Words of Wellness with Shelly
Do you get confused by all of the information that is available regarding ways to improve your health and wellness? Do you often become frustrated or overwhelmed with decisions on how to be your healthiest? We all know and understand how important our health and wellness is to the vitality of our lives, however navigating the wealth of health and wellness information available can often feel overwhelming. Understanding the significance of our well-being in leading fulfilling lives is crucial, yet determining what steps to take that are essential for our health can often be confusing.
Welcome everyone to "Words of Wellness"! In this podcast, hosted by Shelly Jefferis, M.A., a seasoned health and wellness professional with over 35 years in the industry, all of your questions will be answered and clarity will be provided through personal stories, education, tips and inspiration. Throughout her profession, Shelly has always had the heart and desire to help others feel their best and live their best lives through her supportive and compassionate approach. Through engaging solo and guest episodes, several topics will be addressed, questions will be answered and clarity will be provided in an effort to lead you to a healthier, more energetic life. With a master’s degree in kinesiology, extensive experience as an educator, speaker, coach, and entrepreneur, Shelly brings a wealth of knowledge and a genuine passion for empowering others to feel their best. By featuring industry experts and relatable individuals, the podcast promises personal stories, practical advice, and inspiration. She is excited to come to you weekly sharing all she has experienced, learned and discovered through the years. Whether you're seeking to elevate your well-being, gain practical insights for personal health, or simply be inspired to live a high quality vibrant life, this is the podcast is for YOU! Be sure to tune in weekly and join us along our "Words of Wellness" journey and embark on a path toward a healthier and more fulfilling quality of life full of happiness, energy and joy!
Words of Wellness with Shelly
Shelly's Shares: How Simple Nutrition Choices Boost Longevity Without Counting Calories - Part Three of a 4-Part Series
Feeling stuck between strict diet rules and real life? We walk through a calm, practical path to eating for longevity that leaves room for joy. The focus is simple: build plates around plants and quality protein, lean on Mediterranean and heart-healthy patterns. No calorie tallying or macro micromanaging required unless a medical goal calls for it.
Shelly shares a personal moment navigating vertigo and sodium limits to show when numbers truly matter—and when they just add stress. From there, we map out a plate you can build by sight: half vegetables and salad, a quarter protein, and a quarter whole grains or starchy veg. We dig into protein pacing—adding protein soon after waking and about an hour before bed—to support muscle, metabolism, and overnight repair, with approachable options like yogurt, eggs, beans, fish, or a well-chosen shake to fill gaps on busy days.
You’ll also get a refresher on what makes Mediterranean and heart-healthy eating so durable: colorful plants, legumes, olive oil, nuts, fish, and fewer ultra-processed foods and added sugars. We round it out with hydration tactics that protect sleep, including when to add electrolytes and how to front-load fluids so your nights stay restful. The throughline is consistency built from small, repeatable actions—one extra serving of vegetables, one protein-rich breakfast, one refillable bottle within reach.
Ready to try it on your terms? Press play, pick one change, and report back on your win. If this helped, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a gentler roadmap, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find practical wellness without the noise.
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Thank you for listening to the Words of Wellness podcast with Shelly Jefferis. I am honored and so grateful to have you here and it would mean the world to me if you could take a minute to follow, leave a 5-star review and share the podcast with anyone you love and anyone you feel could benefit from the message.
Thank you and God Bless! And remember to do something for yourself, for your wellness on this day!
In Health,
Shelly
That's what this is about, my friends. To take small steps, take the tips, apply what works for you, do one small action at a time, and before you know it, everything adds up. And I promise, as you start to make the small steps, everything adds up over time. And before you know it, you are making all positive adjustments in your overall health and longevity. Do you get confused by all of the information that barbards us every day on ways to improve our overall health and our overall wellness? Do you often feel stuck, unmotivated, or struggle to reach your wellness goals? Do you have questions as to what exercises you should be doing, what foods you should or shouldn't be eating, how to improve your overall emotional and mental well-being? Hello everyone, I am so excited to welcome you to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelly Jeffries, and I will be your host. My goal is to answer these questions and so much more. To share tips, education, and inspiration around all of the components of wellness through solo and guest episodes. With 35 plus years as a health and wellness professional, a retired college professor, a speaker, and a multi-passionate entrepreneur, I certainly have lots to share. However, my biggest goal and inspiration in doing this podcast is to share the wellness stories of others with you. To bring in guests who can share their journeys so that we can all learn together while making an impact on the health, the wellness, and lives of all of you, our listeners. The ultimate hope is that you leave today with even just one nugget that can enhance the quality of your life, and that you will, we all will, now and into the future, live our best quality of lives full of energy, happiness, and joy. Now let's dive into our message for today. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to Words of Wellness. This is our Shelley's Shares episode, and today is part three in a four-part series that I'm sharing with you all about longevity and the four main areas of longevity I've been sharing, and it includes movement, sleep, food, and stress. And today I want to spend just a few minutes talking about food and how we are nourishing our bodies. So when it comes to our longevity, it might come as a surprise to many of you, but there really is no reason to be counting macros, counting calories. I mean, if you are in the middle of working towards a specific goal and you have some health concerns, let's say you are working on releasing some body weight, then it might be a different story. But what we want to focus on when it comes to longevity is fueling our body the best that we can, enjoying ourselves, enjoying what we're eating, and not feel restricted, not feel like we have to count what we're doing and count the calories and weigh our food and count the macros. I mean, that's just it's not for the average person when it comes to longevity, if we're eating in a healthy manner, it's really not necessary. Now I will share a personal story with everyone. Years ago, I was dealing with vertigo, and I've talked about it on my podcast before, but I was having episodes, and what had happened was I was diagnosed with Meneer's disease. And part of what I was recommended to do, I was recommended to really limit my sodium intake because the doctor was wanting to reduce the any inflammation, but also any kind of you know swelling or um that could that could happen from extra sodium, extra salt. And so it was recommended. I was put on a low, low sodium, low side sodium diet. And and back then that's what I focused on. That's I was dealing with a health issue. So I was doing taking some specific measures that were recommended to me by my doctor. So I use that as an example. If you are, you know, on a caloric restricted diet or you need to be cautious of how much sodium you're consuming. Um, you know, in those cases, then yeah, you might might want to look at some numbers and be aware of those numbers. I remember back then I was floored. I I hadn't really paid a lot of attention to sodium prior to that. And I'll never forget going in and looking to grab a ready-made sandwich at one of my past uh favorite coffee places that I no longer frequent. And I didn't look at anything else except for the sodium. And when I looked at the sodium content, some of those sandwiches had 12, 13, 1400, 1,400 milligrams of sodium, which was basically a day's worth. I I immediately then pretty much stopped eating those sandwiches. And this is this is no longer the case for me, thankfully. Nowadays, I I'm so grateful and uh so thankful I don't have that to deal with that any longer. But I am using that as an example in a case where you want to keep track of numbers of something. So depending on your health situation, you might need to. However, for the average person when it comes to our longevity, if you are eating, what is recommended to follow is the Mediterranean andor heart healthy diet. That's what's recommended when it comes to our longevity. They have found, research has found that following this kind of eating, it is healthier for our bodies, healthier for our heart health, uh, healthier for us when it comes to certain cancers. Now, again, nothing is for sure, but we are talking about taking preventative measures and what can we do now to live our best, feel our best now, and into the future. And this is part of it. So when it comes to the Mediterranean diet, it really mimics what people are eating in areas like Greece or Italy. It emphasizes whole plant foods, so a plant-based diet, um, legumes, beans, um, healthy fats like avocado, olive oil, and eating fish and poultry and limiting processed foods and limiting the amount of sugar that we consume. Now, that's a great, all of that is a great recommendation. Quite frankly, we should all be trying to follow that. There is also the heart healthy diet, which is very, very similar. It focuses again on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, consuming a low sodium diet, one that is low in saturated fat. And these are really great guidelines to follow. And if you are consuming this kind of food, then it reduces the reason for us to be keeping track of you know, macros or calories, weighing our food. Does anybody weigh their food? I personally have never weighed my food. Never. And I've never quite, again, I've never quite understood it, but I haven't had to do it. Now, again, if someone is having a health issue that they're dealing with, or maybe they have to be on a really strict um food and caloric intake for certain reasons, then that's a different story, right? We're talking about now just the average person and what's recommended when it comes to our longevity. Now, when you look at a plate of food, the majority of it, like half of it, we want it to be vegetables, fresh veggies, salad, veggies. A quarter of it can be our protein, and then the other part of it can be maybe a whole grain. And if you look at that kind of a plate and that that meal in and of itself, it's made up mostly again of plants, vegetables, and or salads. And and that's what we want to focus on. The other thing about this that's really important, and we're hearing it more and more shared about how important it is to get in plenty of protein. And I know I feel like that has kind of, I don't want to say become the buzzword, but I kind of feel like it's become a buzzword, and you hear about it all the time. And now different companies are putting protein, more protein in their their coffee products or their shakes or what have you. Now, this has been something that's important, and I've known this for a really, really long time the importance of getting enough protein into our day-to-day intake. Now, what is enough, you might ask. It is recommended that you consume the number of grams that equal your body weight or your goal body weight. Let's say, for example, you are I'm just gonna throw out a number, 150 pounds. You would like to weigh 140. Your protein intake, your goal would be 140 grams of protein per day. Now, for some of you, that might sound like a lot, but that is the recommendation. And when you consume protein with every meal, and then perhaps you have a little bit of protein within waking and before bed, which is recommended by my amazing friend Dr. Paul Arciero, who has done decades of research in this very topic, and he has designed what is called protein pacing, and he recommends bookending your days with protein. So, what does that look like? And I can share with you what I do. I get up and within an hour is the goal. Do I get that goal, get that protein in within the first hour? Not always, but the goal is to get in a little bit of protein the first hour of waking. For me personally, that looks like some pure undenatured whey protein. Just mixing that up, drinking that makes it really, really easy. And I can get 20 to 40 grams just like that. Same thing I do an hour before bed. Or yeah, usually it's about an hour before I go to bed, I'll do the same. Now I have a different type of protein powder that I use before bedtime that's a tri-release. So it's releasing that protein at various stages through the night. And that's my favorite protein to drink before bed. So I'll do the morning and the before bed, and then the protein with each meal. And what makes it really simple for me personally is that I do consume meal replacement, high-density nutrition shakes alongside my protein shakes. And so doing that in and of itself makes it so much easier to get in the proper amount of protein. And I'm happy to share with you all what I do. Feel free to reach out, and I can share with you what I consume and what makes it quite simple to get in all the protein that my body needs. So there's that, and that's a really important consideration, especially for those of us who are focusing on our longevity. That protein plays a really big role in our metabolism, in the strength of our muscles, our bones, um, and the repair in our bodies and our cells through the night. So if you're having a little bit before bed, and again, it doesn't have to be a protein shake, it could be some Greek yogurt with maybe a little bit of fruit or something that's going to give you a little bit of protein before bed. So these are all really important guidelines and suggestions to follow. What they have found through the research is following these protocols with the Mediterranean and the heart healthy diet, again, helps prevent heart disease, certain types of cancers, and just helps with our overall health and with our aging. And I want to also make sure that I mention hydration, drinking plenty of water. And along with that, it's important to also drink electrolytes so that you're really hydrating your body to the point that it needs to be hydrated. Water is very important, but we also need the electrolytes in addition to plain water. And again, how much water should we be drinking? Go back to your body weight, whatever it is, that is what you want to consume in ounces. So, my original example, if someone is 150 pounds, then their goal is to drink 150 ounces of water. So, you know, I see a lot of people, and I do the same thing, you fill up a really huge hydro flask or whatever it is you might have, and be able to determine how many ounces it holds, and then you drink that, you know, early in the day, throughout the day. You kind of want to limit how many fluids you drink in the evening hours just so it doesn't cause you to have to get up and urinate in the middle of the night because we also want to try and avoid having our sleep disrupted if we can. And if you didn't listen to that episode yet, we talked about that in the part two of this four-part series. So that's last week that we shared the episode on sleep. So, again, what I want to do, my goal in this four-part series, is to just give you some basic guidelines and tips that you can apply today that will be beneficial to your health, your wellness, and your longevity. And so today was part three, talking about food, nutrition, nourishing your body with high density nutrition is so important. Finding high quality protein, high-quality nutritious foods that can fulfill the needs that our body has for nutrients, minerals, vitamins, minimize the processed foods, minimize the sugars, minimize the sweets, but it doesn't mean you can't ever have them. And that's a big part of this. I want to really hit home with everyone is that this is not an all or nothing scenario. This is not meant to be restricted. And I love that. I have never been an all or nothing person, and I have always, as far back as I can remember, I have always given recommendations to my clients and my students. However, I will always say, but life is meant to be enjoyed. So enjoy yourself and do your best at consuming healthy foods, but you also want to enjoy your life. And that's a part of this too, is making these foods enjoyable. They taste good. So you can enjoy the moments, enjoy the meals with family friends, enjoy what you're eating and not have guilt and not feel restricted. That is not the idea whatsoever. So I want to encourage you this week to add in, if you're not already doing this, one of these suggestions, whether it be increase your protein. What is one other protein source that you can consume and maybe add to your daily intake? Or look at your plate at dinner, add more vegetables. What can you do to increase your vegetable intake? And then the last one, water. Look at your water. How much are you drinking on average per day? Do you need to increase that amount? And if so, take action to do that. So I want you to think about these tips. Apply just one, take one that you know you can incorporate and go with it. And then later on, a week, two down the road, three weeks, four weeks down the road, incorporate another tip. That's what this is about, my friends. To take small steps, take the tips, apply what works for you, do one small action at a time, and before you know it, everything adds up. And I promise, as you start to make the small steps, everything adds up over time. And before you know it, you are making all positive adjustments in your overall health and longevity. So, with that being said, have a wonderful, blessed rest of your week. Take time for yourself and your wellness and your food this week. Be creative. I would love to hear what you're doing. Feel free to reach out, send me a message over Instagram at wellnesswith Shelly J or at moms who flourish. And have a wonderful week, my friends. And I will see you next time on Words of Wellness. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. I hope you gained value and enjoyed our time together as much as I did. And if you know someone who could benefit from today's episode, I would love and appreciate it if you could share with a friend or rate and review Words of Wellness so that more can hear this message. I love and appreciate you all. Thank you for listening. And if you have any questions or topics you would like me to share in future episodes, please don't hesitate to reach out to me through my contact information that is shared in the show notes below. Again, thank you for tuning in to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelley Jeffries, and I encourage you to do something for you, for your wellness on this day. Until next time, I hope you all have a healthy, happy, and blessed week.