Ask Dr. Cheryl

Topics discussed in this episode: 

• Why a whole plant food diet is best (1:51)
• American Heart Association fiber recommendation (3:22)
• Understanding soluble and insoluble fiber (4:24)
• Fear of protein deficiency (7:19)
• 3 ways to crush hunger and feel full (8:06)
• Research about blueberries reducing free radicals in the blood by 18% (10:19)

Transcript:

Are you ready to learn how to eat in a way that keeps you full, makes you happy, and adds years to your life? Then you are in the right place. Welcome to wellness. I'm Dr. Cheryl. ♪♪ Okay, let's learn how to build the perfect plate of food together. Once you know how to build a plate, the rest is easy. I have had clients tell me over the years that this tool is one of the things that changed their life and health forever. That once they knew how to choose what to eat, they felt the confidence and freedom to eat well and easily. But here's the truth, some doctors and food bloggers will share videos or posts called, What I Eat in a Day. And we love watching them because we hope that we'll find one meal that will change everything. While we are here together, I don't want to just show you what I eat in one day. 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 through step by step and make it easy to understand. You will notice the plate directly correlates with the score. So if you haven't taken your score yet, take it now. But if you have taken it, you will learn in this video exactly what to eat to increase your score every day. Each food on 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. Okay, 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 is why it works. Number one, meals made with the perfect plate keep us full and satisfied for at least four hours and curb hunger without the need to snack. Number two, these meals boost our energy between meals without mid meal slumps. The food combo improves insulin sensitivity. Number three, these food combos slow and reduced post-meal blood sugar response. Meals meet the max 50 blood glucose meal response goals, and you will hear more about that soon. But in summary, meals that do not raise blood glucose more than 50 points before the first bite to two hours after the last bite. Number four, you get lots of whole carbohydrates on the plate. We get whole carbs from fruit and vegetables, whole grains, starchy vegetables, beans, and seeds. Even avocado is loaded with generous amounts of calorie-free carbohydrates. 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. Did you know that fiber is a calorie-free carbohydrate? After fiber does its work in the body, it is excreted from the body and it takes calories and cholesterol with it. We need more fiber. And this plate tool gives you generous amounts of 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, on a typical American plate, 90% of the foods are processed foods and less than 10% of the foods are whole plant foods. My plate is just the opposite. It reverses these numbers with 90% of the foods being unprocessed whole plant foods and I leave 10-20% for you to add your favorite foods. This makes sure you're getting the fiber that I know you need to be your healthiest. I recommend 25 grams of fiber for every 1,000 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? Goodbye 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, the creamy part of a kidney bean, and it forms a gel-like substance in the stomach during digestion. Soluble fiber takes sugars in your body and puts it on a slow drip. This gel grabs sugars from the meal, slows down how quickly the sugars leave the digestive tract and are absorbed into the blood. This reduces and delays blood sugar meal response. And this is exactly what you need to improve insulin resistance and to feel more energy after meals and keep your waistline from expanding and the ticket for managing elevated blood sugar with prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. Oh, and this is what we need to stay full longer. 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, the shell on the beans. And this is the type of fiber that does not dissolve in water. This fiber is a prebiotic to feed and maintain healthy gut bacteria and improve digestion, preventing constipation and diarrhea. Resistance starches are in whole plant foods and these are also prebiotics that we need to keep healthy gut microbes thriving and build a healthy intestine. These are also calorie free whole carbs that keep us full longer. Whole fruits are whole carbs and these come loaded with antioxidants that fight disease, reduce inflammation, improve insulin sensitivity. They also come loaded with all types of fiber and resistant starches that give us the prebiotics that we need for a healthy gut bacteria to thrive. On the plate and the score you will see generous amounts of whole fruit. Number five, the plate contains plant-based protein. It is found in beans and legumes and peas and soy along with nuts and smaller amounts and seeds. Each plate comes with one to two servings of plant protein. Plant proteins are higher in arginine to a lysine ratio compared to meat. Arginine is the precursor to nitric oxide. Nitric oxide makes us well. It relaxes all our blood vessels within one hour of eating a meal with high amounts of arginine and blueberries and sunshine also help boost nitric oxide just as well. Here's what is incredible. When we add more nitric oxide, our brain remembers better. Our circulation is at top performance. This is our body's natural Viagra. This leads to increased circulation, improved blood pressure, and sexual performance. This needs to be a part of every meal. Ready for increased nitric oxide? Nuts, pumpkin seeds, garbanzo beans, and all other beans are the best foods for delivering high amounts of arginine, and they are the best at giving us an arginine-lysine ratio. Plant protein improves cardiometabolic risk factors, including lowering cholesterol. But there remains the constant question of, where will I get my protein? And the fear of protein deficiency is unwarranted with 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 average of 15 to 20% of calories that are 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 percent of your calories from protein, which is sufficient. We need to be more concerned about the excess protein rather than the lack of protein with the American diet. Because meals are lacking fiber from whole plant foods, we are overeating 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 overeating processed foods. Now, what you won't find on the plate is red meat or processed 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 less than one time per month. Even though they're loaded with protein, they come packaged with harmful components for the body like saturated fat. Processed meats are like bacon, sausage, and deli meats. Any meats that have been preserved or boosted for flavor, smoking, salting, or fermented. These meats have known carcinogenic components. And I want to caution you on these foods being a part of your regular diet. So in addition to your favorite foods on your plate, I would caution you to limit red meats and processed meats. Number six, the plate also contains healthy whole plant fats. 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 the healthy fats. They improve satiety, keep us feeling full longer, like up to four hours. And they support meeting our max 50 blood glucose meal response. Number seven, 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 are fruits and vegetables. And the best of these are berries. And that is why berries have their own row on the score. Antioxidants repair DNA, which allows for the tail of the gene, the telomere, to actually lengthen, which determines how long we're going to live. Antioxidants have a role in introducing nitric oxide. Research shows blueberries reducing free radicals in the blood by 18% in just one hour. Number seven, the plate is designed to be personalized to make it fit your taste preferences and not give up all your favorite foods. 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’s how you do it; first, fill up your plate with 80% of whole plant based foods, following the plate formula. Then, find 10-20% of food that brings you joy. 

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