This is a machine transcription and is subject to error. Apologizes in advance. 

I'm Megan, a senior intern the health and wellness Center and today I'm talking with campus dietitian
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Kim Pierce about eating healthy on campus. can you give us an explanation of the my
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plate and how to incorporate it into the dining hall here at Stonehill, do you have any tips for sticking to the proper
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serving sizes of meals and snacks in the dining hall. The my the plate was introduced
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by the US department of agriculture in twenty eleven. as a visual reminder to eat healthy. so
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I like everybody if they possibly can because this is an audio cast to look
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at. choosemyplate.gov and check out the my plate so that they have a good visual aid
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to know what we're talking about. so this replaced the food pyramid which was in existence
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before that. I'm so used to be a triangle before that it was the square and it's changed
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shape over the years but the best basic message is the same I like people
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to keep the my plate I'm when they're building their meals in the dining commons and you can either do this physically
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by physically setting your food up like the my plate or you can mentally deconstruct
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your meals because most meals are mixed and if you mentally deconstruct them and then put them in the
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corresponding category. can help us to see how our portions are stacking
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up to what the USDA recommends. if you aim to make about half of
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your plate fruits and veggies. about a quarter of your plates lean proteins and about a quarter of your plate carbohydrates
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with a serving of a dairy then you're doing a pretty good job. do you
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recommend always eating breakfast. I think it's important to feel yourself regularly
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throughout the day and these intervals ends up by being determined by your sleep wake schedule.
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so let's start there when we aim to get to bed at a reasonable time. get up
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at a reasonable time and get about six to eight hours of sleep in between and we gonna set ourselves
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up to have a healthy eating day. everything is connected. breakfast
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is gonna help jumpstart your metabolism and it will give your brain something to work on so the next time
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that you are in an eight a.m. class. try to notice how difficult it is to
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focus on what the professor is saying. when you've had nothing to eat since dinner the night before
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it's much easier to focus when your brain has fuel to do that. so when we start off the with day
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breakfast. we give our brain what it wants and it also helps to regulate our meal patterns for the rest
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of the day as well. when we eat breakfast we know what time to eat lunch and when we eat
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lunch we know what time to eat dinner and everything is naturally synchronized
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eating three meals a day. also helps us to make healthier decisions come meal time.
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the next time you're in the dining commons when it's been a really long time since you've eaten last I want you to notice
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how hard it is to make a good healthy choice because you're only thinking you want to get
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food fast and whatever has the shortest line is the line you're going in. so
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making sure that we're adequately fueled throughout the day helps us make better healthier decisions
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how much water do you recommend drinking in a day and what beverages do you recommend sticking to in the dorm
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and dining hall. do you suggest avoiding sugary beverages altogether or what about caffeine.
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so the general advice on how much drink is to consume about eight cups of fluid today to
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stay adequately hydrated but some people need more others need less it depends on your activity
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level. hmmm how much exercise you're doing how much sweat you're losing any
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medical conditions that you might have in terms of what you drink water
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should try to make up the majority of your fluid intake. other things that can fit
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into a healthy diet would be other low sugar beverages like milk and smoothies
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coffee tea unsweetened iced tea unsweetened seltzer water
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since sugary beverages like soda and Juice don't contain many if any
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nutrients we should aim to consume these in moderation. we don't need to completely eliminate
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them but moderation is really key and a good rule of thumb is no more than one of these beverages a week.
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as for caffeine. we have to remember that caffeine 's a drug and its effects are gonna be
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different for different people. the Food and Drug Administration recommends no more than four hundred
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milligrams of caffeine a day to and to avoid unwanted side effects so give
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remember that caffeine can make us anxious and give us insomnia can cause jitteriness,
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rapid heart rate. just for frame of reference Starbucks Venti
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is twenty four ounces and the FDA recommends no more than
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about thirty two ounces of coffee a day we has to remember to the caffeine found
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in soda and chocolate teas and and energy drinks so it's important
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to tally up on much caffeine you're consuming each day.
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energy drinks. I tend to discourage those for two reasons number one they contain too much
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caffeine generally and number two they can also contain other dangerous
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substances like herbs which aren't regulated by the FDA. yet to
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know your body in terms of timing your caffeine. so a lot of people don't respond well to
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caffeine if they consume it after three p.m.. so know your body and to
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know what time you need to consume your caffeine so that it doesn't interfere with your sleep.
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what are some smart things to stop your dorm room fridge. so snacks are an important way
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to provide our body with fuel and nutrients and if you have large gaps of time
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between your meal so generally longer than four five hours that's a good time to have a snack
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of lot people find it afternoon snacks and bedtime snacks fit well with their everyday
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meal pattern as for what to snack on. think about what you had for your last
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meal. again visualize my plate and ask yourself what
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food groups that I missed during that meal and those would be good
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things to choose for a snack then. so let's say you didn't get any
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fruit and you didn't get any dairy in your mail that should probably make up your snack right there.
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I'm a big fan of the nurtibullets and I like to recommend that students get one for
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their dorm room as possible it's a great way to make smoothies. um which is
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a great way to get fruit and Dairy in. another healthy snack idea
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that I like to recommend is built around trail mix so if you buy a trail mix
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that's premade it tends to be expensive and it contains
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a lot of times foods and it that you don't particularly like
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see if you make it yourself and then you can get yourself a box of low sugar cereal like Cheerios
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kicks chex cereal and then get a bag of your favorite
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kind of nut almonds or cashews or your favorite seeds
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maybe sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds and some dried fruit like
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raisins craisins and then get some mini Ziploc
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bags and then make yourself like twenty different trail mixes that you can take with
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you. they're always readily available you can throw them in your backpack. um
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and they're going to give you good a source of fuel throughout the day.
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there's some more snack ideas that are on the Stone Hill dining website if you wanted to check out the nutrition section
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over there as well what are your tips for staff eating in late night snacking either certain food
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or snacks that are better to eat at night and then others. what about when the hell is the only thing open.
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well first let's clarify the misconception that eating at night it's bad. I hear that
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a lot. having a bedtime snack is a healthy way to stay fueled.
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the key is what you choose to eat and how much you choose to eat. so we very touched on
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some healthy snack ideas for your room for let's talk about some options that are available at the hill
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sometimes your schedule will send you to the hill for dinner because you might miss the timing
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of the dining commons. they hill is a pub style restaurant so
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they are geared more towards the unhealthy types of foods but that being said there
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are still some healthy choices that are available over there. some of them include the salad
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bowls the veggie burgers the grilled chicken sandwiches on whole wheat if it's
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the snacks that you're looking for or you can try splitting some of these things with a friend I'm
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a big fan of moderation too so if you really are looking for that pub style
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mozzarella stack. just try to get one serving and share
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it among all of your friends. so if you can have a taste of it. let's discuss stress
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eating with mindful leaving. so mindful eating kind of incorporates the reason
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why we eat when we we for also at the reasons we
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not only because we're hungry we because we're bored we're stressed we're lonely
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and mindful eating is paying attention to your body cues from what and
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how much you choose to eat. okay consider the scenario it's ten p.m.
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and you're hungry. you had your dinner at five p.m. so it's been about five hours since you've
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last eaten so you truly are hungry to practice mindful eating.
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you wanna try to refuel yourself with a health healthy bedtime snack like maybe a slice of toast where
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a whole wheat toast with Peanut butter and a sliced banana and the key is to try to enjoy this without
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any distractions so try to do it when you're not on your phone you're not watching Netflix.
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you not doing your homework it's hard for the brain to realize that the deli has had food.
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if the brain is distracted by something else. once you do this gives
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your brain a chance to realize that the bellies full and so you get back to doing your homework
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and maybe ten thirty you're feeling a little bit bored and they're anxious
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about a physics test that you have tomorrow so your first thought is to grab some chips.
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mindful eating will remind you that. okay I've already eaten I'm full and now I'm reaching for food
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for a different reason and helping to identify that reason it's gonna be a way
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to prevent you from falling into that trap. so having other
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things available to do to prevent yourself from reaching for the snacks will be
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key. I like to recommend that people maybe take a little study break in color or text
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or friend or read a chapter of the book that you wanna read not a book that you have to read and that
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way you can reward yourself with behaviors that are more productive
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and healthier they don't have anything to do with food do you have any other tips on social
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eating. so eating is a social activity. we can practice
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healthy eating behaviors we were eating alone and and we can also practice over eating with friends
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or eating at snack or meal or call should be to fuel ourselves with healthy
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foods. and again we have to think about the my plate it visualize that
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and a lot of times it's just a matter trying to increase the fruit and vegetables to balance out the rest
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of the meal. so this can be done by adding a salad to your pizza or
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enjoying some raw veggies with hummus or having a fruit cup with yogurt
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once you're adequately for fuel to look easier to share a reasonable portion of fun foods
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with your friends and the other important thing to remember is to tailor your expectations
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we want to try to eat and to eat healthy most of the time but life happens and
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it gets in the way we go to birthday parties to celebrate with friends and family I mean our food
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choices aren't always perfect and that's okay they don't need to be as long as we're trying to
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eat healthy most of the time. I like to encourage the eighty twenty rule so try to eat healthy about
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eighty percent of the time and that leaves you about twenty percent with over for some of the fun foods
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and the unexpected foods that pop on and try not to think in terms of each individual
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meal rather the average of all of those meals during the weeks time. so moderation is key.
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you have any good nutrition resources to refer to us? I do I'll I'll give them to
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you and maybe you can post some up on the page. so another resource
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to remember that's available on campus is my office. the nutrition appointments are free
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and students can make an appointment by calling me at five oh eight five six five one eight
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seven nine or e-mailing me at kpierce@stonehill.edu thanks for
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listening
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This is a machine transcription and is subject to error. Apologizes in advance.