[00:00:00] Cynthia Garcia: Just because you’re cooking for yourself doesn’t mean that it has to not be a great meal or a great experience or just one other person. Right. And it also doesn’t mean that you have to necessarily cook small meals. If anything, you can use this as an opportunity to cook meals that you’re going to eat in the future.

Welcome back to the Transformational Nutrition Podcast, the podcast that is redefining nutrition as anything that eats you physically, mentally and spiritually. I’m your host. Cynthia Garcia, the founder and CEO of the Institute of Transformational Nutrition. And in today’s episode, we are talking about the spiritual benefits of cooking at home.

Now I know that must sound a little random and you might be. What spirituality and cooking. How does that make sense? So I’ll share that with you. You see, I’ve mentioned before that growing up, I didn’t have a lot of. In fact, I go into detail about my upbringing all the way back on episode one. If you want to go and check that out after you listened to this one, but long story short, I grew up in pretty extreme poverty.

There were oftentimes that we didn’t have food and we would just go to bed hungry. We’d go to bed early. So we didn’t have to be hungry, but on nights that we did have dinner, it was usually something like soup beans cooked in fat bags. Collard greens and some drop biscuits or cornbread. Now, if you’re from the south or you spent any time there, you probably know what I’m talking about.

And for those of you who haven’t, you might be like, Hey, I have no idea either way. No worries. The fact was it wasn’t exactly helping. I had eat different canned foods, government foods that we were able to get, because we had such a low income things like government, cheese, or beans in a can with no label, that kind of thing.

So I never really learned to cook growing up. That’s what I’m getting at here. I just didn’t learn to cook. It. Wasn’t really something that we gathered around and did as a family. And then I got older and I moved out and I started working and, you know, I made my own money and bought my own groceries, but I still don’t know how to cook.

So I did all I need to do, which was I bought frozen. They got canned foods and I got frozen dinners. Right. Remember those frozen dinners. I mean, they’re still around. I don’t eat them anymore, but I remember I used to get these frozen foods that were always like once where you watch your weight or it was like the slim down version of something.

And they were so unhealthy, but I didn’t know that at the time, all I knew was, well, this works with my schedule because. I’m busy. I don’t have time to spend hours making a meal. At least that’s what I told myself. Right. I was like, yeah, this works. It’s fine. It’s gets my belly fed. It gets the job done.

It’s fine. And it was fine up until I had my own health struggle. And I talk about this too back in episode one, but essentially I got really sick. I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. I was about 25 pounds overweight. I had short-term memory loss. I could go on and on, but I realized through going through this journey that the food that I was eating was so critical.

Now you might think, well, yeah, Cynthia. Yeah, that’s pretty important. But I didn’t know, remember that was never my upbringing. I didn’t have any information about eating healthy. Like again, we rarely even had food, so whatever we had, we ate, I literally had no education or awareness of this. So I had to learn and I did learn, you know, I started cooking.

I started trying different things. I bought some recipes. Books and cookbooks and I was very bad at it. It was very bad. It was so bad. I struggled so hard. In fact, this is a true story. I burned water one time. I’m not joking. I wish I was, this is not an exaggeration. The point is I was trying to boil some eggs.

True story, love eggs, screw up on eggs, good stuff. And I had them in the water. And I left them and the pot boil dry. So I literally burned the water. So I was really bad at cooking. I had to learn, but today I cook pretty well for myself. I wrote a cookbook, things are good and I get to use cooking to connect to myself, not just physically and which is pretty obvious.

Right. But also spiritual. And that’s what I want to talk to you about today is how can we connect and have an entire spiritual experience with our food?

We love spotlighting the unique stories and transformations of our students and graduates here at ITN. This week, I’m excited to introduce Jessica Davis and give her a chance to talk about her own journey of becoming a certified transformational nutrition. Let’s start by learning about Jessica’s background.

[00:05:02] Jessica Davis: I was a performing arts student, so I was a dance major in high school. And then I was also a dance major in college. And really, I do have to say that that probably started my health journey. So being in front of mirrors in a leotard and. For multiple hours in a day with other girls my age and everything like that really reinforced this comparison idea for me.

I was always comparing myself to others and then dance can be very competitive. So I feel like my whole life, everything kind of revolved around looks and appearance. And then, you know, you start to tie your work to that. So I noticed that. I found my identity and my self worth in the way that I looked.

And that really did a number on my mental health at the same time. Going through some health issues related to chronic stress. They were, you know, my hormones were all over the place. My weight was sort of fluctuating and people were really noticing, I don’t even think it was fluctuating that badly, but you know, a few pounds here or there and people because I was in the dance world, people were commenting on it and it really bothered me.

I was not taking care of my body. ’cause, I didn’t know how at the time. And that made me really want to move away from dance because dance was too physically demanding for me time. And I was at the same time realizing that maybe it wasn’t even who I was. I had always put my identity there because I started when I was eight years old and it was my life.

[00:06:51] Cynthia Garcia: So here at ITN, we practice transformation or nutrition is what we teach our students. That’s what our graduates go out and make a great living coaching people on. And it’s made up of three pillars. Physical nutrition, mental nutrition and spiritual nutrition, because we are fed by so much more than just food alone.

So we could go on and on about the physical benefits of food. Like it feel like we’ve done that so many times. You’ve heard that podcast before, but I like to talk about the things. People aren’t talking about. And so today that is the spiritual aspect of nutrition, especially when it comes to cooking at home and feeding yourself.

So it’s nothing new to say that people, especially Americans enjoy going out to eat. It’s just true. I mean, we all do according to a U S bureau of labor statistic, the average us household spent an average of $3,459 on takeout in restaurant. And fast food meals in 2018. Yeah, like $3,500 a year. Now I left that number even though it’s from 2018, because well, we’ve been going through some stuff lately.

You know, the last few years have brought a global pandemic. Our eating habits have changed. Sure. We’re getting food delivered more at home. So I didn’t even take those into consideration, but according to a report by Nielsen, the total amount of money spent on food away from home versus eating at home has risen 94%.

That’s not an error, 94% since 2000. And. I know you can’t make that up. Like, so whether you think you don’t know how to cook or you’re too busy or it’s just more fun to eat out or, you know, whatever, it doesn’t really matter. The truth is most of us aren’t taking the time to cook and eat at home. And yeah, I could go on and on, as I said about the physical benefits of cooking at home, but let’s move into why we should cook at home and how cooking at home can serve as spiritually, how it can feed us on a spiritual level.

So spirituality here at ITN. And again, what we teach our students and our grads is not about religion, but rather about relationships and connection, connection to yourself, which we call personal spirituality connection to others, which has communal spirituality and connection to the planet, the environment, and something higher, if you so choose.

Right. So that is environment. Spirituality. So let’s start with personal spirituality and how cooking at home can help us feel more connected to our. So, first of all, did you know that when you’re cooking at home, you’re actually cooking the food that your personal energy is infused into it, and this can be a great thing or a not so great thing, depending on your mood and your emotional state.

I mean, you can just like yelling at the kids or you’re trying to, you know, be on Instagram or you’re trying to voice text your friend back when you’re cooking. All of that energy goes right into your food. So make sure that you prepare yourself for cooking and you don’t have to do anything crazy. I usually take a few deep breaths.

I center myself. I like to put on some music that I really enjoy cooking too. You might not want to. There are days when I’m like, not today. Cause all I’ve heard is no. Right. Just stuff I’ve been in meetings all day, or I’ve been shooting videos or recording stuff, and I just want peace and quiet. So I might just light some candles, take a few deep breaths and focus on the meal that I’m creating.

Let’s tune in again, to discover what Jessica did after leaving her career in dance and how this allowed her to find her passion in nutrition, coaching.

[00:10:38] Jessica Davis: When I was leaving the dance world, I was kind of focused on two things. And one of those things was being a fitness instructor because dancers are naturally very good at being fitness instructors, because we can really talk about the body. So I was focusing on fitness and I was really starting to get passionate about this.

And then at the same time, I was noticing that all of my clients who were in my classes really needed help with nutrition because they would be coming and they would not be seeing the results. And I knew from having to learn to take care of myself after having the hormonal issues and the chronic stress and just my body being completely rundown from dance.

I started learning how to take care of myself. And I started learning that no matter what you’re doing, movement-wise you need to still be supporting yourself nutritionally. At that time, I was actually struggling with whether or not, so I wanted to potentially go into counseling or I wanted to be a nutrition.

And I didn’t know which one I wanted to do. And anytime I would go to look into like counseling programs and really make the decision, I would kind of have this like empty feeling, like there’s something missing. And that was really for me, the nutrition aspect, like I needed to incorporate nutrition into the mental health.

And then, so when I found ITN and how they incorporate the three pillars, Mental health, the science pillar, and then the spiritual health that really spoke to me because I knew that in my own experience, if I only focused on nutrition, it still did not necessarily make a difference. If I wasn’t doing well spiritually and emotionally.

[00:12:36] Cynthia Garcia: It’s important to remind yourself that cooking a good healthy meal is actually an act of self-care. We talk about self care a lot. Right. And we talk about baths and face masks and relaxing and Netflixing and all that good stuff. But what about feeding ourselves? Right? What about making the food that you then put into your body?

You could have a moment of Zen when you’re slicing at vegetables, right. Putting together the ingredients. That’s really important. Now, some of you right now might be going, I don’t dunno, Cynthia. I don’t know. Like it’s just me or just me and one other person I don’t know about cooking. Like, is it really.

And an important is a really, you know, that necessary. And I get it look, a lot of people don’t want to eat or cook it just for themselves and then eat alone. So we’ll grab something on the go or we’ll, you know, make something fast or get something delivered and watch your favorite Netflix show and just move on.

But just because you’re cooking for yourself. Doesn’t mean that it has to not be a great meal or a great experience or just one other person. Right. And it also doesn’t mean that you have to necessarily cook small meals. If anything, you can use this as an opportunity to cook meals that you’re going to eat in the future.

Right. So think about this, use it as a form of self-care and a way to nourish your body and connect with yourself. So going back to this original point, that cooking really is personal spirituality. As you’re cooking, think about the end result that you’re hoping for, bring your focus back to the task at hand and allow yourself to be really present and really intentional when you are cooking, when you’re putting these ingredients together, right.

Stay in the moment. Then when you get your. I played it in a really nice, beautiful way. Right. That presentation means so much. Think about the last time you went to a restaurant and you had food presented to you in a really beautiful way. It’s nice to just take a step back and enjoy that. It makes you feel a little special, right?

Makes you feel like, oh, this is kind of next level to something that you’re doing for yourself. All of these things can create a spiritual connection with you. Furthermore, when you do start to eat. Really be present with all five senses. How does your food smell? How does it look? How’s it taste right? How does it feel in your mouth?

Slow down. Be really present while you eat. Enjoy every bite. I think this is again great outlet to tune in with yourself and have. Personal spirituality connection. One of our favorite things is finding out what our graduates enjoyed the most about the transformational nutrition coach program. When we asked Jessica this question, she explained, uh,

[00:15:31] Jessica Davis: for me it was the coaching community that I gained and I think the coaching. Aspect of ITN and having the coaching labs. That was just so powerful because we’re not just on our own, going through the materials and trying to piece it all together. We have people that we can actually interact with and I’ve become very good friends with several of the people that I met through ITN.

I think being a part of the community. Of people who want the same things as you is so incredible.

[00:16:10] Cynthia Garcia: Now we can also use cooking to feel more connected to others. So we refer to this as communal spirituality. So I husband and I, we love to cook together. And if I’m being really honest, He’s probably a better cook than I am. I know it’s just true. He grew up cooking. He’s got years of experience on me and especially when it comes to meat, forget about it.

Like he’s the best. So I just let him have it, but we also do this really cool thing, even if it’s just the two of us, obviously we’re connecting in, you know, communal spirituality because there’s two of us here and we, we always make a thing out of it. Right. We’ll bring my daughter in to help cook and set the table.

That’s just the whole family experience. It’s a really great way to reconnect at the end of the day. Talk about our days, what we did, what went well, what didn’t and transition into our evening and a really beautiful way. Another thing that we will do is when we do go have dinner with friends, we will often get breasts.

Of dishes that we like when we get them, we print them out. We put them in our family recipe book, our family cookbook, and then we thumb through it because we like kind of hands-on old school, but it’s just really nice to go through, see the recipes. And then we always write the name of the person that we got the recipe from on the recipe itself.

So that we know where it came from. So we’ll choose a recipe and then we’ll get to work. And usually I’ll text that person just to say, Hey, we’re thinking of you Dawson a picture of the ingredients or the dish kind of midway and just let them know. You know, we appreciate them. And then when it’s done, I’ll also send like a completed picture.

If we can wait that long and we’re not too hungry and just say, thank you. And that’s a great way to connect with people. Whether it’s friends, family loved ones, even when you’re not together. Right. And this particularly comes in handy and did come in handy with COVID. When we were all staying at home, we could still connect.

Others or we’d make the same dish at the same time as they made and then have dinner over zoom or something like that. So it’s just a really fun way to let people know that you’re connecting with them since completing her certification. Jessica has been working hard to build her dream career as a nutrition coach.

Let’s hear what she’s been up to lately.

[00:18:30] Jessica Davis: I work remotely for a tech company and I do their operations for them, but I also am doing one-on-one coaching on the side and I’m thinking that my one-on-one coaching will take over very quickly and I’ll be able to leave my full-time job faster than I originally thought I was thinking it was going to take a little bit long.

But people are actually really in need of help. And so when, you know, I’m able to connect with people and they find out that I do nutrition coaching and they actually really do seem interested. And I think people are so like, what should I do? Should I do this diet? Should I do you know what this other person is doing?

And they don’t know how to find for themselves what they need. So I’m close to being able to do one-on-one coaching. Full-time.

[00:19:26] Cynthia Garcia: Finally, let’s just talk about how we can use cooking to connect with the environment. You know, some of us will often take for granted food and where it comes from. It’s just natural. Right? We don’t think always about the tree that the apple came from, you know, or where the broccoli came from. It’s just not something we always do.

But if we think about it, it comes from the environment comes from the. Right. So a great way to deepen your environmental spirituality as you cook is to honor the origins of your food. I like to think about where it might’ve been grown, the climate that it needed to thrive the whole process, photosynthesis of getting this amazing food from a little seed, you know, how does that even happen?

I think it’s magic. It’s just so such a beautiful, beautiful. The process I like to think about and show gratitude for the people who picked the food and who got it into the supermarkets than me, obviously went to get it and put it on my table. Like there’s so much to be grateful for. There’s so much that goes into getting food to us and creating a meal with it.

But I like to remind myself. When I’m chopping up the veggies or I’m smelling the spices and the herbs, or, oh my gosh, that, that garlic and onion smell when you cook them, you know what I’m talking about? I like to just be really grateful for that. I’m so present and I remind them. That this came from something, it was grown with intention.

I remind myself that food can heal me, that it can make me better. I can feel better physically and mentally and spiritually. It can nourish me. It can give me energy. And of course it does all of those same things for you. So think about that the next time you start to cook a meal and then if you want to go the extra, extra mile and get those extra points for spiritual nutrition, you can even start your own.

Right now you may want to go big and plant all kinds of stuff. And you might just want to grow some herbs or some tomatoes or strawberries. Right. I used to try to grow strawberries, but the bugs just get them. So never really works out for me, but it is a beautiful way to watch these little seeds grow and then use them for a meal.

And it just makes you feel so deeply connected to and grateful for the planet that we live in. And then as you sit down to eat also with spiritual nutrition, you can say a prayer or show more gratitude. If that’s something that resonates with you again, just to really cement that spiritual experience.

All right. Let’s hear from Jessica one last time, as she shares a couple of things that she wishes she would have known when she was starting her coaching career. Hopefully this can inspire other people looking to become a coach as well.

[00:22:15] Jessica Davis: I wish I would have known that this process can be fun because I’ve always just wanted to be there already. And. Never really enjoyed the process of not being quote unquote there yet, wherever there is being here where I am right now can be enjoyable. And people feel that when you’re having fun, you know, people feel that when you’re enjoying life and you’re doing what you love, then.

You know, they will be attracted to you and they won’t feel like you’re trying to target them in any way. Like I’m trying to help lose weight because I think you need to lose weight. No, I honestly, you know, trying to help people. And that’s what I love doing is really helping people restore their relationship to themselves and their bodies and their minds.

So I think having fun in the process, I definitely was not doing that at first. I was. In a scarcity mindset at first. And I was thinking that I was not deserving of it, and I was just having no fun because I was working my full-time job during the day. And then I was on the computer again, trying to work on my business during the night.

And there was no time for fun in there. Well, if you’re not having fun, your energy is definitely not fun for other people. I think the only other thing that I’ve really been focused on. Coming into things as you are now, because I think we will learn that at the very beginning of ITN show up, you know, you know, enough just show up how you are.

And we teach people that too, we teach our clients to show up at the gym, how you are now. You don’t have to be there already. So really I’m focusing on instead of have, do be I’m focusing on be, do have, so be. Before I have the thing and really just showing up as me authentic.

[00:24:20] Cynthia Garcia: Now, I know we said, we talk about the spirituality of food, but let’s also talk really briefly about how cooking benefits mental health. Because I feel like in this time and space that we’re living in. It’s really important that we have more ways to support our mental health. Right. And it’s good to know that something so simple, like cooking, something that we have to do anyway.

I mean, we have to feed ourselves, right? You got to eat. So why not? Cook can make such a powerful impact on your mental health. So, first of all, cooking at home is a sensory experience. It helps to relax your mind. The repetition of slicing and dicing the bubbling of a broth, the sound of adding pasta to boiling water and all those aromas that fill the room.

As you bring your mill closer to completion, that’s meditative that’s experiential. That is a beautiful, beautiful opportunity. It can calm any anxiety in the brain support, your nervous systems, lower your cortisol levels. Your hormone balance and function. All of these things are amazing benefits, but especially calming our anxiety and our thoughts.

And all of the things from the day is such a profound experience. If you can get lost in the sounds and this experience as a whole, it’ll give your brain a rest from all the hustle and bustle of the world that we live in. Also cooking at home can raise your self-esteem. I mean, think about it. Even if you just cook a really simple meal.

There’s that sense of I did that, right. Like when I was, when I was first learning how to cook every little tiny meal, I made burned or not, I was like, yeah, but I did. Right. I did this, I did this for me. I’m caring for myself, I’m capable. And at that time I was pretty alone. I lived in a city where I didn’t have a lot of friends and I had no family and it was just me.

And it was a great way just to feel like I got. Just boosted my mental health boosted. My self-esteem helped with my anxiety and was just overall a really powerful experience. Right? You can do this. You are self sufficient, and then finally cooking can also lead you to be more creative, which we know boosts mental nutrition.

In fact, a 2016 study published in the journal of positive psychology found that people who engage in creative pursuits, whether it’s writing, drawing, singing, cooking, what have you, they lead happier lives. So cooking at home gives you that opportunity to get creative. Right? You get to experiment in your kitchen and add new ingredients or arrange it on the plate differently.

Swap things out. Right. All of these things, when it comes to cooking can help you to transform physically, mentally, and spiritually. You can feed yourself through the art of cooking physically, mentally, and spiritually. You don’t have to make an elaborate ceremony out of every single meals. Sometimes you might want to keep it simple and just light a candle for good measure.

When you see. Maybe just show gratitude or that prayer right before you eat, right? Whatever that is. Maybe you pick one day a week and you do this deeper dinner ritual. Do what works for you. But the important thing to remember is that again, this can be such a rewarding experience for you physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Now, if you want more resources and you want to swap recipes with me or other people in our community who are. The same journey of discovering what beats them feel free to head on over and join our Facebook community. The link is in our show notes, which you can find at transformationalnutrition.com/episode019.

Or you can just head on over to Facebook and search on Transformation Generation. I hope this served you and I hope it fed you and said. Special way today. Thank you so much for joining me. I will see you right back here next week for a brand new episode.