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Nutrition Experts Podcast Episode 44 Meal Planning for Busy Moms with Jennifer Hunt, RDN, LD

March 4, 2019 by matheaford Leave a Comment

Jennifer is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, lover of delicious food, wife and mom to 2 young girls. She doesn’t love cooking but she does love creating tasty, nourishing and easy recipes for her family and yours. Her joy and passion is to empower women with nutrition knowledge, tasty recipes and simple strategies to live the healthy, active lives they envision, even while caring for a family. On a mission to help every mom love the woman in the mirror, she helps them break free from food guilt, end body shaming and figure out what’s for dinner tonight. As a Nutrition Coach, Jennifer helps clients cut through the diet noise and create healthful rhythms that allows them to feel and perform their best.

After becoming a mom in 2015, she realized how utterly difficult it was for moms to take care of their emotional and physical health among the unending demands of motherhood. It was then, in those moments of tears and frustration, running on coffee and cuddles, that she decided to create a business to help busy, stressed and exhausted women make healthy living simple and delicious.

Jennifer uses years of experience in outpatient and private practice work to help her clients get past ‘idealistic nutrition’ and instead find real life strategies that actually work. Her nutrition science education from Texas Christian University laid a solid foundation but motherhood has expanded her empathy, creative ideas and ability to connect with women. Not only does she work with amazing women, coaching them on their health journey but she has the privilege of writing the Good Health column for an online faith-based magazine. In need of some healthy inspiration? You can find that, yummy recipes and a huge dose of encourage on her website and in her weekly newsletter. On any given day, you may find her dancing with her girls in the living room, exploring food with her 3 year old (ie. making a mess) or escaping to go on a walk or jog listening to her favorite podcast.

LINKS

Website www.healthy-inspiration.com
Facebook @jenniferhuntnutrition
Instagram @jennifer.hunt.nutrition

Jennifer Hunt: [00:00:45] Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Mathea Ford: [00:00:49] I’m excited to have you on the show and share your expertise with my tribe because I think we’re going to talk about some really great exciting fun stuff today. So, tell my listeners a little more about you and what you do.

Jennifer Hunt: [00:01:03] Great! So I am a mommy to two very vibrant and active little girls and I am married to my handsome, sweet husband who we’ve been married for about 13 years. And actually he has given me the opportunity to learn very early on about meal planning and meal prep for selective eaters. So, even before kids I got to begin learning how to do this. So I used to work in an outpatient office and loved what I was doing but after having children decided to stay at home and really start working with women that were a part of kind of where my passion was. And so one of the things that I really hope to do and with every person that I work with is to make healthy living really simple and delicious. So, I love creating new recipes I’m giving talks doing food demos writing and doing nutrition coaching really to help my clients in making some simple but really effective changes and make it really yummy and delicious.

Mathea Ford: [00:02:21] Great! I think that perfectly explains kind of who we’re talking about a busy moms which there’s plenty of those around I myself included. So let’s talk about meal planning for a family. Do you have any quick ideas or quick thoughts that people can use to kind of get started?

Jennifer Hunt: [00:02:41] Yes. So, I think that one of the things that tends to be one of the biggest challenges when we’re meal planning is trying to please everyone and some of us might also have some food allergies in the family. So, one of the things that is just a really quick tip is to make a list. And I did this many years ago when I was feeling really stuck. I felt like we were just eating the same foods over and over and over again. And that was really frustrating me. And so what I did was I just sat down and I started thinking up what does my family actually like to eat. And at first you start with probably some of the maybe basics that you might think of like tacos or spaghetti or hamburgers. And then as I kept thinking I was actually writing down more and more. And so when I originally was kind of feeling like we were eating the same things every week, I found there was probably a list of about 20ish meals that we actually enjoyed together as a family. And that was really enlightening and encouraging because I was feeling so stuck. And so instead of having a week’s worth of meals that we were eating feeling like we’re eating every week we actually had probably several weeks of meals and I was just not remembering some of those other options that we actually liked. So that’s one idea I think maybe another idea is to think about if when we’re making meals that we really don’t have to please everyone with every single food that’s on the plate.

Jennifer Hunt: [00:04:30] One other thought is that if we’re sitting down to kind of create a meal plan, try to get at least two or three items at that meal that everyone is going to probably eat and instead of trying to make sure that everything at the meal is appealing to everyone. I know that when as a mom I want to create or I want to raise adventurous eaters and in order to do that I have to continue to expose them to different foods and unfamiliar foods and ones that maybe they declined months for you know for the last few months. But I have to continue to keep exposing them to them those foods or they probably aren’t going to actually eat those foods. So, when I think about kind of like making sure there’s a couple of things on the plate that pleases everyone but it doesn’t have to be that the entire meal pleases everyone every single week. And sometimes that also is as simple as making sure there’s maybe a fruit at the table if they like certain kinds of fruit and even milk because milk is such a nutrient dense food could even be considered one of those items on the tray. Another thing that I’ve also discovered is that kids seems like to kind of build their own types of meals when we maybe decompose certain meals and instead of let them kind of build it themselves they may not put everything into their on their plate or in their bowl that we would ideally want them to but it gives them a little sense of power and being able to kind of control and because otherwise they may have just said “No, I’m not into eating that meal at all.”

Jennifer Hunt: [00:06:23] I found that with little ones sometimes chili or soups or things that just have a lot of ingredients in them can feel kind of scary or overwhelming for them. And so when we start to think about making noodles that maybe are a little bit more have separate items or that they can build and create themselves. It can make the meal a little bit more appealing to everyone in the family.

Mathea Ford: [00:06:50] Well, I love that idea. My kids love going to Genghis Grill which I don’t know if you have that in South Carolina but basically you go down online and you pick your meat and you pick your vegetables and they love going to that because they get to pick and they get to assemble their own meal and they usually pick two or three vegetables and I’m happy that they get a little bit of variety but they like going there because they don’t have to pick off the menu. They know what they’re going to get. So that’s a great point.

Jennifer Hunt: [00:07:20] And you can do that you know with tacos or if you’re making quesadillas. You can even do that with things like spaghetti where you just keep it like the meat or the meatballs or the chicken separate from the sauce and the noodles and maybe you have broccoli that you could put into the bowl or spinach or something like that. And so there are a lot of meals with just a little bit of thought. We could probably keep some of those items separate so that they can then kind of build their own and kind of create their own little masterpiece instead of just being something that’s kind of served to them.

Mathea Ford: [00:07:53] That’s great! So, I understand you have like a quick walkthrough or a five minute meal plan. So will you tell us a little bit about that?

Jennifer Hunt: [00:08:00] Yes definitely! So, I think that meal planning does not have to be difficult or overwhelming. And I know that there are a lot of different ways that you can meal plan and there’s a lot of apps and programs but it really as is as simple as sitting down and writing down on a piece of paper a few different things. And I do have a handout on my website that I can share with your audience and can kind of guide them through this process. So, I believe that you can create a great healthy meal plan for your week and only about five minutes. The first thing that is really important and that I think that sometimes we skip is we need to look at our week or our calendar. What I was finding when I was working with a lot of individuals is that they were creating these idealistic meal plans but they weren’t necessarily in line in complimenting their week. And so if they had a crazy day but they were trying to make a new recipe or something or something that took just more than 20 minutes it was just not working. And then they were feeling like they just kind of failed. And so we don’t want to create meal plans that make us feel like we can’t do this. So, it’s really important to just spend one minute to review your calendar and certainly if you have a spouse to look at their calendar as well so that way you can anticipate you know if you’ve got kids that are in soccer or dance or if you know that you’ve got a work meeting that could potentially go late or if there’s anything that is going on during the week that you need to be aware of. Maybe you have some guests coming in at the end of the week. And so that way you can make sure that you’re creating a plan that revolves around what’s going on in your life.

Jennifer Hunt: [00:09:49] So, that is the first thing you want to do and just spend one minute. Take out your phone or your calendar however you do that and look at your calendar. A second minute you’re going to actually spend looking through your pantry and fridge. So you just want to get up, glance through what’s in your refrigerator maybe what’s in your freezer, what’s in your pantry. Certainly, if you have any produce or any meat that you’re wanting to use up and you don’t want to go bad that is what you’re kind of looking for. Also maybe pick things that you can throw together that you’ve just already got staples in your pantry. A couple of weeks ago we were going to be going out of town and we had bought some Brussel sprouts that were actually on the stock because my 3 year old thought that was so cool and I was going with it and we were going to you know cook those up and so that was something where I needed to use that up so that we didn’t go out of town and leave that. So just look for things like that. So, that’s a second minute. You just want to glance through your pantry fridge. From the third and fourth minute, you want to go ahead and choose your recipes. And this is where you can go back to that list that you’ve maybe already created that are some of the family favorites. And look at what are some of those recipes that you want to insert into your week. And so now that you know what’s going on with your calendar you can kind of look at how many days a week do we want to have leftovers. Is there a night or two that we’re going to be eating out? Is there a day that would be a better day for us to do a slow cooker meal? Or is there a day that we want to do a quick stir fry or use the things that are in our freezer? Or maybe you’ve already got something in your freezer that you just need to take out and defrost. So that allows you to kind of insert those recipes in. One thing that I do find is that most of us cannot commit to doing more than about one new recipe a week. And for some of us that still might be too much depending on your week. I encourage moms and whoever is doing the meal planning not to get too excited about adding new recipes and it is great to add some variety into our meal plan. And even if you just add one a week and over the course of a year that’s about 50 new recipes. And that is a whole lot of variety. But I do find that because new recipes take more time just are not we can’t go into autopilot and create those recipes easily. And then for the last minute what I think is really important is that we post it and for many years this was something that I just did not do consistently. And I found that our meal plan would kind of just fall apart and I’d be like “Oh yeah! What are we making?” And then when I don’t have that kind of already locked in my brain we would just look for another easy alternative and we all know it some easy alternatives can be. So, just literally posting it can also remind us if we’re needing to take something out of the freezer the night before or defrost something. And also if you do take a little bit of time on a day whether it’s a weekend or even an evening where we do a little extra meal prep, we can just glance at what’s coming up in the next week and determine “Oh! Hey! I’m ready in the kitchen. I’m making dinner tonight. I’m going to go ahead and make quinoa for two nights in the future” you know or “I’ll go ahead and chop that extra onion and just put it in a container so that it’s ready to go on Thursday” so it can really kind of help us also in looking ahead and kind of doing a little extra prep for ourselves if we have that time available.

Mathea Ford: [00:13:47] Like we have activities a couple of nights a week. And I know okay, if we’re going to end up having to eat out that night or know okay, if I make this type of thing we can take it with us. Somebody can eat it when they get home from school that type of thing and hosting it. Absolutely. Because my husband loves to ask someone for dinner and see that “say yes” like look on my face. Yeah, it avoids that a little bit. What are some of the struggles that you encounter or that your patients encounter that they might want to be aware of to prepare for?

Jennifer Hunt: [00:14:24] Yes. So one of the struggles that I hear a lot from some of the clients that I work with is just that they are wanting to make some healthful decisions for themselves and their bodies but they are finding that maybe not everyone in the family or maybe they have children and they’re just finding that not everyone is either on board with that. Maybe they’re used to doing it a different way. And so mom is maybe trying to make some some changes and it might produce a little bit of some tension or challenges. So, I think that that’s sometimes when I talk with individuals and they’re talking about how they’re making something different for their kids or they talk about how it’s their food and their kids food. And I think that’s one of the biggest challenges is trying to make it all meld together so that our family can eat together and eat some nourishing foods and not feel like mom is trying to do different things because we want our kids to be healthy too and they have growing bodies as well. And so making all of that kind of meld is I think one of the biggest challenges that I hear from moms. And I think one of the things that’s really important is to really have good communication. If you do if you are married and in kind of talking with your spouse about you know “what is some of our family’s health values? What do we value? What is important to us?” And that does not mean that we need to overhaul our families meals but it might mean that we can make some really small and simple changes to help direct all of us in in a past that is moving towards the health that we want, the energy that we want, you know feeling good and feeling really confident in our bodies. It could be as simple as in the rice. I will do this if I’m making maybe like brown rice. We can just add in some cauliflower rice and we can pretty much do half and half and it pretty much just kind of blends in. And most people probably wouldn’t even know that it’s in there you know. And so it’s just one simple little change that kind of helps get more veggies into our diets. So, it could be as simple as some of those small changes. It could be that we are making meat sauce for spaghetti and so maybe we use like half the amount of meat that we typically would. And we add in some cooked lentils and we’re you know just once again trying to boost some of the plant protein and get some still a good source of iron but get some beans in our diet if that’s something that maybe we struggle with. I also found when it comes to communicating with a spouse especially if they have some different preferences that’s sometimes what I found. So, my husband was not a huge fan of most fruits and vegetables when we got married and I was getting really frustrated.

Jennifer Hunt: [00:17:48] I was actually still finishing school and so here I am wanting to make all of these different kinds of foods and meals. And he was not necessarily onboard with all of this new stuff and this variety. And so when I was feeling really stuck I started printing off a couple of recipes that I was really interested in trying and that I thought that maybe he might possibly go for. And so I presented like two or three of them to him and said “Which of these would you be most likely willing to try if I were to make it this week?” And so he would choose the one that appealed to him the most. And then of that we would go through the recipe and he would kind of communicate like “Yeah! Do you think you could do this a little differently or could you leave out the onion or could we shred the onion so it’s not in big chunks or something like that?” And so as we were able to talk about that it really opened up some better dialogue and helped me learn a little bit more about why he did or did not like certain foods and what it was whether it was a taste or maybe a texture thing. And that was a very helpful strategy for me since he was not necessarily into doing to eating all of the things that I was excited about eating. So, those are a few of the quick things that we can do to kind of open up some of that dialogue and help whether it’s with our kids or a spouse to kind of keep the communication flowing and really learn about why they may not be on board with some of the things we want to do and then when we have that knowledge really helps us in kind of guiding us into “hmm. Maybe I could do this a little differently and they would like it or they would at least try it or consider it.”

Mathea Ford: [00:19:44] That makes a lot of sense. It’s the consensus kind of you know family thing instead of like my father for example lives with us and he’ll eat anything I set in front of him because that’s how he grew up. You eat what your mom sets in front of you but like for example but mom’s busy moms you don’t want to end up as a short order cook. So, having to do three different meals or three different things to make everybody happy doesn’t help you want to do more meal planning. So those are great. Yeah.

Mathea Ford: [00:20:17] So, can you talk a little bit more about how families you’ve talked about some examples of how to make the meals healthier. Any other examples of how families can use meal time to make healthier meals to be healthier?

Jennifer Hunt: [00:20:29] Especially when it comes to kids, I think that also depending on their ages inviting them to maybe be a little part of helping to make some decisions in the meal can also help in terms of some buy in when it comes to eating foods. So, it might be that you ask your four year old “hey! We have broccoli and we have carrots and we have salad this week. Which one of those would you like tonight?” And in maybe kind of giving them a few choices maybe not too many but a couple of options and seeing if they would say “hey! Okay. How about make the broccoli but I want some cheese on it or something like that?” And so it might be also that in giving them a few options. Not a lot again but a few that they will be a little bit more interested and that little bit can kind of helped in them potentially eating or enjoying even that meal more. I think it’s also just you know thinking about like the rainbow you know you might think about how can we make our plate a little bit more colorful and maybe talking about that with your kids you know just kind of we don’t have to get into details but the idea that we want to eat different colors because there are different nutrients in those variety of foods and kind of saying “Hey! How could we get a more colorful plate tonight? We’re having chicken and brown rice. But what are some other colors we could add to make this plate look this meal look more appealing?” And see if they can you know they might say blueberries or whatever. And so I started this fall teaching this preschool cooking class and it just started as something that I was doing for some of my mommy friends and for their kids. And so one of the meals that we made when they came over were these rainbow pizzas. And so you know we have kids that might traditionally just want a cheese pizza or pepperoni. But the goal here was to make them super colorful so we had chopped up orange and yellow bell pepper,, we had some black olives we had the white cheese, we had spinach, we had the red sauce and so the idea was is we wanted to make these colorful rainbow pizzas. And so there was a lot more excitement about adding some of these different foods onto their pizza just because it was this idea of making you know creating a rainbow. So, I think that can also be just a helpful strategy to kind of think about and once again asking them if they would be interested in choosing for the family what we’re having tonight. And of course older kids might even be interested in helping do more planning. But when it’s younger kids it can be helpful just to let them choose like one type of food.

Mathea Ford: [00:23:29] So, I love that you talked about the preschool cooking class because one of my other questions I wanted to ask you is how can we get our children to learn more about nutrition as they grow up? What are some good tasks to start with in the kitchen?

Jennifer Hunt: [00:23:43] Sometimes we think they need to be older but they can start super young because there are just little things that they can do. When my little girl was just even two, she loved to like put the muffin wrappers in the muffin tin and then I could help her maybe mash the banana if we were making some banana walnut muffins. Another idea is like decorating the salads. Young kids are very good at like taking the items and then decorating our salads, putting different vegetables and avocado and whatever we want to put on those salads and that can be once again there a little piece of kind of helping out with that. As they get a little bit older, measuring ingredients can be something that they can do whether they’re measuring wholegrain flour so that we could make some muffins, learning to crack an egg and kind of do that and you know stirring things up. I think it’s also important for parents to realize that getting them in the kitchen does not mean they need to make the entire recipe or an entire meal. So, depending on their age, young kids might just want to come in and shake up the salad dressing in the mason jar that we made. Right? Or they might want to just decorate the salad and they’re good. They’ve had their little hand in helping. And then as they are getting older whether 5, 6, 7 and older they may have more interest in helping and obviously their attention span will grow and they’re able to participate a little bit more. So, those are a few things and then I do believe that you know depending on your child when you feel like they’re ready. Teaching them really good knife skills is helpful. And it might even be finding a class that is like a mommy in kid class or parent-kid class to go to so that they can learn some of those skills and like how to actually properly chop and use a knife. It can be incredibly empowering. And it’s one skill that I think that a lot of us maybe did not learn early on and we’ve either had to learn or we’re just struggling through some of the chopping. And that actually can slow things down in the kitchen. But I encourage every parent to get their kids in the kitchen and it maybe just once a week. Don’t don’t overwhelm yourself. But even when I do bring my 3 year old into the kitchen, my 1 year old she might be in the kitchen too and I might give her just a few measuring spoons to kind of play with. So, we’re all still kind of in there and we’re doing things and kind of just a part of the process.

Mathea Ford: [00:26:31] I think that’s great because it leads to them being more comfortable in the kitchen and not being afraid to cook. Like not being afraid to try.

Jennifer Hunt: [00:26:40] I also I would add one other thing is that when they’re cooking or helping you bake or do something in the kitchen it’s a very non-threatening environment. We were at the dinner table and they see you know peas on their plate and they have not been like in some peas. They can have a little bit more angst or anxiety about having to eat something that maybe is not appealing to them but when they’re in the kitchen just helping us do things there’s no expectation that they have to eat this at this time. And so that means that they’re going to be involved with all of their senses, they might be touching the food smelling of food, they might want to taste something but they’re able to kind of get in there and do something and get involved and become more familiar with certain foods without there being any expectation of having to put it in their mouth. And that can be a very helpful thing.

Mathea Ford: [00:27:38] That makes a lot of sense. So, I know you mentioned you work with busy moms and we’ve talked a lot about meal planning. What are some of the other big issues that you help patients deal with as busy moms?

Jennifer Hunt: [00:27:50] I think that one of the other obstacles that I’ve heard from a lot of moms is that sometimes it feels like every meal we’re still on and it is hard to be able just to sit down and be mindful and to eat our food and eat until we’re satisfied. A lot of times we find that we are… Even if we’re at the dinner table we’re taking a few bites, we’re trying to help a child or teaching table manners or maybe getting more milk for a child and it can be very busy. It can be very kind of scattered and chaotic. And in this especially for those that are stay at home moms this might happen for breakfast, lunch and dinner and it can feel very frustrating for them because they are trying to make sure that they’re nourishing their bodies and in eating until they’re satisfied and being mindful of their bodies signals. But there’s a lot else going on in that particular environments. And actually what I have found in working with women is that that bedtime kind of snacking and eating is is very common. And that’s partly because it’s finally our time to sit down and enjoy something that we actually want to eat you know and into actually kind of feel like you know we’ve worked hard and we’ve done a good job for the day and it’s finally kind of our time to sit down but if we’re not careful then that’s also a time when we’re not being as mindful because we’re wanting to maybe zone out and that is just something that I have found that is a common obstacle for a lot of women is kind of that late evening snacking maybe after we’ve put kids to bed and such. And that is something that I have found personally is that I get frustrated that I can’t always sit down and just enjoy a meal and then eat until I’m satisfied and that I’m going in a lot of different directions reconnecting with our bodies and learning to be more mindful, it is a process but I do find that that is something that I work a lot with individuals in kind of understanding what that looks like. What does it really look like and feel like when I’m satisfied and how do I go about doing that. So, yes. So, I think that that is a big obstacle but learning to kind of stop and take a few deep breaths and ask ourselves some questions and just also get curious. A lot of us have maybe a habit or behavior that we’re not thrilled about. And it’s easy to feel guilt or shame about that particular habit. But if we kind of take a step back and just get a little bit curious about maybe why something keeps happening or why we find that we’re going to the same thing over and over again. It can be really helpful and enlightening and help us identify if there’s maybe an emotion that’s tied to that or some anger or resentment that’s tied to that because I think a lot of times we use restriction and diets to help transform those habits that we do not like a lot or that we’re not thrilled about but if we have not really identified the why.

Jennifer Hunt: [00:31:30] We haven’t really gotten curious and understood maybe why we’re doing this again and again then we really can’t transform that habit. We might be able to restrict ourselves for a time but that’s really not an effective method for really getting free and and feeling good about our health.

Mathea Ford: [00:31:51] That’s something that I didn’t even think of but that’s a perfect example. Speaking of eating mindfully and eating food what is your favorite food?

Jennifer Hunt: [00:32:02] Oh! That is a hard question and I think probably depending on when you ask I might say something different but something that I am loving right now is I have a recipe for these chocolate chip Blondie bars on my website and they are delicious. I did a talk and a cooking demo at a local gym the other day and so I shared and made the recipe to share with them and then I demoed how to make the recipe, came home and cooked it in my own oven again. And so I got to enjoy it and it was so good. And the great thing is that they’re actually fairly low in sugar and added sugar because we use dates. We puree dates and use that as the primary sweetener. And then of course there’s some chocolate chips that have some sugar in them and the base of them is actually made from chickpeas or garbanzo beans. But I guarantee you would never know if I did not tell you. And so they are gluten free for those that need to follow gluten free diet but they are absolutely delicious and they are great warm out of the oven and it’s amazing. Also cold because it tastes like cookie dough. So, that is probably a recipe that I am loving right now. But if you ask me on another day I might have told you salmon because that is probably one of my favorite foods and recently I was really craving beets. So, we got some of those at the store recently as well to roast up. Those are a few of my favorites.

Mathea Ford: [00:33:40] I think we’ll all be heading over to your website shortly after this podcast to get that recipe for those chocolate chip cookies. So, Jennifer, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It was a pleasure to have you on the show. I know my listeners learned a lot about meal planning and especially with a busy family and activities. So, if listeners want to connect with you what’s the best way to do that?

Jennifer Hunt: [00:34:02] Yes. So thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it, Mathea and I love sharing with your audience. If they want to find me they can find me at my website which is healthy-inspiration.com. They’re welcome to e-mail me at JHunt.nutrition@gmail.com. And then of course they can find me on Instagram and Facebook and that’s @JenniferHuntNutrition. So, I would love to connect with them and hear more about some of their challenges and continue to just encourage and inspire them on their health journey.

Mathea Ford: [00:34:40] Well guys this has been another great episode of the Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast is all about learning more so you can do more with nutrition in your life.

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Nutrition Experts Podcast Episode 43 Eat More On Exercise Days with Ryan Bagett, RD, CSSD

February 25, 2019 by matheaford Leave a Comment

Ryan is a sports dietitian at a local Oklahoma City running store called Red Coyote, and she have been working there a little over 6 year now. Once a week she’s a regular sales employee helping people get their running gear, and the rest of the time she’s working as a private practice sports dietitian doing one on one consults with people who seek out her services. She works with several different types of people. Some clients are training for half and full marathons and need specific help with fueling for those events and day to day nutrition. She also have a lot of clients who are just getting into running or exercise in general, and are coming to her to get healthier and lose weight or gain muscle. She is also available for all of their running groups that train through Red Coyote: 5k, 10k, and half and full marathon.

Mathea Ford: [00:00:29] Hi there! It’s Mathea. Welcome Back to the Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast featuring nutrition experts who are leading the way using food starts today right now with our next guest. It’s great to have Ryan Baggett on the show today. Ryan welcome to Nutrition Experts.

Ryan Baggett: [00:00:45] Thank you Mathea.

Mathea Ford: [00:00:47] How are you doing today?

Ryan Baggett: [00:00:49] I’m doing great. I’m really looking forward to talking with you about Sports Nutrition.

Mathea Ford: [00:00:54] Yeah! I’m excited to have you on the show and talk a little bit more about Sports Nutrition kind of in depth what you do with your people you work with. So, tell my listeners a little more about you and what you do.

Ryan Baggett: [00:01:06] I’m a local sports dietitian here in Oklahoma City. I’ve been working with a store called Red Coyote Running and Fitness. Ever since I finished school six years ago I’ve been with this company. We’ve got two locations here around the Oklahoma City area and the great thing about this is as a local business they’ve been really flexible with me about letting you kind of start my own private practice as a sports dietitian and really encouraging me and helping me market myself to get different clients from the wide range of customers that we get at our store. So, at Red Coyote we get people who are walking trying to run the first 5k, people who thought they could never run at all and are trying to get into it, to people who are running half full marathons. So, that type of people I see really varies from people looking to get healthy, lose weight, just get into exercise in general to the people who are training for the Boston Marathon, the New York City Marathon who are really fast runners and once a week I actually just work as a regular sales employee on Sundays at the location helping people get into their running gear and give me a nice little discount to supplement my own running. And it just tend to be my private practice I do through their store.

Mathea Ford: [00:02:20] So, you also mentioned before we got on the podcast that you work somewhat the running groups?

Ryan Baggett: [00:02:25] Yeah. So at Red Coyote we have a newbie running group which is kind of like a couch to 5K getting people trained for that first 3.1 mile race that a lot of you see a lot of especially in the summertime. We also have a 5k to 10k program. So getting up to 6.2 miles and then you know in Oklahoma City though the City Marathon is huge you know over 20,000 people run that every year. So, we have our own half and full marathon training program. I usually show up to some of the training runs. I like to bring snacks you know that I have from my nutrition blog to kind of getting over to talk to me. They can answer, ask questions and answer and I can answer them for anything they have about running nutrition overall healthy food. You know especially for training or if they’re looking to get with a dietitian and do some one on one time then I have my cards available and we can set the time to do more individualized nutrition appointments.

Mathea Ford: [00:03:19] So, as someone who works with both athletes you know like you mentioned running the Boston or the New York Marathon and Weekend Warriors, people who are just getting started or maybe just not really big time runners. What is your main advice about how to eat for working out?

Ryan Baggett: [00:03:35] I mean I would say my biggest advice to people is don’t skip the carbs which you know no one ever should be disappointed when I tell you to eat carbs. You know I love carbs and their ability to get you through a workout. Fad diets aside there’s always going to be something protein and fat will never provide you that quick energy source that carbs do. Not to say that on a two hour, three hour, four hour run going to you’re not going to be using more fasting carbs for fuel. So, ultimately you have to have glucose to continue to oxidize that fat for energy. If you don’t want to avoid them you’re training because your body is different that in any sort of intense exercise required carbohydrates. So it’s one of those things you know starting in some intense exercise program is not the time to cut out carbs but I feel like a lot of times that goes hand-in-hand when people are trying to get healthier like “oh I’m not gonna eat carbs anymore! I’m going to go get to the gym” and you know you’re not going to last very long doing that before you just start to feel really drained when you’re exercising.

Mathea Ford: [00:04:39] But you’re not really talking about carbs like a Hershey bar you’re talking about a different kind of carb right?

Ryan Baggett: [00:04:44] Yes. So I feel a lot of times typically those not as healthy carbs are things like candy, chips, white rice, lots of breads and desserts and things, sodas. You know the foods that don’t really offer a lot of nutrients, people tend to lump in the healthy carbs things like sweet potatoes and regular potatoes, peas and whole grains, whole grain bread, oatmeal, oats, things like that. A lot of times people want some fruit especially fruit. People tend to lump them all together at all carbs are bad when in fact you know the healthier carbs. So those are the fruits, the starch, vegetables, whole grains those are really what you should be focusing on for starting when you’re working out and especially as your exercise progresses. I mean those are the fuel the foods that are going to provide fiber, they’re going to provide the antioxidants and nutrients that your body needs to be able to heal and recover from the damage that you exercising. And I mean the good damage it makes you stronger but it still requires energy and nutrients to heal.

Mathea Ford: [00:05:46] Usually you have kind of different days where you do different activities. Some days you do aerobics, some days you weight train, should you eat differently on workout days versus non workout days or on strength training vs. aerobic?

Ryan Baggett: [00:06:01] Yes to some extent. I mean on a rest day compared to an exercise day. Especially around the actual exercise itself you should be eating a little bit more on those exercise days. You know for a lot of people they work out either first thing in the morning or after work. And if you haven’t eaten since lunch and you’re trying to work out at 5:30, I mean that’s a long time or you haven’t necessarily having something. So, whether you do or don’t do a snack in the afternoon it’s one of the things maybe you need to want to beef up your snack a little bit you know add in a granola bar, a flavored yogurt, a banana that’s something with some extra kind of starchy carbs in it to get you through your actual exercise. Whereas, maybe on a rest day you could do a small snack or you wouldn’t necessarily worry about having a bigger snack like that because obviously exercise requires calories to fuel. So, I mean I usually try to get people not necessarily to eat a lot more overall but to specifically eat those extra calories you’re probably going to burn around your actual workout. That way you have extra energy to complete the exercise and then afterwards you know hopefully getting some of those healthy carbs whether be fruit or whole grains or starchy vegetables, a potato with protein afterwards. I know a favorite for me it’s like a baked potato with chicken and beans and vegetables like that’s a great recovery meal people underestimate potatoes they are super healthy if you cook them correctly. Just don’t let them down with butter and sour cream and then as far as protein. That’s actually something I’ve been doing a lot of research on lately and it really does vary with exercise. How much protein you need? It’s going to be different based on what your goals are. So, if you’re someone who just the average exerciser you know probably that’s 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram that they just recommend that’s going to keep most people healthy. You know if you’re a healthy person its probably enough but if you’re starting to run well then they recommend you get closer to 1.2 grams per kilogram. If you’re looking to build muscle or maintain muscle during weight loss because you know unfortunately you don’t lose just that whenever we lose weight so increasing in protein in addition to strength training can actually minimize how much lean tissue you lose during weight loss. And that gets up to more like 1.8 to 2 grams per kilogram. You’re looking at over double just the regular recommendation of protein is strength and weight loss is a goal. So, it really can vary based on how much. What type of exercise and what your body composition goals are for how much protein any exercise.

Mathea Ford: [00:08:32] So, you recommend to people typically if they’re starting or getting ready to start running, you lead them towards more of the healthier carb, higher carb, a little more protein and managed fats type of diet?

Ryan Baggett: [00:08:45] Yes. Keeping for someone you know maybe looking to start that 5k training you know getting them to you know just starting into running. Still keeping carbs around 50%of your total calories you know not not going to low and protein you know sticking between that recommended 0.8 grams per day up to about 1.2 o per day so maybe just a little bit extra but it’s not something that far especially for fueling exercise itself. That’s where carbs can be more important and then as far as recovery, endurance running doesn’t really require extra protein as much extra protein for recovery as weight lifting does because it’s working slightly different muscle fibers. The main benefit with extra protein with running is that it can help prevent muscle soreness and it helps reduce the damage that occurs with you know breaking down those muscle fibers from the actual exercise itself but it’s not going to be quite as much as with strength training.

Mathea Ford: [00:09:39] Okay. So, we talked about food a little bit. What about water? Do you have advice about water intake or hydrating depending on the weather, depending on the day?

Ryan Baggett: [00:09:51] Yes. So, sweat loss is one of those things that is extremely weak person to person. Some people don’t sweat a lot in some people’s sweat liters upon liters per hour. I mean obviously temperature and humidity is going to have the biggest difference. Dehydration generally is a huge concern in the colder months. Now if you’re going to be out there for four full marathon training like three four hours yes you’re going to be losing water, you’re going to lose electrolytes. You need to take fluid and electrolytes with you. But you know when it’s cold. Most people exercising are going to be fine doing just water as long as exercise is lasting about an hour or less is when you start to get over an hour of exercise. Then it starts to become important to start replacing lost carbohydrates and lost electrolytes. But as far as how much you should drink that’s where we’re really figuring out how much you sweat becomes important. And you can do that if you know you can be out there for a couple hours. You can weigh yourself without clothes on before you say go for a run and then the goal is to prevent a greater than 2 percent weight loss. So, two percent of water you don’t want to lose for more than 2 percent your body weight on a run. So if you go on a three hour run and you weigh 150 pounds that three pounds could be at 2 percent. So, then we come back from your run take your clothes back off on the scale and as long as you didn’t lose three pounds then you know that you hydrated enough that you lost four pounds. Well then you know that on that next three hour run that you do if the temperature is similar you need to drink an extra at least 16 ounce of water during the run to keep your weight loss less than 2 percent. But as far as how much you drink on the run you know generally you’re getting in hotter weather closer to 16 ounces an hour is usually good for most people. Now, colder weather some people can get by with not much salt but it’s really going to depend on how much you sweat as an individual.

Mathea Ford: [00:11:47] So, on days that you’re not working out do you have a recommended hydration that people should do versus when they’re running?

Ryan Baggett: [00:11:55] Yeah! I actually say if you’re getting close to 100 ounces a day with fluid then you’re probably going to stay adequately hydrated. Just know exercise aside a lot of people don’t realize that liquid foods or things like soups and then thinking foods that have a high water content such as fruits and vegetables all these things count for hydration as well. So, I usually tell people you know if you’re finding yourself going to the bathroom every 30 minutes you’re probably over hydrating. But you know if you’re getting around that hundred ounces a day and you’re not rushing to the bathroom all the time then you’re probably hydrating pretty well.

Ryan Baggett: [00:12:27] Usually the best way to tell if you’re hydrated is they say it’s the check your first morning urine whenever you wake up and go to the bathroom first thing. And as long as it’s a pale color not super dark and as long as there’s a decent amount of it, it’s pale, you did a pretty good job hydrating in the day before. A lot of times if someone didn’t drink enough you know you’re out exercising. It’ll be darker first thing in the morning. So, that’s a really good way to kind of judge your daily hydration just by checking that first morning that first morning bathroom break.

Mathea Ford: [00:12:58] So, what types of beverages do you recommend people use to hydrate? You know there’s just plain water and then you’ve got the Gatorade, Powerade type stuff and then there’s also flavored water. What do you recommend?

Ryan Baggett: [00:13:11] Anything that’s colder is actually going to empty faster in your stomach. So, if you want to hydrate faster the colder the beverage the better hydrate you are going to get and obviously in hot teachers cold water is more palatable to anything with flavor and carb or flavor or carbs that can be zero calories flavor or it can be something that contains carb and encourages more drinking than plain water. They’ve done studies where they have people run a track and just let them kind of grab water as needed. If they’ve shown that people will drink more when it’s flavored compared to plain water at the same temperature. So if you have a problem with hydration keep it cold keep it flavored. You know if you want something flavor calories like you’re not necessarily burning about for three hours they can make a lot of times like electrolyte flavored tablets. They don’t have sugar in them that you can add to water so it adds little flavor, a little bit electrolytes but not necessarily calories. A lot of people when they’re officially running will use gels or beans or some sort of gummy as a carb replacement so for their fluids it’s more just staying hydrated. So, electrolyte is water but getting carbs elsewhere sometimes helps to do it and obviously Gatorade, Powerade all that are good options for replacing calories and replacing electrolytes at the same time while staying hydrated.

Mathea Ford: [00:14:28] So, you mentioned that you have some elite athletes and you have some people who are starting in the middle. Do you have a lot of people who are trying to lose weight through exercise that you talked to?

Ryan Baggett: [00:14:39] Yes I would say that 75, 80 percent of the people that I’m seeing are trying to lose weight as well as in general get more active you know trying to do it together to helps motivate the other one.

Mathea Ford: [00:14:53] How do you help them with the weight loss?

Ryan Baggett: [00:14:55] I know calorie counting is a very very exciting topic among a lot of dietitians. Some are super super against it. You know they’re totally in favor of it eating calories. A few set of people to have terrible relationships with food but I honestly feel like it’s probably more based on your personal goals whether or not calorie counting may or may not be beneficial. You know for me someone looking to improve their body composition and get fit. You know my my average client is not just someone looking to improve their relationship with food and improve their overall health. Now, for someone who’s just trying to get healthier, want some education on how to eat healthier, in general, I would say that “its you would be eating that. Let’s look at your diet. Make some substitutions, get healthier” is usually enough to lead them in the right direction to be a healthier person overall. But people coming to me they have specific weight or body composition goals. And I do feel like calorie counting does help most of them. You know I never tell people “hey! Guess what? You have to count calories rest of your life.” No that’s not it. It’s just that I have found that most people have absolutely no idea how much food they’re eating. And when it comes to trying to figure out how to lose weight it’s usually a pretty big wakeup call when they just log for a couple weeks and see “oh my gosh! I didn’t realize that going out to eat here that this all had a thousand calories in it” and so I feel like it’s usually a good jump starter for people to kind of start to make some healthy changes and most people eat pretty routinely honestly throughout the week. So, once you kind of get the hang of things you may or may not need to log. Usually, have a good check in every now and then to plug in what you’re eating throughout the day. Because especially I was told clients like food like peanut butter, avocado, oil like you know even if it’s extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil or whatever the coolest oil is right now. You know the foods are definitely at the heart healthy fats they’re good for you. Nuts, peanut butters, seeds, all that but they do pack calories too. So, if your goal is to keep your cards up for exercise and weight, well, generally, if calories have to come through fat you know you still owe it should be keeping your fat at least above 15 percent just keeping need fat for hormone production in general if you’re if you’re doing too much peanut butter on stuff. Well that’s replacing the calories that should be coming from carbohydrates for exercise and so for me I feel like calories. Calorie counting does help people realize where their calories are coming from and it’s part of most of my initial appointment. I actually test people’s rescue metabolism. So, when I first started six years ago at Red Coyote, they purchased the body gym indirect countermeasure for me. And so I can test people’s recent troubles for initial visit. Show them “hey! This is what your baseline is based on your job, based on how much exercise you’re doing. This is a good idea of how many calories you’re burning in the day. So, let’s set up realistic weight loss based off of this.” For most people you know either they’re disappointed because it’s not as low as they think they are or they can kind of see “oh I have a desk job I’m only working out an hour week. This probably isn’t why I am losing weight.” So, for me it’s actually very helpful to show people calories. Now, of course I still teach them. This is why you should eat fiber. This is why fruits and vegetables are important. This is how you can stay full and healthy doing some reduce calories here this week or that week to lose weight while still doing it in a healthy way. It’s not “so, hey just fill up the calories and you’re good.” I mean there’s obviously other education that goes along with it.

Mathea Ford: [00:18:14] So, the indirect calorimetry do you find that’s pretty accurate or at least close enough or?

Ryan Baggett: [00:18:23] I do feel like it’s close enough because I have found that the people you know this obviously a lot smaller of my population but the people who do come for me to gain weight generally younger men, older men who have just always been pretty thin and have a hard time putting on muscle or generally I will see that their metabolisms are on the upper end of normal or even above that like “well, hey! This makes sense why you have a hard time gaining weight. You have a soft metabolism” and then I’ll feel a lot of people you know a lot of middle age women and I get a lot of people in their 40s or 50s and they’ll come and like “hey! I have a hard time with losing weight and you know either their metabolism is in the normal range that’s a little bit lower or maybe it’s 100 or 200 calories lower than what’s predicted based on their weight which you know most just genetics but you know they’ve done a lot of crash diets that could be highly lower because you know they’ve been doing too extreme calorie deficits which can temporarily lower your metabolism if you’re trying to cut back too much too fast. I mean again I have nothing to compare to besides like equations but in general I do find that if someone kind of sticks the initial plan that we said that they will usually see the results that we expect assuming that occupational it can be can really make a big difference for some people because some people just sit all day long and they don’t even really fidget whereas other people may burn a few extra hundred calories here and there and getting up from you know their iconic foot tap or something and that really can’t add up of the course of the day just a little non exercise activity calories.

Mathea Ford: [00:19:50] What would you say are some great snacks? I mean you made me think before you were talking about like snacks in the afternoon and depending on whether you’re exercising or not what are some great snacks that you recommend for people who are you know exercising and trying to lose weight making a snack a little healthier instead of just grabbing something out of a vending machine?

Ryan Baggett: [00:20:08] Yeah I always kinda assure people especially if you’re doing it before exercise so make sure it has some good carbs and a little bit of protein. You know you don’t want to do something that’s all protein because that’s not going to give you that quick energy that you need during exercise. But you know doing like a banana like any piece of fruit in a cheese stick or something if you don’t do dairy at a moment it’s a great way to get some good healthy carbs and protein. Even like roast and often now especially compared to chips you know doing something like roasted edamame or roasted chickpea that you can buy prepackaged will give you a lot more protein and healthy carbs than just grab a bag of chips from the vending machine. You know obviously we don’t want people overdo sugar. I mean everyone eat more sugar than they should. I always tell people when it comes to exercise that we’re doing something like a flavored Greek yogurt. It’s perfect because you know it does have a little extra sugar but you’re going to use that when you go exercise or like I have a weird obsession with figs and like they’re all carbs they’re fat free. They’re a part of the 90s craze. I love them. I don’t just snack on them during the day but you know if I want to go exercise I’ll get those whatever the ones you can buy at Target or Sears where there’s the whole grain fig bars or whatever. So, a great free workout snack. Now I’m not going to eat them but they’re great for pre workout and or I have a couple recipes and you can find a million of them in Pinterests for those like oatmeal, peanut, butter, honey, chia seeds and some dried fruit or a few chocolate chips. You know just kind of a little energy oat ball that you usually have between like 50 and 60 calories a piece that you can eat one or two of those before you go work out and get some good things and still get them fiber, get some carb and those are for me so that I could keep that freezer and are easy to grab one or two in shelf stable so that somebody can kind of keep, eat real fast and then go work out without feeling like your weight down your stomach. It’s always a great thing. Yogurt. It looks a little protein fine. So, things like cheese sticks or cottage cheese are all good but mostly mostly carbs.

Mathea Ford: [00:22:11] What should you eat after you exercise to recover well? To have a good next day reduce soreness, reduce lactic acid whatever you’re trying to do?

Ryan Baggett: [00:22:21] Yes. Just making sure that you’re staying hydrated. It can be really important for that because you know if you’re chronically staying dehydrated after an intense workout then your heart has to work harder to feel your next exercise sessions you want stay hydrated but in general I mean you get muscle. I mean as soon as you’re done exercising even during active time you’re getting muscle protein breakdown. The goal is to stop the breakdown and encourage healing and growth. And so in order to do that that’s where protein does come into play especially with strength training. But again you also need nutrients and antioxidants to help recover well too. Obviously, the nutrients in antioxidants that you get from food your body can handle and utilize way better than like some profitable type vitamins so I always find encouraging fruits, vegetables, whole grains. Now, those are going to be great things to help your body recover and heal from the damage of a workout. Anything with lean protein whether it be a little chicken or fish, dairy, eggs. You know those are going to be extremely file available from the protein that your body can use to rebuild and you want to do that within the first hour or two after you finish exercising. So, if you’re an eating exerciser generally as long as you’re going to eat your dinner then a few hours you don’t necessarily need to like chug a protein shake. Now it’s going to be like four hours before you eat, you’re fine. Do that but most of the time you know within that two hour window you should be able to go home and have a meal or go somewhere and get some food.

Mathea Ford: [00:23:45] That makes a lot of sense. So, what is the most common question that people have about exercise related to nutrition that you get?

Ryan Baggett: [00:23:53] I would say it’s probably “how many carbs should I eat? You know how many calories should you eat with this exercise?” You know it might really burning off most I think. And then as well as “how much protein?” So carbs and protein or something that people ask me about a lot probably because it’s a question of fitness industry. So, it’s so in the data that people “Hey! I protein and protein like protein bars, protein powders and you know when it comes down to it like you can get plenty of protein from real food. And ideally I’d like to talk to people about you know you want to spread that pretty evenly throughout the day because the benefit if gaining muscle or weight loss goal you know if your goal is 80 grams protein a day and you’re eating 50 get dinner and 20 at lunch at a breakfast. Well what about the other 40 hours a day where you didn’t eat any protein? So you can definitely increase your strength gains and your muscle gains if you spread it out evenly throughout the day. But for most people it’s just more about finding good sources of carbs and realizing “Okay, I can’t easily erase these calories so let’s get a realistic idea of what I’m actually doing with exercise so that I can properly fuel without overdoing it.” I’ve seen people over eat a 20 mile long run. You know you’re burning over 2000 calories for most people doing a long run for a marathon and then at the store they’ll walk next door to Tucker’s and get a burger fries and the shake kind of like and there goes your 2000 calories. No it’s not as hard to do as you think will be.

Mathea Ford: [00:25:21] If you’re thinking about the listeners and there are people who are either exercising or maybe they’re clinicians or practitioners who are working with people who are starting exercise or doing exercise. What would be your takeaways kind of from our talk that they could use in their day to day life?

Ryan Baggett: [00:25:39] I mean I think just to find especially with exercise and food. You know find an exercise that you enjoy doing because if you don’t like doing it. If your goal is weight loss and you’re using exercise to help as soon as you don’t see the weight loss you expect or you’re done there’s no way you’re going to stop and it’s going to come back on. So no matter what your current level activity is you want to find something that you enjoy doing. And then whether it’s you know running your first five careful marathon how you eat is going to influence your ability to reach those goals. You know people put all this time the gym all the time running. So I was you know you really want to make it count provide your body this nutrient dense foods fiber the proper protein to recover and get stronger versus exercising and then swinging by fast food on your way home and not really encouraging your body to heal as much as it could with again with those nutrient dense foods. We know we all should be eating fruits and vegetables and whole grains. You know because I have seen a lot of people go from being completely sedentary to running happened. So it’s completely doable but commitment to eating proper nutrition is very crucial especially if you’re trying to push yourself further. You know food is fuel. And if you feed your body with those nutritious foods you’re going to help prevent injury, its going to decrease your risk of getting sick and it’s going to help you with your recovery time between workouts. So, I mean I just think it’s one of the things that the food. Food is important obviously but it’s especially important if you’re trying to incorporate exercise into it because it really do go hand-in-hand. It’s kind of hard to exercise all the time and try to get into something more that’s like a training program like a half or full and not really feel that with the right type of food because you would really be doing your body a disservice by doing it like fast food all the time and see that more junky foods.

Mathea Ford: [00:27:28] So, eating better gives them like the fuel to make even more improvements quicker which they’re going to appreciate?

Ryan Baggett: [00:27:35] Yeah! I mean I’ve seen a lot if not a lot, I’ve seen several people I mean it’s kind of same thing. I mean you don’t want to under eat for exercise either because that chronically under eating and try to hit the gym day after day you’re going to get sick, you’re putting yourself at risk for injury to do it that way and you’re just not going to keep it up for very long. So, I mean having that good relationship with food fueled my body and not “Oh! Okay, well I earned back all these calories” or “Oh! I ate this now I need to go burn that.” You know that’s obviously not the type of mindset you want to have when it comes to food and exercise. You know food is what gets you through your exercise. What’s going to make you a stronger runner, a better weight lifter but you know you shouldn’t use it as a punishment or a reward because you did or didn’t do the exercise. It’s a big thing I’d like to kind of push on people too.

Mathea Ford: [00:28:25] That makes a lot of sense. Ryan, I like to ask all of my guests what is your favorite food? Because I love food and..

Ryan Baggett: [00:28:34] Who doesn’t?

Mathea Ford: [00:28:35] I like to hear what other people love. So…

Ryan Baggett: [00:28:36] I mean I would say it’s probably a pretty close toss up between sushi and chocolate which is a weird combination. But I mean I really do feel like I could eat sushi every day but I do eat chocolate every day. I would buy that big a snack at first because you can get it like at Target. And I keep it in my freezer because you know one or two after lunch, splurge after dinner and that usually keeps my chocolate craving as nerve controls I can just have a little bit after my meal. But yeah, I mean it’s a shame I live in Oklahoma because each and every day if I can.

Mathea Ford: [00:29:08] I love that idea of freezing so that it slows you down.

Ryan Baggett: [00:29:12] I mean actually they’ve done studies that show the farther away the food is the less likely you are to get it. So, you know I don’t like frozen chocolate. So the fact that I had to let it sit out and thought for a little bit usually keeps me from just like mindlessly munching on it but that kind of helps me at least. Or I’ll put it up high on a shelf that way I actually have like try to get it. I don’t sleep it out but yeah. I know I can have my lunch and dinner because I do have a very big sweet tooth.

Mathea Ford: [00:29:41] So, what’s your favorite kind of sushi?

Ryan Baggett: [00:29:42] Anything with salmon. Whether it’s salmon or roes. And then I just I like salmon a lot. Salmon is wrapped and roe wrapped in a tube. But I like to have all the different condiments of them too. But if you’re doing a long run on Saturday or Sunday it’s a good thing to eat the day before. There’s a lot of rice.

Mathea Ford: [00:30:00] Yeah! That makes sense. Build up those carb store and got it from a long run.

Ryan Baggett: [00:30:05] Just as those glycogen stocked up.

Mathea Ford: [00:30:06] Yeah. So, Ryan thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It was a pleasure to have you on the show. I know my listeners learned a lot about just some basics sports nutrition stuff especially if they’re getting started. So if listeners want to connect with you what’s the best way to do that?

Ryan Baggett: [00:30:23] Probably e-mail is a great way. It’s my first name Ryan R-Y-A-N at Red Coyote Running (ryan@redcoyote.running.com) or I have a dietitian Facebook page it’s RyanbackatRD on Facebook recently finally got it. Instagram and its @Dietitian_Ryan_Run. So that’s an option too. I should be put out a couple blog so soon but you can find that through my Facebook or my Instagram as well.

Mathea Ford: [00:30:49] Yeah I’ve noticed your Instagram you’ve put in some really good foods on there.

Ryan Baggett: [00:30:52] Yeah. I’m trying to get more into the view back into that the blogging everything again. Kids kind of derail a little bit of everything but I’m getting a little more time that I really enjoy doing the social media activity as well and I find it really helps my clients when I can lead them to “hey! Here’s a great resource for a quick meal. Here’s a great recipe for those protein energy policy before you run. It’s just something that comes in handy. So, as I feel a need for something I can do a post on it to kind of help people the future.

Mathea Ford: [00:31:22] I think a lot of us do that kind of that way. Well. Well guys this has been another great episode of the nutrition experts podcast. The podcast that is all about learning more so you can do more with nutrition in your life.

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Nutrition Experts Podcast Episode 42 You Can Alter Your Brain’s Chemistry At Any Age with Sangeeta Pradhan, RD, LDN, CDE

February 18, 2019 by matheaford Leave a Comment

Sangeeta Pradhan is a Registered Dietitian and Certified Diabetes Educator. She works as the Diabetes Program Coordinator of a large physician practice group in the Metro-West Boston area. She is also a professional speaker with over 18 years of speaking on the (very broad and yes, confusing!!…), topic of nutrition at non -profit and corporate accounts. She had the distinct honor of being a speaker at the Mass Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ state level annual conference in 2015, 2016, and 2018. In Feb 2017, she was invited to, and presented a talk on the “Gut microbiome” at Simmon’s College, MA. In the fall of 2018, she presented a talk on “Nutrition and Cognitive function” at Framingham State University and in December 2018 discussed the same topic on her local community access Television.

She is a guest blogger for Food and Nutrition magazine’s Stone Soup Blog and she is also currently the Chair of the Central Mass Dietetic Association.

Knowledge in and of itself is of no value unless shared with others. By sharing her professional knowledge that is based upon scientific evidence and current research with the readers, she hopes to inspire people to accomplish their health and nutrition related goals.

Having said that, she believes that understanding nutrition will only take you so far. At the end of the day, you need to translate these sound nutritional concepts into real foods that you can actually enjoy. To this end, she have created a repertoire of delicious recipes using whole and wholesome ingredients. She is blessed to be raised in a traditional Indian household in an era when everything was prepared from scratch, (not to mention with a dash of love and a pinch of passion)! By osmosis, she must have imbibed this because cooking soon became her passion and an integral part of her life. As an RD, somewhere along the way, she learned to tweak traditional, calorie dense recipes to make them healthier, without sacrificing flavor! (She also learned to not reveal to her family that it was a “tweaked” recipe)!!

So in addition to my articles, she inviting everyone to check out her recipe index, to dig in and enjoy!

For more information on her professional profile please visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sangeetapradhan/

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:00:44] Thank you so much my dear. I’m so excited to be on your show.

Mathea Ford: [00:00:48] Well, I’m excited to have you on the show and share your expertise about the brain and the human brain and how it works with my tribe today. So, tell my listeners a little more about you and what you do besides this brain research stuff too.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:01:04] So, I am a Registered Dietitian and a Certified Diabetes Educator. I am the Diabetes Program Coordinator for a physician practice group in Metro West Massachusetts. I happen to be the chair of the Central Mass Dietetic Association. I also do a lot of community outreach projects and present at professional conferences, speaking at conferences or in my community groups is something that I really enjoy doing because I think it gives me a wonderful, gives us a wonderful platform to really put out the word about nutrition without the hype. So that’s something I really enjoy doing. So, I do various community projects ranging from presentations to workshops, occasionally food demonstrations.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:02:00] I’m also a guest blogger for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Stone Soup Magazine and I also have my own personal blog when I’m not doing any of those you you’ll probably find me in my kitchen cooking up a storm and developing recipes which subsequently I post on my blog.

Mathea Ford: [00:02:27] Great! I love that you do so many different things and you’re kind of connected with your community because I think that’s where we kind of get a lot of our inspiration as dietitians is from our patients from the people we work with. So I know you’ve done research on the human brain and how it relates with nutrition, with cognitive function. And I think it’s transformative information that we’re going to talk about today. So, what makes that so exciting?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:02:55] Yeah Mathea. I’m really really excited to be presenting on how nutrition impacts cognitive function. So, our brain also is evolving at a mindblowing pace. No pun intended and is one of the most exciting frontiers in medicine today. We now know that our brain is not static and hard wired as previously part. But this dynamic organ where new neurons and new neural connections are created every day regardless of your age. Up until the 1990s it was mistakenly believed that our brain was static and that we did not grow new neurons at all. Well, turns out nothing could be farther from the truth and modifiable lifestyle factors i.e. diet and lifestyle can profoundly influence this whole process and indeed the course of Neurological Disorders and cognitive function itself. What is truly transformative about this research is that in a phenomenon called neuroplasticity we can actually change our brains for the better. So, that begs the question can be you simple bio hacks such as the food we eat or our ability to take a walk to upgrade our brain to the best version of itself. And the answer is yes. And that really is the crux of our discussion today and I hope to get that message across to your audience.

Mathea Ford: [00:04:36] Okay. So, can you talk about how our brains work? Talk about how our brains create new connections?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:04:43] Our brains are incredibly, amazingly complex. So, how the brain works as a whole is a very broad question but what I would like to do is narrow it down to how the neurons work and communicate with each other in the context of what we are discussing today which is neuroplasticity and neurogenesis and how does food fit into that picture. We’ve all heard of neurons which are basically brain cells. The brain is part of the central nervous system which consists of the brain and the spinal cord and the neurons communicate with each are though chemical and electrical signals.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:05:31] So, let me just explain that a little bit. When a neuron transmits a signal to its neighboring neuron it’s actually an electrical signal that gets transmitted and there is this little gap between the two neurons. And it’s called a synapse it’s very microscopic. It’s really really tiny. It’s about the it’s like one thousand the width of a hair. You can imagine how microscopic it is. So, this electric signal travels down what we would call the presynaptic neuron. That’s the neuron that’s emitting the message but that electric signal cannot just jump across the synaptic cleft. It has to be converted into a chemical impulse which we all know as a neurotransmitter. So, this neurotransmitter then drifts across the synaptic cleft lashes on to the postsynaptic neuron which is the neuron that’s receiving the signal. And in so doing it stimulates it. And this is how neurons communicate. And when these neurons connect with other neurons through their synapses they form complex neural networks that are responsible for all of the brain’s functions.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:06:59] Your next question I think was talk about how brains create new connections. Is that what’s your next question was?

Mathea Ford: [00:07:07] Yes. Can you talk about… You talked a little bit about well not about how brains create new connections but yeah tell us a little bit about how you said neuroplasticity a little bit and we’ll talk about that in a minute. But tell us about how our brains create new connections because you said we’re always changing always growing?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:07:27] Exactly! This process by which the brain creates new connections is called neurogenesis, neuro, neurons, genesis, the bulk of new neurons. In this context, I would like to introduce a tool called Neurotrophin. So, neutral neuron stroke Finns are basically proteins in the brain that allow fragile new neurons to grow and survive and proliferate. Now in case your listeners are wondering why would new neurons not survive. We have to bear in mind that we are living in a highly neurotoxic world and our bodies are under constant siege if you will by free radicals that are created from oxidative stress in our environment all from pollution, the foods we eat, the metabolic processes in the body. As a result of this, these fragile new neurons created from brain cells do not survive unless they have an adequate amount of it’s neurotrophins. So, you want to think about neurotrophins almost like a protective model taking care of the little ones and creating a nurturing environment for them. So, not only do these neurotrophins allow these little neurons to survive, more importantly these neurotrophins allow and enable these neurons to connect with each other through their synapses and to wire together. And it is this wiring of neural networks that allows the formation and consolidation of memory. This is how we learn. This is what promotes higher thinking. So we have these wonderful neural connections and we can grow new neurons every day. However, the rates of neurogenesis vary from individual to individual. And this is where we can use modifiable lifestyle factors, diet and exercise to influence this process which makes it very exciting and very empowering.

Mathea Ford: [00:09:54] So when people say that for example drinking beer kills brain cells it really can cause it’s going to create those free radicals that attack the brain the new neurons. Right?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:10:06] Exactly! So it could be of a food entity, tt could be something in the environment. Anything that causes oxidative stress and creates free radicals which for the benefit of the audience and just want to explain free radicals are simply lone oxygen atoms. We think of oxygen as being beneficial and of course it is. But when a free radical is created, you have this lone oxygen atom that is missing an electron. And that makes a highly unstable very reactive. And it begins to strip electrons from different compounds in your body. The loss of an electron creates oxidation, oxidative damage and of these free radicals can wreak havoc in the body. So to your point, yes, excess amounts of certain foods such as refined carbohydrates or high fat foods or beer and so forth can cause oxidative damage in the body. But we can counteract that by eating healthy foods. That’s the whole crux of the discussion.

Mathea Ford: [00:11:15] Are we going to talk about how do you create new more neutrophins? Or do you? Is that something that you can tell us a little bit more? Because I’m intrigued by this idea of neurotrophins being like moms protecting new brain cells. How did we get more of those in our brain?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:11:32] Absolutely! So, I think in this context again I want to introduce a molecule known as brain derived neural trophic factor. So it’s simply a no growth factor. It is a neurotrophin in but the reason why I’m bringing back into the discussion now is because brain-derived neurotrophic factor is the star of the show. A lot of experts refer to it as miracle grow for the brain. Isn’t that something? So, yeah pretty mind blowing. What the research shows is that a typical Western diet that is high in saturated fat and high in animal protein and high in refined carbs and added sugars literally drops levels of BDNF or brain-derived neurotrophic factor in the brain. So if you have fewer of these neurotrophins, highly protective neurotrophins, bearing in mind that they allowed the little neurons to survive and grow and connect and form synaptic connections there’s less of those connections now. But since it’s the wiring of neural networks that leads to the formation and consolidation of memory, new memories are not form and in fact this is exactly what happens to folks with Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. No new neurons are produced in a structure of the brain known as the hippocampus. The hippocampus is actually a part of the limbic system. You could call it the central command in the brain for memory and how you’re thinking. So then BDNF levels drop and no new neurons are produced, no new memories form. So, people with Alzheimer’s for instance might remember something that they did 20 years ago but their short term memory is lost because they don’t form new memories and they end up becoming sort of a shadow if you will of their former selves. So by eating foods with antioxidant potential what you can do is you can combat some of the oxidative stress that causes the body to lose some of those neurotrophins. You can combat that oxidative stress and boost back BDNF levels and in so doing you promote cognitive function again.

Mathea Ford: [00:14:13] You mentioned that people with Alzheimer’s, Dementia aren’t building new tissues in connection, is there? I think I’ve always thought or maybe I just had this thought but that there is an age where we kind of stop getting new brain cells where we stop making tissues and connections. Is that true?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:14:32] Actually the research which is really exciting shows that that is not true which is truly staggering. There is no age where we stop making new neurons. How exciting is that?

Mathea Ford: [00:14:48] That is! Because that means obviously you can continue to have good brain health throughout your life.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:14:53] Right! So, there was a study in I think it was a 2013 study in the Journal Cell that showed that even into our old age we can create seven hundred new neurons every day. Now bear in mind that we have like 86 to 100 billion neurons and they have they fall thousands ff synaptic connections. So seven hundred might seem like a drop in the bucket but the fact that we are actually creating new neurons in itself is very valuable. So, yes we can continue to build new neurons into our old age. But as I said the rates of neurogenesis can vary. And this is where I think we can use the power of neurogenesis through foods and lifestyle to positively influence that process.

Mathea Ford: [00:15:52] Som you mentioned before neuroplasticity. So let’s go back to that. What is neuroplasticity specifically and how is it discovered?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:16:00] In very broad terms, neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to adapt and change and rewire itself and reorganize itself in response to our experiences. Our brain is incredibly moldable in every thought. Think about this. Every thought, every emotion, every experience we undergo changes the brain for the better or worse. So, it’s pretty amazing. You asked how was it discovered. So, the history of neuroplasticity. Believe it or not goes back to the 1890s when William James in his book talked about it. He said that the brain was plastic but at that time that the concept did not really take hold. It wasn’t until the 1950s that they did an experiment with the rats. So I do want to mention that this cognitive science and this whole research is relatively new. It’s emerging research. Lot of the research has been done in animal models. We do need more randomized clinical trials but what we have seen so far is pretty compelling. Anyway, to go back to the 1950s, they did this experiment in two sets of rats and one set of rats was placed in rich, social environment where there they will basically be given rat toys; they were allowed to interact with their little rat buddies; they were made to run on running wheels and then they had another set of rats where the poor little critters were isolated from each other and they didn’t have their little buddies to play with and so forth. And what they observed was that the rats in the end rich social and white men had higher rates of neurogenesis and they also they had more cybernetic connections those connections that we were talking about earlier. So that was sort of a great breakthrough research that they stumbled upon in the 1950s and then later more research was done in the 1970s but again it wasn’t until the late 1990s that we discovered that we can actually grow new neurons.

Mathea Ford: [00:18:36] We’ve talked about neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. Is there a link between neuroplasticity and like the habits that we form? So does one being able to change our brain, being able to move it and create new memories? Does that help with habits or is that any at all related?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:18:56] So, to many get an understanding of how that works, Mathea, I’m going to take us back to what I was talking about very early on in our podcast today. If you recall we were talking about how the neurons connect to each other through their synapses and the neurotransmitter travels the synaptic cleft and so on so forth and the signal is transmitted. So, what the research shows is that repeated signals and high frequency signals strengthen synaptic connections in a process called Long Term Potentiation or the audience can just think about it as Long Term Memory to keep this simple. Repeated signal strengthens synaptic connections and the opposite is true. So that weak signals when weak in a sign up a connection you want to think about your brain like a power grid with these complex neural circuits going we can just impacted how we saw it working right. So when you engage in a particular behavior that neural pathway in the grid lights up. Then you keep repeating that behavior.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:20:11] Those neurons become more and more excitable and it gets easier and easier for the brain to use that particular pathway. Neuroplasticity follows the use it or lose it rule. Frequently used synaptic connections and neural pathways get stronger and stronger and the pathways that are infrequently used or seldom used will weaken and disappear over time. And this is called synaptic pruning which I thought was very apt. Your body says your brain says “hey! You’re not using this memory I’m going to snip it off” just like you would prune excess branches if you will in those shrubs in your yard that you don’t want need but a memory that’s revisited over and over again the brain says “hey! I guess you needed somebody to hold onto it.” That synapse that synaptic connection has strengthened over time. Let me share another example. In high school if you hated calculus like I did but you loved history. I knew I remember rattling off historical events at the drop of a hat because I kept reviewing history notes but speaking for myself I nearly flunked Calculus. That’s because the synapses associated with Calculus weakened over time because I didn’t pay any attention. But I kept reviewing history notes almost became the teacher’s pet because those synapses got stronger and stronger. The use it or lose it rule. We can use neuroplasticity to actually develop like the habits and give up the ones that I’m not working for us. So, drug addiction for instance is the darker side of neuroplasticity but you can see how you can tap into the power of neuroplasticity to engage and develop habits that work in our favor. If that makes sense.

Mathea Ford: [00:22:18] So that were the idea has come from that it takes 21 days to develop a new habit. Even though we know it’s not necessarily 21 days specifically but you have to give your brain that repeated stimulus.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:22:31] Again the expression Practice makes perfect. It just puts that into a whole new perspective doesn’t it?

Mathea Ford: [00:22:39] Yeah! Your brain’s practicing and your body is practicing doing whatever. Let’s talk a little bit let’s get more into the nutrition side since we’re both dietitians. We talked about what causes the brain to have neuroplasticity but what foods have been studied that can affect our brains?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:22:55] So a whole array of foods have been studied but in a very broad sense. Let’s talk about the big picture first. What they have seen is that the Western diet that we just referred to a little earlier on in the podcast that is high in processed foods and high saturated fat foods and high in sugar and whatnot. What they have seen is that it actually literally shrinks the Hippocampus. It’s called Hippocampus Atrophy. The hippocampus which is a part of the brain which as I said is combined central for memory and learning literally shrinks with the Western diet and also BDNF levels not surprisingly drop with the Western diet. So basically lower intake of nutrient dense foods and higher intakes of unhealthy foods can cause that hippocampus to shrink and have also been associated with increased risk of depression and cognitive decline. So that’s sort of in a broader sense but in terms of specific nutrients that have been investigated. DHA and Omega 3 fatty acid it’s a 22 carbon I believe omega 3 fatty acid it’s found found in fish oils found in walnuts found in seeds like flaxseed chia seeds and so forth. So DHA is actually an integral component of neuronal cell membranes.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:24:31] You know the a good analogy I can give. Well I hope it’s a good analogy is if you’re thinking about constructing a building you would want high quality building materials. So also when you if you want to build a good brain you need good amounts of these Omega 3 Fatty Acids. So DHA has been investigated. Here’s the catch. While prospective studies have shown that for instance just eating one fatty fish meal a week can reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s by 60 percent. Randomized clinical trials with two grams of algal DHA have been somewhat disappointing. That said I would still and create your audience to include a fatty fish and Omega 3 Fatty Acids because ultimately you know at the end of the day it’s really the whole foods that count and whole dietary patterns that count. We don’t want to get too hung up on isolated nutrients. So, that’s the scoop on DHA. And then there’s corcumin which is the active extract of turmeric. And back also in we know it has antioxidant at the inflammatory properties. But again in clinical trials the results have been somewhat mixed. So, there was this 24 week Siebel Controlled Trial. They were I think 36 subjects enrolled in the trial. So it was a relatively smaller trial. And they were randomized to placebo or two grams a day of corcumin all four grams a day. And it failed to demonstrate any efficacy.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:26:20] But again I just want to caution the audience that we need bigger you know broader well designed studies to really sort of draw any conclusions from this. It has been shown to have a very potent antioxidant properties. So I would certainly encourage the audience to use just a pinch. All it takes is a pinch of turmeric in your food, in stews. So, still try dishes to get some of the benefits. So that’s corcumin. Then there’s Vitamin E. We all know that’s a very potent antioxidant and about two thousand international units of that in mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease has shown some modest benefits. This. Do you want me to keep going on? Just note some of the other nutrients that were used?

Mathea Ford: [00:27:11] Maybe a couple more.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:27:13] Folate. As the name implies fully leafy green vegetables, oranges, orange juice, legumes. That was this landmark study in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging. And in that what that study demonstrated was that folate at all about the RDA it was associated with a significantly reduced risk of Alzheimers disease. And then let’s not forget all the other antioxidants. The flavonoids you know anything with bright wavering colors. We know that the mark of an antioxidant is that it leaves a stain behind and foods with those bright, rich colors have antioxidant properties. So, in a 2000 study what they saw was that a flavonoid or antioxidant rich diet can actually up regulate genes in your body that are associated with learning and cognitive function and down regulate the genes that are associated with inflammation and loading deficits which again should not be surprising given that oxidative stress reduces levels of neurotrophins. So anything with any oxygen properties that would mitigate that oxidative stress would then boost BDNF levels and promote neurogenesis. Last but not the least intermittent fasting which has become a hot topic these days. And calorie restriction have also shown some surprising benefits. They both actually boost BDNF levels. And the theory behind that is that while chronic stress releases cortisol which is a stress hormone in the brain killing those little neurons we were talking about that are part of neurogenesis and memory formation of the mild stress that is caused by calorie restriction actually has the opposite effect.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:29:26] It forces the brain to think and triggers neurogenesis and all kinds of neural protective mechanisms are triggered. And so so those findings were to me and that was pretty was a little surprising that intermittent fasting actually helps.

Mathea Ford: [00:29:45] I’ve done a little bit of reading and understanding about a little bit more about intermittent fasting and I know one of the main things that happens is that your body stops producing insulin so then your body is also basically doing some of those reparative things. Your body goes through some repair processes and starts using and using those kind of things that are out there just hanging out that it hasn’t had the time to repair because it’s so busy with insulin doing the storage and the energy use that it kind of let your body calm down which you mentioned you’re saying it’s a mild stress vs. your body having to digest food you know so that allowing it to go through that process.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:30:35] The research shows that while basically there is an up regulation of receptors in the brain for stress hormones with chronic stress. And you don’t see that with when you get cold calories or you go to intermittent fasting and let’s bear in mind that any excess of calorie consumption in and off itself will increase oxidative stress to the body and then a whole cascade of reaction ensues. That’s unfavorable but also the results showed that certain neutral protective mechanisms are triggered by stress broking so-called Heat Shock Proteins and Glucose Regulatory Proteins are produced that have neuro protective mechanisms and also the ketones that are produced when someone undergoes fasting or you know a low carb diet. And fats are burned in the absence of carbohydrates. The incomplete oxidation of fats produces ketones and ketones, this has been demonstrated that ketones also have neuro protective effects. It’s a whole sort of if if they can actually impact epigenetics in the body that would be go beyond the scope of our discussion today. But suffice to say that intermittent fasting and calorie restricted diets did show favorable effects on BDNF levels.

Mathea Ford: [00:32:06] You mentioned this a little bit but vitamins. So, you mentioned using an antioxidants and you mentioned some specific ones but and I know that food is definitely better to get your because we just don’t know all the properties that are helping our bodies but are there vitamins that people might want to think about or is it good to kind of just take some extra antioxidants in a vitamin to improve your brain power?

Mathea Ford: [00:32:37] In this though Baltimore Study of Aging Longitudinal Study of Aging that I was talking about. What they found and basically they followed non demented elderly volunteers for like 9.3 years is a pretty long study and what they found was that higher intake of folate, vitamin E, vitamin B6 were associated individually with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease but when the three vitamins were analyzed together only folate at or about the RDA was associated with a significantly lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease. So, I hope that answers your question.

Mathea Ford: [00:33:23] Yeah! I think it’s good to always remember that food first. So, getting those dark leafy greens and good sources of folate. We’ve also seen I know this isn’t the topic today but when I was pregnant definitely they want people to young women in their childbearing ages to do the folate and to get plenty of that DHA because of the neuro benefits.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:33:47] Absolutely! So at the end of the day we just want to remember that it’s ultimately it’s Whole Foods that count and not individual nutrients. And the best way I can describe that is if you think about it pure it’s lovely to hear a violin playing. It sounds beautiful but you don’t get the full glorious effect until you hear the whole orchestra and that’s the same thing with food. You know those vitamins and nutrients and whatnot are wonderful but it’s not until you eat whole foods that you can hack into the real power of all those foods. So that’s one way of looking at it.

Mathea Ford: [00:34:28] Kind of another thing you mentioned at the beginning was talking about exercise and going for a walk or whatever. So, can we dig in a little bit to how does exercise affect BDNF?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:34:43] Yes absolutely! So exercise is actually one of the most powerful ways of changing your brain and rewiring its chemistry. Exercise has been shown to increase BDNF levels and in fact there was a study that was done in which they found that in that particular study exercise increased BDNF levels by as much as 32 percent. And you’re talking about moderate intensity to exercise engaging in exercise for about 30 to 40 minutes or so.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:35:25] And I also want to share this landmark study that was done in I believe 1999 at Duke University and the investigators actually had the nerve to test exercise against Zoloft and so they had these three cohorts of subjects. One cohort took Zoloft. The second cohort exercised four times a week for I believe a half hour and the third cohort to Zoloft as well as exercise and to their surprise after four weeks. Depression scores dropped to normal across all three groups. So then we had you know the brains of big pharma shall we say the skeptics who said “hey! You didn’t have a placebo!” So they they added a placebo and depression scores dropped to normal again across all three cohorts. So this was again groundbreaking research that really got the attention of the scientific community. And again underscoring the role that exercise plays in this whole picture. One Thing I forgot to mention Mathea is that a lot of the studies that were done on DHA, corcumin, vitamin E they also investigated the role of exercise concurrently or simultaneous me with these in rats and what they found was exercise synergistically increased levels of BDNF. So, the concurrent application of exercise or exercise along with a wonderful healthy diet clearly compounds the beneficial effects that we see from healthy foods.

Mathea Ford: [00:37:16] So, you’re talking about any type of exercise whether it’s weight training or it’s a aerobic exercise or is there one particular kind of mode that seems that they’ve studied?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:37:25] From what I can tell and there’s so many different studies on this but from what I can tell it seems to me that aerobic exercise appears to provide the greatest benefits from what I can tell from the research. And there’s a lot of studies that have been done on this from what I can tell.

Mathea Ford: [00:37:48] So, it really sounds like 40 minutes, 30 to 40 minutes three or four times a week provides this increase in BDNFthat helps with our memory and our brains.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:37:58] Absolutely! You want to get your heart pumping and you want to get more oxygen to the brain really that’s what it’s all about.

Mathea Ford: [00:38:05] You mentioned the Western diet being the biggest issue that causes brain problems. What diet changes are recommended to improve how BDNF works in our brain? So we’ve talked about what not to eat and a little bit I think we’ve touched on what to eat but what diet changes are recommended to help improve that and how long does it take before you start seeing changes?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:38:30] Basically a Mediterranean Style Diet that is high in fatty fish or if you’re a vegetarian then tapping into Omega 3 Fatty Acids sources through nuts, seeds and some leafy greens also by the way have some can provide some Omega 3 fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains. Whole grains actually do have antioxidants called ligaments so we don’t want read that’s something you just want to bear in mind legumes as well as you know basically just whole and unprocessed foods that are and dietary pattern that is low in added sugars and refined sugars would have beneficial effects in terms of raising BDNF.

Mathea Ford: [00:39:17] If somebody is starting to or wants to improve their memory whether they’re feel like they have any sort of deficit or not they feel like you know they can improve their memory, how long eating this way do they before they start seeing some changes?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:39:31] So, Mathea. I just want to share with your audience some studies that were done in rats. I do want to just in so the word of caution these were studies in animal models not human beings but the evidence was pretty compelling. And in separate trials these rats were basically fed a high fat diet and then the poor little critters were subjected to a traumatic brain injury. So both of which causes oxidative stress. What they found was the set of rats that was supplemented with antioxidant rich nutrients corcumin, vitamin E and DHA. They actually aced a Spatial Learning Test. And the rats that was not supplemented with antioxidant rich nutrients flunked the test. So that’s the Spatial Learning Test is called the Morris Water Maze and what it is is these little of critters are made to run around an open swim area and they are supposed to locate a submerged escape platform so the rats that was supplemented with antioxidant rich nutrients aced the test. The rats that was not supplemented flunked the test which underscores the fact that antioxidant rich foods can mitigate the oxidative stress created from a high fat diet and from the traumatic brain injury boost BDNF levels and restore cognitive function. One other factor that I would like to mention at this point Mathea is that your diet actually causes structural and functional changes in the brain which is pretty amazing and this is why the hippocampus actually shrinks on a Western diet. This is also what we see the depression and schizophrenia by the way but the hippocampus actually shrinks.

Mathea Ford: [00:41:38] That’s amazing to think that it’s protective because we never know at what point we might have more oxidative stress than others so being preventative is definitely a good thing. And those studies you mentioned about rats were like three weeks or a month or?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:41:57] As I said they were like separate trials with DHA, corcumin and vitamin E and some of them were full week, some of them were eight weeks.

Mathea Ford: [00:42:06] So we’ve talked about diet, we’ve talked about exercise. Are there other factors that affect BDNF in our brain?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:42:14] Essentially, anything that we can do that challenges the brain is going to boost BDNF levels. It’s so funny but just using your brain actually increases BDNF. Any kind of visual and cognitive stimuli is going to increase BDNF in the brain but it doesn’t have to be cognitive. That’s really what is so empowering about this. It could be loading a new skill, a new motor skills. So if you’ve never learn to ride a bike if you do so that’s going to boost BDNF levels. Learning a new language can boost BDNF levels. Learning to play a new instrument that’s going to boost BDNF levels. So anything that essentially challenges the brain can work in our favor. Meditation has been shown to increase BDNF levels. Getting a full night’s sleep increases BDNF levels. Also enrich social environment. So, having those meaningful relationships with the people around you, having meaningful social connections, social circles and so forth, friendships all of this has been shown to have a favorable effect on BDNF.

Mathea Ford: [00:43:35] I remember when I was growing up my grandmother she refused to use a calculator to balance our checkbook and she was convinced that helped her to have like keep her brain healthy. And what you’re saying is that she was right.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:43:51] She was because unbeknownst to her she was using the fundamental rule of neuroplasticity. If you don’t use it you’ll lose it.

Mathea Ford: [00:43:59] Absolutely! And I would I believe she actually said that. She didn’t say the neuroplasticity part but she said if I don’t keep using my brain I’m going to lose this ability.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:44:08] Then in her infinite wisdom she knew what she was doing.

Mathea Ford: [00:44:12] My grandmother had lots of lots of things like that. Yeah! You’ve made me actually just hopeful that you know our brains don’t deteriorate if we take an active part and we eat healthy and we exercise which is normal healthy recommendations anyway that we can have that brain power well into our body. Yes it’s the quality not quantity. So you can have a quality of life you’re improving the quality of life.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:44:41] And it’s simple things that are already at your fingertips. The foods that we are talking about is probably already in the kitchen cabinet.

Mathea Ford: [00:44:50] Yeah you just have to make that effort to eat them in on a regular basis and keep those not to say sugar and everything is the worst thing in the world but definitely keep that at a minimum. So, tell me a little bit about listeners who’ve listen to this whole podcast are thinking you know “gosh! This is great I should eat healthy or whatever” but how can they use it in their day to day life especially if they’re like a clinician and they’re working with people on a regular basis to help them not necessarily for their brainpower but just help eat healthier and stuff?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:45:23] Are you talking about just the lay consumers? I just want to make…

Mathea Ford: [00:45:28] I think lay consumers as one and then clinicians is another so can you talk a little bit about how they may be different they may use it in their life?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:45:36] Again, back to some of the basics that we that we discussed. Your behavior is actually the biggest driver of neuroplasticity. Think about things that you can do that would challenge your brain. You know nurture behaviors that lead to positive changes. We talk a lot about neuroplasticity and developing good habits and trying to give up those behaviors that don’t create positive changes and watch that neural pathway disappear. So, for instance think about things that you can do that would favorably impact your brain. And it could be you know little things. It could be perhaps maybe if you’re drinking. I don’t know. So it is something like that and gradually cutting back on that carving out a new neural pathway which you know initially might seem awkward but as you keep practicing it the oil factory disappears and before you know it you’ve changed that habit. Think of things that you can do in your day to day life that would help create favorable changes in your brain and boost the BDNF levels. Back to you to whole foods, unprocessed foods, use spices. Spices have in your cooking. Spices have potent antioxidant potential. And as I mentioned turmeric earlier. Just a pinch goes a long way and you can use it in the stews and soups and stir fry dishes and whatnot. I do want to mention that it’s very pungent. So all it takes is a pinch. You don’t want to do more than that and you can put it in practically every dish except I want you dessert because that dessert will no longer be dessert and it will turn into something savory. Little things that we can do you know shooting baskets with your with your kids, riding a bike with your kids, maybe riding down a new path and now you’re killing two birds with one stone. Get the exercise and you have challenged your brain by going down on new paths if you will. So anything that we can do that will help boost BDNF levels and it’s these simple things that we can do in our day to day life. That was ultimately help improve and enhance cognitive function.

Mathea Ford: [00:48:00] So that makes a lot of sense. And I would like to end the interview where I always end it and ask you to tell me your favorite food.

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:48:09] My favorite food is really decadent triple layer chocolate cake with homemade buttercream frosting.

Mathea Ford: [00:48:22] All right thank you. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It was a pleasure to have you on the show. I know my listeners have learned a lot about BDNF and brain health and how to just keep your brains active and have a good quality of life. So, if listeners want to connect with you what’s the best way to do that?

Sangeeta Pradhan: [00:48:41] Listeners who want to connect with me can find me on the WebDietitian WEB dietitian.WordPress.com and they can just click on the Contact tab on the menu bar. And that’s probably the best way of reaching me. If you Google WebDietitian it should pop up. And I have a Facebook page as well for WebDietitian.

Mathea Ford: [00:49:06] Okay. Well guys this has been another great episode of the Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast that is all about learning more so you can do more with nutrition in your life.

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Nutrition Experts Podcast Episode 41 How Can You Eat Better By Cooking More with Ranelle Kirchner, MS, RDN, CDE

February 11, 2019 by matheaford Leave a Comment

Ranelle is a Licensed Registered Dietitian, Certified Diabetic Educator, and Le Cordon Bleu culinary graduate with a passion for health and wellness, and a desire to help you understand yours.

She specializes in:

Diabetes and diabetes health management
Food allergies/intolerances
Medical Nutrition Therapy
General health and wellness
Meal plans
Private cooking classes and events

Ranelle loves food. She believes that eating is such an important part of our lives, rooted in cultural tradition, shaped by health, inspired by the smells and flavors of all our favorite dishes. But it can sometimes seem overwhelming; food politics, economics, and an ever-changing array of “fad diets” can make the world taste bland. Her overall purpose is to teach people what she knows and allows the consumer to make informed, healthy decisions. For her, eating doesn’t have to be difficult or unpleasant. She wants to call attention to, and teach others about, the important issues surrounding food & nutrition. She wants to give counsel on how to eat healthy, and share recipes that make good food exciting. Her background has provided her with a deep understanding and appreciation of these matters, and with strong feelings in regards to our nation’s food and nutritional health.

A story of health, nutrition, and most importantly, food

Before starting her own business as ChefRDN, LLC, she was the Food Service Director of Thorek Memorial Hospital in Chicago. While there, she counseled patients on nutrition in both in and outpatient settings. She have also worked with Rush University Medical Center in Patient Food Services as an Administrative Registered Dietitian and Supervisor. During her time at Rush, she graduated from the Morrison Internship program and later achieved a Masters of Science in Clinical Nutrition. But it all started with food: She originally graduated with an Associates degree in Culinary Arts from Le Cordon Bleu in St. Paul, Minnesota. Given her background in both cooking and dietetics, she is now enjoy teaching others how food and nutrition can improve their lives, and help them to prepare and enjoy food of any/all types, with an emphasis on eating and buying local. She became a Certified Diabetes Educator in 2018, which allows me to reach new audiences in new ways, and best serve those suffering from diabetes.

She spends her free time volunteering at locavore food and health-related events, and am an avid outdoors(wo)man. and enjoy traveling, reading, knitting, practicing yoga, bicycling, and gardening.

Mathea Ford: [00:00:26] Hi there! It’s Mathea. Welcome back to the Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast featuring nutrition experts who are leading the way using food starts today right now with our next guest. It’s great to have Ranelle Kirschner on the show today. Ranelle welcome to Nutrition Experts.

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:00:43] Hi! Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.

Mathea Ford: [00:00:46] I know I’m excited to have you on this show and share your expertise with my tribe. You have a very interesting story so I’d love to let you tell my listeners a little more about you and what you do.

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:00:58] Absolutely! So, I am a dietitian/chef and Certified Diabetic Educator. I have really paved this path of trying to combine the two worlds of both cooking, culinary arts and nutrition because as similar as they seem they’re two very different worlds and so I spend my passion and ambition to bring those two worlds together to better help people in terms of changing the way they live. To lead a healthier lifestyle and really show people how great food can be because there’s a lot of simple things that you can do to make it healthy.

Mathea Ford: [00:01:35] So, you mentioned that you have a culinary background and can you talk a little bit about how you chose that and where you went and then kind of where it’s led you.

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:01:45] My path is education is certainly a unique one. I went to school at the University of Minnesota to initially become a surgeon but my mind kept wandering during this time to the kitchen while I was studying. So after my first year pre-med I changed my career path left the U, started taking class at the Le Cordon Blue in Minnesota. It was amazing experience that led me to start working in France. But while I was abroad I gained a new perspective on life and in food. So, I was able to witness and live the French way of eating and living and realized that their relationship was so vastly different from where I… From what I knew and how I grew up. My views changed and I decided I wanted to be more on this path to becoming an educator. And that’s when I transitioned into the dietetic path.

Mathea Ford: [00:02:37] So you mention in France that you noticed they had a different relationship with food. What is the difference? What would you say was the difference that you found?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:02:46] I really notice that the difference lied in the relationship with how they treated food, how they perceived food, respecting their body. When they felt full, they just stopped eating. There was no reason to forge themselves. And it was always about fresh produce and fresh foods really taking care of being ingredients as they were cooking. So, if something was in season that would be the highlight of their foods for that week or that day. It was different because it was more about them listening to their bodies and also just trying to incorporate those fresh flavors that were seasonal.

Mathea Ford: [00:03:30] So, I guess you didn’t see a lot of pre-prepared foods or processed, highly processed foods when you were there. Of course you were there for some cooking event or home schooling so that might have affected it a little bit. What was their process for getting food? I mean you said they always come fresh.

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:03:52] Right! A big emphasis was on Fresh. Even the refrigerators were much smaller and they went shopping on a weekly almost daily basis. And always just focusing on the fresh foods. And a lot of times it was just done at an open air market. Even in the middle of winter.

Mathea Ford: [00:04:15] Hmm. Yeah! That is a pretty big contrast to how we hear here huh?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:04:18] It is! And you know everybody knew the vendors. Everybody had a relationship with who was selling their food so they knew where their food was coming from. They were able to ask questions about how it was grown and it was never about overindulgence. And price was never a factor. I think that having that good relationship with the farmers, the farmers weren’t overcharging because they knew who they were serving or one but it was a very unique experience.

Mathea Ford: [00:04:48] How would you compare that to a Farmer’s Market in the United States? Is it very similar or?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:04:54] I think there’s a lot of similarities. But even from the different places I’ve lived in the States it does change state to state. I felt like in Chicago I didn’t feel like there was much of an opportunity for that bonding. It was more of an exchange process as where you know here in Minnesota we have so many Farmer’s Markets that I love to go to and I have a couple that I frequent a lot even in the wintertime. And the relationships I have with them I feel have been a stronger. So it’s definitely location based.

Mathea Ford: [00:05:30] Yeah! That makes sense that if you’re going to basically if you’re talking about the French people they’re going to the markets, they’re buying what’s in season, they’re using it within the next couple days. I think in the United States people feel like I really don’t have time to shop every couple of days and go to the Farmer’s Market. So do you have any thoughts on that? .

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:05:51] Yeah! You know I think that’s really important to address because we are a different society where we are more on the go. We don’t have as much vacation time or time away from work, even to enjoy our meals during the times that we’re working so when we take a lunch break. You know it’s rush, rush, rush and then back to work or eating while you’re working and that’s not healthy but it is. There are some things that you can do. So, for instance when you go to the market you can make your food last. You can you can go once a week. You can buy things that will perish faster but then balance that with foods that don’t perish as easily. So, buying things like squash in the winter time is a great example because you don’t need to squash that week or that day. You can store it for months. So I guess you could say it’s all about variety.

Mathea Ford: [00:06:48] That makes a lot of sense. Like your lettuce is going to go bad maybe three or four or five days and so you would eat that if you went to the market you would eat that earlier in the week and then maybe you’d have some squash with your meal later in the week.

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:07:04] Right. So, a lot of that comes into play with meal planning. If you are planning out your week then you’ll know which foods that you should be eating sooner rather than later in the week when you do your shopping either at the market or the grocery store and even a combination of the two.

Mathea Ford: [00:07:22] So, I want to come back to meal planning in a second but you know what made you decide to go on and become an RDN and after you had your culinary education?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:07:32] I didn’t think anyone would listen to a chef about Nutrition and I certainly wanted to have that expertise and the evidence based in what I tell people so it was more that I felt like I needed to do my due diligence and go back to school and understand the nutritional aspect of food as well. So, I went back really for the credentials, the experience really just to make sure that I’m best helping people to my capabilities.

Mathea Ford: [00:08:02] You mentioned meal planning a couple minutes ago. How do you do your meal planning? How do you talk to your patients about or customers about meal planning?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:08:14] Well, I use a couple different approaches because I do use a service called EatLove which is a digital platform that can tailor nutrient and these disease specific needs. So, I have that service which is great for maybe helping people get started with their own meal planning but I still try to address things that people can do for basic meal planning like keeping a pantry full of non perishables to keep it simple during the week. When you put together a menu one week at a time or cooking in batches. So, those are some tips that I use for meal planning that anyone can use so that it’s more approachable. But certainly for those who are really busy and don’t want to think about finding recipes. And they’re on the go all the time, the EatLove program and platform it is truly amazing and a lot of people find great benefit from it. There’s a lot you can do within it and it even prints out your grocery lists.

Mathea Ford: [00:09:15] So, do you have any specific tips about meal planning? You mentioned basic meal planning, cooking in batches that type of thing but when you’re talking to somebody about meal planning for maybe a week what do you encourage them to do?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:09:31] I like to put a lot of emphasis on plant based foods in my teachings. So, really looking at Okay, where are your vegetables coming from in the week? Making sure that you’re getting those three to five servings” because a lot of people struggle getting the recommended vegetable servings in a week. So, I think focusing on one thing is a good place to start. And then gradually making changes throughout the week. Protein is typically not an issue for most people although some of my vegan patients it is. You can certainly have protein rich diet as a vegan.

Mathea Ford: [00:10:07] You really are going to encourage somebody to kind of change may be part of their meal not necessarily do the whole thing at once. But if you’re trying to move to more plant based or healthier eating your maybe changing a few things every week just building those in your process. Is that what you’re saying?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:10:24] Absolutely! Because I think it can be overwhelming when someone comes to you and they ask you they want to make these these big changes in their life. But if you don’t do it gradually and slowly it can seem like it’s too much and that it’s unsustainable. And I want this to be sustainable and a lifelong change.

Mathea Ford: [00:10:42] So, can you talk a little bit more about your partnership with EatLove and how that works?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:10:48] It’s a collaborative agreement where I write recipes for EatLove so you’ll see many of my recipes appear on their platform and in exchange I use the platform for my patients to essentially plan out their meals and we can start small for either maybe we emphasize dinners for that week but it has the capability of doing snacks, breakfast, lunch, dinner and you can also add on other members in the family too. So, even if it’s a meal plan that’s meant for you we can add on other people so that it is more more family friendly because let’s be honest we’re not it’s not all for ourselves. Sometimes we do want other people our loved ones to be included in the process. What it also does is I’m also able to tailor disease specifics so whether you have diabetes, if you have dietary restrictions all of that can be factored into this meal planning.

Mathea Ford: [00:11:50] So, is it all dietitians that contribute recipes or?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:11:54] All dietitians write recipes.

Mathea Ford: [00:12:00] So, can any dietitian do that? Can they collaborate with EatLove to write recipes if they want it or to even just use the platform for their patients?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:12:08] Dietitians can subscribe to the platform and pay a fee. I’m not sure that they’re looking for dietitians right now but if you are interested in writing recipes, I can certainly put you in touch with the correct person if you’re interested in writing recipes as a dietitian because that is what they focus on. I think it can be tricky writing the recipes because things that they look for is few ingredients that have a big emphasis on vegetables and then seasonality as well as trying to fit these different types of eating. So, right now there’s been a lot of requests for low FODMAP foods, diabetes or diabetic friendly recipes and certainly more plant based.

Mathea Ford: [00:12:58] You mentioned that you traveled to France. Do you travel doing anything else or do you I know you think you like to travel. Can you talk a little bit about that? Your learning, how you learned through your travel and how you use that in your practice?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:13:11] Traveling has always been a big part of my life. And when I go to a new place, I really just throw myself in. So, it’s not staying in nice hotels, its trying to find the most rural parts of the country and really just engaging with the people. So, I do my best at trying to learn their language. It’s not always easy. But with the help of technology it’s become easier and really just picking my experiences based off of where I can learn the most from. “Okay well what’s going on with this culture? What what are their holidays? Am I or am I going to be there during a holiday or something that’s really important to them? What are their local foods? Where do they hang out?” And so I really try to go to those types of places and it’s all about finding those little hole in the wall restaurants and if I get sick I get sick. You know it’s a great experience for me.

Mathea Ford: [00:14:12] So, what’s the last place you went to?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:14:14] The last place. I went to was where did I go? I was in Germany and Amsterdam. I had been to the southern part of Germany. But I went with my boyfriend to the northern half to go visit family and so we were able to go to these small little towns all throughout the northern half and really just see what people were eating. Learn some really great foods and cultural influences on you know Turkish food especially discovered a Lahmacun which is an amazing. It’s one of my favorite foods right now. It’s basically a flatbread like pizza with all these different spices. Tomato, lamb and then it has a nice then yogurt sauce with fermented cabbage and other fresh vegetables. It’s delicious. It was a really great travel as well because I was able to then meet a lot with the locals and hear about what their traditions were, how they eat. And then I’m looking forward to my next trip where I’m going to Israel this May.

Mathea Ford: [00:15:31] Okay.

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:15:31] So, it’ll be another another good food experience.

Mathea Ford: [00:15:35] Yeah! Yeah. Sounds like you really get in-depth with the culture and try to at least you try all the foods and then you can incorporate.

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:15:45] I will try everything once.

Mathea Ford: [00:15:48] I can’t say that I’m that way. If you tell me once again I’m probably going to judge. So, I’m probably decide what to do anyway.

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:15:57] And you know it’s interesting too because some of the places I’ve been, I’ve learned so much. For instance, when I was in Indonesia I spent three weeks traveling from island to island and realized how hard it was to find food. It wasn’t easy. It was first of all it was hard to travel and to find people to take me places. But once I got to a place you had to know someone in order to find a meal.

Mathea Ford: [00:16:25] Oh wow!

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:16:26] No, there weren’t restaurants. There weren’t markets. Occasionally you’d find a market on the side of the street just to pick up some fresh food. But really people were just growing food for themselves and selling it to each other. So, that was really interesting just to see that exchange. And also it was very spiritual and how big religion played a role into their culture.

Mathea Ford: [00:16:50] Yeah I just had another podcast a couple weeks ago about somebody talking about religion and how it can deeply affect someone’s choices and you need to understand it basically so you can have that basis to know if I if they’re a vegetarian because of religious reasons vs. vegetarian because of social reasons. You know it’s important to understand that that can help you do better with your education of them. So.

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:17:20] Absolutely! Absolutely.

Mathea Ford: [00:17:22] So you have this you go round you travel you learn about all these different foods and stuff and so obviously you like making recipes when you’re making a recipe or you’re looking at a recipe that you have. How do you modify it to make it healthier? What are some of the things you typically do?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:17:39] Well because I am more plant based. I swap a lot of the animal fats for plant based fats. So, if it calls for lard which is common in many many cultures I will swap it out for maybe olive oil or a vegetable based oil maybe it’s even avocado. You know it’s really interesting because once you cook enough it’s easier to determine which things you can omit completely and then which things you can substitute or even cut half the fat out. So, it is recipe by recipe based. So, that’s one of the things to get started is really just getting in the kitchen and just cooking more, experimenting with food. So, you know what works and what doesn’t work but you have to just get started.

Mathea Ford: [00:18:31] So, when somebody is cooking in their kitchen, what are some of the things that you would say they should start with if they’re trying to change a recipe to make it a little healthier besides the fat thing and try but where should they start?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:18:44] So, I guess it would depend. I think a good place though to start would be to look at your favorite foods. Maybe it’s Mac and Cheese. Okay? So, if we take Cac and cheese as an example let’s maybe avoid the cream and maybe we use a lower fat milk or maybe we do keep it full fat but then then look more at the portion size and then play with vegetables. So, let’s add some brussel sprouts, let’s add some kale, let’s make it healthier in that regard. Maybe even use whole wheat pasta or a bean pasta. Bean pastas are starting to become really popular and it’s great for those who are gluten intolerant.

Mathea Ford: [00:19:29] So, what do you think when you’re thinking of like ingredient that you use a lot. It seems to be just really versatile that you like to always have around what to put in recipes what what are you got anything like that?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:19:43] Yes. The incredible edible egg. The egg is amazing. I use it. I always had eggs on hand because it’s a great source of protein. It’s affordable. You can soft boil it, poach it, fry, you can frier it, bake it. Use it in a sauce. I’m always amazed by the possibilities because you can use it for both sweet and savory as well. It can make or break a recipe because it offers that simple richness to a dish and can be a really nice finishing touch.

Mathea Ford: [00:20:19] So, egg in a dish tends to I know it’s an emulsifier, it brings things together. What other properties does it add to a dish that somebody might want that they might use it for?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:20:31] People might use it just for its protein content but it’s an easy great ingredient to manipulate and it’s also you can have it hot, you can have it cold and I think it just offers that added fullness and roundness to a meal because if you think about when you’re cooking you try to create balance and it’s going to offer that fattiness as well as that structure to a dish so it can really make something complete.

Mathea Ford: [00:21:04] So, I know you mentioned at the beginning of the call that you were a Certified Diabetes Educator. How did you decide to go so you started cooking and then you said “Oh! I see how food and nutrition go together. So I want to be a dietitian.” What was then. How was the next step to being a Certified Diabetes Educator?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:21:23] I was working in Chicago at the time and had just left working in Kitchen Management at Rush University Medical Center to then start running my own kitchen as a Food Service Director at a smaller hospital and because it was smaller I wore many hats and soon found myself doing outpatient care with an emphasis on diabetes because that’s what the population was. And after seeing how many people were affected by diabetes and how little resources there was available for patients, I decided that was my next move was to be… To put an emphasis on diabetes and work towards being certified so worked for a couple of years in that role. At the time I wasn’t certified but I later became certified when I moved to Minnesota but really just seeing the need for diabetic educators is really how I decided to make that change completely.

Mathea Ford: [00:22:27] So, now day to day in Minnesota what is it that you do with your patients? You do different types of classes? Do you teach them how to cook?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:22:35] I do a little bit of everything. I teach, I certainly teach people how to cook. I offer lots of cooking classes. I cook at a couple of places actually I cook at four different sites all around food and then I also teach Nutrition classes through BlueCross BlueShield and a lot of times I get questions about how to change your diet and what can they do for cooking. So, it’s a little bit more integrated in that role. And then I’m also doing a lot with diabetes education at a place called Neighborhood Health Source which is an FQHCF (Federally Qualified Health Care Center) and then in addition to that is my telehealth business. So, I see patients online and it’s all done virtually.

Mathea Ford: [00:23:27] Yeah! It sounds like you really blended all that together where you started to where you are today you know kind of blend it all together and I know a lot of dietitians don’t love food service type things but I’m a food service dietitian. I love food service. I love recipes. I love cooking and so I love it when a dietitian blend it all together and talk about those practical things like adjusting recipes, changing the way you make choices about food. Do you have any tips for how you help people kind of get to figure out what goals they’re going to do and then how to stick to them?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:24:04] The idea is to start small so choose one thing at a time and when you make that choice on what you want to fix then we put together a SMART goal. You know the Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic and Relevant and Time. Yes exactly. So we want to combine all those elements when we put together our goals and then slowly working towards that putting together a timeline. We want to make sure that it’s a goal that is relevant to you, achievable because otherwise then what’s the point? Is it going to be sustainable? Probably not. So, if it happens to be that you want to change something in your diet to simply add more vegetables then maybe we would start by saying “Okay, well, what do you want to do for this week? Okay? So this week maybe we look at what vegetables might be missing.” So, I tell people you know try to eat the rainbow meaning eat every color and then if there’s a color you’re missing then maybe we focus on that food group. So, purple, blue that’s often the one that’s forgotten. We want to make sure we we want to make sure we include those foods and take it from there.

Mathea Ford: [00:25:18] So, thinking about the listeners, they are dietitians, they’re health care professionals and they’re sometimes some of them are just regular people and I guess we’re all regular people. But so thinking about those people, what kind of tips would you give them to use the information we talked about today in their business and their life, in their working with patients?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:25:43] Listen to the patients and their needs. What are they truly trying to accomplish. And is it realistic for them. Because so many times people come to me with a goal and it might not be realistic. And so working through the expectations of “okay, you come here you want help with weight loss. Let’s talk about it” because oftentimes too there’s underlying issues. So, you want to get to the root cause of why they’re doing something. And is it for them? Is it healthy? Also when you get stuck, it’s okay to reach out to other professionals and make referrals. Refer to each other. If I have a patient who comes to me and there’s clearly something that needs to be worked out with a psychologist, I’m going to make a referral because that’s not my area of expertise. And so building that network is also important so making sure that you are finding patients help that they need in other areas is vital and important to make them truly successful because that’s the point. That’s why we do this. We do this to help people and we want people to be successful.

Mathea Ford: [00:26:52] Absolutely! Those are great tips. So, the last question I always ask is right now tell me what is your favorite food? And since you’re foodie, you can pick a couple if you like.

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:27:02] Wild mushrooms are certainly one of those top favorite foods. One of my favorite dishes to make is this wild mushroom toast with melted Taleggio cheese and an easy over egg and a side green salad. It is just to die for. It is truly amazing. And I really cannot help but say that ice cream. I love my ice cream. Can be super simple vanilla is totally fine. You know I have it as my special treat but it’s just so good and creamy and rich and full.

Mathea Ford: [00:27:40] I think you have to enjoy food. I mean if it’s on third quarter it’s so not flavorful which is what people expect. They have to eat when they eat healthy. Then that’s that’s no good. You know.

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:27:53] Exactly! You have to live life. And food is part of that. So you should love the foods that you eat. It’s just all about respecting your body and the food as well.

Mathea Ford: [00:28:05] So, where do you find wild mushrooms? Do you go to a farmer’s market or do you find them in a store?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:28:10] I do. I I often go to this place. It just opened up down the street from where I live called the Keg and Case and they have a vertical mushroom farm and so they grow all mushrooms on site. It’s pretty amazing. But the Farmer’s Markets also have great wild mushrooms that I like to go to. A little bit harder to find in the wintertime. So, during the winter I’ll certainly just walk down the street.

Mathea Ford: [00:28:37] All right. Ranelle, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It was a pleasure to have you on the show. I know my listeners learned a lot about food, recipes, how you cook and how basically you can enjoy food. So, if listeners want to connect with you what’s the best way to do that?

Ranelle Kirchner: [00:28:52] Sure. They can go to my website at ranellekirchner.com that’s R A N E L L E K I R C H N E R dot com and you can also find me on social media LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. I’d be happy to answer any questions and I really appreciate taking the time your time to be on the podcast. Thank you.

Mathea Ford: [00:29:19] Thank you so much. Well, guys this has been another great episode of the Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast is all about learning more so you can do more with nutrition in your life.

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Nutrition Experts Podcast Episode 40 News Edition and Mediterranean Diets with Mathea Ford, RDN, LD, MBA

February 4, 2019 by matheaford Leave a Comment

Mathea Ford: [00:00:28] Hi there! It’s Mathea. Welcome back to the Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast featuring nutrition experts who are leading the way using food starts today right now. Today this podcast is just me talking to you. This is my news edition for the month and I just want to go over some things that I thought were really interesting that came out kind of at the beginning of the year and talk through those with you and get your feedback. So, go ahead and let me know. Reply your post on the blog or do whatever to let me know what you think of my podcast.

Mathea Ford: [00:01:09] So, I wanted to really talk about the Mediterranean Diet. It come out as being one of the best diets that is recommended and I think that’s because it’s fairly easy to follow and it is one of those things where you can incorporate a lot of the food that you already eat and do some small changes. So, what is a Mediterranean ?Diet? It is a heart healthy eating plan that’s based on typical foods and recipes of a Mediterranean style cooking. It incorporates the basics of healthy eating with a little bit of olive oil and some red wine or other types of wine that are similar to when you’re in the Mediterranean Sea area that those people eat. So, most of that is fruits, vegetables, fish, whole grains and very little unhealthy fat. So although they don’t have a problem eating healthy fats like olive oil some things that are a little bit different for us here in the States probably is that we are not used to necessarily being okay with eating fat. And in this case the fat is healthy for us and is going to keep us so you’re not going to raise your cholesterol and they’ve done some research that a meta analysis of more than one and a half million healthy adults demonstrated that following a Mediterranean Diet was associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular mortality or less risk for death than the normal diet that we eat here in the US.

Mathea Ford: [00:02:46] So, it’s also associated with reduced incidence of cancer, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s and women who eat a Mediterranean Diet supplemented with extra virgin olive oil and mixed nuts may have had a reduced risk of breast cancer. So most scientific research has gone into this and said that this is a healthy diet.

Mathea Ford: [00:03:09] And what is the diet? The key components of the Mediterranean Diet are to eat primarily plant based foods such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes and nuts. You can replace butter with healthy fats like olive oil. Using herbs and spices instead of salt to flavor foods. Eating red meat no more than a few times a month. And that’s going to be in a reasonable portion so a four to five ounce portion of red meat. Eating fish and poultry at least twice a week. Enjoying meals with your family and friends. So, when I went to Italy what I found was they ate kind of later in the day and they enjoyed their meal. They kind of stretched out the meal and enjoyed it. And I think part of that also gave them the opportunity to feel that they were full and stop eating. And in America we tend to just eat what we have on our plate. Eat it so fast that we don’t even taste it and have that don’t feel full until later. When if we eat a little slower talked kind of enjoyed the meal then we might have a better kind of gauge for how much we needed to eat. They also drink red wine in moderation and getting plenty of exercise. They walk a lot, they walk to places it’s not a flat flat area. They’ve got to go a couple of blocks they tend to walk. So and it’s a lot of fresh foods. For example residents of Greece eat very little red meat and average nine servings a day of antioxidant rich fruits and vegetables. The grains that are typically eaten on the Mediterranean Diet are wholegrain and usually contain very few of the unhealthy fats and bread is an important part of the diet but it’s usually eaten plain or dipped in olive oil not eaten with butter and margarines. Also another thing is a handful of nuts or so as a snack or during the day. Nuts are a healthy part of the healthy Mediterranean Diet. They’re high in fat but most of the fat is not saturated. So because nuts are high in calories they shouldn’t be eaten in large amounts. Generally, just you know no more than a handful a day and avoid the candied or heavily salted or honey roasted type of nuts with the extra calories added to them.

Mathea Ford: [00:05:35] Okay, so let’s talk about fat. Healthy fats vs. the saturated fats, hydrogenated fats or trans fats. This diet incorporates lots of the healthy fats and very little of the unhealthy fats which are the saturated and hydrogenated. And I always remind people that if something is solid at room temperature that it would be solid in your arteries. So, those are kind of the saturated fats whereas olive oil, canola oil is liquid at room temperature therefore it’s going to flow fairly easily in your arteries. Olive oil in particular provides mono and saturated fat which is a type of fat that actually helps lower your LDL cholesterol which is your quote unquote bad cholesterol. The extra virgin and virgin olive oils the reason why they call them that is because they’re the least processed forms and they have the most of that protective compounds that give you the antioxidants. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats such as canola oil and some nuts have the beneficial Linolenic acid, the Omega 3 fatty acid. An Omega 3 fatty acids lower triglycerides, decrease blood clotting, are associated with decreased sudden heart attacks, improve the health of your blood vessels and help moderate your blood pressure. And then there’s the fatty fish. We all know salmon is a fatty fish and it’s a good source of Omega 3 but you can also eat mackerel, Lake Trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna but fish are eating on a regular basis in the Mediterranean Diet. And a little bit about wine, they do have wine and there’s some discussion and obviously if you have a concern I would recommend you talk to your doctor about it but alcohol in moderation has been associated with a reduced risk of heart disease. So, the Mediterranean Diet typically includes a moderate amount of wine no more than five ounces a day for women and more than 10 ounces a day for men. And again if you have issues with alcohol the benefits of drinking and are not outweighed by the issues that you might develop from that like alcohol abuse or any sort of issues interacting with your medications. So, let’s put it all together. The Mediterranean Diet is a great way to eat but it’s and it starts with this eating your fruits and veggies and switching to whole grains. Get some nuts every day. Don’t use butter use the healthy olive oil or canola oil. Add spices, spice it up. We have for my business Nickanny’s Kitchen.com, I have some spices that are salt free and they’re great to use and give you a lot of flavor without having that salt but I definitely recommend that you get some new spices in your cabinet and try them out. Go fish, get more fish, eat less red meat, avoid kind of processed meats like sausage, bacon. Use lower fat dairy whole or 2 percent can be a little too high in the saturated fat so you should try this skim or the fat free yogurt, low fat cheese and I want to get into some more a little more detail about some of those unhealthy foods. Foods that you should eat and foods that you should not eat. So, you’ve got things that you can eat are like vegetables, any type of fruit, nuts, seeds, legumes, potatoes, whole grains, breads, herbs, spices, fish, seafood, extra virgin olive oil, eat eggs, cheese, yogurt, poultry, just watch out for the amount of saturated fat that’s in there and eat only rarely red meat like once a month. And don’t eat or drink sugar sweetened beverages, added sugars, processed meats,, refined grains refined oils or highly processed foods. So, you probably wondering what some of those might be added sugar can be like soda, candies, ice cream, table sugar or many others. What I love when I wanted sweets is to grab a piece of fruit. It has the natural fructose sugar in it but it’s also got the other healthy benefits of the antioxidants and using that sweet taste without the extra calories of soda or candies.

Mathea Ford: [00:10:05] Watch out for refined grains like white bread and pasta made with refined wheat. Make sure you’re getting the whole grains. Avoid trans fat, avoid refined oils like soybean oil, cottonseed oil. Avoid processed meats like sausages and hotdogs and anything that is labeled low fat diet. You’re really not trying to be on a diet you’re trying to eat a healthier way that’s going to stick with you. And so thinking about yummy foods that you could eat that would be your base on a Mediterranean Diet. Something like vegetables would be tomatoes, broccoli, kale, spinach, onions, cauliflower, carrots, brussel sprouts, cucumbers. For some nuts and seeds, you might want some almonds, some walnuts, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts, cashews, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds. Remember those can be high in calories but they’re healthy fat so just grab a handful. Don’t overdo that. Some fruits are like apples, bananas, oranges, pears, strawberry, grapes, dates, figs, melons, peaches. You get the idea. Legumes would be beans, peas, lentils, chickpeas those types of things. And I love to make a salad and add chickpeas onto it because it gives you some protein but it’s not a you know like a red meat or anything. You can eat potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, yams. You’ve got for your whole grains whole oats, rice, brown rice, dry barley, corn, buckwheat, whole wheat, wholegrain, fish. I already mentioned some of those but things also like shrimp, oysters, clams, crabs. Herbs and spices, so think about using garlic, basil, mint, rosemary, sage, nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper. All those to augment your meals instead of salt and stick with your healthy oils like avocado oil or extra virgin olive oil and you should drink water.

Mathea Ford: [00:12:07] Water is your go to beverage. There is some wine in there maybe with your dinner meal but if you again have any issues with it don’t bother doing that. But coffee and tea your also completely acceptable but avoid the sugar sweetened versions or adding a lot of sugar to those. Thinking about you know what you want to do. It’s a little different. I want to remind you that you’re going to avoid you’re going to limit your red meat. You’re going to limit your processed meats, you’re going to avoid added sugars so you’re going to look on the label and see if it says added sugars and it’s really wine that’s on this diet. It is not hard liquor. So, vodka, whiskey, gin – none of that you’re really sticking with just the wine. Those don’t have those other hard liquor don’t have the same benefits and tax benefits of wine when you’re looking at grains look away from the white flour and the white rice and look more towards the brown rice whole wheat pasta replaced butter with olive oil. Watch out for the hydrogenated oil that you might be eating. And so I want to remind you if you’re thinking about you know “how do I change this? It’s February.” Maybe you made a decision at the beginning of January to do something different and it didn’t stick. I want to let you know I heard from the podcast by Brooke Castillo about… She talked about habits and research that had been done and we all “say oh it’s 21 days to get a new habit.” But the truth of the matter is the research showed that it could be 66 days is a good average. So I would encourage you if you want to switch to eating healthier that it’s something that you do a little bit at a time and it can take longer than you imagine. So, I’m going to have a guest on soon that’s talking about brain health and how brains form connections and how we can improve those to improve our habits. But I want to just encourage you that repeating a process So, you’ve basically taught yourself that you can you know when you’re hungry if you go get a sweet you feel rewarded. So, you’re going to have to start catching those things and then reminding yourself “Okay, what other reward can I give myself besides a sugary sweet thing?” It’s also good to have somebody to talk to you know just somebody maybe a partner that’s doing that exercise with you or knows that you’re doing it it’s hard to do it as a single person as far as if you have a family and you’re the only one following this diet then you may find it difficult. So, I encourage you to get your family to participate as well. And I don’t want you to forget that exercise is also important. You can out eat any exercise program. Trust me. But what you want to do is try to exercise just consistently because even if you just walked 30 minutes a day. Yes, it’s not going to make you lose hundreds of pounds but when you combine it just as a habit your body is healthier. You’re able to do so many more things, you get through your day a little better, you can focus better so I would just encourage you to making some changes if you want to switch to a healthier diet. Try the Mediterranean Diet. Make some changes and then you know after you kind of get those in your routine then get in a workout routine whatever you’re going to do so that you can build these habits. If you make a sudden changes a lot more difficult to stick with. So I just recommend that you consider doing you know some small changes and kind of taking a hard look at your food choices asking yourself you know “what do you do for comfort? How do you feel that? How does your body give you comfort?

Mathea Ford: [00:16:04] I found when I’ve tried different things even I’ve tried even intermittent fasting. And at that point it just when you’re doing intermittent fasting and it’s like “Okay, I’m not going to eat till noon.” One of the things you figure out is how often you eat because you really do go get that food you know in the morning maybe and then you get a mid-morning snack and then you eat lunch. So if it’s even just to the point of writing down what you’re eating so that you remind yourself how often you’re going to food may be for comfort and not from hunger then that would be a good thing for you to kind of learn about yourself. But I want to encourage you today to think about changing you know some more foods along the line of the Mediterranean Diet. It’s a plant based diet. I’ve talked a lot about plant based diets on this podcast so I hope that you found this helpful and enjoy your day.

Mathea Ford: [00:17:04] So, I really enjoyed talking to you today about the Mediterranean Diet and you know where to connect with me you, know where to find me. Just comment on my blog post or comment on my Facebook page. So thank you very much. And I hope you learned more so you can do more with nutrition in your life. Have a great week.

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Nutrition Experts Podcast Episode 39 Does Your Faith Influence Your Diet with Zach Cordell, MS, RDN

January 28, 2019 by matheaford Leave a Comment

Zach is a nutrition professor at Daytona State College, host for the Latter-day Saint Nutritionist podcast, author of The Creation Code, and public speaker.

Zach fuses food, faith and science to help nutrition education be relatable, but also personal. We all develop a culture, and faith can be a large part of the culture that defines who we are. When helping people assess their personal behaviors we often skip the role faith can have on our diets, but nothing is more personal than our food and our faith. Too often we would rather talk about a patients bowel movements than their religious beliefs. In order to help clients create lasting changes, we need to see individuals as a whole, and understanding their faith can be a way to open doors for sustainable health.

Mathea Ford: [00:00:27] Hi there! It’s Mathea. Welcome back to the Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast featuring nutrition experts who are leading the way using food starts today right now with our next guest. It’s great to have Zach Cordell on the show today. Zach, welcome to Nutrition Experts.

Zach Cordell: [00:00:43] Thank you very much for having me.

Mathea Ford: [00:00:45] I’m excited to have you on the show and share your expertise with my tribe. We’re going to talk about something that’s a little bit different most dietitians talk about so I want you to start by telling my listeners a little more about you and what you do.

Zach Cordell: [00:00:59] All right. So, I am a Nutrition professor. I am also a podcast host in public speaking but my full time position is to teach. So, I teach at Daytona State College in Daytona Beach, Florida. It’s a horrible location I know but it’s it’s a good place to be and I love it. But my podcast is the Latter Day Saints Nutritionist and so what I do is I mix food and faith. So, when you talked about it maybe a little bit different I think this will be a different conversation that some people have had in the past.

Mathea Ford: [00:01:32] Yes. So, what have you done besides teaching nutrition? What did you do before you became a professor?

Zach Cordell: [00:01:37] I just went straight into teaching.

Mathea Ford: [00:01:37] Oh!

Zach Cordell: [00:01:38] Yes. I got my Masters from the University Massachusetts. I did my internship at Yale New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut and then I moved down to Florida to get a little bit of sun and to teach.

Mathea Ford [00:01:52] All right. So, you mentioned you host a podcast called The Latter day Saints Nutritionist Podcast. Can you talk about why you created that podcast and what it’s about?

Zach Cordell [00:02:03] Yeah sure. So, I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I use the culture that people experience to discuss what is influencing their diet habits. So, most people when they think of culture they think of race or ethnicity or location but culture is just a combination of who you are because of your life experiences. Whether it’s your history your family your friends your environment all of those things influence what your culture is. And so my podcast is fusing food, faith and science and using scripture principles to just talk about how we can better understand nutrition and how we approach it.

Mathea Ford: [00:02:46] Talk a little bit about faith in nutrition. You mentioned it as far as like culture but how does faith influence a person’s diet?

Zach Cordell [00:02:55] So, you can look at it in the broad terms of if somebody is Kosher or Halal or vegetarian that can be based on very specific religious beliefs. But if you take it to the next step you can go to like soul food or linger longer is where somebody hangs out a church or like the post church Sunday brunch or your Sunday family meals. Some people don’t drink because of religious beliefs. Some people drink because of religious beliefs just depends on where you’re coming from. But all of those things are building up who you are. And my podcast isn’t just like for people that are members of my faith but people of faith. Whether that is like you go to church or you don’t. We all have beliefs that are going to influence us. So, along with Halal and Kosher, you can look at it in terms of if you believe that you have been fated an illness. Talking to someone about that is going to be a little bit different than counseling somebody that feels like they have a little bit of control over what is happening in their life right? So, if you feel that you got diabetes because of a burden or it’s a temptation or a punishment on you for some reason that’s a different conversation than just saying “Okay. So, diabetes happens and what can we do to manage it?” So, yeah food and nutrition go hand-in-hand together. But at the same time… Sorry nutrition and faith that faith is one of those things where it’s it’s becoming is taboo to talk about. And so getting into that can be a little hairy for some individuals.

Mathea Ford [00:04:33] Well, that’s very interesting because I think we try to think about what is their culture, what types of face do they typically eat. But I don’t know that you go to the next step and ask why if somebody says “I don’t drink diet soda “you say “good. Okay. Great. I don’t drink sodas.” Okay, but maybe the reason behind why they don’t do that or they don’t eat meat is more than obviously just a desire.

Zach Cordell [00:05:00] Yeah. I mean take a vegetarian for example. You can have a vegetarian that is a vegetarian because they don’t like the sustainability of our modern food system or you can have a vegetarian that is a vegetarian because they saw somebody on Instagram that they thought was really cool and they wanted to be a vegetarian like them or you can have some that’s a vegetarian because of religious beliefs. And so understanding why they are vegetarian can help you in approaching what needs to happen in order to help them to obtain optimal health.

Mathea Ford [00:05:32] So, Zach when you talked about dietitians not knowing enough for not wanting to look silly, not wanting to look like they’re not the experts. Really can you dig into that a little bit deeper and talk about what if you really don’t know or understand the faith that your client’s talking about? Or what if you don’t necessarily feel like that’s appropriate?

Zach Cordell [00:05:55] To the second question, if you feel that it’s appropriate or not I think it’s funny that we will ask people about their poop all day long.

Mathea Ford [00:06:00] Dietitians love to talk about that.

Zach Cordell [00:06:01] And we will ask them about if you’re a cystic fibrosis dietitian. You’ll ask them about whether or not they have a lot of phlegm that they’re making up and so you ask about other body fluids but you won’t ask about the religious beliefs that somebody has because you’re like “Oh no! No… no… no. That’s not okay.”

Mathea Ford [00:06:15] It’s too far.

Zach Cordell [00:06:16] Right. Yeah that’s personal. We don’t get personal but I find that nothing is more personal than somebody’s religion and because I don’t know if you’ve had arguments with people about their food. None of their arguments. But you like “Okay, it’s really not that big of a deal.” But to them you don’t touch the chocolate milk or you don’t touch a very specific food item and you didn’t realize it was a big deal.

Mathea Ford [00:06:44] Yeah that’s true. Especially with like schools or like I bought my son. He loves to drink milk. He’s 14 so he’s growing so I bought him some of the… So I bought a Fairlife milk and he is like “I’m not going to drink that!” I was like “Okay, don’t drink it.” It’s like “oh my gosh! this is so good!” And I was like “it has less sugar and more protein” but the chocolate milk thing is one of those things where I’m like it’s really not that big a deal if your kid drinks milk or chocolate milk or strawberry milk, they’re getting benefit anyway.

Zach Cordell [00:07:14] Yeah. So, to go back to the question of why should it really be that off limits. And I’m not saying that you need to go in and discuss all of their religious beliefs with them and see if you’re agreeing with them or not. It is solely to see if there is something that is part of their faith that influences how their diet influences their health. Right? So, if you go in and somebody says “I’m vegetarian because of religious beliefs” then you can say “Okay, that’s fine. Now, does that include dairy? Does that include eggs? Is it not? And if it does or not that’s fine.” You just understand where that person is coming from. Now to go back to the first question of whether or not they want to look like a fool or they they don’t know.

Mathea Ford [00:07:59] I don’t understand.

Zach Cordell [00:08:00] Yeah. I think we can all agree that there’s been a situation where somebody has said something in a counseling session and then you just kind of sit there and you know you’ve got to stone face on, you’re not trying to let anything arbitrary like “what in the world you eat like three packages of rum with two cups of manatees for breakfast? Okay. Like I didn’t see that coming.” But you can ask somebody for clarification like that’s what motivational interviewing is. Right? So, you’re asking them for information from them to help them to be able to explain to you what it is they need. And I don’t think that religion is any much any more different than any other question. I think we just have a wall that’s up saying that we shouldn’t be asking you about it. And like I said before if somebody wants to talk about it they’ll bring up that it does influence things whether it’s like the Sunday brunch, whether it’s going to be “we go to my grandmother’s house afterwards and everybody brings their specific dish. And if I don’t bring my dish then they’re going to harass me. And that doesn’t happen in my family.”

Mathea Ford [00:09:05] So, I think it’s a lot of like you said earlier in the podcast it is culture. So, even though it’s kind of in that category of religion, it is culture because we do a certain things for lots of reasons. Like when I was growing up my grandma told me potatoes and make you fat. And I know there’s plenty of people that would agree with that. But the fact of the matter is it’s it’s obviously part of a whole diet. But I had that kind of voice playing in my head for a long time and I recognized that it influenced my food. So, asking that question can help your patients even more because they may realize how it plays out in their life or how they’re using it is not necessarily congruent with where they want to go. If they want to change it may need to be from a place of being compliance with their religion or whatever. So, you can be a vegetarian but you can be all kinds of vegetarian. You can be an Oreos vegetarian or you can be one of those plant based lots of beans, lots of good vegetables and…

Zach Cordell [00:10:12] Right. And you can look at faith. It’s not just going to a church. You can have people that have a faith where they believe in and Mother Nature and all of the earth supplies for you as part of their greater good. So, it’s not just like they read a certain book and have a certain day and eat. It’s more so they have a culture and a belief system that influences how they behave.

Mathea Ford [00:10:32] Yeah. It’s their belief system. That’s a good good thing to think about as a dietitian like you’re really just trying to help them to get to where they need to go within their beliefs that they have that make it okay for them to do that.

Zach Cordell [00:10:47] Yeah. Exactly. I mean how is asking about if they have a religious belief different than asking you about if they like what or documentaries and avoid GMOs because of the different things you know. So, like food is kind of becoming a religion in some aspects.

Mathea Ford [00:11:05] How is that the best way or when is the best time to kind of approach the religious option in the therapy session? How does the flow kind of go where you and do you do it? You mentioned in a hospital you know it may tell you what their faith is based on the medical record but obviously if you’re seeing them at outpatient basis you may not have that information. So, how is it typically approached?

Zach Cordell [00:11:29] Well, so there’s a couple of things that you could do. So, if you’re doing outpatient you’re either associate with the hospital you’re doing your own private practice or you do private practice outside of the hospital. But either way you’re going to have records and you’re going to have an intake form, you’re going to ask what they’re coming in to talk to you about in. On that form when you’re asking height, weight and all the other biometrics that you’re you’re wanting to get it from that person, you can simply ask what’s their religion. And does that play any role in their diet. If they say “no religion. No, it doesn’t play a role” then you don’t necessarily need to bring it up. If they do say “yes, this is my religion and yes it does play a role” then as simple as saying “how does this influence you? Is it more so family? Is it upbringing? Is it restrictions?” And from there it doesn’t have to be this looming on “I want you to ask them about their religion.” You know it’s just more so “does this influence your health?”

Mathea Ford [00:12:31] So how? What do you say if they say “it that’s just not important.” That’s like if they put down a religion and they say you know either it influences or it doesn’t. And you ask the question then the go “why? Why does that matter?”

Zach Cordell [00:12:43] You can just tell them that culture is built up of all the experiences that we’ve had in our lives. And sometimes faith can play a role in the culture that we develop. That’s why I ask all of my patients that I’m not singling you out. It’s not to convert anybody in anything. It’s just it’s just to see if this is going to influence how we need to go about our counseling because I’m going to make this as applicable to you and relatable to you as I can.

Mathea Ford [00:13:09] That’s a good way to approach it. I think it’s faith. One of those things that you possibly advertise our market like you yourself are a Latter Day Saints. There’s people that are Catholics. Is there any anything people do that advertise or market so people feel more comfortable talking to you or do you avoid mentioning your religion altogether so people don’t feel like they can’t talk about their religion?

Zach Cordell [00:13:33] Sure. My niche market that I’m going for is the faith based community or just the cultural side of that. And so yes I’m going to put it out there. It is just something you’re going to put on your intake form. I don’t think that you need to advertise it. If it’s something that you are going to have a lot of clientele from that area say you are in the Deep South in the Bible belt and you know that that is going to play a large role in your clientele then sure you can put it in some of your marketing material but it doesn’t have to be. If you follow Islam, if you follow Judaism, if you follow Christianity these are the clients that I will see. We can have faith based conversations if that is part of the diet that they would like to discuss. So, it can be as much or as little as you want. From my experience it’s either that is who you’re targeting or it’s just part of the information that you’re getting.

Mathea Ford [00:14:27] How do a dietitian spend time learning more about religions related to because if you’re if you’re going to advise someone even though you ask them “okay. You’re vegan or vegetarian for your religion, can you tell me a little bit more about that?” You’re going to already know a little bit about a vegetarian diet but maybe some of the other religious beliefs if they don’t explain them fully, how do you learn more about them or how you might recommend better things for those types of patients who have this this concern or this belief?

Zach Cordell [00:15:00] Yes. So, I’ll actually send over some links to you that you could put in the show notes if that would be helpful for clientele in a different place or listeners so that they can know where they can listen or learn more about different faiths. If you note a blanket statement or blanket beliefs or a lot of these then it’s easy for you to just take a step back and say “okay. I understand this. I understand that. Is there any more that influences what you would do?” Because even within those that are Catholic, you have people that go to church every Sunday and those that go maybe once a month and maybe those who go Easter and Christmas. Right? So, even if they put on that paper that they do have a faith it can change on how much that is going to influence that person. But yeah like I said I can send over some links that will be good resources to the listeners.

Mathea Ford [00:15:47] Can you have success.? Obviously lots of dietitians do have success with nutrition counseling using facts based guidelines without getting into religion and beliefs.

Zach Cordell [00:15:57] Yes, you can. You do not have to incorporate faith into your conversation to have lasting behaviors. But at the same time it can open doors that other conversations may not be able to. Because like I mentioned before like food and faith are two of the most personal things to an individual. If you are going to open the door of food and talk about the things that their mother made that maybe that weren’t the healthiest for them or you’re going to talk about how this can affect the diabetes or the renal failure that they have then approaching it from the religious standpoint to say like “I understand you as a whole person. I’m not just treating you as a piece of paper or a patient but I’m treating you as a person” and understanding that person as a whole can help you to have a more lasting impact on that person. You don’t have to discuss religion if you’re if you’re really taken aback by those conversations or are really worried about it. You don’t need to but it is another tool in your toolbox that you can use to best help your clientele.

Mathea Ford [00:17:02] Yeah. I think the simple question of “does your faith influence what you eat?” Getting that answer because you can make recommendations to people and they can agree to them there in your face but they may never plan to implement them if they don’t have that belief at that. How do you think about our listeners are people that are dietitians, doctors, nurses and just regular everyday people. How does how is this information that we talked about today great to be used by listeners in their day to day life? What are some recommendations you might have?

Zach Cordell [00:17:35] Yes. So, I think to take it a step back so I’m not just this radical coming at you talking about how you should talk about food and faith. In the research community, there is a lot of research that comes up using congregations to provide nutrition education and that’s because you’re finding a gatekeeper to a community. So, if you’re a community dietitian most of you’ve been aware of community programs that use houses of faith to reach people in a way where they already have built in networks of some of a support group and you can present the information in a way that is very applicable to them. It’s not a new thing to discuss or to use the the method of religion to discuss food. So, I just want to make sure that that I brought that up. But if you are a doctor, just talking about religion with somebody again doesn’t have to be a big ticket item. It can be mentioned in passing and if they want to bring it up and talk about a little bit further they can. But you don’t have to sit down and say “okay. So, when were you baptized? Okay. How long has it been since you’ve been converted? Are there any others like you?” You don’t have to get into all of those deeper questions of theology saying “Okay. Were you a trinity person or are you a God?” Like it doesn’t like those things aren’t what’s important. And as a practitioner, you don’t need to put your personal beliefs on that other person like this is not a time to judge. Just like whenever somebody comes in and is looking for weight loss. You don’t sit there and say “wow! I can’t believe that you’re eating this, this and this! Don’t you know?” Like you’re there to be a support group for that person, an educator, someone there that is on their team that is cheering them on to succeed. This is just gathering information for them. But to use it in their day to day life it’s just as simple as dietitians that are now starting to do the physical examinations. They sit down with a patient. It might seem weird at first whenever you’re grabbing their hands, you’re touching their legs, you like seeing what’s going on with their faces if there’s any scooping but it’s just one of the tools that you use to assist in providing the best care you can for that patient.

Mathea Ford [00:19:55] That was always in my mind a couple minutes ago I was trying to think of but the fight about using the congregations, I was thinking if you really get to where you do understand a religion or you do connect to that religion or even just a person or a couple people that come to you. That’s an excellent opportunity to do a class with maybe that church you know couple of people, you get connected with their pastor or whatever their religious head of church is and connect with them and say “hey! I’d like to possibly do a weight loss class or whatever the particular thing that seems to be popular with.” And a great way to do some outreach you know you could even possibly charge a little bit for that class but you understanding that and knowing kind of some of their beliefs but just like you mentioned too there’s a lot of people that are at different ends of the spectrum. I remember when I worked in hospitals. I worked in hospitals for a long time and every year for Lent we would always do fish on Fridays and that was for everybody regardless whether you were Catholic or not. But at that time there was a large proportion of the hospitals that I worked in that were Catholic. So, it was important to have that fish option on Friday so that they would be able to find something that they wanted to eat. And that’s a way that I did it. Even I didn’t even really think about it. I did take into account that religious preference.

[00:21:30] That’s the other part of it. You may not have realized it in other employees that weren’t Catholic, might not have even thought of you think of it but for the people that were Catholic that meant a lot to them because it meant that they were understood and they were appreciated and their beliefs were validated in other people. Where they say I understand that this is important to you so it’s important to me that I might not hold the same beliefs but I understand that this plays a vital role in who you are as a person.

Mathea Ford [00:21:57] So, I want to ask you a question I always ask my peeps on the end of my podcast. I want you to tell me what’s your favorite food?

Zach Cordell [00:22:08] Lately for me, I think it’s been like chia seeds Greek yogurt. I really like tapioca pudding because of the texture of it and the chia seeds that have more protein, more fiber to it. I mean like there’s less saturated fat in those things less sugar. But it’s still got the same texture. So, maybe like a chia seeds Greek yogurt.

Mathea Ford [00:22:25] So, how do you soak the chia seeds and add them to the Greek yogurt. How did you do that?

Zach Cordell [00:22:29] Yeah. So, I literally just put the chia seeds into my yogurt and then I mix it up. Let it sit for a minute because it’ll soak up the fluid that’s in there and that’s it. I’m pretty simplistic in my approach.

Mathea Ford [00:22:43] I might have to try that. That doesn’t sound too bad.

Zach Cordell [00:22:45] Yeah. If you like tapioca pudding rice pudding like those types of textures then yeah give it a try.

Mathea Ford [00:22:51] So, Zach thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It was a pleasure to have you on the show. I know my listeners have learned a lot about how to approach faith and nutrition counselling and how it can be just a simple easy thing to do. So, if listeners want to connect with you what’s the best way to do that?

Zach Cordell [00:23:09] So, they can check me out on my website. It’s called CordellNutrition.com. I’m on social media both Facebook and Instagram @ZachCordellRDN.

Mathea Ford [00:23:19] And you have a podcast?

Zach Cordell [00:23:22] I do have a podcast. That’s a Latter Day Saint Nutritionist Podcast. That’s going to be in Stitcher, in Google Play store, in a Cast Box and iTunes. Basically anywhere that you’ll get a podcast. Wherever you’re listening to the great Nutrition Experts Podcast, you can probably find the Latter Day Saint Nutritionist Podcast.

Mathea Ford [00:23:36] All right! Well guys this has been another great episode of the Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast that is all about learning more so you can do more with nutrition in your life.

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