Welcome back to Health Gossip Top Shelfies, a series peeking into the medicine cabinets, vitamin shelves, and beauty rituals of our dear readers.
This week, we’re hearing from Nadia Tuma-Weldon (aka
), a Paris-based luxury brand strategist and pro-metabolic writer with some exciting things in the works…Below, she opens up about her single-ingredient approach to life, journey to Ray Peat (sensing a theme here), and how she cultivates joie de vivre amidst an incredibly busy life. I so enjoyed this one, hope you do too 💋
Top Shelfie: Nadia Tuma-Weldon
Who are you?
@nadiatumaweldon + @nouriparis_. I’m an American living in Paris. I’m in my early 40s and moved to France nearly two years ago. I lead strategy for luxury and beauty brands at a creative agency, and while I hate the term “busy” as a lifestyle descriptor, my life is insanely busy. My workdays are very long, usually spent in an office, with endless urgencies. I’m not one to work all week and then be too tired to do anything on the weekends, so I try to live when I have time off: explore the city, spend time with friends, fill my cup with art, food, etc.
I find that life in France provides a relatively “pro-metabolic” environment, with far less stress than if I had the same workload in America. Even though my actual life has never been this hectic, I am generally much calmer, happier, and peaceful.
How would you describe your approach to beauty and wellness?
Big question. I once heard someone say that after you’ve tried veganism, vegetarianism, carnivore, paleo, keto, etc., if you’re lucky enough to end up in the Ray Peat universe, there is no where else to go. That’s 100% my experience, especially as I get into middle age, and having tried it all (I was also vegetarian/vegan-ish for 22 years). At some point in my 40th year, I realized that I felt like trash not eating animal products, and starting re-incorporating them. It was as if my body had been starving for real nutrients for decades. Everything changed from there really quickly. I’ve been cultivating a hot and healthy metabolism (what I call “high energy mode”) ever since. It’s intuitive and I basically approach everything in life by judging whether it promotes energy, or drains energy — and even more, whether it sustains a child-like state of wonder, resilience, warmth, joy.
Overall, I try to live a “single ingredient life.” I feel my best this way: I eat whole, single-ingredient foods (meat, eggs, broth, dairy, fruit, honey), wear single-ingredient clothes (wool, cotton, leather, fur, silk), use single-ingredient beauty products (oils, tallow, whatever). Even my movement diet is basic: weights, mat pilates, mobility, yoga, walking. We don’t need all these extras which rob us of our time, money and judgement.
As we get older, I think the impulse is to complicate everything (complicated skincare, complicated procedures), but at nearly 44 years old, I can say the simpler stuff works.
What are some of your must-haves?
In terms of my little morning supplementation wake-up ritual, it’s still in the single ingredient-ish life philosophy.
After I get up, scrape my tongue and brush my teeth, I hydrate with natural electrolytes from Fractal Forest in filtered water. I take desiccated APE Nutrition beef organ pills with that. Then, in goes a scoop of Perfect Aminos in water, and I also have some mineral drops from Fractal Forest. Basically lots of filtered water with lots of minerals first thing.
After that is my morning cocktail: OJ without pulp, a scoop of grass-fed collagen, and a bit of coconut water.
Then it’s coffee, and I’ll get into my workout before the madness of the day.
If I can do this in the morning (and eat nutrient-dense, whole foods the rest of the day), I’m pretty much super woman and can tackle whatever chaos the day throws my way.
Any health or beauty secrets you swear by?
So many things learned along the journey of life. The biggest mindset shift I made was to stop this nonsense of wanting to eat less to be small. I learned to truly nourish my body with beautiful food, movement that builds muscle, and proper deep rest. After decades, I now know that running on nutrients is much better than running on stress hormones. Being child-like is the goal (it’s why everyone is always magnetized to small children), joy, wonder, awe, energy, warmth.
Tune in. Pay attention to the world around you. Roll around on the floor. Being limber in body makes you limber in mind. Be delighted by the world. Ask lots of questions. Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full. Love fruit and fruit juice. Turn your face to the sun. Stop to pet a dog. Smile and say thank you to people you buy stuff from. Be gracious, be a team player, be lovely.
Everything changed when I changed my energy. Took me too long to figure that out.
Minimalism FTW