Nutrition and Wellbeing
for Healthcare Workers

Transforming Healthcare Coaching Podcast — Episode 78: Nutrition and Wellbeing for Healthcare Workers with Colleen Sloan. Host: Klaus Grim, PA-C CPC ELI-MP. Guest: Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN.

78 - Nutrition and Wellbeing for Healthcare Workers with Colleen Sloan PA-C

Klaus Grim (2): hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Transforming Healthcare Coaching Podcast. And I am so excited today to talk with Colleen Sloan, and we're gonna talk about nutrition and wellbeing for healthcare workers. And just a little bit about Colleen, and I'm gonna let her introduce herself a little bit more.

But I like to set the stage here. And so Colleen's, a pa, so a physician assistant just like me, but she practices in pediatrics and she's also a registered dietitian, which I think is a very unique twist, and she uniquely understands both sides of healthcare nutrition challenges. She's a creator of her own podcast, the Exam Room Nutrition podcast, and has a course that we're gonna talk a lot about later 'cause I think it'd be really useful for our audience. Where she helps clinicians navigate nutrition conversations with patients. And today we're gonna be a little bit different. We're gonna talk a little bit about how healthcare professionals can better nourish themselves while managing the demands of medicine. So thank you, Colleen, for joining, and can you please tell us more about you?

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Oh, thank you so much. I'm really excited to chat with you and share my nutrition knowledge and expertise with your audience. So. As you said, yes, I'm both a PA and dietitian, which is pretty unique. I like to consider myself a unicorn. And I started out though as a registered dietitian, so I went to college with the pursuit of becoming a dietitian, and I worked as a dietitian actually for five years.

And I loved it. I loved everything about it. And I actually didn't leave dietetics because I disliked nutrition or, , didn't wanna pursue educating patients. I actually left because I wanted to do. More. I wanted to be more impactful with my patients. I wanted to have more autonomy and more ability to coach and educate and help patients beyond just the nutrition counseling.

So. I had done everything as a dietitian. I worked inpatient in the trauma ICU, I had my own private practice doing diabetes and weight management. And then I moved into pediatric care specialty clinics doing cleft and cranial facial feeding and and cystic fibrosis. And that is where I fell absolutely madly in love with pediatrics.

And so that's the moment that I was like, oh gosh, I really wanna do more. And I have known a ton of PAs and. I'm like, this is awesome. I could totally be a pa. Like all these people are so cool. We vibe so well. And so I applied to PA school. I am in South Florida, so I only applied to South Florida schools.

'cause at the time I was also a mom. And I think that's an important part of my story and I love sharing that with people is that. You're never too old or your lifestyle or your marital status or your parenting status doesn't affect or limit or hinder your ability to pursue something that you wanna go after.

So I actually started PA school the same time my daughter started kindergarten. So it was really a special and a moment for both of us. And I've been a PA since 2017 and I've worked in outpatient peds actually since graduation. I've stayed with peds with my, with my joy of working with kids and helping kids pursue health from a really young age.

And then like, we'll talk about, I really. Found this gap in clinician's knowledge of helping patients with their nutrition, with their diet, especially with the words we use around talking about a patient's weight and their body size in a way that's not stigmatizing and harmful. Because I have seen the negative effects of those words from a lot of my pediatric patients.

And so I created a podcast and this whole platform helping clinicians give better nutrition advice. So we'll dig into some of that today, but I'm really excited to chat with you Klaus

Klaus Grim (2): My gosh. That is awesome and I think you have such a beautiful message. And I love, . , you're a mom. You went through, I, I couldn't even imagine going through PA school. I was, I didn't even have a partner through PA school, at least towards the end of PA school, and I don't even know, know, how people manage all of that.

And now I work as a lead preceptor for PA students. And I, I still ask them every day, like, how do you do all that? How do you have a partner or how do you have a kid? How do you have, , some people balance a job, which I know some PA programs don't even allow that.

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Right.

Klaus Grim (2): but what an incredible story to bring in your passions, your career as a dietitian and meld the two and find that gap that you mentioned that we all struggle with.

And I have a deep respect for what you do, because I think that is an important thing, especially in today's society where we're hearing, nutrition is being pushed more from a government standpoint onto healthcare professional education and how to do it right. And your perspective.

I'm sure it would be huge. And I have to tell our audience, how did we meet Colleen?

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Okay. We met on Instagram, I think, because we follow each other, both on Instagram and LinkedIn, and so this is a big plug for social media and connections. Because although there's a lot of hate with social media, I love that we met because I put, I think a story on Instagram and I'm like, I wanna find more creative entrepreneurs that are in the medical space, and I just want to befriend them and support them and like support each other.

And we called it FaceTime friends, and so we just jumped on FaceTime and we're like, tell me about your business. I'll tell you about mine. How do we support each other? Like, how do you send emails? What's your tech look like? And it was so great, and I, I love the connections that you can make through communities like this, because honestly, it keeps a fire going, especially like podcasting.

, I'm, I'm looking at you, but I'm talking to a camera in an empty room. When you do things like this creatively for the internet and for social media, it feels really isolating. And so it's just so refreshing and it was so. Just invigorating to talk to another creator and just share our passions together.

And so yeah, that's how we met on social media through FaceTime Friends.

Klaus Grim (2): my gosh. I, I'm so glad you sparked that connection or the opportunity to have that connection because so many possibilities and opportunities have from this interaction and it really gives me a deeper appreciation for the work that we do outside of medicine too.

'cause, we put so much time into the podcast and our business and helping, we're making sure we're creating relevant. Material and information for our audiences. So so I appreciate you deeply. So let's get into nutrition. So here's the irony. We're all living within in healthcare. We spend our days maybe counseling patients about healthy eating. Yet, how many of us have, , just grabbed like a protein bar for lunch and just called it good enough? Do you see when you look at how healthcare professionals actually take care of themselves?

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Yeah, I mean, we are healers and I find that. We don't take care of ourselves. We, I find that the majority of us prioritize ourselves last because most of us went into healthcare to help people and to guide people, and we've really dedicated our lives, essentially, to the betterment of society and to our patients at large.

But we've forgotten about ourselves. And I, I see that in every realm and every specialty. I mean, throughout rotations I saw it PA students and medical students, , we're so stressed to study and we're so overwhelmed with the volume of content. We forget to eat, we forget to sleep. And then in the real world, once you're in your career.

I mean, if you're in a surgical subspecialty, you might be in a surgery for six plus hours. , even in where I work, I'm in outpatient peds, which doesn't sound like a high stress environment, but it is because it's very high volume. Unfortunately, I find that because of the way that medicine is today, at least in the United States.

It's, it's all about volume and I feel it's, we're moving away, unfortunately from quality and connection with our patients because we're trying to see so many patients for reimbursement purposes, and, and it's at the detriment of, I think, clinicians at large. And so. The majority of us do not meet our fruit and veggie intake.

There's been plenty of studies that show Americans in general, this wasn't necessarily done on clinicians, but show that 95% aren't meeting their fiber needs. And fiber is majority found in fruits and vegetables, and you can also get it from beans, nuts, and seeds. But 95% of us aren't meeting that those needs, the majority of us aren't getting enough.

Sleep. I can relate to that. I don't sleep well. I'm a night owl and I wake up early to get stuff done. So sleep deprivation is a big issue among clinicians. In addition to binge, binge drinking, I find is very common among clinicians. And I was actually speaking with a colleague of mine. He came over to general outpatient peds from er, pediatric er.

He had been an ER doc for 15 years and he just said he needed. A change like that high stress, high level environment was really taking a toll on his health. And the things that you see, manage, take care of became almost so overwhelming. And that's how he coped, is he would take a few shots after work, , to just calm down.

And we all know that, , binge drinking is not beneficial for our health. And then lastly, I find a lot of us have unmanaged stress, and that goes back to we carry the burdens of our patients with us. , whether you think you do or you don't. Their stories and their lives and their journeys, and just your desire.

To help them and to guide them and lead them. You really do carry that with you. As much as we try to leave work, , at work, once the door closes, a lot of us don't do that, and we haven't found ways to cope with our stress and to have stress relieving activities and exercise and have connection with our family members.

And so all of those things I find clinicians don't do well and we really aren't taking care of ourselves well.

Klaus Grim (2): I think you just highlighted it and I think we, we just. We go through different transitions in life, , and speaking specifically to PAs, you, you have your undergraduate education, , you're working towards applying to PA school, then you start the application process to PA school.

You're doing your direct patient care. Then you're in PA school, drinking out the fire hose, like they say, you forget the basics of life, , health through nutrition, sleep, exercise, connection, relationships. And then you go into. Becoming a pa. Actually even just applying to become a PA for your, your your career, then you're a pa and then you're, you're handling all these new responsibilities and challenges.

So there's challenges in every step of the way, and we sacrifice a lot of ourselves in that process because it's like. that's how mes medicine is, is like residency, like, that's why it's so hard to shift older generations who've been through that grind of working a hundred plus hours a week,

like, well, I did it, you should be able to do

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Yeah.

Klaus Grim (2): And but it's like, no. And I think that's where I think the younger generations are speaking up and it's, it's powerful and it's beneficial is saying, no, it's not healthy, it's not good for us. Worse mental health issues are arising. Just our own physical and emotional health as a result of everything you just mentioned is, is so impactful. And one thing I, I wanted to comment on is we do a lot of energy work as energy leadership coaches here at Transforming Healthcare Coaching. And one of the thing, one of our things that we offer that only our program from the our coaching school called IPEC that we administer is an energy leadership index assessment.

And one thing that you said speaks high volume to, think. 90% of my healthcare professional clients, and it's that level four energy, which is that we in healthcare or US healthcare professionals love caring for other people. That's kind of what we go into the profession for, and even the people around us in our own lives. And one thing about this energy level, it says it both has advantages and disadvantages, so it's that healing factor you wanna do well, you wanna support others, but then you absorb other people's stress and you can kind of dip down to lower energy levels by things that you just mentioned, like this hidden, , alcohol, , binge drinking. unhealthy, exercising. So what you said I think is powerful and true and unique, unfortunately to healthcare professionals.

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Yeah, and you, you hit the nail on the head with something that. It's really deeply concerning for me is the suicide rates, at least the residents. I mean, they've done a lot of studies of this and it's so sad to see these young, fresh minds struggling so deeply to the point that they feel like they need to end their life because they're pursuing something that they want to help other people for.

And I just, I love that. Younger doctors and the younger PAs and medical professionals are speaking out against this and are saying like, no, just because I wanna become a doctor doesn't mean I have to die to myself. Right. I, I, I think we can have both. I don't think we need to really just completely. Ruin a, a, a young individual's life just because they want to become a doctor.

And like you said, it's so old school thinking of like residencies, like a hundred hours and you're treated like crap and you don't get to sleep. And , that's not right. That's not how we should treat the people who are going to care for our, our society in the next 50 years. And I, I'm really happy to see that a lot of us are speaking out and I think a lot of us in healthcare are speaking out too.

Pushing back on insurances and pushing back on corporations about the volume and about the way that they, , have their kind of fist around our, our throats with how we're doing providing care. And I, I'm hopeful that I think we'll see a lot of changes in the future. I.

Klaus Grim (2): And I think, I think that's was also powerful about what we do, is we, we see these challenges and that's that gap that you found, the gap that we found and, and there are people who want changes for the system, most importantly for themselves, you're only at agency. Really to change how you show up every day for your patients and for yourself.

And obviously you can be an advocate for changes in the healthcare system, but if you're not well and your patients are not well in the first place, how are you gonna help transform that system? So that's oftentimes people come to us as coaches. , just so frustrated with the system, which is completely understandable from everything that we're talking about today.

Right. You have the power to be, to be that change for yourself and for your patients. And there's a lot of unique content creators and healthcare professionals out there who are doing stuff like this every day, and it just takes investigating to see what fits for you. So that's one plug for for healthcare professional entrepreneurs.

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Yeah, no, I love that. Absolutely. You have to advocate for yourself, like, yes, we can hopefully change systems at large, but we have to start within ourselves, and we have to prioritize our health and our wellbeing first and foremost.

Klaus Grim (2): Yeah. Well, speaking of that , you, you mentioned, , how your story about how you were a nutritionist practicing in the field. noticed that there was a gap of how healthcare professionals are speaking to patients, which is completely understandable. Right. And I think this has become

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: up

Klaus Grim (2): and coming in, in research, but also in, in, out there on social media of how to better speak about nutrition. And so are, I guess, what are, what are your thoughts about how healthcare professionals can maybe work on their own wellbeing?

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Oh yes. , there's like that old saying, I think parents use it, but I'm sure a lot of clinicians will say like, do as I say, not as I do. And it's so true. Like sometimes we're the. Worst example of how we should live and take care of ourselves. But I think that as healthcare professionals, we struggle with the same thing that our patients do,

when it comes to nutrition, there's no denying that. High fat, high sugar, very ultra processed foods, they taste really good, they're cheap, they're very quick and easy to prepare, and so. That alone is a struggle for all of us, whether you're in the medical field or you're in society. That's a fact that we have to face.

But also I find that a lot of us struggle with our, our wellbeing and prioritizing it because we tend to make extravagant almost impossible to maintain goals. , I've heard people that say, , I'm, I'm not gonna eat any sugar for six months. And it's like, oof. Well, if you have children, you probably do have somebody's birthday coming up.

And no doubt, I mean, a child deserves a birthday cake. You probably have a holiday in there, I'm sure within the six months. And there often are celebratory foods in that holiday, so then those days come, we fail, we don't meet our goal because of course we want to celebrate with our six year old's birthday party and have cake with them,

And then we get into this negative self-talk. And then we don't stick to this plan that we had. And then it's easy to go back into our default ways, and so I find that that's usually the biggest hindrance to us, is we create these outlandish goals that are almost impossible to achieve long term.

Whereas if we would just start way, way, way smaller over time, you're more likely to get to that goal that you're trying to get to, rather than making these, , crazy goals that just seem impossible.

Klaus Grim (2): You are speaking to my ultimate passion, which is goals and

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Yes.

Klaus Grim (2): habits creating systems. This is a plug for the book Atomic Habits. I think it's by James Clear. And it, it, it speaks quite volume because that is something we as coaches actually work on notoriously with our patients or clients.

And that is having challenges, wanting solutions, or having like these dreams that they want to go for, just have no idea how to get there. And I'm, I'm guilty of it myself, like I have in my phone, like, , how to exercise more or how to eat better, like, , meal prepping. Right. But how great does it feel once you start to develop consistency, sustainability with it? Because then it feels easier and it feels like, oh, like. I had that ice cream, but I know I can, I can go back to my habits of, , eating , more vegetables and fruits tomorrow and that was just my weekly treat, for instance. Right. But I'm not gonna feel guilty about it. Right. And I think you, you mentioned that a lot in your, in your social media and I love seeing your posts about that because it's so relatable and, and you have to take that baby step.

And I'm just gonna even add onto that. It needs to be fun and enjoyable if you don't enjoy it. You're not gonna stick with it, and life should be enjoyable,

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: i, I am all about fun. Like that is the biggest thing that I always talk about, especially in my space where I'm in the pediatric space. But honestly, it works for adults too, like. We want to have fun in life. I don't, I don't know anybody that if I were like, would you rather have a boring, awful life where you're angry all the time?

Or like something that a fun life, like we would all opt for the fun life and you are so right that things are easier if we make them fun. And it doesn't have to be like, yay, I am so excited about eating this carrot stick. Like that's not really what we're talking about, but finding ways. To weave in those new behaviors that you want to become habits.

So it's easy, eventually then becomes fun and it just becomes part of your day. Right. And I, I love the idea of fun by using food as a flavor vehicle to. Make that maybe healthy food more enjoyable. So for kids, and honestly, again, adults, we're just big kids, ? Like carrots, we'll use that trick.

You don't have to eat plain boring carrots. You like ranch, you grew up eating ranch as a kid. Dip those carrots in ranch. Make it enjoyable. You wanna have. A banana, but you really don't love the taste, but you love Nutella. Sure, have a little bit of Nutella with it. It's that the banana is still a banana,

you are now getting an entire serving of fruit and fiber, even though you're now enjoying it with a little bit of Nutella. So I agree with you. Make it fun.

Klaus Grim (2): Oh my gosh. I never actually. It feels very freeing what you just said,

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Yes,

Klaus Grim (2): it's

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: okay yes.

Klaus Grim (2): To, to enjoy the aspects of nutrition that may not be the healthiest form for you when you're combining it with a way to start making modifications to eat healthier. Right. I'm gonna take that into, into consideration.

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Yeah.

Klaus Grim (2): and, and one thing that we do as coaches too is we oftentimes use what we call the wheel of life to kind of help you understand maybe where you're having some challenges in your life or what solutions you're seeking for in, in your own life when you may be stuck about where you need to start making some changes in your life. And one of the aspects is fun, like we just talked about, and. It is oftentimes on the lower pole for some people. 'cause they're like, I don't know how to have fun. I've, I've been struggling with, , I, I just, I'm working so much. I feel like I just need a vacation for two weeks and just completely decompress.

But then I come back and I, there's that fun is so hard to kind of get back and so I'm curious. , I had mentioned like meal prepping. 'cause I think a lot of healthcare professionals meal prep or try to meal prep. How can, you mentioned some like ways of like tying in some foods that, , you enjoy with healthier foods.

What else can we do to make that maybe more fun so that can be a little bit more consistent and sustainable for people?

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Okay, so meal prepping. I have a love hate relationship with it.

Klaus Grim (2): Yeah.

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Because I actually don't meal prep. And so with any advice, especially around nutrition, I think it's super important that we don't just sprinkle the patient visit with like, eat your fruits and vegetables, drink only water, eat , protein at every meal.

Try to limit your sugar and limit your sodium, like those are so bland and they really don't get the to the heart of what is it that the patient is number one struggling with? And I find more importantly, what are their goals? Like I always start out by asking my patient like, what's important to you?

What is it that you want to focus on? Because maybe. They don't wanna focus on their diet at all. Maybe it's really about sleep, and you can give them some strategies for sleep, but you're over here telling them to eat more fruits and vegetables and drink only water. So I think that's first and foremost, before you even tell them that they need to have meal prep Sundays, ask them what's important to you?

What are we gonna work on this week? And if it is about meals and meal prepping. Then Sure. Maybe meal prepping works for them Personally, for me, it doesn't. Number one, I work on Sundays and so I can't meal prep on Sundays, and I work Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, so I could meal prep on Wednesdays. But I don't, I don't love meal prepping.

I actually like cooking that day, so for me that works. Okay. But to get really, really practical for some of your patients, I do think meal prepping can work for some people, and I've seen a lot of people be very successful with it, but you have to be smart about it if you're gonna make, , get chicken, get a ton of chicken, and maybe you're gonna have chicken for the week and you can prepare it three different ways.

So I like throwing crock pot chicken in there and maybe you can have pulled barbecue. , chicken sandwiches or a pulled barbecue chicken salad, so that's one you can have pulled chicken in the crockpot. Another is sheet pan chicken. So this is really, really easy to do. You can throw chicken and different veggies, maybe potatoes on a pan and roast that.

So you got the crockpot going, you got the oven going, and then if you have an air fryer, it's really, really fun to make like. Chicken tenderloins or chicken tenders or , like chicken parm is a really fun thing to do. K, I have to stop because my cat is scratching on my door and I don't know if you can hear it, but it's driving me insane.

Okay.

Klaus Grim (2): ahead.

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: I'm like talking, I'm like, I really hope this isn't in the background.

Klaus Grim (2): No, I don't

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: I'm gonna pause and then I'll pick it up in a second. She's driving me insane.

Oh my gosh. She has done this. I shut my dogs out because I have dogs. She's done this like every presentation, so.

Klaus Grim (2): yeah. This is why I have my shed. 'cause my dogs will notoriously scream and play,

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Mm-hmm.

Klaus Grim (2): when we're doing talking.

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Awful. Okay. Okay. Okay. So those are, those are three things that I like to do if you have a chicken meal. Now, I also am not a proponent of just forcing people to eat chicken all week, if someone's like. That sounds really boring, which is another reason why I don't always meal prep because I like to have variety in my meals each week.

And so, but just keep that in mind. This can be done with different forms of protein. And I, I, I do love encouraging people to vary their protein sources. It's a great way to get different micro and macronutrients in your diet. And what I mean by that is. Maybe you have a meatless night, maybe you play around with tofu and try a tofu dish or some of those meat, , alternative crumbles.

So it's a really fun way to get alternative nutrients that don't, aren't found in chicken or in beef or pork or something like that. Another way that I really, really love to meal prep is for breakfast because the majority of us are skipping breakfast. Like you said, we're running out the door. I am.

'cause I am always late, so I am literally running out the door cup of coffee. And a protein bar, if that's all you've got, which I'd rather that than nothing I do agree with that is best. However, I think we can do better with breakfast. A couple things that I love are overnight oats. They are fantastic.

They taste delicious, they're full of fiber, and you can make it for your flavor preference. So if you like fruit, you can throw dried fruit or even fresh fruit in there. If you like it more On the sweet side, you can put some banana and a little bit of. Sweet, , semi-sweet chocolate pieces inside there.

So overnight oats are awesome. Another one that I love is egg bites. And you can make this in muffin tins. You can just make, , scramble up how you would make an omelet. So, eggs, milk, cheese, scramble that up. Throw a little bit of chopped peppers in there, some spinach, some tomato, whatever vegetables you like.

If you wanna put meat source in there, great, go for it. And then put it in muffin tins and bake that for like 20 minutes. And now you've got like a little egg bite. On the go, you can eat it in the car. And then lastly, our yogurt parfait These are my like go-to. They're super fast and easy. You can also make them ahead, throw a little bit of chia seed in there.

That's that fancy, trendy chia seed pudding that everyone's doing. But what that does is it adds fiber to this yogurt. And then you can throw in your favorite fruits. , you can sweeten it with either fruit or a little bit of honey. Honey is perfectly fine. Throw some nuts in there if you want a little crunch.

But all of those breakfast ideas are high in protein. They all have either a fruit or a vegetable, so that's got your fiber and your vitamins and your mine minerals. So it's gonna keep you fuller longer and getting those nutrients in.

Klaus Grim (2): This, what you just said is so refreshing. This is my I think guilty pleasure, like the doom scrolling where I'm like, I see people with the recipes and you just summarized I think a hundred of the tiktoks or the Instagram stories that I see that I'm like, oh my gosh, I, I need to be doing more of this.

And you just put it in so much practicality for a, like a healthcare professional. And when I, when I, with my own coach, one of the things I had, actually, my first topic was how to better incorporate nutrition into my er schedule. Because I was tired of like, like struggling with figuring out meals and my partner's a police officer.

So how do we balance our schedule and the ability to have food prepared for work? 'cause I don't, try to avoid ordering out for, , the various reasons for costs and type of foods We end up losing unhealthier foods and, who the author of this book is. And you may be able to kind of clarify. There's a book, I think it's called Salt Fat Acid Heat. A woman from Iran who her, her background's from Iran and she fi find ways to like, just flavor up your dishes. And I love home cooking, but I don't like following recipes. that's where my meal prepping was struggling was like, I'm like, I'm like just following other people's recipes that I don't feel like I'm learning how to be a good home cook. And so I actually, it's so funny you said all this be, and this topic comes so perfectly, is I, I actually created a little sign to put in my kitchen. So I always remember salt, fast, fat, acid, heat. So if you need to like add a little bit of flavor to a dish, this is how you could do it. But now I feel like I just need to adjust it.

And one of the other things I have on top of it is protein. 'cause obviously I think we don't have enough protein in our diets. Or we don't focus intentionally like as you mentioned. But now I even want to add an even a more helpful tip and just make it, make it fun or like make it flavorful. Like think of like a being an adult or a, a bigger kid,

and,

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Yes.

Klaus Grim (2): the meal.

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: I mean, think about like, restaurants do this so well for kids and honestly that's probably why we have an obesity problem. But the food looks super fun. Think about ihop. They have like their teddy pancakes and there's a cute smiley face on it. Like we can totally do that at home for our food with healthier options.

I mean, I was just at the gym today and someone had made like chocolate covered dates and she had some pecans on top of it, and I'm like. This is delicious. What a, an awesome snack. And I wanna remind people that it's not about being perfect like I am, not just because I'm a dietitian. Like I had a slice of cake last night.

Like I often skip breakfast. Like when you hear people give suggestions, it does not mean we follow them a hundred percent all of the time. So I want people to remind themselves of that. Don't get overwhelmed by feeling you have to be perfect and do all of these things. Maybe if you can only have breakfast two or three times a week, that's sufficient for you.

But hey, that's three times more than you were doing before, So don't feel like you have to be. Perfect. Really what gets you to your goals, whatever that goal will be is going to be consistency and like we've, we woven throughout this conversation is if you can make it fun and flavorful, you're going to be way more likely to stick to it.

I mean, I, I don't like boiled plain Brussels sprouts. Right. Don't know of anybody who really does, but take me to a restaurant who has sauteed them in maple butter bacon bits, and serves it to me a little crispy, and there's that sweet saltiness to it. You bet you I'm gonna eat that whole bowl of brussel sprouts.

So just because there's a little bit of delicious bacon on top of it, does not negate the health benefits of it. Now of course, we wanna look at the diet and totality. I didn't just have, , a bacon blue cheeseburger and I'm not having, , bacon wrapped steak for dinner too. But it is a great way to add a little bit of flavor to foods.

'cause I find. If you can do that, make the food taste good and enjoy it. You don't have to, , punish yourself to eat healthy foods. 'cause no one is gonna stick to that.

Klaus Grim (2): Oh my gosh. first off, you, you, you brought up ihop, which I was a server for IHOP in high school,

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Oh my God. That's.

Klaus Grim (2): I can, I, I can relate to some of the challenges of, of that and the problems with nutrition there. But yeah, there's so many like pearls that I think you've just shined through. And , perfectionism is a, is a whole different topic. That I think speaks to that large goal that you had mentioned earlier, and, and being okay with taking a small baby step to get to that bigger picture that you're looking for and giving yourself grace if it doesn't work. That's the other thing is that adapt, that was one of my challenges,

meal prepping

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: wasn't

Klaus Grim (2): working for me. I, I. It would work for like a week and then maybe two weeks, and then it would fall through and you have to just go back and revisit it and say, why was that? And I never really actually thought about was it fun for me or was it flavorful? And it took me years actually to start to develop other strategies and being okay with that, but saying, okay, if you really wanna work on that goal, let's, let's. Let's focus our energy and let's really take this intentionally. So thank you for that. And that's actually one of the things I used to teach a course in actually in Florida where I went to undergrad. And one of the things I designed was that there's so many like, free apps out there. So MyFitnessPal is one of 'em, and you can kind of log your diet and nothing's a hundred percent accurate and the way you, , input the data of what you eat. It's not always the best. And we're actually doing a challenge in our our MedThrive community, and I'll put a description in the link below for anybody who's interested to learn more about our MedThrive community, which is a community for healthcare professionals and leaders who are.

Intentionally trying to make changes for their own wellbeing and for their teams. So it's, it's a lot of fun. And one of the challenges that we're doing, I think we're actually starting it next month, so get in when you can, if you wanna be part of this challenge, and it's to log your, your foods and I am no nutritionist, but it's more so for the accountability and to start making those. Those little areas of awareness and changes based off of that awareness. And then after a week, we can kind of maybe understand where our macro and micronutrients as you mentioned are, and what changes we personally want to make based off of that. And then the following week we'll start to track those changes and make those and changes and see what comes of it,

and giving ourselves complete grace if maybe we didn't make the changes we wanted and see how we feel with it. Right.

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: I really love the word you used, which was adapt because I find that people either choose a. A plan, a program, a diet, whatever you wanna call it, and think that if they failed, because it didn't, it didn't work for them, they didn't meet their goals, they couldn't stick to it for whatever reason, that they personally are a failure.

But that's not true. That strategy failed you. You didn't fail. It was just that strategy wasn't the right fit for you. And I wanna give everyone permission to change to, like you said. Adapt, you can then go towards something else, so if you wanted to stop drinking soda and you just went straight to water, but you have such a hard time 'cause you're craving soda so much, you didn't fail.

It was just that that strategy didn't quite work. Maybe you took too big of a leap to go from soda to water. Maybe you needed to take a smaller baby step and to go to those flavored, . Kind of functional sodas that are out there that honestly taste just like soda. But they don't have the sugar in it.

So you're getting that carbonation, you're getting some of that flavor, and it's a, it's a stepping stone to kind of your goal. But absolutely give yourself grace if you're not, , perfectly in line with your goals that you want. So you're gonna have to adjust and kind of work with the plan as it works for you.

Klaus Grim (2): Yeah. That was such a practical example of, of, I think, a, a real life

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: nutrition

Klaus Grim (2): example for, for people who, maybe feel like they're failing in their nutrition goals. And so I think another big issue for nurses, physicians, PAs, nps, dietitians, or any other healthcare professional listening is that they say, I just don't have time to take care of myself. So time is a notorious, block for most of my clients or. Potential clients. what maybe is the quickest way or win that they could implement this week for their nutrition goals?

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: I think we'd all wish we had more time, I mean, I say this every day and I'm like, dang. I looked at my to-do list and I got like half of it done. I wish I had more time in the day. This is. So true. It's universal. However, I wanna, I wanna push back a little bit on that because

I, I would highly suggest you find the time to take care of yourself.

Because what I, I, I know that if you don't, life has a way of making you, right. I mean, we have heard so many stories that are like, yeah, I know I need to lose weight. I know I need to diet, exercise, , whatever. And then boom, somebody's got a heart attack. , or now they unfortunately have type two but diabetes and maybe are close to end stage renal disease, ?

So life has a way of making you make time for your health. So I would highly suggest that you make it a priority. Think about things that we do, klaus, you and I wanted to have a podcast. We have full-time jobs, but because it was a priority, we are so deeply passionate about it. We do find the time.

I don't know about you, but I don't really spend a lot of time on, , mindlessly scrolling on social media or like just binge watching shows. I'm working on learning how to be a better marketer. I'm working on my own stuff because I've made it a priority. So I would just, for anyone listening. I highly encourage you.

Today's the day to make it a priority. Now that being said, you don't need to overhaul everything. One of my favorite techniques and Klaus, this one is called habit stacking. This is my all time favorite thing when anyone wants to start a new strategy, or if you want a quick win this week, if you haven't heard of this.

This is where you look at your day, look at what you do daily. We all have habits that we pretty much don't even have to think about doing. That's essentially what a habit is, is you just unconsciously can do it. Think about brushing your teeth, washing your face, going to the bathroom, there are things that we do every single day making coffee.

Find one of those habits and then think about something that, a behavior you want to do, sort of make it easy, but. Drink more water, be more active, something like that, and tack it on to something that you already do. So for me, I make coffee like clockwork every single morning. The minute I walk down the hall and let my dogs out, my coffee is, is brewing.

So I wanted to drink more water throughout the day. Because then a busy clinic day, I rarely have time to even drink between patients. So I wanted to front load my day with hydration. So when I push the button to brew my coffee, I'm drinking six ounces of water while I'm standing there. I would be standing there anyways, patiently and anxiously waiting for my delicious cup of coffee to brew.

So why not tack on a behavior I wanna do? I've had others who will do 10 squats when they brush their teeth, you're kind of standing there doing nothing. Anyways. So why don't you move your body a little bit, so as silly as it might sound, this is the easiest, quickest way you can start new behaviors by just tacking it on to a habit you're already doing.

Klaus Grim (2): Wow. I, I love the love bringing in, in habit stacking into two ways where you can be more intentional. With your time. And it's, it's exactly like you had mentioned too. It's like you don't need to take this big overhaul of your, of your life and your time to, to dedicate to a hundred percent self-care.

And I think self-care gets its own bad rap in medicine because we oftentimes are, are. We are the worst patients. We are. We, we think we, we have all the answers and, and we do have the answers. It's just that it just takes unleashing them to do the things that you want out of life. And to have, and one thing you spoke to is prevention.

And that's even, even something that it is difficult for, for healthcare professionals and, and everybody in general is to, to work on the preventative things that we all know, , high cholesterol diets and having high cholesterol, diabetes. , high blood pressure are risk factors for cardiac disease.

And so, and, and I think we always forget, like, well, I don't struggle with that right now, so, know it, it's never gonna happen to me. Or I'll, I'll eventually, address that issue when it comes, but. We

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: as

Klaus Grim (2): a society, we struggle with making those changes nutritionally for the things that you mentioned.

Like, the foods that are put out there that we enjoy are not oftentimes the ones that are the healthiest and they have that addictive factor. There's like the neuroscience behind all that stuff as well. So. it's very difficult to, to make these changes. And one thing that I think I read recently that really spoke to me as well is when we are starting to say that we don't have enough time, we all have 24 hours of a day.

It's how we intentionally use those 24 hours of the day and what we want out of those 24 hours of the day. So, as you had mentioned, , instead of for you, , scrolling through social media, or maybe, , doing some these behaviors that would normally delay or distract somebody from doing something for their own wellbeing.

You're doing something for yourself and the more that you

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: invest

Klaus Grim (2): in yourself, the more you start to feel good. I'm curious, how do you feel now that you've kind of, , started to really invest in yourself?

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: A hundred percent. I love this question because it takes some reflection, really. We live in such a fast paced environment that we don't often feel right. I mean. It until, it's almost like you said, like too late. Like, oh gosh, like I am beyond stressed. I'm anxious, I'm overwhelmed. , at that point you feel it, but you kind of don't recognize those feelings until it actually hits you.

And I feel the same can go for like the goodness that you feel. So if you are starting to make changes, maybe you're walking every night after dinner, maybe you're starting to do those squats. When you brush your teeth, are you, you're drinking more water. Every day, like check in with yourself and be like, okay, how am I feeling?

'cause I can guarantee you, you probably have more energy. You probably have more clarity because you are getting out some of that junky stuff from your diet and you're feeding your body the nutrients that it needs. You probably also have more energy, more emotional stability, which I think is a key factor to be a good clinician, is we really do need to have that emotional maturity to help guide and lead our patients and honestly be the support system that they need.

So it can help us with our patient interactions. But I think another thing that we sometimes don't think about is if we are living a healthy lifestyle, whatever that means for you, if that's walking, if that's more water, if that's better sleep, you are less likely to feel like an imposter when giving education to your patients,

I mean, if I'm over here binge drinking every night to cope with my stress, but I'm telling my patients that they should. Not drink because of some of the new science that we've shown that it has more negative effects on our cognition long term. I kind of feel internally like you have that cognitive dissonance, like that feels a little awkward to be telling someone to do something that I'm not doing.

And so I feel like in a medicine it's really easy to feel like an imposter in the first place anyways. Like you always feel like you don't know enough or maybe you miss a diagnosis, but. When you can flip that around and you are living the lifestyle that you are promoting to your patients, I mean, you feel empowered, you feel so confident in your ability to provide them actually tactful, tangible, valuable information.

That is really something that you've lived, that's another reason why maybe you and I can give such great advice is, is we have kind of wrestled through some of this stuff. We've worked through it on our own and said, Hey, like this is a strategy that's worked for me. Maybe try this, it might work for you.

So you can give that lived experience examples rather than just, , saying the guidelines that we've memorized from, , the textbooks, you can actually give something that worked for you that might be something helpful to your patient.

Klaus Grim (2): So many pearls again here with this one. I mean, you, you just, you're filled with them and it's the role modeling a hundred percent you're more likely to get buy-in from your patient,

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Yes.

Klaus Grim (2): if you are yourself doing what you're preaching and, and involving the patient and asking them what, what their concerns are, what their challenges are, making it completely unique to them as you'd want somebody to make it unique to you.

'cause we're all completely unique. We're all completely different. And one thing that speaks to me is like, , thing I do as a, as a clinician is I, when I give, discharge instructions or how I talk to patients, I always use.

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: patient

Klaus Grim (2): friendly language because they don't know the big terms, like paresthesias and, focal weakness.

I mean, they may know that one, but like certain big terms or like cholelithiasis, bringing things into their language so that they understand, so that they can ask the right questions to better understand and, and making sure that they're grasping what you are recommending them when you discharge them.

And this is one of the things that speaks volume to me, is we should be talking to.

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: ourselves

Klaus Grim (2): and giving ourselves the recommendations as the way we we should for patients, right in, in that very simple basic of terms because, know, nutrition and, know, exercise and just general health is as basic as that.

And we just have to kind of go back to that. And then, as we had talked to here, is bring in fun and all this stuff. And so I think this is a good plug here for, for our audience here, for the healthcare professionals and leaders here. Who are thinking, I need more help with this.

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Where

Klaus Grim (2): can they learn more from you about better taking care of themselves or their patients?

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Okay. I have so many areas and so many ways people can connect with me. So I'll start large and then get smaller. So I am on social media. We can connect on LinkedIn or Instagram. This is where Klaus and I connected and it's fantastic. So my handles are exam room nutrition. You can find me on both places.

I also have a newsletter, so if you just wanna get an email from me every week, I share. Some latest headlines. I share some science, I share some tips. I have a say this, not that segment, that kind of unpacks a question that a patient would ask and what you should say to them. So this is a really fun newsletter that you can get once a week from me.

I have a podcast, so if you wanna learn more about nutrition that way, it's exam room Nutrition on Apple or Spotify. And then big picture. I'm really, really excited because I spent the last almost 10 months developing. Recording and preparing a course for clinicians because I found this was another gap in clinician training and really what's available to us out there is a comprehensive course teaching us going from the basics of nutrition of like what is the best diet,

that's a very common question. Patients ask me all the time. So walk me through the different dietary options. Walk me through, how do you educate patients on that? What are the guidelines for protein, for carbs, for those types of things? If you are educating a patient on that? Taking it further than understanding GLP ones because , obesity care is changing and you really do need to have an understanding of how to prescribe, how to titrate, what are the side effects, how to manage patients through side effects.

And then, then I also wanted to build in a behavior change component to this because we can give all the knowledge and education to a patient that we want, where a lot of patients, even for ourselves. We have the knowledge. It's not rocket science to say that fruits and vegetables are healthy. And we should all probably eat more.

I'm pretty sure we all know that what the majority of society struggles with is the application of that knowledge. Okay, great. I'm gonna, I want to eat more p peppers. How do I apply that to my life this week so I can actually get those nutrients into my body? So a lot of my courses or a lot of the lessons in the course talk about that application.

Of the nutrition information and helping patients implement that into their life. So not only is this great to give you the knowledge to communicate that with your patients, but for anyone who just feels like school probably didn't teach them enough about this for their own health, for their health and their family, this would be immensely helpful for them.

It's on demand, so watch it. You can binge watch it over a weekend or you can take two years to watch. It doesn't matter. And the beauty of it is, yes, it is approved for CME, so you get 10 and a half credits as well.

Klaus Grim (2): Wow. You for sharing all that. And, and for the, our audiences here, I'll have the link to the social media newsletter podcast and your course obesity Medicine Nutrition course. And as somebody who is in the course myself, I have to to say, I don't have a nutrition background.

I'm a clinician. Like you, Colleen, and there are so many practical ways that you can. Learn to better speak to your patients from a and feel more educated, feel less like that imposter syndrome. But at the same time, like you had just mentioned, like even just learn techniques for yourself on how you can , if we're, if we're, if we're learning for how to better speak to patients, we're actually learning how to better speak for ourselves too, and how we can show up for our, , health goals or nutrition goals.

So, so thank you for that. Do you still have a few minutes, by the way? I don't want to go too far. Okay. Beautiful. And I just wanna mention, so if you are interested in Colleen's obesity medicine course, the link is an affiliate link below, which just means, I mean, you're in a small commission if you decide to enroll, but the great news is, is that this actually does change the price for you in a good way.

So Colleen is offering our community a special 10% discount to this link when the coupon code will be a lot, blah. and I only recommend resources, I truly believe will benefit healthcare professionals. And hopefully this discount makes it better for you. so I'm curious, what are people saying about your course right now?

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Oh my gosh, I've gotten such great response. 'cause like I said, there really isn't out there, a comprehensive program. And you can piece together webinars. I mean, there's free webinars. Left and right that you could pull from nutrition from GLP ones especially, 'cause that's a very hot topic, but that makes it quite challenging when you are facing a patient in front of you who sits down, maybe they have a BMI of 38 and they have metabolic syndrome and they're like, tell me, what do I eat?

Like how can I get healthier? Your mind is racing. All of this information, and if you're trying to piece together tips from different webinars, it can be quite challenging. So that's why I really wanted to put all of this in a comprehensive program to help you really walk through that conversation. And so it's actually open to dietitians and MD PAs nps.

So I got I got CME approval for both of those health professions. 'cause I think it's so important for everyone, even as. dietitians you'd think that they're the health experts, which they are. They absolutely are. But coming fresh out of school, I mean, you remember as a new pa, it's like, I know nothing like this is so overwhelming.

dietitians feel that too. So a lot of people have said that this has been one of the most comprehensive programs to give them the confidence. In the conversations that they're having with patients, it's also kind of laid that framework that they can follow. Like you said, I'm not sure where you're at with the lessons, but I love that you've been going through it.

Which is why again, I gave you that ability to share with your audience. 'cause I wanted to make sure that you, it was in line with your values and that you promoted something that you truly believe in. And a lot of the different lessons have so many like little special takeaways that even for me as I was, was recording with the different experts because I forgot to mention, it's not just me in there.

You don't have to listen to me for, , 13 lessons. It's different experts in their specific field. So I've got medical doctors and obesity medicine. I have, clinicians who went on for further health coaching certificates. In there, I have dietitians who are experts in motivational interviewing, giving us tips.

So it's really from people who walk the walk and talk the talk. And so, , some of them are just so practical that when I was listening to them, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna write this down because I didn't know that. So those are a lot of the comments that I'm getting is like, this is a strategy that I've never heard before and I'm gonna be using it.

Immediately. So a lot of really, really good remarks from it and a lot of great outcomes that they're including with their patients, and we're changing patients' lives.

Klaus Grim (2): Yeah, I, I, I love that you, you have incorporated a lot of expert guests, so it's cysa. It, it's a huge holistic approach to health, nutrition, wellness, and how to, . Better talk to patients, better care for patients, but also to better care for yourself. It just, there's so, there's so many modalities that you, you can gain from this course.

And the fact that you can even earn CME is so huge. , this is something that we've been able to do through our MedThrive community as well. And it's so much more practical because, , so many clinicians are just offered. A certain amount of CME money every year, and if they don't use it, they lose it.

Right. And

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Yeah.

Klaus Grim (2): a good way that you can do it on the demand. You don't have to you don't have to fly anywhere. 'cause half the time your, your CME money is just lost with just travel alone in the hotel. And you can still kind of you can still get your CME learning from the comfort of your own home.

So I have to give a huge plug to what you offer. And so any final tips for our audience today, Colleen? I.

Colleen Sloan, PA-C, RDN: Klaus I mean, I think we've had such great trigger words and buzzwords in our conversation, and I love the fact that we really wrap this unintentionally around fun. One flavor and to be able to adapt. And I think those are, I think the biggest takeaways that I would want a listener to know is definitely have fun with your journey with health and wellness.

It doesn't have to be this boring task. Partner with someone, Joining these groups like Klaus has is probably one of the best way, 'cause not only you have other people who are doing it too, and you can share ideas. But we have that accountability as well, and I find that that is such a unique part of being in healthcare is we can find these groups to have that accountability and to just cheer each other on.

Klaus Grim (2): Oh, that's such a great final tip. And I agree. It's the community, it's the support. And you started that with me. And I think one thing is reach out to us on social media, especially if you're a healthcare professional. Or even somebody who's just following one of our courses and just wants to reach out or is has any interest.

We're happy to talk more and we'd love to connect. And so this has been amazing and one of the things I'll have to give a plug it is we've, with every podcast episode, we oftentimes create questions to kind of guide us. And I think we went off script for most of this. so this was a. natural, holistic conversation.

So I hope you guys enjoyed this, and we look forward to seeing everybody in the next episode. All right. Thank you, Colleen.