Dr. Zeena Al-Rufaie, MD

I had the honor to be included with these other wonderful people in this one hour long special dedicated to the discussion on Obesity. Thank you for producing this special to help bring awareness to this often misunderstood chronic disease.

My part on Pediatric Obesity begins at minute 15:27. Link in bio if you’re interested to watch!

The GOAT Dr. Fauci receives an honorary fellowship from the American Academy of Pediatrics. “Misinformation and disinformation is the enemy of public health.”

Living my best nerdy Pediatrician life!

I encourage families to not talk about foods in a negative way- so there are no junk foods or unhealthy foods or bad foods.

There’s just food.

All foods are good but we can make them better and also make some best choices.

I went through this exercise with my kids and had them decide what they wanted to do to up level their “good” food, which today was box mac & cheese.

How have you up leveled some good foods this week?

Trick question! They’re the same size!

When I was teaching my 12 yo son about portion sizes, we learned a serving size of Mac and cheese was about 1 cup (and not the whole box like he likes to consume :)

So we decided to have one serving to start. And I suggested if he still wanted more after having other things to make his meal “better” (see posts tomorrow on that discussion) he could do so.

And he did choose to have a second bowl. But then he was satisfied. That’s better than a whole box! 😬

I am trying to teach them to listen to their bodies and weave in some nutritional lessons at the same time.

This was the short stream of consciousness that I had in my head this morning. I had planned to get up and work out before taking the kids to camp.

Negotiations took place for 30 min, then settled on I would just go walk on the treadmill and see how it goes.

Ended up jogging 2 miles 💪🏻

So, some days you just have to go do it even if you don’t feel motivated. The motivation comes in the middle.

What are some ways you get yourself moving even when you don’t feel like it?

I hear this all the time from parents. “Doc, I am concerned about my kids weight. I just don’t want her to suffer the way I did when I was kid. “ The parents may have been bullied due to their weight or faced/continue to face stigma and bias.

And they mean well in being concerned about their child’s weight. The problem is then the family gets hyper-focused on making the child smaller and obsessing about their visible appearance instead of focusing on teaching healthy habits.

But this belief that a child will suffer as they did is false. Because suffering is created by one’s own thoughts and interpretations, not by facts or circumstances.

So a child’s weight in and of itself will not cause suffering. And the child’s experiences will never be the same as their parents; the experience is the child’s own to create.

Check out tomorrow’s post for more discussion on this topic.

No more sad salads! 😝 my colleague shared that he was trying to lose some weight and decided to start eating “sad salads again.” It made me laugh. I love making my salads so I shared that I made a happy salad today. But here’s the thing- salad is just salad. It doesn’t make you feel anything. You get to decide how you think about it and from there you get your feelings. Today, I thought - I love all the colors in here and I cleaned out all the left over veggies in the fridge and now have a clean fridge! Win win! 🤣 share your happy salads with me!

I did a thing today. I pushed myself wayyyy outside my comfort zone. I went on live TV to talk with our local news station about how to talk to kids about weight and health in a way that does not promote disordered eating. I was anxious and excited to be in a TV studio for the first time- but I did it! Thanks to for having me on today.

You always hear people talking about weight loss being a journey. And it’s true, it doesn’t happen overnight and the path to get there is different for each person. But sometimes people make it mean it’s got to be so hard. I’d like to offer that it’s up to you to decide how hard it needs to be. As a weight loss coach, I can show you the path for your journey and come along for the ride to help you get to your destination. If you’re interested in finally losing weight for good, click the link in my bio and set up a consult call to learn more about how I can help you.

Food waste. Anyone here grow up as part of the “clean plate club”? I was taught you have to finish everything on your plate because there are starving children in the world who would want this food. And if you don’t eat it, it’s wasteful. But the other day, my daughter said something that blew my mind. My son was telling her to finish her plate to not waste the leftover food. Her response was, If I’m not enjoying it, then it’s still a waste.” 🤯🤯🤯 she’s right ! How is eating the extra food instead of throwing it away still not wasteful?

Thank you for having me as a guest on your podcast to bring awareness to this topic and how we can learn to have proper conversations with our patients without using diet culture rhetoric

Happy Valentines Day and a PSA: Get your routine colonoscopies! My father passed from colon cancer so I get screenings every 5 years. Love yourself and get all your preventive screenings done on time! Your future self will thank you!

New podcast alert! Thank you to Dr. Karl and Spencer Nadolsky who invited me to talk about the new AAP Guidelines on Childhood Obesity. Check out the Docs Who Lift Podcast for the discussion !

Happy New Year! 🎊 We always use this time to reflect on the last year and set new intentions for the year ahead. I’m setting my goals for the upcoming year. What are some of your goals? I have a few tips to share to help you achieve your goals: 1.) Be specific with your goal - instead of saying “sleep more”, say “I will try to get 8 hours of sleep at least 5/7 nights.” 2.) Be realistic with your goal- now I’m not saying don’t go for your wildest dreams, but be realistic on the timeline it will take to get there..example- if you want to lose 50 lbs, don’t set a goal to lose all of it in 2 months. That’s not realistic. Instead think if I lose 1-2 lb per week, I might get there by the end of the year. 3.) Be patient with yourself. Anytime we set goals or change behaviors, it may not go exactly as planned. And that’s ok. With each attempt, we are learning something new and getting closer and closer to the goal. Don’t give up at the first road block. Keep going!

Sneaky self sabotage thought when we have desserts brought to the office: “I’ll bring these home for the kids - they’ll love it and it will make them so happy. “

But really are the kids going to be the only ones eating them? Nope. Often I would eat them. I used them as an excuse.

And do they really need more of these foods? Cuz I know they’re already getting plenty from school and other parties and from us making our own. So why do I need to bring home extra from work?

Also, do I want to teach them that food makes them happy?

I decided in the end not to bring them home. And instead recognize that me coming home and spending time with them is making them happy- not the food.

Dr. Zeena Al-Rufaie, MD updated their business hours.