Total Health in Midlife Episode #225: Answering the Question, “Is it Healthy?”

 So, have you ever seen one of those food reels on Instagram and thought, ‘oh my God, is this actually healthy? Can I eat that?’ So, the other day, a friend sent me a video of someone making these butter stuffed dates claiming that they tasted just like cookie dough. And he asked me, ‘is this simultaneously healthy and fat as shit?’

And honestly, that one question cracked open everything I want to talk about in this episode. Because whether it’s dates, yogurt, protein bars, or the latest gut health drink, we are constantly asking the question, should I be eating this? Is this good or bad? Am I helping myself or am I hurting my progress? And the truth is, there’s no single right answer.

So, if you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by all of everyone’s opinions online. If you’ve ever second guessed your own food choices or worried that one wrong bite could blow your entire day, this episode is for you. Now, I am going to show you why the question ‘is this healthy’ might be the wrong one altogether and what to ask instead. So, trust me, you do not want to miss this episode.

Welcome to Total Health and Midlife, the podcast for women embracing the pivotal transformation from the daily grind to the dawn of a new chapter. I’m Elizabeth, your host and fellow traveler on this journey.

As a Life and Health Coach, I am intimately familiar with the changes and challenges we face during this stage. Shifting careers, changing relationships, our new bodies, and redefining goals and needs as we start to look to the future and ask, what do I want?

In this podcast, we’ll explore physical, mental, and emotional wellness, offering insights and strategies to achieve optimal health through these transformative years.

Yes, it’s totally possible.

Join me in this amazing journey of body, mind, and spirit, where we’re not just improving our health, but transforming our entire lives.

Hey everyone, welcome to the Total Health in Midlife podcast. I am your host, Elizabeth Sherman, and I am so super glad that you are here. So, you may have heard me tell this story before, but recently, I was in Costco looking for some sparkling water. I drink a bottle every day because, well, sometimes I need something more than just flat water to break up the plain water routine. I mean, it gets a little boring. But if I drink too much sparkling water, it also gives me Gerd. So, I have one bottle per day, and I love it.

Anyway, Costco had been out for weeks, and at this point, I wasn’t being picky. I just wanted something. And so, I stood there scanning the shelves, and a woman that I know, a local restaurateur walked by. And I thought she might know where Costco had moved things. So, I asked her if she had seen the sparkling water somewhere else in the store.

Now, before I could even finish my question, she pointed to the bottle that I had brought from home, and I was drinking while I was at Costco and completely went off the hook. She was like, ‘oh my God, that brand?’ That brand is terrible for you. I would never drink that. It’s so highly mineralized. It’s the worst one.

I just stood there like dumbfounded, like what the hell is coming at me. I wasn’t even buying that brand, but somehow, I was suddenly in trouble drinking the wrong water. Right? Now, I tell this example because this is exactly why so many women feel overwhelmed about food and health. Because everyone has an opinion whether they believe it or read it in a magazine. And they want to share what they think is best for you, right?

And so, we are stuck in the middle trying to figure out what the heck we’re actually supposed to do. Now, trust me. I get it. I understand when folks ask me seemingly direct questions. And I tell them, ‘It depends.’ It feels frustrating. It makes total sense that you would want a clear answer. And so, that’s why the question like, ‘Is this healthy or should I eat this?’ It comes up so often.

You are not doing anything wrong by wanting clarity. Most of us were raised to believe that there’s a right and wrong way to eat. That certain foods are good, and others are bad. That broccoli is good and virtuous, and cookies are bad and sinful. And after decades of hearing that kind of messaging over and over and over again from diet, social media, and sometimes even our doctors. It’s no wonder we just want someone to tell us what to do.

The problem is that food doesn’t actually work like that. And even though we think those hard rules will help us to stay on track, what usually happens is that we get stuck. We start second guessing everything. We tend to avoid foods that we love out of fear. Or we eat something, quote unquote ‘bad,’ feel guilty, and then we spiral either by overeating it or by swearing that we will start over tomorrow.

Now, this is the ‘all or nothing thinking.’ And the ;all or nothing’ cycle kicks in over and over and over again when we are looking at food this way. And it’s exhausting. So, that’s why the question, ‘is this healthy’ isn’t as helpful as it might seem? Because it assumes that there’s a single right answer.

But what’s healthy for one person might not be healthy for someone else. What’s healthy for you on a random Tuesday might be different than what’s healthy for you when you’re traveling, when you’re PMSing, or if you’re dealing with a stressful week at work. And when you’re constantly searching for someone else to give you the right answer, it kind of chips away at your ability to trust yourself.

It disconnects you from your body. What you like, what makes you feel good, and what satisfies you. And it leads to a kind of low-grade anxiety every single time, you get hungry, and you open the fridge or the pantry or look at a menu.

Now, if that sounds familiar, just know there’s nothing wrong with you. You are not alone. You’ve just been taught to treat food like it’s black and white. And honestly, food is pretty gray. And that makes something as simple as deciding what to eat, feel way more complicated than it needs to be.

Let’s talk about something that might shift the way that you look at food. Food exists on a continuum. It’s not good or bad. Yes or no allowed or off limits. It’s more like a sliding scale. And one of my favorite ways to explain this is by looking at carbohydrates. Carbs get a bad wrap, right? You’ve probably heard someone say, “I can’t eat carbs. They make me gain weight.”

But here’s the thing, vegetables are carbs. So are tomatoes, so is broccoli. Are we saying that you should never eat those foods? Of course not. So, let’s imagine a spectrum. On one end, we’ve got what most people would call ‘the healthiest vegetables.’ okay. I don’t know what those are, but let’s pretend that we do. Let’s say that they’re kale or spinach. They’re packed with vitamins and minerals, low in calories, and that’s generally what we mean when we say something is nutrient dense or healthy.

But even that’s not the full story. I have a friend who can’t eat leafy greens because of her heart condition and the medication that she’s on. For her, kale is not healthy. In fact, it could be dangerous. So, right there, we’ve proven that even so-called ‘super foods’ aren’t universally good for everyone.

Now, let’s go on to the other side of the spectrum. That might be table sugar, I don’t know. Or maybe potato chips. Who knows? These foods are easy to overeat. They’re not full in water content, so you can eat a lot of them and not feel full. So, they’re not particularly filling. They don’t offer much in the way of nutrients. Does that mean that they’re bad?

Well, not necessarily. It depends on how often you eat them. It depends on why you’re eating them. And it depends on everything else that’s happening in your life and what else you’re eating.

If you’re eating potato chips every single day and nothing else, that might not support your health goals, but if you’re having chips with a sandwich on a Sunday, Saturday afternoon with a picnic and with your partner, that might be different. It’s the same food, it’s different context. And that’s the part that we’ve been trained to ignore.

We’ve been taught to zoom in on each individual food and decide if it’s worthy or not. But food doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s part of a bigger picture. Your body, your lifestyle, your preferences, and your values. When we start looking at food on a continuum, we shift away from judgment and into discernment.

It’s not about being perfect. It’s about learning to say, ‘does this food support me today? Do I want it? Will I enjoy it? Will I feel good after I eat it?’ And that’s something that no Instagram post or diet rule can answer for you.

One of the most common things I hear from clients is now, ‘I believe in moderation, but it just doesn’t seem to work for me.’ And I get it. A lot of women feel like, if they give themselves even an inch say, yes, to one cookie or eat some pizza on a weeknight, that they will lose all control. It’s a slippery slope back into old habits. That one wrong choice, quote unquote ‘wrong,’ will undo everything that they’ve worked for.

So, instead, they clinging to these rules and they tell themselves, I’m not allowed to have that, or I can’t keep that food in the house, or Once I start, I just can’t stop. And it makes sense. Most of us never learned how to build trust with food. We only learned how to follow plans, whether it was Weight Watchers, whole 30, MyFitnessPal, or something else entirely.

The message was always, here are the rules, follow them, and you’ll be successful. Break them, and you failed. There was no in-between. No room to be human. So, when those rules eventually stopped working, as they always do, we were left with absolutely nothing. No backup plan, no internal compass, just guilt and confusion.

Now, if that sounds familiar, hear this. The issue isn’t you. You just never learned the skill of self-trust. And like any skill, it starts small. If you’ve been having one cookie every afternoon for the past year, and then try to quit cold Turkey, even though it’s only one cookie, of course it’s going to feel hard. Of course, your brain is going to panic.

That’s a huge change. And big changes are really super uncomfortable. But you don’t have to be all or nothing about it. What if some days, you have half the cookie and that’s enough? What if other days, you eat the whole thing and instead of beating yourself up, you just move on? What if you started seeing those moments as progress?

Success isn’t a straight line. Sometimes it looks like trial and error. Sometimes it looks like eating the brownie and not spiraling afterwards. Moderation isn’t about perfect balance. It’s about practice. And the more you give yourself space to try, the more you’ll learn what actually works for you.

So, if food lives on a continuum and we’re not labeling things good or bad. How do you actually decide what to eat? I use a super simple framework that I call the three Food buckets. It’s not a plan. It’s not a diet. It’s just a way of organizing your food choices so that you can stop the ‘overthinking’ and start making decisions that feel aligned with your life.

So, here’s how it works. First, there’s the most of the time bucket. These are the foods that support your energy, digestion, sleep, and mood. They make you feel good physically and emotionally. For a lot of people, that might be things like lean proteins, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats. Foods that are nutrient-dense and satisfying.

But remember, what goes into this bucket is completely individual. What makes me feel great might make you feel sluggish, or bloated, or just not satisfied. So, your list is going to look different than mine. And that’s okay. And that’s not only okay, it’s exactly the point.

Next is the second bucket, which is the sum of the time bucket. Now, this is your treat category. It’s usually about 10 to 15% of your food choices. These are your fun foods, your celebratory foods, the nostalgic foods, dessert, alcohol, chips. Those butter stuff dates that I was talking about earlier. That kind of taste like cookie dough, right?

They might not be the most nutrient dense, but they still serve a purpose in your life. You want to include them, just not all the time. And that’s a big shift for a lot of women. Realizing that you don’t have to cut these foods out entirely in order to be healthy.

And then, the third bucket is the rarely or never bucket. Now, these are the foods that don’t agree with your body, don’t support your goals, or that you’ve just lost interest in. For example, soda is in this bucket for me right now. Years ago, it was in my most of the time bucket. And then, I started drinking it less and less, and it moved into the treat bucket.

Eventually, I realized that I didn’t even really enjoy it anymore. I was like, why am I doing this? So, now, I rarely drink it, not because I can’t. And I think that that’s really super important, but because I don’t want it. Pizza is another example. I eat pizza just about every single week, but I eat less than I used to. And usually, I eat it along with a salad because that combination makes me feel good.

It still has a place in my diet. It’s satisfying, it’s part of my life. And for me, it belongs in the sum of the times bucket. Now, this is where I know that you’re probably asking the question, ‘But Elizabeth, tell me exactly what goes into each bucket. Give me a list.’ Now, that’s where part of the problem lies.

I can’t tell you what goes into your buckets. Only you, get to decide that. Based on your current eating habits, how different foods make you feel, what you enjoy. And what’s worth it to you, what you value. This is something that I work really close with on my clients because a lot of them will try to turn this framework into another diet.

They will fill their most of the time bucket with all of those clean foods that they think they should be eating. And shove all of the foods that they love into the treat bucket or never buckets as if they’re doing something bad. That is not the point of this. You are not trying to follow someone else’s rules. You’re learning how to create your own. You’re building something flexible, something kind, something sustainable.

And so, the beauty in this approach is that your buckets will change over time. You don’t have to force change overnight. You just observe it. You adjust. You notice what feels good. And you keep making choices that support the kind of life that you actually wanna live.

Now, there’s no morality here and there’s no shame. Just structure that helps you feel calm, clear, and in control without constantly second guessing every single bite. So, let’s go back to those butter stuff dates for a second.

Again, my friend sent me this video where someone was claiming that they tasted just like cookie dough. And so, when he asked, is this healthy or is it really bad for me? Honestly, my answer was, ‘it depends.’ Is it minimally processed? Yes, of course. It’s dates and it’s butter. It’s not junk food.

Could it fit into a balanced diet? Absolutely. Would I personally make it part of my regular routine? Probably not. And not because it’s bad, but because I don’t want that or need that in my life. I’d rather eat real cookies or not. It’s just not my thing. And that’s the point. What’s quote unquote worth? It is personal to you. It depends on your preferences, your body, your goals, and your day.

The same goes for the common yogurt question I get all the freaking time. Which is, should I eat fat free, low fat, or full fat yogurt? I can’t answer that without knowing the rest of what you eat. How it makes you feel. What you actually enjoy. If your diet is already low in fat, full fat yogurt might be an amazing choice.

If you’re someone who eats a lot of rich foods, maybe the lower option might be better for your balance. It’s not a right or wrong answer. And if you’re waiting for someone to hand you a yes or no list, you will always feel stuck and disempowered.

The first step to self-trust is giving up the idea that there’s a perfect way to do this. I want to invite you to let that go. You are not going to eat perfectly, you’re not supposed to. Food isn’t a moral test that you’re passing or failing. You are going to eat things that nourish you. You’re going to eat things that comfort you. You’re going to eat things that don’t fit into any bucket at all. And all of that is part of being human.

The more you practice noticing, not judging your choices, the more confident that you’ll get. You’ll learn what feels good in your body, and slowly you’ll stop needing all of the rules because you’ll know how to make your own.

So, here’s what I want you to take away from this episode. You don’t need to have it all figured out. You don’t need to make the quote unquote, perfect choice every time you eat. What matters more than the food is how you feel about your choices before, during, and after.

So, start small. Start by noticing your own patterns and preferences. What foods make you feel good? What foods do you actually enjoy? Not because someone said that they’re healthy, but because you like them. And where are you still following rules that don’t even make sense to you anymore?

Get curious. You don’t have to change anything today. You’re allowed to enjoy food. You’re allowed to have pizza. You’re allowed to eat a brownie without spiraling or feeling guilty. That’s part of health too. Pleasure, freedom, and flexibility.

Now, if you want some help figuring out what kinds of foods might belong in each of your buckets. What to eat most of the time. What to enjoy occasionally and what you might want to phase out. I’ve got a free guide that’ll help. It’s called ‘The Eight Basic Habits That Healthy People Do,’ and it comes with a simple checklist that you can start using today.

It’s not a diet and it’s not restrictive. It’s just a clear, practical breakdown of the small daily habits that support your health. Like how to build meals, what to pay attention to, and how to keep it all doable even when life gets busy.

These are the same basics that I use with my clients. They’re flexible, they’re realistic, and they leave plenty of room for pizza, brownies, and butter stuff dates if that’s your thing. You can grab the guide by going to elizabethsherman.com/habits, or the link will be in the show notes. And you can start building a routine that actually works for you.

Now, if this episode struck a chord with you, I’ve linked a few other episodes on building self-trust in the show notes. They will give you more tools for quieting the noise and tuning back into what works for you. And if you’ve ever had those moments like standing in a Costco aisle and getting judged for the water that you’re choosing, or someone made you second guess your other food choices. I would love to hear about it.

Send me a message or DM me on Instagram. Tell me your, ‘is this healthy story’ because chances are you’re not the only one who’s been there and you’re definitely not alone. That’s all I have for you today. Have an amazing day. I will talk to you next week. Bye-bye.

Thank you for joining us on today’s episode. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the plethora of health advice out there and are looking for something straightforward, our ‘8 Basic Habits that Healthy People Do’ guide and checklist is just what you need. It breaks down essential habits into simple, actionable steps that you already know how to do. By following these habits, you’ll set yourself on a path to better health, surpassing most people you know. To get your free copy, just click the link in the show notes. It’s an easy start, but it could make all the difference in your health journey. Grab your guide today and take the first step towards a healthier you.