In Episode 3: Nutrition: What do I eat to be healthy?, learn about what is a “macronutrient”, the basics of nutrition; and how to eat according to your needs.
Hey, welcome back everyone. This is episode three. Today we’re going to talk about nutrition and what you need to eat to be healthy. If you didn’t catch the last episode, we talked about the four pillars of health, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management. Today we’re going to hone in on the nutritional component. I just want to be upfront about this topic, okay? Because there’s so much information on the internet about what to eat. There are a lot of fad diets, a lot of trendy diets, a lot of weight loss gimmicks out there, like quick weight loss gimmicks, and a lot of extreme things that people go through when it comes to food. So there’s a lot of information on the internet, which is great that there’s information there. But then how do you discern which information is the best information for you to do that’s going to be safe and effective?
The other component of nutrition when we’re talking about food is that everyone is very emotionally attached to what they eat. There are cultural, traditional foods that we tend to eat that we become very attached to. And then when I ask my patients, what foods or what food do you just absolutely love that you cannot be without? And I’ll hear things like coffee and chocolate and whatever food that they really, really love that they just cannot be without. And I usually tell them, to start eliminating that food first and immediately the reaction that I get from people, it’s one of I’m out of here. They’re not interested, right? But the reason I start with the food that they’re most attached to is that chances are that they’ve consumed this food so much that they may have a sensitivity to it and not even know until it’s out of their diet, or it might be an obstacle to their health in improving their health outcome.
So today’s conversation, because that’s what it is, it’s going to be a conversation and education on food and nutrition, right? What does a balanced meal look like? I know that some people watching this, might be in the medical field, they might be nutritionists, they might be more well-versed in nutrition. This conversation really is geared for the individual who doesn’t have the knowledge and doesn’t know where to start. They don’t have that foundational work of what nutrition looks like, healthy nutrition looks like, and also they may have never worked with a functional doctor, a naturopathic doctor, or a nutritionist for that matter. So this is really just groundwork to build on when it comes to what to eat. So I want to start talking about what are macronutrients. So your macronutrients are going to consist of your proteins, your carbohydrates, and your fats. So we’re going to first dive and look into what is a protein.
Well, we know what proteins are. Many people know that animal proteins, your beef, your chicken, fish, and eggs are going to have protein. But do you know that there’s protein in other foods too? You can get protein from legumes. So beans and lentils, you can get even proteins from some of the vegetables that we eat. They have proteins in them. There are nuts and seeds, and so there are many other options when it comes to proteins. So one of the things that I explain to my patients all the time is that proteins are a very important part of our diet. We need to consume enough protein. Unfortunately, when I interview individuals I question, what are you eating throughout the day? What time are you eating? How much are you eating? I consistently see one pattern, and that is that people are not eating enough protein throughout the day. Both men and women are not eating enough protein.
The reason protein is so important, these are the building blocks to make who we are, the physical structures. So we need protein so that we can build healthy bones, build healthy, strong muscles. All our organs and proteins are used to build and make hormones. Neurotransmitters. They’re messengers in the body. So we really need to ensure that we are consuming enough protein throughout the day. So those proteins, when we eat them, they’re broken down into amino acids. Of these amino acids, there are 20 amino acids, and of those 20, there are nine that are essential amino acids. And what that means is that these nine amino acids that are found in proteins, you have to consume them in your diet. So it’s really important that you consume these nine amino acids throughout your diet. And where are these amino acids found? Right? That’s the question. So yes, your animal proteins, your beef, your poultry, your eggs, your dairy, we’ll have them soy, quinoa, buckwheat, we’ll have it seeds like chia seeds, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds will have all of the nine essential amino acids in these foods.
And there are foods like mushrooms that will have all nine of the essential amino acids. When a person doesn’t have enough protein, what the way they tend to present in my office clinically right, is that they’ll have fatigue. They’ll have poor memory concentration. So brain fog, they may have a hormone imbalance. So if you don’t have the building blocks, I want you to think about this. If you don’t have the building blocks to make the hormones, because hormones are bound to a fat and a protein. So if you don’t have enough of these foods, how can you make hormones and neurotransmitters? You can’t. So if you do not have enough protein, a woman’s menstrual cycle will be out of balance. If you’re not having enough healthy fats, your menstrual cycle will be out of balance and so will your mental health because neurotransmitters are signals that the brain is eliciting here.
So very, very important to get your proteins in. So like I said, the proteins are going to help build and repair muscle and bones. It’s going to make hormones, it’s going to make enzymes, it’s going to make those neurotransmitters, and it’s going to make peptides that are very important in the body. So I have some numbers here of how much to eat right? How much protein do you eat in a day? So the RDA recommends that you eat 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. So that’s about 10 to 35% of your daily calorie intake should come from a protein. I simplify this really easy for my patients. The protein intake is really going to depend on male or female exercise activity. So how active are you in your day, and your medical conditions as well? So you would definitely want to speak with someone. What is the adequate amount of protein intake for someone in your particular situation?
Medical conditions are taken into account. But typically I recommend people are doing anywhere from 20 to about 30 grams of protein per meal. And I’m going to tell you from the number, the hundreds of people that I’ve worked with over the years, people are not eating that much protein in a meal. So I say a minimum of 90 grams of protein a day, it should be the minimum. And that’s really not enough for a male because men have to have more protein to maintain the muscle structure that they have. So if a woman in, and I ask them or a male, and I ask them, tell me about what are you eating in the morning, lunch, dinner. The most common response I get is, I don’t have breakfast. I’ll have my coffee, maybe some toast, and then I’ll have lunch. And their lunch does not consist.
Unfortunately, it does not consist of enough protein. And so they’ll have a late dinner and maybe some protein in there. And when I calculate how many grams of protein they’re eating, it’s probably between 40 and 60 on average, and that’s not enough. So when I tell them, okay, we’re going to increase it to 90 grams of protein and then we’re going to work our way up from there, so your body can tolerate having more protein in the day, immediately what they tell me, the difference that they notice when they increase the protein intake, they have more physical and mental energy, they can concentrate and their memory is better. They feel better overall just by adding more protein in the day. So I challenge you to take a look at what are you eating throughout the day that are sources of protein. You can go to any website online and count your calories, plug that information in, and it’ll tell you how many proteins you’re eating based on that meal that you had.
And I guarantee you many people are not having enough protein. So that’s the first step is making sure that you have protein sources in each of your meals. And even if you are vegetarian, there are vegetarian sources of protein, like I mentioned, soy, quinoa, wheat seeds, mushrooms, and other vegetables that have sources of protein that your body needs that to have that proper structure. The next macronutrient is carbohydrates, which people love carbohydrates. But I want to distinguish this because carbohydrates are the body’s main source of energy. It’s instant energy. So if you’re physically active a lot in your day, it makes sense that you would have more carbs in your diet. Unfortunately, a lot of people sit a lot and you’re not using that energy. So what happens to that energy from a carb, if you’re not using it, it will get stored as fat.
That’s what happens. So there are two types of carbohydrates because all carbohydrates are not created the same. There are simple carbs and there are complex carbs, and their name says it all guys, simple carbs are the foods that are going to spike your blood sugar and they’re going to make you gain weight, and those are the ones you want to eliminate out of your diet. So what’s a simple carb? Anything that has sugar, anything that’s processed, cookies and chips and even pizza, they’re all a simple carb. So I want you to imagine food coming into your stomach, into your digestive system. These simple carbs are very easily broken down and enter the bloodstream really quickly, and that’s what makes blood sugar spike, and that’s what will make you gain weight over time. So drink anything, sugary drinks, get ’em out of the diet, and you’re going to see a difference in how you feel when you eliminate these simple carbs.
Now, complex carbs are important. I don’t like to plague carbs as a bad thing because we need carbohydrates. We just need the right type of carbohydrates. So what are they? These foods are your vegetables and your fruits mainly these foods are going to contain a lot of vitamins and minerals that we need in our body for different processes that are occurring, right? And so these simple carbs, sorry, these complex carbs are what’s important for you to have that instant energy. You can have grains as well. They’re considered a carbohydrate, but here’s where it gets a little complex for each individual person out there. If you have diabetes, if you’re trying to lose weight, if you have autoimmune conditions, if you have a lot of inflammation, we really want to be very careful and selective with the type of carbs that you want to eat.
And in my opinion, you can never go wrong with eating vegetables. You really can’t. Getting those green leafy vegetables, your broccolis, your spinach, your kale, carrots, there are so many that you can add to your diet. These foods are very, very rich in their nutrients. So soza fruits, but you got to be careful with fruit. There are some people if they have diabetes or a lot of inflammation that you really want to stick to the fruits that are going to be low in sugar. So your low glycemic fruits, so your berries, your blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries, right, are going to be some of the best sources of fruit. But if you don’t have those issues, then yeah, you have a little bit more of diversity of the fruit so you can access it. So the RDA recommends, and to me this is shocking. It recommends 225 to 325 grams of carbs per day. In my opinion, if someone comes in and they’re diabetic and they’re trying to lose weight, they’re not going to be successful with this recommendation. They just won’t lose the weight and the blood sugars will not be regulated well. So those grams, it’s about 45 to 65% of a diet in carbs, which is pretty high for most of us because in this country we sit a lot. And like I said, unless you’re physically working and exerting yourself throughout the day, you wouldn’t use those carbohydrates to be efficient.
So we want to make sure that we’re able to regulate blood sugars. If you want to regulate your blood sugars and lose fat, what I recommend is that you stick to 40 to 50 net carbs a day. So what is a net carb? A net carb, you take your total carbohydrates, subtract the fiber content, and that is your net carb. That will give you a little bit more room to eat more carbs. Subtracting the fiber part of it. If you stick within 40 to 50 net carbs a day and bump up your protein to really aiming to about a hundred, 120 a day, you’re going to see that you’re going to feel more energetic. You’re going to lose weight. Your blood sugars will control themselves better because proteins do not spike your blood sugar. Carbohydrates do. So that’s very important to understand, that a carb will spike blood sugar depending on what carb it is, if it’s complex or simple, but proteins will not spike your blood sugar.
What it will do, the protein will stabilize your blood sugars throughout the day because you’re using that as a source of energy as well. Guys, food, if we remove the traditional attachments to food and our emotional attachments to food and how delicious it tastes when we eat it, if we removed all of that, all food is it’s energy to this physical body to function throughout the day. Unfortunately, we socialize so much around food, at every event there’s food there, and we eat sometimes without realizing how much or what we’re eating. And so that’s all it is. It’s energy. The body needs enough energy to function, but if you give it too much, it will store it as fat and will cause other issues. The third macronutrient that we’re going to discuss today is fats, healthy fats, guys. So what are healthy fats? Your avocados, your nuts, your salmon, olives, chia seeds, tofu, eggs, walnuts, and yes, even dark chocolate.
So dark chocolate has a lot of benefits. Obviously, if you eat it in moderation, if you eat tons of chocolate in a day, it’s not going to be good for you. And the bad fats, right? The bad guys are the things that have saturated and trans fats. So you’re going to find these foods in fried foods and baked goods, microwave, just make your own popcorn and you’re good. Anything that’s shortening. So cookies and pies and cakes and frozen pizza has a lot of it. Biscuits and rolls, and even non-dairy coffee creamer, you’re going to find these trans fats, saturated fats, margarine, and certain cooking oils. You’ll find these types of fats. Now, the reason we want to avoid these types of fats is because this increases your risk of heart disease and cholesterol, and that leads to other complications later on in life. So if you increase your good cholesterol, by adding healthy fats, it won’t be a problem.
And I always tell people, yes, you can have the cake and the cookie once in a while. The problem is when we eat these every day and we do it in abundance, that’s when it becomes a problem. But in moderation, we can enjoy a little bit of everything. I tell my patients, and I tell myself this as well, as long as 80 to 90% of your diet is good, it gives you that little leeway to enjoy those other things that are not so healthy. So I am very moderate when it comes to diet and lifestyle. So a little bit about me, years ago when I started my healing journey, I stuck with a protein and a vegetable, and I did that and I was good, and I did not consume anything that was dairy or gluten, and I made sure it was organic. And then as time went by, I decided I was going to go vegan.
And I did great on that for almost three years. I felt good. My skin was great, and I felt energetic, and I was just feeling the best I had. But when I started medical school, immediately after starting medical school, I started to have hormone issues. A week before my menstrual cycle. I was so tired and depressed, and I had never really had acne. I started to develop acne around my jaw area, and I was like, what is going on my diet? At some point, I was seeing a naturopath there at the clinic, at the school, and she looked at my diet and she’s like, yeah, you’re doing everything right. You’re having the right amount of proteins and carbs, and you’re eating throughout the day. Everything’s fine. She said, but here’s the thing, it’s that you’re a medical student now and you’re under high levels of stress.
And I thought, yes, I am. And she said, how attached are you to this vegan diet? And I had to reflect because initially, I did it for health purposes, but as time went by, it became a philosophical thing for me. It became a, I don’t want to eat animals and I respect everyone’s, this was my choice, but initially, I did it for the purposes of my health. The doctor tells me, she says, if we just added some Omega-3, some fish oil, that will clear up your symptoms. Well, guys, I hate fish. I don’t like the smell. I don’t like the taste. So I said, okay, I agree to it. I started taking the fish oil, and within a matter like a week, I noticed a difference in my skin, my mood and my energy. And I started to reflect maybe I do need those animal proteins.
And I started to think about how my ancestors were eating, right? So I’m first generation American, so I looked at my parents’ lifestyle and their country and their grandparents, my grandparents, and how they were eating and living. And what I noticed was that they were eating mostly poultry because chickens were accessible and they could kill a chicken and eat it for the day. Pork and red meat were not something they ate frequently. It was very sporadic here and there fish maybe once in a while. But chicken eggs and beans were the main sources of protein and a lot of other vegetables were eaten. They did have high-carb diets because they worked in their fields and they walked everywhere, and they physically were active all the time, both men and women. So it made sense that in a cultural sense, and my genetic makeup, my ancestors, the way they were eating and living, it worked for that for them.
And so maybe I needed to incorporate some of that. The moment I decided to incorporate back the proteins into my diet, I was fine. The moral of the story is for me, the vegan diet under high levels of stress didn’t work. But if I could be a vegan on top of a mountain, somewhere in the wilderness away from society and stress, I would be fine. But that’s not my reality. I live in a world that’s complex, that there’s chaos, there’s high pace, there’s stress. And so I needed to give my body the nutrients, the proper nutrition that it needed to function in this high level of stress. So that was what worked for me. What works for someone else is going to be different. The takeaway from this conversation is that stop comparing what your friend and your neighbor and your sister or family member are doing in terms of diet.
Stop focusing on what’s trending. A lot of these things are just commercialized. They’re trying to sell you a product. They’re trying to sell you a course or a program. Just go back to eating the basics. Go back to eating the way that before your ancestors had modern stuff, how were they living and eating? Because if we go back to those roots, you’re going to find that eating as close as possible. I know it’s not going to be a hundred percent possible to do it exactly the way they were doing, but if we can get as close you’re going to see a change in how you feel. The other thing with diet, with nutrition, is that everyone has individual situations. And you could take a healthy food like broccoli, for example. Is broccoli good for you? Absolutely, it’s good for you. However, there are people that cannot eat broccoli.
They have a food sensitivity to it, and that’s usually an indication of a gut issue, which is a whole different conversation. So when it comes to nutrition, everyone cannot have the same cookie-cutter approach. Sometimes even in the same household, people cannot have the same foods, and that’s okay. The way to find out what works for you is to get to the basics of having the proteins, the carbohydrates, and the healthy omega threes. I really encourage people to understand the difference between Omega-3 and omega six and omega nine, because a lot of people consume more omega six in their diet than they do omega threes. So your omega threes, guys, these are very important in our diet. It’s going to reduce inflammation and helps your brain function, cell membrane function, heart health, and hormone health, and you’re going to find this in fish, in your nuts, in your seeds, in your avocado, olive oils.
You’re going to find this in these sources for Omega-3. Omega six is going to provide you with energy, and it support the inflammatory response in the immune system, and it helps the joints and skin health, great for skin health. However, people consume these omega six more than omega threes, and then it actually is counterproductive creating more of an inflammatory response. So vegetable oils and nuts and seeds. I really stick to the nuts and seeds that you’re going to find these omega threes in. And omega nine is actually, it is a non-essential fat that the body can produce. And so omega nines, your body will make it. And this helps with improving insulin sensitivity and reduces inflammation in the body as well. So those healthy fats are really, really, really important. I’m going to get wrapping up here, but before I wrap up, I want to bring some points just to your self-awareness.
The time of day that you eat does matter. I get asked a lot about intermittent fasting. That will be a different conversation in the future. But depending, once again on your lifestyle and your physical activity, most of us really do need a break the breakfast, have breakfast in the morning, have your lunch, and have your dinner. Four hours at least, no more than four hours spread apart having these meals, because once again, your nutrition is going to be really based on your lifestyle, your health issues, your health and fitness goals. What is it that you’re trying to achieve through this? Obviously, you want to enjoy your food, but if there are some goals that you have, you really need to cater to your needs. So some of the things that I focus when it comes to nutrition that are individually based that I take into account is, for example, someone who has cancer, they’re going to have a certain type of diet, someone with autoimmune conditions, metabolic hormone, neurological issues.
Certain foods will support these individuals more. And so food really is medicine for the body. It’s our source of energy. It’s the building blocks that we need. And the real problem in America is that our food, it’s toxic. If you’ve ever traveled to another country, you find that you can have foods there that you typically cannot eat here. And this is a conversation to be had later on in the future about being careful about the foods that we’re choosing. So don’t eat processed foods. If it comes in a box in a can, it’s frozen. Chances are it has chemicals in there, that’re going to inhibit your health right from being healthy. So just like I said, some takeaways, increase your protein. Just start with that. Increase your protein to 25 grams per meal minimum and eliminate the sugar. And just those two things, you’ll see a difference in your weight and in how you feel. So that is just an introduction, as I mentioned to the macronutrients and the importance of nutrition because these are the building blocks that will make every function, every process, every process in the body function properly. And without having the proper foundation, you won’t feel well. You can never cheat your way out of a healthy diet. So that wraps up this conversation. We’re going to go into the segment of things, the good, the bad, and the ugly in the healthcare system today.
One of the things that I continuously hear from my patients, especially people who have cancer, they’ll tell me, they ask their doctor or their oncologist, what can they eat or what shouldn’t they eat. And their doctor says you can eat anything. Wow. You are telling a patient with cancer that they can eat everything. That is a lie. That is a lie. And people need to know that when people have cancer, you need to get rid of all the sugar, all the sugar, get it out, because sugar is very, very inflammatory to the body, and you already have a condition that has been caused because of high inflammation and dysfunction. So why would you add more fuel to that fire? No, your diet does matter. So find a nutritionist, find someone that can help you when it comes to your diet, if you have certain medical conditions because your medical doctor just won’t, they won’t know.
They’re not trained in that. Hey, I hope that thank you for joining me today. I hope you’ve enjoyed and you’ve learned something new. As I said, this is very, very foundational information that will grow based on this information later on. But I want you to stay tuned for the next episode because I’m going to have a special guest who’s going to be joining me, and we’re going to be talking about the importance of exercise. So that is the second pillar that we’re going to be discussing, and we’re going to talk about how to integrate exercise into your life, making it part of who you are. So you don’t want to miss this. Thank you for joining me today, and until next time, save bless. Thank you for listening to Physician Heal Thyself, the podcast. If you like what you’ve heard, please like, share and subscribe, help this message, and reach more people who may need to hear it. Leave your comments. I want to know what you think. If you’re interested in learning more about raices, visit our website. Until next time, be blessed.