Nutrition Fundamentals with EC Synkowski

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 117. Today I'm sitting down with EC to talk all about nutrition fundamentals. Are you ready? Let's get started. Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services, and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast. What's up, coach? Thank you so much for pushing play on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson, and today we have a very special guest. Her name is E.C. she is the founder of Optimize Me Nutrition Nutrition, which delivers business to business and business to consumer educational nutrition programs without the dogma and gimmicks that saturate the current nutrition market. She holds a BS in biochemical engineering as well as two master's degrees in nutrition and in functional medicine. Additionally, she is a certified nutrition specialist and licensed dietitian nutritionist. She has been a TEDx speaker and host of the Consistency Project podcast. She's also the founder of the 800 gram challenge challenge, which we actually talked about inside of this episode today. And she inspired me to potentially partisan hate, which I am really looking forward to doing because one of the things that EC does is simplify some things that can sometimes feel complex. We dive into the simplicity of nutrition basics and fundamentals, which basically the 800 gram challenge, which she goes in depth to talk about, is how we just eat 800 grams of fruits and vegetables every day without any diet eliminations, and it can be simple, sustainable and effective. She runs over 900 gyms, have run this challenge for members, and more than 15,000 individuals have participated. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll that interview. EC welcome to the show. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. How are you doing?

Good. Thank you so much for having me on.

Oh, it's going to be such a good conversation. We have so many things to talk about. So for those of you, my listeners who have not heard of you or met you, I'd love for you to just dive in a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there.

Yeah, yeah. So I'm E.C. sinkowski. I started Optimize Me Nutrition and I sell business to business and direct to consumer programs to help people make sense of all the Noise in the nutrition space. A lot of my messaging is back to basics. And it's not because people can only handle the simple. It's because largely we only need the simple. So I've been doing that for the last three and a half years. And I used to work for CrossFit Corporate, and so that's where some people know me as well as I help develop a lot of their programs.

Oh, okay. So can we just dive? Can you go a little bit deeper into what you mean about people? Most people just need this simple because I feel like as human beings, we love to complicate everything.

Yes, the 27 step program, right? Yeah.

Just do these simple 100 things.

Yeah. I think sometimes we make this mistake of thinking something that is very detailed is more thought out, and that's not necessarily the case. And I certainly believe people can be fit in many, many ways besides CrossFit. So I'm not here to just wave CrossFit's flag, but I think that's some of the beauty of their program as well. Right. Like, oh, is that it? Yes, yes, that's it. And that's going to be the same with me in nutrition that I really need. Put people focusing on getting adequate quality in their diet, getting adequate protein in their diet, and then controlling total calories. And if, if we're not doing those three things, we're just spinning our wheels and we're paying to attention to a lot of details that don't matter. And that's going to get results for more than 90% of people, and it's going to get more than 90% of the results they want.

So would you mind going deeper on, you know, what are those, what are those big rocks that you think people, 90% of people need to do that? Most people don't. Because I can't remember where I saw, you know, what the actual, actual statistic is after 2021. But, you know, with fitness, you've got a health and wellness industry, you've got a $2.1 billion industry, yet 88% of Americans specifically are not metabolic, metabolically flexible. So I'm curious, you know, what are some of the big rocks? And why do you think it's so hard for people to manage?

Yeah, that's a big one. But yeah, those three pieces, basically, I start people off with adequate quality in their diet. And the way that I do that is with my 800 gram challenge and that for people to eat 800 grams by weight of fruits and veggies each day and we can go into More detail about that later. But the idea is we're adding fruits and veggies. We're not restricting things, we're just going to focus on getting enough quality in the diet. Now, of course, what happens is when people eat that amount of fruits and veggies, they tend to have to eat less snacks, ice cream, beer, and you name it. But that's step one for me and that's really where I start. And I call that kind of adequate quality, helping people get those vitamins and minerals they need. And then if they're ready to move on, I'd move to adequate protein and I give them a target for that as well. This has been what I call lazy macros. This combination of continuing to do the 800 gram challenge, but now instead of just doing fruits and veggies, they also have a protein target. I do set that at 0.7 grams per pound of body weight of your current weight, unless you'd like to lose about 20 pounds, then maybe use your target weight. And again, it's a sort of additive idea to the diet. Right? We're not still worrying about the glass of wine, we're not worried about the darker dark chocolate. We're just going to make sure that we hit this amount of protein and then once we've done that, we can move on to something that's more complicated, like macros. But I'm going to say that like mainstream America does not want to weigh and measure all of their food. And nor do I think they have to. I think if they're really consistent with Even just the 800 gram challenge, I think a lot of people will be better off by just establishing that first step, adequate quality in the diet that goes through those three big things that I think people should focus on. I hate saying the word should, but yeah, I mean, they're too worried about supplements and BCAAs and post workout shakes. And it's like, guys, we haven't even done these other things. But to get to your second question, which I think was kind of, why is this so hard? I don't think the incentive structure is there. I don't think the incentive structure is there. And I talk about this a lot in that somehow we made a dent with smoking and seat belts and they were both with laws. But I grew up not wearing seatbelts as a kid. Smoking used to be more common than it is. And we've been able to make inroads there on two things that do not have immediate payoff. I'd like to think we still have Hope with nutrition. But right now the incentive structure isn't there. We don't see the results of it immediately. We don't see that our chronic disease till we're older. And we don't have a financial or regulatory incentive to make a better decision right now.

That's good insight. I haven't heard really anyone really talk about that before. So that's, that's good. Right? It's. I think that we're just kind of in the state of, of, you know, instant gratification that we're always looking for the quick, the quick fix, the quick result, the quick, you know, and I know that, that partly brain based. Right. We're looking for the efficient, most effective way and that's partly, you know, comes from our brain, but yet we're not looking at it from a 30,000 foot view. Right?

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's interesting too in that I think that efficiency has led to so many great things when we think about business or marketing or profit or pollution or, you know, so great. And unfortunately for health and fitness, it's not where the payoff is.

Okay, so I'm also curious, right, in terms of your 800 gram challenge, and I do want to talk deeper about this, but I feel like even in the vegetable space.

Okay.

And fruits and vegetables is like, we have a lot of nuances there, you know, in terms of what people consider to be vegetables. And while it is a vegetables, it gets to be in a starch category. So I'm just curious like how you run your 800 gram challenge and is there a difference for you in terms of fruit versus veggie and all of that?

Amazing. Yeah. I keep it real simple. All of it's allowed and it's all based on users, user preference, what they want and what's available. And I include potatoes, I include beans, I include legumes, olives, avocado, corn can all be part of it. So long as we're talking about corn and not popcorn. Right. And potatoes and not French fries. But this is. Yeah, I mean, over 80% of people are not getting enough fruits and vegetables. Meanwhile, we have people telling other people not to eat fruit. It's completely ridiculous. Our chronic disease epidemic is not because we're eating too many bananas. I just, it just gets me really wound up. And the fact that people are out there trying to say, no, no, no, you have to have this much kale and the person is at the airport and all they have is oranges and bananas at Starbucks, eat the oranges and the bananas. There's huge value there. And so, yeah, it really winds me up. I keep it really simple because I want people to do it. And I also have to recognize that life doesn't always have locally sourced kale at every single meal. And so what happens, though, with simple rules like this is people don't want to eat the same thing every day. And so they end up diversifying it. And that's actually where the most optimal health is. It is to diversify the fruits and veggies for these vitamins and minerals. And so ultimately, people kind of get there just because sustainability will make it so that you don't want to do 800 grams of mango every day. And to be honest, a lot of Americans would be better off with 800 grams of mango from where they are. Right. Like, that's not ideal. But if it's better, you know, if they're doing soda, I mean, I'm going to take the man any day of the week. So. So all fruits and veggies are allowed on, on the 800 gram challenge. A lot of times those words are just culinary or botanical descriptions. They don't mean that they're actually better or worse for you. When we look nutrient by nutrient. And I just want people to get more fruits and veggies in their diet without all this dogma. And I think they're going to see some results from it.

That's great. Now what, what do you do for your clients now? And people that don't like veggies? Because I feel like, because of, like, I'll tell you, my husband won't eat vegetables. Right. And so how are you? And there are some veggies that are an acquired taste. So, you know, I'll share, like, with my kids. We've been starting them really young on the, like, some, some of the harder things to digest or to, to eat. Right. So I'm curious, what do you do with your. For your clients that don't have a real adverse reaction to eating veggies?

Yeah, I don't make them eat veggies. You know, it's, what do you want to eat? And you tell me. And it's like, if, if we can't find any fruit or corn or olives or avocado or potatoes or yams that they don't like. I mean, okay, we do have some problems, but I also don't buy that, like, you don't like strawberries. Like, come on. Like, come on. So I think there's lots of other options. And as they reduce the sugar elsewhere in Their diet vegetables will become more palatable. And I also will start with veggies with some more roasted options. It's really hard not to like roasted mushrooms or roasted peppers or something like that. But even if they start off with plantains and yams and fruit, they are going to be better off than all of their other processed food choices. So again, I don't worry about. Okay, you're not getting enough greens today. No, no. We have so many other options to start with before that.

Okay, so now I'm also curious, you know, your thoughts because there are some things, you know, even, especially with the vegetables and fruits, you've got FODMAP stuff. So can you tell us a little bit about, you know, first of all, for those of you who don't know what FODMAP is, what that is, how to know if that's a real thing or if it's just, you know, one of those complicated things that clients like to be like, oh, but my gut.

My God. Yeah. Fodmap fermentable oligo di monosaccharides and polyols sort chain carbohydrates, naturally occurring that don't get digested very well. And so when we don't digest things very well, they stay in our GI tract and we tend to pull water into the GI tract. And so we can have some bloating and of course, some GI distress out the back door. That's a real thing. People can have that for sure. We have this odd penchant, though, to always want to eliminate before we just try adding. And so the first thing would be, I want to make sure that people are trying different fruits and veggies and to try to distinguish between being full and having natural bloating and gas. That happens when we eat food versus truly having an issue. Because I think sometimes what happens is people will eat fruits and veggies. I mean, I have a silly meme out there and it's like. And yes, gas increases. This is a natural product of having fiber. Is that. Yes, we have gas produced. And so is it like, do you just have gas like you should on a healthy diet or do you really have a problem? Right. But yeah, there are FODMAPs. Some people are going to be more sensitive to them. Sometimes it's just a matter of quantity. Like if you do this huge amount of mango. Yeah, we could have more of an issue or a huge amount of bell pepper. But I'd first want to make sure that people are kind of trying different things, trying not to do huge Servings of any one thing. And then if they have a real issue to them, they can go ahead and accept. Experiment with some reducing FODMAPs. For sure, that is real. But again, I sometimes think we've developed these hypersensitivities. It's like I'm bloated and it's like, you're full. You just ate something.

Yeah, no, it's interesting. Even in my own, you know, for my own stuff, like when I'm consuming information, I'm always checking into making sure, like, does this really apply to me? And I think that there are times that, that it does. And it's not to say that consuming information is necessarily bad, but I'll always, you know, take for example, sometimes I'll hear someone I really love and I'll hear them give advice that's not necessarily meant for me. Right. I don't need to work harder because I already have that discipline inside of me, but maybe somebody else needs to. So I feel like in the information age, that. And that people are influenced and sometimes consume. Consume advice that might not be meant for them. Like, maybe you don't have FODMAP stuff and we just need to increase your. You're, you know, we just need to give it some time for your system to be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm now eating 800 grams of vegetables and fruit when I wasn't eating any.

Yeah, yeah. No, I love your point. And it's a struggle. I find on social media. There is no way that in a single post I can address all conditions not only nutritionally, but socioeconomic status with one post to all 7 to 8 billion people in the world. Like, you know, we can't always be giving information that perfectly fits everybody's condition as it is right now. And so I think you're 100% right. I think sometimes people have to be a little bit more selective in what's really relevant to them. And I think you're right that a lot of times people take in stuff that's not just adding on that FODMAP thing. It certainly is real. IBS is kind of the most common irritable bowels and the most common disorder in Western ice, Western nations. I think it can be upwards of 12% or people with GI disorders. What I wanted to add on to that, though, is IBS has a huge psychological component, huge anxiety slant to it. And so this is one of the reasons that I'm trying to reduce anxiety around food. I think people have very real symptoms And I think many times though they have made themselves so anxious about food, they're having these hyper awareness on things that are natural responses and not true symptoms.

Okay, that's great. So how, how are some of the ways that you, or what are some of the ways that you are working to reduce anxiety?

Well, that's some of the whole reason why I like to have people focus on adding, not subtracting my first two steps. So we're adding fruits and veggies to the diet, we're adding protein to diet. We're not worried about additives, we're not worried about, like I said, the glass of wine or the dark chocolate at night. We're just going to focus on kind of the positive. So that's what I've heard from people that that kind of flips their script about nutrition, which is great. It was by design but it wasn't really like that was the initial intent of it. So that's one way I think the other way is just giving people information, which I try to do on my podcast, just about like some of the fears that they might have and then also just a push for conventional medicine. And I believe there's flaws in that system for sure. But like if you think you have a problem, please go get diagnosed. Like have a real medical doctor weigh in on this and if you don't like their opinion, fine, find another one. But like let's stop with all the self diagnosing that's going on because I think we can spin ourselves into some of these, these anxiety states for sure.

Oh, that's such good advice. I really love that. Otherwise because people will end up being in the round room looking for the corner. Right. Especially, especially when we're just inundated with information. And I also just to clarif, social media has also been, you know, a great, one of my greatest gifts. So great. I'm so grateful for it. But you have the law of polarity, meaning that without one there is not the other. So it's a definite double edged sword and I think it can be hard, especially for people who are really anxious and are, you know, have angst around food. It can be challenging to navigate. So I definitely understand that. But I am curious too. Just for clarification, for those of you, you who don't, you know, how much is 800 grams? Like how many servings are we talking about?

Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. It's about six cups. It's about six cups. It can fit on one standard dinner plate. Don't do it at dinner, please. You will be bloated. So I really recommend that people sort of try to spread it out. And I think a great strategy is two cups at each main meal and then they just fill in the rest. And for those people who will not weigh and measure, your closed adult fist is about the size of the cup. So you can think about it as six, six things a day. The one little exception there is salad greens don't weigh very much. So they don't have the same weight per cup. So that doesn't mean we don't count them. It just means when I'm estimating, when I'm on the road, when I'm traveling and I do this six things idea, I do eat salad greens, but I still get my six things. Then don't worry about counting the greens. So I think that's a great way for people to go about it. I'll eat salads, but when I'm estimating stuff, I'm just going to get six fists a day and then continue to eat whatever else I want.

Okay, I love that. So now this is a great segue because it also talks about that third pillar that you were talking about, which is the counting of the calories.

Right.

So I feel like this is a really nuanced conversation, or not nuanced, but you've got a really polarizing, it's like a polarizing topic. You've got the people that are like, let's count, eat at self aware at Thanksgiving. And then you've got people that are like, no self esteem loss.

Right.

So I'm just curious on your thoughts and how you navigate that conversation with your clients.

Yeah. I think we have to recognize all, not all, a lot of ideas just as simply as tools. And we have to use the right tool for the right job. You know, and if you're super frustrated with nutrition and you don't have the results you want, you've done umpteen different diets, it is time to count calories. Like it is time to dig in and do the audit. And I could try to compare it just like a budget. Just like if we can't figure out why we're not saving enough or why we can't meet the bills, we have to do a diet audit, budget audit, we have to now do a diet audit. And that's what counting calories is. And we will very quickly see what the problem is. But here's the deal. I also think it's painstaking and tedious and I don't like to do it and so if we don't have to do it, we don't have to do it. And that's kind of why I do this 800 gram challenge and lazy macros adding protein as my first steps. Like, I would love us to not have to do it. Believe me, I don't want to do it. So how far can we get without having to do it?

That's good. And do you, you know, you were talking about the mental component and the psychological component with, you know, angst around food. I feel like this is also true around calories. Are you managing a lot of people's angst around calorie counting?

Yeah. Yes. I try to present it though, as data and observation. Like, we don't need to feel bad about the fact that we ate more calories than we thought we might have been eating. Like, it's just not. We can fix it. We now have the information to now put, put us directly in the path that we want to go. So in my opinion, it's, it's a great tool. It's the best tool that we have. And so that's how we should view it. It shouldn't be like, oh my gosh, I had no idea. I'm such a terrible person. It's like, oh my gosh, you just did this work and now we know what to do, you know, and that's what I try to bring to the space is just some factual information about it. It doesn't mean it's perfect for everybody. I have worked with people who have had true eating disorders and we don't count calories. We're not going to do it that way. I mean, it can send people down that route. And so this is also the. Where people have to have a little bit of self awareness or just know that that's probably not going to be the tool that I'm going to use based on my history. So I certainly don't think it should be for everybody. But I think there's a large segment of the population where again, we don't have to do this for our life. Just like you don't have to do a budget audit for your life. It's kind of like once you get the plan going, you stick with the plan. And it can be the same thing with nutrition. And I just like to try to bring that option to people.

I love it. So now what are some of the, what are some of the, I guess, common misconceptions that people come to you or some of the patterns that you see with people when they're coming to you. Like some of the things that they've been doing, like you'll see on the Internet, don't, you know, eat more than 1200 calories? I'm curious, know, are your people, like, when they do this diet audit, how often are they really only eating 1200 calories or think, you know, like, what are some of the big realizations and ahas that they have when they come to you?

Yeah, I just actually had a podcast that touched on this yesterday. But the first one is, I would say most people are like, wow. And I do this course where eight weeks we kind of go through this observation process, we add the foods to the diet and then we ultimately get to the point where we're recording everything that we're eating. And it's my favorite part of the course because nine times out of 10 people go, I had no idea. I had no idea the snacks added up that quickly. I had no idea that the one weekend night out was the problem. You know, and so that's the misconception is that people, people don't understand how quickly these processed foods add up in our diet. That you can be really good for lots of hours of the week and have one celebration night or have a few treats, few in quote here and there, and you have no idea how many calories you're consuming. And so that's one of the big thing that until we really look at those numbers, we don't really know what we're eating. We can say based on, oh, I eat healthy foods and oh, I only eat a few meals a day or, you know, oh, I eat low carb. We don't really know until we have the calories or macronutrients control. So that's the big first one is helping people through that process. And for the most part, the observation process is very eye opening for people and I love it. I would say, though, I do have people who tell me they're eating a very low amount of calories and they're not getting the results that they want. And unfortunately, the answer here is the log is wrong. The log is wrong. That doesn't mean that they're intentionally lying. In fact, everybody under reports, it's been documented quite well. Everybody under reports, it's how far we underreport is what varies. We're not very good at it. We don't grow up doing it. We don't have a culture built around it. We forget. And then we often, sometimes will have shame or embarrassment about what we eat. But so that's the Other difficult thing is with some of these individuals, I'm like, okay, we have two options here. The log is wrong and we have to find the error. Or potentially this is not common, but it's also not rare. You might be hypothyroid, but you know, we have other symptoms there too. So if this log is completely correct, the next option is for you to see your doctor. Okay. But so most of the time, most of the time it's under reporting.

And I'm also curious because I'll note, and I'm just curious, your opinion on this is that I will notice that, you know, sometimes I might be showing sign based on information, right? Sometimes I notice that, like, oh my gosh, I'm showing signs, maybe I need to go to my doctor, blah, blah, blah. But I'm curious, like when they, when people actually start to do, you know, these three big principles, will some of their red flags or markers take care of itself if there's not really an issue?

Yeah, oh, for sure. There's also, though, with markers, there's a lot of ideas out there about other markers to use and that potentially could be indicators of disease. A lot of times they haven't been verified in the long term that they actually are clinically relevant. And so that's what we have to be careful about too is, is, oh, there's this new gut marker. TMAO was a big one and it was just sort of like people were so worried that that was an indication that their gut was off. And now there doesn't seem to be much of anything of interest. And so we have to be worried about always latching onto these new markers. And that's why I like, go to your doctor, go get the conventional medicine standard that we've established over all of these years, or what are really linked as risks or what are really disease diagnose points to understand if we have a problem. So, yeah, I think that, I think that answers your question.

Yeah. And I, but I am also curious is that because you'll often hear a lot like in the functional medicine realm, and you'll hear a lot from, you know, you'll hear, you'll hear a lot of anecdote, anecdotal stories of people who said, I went to my doctor and they didn't find it and they couldn't see it. Now do you just think that that is, you know, case by case in terms of, you know, like, go get a second opinion, keep, keep digging. Right. Or do you think that there is something there that is worth paying attention to what would you. I know I'm asking you, like, a big question.

No, it's a good one because I don't think the conventional medicine system is perfect. I do think if I had to. If I had to just broadly label things, I do think the GI disorders are real and that the functional medicine approach can often have solutions where conventional medicine may not. But I still want the person to have a diagnosis that is diagnosed as ibs, that is diagnosed as celiac, that is diagnosed as Crohn's or ulcerative colitis, not just sort of going off of what they think it might be, ibs. Now, IBS tends to be a difficult diagnosis, but the point is, here again, we're just not guessing on our own. And so that is where I think there can be some really great inroads, specifically with functional medicine. I think the other great thing about functional medicine is they generally tend to spend more time with people and they generally address diet and guess what? Anxiety goes down. People feel heard, people feel cared for, and they also address nutrition. And so I think that's great. And I really, I'm, I'm most happy that people will get an outcome regardless through a functional medicine space or a conventional medicine space. What I do see, though, in the functional medicine space is, oh, it's like, oh, you don't feel good in the sense of this general feeling. And now we're just going to do some gut microbiome and somehow give you supplements that aren't really tested or proven, and somehow you're now going to, quote, feel better. And it's like, do we know what we're manipulating? How are we evaluating if you feel good or not? How are we really saying that this is anything besides reduced health anxiety? And so, yeah, it's like, I want people to continue to find a solution that if they don't feel like they're being heard, if they don't feel like they're being treated, if they don't feel like they've gotten their answer, yes, please keep looking for somebody. And sometimes that comes through the functional medicine space because of our holes in the conventional medicine system.

Yes, I also think too, and I'm curious on this, and we talked a lot about gut health, but you've also got pcos and you also have people managing their thyroid, their thyroid concerns that sometimes get missed. So, you know, was a little bit to my last question is that, you know, do you feel like once you take care of the big rocks, this stuff that you're seeing is going to go.

It's going to go. You probably won't and not in all cases. And I think we have to be careful about that. I think there's this like, well, if I just do everything natural now, all of my things will go away. No, my opinion is let's do it as much as we can natural and then see where our health is.

Yeah. So kind of like cleaning up the. So kind of like let's clean up the wound before we put the band aid on it.

Totally, totally. And I think that's how we need to view nutrition. Nutrition is very powerful. It can be very preventative and we certainly need various therapies from conventional medicine or whatever medicine at certain points. But let's see where we are when we do the basics first, when we sleep enough, when we exercise regularly, when we maintain a healthy weight, when we eat healthy foods. Let's see where we are there and then go for help on our, on the other conditions we have.

So great. This is a great segue because I'm curious, I'm curious about, you know, how many people you have because I also feel like this is a polarized topic where you have people that are like, stop working out so hard, you need to rest so much. And then you have the people that are like, are you really, are you really working hard enough? Right. So. So I'm curious, you know, the people that are at least coming to you are these over exercises exercisers are these people that need to, you know, get off the couch, be honest with them.

I have a mixed bag. I, because I came out of the CrossFit space, I have a lot of CrossFitters and CrossFit gyms as part of my community. And so I tend to have people who I think are a little bit more of that want to do more than do less. But I don't know. Sure. Are there people who overtrain? Sure. I think as a general population, to include myself, I don't think we're over training. I don't think we're under eating and I don't think we're over training as a general broad brush. Are there people doing both? Yes, of course. But generally on average that's not the problem. I would think some of these individuals, it might be, let's sleep a little bit more, let's eat a little bit higher quality food. You'll probably feel a lot better. But I don't think a lot of it's over training.

So you know how a lot of people like when they're tracking, right. They, they'll, you know, if you'll start to look at some of those conventional apps that are out there, like, my.

Gosh, I was going to say my space, but it's my fitness belt. My fitness belt, Right.

They kind of start to treat people, teach people that, oh, I can just out train my diet, right, because they'll give or I can out train my diet because they'll give you some caloric leeway when you work out hard.

Right.

So I'm curious, you know, do you get people that are like that, like, oh, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna eat this donut and then I'm gonna run on the treadmill for 30 minutes?

Yeah, no, I mean, I guess that that's, that's a for sure thought out there. I don't love that I try to dispel that transactional relationship about exercise. The truth is though, exercise does give us more leeway in our diets. And that's actually one of the things I speak to specifically about to women. And it's not that men aren't relevant here, it's just that on average, women tend to list lift less weight and build lean mass. And that's one of the best strategies we have to keep our metabolism up and to be able to allow to have some flexibility in the diet. When you have more muscle mass, you burn more calories. And guess what, you can squeeze in that half a donut or donut that day much easier. And this is why we find top end athletes, they don't eat all broccoli because they need more calories than that. And so it's kind of trying to walk again, that line of giving people the information and the utility of like, yeah, exercise can free up your diet. We shouldn't have a transactional relationship about it, but this is one of the ways that we can add some more flexibility than just, just keeping the diet really tight. So I don't know. I don't know. I have a good answer to that because it goes both ways, like a lot of things.

And exercise also does, which I feel like people miss this, especially when they're newish to exercise. It will make you hungrier. Yeah, you will get hungry.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. So there is some of that as well. And I don't have a good answer. But yeah, I'd love for people to just understand it again as a tool and not just from a weight loss perspective, but mental clarity and cognitive function and enjoyment. Like pick something that you like to do. It doesn't have to be something that you Hate. And. Yeah, so that's how I approach it.

How often do you usually see your people exercising or do you even recommend? And I know that you're more in the nutrition inside, but since you have that CrossFit background, I'm just curious, like, do you, you know, are you just wanting people to, you know, even just walk every single day?

That's great. You know, I think. I think what I try to recommend is three to five times a week, but, yeah, any movement per day is great. I mean, I have to keep myself on it, too. I mean, we can. We can probably die in front of our computer screens. Right. And nobody would notice because we're just doing all.

I'm not going to lie to you. I mean, after the. This, this pandemic, 2020 and 2021, like, things went really well that I just think that it's so easy for everyone, including professionals, fitness professionals, to put themselves last.

Yeah.

I know for me that I was doing that and all of a sudden I woke up and I was like, I feel like garbage. And I've worked out maybe three times since 2020. This is an issue. Yeah, you have to prioritize yourself. Yeah. So I've actually. Right in the. You're catching me right in, like. Like week five of getting it together. Because I think sometimes when we don't. Even though we know better, we don't always do better.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. So, I mean, like, I think three to five times is great. Strength training a couple times a week, cardio three times a week, something like that is great. But here's the deal is we always have to know that, like, look, if the best thing that it can do is the two times a week, that's great. And if it's like, it's only going to be. I'm not picking on spin class, I'm just using an example. If it's only going to be spin class, great. I'm not worrying about optimizing it until we have some sort of baseline. It's the same thing with diet. I'm not going to worry about telling you about every little variable until we have some really basic practices in place. It turns out the really basic practices get us really far, which is awesome. But again, we got to start where you are and scale from there and not get too worried about perfection.

One of the things, too, that you did talk about earlier in the podcast is accessibility. Right. Not everyone has access to a gym. Right. So I just think that. And it's not that that's bad. Right. It's just that we have to use the resources and tools that we have right in front of us. And to your point, it's not. We're closer than we think. We don't need to have all these extra fancy pelotons.

No. No. Air squats, push ups. Remarkably effective.

Yeah, it can be. Right. Like what's right in front of us. So now I have two questions.

Right.

I want to be mindful of your time, but I do want to talk about supplements and I. But before that, I do want to talk about children. Right.

I'm curious.

I'm sure given your info, you know, given your experience that you're dealing with a lot of parents and kids as a mom.

Yeah.

They tend to realize that the two things that they can control first is their food intake and their sleep. Right.

Yeah.

So I'm curious how you and, and right. You've got parents that are also passing on their experiences. Right. So how have you, have you had to deal with that? What are some of the things that you see and how can you help parents kind of break the cycle?

Totally. Yeah. I get a lot of questions from parents. I am not one. I do like to put out that caveat because I do appreciate that it might be easier said than done. I've certainly been around a lot of young kids and so when I say these things, I appreciate that I don't have children. And so. Yes. Just noted. I think the first thing for parents is with nutrition is I don't like to set targets. So even though I'll set targets for adults at the 800 gram challenge and protein, and even those are, those are additive and we're not counting calories, I still don't love the idea of doing that for children. And so parents will be like, well, can I do the 800 gram challenge with my child on a caloric basis? Sure. But I just don't love this idea that when they're young we have to have these certain numbers, they have plenty of years of that to come. So just having fruits and vegetables and a protein source at most of the main meals, if you can instill that habit by the time they go to college or go off for a job or whatever it is when they leave, that's huge. That is huge. That will serve them for their entire life and will be their foundation for their entire life. So that's where I love to guide parents towards is having foods around that kids like, even if it's fruit, even if it's, I don't know, turkey instead of Whatever salmon, you know, what's available for them and make it those options and help them like those foods. I think culturally, and this again comes from some discussions I've had with my friends who are parents. So it's not just me sitting on the sidelines critiquing here. Culturally, we use food a lot. We use food a lot. It's very cheap. It can be a distraction. It can be behavior, mechanism. And for people who as adults are struggling with food, think about how we use food with our children, right? Are we using it as a reward? Is it something that we always do when something is good? Is it always around even though we don't need it? It's just, again, I'm not for perfection. We can eat cookies, we can eat donuts. They're delicious. It's just that how do we use it? Because that is really what you're setting them up for long term.

That's so good. I mean, I'll just share because I have kids and they're little, right? They're little. And first of all, I do appreciate your, your, you know, the, the context. But I will say that, you know, sometimes not being a parent makes you, you know, you're an expert, right? You get to look at it from a different lens, right? So not being a parent can be a gift, right? So for me, we'll just, you know, one of the things I've been battling, and I'm just also curious is that, you know, sometimes I'm just having conversations around, like, what specifically is it that you're not liking? Like, is it a texture base? Is it a bitter taste? Is it that it's bland? Because sometimes parents will just boil right to death. You know, they'll just boil their vegetables and then expect their kids to eat mush. And I'm like, well, have you tasted it?

I mean, that tastes disgusting. You're not eating that. So.

You know, and then to your point, I love that you talk about the fact that we do use it in a, in a social context, right? We're, we're always using food. And some, you know, sometimes I feel like people will start to separate themselves from their friends when they're, you know, not, not doing, you know, when they're like, oh, I'm on a diet, right? And I put that in quotes. So for me, it's just we're really having conversations about what specifically is we're not liking and then making sure that we're not. I'm like, I'm not a short order cook. We're all Eating it together.

Yeah, that's a great one. I like that, the meals together. I was talking about this with one of my friends last week or so and like, snacks. She's just like, can we just be done? And here's the thing. I know kids need snacks. They have smaller stomach. I get this. I'm not against snacking as whatever, but if you just look at our culture, snacks are like constant. They're considered necessary. It's like we can go for a little bit without always eating. And I don't just mean this for children, but it's like walk into an electronic store and walk into a clothing store and you walk into a sports equipment store and there's walls of candy. And this is what kids are around and kids often see. It's like constantly. It's at the bank. You can't leave the bank without getting offered a treat for your child. It's just like, like, we don't need kids to be eating this much. Yes, they can have snacks. I want them to eat when hungry, for sure. But it is constant. It is constant in our culture.

Yeah, that's true. That's a good point. And the rewarding with food. And as a parent, I'm not gonna lie to you, that is hard. It's an easy. It's an easy thing and it's hard to do. Right. You know, we're pretty good. We try really hard.

Yeah.

Because you know, our kids are not done dogs. But the other thing too. Right. And this is true for adults. You know, this snacking thing is true for us.

Right.

It's also the behavior that we're doing around food. Like, my kids will not eat in front of the television. Like, we're not going to sit down and eat. You know, we're eating. Eating is an event.

Correct. I love it. That's awesome. These are some of the simple habits that I think people overlook. It's like, let's talk about insulin and, you know, whether or not our thyroid's off. And it's like, okay, I like to always bring it back to what did you have for breakfast? Or make sure you don't have the stuff that you binge on at your house. Doesn't mean it's a bad food. Doesn't mean we have to shame it forever. It means I'm not going to buy the chocolate covered pretzels because I can eat the whole jar. Right. Like, and then I love this too, when we. This was actually a rule that my parents had as well. We eat in the kitchen. You don't eat around the house, you eat in the kitchen. And we eat meals as meals as together. So I think those are great, simple practices that really do help.

I also think too. And you know, as I shared, I'll be honest on my podcast. Right. Is that I think people also need to get really honest with themselves about what's happening. Right. So for me, you know when you were talking about getting that trigger and buffering food, like out of your. Get the triggering food out of your house.

Yeah.

For me it was wine.

Yeah.

Right. And I think that a lot of people are not on it. I know I wasn't honest with themselves about is this a trigger food. I used to think that that wine was a bug for food, but that's just not the case. Right. I would find, like, why am I by myself putting kids to bed, having a glass of wine? Like, I don't need to be doing that.

I think that's. Yeah, I think that's a big one for sure. Yeah. I mean, I think we've all done that at different times.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it is, it is. That's hard to do to get honest with yourself, which is why coast coaching is so important.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I hope so. I mean, that's what I like to bring to people. I don't. I really don't like telling people what to do, which I know sounds very odd being a nutritionist, but I like to give people the information and then they decide, okay, this is the work that I want to put in for that outcome. Yeah.

So now I'm also curious a little bit about your thoughts on supplements. What supplements are good, how you navigate this conversation around supplements, because in addition to, you know, people being like, oh, my insulin, they're also like, let me take these 300 supplements.

Yeah, yeah, I don't recommend supplements. I don't. There's a couple I will put in the worth a shot bucket for performance. Those are creatine and caffeine because the evidence clearly indicates that it can have a performance effect more often than not. But no, for general health, I don't recommend supplements. I recommend eating good amount of fruits and veggies, adequate protein and not eating too much. And then are there supplements that can be effective specifically in diagnosed cases or when you've been tested at the doctor for a specific deficiency? Of course. But it's just the evidence on them is so low to non existent that no, I don't recommend them.

So including things like prenatal vitamins. Vitamins, vitamin D, magnesium, all those would you agreed.

I don't recommend none of them. I think prenatal is a separate category. For example, folic acid. Now, oftentimes, if the diet quality is high enough, we can be getting enough. That would be a case, though, because of pregnancy, that I want to err on the just in case side, where the just in case hasn't proved to pay out in terms of death, disease, mortality for regular people. So I do put pregnancy in a different bucket. Any specific condition I would put in a different bucket. But general health, I don't. That includes vitamin D. There's a lot of discussion about what truly is deficient of vitamin D. And I think the levels have been often set too high based on what the research says. Same thing. Even with multivitamins, we don't see that it changes cardiovascular disease risk or mortality. So it's like, well, those are. That's what's killing us. So I don't know that I'm going to recommend a supplement.

What about omegas, like omega threes?

I agree. I don't recommend fish oils. I recommend eating the right amount of food overall. This is the problem is we're eating too many Omega 6s. We are, but that's because we're eating too many calories overall. I think if we get our total diet quantity and quality in line, the need for omega 3s will also go away. In fact, I don't even think there's a need right now. I just think that it's, you know, oh, we're eating so many omega 6s. Yes. We're eating too many calories and processed food. Yes, yes, we knew that. So let's eliminate that. Let's not take a supplement.

That's amazing. But now, what about thing like, would you let. Not let. Of course you're going to let people do whatever. But would you recommend someone who's like, I'm on the go, I'm on the, you know, I'm traveling, I'm the airport. Like, can they take their green juice with them?

You can. I don't, I don't think, like, I get that green question a lot. The athletic greens or I don't know what the brands are. It's fine enough. I mean, it's not hurting you. One of the things that people want, if they don't want weight loss, they often want at least weight control. That is they don't want to gain weight. So why are we taking this powder that doesn't fill us up and then we're still going to have to reach for some other Food later because we're hungry. Let's eat the food that has the nutrients and fills us up. And so this is where with supplements, it's like it doesn't solve a major issue, which is weight loss or weight control. We still have to eat food at some point. And I hate to be such, like slamming down these products because it's like they're fine enough, but we don't need them. And I'm also the nutritionist who hates the cook. So I'm the queen of. I've traveled a ton and I don't do a lot of cooking. It's bananas and apples and salads and it's just that on repeat. It's very, I guess, boring. It's not as exciting as maybe, I don't know, fast food or whatever, but it can be very easy. It's not difficult.

It sounds so simple. So I just, you know, you know, when you, it's so, you know, when people talk about it, it's like the simplicity is just right there for you. It is, Is that easy. So, man, why do people struggle so hard?

Again, I think it kind of goes back to, I don't know that we have the right incentive structure.

Oh yeah, you did say that.

It's also just. We do have a good amount of affluence for the most part in our country. We do have lots of celebrations. We do culturally like to get together around food and I love people to get together and stuff and have parties and I think that's great. But we just have so much of it constantly. So, yeah, I don't think there's the immediate kind of payoff or the vision that this is affecting me. And then I think it's just with our society, both culturally and just, just with affluence, it's around us constantly.

But it is interesting because I was in Sedona in April and I had like really high level food. Like when you can like really get amazing food, you're not gonna want or crave the stuff that's not less than. That's great.

I think that's true. Even not. I'll probably hit the mic. It's not true being in, you know, I don't think you have to be in the Sedona in the sense that people will say that once they kind of remove some of those trigger foods and once they get on the fruits and veggies, that they do end up liking it more. And I think that's very true. It's kind of even true with coffee. Right? Once people go to black coffee. They often don't go back. They learn the taste of coffee. Right. And so I think it can be true with nutrition, too, in that even wherever, whatever it is, that people will start to like how they feel if they really give it a shot and stick to it. And so they. That's ultimately what helps them stick with it, is they've done it long enough to see the benefit.

So you did bring up. That's. That's an amazing point. And you did bring up black coffee. So I'm curious on your thoughts about dairy.

Yeah, right.

I feel like you think it's fine. Yeah.

Okay, here's the problem with dairy is, you know, we like these yes or no answers, and I get it. Like, not everybody has the time to go research dairy and mortality statistics. But the thing is, it's. Any food can be part of a healthy diet to include dairy. And so I always ask people, what dairy are we talking about? Are we talking about, like, plain Greek yogurt or are we talking about ice cream? Both, you know, are considered dairy. And so obviously, one is more of a problem in our diets than other. I think once we get to, like, oh, I had plain Greek yogurt, or, oh, I had cheese on my. I don't know, salad. Fine, great, have it. You know, if we're talking about dairy, as in these yogurts that are just full of sugar and toppings or some type of ice cream. Okay, not that dairy. Let's cut that back on that dairy.

Yeah, I guess I just mean, you see so many people, like, I'm putting oat milk. Oh, oat milk in my coffee, and they're, like, really, like, pulling dairy away. And I'll just share, you know, the reason why I always ask this is because when my babies were young, they had. They had. They couldn't have dairy, and they couldn't have, like, they had. They were allergic to the case. Not the lactose. They were allergic to the pro. One of the proteins in dairy.

Sure.

And so I remember as a mom trying to get that protein punch for them, because dairy's got 8 grams in one serving, and there is absolutely nothing. I have searched. There is absolutely nothing else out there that has that same type of protein punch that the kids would drink. I mean, I was literally, like, boiling chicken, mashing it with water and hoping that they're gonna drink it. Right. I would much rather give them a glass of milk, let me tell you. Right. And so I'm. And I was starting to look at, like, those macronutrients of the rice milk and the oat milk and the. And I'm like, this is nothing.

This is nothing. It's nothing.

There's no value in here except for the saturated fat which you're going to get in like any, literally anything else you eat. So, you know, why is there this huge push to eat oat milk or drink oat milk when you don't need it?

Well, you know, products have to sell. So there's some good marketing campaigns. But you know more about that than I. But you know, it is one of the top eight allergens. Dairy is a top allergen. And this is where we get a little bit lost is yeah, there can be things that some people have to avoid that other people can have. Right. So just because some people are allergic doesn't mean that everybody's allergic. Just because it is a common allergen doesn't mean it's bad for everybody. And so if you're not allergic to. I think it can be part of an overall healthy diet. And I certainly wouldn't want to tell people to have 12 cups of milk a day because guess what, they're not going to get all the vitamins and minerals they need. But it can very much be part of a healthy diet. And I don't think people have to exclude it by any means. I have it, I don't know, at.

Least once a day I put milk in my coffee.

Okay.

I mean, I don't, I just, I like it. Right. And I'll eat Greek yogurt.

Oh yeah.

Right. So it's like, you know, for me.

And it provides like here's the other thing which, because I went like, this is the thing is when I say all these things, a lot of times it's me talking to myself 10 years ago. It's not like I didn't do all of these same things. I eliminated everything. I didn't eat a banana for three years. I did not eat dairy for fear of inflammation, blah, blah, blah. But like, that's why I laugh. Me too.

That's why I laugh. I think there was a whole year I didn't eat bananas and potatoes.

Totally. Exactly. And so that's why I'm so strong in how I say it now. It's because I'm mad at my 10 year old self. Not mad, but just sort of like, ah, like why did I do all this silliness? You know? And I think one of the things that we forget about with dairy and this is true for me about protein powders and if you consider that like a supplement. I do in the sense of it is, but I don't think it is like vitamin D. I'm fine with people using it for the sake of sustainability. And this is how I feel a lot about dairy is like, okay, let's stop arguing about all of the nutrient value or not. It can just add a nice variety to the diet. Not every meal are we going to have is salmon and broccoli. Like, it's just, it doesn't work like that forever. And so I think just even from that perspective, it's like, yeah, it's a great other option that we have. Let's use it.

Yeah, for sure. And so I really want to be. This has been amazing conversation. I honestly could talk about it forever, so. But I do want to be mindful of your time. So for those of you who want to learn more about you and come hang out with you, what are some of the best places that I can send them?

Yeah. Yeah. Optimize me. Nutrition.com Same handle on social media, Instagram and Facebook. And then my podcast is the Consistency Project.

Oh, I love that. I love that. So, Isi, thank you so much for hanging out with me today and for pouring into me and to my community. It was just really an awesome conversation.

Yeah, I had fun. Thank you so much.

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