Eat Real Food + Lose Weight Without Dieting with Darya Pino Rose, Ph.D

Welcome to Mama Goddess. I'm your host, Alexandra J. Johnson. This podcast is all about rocking your goddess life, creating vibrant health and celebrating motherhood and family life. It's about living an authentically awesome life. Let's have. Hello and welcome. I'm Alexandra J. Johnson, and today we have a brilliant guest, Daria Rose. Daria is the creator of Summer Tomato, one of Time's best websites, and the author of Foodist, an amazing book using real food and real science to lose weight without dieting. She has a PhD in neuroscience from University of California, San Francisco. Her bachelor's degree is in molecular and cell biology from UC Berkeley, and she eats amazing things daily and hasn't even considered going on a diet since 2007. Welcome, Daria.

Thank you. It's great to be here.

I love that, I love your bio and I love smart people like you're so. I mean, I just love reading your bio. I'm like, she's brilliant, like, just that stuff. And I love that you study the science with nutrition and it's just, I'm excited to dive in and get all of your juicy goodness. So let's start off with what does it mean to not go on a diet? Like, what does dieting mean to you and what does it mean that you gave up dieting?

Well, dieting sucks, right? I mean, I started, so I grew up in Southern California, which, and this was back in the 80s, late 80s, early 90s, full on like Baywatch era. And dieting, it's not like something that was a choice that I made at a young age. It just was like my mom was on all of the diets, like constantly. And so, you know, when I was, I started on SlimFast, I was 11 years old. Oh, wow. And it had nothing to do with the fact that I was overweight. I wasn't. It was just my mom was having it and chocolate milkshakes for breakfast sounded awesome because I was 11 and I just sort of fell serendipitously into this lifestyle. And then when I started getting older and actually became self conscious of my body and all those things that happens to 12, 13 year old girls, that was all I knew. And so I just, without even really ever making a conscious decision, just sort of followed in the footsteps of my mom and started doing all these things. And then I got into ballet, it got worse and it just continued for 15 years, sadly. And until I got to. Well, all the way through college, I was doing this even though I was studying biology. I mean, that made it even worse almost. When you Start learning about metabolism and things. Then you start getting even more crazy and obsessed degrees about what actually works. And so I did all the low carbs. I did all the low fats. I did. You know, I would only eat grapefruits or whatever, and obviously I wasn't. So I was always dieting, so I never got really overweight, but. And I had really good willpower. I actually could stick to the diets really, really well. But what would happen is I would fluctuate. So I would stick to it three months, six months, and get really skinny and then. But I'd be, like, totally miserable. Like, I'd be, like, grumpy because I was starving. I had really thin, gross hair. I had horrible skin. And, you know, and I was miserable. You know, minor detail. Minor detail that, like, you can't eat with your friends like a normal person. You can't, like, eat when you're hungry. You can't just, like, you know, it's just. It's a horrible way to live. And then once I got into grad school, I realized I was like, I'm a scientist. Why the hell am I struggling with this? You know, I was like. I was even, like, running marathons on weekends.

For fun.

Yeah, for fun. To burn calories. I mean, and it wasn't working. And I was never happy with my body. I was never. I was always hungry. I was always grumpy. You know, I was embarrassed to wear a bathing suit, and I didn't. You know, I thought I was doing what everyone told me to do. You know, I was like, I was watching the carbs. I was watching the fat. I was watching the calories. I was exercising like a maniac. And I was still miserable, and I'm still struggling, and I still didn't have the amazing body I was promised I would have if I could do. If I did all these things. And so I just really got frustrated and fed up, and I was like, you know what? Like, I don't believe that. Like, humans have always had this problem, right? Yeah. There are people in France that eat croissants every day that are skinny. What is going on here? And so I started reading the actual science. So before that, I was relying largely on diet books, magazines, Internet articles, you know, the stuff people do. And so I was like, well, the science has to say what the best diet is. And so I started looking into the research, and I discovered a few things that explained a lot. The first one was that diets don't work at all. I mean, no, to clarify, they Totally work for a short period of time. All of them work for six months. None of them work for two years. And over two years. Dieting is actually a better way to gain weight than to lose it. It's a predictor of weight gain. And you know, when you've been doing this for 15 years, that's like kind of a bummer. But also it totally made sense with my experience, right? I was continuing to struggle and it got harder and harder over the years, but all was not lost. It turns out there are thin healthy people that aren't hungry all the time. They're just super old fashioned and eat normal things like vegetables and, you know, meat and they eat bread and they eat carbs, but not in crazy amounts. They don't get the super high protein. Like I was eating like weird high protein bread.

Oh, wow.

I know. Like you just like they didn't eat all that weird processed stuff. They just ate regular food when they wanted to and like develop these habits to keep them healthy. And it like just wasn't very scientific or fancy at all. But it works. And so, but it was really scary as you can imagine. Like as somebody who'd been doing this my entire life, the idea of eating carbs, eating it all, you know, eating breakfast, all these things were really, really counterintuitive to what I was told worked. But I was desperate and I would have tried anything. You know, I tried all the stupid diets. I was like, maybe I should actually try the science. Worst case scenario I get, you know, I gain 5 to 10 pounds and then go back on the leek soup diet. So I was like, I felt like I just didn't have anything to lose and I. Except for weight and I tried and I just started eating. You know, I started shopping at the farmer's market, I started having oatmeal for breakfast. I stopped counting calories. I stopped. I used to spend like two hours a day in the gym. I cut that down to about an hour. Just like normal cardio, normal weightlifting. But like I used to do like an hour and a half of cardio and then weights. And to my delight and surprise, I didn't gain weight. I lost weight and I kept losing weight. It was really slow. It was really weird. I was like, I was eating and I was like, okay, I'm eating carbs. Like I should be gaining weight. And I wasn't gaining weight. And I was like, actually like, you know, a couple weeks went by and I'm like, not only am I not gaining weight, I think like I feel Kind of like, not bloated, and I'm, like, sleeping really well, and I have tons more energy in the gym, so I'm like. I feel like I was getting really good workouts, and then just. And then that weight just kept going down, like, slowly. And then I hit my goal weight, and I was like, wow. And then I kept going, and I was like, now it's getting weird. And I got all the way down to basically what I weighed in high school, was on my driver's license when I was 16. Wow. And I just sort of stayed there. And then, you know, and I started. At a certain point, I was like, I'm totally happy. Maybe I can even eat dessert. You know, like something. I hadn't done that in forever. So I even started eating dessert every once in a while. Things like sandwiches and pizza every once in a while, which I would have never touched before. And because normally I was just eating all these vegetables and eating really clean, I. I didn't. It didn't matter so much if every once in a while I had something a little more indulgent. And it's really tough to put into words. I've tried so many times how amazing this is. Like, when, like, I went from not eating ever, or, like, eating, like, salting crackers, you know, just like. Like, almost like. Just like the worst, boring, most bland food in the world, and hating it every time I did to this world of, like, amazing food. And because, you know, real food, the stuff I'd started eating, you know, the stuff at the farmer's market and the stuff, you know, I kind of taught myself how to cook. Food's delicious. That didn't even ever occur to me as, like, something that I should strive for. But, like, you know, it's. It just totally changed my life. I mean, there's no other way to put it. Like, I changed careers. It was so dramatic because I was, like. I was eating more than I ever had. I was enjoying food more than I ever had. My social interactions weren't awkward anymore. I looked finally, like. Was, like, proud to, like, walk around in shorts. And I was just, like. I felt like I found, like, magic. I felt like I found, like, this magic thing, and all it was was, like, lowly vegetables. And, like, I even started, you know, I was even eating meat. It's not like I'm just all vegetables. It was just vegetables became the main source of my food. But I still eat meat. I still eat eggs. I still eat a little bit of dairy. I'm sensitive to dairy, but I have Nothing wrong with. No problem with it, but just completely changed my whole outlook on life. And so now I'm an evangelist for real food.

That is awesome. I love that. Thank you for taking us through your journey. So I'm curious. Did you have, like. Did you have any. So you just decided, I'm gonna start eating real food. Did you have any restrictions? Or you just said, like, did you kind of go the other way? Of you had so much restriction, then you were free to eat whatever. Did you kind of overeat at all? Or did you have any of that or not?

It's a really common fear, right? Like, when I tell people, eat whatever you want. Eat food you like, they're like, I'll just eat donuts all day. But that doesn't actually happen. The reason you think you do that is because when you restrict yourself all the time and then you stop, you. When you stop briefly and you feel guilty about it, you kind of like, your mentality is, this is never going to happen again. I better eat all of it and really, really enjoy it. But when you let that go completely and you're like, you know, I can have it tomorrow, too, suddenly you don't have this urge to just, like, binge that you get when you're constantly restricting yourself. So I didn't overeat. I. I would. I, you know, like I said, it wasn't. It wasn't overnight. Like, I didn't all of a sudden just, like, become this incredible farmer's market chef. You know, I dabbled. I stuck my foot in the water here and there, trying to figure out what works. You know, I slowly weaned my way off, like, Diet Coke. Like, that was, like, one of the last ones to go, because I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I thought. And then I realized at a certain point that, like, it was, you know, one of the few things in my life that was still artificial. And I was like, do I need it? And I slowly weaned my way off the processed foods I'd been used to, and on the same time, slowly increased the variety and the kinds of whole, real foods that I was eating. And if anything, because I was eating more satisfying food and the cravings disappeared because of that, it was much easier, actually, to just be like, you know what? I'm not hungry anymore. I'm going to stop eating. Or when the weekend came and it was like, we're all going to Tartine Bakery for someone's birthday and getting this cake, I wasn't like, oh, I better only eat a couple bites or oh my God. I'm gonna eat the whole thing. I just. After a few bites, it's really sweet and it's good, but I'm good. I don't really need that anymore. So. No, it's the opposite, in my experience.

That's awesome. Okay, so then, as you know, there's 550 million different diets from Paleo to, you know, Western price to raw vegan to vegan to, you know, the grapefruit diet, whatever. So you didn't follow any sort of rules, you know, because I think that's a big thing for so many women and people. We want to find the way, like the diet, tell me how to eat. And you know.

Right, so. Right. That is the trap. That is the trap. So it's so. It's so common. Even people who have already made the switch, like, okay, I'm not gonna focus on weight loss anymore. I'm gonna focus on health. It's still super common to get to hear like, people and it sounds like they have science on their side. You know, they'll show you some studies or they'll show you their abs or something and they'll create this convincing argument that the way they're doing it is right. And that's not. That's really neither here nor there for you. So my whole thing is like, I just, like, your life should be good, right? Like, your life should be good. Like, what's the point? Like, help. Being healthy is great. Being skinny is great. Like, that's all part of it. But like, you know, being really restrictive is really difficult. And, you know, but certain people, like, are totally fine with certain things and other people are totally not, you know, like, let me give an example. Like, I actually really enjoy the gym. Like, I like going to the gym. I don't mind the treadmill. Like, I don't mind lifting weights like in the boys room. But I know people that absolutely can't stand understand that they hate. They call it the dread mill, you know, they hate the gym and they would much rather exercise outside. Fine. Like, that's fine. There's no rules, like, in that sense. Like, there's some people that really feel strongly about eating animals, you know, and you don't have to, but like, if you enjoy animals and you have figured out a way, animal food, and you figure out a way to be okay with that in your conscience, like you eat, you know, from a specific farm, or you eat it only once a week or whatever, like it doesn't really matter as long as it works for you. And you're not depriving yourself. So my theory is, like, has nothing to do with, like, carbs or calories or any of that. It's more about what works for you. And the truth is, and this is what all those people with all those scientific studies, like, never really want to talk about. Like, we don't know why processed food so bad. You know, we have all these theories about insulin signaling, about fructose metabolism in the liver, about, you know, animal proteins and cancer and saturated fats. None of those are proven. It's like, all circumstantial evidence. Nobody argues over Kepler's laws in physics. The reason people are arguing over all this stuff is because it's not black and white. And it's really, really difficult to study nutrition in humans because there's a zillion variables. And I'm different from you and you're different from someone else. A carrot is not a carrot, and, you know, a chicken is not a chicken and fish is not fish. It's very complex. And at the end of the day, all that really matters is that you find a way to eat foods you enjoy that keep you healthy and having energy and looking good and feeling good. And that's the challenge. So, you know, I stop. I don't argue with people who want to talk about why anti nutrients in grains and beans are bad. It's like, whatever. Like, if you don't want to eat beans, that's fine. I'm eating them and I'm perfectly healthy. Like, my doctor literally told me I'm the healthiest person she's ever seen.

Wow, that's awesome.

You know, it's like. And I eat meat. Sorry. People who think that's bad. But, like, I have amazing cholesterol. Like, you know, it's like you can argue all day until you're blue in the face. People do. And I just think life's too short and you just have to figure out what works for you.

Awesome. Okay, so then I love that. I think, and I'm so in alignment with that, and I appreciate you sharing that. You know, like, there is no answers. People just have these theories, and then we think, oh, this person has 20 studies on that, so I should not do it. And I think so many people, and I've been in the nutrition field for 15 years trying to figure this stuff out. Then it changes all the time, but.

It actually doesn't change. It's just the theories change.

Yeah, the theories. Exactly. Exactly. You need to still be eating the real food. But I am curious on this. So let's say, you know, it seems like in today's culture so many people have health challenges, health opportunities, whether it's skin, diabetes, cancer, gut issues, heart disease, so many people have something that needs some healing. So how do you navigate that with people who have like some sort of health challenge and they shouldn't, you know, the theories say you shouldn't have sugar, you shouldn't have grains, or, you know, like, how do you navigate that if you have some sort of health challenge that you think you shouldn't be eating other, some certain foods.

Right. So so far I've mainly been talking about healthy people and I've also been approaching it from sort of the way I came to it, which is wanting to lose weight in like a very pathetic, superficial way that I'm not proud of. We all have it, but that's how I got here. And so, yeah, so that is like the simple version is for people who are already generally healthy but need more, you know, want more energy, want just simple stuff. If you have a specific disease, it gets complicated really quickly and you have to be really careful. And food is very powerful in that sense. But yes, the truth is that most of those diseases, the vast majority of diseases people have that are chronic, the top four or five killers, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, those are largely caused by western diet and they're called diseases of civilization because they came into being when processed flour, processed sugar, processed oils were introduced into our lifestyles. But the problem is things happen, right? So once you've tipped to where your sugar metabolism in your body is so broken because you've broken it with years of poor eating, that you actually can't tolerate sugar really anymore at all. That's what happens in the case of diabetes. So yeah, in those cases you have to be smart about and then the science can really guide you in those cases. But for the most part, most of us don't want to ever get there. And honestly, if you find yourself kind of on your way down that path, like your blood pressure is high, maybe you have slightly irregulated blood sugar, but it's not full blown diabetes yet. They call it pre diabetes or some metabolic syndrome. A lot of that can be reversed with better eating. And you know, the way I eat, like I would never in a zillion years say I avoid carbs. I used to, I don't anymore. But if you look at how I eat, I don't eat a ton. I mean, I almost zero processed carbs. Like I, you know, once a week maybe I'LL have a little bit of really high quality bread while I'm waiting for my dinner or something in a restaurant. But I don't. And I don't, you know, I almost never eat dessert anymore. It's just not that interesting to me anymore. But you know, I have it every once in a while. But if you look me compared to the average American, you could say I eat very low carb. But I just don't like to put it that way because it's not about the carbs, it's about the real food. But the reality is, yeah, if you're eating 200 pounds of sugar a year, which I think is like normal these days, that's not good for you. It's not good for any part of your body. Humans didn't evolve eating that way. And so, yeah, I mean, you do have to be careful with those things. But if you focus your efforts on eating more real foods, that stuff becomes so much less appealing really quickly because it makes you feel like crap after a while you realize it doesn't even taste that good totally. And you just learn to live without it. And so that's the direction I push people in. Because it doesn't do any harm, which is, it's hard to say that about things. It doesn't do any harm to eat less processed food. And the benefit is tremendous. And I think everyone should try to strive to eating that way. Whether you have a specific health problem or you just want to look good and feel good and then take additional precautions if you have a specific condition. There are, for instance, there is a percentage of the population who's very sensitive to saturated fat and cholesterol. Most people aren't, you know that that big story we were told in the 80s and 90s about how fat is really bad and especially saturated fat is really bad. It's really only for a very small percentage of the population. But if that's you, like, you need to pay attention to that stuff, you know what I mean? And you can work with your doctor to figure that stuff out. Like it'll be, you'll know, it'll be in your family really. So that's, that's what I recommend.

Cool. So what about the year? Let's say, you know, you have the goal of changing your habits and you have been eating you however much sugar or whatever it is that you want to change. What do you do? What's your recommendations from the science and habit forming of working with those cravings, you know, because you have, we have those habitual tendencies to Go towards whatever it is we go towards for craving. What do we do about those?

Right. So you just touched on a really. The key, in my opinion, to actually getting healthy. So, you know, all those. All the science that people want to, like, throw at you about carbs and fat and whatever, like, ignore that. That doesn't get you anywhere. Let's focus on how to change your behavior, because that's all that really matters. And that's the hard part. You know, at the end of the day, it's like, if I show you a plate of salmon and broccoli and I show you a plate of pizza and nachos, most people can tell what's healthier. That's not that complicated. The hard part is choosing not the nachos.

Yeah.

The hard part is wanting to eat the good stuff, the healthy stuff. So. So what it really comes down to for virtually everything is the habits. You know, your daily rituals. You know, if you think about breakfast, for instance, you know, you eat three meals a day. Potential breakfast represents 30% of your daily meals. Like, if you can get that right, that is a huge win. And breakfast is also one of those things. It's like most of us are, like, sleepwalking through our morning anyway. It's like, it's not really a conscious decision. It's a habit. And if you can make that habit healthy, you're that much closer to reaching your goals. Being healthier, avoiding disease, et cetera. Same thing with lunches at work. It's like, work isn't that special. We all work. It's not like your anniversary or your birthday or something. So if you can get those five meals, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you can get those healthy. Huge win. Huge win. And that's just a matter of habit. You know, you think, you know, I hear excuses all the time from people. It's like, oh, well, I can't bring my lunch because this and that. It's like. No, no, no. It's just that you have one habit, and changing habits is hard. Yeah, that's hard. It's not that you can't. It's that building habits is hard. And so to really attack and address this issue, you need to understand how habits work. And so that's where I focus a lot of my energy. So basically, can I give you a rundown of a habit?

Oh, my. I love this.

Yes. Okay. This was a huge insight for me. So it's very important. Pay attention, take notes. A habit is an action that you do. Right. But what distinguishes a habit action from any other action? Is that it sort of. It happens automatically, right? And the reason it happens automatically is because there's something that happens immediately before the habit, and it's called a trigger or a cue. And that sort of, like, is a reminder, sort of spurs you to just do it. And that's why we can, like, go into autopilot so easily when we open Facebook. It's like a habit. And the way the habit is perpetuated is at the very end of the. The action, there's always some sort of reward. And the reward can be emotional, it can be physical, it can be. It can be really, really subtle. But what the reward does is it reinforces the trigger, and it sort of forms this loop, and that's how it sort of gets taken out of your conscious action and into habitual action, is once that habit gets reinforced by the reward, the trigger gets reinforced by the reward, and you just sort of go through the motions. This was a critical insight for me because I realized that one of the most important things is that if you want to do something healthy, there has to be a reward. You have to enjoy it, right? And, like, how different is that from the dieting I've been doing for 15 years, which is based exclusively on pain, punishment, suffering, and deprivation? Like, no wonder no one can stick to this stuff. Like, it's fundamentally incompatible with how our minds work, right? So, I mean, to me. So I was like, holy crap. Okay, I get it. If you want to exercise, you have to like it. Eat vegetables. They better be tasty. That's why I go to the farmer's market and not Safeway. You know, for the most part, you know, I cook them. Well, like, don't steam them. If you have to add salt and butter to make them taste good, do it, you know, because that, you know, that's. That's the point. And. And then you can. Once you know these two things, you can rearrange the actual action you do to get there, and that will change the result. So, you know, if, for instance, here's a great example, I talk to thousands of people. They come home after work. They have every intention of, like, cooking something healthy, like, oh, I'll make a salad and some fish or whatever. And then they're completely exhausted after a long day. Oh, this happened. I didn't expect that happened. I didn't expect. It was, you know, tons of traffic, and they get home and they're completely wiped out. And so they just, like, call in a pizza or something or heat something up out of the freezer or after Dinner, maybe they'll get through dinner in somewhat decent, healthy way. But then after dinner, they'll, you know, start getting cravings and start snacking, and then they'll like, end up eating 6, 7, 800 calories of like, cookies or something. This is super common. What that is, though, is it's important to understand that that's not because you're hungry. It's because you're tired and you go and you went into autopilot, and your autopilot habits are bad. And so what you have to do is anticipate that beforehand and make it so that it's super, super easy to do the healthier thing. And that that's rewarding enough to form into a constant habit. So for instance, in the after dinner eating, usually it's like what the reward is, what the trigger is, is usually stress or boredom. Some people are just triggered by like boredom or procrastination or something. The reward is usually not food. Like, you think the food is so good, but that's not it. You're not hungry. It's usually comfort. You know, you want to de. Stress, want to relax. And while you can get there with food, you can also get there with in other ways. For instance, like, warmth is a source of comfort. It's like a warm cup of herbal tea or a warm bath or snuggling up in a blanket. Kind of nice to have something to do with your. It is helpful if you occupy your hands so you're not tempted to go back to the cookie jar. But my point is that this can show you the power of understanding triggers and rewards in terms of your behavior. Because usually, you know, if you're. If you're eating habitually, it's almost certainly not because you're hungry. Sometimes it is, but usually it's not. It's usually that something else is going on just subconsciously. And you can reprogram that if you understand that that's actually what's happening. So it can be really, really powerful. And then you can sort of plot, you know, you can look at your habit. And I recommend for a couple weeks, like keeping a journal, look what you do all the time and rescript the ones that are not helping you and, you know, maybe add some that you think would be beneficial.

Awesome. So have you. I'm curious. I love that. Amazing. And I love the comfort and figuring out what the reward is. I mean, so much awesome, awesome wisdom. I mean, me personally, I know that when I'm tired, I feel I'm a new mom, so I can get like, I feel tired and sometimes I'm like, I deserve an indulgence. Like, it's like my little break or vacation in the day of motherhood. And it's like, I'm not hungry. But, you know, it's just. I love that you just share that of like, just observing when we. When we do those things and what it is.

And it's smart. Like, that's actually a really good insight because there's other ways to be indulgent, right? Like you can get a pedicure or massage or whatever.

Yeah, totally. Ask my son for a massage. What was I going to say? There was something. Oh, I was going to ask you. Did you. You know, because you were saying you had this habit for 15 years of restricting. Have you noticed in creating your habits over however many years you've been doing it, did they creep up like your old habits? Do they ever creep up when you're under stress now or have you totally rewired your brain?

No. Thank you for bringing this up because sometimes let me think. I don't like my old really bad habits. I used to come home and eat dinner. I'd have a salad for dinner, and then I'd eat a half a bag of trail mix because I was starving. That actually was a case where it's like I wasn't eating enough. And so I was overeating later because I just wasn't feeding myself properly. That habit's gone. Never do I have a craving to really eat after dinner. But new stuff comes up all the time, and it's not always really apparent where it is. So one example, when I was a graduate student and I was working in a lab right over there, and I used to walk a good distance, like a mile each way to the shuttle that would take me to work, and I didn't really think about it. I also worked out at the gym during that time, and, you know, I had. I was in great shape. And when I graduated, I moved away and I moved. And so I started working out at a different gym. But I didn't, like, really think anything of it. I didn't really notice the commute time. You know, I just thought, oh, it's great. I get to work more. But, like, right after I graduated, I started putting on weight and I was really confused. It wasn't a ton. I put on maybe four or five pounds, but, like, I hadn't done that in a long time. And I was like. And I thought if anything, I was eating better because I was home most of the time because I was working on my book, and I was like, wait, I'm eating better. I'm still working out every single day. Or, like, whatever, five days a week. I was like, what's the problem? And then I realized. So I used to have a pedometer that I used to wear all the time. And. And I knew that I would get about 12,000 steps a day on average with the commute and everything and my workout. And then it broke. Like, it, like, went through the washer or something, and I didn't get into one. And then I realized at some point, I was like, gosh, you know, I used to listen to a lot of podcasts and a lot of audiobooks, and I had stopped doing that. And I was like, that's really weird. I was like, oh, I'm not doing my commute anymore. And then I was like, I'm not doing my commute anymore. I'm not walking anymore. I just started putting it together, and I got a new pedometer, and it turned out I was now down to 6,000 steps a day, even though I was still working out.

Interesting. Yeah.

And so I just. I was like, well, that's really interesting. So I just started walking my dog a little farther every day to, like, about a park about a mile away and walking home and got my step count back up to 10 to 12,000. And, like, the weight just disappeared. And, like, it's. You know, my habit shifted. I didn't even realize it. And this happens all the time. Like, life changes and you have to adjust. And that's what's really nice about this model is, like, you can adapt it to you and your life as opposed to just being on this really strict diet. And when things go wrong, you don't know what to do, and you feel like you're just a loser.

You're failing another diet, you're failing.

Your fault for not, like, eating less and exercising more, even though, you know, I talk to so many people that think they're doing everything right and they still can't lose weight, and they can't figure out why. But it's these little tweaks. It's just something you probably aren't even consciously aware of that you can just fix really easily, and it can have a huge impact on how you look and feel.

That's awesome. Okay, so you talked about four or five pounds. I'm curious on your thoughts around this scale, because especially for women, there's different philosophies that don't get on the scale. Who cares what you weigh And I've kind of gone from weighing myself all the time to never weighing myself for years to, like, using it as a measurement. So I'm curious on what your thoughts are and what's, like, the healthier approach for women around their weight.

Yeah, that's a great question. There's actually. So I'm a big fan of tracking, so as I can. I just explained with the pedometer example.

Got mine too.

Yeah. I mean, if you don't have accurate information, you can't make adjustments. And so I weigh myself regularly. I'm a fan. There's actually a lot of data. I mean, I've heard the theories about why it's bad for your psychology if you do it, but every piece of data I've ever seen suggests that people have better success if they weigh themselves regularly. I'm not a freak about it. I'm not, like, totally neurotic. But it's an interesting piece of data. For instance, I learned here's a good reason to get on the scale, that I can actually eat a lot more than I thought and have, like, not a big impact. Like, for instance, like, I can have, you know, I can go out to dinner on a Saturday and, like, have everything like wine, dessert, like bread. And not, like, the scale won't really turn. On the other hand, if I go to sushi, inevitably I weigh, like, two pounds heavier the next day. And I've learned from getting on the scale regularly that it's just water weight from all the sodium. And two days it's gone. So it's like, I'm not, like, getting on a scale to judge myself. I'm getting on the scale to know how my behavior affects my body. And when you let go of all that guilt from depriving yourself or feeling like you should deprive yourself, the scale becomes a much less scary place. Right. That said, like, I know that. I know that there are women with, like, a reaction, like an emotional, like, guttural reaction to the scale. And if you're one of those people that's tough, you know, maybe find a different measurement for a while. But I would encourage people to not be afraid of it and to use it for what it is, which is a feedback tool. And one of the reasons weight is so difficult is because feedback is so slow. So the more feedback information you have, the better decisions you can make about your habits and that. But I'm not a fan of guilt. I'm not a fan of regret. I'm not a fan of judging yourself. I don't Think anybody is like, I don't think anybody's guilty. Everybody's been given the wrong method to get healthy and lose weight. We've all been giving this deprivation method. Eat less, move more. It's your fault. You're not eating less and moving more. That's not the problem. The problem is it's not habit based and it's suffering based and not pleasure based. And so it's never going to stick. So stop blaming yourself, blame the system and focus on what actually.

Yeah, awesome. Okay, so let's say I'm. Now, what came up for me too is the scale. I love that, the measuring. But what about this ridiculous thing that so many women have of having ridiculous numbers that they want to see on the scale of not, you know, they're never going to be 115 pounds or they're, you know, like, it's just unrealistic expectations that women have. Can you talk about that? Of like finding how do we, how do we find the right goals for ourselves?

That was what I was going to say. It's like, you got to find the right goals. So the. There's a post on my blog, if this is interesting. It's called Goals are for Losers and it directly addresses this. But what I would argue is that your goals. So you're right, it's absolutely ridiculous. Like, this number on the scale means very, very little. I've weighed less and been like, totally unhealthy. Like, you know, it's just, it's, it's an arbitrary number. I get it. I get the appeal. It's like everybody wants to be a size 0. Everybody wants to weigh 115. It's like. But you're never going to get there by focusing on that. Let's just, let's just say that whatever your, your potential is, if you're still focused on depriving yourself until you get to 115, it's never going to. You might hit it. It won't stay. And if it doesn't stay, what the hell's the point? Right? So focus. The goal should be behavior based. Like my goals. Like if I have an issue, like for instance, a few years ago, I really wanted to develop the habit of mindful eating because I thought there was one thing I knew that I was eating really distracted and not appreciating my food as much. And I knew that I could eat less or just feel like I. Cause nobody likes to overeat. It doesn't feel good on your stomach. And I would do that sometimes. And I just, I Wanted to get. I felt out of control of that part. I knew that mindful eating would help. Mindful eating and chewing is a very, very difficult habit to establish. Really hard. Because you forget, and then you're not mindful. And then how do you become mindful if you forgot? So, you know, I will develop goals around figuring out how to chew, you know, and that was a struggle. It took me six months. I eventually figured it out. Put your fork down between bites.

Got it.

And don't pick it up until there's no food in your mouth.

That's so hard. I'm currently working on this right now. Mindfulness around it, and it is so hard. I just want to keep shoveling it in.

Oh, let me tell you my trick then. So. No, no, seriously. So now I remember what I told you about triggers and rewards. So what I realized is the reason I couldn't build this habit is because there was no obvious trigger, and there was no obvious reward. I'm like, the trigger is I just need too fast. Like, the reward is what? Getting slower. That's not a re. I eventually figured out I needed to specifically address my chewing. And I realized that the one trigger that happens immediately before chewing is either picking up, stabbing my food or picking up, like, a sandwich or whatever. Let's just say stabbing your food. So I now use that as a reminder, a trigger. If I'm stabbing my food and it makes it clank, it gets your attention. I have to ask myself, is there food in your mouth right now? If the answer is yes, I put my fork down and chew it, and that's it. And that actually works. And now I can tell you that the reward is super, like, told you they're subtle. Reward is actually swallowing soft food. It sounds really weird, but every once in a while, if I'm in a hurry and I start eating a little distracted, I'll accidentally swallow something that's, like, not chewed all the way, and it'll be, like, poking in my throat, and I'll be, like, so uncomfortable for me now. And it used to be my normal. So I've developed a trigger and a reward for this chewing habit. And I'm like, finally, a slow eater. Oh, my God.

Nice. It took you six months. You said six months of deliberate practice.

And figuring that out, because I would try to do things like set an alarm before lunch, but that wasn't very reliable. I had trouble figuring out the trigger and reward. Once I did, though, Bam. And those are the sorts of goals that people need to focus on. So, like. And I recommend starting with the big, big wins. Like we talked about. Breakfast, lunch at work, cooking at home on weekdays, getting 10,000 steps a day. I call these my like home court habits. Oftentimes it'll be preparation habits. For instance, like if you don't go shopping on the weekend, how do you think you're going to eat all week if there's no healthy food in your house?

Right.

You know, or, or maybe you need to learn two recipes because if you can't, that you can cook in under 10 minutes. Because if you can't cook for yourself, it's really difficult to, to do to like train your to like have the energy to do something new when you get home from work and you're totally wiped out. So the goals, I feel very strongly all your goals should be behavior based and figuring out what works for you and the scale and all the jeans, size and all those other things will work themselves out. That's the hint that you're doing it right. If you're losing weight, it's working. If you get more energy, it's working. If your cholesterol levels are looking better, it's working. If you're enjoying going to the gym or working out in whatever way you work out, if you're starting to like cooking, if you find it uncomfortable to go on vacation and not have vegetables for a few days, that's when you're winning, you know. And the body, the body takes care of itself.

That's awesome. Okay, so I'm curious on, you know, the meals because I think that's so like we live in a the modern world. People are busy. Do you recommend and do you meal plan? I mean, do you have certain, you know, like a meal plan for the week or anything like that? Yeah, I was just wondering because there's the idea of meal planning and having it all organized and then there's some ideas and more of the feminine in a way of. I'm just going to ask my body what it wants right now and make that. So what's your thoughts on that?

Planning is really important and it can work really, really incredibly well for people. But how you go about planning is sort of personal. So I don't cook from recipes because I just suck at it. I didn't learn to cook that way. I learned to cook by just throwing delicious. When I started shopping at the farmer's market, the number one lesson I learned right away is that when you start with amazing ingredients, it's really hard to mess them up. So a little olive oil, a little salt A little pepper, a little garlic, and almost anything tastes good. Just don't overcook it and don't under salt it, squeeze a lemon, whatever. And so what I tend to do is I always try to go shopping on the weekends. I think about how many meals I need, so I'm like, okay, I need like three big protein type things to feed me and my husband. I need vegetables for all those meals, plus lunches, and like maybe something extra, like snacks, like fruit or something. And then I buy. Like I am. I've done this enough now. So the first time you do it, it's really easy to over buy food or under buy food or get all the wrong things. I've been doing this for now. I'm like, I know the right amount of food to buy. It comes with practice. I'm shocked how many people buy way too much food. Then they're like, it always goes bad. It's like, stop buying so much anyway. So that's how I approach it. But I know some people love the structure of recipes. They'll pick it out all the night before, you know, Saturday, and they'll go to the market and they'll get all the ingredients and they'll have it planned out like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and they'll come home. And the nice thing about that is you don't have to think what you're gonna do that night. You walk in the door and you're just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, dinner served. And it's easy for you. And that's really important when you're. Especially at night, because that's when you're gonna be the most drained. And by the way, your willpower can get drained throughout the day. And so when you, if you're relying on it to make good food decisions and you haven't planned ahead to make it easy enough, you're done. It's like frozen pizza.

So.

So planning is really important. The listening to your body thing. I mean, I do that too. But I think if you get in a habit of eating really well, really often, cravings and stuff like that don't come up as much. And what I do is I go to the market and I'm like, what looks amazing today? And I buy it. And I think about how I've had it before. Like, oh, like right now, for instance, I go to the market and I see fresh corn and peppers and tomatoes. And I just think, like, Mexican food, you know? And so I, I come home and I make stuff that with cilantro in it and onions and I don't know, it just sort of takes care of itself. That's the benefit of shopping at the farmer's market. You sort of naturally get inspired.

Totally.

And then I'll crave that for a couple weeks. And then I'm like, I kind of miss something a little more warm. And then it'll be winter squash season, roasting vegetables and so it's actually really fun.

Yeah.

Food used to be this huge burden and now it's like just fun.

Totally. I love that too. And I love the simplicity of that. I love recipes. I have lots of them. I never follow them. I get inspired by them. And I think I rarely follow a recipe right to the exact. But it gives me ideas. And then I'm like, oh, I'm gonna do this. And it's also taken me, which I love what you shared too. It's taken me 15 years to get to this place where I can go, you know, I can just whip it up. And we're very simple. We have sweet potatoes or, you know, coconut oil, cinnamon, that doesn't need much. And stir fry greens and some steak. Okay, good. Well, the steak, the steak is new. We just started eating meat recently. But, you know, just that's simple. Like it doesn't take that long.

Totally. And it doesn't when you get in that pattern. And I love what you said about getting inspiration from recipes. I. That's exactly how I cook too. So it's not like I never look at recipes. Sometimes I'm like, pork shoulder sounds good. I have no idea how to cook that. And so I'll go and I'll find three or four popular looking recipes either in a book or on the web, and I'll compare how they all cook them. And I'll be like, I get it. Basically, I need to put it in some liquid in a crock pot for eight hours with some onions and stuff and a little broth and it'll be good. 99% of the time it works out. Every once in a while I have a balm, but once every two years.

That's awesome. It's totally with me. And my husband always laughs, like if I do have a bomb, he's like, this is not good. And he's like, but I mean, you rarely have a bomb. Like, you are usually like, spot on. This just sucks.

And you know that at a certain point you're just like, you know what, maybe we need to go out. The universe is telling us it's time for a date night.

That's awesome. Okay, so I do have one question that I want to ask you, and it circles back to kind of the food and the deprivation. I read somewhere on your blog. I don't know, it's hilarious. I was laughing out loud because you said you and your husband went on vacation and you were coming back and you had overindulged. You just had a lot of food. I don't know what language you use, but then you're like, and we're gonna do a juice cleanse for seven days or something. And you're like, just kidding. So I want to talk to you about this because I love your perspectives on this. And this is a new perspective for me because I've been very much into the cleansing world for years. So talk to us about cleansing. What your thoughts are on cleansing. Do you cleanse? Do you recommend cleansing?

Right. Super popular. Super popular. Everybody and their mom is like, juicing all the time. I like juice. I'll say that. I have it once or twice a week. There's a woman, a stand at the farmer's market, named so in San Francisco that is like, the most amazing juice ever. It's, like, all, like, farm fresh. They like. It's like a mixologist. Anyway, I love it. But no, I'm not a fan of cleansing. There is absolutely zero science behind that.

But.

But on the other hand, I totally understand the desire to, like, get rid of. I don't like the word toxin because I feel like it doesn't mean anything, but, like, to get rid of. Like, when you just feel like you've done overdone, it's like. And we all do that sometimes. Like, anybody ever been on a bachelorette party? It's like, you come home and you're like, too much alcohol, too much food, too much everything. I need, like. And we use the word detox. You know, it's like, I need to detox. And I get that. My approach is slightly different than the cleansing method, which I think is just really extreme. And I've never found it to be particularly enlightening. It normally just gives me, like, headaches, and I don't feel that great. Some people swear by them. You know, whatever works for you, works for you. But just don't pretend like there's science behind it. There's not. And I have plenty of citations on my website on summer tomato if you want to look at the science of juicing and cleanses.

So there's no science like that it's beneficial for you, or there's no science that you are actually cleansing out toxic because, you know there's some serious cleanses out there that people are doing and like claiming that you're releasing toxins.

Yeah, I think like 99% of the time if somebody's using the word toxins a lot, they're full of it. I mean, yes, yes. That like infusing your body with like amazing nutrients from vegetables is better than like not giving your body vegetables, right? Yes. Stopping bombarding yourself with sugar, alcohol, processed flour, processed food is going to make you feel better and like better for you than if you aren't doing that. No doubt. Do you have to like only have celery juice for three days? No. You know, there's other way. There's more sane ways to do that, to get the same effect without being so extreme. And the problem with that extreme mentality is it puts you back in sort of that dieting restriction headspace, which is dangerous. I mean, we haven't talked that much about that. But like the psychology behind that is really not healthy. And it's long lasting. And you know, it's all, it's all in, it's all in Foodist, if you want to read it, and all over the blog. But so my approach is I just tell like, you know, I talked about the home court habits, you know, I. When I'm good, you know, when I'm like in. And basically what it comes down to is I'm in my house, you know, and there's nothing crazy going on. You know, I don't have a big deadline, there's no big parties, like none of that. What I do is I eat, you know, muesli for breakfast, I eat eggs and salad for lunch. I cook dinner with my husband, I go to the gym pretty much five days a week. I walk a lot, I walk my dog, I drink a lot of water. When I'm doing that, it's basically a detox. The reason my normal habits are that strong is because I'm planning on going out this weekend. You know, I'm planning on having maybe one extra glass of wine on Saturday. And it has been accounted for in my health style. So what I have to just do is be very, very tight with my normal habits. It's not restriction because it's the stuff I love, right? It's like stuff I love. But if I do it tightly, it's essentially a detox, whatever that means. But like it's essentially stripping out processed foods, filling me with wholesome, nutritious foods and me feeling amazing in just a couple of days without starving myself. You know, while I'm still eating three meals a day, you know, eating like a normal human. Sit at a table and like, cut my food and eat it.

Right.

And I don't have any of that psychology baggage of feeling like I have to pay penance for my bad behavior over the weekend or whatever. So I'm really not a fan of moralizing food choices and I'm really not a fan of extreme food choices. But I can understand, like, when you've overindulged the desire to be clean, to feel cleaner. And I just do that with food. I don't see why you have to drink it.

Right, right, right. Okay. So that brings me to another question. I don't know if I read it on your blog or your book and correct me if I'm wrong if I'm making this up, but I feel like you said don't drink your meals or don't drink your calories or did you say something like that?

I mean, it's not the greatest idea in the world. Like I said, I enjoy juice every once in a while. Green juices, but. And I have kombucha sometimes, but like.

A smoothie or green juice in the morning for like your meal. Like you would prefer to sit down. I mean, to eat like real food.

Right. It's not mindful eating, you know, like sit down and slowly. Super juice. Maybe most people don't do that. It's. Yeah, I mean, it's just. It's part of that dieting mentality, you know, whether you call it cleansing or dieting or whatever word you use, it's a restriction based, sort of deprivation based, sort of moral. It's like moralized in a way. Like, you're good if you do this and you're bad if you don't. You know, it's like all that is unhealthy and psychologically and counterproductive in the long run. So. Yeah, I just. I mean, I don't avoid liquid calories completely. Like, I drink beer if I feel like having beer, but I don't. You know, it's a weird thing.

Yeah.

It's not like. It's not like we were evolved with.

Blenders, you know, I know that's been my. Because I've been very big. I mean, I was. I love that you're bringing all this up because I was very into like raw vegan and vegan. And I was like. I thought I was like, better because I wasn't eating meat. And then all of a sudden I started introducing it and I was like, wow, I feel better with Me. And I'm like, oh my God. I mean, I'm still two years new into the whole meeting thing, meat eating thing, but it's just. I love your spaciousness, you know, like, it's all. There's space for all of it. There's space for you to go out, to have dinner. It's not a all or nothing because I think so many of us, especially women, it's like all or nothing. I'm either all in, I'm eating the whole cake, or I'm never having cake ever, ever, ever again.

Totally. And it's tied up in our self worth, you know, it's like, if I can do this, then I am good. Hurrah. You know, look at me. But it's like, but the problem is you can't. No one can like indefinitely deprive themselves. And so you stop and then you're horrible, you know, and then it's the cycle. Then you feel bad, then you need comfort, then you need cookies and you.

Need to detox, right?

And then you need to detox and. Yeah, exactly. So it's this roller coaster where you're working at extremes all the time. And yeah, I'm the opposite. I'm like, let's like be cool. Like let's have dessert sometimes. Let's eat vegetables a lot, but not like injecting them. Yeah, yeah, like lining the green juice.

That's awesome. And I love that you were saying too, because that lifestyle that you're saying, you know, your health style is detox. I mean, if you want to use the words detox, but you're just eating normal food. You're doing what we have been evolved. I mean, that's what we've been doing.

Honestly. It's what they do in a lot of other places still. It's like in America you're somehow an asshole if you like, want to eat a salad that's made from the farmer's market. But in other cultures that's not considered elitist, it's considered normal, you know, and it's just, you know, what a culture is, is it's a collective group of habits, you know, and it's just when something's different, it feels weird and it feels hard and it feels foreign. But the reality is if you grew up some other way, then that would feel normal and that would feel thing. And then what you're doing now would seem totally weird. So, you know, there's a perspective shift that needs to happen sometimes because we're so embedded in this like culture of like crazy industrial Food, and it's hard to escape it. And, like, literally, like, people call you names sometimes, and that's something. You know, I actually have. One of the things I do is coach people on my blog to deal with that criticism, which is, you know, there's a lot going on here.

Yeah, for sure. And that's. I mean, I think that's. It's, like, courageous to make. To become a foodist or whatever you want to call it. You know that there's. You know, you're going to get that.

Yeah. And there's ways that you can use the words you choose to describe your food, like, how you act. That can make it a lot easier for people to accept you without it being such a weird tension. That's a whole different discussion. I could talk for another hour on that.

That's awesome. I love that, too. Just the different words and the different energy that we can bring to it, the conversations around it. Because I know when I first got started on it, I was very like, I know what's right, and I shouldn't be eating processed food. You know, you come from like, I'm better than to like, yeah, this is what I'm gonna eat. You can eat whatever you want. I'm totally cool. Let's have dinner.

Like, right when you take the moralizing out of it. Because when you moralize it, people feel threatened.

Yeah, exactly.

And because they're like, you're. They're being judged, and, like, they're like, well, you're just a jerk. Yeah, but if they don't feel judging, you're like, dude, this isn't about you. This is about just, like, what I. What makes me feel good and Right. Whatever. Your burrito, if you want.

Yeah.

Then it's like, way less threatening. People like, oh, okay, fine.

And then they're kind of like, what are you eating? Why are you eating it like that?

They're like, actually, that kind of smells good. She puts it kind of in there.

Okay, awesome. Well, I could talk to you for hours on this, but we will wrap up.

Can you.

Do you have any other final thoughts for women on how to rock it?

I mean, life should be awesome. I think the most important thing is that you don't forget that, like, if you're doing something that's, like, really hard or just really crappy or puts you in a really awkward situation, something's wrong. You don't need to suffer. You don't need to diet. You don't have to do extreme things. It's totally possible to be healthy and feel good about your body and have lots of energy and eat normal food and be okay. And I don't know, it's almost like somehow that has become made to seem impossible, but it's not. It's really way more simple that I think we're told and believe in that and just work to make life good. And if you want a blueprint, it's in my book Foodist.

Fantastic. Awesome. So people can find you at SummerTomato.

Is the place you should go. Definitely sign up for my newsletter. It's awesome and I'm very engaged with my audience. I reply to emails and stuff and you can get a free chapter actually of my book if you, if you sign up for the newsletter and if you're on Twitter and those things. I'm just usually either Summer Tomato or Daria Rose on all those.

Awesome. Cool. Well, thank you. I appreciate personally, I thank you. I thank you for your book and your perspective and thank you for all this yummy goodness today and sending you lots of love.

My pleasure. Thank you.

Bye Bye. We hope you enjoyed this episode of of Mama Goddess. Sending you lots of love and blessings. If you'd like to connect more, go to mamagoddess. Com. Until next time, keep rocking it and have an awesome.