Raise your hand if you remember this whole era when fat was the major, major foe of the diet. So I was super duper into Snackwell's cookies during this time. I loved rolled gold pretzels and frosted flakes when I came in from a date around 10pm oh yeah, that was my snack of choice. But don't worry, it was fat free. No telling how many calories I put on my body around 10 or 11pm every weekend. But it didn't count, right, because it was fat free. Well, as you can imagine, that one didn't go very well either. So by the time I hit, I say, my junior year in high school, I decided to try a new kind of diet. This one was like just don't eat, period. So I was basically just trying to find a way to eat as little as possible. No was the word around almost every kind of food. It didn't matter whether it was fat or sugar, or even just a vegetable or fruit. So my goal each day when I woke up was to eat little to no breakfast, little to no lunch, and get away with skipping as much dinner as possible. This was a super sad period of my life. It lasted until about my sophomore year in college. This was a time when the Atkins diet came into popularity, or at least was the time that I found out about it. So this no was all around carbs and sugar. And my roommate Lauren decided she'd go all in with me. So we would get up every morning and head to our cafeteria and eat tons of eggs and bacon. But don't worry, we never had any fruit because that was a carb and a sugar. We would make sugar free cheesecake and just literally loaded our bodies with meat and eggs. I just kind of like, ugh, I feel gross to even think about that. But don't worry, we had no carbs, so it was all good. By my junior year, I was kind of getting discouraged because all these no's hadn't really changed anything in my body. In fact, when I looked at my body, it was going in the opposite direction I wanted to. So I think it was mid junior year I decided to go mostly vegan. No meat and no dairy. So really changed the way that I ate and simplified it. I did this not at this point as much for my looks, but more for my feelings. Because by this point I was starting to have some gross feelings around my cycle and just things that weren't making me feel comfortable. So I did this for a couple years, and I will say I did feel better during that time, but definitely felt limited socially and personally with all my nose around food at this time. After college, I moved to rural China, where I was often eating with new friends and trying to make friends in a different culture, a culture totally different from mine. And though they actually eat very little meat in China, in the area I was living, they used meat to flavor pretty much all their dishes so there'd be just tiny little pieces of meat mixed into the dishes they created. So I found myself with my rule of no meat, really keeping me from making true friends. And I'm making my new friends in China feel comfortable welcoming me into their home and family. So I dropped the no meat and basically just started eating whatever they told me to. So from the age of 15 to 25, I have to say I probably tried almost every single no in the category of food. But the result was that I basically felt less healthy, less satisfied, less comfortable in my own skin, and definitely completely tortured when it came to making a decision every single day about what to eat. No solid foods, no fat foods, no sugar, no food at all. No carbs, no sweets, no meat, no dairy, no, no, no. I had had literally every restriction put on my diet during that decade. And even though I put all those efforts to say no, I literally felt an obsession with food. I would wake up thinking about food, how I was going to control my eating that particular day, and then I would go to bed that night literally re repenting of how I had failed again. Eaten way too much of things that I knew I shouldn't have. It was just too hard to say no to all those things all day long for so many years. And during those years, my weight was literally all over the place. I mean, you can look at photos of me and some years I'm super, super thin, like way too thin. And other years you can tell I just am carrying too much weight to feel healthy. So it was just a hard, hard decade. So I'd like to say when I turned 26 and I met Jason, my husband now and got married and had babies, that I just was instantly cured of all these food challenges and finally able to overcome my nose. But honestly, the process was a little slower than that. But I will say, over a three to five year period, definitely by the time I was 30, things really shifted for me in terms of food. So I can attribute this change to three things. First, I stopped saying no. So having a husband like Jason, who literally basically doesn't have nose around any parts of his food to share meals with, and then soon to have all these babies and toddlers that wanted to eat like a million times a day, there honestly wasn't room and time to have all the hands off and restrictions. I mean, these people needed to eat and they didn't care about all my rules about no sugar, no fat, no carbs, no, no. They just wanted dinner, please and thank you. Well, they might say thank you, but probably not. So the urgency and responsibility of feeding all these people honestly freed me in a funny way to just eat with them and not worry so much about the rules. Honestly, it's just not too much fun to Eat with someone who's got a list of no's in their diet. So I found myself just sitting down and honestly, just eating whatever it was they were eating too. I filled myself up and then I had to get up and move on because honestly, there was no time to waste. The second reason that I can attribute the change in my perspective on food was that food became fuel for me. So over the first five years of my marriage, I was actually pregnant five times. I miscarried, and then I had my four children super fast, all in a row. My body was literally a machine, nurturing these tiny little humans into babies, nursing them, and then creating food and carrying them. Body was literally like a robot just taking care of all these human beings. So there wasn't time or space to keep, like this long list of everything I could and couldn't eat. I didn't have time to be super specific about what I was putting into my body. I literally needed fuel. Like, I had to gas myself up with every good thing that I could find so that I could keep feeding the children both inside and outside of my body. During this crazy time of my life, I didn't have a lot of time to sit down and feed myself. So when I did, I literally had to make the moments count, find as much good food as fast as possible. And even if it wasn't perfect, who cared? I was hungry. During this time, I really had my eyes open to how amazing our bodies are. I had seen my body as something I was trying to control or fix up until this point. And during this period of my life, my eyes were completely open to the fact that we as human beings have such a gift with our bodies and that we need to take care of them and fuel them up because they've got some work to do. The third reason that I think I really got healed in terms of all my nose around food, is that I also became connected with my food source for probably the first time in my life. So after college, like I said, I lived in China for two years. And this was the first time I saw food grown firsthand. So each month we would travel into the mountains and meet, like, farmers, people who are literally farming the land on the mountainside. This was the first time I was exposed to something like this. And then in our own town, every single day, we'd walk down to the market and we'd buy whatever the farmers had brought into town for that day. So it was always fresh and seasonal food. And you could never get food that wasn't being grown or harvested. Like, literally in that very season. So when the food came down from the mountain that morning on the shoulders of those strong women, it was literally the freshest and most delicious food I'd ever tasted, and I wanted more of it. In fact, I would find myself craving the vegetables and fruits that they had grown each time the seasons rolled around because I'd learned to love them so much. Then, after Jason and I got married, we first lived in Charlottesville, Virginia. And this is where I was introduced to the idea of a kitchen garden. We lived really close to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. And so I got to see the idea of a kitchen garden firsthand. And then there was this great company called Retail Relay, and the whole focus was connecting you with farmers and local growers and then getting those foods to you in a convenient way. It was awesome. And so this time in Charlottesville really started to connect me with the sources of my food. And then finally, when we moved to Nashville, Tennessee, this is when we first started trying our hand at a kitchen garden. So this whole process of starting to see the miracle of food, like I said in my book, to see food as a wonder, something that's growing in the ground from a tiny seed and then become something that nourishes your body, this really woke me up to the fact that I didn't want to have so many restrictions around my food. I wanted to celebrate it and see it as the wonder that it really was. So it did take a few years, but food did eventually become more of a yes for me rather than a no. But it honestly wasn't until my children started making their own food decisions that the clarity of my fill up on the good stuff philosophy really came to be. So as soon as my kids were big enough to sit in the high chair, they suddenly had an opinion. Not just about whether they wanted to hit their sister or, you know, make a mess, but also what they wanted to eat. Lovely, right? So they wanted more of a lot of things, right? They wanted more Cheerios, more Pop Tarts, more cupcakes, more cookies, more chips. Anything that basically we as mothers know that they shouldn't have too much of. They should be eating in moderation, shall we say? They had no desire for more peas and more carrots, and definitely no more tofu. Thank you. I'll have to tell you the story of the tofu on another episode. So, for the most part, you know, I didn't buy a lot of the foods that I'd avoided all those years, so they were mostly out of reach for My children. But of course, there were, you know, vacations or moments when my dad, who loves to give my kids junk food, was around, or just when, you know, they had opportunity eat lots of something that I only wanted them to have a little bit of, like, say, goldfish. You know, that's the classic toddler food, right? So it became clear that as soon as they would try these things that I wanted them to have in moderation, they wanted more of it. Lots more of it. And so you can guess what happened, right? I was back to using that word again, no. And just like with that toilet seat and with them hitting their little sister, the word no or you're all done or no more just made them want and more. Like, we're talking, sneak into the pantry and get some more when mom's not looking kind of more. So it was just about this time that our garden was overflowing in Nashville, and then later in Houston. The gardens were literally packed with so much goodness, like tons of lettuces and kales and radishes and carrots and peas and beans. And I was so tired of saying things like, only five more chips, only four more crackers, just three chocolate chips, and then you're to going. So I tell my kids, you know, deep down, even though I look like an adult, I'm actually just a kid at heart, right? And I want to have fun, too. So it's a super bummer to constantly be telling my kids, no, no, and just limit yourself to five, please. So I decided to take this fill up on the good stuff philosophy and use it on them, too. I started to say stuff like this, you know what? There's a ton of lettuce in the garden. You can eat every last bit of it you want to. There's no limit to how much you can have of it. Or, you know what? There's tons of kale out there in the garden. Go pick a bunch and we'll make kale chips, and you can eat them until you are so full you're going to explode. There's some carrots out there to pick today, and you can eat as many of those as you want to. Of course, my kids never took me up on it. I mean, maybe the kale chips, but that was about the extent of it. But it did feel so much better as a mom to tell them there were some things. There are actually some things in the world that they could have without stopping, that they could enjoy without moderation, things they could have as much as they wanted. And I started using this Shift when they asked for more things like more dessert, more chips, more sweets, whatever. So I would tell them, okay, yeah, you can have some more chips, but here's what you have to do first. Eat some celery sticks. Then you can have the chips. Yep, you can have some dessert, but eat an orange first. Okay? And for sure, you can have a little bit of soda. But first, I want you to drink an entire glass of water. This was when my amazing line really came to fruition. So I would say it every time. Okay, you can have it. But first, I want you to fill up on the good stuff. The kids know my line by heart now, even complete with their eye rolls. So when I direct them to water from the fridge or some more apple slices, they mouth it right along with me. I know mom fill up on the good stuff. And I'm hoping that maybe might start saying this with me, too. No eye rolls included. If you think about it, food restrictions have divided us as humans in so many ways for so many generations. Food restrictions are like that line in the sand that says, sorry, I can't hang out with you, can't eat with you, can't go to that party with you, because I don't eat those things or I don't drink those things. This became so evident to me, actually, when I became a mom and signed up for potlucks or parties or joint meals with moms of toddlers and elementary school kids. Oh, my gosh, these moms have all these rules for their kids foods. Like, seriously, it is exhausting to try to make a food that pleases all the picky moms in the world. And the focus on the no with all of our food, it doesn't just divide us from one another. It also creates a bit of a torture chamber inside of our own bodies. Like what I was telling you happened to me during that decade of when I was telling my no for all these different kinds of foods. So we wake up hungry, like it's natural, and our bodies have all these natural cravings. But everywhere we turn when we're using no around all these parts of our food, all we can see are the things we can't have. We're constantly thinking of the panda when we shouldn't be thinking of the panda, right? So our whole day, instead of a place and a time where we're experiencing life to the fullest and celebrating all that the world has brought us, or just experiencing one big resistance where we're trying to not eat that one thing or drink that one thing, we're Trying we know we should avoid. So I want to propose a new way of looking at food. Less about restrictions and more about indulgence. I really want to take this idea of turning towards something like I did with my toddlers, rather than turning us all away from something and apply it to what we eat. I want propose to you a new way of thinking about your food. And really all good things in the world for that matter. Less no and more yes. What if instead of thinking of all the things we won't eat, we can't eat, we don't eat or we shouldn't eat, we just think of the things we can't wait to eat? We should definitely eat. We will eat. Let's not brag or be sad or just make a big deal about all these things we're avoiding. That's just negative talk, right? Let's talk about what we're indulging in. And when it comes to our girls, our daughters, and our sons too, let's avoid talking about what to avoid to stay thin. Let's avoid talking about telling them the things they should not eat and instead focus on telling them what they could fill up on so they will feel full in the very best way. And let's not compare ourselves as moms. I would really love this. Let's not compare whether we tell our kids they can drink sodas or not, or have sugar or not, or eat processed foods or not. Instead, let's encourage each other by sharing the delicious finds that we got from the farmer's market or the huge harvest we're pulling from our gardens, or just sharing more photos of juice dropping down our chins from that strawberry we just harvested. It's time that we say a lot less no in regards to our food and a lot less more. Go. Go. Fill up on all that's growing locally. Eat all you can that's in season right now, and fill up on every last harvest from your garden. Get as full as you possibly can on all that good stuff. And then if you're still hungry, go ahead and have those carbs, eat that dessert, drink that wine, have some sugar, but wait to reach for those things until you're as full as you possibly can be on the good stuff. What do you guys think of this philosophy? This has saved me so many times, and when I'm in my right mind as a mother, it makes me a much better mom because I'm saying less. No talking less about the things my kids can't do and more about the things they can can. So here are Some practical ways that you can fill up on the good stuff yourself. So let's say you're trying to drink less caffeine or you have a soda habit that you're trying to kick. Well, instead of talking about the fact that you're not going to drink any soda or you're not going to drink this much caffeine, how about you just talk about all the water you are going to drink. And then every time you're feeling that craving, like you want to have some more caffeine or you really want that soda, then go fill up one or two glasses full to the brim of water. You could stick some herbs or some cucumbers or fruit in there to feel extra special. And then drink, drink, drink, fill yourself up on that delicious fresh water. And then if you're still wanting some caffeine or soda, go ahead and have it. But I promise you there's probably not much room in there. Let's say you want to stop eating processed foods or like you have a habit where you love boxed cereal in the morning. Well, okay, that sounds good. But let's not talk so much about what you're going to quit. Instead, let's talk about the fact that every morning you're gonna have a delicious big bowl of oats, of oatmeal, steel cut oats. And you're gonna have blueberries on top or something awesome like that. And that's gonna be the thing you're saying yes to. So every morning you're gonna wake up and have your oatmeal and you're gonna fill up as full as you can be. And then if you still need a little bit of cereal. Okay. But I promise there's not much room left. Let's say you wanna cut down on after is an important one for me because I always kind of tank around 3pm so one of the best ways that I've applied this is every time I feel a sweet craving, I instead have an apple. Apples have lots of sugar in them, but it's a better sugar than you'd get from say a cookie or granola bar or something like that. So instead of saying you're going to stop snacking in the afternoon, just say you're going to start eating an apple like every day around 3pm or you could eat a citrus like satsuma or something else that tastes like candy. Let's say you're trying to skip dessert after dinner. Well, you could, instead of saying you're skipping dessert, you could go ahead and plan on the good thing you're going to have instead, maybe you're going to make yourself some carrot juice or a little fruit bowl or something like that. And this one's a big one. No wine after dinner. Is that a goal of yours? Well, let's not talk about all the wine we're not going to drink. Instead, let's make a plan for what you are going to drink. Maybe you could plan on some herbal tea or like just some nice hot water with some ginger in it or something like that. Drink that. Drink it as much as you can and get as full as you can. And then if you still need a little bit of wine. Okay, But I'm guessing there's not going to be a lot of room left. Do you see how this works? So maybe instead of saying you don't eat meat, maybe you could instead introduce yourself as someone who loves eating lots of different kinds of beans. Maybe instead of talking about how you don't eat sugar, you can instead tell people how you are in love with apples. That's what I say. Maybe instead of saying you're not doing carbs for the next 30 days, you could instead say you're going to have the most incredible salads for the next 30 days of your life and you're going to be so full that there really won't be any room left for bread. I don't know if I can imagine. Imagine that. Anyway, whatever you do, let's focus on the yeses of our food. Let's bring back the wonder of food. Let's celebrate the idea of getting super full on the best and good parts of our food. And let's stop talking about the no no's. Listen, the world really doesn't need any more people that are trying to deprive themselves when it comes to food or really any good thing. Instead, the world that are so full of good stuff that they literally are exploding with goodness, they're overflowing with goodness and they can't wait to share it with others. Our challenges with food, both individually and as a culture are not going to be fixed by drawing the line in the sand with what we won't eat, we won't touch and we won't drink. Food, real food grown from the earth was meant to be enjoyed, to be feasted upon, to be eaten down to the very last bite until we are completely full. And when we stop saying so much no and start saying yes to these good things when they're in season and we eat them to the fullness, then I think we're going to find that there's actually very little room to even think about all those other things that have tortured us and made us feel like we're restricted when it comes to to eating. The secret to feeling full is filling up on the good stuff. So here's your challenge for the week. Pick one thing that you've been saying no to or wanting to say no to, or knowing that you should say no to and instead turn it into a yes. So if you know you should have less carbs. If you know you should have less wine, if you know you should have less meat. Whatever it is, whatever thing it is that you want to decrease, instead of focusing on the negative, focus on the positive. For me, I hit a mid afternoon slump. I wake up super early and I work super hard all throughout the morning. So when I hit around 2 to 3pm, my body kind of crashes. And that's the worst time because that's when my kids come home from school. So oftentimes I go to the pantry and I grab something that isn't great for me like a granola bar or just some kind of fast calorie. So instead of talking about the fact that I'm going to try to not eat that, I'm instead going to try, you guys can hold me to this to make myself a carrot juice or a kale smoothie, something with a little bit of natural sugar in it that I can drink down fast and hopefully revive my energy and push me through the end of my day. Sound good? All right, so if you are up for this, I would love for you to come tell me about it. You can come tell me on Instagram gardenaryco or you can come tell me on Facebook gardenary or I think maybe you can even come tell me on the blog. So@gardenary.com podcast you'll find show notes on this podcast. And I would love to see if you could come tell me about the challenge you're gonna give yourself to stop saying no and to start saying yes. So that is the end of this episode. I don't know, it's kind of a different one. But I wanted to throw this philosophy at you. Cause it really is, I would say, like the foundation of my business, of my life and definite of this podcast. So throughout all these different series, you'll hear kind of reverberations of this theme that it's so much better to focus on the yes and on getting full than on the no and the restrictive parts. I try to bring this into all parts of my life, my personal life. My family life, my friendships, business. Instead of focusing on the shade, I try to focus on the sunshine. Filling up on the good stuff is the epitome of that. It's all about getting super, super full with the things, both in our food and in our activities and our thoughts and our intentions, and focusing less and less on those things that we don't really want to be thinking about in the first place. You know, like that panda exercise. What'd you guys think about that? That was weird. I know. I'm a weird person. You're gonna figure that out the more we hang out together here on the podcast. All right, well, I want to thank you so much for being here. You guys have downloaded so many of these episodes. We hit a thousand downloads in just the first week of the Grow youw Self podcast. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And just, like, good stuff. I would love for you to share the podcast with your friends, with your family, with all the people that you love. You can take a screenshot of yourself listening to it, share it on Instagram Stories, or on your post. Always tag me at gardenaryco so I can repost you. And of course, I'd love it, love it, love it, love it. If you subscribe and leave a review. You know, when people are trying to decide if they want to subscribe, they always read the reviews first to see if people think, you know, that girl's weird or something. So be sure to tell them, yes. In fact, I am weird, but it's in a super good way. I want to let you know how much I appreciate you joining me here each week. And we'll have a new episode for you every single Wednesday. So thanks so much for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast. Now you gotta go out there in the world and fill yourself up on the good stuff. I'll see you next week.