Ep. 47: Kristin Kirkpatrick - A Nutritionist Dishes on Fat, Carbs & BMI - Cleveland Clinic
Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD is the lead dietitian and manager of wellness nutrition services at the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute in Cleveland Ohio. She is a best selling author, an experienced presenter and an award winning dietitian. Kristin is asking the question, “How are you fueling?” everywhere she goes, in fact you've probably seen her on the Today Show or The Dr. Oz Show asking this very question. Today Kristin joins us on Heath Gig.
Kristin admits, though there is a lot of knowledge within her patient base, many of them don’t look at the practicality of nutrition choices in their lifestyle or their own unique genetics. What works for someone might not work for you. She breaks down different diets including mediterranean, low fat, high fat, dash, ketogenic and vegan.
Time restricted eating, or reducing the hours of eating to eight to ten hours is helpful. She also believes that unhealthy eating habits often arise from mental issues and stress which must be addressed.
In this podcast you will learn the difference between polyunsaturated fats, trans fats, saturated fats, and monounsaturated fats. You will also understand why carbs which are mixed with fiber reduce your net carbs and why BMI and scales are overrated.
Join us in this episode for a deep dive into nutrition.
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Book Mentioned in the Podcast
The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence by Gavin De Becker
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Show Notes
[01:37] The latest and greatest in nutrition science -- is further confusion.
[02:51] That's why I'm encouraging my patients and my friends to really look deeper at themselves. What does your environments say will be the best for you?
[03:36] Mediterranean diet always comes forth as probably the best diet that people should follow -- high end whole grains, high end legumes and obviously lots of fruits and vegetables.
[04:13] One of the best examples that I always love to cite is looking at the dietary habits of people that live in blue zones. How do they eat? What are the components that they have that make them live so much longer than the rest of us, and not just longer but better.
[04:35] I think that fasting needs to get more attention - and it's definitely ramping up.
[04:47] Most people I know are over fueling. They're giving their bodies more than what they need.
[05:12] From a scientific standpoint if we simply look at the data, mediterranean and dash diet usually always win out.
[05:29] What might have worked for us in our 20s 30s 40s may not work for us in our 50s and I think that that's something that should be part of the conversation.
[06:08] I think we have to be comfortable with where we are and what is realistic. So aspiring for our younger self is not always the healthiest approach to take.
[06:51] There was a big study in the Journal of the American Medical Association a few years ago and the big headline that came from that study was that obesity and thinness were both contagious. The company that we keep will often times dictate our diet and even our weight.
[07:35] What kind of exercise should I do? The answer is what kind of exercise will you stick with? It's not what I think you should do it's what you'll stick with because any movement is better than no movement at all.
[09:15] A lot of times the other component that's really important to healthy eating is sometimes sitting down and talking with someone about why you got into the bad habits to begin with, because that's not a dietary thing, that's a mental thing.
[09:54] I think that fasting is a really big one. Most of my patients do very well with time restricted eating -- which is limiting the hours in which you eat to either eight hours a day or 10 hours a day.
[11:58] There are plenty of studies now to prove that fat does not make you fat.
[12:35] The other benefit of more fat in the diet is that you don't have increases in insulin or blood sugar. When we see a roller coaster of insulin up and down and up and down from a higher carbohydrate pattern that then leads more to inflammation more chronic disease.
[13:20] Insulin does promote belly fat.
[13:28] I think there's plenty of very good carbohydrates -- lentils for example are very healthy carbohydrates but we have to be choosy about the ones we have and when I was saying earlier about really kind of looking at high quality carbohydrates or what I call upgraded carbohydrates those are actually carbohydrates that have some sort of mix of let's say fast or protein added into them.
[13:50] So again trying to achieve that very hard to digest components and taking away foods that are easy to digest fat keeps you full.
[16:54] Can you tell us what the differences between carbs and net carbs and the importance of understanding that?
[17:06] The healthiest carbohydrates will also be higher in fiber and many people don't recognize that the body cannot digest fiber in any way, it has no clue how to do it. So fiber for the most part goes through the body undetected and then we'll go through go through the colon. That's why we can have two different types of fibers that can help with lowering of cholesterol or helping with constipation issues soluble versus insoluble. But the fact of the matter is you don't process it. So a net carb is essentially taking the total carbohydrate in a product or a food and subtracting out that fiber because you're not digesting it anyway. The other thing that is often subtracted in a net carb calculation is sugar alcohol.
[19:55] There was just a mouse study just came out. Showing that mice whose diet was 4 percent pumpkin flesh had a 20 percent reduction in blood pressure while the mice that didn't have that.
[20:53] What excites me I think is when I witness transformation. When I see someone who perhaps has eaten in some manner their entire life and just hasn't been able to turn it around for whatever reason and then somehow a light bulb goes off and they're able to. I often tell people sometimes you don't realize how bad you feel until you feel good that bad becomes the norm. So when I see people say to me gosh for the first time in my life I feel good I feel like I've energy I'm happier.
[22:27] I'm often suggesting two things either that they just do a waist measurement and so for women I want them to be 40 inches or less and 35 is the ideal or less. So that's the first thing, and then the second is sometimes just figuring out how your pants feel. I think the studies are mixed whether or not it's a good idea to step on the scale every day or not.
[23:03] So I don't like BMI because of the fact that it's not accounting for muscle and the more muscle we have as you know the more lean you are.
[25:52] The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker, is all about as a woman how we don't tap into our instincts and our gut feelings when we're in a bad situation or when we're with a bad person. And we continue on with that because we don't want to be seen as difficult. It has taught me when I need to tap into my gut feelings even at the grocery store someone has a conversation with me if I have a bad gut feeling I'm going to get out of that conversation
[27:28] Never let your failures go to your heart or your successes go to your head.
Thank you for joining us on HealthGig. We loved having you with us. We hope you'll tune in again next week. In the meantime, be sure to like and subscribe to this podcast, and follow us on healthgigpod.com.
“Never let your failures go to your heart or your successes go to your head. ” – Author Unknown
“Sometimes you don't realize how bad you feel, until you feel good.” – Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD
“A lot of times the other component that's really important to healthy eating is sometimes sitting down and talking with someone about why you got into the bad habits to begin with because that's not a dietary thing, that's a mental thing. ” – Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD
“The latest and greatest in nutrition science -- is further confusion.” – Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD
“What kind of exercise should I do? The answer is what kind of exercise will you stick with? It's not what I think you should do it's what you'll stick with because any movement is better than no movement at all.” – Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD
Keywords
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