“Mindset matters. Everyone talks so much about what the perfect diet is—we debate what foods you should take out of your diet, and whether you should exercise or meditate in the morning or the night. And those are all important, but they are totally missing the point if you have a mindset that has you suffering and feeling like you’re a failure.” That’s Robyn Downs, and along with her husband Dr. Andrew, they’re fascinated with the mindsets that lead to healthy eating. This podcaster teamed up with her psychology professor husband to conduct a study on the way we think about food—and the results were surprising. They joined us to talk about their story and what mindsets can help us to be actually healthy.
Show Notes
Robyn & Dr. Andrew Downs
Their online course! Actually Healthy
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Full Transcript:
Sonja Overhiser:
It’s A Couple Cooks, the podcast with Sonja and Alex Overhiser. We’re a couple on a mission to find the tastiest, good for you eats you can make in your kitchen. Because the way we eat can make a meaningful difference.
Alex Overhiser:
Join as we chase after real good food through stories, recipes, and conversations about cooking at home and eating well. Welcome to the A Couple Cooks podcast, I’m Alex.
Sonja Overhiser:
And I’m Sonja.
Alex Overhiser:
And we’re glad you’re here.
Sonja Overhiser:
It’s countdown time for us. There are five days left until our book officially launches. We’re so excited to share Pretty Simple Cooking, the cookbook, with the world. And some people have been getting it a little bit early, we’ve seen some unboxing over on Instagram. And it makes us so excited to see this collection of recipes we’ve been working on so hard for the past few years actually be in people’s homes. So we can’t wait for you to get your copy.
Alex Overhiser:
And if you haven’t ordered your copy yet you still have time to pre-order and have it delivered to your doorstep on February 6th, that’s next Tuesday. So get on it and go pre-order it. Just type in Pretty Simple Cooking into Amazon, or Google, or our website, or really anywhere.
Sonja Overhiser:
So this show, we actually have an important announcement. It’s not related to the book. Well, it’s kind of related to the book, but not specifically about the book. So make sure to stay tuned until the end of the show. But first, we have two very exciting guests for you today on the show. It’s a little longer interview even because there was such good conversation happening. Today’s show is all about the psychology of eating and the different mindsets that each person has around the way that they view food. This is a topic I could geek out on for hours and hours, so I hope you find it as interesting as I did.
Sonja Overhiser:
Our guests are Robin Downs and Andrew Downs. They are married, and Robin is a blogger, podcaster, researcher, and educator over at Real Food Whole Life. She also has a podcast called The Feel Good Effect, which is a fantastic show that you should all go over and check out. She’s also a dear friend of mine, so I was very excited to have her on this episode of the podcast. And a special treat, she brought her husband Dr. Andrew Downs. He is a professor at the University of Portland and a researcher in Clinical Psychology. Together, the two of them have collaborated, bringing in their research background into the food realm to understand how and why we eat the way we do. Here they are. Robin and Andrew, welcome to the A Couple Cooks podcast.
Robin Downs:
We’re so happy to be here.
Andrew Downs:
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Sonja Overhiser:
So you’re both very passionate about eating well. Robin, you and I love to kind of geek out about the mindsets around healthy eating and living. And over the years you’ve developed this mantra, practice gentle over perfect. But I know that wasn’t always the way that you thought about food and about healthy living, let’s go back to the very beginning. What did food look like when you were growing up?
Robin Downs:
It was actually kind of similar to your story, and I love to share it because I think sometimes people look at us where we are today and they think, oh you were just born like that, eating quinoa bowls and drinking green smoothies, and it’s always been that way. But I think it’s really important to share that it’s been a total evolution. In high school I played sports, so working out wasn’t so much about burning calories or getting stronger even, it was really just about playing a sport. So I was really busy with school and sports, and food was very much an after thought. I ate a lot of junk food.
Robin Downs:
And my mom, bless her, she was amazing at trying to get dinner on the table for our family, and that was kind of the low fat craze of the 80s and 90s. So a lot of chicken breasts, and steamed vegetables, so I had that as a base. But then when I wasn’t at home I definitely would go for the styrofoam Cup o’ Noodles for lunch, and maybe some Twizzlers, and a lot of Diet Coke. And then when I went to college I just sort of lost my mind and lost all connection with what food was supposed to do in terms of nourishment and making me feel good. And I was eating a lot of burritos at 2:00 am, and a ton of liquid calories.
Robin Downs:
And it kind of just spiraled. I really lost connection with who I was and how eating, and moving, and practicing a gentle mindset can really make you feel good. And it was a really low point for me in college actually, it’s kind of sad. I had a lot of fun but also really lost myself, and I attribute that to not taking care of myself in all those really important ways.
Sonja Overhiser:
And I think that’s pretty typical of a college experience, at least when I was in college and maybe when you were, is to really kind of get lost in socializing, and studying, and maybe lose a lot of those healthy patterns that you may or may not have delved into growing up.
Robin Downs:
Absolutely, I think you just kind of focus so much on the friends and on the studies that everything else goes in the background. And I did have a lot of female friends that became really obsessive about working out for disordered reasons. So I also saw that going on and I didn’t want to get involved in that, so I just really … it just kind of felt like this vacuum where I didn’t know which way was up and I didn’t know how to take care of myself, and I didn’t have a lot of good role modeling. And so I didn’t know, and I didn’t understand how much what I was eating, or lack of good proper nutrition and movement, was attributing to overall negative mood and losing my mojo, as they would say.
Sonja Overhiser:
When you were talking about this it made me think of myself in college. It was a similar experience, and I remember being very addicted to Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I would eat it by the handful while I was studying, and I would get cinnamon sugar under my fingernails. And I didn’t feel good, but I just couldn’t stop.
Robin Downs:
Right. Oh no, we had a mini mart right by our sorority and I would go get a 64 ounce Diet Coke, and I just always had one with me. And I never drank water, I would just drink Diet Coke at like 3:00 in the morning, and then I would be surprised that I didn’t sleep well. And it just sounds so insane right now to say that, but just not connecting the choices I was making around health with my overall mood and how I felt.
Sonja Overhiser:
And then what changed? So you graduated from college, were you continuing to eat in the same way?
Robin Downs:
So one of the major factors, and this is so fun that Andrew’s here today because I usually talk about him and breeze over this part, but we can actually talk a little bit about it. In between my junior and senior year I went to work at a summer camp for people and children with disabilities, and I met Andrew there. That’s actually how we met. And I’ll let him tell a little bit about this, but we had a lot in common in terms of really caring a lot about people who were different in terms of how they learned, or different in how their mental state was, and so we kind of bonded over that and then became good friends. And then pretty quickly actually got engaged my senior year, which sounds so crazy now to think that I was so young, but it worked out. We’re going on 16 years of marriage now.
Robin Downs:
But after I did graduate from college we moved to Ellensburg, Washington where he got a job as a professor. And it was that transition to, I think growing up a little bit, and then also realizing that I couldn’t do it anymore. I felt terrible, I was depressed, I was in love with this man and we were married, and I was still really struggling. And so he’s such a positive role model in my life, he doesn’t tell me what to do or pressure me but he was always modeling hiking and being active. And so I really started diving into that. And then being in Ellensburg, which is a tiny little town in the middle of Washington state, there’s no where to eat. Literally nowhere. And I was kind of forced to learn to cook.
Robin Downs:
And I really loved it, and I found that when I was making my own food I felt good, and I was losing weight, and my mood improved. And our friends loved it when I cooked, and Andrew loved it when I cooked. So that was a really big turning point for me.
Andrew Downs:
Yeah, I was always … I always just ate of convenience and what tasted good to me. And so food was always pretty simple for me. I think it’s simpler for a lot of guys than it is for women perhaps, because you don’t have all the dieting and body image issues. So for me, food was just convenient and taste good. So I was happy when Robin took up her wanting to prepare her food and make healthy food. I pretty much eat whatever is put in front of me, so it was a good turn for both of us. And I’m glad that we went down that road of being mindful about what we’re putting in our bodies.
Sonja Overhiser:
What I want to know is, when you saw Robin for the first time, did you know that she was the one?
Andrew Downs:
I did not right away, but pretty quickly. It was summer camp, so you get to spend a lot of time with people. And Robin was the Sports and Games Director, so she and I ended up playing a lot of basketball. We both had played basketball in the past, and so there was a lot of one-on-one games. And then Robin talks trash, she would foul me and claim she didn’t. She was just ferocious and fierce on the court, even though we were just having a fun little pickup game. And for some reason I found that extremely endearing. I really liked her spunk, her attitude, and that she was not at all intimidated by playing basketball against a guy, and was just giving me the business. So I’d say that’s when she really caught my eye and it was all over for me.
Robin Downs:
I have to remind him about that now, you used to like that about me.
Sonja Overhiser:
All right, so you get married and you move, and Robin starts cooking. And Andrew, you mentioned that you weren’t necessarily used to home cooked food all the time, but now Robin’s making it, you guys are eating it, you’re feeling better. What is the next step in the story?
Robin Downs:
So the next step is we spend about five years in Ellensburg and we establish a research program together. So we were working with people, young people with Asperger’s and autism. And we were training students at the University to work with these young children to do behavior change. So I got my Master’s and then went on to teach at the University as well. So the two of us were teaching college students how to change behavior, and then we were working with the young children on behavior change as well. So we spend quite a few years doing that, and then we moved back to Portland and Andrew started as a professor here in Portland.
Robin Downs:
And I worked for a few more years doing behavior change, and then started a Doctoral program in Public Health, because I was by then really committed to this idea that health and decisions that we make around health are fundamental to overall wellbeing. I found that working with children with autism, I wanted to go deeper into overall health. And so being from a family of Ph.Ds, I thought well that’s the natural next step, I should definitely do that.
Robin Downs:
And during that period of years we experienced two miscarriages. I had gained a lot of weight through those pregnancies, and losses, and the treatments afterwards. And obviously experienced, both of us, a lot of sadness around that. So I gained weight there, I gained weight in the Doctoral program, and I felt again kind of that feeling from college of losing myself and my decisions to nourish myself. And eventually, happily, this part of the story has a happy ending where I was able to get pregnant and have a healthy baby, Elle our daughter, who’s now almost six. Actually, by the time this goes live she might be six, which is so crazy.
Robin Downs:
But yeah, it’s the best thing for both of us that has ever happened. But afterward was when I really felt at my lowest point. And I just felt like, gosh I can figure everything out in my life, but I can’t figure this out. And by this, I mean my health, and eating well, and exercising. And I was a new mom, and I was working 60 hours a week, and I was in a full-time Doc program. I actually think that’s something that your listeners might be able to relate to, where you have so much on your plate and you’re trying to do everything, and you’re not able to figure out that health piece, and that health piece seems just like a second, or a third, or a fourth job. And it’s just something on your to do list, and that way of thinking really didn’t work out for me. It was causing me to spiral even further downward.
Robin Downs:
And that was really the start of a turning point for both of us with this business and with the work that we’re doing now. How do we help people who are feeling like that to switch the way that they think about health so they can make better decisions for themselves every single day?
Sonja Overhiser:
I love the way you put that, of a third or fourth job. Kind of like a side hustle of trying to stay healthy and eat right. And I’m sure that resonates with a lot of listeners, it does with me and where I was 10 years ago when Alex and I got married, just trying to spin all the plates and figure out how does cooking for myself, and eating well, and staying active, how does that fit into my lifestyle when I already have so much going on?
Robin Downs:
And I felt like a failure. I like to mention this, I really have this failure mindset around health. I felt like I wasn’t doing it well, I wasn’t doing it good enough. I was just coming at it from that place of scarcity. And so when you look at traditional behavior change, if you feel like you’re getting punished over and over, you’re not likely to continue with a behavior, it’s pretty simple. And so in a lot of ways I was sort of punishing myself in my own mind. Like gosh, you’re not doing good enough, you’re not eating perfectly, you’re not working out enough. And it just was this really negative experience that I didn’t enjoy and just felt like work.
Sonja Overhiser:
And Andrew, where were you at this time? Were you in a similar mindset around health and eating?
Andrew Downs:
I don’t think I was necessarily in the same mindset. I’ve always been … I’m a little hyperactive, so I’ve always been very physically active. And so I think I could get away with eating anything at any point, for the most part. And so it wasn’t at the forefront. Part of being active though, I wanted to have energy, I wanted to feel good and feel like I could do the things that I wanted to do. And so I definitely saw the connection between what I was putting in my body and what my body was capable of with hiking and wanting to go snowboarding all day long and not wanting to get tired, and things like that. So yeah, I think that’s where I was coming from and how I was orienting myself towards eating, that it was kind of a tool for me to do what I wanted to be able to do with my body.
Robin Downs:
And Sonja that’s such a good question because I’ve always looked at Andrew as, why can he do this and I can’t, sometimes when I’ve had those low points. And granted, men are different than women in a lot of physiological ways and metabolism and all those things, but I really think, and that we’ll talk about this when we get to the study and the research, but I think it’s really about his internal motivation around movement. Movement number one, and then food kind of down on the list a little bit. He loves doing it, it makes him feel really good, and he finds a way to do it, and it’s a really positive experience for him.
Robin Downs:
And that was one of the sparks of this research was, if you feel like that and I feel like this failure, my side and everything’s terrible, how can I get to where you are? Because it’s not gonna be by forcing myself, it’s not gonna be by bullying myself into it. It’s gotta be by changing how I think about it. And I know it’s possible because I live with this person who consistently works out and makes pretty good choices about food, but also who feels good about it in general and doesn’t spend a lot of time beating himself up about it.
Sonja Overhiser:
That’s really powerful about being able to see the positive and see that role model, and know there’s a different way of looking at things. And I think I’ve seen that in the same way with Alex and I. I was kind of in some ways where you were several years ago, and seeing Alex be able to make positive choices, and not be guilty, and not think of things negatively or feel like he has to be perfect, that was really powerful for me in terms of my change of the way I thought about eating. So tell me, you’re here at this very negative, low point. How did you start turning around the way you thought about food and about perfection?
Robin Downs:
My first thought was to focus on food and find the perfect diet, and follow it exactly right. And I’m sort of a perfectionist, and when I put my mind to something I can do it. So I was locked in on this diet, and I was following it perfectly, and I was working out six days a week at a lot of cost to my own work-life balance. But I’m like, I’m gonna do this. And I did have success, because we know that in the short term diets and extreme programs work, 30, 60, 90 days that you can maintain that and that can have some success. And I was able to have success, and I was feeling much better because I was making those good choices, and nourishing my body, and sleeping, and all those things.
Robin Downs:
But over time I realized that, okay I kind of swung from one side of the pendulum to the other, which is very typical, where you go from really not doing anything to going overboard. And I thought, this doesn’t make sense, it’s not gonna work, it’s not sustainable. I have this young daughter, I have this life that I want to really live. And so we really started diving in to the research on mindset and the psychology of health, and saying how do I make these choices that are sustainable and really work in real life. And that was really the game changer, everything has been different since that point and I’ve just not only been able to have that success health-wise, but also feel every day really good. I’ve kind of broken that shame, failure cycle and have changed it around to a much more positive reinforcing experience.
Sonja Overhiser:
And somewhere in the midst of this you started your website.
Robin Downs:
Right, yeah. So I started the blog Real Food, Whole Life, which was really focused on recipes at the beginning because I do think that’s a really good place to start is with food and everything kind of ripple out from there. But what I realized pretty quickly is that food is not the only thing that matters, and that you can’t change your diet without changing your mind. So form the website we were able to add the podcast, it’s called The Feel Good Effect, and we talk about what it really means to be healthy, all the mindsets including related to food. And then we have the social channels, the Facebook group, the Instagram where I talk a lot about those concepts. And then recently we’ve added courses, so how to really teach people how to move from one plain, this failure mindset, into one of thriving in the health space.
Sonja Overhiser:
And when did you start working together in all of this? You say we a lot, I know a lot of people just see your face as the front man, front woman of Real Food, Whole Life. But when, was it from the very beginning that you were collaborating on researching these mindsets?
Robin Downs:
Yeah, I mean we really started working together in the early part of our marriage when we lived in Washington and we ran the research program together. As I started the blog it was originally Andrew was sort of like, oh what’s a blog? What are you even doing over there? But then it became pretty obvious that as we would talk off hours and I would be telling him about the problems I was having with my own health a with people I was working with, that by coming together and bringing together our knowledge collectively we could really do something really special because one of my … both of our pet peeves is a lot of academics juts focus on talking to other academics. And then a lot of people in the blogging influencer space, only talk to people there. And we just thought it would be really cool to bring the two worlds together so we could really use science and research, but also be able to talk to people, normal people that aren’t in the ivory tower, and really share what was going on behind the science.
Sonja Overhiser:
That’s one of the things, I mean I love many things about both of you, but that’s one of the things that I really love, is bringing that academic background to the real, everyday person in the blog sphere, and really holding hands and tackling these problems together. And I want to talk about this recent research that you decided to do. You decided to put out a study or a survey of some of your readers to kind of understand their mindsets around healthy eating and healthy living.
Andrew Downs:
Yeah, so my background is in mental health, which I always have been a little confused about and not completely satisfied by the split we have between mental health and physical health. Psychologists tend to focus on one or the other, and the health industry tends to ignore the mental part of things. So we were really interested in, how do these influence each other, mindset and then all the physical behaviors that go into living a healthy life. And so we looked at … we really wanted to look at motivators. What drives people to try to eat healthy, exercise? It’s kind of this vague idea, we all think we should do it, but we don’t always have a real good read on why, why should we do it. So that’s what we really wanted to get into, is why are people motivated to be healthy and exercise?
Robin Downs:
And I can talk a little bit about our method too, which is pretty fun because in the past when Andrew and I have done research you kind of have to find a survey population, and try to make it representative. But in this case I have this great, amazing community, the Real Food, Whole Life, Feel Good Effect community. And so we were able to tap into them through the podcast, and through social media, and say hey do you guys want to take a survey? Which was so cool, because we can really found out what’s going on at the ground level with people that we’re interacting all the time with. So that was really fun to be able to connect right with the community and send this survey out. And Sonja, I know you did it, so that was pretty fun too.
Sonja Overhiser:
I did, yeah. I loved answering the questions. Can you kind of explain some of what you asked, and then what you found? I’m really excited, because we haven’t talked about what you found in the survey.
Andrew Downs:
Yeah, sure. So I could talk statistics, I’m a total nerd all day. What we did was, we took all those questions and we got almost a thousand responses.
Sonja Overhiser:
Wow, that’s amazing.
Andrew Downs:
Yeah, it was a great response. It was awesome that people helped us out like that. And so then I did something called factor analysis, where you can pull out what we call factors, but are kind of profiles of what types of mindsets tend to go together in people. And so what we found, we could boil it down to three different factors or ways that people approach healthy eating and exercise. So do you want to hear what those three factors are?
Sonja Overhiser:
I do, yeah. It’s kind of like a personality test, or enneagram, or strengths finder.
Andrew Downs:
Yeah, it is.
Sonja Overhiser:
What personality are you?
Andrew Downs:
Yeah, they use some very similar procedures to do that. So the three we found, the first one was people who are driven to do this for what I would call external standards. So they were engaging in social comparison. A lot of times we know that this is around Instagram and other areas where people are looking at some perfectionistic ideal of what healthy eating and living looks like. And of course it is an ideal, and it’s not reality, so it’s a tough standard to live up to. So when people are driven by this unrealistic external standard, that results in them trying really hard for it, but then no one can attain it because it’s not real, it’s kind of this fake image.
Sonja Overhiser:
Right, so seeing XYZ person on Instagram, they look so skinny and fit, and I’m gonna eat healthy because I want to look like them.
Andrew Downs:
Exactly, yeah. And so when it doesn’t work, we see it stirs up guilt, self-criticism, a feeling of not being good enough. And also people then feel compelled to hide their weakness because they’re ashamed that they’re not able to live up to this unrealistic standard. And so they end up feeling isolated and very, very alone. And that’s not a great place to be obviously.
Andrew Downs:
And then the second factor we found was people who are doing it for internal standards that they have constructed for themselves. And I like to call this the I should, or I have to. So I should eat healthy, or I have to exercise. So that turns it into this, it’s an obligation of something that the person feels not that they want to do, but they that have to, or they should do it.
Sonja Overhiser:
So it’s some kind of an internal moral compass. Maybe you don’t even know why, you just think I should eat healthy because it’s the right thing to do.
Andrew Downs:
Right, and that doesn’t seem to be enough to spur it because these folks also tend to feel quite a lot of guilt because that’s not enough. These self-imposed standards of should and have to, aren’t enough to shape our behavior where we want it to go.
Andrew Downs:
And then the third group, these are the people who are driven by enjoyment. They like the way eating healthy and moving makes them feel. It makes them feel good mentally and physically. And they care about their health, and it seems to be a core value to them. It’s an incredibly important part of their life and they see it as something that makes them and their life better. And those are the folks that tend to basically cultivate the life that they want, come around on healthy eating and living. And they seem to be the most satisfied with what they’re doing.
Sonja Overhiser:
Wow, well I think I know which group I would want to be a part of. Do you have names for them? I feel like they should have The Perfectionist, or The-
Andrew Downs:
Yeah, you know, I’ll have to come up with that. This is the challenge for me, talking all the nerdy academic stuff and putting it into real talk with catchy labels. Robin can help me with that maybe.
Sonja Overhiser:
So were you surprised at all? How did you feel when you used the analysis to pull this out of your research? Was it something you kind of already knew? Was it something that was like, yes now I have the research to backup something that I knew in my gut?
Andrew Downs:
Yeah, there was definitely some of that. To me, it’s so exciting to get the data output and see what’s there. It’s like opening this present that you don’t know what you’re gonna find. And definitely it confirmed some of the things, but what really stuck my Sonja, was the percentage of people that have all of these really core negative belief. They’re being so self-critical, and feeling guilty, that made me sad actually at that point, looking at how people are really suffering, I would say. I don’t think that’s an overstatement, because of these issues around eating and movement, and beating themselves up about it quite a bit. I was really struck by the high levels of a lot of these negative repercussions and mindsets around these issues.
Robin Downs:
I identified, those themes came out in my story as I’ve already shared. And I know that I’d shared them with Andrew. But when we saw this I’m like, okay I’m not the only one. This is going on for so many people, and it’s actually more common. This is actually the status quo, this is the default. Those external standard comparisons, and the internal high level standards, that’s the default. That’s where people are coming at this, and no one’s talking about it or very few people are talking about it. Mindset matters, and we talk so much about what the perfect diet is, and we spend a lot of time debating about which foods you should take out of your diet, or how many minutes per day you should exercise, or whether or not you should meditate in the morning or the night.
Robin Downs:
And those are all important, but they’re totally missing the point. If you have a mindset that has you suffering, and that has you feeling isolated, and rejected, and that you’re a failure, we need to help people move from those points of view and those ways of thinking, into the doing it for reasons of core values, and for joy, and for the gentleness. That can be the missing piece for so many people.
Sonja Overhiser:
Yes, I could not agree more. I’m wondering what was the breakdown, can you share that? Of the three types, what were the percentages of the overall population?
Andrew Downs:
Yeah, so the external standards, that was the strongest grouping that we had by far. And I don’t have the exact percentage, but that was the biggest group. And the second biggest group were the internal standards. And then easily the smallest group, by a long shot, were the people who were doing it for reasons of nourishing themselves and feeling good, and not doing it because they care about their health and it hits their core values. So yeah, unfortunately that was the general breakdown, and it was a lot. The external standards took first place by quite a lot.
Sonja Overhiser:
Would you say that the people doing it for the enjoyment, the third group, would that be more like a 20% type, or even lower?
Andrew Downs:
I think it was even lower than that, yeah.
Sonja Overhiser:
So more like 10-ish percent of people are finding this enjoyment in eating well, cooking, and being active.
Andrew Downs:
Yeah, which is kind of ironic because eating is such a normal, natural human behavior. We have to do it every day. And that this normal human behavior creates so much angst and so much negative thinking and emotions for people is really kind of fascinating to me intellectually, but also it makes me feel for a lot of people who I know now are struggling with this.
Sonja Overhiser:
And just to nerd out a tad bit more, were these subjects, your survey participants, were they all in the U.S., was it primarily female, did you have a split between male and female?
Andrew Downs:
It was about three-quarters female. And not entirely U.S., mostly U.S., we did have some folks from Canada, Australia, fill it out as well. But yeah, pretty western sample and tilted towards female. Interestingly, most psychology studies tilt pretty heavily towards females, I guess men just don’t answer surveys as much. This one was definitely tilted about 75% female.
Robin Downs:
That’s something we hope to do in the future Sonja, is we really wanted to cast this broad net with this particular survey. We asked a lot of questions, so in order to do a factor analysis you want to have a lot of different questions to kind of see how they came together. And so now that we kind of have these three types, what we hope to do is do another survey that might be more representative, that we can look at some of those questions. Like is there a big difference between male and female? Or is there a difference between geography or maybe exposure to social media. There’s endless numbers of questions that you could ask in terms of who is more effected, in terms of demographic or even psychographic characteristics.
Sonja Overhiser:
That sounds like a really great follow on. And I know there are also some very tangible things that came out of the survey. You took some of that research and then you put it into something that is designed to help these people who are in the 90% of people who are externally or internally motivated by healthy eating and living. Can you tell me about that?
Robin Downs:
Yeah, so we were so excited to design a course together. We’re both educators, and it was a natural fit to say, gosh we need to start providing some options for people right away, as soon as we saw this information. And Sonja, you had asked when we started working together, and I’ve definitely been the forefront of the blog, and the podcast, and social media, but this course was very much a true collaboration between the two of us. And so it’s called Actually Healthy, and it’s actually running right now. And we’ll have openings again in the future, so if you’re interested in that you can come on over to RealFoodWholeLife.com and sign up for our newsletter, and you can hear when it’s available again.
Robin Downs:
But we’re really helping people do three things. One, filter out what’s not important to them in terms of healthy behavior. So you don’t have to do everything, and there’s so much noise out there. And so really helping people filter out and then focus, focus on what’s really meaningful to you. What aligns with your core values? What do you love doing? What makes you feel really good? And then from there, fine tuning it so you can kind of create this constellation of healthy behaviors that you love doing, that fit in your life, that don’t make you feel bad, that don’t make you feel guilty.
Robin Downs:
And then you can kind of really get into the nitty gritty of what kind of diet do you want to follow, or what kind of exercise do you want to do. But it’s very much helping people get that mindset and move away from the guilt, and the shame, and the isolation into this place where they just feel really good about it and they feel empowered, and they can really make good choices. So we’re so excited to be able to connect with people that way, and we’re hoping to just continue doing that through courses and free content on our site. We’re both researchers from an educational background and we like being in the entrepreneurial space, and also giving away information for free, because we just think it’s so important for people to access this.
Sonja Overhiser:
And I love what you’ve said about Actually Healthy. It’s not a diet plan, it’s not a workout plan. It’s a way to kind of reorient the way that you think about food and about health. And that ties in so well, as we’ve talked many times about our book, about how there are these mindsets that we’ve found overtime helped us to just embrace cooking and food in a joyful manner, and be that 10% of people who do it because they love it. And I just love that it’s not just a one, two, three, follow these three easy steps or follow this diet plan to a T. It’s really figuring out, what do I want, what makes me feel good, what do I want my lifestyle to look like. And then giving people the tools to be able to transform their life in a way that’s really sustainable.
Andrew Downs:
Yeah, I think that’s a great point, the sustainability. Because if you’re … anybody can do anything for a little while if they feel like they have to do it, or they should do it, or it’ll make them into something else that they want to be. But in order for it to last in the longterm, those things don’t do it. I think that sustainability is a really important point.
Sonja Overhiser:
All right, so I want to end in just if you could encourage some of our listeners today, knowing what you know about the mindsets and the psychology behind healthy eating and healthy living, what would you say to them?
Andrew Downs:
I would say, as much as people can, try to block out all of those external standards, and other people’s comments, other people’s pictures, and focus on yourself. And create the life that you want for you, and not so you look a certain way or you eat in the coolest, newest way. Just do what resonates with you, what works for you. And also, you have to structure your environment to support that. If you want to make your own food and eat a certain way, then you need to construct your environment so you can do that. You have to have the right tools, you have to have the food on hand. When people know what they want, then they can be intentional about how they’re going about to getting it.
Andrew Downs:
But I think a lot of it is self-reflection. People need to figure out, okay what works for me, what does make me feel good? What kind of diet do I want, rather than what other people are telling me I should want? And that’s easier said than done, I think. But that self-reflection and paying attention to oneself is absolutely critical, because it’s your life, it’s not someone else’s. And if you’re trying to live someone else’s life, that’s a road to failure or making yourself miserable trying to do that.
Robin Downs:
Yeah, and I would say similar to what Andrew said, that you’re enough right now. You’re not fundamentally flawed, you’re not broken, you’re not a failure. And that if you want to live healthier, you can do it. And some of that means going inside and connecting with what really matters for you, and letting go of what other people are doing and what you think perfect looks like. And having this gentle mindset of doing health because it makes you feel really good.
Sonja Overhiser:
Gentle, not perfect, right?
Robin Downs:
Exactly.
Sonja Overhiser:
Well Robin and Andrew, it’s been an extreme pleasure to have you here today. Where can our listeners follow along with you in the future?
Robin Downs:
I love this question because Andrew has zero places that you can find him online.
Andrew Downs:
That’s true. You can find me on the University of Portland website.
Robin Downs:
Yeah. But you can connect with me, and therefore Andrew, on RealFoodWholeLife.com. We’ve got a newsletter there that you can connect with us there. And then also Real Food, Whole Life on Facebook and Instagram. I love Instagram, that’s my number one platform to connect with people. And then The Feel Good Effect podcast is my favorite thing to do, and we talk of ton. If this is really, really interesting to you and you’re fired up, come take a listen to the podcast, we talk a lot about this stuff there. And Sonja’s been on there not once, but twice. So you can hear Sonja’s original story and then also hear her talking about the cookbook over there as well.
Sonja Overhiser:
Yes. I could just say that Robin’s podcast is amazing. Like she said, if you are fired up by some of the things we talked about here, she brings on some incredible guests to have some really vulnerable, interesting, and inspiring conversation. So thank you both so much for being here today.
Robin Downs:
Thanks for having us.
Andrew Downs:
Thank you, Sonja.
Alex Overhiser:
What a great interview, I loved that mix of science, and emotion, and food. It’s kind of our sweet spot. I like to hear how you can really put some data behind the activities that we’re all doing, without us even knowing that we’re doing them.
Sonja Overhiser:
Yeah, and it really relates to the philosophy that we took in our cookbook of bringing out those lessons around the way that people view food and the way you eat. And a lot of those lessons that you and I have learned Alex, have been rooted in psychology and the way that we think about food, and ourselves, and each other.
Alex Overhiser:
Okay, you tease, why don’t you let us know what this big announcement is?
Sonja Overhiser:
So this episode of the podcast is the final episode in season one of the A Couple Cooks podcast.
Alex Overhiser:
That was a solid 62 episodes in this season.
Sonja Overhiser:
What does that mean? What does that mean for listeners? Well, we actually are gonna take a little break from the podcast for a few months. We haven’t taken a break since we started, the past two years. And we are going on a book tour. So we’re taking a break from the podcast, and we’re hoping to come back after the few months break refreshed, rejuvenated, and better than ever.
Alex Overhiser:
We’re already dreaming up all sorts of new content for new seasons of the A Couple Cooks podcast, great interviews, big ideas. But until then, you’re just going to have to wait. But we are gonna leave you with one delicious recipe to try out while you’re waiting.
Sonja Overhiser:
If you follow us on social media or the blog, you will have seen the savory vegan potpie with sage crust. It is without a doubt one of the best recipes that have come out of our kitchen to date. And I can say that because Alex created it.
Alex Overhiser:
That’s right, and you were very, very skeptical that this was gonna work out.
Sonja Overhiser:
Well the funny thing was I said, hey can you make me dinner? And you were like, sure. So you went to the store, got some stuff. And then you were like, okay I’m just gonna make a potpie. And I was like what? You’re making a potpie just on a random Wednesday night? And so I didn’t have a whole lot of faith in your abilities. Well whatever you did, it was so good. And usually our recipes require at least one or two tries, or three, or four, or five to get them perfect, but you hit it on the head the first time. The filling is so good, it’s so savory. There’s a creamy, savory sauce in their, mushrooms, potatoes, carrots. And then the crust is super flaky using coconut oil to make it vegan, but you would never know. Actually to me, it tastes just as satisfying as a butter crust.
Alex Overhiser:
So what lessons do you feel like you learned through the process of making this recipe?
Sonja Overhiser:
I learned to trust my husband.
Alex Overhiser:
That’s a good one.
Sonja Overhiser:
Is that in the book?
Alex Overhiser:
I think it should be. The extra lesson number 11.
Sonja Overhiser:
Though sometimes I trust you and then the recipe fails.
Alex Overhiser:
But we have face your failure in there, so it’s not a big deal.
Sonja Overhiser:
Good point, facing your fear of failure is a lesson in the book, you’re right.
Alex Overhiser:
Anyway, you can find this recipe of at ACoupleCooks.com, it’s there on the front page or just search for savory vegan potpie with a sage crust.
Sonja Overhiser:
And we’ve had a lot of people making this recipe and tagging us on social media, on Instagram or Facebook, and showing us their potpie, and it’s been really exciting to see people be able to create it in their homes and love it. Now, if you’re worried about your A Couple Cooks fix for the week, and you really need to see what we’re doing, we’re over on Instagram, we’re pretty active over there, especially on Instagram Stories. Larson appears all the time over there, sometimes Luna, sometimes Alex. And you can keep up to date with exactly what we’re doing. We’ll be on book tour, so we’ll be doing some exciting things, meeting new people, eating new food, trying new places. So please follow along, send us messages, send us direct messages on Instagram, send us an email. Just let us know what you’re up to and we hope that we’ll be able to stay connected until the podcast starts again.
Alex Overhiser:
That’s our show for today. Thank you for tuning in, and we’ll see you in season two.