Becoming Your Own Expert

I have had clients tell me over the years that this tool is one of the things that changed their lives and health forever. Once they knew how to choose what to eat, they felt the confidence and freedom to eat well and easily.

But here is the truth: some doctors and food bloggers will share videos or posts called “What I Eat in a Day.” We love watching them because we hope that we'll find one meal that will change everything. 

But I don't want to show you what I eat. I want to teach you how to build these meals for yourself every time.

I will show you the science behind every part of the perfect plate and why it works for your body. This is going to be a deep dive. We will go over evidence-based research and I will explain the impact food has on the body and why that matters. 

But, don't worry. I'm going to take you step by step and make it easy to understand.

Your plate directly correlates with Your Score, so if you haven't taken Your Score yet, take it now. 

If you have taken it, you will learn in this article exactly what to eat to increase Your Score every day. Each food in The Score is a standalone superfood that is proven to increase your health. The perfect plate takes those foods and supercharges them into a combination formula to exponentially improve the benefits to your body.

When you take time to understand how food affects your body, it will help you maintain a healthy lifestyle longer. You'll be able to know and see the effects of food directly on your body in real time. 

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Why a Whole Plant Diet Works 

Let's unpack the power of why a whole plant food diet works the best for your body. The combination of a higher score with the perfect plate creates the greatest environment for your body to thrive and live longer.

Here's why a whole plant diet works: 

1. Meals made with the perfect plate keep us full and satisfied for at least 4 hours and curb hunger without the need to snack. 
2. These meals boost our energy between meals without mid-meal slumps. 
3. These food combos slow and reduce post-meal blood sugar response. Meals meet the Max 50 blood glucose response goals, which is something you’ll hear more about soon. In summary, these meals do not raise blood glucose by more than 50 points from before the first bite to two hours after the last bite. 
4. You get lots of whole carbohydrates on The Plate. We get whole carbs from fruit and vegetables, whole grains, starchy vegetables, beans, and seeds. These are loaded with fiber, both insoluble and soluble resistant starch. And these are probiotics for the gut, antioxidants, and carbohydrate fuel for the body. 
5. The Plate contains plant-based protein, which boosts nitric oxide in our systems. More on this below. 
6. The Plate is high in antioxidants, which fight all kinds of illnesses in our bodies. 
7. The Plate includes foods that you love, which is an important factor in sticking with my approach long term. 

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The Need for More Fiber

How much fiber do we need? The American Heart Association recommends eating 25 to 30 grams of total fiber a day, yet only 5% of the population meet this recommendation for fiber. 

The current fiber intake in the American diet averages 15 grams per day. What that tells us is that a typical American plate includes 90% processed foods and less than 10% of whole plant foods.

My perfect plate is just the opposite. It reverses these numbers with 90% of the foods being unprocessed whole plant foods and 10 to 20% of your favorite foods. 

This makes sure you are getting the fiber that I know you need to be your healthiest. I recommend 25 grams of fiber for every 1000 calories we consume.

When you eat three meals from the plate foundation, you will easily get 35 to 45 grams of fiber each day. Can you imagine how that will help your body? 

Good. By needing probiotics. We need to know the difference between soluble fiber and insoluble fiber to make meals count. Lots of people think that all fiber is just Raisin Bran, but soluble fiber is found in apples or in the inside of the creamy part of a kidney bean. 

Soluble fiber takes sugars in your body and puts them on a slow drip. The gel created from digesting fiber slows down how fast sugars leave the digestive tract and are absorbed into the blood. 

This reduces and delays blood sugar meal response, which is key when it comes to improving insulin resistance, feeling more energy after meals, and keeping your waistline from expanding.

These same soluble fibers also remove cholesterol from the body and help us reach our healthy body weight. 

The other type of fiber is insoluble. This is the one you are more familiar with. It comes from the skin on the apple, and the shell on the beans.

And this is the type of fiber that does not dissolve in water. This fiber is a prebiotic that feeds and maintains healthy gut bacteria and improves digestion, preventing constipation and diarrhea. Resistant starches are in whole plant foods. 

These are also prebiotics that we need to keep healthy gut microbes thriving and build a healthy intestine. 

Whole fruits are whole carbs. And these come loaded with antioxidants that fight disease, reduce inflammation, and improve insulin sensitivity. They also come loaded with all types of fiber and resistant starches that give us the prebiotics that we need for healthy gut bacteria to thrive. On The Plate and The Score, you will see generous amounts of whole fruits.

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Plant-based Protein for the Win

This protein is found in beans, legumes, peas, and soy, along with nuts and seeds. Each plate comes with 1 to 2 servings of plant protein. 

Plant proteins are higher in arginine to lysine ratio compared to meat. Arginine is the precursor to nitric oxide, and nitric oxide makes us well. It relaxes all our blood vessels within one hour of eating a meal with high amounts of arginine. Blueberries and sunshine also help boost nitric oxide. 

Here is what is incredible: When we add more nitric oxide, our memory improves. Our circulation is at top performance. This is our body's natural Viagra. This leads to increased circulation and improved blood pressure and sexual performance. 

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Thoughts on Protein from Animals 

The fear of protein deficiency is unwarranted for a healthy person with access to food. The longest-living people on earth in the Blue Zone get an average of 10% of calories from protein compared to the United States, where we get an average of 15 to 20% of calories from mostly animal protein. 

When you eat three meals a day using the plant method to make your meals, you'll be getting 12 to 15% of your calories from protein, which is sufficient. 

We need to be more concerned about the excess protein rather than the lack of protein in the American diet because meals lack fiber from whole plant foods.

We overeat protein so that we can get that full feeling that comes from protein. There are three ways that we experience feeling fullness. It comes from fiber, protein, and fats. 

When we don't eat enough fiber, we rely too heavily on protein fats to feel full. This also leads us to overeat processed foods. 

What you won't find on my perfect plate is red or processed meat like bacon, sausage, or deli meat. 

In fact, you will notice on The Score that you gain one point for avoiding processed meats and red meats. These are proteins that I would highly suggest that we include in our diets less than once per month. Even though they're loaded with protein, they come packaged with harmful components for the body like saturated fat. 

Any meats that have been preserved or boosted for flavor, like smoking, salting or fermented, have known carcinogenic components. I want to caution against these foods being a part of your regular diet. 

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Not All Fat is Bad 

Whole plant fats like nuts, seeds, avocados, olives, and essential fats like chia seed, flax seed, walnuts, and soy come packaged with fiber, which helps to slow and release the fats that are naturally found in these foods. 

This prevents the post-meal surge of fats after meals and reduces triglycerides. Not all fats are bad. Plant-based fats are healthy fats.

They improve satiety. Keep us feeling fuller longer, up to 4 hours, and they support meeting our Max 50 blood glucose meal response. 

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Nature’s Doctor: Antioxidants

The Plate is rich in whole plant foods that provide high levels of antioxidants that have many benefits. Whole plant foods are our source of antioxidants, and the top foods for this are fruits and vegetables. 

The best of the best food for antioxidants are berries. That’s why berries have their own point on The Score. 

Antioxidants repair DNA, which allows for the tail of the gene to lengthen, which determines how long we're going to live. Antioxidants have a role in introducing nitric oxide. Research shows blueberries reduce free radicals in the blood by 18% in just one hour. 

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A Plate That’s Personalized to YOU

If you don't have something on your plate that sparks joy, it won't last. This way of eating needs to be sustainable and make you happy. 

Here is how you do it: first, fill up your plate with 80% whole plant-based foods following the plate formula, then find 10 to 20% of anything that brings you joy. 

This is why people I work with still eat Oreos or an occasional burger, and they are on a happy, lifelong wellness journey.

In our lesson, I give you actionable tips to control your hunger. Let’s dig in! 

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