Today I’m talking with the amazing Liz Wolfe about her life on the farm, being a first-time mother and growing a business in the internet space. I’ve been friends with Liz for years now and she continues to crush life with her intelligence, humility and humor. She’s the best!
owerpress]
____________
Aaptiv is a fitness app that gives you custom workouts with the voice of an elite trainer and an amazing playlist, walking you through the class or workout or training session! They have unlimited workouts such as race training, ab workouts, spinning, strength training, and even more! I’ve been using it for stretching workouts after my CrossFit or Orange Theory classes! To get motivated or simply just get to stretching this 2017, try Aaptiv out for FREE for 30 days using the promo code PALEOMG. Sign up here and try it out for 30 days now!
Support the podcast by clicking the Subscribe button on iTunes and please a review only if you love the podcast! There is enough negativity in this world, don’t spread more. I love hearing about what YOU want me to talk about so feel free to leave on comment here or on social media with topics you’d like me to cover! And don’t forget, some posts have affiliate links which I may be compensated from. This compensation helps with keeping this blog and up and running! Thank you so much for your support, you guys are amazing!
____________
Episode 39 Transcription!
Today’s podcast is brought to you by Aaptiv. I’ve been telling you about Aaptiv for weeks and weeks now. Maybe even months. Because it is the coolest fitness app out there. But today, I have something even more special to tell you about. I have teamed up with Aaptiv to bring seven workouts, seven recipes, in seven days to help you guys get fit. So the challenge is to get stronger with me. Juli Bauer, of PaleOMG. So I have put together seven of my favorite recipes; one a brand new recipe you’ve never seen. And then I’ve picked my favorite workouts from the Aaptiv app. So you have seven days, you’re going to do these seven workouts, and you’re going to eat seven of my recipes. And we are going to get strong together. It’s so freaking cool.
And so if you haven’t heard about Aaptiv yet, Aaptiv is a fitness app. It brings together the voice of an elite trainer, music, and it walks you through a workout of your choice. And so I have super fun workouts in there that I absolutely love. All the ones that I love the most. There’s a body weight burner, there’s an it’s so hard workout; so you’re doing a 30-minute strength cardio combination. There’s all kinds of different stuff on there. And so they walk you through these workouts, and you can get fit no matter if you’re traveling or if you’re at the gym. Or you’re just in your home, and your baby is sleeping, and you need to work out in the basement. Aaptiv is the coolest fitness app out there.
And you’re seeing it; well, I am. I’m seeing it all out there. I was looking at different workouts the other day to help you guys find different workouts in your community, and Aaptiv was one of those recommendations in this amazing online search. So Aaptiv is out there. People are hearing about it. People are trying it. And right now, you can try that out, all you have to do is go to www.aaptiv.com and then you’re going to use the special promo code for this 7-day challenge. Use the promocode AaptivOMG; oh my god, how fun does that sound. Right? Right? Well you can try it out. Go to their website. Enter in that promo code, and try it out for 30 days for free. And try this 7-day challenge out. Let’s get strong together, get fit together. And start loving the skin you are in and feeling better and healthy, and feeling awesome.
So go check that out. I’ll be talking about it on my website, as well, on www.PaleOMG.com so you can hear a little bit more about it there. And, you can share what you’re doing with the #AaptivOMG. Just like the promo code. So you can share the recipes you’re trying, the workouts you’re doing that day. We want to see what you’re doing, what your loving. And give us some feedback. So go try it out. www.aaptiv.com. Promo code AaptivOMG. Let’s do this guys, let’s get fit together.
This is Juli Bauer from PaleOMG and you are listening to PaleOMG Uncensored.
Juli Bauer: Ok, let’s get started.
Liz Wolfe: Can you hear me ok? Are my thingies good?
Juli Bauer: Yeah. Can you hear me ok?
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, you sound great.
Juli Bauer: Ok, you do too. I just have my iPhone headphones in.
Liz Wolfe: Ok. Me too.
Juli Bauer: I think the microphone is just too intense for me at some point. Like, I don’t have a room that has foam board on it to make is sound correctly.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: So I like the headphones better.
Liz Wolfe: I know. For me, I’m on my third Yeti. I swear, they don’t work.
Juli Bauer: They don’t!
Liz Wolfe: In my sphere.
Juli Bauer: That’s how I feel too.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: Where do you record? Just in your office?
Liz Wolfe: No, wherever I can. I don’t have an office at my house, because the internet is not good enough for recording.
Juli Bauer: Oh my god, how annoying.
Liz Wolfe: So I have one at my sister’s house. I used to have one at my parent’s house; I don’t know where it is. I have one at my house. But Diane and I have to talk on the phone and record into the computers, and it’s a cluster f*ck.
Juli Bauer: Oh. Gross. That sucks.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I love living on the farm. But I don’t know. We’ll see.
Juli Bauer: Ok. Ok. I want to totally talk all about this kind of stuff.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah!
Juli Bauer: Ok. Since we’ve just been kind of chatting. Hello everyone. Welcome to PaleOMG Uncensored. Today, I have a special guest so you don’t have to listen to me talk to myself for a freaking hour. Today I have the beautiful and hilarious and wonderful Liz Wolfe. Thank you so much for coming on, Liz.
Liz Wolfe: Why, thank you for having me. I’m very, very excited.
Juli Bauer: I’m so pumped to have you on. And I put on Instagram, “Hey, does anybody have questions?” And we had a sh*t-ton of questions. So obviously, people are just as obsessed with you as I am.
Liz Wolfe: Oh golly. Well, I was kind of excited about how many people were asking questions.
Juli Bauer: Yeah! I thought that was awesome.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: You never know. And with Instagram kind of becoming Facebook, you know really know if people are even going to see your post.
Liz Wolfe: Right?!
Juli Bauer: So I was so glad to actually get questions. And people were super helpful with that. But we’ll get into those fun questions. Do you remember; because you and I go, probably 5 or 6 years back at this point.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: Do you remember the first time we ever met?
Liz Wolfe: I totally do. Do you want me to tell the story?
Juli Bauer: Yes. Enlighten all of us.
Liz Wolfe: Ok. Well, we were both naked in a room and bath.
Juli Bauer: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: Just kidding.
Juli Bauer: Too bad.
Liz Wolfe: Too bad. We were in Colorado Springs with, I think it was still called the First 20 then, right? Is that the first time we met?
Juli Bauer: I think so. Yeah, yeah. That’s what I remember.
Liz Wolfe: Ok. Ok that’s what I remember too. We were both presenting to the academy fire fighters on health and wellness or whatever. And we went to Chipotle.
Juli Bauer: Yes!
Liz Wolfe: I’m pretty sure we got a lecture on internet security from one of the guys.
Juli Bauer: Oh my god, you remember it all! Yeah, this guy was like, “You shouldn’t have a blog because all your information is out there.” Like, your last name is out there. I’m like, “Well, what if you write a book? You just lie about your last name?”
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: I get it. I get where he’s coming from, for sure.
Liz Wolfe: It was an intense conversation from what I remember.
Juli Bauer: It was. He was not friendly. He was not the best part of that day.
Liz Wolfe: he was very serious.
Juli Bauer: Yes. A lot of those dudes were. Because we were talking to a huge group of dudes.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: I don’t really remember if there were any females there.
Liz Wolfe: I don’t think; maybe like one.
Juli Bauer: Maybe, yes.
Liz Wolfe: There was one token fire-fighting female. Which was lovely.
Juli Bauer: Yes.
Liz Wolfe: And I think I ended up doing that several years after that. Came back as we kind of refined the program, and I helped the First 20 design some of their core wellness stuff after that. Which is great. But we came back, and I know there were more women fire fighters at that point. So I think the community has expanded. Which is so cool to see. I mean, how badass is that.
Juli Bauer: So cool. So, so awesome. So, do you remember what your lecture was about?
Liz Wolfe: Food.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: I just remember, I remember you talking about canola oil.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: Do you remember that at all?
Liz Wolfe: No.
Juli Bauer: Because I just didn’t know much about canola oil. And I remember you talking about how sh*tty canola oil is. And it stayed in my head for so long. And I still just know; I know how sh*tty canola oil is. But forever it will be instilled in my mind because of you. So thank you.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, you’re welcome. I think around that time, paleo was still new-ish and we still had that Loren Cordain; “We like canola oil because it has omega-3.” It used to be a paleo diet recommendation. Canola oil.
Juli Bauer: Was it really? I didn’t know that.
Liz Wolfe: It totally was. I know. We’ve eclipsed that now. Which is great. But I’m actually patting myself on the back right now for recognizing that that early. I can say I was an early adopter in demonizing canola oil. Good job me.
Juli Bauer: Yeah, seriously. I love that more companies are slowly starting to adapt to that. It’s very slow, but more products are obviously coming out with stuff that does not include canola oil, which is pretty rad.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. You see it a lot more now. And also the other thing that makes me happy, is I love coconut oil, to a point. And usually I get the deodorized stuff; you know, the stuff that’s been steam deodorized so it doesn’t smell like coconuts.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Because sometimes I feel like I’m ingesting Coppertone sometimes.
Juli Bauer: Yes!
Liz Wolfe: Sometimes I can’t do it. But it used to be like everything was like, “Oh, coconut oil is the only safe thing.” But we’re getting more options now. Which is good. I’m not saying we’re not going to find out years from now that sunflower oil is not the best choice.
Juli Bauer: I know.
Liz Wolfe: But I honestly don’t care as long as I don’t feel like I’m eating sunscreen half the time.
Juli Bauer: Seriously. Agreed.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
8.56
Juli Bauer: So, I want to hear, just so people who don’t know you out there. Let’s give them a little bit of background about you. How your blog came to be. And you’ve written a book. And you’ve really expanded your brand over the years. So I just want to hear a little bit about you, so people can get to know the Liz Wolfe behind the microphone.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} “The Liz Wolfe.” Yes. Everything that I have done and that has happened to me has been completely by accident. I can’t take credit for any of it.
Juli Bauer: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: I think I was an early adopter, this internet paleo thing. So I’ll start really early. Very lucky in a lot of ways. I married the military. So of course, I had to quit my job and move across the country. And just kind of figure out what I was going to do. And my husband and I; my husband who is a sexy, sexy beast.
Juli Bauer: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Started going to CrossFit together. And we got into the paleo thing. And I also am a huge closed off, walled off b*tch. And I did not want to talk to my family on the phone all the time. I don’t know; phone calls stress me out. When the phone rings, I’m like, “What. Why are they calling? What do they want?”
Juli Bauer: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Send me a text. So I didn’t want to talk to my family all the time. I wanted to communicate with them, but kind of on my terms. Because you know, when you get married, you inherit families. And you have to talk to a million people all the time, tell them what’s going on. So I started blogging. I started a blog called Cavegirl Eats. Actually, before that it was JersElizabeth, because we were living in Jersey. But I started just talking about what we were eating and what we were doing. And people started reading it. Which was crazy.
It became Cavegirl Eats. And my name wasn’t on it or anything like that for a long time. But as people started reading it, they started kind of being curious about who was actually writing these things, and whether she was trustworthy. So eventually it became Real Food Liz. And somewhere along the line, I got really heavily obsessed with cleaner skin care, cleaner and effective skin care. Went to school to become a nutritional therapy practitioner so I could feel really confident in how I was helping people. And then Diane picked me up for the Balanced Bites podcast; we’ve been doing that for five years. I wrote a book at some point in the last five years. Had a baby, which was crazy.
Juli Bauer: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: And now here we are.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. So what year did you start your blog?
Liz Wolfe: Oh my. I think probably 2008?
Juli Bauer: Ok.
Liz Wolfe: Like, the original one. The original, original JersElizabeth one. And then maybe Cavegirl Eats started in 2009-2010.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Or maybe even closer to 2012. I have no idea.
Juli Bauer: I remember seeing it. It was probably 2011 I saw it when it was Cavegirl Eats.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Ok. That makes sense.
Juli Bauer: And I felt the same way. I was like, who is this girl behind this? Because you had a little; not an emoji, but an animation.
Liz Wolfe: Right. This was before emojis, actually.
Juli Bauer: Yes. Yes.
Liz Wolfe: This was when people were still doing “colon, parenthesis” for happy faces.
Juli Bauer: Yes! Yes. I miss those guys. Those were the best.
Liz Wolfe: I do too! I still do them sometimes.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, I had the little cartoon cavegirl. She was cute.
Juli Bauer: Yes! So what made you change to Real Food Liz?
Liz Wolfe: I don’t know. I feel like I felt like maybe people didn’t take me seriously, or maybe that I needed to. You know what; maybe a little bit it was getting away from like the caveman thing.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Because I think I got into like the sustainable farming deal a little bit. Which also, at some point in that process, we moved to a farm and got cows.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. So did you move from Jersey to a farm?
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Juli Bauer: Ok.
Liz Wolfe: Yes we did. We were in South Jersey. My husband was stationed out there. We were in South Jersey which is more like Pennsylvania than it is like New York. So we kind of got into supporting local farms while we were in New Jersey. And then when we got our new station, it was like right in the middle of the country, in the Midwest. And we were like; we can either live in this tiny town, with not a lot happening, like in a subdivision. Or, we can do something really interesting, and we can buy some land, and try and make a go of it. So we opted to do that. {laughs} And during all of that, I think I was just ready to; you know. It got to that point where I was out there, I was putting myself out there enough. They were asking me to do workshops and stuff at the gym. And it was just inevitable that I had to show my face and say my real name. You can’t help a lot of people like hiding behind a cave girl graphic.
Juli Bauer: For sure. For sure. People have so much more relationship when you put your face out there.
Liz Wolfe: Totally.
Juli Bauer: So, you moved to the farm. I know that you probably have continued to load up on different animals over the years. But, when you moved to the farm, were you like, “Okay; we want to get a cow.” How did you decide what animals you would get and how many?
Liz Wolfe: Oh, totally. We knew we wanted goats, and we knew we wanted chickens. Hindsight; so we’ve been at this farm for at least four years now. And it is really freaking hard. And we’re kind of in that place where we’re really reevaluating if this is realistic for us. You know, before we did it we were just the two of us, no kids. Kind of figured; hey, just put a cow on grass. It will be great.
Juli Bauer: {laughs} Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: We’ve had chickens, turkeys, Guinea fowl, ducks. We had goats. We currently have cows. We had pigs, which are now in our freezers. But to be honest, now we’re looking back and kind of figuring out what the future is going to look like, since my husband is in another job transition now. And we’re like; you know, we’ve kind of just been playing farm. I used to do a podcast with Diana Rogers, from Sustainable Dish. And she is like, she’s a farmer. Her husband is a farmer. They have a working farm. And it is a full-time freaking job. To grow enough calories for one person is a fulltime job. And my husband has another fulltime job. I have technically a fulltime job even though I kind of set my own schedule now. But we’ve basically been playing farm. And there’s a lot of wasted energy. And I just joked the other day. I was like, I’m really embarrassed to admit that we basically just kind of ended up with a petting zoo.
Juli Bauer: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: We feed the chickens, we feed the ducks. We feed the cows, and it’s fun. Sending the pigs to slaughter was really tough for me.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: And I have not been able to eat any of that meat.
Juli Bauer: Ohh!
Liz Wolfe: Which makes no sense.
Juli Bauer: I would think that would happen all the time.
Liz Wolfe: I know!
Juli Bauer: When I was writing my last cookbook, and I was staying with Bill and Haley of Primal Palate, they had just got their chickens towards the end. And they had such a relationship with all these chickens.
Liz Wolfe: Oh my gosh.
Juli Bauer: Like, have them all named. And they would hold them. You just create a relationship, just like another animal. They’re not like as a dog and cat would be.
Liz Wolfe: Right.
Juli Bauer: Because they’re still wild animals. But you create a relationship. I can’t imagine. Especially a pig, where it kind of looks like a dog. I mean, my dog looks like a pig big time.
Liz Wolfe: Your dog looks like what a pig should look like, in my opinion.
Juli Bauer: Yes. Yes!
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Love that little guy.
Juli Bauer: Yeah, that must really hard.
Liz Wolfe: Well, I have to say. Part of the reason; I found the pigs to be disgusting.
Juli Bauer: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: And this is really controversial, because I know a lot of farmers that raise pigs. And they absolutely love them. But this is just yet another example. This knowledge is not passed down. We have some farmers left that understand how this works. But if you just jump into it with no knowledge. You have no clue what you’re doing, and the learning curve is really, really steep. And it’s difficult. We knew we wanted large black hogs. That’s like the breed name. Large blacks. They’re supposed to be amazing and docile and fantastic. And I know people that raise them. So of course, we go on Craigslist and type in large black hogs, and we end up getting them from this guy who is basically raising them out of his mom’s backyard.
Juli Bauer: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: And I remember thinking; this not be the best stock that we could possibly get, but whatever. We gave it a try. They get huge. Their center of gravity is like terrifyingly low.
Juli Bauer: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: It was just scary for me. {laughs} So this is kind of a funny story. We, I was like 20 weeks pregnant when they had to go to slaughter. And my husband was, not deployed, but he was like on a mission, or whatever. And my assistant and really good friend at the time, Amy. She’s still my good friend; she’s not my assistant anymore. But we were tasked with loading them into the trailer to take them to the local butcher that does all of the local farmers around us.
Juli Bauer: Oh man! Oh no.
Liz Wolfe: Oh my gosh. No. But {laughs} So we got a bunch of hard-boiled eggs, because that’s all we had. And my husband had rented a trailer for us. And it was like a flatbed trailer, like you would load up wood or mulch in. With maybe 2-foot-high walls. And we were dragging these, like 5 jillion pound pigs in this trailer down highway 131 at 60 miles an hour.
Juli Bauer: Oh my god!
Liz Wolfe: Just like, “This makes sense, right? They’re not going to jump out.” And we get there, to the slaughterhouse. And our local farmer, Art Osias, from Breezy Hill Farms, who is amazing. We get a lot of beef from. He was standing there, like literally like you would anticipate a farmer just standing outside the door of the slaughterhouse, with like a piece of wheat in his teeth, just cleaning his teeth. And he was like, “How the hell did you get here with those pigs in the back of that trailer?”
Juli Bauer: Oh my god.
Liz Wolfe: We were like, wow we are idiots.
Juli Bauer: For a second, I thought you were going to say one of the pigs jumped out on the highway! {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: I mean, I still have nightmares because of that very easily could have happened!
Juli Bauer: Oh my god.
Liz Wolfe: Only by the grace of a higher power did we make it that far. But it could have been so bad. And we just didn’t know.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: I don’t know. It’s hard.
Juli Bauer: And what has been the most annoying animal you’ve had on the farm?
Liz Wolfe: Oh my gosh. I did not like the pigs, because they were just scary and dirty. The most annoying animal. Gosh. It kind of depends. The goats were really, really fun. But they were just so needy. And they just want to be with you. And if there’s a vulnerability in your fencing, they will find it. And I remember after the kid showed up; after I had a baby. I would be up at 3 o’clock in the morning, exhausted. And I’d look out the window, and the goats would be on the roof of our cars.
Juli Bauer: Yes! I remember seeing those videos or pictures.
Liz Wolfe: Yes. I need to dig those up. Because those are really funny. But, so eventually during that time when I was having a major life crisis. Like, “Oh my god, I’m responsible for another human! I’m going to die. We’re all going to die!”
Juli Bauer: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: We ended up sending the goats to another kind of homestead, much like ours. But the easy thing about the goats is they’ll come with you. You just have to go get them, and they will come with you. Whereas when our cows have gotten out, they are a b*tch to get back inside. We have spent hours and days getting them back. It’s pretty annoying.
Juli Bauer: God!
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: That is crazy. I cannot imagine; not only taking care of a baby human. But then animals as well.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: That’s a lot of responsibility.
Liz Wolfe: It truly is. And I have no business; A) being in charge of a tiny human.
Juli Bauer: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Let along being in charge of many lives on a homestead. So we’ll see where this goes for us. At the very least, I have massive respect and a huge dedication to supporting people who are actually doing this, and not just playing petting zoo. I’m sad that it didn’t turn into this amazing working farm like we wanted it to. But it was a valuable lesson.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. So do you have anywhere that you would want to move? Have you guys talked about anywhere else?
Liz Wolfe: We have. You know what’s funny, is we’ve talked about moving to this country club. {laughing}
Juli Bauer: Oh my god. {laughs} Just go complete opposite route?
Liz Wolfe: Complete opposite.
Juli Bauer: You’ve got to try it all out.
Liz Wolfe: I know. We have to try on different hats.
Juli Bauer: Yes.
Liz Wolfe: it’s not really a country club. I mean, it is technically a country club. But it used to just be this kind of Podunk little lake that nobody knew about it. And then people started building there, and then they put a gate. So it’s like any other development. There’s just a lake, and they call it a country club. So we’ve talked about that. Because my parents live there. And what I’ve learned more than anything the last two years since having a kid is, I need my mommy. {laughs} So.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: I’d like to be closer to her. And I’d like to have decent f*cking internet so I can stop driving to my sister’s house, or my mom’s house, or my friend’s houses every time I have to do a podcast.
Juli Bauer: Seriously. Do you just bring your daughter with you when you have to go work somewhere else?
Liz Wolfe: Generally, yeah. Kind of depends on the childcare arrangement. When the husband is home, it’s glorious. But a lot of times, we’re just patching it together as we go.
22.12
Juli Bauer: So, let’s talk about pregnancy. Let’s talk about being pregnant.
Liz Wolfe: Ok.
Juli Bauer: How was your pregnancy?
Liz Wolfe: It was unbelievably easy.
Juli Bauer: Oh that’s awesome.
Liz Wolfe: It was almost weirdly, like, I don’t know. I was expecting more. The birth was an entirely different story. And I haven’t really shared much about the birth of my daughter. Because it’s kind of her story too, you know?
Juli Bauer: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: And so I’m still trying to figure out the appropriate way to share it. But we definitely got a knock in the f*cking teeth when she was born {laughs}.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Which is fine. You kind of have to learn at some point that the world is not under your control like you thought it was.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: And that was just kind of my opportunity to learn that. And I learned a lot during my pregnancy too. One of the things that I’ve learned. And in my research, because I’m working on a mom and baby program that will eventually be done gestating. It’s like; I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I started working on that. But one of the things I discovered was that thyroid testing, complete thyroid panels, should really be standard. Right when you engage with a health care practitioner when you get pregnant. Because even subclinical hypothyroid is associated with things like breech presentation. It’s associated with miscarriage. We see low thyroid and low progesterone at the same time, and that is a threat for miscarriage. And just everybody should know what their thyroid is doing, hopefully before they get pregnant or, you know, while they’re in the fertility period. But certainly once they find out they’re pregnant, they really need to keep their eyes open on thyroid stuff. Because I’ve just seen in this world; I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if it’s stress, or chronic undereating, or something that has been going on for years with many of us. Many of us that dieted and worked out too hard and didn’t nourish ourselves well enough. I just see low thyroid and low progesterone all the time.
Juli Bauer: Interesting. And that’s; how would…
Liz Wolfe: And looking back, I see it in my own experience.
Juli Bauer: How would a woman ever know that, unless your doctor tells you? Or you’ve heard it on a random podcast at some point? I would think that most doctors wouldn’t recommend that. I’ve never heard any of my friends doing that.
Liz Wolfe: It was not recommended to me. The American Hypothyroid Association, I think it is, recommends it, and they’re trying to get the word out. But it does not seem to be making much of a difference. I worked with some holistic midwives. I worked with nurse midwives. And I ultimately ended up delivering with a doctor. And even in my follow-up, they’re asking these questions. It was like, “I don’t know why we would do that. If there’s a threat in miscarriage, we’ll check your progesterone levels, and we’ll maybe give you some pharmaceutical progesterone. But there’s no emphasis on preventive.” You know what’s really sad is you hear from a lot of people that say, “Well, if this pregnancy is not meant to be, it will not continue.” As if this spontaneous condition of low progesterone or low thyroid is happening because the pregnancy is not viable, and that’s just not true. We come into these things with entire life stories of things that might be impacting our hormones levels. And women can have perfectly healthy spawn in there that just needs the appropriate conditions to thrive. And it’s just this tragedy that health care practitioners aren’t on board with this. I’m sure it has something to do with insurance, I don’t know. But it’s just so basic.
And the midwife I’m working with, Meg Reburn. She’s at www.MegtheMidwife.com. She’s amazing. This is something that she’s been talking about for a long time. So I’m really grateful to be linked up with her on this program.
Juli Bauer: Is it; have you talked a lot about miscarriages in the podcast you do with Diane? Just because I just saw a bunch of people ask about miscarriages, so I wasn’t sure if it was a topic that you’ve talked about on a regular basis.
Liz Wolfe: I have not. I really; we probably should. I feel terrible because I feel like this program I’ve been working on forever is taking too long. And this is the kind of information that we want to get out to people. But at the same time, if I don’t put my head down and focus on the program, if I start putting this information in a bunch of random places, I know there will be a lot of questions. And it’s that trying to balance where my energy is going to go.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: I mean.
Juli Bauer: Writing books is f*cking hard.
Liz Wolfe: I don’t know if I’m making the right decision. Yeah, it is.
Juli Bauer: Getting programs together is so challenging, and takes everything.
Liz Wolfe: It does.
Juli Bauer: So you can’t work on other things.
Liz Wolfe: But it’s terrible. It’s terrible because people need to know this information, and I don’t know. I just get this tunnel vision where I’m like; “Ok, just focus on this. Just focus on this.”
Juli Bauer: Yeah. Well, I think people will love that. Because I would never know that information. And I feel like there are so many places to look for information, how do you know what is accurate at this point, as the medical field continues to change and evolve, and our knowledge continues to change. It just feels so overwhelming. I think that’s what people feel. And then they’re just like, “Oh, I’ll just see if I can get pregnant. Whatever.”
Liz Wolfe: Yep. Yep. Pretty much. Which is cool. That’s basically what we did. We were like, “Wow. It worked. Holy sh*t.”
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: “What are we going to do now?” But I do hope; the program is going to be called Baby Making and Beyond. And what we want to do with it is provide, not just this village, but this I don’t even know. I need my tagline for it. Welcome to your village. This is like the wise woman village. Where you go in, and you get all of this evidence based information. You get information that’s pertinent to you, whether you do a home birth or you do the full on, epidural, give me the drugs, hospital birth. Whether you breast feed or formula feed. We’re going to be really open and honest about the benefits of one over the other. But it’s also going to be a place where you get support, where you get evidence-based information. And you’re kind of in this group of like-minded people. Who are like, ok, I trust the conventional wisdom. I understand that it’s there for a reason. But we can always build on it. Let’s just give people a really great resource that they can find everything that they’re looking for. And this is everything that I needed when I was pregnant and didn’t have. So we’re trying to do a lot with it. I think it’s going to be amazing if I ever effing get it done.
Juli Bauer: Oh my god! {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: So yeah.
Juli Bauer: That’s awesome. I think people will love that. And I got a couple of questions about that, when you think you’re going to be coming out with that. So people will obviously…
Liz Wolfe: I know, I saw that. People are like; people who heard about it initially, their kids are like 3 now.
Juli Bauer: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: And they’re like, “Well, figured it out on my own.”
Juli Bauer: {laughing} So how has been being a mom for the first time?
Liz Wolfe: Oh my god it’s been so f*cking hard.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: I told you I was so excited I could cuss. We try and keep it clean on the Balanced Bites podcast, because we don’t have an explicit rating.
Juli Bauer: You’re good here. You do you.
Liz Wolfe: Ok good. So I beat myself up for a really long time that I wasn’t this, I don’t know. This is going to sound wrong but I’ll just say it. A lot of people in this evolutionary, paleo, real food, pregnancy, birth world just seemed to be having these perfect births. These beautiful pregnancy, flowy mama homebirth. Whatever.
Juli Bauer: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: They just have it together. Whereas for me, one of my memories. And I probably shouldn’t say this. But one of my memories was, in the early weeks, my mom coming over and I handed her this baby and I was like, “This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.” And she wasn’t. Of course your heart fills with all this; I was going to say love. But it’s more fear for me at the beginning. {laughs}
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Just like, how. What? Especially when your birth doesn’t go as planned. It knocks you down a peg. And I’ve been working with a therapist, thank god. It took me 2 years to finally sit down with somebody and be like; help me. Help me. Because I felt like, and maybe just me as a perfectionist, I felt this way. But I felt like giving birth in a certain way would make me a mother. That would be the threshold, where I was like, “I did that.” And then the baby would come out of my vagina, and I would be a mother. And I didn’t get that.
And not only do I have all of these thoughts floating around in my head; the things that I used to tell people. Like, “We see this with cesarean births.” Or, “We see this with epidurals.” And we see this. All of these scary things that I used to share with people just as information, I suddenly realized how scary and how oppressive they could be. And it was that, and it was not getting the birth experience that I had planned for. I felt really, really, really disempowered from the beginning. And I felt like I have no confidence, I don’t know what I’m doing.
And in hindsight, I did a lot of things right. I was very respectful of my child from the beginning. I talked to her, even when I knew she couldn’t understand. I just really tried to treat her with a great deal of respect, and remember that she was dependent but not helpless. So all of that was good. But in my head, I just felt like a mess. I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. I was tired. I was afraid of ruining her. Everything was scary. Every decision I made was scary. And that was really hard for the first 2 years to feel like, I want to help other people with this, and I’m a mess?
But I think in the end. And at least now I’m starting to realize, with the help of a therapist and a range of other modalities that I’m incorporating, just to be well and to thrive. I’m realizing that my journey is a lot like a lot of other people’s journeys.
Juli Bauer: Yes.
Liz Wolfe: I think my voice is needed. I think I can still help people, even though I was a garbage mess for a long time.
Juli Bauer: And that’s what, I think, is so hard. Especially with social media now. It’s like, everybody seems so put together, and has it all, and knows what they’re doing.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: And you know, that’s so not true. But that’s what we see. That’s what we visually see every day. And that’s what’s so hard about social media. Nobody just talks about the sh*tty stuff. Because it’s not like you just talk with random friends. Maybe you talk with your close friends about it. But you don’t talk with random friends about, “This really f*cking sucks right now.”
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: And so you just think everybody has it together.
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Juli Bauer: Everybody’s life is perfect except your own. So you feel so alone.
Liz Wolfe: And the other hard part. And people who follow my social media, they know that I don’t post about these things very often. I don’t post about the hard stuff. Because the other side to that is; everybody is so quick to offer advice instead of just sitting with you in your feelings.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: And that’s a huge; the evolutionary parenting community, in particular the attachment parenting community. The ability to give bad advice is not limited to the conventional wisdom. Sometimes, you just need people to sit with you in your pain, and be like, “I see you. I will be here.” And you just don’t get that generally on social media. And you know; you have many more followers than I do. If you were to post, “Oh man, I have this little issue. It kind of sucks.” You would get 50,000 comments telling you why you have that issue, why you suck. What you’re doing wrong as the result you have that issue. Here’s what you should do. Blah, blah, blah.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. It’s overwhelming.
Liz Wolfe: That’s all consuming. Yes, it’s overwhelming.
Juli Bauer: Mm-hmm. And with your social media, I know you don’t show your husband.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Sometimes.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. And you don’t show your child’s face. You always show the back of her head. And that’s something I do. I don’t ever show my husband, and I block his face in everything. I’ve chosen to do that out of; I just want to have my own personal life. Why have you chosen to do that? When so many put their children completely out there.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I don’t; I don’t know. There are several reasons. It’s definitely part of it. My husband’s in the military, and I just feel better keeping it close to the vest. My daughter; this social media experiment. This is brand spanking new. We didn’t have Prodigy or a desktop computer until I was 12. Prodigy is like the original internet. And, I just don’t know where this is going. I do know that it’s a very real threat that people steal pictures off of the internet and pass them off as theirs.
Juli Bauer: Yes!
Liz Wolfe: I’ve seen it happen. I just can’t do it. It’s like peeing in a pool. You can’t get it back. So I just kind of decided; I’ll wait until I feel comfortable taking a piss in this pool. And I just never have.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: And, on top of that, when you have multiple families that you’re dealing with, and multiple people in your family that are all on social media, you definitely lose control of your kids’ image. So I could have 8 different people putting pictures of my daughter on their own social media, not knowing what their privacy settings are. So it was just the right choices for us.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. No. I remember seeing someone who posted a picture of their kid on the toilet for the first time.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: Who has a larger following; not just their 40 friends. And I’m like, that picture could be taken by the worst of human beings.
Liz Wolfe: Yes. 100%.
Juli Bauer: And I know we all want to live in this world of there’s no dark web, and there’s not child predators out there. But it is a completely real world. And the more you open your eyes to that, the more aware you are. So when I see these children on there, I’m like, they have no control over that. And you have no control of what happens to that image. And that’s really f*cking scary. You have control, like, “Ok, I’m going to put this picture out here knowing someone may take this and do something inappropriate, but it’s my child.”
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Juli Bauer: Your child, that’s your choice. It’s not your child’s choice. It’s just like; I get very frustrated about, when I see some of those pictures. I’m like, anybody has control of taking that. That’s so creepy.
Liz Wolfe: I think it’s good to have faith in humanity and not think about that all the time. But, it’s a reality. People are disgusting and terrible. And on top of that; even if people aren’t going to take the picture. But you and I have had our images stolen many times, and repurposed for other people’s profit. But the idea of just somebody even looking at my child and having a mean thought.
Juli Bauer: Yes!
Liz Wolfe: I don’t want that. I don’t want someone to look at her and say, “Oh, her whatever. Left cheek looks uneven.”
Juli Bauer: Yeah!
Liz Wolfe: I mean, it’s not. She’s perfect. She’s absolutely glorious. But I don’t even want people putting their crappy thoughts on my kid.
Juli Bauer: Totally! I mean, that’s why I’ve never shared a photo of Brian. Because the things that people have said about me, and that have hurt me so much. If anybody said anything about Brian, I would f*cking lose it.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah.
Juli Bauer: I would lose it on that person. Nowadays, I can move on without even saying something, because I know that’s what they want. But if they said something about my husband, I would freak out.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: So that’s why I can’t imagine having your child and somebody saying something negative about your child. Or even thinking it! You’re just like, stay away from my life. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. 100%. When she is old enough to decide she wants her picture on social media, then we can have that conversation. But for now, it’s just going to be the beautiful back of her head. {laughs}
Juli Bauer: Yes. Her flowing blonde cute little hair.
Liz Wolfe: Oh my gosh. That was; this is terrible. One of the first thoughts I had when they handed her to me, she didn’t have blonde hair yet. She had darker hair. But I was like; “She doesn’t look like me at all.” {laughs}
Juli Bauer: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: I thought she’d look different.
Juli Bauer: Is she starting to look more like you, or does she look more like your husband?
Liz Wolfe: Well, she definitely has his coloring. She’s blonde hair, blue eyes. She has kind of the more; my husband is very like Nick Lachey. {laughs} He’s very like…
Juli Bauer: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: He’s very masculine features. And she’s definitely got the more delicate nose like I have and everything. But yeah. It’s kind of funny. I definitely thought my brown hair, brown eyes would win out in the DNA fight. But they did not.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. And how many years have you been married now?
Liz Wolfe: Oh man. I think technically 8, because we got married officially. {laughs} Actually, my hair dresser married us. Which is really funny. She was ordained online, and she just kind of married us and signed the papers when we took him in for a haircut. And then the following year we had our wedding. So we’ve been married, I think, 8 years now technically.
Juli Bauer: And did you get married in Jersey? Is that where you were living then? Did you do that?
Liz Wolfe: No. Kansas City.
Juli Bauer: Ok gotcha.
Liz Wolfe: Living in New Jersey, and we came back for the wedding. It’s kind of funny because Kansas City has grown and gotten amazing in the last couple of years. But it was still kind of coming up when we had our wedding. And our reception, they promised me that the sign was going away. Our wedding reception venue was right next to the strip club.
Juli Bauer: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: ` And this flashing sign that says “Totally nude!”
Juli Bauer: Oh. My. God.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Not only was it there for our wedding reception, it is still there.
Juli Bauer: Eww!
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. {laughs}
Juli Bauer: Gross.
Liz Wolfe: I know, so gross.
Juli Bauer: When we got married in Jamaica, in all of our wedding photos while we’re actually getting married, there’s like a Snack Shack behind us.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: And there’s a dude eating nachos in a teeny weeny little European type swimsuit. With a gigantic gut. So that’s what we get. We got those kinds of nudes at our wedding.
Liz Wolfe: That is amazing.
Juli Bauer: {laughs} So do you have any marriage tips after being married that long? And having a child. I like to ask this question if anybody is married on my podcast. Because one of my friends asked it on her podcast when I was on it, and I was like, that’s kind of fun. But I don’t have any tips, because I’ve been married a year and it’s fine so far. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: But, do you have any marriage tips that have really helped you out? Whether that’s having your own separate lives or really anything?
Liz Wolfe: Oh my gosh. I really like this question. And I kind of wish I had more time to prepare for it.
Juli Bauer: I know, sorry.
Liz Wolfe: But I think I have a couple of good pearls.
Juli Bauer: I started writing it down as we were talking, so I didn’t even have this one planned.
Liz Wolfe: This is really good. The first piece of advice is; don’t be an asshole.
Juli Bauer: Yep. Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: I mean, I have to check myself a lot. One of the things that’s really helped me is Brene Brown. She has a little; they made little videos out of some of her presentations. And if you Google Brene Brown shame, and also Brene Brown blame.
Juli Bauer: Ok.
Liz Wolfe: Definitely Google Brene Brown blame. Because she tells this story about how she spilled coffee on herself, and somehow it was her husband’s fault. He wasn’t even at the house at the time.
Juli Bauer: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: And I find myself doing that. Blaming him for nothing. For absolutely no reason. And I have to check myself, and just be like; Ok. Is this coming from you or is it really his fault? You just have to be willing to check yourself here and there.
Juli Bauer: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: And besides the obvious, like marry your best friend. This and that. This is a piece of advice that; I used to feel really ashamed and judged about this. But sometimes, especially after you have kids; sleep in separate bedrooms.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: People look at me like that is f*cking crazy. Like, marriage killer. But number one, my husband snores sometimes. And it is not fair for me to get woken up 10 times a night to kick him to turn over. I need the full night sleep. And another thing is, when you’re a mom and you get married. Not when you’re a mom and you get married.
Juli Bauer: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: When you’re a mom. And you activate that whole, “I hear noises that aren’t actually there. I hear babies crying that aren’t crying.”
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: You cannot sleep. And you have to let your husband take the baby monitor, or whatever, let your husband sleep outside the door if you don’t use a monitor. Let him take the kid and sleep downstairs so you can get a full night sleep. I really think sleeping in separate bedrooms is the most amazing reset button to press on any relationship.
Juli Bauer: Hmm. Interesting. Very cool.
Liz Wolfe: I feel like women’s sleep suffers a hell of a lot more than men’s during marriage.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. I think, being married for the first year, especially, people were hounding me. And they still do, and I go through these frustrations of people asking when I’m going to have kids, and that’s not on my agenda at all. So I often go through those things in my head of those stages. And when my dog makes the weirdest noise, I always wake up and hear him.
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Juli Bauer: Like, the other night he threw up randomly, and I’m like scrubbing the carpet at like 3 in the morning, and my husband wakes up as I’m scrubbing the carpet. He’s like, what are you doing?
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: I’m like, are you f*cking serious? You didn’t hear our dog just throw up?
Liz Wolfe: Did you not hear? Yeah.
Juli Bauer: And I think it’s the total same. Especially when you’ve grown a child within you, and you’re so in tune with the child, and then you birth it. You’re going to hear everything and be worried about everything.
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Juli Bauer: When the husband just doesn’t always get that same feeling. And that really worries me. I’m like, I would just be up right away and be like, well f*ck it. I’m up. I’ll take care of the baby, whatever.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I know what to do.
Juli Bauer: And then build up a frustration. Yeah!
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Totally.
Juli Bauer: And build up a fight.
Liz Wolfe: And that’s hard.
Juli Bauer: That’s not their fault. But you’re just, want to be there for your baby. But you need to actually have time to rejuvenate and recover and sleep.
Liz Wolfe: Yes. You have to sleep. {laughs} You just have to sleep.
Juli Bauer: Yes.
Liz Wolfe: And even after you’ve got the child sleeping locked down, and you kind of figured it out. If your husband is waking you up snoring. If you’re not sleeping well enough with him in that bed with you, send him to the couch.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: It’s fine. It doesn’t say anything about your marriage. It just says that you’re going to get some sleep so you can function better the next day.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. And it’s just a stage. One of my friends, she has a toddler. Almost 3. And then she just had twins; they’re 8 weeks old.
Liz Wolfe: Oh my god.
Juli Bauer: Can you imagine?
Liz Wolfe: Faint.
Juli Bauer: Having this one child, and now having three?
Liz Wolfe: No.
Juli Bauer: And they never sleep. They’re always on different sleep schedules.
Liz Wolfe: Amazing.
Juli Bauer: And she’s pumping like 9 hours a day. She’s so exhausted. And you can just see; she’s like, “It’s just a stage. I have to remember this is not the rest of our life. We can get through this.”
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: It’s just so f*cking hard. And when we went to their house, they’re like, “Here’s our babies!” Like, just hands them over.
Liz Wolfe: Take them.
Juli Bauer: And they’re like, we’re just going to sit and be quiet. I just can’t imagine having 3, let alone one.
Liz Wolfe: Oh my gosh. And just having the one; I’ve been so conscientious about who takes care of her, and who’s feeding her, all of these things, and what she eats. But I can totally see if we ever had another one, which is not on the agenda right now. If we ever did, I can totally see myself being a lot looser about that, and just chilling out a little bit and just handing the damn kid over for some help.
Juli Bauer: Totally. I think before when I first met her first child, it was like, she gave me some hand sanitizer.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: {laughs} Like, total first mom syndrome.
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Juli Bauer: And then your child is sick all the time because they go to daycare. Like, no one needs hand sanitizer. It’s bound to happen.
Liz Wolfe: 100%.
Juli Bauer: But now with the three children they’re like, I don’t care where you take my baby. Just go. Just go. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Completely.
Juli Bauer: Don’t care if your hands are in the mud. Take the baby. I just can’t imagine. I can’t imagine. It’s always such good birth control whenever I go over there. I’m like, nope. Not ready. Not prepared.
Liz Wolfe: So, don’t succumb to the whole; here’s what we did. And I would never, ever give my child back. I love her to the moon and back. Obviously. She’s amazing. She’s teaching me a million things. But the whole thing started with, we just kind of wanted to check and see if it worked. You know {laughing}.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: If it works like they say it does, it will probably take us a couple of times. Type of thing. So, don’t test the equipment unless you’re ready to take the full ride. {laughs}
Juli Bauer: For real. For real. We’re actually going to be talking about birth control in a second. But before we answer people’s questions, I want to talk about your skin care. You’ve really got into beauty over the years. And actually when I first met you, which was 5 or so years ago, I had really, really bad cystic acne. It was at its worst at that point. And you introduced me to cod liver oil. Which was literally the grossest thing I’ve ever put into my mouth.
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Juli Bauer: You’re like, “Yeah, you should try this cod liver oil.” It’s like this gel. It was like this cinnamon gel. And I thought I was going to throw up every time I took it. I would swig it with water, anything I could. Grossest thing I’ve ever put in my mouth, so thank you for that experience.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, you’re welcome. I hope you had a lot of nice burbs.
Juli Bauer: {laughing} So you are very into the natural skin care and line. And I’m the opposite. I love all the chemicals. I love the peels. I love lasers. So we have kind of different angles. So I want to hear about, kind of how you got into natural beauty and how it became part of your business, as well.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Well this was a while back. Probably early on when it was still Cavegirl Eats. Where I used to have pretty bad, pretty confusing skin. So I had a lot of acne along my jaw and neck. Really dry, flaky spots. Those little milia.
Juli Bauer: Yeah, those bumps.
Liz Wolfe: Those underground bumps. All kinds of things. And I had been on different medications for it. I could never figure it out. And I actually remember a time in college. This was long before I ever got into natural body care or whatever. I remember just starting to get really obsessed with which treatments I was using that were working, and why. I remember having a sulfur based skin gel that I used that was amazing. So I got really interested in sulfur. And of course, I didn’t look it up that much because that was literally before the internet was a big deal. So I wasn’t going to go to the library and look it up. But I was interested in that, and I would kind of dispense advice to other people. I used to think I needed all of these products, but really you just need the right products with the right active ingredients.
But then when I got into the more natural food, and thinking about how you want what goes into your body to be clean, I started realizing that what we put on our bodies should probably be clean too. And I think that I realized that by working with some folks with celiac disease and finding some certified gluten-free, non-irritating shampoo and condition and stuff like that for them. So that’s how I stumbled across this whole idea.
And it started out like super-duper natural. Oils, and oil cleansing method, and washing your hair with baking soda. Which I did, for a long time. And my hair was amazing. But then you get to that point where you’re like; I like learning about stuff. I want to know what the next thing that’s going to work is going to be. So I started going from that really natural, crunchy, ethic, to safe science. Which is kind of where I am now. I kind of mix in some of the natural stuff with some of the more science-y stuff. But I really look for all of it to be in safe formulations without some of the big endocrine disruptors and stuff like that. Which is something I really like to get women that are working on maintaining their fertility. You really want them to stay away from estrogenic compounds in the environment to the degree that you can. Because they do have a cumulative effect. We have good science on that.
So now the brands that I really love, and I have a product that I co-designed with Primal Life Organics. It is an oil-based vitamin C serum. So the active ingredients in that would be vitamin C. Coffee bean oil is amazing, because it contains caffeine. Which is an active ingredient in a ton of science-y skin care. Like, any good eye cream should have caffeine in it. Absolutely. And I use a lot of stuff from Beautycounter. They’ve done a really good job of basically formulating products that use these science-y active ingredients. Whether that’s vitamin C as magnesium ascorbyl phosphate. There are different forms that do different things. Or a green tea extract. Or a caffeine. Or salicylic acid. Which, anybody that’s had acne knows about salicylic acid. But they formulated all these active ingredients in these safer bases, without parabens and things like that.
So love Beautycounter. I know you know that. Absolutely love this product; and I actually need to send you some of this, Juli. I have some samples for you that I’ll send you. The HiQ CoQ10 serum is amazing. CoQ10 is like my new thing. Everybody should be using a product with CoQ10. It’s incredible. Everybody loves vitamin C products; the next thing is going to be everybody loves CoQ10 products. And it’s a really hard ingredient to work with, so the people behind this brand that I’ve been talking to have done the same thing. They’ve formulated their products to be cruelty free, and paraben free, and all of this stuff. The woman behind the brand is like a peptide scientist, so she knows a ton about peptides and skin care and things like that. And their CoQ10 serum is fantastic. It’s a water based, like a cream based serum. So it’s not like an oil. But it’s really tough to formulate with CoQ10, because if you put it in oils it’s bright red, and you don’t want to put that on your face.
I just like supporting the brands now that are doing the safer science thing. It doesn’t have to be all natural if that’s not your bag, but everybody can do something that’s a little safer. And I know I’m rambling, but I want to say I love peels. Because basically they’re just purified acids.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: It’s not like you’re, I don’t know, injecting your fact with heroin.
Juli Bauer: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: It’s a really, really smart way to renew your skin quickly. And I also like lasers. I think it’s really interesting the way we’ve harnessed this science to use on our skin. I think it’s really cool.
Juli Bauer: It’s so cool. I’m so obsessed with it. I absolutely love working with my esthetician, and seeing the different things that she’s tried and has liked and not liked. I think it’s just so interesting.
Liz Wolfe: It is.
Juli Bauer: Skincare just continues to grow and develop and change over time. Just like you said, you didn’t know about maybe CoQ10 5 years ago, and now you’re like, “I want to use this all the time.”
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Juli Bauer: We’re continually finding out about new products out there.
Liz Wolfe: So fun.
53.42
Juli Bauer: Ok. Well, there’s a couple of questions about skincare in these questions from readers. So I want to get into those so you can talk a little bit more. So we’ll just start with some of the questions. This one is from Jess B Healthy. She said, “What are your top 3 beauty products?”
Liz Wolfe: Oh. I’ll probably give top 5.
Juli Bauer: She said top 3 skincare, top 3 beauty, so you can kind of mix them both in there if you want to.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, ok. Alright, so skincare I mostly just think of the face. I mean, if I have time for anything, it’s my face. Elbows can go f*ck themselves. So I love the three products that I have on my website. I actually have a post about this. Are the purifying charcoal mask from Beautycounter. It is amazing. One of my favorite products literally of all time. I don’t just rep Beautycounter, it’s one of many brands that I like to promote and work with because I use it. But that is top shelf, absolutely obsessed. Use it multiple times a week.
I also put the everything spray from Primally Pure up there. Really affordable. Well formulated. It’s a great introduction to Primally Pure as a brand. They do amazing things, absolutely love them.
Juli Bauer: Love their stuff.
Liz Wolfe: Yes. And then of course, my vitamin C serum that I co-designed with Primal Life Organics. It’s really expensive. But there is no wasted space in there whatsoever. One of the challenges that you get with water or cream based products is you have basically a ton of ingredients that are basically just meant to keep the active ingredient stable. Because any time you put something in a water based formulation, you have to worry about bacterial growth and all that stuff. So, oils are just this amazingly affective delivery system for these different constituents that can improve your skin. So that’s part of the reason why it’s so expensive. So those are my top three right now. And then I also, if I could have 4, that HiQ CoQ10 serum is unbelievable. So that’s another one I really love.
Juli Bauer: And do you have those all on your blog? You have a post.
Liz Wolfe: I don’t have the HiQ one yet. I’m just working my way through the first bottle. But I’ll add that. I’ll add that to the post. And there is the post my top 3 skincare products of all time for the face is right there at http://realfoodliz.com/.
Juli Bauer: Ok, awesome. So people can get links to all those.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: Ok, let’s see. Let’s go into; I like this one. This is Ander Beth. I think it’s a she. She says, “Has your diet, or view on the diet, changed since writing Eat the Yolks?”
Liz Wolfe: That’s a really good question. I think that if I were to do a second edition of Eat the Yolks, I think a few things would change. I probably would actually put a greater emphasis on fruit over starches as healthy sources of carbohydrates. I might be a little bit more pro fiber than I was in the book. I think I kind of brought the hammer down on fiber a little bit more than I needed to. But I just hate the whole, “you need fiber from grains” thing.
Juli Bauer: Yeah, that sucks.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. So those might have changed. And I definitely did not talk enough about nachos in my book.
Juli Bauer: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: I think I’d go back and talk a little bit more about nachos.
Juli Bauer: There’s a lot to say about nachos.
Liz Wolfe: Indeed. Indeed. I do love nachos.
Juli Bauer: They’re just the best. Do you like; do you eat the Siete foods grain free tortilla chips?
Liz Wolfe: I have.
Juli Bauer: I don’t know what kind of grocery stores you get out there on the farm.
Liz Wolfe: Well I drive like an hour to go to Natural Grocer’s. So bad carbon footprint; good chips.
Juli Bauer: {laughs} Yes. Do you add any into your own personal plan; do you eat any corn.
Liz Wolfe: Oh yeah.
Juli Bauer: Or rice. How do you see paleo for your own body?
Liz Wolfe: Well. You know, I got paleo down. I know how to do it. And I also know that I have the same results eating corn, some dairy, and treating myself now and then as I did when I was super strict paleo and stressing about it all the time. So for me, we do nachos probably once a week, once every two weeks.
Juli Bauer: Oh my god, that sounds amazing.
Liz Wolfe: It is amazing. I mean, Jackson’s Honest chips, right?
Juli Bauer: So good.
Liz Wolfe: So it’s organic, non-GMO blue corn. And then you just add shredded chicken and peppers, avocado, and some cheese. And it is so stinking good.
Juli Bauer: So good.
Liz Wolfe: I’m like; what’s bad about that? That’s veggies, meat, and avocado on some corn. No big deal.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: So. Yeah. And I’ve had beer recently. You just have to recognize the stage of life you’re in, and decide what your compromises are going to be and remove the guilt from them. It is just not worth feeling sh*tty about nachos, when you’re trying to keep a 2-year-old alive. It’s not worth feeling sh*tty about nachos when you’re not trying to keep a 2-year-old alive.
Juli Bauer: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: Just eat the nachos.
Juli Bauer: I know. I know. People start getting so crazy. And that kind of leads into this next question, what we talked about a little bit before we started recording. And this question is; this is a long f*cking name. Miss Kitten Takes on the World.
Liz Wolfe: Lovely.
Juli Bauer: So, she asks, “I’m starting to listen to Balanced Bites, and I’ve been hearing about fasting and keto.” She’s about to embark on AIP, “But the more I hear about keto, the more confused I am about which route I should go down. Any ideas?”
Liz Wolfe: Well. At one point in my life, I would have wanted to know everything I possibly could about every different way to eat. Keto, AIP, out of the box paleo, fasting, IF, all of that stuff. I don’t bother anymore. Because I don’t have the mental space for it. I’m not doing keto, and I’m not fasting, so I quite frankly, know very little about it. I know what I used to know, like 2 or 3 years ago when it was like, keto is low carb and using ketone sticks to see where you’re at. And I know it is far more complicated than that. We’ve had books come out. We’ve had keto experts come out. We’ve had people on medical ketogenic diets. I recognize that it is an incredibly complex topic, and I don’t grasp it right now.
Juli Bauer: That’s how I feel too!
Liz Wolfe: It’s crazy.
Juli Bauer: And I don’t want to take the time to figure it all out.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Ditto.
Juli Bauer: When I feel like I’m happy where I am, just eating healthy and drinking water and taking care of myself.
Liz Wolfe: Yes. And that should be the goal for everybody. You know, I’m not saying that this gal is doing that, but I do see it over and over again. People are like, “Oh, is this the magic bullet? Oh, is this the magic bullet?” When really we just need to be thinking, “What makes me feel good?” And “What helps me stress less?” And, “Am I sleeping at night?”
Juli Bauer: Yeah. And that’s; I think everybody goes through these stages. Especially when they embark on a healthier journey and getting into paleo and just hearing all these different things that you really lose sight of what you should be doing. Which is just eating healthy, sleeping, being happy in general. I was so obsessed with intermittent fasting; and I was like, “I’m going to fast for 24 hours.” And I didn’t really know why I was fasting. I just knew other people were fasting, so I was like, “I should be fasting.” And I’m like, starving myself, and it’s just creating these poor behaviors that I had before I even started my health journey. I was like, what the f*ck am I doing? And it took me a long time to understand that. I think a lot of people go through that, and I’m sure there are tons of health benefits to keto that I don’t really know about. But often you just see people getting on that train because it’s just the train to go on right now.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like, “Oh, I’m hearing about this. This is probably the next big thing.”
Juli Bauer: Yeah. If people are talking about it, it must be right.
Liz Wolfe: It can be really helpful for people. Totally. So, I don’t, I shouldn’t speak to it with any kind of authority other than to say, just watch your mindset. Watch the energy that you’re bringing to it. And I think we have a couple of episodes of the Balanced Bites podcast where we talk about keto, and a couple where we talk about fasting. But, the people that talk about these things in a favorable way are almost always not going to bring the full discussion. Not to say they’re omitting things purposefully. But you have to understand, no one thing works for every single person.
Juli Bauer: Yes!
Liz Wolfe: So look at the positives, then seek out the alternative perspectives. And see where you recognize yourself and your experience more.
Juli Bauer: Agreed. Agreed. I like that answer. Even though we don’t know anything about keto, we have the right answer, ok?
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: So, these next; I have three different questions, these last three, and these are all about pregnancy and babies, and that sort of thing.
Liz Wolfe: Ok.
Juli Bauer: So I thought it would be a good kind of rounding out. So this first question, which I liked this one because I’m going through this right now, is tips for getting off birth control. So I don’t know if you were on birth control before you…
Liz Wolfe: Oh yes.
Juli Bauer: Yeah, ok. So were you on…
Liz Wolfe: Many different kinds.
Juli Bauer: Yes, yes. As all of usually are.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Well. The last type that I used was actually the copper ParaGard. Which, I was totally gung-ho about at the time because it was not hormonal. But then I started to kind of learn a little bit more about its mechanism of action, which is to basically cause like low grade inflation in your cervix 100% of the time.
Juli Bauer: Hmmmm.
Liz Wolfe: And I don’t think that’s good.
Juli Bauer: And that’s an IUD, right?
Liz Wolfe: Yes. Yes.
Juli Bauer: Ok. Because that actually is my next question; they’re saying, I’m hearing a lot of mixed perspectives about the copper IUD. So what’s your opinion on it. So that works well.
Liz Wolfe: Ok. So we can kind of dovetail into that, as well. I’ll kind of answer both of those at the same time. Obviously, the Mirena IUD is hormonal. And I don’t know what it’s composed of; whether that’s progesterone only, or estrogen. I would probably be a lot less comfortable with it if it was estrogen based. The ParaGard basically, like I said, does this whole inflammation cascade that keeps sperm from being able to live in that environment. And I think that probably, theoretically, could have consequences for the health of your lady tissues. So I wouldn’t do it again. I did have it taken out, and I wouldn’t do it again.
Juli Bauer: How long were you on it?
Liz Wolfe: I thought it was great while I had it. Probably two or three years.
Juli Bauer: Ok.
Liz Wolfe: I think that it caused a little bit of a stressful environment. Maybe led to some abnormal paps that didn’t lead to anything, but I think it can be little bit stressful for the tissue. So you just want to stay on top of it. But some people use and it’s great. For coming off birth control, it’s just tough because it depends on what your hormonal balance was before, and what types of hormones are in the pill you’re taking currently. So, you really just have to watch and wait and kind of see how you’re feeling. I’d prefer more progesterone based birth control to estrogen. The estrogen options. So it just kind of depends. but one of the things you should definitely do is make sure you’re getting a really, really good quality like {laughs} dietary approach in place before you do it. Because you are really probably going to experience hormonal swings that you did not anticipate.
Juli Bauer: {laughs} Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I think we just did an episode with Jolene Brighten, I’m not sure. I haven’t listened to it yet, which is terrible. But I think we might have talked a little bit in that episode about birth control. So, folks can look for the Balanced Bites podcast on that. But really all you can do is keep things super clean, drink plenty of water, lemon water would be good. But not so much that you’re literally pissing all the time. Because that’s inconvenient and it’s unnecessary. and try and get a lot of really good sleep, because one of the really important governors of our hormonal balance is melatonin. So you just don’t want that wonky when you’re trying to recover from birth control.
Juli Bauer: And that, I recently just of birth control. I think this is my second month off birth control because I just didn’t want to be on hormones anymore. I just needed to; it was just the right time to start cleaning it out and start figuring out other options. And I was actually talk to Cassy from Fed and Fit and telling her I was having some mood swings just getting off of it. And she recommended, she was like, this is just a tip, you don’t have to listen to me, but I would recommend getting a little bit more carbohydrates in your diet if you can while you’re going through this. And I just upped my carbs a little bit, and I felt so much better.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: So if anybody experiencing that, it might be just getting that little extra carb. You never know if that could help.
Liz Wolfe: Awesome advice.
Juli Bauer: Ok, so this last question. And this is very sad, but it kind of ties into the birth and all that stuff we’ve been talking about. But this one is from Julia, and she says, she asked “I’d love some input on how to get back to feeling yourself after a miscarriage. I wake up ready to take on the day, but by midafternoon I’m back to eating my feelings with ice cream and other gluten-full junk.” It’s always; I’ve never gone through a miscarriage myself, so I don’t know what that is like. But I can’t imagine it to be an easy feeling for anyone, whether it’s one time thing, or its many miscarriages. So any advice for women who might be going through that.
Liz Wolfe: I mean, emotionally and physically it’s so hard. So, so much love out to you. I’m sorry that you’re going through that. I think that it’s really important that we give ourselves grace in these situations. But that can mean a lot of things. I said many times, “Give yourself grace,” but I also found myself, after my daughter’s crazy birth, I found myself in a situation where I was giving myself so much grace that I was actually wallowing and reinforcing and ruminating and doing all kinds of things that make that neurological pathways associate with anxiety and depression a lot deeper and a lot harder to circumvent. So while I think it’s critical that you give yourself a lot of space to feel whatever feelings you’re having, and to eat whenever ice cream you want to eat, and just kind of observe yourself in those moments, rather than assigning any kind of “should’s” or “shouldn’ts” to them. Like, I shouldn’t be eating this ice cream. Oh, it’s the end of the day, and I’ve one back to these eating my feeling habits again.
giving yourself that grace is important, but I also think it would be really, really, really great to seek out licensed professional counselor to just work through your feelings with. that’s been the single most powerful thing for me in the shortest period of time. And I have not gone through a miscarriage before, but I think that this probably applies. you don’t need to see a psychiatrist or a psychologist necessarily. some of these licensed professional counselors, LPCs, have decades of experience helping people navigate this really, really difficult time. So just Google that, find somebody in your area. You can even just see them once. And sometimes that’s enough to give you some really concrete tools to give yourself grace in the appropriate way, and to honor the feelings that you’re having, and to move forward when you’re ready. So I think seeking help is so huge, and if I could encourage people to do that above anything else, even if you’re eating ice cream during your appointment, just do that.
Juli Bauer: {laughs} Yeah. I think we as people are like, we can just talk to our friends or maybe our significant other, whoever is most important in our lives. But having a person who can give you actual feedback, not just your husband being like, it’s ok, we’ll get through it. Like, having actual feedback from a professional is so, so helpful. I’ve seen so many of my friends, not miscarriages, but going through therapy for certain things, and it has changed their lives.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: I think our generation is much more open to actually going to therapy and the benefits of it, but it’s still that kind of thing that you’re like, “No, I don’t need to talk to anybody. I’ll be fine.”
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: And people need to open their eyes that they totally can talk to someone, and change so many things about their lives by talking to someone about those issues.
Liz Wolfe: Yes. And they’re not just going to sit there and listen to you recount all of the bad things. They are literally going to give you tools that help you navigate through it in a way; it’s almost they’re performing magic on you. I really don’t know what my therapist has done to tune my; I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. Somehow I leave there feeling like I’m navigating the world in a different way. And I think it takes a ton of strength to go and seek out that kind of help. A lot of times people feel like it’s a weakness, or it’s admitting that I’m too weak to handle it. Or, it’s saying indirectly that your spouse or your best friends are not enough. But really, you can have your husband as your rock. You can have your friends as your support system, but you need your therapist for that guidance, that they know how to help you. And you will bring things up that you didn’t even know you needed to deal with.
Juli Bauer: I love that. It’s so, so true. I hope more people can kind of open their eyes. And I think this is a new generation that really has their eyes opened to that.
Liz Wolfe: Agreed.
Juli Bauer: I love that answer. So hopefully that helps, Julia. I’m sorry, Julia, you’re going through such a tough time. I can’t imagine going through that. But, thank you so much for coming on today, Liz.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah! That went fast.
Juli Bauer: Yeah, right. It’s so much fun talking to cool other people. It’s way easier on me when I don’t have to talk to myself for an hour.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: It’s so much fun communicating with another human. So thank you. I don’t know where you had to drive to get internet connection, but thank you for wherever you went.
Liz Wolfe: My pleasure.
Juli Bauer: And had someone watch your child while you did this. I really appreciate it. Tell people where they can find you. Talk about your book; where they can find your book. Your blog. And anything else that you just want to tell about yourself before you go. I know it’s making you tell about yourself. But it’s fine. Just tell the people what they want to hear.
Liz Wolfe: It’s good. It’s fine. So http://realfoodliz.com/. And you can pretty much; the blog is just ugly as sin. We need a desperate face lift.
Juli Bauer: No it’s not! No it’s not at all.
Liz Wolfe: I just haven’t messed with it in a long time. So http://realfoodliz.com/. You can get signed up for my emails, which I really encourage people to do, because when the baby program is ready an e-mail is going to go out. Like, you need to sign up for the emails, otherwise you’ll miss something. So http://realfoodliz.com/. My book is called Eat the Yolks, and you can find it on Amazon. I think it’s super cheap right now.
Juli Bauer: And it’s so funny, you guys.
Liz Wolfe: Thanks!
Juli Bauer: It’s like a book that is so knowledgeable, but it’s easy to read. So you’re not just being bored by facts. It’s so much fun. I love your book.
Liz Wolfe: Facts are so boring.
Juli Bauer: They’re so boring! I don’t know why people like to read them.
Liz Wolfe: I don’t know either.
Juli Bauer: But you make them fun. You make them interesting.
Liz Wolfe: Well good. And that’s what I hope to do with the baby program, too. I’m collaborating with Meg the midwife on it, and a ton of amazing people. We have an incredible lead researcher. And it’s just going to be amazing. So if you’re interested in that, you’ll get notified if you’re on my e-mail list from http://realfoodliz.com/. Or you can go to www.BabyMakingandBeyond.com, and sign up for the email list there. And find me on Instagram. I think those are probably the best three places to get the most important updates.
Juli Bauer: And do you do; I know you were doing videos for a while. And you have your hilarious videos. Are you doing videos anymore? I loved those.
Liz Wolfe: Not really. I think I will again eventually.
Juli Bauer: Videos are f*cking hard work.
Liz Wolfe: It is so hard. And that was all Amy, when she worked for me. She has a baby now, and another one on the way. And it’s just not feasible for us to work because we have the kids. But she coordinated all of that stuff.
Juli Bauer: Oh that sucks.
Liz Wolfe: So you need outside help for that type of thing.
Juli Bauer: You do. You do. I did a couple of cooking videos, and a couple of different videos. And it’s just hard. To get lighting right, and then to edit all the videos. It’s just so much time and money put into it. It’s a hard job to do, especially on your own. So I totally get that.
Liz Wolfe: Yes, it is.
Juli Bauer: But those videos were so funny, I love them.
Liz Wolfe: So they’re up on Facebook still. If folks go to the Real Food Liz Facebook page, you can go through. I’ve got some Facebook live videos that I did about skincare and random stuff like that. But my videos should be loaded to Facebook. I have a YouTube channel too, but you can’t comment there, I don’t think. Because I was sick of crazy people leaving comments on my YouTube channel.
Juli Bauer: The worst.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: I don’t even look at those, because they’re everywhere. You can’t get away from them.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. It’s just too much. But thank you for reminding me about those videos. I’d almost forgotten.
Juli Bauer: Oh my god, I love them. They’re so funny. You guys need to check those out. So thank you so guys so much; or thank you, Liz, so much for coming on.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: And thank you everyone for listening. Don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe. If you have any questions for Liz on anything, I’m sure she’s happy to answer. Go to her Instagram, go to her blog, and check out those posts that she talked about. Because I bet they’re freaking awesome. And that mask; that charcoal mask really is amazing.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: It’s the best. Ok. Well thank you so much, Liz. You can stay on the line, as I stop recording. Thanks everybody for listening. You guys are the best. I don’t know why you listen to me and my bullsh*t, but I’m so glad you came here for Liz today. I’ll talk to you guys next week. Have a wonderful day. Bye-bye!
Listening to Liz say “clusterfuck” was one of the top 5 moments of my day.
I would call it the best part but that sounds super lame.
Liz really is the best. I loved this episode. Thanks to you both!
she really is!
Thanks for that episode! You are a great interviewer!
awwww thanks becca!!
“F*** it, I’m up, i’ll take care of [insert item here, child, dog, cat, whatever]” is TOTALLY our thing… and the snoring… this whole thing is gold. I LOVE this.
Loved this interview! I especially resonate with what Liz was saying about chronic thyroid & low progesterone issues in women. I’m very interested in this because I have Hashimoto’s and hypothyroidism as well as low progesterone. I am 36 years old and had a miscarriage in 2015 – no pregnancy since then…yet. 🙂 I think Liz is definitely onto something – it has to be something about stress and diet and just our overall crap lives that are so prominent (at least in America) right now…and by right now I mean for the last 20+ years. The longer I live and fight this fight of trying to get healthier, I can see how important it is for YOUNG women (and men too) to learn about true health – diet, exercise, sleep & stress relief. If I grew up in the 80s & 90s I just can’t even imagine the kind of stressful lives babies born today will have in 36 years… It just feels like we’re running nowhere fast. I like to support folks like you & Liz that are on a mission to make our world a healthier, happier place.
Always love the podcast. Today was just great! Thanks for introducing me to Liz & thanks for all you do, Juli!
thanks for listening, jessica!