Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 219: Eating For Health + Performance with Dr. Adrian Chavez

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, everybody, welcome in to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. In this episode, I'm sitting down with Dr. Adrian Chavez. He's a PhD in nutritional science who knows a absolute boatload about all things nutrition. Today, we talk about actionable steps for living a leaner, healthier, happier life, what to avoid and what to focus on with your nutrition, how you can set a better example for your kids instead of setting them up to be chronic dieters, as well as debunking a lot of the myths around seed oils, artificial sweeteners, liver, organ meats, and many other things. I think you guys are going to love this one, especially if you like nutrition. So sit back and enjoy today's episode with Dr. Adrian Chavez.
Starting point is 00:00:49 Hey, Adrian, how you doing, man? I'm doing well. How about yourself? I'm doing really well. We're actually sitting in the middle of a 112 degree heat wave out here in California right now. So I got into my studio early, met with a couple of clients, got home, blasted the AC, and I'm on the computer the rest of the day. What about you?
Starting point is 00:01:10 112, man. We're getting a little bit of a break in the heat right now. We've had a week and a half of rain here in Texas and we had over two months of 100 degree days and it's kind of humid here too. So it's a different type of heat when you're out here and it's a hundred and with a little bit of humidity. So we finally got a little break with some rain, but man, this has been a rough summer. Yeah. I'm glad we got to record this earlier in the day because I live in the part of Northern California notorious for wildfires. So we have rolling blackouts where they just cut the power completely in the hopes that electrical components don't enhance the likelihood of a massive fire. So every once in a while, they'll just black everything out.
Starting point is 00:01:53 But on my new house, I do have solar. So the podcast will continue no matter what happens, guys. with Dr. Chavez today because as somebody who's been interested in nutrition for almost a decade, there's a lot of content just more generally on social media, on YouTube, even on streaming services. In fact, I got introduced to nutrition by watching what I now believe to be sensationalized pseudoscientific nutrition documentaries on Netflix. And when I was 18, I was juicing everything under the sun in my Jack LaLanne power juicer. I broke the motor on that thing three times because I was juicing everything. So as a trainer, I've always been super interested and invested in nutrition. And knowing how nutrition impacted our physiology was actually what got me into training. But the
Starting point is 00:02:39 more I've learned over the years, the more that I've realized that nutrition is truly a science and all sciences are subject to being sensationalized or subject to misinformation. And I've gotten a much better handle on who it is that I get my information from over the last, I'd say, 16 to 24 months. And Dr. Chavez is somebody whose content I really, really like because it's to the point, it's not sensationalized, but it's also not demonstrative, crass. And I think a lot of people in the evidence-based fitness and nutrition space really make a living on hammering people who might be misinforming others if for no other reason than they just generally aren't well-educated in the fields of science and the hard
Starting point is 00:03:25 sciences. I don't know if it's as dubious. Obviously, we have some shysters and charlatans, but I've always really liked how you packaged things. So a question I have for you as a PhD in nutrition, somebody who quite literally has achieved and accomplished the pinnacle of what it means to be educated in a science, What are the levels of hierarchy or what is the hierarchy when it comes to nutritional authority and the evidence-based nutrition space? What should people look for when they're looking for nutritional follows on social or nutritional authorities from whom they might buy books or purchase courses? So one of the easiest ways to really delineate between people who are really providing an evidence-based view of things and people who are being more sensational, as you mentioned,
Starting point is 00:04:14 is a really simple way to do that is look at the nature of their content and determine whether or not they're providing pros and cons to everything that they're saying or providing both sides of the story. So, for example, if someone's promoting a vegan diet, if they never mention to you the cons of following a vegan diet, it's quite likely that no matter how educated they are, even if they have a PhD, a master's, whatever the case may be, it's quite likely that they have a bias and they're not providing you an evidence-based look at certain things. For example, if you find someone who's vegan, who explains to you some of the benefits of actually eating animal foods, that's someone that you're probably, they're probably going to be providing more nuanced
Starting point is 00:04:55 information because the way that, and the reason nutrition is so challenging as a science is, number one, we all eat and we're driven by psychological components as well. So it's not just like, you know, this is your physiology and nothing else matters. You know, the psychological aspect of eating is important too. And that actually impacts our health too. And it's ignored quite a bit on social media when people are talking about certain things. You know, if someone scares you out of eating something and they cause you to have a negative psychological reaction to a certain food and, you know, every time you get served that food, you're scared of it and you have anxiety and you feel bad, that's worse than the food itself in almost every case. There's almost no
Starting point is 00:05:37 case where a food is going to be worse than that negative psychological reaction and the guilt and the fear and the anxiety that is produced from eating that food. So, we really have to, number one, stay away from these people who are creating these, you know, these situations where if you eat something, you're just terrified of it. We know, like, you know, for example, a lot of people talk about seed oils or MSG and, you know, they're scaring people out of it. And if what they were saying was true, we would like people would just be dying left and right. Like everyone's extremely inflamed. Like, you know, if consuming seed oils created inflammation the way that people say it does, like the average population eats quite a bit of them. Right. Yeah. it's ubiquitous.
Starting point is 00:06:28 And everybody would have all these health issues. So we have to, you know, kind of avoid some of these sensationalist messages that create fear and really find people who are willing to discuss all sides of an argument and not sway too far in one direction. Because, you know, even for example, talking about certain supplements, like I could talk about fish oil, fish oil is great, you know, in some circumstances, but there's so much nuance to that. Like if you have baseline omega-3, you know, status is fine, you're not going to get any benefit out of taking fish oil. And this is where, you know, individuals who don't have a very in-depth background in nutrition, who haven't read these studies, who haven't read, you know, all of the studies on the topic, you know, it's easy to just grab one study and say, hey, I found this study and, you know, talk about
Starting point is 00:07:17 it on social media and make it sound interesting. But it's quite another to be able to present that study in the context of the body of literature on that topic. And that requires years, like years and years of dedicated learning in this specific topic. And I learn stuff every day, pretty much in nutrition. And the reason is because there's so much nuance and there's so like the evidence base in nutrition is advancing so quickly right now. So many studies are being published and you have to be on top of it to really understand how all of these things fit together. whether in the average person who either got a nutrition certification or even a bachelor's degree really hasn't gotten far enough in depth because a bachelor's degree is just learning the foundation. Because before you even understand the studies, you have to start, you have to learn the biochemistry, you have to learn the physiology, you have to learn the basics, and then you can
Starting point is 00:08:22 start to understand some of these higher level, you know, research studies that are there that are talking about more nuanced topics. And then you have to start trying to fit all of that information together. And you're just not going to like you're not going to be able to do that in two years or a couple of years. It's going to take quite some time. I've been in this field for over a decade and I learn stuff every day and I read papers. I mean, I'm reading papers on a regular basis that get sent to me or that come out. And I'm always learning something new. Just this week, one of my opinions on a certain topic has shifted a little bit because of some new data that I came across. And that happens all the time. Why don't you do me a favor and share what it is that changed and that shifted as an exercise and
Starting point is 00:09:12 kind of showing like, because I really do think people need to see that it's okay to change how it is that you feel about something. And Dr. Chavez made a really good point, which is you have to have a exceptional understanding of the base scientific material to then go to the highest levels of nutritional understanding. And in learning all those things, you can really get kind of not self-absorbed, but you can be like, yeah, I know it. I can't tell you how many people in the fitness professional community, once you get a certain number of clients or you have a certain number of revenue or a certain amount of followers, that somehow gets misconstrued. It's like, I've got it all figured out. So when you hear somebody who has achieved that highest level of academic success,
Starting point is 00:09:48 still be able to challenge what it is that they believe it's, it's pretty cool. So what was that thing that you came across that maybe at least modestly shifted your opinion on something or reopened, uh, perhaps somewhat closed door? Yeah. Modestly shifted my opinion. Um, it was specifically on a carbohydrate restriction for insulin sensitivity. I studied this topic during my PhD. My PhD, my thesis work was on cardiovascular disease prevention, cardiovascular metabolic disease prevention. I spent years literally reading every paper I could on insulin resistance and dietary changes. Well, I recently got asked to do a lecture on insulin resistance. So I went back into the literature, you know, revised, you know, pulled out the new studies that have been published since I finished my PhD. And I found one paper that was a incredibly well controlled study. And what they did was they fed one group of lower carbohydrate content and then another group of higher carbohydrate content. Generally, we see that there's not really a big difference between those two in terms of like glucose control or anything like that over after
Starting point is 00:10:48 first couple of weeks. But this study was incredibly well controlled. They kept them in the lab, they fed them every single meal. And what they found was that the lower carbohydrate content was slightly better. It wasn't a massive difference, but it was slightly better. So I've generally like when I work with someone with insulin resistance, we kind of focus more on overall calorie deficit because that's most important, exercise, you know, all of these other factors. And I never really push them towards like carbohydrate restriction in that way. But this study really gave a basis for like, okay, this may be more favorable. And if that person has a preference for, you know, lowering carbohydrates, like
Starting point is 00:11:32 definitely want to push them in that direction. Because it seems to be, it was a modest difference, but the difference was there. And it was a really well controlled study. And in my opinion, like I typically said, like, there's no difference in carbohydrate intake on insulin sensitivity. But in this specific study, they did show like a modest difference. And again, it wasn't a massive difference. It's not the most important thing. The most important thing is still a calorie deficit and exercise and various types of exercise, you know, incorporating both resistance and, and aerobic training to really improve those different energy systems to help improve glucose control. But in this specific case, you know, they're, I'm probably in the future,
Starting point is 00:12:11 going to make more recommendations for carbohydrate restriction with those specific groups of people. And what they showed was that these individuals just became more metabolic, metabolically flexible. So when they would, you know, when they weren't, and metabolic flexibility is basically like if you haven't eaten for a long period of time, your body can go into and start using like fat for fuel. So, if you're not very metabolically flexible, you know, when you don't eat for a long period of time, your body's highly reliant on glucose. And then so, like three or four hours after the meal, you'll probably get more hungry than if you're metabolically flexible. Because if you're metabolically flexible, your body can just move into fat oxidation
Starting point is 00:12:48 pretty easily. And there's not this drop in energy availability because your body knows how to switch fuel substrates. In this specific case, it just showed that there may be an advantage to that carbohydrate restriction for improving metabolic flexibility. And that seemed to also you know, also be associated with improved insulin sensitivity to a slight degree. So, yeah, that's definitely a recommendation that because I'm working on a course on diabetes. And I mean, before I was probably not going to say
Starting point is 00:13:17 like, hey, you know, carbohydrate restriction is more favorable. But now, you know, I'll add that caveat like, hey, do what, do what fits your preference, whatever you can stick to and help you maintain that calorie deficit. But, you know, if you can restrict carbohydrates to like 40% or less of your overall calories, that might have an additional slight advantage for some people as well. I like that. And I like how you unpack that because it lets people who are listening go, okay, well, this guy knows pretty much everything there is to know about the topic. There was a shift in how he looks at the topic, but you're not speaking in absolutes. You're using terms like maybe if this is preferential for you,
Starting point is 00:13:55 this could be better. And I think that it's important for people to understand that those are generally the kinds of things that experts say. They won't speak in absolutes as often as many of these pseudo experts or misinformation specialists or kind of sensationalists in our space that speak very, very, they speak very well. They speak very convincingly, oftentimes using absolutes, false dichotomies, tons of binaries that aren't really there. And that's why nutrition has just become a space that's very sensationalized and loaded with misinformation. And I think there's a lot of people out there that are just generally looking to feel better, look better, and move better. And they get totally lost in the weeds of what might be
Starting point is 00:14:42 minutiae. Like you mentioned, seed oils, which we'll talk about a little bit. Artificial sweeteners, certainly. Carbohydrate restriction. Oftentimes, people's hierarchy of what may or may not be important for general health performance and body composition is skewed because the loudest, most convincing voices in the space spend so much time talking about or majoring in the minors, if you will. So as somebody who's got a really good handle on this, what are kind of the central tenants, if you will, of good sound nutrition for, and this is going to be very general, maintaining relatively good body composition, Let's say maintaining a relatively healthy blood glucose profile. And with that, perhaps maybe even a blood lipid profile that's pretty
Starting point is 00:15:34 decent. So most people in America struggle with dysregulated blood sugar and dysregulated lipids or bad cholesterol issues. And then most people in America, 77% are over fat or under muscled. So those are big problems. And as somebody who's, like you said, you've got this front to back, succinctly, what are some baseline nutritional habits that people should focus on at the population level? Like if you could say, okay, guys, I want everybody to try to do this. What would you start with? Super simple. So simple. So number one, eat the right amount of calories per day. Like period. I know a lot of people say,
Starting point is 00:16:15 I don't like tracking calories or whatever you need to learn about your body. Like it's not ever tracking calories is like taking away the fuel gauge in your car. Like no one would do that. You're trying to feed yourself properly without having any understanding of calories. And that is a problem for a lot of people. I can't tell you how many people I've run into. They're like, oh, I don't want to try calories because, you know, it's a bad thing. And it creates this negative mindset. And I'm like, it's learning about your body. Like stop seeing it in that way and look at it as, hey, I need to learn how to feed my body. And this is part of it. And this is the fuel gauge for how to fuel myself properly.
Starting point is 00:16:50 And you don't have to track calories forever. I haven't tracked in years. I don't care to, I don't recommend clients do, but a period of tracking to understand how to fuel your body properly is really, really important. So number one, not eating too many or too little calories, because that happens as well. And many people are under fueled most of their life until the weekends when they binge and they binge because they're starving on the weekends or they binge at night. I've never heard anybody say that, but I can't tell you guys how true I have found that to be in working with the general population. And I've never even thought about it in that context, which is that most people are probably undernourished Monday through Friday and wildly overnourished on the weekends in a compensatory fashion. Undernourished Monday through Friday. And then from when they wake up to 6 p.m.,
Starting point is 00:17:36 like, because that's another one. Everyone tries to undernourish themselves in the morning and for lunch. And then they, they, everyone says, Oh, I get into the snacks at night. Of course, because you're hungry because you haven't eaten all day. And this is where I say it's important to, to fuel properly. Cause most people are just, they're, they're trying to pay attention when, when most people like are paying attention to their nutrition, that means under fueling. That is very true. Yeah. Okay. So getting your calories dialed, number one, which a lot of people say is called energy balance. You guys are just, yeah, just really understanding your energy needs and how to meet those needs. Uh, number two, eating mostly
Starting point is 00:18:17 unprocessed or minimally processed food. I don't want to demonize processed food because that has to play a role in our nutrition because out of convenience, out of cost, out of whatever. And it's okay to eat, you know, various types of processed food, especially like things like pasta and stuff, which people consider processed. But, you know, it's still, you know, pretty much just one ingredient. So, unprocessed and minimally processed food, most of your diet. Right now, the majority of the diet in the u.s 60 is ultra processed foods
Starting point is 00:18:46 like that's a problem yeah that's the biggest issue in in our nutrition in our society is the fact that 60 of the overall diet is ultra processed food if we if 60 of the diet was fruits not fruits vegetables nuts seeds whole, whole grains, lean meats, eggs, and dairy, the population helped shift dramatically. Yeah. Just that little change alone. So eating most of your calories from minimally processed foods or unprocessed foods, like whole foods that you're constructing a meal with would be number two.
Starting point is 00:19:21 You said something there before you get to number three that again, I learned a lot from this stuff, guys. And just the choice of verbiage there. And for me, I honestly felt there was a binary. You have processed foods and you have unprocessed foods. But right there, I just learned you have ultra processed foods, processed foods, minimally processed foods, and unprocessed foods. And in hearing that, I can totally see the continuum. You have unprocessed food, let's say it's a stock of wheat. You have minimally processed food, which is like pasta. But then you could have ultra processed food, which is perhaps a totally bleached form of wheat with tons of PUFAs added to it and all kinds of different flavor profile
Starting point is 00:20:06 enhancers, you name it, whatever you want to call it. But I literally, I've been doing this 10 years and I never once thought about perhaps the value of stratifying this out. And now I'm thinking, hey, as a professional talking to my clients, there's a lot of value in being able to say there's a difference between minimally processed and ultra processed. So thank you for learning me on that because I really never thought to categorize it as such. And I think that's super valuable for people who want to make good decisions, but don't want to be
Starting point is 00:20:34 chained to these black and white lines of thinking that really lead to a lot of failure when people try to change their behavior. Anyway, continue with three. Yeah, that's exactly it. I want to just kind of riff on that a little bit because a lot of people in this space say like, avoid processed foods, avoid processed foods. And like, what does that mean? It doesn't like everything is technically processed, like truly like nothing that you get, like, unless you're biting the meat off of a cow, like literally it was processed to turn it into a steak to a certain extent. So like you said, the continuum is important in understanding like, okay, these are nutrient dense, more whole foods and the continuum
Starting point is 00:21:12 of from there to, you know, goldfish or whatever, you know, these things are further along down the line where they're at, you know, they put oil together with these processed grains and then they add flavorings and colorings and those type of things. Those are what are more classified as an ultra-processed. Number three, eating enough fiber. So, fiber is incredibly important for our overall health. You mentioned blood sugar control, incredibly important for blood sugar control. You mentioned lipids, incredibly important for lipids.
Starting point is 00:21:41 A lot of people don't know this, but fiber in our gut, specifically soluble fiber, it binds to bile in our GI tract and helps us to eliminate it. So, when we eat more fiber, we eliminate more bile and bile is made out of cholesterol. So, when we eliminate more bile, your body has to use cholesterol to make more bile and it pulls it out of the bloodstream and that's what helps to lower cholesterol. And that's how fiber kind of helps to reduce cholesterol. So fiber, incredibly important associated with lower rates of cancer, heart disease, pretty much everything. And it's going to come and it's not that like, and so when I say this, you know, sometimes people say, oh, well, you know, what fiber supplements do you recommend? And I'm like, that's not the point. Get fiber from your foods. And there's the other value of fiber from your
Starting point is 00:22:32 foods is if you're eating fiber rich foods, you're going to be eating foods that are rich in various micronutrients as well. So, if you're eating beans, for example, you're going to be getting like different B vitamins, you're going to get some iron from that. If you're eating vegetables, you're going to get all the phytonutrients that come with vegetables or fruits as well. And all of the fiber rich foods are also micronutrient rich foods. And typically, if you're eating high fiber, that means that you're avoiding ultra processed foods because they remove the fiber in many of those foods because if they keep more fiber in them, you eat less and they don't want you to eat less. So they take away the fiber. So you'll eat more of it and you'll buy more of it and that helps them sell more of it
Starting point is 00:23:08 so if they added fiber let's say to goldfish you'd eat less goldfish you'd get full earlier because it slows down digestion they have like multi-grain goldfish and multi multi-grain cheese it crackers and they're horrible and they only occupy occupy the smallest subset of the shelf on the store. You have like 600 different flavors and all of this stuff, but there's like one little tacky box of multigrain goldfish and cheese. It's that'll sit that, that will, that row of product will go untouched for a whole month because you're totally right. It, it quite literally defeats the purpose of, and I'm not one of these people who's
Starting point is 00:23:43 hyper skeptical of skeptical of all things corporate, but big food, if you will, they're going to make more money if you consume more food and buy more products. So technically, if you remove the fiber, you will drastically affect the satiety effect of a food. So by pulling out the fiber, people eat more and they buy more. And I never really even thought about it like that. I was like, yeah, well, fiber kind of, it doesn't make it as yummy, but it also will quite literally drive way higher consumption. Yep.
Starting point is 00:24:14 Yep. I mean, if it was even, even those whole grain goldfish are probably like less than one gram of fiber. Yeah. And so it's not that there's anything wrong with goldfish. I mean, it's just a matter of like, if you're eating something that's high fiber, that in goldfish aren't that high in added fat, but like chips, for example, it's going to be, they're going to remove the fiber.
Starting point is 00:24:31 They're going to add fat. They're going to add salt. It's going to make it more tasty. And these food companies are not trying to kill us. They're trying to make money. Their number one goal is to make money. And all the conspiracies around it are just really a way to scare you and cause you to like, just have this like negative thought towards these companies. They're just trying to make money and they'll do whatever, whatever we want, you know, whatever we buy more of is
Starting point is 00:24:55 what they're going to make more of. Totally. We just tend to buy more of, you know, the things that are delicious. It's a really good point. Cause like, you know, that the corporation, the corporate structure of almost every company in America is going to be streamlined and optimized for making money. And the content strategies of a lot of the nutritional sensationalists out there is going to be optimized for clicks, views, and follows and engagement. So what you see is this dichotomy of like, okay, food companies, we're not trying to kill you. We're just trying to make your money. And influencers like, they're trying to kill you. It's all evil. And of course, what's really happening is somewhere probably right in the middle, which is we need consumers to be
Starting point is 00:25:33 educated through content like this and through following people like Dr. Chavez as to how to make the right decision for you. So like you said, manage your calories, make sure that you're eating adequate amounts of fiber. You did mention aerobic and anaerobic exercise. And what else? So we also talked about mostly unprocessed foods. And then the last one is eating enough protein. So I always get this when I talk about protein, people are like, oh, well, people are eating more than enough protein according to blank. And it's always because they heard some nonsense from some vegan, somebody who's, you know, promoting a vegan diet, who's saying we don't need a lot of protein and saying that Americans are eating more than the RDA. The RDA, which is like the recommended
Starting point is 00:26:19 dietary allowance, that's what the government says. They set that based on how much you need to prevent deficiency. They're not setting that based on how much you need to prevent deficiency. They're not setting that based on how much we need to maintain muscle mass as we age, to fuel exercise, to maintain bone mineral density as we age and all these other important things that protein can help with. And most people are eating less than what we need. Most people are eating under 100 grams of protein per day. And it's too little. Like, I can't tell you, you know this. I know you know this because you work with a lot of clients as well. I'm a shill for big protein, dude. If I could change one thing about the way people eat, I would quite literally say 8.7 grams per pound of lean mass. If I could change one thing, that would be what I would
Starting point is 00:27:02 change because I have seen how wildly positive the benefits are when you increase your protein intake, especially amongst general population adults who are looking to have better body composition, look better, move better, feel better. Yep. It makes a big difference on satiety, on how much you eat during the day, how much muscle mass you lose. And what a lot of people are doing is they're losing weight on these lower protein diets and they're not lifting weights and they're weight cycling.
Starting point is 00:27:29 So they go up to almost everyone I work with. You know, they were at 140 and then they went down to 130 and then they went back up to 140. But then when they went back to 140, they have less muscle mass than they did before because they were they weren't eating high protein. They were just restricting calories and they weren't lifting. They were just doing cardio and then they lost muscle mass and then they're back at 140 with less muscle mass and then they do it again and then they do it again and every single time they're going back to that 140 with less muscle mass or even beyond that 140 sometimes um and they're they're losing muscle mass through this weight cycling and for a lot of particularly women this is a big problem in terms of like the the uh the weight cycling. And for a lot of particularly women, this is a big problem
Starting point is 00:28:06 in terms of like the, the, uh, the weight cycling and really not getting long-term results is, you know, people are, you're going to continue to gain and lose weight if you're, you're going restrictive, you know, on your diet and losing muscle mass during that period of time. And it's not something that you can sustain for the long, for the long haul. So yeah, protein, incredibly important. Like you said, I mean, 0.7, what I always tell people is just like, just have protein and like have at least like, depending on the person, like in, you know, it's like at the minimum for most people, like no less than 15 grams in a meal, I'd say even 20, 25 in most cases for men, 30, 35, 40. And, and, you know, a lot of people just really
Starting point is 00:28:46 aren't even close to that. And especially like when you're going out to eat, oftentimes protein's more expensive. Um, so restaurants will serve you triple the portion of carbohydrates. They'll add in a whole bunch of fat and they'll skimp on the protein because it's just more expensive. It's cheaper to give you 1500 calories of fat and carbs than it is to give you, you know, 800 calories of, you know, a higher protein meal. So going out to eat is a big one where people, you know, you're, you're just going to be lacking in protein in most cases, unless you're like asking them to double the protein amount or, you know, make, make choices like that. Um, so that's a really, really important one. And yeah, that's it.
Starting point is 00:29:26 Like I wouldn't even, I wouldn't go more than that, you know, make sure you're managing your calorie intake, eating mostly unprocessed foods, you're eating high fiber, which means you're going to be eating lots of fruits and vegetables and beans and nuts and seeds and those types of things that are going to provide micronutrients and then making sure that you're eating enough protein. If you focus on those things from a nutrition standpoint, and then you're lifting weights a couple of days a week and doing some type of cardio a couple of days a week at minimum, that is all you really need. Everything beyond that is minutiae for the most part. Totally. And I love that, dude, because I think if you grabbed any person off the street or the average person off the street, and you just said, Hey, I've got this
Starting point is 00:30:08 really simple framework for you that could probably completely change the way you look, move, feel, and even behave to a certain extent, because it's very hard to manage yourself around food. If you have dysregulated blood sugar and you don't know what to eat, you don't necessarily, like weight loss can be challenging and being quote unquote healthy or healthier can be really challenging with all the shit out there, which we'll talk about in a second. But something like that, you grab somebody off the street and you said, hey, I need you to do this for one year. In a year, that person would be substantially, probably have a lot better markers of health, whether it's better blood sugar, better adiposity, less body fat, more muscle,
Starting point is 00:30:45 better energy throughout the day. And these are not nearly as challenging benchmarks or frameworks as trying to entirely remove certain food groups. It's honestly easier to focus on adding in exercise two to three days a week, on adding in protein at every plate, on adding in fiber at every meal, on adding in more water, on avoiding processed foods. It's probably easier to do all five of those things than it is to just singularly try to avoid gluten or singularly try to avoid dairy. You understand how ubiquitous some of these things are in American foods. People end up completely diverting their attention to trying to avoid things that are everywhere instead of trying to add things in that are good for them in the context of like, if I just make
Starting point is 00:31:36 generally better decisions overall, I'll be fine. And that kind of leads me to what I really wanted to talk to you about today, which is a kind of laundry list of things that tend to get demonized that I'd like a little bit more nuance on so I can make better food decisions. And you kind of alluded to the first one, which I think is the most ubiquitous of all of these, and that is seed oils or expeller pressed oils or canola oils or corns, all of this stuff. You'll hear people even demonize the same subset of oils using different types of oils. But quite often, and I'd say the last three to five years, we've seen a huge push in the, let's call it wellness community, to demonize these oils. And what about these oils? When people communicate that these oils are dangerous, what is it that they're saying is particularly dangerous about them? And
Starting point is 00:32:34 is that in fact true? If there's a middle ground there, where should people fall on this? Because this is everywhere now. Yeah. So the things that people are saying about them is there's a lot of storytelling around them that should be just a complete red flag. Like if someone starts telling you a story and not actually talking about the physiological effects of the food, that should be a red flag. So you hear people saying like they were used as engine oils and the government repurpose these oils as a way to like make money off of you. This company, you know, repurpose these oils to, to make money off us and all these, I hear so many stories like deep rooted conspiracy theories around seed oils
Starting point is 00:33:13 that like should be an automatic red flag. Yeah, I know. We'll talk about artificial sweeteners in a minute. And I, I know somebody personally in the space that was like, unbelievably convinced of this, like this aspartame conspiracy theory that was like one of the most insane wild webs of how did you get from here to here? You know, it looked like one of those boards you make when you're trying to figure out
Starting point is 00:33:39 who killed somebody. There's a line here, a line here. And I was like, I, people have a tendency to want to do this because it's way more exciting and entertaining than the truth, which is unfortunately why so much of this shit takes off. So like giving it back to you here, but like, yes, like I'm so
Starting point is 00:33:55 familiar with the storytelling. Yeah. We like good stories. Like as humans, we like good stories. So it, sometimes it draws us in, but you gotta be, be really careful when people are telling stories around nutrition and trying to justify something based on a story. The actual like physiological things that people say, seed oils are high in omega-6 fatty acids. So omega-6 fatty acids, if you take a cell and you put a whole bunch of omega-6 fatty acids in that cell and you deprive it of omega-3 fatty acids that will disrupt the balance and lead to more inflammation. That happens in a cell. That doesn't happen in humans. Like when we feed people more of these omega-6 fatty acids, unless they're deficient in omega-3 fats, which is the problem in the first place, the omega-6 fatty acids don't lead to like increased inflammation or anything. There's been
Starting point is 00:34:41 multiple randomized controlled trials that have showed this. Like I've talked about it on my, on my social media, on my Instagram, there's been like dozens of randomized controlled trials. And when I say randomized controlled trials, that means we feed someone this food and we see what happens. That's the gold standard. Like that's how we figure out, you know, nutrition. That's how we learn information is when we do this, what happens on the backend end in humans? A lot of people like to do what's called mechanistic speculation, which is what I just said earlier. Oh, they're high in omega sixes and omega six can drive inflammation in the cell. So they're inflammatory and people will use that as a justification for saying they're inflammatory.
Starting point is 00:35:19 But the reality is when we feed people these oils, it doesn't it doesn't increase inflammation and relative to saturated fat. So if we have one group that's eating, you know, canola oil and the other group is having butter, the individuals with butter are going to have higher markers of inflammation. They're going to have higher LDL cholesterol relative to the individuals who are eating more canola oil. And this is the exact substitution that a lot of people are recommending is to get rid of canola oil and start eating $13 ghee that you can only get at Whole Foods or whatever. And it's like, it blows my mind. Number one, it's elitist to say that like, hey, you got to spend four times more money on your oil or your fat source. And number two, it's just there's no data to support that. The other thing that people say is they're processed with hexane, which is what's going to happen if you get like a refined
Starting point is 00:36:10 canola oil. They use a compound called hexane to refine the oil. And in that final product of oil, the amount of hexane that humans are exposed to, and we eat a lot of these oils, is 2% of our total exposure. So people say, oh, it's hexane and it's a problem. It's such a small amount of hexane in the final product. And we get exposed to much more hexane throughout our normal daily lives. And that's still well under the limit that would be a concern. We're exposed. And here's the thing. A lot of people will take, you know, these very specific things and they're not talking about dosage. So we're exposed to millions of things that can damage our health at tiny, tiny doses throughout the day. And you can easily just kind of dial in on one and say, oh, this is going to harm you. But without talking about the dose and without talking about the actual effects of consuming that product in the amount that it is in that oil, it's just speculation.
Starting point is 00:37:13 And it's not actually, you know, giving people the right information to make decisions. Now, with all that said, I'm not recommending every time I say this, people say, oh, you're just telling people to go out and take shots of canola oil like you're paid off. But I get I get accused of being paid by like oil companies. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, I I the first thing I always caveat with is if you're trying to eat a nutrient dense diet and stay within your energy needs, you should probably limit oil in the first place of all kinds. And that's always my first, you know, this is like discussion point is like, you should be limiting all oils. And then if you're doing that, whether you're eating canola or olive or avocado or butter, it's not going to be a big deal because it's such a small percentage of your diet. And you know, the differences between,
Starting point is 00:38:00 you know, one tablespoon of canola oil versus olive oil versus butter, if that's all you're eating in a day, isn't going to make a difference. And you should probably just go with preference, you know, in that case. And, and, you know, this is people miss the point of like, what, how much of your diet is this actually taking up in our, should you be spending all of this time on something that's a small percentage of your diet and worrying about it in that way? And in this case, like we shouldn't. And, uh, you know, as a part of that, a lot of people will say, you know, canola oil caused obesity because we, we started your seed oils because we started eating seed oils as a population. We started
Starting point is 00:38:39 eating more of those. Um, when, you know, over the period of time where obesity rose in the United States, you know how many things contributed to obesity over the last 70 years? Like we move less, we overall have access to more calories throughout the day. Like in the 50s, you didn't walk outside and there wasn't a vending machine on every corner and just food available all everywhere. You know, it was just a different time where people didn't have automobiles as much. We walked more like there's so many factors that contributed to this increase in obesity over, over time and people attributing it specifically to canola oil is just, or specifically to seed oils. It's just out of control. Like this is so far out of like so far away from reality.
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Starting point is 00:41:33 taking a break from the episode to tell you about my coaching company, Core Coaching Method, and more specifically, our one-on-one, fully tailored online coaching program. My online coaching program has kind of been the flagship for core coaching method for a while. Of course, we do have PDF programming and we have app-based programming. But if you want a truly tailored one-on-one experience with a coach like myself or a member of my coaching team, someone who is certified, somebody who has multiple years of experience working with clients in person online, somebody who is licensed to provide a macro nutrition plan, somebody who is actually good at communicating with clients in person, online, somebody who is licensed to provide a macro nutrition plan,
Starting point is 00:42:05 somebody who is actually good at communicating with clients because they've done it for years, whether that be via phone call, email, text, right? This one-on-one coaching program is really designed to give you all the support you need with custom training designed for you, whether you're training from home, the gym, around your limitations and your goals. Nothing cookie cutter here. As well as easy to follow macronutrition programs that are non-restrictive. You'll get customized support directly from your coach's email, or they'll text you, or they'll WhatsApp you. We'll find the communication medium that best supports your goals as well as provides you with accountability in the expertise you need to succeed, as well as provides you with accountability in the expertise you need to succeed
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Starting point is 00:43:03 selecting the online coaching option. And if we have spots available, we'll definitely reach out to you to see if you're a good candidate. And if we don't put you on a waiting list, but we'll be sure to give you the best shot at the best coaching in the industry. So head over to corecoachingmethod.com and apply for one-on-one coaching with me and my team today. What's going on guys? Taking a break from this episode to tell you a little bit about my coaching company, Core Coaching Method. More specifically, our app-based training. We partnered with Train Heroic to bring app-based training to you using the best technology and best user interface possible. You can join either my Home Heroes team, or you can train from home with
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Starting point is 00:44:35 description below. Can't wait to see you in the core coaching collective, my app-based training community. Back to the show. Totally. And I mean, they're in most highly processed foods. So it's like, if you think that canola oil is driving the obesity epidemic, it's like, okay, nobody's eating it as a singular ingredient. They're eating it with other refined carbohydrates in the form of hyperpalatable foods that are really easy to overconsume in high amounts. Therefore, you're getting a lot of calories. So it might just be that those oils are in the foods that you should be making an effort to avoid anyway, or to at least, instead of eating as much of those, create a little space for something with more omega-3s. Some of these fatty acids that might
Starting point is 00:45:19 be more health-promoting and simply making those swaps could eliminate any of the risk. And you brought up a good point. I heard a Charlie Munger quote the other day, which I was shocked was actually a Charlie Munger quote because he's more of a finance guy. But he said, a hundred years ago, starvation was the principal problem of the poor. Now, obesity is the principal problem of the poor. And so understanding in you know, in that quote, we can kind of unpack that in the last hundred years, a lot more shit than just seed oil has come onto the scene. You know, it's food availability, it's food environment, it's a sedentary lifestyle, it's lack of access and lack of affordability to the good stuff or the quote unquote more health
Starting point is 00:46:03 promoting stuff. So, you know So you made a good point, like just saying, hey, don't eat anything with seed oil. Just eat coconut oil, avocado oil, olive oil, ghee, grass fed butter, clara,% of Americans. That's just not actively in their, you know, financial wheelhouse at the moment. A lot of those foods are. Especially, yeah. With things like, even with like processed foods, for example, like let's say you're going to eat some chips as a part of a balanced diet and you're going to go get some tortilla chips. Well, if, if you feel like you have to avoid seed oils, you're going to go get some tortilla chips. Well, if you feel like you have to avoid seed oils, you're literally going to pay 16 times more. I did a reel on this a while back.
Starting point is 00:46:53 The siete chips that they made. First of all, they don't taste as good in my opinion, but I've been eating regular chips my whole life. So I enjoy regular chips. But they literally like on an ounce for ounce basis, because they're only like three times as much in like they're like a dollar or like five or six bucks versus like $1.50 or $2 here. And so like three times as much, but you get like five times as little. So the actual translation is like you're paying 16 times as much for this food. And that is going to place, you know, these things place, as we talked about earlier, you know, psychological stress, but financial stress on individuals too.
Starting point is 00:47:33 You want to talk about something that's fucking inflammatory. Try looking at your whole foods bill for 240 bucks when you're making two grand a month. But you know, some guy that you follow on Instagram, Scott, your fridge all decked out with no seed oil, your inflammation is going to be worse simply from trying to figure out where the hell your money's coming from. Exactly. And I see this all the time. I can't tell you how many people have been like, thank you so much. Like you've reduced my grocery bills so much each month. And you know, especially if you're trying to feed a family, like imagine trying to feed a family, you know, you're going to double, triple, quadruple your grocery bill, trying to keep up with food fads.
Starting point is 00:48:09 Like that's really what it comes down to. You're really trying to keep up with fads and you're, you're, you're increasing grocery bill just for that reason. And that's why, you know, I, I try to be, you know, I try to make it a point to really help people understand like the, the uh influence of that choice like that choice isn't really you know yeah that that the cassava flour with the avocado oil might might be slightly better from a nutritional standpoint has a little bit of fiber you know it's slightly better but to pay 16 times as much like it's just not on the table for everybody it's just exactly if you're in a situation where you can do that, do it, go for it.
Starting point is 00:48:47 Like more power to you. And it's certainly, we're certainly not like demonizing anybody who makes the choice to do that. I am somebody who oftentimes makes the choice to do things like this. I'll be the first person to tell you if you can't afford wild caught Atlantic salmon, farmed salmon is substantially better than not eating any cold water fatty fish at all. Because you're going to get so much omega-3, even from the farmed salmon, and you're probably not going to eat enough of it every day to even
Starting point is 00:49:15 have to worry about the mercury that a lot of people scare you away from. But I would never tell somebody, oh, only get the wild caught Atlantic salmon because it's 30 bucks a pound compared to like 14. And I think something that a lot of fitness professionals need to do, and I don't want to dive in too much into the quote unquote wokeness of the nutrition and dietetic space because there's two sides to this coin. It can go both ways, but so many professionals need to do a better job of understanding. And this shows me just quite literally how few of them have actually worked with real people. You need to understand that not everybody has... Sometimes it's not even financial.
Starting point is 00:49:56 It's just the fact that, yo, I got to go shopping with my limited timeframe and I have to get shit that my kids will eat too. And so they're not eating wild caught atlantic salmon i live i live outside of the city in texas like i can't i can't find a lot of this stuff that they're recommending like the large percentage of the population doesn't live in la you know what i mean like these people these people are talking like la new york you have access to some of this stuff whereas like if you if you live, if you live anywhere near me, it's going to, I got to drive 40 minutes to a Trader Joe's. Oh, but this person made me feel like I had to, or I had to go to Whole Foods. So now I'm going to spend 40 minutes driving to
Starting point is 00:50:33 Whole Foods. I'm going to triple my grocery bill, then drive 40 minutes back. And that's where, you know, these black and white messages really drive people to make decisions that they really aren't in their best interest and helping people make better decisions with what they have is kind of what I try to, you know, do. And really it's more practical decision-making. And at the end of the day, like I said, it comes down to those things that we mentioned earlier outside of that, like the minutia beyond that of like, you know, avoiding certain things or really, really dialing into, you know, juicing every day and things like that. Like those things are the cost benefit is often it's imbalanced. Like the cost is much higher than the benefit in most cases. And the cost benefit to the things that we mentioned, managing your energy intake, that
Starting point is 00:51:19 requires no cost. You know what I mean? And, you know, eating more fiber, eating plenty of protein, these things are low cost, high reward, and sustainable changes that you can make that if you stick to these things throughout your life, like I just, I just got done running a program where this is all I did. Like I call it build, I call it, and I'm about to run another one. It's three month program. I call it building healthy healthy habits program and literally all we're doing is really helping people to like stay consistent with this stuff like i can't tell you like in our group calls
Starting point is 00:51:53 and stuff my clients are like you know i can't believe how simple you have made this for like there's the feedback across the board like i've been dieting my whole life. I've been on keto and low carb and gluten-free and dairy-free and bottle all organic. And you have just made this so simple and I feel good. You know, when you do these things consistently and most of us, we really just need to get consistent with the things that I just mentioned. Totally. We're going to spend our whole lives like myself, like I spent my whole life trying to be consistent with those things, you know, trying to be consistent with making sure that I'm getting enough protein, making sure that I'm eating plenty of fiber, making sure that I'm drinking water every day,
Starting point is 00:52:34 making sure that I'm prioritizing both cardio and strength training. Like that is enough to focus on in terms of your health. Totally. And too many people, their entire life turns in, like, they have to devote, like, all of their energy and bandwidth to doing all these little things with their nutrition and their fitness that they were told that they have to do. You know, they got to do fasted cardio, and then they have to drink butter in their coffee and whatever the case may be. And they're spending so much time and energy on all these things that they're ignoring other aspects of their life that are also important for your health. Like your health doesn't just come down to your nutrition and whether or not you exercise.
Starting point is 00:53:12 It comes down to your financial health, your relationships and other things that tend to get negatively impacted when you put too much time and energy into these things. Hugely negatively impacted. And if you can't extend the time horizon of what it is that you're doing nutritionally for weeks, months, and years, you won't really get much from it anyway. It's like the juice cleanse. One juice cleanse, yeah, sure, drinking plants, a variety of different plants could be deeply beneficial for you. But if you have to spend 140 bucks to do a juice cleanse, you're not going to be doing a juice cleanse every week for the rest of your life. You need to think contextually, are these changes sustainable, actionable? Because they compound. The benefits, just like with money, come from compounding, not fucking with it, finding what works, not touching it,
Starting point is 00:53:59 sticking to the plan. And if you can simplify your nutrition enough to allow it to compound, you'll do great. But if you're just going for the most, all the minutia, trying to get all the little points, doing the most insanely extra shit that's totally and wildly unsustainable, just ask yourself the question, can I do this forever? And if the answer is no, scale it back until you find a version of it that you probably could, because it's the time horizon that's going to create the biggest change. I want to talk to you about a few different things, specifically segueing into, we talked a little bit about how this affects families and you have a kid. And this is something that I've always wondered, which is because I have a ton of
Starting point is 00:54:40 clients who have kids. What are some ways that parents can start to not, because I think it's really important that you do not create a negative relationship for your children around food. I've dated many women over the years whose mothers absolutely destroy their relationship with food from like a super early age. And I know a lot of parents who want to do a good job with this. And so I've seen a lot of your content, saw some of your stories where you're hanging out with your kid, you're eating, you're having a good time. And it's very apparent that you're doing and making an effort to nourish your child without dominating them over food. be healthier and have a better relationship with food can do without running the risk of, you know, really when their child's quite plastic and quite impressionable, scaring them off of so much shit. Cause there's a lot of adults who enter adulthood with a pretty concrete and fixed, uh, you know, understanding and identity around food that was just passed
Starting point is 00:55:43 down to them from a completely misinformed parent. And that can be problematic over the course of a lifespan. Dude, you probably didn't see my stories this weekend, but I asked the question, when did you start dieting and why? Because someone reached out to me about getting their kid to lose weight. And they told me that they were trying to encourage their kid to lose weight. And I was like, you should not be talking to your kid about this. Like number one. And the reason that I asked that question is because in my experience, and I know in yours too, the number of people, like pretty much every woman that I've ever met, who's a chronic dieter, it came from their parents. Like it came from a mom who talked
Starting point is 00:56:21 about their weight all the time, who literally put their kids on diets with them when they were eight years old. Like the vast majority of answers I got, I got hundreds of answers on my social media about this. The vast majority of answers, like 75%, my mom put me on a diet that she was on somewhere between the ages of eight and 14. That is such a problem. Like if you're listening to this and you're a parent it like don't do it like stop if you need you need to like really take a step back because you we are like the damage that that you're doing with that is way worse than what would happen with any food period like worse um so like first thing set an, like that's the simplest thing.
Starting point is 00:57:07 Like you, number one, set an example of a healthy relationship with food. And if you don't have one work with a nutritionist, work with a therapist and work on that in yourself, because you don't need to be like, your kids are going to see this. Another like really common answer that I got was I thought I was supposed to because all the women that I knew were always dieting and always talking about how fat they were like that. You should not be talking about that in front of your kids. And you have to set an example, number one, of an active life and of a balanced nutrition, you know, nutritional approach. If you can't do that in yourself, you should not be talking to your kids about food. You shouldn't be like that has to come first period. And so you need to work on yourself and never mention your kids weight or what they're eating or any of that stuff to them at a young age period like that, that has
Starting point is 00:58:02 to stop because we're like, like you said, the literally disordered eating habits are being passed down left and right from moms to daughters and to the next generation over and over again. And it's leading to lifetime cycles of dieting. And I did see your stories this weekend. It was fucking insane, guys. I throw up my question box all the time and I get a shit ton of responses and I screenshot them all the time. And so I see what that looks like at scale. And Dr. Chavez, I had to pound through six stories just to get through the amount of women who said, my mom put me on a diet when I was nine. I was like, holy fuck. There was at least 250 people who saw this over
Starting point is 00:58:47 Labor Day weekend, the lowest engagement weekend of all time. So you got to imagine every woman I've ever dated, every woman I've ever been friends with, every woman I've ever trained as a client at some point was misinformed just by their mom about nutrition, just by their own mother. And so it's like, you know, you're getting it from your friends, your friend's mom, your aunt, your grandma, maybe your dad, you never know, but you've got to be as a parent setting a more positive, pragmatic example, because what we have is an obese population that have all been negatively influenced by parents trying to help them not be obese. And obviously that formula ain't fucking working. And they're
Starting point is 00:59:30 all chronically dieting. Like they're all always on a diet. Like the answers to that I'm getting are like, I've been on a diet for 45 years now, ever since I was eight and my mom told me I needed to go on Weight Watchers. And I'm like, holy shit. Like I hear these stories and I know they exist. But Jesus Christ, the number of people that like responded with those very similar comments was just like, man, this is disheartening. But to me, it was a call to action to say, hey, I need to talk about this more because there's probably a lot of parents who are doing this right now to their kids. And number one, like you have to get help. And I can't tell
Starting point is 01:00:06 you more people need to work with the nutritionist period. Like you need to work with more people need to work with someone who's qualified to help you with your nutrition because you're, you're getting on social media and you're hearing all these stories, all these different things. And you're listening to podcasts. Maybe, you know, you're being pulled in all these different directions and you're trying all these things and your kids are seeing it. If you work with someone who is qualified and to provide evidence-based guidance, you're going to gain confidence. Like people who work with me, they, they feel better afterwards. They gain confidence about what they're doing and they help, they can develop a better relationship with food because sometimes you need that outside
Starting point is 01:00:41 perspective to say, Hey, I know it's been two weeks, but you can't expect your body to change that quickly. And most women and most people in general have just heard like, you know, lose 20 pounds in three weeks and all this other crap that you see on on magazines and stuff like that. And you need a professional to speak some sense into you sometimes. to speak some sense into you sometimes. And I like the number of people that really just need to work with someone who's a nutrition professional is, I mean, most people, I feel like you just need at some point to have some period of time working with a nutrition professional. If you've been a chronic dieter, especially to help you gain some confidence and clarity and stop chasing all of these, you know, all of these shiny objects that cause you to chronically yo-yo diet.
Starting point is 01:01:29 And so that's number one outside of that. Like once you have a good relationship with food and your body and you develop that, then you just model it for your kids and you just have discussions with them about why certain things are important. just model it for your kids and you just have discussions with them about why certain things are important. Like, for example, if my son goes to eat chips, I'll, you know, he understands like chips are not as nutritious as strawberries. I don't tell him he can't eat chips. They're there. He can grab them. You know, he normally will ask me beforehand for anything, but you know, they're there. And, but, and I don't stigmatize it and
Starting point is 01:02:05 say like, Oh, that's bad. And I'm going to get mad at you if you eat that. Um, you know, I portion things out, but what I try to do is create an environment in the home that lends towards healthier habits, create an environment where we have plenty of fruits and vegetables and things that he likes to eat. And I that's available. So like he can go in and grab an orange. He loves oranges. He loves blueberries. He loves strawberries. And sometimes he'll pull out the carton of strawberries and eat the whole thing. And, and like he'll, he makes that choice over eating chips. I don't have to force him to do that because he's seen me model this. And then I just talk to him. I just educate him. And along with that, the exercise is really, really important as a family to really get that activity. And I think a lot of parents
Starting point is 01:02:54 don't do enough of like family-based activities and helping their kids just learn how to lead an active life because too many people do the exercise and then they're sedentary all day. Yeah. And especially if you're struggling to lose weight, like there's nothing better. If you have kids and you're struggling, like you've kind of been in a plateau for a while, there's nothing better than taking your kids for hours of activity that is going to lead to a lot of calories. Like all of my parent clients, I'm like, Hey, just take your kids to the zoo on the weekends, take them to the park, take them to, um, take them to a theme park, take them to a museum because you're active all day and your kids are active all day.
Starting point is 01:03:34 And you're teaching them that, you know, activity is a part of life. And that's important. It's not, Hey, you need to exercise every day. Hey, we're going to learn how to lead an active lifestyle. And that along with, you know, them seeing you just model the exercise as well, they'll start to exercise. My son woke up this morning because he's not in school today. And he went outside and started shooting the basketball because I was lifting weights. I didn't tell him he had to go shoot the basketball. He just, he saw me lifting weights. He was just like, oh, I'm going to go, you know, shoot the ball. And, and it's, it's the, the forcing kids to do stuff is doesn't work. The last thing to do. Yeah. It doesn't work with adults either. Trust me.
Starting point is 01:04:17 Yeah, for sure. So it's, it's really just, it's setting the example and providing education around why these things are important and, and not stigmatizing them, but just educating, saying, hey, chips, they're not as nutritious as strawberries. And if the kid knows and like my son, his choices are like they're great. Like I'm proud of the choices that he makes. And I don't dictate his food for the most part because he makes healthy choices. He wants a smoothie bowl almost every day because he knows as soon as he gets back he like he got back this year and he was he was eating two smoothie bowls a day and like it's like me after i get back from las vegas like where's the fucking closest vegetable i mean and that's how like when you're consistent with with eating a nutritious diet over a long period of time you're gonna just paying attention to how you feel is a really good motivator.
Starting point is 01:05:29 And he sees that. And even sometimes, like, let's say we go to a party and he just like wants to go crazy on different things. I encourage like I don't encourage it, but I never will step in because he makes his stomach hurt and not feel well. And I'm like, and he'll say, oh, dad, my stomach hurts. And I'm like, I mean, how would it not look at everything that you ate? And like, he's learning from that. I don't have to shame him. I don't have to, you know, force him to eat a certain way or force him to exercise. force him to eat a certain way or force him to exercise. It's set a good example,
Starting point is 01:06:10 teach and let them learn on their own through application. I love it. Okay. So here's how I'd like to finish because you've done such a good job of kind of striking the middle ground, applying nuance to a bunch of different stuff, whether it's how you talk to your kids about food, whether it was something really specific that we got into like seed oils or how one might structure their entire diet. So what I want to do is I want to throw some buzzwords at you and I want you to as succinctly as possible tell me how somebody who wants to have balance while also having health promoting behaviors should or should not incorporate these things into their life. So number one, artificial sweeteners. Is that a pass? Is that a sometimes? Is that an always? Try to keep it succinct. We'll go through a couple. In moderation as a replacement for sugary beverages.
Starting point is 01:07:04 I like that. Okay, number two, dairy. Dairy is perfectly fine if you're not lactose intolerant or if you don't have a dairy allergy. It's nutritious and should be included in the diet if those things aren't the case. Number three, gluten. If you're not celiac or have non non-celiac gluten sensitivity which is about 10 of the population uh perfectly fine no reason to avoid it gmo produce absolutely no reason to avoid gmo produce foods that contain natural flavors yeah i don't even worry about that i mean if you're minimizing your processed food you're not going to be eating a lot of those anyway. And I mean, they're all deemed safe at this point.
Starting point is 01:07:51 High fructose corn syrup. It's just sugar. So if you're limiting, I mean, if you're limiting sugar, then, you know, limit high fructose corn syrup. But like as long as with sugar, if you're eating a lot of it, it's going to, it's going to reduce the nutrient density of your diet. So that can be a problem, but some people need a lot of it because they're very active. So, um, I would definitely overall limit like added sugar in your diet because it's, it's going to reduce the overall nutrient density of your diet. But there are cases where eating more sugar is absolutely necessary for some individuals who are extremely active.
Starting point is 01:08:27 Sure. Eggs. Eggs are a nutritious food, but they can increase LDL cholesterol in genetically susceptible individuals. So if you have high LDL cholesterol, you may want to pay attention to the number of eggs that you're eating every day and limiting those may be helpful. Liver. Liver is a nutrient dense food, but if you're eating more than like one ounce per day, you can actually, you're at risk for vitamin A toxicity. So be careful. Okay.
Starting point is 01:08:56 So you mean to tell me that the giant caveman on TikTok telling me to eat every organ in as large a quantity as possible might be a nefarious bad actor? Maybe. Definitely the case. I mean, yeah, what he's promoting would literally lead to liver damage if he's actually doing that. I highly doubt this guy's eating the amount of liver that he's showing on social media because over about one ounce per day will put you in the range for vitamin A toxicity. If there's anything in that dude's system damaging his liver. It's probably not the liver. All right, dude. Hey, that was awesome. Thank you so much. Really got to circle the wagons there at the end. I think that this is going to give people a ton to work with. And even for those of you who are very nutritionally literate and you're conscious about how you communicate about nutrition, and maybe you're
Starting point is 01:09:54 like me, you're a coach, you learned a lot from this discussion today and you need to follow Dr. Chavez. So where can they find you, man? Best place to find me is on Instagram at Dr. Adrian Chavez. So it's at Dr. Adrian, A-D-R-I-A-N, period, C-H-A-V-E-Z. So you can find me there. Everything else that I do, it can be found from there. So definitely recommend just following me there. And I put out plenty of content on that platform and try to do, try to interact as much as I can to really, you know, I mean, my goal is really to help people. As you mentioned, this field, I've studied it for years and I love nutrition. And I didn't even know
Starting point is 01:10:33 that all this stuff was going on until I got on social media like five years ago. And it just blew my mind. I'm like, I need to try to break up some of this noise on this platform. So I've been trying to do my best to do that. And I've told you guys before on this podcast, it's important to curate your social media feeds in a way that makes using that kind of content, because it's very addictive, very loaded with misinformation, and you can fall down the rabbit hole quick. Curate your content.
Starting point is 01:11:04 Follow people like Dr. Chavez. Unfollow people who speak with these hard binaries, these black and whites, use these false dichotomies and equivalencies. We really gave you a lot to work with. Give my man a follow and we'll definitely have you back on, dude. Thanks so much. Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you.

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