Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
E15 The Ultimate Nutrition FLIP to Improve Patterns
66 Plays2 years ago
How to create intention and be proactive vs impulsive and reactive.
This is a massive part behind the HOW and WHY of your dietary habits and can help you finallyyyyyy stop getting to the other side of a day/week/year looking back like “what the heck just happened?”
Ya’ll, this is likely my fav solo podcast to date. It has SO many nuggets I share with clients regularly that I found SO dang foundational to understanding nutrition on a whole alongside the action steps to start making changes.
Let me know what you think!
theresemartinezrd.com
Remember nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as medical advice. Please talk to your healthcare practitioner before making changes to your care.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast Mission
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Eating Between the Lines. I am your host, Therese Martinez, and I am so happy to have you here. If you want to untangle yourself from diet culture conditioning and get appropriate, actionable options to nourish your unique life and body, I'm going to dive deep into the nuanced spectrum of health to help you figure out what to prioritize in your journey
00:00:25
Speaker
without getting trapped in the extreme ideology of health optimization or total complacency. I am here to help you apply the science effectively, not rigidly, and get you feeling better in your body and mind. Here is how to eat between the lines.
Navigating Diet Talk During Holidays
00:00:46
Speaker
Hello, welcome back. Oh man. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy holidays. This is quite the time to be in the nutrition realm professionally and personally, right? There is a lot going on in the temptation department and the food realm, the body talk, the food talk, the diet talk.
00:01:16
Speaker
the getting together with people and hearing all of the input and the things that folks have been learning about when it comes to how to eat. And though today is not about how to navigate those situations, I just want to reach out my heart to all of you guys that
00:01:43
Speaker
may be looking for some help in that regard. And maybe just a little bit of grace, a hug, because it's not easy to be bombarded by all the shoulds, especially when it comes to loved ones, family, friends, I don't know, maybe even social media.
00:02:03
Speaker
In regards to your food intake and what is the best way to eat and look for your own self and just want you to know I am here if you want anyone to reach out to in this
Find Food Freedom: A Resource Highlight
00:02:20
Speaker
regard. There are also a lot of really wonderful resources.
00:02:23
Speaker
I know that Find Food Freedom, if you guys don't follow Find Food Freedom on social media, they are wonderful. There is this shirt that they made that I think is just hilarious as part of their merch where it says, I don't give AF about your diet.
00:02:44
Speaker
And I've wanted to get this like and wear it since the first time I saw it. And I also, you know, as a dietician, I do care about what people are consuming. And so it did seem like I maybe shouldn't necessarily purchase this particular product, but it just is like this. I love how it just like.
00:03:07
Speaker
shows people around you like, yeah, please don't talk to me about the diet that you're on. Please don't talk to me about what you're consuming because honestly, it doesn't matter. Like the input people throw at you where there is not consideration around each individual's nuance nuances that they need to be considering.
00:03:30
Speaker
and their own relationship with food, it just is unhelpful. And so I just wanted to throw that out there given the time of year that this is and have you guys just know that I am there for you, with you, and want you to
00:03:51
Speaker
glide through the holidays with ease and an ability to actually, you know, enjoy them and enjoy these unique food experiences and time with family and friends and otherwise. So in any case, on to today's episode topic.
Intentional Eating for Long-Term Health
00:04:14
Speaker
So today we are talking about how to create better consistency and in turn better results long-term through being intentional and proactive versus reactive and impulsive.
00:04:32
Speaker
I find this is so important. So, so, so important. And I see it all the time with people coming in, you know, when it's just this tendency to go through life and maybe feel like you're making appropriate choices, maybe cognizant of the fact that you're not making the best of choices for yourself, but
00:04:56
Speaker
You don't really understand how to change those choices. And maybe if you do feel like you are making okay choices, still being on this other end, looking back and not feeling great, not feeling great in your body, not feeling great with your energetics, not feeling great with your pain, inflammation, your digestion. I mean, the symptoms can manifest in many, many ways and
00:05:25
Speaker
looking back and just being like, how did I get here? How did this happen? And to look at it through a lens of understanding how to back the track up.
00:05:40
Speaker
This goes back into my talk around patterns, but ultimately the way that you can establish different patterns of intake means that you have to understand how you set yourself up in the first place, right? You know, so again, coming into this with an angle of getting proactive and intentional about food choices versus reactive and impulsive.
00:06:07
Speaker
I know that we have all been there, right? Getting to a point of being so hungry or so low energy, we are reaching for food. We're trying to find solutions through food and then ultimately compromise our intake, not planning ahead, not having things to eat when we might be hungry.
00:06:30
Speaker
not having intentionality about better eating patterns. And so maybe we're skipping meals. Maybe we're grazing. Maybe we just have not established better grocery options, things like that. And so we are on this other side of our intake of our day, of our week of years, maybe looking back and being like, wait, how did I get here?
Understanding Personal Health Influences
00:06:53
Speaker
And so this conversation is about getting real with yourself and what you've been doing.
00:07:00
Speaker
regarding your nutrition. So consider situations when you are thinking back on your day or week and wondering, how did I get here? Why do I have low energy, poor recovery, headaches, energy crashes, craving, et cetera? Why am I still feeling uncomfortable and inflamed?
00:07:21
Speaker
And maybe you create reasons. Maybe you say you didn't eat enough vegetables. Maybe you say you had too much cheese or not enough movement, or that there were life influences that created this distress. And I want to validate that there are many other reasons beyond nutrition that can influence all of these things.
00:07:46
Speaker
Health is multifaceted. That's what this podcast really likes to touch on, right? And there is an amazing effect we can have with nutrition on how we feel that contributes to our trends of intake.
00:08:03
Speaker
and health that at least limits the variables. This is a topic I love to chat about, limiting the variables. If we are constantly setting ourselves up to have all these different variables that may be influenced through
00:08:25
Speaker
blood sugar fluctuations, maybe it's activity, poor sleep, stressors, uh, different types of things with nutrition that influence our energetics and performance and recovery. And we don't really nail in
00:08:42
Speaker
gray patterns and consistencies with our intake. We are setting ourselves up to be extremely confused, right? It's just like an experiment. We have to limit the variables in order to create clarity on what is actually influencing us and where we need to go to find solutions. So when we can become more proactive and intentional with our nutrition,
00:09:10
Speaker
When we can create patterns of consistency that ensure we are getting the nutrients we need, that we're balancing blood sugars in the fashion we need to, to promote better energy stabilization and other effects, you know, cravings, crashes, et cetera.
00:09:28
Speaker
When we can work on nutrient intake that is supportive for our overall health, then we at least have that under control and we can take a step back and be like, okay, I've got the nutrition.
00:09:46
Speaker
I've got this for a while. The consistency is really important too. A lot of times I see folks that try the consistency, you know, the implementing the better, more balanced meals consistently for a period of time, but the period of time is like a week. And we have to understand that you are in the body you are in because of your whole life, right?
00:10:11
Speaker
So we need to create consistency for a period of time. And honestly, that varies from person to person with what is actually going to be more or less effective based off the individual's health history. And either way, I definitely see folks that try to judge the approach before they have put enough time in with consistent implementation.
00:10:36
Speaker
It's really helpful to understand that because otherwise we are just going to be again, be bopping from one way of eating to
Connecting Diet and Personal Health
00:10:44
Speaker
the next to the next. And we don't have clarity on the variables. And so it's just so important to nail that in. I recently had a patient come in that wanted to meet
00:11:02
Speaker
to improve her nutrition, to build more resilience. And I found this really interesting. You know, she was talking about the impact nutrition has had on her.
00:11:17
Speaker
previously in the realm of building resilience through life's obstacles. And I started thinking about this and I just get behind it so much. Even with the recognition I have with all the other influences of health, I really truly believe when you do take care of your body in a way that supports
00:11:40
Speaker
your energetics and your health overall, you do build a resilience to a lot of life's obstacles. I mean, you can think about this even in the sense of when you, you know, don't get a good night's sleep. You can feel more edgy. You can have more tendency to reach for sugar or coffee as a pick me up.
00:12:00
Speaker
Then you maybe don't eat foods that are very nutritious. Then you don't feel very good. And then you might just be a little bit more grumpy and your mental clarity is off. It makes sense, right? It makes sense to improve nutrition, to impact the other areas of your life. And I just love that. So consistency is so key to improving our health. So how do we work on consistency?
00:12:30
Speaker
Well, one of the ways is to get intentional and proactive. If we live our lives reactive and impulsive, we will forever be on the other side of food intake. Like what the heck just happened? Right. I have that analogy that I have mentioned before, but I like to talk about this one where, you know, you put in a destination in MapQuest or Google maps or whatever.
00:12:57
Speaker
in your car and I equate this to following a diet or getting a meal plan and you plug it in and you just start following the directions and you know, you're kind of mindlessly following. It's like that episode of the office where Michael is with Dwight and they're, I don't know where they're going, but the directions had mentioned to turn left and
00:13:23
Speaker
Dwight had mentioned that they needed to turn left down the line because Michael had already started turning left and turning left where it said was going directly into a lake. And Dwight was like, no, no, no, Michael, like you gotta wait. It's the next one. And Michael's like, no, no, this is what it said. This is what it said. And honestly, it just reminds me of how people can just be so mindless when it comes to following recommendations, right? Without actually understanding the why.
00:13:53
Speaker
Oh gosh, I see this all the time with social media stuff and how there can be just things thrown at you of the do's, don'ts, shoulds, shouldn'ts, all the different fads, all the different recommendations, the different products and
00:14:07
Speaker
People just bite. They take it and run with it without really understanding. And part of intentionality with nutrition is creating mindfulness around the why, around what you're doing and how it is impacting you and how that affects you down the line.
00:14:30
Speaker
So if a person is to be following diets and meal plans and getting to the destination and then looking back and being like, wait, how did I get here? What got me here? And not really connecting the why to the approach, connecting the dots of what the food intake was, how it made them feel, what the composition of the food was, why it was that composition, how that actually
00:14:54
Speaker
impacted and was appropriate for them personally. Oh, it's just, it can then just be so frustrating, right? You're not given the tools that you need to actually connect the dots of the way that to eat that is appropriate for you long-term. So intentionality is about that mindfulness is about connecting the dots. It's about understanding the recommendations and the approach that you are applying and then creating that awareness with the effect on your body.
00:15:24
Speaker
It's how some people can eat maybe a really high carbohydrate breakfast. And they find that they have great energy throughout the morning and they don't feel like they have a blood sugar crash. And they do feel like it sustains and it does promote their overall patterns of intake.
00:15:44
Speaker
And there's some people that have a high carb intake at breakfast and they feel sluggish and they don't feel great a couple hours later. And they find that manipulating the composition of their breakfast to maybe a little higher protein, maybe a little less carbs. Maybe there's something else with fiber and other, other components of the meal.
00:16:02
Speaker
that actually influences their energy levels and what they're doing. And maybe it's because of their lifestyle, their job demands, and how it affects their patterns of intake. It is different for all of us. And we have to take a step back and see how the food we eat actually affects all the gauges of health we want to take a look at, but overall the patterns of intake that we apply to our lives.
00:16:33
Speaker
So, so important to understand that intentionality. So when we create intentionality, we also can prevent cravings and crashes and ultimately understand why you're feeling the way you are.
00:16:50
Speaker
and limit the variables. There's so much in that patterns podcast I recorded early on. If you want to take a look back and listen to more examples in this regard, but there are so many, so, so, so many examples I see regularly and talk about regularly around folks that set them up in ways that.
00:17:15
Speaker
Do not promote appropriate patterns of intake, whether that's skipping meals,
Meal Planning Misconceptions and Flexibility
00:17:20
Speaker
grazing throughout the day, you know, front loading or backloading your intake that just leads to roller coasters of either blood sugars or intake. And again, just doesn't promote the nutritional value over all that you need to get. So.
00:17:39
Speaker
consequences of being impulsive and reactive. So reactivity around intake looks a lot like, you know, not planning out what you're going to have for lunches during the week. And so then you may go out to eat, order out, skip lunch, right? And then that can promote different
00:18:03
Speaker
energetic fluctuations that can influence, you know, brain cognition, mental clarity, performance, recovery. It can influence so many things and ultimately your overall patterns. So.
00:18:15
Speaker
Maybe you skip lunch and then you come home famished and you ultimately end up grazing a ton before dinner, have a full dinner, and maybe you're still hungry in the evening. And that can be an indication that you were not consuming sufficiently throughout the course of the day, either calorically or nutritionally.
00:18:34
Speaker
Right? We kind of have these two umbrellas of needs. One are just basic calories, basic energy to function decently well. And the other umbrella is looking at your micronutrients, your vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, fibers that you need to function well. And so I like to take a look at people's intake from a bird's eye view to see, are you getting enough food just in general?
00:19:02
Speaker
And then how do we manipulate your intake to promote the nutrient needs that you, you uniquely need as an individual to maybe better support the goals that you have, the symptom picture that you're presenting with. And that varies for everyone, but the impulsivity and the reactivity that people have when they don't get intentional, they don't have
00:19:26
Speaker
some idea of what they're going to be consuming in a day, in a week. We see this often that they are either over consuming calories and under consuming nutrients or under consuming everything. And then the meal timing is super important too, when we're also gauging other components of health like energy, mental clarity, brain cognition, recovery, et cetera. So.
00:19:51
Speaker
All of those things really, really important to consider. So there are some misconceptions around intentionality, you know, like thinking it requires hours in the kitchen, that there's going to be all this meal planning forever.
00:20:08
Speaker
And there's so much overwhelm to it. I get overwhelmed. Honestly, there are people I follow on social media that I really love and admire as dieticians and they will have meal plans set up for the week and they will have all of this planning done. And while I also obviously love the intentionality and the planning aspect, it gets overwhelming to me. And I am someone that does not have children.
00:20:36
Speaker
I don't, I have flexibility throughout the week with what I eat on a day to day basis in terms of time and ability to go to the store, et cetera. But I also know that there are many people that can find this approach valuable and
00:20:53
Speaker
So I like to provide many different ways of getting intentional and planning and prepping ahead. And there will be another podcast kind of talking more about those, but it can look like batch prepping protein. It can look like meal prepping one meal. It can look like just getting grocery staples and it could look like a full blown meal plan.
00:21:16
Speaker
and prepping a little bit for that meal plan. And so everybody's kind of different and you have to look at your whole week and you have to see where is it that you're limiting variables are? What do you need to plan and prep ahead to set yourself up for success?
00:21:37
Speaker
I mean, even just getting your breakfast and lunches dialed in to a certain degree puts you in a 66% of the time balance. And then you can maybe fill in the blanks with dinner until you develop more skills and resources and tools to get more consistent balance with dinner.
00:21:55
Speaker
So really helpful to think about those things. So what it is, you know, what, what planning and intentionality is in a, in additional schemes here, it is taking steps to improve the foundations of intake. So it is,
00:22:19
Speaker
grocery shopping and getting those staples that you may need. It is getting those ingredients you need for the meals that you plan for the week. It is prioritizing grocery shopping a hundred percent. It is also taking inventory of what you have and understanding what you can keep around on a regular basis when grocery shopping on a regular basis is not maybe doable.
00:22:46
Speaker
You can have staples, right? Pantry staples, freezer staples on hand. It is about balancing meals, considering macronutrients, micronutrients, and volume of food. This comes down, like I mentioned before, on a unique person to person basis, but this is part of the foundations. Balancing your meals is part of the foundations.
00:23:12
Speaker
We have to work on balancing our meals to help promote better patterns. And that does not mean every single meal has to be perfectly balanced. I think it's extremely helpful and important to be able to listen to your body. And if you want something that maybe doesn't have, you know, X amount of protein in it, or that is maybe more carb heavy or fat heavy or whatever, but it's important for you and your relationship with food to consume that particular meal.
00:23:41
Speaker
That's okay for me. You know, maybe it's the fact that I might want a bagel for breakfast and a bagel cheese bagel. For some reason that's the one that I was coming to mind right now is a little heavier in the carbon fat department, kind of low in the protein department. And so for me, I'm thinking, okay, if that's really, truly what I want, how is that sending me up for my future couple hours down the line?
00:24:10
Speaker
Am I going to have an energy crash because of this? Is that supportive for what I need to do today? And if it is seems doable, then okay, then I am intentional about making sure I have a snack in a couple hours because I may have that energy crash. That's intentionality with understanding and listening to your body with certain cravings that you have.
00:24:34
Speaker
I may also think, you know, I'm actually not really prepared to have an energy crash later. I've got a loads of clients today and I kind of think I need to prioritize something with a little more balance. Cool. I'm going to have half the bagel and add in some protein in a different fashion. Or maybe I opt out and say, you know, it's okay that I'm not having the bagel today. I'm going to have a different breakfast and set myself up for success in that, in that sense.
Balancing Cravings with Health Goals
00:25:03
Speaker
That's intentionality. That's connecting the dots. That's knowing how your body responds to foods and then making decisions because you understand that it's not eating the bagel and getting on the other side of it, looking back, having an energy crash and being like, wait, what the heck just happened? It's not restricting the bagel and saying you have to have, you know, two eggs and avocado and sauerkraut with
00:25:30
Speaker
you sauteed vegetables for breakfast every day because that's nutritionally sound and the only way to be healthy. It's actually listening to your body and giving yourself grace with what you are craving and desiring and being mindful with intake while also understanding the effects of the foods you consume that affect your patterns over all. So what to do here? Just to recap with those foundations.
00:26:00
Speaker
wanting to grocery shop intentionally stock up with staples. If you can grocery shop more often, you can plan and prep a little bit more based off of your meal prep personality, which I've talked about a little bit before, especially if you follow me on social media. It's about balancing your meals, getting regular eating patterns in, minimizing variables, thinking ahead when a meal may not be balanced.
00:26:30
Speaker
And considering, you know, the options that you have to support what may happen to your energy, hunger cues, et cetera. When those meals may not be balanced or when you may have other considerations like travel or events and things like that. Now I didn't get a whole lot into travel and events.
00:26:57
Speaker
But I definitely, definitely want to talk more about those at another time. Just a little quickie here. I've mentioned things around travel to clients regarding your recipe. So I think everybody should develop their own personal recipe card.
00:27:19
Speaker
This is your daily recipe. These are the behavioral components of your day that set you up for success. These are what build more resilience for the foundation of your own body and mind for your day. So I think about the recipe in the sense of the areas in my life I have most control over, right?
00:27:47
Speaker
And for me, that involves the time I get up, what I do in the morning. So my morning routine to a certain degree, giving myself enough time in the morning to get my head space right for my day. And I like to do a little bit of yoga, get kind of stretched out, do a little bit of reading, have a breakfast, have my coffee and have some time.
00:28:12
Speaker
That helps a lot. The other components of my recipe involve my meals, my movement, and something that gives me a little juice, a little creativity in addition to the time that I go to bed. So when we're thinking about things like travel, I like to have folks consider their recipe card. So this is intentionality with traveling. This is how can you support your hydration? How can you support some nutrition?
00:28:40
Speaker
Uh, you know, is that bringing some protein powder, bringing a greens powder to kind of fill in the blanks while you're traveling? Is it prioritizing a breakfast, making sure you get a breakfast when you are traveling to set you up for more success throughout the day?
00:28:55
Speaker
Is it movement? Is it anything to kind of work on with stress management? You know, and I'm kind of talking about travel and in the sense of, well, I don't know, this could probably be for, uh, more luxury. It could also be like vacation. It could also be for work as well. But I really encourage folks to think about their recipe card in terms of.
00:29:22
Speaker
travel because it puts the ball back in your court. You know, you're again, not reactive and impulsive. You are being proactive and intentional. It makes a huge difference. Same thing with events. You know, are you considering the fact that an event on the weekend is 5% of your week, 5% if you were eating three meals a day. So are you able to set yourself up for success at that event by
00:29:50
Speaker
doing most of the things on your recipe card that day, right? Are you sleeping well and moving a little bit and getting a balanced breakfast, having snacks that support your patterns of intake, going into that event, not being famished, not being out of control.
00:30:13
Speaker
and not feeling super tired and lethargic and all of that. And granted, I understand that some of these things are again, very hard to prevent based off of what life throws at you, but I just like to shed light on that 5% when you have one event on during a week. And so what is it that you're doing the bulk of the rest of the week that is supporting your patterns of intake and your overall dietary choices. So what to do from here.
Practical Advice for Meal Planning
00:30:43
Speaker
You know, when I mentioned grocery staples, it's, I can say that, right? Like get grocery staples and set yourself up for success, but you have to know what to do with them, right? You have to know then also what looks like a great composition of your meals. And this is where I do think that help can be super.
00:31:01
Speaker
Important. Um, but I do think grocery staples are huge planning ahead and then building a database of food options that support your meal composition. That is most beneficial for you and your patterns and continuing to add to it. So something I like to do with that is this thing called like the three tiers.
00:31:28
Speaker
So I encourage clients and patients to do this regularly because it is helpful to have variation, but sometimes you don't even need variation to a certain degree. So when I talk about three tiers, this looks at.
00:31:43
Speaker
creating a list for breakfast, lunches, and dinners that have three different tiers of effort and exertion that you need to apply. So the first one is your ideal tier.
00:31:59
Speaker
You know, this is what happens when you feel prep and plan and you know, you have time to cook. You are fully stocked on groceries. You know, maybe it's that you were able to make a sheet pan meal or super stew for the week. You've batch prepped options. You can build your own salads or bowls regularly throughout the week that are well-balanced in what you need. You know, it's kind of that like, this is when I feel like I'm rocking it kind of a tier.
00:32:29
Speaker
And you do that for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You create your ideal options and maybe a few of them, right? You can have a good handful of ideal options per meal. And then you have the uh-oh tier. This is the one where you didn't plan and prep as much as you wanted to, but you still have some throw together options.
00:32:54
Speaker
This would be things like a bento box, right? Where maybe you're grabbing some deli meat, cheese, crackers, grapes, carrots, and hummus, something like that for a lunch because of the grocery staples you still have. And maybe it's peanut butter toast with yogurt and berries. Maybe it's rotisserie chicken on hummus toast with some fruit, right? Kind of those throw together options.
00:33:19
Speaker
And then you have your SOS tier. This is the one where you haven't really done a lot of grocery shopping. You are, you definitely didn't do much prepping and planning. So this is where those grocery staples come into play.
00:33:36
Speaker
This is where you are maybe utilizing freezer meals that you have stocked up on. I know like Trader Joe's, there's pre-made options at Costco, things like that, where you might be able to just kind of heat up and go from there. This might also be like trying to pair protein bars with jerky and fruit, working on some of those more grab and go options that you still have around. And it might also be knowing certain takeout options that might be
00:34:06
Speaker
in a decent balance for your own nutritional needs. So understanding what to order in that sense that can be beneficial for you. Super, super helpful. So I highly recommend creating a list here of three options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
00:34:26
Speaker
in these different three tiers because that can be so beneficial and also helpful to keep track of. Create a binder, create this in your notes, in your phone, something like that where you're able to refer back to it because time and time again, myself included, I will throw something together and be like, dang, that was really good. And then I'll kind of forget about it. And then I might be back in a situation down the line
00:34:54
Speaker
Be like, wait, what did I make? How did I make that? So please also consider the fact that health and nutrition are layered. And so minimizing variables creates that clarity that I've talked about today. It creates that clarity for you and what is actually going on. You may have more underlying digestive symptoms and, and issues.
00:35:20
Speaker
that, you know, foundational eating habits may not resolve, but you don't know until you truly apply them for a consistent amount of time. And you may have other considerations with why you are so fatigued and why your energy is low and why you're not recovering well, but implementing these practices and getting intentional just a little bit, even just like having snacks around that you can reach for.
00:35:50
Speaker
that support some nutritional needs of yours. So helpful, so helpful. Establishing foundational components of health. Eating food that balances blood sugar, ensures adequate nutrition, and promotes helpful, helpful patterns of intake is a huge place to start. Otherwise, you will be reaching for any and all of the fixes forever more, right?
00:36:20
Speaker
All right. I hope this was helpful. I will talk to you guys next time. Thank you so much for listening today. If you found this information valuable, please share this episode and give it a review. They truly help a ton. If you want additional support and information, you can head over to my website, Teresa Martinez, rd.com, where you can snag my free guide on how to improve your hunger signals. Get on my email list for regular juicy content.
00:36:49
Speaker
or apply for the next round of my signature program, restoring nutrition intuition. Otherwise, Instagram at Teresa Martinez RD or my Facebook group Fed Fit and Fad Free Nutrition with Teresa are always places for more content and support. Until next time.