Introduction & Baylee’s background

Kerry 0:29

All right. Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kerry Reller, and today we have Bailey Miller on the podcast today. Welcome.

Baylee 0:39

Thank you. I'm very excited to hop on today. I actually, it's been a while since our first episode we did. I was like a baby dietitian, I feel like then.

Kerry 0:50

All grown up now. So you're a dietician and you're located in Missouri, but tell us about your, current roles, plural

Private practice + online nutrition coaching

Baylee 0:59

yes, I'm a dietitian. I've been a dietitian. I was thinking about this before I got in it'll be four years this summer and so I have mainly been in more of the private practice world and I always think like doing things my own way. I did my dietetic internship in the hospital and realized I did not like the hospital setting. Probably didn't help that I was there during COVID and I had lots of ICU rounds and everything, but right after school I went into my own business and i've worked for another private practice, and then right now I am actually getting ready to launch my own course. So I'm finally doing it after a couple years. I'm very excited, but basically I'm taking everything that I have done with my one-on-one clients or my methods that I use them myself and I've put it into this very comprehensive course. So I'm very excited to get that going. But yeah, I'm a weight loss dietitian. Weight loss is my main area of expertise. I am licensed in Missouri and also Florida, and I do have a couple other licensure as well. I work all online, so I get to help a lot of different people.

Kerry 2:07

Nice. You should mention, the parent company'cause I think that's how a lot of people can find you,

Baylee 2:11

yes, so I work for Nourish and Nourish is really cool it's basically telehealth for dietitians and through them you can get your sessions covered through your insurance. I'll say probably I need to re-look up their stats, but I think it's 95% of people get all their sessions covered and many of'em don't even have a limit, which is really cool.

Kerry 2:33

I think that's an amazing program that they have because we definitely have a shortage of, the ability to refer to dieticians. And, I feel like I would send everybody to a dietitian. I, do those similar things in our practice. But I think it's a great company that they've been able to offer that too, so you can see patients from, anywhere or those few states and then follow them along. That's pretty cool.

Baylee 2:55

No, I have quite a few clients in Florida right now, which is fun. And because Florida some states you don't have to have a license in to practice medical nutrition therapy. Florida is one, so I do get a lot of Florida people, which is always cool.

Raising kids in today’s food environment

Kerry 3:09

why don't I guess we dive in we were gonna talk about, everything that maybe a physician mom and dietitian mom have about, raising healthy kids in our environment that we live in America here with the snack culture, added sugar, sports, body talk, all these kind of things. So I thought, and you thought it might be fun to get together and talk about our own experiences with patients and our own and see how that, I don't know, goes forward, right?

Baylee 3:38

Yes, absolutely. I think there's so many ways this conversation could go. There is lots of topics around foods and movement in general too, being a dietician, but also a weight loss dietician on top of it. So many people have weight loss goals, but I also feel like we're in an era for moms, especially where moms are very aware of what they're doing in front of their kids now. I mean on TikTok, like people talk about like the almond mom. They're like, I don't wanna be an almond mom. So I feel like moms are just being more aware in general of what they're doing around their kids, which I think is cool. But I also think it's raised some challenges, like, how do I talk about food? How do I talk about, okay, we probably don't need a Pop-Tart for breakfast. Here's what we can do instead without being like, oh, that's bad for you.

Kerry 4:27

Yeah, it's definitely different and difficult is, really what I wanted to say. And while we're talking about almonds I have a lot of neurotic things that I've done, in the past. And while it may seem neurotic to some, it's helps me reach my goals, right? I don't count my kids' almonds or anything like that, but I do leave a measuring cup in our, nuts area because even my husband will say, he is eating too many cashews and things like that. I'm like that's why we can use a measuring cup. I guess he feels bad after eating too many, right? It's the same thing. I'm sure a kid's portion of nuts is not nearly as much as an adult, so knowing, what's gonna make you feel uncomfortable is important too. But I do remember counting out 10 almonds that I would eat with my yogurt in the morning at times, and then like crushing'em up and putting in there. So I don't know what an almond mom is, but I guess I could fall under that category. But I'm not really saying, I'm kinda not counting my kids' almonds or anything

Awareness vs restriction with food

Baylee 5:21

Yeah, it's all in how we present it. If we come from an area of you can only have 10 almonds because you will gain weight if you eat more than 10. I'm like, yeah, that could be a little bit tricky for a kid to understand. But we do the same thing like we have a lot of our pantry stuff in containers and I keep measuring cups and a lot of things mainly'cause I'm lazy and I don't wanna wash'em every time. But it does help just to be like, okay, chia seeds, we have a tablespoon in there. And so I think it's more coming from at an angle of awareness rather than like restriction is what's really helpful because, nuts are a perfect example. I had a client where they're like, eh, I eat a handful. It's probably a quarter of a cup. I was like let's just measure them out just to check. Turns out he was a little eating a little over a cup, and I was like, that's a big difference.

Kerry 6:14

Yeah.

Baylee 6:14

Put your fat a lot higher, so that can make it harder to lose weight, but I think a lot of it is just how are we talking about things and what's the intention behind it? I think the intention is a really important part when it comes to any type of healthy habit, whether it's the movement or the food, measuring things out. I will weigh out my protein. I don't do it every time. But like I will put it on a food scale to be like, am I eating enough? A lot of times I'm actually undereating on protein, and so it's just oh, okay. I need more protein if I wanna build muscle and not be starving after dinner. Eating enough protein helps.

Kerry 6:48

Back to the nut thing, it's like a super food, right? It has lots of protein, lots of fiber, and lots of healthy fat. But it is definitely something that if I don't have that there, I tend to overeat myself. And I think it's important to keep an eye on that. And it basically, awareness is a big thing too, right? I think that we see that a lot and sometimes while working with someone like yourself, you can find out to how to help the patient become aware of the situation, right? Like you said, they're having a handful of nuts. How much are you really having? So a little bit of awareness and learning that, okay, maybe just this once or for a little while, measure and then maybe you don't need to do it but then you wanna maybe come back to it if the habit slips, right? So I think that's a super important thing as well. I think getting in the habit of weighing your food because you're, you have certain goals is not a bad thing, right? You wanna weigh and measure because you're trying to meet protein goals. I will say that sometimes I weigh my lunch because I'm prepping it, but I don't weigh my dinner or i, my protein at dinner or anything like that, it's more of a curiosity at this point. And I know that if I don't eat enough protein, I'm like still hungry throughout the day and it makes me not as focused, like seeing patients as well. So I will make sure I get in, a pretty good amount of, like ground Turkey for example, is one of my go-to lunches for the office. So I think it's not a bad thing to weigh and measure. I think you really need to be aware, but I do think some people can take it to an extreme, and maybe it's an extreme because there are some weightlifter and they have some goals and that's one thing. But it's, some people can take it to the opposite extreme where they are having like an unhealthy relationship with

Understanding added sugars & labels

Baylee 8:31

Yeah. It almost takes away from your life, and that's where I think we can start to create a negative relationship with these habits because this is something I've realized in the past few months is we, my clients tend to be resistant towards some habits because they feel like they're punishment. I have to go on a walk because I'm trying to lose weight. I have to eat fruits and vegetables to lose weight. I'm like, these are actually very normal things even after you lose the weight you should do because metabolically, you're gonna be a lot healthier, you're gonna feel better, you're gonna have better energy, you're gonna have better sleep, your skin's gonna be better. All these different things come along with it where it's like we could take out the factor of weight loss and these are still very beneficial things. I think another thing like I teach about is starting to look at nutrition labels. I don't get very in the weeds about it because I think there's some stuff on there that eh, not as pertinent, but like added sugars is another thing I like people to be really aware of, because a lot of people don't know that we should actually be getting less than 25 grams of added sugar a day. Now, I was looking at someone's protein, granola the other day had a 14 grams of added sugar in it. So I'm like, okay, if we're starting our morning with that, plus we're adding a few chocolate chips on there, you're getting like 20 grams of just added sugar first thing in the morning. And so having that awareness of just to look at even that number as a starting point on a label can be helpful. And it's not that you're not allowed to have granola, but maybe we do less or we switch for a different brand. Just being aware of added sugars in general'cause they add up really quickly and they're in foods that we don't even think about. Like spaghetti sauce. There's sugars in that, or some foods that were like, yeah, there's sugar in it, but like soda for example I was looking at a soda bottle the other day 70 grams of added sugar. I was like, I would

Kerry 10:26

kind was that? Oh, it

Baylee 10:27

It was a bottle. Yes, I think it was a bottle of Mountain Dew probably. I think that's what it was.

How sugar impacts the body

Kerry 10:32

That's an important comment, right? I just asked what size, it was a bottle'cause a can is like 35 grams typically. Knowing that it's twice the amount, so portions when you're looking at a nutrition label is high, is super important. Not just the added sugar amount, but this is one thing where I'm not sure I'm doing the right things with my kids because I think I've taught them how to read labels and prob, they're six, eight, and 11, so maybe we have done a little too much because they're looking for added sugar Xavi's counting his protein. Now I'm like, what are you doing? He doesn't, they don't really understand it, but they know that when we're in the grocery store and they wanna, pick out a cereal, I turn it around and I'm looking at the added sugar. And to see how much quantity they can get too, because sometimes it's like quarter cup for all that amount and that's not really gonna fill them up in any way. And I also, look at the protein now because now they just try to shove protein and everything and make it healthy. But, so I'm not sure if I'm making the right move there with the kids knowing things about reading the label with added sugar'cause they're a bit young and I don't want them to be afraid to eat it. Honestly they're definitely not afraid to eat it right now. They want more and more of it, but teaching my patients how to read it is really important too. One thing that I use with patients is, gosh, what is this guy? The rater formula, it's sometimes really fun and you can do it like a calculation of how much sugar, like teaspoons of sugar is in the item. You take, the carbohydrates and subtract the fiber and then divide it by five or whatever. And that should be like the teaspoons of sugar in the product, which I find very interesting.'cause you mentioned poptart, you mentioned some protein that had added sugar or was it oatmeal that had it added

Baylee 12:14

A lot of the, like

Kerry 12:15

granola, that all action.

Baylee 12:17

preseason, pre flavored

Kerry 12:19

yeah.

Baylee 12:19

However you call it, those oatmeals will have added sugars, but yeah, the granola yeah if you look at the grams on the label and just divide that by four, that's gonna give you the amount of teaspoons, which I like to tell people,'cause I think visually that helps where it's 20 grams of added sugar. People are like, I don't know is that a lot? So I'm like, divide that by four. So now you have five teaspoons. Would you sit there and eat five teaspoons of straight sugar? And they're like, that's a lot. I'm like, that's what this is.

Kerry 12:45

So here's another way to look at that, that I also begin with, right? How many teaspoons of sugar are in your blood?

Baylee 12:52

That's a good question. I don't know that

Kerry 12:53

Yeah, so like half.

Baylee 12:56

Okay. Yeah,

Kerry 12:57

So now you're telling me like you have half a teaspoon that your body has at whatever, at normal amount, right? In all the liters or pints of blood that you have, and then you're adding in 15 teaspoons of sugar. How much, how hard does your pancreas have to work to clear that, right? It's scary, like you're overworking your organs just to have that pleasure of food or whatever. I know, however you wanna think about it, but that's how hard it has to work to clear that. Otherwise it stays high. And you feel pretty terrible as you well know and then eventually over, over time many years, insulin resistance can develop and so on and so forth. But if you think about how hard it has to work, just to clear that sugar as pretty crazy. Yeah.

Kids, snacks, and setting boundaries

Baylee 13:46

Which is a stressor on the body. And so I talk a lot about stressors on the body, and when I mention stress, everyone thinks like work, finances, relationships. I'm like, okay, but like also what's going on inside of the body. Blood sugar fluctuations, undereating, mineral imbalances. Those are also forms of stressors. So that's where like all this awareness of understanding all these pieces. And I think it can be overwhelming at first, especially when you're like new to the nutrition world, Which is exactly why I break down step by step. And a lot of people when they come to me, they're like, eh, probably meet with her maybe four times. Like honestly, I have a lot of people that meet with me for 20 plus times. Depends where you are, but going back to the kids too, I think it is beneficial for them to know what are you looking at on the label? And again, it's just explaining why you're doing like, oh, if you had this much sugar at breakfast, you might have a little bit of headache at school. Your stomach might hurt a little bit and then you're probably gonna be hungry again, but you're trying to learn at school. And people do call me a weirdo before how I talk about things with my son. So my son, he is 20 months old. And so obviously he's not reading labels or anything, but there are times where he will go to the pantry and we'll bang on the door and like tries to get a snack. I'm like, oh buddy, we just had a snack. Do you want an apple? We can grab something on the out of the fridge or if it's like right before bedtime. If he is like hungry and we can tell, then yeah, I'm gonna give him some something to eat. But like I'll make him a yogurt bowl with some Greek yogurt or something like that. But if he's reaching for, I don't know, like let's say cliff bars, for example. So my husband eats those i'm like, we're gonna compromise. That's not the worst thing you do, but it does have a lot of added sugar in it. And I'm like, you're active during the day. Fine. But I'm like, Gannon doesn't really need those. And so if he grabs those, I'm like, okay, let's do half. Or if it's close to bedtime, I'm like, all right buddy, let's not do this right now. How about an applesauce instead? Or how about some yogurt or cottage cheese and just switching it up. But I think explaining things can help even at a young age. And not that he understands it, I'm sure at this point, but I think just being able to help create guidelines in all areas of life, guidelines, routines, helps them to, because especially at his age, he's not very regulated right now. He doesn't know how to quite understand his body. So I think it's part of our jobs as parents to be like. Okay. Maybe we just need a drink of water. Maybe we just need to settle down for bed and help them figure out what their body's trying to tell them too.

Kerry 16:20

That's what I was gonna say. He could be banging on the pantry door and he might just be thirsty too. You can, always start there. And I usually tell patients too, right? If you're thinking you're hungry. You might actually be thirsty, so making sure you're getting in your water is really

Baylee 16:33

Yeah, and watching, because sometimes it's like habits where if he just, if we're cleaning up after the day and I put something in the pantry and he sees me do it, then he is oh yeah, there's some food in there. So then things like that, I'm like, he's probably not necessarily hungry. He just saw me open the pantry door and if we go read a book, like he's completely fine. So I think.

Kerry 16:53

Distraction works too,

Baylee 16:54

Yeah. Yes. Having those guidelines and being able to just help them regulate their bodies too.

Emotional eating & adult habits

Kerry 17:00

Distraction works for adults too, right? How many people do you talk to that boredom eat? Eat'cause they're sad, they're happy. There's a million reasons to be emotionally eating the stress that you mentioned too, that's another reason people just want to eat something, it gives comfort, right? It tastes good, makes you feel good for a little bit. And then maybe not afterwards, but I mean there's all these different things that, why we eat and it's not necessarily for true hunger, right? But a distraction method to be going right. Always gonna the food or always gonna the pantry is definitely something to do. Sometimes I've had patients create like a box of other things that they can do besides eat food after dinner. Maybe it's knit. Read a book, usually watching TV is not a great example'cause they're gonna be associating that with food or alcohol or popcorn or something like that. So we don't typically go to the tv, but all these other things that you could do, go clean out a drawer, things like that. Just to distract you from realizing that, hey, I'm not truly physically hungry and my body doesn't need food. I'm satisfied, but for some reason I just want to boredom eat right.

Baylee 18:06

And a lot of times I do have them check in on water. I'm like, if you're low on water for the day, and I know this used to be like a dieting trick of like drink water before you eat type of thing. But I'm like. These signals of thirst and hunger actually do get confused. And if you're like, man, my water has been a little bit low, just try and drink some water. Give yourself five to 10 minutes and then reevaluate if you're truly hungry. Put together I always call'em like fridge snacks, like if you feel like the only thing you're hungry for is a bag of chips, I'm like, are you really hungry? Or if it's okay, we can't get these bag of chips out of our head. It's been like 10 minutes and we've tried to distract. We tried the water, we tried all these things. Okay, have a few chips. Have a beef stick, maybe have a cucumber with it, create some balance so that way it's actually filling too. But yeah, I do have people checking on water, but also movement, if you're sitting for long periods of time or like at night and you're just sitting there. The TV is a perfect example because we associate snacking with watching tv and I definitely notice this too with people who run on like high stress because it's the end of the day. This is the one time they're sitting down and their brain's trying to power down. But if you're running on high stress, you have a very hard time powering your brain down. So we're like trying to do something else as we're watching tv. So I always think about movement and water, like checking on those pieces. Before just reaching for something, especially if you're like, okay, I did eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I had a pretty balanced snack checking on the other angles too.

Kerry 19:36

I think that late eating or eating after dinner thing, usually, you're not physically hungry. One is habit two. It's oh, it's the end of the day. I had such a hard day. I deserve this. There's a lot of, I deserve this eating, which is, it's hard to come get around, I think, but reframing it and recognizing it, I think would be the first step. And sometimes, like you said, going ahead and if you are truly hungry, or even if you wanna give in, you decide to eat, when you're not physically hungry, that's okay too. But perhaps maybe, every evening isn't, you don't give in and every evening, or you're not giving into an ice cream bowl every evening. Like maybe one day you can substitute a healthier yogurt. And then the other day you realize, okay, I am not hungry. I'm good. So there's a lot of things and ways to think about things rather than just, jumping into the usual habit and things like that,

Baylee 20:25

I think definitely just checking in on yourself too. Like I had someone, she's I don't eat after eight, but a lot of times after running the kids around, like I don't eat dinner so I'm hungry at eight 30. I'm like if you're not eating dinner and you're not home till eight 30, like I will go ahead and try and eat at least something. That's why you're hungry is'cause you skipped a meal. So yeah, I always call it like body intelligence of getting in tune with your body. We are very out of tune with our bodies as adults I always give the example of energy, like it's like we're low on energy, we need more coffee. Like you're not low on energy because you have a caffeine deficiency. You're low on energy because you didn't eat throughout the day, you didn't get enough sleep, your stress was out the window. And as adults we're very good about disassociating with stress rather than taking care of the actual problem. And so that's where a lot of habits come up too.

Kerry 21:16

Yeah, I think you're so right. We're definitely more as adults out of tune with our bodies and knowing when we're full, which is why like never feeling full. And I think that sometimes these medications can be very helpful with that, but the kids, I guess you get so jealous sometimes. I'm like, oh, they're done eating. They left one bite. I'm like, how do you do that? They left one strawberry. They didn't eat the whole ice cream thing. I'm like, how? How do you stop doing it? I can't do that. That's a huge problem for me. But it's amazing'cause they know that they're done eating and I hope they never lose that. But it's very unlikely that they will

Food scarcity mindset & “cheat days”

Baylee 21:49

It's the perfect example that we're born with those internal calorie counters or leptin in our ghrelin hormones, and it's really interesting to watch kids with sweets because if Gannon's had a cupcake before, like he'll take a bite and he is eh, done. Or he like, will eat the icing. He's eh, I don't even want the cupcake. So it's really interesting to watch kids, especially with sweets, because yeah, they will often, like once they're done, a lot of times, like they might not even finish it and then they could care less. Like it's not this whole event of, oh my gosh, I had a cupcake. Should I leave it? Should I eat it? It's like they're just full, they're done.

Kerry 22:21

I wonder how their dopamine system works. With the dopamine release, with the anti anticipation of the food it's supposed to be at highest, right? But then when they're eating it, you know it, it's not as exciting, right? They probably realize. Okay. It's all fun. I can stop eating it now.'cause like we gave the kids, we, this is our thing for Super Bowl. It's Super Bowl Sunday with the S-U-N-D-A-E and we let them make a Sunday this year. The sizes got outta control. But we let it happen because I knew there was no way they were gonna finish it. And sure enough they didn't. So thank God because it was pretty obscene. But like we, we let'em do that. I think it's fun. They look forward to it, right? But clearly they did not feel the need to finish the whole thing. Thank goodness. And did I have one? Yes. Did I make it like they did? No. And like just plain ice cream in the Little Bowl was good enough for me. But, I definitely finished mine, but I didn't make it as big as

Baylee 23:16

And I'm sure too when it comes to kids, like maybe a lot of the pressure is off of'em. As adults, we're constantly surrounded with eat less, move more, donate this, eat this, donate that. And there's lots of messaging where it's like kids food can be pretty simple for'em. It's oh, mom made this for dinner. Here's what we're going to eat. And that's that. Like they don't have to, I feel like there's just not maybe as much pressure around it where it's like they just going to eat and it's not a big deal.

Kerry 23:44

We also have this thought of like food scarcity, like adults. Like, where is my next like meal coming, am I gonna if I don't eat this whole meal, am I gonna make it to my dinner? Or I have this event, I better eat this whole meal. I don't wanna ever feel hungry, like it's just a terrible feeling, right? When it's actually okay if you just sit with it for a little bit and realize what it feels like. But instead you'll overeat at a prior thing'cause you don't know where your next meal is gonna be or just'cause you have busy or something like that. And I don't think kids think like that, maybe'cause they trust that, their provider is gonna give them food at their next need. But I don't know I feel like that's an interesting parallel to kids as well.

Baylee 24:25

And also how you're helping them form their relationship with food. For adults, like the scarcity often comes around sweetss, where it's like they have their cheat day, or like Friday's the only day where they're allowing desserts, so then it feels like they have to go overboard on Friday because well, they can't have another dessert for another week. Might as well go all in. And so I really work with my clients. Like I don't do cheat days with anyone's, and I don't try and limit it to Thursday is your day, you can have a cookie type of thing, like. When you take off that scarcity or that big restriction around foods, we're less likely to overeat it. I like think about chicken or eggs, like no one's scared to not finish their chicken or something. If they get full, they're done and it's like not a big deal. And a cake like we will often overeat because it's like the only time we can have it. Chicken, we're okay with having it every day. It's not a big deal. Cake. We overeat because we don't know when it's gonna be there again. But like you can buy a birthday cake any day of the week, like you can just buy a birthday cake. It doesn't have to be your birthday. So I think having those relationship with foods can also make your life a lot easier once you adjust it a little bit too.

Balancing treats without creating fear

Kerry 25:36

Yeah, you're really right about that. It's the same thing of a scarcity thing. When are you ever gonna allow yourself to have another thing? And that's just not the greatest mindset to be getting into, I think it really the restriction is, makes it a little bit harder and I'll say, we try to like have they can have a dessert day during a couple, a few days during the week. And I mean they're, it's pretty, it works fine for us, but I do see, I don't know how they're seeing it, right? I don't know if they're, oh my God, Tuesday I gotta overeat it. But I don't really see them like overeating it. I think it's the same thing. So hopefully we're not destroying my kids at that point'cause I don't want them to have the feeling that you have to have a dessert after every meal or that you can't have a dessert after any meal. And I think they sometimes say it's like unfair and things like that, and I don't know if that's. I don't know. I don't know if we're doing the wrong thing or Right. But they're saying, some friends at school may have candy or they have a brownie in their lunch every day. And I know the school doesn't allow candy at the lunch, so a brownie must be okay. Or all those other packaged snacks that have the equivalent nutrition facts of candy are somehow okay, but they're not labeled as candy. So I don't know. They may have some friends that are having those things and I feel obviously bad because sometimes people use food to spoil people and make them feel loved and things like that. I try to bring it from a perspective of that we're also trying to keep you alive and healthy and sometimes we can't have candy and things like that all of the time. It's hard. It's just, you gotta balance these things. I know Gannon is not quite there yet, so you don't have those deep conversations of why do my friends get to eat this stuff, but not me all the time. But you'll get there and it's a challenge for sure.

Baylee 27:19

And I think as a mom, we're always questioning am I doing the right thing? Am I messing him up? Is this what we're supposed to be doing? And I think like being in the healthcare setting, sometimes it can pose an extra amount of pressure because we do see what happens when you overeat on sugar. Like we see it happen all the time. We don't want our kids to feel that way. And so I talk to my clients about these things is when they're changing their eating habits, oftentimes they're trying to change their kids' eating habits too. And I think it just comes down to those conversations too, where it's oh, okay. They had a brownie okay, maybe let's make them on Wednesday night. We could try them out, but we just don't have'em every day. And that's okay. Just talking about, okay, this can make you feel, maybe your sleep might be off if we had'em every day and. It's really interesting too, because we have lots of neighbor kids that hang out and so they come over and like we'll have poppies or ops in their fridge and they think those drinks are so fun and so they love those. Or like we buy the applesauce pouches that have like the veggies and with them too, and they love those. And so it's interesting to see like how they get excited about different foods too, and being able to also create that balance where we're like, yeah, sometimes we do have a brownie and that's okay, and sometimes we skip it that night. But yeah, creating that balance of here's what we're gonna do more often and life's not fair sometimes.

Building routines: sleep, movement, habits

Kerry 28:44

Yeah, I, it's so true. So I like to set up a healthy environment at home like I'm ready to get rid of all the Valentine's candy, and it's not something that we normally have a lot of in the house. I think out of sight, out of mind really is really true. And I like to, tell my own patients to set up their safe space, their home in that way too. And like you mentioned, your, some of your clients are also trying to get their kids to healthier, and that's so important. It needs to be done as You're gonna have success if your family is on board. But I will give the example that. When my kids would go to the neighbor's house, they had candy there and they, and it's, some of it is excitement of just being in a different place, right? So they like, exploring their snacks and they definitely get into their candy and it's not my favorite thing, but I think. It's interesting too because the other, the kids that live at the house are not that into it. But to my kids and my, is it a restriction? Which is why they always go for it. Or I'll just say, the, my heritage is, I think we like sweets. Some people have a salty tooth, some like a sweet tooth. I blame my dad getting a tooth, so maybe that's where my kids are getting it from. But it's hard'cause they're there again, I feel, like we aren't allowing that in the home or we obviously do for a little while but try to get it out of

Baylee 30:01

I'll say I noticed the biggest thing is not making it like a big deal. And so like whether it's trying to get'em to eat broccoli or trying to not get'em to eat a bunch of poptart side sort of thing, because kids can also have that little like rebellious side of things where it's like, Ugh, she really wants to eat this broccoli. Not gonna do it. And and this is what I tell a lot of parents, I'm like, if you're having trouble with your kids eating vegetables, put one piece of broccoli on there. Don't say anything about it. They might look at it, they might touch it, they might lick it. They probably wanna eat it for the first few times, and that's okay. Eventually it's just gonna be normal. The same thing with sweets. If we're like constantly telling'em, oh, we shouldn't eat that, shouldn't eat that. And we just okay, you're gonna have it this time. Okay. We're setting up those boundaries and we just take off. I always say like the weirdness around it, it becomes less of a rebellious side of thing I think too. And I always try and think what's happening most often? And if it's one time throughout a month okay, and I think moms are all just trying to do our best to figure it out along the way and sometimes it's a lot of trial and error. But it is interesting I have a client right now, she just had her 10th kid, she's got lots of kiddos and so I'm working with her and her husband. So they've been really working to change what they're eating and then they're like, okay, we're gonna tackle this with the kids now. And the kids are actually adapting really well and it's cool to see. And one question I asked because a pushback with quote unquote healthy eating is it's too expensive. And so I asked her, I was like, has your grocery bill changed that much? She's honestly, it hasn't, because they're not eating 10 packs of fruit snacks in a day. We're not going through a bunch of snack food as often because they're just eating more whole foods. They're actually getting full. So I was like, you're a good testament. You have 12 people in your household and you haven't noticed a change in your grocery bill. So I think just having an open mind to changes too, that can be helpful.

Kerry 31:58

Yeah, I cannot imagine that grocery bill, but that is exactly the first thing that went to my mind. Finances of food is like a real thing too. But not everything has to be, going into a Whole Foods or things like that. There's definitely ways to eat healthy and I know there's a, obviously the big push to eat organic and things like that, and it is more expensive. But I think just doing the best you can and trying to eat whole Foods, whether wherever they're coming from is probably the best first step for sure. Something else you mentioned earlier was routine and I think that's super important for kids, obviously sleep. Just setting expectations, especially when they're younger. They really they thrive on routine, right? They wanna know where you're going when, and it wants to be predictable, right? So I think that's super important. And then obviously the biggest thing around routine is getting enough sleep. And if think of you make you make bad decisions when you don't get enough sleep as an adult, right? You're probably gonna eat something that maybe you wouldn't have. Or, maybe the quantity has changed sometimes, alcohol is involved in all these things, so sleep is important. From that respect, it's important from, you already mentioned, cortisol and stress and everything like that. It's important with that. It just makes you feel better and we spend most of our time sleeping. It's so important.

Baylee 33:15

And sleep too, like you're more insulin resistant the next day if you don't get enough sleep, so then you're not gonna tolerate the carbs better. And so it's your prefrontal cortex that's most affected with lack of sleep, which is where like your decision making happens. So then if you're eating more carbs. You're also not tolerating the carbs well. Now we're on a blood sugar roller coaster. This is why you're having cravings all day long. This is why you can't think straight. And yeah, the routines are important not only for the kids, but adults. We really need routines, and I fully believe that's why a lot of times, many people struggle on the weekends and then the summer because the routine's different or non-existent.

Final advice: keep it simple & consistent

Kerry 33:55

Yeah. I think it's hard for everybody, right? Because in the weekends you're always trying to go out, stay up later, whatever. I hate doing that'cause I'm like guaranteed to get a migraine if my sleep is messed up. But you are supposed to go to the bed at the same time, get up at the same time, even on the weekend. And I don't like that whole 80 20, cheat day stuff either. So I think, sticking to the main routine that you have is the best that you can, going forward from that, but I just, it's hard to tell people to keep the same sleep schedule, especially on the weekends. I find that challenging, especially like when they're watching sports or something like the Super Bowl clearly throws everybody off.

Baylee 34:34

Yeah, I really try and keep my sleep schedule consistent within an hour. I would say there's definitely those off weekends, but I was talking about the Super Bowl to a client and it was funny. I was like, super Bowl snacks I think are superior because everyone focuses on like the protein and then like veggies. I feel like there's more of where it's like. Not that the Super Bowl's a holiday, but it's like a gathering where there's lots of food a lot of times, and it's like other holidays, like it's carbohydrate overload, which is why we don't feel so good. And so we were talking about just, yeah, I think Super Bowl snacks are superior. The Buffalo chicken dip. Yeah.

Kerry 35:12

Yeah, that's interesting thing you mentioned is it's not a holiday, right? Because we find excuses in life and it's fine'cause that's, we're social beings, right? To have everything be a celebration. Everything require food and entertainment. And that's a very hard thing to navigate for someone who's on like a weight loss journey, right? You wanna still go to parties, you wanna go to gatherings, you wanna go to holidays and still do all these things. And I think, the best thing you can do is really planning ahead and you are listening to your body once again and you mentioned it already, protein. So luckily Super Bowl would have a good protein snack, but I mean it's, we make excuses for everything to be a party. And it's hard to navigate.

Baylee 35:52

Yeah, and we often make things harder than what they need to be, and so when it comes to holidays or just any type of gathering, birthday party, whatever it is. I always tell people, just make it normal. It doesn't have to be a weird thing of we have to eat two bowls of buffalo chicken dip. Make your plate as you would if you were eating dinner at home. Or like anytime we have events, like I always make sure we bring something that's higher in protein or higher in fiber. Usually I focus on the fiber'cause that's what falls behind in most areas. So I'll bring something with veggies, but the more you can just normalize it and not feel like you have to go into like party mode and treat your body like a dumpster fire. The easier life is gonna be too. And you're not feeling like you're on and off all the time.

Kerry 36:35

Yeah, my go-to family gathering food sometimes is just the bag of green beans, and then I'll heat it up.

Baylee 36:43

Yes.

Kerry 36:43

or oven and salt, pepper, olive oil, and it's delicious. But sometimes it's just that. But I'm always the one bringing the greens and things like that to the party. And sometimes the kids will make something I like if they're gonna have a dessert, it's fun to have'em make it together. So that's fun, keeping it as an experience, not just the food eating thing, and you mentioned something also like making a plate, right? It's a good idea that they can still make a plate if it's including charcuterie.'cause that's all the protein is there. That's fine. The veggie tray, there you go. Maybe a piece of fruit. But something to make the plate like somewhat of a meal with all the, ingredients or macronutrients that we were talking about. I think that's good. Anything else that you wanna go over and talk about today?

Baylee 37:27

I would say overall it's just thinking about taking the pressure off and the normalizing. I think I, I have a podcast as well and we often come to the theme of, don't make things weird. Like we are very good about making things weird and bigger than what they need to be. It's like eating chicken's not a big deal. Eating some green beans, not a big deal. We just make it feel weird because. How we think about it or how we associate it with our bodies or previous dieting attempts maybe. So I think the more you can normalize and become in tune with your body and understand what is it actually trying to tell me? The bodies are pretty smart. They're always giving you messages and learning how to interpret him that is gonna make you feel better in the long run. And I think with our theme today with like moms and healthcare is. Do the best you can, but also be okay with setting boundaries with your kids. Not everyone's gonna agree with that. Who cares is kinda my opinion. Like not everyone's gonna agree with how I parent in any way, and that is okay. We all have different lives. We've grown up differently. We've learned different things. We know different things. And. So I think just doing your best and being able to set those boundaries. What works for you and your family? Learn more. I think it's never a bad thing to see, okay, what do I need to adjust? If I, if you were listening, you're like, oh, I didn't know that about added sugars. Start looking at added sugars. There was a yogurt when Gannon first started eating foods that I looked at, and it was like marketed towards babies, and I forget what brand it was, but I looked at it and it had 12 grams of added sugar. I was like, absolutely not.

Kerry 39:09

Oh my God, I could beat you. I think we found one at one point it was actually marketed as a Hispanic product, which is not great because I think that sometimes it's one of the vulnerable populations and it had 32 grams of sugar in a yogurt container. And I don't remember the brand, so you definitely gotta read labels, right? Yeah. But

Baylee 39:30

I think in general, like start somewhere. Don't feel like you have to change your family's entire life tomorrow. Just take little steps if it's oh, okay, we've been doing granola bars for breakfast and I looked at it. The sugars were high. It's not a lot of protein. Okay, how about tomorrow we try a banana and peanut butter? Let's see how they like it. Experiment. It might not go well the first time, but that's okay. Just try different things out one step at a time. Start with, okay, maybe we need more movement. Let's take the family on a walk. Walk for five minutes. Even five minutes is better than no minutes. Just taking these little steps at a time I think can be helpful. And every step you do take and you follow through, you're actually building confidence within yourself to be able to do these things. Rather than feeling like I'm a failure. I don't know what to do, I can't commit to anything. Start building that trust within yourself too.

Kerry 40:22

That's super important. Obviously, sometimes we don't trust ourselves and we should, right? I think I like, I usually, think, pick one thing, get that down, go to the next thing, right? There's something small that you could change. In the beginning, right? One thing at a time and then move on to the next thing. So I like to pick apart coffee'cause usually people are putting a lot of sugar or something

Baylee 40:45

Oh yeah.

Kerry 40:46

Sometimes it's just that or so because I, they have, they come in and their hemoglobin A1C is high. I'm like, why do you have prediabetes? And it's like a person who has normal weights and I'm like, something you're doing every single day is affecting this let's see, let's pick it apart and figure out what it's, and sometimes it comes down to coffee. But anyway, I digress. That was an excellent discussion on all things that we may or may not be doing right or wrong with our kids. And, hopefully they're doing all right mine ar e still, they got a long way to go stuck with me

Baylee 41:18

yes.

Kerry 41:19

until they're out of this house. So hopefully I don't mess'em up too much. But you have an even longer way to go.

Baylee 41:24

Yes.

Kerry 41:25

so you mentioned your podcast. Why don't you tell us what that is, and then where can people find you if they wanna work with you?

Baylee 41:32

Yes, my podcast is called Mocktail Minutes. Like cocktails, but like cocktail hour. But we're doing mocktail minutes, so we tend to do shorter episodes and we pick different topics each week of here's what we've been asked about. Here's common conversations that we've had, different things like that. So you can find me on there, or I am also on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook under Baylee, the dietician, all one word, B-A-Y-L-E-E. So you can find me on a bunch of different social medias, and that's where you can usually keep up with me.

Kerry 42:05

Awesome. Thank you so much for being a guest. You're obviously welcome back anytime.

Baylee 42:11

absolutely.

Kerry 42:11

fun. We finally could nail down a day

Baylee 42:13

Yes,

Kerry 42:14

And everybody stay tuned for next week's episode and get healthy Tampa Bay.

Baylee 42:18

Bye everyone.

Kerry 42:19

Bye.