Perimenopause, Weight Loss, and the Secret to Simplifying Mealtime with Ashley Malik

Tanya Valentine
May 22
29 min read

Updated: May 26

What if healthy eating didn’t have to mean cooking separate meals, cutting out all your favorites, or completely flipping your life upside down?

In today’s episode, I’m chatting with the amazing Ashley Malik—a women's weight loss coach who helps busy moms to finally lose weight in perimenopause. After losing 65 lbs in her late 40s, Ashley developed a method to kick-start weight loss for women who have "tried everything, but nothing works". Based on 10+ years of research, personal experience, and endless doctors appointments, her method has helped hundreds of midlife women lose weight, gain energy, and live the happy life they deserve!

With her personal journey inspiring readers of First For Women, Woman's World, and the Thyroid Cure, Ashley supports women in achieving their weight loss goals through individualized coaching, group programs, and The Family Fork podcast.

We dive into:

The truth about perimenopause and hidden inflammation
How to know if you’re in perimenopause even if your doctor hasn’t told you

Ashley’s “component cooking” hack that makes one meal work for the whole family—even picky eaters!

Her “3 nights a week” cooking strategy that simplifies healthy eating without sacrificing flavor or fun

How to shift your mindset when you keep “starting over” but not seeing results
The real reason consistency is the key (and what’s actually getting in your way)

Plus, Ashley shares her favorite anti-inflammatory foods and how moms can stop feeling guilty for prioritizing their health.

Resources Mentioned:

The New Menopause by Dr. Mary Claire Haver: Grab it here
Connect with Ashley + get her free guides (like one that helps you cook a whole week of meals in just 3 nights/week!): www.ashleymalik.com
Ashley’s podcast: The Family Fork

Let’s stay connected!

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Or hey—just say hi!

You’re not alone on this journey, and your message might even inspire a future episode!

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Transcript

Today’s guest is Ashley Malik—a women’s weight loss coach, mom of two, Bebe (aka grandma!), and total powerhouse when it comes to helping midlife moms take control of their health. After losing 65 pounds in her late 40s while raising kids and juggling a demanding schedule, Ashley discovered the power of anti-inflammatory nutrition—not just for weight loss, but for balancing hormones, healing from the inside out, and finally feeling like herself again.

In this episode, Ashley shares how to simplify healthy eating with a busy family, including her genius “component cooking” and “3 nights a week” meal strategies—so moms can nourish themselves without cooking separate meals for everyone else. She’s here to disrupt the midlife weight loss industry with family-friendly solutions, practical mindset shifts, and permission to finally prioritize your health, even in the middle of chaos.

If you’ve ever thought, “I don’t have time,” or “I’ve tried everything and nothing works,”—this episode is your game-changer.

Let’s dive in!

Tanya: All right. Welcome to the momentum. Podcast. Ashley. Thank you so much for coming on today.

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Ashley Malik: Thank you, Tanya. I'm so so excited to be here.

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Tanya: I am, too. I'm so happy to have you on. Now let's just start. Will you just share a bit about your journey? What inspired you to start helping moms in perimenopause with weight, loss, and nutrition.

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Ashley Malik: Yeah, absolutely. So I am a mom. I have a little bit of a different family look. So I have a 24 year old. Who is out of the house. He's married and has a little baby, so that makes me a grandma and I also have a 6 year old, and so I sort of started over with a new husband and a new life, and we wanted to have a kiddo. And

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Ashley Malik: through all of this journey. About 12 years ago, I started really experiencing some health issues, and I couldn't. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. And so I spent 3 years going to different doctors, and you know, endocrinologists and a cardiologist and my regular Gp. And

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Ashley Malik: everyone would say the same thing like, I don't know. You look, you look fine. You look fine, laps look fine, and I'm like, but I don't

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Ashley Malik: feel fine. And so through this journey, and about 3 years into the journey I discovered that I had Hashimoto's, which is a autoimmune disease that impacts your thyroid and hypothyroidism as well, and then severe nutrient deficiencies. So the food that I was eating wasn't like none of the nutrients were getting into my body.

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Ashley Malik: And so I realized then, just through working with my then functional practitioner at the time, and some of my own research that food was going to be the biggest

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Ashley Malik: impact in how I changed my life, and sure there might have been medications and some other things, but food was really going to be the main driver, and so, as I started to heal myself I was able to lose weight. I lost 65 pounds in my late forties.

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Tanya: Oh, my word!

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Ashley Malik: Really like changed my relationship with food. And I did all of this by figuring out a strategy that worked for me and for my family. Because if you're a mom, you know, your family wants to eat certain foods. And so when you decide like, hey eating healthy foods. And they're like, yeah, I am not eating zucchini noodles like.

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Tanya: Right.

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Ashley Malik: Get that I get that. And so once I realized how impactful food could be in my journey and in other women that I was working with in perimenopause.

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Ashley Malik: I was like this, we have to talk more about this we have to share. How do we balance motherhood? And making sure that we take care of ourselves.

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Ashley Malik: fuel our bodies, the way that we need to, but in a way that still works, so that we can have a family and have a life. And if our kids want to eat Doritos, they can still eat Doritos. We have to be able to do it all.

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Tanya: Right? Yeah, and also not be making like a million different things. Because who has time for that.

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Ashley Malik: Nobody has time. We do not have time. No, we don't. That's why. For a while I was a single mom, and I like to tell the story that you know in that season of life my son was really really busy. He was a snowboarder. He was involved with a lacrosse team, and at that time I was working over 60 HA week and commuting 2 HA day, and so there was no time. There was no.

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Tanya: Time.

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Ashley Malik: I wanted to prioritize being a mom and not feel like I had to make him a meal and make myself a meal. And so that's where a lot of my strategies came from is just, you know. They say necessity is the motherhood of invention, like I had to figure it out, so that I still felt well fed.

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Ashley Malik: as did my son. But I wasn't spending a lot of time in the kitchen, and I wasn't making extra food.

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Tanya: Yeah. Yeah.

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Tanya: So you lost you said 65 pounds.

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Tanya: That was during that was when you've got your diagnosed, or after you got your diagnosis of Hashimoto's, and you were.

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Ashley Malik: Yeah. It was quite a while after I got my diagnosis. I think there was sort of a fluctuation of about 2025 pounds for a couple of years, and then it wasn't until after I had had my daughter in 2019

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Ashley Malik: I lost some of the baby weight, but I was still. Really I was just struggling. I was really deeply struggling, both mentally and physically, and so I kind of went back to my roots of what I had discovered right after my diagnosis, started putting those strategies into play again. And so

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Ashley Malik: postpartum perimenopause like I was up mental health issues. I was up against it all. And the thing that helped was food eating the right kinds of food to fuel my body to balance hormones, which is kind of like a social media term right now. Really creating those methods that allowed me to just take the weight off and to keep it off. I've kept it off for years, and

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Ashley Malik: it's that I feel so passionate about helping women figure out how to do that, because there's a lot of noise out there, and a lot of the things don't work.

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Ashley Malik: or they don't work for moms, or they don't work in the way that we need them to. And so that's really where my passion comes from is helping women to to do the thing that I did. It's possible it's absolutely possible.

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Tanya: So speaking of that, what do you think are some of the biggest misconceptions you see around weight loss specifically for women in their thirties and forties.

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Ashley Malik: Yeah, I often like to say that I am working to disrupt the midlife weight, loss, industry. I think there are so many conversations right now around. You know, like, well, you just need to like

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Ashley Malik: eat more protein, or you need to, you know, track Macros, or you need to put on muscle. And the problem is that it's all of those things. And I think a lot of moms that I work with, especially that I talked to just even in my neighborhood. And at the schools

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Ashley Malik: moms are overwhelmed and busy, and we have too much information. So what happens is, we start looking for like a quick fix like, Oh, I just need a different meal plan. Or I just need a different workout program. That is, gonna help me. Or that's fast or.

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Tanya: Somebody tell me what to do.

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Ashley Malik: Somebody tell me what to do, and I felt that way like I know how it feels like. Just give me the plan, please, and help me figure this out. And a lot of women now, because there's more conversation about it, are turning to like supplements or hormone replacement therapy, thinking that that is the thing, and it's all of those things, and it's none of those things. It has to be a very like fully baked approach.

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Ashley Malik: But what happens is we get into this mindset of saying too overwhelmed. I can't figure this out. I can't put these 17 pieces together on my own, and so we quit, and we just kind of give up. And we say, Well, that diet plan didn't work, or that hormone replacement therapy didn't work. It's because we're not doing it in a very strategic way, and we don't have what I like to call a success mindset around

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Ashley Malik: figuring it out, working through the hard, and then actually getting to a place where we see those results.

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Tanya: And then what about you? Talk about anti-inflammatory nutrition? Can you explain what that means, and why it's so important for women in perimenopause?

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Ashley Malik: Yeah, definitely. So this was the nutrition approach when I was diagnosed with thyroid issues and gut health issues, anti-inflammatory nutrition became a thing that I was like. I got to learn more about this so many people when they hear that term, they think, oh, that means I have to like, take out all the good stuff right like I have to take out gluten or sugar or alcohol like. Those are the things that most people sort of want to hold on to.

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Tanya: Yeah.

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Ashley Malik: So it is looking at taking out those foods that are causing inflammation, like sugar, like alcohol, like, you know, gluten.

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Tanya: Somehow.

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Ashley Malik: But there's also another element of adding in foods that fight inflammation and can help decrease inflammation

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Ashley Malik: when you're in perimenopause. This is so important because estrogen is one of the hormones that helps to regulate inflammation in our body, and during perimenopause we start losing it. It fluctuates wildly. And so because we don't have our body working in our best interest. We have to do something else to support

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Ashley Malik: our body, to feel better. So the more anti-inflammatory foods that we can eat, the more

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Ashley Malik: processed foods that we can take away, the easier it is for our body, especially when we're having those hormone fluctuations the easier it's going to be for us to feel better. And that inflammation shows up in areas like weight gain, which is often why, you know, women probably find us. They're like, you know, I'm gaining weight, and I don't know what to do about it.

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Ashley Malik: but it also shows up in areas like brain fog, sore joints like we start to notice like, Oh, my hip is starting to hurt, or my, you know my shoulders are starting to get achy, that is hidden inflammation. And so the more we can do as our hormones fluctuate to help our bodies, the better we are going to feel.

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Tanya: So what are can you give a few examples of some like anti-inflammatory foods?

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Ashley Malik: Yeah, definitely. So I mean, it's going to be things that you think about like veggies. Veggies are great because veggies are full of fiber and fiber helps to clear your gut, which helps to balance your estrogen. So that kind of thing is going to be good. But I also think that there's, you know, like Tacos. There are ways to make tacos that are anti-inflammatory. We can add things like cinnamon and cumin. A lot of

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Tanya: Like South Asian and Middle Eastern spices are really good for reducing inflammation right.

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Ashley Malik: Turmeric. It's so so good. Actually, just this morning read an interesting article around Saffron, and how helpful saffron is in fighting inflammation. So when you think about cooking with like

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Ashley Malik: warm sort of South Asian Indian inspired spices that's going to be really helpful. But also your basic things like fresh berries. And you know, fruits that are low in sugar, vegetables, eggs. These types of just like very basic single ingredient foods are typically pretty anti-inflammatory.

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Tanya: And you know what else I have been doing for over a year, and I can't remember it might even be 2 years now, celery juice. So I used to have psoriasis like so bad. And it started when I was like in 5th grade and

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Tanya: it's funny it like went away for some years, you know they say your body changes like your hormones change like every 7 years.

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Tanya: but like it went away, and then it had come back, and then each time I was pregnant it would go away, because it's an autoimmune disease, and when you're pregnant your immune system is down. So it's like your body's like calming down and not trying to like attack itself. But, anyway, so it came back after I had my 3rd child, and I started drinking celery juice in the morning, and my psoriasis is gone.

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Ashley Malik: That's awesome. That's awesome.

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Tanya: I mean, it doesn't taste the best, but like it's just like my routine. I don't do it every. It's probably like 3 to maybe 5 days a week in the morning. I'll just drink it on an empty stomach, and I won't mix it with anything. I swear by it.

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Ashley Malik: Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's a Testament to how healthy our gut lining is is how healthy the rest of our body is going to be.

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Tanya: Yeah.

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Ashley Malik: If you're experiencing skin issues. And again, a lot of this stuff starts to come up in like your early thirties, you're like, where did this come from what is happening? It's because our hormones are disrupting our gut. Health.

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Tanya: And.

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Ashley Malik: Do everything we can to support that gut health with that anti-inflammatory nutrition, so that we feel good. We don't have, you know, weird skin rashes and things that we're like. I don't know where this is coming from. It all stems from gut health, all of it.

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Tanya: so what are some common signs that a woman might be in perimenopause even if she hasn't officially been diagnosed.

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Ashley Malik: Yeah, there are so many there are, there are so many. And I think this is what makes it hard, because

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Ashley Malik: collectively, it can look like a lot of other things, you know a lot of other problems. And so I think one of the 1st signs is that you start to notice weight gain, and it's weight gain around the middle. And you only know this, if you've been there because for a long time I was like.

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Ashley Malik: you know. I think I'm in perimenopause, but my weight is fine. And then I started getting this like spare tire around my midsection, and I couldn't get rid of it. And so I think that is a big indicator. Again, just because our hormones are doing different things in our bodies.

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Ashley Malik: But everything from not being able to sleep well, to starting to have like night sweats feeling like, Oh, my gosh! I'm so much hot, or maybe you're not having hot flashes during the day, but

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Ashley Malik: sweating at night and waking up and thinking what's going on here. Poor sleep, low libido is definitely one of those things. I think a lot of women who are starting perimenopause

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Ashley Malik: start to encounter, just like frustration, a low frustration tolerance. So you know, really feeling like gosh, I'm snapping at my family. I'm snapping at my kids and annoyed at the car in front of me. So there's a lot of signs, and I am a huge advocate of testing, because I think

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Ashley Malik: we do a lot of guessing and

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Ashley Malik: sort of back to what we were talking about earlier. A lot of moms are feeling overwhelmed and taxed out with information. They're like, I don't know. I'm just gonna get some magnesium on Amazon, or I'm just gonna like, try some vitamin d.

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Ashley Malik: I don't have time to go make a doctor's appointment. And

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Ashley Malik: yes, yeah. And I think what happens is that we start

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Ashley Malik: overcompensating with these like quick fixes or things we think might help. And you can actually do a lot of damage. So I think it's important to start testing early advocate for yourself. Find a doctor who is willing to say, yes, I'll test your hormones when you're like 2830 years old.

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Ashley Malik: if nothing more than to say we have a baseline of what your hormones look like, so that we can understand year over year what kind of changes there are, what kind of fluctuations, and that you can be more proactive in getting support when you feel like you need it most.

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Tanya: Okay? And what kind of like are we just going to our general practitioner? Or are we finding like a function, I would guess, like a functional medicine doctor. But the thing is, I know that those are can be hard to find, like we were talking before we

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Tanya: recorded this about, like. I'm sure that they are. There are many where you live in Colorado, but around where I live in Indiana they are few and far between.

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Tanya: So what would you recommend like just general practitioner? And are there like specific hormones that do we say like test? For can you test for my estrogen? Are you just saying like in general, will you test for my hormones, and like trusting that they'll know what to test for.

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Ashley Malik: Yeah, it's I think that's a great question. Because I think yes, functional medicine sees things differently. So they're gonna be. Those practitioners are gonna be a good resource. But

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Ashley Malik: really you need to find a doctor who's going to listen to you. And so there's a book out there by a doctor. Her name's Dr. Mary Claire Haver, and it's called the New Menopause, and I really would recommend that even in your early thirties grab this book and start learning about how to advocate for what you need in terms of testing. So your general practitioner, I think a lot of women often hear

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Ashley Malik: your general practitioner, even your gynecologist.

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Tanya: Yeah, okay.

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Ashley Malik: Say, you know. Oh, you're too young, or we don't need to do that yet.

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Ashley Malik: Find somebody that will do it for you. And so I am not a doctor, so I don't necessarily want to say what tests you should get.

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Tanya: Okay.

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Ashley Malik: But if you're testing for sex hormones, you're going to get things that you're going to get, the results that we will be able to track over time

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Ashley Malik: that allow you to say, oh, yes, I am seeing fluctuations in my estrogen, or my progesterone, or my testosterone like these are some of the tests that you need to get. But I think that book by Dr. Mary Claire Haver is really really informative, and I just want women in their twenties to read it. So they know what to look for, and they know how to start being an advocate for themselves.

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Tanya: That's great, and thank you so much for sharing that I had not heard of that one, and I'll make sure I link that in the show notes, too. So you have a family centered approach to nutrition. And how do you balance Mom's health? Mom's health goals with kids, picky palates, or different preferences.

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Ashley Malik: I think this was especially being a single mom for so many years. This, this was the thing that like unlocked it all for me in being able to understand if I didn't fuel myself appropriately for what I needed. My health goals, my mental health goals, all of it. I wasn't going to be able to be the mom that I needed to be. But, like I mentioned, you know, my son at that time was busy with lacrosse and snowboarding he wanted like

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Ashley Malik: ribs every night, and mashed potatoes and cornbread. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm going to have these like Zucchini noodles and brown Turkey like it. Just we were so different in what we needed. And so I developed this technique that I call component cooking. And the idea is that in my house. We don't have

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Ashley Malik: lasagnas or casseroles, or like one dish meals everything that I cook, I cook in these different components, so that if we're having, you know, even like spaghetti, for example.

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Ashley Malik: I know I can have the spaghetti sauce and the ground beef that goes in the sauce, so can my family. But I'm going to use brown rice and riced cauliflower as my base, whereas my family is going to use just traditional spaghetti noodles. And so the idea is that we're creating components that allow everybody to meet their dietary preferences and wishes like.

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Tanya: Thank you.

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Ashley Malik: Spaghetti. So it's easy for me to conceivably make that I just need to make some modifications for myself that allow me to eat the same meal. But then, that way everybody gets what they want. We can do side dishes, you know. If if kids want more cheese, or you know other toppings or ranch dressing like they can do that, and I can do my own thing. But the key is to cook in components and not to do one dish meals because it makes it more flexible that way.

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Tanya: I love that that's so smart.

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Tanya: So next tell us about your 3 nights a week cooking strategy. How does it work? And how can it help overwhelmed moms? Stick to healthy habits.

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Ashley Malik: Yes, so this was the other thing. So earlier I had said. You know, I was working over 60 HA week. I was commuting 2 HA day, and so I like with snowboarding and lacrosse, and all the things that we did like. I went and didn't have time for meal, planning or prepping on the weekend. There just was no time for that. And so with component cooking.

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Ashley Malik: the other benefit of it is that you can batch, cook while you cook. So say on Monday night you're going to make 3 pounds of ground turkey, and you can season it in just one particular way.

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Ashley Malik: Half of that ground, Turkey you're going to use that night for Tacos, but then you're gonna save half that ground turkey and use it on Thursday night to make a different dish. My family doesn't love leftovers. They will eat them.

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Tanya: Don't, either. It drives me nuts.

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Ashley Malik: A lot of families are like. No, I am not going to eat that again for the 3rd night in a row. And so this way. What you're doing is you are batch cooking while you cook.

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Ashley Malik: and you only have to cook 3 nights in a week. Then you have enough components to create something different. So if you're going to like grill chicken on Sunday night, and you're going to make fajitas. With that, you make some extra grilled chicken. And then on Friday night you can make Greek chicken bowls with the same chicken. It's just gonna taste different. It's gonna have a different texture, and everything.

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Ashley Malik: It's just not leftovers, and you've only had to cook 3 nights in a week.

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Tanya: That's so smart. I love this.

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Tanya: I'm gonna use it.

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Tanya: So what are then a few of your favorite go-to meals that are both anti-inflammatory and Kid approved.

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Ashley Malik: Definitely so. Tacos tacos are always a win. And again, you can create like

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Ashley Malik: hot peppers are not necessarily anti-inflammatory. Hot peppers like jalapenos and serranos like that can cause a problem for inflammation in your body. And so maybe your family really likes the Jalapenos, but you don't have to put them on there. So the Tacos are easy chicken ramen bowls I love again. It's the same idea we have components that we're going to put into a broth.

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Ashley Malik: We're going to put some rice noodles in there. It's still anti-inflammatory, but your family can add other things that you might not add Greek chicken bowls was the other one that I mentioned. We love that. And so if your kids don't like olives or they don't like feta cheese, no problem. You can use some of those things your family can put what they want.

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Ashley Malik: So anything that's just really flexible. And I do think it's important to get your family on board. When you want to talk like you're thinking about eating healthy.

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Ashley Malik: Get your family's buy in. Ask them what are your 5 favorite meals that mom usually cooks and then start to think about, okay, how can I adjust these so that they are more component style, and that we can make some modifications? So it's still anti-inflammatory, but my family will still eat it, because if your family's on board, they're going to be more willing to say, Okay, we'll give that a try, and I think they'll be pretty happy with what they get.

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Tanya: Yeah, definitely include them in the decision making. And yes, they're more likely to eat. I've definitely had that experience with my kids. And it's so funny. We're talking about Tacos, because guess what we're having Tacos tonight.

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Tanya: I did the the crock pot chicken tacos, which are so easy. Have you ever done those.

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Ashley Malik: Yes, they're so easy.

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Tanya: Oh, my God, it's so easy! If anyone's listening haven't. If you haven't done chicken crock pot Tacos, like you need

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Tanya: save your life. You literally just throw the chicken in there and then Taco seasoning and salsa. And you're done. You're done.

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Tanya: Okay. So for the mom, who feels like she's tried everything and nothing works anymore. What would you say to her like regarding weight loss? Where should she start.

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Ashley Malik: Yeah. So I think that it's important to notice that

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Ashley Malik: we have a lot of tools at our disposal. But the tools are only as good as we use them.

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Tanya: Yeah.

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Ashley Malik: So I think it's very easy to say. You know, I tried that like workout approach, or whatever, and it didn't work. I didn't. I didn't lose weight, or I tried that meal plan or that diet approach. It just didn't work. I never lost any weight. And what I want to encourage moms to ask themselves is 2 different questions. 1st of all is, how many times have I started over

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Ashley Malik: when you start to look at how many times you've said. Oh, my gosh! I'll just start again on Monday. I'll just start again next month.

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Ashley Malik: What we start to notice is that there's a pattern of thinking that's really like our mindset around our diet, our nutrition, how we feel about weight loss. And if we're recognizing that we're starting over a lot, we're actually not being consistent. We're not giving that meal plan, that workout approach enough time to work because we get frustrated, we get overwhelmed. It's not working as fast as we want it to. And so we just.

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Tanya: That's it. It's not working as fast as we wanted to like. It's learning to delay gratification like

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Tanya: stay committed and stay consistent with it like it will. And and I think it's too like the wording, like I noticed you said. And I noticed this is what people say. I tried, or I will try. No, you don't say you try, because when you try, do some try to do something lots of times it just ends up.

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Ashley Malik: Like you. Yeah, you don't.

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Tanya: Right. You don't end up following through because you just. And then you can just let yourself off the hook because you can say, well, I tried. Yeah, but that was your mindset through the whole thing like you're not gonna

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Tanya: have a successful result. If you're just trying.

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Ashley Malik: Yeah, yeah. And that's exactly it. And so I think that's why we need to ask ourselves, how many times am I actually starting over like, did I start like start tracking it? And just being aware, because if you notice that you are continually starting over, you're actually not like continuing or completing

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Ashley Malik: the approach, or the program, or the meal plan, or the whatever I think. Another question to ask is, how many times am I making exceptions? So a lot of times we like to say, oh, you know. But I did so well over the last, you know, 3 months, and then you look back, and you're like, Oh.

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Ashley Malik: well, we did that weekend vacation in the mountains. And then there was so and so's birthday, and I had 2 pieces of cake there, and we went out for happy hour a couple of times. I definitely had more like tapas and appetizers, and before you notice it

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Ashley Malik: you can.

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Tanya: That.

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Ashley Malik: Like, Oh, my gosh, that is a lot of extra calories. That is a lot of extra. You know, things that you probably weren't accounting for. And so I think when we start looking at, how often am I starting over, and how often am I taking exceptions?

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Ashley Malik: Those 2 things will give you a really good lens into understanding.

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Ashley Malik: I'm actually not doing the meal plan very well at all. I'm actually not doing the workouts very well at all. And so we have to have that hard conversation with ourselves. To say, this is why I'm not getting results. It's not because the the meal plan or the workouts, or whatever. It's not because they didn't work. It's because I'm not thinking the right way and actually being consistent with the program.

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Tanya: So what I'm hearing you say is reflect, get honest with yourself, and take full responsibility, and not in a way that is blaming yourself or degrading yourself.

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Tanya: but in a way that puts you in a position where? Yeah, you're taking responsibility for it. And that's empowering. Because if you take full responsibility. Then

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Tanya: that is your like. You can make the change. It's completely up to you, and you can see. Oh, well, this is the reason why I haven't been able to lose weight. It's not because of the diet or the workout. It's because I haven't. I haven't been consistent.

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Tanya: And then you get to the bottom of it. Well, why haven't I been consistent.

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Ashley Malik: Yes, yes, exactly.

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Tanya: Cool.

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Tanya: So we're kind of talking about this. But how do mindset and self-care play into the work you do with moms? And do you see, emotional eating or stress come into play often.

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Ashley Malik: Yeah, that's a great question. So

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Ashley Malik: the mindset piece is interesting because it it really connects to what we were just talking about that

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Ashley Malik: a lot of women. Okay, so you get real with yourself. And you're like, okay, I'm not doing the workouts consistently, or I'm not eating that nutrition plan consistently.

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Ashley Malik: But the key is to look at like why we're struggling to do that. And

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Ashley Malik: what we know to be so true is that our thoughts and our feelings are what actually give us our results. It has nothing to do with being in perimenopause, being an overwhelmed mom, not, you know, not sticking to the workout plan, not sticking to the meal plan.

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Ashley Malik: It's how we think about it and how we feel about it. And so let me sort of give a couple of examples like, if you say to your family, okay, we're going to eat really healthy 3 nights a week, and I want everyone to like, buy into this and those 3 nights a week your family complains, and they whine, and they don't want to do it, and they don't eat, and everyone bickers at the table and like it just it feels bad. And you walk away from those nights of dinner

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Ashley Malik: feeling maybe embarrassed or shameful, that, like.

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Tanya: Defeated, defeated.

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Ashley Malik: Yeah, I tried, and it's not working. I need to do this for me, but I don't have any support. And so you feel really frustrated, and if you're honest with yourself, most of us will say.

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Ashley Malik: forget it. I just don't. I don't want to cause so much trouble with the family. And so it's not. It's not that you might have weight to lose, or you're in perimenopause, or any of those things. It's that you feel badly when you try and advocate for help with your family, and they aren't supportive of you. And so the result is that you don't lose weight. You don't feel better. You don't start sleeping better like you don't. You don't get the result.

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Ashley Malik: Another thing that I see with a lot of women is around drinking and happy hours.

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Ashley Malik: So a lot of women will

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Ashley Malik: really like they're sticking to their meal plan as much as they can, and they're like, probably crushing it in the gym or at their home, you know, workout space.

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Ashley Malik: but they end up going out for happy hours with the girls on a Thursday on a Tuesday, whatever it is, and they do this pretty regularly, and what they hear when they go out.

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Ashley Malik: If they have decided, I either don't want to drink, or I'm going to slow down my drinking, or I don't want to have all the you know the appetizers and that kind of thing. They hear their girlfriend say, Oh, come on, it just loosen up! Let go! We're having so much fun. It's girls night, and that creates a feeling of again.

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Ashley Malik: Probably shame like I feel shame that I'm in a place where I need to make changes to my alcohol use or my appetizers, or whatever

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Ashley Malik: I feel embarrassed. I feel frustrated, I feel left out. That's another.

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Tanya: Yes, you don't.

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Ashley Malik: Really think about it.

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Tanya: We're like deprived because everybody else around you, and you don't want to miss out.

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Ashley Malik: Yeah. And so as a result, what do we do? We give in.

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Tanya: Plus. And then we're battling our own inner like, especially if this is something new that you haven't been like. If you're trying to like drink less, or you're if you don't want to eat appetizers, you have, like your own inner battle, going on within yourself like you want to eat. You want to have that drink, but you but also you don't. And then you have your friends that are like, come on just this. It's just one night like, it's girls, night like, we're all doing it like, loosen up. Yeah, it's like.

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Ashley Malik: Friends like they don't. They don't intend to derail you.

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Tanya: Of course not.

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Ashley Malik: I also want you to feel, include, like everyone wants to feel included. Everyone wants to feel like they're not left out. And so to have someone who's like bucking the system there and saying, I'm not going to drink. The other women

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Ashley Malik: might actually think like, Oh, is she doing something that I should be doing. No, I don't want to think about that.

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Tanya: Yeah, absolutely.

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Ashley Malik: Our own personal thought around it. But this is why I try and say, I want to disrupt the way that we do weight loss in midlife, because it's not the plan. It's not the approach it really comes down to, how we think and how we feel about what it is that we're trying to do, getting rid of food, getting rid of alcohol changing. You know how often we eat or how often we move our body.

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Ashley Malik: We have to let our nervous system be okay with all of that, and that is the hardest work, the hardest work. But it's also the most rewarding. And it's how you make long, lasting changes. If you can shift your mindset.

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Ashley Malik: the rest of it honestly, is a piece of cake. It's really just shifting the way that we think and feel

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Ashley Malik: so that we can actually see the results that we're looking for.

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Tanya: Yeah, it's foregoing that instant gratification for the delayed gratification.

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Tanya: 100%. Yeah.

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Tanya: awesome. All right. This has been awesome. Ashley. Can you share? Where can listeners connect with you? Learn more, or grab some of your recipes and resources?

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Ashley Malik: Yeah, definitely. So a couple of places definitely come visit me online. ashleymalick.com MALI K. And there's a bunch of like free guides and resources. There's blog articles. And then I would love for people to come. Listen to my podcast it's called the Family fork. And we're we're having this conversation around mindset nutrition family tying it all together.

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Ashley Malik: So it's really it's fun. It comes out every Tuesday and so find find me either of those places, but I'd I'd love to connect with people.

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Tanya: Oh, I love that. I'm gonna listen to your podcast. Too. I did not realize you had a podcast.

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Tanya: All right, Ashley, thank you. So much for coming on and sharing your wisdom. I'm so excited for everybody to hear this episode. I cannot wait to hear everybody's feedback. Everybody find Ashley on social media, go over to her website and check out all of her free guides and resources, check out her podcast the family fork.

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Tanya: Thank you so much. Ashley and everybody have an amazing week. I will talk to you next week. Bye.

Empowering Moms to Thrive:
Find Balance, Health, and Peace in Everyday Life

Perimenopause, Weight Loss, and the Secret to Simplifying Mealtime with Ashley Malik

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