Rethinking Food and Cooking Habits in Midlife: Heather Carey’s Insights on Nutrition and Joyful Eating Practices

Are you feeling like your cooking habits no longer align with your body’s needs as you transition into midlife? Join Heather Carey, a culinary nutritionist and passionate advocate for women’s health, as she dives deep into the essential upgrades you need to make in your kitchen to thrive during this transformative stage of life. In this enlightening episode of Real Food Stories, Heather shares her personal food journey, reflecting on how the cooking techniques and nutrition advice that once served her in her 30s have evolved alongside her changing metabolism, hormones, and energy levels.

As women enter midlife, it becomes crucial to rethink our approach to food and cooking. Heather emphasizes the importance of intentional eating that supports not just our physical health but also our emotional well-being. Discover how to create a kitchen environment that inspires joy and creativity rather than feeling like a chore. With practical cooking tips and insights into healthy lifestyle choices, Heather encourages listeners to embrace a positive mindset towards cooking, making it a delightful part of their everyday lives.

Throughout the episode, you’ll gain valuable nutrition and health insights tailored specifically for midlife women, addressing the unique challenges of menopause health, weight management, and body positivity. Heather also shares her expertise on sustainable eating practices, the Mediterranean diet, and how to nourish your body with real food recipes that align with your evolving needs. Learn about the seven pillars of abundance and how small shifts in your cooking habits can lead to significant improvements in your overall well-being.

As a special highlight, Heather introduces her upcoming membership program designed to empower women in midlife. This supportive space will provide resources for sharing personal food stories, recipes, and tools to enhance your cooking experience. Whether you’re navigating the complexities of perimenopause nutrition or simply looking to improve your culinary skills, this episode is packed with healthy eating tips and nutrition advice that will inspire you to take charge of your health and happiness.

Join us for this empowering conversation that will help you embrace your midlife changes with confidence, creativity, and a renewed passion for cooking. It’s time to unlock the full potential of your kitchen and transform your cooking habits into a joyful practice that nourishes both your body and soul!

Let’s Be Friends
Hang out with Heather on IG @greenpalettekitchen or on FB HERE.

Let’s Talk!
Whether you are looking for 1-1 nutrition coaching or kitchen coaching let’s have a chat. Click HERE to reach out to Heather.

Did You Love This Episode?
“I love Heather and the Real Food Stories Podcast!” If this is you, please do not hesitate to leave a five-star review on Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Transcript:

Speaker #0
Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back. And if you are just tuning in with me for the very first time, it’s so nice to meet you. And I’m really glad you’re here with me today. I am your host, Heather Carey, nutritionist, chef, mom, and a woman who has been around the block with food. I want to open up about real food in relation to health, weight, and our bodies so you can make peace with what you eat. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Real Food Stories podcast. I’m so glad you’re here with me today because we’re going to talk about something that is both practical and honestly kind of exciting. Maybe to me, I don’t know if it’s to you, but hopefully by the end of the episode, you’ll get a little excited too. But we’re going to talk about our kitchens today, specifically why your midlife kitchen might need an upgrade. Now, before we dive in, I have to share something I’m really excited about. On November 1st, I’ll be opening the doors to my brand new membership, a space I created just for women in midlife who are ready to feel more confident in the kitchen, more clear about what to eat, and more supported in this stage of life. And here’s the real fun part. If you sign up early, and those details are going to be coming out in the next week or two, You’ll get access to a special founder’s price and some exclusive bonuses that I will not be offering again. It’s my way of saying thank you for being here with me from the very beginning. I’ll tell you more about that later in the episode, but keep it in the back of your mind as you listen today. All right, now let’s set the stage. The way you cooked and ate in your 30s. it probably doesn’t cut it anymore. I know for me what felt like healthy or good enough back then, maybe I skip breakfast, I’m grabbing a quick salad for lunch, I’m throwing pasta on the table at night for dinner, I’m giving my kids chicken nuggets. There was a lot to do back then. I mean, My kids were little. I had to get food. I had to feed five people. And… Things were busy. Maybe I was taking the edge off of the cooking experience with a glass of wine or two to relax. Those things were fine at the time. Okay, I’m not going back and beating myself up about any of it. But back then, my metabolism was more forgiving, my hormones were steady, and my body could bounce back faster after a it. couple of meals or a week on vacation or, you know, just things could just kind of get back to normal faster. But once I hit midlife, if you’re like me and most women, everything shifted. My body just felt different. My energy was not the same. And my old kitchen habits just weren’t serving me anymore. And if you’re listening right now and nodding your head yes, you know exactly what I mean. Midlife brings new needs, right? Your metabolism slows, your hormones shift, your digestion feels different, and suddenly the same old approach doesn’t feel good anymore. And I know for a lot of women right now, they feel a little lost. We’re not sure how to proceed ahead with this new set of, I don’t want to call them rules, but you know, there’s these new ways that our body is acting. How do we cook and eat in a way that feels good, that doesn’t feel like I look at food and I just gain weight, and that we can enjoy our food? That’s why your kitchen needs to keep up with you. Not just what’s on your plate, which I talked about in a lot of detail last week on the podcast, but the way you think about cooking, the tools you even use. and even the way you feel in your kitchen. We want this to feel easy and pleasurable, right? But we also have to keep it healthy. So today I want to walk you through what it really means to upgrade your kitchen in midlife. We’ll talk about the food that belongs there, the equipment that makes cooking easier, and the mindset that turns cooking from a chore into something creative and even joyful and fun. Because if you’ve ever felt stuck or uninspired in your kitchen, this episode is definitely for you. All right, let’s start by talking about the difference between the kitchen you had in your 30s versus what you need in midlife. Now, in my 30s, OK, I might not be the ideal representation of this because I cook for a living, right? So my whole career and outlook on life is the healthy eating and healthy kitchen and getting people back into their kitchens. But… My kitchen definitely looked like a mix of convenience and survival. Now, not the worst kind of convenience, but I had three kids under the age of three for a while, you know, like going through the motions. And I had to feed five of us, and I had to also juggle my career. And so there was a lot going on. And so did convenience tie into that? Absolutely. So my kids were at home. I had a busy schedule. I just needed to get meals on the table sometimes. So dinner was sometimes just pasta and a jar of sauce. Maybe those chicken nuggets, like I mentioned before, and some frozen broccoli. I mean, kind of that survival food. Breakfast was tea and maybe a muffin or some cereal. Lunch was sometimes kind of rushed, too. I didn’t adopt that whole like meal planning mindset for a while because I was just kind of juggling lots of things around. And I’m sure that most moms who had young kids in their 30s can certainly relate to that. Or even if you’re just getting up and out and going to your job every single day, it’s not easy. And here’s the thing. It worked, sort of. My metabolism was much more forgiving back then. My body bounced back faster. My hormones hadn’t shifted yet. But was I gaining weight? Had I not like really lost the baby weight, you know, that I wanted to? Yeah. I mean, I was definitely up and down in weight and everything. But could I focus and then like get my head around losing some weight? Much. easier back then than it is now. So let’s fast forward to my midlife. And wow, you know, like things are really different. My body needs much more protein to hold on to muscle. My digestion is much more sensitive. So highly processed foods or too much sugar just feels awful to me. And alcohol, I lost that years ago because I’m I couldn’t even just have like one glass of wine. That would just mess with my sleep for days. And I didn’t want to continue that habit of linking things like my cooking in my kitchen to having a glass of wine. And so that same like 30s kitchen way of eating that used to carry me through, that now could just keep me drained and moody and frustrated. And I hear this from women all the time. The things we could get away with before, the habits that felt fine back then, they just don’t serve us anymore. Midlife asks for a new approach, which is why your kitchen needs an upgrade. So let’s talk about why the midlife kitchen needs to look different. Well, like I said before, our biology is changing, right? Our hormones are shifting, our muscle mass is naturally declining, and our metabolism isn’t quite as forgiving. Now, we’re probably in a stage of our lives, I know I am, where I don’t have kids at home anymore. My kids are flown and grown, okay? They’re in their 20s now, fast forward, and they all live in various places and have their own jobs and cook their own meals for themselves, and that’s amazing. But suddenly it went from cooking for five of us to cooking for two of us. And I know that for many, many women. They have the mindset of, I have done my time in the kitchen and I have had enough. I’m done. But this is not the time to stop caring for yourself and your body. And for me, this starts in your kitchen with making your own food and honoring that. Now, I’m not trying to say any of this to scare you. I’m saying this because it’s actually empowering to know. what your body needs now and how to give it support. As I see it, we don’t get the hall pass to now live off of restaurant food and convenience foods just because we are older and we’re, quote, done with cooking. Our body needs to be supported now more than ever. So when you eat with intention in midlife, you can feel the difference immediately. When you start balancing and making sure your meals have protein and fiber and healthy fats and lots of color on your plate, that doesn’t just taste good. That gives you steady energy. That helps your digestion run smoothly. That supports your sleep. and it makes your moods more stable, not to mention the plethora of health benefits that eating real healthy food gives you. Okay, we have to consider going beyond our hormones and thinking about our heart health, our bone health, our diabetes health, our cancer rates. All of this matters now even more than ever. when we get into our 50s and 60s and beyond. Now, the other one I want to mention again is alcohol and sugar, which I think for many women just hits harder now. That nightly glass of wine you bounce back from in your 30s, now it can absolutely wreck your sleep. The bagel that you were just having for breakfast, instead of powering through in the morning, it sends your blood sugar on a roller coaster. That’s not your imagination. That’s your body telling you it needs a kitchen that supports where you are now, not where you used to be. All right, besides the food getting an upgrade in your kitchen, I want to just divert for a second and talk about one of my favorite parts of the kitchen upgrade, and that’s your tools and the equipment that you use in your kitchen. Because let’s be real, cooking is so much easier when you have the right equipment. Now, I always say, if you’ve been fighting with that same dull knife for 20 years, do yourself a favor and upgrade to a sharp, good quality chef’s knife. That one tool right there can change your whole experience in the kitchen. Suddenly, chopping vegetables isn’t a battle anymore. It’s smooth, it’s safe, and it makes you want to cook more. And same with a few other basics. A couple of good sheet pans, for example, can make weeknight dinners effortless. Throw some chicken and sweet potatoes and onions and vegetables on there. Sprinkle it with a little olive oil and spices. Roast it. And you’ve got a quick, balanced meal that took you very little effort. A sturdy blender or a food processor helps you whip up smoothies, soups, sauces in minutes. And if you’re someone who loves… Hands-off meals, an Instapot or slow cooker can be a total game changer. I have all of these things because I want my kitchen to run smoothly, efficiently, and be easy at this point. Now, even small things like mason jars for storing grains and beans or making salad dressings in them or a good set of measuring spoons or a lot of measuring spoons. I probably have. five sets of measuring spoons in my kitchen because I don’t want to have to keep cleaning the one measuring spoon I’m using for a couple of different things. All of these things can make your kitchen just feel more inviting. Now, these might sound simple, but they matter because when cooking feels easier, you’re more likely to do it. All right, I want to talk about mindset for a second because I think this is where the real upgrade happens is in your head first. So for so long, so many of us have looked at cooking as a chore. Okay, we’re always cooking for others. We’re never really cooking for ourself. And it’s another box to check off on the long to-do list of things we have to do. We cook because we have to, we were required to, because we had kids and we have to feed our kids, not because we want to. But what if cooking could be something else? What if it could actually be like play or pleasure or creativity? What if it could actually be fun? When I get into my kitchen and I start experimenting with herbs and spices and trying out Seasonal ingredients. I love cooking with the seasons. It gives me an opportunity to use the vegetables that are available to us right now. Or I’m up in Maine a lot and the wild blueberries up there are like drowning in them. And lobster. And how many ways can I use these ingredients to make different foods? Or the tomatoes that have been spilling out of my garden, literally. I realized that cooking… Doesn’t have to feel heavy. This is all ways to get creative. This is like an art project in a way. It can feel like an outlet, a way to take care of yourself and enjoy the process at the same time. So if you’ve been stuck in the mindset of, what’s for dinner again? What are we having tonight? Having that battle at six o’clock in the evening. I want you to shift to curiosity. What new flavor could I try tonight? What spice am I curious about that I haven’t tried? What if I swapped oregano for thyme or added smoked paprika to my roasted vegetables? Cooking doesn’t have to be perfect. This is not about perfection. It’s about trying, experimenting, and making the kitchen a place that feels supportive instead of stressful. Okay, so here’s the takeaway for our kitchens. Your kitchen in your 30s back in the day when you had little kids and you were cooking for everyone else and not for you, it’s not cutting it anymore, right? Midlife calls for an upgrade, not just in what foods you keep on your shelves and what you nourish yourself with, but in the way you approach cooking and the way you feel in your kitchen. We have to cook our food. all the food, right? We, of course, can go out and have meals out and enjoy food that way. But for the most part, we have to really concentrate on what we nourish our bodies with. This counts towards our health, our energy, our moods, just feeling better, our hormones. And it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. You don’t need to throw everything out and start from scratch. You don’t need to get all brand new equipment. You just need to make small intentional shifts. You add more protein. You stock more vegetables and whole grains in your kitchen. You upgrade one or two tools that are not serving you anymore. And you play with herbs and spices and see what you like to eat, what you want to eat, right? That’s another part that I haven’t really gotten into, but… When I start planning meals for my week and thinking about what I’m going to eat, the first thing that I think of in my head is, what do I want to eat this week? Not what do you all want to eat this week, but what do I want to eat this week? What am I in the mood for? Now, if you really think about it, there have to be things that you are in the mood for eating, right? It’s, it’s. we’re going into the fall right now. It’s pumpkin season. I mean, it’s spicy, warm, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, pumpkin, everything, right? So what are you in the mood to eat this coming week? And we want to then reframe cooking as an act of care and creativity instead of a chore. So all of these little shifts. build a kitchen that supports you instead of draining you. And this is exactly what we’ll be practicing together inside of my new membership, which opens on November 1st. Together, we’re going to take all these ideas and bring them to life. We’ll cook together, we’ll share recipes, we will talk about tools, experiment with flavors, and support each other as we navigate this brand new stage of our lives. If you’ve been feeling uninspired in your kitchen, or if you’ve been wondering what to eat now that your body feels different, this membership is absolutely for you. And remember, if you join early, you’ll get the special founder’s price and some exclusive bonuses that will not be offered again. So as you head into your kitchen today, I want you to ask yourself, is my kitchen still set up for my 30s body, or is it supporting who I am right now in midlife? And if the answer is the first one, then it is definitely time for an upgrade. Your kitchen can either keep you stuck in old patterns or it can become the place that fuels your strength, your creativity, and your joy in midlife. So the choice is yours. Now, All the information about this membership is coming soon. I know last week on the podcast, I said there was gonna be links in the show notes. The links are coming soon and you will be the first people to know when the links are coming out and about all the bonuses and everything. I’m just putting some final details in there and I want it to be user-friendly when you finally decide to sign up. All right. Thank you so much for joining me today on Real Food Stories. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with a friend and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next part of the series leading up to our membership launch. Until next time, take good care of yourself and take a fresh look at your kitchen. And as always, if you loved this podcast, please consider gifting me with a five-star review. It is so helpful for me to get the word out on real eating, our real bodies, and real food stories. Thank you so much and have a great week. Bye for now.