In this episode of the Best Life (Coach) Podcast, we’re discussing:

How we keep eating healthy in our day-to-day, including when we’re feeling too busy to cook. We know cooking is a challenge for most, it’s the last thing we want to think about at the end of a long workday!

So come with an appetite and leave with some great ideas to make life easier!

Be sure to subscribe and tune in to new episodes on the 1st Thursday of every month! 

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Transcript:

Best Life Coach Collective 0:00
Intro (music by DJ ShadowFigure)

Stephanie Nelb 0:00
All right, welcome to another episode of the Best Life Coach Podcast. Today I’m joined by my co host, Melissa Byone, and Sarah Mae and I and Stephanie Nelb. Today we’re talking about all things food. We’re talking about what we eat, and how we eat healthy when we have time when we don’t have time, and how we prioritize meals in our day. So stay tuned, and I hope you have an appetite.

Sarah Mae 0:23
Are you ready to live your best life? And you’re in the right place.

Melissa Byone 0:31
Welcome to the best life coach podcast, where we discuss how you can live your best life

Stephanie Nelb 0:37
brought to you by the cofounders of the best life coach collective.

Melissa Byone 0:42
As they say, it takes a village now welcome two years.

Sarah Mae 0:45
How have you been living your Best Life this week, Stephanie?

Stephanie Nelb 0:48
Oh, let’s see. So I’m gearing up for a super long weekend. I’ve been starting to feel some residual, well, not residual some pre-burnout type feelings. And so I’ve decided I’m going to do a four day weekend instead of the three day holiday weekend and just take a little bit of extra time to myself and relax and just detach from work and recharge. So I’m looking forward to it. What about you?

Sarah Mae 1:24
Me? [Grabs 10 month old long-haired chihuahau] Oops. I woke him up! This is how I’m living my best life all the time. This is @lokijuan_kenobi. And he helps me make sure I take all the breaks and pay attention to him instead of working. How about you, Melissa?

Melissa Byone 2:00
I feel like I can’t be happy. I don’t know guys! It’s hard. It’s been a crazy week. I’m really heavy. It’s hard because I also feel really disconnected. Literally being disconnected from the rest of the country. But bright side for me, I guess. It’s a long weekend and I’ve been invited to two picnics Oceanside, so that’ll be fun. And we have a friend coming into town. So yeah, whenever we have people come in town I end up doing fun things. Otherwise I just work a lot.

Stephanie Nelb 2:50
That’s good, though. That you haven’t them coming in!

Melissa Byone 2:52
Yes! Thankfully people like to visit me here!

Stephanie Nelb 2:57
It’s a good push to go do all the touristy things.

Melissa Byone 3:00
It is! it is. I think it was it. Just last week I was in Arizona and did touristy things. And it was so fun. So I invite you both to go do something touristy in the city you live in.

Stephanie Nelb 3:19
Nice. Love it.

Sarah Mae 3:21
Yeah, I’ve been wanting to do some touristy things just to take Loki to them. Which sounds silly but I was like, I want to go down to Science World and my husband’s like, “Science World? What’s he going to do there?”. I was like no, no, but he just needs to see the building because pretty. I want him to have all the experiences.

Stephanie Nelb 3:43
Oh, yeah. Love that. There’s a audio going around TikTok and Instagram right now. That’s something along the lines of there’s nothing more magical than watching your dog live the life that you gave them. Which I just as a rescue dog. Mom, I love hearing that.

Sarah Mae 4:06
Yeah.

Stephanie Nelb 4:06
I think it’s so true.

Melissa Byone 4:12
So I am going to this barbecue this weekend. We have to bring something so in a world of people who bring Doritos and other chips and there’s barbecued meats. What do you bring to a barbecue that people actually want to eat? That isn’t terrible for you?

Stephanie Nelb 4:36
I love this question.

Melissa Byone 4:37
I’ll go first so you can’t do mine, but I need another idea because I’m going to two and it’s going to be some of the same people. Um, so typically, what we are new go to is a large vegetable tray. So like carrots, cucumbers, cauliflower, broccoli, snap peas, radish. That’s our go to with some Ranch in the middle.

Stephanie Nelb 5:16
Gotta have something for that unhealthy crowd. Yeah. Yeah. Nice.

Melissa Byone 5:21
So what do you guys do?

Stephanie Nelb 5:24
Yeah, I love this question because I morally have a hard time making something for people that’s not healthy. So I try and tie in, I guess my, my personal food preferences at least a little bit when I go to an event. For a barbecue, I think I would go with either some kind of pineapple or sliced watermelon. Good on a hot day.

Melissa Byone 5:51
Fruit route. All right. All right. Sarah?

Sarah Mae 5:55
It’s a good question. I only bring food that I would eat and I don’t eat a lot of foods. So, because I don’t eat grains. I don’t eat dairy. So I usually, I don’t remember the last time I was at a barbecue, but when I go to things where I need to bring food, I usually bring almond butter cookies that I cook that are grain free and dairy free. And they’re just made with coconut sugar. It’s not really refined sugar in it. Or something else like I might if I am going to a birthday party. Often I’ll bring a cake that I will eat because I want to be able to have a cake. And I won’t eat whatever cake is there. I have made crackers and dip and brought that to events like cashew dip and crackers are pretty easy to make.

Stephanie Nelb 6:11
Really?

Sarah Mae 6:55
Yeah

Stephanie Nelb 6:55
Sounds delicious. Yeah, come on over.

Melissa Byone 7:01
Tell me more about this dip.

Sarah Mae 7:04
Cashew dip is just like you just soak cashews and then you make it with I usually make it with like lemon and garlic. It’s like a lemon garlic dip.

Stephanie Nelb 7:14
Oh, that sounds so good. You’re making me really hungry now.

Sarah Mae 7:18
I was gonna say, we’re gonna make everyone hungry! I also, as a go-to when I don’t want to cook anything, I just want to bring something, I’ll bring apple chips.

Stephanie Nelb 7:31
Hmm. That’s a good idea.

Melissa Byone 7:32
Yeah. That is good. Yeah, they have those at Costco.

Sarah Mae 7:37
Yeah, that’s where I get them.

Melissa Byone 7:41
Okay. So, love it. All right. So we’ve got dip, crackers, fruit. I love that you can get apple chips from Costco. What else? What else do you guys get from Costco? That’s like a good snack like things that you will eat that aren’t like refined. Tons of gluten.

Sarah Mae 8:10
Nothing just ingredients.

Stephanie Nelb 8:13
Yeah, I truthfully don’t go to Costco but I would just get ingredients as well. Just big bags of probably frozen fruits and veggies just for Prep. You got me thinking about that cake though. It definitely sounds good right now. My birthday is actually coming up in a couple months here and one thing I like to make for myself every year because no one would make me a birthday cake that I would actually eat but myself. But I’ve made a carrot cake that has potatoes as the base, sweet potatoes, instead of any sort of grain. So no flour or anything just sweet potato based. And it’s so good. So moist and no, that’s a terrible word and everybody hates it, but the cake is delicious. And it has like, the frosting is made out of, I think lemons. I use monkfruit sweetener instead of coconut sugar. Just because it doesn’t spike your blood sugar. And then there’s a white sweet potato I forget what the exact type of potato is called. But it’s very potato heavy but so tasty.

Melissa Byone 9:38
So is it dense?

Stephanie Nelb 9:41
It is dense. Yeah. So I’ll have like a little piece at a time just because it is very heavy. But it’s it’s so good. So I usually make that every year or there’s a chocolate cake that I’ll make where the base is like the cake itself is also made with a sweet potato base instead of any sort of grain. And then lately in past years, I decided I’ll actually buy storebought frosting that uses coconut sugar as the sweetener. So that’s been pretty tasty lately. It’s my go to.

Sarah Mae 10:28
One of the things that got me cooking in the first place – I used to hate cooking and was super like, like, like food, I could just take it or take it or leave it I don’t really care – but when I switched up my lifestyle and what I choose to eat, I felt like I I wanted to be like, like make things that I could eat and there was this like level of challenge with it. And that challenge was enough just pushed me into that like, like learning edge where I was all of a sudden super motivated to do lots of cooking. So I taught myself how to make a lot of things. And my husband loved it because I went from never cooking to cooking all the time.

Melissa Byone 11:16
So what’s your go-to recipe when it’s like we got to eat now it’s getting late.

Sarah Mae 11:24
In our household, our go-to recipes, are probebly wings and like butternut squash or something.

Stephanie Nelb 11:31
Oooh, love butternut squash.

Sarah Mae 11:33
Yeah, we have an air fryer. And we just salt and pepper on the wings and the butternut squash and put them in there.

Melissa Byone 11:44
That sounds really good. What about you, Steph?

Stephanie Nelb 11:58
Oh, let’s see. I plan out all my meals for the week in advance. And I try and go to the grocery store once for the week. And that never happens. I end up going probably three times a week because I keep forgetting things or I don’t have enough of something. But I would say like if I had to go to where I just really don’t want to think about it. I just need to cook something. You know, it kind of depends on the time of year but I always have frozen meats in my freezer, because I have a butcher box subscription. So usually I’ll just like pull out something quick if I’ve forgotten until like the day of all usually pull out a salmon burger because they have like pre-pattied salmon burgers that they’ll send you. So that’s like an easy, quick thing that thaws relatively quickly. And I’ll just compare that with a veggie like maybe asparagus or some broccoli. So it’s like maybe my most basic What’s your go to?

Melissa Byone 13:08
You guys are way more advanced than I am. Our go-to is egg tacos.

Stephanie Nelb 13:17
Oh, SO good!

Melissa Byone 13:20
Cassava flour tortillas, which we keep in the freezer so we always have some and just stuck up whenever they’re on sale because they’re expensive, and scrambled eggs and avocado.

Stephanie Nelb 13:37
Oh, you have some salsa in there too?

Melissa Byone 13:39
Add some salsa or Tebasco. Yeah, that’s it. That’s the go-to. When it’s like, “Do you feel like cooking?”, “No”, “Egg tacos?”, “Yes.”

Stephanie Nelb 13:58
That’s an awesome go to.

Sarah Mae 14:01
I wish that I could find cassava flour tortillas in the stores. You can find that anywhere. I found cassava. I think I find like grain free taco shells that I get. But no cassava flour. I make cassava soft tortillas. But then it makes making tacos like that more time consuming because I got to make the wraps.

Melissa Byone 14:28
Yeah. Could you make a bunch of pre though?

Sarah Mae 14:31
I probably could have never tried. I don’t know if it would stand up to the freezing.

Melissa Byone 14:37
Yeah.

Stephanie Nelb 14:38
I’ve also made like breakfast tacos, kind of but I’ve used an egg as the shell. So I’ll put like I’ll like mix up an egg. Put it in a skillet. Just leave it so it’s almost omelet style. And then I’ll just put my Um, you know, arugula, or typically some black beans and salsa and some avocado and just put it in that can be difficult to eat depending on what you put in it, but still very tasty.

Melissa Byone 15:15
That’s cool. Biggest thing I miss them, like, being here in Hawaii is tacos, like, love tacos. Like all the time in Texas. So whenever I’m back on the mainland, I’m like, we’re gonna get tacos, tacos.

Sarah Mae 15:40
I make tacos all the time. I use like, I think it’s silly that they even sell like tacos seasoning because it’s so easy to make yourself and you already have all the ingredients. And all the taco seasoning has a bunch of added stuff that you don’t need.

Stephanie Nelb 16:00
What’s the maybe more complex meal that you love to make? So we’ve talked through the simplest like what’s your easy go to as far as you know, what do you do when you’re short on time but when you have the time, what do you really like to make either one of you

Melissa Byone 16:26
Two go-tos I’m no chef here! Um, but to go to this one is a curry, squash based, so we’ll make (gosh it’s hard to like just say it on the spot). But like squash in the oven, few veggies, add curry paste. And then add a whole bunch of coconut cream to make it super thick. Serve over rice.

Stephanie Nelb 17:04
Hmm, that sounds really good.

Melissa Byone 17:07
Yeah, that one and then my other go to I love pasta. So we have this gluten free pasta rice based I think. And I will like have that boiling. And then meanwhile, I’ll chop up like whatever frickin vegetable I can find in the house. Sometimes green beans, mushrooms, onions, broccoli, literally, whatever. Carrots, chop it all up. Heat it up. And then mix that with pasta and add coconut cream. And shrimp.

Stephanie Nelb 17:49
Mmmmm

Melissa Byone 17:51
We keep frozen shrimp in the freezer.

Stephanie Nelb 17:55
Nice. That’s good too.

Melissa Byone 17:57
Those are my go-tos the coconut cream really like takes it to the next level creaminess. It’s a little tricky to work with coconut cream though, cuz you have to let it sit. So like will solidify a little bit otherwise super liquidity.

Stephanie Nelb 18:15
Yeah, I actually keep coconut milk or cans of coconut milk and my fridge and then that way they’re always the you say like the cream part is separated from more of like the coconut water part. So then I just always have it available for me if I need it for a recipe. I’ll make a good like coconut whipped cream kind of for oatmeal and berries and not just put some coconut cream on top. So always have it handy for that.

Melissa Byone 18:52
Yeah, we run out of coconut cream in our grocery store here. So we’ll like stack up like 10 cans at a time

Stephanie Nelb 18:59
How?!?! You have all the coconuts! You’re in Hawaii!!

Melissa Byone 19:04
Right?!

Stephanie Nelb 19:05
That’s where they’re from isnt it!?!

Melissa Byone 19:08
I don’t know you know the global market just there’s just not enough here to feed the world.

Stephanie Nelb 19:15
True. Yeah. What about you Sarah? What’s your go-to if you have time?

Sarah Mae 19:22
Um, if I have time I’ll usually just go on my old Instagram like @wildfoodgram cause when I got into making all sorts of food I shared all the recipes on there. I haven’t shared anything in quite a while but I do get new followers like all the time. It’s my like, best account as far as growing goes and I never post, which says a lot about people wanting to eat healthy food I guess. By just go on there and pick something. So some of the most complicated things on there would be like homemade gnocci. Made with sweet potatoes, or completely made from scratch grain free dairy free lasagna. Another one I really liked I made moussaka. It was like, dairy & grain free.

Stephanie Nelb 20:16
Yeah, that’s awesome. Moussaka in a gluten free stir fry form is actually one of my go-tos as well. That’s really cool.

Melissa Byone 20:27
What is this? I haven’t heard this word.

Stephanie Nelb 20:31
It’s kind of like a Greek lasagna. How would you describe it Sarah?

Sarah Mae 20:35
Yeah, it’s a good way to describe. It’s made with like, eggplant and Bechamel sauce.

Stephanie Nelb 20:48
Usually you have lamb and there is a meat. But you can also use beef.

Sarah Mae 20:54
Usually use beef. Lambs are so cute, I can’t eat them.

Stephanie Nelb 21:01
Yeah, it’s super good though I do it in a stir fry form where I’ll just throw in some veggies. It’s been a little while since I made it but I’ll throw in you know the meat, the spices. I guess I’ve used quite a few veggies in it and just mix it all together. So not quite the same. The signature part of it is when when the meal is complete, you crack an egg and put that on top of it. So that’s part of traditional moussaka as I understand it, and so I’ll usually put a couple eggs, like mixed in towards the end. But I would say my other go to when I have the time is actually very similar to one of yours, Melissa. It’s a Thai coconut curry with chicken and veggies. And then I’ll usually pair it with like a pineapple rice. So I throw in pineapple juice, and like little sliced up pineapple into my pressure cooker with the rice and it’s so tasty.

Melissa Byone 22:11
I could make that tonight!

Stephanie Nelb 22:16
Honestly, I’m kind of jealous. You haven’t had dinner yet? I’m sitting over here at 8pm. Eastern time. And I already had my dinner. But now I’m super hungry as a result of this [convo].

Melissa Byone 22:30
You will be so proud I ate lunch before this.

Sarah Mae 22:33
Yay!!

Melissa Byone 22:38
Yeah.

Stephanie Nelb 22:42
Yeah, it’s always tough when you’re working, which I know is typically your struggle of just working non-stop and not having that chance to take a break. But the benefit of actually stepping away and taking that lunch break can be so beneficial past just having the food in your system, which you also very much need. So I actually like to take a walk with my dog, midday. So I usually do that before I have my lunch. It’s tough, though, sir, to make the time for sure.

Melissa Byone 23:20
Yeah, it’s like, I’m so worried about doing all these other things that are on my list that I don’t take care of myself. And it’s like, I really have to force myself to take care of myself. Like, every day, I remember, like, I gotta take Charlie out. Because he will sit there and look at me like, really? Like, I make sure I take care of him. But not always myself.

Sarah Mae 23:54
So when you look back on your time, are you like, happy that you’ve gotten a bunch of work done and not taking care of yourself? Or do you wish that you could balance more?

Melissa Byone 24:13
Honestly, I feel better about all the things that I done. If I’ve finished something, like if I haven’t been able to finish something, then I feel like negative about it. But if I’m like I checked off six things today, and it’s now three o’clock and I’m finally having lunch like I feel accomplished and like that was worth it. But if it’s three o’clock and I haven’t finished anything and I’ve got six things left on my list then no.

Stephanie Nelb 24:46
Your work I typically ends at three is that right?

Melissa Byone 24:51
Um, I mean it varies kind of depending on when I start yeah.

Stephanie Nelb 25:02
Yeah, it’s kind of a, it seems like a little bit of a unique situation for you since you do have arguably a, an earlier stop time than some other people. So I get why you kind of just push through and then have a later lunch just because at that point you’re done for the day. So

Melissa Byone 25:20
yeah, yeah, it helps. Yeah.

Stephanie Nelb 25:24
Well, all this talk of food is making me really hungry. I’m having all sorts of ideas of what I’m going to make for the coming days now.

Sarah Mae 25:34
You gonna have a snack?

Stephanie Nelb 25:36
I might have to have a snack after this.

Melissa Byone 25:40
Well, I thank you guys for your amazing ideas. I think now I’m going to show up with a fruit tray and a vegetable tray. I’ll have to I’ll have to practice the baking the sweet thinks

Sarah Mae 25:56
The almond butter cookies are seriously super easy to it’s like five ingredients. You just throw them in, that’s in.

Melissa Byone 26:02
How do you make them? Ready, go!

Sarah Mae 26:05
It’s a cup of almond butter, three quarters of a cup of coconut sugar, one teaspoon of baking soda, one teaspoon of vanilla, and either an egg or if you want it to be vegan, you can do a chia seed egg. And you just mix it all together. And then you roll it out in like one inch balls and press them down and cook them at 350 degrees for 11 or 12 minutes. There you go.

Stephanie Nelb 26:35
You heard it here first, folks.

Melissa Byone 26:38
Almond Butter Cookies!

Sarah Mae 26:40
They are always a hit!

Stephanie Nelb 26:43
We’ll have to put the recipe in the blog post for this podcast.

Sarah Mae 26:48
We can do that.

Melissa Byone 26:49
Yeah.

Stephanie Nelb 26:51
Well, I think we have lots of healthy ideas as a result of today. Lots for each of us to take back and hopefully something for our listeners here as well. Does this feel like a good place to end for today?

Sarah Mae 27:04
Yeah

Melissa Byone 27:05
I think it does.

Stephanie Nelb 27:07
All right

Sarah Mae 27:09
Get your weekend started?!

Stephanie Nelb 27:11
Yeah, let’s do it.

Melissa Byone 27:14
All right. Well, thank you everyone for listening. Like, subscribe, follow us.

Stephanie Nelb 27:21
Leave us a review.

Melissa Byone 27:24
Until next time

 

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Episode Resources

Recipes:

https://www.instagram.com/wildfoodfgram

Great Ted Talk on Sugar:

https://youtu.be/tic7X3ET4gE