Written by Christopher Kelly
Dec. 1, 2014
[0:00:00]
Julie: Hello and welcome to the Paleo Baby Podcast. I'm Julie Kelly and today I am joined by Ciarra Hannah, the blogger behind Popular Paleo. Ciarra is a wife and mom who found health through embracing paleo diet and now helps others find the same.
Ciarra is also author of the upcoming book, The Frugal Paleo Cookbook. Hello, Ciarra. Welcome to the show.
Ciarra: Hey, Julie.
Julie: How are you?
Ciarra: I'm awesome.
Julie: Great! I'm so excited to have you here. You know we kind of do lead parallel lives slightly.
Ciarra: I think we are like so many other people that are listening to your podcast and just sort of juggling it all.
Julie: Yeah, exactly. And I mean I'm really excited to talk and I'm sure we'll talk at length about the book that you have coming out, but I also love your blog and I love your website because I think, first of all, it's really beautiful.
Ciarra: Thank you.
Julie: And second of all I love how it's broken down into kind of like do this then this, read this. And it's actually very approachable and I kind of find myself getting sucked into it. I get a sense like, "Oh, okay. I'll do that. What do I need to read here?"
Ciarra: Well, good. I'm glad to hear that.
Julie: Yeah. How did you get there? Where did you start? Can you tell everybody kind of how you found paleo and how it's become such a big part of your life?
Ciarra: Yeah. I'd love to. I think it's just a very normal story. I've had hypothyroid for I mean long time since I was 15 I've been kind of dealing with it. And after the birth of my little boy who's now four and a half just things got out whack and I developed Hashimoto's and that took on a life of its own.
And so kind of to lose the baby weight and get healthy and just kind of get back in the swing of things after he was about six months old I started running and doing kind of those old dieting tricks of you know super low calorie. I relied heavily on soy-based smoothies and shakes per meal replacement. You know you guys have all been there before.
And did a lot of chronic cardio or long distance running and things like that and you know I got results in terms of like weight loss and all of that pretty fast, but it absolutely I feel like it really crashed my hormones and my body like I just felt terrible. I felt like no matter how hard I worked I always was very bloated and yeah I just felt like for as hard as I was working and as much as I was doing I should have had more results.
And so I was tired all the time and folks with a hypothyroid totally get run coming from on that and it was just yuck. And so I have got a lot of friends that do the CrossFit thing and you know so I think just with that you know people talk about paleo. And so I thought, "Well, okay. You know I'm hunting around on what's the best course to take and I had looked into veganism for a while and you know because they seem healthier, right."
And I'm like, "Well, maybe not vegan so much, but maybe like vegetarian." I mean I was just playing around you know. I read a lot of vegetarian books and it seemed like it made sense, but anyway I also looked at paleo and I read Dr. Cordain's The Paleo Diet and just laughed out and there's just no way. I mean I thought it was the most ridiculous thing possible. There's no way you would catch me eating fish and sautéed greens for breakfast.
I just thought all the recipes looked terrible. I'm just, "No, no, no," right. So a year goes by and I do the whole like you know low calorie, high cardio approach and I crashed. And I thought, "Well, maybe it's time to dust that book off again." So I pull it out and I thought, "Okay, well this does kind of make sense." And then I read It Starts With Food and I read Primal Blueprint and I bought Melissa Joulwan's Well Fed and I thought, "Okay, well now this is more my speed. I might be able to get this done."
And so I did Mark Sisson's 21 Day Total Body Transformation and was like, "Well, this makes sense." I mean within weeks I just effortlessly lost ten pounds and I had increased amount of energy and I think that that's how so many other people start to. It's like, "Well, all right. I mean it sounds a little weird. The food sounds weird. It goes against everything that I've been taught, but what do I have to lose," right.
Julie: Yeah. Similarly, yeah, I mean I was I mean ultimately I found paleo -- I switched to paleo through dating my husband and with my boyfriend at the time, but through him. But before that I had lived with girlfriends who are also into CrossFit and into paleo. And I just thought they were kind of nuts because I was coming from this world where it's like, "No, isn't it everything in moderation? So how can you not eat whole grains and be healthy like it just doesn't make sense to me."
Ciarra: Yeah. And I am not in moderation person and I don't believe in 80:20. I don't do the in moderation, but that's not to say that I'm militant. I think that we just step back and consider what in moderation thinking is advocating. It's saying it's okay if 20% of the time you're eating foods that you know work against your body. To me that undercuts yourself.
[0:05:13]
I think that's a fast track to being frustrated and it's not to say that there isn't some latitude. I think it's absolutely essential that you figure out for yourself what your personal paleo template looks like because we're all going to eat different. Folks like me who are dealing with autoimmune issues we have to be more careful with certain foods and even that's different among us versus someone who's just no allergies, no hormonal imbalances, no overweight issues.
Maybe they're more athletic and you're just a whole foods lover. I mean there's a lot more flexibility there and that's one of my favorite things about paleo is how adaptive it is. And I think that that's a message that folks need to really dive into when they're considering it particularly for families is you know this is not a militant one size fits all way of eating. This isn't a branded diet.
No one owns paleo per se. This is something that is conceptual in nature and it really asks you to sort of stop and have a conversation with your body, really stop and look and look at your kids and go, "Okay. What will set them up to be good today? What if I experimented with the gluten free no food diet thing for five days?" Like you just plan their lunches out and your dinners out and just bite it off in small pieces and experiment. Do you like what you saw? Is it worth the effort that it took for you to plan the meals, buy things a little bit different at the store?
And you know we're not talking about serving them liver pâté on apple slices for breakfast. But you know we might --
Julie: We muster into that kind of thing because that's something my daughter actually enjoys.
Ciarra: And some kids are and that's the thing is like when you -- I love the opportunity that you have with your baby because you get to start her out from the very beginning right on the right track, whereas folks like me like also I have a daughter that's going to turn 11 here in the next month and I have a four and a half year old son. And so these are -- I mean they're just in very like two different camps as far as child development is concerned.
And so I like that they kind of throw me curveballs with that and that they represent like you know the two age groups that folks are most concerned about the picky toddler and the student that's exposed to lots of different foods and temptations and such when they're out of the house. And so for folks like me where the transition happened when my kids were already used to eating in that standard American diet way it's not as easy I guess and --
Julie: Yeah. Tell me a little bit about that. How did you approach it? Did you kind of do -- because like I work with a lot of people who really struggle with that and sometimes they're so afraid of it. They say, "Okay, you know what for right now let's focus on you and getting you healthy and then we'll pack all the family piece." So how did you do that?"
Ciarra: I echo that advice. I mean my first -- I mean for me it was just sort of selfish. I'm like I just need to take care of myself. I can't even think about them right now and yeah you know it's probably not the like awesome mom of the year award move, but that was just where I was at and --
Julie: Yeah, I mean it kind of is because I mean if you can't take yourself or you're not taking yourself then how are you supposed to take care of anybody else?
Ciarra: Exactly. And you know the other thing too is I feel and I know like all moms are going to be nodding yes here that our kids model us, right. And so if they see us having a hard time and struggling with anything then they'll pick up on, okay maybe that's something I need to avoid. And if they see us excited and enjoying something then they'll probably try to join in like for example you try to get your kids to put on their shoes in the morning they're not listening.
They don't want to hear from you, but as soon as you sit down and like pick up a book and start reading they're like, "Hey, mom, what are you reading?" Best way to get your kids adjusted. So same thing with food, I mean for example one of my kids favorite things to snack on and they really go nuts over these things. They are obsessed with kale chips and they're obsessed with seaweed snacks, right.
And try packing if your kids are used to eating little snack sized bags of chips every day for lunch they're probably not going to be real happy with you if you just automatically swap up some seaweed. But I mean they would see me sitting around eating like -- I love scotch eggs and like I eat those a lot. So I would eat my scotch eggs and I would eat my seaweed snacks and jerky sticks and stuff and of course they want it. And then they would say, "Well, what is that, mom?" And ask more questions and like you can try it if you don't like it you don't have to have it.
And then they realize well now it's this competition because Mia -- my daughter Mia liked it and then of course then my son's going to jump in and like it too and now it's their favorite thing.
Julie: Who likes it more.
Ciarra: Yes. Yeah. And that's just an example of how taking it slow, not pushing anything on them and just really me living my life and enjoying it and it wasn't begrudging at all to eat these foods. They're like, "All right. I'm open to it."
[0:10:14]
But so you know you got to do -- you got to get your bearings, right. So mom's out there. You know you have to get your bearings first. So do an elimination diet like a whole 30 for example I think is a really good way to reset your relationship with food because that's a huge component let's be honest and gets you in the habit of cooking without ingredients that you're probably dependent on.
I mean it is difficult to cook even without butter and it's hard to eat some taco soup without tortilla chips and cheese, but you know so you give yourself 30 days to reset your taste buds and practice some new eating habits and then go forward from there because this a lifestyle thing, right. I mean you guys are in it for the long haul we all know. Any of us who are in this and kind of are authors and bloggers and such and podcasters you know we're sharing this message that this is so not temporary and it's not short lived.
It's something that you got an entire life to explore and teach your kids and try new foods and just don't put it all on you to become an expert at in the first seven days. You're not expected to.
Julie: Yeah. I think that's one of the more overwhelming things is this kind of idea that it's very simple and you just all of a sudden wake up one day and you're paleo. And so I mean I always like to tell people and I think I've seen this advice somewhere else before, but I like to echo it and I recommend it as well is that when somebody's thinking about how to get started I always say you can't start tomorrow. You have to plan ahead. Give yourself a week.
Think a little bit out far out. I mean you've got to plan so get some shopping list. Figure out what it is. So what is it going to look like on Monday morning when you go to work and you're not going to be able to go to or you don't want to go to the place down the street where you always used to get your sandwich and soup for lunch? What are you going to do instead? Because those are the things that really trip people up.
The other thing that I hear a lot which is something that you're obviously an expert and I want to get your advice is on is this whole idea that paleo is so much more expensive and it's kind of cost prohibitive to switch especially a family to switch to a paleo diet. And you know just like what's your basic take on that and how did you kind of take that and expand upon it enough to turn it into a book? What was the impetus for that?
Ciarra: Well, one of the things that I really appreciate about paleo is that it has made grocery shopping and meal planning simpler. And that's something that I don't think a lot of people anticipate is how easy it actually becomes to eat because you're no longer governed by cravings or expectation to integrate food into your customs or your social habits and stuff. You sort of you break that tie.
And so with that comes sort of a bit of like financial freedom and that your food becomes what you put in your body to fuel you to do your life. It isn't your life. It fuels your life and so it simplified that. When we first started looking at this my husband is kind of a teeter-totter. He's definitely not a champion in this and that's kind of a unique perspective with me.
There are some people that successfully have 100% paleo families. I'm not that person. I wish I was. It's just not how our life is and so I can tell you that and I have four budgeting keys in the Frugal Paleo Cookbook that detail this and it really explains sort of some victories that we've had in the budgeting department with food.
But when we changed our habits and said, "Okay, well, it's going to be whole food focused. We're not going to spend time -- we're not going to kind of put our feet on both sides of the fence. We're just going to go 100% all in this month and do a paleo only family for one month what was this going to look like." And we actually reduced our spending on food by $1,000 doing it that way.
And so I kind of looked back in hindsight and go, "Well, how did I do that because that's pretty awesome." And it was very simple. We bought what we were going to eat and we ate it all. And we bought more of what we were going to eat and we ate it all. And we removed the impulsive buys like you said you have to take that time, a week out and really plan your menu and that's what I did.
And so we eliminated a lot of going out to eat. We eliminated coffee shop stops. We also a lot of foods that we tend to buy they're just sort of like ancillary things that take up room in our cart. They're not actually they're not required for a meal. You don't need a roll to go with green beans and bolognaise and you know a bunch of kale and spaghetti squash. You don't need a roll to eat that. You just eat the food.
[0:15:30]
And it's not magical and that's the thing that I think is sort of like the anticlimactic conclusion here is that this is very simple. It's you eat meat, veggies, fruit, nuts, healthy fats in creative awesome ways and then you just stick with that. Like if I buy a bunch of like big bulk. I like to buy my meat in bulk especially when you're looking at going -- turning to pasture raised options. It does make sense to not only just mathematically to buy in bulk, but also one of the things that's hard is like you're going through a busy week and you need to have food fast.
So if I have lots of awesome meat to choose from that's in my freezer it eliminates that temptation of I just need to run to the store and get something really quick. And so instead it's okay in the morning I'm just going to pull out meat and I'm going to use that tomorrow. So I am my own fast food resource when I keep it on hand like that.
But so what I like to do is I'll have some meals that are centered around something that's a little bit more just expensive to just outright purchase. It's not cheap to buy like a big roast, a grass-fed beef roast for example. I mean it does cost extra money. But so if I do that like two nights a week, but then like maybe four nights a week I'm doing less expensive options like a bolognaise for example or taco soup and things like that that are totally affordable. And then one night we have just sort of our leftovers clean up the fridge night.
So that's a very classic way that I just naturally will do this because I mean to me it makes sense. You do the bulk of meat. And I like to make sure that the meat that I'm buying that pasture raised is like the fattier cuts because that's where -- I mean some people know this, some people don't that the toxins that are in meat they're not like living in the liver. They stay in the fat.
And so I prioritize buying fattier meats that are pasture raised for that reason just so I can undercut that. But then if I'm going to buy meats that are like if I want to save money on buying other cuts then I'll make those the leaner cuts and then that saves a little bit of money. It's just more practical because again this is also like the good, better, best philosophy and that's been discussed a lot in paleo.
Okay, hey, wait a second. Let's just forget the idea of perfection here and just kind of why are we -- just think more about the why. Like well, okay, why would we buy pasture raised? Well, we're trying to -- there are a couple of things that we're trying to accomplish, but let's just keep it down to like the toxin stuff and the yuck that comes from industrialized farming.
So we circumvent that by what I was just saying and there you go. And then you offset it with meals that are they make a lot for not a lot of money and there you have it. And you use your leftovers wisely. That's my other thing. I'm really good with leftovers.
Julie: That's awesome. I don't typically have a lot of leftovers. I always cook with the intention of having leftovers and for some reason they tend to disappear. My husband's an athlete and he trains and so --
Ciarra: Ah, say no more.
Julie: Yeah, exactly. So I'm going to work on that, yeah. How have you -- I mean was that a big learning curve for you when you transitioned kind of getting to a place where you are buying bulk meat? Was that something that you had ever kind of dealt with before or was that kind of a big learning curve? Because when I tell people, "Oh, we're buying a whole pig this year." They kind of look at me like I have two heads like why would you do that?
Ciarra: Well, you know it's funny because this is how I cook before you know. I mean this isn't any different. I'm just not buying breads and bagels and sugary cereals that are six dollars a box and evaporate in two days. I'm not buying gallons and gallons of terrible milk. We do have milk in the house and we buy organic grass fed full fat and it's from a local dairy and that's what we have.
But we don't use it very often because we're not eating cereals and stuff and so we just don't need to buy as much of it and there we go.
Julie: I think that's an important principle just I don't want to skip it is that just by subtraction is really what paleo is about. It's about this really big subtraction and I think about that every time I do find myself in a supermarket. And we have a really great market here that I love, but it's still not free of junk. All the center aisles are still full of everything boxed.
[0:20:03]
And it boggles my mind to stand in line and see what other people have in their cart and I'm just thinking this is an expensive supermarket, isn't it? You're in all natural grocery store and this stuff has an even higher markup because it's "natural" and you're still filling your cart with it and we just don't know how that's sustainable when you know.
Ciarra: Yeah, gluten free junk foods are still junk foods.
Julie: Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, I was trying to really kind of push that concept and I try to explain that as much as I can to people is when you take all that stuff out you're actually saving money in the long run.
Ciarra: You have no idea how much money you'll save when you just stop buying the other stuff. You can just look at a grocery receipt that's laying around in the bottom of your purse and kind of highlight the things that are snack oriented. Just the non -- anything that's not meat, veggies, fruit and stuff highlight all of that, add it up and go, "Do you really --" you don't have to have that because you can make that from real food or you maybe just -- most people are dependent on the convenience items.
And you know that's another thing to talk about, the convenience foods. What do you, right? And I'm sure you guys especially with having to feed an athlete for a husband I mean you guys are having to have a lot of food on hand that is fast, that is going to be the right thing that you need depending on when training occurred and all of that. And you know for us it's not necessarily like athletically oriented. It's that they want to snack all the time. It's like they wake up and the first thing is, "Good morning, mom. Can I have breakfast now?" And like it's 6:30, but sure.
And then they come home from school and they want a snack. And so you know that I think that that's something that it doesn't go away when you're paleo so what do you do, right? And you know for me we have staples in the house that are always good. We love sweet potato fries. We love kale chips. We love scotch eggs, tuna salad and cucumber and stuff and then also -- I mean they're just really good like nut -- like you can toast nuts and put cinnamon on them and make them yummy or do some plantain chips in coconut oil and cinnamon or do green smoothies of avocado and spinach, but then put berries in it too.
And I mean my kids they throw down on that stuff and they have no idea it's paleo. They just know it taste good and mom eats it all the time. So you can still keep those convenient things in your life. You're just retooling it a little bit and you're thinking, "Okay, what do I want to be eating and then how can I make that -- how can I serve it in the medium that I want for familiarity's sake?"
Julie: Well, I think for health though I mean largely the subtraction thing and just not having the other the junk around and actually having to put a little bit of love and attention towards eating a snack is huge because one of the reasons that people are successful I think with weight loss when they switched to paleo and they do the whole pantry cleanout and all that stuff is. There's just not the stuff sitting around that's tempting to that's ready to eat, right.
Like there's not the box of cereal, a box of cookies or even in some cases fruit is a problem in this respect.
Ciarra: You're so -- and same with nuts. As you were talking I was just thinking about people who over snack on nuts. I mean first of all that's a lot of omega sixes which is not good for inflammation, but they're high calorie, they're high fat. And just because you're paleo doesn't mean that suddenly calories become irrelevant.
I mean tracking macros aren't like as important just because inherently the food you're eating is more balanced and you know it just it becomes less of a priority, but calories are still there and when you're putting handfuls of toasted pecans down your gullet and you're not offsetting that with just the common sense just basic movement and such you know that's going to lead to some frustrations if weight management is a priority for why you're choosing paleo.
Julie: Yeah, I think that's huge. I mean, but I think that's one of the things that I've kind of enjoyed is that kind of creative little bubble that you get to experience when you switch. I mean it doesn't last forever, right, because it's like once it's habit then it's kind of just your routine and it's what you do. But when we switched it was kind of like, "Wow, I get to kind of retool all the stuff and I get to think about how I want to enjoy some of the things that I used to enjoy."
But I also found great inspiration in just being able to come up with totally new things and I think that's a little bit exciting and I think that's I mean it's one of the reasons why I think even looking forward to your new book and kind of just thinking, "Oh, could I do this even a little better? Could I get more efficient about how I am approaching cooking?"
Because I think the other thing is when you start buying premium meat and produce and things like that. Like the majority of my food I get from the Farmer's Market and I have this tendency to stop paying attention to what things cost.
[0:25:07]
Ciarra: Can I tell you I sometimes do that too because I'm so used to like I know this is what I eat, I know this is what I buy and so I'm just buying it you know. And I guess well I'm a creature of habit too. I go to the same stores which are normal stores, normal grocery stores. And I go to these same places all the time and this is just I mean that's what I buy. I don't really think about it too much anymore.
Julie: I know. I know, but I feel like I think it's good to audit yourself every once in a while. I mean when I go on auto -- and I definitely noticed it now that it's coming towards winter and things are a little bit more scarce so some things are more expensive and all of a sudden the same amount of money that I take to the Farmer's Market doesn't seem to be buying quite as many bags of food.
Ciarra: Yeah. And hey, one of the things that I mention in the Frugal Paleo Cookbook is how like not to underestimate the use of playing with textures you know because there's just so much that could be done. Like even take cauliflower, right, I mean like you can still get cauliflower at a pretty good price. It's just one of those staple veggies that I mean every -- well, some people don't care for it, but I think you can jazz it up in ways that might surprise folks.
But anyway, so I mean just taking cauliflower. You can puree that into sort of a faux mashed potato if you're looking to stay on the lower carb end or if you just choose not to have too many carbohydrates at dinner time. So you can puree that into a faux mashed potato then you can think it out with some bone broth and make a creamy soup with it. You can grate it and turn it into rice. You can just cut it into florets and season it and roast it and bake it and grill it and you know do all these things which is keeping it whole.
You know I've even got a recipe where I made dumplings out of cauliflower by basically cooking it down and then really wringing out all the moisture and it looks like mossflower when you do that. So you mix it up with some other ingredients and voila I came up with a cauliflower, chicken and dumpling and they are delicious, right?
Julie: That sounds really good.
Ciarra: But the thing is it's like okay, so it took a little bit of time. You're obviously not going to do that on a Tuesday night, but you know let's say you got some time that you can carve out on the weekends to play with a new recipe to get it so that it's become more familiar and then maybe that's just something that overtime will become natural and it's what you keep in your back pocket, but the point is that if you change up the texture or the method that you're cooking these vegetables you might have a really good sale on cauliflower and you're staring at three heads without going, "What am I going to do because I can only eat so much cauli rice." Well, there you go.
I mean and there are a number of recipes in frugal paleo cookbook that showcase how to do different things with the exact same vegetable. And also you know I think that along those lines because again I'm a creature of habit and I'm not a very adventurous eater. I'm just like we love casseroles. We're just normal people eating.
And you know so I don't tend to purchase a lot of like more like fancier ingredients and things like that. I just rework normal stuff and one of the things that I like with dark leafy greens. Like those are super good for you, right. And kids not always love them and so you know I think a lot of people by this point are pretty familiar with tucking it in you know like I like to chop up kale and put it into red sauces and stuff and that goes over really well.
But making chips out of it you can make chips out of almost any dark leafy green. You toss it in your preferred fat and some seasoning blends and you're on your way and now you've just changed that texture component and now it's yummy. And so anyway, in order to kind of mess with the textures of just normal foods and really give some variety with flavor profiles I've got 15 different spice blends in Frugal Paleo that are normal like just normal like you go into the store and you're getting some basil and red chili flakes.
Like these aren't you know. It's anything that you would -- you probably had 90% of the spices in your cupboard right now and then just kind of retool them and mix them up in a way that gives you these different flavor profiles and none of them have salt in it. So you can you know and depending on what way you're cooking it that's a big deal because you know we know about salt and so yeah, none of them have salt so you don't have to worry about that.
And it's just it's a great way if you find some -- a good deal on chicken thighs and a good deal on some kale. You could potentially get 20 different meals and flavors and such just by playing with methods and these 15 different spice blends.
Julie: That's awesome. I'm a big fan of that of just making it work and figuring it out. And so I think that's going to be hugely helpful to a lot of people to just think about it in a different way especially when you're actually trying to cut cost and save some money and kind of retool your budget to kind of make this lifestyle work. Not that I think that it's difficult to retool your budget to make this lifestyle work as we've talked about.
[0:30:17]
I think it's mostly about subtraction, but I think it's also just about preparation and I think those two like planning ahead with the budget kind of goes hand in hand which is like planning ahead for what you're going to eat. Are you a big fan, like are you a make ahead kind of person? Do you freeze meals and stock pile?
Ciarra: I do the make ahead thing, but I'm like you. Our leftovers only go to the next day. And so that's just how it is. I mean we're lucky if we get through like dinner the next time. I mean we just go through our food pretty fast. We're all big eaters and that's the other thing by the way. I bet you probably notice this too that do you find yourself eating more food than --?
Julie: Oh, yeah.
Ciarra: Yeah. So us too, right. And so I make this big pot of taco soup and stuff or you know like I've got a great recipe for like beef stroganoff and I think, "Okay, this is really going to go far." And then by lunch the next day I'm like, "What? There goes that."
Julie: I say that literally every day. "Oh, yes, this is going to give me leftovers." So for example yesterday I braised two small lamb roast, they were pretty small. They were like less than a pounds each with a large lamb shank and it made decent size amount of meat. It was like a nice stew. It had all spice and cinnamon and apple and onion. It was really good. And we will be very lucky if I can get another dinner out of that tonight. I'm like thinking about what can I add to it to increase the food content.
Ciarra: I bet you're like, "Should have put an egg on it." You know what I mean, like how many times do you wake up in the morning and you're like, "I could totally like reheat that squash and just put an egg on it and some scallions and some hot sauce and call that breakfast."
Julie: Yeah. That's the biggest dilemma is this breakfast or is this dinner? Like is this going to be enough for dinner? Should I just eat it for breakfast? Oh, man. Yeah, so --
Ciarra: So I mean for folks who are really like who feel really confident in that you know I think one there's some really solid online resources that give you more control over planning your own menu. I mean some people just want to be told when to eat, what to eat, what to buy and that works. I mean there are a lot of people that produce meal plans that can help you with that.
There are also other websites that allow you to choose what you want to make and when. And so that's out there as well. Pretty much anything you need it's available. Just you know ask someone you trust, ask me, ask you guys and say, "Okay, this is my scenario. What would you recommend?" You know chances are you and I would have more visibility and the kind of resources that are out there and there are people working their butts off to help people make this transition and make it easier.
And so if you are a person who really does, you know, you need to -- well, especially like when you're just getting into the swing of things, when planning is really important to do. And so you know what I like to recommend doing, I did this for a whole. I don't do it anymore, but it was a good strategy and I like to incorporate my slow cooker a lot particularly on Fridays because I find that by Friday I'm so whooped.
I mean I wake up and make breakfast and lunches to go for both my kids and my husband every day. I mean that it'll exhaust a person in itself, right. And so you know by Friday I'm smoked. And so I throw very easy recipes in my crockpot, Italian beef that's in the book. I mean that's just a roast and some good spices and tomato and bone broth and then you just let it go.
And it is so good on its own. You know I roasted spaghetti squash. I mean I'll just use canned organic green beans that I picked up at Costco. I mean that's paleo and I'll heat that up and we've got this beautiful tender beef at the end of the day and I did nothing. It took very little effort of my part and you know we're staying paleo. We're not ordering pizza. We're not going out for burgers. We're falling into the dining room table at the end of a week having an awesome meal that's warm and good and filling.
And if we're lucky we'll have enough leftovers in the morning and I'll make a frittata out of it and you know and then there we go. We've maximized it.
Julie: So we have the holidays coming up. We talked a little bit about this before we've even started recording, but do you have some tips and tricks for people to kind of not only I mean to save money for the holidays, but just some tips and tricks to kind of make holiday cooking especially for those of us who are the main cooks in the household and aren't catching a break this holiday season.
Ciarra: Yeah.
Julie: Tips and tricks for kind of how to make it a little bit more enjoyable and maybe less stressful.
Ciarra: Yeah. So two things, first is that I mean when you think about the traditional thanksgiving foods it's paleo.
[0:35:02]
Julie: Yeah, I know. I was surprised by that actually. Like actually they don't have to take a lot out of this to make --
Ciarra: You just not smother everything in sugar, you know. I mean you can eat sweet potatoes successfully without marshmallows and it's quit delicious. So in fact, I've got a recipe for it's sautéed apples and sweet potatoes and then I just throw some cinnamon and nuts on it. It is delicious. It's four ingredients. You can make it ahead. No one will notice.
I mean no one will care. It's so good, right. So anyway, my first things is that thanksgiving foods are paleo foods. So it's so much simpler than a person might think when having to accommodate all of these just sugary deserts and again the rolls and remember potatoes are paleo so if you don't want to do the carbs [0:35:52] [Indiscernible]. It's okay.
But I think that this really kind of taps into this other concept of cheating on your diet and that is kind of like the in moderation 80:20 thing for me. Just strikes a chord. You're not doing anything illegal or unethical if you choose to eat foods that are not what you would typically prefer to eat on a day-to-day basis. You've done nothing wrong if you do that.
And if the goal of thanksgiving is to lose the grease a little bit and just sort of relax on your food and of course if you don't have any like real medical concerns or food allergies you're never going to tell somebody who's got a celiac or you know you can just splurge with some bread sticks. It's like, "Umm, yeah, I will die." It's not going to -- or if you're lactose intolerant like there's just no way that I you know ice cream or whipped cream all over a piece of pie is going to be worth it.
And so that's just a personal decision because again you're not cheating if you eat something that isn't what you would prefer to eat on a day-to-day basis. You're making a choice and you're going to accept the consequence that comes with it and then you're just going to move on like it's not a big deal. But the difference is making a commitment to yourself well, one, taking the time to identify what works for your body and your current needs and what doesn't. And then making a commitment to just prioritizing the things that are good for you and choosing not to eat the things that cause harm to your body.
Like that's your lifestyle. That's how you move forward. So when thanksgiving comes along or whatever holiday or whatever event you've already had that conversation with your body and so you know what to do for yourself.
Julie: Yeah, I think that's important. It's also important I think with goals because I mean I've had a lot of people that I work with come to me and a little bit of a panic and anxiety about the holidays comings up because they just feel not so much about what they're making. I think that they're pretty confident about that, concern about all the parties that they're going to be going to and how to kind of navigate that.
And I've kind of struggled. I said, "You know I think you have to just remember and decide ahead of time what your goals are and what you want to enjoy because it's not worth the stress of beating yourself up about it for the next six weeks."
Ciarra: I so agree. I so agree. One cocktail or one little baguette or bruschetta or something like that, that's not going to kill you. I mean, well, depending on of course what your medical.
Julie: Yeah. I think that's part of the goals. I mean there's some people who can never you know if I said even if I was okay with 80:20 there are some people that part of that 20% shouldn't be the things that we don't eat at all, right. It shouldn't be either bread or whatever. It should be you know maybe it's a little bit more sugar or maybe it's a little bit more whatever you know it's a dessert that you wouldn't normally have.
But I don't think you should throw the whole thing out the window, first, because it's Christmas.
Ciarra: Don't find yourself at the bottom of Chex Mix bowl.
Julie: Exactly. Exactly. You might wake up to regret that the next day.
Ciarra: And you know what if you do then you'll regret it the next day. You'll feel like crap and you know what that always says to me, "Boy, this is why I eat paleo. This is why I don't eat gluten because, man." And the thing is what we know about paleo is that again it's not necessarily about a waist line.
Your sleep isn't as good and when you're not sleeping as good then you're in a bad mood. You're not able to focus as well. And so this is -- there's like a chain reaction that happens depending on how much you're triggered by a particular foods and then how much of the food you ate and whatever the details are in that situation.
I mean what we know about paleo the health benefits of eating this way transcend waist lines and I mean that's a huge factor for people. But I mean like for me you know at first it was like what drew me to it was this whole weight loss idea. But now it's not as big of a concern for me. I've actually gained weight now this year because I just it's not as big of a deal. I want to be healthy. I want to sleep well. I want to think clearly.
[0:40:03]
I want to have energy to be able to do things like write a book and blog which takes a lot of time to do and --
Julie: Well and stress. I mean it's the thing. You're always trying to balance the stress part because that's really the root of all evil.
Ciarra: It totally is and now you know what I write about that too in the book that there are other things beyond you know in terms of like being frugal with your life. You know one of the things that you need to value is your sanity in all of this. I mean if you are losing sleep and stressing out, it's causing relationship issues. It's causing family issues because you're trying to you know adopt this lifestyle.
You need to just kind of hold the phone here and reevaluate a little bit and think, "Well, maybe a full paleo leap isn't what -- is called for right now for everyone." You know maybe the goal is okay, let's just take this in manageable chunks to 100% gluten free. Your goal for the next month with your family or even this could be a good goal for people to take with holidays.
The goal is just be gluten-free. Just avoid that trigger and have some flexibility. Have carb cocktails that are tequila and gin and bourbon, alcohols that are going to be gluten free. And choose snacks that are potato and rice and corn if you have to and whatever or try to stay focused on meats. But make a small goal and then let's talk trigger foods, right, because you know I love -- I'm not always a sweets person. I'm a salty, crunchy you know that's me, right and like greasy and just.
I love fries, but that's a trigger food for me because if I'm like, "Well, I'll just have these tortilla chips because they're gluten free. Well, it's also cooked in like really awful oils, yeah." And I learned through this because that was like my first thing. I'm like, "All right, okay, I'll just do this whole gluten free deal and I'm going to have salsa with these tortilla chips and I found that I reacted worst eating these refined synthetic oils than I do when I have gluten. I mean who knew, right?
And so these are again you have to give yourself some grace as you navigate learning how your body handles certain foods and you need to have the discipline at some point in this journey to eliminate everything and kind of start from scratch and really get those honest answers about yourself and then really respect your body in the process moving forward and just have a lot of grace for yourself and for the people around you.
Julie: I like that philosophy that you have. You talked about that a little bit on your website about grace for yourself and I think that's hugely important especially for women. I work with a lot of women who are just kind of coming off of that lifelong struggle of really beating themselves up every day about everything they put in their mouth. And I think for a lot of people when you switch to paleo and you start to feel better that's one of the first things you finally get is freedom from that feeling.
Ciarra: Yup. And can we just talk about this idea this pressure that you have to like crush everything like winning all the time. That's all you're doing. And I mean that just puts so much undue pressure on you. I'm more of a Zen person you know just take it down a notch. There are successes in little things and I guess you know it's like I look at my -- I look at where I came from and all of the like the goals and charts and must achieve this weight number and must run these many miles at this pace.
I mean sure it was motivating. It was a place and this is probably just personal preference as well. That can be a really good accountability for folks, but for me I just felt like I'm exhausting myself trying to reach these goals and maybe my body is waving these huge red flags going, "You're not listening to me." And so for me the transition was, "Okay, we're going to just stop the idea of all of these goals that might not be who I am."
We're going to take it down and now I find I love hot yoga. I mean that's my jam you know and I still try to run and stuff, but I mean I would just rather get in there and sweat for an hour and a half and it's really nourishing. It's overall nourishing. And then you know the same is true with certain food things.
Again, I just not eat refined seed oils, but if gluten happens it's not going to kill me and boy, that's really good to know. Now, I mean medically I know that there are some you know one bite can stay in your system for six months and there are other things that are happening that I might not be feeling the symptoms of, but they are occurring internally and I absolutely acknowledge all of that.
But just in terms of how I'm feeling you know if I had to choose between the two I'm avoiding the oils.
Julie: Yeah, I think it's important to pay attention to that. I think more than anything it's having that awareness and learning that awareness of your body and getting that connection back that most people don't even ever have growing up. They just never really learned how to make the connection between what they ate and how they felt.
[0:45:15]
So and for some people that takes years even after switching to paleo to really establish that and not only that, but like as we're healing we're changing. Our bodies change and respond to foods differently. So I think --
Ciarra: And your needs change too because like you know if you're like let's say you're planning for pregnancy and then you get pregnant. Well, I mean I would expect that things would change a little bit. You've got to increase your calories, but what calories does that include?
Julie: Or if you're food averse and what if you've got morning sickness.
Ciarra: Exactly. Yeah, I mean and I had terrible morning sickness with both my kids. So I mean I get that. So then how do you get around that and I mean enter the green smoothie, right. I mean you can put grass fed collagen in there for getting all of those great amino acids. You can dump you know you can put your like a lot of healthy fats in there so that your calories are up.
Again, spinach blends so easily. You can do things that help with detoxifying which for me is like my new thing I geek out on is keeping my body in good form for detoxification. And so you know you throw your berries in there and stuff, put some chia seeds in there for your calcium. I mean like you can really kind of hack, you can hack these things once you geek out a little bit on the nutrition stuff.
And so there's always a solution and that's the thing is that whatever it is that's going on there is a solution for it. So a little bit of time, a little bit of trial and error, partner with someone that you feel confident in their approach and their understanding of food and supplements and stuff which can be -- it can be tricky, but find someone you trust and you know and figure out what's right for you.
And expect that as life you go through different seasons in life. Your needs, your diet needs are going to change along with it. You know if you are training for a half marathon, well, you know, I really hope you're eating carbohydrates. I really hope that you're not taking a ketogenic approach when you're trying to do that.
But so again do your homework, read a lot, be open minded, listen to the other side of the story depending on what you know. Like for me I always thought, "Well, carbs are just terrible." And for my first year of paleo I was very low carb. I've rarely even ate sweet potatoes or plantains. And I was crossfitting at the time.
And so you know I learned a lot too that first year because I'm like, okay, paleo is spot on, but it's a little bit ketogenic for what I should be doing because of the amount I was crossfitting. And so I had just a huge adrenal shut down this time last year and I mean and that was doing paleo and CrossFit. So what happened there?
And boy, I started learning about how carbohydrates are really essential. I read Perfect Health Diet by Dr. Jaminet and you know I learned more. And so my paleo has evolved a lot. I eat white rice from time to time right now. It's not a thing for me. I think carbohydrates are healthy and, but again you live you learn, your needs change and that's the beauty of paleo. It's an ongoing conversation.
Julie: Well, that and your own personalization. I mean that's just the most important thing.
Ciarra: It is.
Julie: Well, that's really awesome. I really enjoyed talking to you. Your new book is called the Frugal Paleo Cookbook. Where can people find more about you and more about the cookbook?
Ciarra: Popularpaleo.com is the blog and Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, you know, Pinterest. Hey, love my Pinterest, Instagram. I'm all over all those things, would love to meet up with everyone and just talk more about all of these stuff and really being able to talk with listeners and readers helps me be able to customize content. And so I mean let me hear it, guys.
And Frugal Paleo Cookbook is available for pre-order right now on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble online and then on next Tuesday, December 2nd is when it's available in bookstores and probably Costco. So we're kind of waiting to get the final word on that, but we'll be doing a book signing tour in January and hitting up ten different cities. And so it's really it's super exciting right now.
Julie: That's great. Congratulations. It's really exciting. I can't wait to get my hands on it. It sounds awesome.
Ciarra: Yeah.
Julie: Wonderful. Well, thanks so much for joining us. I'll talk to you soon.
Ciarra: Thanks, Julie. Bye.
Julie: Bye.
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