You’re Doing Everything Right but Still Feel Sick

So today we are talking to Jenny Mahar. She is the author of The Thyroid 30, a 30-day plan and 100 delicious recipes to restore your energy and help you thrive. A functional medicine health coach and classically trained chef, she helps women with hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's create sustainable thyroid-friendly routines through food, through lifestyle, and practical whole health support. After her own Hashimoto's diagnosis in 2015, She founded The Hypothyroid Chef and developed the Thyroid 30, her signature wellness framework. She also is the host of Thyroid Healthy Bites podcast and the founder of the Thrivers Club membership community. I've actually known Jenny for the better part of a decade now, and I'm so excited to share her work and her message with you. Let's dig in. Okay, well, I am so excited to welcome to the show Jenny Mahar, who I've actually known for quite a few years now and has recently launched the solution that I get asked about multiple times a day, every day. Do you have recipes? Do you have meal plans? How can I get a hold of what to eat and when to eat? She is the author of Thyroid 30. So I am so grateful to have this conversation. Thanks for coming today.

I'm so excited to be here, McCall. Great to see you.

Tell me a little bit and tell listeners how you ended up in the world of thyroid, cuz there's almost always a story that goes along with that.

Yes, I definitely have a story. Of course, you know, like so many of us, my personal thyroid journey brought me here. So I was diagnosed in 2011, shortly after my son was born, and just got the standard of care. You know, you have hypothyroidism, here's your levothyroxine, we'll test you once a year. And then for the next 4 years, my health just kind of went on this slow but consistent downward spiral. I was tired all the time. I had debilitating brain fog. My weight was like, I couldn't lose weight to save my life. I had a lot of— it felt like my immune system just was not working properly. Like, I would get a cold and that would turn into strep and tonsillitis and double ear infections. I mean, this happened over and over. I would get laryngitis repetitively that would last 3 weeks at a time. You know, I mean, you're a mom too, McCall McPherson McCall. Like, you know, imagine with your 2-year-old trying to parent with all you can do is whisper. No. Hopefully the mic picked that up. Right. I hope it did. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. But yeah, I mean, it was like, I am not okay. And I kept asking, you know, I'd go to these yearly appointments and I'd fret and I'd wait and I'd prepare and I'd be like, please tell me what I can do. There's gotta be something more. I'm not okay. This is not me. And also just felt like that inner light was kind of going out. I just felt flat. I was like, please help. And heard the same thing over and over. Your TSH is fine. Everything, you know, you're nor— this is normal. It's just the aging process. Try eating less and exercising more. You know, all this typical dismissive things that thyroid patients hear. And I eventually hit rock bottom with that and was like, I'm done. I need better answers. I'm gonna go and seek better help, you know? So I ended up locally working with a naturopath, just wanted to work with someone in the more holistic functional realm, uh, who had a little bit of a different philosophy, maybe thinking outside the conventional box. So that's what I did. And I soon after that found out I actually had Hashimoto's. I had never been tested for that. And one of the first things she talked to me about was food. And anti-inflammatory eating. And of course, we're doing other things. We're looking at my gut health. We're looking at my micronutrients. You know, food wasn't the only piece of the puzzle, but it was an absolutely essential piece. It was something that I could get started on right away. It was foundational to me turning my health and energy around in really just, I mean, a lot of it, there were huge changes within just days, much less weeks. Within a few months, I was like, I'm me again. I have my life back. And I can't sleep at night thinking about how many other women are out there without getting these answers. I'll never forget if, if we have time for a quick story, I'll never forget McCall when I got my Hashimoto's test. I went to the lab and I'm waiting for them to call my name. And there's this series of nature photos on the wall. I live in Western Montana, it's really beautiful. And there's all these pretty photos and I'm looking at this series. And at the end of the series is a letter from the photographer saying, I have this autoimmune condition and it's prevented me from holding a regular job, living a normal life. Many days I can't get out of bed, but on the days when I feel good, this is the thing that brings me joy. And so I took these photos. And at the end of that letter, they said, I have Hashimoto's. That's what they had. And I'm like, Here I am getting tested for this, being told over and over, there's nothing you can do about it. Food and lifestyle won't make a difference. Your TSH is normal. You're fine. And I'm like, you haven't even tested me for Hashimoto's yet. You know, it just— so food and lifestyle, that piece, like I always say, food isn't the only piece of the puzzle, but it's an essential piece. And it's a piece that people need a lot of help with. And my background was in food. I was working as a chef. I've cooked since I was tall enough to turn on the stove. It's been my dream to write a cookbook since I was 9 years old. I started cooking professionally at 18, cooked my way through college. Like, this is what I do. I had had a few different recipe blogs. I loved recipe writing. So I was like, you know, there's a gap here. And I started looking for like what I call thyroid-friendly recipes, really just anti-inflammatory, nutrient-dense recipes. And I wasn't finding any. So I thought maybe there's something I can offer here with my background, with my love of recipe development, with my love of teaching cooking. And so that's how Hypothyroid Chef was born in 2015. So that was kind of like the start of the journey. And I absolutely love what I do. I wear multiple hats. A lot of what I do is health coaching, and that just has really dovetailed beautifully in with like the cooking piece, the cooking workshops, the, you know, the teaching aspect, the here's some recipes and meal plans. Let's troubleshoot like your certain lifestyle needs. How can I help you figure this out so this is sustainable for you? How can I help you discover what your unique personalized dietary needs are and find a way through this that it's not just about helping you feel your best, it's also about helping to restore joy and celebration and community around food. You know, because I'm a food lover, I'm a foodie, I love to eat, I love to cook. I'm not willing to eat dreary meals just for the sake of my health, and I don't believe that healthy food has to be like that. You know, it can be colorful and vibrant and tasty and exciting. So that's really just a huge passion of mine and something that, you know, people all the time are like, I'm so grateful to find someone who specializes in this cuz there really isn't a whole lot of, of that like specialty out there. Yeah.

Yeah, it really is a confusing landscape. And as much as I love and appreciate, especially for the thyroid community, social media and advocacy platform and all of the information that now we can access that when I was in the throes of my thyroid crisis didn't really exist. I love that, but it does make it incredibly confusing, overwhelming, and almost disempowering. And I'm curious if you could tell me, so many people think they're doing everything right and this is going to solve the problem, but they're— they fall traps to just common mistakes. I'm wondering if you can tell me what thyroid healthy eating looks like, and you kind of alluded to it already, and what mistakes are commonly made when people are genuinely trying to pursue it.

Yeah, sure. Okay, so I think about the pillars and principles of thyroid-friendly eating, right? So it's anti-inflammatory, it's gut health supportive, it's blood sugar and hormone balancing, it's nutrient dense, and ultimately it's personalized, right? So there is no one single thyroid-friendly diet. You know, Thyroid 30, it's not like I've come up with the diet that everyone— this is a system to help people figure out like, what is my, best eating style? What are the foods I thrive on and which are the foods I actually do have good reason to avoid? Because like you said, there's so much noise out there and, you know, misinformation, a lot of fearmongering around food. People come to me afraid to eat fruit, broccoli, black beans, oats, you know? So there's a lot of like undoing and reeducating there. And there are certainly some instances where people may need to avoid certain foods, otherwise healthy foods like nightshades, for example, or eggs or things like that. It really depends on the person. So, you know, what are those thyroid-friendly meals made out of? It's really a focus on, you know, high-quality protein, lots of colorful organic produce, healthy fats, and of course adequate hydration. So that's sort of like what it looks like. And As far as like some of the mistakes people are making, you know, I, I, I think there is that factor of, you know, a lot of times when people awaken to this, like, oh, there, there are actually things I can do as far as food and lifestyle go to help me manage my symptoms. And then they, they go all in, right? And they're looking for information and they find lots of it. And a lot of that information is conflicting. So I think one of the first helpful steps is just kind of turning down the noise, finding some, like a few solid thyroid-savvy experts you trust, and maybe unfollowing some others just to kind of dial down that overwhelming and conflicting information factor. One of the other common mistakes I see people make is they come to this with, in pursuit of perfection, right? So they're trying to follow like this thyroid-friendly diet perfectly, and it can just create a lot of stress around food, a lot of fear, a lot of burnout, you know, around cooking. So I kind of help people try to shift into more of a mindset of like consistency and sustainability over perfection. Let's slow down, figure out what— like, let's figure out like what your best step is. Or if you're working with a practitioner, maybe they've said something like, Okay, we, we've looked at maybe some root cause factors for you. Maybe there's something like gut dysbiosis. We're gonna do this protocol and I recommend like 6 weeks on the autoimmune protocol. I can help people with that too. Like, okay, I'm, I'm the one who can do that handholding that a lot of times practitioners simply don't have the time to do. So there's, you know, a number of ways we can kind of approach it, but also sometimes people just need like I just need help reducing the overwhelm and coming up with what's the right first step for me. You know, doing too much too fast, trying to do all the things, overhauling everything overnight. We can really like get the nervous system into a state of overwhelm, into that fight or flight state, into a, a rest and digest state around food. And we can get hyperfocused on food too. Like, "This is the one thing," you know, "This is the only thing." You forget the whatever needed medication, whatever treatment, and I forget that I'm under tons of stress or I'm not moving my body. Even that can be kind of a pitfall too, of just hyper-focusing on food to the point where we're really stressed about, like, foods we eat and identifying things as good or bad foods. Next thing we know, we're sitting in front of our plates like, I don't know, or we're at a restaurant and we're like, I can't enjoy this. This is, you know, we have this idea that this is going to like hurt me or I'm going to mess this up. Right. It isn't just about the food you eat. It's also about the thoughts you think about the food you eat. So we really come at this from like a whole health perspective, looking at, you know, stress management, the nervous system, shifting our perspective around food to like a personalized nourishment mindset versus this diet mindset that we're all so conditioned to in our culture. Um, breaking down beliefs like assuming that stricter is better, that the more restricted my diet is, the more results I'm gonna get. That is not always true. You know, those restrictive diets absolutely have their place. You know, like that example of someone who maybe their practitioner said, let's do 6 weeks on the autoimmune protocol elimination phase and go through this healing phase. I mean, those can be wonderful tools, but they are not meant to be forever. They're temporary tools to help you heal, calm inflammation, and identify your unique dietary needs and sensitivities. So there are a lot of like pitfalls there, and I think that's where support can be really important with things like this. And you also don't have to start with AIP. You know, for a lot of people, they're like, that just doesn't make sense for me. It's overwhelming. I don't really have many cooking skills, or I work two jobs. I've got three kids. Like, how can we maybe come up with a different approach that's gonna work for me and my lifestyle? Maybe you start trying a gluten elimination, or a lot of people find they feel better with things like avoiding gluten and dairy. We can talk through that. How are we gonna approach this in a way that works for you that isn't going to turn your life upside down, overwhelm you, and ultimately not really get you anywhere. You know, I'm a big believer in the power of those small steps. When steps are sometimes too big for people, it can often lead to overwhelm and we just— it's like we can't get there. We can't even take one step because it's just too overwhelming. So, you know, there's a lot there, right? There's the nuts and bolts of what are the foods, what are the recipes, what are the meal plans? There's the mindset stuff, there's the nervous system stuff. We also need to talk about things like exercise and self-care and stress management and toxins and all the things. So that really is all built into Thyroid 30, which is a system that I created with the help of my former business partner, Dana Bowman, back in 2017. And it really just ties all of that into there to help people, like, through that process.

Yeah, I love that. So talk with me a little bit about Thyroid 30, the system, and when people are thinking about, okay, what would be my first step? And if it's personalized, et cetera, tell me a little bit about that first next step in the journey and where a common starting place for people might be, or, you know, varying common starting places.

Yeah, sure. Okay, so you asked about Thyroid 30 first. So that it— this is— it's not a diet, it's what I call a whole life, whole health nourishment system. So it's based on the 8 daily rituals of thyroid healthy living. So remember, remembering to take your daily medications and supplements, uh, refuel is the food piece, eating and drinking what your body thrives on, avoiding the things it doesn't. Reactivate is moving your body, figuring out like what kind of exercise routine works for me, helps me feel better, not worse. Repair is doing something, even one small thing each day, to support and maintain your gut health. That's a huge factor for those of us with thyroid issues, as, as you well know. Rejuvenate is some kind of daily self-care, and this is like, it's And it doesn't have to be major. It's 10 minutes a day. You know, it could be meditation, breathwork, cloud watching, you know, whatever it is for you that really helps you effectively manage stress and nurture and nourish the nervous system. 6 is reduce, which is reducing our exposure to environmental toxins. So we're looking at things like thyroid-friendly cookware, not storing or reheating our foods in plastic, things like that. Looking at stuff like, uh, nonstick pots and pans, maybe replacing those over time, thinking about filtering our water, becoming aware of sources of toxins we may not be aware of, like home fragrances and things like that. There's so many different things we put in our homes or on our bodies or clean with that, you know, can directly impact our thyroid health. Number 7 is relish. So this is about celebrating your wins and connecting with your support system. Stomach. Very important, often overlooked. And then number 8, last but not least, is recharge, and that's about sleep. So it's really like a scoring and accountability system. The goal isn't so much like to achieve a perfect score every day. It's really an awareness-building tool. So as people go through this, they really start to build awareness around, gosh, I'm so solid maybe in refuel, which is the food piece. But my sleep, I'm underslept almost every night, or wow, I really don't have like a regular physical fitness routine. I'm not moving my body regularly, what, or whatever it is. So it helps us bring awareness to those areas so that we can kind of build. It's not like the 30-day quick fix. It's really a system to help like piece by piece sort of build a thyroid-friendly lifestyle that we love that loves us back, that helps us, like, manage those residual symptoms that maybe medication often leaves behind—things like low energy or excess weight or, you know, just feeling, feeling not our best, right? So that's Thyroid 30. And, of course, the cookbook. The food is, like I said, a huge piece of the puzzle that people need a lot of help with. So there's 100 recipes in the book, there's meal plans. That's a lot of what I do. In supporting people is helping with that piece, offering extra resources around that piece. The second part of your question was about, oh, small, like, first steps. Yeah? So for someone who is new to this concept of, like, maybe they're wanting to make some thyroid-friendly dietary changes, first, you know, take a breath. Remember, this is something that happens over time, not overnight. Overwhelm is one of the biggest roadblocks I see. Most people come in feeling like they have to change everything overnight. Like, what is the diet? Just tell me what to do. Put me on the, you know, tell me what I need to do to like solve this. It's really more of that process of, wait, what is my body telling me about the food that I eat? What kind of feedback am I getting? What are the foods that I really do need to avoid? What are the foods that I feel my best on? Learning those things about ourselves. So that process is a marathon, it's not a sprint. And we've got to learn to, like, trust those small steps, those small but mighty wins, celebrating those, letting it take the time that it takes, and adopting that, like, long-term mindset versus the quick-fix mindset. You know, I know I certainly didn't figure out my thyroid-friendly eating style overnight. It was a process for sure. And part of that was grieving. Like, I don't do great with gluten and I still feel really sad sometimes about like a beautiful loaf, like a baguette or like sourdough bread, you know? Like, there's just some grief there. We find solutions over time and, you know, it doesn't It gets easier for sure. The, the more like practiced you get, the more support and resources you get, but it's just a process that we have to go through. As far as just like the actual, like practical steps of this, I always say to try to focus on like the evidence-based basics versus the biohacks, at least to begin with. Number 1, eat real food. Cut out those ultra-processed foods. Okay. Number 2, and this is part of— kind of goes with number 1— start cooking more real food at home. It doesn't have to be fancy. It can be super basic, but just focus on meals built around that high-quality protein, lots of colorful produce, healthy fats, and keeping those macros balanced to help balance our blood sugar and our hormones. I kind of take a Meals by the Plate approach with this. So Instead of obsessing over rules and good foods, bad foods, it's like, "Let's just figure out how to put a nourishing plate together." One of the— there's some really tremendous benefits here for anyone, McCall, with just cooking more, right? So this is— I'm like a crusader for this, right? So here's what happens when people start to cook at home more. Their veggie and fruit consumption naturally increases with home cooking. Their calorie consumption naturally decreases with home cooking, regardless of what you cook. Their weight tends to decrease with home cooking, and a healthy weight is easier to maintain. Risks of things like type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, several types of cancer, and all-cause mortality all decrease significantly with more home cooking. And when we reduce ultra-processed foods, we significantly decrease our risk of all-cause mortality by up to 18% per serving of UPFs. Do you wanna know where I learned that, McCall McPherson McCall McPherson? Where? My Harvard chef certification in culinary medicine. So this was the number one takeaway from that certification course. The more home cooking you do, the healthier you will be. And that is based on literal mountains of scientific evidence. So that applies to anyone listening, but I think it's especially important for those of us with thyroid issues where we are metabolically challenged. There's thyroid hormone receptors on every single cell in the body. We're not just thinking about eating for the thyroid gland, we're eating for ourselves. We're eating for our gut health. We're eating for our skin that tends to be dry and our hair that tends to get brittle and shed. We're eating for all those systems in the body. We're eating for good cognition in our brains that are more likely to deal with things like brain fog. So it's all those things, you know? And I, I always say like, of course, like friends and family have like bought the cookbook and they're like, "I don't have thyroid issues." It's really just thyroid healthy eating isn't just thyroid healthy, it's gut healthy, hormone healthy, blood sugar healthy. You're reducing your risk of disease. It's really just about getting excited about colorful, anti-inflammatory, whole food meals. That's like the basic basics there of where to start if you're starting from ground zero. And I would say think about like the, the meals by the plate and, and And finally, I mean, I just want to underscore this, like, don't go it alone. I think whether that's a practitioner, a health coach, a supportive community, healing's going to happen faster when you have support. It is amazing what we're capable of when we have the support we need. It's something I say a lot to my coaching clients, and it is the most overlooked game changer. People really undervalue that support factor, having a supportive community. Being in a community with other people who get it, who are like, oh, I've been there. I'm dealing with the same thing. Oh, I trouble— I've already been through the troubleshooting process with that. Let me give you some tips. So that's really something that I see helping people go a lot farther, faster on their healing journey. It's not about perfection. It's really about consistency. I think in order for people to get to that place where it's like, This isn't a diet I'm doing, it's not a program. This is just the way I live and the way I eat. That's where we get those very meaningful, lifelong, long-term results. We've found that supportive lifestyle that we can stick with. It's what I call it thyroid-friendly living based on the 8 Daily Rituals, but it's really just about finding that sustainable path and maintaining consistency. And that's a lot easier to do when you have support.

You know, I totally agree. And I love a couple things. One is just cook at home. Like, just that one simple step can impact your long-term health outcomes and your quality of life so much. I think what you're saying, and what I can't emphasize enough, is we live in this construct of constant extremism. Like, I'm going to do it perfect or I'm not going to do it at all. And that usually, from my clinical experience, does not get us to where we need to be. You know, I always tell my patients, look, do what you can when you can so that when you can't, you don't have to. Like, have a balance so that it is sustainable, that it is that long-term lifestyle switch, and it's not this on-again, off-again, constant up and down. I'm curious too, have you noticed in your community with your clients and work that certain like when we're thinking about building out the toolbox of this works for me, this doesn't work for me. Mm-hmm. Where do you think is a good idea for people to start? Like, would it be, oh, try to go gluten-free for, you know, X and see how you feel, or try something else? I'm curious if you've found some patterns and themes that people can leverage as, you know, a starting point to build out their toolbox.

Yes, absolutely. And Yeah, gluten tops the list of potential thyroid dietary triggers, followed by dairy. There's other foods on that list. For some people, grains could be an issue, eggs, for some people, nuts. But step 1, like I sort of go by, I have 3 levels that I sort of offer people in my community and the book. So level 1, thyroid-friendly eating, if you wanted to start with level 1, That's gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, and refined sugar-free. That's kind of like, you know, step 0 is eat real food. Level 1 is— that's sort of like that baseline. If that's too much, I think a gluten-free trial is absolutely worth doing. I know a lot of experts out there say no thyroid patient should eat gluten ever. You know, I'm a health coach, not a scientist, not a doctor. I don't, in my Community and not in my personal lived experience, see that every single person needs to avoid gluten, but I do feel that it is worthwhile to try going gluten-free and see how you feel and carefully track those symptoms, both before you eliminate gluten, while you're off of gluten, and if you choose to reintroduce it, after you reintroduce it. That's the basic rules of an elimination reintroduction trial, and that's how we get to, "Is this food really worth me eliminating?" Also, I think it can be helpful with that to maybe look at some labs, you know, work with someone like you, your clinic, to look at like, "Did this change my antibodies?" A lot of times we'll see that kind of thing on paper. You know, all the time people are like, "I was able to reduce my thyroid medication. I just don't need as much anymore now that I've really fine-tuned my food choices here." But yeah, I think gluten-free can be a great, like, kind of one small step. So my level 1 is gluten-free, dairy-free, refined sugar-free, soy-free, and free of all ultra-processed foods. That's like every single recipe on the Hypothyroid Chef blog, in my cookbook, anywhere is going to abide by those kind of basic foundations. After that, level 2 is paleo. Which is also used by a lot and recommended by a lot of practitioners as a therapeutic anti-inflammatory protocol. Again, it can be like a temporary healing tool to calm inflammation, support gut healing. And then level 3 is the autoimmune protocol or AIP. And this is that more kind of like full-blown elimination diet approach that maybe some people are like ready for that step. Based on where they're at, maybe their practitioner has recommended, and they come to me for help and support with that. So I really cater to those like 3 dietary levels and anyone looking for like gluten-free, dairy-free recipes. Yeah. I'm sure you kind of can get the sense for my philosophy here. It's, I don't really believe in like that dietary dogma and everyone should be doing this and We're going to shame you because you had pizza or you decided to have a piece of your kid's birthday cake. That kind of stuff is going to happen. We all end up in those situations. If you're going to eat the birthday cake, you might as well enjoy it. Now let's talk about here's 5, 10 things you can do to kind of help yourself recover from that if you're on, if you end up with symptoms. So that's sort of like my philosophy around that.

Yeah. And you know, it's interesting when people do eat the birthday cake, sometimes it serves as a reminder of like, wow, you know, this work that I've done, it's working because I feel now how this birthday cake impacts me and realize, gosh, I think I was walking around feeling like that all the time. And so it almost serves as a reinforcement that people shouldn't necessarily beat themselves up about. Like, it can actually be for the long game really, really beneficial. One question, Ginny, is when people start, like they start gluten-free or gluten-free, dairy-free, that kind of thing, how long for that process do you want them to do it before they reassess, like re-entry or re, you know, or just like how long do they need in your opinion to see, am I improving? Are my symptoms reducing?

Yeah, there's different approaches to this and It's kind of like, well, let's figure what's gonna work for you because, so I'm a functional medicine health coach and the Institute for Functional Medicine, their recommendation is 21 days for an elimination reintroduction trial. They find that 21 days is long enough to reduce inflammation and symptoms, give people a pretty good idea of whether or not they're gonna feel any different without this food. And also they say 21 days because after 21 days compliance starts to plummet. So if you can't stick with whatever you're doing, the results of your experiment are gonna get muddied, right? So it's great to say, well, yeah, do, let's do 60 days or 90 days. If that's too hard for someone to stick with. Hey, it's not ruined if Institute for Functional Medicine, based on their body of evidence and clinical research, says 21 days can be enough. But most people are gonna say at least 30 days. And depending on your unique situation, you know, maybe you're going through a, a protocol with the help of your practitioner or something like that. You know, they might have more specific recommendations like, oh, you're recovering from, you know, we're trying to get you over the hump with something like Candida or SIBO, we might be talking about a longer timeline there. So, you know, as a health coach, I really kind of like, give me the full story, let's meet you where you're at and come up with a, a plan and tools and, you know, some strategies here so we can help you stay on track if it, if it is a longer timeline. But I do think sometimes people get so overwhelmed by even the 21 days It's like, for most of us, even a week is going to give us some interesting data. And as you mentioned, McCall, you made such a good point about like, if you're going to eat the birthday cake, right? That is great personal data. How did you feel afterwards? Because I know for me, sometimes I get away— for me, it's our local pizza place that I just am like, "I'm going to have this pizza a couple of times a year," you know, this like sourdough, delicious, wood-fired pizza. A lot of times I get away with it. Sometimes I don't. That's good personal data for me. You know, notice those things. Like, it's all, uh, personal empowerment around like our food choices. And the other thing with our unique dietary needs and sensitivities is that they can change over time. So especially with things like, a lot of times if people are just starting out and they're really in dire straits with their gut health, for example, maybe they've got some pretty major leaky gut going on or something like that that can be very common in the autoimmune community. Maybe they're gonna find over time eating this way, like, things start to calm down and heal and they're able to tolerate more foods than they once were able to. So it's like this ongoing dance and process, and we learn these skills of like how to Notice, we learn about the symptoms that foods might cause because they're not always digestive-related, right? It's not always like, "Oh, my stomach hurts after I eat that." It might be, "I got insomnia," or, "My skin broke out," or, "I got migraines," you know? So learning to identify those things, learning how to be good scientists with our, you know, our experiments around food when we eat the birthday cake or if we're going to do a dedicated you know, gluten-free trial or AIP or whatever it is, you know, learning how to track those symptoms and notice so, and how to reintroduce foods. Like we only wanna reintroduce one food at a time and leave 3 to, I mean, ideally up to like 7 days for each food we're, we're reintroducing. But, you know, most people will say 3 to 5 days for each food you're reintroducing so that you can really pinpoint which foods are causing which symptoms in your body. If we aren't able to stick with and maintain something, we're like a— say we're doing a dietary protocol like Paleo where we've eliminated 10 different foods and it just got too hard and we went back to eating everything all at once. What did we get from that? I mean, maybe we calmed inflammation and we felt better. But we still don't know, like, I just went out for pizza. Now I don't know, is it the gluten? Is it the dairy? Is it the nightshades? Is it the— so how do we conduct good experiments there to get very clear data about which foods cause which symptoms in my body? Because when we know that, we're very empowered and things get more simple. And we can identify like, what is my dietary hard line? And where do I maybe have like certain thresholds? Like, For me, I can have certain types or amounts of dairy. So there's wiggle room there. Like, I've got a girls trip coming up and in the, you know, the group text thread when it's like, does anyone have dietary restrictions? I know my hard line is gluten. So I can say I'm gluten-free. 3 words, low stress, low drama. You know, that's one thing people, they're like, I don't know. And I'm traveling and I don't know. Let's go through this process of really figuring out like what foods do you need to avoid? What's your dietary hard lines and wiggle room so that things like going out to eat, traveling, parties can be fun again? And you know, like, I mean, you pro— you know, you probably have your own dietary hard lines and wiggle room at this point.

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's key, right? Like that knowledge is So incredibly powerful to serve you forever. At least, you know, you have the leverage to make the decision. Most people are just so blindly navigating all of this that they can't actually make the decision. Even if you decide to eat the pizza, at least you decided and you know, hey, this is what is possible. This is what I need to monitor. I think that's a great, great, realistic and empowering strategy as opposed to, you know, the disempowerment of not knowing or the disempowerment of extremism. Yeah. Question for you. I want to squeeze everything I can out of this conversation. Tell me so much of like, one, lifestyle changes with people with hypothyroidism and how darn tired so many of us are. But second, we're moms, we're busy. Tell me a little bit about tips and strategies for meal prep, which is probably— that word is triggering even to hear. Tell me, I'm sure you have like some tricks up your sleeve. I'd love to hear them.

Yes, absolutely. So, you know, I talked about that like meals by the plate approach. So thinking about your plate, uh, like 25% high-quality protein. So things like grass-finished beef, wild-caught seafood, pasture-raised poultry or pork. And then like 75% of that plate, great if that can be like colorful plant foods. So maybe that includes, depending on you, that could include some starchy veggies, some not non-starchy veggies, maybe some fruits. Maybe it includes things like some, uh, gluten-free grains like quinoa or wild rice, things like that. And then, of course, some healthy fats. So also, as far as meal prep goes, you know, there's a few different— kind of depending on your preferences and needs, there's a few different approaches that I like. So one is like the meal prep approach where maybe on Sunday you spend 2 or 3 hours making 3, 4, 5 different things. You've got your Mediterranean meatballs and your roasted veggies and a lemon tahini sauce and like some toasted quinoa and some greens ready to go, you know? And now you've got a few different meals you can sort of mix and match for at least the next few days of the week. So that can work really well for some people who maybe don't love to cook. You know, that's one of the things, like, I used to, you know, do a lot of more like chef-oriented recipe blogging and food writing. And I was talking to foodies and I realized quickly, as both Ira and I are chefs, like some of these people don't necessarily like to cook. So we've got to have like a, an approach that's simple enough for people to stick with. Well, a lot of people also come to me because they do love to cook. So for somebody like that, who's maybe a little bit more into food and meal prep, maybe they're cooking for a family. They want more like of like a traditional dinner on the table each night. What I like is to do— spend like maybe 30 minutes a week on meal planning. The system I like is 4 main courses, 2 breakfasts, 1 dessert or snack, like as a standard template. You pick out your recipes, you make your grocery list. I've got templates and all that for this. You go to the store and it's done and you've got your list. You know what you're making for the week. So when You shop on Sunday and Wednesday rolls around and you're like, "I don't even remember what I thought about last weekend for meal prep." It's all there ready to go. The other kind of middle road approach there that people can take is they might do like a weekly template. So maybe they want that, you know, more traditional meal on the table every night. They want some leftovers for work lunches and breakfasts and things like that. But they don't really want to think about it a whole lot. The weekly template approach can work really well for people in that camp where it's like, "Okay, we're going to do like Taco Tuesday. Got my favorite, like, grain-free tortillas. We've, you know, we kind of figured this out. Maybe we're doing a spaghetti night. I have my gluten-free pasta that I love, so that's solved. Maybe we do a big like kitchen sink salad night." You know, things like that where it's like we're kind of making the same menus over and over for a week or 2 weeks. And then we just repeat, repeat, repeat so that it's like, I got my recipes. I don't even— they're just committed up here. I've made them so many times. I don't have to, I don't have to get on my phone and look up the recipe. It's just easy. I can throw it together, throw dinner together in 30 minutes without thinking about it. I can do the grocery list without even thinking about it. You know, that's going to really cut down on meal prep. But it is good to shoot for like some diversity too. I think that's just, just a little important reminder for people too who are doing that approach to, you know, do think about trying to get a lot of high diversity of nutrients in. That's really important for our gut health.

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for this conversation and for your work for our community. I know you've been in the trenches. I've known you for so long working to advocate for these people and support them. Tell us a little bit about where people can find out more about you, about Thyroid 30.

Yeah, thank you, thank you so much, McCall. It's been great to connect with you. So the best place to find me is at hypothyroidchef.com. They can learn more about the cookbook there. They can learn more about the Thrivers Club community, my podcast, I'm also on socials @hypothyroidchef and my YouTube channel @hypothyroidchef. I've got lots of recipe content there, my podcast, lots of lifestyle content. And then I do also have a free thyroid-friendly grocery guide if people are interested in that as a starting point. So what this has is over 130 delicious, colorful, anti-inflammatory, nutrient-dense foods that people can use as a starting point. They also happen to be gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, refined sugar-free. And it's just a really great kind of a, a creative booster when you're starting to think about like, what do thyroid-friendly meals look like? What foods do I really love on this list that I could start building some simple, by-the-plate meals from? So they can download that at hypothyroidchef.com. /grocery. Oh, I love it.

Well, thank you so much for being here today, and I'm excited to share your message with my people. And until the next time, Miss Jenny, thanks so much, McCall.

It's great to see you. Thanks for having me.