My Views Regarding Nutrition

Alison, thank you for the question.  A lot of people out there have a wide array of thoughts when it regards nutrition.

The way I approach nutrition is very simple and easy to follow as long as my patients buy into the concepts.  I believe in whole organic foods.  I do not believe that any one sided approach is healthy as in no carbs, or no fat.  Balance is the key.  I believe that as Americans, we eat too much and consume an unhealthy amount of refined foods in general.  Our bodies can not handle the sheer amount of processed foods we put in.  When  a processed food goes into the digestive tract, it causes the gut to have to work harder to sort out the different additives and preservatives that are foreign to the body and actually reduce the absorption of the nutrients we need.  Also, the body will view these chemicals as toxins and will actually use fat cells to contain the invader until it can be eliminated with our immune system.  They in turn cause the body to hold onto fat because it needs it to deal with all the chemicals in our foods.  This causes us to become overweight and makes it hard for us to lose that weight.

I also believe in smaller meals throughout the day to keep the blood glucose levels more even instead of a few big meals during the day.  Our body has an ability to consume and fully process about 800 calories an meal.  Any amount over that either passes right through or is turned into fat.  When we only eat 2 or 3 big meals a day, we tend to “spike” our glucose levels high and as well as low.  In the low areas, our body believes it to be in a pre-starvation mode and when it does get food, it will want to store a portion of it for later so it has something to use as a back up if the meals are too far spaced out.

The last thing I take into consideration is how the patient’s psyche plays into how they view and eat food.  The change has to start in the mind well before it can change in the body.  The mind is a very powerful tool and I can use it to my advantage.  I take into account the eating habits they have now.  How often they eat, what they eat, times they eat, stress levels when they eat.  They all play a factor in how successful I can be with their program.  I have them make moderate changes to their diet in the beginning.  To use an analogy, I view nutritional changes as I view someone starting an exercise program with a personal trainer, you don’t start out a client running and weight training 6 days a week when they have not worked out in 10 years.  We start with gradual changes because the patient did not have weight issues overnight.  I find the slow progressions are more important for adherence as well as the body will accept the changes as normal instead of the usual shocks to the system that a lot of the fad diets bring on that lead to Yo-yo dieting.

This is what I normally go over to start a patient on a nutritional program.  I limit their portion sizes, gradually change certain meals in the day to healthier choices, limit refined foods and replace them with whole, organic foods, increase their water intake (rarely people drink enough even if they say they do) as well as start them on an exercise program.  The cardinal rule of burn more calories than you take in always applies.

In Health,

Doc