Transforming Wellness: The Power of Small Changes with Dr. Joanne Stekler
Introduction
Join me for an uplifting and practical episode of "Transforming Wellness: The Power of Small Changes with Dr. Joanna Stekler."
In this episode, Dr. Stekler, a brilliant holistic health expert, reveals how making small, consistent tweaks to our daily routines can create profound, positive changes in our lives.
Discover simple, actionable tips to enhance your physical and mental well-being, boost your energy levels, and cultivate a happier, healthier lifestyle.
Whether you're eager to improve your diet, find more balance, or just feel better overall, Dr. Stekler's advice will empower you to make lasting changes with ease and joy.
Tune in and start your journey to a healthier, more vibrant you!.
Connect with Dr Joanne Stekler:
https://uglyducklingbakery.com/
https://www.pinterest.com/uglyducklingbakery/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063523282379
https://www.instagram.com/ugduckbakery/
https://www.threads.net/@uglyducklingbakery
To claim 1 of the 10 Magic Likes and Dislikes Exercises (normally $299) sign up here: https://www.drorlena.com/offers/z2MkKmkC?coupon_code=JULY
You can get a free digital copy of Building Simple Habits to a Healthy Me here: https://www.drorlena.com/book-dr-orlena
Interested in working with Dr Orlena and having her support as you transform your life? Book a call! Click the link and find a time that works for you: http://drorlena.com/book-a-call-fb
Transcription of Podcast
Dr Orlena: Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena I am super excited today because we have a fabulous guest, Dr. Joanna Steckler. Dr. Joanne, hello and welcome.
Dr Joanne Stekler: Hello, thank you for having me.
Dr Orlena: Today, we are going to see where the conversation takes us, essentially. So, Joanne, do you want to start by just introducing us and telling us a little bit about your story?
Dr Joanne Stekler: My name is Joanne Stickler. I currently live in Seattle, Washington in the United States. I've been here for over 25 years. I came out here for my residency, having grown up on the East coast. I went on from internal medicine and I did an infectious disease fellowship. I focus on HIV prevention and I've been doing clinical research here at the University of Washington for over 20 years.
Dr Orlena: Perfect. And people might be thinking, oh, Wait, you're a specialist in HIV prevention? How is that relevant to people leading a healthy life? But we will find out. So do you want to kick off by telling us a little bit about your personal health and wellness Oh, absolutely. I am one of those people. I'm, and I'm a child of the seventies. I've been around for a little bit, who I would say is someone who manages my mental health and all of the anxiety that I have at work through exercise. I, Was a runner starting in high school. I played tennis. I did all those things and I have it easy in some ways because I Exercise has always been with me Though it's been sometimes hard to manage my weight across the 50 plus years of my life.
Dr Orlena: Well, that's really interesting for two reasons. Firstly, I have a story to tell that was This week, my kids went off on holiday, and on Monday morning, my son was just so stressed and so anxious, but yelly and it really made me feel stressed and overwhelmed, and I went off swimming. I love swimming, and that's what I do.
Dr Orlena: I'm totally with you on exercise, but I totally forgot how much stress reduction you get from exercise. As I was cycling home, I really just remembered for all these amazing mindset and things like that, that we can do, there's so many tools out there, but I really think that exercise is number one for stress.
Dr Orlena: If you are stressed and you're not exercising, You need to start exercising, but the other important thing that you bring up as well is that exercise isn't the route to weight loss. Would you like to talk a little bit about your journey of weight loss?
Dr Joanne Stekler: I have always been a Slightly heavier person. I as I said, i've been a runner for all these years but I You I will say I'm a middle to the, more recently, to the back of the packer when I do run races. I run for the enjoyment of being out there and I have enjoyed trail running as much as road running, because trail running gets you out, you get it's more scenery, but also it lets you walk, right?
Dr Joanne Stekler: If you're someone who is not exercising at all, even just getting out and walking is a great thing. And as I've gotten older and I've, Kept the weight on and my joints aren't as forgiving. I had knee surgery for a meniscal tear just last year that I recognize that I am slower and that I need to
Dr Orlena: Wait, sorry. I think you need to give yourself some more kudos that running is hard. Running is hard. Swimming is quite easy. I do a little bit of running, but I know how hard it is. I think you need to give yourself some credit for doing running. A lot of people will be listening to this going, running?
Dr Orlena: What's running? I can do walking. But running is hard, so congratulations for doing the running because it is hard, whether it's trail, or road, or 1K, or 5K, or a marathon, it's hard.
Dr Joanne Stekler: One thing about aging, and I don't know how you feel about this is recognizing that you have more limitations that you can't go as far. It takes longer to recover and. You just have to be kinder to yourself because in my past, I did an iron man triathlon. 20 years ago, I've run several trail ultra marathons of 50 K or more. I went to burning man one year and ran a marathon distance there. I've done a lot in the past
Dr Joanne Stekler: and it's, were super woman when you were younger, and now you're just a mere mortal. Perfect. Perfect.
Dr Joanne Stekler: my goal is to just get out and enjoy and run with my dog and hopefully have my dog not take, take me off the trail and run into, you know, as he's chasing a deer, have me dragged along behind him. Those are my goals. Yes. More modest goals.
Dr Orlena: Perfect. So, as a physician who is interested in lifestyle medicine. We've got this whole big topic and some of it can be controversial. How do you apply that to your life so that you know, do you know what I'm happy with the way that I lead my life?
Dr Orlena: Yep. I might have a little bit of extra weight, but I'm happy knowing that. I'm leading my healthiest, best life. I
Dr Joanne Stekler: Um, well, first of it is the exercising every day or nearly every day, whether that's running or walking or, or swimming because everybody else is happier when I have exercise. Done my exercise and I can
Dr Joanne Stekler: sleep and I can sleep better, right? I want to go back to the, that Exercise is mental health treatment.
Dr Joanne Stekler: That was one thing I heard in one talk years ago A therapist talking that if if you do nothing else for mental health and anxiety it is It is some form of exercise whatever it is that you love.
Dr Orlena: Yes, and I'm just going to Oh, please in this podcast is exercise that lights you up. I really think that the lights you up bit is a key component. Because if you don't like it, you're going to be, why do I want to do it? But you want an exercise that you think, I am so excited that I'm doing this.
Dr Orlena: I know that it nourishes me and gives me that energy. So sorry,
Dr Joanne Stekler: No, no. I absolutely agree with you. People have suggested that I do yoga over the course of, you know, the last few years as I've needed more stretching and things like that. Yoga isn't for me. It is for many, many people, but it isn't something that I'm ever going to be that person. So I, I completely hear you with the, the exercise should light you up. The other part I was going to say is just this philosophy that I have both in work and in life around what we call harm reduction, right? This idea that behavior change is hard, whether it's preventing HIV infection or eating French fries, when you have a high cholesterol or one that I struggle, struggle with, is flossing my teeth every night.
Dr Joanne Stekler: I just went to the dentist and got a talking to and they were talking You know, like you really need to floss your teeth more. I'm like, yes, I I know I'll i'll do a little bit better and it's it's really just about making these little changes . I'm now going to try and commit and establish the routine, right?
Dr Joanne Stekler: That's one of the hardest parts is establishing routine where at least I'm going to try and floss every night. Even if I don't floss multiple times a day, I'm going to try and floss every night and do a little bit better for myself. My goal is not to be perfect. I, we can talk a little bit about my, my sort of other career, but, but I just tell my doctor when I go in, I have a high I've had high cholesterol for all my life, that cheese was my first word and cheese will probably be my last word because I will never, I will never give up cheese.
Dr Joanne Stekler: There is not a cheese I have met that I have not liked. But what I've done is made these little changes where, you know, I, I have a sandwich every day for lunch. I've stopped putting cheese on my sandwich trying to get a little bit better just to make those incremental changes rather than abstinence because abstinence only we know for sexual education or for anything else.
Dr Joanne Stekler: It doesn't work for most people. Now, I say that and as a doctor, I have to have my disclaimer, right, like that, that there may be times when abstinence is really important for you. If you have a peanut allergy, you shouldn't eat peanuts, right? There, there, or particularly with alcohol, some people have to, can't do a little bit of that, that middle ground. I am not providing medical advice here. If your doctor says that you have to be abstinent from something, maybe you do. But I think in most of these areas where we talk about behavior change, whether it's eating or exercise or all those things, it's really about making these small, small changes that make you happy that you establish a routine.
Dr Joanne Stekler: And
Dr Orlena: Yeah, and I think one of the things that you're touching on there as well is motivation. if you have a peanut allergy, you're highly motivated not to eat peanuts because you know what the consequences are gonna be, as opposed to if you love cheese and there's no direct connection between eating cheese, you're less motivated.
Dr Orlena: As a side note, I personally think that cheese has a place in a healthy, balanced diet and that you don't have to give up cheese It's okay. You don't want to be eating heaps and heaps and heaps of it, but it's still there in a balanced diet.
I like this quote that's attributed to Oscar Wilde that is everything in moderation, including moderation.
Dr Joanne Stekler: . We don't withhold treats in my house. We have them, but you have a little bit, you don't gorge. On them, even though I can talk about binge eating, which I've also sort of had to figure out how to deal with across my life, but it's, it's having a little, little bit of things. In my mind, it's better to have some baked good that is so good and have a small amount of it, then have these substitutes, which have, you know, sugar supplement substitutes and things like that, where you eat a whole pack of something, right?
Dr Joanne Stekler: It's making slightly better choices.
Dr Orlena: Perfect. And yes, I think people would love to hear any words of wisdom that you could share about binge eating.
Dr Joanne Stekler: This is, again, probably some component of my weight. I'm a snacker when I get stressed. I get stressed quite a lot as through work. And I honestly think that having this blog, which I know we're going to talk about, and having lots of treats in the house, there's always Right now, I think I have two types of cakes in the freezer. Uh, several types of cookies, all sorts of things. And actually having all of that has allowed me not to feel like there's some scarcity. So I need to eat all of the one thing. So that's one thing that's helped me that I know that's my previous strategy before I got married was to not have anything in my house because I couldn't control myself. My husband loves his cookies and loves his treats and eating them. He doesn't have the same problem, so he can have just one and deal with it. But so since he's been in my house I, I have to have the treats here for his goals. And so to some degree it's managing otherwise. Done various things and I can give some hits.
Dr Joanne Stekler: One is the brush your teeth so you're less likely to snack. That was one thing that helped the, In the evening after dinner, I brush my teeth and therefore I'm less like, doesn't completely prevent me from, from snacking, but less likely because you've already done this really healthy behavior.
Dr Joanne Stekler: And you think, how can I now go and have a pint of ice cream when I've done this really good for me behavior? And the other thing is sort of, you know, drawing boundaries again, I think you had a, Uh, guests on your podcast a few weeks ago, talking about these boundaries. So one of the things that we did during the pandemic, when things got overwhelming is really put limits around our alcohol. Intake was very easy pandemic, especially in the first few months was very challenging for everybody. And one of the things that we did was we said, we're going to focus our alcohol intake to a single glass or a single cocktail only on weekends. So we're not drinking. During the week. And it allowed us to sort of keep control over that.
Dr Joanne Stekler: Whereas I know that alcohol intake for many people went up during pandemic.
Dr Orlena: Yeah, perfect. I think one thing I would like to tie this all up with is habits. I think all of these things that we're talking about is habits. And for me, it's really interesting. So as you can tell from my accent, I grew up in the UK and in the UK, we have a big culture of binge drinking, basically, Friday, Saturday, it's go out and party time and, oh, medical students, they are the worst.
Dr Orlena: And junior doctors are a strong second. Then I moved to Catalonia in Spain, and I'm not saying the people here in Spain don't drink. They do. And obviously people overindulge. From time to time, depending on the people, but there was definitely a culture of moderation. I remember going out for dinner when we first came here and it was Friday night.
Dr Orlena: There were four of us. We had a bottle of wine and in my mind, it was like, well, where's the rest of the alcohol? But it was just one glass and that was it. And that was what was expected. But much more moderation. I think as well, one of the things you're really highlighting is this idea of what works for you, you talk about, you know, binge eating and saying this worked for me and this worked for me.
Dr Orlena: And, I think it comes back to, yeah, what, what works for one person, if that works for you. I'm a great believer in, if it works for you, stick to it and keep doing it.
Dr Joanne Stekler: No, and you're, that's absolutely right. And we talk about diets, right? Picking a diet. What is the best diet for me? Well, the best diet for me is the one I'm going to be able to stick with. And the only way I've actually in my sort of, I have a young child now, the only way that I've. been able to lose weight over the course of my years.
Dr Joanne Stekler: I don't carry too much weight, but anytime I want to lose that five or 10 pounds, the thing that I've have found works the best is keeping a food diary, mostly because it's just monitoring, right? And you think, and I have to record this thing I'm putting in my mouth. You have to be really good about that habit of, of the recording, but it works as an intervention to reduce what you eat because you think like, I don't want to put that one.
Dr Joanne Stekler: It tells you how much is in each of your Oreo cookies or whatever it is that you're eating. But then you have to say, okay, do I really, it looks like I've eaten, you know, a thousand calories worth of Oreo cookies or whatever it is. And maybe I don't want to eat that. I have that on my, on my record and have to look at that all the time.
Dr Joanne Stekler: And so that for me has been one of the best weight loss interventions beyond exercise, beyond doing anything else. That, that's the thing that gets me most of all.
Dr Orlena: Perfect. And I think that illustrates an amount of self awareness. Like what works for me, what holds me accountable, what keeps me motivated. Now, I just want to sidetrack because you talked about your blog. So please tell us about your blog and tell us all about it. What does it do? What are we, what are we going to learn on your blog?
Dr Joanne Stekler: So. I'm going to take, take me back, which is I'm an academic physician and I support myself through grants to the national institutes of health and times have been flush with money and times have been scarce. And one of the things I always said during this period of times where it looked like my money was going to run out in a few months was I am going to give up medicine and I'm going to open a bakery.
Dr Joanne Stekler: And I said this for 10, 20 years. And on one of the, Drives on vacation. My husband and I were brainstorming what my, what my bakery name would be. And I make things that taste delicious and are not perfect looking in any way. I can't decorate cookies. I cannot decorate a cake to save my life. So we decided that the name of this bakery was going to be the ugly duckling bakery, because on the outside things don't look right.
Dr Joanne Stekler: It's all about what's on the inside, uh, for the ugly duckling. He was. A horrible duck, a beautiful swan. And so during the pandemic as an infectious disease doctor, that lots of people were looking to me for reassurance and March and February and April of 2020 were scary because we didn't know anything.
Dr Joanne Stekler: We just knew there was this virus and. There were lots of deaths. We didn't know how it was transmitted. People were sharing all sorts of information and misinformation. And I started sharing what I was making for dinner, just for fun. I just to counterbalance, right? All of that other information that I was sharing, it was mostly on Facebook at that time just to my friends.
Dr Joanne Stekler: And they encouraged me in 2021 to start a food blog. I didn't know what a food blog was. I'd, I'd Read a few things, but my idea, just like many people when they start a food blog is I'm sharing what's for dinner. And so I started this blog, it's called the ugly duckling bakery, WW that's not even www just ugly duckling bakery.
Dr Joanne Stekler: com. And I started off just like everybody sharing what I eat, the things I bake. You can see that sometimes I'm healthy and sometimes I'm not, which I'm
Dr Orlena: I just want to pause there and say, if you are not doing healthy things, it is 10 times better to cook the not healthy thing than to go and buy it from the shop. So I encourage anybody who's listening, and even with bread, I think it's a really great rule to say, do you know what? If I'm going to eat bread or a cake, I have to make it first.
Dr Orlena: And it gives you so much self awareness of what goes into it, but the amount of time and love that you put into it. Really counterbalances it's so much easier to go to the supermarket and buy a shop bought cake which is full of emulsifiers and nasty things. Whereas when you pour love and effort into something, it becomes more healthy than the shop bought You can control how much salt you put into things. You can control oftentimes how much sugar although it's sometimes with baking recipes, you don't want to mess around with the sugar content. And in general, it's going to taste better than anything you can buy on average. I still think that any loaf of bread that I make is better and will last longer.
Dr Joanne Stekler: For some reason, the bread that we get now doesn't last and doesn't taste good. Good. It just goes to mold. It dries out. And so I try to make my bread every week. Sometimes I don't have the time for it, but it's not hard to make homemade bread and the love, the flavor. It, I, I am again, someone who will support making your own things of all kinds.
Dr Joanne Stekler: And. Eating a little bit, as you're saying, and
Dr Orlena: Enjoying life. Enjoying life. And I have to confess, I am not a baker for exactly that reason that you, you have to be very precise with your bakery and I am not precise and I always play around with the sugar levels. I'm always like, I think I could just put in about a tenth of this sugar, which works with a lot of things.
Dr Orlena: So I tend to cook things with fruit and I experiment a lot with fruit. I go to the market and I buy. So much fruit and then I get home and think what am I going to do with this? And so I experiment quite a lot with that. So that's my style of baking. My kids often go mum What on earth is this? And I'm like taste it.
Dr Orlena: It's great I'm but you're, but you're, and, and fruit by itself is a
Dr Joanne Stekler: absolutely fabulous dessert and treat. And you don't, you know, if the fruit is in season, which is a whole nother thing we could talk about, buying fruits and vegetables that is actually in season and not trucked in from somewhere else and stored and caused to ripen with artificial gases that make things red, but don't actually taste good. As an aside that you can play around with those sugar levels because they'll taste sweet on their own. It's more the, if you're making a cookie or a cake, you probably shouldn't reduce the sugar by more than, you know, reduce it by a quarter and see how it goes. But which I do, I, I,
Dr Orlena: baker, but I would definitely include your website on the show notes so that other people can go and do some baking. I leave the baking in my family to my 16 year old son. He likes to make an amazing chocolate cake for birthdays. And my husband occasionally makes bread. I don't really eat bread. My husband does from time to time, but my kids obviously love bread.
Dr Orlena: And I feel it's much better if they have the homemade bread, but yeah, life, like, I always think science with a dose of reality. I buy shop bought bread for my kids because they like eating bread and I don't really like making it.
Dr Joanne Stekler: and depending what age they are, they may not be able to tell much of a difference, right? I mean, as we age, we go from liking very sweet things. There's some developmental reasons why babies and young children prefer sweet stuff over some of the other flavors. So a lot of times the things that you can buy tend to cater to those To those
Dr Joanne Stekler: younger tastes. I do other things other than bake, though the bakery isn't my name. I do other things and I try, I do have a fair amount of pasta recipes because I like pasta. And it's one of the easiest things to do as vegetarian. We try to do at least our meatless Mondays and have recently added another day to try and reduce our meat intake. I was a vegetarian for 10 plus years, a long time ago, but I was a. Very big cheese eater at the time. Lots of pastas, lots of cheeses. And so the goals are to expand into the beans and more savory things and try to skip the pastas.
Dr Orlena: perfect, perfect. But we are all about the beans here and I recommend people have at least a portion of beans a day if possible. I know not everybody is quite there yet. Yeah, seriously, there's a study that shows that if you eat a portion of beans a day, It's healthy for you.
Dr Joanne Stekler: I was, I was just gonna say, you know, like how, how you deal with some of the after effects of beans. Just
Dr Orlena: I think you get used to them. So I think your beans get mostly get digested by your biome and If you've got a biome that is eating beans all the time, you mostly get used to it. And I think you get used to it from just like, this is just normal life. Do you know what I mean? As opposed to when people make the change, I think they notice the difference between it.
Dr Orlena: But for me, I eat beans, I eat lots of vegetables, and that's my life. And that, you know, I think it does probably give me a bit more bloating than, Other people, but it's not something that bothers me. It's not something that I worry about. It's not uncomfortable for me.
Dr Joanne Stekler: another part of life.
Dr Orlena: exactly. Exactly. Do you have any last words of wisdom for us?
Dr Joanne Stekler: No, I mean, I think the main thing, and this is when people ask about the one thing I would share in terms of making changes. And I go back to what my father once told me when I was anxious and had so many things to do is just. Do one thing, right? It's not about making all the changes and going all the way.
Dr Joanne Stekler: It's just doing one thing. And once you do that one thing, you can then start to do all the other things. But if you get to a place where there's so much, there is so much you can do. There are so many changes you can make. There's so many new things to incorporate your life. You're just going to get overwhelmed. And so just, just do one thing and keep
Dr Joanne Stekler: doing with one thing. Perfect. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for coming and spending some time with us. Please. Can you tell people where they can find you and. Where if you, if you have an opt in, a free gift on your website. I
Dr Joanne Stekler: Yup. I am again, ugly duckling bakery. com and I happen to be ugly duckling bakery on every other social platform. So I am on Facebook. I am on Instagram. I am on the new threads.
Dr Orlena: thank you so much for spending some time with us. It's been absolute pleasure.
Dr Joanne Stekler: You're very welcome. Thank you for having me.
