Episode 8
[00:00:00] Welcome to The Be About Being Better podcast, where we help people make evidence based sustainable. Small changes for their health that compounded the huge shifts towards a better, more vibrant life. I'm your host Abbie Stasior, a health and life coach, future registered dietician, a master's graduate from Columbia University, and a certified intuitive eating counselor.
And I believe that we can't make lasting or meaningful change single handedly. So I'm so happy that you're here so that together you can see that a diet free, sustainable lifestyle is possible, and you can leverage that to live a better life. And remember my disclaimer, This podcast is meant to give you general information.
And it's not meant to substitute or replace medical advice, a diagnosis or service treatment.[00:01:00]
Hello. Hello. Welcome back to episode eight of the Be About Being Better Podcast. Y'all, I cannot believe we're already on episode eight. I'm so excited and I'm really excited for this episode. Cause I feel like this is a question I always get a lot is what do I keep in my kitchen? How do I eat and how can I keep up with a nutrient dense schedule for eating. How can I choose healthy options? Regardless of my busy schedule, I missed my busy schedule. And y'all know that I am so busy working so many hours in the week, but I have found a way to make the nutrient dense options convenient for myself. And I really wanna help you with this too.
And I don't wanna go through everything that I eat in a day because what I eat in a day doesn't matter. Nutrition is so, Individualized. It needs to be so personalized, [00:02:00] and of course, diet culture wants you to believe that you need to be eating a certain way and take certain foods out, and you have to follow a specific plan but that's not true. We all have different bodies and different things going on. We all have different needs and preferences and cultural foods that we like, that we need. And so nutrition has to be so individualized. One size does not fit all. So yes, in this episode today, we're gonna go over a couple things that I do and things that I keep in my kitchen to make my life easier.
But I wanna preface this whole conversation by saying, By no means are these things that you have to get, or these are the only things that you can eat. These aren't the only things that I eat, but here's just a few tips that work for me to make nutrient dense options more convenient for myself amidst my busy schedule.
So I hope that some of these help you too, or just give you more ideas. Hmm, What could I do based on my preferences? and based on what access to, different, grocery stores [00:03:00] or bodegas, whatever's around me, with my access and my budget, what are some choices that I could make to improve my nutrition or to more consistently reach my nutrition goals. So I hope that this just gives you some ideas for what you could do for you. By no means is this a prescription of you have to do this, especially if you're busy, you need to be doing, No, no, no, not at all. So I just wanted to preface. Oh, I am so excited to make this episode cause I feel like this will give people so much relief that it is okay to be eating these things. The first thing that I'm gonna say is that it is okay to eat frozen vegetables. It is okay to eat frozen fruit, and these are things that I always have stocked in my freezer.
Because they make life convenient. Personally, these are things that I eat every single week. I'm constantly getting those bags of microwaveable, steamable [00:04:00] vegetables, but then the microwave, they have the same nutritional value. It is okay. And for me, that is so much easier to just throw it in the microwave, than having to cook something fresh.
And sometimes, you know, just what I've heard from coaching so many clients over the years is that some clients will avoid eating fresh fruits and vegetables because they don't know how to cook it, or, you know, seeing a whole head of broccoli in the grocery store intimidates them so they avoid it. So I want you to have more nutrient dense options, and if a bag of frozen vegetables that you can just put in the microwave for four or five minutes is less intimidating for you, and you're open to that, and that will help you get the nutrients in from the vegetable.
Then that's what you should do. Or if you know how to cook it and you're not intimidated by raw vegetables, but literally ain't nobody got time for that. Cuz that's literally me. Go ahead and get yourself some steamable bags of frozen vegetables and you'll [00:05:00] be fine. And the fruit is great too, because you can add that to smoothies or top that on some, on some oats, things like that.
It, it's the same nutritional value so you can really optimize that as well and rely on things in your freezer. And what I love about stuff in the freezer is that it will last. So if you buy it and you don't need it right now, it will stay good and it's okay. And you will have those as a reserve for a rainy day or an exceptionally busy day where you need something easy or you weren't able to go grocery shopping.
You kind of have these things on reserve. Going off of that, the next thing that I always have in my pantry are microwaveable bags of rice. I love white rice. I have white rice I think every single day. I am obsessed with it. I love the taste. That is my comfort food, like when I am sick. And I'm not feeling well and maybe it's cuz I just grew up having a lot of gut health issues and always an upset [00:06:00] stomach, but, and white rice was just neutral for me, but that's my comfort food.
Even if I don't have a stomach ache, even though I'm just having a bad day, like white rice just gives me so much comfort really. It's something that I have every single day. , but sometimes I don't always wanna cook it, or right now I have a huge rice maker where I'm cooking it in bulk for most of the week.
Sometimes I don't wanna, you know, take that whole thing out or make a big batch. So I keep those microwaveable bags of rice and, and my cupboard, and it makes things so, Easy on the days you just need something quick. So I would say anything that you could get that's microwaveable, have those just on hand in your kitchen just for that rainy day where you might need it, you just never know.
Then I always keep in my pantry some canned proteins, whether that's canned tuna, canned salmon, canned chicken, beans. I also rely on canned vegetables as [00:07:00] well, because you can put that in a stir fry. You can have that on the side. You can put that in a soup. I'm always doctoring up soup. So sometimes I'll take canned chicken and put that in some Campbell's chicken noodle soup.
Cause I feel like the chicken that they have in there is so small is not a, not enough. So adding, you know, some canned chicken there. And sometimes I'll take canned tuna or canned salmon, I'll add that to a salad and that'll be my protein source.
And there's no extra cooking. There's no cooking at all involved in that if it's going on a salad. So that can really make your life easier. Relying on canned foods, specifically canned proteins. That's what you wanna focus on. And if you're a vegetarian, you don't eat tuna, salmon, chicken, that's not your style.
Canned beans are really great. Always adding chickpeas or kidney beans to different things, and they're really great. If you're having canned vegetables, though, the way that they preserve those, they tend to be higher in sodium. So I just recommend, even with the beans too, or any canned vegetables, just rinsing those off, Just putting them in the [00:08:00] strainer, rinsing that in your sink for a little bit, and then adding that to it, just to kind of take some of that, take some of that extra sodium off.
But other than that, they really has the same nutritional value. As far as vitamins and minerals, you should be good to go there. Going off of other protein sources, something that I don't necessarily always keep those in my cabinet because that wouldn't make sense, but another thing that I tend to grab at the store that's really, really easy is rotisserie chicken, is deli meat. I'm always keeping those things on hand so I can make a quick Turkey, lettuce, cheese roll up, or make a quick Turkey sandwich or have a protein source like my main protein for a meal. With an easy rotisserie chicken. Those things are like $5. I love rotisserie chicken.
I think they taste so good and they're really affordable and easy. And sometimes for the week I'll get a whole rotisserie chicken and I'll chop it up and I'll just take that one time, all of the meat off, [00:09:00] and I'll separate that out into multiple servings. And from there I have like four or five servings of protein.
So I can make four or five dinners from that, and sometimes I'll get from there a bag of microwaveable frozen veggies. Okay. That spreads out over four or five surveys, and then a microwaveable bag of rice or two. Spread that out over four or five surveys. Boom. There's four or five dinners right there that just took however long it took to microwave those couple things, , and go to the store to get the rotisserie chicken, which nowadays you can get stuff delivered to you, which is even wonderful.
I have less time there. There's your dinner that is so nutrient dense and a balanced meal. You got the protein there, got a carbohydrate, got a vegetable, boom, boom. The next thing is I, I keep different protein products and some supplements in my house. We'll have a whole episode about supplements and my thoughts on them.
Uh, but I do think that they. Convenient. [00:10:00] So things like protein bars or protein powder, and I normally keep a chocolate or vanilla, and then I have an unflavored version because I can take that protein powder that's unflavored and put that in other things. I can mix that with my marinara sauce to add a couple grams of protein there, or I'll put that in a Campbell's chicken noodle soup with canned chicken, so I get, you know, a little extra protein there.
Unflavored protein powder that just easily dissolves in extra protein that way. , and I'll put it in my coffee as well. it really dissolves super easily the unflavored version. But I've also put vanilla protein powder in my coffee too, so that it can taste really great, and that just adds some extra protein.
But the protein bars, the pre-made protein shakes, general protein powder, all those things can make our lives more convenient. And I get asked all the time, Hey, what protein bar should I get? What protein powder do you recommend? . There's not one brand where I'm like, This is perfect, this [00:11:00] is great. They're all processed, right?
They all have different things going on in them, and there's always a risk with supplements. Again, we'll have a whole episode on this because you know, you have to be wary about the supplements in the things that we're putting in our body. They're not regulated, so There's a, a risk with, with any supplement of what they're really putting in there, and are the labels accurate?
A lot of the times they're not. But one thing that in general I would recommend is getting a protein bar. That number one is allergy friendly. So if you are allergic to nuts, if you're sensitive to soy or a lot of sugar, um, Gluten whey protein, dairy.
There are certain common irritants that you might be aware of or intolerances that you have. So try and find one that is allergy friendly and then try and find one that has at least 20 grams of protein. Those are normally the two. When people are asking me what protein bar, I'm not necessarily giving them a specific [00:12:00] brand to buy because you have to find what you like and what's gonna work for you.
And there's so many different kinds out there and what flavors you like and things like that. But I would try and find one that has a higher amount of protein that is also in line with your allergies and intolerances so that you're not giving yourself a flare up. Things like that. So those are the things that I would recommend.
And I think the unflavored protein powder, if you can find one you like. I think it's great to add into other meals, whether that's your coffee soups, sauces, things like that can be really convenient to sneak some extra nutrients in. The other things that I like to have in my kitchen on hand is stuff like some fruit on the go.
Always have apples, bananas, oranges, uh, apple sauce packets. I love like the go-go squeezes. I also normally have things to. Like the baby bell cheeses, things that are just easy to to grab and go that are gonna have a lot [00:13:00] of nutrients for me. And I like to snack, especially for having different sides for my lunch during the day or an afternoon snack.
Those things are really easy and that makes it easy to, pair up different food groups. So you can take a banana very easily with you on the go. And then maybe one of those peanut butter packets. So you don't have to take a whole jar of peanut butter with you, but you just have an individual packet that you have with that or an individual bag of pretzels or chips.
Um, and then the baby bell cheeses so you can kind of mix and match and have different food groups at one time for snacks. Those I think, are really great to always have in your kitchen and around you. Couple of the things I always have eggs because I go in phases with eggs. Right now I'm on the in with eggs, but for the last six or so months I've been on the out with eggs.
But when I'm on the in with eggs, they are always in my kitchen and I normally batch cook a bunch of hard boiled eggs at the beginning of the [00:14:00] week to have for breakfast or snacks just to get extra protein in. I have those things ready to go, so I always tend to have eggs. and I always have rolled oats in my kitchen and in my cupboard.
Whether I wanna make overnight oats or I wanna add them dry to a smoothie to kind of thicken things up, add some extra carbs, add some extra fiber. I think overnight oats is a really great, easy recipe that you can customize to taste however you want. It's a really great and easy breakfast. I think that's a really good, good place to start if you want an easy breakfast, something I always have in my, cabinet or in my kitchen.
So those are the things as far as food that I normally have. A couple other things that I have that aren't food related, but help me make the healthier options convenient for myself are, I always have small Tupperware. I always keep really small plastic boxes. I think we all know what Tupperware looks like, but I always make sure that I have the snack size [00:15:00] and I always have a big stock of Ziploc bags, or the reusable bags. I like the little Tupperware containers because you stack up nicely, don't take up a lot of space, and, it seems to be, you know, better for the environment to just be reusing those versus always swapping out different Ziploc bags. But I, tend to have both in my kitchen on hand because it's important to have snacks throughout the day and to be making, you know, those parts of your meals can be convenient for yourself to take those things on the go.
And it's, we're normally so cognizant of having the big tupperware containers to hold our meal prep, but then we forget about the small ones. And the smaller ones are what we really need. Whether we have smaller, a smaller amount of leftovers or we have a snack that we wanna take with us on the go. So always tend to, to keep those around.
And Mason jars are great for overnight oats great! What I've been doing recently is mixing a pudding packet, vanilla pudding packet with cottage cheese. Now I hate cottage [00:16:00] cheese, but it is so great as a source of protein. So I'll get cottage cheese, mix it with the vanilla pudding, the little bit of oat milk or almond milk. Blend that all together. And it is a protein packed pudding. Oh, it tastes so good. So I've been putting that in mason jars as well. Sprinkling that with a little graham cracker chrome. That has been such a great breakfast. So, or or snack, whatever. Whatever works for you. But that's what I've been doing that for breakfast.
It's been so wonderful. So I use mason jars for that. So having those things on hand, things that you can easily reuse that are in a smaller container. Honestly are are easier. And I use those things more often than I use the bigger Tupperware containers. So hope those things help to give you some ideas of what you could do in your kitchen to make the nutrient dense options more convenient for you, to make it easier for you to consistently hit your nutrition goals, even if you are a super busy person and constantly on the go.[00:17:00]
Now I find that. You know, people online are always giving advice, like, Oh, this is what I eat. And uh, we always see those, “what I eat in a day'' posts online. And when we look at those people tend to think, Oh, if I eat like that, then I'll look like this person, then I'll get that result. And that's not necessarily true.
I mean, what works and is healthy for one person might not work or be healthy for. Another person. So I think it's actually really dangerous to be doing what I eat in a day post, and I hope that this episode is serving a different purpose, where it just opens you up to the idea, here are some ideas that you could do. Not, “you need to be doing these things.”
So I hope that this reframes that for you, because I want to refrain from doing what I eat in a day post. Cause I think they really can be dangerous cuz there's not one way to eat. And trying to eat in one way are exactly like [00:18:00] another person. Is, is not, is not going to work. You have to find what's going to work best for you and your body and your system, given your culture and your schedule and your preferences and any allergies that you may have.
So you have to find what's gonna work best for you. And just following how one person eats on the internet can be really dangerous based on those things, especially with allergies involved and things like that, and thinking that, oh, if. Just eat this way, then I'll look like them. That's not necessarily true, especially because with these, what I eat in a day post, like, you know, I'll tell you straight up, people are lying.
I guarantee you this is not how they're eating day in and day out. Because online it's a highlight reel. They want you to believe that they're eating like that all the time, but you guarantee. Probably not how it looks, and they might be putting on a facade, and who's to say that that was all filmed in the same day could have been, you know, piece piecing things together and um, or making stuff up, or just showing you the package, but they didn't actually eat [00:19:00] it.
And so I just think that those things can be such a slippery slope and, and really, frankly, dangerous and contributing to. It's a diet culture that is constantly telling us that we need to eat a certain way and things need to be unified. And if you follow me, then you'll look like this and you'll get the same results as me.
And it just makes it so results in body image, um, you're focused. And I wanna get away from that. So I hope that today, instead of necessarily giving you specific foods like this is what you need to get, here are some things that can help you reach your individual nutrition goals. Without here giving you a list, here are the things that you need to eat.
So for example, like it is, okay, like I'm not telling you that you need to go get frozen green beans or it canned peas, right? But , how I'm trying to reframe it to you is that it is okay to have frozen vegetables. [00:20:00] It is okay to have microwaveable grain product. It's okay to have canned items, and I know that those might not be the most g glamorous nutrition options, but it gets the nutrients in and it makes it convenient, and it is okay to lean on convenience.
So I just hope that I'm giving you more general things versus specific foods, because that's really the intention for all of this. Now, some, some hate that I've gotten online when I've said these things like, Oh, these things are so high in sodium and these things are processed, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I feel like we need to also explain that there's a difference between processed and ultra process. I would say all food is basically processed like a food that's canned is processed because it went through a process to be canned and normally in the can, they put some extra things in to preserve it so it has a longer shelf life.
But that's also the point too, is like there's nothing inherently bad about eating something canned. Like I said, with the canned stuff, you might wanna rinse it cuz it, [00:21:00] the kind of rinse those things off tends to be a little higher in sodium, but as soon as you rinse it, then you're fine. But, there's nothing inherently wrong with having processed items.
We need those, Like we're, we're in an age and in a society where we're so busy, we have so many things going on. We need to rely on process items to get us through the day. Like these things have developed and it's making our lives more convenient and it's okay to take advantage of those things. And it's possible to still have a processed item, quote unquote, processed and still reach our nutrition goals.
And so the difference between process and ultra process is the ultra process items are like our refined grains and our sugars and like our, our donuts and pastas and things like that where. Things are, yes, they're processed in a way and they're taken away from their natural [00:22:00] form, but then they go through an extra processing process where things are completely stripped of their nutrients, and then they're fortified again.
Things are added back to it, and normally what they're adding in addition to nutrients back is all these extra additives and extra chemicals and different things that they're changing the chemical nature. And taking it so far away from the natural form and where it was. So there's a huge difference between things that are processed and things that are ultra processed.
There are things that are just processed, like things that are frozen or things that are smoked, things that are dried, things are canned, things are put in a bag. That means that it's going, it's processed, and there's nothing inherently wrong about that. And there's nothing inherently wrong about the ultra processed things.
Those things can still fit in our diet and things that we eat in a day. And it is okay to eat those things because all foods fit. So let me know. DM me, let me know what was the most helpful [00:23:00] about this episode. If you feel any relief that, okay, yes it is okay.
If you have frozen vegetables, it's okay to rely on those things and what you're gonna stock your cabinet or your fridge with next, what are you going to keep in your kitchen based on some of these ideas that you've gotten today? What are you going to do that is best for you, yourself, and your health, and I'll see you in the next episode.
Hey y'all. Thanks again for listening to the View about Being Better podcast. I so appreciate you. If this episode made you laugh, smile, think about yourself or your life differently, in any way, making your life better, I empower you to share the show with three people who, just like you, need to hear this message and have this type of transformation in their lives.
I personally read all the reviews the show and see the Instagram story shares. [00:24:00] It honestly gives me so much joy to see that our mission is making people's lives better, and the reviews really do help in increasing our impact. So thank you so much for taking the time to do that. If you need personalized support with anything discussed in today's episode or need help creating a sustainable diet free lifestyle, take my quiz.
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