Jay Feldman 0:12
Welcome to Episode 27 of the energy balance podcast, where we teach you how to live without constant hunger and fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep and all sorts of other low energy symptoms by maximizing your cellular energy. I'm Jay Feldman. I'm a health coach and independent health researcher, and joining me again today is my good friend Mike Fave who has studied health and nutrition with me for quite a while, and also draws on his experiences from working within the healthcare industry. Today's episode was a Q and A episode, and it was a pretty wide ranging one, where, on one hand, we talked through some of the biochemistry regarding the NAD and NADH ratio and the relationship between that ratio and metabolism and health and aging and disease. And we did take some time to break it down and try to create some analogies that make it easier to understand. And then, on the other hand, we talked about what Mike and I each eat during an average day. We talked about finding balance within your diet, and the problems with excessive rigidity when it comes to our diet, and the problem with the idea of cheating on our diets. And we also talked about how you can individualize your diet to your particular needs. We talked through some various snack and meal ideas that you can try. And we also talked about the consequences of the normalization of unhealthy diets and lifestyles, which is pretty common in our modern cultures, and if you have a question you'd like us to answer on a future Q and A episode, you can email that question over to Jay at Jay Feldman wellness.com that's Jay a y at Jay Feldman wellness.com or you can leave it in the comments on the YouTube video for the podcast to check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at the articles and studies and anything else that we discussed throughout today's episode. And if you are looking to optimize your diet or lifestyle in order to get rid of all sorts of low energy symptoms, whether that's gut issues or weight gain or excessive amounts of cravings and hunger, hormonal imbalances, a lack of energy throughout the day, poor sleep, or any other sorts of symptoms or chronic health conditions. Head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where I will walk you through some of the main things you'll want to focus on, as far as diet is concerned, and also other aspects of lifestyle like exercise and stress, in order to optimize your cellular energy balance and optimize your energy availability, so that you can then optimize your health. And I'll explain also some of the details as far as why that's so important, as far as far as addressing all of these symptoms and conditions go. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, let's get started.Mike 3:13 So Amar asked today he wants to know specifically what the benefits of NAD plus are in regards to senescent cells and longevity, and I think some of this ties in with sirtuins. And since this is not necessarily my main area of focus, I'm going to leave this question to Jay, because he knows a lot more about it than I do.Jay Feldman 3:34 Yeah, so this is definitely, like a pretty major topic to talk about in terms of longevity, and also people talk about in terms of performance. And there's a few supplements, especially in the last couple years, that have been gaining a lot of popularity, like nicotinamide, riboside, and there's a few others, too, that are that are meant to boost NAD and this is supposed to help with brain function and overall health and increase longevity and prevent the death of senescent cells, things like that. And to a point, there's a lot of validity there, but there's also misconception as well with, you know, as with many of these things that we talked about. So just for a little bit of background, is that NAD is, is basically one of the primary factors involved in energy production. And it accepts and donates electrons between NAD and NADH. And this helps to basically transfer energy along, through mitochondrial respiration, through energy production, which, of course, is kind of the main, the main factor determining our health, so it definitely plays a major role in all of these things. And when, typically, when we're talking about NAD, we're talking about it as far as the ratio between NAD and NADH. And when we have a high ratio of NAD to NADH, this is going to increase the rate of respiration. And represents a higher rate of respiration, where there is a lot of energy being produced, and you have, like, all of the energy producing cycles flowing very quickly. And then, on the other hand, when you have a low NAD 10 ADH ratio, it represents the opposite. And so that high NAD 10 ADH ratio is is is associated with various markers of of health and general healthiness, and then the opposite, where a low NAD 10 ADH ratio is one of the main markers of all sorts of degenerative conditions and diseases. So it is a really helpful indicator of what's going on metabolically and where where your metabolism is at, like, how well you're producing energy. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we just want to be taking things that increase a lot of NAD, or that we want to be doing things that increase a lot of NAD, and that's because, much like virtually any other factor is, is that we have, like, in response to any sort of stress, we will try to respond by increasing energy production, things like that. And in this case, increasing NAD is one of the ways that that happens.Mike 6:12 At least initially. At least initially you're going to want to increase energy reduction and stress and, like, the alarm stage.Jay Feldman 6:19 Exactly. Yeah. So, right. So, so as a part of that initial stage of stress, when we don't have enough energy, our bodies say, hey, we need enough energy to deal with whatever's going on right now. And one of the things that it does is increases NAD in order to fulfill that process. But as you're kind of alluding to, Mike, in the long term, often the opposite is the case, where, if we are increasing something like NAD or any sort of energy production via stress. In the long term, it actually ends up slowing down energy production and conserving fuel and energy. Because when we are in a stress state, that's it basically translates that we want to be conserving energy. We want to be, you know, we don't have a lot of excess energy available to use so and it does that by depressing thyroid hormones and all sorts of other things. So this, like this kind of all falls into that umbrella of hormesis, which is the idea that a small amount of stress causes beneficial responses and makes that small amount of stress beneficial. And so the increases in NAD are a major factor here. And then, as you mentioned, also, Mike detunes are a major factor here as well. So oftentimes, in response to small amounts of stress that people call hormesis, there's first a signal called amp kinase, or amp K, which is a signal of a lack of energy. And then, in the case of NAD, this increases what's, what's called Na, MP, t, which is just like a long name, so acronyms easier, and as an enzyme, yeah, or a protein, yeah, it's an enzyme, both protein and then yeah. But specifically an enzyme, yeah. And one of the things that it does is, is it converts one of the precursors to na of NAD to NAD, so it increases the NAD production. And again, this is helpful in a stress state, because it allows us to handle whatever stress is going on and drive energy production. And one of the other things that happens when you have this increase in NAD is you have an increase in the sirtuin activity. And Sir tunes are another one of those factors that, along with this line of hormesis, are thought to be responsible for increasing longevity and slowing aging and improving health in all sorts of ways. But what it ends up coming down to is that when you're doing these things via stress, rather, it does have these short term benefits, but you have basically a long term cost. But on the other hand, you can be increasing NAD and increasing the activity of the sirtuins without that stress, and that's by making sure that energy energy production is functioning efficiently. So as just a short example of this, a lot of people talk about glucose oxidation versus fat oxidation, or burning carbs versus burning fat. And when you're burning fat, there's this series of of consequences that leads to a reduction in NAD, a reduction in NAD to NADH ratio. And so this has to do with the beta oxidation of fat that increases FADH too, which has competition with NADH at the electron transport chain, and leads to less offloading of NAD, of of NADH at the electron transport chain, leading to less NAD plus and the so. So this ends up increasing the or increasing the NADH to NAD ratio, or lowering the NAD NADH ratio. And initially, and then what they'll also find with that oxidation is that there's then this whole stress response that happens, and then you have a kind of a rebound effect as as a result of this stress that increases NAD but again, this is a result of of the stress. Yeah, so I don't, I mean, and then.Mike 9:59 I want to. Clarify some of the stuff that you talked about. So essentially, with with any oxidation of either glucose or fat, you have the carbons in those the carbon chains in those molecules are broken down, and the energy from those bonds is transferred in the form of electrons to NAD plus, forming NADH. So NADH is a storage form of energy. It just, it basically just stores the energy that you took from either your carbs or your fats. Then for fast, there's also fad which goes to FADH two, yep. So it goes to FADH two. So basically, the NADH and the FADH two are saying, we have a lot of we have energy that we just took off, or we have a lot of stored energy, or potential energy it hasn't been used yet. And then these carrier molecules go to the electron transport chain and unload the electrons that they're carrying into the electron transport chain, and then those electrons drive the electron transport chain to produce energy in the form of ATP. Now, so if you have, so basically, with the ratio, when you're saying you have a high amount of NADH, what or FADH, to what you're saying is I have a lot of energy that I'm not using or or potential energy, potential energy exactly, or I don't. And so basically the electrons aren't going through the electron transport chain. And then the other thing is, then that leads to a lack of NAD plus, which is basically or fad, which are basically the molecules that are that take the energy, so you don't so these molecules have to be recycled. So once the electrons are removed from these molecules, the FADH two and the NADH, then they go back to their other form of NAD plus and fad. And so when you don't have the NAD plus and the fad, you can't take new molecules to store from the fat and from the glucose. And so when you're saying I have a lot of NAD plus, it means I just used my NADH and my FADH too. I just produced ATP with those, and now they're coming back. And now they're coming back. So when you're in a state of stress and you're not producing a lot of energy, basically you you're you're going to have a lot of NADH and a lot of FADH too. And then your body is going to trigger signal a bunch of pathways that basically are saying we need NAD plus, and we need fad so that we can keep the energy, the flow of energy, going. And so that's why to break it down. That's why the ratio becomes pretty, very important. And then what you're saying with fatty acids is essentially, when you the FADH two and the NAD, the NADH, were used the same enzyme on the electron, electron transport chain. So if you have too much FADH two with fatty acid oxidation, then it blocks NADH is ability to you to donate electrons to the electron transport chain. And then it basically causes a backlog of NADH, which is again, a signal saying, oh shit, we're not producing enough energy. And then it can it cause it has a whole bunch of signaling effects downstream. So I just wanted to clarify those, those specific, uh, areas. And then as far as, like, the sirtuins and senescents and stuff like that, that is, I haven't really researched it, so I'm gonna leave that one to you.Jay Feldman 13:30 Yeah, yeah. Thanks for those clarifications. I think so, just to add in one.Mike 13:34 You went through it real fast. And I know what you're saying, but I don't know other people, if other people, because you went through it, you were right. You just went through it so quick.Jay Feldman 13:43 Yeah? So I'm going to try to create an analogy that will hopefully help too, so but also just just to clarify real quick and talking about the fad side, it's typically going from FADH to FADH to not, not fad Yeah. Okay, okay, yeah. So an analogy, I'm trying to think of like an assembly line, where you have somebody who is carrying a part from kind of the beginning of the of the assembly line to the end. Then that part is used to create some something, I don't know, probably come up with something. So that would, well, let's just say a car. We always use cars, even though it's a completely different analogy. So, but when you think assembly line, anything, cars, so, so, you know, some like, you can think of NAD as one of those people kind of a go between, between, in this case, the fuel that we're taking in and the energy being produced at the end. And so this the NAD is a person without a part, and they're picking up a part, and then they're holding it. When they're holding it, that's NADH. They're holding that potential piece of the of the final product, which in this case is energy or a car, and they're carrying it to the end, where it's then assembled and used to produce a car or produce energy. But what happens is that if that process is backed up, if the cars aren't being able to be produced, if the energy is not being able to be produced, you have a bunch of. People waiting around with parts in their hands, and they don't have anywhere to take it, because the assembly line is being backed up at the end. And so that that's the equivalent of having high NADH. So it's a representation of the fact that the energy production process is being stopped up somewhere. And so you have this build up of NADH, which is not which is why it's not a good sign, and that's why it's associated with all these different conditions. And so what you want is to show a high level of NAD, a high level of people without any parts in their hands, going to get those parts and taking them, because that suggests that the whole process is moving very quickly and efficiently.Mike 15:34 Before you continue. And then with the stress state, what essentially is happening is the these, the company, the car maker, is saying, we have a lot, we need more. We need more NAD, we need more workers, because we we're not bringing more parts. We have, we have the components to create the parts, but we don't have any workers to bring the parts to the to the next factory to make the car. And so the body's saying, Okay, we need more. We need more. Or the company saying, we need more workers. So they go out and they hire more workers to come carry more parts. But the problem, the real problem is, and this isn't an attempt to get everything going in terms of making the car, but the real problem is the car is not being made, right? And so if the car is not being made at the end, then you're going to have a continuous increase of people and bringing their parts over, and they're not going to create the car. And that's that becomes the problem.Jay Feldman 16:27 Right. Or at least in the beginning. It does create more cars, but then it just, there's a lot of cars. Mike 16:34 Yeah, exactly. It'll create more cars because you have more parts being brought over. So it's like flooding the factory creating cars, exactly, but it doesn't directly increase the total number of cars to the amount of workers you have bringing parts over. Yeah.Jay Feldman 16:47 Yeah, yeah. I think that analogy worked, and so and so to compare. So we talked about like fat oxidation or stress, which causes this high amount of NADH, this blockage along the chain for these various reasons, basically. And I'll just kind of reiterate the with fat, instead of just having people carrying parts, you've got, I don't know, some machine doing it, which is the FADH to the FADH too. It's being automated, right? But that there's competition at the end between the automated side and the people, and so because of that, it leads to a build up of people with parts, because the automated side is taking precedent. So yeah, and so you still have that same NADH and it's the same thing that happens in stress, and they just have to hire more workers to try to cover up the problem. And it works in the short term. Long term, you have a lack of efficiency and a lot of problems, whereas, on the other hand, with something like glucose oxidation or a smoothly running energy production process, a lack of things inhibiting this process, which we've talked about, endotoxin and PUFA being very common ones. So when you have this all running smoothly, you should have, and I know I mentioned this, but just to reiterate, everybody's kind of going back and forth, grabbing the parts, dropping them off as quickly as possible. So you've got a lot of people running around without a part in their hand, going to get more and so it's just a sign of everything running smoothly. You've got a lot of cars being produced at the end, a lot of energy. And that's why that high NAD is a good sign. So that's what makes that's why the NAD is is beneficial, is having enough of it is necessary. You don't want that to be you don't want everyone just running around with parts. You want enough people without parts to grab more. So it's that's one reason why it's beneficial, is you actually need its function. But the other thing but the other thing is what it represents, which is that it represents a well, like something that's that's working.Mike 18:27 Energy is flowing. So the thing so the important point here is that the car is being made, that the energy is being made, not to not the arbitrary ratio of NAD to NADH. The NAD to NADH is an indicator that the factory is producing the cars or the body is producing energy. But just flooding the system with NAD plus to or basically workers in the factory doesn't solve the problem that the car isn't being made on the back end, you need the car to be made on the back end, you need the other body to produce energy. And so that's why the nuance in terms of understanding why what's going on and and specifically what's going on becomes important. And this is this. This can be abstracted out to a bunch of other variables, for example, high cholesterol and heart disease or anything like that. And it so you have a lab value, you have an indicator, or you have some sort of ratio, and it indicates a state, but it and so just plugging one side doesn't necessarily in some cases, it may change the state, but in other cases, it may it, you'll change the ratio, but you're not changing what specifically is going on and that. And an example of that is, in this case, just flooding your body with NAD or in the heart disease case, just taking a statin and lowering cholesterol. I mean, you lower your cholesterol and your value is lower, but people are still getting sick from heart disease and things like that, even on the statin. So that, I mean, those are different examples to maybe help explain some of it, no.Jay Feldman 19:53 And for people who want to look more in depth, I'll link to my hermesis article that talks about NAD and AMPK. And Sir two and a bunch of other things as well. And why just doing things that just increase those things is not the goal, and oftentimes those things are stressful, and so we don't want to be doing things just because they cause that small amount of stress. So I'll link to that. The other thing that I would just mention, as far as NAD goes, is there are times where it is a limiting factor, and especially so NAD is is like a product that comes from vitamin b3 so not having enough vitamin b3 can be a pretty negative factor here, which is why niacin, niacinamide, or nicotinamide, riboside, which are all variations of vitamin b3 are used as supplements to increase NAD. And as you mentioned, this is not always a solution, but it's typically helpful to have more workers there, but you just want to make sure that other parts of the process are working well too.Mike 20:49 Yeah, you can have a you can have a b3 deficiency, which basically causes deficiency of NAD, yeah.Jay Feldman 20:55 And yeah, I mean, and it's probably relatively common, all things considered, but yeah.Mike 21:00 Especially with the new vegetarian, vegan era and the lack of meat eating and things like which is one of the highest sources of vitamin b3 Yep,Jay Feldman 21:11 Yeah. I don't think I have anything else to add as far as NAD plus goes. Do you? Nope, okay, I would add because I didn't want i to add in talking about this the different ratios FADH, two to NADH, NADH to NAD. One area where this becomes really clear is one when looking at the brain. And so it's just a very clear depiction of why our brains can't use fat for fuel, and it has to do with how this affects the efficiency of energy production and lowers the amount of NAD available and compared to glucose, which is why our brains can use glucose effectively. So it's just kind of further validation for the fact that glucose is effective for keeping the a good NAD to NADH ratio without stress, whereas fat can increase the NAD and NADH ratio secondarily as a result of stress, because primarily it it decreases it.Mike 22:09 Yeah. Okay.Jay Feldman 22:11 All right. Next question Adam Smith asks, what a typical day of eating like, a typical day of eating looks like for each of us. I want to start Mike, I want to say also, at least for me, that this varies a lot throughout, you know, seasons throughout the year, week to week, day to day. And so I know I've been asked this on on other podcasts that I've been interviewed on, and things, and it's always a different answer. So I've always been a little weary of answering questions like this, because I feel like people can sometimes take it as such, like a concrete response, or then feel like it's the perfect diet to copy, but it's, it's very much a transient thing that's kind of always being adjusted and changing based on so many variables. So yeah, and it's individualized Exactly, exactly. So people tolerate different things, yeah.Mike 23:00 Yeah. So for me, I'm, I'm a little bit more consistent and what I do, but I do have, I definitely do have variation. My variation is mostly in my carb sources and things like that. But a typical day of meat for me is generally four meals. I split them by about three hours apart, and I generally stick to that number one, because at least when I first started, I was having a lot of gut issues with digestion and things like that. And allowing time between meals was helpful for me. Grazing throughout the day was like giving me issues. I had a surgery at one point, so I had a lot of scar tissue my abdomen and feeding digestion and things like that. So providing some time for my, my digestive systems to digest food was helpful for me. And then I generally, I generally, I guess you could call it a formula for my meal, but I'll generally have fruit and whole fruit, dried fruit, fruit juice. And my, my main vegetables, raw carrots.Jay Feldman 24:02 All three of those forms of fruit? or just some..Mike 24:05 It could be, it could be a combination. It could be only juice. It could be, it could be dried fruit and juice. It could be a little bit of dried fruit and it's, it rotates. That's the variable for me. I have different fruits depending on, like, seasonal availability and things like that. I'll have different fruits at different times. I'll have sometimes I'm craving persimmon, and other times I don't want persimmon. I want grapes or something like that. Or other times I want dry pineapple. And then I'll have some type of juice. And the juice fairies, orange juice, the ray peat special, didn't necessarily agree with me very well, so I use mainly pineapple juice and pomegranate juice and white grape juice and purple grape juice and things like that. So those are my main juice sources. They those are the ones that don't give me any digestive issues or make me feel weird or anything like that. So those I went with with feel and then I have raw carrots. I tend to use the multi. Color variety. Um, usually one raw carrot per meal. I find that is and we're gonna get to this eventually, but I feel like it does stimulate my digestive tract, um, like peristalsis and things like that. And then I usually wait like, 10 to 15 minutes, um, just because I found that if I take a whole bunch of like, fluid, which a lot of the fruit is, especially if it's not dried fruit, with the neck with a lot of protein and fat at the same time, it can make me feel full for a little like, a little bit longer, like a little heavy. So I usually wait about 10 to 15 minutes after I eat the juice the fruit, and drink some juice and eat the raw carrot, and then the next part of my meal is, like, pretty consistent. It's it's either going to be some type of red meat or some type of seafood, and then it sort of just with that. There's no formula besides that. I tend to have about four ounces per meal, um, and that was, I came up with the four ounces because it, it sort of lines up with some of the studies I saw with protein and amount of amount of protein digested in or not burned as or oxidized for fuel in a meal, and then, basically, just having a really heavy protein meal can or a large amount of protein in a meal can sit with me for a while. Eventually, if I eat a lot more protein in a meal, my body will death, but I tend to keep it around four ounces, um, and that's that could be shrimp, it could be cod, it could be Mussels with and oysters and clams. Could be sole sometimes with my family, they like to eat sardines. So it could be some sardines. I know it's necessarily not peat approved. And then, besides that, any type of red meat, steak, any type of beef, any type of lamb, sometimes organ meat, liver, a lot of ground meat, and we cook with a lot of different spices and things like that in the ground meat. And then with my meat, I tend to have my fat sources. And the fat source will be either macadamia nut oil or beef tallow, sometimes butter, yeah, and then not coconut oil. And me don't really or coconut oil, and I don't really agree very well. So and that that's individual. I mean, some people in my family tolerate it, some people don't. So it really depends, but I usually stay with some type of tallow, butter or macadamia nut oil, and I don't, specifically, I don't cook with macadamia oil. I will heat up my food in the pan with a little bit of towel or a small amount of butter, or I'll microwave it, and then I'll add the my macadamia macadamia oil on top. And then, besides that, I just the any type of supplements I use. Most of the stuff I use now is like a powdered Camu, camu for vitamin C, and with my protein and fat, I try to with each meal, I have some collage, some collagen hydrolysate and some hot water, and I boil the water, and then I add the collagen hydrolysate and it, I found that it digests easier for me that way. And it's only like for if it's the fish, the Marine One, it's one scoop. And then if it's the the the beef one, it's half a scoop, because there's more protein in the in the beef one than the fish one. And that that's the general day to day, especially because working in the hospital and we're going to people's houses for visits and stuff like that, I tend to need to be very consistent and know what I'm gonna be eating and things like that, and I just sort of follow that cool. Yeah.Jay Feldman 28:28 Yeah. So mine definitely varies a lot more than that. And as I said, it's kind of varies by the season what's available, fruit wise, which I know yours does too things like that, but normally I'll start off my morning with a glass of orange juice, and then maybe 30 minutes later. I mean, it really kind of depends I'll have breakfast, which varies. Oftentimes it's, I mean, it's always some source of protein. So that could be basically all the same sources that you had mentioned, some sort of seafood or beef or lamb or something. Normally, I'm cooking some sort of meal for the week that I'll have kind of throughout for breakfast and dinners, and then I have some other meals that I sprinkle in that I'll mention. So it'll be something like that. Or maybe I'll do eggs and beef bacon. That's kind of an easy one that I always have on hand. Beef bacon is delicious, yeah. Or sometimes, like, a good quality beef hot dog. I'll go with those two sometimes. And I'll normally do some fruit at that time, some fruit or juice, kind of around that time, and then with within that period of time, like kind of just post breakfast, I have my coffee with milk, which is about equal parts milk and coffee and a pretty good amount of sugar in there and then between so and I don't normally, that's it for breakfast. Sometimes, if I'm having a late lunch for. The day, I'll have a snack, which will be banana chips or dried mango, or sometimes Potato Potato Chips cooked in coconut oil, maybe some chocolate, occasionally fresh fruit. Sometimes I'll do cheese. There's like cheap smoked cheese or goat's milk cheese, or sometimes I'll do just regular cow milk cheese, and then lunch will sometimes be some variation of that snack. Sometimes it'll be like cheese and fruit with sometimes milk with collagen mixed in. Sometimes it'll be like eggs and bacon, the beef bacon. Sometimes it'll be like a, I don't know, some sort of normally, it's a little bit lighter on the protein side, or that protein, for me, is normally coming from dairy throughout the day, and then sometimes there's a snack between lunch and dinner. Sometimes there's not. Again, it's kind of those, the same one that I mentioned earlier, trying to think of some other go to snacks. Mike 30:56 So your main snacks so far is like cheese and fruit, um, or milk and coffee is the morning one, and then maybe some type of either chocolate or potato chips fried in coconut oil, or banana chips fried in coconut oil, or something like that.Jay Feldman 31:12 Yeah, dried fruit and whole fruit. I'll do fruit juice too. So orange juice, grape juice, pineapple juice, and yeah, that milk and coffee is normally kind of like finishes out my breakfast, yeah, yeah, yeah. And milk as well. Throughout the day, I do go with milk, like a local raw goat milk and and then yeah. So dinner will be kind of similar to breakfast. It'll be some sort of, like, meal that I've made throughout the week, which could, I mean, most recently, I made an oxtail soup that also has onions and potatoes in there and carrots. Sometimes it'll be some sort of a roast. Or I'll do like, some sort of, like a shredded beef sort of thing. I'll do tacos sometimes, or lamb shanks, seafood, mussels, fish, like lean fish.Mike 31:58 So your dinner is usually some type of, like, heavier protein?Jay Feldman 32:02 Yeah, some sort of protein. And normally I would say maybe at least half the time there's some sort of starch in there. But some, like, some periods of time it's every night I'll have that starch, like sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, white rice. Other times I just kind of skip a few days there, just based on feel and what I'm up for. And I'll also do a couple of those dinners will be beef liver and sometimes other organ meat, like, like heart or kidney. I haven't had kidney available in a while, but yeah, yeah, that's for the most part, dinners. And then after dinner, like, kind of before bed, snacks, sometimes will be ice cream or any of those other snacks I mentioned earlier, and sometimes I'll do like tea with a little bit of milk and sugar. I'm sure there's other foods that I'm forgetting right now, but yeah, fresh fruit is always just depending on on the season. When it's in season, I'm eating a ton of it, and, you know, grapes, cherries, watermelon, sometimes pineapple, like, maybe plums, or all sorts of things like that. But when it's not, then it's more of the dried fruit juice, sometimes frozen fruit. Sometimes I'll do a smoothie. Just depends.Mike 33:08 And dried fruit sources that I think both of us would do is mango. I don't really do mango as much mango and I don't get along. I would say, probably have more digestive stuff than you do because of the surgery that I had when I was younger. But pineapple, persimmon. What else? Apricots. Apricots. There's papaya too. We have dry papaya here. SometimesJay Feldman 33:35 banana chips. I know mentioned earlier,Mike 33:37 banana chips, yeah, and then a lot of these things is specifically for stuff in our diet. You can see that our diets are a little bit different. For example, I don't have dairy, and this is individual tolerance. So when and this is something that goes back to some of the things that we talked about in other episodes, in general, what you mentioned before that my diet may not work for somebody. Somebody may not eat as much red meat as me, but it doesn't make them feel good. So they may do more dairy and more eggs or very lean chicken or something like that, and it really depends on more seafood. So the principles are relatively similar. All the principles are about the same, but the the extrapolation of those principles can be very different, and that, for example, I have family members and friends, um, that also eat differently as well. I mean, some people eat a lot of chocolate, and they they love it, and that's one of their main fat sources. They have it with each meal. Um, which is fine as well. I mean, as long as you tolerate it, they're they're definitely not fat. Let's just put it as a very lean. Um, some people eat a lot of potato chips. I know my dad loves potato chips cooked in either Mac there's not macadamia it's avocado oil. Eats a lot of that, which isn't, I mean, it's not a not ideal, but it's not terrible. It's not like safflower oil. And again, there's the thing is, is the other thing I want to point out is, there's like. You can go to ideal or optimal or the best, but sometimes, I mean, it doesn't have to be super, super strict, you know, if it's if you're having, like, avocado oil, potato chips, okay, it's not terrible. You know, if you're having beef bacon or things like that, or ice cream like, I mean, in certain circumstances, you're putting on a lot of weight eating those foods, you know, then maybe consider something's going on. You're not tolerating it, or certain foods can make certain people put on weight. They're really trying to say something. Mike, no, not for you. You're definitely not putting on weight. But again, I there, I just want to point out the aspect of individuality. Because there is an app, there is individuality, in particular diets, and even with the principles that we put there's a lot of individuality. You graze more. I eat four solid I eat my four solid meals a day, and that's it. I mean, maybe I have some juice at night or something like that, and I wake up and I'm thirsty in the middle of the night or anything like that. But it's pretty much for me, four solid square meals. They have all the components, carbs, fast proteins in them. And I, I'm like, do it pretty much the same way every time, and you have more of like a grazing style, it seems, and you have more variability and things like that. So but the principles are the same for both of us, these adequate protein, these amount of fat and carbs, and then a lot of the carb sources. I don't tolerate starch as well. Sometimes I do have rice just because my family, they like to cook rice sometimes, and I like it with my meals, but and so my mine is mostly sugar. So again, it really depends. Our diets are not for anyone to copy and think that it's going to be the best for them. And it's just, again, it depends on your individual physiology, on certain things that you tolerate. I mean, I don't mean orange juice and dairy, and I don't get along very well. So I had to work around it, and I figured out what worked for me, but for some members of my family, by me, my baby sister drinks milk all day long, so goat milk all day long, and she has no problem, and it really depends, and my dad doesn't drink any milk or anything like that. So there's there's individuality, there's a lot of individuality.Jay Feldman 37:07 Yeah, yeah, for sure. I see that a lot with clients. I've clients who are drinking a ton of milk and some that are drinking none. And same goes for starch, for example, and fruits.Mike 37:19 I mean, some people do better with starch over fruit, right? My dad's, uh, my dad's wife is Asian, and she does eat a lot of fruit, but her main carb source is white rice, and she, that's what they're eating in our country, and that's, that's what she eats, and she tolerates it fine. Doesn't have any digestive issues. Um, she does eat a fair amount of fruit, specifically tropical fruits and things like that. So, but when she tried to take out white rice for a while, she wasn't doing as well. So I mean, for some people, that just, it just works that way, just that's that's what works for them, and she it still falls within the principles of of the diet and stuff like that. So I mean, if that's what works, if that's what's working for you, and you're feeling good, and you don't have symptoms, and you're all the general functions in terms of your libido, your mood, your mental function, your whether you're fatigued or not, your sleep at night, your hunger levels, blood sugar crashes, and if all that stuff is doing well, and you're and you're eating that way, and you're and you're you're warm, and you're not constantly freezing and things like that. Then, then it's working for you. And...Jay Feldman 38:25 Yeah, yeah. And I think another thing you're kind of getting at is the intuitive side, where part of it is more of a more of an evaluation after the fact, of how you're feeling, but part of it also is, is giving some some power. To your intuitions and what you're what you tend towards, what you like to eat, what you feel good with, yeah, and there are times where each of us do that too. I mean, I know that, like, especially with, I think dessert things, just having some variation is helpful. So there are times where I'll have either homemade or store bought and gluten free cookies or or some sort of, like, custards or creme brulee or something. And I know that, you know, you do that, you'll do that too sometimes, and that might be like a week or two times I will eat cookies, yeah, yeah. And, you know, we there's also like, levels there too, where there are certain things I still won't eat when I'm looking for something like that, and certain things I will based on how I typically will feel, and that all changes also when I'm at a restaurant, or if I'm on if I'm traveling somewhere.Mike 39:25 You have to work with what you got. Sometimes, you really have to work with what you got sometimes. I mean, if I'm traveling and it's a long traveling period, I mean, and I go to and I'm at the airport and, you know, all I have is orange juice and beef jerky, orange juice and beef jerky. Or if it's if they have some type of, like, cane sugar based soda, then it's that. Or sometimes, if it's really bad, then it's a Red Bull. Like, I mean, it you have to work with what you have. And some, if it's really terrible, and they don't have anything, sometimes I won't eat but, I mean. Mean, I tend to prepare ahead of time and have dried fruit and things like that. Being prepared is pretty helpful, but sometimes you just have to deal with what you have, and you have to make the best out of that situation. And, you know, figure out what you can get by with. I mean, I'm say, you say you're, you're traveling, and there, there's a Starbucks there, and every your family's there, and they're getting coffees and stuff, and you haven't eaten for a couple hours, and there's, I don't know, they have a rice krispie treat or something, and you tolerate rice fine. The ingredients aren't terrible. They're not great. I mean, get some fruit juice in a rice krispie treat or something. Some, you know it. There's, again, there's some things I won't eat, like, you're not going to see me eat a bag of potato chips cooked in kennel oil or safflower oil. You're, you're, you're not going to see me eat some of the like the ridiculous candy they have at the store, coffee and I don't get along.Jay Feldman 40:48 But, or the grains you don't really do, you won't do. I won'tMike 40:51 I won't eat any wheat or any grains like that, and and that's because I don't tolerate them at all. I feel terrible so but if I like, if I need some quick sugar or something like that, because I haven't eaten for a couple hours, and it's going to be a while more than depending on what's available you I will adjust. And then, for some people, some cravings, like, for example, my girlfriend, for her craving, she'll eat chocolate all the time, and it's a good quality dark chocolate. The ingredients is literally just like COA butter, COA liquor and cane sugar, um, it was okay. I mean.Jay Feldman 41:23 I mean even lighter, you know, milk chocolates or white chocolate. I think any fine too. Mike 41:26 They tolerate it, yeah, but yeah, her the ingredients are fine. She eats it regularly. She doesn't have any digestive problems. So, I mean, that works for her. And she eats it almost every single day. And I mean, if we're really stressed out, she eats more, and that doesn't have any she doesn't have any weight issues with it either, so actually makes her thinner, interestingly enough.Jay Feldman 41:46 Yeah, yeah. And I'll do, I'll do that too. I'll go through periods of a decent amount of chocolate, and then sometimes I just don't want it as much. But it is one that I cycle in a pretty decent amount, or I eat a decent amount of it. Yeah, mine's definitely cookies, yeah. And, and, you know, and like, even in that variation, some people don't have such a strong reaction to other grains or wheat and are fine with breads or sourdough. And I mean, I've experienced it with, experimented with sourdough a little bit as well, and something I'll go to sometimes, but yeah, there's, there's a lot of space for those things. Giving yourself the space for that experimentation and intuition is often helpful. I think sometimes with too much rigidity, people end up missing out on trying things that that they might find out that they do really well with, or feel really good with, or even if they have certain negative effects, they might have some positive so maybe they're at a restaurant, and in the past, they would only eat, you know, very particular things. But instead, they kind of just eat whatever's there, and they find out that they feel really good after and it might not have been the specific food, maybe it was just the amount of food or the amount of salt in there, there's, there's a lot of factors, but, but the rigidity and stress that we put on ourselves as far as eating goes, can often I mean, you can react to anything if you're really stressed about it, so there's something to be said for relieving yourself of some of that pressure. And then also, there's some value to having variety and experimentation, because it also leads to new discoveries and things.Mike 43:08 Yeah, the only thing I want to stipulate there is, if you are having, like, a lot of significant health issues, sometimes in the beginning, it is really important to have a discipline in some of the things that you're eating, especially if you're having a lot of digestive issues, and you don't know what's affecting you. It take you want to scale back and get to for a little while, until you start figuring out what works for you. You know, work up a little bit and figure, you know, try different things. But in this beginning, some rigidity is helpful. And the other thing too is, for some of these foods, like a lot of the principles that we discussed, they do apply, um, and so it's important to have a baseline, solid, nutrient dense diet. And then also, at the same time, you know, if you go out and you just, I don't know, your grandma made some pumpkin bread, it's like, I'm gonna have a little bit. So in some so there is there. But, you know, the baseline diet is solid, you know, I I'm eating adequate protein, carbs, fats. I'm not slamming down a bag of lays or things like that, you know. Or if I do want potato chips, I go get the bolder ones with with avocado oil or something like that, or coconut oil. You tolerate it. I mean, there's, there are junk foods, and then you there's a lot of options for junk foods now, where you can have different manufacturers or food processors produce a better variety, like taste cookies, like for regular cookies, I have a lot of problems with data. I don't digest them. Well, they really bother me, but I can eat taste cookies, no problem. Specifically the gluten free ones, and even the gluten free oatmeal ones, I don't have an issue with. So it, it depends on the person it and but with a lot of this stuff, um, there are options for some of those junk foods. And you a lot of it is making sure that you have them in the house when you if you are going to crave them sometimes and just when, in the beginning, it's important you. That if you're having a lot of health issues and you're coming from eating whatever you want, and it's a lot of a lot of, like, legitimate junk food, like, I don't know, fast food restaurant stuff fried in heavy oils, or your typical Fritos, or lays, or those are just basic examples, then you may want to take a period where you have some discipline, and then once you stabilize in a more disciplined diet, then you can start progressing into having more an intuitive aspect. Because when we I know for me, when I first started, I was having a lot of digestive issues, and then I basically created a template based on what works for me and research together, and then I stabilized there. And now I have some more, like, intuitive aspects about it. And sometimes I'll eat foods I know bother me just because I really want them. Sometimes I really want chocolate and chocolate and I really don't agree, but sometimes I just really want it, so I'm going to have chocolate and just suffer the consequences. But you know, it really depends. And again, for in my specific context, I had a surgery that has impaired my digestion a decent amount, and so like, I'm gonna have, and I'm still working on it, but I'm gonna have issues with different foods. And some people just they don't have it at all. Like, my girlfriend can eat chocolate all day long, and no problem. So really, it depends on the person. And I think that's important to point out.Jay Feldman 46:19 Yeah for sure. And yeah, it is, it is. It can be tough to strike that balance. I mean, there are people who a lot of times it's people who are thinking of it in terms of eating clean versus cheating and and don't find much value in thinking of things in those terms. I mean, there's so much guilt and shame involved with cheating as as far as diet goes. And I don't think that's helpful. And I also think it gives this illusion of, it doesn't matter if it's only one time where you're just eating whatever you want, but then that one time becomes many times. So there's, I do see that one, you know that situation occasionally where somebody's like, yeah, I eat healthy, and then it's like, oh well. Except I go out for dinner Friday and Saturday night, and I drink as well, and I just kind of eat whatever, and then, oh yeah. Well, during the week, I go out for lunch at least once, sometimes like three times a week, and I'll definitely have a couple glasses of wine at least a few times a week at home. And and then I also, you know, sometimes, like these things when I'm stressed, and it's like, there's, there's a balance. There's also something we said for as you said, first off, for sure, when you're experiencing a lot of health symptoms, more restriction can be helpful as long as it's done in the in the right way. It's not like just restricting everything whatever, but, um, but yeah. And there's, again, it's, I think there's, we need to have room for social for social life, and sometimes that can include alcohol and eating sub optimal foods. But it's also easy, because of how normalized those things are in our society. It's easy to feel like you're doing less than somebody else when. And I mean, I know people who eat out every single meal, lunch, dinner, and they don't eat breakfast, and they drink every day, and they're just kind of normal, yeah, and, and I don't think that we should be normalizing those sorts of things. Again, no, no judgment or shame there. I just think from a health perspective, that's not a good idea. And so if we're comparing ourselves to what we could be doing, or comparing ourselves to people like that, I don't think there's that's really helpful. And so I do think that if we are straying from things that we would think are optimally healthy, we do want to be considering how often, how much that's happening, and that it can definitely be a contributing factor to health issues we're experiencing?Mike 48:21 Yeah, I think it's important that you that that point that you bring up of what actually is considered normal and what's been normalized. Because the normal that we have now is not actually normal, um, in regards to going out and eating fast food all the time and things like that, I mean, those are newer, newer things that have been injected and culturally created. But and we, a lot of us, grew up with that, but they're not necessarily normal, physiologically or normal from like previous from a previous culture stance. So, and there's a reason why previous cultures did things the way that they did. I mean, grandma always soaks her beans before she cooks them, and, or my grandma always takes out the seeds and the skins off tomatoes before she cooked with them, then that was like an Italian thing. So there's a reason why they did those things. Now, research corroborates that stuff now, but a lot of stuff that we have going on now, and, and this is a whole different subject, but a lot of stuff we have going on now, in terms of what's culturally normalized is a lot of marketing, I mean, and a lot of context of the because a lot of people, they don't have, and I'm not this is not to blame anybody. It's just that's a wrecking point to recognize. They wake up in the morning, they don't have time to cook. They have to get the kids to work, to school, and then they have to go to work, and then so it's like, I don't have time for breakfast, so I'm just gonna stop for fast food on the way, and then they get to work, and then it's lunch time, and they didn't cook anything for lunch. Well, the vending machines over there, or, or there's this cafe right over there, so I'm just gonna get whatever's there, and then they come home. And then both, since both people are working, there's no time to really make a dinner. So you pick something up on the way, or you have a frozen dinner, or something like that, something prepared, and then, and then you just go to so just a. There's a convenience factor in it that's built into the culture. But the problem, in and of itself, may actually be the culture where you don't have time to prepare food for yourself, and you don't have time to cook for yourself and eat quality food and make sure your family's eating quality food, or things like that, or go to get these specific things that we talked about. So just keep in mind that that the culture is number one, the culture around the fast food itself, how it's created, what's in, what's inside of and things like that. There's a problem with that. And then there's a problem in general with the culture. There could be a problem in general with the culture of how things are going when people don't have time to even cook for themselves or take care of themselves and things like that, and it's not to blame the people in general. I mean, I don't know what people's circumstances are, but it's to recognize that the normal Z, the normalized culture, may actually be the problem itself, the fact that that's considered normal. I mean, I I work with a lot of nurses in the hospital, and I see what they do on a regular basis, and it's, I had to wake up, I didn't have time to eat. And then they eat at we are the shift starts at seven, then they eat at like, two or three o'clock in the afternoon, when they get time, and it's order Jimmy John's, and I don't even know, some whatever's in there. And then they go home, and it's like, yeah, I was too tired. I didn't eat last night, or, Oh, I just, I could, I needed to relax. So I had a few drinks, and then I went, then I fell asleep, and I woke up at 4am and I went to my next shift. And a lot of people will run their lives like that, and a lot of nurse will run their lives like that. Or they'll finish the shift as a Friday, they'll go out drinking, and then when they get off their shift, then the way, the next morning, they'll be back at work. So, I mean, it's, it really depends. I don't think, I don't think, I think a lot of the culture is is problematic around that stuff. I mean, the old culture, or some of the old cultures, were set up around, you know, you cook your food and prepare it at home and things like that, and there were certain ways to do it, and there's reasons why. So just things to keep in mind.Jay Feldman 51:56 Yeah, yeah. I mean, as far as normalization goes, it's definitely very abnormal to eat three home meal, homemade meals, every day, seven days a week.Mike 52:07 Specially sitting down with your family and not having some sort of technology at the table. I mean, yeah, for one meal, yeah. I know for us, we with my family, we ate dinner together every single night, and that was something that my my dad prioritized, my my parents together, and so I know in some families it's not feasible. So not blaming other people, but I'm saying is those things are important, the socialization aspect, the fact that the you come home and you have a home cooked meal, you know what ingredients are in there? They're quality ingredients. It's not whatever McDonald's got from the best price from the distributor, or anything like that. It's no this is a quality it's cooked with a quality butter, or something like that. Whatever it is those things, those elements and those cultures, or the construction of culture, in that sense, is important. The culture is important, and how it's constructed, and the elements of it, and why you do different things in that culture. So sitting down. I know when I lived in Spain for a little while, every, every, every day, you would have your siesta, and you the family would get together, and they would eat together at lunch, and then they would eat together at dinner, and it was important that you ate together. There was no not eating together. I mean, I was there and I was living with another family, and basically I was like, Oh, I'm gonna go work out. They're like, No, you have to eat with us first, and then you can go work out like you don't. There's no getting away from that. And those are important things. Those are really important things to have that the and there was no phones and TVs at the table. You had to be turned off. Everybody had to, even if you sat there in silence, you were sitting there and you were eating.Jay Feldman 53:39 Yeah. So yeah, I'm glad that my family did that as well, dinners together and everything.Mike 53:45 I think it's important. I think it's really important. And my parents never let me have the phone at the table. Yeah, I hated it when I was young, but I appreciate it now.Jay Feldman 53:52 Yeah, all right, that's gonna do it for today's Q and A episode. If you have a question that you'd like us to answer on a future Q and A episode, you can send that question in to Jay at J, Feldman wellness.com that's J, a y. At j, A, y, Feldman wellness.com and you can also leave that question as a comment on the YouTube video if you're watching this podcast there. If you did enjoy today's episode, please leave a review or a like or a comment wherever you're listening, it really does a lot to help support the podcast, and also, if you can leave us a five star rating on iTunes, that also makes a really big difference. To check out the show notes for today's episode. Head over to Jay Feldman, momness.com/podcast where I'll link to any of the studies or articles or anything else that we discussed throughout today's episode, and if you are dealing with any low energy symptoms, maybe you're looking for some more principles, some of those principles that we discussed, as far as optimizing your diet goes in order to improve various symptoms like weight gain or gut symptoms, symptoms like inflammation or bloating or irregularity, or if you're. Dealing with excessive amounts of cravings and hunger, or any sort of hormonal imbalance, symptoms, maybe a lack of energy, anything else that you might be experiencing, or maybe any chronic health conditions that you might be experiencing. 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