episode 164: Discovering food as a form of self love with Devin Nunez
Today’s episode of The Diet Diaries is a very special conversation with a former client, Devin Nunez.
Two years post our nutrition coaching, Devin shares her profound journey through cancer, weight management, and the life long pursuit of self-care. This episode is not just about food; it's about transformation, self-advocacy, and finding joy in the simple act of eating. I am incredibly grateful to Devin for her vulnerability in sharing her story.
Here are some of the topics we covered:
Devin's unique goal around food and her body
How the skills that help you find ease around food are the same ones that help you lose weight without counting calories, gain weight and maintain weight
How cancer treatment affected Devin’s relationship with food and her body confidence
How Devin transformed her approach to eating from a chore to a form of self-love
The specific skills that were most helpful for Devin and what she still uses today, nearly 2 years later
Take a listen to episode 159, 157 and 156 for more resources and tips to lose weight without counting calories and improve body confidence.
-
[00:00:00] jordana: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the diet diaries. Um, I am here today with a former client and I'm super excited to have her partially because it's been two years since we worked together, which I didn't realize until this morning. Um, I'm here with Devin Nunez and she is out in Northern California and I'm in New Jersey.
[00:00:21] So that's also super cool. Um, and Devin and I worked together for, um, I think it was between like four to five months. And she has a really interesting story, which I will kind of let her take you through. Um, but we kind of came together and worked on kind of a piece of nutrition and body. Well, not the body image piece, but in terms of nutrition, we worked on something that I don't often work on with a lot of clients.
[00:00:44] Um, and so I'm happy for her to be here to kind of share her story and. Where she's at two years later, um, kind of what has worked and what she's still working on and all of that stuff. So welcome, Devon. Thank you for being here. Hi, thank you for having me. Yeah, this is awesome. This is the first podcast I've ever done.
[00:01:03] Awesome, I'm glad to, uh, to be here first. Um, so let's kind of, let's kind of jump in. And so when we. Started working together two years ago. Um, you came to me and we're looking for help with gaining weight so I'd love for you to share kind of a little bit about what kind of brought you to that place what you were struggling with in your body and kind of We can kind of jump off from there
[00:01:27] devin: Yeah, so I have heard you on My friend Rochelle's podcast her cancer pants podcast and Rochelle and I Uh, we'll go to a music festival together in Michigan, um, but we're also cancer survivor sisters.
[00:01:47] So when I heard you on her podcast. I was inspired to reach out to you because I felt like Rochelle was probably dealing with a lot of the same issues that I was dealing with. She was just so positive about the work you, I'm assuming, did together and how it benefited her. Um, and I know Rochelle and I were in similar points in our, in our post cancer life in that she was, Vegan, I think, and possibly even like raw vegan and, um, I remember her saying a friend was like, well, you just eat some chicken soup.
[00:02:33] I know normally eat, but I really think you need this protein and, um, I'm really worried about you, you know, continuing to eat in this way currently in your life where you're at, you know? Yeah. And I was vegetarian and had been for a few years, um, and just decided, like, why am I really eating this way? Is it truly for my love of animals or is it more because it's like the popular thing to be doing right now?
[00:03:08] And it really felt like because it was the popular thing to be doing. And I also didn't feel good doing it. So, you know, I figured. The animals that I love wouldn't want me to feel this crappy like for their benefit or not. They just wouldn't want me to feel like this. And so I decided, okay, I'm going to introduce me back into my life and did it gradually.
[00:03:35] And that's also when I decided I'm going to take this plunge. I've been following you on Instagram since I heard you on the podcast and just really loved what you put out there, what you were doing. For women, even though, and people, but even though I was sort of looking for something a little bit different, not weight, but weight gain, I had seen a couple of posts of yours that were sort of describing that it kind of works the same way, whether you're wanting to gain or lose, it's sort of the same, um, program that you would, you know, do.
[00:04:18] And so I was like, huh, wow, that's, that's really interesting. And then you were like, yeah, let's, let's work together. Let's do this. So, um, I feel like that was one of the first moves that I made in the self love journey that I was, you know, going on. Um, and this was a good eight years after my first diagnosis with cancer.
[00:04:48] So I actually. Cancer diagnosis is, um, one in 2015 and I had a single mastectomy and went through, I believe it was like 12 rounds of chemotherapy. I decided not to do radiation and not go on Tamoxifen, the drug that they usually put you on after, um, breast cancer. Five years later, I finally started to, like, regain kind of myself.
[00:05:25] Um, I was still really underweight and struggling with that, but I felt the fog of chemo brain somewhat lifting my energy, improving. Um, I got kicked off of the insurance that I was on for breast cancer, got onto Kaiser and was feeling like, wow, I'm really like moving forward from this. And literally at my first appointment with my nurse practitioner at Kaiser, she was like, I'm feeling two lumps here that I don't like.
[00:06:01] And it was on my mastectomy side and I was like, you've got to be kidding me. And so I had a recurrence. Um, five years later, uh, and it wasn't as invasive. The lumps were very small. So I did, um, two little lumpectomies, went ahead with radiation because that was the treatment course for this time round, um, and went ahead and did the tamoxifen because I was.
[00:06:32] And I did not want to do this a third time. Yeah. Um, the Tamoxifen actually wasn't the best drug for me. I got really depressed, had pretty bad mood swings. And so the doctor switched me onto a different drug that actually was, uh, a lot less time, like you take it for nine months versus five, 10, up until menopause years, uh, with.
[00:07:00] And so this drug worked a lot better for me and it was so short term compared that I call in and um, that was 2019. So we're just about there. Um, at a five year mark. So So we'll see.
[00:07:17] jordana: Fingers crossed for sure. But since then, since that 2019, you've been doing so much work to take such good care of yourself.
[00:07:27] devin: Yes. There was a lot of self advocacy that I wasn't aware of the first time, but I went and got guns blazing the second time. In fact, the love back to me was scheduled with my GP And then when I went in with the surgeon, she was like, well, I'd really rather. And I was like, Nope, I brought my two best friends here for this exact reason today, bring them into this exam office.
[00:07:58] And I was like, no, we're doing this. I took time off from work. All my clients know, you know, like. Small business owner. So all of it, all of that. Um, and with the support of those two besties in the room with me, I really advocated for myself. And I was like, Nope, I don't really care about your other patients today.
[00:08:18] It's all about me today. If you have to reschedule with them, that's your fault for not putting this as a priority. And you know, 30 minutes later, I was on the table getting, getting cut up. Um, and My background is actually as a veterinary nurse and so I watched the whole procedure in the surgical lamp reflected above me Wow, I was like, I just have to watch this because I can't like do anything else And then it was a little disturbing afterwards, but you know But I also love surgery.
[00:08:59] So it was kind of cool. I do too.
[00:09:01] jordana: It's funny. We've never talked about that I'm a total like human body surgery nerd and When I was a kid, um, kind of shadowed doctors and got to see surgeries and, and like an OR and all that. So I, I totally feel you on that. I might have done the same thing. Um, so thank you.
[00:09:17] Thank you for sharing all that. I'm sure it's, you know, a lot to kind of bring that up and relive it. And, um, I just want to rewind a little bit, um, to a couple of things that you shared. you know, kind of like when we first started working together, right? So you'd gone through, right? These two, two cancer diagnoses, two surgeries, two rounds of treatment.
[00:09:39] Um, and we're eating vegetarian sounds like as a way, cause you were hearing that, like, this might be good for me. This might help me decrease inflammation. Maybe it will impact, hopefully prevent me from getting cancer again. And, you know, there's lots of conflicting research and we're not even going to go down that road.
[00:09:56] Um, but also you, you, Are an animal lover like for life and as your job right you take care of animals pets it and and and and walk animals what not so it was a really important to you like part of your value system and at the same time. You were realizing you're feeling really shitty and is it part of my value system to feel shitty right to not be feeding and taking care of myself in a way that I know I need to, um, so, and the fact that you notice this, I don't even know if we talked about this, but like the way that we work together and the kind of the skills and the framework that we use to help you kind of work on your nutrition and gain weight is totally the same framework work.
[00:10:35] Instead of skills that I use when I help people lose weight and what's so cool about that is that there's no like, oh, you have to go on a diet or you have to go on like a weight gain plan and then you eat specific foods to do those things. It's all the same food. It's just the amounts of the foods that you eat.
[00:10:53] And that's what's so kind of revolutionary about it is like, then you have those skills with you for life. Right. Like whether you are just kind of like maintaining, which is what most of us are doing. Hopefully most of the time we're just eating kind of a, an amount that keeps our body where it is. And if there's times in life where we feel like we need to lose weight for different reasons, or perhaps there's times when we feel like we need to gain weight, it's all the same skill.
[00:11:15] Um, so, and for you, part of that was, I mean, protein is, if you're listening to this podcast, you know, I'm like a protein person, right? So for you introducing that animal protein was, Huge. And I know it had a really good impact on just how you felt.
[00:11:29] devin: Yes. Yes. Um, and it, you know, and it wasn't for the months that we worked together, there was, you know, decent weight gain, but it was really like the work that I took away from our work together.
[00:11:46] And it took a good year before I was like, Solid in, you know, at the time it was four meals a day, like, and that's here and there when necessary. Um, and I'm happy to say now I'm just out of even three meals a day because I've. Just incorporated all the skills into making meals that not only, you know, gives me the nutrition in all the ways that I need, but, um, that I enjoy, you know, that was a huge part of.
[00:12:24] Being so underweight for so long is that food became a chore and it's really shitty to feel that way because before cancer, I loved food, you know, the bad, all of it and to come out of such a, such a blizzard of trauma and then healing and maintaining a business during the whole thing. And a marriage and you know, those are the things that nobody really talks about that can really fall apart.
[00:13:02] Um, right. Something like that. Um, and then to come out of it and go, you know, the last thing that I want to do is think about food, you know, where I would eat something and it would make me vomit. And so to then go and think about eating that thing again was really triggering. And I was like, nah, I'm going to have to skip on that thing that I really enjoyed because.
[00:13:29] chemo screwed that
[00:13:30] jordana: up. Yeah. It's like another thing that got taken away from you.
[00:13:33] devin: Yes. And uh, that was really hard to like grapple with and just learn to accept. Um, and yeah, now it's like, I look forward to making meals. Um, I've always been somebody that likes to cook at home. Um, so those years where. It felt like a drag.
[00:13:56] I kind of just didn't. Um, I would do a lot of takeout, which is better than not eating. Um, and You know, there's a point where it's like you skip a meal and it becomes easier to then skip another and go I could just kind of keep
[00:14:15] jordana: skipping. Mm
[00:14:16] devin: hmm, and It doesn't feel good But there's a comfortable zone that you're in when you're in that mind frame Even though you are struggling You're weak.
[00:14:32] Your energy is low It's still this very comfortable zone of, well, this is easier. Um, yeah, the work that we did and I love your little three circles like cheat sheet of protein, fat, carbs. I mean, I still bust that thing out.
[00:14:55] All right. I'm right. Um, Yeah. And now I feel like I have all this information. Like when my wife goes and gets something and she's like, I got this for protein. And I'm like, did you check though? Like, is
[00:15:09] jordana: it a protein
[00:15:11] devin: lip and check the carb fat ratio, the protein ratio? And some of them will be like, shit, you know, this isn't actually as much protein as I was hoping it was.
[00:15:21] And so, um, yeah, I just, I'm constantly putting those skills. Um, and now if my body isn't hungry and I skip a meal, it's not like I just lost a whole bunch of pounds. You know, my body is strong enough and stable enough to maintain that when I'm hungry, I'll feed myself again.
[00:15:46] jordana: Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like, you know, you're, you went through.
[00:15:54] The cancer, you know, the trauma of two cancer diagnoses and the recovery and the treatment, all of that, and then your body just, I mean, your body gets destroyed through that, like it breaks down so much of just like your day to day functioning, and separately, I'm, like, the fact that you mentioned, like, your marriage and your work and your livelihood and all of these things that, like, this disease, like, strips away from you and your quality of life, um, you my mom is a cancer survivor.
[00:16:21] And so I went through it with her. And it's just, I mean, anyone who's been through it knows, but if you haven't, like, I think we tend to like, forget about that piece of it, just like fight the disease, fight the disease. But it's like, there's all of these, um, like tangential impacts that happen. And then when you start to like, put yourself back together again, it's, it's, it's all of that.
[00:16:43] And it takes a lot of work and energy. Right? So to your point, then it's like, Okay, well, I have no appetite, I don't want to eat, I've lost a ton of weight, but I have no energy to think about food. I have my wife, and I have my animals to take care of, and I have my job, and my clients, and it's like, It's so much work and it feels so complicated, um, that it's like you need something simple.
[00:17:05] It's like you need just a basic way to think about it. And I think what you shared about it just got easy to not eat is so, makes so much sense because we do so many things that are not good for us. But they're comfortable and they're familiar and they take less energy and we'll keep doing them for those reasons Even though they're not serving us and so it takes you that you need energy You need to be willing to get uncomfortable to change that, right?
[00:17:35] So it's you get to a point where the thing that you're doing Starts to become more harmful than the thing that you're afraid of doing not that that's harmful But it's like the fear of doing that thing Like the balance kind of starts to shift and I think what's so, I, I, I so appreciate you sharing so much of like what you went through, but I say, cause I think there's a lot of people out there who think like, Oh, someone who needs to gain weight, like what a dream, like you could just eat whatever you want all the time.
[00:18:02] You could just eat ice cream and hot dogs and French fries and pizza and pasta all the time, but it's really not that simple. And there's so much that goes along with it. You never know someone's story, right? You never know what someone has been through. And so. Women and humans go through really challenging relationships with, with really challenging relationships with food for so many reasons and on both ends of the spectrum.
[00:18:28] And I think it's so important to have awareness of that. And so I just, I really appreciate you being so candid and being willing to share so much, um, about that because I think we often don't think that much about that piece of it.
[00:18:42] devin: Yeah, completely. I mean, people would always feed me that narrative. Like why don't you just eat a bunch of hamburgers every day?
[00:18:49] And I'm like, because even if I was where I want to be, that's not how I eat. That's just not, you know, it's like, yes, I love ice cream and there was a period in life where I ate it like every day. Actually remember you asking me like, how often do you eat ice cream and I was like, every day. Yeah. But that's a treat.
[00:19:12] That's a snack. That's a dessert. That's not
[00:19:15] jordana: feeding me. That's not nutrition. Yeah.
[00:19:18] devin: Um. And yeah, I realized like when I was putting our work into action, how carb based my intake really was. And it took a little while to sort of like hone in on that and pick better carbs, pick, I mean, I hate to use that word, you know, because we don't like to food shame or it's fine, but more conscious.
[00:19:51] jordana: More nutritious carbs. Yeah,
[00:19:53] devin: that, um, you know, that do their job instead of Instead of lying to me that this was actually a meal, that this was actually going to give me the strength and energy to carry on.
[00:20:09] jordana: That's, that's just the thing. It's like, what you're saying, not in these words, these are my words, is there's a difference between eating for calories and eating for nutrition, right?
[00:20:22] And there's all this, this whole narrative round out there that like a calorie is a calorie. And yes, a calorie is a calorie in terms of a unit of energy, which is what it is. So if you eat a thousand calories of ice cream, because that's the only food that you can literally stomach, are you going to gain weight at some point?
[00:20:39] Yes, you will gain weight at some point. But are you going to feel great in your body? No, because you haven't gotten any good quality nutrition, right? You've gotten a shit ton of sugar and a shit ton of saturated fat. Um, right, there's no protein, there's no fiber, there's no unsaturated fats, right? So, and you feel that in your body.
[00:21:00] So it's not just as simple as like, oh yeah, eat whatever you want. It's, you have to be really thoughtful about it. And, and that's why those skills apply to like weight gain, weight loss and weight maintenance, because it's about how you feel in your body. So yeah, you can have ice cream if you're gaining weight, losing weight or maintaining weight, but it's going to be, you want it to be a pretty Relatively speaking, small percentage of what you eat just 'cause you're not gonna feel good, you're not gonna have energy, you're not gonna be able to build strength.
[00:21:29] It's gonna affect your sleep, it's gonna affect your immunity, all of these things without that nutrition. Um, right. So when you said better carbs, I totally know what you meant. It's more nutritious, right? Because we kind of will say like, oh, it's like healthy or unhealthy. Any food can be healthy or unhealthy, to your point, right?
[00:21:46] Like, it's about the quantity in which you're eating that food and why you're eating it and how you're eating it is so much of like the big picture. Yeah,
[00:21:56] devin: yeah. And another thing that I really appreciated from you was The putting it on a plate and sitting down at a table and eating, um, and that took like more than just pulling out my dining room chair and sitting down because I didn't really have a dining room table.
[00:22:20] I had, um, a kitchen island and it was. put into our dining room in a way that really wasn't functional. And so I had to move furniture and like create a space where I could do that. And I was like, yeah, I'm like, I like this. Like this feels I'm more upright, better. I am paying attention to my plate of food.
[00:22:52] I'm a really fast eater and that's still something that I struggle with. Um, like, this is really good. And I'm like, Oh, cool. I'm done.
[00:23:03] jordana: Same, same. It's, it's hard. It's a struggle.
[00:23:08] devin: And especially good food. So it goes in in a shuffling fashion. But, um, yeah, that Felt just like another part of the self care was to sit down at the table and eat.
[00:23:24] And, you know, I, I usually have like a water or a tea or like sometimes a lemon water or something, um, with dinner, but there's a point where I also have had, you know, a non water drink, you know, like a soda or juice or something like that. And, I used to like kind of beat myself up if I was consuming anything but water and so I was able to shift that mindset too, which feels good because yeah, if those things weren't around, I wouldn't have them but It feels nice to have something bubbly and, you know, um, yeah, it's a little way in which my meal becomes a little bit better sometimes.
[00:24:17] Yeah,
[00:24:18] jordana: like a little more special and a little more like an occasion, right? The sitting down thing, it seems so like, uh, insignificant, but We live, I know we talked about this because I remember there were points where we had to figure out small meals that you could have with you on the go while you were working, but we spend, just culturally and societally, we spend so much of our time eating as an afterthought, eating in a rush, eating on the go, eating at desks, eating in cars, eating at kids sporting events, eating while we're working, eating while we're walking, whatever it is, like, we do not prioritize eating, very rarely ever.
[00:24:58] Um. You know, for people who have families with kids, they're often eating at different times because of activities. Look, I, I have that life too. I have an 11 year old son. Like, I get it. But there's always like, there's always some things or some, something that you can do to prioritize it, right? Putting it on a plate, getting out a napkin, using, um, like a glass and a dish versus like.
[00:25:18] Paper or drinking out of a can or whatever it is, um, prioritizing eating, and there's a lot of different ways to do that. It doesn't have to be all of them, it could be one or two, is so transformative. Um, it helps you pay attention, it helps you enjoy it more, it helps you practice slowing down, right? Like, there's so much.
[00:25:38] to that. Um, and then like what you mentioned about changing up the drink, right? That's kind of part of it. It makes it like an occasion, like an event. I just read somewhere, I can't remember where it was, but I just read that like when we have people over for, if it's like we have a friend over for dinner or we host a holiday, we set like a table and we make it really nice and we use the nice glasses, but for ourselves.
[00:26:04] We don't do that and I'm like, oh my god, that's so true Like why don't we do that because we're in a rush and we don't put in the time We'll do it for someone else just like we'll be nice to someone else But the way we treat and talk to ourselves is like shit. It's the same principle But yeah, like I the the thing about the drink is so it's so interesting in such like a night Like it's all part of it.
[00:26:27] It's just how you kind of Again, this is like one of those overused words, like elevate, elevate your eating, um, in a way that just helps you be able to pay more attention, which is like such a big part of all the work.
[00:26:42] devin: Totally. Yeah, I never really Had thought about it as a kid, we would sit down at the table and it felt like punishment.
[00:26:51] And when I finally was accepting like this might help, um, and I did it, it just instantly felt better. I couldn't explain why, but it just felt better. And I think it was. Taking the time and attention and focusing it on myself, you know, um, yeah, it just, it was really altering. You
[00:27:20] jordana: used the words early in our conversation, self love.
[00:27:23] And I think that like eating in that way and using food as a way to take care of yourself is a form of self love, right? And prioritizing it, giving yourself the space and the time to sit at a table and eat food off of a plate, again, seems so like insignificant. But it's not. Um, it's one of those things I feel like in a hundred years that will happen so rarely.
[00:27:46] Um, but it really is such a fundamental part of like being a human, right? And having some sort of like routine and a schedule to your day where you take a break from what you're doing and you sit down and you eat. Um, right? And then we have phones and iPads and all the stuff that even if we're at a table, we can still be so distracted.
[00:28:05] It's very difficult. Like I don't, these skills seem insignificant and small. They're very They're hard. They take work. They take energy and effort and all these things. Um, because we're so easily distracted and I include myself in this group as well, but they really, what's cool about them is they are so simple and so accessible and they're so transformative, right?
[00:28:26] There's such a, an upside impact to incorporating them and working on them. Yeah.
[00:28:32] devin: I noticed that there's several times where I think, I'm just going to go sit on the couch and eat this. And I. Set my bowl down there and then I go and get, you know, my drink and then I'm like, no, I'm, and I move over to the table and I'm like, this is actually where I want to be doing this.
[00:28:53] So let's take effort and it is a conscious choice
[00:28:57] jordana: where, you know, where we eat. Um, but, but it's
[00:29:01] devin: literally like the one mostly dinner, the one time, especially during the week that I get to. eat anywhere but my car because I'm driving around with dogs all day long. Yep. And so is smoothie in the morning.
[00:29:16] And then, you know, if I've done my meal prep, or I've picked up something to eat along the way, then that's still in the car, fighting off dog hair flying into my food. And just taking that 20 minutes, you know, if I If I can slow down. Yeah, that's on the long side. Yeah. Uh, feels so good. And, um, then it's like, yeah, now I can move over to the couch and that into that
[00:29:49] jordana: part of the day or the evening.
[00:29:52] devin: And it feels, it just feels good. It feels good.
[00:29:55] jordana: Yeah, it totally is a way to prioritize the food and yourself and take care of yourself and pay attention and be present. And those things feel really good when we do them because we don't do them as often. That type of attention and awareness It's becoming rarer and rarer unless we put the effort into it.
[00:30:16] And that's the thing you mentioned. Like I sat down on the couch and like, it just feels easy, but I'm like, no, I've got to get up and move. And it feels like inconvenient in a way it's like, it'd be just easier just to sit here and eat. Why can't I just sit here and eat? It's feeling that it's kind of what we talked about earlier.
[00:30:31] Like it feels comfortable and familiar because it's easy, but in the long run and in the long run of being the next 20 minutes of eating, it's not going to feel good. So it's like, get up, put in the effort and get the benefit. On the back end, that has a much longer, like it's instant gratification versus delayed gratification.
[00:30:50] Um, that's always like, I feel like that's like the essence, the core of what it is to be human, kind of, is, is constantly trying to negotiate those, those two rewards. Um. So yeah, it just shows up like in all these, all these different ways. Um, you mentioned a little bit about like that you do some meal prep and planning.
[00:31:11] What does that look like for you these days? Um,
[00:31:15] devin: so usually it's some form of leftovers. From dinner the night before that I put into, um, like, like if we had chicken, I'll add it to a salad, throw it in a Tupperware, boom, there's my lunch.
[00:31:35] I always have protein bars in my lunch bag. Um, those delicious pecans from Trader Joe's in there. So just things that, if I don't have an actual meal to pull up, I've got something to substitute. Um, hold, hold the hunger off a little while until I can get, you know, to a deli or get home and have something to eat.
[00:32:07] Um, yeah, bags of salad have become a staple in the house. Um, I too love like chopped little shredded salads. is chunky things. Uh, and Pretty much every morning I go to the freezer and I'm like, what protein do we want to have for dinner? And I defrost that so, you know, I think about during the day Like what are the different things that I could do with this meat?
[00:32:42] Try to come up with You know, either something that we just absolutely love, which is a go to, or possibly something new. And, you know, at some break during the day, I might just Google, like, what to do with this, what to do with that. I know I've got, you know, this meat defrosting, and then I've got, you know, canned corn and fresh carrots.
[00:33:09] A bag like, and what can I do with this? Um, yeah. Yeah. So, uh, that's been really helpful and also fun to learn new recipes. Um, you shared one about, um, chicken size and like piling up vegetables.
[00:33:26] jordana: Yeah. A sheet pan meal, yeah.
[00:33:29] devin: Oven. And like that's a forever go-to, because it's so easy. Yeah. Um. I found like a chicken feta lemon recipe.
[00:33:39] It's another sheet pan. Just so easy.
[00:33:41] jordana: Yeah. Sheet pans are awesome. And for folks, if you're not familiar with that, it's basically you put all the ingredients on a sheet pan and cook it all at once in the oven. So it's not like different stages, different Recipes. It's just literally like a one pan meal. Um, and so it simplifies everything.
[00:33:58] It's like one sauce or one marinade. Everything's in there. One temperature. Good to go there. They're great. Um, and I love what you said before about like, you always have meat in the freezer. I take something out to defrost and then based on what I know I have in the house, I figure out what to make versus is.
[00:34:16] Always feeling like I have to go buy these things, right? It's like, what do I have that I can kind of optimize and use together? And maybe that's also part of, like you said, you always have bagged salad around, right? Which I do too. Like, bagged greens are, I mean, just the greatest invention ever. And there's so many different varieties now, like, and you can mix them and literally, like, There's, pour some dressing on, there's your vegetable, right?
[00:34:37] Like, it doesn't have to be complicated. But my, um, I'm working with a business coach right now, and she has shared that she will go into, like, ChatGPT and plug in the ingredients she has, and ask for, like, a meal to make. I'm like, that's fucking brilliant. Like That's super cool. So I just wanted to like mention that because it's kind of like, oh, I've got like hand corn, I've got chicken, I've got carrots and a bag of greens.
[00:35:00] What, chat GBT, tell me what can I make with this? That's super cool. There's, there's resources out there, um, to help make this stuff. Um, because people hear what other people are doing, like, Oh, yeah, I never thought of that. I could try that kind of thing. So, yeah, there's some good stuff in there
[00:35:26] devin: for sure.
[00:35:28] And another thing that I did. For myself was get a Vitamix blender, which I mean, not just for like smoothies, but for sauces, um, soups and an air fryer. Um, you know, and these are like staples that most have in their kitchen, but I, for some reason, wasn't giving myself that wonderful gift and like those two things have just been so life changing as far as.
[00:35:59] You know, quick, easy, but healthy feel good meals. Yeah. And yeah, it's just, you know, a little bit of effort does tend to go a long way. It does. Yeah. So constant thing that we're all working on. You know, there's, there's certainly nights where I get home and I'm like, I don't want to fucking cook any dinner.
[00:36:26] But the difference is, is I know I'm hungry. I know I need to eat and I'm not going to skip a meal just because I don't want to cook one. Um, and sometimes that means plunking down on the couch for a little while and going. Am I going to get up and cook in 20 minutes or are we going to order takeout, like, you know, making that choice to sit down and reflect for a little while and then think about it versus before I would have just been like, yeah, I'm not eating, just that's, that's the easiest
[00:36:59] jordana: solution there is to just
[00:37:00] devin: think about it.
[00:37:02] jordana: So now it's like you've, that was like your reaction, right? You got this impulse of. I'm too tired. I don't want to deal with it. I react immediately. I'm not eating. And now you've worked on this skill of creating space, right, between that stimulus of I don't feel like cooking. I'm tired. I've had a shitty day.
[00:37:20] And so that you can respond instead of react, right? You gave yourself that space. I mean, these like, I mean, this is like literally behavior change, like inaction is learning to pause and create space so that you can make a choice that's more in alignment with your values, right? You're not thinking that language as you're doing it.
[00:37:35] But as I'm listening to you. It's like textbook, which is amazing. Like, it's so cool to see that in action. Um, and then you're like, okay, I don't really feel like cooking, but I'm going to go do it anyway. Again, because it's delayed gratification. The benefit I'm going to get from that is going to be so much more worth it.
[00:37:53] Then the instant gratification of just skipping the meal now and then in three hours being like raging bitch hungry and feeling tired and shitty because I didn't eat anything. Right,
[00:38:03] devin: and not sleeping as well as I could. Totally. And then, you know, suffering all the consequences of that lousy decision.
[00:38:11] Yep. Uh, yeah, it's, it's It's really just so much easier now, um, yeah, to, to, to pause and something I never thought about really at all was values. You use that word a lot and now that resonates with me a lot, you know, I'm like, Oh yeah, values aren't just, you know, the way that we carry ourselves throughout the day, but they relate to food.
[00:38:41] Um, you know, and, and it really is. A value of mine to nourish myself, you know, cancer tried to take that away and wasn't happening. And now I can, you know, put these skills into action and to work every day. It's my choice. It's my decision. Um, and we're taking care of, of this. I've only got this as far as I know for this life and.
[00:39:11] I'm going to take care of it as best as I can because it's really important, not just for me, but for all the aspects, the business, the marriage, the dogs, you know, all these things that not only rely on me, but I rely on them as well. And I've got to, you know, take care of me to take care of them. Um, and it's really just.
[00:39:36] The work with you, talk therapy, um, and deciding that I was worth it, you know, to move, to move away from the comfortable and into like living, living again and feeling, feeling so many more benefits of what started off as hard work. And now it's just like you say, maintenance work for the most part. So, yeah, it's.
[00:40:10] It's been, it's been a two year journey, and I really feel fantastic at this point. And I feel like I really grasped those skills, um, and I share them, you know, with people when I can and try to, you know, be a source of inspiration, um, where I can also, because Lots of people say they like food, but I think it sort of goes beyond that, like how do you like it and what are ways that you can maybe like it more or look at it a little bit, you know, through a value lens.
[00:40:51] So, yeah, it's. It's, it's been a, it's been a, I
[00:40:59] jordana: don't think there's anything else I could add to what you just said. I mean, across the whole time we've talked, but even in just those last couple of minutes, um, I mean, you just like nailed it to see like the transformation that is possible from where you are to where people are feeling like.
[00:41:18] Just shitty in their bodies, not able to take care of themselves, it's not worth it, just stuck in whatever kind of cycle or pattern that we get stuck in to slowly showing up for ourselves because we know, right, because you, you use the word self worth, like I realize that like I was worth it and independent of anything else, what anyone tells us, what we look like, you know, any of these external measures, you know, We get to decide that for ourselves and it's not until we do that that these changes are possible So I'm so like happy that you mentioned that because it's such an essential part of this And then once you find that then it's like, okay, I can keep going.
[00:42:03] I can keep going Sometimes you just have to believe it's like you have to believe that you're worth it. You may be even before you truly know it It's like I believe in the possibility of this happening. It's like a little bit of a leap of faith And then you just need to build a little bit of that evidence and you keep going and you keep going and you show yourself what you're capable of, even when it's hard and difficult and inconvenient.
[00:42:25] Um, and then there's like, you know, it's just such an amazing transformation of like where you've been, um, and where you are right now. Um, so thank you so much for sharing. All of this, like that last part, like I'm just like smiling like a giddy, like, little kid. I'm like, this is amazing. Um, and you've done so much work on yourself, right?
[00:42:49] It's not obviously just about, like, the food piece. It all kind of goes hand in hand, like you mentioned, with therapy. And, um, we didn't even talk about exercise and movement, but I know that's been part of it for you. And now you just got certified to teach yoga. Like, there's been all these other parts of your life that are, that are kind of working, um, in concert with us.
[00:43:07] Absolutely.
[00:43:08] devin: Yeah. The exercise part, you know, my, my job is physical, but I've also been doing it for 24 years. So it's a maintenance level at this. And I just went out and bought some weights. And even though I wasn't ready to start lifting them, they just kept looking at me and I kept looking at them. And then.
[00:43:31] The woman who's I think in her sixties doing all this amazing lifting with simple weights that I was like, I'm ready. I'm ready to challenge myself in that way and it feels so good where I wouldn't have been able to do that mentally or physically before because I was just so depleted. Now it's another way that I show up for myself and show up.
[00:43:56] Oh, so
[00:43:57] jordana: yeah, I love that. Well, thank you so much. This has been awesome. Um, I'm so grateful again, just for everything you shared. I know it will be super helpful for everyone listening just to hear from another human who has been through this and struggles with it and has keep showing up, right? It's still work.
[00:44:12] It's the boxes don't get checked. Things just get easier and they kind of take less effort over time. And then you shift into new areas like the lifting weights where you're going to kind of. That's going to take more effort now, and then that will get easier too. Um, so thank you so much for being here.
[00:44:27] And if you're in Northern California, remind me what city you're in. Um, specifically San Leandro. Okay, near San Leandro. Devon is an amazing pet sitter and dog walker. So if you're in the area, reach out to her. Um, and thank you for being here. Thank you for
[00:44:45] devin: having me. It's been really wonderful.
[00:44:50] jordana: I'm just stopping recording.