Stop Chasing Perfection: An Inside Look at Health Coaching - Session 1 Joanna

Megan McCrory00:00:00

From the Swiss Cast Network.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:00:02

Hi, I'm Donna Levy Hoffman.

Megan McCrory00:00:04

And I'm Megan McCrory.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:00:05

Welcome to so Freaking Healthy, the podcast where women's health gets real.

Megan McCrory00:00:10

Whether you're healing, thriving, or still figuring your shit out, you're in the right place. Hey, there. Just a reminder, this is a series of six episodes. You'll hear actual coaching conversations between Donna and a client.Here's what we hope you get by listening to this coaching series. We want you to see how coaching helps someone work through real health challenges.We want you to learn tools and strategies you can apply to your own health journey. We want you to understand what it's like to work with a health coach. And maybe, just maybe, you'll recognize yourself in some of these conversations.Joanna is a woman in her early 40s, navigating the kind of health challenges so many of you tell us about. You'll hear Joanna's coaching journey unfold across six sessions.If you're just hopping into the middle of this series, check out the link in the show notes for our special playlist so you can start at the beginning of Joanna's health coaching journey. We appreciate her vulnerability in sharing her story and being so open about her health struggles.Make sure you're subscribed to so Freaking Healthy in your favorite podcast app so you don't miss any of these sessions. Or you could head over to our website, sofreakinhealthy.com and sign up for our email list to get notified when each new episode drops.All right, let's get into it.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:01:35

Joanna, how's it going? What's new?

"Joanna"00:01:38

Hey, good, thanks. I'm excited for some health coaching.Have a lot of topics brewing in the back of my mind that I'm interested to talk about, but also interested to get started. And yeah, walk me through it.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:01:52

That's awesome. I'm super excited as well. I was wondering, we had a couple of calls before we decided to work together, and I was quite curious.Since our last call, did you have anything pop up, like worries, concerns, things that you were super excited to tackle, or things that you were like, ooh, I hope this doesn't come up.

"Joanna"00:02:15

Nothing that I hope doesn't come up.I think just the same worries and questions that have been swirling for the past couple of years just sort of intensified, and I'm excited to do this. So there's also this little bit of anxiety of, like, what are we going to talk about?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:02:34

What is she going to say?

"Joanna"00:02:35

Am I doing it all wrong? I mean, health is so complex and there's so much information out there that I sometimes get a bit overwhelmed.And, you know, I'm pretty have a scientific training as a background, so I always think, like, okay, I would love to see the data on this, but there's so many aspects to it that I don't even feel like I have the time to dive into.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:02:58

Yeah, yeah. And there's a lot more to that. Right? I mean, like, with research, there's also. Who is actually sponsoring this.

"Joanna"00:03:04

Exactly, exactly. Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:03:06

So I totally understand that worry and concern, and I love that that's something that you were concerned about, because that means that you really want kind of facts, Right. You want things that actually will work. And I have. And I have exciting news.

"Joanna"00:03:21

Okay, give it to me.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:03:23

What works for you is not going to work for someone else, and vice versa. And that is why when it comes to health, that's so convoluting. It's because there's a reason why we have different thumbprints.Every single person on earth has a different thumbprint. And there's no reason why our gut would be different or our reaction to different things would be the same.So that's the good news is you are your own scientific experiment, end of one, and we will do it together. Exactly. And we're going to go through it together, and I will support you through it. And, you know, we can see what works and what doesn't.The other good news, because I feel like you're like, oh, crap, what does that even mean? The other good news is that there is definitely a baseline that is helpful for everyone. Right. Eating more vegetables.Everyone needs to eat more vegetables. Everyone needs more fiber in their life. Or not eating processed food and processed sugar, obviously that's going to just support our health.But what we're going to do is just take really small, slow steps forward and see how you feel and see how you do so that the process doesn't overwhelm you either. Because the last thing I want is for you to walk around saying, like, well, I don't eat pizza because Donna told me so.But rather, rather, you know, I don't eat pizza because I realized after doing some changes and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that I don't feel well afterwards or something like that. I'm just picking on pizza. Everyone loves pizza. Almost everyone loves pizza. So I'm just picking on it.You know, it's just like saying broccoli for healthy. But in general, we're going to take it slow.We're going to really make sure that the steps that we're taking are sustainable, so that even if it's a little bit, it's going to make a big impact at the end, regardless of what we're doing and how. How we're doing.

"Joanna"00:05:12

Excellent.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:05:13

Excellent. Okay.

"Joanna"00:05:14

And I love the idea of regular coaching sessions as a sort of touch point, like just to keep me on track, where I can try something out for a couple of weeks and then come back. And we have a little bit of a structure where we can look back together and say, well, how do you feel after trying that?Is it something that you want to keep? I.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:05:36

They.

"Joanna"00:05:37

I tend to try things on my own, but then I. I don't have the discipline all the time to keep up or even reflect on. Hey, does this help me? Do I feel better when I do this or not? So, yeah, a little bit of external accountability.And accountability, Buddy, let's say, is always really helpful.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:05:57

Yes.

"Joanna"00:05:57

Perfect.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:05:58

Yeah. And please, please, please don't forget, we can communicate in between these calls on WhatsApp.So if you feel like something is, you know, I don't know, two, three days after our call, you're like, dude, this is not. This is. No, it doesn't work or it's too much or it's not enough or whatever.Whatever comes in the way, make sure to let me know so those two weeks are not wasted in a way.

"Joanna"00:06:24

Okay.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:06:24

So that we can kind of work through it and workshop it throughout the time that we're in touch and not just wait two whole weeks and go, like, I'm such a failure. I didn't do that. You know, it's just all of those negative feelings come up, and that's the last thing I want.You're gonna do your best, I'm gonna do my best, and that's the best. Okay. So we don't need anything more than that.

"Joanna"00:06:45

Okay. Okay, Cool. Hey, before we really dive in, I kind of had a question around, like, getting the most out of coaching.I wanted to know, from your experience, what do your clients who really seem to get the most out of it, what do they do? I mean, what lessons can I learn from your experiences around how do I get the most out of these sessions?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:07:10

Yeah, that's a really good and loaded question, and I'll explain why. Because again, everyone's different, and there's not one. I've worked.I've been doing this for, like, a decade, and I've been working with so many people, and I really can't think of even two that were kind of going in the same pace the Same way, tackling the same things. So it is hard to answer that. But what I can tell you is this.If you are in touch with me and you just do your best, and do your best does not mean do a hundred percent, not at all. But be gentle with yourself. So know that what you're doing is the best that you can do in the given time that you have.And with the other million balls that you're juggling in the air, like work, like relationship, like kids. You have three whole kids.

"Joanna"00:08:03

Yes.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:08:04

Which is a lot.With all of that considered, I need you to just be gentle with yourself and try to focus on the things that you do manage to do rather than on the things that you didn't manage to do. Okay?

"Joanna"00:08:17

Okay.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:08:19

My job in all of this is to help you to find very reasonable goals to tackle throughout the two weeks that you have coming up. Okay. So I'm never going to tell you. Okay, listen, you have two weeks now.Today you're going to go into your kitchen, you're going to throw away everything, and then you're going to start cooking from scratch. Three meals a day, and you're going to make sure to not eat this and not eat that, and you're like, oh, my God, this is not going to work. Right.Rather, we're going to talk about very small things that we're going to do.And so it keeps the motivation up and helps you feel a little bit better so that you're motivated enough to take on something else next week or in two weeks where you can actually also tackle and keep what you've worked on in the last two weeks. Does that make sense?

"Joanna"00:09:10

So be gentle with myself. Small wins.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:09:13

Got it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Just. Just love yourself. Appreciate yourself for even doing this. Okay. Because a lot of people don't.And I'm sure you were kind of stuck in that realm as well, where, oh, I need that help, but I don't know, and I don't have the time or I don't have the energy. I don't have. Whatever. And so again, you come back to beating yourself up.I can't do this or I'm not good enough dialogue is usually in our head, unfortunately, especially for women.

"Joanna"00:09:41

I'm familiar with that one.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:09:43

Yeah, I'm sure. So, you know, that's what I want to kind of eradicate. I want us to focus on your wins, and I want you to focus on just doing whatever you can.That's the best that you can. And again, it doesn't have to be crazy.

"Joanna"00:09:57

Sounds good. Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:10:00

Does that kind of like calm you

"Joanna"00:10:01

down a little bit? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is the way that I would want to tackle. Not tackle my health, but approach my health, let's say.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:10:09

There you go. See, you're already using gentler language, so that's really good.

Megan McCrory00:10:13

Yes.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:10:14

Yeah. No more tackling. Excellent. So tackling on the football team.So I remember when we spoke about your health history, when we reviewed it, you were talking about generally wanting to feel strong, live without pain, work on kind of like memory and concentration, weight balancing. You mentioned a little bit about kind of sleep, sometimes not being able to go back to sleep. So.So let's talk a little bit about those things and see where we want to start because we want to come out of this call today with anything between one to three small goals for you to work on the next couple of weeks and see how that works for you.

"Joanna"00:11:02

Okay, Sounds good.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:11:05

I know it's not what you probably thought I would start with, but let's talk about your sleep. Okay. What can you tell me about your sleep? How is it in general?

"Joanna"00:11:18

So, historically I've been a very good sleeper. I like to get a little more sleep than I would say the average person.I feel really good with eight and a half hours, sometimes nine of sleep a night. And I have a pretty stable bedtime routine. Like to be in bed around 10, asleep between 10:30 and 11, and then up at 7.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:11:46

Okay.

"Joanna"00:11:47

Yeah. And so that was always kind of sacrosanct to me. And then. Yeah, after.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:11:54

And then the kids.

"Joanna"00:11:55

Exactly, exactly. So the first one was not too bad. I think I even slept more after she came along.But it was after the twins and turning 4:40 and sort of this transitionary time. And we did sleep train our twins, so they are in general very good sleepers. But yeah, I just found myself waking up around 2.I'd go to the bathroom and then I would be awake for an hour. I always. So even my bedtime routine is also very. I don't want to say rigid, but it's a. It's a very solid routine.You know, I lie in my bed, I've got my Kindle, and I read my books until I fall asleep. So if I'm up in the middle of the night, I'll usually lie down and close my eyes and try to go back to sleep.And then if after about 15 minutes I'm not asleep, then I'll read until I do feel sleepy again. And it was getting really bad about a year ago and finally went to my gynecologist and she said, try taking progesterone.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:14:08

That can help.

"Joanna"00:14:08

If your progesterone is low, it can cause you to have trouble going back to sleep. So I did that for one month, and it really helped with the sleep. And then I sort of. Well, you're supposed to start on the 15th day of your cycle.And my cycle is not always regular. And so then the second month, it, like, took extra time for, you know, me to get my period.And then I noticed that I still wasn't having trouble going back to sleep, so I just stopped taking it. And it seems to have evened out somewhat.Now I say, I would say maybe once a month, I'll be up for an hour in the middle of the night due to having gotten up to go to the bathroom. Sometimes if I'm woken up by the kids and then, like, someone has vomited in the bed and have to clean the carpet or whatever, then I'm really awake.Yep. But I wouldn't say that's, like, caused by my body. So it's been okay so far, I think, the last couple of nights.You know, I've got my little sleep tracker, my wearable here. So been getting good, solid sleep, so that's kind of where I'm at. Yeah, I'm not feeling like sleep is an urgent problem. Could be improved.My watch says I don't get enough REM sleep, but I feel rested in the morning, so I'm not going to live by my watch saying, you didn't get a good night's sleep when I feel like I got a good night's sleep, if that makes sense.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:15:32

Yeah, sure.

Megan McCrory00:15:34

Remember, every step you take toward better health is a win, and you are absolutely crushing it. Sharing our podcast with a friend will help them crush it, too. All right, can we talk about the urban cleanse for a minute?Because I've literally watched Donna transform women's lives with this thing. Stop. No, I'm serious. Like, women who came in saying, I've tried everything and then they actually figured out what works for their bodies.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:16:05

That's the thing. It's not a diet. It's not a lose 10 pounds in 10 days gimmick.It's about understanding your body, what fuels you, what drains you, what makes you feel like a human instead of a zombie.

Megan McCrory00:16:16

And you can eat real food.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:16:18

You can absolutely still eat real food. This is not about deprivation. It's about re education. Learning to work with your body instead of against it.

Megan McCrory00:16:28

So if you're tired of the diet

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:16:30

hamster wheel, hop off and Check out Organolicious Ch. Urban Cleanse.

Megan McCrory00:16:36

Your future self is already thanking you.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:16:39

It really is so excellent. I'm glad that we put that aside.You're saying like, I get good sleep, kids are asleep, we don't need to put anyone down, we don't need to kick anyone out. And we're, we're happy waking up. So that's really, really good. And I do love your sleep routine. It's very supportive to, to good, solid sleep.So let's move on. Excellent. I just wanted to say just one thing or, or ask just one thing. Do you feel that when you. That once a month.And I'm quite curious if it's always on the, around the same time of your cycle or the moon cycle or whatever it is. Right, but that's something just to, to investigate on your own.

"Joanna"00:17:25

I'm certain it probably is, but I haven't tracked it. I mean, I could probably go back into my, into my tracker data and have a look and see.I think that it's probably related to hormone fluctuations, but I haven't confirmed that. But I have the sense, so just. I also try not to drink too much water before bed. So that can also affect it if I'm thirsty at night or something.But I don't know, sometimes I get up and I go and then I fall back asleep, no problem. So I'm leaning towards the hormonal.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:18:00

I mean culprit probably, probably. But let's move on so that we are tackling more juicy stuff.

"Joanna"00:18:07

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:18:07

Tell me a little bit about how you feel about your diet. And of course when I mean diet, I just mean the day to day eating experience. We don't really do diets. What is your focus around food?Is it okay, energy?We need to feed, you know, a whole bunch of people now and we need to do it, I don't know, maybe cheaply or make sure that there's all the components on the plate and every meal. Like how does that, how does that organize in your head?

"Joanna"00:18:38

Yeah, it's a whole thing really. I mean there's food for me, there's how I feed my kids. How that not really necessarily what I want to be eating, I will say.So first of all, I would prefer to eat more home cooked meals than I do. I think that we crutch a lot on delivery or going out to eat when we don't feel like cooking.I'm not as good as I want to be about packing lunch for work, for example. So luckily there's a bakery just down the road And I'll run down there. And they have really nice salads, which feels pretty healthy.Or there's a nice. The sort of restaurant they make vegan food and it feels like very nourishing, like these bowls with chili and brown rice and stuff.That feels like a good option. I would like to be better at packing my own lunches and cooking more. When I do cook, I try to also cook very nourishing meals.And luckily I have kids who really like lentils and they really like beans, they like peas and edamame and stuff. But they also really like noodles with butter.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:20:26

Oh, who doesn't? Normal.

"Joanna"00:20:28

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:20:30

What about meat and fish? Do you guys consume that or not so much?

"Joanna"00:20:34

So I try not to eat too much meat, but I do eat fish. And so we try to do tinned fish, mostly small fish, not big fish. And my older daughter has become vegetarian for the past eight, nine months.I'm a little bit worried about her nutrition. She started getting like, some sores on her skin that are taking a long time to heal.And I'm thinking maybe you're not getting some vitamins that you need to get. So we're working on that as well. My little ones love meat, so they eat a lot, but I don't tend to cook it too much at home. So.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:21:13

Yeah.

"Joanna"00:21:14

And we switched from cow's milk over to oat milk.So I mean, I try to be a little bit, I guess, like climate conscious with food, but I don't know, there's all this stuff, like you need more protein when you get older. And I kind of feel like this is overblown, but I don't know really what to think about it.I recently, you know, I started doing intermittent fasting and so I'll stop eating around 6:30 and then wait until lunchtime and just have, you know, coffee and water and tea in the morning. And I think that has been. Has been very interesting because I noticed I just stopped craving sweets and chocolate completely.So I saw that it had this impact on my sugar cravings, which was good because I used to have a really. Or I do have a really strong sweet tooth, like chocolate tucked in every little drawer. So, yeah, I.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:22:11

How long have you been doing that? How long have you been doing the intermittent fasting?

"Joanna"00:22:14

About six weeks maybe.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:22:17

Yeah. Okay. And is it daily or is it just a few times a week?

"Joanna"00:22:20

I do it during the week and then usually on the weekends from like Saturday to Sunday. I don't do it, Megan.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:22:27

Sometimes I get tired of hearing my own voice.

"Joanna"00:22:30

Yeah. I get tired of your voice.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:22:32

Too rude. But you know what would be really awesome? Hearing our listeners voices.

"Joanna"00:22:39

Yes.

Megan McCrory00:22:40

Hey friends, friends. Let's make Donna's dream come true. Click on the link in the show notes and leave us up to a 60 second voicemail.

"Joanna"00:22:48

Saw something funny or insightful?

Megan McCrory00:22:50

Leave a comment or ask a question. Who knows, maybe your voice will be heard on our next episode. Love that friendly reminder that good enough is actually good enough.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:23:06

Okay, great. So you tackled a couple of things that I would love to bring up and then maybe we can focus on those for the next couple of weeks.So you did mention, I don't know, about the protein. Is it necessary? Is it not? It's very necessary.Okay, so one of the, let's just say that our bodies, what they actually need is protein and fiber, you know, like vegetables and whatever source of protein you choose to have, whether it's like quinoa and beans and lentils and whatever, or it's meat and fish and eggs. You guys consume eggs?

"Joanna"00:23:43

Yeah, I really like, eggs are so so on them. So I typically don't serve them with

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:23:49

meals, but yeah, but you can enjoy them. Okay, perfect. So, so that's also really good information and about your daughter as well.I'm going to just put it out there just because I've gone through the process that you're going through with the whole like, you know, environmentally consc? And everything. And unfortunately for me, when I was nearly vegan, so I was eating butter and I was eating eggs because I'm egg obsessed.But otherwise we were pretty much, pretty much vegan, healthy vegan. Right. So we were, I was at home cooking. This was over a decade ago. And then I found out that I can't break any of the other proteins except for meat.And so for me, it, it brought me to this realization and again, it doesn't mean that it's right if it's correct for you or your family. I'm just kind of bringing you another kind of direction to think about. For me, it was a huge realization.I would walk around with my kids and go like, oh, look at that cute little lamb, poor thing, someone's going to eat it. You know, to consuming mainly meat as protein intake.And for me it was just the scale of like, it's great that I need to take care of the world, but if I'm not around or if I'm sick or if I'm inflamed and I'm miserable the whole time, am I really doing good by. By eating lentils? Not really?So for me, it was just this kind of like wake up call of, okay, wait, yes, it's good for the world, it's good for the environment. But for me, through rigid testings and working with a lot of functional medicine experts, I just realized it just wasn't true to my world.I'm just saying all of that because you did mention your daughter and that you kind of see a correlation maybe to, you know, healing and, and her becoming vegetarian and stuff like that. So literal food for thought. I'm not gonna go into that more.I'm just gonna say, yes, protein has a lot of weights that we need to really make sure that we're getting enough protein in our diet more than anything else. Of course, fibers are important, obviously, but a perfect meal would be rather protein and vegetables instead of carbon vegetables.But do you see what I mean?

"Joanna"00:26:01

But let me dig into this a little bit because you're talking about you were feeling when you couldn't digest, or you said you couldn't break down anything other than meat protein. So I'm assuming this means you couldn't, you couldn't break down the protein chains and make use of them in your body. Right?So do I understand that correctly?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:26:20

Yes, but the.

"Joanna"00:26:21

Was it.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:26:22

You do, but it wasn't my digestion that was showing it.

"Joanna"00:26:24

So what does it look like I was showing? Okay, yeah, tell me, tell me, what were you, what were you seeing?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:26:29

Yeah, it's different for every person.

"Joanna"00:26:30

What would a person see if they are not getting the amount of protein that they need?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:26:36

It's different for every person. So it could manifest itself in many, many different ways. Some people feel it with inflammation. Okay, Just low grade constant chronic inflammation.Some people will feel it. Some people will feel it with. Do you see what I mean?So, yeah, but, but if we name all of the things that you can say, like these are my symptoms, we can correlate it to a hundred different things. And that's why it's so difficult. And that's why I started the call saying, like, it's so freaking difficult to figure out what is what.What's the chicken, what's the egg, what's the cause? We can find out by doing a lot of expensive tests. But I don't think we need to do that at the moment. I think we can take it one step at a time.And I'm just kind of like putting some seeds in your head to see, like, okay, you know what we're doing. All of that. I didn't necessarily see or feel a big difference with the 10 things that are on my top list of symptoms.Okay, let's now think about what we can do next. Okay. So it's again, it's more kind of for the long run, but I just wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't tell you, like, you know.Yeah, I would love for the entire world to be vegan, honestly. I think it's a beautiful movement, and I think it's a beautiful idealism behind it and everything. But it's not for everyone, unfortunately.And a lot of people get sicker. So it's just, you know, it's just to keep that in mind.And you also mentioned the intermittent fasting, and I would love for that to be maybe the goal for the next couple of weeks, because there's definitely great ways to do intermittent fasting and definitely ways that kind of don't necessarily help you.So we need to know how to go into the fast, what to do during the fast, and how to break the fast in order to make the intermittent fasting the most effective for you.

"Joanna"00:28:24

Okay.

Megan McCrory00:28:25

Yeah.

"Joanna"00:28:25

Okay, let's talk about that. That sounds like a good goal for

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:28:28

the next two weeks. Excellent. I'm glad. So I'll give you kind of the idea and the gist around it, and then we can talk about the hows in intermittent fasting.If we want to support our body properly, we want to make sure that our meal before going into the fast is rather low on carbohydrates, especially simple carbohydrates. So if we're talking about more brown rice rather than white rice, that's better. Carbs in form of lentils and legumes.Those are actually carbs as well. Those would be better because they're a protein as well and a lot of fiber and good quality fat. Okay.Those three things are going to keep you satiated and going to keep your body happier and your gut happier and your glucose levels more steady and help you through the fasting. Okay. So when you know that the next day you're going to fast and you're now having your last meal, right, you want to focus on that.You want to focus on making sure that you have your protein of choice. You have a poopload of vegetables, poopload of protein, really nice, good quality fat.So if you're cooking with ghee or coconut oil, if you're drizzling olive oil on your food, those are all going to be supportive. If you're taking Omega 3 as a supplement, that would be good to take in the evening.

Megan McCrory00:29:53

Before.

"Joanna"00:29:54

Okay.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:29:54

And take it in the evening. All of those things are going to help. Sure. When you're fasting, that's just extra support.

"Joanna"00:29:58

Okay.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:29:59

You can also take in the morning. It's not, it's just like, if you're taking it, might as well take it in the evening. That's an extra form of good health.

Megan McCrory00:30:05

Okay.

"Joanna"00:30:06

I don't take it every day. Day, but I can, I can definitely look into taking it with dinner during the fast.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:30:11

You're doing it. Right. So coffee, I assume, is just black coffee, no sweeteners and. No.

"Joanna"00:30:16

I have a little bit of oat milk in there.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:30:18

Okay. So the oat milk is a car.

"Joanna"00:30:20

Yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:30:22

Oats are carbohydrate. So if you can try, I can send you a recipe of something called bulletproof coffee.

Megan McCrory00:30:29

Oh, yeah.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:30:30

Crazy people putting butter. So I know it sounds terrible, and it took me probably like, it literally took me like seven years until I got into it.I, I, it takes me a really long time. I don't do fads.I just research the shit out of things and then finally try and then find, you know, it took me a very long time to get into bulletproof coffee. I'm addicted, so I have it every morning. I have like half a liter.Adding butter, coconut oil, MCT oil to the coffee and frothing it a makes it basically milky. Right. So it's as if you're adding milk, but you're actually adding fat. Right. So you're adding good, healthy fat, which gives you energy.Our brain is 70% fat. It needs fat. So we need to make sure that that fat is healthy and that we're getting sufficient amounts.And it sounds counterproductive, but fat does not make us fat. But that's a version of a coffee that you can have.I usually tell people, add some cinnamon, add some cardamom, some, I don't know, like just extra flavors in there that will not make it. Oh, my God, she just ruined my coffee. I hate Donna. Which you will for a couple, couple of times during our, our work together.

"Joanna"00:31:44

Right. Donna, don't come for my coffee, please.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:31:47

Fine. I know, right? So, so listen, get, try, try to see and don't do it during the fast today.If you have a second coffee during the day, try that instead of doing it when you're like, oh, I need my coffee. And now it's different, and I hate her. Just try it today as a snack in a way and see how you feel.Just make sure to froth it, because if you don't froth it you have hot coffee and very hot fat laying on top, you're going to burn your mouth, you're going to hate me even more and it's not going to be delicious. You have to make sure it's like

"Joanna"00:32:21

kind of frothy thingy.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:32:23

Yeah, One of those 5 franc, 10 franc ones is the best.

"Joanna"00:32:26

And how much coconut oil are we talking here? Like a spoon?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:32:30

Tablespoonful? Teaspoonful? Yeah, like a tablespoon. I would say a tablespoon of even each. You can do. So coconut oil and butter or MCT oil.The water doesn't have to be boiling hot so that the butter doesn't lose some of its good components. But generally, yes, just a tablespoon of each. I'll send you the recipe.What's most important about the intermittent fasting is how you break the fast. Because if you break it with high carb, you're not doing yourself a favor.The idea about breaking a fast is either having some bone broth to sip on or having some protein.Even hard boiled eggs or whatever form of eggs that you want, even if it's half an hour before your actual meal and then you're eating your rice and whatever, that's already going to be better for your body and how you introduce food. Because if we go into a whole meal or worse, even as a salad, after the body didn't eat for so long, then it's very hard for it to digest.It's not able to absorb nutrients and we're just, again, we're not really doing ourselves a favor.So starting with something a bit more simple like eggs or like chicken breast, and then within the next 20, 30 minutes, you can have a meal that would actually be a lot more supportive to your gut.

"Joanna"00:33:52

Okay. All right, I'll try it.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:33:53

What do you think? Is that something, something good to, to kind of focus on for the next couple of weeks?

"Joanna"00:33:58

Yeah, that sounds doable. I think I can bring, I'm just thinking like, how am I going to do this at the office?But I mean, I think I can bring myself a little frother and some coconut oil and some hard boiled eggs to keep in the fridge there.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:34:12

And luckily in Switzerland they sell hard boiled eggs, Easter, hard boiled eggs year round. Exactly.And for the coffee, what I sometimes do is I, I just have a thermos and I just, I, I will froth it before I leave home, but then before I open the thermos to drink, I just shake it like a mad woman and let it and, and really gently open it so it doesn't spray hot coffee all over you. So just do it gently. But it works as well. It will refroth it. So it is definitely doable.Just try it first, tell me if you love it or hate it, and then we can move forward and they'll send you an idea of how that goes.

"Joanna"00:34:50

Okay, perfect. Yeah. Okay, let's try that.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:34:52

Yeah. So, Joanna, how do you. How do you feel after our first call?

"Joanna"00:34:57

So I feel relieved, but, you know, I'm not gonna have to turn my whole life upside down to be healthier. I don't know. Sort of the analytical side of my brain really likes to have a sort of simple and concrete goal.And I think I want to know what should I be focusing on in terms of seeing whether these changes are making an impact? Like, what can I expect a protein rich lunch to do for me or like a proper meal before my fast and a proper meal after my fast.Like, what changes should I be looking for?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:35:35

So you want to see what your energy levels are like, you know, if you usually have that slump in the afternoon or if you usually feel heavy after a meal, you know, so those are the things we'll also talk about. I don't usually talk about portion control, but we'll talk more about kind of like how we eat our food, also the order in which we eat our food.So there are still a lot of changes to be made, but I think just with that, to see how you're digesting, how you feel after your first meal after breaking the fast and how your body is reacting to it, you might not feel much because again, I don't know how different it is right now. So it might be that you're doing it relatively okay, but just I would say more energy level and digestion okay. Really okay at the moment.

"Joanna"00:36:22

Yeah, I can look at those. All right. Yeah, I feel like we have some awesome. We have some doable changes here. And now I have some concrete outcomes to look for.And yeah, I'm excited to continue our conversation in two weeks.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:36:36

Awesome. Me too. Lots of luck, Joanna. I'm sure you'll do fine. But don't forget, just be in touch with me throughout and just let me know how things are going.And yeah, we'll tackle more next time.

"Joanna"00:36:50

All right, sounds good. See you then.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:36:52

All right, bye.

Megan McCrory00:36:55

This podcast is a production of the Swisscast Network, amplifying English speaking voices in for and about Switzerland. Learn more@swisscast.network One more thing.If you want to hear Megan and Donna debrief after each session and talk about the coaching strategies that were being used. Check out our other podcasts called Becoming a Health Coach. We'll be breaking down each session over there.

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:37:21

Okay, we need your help with something.

Megan McCrory00:37:23

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Danna Levy Hoffmann00:37:40

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