Nutrition

The BEST diet

People are always looking for a new "diet" to try. Keto, paleo, vegan... Experts are constantly debating which is the best. The truth is that it depends on individual genetics as well as the timing; what's good/bad for us today may change as our health changes. That being said, certain things are universal and what tends to do best for most people is a plant-based approach. My plates are typically 3/4 plants with some quality fat and protein. I think of our hunter/gatherer ancestors, and sometimes we were more keto-based, and other times we had an abundance of fruits and veggies. I cycle my nutrition throughout the year, but one thing that stays consistent is low to no added sugars.

Many clients will request a meal plan or macros, but that is not a sustainable approach. The very idea of measuring food and counting calories is such a strange concept, what a poor relationship with food. It may be valuable to do at the beginning in order to become more aware of the foods you're eating and the caloric density of those foods. I have found, though, that calories are not what's important when it comes to health and when we eat the right foods, we naturally eat the right amount.

Many people have a hard sticking to healthy foods long term because they use words like 'diet' and associate it with 'restriction' and 'calorie deficit.' They feel as if they have to give up certain things they love. When these types of conversations come up, most foods can be upgraded to a healthy meal, but people tend to fight before letting go of sugar.

Sugar, Americas favorite drug

High sugar and processed foods create gut bacteria that create cravings, but once you eliminate those foods for a while, those bacteria die off, and the cravings go away. If you try this, you will likely feel like you are 'restricting' yourself; the truth is, you're gaining freedom from that addiction, you're obtaining a healthier relationship with food. I often offer my clients to try a metabolic reset, and part of it is giving your body a break from added sugars for 4 weeks. This is a powerful experiment because what happens every time someone successfully does this is that they feel so much better afterward. The first week or two may be hard, and energy may be low along with brain fog, but as that bacteria dies off, they suddenly get mental clarity, clean, sustainable energy, feel better in the joints, better circulation, the list goes on. Eliminating sugar makes your body function so much better in every way, and remember, we didn't give up sugar for good, it was simply 4 weeks, but often, when people reintroduce sugar into their life they realize it is way too sweet and no longer enjoy it like they used to. Their taste buds are no longer hijacked by sugar, and real food has so much more flavor. It really is a beautiful moment.

So fundamentally, before I concern myself with what type of foods people are eating, a universal truth is that sugar has to be reduced in order not only to gain a better relationship with food but to have better health overall. I am not anti-sugar completely, but it is inherently designed to overconsume. If you can have a healthy relationship with sugar, keeping it in your rotation is fine. Sugar interacts in the brain the same way an addictive drug does, so to tell a drug addict to use their drug of choice in moderation is often a big request. However, if we take a little time off sugar, which will likely be really hard but well worth it, you can determine later if you want to reintroduce it but in moderation. For me, I don't keep sugar in the house (other than raw honey) but will occasionally have a baked good or something at an event or get-together. That works best for me, and I used to be a sugar addict.

Shopping for food or food-like products?

So let's talk about grocery shopping; when shopping, we should stick to the perimeter for most of our food choices; the isles are loaded with 'food-like products' at best.

When having conversations about what foods to eat, we should also be having conversations on the sourcing of those foods. Food quality is key and industrial farming is a major issue. Industrial cattle are fed unnatural diets that cause digestion and other health issues; they're pumped full of hormones and antibiotics. We not only need to be aware of what we eat; but also what we eat ate. If you drive past an industrial farm, you know it- because it stinks and the cows look deformed and sick. These cows being forced an improper diet is the reason they release excess methane and have a negative impact on the environment; a healthy cow does not have the same emissions. On the other hand, when you drive next to a farm with ethical practices, you don't get overwhelmed with that smell, and the cows look healthy; they live their natural life grazing on grass in an open range.

What about vegetables? For those who don't eat animals for ethical reasons, it's worth knowing that plants are conscious too; studies show plants have a chemical reaction when it detects being eaten to ward off predators; this works well for insects but hardly works for humans, though it is worth understanding certain compounds such as lectins as they can cause digestion issues.

Industrial farms use pesticides, herbicides, & GMOs. Industrial farming also depletes the soil of nutrients because it lacks biodiversity due to the single-crop farming method; this depletes the soil and depletes for food of nutrients. This style of farming kills the pollinators and requires much more water due to poor soil quality; all great reasons to stop supporting industrial farms. Studies show these chemicals negatively impact our DNA and gut health (our immune system is primarily in our gut).

When it comes to shopping for food, people will often say that eating healthy is expensive, but in my opinion, it's much more expensive to live a low-quality life and then spend a ton of money on medical bills from poor lifestyle habits. You can be proactive with good health or be reactive once health declines. You can invest in a good quality of life or pay for not doing so later. The answer is a no-brainer to me. Also, on that note, it's all supply and demand. If more people become aware of industrial farmers' horrible farming practices and buy from the organic, sustainable farmer, demand goes up. If industrial farmers are no longer profiting, they will change their practice. Once more people are farming regeneratively, supply goes up, and the price goes down—another great investment in your health and the world.

I have some key principles that I follow when shopping for produce. Diversity is beautiful! Each vegetable comes with certain nutrients and fiber that our gut bacteria, our immune system love, so I buy what's in the season to get the freshest food while ensuring a great amount of nutrient diversity throughout the year. Just don't be one of those who get the same 5 veggies all year. Without researching what nutrients a veggie has, a good rule of thumb is getting as many colors and overall diversity in produce as you can. I eat, on average, about 30 different fruits and veggies a week.

When shopping the isles of your grocery store, start reading ingredient labels. It may feel odd at first when you don't know what exactly you're looking for, but the more familiar you are with labels, the better. You will learn as you go. There are many ingredients to stay away from, but a few are canola oil, vegetable oil, high-fructose corn syrup, artificial sugars, any 'color' ingredient.

What the fructose?

A health issue that has emerged relatively recently is non-alcoholic fatty liver. Many reputable doctors claim that fructose is the cause of this issue. High corn fructose syrup should quickly be identified and kept out of our bodies; fructose can also be in foods we consider healthy.

Fruit has great micronutrients and fiber, and I eat them regularly. Fruits sugar is fructose, and it is metabolized through the liver, unlike other sugars. Having a piece of fruit is fine, but the problem comes when we start eating bowls of fruit or, even worse, blending up fruit into a smoothie. When we blend up fruit, particularly high glycemic fruit, we consume fructose at a level we never could naturally consume as whole fruit. This will really tax your liver and cause health complications along the way. When I do have smoothies, I focus on higher fat and protein smoothies with lots of vegetables and maybe one fruit, usually berries (low glycemic fruit and very nutritious).

Metabolic Campfire

So now, if you're thinking you want to cut out sugars, let's talk specifically about what is potentially causing the metabolic damage resulting in stored body fat, brain fog, and energy crashes. In order to understand why that's happening, we need to understand the basics of macronutrients and energy systems.

There are two sources of energy the body can use:

Carbohydrate (Bread, Pasta, Grains, Sugar, Fruit, Vegetables, etc.) & Fat (Avocados, Oils, Nuts, Cream, Ghee, Lard, etc.) Protein, the third macronutrient, is not used for energy but is used to build and repair tissue. Many foods consist of a blend of proteins, fats, and carbs.

We can think of each energy source like a campfire. If you start a fire with twigs and newspaper, it will burn very quickly, and you will have to continue adding to the fire to keep it going. It will also produce a lot of smoke. The 'smoke' resembles free radicals created from using carbs as energy. These free radicals speed up the aging process and cause other health issues. The fire burning quickly is like the carbohydrate that quickly breaks down into the bloodstream, making you hungry soon after your meal. If we have a fire consisting of logs, it will burn a long time with little smoke. This is what it's like to use fat as energy. Basically, carbs burn fast, and you need more food soon after to get more energy. This is why many have energy fluctuations throughout the day, whereas others who are metabolically healthy can go all day without eating and feel great.

War on Carbs

So are carbs bad? No, but we should have the ability to use both carbs and fat as energy, yet many of us have lost the ability to utilize fat as energy. This is metabolic damage and why many have excess fat on their body (fat is stored for future energy) and yet, can not use it; instead, they're hungry for more food. With our calorically dense and nutritionally deficient meals, many of us are overfed yet malnourished, so we eat a lot of calories, but we are always hungry because our bodies are seeking essential nutrients. America generally has a high-calorie, high-carb diet. America also has a high obesity rate. Clearly, what we are doing is not working. Carbs require insulin (fat storage hormone) to transport the carbs (energy) through the bloodstream. Studies show that chronically elevated insulin causes insulin resistance, creating elevated blood sugar levels, creating metabolic diseases such as diabetes. My meals consist of mainly carbs, but calories are low because my carbs are mainly vegetables, not grains, sugars, breads, etc. There are many options to upgrade the foods you love to a healthier version while not feeling like you're giving up anything.

A fork in the road

One doctor may run your fasting blood sugars and your post carbohydrate meal blood sugar levels, determine whether or not you have prediabetes or type 2 Diabetes, if so, as a solution, put you on Metformin (one of the drugs to manage blood sugars). But you don't have a Metformin deficiency; you likely do, though, have nutrition, stress, lifestyle implications causing your high blood sugars. Whereas another doctor and patient may draw blood and determine you have prediabetes and follow up with a conversation about lifestyle and suggest making changes in a few areas and coming back for blood work in a few weeks and may or may not prescribe you a blood sugar medication for the time being with the intentions of getting you off after you begin making healthier lifestyle decisions.

Quite frankly, supply & demand is in play here as well. Many people want the pill, the easy way out to address health issues. They want to drive by a window to pick up food instead of making a healthy meal at home. They want to drive around to find a close parking spot instead of parking towards the back. This instant gratification, easy fix mindset is the foundation of many poor behaviors. The doctor could mention that you need to eat better, exercise more, manage stress, and sleep better, or he could give you a pill to manage symptoms; most people want the pill. This is a band-aid approach. It is like getting a flat tire in your car, getting it towed to the tire shop, then them filling the tire up with air though it has a puncture in the tire. They could have replaced the tire, but instead, they air it up and tells you that you have to add air to your tire every 8-10 hours, and you will be fine. Now, I do see great value in western medicine in times of need but if we take drugs to manage symptoms without having conversations on the root problems and actively trying to get off the drugs, I don't consider that medicine; it's a drug and a business model.

The gut doesn't just digest food; it's also repairing & healing during the times it's not processing foods. The majority of our immune system is in the gut. Many of our hormones are produced in the gut, and many autoimmune diseases are caused by gut impermeability, aka leaky gut. A brilliant mind from 460 BC said, "All disease begins in the gut." 2480 plus years later, in America, 6 out of 10 adults have a chronic disease (quoted from CDC website), with fast food and sedentary lifestyles becoming the norm.

Food first

I believe that supplementation should be supplementing good nutrition. If we adopt the concepts I provided above; we will be getting a lot of micronutrients through our food. If our society starts demanding regenerative farming, we will get much more nutrients from our food. That being said, I do still supplement with a few things. Like everything else, quality matters, so sourcing matters, particularly with supplements because they are not regulated. Many products do not contain what they claim to, or the extraction method of a given nutrient is done in a way that reduces or takes away the benefit.

Magnesium is a nutrient required in over 300 chemical processes in the brain while we sleep. Some people consider it a macro-micro-nutrient. I have been supplementing with it for years and notice when I don't. Many will notice they have much more vivid dreams, and those who never recall dreams begin to. Many doctors say that in America, this is the number one deficiency that goes undetected.

Vitamin D3 actually translates in the body as a hormone and is what you get from soaking up the sun. That makes sense when you think of the Pacific Northwest and how depression and suicide are so high there; they get a hormonal imbalance due to the lack of sun. When I am not getting enough sun, I supplement with vitamin D3 (with k2 as it's needed for absorption, but you get k2 from plants). The recommendation for D3 is really low IU's; I personally take 10,000 Iu's on days that I don't get sun which is about 9,000 more IU's than the average person is supplementing with. I have done a lot of research and never come across vitamin D3 toxicity. I also do a mega-dose of D3 if I feel that I am getting sick as it is a great immune booster.

Bioavailable refers to your body's ability to utilize whatever we put into it. Many vitamins and supplements on the market have low bioavailability being make from synthetic compounds or the extraction method itself. As we spoke about previously, our gut health plays a big role in our ability to uptake nutrients. Though I gear my nutrition to optimize micronutrients, I still take an a-zinc powder as well. I use Organifi green juice personally. I use this as an insurance policy on my nutrition. Regardless of what brand you choose, the point remains that sourcing your products from a company with ethics and a good understanding of their product from start to finish is the way to go. You can buy cheap products and pee them out, or you can source a good quality brand that most likely cost more money but actually serves the purpose you're supplementing with them.

Adaptogens are an amazing thing to look into as well. I won't go into too much detail here on them, but essentially they help your body optimize homeostasis; in other words, if your immune system is too active, causing it to overreact to stimuli, it was calm it down. If your immune system is underresponsive to a pathogen, it will make your immune system more responsive. Different adaptogens have different properties; it's definitely worth looking more into and feel free to reach out to me if you have questions about them or sourcing good quality products.

Alcohol metabolism

I want to touch on alcohol briefly, we all know it is not healthy for us, but if we choose to incorporate it into our lives, we should understand the basic metabolism, so I will use an analogy I once heard. Imagine a free-flowing highway with 5 lanes in each direction; cars driving at 70 mph in each direction. Suddenly, an ambulance is rushing down the highway, and all the traffic pulls over until the ambulance passes. In this analogy, the free traffic is the metabolism, and the ambulance is the alcohol. Your body can be processing foods, and all of a sudden, you introduce alcohol, which is a toxin, and your body will halt the metabolism of the food until it processes the alcohol out of the system. In that time, food will just sit in your stomach, which is.. no good. Alcohol also influences our sleep, but we will get there soon in our sleep section.

Our bodies are extremely resilient, and we have so much power to heal. We can start the first 18 years of our life with no education or awareness around health, eating disease-provoking foods, have horrible health- then become health conscious and change the entire state of our health. I know this because I have done it and seen it done many times. We hold so much power with our decisions, and the choices we make when it comes to which foods we eat are a critical component of our health and overall outcome.