 Welcome back to Move It Matters. I'm your host, Kristi Linders, physical therapist and board certified orthopedic clinical specialist. Many folks have spent more time cooking at home in the last 12 months during the pandemic. And I've been hearing more and more from my patients about pain while cooking, whether it be foot pain, knee pain, wrist or elbow pain, even neck and back pain. Today, we are joining Lisa Matsunaga, registered dietitian and cooking instructor in her home to talk healthy cooking and how to enjoy it without pain. But before we meet Lisa, let's learn some quick tips to get rid of pain while cooking in video number one. If you are suffering something called tennis elbow on the outside here or golfers elbow from doing too much gardening or clipping or working with your hands, it can be very painful to lift a heavy pot off the stove or chop certain vegetables. So I wanted to show you some stretches you can do so that it can be pain-free while you cook. So you hold your elbow straight, stretch your wrist down here. You can hold for 20 or 30 seconds. You also flip it around and stretch the underside. Make sure you pull from here and not at your fingertips so that you get the wrist. You could also bend your elbow and stretch it this way as well. Or here, you can put them together and stretch them this way or stretch them this way. The other thing you can do to help to strengthen is also work on your posture because if you're slouching forward like this, it puts your wrist extensors and flexors at a disadvantage. So it's important to squeeze your shoulder blades back. You can clasp your hands behind your head and squeeze back. You can take a band if you have it and rotate outward. Squeeze your shoulder blades together. Work on that good posture. So that you could prepare your meals for yourself and your family without pain. Now I'd like to welcome Lisa Matsunaga, owner of WellnessKitchenHI.com. Welcome Lisa and thank you for coming on the show. Great to see you. So tell me how did you start WellnessKitchenHI.com? I wanna know. Yeah, so I started WellnessKitchen because I'm actually a registered dietitian. I'm not a professional chef, but I felt as a dietitian. I felt like there was a big gap between telling people what to eat and what people were actually doing at home. And so you can give them all the facts and numbers that you want to a patient with high cholesterol or diabetes or something. But what are they actually gonna do with it at home? And so I wanted to show people, bring them into my home, show people these are the things you can cook that are easy, they're healthy, but they also taste really good and you don't have to compromise taste for health. Yeah, and I can vouch for that because I had the opportunity to sample your WellnessKitchen and I loved it. And I walked in and everything was set up. We had aprons and recipes. And the highlight for me was making all the food, learning how to chop different things and then knowing that you can put healthy food in something perceived as unhealthy like a lava cake. And honestly, I've had lava cakes so many times, but making it at your place, how you did it with all your healthy secrets was amazing because I liked it more than I did with the unhealthy, so to speak, version in the restaurant. So I was kind of blown away. I loved to cook, but I was blown away by the addition of all the healthy ingredients that you can put in there that you normally wouldn't, I guess, you know? Yeah, yeah, I had a lot of fun experimenting. If I have something in mind that I really want to make, I have fun trying to make little changes that don't change it so much that it complies with the taste. But yeah, like the lava cake is actually, it's vegan, very little added sugar because we have a secret ingredient in there. It's one of the most popular cooking class menu items, I would say. And yeah, I get people who come who would never choose a vegan dessert on a restaurant menu, but then they try it and they're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this is vegan. Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, it's amazing. So what kind of people come to your classes? You know, I, yeah, I thought I would get a lot of, you know, people who have healthy shoes or allergies. And I do get those from time to time. And yes, I can tailor menu. So if you have allergies or if you have certain restrictions, then I can tailor the menu to you. But I also just get a lot of people who, you know, we have couples or families that have like a, you know, grandfather and granddaughter. Yeah, families who just wanna make it like a, an intimate memorable activity or a fun date activity. So yeah, it's been really fun, like meeting all the people, everyone's excited. And it just feel very like, you know, they're not just here to like cook and, you know, learn about nutrition. It's not like a serious, you know, lecture or anything. We keep it fun and I take pictures of them and I send it to them after and so they can keep the memory. I loved it. So to add to that list of people who wanna come, I did it with my coworkers. And it was so fantastic because like during the pandemic, you know, we're going with the people that were hanging out with the most as we're starting to kind of get back out there. And we work together, but we don't get to chit chat so much about other things. And we walked in and you said, it's so relaxed. And we were having fun pretty much from the minute we walked in there and you made us these little, what were they, popovers, maybe? And they looked good with butter and it was just, it was amazing from the start. And I just, and then we started cooking and I know that like one of my problems as a physical therapist, because I'm hands on so much and I've been doing it for so long, is I get a lot of wrist and hand pain and sometimes elbow pain just from overuse at work. And I do manage it with the stretches that I showed in video number one and things like that. But you had showed me how to cut an onion that I love because I think that's one of the things that all my life I've been cooking and I cut an onion this way and I do this that way. But all of us, I think reinvent the wheel. And I liked how you showed it because it was fun and easy and new. And I think that's just another thing that people get when they come to your cooking class is different ways to chop or different ways to squeeze or prepare your ingredients. I love that. I tried it here. I don't think I did it as well, but I really liked that way. It's very simple and I don't have to think about it. Yeah, oh, that's awesome. I'm glad that you tried it at home, yeah. Yeah, it was great. Yeah, I think I like to, you know, it's not just about the food and cooking. I take a lot of pride in, you know, where I source my ingredients, how it's grown, you know, I try to do mostly organic and wholesome ingredients. And so I'm very picky about, you know, when I cook for myself and my husband, you know, I always want the best ingredients, the freshest ingredients. And so I pass that on to my guests and I just want them to have the best. So I also, you know, show them how to shop healthfully, what to watch out for, how to read, you know, read the labels or, you know, how do you know your olive oil is real olive oil? You know, where do your pumpkin seeds come from? All kinds of little tips here and there that I think people, you know, come away with learning a lot more than just cooking recipes. I bought the olive oil, by the way. And you know where I found it? I found it in Target, actually. I couldn't even want to be in Target. I'm like, oh, let me just see what they have for olive oil since I learned so much about olive oil and I bought the olive oil. I love it. That was great. Yay. Yeah. Yeah, Target has a really good price for that. So I mentioned the wrist and the elbow pain that I had suffered and so many of my patients during the pandemic were complaining of wrist pain, elbow pain, because they were cooking so much and they're also gardening and taking care of their kids. And I think their tasks were a little bit more or working from home and, you know, not so good set up so that their wrist and hands are a little more compromised. So let's go to video number two where I show a quick home remedy to get rid of your elbow and wrist pain. As far as a home remedy goes for that pain on the outside of your elbow or pain on the inside, it's very good to massage off the tissue. Use your other arm to massage it out. You can bend your wrist up and down while you do it. Same thing on the inside. Needing this tissue is so good. It feels so fantastic to loosen that up so it doesn't have pain when you go to grip the can opener or the knife or the pot. So that is a great tip. Don't be afraid to massage yourself. I do it all the time. I rub myself, I stretch myself, it gets circulation to the tissues, helps restore them more to normal. So Lisa, you have a little salad I see prepared there. I want to see what we can do for the viewers with this beautiful salad. What are we looking at here? So I already prepped. This is a very simple salad dressing. It only has four ingredients, but I love to make this at the beginning of the week. You can make a big jar of it, keep it in the refrigerator and it'll last seven to 10 days. So it's a great way to ensure that you can eat vegetables all throughout the week and you don't have to worry about what you have available to you. So I already prepped some onion here, just a fine mince. I actually use, I like to use shallots, but today I didn't have any shallots so I can either use minced onion or minced shallot and then I have a lemon here. It's kind of hard. Sometimes you get lemons that are hard and you feel like you're gonna have to squeeze really hard to get the juice out. So what I do is I just sort of put my weight into it and I roll it. Hard to feel it getting soft, like all the little cells inside are breaking up. You just turn it and roll it and turn it all in. So that's what I'm doing now. Now it's a lot more pliable. I could tell there's a lot of juice in there. Wow. Yeah, and then I'm just gonna juice it real quick. And I have exact measurements in my recipes that I print out and I give them to my guests. But I'll just show you real quick. Usually I just eyeball it, same amount of chopped shallot or onion and lemon juice. Some lemon, the onion and the shallot, they just add a really nice savoriness to it. I feel like if it's just lemon and olive oil, it's nice. But adding a couple extra little ingredients gives it a little more, yeah, that nice zestiness and mommy flavor. I like that, how you're massaging it. That seems very easy on the wrist versus as I tried to just grip the hard lemon and squish. Like you smooth it out and then squish, this is fantastic. Yeah, yeah. You actually end up doing less work I feel like you're not, you know, trying to get it. Yeah, you're not, it looks easy actually. Yeah, so I have about, you know, equal amounts of lemon juice and chopped onion in here. And then I like to add some Dijon mustard. But this also adds another little layer of flavor. Just about a teaspoon. And then some salt and pepper. I buy these, I don't know what you think, Chris, about these kind of twisting grinders. I think they're great, I think it's fine. I actually use them, I don't have problems. You're in good posture, you know, it's, that one's no problem for me. It's the tougher thing for me is like a really tight lid that I can't get open. Or like if I have to peel a lot of small things, I have your hands and little garlic cloves are hard for me chopping things that are hard, like a butternut squash or something like that. I bake them first and then I, or I microwave them, I do something like that first to soften them beats because I can't chop them first until they're soft. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, I use the microwave sometimes to soften kabocha or hard splashes to make it easier to cut because, yeah, it's so hard. It can be kind of dangerous trying to, you know, to have it with me then. Yeah, so, okay, so I have the Dijon mustard. I did the salt and pepper and now I'm just gonna add some olive oil and I'm gonna drizzle it and stir or whisk at the same time. And the Dijon mustard actually does double duty. It also helps to emulsify the dressy. So emulsifying this means it becomes a uniform consistency. So you're not getting the top layer of oil and then the water on the bottom. It all kind of comes together nicely. That's great. So like if you store this in the fridge for the week, will it separate or will it stay together? I think in the fridge after a while it is gonna separate because olive oil will harden and it'll rise to the top. So, yeah, so if I'm making it solid, I'll put the dressing out onto the counter first and then start making my salad and by the time I'm done then, yeah, it's ready to go. Okay, good. I'll show you this in a second. I'm excited about this because I'm getting hungry and I like making homemade dressings. I've spent some time in Italy a few times actually and their salad dressing to me tasted very, I don't know, it was like, it was perfect and literally all it was was olive oil and salt and lemon. Yeah, yeah, I mean, when you have good produce, right? You don't want to cover it up with heavy dressings or really strong flavors. But yeah, this is also, see how it's like starting to emulsify? Yeah, so it's all, it's kind of creamy looking actually. Yeah, that's basically it. And then, you know, you can have a little salad here. I have some strawberries, some watermelon radish, avocado and some pistachio. So this is sort of a spring-flash-summer salad. What's up the watermelon radish? I don't know that I've ever had one of those for but it looks so great. It looks like a little baby watermelon. Yeah. And it says I've never had a watermelon radish. Yeah, I mean, this is a pretty small one but some of them are huge and it's just adds such a dramatic, you know, crunch and then the color and it's great, great for you. So when I taste, when I test the dressing, I actually like to use the part of this, you know, a component of the salad when I'm testing the dressing. So that way, you know that, you know, okay, this is how it's going to taste all of when it all comes together versus just tasting the dressing by itself. And so usually I'll take like a lettuce leaf and I'll dip it in there, give it a taste, like, oh, then you know, you need a little salt, you need a little more lemon or olive oil and then you can just make it your own. I love it. Yeah. That's so simple. That is so simple. This is one of the recipes of what, how do people find out for your menus or do they choose a menu online? Do you custom cater a menu to them? How does that work if they wanna do a cooking class with you? Yeah, so you can go to wellnesskitchenhi.com and then you can click on menus and there's all the pre-made menus there for you. But you know, if you have things like allergy or you don't like a certain menu item, you can mix and match for the most part. You just send me a message and then we can go from there and everything is fully customizable. Yeah, I love that. So we have a question actually from a viewer. Thanks for sending that. It says, I was diagnosed with arthritis two years ago and have had to tolerate gradually increasing pain. I started taking turmeric as a supplement about two months ago and I found it to be very effective to relieve back, hip, knee and ankle pain. Would you recommend it or are there precautions to take? Do you, I'm not a doctor. And so like with supplements like that, people can try it. And with turmeric actually, I have a lot of patients who it hasn't helped. And then some of them who it has helped with, I feel like autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, vasculitis, those sort of those people with those type of things have said, wow, I feel like it makes a difference but do you use turmeric in your cooking other than making curries or do you have any knowledge as a dietician of how to use turmeric to help for those things? Yeah, I mean, all of those spices are actually really good for their anti-inflammatory properties. So cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, fruit, cumin, all of those are all great. The only thing I would caution with supplements is that supplement companies, you're not really 100% sure what's in it. There's been lots of studies or investigations where they find out that what they say on the bottle is not actually what's in there. And so that's one thing that worries me about buying turmeric as a supplement. I would try to use it in your cooking or try to use fresh turmeric, which we're very lucky in Hawaii to have at the grocery store and using fresh, that's gonna have all of its health benefits and anti-inflammatory property in there. You're not really worrying about how it's been processed, what else they add in there or they can do all kinds of things in the manufacturing process. So I feel like trying to get to the whole version of whatever you're taking is always the best. Yeah, that's great, that's great. So let me ask you now because we're talking about pain and healthy cooking, right? Have you ever had any pain when cooking? Cause that's kind of what you do. Yeah, I know. Well, the way that I met you as I started having some back pain, it was after a fitness class where I was doing a lot reps with weights and it was, I thought it would just go away on its own, but it was months and months and I was still feeling it. So that's how I met you going to your physical therapy office and you guys showed me some great exercises and stretches that I still do today. I still use the foam roller to stretch out my arms and I'm much more conscious of my posture now, like when I'm cooking or driving or at the computer. Yeah, you taught me so many great tips that I still follow to this day and yeah, my back feels great now. I'm so happy to hear that and I'm so glad like what you just said was perfect cause I think like still doing it, but also being more mindful of your posture. It's one of those things that I like to help people form the habit of good posture because we don't know what we're doing until you have pain or someone tells you and when someone tells you it's like, oh wait, all you need is a little bit more attention to posture so tissues don't get strained and I love that. You kind of put it into your routine, that's great. Yeah, it's been so helpful, thank you. So I have a couple of tips. I did a quick video last night if we go to video number three of some things you can do to get rid of upper body pain while you're cooking. Right, so you're bending your neck forward, you're chopping, you're stirring, you're cooking. Everything is looking down, it takes a toll on your neck. It takes it out of its natural curve. So what do you do? You can stand up, squeeze your shoulder blades back, push your head into your arms or you can go over to the doorway, put your arms out in a doorway and lift your chest and breathe in, stretch out your chest, tuck your chin down, make a long neck and also you can go up against your door and just do some chin nods to keep your head and your back, your butt against the wall, nod your chin down and stretch out all these muscles. You can squeeze your shoulder blades back to touch the door or you can rotate your hands on squeezing your shoulder blades so that you don't have neck pain while you're cooking. I like showing those videos of simple things you can do and simple places you could do them like in a doorway or against your wall. And I also had a lot of people complaining of foot and knee pain while they were cooking because they were doing a lot of yard work and during the pandemic, a lot of people are doing more than 10,000 steps. I think that was like two shows ago I did the 10,000 steps is causing your pain because people had like one foot that was arch collapsing or a knee that was diving in and all of a sudden they're standing cooking which is what they normally did for their family except for they're having all this pain and here in Hawaii, we don't wear shoes in the house. And so that has become a problem. So I've been educating a lot of people to go get some sort of shoe or house slipper that is only in the house. So when you're standing cooking on your tile floor, it has an arch support here. So if we go to video number four, I'll talk a little bit about that. Many people have been complaining of knee and foot pain while they're standing and cooking all day for their family and for their friends. And during the pandemic, a lot of us are cooking more than normal. And so one of the things that's important to do, especially if you live in Hawaii and you're used to taking your shoes off before you enter the home is get a pair of house slippers like this that have a little bit of arch support. You can only wear them in the house but here's where the arch support is. It's important to stabilize your arch while you are standing there. And another thing too is if you're standing and you're cooking with one foot turned out like this, that could cause excess strain on your arch here. So you wanna turn your feet straight and you also wanna kinda grip the floor, grip your shoes, curl your toes in that way to help support your arch. You can also roll your arch over a tennis ball to massage out the plantar fascia to help yourself feel better while you cook. Let's go to video number five where I show you how to do that. I love this exercise. I use it for myself. I'm on my feet all day and I love to cook as well. And so I just sit and massage my foot over. This is a golf ball. You can use a tennis ball, lacrosse ball, any sort of ball of frozen water bottle people will use as well. Just to relieve the tension in your arch, especially if you have been doing more walking or exercise outside. So Lisa, how can people get in touch with you to book a class like other, they go to your website? Yeah, you can go to my website that's wellnesskitchenhi.com. You can also go to my Instagram it's wellnesskitchenhi.com and you can see all kinds of photos from past classes, things I've been cooking, things that are on the cooking menus. And I just wanted to mention that right now all the classes are private. So I'm not mixing groups. So you're going to have your own class with just you and your loved ones. And maybe in the future, I'll do some open classes where you can mix groups. But right now every class is private. So yeah, two to five people. I love it, two to five people. That's great. I don't want to forget. We had talked about standing and cooking and using these house slippers and you mentioned that you had a gel mat that you use. Do you have it there? Yeah, do you want to see it? Is it inside? I want to see it. I don't know how, it's kind of dark in here, but I have one, sorry. Oh, that's okay. Oh, I see it's dark, proud. It's dark, yeah. I have one so over my sink. So when I'm washing dishes and then I also have one down here or when I'm cooking over the stove. And does that help with your feet? Oh yeah, yeah. Because I'm also on my feet all day too, whether I'm shopping or cooking or teaching. And so it helps my feet feel so much better. I wish my whole house was covered in this mat. You know what, that's a great idea for like a flooring industry. No, that's great. And I also wanted to mention for taller people too, such as myself and I have another physical therapist friend who is very tall, who is mentioning how he opens up his legs wide when he's chopping. So he doesn't have to hunch over and bend down to the countertop type and countertop height. And I don't realize I have to do that. I'm not that tall, but at work on the laptop services, I do the same thing. I spread my legs wide so that I can not have to hunch over the laptop. And when he mentioned that, I thought, oh yeah, I gotta tell people that because it's something that you might not think about that can help your neck and back. Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, so thank you so much, Lisa, for coming on the show. This was great. I can't wait to make your salad dressing and thank you to ThinkTekHawaii.com for allowing us to be here with you today. I hope you all have a wonderful day. And remember, life is better when you listen to your physical therapist. Aloha, everyone.