[00:00:00] Welcome to the So Here For It podcast. My name is Amy Mingin. I am your host and I'm so excited to get talking all about cellulite, and the foods to eat and the things to do and all of the, stepping outside of the normal, normalization, actually, that's actually what I really want to talk about today because I think that a lot of people are hiding behind this whole big concept of normalization. And I want to give you some really great tactics in order to get past the lumpy bumpy yucky looking thing that we look at in the mirror and we're like, oh, but, um, um, I have to accept that that's part of my body and I'm like, yeah okay. Okay. I get the body positivity movement. I love it actually, I really love it because it's such a breath of fresh air compared to the nineties. But also, there is stuff that you can do about it. So this is more where I'm coming from. I'm like let's arm ourselves with the best [00:01:00] information and stuff that's actually based on science and real world stuff so that you can feel better about yourself.
So this isn't about like focusing on the negative. This is about, okay, look I've noticed something about myself. I really want to do something about this. That's where I'm coming from today. So now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about some foods. Because inside catalyst, all the women just absolutely adore the foods and I'm going to say it like really simply, they're really simple foods. They're actually super simple.
There's nothing like fully out there as far as like the superfoods are concerned. But what makes catalyst different is the fact of putting simple ingredients together that are the most medicinal for you. And what happens is when you put medicinal foods into your body, your body naturally detoxes. So unlike other naturopaths, they often will get people [00:02:00] to go through regular detoxes and parasite cleanses.
And I don't really believe in that. I know. I don't even really prescribe many supplements or herbs or anything like that. I barely take any myself. I know, really weird, really strange because so many people have said to me, oh yeah, well, You know, going and seeing my naturopath has cost X amount of dollars because of all the products. And I'm not saying that there's a bad thing about that. I'm saying that there are other ways to do it. Again, lots of different times and places for lots of different things and lots of different people. But let's just say you're somebody who wants to have optimal health. You're somebody who would love to smooth out your legs. And you'd love to smooth out your butt, ready for summer. This is who I'm talking to today. I'm talking to you. I want you to have optimal health. I want you to feel really great inside your body, and I want you to feel confident to be able to wear a swimsuit to the spa or to wear your swimmers to your kids' pool party or whatever it is.
I want you [00:03:00] to be able to feel good inside your body. And that's what this is all about. You look good. You feel good. And you fuel yourself in the best way possible. So have a think about this. What have you been having lately? Have you been really thinking about what you have before you have it? Because I can go off track sometimes just, like any human. And if I start feeling not so great about myself, I'm like, oh, where is all of this coming from? And usually it's been because I've brought in a whole lot of extras. Like my birthday was a couple of weeks ago. And I went out for lunches and I went out for dinners and we had extras. We had, you know, the birthday cake, we had ice cream. We had chocolate, like I got these freeze dried strawberries that were covered in white chocolate and matcha.
It was matcha white, white chocolate, which is one of my favorite, favorite things. But I, I don't need those all the time, right? But if I keep eating [00:04:00] all of those things, I'm not going to feel so great. So I allow it to be a treat food. We love going out for bubble tea. Like the kids love it, so it's a treat food. Yeah, it's full of sugar. Yeah, it's like cordial. Like there's so many things inside of that that is not health promoting. But I also want to say this. If you're having that stuff all the time, then we need to talk. Because a treat is not a treat if you're having it all the time. We need to think about like how often is occasional to you. Have a think about what is occasional.
And I would say occasional means once, maybe twice a month, in my world. Not an everyday thing, not even an every week thing. So think about what are you having most of the time? Because that's going to be building most of your cells inside your body. And I want you to also think about the movement that you do throughout the day.
Are you sitting most of the day, are you standing, are you walking? Do you get some exercise in? How do you exercise? [00:05:00] Are you somebody that feels a lot of stress? Are you not stressed? Like sometimes we need to put some stress on the system if you're not stressed, because guess what? The body actually responds really, really well to contrast. So you think about it this way. If you've been sedentary, meaning you've not moved your body very much, and then you start moving, that is one of the best things that you can do. If you've been dehydrated forever, guess what, you get to drink more water. If you've been drinking too much alcohol, you've been drinking regularly, it's time to cut that out.
Think about all the things that you've been having now, all of these things are building your cells. Now your cells are only as healthy as the food that you put in. And this doesn't mean you need to be a psycho about it. Like I literally put something up on social media today that said, it's okay to have treats. Like, I'm not perfect. I don't expect anybody else to be perfect. What I ask of you is that you stay in alignment with your goal. If your goal overall is to be healthy, then eat healthy most of the time. But a lot of people [00:06:00] don't know how to do that.
And as part of that, they end up not feeling good in their body. And then they notice the things that they don't feel good about. And so that's why we're going to start talking about, I'm just going to give you, I'll list you off five foods that I believe are some of the best foods that are like anti cellulite. Are you ready? Are you ready! Okay.
Number one. Any food that is actually high in water volume is great for you. So think about things like cucumber, watermelon, zucchini, any of your greens. They're all super-duper great. So they are going to be what I consider like a high volume food. So you can have a lot of those foods and it actually helps with your glow that you have in your skin. So that's one thing.
Number two, you want to have a look at your protein intake, the quality protein that you have in your diet. If you're somebody who works out, you want to make sure that you're having protein around the time that you work out. A little bit [00:07:00] before, and a lot after. Like at least 40 grams of protein after you work out. The older that you get, the more protein that you need.
How interesting, right? If you're breastfeeding, you need more protein than the average person. If you are someone who is still getting a period. You probably don't need quite as much, but the ones who no longer have a period, they need even more. Because guess what? Estrogen helps us hold muscle. And if you don't have that mechanism going, i.e. after menopause, even during perimenopause, you need more protein. So that's that bit. Quality protein, and I always opt for an animal source. So you thinking about your meat, your fish, your eggs.
I'm going to go to number three straightaway because salmon comes in here. Or any sort of fresh caught fish. Now the healthy fats inside of that are so good for our skin. They're so, so good. And the body is so great at utilizing those types of fats [00:08:00] as part of our cell membrane, it helps nutrients move in and out of the cell so much easier. And it helps us stay in a more anti-inflammatory state. So fish and seafood are so, so good, particularly fresh caught if you possibly can. Just an FYI, if you are buying salmon, please buy the fresh caught stuff and don't buy the farmed stuff if possible. Also known as aquaculture. If you're looking at it on a packet, it will say sustainably sourced aquaculture. That means it's farmed. Often they are overfed with not great food and often fed with antibiotics. So try and avoid those ones and get the wild caught ones which will be a little more expensive, but it is so worth it. So go with that.
The next thing you want to have a look at, we're talking specifically cellulite today, right? We want to have a look at things that are going to actually help us detoxify. So I want you to think about sour foods. So I am so obsessed with [00:09:00] apple cider vinegar. I'm like one of those weird people that likes sour foods.
So I take about 20ml, which is a lot, 20ml with a little bit of water on top, about another 20ml. So I dilute a little bit and I'll shot that down around a meal. And I don't do it three times a day at the moment, probably like once or twice a day, I'll do that. And what it's been shown to do is it actually helps to boost our digestive capacity. So it prevents bloating. But the main thing that I take it for is it regulates our blood sugar levels. So if you're taking apple cider vinegar around a meal, it's going to prevent your body from going into this hyper state, meaning too much blood glucose going around in the body. The problem if you do have too much blood glucose going around is it can sometimes cause some oxidation of your cells.
What's the problem with that? It causes them to age. What's the problem with that? You don't feel good. What's the problem with that? Also, your skin is lackluster when you're [00:10:00] going through like this rapid cellular aging. So we want to do the opposite to that. We want to have better blood glucose capacity. It gives us better energy, it boosts our mood, it boosts our digestive capacity and it's just, it's a small pain to have, to actually have the benefits of what it really brings.
And the last thing, do you want to know what the last thing is? It's actually giving up alcohol. Smoking and drugs can go into this category too, but alcohol really does not help your cellulite. It is one of the things that is going to again, be increasing that cellular aging. It actually is neurotoxic. So it kills our brain cells really, really fast, even in small doses. But the reason why I say this to women especially, is on some level, our estrogen is linked to our fat cells, right? So we have excess estrogen, it gets engulfed inside our fat cells. Even if we were to release weight, that [00:11:00] oestrogen's got to go somewhere, right? And then that goes back out into our bloodstream and sometimes it'll cause symptoms like sore breasts or heavy periods or clotty periods. And no one wants that. No one wants that. No one wants the headaches or migraines that comes, comes with a period. And usually this can be linked to some form of alcohol intake. So, I don't want you to be drinking alcohol, particularly in luteal phase.
So if you know about your cycle, day one is the first day of your cycle. Around two weeks after that -ish... ish. So like 14 to 18 days after that, you're going to ovulate. That first half of your cycle is called follicular phase. So this is where your uterus is getting ready for a fertilized egg to come into it. The egg goes and then you're into luteal phase.
So either the egg gets fertilized and you get pregnant. Or the egg doesn't get fertilized and for the next two weeks the body is utilizing the Corpus luteum to have [00:12:00] your progesterone, which actually is one of the best feelings in the world if you have enough. But guess what happens if you are having alcohol, it ruins the balance of your luteal phase.
Absolutely ruins it. If you are in perimenopause or menopause and you were drinking in your luteal phase, it ruins your progesterone. Now guess what your progesterone does. It acts as an anxiolytic, meaning it helps to decrease anxiety inside our brains. So, I don't know about you, but if you've had too much to drink, how do you feel the next day? It's not just a hangover. It's what they call hangxiety.
So if you have too much to drink, it actually affects you at brain level. At that neurotoxic level. It's stopping you from being able to regulate yourself with neurotransmitters and that's just no good for anyone. So alcohol is a no-go. Particularly in your luteal phase. So if there's one thing that you take out of this, please take that. It's only going to add to the stress of the body and it ages us [00:13:00] terribly. So there's the top five.
Now the next thing that I want you to have a look into is have a look into body gua sha. So that's GUA SHA , or you can dry body brush. You can do hot and cold therapy. So when you're in the shower, you can turn the shower on cold for 30 seconds and then go warm for 30 seconds and then cold for 30 seconds and then warm for 30 seconds. Depending on how many minutes you are in the shower you can then have this alternating, and what this does is it helps your lymphatic system.
But what is the best? The creme de la creme that I have found is to use a contour cup. And a contour cup is, they use it in France apparently. You can cover your legs in cream or in oil, I use oil, and it it's like a suction cup that suctions onto your thigh and you circle it around. It's a little bit painful to begin with depending on how harsh [00:14:00] you are using it. Those who want to know how this is, how this is done, I can put the link into the show notes so you can have a look at where I explain how to do it. But the contour cup actually really, really helps to smooth out the connective tissue that's just under the skin. Because we have this visceral layer, we have so much connective tissue under the skin. And when that actually gets smoothed out, it gives the skin the ability to re-tighten, it lets the muscles relax and it lets the fat cells sit where the fat cells are supposed to sit. It doesn't dimple any of that tissue underneath the skin.
And that's where it really essentially where they all come from. It's this mismatch of hormones, detoxification, estrogen, fat cells, and your connective tissue that makes up the cellulite in the body. So if we can hit it at all angles, you're going to help yourself to overcome it. Now it might sound like this is a lot, but if you just start to bring this into your every day, most [00:15:00] days, this will be your ticket to starting to look after yourself, number one. It's also a really great way to feel good, number two. And then number three, you'll start to notice results, which will keep you doing it. Like it's this positive feedback loop. So I want you to give it a go. I really love doing this for myself. I love recommending it to my clients. I love recommending it to the women inside catalyst.
And let me know how you go. When you start doing it make sure you share this podcast episode on your social media and tag me @amymingin. And one other thing. Because you're listening to this, oh, my gosh. I'm really excited to let you know that I have now started a new Instagram page that is really, really specific to health and it's called catalystmindbody.
So look me up. The name will be Amy Mingin Naturopath. So the naturopath bit is the one you'll see me holding a strawberry with a white background. That is the new page. I still have my personal brand page going and that one I'm [00:16:00] holding more so toward my personal opinions, it's more about emotional intelligence.
It's about business and practitioners and life as me. Whereas the Catalyst MindBody page is all about health and it's where I'm sharing so much information particularly about women's health. And particularly about healthy aging. Like I'm so passionate about this stuff you guys, so come over there and join me on that page if you haven't already.
And thank you so much for listening to me on this episode. It means the world to me to be in your ears today. So go ahead and please share this episode with someone who you know, is going to absolutely love it because this info really should get into the hands of more women. Just like you. Thank you so much, and I'll see you on the next episode.
