In this episode of Finding Your Balance, hosts Tiffani Fritzsche and Kirk Fasshauer welcome special guest Rita Langford, DSW, LCSW, RD, LD, CDCES, on the podcast. Rita is the founder of Hope Restored Counseling of Florida and has piloted a new path of mental health treatment as a social work dietitian. Rita shares how our bodies process food and how it impacts our mental health. Tune in to learn nutrition tips, discover how the body breaks down nutrients for optimal mental well-being, and how you can find your balance between eating healthy while still enjoying some of your favorite comfort foods.

00:00 Tiffani

Welcome to Finding Your Balance and Mental Health Podcast. My name is Tiffani Fritzsche. I'm a

00:05 Tiffani

licensed mental health counselor. I'm joined here with my friend, Kirk Fasshauer, licensed clinical

00:09 Tiffani

social worker. Welcome. If this is your first time tuning in, we're so happy you're here. If you've

00:14 Tiffani

heard before, we're so glad you're back. Today, we have a very special guest. We are joined by Rita

00:19 Tiffani

Langdale. She is the founder of Hope Restored Counseling of Florida and has piloted a new path of

00:24 Tiffani

treatment as a social work dietitian. Now, Rita has a lot of credentials behind her name, so I'm

00:29 Tiffani

going to read them off. get them wrong. She is a DSW, an LCSW,

00:34 Tiffani

an RD, an LD, and a CDCES. Rita, what does that mean?

00:40 Rita

So the DSW is a doctorate in social work. The LCSW is a licensed clinical social worker.

00:45 Rita

RD is a registered dietitian. LD is licensed in the state of Florida as a dietitian.

00:51 Rita

And then the CDCES is I am a certified diabetes educator. They changed the credential,

00:57 Rita

but that's essentially what it is. Well, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. So when Kirk

01:01 Tiffani

and I were planning for this season of the podcast, one of the conversations that came up over and

01:05 Tiffani

over is just the impact that nutrition and diet have on mental health. And I am not an expert.

01:12 Tiffani

I don't have those letters by many. But in my opinion, I would say that that is such a huge impact.

01:17 Tiffani

Are we off base or is that right? Oh, you are on base. Totally on base. Tell me a little bit more

01:22 Tiffani

what you have found is like the biggest connection that you've seen or just the biggest differences

01:26 Tiffani

that a good diet can make in mental health. So we know that diet completely impacts mental health,

01:33 Rita

how we function. I always tell my clients we're not firing on full capacity if we're under eating,

01:38 Rita

not getting the nutrients we need, or we're not eating an overall healthy diet. So it's just that

01:45 Rita

being mindful of getting healthy nutrients at least most of the time. No one's diet is 100%

01:51 Kirk

perfect. Okay. Right, because there's a lot of processed stuff out there. And I'm sure that

01:56 Kirk

definitely, everything I've read says that's not good, not good. Yet it's the most accessible and

02:02 Kirk

the cheapest because it's processed. Yes. Versus the healthy stuff. I mean, what would you

02:09 Kirk

recommend? Well, you said mindfulness. So what do you mean by mindfulness eating? So I educate my

02:16 Rita

clients on mindfulness eating. So it's that slowing down, paying attention to what we're doing,

02:21 Rita

savoring our food versus inhaling it, and just being mindful of choosing healthy more often.

02:28 Rita

I always tell people no one has a 100% healthy diet. I don't. I'd be lying if I said I did.

02:34 Rita

Most people are lying if they say they do. So it's just that. You know, 90-ish,

02:39 Rita

95-ish. We need to be picking healthy more often. So listen, I'm throwing myself under the bus as

02:44 Tiffani

the guinea pig. So I'm going to ask you some things. So I know for a lot of people, so the

02:48 Tiffani

population that we kind of target with these episodes is that young adult adolescence age range.

02:54 Tiffani

And sometimes they're not the best at choosing healthy. You know, they're the best at choosing

02:59 Tiffani

convenient because sometimes they're not preparing their own meals. And sometimes there's a lot

03:02 Tiffani

going on. I know for me. Breakfast is probably my least prioritized meal of the day,

03:08 Tiffani

only because there's so much going on in the mornings that I'm trying to get out the door. Can you

03:12 Tiffani

give us an idea of how important is it to start your day with food versus just grabbing coffee or

03:19 Tiffani

an energy drink? And then just how you really would be mindful, you know, if you're not in super

03:25 Tiffani

control of the food that you're getting, maybe going to a college campus cafeteria, that sort of

03:29 Rita

thing. So the first thing I'd like to say is sometimes it's quantity over quality. And I tell my

03:43 Rita

clients that all the time, even though like college kids, they don't have, unfortunately, a lot of

03:40 Rita

healthy options at the dining hall. I hear it out of all my college clients. So sometimes it is

03:45 Rita

quantity over quality. Let's focus on portion control versus, you know, the quality of it.

03:51 Rita

The other thing I wanted to say is when we look at breakfast, do you know why it's called

03:56 Tiffani

breakfast? Oh, I know this one. Break fast. Yes. There you go. Yes,

04:02 Rita

definitely. So we're breaking that overnight fast. We're getting the liver to stop dumping out

04:07 Rita

glucose in response to the brain. We're kind of gearing up. Go back. Glucose response to the brain.

04:12 Tiffani

What is this? Okay.

04:14 Rita

You'll have to bring me in. So when we go at long fasting periods, the brain sends out that signal

04:20 Rita

that, hello, liver, I need glucose. They're starving me. For energy. Yes, for energy.

04:25 Rita

Because the brain runs off of glucose most efficiently. Yes, it will burn fat and protein, but it

04:30 Rita

doesn't like to. So we need that glucose. Obviously, we want healthy more often.

04:36 Tiffani

Is glucose like sugar? It is. It is sugar. And so we're going to get it from our liver if we're not

04:43 Rita

eating it. So we want to stop that liver dump out, give the brain what it needs to kind of just

04:48 Rita

energize the day. But again, I always tell my clients, especially those in the South, we're not.

04:53 Rita

looking for a southern breakfast we're looking for you know healthy carbs carbohydrates to get the

05:00 Rita

day going okay so give an example of maybe like what a healthy carb be?

05:06 Rita

So with my clients, I'll work with them. I don't do meal plans. I will if they absolutely push it.

05:12 Rita

But with a meal plan, if I give it to them, they're like, I don't like half this food. So we can

05:17 Rita

sit down together and do that. So I'll say I know our lovely society says no,

05:22 Rita

no bagels, no bread. Bread is not evil. It's our inability to stop. or control our portion.

05:29 Rita

So it can be something as simple as like an English muffin with peanut butter or jelly or even

05:35 Rita

English muffin and a little bit of butter. It can be a bagel, cream cheese.

05:41 Rita

I always jokingly say the cream cheese should not be swimming on the bagel. That's the best way,

05:46 Rita

though. I know. I'll have a little bagel with my cream cheese. Absolutely. Absolutely. So it can be

05:52 Rita

something that simple. It doesn't have to be a sit down, you know, breakfast of eggs,

05:58 Rita

bacon, whatever else. Right, right, right. So oatmeal is good also.

06:05 Rita

Yes. But not the sugary. Well, again, something's better than nothing. So I will tell my clients if

06:12 Rita

that's all they have is the packets, just be mindful of the portion of what they're getting. So one

06:17 Rita

packet versus six. Yes. Maybe go in a little more on the plain side and then adding like a little

06:23 Rita

bit of brown sugar, a little bit of cinnamon, just something to spice it up a little bit where it's

06:28 Tiffani

not as bland. Okay. I've heard people talk about intermittent fasting. Is that something that's

06:33 Tiffani

beneficial for mental health? So our body knows how to operate in a normal fasting period.

06:40 Rita

All of this intermittent fasting came out in the diet world, that weight loss. We won't go into all

06:47 Rita

of it, but like even the keto diet was really designed for children that were prone to epilepsy.

06:53 Rita

And so that's really where that diet came from. And then it just morphed into another fad diet.

06:59 Rita

So the intermittent fasting, people will see. kind of a quicker weight loss because the body's

07:05 Rita

going to give up the weight initially. But I always say we're going to plateau. That plateau is the

07:09 Rita

body going, yep, and I think you're trying to starve me, so I'm not going to give up any more

07:12 Rita

weight. And then people get frustrated and they go back to their old ways. So intermittent fasting

07:16 Rita

isn't overly bad. It's just not healthy in the long run. Okay. Well,

07:22 Tiffani

and that's so helpful to know because I know we've talked before about social media and sometimes

07:26 Tiffani

you get this brainwash effect of, well, if I see it often enough, well, it must be good because if

07:31 Tiffani

it's all over TikTok or if it's all over Instagram or social media, like, well, if everybody's

07:35 Tiffani

doing it, it must be okay. And so what you're saying is just because you see something all over the

07:40 Tiffani

place doesn't necessarily mean it's a great idea long term. Correct. Okay. I also jokingly say just

07:46 Rita

because someone eats doesn't make them an expert in nutrition. We really should be making sure that

07:50 Rita

we're here getting reliable information, reliable sources, you know,

07:56 Rita

to where we're getting our information. So how does... So getting a little more into the mechanics

08:01 Kirk

of it, I guess, is how does our diet, blood sugar, what have you,

08:07 Kirk

affect our mental well-being? What are the impacts you see when it's not regulated well?

08:15 Rita

So because we're not getting that glucose, it almost like puts our body into trying to reach

08:21 Rita

equilibrium on its own. So again, the liver is dumping out glucose. But it can cause that surge of

08:26 Rita

glucose, which can really impact our mental health. Or in some people, it can cause low blood

08:30 Rita

sugar, which can cause like confusion, an increase in anxiety. It really can lead into depression.

08:39 Rita

cognitive decline, different things like that. So it does impact our mood overall. Okay.

08:44 Kirk

So I've always heard, you know, sugar intake is bad. Now, are we talking processed sugar or natural

08:51 Kirk

sugar or both? Probably a little more on the processed sugar.

08:57 Rita

So it's going to give you that spike and then the crash. And that's what's going to impact our

09:02 Rita

mental health because the body, again, is trying to reach that equilibrium. It knows how to do it.

09:06 Rita

But when we're giving it the refined sugar, it's just going to crash faster. Now, when you talk

09:11 Rita

natural sugar, you're talking like fruits that have the natural. That's going to be a little bit of

09:17 Rita

a slower spike because it has the fiber. which will slow down the influx of the glucose.

09:24 Kirk

Nice. So for somebody who might be struggling with diabetes, for example, or has developed

09:29 Kirk

diabetes, is it a result of their... Their previous diet, or is it something inherited,

09:35 Kirk

or maybe a little bit of both? A little bit of both. So type 1 can be hereditary.

09:44 Rita

Type 2 is a little more environmental in our diet. It can have a little bit of genetic component,

09:50 Rita

but we're seeing, unfortunately, a huge increase in... teenagers,

09:56 Rita

young adults getting diabetes or pre-diabetes. And it is primarily diet-driven,

10:01 Rita

unfortunately. It is. Okay. Well, and I remember, Kirk, we've talked before about our own college

10:06 Tiffani

experiences. So I grew up in a household where we didn't eat a lot of fast food, mostly to save

10:13 Tiffani

money, but also because trying to be a little bit more healthy. But we didn't buy a lot of soda. Do

10:17 Tiffani

you say soda or pop? Soda. You say soda? Same. That's mid. That's mid.

10:23 Tiffani

Mid states. I remember whenever I first moved down here, everything was a Coke and I would go to a

10:28 Tiffani

restaurant and they would say, would you like Coke? OK, what kind? And then you would say if you

10:32 Tiffani

had a Sprite or something different. But I remember coming to college was the first time. This is

10:36 Tiffani

going to sound so silly that my friends and I were like, oh, my gosh, we can get soda whenever we

10:42 Tiffani

want. as often as we want and it's already included in the bill so we're not having to pay because

10:47 Tiffani

usually we would go to restaurants and order water because water was free not because it was

10:52 Tiffani

healthy and so we're like oh we get unlimited supply or even you would go into like the you know

10:56 Tiffani

the line that has the fries you can get unlimited of this why would i get a salad when i can get

11:02 Tiffani

french fries or a grilled cheese and so i think sometimes when you're transitioning from young

11:08 Tiffani

adult or adolescents to young adult You've never really had to be super responsible for making

11:14 Tiffani

those decisions. And now like the world is at your fingertips. Absolutely. What are some ways to

11:19 Tiffani

practice that mindfulness when you haven't. had that freedom before and it's easy to go off the

11:24 Tiffani

deep end a little bit. I think we need to do a lot more educating from those that are going from

11:30 Rita

adolescent to college life, you know, to talk to them about what is healthy eating? How can you

11:35 Rita

pick healthier choices? Again, it all goes back to sometimes quantity over quality.

11:41 Rita

You know, watch the portion. Just because it's there doesn't mean you should be eating it. It

11:44 Rita

doesn't mean you should eat large amounts of it. But I think it's that education, just really

11:49 Rita

getting it in there as soon as they get to college. We all know when we're in our parents' house,

11:54 Rita

we're kind of following those rules. And then when we get out of our parents' house, maybe I'm

11:58 Rita

telling on myself, it's kind of, you know, we go a little wild. Oh,

12:04 Kirk

so pizza's okay. Just don't eat the whole pizza. Correct. Got it.

12:09 Tiffani

But then jumping into that, I mean, let's talk about coping skills. So I know for a lot of us,

12:14 Tiffani

when you're having a rough day and college is a big transition, there's a lot of new stressors that

12:18 Tiffani

you've never had before, new responsibilities. A lot of times it's so easy to find comfort in food.

12:24 Tiffani

It is. Especially mac and cheese or ice cream or potato chips. You know, food is a legal drug.

12:30 Rita

And so probably 90 percent of my clients are we're addressing some kind of disordered eating and

12:36 Rita

it's stress eating or emotional eating or eating out of boredom. Again, it goes back to that

12:40 Rita

education. It goes back to the skills. I do a lot of skill-building in my practice. How are we

12:46 Rita

addressing the high emotions or the stress, you know, of an exam coming up? How do we handle them

12:53 Rita

in a healthy way? What are the healthy coping skills that we can put in place? Again, it goes back

12:57 Kirk

to the education. What do you see as the major food that somebody turns to when they're under a

13:03 Rita

great deal of stress? I don't think there's one in particular, but it's the comfort food. And then

13:08 Rita

like you had said earlier, it's the what's cheap, what's readily available. But it does tend to be,

13:14 Rita

for some people, it's sugar, like sweets and desserts. For others, it is the fatty,

13:19 Rita

greasy or the salty. Which is not good. In large amounts. Oh, my.

13:25 Tiffani

It tastes so good. I agree. I agree. Kirk, are you a salty or are you the sweet kind?

13:32 Kirk

I am more on the salty side than I am the sweet side. Actually, my wife has made me a little bit

13:37 Kirk

more sweet. Aww.

13:41 Tiffani

I would agree with that.

13:46 Tiffani

Wow. Well, I think that's so good to know because you kind of go back to old habits when you're

13:52 Tiffani

feeling uncomfortable. And so you're talking about making new habits. That's really hard when you

13:56 Tiffani

don't have a lot of direction. And also when you don't have anybody kind of holding you

14:00 Kirk

accountable. Right. Correct. Right. I think as my wife and I have gotten older,

14:06 Kirk

we've kind of held each other a little bit more accountable. With our diet and the foods we eat,

14:13 Kirk

we tend to like to eat out a lot because we both have very busy schedules. So it's much easier to

14:18 Kirk

go somewhere else. But you're right about portion size. My God, you go to a restaurant and it's

14:24 Kirk

like this ginormous thing. And we've been trained. Our little brains have been trained to say,

14:29 Kirk

you've got to clean that plate. And I'm like, no, I don't. Correct. Yeah, I don't need to clean

14:35 Kirk

that plate. And actually, what I have done over the last few years is actually got the order,

14:41 Kirk

cut it in half. And even half now is like, oh. Still a lot.

14:46 Tiffani

Still a lot. So let me ask this, not to cut you off, but you just reminded me of something. So I

14:52 Tiffani

remember whenever I was growing up, this is so silly, but I remember asking my mom, why do we have

14:57 Tiffani

like. these kind of plates in our house. And they were just like the plain, like no decorations.

15:02 Tiffani

And I remember she said that when my dad was little, their dishes,

15:08 Tiffani

is it Corel? Yeah, they had Corel with the flowers and his mom. So my grandmother would say,

15:14 Tiffani

you can't get up from that table until I can see the flowers. And so he would have to eat off of

15:19 Tiffani

his plate until the flowers were gone. And so when he and my mom got married and, you know, set up

15:24 Tiffani

their household, he's like, no flowers. We're not having any flowers. And so I remember,

15:29 Tiffani

though, that was never a pressure for me. I think my mom and my dad both did a very good job of,

15:34 Tiffani

you know, you got to eat your protein. But, you know. only eat until like you're full and i've

15:39 Tiffani

really tried hard to maintain that healthy idea of eating because like you say food isn't good or

15:45 Tiffani

bad but it's that idea behind the food that portion control and so i've tried really hard with my

15:51 Tiffani

own kids which we've talked about my kids before of not making it a thing like if you want some

15:56 Tiffani

chocolate get some chocolate yes you know have one piece if you want some of this that's fine But

16:00 Tiffani

all in moderation. And so you don't have these like negative ideas. I want to go very quickly into

16:05 Tiffani

what do you think kind of sets that foundation for disordered eating? Because there's got to be

16:11 Tiffani

something maybe like trauma or generational or something that like sets up the idea behind this

16:16 Tiffani

food is bad. Right. So a lot of it is environmental. But before I answer that, I wanted to go back

16:21 Rita

to Kirk's thing of the I always tell my clients get out of the. When they were raised in the Clean

16:27 Rita

Your Plate Club, get out. Give back the membership. Rip it up. Because it is. We were forced to

16:33 Rita

finish what was on our plate. I think that is a lot of where it does start. So to go into your

16:38 Rita

question, it does lead into that disordered eating. We're forced to do it, you know,

16:43 Rita

kind of clean our plate no matter what's there. Our food system has changed so dramatically over

16:48 Rita

the last 50, 60 years. And so we have. We demanded a bigger bang for our bucks.

16:54 Rita

And so restaurants gave it to us. at our detriment. So I love your little hack of,

16:59 Rita

I tell people that all the time, box up half of it the second it gets to the table. Don't push it

17:04 Rita

to the side because we're going to get distracted. We're just going to keep going. So we box it up.

17:11 Rita

It's that barrier because very few people are going to open that box and keep going. So that's an

17:15 Rita

amazing hack that I tell clients all the time. Eating out isn't necessarily a bad thing. Yes, we

17:19 Rita

want to choose healthy more often. But doing things like just really being mindful of the portion.

17:24 Rita

So going back to the disordered eating, I think a lot of it is environmental. You know,

17:30 Rita

in some cases when children aren't raised with certain things, I think what you're doing with your

17:35 Rita

kids is amazing. You're saying it's okay to have chocolate. Moderation. I think, unfortunately,

17:40 Rita

a lot of families are going, you can't have this, you can't do that. And so then when they get off

17:44 Rita

to college and it's easily accessible, what are they doing? They're going overboard. They're

17:50 Rita

binging. Then, unfortunately, our diet culture is driving a lot more of that disordered eating.

17:57 Rita

You said it a second ago, food is not bad or good. Food is food. It's portion control.

18:03 Rita

And so we're just really kind of feeding into that disordered eating. Do you notice a difference in

18:08 Tiffani

how people eat? So what I mean by that is eating in front of the TV or eating at the table or

18:13 Tiffani

eating at a restaurant. Is there a way that they eat that tends to be more unhealthy?

18:20 Rita

So it's that distracting, especially if we're plating, like if we've been too long without food.

18:25 Rita

And so some of us are heavy scoopers and we eat on bigger plates. So we're putting a whole bunch

18:31 Rita

on. And my grandma used to say your eyes were bigger than your stomach. So we heap up the plate.

18:36 Rita

We're distracted. We're watching TV. We're doing whatever. And we just keep going. Then we factor

18:42 Rita

into some people are fast eaters. Do you know how long the signal from the gut to the brain to stop

18:47 Rita

eating your food? Do you know how long it is? How long? About a 15-minute delay. 15 minutes.

18:52 Rita

About a 15-minute delay for that signal to get from the gut to the brain. Hello, please stop

18:55 Rita

eating. You really are full. 15 minutes. So when we're a fast eater, when people are fast eaters,

19:01 Rita

they're packing a whole bunch in before that signal gets there. Wow, that's interesting because

19:04 Kirk

restaurants, you know, they move people in and out and the average time is 20 minutes.

19:11 Kirk

So that's not enough time. It's not. It really isn't. Is it really 20 minutes? I know for my kids,

19:18 Tiffani

I have one in elementary school, one in middle school. And I can't remember my middle school, but

19:22 Tiffani

the elementary, he has 20 minutes for lunch. Yeah. So it kind of starts there. We're teaching them

19:27 Rita

to eat fast. Then we get into the work world. You know, people are expected to, you know, eat

19:33 Rita

really quick and get back to work. And so we are. We're eating fast. We're not chewing. We're just

19:38 Kirk

inhaling. We're not. When I'm savoring the food, right? And I was like, oh,

19:43 Kirk

I really like this taste. I like the way. I just get it done. Let me ask this.

19:49 Tiffani

So sometimes I'll eat something and I'll get super tired right after. Sometimes I eat something and

19:54 Tiffani

I'll get jittery. Sometimes I'll eat something and I don't really notice a difference. other than

19:58 Tiffani

I'm just full now, is there a type of food that, like, you can say, oh, this is what's making you

20:04 Tiffani

tired, this is what's making you jittery, that we could kind of keep in mind for our mental health

20:07 Tiffani

that would, like, increase certain feelings? It's typically going to be your refined, your

20:13 Rita

processed foods. So it's going to be that quick rise in blood sugar, glucose, and then it's going

20:18 Rita

to be the crash because there's nothing to slow it down. Yes, the protein will slow down the

20:23 Rita

digestion of the carbs, but we really need more fiber, so the whole grain. and stuff like that

20:28 Rita

that's going to slow down that rise. So without a diet log of what are you doing and what's going

20:35 Rita

on, I would say it's more the refined sugar processed food. So making sure those fibers are there.

20:41 Tiffani

So you said something about the protein. Is it important which foods you put together?

20:47 Rita

Does that make a difference? Yes, it does. So we do want to balance. We want to have our

20:51 Rita

carbohydrates. We want to have protein. And then, you know. preferably a vegetable, but I know a

20:56 Rita

lot of people didn't grow up with that, and it's a struggle. But yes, because fiber will slow down

21:00 Rita

the digestion of the carbohydrates, and so will protein. I have to ask, what's your favorite

21:04 Rita

vegetable? Probably carrots or broccoli.

21:11 Tiffani

What's your favorite one? Brussels sprouts. Really? Yeah, I like Brussels sprouts. Interesting.

21:18 Rita

I like them glazed. I love that.

21:21 Kirk

You're right. A little glaze, roasted. Yeah. I do like Brussels fries. Do you feel like sweet

21:26 Tiffani

potato fries are considered a vegetable? Maybe not after they're fried. Well, I'm not a big fan of

21:33 Tiffani

sweet potato fries. Really? Yeah. One thing that gets me all the time is, like, I'll eat pretty

21:39 Tiffani

healthy, but then it's the sauces and the dipping things in the sauces. That's where the trouble

21:44 Tiffani

is, right? I love ranch dressing. Me too. And even, like, I'll eat a salad, and I'm like, oh, you

21:50 Tiffani

were talking about, like, the bagel swimming in cream cheese. My salad's swimming in ranch

21:54 Tiffani

dressing, which probably, like, negates the health benefit of the salad.

22:01 Rita

Right. But I love ranch too, so I'm with you. But I do, I jokingly say, your salad shouldn't be

22:06 Rita

swimming off the plate with ranch. But it's that cutting it back slowly. So if I tell someone,

22:12 Rita

well, you really should only have this much ranch, it's going to be miserable. And some of it is a

22:17 Rita

mindset. So we'll say slowly start decreasing the amount. So your brain doesn't go,

22:23 Rita

what are you doing to me? This is miserable. Forget it. I'm just going to do whatever. One thing

22:27 Tiffani

I've started doing, which is like not a hot tip or anything, if I order like a takeaway salad,

22:32 Tiffani

instead of dumping the dressing all over the salad, I'm like, oh, that's enough. Let me get more.

22:38 Tiffani

I'll start getting a fork of the salad, then just like doing a little dip. And that I feel like I

22:44 Tiffani

can eat the whole salad and it's enough dressing. But if I'm dumping, I need to get two or three

22:49 Tiffani

more to cover the salad. So like what you're talking about, not life-changing changes, just little

22:55 Tiffani

practices. Yeah, that makes it more bearable. It does. You mentioned protein as kind of being one

23:03 Kirk

of the things. One of the things I've found or I've learned is that I need a little bit more

23:07 Kirk

protein in my diet, probably because I'm male. I'm not sure if that will make a difference.

23:13 Kirk

Muscle mass. And feel different. If I don't have enough protein, I feel lethargic.

23:19 Kirk

I don't think as quickly. I'm not as alert. And it is. So men need more protein because of the

23:26 Rita

muscle mass. And so you're right. not getting enough, again, you're going to get a spike with the

23:33 Rita

carbohydrates, so in the glucose, and then you're going to feel that maybe that sluggishness could

23:39 Rita

be messing with muscle mass, things like that. And you hear all sorts of numbers out there. You

23:44 Kirk

need to have this many calories. You've got to burn this much. It gets a little confusing. Math,

23:49 Kirk

me and math. No, it doesn't work. But if I end up – I mean, what's a good measure for people to

23:57 Kirk

kind of look at? I mean I know the government did a MyPlate kind of thing and all that,

24:04 Kirk

but everyday person. What's a good size? I mean, is it the 22-ounce steak or is it the 8-ounce

24:12 Rita

steak that's going to? Here's where I lose friends. I know. So it's really going to be more of that

24:17 Rita

what fits in the palm of your hand is really all we need as protein. So I get men's hands are

24:22 Rita

bigger than mine. So, again, men do need a little bit more. But, unfortunately, we're eating

24:27 Rita

chicken the size of my hand and steak the size of my arm. So it's just gradually kind of decreasing

24:33 Rita

that. As far as, like, numbers, I think because we do live in a,

24:38 Rita

I was going to say a fat phobia society, which we do. It's that drive towards,

24:44 Rita

you know, calorie intake and your macros and micros and all that. And I just,

24:49 Rita

I'm like, throw it out the window. Let's just focus on what's best for that person. As far as

24:55 Rita

calorie intake, that is so individualized as far as what do they need? What's their activity and

25:02 Rita

stuff like that? Are they wanting to lose? Are they wanting to maintain? Right. I agree. I think it

25:07 Kirk

is individualistic. And just having those numbers out there, it's a guide and really should be

25:12 Kirk

looked at, okay, but don't harp on the numbers. Yes, because it can lead into disordered eating.

25:18 Rita

I've got a lot of clients that are hyper fixated on calories in. And so when we get that,

25:25 Rita

we are moving into food not being healthy, whether it's good food or bad food. It really can lead

25:30 Rita

to that disordered eating. Wow. What would you say is your biggest piece of advice?

25:35 Tiffani

So leaning more on the social worker, maybe because you're a social worker dietitian, when you see

25:41 Tiffani

people that have disordered eating and they have this sense of self that might not be accurate,

25:46 Tiffani

what is your advice for them? Obviously, we can work on the eating, but how do you work on the

25:51 Rita

heart? What I do, again, I go back to those skills. What skills can we implement?

25:57 Rita

I deal with a lot of perfectionism. So I would say, if not all of my clients,

26:02 Rita

we're dealing with some kind of level of perfectionism. So we try to just, what's going on with

26:08 Rita

them, individualized? What are we doing? How can we manage what you need?

26:13 Rita

And so I think it kind of goes into that of just walking alongside them individually.

26:19 Rita

Not sure if that answered your question. No, for sure. And I think you'll agree with us. A lot of

26:24 Tiffani

times when we are in our most vulnerable self, that vulnerability sits right next to shame.

26:30 Tiffani

And if you have that perfectionist, which I feel like I'm a recovering perfectionist myself as

26:35 Tiffani

well. When you have that, it's like, man, I messed up one time. What's the point? Right. I already

26:39 Tiffani

did it. Like, might as well finish the bag. And so when that vulnerability, for real, when it's

26:45 Tiffani

right next to shame, it's like, well, what's the point? And so I think. it's so helpful how you've

26:50 Tiffani

kind of married social work and nutrition because they're so interconnected they are it is why i

26:57 Rita

went back um so i not to give it the big history i i got my BSW. Went off,

27:04 Rita

did other things, then got my RD. And while in practice, I realized that it's so hard to make

27:09 Rita

lifestyle changes when we're not dealing with the mental health. So it's almost like an iceberg. We

27:14 Rita

can see what's going on. We can see the struggle with food. We can see the struggle with weight or

27:18 Rita

whatever it is. But we're not looking under the water at why. And so it's that mental health.

27:25 Rita

It's the reason I went back and got my MSW and DSW is to just really focus on why are we using food

27:32 Rita

as a legal drug? So mindfulness is huge. I do a lot on mindfulness eating.

27:38 Rita

I do a lot on, you know, really just, again, the skills. How are we addressing what is going to be

27:44 Rita

best for you? What you said a minute ago where like, OK, well, I've already ate one sleeve of the

27:49 Rita

Oreos. Why not just eat the whole bag? But we I work with, OK, wait, just because you feel like you

27:55 Rita

messed up doesn't mean I said this term to one of my teenagers and they looked at me like I had

27:59 Rita

five heads. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. We just need to say, OK, wait. So I messed

28:04 Rita

up. It's OK. How do we go healthy? Distract. We come up with skills, whether a lot of my clients

28:08 Rita

are art focused. That is not my thing. But what are the healthy distractions that we can get you

28:13 Rita

out of this mind spiral or thought spiral that you're in? Yeah. What have you found to be like one

28:20 Tiffani

of the biggest like coping skills or things like you said to reset that spiral? A lot of

28:26 Rita

journaling. We call it brain dumping because a lot of my clients hate the word journal just because

28:30 Rita

it has that negative connotation. And I'm like, no, no, I don't really want to know about your day.

28:36 Rita

I want to know what is going on emotionally. So we'll do journaling, maybe going for a walk.

28:41 Rita

Like I said, a lot of my clients are heavily involved in art. And so I'll try to get them.

28:47 Rita

Let's focus on an art project. What can you do to get out of the kitchen?

28:52 Kirk

Talk about the journaling piece. So I've been telling people, you know, if you're a Harry Potter

28:57 Kirk

fan, you're going to get this. So in one of the books and in the movie,

29:03 Kirk

Dumbledore has this device called a pensive. And he's got a memory and it's clogging up his brain,

29:10 Kirk

if you will, with all these memories. He puts a memory in the pensive. And then you can go back to

29:15 Kirk

it later. And I said, I just fell in love with that visual and the way it happened.

29:20 Kirk

I'm like. That's a journal. He's keeping a journal. Without calling it a journal. Without calling

29:26

it a journal. It's a pensive. There you go. You're right. I might steal that one. It's so freeing

29:31 Tiffani

to do that brain dump. Like you said, we were talking before the podcast. So I just celebrated 14

29:36 Tiffani

years of marriage. Thank you so much. Congratulations. And one of the things that my husband and I,

29:41 Tiffani

or what he had to learn about me a lot of times is sometimes I'll need to like word vomit or dump.

29:46 Tiffani

And I don't need you to fix anything. I just need to like get it out. Yes. that my brain and my

29:51 Tiffani

heart work, if I just kind of clear it, then I'm fine. But I just have to have that space to kind

29:57 Tiffani

of like process. And I don't need you to fix it. I might not even need any advice. I just need a

30:02 Tiffani

human that I trust that I can kind of dump. So I love that you have created this like sense of

30:07 Tiffani

safety for your clients to where brain dump it out. And then sometimes just the act of

30:12 Tiffani

decompressing is so healing. Because most of us are visual. So if we can visibly see it versus

30:19 Rita

trying. to manage it in our brain, it's like a tornado up there. But if we can see it, we're more

30:24 Rita

likely to be able to process it out. That's so good. And so that is one of my big skills. Journal,

30:29 Rita

journal, journal. I'm so glad that you created this new pathway, Social Work Dietitian. Nice.

30:35 Kirk

Yes, absolutely. So, Rita, if people want to reach out to you and talk to you more about this,

30:41 Kirk

30:50 Rita

website, hoperestoredfl.com. Those are the two ways. Excellent. Thank you so much for being part

30:56 Rita

of our podcast. Absolutely. Thank you. It was fun. Thank you for being here. Thank you.