2921: [Part 2] 11 Easy Steps to Max Nutrition by Summer Banks with Diet Spotlight on How to Boost Metabolism

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Health Daily, 11 Steps to Max Nutrition, 12 Things You Need to Know, Part 2 by Summer Banks with dietspotlight.com. And I'm Dr. Neal, your very own personal narrator. Welcome back to Optimal Health Daily, where I simply read to you from the best health and fitness blogs for free, always with permission from the sites and always with a bit of my commentary at the end.

[00:00:23] Now today's post is part 2 from yesterday. So if you're new here or have been skipping around, I'd recommend listening to yesterday's episode first. But if you're all caught up, let's jump right in and hear part 2 and continue optimizing your life. 11 Easy Steps to Max Nutrition, Part 2 by Summer Banks with dietspotlight.com.

[00:00:51] 6 Extend Healthy Meal Changes to Lunches and Snacks With your breakfast and dinner now loaded with nutrition, let's transform your snacks and lunches as well. These are usually the most difficult meals to change, as they are eaten in the middle of the day while you're usually away from home. One of the easiest and best ways to make sure you have something healthy for your lunch or snack is to make a large dinner the night before. So a good way to ensure you make healthy choices may be to create a list of your favorite healthier places.

[00:01:20] And this is according to the Annual Review of Public Health Journal. Snacks are usually quick and light. They are easier to work with. You can simply stick to single ingredient foods such as nuts, fruits, vegetables, or a hard-boiled egg. With your reduced sugar intake and healthy carbs added, your body may stabilize energy and reduce hunger. Takeaway Your daily snacks and lunches should offer adequate nutrition.

[00:01:47] Try meal planning or noting the healthiest quote-unquote fast food places so you can always be prepared. Quote The top three benefits of meal prepping include saving money, saving time, and helping promote a sustainably balanced diet. Versus dining out, you'll definitely save money. But meal prepping can help you save money beyond what you normally spend on home-cooked meals too, since it can help reduce food waste and minimize the likelihood of buying ingredients that never get used.

[00:02:16] Willow Jarosz, MSRD, and Stephanie Clark, MSRD, owners of CNJ Nutrition. Seven. Max nutrition by igniting metabolism with exercise. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association and Cambridge Core, exercise is important, but alone probably won't help you lose a substantial amount of weight. Although you may not always be losing weight with exercise, you are most likely improving your body composition and body fat percentage.

[00:02:45] Plus, it helps burn fat and gain muscle. And so your weight might remain stagnant, but your body loses inches. Aside from body changes and mood improvement, exercise offers the human body many more benefits. Although there are too many benefits to expand on, know that exercise significantly helps your body protect itself from basically any chronic Western illness. As mental health is often overlooked, it is important to note that exercise also improves your mood and overall mental health.

[00:03:15] As far as types of exercises, it doesn't matter which one you choose to do, just get your body moving. For example, walking is a very simple form of exercise that brings extraordinary health benefits. This is according to Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise and the Journal of Circulation. According to the New Field Department of Population Health, small steps to get yourself exercising about three times a week is recommended. Takeaway

[00:03:42] Optimize your health with exercise as it benefits both physical and mental health. Exercise may also help prevent disease. 8. Eliminate unhealthy fats. Think good fats. Another easy way to improve your overall health for years to come is to simply ditch the unhealthy oils or fats and replace them with healthier ones. According to Health.gov, many people are unknowingly consuming lots of unhealthy fats.

[00:04:08] Some may think trans fats are no longer a problem as the consumption rate has decreased over the years. However, it is still prevalent. To make better, healthier choices, be sure to check all of your food labels. According to the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, To help you make sure you don't accidentally consume trans fats, avoid labels with the words partially hydrogenated. Some other problematic fats are certain types of vegetable oils.

[00:04:35] This is because they may contain more omega-6 fatty acids as opposed to omega-3s, and there is a correlation between that and chronic disease. Some of these oils include cottonseed, corn, and soybean oil. An alternative to these would be your unprocessed olive oils, for example. Takeaway. Remove trans fats and consider decreasing your intake of some of these vegetable oils and replace them with healthy fats.

[00:05:02] Once you replace these fats in your diet, your body will thank you. 9. Match carbs to your activity levels Carbohydrates still remain controversial. Some believe that all carbs are problematic, while others think that our diet should primarily consist of carbohydrates. Optimal consumption depends on many things, from lifestyle and activity levels to genetic makeup and metabolic health. For example, someone who doesn't get much exercise and weighs more than average

[00:05:30] would probably get max health results from a lower carbohydrate diet, and this is according to a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine. But someone who frequently visits the gym throughout the week and is slender and healthy may benefit most from consuming lots of carbohydrate. SFGate and Health.gov list a rather practical guideline to follow for weight loss when it comes to carbohydrates. For lean, active, healthy individuals, consume anywhere from 100 to 150 grams of carbohydrate or more per day.

[00:06:00] For overweight or physically inactive individuals, aim for 50 to 100 grams. And for significantly overweight individuals, 20 to 50 grams of carbohydrate per day may be recommended. So if your goal is to lose weight, you can plan on adding healthier sources of carbohydrates slowly and strategically upon reaching your weight loss goal. Takeaway. Evaluate your body's carbohydrate needs. For some individuals, consuming lots of carbohydrates each day offer various benefits,

[00:06:29] while others may benefit most from lower carbohydrate diets. 10. Max nutrition. Reduce stress. Sleep better. As sleep and stress often go together, both play a large role in your overall health. Studies have shown that a chronic lack of sleep has been correlated with many health problems. In both children and adults, we're learning that sleep deprivation may increase the risk for weight problems. For adults, chronic sleep deprivation may increase risk for obesity

[00:06:59] up to 55%. And in children, it may increase risk for obesity up to 89%. To prevent these risk factors, you should make sure you get adequate sleep most nights. To improve your sleep, you can avoid caffeine for some after 1 p.m., implement and maintain a reasonable sleep schedule, or even try eliminating all light sources in your bedroom. Try and make it as dark as possible. And this is according to the National Sleep Foundation. Chronic stress is another factor.

[00:07:27] As stress places a direct impact on your hormones, this is because excess stress, in part, increases your cortisol levels. Cortisol plays a direct role in fat gain around the abdomen and also increases health risks for years to come. And this is according to the Journal of Obesity Research. Takeaway. A healthy lifestyle is important, so don't forget about your sleep patterns and reducing stress. 11. Max nutrition with whole food for real results. One way to max nutrition

[00:07:57] is to stay with whole food choices. Look to fill your home with quality foods and ingredients. When choosing your foods, aim for the least processed options. Keep in mind, whole food choices shouldn't have a large ingredients list. Takeaway. The natural, unprocessed, high-quality foods are best for your body. Eliminate the unnatural products from your home for a healthier lifestyle. You just listened to part two of the post titled

[00:08:27] 11 Easy Steps to Max Nutrition by Summer Banks with dietspotlight.com. And I'll be right back with my commentary. Dr. Neil here for my commentary. The first half of the post I read to you yesterday, and even what I read to you today, talked about eggs, and I forgot to mention that yesterday as well. Now with eggs, the research can be confusing because it seems like we're going back and forth about whether eggs are actually healthy or not. What's interesting to me is that there's this entire discussion

[00:08:56] that's not being held with regards to eggs. One part of that discussion is how we cook them. So when we say eggs are healthy or not healthy, oftentimes we forget that, well, we have to cook them. And how we cook them can of course influence how nutritious they are for us. For example, frying eggs may not be ideal depending on especially the oil we use to fry them in. The other thing we actually need to look at is this compound called TMAO.

[00:09:24] TMAO stands for trimethylamine N-oxide. For some folks, when they eat egg yolks especially, their body as a byproduct of egg metabolism produces TMAO. And we're learning that TMAO may increase risk for certain chronic diseases like heart disease. So my advice would be to maybe slow down your egg consumption, especially egg yolk consumption, until we have more research on this idea of TMAO, who produces it,

[00:09:53] and what effect it might have on our overall health and wellness. All right, that'll do it for today. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening every day. I hope you're having a wonderful week so far. And I'll see you back here tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.