Jill Moellering • Fuel Your Body, Not Your Stress: Healthy Eating Through Divorce
Fueling Your Body Through Divorce and Beyond
Seth and Pete welcome Jill Moellering, a functional nutritional therapy practitioner, to discuss how divorce affects our relationship with food. Jill offers guidance on overcoming disordered eating and embracing a balanced approach to nutrition.
This compelling episode tackles the mental and emotional roots of unhealthy eating habits. Seth and Pete explore how grief, loss of control, and stress – factors in any divorce – impact our food choices. Jill provides practical strategies to become more mindful, such as focusing on how different foods make you feel and keeping a food journal.
Questions we answer in this episode:
How can I cope with emotional or stress eating during my divorce?
What are some simple ways to start eating healthier after a separation?
How can I teach my kids good eating habits when their other parent doesn't do the same?
Key Takeaways:
Prioritize protein at every meal to stay full and stabilize blood sugar.
Pay attention to how different foods affect your mood, energy, and sleep.
Approach food from a perspective of choice rather than restriction.
Plus, we tackle a listener question about navigating separation when unmarried with a child.
Seth explains the differences in this "parental divorce" and stresses the importance of finding a lawyer familiar with paternity law. Though the emotional impact is similar, the legal process differs without a marriage.
This episode will inspire you to build a healthier relationship with food, even amidst the turmoil of divorce. Tune in to gain practical nutrition tips and a deeper understanding of your eating habits.
Links & Notes
Jill’s website Whole Bean Wellness
Find Jill and Whole Bean Wellness on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube
Got a question you want to ask on the show? Click here!
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Pete Wright:
Welcome to How To Split A Toaster, a divorce Podcast about saving your relationships from TruStory FM. Today, it's time to toss your toaster, too many emotional carbs.
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show, everybody. I'm Seth Nelson. As always, I'm here with my good friend Pete Wright. Today, we're talking all about food. We live in a culture obsessed with food, diets, detoxes, and the pursuit of the perfect body. This all adds up to a billion dollar industry. But for many, this obsession has led to a detrimental relationship with food, rooted in restriction, guilt, and shame. Add to that the incredible emotional process of the divorce, and you have a recipe for poor physical health. Jill Moellering is a functional nutritional therapy practitioner. She works to help people achieve sustainable wellbeing by addressing their mind body connection. She joins us today to help us uncover the root causes of our health issues through divorce and beyond. Jill, welcome to the toaster.
Jill Moellering:
Thanks, Seth. Thanks, Pete. It's so great to be here. I've been listening to your podcast. You guys are funny and you do a great job at really delivering quality content that I think is super helpful when people are going through a divorce. I haven't been yet. No, I don't say yet.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. I noticed as the lawyer, I'm like, yet? You need me to send you a fee agreement?
Jill Moellering:
I thought you guys wouldn't catch that yet.
Seth Nelson:
We can move that process along pretty quickly here, Jill.
Pete Wright:
Well, and that's one of the things that really, I find so provocative about your work, right? It's the idea of focusing on your relationship with food as a function of your relationship with your underlying emotional state. And I wonder if we should start talking about a little bit about how diet culture relates to our emotions and our emotional wellbeing. Is that a fair place to start before we dig into the nitty gritty of recovery eating?
Jill Moellering:
Yeah. Think about diet culture and these health influencers and the bodies that they portray, which are usually very unattainable. A significant amount of work goes into that. But you look at that and you compare yourself, and you measure you're not enough, or we think there's this quick fix solution that something's wrong with our body, and we've really lost touch with taking care of our body and really nourishing our body and focusing on health and strength and overall wellbeing. And we're trying to just obtain this external thing that is very unattainable and very unhealthy, actually. There's the before and during pictures that you're seeing, but they're labeling them the before and after pictures, and that's, I think, very confusing to people.
Pete Wright:
Well, the confusion is real, and where I get stuck is how we have been trained to see someone who is stereotypically fit and see that as healthy at the expense of myriad other body types that might also be healthy and not look it. Is that a fair assumption, assessment?
Jill Moellering:
Yeah. Yeah. It comes from the media. It comes from social media, and it really starts usually for people, at a very early age when you see your parents dieting or focusing on their image, and then that's when you start looking at your body and thinking, where am I not measuring up? What do I need to fix? What's wrong with me? Right? And I think that's a normal part of being human, is like where am I falling shore? How do I need to get better? What can I do? But it becomes very imbalanced.
Pete Wright:
And I think that really is where we pivot into the recovery process. Because the divorce, as an emotional event, I imagine if you have a relationship, a questionable relationship with food, the divorce process is not going to help. I don't know. Seth, what do you see?
Seth Nelson:
I see people, really good people at their worst. They're going through changes. Their entire life is under a microscope. They want to get out the house because they can't stand to be around the person that they're about to go through this divorce with or going through the divorce with. So what do they do? They go out with their friends. They have a drink. They have... I We have a word for it, a phrase, comfort food, right? So I'm sure Jill has something to say about that terminology, and I see it. And then there's just so much stress on someone. And they're not exercising, they're not just going for a walk. And I'm not talking about running ultra marathons. I'm just talking about getting your body moving and eating healthy. And they also are just out of control, right? There's so much things that are being restricted. So their routines are messed up. They're focused on their kids. Maybe it's a new routine and they're not used to getting the kids out because they're not having help, whatever it is. And the next thing you know, they're grabbing a bag of chips, and that's lunch.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. You said something that I think is really interesting when you talk about routines and the knock on effect of not having a sound understanding of your own relationship with food and health and how that contributes to building an unhealthy relationship between food and health for your kids. That seems like something that's easy to get lost because you're so invested in your own emotional process and the legal process that your kids suddenly are eating a bag of chips because you haven't figured out how to provide the healthy part.
Seth Nelson:
Jill, do you see that in when people are going through stress or life changes or death in the family, or whatever the case may be? Is it unique to divorce?
Jill Moellering:
Yeah. When you are going through a really difficult, messy, hard time, you're almost in a state of survival, and so I don't want to come on here and be like, you can't have a bag of chips. What I am is I'm an anti-diet-
Seth Nelson:
In fact, get the family size.
Jill Moellering:
So I'm all about making upgrades when we can and having self-love and self-compassion, which is very, very different from diet culture, right? Diet culture is, food is good, food is bad. I'm being good, I'm being bad. I'm doing good, or I'm doing... I'm all in, all out, right? And it doesn't have to be that way. It can be I'm making the best choice I can today given my circumstance. And that eliminates some of the shame and the guilt and just beating ourselves up, which perpetuates really making poor choices, right? What's one good thing that I did for myself today? What's one good choice that I can make? If it's that I took a nap today, that might be your choice. If it's that I cook dinner, that might be your thing. So you know what I'm saying? I'm not trying to say that we can't have chips. I think we need chips and pizza and ice cream in our diet, but it's in moderation.
Pete Wright:
Thank God. Moderation for me is both frequency and amplitude, right? So it's really important. Maybe I don't eat pizza six days a week. But that's seventh day I eat all the pizza. That's my healthy relationship with food.
Jill Moellering:
That's what we'd call the restriction. That's where we have to get kind of away from the restriction. So if you think about it, if you're restricting, you're telling somebody or... Think about yourself. If you're like, I can't have that pizza, you kind of want that pizza. You start thinking about it. I really want that pizza though. But if I say to myself, I can have that pizza, but I know that pizza's going to make me bloated, and I know I'm not going to be able to emotionally handle maybe dealing with my kids this evening as well, and I'm probably going to wake up tired tomorrow. We start paying attention to how food makes us feel rather than beating ourselves up for eating the food makes it become a choice that you want to make.
Pete Wright:
That's really important right there. How food makes us feel and how we feel with our food are two very different things. And I guess where what I want to poke at a little bit is how grief colors are taste, right? Grief colors are appetite and the decisions we make around food because... Isn't that part of assumption, that grief eating, recognizing that grief eating is not our best eating?
Jill Moellering:
It's 100% normal to stress and emotional eat. I think the problem comes when that becomes our only coping mechanism. The only way that we are dealing with the stress and the dysfunction going on in our life is when we're on a daily basis eating food for comfort, but it's normal to eat for comfort occasionally.
Seth Nelson:
The other thing that I really heard you say, Jill, is when you said, "Okay, I really want this pizza, let me think about it and how by eating this pizza, is it going to make me feel not just in the moment, but afterwards, getting the kids to bed, waking up in the morning feeling bloated and feeling tired," that all sounds to me like the real issue is being intentional, making the intentional choice. I'm happy to eat this pizza, or you know what, I'm going to eat this pizza, but I'm only going to have two slices, not four, because I want the taste, but I don't want all the other stuff. And I know if I eat four pieces, it's going to be bad. Two pieces, I'm willing to be a little bit tired for the two pizza. But being intentional about that choice, I thought is really interesting because sometimes I'll go out with my wife, and I'll say, "Oh, do you want to have a drink?"
And she'll be like, "No, I had a headache earlier," or "I just am worried I'm going to get another one. How about you?" And I'm like, "No, I'm good. Have some water. I got a big day tomorrow. I want to really get a good night's sleep." We literally have those conversations, and they just kind of flow. But our point about eating healthy is all about being healthy. It's not about a look or a physique or this or that. She says, "I want you to live a long time, so what did you eat today?" Because that's a big indication of your overall health and kind of have the long-term view, but the short term, what decisions are you making?
Pete Wright:
So for people who struggle with that... And I'll count myself as one of them. I am a guy who's had a roller coaster of maladaptive behaviors with food. I want to know how you help people rewire their approach to food, because one of the things that you talked about in your other work is just approaching this as a multifaceted approach to health foundations, right? What does that look like practically? How do you help people like me rewire to understand our relationship with our food differently, especially when we're coming from a perspective of potentially maladaptive eating?
Jill Moellering:
Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. I think Seth kind of touched on it where first, there's the awareness, then there is how does the food make me feel? But then there's the education as well. It's like, okay, protein is going to fill you up and keep you satisfied and reduce your cravings. So can we prioritize protein and still enjoy some treats? But if you had restricted and maybe you're trying to go without, then you're likely going to overeat, binge eat, emotional eat. So fueling your body with the foods that it needs and understanding how food affects us, I think that would be a big piece. Another piece is understanding how restriction and the dieting culture has affected you up till now and how that's no longer serving you, right? And then you can get into some of the other tools to reduce stress so that you can make better decisions.
Pete Wright:
So what does that look like practically? If I come to you and I think help me get to the other side of this, do you encourage people to... What do you do? Journal about it. Is there a mindfulness practice I need to do? You come at this from a perspective that's sort of a notable antagonist to diet culture, which I love. And yet isn't some of what we're doing to become aware of our body implicitly a diet culture thing?
Jill Moellering:
Yeah. Okay, so you want some specific tools of what we do. So outside, first it's the education. It really is the education. It is teaching someone how to become aware of how food makes you feel. And we kind of just do that through talking, just like how we are talking right now. We're talking about how restriction creates a desire to overeat. So there's that. But then there's the little things, and I promise you this so often is overlooked is like, nah, it's not a big deal. And it's things like sleep, prioritizing your sleep. If I prioritize my sleep, it's going to help with my blood sugar, it's going to help with my mood, I'm going to have more energy, I'm going to be able to make better choices. So it's kind of some foundational pieces like that, diet, making sure that we're eating the right foods that are going to make us feel good.
I know for a lot of people, if I eat a lot of sugar or if they eat a lot of sugar, they experience depression or anxiety. So it's not that you can't have sugar, but you can dial it back so you can feel better without restriction. And then we might get into some things like some self-care, setting up a routine. What are you doing in the morning when you wake up? Are you rolling out of bed and getting going? Are you in survival mode? Are we filling our cup in the morning? Are we taking time to move our body? So all of these things address stress. Some people they think, oh, I got to meditate, or journaling is part of it and meditating is part of it, but there's some other basic things we can do to help reduce our stress.
I always like to think of stress like a stress bucket, right? All kinds of things can contribute to our stress, overeating, undereating, over exercising, toxins in the environment. And then you think about the regular stress, like financial, divorce, job changes, but what we think on a daily basis, that creates stress. And so when the stress bucket starts overflowing, what do we do? Seek food for comfort, self-sabotage. So we can do some of these other things. I might not be able to take you out of the divorce and make that not happen, but what can we do to help reduce your stress?
Pete Wright:
Seth, I want to call you out because it feels like you, over the last several years, made some pretty significant changes in your own, I don't know, life around food and exercise, right?
Seth Nelson:
Yep, yep, I have.
Pete Wright:
You are a rockstar, and I am curious what it is that you did to change to rewire your love language so that it wasn't donuts, and it was rock climbing.
Seth Nelson:
Jill, about two and a half years ago, my mother passed away in her death from cancer. When it came back, happened very quickly, within a few months. And my cousin came down, and he was heavy set. We're about the same height. And he had lost some weight. I'm like, "Dude, what are you doing? Because I feel like I'm at the tipping scales and I'm about to go the wrong way." And he told me what he was doing. I got on a different way of eating. I don't call it a diet. It really changed how I approach food and how I eat. So what I typically do now... And then I started running for triathlons and doing all this stuff and exercising and all this, but what I did is I basically ate protein in leafy greens with some dressing. And people would say, "Well, what can't you eat?"
I said, "I can eat anything I want, but I'm choosing to eat protein and leafy greens." And I went from about a 27 to 30% body fat down to a 9% body fat. I got off of all of the medications that I was on. My doctor's like, "You don't need these anymore." I was feeling better. I was exercising. I was sleeping great. Now, I do not suggest that people maintain 9% body fat. Talk to your doctor. My wife was like, "You are way too thin here." But the point of it is I would really eat that Monday through Friday. And then Saturday and Sunday, I could do whatever I wanted to do. I'm like, I'm choosing to eat something other than proteins and leafy greens, so it was like 80 20 kind of the real.
And this was just an example. I had been doing this for about three months. I had lost a lot of weight, and then it was my birthday weekend, and I'm like, I'm going out for barbecue. And I ate crap all weekend long, and I on five pounds, I was like, I can't believe I just did this and all that hard work. By Thursday of that next week, when I went back to eating the proteins and leafy greens, all that weight was gone. I had this metabolic flexibility that I did not realize that I had, and it was really just a mindset. And then I started adding in things like vegetables that I never really ever ate in my life. And then I started craving them.
Pete Wright:
I was just going to ask, did it change your palate?
Seth Nelson:
It changed my palate. Now, it took six months to really get into it. And you can fall out of it quickly. And my wife and I are kind of back on it again now, but it literally, instead of craving chips, I would crave vegetables. And people think of me like, "You are crazy." I'm like, "Have you ever really had a vegetable? Some of it's really good and sweet." But then I didn't restrict myself. If I wanted... I used love ice cream. If I wanted ice cream, I would have a little ice cream. I wouldn't eat the whole pint anymore like I used to. So that was kind of this huge change. But it was a long period of time. It was a lot of discipline. But when you see how it made me feel and to get off of medication... And look, I was in the best shape of my life. So yeah, that felt good, but that wasn't the goal. The goal was to just sleep better, feel better, be more present.
And I have a 19-year-old kid that likes to climb mountains. I'm just trying to keep up. I can't go rock climbing if I'm 40 pounds heavier than I should be because rock climbing's hard enough. I'm not putting on a 40 pound weight, right? So that was kind of a lot of the motivation too. Say healthy and keep up with the 19-year-old kid that I just want to spend time with.
Pete Wright:
I feel like I'm the non-example. And that's a weird flex for you to say just how blatantly you're not supporting the medical industrial complex getting off of all your meds. Okay.
Seth Nelson:
Right.
Pete Wright:
It's really great, Seth. But I am the other side of it, and I think maybe I learned this from... Well, there's just nothing like having the immediate sensation of pain to remind you that to you, some food is poison. For me, I started just last year having gallbladder flareups when I ate ice cream, when I eat fats. And there's nothing like that to remind me to make healthy choices. And suddenly, all of a sudden when I see ice cream, I don't want it anymore. And that's the kind of rewiring that I wish I could have done before I started feeling the physiological manifestation of eating ice cream. And I think that is a sort of grief resistant experience for eating to be like-
Seth Nelson:
Because you don't want the pain.
Pete Wright:
I don't want the pain. I don't want the pain.
Seth Nelson:
It's not worth it.
Pete Wright:
But how able are you to make these good choices when you're dealing with external pain and grief and confusion and frustration and scheduling nightmares and carpools, and you make harder choices. So this whole idea of being able to look at food and say, "Hey, I want that. I can do anything I want. I choose to do this other thing" is an important pivot in language, I think.
Jill Moellering:
I was going to say what he was doing was focusing on what he should be eating and prioritizing and not thinking about what he can't have. Because so often, what dieting says is, you can't have these things. You have to eat this. But he's saying, these are the things I want to prioritize, focus on eating, and it's okay if I eat those other things, but I'm not going to really worry about them so much. Also, he became very clear on his reason why, and everyone's is different. So yours was a physical thing. His was maybe a little bit physical as well. But some people it's, yeah, I want to live to be able to see my grandkids. I want to be able to have energy in the evening to enjoy my kids and to be in a good mood with them because I don't want to be cranky and short with them. So it's very important to get really clear on the reason why. And sometimes sit and take that time to really think about it, because usually it's the weight isn't enough.
Seth Nelson:
The reason why isn't to lose weight. It's what will losing weight or eating healthy do for your life. You got to get the next step. Just the weight loss alone, whatever. That's not going to keep me motivated. Now, I'll also say, Pete, it started when my mom was sick, which was a stressor. And then taking care of my father after my mom passed, there was a lot of stressors. It became not another chore. It became a way of something that I can control. You can't stop your mom from dying, but you can control what you put in your mouth. And I could control when I would get home from work after my mom passed, and I drove up to the north side of town to take care of my dad and I'm coming back, I could control the fact that maybe I decided I'm going to spend 20 minutes and make a nice meal for myself.
That was something that I can control, which I think also was very comforting to me. And then it had a lot of other benefits. And I think when you're going through a divorce, to have something that you can control is a good thing. Also, if you have kids and you're running around, maybe you do some cooking with them on Sunday and you prep meals, because that's the other thing I did. I prepped meals on Sunday, which made the week a lot easier to eat healthy because I was prepared for it. So it's not easy, but there's a lot of benefits to it.
Pete Wright:
It's interesting to me, and I think you bring up something really powerful, right? It's that connection to what is the new awareness that you get that is surprising? And to me, it's that control piece. It became a thing where you have autonomy and agency in your life, and that becomes a thing of comfort. I'm curious, Jill, when you think about your work with clients, what are those aha moments for them? What are some other things that you find people experience that you get to sort of bear witness as they change?
Jill Moellering:
Yeah, that is one of my favorite parts about my job, is not necessarily the weight and the health changes, but it's experiencing freedom from not being controlled by food. It's the confidence and feeling proud of yourself, just having more joy and more overall energy throughout the day to just... And by saying energy, I mean just spark of life, just to be alive again. And that is a beautiful thing that comes along with changing our diet and our lifestyle.
Seth Nelson:
Also, when you're doing this, I got so much positive feedback from others that also motivated me. And I don't want people to think I was depriving myself of everything. We would go out with people to eat. We love going out to restaurants. And then I would tell the restaurant, "Can you do chicken breast, no salt if possible, and I just need a really good bed of lettuce, and bring me some oil and vinegar." And my friends were like, "What are you ordering?" I'm like, "I love it. It's going to be good," and there's side of vegetables, right? But then we would order a drink, and I would literally order a drink.
Pete Wright:
Tap water.
Seth Nelson:
No, I would bring Crystal Light with no sugar, and I would get a drink and I would mix it in, and they would all laugh at me. And they're like, "Why are you doing that?" I said, "Because that simple syrup with all that sugar is going to make me spike, and then it's not going to feel good later tonight." And I would mix it in. Pete, people laughed at me the way you're laughing at me now.
Pete Wright:
I would savage you. If you showed up and started drinking Crystal Light like my nana, I would take you to the mat, Seth.
Seth Nelson:
Right. That's why you're an evil person, Pete, and you're not supporting me trying to be healthy and not have a sugar spike. Okay. Right, Jill. Lay it on him, Jill. Lay it on him.
Jill Moellering:
I'm going to join team Pete over here.
Seth Nelson:
It's a new season. It's a new season, Pete.
Jill Moellering:
I know. So this is what I think. If you're happy doing that and that's what you want to do, that's great. But often, what I see is people doing that from a state of restriction, that I can't have it. So what I like to do is more upgrades. So say I really want french fries. Maybe I'm going to get everything else super good. What's super important that I'm like, I could treat myself for this meal? So you're having a little bit more flexibility instead of being perfect, because sometimes the perfection leads to the fall, right?
Seth Nelson:
I'm just letting you both know right now, you obviously have not had sugar-free Crystal Light recently because that tastes good. Okay?
Pete Wright:
Hey, I'll let you have Crystal Light. I am an extremely habitual, not habitual, routinized eater, right? I find something that I love and I stick to it every day because that's the routine, and a shakeup of that routine is very damaging for my productivity. And so I think that what you're describing for me, Seth, is a routine that I actually... I would probably fall in love with that routine because it's predictable. And what I see in you when you describe it is the sort of subversive joy in showing off to others that you can truck with a bunch of raging alcoholics and only drink your Crystal Light. That's what I'm hearing.
Seth Nelson:
There was booze in there too. I'm not saying there wasn't booze. Okay, I was mixing it with booze.
Pete Wright:
You spike your Crystal Light.
Seth Nelson:
But Jill, here's what's happening. Okay? This is our ninth season. For the first eight season, a guest never agreed with Pete.
Pete Wright:
That's true.
Seth Nelson:
Ever. It was, "Seth. You're right on that. Pete, I don't know." In season nine, I think this is our second show in season nine, both guests have agreed with Pete.
Pete Wright:
Once, which is great. Feels pretty good, Seth. Now I know what it's like to live in the high chair.
Seth Nelson:
And that's what it feels like when I drink my Crystal Light with a little bit of gin. Okay?
Pete Wright:
I need to order it. Crystal Light, no sugar, splash of gin.
Seth Nelson:
But listen, Jill was Team Pete. I respect it. I appreciate what Jill's saying, and I will think about this conversation the next time I have it. But here's the bottom line. These were thoughtful choices I was making, and I really never felt... When I first started, I felt like, oh, I can't have this, I can't have that. But when I did that mind shift of this is what I'm choosing to eat, I'm going to do whatever I want on the weekends, at night. If I want to have some ice cream, I'm going to have some ice cream because I've been eating healthy all day, that was just this huge change for me, but really how it made me feel was the big motivator.
Pete Wright:
I was just going to say. What was hidden in there when I told you you were my nana was that you said, "I don't want a spike, and I know that that chemical signal will make me spike." That is a bit of awareness that you probably did not have before you started this journey.
Seth Nelson:
No, not at all. And especially because I get to work very early. I go to bed very early. So for me to exercise, I'm the guy that is getting back to the condo from exercise at 5:30 in the morning. I'm done at 5:30. So you're getting up at 4, 4:30 to go exercise because that's the only time I can really it in the way my schedule works. But to do that, if I'm out with friends having dinner and a drink, I really am not motivated to have that spike because I know how it's going to make me feel in the morning. And the other thing about exercise, Jill, I'd like to get your input on this, is whenever I'd be getting up early, let's be honest, I wasn't thrilled to be getting up so early necessary to exercise, what made me get out of bed.
And I always told myself, and I believe it, you never regret a workout. You never regret exercise. It might not be your best workout. Maybe you didn't run as fast or you didn't lift the weights, or you just weren't really motivated, but you never regret a workout, and that's what would get me out of bed at 4:30 in the morning sometimes. I'm not going to regret doing this. I'll regret staying in bed. I won't regret doing this. And that was a big motivator too.
Jill Moellering:
Yeah, similar to the food where you're thinking, I would rather not feel this way, so I'm not going to make this choice. Think about once you start working out, you get that, oh, feel good, and you think all I have to do is get out of bed and I'll get that here in 30 minutes, an hour, and I'm going to have that feeling.
Pete Wright:
As we get to wrapping up here. Can you distill for us... For those listening who are like, "I don't even know where to start. I don't know what's the first thing thing I need to do," can you distill for us what it looks like to embrace the low hanging fruit, to start to feel change in your life if you've been struggling?
Jill Moellering:
It would be focusing on protein. I think protein's going to be a huge, huge thing for everybody. Most people are not getting enough.
Pete Wright:
How do we know how much we should eat?
Jill Moellering:
A good rule of thumb is one gram per what your goal body weight is.
Pete Wright:
One gram per my goal body weight.
Jill Moellering:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Per day or per meal?
Jill Moellering:
Per day.
Pete Wright:
Per day. Okay. Okay. [inaudible 00:31:35] call it back the truck up, Jill. Good.
Seth Nelson:
Now here's some things that I did on this. Same thing for protein. When you first do that math, you're like, oh my god, that's a lot of protein. And I'm not one to count grams or calories, I'm just trying to eat healthy. So for every meal... And Jill, I'm wondering if these kind of tricks of the trade, if you agree with them or Pete will take the other side and you can be team Pete again. But for my proteins, I would do the palm of my hand would be a serving of protein. So I started eating like a six ounce filet, not the eight or 10 or 12 ounce. I kind of moderated it by that. And during the day, I would have protein at 10 o'clock. At noon, I would have, let's say a protein with salad. And at three, I might have another protein shake. But there's a lot of different protein drinks out there. My wife hates the shakes, but there's like-
Pete Wright:
I love the shakes.
Seth Nelson:
... almost like a water type protein that is very filling, and it's like a Gatorade, but it has protein in it, that fills me up. So sometimes I'll just drink one of those, and I'm getting all this protein, and it fills you up. And I was eating all day. I was eating at seven, at 10, protein, noon, three, six o'clock. The protein really keeps you full and just really help. What do you think of those types of shakes and drinks and stuff to get protein as opposed to eating it all day long, Jill.
Jill Moellering:
It is really hard to eat that much protein, so we don't have to be perfect. But yeah, adding shakes and stuff can add in the protein. But like you were saying, it's going to keep you full and satisfied. So you're going to be eating a lot, but you're actually not going to be eating as many calories if you're eating protein like meat and shakes and stuff, compared to chips and pizza.
Pete Wright:
I just texted my wife and said, we need to start hard boiling 30 eggs a day, so I'm off to the races.
Seth Nelson:
But she's like ostrich eggs?
Pete Wright:
That part's illuminating. Okay, so focus on more protein, step one. What's next? What's some other stuff that'll let me change the way I think about food before we get going?
Jill Moellering:
It's going to be just that awareness of how food makes you feel. And so instead of beating yourself up about eating foods, it's how did this food make me feel? So going into it consciously and deciding what you want to make, what choices you want to make.
Pete Wright:
Turning it back to divorce specifically, I wonder if you've ever caught up with this, or Seth, if you deal with this in terms of feuding, former spouses. The idea of watching your former spouse feed your kids or live in an unhealthy lifestyle with their own relationship with food, how do you manage that? How do you enculturate good habits for your kids when half the time, they're with a person who doesn't have that sort of lifestyle?
Jill Moellering:
It's going to be the same thing that we do as adults. So no one can make me eat a way. I will rebel. But it's providing what you can to a child, teaching them about how food affects them, how it makes them feel, and then teach them like, oh, you have a bellyache? It might've been the pizza that you ate. So they will grow up to learn to make those healthy choices instead of rebelling against you if you're really trying to force it. And then you really don't have any control over the other person anyways. And it's not going to kill them. Sometimes I think we can get so worked up, right? And they need to be eating clean. They shouldn't be eating that stuff. But in the reality, I grew up on Hamburger Helper and cereal, cereal, breakfast, lunch and dinner, and I think I turned out okay.
Pete Wright:
You're okay.
Jill Moellering:
Now into my adult life, I make healthier choices. So just letting go a little bit.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, I would agree with that. Do not focus on what the other parent is doing. You have enough issues to deal with. Now if there's a medical issue, of course you want to bring it, but if just you're unhappy with the eating healthy. If you can, get your kids involved in the cooking.
Pete Wright:
Oh, that's nice.
Seth Nelson:
Because that is a big deal. One, it's quality time. And two, kids seem to eat what they make. So there's this book on how to make green spaghetti. I think that's the title. It's a kid's book. But literally, the green spaghetti is pesto sauce. That's what it's. And it's like a kid-friendly book for three, four, five-year-old, a little bit older, and just pictures. The most ingredients in anything is like four things. And when my son was little, he loved that book, and we used to make all sorts of stuff in there that was all healthy. And if you would've given him pesto before that, he would be like, "No way." But when he made it, it made a difference. So that's another kind of trick of the trade. It's quality time, they enjoy it, they'll eat it, they'll try it, and it's not the end of the world if they have some fries and some ice cream.
Pete Wright:
Last question. Guilty pleasure food. What do you do when you feel like this is something that you're eating just for joy? What is it?
Jill Moellering:
Oh yeah, I love Oreo cookies. It was chocolate of some way. Chocolate, it would be.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Seth, what's yours?
Seth Nelson:
Snap peas.
Pete Wright:
That's horseshit. Look, I'm calling it.
Jill Moellering:
No way.
Seth Nelson:
Most of the time I just try to get a response from Pete. And when it works, I'm very happy. Pete, I love ice cream.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Good.
Seth Nelson:
I just love ice cream. All different flavors. It doesn't matter. I would go to ice cream. How about you?
Pete Wright:
I like to probably a good, like a bread pudding or a crème brûlée or something custardy and caramely. Oh god, I love. Just put caramel on anything. You put caramel on broccoli, I'll eat vegetables all damn day.
Seth Nelson:
I like Jill's point. Just enjoy it.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Don't feel bad about it. Enjoy it.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. And that's the thing, that I probably framed the question wrong. There's no guilty pleasure food. There's making choices that are right for your body in the ecosystem, right?
Seth Nelson:
I wasn't going to point that out and have Jill agree with me on that, Pete. I let that one slide.
Pete Wright:
I already pointed it out myself, Seth, so that Jill could agree with me, right? We already played this game once. Okay, Jill, you're fantastic. Thanks for hanging out with us and teaching us a little bit about the way we do our food and the way we relate to our food. Where can people find out more about you and the work that you're doing?
Jill Moellering:
I'm on YouTube and Instagram. If you want to get some inspiration, motivation, you feel like this resonated with you, that's a great place to connect. I'm Whole Bean Wellness, so W-H-O-L-E-B-E-A-N, and then Wellness. So I also have the website, same Whole Bean Wellness, just like whole bean coffee. And you can schedule a free consultation. You can download... I think I have the craving control guide up right now, so-
Pete Wright:
Outstanding. Well, we put all the links to those things in the show notes, and we so appreciate you hanging out with us. And now, Seth, it's time for a listener question. Listener question, Seth, this one comes from Bob in Ohio. Bob says this, "Can you do a series of episodes focused on non-married separation with a kid? My situation feels like a divorce, but a lot more gray. I'm having a hard time finding experts to speak to my situation, its nuances, and I would love your take. Big fan, and this pod has helped so much in my journey." Thank you so much, Bob. Thanks for listening. And here's Seth's take on this question.
Seth Nelson:
So non-married with a kid. Yeah, it feels like a divorce because it's divorce without a couple items. It's divorce without equitable distribution, the division of assets and debts because you weren't married, so you won't have any marital money to divide or marital assets or debts to divide. Alimony would not be an issue because alimony is only paid from one former spouse to another former spouse. So if you're not married, alimony wouldn't be a consideration. So you're going to have a parenting plan, you're going to have child support, and you're going to have everything else, attorney's fees cost in the process of going through what we would call in Florida, check your local jurisdiction, a paternity case. People freak out when they say paternity. What do you mean paternity? Everyone agrees on the dad. That is true.
So check your local jurisdiction. Florida has been amending their statute in the case law on this over time, but there's a biological father, and then there's a legal father, and those could be two different people. So by way of example, if you are married and the wife has a child, the husband in Florida is presumed to be the father.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
But if that woman had a child from another man, you now have a potential legal father, the husband and a biological father, the other man that she had the child with. And it gets really confusing really quickly.
Pete Wright:
In Bob's case, you could have... Let's just say, we'll just say Bob had this child with this woman. He's the biological father. They separate. She marries someone else. Bob is the biological father. The legal father is the new husband?
Seth Nelson:
No.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
Bob would still be the legal father, but you have to go to court and be pronounced the legal father. Check your local jurisdiction. This is different in all the different states. But to Bob's point is it feels like a divorce because you're in the court system. You're arguing about your kid, you're arguing about money.
Pete Wright:
And you have all the emotional stuff.
Seth Nelson:
That sounds a lot like a divorce.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
So the issue is how does your state, from a legal perspective, deal with those issues of co-parenting when you're not married? Basically in Florida, once you get past the legal father, biological father issue that I just raised, you're doing a parenting plan. It's the same factors in Florida, the 20 factors we've talked about over and over again, Pete. So you need to find an attorney in your jurisdiction that knows what they're doing and say, "Here's my situation. Here's how I'm feeling. What can you help me with? What is the process? How do we deal with picking a school? What do we do with medical decisions? When do I get to see my kid? How does child support work? What information can I give to you to see whether or not we can get this resolved without going to court? Are we going to go to mediation? Are we going to try to do a settlement offer before we get there?" There's all these things that we've talked about that I would suggest you look into so you can try to get this resolved.
Pete Wright:
It really is. It's a parental divorce.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
It has all the trappings of a divorce without the legal marriage agreement.
Seth Nelson:
Right. And then what happens is maybe you owned a house together. Well, the divorce court isn't going to divide that house.
Pete Wright:
Divorce court isn't going to care.
Seth Nelson:
Right, because you're not getting divorced. Now you got to go to civil court and have what's called a partition action to divide the property. And then do you bring that into the paternity case and combine them? Because one room in the courthouse deals with division of property, the other deals with paternity cases, but it's the same people and the kids living in the same house. Do we combine the cases? It's called consolidation. And will your judges in your court system, in the law, in your jurisdiction let you do that?
Pete Wright:
You're saying presumptively, some don't.
Seth Nelson:
Correct. You got to make the argument. And then if you have a third party that's also owns the house, let's say it's you, your girlfriend who you had a child with, and you guys need help with the down payment and her dad helped with the down payment, but he put his name on the house as well and you want to divide the house, now her dad is in the litigation. And it gets very complicated very quickly.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Is there anything, any salve, any solace you can give Bob that might help make the next step easier? What's the first step you would do? You said you find a lawyer in your local jurisdiction who knows what they're doing. What's the best way to frame this?
Seth Nelson:
Make a list of what's important to you about your kid, what's truly important from top to bottom, and say, is this achievable? And if so, how? And if not, why am I off the rails?
Pete Wright:
Okay, Bob, thank you so much for writing. This sounds actually very much like a question that might creep into a future entire episode because I think I have more to ask about the non-married separation.
Seth Nelson:
Let's do it.
Pete Wright:
We might sneak one in there. So thank you so much, Bob for writing. Thank you everybody for downloading and listening to this show. We appreciate your time and attention. Don't forget, you can head over to howtosplitatoaster.com, and just type in your question right there. There's a button, it says submit a question. It'll get to Seth, and we'll answer it on the show just like Bob's. On behalf of our fantastic guest, Jill Moellering today, and Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll catch you next week right here on How To Split A Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships.
Outro:
How To Split A Toaster is part of the TruStory FM podcast Network, produced by Andy Nelson, music by T. Bless & the professionals and DB Studios. Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce and Family Law with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How To Split A Toaster is not intended to, nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of NLG Divorce and Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
