It's summertime! Summertime usually brings about summer vacation. And when I think about summer vacation, I think about food, or is it just me?
But don't get me wrong, when I think about eating on vacation I am also a little concerned that I will enjoy the food too much and it will show on my waistline.
And so how can we do better about enjoying our foods, but at the same time, eating things that are nutritious, and going to feel us and taste good? Because we want to enjoy a vacation. But we don't want to enjoy it so much that we ended up gaining a bunch of weight.
In this episode, you're going to learn how you can eat healthy while you're on vacation. So if you're like me, and you need some help, check out this episode.
ABOUT JOANNA Joanna Wen is a certified life and weight loss coach that helps busy moms lose weight permanently in a healthy and sustainable way. She uses her unique approach to help her clients love their food and lose weight without deprivation. She also helps her clients to get to the root cause of their overeating and remove these blocks so that they keep the weight off once and for all.
It's summertime! Summertime usually brings about summer vacation. And when I think about summer vacation, I think about food, or is it just me?
But don't get me wrong, when I think about eating on vacation I am also a little concerned that I will enjoy the food too much and it will show on my waistline.
And so how can we do better about enjoying our foods, but at the same time, eating things that are nutritious, and going to feel us and taste good? Because we want to enjoy a vacation. But we don't want to enjoy it so much that we ended up gaining a bunch of weight.
In this episode, you're going to learn how you can eat healthy while you're on vacation. So if you're like me, and you need some help, check out this episode.
ABOUT JOANNA Joanna Wen is a certified life and weight loss coach that helps busy moms lose weight permanently in a healthy and sustainable way. She uses her unique approach to help her clients love their food and lose weight without deprivation. She also helps her clients to get to the root cause of their overeating and remove these blocks so that they keep the weight off once and for all.
So it's official, the kids are out of school. And when that happens, that means it is summertime. And when we think about summertime, we think about summer vacation. And when I think about summer vacation, I think about food, or is it just Am I alone? Please say that you think about foods. Because when I go on vacation, I like to try new things and actually get out there and eat some foods I don't typically eat when I'm at home. But a lot of times that comes at a cost. Usually that cost is adding a few extra pounds. And either seeing that my waistline is getting a little bit more expanded than I would like. And so how can we do better about enjoying our foods, but at the same time, eating things that are nutritious, and going to feel us and taste good? Because we want to enjoy a vacation. But we don't want to enjoy it so much that we ended up gaining a bunch of weight. So in this episode, you're going to learn how you can eat healthy while you're on vacation. So if you're like me, and you need some help, stay tuned. You ever listened to the podcast, the weekly podcast for busy working moms to get inspiration, encouragement and practical tips for this journey called motherhood? My name is Toni-Ann. And you are listening to Episode 183. All right, today on the podcast I have Anna on with me. So welcome to the podcast.
Joanna:
Thank you Toni-Ann. I'm glad to be here.
Toni-Ann Mayembe:
I am excited to talk to you today. Because it is summertime. Now that this episode is going on it's summertime. And it's a lot of things going on with us moms. And one of the things that I know can kind of get on the back burner is making sure that we're eating good foods, healthy, nutritious foods. So I'm excited to talk to you about this topic today. But before we jump in, I want to do to share a little bit about you and what you do.
Joanna:
Yes, so I'm a life and weight loss coach that helps busy working moms to lose the extra pounds with my special recipes, using fat burning spices and detoxing greens to help them love their food while losing weight without deprivation. I also help them to get to the root cause of their overeating, and remove those blocks so that they keep that weight off once and for all.
Toni-Ann Mayembe:
Oh, I love all of that. And you're a mommy to correct?
Joanna:
Yes, I'm a proud mom, I have a set of seven year old twins,
Toni-Ann Mayembe:
seven year old twins. Oh my goodness. So fun. Fun, fun. Nice, nice. Now, one of the things that I really loved learning more about was you and your story. And I think a lot of moms can relate to your story. So I just wanted you to share a little bit of how you were led to help moms with weight loss. And what other struggles you may have encountered to get you to this point today.
Joanna:
Yes, so my weight loss journey actually started about a year after I hit my twins. I stayed looking pregnant. So much so that when I walk into crowded subway cars, kind harder New Yorkers continue to get up to offer me their seats, because I still looked pregnant. And while I appreciated their kind gestures, it made me feel subconscious and just down about how I looked. So I decided to make a change. And I started out you know, counting calories, avoiding carbs, eating smaller portions, which are all the things that I thought that you know, we were supposed to do to lose weight. But what happened was I ended up feeling really deprived and exhausted all the time. And at the time, I was actually working at demanding it job where I worked during the day from nine to five. And in the evenings, I would also often get on Skype calls with my software development team on the other side of the globe. And I was also taking care of my twins at night. So as you can imagine, I was barely able to keep up with my busy working mom life, let alone like finding that extra time and energy to go to the gym to exercise. So I almost resigned myself to accepting my post baby body when I remember my experience with the healing powers of food. So I've worn glasses and contacts since high school for about 15 plus years. And I discovered that I had healed my nearsightedness after drinking green smoothies. And that was the experience and the motivation that I used to go all in on figuring out how to lose my weight using food. And what I stumbled upon was this amazing world of spices and herbs and other nutrient rich foods that just completely turned the Conventional wisdom on weight loss of sight out. I ate delicious and satisfying meals in lost 10 pounds within the first month. And then a total of 28 pounds in seven months, I was able to drop for dress sizes, and shed my still pregnant look without doing a single setup. So now people no longer get up for me on the subway, and I have more energy to keep up with my twins. And I started getting questions from fellow moms, how I lost weight. And so now I help other moms to lose weight in a work in a way that works with their busy lifestyle. And without deprivation and spending hours at the gym.
Toni-Ann Mayembe:
I love all of what you shared because I know I have definitely been there when I still look pregnant after having the baby. And it's not necessarily all about you know, losing weight just for Well, of course, we want to be healthy. But a lot of times like it will make you feel so much better. If you weren't carrying around all that excess, you know, weight in your midsection or for me in your arms. So I know it did a tremendous boost to your confidence and made you feel a lot better not only, you know, energetically but also feeling more confident in your skin. So I'm really excited that you share that story and really excited to hear your answer to this next question. After you share all that and the question is what are some of the biggest myths about weight loss that you in particular want to bust?
Joanna:
Yes, so the number one mistake that I see people make, and this is one that I myself used to make is that you're trying to lose weight by exercising? Yeah, so what I noticed is that a lot of people spend hours doing extreme workouts, and barely seeing that the change on the scale. Or even worse, they feed the scale numbers go up, because what's actually happening is that as you exercise, you're building muscle weight. And, and the thing is, don't get me wrong, right exercise is very good for you. It's very important for your overall health. But it's not the main thing that's going to tip the scale in your favor when you're trying to lose weight. What you eat is actually much more important than how much you exercise. Weight loss is actually you know, for my personal experience is it's 90% diet and 10% exercise. And what I see is that a lot of people just end up wasting time and energy focusing on the wrong thing. And that ends up reinforcing their negative belief that weight loss is just not possible for them, that they're not disciplined enough to exercise or that they're, they're putting in the hard work but not seeing the results. And it's just not for them. And the second one that I see, the second mistake that I see most people make is that they believe that you had, you had to eat less and eat boring food in order to lose weight, like so often that we're told to, you know, move more and eat less, right. And that leads us to believing that we have to starve and deprive ourselves of food in order to lose weight. Because sometimes it's it's about reducing the overall food intake like intermittent fasting. And other times it's about drastically reducing, you know, an entire food groups like low carb diets. But when you do these diets, a lot of times you end up having to exert a lot of willpower to fight that feeling of deprivation. And most of us know that we don't have unlimited willpower, right? We've experienced this. So what happens is that you end up with this deprivation and over indulgence cycle that leads to getting that lead to you getting stuck in this yo yo dieting pattern. And the other thing is that when you're just eating bland, boring diet food like stink chicken, steamed broccoli all the time you're eating but you're not loving your food. So you're still depriving yourself right you're depriving your your taste palate and the irony here is that all the natural spices and herbs that you flavor your food with, like not only are they good for you in terms of health benefits, right, they they make your food taste better. But yeah, they help to restore and heal your body. And these are like everyday spices that most people have in their kitchen cabinets right now. So for example, Cinnamon, cinnamon is a common spice that you see. You probably have it at home and cinnamon is actually known to help you regulate your blood sugar. Like it does this by preventing the influence spikes that leads to hunger and sweet cravings. It They also have the ability to make you feel full for longer, so you're less likely to overeat. But in addition to helping you to lose weight studies have also found it to boost your mood and also improve your cognitive performance, so that it actually helps you to de stress and gives you more energy and focus. Ginger is another amazing warming spice that's chock full of health benefits, it can boost your metabolism, it can increase your satiety, and it can naturally suppress your appetite. It also helps to reduce your level of cortisol or your stress hormone. Another common herb that you find that you you often find in your home is peppermint. have peppermint is a natural appetite suppressant. And studies have found that if you, if you're exposed to peppermint on a consistent basis, you actually consume about 2800 fewer calories per week. And it actually works, whether you ingested or inhaled it. Peppermint also helps to lower your cortisol level, so it helps to reduce your anxiety and release your tensions. And peppermints easy to incorporate into your diet, you can drink peppermint tea, or add them to your smoothies or your detox water. Or you can use essential oils or peppermint. So these are just a few of the examples of that might have the amazing spices and herbs that are scientifically proven to restore and heal your body. And once I learned the the optimal combinations of these foods to eat, I was able to lose weight by eating delicious and satisfying meals without feeling hungry or deprived. And I was able to drop my postpartum still pregnant look without doing a single setup.
Toni-Ann Mayembe:
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Joanna:
I would just yeah if you if you have the an oil infuser like peppermint oil infuser you can you can just be be exposed to it and and it's gonna help you to reduce your stress and reduce your appetite yeah with the tea I was a peppermint tea you can drink the tea either before or after the meal to both will help to reduce reduce your your your appetite and kind of cleanse your pellet while you add that to
Toni-Ann Mayembe:
Nice nice. And I love how you brought up the healing power of foods and especially the spices that you just brought up because a lot of times the answers that we're we're looking for are right there in the kitchen. So I like that you gave us those examples of cinnamon, ginger and peppermint and I'm sure you have many more. But I wanted to kind of shift gears just a little bit because like I said it's summertime vacations are coming up and I know when we're on vacation, it's easy to kind of, you know, get in the habit of eating some not so great foods, even though they're like super tasty, they're probably don't have all of those spices that you just talked about. And we can easily start to, you know, put on pounds and not feel so great. So how can we do better about eating? Well, especially while we're on vacation?
Joanna:
Yes. So the first tip I have for eating better on vacation is to just keep healthy snacks on hand. So basically, you don't want to wait until you're so hungry that you just grab the first thing that you see, like typically, all the foods that are near the cash registers are not ones that are very healthy for you lots of sweets and junk foods that you typically find there. And so what you want to do is you want to take foods like healthy foods like granola bars, protein bars, one of my favorites RX bar, because it's real food ingredients. And it's usually five ingredients or less. So you want to pay attention to the ingredient labels of these foods as well. But other examples of healthy foods you can take with you are dry fruits, nuts, or fruit like berries, apples, or bananas that are easy for you to carry around. So another tip I have is you want to stay hydrated, right when you're on vacation. A lot of times it's easy to forget to drink water when you're out and about just exploring new places or doing new things, trying new things. So another reason you want to make sure that you drink enough water is that as we get older, we often mistaken thirst for hunger. So we ended up eating more. And instead of keeping hydrated, we end up overeating. So a lot of times what I do is I would drink about 30 minutes before meal time to make sure that come mealtime I'm not too hungry that and I ended up eating you know end up coping down like food. So you also want to pay attention to what you're drinking. If you if you find that you're drinking more alcoholic beverages while you're on vacation, you want to make sure that you're also getting a similar amount of hydrating drinks. So that you're giving yourself plenty you're keeping yourself plenty hydrated as well. A third tip I have is to take your time and eat slowly so that you prevent overeating. You want to spend about 20 minutes on your meals because it takes about 20 minutes for our stomach to send a signal to our brain that we are feeling for. So if you eat too fast, you're not giving your brain the chance to get that signal from your stomach and you end up eating way more than you need to.
Toni-Ann Mayembe:
Those are all really good tips. I really, really like those in the hydration part. That is a big one for me. Because I know I always forget, I don't know what it is. I know I know this. I know I have to drink water but forget about it. And then to you brought up a good point about um, staying hydrated and how we sometimes can mistake thirst for hunger and I will typically like tell myself, okay, Toni-Ann Are you really hungry? Are you thirsty? Like, let's try drinking some water first. And then if I'm still like feeling like I'm hungry, then I'm like, Okay, now we can go like have a snack or whatever it is that I'm wanting because it's easy to get into that. Oh, I'm hungry. Let me get a little bit more to eat. Oh, hungry, get a little bit more here. And next thing you know, you've like had like 10 snacks throughout the day. And you weren't really intended to do all that. And so I'm glad you reminded us about the the tip of staying hydrated.
Joanna:
Yeah, and it's so fun because I think it's very easy to just to get a drink. Yeah, wait, especially when you're just out and about doing so many things.
Toni-Ann Mayembe:
Yes, yes. And then to you also gave us some really some good ideas on the healthy snacks because a lot of times, I know we'll hear all the time like Oh, make sure you're eating healthy snacks. I'm like grandma, like what does that look like? So I'm glad that you gave us some ideas about the granola bars and the RX bars. Definitely going to check those out because it's easy to keep a couple of those in your backpack or your purse when when you're out. So I'm glad that you you gave those examples so that we can actually keep some things around this because I know I constantly have snacks for me, but sometimes they're not the greatest. tweeted so I'm glad you gave us those exams. bonuses are really helpful. That sounds good. No, I am glad that she gave us these tips. Like I said, I know what the summertime and with vacations and, you know, traveling here a little bit more, especially now that things are opening up. Especially like, I don't want to say post COVID Because I guess it's still going on. But now that we're we're starting to get back to how things were before. As far as traveling more, and getting out more, definitely want to make sure that moms know what to do to, you know, continue to eat healthy while on vacation. So I'm really appreciative of all of these tips. And I just wanted to make sure if there was anything else that you wanted to share before we got ready to wrap things up.
Joanna:
Yes, so I will say that another thing that's important is that I talked about looking at what you eat. But I think we also want to pay attention to why you're eating. Because a lot of times, the reason that we eat it's not necessarily because we're physically hungry. Sometimes it's because we're bored, or we're feeling stressed. And maybe you're eating because you're trying to avoid a feeling or you're using food to react to a feeling like sadness or anger. Or sometimes like we we pick up food habits from childhood, right, like if you have, if you, some of us always have a need to clean up our plate, maybe even our kids plate while we're at it. And it could be because we were brought up to not waste food, because we're told that there are starving children in other parts of the world. So so now we feel guilty about not finishing our plate. So you want to examine some of the subconscious habits and beliefs that you have around these habits, so that you can see whether or not they still serve you today, right. And then you can make informed decisions about whether you want to keep those beliefs. And and the thing is some of these limiting beliefs can sneak up and self sabotage behaviors that derail you from your weight loss goal. So clearing these mindset block will make weight life so much easier, rather than thinking that you don't have the willpower or the control or the discipline to keep the weight off.
Toni-Ann Mayembe:
That is so so good. And I'm glad that you brought that up. I think we're gonna have that have to have a part two or I'm emotional eating and stress eating and things like that. Because, yes, yes. Like you said, you know, labels is really important, but paying attention to why you're eating. Oh, that one's good. That's really good. So Joanna, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing all this with us. I know that you have a resource out there, that is going to be helpful. That relates a lot to what you've already talked about, that is actually free that you can go ahead and get. So I want you to share a little bit about these five minute recipes that have the fat burning spices and detoxing greens. So share with us a little bit about that and where we can find it.
Joanna:
Okay, so I have prepared for your audience, an easy five minute recipe for the busy mom to lose their first three pounds this week. So it's a green smoothie recipe using fat burning spices and detoxing greens. And it's one that I started with to lose my first three panels within a week. So basically starting your day off with a green smoothie is like starting with your your lead Domino, right once you get going, your brain is going to automatically want to make more healthier food choices during the day. And I'll bring doesn't like to start something and then not finish it. So the key is to just start and you can find my free five minute recipe for the busy mom at spices and greens.com/real happy mom and that's spelled s p i c e s a and g r e n s.com/real Happy mo
Toni-Ann Mayembe:
perfect perfect and I will make sure to include that link in the show notes. So if you're driving or you're out and about a can't actually write that down don't worry just go to the description or go to the show notes and that link will be in there. Now join us if we want to find you online learn more about you and just connect with the where can we find you online.
Joanna:
The best way to find me is on my website which is spices and greens.com. And you can also find me on Pinterest at spices and greens.com or Facebook at spices and greens.com as well.
Toni-Ann Mayembe:
Perfect, perfect and again I include those links in the show notes. Join us again, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all this with us has been super helpful. And yeah, I'm ready to try out this recipe that you got over here. So I'm super excited to have you. Thank you.
Joanna:
Thank you so much for having me. Toni-Ann
Toni-Ann Mayembe:
Now that does it for this episode of The Real happy mom podcast. To find the links in Show Notes head on over to Real happy mom.com/ 183 And make sure you stay tuned for next week. For another full episode I'll be featuring my guest. Deanna and we're gonna be talking about the cluttering some hobbies. And you may be thinking, What are you talking about? Well, you gotta stay tuned to find out what that's all about. So, remember to be back here, same time, same place on Tuesday for full episodes and Thursday for moms on Thursdays. Take care and with lots of love
