Balanced Bites Podcast: Episode #5: Stubborn Belly Fat, Prioritizing Paleo Choices & Nutrition for Endurance Bike Rides

Episode #5

Topics: 

1: Stubborn belly fat. [12:45] 2: Prioritizing Paleo choices/cheats. [27:10] 3: Helping mom transition to Paleo, how bad is milk? Almond milk okay? [41:50] 4: Nutrition for long/endurance bike rides [39:00] We got cut a bit short this week due to some fuzzy cell service so we'll try to pick up some extra questions in next week's episode!

Note: The episodes are now available in iTunes as well and we'll work on other feed services soon! Until then, the RSS feed link is available from the Blog Talk Radio page here. We're using the “Notes” after each question to link to any relevant/additional information or items we mention in our responses on the podcast and say we'll link to, but those are not anywhere near the extent of the answers we're supplying… just so you're clear on that!

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#1 Stubborn belly fat.

Toni asks:  “I have been Paleo since June 2010 and have had significant changes in my body since. Before Paleo I was taking 2000mg of Metformin a day to help regulate blood sugar. I have lost 20lbs and 3 pant sizes and have added 15lbs back of muscle. I usually eat 200-220g of protein, 25-50g of carbs and 60-70g of fat a day. I have tons of energy throughout the day and sleep 9-10 hours a night. My issue is I can not get rid of the stubborn belly fat. I have tried to roller coaster my calories meaning vary from day to day the total calorie intake. I strength train heavy 3 days a week so normally those are my higher calorie days 2500-2700 and try to do moderate cardio 1-2 times a week. I take slow long walks everyday with no avail to this belly fat. I'm 36 year old female, 6'1″, 220lb. Please help!! Thanks again can't wait for the podcast.”

• Notes: Nora Gedgaudas, “Primal Body, Primal Mind.”

#2: Prioritizing Paleo choices/cheats.

Harmony asks: “While it's of course better for your health to eat Paleo 100% of the time, when that's not realistic (for whatever the reason), what is the least harmful non-paleo food to have? Would you say for example that Dairy is less/more harmful than Wheat; and how does Sugar compare? It would be great if you could do a ranking of non-paleo foods so if forced to choose a non-paleo option I would know which direction to go (ie something with dairy vs. grains, or something with grains vs legumes, etc.). I know some of it will be based on individual body and the severity of reactions to particular items, but a general guideline would be great.
Looking forward to the podcast! Always love something educational on the bus ride to work. Thanks! Harmony”

• Notes: Gluten Free Made Easy & Be a Gluten Detective! (PDF guide)

#3: Helping mom transition to Paleo, how bad is milk? Almond milk okay?

Stephanie asks: “I’m trying to help my mom make the transition to a paleo lifestyle. Her biggest challenge so far is milk. She loves it. It comforts her. But she also likes the taste of unsweetened almond milk. Is that an ok.substitute for milk? Does it need to be limited? Thanks for your insight!”

LIZ WOLFE: All right, Diane, I got the beep, Did you get the beep?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I got the beep. I think we're on.

LIZ WOLFE: All right, we're recording. Hi everybody, I'm Liz Wolfe, side to Diane Sanfilippo of Balanced Bites. Welcome to the Balanced Bites podcast. Diane, what's going on?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Okay, not too much. Just wrapping up this trip I have here in New Jersey, heading back to San Francisco for a couple of weeks tomorrow. So that's really-that's really it. I'm having a good time here working and working out, doing some Crossfit. And Yeah, that's pretty much it. How about you?

LIZ WOLFE: Well, I saw that you finished your “Dr. Oz goes on blast” article on your blog. Do you want to speak about that a little bit? I think people might need to read it immediately.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs] Yeah, sure. So, it's funny because I started with that post when I started this trip three weeks ago, when I picked up the magazine. And it took me that long to write the post. So it's a huge long post. It's called “Can Americans Trust Dr. Oz for Nutrition Advice? Only in Moderation.”

LIZ WOLFE: Love it.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs] Yeah, I just was like-it just was what I was thinking. Can we trust him? I'm like, well, in moderation we can because, you know, he's saying some things that are okay, and I'm really not being as cruel as I could be because I don't really think that that's the way to spread the word to literally just blast him.

LIZ WOLFE: Right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I think I've heard him say as you see at the article, which, if you haven't gotten through it yet, is quite long.

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I know my mom is leaning on her chin at the desk, and I'm like, what's she looking at for so long on the Internet without clicking? Oh, she's reading my article. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And I notice how long people are spending on that page. It's like minutes and minutes, which is really a long time for a blog. Usually it's less than a minute and people bounce. Anyway, long story short; he's actually said some things in different forms of media. I heard him on a radio interview the other day on a local New York station here, saying, you know, quoting-this is me quoting him: ” a prehistoric diet will lower blood pressure.” It was like, he couldn't bring himself to say the word Paleo diet…

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs] Paleo.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: which is probably what he was talking about. Yeah, and so I put that clip in the end of the post. Another clip of him answering an audience member question about, you know, what do you think of the Paleo diet? And he has to essentially, as I mentioned in the article, he has to talk out of both sides of his mouth at some point if he's on TV.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Because even if he knows the science and the information and that just logically eating whole foods, avoiding refined foods, possibly avoiding grains, as we think, might be the best way to go, and I think that he said in this one clip, that eating food as it looks coming out of the ground, that kind of thing, he has to still be supporting the show. And so, who's paying the bills for that show?

LIZ WOLFE: Right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: It's Big Food, and you know, you can't say, “never eat grains.” At least not at this point. So whatever. I mean, if you ever get him to say stuff that's anything related-we kind of have to take it as a win, and go from there. I thought that the article was just generally very wishy-washy, still sort of reeks from Conventional Wisdom; he's trying to dispel myths, but at the same time, you know, he's still perpetuating some of them, and one of the big things that really bugged me was this idea of like ” well, most doctors are now comfortably recommending one egg per day.” And I was like, really? If that's what somebody's eating for breakfast, just one egg, what else do you recommend that they eat with that egg? Because now you've just left somebody hungry and confused about what to eat, and that's what I see in my clients who come to me with blood sugar regulation issues, where they're like, “Well, I'm doing one egg and another two whites,” or something like that, and eating fruit and oatmeal, and I'm like, “Well, you're eating mostly sugar for breakfast…”

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: “And okay, you threw one egg in there.” You know, they're just scared-they're scared of what this extra two eggs might do to their body, you know, and you know, so comfortable with turning some fruit or grains all the time, things that are just loading them up with a lot of sugar. Anyway, that was kind of my beef, that it's like, he still is just walking this line, and telling you, “Okay, some of these foods that we thought were bad aren't so bad,” but he just never goes so far as to say, “Eat to satiety on these foods.” It's like there still is always a limit of that case of you know, eat these in moderation. And, whatever. [laughs] Eat grass fed beef with wild abandon! Yeah, sorry about that.

LIZ WOLFE: I honestly can't help but wonder…It should be. Honestly, I don't see what the problem is with saying like that, because I think it would-be a perfect segue for some of these doctors that I think-and I think Dr. Oz is smart enough to kind of be cluing into a lot of these ideas at this point-but it's a matter of, is he going to turn around go back and say, “I've been wrong this whole time,” because I cannot even imagine the liability that comes with that. But I feel like there is this huge opportunity for all these, you know, for all these jerks to come around by using this little bridge by grass- fed meats, wild-caught fish, pastured eggs, and so on and so forth, totally eliminates this risk of having to back track on everything they've said, and say, “Oh, research now shows that this type of food- yes, what I was saying before was bad because of this-whereas this type of food is better.” And you know, that could push the whole food system forward. So, to me, you know, I just feel like…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, I like-I like the idea on focusing on the good.

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs] Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: You know, like Yeah, we would love him to say that certain things aren't good, but I don't know that that's going to happen. So I think what you're saying is…

LIZ WOLFE: Right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: a really good point, and it really is the way that we all sort of need to appeal to the masses and this is a question I get a lot, too, and seminars and people on the Facebook page, or clients are asking you know, how do I help other people learn about this? I'm like, well stop scaring them with like you can't eat this, you can't eat that, like focus on the good foods that people are supposed to be eating, you know, that you would recommend that they eat more of, and don't focus on, you know, trying to expect someone to quit their bread habit today because you said so, you know.

LIZ WOLFE: Totally.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: It's like, how about we get them interested in eating, you know, the better quality food, and see what kind of happens from there. Most people will benefit so much from that anyway. But, Yeah, so, Yeah, that's kind of that post, and then in case anyone's wondering how long it takes to write a blog post, [laughs] sometimes it takes 3 weeks.

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Or months, in the case of other posts that I've drafted and you know, then work, clients, training, eating, cooking, all these things get in the way and…

LIZ WOLFE: Reality television.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Oh, well Yeah, a little bit of that. Jersey Shore, I have to make sure I keep up on it. But no, the-what was I going to say? So the other thing about how long these posts can take is that, you know, I think it's our responsibility as nutritionists or nutrition educators or whatever we're calling ourselves, to make sure that we're substantiating what we're saying with some sort of science.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And whether that goes all the way back to the studies, if we're able to access some studies, or some full text where it goes back to just some authorities that we think, you know, are pretty well-versed. Somebody like Chris Masterjohn, who I referred to in the article in talking about cholesterol. You know I think it's our responsibility to make sure that we are trying to at least find some of the science behind it to put n front of people. Well because of this article from Dr. Oz, sure, he's an M.D. but he doesn't cite any sources, you know?

LIZ WOLFE: Right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: He says a few times, this study or recent study or whatever, but there's no list of sources at the end of that article. Which is kind of like, “okay, which sources are those? Why do we just have to believe you? Because you're an M.D. and I'm okay to believe you.” Maybe I don't have anything against it, but I would like that responsibility to be there as well. Which is, even for Paleo Magazine, I know both of us are writing for them…

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And when I write an article for Paleo Magazine, it needs to have sources with it. That's one of the recommendations of the requirements that they've had of our articles-that we provide sources, and I respect that completely. I mean, when we're talking about some of these things, epically when they're controversial, so.

LIZ WOLFE: I could not agree more.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Do you have an article coming up? What's the subject of your new article in the September/October issue? Can you tell us?

LIZ WOLFE: I do, yes. If people don't know, Yeah, you and I both are doing monthly or at the very least every other month columns for Paleo Magazine. Mine is on Paleo-style body care-kind of a developing passion of mine. We talked about that in previous podcast. But this upcoming one is about soap nuts which are these little shell casings that grows from a tree really all over the world. Most of the ones that I get are from the Himalayas. But they're this phenomenal little thing that contains saponin, which basically….

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs] Either punch holes in your gut…

LIZ WOLFE: cleans or, exactly, if you're eating them, it may be a problem. No, but I've always had some wicked skin sensitivities which is kind of what led me down this path. And obviously, eating a Paleo/Primal diet has done wonders for my skin. I've written about that on the blog as well, but I do have to be careful what I put on it. At this point, it's just baking soda, apple cider vinegar, and coconut oil, and we've started using these soap nuts to do our laundry with. You can do tons of other stuff around the house with soap nuts and I write about that in this upcoming issue. I'm just so excited about them because I know a lot of people have kids with skin sensitivities They're working on trying to figure that out. What laundry detergent is going to be okay? You know, especially for parents who are cloth diapering, you really don't want to be washing those puppies in conventional detergents, especially if your baby's got some skin sensitivity going on, so it should be a pretty cool article.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Cool.

LIZ WOLFE: I had trouble fitting it in the word requirement because I wanted to write so much more about it.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Oh, please.

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: That's like my constant struggle. In my first article with the word count, I was like really, really struggling and this last one I did-the one that I have in the September/October issue-is comparing a Paleo diet to what the USDA recommends for kids.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And it was really cool because I found the actual-it's not from the new MyPlate, but it's their most recent actual serving recommendations, and so I was able to plug that into NutritionData.com. Also plugged in like a typical day of Paleo food for a kid, and I did get some feedback from people on the Facebook page, like hey, does this look normal to you guys, like before I posted it up…

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Like I asked a bunch of parents for their feedback who said Yeah, that looks what I would try and do. And the USDA is what people would feed their kids if they thought, you know, I'm going to feed my kid a healthy diet. It wasn't like, going to McDonalds.

LIZ WOLFE: Right, if they were doing the best they could, Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Exactly, exactly. It wasn't meant to be like, oh, here's a bunch of junk food. It was here's really just a, you know, regular Conventional Wisdom healthy day, and so you can really see the differences and those are linked right from the blog post I put up. There's a PDF preview of the article, but you just get kind of a teaser of the beginning of it, so if people want to subscribe to the magazine, you can definitely see both Liz's and my full article. Soap nuts and on Paleo diet vs. the USDA, so cool. Awesome.

LIZ WOLFE: If I could throw something in here real quick. I'm actually chilling at Steve's Club today. We may-me and my dog are hanging out at Steve's Club, at PaleoKit headquarters. And he is a little bit of a jerk right now-the dog. So I'm going to apologize in advance if we have some barking and/or panting. Please everyone know that it is not me.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Or your husband in the background. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: Or my [laughs]…Exactly. So FYI.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Cool.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah. Do you want to get started?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I'm looking for it. Yeah, let's just jump right in.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, let's do it. All right, question number 1. This is from Toni. Stubborn belly fat. Toni asks: “I have been Paleo since June 2010 and have had significant changes in my body since. Before Paleo I was taking 2000mg of Metformin a day to help regulate blood sugar. I have lost 20lbs and 3 pant sizes and have added 15lbs back of muscle. I usually eat 200-220g of protein, 25-50g of carbs and 60-70g of fat a day. I have tons of energy throughout the day and sleep 9-10 hours a night. My issue is I cannot get rid of the stubborn belly fat. I have tried to roller coaster my calories meaning vary from day to day the total calorie intake. I strength train heavy 3 days a week so normally those are my higher calorie days 2500-2700 and I try to do moderate cardio 1-2 times a week. I take slow long walks everyday with no avail to this belly fat. I’m 36 year old female, 6’1″, 220lb. Please help!! Thanks again can’t wait for the podcast.”

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Whew. Well, she included a lot of information, which is really helpful.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I do still have a couple of questions for her because, even if we are getting a ton of detail on what she's eating and some of her activity and sleep, there are so many other questions that come into play that comes to what we usually call weight loss resistance. The kind of “I'm doing everything right and it's not working” situation and especially around belly fat. So what we know about why people tend to hold fat around the belly is that it's usually cortisol-related. Where we store body fat will always be related to hormone imbalances. This is stuff that some of the Charles Poliquin biosignature. I don't have a certification in that, but I am familiar with how it works. Some people tend to store fat like in the inner thigh and upper tricep area; that might be more estrogen related whereas again this sort of midsection love-handle belly area is more cortisol-related. So things that relate to cortisol that we don't always think about. I would ask how is her digestion. If her digestion is not working very well, so does she feel anything after she's eating? What is her elimination like? Regular? Is she going to the bathroom having a bowel movement like once or twice a day? What's the consistency? What's t look like? Color? All of that fun stuff that we need to ask. But if her digestion and elimination aren't working properly and smoothly, then that can be stressful for the system. What is her work life like? Her stress in her stress in her family life like? You know, does she have kids? Husband? Any of that. Any kind of stress from more than a lifestyle factor? If she's eating things that are irritating her system other than sort of standard grains, legumes, dairy, which is very common. We can have allergies to foods that we don't really know about. That can also be stressing the system, so anything that really irritates your body, even if it's internally systemically, you don't necessarily feel a reaction, but your body is not tolerating it well. That can cause a stress response.

So if you're having a stress response to something, and you don't know about it, kind of consciously, that's where some sort of other testing might be valuable. One more question I have on this before I get into possible solutions for it, is when did the weight gain originally start? Because when we look to unwind some of these problems around why people can't lose weight, we have to figure out when did you start gaining weight. Because a lot of times, you know, Liz, like you and I make a joke about this, the fact that we're the female, more emotional, touchy-feely ones who pass out science and nutrition, but this is the real deal. Probably at least half of my clients have issues with weight loss resistance, they started gaining weight around an emotional issue.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: It was not about, you know, just, “I don't know, I just ate too much.” It's nothing to do with that, you know. Your emotions drive maybe eating more, but what are you eating at that time? And how does this whole thing unravel to figure out why it even started. Sometimes it starts if you travel out of the country and get some kind of bug, some kind of, you know, gut pathogen and getting back to the root of that gut pathogen, which could be causing systemic stress, could really be the solution. Finding out how to kill that, whether it's with natural antibiotics, like oil of oregano or if you need to go to a doctor and get some kind of prescription for that. You know, if that's causing you to hold on to weight, you can't fix that with just good Paleo food.

You know, you really have to uncover when it started, so all those things being said, and looking into those options as far as like outside of the food exercise realm, it does sound a little bit like, if we're just talking about food, you're eating a lot of protein. I know that there's a whole like one gram of protein per pound of body weight measurements out there. At 220 pounds, if that's not your goal weight, I wouldn't say that you need to eat up to that necessarily. You know, you could probably come down to 150 grams of protein easily per day.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Or even between 100 and 150. It depends on the satiety with that. You know, I wouldn't be like, “if you're eating 220 now, go down to a hundred right away.” I would kind of come down little by little, see how you feel. Where I would make up those calories or at least making sure that you're not hungry is just having good, quality, good quantities of fat in there. The carbs are definitely really low. The amount of fat she's eating per day looks really, really low. I think that this whole balance seems very skewed. Like the protein looks really high, the fat looks pretty low, and the carbs are really low. So I would really try and shift that around a little bit and see how that feels. If your fat calories are not-if you can enter this in a FitDay.com for one day or two days of what you're eating just to see. If you're not getting at least 50% of your diet from fat, I would try and get at least 50%. I think satiety is naturally better at that point. I don't know, Liz, if you think that that sounds weird, but I think around that 50% is pretty moderate to good. 50, maybe even 60.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: When you get higher than that, your carbs do come down a lot. I think also, in looking to adjust away from the protein a bit, and I'm not against protein at all. I'm just thinking she seems very focused on really trying to hit that 220 grams of protein, you know, maybe upping the carbs a little bit. You know to be more in the 50-100 gram range. The low carb could also be stressing your system. You know? I don't know. I don't know exactly. You don't know until you try. I would change one thing at a time. You know, obviously, when you're changing your food, more than one thing changes at a time, but maybe potentially the first thing is to shift some of that calorie load away from protein and into fat. Leave your carbs as they are. And do that for a couple of weeks. See how that feels. And then maybe from there, shifting a little bit more away from protein and potentially into carbs. So maybe you do get down to more like 100-150 grams of protein and 50-100 grams of carbs. And just kind of play around with it. But, you know, keeping track, not to make yourself nuts, but just to see, “what am I doing and is it working?” so I think that that might be something to consider.

When it comes to the belly fat being a real issue, again, if you're eating a ton of protein, that does still require insulin response. It's not insulin-agnostic to eat protein. Yeah, we're getting a balance of a glucagon response with the insulin as well eating proteins, but I think the fat might be a little more satisfying without dealing with some of those insulin issues, which when we're looking at a cortisol response, pushing insulin also pushes cortisol. So just all different factors that might help reduce the cortisol. And what was my other-I had a couple more points here. Know your total calorie intake for the day. I don't know if that's too much or not. You might be able to do closer to around 2000 on the days where you don't work out. This is not, again, this is not a calorie game, but if you're just used to eating 2500 and you don't really need it, you're not really hungry for it, I would just really try and watch, like what is it that's going in and are you hungry or not? And just kind of see, especially on those days where you're not training.

If you do need the extra food, but hmm, I think that was pretty much it from me. I think when it comes to tweaking your food, you know, once you've tried a few different approaches with that, there really are more systemic issues underlying when it comes to that belly fat. And sometimes making sure that you're overtraining can really be a big issue. Making sure that you are, if you're sleeping 9-10 hours a night, that's great. You know, is it solid sleep? what other stressors could kind of be in the way? That's kind of what I think. How about you? More info on that?

LIZ WOLFE: Not a lot, no. I think you pretty much covered it. I was chatting just a little bit with Summer Innanen; she writes the blog Cosmopolitan Primal Girl, and she is a Poliquin BioSig practitioner, and she was saying that, precisely like you said, that's what they deal with. So I mean, you know, all these other things notwithstanding, maybe you want to seek out a Poliquin BioSig-type of practitioner, or just keep working with it. I mean, it looks like she has made so much progress, and people think like a year is a long time, but it's a really short amount in the grand scheme of things, and it looks like she's made some awesome progress.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: So you know, just keep playing with it. Don't get frustrated. One of the first things that I ever talked about with Coach Rut was Michael Rutherford from Crossfit Kansas City was how powerful just having that fat can be, like you said. I think he was talking at some point about tripling the fat in some of his athletes' diets and very quickly seeing a lot of good effects from that, so and you know there's just some-there's been a lot of talk in the Paleosphere about the setpoint. Stephan Guyenet talks about that a lot and I'm interested in that research. I don't know a whole lot about it, but in the challenge of reducing the setpoint and all the things that go with it, that it does take like an extended commitment, which it looks like Toni definitely has made, so. Yeah, but I think you nailed it.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Cool, well…

LIZ WOLFE: Way to go.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Check back in with us, Toni, let us know. You know, if you want to comment on the post about what other factors that really could be at play here, but I do think, Yeah, giving it a little more time might be good, and you've put on a lot of muscle and giving your body time to keep adjusting into these changes.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And then as you make changes, you know, keeping those notes, keeping track of it, and then kind of coming back to reassess. Because sometime you start out following a plan with your food based on your lifestyle and your activity level, and then you forget to readdress the food when all that other stuff has changed.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Or maybe been a year and you haven't relooked at anything else. You know, you haven't changed your food in a year, and so maybe that's another thing to consider. Just like, I don't really know a lot of people who should be eating exactly the same kind of thing for an entire year.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Because our activity level inevitably changes. You know, whether it's season or we get hurt or we just want to take a rest or we go to a new gym, whatever the case may be, so.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah. And I meant to throw in before you were talking about the different, say somebody's picked up a bug or been traveling, that type of stuff. That type of stressors on the system. It might be worth checking out Paul Jaminet's book, The Prefect Health Diet. I think he does a really good job of addressing kind of those types of problems. Yeah, I don't know how you feel about that, but I enjoy his stuff.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, I think that those problems are real, you know…

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And I think I usually like to deal with a lot of the lifestyle stressors and, you know, what is the stress primarily, and how do you handle the stress, you know, because some people, you know, you might have ten different sets of parents with sets of kids each, and some may have more issues with belly fat than others, and it's like how do you handle the stressors in your life that you know about, and once you've worked on that stuff, you kind of like chip away at the problems that you already know could be there that you could be working on. And I feel like that once you've dealt with that, then if it's still not going away, that's when you're like, okay, there's a systemic issue here. But for the same reason we try and put people on a Paleo type of diet where it's anti-inflammatory, it sort of lets your system calm down, we have to get that stuff in line before we can figure out whether there's something deeper, like I feel there's no sense in getting those tests done until you address all these other issues, but they're absolutely critical if that's what the problem is. But you can't fix a gut pathogen issue if you're still eating tons of sugar and all that other kind of stuff, you know, so it's like you do have to chip away at these other things first.

LIZ WOLFE: Right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: So she's doing a great job with that stuff, so I'm really curious about the other stressors in her life and how she handles stress, too, you know. If she's somebody who internalizes things a lot? You know, that can go right to your belly. Literally. So..

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: So those kinds of things need to be figured out. Yeah. Moving on.

LIZ WOLFE: All right. Moving on. Let's see. Harmony asks: “While it’s of course better for your health to eat Paleo 100% of the time,” Amen. “when that’s not realistic (for whatever the reason), what is the least harmful non-Paleo food to have? Would you say for example that Dairy is less/more harmful than Wheat; and how does Sugar compare? It would be great if you could do a ranking of non-Paleo foods so if forced to choose a non-Paleo option I would know which direction to go (i.e. something with dairy vs. grains, or something with grains vs. legumes, etc.). I know some of it will be based on individual body and the severity of reactions to particular items, but a general guideline would be great. Looking forward to the podcast! Always love something educational on the bus ride to work. Thanks!” Diane?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: This is a good question because I actually just started to reframe how I'm covering this in my seminars. So what I've done with the seminars is I really talk about all these issues throughout the day, and then at a point later in the day, we talk about “all right, so how do we prioritize this making the choices?” So rather than actually doing it in the order that she's asking, she wants to know the least harmful way. I'm going to present it in what's the most important because I think that when you tackle what's most important first, you sort of knock out some of the other potential problems .

So I have a list of kind of 8 things we're maybe trying to do and you can let me know if there's anything else we can kind of need to squeak in here, but I think we're covering most of it with this list. So in order of priority, I say number one is “Eat Whole Foods.” Because when you eat whole foods, you pretty much avoid most of the junk that's in the rest of the list. So that's number one. Number two I have “Avoid Gluten-Containing Grains and Foods and Food Products that May Contain Hidden Gluten.” So the grains would be wheat, barley, rye, triticale, I think is how you say it. Oats we have on the list because they're very, very commonly cross-contaminated, but wheat, barley, and rye , triticale are the commonly known gluten-containing grains. You can refer to my PDF guide on gluten and hidden gluten to find out more about that, where you can find it. It's a really extensive list of gluten containing ingredients. That's quite freaky and really, if you avoid eating processed foods, you'll avoid most of it. So eat whole foods, avoid gluten containing grains or ingredients that may contain gluten. That's one and two.

Number three I have “Avoid Seed Oils.” We talked about this last week ad nauseum, so people can refer back to last week or to some of my posts on fats and oils. But seed oils, definitely want to avoid those modern foods. I don't recommend them for people. Fourth, I have “Avoiding Non-Gluten Grains.” And again, as Harmony said, you know, some things are more irritating to some people than others, but I have that down fourth. I have fifth, “Avoid Chemical Sweeteners.” Now I think you do this mostly by doing number one. By hitting number one, by eating whole foods, you're pretty much going to avoid chemical sweeteners. So it's really hard to completely prioritize these, but again, by not eating processed foods, you're mostly already doing that. Number six, I have “Avoiding Sugar.” Again, avoiding processed foods, you're mostly avoiding sugar anyway. Seven, I have “Legumes.” So you know, I think they're definitely problematic for a lot of people. From what I've learned, cooking them immediately does destroy a lot of their anti-nutrients, but it does not absolutely get rid of all of them. But since most people are eating legumes cooked, I definitely think that makes them a little bit less of a problem than grains in general.

And then, I have dairy at the very end. “Avoiding Dairy.” I think dairy has a lot more leeway, okay, and there are so many different forms of it that people can really kind of play around with. So I don't know that dairy is quite the problem if you're not, point-blank allergic to it or you're lactose intolerant. I think most people can get away with dairy a little bit easier.

So again, I have first priority, Eating Whole Foods. Then avoid gluten containing grains, or products that may contain gluten. Avoiding seed oils, number three. Number four, avoiding non-gluten grains. Number five, avoiding chemical sweeteners. Six, avoiding sugar. Seven, avoiding legumes. And eight, avoiding dairy. That's my list. And sugar, I don't mean avoiding fruit, I mean avoiding sugar. Right. Like sugar. [laughs] Like sugar.

LIZ WOLFE: Like sugar.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Like corn sugar. Like high fructose corn syrup, agave, sugar, sugar, sugar.

LIZ WOLFE: Sugar is sugar.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Sugar is sugar. Not necessarily all to your liver, but…

LIZ WOLFE: Oh, man. Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: That's my list. So if you want to reverse that, Harmony, to find out what's the least harmful, that's maybe the direction I would go. For my personal, what do I potentially eat that's not perfectly Paleo, I definitely dabble more with sugar than grains at all.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I pretty much avoid- I don't eat gluten ever, to my knowledge. Other grains, I'm just not interested in. I don't really care about them. I don't think they taste like anything. I'd just rather eat a steak. I just don't care about quinoa or rice.

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I'm indifferent at this point, which takes awhile. Chemical sweeteners, I have no reason to be eating chemicals. I don't really-I don't get it. Beans, I'm just not interested in for the most part either. I don't really need the gas.

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And dairy, dairy sneaks in now and then. and once or twice a month, here or there. But Yeah, I would say, some dark chocolate, sugar, that kind of stuff sneaks in a little more for me. What about you? Other points on this?

LIZ WOLFE: You know, I like this question. I think it's interesting. I think it's interesting that people are wondering this in general. Just kind of looking for these guidelines. You know, I think it's good, but I also think generally, you know a lot of these you can find the answer within our own intuition, so you know, that's how I feel about this type of thing. I just feel like it's rare that you're left with absolutely no choice. Like in-unless you're stranded in a Wonder Bread Factory for three weeks with no other choices…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: Like I just don't feel like you're going to be in a situation where you have absolutely no other options.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: Should that eventuality come up, like I personally, I have a never ending supply of PaleoKits. Full disclosure, I do a bit of writing. I'm the Nutritional Advisor for Steve's Original, and you know, but even then, I rarely have to pull that PaleoKit out of my purse because I have no other choice.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: So…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: Me personally, I'll eat some white rice, I'll eat some white potatoes at brunch like on Sunday. That's a big treat for us.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I don't even put those on my list because I don't consider them a cheat. Like I think…

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: white potatoes are-it's a whole food, and maybe it's got some lectin content in the skin, but I'm like, I'm
really not anti-white potato.

LIZ WOLFE: No, I'm not at all. I mean, if I go and have sushi, it's not even a cheat meal. I don't even consider a cheat meal to me, and I don't really have a problem with rice. Generally, if I'm at home, like I just made these enchiladas from Paleo Comfort Foods, and I made cauliflower rice. And generally, I'll do that instead of having white rice, but I don't have a problem with that. Obviously, if you have a bad reaction to it, that should not be in your rotation. A note on beans. I think a lot of people like you said, coming around to beans not being the absolute worst thing you could possibly eat. But just to throw it in there, I don't know what they're called, I think one is called like stachyose and I can't remember the name of the other sugar in beans that are just a little harder for most people.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Mm-hmm.

LIZ WOLFE: So just as far as problematic digestion, that kind of takes beans of the list for me, anyway. Just we live in a very small house, so just for quality of life, I tend to stay away from such things. [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs] Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: But Yeah, for the most part, I'll go for some good cheeses, some full fat dairy if it's there, some dark chocolate. I think if you just make the commitment to yourself to only drink water which is almost always available, that will take out a lot of the chemical sweetener, sugar, some of the dairy type concerns. But Yeah, I really like your list, and I'm stoked about it. I'm totally going to steal it.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, definitely on the starches for the legumes and I think too, like that's my list, but it's also sort of, I don't know that it's my list and it's how I prioritize. It's my list of what I recommend for other people, but I'm saying that, and while I'm telling you that I don't eat beans ever and it's lower on my list, like sugar does come in sometimes, you know. It's like you have to play around with it> I do think-I do really think that the gluten-containing grains because they're not food, as food used to be, and seed oils are really huge and chemical sweeteners. Those are probably some of the biggest ones I just think are problematic for the system outside of anything you want to call Paleo/not Paleo, whatever.

LIZ WOLFE: Definitely.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: So, Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: There are a couple books for that. I think-I know Wheat Belly just came out, which is going to be an awesome resource for people just to kind of understand the many, many multifarious problems that exist with wheat, and as far as seed oils go, would you recommend The Oiling of America?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: The video?

LIZ WOLFE: I think there's a pamphlet. I could be wrong.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Okay. I know there's an article. It's from the Weston A. Price Foundation. I think it's an article.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I actually own the DVD. And I bought, and I started like half watching it when I was working at another job before I did this whole nutrition thing full time.

LIZ WOLFE: Uh-hunh.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And it's Sally Fallon, I think like talking the whole time, so I had to not…

LIZ WOLFE: Oh my gosh, that could be painful.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I couldn't listen to it, while I was working. Like oh, okay, it wasn't happening.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: But Yeah, that's probably a good one on the seed oils. What else was I just going to add in there, too? Hmm, I don't remember. Anyway.

LIZ WOLFE: We're having quite a brain melt here, Diane.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Oh, I heard that-I haven't finished Wheat Belly- I'm through a bit of it. I've heard that he recommends Splenda in it. Dr. Davis, the author, and that's definitely a no for me. But you know what? That's good. Because there's no single book out there that I've yet to say that I 100% agree with what the author has written, so…

LIZ WOLFE: Yup.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Hey, that's kind of the point. That's why we're all here. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: So this is-you should write it. This is a book that you need to write.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: My book will be a little different. We'll learn about that later.

LIZ WOLFE: All right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Okay. Cool. All right. Yay.

LIZ WOLFE: All right, next one. We are really just taking our sweet time here. All right…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs] Stephanie from-Stephanie asks: “I’m trying to help my mom make the transition to a Paleo lifestyle. Her biggest challenge so far is milk. She loves it. It comforts her. But she also likes the taste of unsweetened almond milk. Is that an okay substitute for milk? Does it need to be limited? Thank you for your insight!” Short and sweet. What do you think?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, I was trying to get some shorter ones in here too. So, first of all, do we know if she's eliminated milk for at least, I would say, 30 or 60 days, and see how she tolerates it. So first and foremost, do that, do the elimination/reintroduction, you know. You don't have to call it a Paleo challenge, it's basically an elimination diet. That's what any holistic nutritionist would call it. You take the irritating foods out, you reintroduce them and see how you do. So if she doesn't experience any problems with it, I would be okay to say, if you have access to raw grass-fed milk, it should be an okay food for her. How much is she drinking o fit? Is she chugging a few glasses a day, or is she using a little bit, who knows, coffee? Something like that. Most of the time when people move over to a grain free diet, there's not much need for milk anymore. I usually ask people, “what are you using the milk for?” You know?

LIZ WOLFE: Right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I mean, there's no more cereal, so there's often not much need for milk. Especially in adults. We don't typically see adults sitting down to a giant glass of milk. I'm okay with raw milk as a whole food. So if she tolerates it well, she's not looking to lose body fat, you know, milk can be a growth promoter, so that's what we have milk around for. It's for growing small things into big things. So that's what I would say there. You know, raw milk, raw grass-fed milk. I have recently heard of some raw milk that's not 100% grass fed. I don't know how that's really happening, But I think that's probably still an okay food. If they're not finding pathogens in it, then sure, do it.

I don't ever really recommend pasteurized milk as part of a regular diet. I think it's a dead food, usually a pretty low quality. I just wouldn't put that in my body and so I don't recommend that others do. But-I don't know. I would really rather people not have regular milk. Conventional, even organic. I just-it's all pretty much CAFO milk.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: As far as the almond milk goes, unsweetened almond milk, is it okay for a substitute? Does it need to be limited? It's okay for a substitute but read the ingredients on that package, and there's a bunch of kind of weird stuff in there. Texturizers and other additives. I would really like to see if somebody wants to do almond milk, I would like to see somebody make it. It's not hard. Soak the almonds overnight in room temperature water in a glass jar in a cabinet. Then blend them with water the next day. Strain them through a bag and you've got almond milk. It's really not difficult. You have to -the meal is leftover. You can dehydrate it or just low temperature in the oven, so you can use it for other things. But if you want to use almond milk at whatever level you should be consuming it, I think if you make it yourself, you'll really be fine. I've made it many, many times. Just put a little vanilla extract in there, maybe some cinnamon, and it's really pretty yummy. I don't know. I'm not really a fan of the ones in the cartons. I used to buy them. Everything I tell you not to do or eat or whatever, well, [laughs] I just think the additives can be strange, but as a gateway, a way from conventional milk or any other non-raw milk, Yeah, it might be better. Just even getting the stuff in the carton for a period of time, but I think sometimes it's just good to teach somebody, “hey, look, it's really easy to make this, and it tastes so much better than the stuff in the carton.” Yeah. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, I like that.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: You can find almond milk recipes on any vegan website. [laughs] Any raw vegan website will have a phenomenal almond milk recipe, FYI. Side note. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: It really does crack me up. There are many points of where the Paleo universe and the vegan universe, misguided as it is, come together very- in a very lovely manner.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Mm-hmm.

LIZ WOLFE: So if we could just get them to understand how the world actually works, I think we could all…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I'm sending traffic to their websites, so [laughs] Kumbaya.

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs] Okay. Kumbaya. Well, I like what you said on that.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Okay. Any notes on that? Okay.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, Yeah. I like what you said. Pasteurized milk, I agree with you. It's a dead food. I really like that phrase, so. Way to go.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I think that one might be from Paul Chek. I think that might be a Chek-y thing. He's like that's a dead food, you know. We don't want to eat that, so.

LIZ WOLFE: I gotcha. You know, I think that one of the most engaging podcasts I've ever listened to is the Sean Croxton from Underground Wellness. His interviews with Paul Chek…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Mm-hmm.

LIZ WOLFE: So I encourage anyone to check those out.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Oh Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: I think Paul Chek-he just has a holistic, solid answer for everything. And I love listening to him.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Mm-hmm. I think his intuition is pretty amazing. Like he seems totally crazy sometimes, but you're like…

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: That's actually probably exactly what's happening with that person. And he'll like pick up some kind of weird vibe over the phone..

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And then you'll hear that percolating, Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah, like Oh my God. Psychic Friends Network or something. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: No, it's really great.

LIZ WOLFE: Like Cleo.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, Miss Cleo [laughs]. Okay, we're a little silly now.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah. Let's get back in here.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Hoo, okay. All right.

LIZ WOLFE: All right, Kathy, this question is from Kathy. Let's see. “What do you recommend as nutrition for endurance sports like long road bike or mountain bike rides?” Do you have any thoughts on this?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, I was like, And I will not be touching this one. I'm not really…

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I'm not really the best friend of the endurance athlete. I do it sometimes. I help them. I coach them. I do okay with it, but yeah, I think, maybe you have some more thoughts on this one.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, and you know what, this question got my dog all worked up, so sorry, buddy. Lay down.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: So this is kind of how I feel about this. I know there are endurance-oriented folks who disagree with my thoughts on exercise and what humans are best adapted for,. Yeah, I think Born to Run is actually a pretty fun read, but I do believe that generally it's more in line with our physiology to do shorter, more intense bouts of exercise than long, extended endurance activity. You know, I know mountain biking can be somewhat within both genres, but just kind of as a general blanket statement.

And I do think that there are times when endurance exercise kind of pushes the balance of human function and it's reasonable from kind of a cost-benefit standpoint, to rely on certain endurance-specific, possibly more processed products that cater specifically to endurance athletes. When you're actually in the long run of a long ride, which technically would be called when you're peri-workout, some people just can't keep the proper energy stores without them for those longer efforts, but that's definitely something to determine before a race or a ride. I wouldn't do something in an important race or a ride that I hadn't trained with from the beginning. So that's kind of-you have to evaluate your physical response to these things.

I think if the general diet is good, you can recover quickly from the use of stuff like Goo and whatnot. I don't begrudge endurance athletes their Goo, but I do think there are ways around that strategy and that can really only determined by self-experimentation. I think pre-and post-workouts should look pretty Paleo. Maybe, you now, keep some white rice and potatoes in there for more of a carb hit. Some BCAAs to support the effort. And depending on what phase of training you're in, you may actually have different nutritional strategies. I think it was Robb Wolf who recommended The Triathlete's Training Bible as a resource, kind of in combination with Cordain's-Loren Cordain's Paleo Diet for Athletes. But yeah, I mean, this isn't a religion. You can play with it however you want. But-I would interested to see what people are doing, if they want to post it, like in the comments of the show notes to kind of discuss this topic because it's so varied by the person and the actual activity, you know?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: That's kind of my take on that.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I mean, so some of the experience I had with this more recently, even though, like I say, I don't touch it just because I'm not really into endurance athletics personally.

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I don't know. I just am like, yeah, that's just not my thing. But I have worked with people, just trying to figure out like carb load to take in, and one of the biggest things that can help you is just to keep records. I mean, I said it earlier, but keeping records of what you did, and then how long you ride for, and how did that work for you. How long did it last?

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And you can tinker with what you're doing because even, you know, one person who rides for two hours vs. another might need something different. I found an interesting chart, which maybe I'll link to it, on. the website…

LIZ WOLFE: We lost our connection for the last 5 seconds. Can you say that one more time?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Ooh, I found a chart when I was just kind of looking to see if I could find what kind of fuel. I mean, I think we know, fat is a very efficient fuel for the body. But just to see how long our liver glycogen, muscle glycogen, and fat stores would last us, if we're looking to do activity for different periods of time, and so I'll link to this in the notes. But basically, I found a chart that was kind of explaining that we have a reserve of, let's say-I'll give you the examples of walking and running a marathon. So if we're looking at our liver and muscle glycogen, we've got about 70 minutes of walking , of liver glycogen stored. We've got about 5 hours of walking in muscle glycogen stored. So if we're just walking, we've got probably about 6 hours of glycogen stores that can last us for walking. So you could. You could actually, you know, eat some food, good food, you know, you've got to get a balance of macronutrients in there, and have stores that can potentially last you for 6 hours of walking. Or, if we're looking in terms of how much we're running, 70 minutes of muscle glycogen and 18 minutes in liver. So that's like around an hour and a half of running stored in sugar in our body.

Now, if we look at fat stores? What we have in our body could last us for 11 days walking or 3 days of marathon. So-oh, I'm cutting in and out. Apparently, sorry. Well, I'll link to this chart. But basically what we're looking at is energy stores in our body and how long they'll last with different activity levels. With fat being the clear winner on what-oh, am I still cutting out? [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: You're cutting in and out a little bit. I'm not sure how much of it is actually is making it to the podcast.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I don't know if it's me, it's you.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I'm like me, you? I'm not 100% sure.

LIZ WOLFE: I wonder if it's me or your phone.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I have like totally full service. Anyway, I was just kind of yapping on and on about energy stores in the body, and basically, you now, our fat stores are way more efficient for us to burn for energy. So, you know, we've got a lot more time if we're able to burn fat. So that's kind of my take, but yeah. I don't really have more on that. Let's see.

LIZ WOLFE: All right, well, this could be my connection, I'm not sure if you're even still there or if you're talking right now. Can you hear me?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, I can hear you. I think it's probably you, You're like in the closet of some gym, hanging out.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, I'm in this closet and there's people working out. Crazy stuff. But we are about 8 minutes short of an hour. Should we go ahead and end it there, just in case?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, maybe.

LIZ WOLFE: What do you think?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, we can end it here if you want, and then maybe we'll kind of try and make next week's a little bit longer so that we get a little bit more in. We've got so many questions to get to, so [laughs] Yeah. We're cutting out.

LIZ WOLFE: Oh, I think maybe we're –

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I don't know if we lost both of us.

LIZ WOLFE: I'm not sure…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I think we lost Liz. Oh, I hear you! [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: Here I am to say goodbye.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I think it's you.

LIZ WOLFE: Okay, we love all of you. Thanks for sticking with us

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Okay, next time. Bye!

LIZ WOLFE: Okay, next time, bye bye!