I switched to an ULTRA-processed food diet for 30 days

it's no secret that fast food is unhealthy it's all over the internet the science the statistics and the growing obesity problem in the us have all confirmed this but we're not perfect human beings and obviously there are circumstances where fast food is actually a decent option for example long study days i remember in college when i lived in the dorms we had a communal kitchen that everyone shared and someone not dropping any names decided to puke in the sink during a rush week and ever since that i was like nope not cooking here ever but anyway since cooking wasn't an option for me during midterms and finals week when all i was doing was studying fast food was actually the cheapest and the most convenient option but whenever i eat fast food i feel gross maybe it's just getting older and changes in my metabolism but that's the scary part sometimes we continue poor habits because we don't notice any change but that doesn't mean they aren't happening behind the scenes so as a medical student i was curious about the deeper question how does my body respond to a fast food diet and thus the idea for a fast food experiment was born first things first i had to decide what to measure we already know that chronic consumption of fast foods leads to big problems but what about the day-to-day changes the meal to meal changes in our energy levels and our productivity levels that sounds like the question i'd want answered the next time i was thinking about getting some mcnuggets check next i had to figure out how am i going to measure this for this i had to revisit my medical training in metabolic health and nutrition anytime we consume food our internal machinery breaks it down into glucose so for my experiment seems like tracking glucose is the winner winner mickey d's dinner and how am i going to do that with some fancy tech cgm there's this tiny needle that attaches the device to my skin and i can then use my phone to scan and check blood glucose levels all throughout the day now it's time to make my meal plan i'm not willing to sacrifice my body or my wallet eating fast food every meal for a month it's already been done by morgan spurlock but then i thought it would actually be pretty cool to see how my body responded to healthy home cooked meals and that way i could compare the data between fast food and a healthy meal and after rigorous internal debate a consultation with a smarter man and several permutations here's the final schedule i'll eat fast food at least once a day for the next 30 days and i'll also eat a healthy home-cooked meal at least once a day during those 30 days let's freakin go this is what it's all about fam big money hi i'll have a big mac meal please and a four piece mcnuggets with sweet and sour sauce okay uh we currently don't have that sour no um okay i'll have barbecue sauce then they don't have sweet and sour sauce oh thank you you have a good one got the goods it's got to be so good smells dank i can't believe i've never had a big mac before [Music] pre-mcdonald's meal 81. all right i'm not gonna lie it's pretty good this is also like the first thing i've eaten all day so it's actually pretty good i could go without the middle bun though this might be the most asian thing i've ever done on camera but i'm gonna be honest this big mac needs some sriracha oh yeah i mean i get why people like soda it's really good but i just figured i have to do the full experience you know the burger the fries the drink the nuggets i just keep reminding myself that this is for science anytime we consume food our internal machinery breaks it down into glucose then the pancreas releases a surge of the hormone called insulin which extracts glucose from the bloodstream so our body can use it that surge of insulin is what causes a food coma or sugar crash in medicine we call this reactive or postprandial hypoglycemia but not all food is made equal some foods possibly fast foods cause huge spikes in glucose which causes a huge surge in insulin and worse food comas probably the most severe contributor to the spike was a sugary beverage i noticed that any time i paired my fast food with a soda which i only did on two occasions i think it spiked my glucose way higher than any other meal i ate and looking at the science there are two simple reasons why i think this happens first is that sodas contain high fructose corn syrup and fructose is really the culprit here our bodies don't really know how to handle huge amounts of fructose all at once our internal machinery doesn't have a stop mechanism to regulate how much fructose we take in so we just take in all of it and the second is that sodas are liquids so they move through our digestive system a lot faster want to eat fried chicken or an apple or you know something solid there's only so fast i can go i can't wolf that food it takes time for me to chew and digest and break things down into smaller pieces so because sodas contain high fructose corn syrup and their liquids it's like a double whammy [Music] yes even at day one i already noticed a huge difference in the way i experienced the post meal slump fast food food coma was way more sedating than my home-cooked meals i mean i was out like a light it was undeniable how i felt after those meals trying to get anything done that required serious concentration or cognitive burden like obliterating remnant flash cards doing practice questions creative writing was next to impossible for at least like an hour after i ate [Music] honestly it's pretty good but it's not how i feel when i'm eating it in the moment like an hour later like yesterday after i ate mcdonald's i had the worst stomachache shits i'll be honest it was bad but during it satisfying it's super satisfying it's just so heavy there's just so many carbs in this thing look at this beast here's a snapshot from my papa john's meal and this was probably the worst meal that i had because it sent me to spike city like look how high that is but you can remember that after we eat a heavy meal the body pushes out all of this insulin and you can actually see that it dips below normal before coming back to normal and that's reactive hypoglycemia but now if we compare that to one of my home cooked meals this is salmon broccoli and brown rice we can see that the spike doesn't go nearly as high it kind of comes on more gradually and then it never dips down below the starting point so there's no reactive hypoglycemia that sounds very nice [Music] [Music] a few days into the experiment i started to implement this new eating habit especially when i cooked at home eat your veggies first then proteins then carbs some studies have found that the order in which we eat certain types of foods can actually have an impact eating low energy high nutrient foods like salads for example can actually curb the amount of food we eat during that entire meal so not only is this beneficial for portion control but it also ensures that we get all the high nutrient foods first and then we can indulge on the guilty pleasure stuff at the end skinning carrots is so oddly satisfying it's therapeutic a lot of people will say that cooking is like really time consuming but if you like batch cook all your food then you're actually saving yourself time as opposed to like going out and getting food every single day at least with cooking i get to choose exactly what i want in my meal exactly how much seasoning to use and exactly what kind of carbs go in my meals [Music] about halfway through this journey i had a realization i order way too much food and i eat all of it and it's probably not a good idea to do that if you're one of those cookie monster people who vacuums everything on their plate regardless of how much is in front of you eat slower this is a two-fold benefit to your post-meal productivity first your insulin spike won't be as high because you're not absorbing all of that fuel at once and second you're actually giving your body enough time to release hormones to regulate how hungry you are so you don't eat as much so i just got back from a night shift in the ed it's uh 11 o'clock right now and i'm really hungry and i'm way too lazy to make something right now so i think my dinner night is just gonna be a whole bunch of blueberries spinach and almonds as much as i can eat let's go it's gonna be me tonight baby spinach blueberries and almonds nothing's open night shift man unlike carbohydrates proteins and fats aren't directly converted into sugar when we eat them they have a more roundabout way of becoming sugar by first going to the liver which means that in general i'm speaking broadly here that fats and proteins don't cause spike city as rapidly or as robustly as carbohydrates would every fast food meal i ate was a majority of carbohydrates bread buns fried chicken mashed potatoes chow mein maybe it was my fault for what i ordered but come on pizza is just a ball of dough that's been smushed down it's just pure carbs veggies were sparse or non-existent so not only was i eating too much quantity of carbohydrates i was also neglecting the quality nutrients from fruits and vegetables this is the line for taco bell right now this is unacceptable unacceptable [Music] i think this describes perfectly what i think about this experiment getting ready for some explosive poops tonight why not all right 9 20 4 4. cool thank you i can't believe i'm saying this but this is the second time i've had taco bell this week two times baby two times in the same week crazy [Music] i think taco bell secretly might be my favorite fast food because i've gone on like four times already crazy thing is that i could feel the difference in these two meals on my productivity like my productivity post taco bell was awful aside from the explosive diarrhea i was sitting on the couch trying my best to read this new book i got and i got caught in a loop reading the same sentence over and over again trying to understand what it meant i was feeling the full gamut of symptoms brain fog mental fatigue all the while just sinking a little further into the couch while my eyes got heavier and heavier and you can imagine what happened afterwards the brain fog i had after eating a home-cooked meal wasn't nearly as bad it was still there to be honest but i was always able to build enough momentum to overcome the slump and then get back to work this is the fast food trap man i just ordered fast food and there's already an incentive to get another free pizza that's a lot of that's a lot of damage here that's a lot of damage [Music] according to the usda the proper portion sizing of a dinner plate should look something like this with simple or processed carbohydrates comprising only a quarter or less of the meal another quarter for lean proteins and veggies and fruits should be about half or more of your meal at least with home-cooked meals i can choose my own portion sizes and the ingredients that go in them unfortunately with fast food this isn't always possible like i discovered for myself doing this experiment [Music] but anyways here we are made it i'm alive so yeah everyone i think i learned a lot from this experiment fast food is convenient and it's inexpensive but it really didn't do my productivity or my energy levels any favors now i'm not going to make any dumb promises and say that i'll never eat fast food again but it's something to keep in mind especially if you're studying late at night for an important test tomorrow or you have a meeting coming up or a long day at work where you need to be very mentally focused and alert if you want to put your best foot forward maybe rethink eating fast food right before i just want to reiterate that this video is in no way medical advice just me sharing some practical insights based on my experiment the big caveat with metabolic health in general is that it affects all of us differently if me sacrificing my body for this experiment wasn't enough to motivate you then definitely check out my brother's video for another take he did it first not gonna lie so i copied him but you can find that somewhere right here [Music] you

Channel: Cajun Koi Academy

Views: 738,085

Keywords: i tried fast food for 30 days, 30 day challenge, fast food, fast food challenge, best food for studying, what to eat while studying for exams, levels health cgm, cgm, levels health

Id: tcimR3pDt3s

Length: 15min 35sec (935 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 08 2021