7 Rules of Healthy Eating That Are ALWAYS True

diets have become like religions for many people there's certain people on one side who were saying never eat carbs go keto maybe even go carnivore and people on the other side who are saying plant-based and vegan diets are best eat higher carb eat no animal products and it can feel really confusing to be in the middle not knowing what to believe cuz it's clearly working for many people on both sides and it's also clear there's a bioindividual aspect of nutrition certain foods certain carb amounts seem to work better for different kind of people well what I want to do in today's video is actually help you demystify some of this stuff I'm going to play an old video I shot a few years back on the seven principles of healthy eating that's the through line of all successful diets this is the stuff that transcends Dogma these are the principles that work whether you're on the right or the left of this nutrition landscape you stick to these principles you will be healthy and you're also going to be able to figure out what works for you by adhering to these principles let's get into today's video so the purpose of this video is to try to find that guiding line the through line that connects all of these different seemingly disparate and oppositional diets into something that we can all agree on and these are seven principles of nutrition that I believe are the core foundations whether you're following a ketogenic diet right now or a plant-based diet these are things we can all agree on and which means these things we can come together on and base our eating plans around and the first thing that we're going to dive into um is that we need to eliminate processed sugars in prep for this video I looked up a statistic and here in the United States the average American eats 152 lb of sugar per year that's 3 lb of sugar per week which is absolutely insane and it's one reason that we're having so many health problems what we're really facing here um in the United States and I'm sure if you're in Europe or Asia or other places you're starting to see this stuff too um is the rise of people who can no longer regulate their blood sugars they're packing on fat they're becoming pre-diabetic and diabetic and essentially what happens is when we eat too much sugar our body cannot keep up we eat all the sugar it goes through through our digestive process goes into the bloodstream our pancreas has to pump out so much insulin to try to shuttle that Sugar out of the blood because sugar floating in the blood for long periods of time is toxic and bad so the insulin's doing its work but guess what when we slam that pancreas day after day our cells become insulin resistant insulin doesn't work as well so insulin stays higher we start to gain fat and we're on the road to diabetes we're on the road to weight gain and guess what eating all that Sugar it doesn't keep you satiated like eating Whole Foods so you end up drinking that sugar from soda for example you get 200 g of sugar and you're still going to be hungry in an hour so that's why sugar is absolutely something terrible and we can all agree on that people who go keto or and the subset of people who are going carnivore inside keto well guess what they're eliminating those processed sugars and those they're going plant-based also can agree that it's not a good idea to get sugar into your diet and now I really want to make this first key point this does not mean that natural foods that contain some sugar like blueberries like organic kiwis like an apple they have health benefits and it's not the same thing as getting processed sugars is getting natural sugars that are mixed up in The Matrix of the fiber the vitamins the minerals those phytochemicals dramatically different thing than drinking a soda and having an Apple so I don't want to necessarily throw the baby out with the bath water but I will say this if you're a person who feels like your body is not processing sugar well you have weight gain um you're tired all the time then lowering your carbs if not going on a very very very low carbohyd diet for a while can be one of the most healing things you can do for your body cleans up that glucose regulation and it's going to get you on the path to health so that's number one number two um is we want to eliminate lowquality animal products we don't talk enough we when we look at nutrition we're looking at oh like steak or fish what are the the nut nutrients in there is there vitamin D is there iron are there omega-3 fatty acids oh the protein well we got to take a step back and we got to look at what did that animal or that fish or that egg when that was produced what did that organism eat when we eat higher up in the food chain we need to start worrying about what we ate eight and that's the omnivores dilemma there is a big difference and everyone in the keto carnivore uh Camp can tell you this between eating a high quality grass-fed steak for example and eating cornfed beef the fat composition is completely different is that surprising to you because one in one scenario the animal is eating what it's intended to eat grass it produces more CLA and healthier fatty acids in there and when an animal's fed lowquality GMO corn then the fat composition is is totally different it has more Omega sixes it's more inflammatory and our body responds differently to these kinds of foods so what we know from the research particularly that Links Animal product consumption with cancer is that it comes from the highly processed salted lowquality animal products get those out of your diet if you want to go purely plant-based then you eliminated that issue completely if you want to keep animals into your diet then you better eat the highest quality animals again so this means that even applies to eggs right if you're going to have eggs in your diet there's a big difference between having a pasture raised egg that egg yolk will be more orange than a store-bought crappy egg while you have a yellow egg yolk and there's difference in nutrition from that um and this applies to your fish as well you do not want to eat lowquality fish it's packed with Mercury and guess what microplastics where are we throwing our plastic in the ocean where's that plastic ending up inside the fish we're eating when we eat higher in the food chain we need to worry about the quality that much more and we can all agree on we want to get the lowest quality processed Meats out of the diet things like chicken nuggets baloney ham Spam pretty much any meat that's served at most fast food restaurants these are the things that cause a problem we do know is when we have these lowquality salted Meats higher in nitrites that interacts with our gut bacteria and it produces different secondary digestion products that actually damages our ocytes those cells that line our colon that's why meat is linked to colon cancer so we'll get to this again we talk about number five digestion absorption elimination this is why lowquality animal products got to go number three eat a wide variety of organic fruits and vegetables our bodies need a wide array of nutrients to function optimally so we all know the macronutrients the protein the carbs and the fats that ultimately equal the calories that we eat but micronutrition is so so so important these are all the vitamins and minerals that you need to carry out the millions of enzymatic reactions that keep you alive every single day and guess what the best way to get those is by eating a wide variety of things that are different colors this is why no nutritionist would argue that you should eat the rainbow that's a great nutrition advice because you eat things that are green they have different nut nutrients in them than things that are orange and red which have more of the vitamin A's it's actually the phytochemicals and the nutrients themselves that lead to coloring of these things so a really cool example is like blueberries they have these things called proanthocyanidin and those same things that make black rice black is what makes blueberries blue so we eat the rainbow we eat a wide variety of different things we get a lot of these phyto phytochemicals vitamins and nutrients and we're also getting a diverse range of different types of fibers which is essential for helping keep our cholesterol levels in check for lining our digestive tract for feeding our gut microbiome which we're going to talk about in just a second so we want to eat a wide variety of foods I think I saw this um a study of uh people in Okinawa uh you know they talk about how like Okinawa and Japanese people live live for so long they have one of the highest percentage of people who are centenarians well guess what that's changing now that they're getting westernized now they got McDonald's and they have uh all the same things we have elsewhere people are dying young just like they are here in the United States and guess what they also found is the diversity and the number of different types of foods that the old school Oki now ate was like 30 plus different types of fruits vegetables and roots and different stuff per day now it's like down to like five to six this is impacting our health eat a wide variety of foods this is why one simple habit that I absolutely love um is either doing a morning shake that has a bunch of these things loaded in there Blended up it's like a super shake or a salad in the middle of the day which is amazing because you can throw different types of fruits and veggies and all these things in the salad and you're eating a wider range of things if you do not have a habit every single day of getting diverse Foods in like the salad or the super shake or something like that then it's going to be tough it's going to be tough and you probably won't execute on this vital habit and I want to say this too is you also got to figure out in this category of plant compounds which plants agree with you because there are certain plants foods that uh cause immune reactions in certain people that's why certain people feel better on the carnivore diet because they were eating foods that inflamed them previously you know wheat uh is a very common inflammatory food for a lot of people in the plant kingdom not something I necessarily recommend you have high amounts in your diet but there's also certain foods like beans legumes uh certain nightshade vegetables that trigger some people so start to pay attention when you you eat a food how does it make you feel that's going to be different for you than me and that's why I can't tell you that something like a tomato or a bell pepper is a quote unquote healthy food may be good for you might not be good for me but start paying attention signs that you'll notice after you eating something that's not agreeing with your body gas bloaty uh you know just doesn't feel right in your stomach you feel heavy you might feel tired you might feel aches and pains in your joints you might get mucus like you eat something and 10 15 minutes later your nose is now stuffed and you're feeling your throat's getting scratchy that's your body actually creating an immune reaction producing more mucus because it's got something in the body that it does not like and it's trying to bind that and stick that stuff together so it can to be eliminated and handled pay attention to your body find the fruits and veggies that you actually thrive on and get those in your diet number four support the gut microbiome cannot say uh stress more important stuff about this a key concept is you as a human being you are a human tube there is a tube that runs from your butt all the way through your anus and as a weird visual I like to bring this up because it's it's jarring but it's so true is if I had a long enough string I could floss you on either end and this is really vital to understand because your digestive tract is lined your this tube that's lined with different kinds of bacteria that when you eat that food interacts with your gut microbiome it's broken down and digested by that bacteria the types of foods you eat actually shift those bacterial populations around and your entire immune system is concentrated in your digestive tract and we know that people who are overweight versus people who are lean have different proportions of different gut bacteria so when we eat a wide variety of different kindes of fiber containing foods that are good for a gut microbiome we get more of the good guys the lactobacillus the bifidobacterium the guys you see on the back of the probiotics bottles in the supplements those are some good guys that start to uh they live on Thrive off fiber so they start to uh increase their amounts and some of these other bacteria that cause problems start to lower and so we always want to take care of our gut microbiome so number one good fiber they they like to thrive on two get fermented foods that contain these probiotic bacteria into your diet every single day so before shooting video today I had some coconut cfir which is like a coconut yogurt with probiotics you might have heard of Kombucha something like sauerkraut maybe like natto look up a list of the best fermented foods find one you love get it in the fridge take it on a regular basis eating fermented foods just lines the digestive track with a good bacteria they help you burn fat they'll you increase your immune system they are involved in mood and memory people who are depressed or schizophrenic have different gut bacterias we don't know if it's like the gut bacter is causing that but it's definitely there's some relationship that we're starting to unpack these guys are hugely important and then you might have heard the term prebiotics well these are the fiber that those gut bacteria thrive on so that's why I defer to rule number three you're eating a wide variety of different fruits and vegetables you're getting the fiber these guys love the pectin from the Apple um you're getting some different soluble fibers from the oatmeal you're getting insoluble fiber from your greens it's creating all the good uh you know essentially the environment in your gut microbiome that you need to thrive uh number five we're not taught this as kids but if you have kids teach them this when we think about nutrition we've gotten so used to looking at the nutrient label and looking at calories protein carbs fats and maybe if you know what you're doing you're looking down the ingredient list and you're seeing what's this food actually made of not just paying attention to the calories and I even think all of that is shortsighted when we look at a food we need to look at the three phases that food goes through digestion how well is that food digested you know that certain foods digest better than others I'm sure you've seen corn in your poop you didn't digest that corn that you ate it came out the other end absorption once digested how well has that food actually absorbed through your GI tract I'm sure you've eaten a ton of pizza and beer sometime and you had a terrible bowel movement the next day you know gurgly all the stuff or maybe it makes you feel great and you're you're the outlier but you know that you eat certain foods it leads to like sludgy bad poops obviously there was a digestive problem there maybe even a problem with how those foods are combined and finally elimination how long does it take that food to exit your tube we got to think about all three phases and guess what certain foods are EAS easier to eliminate than other Foods so guess what takes a long time to get through your body animal products it takes a lot longer for a steak to get through your body than it does watermelon watermelon might exit within 6 to 12 hours a steak can take 24 maybe 48 Hours it can take a long time and guess what some of those food particles don't actually exit your colon they get stuck in there and you can compile poop over time this is why people who go on juice fasts or water fasts find that they continue to poop out stuff that's just been sitting in their Digest digestive track it's true you're full of I am too and this is just the reality of things that's why we need to optimize digestion make make sure things are eliminated well so what is eliminated really well fruits vegetables eliminated very well and if you do have animal products make sure you pair them with green things always pair an animal product with some kind of green veggie um as a good rule of thumb especially if you can tolerate that so something like uh some spinach or some baby uh you know Green Mix with a piece of animal protein if you have that your diet because it's going to help move that food faster through your GI track insoluble fiber the kind of fiber you find in leafy green vegetables speeds up the transit time it makes things move through your tube faster and this is why what we absolutely know that we do not want our animal products sitting in our GI track for a long periods of time getting fermented creating these secondary metabolic compounds that can damage our gut in our digestive tract so digestion absorption elimination there's individual differences you may elate Foods you find that you eat a certain food pay attention how well are your bow how how well and well formed and easy are your bowel Ms the next day if they're good healthy bow movements this is a food that's Jing well with your body if you ate a combination of things that didn't work well your poop is going to tell you that pay attention to that and I promise you if you combine fruits with a steak for example that is a weird bad food combination that's going to lead to a lot of digestive stress because think about it this way every time you eat a food your body needs to create the perfect environment to digest that particular food and the pH of the stomach and the enzymes that are involved in the small intestine is different for a watermelon than it is for a steak that makes sense right steak dense in proteins uh you know dense structures that need to be broken down with the hydrochloric acid watermelon basically water so these need two different digestive environments and if we combine those two things into one meal the body has to make compromises it's not optimally digesting steak and it's not optimally digesting watermelon so pay attention to the foods that you're combining some foods combined better than others and as a general rule of thumb don't eat fruit after your meals fruit is very quick fast digesting eat fruit before your meals so you'll find if you eat fruit and you feel gassy and Bloated after meals it's not that your body doesn't necessarily tolerate fruit well it's that it doesn't tolerate fruit after you have a sandwich sitting in your stomach first so consider that number six and this could have been number one up there but your diet has to be properly balanced with the energy intake you have to have the proper number of calories I don't care if you go on a low carb ketogenic diet or a plant-based diet if you're vastly undereating or vastly overeating that diet is not great for you if you're vastly undereating that's a stress for your body you're going to raise your cortisol levels your metabolic rate is going to slow over time you want to eat the right number of calories now I'm a fan of intermittent fasting I'm a fan of some calorie restriction but you want to make sure you're not starving yourself and on the flip side you want to make sure you're not eating way too many calories CU guess what even eating healthy foods you will gain weight um I could get you a plenty fat on a diet of avocados fruits um in different kinds of things if we really loaded in the calorie density we could make you gain weight it's far less likely cuz healthy foods like these keep you more satiated but do understand you have to have a general idea of what your calorie targets are we'll throw below some of our free calorie calculators over at the fit follow project and fit M project it'll be linked in the description those are Google Sheets they're open source you click on those documents you make a copy you can type in your height weight age activity factor and it's going to give you a ballpark I'm not suggesting you need to count your calories but you got to have a general idea and the way I like to manage it is let's say that I'm eating breakfast lunch snack and dinner that's my meal timing setup that or could be in a minute fasting but I'm eating breakfast lunch snack dinner and let's say I know I need 3,000 calories to maintain weight based on my activity level I just divide that up throughout the day so that means I'm basically having three 800 calorie meals eight 16 2 2400 calories and I'm getting a 600 calories of maybe a snack throughout the day that could be one way to hit it or if you intermittent fast and you know you only need 2,000 calories per day and you have two meals well you have two 1,000 calorie meals you're going to have a lot healthy foods during those times and that is the benefit of compressing your eating window with intermittent fasting skipping breakfast maybe just having lunch snack dinner you can eat more foods and still be inside your calorie Target but you got to figure out what that is my team and I can help you we have free resources Linked In the description below and finally principle number seven it has to be simple the purpose of this video is actually to try to make things a little more clear uh and a little less dogmatic the best diet is the one that you can stick to it's the one that includes Foods you love it's the one that makes your body feel good and if it's super complicated then it might work for a couple weeks maybe a couple months but you eventually fall off track and you won't build a habit so Simplicity is key this is why we teach simple things over at the fit father project and fit mother project like the concept of doing something like a shake in the morning a salad for lunch some kind of Snack That agrees with you and supper is something like a perfect plate this is what a perfect plate looks like half of your plate is some kind of Veggie a quarter is a protein a quarter is some kind of healthy carb or healthy fat you do that I don't care what ends up being on that perfect plate it could be tofu if you're plant-based it could be wild salmon if you're eating you know fish and stuff like that it could be a different kind of green you love but these simple Concepts like perfect plates Shake salad snack supper are really really important and my team and I are here to help you do this uh we have incredible uh health and weight loss programs for busy moms and dads we have over 26,000 people around the world using our programs we'd love to have you join us too there's links Below in the description so if you want more personal help we're here to help you overall hope you found this video valuable I hope it cleared some things up for you I'm sure it also raised more questions if you have those drop them in the comments below we'll shoot future videos on your exact questions and above all subscribe to our channels uh we are here to really clear up and make this Health Fitness Nutrition stuff simple and sustainable so you can stay healthy for both yourself and your family we are the fit father project and fit mother project this is what we do so subscribe drop me a comment or question below hit the thumbs up like button if you found this valuable and share it with somebody who needs to hear this message too and I look forward to seeing you subscribe to the channel and I'll talk to you very soon in our future videos my friend have a great rest of your day

Channel: Fit Father Project - Fitness For Busy Fathers

Views: 6,922

Keywords: how to improve your diet, healthy eating, what you should be eating, healthy eating myths and facts, nutrition concepts, healthy eating explained, rules of healthy eating

Id: AOkaUfvouMY

Length: 19min 31sec (1171 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 22 2024