Allyson Kleinbrodt and Susan Powell kick off the session by introducing themselves and their expertise in functional nutrition and integrative orthopedic care. They emphasize the importance of tailoring health strategies to individual lifestyles, considering factors like stress, nutrition, and fitness.
The Impact of Stress on Hunger and Metabolism
The speakers delve into how modern stress mirrors ancient survival mechanisms, with cortisol playing a central role. They explain how chronic stress disrupts hunger cues, hormone signaling, and digestion, often leading to overeating or poor food choices.
Practical Stress Management Techniques
To counteract stress, the presenters highlight the importance of activating the parasympathetic nervous system. They introduce square breathing as a simple yet effective method:
- Inhale for four counts.
- Hold for four counts.
- Exhale for four counts.
- Hold for four counts.
This technique helps shift the body from a “fight or flight” to a “rest and digest” state, improving focus and reducing stress.
Mindful Eating for Better Digestion
They stress the importance of eating mindfully to support digestion. When eating in a calm state, blood flow is directed to the digestive system, enhancing nutrient absorption. Practical tips include:
- Sitting down for meals.
- Avoiding eating on the go.
- Taking time to appreciate and connect with your food.
Nutrition and Meal Prep for Busy Schedules
Allyson shares strategies for quick and healthy meal prep, emphasizing the importance of planning ahead to avoid unhealthy choices during busy days. Ideas include preparing balanced meals in under 10 minutes and choosing nutrient-dense snacks for on-the-go consumption.
Exercise Tips for Stress Relief and Time Management
Susan discusses simple workout routines and stress-relieving exercises that can fit into even the busiest schedules. These activities not only improve physical health but also help manage stress more effectively.
This session offers actionable advice for integrating stress management, mindful eating, and fitness into a hectic lifestyle, helping participants achieve better balance and overall well-being.
Transcript
00:00:00 welcome everyone yes thank you for joining us today thank you yes so we’re here to talk to you tonight about Nutrition Fitness and stress relief and we’ll answer your questions at the end but here’s kind of a lay of the land we’re going to start with a little introduction so you know what our background is then we’ll spend some time talking about just stress and how that affects our hunger and our sleep and our metabolism then we’ll get into some meal prep ideas how we can make some really quick easy meals in minutes that are
00:00:35 healthy and then we’ll get into some exercise um and workout tips for for exercising when you’re stressed or whenever you don’t have a lot of time so um without further Ado our introductions this is Alison and tell me a little bit about yourself I’m Allison Klein bro and I’m a functional nutritionist with the aasha center for integrated medicine and I think what sets our work apart from other nutritionists out in world is that you know we’re we’re looking to help improve patient outcomes we’re looking
00:01:05 at biomarkers we’re looking at your labs and we’re working to help improve your health condition through nutrition but we’re also looking at lifestyle habits and you can go to a nutritionist who just says eat this don’t eat that but if we’re not taking your lifestyle into consideration then neither I as the nutritionist nor you as the patient will be successful so at aasha you can expect individualized care for your unique health and life needs um and I’m Susan I’m a physician assistant with the aosa
00:01:42 center I specialize in Orthopedic care um before as a PA I actually worked as a professional um personal trainer and exercise physiologist so I have this wealth of knowledge of Fitness from before PA school and I love and I’m still passionate about exercise Fitness and Nutrition so I’m very excited to be able to be here with Alison today and share our tips on how to do that in a busy lifestyle because everybody out there I’m sure on the screen today um thank you for taking the time to be with us but I imagine you’re all very busy
00:02:10 Professionals in your own ways and I hope that you are able to learn a couple tips from us today so um let’s go on to talk about cortisol this is something that everybody hears about everybody knows about um but Ellison can you tell us a little bit about the stress for me yes yes thank you Susan so what’s interesting about about C all it’s it’s an incredible adaptation that we have developed you know when we were still hunter gatherers and as far as our development has gone we haven’t really progressed much past that hunter
00:02:47 gatherer and let me give you an example yes they dealt with wild animals and we deal with traffic but our stress response is pretty much the same our bodies can’t really decipher if it’s a wild lion that’s r running towards us or we’re just stressed in the car sitting in traffic trying to get to that important meeting so either way our bodies are responding the same and what happens is it really messes up our hunger cues our hunger signaling the hormone signaling to really let us know wait are we hungry are we thirsty are we
00:03:23 scared are we emotional it kind of just messes with all of that so finding ways to calm the nervous system is very important um like Allison was saying whenever you’re stuck in the sympathetic mode sympathetic nervous system you have that kind of um flight or fight response where you’re stressed you can’t really think straight your your body is telling you it’s time to go things aren’t safe we need to get moving so if you want to put yourself into a parasympathetic state where you are in rest and digest
00:03:52 you’re calm you’re peaceful you’re able to think a lot more clearly in this state um there are some ways that you can purposefully put yourself into Paras sympathetic State when you recognize hey I think I’m a little stressed out right now and I think I’m in sympathetic State how can I switch into parasympathetic that way I can calm and have a little bit better control of this situation so one of my favorite ways to do that is called Square breathing so we wanted to um take everybody through this exercise
00:04:19 to instruct how it’s done so that you can then do it on your own whenever you feel stressed out so the first step to square breathing you’re going to inhale for four exhale or hold for four exhale for four hold for four those holds on either side are really important taking that space in between breath and noticing that place of Stillness within yourself so really spend an extra little bit of time when you’re in those four seconds to not think of that as like I’m holding my breath and I’m underwater but
00:04:48 I’m still right now okay so ready three two one we’re going to inhale two three four hold 2 3 4 exhale Slow 2 3 4 hold two three four it’s one of my favorites yeah and it it immediately calms you down and gets you into this less stressful state of being just like that so um let next let’s talk a little bit about how the cortisol system um can affect your metabolism yes yes so I you’ve heard the phrase rest to digest it’s very important because when you’re in a state of stress your your blood is going to
00:05:39 your limbs again that that lion is chasing you and your body isn’t distinguishing between the traffic and the lion so instead of blood going to your colon to help you digest food it’s helping you flee from your stress so we have to be in that relaxed state in order to really get the benefits of food that that we’re eating and how often are we eating in the car on the go in a state of stress because I’m too stressed to sit down and and eat for five minutes so then we’re even introducing food into
00:06:11 a system that’s already stressed out and is not prioritizing digestion at that time so what does it do it kind of sits in your stomach until you are in a state to be digesting but what if you never get yourself there you’re always stressed out you’re always on the go so this is another reason why it’s really important to have sit down with your meals be very mindful about your eating look at your food as you’re eating it being appreciative for what you’re feeling your body with and having this moment of connection with um the things
00:06:38 that you’re giving yourself which which is also brings me to the question of how do we even know when we’re hungry exactly um for me sometimes I am like chronically dehydrated I feel like I never get enough water and sometimes um I feel hungry but I think what I’m actually feeling is thirst and thirst is a really good it hides very well as hunger interesting yes so if you ever are confused really you should ask yourself why am I eating what did I eat earlier today how long ago did I eat what’s what
00:07:17 am I hungry am I thirsty yeah did I properly portion out my macros so that I am satiated that’s a really important Point whenever you zoom out and you look at my day okay why am I eating right now why do I feel hungry well when was your last meal well my last meal was six hours ago so yeah it’s appropriate that I feel hungry for a large meal right now but oh I just ate an hour ago but now I’m starving why am I starving already and so you have to look at well what did you eat well I had an apple that’s
00:07:50 healthy but whenever you eat just one food group your um metabolism Burns through it very quickly we need to add things like fats and protein to each meal in order to slow down the digestion of carbohydrates especially if you’re introducing that in a system that’s already hungry it’s going to burn through that very quickly so in order to stay more satiated you have to eat a balanced meal balanced snacks um always thinking about balance of course homeostasis the body loves homeostasis yes um one thing that I always like to
00:08:23 um instruct people is that there are two sensors in your stomach one measures the volume of your stomach and the other one measures the density the nutrients that are in there and so for example if you eat a large volume of chips you’re going to you know set up the volume sensor and say okay we’re full but you haven’t really satisfied the nutrient sensor because there’s not a lot of nutrients in there so once you get through the volume of that your body’s gonna be like well I need healthy things I didn’t get
00:08:48 any vitamins in there I didn’t get any protein I didn’t get any you know healthy carbs I’m still hungry and so an hour later you’re hungry for an actual meal and physiologically where a carbohydrate is breaking down into glucose so we get a nice Spike of energy and then we get a quick Decline and that’s what triggers the hunger because we need that energy we got to get more so that’s where we can be in a bad place where we’re making bad choices because we’re hungry and we’re hungry now and cortisol loves carbs loves carbs it’s
00:09:22 like whenever I’m stressed out that’s the that’s a preferred fuel because if you are in a state of sympathetic you need that quick fuel think about athletes that are running marathons what do they drink or you know eat those little goo things that are just glucose because in that state of being that is what the body can process but it can’t really process the the fats and the proteins without settling breasting and digesting so that’s why whenever you’re stressed you’re reaching for the carb because that’s what the cortisol can
00:09:50 handle at that time yes so that’s why at aasha we we like to look at a plate and make sure we’ve got all of our macronutrients present what we do is we fill half our plate with non-starchy carb so if you think well tonight on the menu is brussel sprouts those are in back in season things like cauliflower and broccoli greens fill half your plates that’s going to be the fiber you need that’s going to help with the satiation in addition to making sure you’ve got about 20% or a palm full size of protein protein is really important
00:10:27 it’s it’s the building blocks of our body so for women you want to aim for at least one palmful for men it’s probably about two Palm FS you want about a Thumb Thumbs worth of fat and that can be in the in the form of an olive oil it could be in the form of nuts seeds and then even a starchy carb things like we love sweet potatoes and oh gosh right now the squashes the squashes are in season zucchini and the the winter squashes like butternut squash and kabuka we love those yeah and very satisfying too and
00:11:05 for not a lot of calories yes and when you have it all together you feel satiated you need fat you need protein it keeps you satiated so you can go at least four hours between meals because you also need that rest State even if you’re not digesting food you need to be in that rested state so your motor NE circuit can work the the food through the colon to digest it and when you eat like that then you satisfy the volume and also the nutrient density because you had enough volume given all the vegetables that take up a lot of room
00:11:41 and also they’re very nutritious so you satisfy both of those sensors in your stomach so should we get into some quick tips on how to make a meal quickly exactly so whenever I think of healthy meals it’s like oh well that would take an hour in the kitchen and I have to saut this and do that and and all of these things but there’s a lot of healthy meals that you can make very quickly especially if you have a few um tools like an air fryer or what else have we got this is my probably my favorite the instant pot oh yeah this
00:12:11 thing this thing you can sauté you can slow cook so a lot of times I’ll throw things in here and and it’s done by the time I get home so things like tomato sauce with some good um Italian seasoning sea salt sea salt buying the right brand of sea salt is really important redond doesn’t have microplastics in it o interesting microplastics microplastics it’s in everything it’s it’s scary and it’s disrupting our hormones we could do a whole talk on microplastics WE we’ll save that for another day but so things
00:12:52 like throwing it into a slow cooker with some ground meat in here letting it slow cook you can put you can put um put it over cauliflower rice you can put it over zucchini noodles I’ve seen those in the frozen section even yeah that’s the thing there’s a lot of good frozen vegetables which can be very quickly added to any meal so you know a lot of times people say they have a hard time getting enough vegetables or that they don’t like vegetables and so or prepping the vegetables is hard and timely and
00:13:24 you to chop up a lot of things well choosing frozen vegetables can be an easy way to um kind of mitigate a lot of those um obstacles and they’re frozen at the peak of their nutrient density and that’s also something that I take into consideration because when we buy say blueberries right now they’re coming from probably I don’t know Chile they’re not in season here in California right now so when you think about that what does our food have to go through in order to get to us it loses its nutrient
00:13:56 value and it’s also probably sprayed with chemicals that we don’t necessarily want to be taking in right and that’s the other thing um when considering healthy eating you know you say well I’m eating fruits and vegetables but where are those coming from and you know are they organic you know the best place like she said how long ago was this picked from the vine my parents live near an orchard and the um the lady working there said that once they the apples leave the orchard they won’t even hit the shelf for another year and that
00:14:25 some of those apples a year wow yes or they’ll still be using them after a year and she’s like oh yeah we’ve got some in stock from last year bring them out so you know if you can go to a Farm’s market and get things that were just picked off the vine the nutrient density is highest or like we said choosing frozen vegetables which are Frozen at the peak of their nutrient density so um I don’t know a lot of times there’s some confusion about like frozen things being healthy and you know I think they’re
00:14:51 great um now canned food you want to talk a little bit about canned food convenient but they’re usually soaking in refined salts and other that I would I would stick to Frozen really yeah yeah as far as convenience goes Frozen is a better option than you can buy things already like I I I like to use my weekend and I’ll I’ll chop up some onion I’ll chop up some garlic and I’ll just keep them in these little containers because then it’s just really easy to add you know we’re having salmon tonight so I’ll just
00:15:26 put some garlic some olive oil and sea salt and we’ve got a delicious meal if I really want to get fancy I can add you know some lemon juice to it but that’s a meal really quickly you can buy it already chopped up you can spend a little bit of time on your weekend doing some prep which is my preference because then I have things on hand I like hard boiling some eggs I like cooking up some chicken breasts because these can go say into a a a jar we can make a a salad I can put my salad dressing at the bottom here I
00:16:07 can put my hardboiled egg or my chicken and then it doesn’t get all wilty you know when you have a salad the next day and it’s all wilty so these mason jars are really nice for a salad to bring to the office with you or on the go that’s the thing it’s one thing that I find really helps with the stress of cooking the stress of nutrition is meal prepping even if it’s just for a couple days ahead of time or even just the night before I’m a huge lunch Packer everybody knows this about me and I love
00:16:37 my little Bento boxes and little meal prep boxes and um for me it’s many reasons but I find that you know preparing that for myself the night before really makes me feel taken care of the next day where I I go and my lunch is already ready and I did that as a future gift to myself to take care of myself and so um it’s another way that you can kind of add to your self-compassion add to the way that you are putting effort into taking care of yourself and just as an act of self-care I love that yeah yeah and to say I’m
00:17:09 doing this for my future self and then in the morning I’ll be like thank you pastu for making this for me it’s so nice that I can just grab it and go now and so and sometimes at the end of the day you’re like oh I’m too tired you know I’ll do that in the morning but then the mornings are so rushed and busy yeah even just taking like 10 minutes to put together an overnight oatmeal that’ll make your instead of and then in the morning you’re grabbing an oatmeal instead of something at Starbucks on the
00:17:33 way to work so it’s it takes a little bit of time but it just mostly takes effort and intention and the desire to want to do this if you you know if you don’t even think about it then you’re not going to do it so what you’re conscious of you have a choice over what you’re not conscious of you don’t have a choice over so consciously making good nutrition choices um is the first step and really just providing nutrients to your body because who else is going to do this for you who else is going to
00:17:59 feed you you’re an adult you have to feed yourself I love that yeah and sometimes even just making more of dinner to use as leftover for lunch or breakfast I mean who said that breakfast has to be you know typical breakfast that we think of as you know pancakes and that’s all horrible things for us that’s true so why not have a little leftover bone broth with some vegetables and some leftover chicken in it why not why not I love the idea of saving dinner leftovers to have for lunch tomorrow then you don’t have to worry about lunch
00:18:34 you know if I’m like well this is a huge meal just put half of it into a box be like there’s my lunch for tomorrow already ready yeah um so let’s talk about some easy meals that you can make in under 10 minutes okay so we have we had the marinara sauce which you can throw in some ground meat into um another you know for taco night salsa with any kind of ground chicken ground turkey ground beef with salsa throw it in there easy I like the cete brand they were bought out by Pepsi so just be on the lookout and make sure you keep
00:19:09 reading the ingredient list and make sure that the ingredients stay clean but this is a great brand um so this is a quick meal I also love coconut milk and Curry throw that with white fish with chicken shrimp a little um cauliflower rice you’ve got a good cauliflower rice or zucchini noodles now with grains I I treat them a little bit different because grains are higher in Fates and lectins so for some it can be difficult to digest so what I like to do my instant pot I’ve got I’ve got more than one of these inserts so I can be
00:20:01 cooking in one and then soaking something in another so I’ll just put like our oats in here soak it in water and then for the next day if I wanted to prepare something with the oats um or or rice now the thing with rice so it’s a resistant starch when you cook it cool it and reheat it and by resistant starch I mean that it resists digestion so for most of us it won’t give us a big blood glucose Spike but it will act as food for the healthy bacteria in the stomach interesting so resistant starch means
00:20:43 that it’s like slower digesting it’s for it’s it’s a food okay for our microbiome interesting so that you can do that with potatoes as well and I like to cook potatoes ahead of time too potatoes the winter squashes is not only are they a resistant starch if you cook them cool them and reheat them but they take a long time to cook it could take 45 minutes to an hour and when we come home from work and practice we need things stacked ready yeah like you said having rice already made and ready having
00:21:18 things already chopped and ready so they’re ready to just grab and go you don’t have to do a ton of prepping in the moment um I love like you said having hardboiled eggs you can do so many things with that whether it’s breakfast you know making a little egg salad throw it on a regular cob salad tons of stuff that you can do and it doesn’t take that long to just hard boil what is it 8 to 10 minutes yeah eight to 10 minutes you’ve got a dozen eggs that could be six breakfasts right there really quick and easy in eight minutes
00:21:43 and you just did that for your entire week yeah so lots of little tricks and and tips but just takes a little bit of time and atttention I also like having different things on hand like canned tuna salmon sardines these are really great throw into a salad how do you feel about canned chicken canned chicken that’s a good question yeah I haven’t really come across one that is organic or clean ingredients I like some of these you know the Wild Planet they’re they’re really cautious about how they fish for
00:22:18 their the fish okay so I’m I’m really cognizant of sourcing and okay you know Monterey Bay Aquarium is a great way to see if your fish is safe they a wonderful resource and the environmental working group is another great source of you know checking on on your foods are are they safe for eating if they’re organic or not organic and do I have to buy it organic I like using the environmental working group too one concern that a lot of people have with eating especially tuna is what about the Mercury is there a limit or a boundary
00:22:50 that you can kind of suggest on how much canned meat is okay yeah or things like these I think especially with tuna I would probably cap it it two times a week just because of those mercury levels okay but salmon I think you could go a little more on that okay that’s good I like to have boundaries on things um okay so let’s talk a little bit about snacks okay we’ve done a lot about like meals but what about things that you can take out of the house with you yes um obviously we love things like nuts and seeds it’s really important to
00:23:23 get um how many servings would you save nuts and seeds in a day yeah probably one handful one handful it’s really easy to overeat those and those are another one that I would probably say if you can soak them they’re also pretty high in Fates and lectins so they can be difficult to digest for some for some not for all so if you were to soak them in water say overnight and then put them in your toaster of them and give them a little roast with some sea salt see I I’ve never I’ve never soaked my my nut
00:23:53 and seeds before so to try that thinking again like we were talking about having balanced snacks if you’re going to have nuts you might also have an apple too to have a little bit of carb a little bit of energy there but the nuts will help slow down the digestion of that carb um so that’s that’s a common snack of mine I’ll have I have my tiny little snack bco boxes and I’ll put you know a fourth of a cup of nuts and seeds in it and then the other the other portion will’ll put like a serving of fruit whether
00:24:21 that’s berries I love blueberries blackberries raspberries all of those are really low in sugar and high in fiber yes I like those cuz low glycemic yes and they’re fun to eat and it feels kind of like that hunter gatherer where it’s like picking berries and nuts or half of an apple or something like that is a good um kind of like a serving of fruit to go with the nuts um other ones like um I always have these in my purse I’m a mom so somebody’s always hungry so I like the chomp sticks they’re grass-fed and finished beef
00:24:53 they’ve got turkey as well yeah I got these at Trader joon’s yeah yeah and um I like the spicy kind but the rise bar is also a a good thing to have on hand it only has three ingredients so I like having these as well even just a protein shake on the go protein shake especially in the morning I love especially I like to do the aashi Shake in the morning I’ll do my protein shake the greens you know a little bit of flax seed chia seed and those are resistant starches too so you’re feeding the microbiome I learned something
00:25:26 resistant starches I’m sck into that yes um yeah but it’s a great thing to have and to get a lot of nutrients early on in the morning especially if you’re not a breakfast person a lot of people aren’t breakfast people and then they’ll go hours and hours without eating and then get stressed and then be like oh all of a sudden I’m starving and I’m stressed and I don’t know what to do so kind of getting before that um I had a dietician friend in the past that said your hunger level should always be
00:25:51 between a four and a seven so I’m not starving but I’m not stuffed I’m kind of in that middle ground at all times times and so in order to keep yourself from getting starving having little snacks before you get to that point um is a good idea because you’re in a better mind set to make good decisions when you’re not starving because when you’re starving your body’s like get food now we’re gonna die you’re like well we’re not gonna die yes but those are when we really make bad decisions exactly because we want it now and it needs to
00:26:20 be quickly absorbed cortisol is talking them yes you know I thought maybe we could talk a little bit about treats treats o yes let’s talk about treats a little bit love balance what are some like healthy treats or if I am stressed is there anything any like sweet treat that I can reach for that’s not going to totally ruin my diet or ruin the rest of my day as far as nutrition goes all right okay so here are some of my go this is these are my go-to so I like this little yeah ice cream tray and I’ll
00:26:49 put my coconut milk in there okay and I’ll freeze it and then we can throw some cacao powder in there I like to freeze the these you know these bananas that are overripe that nobody wants to eat so I’ll freeze these and then I’ll blend the cacao the coconut milk and the banana and it’s kind of like ice cream a little ice cream kind of like ice cream similarly I like to freeze bananas into like little chunks because when you blend them it makes like a little ice cream it’s not it’s dairyfree it’s not a bunch of added
00:27:24 sugar it’s not a bunch of added fat um so yeah I like that that’s a great isn’t that fun and then you’ve got little toppings well you know I dark chocolate you know I I’m a big fan of dark chocolate anything this is 75% I usually do 80 but I like this brand in particular they they use um coconut sugar so the whole like carbohydrates and added sugars is really pretty minimal very nice yeah I oh I have a boundaries question on chocolate how much chocolate can I have a day day a week is it 1 o a day what is the
00:28:01 boundary on chocolate I would say maybe one to two squares two squares a couple days a week maybe okay so maybe like as a dessert Friday and Saturday yeah okay yeah that works for me yeah yeah really it’s the 8020 rule right okay tell us a little bit about the 8020 rule I know what that is but yeah yeah you know 80% of the time we’re eating real clean and really minding our diets and 20% we can have a little fun fun now if we’re managing a health condition I’m a lot stricter once we’ve come over the hump of of the condition
00:28:38 then I’d say we can loosen the rains a little bit okay so 20% so is that three or four meals a week is it three or four items a week you know I we we do it mostly like the weekend where on Saturday and Sunday we may have a meal or two meals where there not as strict as others that’s good I think that having that balance then prevents you from having big binges where it’s like oh I haven’t allowed myself to have my favorite food in a long time now I just want to eat everything in the house where it’s like I finally get the
00:29:14 opportunity to have the cookies I’m G to eat 10 of these cookies because I haven’t had one in four months right instead having like just a little bit of something um then you don’t have that binge desire whenever it does come up because it’s not like you’re restrict yourself from ever having what you like um one question was how can I increase my energy without caffeine so happy you asked this is my favorite electrolytes this is actually my favorite brand of electrolytes because they use Stevia to sweeten it it
00:29:46 also has a much higher sodium profile than most other electrolytes as well as potassium and magnesium so I I am a big fan of this I have samples too if you want to come to the office oh I have I have a question about electrolytes so for some people that shouldn’t have a lot of salt do you recommend another kind of electrolyte that does not have the high sodium or what are some ways that you can still benefit that if you are on a low sodium diet that’s a good question probably for Dr delloo yeah um you know I do know that in
00:30:19 general there’s a great book called the salt fix and I know that that um that the kidneys have to work a lot harder when we don’t have enough salt but if we’re eating a lot of refined foods and refined salt that puts us over the edge okay so making sure that we’re getting good quality salt in our diet what are healthy snacks to eat when I’m stressed I think you guys answered that one we did just like having things prepped and ready to go that you can grab eggs fruits and combining them making sure you’re doing a carb with a
00:30:58 fat or carb with a protein okay or even you know I’ll cut up veggies you know carrots and celery I’ll put them in a tray of water my filtered water and they’ll last for like two weeks and that’s an easy thing to grab dip in some avocado hummus hummus if you can find one that doesn’t have seed oil in it though oh seed oils are a big problem they’re in a lot of our snack foods okay and seed oils are a byproduct of petroleum so they really have no business being in our diet or in our food so be really mindful about all
00:31:38 the seed oils okay they’re highly inflammatory okay um here’s one that was uh sent to me in chat stress anxiety or boredom can drive people to seek comfort food making it difficult to S stick to their healthy diets uh what advice can you give for these types of moments eat a lot of non-starchy vegetables and starchy vegetables with fat so things like the sweet potato putting a nice amount of coconut oil and some sea salt and cinnamon it tastes like dessert but it’s not going to have the same effects
00:32:14 on your blood glucose levels I think one important thing for those moments is catching yourself in those moments and saying what am I doing is there a better choice I can make instead of this and being mindful of what you’re putting in your mouth or even just questioning yourself in that moment why am I doing this do I need this what do I need is there a better choice that I can make instead and what else do I have sometimes you don’t have anything you just got to go with what you got but preparing ahead of time and making sure
00:32:42 that you have things ready to go that is one thing that you can do um to prevent these moments from getting out of control much better answer no combination you know having in stock it’s like if it’s not in stock you can’t get it so if you keep it in stock and it’s prepared then you’re more likely to reach for it absolutely yeah but otherwise you’re like well I don’t have any so I just got to eat whatever’s here I like I said I previously worked as a um private personal trainer and exercise physiologist but Allison as well has a
00:33:10 wealth of Fitness expertise and as you can tell she’s very fit herself so we’ll kind of both bounce on this topic but as we know what is the first thing to go when you’re stressed I don’t have time to exercise or I’m too stressed out to exercise I have tons of work to do I don’t I can’t take an hour out of my day to exercise and get to the gym and shower and do this and then it turns into this two-hour vent I don’t have a two-hour block of my day so I guess that means I can never exercise right in my
00:33:40 house we talk about movement as important as brushing your teeth we brush our teeth twice every day we don’t have to move our bodies but we move our bodies every day in some shape or form exactly and so whenever you get too stressed out to exercise you kind of forget that exercise actually helps with stress and so it’s almost like you’re running from the one thing that might solve the problem um for me whenever I’m stressed out and I have a lot of energy in my body it really helps to do some amount of cardio um I know that’s
00:34:12 everybody’s favorite word but if you can find some kind of cardio that is fun for you or at least tolerable um I’m not saying everybody needs to go out there and be a runner if you hate running fine do something else dancing is cardio you know even just walking on the treadmill at an incline is amazing C cardio and it’s low impact sometimes when I was in school when I was in PA school I literally had no time so I would put my studies up there and just go on the stair stepper and study while was on the
00:34:39 stair stepper it’s like you know you have to do what you have to sometimes to just get some movement I also like rucking where you wear a weighted vest while you walk that’s great so now you’ve Incorporated some cardio and you’ve Incorporated some strength all in one I like that that’s little tip yeah or and walking that’s a great thing you know people sometimes forget that even just walking is great exercise and so maybe you don’t have time to go to gym or you know you have to be on this important call can you walk at the same
00:35:10 time as you’re on the phone you know is there any way that you can add movement into your life or um have you ever seen those treadmill mat things that people are using now you know you’re working from home you can be walking on a treadmill while you’re on your thing um so there’s lots of little ways you can add movement into your life but okay let’s get back like a little bit more specifically let’s say you don’t have an hour to exercise do you have 20 minutes there’s a lot that you can do even just
00:35:34 in 20 minutes of exercise for years I had tons of clients that only did 30 minute workouts and they would be astonished at how much their Fitness improved just in a 30- minute workout twice a week compared to not doing anything at all it helps your your mentality it gives you confidence that you can handle what you’re what’s on your plate at the time it makes you feel stronger it gives you endurance I mean think about all of you know strength training what does strength training do to your body makes you stronger what
00:36:01 does it do to your mind makes you stronger what does it do for your metabolism makes it stronger makes it move faster yes you know um what about cardio what does that train that trains muscular endurance that trains mental endurance that trains I can get through the stressful event because I feel the endurance in my body and that can Propel into my mind because through the Mind Body Connection through the fascia we all know I love fascia or maybe you’re feeling very rigid I don’t feel very flexible right now stretching okay my
00:36:30 new role for myself is if I don’t have time to go to the gym I’m getting home at 8 or 9 o’clock at night I have to stretch at least stretching is like the most forgotten about and honestly a very important part of exercise there’s cardio there’s strength there’s flexibility there’s Mobility flexibility and Mobility are the two that people don’t really spend a lot of time on and I think are arguably the foundation to both of them yeah it helps prevent injury exactly L if you are just strength training and throwing around a
00:37:00 lot of weight and also not lifting very mindfully you’re likely to get injured if you’re you know stressed down you’re you’re just kind of going through the motions but the nice thing about flexibility you know taking a yoga class even just stretching a little bit at home in front of the TV I mean who isn’t watching Netflix these days yeah if you’re if you’re at home doing your normal thing just add in a little bit of stretching or even just even tiny things little habits add up to big changes so
00:37:27 if you’re doing doing your 10 push-ups in the morning 10 crunches you know something that takes like two minutes to do what’s more important is your consistency your consistency will then lead to bigger things so let’s say you are just doing all I have time to do is 10 minutes of some body weight exercises in the morning that’s fine just do it consistently it’s squats and lunges right are so effective and they work the biggest muscles in the body or I’ll tie it to another habit I’m brushing my teeth I’m kind of stuck for two minutes
00:38:01 what can you do for two minutes some calf raises I’ll do a wall sit you know do something for two minutes while you’re brushing your teeth kind of attach it to something else make it a fun challenge for yourself take the stairs take the stairs walk walk park the car further exactly find little ways to add what we call like micro exercise into your day and recognize that that is still movement the whole point of exercise is moving your body you know many years ago we didn’t have gyms and organize fitness routines and you know
00:38:30 exercise programs because life was a lot more movement voking you know you’re walking a lot more you’re working hard labor with your hands all of those things other ways that you can add in more exercise getting a friend to help accountability is really important with Fitness some people are very selfmotivated they can go they can do their routine all the time other people it’s really hard to do that especially if you’re what I call a nonex a non-athletic regular person it’s like okay I wasn’t an athlete I
00:39:00 don’t like exercise I’m just a regular person that that needs to move because I’m a human how can I do this so finding things that you like that you connect with some people are scared to go to the gym okay well what can you do what is at your disposal trying to find some sort of enjoyment in that activity will make it to be more of a lifetime activity rather than something that you’re just doing to lose weight or just doing for the stress right now but finding something that you can commit to as your
00:39:26 activity or the thing that you like to do to move your body um so instead of saying what do you do for exercise maybe saying what do you do to move your body how do you like to move your body are you a dancer are you you know do you like to bike we are so lucky to live in California where there’s endless recreational activity which is exercise you know going on Hikes walking on the beach all of these things have the benefit of being in nature which is very grounding and very stress relieving as
00:39:52 well as the benefit of exercise and movement for your body and then at home fitness this is something that has blown up since the pandemic you know whenever all the gyms closed everybody got very resourceful in finding ways and suddenly everybody was into the fitness and buying Home Gyms you know I’m I was a gym rat and I self admittedly from 16 years old until the pandemic I had to be in the gym but I was really surprised to find the pelaton the strength training and the yoga are actually really good
00:40:24 programs right and that’s another thing when someone is very stressed out it can be really hard well I get to the gym and I don’t know what to do you know so having a program having a plan and having guidance on that can be really helpful Allison and I we’re we’re happy to write programming to help you know people always say like exercise and do this but how how do I do that and so having um a friend or a professional help you and give you a little bit of a program and plan so that way you don’t
00:40:53 have to think whenever you get there you know you’re so busy making so many other choices throughout your day if you can just open up your phone and you have this app with exercises or you can open up your notebook and you know okay today is leg day or today I’m going to go on a 30 minute walk again it’s that preparation of like deciding before the time comes that way whenever the time comes you don’t have to decide it’s already set in planned for you and getting people your friends involved I get my kids involved we we go and we
00:41:20 work out together and that way we’re all getting movement that’s a huge barer that I hear often is well I don’t have time to exercise I have kids I have to take them here and there so what are some ways that you found to kind of involve your kids into an healthy and exercise lifestyle we’ve got this ugly Tire outside and we flip it and it’s fun for the kids to flip and they’re having a functional movement of up and down and lifting and so just finding different and fun ways to move your bodies there’s
00:41:49 there’s endless ways you can do it and it sets an example to your kids of like this is what a healthy lifestyle looks like and we prioritize this and we do this as as a family like this is something that you know like you said goes along with nutrition this is something that we Implement to keep our bodies healthy and so instructing that and even letting your kids seeing you sweat seeing you work hard seeing mommy lift weights like wow you know that’s that’s such a um a tone for them of inspiration that this is a good way to
00:42:17 um to lead a healthy life and hopefully the foundations but they’ll do it themselves when they leave home exactly it becomes their normal yeah yes so this is one of the biggest obstacles a lot of people face with exercises well I have pain this hurts I you know how do I exercise if I have a bum knee or a bad shoulder you know a lot of times people think you have to wait till you’re done with the recovery in order to do anything um but there’s always workarounds that you can do and there’s always something that you can do
00:42:49 in Fitness my my motto is start where you are use what you have and do what you can so if where you are right now is I have an injury and I’m rehabbing it and you know I’m not as fast as I used to be what can I do in the meantime well we have to think outside the box so it’s like okay well maybe I can’t run right now because I have a torn laum but is there anything else that I can do that’s not my usual and kind of working around that in a way that’s that does work so and then using what you have so it’s
00:43:18 like okay well I don’t have a gym membership I don’t have this what do I do and then doing what you can with injuries it just depends on what it is and what is the nature of that injury and what do you need to do do to care for yourself in that state as well so okay if I can’t really submerge myself I can’t really run there’s actually this really cool machine called the arm or gometer it’s an exercise that goes like this um or rowing machines things that activate more arms um any sort of arm cardio is very intense um the reps are
00:43:49 shorter so your heart has to pump a lot faster to return the blood to your arms so things like boxing things like rowing things involve your arms are very very um intense on your cardiovascular system and can also be um you know without using your lower body you can do some of these things um or just low impact exercises I I am a fanatic about walking on an incline you know if you’re able to walk Walking on just a little bit of an incline really increases the um the cardio effort and you’ll be surprised at
00:44:21 how hard it is to walk uphill and it’s low impact it’s not going to bother your knees or your hips you can do it slowly but the benefit for your heart is still there as it’s very cardio taxing to do something like that something like that perhaps or walking on the beach even just walking through sand is very challenging yeah yeah you’d be surprised at how um playing with different intensities on walking can can be a good thing yoga and pilates too I found I found for myself I had some health conditions that prevented me from being
00:44:52 able to exercise and I was a runner and gym goer and so yoga and fot were not part of my meu but I realized it’s it’s important for the mind and it’s also it really his wonderful way to to strengthen we have a question from Lisa um she’s asking for suggestions for breaking a habit of late night snacking what to Crunch on or how to break the Habit I’m stuck on needing a reward for a Long Day’s Work that’s a good one so what is your suggestion for that hydration I like the the electrolytes the these element
00:45:33 because they’re they are sweet they’re sweetened with stevia they also have um chocolate flavors like a chocolate caramel and other chocolate flavors that you can drink in like a teacup and make it hot and it’s soothing comforting a little sweet but it’s not going to have that same effect on blood glucose levels like chomping on snacks at night because you really want to cut food off so you have that chance to rest and digest overnight and give that body the chance to really do its work in repairing and restoring yeah so if if
00:46:10 you can break the Habit it it’s really an important one to try to break sometimes I find that I’m eating later at night because I didn’t have much of a chance to eat during the day if I was too busy so then I feel like well you know it’s 10:00 at night but I haven’t had anything all day and now it’s too late before bed like is it still okay to eat late in that sense and my gut says yes but what what is your take on that where it’s like is it a calories per day thing or if you feel like you’re going to be woken up in the
00:46:40 middle of the night because you’re hungry then they need something just make sure that it’s balanced make sure that you have again your some sort of protein or fat with it to slow the digestion down that’s true because at night it’s a lot of times it’s craving that sweet thing that’s going to then spike your inst while you’re sleep yes and then that spike is going to wake you up or that not the spike that it’s that crash is going to wake you up after your sleep yeah and which is not good for your stress no I did want to add
00:47:09 something about the um the injury question um so whenever you have an injury a huge part of your effort as far as your body and your exercise needs to be in the recovery of that injury and there’s a lot of things that you can do to care for yourself in a state where um like let’s say you have a hurt shoulder doing some physical therapy seeking treatment for that um doing things that will um speed up your recovery so that you can get back to full function quicker that shock wave that we have in the office that you use that’s amazing I
00:47:37 used it yesterday and like it’s incredible the the application we’ll talk about that I do have another question from info I um what other types of treatments are you able to provide that help relieve stress one treatment that I do love to give for stress is cranial facial or myof fascia release um a lot of times stress and injuries or anything negative in the body will constrict the fascia and make it kind of frrench up and breeze so especially in the head if you’re prone to headaches sleeplessness you know you have a lot of
00:48:10 anxiety you kind of live in your head as an intelligent person um getting some cranos sacral therapy can be really good to release that fascia and open it up and promote more blood flow more fluid throw through your head um release that tension it’s profoundly relaxing and a lot of times people end up falling asleep during the treatment because they’re so relaxed so I recommend doing that once a week especially if you are in a very stressful time it can be profoundly helpful for your sleep and for releasing that stress and even just
00:48:41 training yourself to take a rest and to have a place of Stillness and a place that is yours that you can come back to um it’s really good for again kind of like training that Stillness into you well whenever you carry the stress here you tend to shrug your tracks up a lot of people get trigger point knots right here in the shoulders and there’s a lot of things we can do for that um actually did talk about shock wave for treating those muscle spasms there that can be really helpful as well as trigger point
00:49:06 injections there’s an injection I can put a plant-based anti-inflammatory I don’t like to use a lot of corticosteroids in those injections um because they can be damaging to the joints the tissues and the microbiome and the microbiome so I like to use plant-based anti-inflammatories and numbing agents like lidocaine marane um to help treat those knots that are in the shoulders that can be just caused by stress or injury um things like that and then following up with some manual therapies to further break up the knots
00:49:33 and release that um is really good and helpful and can help de-stress your body and and like we know the mindbody connection whenever whatever you do to the body the Mind follows whatever you do to the to the mind the body follows it’s very interconnected so if you’re able to kind of influence one through the other I find that that’s a really um interesting technique that you can use so if you’re so stressed out in the mind then having some work done on your body can help release that I have a question
00:50:00 from Luana she’s asking what’s the best exercise to reduce stress so when I think about stress I’m thinking about like energy and activation and a lot of containment of energy in your body so exercises that get you movement and are cardiovascular so that you’re breathing and kind of exhaling a lot of that stress as well so things like walking any sort of cardio activity that’s elevating your heart rate um but also it depends on if you’re a go go go person and you’ve been go gooing all day and that is your stress mode then like doing
00:50:34 more movement and more walking and more running is not really what you need to balance that state of being if you’re stressed and you’re at a desk all day then maybe it is a better choice to then go take a walk but if you’re stressed and you’re running around all day maybe for you that looks like laying down and doing a yoga session or stretching or meditating or doing something that’s the opposite of what your your normal is you know if you’re if you’re a fiery person you’re sinking something that’s cooling
00:51:01 if you’re a cooling person sing something that’s more firing uh this is a question that I’ve got uh for Allison uh what is something that we could pick up and eat when we have very short periods of time to eat like when we’re on the go U many people that I know of are you know high power Executives and they need to just eat real quick and just go what is something that you could suggest on a con you know on a routine basis that they could just get and go um I know you mentioned the beef sticks but other than that what are
00:51:34 other things that you would like to suggest things that are prepackaged prepackaged or that they could put in their purse or you know keep in their car things of that protein bars or the protein the rise bar I like because it’s such a so clean beef sticks just having hard-boiled eggs on hand because they’re quick and easy to grab that with an apple and you’ve got almost a complete profile you know maybe some add some Macadamia Nets those are lower in Omega 6 and you want to make sure that you’re balancing your
00:52:09 Omega-3s and Omega sixes because when we’re in that rushed State not only are we stressed you know we talked about that but but also just making sure that we’re not over consuming snack foods because that can leave us hungry so making sure we’ve got a fat we’ve got a protein and we’ve got some sort of non-starchy carb or starchy carb like a like an apple um having things like cut up veggies on hand that you can just grab from the refrigerator and go I like those things like hummus if you can find one without the seed oils guacamole
00:52:51 is a great to have also easy to I’ll use deli meats too you know my son plays baseball and will be at the fields for a lot of hours and so I’ll pack my little bag full of um sliced turkey hummus cut up vegetables nuts we’ll make little wraps with the turkey we’ll put our veggies and our hummus inside there and that’s what we can eat in between Innings I think again it comes back to preparing for those events and having things ahead of time on on hand yeah and preparing before the stress happens just
00:53:30 like you would prepare for a meeting or how we prepared for this and Gathering things and and getting yourself ready um yeah just having things on hand ahead of time like I keep like car snacks or in my car at all times I always have like a little bag of nuts and like things that are you know shelf stable that I can that can live in my car in case I do you know I am between patients or something and I need a quick snack I know that I at least have things on hand and if I don’t then it kind of you know the DAT
00:53:56 kind of BLS up like I’m starving and there’s no food I saw there’s a question in the chat that just popped up are we we to read those and she’s asking if we don’t live near aasha and we live in another state what should we look for when searching for a high quality provider for myofacial and cranial work oh I remember her oh for me so cranial and myofascial work it all comes down to the provider there’s tons of different ways that people learn this there’s the I am trained by John F Barnes approach and so there’s a lot of
00:54:32 good practitioners um that have that approach you can go on the website and search for practitioners in your area um but not of course not everybody’s on there cranial um what’s the upledger institute there’s a lot of practitioners that um are trained there for cranial fessal release honestly the main thing is trying people because I’ve gone to tons of people that weren’t classically trained but have just this gift of touch and this awareness in their hands and this intuition so it really just comes
00:55:01 down to the provider and a lot of times finding those gem providers is just word of mouth and you know networking with other people that like that care and are receiving that care and finding the providers that work well for you and sometimes that can take a little bit of um shopping around and trying a few different people to find one that that you connect with because of the nature of that work being you know its body work and everything feeling very safe and connected with your provider is a
00:55:28 good way to um to have success in that treatment feeling safe and being able to being able to connect with your provider but yeah I’d recommend going on those websites to see if there’s a local in your area or even just Googling you know my offal practitioners near me and seeing what kind of reviews come up have you found that practitioners like that would be willing to do a consult like to talk to you because I know I like to do that as a nutritionist you know are we a good fit because sometimes it’s just
00:55:55 it’s so personal it is so personal and um a lot of times it just takes just trying it because there’s not you can talk all day about the fascia but like you can’t really go in with the plan you kind have to go in there with a feel and then let the patient’s body kind of guide you to what it needs and so if your practitioner is able to read you in that sense then that’s the most important so finding somebody you connect with is most important okay and I hi Dr damelo I see your question he is asking what are your
00:56:27 nutritional and Osteo manipulation manipulations for patients suffering from long covid nutrition with long well long Co I like to address inflammation with that we’re addressing the mitochondria I think the mitochondria become hindered with long covid and so finding ways to supplement and support that you know it’s it’s reducing inflammation it’s it’s balancing macros it’s focusing on real Whole Foods and that’s that’s been my Approach um for me I’ve seen a lot of patients with cranial Cal therapy um for
00:57:09 covid again like the covid headaches a lot of people had a lot of tightness stress congestion being that it’s a respiratory virus so everything here kind of gets all tightened up so having releas in that is been really helpful and um and also another thing we like to do is simult ously as giving um cranial facial release doing an IV and supplying the body with nutrients and hydration while I’m opening the tissues is like the most amazing combo wow yeah because then they’re receiving the foods and the
00:57:39 nutrients as I’m opening the inum and it’s going straight into the cells and it’s it’s really a um a good way to to um Supply nutrients especially after an infection like that great question Dr he was asking for the recommendations I hope that kind of made sense yeah okay thank you Dr jamelo okay I want to make sure are there any other questions for any from anybody else anybody okay well I want to thank everybody for joining us today this was amazing presentation from both Allison and Susan I also wanted to make sure
00:58:23 that I mentioned that Allison and Susan are also Al available for um a 10-minute educational consult so please uh call us um at the aasha center and they will we will be able to um schedule you with them for an educational consult I do want to say like with anything um you know nutrition exercise all this needs to be tailored to your needs and your schedule your life you know there’s no one siiz fits-all cookie cutter answer for everybody you know what could be the perfect thing for one person be
00:58:57 detrimental to another and so you know we’re here for you we we are your resource let me let us guide you into the direction um for Success instead of trying all these things that may or may not work for you so we’re more than happy to help put you um put you on the path to success and to help you along the way with resources getting there Dr Jala does have one more question he’s asking if we can help patients from out of town and yes of course we have a broad range of patients from everywhere so we’re welcoming everybody so yes
00:59:31 please give us a call from wherever you’re at yes I mean virtual tella Health virtual Health all of that everything can be done virtually now so yes all right so thank you everybody once again for joining I hope you have a beautiful evening and I hope you call us soon thank you everyone thank you
