Cultivate a Healthy Relationship with Food for Overall Wellbeing w/ Brigitte Zeitlin (Ep.10)

We are all aware the importance of food to our health and wellbeing… But I find it fascinating how there is so much intricacy to eating well and getting the proper nutrition for our body. And, how food impacts so many aspects of our life ranging from our energy level, vitality, immunity, recovery, sleep, female cycle, beauty, even our brain function, mood, and resilience and so much more… Wow! 

How we engage with our environment, our habits and routines, and the relationship we have with others AND ourselves also impact our internal laboratory and how we make use of our food… 

Using food well for our overall health and wellness, vitality, longevity, happiness, and enjoyment of life is a key aspect of creating our best life. Putting anything in our mouths to satiate hunger and get a boost of energy just doesn’t cut it. 

How we go about our food and eating in and of itself is impactful as well. It’s super important to have a great relationship with food for us to get the most from our diet… 

In today’s episode, I have a very informative conversation with Brigitte Zeitlin about eating healthy, wellness habits, the self-care practice, and having a great relationship with food. 

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🌟ABOUT OUR GUEST:

Brigitte Zeitlin, MPH, RD, CDN is a celebrated women’s nutrition coach, registered dietitian, and media personality. She has worked with hundreds of women and has become the “go-to” nutrition expert for women who want to lose weight and feel great in their bodies. Women flock to Brigitte for her renowned expertise in creating a highly personalized and practical nutrition approach for her clients. Brigitte has her Master’s in Public Health Nutrition and is a Certified Dietitian-Nutritionist in New York City. You can find her at bznutritionny.com.

Gift from Brigitte:

Wellness Jumpstart: Socially Fit

Find her here: 

Instagram | LinkedIn

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🌟MORE ON THIS EPISODE:

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More about the podcast on our Podcast Page 

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DISCLAIMER: This content is meant to support your Journey and not as a replacement for professional assistance. Additionally, the ideas and resources provides by our guests are their ideas and recommendations alone and not necessarily a reflection of the host’s.

Chapters

• 5:57 A shift on how to approach eating…
• 12:43 Holistic approach to health
• 21:05 Example of a nutritious eating day
• 28:44 Having a healthy relationship with food…
• 30:22 Eating for specific goals and specifically for women
• 37:53 “Dieting” trend for 2024

Transcript

Emma: 0:06

Hi there lovelies, welcome to another episode. I am so excited for today's special guest, Brigitte Zeitlin, who is a nutritionist and a dietitian and who's going to hook us up today with tips and hacks and all kinds of information on having a very healthy lifestyle so that we could support ourselves in creating the life that we want and have the longevity and vitality that we desire to support the life that we want to create. We cover a lot of different topics around nutrition and wellness and she's also going to share the top trend for 2024. Stay tuned, you're in for a treat. Hello and welcome today. I'm so excited to have Brigitte Zeitlin with us.

Emma: 0:52

Brigitte Zeitlin is the celebrated women's nutrition coach, registered dietitian in media personality. She has worked with hundreds of women and has become the go-to nutrition expert for women who want to lose weight and feel great in their bodies. Women flock to Brigitte for her renowned expertise in creating a highly personalized and practical nutrition approach for her clients. Brigitte has a master's in public health nutrition and is a certified dietitian nutritionist in New York City, supporting patients in the clinical setting at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Before funding her private practice, vc nutrition, she is frequently requested to consult for Tiffany and Co Ferragamo, Law and Fried Frank on health and wellness in the workplace, and her expertise has been celebrated and featured in over 20 plus nutrition press outlets, including both women's health well and good and self, to name a few. So here we have Brigitte, who's going to bring us amazing tips on nutrition for being super healthy and to look our best. Welcome, Brigitte. How are you.

Brigitte: 2:13

I'm great, Emma. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here with you. Thank you for that introduction.

Emma: 2:19

Of course, I'm super excited about this topic and I want to know all of the tips that you have for us today. First, tell us a little bit about how you started with nutrition, like what interested you? How did you start your career on this? Was it about interested in, or you're always interested.

Brigitte: 2:35

Great question. Actually, I was not always interested. So I went to college. I went to college, at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and, like every college student, I gained weight when I moved. When I graduated and I moved into Manhattan, I started to see a dietitian to help me lose weight and she put me on a calorie count and 100% it worked. I counted my calories, I lost the weight, but I didn't feel great. I was obsessed with numbers. I was, you know.

Brigitte: 3:09

I found myself on like a Saturday night not going out to dinner with my girlfriends and only meeting them at the bar afterwards for drinks, because I didn't have enough calories left in my day to like eat out and drink my alcohol at the same time. While I look great, I don't feel great. This is not sustainable. I don't like I can't make this work for the rest of my life. So I started learning more about nutrition on my own, like you right, getting nerding out on nutrition.

Brigitte: 3:39

And while that was happening, my maternal grandmother passed away from complications of her type two diabetes and mainly because she, when she was diagnosed, her doctors told her okay, you have to give up all the foods you love and you have to eat this other way now and she was like F that I'm not doing, that. I'm not giving up the foods that I love. So and I thought to myself okay. So here I am with my experience with this dietitian, counting calories, doing all the things I'm supposed to do but not feeling great. Here was my grandmother not doing anything she was supposed to do, but like loving life, and I was like there has to be a middle ground. There has to be a way for people to eat the foods they love, learn how to incorporate the foods they love, while also taking really good care of their health and feeling really good in their bodies at the same time.

Brigitte: 4:32

So, I decided that will be me. I will fill that gap. So I decided to go back to school, to get my master's in public health nutrition, to become a registered dietitian and to help people and at this point in my career I exclusively work with women. So to help women combine taking care of themselves with enjoying their lifestyle, with enjoying the foods that they love. And now I've had my own practice doing that for eight years and it's been an incredible. Incredible dream come true.

Emma: 5:02

Oh my gosh, that's so beautiful. I love it, and I love that you combine the self care aspect into that, like you're defining nutrition as part of the self care. Absolutely, and about that, that's one of the biggest things that I try to teach my clients If we're not good with ourselves, how are we good with our partner or with anybody else? Right, and so nutrition fuels us, right, absolutely. So I think, it's more basic than that, totally.

Brigitte: 5:34

I think the way we eat is 100% part of our self care routine.

Emma: 5:38

Yes, I love that so much. We could definitely go more into what it looks like for the self care and the proper nutrition. But so the first question that I have for you is and you kind of alluded to it that you were doing it in your grandmother's story what is the wrong way of eating and what are the wrong foods for not being healthy?

Brigitte: 6:03

Yeah, totally so. I think what trips a lot of people up, what most women are doing wrong if we will when it comes to weight loss, is they're hyper focused on what they're taking out, what they're eliminating from their diet. They're not eating carbs, they've gave up bananas or fruit, they're no longer eating dairy, they're not eating gluten, they're not eating this, they're not eating that. But when it comes to it, when it comes to your nutrition and your health and your waistline, it's really, really all about what you're adding in, right, not what we're taking out. But what are we putting into your life? What are we putting into your day? Let's say you're giving up.

Brigitte: 6:45

Any food that you're giving up, it's only as beneficial for you as the food you're replacing it with, right? So the foods that you're making more space for, the foods you're eating more of, are what matters versus what you're eating less of, what we're including into our diet, what we're putting into our bodies. And I think when women first reach out to me to work together one on one, they're frequently like no, but I don't understand. I don't understand why this scale isn't coming off. I've given up. I gave up the carbs, I haven't had a bagel in years and I'm not eating this and I don't eat that. But the scale isn't budging and I'm like great, what are we eating? What are you putting in?

Emma: 7:26

What a good point. Because half the time, whenever in air quotes, watching more or being more mindful in my way, because I'm sure that after a conversation I'm going to be like, hmm, maybe not so good, but during those times potentially the thought is like, well, can't eat this, can't eat that, can't eat that, they cannot deal with the end. The other thing and the other thing is like, well, what the hell can I eat? Like, what can I eat? So I love the way that you said in this up, and it's not about all the things that you're taking out, but it's more about what you're putting in instead.

Brigitte: 7:58

Yeah, exactly. Like you know what is on your plate, what is getting into your body. That's what matters so much more so, so so much more.

Emma: 8:07

Very good, lovely, well, and so what do you want to go from here? Do you want to describe what some of those things should be, or I know that one of the things that people worry about is OK, so when I eat these things, I get bloated or where's my gut health? And I just go right ahead like what is the best way to set ourselves up to have good food experience?

Brigitte: 8:29

Absolutely. That's a great question, I would say. If bloat and gut health is something you're interested in or weight loss is something you're focusing on, you know, a good place to start for both of these two things is a food journal. To keep a food journal, and that's something where you have to obsess and like, weigh everything and write it all down. None of that, but just a journal of, like, what time it is, what day it is and what you're eating for breakfast, what you're eating for lunch, what you're eating for a snack, if you're having a snack, what you're eating for dinner, and this will help you in multiple ways. But let's say we're talking about bloat. If you're also writing down how you feel after that meal or throughout the day, you'll be able to start to notice a pattern. Like when you eat legumes, right, maybe you're feeling bloated. When you have dairy, maybe you're feeling bloated.

Brigitte: 9:21

It's really easy to if we're keeping it all in our head, right. If you're not writing things down on paper, it's really easy to think like everything makes me bloated. Every time I eat, I get bloated. Oh, and maybe, maybe that's true. But you might notice some really, really specific patterns Once we take it out of our head and put it down on paper, you might notice. Actually I didn't realize that almost every meal I have has like cheese or, you know, yogurt or like has a dairy in it, and maybe that's the common denominator. So it's not every time I eat, it's just that I eat a lot. I eat more cheese than I thought I did.

Emma: 9:56

Right.

Brigitte: 9:59

Or again, maybe it's like legumes. So you'll notice patterns and you'll start to, you'll start to piece together what your body's trying to tell you when it is feeling bloated. So I think a food journal to understand your gut health and your bloat is super, super important and can work like wonders. And then, on the flip side, if weight loss is something you're focusing on either in addition to gut health or totally separately, a food journal will also show you exactly what you are putting in, right. What are you filling those meals with, right? So and I don't want you to count the calories and tally that up, I don't want you to measure out everything or weigh things on a food scale, I literally just want you to write down the foods that are on your plate, that are making it into your body, and you might notice yeah, I cut out all the carbs, but I haven't really added in any vegetables any more vegetables than I usually was eating, or actually I don't have as much protein as I thought I was getting, like.

Brigitte: 11:01

You'll also start to notice patterns and what you're filling your meals with, and so I think for both for like, from a habit standpoint we want to really, really understand our bodies. We want to understand our own personal nutrition. Even if two people have the same goal, they are different humans. They have different lives, they have different stressors, they respond to stress differently, they have different work-life balance, so you're going to need different things, even if your goal is technically the same. So really understanding your personal nutrition needs is crucial and paramount for all the work that I do with my clients, and a food journal is a really, really easy way for you to do it at home and start to put some puzzle pieces together on your own.

Emma: 11:51

Perfect. So that will allow you to see the patterns of the foods and what might be getting you, what might not be getting you yeah, something that you might not have recognized, but also if you're missing out on certain food groups or certain nutritional things that might be affecting you in different ways perfect, definitely, exactly.

Emma: 12:13

Yeah, very good. So from here then, what are some of the things that you would suggest for women to do that want to lose weight, or who are more concerned about health and just general well-being and energy and staying healthy and looking great and living till 120, like I like to say?

Brigitte: 12:33

I love it. I love 120. I'm here for it. I would say there are a few things. I think overall, I walk my clients through six pillars of health, but one thing that I want to say is, as a nutritionist, as a dietitian, nutrition and food is my first love and it is a big, big piece of the puzzle when it comes to our longevity, when it comes to our energy, when it comes to our mental, cognition and brain health, when it comes to our physical health and our weight and our gut.

Brigitte: 13:10

Food is a crucial, crucial piece. It's a big, juicy chunk of that puzzle, but it's still, at the end of the day, just one piece of the puzzle. So, when it comes to all of those things your total health what we want to look at is how are you managing stress? What types of stress outlets do you have? Is it movement? Is it therapy? Is it talking to your girlfriends? Is it a standing date night with your partner? What are ways that you are managing your stress? Because a lot of times too, people either stress eat or they stress restrict their food neither of which serves you well mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually.

Brigitte: 13:53

So really understanding stress management and how we can relieve some of the stress. Something else that's really crucial for our health is staying hydrated, drinking water, and on that I'm going to take a sip. We'll do a little water cheers.

Emma: 14:08

Until you see mine.

Brigitte: 14:10

Oh, I love it. Oh, I have that same thing with the crystals. Yes, isn't this awesome? It's beautiful. It's beautiful, I love it. My best friend bought it for me. I am obsessed with it.

Emma: 14:22

I love that we have that so right.

Brigitte: 14:26

So making sure you're drinking water you're saying really well hydrated, and if you you can drink sparkling water, you can drink still water. You can drink, you know, hot tea, iced tea, as long as it's unsweetened, you know, anyway you can get in some more. Hydration is huge. And then another thing that I think people overlook a little bit but has a huge, huge impact both in the way we eat, in our energy, in our mental health, is our sleep habits. Getting really good quality sleep, so enough sleep, right, so like that's seven plus hours, but also quality sleep, uninterrupted sleep, sleep where you're staying asleep through the night. That's really, really important as well, and there are certain foods and routines that we can get into that promote better quality sleep.

Brigitte: 15:15

But really focusing on, you know, kind of being like being a little bit of like a warrior with your time, with your sleep time, making sure that you get into bed at a certain time every night.

Brigitte: 15:26

You know that you're waking up consistently around the same time in the morning and that you're giving yourself, you know you're winding down early enough so that by the time you get into bed it's easier for you to fall asleep. You're not scrolling to the very last minute. You know you've put your screens away, you know, and maybe you also have a little bit of an evening routine that includes some, you know, chamomile tea or some essential oils, like in a bath or in a shower that, like, help calm you down. So I think, I think, when it comes to when it comes to our overall health and well-being and longevity, we have to look at all of the factors of health and, again, food is one and it's a fun one to talk about, but it's not the only one. So, really taking a big picture, looking at like your whole person, and taking a big picture approach to your well-being, I think is really crucial.

Emma: 16:17

That's so good. Yeah, very holistic, so that's interesting that you mentioned that different foods affect sleep. Yeah, you're probably like that's not no brainer, like no no, no.

Brigitte: 16:30

I think a lot of people don't realize that food affects everything.

Emma: 16:33

I mean, I know that, yes, the timing of food at night is significant, but well, yeah, also the foods, right? So tell us a little more about that, like what kinds?

Brigitte: 16:44

Absolutely, absolutely so, so something that's really beneficial. And you mentioned the time, the timing at night, so it's it's helpful to give your bodies enough time to fully digest before you lie down and get into bed, and so that's going to be different for everybody. Sometimes metabolism runs at a different pace, but, generally speaking, you want to have your last bite, whether that's dessert or the end of your meal, right, last bite of food in your mouth. Some are between two and three hours before you get into bed, before you lie down. It doesn't include drinking water or on sweetened tea. You can have that as well up until you've you lie down, but your last bite. Something else to really think about, too, is that, when it comes to sleep, you know we want to, if we, if we are someone who drinks alcohol, making sure that we're done drinking alcohol at least two hours before we're getting into bed, so maybe not having that nightcap.

Emma: 17:43

Well, it's the same thing, right, because that has to sugar, so it makes sense. That's the, it's the alcohol.

Brigitte: 17:50

It's really the. It's really the alcohol, it's a toxin. And so what your body's doing, and the whole thing with like the food too, what's really happening is your body has to process and break down the food that you've just ingested, and so, but when we go to sleep, everything stops. So you're sitting with like this food inside your stomach. If you've eaten, let's say, 20 minutes before you got into bed or just an hour before you got into bed, your body isn't digesting it. So you're not getting good quality sleep because your body's kind of fighting with itself, like, do I digest or do I sleep, or do I digest or do I sleep? It goes back and forth and you're not getting quality sleep. Wow, versus, if you're done digesting, right, and then you get into bed and your body's like cool, I only have one job, right, the only job is to restore.

Brigitte: 18:36

So that's one of the main reasons why we want to be done eating before we get. You know, two to three hours before we get into bed, and the way alcohol affects your liver, it's the same thing. Do I detox or do I sleep? Do I detox or do I sleep? And the truth is, detoxing is more important for your body. You know, getting the toxins out of your body is more important, so it will focus on that and it will disturb your sleep, right? But foods, foods that we want to incorporate, so like, into that dinner meal really really quality carbohydrate is fabulous, so quinoa, brown rice, sweet potato, but are not squash. These are really really great foods to add into the mix when we're you know, into our dinner.

Brigitte: 19:18

That's fabulous. And also some potassium. So, like dark leafy greens, you can have, you know, cooked dark leafy greens, the kale, the spinach that's also a really nice base to include. And then you want, you want a really satiating protein. It could be a bean based protein, like a legume. Legumes are super high in magnesium. Magnesium is a nutrient that helps our bodies relax and reduces anxiety, which is fabulous. So that's a really great protein to add in. Or you can add in a fish like salmon or tuna that are really high in omega threes, because the omega threes are heart healthy fats that we know and talk about and everybody loves, but what they do is that they fight inflammation right, so they're also calming our body from, like the inside out. So those are really good nutrients to work in to into our dinner meal and you could I mean you could have these nutrients throughout the entire day, but particularly they're beneficial to promote quality sleep at dinner.

Emma: 20:21

Very nice, so not heavy proteins.

Brigitte: 20:25

So it has nothing to do with heaviness and everything to do like I don't know what a heavy protein would be. Like steak, so right. So it has nothing to do with like, with heaviness, and everything to do with the type of nutrient in addition to the protein that you're getting in right. So beans have protein, salmon has proteins, but what I highlighted in the beans is the magnesium.

Emma: 20:47

Right.

Brigitte: 20:48

And what I highlighted in the salmon was where the omega threes, right. So, it's really the additional things like, yes, you want a protein, but what other nutrients are coming in? What? Are their nutrients yeah, yeah, love it.

Emma: 21:04

Okay, very good, so work us through a good eating day, and I use good lightly like a nutritious end.

Brigitte: 21:16

Yeah. So that's really difficult because everyone's different. So there are many, many, many, many many ways for the day to be like a nutrient dense, nourishing day for somebody. So what I would say honestly, what we're looking for is to make sure that every time you eat, you have a good source of fiber on that plate and a good source of protein. So fiber, we find fiber in three things we find it in whole grains, we find it in vegetables and we find it in fruit. So making sure you have one of those three things at breakfast, at lunch, at snack, at dinner great and then couple it with a really good protein and again at breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner.

Brigitte: 22:02

Which ones are gonna Matt are going to be dependent on you when you are eating habits and your food preferences and your dietary restrictions. Right, if you're a vegan, if you're a vegetarian, so if you keep kosher, all those things are gonna look a little bit different. But making sure that you have at least the fiber and a protein every single meal, you're in great shape and then eating consistently throughout the day. Making sure that you're eating breakfast you know, aiming to eat breakfast within an hour of waking up would be great and then from there, making sure you're eating at lunch, maybe three to four hours after that, and then you have an afternoon snack, like three to four hours after that, and then you have dinner three to four hours after that, really really structuring your day around what you're putting in and taking the time to eat.

Brigitte: 22:51

So because we cannot, if you know, I'm a big believer in getting our nutrition from food right. There's absolutely a place for supplements, but supplements second, food first. But we cannot possibly get enough nutrition from food if we're not eating consistently throughout the day. We have right, every meal is an opportunity to take really good care of yourself, every single meal, and if you're skipping that meal, you're skipping an opportunity to take care of yourself. I think a really good day food-wise means eating consistently throughout the day and it means making sure that each meal has a good fiber and a good protein.

Emma: 23:34

So that's interesting, because there's all kinds of information out there about spiking your insulin, your sugars, then becoming insulin resistant and all these different things where you know if you're constantly eating, you constantly spiking your sugar and then right, you're working.

Brigitte: 23:59

So our sugar goes up literally every time we eat, correct? But that means every time you eat a piece of salmon, your sugar is going up. Every time you eat a piece of kale, your sugar is going up. Our sugar is meant to go up. That's why we have a hormone called insulin that is meant to process it and move it through our body in an efficient way. Food is energy. Our bodies need energy, right? A calorie is literally a measurement of energy we are supposed to get, have energy to move through the day. So, when it comes to your sugar spiking, if you are not a diabetic, if you are an otherwise healthy person, your body is processing your sugar in a normal, healthy way.

Brigitte: 24:46

If you are a diabetic and you do have insulin resistance, or you are a woman suffering with PCOS and you do have insulin resistance, that's a different dietary approach. You would still. The science is still very much on the side of eating consistently throughout the day. Very much so. What you're eating matters, right, what you're actually eating matters. But eating consistently throughout the day, honestly, is what kind of keeps your sugar more stable versus when we don't eat. Our blood sugar goes down and then we do eat, no matter what we're eating. Our blood sugar spikes and then we don't eat for a while and our blood sugar dips. And this the high peaks and valleys are what screw with our blood sugar and our insulin tremendously. Keeping our blood sugar more even like this, right cause it's gonna go up when you eat, but it's gonna even out consistently too if you're having a good source of fiber. So that is actually this is actually much healthier for you than not eating, eating, not eating eating.

Emma: 25:50

Interesting. So what's your take on fasting?

Brigitte: 25:54

So for women, I do not believe fasting is the right approach. It screws with our hormones drastically. So if you are a woman who is thinking about fertility or you are peri or post-menopausal, right, we want to eat in a way that nourishes our hormones, doesn't starve our hormones. So I do not believe in intermittent fasting at all. The science really for women isn't there. I do think it's a good idea to, you know, eat within a certain time period throughout the day. So like if breakfast, let's say, is at eight am, it'd be great to be done with dinner by eight pm, right, but and then? And then you have 12 hours at night where you're not eating, right, we're not eating from eight pm to eight am, ideally seven or eight of those hours you're sleeping. So the human beings have a natural, like, if you will, time-based eating schedule, normally, because we're supposed to be sleeping at night.

Emma: 26:53

Well, then self-assisted definition of intermittent fasting like 12 to 13 hours. That's pretty much what you just said.

Brigitte: 27:01

Sure, but I don't. I think that referring to it as fasting versus sleeping, it can lead to a really unhealthy relationship with food and, in my experience, a lot of the work that I do with my clients is around creating healthy relationships with food, healthy language around food, which is why I don't refer to food as good or bad, right, right, and I think that, talking to yourself about fasting, I don't know how I don't see much of a positive connotation with that, right, but I eat breakfast at eight. I am done with dinner by eight. That's great. You have a 12 hour eating window and then at eight pm, you don't need any energy anymore, right?

Brigitte: 27:44

Because what it will be so, when it comes to eating, we wanna think about how, what are we fueling up for the next two to three hours? Because whatever you're eating now is going to keep you energized for the next two to three hours. So what do we need to be energized for At eight o'clock at night? The next two to three hours, right, that's 10 pm to 11 pm. Ideally, I'm in bed, I'm sleeping, I don't need energy for that, right. So, really, really focusing on why am I eating? The whole point of eating. Yes, we wanna enjoy food, but what? Our bodies need.

Brigitte: 28:15

Our bodies need energy. So thinking about like well, no, of course I'm not eating after eight o'clock at night, I don't need energy at 10 pm right. So, unless you work at night, and then of course your schedule is gonna look different and be different and you will need to eat at that time because you work the overnight shift. You're a nurse, you know working the overnight shift at a hospital or any other overnight shift, but I think the way we talk to ourselves about food is really, really important.

Emma: 28:42

Love it. What are some of the things that you noticed? That people stay or do that are not. That are signs of not having a good relationship with food.

Brigitte: 28:55

Yeah, I think saying things like, oh, I deserve this, I was really good today, I deserve this, and having ice cream or having cake, or having the french fries or the oh, I was, so I ate so well all week, I get to have this now and indulging in something, or oh, today I ate like crap anyway, so, like this doesn't matter, I'm just going to eat this, I'm just going to have the extra french fries or ice cream or again. But if you prefer savory or sweet or call those are all your language around food is what is a key, key sign of your relationship with food. If you're demonizing food, if you're attaching morality to certain foods, that's something to really pay attention to. Also, how you talk to yourself about food is something to pay attention to.

Brigitte: 29:49

I was really bad today. I had pizza. I was really bad today, I had ice cream. Now, you are only bad or good based on how you treat other people. You are not bad or good based on what you yeah, good for you, yeah, yeah. So I think it's really, really important to pay attention to how you talk about food and how you talk about yourself based on how you've eaten.

Emma: 30:14

What are some of the things that you recommend that people eat, depending on what they eat?

Brigitte: 30:20

Yeah, I think a good golden rule could be to no matter what your current, if you are looking to make changes, if you have specific health goals, if you're looking for more energy, if you're looking to lose weight, if you're happy, if things are good, keep on keeping on. If you're looking to make shifts and changes, something you can think about doing is doubling up your veggie intake. Whatever your veggie intake is right now, double it. A good way you can know that you're doing it is if you keep a food journal. You'll be able to track and see that you're doing that. So, doubling up your veggie intake. I would also say, when it comes to water, making sure that you're drinking at least 50% of your body weight in ounces of water. So if you weigh 200 pounds, your goal, your personalized goal, is 100 ounces of water. And again, that could be sparkling, unsweetened, sparkling unflavored or flat. And something to do as well is to make sure you're adding in, I would say, quality protein, so not the processed proteins quality fat, olive oil, avocado, nuts, seeds.

Brigitte: 31:36

Fat is our friend, fat adds flavor and fat fills us up.

Brigitte: 31:40

Fat is our friend and I would say, generally speaking, we always want to stay away from foods that are packaged as fat free or low in fat, because really what that means is high in salt, high in sugar. So we always want like the full fat, regular, normal version of the food and then having a quality carb. So what does that mean? A quality carb is like a whole grain, so the brown rice or the quinoa or the amaranth, the whole wheat piece of bread, the sweet potato or the baked potato, the butternut squash, right, like a really good quality carb and making sure that you're eating the rainbow. When it comes to your produce, we are eating the greens and the reds and the purples and the blues, right, the oranges you're eating. In my world we say eat the rainbow, because it just reminds us, it reminds clients, like make sure you're having a variety of produce and colors on your plate. So that's, that's what I would say. And you know, one ounce of dark chocolate, just, it's good for the soul.

Emma: 32:53

Soul included. That can disagree with that. Anything for balancing hormones?

Brigitte: 33:00

So with hormones again, like where you are in your life cycle matters, generally speaking, we want to add in. So I know, I said eat the rainbow, definitely eat the rainbow. Double down on the reds and the greens, so dark, leafy greens, and then, like red bell peppers, tomatoes you know, strawberries really double down on raspberries. Tomato I said tomatoes already sweet potatoes double down on the reds and the greens, for sure, and also add in one to two tablespoons of ground flax seed every day. Total game changer. Total game changer.

Emma: 33:42

Something else that's great feedback.

Brigitte: 33:45

Yeah, something else to consider, too, is aiming for at least two out of your three meals a day to have a plant based protein versus an animal based protein. So making sure that you're doing tofu or edamame or chickpeas or hummus or lentils or any bean really making sure that you're adding in plant based proteins, because legumes are crucial for hormone health, for sure.

Emma: 34:17

What's the magic behind the green and the red?

Brigitte: 34:22

Different makeup of vitamins and minerals right. So all of our produce get their different colors based on the different ratios of vitamins and minerals that that has right. That's what makes a eggplant purple and a blueberry blue and a tomato red. So you are what you're getting from the reds. Something that's really crucial and high from the reds is vitamin A, and that's very, very beneficial and important. And something you're getting from the greens is our B vitamins, like folate, niacin, riboflavin. So making sure you're getting those vitamins. And also from the reds you're getting a good amount of vitamin C, and from the greens you're getting a good amount of potassium. So the vitamins, the minerals, the specific combinations of them, how science has shown, are particularly beneficial for our ladies and our hormones.

Emma: 35:18

Hi, so I learned something more specific than I like it.

Brigitte: 35:24

I like it. I'm happy to hear that yeah.

Emma: 35:27

Happy to help Totally. What else do you think would be interesting to the ladies who are considering having babies or peri poles?

Brigitte: 35:39

I mean the whole age, anything, yeah, but there will be something something that's so crucial to think about really, really, is your stress and your stress management. If you are, if you're having, if you're trying to get pregnant, right, that's a very stressful time. You know your body changing during perimenopause it can also be a really stressful time. It's a lot of, you know, shifts going on. So, really focusing on our stress and our stress, our stress hormone, cortisol, which men have to, obviously, but it plays a big, a big role in how our hormones dictate. So all hormones, all of them, work on, kind of like a seesaw, so when one is up, others are down and when it flips, it flips. So, as our cortisol is really high, other more nourishing hormones are down right, like melatonin, our sleep hormone, is down, and dopamine, serotonin, our feel good hormones, they're down.

Brigitte: 36:36

So really really figuring out a better balance for your stress. So right is that? Is that talk therapy? Is that meditation? Is that, you know, gentle movement, like lots of time outside and nature, fresh air, is a particular Pilates, yoga, cycling class that you love? You know? A combination of all of the above, journaling, anything that really, really helps you to manage your stress better plays a huge, huge role in your, in all of your hormones and in your wellbeing in a really deep, profound way.

Emma: 37:11

Perfect, yes, very, very nice, very good. So I love how we're going back full circle to de-stressing self-care, nourishing ourselves from the inside and out, and balancing this hormones is the big thing. So being mindful of that self-care from all the different angles right, so that we totally function as optimal as possible in all areas in our body, absolutely.

Emma: 37:42

That's what we want to do. I love that. So, Brigitte, thank you so much. Any other thoughts, any other words of wisdom that you want to sprinkle in there for healthy lifestyle? I know that you have some trends coming out for 2024. What is that?

Brigitte: 37:58

So I think I think the one thing to really understand and, as women, to give ourselves a little bit of grace with is that what works for your best friend, your sister, your mother, is not necessarily going to work for you. Yes, okay, it's not supposed to. You are your very own special snowflake, right? We all are so understanding that your diet and when I say diet I mean the foods that make up your life, your diet should reflect the fact that you are your own special snowflake. So, really really understanding your personal nutrition needs that is the queen, that is the key. That is like the main thing throughout, the main underlying factor, throughout everything Understanding what is right and best for you and giving ourselves the grace like okay, what works for my bestie isn't really going to work for me, so let me figure out what does work for me.

Brigitte: 38:48

Yeah, and I think that's the energy to see more of in 2024, right, I think it's so interesting that everyone wants to be their own special snowflake and be treated like their own special snowflake, except when it comes to their diet, when it comes to their diet. Right, they want to do. They want to do what JLo is doing. They want to do what Kim Kardashian is doing, what their best friend is doing, their mother, their sister, their cousin. Oh no, girl, you are unique. You are beautiful and unique in who you are, and your diet should reflect the beautiful, unique human being that you are.

Emma: 39:24

Oh, I love that. Very, very nice. Yes, we all want to be so special and unique, but yet we want to copy somebody else's diet Exactly, exactly, okay. So any other last words of wisdom?

Brigitte: 39:39

No, that's it. This has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for having me. If understanding your personal nutrition needs feels like you want some support in that, feel free to reach out to me, or you could find any dietitian reach out to. I think, just making sure that if you are going to work with someone, they do have credentials they are a dietitian, not just a nutritionist.

Emma: 40:02

Nice. Well, you have an offer. Link Absolutely.

Brigitte: 40:05

I like that.

Emma: 40:06

Yeah.

Brigitte: 40:08

So I have a totally self-paced program. It's my wellness jumpstart. It's called Socially Fit and it teaches you. Its self-paced because we are busy women on the go, we're juggling a lot of balls. We want something that works for you on your time. So it teaches you the nutrition tools and real life tips to help you live your healthiest life without sacrificing your social life, without taking yourself out of that Saturday night dinner the way I used to, with no restrictions, no dieting, no calorie counting, just figuring out how do I balance my healthy life with my really vibrant, fun social life.

Emma: 40:43

Lovely. I love it, definitely. So we'll have that link for our audience in the show notes, along with your website and all your social media, so people could find you if they want to work with you. So you're not only nutritionist but you are a dietitian, so people could get really hooked up. And thank you so much for all of the tips. Today I have a few nuggets. I was taking some rigorous notes from myself as well, so thank you so much for that.

Brigitte: 41:10

Of course I love it.

Emma: 41:12

This was a great conversation, Emma, thanks for having me my pleasure and thank you and for the listeners. I will see you at the next one. Bye.