Ep 009 | Eat Like An Adult: The Smart Dad's Guide to Food

In this episode of the Smart Dad Podcast, Derek Moore discusses the importance of evolving one's relationship with food as an adult. He emphasizes the need to transition from childhood eating habits to healthier choices, focusing on real, unprocessed foods. Derek shares personal anecdotes about his dietary journey, the significance of nutrition as one ages, and the benefits of fasting. He also highlights the connection between food, family, and overall wellness, encouraging listeners to make mindful food choices that positively impact their lives and those of their families.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Food and Adult Eating Habits

02:02 The Importance of Real Food

07:33 Transitioning from Kid to Adult Eating

12:51 Understanding Nutritional Needs as You Age

20:01 The Role of Fasting and Control Over Food Choices

23:51 Food's Connection to Life and Family

26:57 Conclusion: Making Food Choices That Matter

Takeaways

• Food is simple but our relationship with it can be complex.
• Transitioning from kid habits to adult eating is essential.
• Real food is unprocessed and recognizable as food.
• Nutrition needs change as we age; focus on nutrient-dense foods.
• Fasting can be a beneficial practice for health and control.
• Food choices impact energy, focus, and longevity.
• Investing in healthier foods is worth the cost.
• Food is intertwined with family and cultural practices.
• Making small changes can lead to significant health improvements.
• Eating should be a mindful and intentional practice.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Smart Dad Podcast, The Food Dimension, The Smart Dad's Guide to Eating Like an Adult. So this episode is about food.

Food is pretty simple in some of our minds, but I have a different relationship with food than a lot of guys I know. You know, I didn't drink coffee until I was 30 years old. I didn't start drinking alcohol. I had some wines with some steak, started when I was 35 years old. You might think I was really good in my diet, but as a kid,

as a young adult and I loved candy. I loved pastries, Twinkies, doughnuts. I ate 32 blueberry muffins one morning between breakfast and lunch. I really liked pastries. My grandfather was a pastry chef. That's not a good excuse. I loved ice cream. I lived on 12 packs of Dr. Pepper every day in my twenties. So it's not like I

have a perfect track record, but I can tell you, it's not a great place to be, it's a great place to start. So this episode is real. I want you to understand this.

This is not about guilt. It's about eating like the adult you are and not the kid you used to be. Maybe you still have some habits left over. Maybe you have a lot of habits left over, your food choices when you were a kid. We're not looking for perfection. I wanna focus on progress. So let's start with this. know,


All the studies show, and I've got a biomedical science degree and I really enjoy biochemistry and this is something I've known, but I haven't always put into practice and now I'm pretty vigilant at it. Now that I'm in my 50s, but let's start with this. Just eat real food. Now real food, that's not fake food. That's not processed or ultra processed. It's not.

things that just come in a box that live on your shelf forever. So maybe think about your great grandparents. What would they recognize as food? Beans, fish, fruit, a steak, right? Maybe a potato, know, whatever your background is. I'm not telling you what to eat. I'm just telling you, the first thing I would say is go for real food. Have you?

done an accounting of what you generally eat. So, you know, Hey, when I go by this place, I like Taco Bell or McDonald's or Burger King or whatever fast food place you think is healthy, like maybe Chick-fil-A or Arby's. I don't know. But the point is that is not as close to real food as I want you to aim for. And there are reasons for this. We'll get to that later, but

You know, Jamie Oliver is a famous chef from what I understand. I think he's well known. I've actually eaten at Jamie's Italian on Royal Caribbean ships all over the world. And one of his quotes that they write on the wall is, real food doesn't have ingredients. Real food is ingredients. So think about that. Think about what you put in your food, what it's made of. What is it?

You know, as you become an older dad, I mean, unless you started as 18 or 20 year old, you're gonna be a dad in your 40s. Or if you keep having kids like I do, 50s and even 60s. So what are you doing? What are you putting in your body? What kind of nutrients? If you don't know, listen, I'm not gonna go into a macros and micronutrients lesson here. I just want you to know that you need to support your energy. You've gotta keep your energy up.


your inflammation down, your heart strong, your brain and your muscles well fed. I really didn't grow up eating a lot of fish, but I've kind of turned to salmon. I liked salmon, like spinach, as long as it's really done right. You can put some olive oil on things, beans. I've done all kinds of diets over the years. I've done whatever variation of keto I've done where I eat tons of high protein, have to drink a lot of water.

I've done vegan, I've done vegetarian, I've done well balanced. And I just test what works for Derek, what works for my body. What helps me sleep better, what helps me have more energy, helps me be sustained. I can tell you the candy, the pastries, the 12 packs of Dr. Pepper, they don't do it. Now I go for black coffee with cinnamon in the mornings. Sometimes,

local grown honey if I feel like I need a little nutritional slash health from my allergens or whatever. I generally stay away from sugar in the mornings. So I don't know if I've told you already, but I volunteered for 35 or 40 beach retreats that were our church takes high school kids to the week for a beat to the beach for a week. And then the following week, junior high kids, middle schoolers,

to the beach for a week. And I've done one or two of those for just decades on end. And it is appalling what these kids eat. I mean, it's out of a box. It goes in the toaster. It goes in their microwave. Obviously they're bringing their own multicolored triangles and squares and cones and horns and foods and candies and Oreos and stuffed this and double stuff that in.

Look, that's how kids eat. Not every kid. Obviously there are some kids who eat really, really well, but for the most part, kids eat whatever they get their hands on. they might like it, they might love it. And if it were up to them, they would eat cake and ice cream or salt or fried, whatever. So that is great. But as an adult, I had to work very hard to find what I could feed myself.


when I was on those kid camps. As an adult, I've been to quite a few luncheons, business meetings, right? Nice sit-down fundraisers in the evening, coat and tie, right, for your school, local charity. I'll tell you what's not on the menu is stuff that you put in the toaster, comes in a box. It's a nice adult meal. And I just want to paint a picture this week that the idea is,

When you are a kid, you eat like a kid. 10 year olds eat like 10 year olds. But when you're an adult, when you're a dad, it might be time to start eating like a dad.

You grow, right? So your food should grow too. You should change with the times. And again, the reason I'm telling you this is maybe you know it, maybe you don't. Maybe you care, maybe you don't. Maybe you need to hear somebody who has hit some really big numbers on the scale, dropped 55 pounds.

and felt great doing it. And all I do is walk. Like I said, it's not exercising my way out of it. So, couple things. I want you to know, and if you don't know, that's not a problem, just start here. But what you put in your body has a direct effect on your body. What you put in the tank affects how you live. I used to fly out to Los Angeles for a client.

and his kids are waffles with syrup and he said, you're gonna have a carb crash in about an hour or two. You know what, he knew, he worked out six days a week. He was getting ready for his job, his work, and he had to have a fine-tuned, chiseled body. That is not the dad bod I have. That's not the dad bod I'm talking about. Food has different categories. Carbs are generally quicker energy.


But again, processed sugar heavy kind, they spike you and crash you. Protein is not just for your muscles. In fact, protein powers your enzymes, your hormones, your tissues, even rebuilds every single cell. Obviously, fat is a backup generator, right? If you have fat storage, your body knows how and when to use it. As you age your body,

needs more nutrients per calorie. Think of it like calcium and vitamin D and fiber becoming an important part of what you consume. So real food just gives you those with a natural wide selection process foods oftentimes steal them from you. They bind them up and you excrete them, you urinate them, you send them out of your body. So

Like I said, I've got a biomedical science degree. I loved biochemistry. It was one of the first high level classes where I knew there was a God, the balance and perfection at the microscopic cellular level was incredible. And I saw the amazing balance and power of, of everything in the human body and all living things. But let me nerd out for you. These are some numbers, but just understand

The word calories or kilocalories, as they're actually called, or joules, those are just energy units, just like miles and meters are distance units, seconds and hours are time units. It's not good or bad, it's simply energy. And if you think about grams, which I don't know why we think in grams, but if you think about grams in a gram of carbs or a gram of protein or a gram of fat,

A gram of alcohol, they have a set number of calories just contained in their chemical bonds. A gram of carbs, that's four calories. A gram of protein is also four calories. A gram of fat has nine calories stored in it. And of course, alcohol, seven calories. Yeah, it's almost as much as the fat, but there's no there there. So if you think about a car, sugar is like your lighter fluid.


Right? You boom, you hit it fast, spikes the flame, right? That's not necessarily gonna help you get where you need to go. Right? Protein, that's your building material. Fat, like I said, long term. But you need fat, you need it in the right quality and the right quantity. And then you have these little mitochondria in you. These are the microscopic engines that are inside your cells. So what you feed them matters.

So what I want to focus on here is as you age, right, begin to tailor your diet. Now there's a really wealthy man, I think he's from California, and he has a movement called Don't Die. And this guy does everything he can to stop, slow, or reverse aging. I am not hating on Brian Johnson. I'm not

props for him. If he wants to live that way, that's awesome. But I'm not trying to not die. Sure, I need to protect myself and I want to reverse aging. I want to slow aging. I'm not telling you to get obsessed with it. Also, you can't just throw your hands up in the air and say, well, I don't know what's going to happen. I'm just going to stuff another donut down my pie hole. Listen, one, you've got your life to live. Two, you've got to model it for your

children and three, you want to be here for them and not be gone. That's what I think. If you don't want to be here for them, that's another conversation for another day. But listen, your metabolism will slow down. used to be able to bounce back really quickly from long nights, from all-nighters, from eating bad foods, from whatever. It's not what it's like as you get older. So think of it like vitamins. Maybe you take vitamins religiously.

very regularly. But if you eat salmon a couple times a week, if you get some omega threes from that salmon, your heart, your brain are gonna be healthier. Listen, I don't really like grains in particular. My body doesn't, but I will do some Ezekiel bread or some really good whole grains. But the way the grains work, it just messes up my body with maybe the gluten.


Maybe it's the carbs. don't know what it is, but figure it out. I didn't grow up at all eating avocados. Avocados are some of the best food you can eat besides the egg. The chicken egg is phenomenal, but the avocado, the fats in there, a little olive oil, a little salt, maybe a little pepper. We have some Tony Sacheris down here in the South. Whatever, put a little flavor on it, but man, that is great.

Healthy fats, good for your brain, reduce inflammation. So, you can put a whole bunch of ingredients on your list, but fiber, calcium, vitamin D, potassium, all those things, just look on the ingredient list or search it in your search engine and say what healthy whole foods can I get these things from? You need them as you age. And listen.

ultra processed things that have so many chemicals in them, you don't even know what was the starting point. That's not, that's not food guys. That's, that's, we live in a world where we can get our hands on almost anything. Choose something that is really, really whole. That is really real. So you can split your plate up. You can do different portions, portion control.

Just put real food in your body. I can tell you that if you pound down veggies and you pound down some really good lean meats, there's not an argument that you can find against that in my book. Now, I've had vegan, I've talked to vegetarians. I see science going both ways on this. So, a quarter pounder, a Big Mac, that is not a meal. That is a heart attack waiting to happen.

You need something that is gonna be good for you. Now, can you make it good? I stink at cooking. Anything complicated, I don't do it. But you can go places nowadays and say, hey, light on the salt. Hey, can you cut the fat? Can you change the grease? Can you change the oil? So there are things you can do to take control over your food, even if you're not cooking it yourself or your wife or your family's not cooking it for you.


The only way to keep up with your kids, your grandkids, while they age, is to do that. So, I can tell you, this again goes back to where I've fallen. There was a season, man, I just ate so much candy and so many pastries and donuts every day. And I would literally, it was like I had narcolepsy. I would just fall asleep, collapse asleep.

those sugar crashes, my kids would be on me, I'd be hugging them and just be out snoring like a light. I'd have business meetings where I couldn't stay awake. So I did that to myself in my 20s and 30s. Guys, it's time to stop. If you're in your 20s or 30s, don't start, okay? So that's food. Let's talk about liquids real quick. I'm not a real big liquid pusher.

I haven't done all the research on all the perfect liquids, I can tell you this, your body needs water. Your body needs good water, right? Not dirty water. We do know that acidity is not good in your body. So the pH water has no bad effects, only good effects. Sugary drinks, right? Sugary teas.

Even energy drinks they might promote. they're so good for you again. Go back to natural I didn't start drinking coffee till I was 30 then I would sugar it up and cream it up now I'm just a black coffee kind of guy. Like I said tea Caffeine is a totally different kind of caffeine and tea. That might be your shtick Herbal teas relaxing teas. Listen, this isn't girly. This is real. You can really go far with a nice tea relax yourself

all that stuff you put in your body that you drink. Also on this note, think soups and stews with a lot of good fluids in them, that's another way to satiate yourself when you're eating. So it's not really a drink, but it's a high liquid angle. So something to keep in mind, listen, just decide. You know, I think of the word decision with scissors in it and D is down, decline, descend, depose.


Now maybe this isn't perfect Latin, but decision, you're cutting down everything else and then you're left with what you're left with. That's called a decision. So just decide, I'm taking this one thing out of my house this week. And that's what I've done before. I say, can't have ice cream. If we have a quart, a pint, a gallon, a five gallon barrel, I just don't have the self control. I wish I had it. I used to eat a lot of cake and ice cream growing up.

You have to adjust, right? Your temptations are your temptations. If food's not for you, great. But I gotta tell you, food has an opposite. Food has fasting. Now, fasting can be lots of things. You can fast from many things, but we particularly think of fasting and food. In fact, our word breakfast is break fast because I don't know if you...

eat while you sleep. I don't. But if you're sleeping for six or eight or 10 hours at night, you're by definition fasting. So the first meal of your day breaks your fast. Fasting has benefits that I'm not going to go into, but they're known throughout all religions. They're known all over the world. There are a lot of people who heal. Scientists have done studies in Germany and in Russia.

and in America and in Central and South America, where we find that fasting under the doctor's care can promote massive healing. So if you have not fasted for 12 hours or 16 hours or 24 hours or 40 hours where you can kind of sleep, wake up and you know, get through a day and then another day and you can eat at the end of a day. So you can go 40 hours. That's almost two days of being awake.

there are benefits and you can go longer fast. Again, I'm not a physician. I'm not giving you any medical advice, but do some research. And I tell you what, I like the idea of nothing having control over me. I can stop with coffee. I can stop with alcohol. I can stop with tea. I can stop with food. Now water, I gotta have some water. We know that. I don't have to have a cigar.


I don't need any drugs, any painkillers. That's my body. But my whole deal is I want to have control over my body if I can, where I can, when I can. And food and removing food is one of those tests I give myself. So try that sometime. Let me know what you think. Also, remember that these eight dimensions of living, food is the one that is almost impossible to isolate.

Almost every belief system has food as some portion of it, right? There is food in Christianity, food in Catholicism specifically that's eaten and not eaten. There's food in Islam and Judaism that's eaten and not eaten. There's all kinds of things that are forbidden and allowed in Mormonism and whatever your belief system is or was, you know about food and dietary restrictions, right?

family. mean, somebody fed you first. We talk about comfort food or feel good food. Usually it's our family home cooking, mama's cooking, grandma's cooking. You know, somebody cooked for us. That's our family and food that of course overlaps. What about finances? Have you ever noticed how the stuff that's the worst for you is so cheap and wondered why that is? That's not what this podcast is about. But I can tell you,

Do some work, invest your money into healthier foods because it costs a little bit more, maybe a little work for ya, but it's worth it. What about fitness? Listen, you cannot, for the most part, obviously there's an exception to everything, but you cannot exercise your way out of a horrible diet once you start hitting 30, 40, 50. You've gotta have some semblance of self-control in your fitness area. So it goes all the way through, faith, family.

Finance is fitness. What about freedom? I mean, if you will give up a little bit today, you will have more freedom later. That's just the definition of delayed gratification. What about fun? mean, food can be fun. Parties and birthdays and barbecues and cookouts and all these things and just getting together and man, even it's fun to make it beautiful. My grandfather loved presenting food.


and decorating it more than he loved cooking it. And what about future? Obviously food is related to how long you're gonna be here. Again, not 100 % correlation, but there is a pretty big correlation. So this is not an isolated aspect of eight dimensional living, obviously, but I just wanna let you know where I'm coming from and what I'm aspiring to do when I eat.

I I've told you, I love taking my kids on dates. They all started off as kind of just going for ice cream, going for ice cream, going for ice cream. And then of course I was younger, ice cream is cheap, even if it's at one scoop of cone for three, four or five dollars, that's cheaper than an entire meal, right? Then we started going to some fast food playgrounds, getting good value and have the kids go playing, pick your fast food place, or we'd go to a park.

and bring our own food, right? And so I was like, ooh, I'm eating healthier. So we'd make some sandwiches and get some apples and go to a park. Then I started doing breakfast dates with the kids. And I found that, you know what, I can get in and get out. I can have some black coffee and not eat anything. Or if I do, I'll just have some protein. And so my point for telling you this is my dates have evolved with my kids over the years as I've earned a little more income, as I've grown a little savvier about food. Now we go to a nice...

Tex-Mex restaurants, we go to a steakhouse, we go to an Italian restaurant, and I show them how to pick foods, how to try foods, how to ask the foods to be prepared, and it becomes a whole deal, a whole conversation about food.

That's life. You grow, you adjust, and if you can, you upgrade. And that's what I want you to do. I want you to upgrade your mindset. So here's your question for the week. What's one thing you can upgrade this week? What's one thing you can do when you're with your kids to upgrade what they're eating or what they're not eating, right? So the bottom line is this. You're not 10 years old anymore.


Your food shouldn't be the food of a 10 year old. Right, this isn't about making you feel guilty. This is about taking care of your body. It's called stewardship, just like you take care of your money. We covered finances. This is your body. Food, you put into your body. This goes with fitness. Like I said, they all overlap. Energy comes from food. Focus comes from the right food. And longevity comes from food. You are

replaced every cell in your body is replaced every seven years. That's kind of crazy. So there's a woman named Rachel Ray. I think she's a famous cook or chef. And she said, good food in a warm kitchen are what make a house into a home. If you like to have food, you like to cook and eat, have good food in your house.

have the neighbor kids coming over, have your kids coming over, have your friends coming over and let's get good food back into our bodies and into our families and into our societies. Okay. We can do it one snack at a time or one date at a time, one drink at a time, one plate at a time, or if you're fasting one fast at a time.

What can you do this week? the one thing you can win at once. And then next week, maybe you win at it twice. And just start getting some victories under our belts because this really matters. Eat like it matters because it does. Thanks for joining me. Make your food food that counts.