July 30, 2024 • 20 mins
#014 - Can cutting back on sugar really prevent obesity and diabetes, and how does protein contribute to our overall well-being?
Join me as I unravel the overwhelming tapestry of diet advice. Inspired by the Pareto principle and the book "The One Thing," learn how laser-focusing on 3 things can revolutionize your health, mood, and body composition.
I debunk common myths about protein intake and shed light on its crucial role in our bodies.
Tune in to simplify your approach to eating and make lasting improvements to your health, guided by faith and a commitment to excellence.
Are you ready to build high-impact habits of body, mind, and soul that actually stick? Check out the Catholic Path to Excellence today to find out how you can be more consistent in your habits and excel in every aspect of your life.
Feeling "stuck" in your life? Coaching could be the solution you need to break through whatever is holding you back. Book a FREE Call with me today to find out how I can help you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to the Catholic Pursuit of
Excellence, the show that helpsyou accomplish more, stress less
and become the saint Godcreated you to be.
I'm your host life and healthcoach, jessica Castillo, and
this is episode 14.
Have you ever found yourselfcompletely overwhelmed and
confused by the huge amount ofadvice about what you should be
(00:28):
eating?
There are so many differentdiet styles and types and
strategies and things, and,honestly, a lot of it can get
really, really complicated.
What I want to do in thisepisode is break down what are
some of the highest impacthabits for your diet that you
(00:50):
can take, with three simplelittle strategies and tips to
focus on, which you can kind ofthink about this as the Pareto
principle applied to your diet.
If you're familiar with thePareto principle, it's basically
that 80% of your results aregoing to come from just 20% of
your effort, and we can applythis concept to just about
(01:14):
everything, including whatyou're choosing to focus on with
your diet.
If you focus on just thesethree things that I'm going to
teach you about in this episodeof the podcast, then, honestly,
it is going to simplify and makeso much easier the results that
you're getting from your diet.
This whole thing was inspired bya book I was reading called the
(01:37):
One Thing.
Now, if you're familiar withthis book, it basically asks a
question what is one thing thatyou could do such that, by doing
it, everything else becomeseasier or unnecessary?
So this book famously asks thisquestion, and as I was reading
the book, I was thinking tomyself how can I apply this
(01:58):
concept to what I'm working withmy clients on when it comes to
improving their nutrition andhealthy eating, clients on when
it comes to improving theirnutrition and healthy eating?
So the question that I askedwas what is the one thing that
you can do that would improveyour body composition, your mood
and your overall health suchthat, by doing it, everything
(02:18):
else would become easier orunnecessary?
And the answer, of course, thatI came up with was improve your
diet.
There's a lot of things youcould do.
You could improve your sleep,that's great.
You could get moving more, alsogreat.
But, honestly, you cannotout-exercise a bad diet and
(02:40):
sometimes improving your dietcan actually happen a little bit
faster than improving yoursleep.
That might be something thatyou work on a little bit longer.
So the one thing is improvingyour diet, but, like I said,
there's so much advice out thereon how you should be eating,
how you could be eating, whatdifferent diet strategies you
(03:03):
might have to apply, andprobably every diet you've ever
tried has likely failed, andit's not because of you, it's
not because you lack disciplineor willpower or whatever.
It's just that these diets thatare overly restrictive or
overly complicated are reallyhard to stick with for life, and
so the principles I want totalk about today are three
(03:26):
things that you can focus on,that you can continue focusing
on for your entire life long,and you don't have to have an
absolute perfect diet.
You don't have to apply theseprinciples 100% of the time, but
if you can focus on doing thismost of the time, these are
going to be those 20% habitsthat, when you consistently
(03:50):
apply them, are going to havethe biggest benefit, the 80%
outcome for your overall health.
Now, when I presented this tomy clients and my group coaching
program, the Catholic Path toExcellence, we created a
challenge called the One ThingDiet Challenge, but my joke was
the one thing is actually threethings, and, of course, as
(04:12):
Catholics, we're pretty used toone thing being three things, or
at least one God being threepersons, so this shouldn't be
too difficult of a concept forus to think about.
So I'm going to tell you whatare those three things.
I'll go a little bit intodetail about some of the reasons
why I'm including those as thethree things, and then I'll go
(04:33):
into more specifics about howyou can actually do it.
Okay, so the three things thatwill have the biggest impact on
your mood, your energy, yourbody composition, your focus,
all the things when it comes todiet, are just this One limit
sugar.
Two, limit processed foods.
(04:56):
And three eat adequate protein.
Okay, I'm going to go throughwith you.
Why those things?
Okay, first of all, why shouldyou limit sugar?
Now, you probably are alreadyfamiliar with how bad for you
sugar is, but just in case youneed a little extra motivation,
(05:17):
I'm going to talk through alittle bit of the reasons why
limiting sugar is going to havesuch a big impact.
The first, of course, is justobesity.
High sugar intake, especiallyfrom sugar.
Sweet, of course, is justobesity.
High sugar intake, especiallyfrom sugar-sweetened beverages,
which is the worst that isstrongly linked to obesity, and
even for children, consumingsugar-sweetened beverages
(05:38):
increases their risk of obesityby 60% for each daily serving of
a sugary drink that they'redrinking.
There's also, of course, therise of type 2 diabetes.
Excessive sugar consumptiondoes lead to insulin resistance,
which is a precursor to type 2diabetes, and so high sugar
(05:59):
intake is going to heighten yourrisk for that.
A lot of people don't realizehow sugar impacts your heart
health.
One study found that people whoconsumed 17 to 21% of their
calories from added sugar had a38% higher risk of dying from
cardiovascular disease comparedto those who consumed 8% or less
(06:21):
.
When it comes to heart health,a lot of people think of
cholesterol, they think of fat,but really we often forget how
big of an impact sugar has onyour heart health.
Sugar also impacts your liverhealth, and this is something
that's surprising for people,because we think about alcohol
with liver health, butnon-alcoholic fatty liver
(06:41):
disease can be caused byexcessive fructose consumption,
and that's because the livermetabolizes fructose into fat,
which can accumulate and causeliver damage over time.
Of course, sugar is hurtingyour teeth and your dental
health, but one of the thingsthat I think about the most when
(07:03):
I think about high sugarconsumption is what it does for
your mental health.
High sugar consumption has beenlinked to an increased risk of
depression.
A study found that menconsuming high amounts of sugar
were 23% more likely to bediagnosed with a mental disorder
, and of course, this doesn'tjust apply to men.
This is something that I dealtwith myself when I was dealing
(07:26):
with a lot of depression.
My sugar intake was extremelyhigh and what I found was, when
I reduced and eliminated sugar,my mood almost immediately
started improving.
And then, whenever I had timeswhere I ate a high amount of
sugar again, I could literallyfeel the difference in my mood.
So if you're hoping to havebetter mood, better mental
(07:47):
health, limiting sugar is such agood bet.
And then for everyone who wantsto age well and have nice skin,
you should know that excesssugar causes glycation.
It's a process where sugarmolecules bind to proteins,
forming what are called advancedglycation end products, which
(08:08):
are appropriately acronymed ages.
These ages damage your skin,collagen and elastin and lead to
more wrinkles and prematureaging.
So if you want to age well,limit your sugar.
There are so many other reasonswhy you should limit sugar.
Cancer risk is increased fromexcessive sugar consumption your
(08:30):
cognitive function, includingmemory.
It can cause brain inflammation, which is interesting because
you do not feel inflammation inthe brain.
You just notice the effects ofinflammation in the brain
because you don't have painreceptors there, you're not
feeling that inflammation.
But high sugar can cause moreinflammation in the brain.
Because you don't have painreceptors there, you're not
feeling that inflammation.
But high sugar can cause moreinflammation in the brain, which
(08:50):
just messes with your cognitivefunction.
And of course, sugar is highly,highly, highly addictive,
actually in some studies moreaddictive than cocaine.
So once you start eating sugar,you might find it really
difficult to stop eating sugar.
Or if you have a little bit ofsugar, it may be hard to stop at
a little bit of sugar and youwant more and more and more and
more, and that's just your brainreally getting addicted to
(09:14):
sugar.
So you probably knew this orhave at least had some awareness
of this.
But I wanted to go over againwhy limiting sugar is one of the
most important things you cando when it comes to just
improving every aspect of yourdiet.
So if you only did one thinglimit sugar Now if you only did
(09:36):
two things limit processed foods.
And we're finding more and morea lot of studies are coming out
about how really bad for youprocessed foods are.
These are foods that have beenreally tinkered with by mad food
scientists to be insanelysatiating or appetizing, and so
(09:58):
as soon as you start eatingthese processed foods, your
brain literally will go intooverdrive, telling you to eat
more of them.
And it's a problem for a lot ofthings, not just because of
what these foods contain in andof themselves.
They usually contain a lot ofgarbage ingredients and things
that are causing obesity, thatare also hurting your heart
health, increasing diabetes risk.
(10:20):
A lot of the same risks,honestly, that come from eating
a lot of sugar, are there witheating processed foods too,
including mental health aspectslike higher risk of depression
and anxiety.
So all of these things happen.
Inflammation, reducinglongevity all of this stuff is
happening when you're eating toomany processed foods.
(10:41):
But another downside of eatingtoo many processed foods is that
it just crowds out in your dietthe better foods that you could
be eating.
So whole foods or nutritiousfoods, nutrient dense foods
you're not eating as many ofthem because you're loading up
on processed foods.
So limiting processed foods isthe second thing, number two.
(11:03):
And then, finally, if you'reonly going to do three things or
focus on three things, thethird thing would be to get
enough protein.
Now, enough protein.
This is sometimes controversial, because you might have heard
people say oh well, we'realready eating too much protein
or your body can only use somuch protein at every meal and
everything else is just excessand wasted.
(11:25):
And that is that's been hard toprove.
So what's been coming out latelyis we're seeing that protein is
the most satiating of all ofthe macronutrients.
So when you eat enough protein,you actually feel more full.
It's necessary, totallynecessary, for your muscle
growth and repair.
If you are working out reallyhard but not eating enough
(11:49):
protein, you are not going to bebuilding muscle mass or even
maintaining muscle mass, whichis really important as we age,
because muscle mass starts tokind of atrophy and shrink,
especially as we are gettingolder.
So there's like age-relatedsarcopenia, which is age-related
muscle loss, and higher proteinintake is correlated with
(12:12):
reversing this and making surethat you are actually building
adequate muscle.
Protein of course helps withyour weight management because
it's more satiating.
Protein is really important foryour metabolic health and this
is because protein has what'scalled a higher thermic effect,
and a thermic effect isbasically the amount of energy
(12:33):
required for your body to digest, absorb and metabolize your
food.
So that's the thermic effect offood.
Well, the highest thermiceffect of food is from protein,
so you're actually burning morecalories because you're eating
more protein.
It helps with bone health andbone density, your immune
(12:54):
function, because if you don'thave enough protein, the
production and function ofimmune cells is impaired.
Protein is important in yourhormone regulation, your skin,
hair and nail health, recoveryfrom illness and injury.
It just does so many things.
It also plays a key role intransporting nutrients and
(13:16):
oxygen in your blood and also inenzyme functions.
So these are all very importantfor your overall metabolic
health and functioning and allthe things.
Sufficient protein can provideso many benefits and you
honestly do not have to worry,unless you are a person with
compromised kidney function.
Most people are not at all atrisk of eating too much protein,
(13:41):
and while some studies haveshown that your body could only
use a certain amount of proteinafter each meal, your body can
continue using the protein thatyou've eaten longer than just
that initial window.
So most experts would recommendthat you increase your protein
intake, especially if you'retrying to improve your overall
(14:03):
health.
So those are the three thingslimit sugar, limit processed
foods and get enough protein.
Now you might be wondering okay, how much protein do I actually
need?
Well, there's some simplecalculations you can do.
There's online calculators, butI can tell you now a pretty
simple calculation.
It depends a little bit on youractivity level.
(14:25):
So if you're a pretty activeperson and you work out
regularly, you want to thinkabout getting about 1.6 grams
per kilogram of body weight perday.
So as an example, you can useyour ideal weight for this
calculation is 130 pounds.
That's approximately 59kilograms, which yields about 94
(14:47):
grams of protein per day.
So you might think about havingabout 30 grams of protein
broken up over three mealsbreakfast, lunch and dinner.
If you're not very active, ifyou're not strength training,
you might be able to get awaywith 1.2 to 1.5 grams per
kilogram per day of protein.
So in this example, if yourideal weight was 130 pounds,
(15:09):
that would be about 71 grams ofprotein per day.
Now you might be wondering howdo you get all this protein?
Because some people think well,okay, I hear eat more protein,
I hear I need to get this manygrams of protein, but how do you
do that?
So I'm just going to share withyou some simple protein sources
about where you can get protein, both animal-based protein
(15:32):
sources and plant-based proteinsources, just so you have a
general rule of thumb and youknow about how much protein you
can get from some sources.
For instance, chicken breastabout 100 grams of cooked
chicken breast is 31 grams ofprotein.
Turkey breast is about 29 grams, and all of this is per 100
(15:53):
grams.
Lean beef is about 26 grams ofprotein.
Pork is about 25 grams ofprotein per 100 grams.
Cooked salmon is about 25 gramsof protein per 100 grams.
Tuna, shrimp, eggs for onelarge egg, it's about 6 grams of
protein.
Greek yogurt, cottage cheesethese are all excellent animal
(16:15):
sources of protein and if you'rethinking well, how much is
about 100 grams of any of thesefoods?
Well, you can think 100 gramsis about a deck of playing cards
or the size of your palm.
So these are all really goodsources of animal-based protein.
You can also get plant-basedprotein sources.
They tend to have less proteinand sometimes they don't have a
(16:36):
complete protein, but one cup ofcooked lentils is about 18
grams of protein.
A cup of cooked chickpeas is 15grams.
Black beans one cup is about 15grams.
Quinoa also has protein abouteight grams per cooked cup.
You can think about the simpleand humble peanut butter about
(16:59):
two tablespoons of peanut butteris about eight grams of protein
.
So these are just some ideasfor how you can actually get
more protein in your day, onceyou've calculated how much
protein you think you need.
Okay, so that's it.
These are the three things thatI would recommend everyone
focus on if you're trying to eatfor better focus, better mood,
(17:23):
better energy, all of the things.
Take everything you've everheard about diet and you can
probably boil it down intofocusing on these three simple
strategies.
Boil it down into focusing onthese three simple strategies
Eat less sugar, eat lessprocessed food and get enough
protein.
This doesn't have to be appliedperfectly.
(17:44):
If you occasionally have sugar,that's probably fine.
If you occasionally eatprocessed food, also probably
fine.
If you occasionally don't getenough protein, it's probably
not going to kill you.
What you need to think about iswhat can you consistently
maintain and keep doing overtime?
Now, if you're hoping to find aneasier way to eat healthy meals
(18:07):
, one of the things that I offerin my group coaching program,
the Catholic Path to Excellence,is, every week, I actually send
out a healthy meal plan thatincludes not just all of the
recipes in the meal plan, butalso the shopping list, and it's
just the written plan.
It's really easy.
So if you're looking for asimple way to get healthy meals
(18:31):
or even healthy meal ideas.
One of the things I recommendto my clients when I send out
these meal plans is hey, youdon't have to use this exactly
as it's written, take what youlike and use that.
And I include nutritioninformation so you'll know how
much protein, fat, how muchcarbohydrates, how much fiber
all of the things that you'regetting from your meal plan.
It's included in there so youcan see it and you can learn.
(18:54):
And over time, what happens isyou start to build the capacity
to quickly and easily puttogether your own healthy meals,
because you will have gainedexperience and you'll know well,
this is about this much protein.
This is an easy meal I can makethat.
My family likes that sort ofthing.
You'll start building your ownrepertoire.
So if you are interested injoining us in the Catholic Path
(19:16):
to Excellence this is my groupcoaching program.
For anyone who's hoping toreally build high-impact habits
of body, mind and soul thatstick then you can join right
now using our summer sale.
In fact, the time this episodecomes out, I think there's one
more day left in the sale, whichends on July 31st.
(19:38):
So if you're hoping to save$100 a month on the Catholic
Path to Excellence.
I highly recommend you check itout today.
It's a thrivingcatholiccomforward slash path.
You will find all theinformation there about what's
included in the program,including a weekly group
coaching call and training onhigh impact habit, a weekly
(19:58):
review, continuous microcoaching in between all of these
healthy meal plans, recipes andshopping lists, as well as
monthly workout plans.
So all of this is included inthe path.
It's a really great program.
I highly encourage you to checkit out if you're at all curious
because, like I said, that saleis ending and it's such a good
(20:19):
deal.
So go check it out atthrivingcatholiccom forward
slash path and I hope to see youon our next call.
All right, that is it for methis week.
Until next time, remember thatit is Jesus who inspires you to
do something great with yourlife, so don't let yourself be
(20:40):
ground down by mediocrity.
Bye for now.
You're listening to the Catholic Pursuit of
Excellence, the show that helpsyou accomplish more, stress less
and become the saint Godcreated you to be.
I'm your host life and healthcoach, jessica Castillo, and
this is episode 14.
Have you ever found yourselfcompletely overwhelmed and
confused by the huge amount ofadvice about what you should be
(00:28):
eating?
There are so many differentdiet styles and types and
strategies and things, and,honestly, a lot of it can get
really, really complicated.
What I want to do in thisepisode is break down what are
some of the highest impacthabits for your diet that you
(00:50):
can take, with three simplelittle strategies and tips to
focus on, which you can kind ofthink about this as the Pareto
principle applied to your diet.
If you're familiar with thePareto principle, it's basically
that 80% of your results aregoing to come from just 20% of
your effort, and we can applythis concept to just about
(01:14):
everything, including whatyou're choosing to focus on with
your diet.
If you focus on just thesethree things that I'm going to
teach you about in this episodeof the podcast, then, honestly,
it is going to simplify and makeso much easier the results that
you're getting from your diet.
This whole thing was inspired bya book I was reading called the
(01:37):
One Thing.
Now, if you're familiar withthis book, it basically asks a
question what is one thing thatyou could do such that, by doing
it, everything else becomeseasier or unnecessary?
So this book famously asks thisquestion, and as I was reading
the book, I was thinking tomyself how can I apply this
(01:58):
concept to what I'm working withmy clients on when it comes to
improving their nutrition andhealthy eating, clients on when
it comes to improving theirnutrition and healthy eating?
So the question that I askedwas what is the one thing that
you can do that would improveyour body composition, your mood
and your overall health suchthat, by doing it, everything
(02:18):
else would become easier orunnecessary?
And the answer, of course, thatI came up with was improve your
diet.
There's a lot of things youcould do.
You could improve your sleep,that's great.
You could get moving more, alsogreat.
But, honestly, you cannotout-exercise a bad diet and
(02:40):
sometimes improving your dietcan actually happen a little bit
faster than improving yoursleep.
That might be something thatyou work on a little bit longer.
So the one thing is improvingyour diet, but, like I said,
there's so much advice out thereon how you should be eating,
how you could be eating, whatdifferent diet strategies you
(03:03):
might have to apply, andprobably every diet you've ever
tried has likely failed, andit's not because of you, it's
not because you lack disciplineor willpower or whatever.
It's just that these diets thatare overly restrictive or
overly complicated are reallyhard to stick with for life, and
so the principles I want totalk about today are three
(03:26):
things that you can focus on,that you can continue focusing
on for your entire life long,and you don't have to have an
absolute perfect diet.
You don't have to apply theseprinciples 100% of the time, but
if you can focus on doing thismost of the time, these are
going to be those 20% habitsthat, when you consistently
(03:50):
apply them, are going to havethe biggest benefit, the 80%
outcome for your overall health.
Now, when I presented this tomy clients and my group coaching
program, the Catholic Path toExcellence, we created a
challenge called the One ThingDiet Challenge, but my joke was
the one thing is actually threethings, and, of course, as
(04:12):
Catholics, we're pretty used toone thing being three things, or
at least one God being threepersons, so this shouldn't be
too difficult of a concept forus to think about.
So I'm going to tell you whatare those three things.
I'll go a little bit intodetail about some of the reasons
why I'm including those as thethree things, and then I'll go
(04:33):
into more specifics about howyou can actually do it.
Okay, so the three things thatwill have the biggest impact on
your mood, your energy, yourbody composition, your focus,
all the things when it comes todiet, are just this One limit
sugar.
Two, limit processed foods.
(04:56):
And three eat adequate protein.
Okay, I'm going to go throughwith you.
Why those things?
Okay, first of all, why shouldyou limit sugar?
Now, you probably are alreadyfamiliar with how bad for you
sugar is, but just in case youneed a little extra motivation,
(05:17):
I'm going to talk through alittle bit of the reasons why
limiting sugar is going to havesuch a big impact.
The first, of course, is justobesity.
High sugar intake, especiallyfrom sugar.
Sweet, of course, is justobesity.
High sugar intake, especiallyfrom sugar-sweetened beverages,
which is the worst that isstrongly linked to obesity, and
even for children, consumingsugar-sweetened beverages
(05:38):
increases their risk of obesityby 60% for each daily serving of
a sugary drink that they'redrinking.
There's also, of course, therise of type 2 diabetes.
Excessive sugar consumptiondoes lead to insulin resistance,
which is a precursor to type 2diabetes, and so high sugar
(05:59):
intake is going to heighten yourrisk for that.
A lot of people don't realizehow sugar impacts your heart
health.
One study found that people whoconsumed 17 to 21% of their
calories from added sugar had a38% higher risk of dying from
cardiovascular disease comparedto those who consumed 8% or less
(06:21):
.
When it comes to heart health,a lot of people think of
cholesterol, they think of fat,but really we often forget how
big of an impact sugar has onyour heart health.
Sugar also impacts your liverhealth, and this is something
that's surprising for people,because we think about alcohol
with liver health, butnon-alcoholic fatty liver
(06:41):
disease can be caused byexcessive fructose consumption,
and that's because the livermetabolizes fructose into fat,
which can accumulate and causeliver damage over time.
Of course, sugar is hurtingyour teeth and your dental
health, but one of the thingsthat I think about the most when
(07:03):
I think about high sugarconsumption is what it does for
your mental health.
High sugar consumption has beenlinked to an increased risk of
depression.
A study found that menconsuming high amounts of sugar
were 23% more likely to bediagnosed with a mental disorder
, and of course, this doesn'tjust apply to men.
This is something that I dealtwith myself when I was dealing
(07:26):
with a lot of depression.
My sugar intake was extremelyhigh and what I found was, when
I reduced and eliminated sugar,my mood almost immediately
started improving.
And then, whenever I had timeswhere I ate a high amount of
sugar again, I could literallyfeel the difference in my mood.
So if you're hoping to havebetter mood, better mental
(07:47):
health, limiting sugar is such agood bet.
And then for everyone who wantsto age well and have nice skin,
you should know that excesssugar causes glycation.
It's a process where sugarmolecules bind to proteins,
forming what are called advancedglycation end products, which
(08:08):
are appropriately acronymed ages.
These ages damage your skin,collagen and elastin and lead to
more wrinkles and prematureaging.
So if you want to age well,limit your sugar.
There are so many other reasonswhy you should limit sugar.
Cancer risk is increased fromexcessive sugar consumption your
(08:30):
cognitive function, includingmemory.
It can cause brain inflammation, which is interesting because
you do not feel inflammation inthe brain.
You just notice the effects ofinflammation in the brain
because you don't have painreceptors there, you're not
feeling that inflammation.
But high sugar can cause moreinflammation in the brain.
Because you don't have painreceptors there, you're not
feeling that inflammation.
But high sugar can cause moreinflammation in the brain, which
(08:50):
just messes with your cognitivefunction.
And of course, sugar is highly,highly, highly addictive,
actually in some studies moreaddictive than cocaine.
So once you start eating sugar,you might find it really
difficult to stop eating sugar.
Or if you have a little bit ofsugar, it may be hard to stop at
a little bit of sugar and youwant more and more and more and
more, and that's just your brainreally getting addicted to
(09:14):
sugar.
So you probably knew this orhave at least had some awareness
of this.
But I wanted to go over againwhy limiting sugar is one of the
most important things you cando when it comes to just
improving every aspect of yourdiet.
So if you only did one thinglimit sugar Now if you only did
(09:36):
two things limit processed foods.
And we're finding more and morea lot of studies are coming out
about how really bad for youprocessed foods are.
These are foods that have beenreally tinkered with by mad food
scientists to be insanelysatiating or appetizing, and so
(09:58):
as soon as you start eatingthese processed foods, your
brain literally will go intooverdrive, telling you to eat
more of them.
And it's a problem for a lot ofthings, not just because of
what these foods contain in andof themselves.
They usually contain a lot ofgarbage ingredients and things
that are causing obesity, thatare also hurting your heart
health, increasing diabetes risk.
(10:20):
A lot of the same risks,honestly, that come from eating
a lot of sugar, are there witheating processed foods too,
including mental health aspectslike higher risk of depression
and anxiety.
So all of these things happen.
Inflammation, reducinglongevity all of this stuff is
happening when you're eating toomany processed foods.
(10:41):
But another downside of eatingtoo many processed foods is that
it just crowds out in your dietthe better foods that you could
be eating.
So whole foods or nutritiousfoods, nutrient dense foods
you're not eating as many ofthem because you're loading up
on processed foods.
So limiting processed foods isthe second thing, number two.
(11:03):
And then, finally, if you'reonly going to do three things or
focus on three things, thethird thing would be to get
enough protein.
Now, enough protein.
This is sometimes controversial, because you might have heard
people say oh well, we'realready eating too much protein
or your body can only use somuch protein at every meal and
everything else is just excessand wasted.
(11:25):
And that is that's been hard toprove.
So what's been coming out latelyis we're seeing that protein is
the most satiating of all ofthe macronutrients.
So when you eat enough protein,you actually feel more full.
It's necessary, totallynecessary, for your muscle
growth and repair.
If you are working out reallyhard but not eating enough
(11:49):
protein, you are not going to bebuilding muscle mass or even
maintaining muscle mass, whichis really important as we age,
because muscle mass starts tokind of atrophy and shrink,
especially as we are gettingolder.
So there's like age-relatedsarcopenia, which is age-related
muscle loss, and higher proteinintake is correlated with
(12:12):
reversing this and making surethat you are actually building
adequate muscle.
Protein of course helps withyour weight management because
it's more satiating.
Protein is really important foryour metabolic health and this
is because protein has what'scalled a higher thermic effect,
and a thermic effect isbasically the amount of energy
(12:33):
required for your body to digest, absorb and metabolize your
food.
So that's the thermic effect offood.
Well, the highest thermiceffect of food is from protein,
so you're actually burning morecalories because you're eating
more protein.
It helps with bone health andbone density, your immune
(12:54):
function, because if you don'thave enough protein, the
production and function ofimmune cells is impaired.
Protein is important in yourhormone regulation, your skin,
hair and nail health, recoveryfrom illness and injury.
It just does so many things.
It also plays a key role intransporting nutrients and
(13:16):
oxygen in your blood and also inenzyme functions.
So these are all very importantfor your overall metabolic
health and functioning and allthe things.
Sufficient protein can provideso many benefits and you
honestly do not have to worry,unless you are a person with
compromised kidney function.
Most people are not at all atrisk of eating too much protein,
(13:41):
and while some studies haveshown that your body could only
use a certain amount of proteinafter each meal, your body can
continue using the protein thatyou've eaten longer than just
that initial window.
So most experts would recommendthat you increase your protein
intake, especially if you'retrying to improve your overall
(14:03):
health.
So those are the three thingslimit sugar, limit processed
foods and get enough protein.
Now you might be wondering okay, how much protein do I actually
need?
Well, there's some simplecalculations you can do.
There's online calculators, butI can tell you now a pretty
simple calculation.
It depends a little bit on youractivity level.
(14:25):
So if you're a pretty activeperson and you work out
regularly, you want to thinkabout getting about 1.6 grams
per kilogram of body weight perday.
So as an example, you can useyour ideal weight for this
calculation is 130 pounds.
That's approximately 59kilograms, which yields about 94
(14:47):
grams of protein per day.
So you might think about havingabout 30 grams of protein
broken up over three mealsbreakfast, lunch and dinner.
If you're not very active, ifyou're not strength training,
you might be able to get awaywith 1.2 to 1.5 grams per
kilogram per day of protein.
So in this example, if yourideal weight was 130 pounds,
(15:09):
that would be about 71 grams ofprotein per day.
Now you might be wondering howdo you get all this protein?
Because some people think well,okay, I hear eat more protein,
I hear I need to get this manygrams of protein, but how do you
do that?
So I'm just going to share withyou some simple protein sources
about where you can get protein, both animal-based protein
(15:32):
sources and plant-based proteinsources, just so you have a
general rule of thumb and youknow about how much protein you
can get from some sources.
For instance, chicken breastabout 100 grams of cooked
chicken breast is 31 grams ofprotein.
Turkey breast is about 29 grams, and all of this is per 100
(15:53):
grams.
Lean beef is about 26 grams ofprotein.
Pork is about 25 grams ofprotein per 100 grams.
Cooked salmon is about 25 gramsof protein per 100 grams.
Tuna, shrimp, eggs for onelarge egg, it's about 6 grams of
protein.
Greek yogurt, cottage cheesethese are all excellent animal
(16:15):
sources of protein and if you'rethinking well, how much is
about 100 grams of any of thesefoods?
Well, you can think 100 gramsis about a deck of playing cards
or the size of your palm.
So these are all really goodsources of animal-based protein.
You can also get plant-basedprotein sources.
They tend to have less proteinand sometimes they don't have a
(16:36):
complete protein, but one cup ofcooked lentils is about 18
grams of protein.
A cup of cooked chickpeas is 15grams.
Black beans one cup is about 15grams.
Quinoa also has protein abouteight grams per cooked cup.
You can think about the simpleand humble peanut butter about
(16:59):
two tablespoons of peanut butteris about eight grams of protein
.
So these are just some ideasfor how you can actually get
more protein in your day, onceyou've calculated how much
protein you think you need.
Okay, so that's it.
These are the three things thatI would recommend everyone
focus on if you're trying to eatfor better focus, better mood,
(17:23):
better energy, all of the things.
Take everything you've everheard about diet and you can
probably boil it down intofocusing on these three simple
strategies.
Boil it down into focusing onthese three simple strategies
Eat less sugar, eat lessprocessed food and get enough
protein.
This doesn't have to be appliedperfectly.
(17:44):
If you occasionally have sugar,that's probably fine.
If you occasionally eatprocessed food, also probably
fine.
If you occasionally don't getenough protein, it's probably
not going to kill you.
What you need to think about iswhat can you consistently
maintain and keep doing overtime?
Now, if you're hoping to find aneasier way to eat healthy meals
(18:07):
, one of the things that I offerin my group coaching program,
the Catholic Path to Excellence,is, every week, I actually send
out a healthy meal plan thatincludes not just all of the
recipes in the meal plan, butalso the shopping list, and it's
just the written plan.
It's really easy.
So if you're looking for asimple way to get healthy meals
(18:31):
or even healthy meal ideas.
One of the things I recommendto my clients when I send out
these meal plans is hey, youdon't have to use this exactly
as it's written, take what youlike and use that.
And I include nutritioninformation so you'll know how
much protein, fat, how muchcarbohydrates, how much fiber
all of the things that you'regetting from your meal plan.
It's included in there so youcan see it and you can learn.
(18:54):
And over time, what happens isyou start to build the capacity
to quickly and easily puttogether your own healthy meals,
because you will have gainedexperience and you'll know well,
this is about this much protein.
This is an easy meal I can makethat.
My family likes that sort ofthing.
You'll start building your ownrepertoire.
So if you are interested injoining us in the Catholic Path
(19:16):
to Excellence this is my groupcoaching program.
For anyone who's hoping toreally build high-impact habits
of body, mind and soul thatstick then you can join right
now using our summer sale.
In fact, the time this episodecomes out, I think there's one
more day left in the sale, whichends on July 31st.
(19:38):
So if you're hoping to save$100 a month on the Catholic
Path to Excellence.
I highly recommend you check itout today.
It's a thrivingcatholiccomforward slash path.
You will find all theinformation there about what's
included in the program,including a weekly group
coaching call and training onhigh impact habit, a weekly
(19:58):
review, continuous microcoaching in between all of these
healthy meal plans, recipes andshopping lists, as well as
monthly workout plans.
So all of this is included inthe path.
It's a really great program.
I highly encourage you to checkit out if you're at all curious
because, like I said, that saleis ending and it's such a good
(20:19):
deal.
So go check it out atthrivingcatholiccom forward
slash path and I hope to see youon our next call.
All right, that is it for methis week.
Until next time, remember thatit is Jesus who inspires you to
do something great with yourlife, so don't let yourself be
(20:40):
ground down by mediocrity.
Bye for now.
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