Heal and Stay Healed with Kelly B Haney

Healthy Cooking, Aging Well, and Taking Time for Ourselves with Haley Gillespie

• Kelly B Haney • Season 1 • Episode 7

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In this episode, I'm joined by nutrition, fitness, and overall wellness virtuoso, Haley Gillespie.  Haley shares with us her vast insight on a variety of topics, including tips for creating crowd-pleasing nutritious and delicious meals, physical fitness strategies for being our healthiest selves and aging gracefully, and taking time out for self-care and true rejuvenation.

As a delightful finale, Haley shares with us her decadent "Healthy Fudge,"  a recipe that proves indulgence and well-being are not mutually exclusive.   

Haley's Website (Haley Farm): www.haleyfarm.com
Haley's Instagram: @refreshwithhaley

Haley's Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt Avocado Fudge with Toasted Almonds
 Ingredients:
 - ⅓ cup thinly sliced almonds
 - 2 dark (70% cacao or higher) chocolate bars, 100g (3.5 oz.) each, chopped into
 slivers
 - ⅔ cup smooth almond butter
 - 1 avocado, peeled, pitted, and sliced
 - 2 heaping tablespoons cocoa powder
 - ½ cup maple syrup, or to taste
 - ½ cup black beans (optional)
 - 1 teaspoon sea salt
 - flaked or coarse sea salt, to finish
 Preparation:
 1. In a double boiler (a bowl set up over a saucepan of boiling water), melt the
 chocolate and stir in the almond butter and salt with a whisk until smooth. Remove from heat and set aside.
 2. Lightly toast the almond slices in 1 teaspoon coconut oil until fragrant, or dry toast.
 3. In a food processor, mix the avocado, cocoa powder and maple syrup until smooth. Once the chocolate mixture has cooled slightly (but not solidified!), use a spatula to add it to the food processor. Process until it is well-combined and starts to get very thick (as the chocolate cools).
 4. Scrape the mixture into an 8x8 parchment-lined or silicone pan with a spatula and smooth the top. Sprinkle liberally with coarse sea salt, then press almonds into the top. Place in the fridge and allow to cool for an hour. Remove from pan and slice. Refrigerate to store or keep in the freezer for a firmer, chewier texture.

Website: www.kellybhaney.com
Email: info@kellybhaney.com
Instagram: @kellybhaney
Facebook: Kelly B Haney Wellness

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Heal and Stay Healed podcast, where we talk about healing and, more importantly, staying healed from chronic disease and other ailments and issues. We'll cover all the crazy things about health and life the good, the bad, the ugly and the hilarious. My name is Kelly and I am a survivor and overcomer of severe autoimmune disease and I can't wait to share with you what I've learned so that you can heal and stay healed too. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show. Welcome back and thank you for joining me for this episode of the Heal and Stay Healed with Kelly B Haney podcast. I am really pleased to have a wonderful guest for you today. She is Hailey Gillespie. Hailey holds a master of science and nutrition and health promotion. She has certifications in yoga, group fitness and wellness coaching. She's been a certified personal trainer since 2006 and has worked with clients of all ages and abilities across the country. Haley is currently the director of retreats at Hailey Farm in western Maryland and leads most aspects of the wellness retreats there, including yoga, meals, activities and educational content. Her nutritional coaching focuses on helping people to make meals that are satiating, highly nutritious and that optimize metabolic health. Hailey also teaches group cooking classes, leads workshops and presents to organizations on health and wellness topics. In case you couldn't tell from all that, hailey is a true renaissance woman and when it comes to living a health promoting lifestyle, she knows a lot about a lot.

Speaker 2:

And today we cover three big topics. First, we discuss her strategies and tips for cooking delicious, healing and health promoting food for groups both large and small. Then we cover physical fitness and movement, especially regarding setting ourselves up for aging gracefully and in relation to rebuilding strength and stamina while recovering from illness. And finally, we touch on self-care and how taking time away for ourselves can make a massive difference in our health and well-being. Hailey leads us with plenty of takeaways, including her amazing healthy fudge recipe. You heard that right healthy fudge. Hailey is confident, cool, calm and collected and is just really pleasant to talk to, so I really think you're going to enjoy this conversation.

Speaker 2:

Here we are with Hailey Gillespie. I am so happy to be here today with our guest, hailey Gillespie. Hailey and I first met this past summer on one of her retreats out on her farm, hailey Farm, in beautiful western Maryland. I was there with nine other women this past August for the weekend and it was one of the nicest and most restorative weekends I have had in ages, and a lot of that had to do with Hailey's efforts to make it an incredible experience for everyone. And in meeting her that weekend, I immediately knew that she was someone who I wanted to learn more from. So welcome Hailey.

Speaker 1:

Hi Kelly, Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for being here. You and I share a lot of common ground, so I really appreciate your agreeing to do this, and there is a lot that I want to pick your brain on today. But first let's tackle a few get to know you questions that I like to ask guests, so that we can get to know you. Okay, sounds good. What is your favorite thing to do for self-care?

Speaker 1:

Well, so I live in beautiful mountain Maryland and we're fortunate at Hailey Farm. We're close by to five state parks, just surrounded with natural beauty. So for me, I love to get outside and go for a hike. Especially I like a more vigorous hike, I like to get some elevation, but that is just something where I can get out of my head a little bit. You know, sometimes I'll listen to something, sometimes that will be time for me to listen to a podcast or something, but other times I'll just have nothing else going on and just focus. Something about just having to focus on, like, where you're going to put each foot next, just really gets you out of your head, connects you to nature. I mean, there's a lot of talk about like forest bathing and things like that now, and we did, we went on a hike when you were here, so you probably remember some of the natural beauty here as well from that. So I love to take advantage of that. That has to be my answer for that one.

Speaker 2:

I remember the hike we did. Was it Swallow Falls? Is that?

Speaker 1:

right. Yes, we went to Swallow Falls, which isn't the most challenging hike, but it is probably the prettiest hike in this nearby area.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was beautiful, the waterfalls. We kept coming across the little ones and you just kept saying, just wait, we got to the big one and it was amazing.

Speaker 1:

We saved that one for last. It was good.

Speaker 2:

So is there a favorite quote, short poem or music lyric that has positively influenced you that you'd be willing to share?

Speaker 1:

Um, yeah, Well, you give me a heads up on this. So I one that that has come up especially, I would say, in the last like couple of years, and it's one I give to clients too. But it's, if you're putting off action and waiting to feel motivated, you're never going to do anything, because motivation comes from taking action. And that's in um, that's out of one, one of Mel Robbins books, but that was one that really resonated with me. I mean, she's, you know, she's everywhere, but I'm someone who can get into my head and get stuck and just get stuck in in action. And just sometimes you sit around and you wait for just all the tea leaves to to align and it doesn't happen. And so, especially, I would say, for me, in the last couple of years I've I've really been trying to live that and a lot of amazing things have happened as a result. I would say that's great.

Speaker 2:

Oh man, I love Mel Robbins. She's he's a firecracker. She's incredible, for sure. Okay, thank you for humoring me with those questions. Those were great answers. Now, in getting down to business, the first thing that I would love for us to discuss and to hear your thoughts on is the topic of sourcing and preparing health promoting food and nutrition. When I was there for the retreat in the summer, out on your amazing and beautiful farm, everything about the retreat experience was wonderful, but my absolute favorite part of that weekend was getting to eat all of the delicious, super healthy, healing and health promoting real food that you cooked for us for every meal, and while I know that it was not effortless, you made it look so even as you were creating all these meals for a group of 10. And so I'd love to hear more about just how do you do it.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you so much. I'm really glad that you appreciated it and I think with your background you definitely know the difference between that and and you know you can go to some restaurants that maybe say they're healthy, but when you actually look at the breakdown of what they're serving you it's still, you know, a lot of maybe like processed grain, or, you know, semi-processed grains and and things like that. I I do. I think clean is an overused term, but I do keep things very clean. You came in August, which is a great time to come, because we have a very short growing season here. We're at a high elevation and we have frosts early, late into spring and early, early in fall. We don't have a lot of time, although we do have a lot of great local farmers that they have the high tunnels and they're doing amazing things to keep to extend the growing season. So so that was a time, you know, peak harvest time, so I was able to bring in a lot of fresh ingredients, which is, you know, maybe not something that I think people always expect, but I really do try to go that extra mile. I locally sourcing both produce and animal protein as much as I can and starting with that, but I mean, it's really just as far as making it for a group of people. It's actually not that much harder to make food for a group, as it is for like two or three people. Wow, really it's.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, as long as you, with a basic kitchen, 10, you know, eight to 10, 11, 12 people, that isn't too bad for me with my setup and I'm used to it enough that it. It works out Now that what goes along with that is just having a core set of recipes that I've made over and over again, so I'm not having to constantly look at every single step. And you know that can happen for anyone, as long as they just decide, you know, at some point to try a new recipe and then they're like, okay, this is good. Or, you know, if it's not the first time, like I know what can make it good, and they get it into the rotation there, they get used to it, they have in the back of their mind what ingredients they need, what they have on hand, and it all just kind of gets integrated to the point where it's not so much of an effort every time but initially, yeah, it is, it is an effort. So one thing I think I served you guys lettuce wraps the first night. Was that?

Speaker 2:

Yes, those rainbow lettuce wraps.

Speaker 1:

And that is a recipe that it was just kind of not like a generic recipe. It was like an Asian inspired, like beef and rice recipe. That was not super healthy, maybe had some scallions in it and some garlic, but other than that, no vegetables. And I took that and I was, I you know in my mind was like, oh, this would be an amazing lettuce wrap. So then we take fresh lettuce leaves, we added julienne carrots and cucumber and red cabbage, we brought in like microgreens and pickled onions and all of a sudden we have all these really beautiful, bright, fresh ingredients and then that's an easy one to switch out tofu. So when I, you know, typically at least, have a few plant based people, so tofu is easy enough to sub in as the protein.

Speaker 1:

So people may have recipes like that that they just need a little bit of tweaking and all of a sudden they go from like a not so healthy kind of meal to just a way, more nutritionally advantageous meal. Like, all of a sudden that went from a meal that has tons of vegetables, not just a better ratio of vegetables and fiber and plants and micronutrients, but also a diversity of plant foods, which we're finding is more and more important for our gut health. So, absolutely so. That's one example of strategy you could use. So yeah, going going to farmer's markets, getting familiar with them. They can seem intimidating and especially like around where you are. They're such like a niche thing where they're just trying to come up with stuff that you are not going to find at the grocery store. But I'm always amazed at how much better just like carrots taste at the farmer's market yeah.

Speaker 1:

And this simplest thing. You go, get it there and you're like, oh my gosh, some of my other strategies. I'm sometimes known as the salad dressing lady. If there's one way that people can up level their meals and not rely on the store-bought stuff that's shelf-stable and the seed oils and the plastic bottle, is make their own salad dressing. It's just not only is it going to be healthier, but it's going to taste so much better.

Speaker 1:

And then I know we talked a little bit about making food more cost-effective too for people, and one of the things I find is that people waste so much food and so just by doing things like keeping a regular rotation so they're actually going through things, potentially making more trips to the store. Sometimes people think, okay, well, I'm going to just do it all in one trip and they buy so much stuff they don't need and then they can't get through it all. But if you space it out a little bit more, sometimes things won't go bad as quickly. You'll get through things and then you can go again and then just relying on things like frozen veggies, which are actually really healthy Not so much canned veggies, but frozen veggies can be really healthy and then if you need something to just toss together quickly.

Speaker 1:

I'll also buy proteins in larger portions and then if I have extra chicken or something, I'll bag it up and throw it in the freezer. And then all of a sudden I have some frozen chicken and veggies I can throw together for a really quick stir fry. I'll do the same thing if I have leftover rice, brown rice, black rice, whatever I'll store that in the freezer, freezes really well, and then, yeah, boom. So you have some of those quick meals that you can throw together. But I do just really encourage people to try a new dish. I try to do it at least once or twice a month. I wouldn't say, try it at a big dinner party, but if you can just have a couple friends over, have my boyfriend over and get them to try it out, and that way you give yourself a little bit of an excuse.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's funny. As you're saying, just try it. That reminds me the other women that were there at the retreat that weekend. A lot of them I would say most of them were openly just not super focused on the foods that they were eating and some of them, when they heard what we were having, were skeptical. I guess is the right word.

Speaker 2:

But, then, as soon as they tasted it, everybody was oohing and eyeing and you were kind enough to send us home with recipes and everybody left saying I'm going to make all of these things and bring it home then to their family, who then gets the benefit of it as well. So you're right, you just have to have an open mind, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's one of my favorite parts of the retreat. I do really try to give recipes that I know are going to appeal to a lot of different people, even though they are really healthy. You don't have to be a foodie to like the stuff that I serve, and most of the recipes I'd say the biggest thing you have to do is chop a lot, because they do have so many veggies, so that's just something you have to get used to, although if you live somewhere that has that stuff already chopped like I do not I live in a small rural area where we don't have that available. We're in a tourist area, so I've actually seen people wandering around like where's all the pre-chopped stuff? Like where's the miroquo? It's ready to go. I'm like sorry, that's not a thing.

Speaker 2:

We don't have that here. But what bothers me is the markup then to have somebody else chop your veggies. So I do try to avoid that. So, just building off what you're saying, I try to go to the store at least twice a week because I agree, like if you try to do it all on Saturday and buy everything for the entire week, some of that stuff is not going to make it until the following Saturday and it's a shame to waste food.

Speaker 2:

So I like to get my veggies and some fruit too, and just prep as much as I can the day that I get it so that, for example, like carrots especially farmer's market carrots, or other veggies that you can just chop up, put in a container, put in the fridge then you're that much more likely to reach for that and some hummus, and there you go, there's your snack or even part of your meal. Same thing with fruit and berries. A lot of berries you can wash and store, no problem, and they'll last for a while. Apples, as we were talking about, put a little lemon juice on it, right, and they'll stay. You can cut them up and they'll stay good for a little while. You could go and buy stuff pre-chopped, as we're talking about, or you can be a little more of a penny-pinsher like myself and just put in the elbow grease at home for, I don't know, half an hour. An hour doesn't take long.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, especially once you get used to it, if you have a good sharp knife. But it's a trade-off. Everyone needs to make that decision for themselves. I would certainly rather if it really came down to it that someone bought the pre-chopped then just didn't have that in their diet. I agree.

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely. Sometimes convenience wins in terms of spending the extra money for things. I don't want to sound like a holier-than-thou chopper, because there are definitely times where I buy the pre-washed and pre-shredded kale because, well, I'll tell you when those times are. That's, my husband's job in our house is to prep all the greens, wash and prep the greens, because, for whatever reason, I just hate doing that. So when he's out of town I'm far more likely to buy the bag of the already prepped organic kale.

Speaker 1:

There's no shame in that. You know what, during retreats, that's my mom's job too. I'm like take out the salad spinner. I'm like okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't know what it is about it. I just really don't enjoy that task. That's another good tip, I guess delegate the parts of the prepping food that you really don't want to do, right.

Speaker 1:

Agreed, agreed. Yeah, there are things and I'm not a control freak but yeah, there are things that I won't let people do, especially for retreat. But yeah, the kale my mom does a good job with.

Speaker 2:

Nice, Okay, so we covered cooking for a big group and your tips for that. What about if it's just one person or just two people? So making healthy, health-promoting meals just for one or two folks? What are your tips and strategies for that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah well, I mean, that's good. I live alone most of the time and so I wouldn't approach it too much differently than cooking for a family of four. But the thing is, the advantage of that is certainly if you're a person who doesn't mind eating leftovers, that can be great to have a lunch or a dinner already ready to go for a couple of days. If you're a little more picky about that, I would say definitely think about still making the bigger amount and freezing it, and then, if you're really busy, you can have something ready to go, and I promise you'll be really thankful at some point, when just everything's happening at once, that you have that and you don't have to think about it.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Oh, my goodness, there's no better feeling on a night where I'm really busy and getting home and haven't given dinner enough thought to just like oh I can pull something out of the freezer, and it's already done. I just have to defrost.

Speaker 1:

It's such a relief, yeah, to not have one less stress, one less decision to make, and then all the more chance that you're not just going to be like never mind, I'll order pizza or something like that, right.

Speaker 2:

And it takes away the excuse. Okay, well, I'm hungry now, so I think we should move on to our next topic and discussion Sounds good, but that was some great tips. Thank you so much. You're welcome. So one of the many hats that you wear is that you are a very experienced personal trainer and fitness coach, and so I'm really eager to talk to you about something that's been on my mind a lot, and I know it's been on a lot of my peers mind, because we're having this conversation a lot.

Speaker 2:

So I noticed since turning 40 a few years ago that there has been this big shift in my thought process in regards to movement and exercise and physical fitness and, like I said, I'm hearing this from a lot of my peers as well who are around the same age. So in our 20s, it feels like vanity is the main driver for exercise. We want to look good and that's why we exercise, basically speaking, of course. In our 30s, it seems to appropriately move more towards wanting to take care of ourselves and be healthy 30-somethings with some vanity still surely mixed in there. But what I've noticed as I move through the early 40s is that vanity is kind of out the window now. It's really not a motivating factor for me anymore.

Speaker 2:

My main motivation in regards to physical exercise and movement now is to benefit my future self. I'm thinking more and more about myself as I get older and about aging well or aging gracefully, I guess we could say by thinking about things like building and maintaining strength, flexibility and endurance, things like muscle mass, bone density and the like. So I know that you have clients of all ages, including middle-aged on up. What are your views on what's good for us to do now to set ourselves up to age well and to stay strong as we get older so that we can really continue to enjoy our lives?

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, I love that you asked this question and I can totally relate to that shift too. I just turned 40 last year. I think you know, that.

Speaker 1:

So I think it's interesting how that shift has occurred, because in general I would say in the health and wellness space, we have made that shift where people are talking about longevity and health span a lot more. So I think that's come along. I think in general there's less of I get fewer and fewer clients who are like oh you know, I just want to be skinny, I just want to look like I was in high school. I'm very afraid of putting on any kind of muscle Like. I hear less and less of that and there's not that stigma around that anymore, which is great. I've noticed just in general, entering this decade of life, that I think in when I was younger it was just all about just trying to be perfect in life in all areas, and now it's more about owning who I am and what I want. And I think it's natural that, especially when you hit middle age to be thinking about how you want to live the rest of your life, you pretty much feel secure in a lot of spaces and who you are, and so then it becomes more natural to start to look ahead to the future. So what I would say? Definitely I'm happy that people are excited about having some muscle mass. So women are going to have more of an issue. Well, first of all we have the menopausal changes that come. They're going to have more of an issue with bone density. So muscle mass I tell people it's never too late to put on muscle mass. It does get harder as we age, so it could be harder. You may need more protein intake. It's very individual from person to person, but definitely the earlier you can start focusing on that, the better. There is an age where you can't put on more bone mass, so that really needs to be in front of mind from an early point. I mean, all they really used to tell us was get enough calcium and maybe they would say train strain. But for a lot of women they've got like three pound pink dumbbells, so they're not, they weren't really overloading their muscles enough to get bone density benefits.

Speaker 1:

So, getting in strength training, resistance training, maybe body weight training doesn't have to be well-designed. Body weight program can be great, but just making sure that you're actually overloading your muscles and putting that stimulus on your skeletal system where it's not just the weight-bearing aspect of it. So you're not even feeling oh, I run, so it's fine, running's great, but it's actually the muscle pulling against the bone that creates a lot of the stimulus. So it's important to get, you know, not just calcium, but making sure that you have magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin K, a really balanced diet, that you're, you know, all those levels are optimized, that you're getting enough protein, things like that.

Speaker 1:

As far as designing an overall program, the things I really like to emphasize are, you know, along with strength training, that involves overload, and then I also, for people who are willing, I like to include interval training. For me personally, I do both sprints, I would say, in that 20, 30 range. Usually that's enough to gas me out, and I do that either running or I do that more on a bike, I would say especially like in a stationary bike. And then I also include VO2 max intervals. So that's kind of more of that no-transcript, two to five minute range, like usually for me. I'm doing three or four minute VO2 max intervals and I think I told you for my 40th birthday, I went and actually had my VO2 max tested, which has kind of become in vogue right now, but it was just a number I was curious about, because it does have a lot of ties, can you?

Speaker 2:

just real quick explain what that is. Yeah sure.

Speaker 1:

So VO2 max, it's maximal oxygen uptake. So the more cardiovascularly fit you are, the more low that your cardiorespiratory system can handle, the higher that number will be. So in world-class cyclists I think, it's like 70s, 80s so, and it's typically a bit higher in men. So I didn't really have any. I had a good number but I was definitely doing well for my age. So that-.

Speaker 2:

Do you want to tell us your number or no?

Speaker 1:

Oh, I can. I got 50, which, considering I've had some injuries and stuff that I've told you a little bit about, I was pretty happy with that. I'm gonna continue. And that was on the bike and I realized afterward that you can usually get a slightly higher number if you do it on the treadmill, but that just running on the treadmill with this mask on sounded a little scary to me.

Speaker 1:

It sounds a little unsafe, so that's why I decided to do it on the bike. So I'm you know, maybe I'll do it again. It's so not necessary, but I thought it was an interesting test to have done.

Speaker 2:

So for people who are motivated by numbers, that would be something that makes sense.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was a good experience. But yeah, I think, balancing so both the kind of the interval piece, the strength training piece, and then, just for some people, walking is great. Zone two, cardio, is getting a bit of buzz too, so having some of that in there could be helpful as well. But I mean, everyone's different in what they're able to put time into. I really prioritize, like I've told you, getting those hikes in, and so for me that's kind of, you know, a little bit more than walking. Occasionally I'll get some jogging in or some group bike rides. We have a lot of good road riding out here, so yeah, Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so let's shift gears to people who are in a different place with their physical fitness. What about the folks who maybe it's been a really long time, or maybe they've never really had an exercise program or a lot of my audience suffer or have suffered from chronic illness? So maybe we're talking about people who have recently been ill and are still recovering from their illness. For those folks who are a little more on the beginner side of exercise and movement, what would you recommend for them? Where should they start?

Speaker 1:

So depending where they are just walking is hugely important for, you know, not just people who are really active, but everyone can get a lot of benefit just from sitting less throughout the day.

Speaker 1:

So, whether it's walking more, whether it's maybe experimenting with a standing desk, there's a lot of damage I see in people, including myself, from years of just having to sit so much, whether it's in school or for work. So I try to first of all like have people not sit so much. But then, when I do see them, we're doing things like working into mobility, so figuring out like just getting up and down off the floor, working on some balance, making sure that you can balance on one leg, doing things that activate the muscles that kind of all go to sleep when we're sitting, starting to do things like bridges and just anything that will activate that a little bit more to help kind of balance things out. And then, as far as strength training, yeah, so okay, overload is great, but you can always, if you're just starting out, start small. Ideally, if you don't know what you're doing, make sure you find someone who can help you.

Speaker 1:

And I've done a workshop, just a basics to strength training workshop, where I try to just encourage people to do probably start out with total body exercises or total body workout, where they're not necessarily getting really granular with it. Instead we focus on compound movements, push, pull, a compound leg exercise and something that activates the core, but an example would be a plank or some variation of that. So we start out very simple and then just build from there.

Speaker 2:

So this is definitely all stuff that's gonna help us now and in the future. But I was just thinking and remembering back to when I was recovering from my own super serious autoimmune flare 13 years ago. Walking, like you said, was things that you take for granted every day. Walking to the store was a huge feat, but it was like I would come home exhausted from those walks initially, but then the next day I would feel stronger and yoga was the second thing that really helped me. I think even more it helped me physically, but I think even more it helps just my confidence to feel like I was reconnecting to my body. And then, as you were saying, I was able to kind of take it from there and just continue to increase as the healing went on. So I think that's a lot of good advice.

Speaker 1:

That's great. I love that. And yoga is great because there's so many levels of yoga and it can be more of a mobility practice. It can be more of a mental wellbeing practice. It can be more of a strength practice, depending where you are, and I think I got to do a little yoga with you while you were here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was great. Still love yoga very, very much Wonderful. So, haley, what would you say is the best kind of exercise?

Speaker 1:

Well, I would say the best kind of exercise needs to be something that you enjoy, Otherwise you're not gonna do it. So I think it seems like you would agree with me on that, and that's why, if people don't like sprinting on the bike, I'm not gonna say oh yeah, you have to do this or you're not healthy.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly the answer I was hoping you would give. Oh good, the best kind of exercise is the one you'll do right, the one you enjoy doing. Yeah for sure.

Speaker 2:

Fantastic, okay, well, I know. The third thing that we wanted to touch base on is talking about self care, because you certainly are familiar with that topic as well. I know you do a good job with that for yourself, but also you run these amazing retreats that we keep talking about. So let's see. Thinking back to that retreat, why did that weekend stick with me? Well, the world has been a little crazy the past several years and it had been I don't know six or seven years since I'd really done something like that in terms of just getting away by myself, leaving the husband and kid at home and just hitting the road and heading out to Western Maryland. And I've told you the story before that I don't enjoy driving. It's actually in our metropolitan area. I find it very stressful and I find it mostly unnecessary, so I choose not to do it. But I was so bound and determined to come to this retreat that I got in that car and I drove across the state of Maryland through the mountains to get to you and it was worth all of the stress that I felt doing that on the way To the point where driving home was like a breeze. I wasn't even worried on the way home.

Speaker 2:

But that weekend I went just on my own and met these nine incredible other women who started out as strangers and left as friends. I met you and your mom and Stephanie, who led us on the retreat. We talked about resilience and did a lot of resilience work. We went boating out on Deep Creek Lake out there, which is very beautiful. We did the hike that we talked about, we had your amazing food and we spent a lot of time just sitting on your porch, which is just the most peaceful place. Looking out on the skyline I guess it's not a skyline, that's city term, what do you call it? Looking out on the scenery.

Speaker 1:

I think you could still call it the skyline, okay, the skyline.

Speaker 2:

Looking out on the beautiful skyline and just the peace and the quiet, I left there feeling kind of like a renewed person. So what is your thought process as you design these retreats?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, thanks so much for saying that. That makes me so happy that it was. It seems like it was just what you needed and yeah, it's a significant drive, you know, kind of three hours from the Baltimore DC area, about two hours from Pittsburgh. So I lived around the country for a lot. I lived in Southern California and Seattle and Boston, even though I grew up here. And then I came back about 10 years ago and I had been working as personal trainer. I had I studied nutrition and I did my master's in nutrition and I was kind of just ready to be home and connect back with nature and I actually like just started gardening a ton and just doing all these outdoor activities, some of which I hadn't been able to do when I lived in downtown Boston and I was just trying to think, because it's an existing, you know, it's set up as an in here, and what can I do with all of this? That I have my skills and this, this great setting, and I thought you know this is a great place to have a retreat, and so it's just kind of come about over the last 10 years the meals, the activities, and a lot of times I think I'm not doing enough. I'm like, oh, we, we need more.

Speaker 1:

You know people come a long way, they expect a lot, but a lot of times people just need to check out a little bit and they don't want a really hectic schedule when they come here. They need, you know, need time to just kind of have that white space in their day and, in, you know, get to know the rest of the people in the group and take a nice long meal, take a walk around the farm and just appreciate nature. And it's been such a privilege to get to see people enjoy that and get what they need and be able to offer that to people. So you know, again, I put what I can into everything the food, obviously.

Speaker 1:

You came to that resilience retreat where Stephanie has put a lot into the resilience pieces and I'm playing around with more themed retreats because I think that's been really popular. I really love the idea of connecting people more to agriculture, maybe doing a more immersive hiking retreat where you get to appreciate a little bit more of the natural beauty around here and perhaps maybe sharing a little bit more of my educational background with with health, wellness, nutrition. So those are all things that I'm thinking about, but right now, the retreats are really more of a reset for people, like you said, being able to come here and take care of yourself and get what you need out of it and leave feeling different.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, and it's. I think, as women, it's so hard for us to just do things for ourselves, like it's absurd, but we feel selfish, you know, and that's ridiculous, like of course we need to take care of ourselves. And investing in myself that weekend it did produce lasting results, because it kind of felt like I was able to shake off a lot of the stress of the years that we universally experienced beginning in 2020, and it kind of got me back to a more okay like that was then. This is. Now we're all moving on, in the sense that we need to go back to doing things like taking time for ourselves and making sure that we are restored and women who have other people that they are responsible for taking care of.

Speaker 2:

It's like the old example of in the airplane, you got to put the oxygen mask on yourself first. Of course you do, because if you aren't equipped, then how are you supposed to care for others? So if it isn't obvious, I highly recommend a visit out to one of Healey's retreats, and I know you're working on retreats for this coming summer. Is that something that folks can find on your website? Yes, haileyfarmcom.

Speaker 1:

It's H-A-L-E-Y is how I spell it and the farm spells it. So, yeah, there's actually a form on there right now. So if you're interested in finding out when the next retreat is, you can get on our list and we'll send that to you, and then I'll also post on the Hailey Farm social media and all that too.

Speaker 2:

Okay, well, before we let you go, hailey, you have kindly offered to leave us with a parting gift, which is your fudge recipe, which I will post in the show notes and put on our social media pages. Can you just tell us a little bit about this fudge? I got to taste it and it was awesome.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I'm so glad, yeah, that you liked it. What is? That's become a special recipe for us and it's a little unexpected. Obviously, I get a lot of people who are vegan or can't do dairy, so this traditionally fudge is not what we would call healthy, which corn syrup and marshmallow fluff and all kinds of odd things in there, but this is just really good.

Speaker 1:

Dark chocolate I always use at least 70% cacao. Dark chocolate that you chop up and you melt over a double boiler and I like some sea salt in there. I toast up some slivered almonds that I press into the top and then kind of mix up that melted chocolate and sea salt with almond butter, cocoa powder, an avocado and some a little bit of maple syrup and then put it in a pan and press the almonds in and a little bit more sea salt like coarse sea salt on the top and then just refrigerate it. And I've added black beans before and that's been really good too, which kind of just makes it a little bit lighter and a little bit of extra fiber and has a nice bite to it. So I keep experimenting with it, but it's really tasty, I think I told you. If anyone isn't sure I would, sometimes I'll add extra avocado, but if someone's a little iffy about that part I'll go a little heavier on the almond butter for them.

Speaker 1:

And everyone's really liked it. My mom is sort of just like everybody else likes it. But my mom just kind of has her own things. She's very much has a mind of her own.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, not everybody's going to like it, but I really think most people.

Speaker 1:

Well, it was most people, most people really do it's and most people would not guess what's in it. For sure, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yep, that's the key, and then you can surprise them and it's it.

Speaker 1:

It's really decadent, just like one or two pieces. It tastes so rich, so I love that one. Yeah, well, thank you for sharing.

Speaker 2:

Of course. Again, we'll put that up in the show notes. Awesome, all right, haley. Well, thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. We covered a pretty broad range of topics here today, so thank you for sharing all of your expertise and your wisdom, and I know that people can find you on Instagram. What is your handle?

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, so it's at Refresh with Haley, just Refresh with, and then my name H-A-L-E-Y, and I go through periods where I don't post as much, but the big things at least I try to put on there. So yeah, and they can also find us at haleyfarmcom.

Speaker 2:

Haleyfarmcom. All right, thank you again so much. This has been a lot of fun. I loved getting to chat with you again and I look forward to seeing you hopefully back on your farm again someday in the not too distant future.

Speaker 1:

That would be great, Kelly. I think you should make that happen. It was great to talk to you and thanks for having me.

Speaker 2:

Okay, everyone, I hope that you enjoyed that as much as I did and that you found inspiration in so much of what Haley shared with us today. If you are interested in one of her wonderful retreats, be sure to check out haleyfarmcom. If you received value from this episode today, I would be so grateful if you would take a minute to download the episode, subscribe to the podcast rate and review and, of course, please share it with anyone who you think may find value in it as well. Thank you again for listening. I am truly honored to walk alongside of you as we heal and stay healed together.