Paleo Magazine - Podcast Episode 61 2014 · 2019-02-21 · Paleo Magazine Podcast Episode 61 2014...

Paleo Magazine Podcast Episode 61

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Podcast Episode 61

2014

{Music}

Host: Welcome to PRM, Paleo Magazine Radio, where we bring you Paleo

nutrition, exercise and lifestyle perspectives from both the experts and the

every day. PMR is brought to you by Paleo Magazine, the first and only print

magazine dedicated to the Paleo lifestyle and is hosted by Tony Federico.

Tony Federico: Whether it’s convincing your kids that they should eat like dinosaurs or

tackling a whole hog, Stacy Toth has got you covered. Her books, written with

her husband Matthew McCarry, cover the entire gamut of the Paleo lifestyle.

And their newest book, Real Life Paleo, may be their best book yet. It’s the

most practical guide to Paleo that I have ever found and today Stacy and I are

going to talk about the three-step process that she and Matt used to bring

people into the Paleo lifestyle wherever they might currently be.

We’re also going to talk about her career in the Paleo world and where she’s

going next.

In the second half of the show, Russ Crandall and I are going to talk about a

delicious alternative to a roast turkey just in time for Christmas. Stick around.

Paleo Magazine Radio starts now.

{Music}


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Tony Federico: Alright, everybody, welcome back. We’re here with Stacy Toth; she is one half

of the Paleo Parents. She’s an overall awesome person, the author of Real Life

Paleo, Beyond Bacon, Eat like a Dinosaur. I’m missing something; there’s

more.

{Crosstalk}

Stacy Toth: There’s e-books. {Laughter}

Tony Federico: There’s e-books, Three Step Paleo. You are a mom, a full-time – you have a

job in addition to the Paleo stuff, so an overall Paleo superwoman. Welcome

to the show.

Stacy Toth: Thank you.

Tony Federico: So, let’s just start with if there is somebody out there who hasn’t heard your

story somehow, somewhere, they don’t know who you are, give us the brief

history of Stacy Toth.

Stacy Toth: Sure. So, you can also listen to an earlier episode that I did on PMR if you’re

looking for more information. But thank you, also, for calling me just an all-

around awesome person. {Laughter} I think that’s just going to be my new

tagline.

Tony Federico: You can have that.

{Laughter}


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Stacy Toth: Yes. So, I came to Paleo about four-and-a-half years ago immediately

following the birth of my youngest son—we have three children. I was

knowingly lactose intolerant and I just happened upon a dairy-free ice cream

recipe that was called Paleo ice cream; I had never heard the term before. And

back on those days Loren Cordain’s book was the only Paleo book out. I

know, it’s hard to fathom, {laughter} but back in the “Canola oil and Diet

Coke is okay” Paleo days.

But…

Tony Federico: It’s like the Paleo-Paleo days.

Stacy Toth: Exactly, yes. So, I found his book at the library and that same day—which

was like two days after I gave birth to my son—decided that that absolutely

made so much sense and there were so many symptoms and descriptions of

what was happening in people’s bodies that was happening in my body that he

described as metabolic syndrome.

And it was the first time after a lifetime of morbid obesity and all kinds of

health issues that anyone had framed something for me in a way that helped

me understand what was happening in my body.

And because no amount of Weight Watchers or the Diabetes Diet or all these

things the doctors just kept telling me to do, I short-term would lose weight

and then I’d rebound and gain twice as much and it just was so frustrating to

constantly be starving and frustrating. And I was still unhealthy, I still had

health issues; it just was a mechanism, a starvation diet, so to speak, to help

you lose weight in the short-term.


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So, finally I had read something that made sense to me and it just immediately

was like a light bulb went off, I threw things out of the pantry and was like,

“That’s it. I can’t have this in the house; I’m going to do this thing.” And I

thought it would be really easy because I was like, “Well, I already know I

have a dairy intolerance and I don’t mind giving up dairy, I’ve done that

before. Surely I don’t have a gluten intolerance, but I’ll just give it this 30-day

try and see what happens.”

And it turns out that so many of my ailments went away because I ended up

finding out that I had Celiac Disease and so I had high white blood cell count,

the doctors didn’t know what it was happening to me. I had my gall bladder

removed, I had constant irritable bowel syndrome, but they wouldn’t describe

it as that because once you have your gallbladder removed they refuse to

diagnose anything as irritable bowel; they just called it a side effect of a

removed gallbladder.

Tony Federico: Really?

Stacy Toth: Yes. So, I had countless issues from cholesterol to high AC1 blood sugar

testing, just basically the tests would come back and it was not great. I had

good blood pressure and I never had gestational diabetes, so my pregnancies

were really easy, but – relatively speaking, but that was pretty much the only

thing that had gone right in my health.

And so, coming upon this I was like, “I’m going to do this.” And within a

week or two, I remember I no longer had sleep apnea, I no longer had

heartburn and those two things had been keeping me from sleeping for years.


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And so immediately I felt so much better because I could sleep and I had

energy and it just was like a snowball and kept getting better.

And so a couple weeks into it was like “Matt and the kids, this is ridiculous,

we’re preparing two meals; I feel so much better and so much healthier. It’s

not going to hurt everybody to have more vegetables in the house. Let’s all

just do this.”

Tony Federico: {Laughter} Nobody’s had health problems because of that.

Stacy Toth: I don’t know. People have a problem with it, I’m sure. {Laughter} There’s

tons of people…

Tony Federico: That’s true, never mind.

Stacy Toth: …I have experience with them. But when you frame it in the context of more

veggies, then people seem to have less of a problem with it.

So, we had been having issues with the boys and I’d also done a lot of reading

about gluten-free, casein-free diet can really help with some of the behavior

issues that our kids were having: ADD and ADHD. Again, almost overnight –

we told the boys we were going to try it for 14 sleeps, that I was asking them

to commit to giving me 14 sleeps just to give it a try.

And within five days or something, my oldest was doing so much better. He

actually went off of a daily inhaler and had such an easier time controlling his

body that we were immediately convinced that it was the right solution for our

family.


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And so, four-and-a-half years later we’ve made it our mission to help other

families make it easier on them. So, we wrote our first book, Eat like a

Dinosaur, I think it was 2012 – I think we’ve had a book every year.

{Laughter} So, I’m pretty sure it was 2012 and we actually wrote that book

for our kids.

At that time there were three other Paleo cookbooks out when we started

writing Eat like a Dinosaur. It was really frustrating for us that there was

nothing available that was kid-friendly, that the kids had had these Betty

Crooker kid-friendly magazines where you dip pretzels in chocolate and

whatever…

Tony Federico: Because it’s fun.

Stacy Toth: Because it’s fun and it was and still is a lot of fun to cook with my kids and I

wanted something that was kid-friendly that the kids could feel like “I can

pick anything out of this book” because all the recipe books that we had still

were like nine out of ten pages were things that they couldn’t eat.

And so, we wrote Eat like a Dinosaur with that in mind and had no ambitions

of the blog and Paleo and all of it exploding the way that it did. And so, as our

Paleo journey expanded, so did our interests. And so our second paper book

was Beyond Bacon which was about eating nose-to-tail and humane,

sustainable farming practices and how that’s good for your health and good

for the earth.


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And how to cook amazing food if you decide to buy – the most affordable

animal is pastured pig and so if you buy a whole or a half one, it’s intended to

help you figure out how to do that and how to cook your way through it. Also,

pork is delicious.

Tony Federico: It’s a beautiful book, by the way.

Stacy Toth: Thank you. And so, what we’ve ended up doing recently is combining those

two interests and projects and making a really family-friendly book that kids

can love but that’s really for adults. And that book has just come out called

Real Life Paleo and the intention there is to provide a guide book to transition

through your whole journey.

So, it’s from anybody to the family member or the person at the office that

you know that’s just insistent that they can’t figure out how to start or they’re

constantly falling off the wagon and they really want to do it and they know

it’s good, but they just can’t to the person who’s been Paleo for two years and

is interested in taking it to the next level by reducing their nuts or reducing

their chicken and figuring out how to introduce some Paleo super foods like

egg yolk and seafood and broth and vegetables, all those kinds of good things.

So, it’s a three-phased approach which is very unique; there’s nothing like it

out there in the Paleo sphere. Most of the Paleo leadership advocates a 30-day

intro and that’s what I did and it personally worked for me, but it did not work

for my family. And so what we’ve outlined is if you want to make this

sustainable and long lasting, here’s a plan that worked for our family where

we felt good about making better steps as often as we could instead of feeling

guilty that we didn’t do the best thing right off the bat.


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Four-and-a-half years later my kids will choose vegetables when we go out to

eat and it didn’t happen overnight {laughter} and this book is supposed to

help people get there.

Tony Federico: Well, it really seems like you really thought through the entire lifestyle

transition and in giving people a way to approach it wherever they are. So, if

we look at the three steps, it’s swap, remove and heal. Can you talk a little bit

more specifically about those steps?

Stacy Toth: Sure. So, swap is intended to swap out the most offensive foods. For us we

define those and we worked closely with Sarah Ballantyne who’s a very good

friend of mine and co-host of the Paleo View. She’s a Ph.D. and very well-

respected in the community writing The Paleo Approach.

In my working with her, we found that the most offensive foods are gluten,

refined sugar and processed chemicals like red food dye. Those are the kinds

of foods that seem to affect people the most: either they’re addicted to it or it

damages their gut the most.

And so, by removing those foods at first, it really allows people to say, “Okay,

I can manage that. These are feasible steps. You can still buy – prepackaged

corn pasta, for example, would still be allowable under those terms. And it

allows people to transition off the foods that they’re used to and figure out

how to make those own spice blends and their own sauces and some of those

kinds of things that feel overwhelming in the beginning because gluten is in

everything and high fructose corn syrup is in everything.


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And so, if you figure out these are the worse offenders, I’m just going to

remove those, then it feels a little less overwhelming than remove everything,

which is what Phase Two is. Phase Two is traditional Paleo; it’s what would

be considered a 30-day challenge Paleo, only we’re not calling it 30 days. This

is a self-paced book; you figure out how long it takes you. It could take you

one month, it could take you one year, it could take you several years.

Whatever it takes you or your family to get to the next phase is up to you.

But Phase Two is more traditional Paleo where now we’re eliminating the rest

of the grains, the legumes, the dairy’s kind of a mixed area, but we encourage

everyone to remove it for 30 days and see how they feel reintroducing high-

quality back in. So, that’s the remove portion; you’re removing the rest of the

foods.

And then the third phase is heal because what we get from a lot of people

through our podcasts and our blog is people feeling overwhelmed like, “Oh

my God, I really want to go Paleo in this week. My grocery bill was $8 billion

{laughter} everything was grass fed and then I put liver in the meatballs and

my family wouldn’t eat it and told me it was disgusting and now I’m crying in

a closet.”

Tony Federico: {Laughter} You have had that email, haven’t you?

Stacy Toth: Oh, for sure. I’ve had that email more than once.

Phase Three is intended to help you realize that buying grass-fed and putting

liver in meatballs is something that you really shouldn’t be doing up front, that

there are a lot more bang-for-your-buck things. But that when you’re ready to


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take it to the next level, focusing on grass-fed pastured animals, focusing on

organic, nutrient-rich vegetables that are in-season and local as much as you

can and focusing on what we define as Paleo super foods and adding them to

your diet.

So, you should feel really comfortable with the removing phase before

moving into the adding phase where then you can focus on broth and liver and

the weird stuff that we encourage you to eat.

Tony Federico: So, just looking through this I think that one of the things that’s hopeful is that

there’s the promise of reintroduction of certain things. So, it’s not take these

things away, you’re never going to eat them again, it’s “take it out, allow your

body to adjust, heal, feel how you’re going to feel without it.”

And then, for instance, you mentioned the dairy; that’s a specific item that

might come back into the diet or even certain grains like white rice.

Stacy Toth: Yes.

Tony Federico: I like how the book lays out full meal plans. I think that that’s really a unique

thing where you’re presenting, for instance, a chicken dinner, you’re

presenting Chinese takeout.

What was the genesis of that idea? Were you just looking at the types of meals

you were making for your family or was that a result of podcast listener and

blog reader feedback?


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Stacy Toth: I think all of the above. Definitely the feedback from people that we receive is

that especially in the beginning they have a difficult time understanding what

a table looks like without spaghetti and bread and how much extra vegetables.

Or what do portion sizes look like? Or how are they supposed to create all

those home cooked food without being in the kitchen all the time?

Tony Federico: They can’t really conceptualize that.

Stacy Toth: Yes, there’s a lot of change in the beginning. Those of us who have been doing

it three, four or five years, it’s hard to remember how overwhelming that felt

in the beginning because we’ve adopted it and we’ve made it our lifestyle.

But it is incredibly overwhelming and so I have a fascination with food

photography that’s whole-table settings and when we were talking about how

to show people what this transition looks like, it was really important to me.

And so, I worked with our photographer (Amy Buxton) who came into our

home once a week, Matt, my husband, does all the food cooking and then I

would set up the shot and then (Amy) and I would work together to get the

shots the way that we wanted, both from this is a whole meal together and

then separately the components of each of those dishes that went into it, that

comprised the 175 recipes in the book.

So, not all 175 recipes are incorporated in meals, but what we did do was

make sure that we had at minimum a breakfast, lunch and dinner in every

phase captured as a whole meal so that if you were in breakfast Phase One,

you could see an option of what that looked like versus breakfast in Phase

Two versus a breakfast in Phase Three.


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So, it might be you make waffles for breakfast one – actually I think it’s like

granola and a quick banana soufflé in Phase One breakfast. And then in Phase

Two we’re encouraging you to eat eggs and can you move away from the

granola and the breads and that kind of stuff. And in Phase Three it’s you can

have soup for breakfast, you can have leftovers for breakfast.

{Crosstalk}

Tony Federico: It’s kind of like things get a little more hard core…

Stacy Toth: …green salad with a pastured egg yolk on it. Like this is okay to have for

breakfast, but it takes a while to get there.

Tony Federico: It sort of represents that evolution or that transition many people just naturally

go through where when you start out you almost want to recreate everything

that you currently are eating in Paleo form and then eventually let go with

some of those, I guess, requirements that breakfast food is eaten at breakfast

and lunch food is at lunch or whatever that means.

Stacy Toth: Yes. And so, in addition we did provide “regular” meal plans as well where

we’ve written out a whole week’s worth of meal plans for each phase in the

hopes that if someone really wants a full meal plan that they can teach

themselves how to cook an extra chicken one week and then use the leftovers

to make chicken salad later.

It’s trying to show people how in that meal plan if you do some of the things

that we recommend doing with leftovers and that sort of thing that you’re not


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in the kitchen preparing a home cooked meal for every single meal because I

think for a lot of people that’s what ends up happening.

And so, we tried to take it a little more bigger picture, again, real life here.

We’re a very busy family with three children and we do not have the kind of

time to be cooking a two-hour meal three times a day. So, we’ve included a lot

of the recommendations and tips and tricks that we use in terms of leftovers

and some of our on-the-go foods that we have prepared during the week so

that when the kids are hungry we can be like, “Go eat corndog muffins”

because we know that they’re balanced with protein and carbs and we’re not

going to worry about the boys eating them. Or we can whip up a quick

coconut milk smoothie and know that they’re getting really satiating coconut

milk if they’re starving after they’ve been playing outside or whatever the

case is.

So, we’ve tried to really create a book that is useful for every-day use; now,

granted, there are plenty of holiday recipes and that sort of thing, but we

actually did a ratio in the book of 80/20 recipes to treats to savory nourishing

foods on purpose and that’s to really hope that people don’t just jump straight

to the dessert section, {laughter} but that they’re working on creating a

balance in their life of healthy, nourishing foods because what we want is

everybody to be as healthy as possible.

Well, and if we’re eating almond flour cupcakes all the time we’re not going

to be as healthy as we possibly can.

Tony Federico: But what if they’re Paleo almond flour cupcakes?


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Stacy Toth: Yes, no.

{Laughter}

Tony Federico: Ah, darn.

Stacy Toth: It’s better, but we can’t call that healthy.

Tony Federico: Maybe that’s Phase One, I don’t know.

Stacy Toth: Yes.

Tony Federico: I really do appreciate that you guys did that, though, because I think that that’s

one of the common criticisms levied at Paleo cookbooks is that it’s too many

treats and this and that. And so, you’ve really just said, “We’re going to build

in the 80/20 rule for you so you don’t have to worry about that. If you just do

that, it’s going to have the treats in there, it’s going to keep things pleasurable

and fun but at the same time you’re going to get the solid nutrients in as well.

Stacy Toth: That’s the goal.

Tony Federico: I think user-friendly is really the biggest thing that I see just going through

this book, like you said before with the meal plans if somebody’s wondering,

“Well, okay, how does that?” it’s not just an arbitrary selection of recipes; it’s

if you’re eating something on Monday night, there’s a logical place for

leftovers on Tuesday and so on and so forth.


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And I think that that really reflects how Paleo is realistically done and I think

that it can be off-putting or overwhelming for people when they’re taking on

this lifestyle and, like you said, they’re thinking that they’re going to have to

cook three meals a deal and it’s really not what it has to involve and it’s really

not what most people actually do.

So, I like how you’ve addressed these things upfront and you’ve provided

solutions to them upfront.

Is there anything in the book that you feel particularly proud of in terms of the

recipes? There’s 170 of them in this book, so I’m wondering what your

favorites are.

Stacy Toth: I think some of my favorites are foods that people probably see in my social

media on a regular basis. They’re the foods that we eat regularly. I feel really

happy and proud of this book in terms of the evolution of where our family

has gone in terms of palate and also introducing people to integrating broth

and vegetables as a base for even things like breads. We make garlic

breadsticks and gnocchi with cauliflower. We incorporate broth and pastured

egg yolks in a ridiculous amount of recipes and that’s intentional because

that’s how we eat.

So, for me my – I east an almost recipe is Stacy’s soup. People ask me every

single day for the recipe for Stacy’s soup.

Tony Federico: #soupwithStacy, I think they should just follow that.


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Stacy Toth: It is a hashtag: #soupwithStacy. So, now people can have on paper how Matt

makes my soup every day and it’s not a science; it’s leftovers plus broth

equals soup.

{Laughter}

Tony Federico: Magic.

Stacy Toth: Yes, magic. There’s a cheesy cashew sauce made with…

Tony Federico: Yes, I was wondering about that.

Stacy Toth: …nutritional yeast that we’ve incorporated into a lot of recipes and that stuff

is so good. We had it in large batches around the house as we were recipe

testing and everything that we’d put it in I’d be like, “Oh, my God, this is so

good.” And Matt’s like, “Yes, I put the cheesy sauce in your soup.” I’m like,

“You need to do that everyday.”

{Laughter}

Tony Federico: Yes, the cashew cheese sauce, right?

Stacy Toth: Yes, the cashew cheese sauce, yes. We make meatza with it, we make just a

bunch of stuff with it, lasagna but with vegetables noodles, stuff like that.

The desserts is what people are always fascinated by. There’s a chocolate cake

and we use freeze-dried strawberries as the base for the icing in that Berry

Chocolate Cake and it’s really, really good. Our intern actually requested us to


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send her that recipe before it was even finalized and sent to the publisher

because she wanted to make it for her own birthday cake after helping us here.

And there’s a couple of not-too-sweet recipes in there, I think it was 36 of the

175 are our classic fan favorites from the blog. So, we’re known for waffles,

we’re known for Easy-Peasy Pancakes, we’re known for Creamy Coconut

Chocolate Chip Macaroon Cookies.

The things that are our top recipes that people go to on our blog all the time

we included in this book just because I know that I personally like to have

cookbooks so that I don’t have to go to the website. And so, we did that in

here while still offering a bunch of new recipes.

So, I would say those are probably my favorite. The chicken wings are also

really good.

Tony Federico: Looking at those now. The Crispy Oven-Baked Chicken Wings?

Stacy Toth: Yes. You would never know they’re oven-baked, they’re so good. And so far

the review favorites have been the Bacon Green Onion Macaroni and Cheese

Casserole which is actually made with that cheese cause and butternut squash.

Tony Federico: I don’t know how that cannot be good.

Stacy Toth: Right? {Laughter} I saw someone do a fried egg on top of leftovers of that

casserole and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I need to do that.”


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So, the feedback has been really positive lately which is great and what I

really hope is that people see the book as a tool and can recommend it to their

friends and family who have been really struggling because that’s really who

we wrote it for.

Obviously we think it’s applicable to anybody anywhere in their journey,

especially with so many recipes. But our goal is to really reach out to those

people who just that 30-day challenge really doesn’t work for them and

despite trying to make it work, they kept falling off the wagon; this hopefully

will be the tool that people can recommend and with tear-out guides that you

can put on your fridge and remind yourself of all those things. I mean, we’ve

tried to come up with every idea possible to help people make it work.

Tony Federico: Well, it’s funny because this is a reflection of you and Matt’s evolution as well

and I did a Paleo challenge with a local CrossFit gym recently and I think the

Paleo movement as a whole is evolving and there’s certainly factions that are

still diehard old school Paleo, strict and not really cool with things like white

rice or potatoes {laughter} and that’s fine, I mean, whatever.

But, at the same time, I think the proof is in the pudding and the proof is in the

real-life changes and transformations that people undergo. And I had

somebody come up to me, the challenge just finished, and they’re like, “Yes, I

did a really strict Paleo before and I lost more weight, but I went right back to

eating what I was eating before and I gained all the weight back,” this and

that.

And so this time around he did a “Paleo challenge” that said, “Hey, if you

want to eat a potato, eat a potato, if you want to eat some rice, eat some rice;


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it’s not a deal breaker. Just really focus on the nutrient-dense whole foods and

really just keep focusing on those things.”

And he was like, “Yes, I didn’t lose as much weight, but I think like I’m just

going to keep this thing going.” I’m like, “There you go.”

Stacy Toth: Yes, that’s awesome.

Tony Federico: If you make a change for a lifetime, no matter how “perfect” that month was,

if you’re not going to do it beyond a month, it’s really not a game-changer; it’s

really not doing anything for you.

Stacy Toth: Yes, I would say too it depends a lot on people’s lifestyle. Like, I think the

first three years that we were Paleo, I wasn’t active at all; I was really

metabolically broken. If I would have started off with potatoes and rice and

high-quality dairy, I probably wouldn’t have had as much success as I did.

But after years of nutrient-dense, nourishing goods, I helped heal my body

through the methods described in Phase Three and now because I’m active

one of my favorite foods to eat after I workout is sushi. I literally feel myself

being replenished between the Omega-3s and all the kind of things that are

going in there, it makes me feel good to eat sushi after I work out. I can’t have

sushi every day and I certainly can’t have sushi if I’ve been laying on the sofa

all week, but that’s me.

I was metabolically broken for a really long time, so everybody’s different and

I think that’s what’s really cool about where the Paleo movement is going is


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that people are figuring this stuff out on their own, figuring what works for

them and running with it and that’s I think what we all wanted.

Some people just want to know “What are the rules?” That only works so far.

It depends who you are; what are your goals?

Tony Federico: And I’m thinking less dogmatic and more pragmatic. So, just figuring out

what works for you, look at your context or look at your situation.

I want to take a few minutes to talk about – you mentioned physical activity

{laughter} and I think that that is something following you on Instagram and

Facebook and stuff like that. I’ve seen your physical activity grow and change

and become really a passion of yours and I’d like for you to just talk a little bit

about that.

Stacy Toth: Sure. So, I was a total couch potato my entire life. I was morbidly obese in

high school, so I did not do any sports. I literally had never participated in a

competitive sport and hid in the locker room smoking cigarettes at PE.

{Laughter} I just – it was a bad scene.

Tony Federico: Real Confessions on Paleo Magazine Radio.

Stacy Toth: People know me well enough to know I don’t hide these sort of things. So –

obviously I don’t smoke cigarettes anymore. {Laughter} I decided when I

started feeling better that I wanted to move more. I didn’t have a specific goal

in mind, I was just like “I want to get up and I want to go and I wanted to do

things.”


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And so, we started visiting farms and we started taking walks as a family and

we had this month where we did handstands every single month to see how

we could improve our handstands and we just did random physical things.

And then I decided I wanted to try CrossFit because I felt maybe I could be

more connected to my community and I was really super-nervous {laughter}

because I had never done any physical activity, but I took really well to

CrossFit and I really liked it and to a point I just eat, slept and CrossFitted

between working on the blog and home.

And then I realized that what I really, really, really loved about CrossFit was

the heavy lifting days and that whenever this was jumping or running that I

wanted to cry in a corner.

Tony Federico: Yes. {Laughter}

Stacy Toth: And then I started to actually get anxiety attacks.

Tony Federico: Oh, no.

Stacy Toth: They were really super cardio intensive (sounds like: wads) because I just

didn’t perform well and I’m super-competitive. And so, if I wasn’t going to

perform well, it was giving me anxiety.

At the same time the gym that I was at was opening a Strong Man component

of the gym with classes and with Strong Man there’s definitely still metabolic

conditioning, but it’s more with heavy weights and shorter bursts and things

like that.


2014 Page !22

And so, I got into Strong Man and really, really it is my sport; I’m super-

obsessed with Strong Man. And within the first year of doing Strong Man, I

qualified for Nationals and won all three competitions that I was in; I tied for

first in my last competition.

Tony Federico: And this is a non-athlete who…

Stacy Toth: Yes.

Tony Federico: …skipped gym class to go smoke cigarettes.

{Laughter}

Stacy Toth: Yes, exactly. And all at the same time writing a book and having a full-time

job and having three kids. And so, what my goal now is that we’re going to

stop writing books and I’ve been saying this publicly, it’s a promise that we’ve

made to the children. We’ve given everything that we have into what we

currently have out there in the print books and we feel very much like if

people want something from us, it’s there already and that we really need to

focus on ourselves and our family.

And one of the things that I have been doing is creating a home gym so that I

can spend more time with the family and not have to be at a specific gym at a

specific time.

Tony Federico: That’s awesome.


2014 Page !23

Stacy Toth: It’s totally awesome. My kids have been wanting to work out with me which

they’ve always wanted to do, but it’s so exciting that after dinner we’re all

like, “Let’s go work out in the gym” and they’ll pick up a 40-pound dumbbell

which is 70% of their body weight and they’ll dead lift it.

Tony Federico: That’s pretty diesel. {Laughter}

Stacy Toth: Yes, it’s totally awesome and so my little one who’s four, he’s like, “Mommy,

look at my strong muscles” and he’ll hold up his arm and show me his little

tiny bicep. {Laughter}

And there’s joy there for me in that and it’s wonderful knowing that being a

woman who was so overweight and so out of shape for so long and knowing

that I had Celiac Disease that I didn’t treat for a long time and knowing that I

didn’t eat dairy for almost a decade because I was either pregnant or nursing

and was lactose intolerant, the damage that’s been done to my bones from not

having adequate Vitamin C and not being able to properly absorb my food is

probably incredibly detrimental.

Arthritis runs really strongly in my family, gout runs in my family. We just

have a whole bunch of problems in my family. It feels really great to know

that I’m doing something that is actually beneficial for my health that strength

training has a really powerful healing tool for women; it’s also really awesome

that people tell me that I inspire them.

It’s nice to know that losing a combined 200 pounds of my husband and I and

putting my photos out there on the Internet inspired people, but I’ve moved on


2014 Page !24

in my life where I just don’t thing that weight loss is the most important thing;

I think health is the most important thing.

And so, to hear that people are saying it helps them be inspired to focus on

healing themselves and getting healthy and getting strong as their own

inspiration to their health journey is one of the most important things in my

life right now. And so, I feel like working on that and also being true to myself

is one of the best things that I can do.

So, I’m super-excited to be able to pursue that as a more primary focus in my

life now that we’re over the hump of all the other commitments that we’d

made.

Tony Federico: Yes. And you started a podcast to talk about your Strong Woman training.

Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Stacy Toth: Yes, sure. So, in addition to the podcast that I’ve with Sarah Ballantyne I

mentioned earlier, The Paleo View, I started a new podcast with one of my

training buddies, Vivian Nguyen, who is a certified CrossFit coach and placed

at Nationals. She’s the eighth strongest woman in the United States.

Tony Federico: Wow.

Stacy Toth: So, Viv and I are doing Strong Woman Radio and you can find it on iTunes. I

think Matt’s trying to get it up on Stitcher; I’m not sure what the status of that

is. But we talk about all things related to lifting heavy with women.

{Laughter} And there’s quite a number of men that listened and they’re

entertained. It’s explicit; it’s not family-friendly. It’s definitely a different side


2014 Page !25

of me that people aren’t used to seeing on Paleo Parents, but that’s what

happens when you lift heavy things. It’s the realist in me.

Tony Federico: Yes, well, and you’re a human being and we’re all multi-faceted and we all

have different interests and I think you’re expanding beyond, perhaps, the face

that people have come to know in the Paleo community and I think you’re

courageous in sharing these different facets of yourself and not just sticking to

one particular image and holding onto that and propping that up.

I think being real is an important quality and you certainly do that and I think

you’ve really been an inspiration to me professionally and whenever I’m

sitting there thinking, “Man, I really would rather not work on this blog post,

book chapter, et cetera, well, you know what? If Stacy can work a full-time

job, {laughter} raise three kids, do all these things, well, by golly, I can do it

too.”

So, I think…

Stacy Toth: Oh, thank you.

Tony Federico: In many ways you’re an inspirational person and it’s a real pleasure…

{Crosstalk}

Stacy Toth: Well, you can do a muscle-up, so there’s that.

Tony Federico: Well, I got something. Yes, that’s my one thing.


2014 Page !26

{Laughter}

Stacy Toth: I love watching those videos too.

Tony Federico: Well, Stacy, thank you so much for coming on the show; it’s been a real

pleasure talking to you. I wish you continued success. I hope Real Life Paleo

is a tremendous seller and we’re going to have links in the show tonight where

people can buy a copy and find all of your other books as well.

Yes, you’re killing it and I think stepping away from writing in books and

investing in your family, that’s super Paleo, so you’re just continuing down

that path of evolving and growing. I’m interesting and I’m sure our listeners

will be interested to see where you go next.

Stacy Toth: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Tony Federico: That was Stacy Toth, author of Real Life Paleo, host of the Paleo View and

all-around awesome person. Coming up next on the show, The Ancestral Table

with Russ Crandall. We’re going to take a short break and we’ll be right back

with more Paleo Magazine Radio.

{Music}

Tony Federico: Alright, everybody, I’m here with Russ Crandall for another installment of

The Ancestral Table. Russ, welcome back to the show.

Russ Crandall: Hi, thanks for having me on.


2014 Page !27

Tony Federico: So, we’re heading into Thanksgiving week, everybody’s got roast turkey on

their minds and one of my pet peeves is having roast turkey for Thanksgiving

and then turning around and having roast again for Christmas.

But then you propose that there’s a solution that you have in mind that

sounded pretty amazing. Want to tell us about it?

Russ Crandall: There’s several reasons why I like this, but we like to smoke our turkeys

instead of roasting them in the oven. So, number one is everyone loves

smoked turkey legs, so this is like a smoked turkey leg all over. So, that’s

pretty awesome.

Tony Federico: So, like those big smoked turkey legs you might get at Walt Disney World or

something like that?

Russ Crandall: Right, exactly. So, just imagine an entire turkey of that…

Tony Federico: Sounds amazing.

Russ Crandall: It’s pretty sweet, yes. And then number two is that if you smoke it outside in

your grill or whatever, you don’t have to use your oven up. So, that leaves

your whole oven open so you’re not heating up the house unnecessarily or you

can use your oven for other Paleo projects.

Tony Federico: Oh, yes. Alright, good. So, there’s a space economy as well as a flavor

diversity. Now, walk us through the actual process of smoking a turkey.


2014 Page !28

Russ Crandall: Sure. So, one thing I have to point out is that it’s a little more time-intensive to

smoke a turkey than it is to do it in the oven. Actually smoking it on the grill

is faster when it comes to actual time on the grill. But you definitely need to

put your turkey in the water and basically soak it for the night before, before

you put it out just because it can dry out on the smoker and so you need to

basically infuse it with a bunch of liquid beforehand.

Tony Federico: Now, would this be a brine or would this just be water?

Russ Crandall: Yes, so just a brine. So, you’d use just salt and if you’re up for it you can add

honey into the water. You want to heat up a little bit of water and mix it in

with the honey until it’s mixed in well and then you can add that to the salt

water as well. Both sugar and salt will deconstruct the meat protein so it’s

really good as far as brining and prepping the turkey for smoking it.

You want the water to be somewhat salty; it’s about a cup of salt for a gallon

of water is basically what you want to do and then maybe half as much honey,

so maybe a half a cup of honey. And it sounds like a lot, but it doesn’t take a

lot of volume of water to submerge an entire turkey.

And then, yes, so then you basically are going to throw it on the smoker or on

your grill. And so, let me walk you through how I like to smoke my turkeys on

the grill. We use a gas grill, actually, just because it’s a lot easier, you don’t

have to worry about running out of charcoal, that kind of thing.

But still, the way you want to do that is you put your wood chips over one side

of the grill and you only turn on that side of the grill. So, you turn on one

burner on high and you get those chips smoking right under the burner.


2014 Page !29

Tony Federico: Are you using a smoker box or are you making a homemade way to contain

the chips?

Russ Crandall: Usually we’ll just throw in a small aluminum pan and just put them there

usually adding a little bit of water that way it will not smoke too quickly. Or

you can just wrap them in tin foil; you can use a smoker box, any of those

things, anything to really just keep the woodchips or wood chunks together.

So, you want to get that going and then you just throw your turkey on. You

don’t want to truss a turkey which you want to do for other poultry; you don’t

want to do that with turkey because interestingly enough you don’t want the

breast and the thigh meat to be at the same temperature and when you truss a

bird that means it’s all going to be a ball of meat and it’s all going to come to

the same temperature.

So, you actually want to get your dark meat about 175 degrees and your breast

meat at 165 [degrees]. So, in order to do that you just basically leave the

turkey alone, you just let it sit there because that way the legs which stick out

from the body are going to cook faster than the breast.

Tony Federico: What temperature? I think the low-and-slow principle probably applies here.

But what specific temperature are we looking at getting the grill up to?

Russ Crandall: So, you can definitely do low-and-slow, but it would take a long time and

poultry in general doesn’t do very well sometimes with low-and-slow. So, you

actually want to do pretty high heat on a 325 [degrees], 350 [degrees] or so; it

only takes two hours, so you do one hour and then you flip the bird so that the


2014 Page !30

other side of the bird is now facing the hot part of the grill because since

you’re having burners on one side on that means that one side’s going to get

hotter than the other.

Tony Federico: Now, would this be the left and right sides are getting flipped or face on and

then, I guess, tail on?

Russ Crandall: So, it’s dependent on what space you have on your grill. It really doesn’t

matter, but I would say, yes, you probably want to put one leg and one breast

against the hot side and then flip it and do the other leg and breast, basically.

That probably would be the easiest thing to do.

Yes, so that’s it. Two hours, then let it sit for 20 minutes, 30 minutes and then

carve it and that’s it.

Tony Federico: That’s actually really quick; it sounds pretty easy, it seems certainly just as

easy as doing it in the oven.

Russ Crandall: Totally.

Tony Federico: And then when you cut into it the breast meat stays juicy, the thighs are done.

What kind of signs would somebody want to look for to make sure that

they’ve hit that sweet spot in terms of cooking temp?

Russ Crandall: So, it’s going to brown pretty quickly depending on how close it is to the heat.

And another thing I forgot to mention is you want to rub it all over with fat, so

ghee, I found, is actually the best fat to use for that or…


2014 Page !31

Tony Federico: Yes, we definitely don’t want to forget that. {Laughter}

Russ Crandall: Right. And then duck fat will work too.

Tony Federico: Yes, nice.

Russ Crandall: It’s not actually 100% necessary, but if you really want that crispy skin, just

adding the fat on top really helps.

Tony Federico: In a pretty generous layer, I’d imagine?

Russ Crandall: Yes, just enough to really get it all on there so it’s pretty well-covered; you

don’t want it sopping. But, yes, you can throw stuff inside the cavity if you

want. I’m a big fan of putting citrus peel and maybe half and onion and some

herbs inside. But you don’t really have to do that either.

The big thing is really just brining it overnight and then just rubbing that fat

on and throwing it on the grill and it will get really golden is really the thing

you’re looking for and then testing it with a thermometer is probably your best

way to know that it’s ready or you can just poke it with a fork and if the juices

run clear then you’re probably good to go as well.

Tony Federico: I’m a big fan of the ThermoWorks thermo pan…

Russ Crandall: They’re awesome.

Tony Federico: …as well as the little chef timers that they have where you can just plug it in.

And I think you were talking a couple weeks ago about the remote control


2014 Page !32

one; you don’t even need to be in the same room to see what your turkey’s

doing.

Russ Crandall: I’ve got a Bluetooth one that hooks up with my phone {laughter} and it

messages me when it’s ready. It’s like, “Hey, it’s ready.”

Tony Federico: Oh, man. Now, that might not be Paleo grilling, per se, but that’s certainly a

good tool to have in your arsenal. One quick question: what type of

woodchips would you recommend?

Russ Crandall: So, you want to use a mild smoking wood when you use poultry, so apple,

alder or cherry are probably the best. I’m a big fan of apple. You don’t want to

go with something like hickory which is really sharp which is best with

something like beef instead.

Tony Federico: And you’re living in Florida now. Would orangewood be available, by any

chance?

Russ Crandall: {Laughter} I have no idea. That’s a good question. I haven’t seen it around,

but that would be pretty awesome too.

Tony Federico: Well, if your neighbor has an orange tree, you could probably harvest a little

yourself. Well, Russ, man, that sounds amazing. It sounds like a great

alternative to the traditional roast turkey.

I appreciate you taking the time to come on the show and share with us your

holiday trick for a perfect smoked turkey.


2014 Page !33

Russ Crandall: Cool, thanks. Yes, thanks for having me on again.

{Music}

Tony Federico: Alright, everybody, that’s going to do it for today’s episode of Paleo Magazine

Radio. Next time on the podcast Ray Audette, author of Neanderthal, a book

about Paleo that was written before the Paleo diet was even cool.

I’m Tony Federico and on behalf of everyone at Paleo Magazine, thank you

for listening.

Host: If you would like to share your story on PMR, please visit our Facebook page

at Facebook.com/paleomagazine for full transcripts of the show as well as

exclusive online content go to our web page Paleomagonline.com. You can

also talk to us on Twitter at #PMRadio.

THE END

http://www.paleomagonline.com

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