Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
This is what the world needs now: two free-thinking “seasoned” Black women speaking their truth and inspiring others to do the same. Shaped by 45 years of friendship that began at the prestigious Brooklyn Technical High School through the Ivy League, medical school, marriages, divorces, triumphs, parenting queer children, life-threatening illness and many many amazing adventures. Each week, besties Leslie Osei-Tutu and Angella Fraser will push against boundaries in love, culture, careers, faith, politics and out-dated assumptions about women of a certain age. Remember, you’re never too old to change your mind…or your hair! (but more on that later :-)All views are our own and do not reflect the views of our institution/company. Information provided is not intended to serve as medical advice.
Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
Embrace Healthier Nutritional Choices
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This week's episode may just change your life, or at the very least get you heading toward the road to a life change.
The Besties deliver an in-depth conversation with registered dietician, Chesha Hodge, MPA, RDN: a dynamic nutritional advocate, public speaker and policy influencer on the role of food and diet in our lives. They discuss cultural nuances and ways to embrace healthier nutritional choices.
https://www.thebalanceddietllc.com/
https://www.instagram.com/judgementfreerd/
Suggested lab tests: Complete Blood Count (CBC), Complete Metabolic Panel (CMP), Fasting Lipid Count, Thyroid Panel
Visit Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn website for behind-the-scenes extras.
Hey Ant. Hey Les, how are you? I'm doing well. You're looking good. Boy, thank you. You know, I had to wear a contrasting color so I didn't blend in with the shoes that were behind me. I'll never wear a solid color again.
SPEAKER_03You've learned. It's it's it's such a good look. That dark thing you were wearing a few episodes ago.
SPEAKER_00I can't walk into this closet without remembering what you said to me that I blended in with my shoes. And you said, you said, what am I, a heel? Yes. So who are these people? Hi guys, welcome to another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn. I'm Leslie. And the silly one over there is that's Angela. Hi. And we have another guest today. Yay! Oh, you guys are gonna love this one. I invited this beautiful, lovely, smart lady to just inform you, enlighten you, and just give you some things to think about for the next couple of weeks or months. It might get some things on your bucket list, it might motivate you to do some things or make some changes. But I have Ms. Chisa Hodge with us. Hey Chisa Hodge! Hi! And Cheesa is a registered dietitian who has done so many things that we'll talk about in a few minutes. And she has her own business empowering people to increase their nutritional awareness, and she helps in a lot of different aspects. So, Chisa, you got the floor. Welcome to our show. And please tell us about yourself.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so it's Chisa Hodge. I am the oldest of two in my family, and I always start that way because we don't just represent ourselves out here in this world. We represent our family, we represent our parents, we represent our block, our upbringing, our schooling, all of that, who we are on the outside as well as who we are on the inside. So that is me. I am the owner of the Balanced Diet LLC, where I provide nutritional counseling and education, not just to individuals, but also to groups specializing in working with people of color. Um and mostly because we have so many preventable chronic diseases associated with who we are. And you know, not to do too much of a runoff, but the unfortunate thing is I feel as if the society in which we live in also plays a part in that. You know, yes, we are autonomous creatures and we make our own decisions and um we have to take ownership of that. But sometimes you don't know what you don't know. And when you're provided information from powers that be and you're informed that this is what you should be doing, and then you walk outside of your home, and these are the resources or lack thereof that are in your circle or in your vicinity, your choices are actually quite limited. And you may not realize that those limitations exist, that those constructs are guiding your decision making without you even realizing it. And so it was important for me to make sure that any information that I get while I'm out here in these streets that I'm understanding and I'm bringing it back to the community that needs it most. And so wow, that's a part of my. If I'm not a reflection of those that have brought me into this world and reared me and raised me, I'm doing a disservice to my ancestors to not live out the way that I am purposed to do as such. So that right there.
SPEAKER_00That right there. Yeah, it's a good idea. You know, you you reminded me of our session last season when we talked about um we had a session on questions. And one of the questions were, how are you or are you being a good ancestor? And you just mentioned people who have come before you about how you are carrying carrying on legacies or perhaps making them proud. However, you're also going to be an ancestor for those that are in front of you, you know, those that are below you, you know, younger generations to come. And um I can see where the work that you're doing right now can certainly have an impact and can address a question like that. How are you being a good ancestor? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's so interesting too because I think generally speaking, people assume that legacy comes from childbirth, right? But it doesn't come from childbirth, it comes from child rearing. And so we all play a part as members of our community to rear someone. You can, you know, when everyone, I'm pretty sure that most people can think of somebody who is not a direct relative that played an impactful part on them becoming who they were. Yeah. Whether it's a teacher or a neighbor or, you know, a football coach, or I was also a Girl Scout leader. You know, they're individuals that don't necessarily have to go through the birthing process to be a part of your personal becoming process. And we all have these touch points along the way. You can have a doctor or a registered dietitian who told you something that you didn't know in a way that made you more receptive of the information where you didn't get it before. And that is impactful because now you're changing your life in a way that you're living more purposefully, you're living your most optimal life. And when you wear that hat, right, it makes it seem like, wow, there's so much weight on our shoulders. It's such a heavy burden to bear, but it's not. It's not being kind and doing what you're supposed to do once you identify what that is, it's actually not as difficult to stay the course when you know what you're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_00For some people, because I also think that it depends on your heart space, you know, it depends on your heart. And we all know that not everybody has the same heart.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, we pray that they do. And, you know, we can talk about faith journeys and things like that. But yeah, it depends on your heart condition, what I call it.
SPEAKER_03But we're encouraging in this conversation, we're encouraging people to um to give in to the desire to um be uh be in community with with others, because I believe that that is something that is innate. So give in to that, folks. Give in to it.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. So, Chisa, yes, tell me a little bit about your early motivations. Um, like where did you get, who were some of these influences that led you to become the lady that you are today with the mission that you have?
SPEAKER_01I would I would have to be sure to give my flowers to my grandmother who passed last year. And on my website, there's a picture of the two of us. And she lived in in New Jersey, not too far from where I am now, and she kept a garden, and she maintained her garden, and we would go back there in the summertime, and she would pick a little this or a little that for me to eat and taste and have conversations and hug and touch, and you know, those moments of what an impact intimacy, right? Those real moments of intimacy, because it's not always sexual as people make it to be, it's it's closeness.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah, were really that was a driving force to me becoming who I am, and that that journey was definitely winding. I've lost other family members along the way to chronic disease where I felt like it was preventable, but I also saw individuals making a choice for themselves, having information, but then still wanting to live a life that they identified as being the best life for them, something that made them happy. So here's an example. And this in particular individual, I don't know if you remember, I don't know if y'all remember. You may, you may not. If you didn't purchase the item, you may not. But do you remember Snackwell cookies?
SPEAKER_03Of course.
SPEAKER_01I know the cookies came out and they were sugar-free cookies. Hallelujah, right? So all of these cookie lovers, all of these pre-diabetic, diabetic individuals who said, I don't want to give up my sweet treats. Here comes Snack Well and these green packages, and they had like the mint cookies that were kind of like the Girl Scout cookie, then mints. They had sandwich cookies. They had sandwich cookies, those were the jam.
SPEAKER_03Right. Yes. Shaped like in an oval.
SPEAKER_01Shaped in an oval. Yep. Shaped in an oval. Oh, okay. They were. And you know, hindsight being 2020, it was, you know, these this marketing agency, this company that says, okay, we're seeing that there's an influx of individuals who don't get to really enjoy their sweet treats. Here we have a market and we're gonna create this product. But this product, hindsight being 2020, is full of a bunch of chemicals and aspartame and all sorts of things that are actually more harmful on the body than one we know. Wow, wow. And I had to watch someone very close to me in my life take this journey, wanting to be their happiest self, right? Because food makes us feel fantastic. Yeah, you know, you get a good plate of food, you are so happy and content. You want to sit down, you want to spread your legs, you want to sit back and enjoy a little dance.
SPEAKER_00Open your belt, you know, but you know, but it's a cultural thing, as you can imagine, because we have equated family time to be to food to be incorporated with family time. Absolutely. You know, it's not a tradition, certainly not in my household, to for the big family time to be an outing that doesn't necessarily involve food. There could be an outing, but it would end with food or whatever. We don't have a lot of outings that don't include large foods. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. Food is celebratory.
SPEAKER_00I interrupted you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no, it's fine. But I'm I'm I'm I'm yes, food is celebratory, and it presents itself in happy times, it presents itself in sad times. Food is such an interwoven aspect of our lives that we have to respect it as such and value food. I've been in conversations this week about how do you value food. So I don't want to segue too much for my story, but and I'm gonna touch back on it, but yes, I've had to watch someone make these decisions on their journey to feeling their best selves while consuming some of the worst foods for them. And to see how that countered within their body, to see their ups and downs, to see their multiple hospital visits, to see that person ultimately, you know, fall to their demise. The struggle was so big. And I feel like I feel like I saw it. And I feel like I was supposed to see it. And I was supposed to see it through this lens, as a nutritional counseling lens, as a registered dietitian who I wasn't then that I am now. And I was supposed to see it exactly from the perspective that I saw it so that I can say, okay, here is a space that there's this, there's this bridge. And many of us have such an in-depth relationship with food that we don't even understand it. It makes its way present in so many ways, but it's not just controlled by us, it's controlled by others. So it's like, how do you continue to feel like you're making these choices when you really aren't? How do you eat well when there aren't well foods available to you? How do you do that?
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03And so Chisa, are you talking about like food desserts or um the fact that um healthier food is more expensive food oftentimes? Are those the things that you're talking about?
SPEAKER_00I am talking about commercials telling you what you should be eating, you know, like whatever, every other commercial for coke and Pepsi and whatever.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So I'm talking about big corporate agencies, marketing and advertising. I'm talking about food deserts, I'm talking about even cultural nuances, you know, where there are foods that people deem as healthy foods, but they may have been better at a particular time or of a particular quality, and they aren't as good now to continue to consume or prepare a particular type of way. Um, that's really what I'm talking about. Because it it's I I'm so glad that you asked that question because it's so multifaceted.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sure it is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I would say it's prismatic, man. Like this thing has so many faces that sometimes I feel like I'm not even doing as I'm not doing it as well as I could because there's so many players in the game. And so that's why I also went back to school and I beg I got a master's in public administration because I needed to understand policy. So I'm here at the people level and I'm here at the policy level, and I want to meet us right in the middle. Yes, yes, I want to meet us right in the middle. So that's that's really been my career path, a winding path to say the least. Always involved, whether it's on a school level, I work with children, I've worked with elderly, I've worked at the VA hospital, I have done work with um nonprofit organizations, I do work with uh municipal organizations, and just really try to spread my reach because people are everywhere. We're everywhere. So I have to be everywhere.
SPEAKER_00And and not just we're everywhere, we're everywhere with questions and problems in our relationships with food. And food is not something that we have the luxury of being able to abstain from.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Right, right.
SPEAKER_00You know, so we have to either get it right or get it wrong, but we still have to eat and feed ourselves. We feed ourselves whether we have the money to buy good food, we feed ourselves whether we have uh emotional um problems that are causing us to overeat or under-eat, or whether we have physical problems that where food is sometimes literally like killing us, the foods that we eat, and we still have a compulsion to eat them. I am glad I don't have your job. I mean, just thinking about it. I mean, you know, I've struggled with food and my my relationship with food and my weight all of my life, well, certainly all of my adult life. Um and yeah, yeah, yeah, not easy. Yeah, not easy, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So she said, what would you say is like um I had this question, I've been thinking about it all week, actually. Okay, um, because you know, I think we all have a sense that okay, there's certain things that we could do that um would be healthier choices than otherwise. But if there was one thing, if there was one change, either to add something or to take away something, and I'd like you to to mostly focus on older folks because you know, um, we don't have a whole lot of time. We don't have a whole lot of time to get it right, but we want to get it right. Um, can you narrow down to one or two things? It could be food, it could also be, you know, lifestyle too, because I know um that is a part of nutrition is the getting vitamin D from sunlight and things like that. Um, what would you advise would be that one thing?
SPEAKER_01Okay, one or two. One or two. So I I feel like what you're asking me for is like one action step that a person can um ignite immediately to possibly change their unforeseeable outcomes.
SPEAKER_03Yes, that that question.
SPEAKER_01No pressure. That's what I said, right? Isn't that what I said? Just like that. That's that's exactly what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00And then just to segue on top of that, can you move in my house with me?
SPEAKER_03Leslie, Leslie would turn you into, you know, eating what she prepares because she's a great cook. So I don't know, don't say yes to that. Don't say yes to that.
SPEAKER_01We need some help. The one thing that I can, and I'm I'm gonna kind of I talk with my hands a lot because I I do too. I do too. I'm so glad you're my sister in that. Right. I'm a tactile visual learner, and sometimes like I'm actually showing you what's happening in my brain as my thought is coming together. And so the overarching concept, idea, uh action step is prevention, right? That's that's the biggest thing that you can do. So, what does that look like though, right? Because it's not just one thing. What can I do? To be preventative, to be proactive. That's what you'd have to question because each person is different, right? That walk for somebody could be different if only pinpointing it to one thing. And it's not always, you know, going to the doctor. Sometimes it's just knowing your body. Take the time to stop making excuses for things that ail you. We do it far too frequently. Hashtag, hashtag, cut it out. Hashtag. Yeah. Hashtag cut it out. Stop it right now.
SPEAKER_00That's perfect.
SPEAKER_01We do ourselves such a disservice, especially women, because we say, oh, you know, oh, oh, my elbow. You know, I must have, I must have just hit my elbow on the way walking, or oh I, you know, I I I haven't gone to the bathroom in a couple days. You know what? It must have been that salad that I had three weeks ago. Like we make these excuses for things that we should possibly or probably be seeking some additional care for. And I say we do ourselves a disservice because it doesn't just happen once. We do it again and again and again. You know, it'll be like, oh, I probably shouldn't have eaten that. Or um, you know, maybe I'm really stressed out at work, or you know, that's what we do. That's what we do as opposed to, you know, seeking seeking counsel or or stopping what we're doing and listening to our body and saying, wait a second, this isn't normal. Let's stop normalizing these things because it's not normal. Just because I'm 45 doesn't mean that my knees should crack every time I walk up the stairs. That's not normal. That's not normal. Oh, it's not normal.
SPEAKER_00No, it's not normal. How about at 60? At 60. That's not normal.
SPEAKER_01Another hashtag. Okay. Your knees are not meant to crack. That is not what your knees should do, right?
SPEAKER_00I was just asking for someone else.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's important. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make sure they listen. So tell them I told them.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You know, um, not having that tangent is not normal.
SPEAKER_03How often should one have a bowel movement?
SPEAKER_01Every day. Every day. At least once a day? At least once a day. You know, you'll see some things online that says two to two to three days is normal. That's not normal. That's probably normal with a regular American diet. Ah, I see. But that's not that's not a normal system, right? Our our it's called a digestive system. Food goes in, food goes out. It shouldn't take three days to do that. Right. And when it does, right, something's wrong.
SPEAKER_00Got it.
SPEAKER_01Something's wrong.
SPEAKER_00And we need to make some changes. And we need to make some changes.
SPEAKER_01And please seek out whatever source that you deem is the best for aiding you in making those changes so that you can have improvement in your life. Being tired all the time, that's not normal. But we explain it away all the time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not normal. I think too, it um because for a lot of these things, the effects of our bad decisions are not immediate. And so we think, oh, we'll change it next time, oh, we'll change it next time. And then we don't make it connection, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then and and now as Jesus said, so um prevention then, right? Because if you just keep doing the same wrong thing, it's gonna catch up to you, right? So okay, so the answer to my question is prevention. Yes. Tell us a little bit more about what that could look like.
SPEAKER_01So prevention or preventative care looks like being knowledgeable of what one should do where they are. So, okay, you know, as we talked about before, you know, if I'm 60, if I'm 45, should this be happening? Get that information. Should this be happening? When the answer is no. Now let's start to figure out what we can do to prevent this from being an ongoing cyclone. One of those things that's most important, and I tell all of my clients to do this, is to get lab work. Because lab work will let me know what's going on on the inside. It will let me know how your how your liver, how your kidneys, how your heart, how your uh blood cells are responding to not only what you are um eating on a regular basis, but also environmentally what may be happening to you. It lets me know, okay, are your lungs trying to process this oxygen and create CO2? And at what levels is it changing your pH? And that's the reason why you smell a little funny. Let's have these conversations and be real with ourselves.
SPEAKER_00And I was telling you about that service that she provides on her website. It's a lab analysis. How many people come home with their lab results? They have no idea what it is. No idea. No idea. And and you know what people I know do, you know, they'll just shove it in the drawer or what have you. In fact, what I try to tell my family members and people, please bring your labs. When people get laps, get the results. I'll look at it and I'll go over it with you, but people don't even think like that. Absolutely. And they're lucky when the doctors, you know, most of them say it's normal. Oh, it's normal. And then I looked at my um family members' labs, and I'm like, this is not normal. This is, you know what I mean. So it's like, I love that that's a service that you provide for people. I think that's it. And not only that, when people are not necessarily, like we may have said it earlier, you don't even know what you don't know. Right. You don't know that you should be interested in your labs. Absolutely. So people, you look at the paper and it's like, well, this is what this means. You know, if you sit down and speak to people about those things, a lot of physicians don't have time to really sit and explain things. You know, they may point out a few abnormalities if it's related to the scope of what they're being treated for. But otherwise, you know, yeah, you know, things like chronic anemia and things like this. A lot of these problems may be nutrition-based. Absolutely. You know, I'll tell you, in medical school, I think we had three months of nutrition training out of the four years. Yes. Um, we learned mostly about, you know, vitamins and what they did and things, but nothing more intensive than that. You know, because here in Western medicine, you know, where in other cultures, food is medicine and healthy food full of vitamins and what have you, is medicine. Whereas, you know, we will get a pill. Right. And a heart rate. We'll get a pill.
SPEAKER_03To treat the symptoms, though, not to not to cure, to to treat the symptoms, which triggers something else because everything has a has a has a price. Um, okay, so uh prevention, um when you getting getting your labs, that's is that like a baseline? Getting your labs.
SPEAKER_01That is definitely a baseline to to have your labs done, to give someone who is knowledgeable enough uh an opportunity to help guide you on what's what your body is doing, and and possibly be able to lead you to why by asking questions and getting a much better understanding and even asking things that oftentimes we we overlook. One of the things that uh nutritionists do, or dietitians specifically, when we do something called maybe like a 24-hour recall, right? Where we'll ask you what have you eaten within the last 24 hours from this time to this time? And you may say, Oh, I had a cheeseburger, right? Our job is to say, Oh, okay, did you just have a cheeseburger by itself? No, it was it was on a bun. Oh, okay. Did you have any condiments on it? Oh, yeah, I put a little bit of mayonnaise and some some uh mustard. Oh, okay. Can you show me how much mayonnaise you you use? Oh, I put a glob of it. Oh, I swim in mayonnaise.
SPEAKER_00But if I didn't see, I was all about to make an appointment to come see you, but now I don't know.
SPEAKER_01I don't know. Just I'm gonna put on my investigator hat. I'm gonna turn on the Yeah, yeah. But if I didn't go that far, I would have walked away like your doctor walked away, thinking all you had was a cheeseburger, right? And so it's our job to continue to investigate and get an understanding because you're doing this thing. This is how you eat every day. You're not thinking about it. Oh, yeah, I love porn, I pour a whole bunch of salt on my food. But if the doctor didn't ask you that, then you probably wouldn't have said it. I'm making an appointment. It's important to be able to have somebody that'll help walk you through and explore what habits that you may have that could be, you know, causing harm, um, whether you know, long-term or or acutely short-term, short-term harm as well.
SPEAKER_03Um so getting getting your labs done, is this something that a doctor has to um call in? Can anyone go to like lab core and say, I want my labs done? Or do you and do you have to ask for something in in particular? Because I'm I'm about to do it.
SPEAKER_01So I mean and I am so happy that this is coming up. Like I I really am, because this is kind of like my my platform when you talk about you know um preventative care.
SPEAKER_00And okay, stop right there. Stop right there for a second. Ange, yes, in a future, it'll be next season. We are gonna come back. Maybe Cheesa can join us again because we are going to have had evaluations in our last time.
SPEAKER_01Yes, we will. Oh, yes, we will. I love that.
SPEAKER_00I'm telling you, because we're all the time you're speaking, I'm like, I need to see you, I need to see you, I need to see you. Yeah, we're gonna walk the we're gonna walk the talk. We're gonna do the talk. We're gonna walk the talk.
SPEAKER_03Okay, go ahead, sis. Yes, okay, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01So, to answer the question, it is important to know ahead of time which labs to get, because different um medical professionals do certain things. So if you go to your gynecologist, your gynecologist may do a hormonal panel and leave it at that, right? And then you leave and you thought I got my blood work done. Or you may go see your primary care physician, and they may do, let's say they'll do glucose, um, possibly a lipid panel, and you know, like depending on whatever you've expressed to them, whatever symptoms you may have. And they limit it to that. So, to answer your question, do you have to go to a doctor? You can, but you don't have to. So, Lab Court currently, what they do, you're allowed to pay out of pocket to request particular blood screening or blood screen tests or blood tests to get that done. Yes. So that is something that they offered. I noticed that they offered it sometime about last year, maybe like a year and a half ago. And they even have have at-home kits that you can complete now. You know, I don't know about that, right? But you know, for some people, it works, and it's important. You want to get a metabolic panel, you want to get a comp a comprehensive metabolic panel.
SPEAKER_03We'll put that in the in the um episode notes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yes. You want to get a lipid panel, and I mentioned that before, that's gonna look at cholesterol and all that jazz. You want to get a thyroid panel. Oh my gosh, wow, okay. And it's important also to get a complete blood panel. Okay, so I would say those are like my top four. Top four fast eight to twelve hours prior to, more so eight, but fast beforehand. Right.
SPEAKER_03And it will go ahead. I was gonna ask um whether the like when you make the appointment, you ask for these things, and then they would know what how much blood to draw. Is that um kind of the the sequence of it? Yes.
SPEAKER_02Well, they're okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they they definitely know and I would even to collect from and things like that.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And even like I've had I had a conversation with because I uh I'm always changing primary doctors because bedside manor is important to me, and how you care for me makes me at least, even though I may be a herd of cattle, right? I'm one cow of many, and you're just ushering me in and ushering me out. I need to feel like you care. Fool me. So I believe somebody in a heartbeat. But um one of the last that I had, um they said, Oh, okay, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna do your lab work and all that jazz. I said, Okay, no problem. And I asked, you know, I want this, this, this, this, and this. And they said, okay, no problem. When I got to the lab corpse site, she said, Oh, the prescription only has this one and this one. I said, Can you add the other ones on there too? She says, Well, let me look and make sure that your insurance covers it, right? Because cost is also a factor. They took a look, she said, Oh, yeah, everything is covered, you're good. I said, Yep, run it all. Run it all. Because I had a conversation with this person, I told them exactly what I wanted, and they didn't give me what I wanted. And we also have to advocate for ourselves. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03You are valuable, you are important.
SPEAKER_01What you ask for matters. They don't know everything. Nobody knows you better than you. Yeah, nobody knows you better than you.
SPEAKER_00So before someone comes to get an evaluation from you, get a consultation, we should come with our labs in hand. Um, or is that a separate thing? Should we do the labs? So there's after a consultation. Should we have a consult? Okay, so we have the consultation with you and then go get blood work or whatever, and then it'll be an ongoing relationship with you after we have our uh blood work and have that conversation.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, absolutely, and I do understand, you know, 15 minutes may not be uh enough time to unpack everything, but for me, it's the best way to begin uh developing rapport and to develop rapport, give somebody an idea of what they should expect if they so choose to continue with the relationship and um to talk about some of these things. Um, because most of the time when I do have somebody, it's like I want to lose weight. That's that's the first thing for the most part. It's always okay weight loss, but it's like, well, let's talk a little bit more about how you spend your time each day. Yeah, you know, because you have to also identify that there are habits that need to change, right? Because there's something that you've been doing that is leading to this result. There's gonna be something that has to change. We cannot unpack that in 15 minutes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know, what what what is coming full circle in in my head right now is when you said prevention, this is in fact prevention. Absolutely. Right? You're you're getting your you're getting your blood work, you're you're understanding your baseline, and then, for example, you can see if you are on a journey to this um bad result, the preventative action is coming to you and getting that analysis and making a change.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. That is something different.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Perfect example of prevention. We're gonna do that. We and we're serious too, because we hold each other accountable.
SPEAKER_00Um like our exercise journey. She said you'd be so proud of us. And and and while one of the reasons why I wanted you on our podcast is because Ange and I made a commitment to each other that we were going to just do better with ourselves and our bodies. When we identified a few years ago that we just weren't happy with the way we were feeling and with our weight and the way we were looking, we um we actually started exercising together um with a trainer and we did it for two years straight, regularly. You know, we would just get out there and we would video and we were so motivated. I've never felt so good in my life. I never was one to exercise, I never enjoyed it until I really got motivated. And over the last couple of months, you know, we've gotten busy and slacked off and stuff, but the love of exercise is still there. Um, hashtag Peloton. I tell you, that thing is not a fair marketing genius. Um, but so I can absolutely see developing this, you know, when you feel better about yourself and you feel better in your head, you know, it's it body, head, mind, connection. Absolutely. You know, and um you don't want to put junk in your body when you feel terrific or after you've worked out. You know what I mean? It's like light eating was so much better um when you were taking care of your body.
SPEAKER_03Yes, you know, you know what always kind of makes me wonder. Um, so we know that a car it functions, there's certain things you do, you get your oil changed, you um, you know, get good good gas, um, you know, you take it for its whatever 50,000 mile um tune-up or things like that. I always wonder why we, including myself, don't have this kind of locked-in realization that our bodies are machines. And there's certain things that make us operate well, there's certain things that make us operate poorly, there's certain things that make us break. Um, it's just not this kind of thing that I think about all the time. And and I wonder if, first of all, if you agree with that, and secondly, how can can we start shifting people's understanding of the importance of understanding our body as this beautiful machine that was was designed to function a certain way? Right? Like when you said your knee isn't supposed to do that, well, I didn't know my knee wasn't supposed to do that, you know what I mean? It does that. You know what I mean? Like, is there anything that you uh would like to share that may help us to uh make a like a fundamental shift in how much uh harm we can do when we're not uh caring for our bodies?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you you created a really great analogy in regards to a car and the maintenance, right? The basic maintenance, and that's what we do with our bodies, right? It's basic maintenance. What do I need to do to keep this thing going? I need to eat, I need to drink, and probably walk around a little bit. What we don't do with our vehicles when we get them is read through the manual. That's what we don't do. We don't sit and take time to read through the manual and get an understanding of when this light goes off, um, you know, what type of oil should be going in our car. We leave it for other people to tell us when it's time to get this stuff done. We wait until the car's shaking when you're driving it, or you wait until you know the wheel sounds funny. That's what we do. We wait until the indicator on our car. Tells us that there's no more fuel before we go to the gas station. Same thing with our bodies. And so that was such a great analogy. Because the answer is know thyself. Spend time with you. Hashtag. Hashtag. Know thyself. You know, make you intentionally you. Spend time with yourself and say, I'm going to intentionally understand and learn who I am. The idea and concept, and I say this all the time, of healthy is inaccurate. It's a misconception. Because if you tell me that I should have walnuts and a salad with eggs because this is healthy for me, but then I'm allergic to those things, that's not healthy for me. So we use this terminology so loosely about what's healthy. You don't know what's healthy for you.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01Right until you take the time and you understand.
SPEAKER_00And listen to your body and what these things do to your body. I was telling Omari just recently. Um, I said, you know something, Omari? When after you eat, I don't think you're supposed to feel exhausted and tired after you eat. Food should be energizing.
SPEAKER_01It should be.
SPEAKER_00You know, and so often, you know, you eat and it may be heavy carbs or something that for whatever reason doesn't agree with you, and you sit there and it's almost like you need to recover from eating. Right. And I said to my son just recently, I said, you know what? That's not normal. That shouldn't be the case. Hashtag that's not normal. Yeah. You know, we don't, we're just so used to having the itis that we just sit and recover from that big heavy meal that we just had in front of a television or whatever. And the older we get, we can't do that. We can't keep doing that. We can do better.
SPEAKER_03Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We can do better.
SPEAKER_03We must do better.
SPEAKER_00Before the time runs out, I have a couple questions that um I just put um, I asked some folks if they had any particular questions for this brilliant nutritionist I was going to speak to today. And um the biggest thing that came up is the role in supplemental vitamins. So many people spend so much money, money that they don't have, um, taking a handful of vitamins every day. What do you think about that? Is that money well spent?
SPEAKER_01It depends on the individual. And so supplemental vitamins are to be supplemental, right? It is supposed to be the thing that you don't get within your normal diet, and it's supposed to supplement. If you are eating the way that you are supposed to, and when I say you were supposed to, I mean as yourself, your individual, if you're eating the way you're supposed to, if you're living the way you're supposed to, you won't need to supplement. And I'm talking about, you know, your average person. I'm not talking about somebody who has goals and aspirations to be a bodybuilder. So now they're taking all this extra protein and all this other stuff. Um, I'm talking about, you know, the average, as average as one can be, average person. And I I shy away from them even when prescribed certain things for myself, I shy away from them because they're probably natural resources and as opposed to chemically or uh lab concocted resources. Because it's not even the same thing, right? They try to get it as chemically close as possible so that when it enters into the body, you you get a similar result. However, if you can get it from your food, get it from your food. If you can get it from the sun, get it from the sun. And then if you can't, you know, by all means, and you you did your due diligence and you're still struggling, yes, take the supplement. But make sure that it makes sense.
SPEAKER_00But that also sounds to me that we really need to know a little more about what we're putting in our bodies in terms of what vitamins are we getting. Oh, I said, yeah. I said, it sounds to me like that we need to get more information about what it is that we're putting in our bodies. If we live on a protein shake, let's say, um, that's our regular breakfast, we really need to know what nutritions are in that shake. Absolutely. You know, from either reading, reading labels or knowing, you know, how much protein spinach has if we add spinach to it or what have you, to know what it is and whether or not we're coming short. Um, we're coming short short of what our recommended daily allowances are.
SPEAKER_01And we are our own equalizer, that's what the body does. The body's a natural equalizer, it wants to keep everything as evenly kiltered as possible. And so following along the idea and concept of know thyself, if if you understand what your baseline is, then you'll know when something is a little bit off. And typically you'll feel those results between one to two hours after you've consumed something. When it and you make a really good point too, about knowing what the food is or what the ingredients are in something that we consume. Because oftentimes, as well, when I'm doing consultations, somebody will tell me I'm taking vitamin D, I'm taking iron, I'm taking turmeric, I'm taking um ashwagon, and I'm taking a daily vitamin. But now you're taking um much larger quantities of some of these particular things because it's already in the multivitamin, right? And so sometimes we don't think to turn the label to look and see, okay, well, wow, this says I'm already taking 120% of my vitamin D, but then I'm also taking this vitamin D. And not to say that you can overdose on vitamin D. It's a fat-soluble vitamin, but most of us are lacking it anyway. But just as an example, and people will see, okay, well, it's uh it's 300% here and it's 120% here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you may want to slow down on that thing. You you're getting enough of it. And what I've also said to people is that your body, as you said, and with homeostasis, you will excrete the extra in your stool or in your urine or however it is eliminated. So it's almost like a waste if you're paying for this herb and this vitamin and this, this, if you're eating a healthy, or more balanced diet. The extra is not gonna hang around.
SPEAKER_01It's not gonna hang around. And your body, being the great machine as it is, right? We're going right around full circle, is going to absorb what it can, and then it'll excrete the the rest of it. And, you know, there's a whole nother conversation about you know absorption, which, you know, people take things, but then your body may not, right? And so now you have to find out, well, why is that? But that's a whole nother conversation when we talk about absorption.
SPEAKER_00We definitely have you. We might have time for one other question that um I was asked. Um, if someone has a consultation with you, um, they have a chronic loss of appetite. Um, could be that they're on, they are on many different medications, um, could be a mood disorder or something like that. Is there uh is that something that you might be able to address with them if they had a consultation? Yes. With you? I mean, we don't we don't hear too much about people losing appetites. We hear about people overeating, you know, it's usually a problem. Loss of appetite is a little bit different.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And I had the opportunity to work in the long COVID clinic as well, and loss of appetite was something that we found many of the patients coming in and reporting. And so there are ways to stimulate appetite and that are pretty simple and non-pharmacologic. Absolutely, even watching food being prepared, right? You think about Pavlov's, you know, method you have the dog that's salivating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you see food that's being prepared, sometimes, you know, you then become a bit more stimulated as well, and you want to consume something. So having that conversation, getting an understanding, and it can be difficult, especially if you know you are taking particular medications that are suppressing your appetite. We may have to come up with maybe just um a schedule on your phone, you know, something that kind of triggers off and lets you know it's time to eat. So even if it's not stimulating the appetite, it's still coming up with methods and tools to ensure that you're getting as many calories as you need to fuel the day. Wow.
SPEAKER_03Okay, awesome.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_03There's so many things I want to say. So many things. So many things. So so I guess we're gonna have to just schedule appointments.
SPEAKER_00Um we definitely will schedule appointments, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_02I'm here for that.
SPEAKER_00Um, I gotta I'm going to leave all of your contact information on um on in the podcast notes so people will know how to get more of all of this individualized personal information that you offer. And uh I'm inviting you back again because we're gonna be talking about some other things when we get some answers. Okay. But um, wow, wow, this is something else. This was just amazing. And the time, where did the time go? Where did the time go? Wow, I can we're talking on and on about this. And we will. And we will. All right, I'm gonna sign off. Thank you for listening, and I so appreciate all your wisdom and wealth of information. And this has been another episode of Black Boom Festivals. We're besties for you guys next time.
