ATHE_Transcript_Ep 475_Nagina Abdullah
JJ Virgin: [00:00:00] Hey, this is JJ Virgin. Welcome. And thanks so much for joining me. This is ask the health expert here. I put the power of health in your hands and give you access to the top. People in health and wellness. In each episode, I share safe ways to get healthy, lose weight, heal your gut detox and lots more. So if you wanna get healthy and get off the dieting for life Merry go round, I'll give you strategies that will help you look and feel better.
Fast.
I am excited to have this guest on today. I met her two and a half years ago. Oh my gosh. It took me this long to get Nagina Abdullah on the show. She is the sister of Manish and Ramit Setti. Manish is my buddy who has Pavlock that little device that shocks you. He calls it where your willpower [00:01:00] shocks you into doing the right stuff.
And Nagina is a health coach. She's a health coach. She says for ambitious women, she founded the website, Masala body. And everything is around how to use spices and foods to reduce inflammation. And she has some really cool information about some special spices that can help you balance your blood sugar.
Drop the belly fat. And boost your metabolism sound good. I mean, I love it when you can add rather than take away. So Nagina's been all over the place, business, insider people, Huffington post Fox news, and she's also a busy mom of two plus has a degree from UC Berkeley in molecular and cell biology. And worked at one of the top four consulting firms for some of the biggest healthcare providers in the country.
And that's sort of where her struggle began. So she'll tell you all about [00:02:00] this when she comes on. And before I bring her on, I just wanna share one of my favorites with you.
All righty. Nagina welcome to the show. I am super excited to have you here, and I don't know why it took so long to get you.
Nagina Abdullah: I'm so excited to be here too, JJ. Thank you.
JJ Virgin: I know it's what, like two and a half years later, you're finally on my podcast. My gosh, what's a girl. Gotta do. beg and plead. So this is gonna be very fun because we've never really dove into Spices and, and stuff.
And so I'd love to kind of talk about how you got into what you're doing now, which is all, everything around inflammation, reducing inflammation, like how'd you get here?
Nagina Abdullah: So I had struggled with my with my health in terms of my weight and my energy for my entire life [00:03:00] and your entire life, my entire life.
It was something that I always had to. Focus on really, really closely. And I never felt the way I wanted to feel. And I never actually had the body that I thought was possible. I was hoping it was possible, but I thought it was because of genetics. I could never feel confident about myself. And as I got older, I started working in a very demanding job.
I was a consultant for a top four consulting firm in New York. I was traveling all over the place and then I had two kids after that. And so as I came out of having two kids, I had a lot of extra weight on my body. And I knew that I had not been very successful with getting it off even before I had kids.
So I didn't know if it would really ever happen for me. And because of my very busy schedule, I couldn't go to the gym for hours a day. Cause I knew I'd be working too much. So I decided to start with food and to figure out how I could get healthier and feel better about myself. I just didn't wanna look at myself in the [00:04:00] mirror and think, who is that?
Who am I looking at? And I didn't want to have to throw all my clothes out and not, not fit them anymore. I needed to get into some kind of shape. And so I started looking at the kinds of foods I was eating versus looking at the calories and looking at the portions and focusing on that, which is everything I had done before.
So I started changing up the foods I was eating. I started eating a lot of unprocessed foods, lowering my sugar. Adding protein. And then I also added a lot of spices into my food because I knew that I had to make healthy eating fun, and that was the way that I could make it sustainable for me. And so I started eating like this every single night I would sit down, my husband did it with me.
We would sit down and we would start eating and. I would, I would take a bite and I would look at him and I would think oh my God, this does not taste healthy. It tastes too good to be healthy food because all the kinds of food that I had known in the past, it was so bland and boring. Whenever it.
Was healthy, which is why it wasn't why it wasn't sustainable. [00:05:00] So after eating like that for four weeks, I got on the scale and I had dropped 10 pounds and it felt like it had melted off. And because I felt so great, my energy levels were going up. It was, it felt so easy. And I liked how I felt after I was eating this food.
I. Following it. And I lost 20 pounds in three months, and then I continued following it and I lost 40 pounds in nine months. And I actually got to 20 pounds below my pregnancy weight. Wow. Yes. So that was where something went off in my brain. I was like, aha. yeah. I, I was thinking like, there's something here that I haven't heard from the weight loss industry, from all the magazines that tell us to do all these different things that I've been following for decades, nothing worked.
But when I actually changed the kinds of foods I was eating, and then I started adding. Flavorful spices. I found out that later on, later on, I went and researched them and I found out they're actually anti-inflammatory spices, their metabolism, metabolism [00:06:00] increasing, and their calorie burning spices.
That's the benefits that they have. And they're all natural. I realized that this overall diet, it had helped me with inflammation and it had helped me it helped my body just to process easier. And so then I started sharing my recipe. Everyone started asking me about it cause they saw my 40 pound weight loss and I started a blog.
And that's masalabody.com my site. And that's where I started. Just sharing my advice and it's grown into a coaching and an online business.
JJ Virgin: I love it. I always think that the, you know, the best health experts out there, whatever their background, you know, MD DC health coach, whatever it is, the best ones are the ones that have gone through that journey themselves, you know, had the struggle and gone through it and really experienced it.
So, you know what being inflamed feels like, cuz you were there, but the someone listening right now, how would they know if inflammation was an issue?
Nagina Abdullah: So when you're [00:07:00] inflamed, sometimes you can't see it right away because chronic inflammation which happens inside it's, it's not necessarily like if you were to get a cut that you would, you would start to that's when you, your skin will turn red and hot that's acute inflammation.
But when you have inflammation internally, you can't. See it right away like that, but you can tell that it's there. And the reason is a lot of times, if you feel tired or if you feel washed out, that's the result of,
inflammation and a few specific ways that you might know that you're inflamed is that people that are inflamed, they usually have belly fat that will not go anywhere.
Even if you try to eat healthy and that's. Fat cells in our belly, they, they churn out an inflammatory chemicals and if you have more belly fat, than the more chemicals are the more are created. And so belly fat is like, it's like a hotbed for inflammation. So that's a good
JJ Virgin: way to describe it. I remember reading a [00:08:00] study that showed that, you know, inflammation was its own independent risk factor for obesity.
Nagina Abdullah: Absolutely. Oh my gosh. Yes, definitely.
JJ Virgin: And I know we just don't think about that, so yeah. Let's dig into that a bit.
Nagina Abdullah: Yeah. So chronic inflammation, it's, it's definitely associated with obesity, with heart disease, with a lot of other disease. It's kind of the, the its stems. That's where a lot of things stem, even arthritis.
Alzheimer's Parkinson's those are a lot of diseases that stem from inflammation. And when we're keeping ourselves, when we're watching how inflamed our bodies are, that can help in terms of preventing that. But obesity is definitely one of them. And one of the other ways you can tell that you're inflamed is if you have digestive problems like gas or diarrhea or bloating, and this is similar, it stems.
Sick kind of inflamed gut and it's, and, and it's, some of us have heard about leaky gut. That's what this that's, what this is [00:09:00] caused from. It's like toxins are escaping into your bloodstream and it's one of the major causes of body wide inflammation. So those are a couple ways, ways that, you know, plus just the like feeling tired, your face is puffy.
You might have a brain fog. Those are some other ways that you, that inflammation may be the cause of those things.
JJ Virgin: So you are such a total tease with like you were like, and then there were these spices and, and then I started losing weight and was like, I was going, okay, spill it, sister. Like, what I wanna know are are, and I know that you've got some cool things to share.
So everybody it's show notes will be amazing. JJvirgin.com/spice. You'll definitely want them, but let's talk about some of. Biggest anti-inflammatory spices and foods like the key ones that you love that really help.
Nagina Abdullah: Definitely. So, so the thing about spices is that they're completely natural.
They are, our ancestors have been using spices for [00:10:00] thousands of years. In fact, spices were were like regarded as, as money. They were so valuable and that's because of the health benefits that they have. And in addition to that, they add. Flavor to our food. And one of the myths that we hear is that spices are spicy, but the first spice I wanna share with you, it's actually sweet.
And so it's, it's this is one of my favorite spices it's cinnamon. And the benefit of cinnamon is that it lowers your blood sugar and it controls insulin levels. So you actually get that sweet taste that you would get from sugar, but you're not getting the insulin spike that sugar will.
JJ Virgin: Do you know, what's so funny.
There was actually a supplement company that was making cinnamon supplements. I'm like, why do we need a cinnamon supplement people? Like , you know, it's like, are we gonna have a chocolate supplement next? Let's just put this, put it all over. Everything.
Nagina Abdullah: Exactly. Cinnamon is. So easy to use. So one of the [00:11:00] great reasons that I like cinnamon, just the benefit of the fact that actually, because it's lowering your blood sugar, it's helping you store less fat, and that is helping overall for inflammation.
It's helping for weight loss, it's helping to feel better. And cinnamon is so simple. What I usually do is every morning I sprinkle it into my coffee and it's really just a pinch. Cinnamon, you could put it in your coffee or in your tea. And you can use cinnamon like in so many things throughout the day.
It's great. With apples and cottage cheese, I call that a healthy apple pie snack because you're feeling really full with the, with the with the cottage cheese and the cinnamon in apples, but it's, it's completely healthy, you know, it's all natural. So it's one of those really, really easy spices to add.
And you can always add it. Smoothie as well. So that's a sweet spice. That is is great for our blood sugar levels.
JJ Virgin: Love it. Love, love, love it. That's one that I put into the sugar impact diet as a key one that we should be using and a great substitute for a sweetener.
Nagina Abdullah: Absolutely. [00:12:00] Absolutely. Oh my gosh.
It's so good for you. Another one that I have that is, I'm so excited to share this one, because this is definitely the spice that we think about when we're looking for anti-inflammatory ingredients. And this is turmeric. So turmeric is a golden yellow spice, and I call it the wonder spice because it.
So many amazing benefits. It's antioxidant it's anti-cancer and it's anti-inflammatory. And it it basically it's like nature's inflammation, Buster. It acts like ibuprofen, but with none of the side effects of modern medicine. So it really relaxes your body inside and out. And. A lot of studies have also showed that turmeric actually blocks body fat as well.
So it's really great for weight loss in addition, but just the fact that it cuts down inflammation it just, it makes your whole body feel good. So a couple ways I like to use turmeric and sometimes. Turmeric can seem [00:13:00] intimidating because it is a very bright, sharp, yellow color. But the thing about turmeric is that it doesn't have a it, it doesn't even taste very, it doesn't have a distinct taste.
It has a slightly earthy taste. And so there's some foods that if you add it into, you can't even tell that it's in there. So I always add it into my eggs every morning, because eggs are yellow anyway. And by adding a half teaspoon of turmeric into my eggs it blends in, I can't even tell that it's there, but then I'm starting the day with those anti-inflammatory.
Benefits. And so that's a great way to use it. And another great way to use turmeric is after coming back from the gym, if you're having a protein shake is to add a half teaspoon of turmeric into your protein shake and it helps to relax your sore muscles after your workout.
JJ Virgin: Oh, that's a good one.
Nagina Abdullah: Thanks. Yes. Yes. So I added in all the time when I'm coming right after the gym, it really, you can really tell
JJ Virgin: the difference too. Very, very cool. Okay. So we've got cinnamon and, and [00:14:00] turmeric these are two of my favorite spices by the way. totally favorite. Oh, good. Okay. What's the
Nagina Abdullah: third. Okay. So the third spice, this one is the, is a spicy spice.
So I wanted, so I shared a sweet spice a mild spice, and then this one's a spicy spice for those of us that do like spices, like the spicy spices, but I'm gonna teach you some secrets on how you can actually make this less spicy in case that's what you want. And this spice is cayenne pepper and. So cayenne pepper, it actually increases your metabolism.
And then not only does it do that, but it actually curbs your appetite. So it's almost like if we have a, a, an appetite that we feel like we're hungry all the time. Well, if you have a little cayenne pepper, you can actually. Feel the effects of having this. When you have that spice on your food, you're just satisfied and it actually satisfies you.
So so you don't have the cravings afterwards and then it also speeds up your metabolism partially, cuz the [00:15:00] sweating that you feel when you're eating hot, spicy food So cayenne is, is amazing. I
JJ Virgin: actually went on Dr. Oz to talk about cayenne pepper and it boosting your metabolism and you can put it in a little, like if you do a little chocolate smoothie and throw in a little cayenne, it's awesome.
Oh, yes. Oh my
Nagina Abdullah: gosh. AB with chocolate
JJ Virgin: too. Cause cayenne and chocolate. It's so good. Yummy. Yeah. Great.
Nagina Abdullah: yes, yes. Yes. I like to do also a water in the morning, a, an infused water, which actually's super, super simple. It's really a lemon and cayenne water. And this is something that a lot of people it's, it's kind of a, a, I mean, it's a common water in terms of detoxifying.
So if you wake up in the morning, you squeeze lemon and you put a little bit of pepper, like you will really feel awake after that. And then your whole body is just cleaning out and your metabolism's already getting boosted right from the morning.
JJ Virgin: So what about a couple foods?
Nagina Abdullah: Okay. Absolutely. So, [00:16:00] so the thing is these spices are amazing and you can actually sprinkle them on, on so many things, but when you combine them with anti-inflammatory foods, that's when you're getting the real power, because you're getting healthy foods, healthy spices, it's just all around great for your body and you love what you're eating.
So a few anti-inflammatory foods that I think are great. One is any fatty fish. So especially. Salmon, which has a ton of omega threes. This, it just really helps it moves through your body really easily. And it, it doesn't irritate your body in any way. So you feel full and and you can digest this food very, very easily.
So salmon is one of my favorites or any other fatty fish. Another really, really great anti-inflammatory food is of course, green leafy vegetables. I personally recommend having broccoli because broccoli is very known for its anti-inflammatory benefits, and it's also [00:17:00] filling. So when you have broccoli, you feel full with less calories, you are cleaning your body.
You are just, everything is working well. So it's one of those staple vegetables I like to have, but any other green leafy vegetable is great. And then another one that I, that I use all the time, this is flaxseed. So flaxseed is, is it has a, a ton of fiber in it, which. JJ. I know you talk about this a lot, how important fiber is, and fiber keeps us full and it helps our digestion.
So everything is moving through your body very smoothly. And what I like to do with flaxseed is I usually put it in my smoothies. So because you need it to be ground up to get all the omega threes from it. So you grind it and you put, or you put it in a smoothie, it just grinds up. You can also sprinkle it onto your onto your oatmeal.
If you grind it or buy ground flax seed or you can put it on your cereal or on your Greek yogurt or anything else like that. But it. It makes you feel full and it helps, helps [00:18:00] with that. Anti-inflammation
JJ Virgin: okay. And I just have to do a shout out, cuz I, I pull a bunch of people off of dairy that's if you don't have a dairy intolerance people.
So yeah. Disclaimer, dairy disclaimer, but we can also put that on Yogurt made out of coconut milk or made out of almond milk. And I, I just think like freshly ground flax meal is one of it is especially I buy this golden flax. It is fabulous. And mm-hmm, people just don't realize how amazing amazingly things are.
I will use it unground. in in meatballs because it's then protected, the omega3s are protected and you can cook with it. Mm-hmm cause first people were, were telling me they were cooking with them. Like, are you kidding? Yeah. But if you don't grind it, then you can cook with it, but you won't get those omega3 benefits the same way as when you grind it and put in smoothies.
So, and by the way, Neutra bullets will grind up flax seeds. So there's another, another big shout out for those Neutra bullets now for busy people. Nagina mm-hmm people are busy. Yep. So [00:19:00] a lot of this stuff sounds time consuming. Let's talk about how you can have all this delicious stuff and not spend hours in the kitchen.
Nagina Abdullah: Yes. Oh my gosh. What a great question, JJ, because there, a lot of times we want to do the healthy, the healthy thing we, we try to, but in our busy lives, it's just hard to fit it in. So I use a few cooking methods and I recommend this to, to everyone because it makes things so much easier. So I wanna recommend a few cooking methods.
And then I have a couple quick, easy snacks that I think are also helpful. So, so for example if you use a crockpot, it is really great for for hands free cooking. So what you could do is you could put any kinds of protein, you could put spices you could put some tomatoes, which are also, anti-inflammatory turn it on and cook it for five hours five to eight hours for, for example, chicken, and then you pull it out and it's a beautiful warm meal.
So a crockpot is really great. I know. [00:20:00] So. People find it challenging to find crockpot recipes, but there are really great recipes out there. We actually have an
JJ Virgin: Amazon on Amazon. We have our one pot meals, crockpot cookbook on Amazon. Yes. So that's all Virgin diet and sugar impact diet approved. And I'm with you.
Those crockpots are like one of the most under. Utilize like awesome kitchen tools. In fact, well, I got a what is the one? That's the quicker one? It's like the quick, you know, the crockpot, that's the Instapot. I got my son, my 20 year old son loves to cook. And I got him an Instapot for Christmas. I got him an Instapot with a Bluetooth thing.
And you would've thought that I got him like a race car. He was so excited.
oh my gosh. That's so great. I like just love it. Love, love, love. Anyway. All right. So what else besides the awesome crockpot everyone has to dust off? I know everyone's got one. It's like one of those things that you get, yes. Like pull it out. Only works if you work it. [00:21:00] Yes,
Nagina Abdullah: absolutely. So the crockpot is really great.
And then also sheet pan meals are, are excellent. And so when I pan meal, Yes. Let me explain. So a sheet pan meal is when you take a baking sheet, you put the, you put your oven on around 400 degrees. You really can't go wrong. If it's 400 or four 15, and then you put things on the sheet pan and you just put it in the oven.
So I was talking about salmon, one of the most common meals I make every day, almost because I love it so much. And it's so easy. Salmon. And then I have asparagus next to it. And so what I do is the asparagus is actually really great to decrease water retention. So it helps to decrease bloating in your body.
And so I put that along with salmon onto a pan and I spray it with cooking spray first and I just put ground fresh, black pepper, sea salt. And then on top of the on top of the asparagus, I might put some cumin. I might put some coriander. And because that adds more flavors and those have health benefits as well.
They're also [00:22:00] help decrease water retention. And so I put it in for 15 minutes, pull it out. That's it, it was so easy. I just put everything on there, sprinkled some spices, put it in and it's done. And another trick that I like to use that adds onto this is that I will actually make enough salmon or asparagus to last me for two or three days.
And you could replace this with anything. Like you could make chicken, you could put anything, whether it's vegetarian or meat. You could put it on a sheet pan and just, and put enough for three. And then that way you cook one day, even though it was so easy to cook it the next couple days, you just go to the fridge and take it out and heat it up as heat it up as you'd like to heat it.
So you're like adding all these hacks, crock pot sheet pan, and then making foods in bulk. And because of the spices. It actually tastes better the next day. Oh, because spices
JJ Virgin: really that's fantastic. Now I know we're up against the time and you had some other stuff, but you're giving everyone your sweet spice, cheat sheet.
And I, I just like you were naming off [00:23:00] things that go coriander, I'm like. I don't even think I have coriander. So clearly this is some stuff I need, cuz I think we all get kind of in a spice rut. Like I know my spices that I use and I don't venture outside of them, so I'm excited to venture outside of them.
So tell us what you've got in a sweet spice, cheat sheet. And for everybody listening, you're gonna be able to get this at JJvirgin.com/spice.
Nagina Abdullah: Absolutely. Okay. So this is so the sweet spice cheat sheet. It has the spice. Most likely in your kitchen cabinet. That's how common it is. It helps to lower blood sugar and curb sugar cravings.
And the cheat sheet includes three health benefits of using the spice five ways to use it in your day and an easy belly fat burning tea recipe using spice
JJ Virgin: killer. We're not telling you what it is. You gotta go grab. JJvirgin.com/spice. And I love all your simple tips. They're so easy to do. And again, I mean, [00:24:00] gosh, cayenne pepper and cinnamon and curcumin.
I mean, what's not to love here, turmeric, you know, it's like, yum, yum. So thank you so much for being with us today. We have to have you back. It was took way too long to get you on. Now you gotta come back way sooner, please. I
Nagina Abdullah: would love to thank you so much,
JJ Virgin: JJ. Good talking to you. Now, after the break, we'll be answering a listener's question.
Welcome back. This is the time we answer listener's question. And I talk a lot about cooking and food on my Facebook lives and Instagram, and we do a lot of fun recipes and sharing, but I'll tell you the question that gets up popped up again and again and again, in fact, I'm not even gonna say a name, cause I'd be saying a ton of names.
I don't have enough time to cook. Oh my gosh, I hear this so many times. I don't have enough time to cook. That's why I wanted to ask that question to Nagina too, because Hey, she's running a [00:25:00] business, she's a mom, you know, and I think for most of us, if we say all right, here's the deal. You can get a lot healthier.
You can lose weight, you'll have more energy and you're gonna spend hours in the kitchen. They're like no, I don't think so. So the real thing. We know that processed food is problematic, that you wanna be making your own food, but also, I don't wanna add tons of time into your life. So I love what you got today on the show, in terms of the crockpot, I'd say crockpot and Instapot.
My hubby, Tim has become quite the Instapot Chef. Oh my gosh, the stuff he makes and there is a fabulous and I loved her idea of using the cooking sheet for batch cooking. So what I do on a cooking sheet is I will do little purple potatoes and little Yukon, gold mini potatoes. I'll do Brussels sprouts.
I love roasting brussel sprouts. So I will do that. I also, here's a quickie one that I like to do. I love the idea of batch cooking, but what I do is I make sure that I [00:26:00] have a very well stocked fridge freezer pantry. That's the easiest way to really save time is to make sure you have what you need on hand.
And so I actually have out in my garage, I have an extra fridge and freezer. I actually have two freezers because the house that we're leasing right now came with another one. And so I actually have. Two fridges and two freezers, not even, I didn't even plan it, but boy, now that I have 'em, I'm using them.
And so I keep everything on hand so that I can make food fast. And I'll just give you an example. Today for lunch. I took frozen cauliflower rice that I got organic from trader Joe's. I had frozen organic mushrooms. I had frozen grass fed beef from butcher box. We'll put in the show notes how to get butcher box.
I think it's just sensational. I love it. And then I had some shaved brussel sprouts that I'd gotten from whole foods. That I needed to use. They were gonna go bad, but I've also done this with frozen spinach, just so you can do that as well. And all I did was [00:27:00] cook up the ground beef, add mushrooms to it.
And then in another pan, I cooked up the
brussel sprouts and the just sauteing in avocado oil from my buddy. Mark at primal kitchen. I used some sea salt. And when I did this for my hubby, I used some crushed red pepper too. So you could use whatever seasonings, you could throw some curcumin in here as well.
And then last time I added some chopped tomatoes this time, I just did shaved brussel sprouts, cauliflower, rice mushrooms, and Ground beef. And that's it. I mean, this was so simple. And then I made enough so that I have it for, that was lunch, met him for dinner and tomorrow at lunch, cuz Tim's outta town.
So , I'm being super lazy, but that's the thing I want you to think of when you're making something. Like if we're making chicken for dinner, we make chicken so that we have it for. Two more meals. So look at what you can stock in your fridge, freezer and pantry. And each of my books, the Virgin Diet cookbook, and the sugar impact diet cookbook, come with shopping list.
And then look at what you can make that you can [00:28:00] reuse either in a soup, in a stir fry. and a stew and a salad for the next couple days. And that's what we'll often do is we might do chicken one night and then chicken will go into a salad for the next day. And then maybe chicken will go into our spaghetti squash, pasta dish the next night.
So we will reuse things as much as possible. And then it takes a lot less time. I've really gotten dinner down to 15 minutes or less. It's that easy with a little bit of prep time. All right. Hope that served you well again, remember JJvirgin.com/spice to grab Nagina's freebie for today. And I wanna just do a shout out to Kathleen SW who gave us a five star review on iTunes, outstanding content, JJ, thanks so much for your show.
I appreciate the outstanding content and thank you for that. And we really appreciate these reviews. You guys are leaving. Thank you so much for them. Not only do they make all of us over here, [00:29:00] feel good and make sure that, you know, make us know that we're doing something outstanding. Cuz we really strive to give you actionable information that you can use on a regular basis.
So hearing these reviews makes us know that it's, it's being heard, we're being heard and but it also helps other people when they're trying to decide where they should tune. And it helps them decide too. So thank you so much for that. And I will see you next week.