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Thais Harris is a board-certified holistic nutritionist and author who helps women love themselves into their ideal body, vibrant health, and an outstanding life. 

Cultivating deeper self-love as the guiding principle in making dietary and lifestyle improvements, her clients get crystal clear in their goals, understanding their unique needs with the help of current labs and DNA reports. Thais and her clients identify priorities and create a custom path forward to end self-loathing (and the sabotaging that comes with it) and rediscover vibrant health, transforming their relationship with body, mind, and food. She has successfully guided hundreds of people in their journey to optimal health, through her signature group cleanse, online courses, and individual + family wellness coaching at Nourish Together, for over a decade.

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Amanda Testa (00:02):
Hello and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire Podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love and relationship coach and in this podcast my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome. Hey, what's up? It's Amanda. If you're enjoying this pod and you know are ready to say yes to more pleasure and you are just wanting to know, how the hell do I do it? Well, you are in luck because as of now we have spots available in the Pleasure Foundation, which is my pleasure membership, where twice a month you get an amazing practice that teaches you how to drop into your body to become more connected to yourself and to learn the art of sacred self-care. So if this is something you're interested in, go to www.amandatesta.com/tpf as in the pleasure foundation, www.amandatesta.com/tpf and we will see you there.
(01:01):
Hello and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire Podcast. Have you ever wondered how your help and nutrition plays into your feminine fire? Well, as I talked about on last week's podcast, it is all so connected and today I am very thrilled because I'm talking with Thais Harris and she is a board certified holistic nutritionalist and author who really helps use the element of self-love into your vibrant health, how you can use that to create the vibrancy that you are seeking. And it's such a huge thing. I love her perspective here around using self-love as a guiding force when you're making these choices to improve your health, to improve your diet, all the things. So I'm really excited to have you here and you have been doing this work for over a decade, so you have so much experience to offer. Thank you for being here.
Thais Harris (01:52):
Thank you so much for having me, Amanda. I'm so excited to be here.
Amanda Testa (01:55):
And one of the things I love to always find out from my experts when they come on is what kind of led you on this path to be so passionate about nutrition and health? Would you mind sharing a little bit about that?
Thais Harris (02:08):
Yes. My previous lifetime I was a graphic designer and an actress, and at the time I was living in San Francisco and loving life and it did feel like there was some piece missing that I wasn't quite sure what it was. I knew in my corporate job that's not what I was going to do for the longterm and there was some stressors that we all at some point or another experience, and I noticed how I was really influencing my digestion and how even though I didn't have a horrible diet, I just wasn't feeling well, I was always bloated and burpy and I felt like things didn't properly digest. My body kept fluctuating, and so I went to get help and I found a naturopathic doctor and with diet alone, all of my symptoms went away and so I was pretty blown away and I knew that there was something there.
(03:06):
Also, I grew up in Brazil and so had a very different diet growing up, very kind of in what we think now of holistic. We're using whole foods. My diet was very based on that and by the time I moved to the US in 1999, the influx of a load of processed foods. Of course there were already processed foods before, but I remember in the nineties really things like even salad dressing, which in Brazil used to have a drizzle of olive oil, a drizzle of vinegar and our salad. That was it, right? But I remember Italian dressing and how everybody was like, oh my God, this is amazing. And we're all buying all these products that are now coming into the market and not knowing that they had a lot of additives and different things that weren't quite ideal. So fast forward, I moved to the US the first couple of years, my body changed a lot and the way I felt, because I started subscribing to a lot of convenience foods, I was on my own for the first time in my life and had to cook for myself.
(04:07):
And hey, in the market there were mashed potatoes that came in a bag. I just had to add water. Woo-hoo, right? So easy. And then soon enough I had gained weight. My mood was very different. There were a lot of ways in which I was noticing this. I'm out of balance. And so I was reading and I was doing a lot of my own research and it wasn't until I was then many years later living in San Francisco and working that. Then I really actually found help and that help led me to go back to school and study nutrition. And at first I thought it was just going to be for my own wellbeing and quickly after part of our schooling was actually working with people and it became so clear, it was like I had stepped into the sunshine because it felt like this is what I need to be doing.
(05:02):
And then right after I graduated, about a month after I graduated, I had been really excited to go home and spend some time with my dad. He had developed type two diabetes, he had high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, I mean all the things that stress and poor diet cause he had it. And so I was very excited that I felt like I finally had some tools to go home and help him even if it was just a little bit. But a month after I graduated, he passed away from a very aggressive cancer and so I then started studying nutrition for cancer prevention and for improving quality of life during treatment. Even though for my dad in sort of a good way, things happened quickly. I know for him it would've been very excruciating to be in treatment for a long time, but from the time he was diagnosed to his death, it was two weeks.
(05:55):
So everything happened fast. But yeah, it's sent me down this road of really understanding all the safety mechanisms that we have in our body and there's so many, which is wonderful, and so how could we use those and how could we use nutrition and lifestyle to really improve those and keep 'em at tip top shape so that we don't experience hopefully what my dad did. And so I ended up working for a nonprofit that was providing meals to people in cancer treatments. I did that for five years and it was incredible. And between my work with in private practice and my work at series Community project working with this population that had experienced cancer and there were other illnesses too that we were providing the meals for, I got to really start seeing how much this connection to love, connection to joy, finding joy in eating, finding joy in movement, how those things had such a big impact in how people feel and how people stay committed to their goals and that the part of making ourselves feel bad, having shame around at health condition or any kind of self-loathing notion or experience that we might have.
(07:17):
How that was a hindrance and it was actually keeping people from healing, like hating blocks healing. And so that's why I really started at first kind of including self-love is kind of a sideline to what I do and finally at this point in my life, really claiming that is the foundation of what we do. Yeah,
Amanda Testa (07:40):
I'm so sorry about your dad.
Thais Harris (07:41):
Thank you.
Amanda Testa (07:44):
I find it's so interesting too in how your journey led you through also being able to support cancer patients through food. Because one of the things I find so interesting and also really not great is the traditional dietary requirements. Let me just say that you'll get, if you go to the doctor and I just recently had my physical and talking about protein and they give this handout, guess what? Just guess what they said. The number one source for good protein was you'll never believe it. Process cheese, American cheese. I was like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? This is like a doctor giving this information. I was just like, all right, well we know that we have to educate ourselves and that's the thing, it's hard. You really do have to learn. And that's what I think finding a loving way to approach this. I think also a lot of the people that I work with and a lot of our listeners are approaching middle age or in that spot where things are maybe not like they used to be, and that's when a lot of the stress and not being able to care for yourself in the way that you want can come to a head.
Thais Harris (08:45):
And I think especially in this age range when a lot of the women that I work with are moms, not exclusively, but a lot of them have had children and by the time they're in menopause and they're feeling like, okay, I've taken care of everybody else, now it's time to do something different. Maybe they're not feeling great. Usually they come to me when they're not feeling great, but they don't know what self-care means. I've actually had somebody tell me, I feel uncomfortable to take time for myself. I don't know what self-care means. I need to learn that. And it may sound surprising to some of us, but it's a reality that a lot of people face and I think especially as women with our roles of being the caretaker, sometimes it feels selfish to take care of ourselves or indulgent, and I'm not even talking about going to a spa or doing anything again, but just taking some time to do something.
(09:47):
We really need to get quiet and listen actually to our bodies. Sometimes we just need rest and we need to just not be helpful to anybody else for a second and not have a goal and not to just sit down, whether it's with a book or in silence. And I think cultivating that listening is really important and not only just from being women and caretakers, but in our modern APAC world, there's not a lot of emphasis on that. And so unlearning some of the, oh, that means being lazy or selfish or indulgent, just taking all those labels and judgments so we can connect to what do we really need in this moment and connecting to that love. Yeah,
Amanda Testa (10:34):
I think too, and I love your perspective here around being loving and the way you nourish yourself. I think even to a lot of the language we use around health is not really loving a workout, I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to whatever the things, it's not very loving. And so I'm curious how you help people weave in nutrition and self-love together, how that's such a huge aspect of it.
Thais Harris (10:58):
Such a great question. So one of the things I'll give three when I'm working one-on-one with people are in groups actually too. Sometimes we can do this, of course one-on-one can be a little more, we can go a little more deeply, but we always start with a breathing exercise and I feel like the breath has such power to just a, bring us to the present moment. I know for me, I'm somebody who wakes up with their to-do list to right there. I open my eyes and it's there. So it takes real effort for me to not go into that space first thing and really connect first to my body to a sense of gratitude and so on. And so we always start by doing a breathing exercise and I find that it's really helpful to put a hand in the chest, we put a hand in the belly, the hand in the chest.
(11:46):
There's some research that suggests that we actually release oxytocin, which is that wonderful feel good hormone that allows us to be more generous and spacious and caring. And of course evolutionarily that was so that when we feed our babies or hug our babies, there's this connection when we put our hand in our chest, we're doing that for ourselves so we can free up some of those hormones to just immediately first thing in the morning, feel good, feel open, and feel connected to ourselves. And the hand in the belly is part of just support and to connect with what's happening inside the body. And so I always bring gratitude, first, gratitude for each one of our cells and the work they do 24 7, all the thousands of chemical reactions that are happening in our bodies every second to all the life that's within us, our microbiome, there's so much life outside of our own cells that's actually working to help us thrive.
(12:49):
So remembering that and then also the gratitude for the DNA and all the wisdom that we carry in it from our ancestors. And from there we do this breathing, we continue and we get to a point where we're actually doing a little visualization, kind of seeing what our picture of health and vibrancy is, because I really believe that connecting to that image is the first step to getting there, right? If we don't know where we're going, it's hard. How do you get into a thing and you go from point A to point B if we don't quite know what point B feels like or looks like. So that's one way where I feel like that practice is already cultivating the self-love. Then the second thing is just inviting people to notice how they talk to themselves and what they think of themselves without judgment, but just curiosity of like, oh, that's a message.
(13:43):
I say to myself again and again, and I've been doing this for a long time, I had an experience with or multiple experiences with skin cancer, and that was something that really forced me to really practice what I preach and to really do that as a conscious decision every day. But noticing those thoughts can be very helpful because then you can start to change them and to actually replace some of that narrative that's inflammatory and hurtful and negative with something that's positive and life affirming. Then there's kind of the data piece. So when I'm working with clients, we also look at their labs. I use functional reports and functional lab so that we can really see what's happening for them. We can look at their DNA and get a functional report analysis on their DNA to see some predispositions. Now we have, they're working from the inside out, and then we also have the sort of external data that's informing us about what's happening for them. And then we can put the two together and really figure out what's the priority and how do we find joy in working with this priority. Because with diet culture, I think so many of us are so used to work out harder, eat less, restrict, punish, and that doesn't bring long-term results. I don't think
Amanda Testa (15:07):
I agree with you there. I think it's interesting too, one of the things that you mentioned earlier, which I think is true for a lot of busy people, is kind of relying on things that are maybe more convenient or just busy and just eating out or grabbing something, not having time to eat, so you just eat whatever's left over your kids' plate or those types of things. And I'm curious, what kind of maybe are there maybe any practices or techniques you can share around helping people create space to find more nutrition in their meals and what that could look like? What's some doable ways that make it feel less overwhelming? I think a lot of times people think of wellness and nutrition and they're like, oh, well then I'm going to have only eat kale, or, you know what I mean? And so you're like, no, no. So I'm curious what are the ways that realistically people can make this doable? I'd love to hear your perspectives around that too. I love these. I mean, this is a huge part of it. Finding that kindness and compassion for yourself and really slowing down is such a huge piece when it comes to the nutrition, the food part, making it easy, what comes up around that.
Thais Harris (16:18):
It's so true. I was teaching a class the other day, and I think this goes both for food, other lifestyle practices like movement. And somebody told me that they'd run, she runs, but she said, I hate it. And with every step I'm thinking, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this. Eventually I get to the place where I feel good, but I really don't like it. And so we were trying to unpack what that meant. Why was she doing it in the first place, right? If it was so horrible, and even though she did have a benefit from it, it's more stressful to the body. And so one of the things that, as I mentioned my dad and myself, it's like relieving stress is so key because stress can really undermine our best efforts. We could eating the most perfect food in the world, and if we're stressed out all the time, we're not going to digest it properly and we're going to accumulate some belly fat because of all the stress chemicals that keep happening.
(17:17):
So I think finding that place where you're both actively supporting yourself by making conscious choices, like yes, there's certain foods that can be delicious and they can be part of our feel good comfort stuff, but maybe if we know, for example, for me, I know gluten is not great for me. And every once in a while and I'll have a grilled cheese, it's one of those foods that, yeah, okay. And I take my digestive enzyme with it and call it a day. So the point being that even though I can't do that every day, I can't eat a grill's cheese every day that wouldn't support my health. I would feel horrible. So I'm not going to do it, not because I'm want to punish myself or restrict my diet, but because I love myself and I want to feel good and I want to have energy to do all the things I love and I want to access that place in me that wants to have fun with my partner and my child and all of those things.
(18:20):
So coming from that place when we're choosing things that support us, so in my case, yes, I like kale, but I've also had clients just like with the woman with running that said, I really hate kale and I hate broccoli. Am I going to put broccoli and kale in her meal plan? Absolutely not. Because we start by, okay, so what do you love? That's also supportive, not somebody had asked me and I said, well, I love grilled cheese. It's like, well then I can't just give you that. What else do you like that's health supportive, that feels good in your body and that you have energy? And there are certain times where some of my clients don't even know what that is. So we start more in an investigative journey and we're kind of keeping track of what you wait and when and how you felt.
(19:09):
Sometimes immediately, sometimes a half hour later or even two to four hours later and they start noticing like, oh my gosh, I had one person tell me she had had stomach pain for the last 15 years. And then she did a process with me. We did an elimination diet. It's a very gentle cleanse. And she said, I just thought that was my normal. I didn't realize I could actually not feel that pain. And when she didn't feel it and she's like, oh, now I have so much more so energy to do the things I love doing, I just thought she was just dealing with this irritation that was just there every day and she just thought, that's it. So paying attention I think is the first step so that you can really understand what really feeds you and what doesn't and what's actually draining you.
(19:58):
Then it's easier to make those choices. And we're all different. So like I said, when I work with DNA and labs for some of my clients, some of their food sensitivities are things that most people would consider very healthy, like broccoli and avocado. I've seen those things and cod and people's sensitivity, and yet they were eating those foods. They thought they were healthy. So each person's identifying how you feel, how foods feed you. If you eat something at lunch and by two o'clock you want to go to sleep, that's not a regular way of being, right? When we think of circadian rhythm and how the rhythms of the day work, usually by two o'clock we would actually have a lot of energy. If we're not, there's probably something we're eating in our lunch that's draining our energy. So we start identifying what those are. And I feel like it's pretty safe to say that there's some generalized ideas of what supports health.
(20:54):
So a lot of greens, a lot of colorful foods, so vegetables are key. Again, for each person, there may be some changes of what the right combination of those veggies will be, but a lot of foods that are rich in fiber and then your proteins, and you can be very healthy as a vegan vegetarian, but it takes a lot of conscious effort to do that. So you're getting all those amino acids, everything that we need and combining with the right kinds of fats too, because I think as a culture, we became so afraid of fat when fat has such an important job in every single one of our cells and in insulating our nerves. And so there's a lot of different mental health conditions that can be helped by having the right amounts and kinds of fats. So I know I'm being very general here, but it really is about the combination, having a really good quality protein, having the right combination of fats, and then having a lot of the colorful full of antioxidant foods that are also full of fiber on a daily basis.
(22:00):
And then figuring out of those which ones you really like, and then we can focus on those for a while and then maybe slowly introduce maybe one or two new ones. I had a client that hated Brussels sprouts, but then she made after being on a plan for a little while, and when I say being on a plan is not like, here's your plan, you do it. We workshop it together what they want to be eating. And then she's like, okay, I'll try a little bit of that Brussels sprout with bacon and it had balsamic vinegar and she loved it. And so sometimes it's about the way we cook it and sometimes it's just about getting to a place where we're feeling good enough that we're even willing to try.
Amanda Testa (22:40):
I think that's so huge. I'm wondering too on that vein, are there certain foods or dietary practices that you often recommend to help people with their overall vitality and better resilience?
Thais Harris (22:52):
Yeah, so I personally subscribe to a paleo style diet. I've seen it do amazing things for a lot of people. However, I do have clients that are vegetarian, and so I don't recommend it if somebody's letting me know, I really don't want to eat meat. So then we figure out how do we make the most with what you do eat? How do we combine those nuts and seeds and legumes and whole grains and make sure that you're getting enough of what you need? What are the gaps that we need to look at with nutritional supplements because there are those gaps for vitamin D being a very important one, especially among vegetarian vegans. So we look at those details, we bridge those gaps. And like I said, personally, I like a paleo style diet and it works for me, my blood type, my DNA, it shows that I do really poorly with carbohydrate processing, so I have to be very careful.
(23:53):
I would not be able to rely on a grain diet, on a grain-based diet. So again, it comes to that special blueprint that each of us has. And yet when you look at a lot of research, when we look at traditional diets and by traditional, we're looking at things for a long time ago, right before food was industrialized and processed, and we see what some of the healthier eating styles were. And then even to this day when we look at blue zones and we look at the Mediterranean diet, which again is not necessarily a paleo diet, but there are aspects of it that definitely overlap. And then the other thing about the blue zones is community, it's social connections and it's stress reduction and release and joyful movement. People walk or they dance, right? They're not at the gym popping weights every day. So there are those items too. Yeah,
Amanda Testa (24:55):
I was thinking too, we were talking before we started recording about just even health is so important for feeling like you want to connect. I think there's a lot of things wrapped up even in relationships around body image and feeling good. And also I know for many of my clients they are pretty healthy, but they want their partner to be. And so it's like if you're going to embark on a new way of eating and nourishing yourself and want to invite your family on board, these are three questions. So the first one is how does this react? How does this help with relationships? And then how do you encourage your partner to be maybe more helpful in their choices so that you can not have to make three meals and also encouraging your family too. So maybe if you could break those three down.
Thais Harris (25:40):
Yes. And I may need to ask you for a reminder. Of course. I love this question though because that happens so much. And I remember one of my first clients, she let me know right away, I'm just doing this for me. There's no way my husband and daughter are ever going to eat like this. And because at the time I was very green, I feel like I didn't have the right tools to help her get them on board. Because what happened was she did great for about two months and then it was too exhausting. She was making separate meals for herself and then for her family. And I have a child, he's nine years old, and my husband and I know how hard it would be if I had to make separate meals. I cook a lot and even though my son sometimes has preferences and will have we little side things for him, it's not making completely separate meal.
(26:29):
So that what you're asking right now is really important because to make it sustainable for ourselves, it has to be something that you get some support at least from your family. And that sometimes if the husband wants something, and I have one family in particular that I can think of, he eats his lunches out when he's at work and that's where he gets the stuff that he's not getting at home. And that was sufficient for him that at home he can totally be in partnership with his wife and eat the way that she needs to eat because they saw she was pre-diabetic, right? So we actually, I invite sometimes the partners to come into sessions just so they can understand from an external source and that is not the wife, here are the needs that we're seeing. Here's how we can improve these particular markers.
(27:18):
So can you be a support? And usually obviously there's a lot of love in the relationship and they're like, of course I can. And then in his case, he had the freedom to eat out and then one of the things she really needed was for him to not bring certain things in the house because she's like, if it's in the house, I'm going to eat it. And over time we're able to work on that. And he just understood like, wow, she really can't eat that particular food and that means I just can't bring it in the house. And actually over time, it reduced his own consumption of a lot of different things and then he was feeling better and his knees weren't hurting anymore. So there's definitely this snowball effect that when you include both people and I think you show you have different needs, obviously he needed more calories than her, so he had more of a carte blanche in some areas, but being able to state there are different needs, but her life really depends on this. So can you be on board? So that was one thing. The other thing was help me, I have to go back and remember now.
Amanda Testa (28:18):
Yes. Well the first was yes. How do you get your partner on board, why it's so important for relationships to have that? Because I think a lot of times when you're unhealthy, of course it kills your sex hormones. There's not a lot of desire. There's maybe body image that's keeping you from wanting to, and I'm not talking about losing weight or anything like that. I'm just talking about feeling good in your body so that you have no matter what you look like, that you just feel you have more energy or you feel more desire. And that was one of the questions too, why it's important for relationships and also because you know mentioned your husband's a psychotherapist and works with couples and worked with in this realm of seeing how it benefits relationships.
Thais Harris (29:01):
So that's great. An example I love using is sometimes if we're under-resourced, right, and we're hangry, for example, anything somebody says, we can snap at them. And so imagine that happening again and again because day in and day out, one of the partners is under-resourced and is not getting enough protein or their blood sugar is in a roller coaster and that tends to be the worst one. We can get really moody and shaky and hangry again when our blood sugar is really wild and unbalanced. So that can create conflict in a relationship. And it's not because there's lack of love, it's just because one person is really imbalanced. When I mentioned to the fats and a lot of issues with either mental clarity or anxiety, especially if somebody's drinking a lot of caffeine and there are other imbalances and their nerves are not well insulated, they're going to be on the edge all the time.
(30:05):
So that will also cause conflict in the relationship. So when each partner is actually tending to their needs, feeding themselves what they need, which often is a little bit different from each person, but if they can each agree come together, have meals together that feed both of their needs and then do things individually that are helping them, whether it's different supplements, different amounts of food or different types of food altogether, now they're coming into the relationship with their cup full, literally their body is not completely stressed out because they're not getting enough nutrients and they can actually more fully show up for their partner for their life in general. So the example I was going to give, it's going out to eat and just noticing, sometimes people go to a restaurant and start with drinks. And so if somebody ate maybe at noon or one, and I remember this from my life way back when in San Francisco before my nutrition sunshine of maybe having lunch at my corporate job in my lunch hour, but then meeting my partner for dinner and starting with a glass of wine or with any other alcoholic beverage.
(31:22):
At that point I had had an empty stomach for several hours. I was under-resourced, now I'm adding a little alcohol to the fire and it could, I remember getting really moody and snappy and things that now I'm completely under-resourced, my body's trying to figure out what to do. The liver's processing the alcohol and liver has direct relationship with anger and sort of being sour. When you feel sour and you think of what the liver's doing in Chinese medicine, there's a lot of information about that and why that connection is. And so to me, it was very interesting once I learned about nutrition that even to have a little spoonful of olive oil before having that first drink just coded the stomach lining, coded everything so that drink wouldn't have quite the fiery effect that it had or better yet actually eat a snack at least a couple hours before going to that dinner or skipping and waiting, either not having alcohol at all or having a little bit after you've already started eating your meal and you have something to ground you and so you're not hangry low blood on top of having alcohol. So that's just kind of a clear example of how sometimes just making a choice to support what the body needs, really getting curious and listening what my body really needs because then we can go and be in relationship and be with other people and not be freaking out on the inside because the body is stressed.
Amanda Testa (32:59):
I love those tips. That's very helpful. And the last part was you spoke to it a little bit, but I'm wondering if you can share a little bit more around how to support, because I know you work with families as well, so getting the families on the same page, but specifically with kids, and I feel like when kids are little, they'll pretty much eat whatever, but then when they start to get their own opinions or they're in school and they have a lot of choices that aren't healthy, and they're like, yes, I want the honey bun or whatever that they like to get from the vending machine at school. But I'm curious, what are the things that, how can you influence your kids too? I think that's a big thing.
Thais Harris (33:35):
The first one is knowing that they're always paying attention and they don't as much do what we tell them they do what they see, what we show them. And I think, so leading by example here is a lot. And the caveat to that is just as moms as a mother myself, I already feel so much responsibility to model things for my son. So I want to make sure that I'm not any stress to anybody here, but just even if the thing that you're modeling is self-love and going beyond the self-esteem and self-acceptance, but this love that's like knowing when you need rest, being able to say, honey, I just need to take 15 minutes right now. And so I've said this to my son even like I am feeling a little off. I really want to be present with you. I want to play with you, but something's keeping me from that, so I need to take 10 minutes and just kind of shut down for a second and then I'm going to reboot and be more present.
(34:35):
So trusting that the little ways in which we model self-care and self-love will make their way to their lifestyle, even if it's not now, but eventually. So modeling that. Then the second, when it comes to the food itself, I think it's always having the healthy options. And what I mean by healthy options is if for yourself like Okay, I really need to eat some more vegetables and I'm going to focus on sourcing really good quality meats and protein. Maybe that's a hypothetical person here that's saying, I'm going to eat more vegetables and focus on the quality of my meats. That's a couple of ways they're going to pay attention. That child is going to be getting the benefit of that healthy protein or the higher quality protein. And even if they go me don't want the vegetables, keep having it on hand and keep offering and make it different ways.
(35:37):
Sometimes I'll tell my son, you can try it. I know you didn't like it last time you had it, but you liked it a few times before, so this might be one of those times you can try it. If you don't like it, you can spit it out. That's my way of helping my son take out the risk. Yeah, I like that we have to remove the risk and I don't want him to also feel like you have to eat this to get that. And at one point I definitely use that tactic, which I'm not greatly proud of, but it's too, I think it just sets a tone. We don't want to go eat this so you can have dessert, meaning dessert is more special than this and this is your punishment for getting to that. It just sets up a really weird thing around food.
(36:22):
So the idea is just try it. If you don't like it, it can spit it out. There's no risk and you might like it. And there was one time where he was really resistant. I said, okay, I'm just going to tell you this one time and then if you still feel like you really don't want it, I'm totally okay with it. But right now, this is coming out of love. This is causing such an amazing fireworks experience in my mouth right now because these flavors are so yummy that because I love you, I want you to experience that too. And it may be that for you, you put it in and you say, oh, this is not fireworks. This is do dot and fill in the blank for me, but I want to know how it goes for you. And he goes, okay. So he tried it and he liked it, and I don't remember what his word was to describe, it wasn't fireworks, but just opening that invitation like, oh, what could this be for you?
(37:13):
This is what it tastes like to me. I am curious what this will remind you of or tastes like for you. So bringing more playfulness so that they're more curious than they are feeling like they have to. And then I often have conversations about what supports my health, and one of the things that I love is sushi, but sushi totally skyrockets my blood sugar. And I work with continuous glucose monitors and I've tried several of them. And sushi not great for me, especially if it has the rice and everything else. And my son loves sushi, so sometimes I just tell him, it doesn't work for me. We don't know how it acts for you, but since you feel good and you're like, it's so much, sure have some, but I'm going to have the other one. I'll either have skinny sushi or I'm eating something else entirely.
(38:00):
And so he knows I'm just taking care of my needs. And so I got to trust that eventually that will, and he's made over time, there's been certain decisions or where he'll eat something that's very sweet and then wrap the rest away to have later little ways in which I invite him. I could just check in with your tummy, see what your tummy's saying, or if something, if you're really thirsty after eating something that might be saying that's too much. So give it some time. Then have another piece. So ways that are pressure free to help them also connect to what they need. And I think ultimately it's what we want for ourselves and for them is that they can develop that circuit of, oh, I ate this, I feel this way, or Oh, I eat this and I feel great. Give me more of that. My son loves bone broth and I think he just feels good. And so it's like, okay, give me some broth. Yeah,
Amanda Testa (39:03):
I love that. I'm wondering too, so I appreciate all that you've shared and I feel like I could keep talking to you because I always find so much volume in these conversations around nutrition. I know for myself, I always love to learn too, but I'm wondering if there maybe is a question that I didn't ask that you really wish I would've asked or any, and then I want to also make sure you have time to share where everyone can connect with you, but maybe if there's any other things that you wanted to share that I didn't ask about.
Thais Harris (39:28):
Yeah, thinking the whole family and relationship piece, I think bringing to mind this notion of diet as an acronym for daily intake of everything, which is something that my husband, as you said, is a psychotherapist, somatic psychotherapist, and we have done some work around merging our areas of psychotherapy, nutrition, holistic nutrition and wellness in general and what it means to really see ourselves whole. Unfortunately, I think there's been some separation around what mental health is and what health is, and it's all one, it's body, mind, soul, and it's all connected. And so what are the ways that we can support all three? And so really paying attention to what it is that you feed yourself with every day. Foods, beverages, thoughts, media. I remember when my son was very little, I would drive him to daycare on my way to work and I would be listening to classical music or it was always very pleasing, very sweet.
(40:41):
And I would drop him off at the daycare and then I would switch to the news channel. And I remembered on several occasions then arriving where feeling really agitated. There was a lot of political stuff happening around this time. So this was eight years ago. Yeah, seven and a half. So I would be so activated and I realized, oh my gosh, I'm actually creating inflammation for myself. I'm going from this great, I want to make sure that my baby's environment is pristine. And then the minute he's gone, I'm going and getting all agitated and inflamed because of these news. And so I just stopped listening and I'm still, I would go and read sometimes, but there's something, even like reading can be so different than listening, especially when somebody has very inflammatory statements they're making in the news. And so I had to just notice I was choosing an inflammatory thing and I could choose differently.
(41:40):
And so what would it be like to just listen to that classical music all the way to work, especially as I'm going into this environment that's all about leave your worries behind, walk into this place with love. This is where we were making these meals for our cancer clients. And so it had to be a conscious choice to choose something that was going to feed my body, mind, soul in a different way. And so I think that's one thing that I just love to leave everybody with, just considering what's in your diet, what is the thing you're taking in every day, and is there a way to find balance? For some people they're like, I care. I will not watch the news or listen to the news. Then can you do it maybe every other day or what would help you then bring peace to your body after you're done with the news? So yeah.
Amanda Testa (42:34):
Beautiful. Well thank you so much and I love it that you could share where everyone can find out more about you and connect with you.
Thais Harris (42:40):
Thank you. So my website is nourish together.com and I'm on Instagram @nourish.together. And if you go to selflove.nourishtogether.com you can download a little PDF on the three mindset shifts to Love Ourselves and to Better Health. And I'm also a co-author and book called The Life-Changing Power of Self-Love. And that book is available on Amazon. It was published November 6th by Brave Healer, and it's been just wonderful the reviews we're getting. It's really having a very positive effect in the world. So check it out.
Amanda Testa (43:22):
Amazing. And for everyone listening, I'll put everything in the show notes so that you can learn more about Thais and Nourish together. And thank you so much again for being here.
Thais Harris (43:32):
Thank you so much.
Amanda Testa (43:34):
It was so lovely. And thank you all for listening, and we will see you soon. Thank you for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire Podcast. If you love this episode, please go ahead and forward it right now to someone who would love it. And if you've not yet had a chance to leave us a rave review on Apple Podcasts, please make sure to rate and review if you enjoyed the podcast as well as make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.