Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:00]:
Hello, fabulous Dr. Stephanie Fein with weight loss for fertility. And it's our summer episode 2026. I'm so excited. I noticed the date and I'm like, ooh, gotta do a summer episode. I do love talking about weight loss in summer because there are so many great things that support us in the summer. And I always like to highlight them and then also talk about travel because those are the things that are a little tricky. So I'm hitting the highlights every summer.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:24]:
This is, I think, the fourth summer, third or fourth. I hit on these topics because they're amazing. Now, of course, the hunger scale is the thing that gets us through always. That's always going to be our fallback. But there's little things to keep in mind for the summer. I hope you're having a really good one. This is coming out last day of June. So July 4th weekend is coming up.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:46]:
It is the 250th. It's very exciting. I actually remember this is dating myself, being very young, I'll say in very early elementary school, but there was a big deal for the 200. Okay, that's a good flashback. Okay. I hope you're having a good summer, is the point. Here are the things I like to remind us of in the summer when it comes to weight loss. So the main one, as always, this will be not a surprise to many of you, is to plan your summer.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:23]:
That's always going to be the best. And what I love about so you know, I love a food date. Food date is planning for the week. Planning your days works out really well. It helps our brain. We will have increased food noise if we don't have answers for the brain. And when we plan, and it doesn't have to be a crazy, restrictive plan, in fact, I definitely don't want you to do that. Just if we know what's for lunch, then the brain isn't going to go crazy about what are we going to have for lunch? And negotiating with you about lunch.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:52]:
When you have a plan, the brain is calmed. This is one of the reasons why I care so much about planning for the summer. It's a great idea, too. So we look at the summer as a whole. So maybe it's the next two months, July and August, maybe you're into September. However you want to define your summer, looking at the calendar, taking literally five minutes, it will not take you a very long time at all. You're going to look at the calendar and be like, oh, Aunt May is coming here. We're going on our cruise there we have the summer series every Thursday in this month.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:26]:
When you're looking at your calendar, you're going to start to get an idea of where there might be times that are trickier in terms of foods and overeating or just calorie rich foods or the opposite. It's just good to know because we can then balance things out. If the trip feels like it's gonna be challenging food wise, then we know we have time before and or after if weight loss is still a goal for ourselves in the summer. Okay, so that's the first thing. What is the goal for the summer? Continued weight loss for many of us. So that's great. But to know that makes a lot of sense. To have that decision made is very helpful.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:11]:
And then looking at the summer and seeing how that's going to work out because maybe every week you want to lose, except for this week, it will be okay if you maintain. Or this week I'm okay because I go to this particular place every year and this is what happens every year. And I'm okay if I gain two pounds and I'll have a plan of what to do after that. This is what I love about looking at your summer as a whole. It works out so beautifully. It takes a couple minutes and we're just clocking in our brain what the terrain looks like, what we'll need to plan for, what day's intention or attention is very important. Okay, amazing. That's the first thing.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:55]:
The second thing I always like to talk about are the things that are easier in summer because there are a lot of them, right. So the days are longer, the temperatures are warmer, schedules are a little looser, so we may be able to spend more time with friends. There's often more activities planned communities have more activities. There's concert series, maybe there's golf where if you're in a place that it snows, they don't have that. Tennis, there's other fun activities that are available. Swimming that aren't available all year long. So there's some really good things that happen in the summer that support us when we're engaged in our life. We're going to concerts, we're hanging with friends, we're walking more, we're hiking.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:42]:
Then our food isn't the central player. And that's always helpful. I want that for you forever, for always, every day. And it seems to be easier to do in the summer because there is more to do outside, there's more activity happening and it's an easier lift to do. More things. Definitely use that to your advantage. It's really helpful when you're planning these outings. Some of them may involve food and some of them don't have to, or they involve a picnic.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:13]:
So you're bringing food. It's that often food is not the central thing. And I love that, both as an experience and also as a reminder that not everything has to be around food. So that's one of the things that summer supports us in, is having activities that use our time in a way that feels really good. And then overeating is less of an option or less of a desire. So there's that also, as I mentioned, movement just feels better. There's so many ways that we can move our body that aren't available to us. And it's fun and we like it.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:53]:
And it's not that we're forcing ourselves to exercise. We're just moving more beautiful. The warmer temperatures lead to that too, that you can wanna be outside more. Also there might be lighter clothing and bathing suits. And that can be something we're not beating ourselves up about that we're just more reminded of our body sometimes in the summer. And as we're working on the trust with our body, listening to our body, we can have fun with our body, the movement, but also how it feels to be in water, how it feels to have the sun on our body. Having clothes that feel comfortable and good is all of that works together to help us be intentional about weight loss, about our body, about food in the summer. The other thing just factually kind of idea are the things like fruits, more availability of fruits in the summer.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:51]:
There's some that are only around in the season. And the plums and peaches and all nectarines and that sort of things. Cherries, although. Oh my gosh, this year, my local cherry. Not even that local. The closest cherry place. No cherries. None.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:06]:
So I don't know if in your area you have cherries, but in California, no cherries. Very sad. But normally you have cherries. And so the fruits make it such an easy way to have something sweet. If you want something at the end of a meal or something that's natural sugar, right? So fruits. Fruits end up being such a nice way. Even grilling fruits is so amazing so that heavier desserts aren't as much around, which just makes things easier. Also grilling.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:37]:
Grilling is a great. It's just such a great way to prepare things, cook. It's really simple. And simple is my favorite, is it's just easy. We have. It tastes good, high quality, yummy. Done and cleanup is often easier, or at least not in my purview. Cleaning the grill, not my thing.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:01]:
So grilling outside, eating outside, the fruits and the ice cold drinks, all that leads to easier time eating well. And that's supportive. And we certainly we can use that as an experience it now in the summer and then take that with us into the fall and the winter. In terms of simple food made simply, of course, all this we're doing while there's hunger scale. So we're only eating when we're hungry. We're stopping when we're satisfied, not full. We can do that especially if we have lots of barbecues and then we are prepared, we know what the barbecue is and we don't feel like, oh, I never get this barbecue. So it's easy to stop when we're satisfied, not full, knowing that we're going to have another one.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:53]:
There's more to appreciate and enjoy. The last piece of summer that I always like to talk about is travel, because a lot of us do traveling in the summertime. And there are a couple things I want to hit on. One is travel days, especially if you are taking an airplane. I'm actually going to talk about road trip eating in a minute. This is about airplane travel. For the actual travel days, I highly recommend packing snacks sometimes. I don't know how this works with international travel.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:31]:
Haven't done that in a little minute. So I don't know if you're allowed to bring food, but I know on within the United States you can bring food, you can pack food and you can bring it. You no longer have to buy it exclusively in the airport, which thank goodness because it's really expensive there. This is why I highly recommend snacks if there's a delay, if there's something that you have something with you. So packing snacks for travel days is a super. One of my favorite tips. If you're traveling to some place that's active, like it's a hiking or a biking or that kind of thing, amazing you have that built in. If you're going to, let's say like a European country or a city that you haven't been in and often those trips have a lot of walking, certainly more walking than you do in your average typical day at home.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:24]:
And that ends up working out so well. Again, it's that idea of being distracted or I like the word engaged better because you're not exercising on purpose. I'm putting that in air quotes. You're not. It's not like I have an hour of exercise, but You've spent three hours walking because it's things you haven't seen. You're interested, you want to be there, you want to go to these places. So you're using your body in this beautiful way that works for your brain and your body. It's wonderful.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:53]:
And then you have your hunger scale at work for you, as much planning as you can do. And that's not going to be really specific planning necessarily, unless you're on the group and they have that all planned out for you, which is amazing. You'll just know, oh, we'll be out for lunch here or we'll have breakfast before we leave. That kind of thing really works. What I've noticed when people go to. I'm just using Europe as an example of a city trip is people often will lose weight and they'll be surprised because they'll be like, I was in Italy and I had pasta every day and I had gelato every day. But the balance of walking and also the portions, the quality of food, the things that are different there than here impact our weight. And I could do a whole talk on that about the difference between the setup of the cities there that make it so that weight loss is inevitable or certainly different from how it is here that I really love.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:56]:
The hunger scale is perfect there, right? And there's no restrictions on the foods that you can eat ever in weight loss or fertility. So we don't have to worry about that. But the hunger scale works beautifully. And that's what I would lean on the most there. And enjoying, that's the other thing. Okay, last thing is road tripping. I love me a road trip and eating on the. So I come, you know, I'm in Southern California, you can get very good food.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:25]:
And what I mean by that is high quality food, balanced meals, that sort of thing. It really is harder sometimes when you take a road trip. And so I have my three tips to do. The first one is eat. Bring food the first day for sure, as much food as you can bring, which may not be that much. It depends. If you're going on a road trip to go camping, then of course you're bringing all your food. But if you're going on a road trip and eating out all your meals, then by definition you're eating at restaurants in different places that you may not know.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:01]:
Definitely bring the first day of food if you can. The snacks is also a good idea because depending on how many people you're with, you may have different times when you're hungry and want to eat and so that can be an extender or a help in those sorts of situations. But in terms of restaurants on road trips, my main advice, besides, of course, the hunger scale, which is always going to work, go for green whenever you see it available. Often a vegetable is very hard to come by on the road. And so if veggies are a choice or an option, take it, because you don't know when the next time you're going to see a vegetable after that. And it helps so many things. It helps with satiety, but also your gut functioning and you're sitting. And vegetables on the road are a great thing if you can, whenever you see them.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:01]:
So go for the green when it's available. Then we're doing hunger scale, of course. And then the other thing in terms of restaurants that can be tricky is sometimes the tricks we use. It's not really tricks. The strategies I'm going to say we use when we're home, when we're in restaurants won't work on the road. So one of them may be that you take home leftovers. That may not be an option if you're doing a road trip. So then your strategy for restaurants has to be a little different.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:34]:
And you can. Sometimes leftovers will make sense. Like if you have a lunch and then you're going on the road and you don't know where you're going to stop. And maybe it'll keep for a couple of hours, depending on what it is. Amazing. But if you're going to go back to a hotel and it doesn't have a fridge or you don't want to, or it's messy, like, whatever. There may be reasons why you're not going to take the leftovers. An idea is splitting meals with people.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:01]:
That can work really well because then there's no leftovers to bring home. You're just eating. Two of you are eating there. Or kids portions or appetizers. I just. I was just somewhere. I can't. It was sweet because it had the kids menu and then it said, anyone can order off this menu with an exclamation point, which I thought was so nice, because often they'll be like, you have to be under nine or something like that.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:28]:
So I appreciated that in a restaurant, like, you're allowed to order kids portions. And I think that's nice. So depending on where you go, kids portions can work. Or an appetizer, if it's a place that has appetizers, that may be a perfect size for your meal. Because depending on where you are, restaurant portions sometimes are very large, much larger than our body needs in a meal. And so these are ways that you could make it easier to not have as much food on the plate if that's something that's important to you. Because also you could just order and then just eat until satisfied and leave the rest. And that is not a problem either.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:13]:
That's road trip eating. I do love a road trip. Usually the road trip too though, there's a lot, there's walking, there's a lot of sitting depending on the driving days. But there's also can be a lot of walking and that can be really helpful too in terms of balancing out what's going on food wise and weight wise on a trip that's summer. Oh, I hope you have a good one. I wonder if you have plans for the fourth of July. It's just it's starting and I'm so happy to be with you to offer what I can. I would love to hear from you.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:50]:
Any questions that you have, I would love to hear them. I'm on Instagram @stephaniefeinmd. If you want to lose weight with me, summer or anytime, go to stephaniefeinmd.com and you can hit the lose weight with me button and we will be connected. I am sending you so much sunshine, ocean, water, fireworks and love this summer. Until next week.
