Howdy my name is Megan Windham and I am a registered and licensed dietitian and i am so excited to be here with you today to present eat well be well being mindful of fad diets and just talking you through a little bit of healthy eating patterns and some of these trends that we're seeing with fad diets so as we look here I'm thinking about our diet trends and media there's a lot of misinformation on the internet there's a lot of good information but there is a lot of information that we do have to sort through and and kind of make a sound decision on what we're we're choosing. There's a lot of different terms and buzzwords as you can see here on this list. I'm gluten-free, low-carb, ketogenic, paleo and we're going to talk through a lot of those today but I want to just give you a glimpse at each one to to help understand when making a decision about what we're eating, what information do we really need to look for and what's important to see. So let's talk a little bit about sorting through these trends. Juicing is the first one that I'd like to cover. And with juicing a lot of people enjoy doing this, a lot of people find that getting their fruits and vegetables is a great way to do that and so they don't like eating fruits and vegetables so juicing them seems a little bit easier or seems a little bit more manageable. But what I want to challenge you with here with the juicing is that keep in mind juicing isn't as healthy as when we consume those whole fruits and vegetables because it doesn't have the full amount of the pulp and the skin like the whole fruit does. So with some recommendations here if we add that pulp back to the juice so if we blend it so through all the fruits and vegetables in a blender instead of just a juicer we tend to get the same benefits even if it's blended that's okay it's just the juicing that leaves that pulp and skin that gives us less of the health benefit. Keep in mind that juice in particular is pretty high in sugar so it takes a lot of fruit and veggies to make that juice. It's not that that sugar is bad it has some fiber in it but and when we take that fiber out from the peel we we lack that and so the juice becomes a little bit higher in sugar. Overall juice is also more calorie dense so we don't feel as full when we have the glass of juice as if we ate the piece of fruit because we get a little bit more of that satiation from eating eating that actual fruit so i would recommend here again to blend rather than juice. Limit to about a half a cup that's four ounces so it's really not that big in the grand scheme of things but it's something that we want to think about and then try to add some sort of protein like milk or greek yogurt or nuts or nut butters to that juice to give a little sense of protein because protein helps us feel fuller longer. Detoxes and cleanses is another one that I hear often. I among this population what i always would just challenge you with here is that our liver has is the natural detox mechanism for our body and it filters medications and it filters different things on a daily basis through our body. So there's really no proof that we need a detox or we need a cleanse. A lot of these detoxes and cleanse can lead to dehydration, can lead to more a frequency of bowel movements which leads to lethargy achiness cramping heart issues because of the potassium and sodium levels due to dehydration. And keep in mind there's a lot of antioxidants that fruits and vegetables have that give us that kind of detox or give us that cleanse that we need just in general to help with making sure that our body gets what it needs so there's really no benefit in detoxes and cleanses. I recommend just a general healthy balanced eating approach. Gluten-free is another one that we see often. I'll back up and talk a little bit about what is gluten. And gluten is just a protein that that is found in wheat rye and barley so it's nothing that's bad for us. It's found naturally in food but a lot of times people are sensitive, allergic or have a medical condition that leads them to need to limit their gluten or avoid it completely. What we see though is going gluten-free for weight loss or we're doing it for a certain diet trend and there's really no benefit to this at all. Really where it comes in a weight loss approach is because we're usually limiting more of our processed foods from going gluten free because a lot of wheat rye and barley is maybe in things that are a little bit highly processed so gluten free can result in weight loss but it's not a healthy way to do that due to the nutrients that we may be lacking from avoiding gluten when it's not medically necessary. So we see that weight loss may come if we cut out those junk foods if we're eating a little bit better but keep in mind that a lot of our gluten-free versions of food normally have that would normally have wheat tend to have more sugar in them and they have different things in them to make them still taste good and feel good in our mouth so gluten free doesn't mean healthier it just means that it cuts out that wheat rye and barley that some people are sensitive or allergic to. And just because we're gluten free doesn't mean that we're going to lose weight loss and or be healthier so not something that i would recommend unless there is a true allergy or sensitivity here. Whole 30 is another one that I see often. I'll just kind of give an overview of what whole30 is for those of you who aren't aware of that. So some foods that it would suggest avoiding would be sugar, real and the artificial so like splenda sweet and low things like that. Avoids alcohol, grains, legumes. So legumes or any of our some of our nuts so peanuts included here but most of our beans so black beans pinto beans red beans those types of things. And then our dairy is encouraged to be avoided here. Foods to include this is mainly a meat protein seafood veggies natural fats some fruit but really trying to limit that sugar content here as well. So that's just an overview of Whole30. But what I want you to do is just take some time to read this quote here. And I won't read it out loud but it's pulled directly from their whole 30 website and I think it's really telling to show that what some of these diets do or these trends do is really try to make us feel like the last sentence. It's always a choice we hope that you would stop succumbing to peer pressure in the seventh grade. And kind of gives you this guilt feeling of choosing different foods or choosing foods not on the list. And just in my line of work here I see a lot of these diet trends- whole30 ketogenic, paleo, gluten-free, leading to eating issues and eating disorders because we've tried to be so restrictive or trying to fit into a certain mold and when we cut out any food group. And I tell this to a lot of my patients is any type of diet or eating pattern that cuts out any food group whether it's fats or carbs or protein or or fruits we tend to lead to overeating or we tend to develop a disordered eating pattern. And I see that over and over. And it starts out with great intentions but often leads with leaves with a very unhealthy pattern. So this is one that I would certainly list in that but there are some things to think about so whole grains get a bad reputation, carbs get a bad reputation but know that our whole grains and those with fiber help decrease inflammation. Our dairy products like yogurt and kefir and some cheeses have probiotics which help with inflammation. Legumes so those are our beans and nuts. Some of these contain fiber and short chain carbohydrates which help with inflammation so all of these are great for us for some reason they just get a bad reputation and when we tend to say we're going to cut them out it leads to less healthy approaches. So this is a very short-term solution. I always say a lot of my patients give up before the 30 days is over or if they make it to that 30 days they tend to revert back to old patterns after it's over. It's really just not a lifestyle change. And that's something I would truly emphasize when we're looking at healthy approaches to eating. So the recommendations here that I like it what it emphasizes. It chooses less processed foods so it's encouraging more cooking at home and more of our meats and veggies and those types of things and I think that's a great thing to be including. But here again it does still limit those foods and that's where we can come in with some issues long term. Paleo is pretty similar to a whole30 diet, It here again eliminates our dairy, our grains, our legumes. It looks a little bit more at salt so trying to limit more of the salt. Sugar in particular as well. It's also known as the caveman or stone age diet. Certainly some pros here - it helps limit those refined processed foods and so I think that's a good thing that we encourage. More cooking at home, we encourage more fruits and vegetables, so you can't go wrong with that. It's where it gets to this next bullet of cutting out major food groups so then we run into, are we meeting our nutrient needs? And a lot of times we focus more on calories and protein and carbs but we need to dive deeper into am I getting the right vitamins and minerals and micronutrients that we often overlook. So when we limit whole grains and dairy and legumes we tend to limit those nutrients and those micronutrients in particular. This typical meal plan usually exceeds recommendations for fat and protein and less on carbohydrates and here again we may need to supplement with vitamin d and calcium due to the dairy content. Intermittent fasting is one that I've really seen to be popular and growing especially in today's society, but also just in general with the students that I work with. So I want to outline each one of these for those of you who aren't familiar with intermittent fasting. There's different types. So there's alternate day fasting ,which you would alternate between fasting and feeding days. There's whole day fasting, which you would eat normally about five days and then two days you would more do a calorie restriction. And then the most common that I see a lot is time restricted feeding. And so this is where you would fast or not eat for 16 hours and then eat in an eight hour window. So some pros of intermittent fasting and I'll tell you there's a lot of research that supports this. There's a lot of good research that supports it, but then there's also some cons that we want to look at with this. So it has been associated with decreased body weight, body fat, and waist circumference so we're seeing some shifts and overall just losing weight. We can still eat the same number of calories and we really don't have to restrict types of foods. So remember in the past two sections of the paleo and whole30 we talked about limiting those foods is really not the best way to to eat a healthy diet. So this doesn't do that. It's pretty easy to follow and it allows for larger portions in a shorter period of time and some people like that because they feel satisfied and they feel like they're getting enough. But some cons here and what I see a lot is that it can just really interfere with socially eating. And so we tend to say well I'm restricting it this time or I'm fasting at this time so we don't eat. But maybe our friends want to go eat or maybe our family members want to go eat or celebrate something and we feel a social tug between what we're doing eating wise and also with our foods. It can also lead to getting hangry so this is just that I'm so hungry that now I'm angry and I it it'll take anything wherever it is, I'll eat whatever available to me. It doesn't matter, I'm just so hungry. And so I've seen this lead to some binge-like tendency so we tend to overeat at the next meal because we're overly hungry and that can also lead to disordered eating behaviors. I also see digestion issues here, so if you think about not eating for a long period of time and then now we're over eating because we're so hungry it can lead to abdominal pain and bloating and some irritable bowel syndrome just from eating a larger amount at one time. So while there are some pros with intermittent fasting there are still certainly cons that I want you to be aware of with it um it's not something that i suggest on a regular basis intermittent fasting um i do think it has a little bit the the cons outweigh the pros right now i think research is still out on it but it is something just to be aware of. If that's a pattern that you're looking into or you've researched a little bit yourself okay. And lastly I want to talk about the ketogenic diet. Tthis is another really popular diet that I see a lot. An overview of this would be it's very high in fat very low in carbohydrate, more moderate protein, but a much higher fat content than any other diet that we usually see. Grains are even discouraged fruits are often avoided so it's more of a a little bit of meat high fat meat in particular or high fat foods in in general. So I always tell my patients to take a look back and go why am I doing what I'm doing and so sometimes we see it from a friend sometimes a family member has tried the diet. Sometimes we just read it online and we saw an instagram post that yeah this person lost 50 pounds and I'm gonna try it. But try to think about why we're doing. That's what I want to to give you an overview here of. What is ketogenic and is it good for me? What is ketosis? Remember that our body and our brain in particular only functions on glucose and so when there is no glucose or carbohydrate coming in remember it's a very low carb diet. If any carbohydrate, but when there's very little coming in our body goes to something else for food or for energy. So without carbs our insulin, which is a hormone that regulates glucose, drops and fat is then released from our cells. Fat overwhelms the liver the liver then in turn makes ketones which is our body's second choice for energy, glucose being the first. And so while you might be thinking that's great I want to burn the fat, I can't believe this is a great way to get rid of that, let's look at the next slide and kind of keep in mind why this started. And a little bit of background behind that. So the the reason ketogenic st diet started in particular was because of epilepsy. This is patients who had seizures, and they found that these productions of ketones can influence the brain neurotransmitters and and transmission which allows for reduction in seizures. And they've seen a lot of positive outcomes for epileptic patients and it is really proven effective because of this brain transmission procedure. They've also seen some positive outcomes for diabetic patients. However here again it's kind of like the the celiac disease or the gluten-free. Most people don't go gluten-free because they have celiac disease (they are because they need to) but most people are doing it to lose weight. And here again it's the same thing with the ketogenic diet. So if we're doing it for rapid weight loss, keep in mind we're eliminating major food groups. There's very limited food options so limited food intake. Then results in that which usually limit leads to weight loss. When we don't eat carbs, carbs hold water and so any type of low carb diet that we choose is always going to result in rapid weight loss because of water loss. And so we tend to gain it back and it becomes frustrating but it never really was lost. Pounds in particular was really lost water in particular so that can be deceiving. And then weight is often regained because it's not a long-term lifestyle approach, and so it's just not something that I would suggest for a long-term health effect. It can lead to some side effects as well - the keto flu that we see, brain fog, fatigue, nausea, poor endurance because there's just no carbohydrates coming in so our muscles don't have that true glucose energy that we need, constipation due to just less fiber, so less whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. And then we can lead to those micronutrients and mineral deficiencies- sodium, potassium chloride, our vitamin d in particular, calcium, magnesium, selenium, zinc. These are all things that we don't necessarily feel physically at first but can lead to long-term effects if we're not careful. So our take-home messages, I know that was a quick and fast of our just kind of fad diets and trends but take home messages here are really focus on a lifestyle change what can you do the rest of your life that you can maintain and sustain and feel good about without these trends and fads that feel like I did great for 30 days but I can't keep doing that the rest of my life. Focus on your whole grains, your lean meats and proteins, fruits,veggies and dairy. Include all of those for a overall balanced approach. Remember it's not a quick fix as I tell a lot of my patients when they come in with some of these different trends and fads they want to do. My first question is are you planning to do this the rest of your life and if you can't answer yes to that or don't want to answer yes to that because you can't do it then it's not something that I would suggest and we need to reevaluate that. My rule is 80 20. So eat well 80 percent of the time and then 20 allow those times to go have chips and salsa or to have your splurge foods or foods that you don't eat very often but allow that to where we don't develop disorder patterns and thoughts. Be mindful of what we're eating that's a big key message we could go and a whole nother presentation on that but be mindful and then try to incorporate some exercise as part of a balanced approach. So I know this is a virtual presentation but my contact information is listed on the front slide. I'd be happy if you have any further questions want to make an appointment want to visit about some of the things that we talked about. But I wish you all the best this semester and hope you have a great year.