Stop Chasing Weight Loss, Start Building Health with Jenn Trepeck

We redefine wellness with Jen Trepeck, moving from diet rules and the noise of headlines to foundations that build strength, energy, and choice. We talk body composition, habits over willpower, how to eat for stable energy, and how to spot hype in nutrition news.

• defining wellness as dignity of choice and energy
• ignoring goals that are not your goals
• bloodwork as lagging indicator and body signals
• body composition over scale weight
• muscle as a pillar of longevity
• monthly measurements and daily wellness check-ins
• biostack foundations: fuel, movement, hydration, sleep, stress, community
• habits upstream of cravings and willpower
• protein and fiber every meal with quality fat
• vegetables target and eat the rainbow
• decoding studies: funding, bias, correlation vs causation
• less added sugar and fewer artificial sweeteners
• progress over perfection with simple, consistent steps

I’ll be giving away five free copies of Jen’s book. If you want to enter the giveaway, just go to my website, which is stephanienelson.com, and enter your email for the email newsletter, and we’ll send you a book if you happen to be one of the five winners.

Save 70%! Order Stephanie's book Imagine More: Do What You Love, Discover Your Potential 

Learn more at StephanieNelson.com
Follow us on Instagram  @stephanie_nelson_cm
Follow us on Facebook at CouponMom

Transcript

Welcoming Jen Trepik

SPEAKER_01 0:24

I'd like to welcome Jen Trepik to the Pivotal People podcast. I'm so excited because she is the first guest we have had in her category, which happens to be one of my very favorite topics. If you know me, you know this is true. Jen is an optimal health coach. She's a podcaster. She's a consultant, and she has just written this fabulous book that I've read. You're going to love it. It's called Uncomplicating Wellness. Ditch the Rules, Quiet the Noise, and Reclaim Your Life. And she has a super practical, simple way to approach this great big topic of wellness, whatever that is. We're going to talk about what that really is today. And I'm so excited about it. And I know so many of you care about wellness, care about longevity. So I'll be giving away five free copies of Jen's book. If you want to enter the giveaway, just go to my website, which is stephanynelson.com, and enter your email for the email newsletter, and we'll send you a book if you happen to be one of the five winners. So, Jen, welcome. It's so great to have you here. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Well, I said that I wrote two pages of questions because I've got her for like 30 minutes. Let's let's start in the beginning. We have all, if you're on social media, if you're in the bookstore, if you're on Amazon, there are so many books about wellness, longevity, here's the perfect diet. You got go keto, go paleo. They're so confusing. We all would like to be healthy and live longer, but we're not doctors. So it's easy to get convinced of a new approach by someone who might not even have credentials. How do we know? So you have credentials. So can you educate us? How would you describe wellness?

Goals, Context, And Personal Choice

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Well, I think it's a loaded question. And, you know, the bottom line is I believe when we hear the word wellness, it's really just today's version of what we grew up with as diet culture. And this is sort of a um lackluster answer to your question. And I can, you know, share the definition that I provide in the book, but truthfully, my definition of wellness doesn't matter. It's really about each of us defining what wellness is for ourselves. Okay. Because that's what's required for us to then decide what information coming at us we decide to play with, incorporate, or leave behind. Right. So for example, I live in New York City. I love Marathon Day. It like restores my faith in humanity. It is the first Sunday of November every year. And leading up to that, my social media is filled with all things marathon. Here's the thing: I have zero desire to ever run a marathon. Like I don't run for anything. Like running makes me feel like I'm going to die. I generally try not to do things that make me feel like I'm going to die. So I have zero desire to run. So because of that, especially that time of year, but always when even my own social media or friends are talking about certain things, I have to evaluate that for me and say, is their goal my goal? Are they looking for the same outcomes that I am? And if they are, then maybe it's something I think about and consider. If they're not, like if their goal is to train or running a marathon and mine's not, I can easily let go of anything they're talking about and say, not for me.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

As I'm listening to you, I said to her before the podcast started, Jen and I are different age groups. I think Jen's in her 30s, maybe. Well, thank you. I'll take that.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Our late 20s? I'm early 40s.

Bloodwork Limits And Body Signals

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Okay, then you guys want to buy her book for sure. You want to buy your book. If you can see her, if she's in her early 40s, we are all doing everything she says. But what I thought was interesting is that, you know, there are a couple of we all have different motivations. So when I was younger, you know, you're in college, maybe what you look like in a bathing suit was the most important thing. So you went on these crazy diets that made you feel awful and you know, never worked. You always gain the weight back. But today, 62, I care far more about what my blood work says, because that's going to be an early indicator of the kinds of things that I don't want to shorten my life or shorten my health span. I care what my cholesterol is. I care what my what is it, A1C, your blood sugar. I care, I care about high blood pressure. If we can stay on top of our blood work, then we might be able to anticipate things before they become things.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Sure. And I think there's even a piece of the blood work that can be a lagging indicator. You know, to me, we notice, right? And this is a piece where I think, you know, in the introduction to the book, we talk about, you know, first chapter is, you know, WTF is wellness, right? Like, let's figure out what this is. And if we define it by what our doctors say, they're going to look at the blood work. But how often, especially as women, have we shown up and said something's not right? And they go, Well, your blood work says you're fine. And we know that something's not right. Maybe we're not sleeping well. Maybe you know, we have those aches and pains. We can't really concentrate. We're very irritable or whatever. Like we often know, even before it shows up in the blood work, that something is happening. And so part of what I talk about is also coming back to what you know to be true for yourself and your body, because you are the expert in your body. Going back to what you were saying about, you know, all the people on the internet, like, listen, I get even some with credentials don't necessarily deserve our attention. And you probably, everybody listening, you probably don't have credentials the way your doctor does. But there is no one with a higher credential in your own body than you. I like that.

Ditch The Scale For Better Metrics

SPEAKER_01 7:23

One of the quotes Jen said in her book that I loved was regarding wellness. She said, you know that what's marketed as wellness is really just stress with better branding. You know, this, oh no, I'm not supposed to eat seed oils now. What are seed oils anyway? Oh no, they're always throwing something new at us. But Jen simplifies it because we said, ditch the rules, quiet the noise, reclaim your life. One of the things that she's very definite about in her book, and I've got to talk about this, is um not not paying attention to the scale every day. Yes. You need a better yardstick. Yes. Okay, this is really hard for well, I weigh myself every day. You're probably not gonna talk me out of it, but maybe I could take it less seriously. But I do know. So tell us about what is a better yardstick? What should we be looking for?

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Well, I want to back up for a second, even to say what are we looking for the scale to tell us? Because by definition, all it's telling us is the gravitational pull on our body. And there are zero diseases that exist only in people with greater gravitational pull.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

For me, that's a leftover thing from the diet culture that I was raised on.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

The scale is another lagging indicator of our daily habits and the things that we're doing. And for that matter, what the number shows on the scale is not as important, like that total number is not as helpful as our body composition. That's really what we want to know. A scale is one way to get that. But our body composition is more likely to determine our health outcomes, not that total number.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Jen, tell us in detail, tell us what body composition is for someone who doesn't know what that means.

Body Composition And Longevity

Sleep, Energy, And Daily Check‑Ins

SPEAKER_00 9:19

So, what we're looking at when we think about body composition is what is that total number made of? Some of that is bones and blood, some of that is water, right? The big piece of that that we really want to know that is a better indicator of health outcomes, is what percentage of that is fat and what percentage of that is muscle and bone, right? So we are looking, and by the way, especially for women, we don't want 0% body fat. That comes with a whole host of other health implications, right? It's a little Goldilocks where there's a sweet spot in there, a range, if you will. But we need some body fat. Fat plays a critical role in health. It insulates our body, it helps maintain uh body temperature, it makes sure that like we don't bump into a doorknob and puncture an organ. You know, like every single cell in your body has a lipid layer, a fatty membrane around it. So we need fat in our nutrition, we need fat on our body. What we don't need is excess fat, and especially the fat that ends up around our organs, which is that visceral fat. So when we talk about body composition, what we want to know is what percentage of that body, you know, that total number is made up of fat, and what percentage of that total number is made up of muscle. And how can we optimize for a bit more muscle? Because muscle is our longevity. Muscle is being able to get up off the toilet, you know, at any age. Muscle is being able to live on our own. Because by the way, how do we get up off the toilet? A squat. Getting up off the toilet is half a squat, right? So if we want to be able to live on our own, we need to be able to do a squat. Could be assisted, right? Could be, but we have to have muscle to live our lives. So, really, that's a much more important benchmark or indicator or thing, you know, for us to be looking at as our yardstick. One of the things that I also talk about is how do you feel? Do you wake up with energy? Are you dragging yourself through the day? You know, are you tired at an appropriate time in the evening? Are you sleeping well? You know, are we waking up rested? Do we have energy all day long? And then in the evening we relax and we go to sleep and we have some deep sleep, which also gets more challenging as we age, right? Like when I talk to my clients, I work with people for about 12 weeks and I talk to them as, you know, we're gonna work together for 12 weeks to build the tool belt so that you can go live the rest of your life, right? It doesn't mean that every goal will be hit in 12 weeks. It means that we're gonna take 12 weeks to create the trajectory that will get us there over time, right? And towards the end of those 12 weeks, we talk about assessing our daily wellness. So scale of zero to five. How's my sleep? How's my stress? How's my confidence? How's my energy? Those are the replacement for getting on the scale every day. And the challenge that I would also give you is to say, what is the thought that goes through your mind right before and right after you get on that scale? If you're getting, I would tell everybody divorce the scale. Even when I work with people and the objective is weight management, we are weighing and measuring ourselves once a month, once every four weeks. And anytime we take one measurement, we are taking all of the measurements. So we're not looking at any one number in isolation. Because you might have inches changing, but that total number isn't changing. It doesn't mean that you're not making progress.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

So you said in your book that yes, you could actually be the same weight, but you may have lost five pounds of fat and gained five pounds of muscle, which takes up less room than fat. So is that how you you know measurements are an indicator?

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Yeah. Body composition. So what percentage of that total number is fat versus muscle is an indicator. The inches measurement is another indicator of that. And all of that would be missed if we only looked at the total number on the scale.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Very interesting. And we don't need to get into this whole topic, but with the new weight loss drugs, my understanding is that people are losing muscle and bone. And I mean, we do, ladies, we do not want to lose bone.

Why Crash Diets Backfire

SPEAKER_00 14:08

We are losing bone just naturally. So well, but by the way, this is not new. This is not specific to the medications. Anytime we have followed the old advice, and I did it, you did it, we've all done it, right? Eat less, move more. We cut out whole food groups, we cut out, you know, certain foods, we eat less. We follow, frankly, any of the diets that we were all led to follow in the 80s and 90s, right? What happens? The number on the scale goes down for a little while. It stops. We get frustrated, we go back to old eating habits, we gain the weight back. When that number on the scale was going down, we were losing water, muscle, and bone. Because when we don't eat the nutrients that our body needs, it will pull it from our bones. It pulls the minerals from our bones to survive. Another lagging indicator, right? So I keep saying this. I feel like I'm screaming it into the abyss, but really, really, really important. But I'm willing to bet a lot of money that we are about to see earlier onset osteoporosis and osteopenia as a result of these medications because of their use far and wide. And the other thing that we know, and I'm gonna butcher this statistic. So I have an episode we talked about bone density and the problem with bone density scans. But in that episode with Dr. John Newstatt, we talked about the likelihood of death within a year and within two years of breaking a hip. And it's like 30 something percent in one year and over 60% within two years of breaking a hip. So I say to everybody, at what cost today versus tomorrow, versus 10 years or 20 years from now? And this isn't new. When we did all of those diets, we lost the weight as water, muscle, and bone, which is why after a while the scale stopped moving because the body was like, we got to protect ourselves here, right? The scale stops moving, we get frustrated, we go back to old eating habits, but now muscle being metabolically active tissue, we have less of it to be burning that extra fuel that we're we've now gone back to eating, and we gain that weight back as fat. So over time, going back to body composition, over time, every time we have lost the weight, we lose it as water, muscle, and bone, gain it back as fat. Lose it as water, muscle, and bone, gain it back as fat. So we might end up at the same number on the scale as we've been before, but by body composition, we are fatter at that number, which is why your clothes fit differently, even though it's the same number we've seen, right? So, and I've been there, we all did it. We thought that that was what we were supposed to do. Right.

Biohacks Vs Foundational Biostacks

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Okay, so now you have my attention. Okay, ladies, men. Okay, so let's now I think Jen has painted a pretty good picture of why we should be motivated to look at what I would call your, you call it biostacking instead of biohacking. What I would call the elements of a positive wellness approach. Could we quickly go through the key elements from you know a professional coach of what you would say the positive wellness approach is? And then once you hit on the primary ones, I'd like to go into a little more detail on food as fuel and the specifics you say around food.

Willpower, Habits, And Systems

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Okay, great. So I call it biostack over biohack because a lot of what we're hearing on social media, in the headlines, all of these things are biohacks, which are by definition an incremental improvement. Which, if we're operating at 80, 90% health, an incremental improvement is dramatic. But statistically, the average person is not, right? In the United States, only 12% of our population is metabolically well, which means that the likelihood is that 88% of us are not operating at 80, 90% health. So those biohacks or little things that we're learning or learning-ish, right, and attempting are not moving the needle enough. We cannot biohack our way to health if we do not have foundations in place. So the biostack is the foundation that we want to have in place. And then we can add the biohacks and some of these other tools and see the benefit. And we don't need to worry about all of those other things if we don't yet have the biostack and the foundations in place. So those are food, nutrition, what I call fuel, right? Movement, build muscle, hydration, which is about more than just water, sleep. I call sleep the ultimate biohack, stress, or really stress management, because as I say, not to be dramatic, but stress is killing you. Yeah. And community and connection. It is one of the most overlooked elements of longevity and is absolutely critical for true health and wellness. And going back to this definition, I define wellness as the dignity of choice that I am well enough physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally in every way to have choice over how I live my life, the energy to do the things that I want to do every day, to be the person that I want to be and how I show up in the world. Right. These are the foundations to me that get us there. Frankly, whatever your definition of wellness, these will move the needle. So those are the five. And I suppose, or six, I guess. And the mindset is also in there, you know, as well. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Couple of things that got my attention. We use willpower to create habits, not to battle craving. So, like, in other words, we're not white knuckling it through our life. We use willpower to create habits because habits become like our default, and habits don't require willpower. So when they're built in, I mean, that's why we do habits because it's efficient and your brain doesn't even have to think, and it's a habit. It takes a little bit to build a habit. Yes, it takes some willpower. But once the habit's in place, then it's easy, easier. So willpower is that.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

And that's the that's the idea, that's the objective, not most of our reality. Most of us are using that willpower for every situation we encounter and thinking that when we don't have that textbook perfect day, which by the way, I'm putting in air quotes because it doesn't actually exist, but when we don't have that day, we think there's something wrong with us. Right. Rather than recognizing it's not that you don't have willpower, it's that we've used that willpower for a bunch of other things, and we haven't done anything to replenish that willpower. So then in the moment when we needed it, that cup was empty. So in the research, what they find is that the people who use willpower most effectively use it, what we call upstream. They use it to create the habits, and then their daily lives don't drink as much from that willpower cup, right? Because so much is habitual. It happens without us having to make conscious choices.

How To Eat: Protein, Fiber, Fat

SPEAKER_01 22:14

I love that. So, of course, everyone wants to know okay, Jen, just tell me what to do. Okay, well, well, you're telling us it's in it's independent. Visual, how do you feel? I like that. You know, we have agency over our life. We like that. I don't know if I've told everyone the name of your podcast. It's called Salad with a Side of Fries. Yes. I told Jen before we started. I've listened to so many episodes of her podcast. It is so good. It's conversations about these very specific challenges that we all have in real life and questions and how to handle it. And so if you like any of this, we're only able to hit top line today in half an hour. But her book really elaborates and her podcast does too. She also has a free some neat things on her website, which is her website is a salad with a side of fries. And she has a free guide on how to eat. Now it's not what to eat because she still won't give you all the answers, but she gives us some good guidelines. So let's finish with that, Jen. Your book has a whole section on discerning nutrition advice or claims or myths. So tell us kind of overall, I think you had five different ways to discern different nutrition claims and myths.

Spotting Nutrition Hype And Bias

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yeah. So there's a few pieces. So the guide is called it's not what to eat, it's how to eat. And the fundamental there, right? We don't need someone to tell us to eat carrots over a Twix, right? Duh. The question is, how do we make the carrots more desirable? Number one. And number two, how do we also get to eat the Twix and have it not impact us the same way that it does right now? Right. So that's the guide and the combination of here's how to eat. And in the book, the premise of the food is fuel chapter is about understanding protein, fiber, quality fat. Every time we eat, you know, the mantra that I give everybody, all of my clients, is protein and fiber at every meal makes you're moving fat no big deal. Protein and fiber at every meal makes you're moving fat no big deal. So protein is clean, lean protein. Eat what you like, don't eat what you don't like. Fiber is vegetables and sometimes fruit. The only difference between a meal and a snack is how much we have at a time, and then therefore how long it's gonna last us until we need to fuel again. The other thing that we need a couple times a day is that quality fat. And one day I will figure out how to get the quality fat part into the cute little rhyming sentence. But for now, just remember that there's also the fat in there too. Okay, so that's the fuel piece. And we dig into that more in that free guide. It's not what to eat, it's how to eat. And then it's my five tips for digesting nutrition news. And I'll give you sort of a couple of my favorites, but I would recommend because I think they deserve more explanation than we have time for. But you know, one of my favorites is to think about number one, who benefits? Who benefits from me believing this and taking action based on what this is saying? Who benefits from this study existing? Who paid for it? Right? Like what's their bias? And what's my bias? Because uh let's be clear, we all love a study that's gonna tell us to drink wine and eat cheese, right? Like we love those ones, and can we look at it on balance with other things that we know? So those are a couple. I also recommend think about who was studied. Is that person you? Was it men or women? What age were they? Was it every age, right? Do those people who were studied reflect you and your life and your lifestyle because not everything translates. You know, there's also a piece of thinking about too, is this correlation that these two things are connected, or is it causation? Is it really the case that the red wine lowered blood pressure? Or is it the case that it's correlated because generally people were drinking that red wine in a social setting where they then calmed down and spent time with people that they enjoy and they had community and a moment to de-stress, right? Because when we look at the research specifically on the active ingredients in red wine, it's resveratrol, and the amount of wine that we would have to drink to get a therapeutic dosage of resveratrol would come with so much alcohol that that would do more damage than the resveratrol would provide.

Vegetables, Variety, And Fruit

SPEAKER_01 27:17

So I love that conclusion because we're hearing more and more about that. Who and who funded. So of course the wine industry is behind this. So of course they are. And even if the wine industry wasn't behind it, Jen, you talked about personal bias. If I love red wine, I'm not even going to dig into the details of that study. I'm just going to read the headline on the Instagram and say, oh, good, it's true. So, you know, we all have our own personal biases. But the other thing you talked about was studies. And in your book, you detail the different kinds of studies. There's the test tube study in the lab, that's the lowest. And then there's animal studies. Well, that's a little better, but we're not mice. Then there's okay, there's studies where people just reported what they ate. Well, come on. If you ask me what I ate yesterday, I'm gonna forget half of what I ate.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

That's not reliable. And by the way, in nutrition, most studies rely on self-reporting. And so it's so difficult to study nutrition, it's just so difficult. And there really isn't funding for specific nutrients, right? Like, there isn't money in funding a study on, you know, vitamin A. You know, like it's just not there. And so when we start to think about what's going to get more research versus what isn't, we can also put some of these pieces together.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

So, in a way, you might throw up your hands and say, Well, oh my gosh, now I'm really confused. What am I gonna do? I almost, as I read all of this in Jen's book, I thought, oh, good, you know what that means? I don't have to worry about every little thing I read because there are some basics that I can do regardless of what all those studies are. And they're basic. I mean, Jen talks about eating more vegetables. I want to get to that, more whole foods. Let's just define that less added sugar. That's a big one. That's a less ultra-processed foods. What are those? Movement, movement that you like, sleep, water, managing stress, and then consistency. But even specifically within Jen, talk to us. Okay, someone's saying, I gotta take one thing out of this podcast. What is it? What would you eat? What should I eat in a day when you're talking about these categories? Could you elaborate more on what is more vegetables? How much is that?

Sugar, Sweeteners, And Taste Buds

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Yeah, our objective is to get to 10 to 12 servings of vegetables per day. A serving is a handful. If it's greens, you know, like salad greens or any sort of like leafy green, it's two handfuls for one serving. So over the course of the day, we're aiming to get up to 10 to 12. So odds are we all could use some more, right? And by that total, a wide variety. Yes, I was just gonna say eat the rainbow. Colors actually give us an indication of the nutrients that come from the food. So if we eat a rainbow, we are going to get a variety of nutrients. If we typically eat the same things all the time, while sometimes it's easier, I get it, I'm with you. It also doesn't necessarily provide the range of what really serves the body. The body thrives on variety and not just day to day, not just meal to meal, but even within a meal. So often in my kids and family program, we will say, you know, how many colors can we get on a single plate? Could we get the entire rainbow in one plate? You know, you can play that game too, you know. That makes it easy.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

You also just surprised me how um little fruit. You said two to one to two servings a day.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yeah, I mean, you could, you know, one to three servings of fruit per day. Most people tend to eat more fruit than vegetables. Vegetables serve us a little more efficiently in the nutrients and the fiber than fruit, you know, but they're all great, right? If look, we all know nobody died from eating too many oranges. So, like, relax, you know. If you're really enjoying, you know, I'm a big fan of berries, especially raspberries. Raspberries pack a punch of fiber. So great, go for it. You know, it's really about thinking, sort of in the spectrum of everything we're eating. Oftentimes for me, I find I crave fruit when I'm dehydrated. So, you know, even cravings and willpower, right? Cravings are one of the ways that the body communicates with us. So, what are your cravings telling you? Can we learn to decipher that and then give our bodies what it's truly asking for? So, yeah, I mean, we recommend the emphasis on vegetables over fruit. And certainly, you know, more of each is generally going to improve our health. It's more individual in terms of the fruit piece. Okay, that makes sense.

Progress Over Perfection And Resources

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Less added sugar, and we'll okay. So this was eye-opening to me this past year. It was like the guideline I read was 10 grams or less of added sugar a day, which sounded impossible to me over a year ago, but I did it. I failed the first day. I failed the first day, and then after that, I, you know, figured it out, you know, of reading labels and all these things. I automatically ate, you know, bread or rice, vinegar, all these things that I didn't care if I got the variety without sugar. So anyway, so but now it's what what are we in? We are in February, it's been over a year, it's just a habit. Right now, I you know, but my blood work is so much better.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

Yeah, I mean, I'm not as big of a fan of putting that hard number on it. Less added sugar is helpful, full stop. We want to make sure that perfection is not the enemy of progress. So I would actually say that day one, you didn't fail. None of this is past fail, it is all progress and moving in the direction. So one piece of this is, you know, processed foods, foods that come in a package with a label that we could read to even identify added sugar, right? If we could eat less of those, we're going to be better off. And I live in the reality of this life and this world in 2026. And I don't want to go the rest of my life never eating a cookie, period. So maybe some days it's more than that, other days it's not. And on the whole, it is what it is, right? We find most of the time your health is a function of what you do most of the time. So start to think about what's your most of the time, right? And I push back a little bit on almost the distinction that the new FDI guidelines put on added sugar. Because here's the deal processed foods, anything that comes in a package, right, with a label that we can read. There are many of those that say zero grams of added sugar, and they are using these man-made chemical sweeteners that are still considered zero grams of added sugar, and they are multiples as sweet or multiples sweeter than table sugar. So, for example, there's one called, I probably pronounce it wrong, but it's acyl sulfame potassium, or sometimes it's written as ace K, it is over 300, it's like 200 to 350 times sweeter than sugar. Well, the package said zero grams of added sugar. So then it's okay. Well, here's the deal sweet salt and fat are acquired tastes. What that means is the more we have them, the more we want them. It also means that the more we have them, the sweeter something has to be, the saltier something has to be for our taste buds to register it as sweet or salty. So if we're continuing to eat these foods that say zero grams of added sugar, but they're using a lot of these sweeteners that are many times sweeter than sugar, it can keep us addicted to that sweet taste, craving more, and our taste buds adjust. Like, by the way, everybody knows that this exists because think about the person you know who started off with one Splenda in their coffee, and then over time they're up to three Splendors in their coffee because the one stopped tasting sweet. I am so glad you said that.

Closing Thoughts And How To Connect

SPEAKER_01 36:24

And I'm getting two in the weeds here, but I think it's actually more important from reading this book, my experience, more important to give up the artificial sweeteners before the added sugar. So this habit was you had to give up added sugar and all artificial sweeteners. And I by that time had was down to stevia. I used to drink diacote, but anyway, the point is what I learned is exactly your taste buds change. All of a sudden, sweet potatoes taste like a cookie. I know you're gonna laugh because my friends laughed when I said that, but it is true after a few weeks of not having and the whole gut microbiome, we're not gonna talk about that today because that's a whole interesting topic. But we could do another one on that, yeah. You know, there's so much here. But I think the whole message I'm getting from Jen, which is progress over perfection. Yes, you know, it we're not gonna get it right every single day, but we can raise our awareness. The key is we have agency. The key is we have choices. What is wellness? It is a choice. We have the freedom to decide what it is for us. And her book does a really good job of teaching us what we should be looking for, what we should be looking for when we read headlines, what questions we should ask when we hear experts say things or self-proclaimed experts or whatever. And then we make our own decisions and most of all to pay attention to how we feel. And we are, like you said, we are the experts at our own body, especially women. I think we have to pay attention and we have to ask the doctors, and you can even ask for specific tests that aren't in the standard panel that women need to know. So you can tell I love this topic. I love Jen's approach. I just, if you don't win the book, which you should try to win the book, I told you how to go to my website, stephanieelson.com, enter the giveaway. But if you don't win it, order it. Uncomplicating moments. Thank you. And Jen is super accessible too. You can reach out to her on Instagram, you can reach out to her on her website, go to her website. It's a salad with the side of fries. You'll find all her social media outlets. She has some pretty hilarious videos on Instagram, by the way.

unknown 38:39

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

I was almost late for the podcast because I was watching him. I want to thank you so much for being here. I've I've touched on uh a number of ways to connect with you, but is there anything I've left out?

SPEAKER_00 38:52

No, just you know, I agree. It's progress over perfection and what that looks like for you. So figure out one thing that you could do from here and play with it, experiment, start to do something and then just notice how you feel. And by the way, if anything I said you know doesn't work for you, ignore it, leave it behind. That's the beauty of all of this. And please, as you said, reach out. I love hearing from you. So whether it's, you know, grabbing that download, then you're sort of in my ecosystem. That download is called it's not what to eat, it's how to eat, or reaching out on social media. I just I can't wait to hear from you. So thank you, Stephanie, for having me. I appreciate you. Well, thanks so much. I've enjoyed it.