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Speaker 1: first order. That's drink Juni dot com and make sure
Speaker 1: you use the code on Purpose. Hey, everyone, welcome back
Speaker 1: to on Purpose, the place you come to to become happier,
Speaker 1: healthier and more healed. I'm so grateful that you're back
Speaker 1: here today, and I'm so excited to introduce you to
Speaker 1: my guest. This guest has been on the show more
Speaker 1: than anyone else. She was the first guest ever on
Speaker 1: the show and she's the cutest, most beautiful, most incredible
Speaker 1: guest we ever have had on the show. Of course,
Speaker 1: speaking about the one, the only hardest guest to book
Speaker 1: of all time, longest commute to the studio of all time,
Speaker 1: my incredible wife, Radi de v Lukia. For those of
Speaker 1: you that don't know, Radi is a clinical dietitian, nutritionist
Speaker 1: and always learning cook. Radi brings a modern approach to
Speaker 1: the ancient principles of holistic wellbeing and earned her Aravedic
Speaker 1: Health Counselor one degree at the California College of Aravada.
Speaker 1: Right now, I couldn't be more excited or more proud
Speaker 1: of Radi because her book, her first ever book, is
Speaker 1: out right now. It's called Joyful. It has more than
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five plant based recipes, and it's
Speaker 1: all about cooking effortlessly, eating freely, and living radiantly. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever wanted you to get a
Speaker 1: book more than this one, even more than my books.
Speaker 1: This is the most important book that I want you
Speaker 1: to get this year. Please go and grab a copy.
Speaker 1: We've put the link in the caption in the comments.
Speaker 1: Wherever you are right now, go and order Joyful. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show, my amazing wife and the love of
Speaker 1: my life, Raddy de Look.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Oh my gosh, you're so professional doing this.
Speaker 1: I mean we've been doing it for a bit. It's
Speaker 1: better than the first time you came on, like five years.
Speaker 2: Amazing. Thanks for that intro. Really appreciate.
Speaker 1: I'm genuinely so proud of you. Like looking at this book,
Speaker 1: and obviously I've had the inside track of watching you
Speaker 1: work on this book for the last three years. The
Speaker 1: amount of energy, the amount of effort, the amount of lives.
Speaker 1: The amount of devotion that's gone into this book is amazing,
Speaker 1: and it's so beautiful for those of you that don't know.
Speaker 1: When you do get it, you can take off this
Speaker 1: part even though Raddy's face, take my face out, take
Speaker 1: my favorite part off, and look how beautiful this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I made it that way.
Speaker 1: Stunning book.
Speaker 3: I wanted people to be able to have a coffee
Speaker 3: table book but also know that it's my cookbook. But
Speaker 3: I like the part where you can just take my
Speaker 3: face off and leave it on your table for a
Speaker 3: little surprises.
Speaker 2: Inside.
Speaker 1: I have so many questions for you, because even though
Speaker 1: I've seen you work on this, I find that when
Speaker 1: you get inside someone's mind and heart, you understand so
Speaker 1: much more about what they've created. And even though I've
Speaker 1: watched you from the outside, I don't always know all
Speaker 1: the inside. So I want to dive straight in. And
Speaker 1: one of the things I love about this book is
Speaker 1: the beautiful pictures you have with your family. Ye, your bar,
Speaker 1: who's your grandma, your mom, your dad. I'm in it
Speaker 1: as well. I've got one picture. But what I love
Speaker 1: is that your family have been such big inspirations for
Speaker 1: you in your cooking. Journey, and I just wanted to
Speaker 1: go through your grandma, mom, sister, family, dad, like you know,
Speaker 1: just the people in your life that have inspired you,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to know what have you learned from
Speaker 1: each of them or what have you gained from each
Speaker 1: of them in your cooking journey.
Speaker 3: I would say that because one both of us grow
Speaker 3: up an Indian family, food is literally, always has been,
Speaker 3: and always will be the center of everything, whether it's celebrations,
Speaker 3: there is making sure that we eat dinner every single
Speaker 3: day together. And so I think I've learned to form
Speaker 3: connections through eating because of having grown up with it.
Speaker 3: That is my place where I feel I can connect
Speaker 3: to someone the most when we're sharing, you know, a
Speaker 3: delicious meal or a nice dessert together.
Speaker 2: And so there's that.
Speaker 3: But also, you know, both our moms had full time
Speaker 3: jobs growing up, but she still managed to make breakfast,
Speaker 3: like homemade breakfast, lunch, and dinner every single day. And
Speaker 3: so watching her do that for us with so much love,
Speaker 3: and also eating her food and feeling her love through
Speaker 3: the food, I think my deep connection with food comes
Speaker 3: purely through that. To having experienced that from her, my
Speaker 3: grandma's the same she passed everything down to my mum
Speaker 3: in that way. My mom was cooking with my grandma
Speaker 3: from the age of like twelve, and she gets her
Speaker 3: love for it from her as well. So I definitely
Speaker 3: think that it feels like something generational that's been passed
Speaker 3: down into.
Speaker 2: Me and my dad.
Speaker 3: My dad is someone who, you know what he said, quiet,
Speaker 3: He's so sweet, and whenever my mom would go away
Speaker 3: for work or anything, he would always step in and
Speaker 3: be someone who he wouldn't be like, let's just order out.
Speaker 3: He would find something he could make mac and cheese
Speaker 3: really well. So my dad's mac and cheese is.
Speaker 2: In the cookbog.
Speaker 3: That's like my one memory of growing up where my
Speaker 3: mom would go away he would make this mac and
Speaker 3: cheese and we'd the one time we'd get to sit
Speaker 3: in front of the TV and eat, and we'd eat
Speaker 3: mac and cheese and sit in front of the TV.
Speaker 3: And so I really I feel like I mean, which
Speaker 3: is the same as everyone. I'm sure I could not
Speaker 3: have created this book without all of the inspiration that
Speaker 3: I've got from them, Like all the recipes are so
Speaker 3: inspired by where we're from, like from India, from our
Speaker 3: heritage of things that we've grown up eating and then
Speaker 3: my mom and all the things that I feel like
Speaker 3: on my comfort foods when I think about her. And
Speaker 3: so actually a lot of the recipes are connected to
Speaker 3: memories and things that I can I can make and
Speaker 3: then feel the love and the energy of the person
Speaker 3: that I ate it with or that I cooked it
Speaker 3: with or that cooked it for me. It's completely weaved
Speaker 3: and and just created through family. Like that is what
Speaker 3: the book is about, and that is what I hope
Speaker 3: people feel when they read it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, it comes across and it's so beautiful because
Speaker 1: you see all of those influences and all of those
Speaker 1: energies that come in. And one of the most interesting
Speaker 1: things about you is that you obviously trained as a
Speaker 1: nutritionist and then a dietitian, both of your degrees, and
Speaker 1: then you've become an irvatic health counselor and studied diavasa
Speaker 1: as a big part of your learning journey. And I
Speaker 1: know you consider yourself a continuous student and wanting to
Speaker 1: develop those skills. But walk me through how those two
Speaker 1: things have impacted your understanding of food.
Speaker 3: I started off doing my degree as a nutritionist and
Speaker 3: a dietitian, and so then I was working in hospitals
Speaker 3: where I was seeing everything from diabetes clinics to the
Speaker 3: elderly who are malnourished, to little children like pediatric clinics
Speaker 3: trying to get little fussy eaters to eat a little
Speaker 3: bit more. And so I actually loved working in that.
Speaker 3: I loved being someone who could be patient, facing seeing
Speaker 3: them every week, trying to see their progress, and feeling
Speaker 3: like I had a direct impact to them. But the
Speaker 3: only part I kind of struggled with was naturally, when
Speaker 3: you're part of a system, you have to recommend what
Speaker 3: the system recommends. And so that was a bit difficult
Speaker 3: for me because I always wanted to be food forward
Speaker 3: versus supplements or you know, anything in a bottle, but
Speaker 3: sometimes that's not, you know, the easiest or most efficient way.
Speaker 3: And so I definitely loved it, but I felt there
Speaker 3: was a slight disconnect. And then when we moved to
Speaker 3: New York, I threw myself back into study and I
Speaker 3: found Araveda. And for anybody who doesn't know what Aveda is,
Speaker 3: ira means life. Veda means knowledge and it's basically the
Speaker 3: science of life.
Speaker 2: And it as soon as.
Speaker 3: I learned about it, it clicked everything felt like it
Speaker 3: made complete sense, and it felt just like when you
Speaker 3: go to a place and it feels like home. When
Speaker 3: I learned about Aravada, I felt like I'd found my
Speaker 3: home in the practice and the rituals and the understanding
Speaker 3: of my body. The differences between the two were incredible, Like,
Speaker 3: you know, Western medicine and Western healing is all about curative,
Speaker 3: like you get to the point of disease and then
Speaker 3: let's figure out how to cure it, whereas in iravader
Speaker 3: it's all about how can we start understanding our body,
Speaker 3: How can we start noticing the symptoms, the things our
Speaker 3: bodies trying to tell us, and how do we tune
Speaker 3: into that so that we catch everything a few steps
Speaker 3: before disease so we can actually have an opportunity to
Speaker 3: prevent it. And on top of that, it's so individual,
Speaker 3: like a lot of the time with Western medicine it's
Speaker 3: one size fits all. And I really appreciate so much
Speaker 3: of Western medicine, the diagnostics, like how we're able to
Speaker 3: figure things out through so many systems that we have,
Speaker 3: but the one thing we kind of lack is this
Speaker 3: individual nature of the way you eat tomato, which we
Speaker 3: know you eat tomato, and I eat tomato whenever I
Speaker 3: make a meal. It affects you so differently to me,
Speaker 3: and so I love the INDIVI your nature of healing
Speaker 3: our body as me like, not what this person online
Speaker 3: is telling me, not what this book is telling me,
Speaker 3: but let me observe and be an active participant in
Speaker 3: my health every single day, so that when I eat something,
Speaker 3: I'm not eating this salad because this person told me
Speaker 3: it was the best thing for their body. I know
Speaker 3: I'm eating it because it's the best thing for my body,
Speaker 3: and I feel it through the way my body feels,
Speaker 3: through how my digestion is. Yeah, those are like a
Speaker 3: couple of differences that I found. And then I just
Speaker 3: started learning more and more about this holistic practice and
Speaker 3: started practicing it. So now I know how it feels
Speaker 3: and I can share it with other people having practiced
Speaker 3: and lived it.
Speaker 1: I love that point that you just made about being
Speaker 1: an active participant in how you feel. And I didn't
Speaker 1: start with this, but I wanted to say it now. Sadly,
Speaker 1: you had to give up all those patients in everyone
Speaker 1: you worked with to only have one patient, and that
Speaker 1: hasn't been me for the last eight years. That you've
Speaker 1: been coaching me, and you've been my health coach and
Speaker 1: my health guru, and you have helped me with so
Speaker 1: many things, whether it was really working on my sugar addiction,
Speaker 1: working on my addiction to soft drinks, pizzy drinks, what
Speaker 1: do they call them? Me eisodas so many things I
Speaker 1: had that I thought i'd figured out. So I loved
Speaker 1: meditating and reading and working on the mind, but I
Speaker 1: didn't want to physically work out. I didn't care about
Speaker 1: the body, and you helped me understand that. You probably
Speaker 1: switched my sleep schedule around. I think when we met,
Speaker 1: I was someone who could sleep a lot later, and
Speaker 1: now I sleep really really early, and that was a
Speaker 1: big part of what you changed. And all of those
Speaker 1: have made me feel healthier and happier every single year
Speaker 1: because you've helped me build these habits. And I just
Speaker 1: want to add none of that was done through force,
Speaker 1: None of that was done through telling me what to do,
Speaker 1: but you were always patiently coaching and guiding me as
Speaker 1: in how I showed enthusiasm or what I wanted to learn.
Speaker 1: And so what I love about this book is that
Speaker 1: you've taken all of that and you've now made it
Speaker 1: accessible to anyone who wants to change their habits. And
Speaker 1: that's what's so amazing about this book. It's not a
Speaker 1: cookbook in that yes, it does have one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five recipes, and it does have it does have recipes.
Speaker 2: He is a cookbook.
Speaker 1: It is a good book, but it really has all
Speaker 1: of these day to day guides on habits and how
Speaker 1: to change your rituals and your morning routine and your
Speaker 1: evening routine and practices with food and without that improve
Speaker 1: your life. And so as someone who's been a recipient
Speaker 1: of your coaching and of your guidance, I'm so excited
Speaker 1: that everyone gets to have this now through Joyful.
Speaker 3: We've been such a good student, I feel like I
Speaker 3: haven't even had it hasn't really been you being a student.
Speaker 3: You've always wanted to make yourself better in some way,
Speaker 3: and I think that's the difference, right like you can
Speaker 3: we know this from having parents and you know, having
Speaker 3: different teachers in our life that I've learned best through
Speaker 3: observing someone or experiencing how amazing they are through the
Speaker 3: practices that they've done. So when I was writing the book,
Speaker 3: I knew I wanted it to come from a place
Speaker 3: of love and knowledge, because I think that is the
Speaker 3: place where people learn the best and make sustainable change.
Speaker 3: It's like I can tell people that eating a certain
Speaker 3: way is terrible for you and you're going to die earlier.
Speaker 3: Like whatever it is that you know, you could say
Speaker 3: to really scare someone into it, but that just makes
Speaker 3: them either want to hide from themselves or it makes
Speaker 3: them want to cut up into a ball and kind
Speaker 3: of be like I need to ignore this because it's
Speaker 3: just too much information and it's overwhelming. And I do
Speaker 3: think what you said about you know, me teaching you,
Speaker 3: you were an active participant in your health, and I
Speaker 3: think that is actually the key.
Speaker 2: Like for me, I've intertwined. I said.
Speaker 3: When I first wrote this cookbook, I was like, I
Speaker 3: do not want it to just be a cookbook. I
Speaker 3: love sharing food with people, it is my love language.
Speaker 3: But what I want more is food is just one aspect,
Speaker 3: Like we all know food is just one pillar of
Speaker 3: our health. And then to be able to intertwine throughout
Speaker 3: your day all of these micro these micro habits that
Speaker 3: create such major impact. And that's what it did for me.
Speaker 3: Like one of the things in there is breath work
Speaker 3: and I think about this so much, and I just
Speaker 3: took a deep breath now, because breath has honestly saved
Speaker 3: me from being someone who has mass anxiety going into
Speaker 3: things that I find so difficult, and by the way,
Speaker 3: not even difficult things things that I find difficult, so
Speaker 3: going into events where there's lots of people coming onto
Speaker 3: interviews and speaking in places where I don't have full
Speaker 3: control over it, like having all those my minor things
Speaker 3: which actually impacted me so much. Breath work has been
Speaker 3: the one thing that's allowed my mind to slow down,
Speaker 3: for me to collect my thoughts, for me to energize
Speaker 3: myself in the afternoon, for me to help relax me
Speaker 3: in the evening.
Speaker 2: And so I've shared.
Speaker 3: Breath works to like really take people through their day
Speaker 3: to tackle and handle everything that comes our way. And
Speaker 3: so from breath work to the way that we eat
Speaker 3: and the way that we connect to our food, all
Speaker 3: of that helps us create more joyful moments throughout the day.
Speaker 3: And the more joyful moments you have throughout the day,
Speaker 3: the more joy you end up with every single day,
Speaker 3: Like it accumulates throughout the day.
Speaker 1: I want to dive into some things in the book
Speaker 1: now because I want to give people a sense of
Speaker 1: how this cookbook is shaped and curated in order to
Speaker 1: help people. And I wanted to start off by asking
Speaker 1: you this question about the modes, because you break down
Speaker 1: the modes is like a big part of your book,
Speaker 1: and you talk about the three Could you walk us
Speaker 1: through these three modes and how we think about food
Speaker 1: when it comes to these three Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the three modes in AVEDA essentially the energies of
Speaker 3: the world, of everything that we eat, of everything that
Speaker 3: exists externally and internally. And so there's the mode of goodness,
Speaker 3: the mode of passion, and the mode of ignorance. And
Speaker 3: so I've spoken about it in the sense of our
Speaker 3: lifestyle and our food. That's how I focused it in
Speaker 3: the book. And so mode of goodness are basically foods
Speaker 3: which make you feel good on a basic level. It's
Speaker 3: foods that nourish you deeply, that that nourish your body,
Speaker 3: that that are filled with prana. Now, prana is life force,
Speaker 3: and what that means is having the most amount of
Speaker 3: vitality and energy in that in that produce. And so
Speaker 3: a simple way to explain it would be you pick
Speaker 3: an apple from the tree. At that point that apple
Speaker 3: has the most amount of nutrient value, it has the
Speaker 3: most amount of life, and it's just been taken from
Speaker 3: the tree. It has, you know, the most, it's the
Speaker 3: most abundant in that form. And then you take it
Speaker 3: home and you leave it out for a couple of days,
Speaker 3: and you leave it out, and slowly, slowly, the quality
Speaker 3: externally starts getting bad. You see these brown spots that
Speaker 3: come up, and then slowly it starts getting mushy inside.
Speaker 3: And so the thing is, you can eat something in
Speaker 3: its purest form, or it can end up degrading and
Speaker 3: becoming something which can move through the most down to
Speaker 3: something that's no longer beneficial for you. But the point
Speaker 3: is trying to eat the most amount of foods that
Speaker 3: that form within this that fall within this mode of goodness.
Speaker 3: And so the types of foods would be fresh fruits, vegetables, grains, beans,
Speaker 3: you know, like avocados, and like just all the foods that.
Speaker 2: Come from a fresh, natural place.
Speaker 3: And so if you possibly can bi organic way you
Speaker 3: can the less chemicals, the less things that are put
Speaker 3: onto your foods that are unnatural, the better. And then
Speaker 3: lifestyle wise, mode of goodness are again the things that
Speaker 3: don't just make you feel good in the moment, but
Speaker 3: actually bring goodness to your life long term. And so
Speaker 3: a lot of the time we mistake our temporary joys
Speaker 3: for things which are good for us, and I think
Speaker 3: is learning how to differentiate the two. So you know
Speaker 3: that for me, when I'm eating a sugary downer and
Speaker 3: the moment, it brings me joy and sometimes that's great,
Speaker 3: but actually in the long term it may ruin my sleep,
Speaker 3: it may make me lisagic in the morning. And so
Speaker 3: the foods that actually bring energy and good digestion, all
Speaker 3: the things that make your bodily systems feel good, those
Speaker 3: are the foods in the mode of goodness, and also
Speaker 3: the activities are the same. And then when you get
Speaker 3: to the mode of passion, So all those foods that
Speaker 3: you eat that give you immediate gratifications, so the sour,
Speaker 3: the salty, the chili, all the things that you'd put
Speaker 3: into your food to create that kind of burst of
Speaker 3: flavor into it, those are still okay to have. But
Speaker 3: again in moderation mode of goodness being the larger amounts
Speaker 3: of foods than activities that you do. Mode of passion
Speaker 3: will be a really intense workout that gets you sweating
Speaker 3: and you're like, oh, at the end of it, you know,
Speaker 3: it really gets your aggression out. So that's a mode
Speaker 3: of passion activity. And the foods would be what I
Speaker 3: just said, like chilis and sour foods and spices that
Speaker 3: are really intense.
Speaker 1: And they have their place as well, of course they do.
Speaker 3: All of these have their place, by the way, they
Speaker 3: all have their place, but as we go down, you
Speaker 3: have to have less and less of those foods. And
Speaker 3: then the last one is mode of ignorance, and those
Speaker 3: are the foods that essentially make your body feel like
Speaker 3: lifeless and lethargic and make your digestion feel sluggish. And
Speaker 3: those type of foods end up being foods which are
Speaker 3: deep fried because it's so dense and heavy in oil, leftovers,
Speaker 3: foods that have gone bad in the fridge that have
Speaker 3: been there for a long time, basically food that have
Speaker 3: lost their life, and according to Abada, also meat and
Speaker 3: foods which no longer have life in them, like animals
Speaker 3: that have died and then they no longer have that vitality.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, it's just being mindful about all the
Speaker 3: things that fit into those mods and how they're affecting you.
Speaker 3: And it's not just on our body. It has the
Speaker 3: ability to affect our mind and our consciousness too, because
Speaker 3: everything carries energy, So whatever energy that food has when
Speaker 3: we're digesting it, it's also assimilating into our blood and
Speaker 3: then our bones and then our entire being, and so
Speaker 3: it can also affect our minds. So a lot of
Speaker 3: the foods in those categories, they also will affect our
Speaker 3: mind in the same way they affect our body.
Speaker 1: And I love this because I know you've done this
Speaker 1: for yourself before you keep and I've been You've recommended
Speaker 1: it for me to do as well is doing like
Speaker 1: a food diary or food audit for a week and
Speaker 1: actually just testing it out, because I think sometimes we
Speaker 1: don't realize how subconsciously some of these things work and
Speaker 1: how subtly they work. And if you hadn't taught me
Speaker 1: in how to spot these things where it's like, well
Speaker 1: did you sleep bad? Oh wait a minute, what did
Speaker 1: you eat the night before? Right? Often we think it's
Speaker 1: so mental, but so often it is physical. It is biological.
Speaker 1: It is to do with what you consumed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've I think we've tuned out of our body
Speaker 3: so much. You know, when they say about your own
Speaker 3: inner voice of when you're in a voice, when you've
Speaker 3: got too many voices that you have allowed to be
Speaker 3: louder and louder around, your inner voice becomes you know, quiet,
Speaker 3: or it becomes damp. And in the same way our
Speaker 3: inner cues, our inner intuition about our own body, we
Speaker 3: kind of end up losing that because we're constantly hearing
Speaker 3: avocados are amazing for you, So you end up being
Speaker 3: in avocado every day, even if it's making your tummy
Speaker 3: feel bad.
Speaker 2: These salads are amazing for you. So then you end
Speaker 2: up being those salads, and slowly your body is screaming
Speaker 2: at you.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, it starts to whisper, and it's like,
Speaker 3: oh it's a bit, I feel a bit uncomfortable, and
Speaker 3: then you ignore it. And then you're like, oh, my
Speaker 3: skin is breaking out and or I'm losing my hair
Speaker 3: or you know, your external symptoms start to come. And
Speaker 3: still you're like, it's nothing to do with my food.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm going to keep eating this, And so
Speaker 3: you slowly, slowly start quietening your own bodily cues that
Speaker 3: you completely start to deteriorate your body just because you've
Speaker 3: stopped listening to it, and then your body stops communicating
Speaker 3: to you, and if it does, it will scream at
Speaker 3: you until your body gets to the point of breaking down.
Speaker 3: You get ibs, or you end up getting gut issues,
Speaker 3: you end up getting skin issues, and so we don't
Speaker 3: seem to be able to catch ourselves in the point of, Oh,
Speaker 3: I'm feeling a little bit uncomfortable today. I wonder what
Speaker 3: it was that made me feel uncomfortable. And so the
Speaker 3: diary is really important because if you do struggle with
Speaker 3: any physical you know, problems at the moment, digestive issues, whatever,
Speaker 3: start doing the diary of this is what I ate
Speaker 3: and this is how it made me feel. Two to
Speaker 3: three hours after that's usually how long it will start
Speaker 3: taking to digest your food, and then start pairing that
Speaker 3: up with Okay, this didn't make me feel good, so
Speaker 3: I'm going to cut that out and then me see
Speaker 3: how I feel. It's a process of elimination and it
Speaker 3: does take a little bit of work, but it makes
Speaker 3: such a difference because then you're not Then your body
Speaker 3: will start talking to you a little bit more the
Speaker 3: more you listen to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like what I told you last night, where
Speaker 1: I've been exercising, I've been meditating, I've been feeling really great.
Speaker 1: I've been sleeping really well. And then for the past
Speaker 1: four nights, I've just had such a busy schedule that
Speaker 1: my morning routine, evening routine, everything went out of wag.
Speaker 1: And then last night I was like, I just need
Speaker 1: to eat sugar, and I know exactly why. I know.
Speaker 1: I was like, I literally haven't turned to where was
Speaker 1: last night?
Speaker 2: I literally for three weeks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for three weeks I was I had no refined sugars,
Speaker 1: and I was absolutely fine. But then the last four nights,
Speaker 1: my schedule was crazy. And so last night I ordered
Speaker 1: a chocolate fudge cake at Tirama Soup and had a
Speaker 1: scoop of ice cream and it was amazing, and I'm
Speaker 1: really happy I did it. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I noticed why I was craving it, because for three
Speaker 1: and a half weeks, have not craved it at all.
Speaker 1: And again, I'm not making I'm not trying to food
Speaker 1: chain people or make people feel bad. I really enjoyed
Speaker 1: that food that I had last night, but it was
Speaker 1: a recognition of how much my body didn't need that
Speaker 1: when I was doing all these other things and how
Speaker 1: much I resorted to it as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's a wreck.
Speaker 3: You have noticed what your triggers are for wanting foods
Speaker 3: that are just there to give you a hit that
Speaker 3: you need. And so you already know that when I
Speaker 3: have lack of sleep, when I don't have time to rest,
Speaker 3: when I don't get my weekends, when I'm going from
Speaker 3: one thing to another to another slowly, it's deteriorating me.
Speaker 3: And then I get to that point. And so I
Speaker 3: think what you've done is you've recognized it, so you
Speaker 3: know where you're leading, you know where you're going, and
Speaker 3: then you'll have to you know, you have your sugar dose,
Speaker 3: which is fine, like everybody loves having a little bit
Speaker 3: of something, but the fact that you're able to recognize
Speaker 3: that the I know this is going to happen, like
Speaker 3: this is what's going to it's going to lead to
Speaker 3: if I continue down this road.
Speaker 1: Yeah donuts tonight, Yeah, definitely. I wanted to dive in.
Speaker 1: There's something beautiful that you did in your book, and
Speaker 1: I thought these were really well written and explained and
Speaker 1: super unique as well, and things that I don't hear
Speaker 1: people talk about all the time. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: dive into it. You have nine tips for living joyfully,
Speaker 1: and the reason I wanted to ask you about some
Speaker 1: of these my favorite ones is because I think they're
Speaker 1: underestimated and they have a huge impact on the food
Speaker 1: we eat. And so I'm just going to pick some
Speaker 1: of the ones that I like. So number two is
Speaker 1: called eat until satisfied, not stuffed. And I was thinking
Speaker 1: that until I met you, I definitely believed that I
Speaker 1: would eat till my limit. Yeah, and now I'm like
Speaker 1: wanting to know what's made and how much there is
Speaker 1: and everything else. But walk us through why it's important
Speaker 1: to eat until satisfied, not stuffed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and AVEDA, it says that you should eat until
Speaker 3: your three quarters satisfied, not for And so what that
Speaker 3: means is not yourself to the point. So there's such
Speaker 3: a fine line between eating enough to fuel our body
Speaker 3: and then eating so much that it then makes us
Speaker 3: feel drowsy lethargic afterwards, and so learning what those cues
Speaker 3: are for your body is really important. And so it's
Speaker 3: easier for our body to digest when we haven't over stuffed.
Speaker 3: Like think of your stomach as like a furnace where
Speaker 3: you constantly keep putting things on top, and so naturally
Speaker 3: there's only a certain amount of digestive juices that are
Speaker 3: flowing in your digestive system, so it's like it produces
Speaker 3: enough for the amount that you should be eating, and
Speaker 3: then you end up overdoing it and overwhelming it where
Speaker 3: your digestive juices aren't actually allowed or aren't able to
Speaker 3: digest everything that's in there. So then what happens is
Speaker 3: your food remains undigested. Your undigested food ends up fermenting
Speaker 3: in your stomach. You then get gut discomfort. You then
Speaker 3: feel a bit slothy after your meals, feel bloated, feel bloated,
Speaker 3: so then those those foods end up fermenting, producing toxins
Speaker 3: in the body. Then you start getting headaches and just
Speaker 3: feeling really groggy, or they're like, I wonder why I
Speaker 3: feel this way.
Speaker 2: I just ate a full meal.
Speaker 3: I felt energized, but I thought I would get energy
Speaker 3: from it, but instead it's made me feel worse. And
Speaker 3: so the three quarters full thing is you will know
Speaker 3: when you've eaten too much when you instead of feeling
Speaker 3: energized by the meal you're eating, you feel the opposite.
Speaker 3: You feel lethargic, you feel under the weather, you feel groggy,
Speaker 3: and so that's a good indication to you that maybe
Speaker 3: you've either eaten the wrong foods or most likely you've
Speaker 3: eaten a little bit too much. And so the way
Speaker 3: to actually make sure you do that is conscious eating
Speaker 3: and like mindfully eating, because the fact is, when you're distracted,
Speaker 3: you've got a burrica in one hand, you're typing on
Speaker 3: the other, you're talking to people like you're all over
Speaker 3: the place. So what happens is when you end up
Speaker 3: eating your food, you haven't yet prepped your body to say, hey,
Speaker 3: by the way, food's coming. And so when your body
Speaker 3: knows that, by the way, you may not have even
Speaker 3: looked at what you're eating, food start. Your digestion starts
Speaker 3: as soon as you look at food. That's the beginning
Speaker 3: of when our digestive juices start flowing. Our tongue knows
Speaker 3: to produce the enzymes it needs to start, you know,
Speaker 3: digesting the food from the mouth. And so when you
Speaker 3: don't give it enough notice, you start eating and your
Speaker 3: body's like, oh, I wasn't ready to digest all this food.
Speaker 3: And so the taking looking at the food, you know,
Speaker 3: having a prayer of gratitude just before you eat a
Speaker 3: second with the food to tell your body food is
Speaker 3: coming to nourish you now, then taking a bite slowly
Speaker 3: eating it, you'll notice that when you eat slowly, and
Speaker 3: by the way, I don't mean you have to long
Speaker 3: out your meal for like an hour, it's just taking
Speaker 3: bite at a time instead of eating a bite before
Speaker 3: the last bite's finished. When you do that, you'll notice, oh,
Speaker 3: I actually only made it through like three quarters of
Speaker 3: this burrito, and actually I feel actually great like this,
Speaker 3: This feels good for me, This feels like enough, whereas
Speaker 3: if you eat that fast, your body doesn't even get
Speaker 3: to tell you, oh, okay, I'm stuff now until it's
Speaker 3: too late.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. And then the next one that you were kind
Speaker 1: of leading onto is this idea of chewing your food,
Speaker 1: like the importance of that. But before I do that,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the one you just said, Like,
Speaker 1: I think it's so so so interesting thing to hear
Speaker 1: about how the digestive process starts. I know, like until
Speaker 1: I met you, had never heard that in my entire
Speaker 1: life of wait a minute, my body actually has to
Speaker 1: be ready to eat, But that actually makes so much sense.
Speaker 1: It's like when you're at a restaurant, you order what
Speaker 1: you want and then they have to prepare it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you're being prepared to eat it. But we
Speaker 1: almost want our body to respond like technology where it's
Speaker 1: like on off, like do this now, do that now,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like, well, no, your body needs to
Speaker 1: through the scent, through the site, through everything else, like
Speaker 1: needs to actually feel ready. And that's such a powerful point.
Speaker 1: It's such an important point.
Speaker 3: When you put a kettle onto bore water, like everything
Speaker 3: takes a little bit of time, and our body is
Speaker 3: a system, like it takes a second to gear up,
Speaker 3: just like when it's rested for eight hours at night
Speaker 3: and then suddenly you're waking up and you're throwing in
Speaker 3: your coffee and you're throwing in all this heavy food
Speaker 3: and your body's like, oh my gosh, I just got up.
Speaker 3: Give me a second. It's like someone screaming at you
Speaker 3: when you're waking up. And so that's how body feels too.
Speaker 3: Chewing your food, Chewing your food.
Speaker 2: Oh okay.
Speaker 3: So I have this memory of my that my granddad,
Speaker 3: every time we will sit down for a meal, he
Speaker 3: would remind all of us you have to chew I
Speaker 3: think it was like thirty two or like some thirty
Speaker 3: two times like chew your food, and so everyone would
Speaker 3: have to sit there chewing their food like thirty two times.
Speaker 2: You don't have to do it thirty two times.
Speaker 3: That's like the recommended amount because the fact is the
Speaker 3: more you digest in your mouth, which is what our
Speaker 3: teeth are for, the more that you break it down,
Speaker 3: the less word OUs stomach has to do. So if
Speaker 3: you're eating food, even if it's small, even if it's big,
Speaker 3: it's like our teeth were made to break down the food.
Speaker 3: Our tongue was made to release the enzymes to break
Speaker 3: it down. You skip that part, your stomach's doing double
Speaker 3: the work. Then it needs to chewing your food. So
Speaker 3: if you're having digestive issues, one of the simplest things
Speaker 3: you could do is chew your food a little bit better,
Speaker 3: because if your digestive juices or your gut is a
Speaker 3: little bit weaker, it's going to find it even harder
Speaker 3: to break things down. So whether it's raw food, so
Speaker 3: it's you know, sometimes cook foods you can get away with.
Speaker 3: Soups you can get away with, of course, but the
Speaker 3: things you have to really pay attention to chewing more
Speaker 3: are the things with the roughage around it, so like
Speaker 3: more fiber around it, the beans, salads, when you're eating salads,
Speaker 3: especially if chew it well so that it gets broken down.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's such a simple yet huge point. I know,
Speaker 1: as someone who eats very fast, and you've slowed me
Speaker 1: down so much. But I always found that I had
Speaker 1: to eat quick because when I worked in the corporate world,
Speaker 1: you didn't really get a lunch, and so you'd quickly eat,
Speaker 1: and you didn't want to be seen eating because you're
Speaker 1: always being judged for not working hard enough.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And so I got into this habit of like eating
Speaker 1: really really quick. And what I realized was, yes, I
Speaker 1: could eat quick, but it's exactly what you said. I
Speaker 1: wasn't chewing my food properly. Obviously. I'm then getting cramps
Speaker 1: or feeling bloated or whatever else it may be, and
Speaker 1: you don't feel good and now you're not working or
Speaker 1: you're not alert at work because you're not feeling great anymore.
Speaker 1: And so it sounds so simple, but that ability to
Speaker 1: chew your food effectively, And I love what you said
Speaker 1: about how the stomach's doing double the work. Again, we
Speaker 1: don't look at our body as a system. No, and
Speaker 1: so we don't recognize that, Oh, that's what's putting pressure
Speaker 1: on my stomach, and that's why I'm feeling pain because
Speaker 1: I could have eaten food that's good for me, but
Speaker 1: I'm not chewing you. I'm not breaking it down.
Speaker 2: Yep, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that one. Okay, I'm pigging some more
Speaker 1: because these nine methods of eating joyfully are living joyfully
Speaker 1: are brilliant. So that's a couple of them. I wanted
Speaker 1: to pick a few more. This one was intriguing to
Speaker 1: me because you put eat and cook with your hands.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know, I mean in our culture and Indian
Speaker 3: culture and in many of Eastern traditions you eat with
Speaker 3: your hands. And again that's another way. It's another sign
Speaker 3: to your body because we've gotten used to holding metal things,
Speaker 3: so our body doesn't actually know. It could think that
Speaker 3: we're about to saw something. It could think that we're
Speaker 3: about to write something. You know, there's no connection. It's
Speaker 3: dead material that you're holding onto do and so you
Speaker 3: start cutting your food up and your your body's looking
Speaker 3: at it, but it doesn't quite understand. Like so I
Speaker 3: can see the food, but I can't touch the food
Speaker 3: and then suddenly you put it into your mouth and
Speaker 3: it's like, oh, we're eating now. So our hands have
Speaker 3: nerves and as soon as they start feeding the food.
Speaker 3: You know, even with children, if you think about it,
Speaker 3: touch and texture is such an important part of your
Speaker 3: body recognizing what you're doing. And so that's just another
Speaker 3: indication to your body that you are about to eat.
Speaker 3: And also a connection to food. Again, we have such
Speaker 3: a disconnect to the food that we're eating. It doesn't
Speaker 3: kind of allow you to do anything else. Your hands
Speaker 3: are a little bit dirty. You're connecting with the food
Speaker 3: that you're eating, and so one it removes distraction and
Speaker 3: you doing other things, and two it just allows you
Speaker 3: to reconnect back to the food that you're eating.
Speaker 1: It helps when your hands are a cooking pan, like
Speaker 1: you can hold really you can hold really hot food
Speaker 1: like literally throws something into the air and you will
Speaker 1: just be like sit dowding there going why is Yeah.
Speaker 3: My mom calls them asbestos hands. I don't know what
Speaker 3: that means, but she's always called it that. I think
Speaker 3: it's like a thing when they were younger, like asbestos.
Speaker 3: But my mum has it too. I think it's just
Speaker 3: a cook thing. You just get like numb at the
Speaker 3: tips of your fingers.
Speaker 2: You just pick anything up.
Speaker 1: One more that I wanted to focus of all of these,
Speaker 1: Like I said, there's nine, I'm just being some of
Speaker 1: my favorites was and this one I think is a
Speaker 1: big one for people. And this one is a big
Speaker 1: one for me. Avoid cold drinks and iced beverages.
Speaker 3: This is one that whenever I've shared it with people
Speaker 3: who have had gut issues, without fail, they've said, oh
Speaker 3: my god, my gut has changed so much since I
Speaker 3: stopped drinking cold drinks.
Speaker 2: Game changer.
Speaker 3: And the reason is your body when it is starting
Speaker 3: to eat, is creating heat. Like if you think about
Speaker 3: a furnace, you think about a fire for it to
Speaker 3: burn something. Our digestion is like a fire.
Speaker 2: It needs heat.
Speaker 3: So there's your body trying to build up this heat
Speaker 3: and take all its energy towards your stomach, and then
Speaker 3: you're going and then dampening the fire. Dampening the fire
Speaker 3: over and over again. Is your body's just heating up.
Speaker 3: The acids are just building up, and then you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: let me dialute the acids and let me dampen the fire.
Speaker 3: The digestivefier that's happening. One part of it is the
Speaker 3: cold drink, like the cold part of it that's dampening
Speaker 3: the fire. And the other part is too much liquid
Speaker 3: when you're eating is dialuting your digestive juices. What's recommended
Speaker 3: is like a half a cup of warm water or
Speaker 3: some warm tea that you can maybe with some spices
Speaker 3: for your digestion, drinking that slowly sip at a time
Speaker 3: as you're eating your food, and then like half an
Speaker 3: hour after or half an hour before you can if
Speaker 3: you really want to tea, can drink or drink.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, no, it's such a and it's so common, right,
Speaker 1: Like I grew up in a house where I would
Speaker 1: have a can of sprite, yeah, chilled right next to my.
Speaker 2: Ma the pizza.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is whatever else it may be, and you
Speaker 1: get so used to it or like you know, we
Speaker 1: have a friend w or will just put loads of
Speaker 1: ice into water, yeah, about to have their meal. And
Speaker 1: it's so normal. It's a normal part of culture. But
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily good for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is the same as everything that we see.
Speaker 3: It's like there's so much just because it's the most
Speaker 3: common thing to do it doesn't mean it's the right
Speaker 3: thing to do for us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely absolutely, And so those are some of my favorites.
Speaker 1: I said, there's so many more, but I thought those
Speaker 1: were so unique, and I'd never heard them anywhere before.
Speaker 1: I've obviously learned them through you, but they're so simple,
Speaker 1: and what I love about them is you don't need
Speaker 1: to you don't need to learn a new skill, you
Speaker 1: don't need to develop a new habit. These are things
Speaker 1: that you can start practicing right now.
Speaker 2: What else you learn from a book I wanted.
Speaker 1: To ask you about. I mean, I learned a lot
Speaker 1: from your book, but I learned it from you, and
Speaker 1: now the book is going to help lots of people.
Speaker 1: So I think one of the biggest things for people
Speaker 1: these days is a lot of people are missing meals, yeah,
Speaker 1: and skipping meals, And often what ends up happening is
Speaker 1: then your first real meal is dinner, like your first
Speaker 1: real meal, like substantial meal, and naturally we end up
Speaker 1: over eating or we end up you know, we're trying
Speaker 1: to get all the new tune, so let meal. What's
Speaker 1: your take on skipping meals and how does that affect us?
Speaker 1: And what can we do if we find that to
Speaker 1: be a pattern in our life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say that you know it's it's a
Speaker 3: very specific thing to your body type, and you will
Speaker 3: know just by doing it whether you are the body
Speaker 3: type that can take it or not. I have a
Speaker 3: body type where I can not eat in the morning
Speaker 3: till I've worked out. I work out on an empty stomach.
Speaker 3: I then will have my meal maybe at like ten
Speaker 3: eleven o'clock. I will fast for a long period of
Speaker 3: time and my body thrives off it. You with your
Speaker 3: body type, your digestion is so strong and fiery, and
Speaker 3: your body type is search that you have to have
Speaker 3: your meals on time. When you wake up, you're ready
Speaker 3: to eat. You're hungry by the afternoon, like clockwork. You
Speaker 3: are hungry like every meal has to be at the
Speaker 3: right time, otherwise you feel that negative effect. You feel
Speaker 3: your stomach getting a city like. You feel all those effects, right,
Speaker 3: And so I would say you really need to I mean,
Speaker 3: I know, I wish I could give a direct answer,
Speaker 3: but that would be wrong. You have to see if
Speaker 3: when I am waking up and if I'm hungry straight away,
Speaker 3: your digestive system is ready to eat. If you're waking
Speaker 3: up and you're like, I could go another three hours
Speaker 3: without eating. Test out, Test that out for yourself. And
Speaker 3: so there are certain body types where, especially if you're
Speaker 3: quite a slim build, you lose weight quite often, quite easily.
Speaker 3: You generally are quite ravenous and hungry all the time.
Speaker 3: You probably need to be having your meals regularly, and
Speaker 3: if your digestion is suffering when you don't, that's an
Speaker 3: indication that you need more regular meals. For me, if
Speaker 3: I end up skipping a meal, my body actually is
Speaker 3: good with fasting, and it actually feels better sometimes and
Speaker 3: less lethargic when I do do that. So sometimes I
Speaker 3: will last off like two meals and I'll be okay
Speaker 3: with it, but I think, yeah, there's so much where
Speaker 3: it's like intimittent fasting is amazing, And then someone doesn't.
Speaker 3: They're like, I feel awful, but like they said, it
Speaker 3: works for me, but I feel so bad doing it.
Speaker 2: Then don't do it. It's not for your body type.
Speaker 3: The active participant thing keeps coming up in my mind,
Speaker 3: but it is work to figure out yourself, just like
Speaker 3: when you're figuring out your partner and you're figuring out
Speaker 3: you know your relationship with them.
Speaker 2: Your body is the same.
Speaker 3: It's waiting for you to listen and learn from it,
Speaker 3: and it will tell you what it needs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think what's been my personal experience is
Speaker 1: that when you don't listen to these smaller initial warnings,
Speaker 1: the body just gets louder and harder and harsher, and
Speaker 1: we think there's something wrong with our body, when actually
Speaker 1: your body's been doing the right thing all along. This
Speaker 1: is telling you to be an activity participant and listen
Speaker 1: to me. It's like your partner that just gets louder
Speaker 1: and louder and louder if you're not listening, or your
Speaker 1: alarm clock gets louder and louder and louder. When you're not.
Speaker 2: Listening, you're waking up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And so your body's trying to get you
Speaker 1: to do this time. Yeah, yeah, all right. One question
Speaker 1: I want to ask you is, on a busy day,
Speaker 1: what's one practice you can implement to make sure you
Speaker 1: slow down. What's one thing you do and one thing
Speaker 1: people could do? Because I feel like eating fast it
Speaker 1: sounds like drinking fast. We do a lot of things fast,
Speaker 1: and that seems to cause a lot of issues.
Speaker 3: For me because as you know, my mind, the way
Speaker 3: I talk, everything is quite this and then this and
Speaker 3: then this, and I'm all over the place. And so
Speaker 3: I can relate to being someone who's very fast minded
Speaker 3: and constantly feeling like I'm all over the place. I
Speaker 3: have to just say, breath, work again. Breath before you eat.
Speaker 3: Take three breaths before you go into something that you're
Speaker 3: worried about. Take three breaths, like really feel deep breaths
Speaker 3: going into your body, because we take such shallow breaths.
Speaker 3: Your breath is the anchor between your mind and your body.
Speaker 3: It brings you back into your body. It allows you
Speaker 3: to reconnect with yourself. And so it sounds really simple,
Speaker 3: but I guarantee you, like, take a breath right now,
Speaker 3: Like take a breath and feel what happens to your body.
Speaker 3: It automatically slows down. Every time I've gone from in
Speaker 3: this podcast from where I'm speaking fast, I've taken a
Speaker 3: breath and then I slow down. I've taken a breath
Speaker 3: and I've slowed down. And so my cure to having
Speaker 3: a fast mind and having the habit of being like.
Speaker 2: That has been just taking a breath.
Speaker 3: And it's like as simple as it gets right, like,
Speaker 3: breath is there for you. It's ready to be used
Speaker 3: and navigate your emotions your day and help you in
Speaker 3: some way if you allow it to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, it's a great natural tool that's built into
Speaker 1: the body. Yeah, in order to help you set a
Speaker 1: pace for life. And if you think about it, every
Speaker 1: single one of your emotions is monitored by breath. Like
Speaker 1: when we're nervous and we're anxious, our breath gets shallower
Speaker 1: and quicker. And when we're calm and focused, our breath
Speaker 1: becomes deeper and slower. And when we're stressed, or we're
Speaker 1: under pressure, or we're late for something and we're worried,
Speaker 1: our breath gets shallower and gets quicker. Exactly when you're
Speaker 1: feeling like you're in the right place and you made
Speaker 1: it on time and all of those things, your breath
Speaker 1: gets deeper and slower again. And we also have always
Speaker 1: said to people, we also say things like that takes
Speaker 1: my breath away, like when something's really beautiful, it's breathtaking.
Speaker 1: And we also say things like let me just catch
Speaker 1: my breath or let me take the breath because it's
Speaker 1: linked to our emotions. And so we've learned to realize
Speaker 1: that our breath changes, but we haven't learned to realize
Speaker 1: we can change our breath. And what you've just described
Speaker 1: is you can choose to change your breath in order
Speaker 1: to feel the way you want to feel. I completely agree.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can really navigate your emotions through it. Like
Speaker 3: I think about when I'm crying, Like, depending on how
Speaker 3: I'm crying, my breath changes completely. You know, if you
Speaker 3: think about when you see someone really intensely crying, they're
Speaker 3: breathing so shallow, they're feeling so overwhelmed, and suddenly their
Speaker 3: breath is getting faster. They can't even speak because they can't,
Speaker 3: you know, they can't catch their breath to actually say
Speaker 3: something thing. And so, yeah, breath can navigate your emotions,
Speaker 3: your day, your mind everything.
Speaker 1: What's something you've changed your mind about this past year
Speaker 1: when it comes to your mindset around health or the
Speaker 1: way you eat food?
Speaker 2: Protein.
Speaker 3: I grew u vegetarian, and my sources of protein being
Speaker 3: from an Indian family as well, was lintails and beans,
Speaker 3: and you know those are actually the main sources for us.
Speaker 3: And then when I started learning more about while I
Speaker 3: was working out and the amount of protein my body needs,
Speaker 3: you know, my book, I talk about how the average
Speaker 3: American I think it was something like has over seventy
Speaker 3: five percent more protein than they need. So there's one
Speaker 3: side where because of the foods that people are consuming,
Speaker 3: they're actually over eating on protein to a point where
Speaker 3: it can harm your body. But then I find with
Speaker 3: vegetarians and if your plant based, you actually can get
Speaker 3: the right amount that you need.
Speaker 2: And I've been managing to.
Speaker 3: Do that, but it does take a little bit more
Speaker 3: work to get it, to navigate and get it into
Speaker 3: your food. But I've noticed what a difference it's made,
Speaker 3: Like everything from hair full, hair shedding. When I started
Speaker 3: increasing my protein, my hair was shedding less, my skin
Speaker 3: was getting better. I was feeling more satiated and more
Speaker 3: full in my meals because sometimes I realized my meals
Speaker 3: were focused so much on carbohydrates that they were being
Speaker 3: digested so fast, and I was hungry even though I
Speaker 3: had such a large meal, I was still hungry so often.
Speaker 3: And then I started introducing protein and I could last
Speaker 3: three four hours, five hours between my meals and I
Speaker 3: felt satiated. Right, It's made such a difference, And so
Speaker 3: you know, some of the for anybody who's plant based
Speaker 3: or thinking about having more plant based days and they
Speaker 3: want protein. I would say, obviously beans and lentils are
Speaker 3: great sources of that. But then also, you know, I
Speaker 3: kind of want to dispel the myth around tofu being
Speaker 3: bad for you, because there have been so many studies
Speaker 3: that have been done yes to say that when you
Speaker 3: have you know, they talk about soyer and how it
Speaker 3: affects your hormones and your eastern levels. Those studies were
Speaker 3: done on people who are having such an excessive amount
Speaker 3: of soyer. It was like, imagine having five or six
Speaker 3: blocks of soyer every single day, and so I mean
Speaker 3: like blocks of tofu. Let's say, so naturally, anything in excess.
Speaker 1: Not chunks, large blocks, large blocks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, anything in excess, of course, that's going to cause
Speaker 3: negative effects on your body. Everything has that. There's anything
Speaker 3: in excess, even water and excess.
Speaker 2: You can have too much water.
Speaker 3: And so I would say that if you are health
Speaker 3: having a healthy natural amount of tofu or soyer in
Speaker 3: your diet, it's not going to affect your hormone levels.
Speaker 3: And I mean, I'm happy to share the studies at
Speaker 3: some point you know about that, but I've really researched
Speaker 3: it because I was scared of it too, so soyer
Speaker 3: is a great source of it. Another great sauce is
Speaker 3: from your nuts and your seeds hemp seeds, flax seeds,
Speaker 3: like you know, in two tablespoons, I think there's nearly
Speaker 3: like six grams protein. Now you may think that's a
Speaker 3: small amount, but you add that into a few dishes
Speaker 3: every single day, like throughout the day, and you can
Speaker 3: gain so much from it. And then obviously you've got
Speaker 3: your your meat alternatives, which do you have that. I
Speaker 3: try to avoid that as much as possible and get
Speaker 3: it from natural means.
Speaker 2: But there are so many.
Speaker 3: Great ways to get protein into your diet, and that
Speaker 3: for me this year has been I've really been focusing
Speaker 3: on that and it's been a game changer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing. I've felt the difference as well. For sure,
Speaker 1: it's been huge. What's the biggest change you've made in
Speaker 1: your health journey that has changed your relationship with food?
Speaker 3: Eating to make my body feel good, not look a
Speaker 3: certain way, because I realized that, you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of my book is to do with the journey I've
Speaker 3: had to go through with food, where I remember when
Speaker 3: we met, I was so conscious about the way that
Speaker 3: I was being perceived and the way my body looked
Speaker 3: that I would want to eat a way that I
Speaker 3: thought made me look better, and especially this last year, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the last couple of years, I've been trying to improve
Speaker 3: my relationship with food because I didn't realize how much
Speaker 3: it was impacted by the way I wanted to look
Speaker 3: versus the way I wanted to feel. You know, a
Speaker 3: lot of the recipes in this book and a lot
Speaker 3: of the things that I've shared are helping people to
Speaker 3: connect back to their body but create a better relationship
Speaker 3: to understand that food, Like you don't have to choose
Speaker 3: between food that between food that makes you feel good
Speaker 3: and food that brings you joy. Food can be both,
Speaker 3: and you can learn how to do that and the
Speaker 3: way to cook to make you feel that way. Like
Speaker 3: we normally associate if I want to look a certain way,
Speaker 3: I have to eat salads and things just leaves, and
Speaker 3: I can't have any fun when I'm eating, because anything
Speaker 3: that brings me joy is going to be bad for me,
Speaker 3: Like it's going to be something that doesn't make me
Speaker 3: look a certain way. But actually, how you feel when
Speaker 3: you're eating and how you feel in your life is
Speaker 3: so feel it's so much more satisfying when you nurture
Speaker 3: that versus constantly living to figure out how you're going
Speaker 3: to change the way you live.
Speaker 2: Extending both can be true.
Speaker 3: You can want to change your external body, but at
Speaker 3: the same time thinking about how is my inside feeling too,
Speaker 3: and doing both at the same time is possible and
Speaker 3: will make you feel so much better. I was listening
Speaker 3: to something today and it was talking about self objectification,
Speaker 3: and it was really interesting because it was talking about
Speaker 3: how we view ourselves constantly as other people view us.
Speaker 3: We live our life as other people view us, So,
Speaker 3: for example, on this podcast and maybe thinking how am
Speaker 3: I gonna sit in a way where I'm going to
Speaker 3: look the most flattering, and how am I going to
Speaker 3: like move my body in a way where maybe they
Speaker 3: don't get the bad side of me? And so you're
Speaker 3: constantly living through other people's perception of you, essentially objectifying yourself.
Speaker 3: And so I feel like having a better relationship with
Speaker 3: food has allowed me to care less about those things
Speaker 3: and live from inside out rather than outside in.
Speaker 1: So powerful, Yeah, so powerful, And that requires so much
Speaker 1: courage and going against the grain because society has conditioned
Speaker 1: us to think a certain way. Like I remember years
Speaker 1: and years and years ago, I remember walking through a
Speaker 1: department store and the line above the kind of billboard
Speaker 1: above the makeup section said get the natural look. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I just found that hilarious because I was like,
Speaker 1: you obviously already have the natural look. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: there's anything against makeup. I have no issues with it.
Speaker 1: I'm good with it. It's great. It's just it's interesting
Speaker 1: how it's being sold to us, and so we're being
Speaker 1: convinced that the natural isn't good enough, or there's a
Speaker 1: way to be more natural. And each to their own.
Speaker 1: Everyone's allowed to do whatever's right for them. But I
Speaker 1: think the more we live our life through the lens
Speaker 1: of will people think I look good like this, will
Speaker 1: always be disappointed because there are some people who think
Speaker 1: you look good and some people who think you don't.
Speaker 1: Like we talk about this a lot with fashion, Like
Speaker 1: I really enjoy fashion. Yeah, but when you see my fashion,
Speaker 1: truths is you're like, I'm not sure what you're doing, mate,
Speaker 1: And then and then everyone else will think it looks great.
Speaker 1: But the point is I'm doing it for myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: That's the only person that you can ever do it
Speaker 1: for because it's so hard to win. Like you could
Speaker 1: have everyone think you're amazing and one person think you're not,
Speaker 1: or the other option where everyone thinks you're crazy and
Speaker 1: one person thinks you're amazing and the day the one
Speaker 1: person you need to feel that way as you. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm hearing.
Speaker 3: From you totally, and you kind of rob yourself of
Speaker 3: experiences like I was talking to Liz Moody. I was
Speaker 3: talking to this guy and she was saying, how you
Speaker 3: know when you go to the beach and you look
Speaker 3: into the sea and you see the sand underneath you,
Speaker 3: and you're like you're thinking, oh, I want to go
Speaker 3: into the ocean. But I'm a bit worried about what
Speaker 3: people are going to think about me in this swimsuit.
Speaker 2: I've had that. I've robbed myself of so many experiences.
Speaker 3: We've gone to poor parties and I've been I'm not
Speaker 3: getting in the pool, like just so you know, I'm
Speaker 3: not going to get in the pool right now because
Speaker 3: I don't feel comfortable, and I've robbed myself of so
Speaker 3: many experiences. Where she was like, think about when you're
Speaker 3: eighty years old and you look back at those experiences
Speaker 3: and you're are you going to say to yourself, so
Speaker 3: glad I didn't get in the pool that day because
Speaker 3: they would have seen my cellulight, or are you going
Speaker 3: to think I'm so glad I jumped into that ocean
Speaker 3: and I felt that ocean around me, and I created
Speaker 3: these memories and I felt the sand beneath my feet,
Speaker 3: and I had the experience. And so I've really been
Speaker 3: thinking about that a lot more of like having the experience,
Speaker 3: because whenever I've gone into situations where I'm constantly consumed
Speaker 3: by other people's view of.
Speaker 2: Me, I've not been present.
Speaker 3: I barely remember the event, I barely remember where I've
Speaker 3: what I've been doing, or where I've been. Like, there's
Speaker 3: so much such lack of presence which doesn't allow me
Speaker 3: to even experience what I wanted to. And I feel
Speaker 3: like that's kind of changed throughout the time. I'm still
Speaker 3: working on it, but it's definitely. Yeah, all of that
Speaker 3: fuels into everything, Like it really changed the way I
Speaker 3: was eating and connecting to my body too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you've also found this, and this why
Speaker 1: I'm excited for people to get the book is that
Speaker 1: you've found a way to make healthy food really tasty.
Speaker 1: And I always say that to you, like I find
Speaker 1: it so easy. I'm so lucky to have you. And
Speaker 1: I always say that to everyone when everyone's like, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: you live a really healthy lifestyle, Like you don't know
Speaker 1: who I'm married to, right, And it's and now it's
Speaker 1: almost like everyone gets to have you in their kitchen
Speaker 1: through the book where they can also feel that way
Speaker 1: and feeling confident that when you're cooking for your family
Speaker 1: that you don't have to sacrifice taste in order for
Speaker 1: it to be good.
Speaker 2: For you exactly.
Speaker 1: And a big part for you with that is is
Speaker 1: the spices and the hams that you talk about. So
Speaker 1: walk us through what you're fascinated with spices, Like our
Speaker 1: nickname for you is spice Scale. Yeah, because of that,
Speaker 1: like in the actual sense, like what walk us through
Speaker 1: the value of spices and why they make food flavorful
Speaker 1: and good for you?
Speaker 2: To ask me because it's literally my favorite topic about
Speaker 2: this book. Spices have you know been a part.
Speaker 3: Of our life, our whole life, because I remember even
Speaker 3: when we were younger, I would be I'd be coughing
Speaker 3: and sneezing at my mum we'd do spices in water
Speaker 3: to like boil boiler tea with spices to help me
Speaker 3: with that. Or you know, when you get a cut
Speaker 3: or a bruise, our parents are getting out this tumeric
Speaker 3: patty and like putting it onto our scabs.
Speaker 2: And you know, we grew up with that.
Speaker 3: But I didn't realize the power of them until I
Speaker 3: started studying the medicinal potency and benefit of them. And
Speaker 3: so yes, they make your food taste and look vibrant,
Speaker 3: like it's amazing. You can take like a humble potato,
Speaker 3: and you can mix different spices together and taste different
Speaker 3: parts of the world through just the spices you're using.
Speaker 3: So spices not only take you to different parts of
Speaker 3: the world and help you to experience different cultures and cuisines, they.
Speaker 2: Also allow you to buy really basic.
Speaker 3: Ingredients and elevate them and make them feel so different
Speaker 3: every single day. And the benefits of spices, oh my goodness,
Speaker 3: well you know this. For the past I don't even
Speaker 3: know how long ten years I've used spices in my
Speaker 3: medicine box. Spices have been my go to if I
Speaker 3: have a headache, essential oils and spices. If I have
Speaker 3: a headache, what do I go to, Yeah, yes, oil,
Speaker 3: my peppermint oil. Like if I have a cough, what
Speaker 3: do I tell you that I'm gonna make you edgewage
Speaker 3: seeds in water? And I have found when I've allowed
Speaker 3: my body to rely on natural means to heal itself.
Speaker 3: And what I mean by that is like the spices,
Speaker 3: the oils, whatever I'm using, the food that I'm eating,
Speaker 3: my body's immunity has gotten better and better. The way
Speaker 3: that my body reacts to being in stressful environments has
Speaker 3: changed because I've allowed my body to heal itself through
Speaker 3: what I'm actually putting into my body, and so I
Speaker 3: actually have feel my best when over the past few years,
Speaker 3: progressively as I've done that. And it's so easy because
Speaker 3: all you have to do is there's spices you can
Speaker 3: buy ground or whole or in mixes of blends that
Speaker 3: you can just add in. You don't even have to
Speaker 3: think about it. You can put it into your hot
Speaker 3: water in the morning. One of my favorite things is CCFT, coriander, cumin,
Speaker 3: and fenelty.
Speaker 2: Easy way.
Speaker 3: If you're not used to using spices at all, even
Speaker 3: if you don't cook at home, add these three spices
Speaker 3: in equal parts a teaspoon of each into hot water.
Speaker 3: Beautiful way to add in spices without you even having
Speaker 3: to do much and then experiment with your food. Become
Speaker 3: like a play in your kitchen. I really think you know,
Speaker 3: the book is not prescriptive. I actually want you to
Speaker 3: use the book and the recipes to play in the
Speaker 3: kitchen and sub things out. And I've got so many
Speaker 3: things where I'm like, if you don't have this, use this,
Speaker 3: if you don't have this, use this, because nothing about
Speaker 3: food has to be prescriptive, and so spices are a
Speaker 3: really fun way to do that. So, yeah, one of
Speaker 3: the huge intentions and goals with my book is for
Speaker 3: you to have a spice cover that is full and
Speaker 3: overfall by the time you get to the end. And
Speaker 3: I've got a chart in there to tell you what
Speaker 3: the benefits of them are, how you can use them
Speaker 3: to your medicinal benefit, but also to make a food
Speaker 3: taste way better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's really important that You've got so
Speaker 1: many charts and graphs, Yeah, things to make it really
Speaker 1: easy in the book for anyone to understand, because a
Speaker 1: lot of people may be thinking, God, I have never
Speaker 1: really used totally how many spices I'm not really aware
Speaker 1: of them, but you've actually made that really simple.
Speaker 3: And then I'm like, pick a spice a week and
Speaker 3: play with it. Pick a spice a week, add it
Speaker 3: into different things like nutmeg, add it into milk, your
Speaker 3: milk at night, not meg. It is a mouth sedative.
Speaker 3: It helps with sleep in the morning for your digestion.
Speaker 3: You know, for centuries, Indians have eaten fennel seeds.
Speaker 2: After their meal. It's a tradition.
Speaker 3: You go to Indian restaurant, you go to an Indian house,
Speaker 3: they will be passing around fennel seeds after their meal.
Speaker 3: That's because it is amazing for gas, for bloating, for
Speaker 3: digestive relief after you've eaten, and so like, try our
Speaker 3: fennel seeds and your you know, water.
Speaker 2: In the morning. This so, pick one thing.
Speaker 3: You don't have to be overwhelmed with so many different
Speaker 3: practices and spices and things in the book. Pick one
Speaker 3: or two a week that you want to incorporate and
Speaker 3: see how you like it, see how your body reacts
Speaker 3: to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. I mean, you just mentioned two
Speaker 1: things that I wanted to speak to you about. People
Speaker 1: have always been fascinated with your morning and evening routines.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, what does your morning routine
Speaker 1: look like now? And why have you chosen the specific
Speaker 1: things that exist in it?
Speaker 2: Good question? Are you not part of my morning routine?
Speaker 3: You don't know what my morning what is my morning routine?
Speaker 1: So I don't know what happens before I wake up?
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 3: So I wake up in the morning and brush my
Speaker 3: teeth and also use my tongue scraper, which by the way,
Speaker 3: is an irateic ritual that if you don't do that
Speaker 3: is a must. You don't know how clean your mouth
Speaker 3: can actually be if you haven't used a tongue scrape.
Speaker 3: But it's also really important to remove tuxins that have
Speaker 3: built up over the night, because that's the time your
Speaker 3: body starts to clean up and take away the toxins
Speaker 3: in one place that they come out is on the
Speaker 3: top of your tongue, and so tongue scraping is a must.
Speaker 3: And then I make my CCFT in the morning, sit
Speaker 3: down for my meditation, and I have mondro meditation practice,
Speaker 3: as you know, and that's usually for about an hour
Speaker 3: and a half mixed in with breath work to help
Speaker 3: me refocus and keep bringing my mind back to my practice.
Speaker 3: And then I usually get ready for my workout, go
Speaker 3: for my workout, and that ranges from Monday, Wednesday, Friday
Speaker 3: a weight workout and love weight training. It really helps
Speaker 3: to build strength and I feel confidence in my body.
Speaker 3: The other days, I'll either do running or like a
Speaker 3: heated yoga class, other things that help also stretch out
Speaker 3: my body, because I find weight training kind of shortens
Speaker 3: your muscles, whereas pilates and yoga really helps to lengthen them.
Speaker 3: It's kind of a mix of both. And then I'll
Speaker 3: come back, get ready and then what else do I do?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Then I eat my breakfast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, I don't normally have a breakfast, so at
Speaker 3: the moment, I'm trying to do savory breakfast after listening
Speaker 3: to Glucos Goddess and really trying to incorporate more savory foods,
Speaker 3: and I prefer savory breakfast anyway. So I do everything
Speaker 3: from a sour doough toast with some sort of protein
Speaker 3: on it. So either like having a good amount of
Speaker 3: hummus with lots of veggies. I'll put like tomatoes and cucumbers,
Speaker 3: maybe doing and I'll sprinkle some sort of spices on top,
Speaker 3: So whether it's you know, toasted corianderses or cuman powder
Speaker 3: and then a bit of.
Speaker 2: Hot sauce because I just love hot sauce, and.
Speaker 3: Then I'll have that, or I've been having these like
Speaker 3: protein bagels, you know, topped with the same kind of thing,
Speaker 3: and then I'll have a protein shake afterwards.
Speaker 1: So what about your lunches when you don't want to
Speaker 1: feel lethargic after your lunches, because so often we struggle
Speaker 1: to know what to eat because we still have a
Speaker 1: few hours of work left. Like what do you do
Speaker 1: for your lunches? What do you enjoy?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I try to keep it balanced in the sense
Speaker 3: of I will still have a carbohydrate at lunchtime. And
Speaker 3: by the way, our body is so in sync with nature,
Speaker 3: and our digestion is the strongest when the sun is
Speaker 3: at its highest, and so the sun is at its
Speaker 3: highest naturally in the middle of the day, and so
Speaker 3: our lunch should actually be our largest meal of the
Speaker 3: day ideally, because that's when our digestion is the strongest.
Speaker 3: It's able to digest like the heavier things that we
Speaker 3: want to eat, and so I will have like a
Speaker 3: larger portion of my carbohydrates if possible in the afternoon,
Speaker 3: and then I will mix in lots of different veggies.
Speaker 3: Like eating the rainbow is no joke. You have to
Speaker 3: eat variety of colors, and so I will make sure
Speaker 3: that when I'm doing my sharp I have a variety
Speaker 3: of vegetables with different colors because each of those colors
Speaker 3: represent different nutrients and different vitamins and minerals. And so
Speaker 3: to make sure you're also getting enough of what you
Speaker 3: need in terms of vitamins minerals, make sure that you
Speaker 3: have a variety of different colors on your plate. So
Speaker 3: I'll buy like pink radishes, I'll buy cucumbers, I'll buy
Speaker 3: different colored carrots, and either I'll have them on the
Speaker 3: side or I'll just quickly saute them, have it with
Speaker 3: either some noodles or throw some tofu in there scrambles. Honestly,
Speaker 3: I just make sure I know the basics of Like
Speaker 3: a really good way of doing is write down where
Speaker 3: your protein is going to come from, what vegies you
Speaker 3: love eating, and what carbohydrates you like, and then just
Speaker 3: mix it all in. I love doing a one part thing,
Speaker 3: So I'll throw a noodles, I'll throw my veggies I'll
Speaker 3: throw in some tofu, mix it all up, or I'll
Speaker 3: do a scrambled like scramble tofu on toast. I just
Speaker 3: know that the areas I need to make sure I
Speaker 3: have in my meals, and then I kind of just
Speaker 3: pick and choose between go between them and decide what
Speaker 3: I feel like and what flavors I want dinner.
Speaker 2: Dinner, know, oh my gosh, dinner. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: it can be so varied.
Speaker 3: I love for me a doll or a soup or
Speaker 3: like a beanie curry I'll probably have. I wouldn't have
Speaker 3: like as much like flatbread or rice with it, just
Speaker 3: because I try not to have too many carbs at
Speaker 3: night or something too heavy at night. But I love
Speaker 3: Indian spices are just my comfort food and at night,
Speaker 3: especially when it's cold outside. I love having a mixed
Speaker 3: lentil like.
Speaker 1: Doll and all of these recipes in the book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, oh there's a really good like red lentil
Speaker 3: doll in there. There's also my mom's three bean curry
Speaker 3: with coconut milk, and oh it's so good, so much
Speaker 3: flavor in it. Yeah'll usually do that or a one
Speaker 3: pot thing because at night, you you just want to
Speaker 3: throw everything in one thing and not spend too much
Speaker 3: time in the kitchen. And so there are so many
Speaker 3: recipes in there that are like thirty minutes and then
Speaker 3: other ones where maybe you feel like spending a little
Speaker 3: bit more time in the kitchen, and so you can
Speaker 3: spend an hour creating a beautiful meal if you have
Speaker 3: time on the weekend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so lucky that I get to be the recipient.
Speaker 2: You are the guinea pig.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the guinea peah, all of this intested. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what about your evening routine? How has that been constructed
Speaker 1: for you?
Speaker 3: My evening routine is usually I try to as soon
Speaker 3: as I stop working and usually go walk for a
Speaker 3: little bit.
Speaker 2: I find it really helps me to wind down.
Speaker 3: I won't do an intense workup, but I'll definitely walk,
Speaker 3: go on the treadmill for about like twenty minutes half
Speaker 3: an hour, listen to something. And then one thing that's
Speaker 3: really helped me is I don't like bright lights at night.
Speaker 3: I really try to avoid bright lights. It's made such
Speaker 3: a difference to my like sarcadian rhythm, the rhythm of
Speaker 3: your body that helps with sleep. Artificial life really messes
Speaker 3: with that and so whether it's using candles or really
Speaker 3: keeping the lights dim, that for me has helped me
Speaker 3: notice that, oh wow, I'm actually really tired by eight
Speaker 3: thirty or nine, and it's time for me to get
Speaker 3: into bed rather than And by the way, TV has
Speaker 3: the same light, and so do our phones, and so
Speaker 3: for me, the bright lights are too intense for me,
Speaker 3: and it and it really, you know, messes with my
Speaker 3: rhythm of sleep. So I've started using candles and stuff
Speaker 3: a lot more. And then we've been trying to read
Speaker 3: a lot more. And so I'll if I'm by myself,
Speaker 3: I'll read. Sometimes we'll show a little cheeky show of
Speaker 3: something which might be called love Island, Not Gonna.
Speaker 2: Lie, And then.
Speaker 3: And then oh, eat dinner, and that before that, and
Speaker 3: then one of my favorite practices, which is like a
Speaker 3: self love ritual for me is a younger. It's a
Speaker 3: really beautiful practice of a younger is it's Yeah, I
Speaker 3: talk about it in the book, and it's it's massaging
Speaker 3: your own body with oils. That's as simple as it is.
Speaker 3: But if you think about it, how many times a
Speaker 3: day do we probably have a lot of negative self talk,
Speaker 3: and how many times a day do you give yourself
Speaker 3: a hug, and like just it's literally like giving yourself
Speaker 3: a hug, just as when someone's had a long day,
Speaker 3: a hard day, they come home and you give them
Speaker 3: a hug, like you give them a cuddle. And in
Speaker 3: the same way, our nervous system wants us, wants to
Speaker 3: hear from us and feel from us that I love
Speaker 3: you and I care about you. And one of the
Speaker 3: most amazing ways of doing that is by just giving
Speaker 3: yourself a little massage. And so whether it's just the
Speaker 3: bottom of your feet, putting the warm oils on your hands,
Speaker 3: massaging the bottom of your feet, that's where all of
Speaker 3: our nerves end and so bottom of your feet, or
Speaker 3: even giving yourself a little scout massage, or if you
Speaker 3: have time, have a warm shower and larth your body
Speaker 3: in those oils. Oils actually help to lubricate your nervous system.
Speaker 3: They seep into your skin. They basically act as a
Speaker 3: hug for your nervous system. They help to soothe your
Speaker 3: nerves at night, and so that's been one of my
Speaker 3: favorite rituals that I do before I sleep. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: I'll do that whether it's a two minute one quickly
Speaker 3: or if I have a bit longer on weekends. Then
Speaker 3: I just kind of love myself up till I'm really
Speaker 3: deep fried.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. No, And I'm glad that we went
Speaker 1: through a whole day because I think so often we don't.
Speaker 1: There was so much that just came out of that.
Speaker 1: Oh good in terms of like, you know, like what
Speaker 1: to eat in the morning, why you eat certain things
Speaker 1: in the afternoon, why you don't eat them a nighttime.
Speaker 1: Like we just learned so much and so many practices,
Speaker 1: and again for anyone who wants to understand them more deeply,
Speaker 1: they are well explained. Inside joy for the book.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, what can I say? Well more thing?
Speaker 1: Of course you get.
Speaker 3: I realized actually, you know, I was going through a
Speaker 3: period where I was finishing eating by five pm, like
Speaker 3: I wouldn't eat anything after that. And what was amazing
Speaker 3: is I was using Yeah, I was using a tracker
Speaker 3: and for my sleep I was using the Whoop at
Speaker 3: the time, and I noticed I was getting one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: I've never had this one hundred percent sleep score on
Speaker 3: my work, and it was telling me and I'd gone
Speaker 3: from being seventy percent to having one hundred percent. Every
Speaker 3: single day. Wow, And it was because my body was
Speaker 3: not working while it was sleeping. And so yeah, because
Speaker 3: when you're when you end up eating late at night,
Speaker 3: when you're trying to sleep and your body's trying to
Speaker 3: rest and you know, actually spend time having downtime, it's
Speaker 3: actually still working digesting its food. And so you can
Speaker 3: wake up after eight hours sleep feeling so tired still
Speaker 3: because your body's actually been working half of the time
Speaker 3: to digest what you've been eating. So that was like
Speaker 3: a big, like aha moment for me where I was like, wow,
Speaker 3: that really does make sense. Having lighter meals at night
Speaker 3: affects so much, including your sleep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. That's great. No, that's huge, and
Speaker 1: that's amazing. I mean to have a thirty percent increase
Speaker 1: in your sleep score because your food is not being
Speaker 1: digested while you're sleeping, because so many of us are
Speaker 1: eating so close to sleep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, A little snack, a little dessert, sugar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, huge. What they want to do? I want to
Speaker 1: do something fun with your work. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: ask you questions that I want you to link back
Speaker 1: to recipes that apply to those questions. Oh, okay, when
Speaker 1: you can look at your book if you need to
Speaker 1: to show us. But example of the question, there's no example.
Speaker 1: We're just going straight. So the first question I'm going
Speaker 1: to ask is if someone has a long day at work,
Speaker 1: they're really tired, but they do want to make a
Speaker 1: home cooked meal, that's the easiest one that they can go.
Speaker 3: My rainbow noodle stir fry. Okay, it's like super easy.
Speaker 3: What I would say is have your veggies cut up earlier.
Speaker 3: Then it's literally like a ten minute meal.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's got this really great sauce with it. You
Speaker 3: get your veggies, you get everything all in one thing,
Speaker 3: and it still tastes good and it feels like takeout.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, okay good. How do you how do you
Speaker 1: recommend people meal prep? Because that's an important part of
Speaker 1: all of this.
Speaker 3: Chopping takes up so much time my day. My meals
Speaker 3: are cut down significantly when I've chopped my peppers beforehand,
Speaker 3: when I've grated my cabbage, when I've you know, everything
Speaker 3: that you possibly can. I wouldn't say to do it
Speaker 3: too in advance, because as soon as you cut up
Speaker 3: a vegetable, it starts to spoil. And so I'd say
Speaker 3: you can cut up peppers two three days in advance.
Speaker 3: Same with like carrots, cabbage and stuff. Tomatoes go bad
Speaker 3: straight away you cut them up by like an hour later,
Speaker 3: they're bad. Avocados as well, and so there are certain
Speaker 3: things you can chop up, and I recommend doing that,
Speaker 3: especially if you're someone who has been wanting to eat
Speaker 3: more at home but just don't have the time to
Speaker 3: cut up your stuff in the weekend, because at least
Speaker 3: I'll give you a good three four days worth of
Speaker 3: chopped up stuff that allows you to eat at home.
Speaker 3: And that's been a good change for me. I've been
Speaker 3: so busy lately, and I've still since I've got back here.
Speaker 3: I'm actually so proud that I have not ordered out
Speaker 3: or eaten out once, and that's been That's crazy for
Speaker 3: me because I've also been thand but having things chopped
Speaker 3: up and also having planned what I'm gonna eat.
Speaker 2: Usually we end up.
Speaker 3: Ordering out when you're like, oh, I've got nothing planned
Speaker 3: and I just don't even want to look at my
Speaker 3: fridge and figure it out.
Speaker 2: Figuring it out is half the battle.
Speaker 3: So if you already know and you already have the ingredients,
Speaker 3: it makes it so much easier.
Speaker 2: And then you've chopped up. You've basically done half the work.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's say another scenario. I've got all these scenarios. Okay,
Speaker 1: So someone's got some they're dating, coming over for the
Speaker 1: first time, second time. Maybe they can make in them
Speaker 1: something this time. What do you cook for someone to
Speaker 1: impress them from your book? My god, I want to
Speaker 1: show off, you.
Speaker 2: Know, good question.
Speaker 3: I would say my Jaalipino cheesy doughballs. You know why,
Speaker 3: because the other day it's so good. You can have
Speaker 3: like there's a masala topping to go on top too.
Speaker 3: But the reason I say that is because it shows
Speaker 3: that you don't take things too seriously, that it's a
Speaker 3: fun dish that's.
Speaker 2: Like a pull apart, try too hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you didn't try too hard, You're ship. It's a
Speaker 3: sharing dish where you kind of pull apart the bread
Speaker 3: and it's fun. It's also just the poper flavor of vibrants.
Speaker 3: And also who doesn't love a good bread dish?
Speaker 2: Bread is life?
Speaker 1: Love it?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you've got another scenario, if you've got the girls
Speaker 1: coming out of it's girls night.
Speaker 3: Okay, So for girls night, I would probably say the
Speaker 3: roasted red pepper tagula telly, and then mixed with that
Speaker 3: we're not yeah, roasted pepper tagula telly, and then doing
Speaker 3: like the butter bean and tomato salad because you always
Speaker 3: want something a bit lighter on the side, and then
Speaker 3: having some sort of veggie side because you always need
Speaker 3: I have a whole veggi hero section, so I'd probably
Speaker 3: do like the zucchini bubbuganese or the sweet and salty broccolini.
Speaker 3: And then for dessert, because for a girls night you
Speaker 3: need dessert. I have this decadant cake which is amazing.
Speaker 3: It's like one of the best desserts in here, I'd say,
Speaker 3: and maybe the other day the.
Speaker 2: Triple chocolate Brownie Black Forest Celebration cake.
Speaker 3: But what I do is I deconstruct it so it
Speaker 3: ends up being a brownie Sunday.
Speaker 2: So that would be my ultimate girl's night that I do,
Speaker 2: Ultimate guy's night, Ultimate guy's night. Easy. I would do
Speaker 2: my bean burgers.
Speaker 1: Okay, I like that. I like that.
Speaker 3: I would do my bean burgers. I then would do
Speaker 3: bean burgers with the side of my dad's mac and cheese,
Speaker 3: and then for a bit of balance, I'd probably throw
Speaker 3: in some veggies, which would be in the form of
Speaker 3: my golden caramelized fennel. I think that'd be a nice,
Speaker 3: like little refreshing side dish. And then for dessert, I'd
Speaker 3: probably have to go for cookies three ways.
Speaker 2: That sounds good, crumble yeah like that?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah. And last scenario date night. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've been really lucky because IF has been testing recipes
Speaker 1: from the books every day, so I've been spoiled every day.
Speaker 2: But no, what date night I'd probably go with? It depends,
Speaker 2: is it like a.
Speaker 1: Like like a married couples live together for a while,
Speaker 1: they want to make a special day they do you like.
Speaker 3: My Mexican lasagna because that was so fus It's just
Speaker 3: so tasty. And then I'd throw in maybe like my warm,
Speaker 3: nutty super food salad on the side. Oh and maybe
Speaker 3: my cavalin the sweet potatoes with cavalinera pasta.
Speaker 1: So when are we doing data?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I can make it all tonight straight up.
Speaker 1: And the cake ooh, but clover cheesecake.
Speaker 2: Or my chocolate mud pie for you because you love chocolate.
Speaker 1: Chocolate mud both of those are yeah, Rady, I'm so
Speaker 1: proud of you and I am so excited, honestly for
Speaker 1: everyone to have you in their kitchen, because I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful to have you in ours. And like you all
Speaker 1: just heard, there are obviously over one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five plant based recipes in the air, and every single
Speaker 1: one of them sounds amazing, and I can truly say,
Speaker 1: as someone who's eaten every single one of them, yeah,
Speaker 1: multiple times, I'm not bored of them. They're incredible. And
Speaker 1: I think anyone who gets this book and cooks from
Speaker 1: it is going to invite so much joy, so much energy,
Speaker 1: so much vibrancy into their life. And that's what I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you as a final question around you know,
Speaker 1: you call the book Joyful. You talked about cooking effortlessly,
Speaker 1: eating freely, and living radiantly, Like, what is your hope
Speaker 1: for people? Because this isn't just about It isn't just
Speaker 1: about the recipes. It's about inviting abundance into their life.
Speaker 3: It is three intentions. One intention is reminding people that
Speaker 3: you do not have to choose between the food that
Speaker 3: makes you feel good and food that brings you joy.
Speaker 2: It can and should be both.
Speaker 3: To that life is about all those little joyful moments
Speaker 3: to accumulate to bring you more and more joy throughout
Speaker 3: the day, whether it's through your practices, your wellness rituals,
Speaker 3: or through the food that you're eating. And three that
Speaker 3: you feel you spice up your life like you fill
Speaker 3: your coboards with your spices that spice up your body,
Speaker 3: but also spice up your food too that really create
Speaker 3: vibrance because spices are vibrant and create more vibrance in
Speaker 3: your body in your life too.
Speaker 2: And actually, I don't know last one.
Speaker 3: I feel like I am a seriously grateful student of
Speaker 3: many great teachers, and it really was a way for
Speaker 3: me to be able to share so much of what
Speaker 3: I've learned from the people that have taught me so much,
Speaker 3: from my mum to my aravadic teachers, to my spiritual teachers. Everything,
Speaker 3: I was able to accumulate that and pour it into
Speaker 3: this book. And I'm so excited for people to feel
Speaker 3: the changes that I have felt in my life through
Speaker 3: everything that I've shared in there.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's my intention for it.
Speaker 1: The book is called Joyful Everyone. More than one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty five plant based recipes by Radi de Vlukia
Speaker 1: co Care FORU Lessly eat freely and live radiantly. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm going to say, Go get it right now.
Speaker 1: I would mean the world to me. I love supporting you,
Speaker 1: not just because you're my wife, but because you are
Speaker 1: so incredibly talented and so smart, and I think this
Speaker 1: book is going to change so many homes, families, and relationships,
Speaker 1: so it's definitely changed ours. Thank you so much, loving.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on, so exciting.
Speaker 1: And so excited for you.
Speaker 2: Thanks everyone.
Speaker 1: If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with
Speaker 1: Dr Gabor Matte on understanding your trauma and how to
Speaker 1: heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past.
Speaker 2: Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable.
Speaker 1: So a tree doesn't go where it's hard and thick,
Speaker 1: does it.
Speaker 2: It goes where it's soft and green and vulnerable.