[00:00:00] Welcome to, that's Good Parenting, the podcast that searches for simple steps to reduce your parenting stress. I'm your host, Dorie Durbin, children's book illustrator, book coach, and podcaster.

So if you're listening right now while you're making dinner, packing snacks, or maybe even mentally playing with, what did I even send for my kid to eat today? This episode is probably for you. Food becomes emotional quickly. There's so many questions. What to serve, what not to serve. Am I doing it wrong?

Is the nutrition advice out there? Actually correct. It's confusing, for real family life. So today's guest helps parents understand what actually matters, during fertility, pregnancy, postpartum, and especially those early years of parenting.

Those kids that just won't. Anything ette Dana Hulk is a registered dietician, nutritionist and founder of Dining With Nature, where she supports families with evidence-based realistic nutrition guidance. [00:01:00] So ette, I'm so glad that you are here.

Aderet Hoch: Hi Dorie. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here, um, and to share more with your audience.

Dori Durbin: That's awesome and I want you to share more. I want you to share with us exactly why you got into the field you got into and how you help people.

Aderet Hoch: Yeah, absolutely. So I I grew up in a big family. I'm one of six kids. We were four girls, two boys. And I always make the joke that my entire childhood, my mom was either pregnant or breastfeeding.

I don't know anything else. And as you and my sisters were all entering our teen years, then it became all about women's health and all the changes that you go through. And it was just all of us doing it all at the same time. And this is just the world that I grew up in. And I always say that I'm kind of a food nerd.

And I had to find a way to combine both my passions for women's health and just the female journey in general. And with food. And when I learned about [00:02:00] nutritional, like this is for me. As soon as I finished my whole nutrition journey in education and all that great stuff, I was like, okay, what am I gonna do now?

I'm gonna open my private practice and I have to work with women. This is the, this is where I wanna be helping women through this journey. Um, building their families, all their relationship with food and body and all the stuff that comes with it. And that's kind of how I ended up here.

Dori Durbin: That is awesome. And you've been for a while, so you have a lot of background experience now. So one of the things I wondered was when people come to you, what is one of the major things that they're the most confused about within nutrition?

Aderet Hoch: Yeah, absolutely. I think that there's this struggle between priorities, 'cause ities shift, you go from taking care of yourself mostly to now having to split that priority with your child. Sometimes that is not an even split. Most of the time, that's not even split. They're getting more priority than you are, and I think that shift can be really confusing.

It's like, I wanna go to the [00:03:00] gym, but I really should be buying ingredients for dinner. So I'm not gonna go to the gym and it becomes this like, how do I do it all? How do I both take care of myself and take care of my family? Um, I don't know if I would call it misinformation, but I would call it that like internal struggle of shifting priorities.

Dori Durbin: Yeah. It's interesting that you say that because I, I, we said this right before we got on. I remember just trying to get anything into any of us. Like my kids are super picky, and when you're pregnant, you feel. Just kind of nauseous sometimes and starving another time. So like, keeping your cupboards even full is really tricky

so what do you feel like when moms have little kids they're trying to feed. Themselves and the the kids. Um, what are some of the things that they get caught up in on, kind of like the trends and the misinformation that they get looped into?

Aderet Hoch: Yeah. I think that there's definitely just this feeling like you know. There have [00:04:00] to be two separate menus, right? Like, I gotta feed my kids these things and I gotta be eating these things. And you're trying to do double the work. And I think that is where the misinformation comes in because you're getting all this information from like TikTok or social media telling you as a woman, you need to be eating this.

And your child should be eating this. And then you think, okay, so where's the overlap? And I like to dial it back and say, first of all, what do you like to eat? What do your kids like to eat? What does your family like to eat? You know, what do you culturally like to eat? And creating that Venn diagram.

Right between everybody's likes and needs and finding that middle ground so that you're not doing double the work. Rather you're, let's say if everybody likes broccoli and that's something that's like, we love broccoli, we all like it. It's great for all of us. I'm like, great. Broccoli is on the menu. Kind of like really understanding how we can work smarter, not harder.

Dori Durbin: I love that. And okay, I'm, this is gonna age me. But back in the [00:05:00] day, the food pyramid was so important. Like they brought it out, like you okay, point it to the colors, you're gonna get this percent. I don't even remember, like I was so, not attached to it. Is there kind of a standard now that you try to have families maintained?

Aderet Hoch: Yeah, for sure. So, um, I talk about the plate method, which is what the food pyramid evolved into, which is the MyPlate. And that's, if you can picture a nine inch dinner plate split into four quadrants, and half your plate should come from plants, fruits and or vegetables. A quarter of your plate should come from a grain or a starchy vegetable, and a quarter of your plate should come from a protein and there should always be a fat source and a calcium source.

In the meal, um, of some kind. And so, so using this kind of plate method, both from like a, what, how should I build my meal? Like what should be included in my meal? Um, and also from a what proportion? Meaning like how much of everything should I be including, it's a very useful tool.

Dori Durbin: What are the calories that most pregnant women need to take in?

Is there like a, [00:06:00] a range?

Aderet Hoch: So every pregnant woman is different. It all depends on, your weight before pregnancy, how you know the rate you're, and you know, all of that, like how many pounds per week you're gaining. And it's all the numbers. But the idea is that in the first trimester, nothing really changes.

In the second trimester, your calorie needs go up and in your third trimester, your calorie needs go up again. And then if you decide to breastfeed postpartum, your calorie needs will stay elevated to support milk supply. Um, but if you decide not to breastfeed, then they would gradually resume back to where you were pre-pregnancy.

So something like that. That's a really great rule of thumb. I, I like that. It's simple and like even without the numbers, I can visualize that, like, okay, so it's normal for me to be hungrier. It's normal for me to want more. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm still eating a lot, but I'm breastfeeding. I'm okay. Right. You know?

Yeah. Yeah. Lot of that uncertainty for moms, I would think. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Dori Durbin: Okay. Can I go back to the plate for a second?

Aderet Hoch: Yeah, absolutely.

Dori Durbin: So I was thinking about [00:07:00] this, like if moms are trying to prep food and they're. We're gonna assume everybody's going to eat the same thing at this point. So with, according to the plate method, how does she prep for, let's say, a 2-year-old compared to her?

And even if it's like you give me proportions to, of the plate what would that look like?

Aderet Hoch: So I think a two year old's quite young. Um, and I don't, I think that that necess won't necessarily look like a balanced plate. I think it's more gonna be about focusing on, you know, what are we having, you know, what's being made for dinner and like how much can the 2-year-old eat and what they ate throughout the day.

So two, two year olds are a little young, but maybe let's say we're getting to like a four or 5-year-old. And that's when I think that, the conversations around hunger and fullness start, start to come in, right? Having that conversation with them of like, okay, I'm gonna put. Some broccoli on your plate, and I'm gonna put some carrots on your plate and I'm gonna put a piece, little piece of chicken on your plate and maybe a scoop of rice and you're going to eat that and you're gonna tell me, are you still hungry?

Right. And kind of like working with them [00:08:00] and with their likes and dislikes and their hunger and fullness, um, and learning through communicating with them. That's awesome.

Dori Durbin: Okay, so how do moms teach their kids? What full feels like?

Aderet Hoch: That's a really good question. I think the first having them assess how they feel by saying like, how does your stomach feel?

Do you want something else? Asking them questions like, are you curious about another food that's. That, that we have for dinner tonight. Um, right. Like, do you wanna have a drink of water? Giving them the options and asking 'em the questions. And starting from a young age, um, not waiting until they're like 10 or 11 years old, like at a young age, you can start asking these questions and yeah, when they're much, much younger, it's gonna be harder to get like, you know, the most accurate information because they're not going to, you know, be able to like really fully assess it.

But as they get older, they start to get better at better assessing it. They're already starting to be trained to ask themselves these questions.

Dori Durbin: That's such a, a gift, like a life skills gift, because imagine like if, if kids [00:09:00] learned that early, how many kids wouldn't be caught into overeating or, you know, like eating for emotional stability instead.

That's a huge gift.

Aderet Hoch: Mm-hmm.

Dori Durbin: I was actually gonna ask you a little bit about some of the, the structural functional meal plans that you create. I was thinking about families that maybe they have older kids and younger kids, and mom is pregnant and life is chaotic and crazy and they're. They don't have the time to sit down and to have really formal meals all the time.

How do you work with those families? 'cause those families are out there.

Aderet Hoch: Yeah, so the first place we start is what meals is everybody eating together? What meals are eating separately? What meals are being, are you traveling with? Like being taken to school or daycare or wherever it is, right? Um, then we get into the nutritional needs, then we get into the likes and dislikes.

And we try, like I said at the beginning, we try so hard to find as much overlap as possible [00:10:00] because we wanna work harder, we wanna work smarter, not harder. Um, but you know, where things kind of split and where we're like not aligned, which happens a lot, right? We have the like. The teenager who wants only, lasagna every night.

And we have the, you know, the 7-year-old that only wants chicken fingers and french fries. And we have the mom who's like, well, I'm pregnant and I need these nutrients and I like these foods 'cause I'm an adult. And so it's like, okay, so what can we do with all this information? So that, you know, we can balance all these different, uh, needs and, and likes.

When I work with large families, which happens a lot, and there's such an age range of kids, right? And the mom's or the parents, I should say, I feel like I gotta make everything. I have to have like a full buffet every night of options because everybody wants something different. And that's when I'm like, we need to bring in the family menu.

Um, and the family menu is about consistency. It's like, okay, on Mondays we do [00:11:00] chicken, it's gonna be some kind of chicken dish, right? On Tuesdays we do pasta, some kind of pasta dish. On Wednesdays we do fish, some kind of fish dish. On Thursdays we order in pizza. And you kind of bring in this general idea where it's like, okay, you're not gonna eat the same exact thing every week.

Your family can expect that on Mondays gonna be something with chicken. And that consistency really helps give everybody peace of mind and kind of ties everybody together around this. Like that's what you can expect.

Dori Durbin: But that reduces a lot of the friction of I don't want to eat that. No I wanted to have this instead.

At least after time. If they get used to Monday night's chicken night, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's really smart. I love that. I think that's one thing that, um, a lot of families don't have too, is like that consistency that, that planning through the whole entire week. Instead of just day to day.

I know our family still does day to day, so that's really great. I [00:12:00] love that. So when you work with families trying to get everybody on board,, do you ever have to persuade them in a way, I'm thinking of the kids primarily, but it could be the adults too to jump on board with these ideas and not to fight that?

Like how, how hard is that?

Aderet Hoch: Yeah, I mean, I think resistance is normal in this. In this profession and in any, any counseling type profession. I think resistance is actually part of the process. I actually think it's important. I say to my patients all the time, I say, challenge me. Challenge me. Tell me what is a, tell me what's a barrier.

Tell me where there's a problem. Tell me where you're not on board, because. That's where the work is. Like once we get past that, and then once you put this into action, we'll troubleshoot, right? We'll troubleshoot. But your openness and your open-mindedness is what's gonna make us get there. And so I'll say to them, I'm gonna put an idea out there.

Tell me what, challenge me, tell me what's not gonna work. Um, I think that that resistance actually is an important part of the process.[00:13:00]

Dori Durbin: You know, you brought up something that has always bounced around in my head and I think it goes back to wanting to have the family eat all the same thing and take some of that stress outta making multiple plates.

But gluten, toler intolerances, dairy intolerances, sometimes it's not the whole family. So what would be your advice with preparing for people? You know, you have one member of the family who has intolerances of some kind. What does mom do with the food then? Yeah. I'll say I, this is very difficult. It is.

It's a lot of work for the family. It's a lot of work for the parents. Um, it's really not an easy thing to navigate. And I think just like that first, that validation I think is a really important thing to like, say and for people to hear. I, my sister's family, like her kids have multiple allergies.

She is gluten intolerant. So like, I see how these, how like it can really, it is a lot. It's a lot. And um, so I just wanna say that like, I validate it and it's struggle and second of all, it's very possible and it's [00:14:00] very possible to feel, there's, let's say a d dairy allergy, which is a like or an egg allergy.

I think those two can get really difficult for kids. 'cause dairy and eggs is two things that kids really like. And there are a lot of kid foods that include those. That's very challenging. And once the kids are old enough and you can like safely eat the foods around them 'cause they know. Then you can like, ease up a little bit.

And the gluten, I think that's also something that, you know, you kind of just learn to adapt the household to more of a gluten-free environment. Um, but these are very difficult things to navigate and, but they's very possible to navigate. It's difficult, but it's possible. And you get kind of into a groove with it.

You're like, yep, this is our recipe for brownies. This is the recipe we use. Like, yep. This is our recipe for lasagna. You just kind of get into a groove where you trial and error, learn the things that you guys like.

Yeah. And we have a gluten intolerant person in our family and we didn't find it till quite a bit later in life.

And that it's definitely, we have their food and our [00:15:00] food, you know, but there is crossover. I mean, everybody can have broccoli, everybody can have, you know, the other stuff. Exactly. Yeah. Now, how often do you encourage people to do the meal prepping? Um, and some people may not even know what we're talking about, but I know that that can be a very helpful step for a lot of families.

Aderet Hoch: So yeah, I, I mean, I'm such a big meal prepper person. I think it's like such a key to success when it comes to nutrition. I think it's like really the backbone to to many things because at the end of the day, what it comes down to is consistency in habits. That's how we see results. It's because we're doing it as often as we possibly can be doing it.

And in order to support that consistency, meal prepping, um, or a meal prep system, I think is extremely important. But I also recognize that there are things I, I don't like multiple days of leftovers. I travel for work. We go out to dinner, holidays, right? There's like so many things that make it that very difficult to [00:16:00] do non-disruptive.

And so I think what it comes down to is accepting that this is a great way to maintain consistency and habits, and then figuring out how to adapt it to your lifestyle and to the things that make it. A challenge for you, um, and how to overcome it so you create a system that works for you.

Dori Durbin: Yeah. I, I think the hardest thing in my mind is the meat, because I've always heard prep on Sunday, so at the beginning of the week, you're all set to go and have all your meats cooked.

And I'm like, oh, I hate cooking meat. That's such a, a key part for, especially for, I'm guessing it's. Pretty important for pregnant moms, but it's definitely important for the kids. Um, so do you run into that? Like where there are things that people can prep differently?

Aderet Hoch: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

So if there's something like that where it's like, I'll prep everything ahead of time. I'm just not into the idea of prepping my proteins ahead of time, and I'm like, okay. So then you have [00:17:00] to create a block in your schedule that's like, this is where I'm gonna prep my protein for dinner. Because I didn't wanna prep ahead of time.

So every single day there's like a 15 minutes where it's like, this is when I'm gonna go cook the thing that I didn't wanna prep ahead of time type of thing. Or sometimes I'll say to people, especially in the summertime when there's a lot more social plans that come up and so your week is really broken up by those social plans.

I'll say to them. Prep a big salad. Don't dress it. Just prep. Prep. A big salad. Um, very fresh. 'cause there's so much great produce in the summer. Like that's the time. Like make a big, beautiful type of salad. Don't dress it, wrap it up, have it in the fridge so that no matter what, you'll have veggies to put with whatever meal you put together.

And you'll dress it as you eat it. Um, and that, and that way it's kind of like saying like, well, I'm not gonna be home for dinner on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We have. Barbecue plans three days this week. Um, but I'll be around on Sunday and Monday and Friday and Saturday and Sunday, and it'll be really nice to have this big, beautiful, fresh salad [00:18:00] in the fridge to be able to easily add to all of my meals.

Dori Durbin: That actually gives so many ideas like, oh hey, we could do that. Yeah, I totally can do that. Yeah. Let's, uh, let's talk a little bit about nutrition piece of things. I was thinking about the moms and the kids, I guess they're linked in my brain right now. If we're not, they are not getting the correct nutrition.

What are some signs or symptoms that parents might be noticing that are kind of. Maybe going under, under the radar. They don't notice them, but their symptoms.

Aderet Hoch: Absolutely. I mean, this would be caught by the pediatrician just by simply growth and development, um, your child growing and like a big, as adults, we eat nutrition to maintain.

Children are eating nutrition to grow. Height and weight, those things get tracked on a chart, on a, the CD, c growth chart. And that's why kids need to be regularly going to the doctor and being [00:19:00] checked and like, you know, weight and measured and all that stuff so we can see that they are growing and developing.

It's a big sign and big link to nutrition status.

Dori Durbin: That, that makes a lot of sense. The pediatrician's gonna be the one that's gonna verify, um, whether or not that's an issue. Yeah. And then with the moms being pregnant I know, um, my first child, I was kind of like, okay, I don't wanna put on all the baby weight, you know, and, and you kind of, you kind of guard yourself a little bit that way.

But I also noticed that I was very tired and I always wondered if I wasn't eating enough would there be symptoms that I would notice as a pregnant mom that I wasn't eating enough?

Aderet Hoch: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, fatigue is definitely something that, I mean, it's not necessarily a sign that you're not eating enough, but it's definitely a symptom and can be helped managed through nutrition.

I mean, many symptoms can be helped managed through nutrition. What's gonna tell you is those regular checkups to the doctor where you're having your blood drawn, um, and seeing your nutrition status, that's gonna be like a very important part of pregnancy. Also making sure that you're taking the right prenatal [00:20:00] supplement, um, that's gonna be like an essential part during pregnancy.

Look, pregnancy comes with a boatload of symptoms and sometimes it does impact. The nutrition status, both from like, let's say if you're feeling na, like you're always nauseous or you're vomiting, obviously that's gonna impact your ability to eat or keep things down. Fatigue, just your ability to prepare anything, right?

Just these very common symptoms. And then as you get later in pregnancy and you get physically bigger. It's harder to eat a full meal because your stomach is being squashed by the baby. And so like, you know, then you have to break things up into smaller meals and it's easy to kind of lose track. And so there's so many things in pregnancy that can affect nutrition status and that's why those regular checkups of the doctor are so important to like, make sure that you're, you're getting everything checked, your levels, your growth, everything.

Um, and then also working with a dietician at the same time to like just have that. Um, natural tracking going on of like, Hey what did you eat last week? Whatever. It's type of thing.

Dori Durbin: When you work with people, how do [00:21:00] you keep track of what they're eating?

Aderet Hoch: So it depends on the person.

Everybody's different. I don't like to I don't like to impose a system on anybody because some people don't like food tracking or it's just not for them. So it depends everything from just talking in session. Like, Hey, tell me a little bit about your meals the last couple weeks. Um, all the way to using my meal planning system that has a daily log feature that allows them to literally input what they eat and I can see it on the back end.

Dori Durbin: Okay. Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about what you do one-on-one with people. '\

Aderet Hoch: Yeah, absolutely. So wide range of working with people all the way from, I have a passive disordered eating. I have PCOS, I'm pregnant, I'm postpartum, right? A wide range of types of women that I work with and what they come to me for.

Um, I work with I, my practice takes insurance there's always the insurance track to go through. Um, I also offer unlimited access programs that offer some non-covered services. And in terms of range of time of working [00:22:00] with me, it depends kind of what track you take. Um, but generally I work with people three to six months or or longer or for pregnancy.

It is. It's adjusted based on when you come to me during pregnancy and we work through counseling. I always say that the first part of working with me is all about building awareness. Um, it's all about learning your habits, you know, your history. Everything from this is my lab values, all the way to this is what I ate yesterday, right?

Just really gathering that data and learning and having conversations. And then it evolves into action, right? Then it's like, okay, so now we know, and now these are the things that we wanna start to shift or change or adjust whatever it is. And that's kind of where we go next and we battle the successes and challenges that come up with that action phase.

And then we turn, we try to pull it into a maintenance, right? Where it's like, okay, so now we've been taking action consistently and now we wanna maintain set action. We want it to be sustainable. And that's kind of where it goes from there. And those who work with [00:23:00] me through more of an unlimited access track has access to my meal planning tool that provides them with a weekly meal plan as well.

Dori Durbin: I love how everything is a customized plan.

Aderet Hoch: Yeah. Yeah. That's the goal.

Dori Durbin: Working one-on-one allows you to do that.

Whereas when you're in like a group, it, you have to get a little bit more generic. I, I just love the personalization piece though, because like maybe you try something and it's not working. You don't feel like you wanna keep eating that thing or like you just can't be consistent on some level. That's where the coaching comes in and, and is probably super helpful.

Aderet Hoch: Yep, exactly. Personalizing it is like really important to me because, like I always say, nutrition isn't a one size fits all. It's not meant to be a one size fits all. It's meant to be personalized to you. We can like have like the structure, um, you know, the things that we know are like the things we wanna cover.

But everything we put inside that is you and your life.

Dori Durbin: [00:24:00] So Ader, as we , enter into our last questions. I'm sure the listeners are gonna wanna know how to get ahold of you, where they can find you,

so would you like to share that with us?

Aderet Hoch: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so first and foremost, please go to my website, dining with nature.com. Um, you can shoot me a message, you can book a. Free 15 minute call. I always like to chat with everybody. Um, so please don't hesitate to head there, book a call with me. Or you can find me on Instagram at Dining With Nature.

Join our community. And yeah, take it from there.

Dori Durbin: That's amazing. Okay, so here's your very last question. A lot of our parents like to have an immediate action that they can take after listening to the podcast. So what is one step that they could take to improve some of the stress behind food?

As soon as they get off the podcast.

Aderet Hoch: Absolutely. I mean, my favorite place to start is communication. And to go have a conversation, whether that's with your partner, whether that's with your kids, whether it's with both, um, sitting down and going, what do we like to eat? What [00:25:00] do we eat? What do we like to do?

What do we like? Who likes to cook? Who wants to start learning how to cook? Just having a conversation about like, what is our food system gonna be in this house? What do we want it to look like? And starting there I think is like such a great place because. One thing that I always say is that we all have these.

I always, um, when I'm in a restaurant with my family, I'm the person that's like, okay, what does everybody wanna order? Tell me what is every, what, what is everybody looking at? And I, like, I ask it too fast and I, but I always am like, tell me what everybody's looking at on the menu. And it's because I wanna hear what everybody's interested in eating.

Like maybe we wanna share something, you know? Why did you pick that? Like, I'm very nosy. And what ends up happening is like, we're like, okay, let's all order together. Let's just get a bunch of stuff and try it together. And I think that like, the reason why I just love doing that is because we have a tendency to get very siloed with our food, um, and think like, okay, I'm alone in this.

It's just me and just this food and what I want. Um, but I think when sometimes you bring the whole group together to do the planning and having the conversation, it can [00:26:00] be really impactful. And it being more exciting and just easier to manage. Yeah.

Dori Durbin: I can totally see a family doing that and taking a lot of the pressure off. 'cause I mean, who knows if you haven't tried it before, you don't know if you like it or not, right?

Aderet Hoch: Exactly. Exactly.

Dori Durbin: Darren, I really appreciate the fact that you took the time today to talk to our audience, and I know that they've definitely gotten some little nuggets of things that they can do, but all in all, I want them to go to your website to follow you on Instagram and to find out more about you.

And I just wanna thank you for your time today. Thank you, Dorie. This was so great. I love this conversation. Thank you for your time.