Latest / Cut the BS, Your Health, Your Choice / Season 3, Ep. 7: Facts, Not Fluff: Senior Nutrition Unfiltered
Transcript
- Marcia: Hello, welcome to today's version of Cut the BS Your Health, Your Choice. I am Marcia Lee, your host. Today's guest is Gabriel Moise, a Prince George County, Maryland native, registered dietitian, and advocate for healthy aging, who is passionate about preventing chronic illnesses and improving the nutritional well-being of older adults. He is from Prince George's County, Maryland, which is right outside of Washington, D.C. And he attended the University of Maryland, College Park, where he has his degree in nutrition, and he has a master's degree in nutrition, he became interested in nutrition because his uncle's vegetarian influence during his middle school years. And his passion for eating became well transformed into focus on preventing chronic diseases as he's had a family history of diabetes and obesity. So currently, he has six months experience as a long-term care dietitian at the skilled nursing facility of Hebrew Home of Greater Washington in Rockville, Maryland. Being a part of the nutrition and food services department at CCL Hospitality, his goal is to support the well-being of nutritional values for older adults. So, welcome, Gabriel I'm so glad to have you on this evening. Gabriel, tell me a little about yourself and your journey from Laurel, Maryland to becoming a dietitian, especially as an African American male. Gabe Moise: I would say the journey was pretty much I wanna say predetermined but it was it was something I guess I kind of jumped a gun at. When I was in high school, of course like most black males, my priorities wasn't school. I was mostly focused on athletics, particularly basketball and when it when reality hit, closer to the end of my high school years, I r I I just fell back on nutrition. I just I kinda I just fell back on it. as you s as you mentioned, my uncle was very passionate about nutrition as a vegetarian and I picked up a lot of good habits from him when I was in middle school. So when I got into high school I just fell back on that. You know, and as I progressed through a higher education of course my motivation for healthy eating changed and I really I really my eyes opened up to to my s to my family my familial habits and I really started to to really open up to that and that's kind of what really now is the the main motivation and the thing that really wakes me up every day, is to really stop, you know, the cycle. Marcia: That's good. 'Cause that was my next question. So how did your family's history of diabetes and obesity influence your decision to pursue a the the gr career in nutrition? Gabe Moise: Yeah. it has it has definitely maintained maintained my purpose. you know, it has definitely maintained my purpose and I would describe the how as as a reminder, right? As a reminder. I think we all have relics that we look to to kinda remind us of our past or, you know, relics of nostalgia or or whatnot. And I believe that really just you know, spending time with my family, as an only child and as somebody who is like a homebody or introvert, spending time with my family has has been a relic. has been kind of like a like a stone I have carried from troubled waters. It's it has been a stone that has reminded me of my past, of those troubled waters and it has actually not just reminded me, but has given me hope. it has been like a lesson. You know, it has definitely been like a lesson to to tell me to not repeat the same mistakes of the past. And I definitely view my family and the family habits as that as a lesson. Marcia: Interesting. So you earned degrees both from UM and Hood College, but what lessons from your education still influence your work today? Gabe Moise: You know, University of Maryland, College Park is where I did a lot of my coursework. For anybody who knows the path to be a dietitian, it's not just about the coursework. It's also about the supervised practice training or the internship or whatever you want to call it. But it's also about the the required groundwork or supervised practice that we have to do. And I most of that occurred at Hood College. At Hood College I would definitely say I I was taught how to be a dietitian, you know. I learned nutrition. university in Maryland, but at Hood College I was taught to be a dietitian, a professional. And this lesson I've learned from Hood College, there's one lesson in particular. It was a lot. But among all, it's one lesson I learned and it was a supervisor while I was at working at the hospital. She told me that she asked me about this patient I was gonna see and after I finished telling her she she said in a very like climactic tone, she said, You're telling me all these nice facts, but you're not telling me about your patient. You're not telling me about their story, about who they are holistically, right? and that kind of stuck with me every day, Every day I look at a patient's medical record and you know, when I eventually go to see that patient, I try to put the pieces together. I try to like understand where they're coming from, how they might feel because of their medical condition and these medical events that have happened. I I try to put the bigger picture together. There has definitely been a a career shaping lesson. Marcia: Gabriel, have you been a mentor to anybody? Have you talked to anybody like a n a young man under you or anybody of color who would consider becoming a dietitian? Gabe Moise: yeah. I should remember like every chapter of my textbook since I just graduated. Marcia: Yeah. Gabe Moise: yeah, no, don't put me on the spot. It's a lot of pressure. I may have to piggyback on my more recent years at Hood College, for memory's sake. And I would say the fundamental coursework that we That we had was I would definitely say medical nutrition therapy and I would definitely say like nutritional assessment. Right, okay. So nutritional assessment is is it's a class that teaches you how to what data to look at, right? What what what clues to look at. Clues that might tell you the status or the state of somebody's nutritional health, right? That was that class that's what that class was about. And out of all the things we learned, the most the most important thing in my opinion, I learned was the physical assessment, right? The a nutrition focused physical assessment. And I really think that well in that in that nutrition physical focused assessment is basically like how a doctor kind of kinda palpates around your body and you know, she may see your heart rate, test your heart rate or sen or sense it, physically touching you. That's kinda what we do. We focus on nutrition. And for like time's sake, the lesson that I really the lessons that I really got from that was to be thorough, to be detailed, and to to really not judge based off appearance, but to really dig deep. it's a small thing that points to a greater lesson of of nutrition in the field of nutrition. you really don't want to just judge a book by its cover. And you're really not supposed to just really look at somebody and s and sense or or conclude that they are have bad nutrition. You're probably supposed to dig deep, right? Look at their habits. ex look at their lifestyle. You're really supposed to dig deep. And even even though the nutrition physic focused physical assessment didn't didn't look at their lifestyle, didn't look at their habits, we're just touching we're just palpating the body. Even though I didn't do all of that, it was really a small thing that pointed to a greater lesson. of digging deep and being detailed and really trying to figure out you know how somebody is nutritionally. Marcia: So have you had anybody that that wanna follow your path that you've met in college, do graduate and undergraduate school? They say, I wanna I wanna do what you do, Gabriel Well they say Gabriel. No, I ain't trying to do that, Gabriel. Or you know what I mean? So talk about that a little bit. Gabe Moise: so I do wanna tell the truth because we are recorded. I haven't really experienced that directly. I haven't experienced somebody asking me for advice about my career. but I can say that I've def I mean more more recently a nurse a nurse manager did tell me that she's trying to encourage her like maybe her like her niece or nephew to get into the field. and I mean I I personally I would I would encourage people to be passionate about nutrition. Would I encourage people to particularly choose the career of dietetics I I don't know I don't know. I mean if if we want to be transparent, like I I got a masters degree and my base salary is is seventy five K a year. after you after you take off taxes, after you take off like retirement contribution, not pick the highest retirement contribution, that drops down to like fifty K a year with a master's degree. And this and this job paid more compared the start the bottom salary, compared to other jobs. So take that with granite take that into consideration too. So that's that's kinda why I wouldn't encourage people to particularly go into the field of dietetics unless you have the money or the time to spare. but I definitely wanna encourage people to be serious about nutrition, to be mindful, to be purposeful, to be intentional. unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity to be like a mentor yet, but I definitely as I gained experience I definitely would like take the opportunity with with enthusiasm. Marcia: what are some of the biggest nutritional challenges older adults face Gabe Moise: Okay. Yeah, that's a loaded question. Mm. Yeah, so older granted I don't have years of experience. I'm under a year of experience. I would say that I I've observed older adults and need they need they need like help with preparing food. there's a particular like adjective or phrase to to describe that. But the act of preparing food it gets harder as you age for various reasons. lack of social connection, physical like not just physical reasons, but like dexterity like with your hands, like arthritis with your hands or whatnot. you know, econ e for personal finance reasons. It it gets harder to prep it's already harder to prepare food for yourself to meal prep, in this next stage of life that's definitely one thing I would say. I do wanna say that I could be more abreast in the literature. I could be more abreast in the literature and primarily where I work is in people are institutionalized. right in like a a skilled nursing facility or nursing home. Like they they kinda live there. it's like we're providing the food for them, like we're yeah, in so much control. But there's definitely like there's definitely problems out there that older adults who are in the community live independently definitely do face that I may not be like the most abreast about, yeah. Marcia: No, that's good, but because what you're saying is valid, you know, for people that are living like older Americans that are all living alone. because my mom is ninety five and she says sometimes she has problem like turning, you know, things different, you know, reaching things in that nature. But in your opinion, how does proper nutrition help seniors maintain their independence and quality of life? what have you seen so far? Gabe Moise: I feel a sentiment of like of kind of heaviness and and just mellowness or melancholy because the like the habit the n the nutritional habits don't start in older adulthood know, as you remember from the nutrition series that we had, he said that, you know, you cannot you cannot correct like years of years of like poor poor habits, food habits with like medications and whatnot. chronic disease progression like hits home. Like it comes to fruition. right? Like, you know, it the the chronic diseases, like all of the elements like the warmth, the the the fronts, like they all like kind of prepare themselves in your childhood years. And then when you get into older adulthood, I mean it's like a it's not just a watch. It's a storm warning. It's coming, whether you like it or not. The chronic disease progression is definitely one of them. Definitely like so yeah, that's prev chronic disease prevention is definitely a way to maintain health in an older adulthood. Also, like I would I would say mobility, kind of eating to to maintain mobility, to to maintain str strength, physical strength. that's definitely a big factor too. definitely eating balanced meals with like protein, with a source of protein at each one, is definitely and of course coupled with physical activity is definitely like a main factor that can help you maintain that independence in adulthood. Marcia: And what's one nutrition myth you hear often that that you would like to correct? Gabe Moise: I'm thinking about this cold turkey all or non thinking pattern. this black or white thinking pattern, you know, I frequently hear in you know, just in in conversational language. for example, you know, I know you may not like totally, you know, hundred percent agree which is okay. but like man, like the food environment is corrupt. Like man, grocery stores are awful, there's nothing in them. Or like man, all this processed food is like is you know i is is garbage like it is ruining your health. It's not just about like biology It's also about like behavioral like science or it's also about like behavior change, right? I really have to start small and I And also like I really have to work with the corrupt system. This world is fallen. I mean, from politics to environment, from education to criminal justice, this is a fallen world. We can't come out of the world. We have to work with the world. I'm not gonna promote people to don't eat out of restaurants and don't do this and don't do that. I hear it a lot, but to me The myth is if I just try to like push you to like to like completely like just be antagonistic to to like to the food you're used to to. If I completely push you to be antagonistic towards that, the myth is that that means you're gonna change, right? Like if I if I paint this whole thing as a dark setting this whole food environment at the dark setting, that means you're gonna change. That means I'm I'm really helping you to change. To me that's that's a myth. that's just my opinion. That's not gonna help you change. I need to encourage you and encourage myself to work with this fallen system and try to maneuver around it. that's just my opinion. Yeah. Marcia: what advice would you give someone who wants to improve their eating habits but don't know where to start? Gabe Moise: it's hard to come up with a solution when you don't know the problem. So to answer your question, I would tell that person to understand Like understand like not just how you eat, but understand what like what are you putting in your body? Like what what and how much are you putting in your body? How much protein are you putting in your body? How like how like are you putting fiber in your body? Like are you are you putting like omega threes in your body? I would just tell people to To be aware, be woke. Be aware. Like I would tell people to be aware of what you're putting in your body. you could do that with with like a food tracking app, which is a very convenient way. and no, it's just a very like cultural, a little twenty first century way of doing it. in general, Like I would just tell people to be aware of what you're eating. and you really can't really make a change or you can make a change, but it would be better if you make like well informed changes information about how you're eating. Marcia: I'm glad you did focus on maybe writing it down because everybody is not digitally literate and they're not gonna know how to get on the app and type eating. Gabe Moise: I think it's entitled How the Other Half Eats, and bas basically it's this like researcher from I think some type of like big name Ivy League university, that. She was saying that To be honest, like most people in the US know in general what healthy eating what healthy eating looks like, right? Fruits and vegetables, like foods close closest to their raw state, right? So I say that to say that like you say, if you just if you just simply jot down, you know, like what you ate for the day or type down what you ate for the day, when you look when you see potato chips coming up in your in your day's diet like three or four times or when you see like juice and sugar sweetened beverages coming up in your day's diet three or four times I have a lot of confidence that most people in the US are are going to wake up. You know, it doesn't take it doesn't take a professional I really don't want to make this elitist. It doesn't take a professional or higher education to figure that out. It just takes simple awareness. And that's all that's what I'm promoting as the first step. Yeah. Marcia: If listeners remember only one thing from today's conversation, what do you hope it would be? Gabe Moise: Food can transform your life. It really can. it can it can bring your family back together. I've seen the simple habit of eating dinner with my father together. every night that I stay over his place. I've seen that habit become a a sustaining force in our relationship. I have seen how I have seen how the sacrifice of cooking homemade meals at eight PM, nine PM at night, you know, when I'm tired. I have seen how that sacrifice has has kept my father like, you know out of the hospital or has you know, kept him, out of like medical emergencies. I can go on and on. But it it can transform your life in so many ways. give it a try, you know, mindfully and purposefully. Marcia: but this is my final, final, final question. So what does healthy aging mean to you? And how can each of us start preparing for it today? Gabe Moise: Healthy aging is living as independently as you possibly can for as long as you can. But healthy aging is living as independently as you can. As a dietitian who works at a skilled nursing facility or a nursing home, this A nursing home is not the ideal. We want older adults to live in the community as long as they can. And that's what that's what it means to me. how you can promote this or do this is by being purposeful and mindful in the lifestyle practices that you have right now in your in your adulthood. Right, or in your middle adulthood. that's what I would say. Be mindful about what you put in your body. Be mindful about how how often you move your body or how often you don't move your body. Be mindful of how often your of your social connections and your social relationships. be mindful of your emotions and your thoughts, be mindful of your finances and your financial preparation. Be mindful and purposeful right now. Right? That's what I would say. Marcia: Thank you so much, Gabriel. this was very interesting. I like this because you're coming from a younger, different perspective. this is fairly new to you, but you're growing, that's good. That's good because the more you do it, the better you become. do you have any goals outside of the skill nursing, maybe do your own practice one day? What are your long term goals for yourself? But you wanna do research, you wanna work in the community, what are your plans? Gabe Moise: Well, man I would not dare to lie while recorded. I mean the amount the amount of weight that I wanna put on my professional life is not as big as you may think. I am in so many ways searching for work life balance right now. but I mean to stay on track and to stay relevant on on topic, while I continue to work in skilled nursing facilities or nursing homes, I do want to interact with older adults who live in the community and who live independently. And I want to sustain their independence. That's something I really want to do. Right now I'm just like picking up the pieces of Humpty Dumpty. But I I want to get to a point in my career where I'm holding Humpty Dumpty on that mountain top and I'm allowing him to just enjoy life as as as much as he can, as independently as he can. Yeah. Marcia: Yeah well thank you for that. So if anybody wants to get in touch with with you, how how can they do that? how can they contact you by email? Gabe Moise: I have social media, but I don't check it, so I mean I'm just I would just be deceiving the public. But I would say you can reach out to me at my personal email. Gabriel123Moisemj@gmail.com lowercase. You know, that's probably the best way. I check that frequently that's the best way to reach out to me. Marcia: thank you so much for coming on and just being so open and honest because this is this is what it's about, Gabriel. Here on this platform we speak facts, not fluff. I really appreciate the fact that you are focused on old Americans because a lot of times people forget about older Americans and we are like the fastest growing population. So thank you so much for that. But in conclusion, I'd like to thank everybody for tuning in today. And until next time for another episode of Cut the BS, Your Health, Your Choice. You make it a great day and be fabulous. Take care, everybody.