Divas That Care Network

Maybe Don't Just Eat the Cake

• Divas That Care Network • Season 15 • Episode 56

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Come and listen to our Host, Gia-Raquel Rose for our “End of Year, Beginning of Me” Podcast Series.
A powerfully themed mini-series helping women close the year with clarity and step into the next one with grounded self-love and vision.

Gia-Raquel Rose, owner of Airs Above Yoga, LLC and a real estate sales associate in Tewksbury, New Jersey has had a love for horses stemming from early childhood. Growing up in “horse country” afforded her the privilege of beginning to ride from the tender age of four. It was a childhood illness, which brought her riding aspirations to an abrupt halt. It took twenty years before she was able to reunite with her long lost passion for horses and their ability to heal. In that time, she received a Bachelor of Arts in Corporate Communication from Arcadia University and became a twice two hundred hour certified yoga instructor in both Hatha and Vinyasa. It was the loss of her mother, Rose, to breast cancer, which ultimately shifted her trajectory from the corporate world to the internal work for which yoga, as a practice, is renowned.

We trace a clear line from invisible illness to visible choices, exploring how diet, alcohol, and small permissions shape health and self-trust. The heart of the conversation is priorities, accountability, and the quiet work of building discipline without shame.

• living with Hashimoto’s and persistent fatigue
• keto vs paleo and slow, staged transitions
• the “one time” trap using truffle fries as a metaphor
• quitting alcohol, tough truths about smoking, and social settings
• trial and error for bio‑individual nutrition
• priorities, accountability, and redefining maturity
• forgiveness after slips and returning to practice
• designing environments that support discipline

For more Divas That Care Network Episodes visit www.divasthatcare.com

SPEAKER_00:

It's Divas that Care Radio. Stories, strategies, and ideas to inspire positive change. Welcome to Divas That Care, a network of women committed to making our world a better place for everyone. This is a global movement for women, by women, engaged in a collaborative effort to create a better world for future generations. To find out more about the movement, visit divasletcare.com after the show. Right now, though, stay tuned for another jolt of inspiration.

SPEAKER_01:

Amastay, and welcome to the Divas That Care Network. I'm your host, Gia Raquel Rose, owner of Airs Above Yoga, and you are listening to Above the Ground Podcast. If this is your first time tuning in, our network is going into its 15th year and is listened to in over 13 countries. I'd like to personally thank you for giving me the gift of your time. As always, it is my honor to hold space with you. And today, um, insofar as the nutrition episode is concerned, I'm going to take this moment to talk a little bit about something that is nutrition adjacent. I'm going to go with nutrition adjacent for it. Um and I haven't really discussed it super like not too much, not too much in detail. Um, it has been certainly a a big a big aspect to navigate in my life in the past year plus. Um, but certainly I, you know, don't want to get too soapboxy as I preempt before I get soapboxy. Um, but essentially I've spoken a lot about my um journey with diet. I've spoken a lot about the uh Hashimoto thyroid, hypo low thyroid condition that I have and have been struggling to navigate. And I've spoken a lot about the symptoms of that, which for me are predominantly, you know, thorough and complete exhaustion from waking up in the morning uh through going to bed at night. So, you know, autoimmune conditions are what I'll say silently debilitating. You know, if you see someone walking around on crutches or, you know, you happen to know that someone is struggling, it's not like when you have the flu and like people can physically see that you are just, you know, run down. Um it's it's just a kind of like a constant low. And there are many other conditions that support that same um uh dynamic, I'll say. But essentially, um, one of the things that I have taken on um or committed to or made the choice for, depending on how you want to look at it, is was navigating this, not just the diagnosis aspect of it, which obviously is pertinent and that's been going on for a few years now, um, but kind of when the medication wasn't helping or the medication wasn't working, or I still felt the same even with the diagnosis and the medication, was when I turned to the dietary, uh dietary, not dietary, dietary um changes and and the true conscious choices and discipline that it came with, right? So, and again, this is never a criticism of others' choices or condemnation of how people choose to live, you know, it's just the process I had to go through because nothing was working for me and I was tired, I am still tired of feeling that way. Um, and it's frustrating. And I believe that, you know, people who have chronic conditions, I believe frustration is a huge shared, you know, commonality with people that struggle uh with autoimmune conditions and and other community, you know, other systemic low-grade pop problematic things that can tend to rear their ugly heads. So, to that end, I will go over briefly kind of how I came to this. And I had been, I had tried the keto diet many years ago when it first became popular. My body did not respond well to that. And frankly, I've never felt the same since I did it. No condemnation on it, it just really wasn't for me. And like I said, I always believe that dietary restrictions, fad diets, or you know, any sort of disciplinary choice that you make for your body and your health needs to work for your body, it's not a one size fits all kind of a thing. Um, everybody is different, everybody is different, and you really need to practice some trial and error. Um, so after I had tried keto, and while I lost some weight, I definitely did not feel good. I then went to paleo. And I, aside from the fact that I was vegetarian and keto, which is an easy thing to do, being paleo and vegetarian is a very challenging thing to do. And my new challenge is trying to figure out how to do that. So if anyone has any notes for me, please shoot me an email, send me a DM, uh, because that's that's one that I haven't wrapped my head around, and I'll talk a little bit about that. But more importantly, is the idea of as my mom used to say in Spanish, uno bet no son betes. And that basically means one time doesn't mean every time, essentially. And that's the kind of let you know, eat the cake mentality, right? Like you only live once, eat the cake. And this whole line of thought is how I'd like to approach this topic because I I agree with that sentiment, insofar as uh, you know, you have to enjoy your life, right? Like, but I also think that uh unfortunately, if you have a predisposition uh towards uh uh let's say addiction, and that can be addiction of anything, it could be a workaholic, it could be working out, it could be, you know, alcohol, it could be nicotine, it could be, you know, their healthy air quotes for those listening, for those who are not watching, um, they're good, they're healthy addictions, right? Um, working out can be an addiction. Um, you know, making money can be an addiction, gambling isn't it? So there are healthy and unhealthy addictions, but the the bottom line is the addiction itself or the personality characteristic, the the dopamine hit, and then the chasing of that hit over and over and over again, kind of like you know, a lab rat in a cage, right? It's it's not that dissimilar. And so if anyone remembers the study where they actually took lab rats and they put them in a cage and they gave them, I want to say it was either cocaine or heroin or maybe both in different different test subjects. Um, and of course, the lab rats killed themselves with addiction. And then the researchers decided, okay, well, we're going to, we didn't give them anything else to do. We put them in the cage alone, we isolated them, and then we gave them these drugs. So they then gave them like lab rat great adventures or lab rat theme parks, whatever you want to call it, and then put them in a cage, a container with other rats. And guess what? They didn't kill themselves with these drugs that were still on offer to them. They they opted for regular water and not dosed water. And why is that? Well, it's because they had things to do and and other rats to do them with. So please Google that study for the specifics, as I am really glossing over it and certainly don't want to take any credit for the researchers that proved that. But the thing that's really important for me to recognize um is that there is when it comes to dietary restrictions, I truly believe in in trial and error. But when it comes to cheating, and I've mentioned this before um with my diet, and I had it, it had it really rear its ugly hat again recently. And I'm going to use the lovely potato as my metaphor for this. So on a paleo diet, potatoes, white potatoes specifically, are kind of frowned upon. They're not technically a grain, you can consume them, they are a root vegetable, but they're kind of an empty carbohydrate. They don't serve a lot of nutritional value and function in the body, especially so when you, you know, make them or process them in a way that makes them taste delicious, but even less healthy for you, aka the French fry or the mashed potatoes mixed with dairy, butter, and cream. And so while they are delicious and you know, you can't, it's very hard to pass up. I have recently, there was just there was a there was an eat the cake, let them eat cake. You only live once moment for me, where I really I was sitting next to my friend. I usually order a burger without a bun and a very sad salad next to it. And my friend got a burger also without a bun, but she got the truffle fries. And I just in that moment wanted those stinking truffle fries. And I have been to this restaurant many times, and I happen to know that they put they use soy in their deep fryer. And soy for me specifically and for the paleo diet is big no no. And I said, you know what? I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna power through and I'm gonna I'm gonna eat the truffle fries, and they were delicious. And as my mother used to say, Rebh, no son bethes. However, the next time I went to the same said restaurant and I had been in the habit of ordering my unless burger with my sad salad, I yet again ordered the fries. So that was two times in a row. And that is where, as much as I love my mother, and may she not roll over in her grave when I, you know, negate her saying, the Spanish saying, essentially, therein lies the rub, which was also a saying of hers. So there you go, mom. Two for two. The problem is that you get to a place where when you let it slide once, it becomes a heck of a lot easier to let it slide again, especially if you don't have the ramifications. The flip side of that is over the holidays, as we are now officially in them when I am recording this, I had real mashed potatoes, not the vegan, you know, avocado oil-based mashed potatoes, but I had real mashed potatoes. And I will tell you, maybe it was the dairy. I'm not entirely, can't put my finger on it, but I had a physical, you know, a not pleasant reaction after eating them. And so it's like, there it is. So there we know, there we know that that that was not positive. I will say I did not have a physical reaction to the French fries, um, which makes it easier to do it a second time, right? That's that's where where the crux is. If it's a pain point, you're not gonna do it again. If it's not a pain point, you just know it's not the best choice you can make, makes it a lot easier to continue with that choice. So remember when I said I wasn't gonna get on a soapbox? A little lay for that. The whole the reason that I use the illustrious French fry and the potato as my preface for what I'm about to dive into is because I think that it is a fairly relatable metaphor for what I have yet to discuss, which is what we're gonna dive into right now. So keep the idea of the French fry and the ease of transition with the French fry as I completely um open up and share this little story with you guys. So when I chose to become paleo, I did it in stages. The first time I had done it years ago, and I will say, unfortunately for me, my body does do well with meat on my diet. I it's I tend to get physically sick much more easily and just unwell on a purely vegetarian diet. So paleo and I, I will say, unfortunately, resonate well. Not from my ethical, moral loving animal standpoint, but for my body, it it tends to agree with me. Out of all of the fad diets that are out there, um, this one it's essentially clean eating for the most part, unless you're eating soy-based truffle fries. Um, but overall, it's gotten gotten me quite well. Now, I wanted to go into it a little more gently than the last time, which was like from keto to paleo. So they're a little bit adjacent. So, and it wasn't a terrible transition. But I just feel like, you know, the more we age gracefully, if we can, the more gentler we need to be with our bodies. And so when I chose to do it, it was two years ago now, give or take. Um, and I first gave up all grains and I did that for at least a month. Then I gave up dairy and legumes kind of together because the legumes that I was most heavily reliant on, let's be honest, was hummus. So I I kind of picked my battles and eased myself out of it. Um, so it took me about two, two to three months to go from vegetarian, essentially, what I was, to to paleo. And in that process, I thought I had been on the medication for let's say about six months, um, the original thyroid medication as a note, and I truly didn't feel better. And I thought, okay, well, I've given up grain, I've given up dairy, let's give it a little more time. So I gave it a couple more months. Um, and this was all, let's just say, by the time it had been a number of months, I was about, I was about middle of the summer. Um, I guess not about almost two years ago now, but at least a year and a half ago. And the one thing that I had not given up and that I have, you know, consistently has been a part of my existence, honestly, since I was a little kid. I grew up European. My parents, my mother was Spanish, my father was Italian. Um, and so wine or beer, alcohol was a big part of our existence. Um, and it wasn't no one ever was drunk, and it was never anything that I thought of as abnormal. If you go to Europe, little kids get wine with dinner. It's not a thing. It's a very different mentality um than we have here in the US. And I think that that's a positive thing. Now, for me, as I got older in high school, obviously we would drink at parties in college. When you turn 21, you know, drinking was a part of the culture for those people that imbibe it. I will I will say that I was a self-proclaimed party girl back in the day, 100%. Um, and so I definitely drank probably more than I should, definitely more than I should have, and probably, you know, a decent amount or more so than others, like if there was a scale. At no point did I ever call myself, consider myself to be an alcoholic. At no point did I feel reliant on alcohol, but but socially, as I worked in radio after I graduated college, um, you know, I had I had a public, you know, we were in clubs a lot. It was just, it was a part of the culture that followed me after college and was so in college as well. You know what I will say, because like I said, this is a this is a soapbox uh soul-bearing episode for me. Um I also was a smoker and I started smoking when I was little, honestly, because I my first boyfriend smoked and I wanted to impress him. And then I continued. Not a lot. I was a kid, it wasn't really easy to get cigarettes, but through high school, through college, into young adulthood, I was a smoker. And I will be honest, I really, really did enjoy it. And I gave it up because, you know, yoga teacher, hashtag, right? Like, not exactly a great look to be coughing through your vinyasa. So around the time that I became a yoga instructor and and really around when my mother passed of cancer, right? Like, you know, you you have some hard truths hit you. Um, and I I did eventually quit smoking. I will say, for an addictive style personality, and the reason that I bring that up is because I gave up alcohol, 100% cold turkey, stopped, haven't had a drink in almost two years, one and a half plus years. And it was easy for me. So I preface that first by saying I'm sorry, not that I need to apologize, but I know how challenging and how hard how devastating alcohol can be for people, for families. And so it was not when I made the decision, uno bethnos on bethes, when I made the choice to not drink, I I just made that choice, and I have consistently made that choice for quite quite some time now. When I quit smoking, that was not easy. That was not easy. I weaned myself down to this day. I finally am in a place where if I smell a cigarette, it kind of grosses me out. But like I know that if I had a cigarette, I would want another one immediately. I truly, I forget, I think it I'd be like Chandler on Friends. If you remember, if you've ever saw the episode where Chandler smoked a cigarette and he was like, Oh my god, that would be me if I had a cigar. And I know that, I know that about myself, and so I will not do that. And that begs the question of the same with people that have issues or struggle with alcohol. And again, the reason that I'm bringing this up is because I want to share what I've learned, what I've noticed over the past year somewhat, because I'm also, you know, I have a lot of friends where, you know, we we hang out at at bars and restaurants together. And I'm very blessed because it doesn't bother me. I can go out to the bar, I can have a club soda, and I it doesn't bother me to sit. But the things that I've noticed is that the culture, the social aspect of it, I've seen people struggle when they stop drinking to navigate that aspect. Um, and for me, like I said, I'm luckier than most. I was able to quit very easily. It didn't bother me. I'm able to be around people that are drinking. It doesn't bother me. I don't, I'm not triggered by it. I don't care. I'm fine. The only thing I will say is that I want to go home earlier. It's not fun for me to hang out past a certain point when there's nothing else going on other than drinking. And it's never a condemnation, it's just a shift. And I think the one thing that I've taken from this journey, and this is the therein lies the point after however many minutes of backstory, herein lies the point. The point is essentially your priorities, everyone's priorities. And what I realized in this journey of healing, I'm gonna call it journey of healing because it started due to, and I'm not gonna say there weren't mental and emotional components to it because that wouldn't be authentic, but it started predominantly with the struggle of feeling like garbage all day, every day, and really being over that and trying to eliminate the different potential causes of that, and finally eliminating alcohol is like, well, I have given up everything else and I don't feel better, and so let me stop drinking and see if then I feel better. And here's the sad reality for me. And I I can't imagine that it's like this because everyone else that I that I talked to that even stopped drinking, maybe not forever, but for a few weeks or a few months, or you know, had dry January. Um, they would always like, oh my god, I feel so great. I never felt better. I didn't feel better. I it it I my sleep improved, right? Like my sleep improved. Um, I will say I I didn't my weight didn't really improve much from not drinking anymore. Um, but I had had a history where I had already started to give up wine because it would give me my body changed. changed and my I wine was my favorite thing and I couldn't drink it because it would give me headaches or I would wake up in the middle of the night and I already started drinking heart alcohol which kind of led to this trajectory of like well now I'm not even drinking because I'm enjoying it. I'm drinking because I'm drinking and that was it. And it was just kind of like well why? And and and and that was kind of the struggle and um a friend of mine passed away very young around my age and I really struggled when I found that news out and having nothing to do with alcohol at all actually um but it just it just broke my heart and I was not okay mentally and emotionally. And I realized one night when I was crying and I'd had a few a few cocktails I was like I'm not I'm not okay I'm not okay and there's something underlying and this is not helping drinking is not helping it's what it did help to do was it helped to show me that I wasn't okay that I really needed to take a pause and I really needed to reflect and I really needed to evaluate my priorities. Meeting up with my friends after work or whatever was my priority I would wake up I would stay up late and wake up late. That was not a great choice for me but I would just make it through the day I would you know you'd power through um certainly like I said even though I didn't feel better that's the thyroid it's not it's not from the alcohol but I would definitely like I'm certainly much much less sleep deprived or my quality of sleep has definitely improved. And so I think that the thing to take away from this not that you need to stop drinking not that you need to you know check yourself as an addictive personality but there is a distinction between knowing that you have a potentially addictive personality doesn't have to be alcohol it doesn't have to be cigarettes it doesn't have to be it could it could be work right and that could have positive ramifications right like there's not all bad addictions but I think humans tend to have addictive predispositions and there's something safe in the cycle there's something known in the repetition right and it's breaking free much like um my most recent meditation breaking free from that cycle getting off the carousel breaking the cycle stepping off and looking at the carousel and evaluating it reflecting looking at yourself looking at your choices from a really true perspective and and facing yourself can be hard man like that's not an easy I'm not it's not an easy thing to do acknowledging that you know you have made choices that pardon me may not serve you or didn't serve you and that you made them over and over and over again um it's it's a little bit of a tough pill to swallow I will say um but what's on the other side of that hopefully is is awareness better choices and an upward trajectory onwards and upwards. And so when I talk about this and when I kind of tongue in cheek say hey mom I don't know if you were right about that one I don't know if the span this Spanish tradition of son betes is is really truly accurate because I will tell you that that second French fry was a lot easier to order than the first French fry. And that's where discipline plays a huge role a huge role in your life choices and well people will say eat the cake eat the cake have a good day enjoy the day sure do it fine but I'm gonna say what's your priority that's my that's my what is your priority that is my question to you what is your what do you want what do you want from your life what do you want from yourself I recently had a conversation um with a friend of mine and and two beautiful young ladies um little girls who are you know not even in their teens yet we were talking about uh we were talking about maturity and the two aspects and a friend of mine said well you know maturity is being responsible for something and being responsible for you know taking care of something and you know what whatever it may be I said yeah but the mature there's a second part of maturity it's being responsible for something like being responsible for your health being responsible for your family being responsible for your financial well-being being responsible for your life there's also the accountability aspect and who are you accountable to and what I said to them was you know right now you're accountable to your parents you're accountable to your teachers you're accountable to you know your elders essentially but I also said as you get older you're no longer maybe you're accountable to your for my case for to my priest or to my employer or you know there's there to an authority figure. But at the end of the day there is only an and God right of course if you believe in that kind of thing source whatever universe whatever you believe in you are always accountable to that which watches over and knows all that being said ultimately you're accountable to yourself and that's what I told them you're accountable to yourself you know what your actions are you know when you're speaking the truth you know when you're lying you know when you're doing something with integrity with authenticity or when you're not you are who and what you are accountable to always and forever until until your worm food right that is the deal and when it comes to your health when it comes to your nutritional choices when it comes to eating the truffle fry or having the salad ultimately you're accountable to yourself and you know whether you kept up that discipline or you didn't and a truffle fry may not be a big deal and to me maybe even having a glass of champagne on New Year's wouldn't be a big deal but I'm not gonna do it. And it's not because I'm worried about drinking and that being a problem for me. It really it was it was like I said it wasn't a challenge for me to stop. But just smoking is a challenge for me. I know that I should never smoke a cigarette ever again. That's just not a great call and for anyone who's young listening out there don't start smoking. It's not worth it it's not worth it even though I said it was very enjoyable um it's not worth it it's just not so as I say all of these things I will again say I do not judge anyone who smokes cigarettes I do not judge anyone who drinks alcohol but I I will say I will ask them what are what are you prioritizing? What's important to you? What is what what matters what matters to you who are you accountable to as you get older and you have family you're accountable to your family you become accountable to your children you're responsible for and accountable to your children to your family to your loved ones your health is I don't know the most important gift that you can give the people that love you that is just a true statement and I don't think that's one that can be argued with or belabored. So I say all of this to ask everyone what their priorities are and to note that as much as enjoying enjoying your life enjoying a meal maybe you do make some dietary sacrifices every once in a while maybe you do eat the cake that's where the forgiveness the closure and the and the that's where the forgiveness comes in right meet yourself where you are and when you start these processes any process of elimination any disciplinary process when you're starting from scratch meet yourself where you are and that's where the forgiveness comes in you forgive yourself for the French fry you forgive yourself for the cake you forgive yourself for the drink you forgive yourself for the cigarette that after some practice has gone by and the practice turns into habit and the habit becomes a discipline who are you accountable to and why are you going to make that choice to deviate from your discipline because at a certain point you've worked hard you've put in a lot of time you've put in a lot of effort you've put in a lot of mental and emotional load towards these positive choices why are you gonna let one choice break that stride and you can I'm not gonna hold it against you I'll forgive you for it you forgive yourself for it it doesn't matter it doesn't it doesn't matter and is that your priority is your priority in that moment the oh no Beth Nothon Bethes or is your priority the amount of effort that I put in is worth more to me than this this this singular truffle fry and sometimes it it will be sometimes it's worth it's a worthy truffle fry and I will give that to you but it is never a worthy cigarette unfortunately and you have to know yourself you have to learn yourself you have to know your own boundaries because it's not just like the diet just like choosing to be paleo whole food 30 vegan like keto whatever diet works for your body low VODMAP whatever diet whatever nutrition best serves your overall health it is different for everybody. Whatever choice best serves you in that moment if you're going through something emotional and you've been you haven't had a practice of of not leaning on your vices whether they be nicotine whether they be alcohol whether they be food you know whatever your vices are you're going through something let yourself go through it and and do what you need to do for yourself and then forgive yourself come back to yourself and hold yourself accountable but I will tell you the practice of discipline makes you really consider whether or not breaking that discipline is worth the reward the instant gratification and that's a question that only you can answer. So I know that this has been the soapbox to end all soapboxes. So if you have made it this far I truly truly want to thank you for your time and attention I hope that my journey of healing and and through addictive processes and through backsliding with smoking for sure I mean it didn't wasn't an overnight eventually it is right you always have one less cigarette but a lot of people struggle with addictions they don't all look the same they are as varying as diets as body types as mental and emotional feedback loops find what works for you but get off the carousel that's the one thing that I say you can't until you're aware until you're willing to confront yourself until you're willing to ask yourself the hard questions what am I prioritizing? What matters to me where am I spending my time what am I giving my focus and attention to till you're ready to have those conversations with yourself forgive yourself and then once you know better do better. And so again if you've made it this far I just want to tell you how much I appreciate each and every one of you for sharing this space with me and ask that you please feel free to share the same with your loved ones. For more goodness follow me on all the socials at Above the Ground Podcast or visit my website errorsaboveyoga.com as always don't forget to check out my other episodes especially the meditation from last week and check out all of my amazing sisters at divas that care you can find us on Spotify, Odyssey, Apple Amazon iHeartRadio or anywhere else that you may feel guided. Again my name is Gia Raquel Rose, owner of Airs Above Yoga and you are listening to Above the Ground podcast where every day is a good one.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for listening this show was brought to you by Divas That Care. Connect with us on Facebook on Instagram and of course on divasThatcare.com where you can subscribe to our newsletter so you don't miss a thing