Health
Habits
Food
Weight 
Better Than Butternut: Roasted Delicata Squash Recipe
10 Simple Ways To Eat Less Without Noticing
Juicing: Stupid and Pretentious or Nourishing and Enlightening?
10 Tasty Carbs That Won’t Make You Fat
How To Start Working Out When You Don’t Like To Exercise
Focus More on Your Brain and Less on Your Diet if You’re Serious About Losing Weight
Home Court Habits: The Secret to Effortless Weight Control
10 Reasons You Aren’t Losing Weight When You Think You’re Doing Everything Right
How To Burn More Calories Without Breaking A Sweat
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Foodists
How Ashley Overcame Fibromyalgia Using Real Food and Exercise
Ashley says she’s lucky that she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia at the age of 30. It’s a diagnosis that isn’t always easy to get, but at a young age Ashley felt she still had a lot of options to try to treat her illness without medication.
After consulting with her doctor, Ashley decided to adopt a low-inflammation diet (lots of vegetables and fruits, no fried foods and minimal processed foods), along with a low impact exercise regimen of yoga and walking 10,000 steps per day.
In this instance, Ashley’s history of dieting may have actually been helpful, since she found it relatively easy to overhaul her healthstyle to make these changes, and it only took about three months for her symptoms to start improving dramatically.
An added bonus is that Ashley’s new habits have helped her deal with stress and emotional issues she has struggled with on and off throughout her life, and she’s been able to stay off of antidepressants for four years.
This is a fun conversation and we go into a lot of details about her morning routine, eating habits and favorite meals. Ashley was also kind enough to share with us a few of her favorite recipes below.
Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.
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Cauliflower Pizza Crust
1 head of cauliflower
1 egg
1 to 2 tsp oregano
1/4 c parmesan cheese grated
1/2 c mozzarella – shredded
garlic salt and pepper to taste
Rice the cauliflower in a food processor. Cook in microwave safe bowl for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, mix egg, oregano, cheeses and spices in stand mixer. Take cauliflower out of microwave and dump onto a large, clean tea towel. Fold towel over and use rolling pin to remove moisture from cauliflower. Add dry cauliflower rice to mixer and mix with other ingredients. Place parchment paper on a cookie sheet or round pizza pan. Put cauliflower mix onto parchment and shape into pizza crust. To freeze, cover with wax paper, then aluminum foil (tightly) and pop in freezer. I make at least two at a time, because it’s kind of messy and time consuming––worth it for dinner!
Dirty Turkey Rice
1 yellow onion
1 green pepper
1 lb ground turkey – I use Aldi Fit and Active brand
2 cups of cooked, long grain brown rice
one can organic black beans
olive oil
Chop onion and pepper, sauté in olive oil until onions are translucent. Remove from pan, and add turkey to pan. Brown turkey and season with black pepper and Cajun seasoning (we like Tony Chachere Cajun seasoning). Add vegetables back to pan, add beans and mix. Season with more Cajun seasoning or black pepper to taste.
I was telling my daughter who has Fibromyalgia about this and she mentioned that inflammation is not a cause or directly associated with inflammation. It’s nerve pain. However, it’s not uncommon for a person with Fibromyalgia to also have an auto-immune disorder and probably the inflammation can make a Fibromyalgia patient feel worse. I haven’t researched this myself but am passing it along because it might be that a person helped by the diet has an as yet undiagnosed auto-immune issue instead of or in addition to Fibromyalgia.
Hello Darya-
Is great that Ashley is happy, healthy and is able to reduce medication. But I think it is important to also remind people that the need for antidepressants does not necessarily go away with a lifestyle change, and that’s OK. Indeed for myself and others, they have been a life-saver enabling me to live a happy healthy life.
One of the issues people prescribed antidepressant meds can struggle with is feeling that they are at fault somehow. They have to take them because of weakness or “not living, eating, praying” right. For some people these important medications are only needed on a short term basis, for others like me, it so far appears to be a life-long requirement. Taking medication to control depression is no worse or shameful or weak than taking medication for allergies or high cholesterol.
You know better that I that for all the amazing things we know about the brain, depression and its treatment is far from an exact science. The brain is an organ that is as mysterious as any thing you could find in space, and its ability to keep its secrets is quite frustrating.
Changing any medication regime should be done with your doctor’s supervision. My personal physician has always open to working to reduce my several meds (damned genetic high cholesterol!). I think you just have to speak up and ask.
Just a reminder,
Mark
Where’s the cauli crust recipe!?
Fantastic show as always 🙂
Oops, missed it! Derp, Mondays.
This was one of my favorite episodes, for a few reasons. First of all, Ashley was so authentic in sharing her story and as a listener, I could tell that her approach of ease and clarity helped her create habits and meal ideas that fit her lifestyle, whilst managing her condition. Bravo!
The second reason is just an observation that you, Darya, were really in a place of ‘flow’ during the conversation with Ashley. Almost as if, hello, this really is quite simple, it’s all a matter of aligning values with actions, and TA DA! success.
Great stuff—my thanks to you both!
Awwww that’s so nice to hear, thanks Stephanie.