Ep. 193 - Functional Nutrition

In this episode, Rob discusses his introduction to Functional Nutrition.  This episode is a follow up to the Functional Medicine After Action Review (AAR) from last Wednesday, immediately after my appointments with the Functional Medicine Department at the Cleveland Clinic.  

Which brings us to today, where I will be reviewing my written notes (finally) from last week:

Elimination Diet (Grain Free)

No Counting Calories / No counting macros

We are looking at the symptoms as a whole / root cause analysis of problems

Functional Nutrition

Healthful eating personalized to your:

o    genetics, lifestyle, environment, health concerns, 

§  Scientifically sound

§  Looking at food as *information* (energy, medicine, connection, etc.)

§  Quality over quantity 

§  (they acknowledge that optimal diets require *less* food / don’t need much)

§  Whole Foods Based

Food Tracking is NOT essential (counting calories / macros)

*Focus on the Elimination Food Plan

·         Review the 30-page comprehensive guide

·         Everything in the presentation was retrieved from this guide

6–8-week time period for food elimination diet

Instead of counting carbs, we find balance with food

Elimination food plan = anti-inflammatory

·         Removing potential food to add back in slowly, while monitoring responses of body when reintroduced to diet

Foods to remove

·         Gluten / grains

·         Diary

·         Corn/soy/peanuts

·         Alcohol

·         Caffeine

·         Coffee, Soda, Black Tea (1 cup coffee in morning is ok)

·         Chocolate (no dairy based chocolate)

·         Added sugar

·         Smoked or processed meats (preservative free ok)

Meats:

·         Poultry ok

·         Seafood (in limited quantities) ok

·         Red Meats:

o    Lamb / wild game / bison ok

o    Beef is not

·         No pork 

There is a protein structure in beef that is often more inflammatory than other red meats

Animal proteins – begin with palm sized portion

Consider utilizing collagen peptides in meals / smoothies

We will be eating legumes

No grains to be consumed, but can consume modified grains / seed such as:

·         Amaranth, Quinoa, Buckwheat, Sorghum, Teff, Wild Rice

Increase non-starchy veggies, 5-6 cups (raw) a day

Diet:  Fiber, Fat, Protein (carbs if you want)

Follow up in 4-6 weeks after starting the elimination diet

Links:   

• Ep. 189 - AAR on Functional Medicine and The City

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Well, good morning and welcome back to the show, everybody. Today is Tuesday, September 14th, 2021. This is episode number 193 of the All Around Growth Podcast, and we are going to dive into functional nutrition today. And in this episode, I am going to get into the part that I couldn't get into the last time around because the follow-up from my functional medicine appointments last week was so in-depth that a single commute episode could not cover all of it. So in that episode where I began to dive into it last Wednesday, episode number 189, titled The AAR on Functional Medicine and the City, you can hear where I provided an after-action review on what I talked about with Dr. Michael Siciliano, and basically that was the emphasis on the ties between gut health and neurological wellness, and basically the three R's with our gut, and that's removing the bad bacteria and the things that are causing the problems, and then repairing the root cause of the issue, and ultimately replacing what we need to with good bacteria. And I had a very comprehensive panel of lab work done, which I am beginning to receive results from now. I had 33 vials of blood taken to be analyzed both in-site and or in-house and off-site. And following my lab work, I met with Kevin, a guy named Kevin, who will serve as my health coach, and he told me what will serve as the foundation for uh our dialogue, which is the four pillars of health, nutrition, movement, sleep, and stress, with the two primary areas of focus in functional medicine being nutrition and stress. And that brings us, well, before I even go there, if you want to hear more on that episode and what I just talked about, again, that's episode number 189, AAR, on functional medicine. And that brings us to today, where I will be reviewing the written notes that I took from my meeting with Catherine Straub, who is the nutritionist in the functional medicine department, or one of them, I guess I should say. So let's get into it, shall we? I will be elaborating on the nutritional aspect and what we are going to call or what I am going to refer to as functional nutrition. And I will be talking about this grain-free elimination diet, which I will be following in depth a little bit later, but let's just um I think one thing I want to touch on before I even talk about anything further is the the the thing that pleased me the most about functional medicine and this component of it, the functional nutrition, is that we are looking at the symptoms as a whole and effectively doing a root cause analysis of the problem. And that is very important to me because when I pursued a career in project management coordination, that was a big that was a big thing that we that we did a lot of root cause analysis. And I learned a lot about how to approach a project during that time working with the Davy Tree Expert Company and a little branch of them called the Davy Resource Group. So the fact that she began the dialogue with talking about a root cause analysis was I just thought that was awesome. So functional nutrition is pretty simple, really. It's healthful eating, personalized to your genetics, lifestyle, environment, and health concerns. And they made a point to assure us that it that that their guidance is scientifically sound, which as soon as I heard that, I kind of gave an eye roll because anyone who's quick to claim a science, I am almost immediately skeptical. But then when she told us that we would be looking at food as information, not merely energy, but food as medicine, and food as a connection, connection to the earth, I began to be a little bit more receptive to what was being discussed. We also are talking about quality over quantity, and that when we are eating a proper human diet, that we simply don't need as much food, and we require less. And that the diet that we are going to be looking at and gearing ourselves towards is a whole foods-based diet. Now, food tracking is not essential. Counting calories or counting macros is not something that we will be doing, and counting macros has been something I have been doing recently with my attempts to eat what I would call a moderate keto diet. Now, I am learning that a lot of what I have been doing provided me with a good information foundation to go into functional medicine, but I am going to be shifting gears again with my diet on account of this elimination food plan. So, I talked about this a little bit in episode 189, but I will be doing a deeper dive into this for the remainder of the commute. And this elimination diet is a grain-free elimination diet. And the reason, well, it's also something that we will be doing for six to eight weeks. And instead of, like I said, instead of counting carbs, we're finding a balance with the food. And the idea behind the elimination food diet is that it is largely an anti-inflammatory diet. So we are removing many foods that are known to have some sort of potential for causing inflammation. Okay, so there's the common foods that oftentimes are being discussed in in recent years. Of course, we're the the common culprits, gluten and grains. I will be removing those from my diet for six to eight weeks. Dairy, no surprise there. Corn, soy, peanuts, again, no surprise. Alcohol and caffeine, no surprise there. I mean, you know, one cup of coffee in the morning is okay, is what they're telling us. Uh chocolate, we're gonna remove that as well, specifically because of dairy and caffeine, but if we can find a dark chocolate that is not dairy-based, then we may partake in that. Added sugars, of course, that is a no-no. And smoked or processed meats is a no-no, largely because of the preservatives in them. So if we can find some nice quality processed meats, we have received the go-ahead there. Now, as far as meats, that is an interesting one because poultry is okay. Seafood in limited quantities is okay. Now, red meats are okay with some exceptions. For example, lamb is okay. I presume goat is okay. Um I have access to goat meat, uh, fair amount of access to lamb. Um, but wild game is okay, bison is okay, but beef is not okay during this time frame, nor is pork. And apparently there is a protein structure in beef that is often more inflammatory than with other red meats, such as elk or bison, or venison, or lamb. So luckily, I don't have to completely cut out red meats, I just have to make some adjustments. And on a real quick side note, one thing that she mentioned regarding the protein structure in beef was that there is some core I was very interested in that, and I asked for some sources to follow up on and learn about on my own because that was something I found interesting. And she couldn't really give me anything off the top of her head, you know, books or titles or papers, and I can't say I blame her, but she did reference that it there was a correlation between the A1, A2 protein structure in dairy products and why some people have some intolerance to certain types of milk while they can tolerate other types of milk, and that has something to do with this type of protein structure in the beef. Anyways, more on that later. We will be eating, but in uh in terms of proteins, we it was also suggested that we consider utilizing collagen peptides in our meals or in smoothies, and in terms of portion size, just begin with a palm-sized portion. We will also be eating legumes in various forms, beans and such. And there are no grains to be consumed on this elimination diet during this time frame, but modified seeds or pseudo grains, I guess we might call them, such as amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat, sorghum, teff, and wild rice are okay. That's good because I very much like wild rice. I will eat quinoa from time to time. I don't know what teff is. I'm interested to explore and understand that a little bit better. And we'll see. I have a lot to learn. And they are really encouraging us to increase our intake of non-starchy vegetables, somewhere around five to six cups raw veggies a day. And that's something I'm going to have to work on as well. Because our diet is to largely consist of fiber, fat, and protein. And you know, some carbs if you want. Certainly lean towards a diet that is heavy on vegetables and fats. So that's kind of where we're at for the functional nutrition element of functional medicine. I've got a lot of homework to do. I began looking through some of the results last night, and quite frankly, started to feel a little overwhelmed. There's a lot of information to consume, and this is going to be a long, slow process, but it's one that I will share with you from time to time. So stay tuned for more as we get healthy, get healthier, and really work towards optimizing health and wellness. I feel like I've been on a good path for a little while, but I'm not satisfied with it. And there's always room for improvement. So if you're interested in this kind of thing, check out the Telegram group where we talk about things like this and more on a routine basis. And you can find us there at t.me slash allaroundgrowth. And if you have any specific questions that you may not really want to dive into in a group setting, you can always email me personally at allaroundgrowth at gmail.com, and I would be happy to correspond with you there. Gotten some nice feedback lately from friends across the pond over in England, and as we approach another milestone with downloads and the number of episodes, we will be talking about who listens to this show, anyways, and where are they from? I've been able to glean some statistics from the podcast provider that I use, Buzz Sprout, and that has been fun. And I look forward to sharing that with you on a future episode. So yeah, that's it. Uh a long, a long journey ahead with functional medicine. I I a lot of this is not what I was expecting. I didn't know what to expect, quite frankly, but so far, with what I've heard from the doctor, what I've heard with or from the health coach, and what I've heard from the nutritionist, it's all sensible to me. It's not really contradictory with anything that I've been doing. I will be making some changes and adjustments, and none of these changes and adjustments are for the long term. I think that this elimination diet, when you are trying to work through some health challenges, is a sensible approach. And granted, it's not going to be. Clean out my fridge and my cupboard.