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Introduction: It's Your Health Radio, a special podcast series presented by Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. Here's Melanie Cole.

Melanie Cole: As if the pandemic anxiety isn't enough. Many of us are noticing a small uptick in our food and alcohol consumption. Yikes. Today we're discussing getting rid of the COVID 15, trying to keep the excess weight off during this pandemic. Welcome to It's Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. I'm Melanie Cole. And joining me is Jodi Dalyai, she's a Registered Dietician in the Community Education Department at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. Jodi, I'm so glad to have you back on, cause this is what a great topic and we're all stressed out and staying in and eating has sort of become a way to pass the time. Mindless eating is pretty popular. What are we doing to ourselves right now? As many people are putting on the freshman 15 or COVID 15 as we're calling it now, tell us the relationship between eating and the stress we're under right now?

Jodi Dalyai: Okay. Hi, thanks for having me on today. So, you know, when we're talking about stress and eating, of course we eat in lots of good and bad situations. So we might feel elated and happy and we turn to food for joy. And then of course, in times of stress, we'll turn to food as well. Whether we are stuck at home and stressing about work, stressing about our children, oftentimes it means to, we're just choosing the foods that satisfies immediately. So things that are super salty or super sweet, have strong flavors, to really take our mind away from what we have to deal with in the moment. And a lot of that has to do is starting with what we bring into the home and dealing with all the other areas that support health, which is thinking about our nutrition, setting up an exercise routine, making sure we're getting adequate sleep and really finding a way to deal with stress management that isn't related to food.

Host: So then tell us what can we do to fine tune some of this nutrient needs to meet our new normal. Maybe we're getting less exercise working from home. What should we start by changing? Do we skip meals? Do we try and make them smaller? Do we not eat sitting at our desks? Which is I know something that I am guilty of, give us some examples and some tips to how we can change some of these behaviors?

Jodi Dalyai: Absolutely. And I mean, I'm guilty of that too. And it's certainly not the things that we do once a week or every few times a month. It's the things that we're doing day in and day out that we need to look at. So I definitely recommend taking a step back and really looking at the big picture is where you need to start. You know, where were you at before this? What were you doing that was working for you? And then really thinking about, well, where are we at now? What's changed and what do we need to change to keep us on that path and get back to where we were. So for working at home, we're dealing with feeding the family. We can start by again, thinking about again, what are we bringing into the home? So planning and prepping meals. And I know some people are very burned out from that. Cause some people started out with amazing intentions.

We heard about all the baking going on, all this newfound love and a lot of fresh preparation, which is wonderful, but then maybe we have too much to go around. And so we're eating the leftovers or maybe we're just burned out and we're sick of doing the fresh foods. So now we are going back to convenience items. So it's thinking about the planning and prepping, getting back to making the list. When we go shopping, thinking about how much food do we really need for everyone in the house for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The planning part pays off. We know if we spend the time planning the day before the week starts or planning out our meals before we go to the grocery store, we're going to end up sticking to those lists, sticking to that planning. And that's a good way to start off making some healthy changes. Can also just go back to using something called the plate method. That's part of what the USDA food guide is based on at this point.

So, the plate method encourages us to have half our plate at our meals from fruits and vegetables. Most of us tend to want to maybe have more of the protein food or more of the starchy food. Maybe we want more chicken, more fish. We want more of the rice. We want more of the pasta, but what we're sacrificing, there are the fruits and vegetables, the lower calorie, high fiber foods, the nutritious foods, our body needs, like you mentioned earlier, how do we make sure we get the nutrition? And we're not just getting the salt, the sugar, those quickly satisfying things. They satisfy taste, but they're not giving the body the nutrition it needs. So by focusing on getting more plant food, trying to, again, reclaim half of that plate for fruits and veggies, we're getting potassium, magnesium, we're getting lots of different vitamins and minerals that our body needs. And we're also getting that healthy kind of balanced taste. Instead of that super tastes that we get from really processed foods.

Host: Well, Jodi, that's really all-important information and yes, we did all start out and that's why there was like a run on the flour and yeast and things like that. And then you say people get kind of tired of that and go back to the convenience foods. But if we want to keep vegetables in our diet, if we want to keep making salads and roasting Brussels sprouts, a lot of people don't know what to do with these vegetables and salads are a pain. Can you combine for us convenience foods and healthy foods, a way to make our healthy foods convenient?

Jodi Dalyai: Absolutely. If you don't have a lot of time or you don't have a lot of kind of experience spend a little time when you go to the produce aisle at the supermarket, look and see what kind of salad preparations are already there. What kind of lettuce mixes, veggie mixes that are already there, that all you have to do is open the bag, put it in a bowl, maybe add a couple other ingredients. Same with the freezer section. Now we can buy frozen noodles, zucchini noodles. You can buy new combinations of frozen veggies that if you take a second, cook it, try it, see what you taste. Maybe if you just add it in a pan with a little drizzle of olive oil and a little extra seasoning, it'll taste much better than just steamed in the microwave. So it's a little bit of practice, a little bit of trial and error to see what fits your lifestyle, what you enjoy. And then when you do put in the effort and you do want to roast the Brussel sprouts, I always try to make a good amount. So I have them left over for the next day for my lunch, my husband's lunch, or for the next night's dinner.

So, cutting up some vegetables, or if you don't want to take the time again, you can already get cut up cauliflower, cut up Brussels sprouts, cut up broccoli. And those are the kind of convenience items that are much better than buying the chips, the less healthy foods, right? So buying convenience, fruits and veggies, I'm all for, and you can find simple ways to either make in bulk or jazz up the plain versions when you need it to add to the side. I think a great idea too, is find that healthy item. You can always turn to that you enjoy. So people send them say like a Cole slaw, some kind of like healthy comfort food. So you can make there's many different versions. If you Google online, you know, healthy Cole slaw recipes, keep a nice crunchy cabbage salad, keep cut up cucumbers and carrots and tomatoes, but keeping that healthy item that satisfies you, that gives you a crunch, a fruit salad, something you can always grab that you can add to dinner or lunch. That something you always enjoy have that on hand. So you don't have to put in that extra work if you don't really feel like it that day.

Host: Well, that's great tips, really, really good points that you made. And certainly with farmer's markets open right now, there's so much great fresh produce for people to buy. What about like tech gadgets to help us with recipes to track our exercise or food intake? I personally, Jodi have found a lot of great recipes on Tik Tok. I know that sounds crazy, but I've tried one of them and, and they really do work most of the time. They don't always look like theirs, you know, the ones that I've seen, but still I found a lot. So there's so many places is, is the point I'm trying to make where we can get those good recipes and those good hacks and tips to make this just a little bit easier. Do you have some recommendations for us?

Jodi Dalyai: Yeah, I think, I mean, again, I always recommend because everyone has different tastes. I do a lot of plant based meal prep and I do a lot of look for a lot of vegan recipes. So I'm always looking online and Googling whatever I want to try and looking at blogs, spaces like the kitchen, even just cooking lights, lots of different recommendations there too. Just kind of jazz up the, again, the kind of boring kind of monotonous foods you eat. So I think it's a great idea to find the places you like, bookmark them so you can return to them. But I think it's about, like you said, you go to the farmer's market, you see something, maybe you've never cooked before something like bok choy or pomegranates, which will be in season soon with the Fall. There's still berries left, maybe you're used to using it in a way that you, you want to change. So simply putting in a search for, you know, healthy Berry recipes or lower sugar Berry recipes, or a whole grain pasta dish. Those are always, there's always places to look and use.

We have a blog here out of community education as well, where we highlight different produce in season and we have our own recipes or we've created, or we link you to some great resources online. And like you said, outside of just coming up with the recipe tracking, if you're going to be making changes or you're trying to get back to where you were with a routine for eating and for exercise using something like My Fitness Pal, again, there's other apps out there, but it can be a great kind of restart to take at least one week and keep track and see how you're doing. Look and see if you're getting the variety of foods, look and compare it to how you were eating previously. Look and see if you told yourself you were going to walk three times for 30 minutes this week, put it in and see if by the end of the week you achieved it. And if not, that's a chance to figure out why didn't it go so well? Oh, it was really hot outside. Okay. Well maybe walking right now is not going to work.

Maybe I need to go online and find a fitness video I like or a yoga video. So like you said, I mean technology, all these options we have with Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook. That's great. I do really like to rely on some of our greatest medical and nutrition organizations in the country, American Heart Association, Harvard School of Public Health USDA, a website. We really want to make sure we're using, you know, the professionals, the people who are dedicated to the science behind food, nutrition and exercise, but that doesn't disregard all these amazing cooks and creative people out there that share and post their experience and their recipes that they love. It's important to find what resonates with you and what you enjoy. And I think being curious can be a good way to expand your, your taste buds, and get yourself maybe excited again about eating a little bit healthier, a little different than you've been eating in the past few months.

Host: That is so true. Do you have any final thoughts for us on making sure that we make time if we're working from home, get up from your computer and make time to exercise and plan those meals and don't stop the motivation. So we don't put on that COVID 15.

Jodi Dalyai: Yeah. That's just it, it's getting back in that routine, getting back to making it a habit, like you said, so making sure put those reminders in, put them in their phone, have a real serious talk with yourself. Write it down. If you have to, for most of us, if we don't write it down, if we don't set an alarm, we don't put a reminder. We're going to get to bed at 10 o'clock and be like, Oh man, I really meant to start walking today. I really meant to get to the store or the farmer's market or look up some new recipes. And if we don't put reminders, we're just all overwhelmed, busy. And we forget. So figure out how to get back in there with a teen, put those reminders in. And if it doesn't work today, I think the other important thing is, is just, we all have to give each other a really big break right now. It doesn't mean we let it all go and we let it all go forever. But tomorrow's a new day staying in the moment, staying positive, letting yourself know that if it didn't work today, there's no reason. It doesn't mean it won't work tomorrow. And we're here to help with that. That's what community education is here to do. So we have classes that cover a lot of health and nutrition, that cover mindfulness. So that helps with stress management. So whether you reach out to our department for help or again, look for other resources online, to staying positive and staying focused on really what your goals are, is the best way to make sure you'll actually attain them.

Host: Great information, Jodi, thank you so much for coming on and giving us real usable, workable information that we can take right now after listening to this podcast, and do the things that you advised us to do. Really great advice. Thank you so much for joining us again. And that concludes this episode of It's Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. Please visit our website at henrymayo.com, for more information on community education available at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. Please also remember to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast and all the other Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital podcasts. I'm Melanie Cole.