Hey there beautiful friends. Welcome to today’s episode. Thank you so much for joining me as if you’re listening like in real time here. We close out the month of October or very last podcast episode of October. Hopefully you ladies enjoyed the holiday tips as we head into the holidays. I like to be proactive, as proactive as I can. So we’re not in the middle of things like oh, shoot, what do I do here. So if you haven’t listened to those, you can go back and listen to those maybe when they apply a little bit more to closer to what maybe are your big holidays or your big kind of concerns or whatever. Today we’re gonna talk about just in general, sometimes foods and always foods and what I mean by that what that looks like, this kind of all works together in what I consider being balanced, like food in general can be very confusing, especially if you’re newer to healthy eating and nutrition and living in, you know, we have this food pyramid that were given as the golden standard that heavily promotes grain really puts protein on the back burner. And then we have all the diet culture messages of we assume low calories always best because when we see the low kit, like literally small calories on something like 100 Calorie packs, we’re like, this must be good for me, I’m I should eat this especially healthy.
Let me see, you know, different kinds of diets marketed on our foods themselves, like keto cookies and gluten free pasta and this and that. And I it gets very confusing. Now, what I like to do if you’ve been here for a while you’re like, I know what you’re gonna say Brittany, you could say it for me say it with me. 80/20 eating right. 80% whole clean foods 20% treats and indulgences. Okay. Now, within that, within that 89/20 lifestyle, which obviously comes up to 100%, right? You need to balance out the right carbs, fat and protein for your body as well, which is your macronutrients.
Okay, so if you haven’t heard of this before, and you’re like, Yeah, I don’t know what tracking macros is, I don’t know, macros means. That’s all macros are your carbs, fat and protein. So the way I live and promote and advise other people to live and I teach in my programs, is to always balance out your carb fan protein according to your needs. And then within that 80% of that food, his whole clean food choices. And then 20% can be what you want. Truly, it can be chicken wings, can be a doughnut, it could be, you know, whatever alcohol, those kinds of things fit in your 20%. Now, I’ve worked with a lot of clients in the past who have come to me being like, I’ve heard this foods good. I’ve heard this foods bad like say for, for instance, like, oh, blueberries are really good, but Oreos are bad or this that. So what I think we all can agree on, is that some foods are obviously better quality for us than other foods. Where I think it’s dangerous is I don’t think it’s helpful for us to think of it as good and bad. Because that kind of puts like a moral equivalent onto it. Like then we sometimes make that next leap of thinking we’re good, or we’re bad if we eat whatever kind of food or whatever. So there’s no moral, you know, there’s no morality to food, really, there’s obviously the way that we’re using food that can be, that can be a moral issue, if we are being gluttonous, or if we’re being either way, just way over restrictive and obsessive with food. And that way, or being gluttonous, and wasting resources and that kind of thing. Like there’s, you know, with our actions, we obviously there can be a morality to it. So I’m not here to argue about, but I don’t like the good food, bad food thing. I like thinking of it as sometimes foods, and always foods. So we’re going to talk about what that means today. Now, I do want to say first, I think there is a time in place for when, you know, you go a little bit more restrictive. So where you would have some foods, quote unquote, off limits, and I mean, just personalize this for your life. Like, as always, I hope you’re listening to this podcast thinking I can take an apply that but I’ll leave that or this is what that would look like for my family or for myself. And I’ve been talking about this recently with my six year old who we have never taken him to as fast food as we’ve gotten has been Chick fil A. And like no Taco Bell, no McDonald’s, Burger King, whatever. And, but in general, we do promote eating at 20 around them. We don’t call it that. We just say you know, we eat mostly hope we mostly good for us foods, you know, not getting into the good and bad, but mostly foods that are going to fuel us really well. And then we have treats and stuff sometimes. And then we put that into practice and he sees what it looks like obviously all our kids but our six year olds are oldest. So this is where these conversations are happening. And then we’ve talked about I’ve said like there are some foods oh that I could do without having you ever having you know, and he’s like, like, what is that like, like McDonald’s for example, like, I don’t feel the need for you to ever eat a McDonald’s burger. Now, I’m not getting again, religious or scrupulous about this. So please don’t email me and be like, your kids will be fine. If they have a McDonald’s burger once in a while, they would, that’d be fine, you know, but it’s one of those things are not going to seek out or think that like this should be part of their 20%. Like, if it was, they were going to a birthday party, they were all being fed Happy Meals, I would not probably-and everyone can do what they want to do. But in that case, I would not be the person that like packs a separate thing, he would eat a happy meal, and he would live.
Okay. So everyone has to make their own decisions there. But I’m saying in general, like, yes, there’s some foods that I’m like, I’m fine with if I would avoid that forevermore, or just obviously aren’t worth it to me and my 20%. But some, just like this is the difference between diets like being on a short term, super restrictive thing, like if you’re eating keto, and you’re eating almost no carbs, but you don’t plan to be that way forever, you’re eventually going to be going back into something else that needs to have a little more flexibility. Now, I have shared about this before, but where I kind of started with cleaning up my nutrition and learning more about nutrition was by doing the whole 30 which is very popular, many of you have probably done or at least heard of. And I think the good thing about it is you really do prioritize eating whole clean foods. You know, that’s a little bit of like what we’re going to talk about in just a second here, but it does, you know, cut out like whole food groups, like you’re not doing dairy, you’re not doing whatever. So I learned good things from it. I liked how I felt on it. I personally didn’t want to live that way forever of cutting out whole food groups or having things on the absolutely not list. I personally like to look at things a little bit more gray area, shall we say rather than black and white, like, yes food and no food. I like to look at it a little more sometimes not always. So what I mean by this, and I also have to apologize because I don’t know if you are a new realist or newer listeners tuning in. But I am in these like last weeks of pregnancy here and I can hear myself being so out of breath reporting this so just buckle up because the next several months that I’m gonna be pre recording before this baby joins us and it’s gonna be a lot of panting and it is what it is. I promise you I’m not trying to walk on the treadmill while I talk to you. I’m just talking quickly and I get out of breath quickly pregnant.
All right, and I promise I workout. Alright, so what I promote in this sometimes food and always foods and what this kind of looks like is always foods will be foods like lean meats, you know, like chicken breasts and ground turkey. And like good high quality ground beef. I’d even say it’s you know, wait, did I say always Yes, always foods.
Vegetables would be always foods, especially leafy greens, sweet potatoes, always foods. ancient grains are so good for us.
So good for digestion, those kinds of things. Greek yogurt, if your body tolerates dairy, well could be an always food, a lot of people love to use Greek yogurt to get their protein in nuts, berries. Now, some caveats around this I get a little bit more nuanced when I’m working with people. If you are trying to very specifically for that you’re trying to get overall healthier if you’re very specifically trying to lose like last five or 10 pounds, that’s when we look at things personally like making sure you only have two servings of fruit a day or something like that. But for the general person who’s just trying to get healthier.
Our main problem was not going to be that we accidentally had an apple and blueberries and a kiwi in the same day. Okay, it’s usually just overeating in general or, you know, under eating protein, those kinds of things. But I just want to say that since I put berries on the kind of always food list it’s like right, we’re still talking mod like moderate portions and balancing out those macros if you all you ate all day was the car we things I mentioned if your whole day was ancient grains, Greek yogurt, berries, and like sweet potatoes, then yeah, you’d be really carb heavy not balanced in the other areas.
Okay, so all of this works together. We still are balancing off macros but those are all like really good quality clean foods. The you don’t have to think about oh, I had too much of that this week. Or you know what, anything like that, but sometimes foods would be things like refined sweets even just like refined grains in general like your all purpose flour which you know convert to sugar really quickly in the body. It’s not Doesn’t your body doesn’t process it the same or manage it blood sugar wise is we do Ancient Greens. So those kinds of things, highly processed foods, that’s where like the Oreos or things like that fit in, but there’s also a lot of other foods that are highly processed like that. This is where I’ll say the last one. And then I’ll kind of explain this a little bit more and then alcohol as well, it’d be like a sometimes, you know, beverage. Now, I want you to really think about all the food that you’re taking in. And if it really looks at percent, whole clean foods, and obviously, I think the best way to do this is to just actually have some data to go on. And that’s what we do in the eight week challenge, where I’m not just looking at your macros, but we talk food quality, too. So I’m, I have it, I find it easiest, just because of the way that we need to share this, too, for the participants to put their phone into my fitness pal, and then I just either log in as them, or they sent me screenshots, and I can see everything they’re eating, and when it comes out to numbers wise, but I’m seeing the quality. So things I’m also looking for as we continue on, or if I’m working with somebody one on one is like, what does their food quality look like? So you can do this for yourself in My Fitness Pal. Or if you don’t really care about the numbers as much like the carbs, fat protein, the grams, all that, you could just do this on paper pen and paper just for the reason of looking at food quality. And write down what you eat for like three days, do it in the Notes app on your phone, whatever you want to do. But take a look and see if 80% of it is coming from whole clean foods. Because this is where you’re getting that confusion sets in a little bit in our marketplace right now where there’s like beyond burgers, and different like vegan Patty, whatever’s there’s a lot going on in the fake meat world, I thought touched on this a little bit in that plant based animal fat, like different kind of protein sources episode. And if it’s just a bunch of processed crap that you can’t pronounce, you don’t even know what it is. Or just like, a lot of times, especially in the vegetarian or vegan foods, it’s like grain grain grain and other grain disguised as something else in grain grain grain and bad oils. And there you go. And you’re like, Well, is this really healthier, it’s not and if you’re looking for, you know, protein sources, you could still there’s, there’s a way to eat in a vegetarian or vegan way that could still be whole clean. Without those I’m am just picking on those because those come to mind is, a lot of times what I hear is healthy, like I’m so healthy because I had a beyond burger like oh my goodness, like that is not what we should be holding up as an example of health we want to think like from the ground, or from a mother, not manufactured in a plant. Okay, so that is the takeaway today, my friends is 80% of the intake should be from the always foods and 20% should come from the sometimes foods and then even if you’re not a like numbers person or know how many calories you’re eating personal or whatever, and all that stuff, which for the record, I’m not in general either. I think once you learn the tool of how to balance out your macros, it’s really helpful. But then going forward, I don’t want you to be a slave to numbers. Either I myself, I’m not tracked in about five years, and I think is just a good skill to learn and be able to do. But this whole 80/20 thing is going to be sustainable moving forward, once you’ve kind of gotten into the groove of it. And then it’s just a good thing to keep in the back of your head. You know, every once in a while is like alright, one my sometimes foods are starting to starting to take over a little more, that’s when I need to pull back a little bit. And to back off, and maybe clean things up a little bit. And you know, get back into a balance because for majority of the people I’ve worked with balance has just been the most sustainable long term like you might get results from a quick fix, but you’re not going to sustain the results. All right. So that’s it for you today. Thank you so much for joining me.
Next episode we’re going to talk Oh, it’s a fun little quick one. Well, I haven’t recorded it yet but I’m sure it will be because it’s five easy delicious in healthy breakfasts and I’m already looking at my little outline here and I just think it’s a nice little take it and apply it right away just five little breakfast ideas for you come in next episode. And if you’re looking for workouts or support accountability all the above for the month of November come join the chasing greatness group we already that our my eight week fat loss challenges are done for the rest of the year. So if you’re on the fence about that that will kick off again in 2024. But you can always come join our monthly group. This is where you get full video workouts every single month. You get the PDF with pictures and exercise descriptions if you’d rather kind of just do it yourself but want to work out plan. Really fun community of ladies we do a live workout together each month and stuff to lots of little freebies like checklists and giveaways and things like that in the group. So if you want more information you can head over to healthy Catholic moms.com That’s under work with me is chasing greatness group. All right, so I will talk to you next episode. Have a great rest of your day. Bye
