Insight Into Health - September 29, 2025
KSVY Radio, 91.3
Welcome to Insight into Health, my new radio show on listener-supported KSVY 91.3, voices of the valley! I am your host, Allison McKeany, and these are the show notes for the live radio show that aired on September 29, 2025.
Listen to the episode:
Segment 1: Beyond the What
All about calories - what are they? Is it still calories in/calories out?
Scientifically, a calorie is a unit of energy. It’s what we use to measure how much energy food gives us.
BUT within your body, calories work differently and thus, make us feel different
Calories often don’t account for satiation and satiety
Satiation is how full or satisfied you feel during a meal
Satiety is how long you stay satisfied after a meal
In general, processed carbohydrates, added sugars, and eating carbohydrates alone are low in satiation and satiety
Protein, fat, and fiber provide satiation and satiety. They fill you up faster and keep you satisfied for longer.
This is the reason that calories are rarely a topic of my education. I’d much rather dive into how different types of calories affect us and focus on the ones that are delicious, nutritious, and provide satiation and satiety
Segment 2: Let’s Talk
I was joined this week by my husband, Lyle McKeany. We discussed how differently we approached food and health when we first met (he enjoyed ordering the least healthy thing on the menu…). I explained that while I try to fill our house with delicious, healthy food, I made it a point not to make Lyle my “project.” Lyle talked about how, over the last couple of years, he became “fed up” with feeling tired, achy, and overall crummy. This led him to embrace both fueling his body and moving his body from a place of his own motivations (how he feels, caring for our special needs daughter, and… his golf swing!), instead of mine. This is the power of finding your own WHY.
During this segment, I mentioned this post entitled Designed to Survive that I wrote earlier this year, which is about how my goal is to help patients reclaim a sense of agency, not by blaming themselves, but by understanding that their appetite isn’t broken. It’s doing exactly what it was designed to do.
Segment 3: Here’s what I’m… reading
I read excerpts from a book I am currently reading by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, which beautifully weaves together Indigenous wisdom and scientific information about the land and the plants and animals that we share it with.
The Indigenous Thanksgiving address is a message of gratitude to the earth, the plants, the animals, the sun, and the moon, recited by both schoolchildren at the beginning of each day:
“Imagine raising children in a culture in which gratitude is the first priority…It reminds you every day that you have enough…more than enough. Everything needed to sustain life is already here.”
I was touched by a sadness that most of us don’t appreciate the beauty and the gifts of nature all around us.
The author urges us to find ways to participate in a culture of reciprocity:
If an animal gives its life to feed me, I am in turn bound to support its life. If I receive a streams’ gift of water, then I am responsible for returning the gift in kind.
While I admittedly didn’t know how to even begin the practice of reciprocity, so far, I have come up with small ways that I can give back every day:
Appreciate it
Savor it
Share it
Protect it
Please reach out by commenting below or emailing me at insightintohealth@gmail.com.
See you next Monday at 7 pm on KSVY Radio, 91.3!
~Allison McKeany, MS, RD