Sugar is everywhere in our modern diet, and while it may taste good in the moment, it can have a major impact on how we feel physically and mentally.

In this episode of the Nourished Living Podcast, Courtney breaks down how refined sugar affects your body, why it can worsen symptoms like anxiety, fatigue, and irritability, and how blood sugar spikes and crashes can leave you feeling shaky, overwhelmed, and craving more sweets.

You’ll learn how to identify hidden sugars in packaged foods, what to look for on nutrition labels, and simple ways to enjoy sweetness without throwing your body into a blood sugar roller coaster.

If you struggle with anxiety, energy crashes, or intense sugar cravings, this episode will help you understand what’s happening in your body and how to make simple swaps that support more stable energy and a calmer nervous system.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

• How refined sugar impacts blood sugar and insulin levels
• Why blood sugar spikes and crashes can trigger anxiety symptoms
• Hidden sources of sugar on nutrition labels
• The many names sugar can appear as in packaged foods
• Healthier alternatives to refined sugar
• Simple sweet snack ideas that support stable blood sugar

Healthier Sweet Options Mentioned:

• Local honey
• 100% pure maple syrup
• Applesauce
• Ripe bananas
• Agave syrup
• Coconut sugar
• Dates

Better Sweet Treat Ideas:

• 70% or higher dark chocolate
• Apples with peanut butter (a balance of carbs, fat, and protein)
• Trail mix with dark chocolate chips, nuts, seeds, and dried fruit
• Homemade baked goods using natural sweeteners

Hidden Names for Sugar to Watch For (Screenshot!):

• Ingredients ending in “syrup” (corn syrup, brown rice syrup, caramel syrup)
• Ingredients ending in “ose” (glucose, fructose, dextrose)
• Malt ingredients (barley malt, maltodextrin, maltose)
• Cane and crystal ingredients (cane juice, cane crystals)
• Any ingredient containing “sugar” (beet sugar, confectioner's sugar) 
• Anything that begins with "iso-" (isoglucose)

Always check both the nutrition label and the ingredient list to get the full picture of what’s in your food.

Free Webinar

If anxiety is something you struggle with, join me for a FREE LIVE training to help you begin regulating your nervous system and creating more calm in your daily life.

How to Stop Living in Survival Mode: Create Calm as Your Baseline

In this training you’ll learn:

• How to reduce anxiety naturally
• How to move your body out of fight-or-flight mode
• How to begin using food as medicine for your nervous system
• Simple in-the-moment tools to calm anxiety when it hits

Save your spot here!

Connect with Courtney: 

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. Your support helps more people discover the podcast and learn how to nourish their bodies naturally.

Instagram: @healthywithcourtneyy

We all know that feeling: it’s 2:00 PM, you ate lunch a few hours ago, and suddenly you’re dragging. Brain fog. Zero motivation. Reaching for another coffee feels inevitable.

In today’s episode, Courtney shares simple, practical ways to boost your energy quickly without relying on stimulants, sugar, or riding the crash cycle all day long.

You’ll learn how to work with your body instead of against it so you can feel steady, clear, and energized.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why more coffee and sugar only make energy crashes worse
• How movement instantly increases circulation, oxygen, and endorphins
• The surprising way to eat carbs for quick energy (without the crash)
• Simple carb + protein/fat pairings you can grab on the go
• How dehydration mimics fatigue
• Why you should always eat breakfast before coffee

Key Takeaway

Food should energize you not exhaust you.

Start noticing:

• Which meals leave you tired?
• Which meals make you feel energized?

Small tweaks can completely shift how you feel throughout the day!

If you’re enjoying the Nourished Living Podcast, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review.. it helps the show reach more women who are ready to feel energized, balanced, and truly nourished in their bodies.

Connect with Courtney: 

- Instagram: @healthywithcourtneyy

- Nervous System Regulation Free Guide

In Part 3 of the anxiety series, Courtney answers your most submitted questions about anxiety... from physical symptoms and sleep struggles to meditation frustration and why anxiety can show up even when life seems “fine.”

If you’ve ever thought…

• “Why do I feel anxious for no reason?”
• “Why doesn’t meditation work for me?”
• “Why does my anxiety get worse at night?”

This episode is for you.

What We Cover:

1️⃣ Simple Anxiety Tips That Work for All Ages

2️⃣ Physical Symptoms of Anxiety

3️⃣ Why Meditation Might Feel Like It Doesn’t Work

4️⃣ Calming Anxiety at Night

5️⃣ Does Anxiety Get Worse with Age?

6️⃣ Why You Feel Anxious Even When Nothing Is Wrong

Resources mentioned:

• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
• The Headspace app

Free Guide For You!

If you wake up anxious, even when there’s no clear reason, Courtney created something specifically for you:

The 10-Minute Calm Morning Reset

Inside you’ll find:

• A 3-minute guided meditation
• A 6-minute guided meditation
• A simple structure to start your day grounded and regulated

Designed to help you begin your day in the parasympathetic “rest and digest” state so anxiety isn’t running the show before your feet hit the floor.

Download it HERE!!

Connect with Courtney: 

- Instagram: @healthywithcourtneyy

In Part 2 of this anxiety series, Courtney shares exactly how she manages and reduces her anxiety using food, nutrition, and nervous system regulation. Building off Part 1, where she shared her personal experience with anxiety, this episode is packed with practical, doable tools you can start using today to calm your body, regulate your blood sugar, and step out of fight-or-flight.

This episode is especially for you if you feel anxious, irritable, overwhelmed, or stuck in your head and want natural, supportive ways to feel calmer and more grounded.

In This Episode, We Cover:

Nutrition Tools to Reduce Anxiety

• Why blood sugar regulation is foundational for anxiety
• Why skipping meals or eating carbs alone can increase anxiety
• Courtney’s experience with refined sugar and anxiety
• Why eating before coffee matters for nervous system health
• How to start noticing which foods personally trigger anxiety for you

Nervous System Regulation Practices

• Vagus nerve massage (and how to do it)
• Grounding barefoot in nature
• Journaling to release anxious thoughts and identify triggers
• Breathwork

Important Reminders

• You don’t need to do all of these tools at once
• Different tools will work at different times
• Anxiety management is about practice and repetition, not perfection
• Regulating your nervous system is not about fixing yourself, but supporting your body

Free Resource

Everything shared in this episode starts with nervous system regulation, which is why Courtney created her free 10-Minute Calm Morning Routine.
This simple, doable routine helps teach your body that it’s safe—before the day starts asking too much of you.

👉 Grab the free Calm Morning Routine here

Work with Courtney

In this deeply personal episode, Courtney shares her lived experience with anxiety for the very first time—without an outline, without teaching, and straight from the heart. From realizing that not everyone feels constant internal tension, to navigating postpartum anxiety, people-pleasing, boundary-setting, and the pressure of a fast-paced world, this episode offers an honest look at what anxiety has felt like throughout her life.

If you’ve ever felt stuck in your head, overwhelmed by the future, or disconnected from your body, this episode will help you feel less alone and remind you that healing doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

In This Episode, We Discuss:

• What anxiety has felt like throughout Courtney’s life
• Realizing that constant anxiety isn’t “normal” for everyone
• How anxiety shows up physically (tightness, heaviness, racing thoughts)
• The role of people-pleasing, boundaries, and fear of others’ opinions
• Postpartum anxiety after both pregnancies
• The power of getting out of your head and back into your body
• Why anxiety often means we’re living in the future instead of the present

Part 2 of this series will focus on how Courtney manages anxiety through food, nervous system regulation, and simple daily practices you can realistically incorporate into your life.

Free Resource Mentioned:

Get your 10-Minute Calm Morning Reset HERE!

A free guide designed to help you start your day feeling calm, grounded, and regulated without adding more to your plate. Includes:

• A quick version for busy mornings
• A slower, expanded option when you have more time

Connect with Courtney:

Instagram: @healthywithcourtneyy

Work with Courtney

Winter is not a season for pushing harder, it’s a season for support.

In this episode of the Nourished Living Podcast, Courtney shares how to nourish your body during winter with warming foods, nervous system regulation, blood sugar balance, hydration, rest, and sunlight. She also reframes New Year’s resolutions, explaining why most fail and how to set realistic, sustainable health goals that don’t revolve around weight loss or dieting.

This episode is a gentle reminder that slowing down is not falling behind, it’s how you build energy for the year ahead.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Best winter foods to support digestion and energy
• How to calm your nervous system during winter
• Simple blood sugar balancing habits
• Why rest is productive in this season
• How to set realistic New Year’s goals that actually stick 
• Why it's ok to not set a New Year's goal

Get My Ebook! 

Glow From Within
 A 55+ page holistic wellness guide to help you feel grounded, energized, and supported without dieting or overhauling your life.

Follow Courtney on Instagram: 

@healthywithcourtneyy

In this deeply grounding conversation, I’m joined by Courtney Tarbat of Feraly Rooted Essence, a wild, earth-based herbalist living in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Together, we explore what it means to reconnect with nature, live cyclically with the seasons, and return to ancestral ways of wellness that honor both the land and the body.

Courtney shares her journey from growing up outdoors, to competing as a Division II athlete, to studying kinesiology, to eventually shifting away from government-funded nutrition messaging and toward a more intuitive, land-based understanding of true vitality. Her passion for herbal medicine, wild foraging, and sovereignty over personal health led to the creation of her apothecary, Feraly Rooted Essence.

What We Discuss

• Growing up rurally and how nature shaped her wellness journey
• How athleticism and kinesiology gave her an understanding of the human body
• What rewilding means and how ancestral wisdom guides her lifestyle
•  The philosophy behind bioregional herbalism and working with the plants growing around you
•  How her apothecary began organically through sharing products with friends
•  Why her products are 100% essential-oil–free and the sustainability behind that choice
•  Simple ways to reconnect with the land even if you live in a modern, indoor environment

Connect With Courtney Tarbat

Instagram: @feraly.rooted.essence
Website: feralyrootedessence.com
Find her workshops, apothecary offerings, and nature-based wellness resources.

Connect with Courtney Podany

Instagram: @healthywithcourtneyy

Free Affirmation Audio: Your Glow-Up 

In today’s episode, Courtney builds on last week’s tough-love message (“Enough is Enough”) and dives into a powerful mindset shift: most of us aren’t actually comfortable in our comfort zone, we’re just familiar with it.

She explores why we stay stuck in places that don’t feel good, how “fine” becomes the new normal, and why one small act of courage can lead to a life that feels far more spacious, supported, and genuinely comfortable.

This short, impactful episode will leave you rethinking the way you define comfort and motivate you to take the small steps that build resilience, confidence, and a life you actually feel good in.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Why the “comfort zone” often isn’t comfortable at all — it’s just predictable
• How staying where you are tricks you into believing you’re “fine”
• How building resilience works the same way as training a muscle
• Why doing hard things (even tiny ones) expands your capacity in every area of life

Links:

• Intuitive Eating Masterclass — December 2nd
  A live 90-minute class to help you trust your body, ditch food rules, and reconnect with your intuition. 
• Connect with Courtney on Instagram: @healthywithcourtneyy

If You Enjoyed This Episode…

Please subscribe, leave a rating or review, and share with a friend who might need a little encouragement to break out of their “comfortable” but not-so-comfortable patterns. It helps this podcast reach the women who need these messages most.

In today’s short and fiery episode, Courtney gets real about what it takes to finally stop tolerating feeling like crap and start taking ownership of your health. Because waiting for the “perfect time” — after the holidays, when life slows down, when the kids are older — only keeps you stuck in survival mode. And is just an excuse.

This is your reminder that you don’t need to overhaul your life overnight. You just need to make one decision to start — and let that small shift build momentum.

Tune in for the wake-up call you’ve been needing, and walk away with the clarity and motivation to take that first step toward feeling like yourself again.

In This Episode:

• The truth about why you’re still feeling stuck (even when you “know what to do”)
• How to recognize when your body’s whispers have turned into screams
• Why waiting for the “perfect time” never works
• The life-changing power of deciding that enough is enough

Resources & Links:

• Get Started Now: Courtney's Services
• Follow me on Instagram → @healthywithcourtneyy

In this episode of the Nourished Living Podcast, we’re talking all things protein, what it does in your body, how to know if you’re eating enough, simple ways to add more into your meals, and what to look for when choosing a protein powder that actually supports your health goals.

You’ll learn:

•  Why so many breakfasts (and lunches!) are low in protein — and how that affects your hunger and energy all day long
•  How to know if your meal has enough protein — without counting calories or tracking macros
•  Quick, easy, high-protein food and snack ideas
•  My go-to trick for checking if a food is truly high in protein
•  What I look for in a protein powder — and the brands I personally love

Whether you’re tired of feeling hungry all day, struggling with energy crashes, or just want to make smarter nutrition choices, this episode will help you build balanced, protein-rich meals that keep you full, satisfied, and thriving.

Protein Powders Mentioned in This Episode:

• Vital Proteins Collagen
• Ka’chava
• 1st Phorm
• Garden of Life
• Heart & Soil

Connect with Courtney: 

• If you’re ready to take your health to the next level, grab my ebook Glow From Within — your guide to nourishing your body with real food, balancing blood sugar, supporting your metabolism, and feeling your best from the inside out. Get Your Copy Here!
• Follow Courtney on Instagram: @healthywithcourtneyy

If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean so much if you:

•  Subscribe to the show
•  Leave a 5-star review
•  Share it with a friend who’s always asking what to eat for more energy

Let’s keep nourishing our bodies and living well — together.