Effortless Weight loss For Fertility and Beyond with Nagina Abdullah – #42

0:27 Charlene Lincoln: Welcome back to another episode of The Fertility Hour. We have a really fun guest and the reason I say that is because I’ve been reading about her, she’s doing amazing things out there helping women get healthier and overcome one of the biggest struggles, I guess, we have in America today – weight. But not in some crazy processed food, weird deprivation type of way. This is a really unique approach and so I’m excited to have her on.

Let me tell you a little bit about her. Nagina Abdullah is a health coach for Busy Women & Moms and founder of the website MasalaBody.com. She teaches women with a demanding career and busy life how to eat healthier without feeling deprived and has helped hundreds of women lose 15 to 40 pounds and shrink their waist. Nagina has been featured in Business Insider, Health.com, Huffington Post, and on Fox News. Welcome, Nagina.

Nagina Abdullah: Thank you so much, Charlene. I’m so excited to be here with you.

1:35 CL: Thank you. So we’re excited to have you. Tell us all your secrets.

NA: Yes! Ready, set, go. I’ll spill them all. I’m so happy to spill them all too, as many as I can. I think I could start just by sharing that I struggled with weight loss my entire life. It was something that I really thought about every single day. I pretty much tried every single diet out there. I tried Atkins, I tried South Beach. I tried eating less and exercising more. I tried Weight Watchers. All of the things. And I would lose weight. I did lose weight but then I would lose a little bit and I would feel so deprived from what I was going through that the minute I felt a plateau or the minute something came up, I would just say “forget it” and I would end up putting that weight back on and then often more than that.

So after struggling with this my whole life, I started working in a very demanding job in New York City as a management consultant. I used to live in California. I moved to New York and started this career. And then my life got even more hectic and then soon I had my first child and then I had my second child. Then with that came more weight. At that point, I need to get the weight off.

So I had 20 pounds to lose and I started changing what I was eating. I had started doing things differently than I had ever done before. I didn’t focus on small portion sizes and I didn’t focus on counting calories. What I did focus on was eating natural anti-inflammatory foods and then adding anti-inflammatory, fat-burning spices to my food.

I followed a lot of what Tim Ferriss writes about in The 4-Hour Body which is a slow carb diet. So it’s really natural foods, low sugar. And slow carbs meaning beans or lentils replacing bread or rice or pasta or other carbs.

Actually, what happened after I did that, is that my food tasted so amazing because I was using these flavorful spices and I lost 40 pounds in 9 months. I couldn’t believe that that happened. So I lost the 20 pounds of pregnancy but I went down to my lowest weight ever. I think probably more important than that is that it’s been 7 years and I’ve kept it off and gotten more toned since then, and now I’m in my early 40’s. So just to be able to be more fit now than I was 20 years ago. I wish someone had told me about this earlier. I would love to share even more of these secrets and I have some special tips especially for spices for fertility that I can talk about.

4:19 CL: Okay. I saw your abs. Are those airbrushed? I was like, “Wow! That’s amazing.” Well, you should be really proud that you feel better in your 40’s because that is possible. Though many of us feel like it’s just going to be a gradual decline into being a senior and whatever. So you are in a sense aging in reverse.

NA: Oh, that is such a good point, even that you’re asking is that possible. It’s so true because just the fact that it’s possible, it’s like we don’t even realize. I mean, I know when I was growing up, all the role models that I was seeing that were older than me, they did not seem healthy and they were very tired. They were overweight. A lot of women that had had especially after going through having kids or even just trying to have kids, it’s exhausting sometimes and so a lot of women around me that were older were overweight and were tired and were not stylish. And part of the reason after I had kids, I wanted to kind of combat that stereotype. I think that’s probably the reason I went so hard. That you can actually still live your life and feel really healthy. Actually, I can lift more weight now, like meaning I’m stronger than I was before. But the reason is because I treat my body better than I used to treat my body because I know more now.

And so it absolutely is possible to feel more energy, to feel vibrant, to actually wake up on a Saturday morning and to want to go on a hike, to go to the beach and want to run into the waves. It’s so possible to have that and more going into your 40’s and beyond. It’s just about treating your body well and a lot of it can start with food.

6:09 CL: Absolutely. That’s pretty much the foundation of everything, right?

NA: Exactly, yes.

6:16 CL: I think you have a son and a daughter. Is that true?

NA: Yes.

6:19 CL: I mean, especially to our daughters, I have a young daughter too, you want to be a role model, and a role model of not like “Oh yeah, my mom did these crazy diets her entire life and yoyoed back and forth. But actually, my mom ate really healthy and was in great shape and had a really healthy relationship food.” Right? I mean that’s so important because so many of us were like, “Oh yeah, my mom always felt fat and she was on these crazy diets her whole life.”

NA: Yes, yes. That is such an excellent point because what our moms do and what we do in front of our especially daughters, it really does stick with them and I know this especially because I’ve worked with hundreds of clients now in a one-on-one and in a group program format. I’ve talked with them about why they are feeling so crazy around food and many women talk about the fact that their mothers were very crazy around food. They were going on different diets, they were counting their calories. Or the opposite, they were completely kind of out of control and overweight and they didn’t want to be like that, and so they created a different relationship with food.

So it is really key to be healthy but in a very natural, healthy way because it doesn’t have to be about diets and calorie counting and all those things. Even though I know that’s what many of us have been taught, there is much more intuitive feminine ways to lose weight that actually where you include some structure to it so you know what you’re doing. You have a plan that you’re following but yet you feel really good about it. You’re not only counting the numbers. And that’s possible, it is really possible to go about losing weight and living your life like that.

8:04 CL: I like that you said ‘intuitive feminine ways’. What does that mean?

NA: Okay, so what that means is that a lot of times like for example, if you’re following a program like Weight Watchers, which does work, many women have found a lot of success with it, or you’re counting calories, you’re really working on like this external counting and making sure that you’re following these rules. And if you don’t follow the rules, then you’re breaking the rules. A lot of us have this mentality that if we break the rules, it’s all or nothing. So if we have a bite of a brownie or a chocolate cake or we eat a slice of pizza at a kid’s birthday party and we weren’t planning to, sometimes we have this “on the wagon, off the wagon” mentality where we feel like, okay, I’m just off the wagon so let me just be completely off the wagon versus saying like “Okay, it’s okay to have a piece of pizza. It’s okay to have some cake. And now, I’m going to get back to feeling good about myself.”

So being intuitive and feminine is about really feeling good and really understanding the relationship of food to make you feel good because if you eat the right way, you don’t feel heavy, you feel light, you feel more energetic, you can do so much more. And that is your guiding light versus your calories and like the exact portion sizes. Even though those, of course, are important but you don’t have to go about it with that approach especially if you’re eating really good, natural, low-sugar, anti-inflammatory foods. You don’t have to really worry about it that much.

9:41 CL: So I’m assuming that when you talk about different spices, I mean it seems like there is like two groups of people and some of us are both, and I’m both, and we’ll go, “Are you more like a sweet person or a salty? I like sweet followed by salty” kind of things. And I think there’s a lot of people like that. So are we going to talk about spices that help kind of curb that insatiable need to have something sweet or have something, you know. I know with like Indian cooking and Ayurvedic cooking, all the tastes are represented on the plate, right? But it’s not necessarily like a piece of cake and like some potato chips. Can you talk about kind of satiating those real strong cravings that we’ve had our whole lives and what makes it really a struggle to eat healthier?

NA: Yeah, absolutely. I’m going to share a spice that’s actually sweet. It’s sweet in a natural way, it doesn’t spike your insulin like sugar does. Some of the spices are actually sweet which is unexpected because we think that spices are spicy. But there’s only a few small amounts of spices that are actually spicy. They’re either sweet or neutral, or some of them are spicy. The thing about spices is that a lot of times we’re looking to our foods to give us the satisfaction and it actually helps our brain feel really satisfied from a physiological level. But when you use spices, you are actually giving your brain that satisfaction without the sugar and without the fat or without the combination of butters and oils and things like that, you’re still getting satisfied in a different way. And so you don’t have to only eat bland food or you don’t have to only flavor your food with fats and with like sugars, you can flavor it with spices and that actually gives you this feeling of satiation and feeling of satisfaction.

The other thing about spices that have really been coming out a lot is that it helps you decrease your sodium intake and that’s because many of us feel like to flavor our food, we add a lot of salt. Or we go out and eat and there’s a lot of salt in our foods, or processed food has a lot of salt. But when you’re cooking yourself, I believe in using salt, we actually need it for many reasons. One of them is flavor. But you don’t need as much when you’re using other spices like cumin, coriander, garlic, and ginger. Those flavors are adding to your food. Salt is just one of them. It’s not like the main or it’s not the highlight of the dish. So yes, it really helps to curb your salt cravings as well as your sweet cravings and just give you an overall feeling of satiation and satisfaction from your brain.

12:39 CL: Okay, so what is the spice that has a sweetness to it but isn’t sugary or doesn’t raise your glycemic index or blood sugars?

NA: Now, I love talking about this spice because it’s probably in your kitchen cabinet and those that are listening’s kitchen cabinet, it’s so common – this spice is cinnamon. And what cinnamon does is it lowers your blood sugar and it gives you that sweet taste without spiking your insulin. So what would usually happen is that when you eat sugar, it actually spikes your insulin which if you don’t burn that off right away, it gets stored as fat. But if we give our self that sweet feeling, that sweet taste through cinnamon, we get this sweet craving. We get to kind of like curb that craving but then it’s also much healthier.

The other thing about cinnamon that’s really, really helpful especially from a fertility perspective, so cinnamon helps normalize blood sugar and balanced blood sugar helps improve overall hormonal balance and especially for those with fertility issues due to PCOS. It helps to normalize it, so it’s really, really key for that.

13:59 CL: I love cinnamon. Like my daughter who’s 6, I just slice up some apples and put cinnamon and it’s like a whole different treat, right?

NA: Yes, absolutely.

14:09 CL: Or you can bake apples and put cinnamon and it’s like you just gave her a little apple pie. When I bring a big bowl of that to the classroom, I mean the kids can’t get enough of that. They’re like, “I want more! I want more!” So it really adds, it adds a lot to a dish.

NA: Yes. Now, if a child likes it, then that really means there is some sweetness in there. Because children like the sweet. A lot of children do, not all. So the other way to use cinnamon that I love to recommend to get started with cinnamon is to sprinkle it in your coffee or your tea because a lot of us use sugar in there and you could still use sugar if you need it but you will probably not need as much sugar. So you might decrease your sugar a little bit and add cinnamon and then over time you may not even need the sugar anymore and it’s really easy just to sprinkle it into your coffee, so that’s one way.

I have a recipe I wanted to share, it’s so easy so I can just say it. This actually includes apples and cinnamon as well and I call this Grandma’s Healthy Apple Pie because just like you said, it tastes like apple pie. It’s all the good stuff from apple pie. So for this recipe, all you need is – and it’s a no-cook recipe, so it’s a half-cup of 1% cottage cheese and then you have a quarter of an apple chopped up really tiny in small pieces like a toddler would eat, and then you use a fourth teaspoon of cinnamon and you mix that all up. And because of the cottage cheese, really it has its kind of protein and then it gives it substance and it keeps you full and then you have the sweetness from the apples and the cinnamon. So it’s a great afternoon snack, it’s a great treat to have.

15:52 CL: Nice. I love that. The thing that you’re talking about, I guess I want to ask you. I was reading about you and your background. You were working a ton in this high-pressured job and that’s where a lot of women are finding themselves working crazy hours. Maybe you already have a child home, you’re trying to conceive another child. I mean, they have to be relatively easy, right? You want women to cook at home and things like that, but it’s…

NA: It has to be easy.

16:26 CL: It has to be streamlined. You were working a ton and so you were doing it and had two small children. I don’t know how that all works. Sounds crazy but you obviously made it work.

NA: Yes. So the key is… it is so true that keeping your cooking and your preparation easy, it’s like that’s how you are successful at it because there is no way that many of us have time to cook for like an hour or two a day and then cook again the next day and again the next day and then also go to work and then maybe we’re also a parent. It’s a lot.

So I used a couple of strategies that were really, really important for me to be able to lose weight because part of it is what you’re eating but the second part is the behavior and your everyday practices, and actually getting healthy food in front of you before you are tempted to call takeout for like Chinese or pizza or just eat a grilled cheese sandwich or cereal or nothing, which a lot of us might do when we don’t have time.

So a couple of strategies that I’ve found were really, really key is that one, I would do Sunday meal prep. I wouldn’t spend my whole Sunday but I would spend around an hour on Sundays chopping up some vegetables and I learned over time to always buy as many vegetables that I can already pre-chopped including onions and things like that even though they cost more. Due to my lack of time, I wouldn’t cut them, so I wouldn’t eat them and I would rather spend the money so that I can eat them. So I would buy chopped vegetables or chop anything that needs to be chopped on Sunday. I would marinate a couple of dishes so that when I came home from work, I could just put it in the oven or quickly cook it on the stove. So, Sunday meal prep was one.

Another thing that’s key is batch cooking. On Sundays I would make or when I would marinate or prep, I would make things in larger batches and I would eat them for two to three days, so I wouldn’t change up my menu every single night. And by being more consistent with what I was eating, what happened is that I didn’t use as much brain power about what I was eating every night. I just knew I had delicious cooked food in my fridge, so I would just go to it and eat it and then I had so much more creativity and time for my family, for my husband and for myself. And so keeping it easy is really, really key.

18:50 CL: Okay, so you were kind of eating the same meal for a couple of days in a row and the family didn’t complain about that? They were okay with that?

NA: I would eat similar things but I would mix and match. Like maybe I would mix my sides, like I would buy some ready-made veggies already, maybe I would put on the side one night then I would cook veggies the next night. Then I would change the proteins up sometimes like I would have chicken one day and fish, but maybe fish the next day then maybe I would have the same side. So it’s like I would mix and match.

But now that my kids are older, they cannot eat like that. So I do have to modify some things for them. This is something that when like as a mom sometimes we put ourselves last but I actually try to put myself I wouldn’t say first but I would say at the same place definitely as my family and so I always make sure that I have a healthy meal. So a lot of times I batch cook for myself so I at least have my food and then if they can eat some of that, like if I make salmon, my kids like salmon, so they’ll have salmon. I’ll add rice and I’ll add some veggies that they like. And for me, I might have salmon without the rice maybe perhaps. Then I’ll add more veggies. So I’ll kind of mix and match like that and then there are some nights where they have their food and I have mine and I’m okay with that because my food is so easy to make, and I need to eat like that because it gives me so much energy and it keeps my weight low without thinking about it.

And I don’t really have to go to the gym that much. When I eat really healthy, I use flavorful spices, easy cooking methods. I don’t have to go to the gym as much as I used to go and I didn’t even lose weight at that time. Because food is 80% of losing weight and keeping it food. It’s like getting your food system down, is so key to a healthy weight and healthy BMI and just living kid of effortlessly in the body that you want to live.

20:56 CL: I love what you said. People would judge if you said “Well, I put myself first in my family,” but I think women putting themselves last has been so detrimental, so I think that’s a nice way to say you put yourself at least equally as important as the other members of your family because if you go down, the rest of them are going to deteriorate.

Then also, I totally agree, anytime I’ve just been like “I’m just going to work out and do a bunch of exercises” and I don’t really pay attention to the food part of it. I mean, the weight is just kind of there. But I could do the opposite where I’m focusing on having a really balanced diet and you just feel like your weight is just at a great area and you don’t have to do these extreme workouts that a lot of people do like… well, I won’t name them because people absolutely love those workouts and things like that. But you don’t have to do that. Because a lot of women go “Oh my gosh, I work out like crazy and I still have this bulge.” Because I think that’s the missing thing.

NA: Yes, yes, definitely. And what you’re doing during your workouts is also key. We’re talking mainly about food today and spices, but one thing that really helped me when I was working out and to help me get abs after kids, was that I did more, I focused more on strength training because when I was lifting weights, it actually burns more fat than cardio does because it’s longer term. So if you’re running for 20 minutes, if you don’t run for a week, you just gain weight. But if you were lifting for 20 minutes and you don’t go to the gym for a week, your body still has that muscle and muscle burns calories much faster than fat does. So it’s like you transform your body into this fat-burning machine by focusing more on strength training. And the other perk of strength training is it doesn’t take as long as like cardio. Like you could do 2 or 3 sessions of 30 to 40 minutes a week and you’ll be in shape, as long as you’re eating is good too.

23:07 CL: Okay, nice. So what’s for breakfast?

NA: I’ll talk about another spice that I love to use during breakfast time. I’ll tell you how to use it. This spice is turmeric, and turmeric is a golden yellow gorgeous spice. It’s been used for thousands of years and it has incredible anti-inflammatory benefits. Now, according to traditional Chinese medicine, it can also help to reduce dampness in reproductive organs which help to create an internal environment that’s ideal for conception. So that’s another kind of benefit for fertility. Overall, it’s an anti-inflammatory which a lot of times what that means, sometimes we don’t realize that we have inflammation in our body and we think that maybe we’re getting fat or something like that. But a lot of times it’s bloating caused by the food that we’re eating or the environment that we’re in, some of the toxins that are in the environment around us. So when you start decreasing inflammation in your body, what happens is that your face gets less puffy and your stomach gets less bloated and so your stomach goes in and it’s because it’s more natural, it’s not inflamed. So that’s really key.

The other thing about turmeric is that it actually helps you block more fat cells from forming and that’s something else that has just been studied. There’s been multiple studies that have shown that, that when you’re having turmeric, that’s one of the things that happens.

One of the other things I really want to share especially after being mom, I feel like this really got to me because there is that term ‘mom brain’ and so turmeric helps improve your memory as well. That’s something I’ve noticed that I need to do. So that’s a great way.

So how I like to use turmeric is to add it to my eggs in the morning because it’s yellow already, it’s very mild in flavor. It has an earthy taste but you can’t really taste it in your eggs and so I add a half teaspoon when I’m having two eggs and sometimes I add some egg whites to it. I love doing that to get those anti-inflammatory benefits into my body every day or as many days as I eat eggs.

But another really great breakfast that I suggest is having a green smoothie. A green smoothie, I have a framework called The Genius 5 Smoothie and really the reason it’s Genius 5 because it has a lot of elements that improve brain health like omega-3, also things like turmeric which improve your memory. Then it also is really low sugar but very filling.

I can walk you quickly through the five parts of the Genius 5 Smoothie and give an example. These are really tasty, first of all. They’re extremely tasty. They don’t taste gross. They taste amazing. Like you will look forward to it every morning. And they’re very easy, they take less than a minute to make and less than a minute to drink. So for those of us that are in a rush, they’re the go-to. They’re really good.

So the Genius 5 Smoothie, you start with a liquid base that’s low sugar and non-dairy. So that could be something like almond milk or coconut milk or water, so that’s the first layer. The second layer is to add a protein. I recommend using a vegan protein powder, a whey protein power or any other protein powder that you feel comfortable with. And if you don’t feel comfortable with protein powders, then you can use Greek yogurt, usually an unsweetened nonfat version is the best. So you basically are getting between 20 and 30 grams of protein with either of these methods which is really important for your breakfast. It’s important to start your day with a protein-filled breakfast for weight loss and just to feel good and to feel full. So you have the protein there.

Then the next thing is to add greens. Yeah, so add a handful of greens. That would be something like spinach, a handful of spinach or a cup of spinach. It could be even like a cup of broccoli or kale or any other greens – and what greens do is they give you all this nutrition, they keep you full because they’re full of fiber and they give you all this energy, so that’s a third one.

Then the fourth one is a fiber. A fiber boost. So fiber boost can come in something like flaxseed. So you can add one serving of flaxseed which is full of fiber or you can do a fiber supplement. The reason that you really need fiber is because it’s basically a free way to fill yourself up. So you’re keeping yourself more full but fiber passes through your body so you’re not absorbing the calories.

Finally, the final step to this Genius 5 Smoothie is a flavor boost. So that could be turmeric, it could be cinnamon, it could be mint or it could be a little bit of ginger. So a little spice which is adding you these health benefits.

So really quick, just to tell you an example of it. And you can have fruit as optional if you like. So one of my favorite smoothies is a mint, spinach, strawberry smoothie. What I do in that one is I have almond milk, I have a cup of spinach, I do two tablespoons of flaxseed and then I do some mint as well. Then let’s see, then I also add a little bit of strawberries, like a half cup of strawberries. That’s a beautiful, filling way to start my day and I love that.

29:00 CL: Did you add the protein powder?

NA: Thank you. Yes, the protein powder. So I’ll have one scoop of vegan protein powder. I used to use whey protein powder but I use vegan protein powder because I feel like it bloats me less.

29:12 CL: Okay. What do you recommend?

NA: I use a brand called Optimum Nutrition which I really think is great. It’s just really high-quality ingredients. I get it from Amazon and then I just use one scoop. It’s low sugar, low calorie, and high protein.

29:31 CL: Okay. And what was the fiber in it?

NA: So the fiber was the flaxseeds.

29:35 CL: Oh, the fiber was the flaxseeds. Okay, great.

NA: Yes.

29:38 CL: With the vegan, it’s like a pea protein or do you know what the protein source is?

NA: I’m not sure if it’s a pea protein. The thing that’s important in a vegan protein is that you’re looking at the carbs. Sometimes pea protein, you just definitely want to look at the carbs, make sure the carbs are low, the sugar is low. But I think it’s a blend of things, but yes, I need to look more into that.

30:11 CL: Okay, good. All right, thank you. That’s great. So you just kind of like have everything ready in the morning that’s going to the blender.

NA: Yes, because nothing really needs to be cut up or anything. You just put it in there and sometimes to make it even easier, you can make a smoothie sack on your Sunday, like on your Sunday prep where you get a Ziploc bag, large gallons of that bag, and you put all of those things except for the protein in it and then the liquid. So you put the greens, the fruit, the flaxseed. Put all those things. The mint or the spice. Then you just put it into your blender, add the liquid and add the protein powder or your Greek yogurt, and then you blend it. That’s how it becomes even easier. But even if you don’t do that, it’s still really simple.

30:58 CL: So there seems to be kind of a pervasive theme, is you need to be planning. I mean, the planning is really key because you can find yourself in all these situations. I’m thinking about like what if you travel for work and you are eating out at hotels and you know how it goes.

NA: Yes.

31:18 CL: How is this all working in this regard where you’re eating on-the-go a lot?

NA: So definitely planning ahead is really key when you’re home as much as you can. What I’ve seen and what happened for myself and what I teach, is that in the beginning you’re putting some upfront work to get work in because you’re really deciding what does my week look like. You could either meal plan or what I like to do is I have a meal framework so I know for every meal, I’m having a protein, a vegetable and a carb. And so based on that meal framework, I can kind of like mix and match throughout the week versus meal planning specifically for every night. So both ways are really good. But those are two easy ways to kind of plan your week out. If you can’t meal plan yourself, then there’s a lot of healthy meal plans out there that you can get and it’s good sometimes just to follow something that works.

So planning is really key but simplifying your planning is very, very key because a lot of times the meal planning sites, they’re so complicated that I would just get confused even reading about how to meal plan. It’s very possible to simplify your meal planning and a lot of times I like to use meal frameworks for that.

The second piece is traveling. So when I lost 40 pounds, I was a management consultant and I was traveling every week 3 nights a week and staying in hotels every single night and going out to dinners. So I really found that I had all the choice in the world. I could do anything I wanted but I didn’t want to do that to my waistline because I did not feel good when I was just expanding by eating out every single night and kind of go overdoing it. So what I found is there are some hacks and some easy ways that you can eat out.

A lot of things are it’s like knowing a framework of what should be on your plate. So when you’re somewhere, what do you order, how do you modify. One of the key things that I found is like when I go out, I like to use something called an appetizer hack. So what I do is if I’m at a restaurant, a lot of times a common way that we think about things is we’re like, okay, I’m out at a dinner, I want to enjoy myself. Or, I want a treat, I should get what I want at this restaurant. It’s just a natural reaction. So you absolutely should and if you don’t, you’re actually going to end up doing something else at another time when you totally lose control. So the point is to be balanced when you’re out.

So I recommend if you’re feeling that feeling of indulging when you’re out, indulge in your appetizer and order something that is a little bit unhealthier than you would usually order. Something maybe like something that might be fried or something that might be just not cooked in the healthiest way. The reason it’s okay to do it for your appetizer is because it’s a smaller portion and so you’re eating a smaller portion of the unhealthy foods but you’re still, like I said, in a feminine way you’re making yourself feel good. You’re giving yourself what you want but in a balanced way versus saying “I can’t eat anything that’s unhealthy because I’m on this diet and I just shouldn’t do that to myself.” Well then, that kind of makes that “off the wagon, on the wagon mentality” pervasive and so to get away from that to feel balanced, order something tiny, order something small for your appetizer and then order a nice healthy dinner. Like you can have chicken and vegetables or steak and vegetables, or you can have a big salad with lots of protein on it that’s really filling. Then if you want to have a drink, have a drink because you want to enjoy yourself.

So the more that you can add these kind of hacks and ways of balancing your day, the more than you can actually stick to it. Consistency is the key. We don’t want to go on and come off as something. We want to figure out how to make this part of our life instead of the separate diet that we’re on to lose weight because then it’s only temporary and you’re going to be through the yoyo up and down forever.

35:28 CL: Nagina, what about like did you ever bring spices with you to restaurants like when you had to travel or you go out? I mean, do you have little spice hacks that you could give us that you could add to the food to make it seem more satisfying?

NA: Oh yes, I love that Absolutely I do. So one thing is that I have something called a spice missile. A spice missile is a small container, it’s about this small. It’s just a few inches high. Actually it was created for boy scouts to take camping. Because when you’re camping, you need to flavor your foods. But it’s really cute and it’s actually very modern-looking. So I can just put it in my purse and it has three layers, so you can just kind of like take one off and use only that one. I always have a cinnamon spice missile in my purse because whenever I’m at a coffee shop, they may not have cinnamon. And my cinnamon is nice cinnamon so I want to use my cinnamon. So I put the cinnamon on it.

Another thing that you can do is if you’re having dessert, you can add cinnamon on your dessert because it lowers your blood sugar and it helps. It does not completely counteract the effects of chocolate but it does help to lower your blood sugar, like you lower the elevation that it would be reaching to if you didn’t have it. So that’s one thing.

The other thing, the other spice hack is if you see a dessert or if you see a food with mint on it, or if you see mint or peppermint tea, that’s a great dessert to have like peppermint tea or something with mint. The reason is because mint decreases overeating and it’s because of the scent of mint. That’s why having tea with it is really, really great.

So I personally know last Thanksgiving and probably a lot of listeners have this where you go to Thanksgiving, there’s just food everywhere, there’s like 10 desserts, it’s very, very challenging to stay balanced in that situation. So after going through multiple 5 or 6 Thanksgivings where the first of those 5 or 6 Thanksgivings where I’ve been really trying to get better and trying to feel good actually the morning after Thanksgiving, that’s what really what my goal was. The first of those, I actually gained 7 pounds on Thanksgiving because I ate so much. I mean, it was like I had thirds and I had lots of desserts. So I’ve slowly evolved and this past Thanksgiving, what I did is I brought my own peppermint tea bag to Thanksgiving and during dessert I did have two bites of dessert because there has been studies that show that if you have two bites of dessert, it gives you the same satisfaction as an entire piece. So if you’re going to have two bites of chocolate cake, it’s the same satisfaction as the entire chocolate cake. So I just want to get the most satisfaction without all of the calories.

So I have a couple bites and then I just finish my night with peppermint tea and because I was sipping on something and holding it, that was part of the reason that I was able to kind of prevent my snacking and my temptations on other things.

So mint and cinnamon are two things to really look for. One other thing is like when we’re out, if you want to have a cocktail or drink, try to find the cocktails that have ingredients that do have herbs and flavors in it, and then also have things like cucumber because cucumber is really good. It decreases water retention from your body, so it decreases bloating. There are some drinks with cilantro, some with jalapeno. Those drinks are often lighter and so just if you see those on the menu, just kind of look at those a little bit more because those ones are usually lighter.

39:17 CL: Well, a couple of things. If you’re trying to conceive then, we just say maybe you just get a mocktail of that.

NA: Oh, definitely, yes. Get a mocktail of that version, yes.

39:26 CL: But also, are there ever any women who go “But I don’t really like those spices.” I mean cinnamon seems universal. I’m sure there’s people who don’t like it maybe a couple. Like I’m thinking about my mother-in-law. She’s told me before “I really don’t like cumin and coriander.” It’s just not her thing. So what do you do? There’s many spices, right, but you’ve mentioned those being a couple that you use. How do you kind of get around that?

NA: So actually, cinnamon is one. It’s interesting that of most of the spices, cinnamon is the one that more people have an irritation against. Like they feel it could cause a reflux sometimes. I’m mean, it’s only in 2% of the population so it’s very, very small but it could, so in those situations there are replacement ones like for cinnamon, nutmeg is another. It’s savory sweet so you could use nutmeg, a little bit of that. There really are so many spices, so it’s just exploring. What I think is a good way to look at it is are you looking for sweet, are you looking for neutral, are you looking for spicy, and then work within that.

One thing that I didn’t talk about that’s really common is a lot of people don’t like spicy food actually. So for example, one of the spices that’s spicy is cayenne pepper and cayenne pepper is really, really great because it increases our metabolism and it also curbs our appetite, so we’re not as hungry. So if you are trying to lose weight, that’s a great one. But if you don’t like the spiciness of it, then there’s different versions that you can use that are less spicy. So cayenne pepper has a compound called capsaicin in it and capsaicin gives it all those benefits. But if you use a spice like paprika, it’s much less spicy and it’s even slightly sweet. Not totally sweet but slightly sweet and it still has capsaicin in it, so you will still get those benefits but without all the spice.

So a lot of times it’s like willing to be experimental with using spices and then also finding recipes that are good because a lot of times, we don’t know, like it’s kind of tricky to know how to use spices. If you just eat it plain, it is not going to taste good. But if you eat combined in the right quantities and with the right flavors and with the right foods, a lot of times people love spices that they never even thought they were going to like. So trying different recipes and just experimenting with it is a really good way to get started.

42:08 CL: Okay. What was like an aha moment when you first started on this journey and then you saw “Oh my gosh, I actually lost weight”? Like what was something, I don’t know, kind of like the lightbulb that went off in your head? Like all the diets before that you said did work. Because diets do work, they’re just not often sustainable in the long run, right? In the very beginning, what was that experience?

NA: I actually did have that aha moment and so the aha moment came when I was working on eating these foods. So I was really eating great-tasting foods and I was adding spices. So like for example my dinner would be something like cumin, coriander, fish with turmeric cauliflower. Then I would have like a lentil soup on the side. As I was eating that, I would feel like “Oh my gosh, this tastes so good. There’s no way it can be healthy because it just tastes so amazing.” And my husband would say the same thing because he was trying to get healthy as well. And so he would say like “This is so good.” When the lightbulb kind of flashed on is when I went to my scale after the first month of doing this. I went to my scale and I lost 10 pounds in my first month from eating clean every single night and feeling full and never feeling deprived, and feeling warmer and happier than I had ever felt eating any other foods. And also because I was using the easy cooking methods, I felt like this is an easier way to live, like I would rather eat like this than eat the way I used to eat because it tastes better and it’s easier and I’m losing weight by doing it.

So that was the moment where I was like, how come I never knew this before? All of the pain, all of the work that I did before, like I would go to the gym for hours a day and I would never see that kind of results. So that’s when it hit me that it really is about food and it’s about the types of food that you’re putting on your plate, not the quantities. It’s about the types and then you can make it taste so good and you can enjoy the process.

44:18 CL: You grew up with your mother and grandmother using all these spices but you had weight issues. What was the difference?

NA: That’s a very good point. So I did eat spices when I was growing up but I didn’t optimize it with the foods because I definitely don’t want to give the impression that you could eat large quantities of breads or of rice or of pastas and then just add spices to it or ice cream and add spices to it and you’re going to lose weight. You actually have to balance the spices with healthy low glycemic or low sugar type foods that are natural. Then it gives you a boost, like it gives you that boost. But if you’re not using, it accelerates your weight and it accelerates the process. But the key is really the food. I mean, you really want to be balancing it with really good, healthy natural foods and then it gives you that extra boost and it makes weight loss easier because your food tastes good.

Like when my mother would cook, I actually modified a lot of her recipes. That’s how I came up with my recipes. My mom was an amazing cook, she’s an amazing cook. I mean, like I just love her cooking. She’s actually taken some of the techniques that I created, used them and in her 60’s she lost 30 pounds just from following the cooking techniques that I showed her after she taught me how to cook. But she would just definitely be focused more on the creams, a little bit more creams, a little bit more butters, oils, and then eating fast-burning carbs like rice and bread was the centerpiece of our meal with just a little bit of vegetables on the side and more of the protein. So it was more about like changing the quantities of the foods that I was eating and just eating more veggies, more protein, and making carbs a side instead of a main. So that’s really what affected it and then using spices made the process easier and gave me that boost that wasn’t getting from other diet foods.

46:29CL: Very cool. Tell us how do we find out more about you and just tell us everything. I know you have like a special gift for our listeners, so please share.

NA: Oh yes, absolutely. Okay, well I do have a special gift for your listeners that I created. This is available at Masalabody.com/fertilityhour and I’m sharing my Sweet Spice Cheat Sheet. This has the spice that is most likely in your kitchen cabinet and it curbs sugar cravings and also lowers blood sugar. I talk about five benefits of using this sweet spice. Three benefits, five ways to use it in your day and then I give a really tasty, delicious recipe which is actually a warming tea that helps to curb sugar cravings, and that’s really easy to make. So that is at Masalabody.com/fertilityhour.

47:24 CL: Okay, that will be in the show notes as well, that link. And then your website is?

NA: So my website is Masalabody.com but what will happen is once you go to Masalabody.com/fertilityhour, I’ll send you that Sweet Spice Cheat Sheet and then I’ll automatically add you to my regular newsletter list and I’ll follow up with a recipe book called 7 Spicy Recipes to Melt Off Your First 7 Pounds. And if you’re not interested in weight loss at this moment, then it still gives you healthy recipes that are really good, they’re really natural that you can try out and they’re really fun to make. Then after that I’ll send you more recipes and more tips that are especially for just being healthy in this gentle, more feminine way but really seeing results.

48:16 CL: That was awesome, thank you so much. I love that.

NA: Thank you.

48:23 CL: I definitely want to check out those recipes. That’s great. I love what you’re doing. And like you said, I was reading another interview or something, like through your own transformation, you have built this and that I think it’s the best way because you really come from a place of passion and I can tell you’re really passionate about this. Congratulations.

NA: Thank you so much. I’m so happy that you’ve given me a form to share just all of this amazing… When you go through a transformation you feel like “Oh my God, I was a certain way before and I want to share with everyone the way that it’s possible to do it.” And so thank you so much.

49:09 CL: You’re welcome. Definitely go to Masalabody.com/fertilityhour to get that sweet cheat sheet and then also be added to her newsletter list to get wonderful recipes, initially 7 recipes. Okay, that’s wonderful. And thank you so much and I’ll contact you in the next couple of weeks and I’ll tell you when this episode is live.

NA: Oh, perfect. Okay, thank you.

49:37 CL: Thank you, Nagina. It was great talking with you.

NA: So good talking to you. Okay, bye-bye.

49:43 CL: Bye-bye.