281: Fueling You with Alex D’Elia
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Summary:
What fuels you? Dog walking and pet sitting is hard grueling work that takes a toll on our bodies. If we are not eating the right foods or finding the right balance, we are potentially signing up for a lot of health problems. Alex D'Elia, owner of Olox Nutrition, joins the show to talk about how to fuel our bodies well with the right nutrition. While it depends on your lifestyle, activity, and genetics, there are basic principles we can all follow to lead a healthier, more balanced lifestyle.
Topics on this episode:
Impact of a bad diet
Are all calories made the same?
Recovery foods
Resilience through diet
Gut health
Main take away? A healthy diet and lifestyle starts with being mindful about what you eat and how it impacts you.
About our guest:
Alex is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist with extensive experience nutritionally treating emotional eating, chronic illness, mental health, PMS, and weight management. Her practice focuses on reducing stress and restoring balance; Alex understands that health and wellness are best approached from a whole-person perspective. Alex hopes to empower those who seek healthy change in their lives by providing evidenced-based counseling, empathy, and consistent feedback. In her spare time Alex loves irritating her boyfriend, hiking, panicking about her next instagram post and learning how to cook so she can help others.
Links:
Email: alex@oloxnutrition.com
Website: https://oloxnutrition.com
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
eating, day, people, food, carbohydrates, body, feel, probiotic, nutrition, gut, stress, diet, fats, easy, protein, vegetables, fueling, helped, foods, talking
SPEAKERS
Collin, Alex D’Elia
Collin 00:10
Hello, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin. And this is Pet Sitter confessional and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter brought to you by time to pet. We are what we eat. So if we want to be a dog walker and pet sitter, how do we make sure we are appropriately fueling our bodies for the work that we do? Whether you realize it or not, you're actually doing an extremely athletic and strenuous activity day in and day out. So how do we make sure that our bodies are getting what they need, so that we can be doing the work that people are paying us to do and that we are so passionate about? To answer these questions, we're super excited to have Alex D'Elia, owner of Olox nutrition to talk about what it means to fuel your body correctly, and have balance in your life. A note about the audio in this there was a cable loose while I was recording. So there is a slight hiss on my side. But it's not very noticeable, it it goes away after a little bit. So let's get started.
Alex D’Elia 01:07
Sure, thank you so much for having me. Like you said, I am a nutritionist. So specifically, I'm an integrative and functional dietitian. And my big focus and like you said, balance balance is a big focus. Because my specialty is really mental health, and gut health. And it's interesting, because you know, we all specialize and all these things, but nutrition on a whole 10 If you're feeding yourself well, right, it's going to be good for your body, it's going to be good for your brain, it's going to be good for your gut. So all these things vary, I think a very whole person approach. In my practice, I feel like that's a very
Collin 01:47
different way of approaching nutrition than it was even whenever I grew up, right? Pretty much just like food pyramid, get some of these and you're good to go.
Alex D’Elia 01:58
Don't get me started on the food pyramid. But yeah, even when I was, even when I was younger, I think I was in Weight Watchers by, I don't know, like 16 You know, there was Jenny Craig, the miracle diet SlimFast, there were all these things that were just the whole focus of nutrition was lose weight, be smaller, lose weight, restrict, restrict, restrict, and it's just the landscape has changed dramatically. And thank God,
Collin 02:27
well, now there are a lot of toxic aspects to that of pressures on ourselves that we place ourselves in society, places on ourselves of what quote unquote, healthy is right now taking into a lot of underlying health factors or what we do in a day, or really what are what our goals are. Exactly. When it comes to those diets, you know, that a lot of times people find themselves eating a certain way or doing certain things. How does how does eating poorly impact us?
Alex D’Elia 02:56
So in every single possible way. So eating poorly, right is going to be defined pretty differently for most people, right? Because we're all different. We have bio individuality, we need different things. But when I think of eating poorly, I think high Ultra processed foods, low fruits and vegetables, you know, low hydration, eating one meal a day and not like generally feeling very energized. So what you see from these habits is you see, you see plummeting energy, you see people who have insomnia, you have intense cravings for, you know, sugar or just processed carbohydrates, brain fog, upticks in anxiety and depression, bowel issues, you know, we have a lot of IBS. And you know, that is in part related to how we eat in the population, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, hormone dysregulation. So it affects almost, and it can affect almost everything. Poor nutrition in the same way that good nutrition or balanced nutrition is going to positively impact all of those aspects of life.
Collin 04:11
Well, and especially I hear you talking about all these aspects, again, we're talking more like holistic approach here for busy and active people. Oh, right. Like Like, that's what as dog walkers and pet sitters, we are busy and active people. So now all of a sudden a lot of these things get more compounded with one another. Well,
Alex D’Elia 04:31
exactly. Because when you are very active and when you are very busy. There are more demands on your body. So it's almost it's more imperative that you're eating healthy and you're fueling your body appropriately. Because you're actually reliant on your body functioning the way you need it to function in a day so that you're doing your job well. You're able to keep up with the demands of your position. You don't feel like you're about to crash in the middle of the day. because your blood sugar tanked, or you don't want those highs that come from eating a ton of carbohydrates or sugar, and then you just go flatlined a couple hours later. And people who are busier who take on more stressful situations, they tend to need more nutrition, because your body burns through the calories. It burns through the vitamin differences and minerals more quickly, so it needs more replenishment. So for sure, for dog walkers, pet sitters and any type of very active career path. I think that nutrition is a foundational for daily functioning.
Collin 05:39
You know, for me, you know, in a busy day, there are times where I do feel exhausted. And sometimes it's I kind of coat over that and go, well, obviously, I'm exhausted because I'm busy. I'm doing a lot of things. And very rarely do I sit back and go, Yeah, but what did I have for breakfast? Right? When was the last time I actually ate and what I be feeling like I do right now, if I had to fuel my body correctly.
Alex D’Elia 06:06
Sure. And it's interesting, because along with food, one of the biggest one of the biggest drivers of exhaustion throughout the day is dehydration. And you know, I I forget that sometimes. And I'm like, I forgot it yesterday, it was about 3pm. And I'm just dragging ass. And I'm like, Why do I feel so terrible? And then I realized I hadn't any water since like nine eight. All it took was a couple bottles of water and I started feeling more alive again. So absolutely. Like what do you eat? Absolutely is going to dictate how you feel right? Like, do you have protein? Do you have carbohydrates? Do you have fruits? Do you have vegetables? Are you fueling? And also this idea of hydration? Are you drinking enough water? Are you staying on top of that, and I find that especially busy people, that is one like eating enough. And drinking enough water are two of the hardest things to sort of incorporate into the day for them,
Collin 07:04
we get busy, we forget about it. You know, I leave the morning and I have left my water bottle at the house. And then I just kind of turned top it through right when it comes when it comes to drinking water. Does it matter what we drink? I know there are a lot of electrolytes and sports drinks and things like that that are marketed to us. But do we do we need that is that something that can be beneficial to us,
Alex D’Elia 07:26
I would say that electrolytes might be beneficial for dog walkers in the summer in like very, very high heat when you guys are out there walking for maybe 10 to 12 hours a day. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't necessarily go to like Powerade or Gatorade or something like that, because they tend to be very high sugar formulation. And I don't have at this moment, a great alternative recommendation. But I will send you one later on. So that if you want you can share that with the listeners, I'll send you a couple of recommendations of things.
Collin 08:03
We'll have all those in the show notes and on the website later. So we can have those resources because it is difficult to find sometimes not just an alternative, but just a first choice like where do I start with this planning? Where do I start with what's a good or bad option? Four, I think what's really important you kind of lead with this a little bit about poor diet, but like for me, right? Like it's a reminder that just because something's out there, and it's helped somebody else doesn't mean that's going to be beneficial for me in the way my body is.
Alex D’Elia 08:33
And that's kind of the cornerstone of like the nutrition influencer, right. So somebody who's not a professional, but they've done something that's worked for them. And I think they come from a genuine place of do this, this will help you when they can't possibly understand all the different variables that one individual is facing, right? So and it's different to throughout your lifetime, what would have worked ideally for you in your 20s isn't going to necessarily be the thing that's going to be best for you and your 40s. So, the with that, right, like with this personalized idea of nutrition, so many factors come into play. And one of the biggest ones is you are the expert on your body, you know, what affects your body. And I think we've we've become a little detached from that, right? Because that's the practice of mindfulness, understanding how what you're eating or what you're drinking, or what you're doing is actually affecting how you feel. So like a first step is starting to recognize those changes. You know, like, when I eat a bag of Doritos, do I feel better or worse and like in about an hour? Because you're the expert in that and then where we come in with personalization is what are your lab values? What are your symptoms? What are you trying to achieve? You know, and that's where other different therapeutic diets may come into play because you'll see like, people love of the Keto. And then there's people who are just like aggressively against it. And in the middle, there is a very therapeutic use for ketogenic diets. And for some people, it will be helpful, even if it's not permanent. It can be very helpful in a therapeutic capacity. And it's been proven to be incredibly therapeutic in epilepsy. So I think there's just too much black and white in this field.
Collin 10:25
I love how you said that of like, we are the experts in our body. And only we can say how a lot of sugar makes us feel how over on carbs makes us feel or, you know, it's just as you said, just going down if it's as simple as I don't know, like writing in a journal about what you ate that day and how you're feeling at the beginning and end of the day to start bringing in some of this mindfulness because I love looking at trends in my life, you know, I track my sleep, like religiously, and try and figure out why did I sleep awesome. Last night? Why did I sleep poorly that night? And that's just obviously one example. But when you start doing some of these things, you can really go wow, on Tuesdays, my favorite things to go out on Tuesdays, I sleep awful. Why is that? Well, it turns out on Mondays are my really, really busy days, and I don't write and then all of a sudden, like, okay, so how do I change Mondays, but we only get to that point, where if we start looking and paying attention, right, it takes,
Alex D’Elia 11:25
it takes a forward motion there and a realization and like an action. And then I do want to say something, though, about all diets in particular, right? Whether it's paleo, even keto, now, it can be whole 30, South Beach, all of these trendy things, you're starting to see that at the cornerstone of all of them is a ton of vegetables, and save the ketogenic diet, a fair amount of fruits. So it's a very, very high protein space. So if we're thinking about, like, if an individual is thinking, Alright, what do I do, I'm not ready to go full hog. I don't know how I want to commit, but I want to feel better, right? Like, I just want to start feeling better. I think fruits and vegetables are always a great place to start gauging how much you're taking in and then trying to reach, say, a minimum of five to six servings of vegetables a day, and a couple servings of fruit a day. And I think that that's like a very easy sort of foundational steps, no matter what direction you kind of want to go in with your diet
Collin 12:30
that starts with just recognizing, again, going like, how many would have been last time I had some squash, right? Like, yeah.
Alex D’Elia 12:39
And it's literally at the end of the day, just taking stock sometimes, like, Did I eat a vegetable today? How many did I have? And how many do I have to stuff in my face? Now? You know, like, what do I have to do to hit those gaps? So yeah, so again, it's this practice of mindfulness, because and I think that that's with any change, you know, with any change that we're going to make we, the first step is acknowledging that something does need to happen, and then setting a plan, I'm also really not big in my program. It's a, we're, we're moving forward quickly with a lot of change, right? Because you have me. So it's a lot different than what I would say to somebody who just wants to start making changes. You know, we have all these ideas in our head about how we want to feel what we want to do. And, you know, anytime we need to make a change, whether it's in our sleep, whether it's in our food, whether it's in, you know, our communication with other people, it all starts with that acknowledgement that like mindful acknowledgement in the beginning.
Collin 13:45
Yeah, I think part of that, too, is also recognizing food as medicine. Right? And recognizing you touched on that when you're talking about some Dyersville. Like there are some therapeutic aspects to this. And I know that was a mind shift change for Megan and I, oh, five years ago, now, really, when we were getting ready to have kids where I was like, Oh my gosh, like there's okay, this is a whole different way of thinking about what I'm putting into my body and not viewing all things as equal going okay, there are better things for me to eat and I actually going to prevent things. And so how do we where does that idea come from exclude as medicine and what does it mean to actually start applying that in our days?
Alex D’Elia 14:24
So I don't know where it originally came from, but I do know that it is kind of a cornerstone and integrative and functional nutrition and medicine. So what is medicine is an interesting, it's an interesting concept, right? Because there are so a lot of conventional practitioners who don't view it as such right. You know, diet can take you so far, you know, very heavy still on the allopathic medication driven sort of thought process, but we're starting able to see through research. And I mean, for years and years, people have seen in practice that changing the way we eat can fundamentally change the way we live and how we live. And I think that it is very under sold in society at large. Like, I think the government under sells at the food industry under sells it, you know, because it I mean, it doesn't benefit the food industry right now to say like, eating differently than what we're talking at you is going to change your life dramatically. But we know and I know, personally from this, like I have bipolar. And I'm largely regulated through food, supplementation and lifestyle. And I don't take medication for it. And that's not to say medication is good or bad in this scenario, because if I had to take medication, all of these things that I do, would just help the medication work better. So I think that when we talk about food as medicine, it's about living your ideal life, your idealized life, like living every day really well, feeling great, as opposed to just functioning and getting by.
Collin 16:16
And recognizing that not all calories are made the same, because there's other things attached to them, right, I've got yeah, there's a full nutrition label there for a reason, it's filled with stuff. And I need to know what the stuff is doing to me and how it helped makes me feel at the end of the day.
Alex D’Elia 16:35
Yeah, that's a big thing, right? Like, you were talking about what has changed over time. And I think it's this drive away from calories being the main thing that we look to, because you can eat, say you're on a diet, right, and it calls for 1500 calories, for some reason that you can eat 1500 calories of doughnuts, or cookies, or bread, or you could eat 1500 calories of really great proteins, really great carbohydrates, lots of vegetables, lots of fresh foods, seeds, nuts, all these things. And you're gonna have two very different pictures of health, you might both like both of those dynamics may create weight loss. But one is building health, and one is driving inflammation and gut issues and disease. And it doesn't and like I think that shift away from calories has also driven the shift away from, you know, weight is the biggest predictor of health,
Collin 17:34
helping us again, look at, again, this more holistic approach and how we're going to apply it in our days, right? And because I know, it took me a while to just get away from Oh, look at this food item and look at the nutrition label, and then immediately just scan calories and move on. Right. It's it, we think it's an easy way to, to to understand how we're operating and what's going on. But just taking a few moments to scan a little bit further down, especially as busy people, right, we don't have a lot of time. So when it comes to when it comes to busy people and active people, and I think too often dog walkers and pet sitters forget that it's a very physical activity. It's a physical job. What kinds of things should we be looking at? Obviously, we know that there's a per individual on the label. Yeah, that needs a candle. But how do we start going, Okay, I lead a physical life, I'm active. What kind of fuel do I need to be bringing into into my body?
Alex D’Elia 18:30
So honestly, it would be. So if we're talking about labels, if we're talking about food labels, real quick, what I would say is you want to take a look at your fiber and your protein, right? You want to make sure that there's a balance through your macronutrients, and that you're getting at least three grams of fiber, if it's appropriate, right? Like you're not going to get that on the label of like a steak, because that's going to be protein. But when we talk about packaged goods, sometimes what I tried to compare is, you know, you got Ultra processed and problematic, and then we have better for you processed, right, like better for you brands and things that are more helpful. or less detrimental. I would say to your overall health, we're living in a really great time for that, right. There are so many brands, so many products that are actually just they're so much better than what we were, you know, their alternatives to Helman, which has a bunch of different like chemical names that I can't, you know, recall right now or really even like pronounced correctly, but we have whole food alternatives where you can get a mayo that has, you know, it's vinegars eggs, it's citric acid, it's stuff that we know. And then when we think about, like you were saying, for a dog walker, or a busy person in a day, kind of where would you start, the first place I would start is having more than one meal a day, right? Having food available throughout the day. That's number one, because I think that's the big thing, right? When you're driving from house to house or you're going from location to location, there's not always time to To grab food and even if you are grabbing food, what are you grabbing? Right? Are you going through drive thru? Are you going to Deli? What are you doing? So packing your own food and having like a refrigerated bag or something in your vehicle with you that's portable and can hold fresh food would be a number one, just so you have access in the same way that having like a steel water bottle as opposed to plastic is going to be very beneficial because especially in the heat, you don't want that plastic heating up, because then you get little microplastics in the water, we want to avoid that. So you want to get a good durable steel water bottle. And then when we think about the content of the meals, especially with the amount of activity, we want to see carbohydrates, proteins, vegetables, and or fruit, and some good fats with say your two to three main meals of the day. And then when you're thinking of snacks, you want to try and combine components, right like so an apple with peanut butter gives us we get a fruit, we get some really good fats, and we get a little bit of protein or cheddar cheese and grapes, again, a little bit and bonus point if it's raw cheddar cheese, because then it has some live probiotics in it. So we got a little protein, fat, carbohydrates in the fruit. So thinking about it in terms of that, like what is in front of me, what am I eating? Am I getting my component?
Collin 21:36
Access is huge. And I know that that takes a little bit of planning and getting these materials all together. But what we are trying to do is we're trying to avoid in those last minute, you know, ditch desperation efforts running into the gas station, grabbing stuff off the shelves or going through the drive thru. Nothing wrong with that. But when we start building in these habits, we start filling ourselves with things that aren't actually helping us
Alex D’Elia 22:00
in. Yeah. Yeah, so actually, Dan, my husband when he is out and he has not brought food or listened to me generally about what you should be taking. All of a sudden I get a call because he always confesses. He's like I'm eating Cheetos and like, all right. Okay. Well, how do you feel? Release drinking some water. So, yeah, I there is that limitation of access, right? If you don't have time to? Well, we're also in a good age to like a good age, who am I, we're in a good time period to where all of these like we were talking about the processed foods have just become healthier, and we have healthier options. There's also better fast food places like Wendy's, you can kind of finagle a good lunch out of that, like you can get a salad with grilled chicken, you know, and has walnuts. And you could also get a baked potato there, right? So we just got a big bowl of vegetables, protein, and a baked potato. So we got a good carb for a decent price and very quickly. So there are ways of navigating fast food as well. And it just looks a little different than maybe what most people are used to when they go into those places.
Collin 23:22
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23:27
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Collin 23:47
If you are looking for new pet sitting software, give time to pet a try, listeners of our show can save 50% off your first three months by visiting timed pet.com/confessional. When you were talking about how to kind of plan out things to look for in that day, you mentioned things you know carbs, proteins, veggies, fruits, and some good fats and two words popped out to me that I know kind of get a bad rap in the world, carbs and fats. So So talk a little bit more about those in how do we know good versus bad and how they help
Alex D’Elia 24:20
us. So there are more beneficial fats, right. And these tips like avocado is a great source of fat. You know, we have some whole food sources like nuts, seeds, avocados, nut butters, those are fantastic for you. And then some of the good oils are coconut oil, avocado oil, olive oil, extra virgin olive oil, and I think everybody knows about extra virgin olive oil at this point. And these are all very beneficial to satiety, they help keep us both. What's interesting is fats are incredibly healthy for you and the more research we see the more we know about this. It's just I think all fats kind of get lumped in with the saturated fat, the trans fat. And then you have monounsaturated polyunsaturated, which are considered your good fats, and it becomes this whole swirly mess of information that can be difficult to parse out. But again, if we rely on bio individuality and how it makes people feel, then there are certain things that we do know when we know that eating cholesterol doesn't necessarily raise cholesterol levels. That's actually a little bit more tied to process carbohydrates. Same thing with your triglycerides and saturated fat from eating very fatty meat on a very consistent basis. Now, I also really think meat is important because it's helpful for the brain, so that I can understand how the information can be confusing, right. But if we focus in on these whole food, good oil sources, then getting fat can be incredibly beneficial to health. And then carbohydrates are like the biggest thing that people bring up constantly, right? Yeah. So. So with carbs, it's really interesting, because they've been villainized. And I'll often hear people say, like, I'm not eating carbohydrates. I'm just eating, you know, like sweet potato and brown rice. Now, I understand why they don't think that those would be considered carbs in the way that we view them. But this is what's happened is that really, really good carbohydrates aren't being recognized in that category. And the entire category is being misaligned by like cookies, donuts, chips, pancakes, muffins. And that's all people think about when they think of carbohydrates. When carbohydrates are actually our body's preferred fuel source. Our brain loves cars, it thrives on cards, our gut thrives on carbohydrates, fiber feeds our good gut bacteria. So it really really comes down to the type of carbohydrate and that's where we want to see a lot of really whole food sources like beans lagoons, unless you've got issues, right, like unless you're you can't digest them properly. And that's a whole different thing. You know, being pastas, whole grains, potatoes, sweet potatoes, fruits, and vegetables are carbohydrates, then they're non starchy and starchy. So I think that and we're starting to see the whole the veil lifted on that. But yeah, like, carbs are exceptional for you good fats are exceptional for you, exceptional for you, and no single food group is going to necessarily make you more or less healthy. It's about how everything kind of flows in your day together.
Collin 27:50
Yeah, bringing back in that balance of not just like, it's him doing an assessment of like, what's my activity, and then am I fueling that activity appropriately, and we can over fuel we can under fuel and we can end up on hurting on the back end, especially not just in the short term, but also long term impacts over over our life.
Alex D’Elia 28:11
We're actually pretty intuitive creatures when we're eating our perception of what we need changes dramatically when we eat highly processed foods, when we're eating mainly Whole Foods, and we're really focusing in on those cornerstones. You know, like, really good protein sources, really good carb sources, really good fat sources, high produce, we tend to eat what we need, and don't really need to regulate calories too much. At least that's been my experience. And that's what we've seen in some research, obviously limited. But when you're eating well, you don't really have to worry too much about the minutiae. You just have to make sure you're consistently feeding yourself in the way that is good for your body.
Collin 29:01
Well, I know that there is discussion a lot especially with with athletes, and with working out there's, there's there's the fueling our bodies, and then there's this recovery side of things. So do I do I need to worry about a different intake or different foods for recovery? Or can I again, just kind of focus on how I'm feeling?
Alex D’Elia 29:23
So I guess, while one this isn't fully my wheelhouse, right, like, extreme athleticism and, you know, weightlifting and all of that, like when you need to feel of what you need to recover is not fully in my wheelhouse, but I do know there are differences there. For the average person like even if you're working out very intensely. Like it all kind of is about the same, right? Like we need the carbs, we need the protein we need the balance we need. Sometimes we need electrolytes. Sometimes we need more carbs. hydrates if we're more active, but as far as how do you need to feel yourself like post workout if you're lifting heavy, and if you're trying to make gains and all that, I'm not probably the best person to ask for that.
Collin 30:13
It's a good reminder to us that, again, it's dependent on our activity, it's dependent on what we're doing, and that we don't need to go out and try and be recovering like these intense meal, big mega athletes and superstar weightlifters and bodybuilders when our activity doesn't match that right, but we're not we're not trying to be like that in our diet and our lifestyle. So we can we can bring, again, this a little bit more balance into what we're trying to do.
Alex D’Elia 30:41
And I think also you want to take into account like what your goals are, right? Like the personalization thing really pops up constantly? Sure. What do you want to do? How do you want to feel? What do you want your body to look like? And it's all valid, it doesn't matter what the answer is. And then when you reach out to a specialist who can help you, but then you start to look, start looking into more specific ways that you can manipulate your body mass, basically, because that's what this all is. That's what that becomes when you're going for very specific goals that way.
Collin 31:16
I know one of your missions, in your business and personal life is to help people reduce stress, and again, restore this balance that they have in their lives. Being a dog walker, and pet sitter is pretty stressful. So I'd love to hear you talk about impacts of stress on our body and kind of the role of diet in managing some of that in our lives.
Alex D’Elia 31:39
So yeah, everything can be stressful, right? Just physical stress, just doing a heavy workout, which has a net positive causes physical stress. And that's kind of I think, an idea of recovery there that we can touch on. Nutrition is so important to how we manage because it can actually help our body rebound, right, it helps our body become more resilient to those stressors. And that's what we want, we want to hit stress, we want to hit our high and then we want to come back to regulated. And proper nutrition does that because you need your cells to be properly fueled. So again, it's this idea of vitamins, minerals, appropriate amounts of proteins to repair muscle appropriate amount of carbohydrates to keep your brain fueled, because when we're overstressed a lot of things happen, we become exhausted, our brains get foggy, we can't concentrate, we feel depleted at the end of the day, right? So you get off of work. And you may have thought wanted to do all of these things. But if you're in a constant state of stress, all you can manage is maybe popping something in the microwave and then just sitting in front of the TV. And I think that's a cycle that most of us can relate to, at some point in our lives. And you just you're kind of on this hamster wheel of exhaustion, you wake up, you go to work, you come home, you sit down, you watch TV, because it's all you can handle. So what I've seen in my practice is that when we cut out a lot of the added chemicals, a lot of the added preservatives, the added sugars, the processed foods, and we start supplementing correctly, you start becoming more energized, you start having the bandwidth, to maybe do little practices throughout the day, that actually help with that stress reduction. So it's not not to think that in the middle of the day, in the middle of your very busy day, take five minutes out to debrief, that's going to put you back into your parasympathetic nervous system, and it's going to help you then decompress. And now you're going to move into your next action with more resilience and calm. And it's about incorporating not just food, but the practices that are going to help you come down and help you get back to a baseline that allows you to make the good decision on the food right or make a better choice in terms of how you're going to navigate your day or what things are going to look like. So it's actually a multi pronged thing. With it again, it's like a very whole person thing. It always is like it's the most annoying answers like it depends. But I would stress stress is the biggest driver of everything. That is negative it's it's incredibly important for our bodies to be stressed, right? We need stress, it helps us move forward. We need that. We need that release of cortisol sometimes to pop us into action, like anxiety isn't always a bad thing. But it's when we get stuck in this constant state of stress this constant state of anxiety where we're literally in a fight or flight, state most At a time, that is when we become exhausted, that is when we reach for the bag of Doritos or the muffin or the bagel instead of being able to take the time to think, okay, how can I get a good source of protein? Where can I get some good feeling carbohydrates? And that is all. It's so important, so heavily tied to your food and your mood and all of that. Yeah,
Collin 35:23
well, that gets a little bit about back to what you were talking about resilience is being able to rebound and come down. But when we're constantly stuck in that sympathetic nervous system that fight or flight, that is there's a pre programmed set of directives that our body obeys, in how it's going to process food, what it's going to crave and how you're going to respond. That's why we reach for those things. Because your body's like, I need lots of calories. I need lots of things right now, because we got to run. We're being chased by the woolly mammoth, something bad's gonna happen. And if we're, if we keep ourselves in an elevated state of being chased by a woolly mammoth all day, right with that impacts, all sorts of things. And it just takes five minutes or so to pull back, put flip on the rational brain go from lizard to rational, and go, there's no woolly mammoth right now. I can breathe a little bit. I am not,
Alex D’Elia 36:13
I'm not in imminent danger, things would be okay.
Collin 36:17
But like you said, we, we often off, you know, we can go to the other side and now demonize stress and go, No, anytime I'm stressed, it's bad. But then all of a sudden, I'm stressed about being stressed, because I'm not I'm not supposed to be stressed. And so what I do, I stress a logically, that's what I do. And we get caught in that cycle. And that can was where we start leading through some of these things in our days. And building in those moments of just, you know, can start with scheduling go, Okay, this is my schedule for the day, I've got all these visits, I got all these walks, but on this one, I'm going to pull into that driveway, and I'm not going to get out of my car immediately. I'm going to sit in my car for five minutes and just breathe, and focus. And I if I do that a couple times, I've had a couple of these touch points throughout my day, I'm going to end the day better than even when I started. So I'm set up for tomorrow, in a good place.
Alex D’Elia 37:02
Exactly. And I think that that's really important that you said the planning aspect of it, because everything we're talking about really requires some level of planning, it doesn't have to be intense, it doesn't have to be, you know, so overwhelming that it becomes its own barrier. But there does have to be a measure of planning, right? Like, you need to know what you're going to get at the grocery store, you need to have the available like canisters or like dishes or like a refrigerator bag, you need things and you need to know how to utilize them to make all of these things worthwhile, right? Like, if you know that you have trouble sitting with yourself for five minutes, you need to know that there's an app and you need to have the app downloaded on your phone like it could be Insight Timer can be headspace, you can use calm. You need to plan and have your resources available. With anything that you do that you want to shift or change, right?
Collin 38:03
Yeah, yeah, it starts with going what's what's my end goal, what do I want, and then working backwards from there, right? I love that I'm going, I want to be more calm at the end of the day, okay, I need to build in more space to sit still. Okay, I need to find that space. Okay, now I need to have things available to me during that time. Now I need like, and now I need to remember to silence my phone. And now I need to start like it just kind of it's just build out, just take one step at a time. And like you said, that's how we get to that point of change is when we recognize the steps, the action steps that I have to take, right? It's the action steps that I have to do. And then I can start implementing, we're all great at following a plan, we just we have to come up with a plan ourselves
Alex D’Elia 38:44
to do it. And that's always the thing. And I think also, you know, they call them smart goals, I think often we set a goal, that is a result, right? As opposed to the actions that need to be taken to get that result. And that's what you see often like, especially with weight loss, and I'll just use that as an example. It's, oh, I want to lose 20 pounds. That's my goal. But it's on a goal, right? Because that's a result. What do you need to change to help you get to that goal? And I mean, that results? Because those are the goals. You know, whether it's making sure you're exercising at least 30 minutes a day or making sure you're eating a certain type of food, or did you? I don't know, check in with your health coach, or did you call your family because that makes you feel good. So then everything's easier? It's there's just all these things that go into taking care of ourselves.
Collin 39:40
Yeah, there is in recognizing that we have control an agency to do that. And I think that's a big point point. No, I can change and I might not be happy where I am right now. But I can change I may need help. I may need to pull in a team I need to get some resources but change change is possible. If I'm not if I don't like how I'm feeling right like this stress. I can change the diet do mindfulness and do these other,
Alex D’Elia 40:02
these other practices. And I think a big, and this also gets lost a lot is you can love yourself and you can appreciate your body and you can appreciate the things that it does for you and still want to change. In fact, when you come from that place of love, and acceptance for yourself, you have an easier time changing because now you're not constantly railing against yourself and you're not looking at everything defensively or negatively, you're looking at everything positively. And that mindset shift, which is relatively new in this field is so helpful with change.
Collin 40:38
I know that for Megan and I, we kind of got exposed to that when we were having our first child. And we had some great wonderful midwives that helped her and us recognize a lot of the like, thanking her body and that it was capable. And then it was able and that we can't can do these things. It was made to do this kind of thing. And when we start viewing ourselves and our body as like thanking our body as an asset as important to us, like, it really does start to go okay, now now that I've recognized the my body and what it does, I'm more willing to change, right, do additional things to help me get to where I want to go.
Alex D’Elia 41:16
Yeah, exactly. And I think another thing with change, and another thing with doing all these things is looking for non physical goals, or non physical outcomes of what you're doing, because and that's a big shift, we talked about what's different, that's a huge shift, because maybe you do want to be a certain weight. But in the meantime, with the shifts that you're making, you can think clearer, you have more energy throughout the day, you sleep better, you feel stronger, you feel more capable, you know, those are very, very important. milestones in change. And they often get overlooked when all we focus on is, you know, weight or physical appearance, you know, and those are harder physical appearance. And weight is a much harder results to obtain, when that's all you set out to do. And that's not that's just what I've experienced throughout my own personal lifetime. And with all of like the hundreds of clients that I've seen over the past almost decade. If the only thing you're after, is a physical change, just like you know, appearance or weight, it becomes very difficult, because it's very easy to say, Oh, I'll start on Monday. Oh, I'll start tomorrow. Forget it. I messed up today. But when you're really chasing, feeling optimally, when you really want to feel good, you want to feel capable in your own body, it becomes a lot easier to make those choices.
Collin 42:52
It really does. And it's it's, it's also, there's less pressure from you. You don't have to battle as much outside influence. Yeah, we are focusing on internal feelings like, Man, I slept great last night. And there's not an Instagram post that's gonna make me feel different about that at all. Because I feel that right. Like, I woke up feeling amazing. But I am impacted when I see the Instagram post of all those beautiful happy people running around doing all their shores. In fact, we also did it, I feel as though for me, those winds come a lot easier when we start looking inwardly. First.
Alex D’Elia 43:29
Yeah, and we talked about stress and like social media is one of the biggest drivers of stress for people everywhere, in every way, especially with, like, I can't overstate that enough. We were never meant to consume this much information about other people and have this just access to so many people's lives and realities. And it becomes very easy to start comparing yourself and feeling bad about you know, what you're doing versus what they're doing. Like while building my business while I'm still building my business. I sometimes get caught up in that where I'm looking at other people in my field and there's got these huge followings. They're doing so great. And I'm like, full, I'm failing clearly failed and you know, and it's just so easy to get into that negative self talk. And it's the same thing. Because nutrition is one of the it's one of the most pervasive topics on social media. You know, it's just everywhere everybody's talking about food, everybody's telling you what they ate, everybody's telling you how you should eat. You know, love your body, but change it don't change it. But also you can't love it. If it's not like there's so many conflicting like, stop it. Yeah. And so if we want to reduce stress, I would limit social media as much as possible. You know, to like, as much as you possibly can. Right? Reasonable Right,
Collin 45:00
right. Right. So what would you still have? You know, there's like, there's business aspects and things like that. That starts with positive aspects to it do Yeah, yeah. And I think that just starts with knowing my purpose for getting on whenever I flip on and going, Okay, what's, what's my what's, what's my goal? What's the result I want after having been on this, and then right, jump off what's not to scroll in this link?
Alex D’Elia 45:21
And that mindfulness do of knowing like a curating your own sort of feed in a positive way, like, not following things that really get you all jacked up or upset? And really just focusing on positive? Like, what is positive for you? Right?
Collin 45:38
I know an aspect that is growing in, in the science and the literature in the acceptance is the relationship between diet stress and our gut. And so I would like to hear from you. How important is gut health? And it really, what does that even mean for us?
Alex D’Elia 45:57
jury's still out. So that how, and so gut health is so important, we're finding now for every single aspect of our body and for most disease process. So even with certain chronic diseases, like like diabetes, or cardiovascular disease, people who struggle with those, they have different micro biomes compared to healthy individuals. So again, right, all that, all that says is, we know that in a disease state, your microbiome looks different. So can we use that information to change your microbiome, to help reduce the incidence of disease, that's kind of where this whole thing is going. We also know that there's communication between the brain and our gut, the vagal nerve. So it's this bi directional, I guess, communication highway, I think I've seen it spoken of is that where they're working, they're communicating. So if you're a really easy way of understanding that is when you get super nervous before something, and maybe you get diarrhea, you know, like you get, you get the nervous shift. And that's one of I think, the easiest, or you get butterflies in your stomach before a presentation, or a lot of people get constipated actually before, like during travel. And it's all these ways that we see actually stress imposing itself on the way our gut is going to function. And then in the other sense, if we have a permeable gut, if we have too much pathogenic bacteria, if we have too much bacteria in general, and small intestine, now we start seeing different disease states pop up, like SIBO, and IBS, and then those affects our brains negatively. It's just, it's such a new area of research, and we're learning so much. So it's very exciting. And I, you know, I use it constantly, in my own practice, because I'm a Brain and gut health dietitian. So I'm looking at stool samples, lab values, like going through everything basically. To figure out like, okay, how can we optimize your health? And what do we have to do with your gut? Like, do we need to heal it? What are you know, are you digesting properly? So there's so much that we don't know, but we're learning so much. And it's incredibly exciting.
Collin 48:42
Yeah, I guess in your understanding role of probiotics, I know that that's a big world. In our in that we see a lot of are there they're more or less beneficial ones are how do we know if we need to be on a probiotic for for gut health?
Alex D’Elia 48:58
So again, that's a very, so annoying, but it depends. Right, like it's, you know, it's hard to know. So we have a lot of broad spectrum probiotics out there and the science is honestly mixed. We do know that there are specific diseases like IBD, there is a specific very broad spectrum. Probiotic called VSL, three, number three that has been positively indicated in inflammatory bowel disease. In the integrative and functional side, you know, when you have SIBO, which is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, that's something where you're going to want to potentially avoid broadspectrum conventional and maybe you want to go to spore based and then that you have Candida overgrowth in your body or you know, thrush or something like that you might want to do the yeast based probiotic like sacrum My lordy as opposed to broadspectrum because it all depends on tolerance and is this helping. So again, probiotics, I would if you're just the average person who's looking to increase their probiotic intake, I would look to Food First, I would go with fermented vegetables, you can do pickles, fermented cabbage, kimchi, sauerkraut, pickled foods, then we have fermented dairy, soy, yogurt, kefir, cottage cheese, these are really great ways to just sort of naturally bring in some probiotic influences into your gut. And then the other thing that is really helpful is prebiotic foods, because that actually feeds the bacteria in your gut. So those are actually most high fiber foods. So bananas, and apples or prebiotics, Jerusalem, artichoke, chicory, and Ulan. Basically, most tol, vegetables are going to end with a fiber contents are going to help feed the good bacteria in your gut. So I would start food first, unless there's a very specific condition that you're trying to treat. And then I would really lean on a professional who is aware of the different probiotic strains and aware of the different gut conditions and how the two can like benefit.
Collin 51:29
Links, our discussion of food first, and food is medicine. And whenever I start changing this whole thing, right, there are going to be impacts and I'm going to start I may discover that there's an issue that I didn't even know there was, it was masked by a bunch of inflammation or a bad improper balance of foods that I have before. Or I might start saying like, Oh, wow, this is holistically changing how I feel from from head to toe, right? And everything in between. And it's, but it's just, it's kind of making these changes and seeing what happens, and then making a change and seeing what happens. Yeah, being patient and giving things time to, to manifest themselves in our bodies and knowing okay, this, there's gonna be a lot of impacts from this. Yeah, as I start changing my diet, my stress levels and regulating these things differently, that I'm just gonna, you know, again, being mindful enough writing down those changes in a journal or something so that you know, when those happens,
Alex D’Elia 52:18
and there is like a lot to be said, and like I said, right, you know, in a program like mine, or in anything where you're with a health coach or a dietitian, and you're say, going full speed ahead, you do see changes quickly, right? Like you do see things change within a week, within two weeks, or three weeks. But it's mostly about how you feel right? Like, within the first week or two, of making large shifts, you can have more energy, you can sleep better, you can do all these things. But again, like I said, with a professional because it becomes very difficult not to fall into disordered eating, not to understand how to reincorporate food not to know which foods to take out and what things you need to supplement it becomes. But when you do have that relationship with a practitioner, you can make a lot of progress relatively quickly. And if you're not making progress quickly, the practitioner then needs knows. Alright, what do we need to look at that, right? Like, where do we need to do extra testing? Where should we potentially exclude or include different foods or different supplements? And you you can address these things in real time? Well, so
Collin 53:32
Alex, thinking about everything that we've talked about. And this holistic approach, when when you send Dan out there to go walk dogs, what kind of what kind of foods are you encouraging him to eat or take with him for a busy day.
Alex D’Elia 53:47
So Dan, is actually very lucky where we are on Long Island. So we know the places to go for him to go get, say like a grilled chicken salad and some roasted potatoes, or I typically have him I like him to go heavy with protein and vegetables, and then do moderate carbohydrates just because of what his body needs. So I like to encourage him to get protein at every meal, because that helps your body metabolize carbohydrates slower and gives you more lasting energy. And honestly, you can do that at Chipotle, you can get some meat, you can get some beans, you know, go easy on the rice. If you're doing beans, you can load it up with as many vegetables as you want. And just you know, depending on what your goals are, you know, pick and choose the different things that you put on there. And I would say that unless it's a special occasion, try to avoid the fried chips, because that's gonna drag you down a little in the middle of the day. But yeah, for him, it's really did you get enough protein? Did you get enough vegetables? Why haven't you had any water since exam this morning?
Collin 55:00
That's well, it's it's a, it's a reminder to us that we It doesn't have to be overly complicated, right? Like, it's not like there are simple things to do. There are places to go. It takes a little bit of planning and understanding what our week is going to look like giving ourselves time. Yeah. What else? Do I have time to eat in my schedule? Maybe I should separate these things out a little bit. And then, knowing that, once I have that bag, once I have refrigerated thing, once I'm listening to my body, I'm going to just start making these little changes. And we're going to see where this goes.
Alex D’Elia 55:33
Yeah, and think about portable, right? If you bring in your own food, baby character, easy grape, grape tomatoes, out there called grape tomatoes. Yeah, nothing sounds right in my head, you know, grapes, apples, bananas, those are easy nuts and seeds, they're easy to pack and keep with you, you know, tuna salad, salmon, salad, chicken salads, all really easy things to bring with faceid Crackers, or, you know, some sort of a wrap to put it in, you can do healthy sandwiches, we have great alternative bread options now. It's really, like you said it's about preparation, having the foods on hand taking a look at your day and thinking, Okay, what do I need for the day?
Collin 56:17
Alex, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing us with all that you've shared. I know it's been a ton of information. But it's all been super helpful to start wrapping our brains around exactly how our diet and stress impact us throughout the day, and how we can take these little steps to making ourselves feel better, and making sure that we're getting what we need. I know there's a lot and as we said multiple times, it depends. It depends. And it's individual.
Alex D’Elia 56:42
Enjoying statement.
Collin 56:46
Just like just like a lawyer, well, maybe I don't know. So if someone has has questions or wants to reach out, get in touch, look at all that you have going on? Where can they get started?
Alex D’Elia 57:00
They can go to my website, oh, lox, nutrition.com. And there, there are a couple different ways you can reach out to me, I think you could send just a question through a forum if you have a general question that you want some answers on. Or you can schedule a food and mood clarity call with me on the scheduling page there. I'm also on Instagram, and I just got an assistant. So she's going to help me actually make content. I O locks nutrition. So those are the two main things. You can also email me directly at Alex at Oh, locks nutrition.com.
Collin 57:31
Perfect. And I will have again links to all of those in the show notes and more resources that you send along about some of the things that we've talked about, so that we can start fueling our bodies better and feeling better to So Alex, this has been a real joy and real pleasure. I want to thank you so much for your time today. And thank you for coming on.
Alex D’Elia 57:51
All right, thank you so much for having me. Like Alex
Collin 57:53
said so many times throughout the interview. It depends. It depends on your body. It depends on your genetics, it depends on your lifestyle, there are so many things that we have to take into account when we look at the food that we put into our bodies to make sure that we are fueling ourselves appropriately. diet and nutrition is such a personalized aspect of our lives. It's really hard to have anybody or any one person tell us exactly what we should eat without looking at us. And with us having input as to how it's making us feel and how we need to be operating. We've said it before and we'll continue to say it petsitting is a business that runs on us and our bodies. If we aren't feeling ourselves if we aren't taking care of ourselves or taking and finding a balance in our lives, we won't be able to continue providing the service that we're so passionate about. How do you fuel yourself. We'd love to hear how you keep operating and the food that you eat to maintain that balance in your life. You can send that to feed back at Pet Sitter confessional.com Or anywhere on social media. We really want to thank our sponsor today time to pet for making today's show possible. And we really want to thank you for listening. We're so thankful for you and we hope you're able to take care of yourself and continue feeding yourself. Well. We'll be back again soon.
