Episode 11: Mindset and Mantras For Intentional Nutrition with Jennifer Roth
MICHELLE FOX: Are you a woman over 40? Are you ready for a retreat? Are you looking for some tools to simplify your life moving forward? Then come join me and a beautiful circle of women in Costa Rica. We will be there March 1st through fifth, 2023, and I would love to have you with us.
We've got one spot left, so if you are interested, go to michellefox.com/retreat for all of the juicy details. And if by the time you are listening to this we are sold out, please hit the wait list button and we can chat.
INTRO: Welcome to Healthy Sexy Nutrition with me, Michelle Fox, culinary nutritionist, health coach, and your host for this podcast. I teach busy professionals how to get more nutrition in their bodies and how to have more fun in their home kitchens. If you struggle with consistency or sometimes forget to make your needs a priority or you avoid planning your meals, you, my friend, are in the right place.
Join me each week for inspiration to increase your energy, discover new recipes, manage your hormonal woes, and so much more. You are a busy professional, but that does not mean your nutrition should suffer. You deserve to live in a body and have a life that you love.
So let's dig in.
MICHELLE: I am with my good and beautiful friend, Jennifer Roth, and oh my goodness, in a moment you'll see why my face is this lit up because this is going to be a juicy conversation. I asked Jennifer to come and share some of her knowledge and her wisdom. All around intentional choices and intentional eating because I know a lot of my clients, a lot of my friends, a lot of people in my community during this weather transition, some of us are going through life transitions.
It can be really easy to kind of let go of some of those goals and intentions that we set at the beginning of the year. So I'm so grateful to have her here and before I completely bring her on. Just in case you haven't heard or met my amazing friend, I wanna read her bio to you real quick so you get just a little bit of a flavor for who this woman is.
So Jennifer Roth is passionate about connection health, and working with professionals and entrepreneurs guiding them in determining their next lights on steps and empowering them to make intentional choices. Jen has worked diligently to build businesses that strengthen communities and empower people to make informed intentional choices about their health and life.
She also founded Birds and Bees Teas to facilitate her vision to help women care for themselves. Yes, Jazz hands for that. I'll say that again. To help women care for themselves in a natural, healthy way. Jen has, and I don't mind tooting her horn for her, cuz you'll see she's very humble. Our humble friends need people like me to keep tooting their horn.
She took her company Birds and Bees Teas from a startup to over 2 million in sales. So Jennifer Clara Roth, welcome to the show.
JENNIFER ROTH: Hi. Hello. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
MICHELLE: My pleasure. How are you, my friend?
JENNIFER: I'm doing so good. I'm doing so good. It is an an amazing, we're getting our first snow in Colorado today, and I'm loving it.
MICHELLE: And see, I, I literally just got goosebumps because I think I always tell you this, and so I will share with the community that you are my friend who is so filled with compassion. So when I'm kind of like, uh, or a little down, like you immediately say something and flip it. Cause I will say, I woke up and I saw the snow this morning. I'm like, mm. But as soon said that, I'm like, Oh as I look out my window, it's so beautiful. It's so crisp. So thank you for always sharing your joy and your compassion with me. I am grateful.
JENNIFER: That's the best part of quality friends and amazing community, right? Is that we're not always having our 100% stellar days, and on those days that we get to tap into the energy of those around us.
And I think the neatest part is that we get to have that conversation around food and nutrition and taking care of ourselves today. So, it means so much. Absolutely grateful to radiate some joy today.
MICHELLE: You are the best. And so, because I know you so well, but I know there's a few people in my community that don't know you yet.
I would love to jump into some rapid fire questions. Would you be open?
JENNIFER: Yeah, let's go for it.
MICHELLE: Oh, yay. And before I do that, I just look down. I will tell you, speaking of the morning and me waking up, I had my Yogi tea and I pulled off this little tag and I wanted to read it to you because it immediately made me think of you and it made me that much more excited for our conversation.
Cuz you and I often talk about the synchronicities between the two of us and how we tend to ebb and flow with each other at completely divine timing. Completely divine elements and the paths that you and I have both been on. So I wanna read this real quick before we jump into the rapid fire, but it says, “Personal growth lies within the unknown. Courage permits you to explore this space.”
And it made me think of you just because you, my friend, and I don't even know if I've told you this before, but. One. I mean, I try to express gratitude as much as possible, but two, you encouraged me. You have been one of the bright shining lights that encouraged me to know that I could step out on my own, and I could start my own business because you actually were one of my first friends who had the courage to build her own business and to.say “Yes, I stand for healing and helping women,” and “yes, I can do this” and “I might not always know how to do it, or I might not have all the pieces, but yes, I'm gonna have the courage to jump in there and try.” So thank you for being such an amazing role model in my world.
JENNIFER: Heck yes. Uh, I am. I'm, I'm so grateful.
I love that quote because oftentimes I don't feel super courageous and I have the ability to be courageous. Something that Cathy Heller says over and over again and that I received in one of the emails is “it's 20 seconds of courage.” Like, what could you do if we stepped in with 20 seconds of courage in our life and that I can do. Right?
It's like, right now. And so make it happen. And I am a more spontaneous person who loves to live in the moment and be in the present moment. And so being courageous right now instead of going for the big, big courageous dream is what will get us to that bigger, and more courageous dream. Right. So beautiful quote on your tea this morning.
MICHELLE: I love that. Okay. Okay. I know people are waiting for this rapid fire, so let us know what is one of your favorite childhood memories in the kitchen?
JENNIFER: Oh, that's so fun. Um, gosh. The first immediate thing that comes to mind is I have an image, a picture of myself on my desk over to the right of when I was little and I'm in the kitchen stirring. Um, and I have a dear friend David Cook, who encouraged me to get a picture of myself when I was young and vibrant and like just full of life before we stopped being our truest, most authentic self and or began to dim that light. And so it's the thing that brings me the most joy. I loved being in the kitchen with my mom, with my grandma, with my grandmas.
Um, and yeah, my mom was always open to allowing us to explore and play and I'm on a stool, on a chair actually, and then have this big wooden spoon and stirring, who knows what. It could have been nothing, but that's the first thing that comes to mind and I love that I was influenced by women in my life in the kitchen that made me appreciate food at a deeper level.
MICHELLE: Hmm. And what a gift, just to have that legacy and that relationship with these women in your world.
JENNIFER: Yeah.
MICHELLE: I love that. All right. Now here's a fun quick one. How about this: sweet, salty, or savory?
JENNIFER: Oh gosh. I'm a salty, salty, salty, salty. All day. Crunchy, salty.
MICHELLE: Okay, that's my girl.
Um, cats or dogs?
JENNIFER: Dogs.
MICHELLE: Dogs. Yes.
JENNIFER: I love cats too, but dogs have my heart for sure.
MICHELLE: Love it. Favorite movie of all time?
JENNIFER: Oh my goodness. Um, Ah, I have a good handful of them, but Goodwill Hunting is as more of an adult like, uh, my absolute, absolute favorite. When I was younger, Mary Poppins. I'm pretty sure my mom has watched that movie like 4,000 times with my brother and I.
MICHELLE: I'm a huge Mary Poppins fan. In fact, I always tease as I looked, purse across the way, that I have a Mary Poppins bag cuz you just never know what's gonna come out of that purse.
And then lastly, because you are one of my favorite travel buddies, when you think of travel, ocean or mountains?
JENNIFER: Oh goodness. I'm an and girl, ocean for sure. When I think of like going on a, on a trip somewhere. Um, and I think we get the best of both worlds because we live in and or near the mountains, so that's one of the reasons I moved here. And I also grew up in Michigan on like a ton of water around, so I'm a, I'm a for sure and a, yes and.
MICHELLE: I love that. And that leads us straight into some of the more juicy questions I wanted to bring to you that again, I get you to myself, and so I feel like that's kind of selfish. So I wanted to share you with my community and I will say that during this weather transition, during this transition of life and careers that a lot of my clients are going through during a transition for them to change, uh, certain eating habits into newer habits. And I wanted to share some of your wisdom and see if we can drum up some tools just to help people to latch onto when they know what they want to do and what they committed to do, let's say at the beginning of the year or even that they just committed to do last week.
But then when those things start falling off, like what are some things, as I'm, as I'm saying this, that might come to mind of some things that we can do to—I guess like latch on when some of us are feeling like I, I really am craving those chips, but maybe there's a better choice I could be making at this point.
JENNIFER: Yeah. I love that this is our conversation. So I chose to come home. We were blessed to go on a trip last week, which feels so good. And I came home and chose to start a sugar detox, sugar cleanse, sugar, no thank you sugar, for a period of time. And I have gluten free, I don't know if they're dairy free, whatever, um, zucchini muffins that I purchased before we left, and there's one still sitting on the counter and my husband will ask—he is more of a, a sweet sky, and he will ask for things and then they sit in our house or in my kitchen, and I'm like, “What the heck is this?” This is like the most tempting. Just taunting. And it's beautiful because I really believe when we make that conscious choice, when we're ready, that it's easier, we are able to actually say yes to ourselves. And that comes with definite work, right? Of rewiring our brain, figuring out how to change this chemistry in our body, the pharmacy that's happening. And we're able to do that as well by our thoughts, right?
So if we're choosing a mantra and or choosing something, and this has helped me tremendously in my life of beginning with something like, “What would love do in this moment for myself during challenging times,” and more so than creating a mantra and or intention statement.
So in those moments when I feel challenged, whether it be with food, which I am challenged with every day, I'm very much a pleasure now, type of person and enjoy this very, very moment. Um, what if I don't wake up tomorrow? So to flip that script, I get to say, “how do I want to heal my body right now?” Or “what am I choosing to do in this moment?”
And thank you chips for appearing on the counter, and I've had plenty of you. Um, I, I'm gonna choose myself this time, or I'm choosing my health and vitality and wellness right now. Coming up with something in the moment, right, that is going to help you and or working with you, right? And getting to get really clear on these intentions before you make those choices or as you're making those choices, and then reminding yourself, and we may fall, right? For sure. And or make a choice that isn't a hundred percent aligned with our goal and or where we're headed and we where we really, really wanna be ideally. But having these intention statements is so, so important, and I have 'em all over the place. One of them is I am aligning with my dreams and visions every day today and every day.
I believe that we can do that with food, right? Like it is my intention that I'm making conscious choices so that I can nourish my body so that my body knows how to digest and or my body has the ability to digest this and come back into balance. I'm whole and complete whatever, whatever comes to you as you're moving through.
So I love creating mantras that help me in the moment to make conscious choices. And then I love that you started with courage because I believe that we gain courage and confidence from every single one of those choices. Like the more we say no thank you to something that doesn't feel aligned, and yes to something that is, then we're building that internal confidence.
And so that's the, at least for myself, the only place I know it comes from.
MICHELLE: Thank you for sharing that. There's a few things I was taking copious notes. One, I love that you remind us that we are human. And so I like to share with my clients that I am not your guru. And so I love your transparency saying, “Yeah, I slip up sometimes too.”
I also love that you're talking about putting these affirmations in places where we can see them. So I often ask my clients to put these affirmations like on a sticky note. It's actually, as I'm writing down some of your beautiful affirmations, I will be putting some of your words on my bathroom when we get off of this call, on my bathroom mirror.
Um, from my techie friends, I often suggest a little hip tip is to put it in the header of your calendar so that you can see it every morning when you wake up.
JENNIFER: Do you write on your mirror or do you put a sticky note on your mirror?
MICHELLE: Ooh, it never even occurred to me to write on the mirror.
So as you're nodding, does that mean you write, do you like to have a marker that you write on your mirror?
JENNIFER: I go back and forth, but yeah, I think it's really fun because it is something that you can write on and and wipe off. Right? And I also laminate intentions and questions and put it in the shower so that when I'm in the shower and I have that quiet time, if I'm not listening to some amazing podcast or course or whatever it is that I'm up to, um, then it’s that time to really check in and and be there. And I love that you say on your phone as well, cuz I do the same thing of, it's at the beginning and the end of my day.
It's my bookends that come up as notifications and I have a longer mantra that is way more for who I wanna be and how I wanna be showing up in the world. And then I have those shorter ones. And even something that we call in clarity as like a 9 1 1. So mine is love, peace, joy, and harmony. You and I were experiencing some moments last week when you're like, “Wow, it feels like you're really calm.”
Like, yep, I'm like getting to the point of mastering love, peace, joy, and harmony, and truly believing it. So I believe it comes with the mantra or intention statement, affirmation and the belief. So if something doesn't feel right as you're saying it, keep saying something different or looking for whatever it is that then aligns it, it makes all the magic happen.
MICHELLE: Oh, I so appreciate that. And two things. One, I wanna let people in on what you just referred to, cuz I thought that was really funny and I think it would be a great example to share how you can come into that calmness. I'll step into that in a moment, but there was something else you just said. About affirmations, because I think a lot of people can hear, that's either woo woo, or That doesn't work for me.
Or if I, you know, want this chip, I'm gonna eat that chip. Like, great, you know, have your chip, like you and I are not telling people don't eat chips, but we are saying perhaps just be more intentional. Like, if you're gonna eat that chip, know that yeah, you're gonna eat that chip, but you're also perhaps not gonna reach the goals that you committed to yourself. And so I love the compassion that you're bringing with it, saying, you know, just because Michelle or Jen says the affirmation is love myself, love myself, love myself. Well, some people aren't there yet, so that's not gonna work for them. So you're asking us to dig deeper and get more curious. Actually, that's a word you taught me a lot last week. To get more curious about, “Okay, well if that affirmation's not gonna work, what affirmation will work for me?”
Am I hearing that correctly?
JENNIFER: Yeah. It's incredible how our internal pharmacy works for us or against us with the mindset and or the thoughts we're having while we're eating.
So if we are choosing that chip being kind to ourself and saying like, “I'm going all in on this,” or like, “this is something that I get to do in this moment and I'm gonna enjoy every single part of it.” Instead of, “Oh my gosh, I can't believe that I'm eating these again. Why am I not stopping?” Right? Like going through like this whole entire negative feedback loop actually creates an internal chemical cascade that is not serving us.
That's going to create more, um, just that holding pattern in our body, right, of more potentially holding at a post tissue or fat or whatever that might be, or more stress in our body. So how can we relieve that stress as we be kind, more kind to ourselves? So I love that you did that.
MICHELLE: Yes. And the internal pharmacy, you're exactly right.
Which also ties into this trip that you and I keep talking about at the time of this recording. It was about a week ago that Jen and I, flew ourselves to LA together to, witness Cathy Heller and her friends just pour into us a lot of their ideas around manifestation and mindset and I was gonna say clarity, although you're my clarity coach and I, I wanna ask a few more questions about that before we go.
But in the moment, or the story that, Jen was referring back to when I was like, How are you so calm? It was because, you know, we were in this high vibe experience, but we also kind of cut it really close as far as our flight back home. And I'm like, I'm doing all this negative self-talk. Like I can't miss this plane. I've already missed a few of Angel's activities. I have Angel in the morning. I can't spend the night. Like I was just going through this spiral and we were like rushing through LA traffic and we had said yes to dropping off some colleagues as well. And so my mind was like. And Jen was like, Oh.
And I could tell she was like kind of intuiting some of my energy, but she was like, “We're gonna make it.” And actually, do you remember the affirmation you told me to say that like snapped me out of it?
JENNIFER: I don’t remember exactly, but it was something like, “everything is working out for us. We're gonna make it on the plane just in time” Or like “the plane is arriving perfectly for us. You're gonna be home with your baby soon.”
Like whatever it is that we're saying to ourselves, write it down because we can say the opposite and it's so, we're just conditioned. We've done it so many times that we're go into this worry place, whether it be food, nutrition, all of these things, our day to day life, and we ask for what we don't want.
And we don't realize that we get to ask for what we do want. And then it, and what was so fun is you did it in that moment, and then it was instantaneous that the traffic cleared up and we're in LA on a Friday night. I mean, this is like so fun. It was so quick. And we were zooming right there. Right? And I was just looking at the map going like “how I don't know how we're gonna make it to the airport in 30 minutes, but it says we're going to.” And oh, I'm gonna hold that intention.
And I know Michelle really wants to be home and our plane got delayed by 10, 15, 20 minutes, something like that. So that worked. I mean it time expansion is real and what we ask for, the universe really wants to deliver. And I believe that for our ideal self and for our health and that whole piece as well, that's something I got to journey on last week and I can feel myself desiring and or really being that person right now, right? Like, we can love ourselves in this moment and, and or learn how we can do the things like we're talking about today. Practice them enough so all of a sudden one day we align with what it is that we're really looking for.
MICHELLE: That was the perfect example of that.
Yes, thank you. That was my friend and, and holding my hand through moments like that, like throughout the last, I think 15 years we've known each other. You've always been my like touchpoint. It's like, “it's gonna be okay, Michelle.” So thank you. Yeah.
JENNIFER: Yeah. And you the same showing up for some of my big steps forward too. So I really, really appreciate that.
MICHELLE: My pleasure. And on that note, as we close out, because I have always known you as just a well spring of compassion and clarity, I also know that's your work right now. As a clarity coach, can you share with my community just a little bit about your path on how you came to clarity coaching?
JENNIFER: Yeah. I started when I was young, having a ton of compassion and empathy for my mom and for my family. My mom had endometriosis, so I was immediately immersed in discomfort for women in. their journey of female reproductive cycles and all of that. And I began to experience similar things that sent me out on a journey as well as being in the kitchen with my grandma. So I love that this is part of it, of a desire to figure out like, Oh, these vegetables and all this really yummy food actually tastes delicious. And my mom didn't limit the things that we ate and we ate whatever was on the dinner table. And so I feel like that really helped my journey and my experience in this life.
And that led me to a school called Bastyr University in Seattle, where I studied herbal medicine and really dove deeper into who we are, as humans, and where did medicine come from a long time ago, and the plant material and where a lot of these pharmaceuticals come from, which I'm very grateful for too.
And so this melding of worlds of, of appreciation in both sides of naturopathic medicine and allopathic medicine, that led me to a clinic in Denver where I was doing myan abdominal and uterine massage, a very specific type of massage to help women go through their fertility journeys. And there I was noticing that the women that were going home and making a loose leaf cup of tea were the ones that were more likely to become pregnant. And that triggered an aha moment of like, “Oh, maybe I could reach the masses by creating a loose leaf tea company focused on fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum.” So I did, that was Birds and Bees Teas. And through that journey I first began, I was really tired doing massage and wanted more energy and vitality in my body and my mind and my life.
Um, so that led me to a workshop called Clarity and it was getting clear and creating what it is that you wanna create for the rest of your work and personal life, your business and personal life. I was like, “Yes, please.” So as I journeyed through the work that I did with my Clarity coaches, I desired to share the tools with everyone. It was like, Oh my gosh, there's this amazing river of life that we go down and the ebbys and the flow and how to control our mind, and that we actually have choices in every single moment of our day, which I didn't really feel like I was at that place anymore of having much of a choice left and how my life was gonna look for the next 40 years working. Um, and it revitalized me and I chose Birds and Bees and through that in the blending room every single day we were talking about what lit people up. Like what if you could do anything you wanted in life, what would it be? So I was quickly working myself out of interns and employees and all of that stuff as I helped them blossom into where they wanted to go and they fed the light back to me of every time you walk out of this room and you go coach someone, you come back a different person. Mm-hmm. And so I hope that you have people in your life that help you figure out what it is that really lights you up.
Like getting to see Michelle, you right now in this whole entire journey of your life warms my heart so much and I literally. Oh, I get so excited every time I see a post or reel, whatever it is that you're doing, cuz it's truly aligned. And I saw that the instant that you started sharing, you were going to school for nutrition.
Like you can see the light come back into people when we're doing what we came here to do and or what is really our passion and purpose. So that's how I became a clarity coach. It's what I absolutely love to do.
MICHELLE: Oh. mic drop. Mic drop. I mean, you were just so incredibly beautiful and I just feel so incredibly blessed to be able to witness your journey and to be in your circle.
So thank you for being my friend. Thank you for the work that you do in the world. Thank you for joining us here today.
Where can my audience find you if they want more information?
JENNIFER: Yeah, you can find me at jenclararoth on our Instagram and Facebook channels, we have Manifesting Clarity podcast, which is super fun.
We've done an interview with Michelle over there, so make sure you pop in and listen. And then jenclararoth.com/gift. And there you'll find the untangled, a free untangled course and start to work with yourself a little bit more and see what your thoughts are and how you can untangle from what is no longer serving you.
MICHELLE: Oh, how powerful. I know that is a beautiful gift. And that was again, jenclararoth.com/gift. Yep. Awesome, awesome. Like I, again, I feel selfish that I have access to call you when I need this, but this is a huge gift to the community that if you can't call Jen in the middle of the night, you have this gift to lean on.
That sounds like it will help people find their way. So thank you for providing that for us. Um, if you also want to continue the intention as far as meal planning, head to michellefox.com/planner and you'll get your free meal planner there and that will definitely keep the guardrails on and help you stay intentional about your meal choices.
So before we wrap this gorgeous conversation, is there anything else you wanna add?
JENNIFER: Just a huge thank you and a big hug. Um, thank you to every single one of you who is listening, who cares enough about yourself to want to make your life more vibrant or vital and, um, so thrilled that Michelle is in your life and that you get access to her because taking care of ourselves and vitality and nutrition. You are a model for me for sure. There are so many women who are massive inspiration in my life of how you can take care of yourself, how you can be radiant and beautiful at any age, and I just, I really, really, really, really, really thank you for that.
Thank you for having me today.
MICHELLE: My pleasure. Thank you so much for being here. We will talk soon. I love you. Love you.
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Big love from your favorite culinary nutritionist and health coach, and until next week, keep showing up for yourself and know that you and your health matter.
You deserve to live in a body and have a life that you love.
