Chatting with Andy De Santis; Registered Dietitian

Today I chat with Andy De Santis. Andy is a registered dietitian (RD) in Toronto that is as charismatic as they come, who also happens to be a 3x published author with an unmatched passion for helping clients reach their health goals. He completed his requirements for accreditation as a registered dietitian at the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health, where I also graduated with a Master’s degree in public health nutrition (MPH).

 

This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their research, businesses, lifestyle, and health to various forms of Fasting and the science of Fasting. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. Patricia Kathleen Podcasts

 

TRANSCRIPTION

*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors

[00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with registered dietitian Andy De Santis, key points addressed where core aspects of Andy's most recent book, the 21 day intermittent fasting weight loss plan. We also discussed various forms of fasting and Andy's personal opinion about how these realistically play into one's lifestyle and applicability when it comes to his clients. Stay tuned for my educational chat with Andy dissenters.

 

[00:00:33] Hi, I'm Patricia. This series titled Investigating the World of Fasting with Patricia Kathleen features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas in an effort to explore the world of fasting from a variety of angles. This dialog is meant to develop a more complete story about the information, research, personal stories, lifestyles, companies and culture within fasting. The Chronicles captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. Welcome to Investigating the World of Fasting with Patricia Kathleen. Now let's start the conversation.

 

[00:01:24] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today, I am so excited to be sitting down with Andy De Santis, a registered dietitian. And you can find out more about everything we talk about today as well of all his books and his work at Andy, the R d dot com.

 

[00:01:40] That's a n d y t h e r d dot com. Welcome, Andy. Thanks for having me.

 

[00:01:46] Absolutely. For everyone who has is new to our podcast. I will give you a quick roadmap as to the line in which our inquiry will be based. And then I'll read a bio on Andy. And then we will be off to the races and peppering him with questions. So a quick roadmap for today's inquiry will first look at Andy's personal experience with fasting, as well as his professional experience as a registered dietitian. Then we'll look at some of the implementing with fasting with clients, some of the techniques and increase we have based on that. And then I will spend some time unpacking one of his several books titled The 21 Day Intermittent Fasting, Weight Loss Plan Recipes, Meal Plans and Exercise for a Healthier You. It came out this year in 2020, and I'll kind of unpack that, looking at how he defines four or five of the fasts that he employs or has recommended to his clients, as well as the particulars within this fast. Andy, this book kind of discusses a lot of things about different states of fasting as well as protein, and it's also a meal guide. So we'll look at some of his food choices and how some of that was curated. We'll wrap everything up with our Rapid Fire questions, which is composed of our audience in a nod to all of you listening and my thankfulness. I do try to incorporate all of your questions for the guests that we have on, and we will end up with a stage of those for Andy and then we will wrap all of that up with advice. He may have for everyone who is looking to start getting involved or perhaps seek his advice. A quick bio, as promised on Andy. And he is a registered dietitian, R.D. in Toronto. He's as charismatic as they come. He also happens to be a three time published author. I think it's actually more than that now with an unmatched passion for helping clients reach their health goals. He has a private nutrition practice which offers both online and motion fit clinics. And you can find him online again and his Web site at ande that r d dot com. So, Andy, before I kind of skipped over a bunch of your bio, because I want you to unpack that for us. And before I start asking you about your book in particular and some specifics about fasting, I was hoping you could just briefly describe for us what some of your occupational professional academic background has been with your nutritional and dieticians studies, as well as your personal experience with fasting before we get kind of into the particulars of your work.

 

[00:04:07] Sure. Yeah. So I'm a graduate of the University of Toronto School of Public Health. And so that's why there's that MPH designation as well that I have. An stria school actually started work at Diabetes Canada, which was formerly known as the Canadian Diabetes Association. And it wasn't long after that that I actually end up getting into private practice and to accompany my private practice. I did a lot of blogging, a lot of writing just to increase my visibility online. Obviously, to increase my professional capacity, because I think that, you know, to be good nutrition professional, you have to be aware of the topics that people are interested in talking about. And you can't just dismiss them as fads or trends, even if some of them are. It helps to be able to speak about them on a higher level. And, you know, fasting is a great example of that. You can have a whole spectrum of people in the world of fasting who are either dismissive or perhaps overly valuate as some sort of fix. All right. I like to think I fall right in the middle. And, you know, my own experience with fasting is actually both both personal and professional. And one of the reasons I was interested on a personal level, I'm sure this goes to professional stuff after the main reason I was interested on a personal level is, you know, I'm someone who enjoys eating larger meals, shall we say. However, you know, I passed age 30 are getting busier than they could be, three, four massive meals a day. I just wasn't working anymore. And I found a way with a little bit a little bit longer between between my meals that I was enjoying the more I was able to eat more in the way I want to eat. And so actually, my passion in my interest for fasting all started there purely from that personal angle.

 

[00:05:39] Yeah, you mentioned that in the book. It was kind of an interesting tie in that you were unable to kind of sustain this massive eating campaign that you had on the set. That was kind of clever. I think a lot of men would really relate to that. At least a lot of my male colleagues who have this.

 

[00:05:54] It seems like a relationship with the amount of food consumed, you know, in as much as it was even just the type of food, right?

 

[00:06:01] No, absolutely. I mean I mean, it's a personality thing. Some people don't like sitting out a lot of a big meal. My dad doesn't like that, but I do. My dad kept his plates over. Well, he can't touch it myself. I'd sooner hold off eating it for something small. Eat something larger is just a purely a quirk of my personality. It's quite relevant to my overall my overall happiness and quality of life. And so here we are.

 

[00:06:24] Yeah. Just having that honest dialog and an awareness of one's self. Well, kind of fast. Have you personally practiced over your history?

 

[00:06:31] Yep. So, yeah, this this is interesting. So I'm not one. So that the thing for, for myself is I'm not one to do extended fast, super, super excited. So I think above twenty four hours, that's not something that particular interested because the reason I fast all relates back to what I just mentioned is I wanted. I love you. I love deep foods in a large amount. But I also don't see myself as someone who would ever not eat for a whole day. So the longest fast that I've ever done personally is probably been twenty two. Twenty three hours on average. I've probably applied to that standard cliche, 14, 15, 16, 17 hour fast because that's what, sir. That serves me best. Let's put it that way. You know, I don't necessarily but in my mind engage a longer farce for any perceived physiological benefits, whatever those may be. And we can theoretical or proceed benefits, whatever those may be. And so that's what that's what lands me in the style that I end up pursuing.

 

[00:07:22] So do you solely use fasting so that you can have this massive meal or have you used it to strengthen other physical attributes? Maintaining weight, strengthening immune system, anything like that? Or is it just bend personally towards that one end?

 

[00:07:36] The way I see it. I mean, it's largely down to it's become. It started off as something to her to facilitate eating these larger meals and to refine my hunger and my ability to eat these larger deals. That's how it started with the more I researched, the more I look into it.

 

[00:07:52] The way I see it, if I get some extra physiological bonuses, if it has a net positive effect on my metabolism, my immune system, my genetics, potentially, which a lot of the stuff we have to be honest, this is largely theoretical. Now, we do need more human evidence to really be able to say definitively that's true. But if that's a bonus for me, all the better.

 

[00:08:09] You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. And there and I think there's a lot of fall out bonuses from different, you know, health attributes, era techniques.

 

[00:08:18] Did you deal with hip hop clientele that are using or that you advised fasting to other means that you yourself have not used it towards? So to combat disease, lose weight.

 

[00:08:29] Or even, you know, as I call it, the rare bird. But there are some people who use it for mental acuity. I come from Silicon Valley. Fasting was about fifteen years ago by the top exacts and like really an incredibly creative, you know, to kind of enhance this mental heightened state and use it towards those ends.

 

[00:08:50] Yeah, it's an interesting question. I find in my experience, those types of things tend to be byproducts. So, for example, the mental acuity thing. So it's not unusual for for me to discuss fasting with an interested client, for that client to then pursue fasting, to experience that as a as a benefit. You know what I mean? Not so much. I won't have necessarily someone who comes in to see me and they'll say, OK, you know, I'm not feeling as sharp as I want to. I'm like, OK, fasting, done what I will. I'll certainly discuss fasting with if it's a topic they're interested in, all look more to what they're actually eating. Fix that part first because I feel like what you actually eat. And then this is what this is what's interesting about me, despite my interest in fasting, I don't hold it so, so high that it's the most important thing. But what I believe is what you actually eat is probably always going to be more important than how you structure your eating. Fasting is very much the icing on the cake, on the cake, on top of that. I can give you that little extra boost. And so while I've never pursued it with someone specifically for that reason, certainly they've had that benefit. The most common reason, you know, that someone would pursue fasting with me. So it's certainly a weight management strategy, but more often than not, it's just such a massive topic of public interest that, you know, so many people who see me are just otherwise savvy people that they want to broach these topics. And then we just go down that road.

 

[00:10:04] Yeah, absolutely. So I want to climb into your book. You have a few. I'll read them off. You've got the twenty one hour, 28 day dash diet weight loss program, the easy five ingredient Pescadero and Cookbook, The Low Cholesterol Cookbook for two easy five ingredient acid reflux cookbook. And then the final one today that I want to discuss. Your most recent the 21 day intermittent fasting weight loss plan is meal plans and exercise for a healthier you. So let me read a quick summary that we scraped from online. Most likely Amazon, as you mentioned, the. Or fasting is a practice with ancient roots and its health benefits are enjoyed by people all over the world, discover the benefits of yourself yourself with a 21 day intermittent fasting weight loss plan. This easy to follow plan, complete with healthy recipes, shows you how to begin your investing practice and how regular breaks from food can support your health and weight loss goals. I'll tell you as I climb through it delivered everything it said, which is appreciative. I like it. A title that describes what we're going to be endeavoring with. But in addition to that, you kind of start off with what I believe is like a really great and important part of fasting, which is the framework of the fast you're going to be discussing, because there's a just like a litany of facts out there. And people frequently don't define their terms. They don't define what fast they're talking about and they don't describe what they mean with that fast. Because I've heard Omar describe the myriad of ways, and it's an acronym for one meal a day. But how you do that and and actually what people considering fasting is, is very, very different. So before we get into those things, I want you to define a few terms for me when you are speaking as a dietitian. What do you mean by fasting? Is it going without food? Is it going without food and water? Is it. How are you defining it?

 

[00:11:53] Right. For the you know, for my average for my average client. I'm defining it. I start out by defining it as the length of time from your last five one day to your first bite the next. And obviously, there's a lot more nuance to that. Right. And then what really comes down to some further questions I get asked. And then what we're really saying is, you know, nothing caloric from your from one day to the next will. Of course, you know you know, a lot of comes in as an option and so forth and things like that. So that's really how I define it with my clients is, you know, last night, the first bite. Nothing caloric. Yes. Water, coffee for you know, for my clients, you know, that is the level that that they're at. You know, I know there are people who like to take things quite more robustly, perhaps forego other forgo water or things like that. That's not really the level they're operating at just because I don't think that is very appealing to the largest number of people. So that which is which is what I try and serve the large number of people possible. So the people in the middle, so it's without color, like food intake, essentially without caloric intake. So no food or beverages that offer any sort of, you know, meaningful amount of calories.

 

[00:12:58] Right. OK.

 

[00:12:59] And then you talk about let me list off the ones that you mentioned in your book as the framework for the ones that you employ and kind of discuss the 12 12, the 16 eight, the mad and then weekly fasts have two different categories under them. And one is the five to alternate day modifying fasting, which is a DMF. And the second one under weekly fasting is the alternate day fasting SFD so that you can kind of just climb through and really quickly talk about what each of these how they are defined for you. So starting with the 12, 12 and 16.

 

[00:13:33] OK. So the twelve, twelve, sixty eight. And even actually I mean to actually put the old man in that category is all because they actually are all very similar. Right. The only difference is the length of time from the last bite. I simplify by saying last point. I think we know what we're talking about here. The last plate one day to the first bite the next. OK. If you do a twelve twelve, you are going every day. Twelve hours of your last flight. One day. The first bite the next. The exact times where that takes place. That might vary. You might stop eating quite early in the day or stop eating quite late in the day and start early or later the next day. 60 NaCl is the same thing where that first number is indicative of how long you're going for your last flight, your first bite.

 

[00:14:09] All that gets gets a fun name. But all that really is is a twenty two to twenty three. Play to twenty three. The old one that starts. That's all it is. It's the twenty two or twenty three hour fast. They call it all mad. But essentially you are going most of the day you have it was probably going to be a large meal that's going to take you about an hour or so to eat and then you're going to go the next day and do that again. You know what I mean? But here's here's the other thing, actually, that, you know, one thing I'm big on with my clients were interested in fast is that, you know, we don't need to be dogmatic about it. You know, you don't have to adhere to a set amount of time every single day. Fasting is all ultimately met, in my view, to be dynamic and to just serve you and to improve the quality of life. And if that means that you have to go a little bit longer one day or live a shorter one day, so be it. Obviously, we provide these frameworks because that's functional and in the setting of a book. But, you know, I do believe there's definitely room for flexibility there.

 

[00:15:02] Yeah. And you did do a good job of mentioning that. You talk about, you know, if you wake up, ravenous. Would you advise fasting? Yes, absolutely not. And likewise, conversely, if you wake up feeling rather full one morning, why wouldn't you entertain the idea of fasting? You know, just barely paying attention to one's body. And then you also juxtapose that which I appreciate a lot into cultural customs when we expect ourselves to eat and really asking ourselves whether or not we're hungry. Those moments or we're doing it out of tradition. Right. Which I appreciate. Let's get into the weekly fast as the fourth category. This is one that was a little new to me only in terms of how you were putting it. However, I think that unpacking it people become familiar with that they've heard of this type of thing. The five to the alternate day modified fasting DMF. How do you define that?

 

[00:15:48] Right. So what is a weekly fasting is definitely more on the more robust and shall we say, a weekly fasting? I ask you, you probably want one of two things. It's asking you for two days a week to do a 24 hour fast or to do a very long, fast and have a relatively small amount of food. And for the other five days, to eat, essentially eat liberally. So with without no sort of no sort of restriction. So what. So the deaf. Sorry. Well, stuttering there, it means one of two things. So two days a week you're going the whole day without eating or you're eating very little. That's essentially what a weekly fast is. And how you structure those two days would be up to you. Presumably you might put them. You might divide them equally throughout the week. So three days on, one day fasting, three days to make it more manageable. If I'm being perfectly honest with you, for the sake of completeness, those type of fast food included in the book, because I know they took interest. Some people my opinion personally, professionally, is that the percentage of people who are enticed by this fast is not going to. Is not the most just because of what it entails.

 

[00:16:50] That's my personal opinion on that.

 

[00:16:53] Yeah. This tendency and the discipline, I think, you know, particularly for the RFD, the alternate day fasting alternate, the fasting day. I'm curious, have you ever had a client who has reached in far enough that wanted to execute these?

 

[00:17:11] Or do you ever have a client that hits a point with after you've modified diet and done a lot of your analysis to that end, where you recommend them doing something like this for a week to hit applier to change a plateau or hit a stall or change any of those things.

 

[00:17:26] Yeah, that's a good question. Personally, when it comes to these more robust fast, it's it's 99 percent of the time it's someone who has done it previously. They're telling me about it. So it will be Clyde who used to did this that one time or tried this that time for me in my own personal belief. I don't push this on clients because it's I think it's it's a big ask for someone, especially for someone who perhaps is just trying fasting for the first time. Now, that being said, there are people who who work with me who really like it, who have a great time doing daily fast, and then want to experiment with a with a slightly more challenging or different type of a fast. That is the minority, though. So I'm not going to I don't. So as a general rule, I don't push these these more challenging fast just because I believe that they're just fruit for most people, they're not necessarily most appealing. But if someone asked me how to implement it in the best way possible, we'll obviously talk about that.

 

[00:18:26] Yeah, OK. And in your book, you discuss, which is kind of rare. I've read a great deal of fasting books and very few get into diet books in general. Well, ways of life people don't decipher between the male and the female body types enough. This goes into like all of Western medicine, in my opinion. However, your book does a good point. I've kind of briefly sussing this out and then discussing that, you know, one of the key things that has been found is that there are raised cortisol levels which are, you know, kind of this stress hormone in women naturally occurring. And then there's also the menstrual cycle that just does tend to change the way that fasting is received upon the female body. And you look at studies done with Ramadan, which is the fasting religious house, Muslim tradition. And I'm wondering if you can kind of speak more to that in. Have you drawn any connections or do you have any, like, platforms you've developed considering the differences between the male and the female body when it comes to fasting?

 

[00:19:25] Yeah, that's a good question. I think that's one of those in my my impression of that is it's one of those areas that people speak about very freely with the amount of good evidence we have is not a law. So, you know, there's so many. This is one of those things. It was a big disparity. So. So to the point about causal, suddenly I felt a little bit of stuff here. They're discussing differences in cortisol levels and how that may make may may make them slightly less inclined to thrive while fasting. But the best the most salient evidence I found was really studies of Ramadan, which actually ends up being the case. A lot of fasting because that's a that is obviously a great replication of what fasting gives on some level, because Robert afast is essentially a sixty eight minus. The water is essentially a 60 day fast. So what I what I found when I was looking into the stuff in this book as it relates to two to women fasting, is that there is a slightly increased risk of menstrual irregularities during during Ramadan or an increased rate increase in dental records. So that's something of note. You know what I mean? I can sit here and tell you definitively, this is this this is that male versus female. But there let's put it this way. There is there's potential for a difference there. It's something that, you know, as more and more fasting research gets done, we'll certainly learn more about.

 

[00:20:38] Yeah, absolutely. Have you. Do you have any curiosity when looking into fasting on behalf of your clients and you and your work? Do you look at things like fast mimicking and things like a tough igy that happened during these early stages of fasting for health for your clients? Have you followed any of those trends? And if so, how do you implement that knowledge?

 

[00:20:59] Right. That's a great question as well. I'm yeah. I mean, look, those topics come up. I mean, I just recently published a blog on my Web site that from a study that was just published, a Ramadan study published April 2020 that looked at gene expression.

 

[00:21:11] And Robert, on fasters, they felt certain genes that may be very, very relevant to human diseases.

 

[00:21:18] I think one of the most for the amyloid plaques, which are relevant for Alzheimer's disease.

 

[00:21:22] That that was down regulated in Robert on fasters. So, I mean, it wasn't expressed as much. Who knows what that could mean. It's you can't really make sense of it from one study, especially methodological limitations. But that kind of stuff. Well, I'm always keeping my eye that. You discussed that with my clients. The idea. I don't want to be one of the popular concepts. Absolutely. Autophagy is one of them. And then the idea that you're fasting is essentially a low level of stress, a cellular level. It makes your cells, your immune system more resilient as a result. That's certainly a concept that is thrown around again where we're at right now. If the human evidence. It's very hard to prove that definitively. But there is that what I say? Is there something there? And we're going to learn more and more as more studies come out. But, yeah, I absolutely talk about those types of things in my clients were more inclined to like that kind of stuff.

 

[00:22:11] Yeah. And I want to get into just a little bit more to unpack fast mimicking because it's this restrictive idea that it pushes Volter long now. And I don't want to butcher his work or anything like that.

 

[00:22:21] For those of you, please go to research and find out from the horse's mouth. However, the concept is, is that a heavily restricted calorie diet mimics a lot of the benefits from fasting while still some type of nutrient choleric meal to the recipient. And I'm wondering, in your book, you do give these calorie descriptions and I don't have them written down here. They change for men versus women. And you say it's an insider letter on the other due to age and things and an activity level. But I'm wondering how you feel about that. There is an obvious conversation between you know, you say that there's a calorie amount to start to be in the deficit where you're losing weight for weight management and as a dietitian, that and as it relates to calorie restriction, would you ever. I'm wondering when someone comes into you, let's say, and says, I'd like to lose some weight and you're obviously going to take their calorie count and ask them about their exercise level and take their age into account all of those things and then prescribe, you know, Kalac amount as a as a dietitian. But I'm wondering, do you ever get clients who want to play with going lower and lower than that? And what is your advice as as it stands in your field right now?

 

[00:23:34] Yeah, I mean, yeah, those are yeah. OK. So. As it relates as it relates to that, I'm not sure is trying to compare to the really packed. Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm trying to figure out with what the question was. And there was a lot of interesting points. All right.

 

[00:23:53] There's a relationship right between and this fast mimicking extreme calorie restriction and then what everyone kind of recommends, which is calorie restriction for weight loss. And I think it's a fine dance between having, you know, five hundred like Volter long hours. The average study up to the twelve hundred that you talk about for women, you know, of a certain age to be able to have. How do you deduce your calorie count? And do you tend to take it down when you're a client who wants to lose weight, isn't losing weight?

 

[00:24:23] Yes. So. Now I got the question. But this is the this is the reality for myself as a as a private practice dietician, having worked with a lot of people over the last five years.

 

[00:24:33] It's that, you know, calorie there. There's a lot of things there's a lot of strategies people can employ to improve the quality of their diet to pursue weight loss. You know, among all of those things, among all the people, all the things that are willing to try, the number of people who are interested in intensely moderate their caloric intake is not very high. So sure in that sub population of people who like to play with that stuff. Absolutely. Those are strategies we can look at. Now, again, the thing that you're you're you're discussing the idea of, you know, your fast mimicking very, very low calories. You know, the appeal, as much as that may be scientifically intriguing. The appeal to the type of people who I work with is not very, very high because that is a very, very niche thing.

 

[00:25:16] You know, it's it's neither here nor there as to whether it's necessarily the best practice. So the way I look at fasting, honestly, is, yes, there are theoretical physiological benefits, but there's also practical benefits to it. And I kind of divide those two. And as a practical benefit. I mean, even if fasting did nothing for your body, your physiology, your genetics, let's say, even if it did nothing, and I don't believe that's true. But even if it did nothing, fasting may actually have practical benefits. When you reduce your eating window, when you when you wait till you're actually truly hungry, you know what I mean? Those types of things can have a net positive impact on overall. It take an overall quality of life. For example, if you have someone who wakes up early B breakfast, even though they aren't hungry, they're losing sleep and they're being more than they otherwise would. And they realize they actually don't have to do that. Those benefits that they're getting have nothing to do with the potential, you know, you know, genetic expression is a result of suspending food intake. Those are purely practical benefits, pragmatic daily benefits. So as much as I love the physiological side of it, I think that for most people this is just my my my opinion. I do explore the physiological side. I have written about it all that for most people it's the practical stuff that actually plays a really, really big role.

 

[00:26:26] Yeah. And to that end, actually, the practical I want to turn over into our final stage, which is the rapid fire question of people that get into the practicality of dietitian advice and where it meets and with fast things. I'm going to dove right in. And one of them is we've had a lot of people write in and say, as a dietician, how do you how do you design and work around people's food limitations? You know, there's allergies, there's food restrictions. There's the Vegan diet. There's all sorts of things. Do you find yourself able or is it difficult to cure it, especially when it comes in regards to things like protein that you've actually spoken about in your book as well?

 

[00:27:04] Oh, yeah. I mean, the reality is that that's that's my job. You know what I mean? This is what I do. I work with people of all different varieties. I mean, to be perfectly honest, people who are either Vegan a vegetarian or in the process of conversion or partial conversion, I thoroughly enjoy working those types of people. And so I'm very well versed in all of these different things. And if if you have six limitations, I know the six things we have to do on the other side of that.

 

[00:27:26] It's just that just comes with the job. You know what I mean? I mean, you talk to people. You, in some ways you've seen it all. And so you don't navigate that stuff really is you know, that's a part of the pleasure of the job. It represents a small challenge, but a highly enjoyable one.

 

[00:27:40] Nice. Yeah. We had a lot of people write in regarding, like the top 10 items to have in one's fridge, according to a dietician. And I know in your book you had pantry basics. And it's like a whole list of things that you had on there. And I'm wondering if you could prattle off like ten off of the top of your head. What would the top 10?

 

[00:28:02] A lot of people wrote in just like, what are the number one things that I should be eating daily? That type of thing, like I always have on stock and always be eating.

 

[00:28:09] OK. If I had to pick ten, I would say, well, I'll OK. I'll be specific. But I would say let's say, let's say kale, which represents a green vegetable, let's say a bell pepper, which represents a colorful vegetable, yellow, orange, red. Let's say flax seed, which represents a good source of fiber, a good source of omega 3s. I would say tofu. I'm a big fan of soy products, which is a whole other topic.

 

[00:28:30] I like tofu because it gives people an avenue to eat less animal products. And even though there's nothing wrong for the Apple products, I think were the biggest issues of our. But there's not enough variety in our protein intake. And so I would love people to eat less of the conventional protein sources and more of the unconventional ones. Tofu and Teppei being another one of them. You know, obviously fruit of all kinds. But we had to pick one group. Let's go with berries. Obviously very high in antioxidants.

 

[00:28:57] Let's say, you know, let's. Even though I don't think your dairy is that necessary or superfood. Let's throw Greek yogurt. And there it is, high protein. It does have probiotics. Yogurt is a great facilitator. So if you have seeds and nuts and you have fruit, yogurt can bring those together. So that works.

 

[00:29:13] I'm inclined to I mean, again, fruits, fruits, vegetables, some for nuts or seeds. Legumes are definitely in there, too. So legumes.

 

[00:29:23] Anything that's soy based lentils, chickpeas, those don't really go in the fridge. Those are very important. Very high fiber. Very high protein. Again, allow you to get protein from a known animal source. What else would I put in there?

 

[00:29:36] Is a good one.

 

[00:29:38] I mean, honestly, for the sake of the economical aspect of it. Eggs. And we'll explain why it's because vitamin D is quite elusive. It's locked out in very many foods.

 

[00:29:46] It's down to fish, which I also put in your fridge. It's funny, fish eggs and then is fortified of dairy products.

 

[00:29:52] So vitamin D, a lot people don't get enough eggs happen to be one of the only foods that are vitamin D and they're economical, which makes people's lives easier. So let's throw eggs in there, too. And yeah. So I'm, I'm just trying not to just say broccoli, onions, cauliflower and just all the fruits and vegetables and fruits and vegetables, especially vegetables, are the most important foods. So a wide array of different colors of fruits and vegetables are imported. So it is really hard to picture as well. I've just learned a lot.

 

[00:30:17] But I mean, the more the merrier right now. But really good road map and a direction of where you're headed. And really, we had people writing in about stages of life for men and women. And I'm sure this to be inclusive, like, of course, people identifying as male or female as well as non binary. We're talking about stages of life for the human development.

 

[00:30:37] So a lot of people wrote in asking about specific dietary like advice, key tips for menopause, as well as children hitting puberty. Men wrote in in regards to older stages of male and functioning in their 50s. As a dietician, how much do you think people should start to reanalyzed in these stages of these changes of human life? How frequently would you advise someone stop and like reassess what they're eating and kind of recalibrate to their stage of life?

 

[00:31:13] Yeah. That's a good question. Well, I mean, obviously, those are all map quite different demographics and there's very many considerations there. But the best piece of advice I can give is that, you know, if you are uncertain that you are, let's say your dietary pattern is as good as it could be every year that passes, that uncertainty should be troubling you more and more, because with age comes increased risk for, you know, negative things to happen to you from a health perspective. So if you're carrying uncertainty about what you're doing nutritionally, I would encourage you to speak to a health professional dietitian because that uncertainty is going to manifest in you not living the best quality of life in the best possible life as you get older, because as you get older, the decisions you make you've made up into that point are going to come to bear. And if you're not sure that you made the best decisions was that's going to be really important. So that's my best advice to kind of cover all the categories there.

 

[00:32:03] Yeah. What are some markers that people should really seek dietary advice for? Like just key physical mental markers that you would say immediately talk to your dietitian.

 

[00:32:13] I mean, look, fatigue, poor sleep, lack of energy. Know those things absolutely are up there. I mean, lack of mental clarity was something you brought up earlier. I mean, certainly. And then you have the blood work, you know, blood pressure, you know, blood pressure, blood cholesterol. Those are some of the most frequently prescribed medications for which there are dietary means of recourse. So stuff like that, I would say, yeah, just just like not feeling as good as you think. You could be feeling it. Because what I what I always say is that no food doesn't fix every single problem. But if you don't feel your best, you cannot be sure it's not because your diet is not optimized. So that's that's kind of like one of my my quotes, shall we say.

 

[00:32:55] Yeah. Well, I mean, her pocket, she's ripe for medicine. So I think that is catching on more and more, which means that you'll have to write some more books. Well, Andy, we are out of time, but I want to thank you so much for giving us your time today. I really appreciate just all of your honesty. And I know you're busy and I'm stopping and giving us your information about your book and everything else. I really appreciate it.

 

[00:33:19] Thanks so much for having a great time.

 

[00:33:20] Yeah. And for everyone listening, we have been speaking with Andy De Santis. He's a registered dietitian. You can find out more about everything that he has done, all of his work at Andy, the R d dot com. And until we speak again next time. Thank you for giving us your time.

 

[00:33:36] And remember to stay safe, clean and responsibly when you do eat and always bet on yourself. Slainte.