Best Diets That Are Good For You (Evidenced Based)

Ever wondered how to achieve weight loss success without resorting to drastic dieting measures? Curious about how intermittent fasting and mindful eating can revolutionise your health?

Discover the secret to weight loss success in this enlightening episode of the me&my health up podcast, hosted by the clinical nutritionist and lifestyle medicine specialist, Anthony Hartcher. Unearth the potential of time-restricted feeding and intermittent fasting, strategies that go beyond aiding weight loss to enhancing cognitive clarity and boosting energy levels. Hartcher's insightful analysis reveals the profound benefits of these dietary approaches, including better regulation of blood sugar levels and a surprising increase in energy, even with reduced food intake. 

Explore further as Hartcher discusses mindful eating, an alternative approach to rigid dieting, which supports healthier lifestyles and nurtures your body's inherent needs. Learn the importance of pacing your meals, recognising satiety cues, and the benefits of not eating just because food is available. From the discussion on the ketogenic diet to understanding the importance of balancing nutrient intake and the role of good fats, this episode is a treasure trove of practical advice. Whether you're just starting your journey to weight loss success or looking for sustainable methods to maintain it, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in, immerse yourself in Hartcher's expert guidance, and take the first step towards a healthier, balanced life today. 

About me&my health up & Anthony Hartcher 

me&my health up seeks to enhance and enlighten the well-being of others. Host Anthony Hartcher is the CEO of me&my health up which provides holistic health solutions using food as medicine, combined with a holistic, balanced, lifestyle approach. Anthony holds three bachelor's degrees in Complementary Medicine; Nutrition and Dietetic Medicine; and Chemical Engineering.

Podcast Disclaimer
Any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, health care or other professional advice, and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this Podcast. [Connected Wellness Pty Ltd] operating under the brand of “me&my health up”..click here for more

Support the show

Transcript

Anthony Hartcher: 0:08

Welcome back to the me&my health up. I'm your host, Anthony Hatcher. I'm a clinical nutritionist and lifestyle medicine specialist. The purpose of this podcast is to enhance and enlighten your well being. And I will be doing that just for you. As always, with my knowledge and expertise, I've been researching an article, and it was about the best diets that are good for you. So what are the best diets that are good for you, it attracted my attention. I'm a nutritionist, and I thought, wow, that's probably of interest to you. So I thought I'd share the article with you today. I found it in Medscape, which is where medical professions put their thoughts on articles on published research articles, literature, and they share their knowledge and expertise in that forum, and thought I thought I would take that article, and then share it with you, and provide my oversight and expertise on the article. So let's start with the best diets that are good for you. So the diet that was nominated, or one of the diets that was nominated, was the time restricted feeding. So what's that you're probably thinking time restricted feeding, you've probably more heard of intermittent fasting. So it's often used, or people use intermittent fasting as the term for time restricted feeding. So time restricted feeding is where you're fasting for a period of time consistently. So it could be from sunset to sunrise, and you do that every day, you're fasting during that period and only eating during daylight hours, then that is time restricted feeding because you're only feeding within a certain time window. Okay, it's limited, it's restricted, okay. Some people refer to this as the 16 and 8 diet, which is 16 hours of fasting and Yes, 16 hours of fasting 8 hours of your eating window. So some people do that, that's probably the most popular version of time restricted feeding, some people do a variation 12 and 12, which is 12 hours, fast, 12 hours, eating window, or 14 and 10. So 14 hour fast, 10 hour eating window. So they are all time restricted feeding diets, and the benefit is the fast. So the fasting allows the body to recuperate and repair. So it's not digesting, it's not expending energy, digesting the energy can go elsewhere. Okay, you can do other work for you, or you can utilise that energy elsewhere. So when we're digesting, we are needing energy to digest the food and to assimilate it. And in today's modern society, we probably spent a lot too much time eating, just because the accessibility the availability of food, it's everywhere, right? We walk down the road, we go past the number of takeaway food choices, we driving, we see signs, we watch TV, we see advertisements, the associated with food, and so we're constantly thinking of food. Whereas once in the past, we'll certainly you know, back in the back in the caveman era, we would be spending a whole day looking for food and might not find much. So it was scarce back then. And our, I guess our genomics have pretty much wired. You know, for that, I guess that older sort of caveman period, our genes are obviously transforming. And we know we're evolving, and, you know, being able to better accommodate for more eating. However, we still have that prehistoric sort of more primitive wiring. So yeah, that fasting can be really advantageous for us, it can really serve us in terms of resting the digestive system, allowing the body to utilise that energy, it would expend digesting food and using that elsewhere. The other big benefit of time restricted feeding, is the fact that you've got a limited eating window, and there's only so many calories you can consume within that eating window. So when we have an unlimited eating window, we can consume endless calories or bought a lot more put it that way. So in that, you know, if you're looking at the 16th and 8 in that 8 hour eating window, there's probably two meals you could probably fit in if you're eating you know, four hours apart. So yeah, so it's it really restricts the amount of calorie consumption and hence some people go from three meals a day to only two meals a day, and so they're eating less calories, obviously with less calorie consumption that results in some weight loss which most people The doing dieting these days is to seek weight loss, they're wanting to better manage their weight and get down to weight they feel more comfortable out. So this can be one of the strategies is time restricted feeding. And so the literature is supportive of weight loss, it really does support weight loss, it supports increased energy. And that's that's the surprising factor is that eating less you actually utilise the food better. So you get better utilisation and you better regulate your blood sugars you have better regulation of your blood sugars. And so yeah, so less can bring more energy, it's a surprise. So less food, more energy. How great is that? So the other way you could do this is not being restricted by the time window and not having that deadline or that stress of having to fit it into that time window window. And that can be really socially inconvenient. The other way is just eating less every meal you have. So just cutting back on the amounts you're consuming, and you'll overall reduce the amount of calorie consumption, I find the best way of doing this is eating slower, eating more mindfully, and that will reduce your overall calorie consumption. So that is certainly a benefit time restricted feeding is reducing the overall calories. Having that potential weight loss having more energy, thinking more clear, because your body's not putting energy down towards digesting, it's got more energy for the brain to operate. So it makes sense. If there's more glucose and more energy around the brain, then you're going to be able to think clearer, if you've got a whole lot of energy and resources and oxygen down towards your digestive organs, then obviously, there's going to be less available for the brain. So that's another advantage is that you will think clearer, okay, you'll feel a bit smarter and more cognitive cognitively switched on. So you can also get that from just eating less. So you don't need to, as I said, you don't need to restrict yourself and be socially, you know, socially not sociable by by not eating when everyone else is eating because it's outside of your time window for eating. So it is restrictive in that way. And as with all diets, when you're restricting, it can be hard to sustain that restrictiveness we like freedom where humans we like the ability to choose, it sort of takes away that freedom by sticking to our time restricted feeding. So if you're going to do it, I suggest you do it for you know a period of time, but it's long term, it's going to be hard to stick to full stop, there's no doubt about that. We love the freedom we have that ability to choose, we have that freewill. That's what puts us at the top of the animal kingdom. And we want to utilise that we want that autonomy, and so you're restricted. That's what it is our restrictive feeding. The other variation of intermittent fasting or the real intermittent fasting is like the five and two where you have five days of normal calorie consumption and two days of lower calorie consumption. So that five and two has been around a long time. And it is what intermittent fasting is intermittent, it's not continuous fasting, like time restricted feeding is so that can also having some lower calorie days can can also reap benefits in terms of resting, you know, I guess not allowing that like giving your body a break, essentially, that sort of does, it gives yourself a break a break from having to constantly digest food. And when we eat less, we better utilise what we put in. So we get much better utilisation uptake of nutrients. And this is what I find when people eating excessive amounts, they become very dysfunctional in terms of their body is actually out of balance is struggling to work with that amount of calories that amount of sugar circulating, and it becomes quite dysfunctional. And it doesn't work as efficiently as eating less. So certainly eating less is going to be advantageous and just reducing the amount you eat per meal by eating slower and connecting with your body is the main thing is really being in connection with your body. Do you feel satisfied? Yeah, just move on. You know you've had a good feed or just continue the conversation without eating. You don't need to continuously eat just because it's there. You can put the food away. We do have refrigeration these days. Okay, we've got a way of keeping food that is left over. We don't need to consume it. There and then

Advertisement: 9:50

We'll be back after a quick break. Hello, everyone. I'm Claudio Morgan, the host of the spiritual inspire podcast. I started the show back in April 2021 with the intention to interview energy healers, empaths doctors, shamans who that went through transformational spiritual experiences that were worth sharing. We live in a time when the Divine is tugging at our sleeve to pay attention to our feelings, thoughts, intuition. Spiritual inspired podcast is one of the safe spaces that offers such love and guidance. By sharing their experiences with the divine. My guests will reconnect you the listener with your life path that is cluttered with fear, doubt, trauma, and patterns that hold you back from reaching your full potential. Check us out on the link below. Thank you.

Anthony Hartcher: 10:37

So that is the time restricted feeding or intermittent fasting. They looked into that there's certainly benefits. And the other one was the Keto. Okay, the keto diet, that's another popular diet, I'm seeing that there's a lot of certainly marketing towards a keto friendly, Paleo friendly, vegan friendly, vegetarian friendly. These are all marketing phrases that are connecting with people because they identify with being that type of Dieter, so this is the keto diet, which is when your body's in ketosis mode. Most people aren't in ketosis, but they're just eating a more higher fat diet, lower carbohydrates, that's what most people are doing. They're not actually in ketosis. To get into ketosis, you really need to severely restrict your carbohydrates to less than 50 grams a day, which is a lot considering the carbohydrates or in a lot of foods that we consume. So it's very restrictive, and you need to be very focused in order to really cut your carbohydrates down that low. So most people are just doing low carbohydrate, high fat diets is what most most people are doing when they say they're doing keto, they're focusing more on just not having much carbs, okay, but not necessarily in ketosis. Now, this diets been around for a long time, it was discovered to be really helpful for those patients that had epilepsy. So it's really advantageous and the effectiveness of this diet to help in the management of epilepsy has been proven. It is also very helpful for narcolepsy, which is that inability to really get quality sleep. And so narcolepsy also finds benefits people suffering from narcolepsy also finds benefits in having a high fat diet, low carbohydrates. It has also been very proven for Alzheimer's and dementia. So it's I think what it is, is it's the low carbohydrates and allows the body to better regulate insulin better regulate blood sugars. And that's what they've discovered is that there's some sort of correlation between the inability to regulate blood sugars or, or high insulin or insulin insensitivity, and the link to our Simas dementia. So yeah, so it's certainly beneficial for those mental related conditions. In terms of weight loss. Yes, it has been proven benefits in going low carbohydrates, higher fat, so higher fat, drives more satiety. So we generally are overall consuming less calories, although fat is very calorific. Very, very calorific. There's nine calories per gram of fat, okay, so lots of energy in a gram of fat compared to carbohydrates, which is four calories per gram of carbohydrates. So it's double the density, double the energy density. When you compare fats to carbohydrates. It's really the satiety we get from eating fats that makes us feel fuller, quicker, and for longer, and so overall, we consume less calories, which can be beneficial for weight loss. So yes, it has been proven effective for weight loss. Most of these studies are compared to low fat diets, okay, so people that are consuming low fat diets, but the overall calories are the same. However, people consuming low fat diets also lose weight. Okay, so those lower consuming, you know, consuming lower fat people tend to consume a bit more protein, and they probably consume relative about the same amount of carbohydrates. So yes, you can any really any diet that you go on, you have a focus around eating cleaner, and you are disciplined, okay, so dieting brings discipline, and it's most likely the discipline factor, the fact that you're focused on what you're eating and how much you're eating that really drives your results and outcomes. It's not necessarily the particular diet, the particular identity around the diet or what the It is it's the fact that you're disciplined around your nutrition. So if you could get disciplined around your nutrition and not do any of these diets and still get the results. And so what I want to share with you on the rest of this episode is how you can transform the way you're eating without dieting without restricting. So the downside to dieting is that it's restrictive in some way. Okay? So it's okay to be restrictive in a calorific sense. If you're over consuming calories, that's fine, then you can you can reduce overall calories without necessarily incurring nutritional deficiencies. However, some of these diets result in nutritional deficiencies, because they're cutting out food groups. Okay. They're cutting out carbohydrates. And guess what thrives on carbohydrates is our microbiota, microbiome, our gut bugs, okay, they love breaking down. They love breaking down fiber, that's what fuels them. And that's what serves them. And they provide a bit of benefit to us. They serve our body too. They make nutrients, they make vitamins, okay. They also produce some neurotransmitters. So they're helpful, they can help us provide a we're helping them. And so cutting back on carbohydrates, long term, you know, provided you're not suffering from epilepsy or narcolepsy, these are quite serious conditions. If you're just looking to lose weight, then cutting back on carbohydrates, long term could result in gut dysbiosis, or gut imbalance that might not serve you. Okay, so I just wanted to share that when you diet, most of the time, you're restricting a certain food group, except when you're doing intermittent fasting and time restricted feeding, that's just inconvenient for them having that window to only eat from and it could be very antisocial. So that's the downside to that. So how can you go about transforming your diet? So first of all, you need to be aware of what you're eating. So I want you to jot down as to what you're consuming each day, and it will bring awareness to what you're eating. And then from that awareness, you can then have a helicopter view of that diet in thinking, Okay, I consume roughly this many calories per day. Okay, do I really need that many calories per day in terms of my energy expenditure? And where I want to be with respect to my weight management? Is it serving me? Well, you can ask that question. If you're not quite sure, then seek help of a professional that can certainly guide you as to what would be more beneficial in terms of overall calorie consumption based on your level of activity. So having that helicopter view, then looking at when you know, the timing you're eating, so and how how much you're eating. For that timing. The reason why I put this proposition forward to you is I find that a lot of my clients are eating in the evening, and that's when you have lower digestion ability, okay, we our digestion is oriented around the sun. So when the sun goes down, our digestion is downregulated. It's not very good at digesting food after the sun goes down. So ideally, you want to be eating most of your calories whilst the sun is up, and we have good digestive ability. Eating a big meal in the evening is not great for our digestion, it's not great for our sleep, it actually impairs the quality of our sleep. So we get poor asleep, we get excessive calories, going to fat, and we wake up tired, and and fall. Okay, this is why I find that a lot of these people that eat a lot in the evening so that you know they're not hungry in the morning is because their body hasn't properly digested the meal from the night before. And that's why they're not hungry in the morning, eat less at night, I can guarantee you'll be hungry in the morning. It's certainly my approach. I don't eat much at night, I wake up very hungry and my digestion is really good in the morning. It is very optimal. In the morning in the afternoon, it starts to slow down in the evening, it's very slow. So connect with your body and work with it, work with it eat most of your calories during daylight hours. So if you're eating a lot in the evening, start to move some of that food consumption or calorie consumption to the start of the day or the middle of the day. Okay, so start cutting back on the evening meal, so you can still eat with your family don't need to be anti social. However, what I'd like you to do is eat slowly and enjoy the meal with family. Embrace conversations, chat to them about their day. Put your knife and fork down in between mouthfuls chew slowly, enjoy the dinner. And even if you're starting to feel satisfied and there's still a lot on your plate. Just put the plate aside for tomorrow, put some covering over or to put it away in a Tupperware container, put it in the fridge. And that's lunch tomorrow. Okay, nice and simple, you don't need to make lunch for tomorrow. Okay, so eat less by eating slower in the evening. Now morning, you certainly want protein to be with your morning meal. Ideally, chewing really helps because we eat less when we chew, we can consume a lot more liquid, okay? Because chewing slows us down, it allows our brain to register, whether we're getting full or not. Okay, by eating slower. When we consume liquids for breakfast, such as a smoothie, then we can consume a lot more, because it's so quick how the calories are already in our stomach, the full amount, and then we would really register on very full. Whereas if you're chewing food, you actually get that signal. And before you've completed finishing what's in front of you, okay, so do your food, make sure you have protein for breakfast quality protein for breakfast, eggs are a great breakfast protein, have some nuts and seeds. If you're having cereal, add nuts and seeds to your cereal, nuts and seeds to your porridge. Add some natural yogurt is another protein source. Again, it's really working with what what works for you what what sort of protein you like for breakfast, make sure it's a lean protein. It doesn't contain high amounts of saturated fats. It's a quality protein, and make sure you have it with breakfast. Now, the other thing I see with clients is because they've adopted these diets of high protein proteins, probably they're in abundance, but could be too much too much protein. Okay, so it's the Goldilocks principle, not too much. Not too heavy, not too light, just right. Okay. So, and again, that depends on your activity and the amounts or the amount of muscle you want to want to create or build or what sort of tone you want to have, is really dependent upon, you know what it drives how much protein you need. So in terms of excessive protein, what that can do is create excessive acid load in our system, which puts a stress on the kidneys. Okay, so the kidneys help excrete acid. It's where our urine comes from our kidneys. And so it separates waste products from our blood, kidneys do this. And then those waste products are then excreted in urine. And so urine excretes acid, okay, but excessive acid load puts too much stress on the kidneys, and that acid just builds up in our system. Okay, we become too acidic, which is not good. Our bodies always seeking homeostasis. So we don't want an excessive load on our kidneys. We don't want excessive acid in our body. How do we balance that we need to have alkalizing foods, what are alkalizing foods, their fruits and vegetables. So if you're having cereal, add some fruit to it. Okay, if you're having eggs, add some vegetables, and that's how you could better balance it, okay. So make sure you're balancing your protein with some fruit or vegetables, or both, okay, depending on what you're having. And that's the same for lunch. So make sure you have some protein for lunch, but also balanced that with some alkalizing foods, fruits and vegetables, okay? And then dinner is the same as balancing the protein with alkalizing fruit and vegetables. And we really don't need much focus on carbohydrates because carbohydrates are pretty much in most things we eat, okay, except in these things that predominantly fats or things that are predominantly protein, but anything outside of those things that are predominantly fat or protein contain carbohydrates, such as vegetables will can't contain carbohydrates, grains, nuts, seeds, or contain carbohydrates. So we don't really need to focus on the carbohydrates. We'll have a bit of that with what we're eating most of the time. So it's more important to focus on having quality protein and balancing that with the fruit and vegetables and you'll consume the you know, in consuming the vegetables you consume some carbohydrates and you know, if you're having porridge for breakfast and your protein is nuts and seeds, then you're going to to consume some carbohydrates. If you're having oats, there's some carbohydrates in oats, having potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin carrots, beetroot, there's carbohydrates in all of them as well. There's carbohydrates in rice. So there's plenty of carbohydrate sources. And generally, most dishes can contain some carbohydrates. So it's just not having excessive amounts of anything is really what you want to be aiming for suggested a bit of everything, a bit of protein, bit of good fats, good fats, which is your mono unsaturated fats, your polyunsaturated fats, they are your avocado. They are olive oil. What else there's fish. So fish contains polyunsaturated fats. There's nuts, nuts, and seeds also contain poly and mono unsaturated fats. So you're also having nuts and seeds, consume good fats, as well as protein as well as carbohydrates. So that's pretty much it. I think beyond that, you want to be seeking help from a nutritionist if you need further help in this area in terms of getting it right. But my number one principle is to understand what you're currently doing and making small changes to it, not trying to change everything overnight, because that's unsustainable. By making those small incremental changes, they amount to larger gains larger health benefits over time. So we're here for a long time and, and having a quality time in that journey for longevity. So we have time to make these incremental changes, and start making these incremental changes, they start to mount up over a year, over five years, over 10 years, that's what I'm always doing is making incremental improvements to my diet. Recently, I've been cutting out on anything where I'm heating up with oil to cook the food. And so I've been poaching, I've been poaching fish have been poaching meat, I've been steaming my vegetables. And I've really cut back on anything associated with heating oil that cooks my food. So that rules out frying and whatnot. So even though I was frying with, supposedly in our they are generally in their stable states, they're considered good oils that such as olive oil, but olive oil becomes unstable when heated. And so that's my next challenge is to improve my diet by only eating olive oil in its stable state, which is cold, okay, so as a salad dressing, and not heating it up to cook foods. So that's my incremental improvement for this year. And I've been working on that how I make that tasty. And so it's a bit of a journey for me to go on. But that's my incremental improvement. So I'm always improving my health as I get more and more educated. And actually, this tip came from a podcast episode with Dr. Oz. I don't think he's a doctor. Actually, it's Udo Erasmus, but he's an expert in fat. He's studied fat in detail and understand fats and their stability. And when they become unstable, when they're unstable, that's when they become very toxic to us. And that's because we heat them, we fry in them. Okay, so I'm not trying to scare you away from this at the moment, because you might have quicker wins in other areas I'm looking for, because I'm constantly improving my diet, it becomes harder and harder to improve. And so this is the the area I'm focusing on now. And it's yeah, it's I'm finding ways to do it, because I'm looking for ways to do it, and I'm enjoying it. And I actually find that food in itself, like Whole Foods in itself are really tasty. We don't need to add a lot to Whole Foods. Okay. So that's, that's really it for today's discussion around the what are the best diets for you. And as you've probably concluded, it's really finding out what works for you. And if you're looking for some guidance, I can certainly help you. With that guidance. I'm a fully qualified degree qualified nutritionist. So reach out to me reach out to me and I would be happy to help serve you and help set you up for a diet for life that sustainable that you like that you find enjoyable, that's not restrictive, and is bringing you full nourishment. So please reach out to me. And please share this episode with others, those that are constantly dieting you going from one diet to another and not really getting anywhere. They need support from the me&my health up podcast. Thanks for tuning in. I really appreciate your tuning in each week. Stay tuned and share it with others and let's empower and enlighten the well being of others together Thank you.

Podcast Disclaimer: 29:55

This podcast and any information advice, opinions or statements within it you not constitute medical healthcare or professional advice and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this podcast connected wellness Proprietary Limited, operating under the brands me&my health up podcast does not make any representations or give any warranties about his accuracy, reliability, completeness or suitability for any particular purpose. This podcast and any information advice, opinions or statements within it are not to be used as a substitute for professional medical, psychological, psychiatric, or any other mental health care or healthcare in general. me&my health up podcast recommends you seek the advice of a doctor or qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Inform your doctor of any changes that you make to your lifestyle and discuss these with your doctor. Do not disregard medical advice or delay visiting a medical professional because of something you hear in this podcast. This podcast has been carefully prepared on the basis of current information. changes in circumstances after publication may affect the accuracy of this information to the maximum extent permitted by the law. me&my health up podcast disclaims any such representations or warranties to the completeness, accuracy merchantability or fitness for purpose of this podcast and will not be liable for any expenses losses damages incurred indirect or consequential damages or cost that may be incurred as a result of information being inaccurate or incomplete in any way, and for any reason. No part of this podcast can be reproduced or redistributed, published, copied or duplicated in a form without prior permission of me&my health up podcast