Heal Your Relationship with Food (with Shelley Loving)

[Dana] (00:02)
Welcome to Phoenix and Flame. I’m Dana and this is my podcast on pushing through and transforming even when you feel like a pile of ash. Today we have a fabulous guest with us. Her name is Shelley Loving. Now Shelley’s husband had a heart attack in 2014. And then three years later, she had a yearning to learn more about a healthy and holistic lifestyle.

[Dana] (00:33)
She attended the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and received her certification as an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. Now that set her on a path wanting more food education. So in 2019 she attended the Academy for Culinary Nutrition where she became a certified culinary nutrition expert. Her love for learning kept growing and in the summer of 2021 she became a certified professional cook from the Ruby Online Culinary School. Shelley, welcome to Phoenix and Flame.

[Shelley Loving] (01:11)
Thank you so much for having me. I am honored to be here.

[Dana] (01:16)
I am really excited about the conversation we’re going to have. And I noticed that some of the bio information you shared about yourself was that you embrace the flexibility and the ability to show yourself grace and unconditional love, and that that is a pillar for your teaching, that you want to show yourself patience, open-mindedness and grace. When I was reading information about you, particularly considering what my podcast is about and what I do for a living, I was really drawn to that role in terms of what you do and how unconditional love and grace come into play. Could you share with us a little bit more about where you’re coming from with that angle?

[Shelley Loving] (02:00)
Absolutely. I truly believe, so the reason that I do what I do, which is teach people how to just cook healthier meals, is because my husband almost died. So when I started going through our journey, I was really learning how emotionally connected we all are to food. It’s the one thing every human on this planet has in common. We all have to eat, but we don’t just eat to stay alive. Most of us, especially in America, we eat for pleasure.

[Shelley Loving] (02:30)
We eat when we’re sad. We eat with our hormones. We eat with our stress. And so as I was going through this journey, I realized through my own relationship with food, although I was trying to heal my husband, that adhering to a strict meal plan or a strict diet or counting calories and carbs, none of that worked for me personally. I went to school because I wanted to learn the science part, learn what we should and shouldn’t be eating, and I wanted to connect it on an emotional level so that we still wanted to eat the food and could still enjoy it while getting healthier. So it worked. As my husband ironically was starting to feel better, his blood work was coming back better and his EKGs were clearing up, I realized that because I was eating what I was feeding him, I was also healing.

[Shelley Loving] (03:30)
That’s when the light bulb moment went off and I said, okay, there’s something to this, and not enough people are talking about this, and I want to help more people see this without the restrictions I’ve been able to see it without. That’s when I decided to create a business and go down this path and this passion of really trying to help people in a positive way learn ways to get healthier through the foods that they eat, without a bunch of restrictions and diets and counting and shame and guilt and all of those things. I wanted to push those out of the way and break the barriers and make it fun, yet simple and quick, because I know how busy people are. But in order to eat healthier, you’ve got to set a little bit of time aside, make some meals, and they can be delicious. So I’m here to prove all of that.

[Dana] (04:20)
Wow, so you seem to have hit on a lot of the spots. Something that’s quick, you seem very reality-based in addressing these things, that people don’t like a lot of the sacrificial things where they have to give up, the deprivation, but they’re very busy, so what do you do? And also on the emotional connection, I don’t know, I mean myself, I have experienced this and I’ve talked to so many people, when you’re having a really awful day, I’m just going to say from personal experience,

[Dana] (04:50)
I could eat my way down through a mountain of donuts. And so it’s just, that’s what you want to do. It’s what comes to mind. It’s like, you think that’s going to make it, you feel all better. So help us understand from your perspective and everything you’ve learned, how can people shift that emotion and that emotional desire for something that is so sugar-filled or so carb-filled?

[Shelley Loving] (04:52)
Amen. So I feel like there’s a two-part answer to that. Number one, it is okay to indulge every now and then. I never teach restriction. I never teach never eat a donut again, because that again is going to set us up for shameful eating or guilt-ridden eating. So let’s say you have a bad day and you go and indulge in a donut and then you feel guilty. I don’t want that feeling for

[Shelley Loving] (05:45)
my clients. I want them to eat that donut and enjoy it. But my job is to teach them the other side of it: when you’re not eating those donuts, what you should be eating and what you should be making. So I like to tell people about the 80-20 rule. 80% of the time, let’s go for those really great, healthy, nutrient-rich foods and recipes, the foods that are going to serve us well.

[Shelley Loving] (06:15)
A bad day, a party with your girlfriends, a vacation, whenever you have those, save those for your 20%. So it is okay to have those things every now and then, but our society and the standard American diet has skewed so far from real whole food that we don’t even know what it is anymore. So I’m trying to reintroduce that and get back to the basics, all while indulging every now and then on the foods that we do like.

[Dana] (06:45)
That sounds wonderful, the 80-20 rule. So I’m listening to what you’re saying and imagining what my listeners might be thinking or wondering. And one of the first things is going to be about convenience, because like you said earlier, we are all so, so busy. Much more busy than we probably need to be, but we’re going mock to earth, hair on fire. So what are some ideas that you have

[Dana] (07:15)
for some comfort and security in knowing that they have a plan? Because this is about anxiety as well, because I’ve talked to quite a few people where if they have a plan for something, if they understand how something works and they have a plan for it, then the anxiety comes down. They’re not so anxiety-ridden. So I’m wondering what a plan would be for someone who has several children they’re running around to different places,

[Shelley Loving] (07:19)
Sure.

[Dana] (07:46)
What are some of your suggestions? What could their plan be?

[Shelley Loving] (07:48)
So to start from ground zero, my first statement to that question would be: where on your priority list, if you were to get out a piece of paper and write down your top 10 priorities, does your food intake land? You have work, kids, schedule, church, you have all the things, getting your nails done,

[Shelley Loving] (08:18)
your husband’s business meetings, business dinners, vacations, you have all these priorities, right? But how often do you actually take the time to put your health, in regard to what you eat, toward the top of that priority list? That is where it should be, because without our health, we don’t have the other priorities in line. If we don’t put our bodies as a temple and feed it real whole foods, how are those other things going to fall into place? How are you going to have a successful career? How are you going to do all the things that are important to you if your health is not there? I’m a true believer that our health starts in the kitchen. It doesn’t start at the doctor’s office. It begins with what we feed our bodies every day. So to answer your question, how do I help people not be overwhelmed and save time? First of all, let’s get the priorities back in order. Then I teach a lot about meal planning: take a little bit of planning and prepping, and in my planning and prepping classes and videos I talk about setting aside 15 minutes every week. Decide what meals you are going to cook. Is it going to be one? That’s great. If it’s going to be three nights, that’s wonderful. Mark your calendar on the meals you’re going to cook and prepare at home. Then when you go to the grocery store, you spend less time because you know what you’re getting, you know what meals you’re buying, you’re not wasting food, you’re not wasting money,

[Shelley Loving] (09:48)
and going back and forth. So if my answers seem long, it’s kind of a trickle effect: first of all, where is it on your priority list? Second, have you set aside 15 to 20 minutes to plan your weekly meals? And then have you put it on your calendar when you’re going to go to the grocery store? It should never be a last-minute thought. We should never stop by the grocery store on a whim. That’s where our health starts. So put it on your calendar, make it a priority just like your nail appointment, your hair appointment, your doctor appointment. So that’s a long answer, but that’s the

[Shelley Loving] (10:18)
philosophy.

[Dana] (10:20)
I love it, and I’m going to respond to that, because the first thing is I want to say I love the way you’re emphasizing prioritizing health, because obviously I’m in mental health, so it’s important for people to prioritize that and physical health, it’s all connected together, we’re prioritizing ourselves. And what I say to my patients sometimes is you can’t help other people if your wheels are falling off.

[Shelley Loving] (10:38)
So much. Yep.

[Dana] (10:50)
You need your wheels attached so that you can help other people around you. And what I’m hearing you say, that’s one of the ways of doing that. Now I did want to say again about the prepping. It kind of reminded me of every week on Sundays, I go into my closet and I pick out outfits for the entire week and I iron them all.

[Shelley Loving] (10:51)
Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

[Dana] (11:20)
Come Monday morning, Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning, I am tired. I do not want to have to be thinking about what I’m going to wear today. Ain’t nobody got time for that. I don’t have the mental energy for that. So I take like 20 or 30 minutes on Sunday and plan out everything I’m going to wear all week long, and that’s kind of what I hear you saying about food: take a few extra minutes one day a week and just think about what you’re going to eat for the rest of the week.

[Shelley Loving] (11:45)
And have ideas, I’m not saying on Monday I’m going to eat chicken and broccoli, on Tuesday, I’m not saying be that regimented because that doesn’t work for everybody. But what can work is having an idea: you know what, let’s have lasagna this week. I only have two nights on my calendar that I’m home. I’m going to make a dairy-free lasagna and feed my family well. I don’t know if it’ll be Tuesday or Thursday. If it’s Tuesday, I can double the recipe and we can have leftovers for lunch on Thursday and Friday. So it’s that kind of thinking. A little bit of planning and knowing what ingredients to use can make a huge difference on your physical health, which in turn will help you mentally as well.

[Dana] (12:26)
Yes, and you mentioned the trips to the grocery store. I think people are so pressed for time, but what I’m hearing you say is if they take a few minutes to think about what the week is going to hold, they can get everything on a list, take one trip, get everything they need, and they’ll have everything they need for the week. They won’t have to use time and energy they don’t have going back and forth to the store because they’ve

[Dana] (12:56)
already made their list and purchased their items.

[Shelley Loving] (12:59)
And think about how much time you waste when you just run by the grocery store to get one meal, and then you have to go back. And then you’re buying all the stuff for kids’ lunches and you get overwhelmed, when you can just take 15 minutes, sit down and say what meals am I going to make this week, and what can I buy at the grocery store. You save so much money this way too. But it’s also about what we’re eating, right? It’s not just about getting a meal on the table, which is what I specialize in, talking about

[Dana] (13:20)
Mm-hmm.

[Shelley Loving] (13:29)
an anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle. I did seven radio interviews this morning all over the country and what we talked about was brain health. So I love that I’m speaking to you today, it’s funny how that happens, but I talked a lot about brain health today and how food is so directly affecting our brain health. People are not talking enough about that. People are starving their brains, they are literally starving their brains

[Shelley Loving] (13:59)
with overly processed food, and your brain can’t work with that. Your brain doesn’t know what that is. Your brain doesn’t know what a wheat thin is. It’s not going to work that way. So I love to bring awareness around mental health and how it can be really directly related to what you eat and feed your children.

[Dana] (14:16)
That is a wonderful thing. Basically what I’m hearing you say is prepare to be preventive instead of reactive.

[Shelley Loving] (14:25)
Yes, we want to stay out of the doctor’s offices. We want to stay off prescription drugs, we don’t want to have to do all the tests and the upper GI things and the MRIs. We want to stay healthy and vibrant so we can spend our time doing the things on our priority list, right? And it starts in the kitchen.

[Dana] (14:44)
That’s it, that’s it. The correlation between that and therapy is really amazing. Because for example, somebody that would come to therapy, and I’m called the queen of boundaries, if they come in and learn how to do healthy boundaries, then they’re going to prevent so much awful relational fallout later on that they’d otherwise have to spend time and energy dealing with, because they spent some time on the front end.

[Shelley Loving] (14:59)
(applause / audio glitch)

[Dana] (15:18)
and then they don’t have to deal with it on the back end. So that’s kind of what I’m hearing you say.

[Shelley Loving] (15:20)
And it’s the same thing with food, absolutely, yes, 100%. I’ve learned that now that my husband and I are healthier than we’ve ever been, because this is our lifestyle now, I can say on the other side of feeling amazing, we’re on the front end of it now. It took us years. It’s not an overnight fix. You don’t get unhealthy overnight and you don’t heal overnight. So being on the other side, I have a completely different view, and now it’s that hindsight view

[Shelley Loving] (15:50)
that can really show people and help people and encourage people to roll up their sleeves and just make some of their meals. You know what you’re eating.

[Dana] (16:01)
Yeah. And for those of you who are listening and wondering about the sounds in the background: Shelley, amazingly, thought she was going to be at her house, but she was flexible. She’s outgoing, she’s outside, she was still willing to do this podcast interview and share her wisdom and her experience even though she’s outside. So you hear birds

[Shelley Loving] (16:09)
I don’t know if she’s coming in right now. Bye. Thank you, I apologize for being outside.

[Dana] (16:31)
in the background. No, I think that’s awesome, because you’re demonstrating being flexible and just kind of rolling, because life rarely happens exactly the way we think it’s going to, does it?

[Shelley Loving] (16:40)
That is the truth. That is the truth for sure.

[Dana] (16:43)
So instead of canceling, you said, well, I’ll just kind of roll with it and walk outside and we can do this interview outside. So that’s awesome, I appreciate that. I was wondering what your ideas would be in terms of a couple or three baby steps for people you’ve talked to who get kind of overwhelmed, who agree with everything you’re saying but see where they currently are

[Shelley Loving] (16:51)
Well, you’re going to make this work. Thank you for being flexible.

[Dana] (17:13)
versus where they want to be, and it seems like so far and so much that they get overwhelmed and just kind of sit in a puddle. So what do you feel like might be just a couple or three baby steps you could pick out for someone where they could start?

[Shelley Loving] (17:30)
Sure. I think the biggest step is, this is so basic, but a lot of people don’t do it, and when they do it, it starts to have a trickle effect. And that is: when you go to the grocery store, take 10 extra minutes, and every time you put something in your basket, I want you to read the ingredient list before you put it in the basket. For example, you’re buying a jar of marinara sauce, flip it over. Do not look at the nutrition facts, I know that’s very unorthodox, don’t look at the calories, carbs, all that, that doesn’t matter right now. Look at the ingredient list. Read it. Know what’s in the food. If the first ingredient is sugar, if the second ingredient is refined cooking oils, those are all inflammatory foods that are not going to serve you well. If it’s chemicals and you don’t even know what they are, definitely put it back on the shelf. So just knowing what we’re eating, it doesn’t have to be complicated. I don’t need you to know what monosodium glutamate is. That’s not what’s important.

[Shelley Loving] (18:30)
If you can’t pronounce it and you don’t know what it is, your body’s not going to recognize it either. So I always tell people, if you’re starting from zero, just get in the habit of reading a food label, but don’t look at the nutrition facts. We’re taught we need calories, we need carbs. Calories and carbs are not created equal. The carb in an avocado is very different than a carb in an Oreo. So why are we counting them? We should be knowing what’s in that Oreo. Did you know there are three forms of sugar in an Oreo?

[Shelley Loving] (19:00)
used as a preservative, which gives it a very long shelf life. A lot of people don’t know that. So that would be my first thing: read the ingredients. The second thing would be, instead of focusing on a diet or counting things or getting on the scale or lack of energy, what I really focus on is: are the foods you’re eating causing inflammation, or are they reducing it?

[Shelley Loving] (19:30)
Foods do one of two things: they either add to your chronic inflammation inside your body, which is where disease starts, or they help your body by reducing chronic inflammation. So that’s the basis of my teaching. Instead of focusing on diets and scales and losing weight and taking prescription drugs for your ailments, why don’t you assess how much you are feeding your body chronic inflammation? Chronic inflammation is the root of most

[Shelley Loving] (20:00)
disease. Because it’s happening inside, you can’t see it for a long period of time, and it starts breaking down. Your cells get weak after fighting and fighting the inflammation and they can’t fight it anymore. That’s when you become susceptible to viruses, illness, chronic conditions, disease, cancer, all of these things manifest from an overabundance of chronic inflammation. So all of my teachings are around getting that inflammation down in our body so it can stay strong and healthy. So that would be my second thing: learning what foods cause inflammation and what foods reduce it, and if people want to follow me once this is over, that’s all I talk about, so you can learn very quickly from me. We don’t have time for that today because that’s a couple of months of teaching, but yeah, those are probably the two things. And then show yourself grace, don’t be hard on yourself. If you go to your girlfriends’ on Thursday night and have a whole charcuterie board and

[Shelley Loving] (21:00)
you’re going to eat greens and drink a lot of water and get some good protein and start over without showing yourself any shame. So those would be my top three things: read your food label, know what’s in your food, concentrate on what foods cause and reduce inflammation, and then show yourself grace when you mess up.

[Dana] (21:20)
I love that. Thank you. That really is very, very helpful. And listeners, I’m going to give you information on how to get more of Shelley in the show notes, so in case you’re wondering, you’ll be able to have that. Now Shelley, we said in the beginning I shared a couple of questions with you that I was really curious what your response would be, and I want to share that with the listeners now.

[Shelley Loving] (21:24)
Good, wonderful.

[Dana] (21:51)
in the ability to eat healthy.

[Shelley Loving] (21:54)
Yeah, I feel like it’s a mindset shift. Emotions are everything when you’re trying to eat healthy or unhealthy, emotions are going to play a part no matter what, that’s how we were designed. But I’d like to tell people, if you could just try to shift your thinking from “oh my gosh, this tastes so good, I’m craving pizza, oh my lordy, I can’t wait to have that cake, let’s have three pieces”

[Shelley Loving] (22:24)
to: is it serving my taste buds for 10 minutes, which is fine, or is it going to serve my body, fill my body, fuel my body, and protect my body from getting sick or breaking down? How is it treating my brain? Is it going to feed my brain positively or negatively? So I think that’s how you shift your mindset a little bit: before you eat a meal, think about how it’s going to serve you.

[Dana] (22:53)
Okay, got that. And then the next question is, what are your thoughts on self-harm and self-sabotage and eating practices?

[Shelley Loving] (23:03)
Yeah, that kind of reiterates what we talked about earlier. I don’t believe in self-sabotaging when it comes to food. What good is that doing us? That’s just setting us up for a bad relationship with food. Our relationship with food is the longest relationship we will have with anything while we are on this earth. From birth to death, we have a relationship with food. So it needs to be your best friend. You need to walk side by side together. You need to fall in love with each other. You need to nurture each other.

[Shelley Loving] (23:33)
Self-sabotaging that relationship is not going to serve you well at all. So love it, nurture it, so it can love and nurture you back.

[Dana] (23:45)
I really enjoy that, and I think sometimes, because I ask every patient I see, regardless of why they walk through the doorway, I ask about their nutrition. I tell them I want to know what they’re putting in their body, I want to know what’s going in, I want to know what’s not going in, because we are a whole person. And psychologically, I’ve seen people who really haven’t learned to love themselves, haven’t learned to care about themselves, harming themselves. They will purposefully eat things that are not good for them, or not drink water, not eat protein, and that kind of thing, because they’re almost trying to self-abuse using food.

[Shelley Loving] (24:28)
Right. And on the flip side of that, I would love for more people to start loving their body and loving themselves through food in a positive way instead of a negative one.

[Dana] (24:43)
Yeah, I think it’s just being able to start somewhere. And I think what you said earlier about grace, and being able to view yourself, you said the pillars of your teaching are unconditional love and open-mindedness, that’s got to be where it starts. Just feeling like, okay, wherever you are, listeners, looking at yourself in the mirror, looking at your body, whatever it is that you look like,

[Shelley Loving] (25:03)
Absolutely, certainly.

[Dana] (25:13)
love it, it belongs to you. And don’t try to be any other kind of way, just be who you are, accept that, and then you can move forward.

[Shelley Loving] (25:22)
100%. And as you start cleaning up, if you go down this journey with me, something you’re going to find is your body will morph and change in the most beautiful, unexpected way. So if you do have some extra pounds and you go on this healthy journey, you will lose some extra pounds, not to lose weight or to look different, but you will feel better, and your body will receive that so well. That’s also self-love. When you start physically seeing your body healing and improving health-wise from the inside out, it manifests in the mirror as well.

[Dana] (26:07)
Awesome. Now Shelley, I know you’ve got to go, you’ve got some other places you need to be. So I want to make sure, does my audience go to ShelleyCanHelp.com slash recipe makeover?

[Shelley Loving] (26:10)
Thank you. No, they’re going to go to, well, I don’t have that class anymore, but I do have an offering coming up: if people hear this before the end of March, I have an event that’s free, it’s three days, all virtual and prerecorded, and it’s all about chronic inflammation. So if people want to learn more, they can go to ShelleyCanHelp.com forward slash March to sign up. And if it’s after March when you’re hearing this,

[Shelley Loving] (26:50)
visit my website as well and join my newsletter. That would be the greatest way to keep in touch with me. I send an email once a week just dropping in tips and tricks and recipes and encouragement to keep you going and keep you accountable. I feel like we’re in this together, and being in a community and joining my newsletter is kind of me tapping on your shoulder with love, saying hey, don’t forget.

[Dana] (27:16)
That’s awesome, because everyone needs that. They need somebody to say hey, it’s okay, keep going, it’s all right. Just those words of encouragement. That’s Shelley, Shelley Loving. Thank you so, so much for joining Phoenix and Flame. Listeners, I know you’ve heard stuff today that has been amazing. Share it with your family and friends, share it with your coworkers, put it on your favorite social media sites, copy and paste it in your texts and your emails, and go visit Shelley Loving on her website.

[Shelley Loving] (27:18)
Yeah. And that’s me. That’s me.

[Dana] (27:45)
I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. This is Dana on Phoenix and Flame.