Nutritionist Natalie Jill lost 65 pounds eating unprocessed whole foods and shares how on Hallmark's Home and Family. She makes eggplant sliders with blackberry-balsamic sauce and goat cheese, explaining how to swap ingredients for your diet.
What a thrill that was.
I know, right?
Because Julie Newmar was in the house.
Yeah. Wasn't it amazing? Are you okay?
Because that's so emotional. Yeah.
Wow. Let me tell you, there was an art of seduction with her and Batman in that. I mean, the way she played that so well, especially at the times she's such a beautiful actor.
You're gonna grow up to be spectacular.
I know. She already is spectacular.
No, I'm saying in this series, I'm saying. Well, right now we have Natalie, Jill, and she is a nutritionist and tr and the author of Seven Day Jump Start. Welcome back to our home. Nice to have you back, Jill. So good to be back.
I know that five years ago, you decided to turn everything around and get a hold of your health again. What happened to you?
Oh, my gosh. So I wasn't doing anything in fitness and nutrition at the time, and I was the typical corporate working mom who gained a lot of weight when I was pregnant.
How much weight did you gain?
Well, I was 65 pounds heavier than I am now, and I'm only 5 foot 2, so. So it was a lot. And I did it not just from being pregnant and hormones. I did it because I was depressed and I was comforting myself through junk food, for sure. And when I was going through a divorce and I financially hit a rock bottom and my whole world fell apart. And in trying to get my own control back, I dug deep into diet and fitness, and I really noticed all this crazy information overload. And I thought, I've got to figure this out. I've got to figure out a way. Because it was the one thing I knew I could control.
And what did you?
I figured out a way to eat and prepare recipes and to move my body that would be positive and not be a lot of crazy work and would still work on a limited budget and would still fit into my lifestyle and could work for any mom, any busy person.
We're all sitting here nodding our head like we're in.
We're in. Well, why don't we bring the food in?
Yeah.
So all of you can enjoy it. We're making sliders today with eggplant.
Yes.
It looks delicious.
These are so, so simp.
Okay, let's get started, shall we?
So they're so simple to make. So all I've done here is I've sliced some eggplant and I've added some salt to it, and I let that sit for a while to get the bitterness out. And then the sauce is so simple. It's just pureed blackberries. And then I've got olive oil.
Can I just make a comment about the eggplant? Because most people don't know that you have to sweat the eggplant out in order. It is bitter.
It's very bitter. The salt and sitting there will let that come out. So about two.
It almost looks like a dessert, but it's.
Oh, my gosh. Well, it's got the sweetness because it's got BlackBerry puree, the olive oil, balsamic vinegar.
Where do you get BlackBerry puree?
So you make it. It's very simple. Just blackberries, a little bit of water, and you puree it. You can soak it, run it through a strainer, and then if you want a little sweet, add a little bit of agave nectar there to make it smoke.
It's not over. It's not over smoking.
No.
No. So this is super simple. I mean, you're saying this takes just a few seconds, right?
It does. It's so easy.
The char on it has so much flavor. The, like, char on the eggplant so all. And then you just. You just grill it literally just like this for just a few minutes. Just a few minutes.
You don't brush any olive oil on it.
Or you could put some olive oil on the pan and you could drizzle some olive oil on here and just enough to get the grill marks.
And how long will that take to get? Because if you don't cook eggplant through, it gets a little crunchy.
About four minutes on each side. And just keeping it on a medium heat.
Debbie's in heaven, because this is what she. You know, it's so.
She's not even listening here to food.
I Looking at you, literally, you have not stopped. You've been looking at your face the whole time.
I have this association, and it's so like the word, so simple. That's what I was thinking about, how simple this is. But it's so delicious, and it feels filling. And that's the whole point behind all of the recipes and my book. It's seven day jumps are unprocessed. Your diet. The whole thing I figured out was that it doesn't take these fancy, crazy diets. It's just eating real, natural, unprocessed whole food. And when you combine the right ingredients, there's so much flavor, so much richness, and it just. It does everything. I mean, it's everything.
Putting a labor of love like this together. Do you dedicate it? Do you think of somebody when you're doing it?
Do I Do I think of my. My entire book, my entire business. Now everything stems around from my father, who. My dad died at age 49, and I'm 44. So I always think back to. He was not eating an unprocessed natural food diet. He was eating out all the time. He wasn't exercising. He had all the excuses of why he was so busy and couldn't do things. And he died at 40 and left my mom and his kids. And I always go back to that. My gosh, I'm 44, and I saw myself going down that direction with the stress and the weight gain. And I see so many others doing that, too, because of excuses and information overload. And it's not that hard. Just a little bit of knowledge on processing your diet with the right foods, and you can change everything.
So what do we have?
And because we're on tv, of course, we get the magic of it being prepared ahead.
And you get the drum rol.
Super simple here. All I'm gonna do it's. I'm gonna prepare a little one for you. Put here. And then we can do some goat cheese on here.
I like it.
A little bit of goat cheese. And I.
How many of these can we eat?
Cause I just can't eat one. It all depends on your goal.
Okay.
Oh, I see that. Well, my goal is, you know.
And then I drizzle the sauce on. You know, some people like a little more than others.
Are there substitutions? Did you say? Did I miss that?
Yeah, of course there's substitutions. So this is just a. This version is. It would be vegetarian. It's not vegan. Because I do have the cheese. But you don't have to use. For instance, if you don't want sweeteners, the agave, you don't have to use a sweetener. You can leave that out. You could use some honey if you wanted to substitute. It depends on what you're trying to substitute. For the goat cheese. That one, I would just leave off the cheese and add. You can add a vegan cheese if you wanted to make it more vegan. Or this would also like it.
This would also be for the cold. You could put this in the fridge.
It feels really like. You don't feel like you're missing out. No. And it's a meatless slider. It's an option. And I know you said it tasted a little bit like a dessert, but I have another one for you to try, too. And that's the grape. These are the grape dippers. So those are meant to be a dessert.
You like it, Christina? Isn't it delicious, everybody? Good? Oh, yeah. No, don't stop licking the bowl, Lawrence.
I want to drink this.
Full recipes available on our website. By the way, 10 lucky viewers, and we mean lucky. Will have a chance to win Natalie's book. Please go to our Facebook page. We're gonna have all information there on how you can and details on how you can go about getting your hands on one of those. We're gonna come back, we're gonna spend time with our 12 DIY star finalists. Peter Garkowski.
I'm gonna roll it up.
So up next, I'm gonna show you how to create some really cool bar stools.
How Natalie Jill Fitness Was Born - The Journey From Corporate To Fitness To Midlife Conversations
