Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2437: What Happens to Your Body When You Quit Ultra-Processed Foods for 30 Days

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

What Happens to Your Body When You Quit Ultra-Processed Foods for 30 Days The ONE factor that has the biggest impact on the obesity epidemic. (1:23) What are ultra-processed foods and why are they so irresistible? (6:07) Pallet fatigue is a REAL thing! (12:13) What Happens to Your Body When You Quit Ultra Processed Foods for 30 Days #1 - Your cravings will spike at first. (16:50) #2 - Your digestion will improve. (19:03) #3 - You will lose some weight. (21:59) #4 - You will build some muscle. (24:56) #5 - Your skin will clear up. (28:42) Tips: #1 - Always have a protein with your meals. (31:58) #2 – Pre-make meals. (33:10) #3 - Add electrolytes to water. (35:23) #4 – Stay away from bread. (37:10) Related Links/Products Mentioned The Benefits of Eating Whole Foods Guide Get your free Sample Pack with any “drink mix” purchase! Also try the new LMNT Sparkling — a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water: Visit DrinkLMNT.com/MindPump October Promotion: MAPS Muscle Mommy 50% off! ** Code OCTOBER50 at checkout ** Mind Pump #1527: The 3 Step Solution to the Obesity Epidemic Mind Pump #1877: Obesity, It’s Not Your Genetics Mind Pump #1037: How Ultra-Processed Foods Are Making You Fat, Sick, & Weak Man v. Food: Kitchen Sink Challenge – (YouTube) Mind Pump #1220: The 4 Best Sources of Protein Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is mind pumping. Today's episode, we talk about what happens to your body when you stop eating ultra processed foods for just 30 days. By the way, we have a free guide that can help you out with this. It teaches you the benefits of eating whole foods. It's the wholefoodsguide.com. Go there. You can get this guide for free. It talks

about whole foods, what they do for you, and why ultra processed foods are not a great thing to eat. Now this episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, LMNT. This is an electrolyte powder you put in your water. It's got no artificial sweeteners, no sugar, no calories, but it has the right amount of sodium and electrolytes to fuel your workouts, give you better pumps, improve mental clarity. It's great stuff. I drink about one or two of these every single day. Go to drinklmnt.com forward slash mind pump and on that link you'll get a free sample pack when any drink mix purchase also This month's workout program sale maps muscle mommy is 50%

If you're interested 50% off if you're interested go to maps fitness products calm and then use the code October 50 For the 50% off discount. All right, here comes the show Want to make some radical changes to your body in just 30 days? You can with one step. One simple step, simply avoid ultra processed foods. Now 30 days isn't long, it's not much, but if you avoid them completely for 30 days,

some pretty magical things will happen. That's what we're gonna talk about in today's episode. Yeah, radical. You know, okay, so I'll tell you why I picked this episode. So we have somebody that helps us piece together what our audience wants to listen to and he tends to give us some, he'll give us advice and suggestions

and some, you know, we like some, we don't. This one I really like because I, and I've said this on other podcasts, I've been on other shows and been interviewed and I often will say the following, that I think if you had to pick one thing, if you had to pick one factor that you could place the obesity and poor health epidemic squarely on, I don't think it's just one factor, I wanna be clear, but if I had to pick one that had the biggest impact, it would be ultra-processed foods.

I think ultra-processed foods represent a significant percentage of the obesity-related health issues that we're experiencing in modern Western societies, and there was a lot of data to support this. So I think, I don't necessarily think making radical changes are a great long-term approach, but I do like this one because if you are gonna make one big change, what makes it valuable is if it gives you a big return.

And I can think of a lot of things that won't give you as big of a return in a shorter period of time, like 30 days, and that's only a month, like this one. Like this one makes a big one. Doug, can you look up for me, I'd be curious about the, and I don't know how you would search this, and Sal, you're the better Googler. I'm the Googler.

You're the champion Googler here. He's a Batman villain. I'm looking for the total success from Whole30. The company, either give me a general revenue with how much they make per year, or how many people they've reached. That's a big part of what they do. This is.

And this is the point I was going to make, was that this is the proof of what you are talking about right now, is that this whole entire brand is built around this premise, around Whole30, which is eating Whole Foods for 30 days, and basically watch what happens by doing that. And I've had several family members that this is like their go-to whenever they get back

in the swing of things is like because it worked so well. Yeah, it's simplicity, it's focused effort into something that transponds. There's so many other factors that play into this. It's like prepping the food. So it's like you have to actually like go to the store. You have to do a bit of work in order to prepare meals. It sort of gets you back into that mindset

of like making healthier choices just because of this selection process. It slows things down a little bit. You know, we get really caught up in the ease of all these convenience foods and things that we're just kind of eating on the go and, you know, we're less conscious. I think that's a big part of it is bringing that consciousness back. No, 100%. We just had a recent weekly call with our GLP-1 clients that are going through that, and one of the clients was struggling with, even though the cravings and stuff aren't there, but then they still have these behaviors around reaching towards getting ice cream and then catching themselves doing it and going, what am I doing?

I'm not even hungry. I don't even have the cravings yet. I have this behavior to do that. And one of the strategies is that each of us gave, we gave different strategies to help this person. But the one common theme that they all were like was creating a boundary or a barrier. And simply having to eat whole foods creates a natural one. Yep. You can't just reach in the cabinet and open up a wrapper and put it in your mouth, right? Or drive through somewhere and conveniently just pick it up. It's like if you want to eat something, like you have to prepare it. Some of that can be simple and basic and eating it, but that simple barrier of I've got to put it together, make it, prepare it brings you present.

And I think a lot of times having to do that is enough to get people to become aware of the decision they're about to make. What you guys are saying definitely has value, but I don't think it's anywhere near as important as what you guys are saying, and I'll explain why. So it is gonna be a bit of a counter. If you look at the studies done on ultra processed foods and real quick we'll

define what they are right. What are ultra processed foods? These are foods that are boxes and wrappers. They have a lot of ingredients. They're created foods. They're not a food that you pick or grow or that runs and swims. It's an engineered food. A Cheeto is a processed food. A protein bar even though it's a health food is a processed food. A protein bar, even though it's a health food, is a processed food. Chips, cookies, frozen foods that are ready to go, those are all processed foods. Now here's where the counters going to come from. There's a lot of studies now that are done on this.

And in some of them what they did is they take people and put them in different rooms and one room is heavily processed foods and the other room is whole natural foods, also convenient and easy to eat and readily available. So the only difference is that one room has heavily ultra processed foods, foods in boxes and wrappers and so on. And the other one is whole natural foods

that are also easily accessible. They didn't go and prepare them. They didn't go pick them out. They're prepped, it's ready to go. There's apples, oranges, bananas, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds. There's meats that are prepared, eggs, that kind of stuff. So forget the convenience for a second.

Here's what they find in the studies. And by the way, those groups of people then switch rooms. They're trying to make sure that maybe it's not the group that we picked. And there's lots of studies on this now. They eat 500 less calories. Five to 600 less calories a day for meeting whole natural foods.

So it's not the convenience. I think the convenience plays somewhat of a role. We'll get to that. But it's not that. What it is is that ultra processed foods, if you look at the research and development and money that goes into them, if you went to a snack food company, okay,

and they created a new blockbuster, I don't know, Cheeto type food or a cheese cracker or something, and you looked at their R&D, where's are all the R&D going? It would be in two major places. The big one is research and development on how to make it as palatable as possible. Taste and texture. Taste, texture, smell, feel, mouth, feel, wrapper, residue leaves on your fingers. Sound, everything. Like all the things you could possibly consider, they've got it down to, it's one of the most

studied- Perfect dust. Listen, it's one of the most studied sciences that exists. Food scientists, by the way, many food scientists came from the cigarette industry when the tobacco industry got hammered, they moved to the food industry and that when the tobacco industry got hammered they moved the food industry and these same scientists went into how

do we make food as irresistible as possible and they use all kinds of tricks and techniques and chemicals and all kinds of different things to do this and they've been very successful. The other place that they spend money is marketing. That's it but almost most of it is in this research and development. How do we make a food as irresistible as possible? What does that mean? What makes something irresistible? What is it in me that makes me eat something?

Why is it that I can eat a bag of Lay's potato chips and I could totally do that, but I couldn't eat four or five plain boiled potatoes. Why? One of them is irresistible. The other one, I'll gag after two potatoes. Why? One of them is irresistible, the other one I'll gag after two potatoes. You wouldn't force me to eat more than two plain boiled potatoes. Well what is it? It's because the food, the potato chips, are

engineered to light parts of my brain up. Now they don't necessarily know this is what's happening, they do now, but they're just like they'd have people test them and what makes it taste here? What makes it taste here? Now they're down to the point where they're like dopamine, serotonin, mouthfeel, like all these different ratings and rankings.

And essentially it's creating drug-like effects in the body making you irresistibly wanting to eat more and reach for them more. That's the big problem. Now why do these foods exist in the first place? Well, processed foods originally were invented because they had a long shelf life. And so, and there's value in that, right? We got to ship food to soldiers overseas. This is where a lot of processed food.

Was it, was it war times that originally we kicked off like processed food? Was that the original, like, That's the main investment originally was that. How do we get food to soldiers? It was canned foods majority. Spam for example, Spam is a staple now. It's considered a Hawaiian staple for example. How did it get there? Soldiers, soldiers.

It's not an original Polynesian Hawaiian dish. It's because soldiers stationed there brought it over and now it became a part of the force. Is that really true? Is that why? Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Spam was made for that. Coca-Cola, that basically built them, right, after World War I?

Coca-Cola is one of the most world-renowned, recognized brands in the world because of its palatability. It's so irresistible. I mean, they did use cocaine at the beginning. That's a bit of an advantage, too. That tells you a lot. That tells you a lot. That tells you a lot about what's going on. But these foods, yeah, there it is, during World War II. Oh, World War II, yeah.

These foods have a long shelf life, so there's some value there, but then it's like, okay, you have market demand, and what do consumers want? Well, they want food that's irresistible. Let's, this is a fact. If you're amongst a bunch of friends and you're deciding what to eat, what gets the decision? What food, what restaurant, what snack do we pick?

It's not the healthiest. It's not the one that's easy to digest. Nobody even says that. Nobody cares about that. It's about what do we crave everybody? What do we enjoy the most? And so, uh, this is a market demand that's so strong, in fact, that if you look at all food categories, all food categories, health food categories, doesn't matter the top selling food products in these, in all categories

are the ones that are the most palatable. And it doesn't matter if it's health food food or not and that's just what we want so we have decades of market demand fueling billions and billions of dollars of research development which created these Franken foods that are absolutely irresistible to the point now where the average American 60 to 75 percent of their diet is processed foods a majority it was not like that decades ago. Decades ago it was a small percentage. Today it's a majority.

And it makes you overeat, so it's no wonder. You have to share a little more about, like right now you're explaining a really good job with the science, the engineering, and making it hyper palatable, right? But you also have to, because the science that I was unaware of was the ability for it to almost hijack your body's natural systems

that tell you you're full. The first time this became really apparent to me was man versus food. There's a season where he was eating a bath, or a sink of ice cream, And that was like the challenge. Yeah. Can you finish it? And he's like so stuffed that he's going to throw up and he's almost not going to complete

the challenge. Now logically, this does not make sense. He goes, he orders a side of French fries. Extra salty French fries. To help him finish ice cream. Now the average person like me has to be thinking the same thing. Like, wait a second, he's overstuffed and full. He can't finish this challenge of ice cream.

So what he's going to do is go eat salty French fries. And that's supposed to going to help him eat more, huh? Like you have to explain it because I don't think people understand that's the type of research that's going into these foods. So it hides. so not only does it taste amazing going down, but then it hijacks these systems that we have in the body that go, Hey, you're full. That's enough. You don't need to eat anymore. That's right.

So what happened in that situation is he hit what's called palate fatigue. Palate fatigue is a combination of different things. One of which is the actual fullness of your stomach. The other one is that you're getting the same experience over and over again. Eventually your body goes, that's, that's enough. So what he did is he changed the experience and he went from sweet, creamy ice cream to.

Yes, sweet, sweet, fatty. Right. To salty. To crunchy, salty potato, French fries, which changed, gave him some novelty, allowed him to go back and eat the ice cream, even though it was more food. So we do have something called palate fatigue. We do have something called satiety that is real. And you've

got to understand that we didn't evolve. There's a lot of people that believe that we as humans are just eating machines. You just put food in front of us, we'll eat until we explode. That's not the case because you would have been, it would have been more dangerous to overeat at one sitting, you know, a thousand years ago than it would be today. Like you have a blocked, you know, your gut gets blocked or constipation or severe gastro issues. Like where are you going?

Yeah. You get diarrhea, you're dying. You know, diarrhea in fact, killed people quite a bit back in the day. So our bodies have these natural systems that tell us to stop. What heavily processed foods do very well is they surpass that to the point where you end up eating, that's what the data shows. When you eat ultra processed foods, you eat them faster and you eat them longer. You end up eating more.

By the time that signal kicks in that says don't eat anymore. Like that's enough You are be above and beyond where you would be with whole natural foods And this is why we've all had this experience where there's something whatever your food is for me It's potato chips. We're all be eating eating eating and I'll literally be like, what am I do? There has to be something to that in terms of the speed of it like in turn like so Pringles for instance if you just eat those instead of like, you know, a potato, a baked potato, like that's going to take me a while to kind of get through it. And by the time I'm done, I already ate like two potatoes worth of chips and it just happened so quickly. And it, I mean, yes, the flavor and then

the, you know, they can trick you with like stuff like that and the crunch, but I honestly think too, that's a big factor is just the mindless part of it. That's part of it, but the other part is, you know, if I were here feeding you baked potato and someone else were doing a study where they were feeding someone potato chips, you would still eat less of the baked potato.

So it's literally, these are foods that are largely engineered to become so irresistible that you overeat them. And that's of course, of course they're gonna be designed that way. That's what they're trying to do is sell more product and you as a consumer buy more of this product. So that's why they are a problem. So the question is what happens when I don't eat them? Can I just, because there's a lot of diets out there with rules, right? Don't eat when I don't eat them? Can I just, because there's a lot of diets out there with rules right don't eat carbs, don't eat this, don't eat that, but what if you just followed one rule right? What if you just followed

one rule for 30 days, what rule would you follow and would it have profound impacts on your health, how you looked and lots of stuff? For sure. And the answer is yes and the answer is avoid ultra pro, like if you, all you did was this for 30 days, you'll notice a few different things. Now, the first thing that you're going to notice, this one's an interesting one, is that at first your cravings will actually spike. The first thing you'll notice when you don't eat the chips you have every day or the candy you have, You're going to crave them more

because there's a classic withdrawal symptom that happens. Which by the way is like another like red flag right away of like wow, how much this food has a hold of me that I go through this little transitional period. And for me it was seven to 14 days for clients and I would tell them like typically the first seven. It's about a week usually. Yeah seven to 14 days they are like this and tell them. Typically the first seven. It's about a week usually. Yeah, seven to 14 days, they are like this.

And it obviously gets better over time, right? So maybe the person who actually takes 14, it's not as ravenous as it was on day three, but there is for sure a withdrawal period, just like a drug addict who's quitting a drug when they first get away from it, and it gets easier over time. I was just gonna say that.

Yeah. Yeah, so at first your spike, your cravings will go up but then as the withdrawal subsides, which I agree with you Adam, it's about seven to 14 days. So about a week to two weeks into this 30-day trial, you'll find that your cravings will then drop and you'll find that you'll start to actually taste food differently. Because ultra processed foods hit you with so many sensations that are they're all engineered in there, you actually down regulate receptors and change the way you perceive things. So let's say you're a big candy eater, well you'll crave it at first then the cravings will start to drop. Then you'll eat fruit which

probably taste bland to you if you eat a lot of candy now. All of a sudden though fruit will taste much sweeter. So after the first or second week you'll find that your whole natural foods will start to taste better whereas at first they're probably gonna taste bland. At first it's gonna be like this is not this is not nearly as enjoyable. And your gut bacteria has to play a factor in this as well right? After you start to kind of reintroduce these whole foods, which repopulate your gut with other bacteria now that start to kind of take over, you're starving the ones that we're craving, those other specific ultra

processed foods, those are starting to kind of like siphon out, like that whole transition has to be a part of that factor. It is. And you actually just skipped a couple of steps, but we'll get to that one, which is one of the things you'll notice is your digestion will improve. Your digestion improves with whole natural foods. They're not pre-digested, they're not smashed together, tons and tons of ingredients.

The fiber in there is naturally occurring. There are pre-biotics in whole natural foods that are naturally occurring. These are things that feed good bacteria and within 14 days or so your digestion starts to change as your internal microbiome starts to change to match what you're eating and then you start to notice you're more regular, you're less bloated, you don't have as much gas. Huh, I just feel a lot better from a digestive standpoint. Well, sticking to your point around the science and the cravings and what that is like,

this understanding the science, it was a big part of the motivation behind why I was so strict with my son and eating sweets early on, was knowing that I met a, right now I had this opportunity when he's so young, I choose all his food, that I can start to train his palate and so things like fruit like yogurt are like huge treats for him totally like he gets all those pleasure signals and it gets it's very enjoyable for him it's like a treat that by

training him to eat this way and I remember... You're actually training his brain. Yes. His brain is developing and it starts to develop around the foods he's experiencing as a kid. So you're literally training his brain. And this, I remember what it was like. So pre-contest, so before I had ever competed, I openly talked about my sugar and candy addiction and ice cream stuff that I've had in my entire life. And I was never ate

vegetables and I hated fruit. I thought fruit tasted so bland and plain that I never understood people that crave fruit. I'm just like, oh, it just must be me genetically. I don't, it wasn't until I eliminated all that processed food and ate like this for a period of time. And then all of a sudden, like all those, it's like I open up a whole category, two categories of foods, I had no idea that I could like, and it was all because I had been slamming my flavor palette with highly processed sugary foods for so long, that something that has natural sugar in like fruit

and vegetables was just like, tastes like nothing. I'll give you an example to back you up, right? We all know what a strawberry tastes like. Do you guys know what candy strawberry tastes like? What about grape versus candy grape or watermelon versus candy watermelon? It's so funny because with my kids, same thing, we don't eat a lot of candy. So we had these lollipops that we would use when we'd go to church to keep them to sit there while

the guy, while the preacher was talking. And so we bought these lollipops and then my son goes, what flavor is this? And I said, grape. And he ate it and he's like, this doesn't taste like grape. And I'm like, oh yeah, it's candy grape. It's not really grape.

Yeah. Yeah. It's candy grape. It's totally different. The next thing that you'll notice, this one is going to get people excited is you're probably going to lose some weight. You're probably going to end up losing some body

fat as a result of just avoiding ultra processed foods not trying to cut calories not trying to eat less eat it until you're full by the way I should have said that in the beginning avoid ultra processed foods and then don't worry about overeating just eat whole foods and eat as much as you want you're you're probably still gonna lose some some weight. In fact, this was my favorite, favorite, favorite trick and hack to do with my clients is I would tell them, eat as much as you want, eat until you're full. I don't care. Just eat, don't eat ultra processed foods. They'd all look at me like I was crazy. Like I can eat as much as I want, eat as much as you want, as long as it's not ultra processed. And they'd all come to me and they'd lose weight.

And they thought, this is what they would say say to me what do they put in processed foods that makes them so that makes them gain weight makes you gain weight with them and it's like there's no like fat storing or fat producing chemical in there you just eat more calories with them and they'd say no I'm not there's no way I'm stuck I'm eating like I'm full I'm eating this huge dinner and lunch and there's no way and I said, well, let's do the math. Let's calculate it out. And sure enough, their calories are lower.

And that's for the first point that we talked about, which is ultra processed foods make you overeat. So when you eat until you're full, but they're whole and natural, you'll eat less calories naturally as well. And you're gonna lose weight in 30 days just from doing that. I mean, this is just, this is the point or the study that you pointed out.

I mean, this is just that they is the point or the study that you pointed out. Yes. I mean, this is just that they didn't control anything other than that. They flipped the groups and it was a great, great study where they did this and it was clear. Five to 600 calories is a significant number. I think people need to understand that. That's how much you normally put,

someone's calories are gonna lose weight. The average woman gains weight on like 1800 calories. So if you think about that, then you're talking about a third of the calories in a day that someone would gain weight on is insane. And then the average, I think male is like 2500 or somewhere in that range. And so you're talking about a large percentage of your daily caloric intake. Surplus just keeps adding every day. Yes. So that is just a testament to that alone. And this has been proven with every client that I've ever been on through this. This is why this became one of my go-to like first like initial tips of

telling clients just stay away from that. It also does something you have to you have to talk about the psychological behavior thing that we've learned as coaches and trainers for so long is that there's something to be said about telling a client that they have all this freedom to eat and choose whatever you want so long as it's whole foods. You're not putting these like restrictions of like even though you are Restricting them to nothing about whole foods and say no processed food. You're also saying eat as much. Yeah You're also saying I'm not gonna tell you weigh or measure you can't have this like just do that And let's start with that. It still gives them this feeling of they don't feel confined. That's right. They don't feel confined

They don't feel restrained. they don't feel like they are restricted to only a couple foods that they can have. They're like, well as long as it's a whole food, like okay that seems fair and logical. So there's a psychological part that's extremely beneficial to using this as a strategy. Totally. The next thing that you'll notice, okay so you lose some weight, your cravings spike but then drop, your digestion improves, you'll probably also build some muscle. Now, of course you should be strength training

while you're doing this, but you're probably gonna build some muscle. All right, what is it about whole natural foods that make them so muscle building? Well, it's not necessarily the magic of whole natural foods. It's that most processed foods are low in one key macronutrient, which is very important for building muscle, and that's protein. If you go through the processed food aisles of your grocery

stores, there's a majority of them, and you were add up all the macronutrients, the carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, what you'll find the lowest is in protein. Besides protein bars and shakes, that's it. Like the rest of them are mostly carbohydrates and fats. You're not gonna find lots of proteins. Protein is a bit of an expensive nutrient. It's also a more difficult one to turn into a hyper palatable snack.

Here's why, by the way, protein is satiety producing. Or it really does make you feel full. Defeats the snack category, you know, how they engineer it. That is a killer in the snack food market. If I'm in a boardroom trying to create a snack food and I'm like, let's make a high protein snack food, they're gonna look at me like I'm stupid. Why would we do that? Unless we're trying to target people who want to eat more protein, why would we add more protein? We know this as scientists, we know this for a fact

that of the three macronutrients, proteins, carbohydrates and fats, proteins produce the most satiety. Why the hell would we add protein to our snack foods? We're just gonna make people eat less of them. So vast majority of your ultra processed foods are low on protein. So a high ultra processed food diet is also simultaneously a low protein diet.

And high carbohydrate. A high whole food diet that's omnivore, okay, I gotta throw that in, for the most part tends to be a higher protein diet. So what you're going to find is naturally without necessarily trying, although we'll give some tips at the end here to make this even more effective, you're probably gonna bump your protein while dropping your calories, more muscle, less body fat. Sounds like a nice result. I also think that part of that is because it's your, when you're eating whole foods, some of the more palatable foods are healthy fats paired with protein. Yeah. So when you, when you've decided... That also looks like a meal. That's yeah. When you, When you decide okay, I'm going to go on this no process all whole foods

well that doesn't that means things like steak and chicken thighs and Bacon and sausage and some of these foods are now accepted as foods that I can eat. It's like hey Those are tasty good foods. They got healthy fats in it. And so they're desirable You're not getting filled up by this, you know, cracker, you know, carbohydrate type of food in the box. And so naturally you tend to eat more protein. And that's without the advice that I know you're going to end up getting to, because I know that we all have a strategy of what we would tell our clients that

eat whole foods and do it in this order. And it makes a world of a difference of hitting that protein. By the way, just to kind of hammer that point home, you know, jerky is technically a process. Food, long shelf life comes in a bag. I don't know, have you guys ever met anybody that overeats jerky, where jerky becomes the problem? There's always at least half the bag left.

It's because protein produces satiety. But when you eat whole foods, when you're constructing a meal, and I just witness, look, I just observe this on my clients. When my clients put together meals on their own without my influence, they tend to include some kind of a protein, because I think we know naturally, inherently that that's a complete meal.

So they tend to include some chicken or fish or eggs or steak or something along those lines. All right, last thing you're going to notice in 30 days if you quit ultra processed foods is that your skin will begin to clear up. Now I'm not just saying this because I noticed this from observation although I do and my clients would always remark on this. There's actual data to support this. They've actually done studies on this and several studies suggest that your skin begins to clear up when you're eating a whole food diet. Now why? It's probably related to

the improvement in your microbiome in your gut. There is a connection between the microbiome in your gut and the microbiome on your skin and also there's a reduction in inflammation from a few different reasons. One is a reduction in calories that tends to reduce inflammation anyway, improved digestion that also reduces inflammation, and also the preservatives and chemicals that are put in ultra processed foods to increase its palatability either to make it look better, smell better, feel better, or taste better, or just last longer. Some of these can cause inflammation in some individuals and combinations of these can cause inflammation in some individuals.

So it starts to become a lower inflammation diet as a result. Inflammation definitely plays a role in skin problems. I was gonna say that's probably the most common reason, right? It would be simply that most skin issues are either auto-immune or liver type of stuff, and both your gut and liver are, when you are in a state that is inflamed or going to be stressed, and more likely going to have your skin issues, where simply being in a 500 to 600 caloric deficit, eating foods that are not highly palatable and processed, right away I would think that that would just just for those reasons though not to mention what because I know there's a lot of There's a lot of people that believe that there's chemicals or certain things that are in the processed foods that are put potentially causing that

but it's most likely due to the over consumption of calories and food and then the It's a combination of all those things because you're right. Some people are more sensitive than others, but it's really hard to say when you, you know, if you, you can identify or study individual preservatives and color additives by the way, um, it's some color additives now have been established. Yeah. Like to induce hyperactivity in kids. I noticed some, my kids, I noticed a difference with certain ones.

Um, but what we don't know is the milieu or the mix in combination of all these different things and how that affects a lot of people. But there's lots of speculation. Again, there are studies that have done this and they see improvements in skin. My observation with clients, they tend, even by the way, clients don't tend to go on this diet or do this because they're trying to improve their skin. They don't hire me for that. They tend to hire me to get in better shape.

But what they tend to say is, wow, I'm noticing better skin as well. Wasn't it some of it's to like the hydrogenated like oils, some of the stuff they cook with, you know, these like ultra processed, um, foods. And so, I mean, yes, chemicals, like I get that argument, but too like they've like trans fats and there's all these other things that may be a factor to that that could cause inflammation. Completely. All right, so here's some tips when you're doing this, if you're going to follow this

challenge for the next 30 days that we're presenting. Number one, make sure you always have a protein with your meals. So when you're preparing your whole natural meals, throw a protein in there, like eggs, chicken, fish, beef, cottage cheese, cheese, milk, all the traditional sources of protein, throw them in there because that'll really ramp up the value that you're gonna see from this in 30 days.

Well, and the next layer to that, and what I know we would all recommend on this is eat it first. Yeah eat the protein first. So just simply making sure it's in the diet and saying I'm gonna eat that first and this strategy was so powerful for me it always used to blow clients mind because they're like wait a second like well how much of this can I have or how much is that gonna have I'm not gonna tell you how much you can or can't have of that, I just want you to do this for me. Make sure you eat whole foods, every meal, make sure it's centered around a protein and eat it first.

After that, if you're still hungry, enjoy the carbohydrate, enjoy the other things that are with the dish, just eat that first. And that strategy alone served my clients so much. That's why the restaurant industry does it the opposite order. That's right, it is. They don't serve you chips and the opposite order. That's right. It is

I want you to increase your appetite. That's right. Next is to pre-make your meals Okay, so one of the potential disadvantages of Whole natural foods that require some prep now this isn't true for all of them, right like fruits some vegetables Certain dairy products you could just eat. A container of cottage cheese, you throw some fruit in there, boom boom, you got yourself a meal. A can of tuna fish you can throw in a bowl, add some mayonnaise, have some fruit on the side of some vegetables. Pretty quick. But oftentimes getting a meal means requiring some prep. So go ahead and pre-make your meals because the thing that will get in your way most often over the next 30 days if you follow this is if you run into a situation where, uh-oh, I don't have food, I got to go to the vending

machine, I got to go buy something over there, and now you're off this 30-day challenge or whatever. I can't stress that enough. One of the most challenging parts of this because everybody will probably have this within a week and especially when we're talking about that first seven to 14 days. When the cravings are really strong and then you don't have kind of your meals planned out for the day, this is when most people fall off. It's, oh, they decide I'm going to do this whole 30 thing and I'm going to stick to the whole foods for the next 30 days and they have a good start to the first few days. And then the first challenging day happens. It's day four or five into this cravings are really starting to kick up because they've kicked out

this processed food. And now they have their first busy day where it's like they had to work for five hours straight. They didn't get a break and then they don't have something in front of them to eat. And then they go, ah, and then that's where they make their decision to drive through somewhere or eat something in a wrapper. So I can't stress enough how uh much the prepping part is helps you be successful especially in the first seven to 14 days when those cravings are really powerful and you feel that kick up and then you don't have something prepared for you. It's that much more difficult for you to go like, oh my god I'm so hungry, it's been five hours since I've ate, the cravings are kicking me and now you're telling me I need to go to the grocery store and go put something together and make it where

I could just pull over real quick and go through drive-thru here. This is where most people fail and if you at least plan to have your meals out and you make them, this will really help you be successful in this. Totally. Lastly, you're gonna probably, unless otherwise instructed by your doctor, you're going to probably want to add electrolytes to your water. And the reason for that is ultra processed foods are all very high in sodium. And so this automatically is going to dramatically lower your sodium. Now that can be a problem for a lot of people. If you go from a lot of sodium, because 70, 80% of your diet's ultra processed,

now the next 30 days, I'm going to go with no processed foods. You go high sodium to low, even if you salt your whole natural foods, it's not going to come close to the amount of sodium that's in your ultra processed foods. If you do that big drop, you'll get an electrolyte imbalance, and then you'll notice headaches, fatigue, muscle cramps. And a lot of people explain it away and they say things like, oh, I'm going through withdrawal or oh- Keto flu or-

No, no, no, no. You just add some salt to your water, add some electrolytes to your water, and you'll feel a lot better. I, this nine out of 10 times when I had a client do this, I would have them add electrolytes to the water. Otherwise they tended to fall into some problems. I've especially noticed this in my real active clients. Definitely.

That went from the ultra process to now like Whole Foods. It was like, wow, the dramatic increase in their performance once they added those electrolytes. I think most everybody's going to need to do this. For the most part, unless there's an exception to the rule medically, something going on, is going to benefit from this. Definitely a must for the people that know that they're like, I eat a lot of processed foods.

I eat out every single night or multiple times a day. That person is gonna have a dramatic shift in the amount of, so even if they salted every one of their meals like a lot. It doesn't even compare. It doesn't even come close to what it looks like if you were eating out every day or multiple times a day. So that person this is gonna be so so important. Totally. Alright a couple things I'd like to add to this. Sandwiches are not whole natural foods.

Bread in general probably not in the category of whole natural foods and a lot of people like okay I'll have a sandwich that seems like I'm preparing it. Probably not. Good sources of carbohydrates, rice, potato, beans, fruits, vegetables, proteins, you know chicken, fish, beef, eggs, dairy, all good sources. Nuts and seeds are great as well. Those can get overdone pretty quickly so you don't want your whole natural food diet to be like based off of them. But than than that, I would say just eat the whole natural foods avoid all the processed stuff I would stay away from breads and sandwiches because and the reason why I'm adding that is I've had clients do that We're like I'm I'm making sandwiches every day. Oh that oops that doesn't count. Yeah, not to mention

It's it also eliminates the other tip where we say eat the protein first and have it like, it ends up being a high carb meal. A sandwich is more carbohydrates than it is protein. Most sandwich, even your large Subway sandwich from Togo's or whatever favorite Subway place that you would go to is four ounces of meat, which is like hardly anything. So 80% of your calories are coming from carbohydrates. Very little is coming from protein, so it's not a protein rich meal. And since you said that, I want to give the alternative.

First up, people is like, rice bowls are like used to be the go-to or salad bowls were like the go-to move for me to help clients that were used to having a quick convenient sandwich for lunch every single day. And there's so many places now, like the Chipotle type of places and the Baja Freshes that you can go get a chicken steak rice in a rice potato yam type of bowl that are really good tasting, really easy and convenient and or those are also easy to build and make in bulk. Like my favorite thing to do for Katrina and I,

this is what I mean, literally what I ate today. You saw my, we actually used it in a crock pot. We do a bunch of like, you know, we do a couple pounds of chicken thighs in the crock pot. So like it makes it really, really tender and soft. And then we shred it all up and we make this like cilantro, almost like a burrito without the tortilla. It's just rice. So it's just rice, chicken, cilantro, some tomato slices, even a little bit of avocado in there and basically make that into a bowl like these like burrito bowls minus the tortilla and you just put it in the rice. Great great choice. Yeah.

I mean, what you're doing too is you're just cooking one big meal and then you have meals. Yes. All set up for the entire week. Prepping like that and something simple, easy, also inexpensive. Rice and chicken thighs you can buy in bulk and are relatively inexpensive to do that and you can even add some black beans if you want to kick up the protein and some flavor in there. Great, great choice for a staple lunch every day for somebody. Excellent. Look, if you like the show, find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin,

I'm at Mind Pump de Stefano and Adam is at Mind Pump. Adam, thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers but at a fraction of the price.

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