MIND Diet Meal Planning & Making Simple Meal Changes for Brain Health

This meeting is being recorded, so I sent a small notification. We are

making

a small recording of our session today so we can post all the information we shared on our YouTube page. So welcome to cep live, it's good. To see everyone start to log in a little bit, we're here with you every week on Tuesdays at three o'clock to log in and let you share a little bit about the educational program that we have at cep and what we do. At cep we are really focused on being a lifestyle program for people with MCI and their caregivers and really coming in and saying what lifestyle interventions we can bring to your life, like nutrition, staying active with Tai Chi classes and Yoga and Fitness.

We have amazing occupational therapists in our program and part of our study is teaching people how to live longer independently and safely in their homes. We have a whole technology side to our program at cep where we come in and talk to you about the latest innovations and offerings to make things accessible for you in your life after MCI and we also have an amazing cognitive team that can talk about very well proven research and lifestyle programs and support systems that can really make a big difference and that's what We are interested in cep, we are interested in research that makes a big difference once you and your care providers have noticed and diagnosed some memory problems to say what we can do that will make a difference, what we can do. to change the outcome or the trajectory of some of these

changes

that we're noticing in our lives and CP is about covering how to bring that research into your life in these weekly webinars and one of the things that we know and say over and over again.

At cep is that nutrition makes a difference, what we put in our bodies makes a big difference and that is the topic we are going to share today. We have Greg here who is our phenomenal nutritionist who has been working with our program and He's going to talk to you a little bit about Mind Diet

meal

planning

and how to really take some suggestions that your care provider gives you to do things like for what not to follow the Mediterranean

diet

, the Mind

diet

or the DASH diet. or whatever the diet is, how do we plan and implement it in our home?

Today we are going to talk about the Mind diet, which is what we actually take all year round at cep to implement the Mind diet into your life and us. I know some of these

changes

take time and a lot of these changes require guidance, so Greg is someone who is an expert in that guidance and he says we know what the recommendations are, but how do we implement some of those recommendations in our day? life today, so I'm going to break that down for you guys, we have a few more people logging in. We didn't have Brain Talk live before us this week because they had the in-person recruiting type.

Brain Help Forum. today at the Carter Center, so if you were there with us, if you could stop by, thank you so much for supporting our programs at Emory, otherwise we have a lot of resources after a while after this program that I'm going to share with you on the chat we will be able to share our recording from this week, previous recordings that we have had in the past, we have a whole YouTube channel that stores all of that for you, we also have resources on how to get in touch. With the CEP program, if you were interested in being a part of our year-long research study, coming once a week to the Atlanta area and learning about these resources and classes in person, I will give you information on how to do that. through Emory's cognitive clinics and we'll also share some additional things in the chat as we go.

Greg just threw some Haze into the chat, so that's something we really want to encourage you to use this webinar. and a button on your screen, if you move your mouse a little bit, you can find a q button if you want to ask some questions there, but I will be monitoring the chat and even though we can't see you at your house. This is an interactive session so feel free to use some of those features to ask us questions, let us know what you're thinking because you know it's a free webinar and you have access to the expert and that's what we're here for.

Some things are really clear, so I'm going to go ahead and introduce you to our guests today. Greg is a phenomenal resource for us at cep. He is a registered dietician and nutritionist. He is a certified

health

coach who has extensive experience in nutrition. and

health

education and what Greg is really passionate about is getting involved in healthy eating, personal well-being and the whole area of ​​your life, your

mind

, your body and your spirit, and really supporting you and your individual goals and many of us at cep that those goals are in the

mind

diet um he went to Georgia State University to study nutritional sciences and his master's degree in nutrition and human performance is from Logan University and we are very happy to have his resource with us today , so that's good See you Greg, thanks for being here with us.

Thank you very much for inviting me. Megan. I'm excited and very excited for everyone who is here today and really ready to share information with you, anything that I really feel can be beneficial. I'm going to share a presentation that I normally give during this one of our cohorts, when it comes to you know our care partners and you also know our members, so this is just a presentation of what I would normally do. something that myself and the other dietician Margo have come together and just provide these classes and provide this education, so if you've heard this before, I'm sorry, but I'm definitely going to try to be very clever. and answer any questions that may arise and feel free to ask questions put them in the chat box and we'll get started so today we're going to talk about

meal

planning

when it comes to creating meals for the Mind Now diet.

The Mind diet, if you don't already know, is a diet that is a mixture, it's like a combination between the Mediterranean diet and also the DASH diet, so the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet are two diets that are supposed to be essentially heart healthy, so these are two diets that are very beneficial for cardiovascular health, cardiovascular function, and overall heart health, and they come together to make you think. Now you might be wondering, "Okay, if these are two different types of cardiovascular diets, then why is it associated with

brain

health?" and the answer is simply that what is good for the heart is also good for the

brain

.

We know that there are blood vessels and arteries that enter and leave the heart and that pump blood in and out of the heart. It's more or less the same concept. when it comes to our brain, blood goes into our brain and just for the brain to function and flow normally, now when there are blockages in that connection between our blood going to the brain and the brain going back to our body and to our hearts and all that. That's where we start to see problems in cognitive function, so the Mind diet tries to put all of these different things together to promote brain health as much as possible, slow cognitive decline, and promote overall healthy living and a prosperous health.

Overall, today I wanted to talk about meal planning and creating meals for the Mente diet. Now, the concept of meal planning, we can go ahead and move on to the next slide. The concept of meal planning is. You know, if I asked someone what it is. meal planning you know people would give me various answers some people would say that meal planning is knowing exactly what I am going to eat before eating it very true some people would say that meal planning is boring true some people would say that meal planning becomes exhausting true, It's a lot of work, but essentially meal planning is

making

sure your meals are prepared in advance for a specific period of time, so let's say, for example, you start the week in which you know you're about to have a meal.

Busy week planning your Monday to Friday meals can be very beneficial because you don't know that you don't have to think about what you are going to eat that day and you tend to stop making less sporadic decisions because your meals are already prepared. and we've already thought about it so that's the meal planning process and everyone's process may look different some people can buy their groceries on Saturday prepare everything on Sunday for a weekday meal plan some people can buy their food on Sunday and just plan have a lunch planned for that week just because lunch can be the busiest time of the day, it really depends on individual needs and it's up to you what you personally feel is necessary.

I know for myself when I have a meal planned, life just becomes a lot easier, my week got a lot better and I spent a lot less money because I don't know how to spend money on food every day, but the meal was already thought out and planned even before the week started, so let's talk about To make meal planning a success, there are a couple of different things I'd like you to know. Meal planning is very essential when it comes to mental diet. Implementing this mental diet is very important, so there are certain foods that make it up. the Mediterranean diet and DASH that I talked about last time, you know, and those mental diet foods, incorporating them into meal planning is key, having a stocked pantry, that's pretty important too, let me see if I can move on to the next slide. here having a pantry is very important, so you know, just having your condiments, you know it doesn't really matter when it comes to condiments, you can really use any type of condiment.

I always promote and encourage people to use more herbs, those types of seasonings. because they tend to have less sodium as opposed to these, so salts or lemon pepper, Old Bay stuff tends to have a little bit more sodium, more salt, whereas things like garlic powder, onion powder, peppers, so they usually don't They don't contain a lot of sodium and they can definitely give your food a really good flavor, so my diet is based on food, so you don't need to translate grams of nutrients into food. We don't want to complicate things at all, we just want to get The foods that are on the mind are on our plate consistently throughout the week and we use the meal planning tool to make sure the researchers have laid the scientific foundation.

The only thing you need to worry about is what goes on your plate and maintaining a mental closet of options. a natural way to start the meal planning process so think about what you already have in the refrigerator, you don't always have to buy one hundred percent of the ingredients that you can use or that you may need and neither should I know to buy a Complex and very complicated meal plan guide? I remember there was one I bought a long time ago that gave me really delicious recipes, that tasted really delicious, but they incorporated foods I had never heard of before and I just made them more.

It was difficult for me to be able to execute those meals due to the fact that I had to buy literally everything and two, there were a lot of foods that I had never heard of. I had never heard of certain ingredients to be able to incorporate them, that just became It's very stressful for me, so keep it

simple

, use what you have if you need something, go get it and incorporate it into your meal plan, so the next slide will tell you. provides some tips like the ones I just shared, try incorporating what you eat most often as a base, like your whole grains or your vegetables, another is for real life situations, it may be more practical for you to consume some of the same foods for several meals and just double the batch, say for example if you roast a pan of Brussels sprouts for dinner one night then you have leftovers, you couldn't save them for another day, it's just that

simple

concept that we probably already have or you can do a large amount of brown rice or any similar type of starch and that can be used in different meals for your week as your meal plan, so let's say, for example, you sit there on Sunday and you say you know what I want to eat on breakfast, lunch and dinner this week, maybe some ingredient can be in both lunch and dinner so you can keep it simple that way too, while you can change the protein option and the vegetarian option too when you complete your worksheet, there is a worksheet that we give to our members when we do this class, so the result should be a list of foods that fit the Mind diet guidelines, as well as your personal preferences, as well We'll talk about that a little later.

Remember not to get overwhelmed with the process, this is simply a guide tostart, it may be easier. To focus on one meal at a time, we already talked about that and the more you do it, the easier it will be and you'll keep the meals simple until you're ready to try more foods, okay, so the next slide here shows us basically the correct list. um, when it comes to the Mind diet, it incorporates lean proteins, it incorporates whole grains, it incorporates fruits and vegetables, it incorporates healthy fats, for example, like olive oils, also high Omega-3 fats, like nuts, um, flax seeds, chia seeds, salmon, things like that.

This is a good list to show you every week or so when you're on the Mind diet how you should be eating well, so I want you to think of this list as at least three servings or at least this is what we want. Think of it like this because we don't want to be too limited in what we eat and I wouldn't want someone to follow this list and think they can't eat anything else just because the list doesn't say pay. pay attention to your hunger signals know how much it takes to satisfy you and just be responsible with how you choose food, so every day we want to incorporate whole grains, we are going to incorporate at least one serving of vegetables, now the wine, the glass of wine It's optional, it's because, um.

Red wine specifically has some good antioxidant properties, it has something called Resveratrol which comes from grapes and which serves as an antioxidant and has been shown to be good for the heart and the brain, so at least six days a week we want to incorporate some leaves. vegetables at least five days a week we want to incorporate some type of nuts every two days or four times a week we want to incorporate some beans twice a week we want to incorporate berries and poultry and at least once a week we want to incorporate fish now someone asked me before why why does it only say to incorporate fish once a week, especially if fish has a great source of lean protein and also has very high levels of Omega-3 again, we only say at least once a week we want incorporate that, but if you like fish and prefer it as your protein option, you know you can definitely find ways to incorporate it more and maybe the reason it says once a week is simply because seafood in generally contain high levels of mercury, so just to help mitigate that, you know, the recommendation says once a week, but feel free to enjoy it, since as you see, it's all about servings here, so in The next slide we saw different types. of foods X servings per week, for example, let's go back to the previous slide real quick.

This slide here says three servings of whole grains. Says a teaspoon of olive oil. The next slide shows us what that real portion is. If you ever wonder what a portion would look like for you, this could be a great reference, at least to start with, because I don't know about you, but I know for myself that I sometimes have trouble with portion control and portion sizes. portions and I don't really have any kind of standards because I went to school to study nutrition. Yes, I have it now, but the average person doesn't really know what a serving size looks like.

This is a good place to start with vegetables. We see a cup of green leafy vegetables or half a cup of cooked raw vegetables. This is approximately equivalent to one serving of vegetables. Whole grains. We see that half a cup of cooked whole grains is approximately equivalent to one serving of nuts. an ounce or a quarter cup, so these are really great measurements that can give us what a serving might look like, so the next slide I wanted to share offers a sample template for meal planning and this is the right one. It seems very confusing here There seems to be a lot going on It's like Greg, how do I read this?

So let's start with Sunday, for example, let's say someone is trying to figure out what they should eat on Sunday for lunch. Well, this is one. way you can use this chart, you can basically say okay Sunday for lunch, this is what I'm going to eat. I'm going to incorporate my brown rice. I'm going to eat some broccoli. I'll stir in some kale. I'll put some strawberries in it. side and drizzle a tablespoon of olive oil over my rice, okay, so for Monday let's say someone wants to eat oatmeal as a whole grain, some carrots as a green, spinach, nuts, black beans, they have chicken, they have olive oil , so this is just an example.

As to how this table can be used, I would definitely recommend using something like this for a specific meal, so let's say you want to plan all three meals. I would use this for breakfast. I would use another one of this for lunch and then another one for dinner that way you can see based on those three graphs what your breakfast, your lunch and your dinner would be for that particular week and if you notice that in this graph there are some flickers, for For example, on Saturday, all there is is the whole wheat process, everything else.

It's blank, well, if you're going to do it by meal, it's okay to leave some blank spaces because you can fill them in at other meals, so let's say for Saturday this was someone's lunch, they just had whole wheat pasta for breakfast and they can incorporate a bit. protein and some vegetables at dinner, maybe they can incorporate a little bit of olive oil, some nuts as a snack or, you know, just balance it out like that, just because you can fill it in all the spaces, it doesn't need to be full for a particular meal. , I hope that makes sense, let me know if you want me to explain that a little deeper foreign oh yeah, I'll keep it, I'll keep it, let us know if anything comes up or if you want Greg to really focus on a specific topic that you have a little more about Out of curiosity, let us know and we will give you an update.

Okay, great, thank you so much, Megan, so this here is a blank um template. I previously shared the one that was already preloaded, but this one here is a blank template. At this point in the class, you know? Tell people it's okay by using this blank template. Go ahead and complete a Sunday dinner for yourself. you know how to map it out go ahead and plan it with your partner figure out what you're going to incorporate you're going to have a full degree what's going to be your option there what's going to be your green leaf are you going to match take one what's going to be your vegetable I'm always going to look for vegetables, so I say always Try to choose at least one of them, if not both, okay?

Will you eat beans? Some people say no, some people say yes, okay? Are you going to eat birds? Are you going to eat fish? This is where we sit down and plan meals and it's a little more practical at this point in the presentation and at this point in the class and the people. They are able to share with me some of the meals they can think of, so if you can post in the chat something that you would plan, you know, let's say for example it's a Sunday lunch, what would you have for a Sunday?

Lunch using some of these categories presented here. I just want to see. Maybe you know. If anyone has any ideas. I would definitely like to see what it is. I know it for myself and I will go first. While you all are. Thinking that, I would probably do it with my whole grain. It's funny because I don't really eat those kinds of grains much. But let's say, for example, I make a whole wheat muffin. A whole wheat roll. I'm going to eat some carrots. as my vegetables my green leaves are going to be spinach I'm going to eat some baked chicken I'm going to use olive oil and as a side I'll have a cup of blueberries so that's my dinner sorry that would be my lunch in that case, like this which, as you can see, I skipped the nuts, I skipped the beans, I skipped the fish, maybe during another meal that I'm at that week I can incorporate those things, but for that specific meal that would be like that. let me know what you think of my meal or any type of meal that you can create using this right here and one thing that we get a lot of questions about Greg is do you know why I should use olive oil all the time?

Why should I use only olive oil? What do you think is olive oil versus butter versus canola oil? What is best for the Mind diet? That's a great question. I would definitely say that olive oil is the most preferred when it comes to the Mind diet just because of the There has been a lot of research done on it, there is a component called polyphenols, olive oil is high in polyphenols which is an antioxidant and antioxidants. Another way to help understand what an antioxidant is, think about anti-aging, so oxidation occurs when something is exposed to oxygen.

Why when you expose an avocado or a piece of apple to oxygen or room temperature will it start to brown, is that due to the oxygen in the air? However, when you expose it to a citrus fruit, it is an antioxidant because of the vitamin. C or even vinegar that is high in acid can help reduce that oxidation, so it's the same kind of characteristic that olive oil has on the brain. There are certain nutrients and minerals, vitamins in that olive oil that can help slow down oxidation in the brain. It can help slow down oxidation in the body in general, so it's like a kind of anti-inflammatory, anti-inflammatory oil that you can use.

That research has shown that it has many benefits, which is why we prefer to use olive oil. than a butter instead of a margarine, these tend to have a higher content of saturated fats, they tend to have a lower content of any type of anti-inflammatory properties, unlike olive oil, which has a high content of anti-inflammatory properties and We preach all the time. time olive oil olive oil olive oil cep Chicken sandwich with rosemary and lettuce on whole wheat bread with beans so she has our whole wheat bread, she has our chicken and beans sandwich and definitely use that Holy option that I know we also say in the Mind diet is the way to go absolutely I see you incorporated beans which are high in fiber which is really great it also has some really beneficial vitamins so also some good protein so this is a good meal and you see how simple something like this is.

It's not overly complicated or complex, it's something really simple and something you'll probably want to eat, you know, meal planning, oh go ahead Greg, I'm sorry, I'm going to say that meal planning doesn't have to be something you don't you want. eat it, it can be things that you want to eat, we just want you to incorporate things that are on your mind to help enrich the quality of that food as it relates to cognitive function and it sounds great. Sandra asked why there is no low fat dairy. In the meal plan, why do we choose whole fats in the Mind diet?

Great question Sandra so Dairy now, what was the question about low fat products versus full fat? Yes, why is there no low fat dairy in the meal plan? Well, we. We want to incorporate dairy very sparingly, um simply because when it comes to products that have more saturated fats, those are not typically associated with mental diet type of foods, it's generally considered to be saturated fats, which are fats that come from products. animals in particular. They're going to cause more inflammation, they're going to cause more oxidation over time, so while a low-fat dairy option might be beneficial for getting protein and getting other vitamins like vitamin D, it's not something we would want. let's say, they have dairy, it's more like yes, they can have it built in, but these are the foods that we really want you to focus on here, so it's more of that instead of not being able to have them at all, and what about the almond milk? have almond milk in the chat, how about almond milk?

If you have it, we prefer almond milk to whole milk in my diet. I would say yes, why almond milk, I mean, it's a plant-based milk when we talk about mental diet. Don't outright say more plant-based, but essentially, if you look at all of these foods, I mean the majority of this list is plant-based, of course, we can incorporate healthy lean proteins like fish and chicken to get our proteins because that's very It's important, but we all want to incorporate as many plant foods as possible. They have been shown to help decrease cognitive decline and also improve heart health, which is directly correlated to brain health, as well as decreasing oxidation in general, really good for the skin, really good for the heart, so I'm definitely going to incorporate more of those plant foods, so almond milk is one of those plant milks, it's very low in protein, so I wouldn't say drink almond milk for its protein content, um not quite, It's fortified with vitamin D.

Some calcium also has vitamin E and vitamin E is one of those major antioxidants that are really good for the brain. It's very good at helping clarify that and I love being clear, you know why you're choosing the things that you're choosing, it's very good,especially on the Mind diet, to really prioritize. I want to choose it because it's anti-inflammatory or I want to choose it because I know it's good for brain health and those little choices are a very good way to do that, Lawanda said for lunch, if it's a homemade suit, follow these guidelines and you're about to be an exclusive time Lawanda so I love your recommendation especially today it wasn't cold in Atlanta so that's a good idea they kicked me out yeah I had to go. the jacket at the back of the closet, oh my gosh, but yeah, I think that's a great lunch too.

It is a very good idea to incorporate soups. It's very easy to add vegetables to soup without actually tasting the vegetables. your soup is a good job, I think it's great and I saw a question from Mary, she asked green beans and kidney beans as the equivalent of cannellini beans, so I would say I don't know the exact specs when they match. as far as their nutrient content goes, but I can tell you now that they both probably have very good fiber content. As far as beans go, all beans are considered starchy vegetables, so they contain some type of carbohydrates, but the fiber in them really makes them a great choice because they can still raise your blood sugar, but foods that don't contain fiber will raise your blood sugar like direct light, but foods with fiber will still raise your blood sugar but more slowly and gradually and that's where we want it to be because that's where we have more control of our blood sugar, especially if we have diabetes, that's where we have a better response to insulin.

Our body doesn't like to secrete all this insulin at once, but it can really help control how much is secreted and the level that our blood sugar can maintain, whether it's green beans, cannellini beans, or your beans, I think. which is a great option and Greg, do you have any comments on canned beans versus fresh beans? Any thoughts on the Mind diet in this? No, I would just say that if you choose canned beans, that can be a hundred times more convenient, right? um just buy the ones that are low in sodium and just add your own seasoning to them, that would be my only thing, my only stipulation, um, they are prepared to almost the same quality standards.

I mean, the nutrient content doesn't really vary much between the two, so if you opt for canned beans, make sure they are low in sodium. If you are someone who has to watch your sodium intake and likes to use a lot of salt, perhaps you can reduce the sodium in beans while being able to add seasonings to the food. to help improve the flavor instead of having the beans, you know, completely salted, you know, someone said that if you need calcium, milk is usually better, so calcium can be obtained from many different sources besides milk For example, leafy greens like your collard greens, your spinach, even some of those heartier greens like broccoli, like you can get calcium, good sources of calcium from some of those foods, so calcium not only comes from milk, although it's known as one of the main sources, but it's also not just from milk, okay, so let's move on, we're having a great conversation.

I love it so this is a sample meal plan for a mental diet so I just want you to look at this and see how well balanced it is. No diet is perfect, but it's a great place to start. You know, if you have questions or need some kind of guide on where to start, this can be a great place to start so have berry overnight oats so oatmeal. you are incorporating your grains with berries you are incorporating your berries in that category you have avocado on whole grain toast you have brown rice grilled salmon leafy greens sautéed with a tablespoon of olive oil which is a snack you have a handful of walnuts or almonds half a cup of berries with natural yogurt.

This is excellent diet food for the mind. It's not the only one though, so some of the ideas that you all mentioned were really great too, so look for ways to incorporate these foods and just make it enjoyable for you, so now I wanted to quickly focus on the seeds of flax and chia seeds, so these are two types of seeds that are really great for brain health because they have really strong omega-3 fatty acid properties. and before I said that term and again that is a type of fat that is beneficial for the heart and the brain.

The reason it is good for the heart at least is because the purpose of fat is a great transporter of nutrients in the body. So, let's say, for example, you have two different types of cholesterol, you have LDL, which is a low-density lipoprotein that is associated with bad cholesterol, then you have HDL, high-density lipoprotein, so we want to focus on foods that They have high omega-3 properties. or are high in Omega-3 is because they help remove cholesterol from our bloodstream and transport it to the liver so that the liver processes and metabolizes it. Bad LDL cholesterol takes fat from the liver and deposits it into the bloodstream, which is why it is Associated and known as bad cholesterol, omega-3s are associated with higher levels of good HDL cholesterol, so while we eat omega-3s , our chance of metabolizing fats actually increases, our blood stays healthy, and good levels of this total fat intake decreases clotting.

In the arteries, the veins are less clogged and we simply have better heart health, that is why we want to focus on things with Omega-3 like chia and flax seeds and a little more information about them so that flax seeds are higher in Omega-3. 3, as I said, they have antioxidant properties, good sources of fiber and can help reduce certain types of cancer and improve cardiovascular health. You know, one or two tablespoons a day is a serving, so if you look at the label you will find that the serving of flax seeds is usually two tablespoons, sometimes it can be one if you have gastrointestinal problems, avoid them or use them barely, so consult with your doctor if you have any type of gastrointestinal condition just because they have a very high level of fiber in It can affect certain things if there is any type of gastrointestinal condition that you may have and then there are chia seeds so they have almost the same properties between these two foods, so incorporate flax seeds and chia seeds into smoothies as you can. incorporate them into baked goods cereals yogurts dressings um some people like to make chia seed pudding where they just take a little bit of water and add some chia seeds to it and the chia seeds soften in a sense until it becomes more like a kind of gelatin. texture and people like to enjoy that with many different types of fruits.

They eat it socially as their main dish, so there are a couple of ways to incorporate them. I like them because you don't really have to know it's there. Say for example you make a soup or a smoothie, you pour a little bit of that in there, you don't really have to know it's there to be able to enjoy it and you can also grind them up if you have trouble chewing them. I know that if you don't like the texture, you can grind them to a more powder-like texture. I'm using a food processor and then incorporating it into your food, which gives you great benefits overall, so that's one way we can incorporate them, so the last thing I want to talk about today is carbohydrates, so we want to break them down, so carbs are really good for us, despite the negative attention they're getting, they're really beneficial or really necessary for us, right? we want to incorporate carbohydrates into our meals, um, you have your starchy carbohydrates, which are your starchy vegetables, like corn, potatoes, beets, turnips, beans, carrots, to a certain extent, um, you know, I'm sorry, there may be Made a typo here.

Starchy carbohydrates are not found in processed and refined sugars. Sorry, it's a small mistake. What I should say is simple carbohydrates, so sorry, I should say simple carbohydrates, so they are found in products with a high sugar content, like candy or syrup. soft drinks Donuts pastries those are the carbohydrates that don't really have any other valuable nutritional components of Nutri, that's why you eat them, you know people tend to gain weight, they are considered empty calories because they don't actually contain anything that the body really needs, it's plus a day of indulgence and honestly it's just sugar so these are empty calories that we definitely want to avoid as much as possible and turn to more starchy carbs which are more of those starchy vegetables and beans that I just shared . with you breaking down the carbohydrates we can see if I can move on to the next slide, the next one, okay, so you have complex carbohydrates, so some of those things that I shared with you earlier are complex carbohydrates, your whole grains are complex carbohydrates.

Complex carbs will typically contain more fiber than simple carbs, which is probably one of the most important things to know: They are complex because they go through a more complex process for the body to break them down. much slower so your blood sugar rises much more slowly, as I shared with you earlier, it's better for your insulin response and to make sure you don't have a severe blood sugar spike only to have a severe crash of blood sugar, so it helps regulate things and keep them as balanced as possible, that's why we want to choose correctly those complex carbohydrates, which are peas, beans, whole grains, tubers that I shared with you a little earlier, fibrous carbohydrates, which are the slowest to digest.

So that's really where we get our fiber from, so we get it from our fruits, from our vegetables, from our whole grains, again, from our nuts, from our legumes, so we want to aim to consume 25 to 30 grams of fiber daily if your diet is low in fruits and vegetables. It is very difficult to get the fiber you need. What are some of the symptoms you know of a lack of fiber in the diet? Well, you may experience very severe constipation. You may experience very severe swelling. It may be harder to maintain or maintain weight just because you're not getting that fiber intake to help you eliminate waste because fiber serves as a really good food that can really help us eliminate and release things from our body, up to the number two, so we want to incorporate fiber and also a good intake of fluids and water, so here are some things you can do. add beans to your meals.

You can change the white pasta for whole wheat pasta. Add nuts and seeds to your salads. fruits with edible seeds are fibrous carbs, that's why we promote berries, try your cruciferous vegetables, these things are like broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, cauliflower, incorporate them into your meal and you can gain some your fiber intake and lastly, tips for preparing a meal, we've covered that already. a lot today, so we want to start with our meal planning template and even before we do that we can make a mental note of what's already in the house before we start planning this meal.

What's already in the house? No? I want to waste the expiration date on this soon. I want to make sure I incorporate it before it starts like this. Use the meal planning template to develop your meals. Now we talk about using one template per meal. To help make alignment easier, see what you'll have for Hulk. Sometimes it's easier to focus on one category at a time, so using that template could really help you break it down and focus on one category at a time. time instead of thinking about everything and finding well, where does this fit?

Just focus once, step by step, another idea is to use a mental diet cookbook. Many of them can be found online if you simply type in the mental diet cookbook. You can learn not only more about the Mind Diet, but also simple recipes that incorporate Mind Diet foods that can be very good for brain health and lastly, can be broken down into macronutrients, so again, If you just look at the list above, you'll be able to understand some of these categories right here, but they're all very important for a well-balanced, nutritious diet and we'd love for you to incorporate them, so again, that's our class on meal planning.

I'll take more. questions, please let me know if you have any more ideas. That was so good, Greg, it really reminds us especially of things about using what we have, preparing what we love, having a plan and that the plan helps support our goals in the mental diet. Sometimes it can cut down on time by figuring out how we're going to do all that kind of stuff tonight, but alsoIt could save costs when we do these things and plan ahead and are not doing the last thing. Minute choices not only protect our goals, but they also protect our pockets a little, which I think is really nice to think about how that little bit of time a week that we dedicate to it really has a lot of advantages. levels of ways that we're looking at some of the benefits and the rewards of all that meal planning, which you know, maybe doesn't take more than 30 minutes in a week to come together, um, so that's especially for, especially Yes We will not do it alone when we have good teamwork, whether between two people or in a family of people, everyone knows what they are going to do.

You can do it so fast I wish I could. I made a presentation. before you compare the cost of spending money each and every day to buy meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner versus meal planning and having everything for the week and let's say the savings were not even a small amount of savings, It was like astronomical. because if you think about it, your average breakfast will cost you maybe ten dollars a day, five days a week, that's fifty dollars, your average lunch might cost you between 10 and 15 dollars, so multiply 12, which is right in the middle. half. 10 and 15. 12 times 5, that's 60.

So 60 plus 50 is already a hundred and ten dollars for breakfast and lunch alone for five days. Dinner will easily cost you between 15 and 20, so twenty dollars times five is one hundred percent plus sixty plus fifty is two hundred and ten dollars a week and that's just breakfast, lunch and dinner. I didn't talk about any drinks. I didn't talk about any refreshments. I didn't talk about any possible dessert. That's when it gets really expensive, but if you buy all that, you could spend a hundred, you know, maybe hundreds, maybe depending on the food, and that's amazing, not only do you not have to worry about stress. what you are going to eat but you already have healthy food in your refrigerator, you saved money and food is one less thing you have to think about in the busy week ahead and for me there is nothing better than that and I personally love coupons. and coupons and I love that you can coordinate your coupons with your meal planning, you know, really plan what you're going to make, what you're going to use.

I love the recommendation about finding a mind diet cookbook and someone just said in the chat Rosemary Mary said in the chat that there are some online resources that you can use that help you and now that we know that the Mind diet is supported and backed by research, we don't have to be the most creative thinkers, we can use the resources. that are already online for those recipes, we can go to the library and check out cookbooks and things like that without having to make a big investment and then we don't have to rewrite the wheel that those recipesThe resources already exist, they're already available and there are so many different mental diet cookbooks.

I mean everything from using a lot to making it affordable, making it simple, using fewer ingredients and things like that, a lot of our members and care partners love Mediterranean too. cookbooks because it usually coincides with a lot of these mental diet recommendations and those are things that we can find resources for everywhere, so I love that you included the advice on how to use the resources that are already available, I think. Funny you said "coupons" when I was younger. I mean, when I was a kid, kids don't really understand the concept of coupons, so I always used to make fun of my mom for collecting coupons and doing all that stuff, but now I understand the value of it, it's actually really an art.

I'm learning. it's an art it's an art and um yeah we've definitely thrown in some coupons to save us a little bit so it's funny how those things balance out the cost of everything. in our homes, um absolutely, and you know, Greg, it's like there's Mailer coupons, there's digital coupons, you know, coupons that we can get through apps from our grocery stores that we frequent and things like that so you can be even get creative with your coupon resource absolutely hey, let's not forget that our utility bills are about to go up, if they aren't already, so let's look for ways to save by incorporating good healthy practices, that's a double win and already You know, I really feel like Some of these tools that we talked about today can really help you save money and time.

Use the clay pot. Use the recipes that are already in your head and that you have had forever and that you love. Those were your mother's recipes. Take the time to invest in that and thank you so much for sharing the reminder for the encouragement for it and it's a real reminder that you know when we make lifestyle changes, sometimes we can't always make those changes on our own. We have to do the research and the resources and find the support and the more we do, the easier and lighter it will be to lift the load, so use your care partner, use the people who live with you, use the members of your family.

I use the resources that you have and you value your time you value your brain health you value your money and the resources you have by investing a little bit of time in a week for someone's meal planning, so absolutely, start with one meal. that would be my conclusion: what week, suddenly the change can be very gradual, say to yourself, okay, decide for yourself at home what is the busiest time of day for us, if it is the time of the dinner, try to meal plan for your dinner, if it's lunch time. Try meal planning for your lunch, start with one meal and see how it goes.

Yes, absolutely, thank you very much. Greg Bob said: Margo is still with us. Greg works with Marco and yes, and we will release the recording. to our YouTube page, thank you all for tuning in, Greg, thank you for hosting this week, it was so good, no problem, experience, we really appreciate it, thank you all for tuning in, thank you for all the interaction and I look forward to talk. To all of you again, be sure to stay tuned for all the events cep is doing, like Megan said. "Great programming and things that can really improve your life," but "nutrition" this week was the home of our sketch or our recording from last week.

If you missed our Livewell session, be sure to check it out if you're interested in some of the things that will change in your home next week. We have our occupational therapists who will be presenting if you are interested in being functionally independent at home and on 11-1 the first week of November we will have our cognitive team coming so keep tuning in, we will continue to provide you with resources and we will see you all on Tuesday at 3 p.m. . m. next week, Greg, thanks everyone. everyone enjoy the rest of your days