How The Nutrivore Approach Helps With Weight Loss With Dr. Sarah Ballantyne [Ep. 130]

0:00 Well think, well live well podcast. I'm Lisa Salsbury, and this is episode 129, how the neutral four approach helps with weight loss with Dr. Sarah Ballantine. Welcome to eat well. Well, the podcast for busy women who want to lose weight without constantly counting, tracking, or stressing over every bite. I'm Lisa Salsbury, a certified health weight loss and life coach, and most importantly, a recovered chronic dieter here. You'll learn to listen to your body and uncover the reasons you're reaching for food. When you're not truly hungry, freeing you to focus on a healthier, more fulfilling approach to eating.

0:40 Before we dive into our episode with Dr. Sarah, I wanted to remind you that for the month of January, I have a special promotion on my jumpstart, your weight loss program. If you're a woman who wants to feel confident inside and out, who's tired of feeling like you're on a dieting hamster wheel. And you battle that yo-yo of binging and restricting food. I want you to get started right this year with the jumpstart, your weight loss, check the link in the show notes for all the details. In a nutshell, this is a single 90 minute one-on-one coaching session that is going to be tailored to your exact needs. you'll leave with a plan that will get you going on your weight, loss and health goals and set you up for success. You'll hear a lot in today's episode about why we want to get you off that up and down dieting rollercoaster.

1:26 So this mini program from me is a perfect companion to what Dr. Sarah and I will be talking about today. Check out that link in the show notes for all the particulars. Okay. Let's get into my conversation with Dr. Sarah Ballantine. Welcome back to the eat well, think well, live well podcast. I am so excited to have Dr. Sarah here for another episode. Last week we focused on the nutrients in our diet, how to get more nutrients. The food families and diversity. If you miss that, be sure, sure to go and listen, but we are going to be talking this week a little bit more about how these nutrients really are affecting our diet and how we can kind of.

2:06 Use this approach to, as many of my listeners and clients want to do is to lose a little bit of weight, but without the restriction. I told you earlier that I, say constantly, and I think it's in my Instagram bio that I encourage people to check in with their bodies, not a diet app. We don't need to be checking in with a diet app to see how many calories we have left or to be told what to do. I really want people to, To start having some confidence with what their body is telling them. And, um, and I know you feel really similar to that. So welcome back. Thank you so much. So you talk a little bit about dieters in the book and you do have this. statistic, 35 percent of normal dieters will progress to pathological dieting and 20 to 25 percent of those will develop an eating disorder.

2:56 And I want to say, and I've talked about this in past episodes, there is a difference between having a full blown eating disorder and eating disorder. and disordered eating. I would definitely say I was in disordered eating when I was counting calories and especially when I started in with counting macros just because it gave me a lot of anxiety if I wasn't hitting those macros plus or minus five every single day like I was It wasn't a fun game for me. Some people were like, Oh, it's like playing Tetris. And I'm like, no, not a fun game, just anxiety through the roof. So I don't know that that was a full eating disorder. I don't know if that was full orthorexia. um, but I was definitely eating in a disordered way when I'm eating lunch meat from the refrigerator, like standing in front of it, just to try to meet my protein macro and like batting my kid's hands away.

3:42 Like, no, I've already weighed those grapes. Don't eat that. Like that's disordered. Yes. Yeah. diets, they're sold to us as healthy eating. How does this happen? How does it happen that we have this progression? So, um, diets are sold to us as healthy eating, but they actually set us up to fail. And our inevitable failure is required for the continued success of the 200 billion ish per year diet and weight loss industry. So when we are sold a diet, we are sold, uh, a path to weight loss, right?

4:24 I mean, this is most diets. I mean, there, there's certainly some that are more focused on, on health. Um, but in general, the, this industry is, is focused on us wanting to achieve, a societal ideal of beauty that, uh, we are confronted with everywhere all the time. there's a million ways every day that we are told that we have more value in a smaller body. And we're told that the way that we get there is, uh, through restriction, right? So we are reducing our calories or reducing our carb grams, reducing our fat grams, uh, cutting out whole food groups, right? There's lots of different structures. There's a couple of things that happen when we engage with a restrictive diet.

5:06 So there's physiological adaptations and there's psychological adaptations. Um, and these are the two things that happen that cause our inevitable failure. So the psychological adaptation, when you restrict food. Uh, that increases food obsession and food fixation. You're thinking about that food more. Um, that can drive food seeking behavior. It makes us more susceptible to emotional eating. So more likely to, eat more food when we have heightened, especially negative emotions, right? We're stressed. We're upset. it also increases the likelihood of disordered eating patterns and eventually developing an eating disorder magnifies, right? It magnifies cravings. Um, and what it does is it, increases something called disinhibition.

5:50 So disinhibition, is our level of control, right? Sort of thinking about a thought. So what happens is we were restricting, restricting cravings are increased. We're fixating on that food and then something will happen, right? So maybe it was that bad day and the emotional, uh, eating is, is starting to play out. Maybe it was, um, I've been doing this for so long and now I'm at this birthday party and oh my gosh, that cake is my favorite type of cake. And I really, I've been really missing that cake. And I noticed the thought to like, I deserve this. I've been so good. I deserve this is so, so, common, but yeah, keep Or, or, uh, the, the opposite, right?

6:31 There's a lot of rationalization that happens, right? So sometimes the opposite is, well, I already wrecked my diet with that other thing, right? Like there's, there's, I mean, there's a lot of, uh, really destructive self talk that, that goes behind. What is not really a decision, right? It's really a compulsion. It's really disinhibition, right? It's, I am no longer inhibited. I, right, I was inhibited while I was in control and now I'm disinhibited. Um, there's also personality traits that go into our level of disinhibition. If we're not getting enough sleep, that increases our disinhibition. If we're stressed, that increases our disinhibition. So we have that moment where we give in, right? we eat the thing that was against our rules, right? It's not according to our diet plan.

7:11 And what happens is when we have been restricting, when we hit that moment of disinhibition, it causes all of our health behaviors to unravel. So that is the yo yo, right? That is the, I didn't eat enough earlier in the day. And now that I'm allowing myself to eat food, I can't control what I'm eating. Right. Uh, that adds a diet pattern that's sometimes called sumo dieting. Um, that is my diet mode default. Uh, when I'm in my past, when I, did every restrictive diet that exists. Um, that is, you know, well, I ate the cake at the birthday party last night. So I might as well have the, you know, delicious breakfast that I've been missing right this That's so funny that you use that phrase.

7:51 That's exactly what I call it. Your might as well eats. Like, let's eliminate the might as well eats. Like, just have the cake and then have your regular breakfast the next morning. So, so that, that is the value of a non restrictive mindset. So let's, let's get there, but let's also talk about the physiological adaptations because that's, it's where those two meet that is so harmful. Um, so we have the psychological adaptation to the restrictive mindset. So when we think about diet in terms of, um, What I'm missing out on, right? What am I depriving myself of? That eventually sets us up to no longer have control over our food choices. We've got this whole other set of adaptations that are happening, and these are adaptations to the caloric deficit.

8:35 So the higher the caloric deficit, right, the more aggressive a diet that we're following, the, the bigger these adaptations are. So one is a drop. in our metabolism. So there's a small drop in basal metabolic rate. There's an even bigger drop in what's called non exercise activity thermogenesis. So this is the calories that we burn every day doing things that are not exercise. So it's things like fidgeting, but it's also things like I passed a mess on the floor and I went and got You know, a cloth and some cleaner to wipe it up, right? Um, it's the, oh, um, I think that I'm not sure if the mails come today. Let me walk down to the bottom of the driveway and check, right? It's like the small things like that and the manifestation of a lowering of non exercise activity.

9:22 Thermogenesis feels like lower motivation. to move. Feels like walking past the, the food drips down the, the, the cabinet, the kitchen cabinets that your kids left and going, Oh, I'll clean that later. Right. Or there's laundry to fold. Uh, I'll do it tomorrow. Right. It kind of manifests as this, like just lack of motivation to do small tasks that involve movement. We also have an increase in hunger. over time. So this is an increase in a hunger hormone called ghrelin, which is the hormone that makes us feel hungry.

10:02 So we have this rise in ghrelin over time and less of a suppression after we eat. So basically we are hungrier between meals and less satisfied after a meal. So I'm burning fewer calories. Because my basal metabolic rate is lower, that's, um, mediated through thyroid hormone. And I'm not moving my body as much outside of my workout at the gym. Uh, and I'm hungrier. Oh, and by the way, I'm craving food and I'm more susceptible to emotional eating. Um, and when I do give in and have that moment of disinhibition, I'm not gonna have control over what I'm eating. So now I'm hungrier. I don't have control over what I'm eating, and it takes fewer calories for me to have a calorie excess where I am storing stored energy because of that drop in metabolism.

10:49 That is what drives the yo yo, right? That is what, what drives the, I was on the diet, then I was white knuckling the diet, then I'm off the diet. And the problem is is that every time we go through one of those cycles, right? Uh, yo yo diet cycles, weight regain cycles, is that actually increases our health risks, right? Our health risks are increased with every single time we lose weight and then gain it back again for cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, compared to we have, if we had never dieted. In the first place, and the fact that we think it's our fault that we think that I wasn't strong enough.

11:29 I didn't have enough willpower. I wasn't disciplined enough, right that I'm weak, like we internalize that as I failed the diet. Meanwhile, no, the diet failed us. We were set up to fail from the very beginning. That was how that diet was meant to work. So because we think we failed. We do the next one. We buy the next diet plan, right? We just, we, we keep going. And we've been doing this now for decades. Right for generations, Mhmm. of us have been, uh, so every time we go through one of those diet cycles, our body composition will become less metabolically healthy because when you lose weight, especially when you lose weight quickly, um, especially when you lose weight outside of a high protein diet and strength training activity, you lose lean mass, right?

12:19 So you lose muscle mass every time you're losing weight when you're on the upward swing of the yo yo and you're gaining that weight back again. You've, you gain back the fat storage, right? So every time we go through a cycle, our body composition is, uh, becoming one that's more metabolically unhealthy. Um, we're increasing our health risks. And that is also why it's so easy to like lose 20 pounds, gain 30, right? It's that adaptation. The body is fighting these two high energy deficits. Um, this restrictive mindset. And so we're actually. making ourselves more unhealthy in the pursuit of what we are sold as health, right?

13:01 We're sold this picture of health of what, you know, models look like on the cover of a magazine. And that, if I can do anything with my work with Nutribor, That's, that's what I want to put an end to, like, dieting does not work, right? Um, restriction is, not something that helps us stay consistent, right? It's actually the opposite. And so that's why, like, if, again, if, if you, someone has a diet that they love and it works for them and they can stay consistent with it, Nutrivor is a knowledge base that can help them tweak their food choices to fill nutritional gaps. But I would say the default mode on Nutrivor is an anti diet.

13:43 Type structure right to do so without restriction so that we are achieving what I call sustainable nutrition right so that we are adopting those lifelong healthier eating patterns as healthy habits right so that we're developing just like this is just the way I eat. It's not something I do for a short period of time and then I go off again. I am. Intentionally incorporating what I call quality of life foods, what I might have in the olden days called a junk food, or a cheat food, or I might as well have food, right? Now I call those quality of life foods and I find ways to intentionally incorporate those so that I make sure I'm getting enough joy from my diet that I can stick to my overall healthy eating patterns.

14:27 And I think it's, it's a big difference in, like for me, like I've lost over 100 pounds three times, That is, that is the thing that I have learned through, uh, hopefully the third and final time, because knock on some, some wood there. But that is the, that is the thing that's different this time, is it's not through restriction, it's through permission. I find that, my clients get really weirded out when I instruct them to plan a, what you call a quality of life food every day. Yes, Because, They come to me and they're like, well, I, you know, I gave into this craving or there were these, these cookies. And they feel really bad about it. And I'm like, how many times this week did you plan something like that?

15:09 Like if you're, I, I have way more clients that are sweets is their kind of quality of life thing. I'm a, I'm a sweets person. I did have one. I will always remember her that it was nachos for her. She was all, all about the salty, right? So whatever it is for you. I was like, how, how many times a week are you planning a sweet treat? And inevitably it's like, well, zero, zero times. And I'm like, that's, that's incorrect. We've missed something here. And so every time I realized that I like, I have missed that with a client, I'm like, Oh, okay. That is the problem. We need to plan that. If you need that quality of life, food every day. I was like, just having this conversation with my sister yesterday.

15:50 Um, she was like, Oh, I made fudge. Our dad always made fudge every year. And so we all now make it he's passed, but, We were talking about like, oh gosh, now I have this 13 by 9 pan of fudge, you know, and she's like, but I just had like, you know, one small square and I'm like, yeah, that's how you do it. You have the entire thing and you give yourself permission, to have one because it's not going anywhere. Like there's no shortage. And I think that's when we give ourselves permission. it's total permission to have these foods. Your brain gets on board and you're like, Oh, you're not going to restrict this. Then we don't have to eat all of it. When you do. Let us have it. You Also noting that it's very normal to have a transition period where you do overdo it.

16:34 right? That the permission, like you, you, if you go from restriction to permission, you don't go straight into moderation. No, You go into, I haven't been eating this food and therefore I'm going to eat all of it for a little while. Um, and that's, you know, that's a normal part of this transition is, It is having, you know, having some time where I ate all of the fudge, whoops, but I'll make some more tomorrow. Like it, it is also kind of normal to have that transition period and I would definitely recommend during that transition period focusing on other things that are going to, um, regulate appetite and cravings. So like getting more sleep, getting some low strain activity like going out for a walk, making sure to eat three meals per day, um, and making sure that those meals are balanced, right?

17:23 So they've got Protein and fiber, carbs and fat, right? Um, ideally nutrient dense foods. But make, like, making sure to have breakfast. Making sure to eat enough for lunch, right? I think, um, one of the things that can really drive, uh, feeling like we don't have control when we are eating in the evening is being, like, over hungry by the time dinner comes around because we didn't fuel ourselves well enough earlier in the day. So focusing on those other things along with permission can help to, like, rain it in a little bit while we're adjusting to that different mindset. I definitely, when first, I first adopted permission, I consumed more calories than my body required.

18:06 Um, but that was part of the journey and that's okay, right? That's part of, it's part of especially, um, so you and I are about the same age. So, um, I had engaged in restrictive diets from the time I was like 12, I think, was when I first became obese. so, you know, when I started really trying to shift my mindset around this at 45, right, three years ago. Um, yeah, I had, I had been engaged in restrictive mindsets for like three and a half decades, right? So, like, it's a lot of programming. To undo and it's, it's also, um, highly recommend therapy, right? Uh, therapy is a, it's a great, it's a great thing to do in this transition, just because I think we don't necessarily realize how much emotional processing we avoid.

19:00 in favor of food as comfort. And, and not, not that, not, not that everyone, that's not everyone, but certainly that was the case for me. And I actually just did an episode on that on the three patterns of why we emotionally eat for comfort, for compensation for celebration. So yeah, it's definitely because food works. Food works on a neurotransmitter level to make us feel better. Um, okay, before we get off too much, I want to go back to when you were talking about the yo yo dieting and kind of messing up our metabolic rate, messing up our kind of body composition. You and I have both done this in the past up and down.

19:41 And for me with, um, four pregnancies and the pregnancy and the nursing. And I, I mean, I feel like I kind of created a wreck and I just, I feel more metabolically healthy at this point in my life. I've been strength training now for, I think, I can't remember. I think six or seven years straight. Um, which has made a big difference. I, I have, although I don't count protein macros anymore, like I did when I was macro counting, I have started to understand better the importance of a higher protein diet, not only to help with cravings, but just to maintain that muscle mass. And so I eat higher protein. not to count, but because I know that's what's good for me.

20:24 Um, so, you know, you can do these things that you did in past diets, but from a better perspective. mindset. So my question is with all of that going on, and for those listeners that have been in that yo yo space, how long does it take to regain metabolic health? Like how long until we can correct, right? Because if we've done that roller coaster and you're like, now it's worse. If I'm a listener out there still in the midst of that, if I'm me, you know, eight years ago, I'm still in the midst of my, my fad dieting, my, yo yo. I'm feeling defeated. Is it possible? And how long will that take? Yeah, I don't know the answer to that question. Um, my, my guess based on what I, do know is that it's individual, right?

21:10 So it's, it's it, right? Are we pre diabetic, Right. Right. What, like, there's going to be, and, and how well how bad did it get? Yeah. So like, where, what am I starting from? What other factors do I have going into this? Right. So like, do I have a genetic predisposition to diabetes? Right. It's like, so, uh, what other things do I have going on that are part of this equation? And, you know, the thing with metabolic health is diets only one piece, right? So, um, Our activity is a huge piece, right? So not just, um, not just my body composition, how much muscle I have, but how much am I moving my body on a day to day basis?

21:52 Um, how much sleep I'm getting as a huge piece and how much stress time under is a huge piece. So like also how well am I. You know, figuring out the more, like, holistic, uh, approach to metabolic health, I think, would also change the time frame. So what I can kind of share from my perspective, um, so a big part of my journey, so when I, abruptly went into menopause at the beginning of the pandemic when also my gym closed and, uh, everything shut down and I just went from not being menopausal. I had a perimenopause that lasted zero, zero days. Um, and I, yeah, it was not, it was not fun.

22:32 I was also 15 years younger than my mom, which is, uh, just a cruel, cruel joke, uh, that I don't think is funny universe, just saying that. Um, But, uh, but I, um, I started to gain weight in a, in a way that was not, proportional to what I was doing, right? Um, and it felt like I had, I had maintained my weight loss at that point for, gosh, uh, Nine, eight or nine years, and then it just felt like all of my tools didn't work. Um, you know, I can look back at what I was eating, and, and I know that I was eating more. I know that I was doing more food seeking behavior, so I was doing more, like, Hmm, what's in the pantry right now?

23:15 Let me just grab a handful of this, right? Like, I, I, I can see that, but it didn't, It didn't, at the time, it didn't feel like a big difference. you know, I wasn't, doing CrossFit anymore because my gym had closed, but I was still walking a lot. I had a home gym. I was still trying to work out. It didn't feel like a really big difference. Um, and then I hit a, a moment where I just really had to embrace healthy habits for the healthy habits. And really, I just had to stop weighing myself and I just had to like, you know, Let, let, let myself focus on eating more vegetables, eating more seafood, eating more legumes, um, you know, uh, hiking in the morning with my dog.

24:00 When I got back to the gym, right. Doing my power lifting. And I really had to like not focus on, my weight. And, uh, it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I was like, okay, I'm at a point where. I've embraced a lot of body positivity concepts, but my knees hurt all the time. and I had actually like fallen, I tripped and fell. I mean, just like on my own feet. I didn't trip over anything. Uh, it was in front of a room full of strangers, which was not my favorite experience. Um, uh, I really bit it in front of a room full of strangers, but I landed really hard on my knees. Not hard enough to break anything, but like, They were already complaining all the time.

24:45 I was getting more fibromyalgia symptoms. And then, there's like, it was such deep internal bruising, and it just took months. Months for my knees to do better and then I pulled a muscle in my back back squatting Right just it just kind of felt like out of out of nowhere and I just I hit this moment where I was like, I really need to be okay with how my body looks now and figure This out. It just so happened that this was all around the same time that I was building Nutrivor and really looking at The you know serving guidelines for other foods and that was my path, right? So that was my starting estrogen I think is a big factor here as replacement therapy in menopause.

25:31 I am a big fan huge huge fan Same, same, So all the fan but yeah, it it it was Then it had to become something that I was more intentional about, but also, you know, as you said, intentional to include my quality of life foods. So, I managed to lose 100 pounds, again, hopefully for the third and final time, eating dessert almost every day. Right? Like, that, that became a really important piece of it, and therapy, um, and addressing, some disordered, some disordered eating patterns, uh, that were definitely, causing me to overeat.

26:12 So, you know, For me, it was not a straight line journey, right? It was first having to really embrace, functionality, over, appearances, and then realizing that the functionality was being lost as well, and then having to really focus on that, and then finding ways to add more. Are vegetables, right? So I have, I'm a person with like a big, big appetite. Uh, my default is a lot more calories than my body needs if I'm just eating intuitively. so I need to, I need to do strategies like high volume eating.

26:52 So eating a lot of vegetables and salads and fruit, right? Like just like those, those foods that, that fill you up because they've got so much water and fiber and lots of vitamins and minerals and phytonutrients. So like really nutrient dense foods. And I really had to work on giving up snacking. That was a really, uh, a really tough one for me, but that's where all of the, the excess calories were coming. And I don't need snacks for other reasons, right? Like some people do, right? If you've got reactive hypoglycemia or gastritis, right? There's lots of health conditions where, where snacking is, is an important, approach for just getting in the, the food. it wasn't for me. So from a, you know, metabolic health perspective and a timeframe perspective, I would say it took a year.

27:39 It took a year, like not, it wasn't all of the, the weight that I lost, right. I lost, I lost weight over maybe a year and a half. Um, but it took about a year to get from feeling very, unregulated to feeling fully regulated, right? And to see my metabolic health markers this time were never really out of whack because I was, I started really active. I started eating a healthy diet. It just needed those little tweaks. but it was, yeah, I would say about a year in before I hit that like, okay, this is, the needs feel good. The sleep is good, the stress is really low, the blood work looks great.

28:24 and yeah, so it's, I it's gradual improvement through the whole time, right? It's not like a line where you go here, I cross the line and now I'm good, right? healthy. right? It's just that it is possible though. Like we've done this damage over the yo yo dieting, but I just want people to realize like all is not lost. Well, absolutely. I mean, I just got my first pull up. four months ago. I've never been able to do a pull up ever before in my life. And, you know, I've been able to build enough muscle as a menopausal woman. thank you estrogen. I, like, really, thank you estrogen. This has been a goal of mine every year since I started powerlifting in 2013 Oh, Um, and I, I, I know I finally got a pull up, and so, yes, you can, you can, what I'm trying to say is you can adopt a permissive approach.

29:23 You can stop dieting and you can still reach both your short-term health goals and support your long-term health. You can do all of that, and in fact. finding that, that happy medium where you're focusing on the foods to add, where you're focusing on the nutrients, you're focusing on meals prepared in ways that are tasty so you feel satisfied from your meals, so that you can eat those treats in moderation. Finding that is how you find the sustainability, right? And that's how you can achieve those short term health goals now. And really. Like feel. Like, it's not, a thing that you have to stop, right? It's not a thing, you know, I, I lost those 15 pounds to go to my sister's wedding and now I can do whatever, right?

30:10 Like, it becomes just the way that we eat and that's where the weight loss maintenance comes from. totally. I'm always like, you have to lose weight in a way that feels like you could eat forever. That's, that's the difference between our approach here. And when you're saying like, we're not dieting, diets are short term. Diets are things that we do for a certain amount of time. And I think that's one of the most damaging things about, about diets is having a, I mean, how many times did I do a six week slim down an eight week bootcamp? Uh, a 12 week, you know, Like it just sends the message that you just can, you just have to do this for this short amount of time. And then you can go back to quote unquote, normal. And that's not the way that's not the way we get off the yo yo.

30:52 It's not the way we maintain long term health. We want to add in things and what I call crowd out. So we're like, what do I want to crowd out of my diet? And so we're like, I'm going to choose more of these things. Of beans or, you know, whatever the, the nutrient dense foods that you want to eat, when you put that in, you're naturally crowding out something else. And so really paying attention to things that we want to, to crowd out and to just kind of say, I'm just going to eat that thing less often. Another way that we can really get out of like the diet mentality. is to stop the moral judgments of food. And I love how you say like quality of life foods, but anytime that we label a food good or bad, we inevitably label ourselves that same thing for eating it.

31:41 And how many times growing up, did you hear your mom or your sister or your aunt say, Oh, I've been so good today. I had a salad for lunch. So I'm going to have this cookie or gosh, I've been so bad. I had to grab fast food. So I don't think I should eat dinner. Like, we are good or bad for what we ate, and that is unequivocally false. That's false. And, I, I know that you, yeah, no, I was gonna say I 100 percent agree. It also propels healthism, right? So we, we take on those moral judgments of ourselves, but we also make assumptions about other people, based on what we assume bad foods they must be eating to look a certain way.

32:25 Right. knowing absolutely nothing about their situation. And, we assume if people look a certain way, they're eating the good foods and they, they look a certain way. They're eating the bad foods. And we, we make this moralization of, well, they're Eating bad foods so they deserve what's happening to them, right? Like that, that healthist, uh, really destructive, uh, sort of, assumption about other people is driven by the same moralization of foods. Yeah, and we can think that about ourselves, too. Well, I deserve to be in this unhealthy body because I've been eating junk food. And That's just not, not true. That's not it. that's not it at all.

33:06 I, I think, too, it's kind of dangerous to even get into the food is medicine kind of approach because, again, it feels like, you know, I mentioned my dad earlier. My dad. was diagnosed with prostate cancer at 55 and he lived an extremely healthy lifestyle. We grew up on land. He had a huge garden. He had an orchard. I mean, just the amount of variety just on his land. I mean, there, he grew at least 25 different things just on his home garden. Plus grew his own beef. Like we ate grass fed beef before grass fed beef was a thing, you know, and he worked an active job. He, Rarely was in his office. Usually he was out and about all the things outside Northern California.

33:50 I've got plenty of sun and. I'm like, if food is medicine, then it didn't work for him. And I can't think that way because then it does get into this moral judgment where you're like, well, what did you do wrong? Nothing. He did nothing wrong. He was just living his life in a human body and human bodies sometimes do that. Sometimes it's part of being a human takes one cell. Just takes one cell. to decide it's going to divide uncontrollably. so, I think it's really helpful. You know, one of the things that I Um, I know we already talked about last week is, that food is not a guarantee of great health forever. It helps to put statistics to that. So diet plus lifestyle plus health related behaviors account for 40 to 50 percent of health outcomes.

34:37 So food plus lifestyle. Sleep and stress management and activity plus whether or not I smoke or drink, right? All of that is 40 to 50 percent of health outcomes. 10 to 20 percent comes from access and quality of medical care. 30 percent comes from genetics and epigenetics and 20 percent is social determinants of health. And there's ways that social determinants of health affect things like access to You know, whole foods, right? So that can still also feed into the other 40 to 50 percent statistics. And so, you know, it's, I don't say that to make it everyone throw up their hands and go, well, why bother? 40 to 50 percent is huge.

35:18 That's, that's a, that's a huge difference. But I think that one of the most. You know, how, like, how do you respect the power of food and how, how much it can change our health fates while not giving it all the power? Right? And, and not engaging with that, that I think you're right, right? The, the problem with food as medicine, as a philosophy is it makes us feel like when something does go wrong with our health, that it's our fault, right? That we didn't do something correctly. The other thing that happens is people then don't want to use medicine as medicine because they want to heal themselves with food. But you know what?

35:59 Medicine's pretty great. There's some awesome, awesome things that medicine can do, right? That's that 10 to 20 percent of health outcomes, medical care, right? We want to use all of the tools at our disposal to achieve our best health. And that, that means both setting realistic expectations, um, taking, you know, feeling empowered by what we can change and also, accepting the, the limits of, of what's controllable in a very chaotic universe. So, Nutrivore is something that we add to our diet patterns. It's something that we want to kind of focus on. what new species can we add to our diet?

36:39 how can we fill nutrient gaps? Um, yeah. But if you're someone who needs, like, more of, like, a stricter formula, you're coming off of that, diet rollercoaster. I, I have a lot of clients that are like, I just don't know what I'm allowed to eat anymore. it feels confusing. And a lot of times I'm like, hey, like, what diet did you feel amazing on? And they'll give me the name, you know? And like, for me, it was like South Beach diet. Why? Because I was eating tons of fruits and vegetables. That's why. what made you feel great on counting macros? I was eating higher protein, like grab those things that you liked, and then you can kind of layer the Nutrivor on, on top but people are still like, I just need a formula.

37:23 because I did really well when Whatever, fill in the blank name of diet told me, these are the foods you can eat. And these are the meals I want you to prepare. And I don't do that. And you don't do that. We don't provide meal plans. We don't provide for breakfast, eat this for lunch, or there's like, here's some general ideas. Like, what do you do with people that are like, I need more direction. I need more formulaic things. I'm, I'm happy to provide a formula. so I, you know, I think for a lot of people focusing on just the eating patterns, right? Like, half of my plate covered in fruits and vegetables, right? Making sure that every meal has protein, fiber, carbs, and fat, right? getting used to eating three meals per day, working on dietary diversity, working on eating more whole foods, intentionally incorporating quality of life foods as a tool for consistency.

38:10 I think for lots of people, it's actually. Really important to start there, but for the people who need a formula. I have a meal based formula that I call the Nutri4 Meal Map. It is absolutely a rip off of my plate, but it does have some important differences. Um, so how I define starchy foods and protein foods I think is, is the big difference. Um, there's some differences in relative proportions as well. that is available in my book or as a free download when you sign up for my weekly newsletter. and then the other one is something called the Nutri4 Weekly Serving Matrix, which is very specific. Targets serving targets per day or per week. It incorporates the meal map into it. So it assumes three meals a day, according to the meal map, and then it gives you targets for very specific food families that are really nutritionally important.

38:55 When you follow the Nutra for Weekly Serving matrix that will typically get you, your full meeting your nutritional needs. So all of your vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, those really important heart healthy fats at it. Depending on exactly what your energy requirements are, like 50 to 75 percent of your caloric intake, so it builds in as much possible room for those quality of life foods as possible. Um, and that is the goal. And so that is very formulaic, but without measuring right without logging things in an app. without having to weigh or, or, or measure anything. So it uses all eyeball measurements. So we call a serving of vegetables about the size of a fist. We call a serving of a, of a meat or fish about the palm of her hand.

39:39 Right? So it's all using those sort of like visual approximations for servings because that's sufficient, right? That is absolutely sufficient for most people. And certainly. A great place to start learning how to eat intuitively, right? Kind of just be able to look at how much vegetables on your plate and know if that's two servings or three servings, right? so that is also available in my book or as a digital product on, on my website. so, you know, I've, I've got those formulas for the people who really, who really need a formula. Uh, and I've got the like. flexible guidelines that are very highly adaptable to the person, to really just focus on the overall eating patterns to kind of like break free from diet culture.

40:23 I mean, I would say my book is the best resource for that because all of that is in there. And it's just so inspirational too. I mean, I just love to listen to things that are like, Hey, if you do this, like you reduce your all cause mortality. Like I just love to do things like that because that's, that's what I'm all about is, is that longevity. piece as well, and, and the main reason why I do what I do and the way I eat, so. Oh my goodness, Dr. Sarah, this has been so, so fun to talk to you. So good. is there, anything else you wanted, just remind people of where to find you or information that you offer online? Yes, my home base is Nutrivore.com, um, so if you really want, like, nitty gritty, you want to learn about all the different ways that nutrients interact with our health and disease risk, you want to learn about all the nutrients that different foods contain, you want to learn about the eating patterns that will help you get the full range of nutrients that you need, that is where, like, the more academic, like, super detailed articles live.

41:20 My book, Nutrivore, The Radical New Science for Getting the Nutrients You Need from the you eat is definitely the more. Like approachable for the average person resource, a little bit less deep dive academic y, and has also like all of the like psychology, there's a appendix in the back with 17 tips for healthy and sustainable weight loss, which I feel like we probably covered half of, uh, on this podcast episode. and I mean, I would say my book is, um, If I had to say like, what is like the main goal? It's like making nutrition personal, right? It's like understanding how specific nutrients relate to your specific health concerns, right? That is sort of the goal of the book by way of motivating nutrient dense eating outside of, of diet mentality.

42:06 Um, and then I'm at Dr. Sarah Ballantyne on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook. Instagram threads, um, technically Pinterest, although I haven't been active there lately, and I just, uh, created a blue sky account. So, at least for right now, I'm playing around and seeing if I'm there too. Um, so, yeah, and that's, social media is where I share much more. Pardon the pun. Bite sized information about nutrition. And also my newsletter, my weekly newsletter is much more bite sized. So it's much more like small little like fun facts and tidbits. because I am a fun fact driven person. That is what my brain loves is like those little nuggets of knowledge that if only trivial pursuit.

42:50 had, uh, categories for nutrition. I would be so good at that game. sadly, I don't remember Yogi Bear quotes. so unfortunately my husband always wins, but that's okay. That's okay. I beat him at Scrabble, so it's fine. Alright, well, thanks again. It's been such a pleasure to meet you. And we will put all of those links in the show notes. Thanks! Thank you again. I'm so glad you tuned in for part two with Dr. Sarah Ballantine. If today's insights resonated with you and you're ready to make lasting changes in your health journey. I love to help first. Don't forget to check out that jumpstart program. I mentioned at the beginning of this episode to get you going this year. You can also book a free consultation session to see if my 12 week. One-on-one coaching program is a better fit.

43:31 You can schedule that at the link in the show notes. Remember, it's not just about the food. It's about empowering yourself with choices that truly serve you have a great week and as always, thanks for listening and sharing the eat well think. Well live well podcast.