How to Love What’s On Your Plate: Finding Joy and Balance in Food and Life
Episode 336
In this episode, I talk with Stephanie Valentine, a holistic nutritionist and mental health coach, about loving what’s really on your plate—both with food and in life. Stephanie shares her journey and her cookbook Love What’s On Your Plate, focusing on mindful eating, nourishing rituals, and true self-care.
We explore how wellness isn’t about being perfect, but about finding joy and balance as life changes, especially in midlife. Stephanie encourages easing up on the strict rules around food, exercise, and rest, and embracing kindness to ourselves. She also shares tips for mindful eating to help your body truly absorb nourishment.
We discuss her personal experience with alcohol and her free mocktail guide for creative, enjoyable alternatives. This episode offers practical, heartfelt advice for nurturing yourself, embracing balance, and living joyfully—no perfection needed.
In this episode, you will hear:
How Stephanie defines holistic wellness as a complete package—nutrition, mental health, movement, meditation—and why it’s about living your best life realistically without pressure to be happy all the time.
The importance of honoring how our needs change every few months as we age, and why adapting habits is key to feeling good in midlife and beyond.
A mindset shift around balanced living that removes guilt from rest days, imperfect meals, and exercise — embracing imperfection as part of a healthy lifestyle.
Practical tips on mindful eating, enjoying your food, and creating mealtime rituals that fully engage your senses and support digestion by activating the rest-and-digest nervous system.
Stephanie’s personal journey with alcohol and the rise of mocktails as appealing, creative alternatives that support an alcohol-free lifestyle and make social occasions enjoyable. Grab her free mocktail guide linked in the show notes.
Find Stephanie here:
Her website: SK Living
Purchase her cookbook: Love What's On Your Plate
Download her free Mocktail Guide
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Hey there. Welcome to To 50 and Beyond. I am Lori; I'm your host. I am happy that you are here. If you're new to the podcast, this is where we talk about living alcohol-free later in life, amongst other things. And if you're returning back to the podcast, thank you so much for coming back. It means a lot to me.
Today I am talking with Stephanie Valentine. Stephanie is a holistic nutritionist, culinary nutritionist, clinical hypnotist, and mental health coach.
Stephanie is going to talk about how to love what is on your plate—both literally at mealtimes and figuratively in life. She just wrote her first cookbook called Love What's On Your Plate. It's absolutely beautiful.
She also has a wonderful free mocktail guide, and these are really great recipes. Today, I'm going to ask Stephanie how this mocktail guide came to be and find out what she has seen in her world as far as people drinking or not drinking.
So let's get this conversation started. Here's Stephanie.
Hi, Stephanie. Welcome to Two 50 and Beyond.
Thank you very much for having me. It's my pleasure to be here.
Thank you. You have this cookbook that we're going to talk about today, and also looking at your website.
It is the entire holistic wellness package, and I feel like you offer so many wonderful things there. And you say, "Nourishment is not just about food." I love that. Your website is really the entire package.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Can you define what holistic wellness is?
Sure. So I'm creating this wellness community that is accessible to busy people, people who have never dabbled in that realm—people who think that, you know, it's not for them, that it’s a certain type of person. I am, by training, a holistic nutritionist, a clinical hypnotist, and a mental health wellness coach. There are not many of us out there—slash I don't know if I'm the only person who has all those things—but I feel that they all work together to help somebody be the happiest they can be.
I know it's cliché, but maybe for a reason. Maybe I can come up with a better one. But it's really to live your best life. I hate saying that, but it is what it means. And the reason why I say that is your best life within your life. So the stresses, the pressures, all of that is part of everybody's life—the ups, the downs, the disappointments.
So for me to say that I'm teaching people to be happy all the time, that's unrealistic. And that's not what I do. I try and help people eat food that tastes great and is good for them. Eat food that tastes great sometimes isn't so good for them and not worry about it. Movement for your mental health for your longevity. Meditation to retrain your brain to respond instead of react. So that's sort of the whole package of everything that I do.
What brought you to this work?
When my kids were young, young-ish, I was, you know, a stay-at-home mom.
Typical—put everybody's needs in front of my own. We'd gone through some stressful things, did not take care of myself, didn't seek help, didn't cry out loud, didn't eat well, didn't exercise, didn't meditate, did the whole "I'm a rock and we're not made to be rocks." So, of course, a few years later I got sick, and it was a mysterious stomach thing that took like 10 years—a really long time to figure out what it was.
That was the catalyst for me to say, "Okay, I need to figure out what's going on here." I'm spending all of my energy taking care of everybody else. If they had a good day, then my day was good. If they had a bad day, then my day was bad. And my mom kept saying to me, "Steph, you gotta do something."
Either get a job or go back to school, but you need to be bringing something yourself to the table. And that's when I enrolled in holistic nutrition school, having no idea what it was, thinking that it was to become a dietician because I was an aerobics instructor when I was young. So I’m like, "Oh, this works."
And I was introduced to this whole world of everybody's different. Everybody needs different things. Your needs change every three to six months. So that was new information for me. And I then became somewhat addicted to learning in school because my light was turned back on, and I was like, "Okay, this is the secret."
You’re not a worse wife or mom if you're doing something for yourself; you're actually better because you have something to bring to the table. And you're also showing, especially if you have daughters, that we are valuable as well—that nobody is here strictly to take care of other people.
So that then led to hypnosis, which I had done.
Hypnosis—I was hypnotized once by somebody. I’m like, "Wow, that’s really cool." And because I loved learning and all these courses so much, my algorithm kept sending me things. So I got an email about this hypnosis course at the University of Toronto, which is a world-renowned, great university. So I’m like, "Oh, that’s a good place to take it." So I did that.
Then I was like, "Okay, I heard about this Headspace meditation." That company offered a mental health wellness course. I'm like, "Oh, that’s good." So I took that. Then I’m like, "Okay, I got it all. I can speak to everything."
That is fantastic. Put it into perspective for us—like, how long ago was that? And if you don’t mind sharing your age today.
I am 55 for another week and a half, so I’m almost 56.
Oh, wow. Yes.
Mm-hmm.
I went back to school in 2010, so I was 41 when I started. I started writing a wellness book actually in 2020 when my kids were all gone at university and we were locked down.
I was like, "You know, if I’m not gonna write it now, I’ll never write it." So I started doing that. Then about two years into that, I had a conversation with my editor saying the title is Love What’s On Your Plate because that’s sort of like my slogan. I have plates that say it; we have a table that says it.
I said, for this wellness book, it makes sense if you explain it. So it’s to love what’s, you know, on your plate. When people say, "My plate’s so full, I have too much on my plate." So it’s a guide to love everything that’s there—even the stuff that you didn’t choose. But the title’s sort of like... I said, people are gonna think that it’s a cookbook.
And she said, "Well, you told me that you were gonna write a cookbook." I’m like, "Yeah, yeah, of course." And she’s like, "Well, that should come first." I’m like, "Oh, that makes sense." So that is why that came about.
So now I’m back finishing the wellness book, which will be a next-year thing.
Fantastic. Is it gonna have the same title?
Yes.
Or is it, you know, Love What’s On Your Plate: Life?
Yes.
So many questions and things that you said. I want to get into when you started really getting into cooking. I want to talk about that. And we’re definitely going to talk about your cookbook.
One of the things—and congratulations on everything and happy early birthday.
Thank you. Thank you. Wonderful.
The one thing that caught my attention—and it’s so important—well, first, the happiness. Like, we think that, okay, we have to do these things, right? Like lose weight or start these new habits and do all this stuff. But when you really look at it, and so many women right now in midlife—myself included and beyond—are just with that—
What is that thing that I can find that gives me that spark and different energy that I need?
I feel like once we have something like that, even though it doesn’t have to, you know, we don’t have to figure everything out, right? It would just be something that we can focus on outside of the people-pleasing and outside of everything else and find that balance for ourselves.
Then it could be the catalyst for so many other changes—our nutrition, our drinking, exercise, those types of things. So finding that happiness.
I know so many women right now are asking, "What do I want? What do I want to do?" And especially after kids leave, there are so many changes that we go through.
And you said something—our needs change within three to six months. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Well. Everything changes. Our cells change over, I think it takes nine months or so. I don’t remember exactly. It’s in my other book; I won’t quote something that’s inaccurate. But everything about us changes.
The seasons change. We get older, we suffer an injury, we get a new job. Our kids move out; they come back. You have a grandchild, which I don’t yet but would love to have. Things are always changing.
What works for you at 20 isn’t going to work the same when you’re 40, 50, or 60.
And this whole growing older fear? If we get to grow older, then it’s awesome, because the alternative is not so good.
I believe we have about 55% luck (genetics) when it comes to growing old in our health that you can't change. You might wake up one day with a terrible degenerative disease or heart attack, etc. You can’t lifestyle that away.
But we have that 45% we can work at, which will make dealing with the 55% easier, less of a factor, and that you can really help get yourself active, happy, and feeling like you’re still contributing.
On and on and on.
You know, my parents—luckily, I still have both—and my husband has both of his parents. His parents are 93 and 86 or 87, and mine are 83 and 80.
And what do they all have in common? They all exercise. They all walk everywhere. My parents have been doing workout classes since I was doing workout classes. They lift weights, play golf, and socialize. Their lifestyle and what they are able to do are so great.
I believe that if they didn’t take advantage of that 45%, the 55% would have caught up and slowed them down, so they don't have this long decline.
Like my father-in-law, 93. He looks like an oak tree—six feet something, straight as a tree. It’s great. They visit no one. They take courses still, read books, get involved, go to the theater all the time.
Those are things you can do at any age or physical ability.
Yeah, oh, I love that. That’s such a great way to describe it with the percentages. And it’s never too late to start.
Right, Stephanie?
No, no.
The reason I say those percentages is because especially in the wellness world, there are so many…
Things to follow—you have to eat all this protein. Yes. You need your fiber, and you need your 10,000 steps. Then 10,000 steps becomes 15,000 steps. And you have to wear your aura ring. You get an app that tells you how your sleep was, and it can make your head explode.
So if we take that pressure off and just do what works, do the best we can—knowing I talk about giving 100% every day, but today’s 100% might be different tomorrow.
If you get sick or come down with a cold, you’re not to blame.
It’s not, "What did I do wrong? I didn’t take my supplements or work out enough."
People get sick.
So lighten up on what we’re eating, and all the rules we’re encouraged to follow, so we can enjoy what we’re doing and accomplishing.
Instead of thinking, "Ugh, I only walked 9,000 steps." Walking 9,000 steps is great.
It’s a shift in mindset.
Especially because there’s so much information out there, mostly great.
I mean, especially for women in midlife, there’s so much information.
Yes, I know the protein, weight training, and steps, but looking back, it’s important to honor how our needs change and recognize how often this happens.
We keep doing what we did in our 20s and wonder why it’s not working.
I’m totally guilty of that.
It is a reminder.
Back in my early 50s, I’d compare myself now at almost 58 to back then—and it’s like no, I’ve changed so much.
So hearing you say that is refreshing—just honoring what feels good for us.
I love learning about your parents and in-laws. That’s fantastic.
Another thing we don't value enough is rest—giving yourself that break.
Exercise—I try to exercise every day.
Do I get to every day? No.
When I take a day off exercise, it’s not a cheat day or skipped day—it’s a recovery day.
Sometimes my lower back gets sore. What helps? Two days off the bike.
On weekends, if you have a party and eat a plate of chicken wings and fries, that’s not a cheat day.
It’s part of the lifestyle.
If we shift our thinking about these things, we get rid of guilt, negativity, and the "I fell off the wagon" feeling.
It’s part of the whole lifestyle.
If you do more, great. If you don’t, that’s okay.
Do you think this mindset has gotten easier with age, or has it always been this way for you?
I know language is important.
If we remind ourselves that it isn’t a cheat day, we didn’t fail because we got 9,800 steps out of 10 or 48 out of 50, whatever.
Right?
Do you think aging has helped you look at the brighter side?
I think as I’ve gotten older and wiser, I’m better able to articulate that.
I’ve always laughed at myself.
I’m an excellent cook—not a good baker.
I try; I do it all the time.
There are baking recipes in the cookbook, but there are always disasters—like yeast that doesn’t rise or undercooked, overcooked sugar used instead of salt.
To me, it’s hilarious.
Why?
Because I don’t hold myself to the highest standard.
Imperfection is what makes us beautiful and unique.
I’ve always been like that.
I’m an excitable person. As a teenager, I was sort of wild.
I remember my dad always saying, "Steph, balance, balance."
That was a funny thing then, but looking back, it’s everything.
When you think of balance, you’re never balanced.
You’re always balancing.
If you pick yourself on that tightrope, you’re always adjusting with the wind or breeze or whatever happens.
You’re never going to be perfectly balanced and stay there.
You always have to adjust.
I appreciate that analogy.
It’s true.
Some of these words we use—when you hear them, you think, "What do they really mean?"
That’s why I asked about wellness, holistic wellness, when we started—like just finding balance.
I’m always questioning, "Where do I need a little more balance?"
And really looking at that—what does that even mean?
For so many of our listeners, there are a lot of people-pleasers out there.
Many women are coming to the realization, especially after they stop drinking alcohol, that their priority is themselves—and it’s not easy.
It takes time to get to that place where you say, "Okay, I am number one, and I’ve got to take care of myself," especially for those who are not drinking.
So I can get through the day—not just to the end when I feel like grabbing a drink is the solution.
Can you share your daily routine with us?
Then we’ll move on to the cookbook.
Okay, daily routine.
I wake up at the crack of dawn—not loving it, but I do.
My husband and I, around 6 or 6:15, he goes and gets coffee and we have it in bed.
It’s a funny thing I do because I don’t even like coffee, but my dad always brought coffee to my mom in bed in the morning.
So I’m like, "Well, that’s what loving couples do."
He brings me coffee in bed. It’s a cup of love. I drink it every day, but like any other time of day, I don’t like coffee. But that’s fine.
We have coffee, and we sort of ask, "How was your sleep?"
We watch the morning news at 7:20.
He goes down to the gym to work out.
I turn off the TV, get my meditation app out, and do a 15-minute meditation every morning.
He comes back at eight.
At 7:45, I send my mom a text saying, "Hi," which means, "Are you awake yet?"
She says, "Hi."
We FaceTime for a little bit.
Then at about 9, I take my computer out, have it on my lap, and start whatever I have to do that day if I’m writing or working on social media.
I find I’m fresh and like to get my head going.
Then I get dressed and put on workout clothes.
I go down to the gym and bike.
I bike regularly because I have a knee injury.
My sports doctor, instead of telling me to rest, prescribed 4 to 6 hours of spinning per week, which is a lot.
I get about four hours.
I also like to throw in yoga.
After workouts, around 11, I shower, get dressed, and start my day.
I go grocery shopping at some point and chat with everyone at the grocery store.
Everyone knows me because I talk to everybody, wave to the mailman, all that stuff.
At about 4:30 every day, most days, I turn on Young and the Restless and watch my soap opera.
I’ve done that my whole life.
I mention it because it’s always been an hour just for me.
Even when the kids were little, they would start homework.
I would go in my room, close the door, watch the show—which is pretty mindless—sometimes fall asleep a bit or play on my phone.
That was my "don’t bother me" time in-between my busy day and busy night.
Then at 5:30, I start making dinner.
Usually, I don’t need to start until 6 because my recipes are so easy and fast.
I laugh because dinner’s ready 45 minutes before dinner time.
The kids are out of the house.
My husband, who works from home now, will come upstairs.
I say, "Sweetie, dinner’s ready."
He comes upstairs.
No phones at the table; we keep them in another room.
We eat dinner together.
I get a random applause at the end of every meal.
That’s a tradition started when the kids were little.
Whenever we’re at someone else’s home where they cook, there’s a round of applause.
That’s because it takes a lot of time, effort, and love.
Speaking of your husband, how long have you been married?
Thirty-one years.
We’ve been together for 36 years.
We met the first day of second-year university.
We’ve been together ever since.
He’s my best friend in the entire world.
I can hear that.
Especially with things like him bringing you coffee in the morning and the slow mornings.
It’s lovely.
Everything you’re doing, I feel it.
Do you have meditations on your website?
Do you have anything about mindful eating or being present when cooking and eating?
Yeah, I think I created a mindful eating meditation once. I’ll check if it’s on my website and put it up if it’s not.
I made some meditations for a woman who had a workout app.
We did a whole series.
I did a confidence one that’s on my website.
The eating meditation probably straddles meditation and hypnosis.
I want to explain hypnosis and meditation under MRI are the exact same in your brain.
It’s not anything to fear.
It will only be effective if you believe it will be, and if you really, really want that change.
For food, I focus on loving nourishment, paying attention to what you’re absorbing, and how it makes you feel.
Sharing, love, socializing with friends, passing down family traditions—all those things.
Yes, being mindful while eating instead of rushing.
When we have these conversations, they call attention to that.
So if you leave this episode with one thing, it should be to be mindful of your next meal.
I haven’t eaten breakfast yet, so mine’s coming right up.
I’m going to be mindful of what I eat.
Let me speak to that quickly.
We have our parasympathetic nervous system—the rest-and-digest mode—and the fight-or-flight mode.
Everyone knows about fight or flight.
But I don’t know if people are as aware of rest and digest—it’s in the name.
If you are standing up and I’m guilty of this, my kids always make fun of me.
They joke, "Mom, did you have cold chicken out of a Ziploc bag standing in front of the fridge for lunch?"
Guilty as charged.
But your body isn’t in digest mode.
That’s another issue with fast food or even being around someone else preparing food.
Because food is nutrition, but also fuel.
You’ll only be as good as what you absorb—not just what you eat.
If your body’s in fight or flight—stress mode—which we are in society more than we should be—your body will do what it needs to survive.
If it thinks you’re being chased by a lion, digesting food isn’t priority.
The priority is to run, breathe as much oxygen as you can.
You’re not absorbing food.
NOR are you thinking, so it’s not good for difficult talks when you’re in this mode.
But when you’re in rest and digest, your body absorbs nutrients.
So standing and eating or eating distracted is not ideal.
Studies show we eat about 35% more food when not paying attention.
When you sit down and eat—not rushed, phones off—that’s helpful.
Thank you for that.
That was a great reminder.
Of course, we’re busy and stressed, but trying to pull yourself out of that to sit down even for 10-15 minutes helps.
To put in perspective—maybe even an hour and a half.
You can slow your nervous system in about ten counts, really one minute.
Calming happens when breathing slowly.
If you want to sit, set your table, prepare your food, take a breath in, breathe longer out, look at your food, then eat.
Yeah, I like that.
I love that you teach people how to set a table and create that space.
Oh, this has been a great conversation.
Before we wrap up, do you work with people virtually with hypnosis or meditation?
A little bit.
Not as much as before, because I’m building a community.
My niche is newbies, beginners, people who want to be healthier but don’t know how.
People who want to be healthier but don’t know what that means.
People who have heard about meditation but say it’s not for them or they have busy minds.
Those are the people I want to help.
Your mind is busy and it’s supposed to be.
Meditation is about recognizing that and bringing yourself back.
My newsletter goes out biweekly but is moving to weekly with food, movement, and mindfulness tips—all short five or ten-minute practices.
That’s what people need.
If you’re a long-time meditator, you don’t need me.
I help the average busy person who wants to feel better and more energized but doesn’t know how.
That’s where I shine.
I want to sign up for your newsletter.
Is that what you mean by community or do you have a membership?
I am setting that up.
Right now, my newsletter and Instagram are the main places.
I’ve built up my Instagram to about 76,000 people.
I don’t want to be an influencer, just share quick, easy, yummy things.
I throw in bloopers for fun.
I’ll announce what’s coming.
I audited my old platform to find popular recipes on Instagram.
Over 1,000 people requested and received between 8 and 40 recipes for free.
I want people to get recipes, try them, like them, and keep coming back.
Congratulations.
That’s a lot.
Okay, before we wrap up, I must ask about your mocktail guide.
What inspired its creation?
It’s a freebie, linked in show notes for curious or alcohol-free listeners.
I stopped drinking in university, a long time ago.
I drank only to get drunk.
I hated the taste.
I never acquired a taste for alcohol.
People asked what I drank.
I said water if I was thirsty or nothing.
It was annoying.
As I got older, more people stopped drinking.
My husband is all or nothing.
He drank a liter of water, but almost drowned himself from the inside out.
He had a medical issue around age 50 and stopped drinking during COVID.
He didn’t miss it.
For his birthday, I hired a bartender for a mocktail night.
There are many substitutes now that taste like alcohol but aren’t.
He said he doesn’t see why he’d ever drink again.
His friends in finance started to choose mocktails.
Drinking habits are changing.
Many are drinking less without feeling deprived.
If you drink for relaxation, there are other ways.
If you like the taste, there are substitutes.
If you want something in your hand at a party, you can do that.
Learning about alcohol’s impact makes it easier to quit.
I try not to preach because I didn’t have to shift my lifestyle.
But you’re not missing anything—you’re just as fun, funny, and remember everything.
That’s a great message.
Some people stopped drinking early and still get asked why.
Many women, including me, fear that question.
It’s a societal thing.
That’s why your mocktail guide is wonderful—adding that to holistic wellness is helpful.
Please share a recipe and your favorite mocktail pairing.
I got into one-pan meals because they’re quick and easy with fewer dishes.
You can throw ground meat or beans, onions, garlic, and peppers into a pot with rice and bone broth.
Bone broth is tasty and has collagen.
Add seasoning, boil, cover, and cook.
You can use chicken or sausage too.
For a mocktail, I like ginger beer mixed with orange juice, cranberry juice, and sparkling water.
And a sprig of fresh mint as garnish.
Stephanie, thank you so much for being here.
I’ll have links for Stephanie and her cookbook in the show notes.
Go buy her cookbook and follow her on Instagram.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Really appreciate your time.
Thank you so much for listening.
Wasn’t that a great conversation?
I’ll have every link for Stephanie below.
Go find her and connect with her.
Thank you for listening today.
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider following the podcast so you get every download, and leaving a rating and review.
It’s so helpful.
I’ll see you next week.
Take care of yourself this week, my friend.
Peace.
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