Nutrition

A few weeks ago, on a Friday night, I started watching The Queen’s Gambit. A great Netflix show about a world chess champion. But shortly into the first episode, I noticed some pain in my left abdomen. It crept up quickly and after about 15 minutes, it was so painful that I could barely walk. I made my way down my apartment building’s stairs and out to my car. I had just enough energy and mobility to drive myself to the emergency room. Unfortunately, when I got there, there were many other patients with even more dire conditions than mine waiting to be seen which makes sense because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But after checking in and being curled up in pain inside the waiting room, I was finally seen by a doctor after about 2-3 hours just as the pain subsided. Despite the pain now being gone, my emergency room doctor still sent me for x-rays, blood tests, and… Read More

The earliest regular breakfast I can remember eating is Reese’s Puffs. Those things were delicious, but I could eat them forever and not get full. And because of that, I was always left hungry and craving more sugar-filled food. As I got more into health and wellness, I started changing up my breakfast. Slowly evolving from a sugar-filled, nutrient-void cereal to a wholesome plant-based meal. Shortly after Reese’s Puffs, I switched to two English muffins with peanut butter for years. But still, my hunger would reappear shortly after breakfast and while the meal was more nutrient dense than Reese’s Puffs, it was still lacking in nutrient variety and whole foods. After that I tried avocado toast and a smoothie each morning. This was better yet but there wasn’t an effortless way to meal prep and travel with it. It’d take about 25 minutes to make each… Read More

Since nearly eliminating my consumption of added sugar 18 months ago, there’s been one significant effect I never expected. I’ve become one of my dental hygienist’s favorite clients. The past three times I’ve been to the dentist for a cleaning, my hygienist has said to me “your teeth already look beautiful” and “there’s barely any cleaning I need to do” and “looks like you’ve done a great job brushing and flossing.” But I’ve always brushed and flossed consistently for as long as I can remember, and I never received these compliments before. Even with my consistent dental hygiene and lack of any tooth decay problems, I’ve never had compliments like these. But since my reduction of added sugar, they’ve been plentiful. Now, it’s common knowledge that added sugar consumption can help lead to dental issues but until I actually took the step of cutting… Read More

Ever since the pandemic started back in March, I’ve doubled down on my fitness and nutrition efforts. And since then, I’ve lost around 10lbs of weight, primarily fat, bringing my total down to 160lbs. I can’t remember being 160lbs since high school or college. I’ve always been lean but losing this extra 10lbs surprised me. I didn’t expect it to happen since I had no intentions of dropping weight. But it happened and one of the main things I’m contributing it to is the complete removal of added oils from my diet. But aren’t oils like olive oil and coconut oil healthy for you? Isn’t fat or oil needed for a healthy diet? And how do you eat food like sauteed vegetables or salad dressings without oil? I took a deep dive into the current state of added oil consumption in the United States and researched all the facts and myths surrounding it. Here’s what I found… Read More

From the age of 17 to 25, I would get daily headaches. Usually they’d occur later in the day and would linger until waking up the next morning. They felt like a pressure headache with a slight throbbing pain that would become painful with movement such as exercise. Because of this, I got into the habit of exercising earlier in the day before the headaches would appear. But these headaches didn’t seem normal to me and most people I knew didn’t have daily headaches. So, I visited my doctor multiple times to troubleshoot this problem, but nothing really came from it. It seemed like daily headaches would be my new normal until I stumbled upon an obvious solution I should’ve recognized much sooner. Hydration. What I found was that I was almost always dehydrated. I didn’t consume a ton of water and I exercised a fair amount which was the perfect recipe for… Read More

A few weekends ago, I spent the day observing and following the nutritional habits of the healthiest type 1 diabetic I know. I made and ate every meal he did at the exact time he had scheduled. And what I saw and learned defied many popular beliefs about the nutritional needs of a diabetic. Like that diabetics should avoid carbohydrates because they raise blood sugar levels, right? Well, 62% of his calories consumed turned out to be carbs. He didn’t seem to be avoiding them but searching for them. And diabetics should avoid fruit because the high sugar concentration causes spikes in blood sugar levels, right? Well, he had fruit at every meal, nearly ten servings of fruit for the day, and one breakfast dish containing four servings of fruit alone. He wasn’t avoiding these either. In fact, these high-carb, high-fruit, and plant-based… Read More

In my pursuit of optimal nutrition over the past ten to fifteen years, I’ve experimented with a few different supplements but have never really bought into the hype. I have seen many of my friends tout protein, multivitamins, and fish oil. And I’ve seen advertisements and media covering mega dosing vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. For the most part, I ignored my friends’ supplement routines and the media advertisements. Until now, when I decided to take a deep dive into supplements and explore if any supplements were worth taking. Here’s what I found. According to a study in 2019, Theoretical Food and Nutrient Composition of Whole-Food Plant-Based and Vegan Diets Compared to Current Dietary Recommendations, almost all vitamins and minerals can be consumed by eating a variety of plant-based whole foods like vegetables, fruits… Read More

This month, I’ve been reading a book called Eat For Life by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. This book covers his nutrient-rich program for longevity, disease reversal and sustained weight loss that revolves around a whole foods plant-based diet. While reading this book, I came across a fascinating chart that Dr. Fuhrman had developed. This chart listed over 150 different foods and assigned them a Nutrient IQ score. What is a Nutrient IQ score? Apparently, it’s a score that resembles the amount of nutrients within a food based upon serving size. For example, a nutrient-dense food like a 1/4 cup of Red Pepper receives a score of 60 while a nutrient-lacking food like 2oz of Cheese receives a 2. This scoring system piqued my interest as it’s meant to help track the quality of one’s diet. And since I’m continually looking to improve my nutrition, I took this opportunity… Read More

There was a time when my diet consisted of only processed foods. All of which had added salt, oil and sugar to a degree that was both addictive and dangerous in the long term. When I learned about whole foods and the benefit they provided, it caused me to reexamine my diet. In 10th grade, that meant reviewing what was in my lunch box. What my lunch box boiled down to was a peanut butter sandwich, barbecue chips, gushers, sugar frosted cookies and a Kool-Aid pouch. This lunch was the exact opposite of a whole foods lunch. It was heavily processed, salted, oiled and sugared. And, I was eating that everyday. You can see how eventually, that would have caused a problem if didn’t change my diet… obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, cancer, dementia, stroke… ok it would have caused more than a few problems… Read More

10 years ago, back in high school health class, I remember learning about meal timing. We were taught that spreading your food out over the course of the day through meals and snacks was optimal for your body. I started following this advice and haven’t really revisited it since. That means I had my breakfast at 6:30am and ate approximately every 3 hours after that until my nightly smoothie bowl that could be at 10:30pm. What this meant was that my body was in a state of eating, digesting and absorbing nutrients for at least 16 hours everyday (6:30am – 10:30pm). That also meant my body was only in a fasting state, where most healing and self-repair happen, for 8 hours straight (while I slept). But, research is showing that increasing the duration of the fasting state provides a litany of benefits. This research is reshaping the way I and tons of other health focused individuals are eating everyday… Read More