The Plant Based Dietician: Hacks and Tips to Fight Heart Disease With Nature’s Medicine

Introduction and Julieannau2019s background 0:00

Thanks so much for joining us in the summit. Julieanna, this is fantastic to have you here and be part of this. And I guess and let me just introduce you briefly then you could add something to it. I know you're a registered dietitian and you've authored seven books, and your most recent book is called Choose You Now. Diet and you a podcast with that same name, the Choose You Now podcast. That's so kind of cool. I guess you're encouraging people to make sure that they're doing the right thing to protect their own health and their own life and their own happiness.

Because obviously, if you're not going to behave in your own best interest, you're the own worst enemy. You do something going wrong, right? You gotta take care of yourself, right? And then you gotta love yourself, right? You've had a lot of great, experiences and input. You've been, you've had your own television show, right? Yeah. The, your own TV show and your own you, your. And then you co-hosted, some other television, like Science and Sorcery. That was a there's another, show on television podcast.

That was a podcast. We did a Facebook show called Home Sweet Home. I co-hosted, and, yeah, lots of fun experiences along the way, and Doctor Oz and The Steve Harvey Show and a lot of other the Marie Osmond show. You were on that too. Wow, that's so cool. You must know a lot of celebrities and stuff and and we're going to E! So you've been I guess in L.A. you've been a lot of, you've had a lot of exposure to the. So the media and getting a lot of great message out to affect people to make positive change in their life.

That's really right. Yeah. I'm trying. It's just there's so much to say and there's so many different, you know, media to, to share on nowadays. So it's been kind of exciting. That's terrific. So what are you so what kind of like response and feedback and or resistance. Have you had to trying to teach people to live so healthily and go totally plant based? Have you had any pushback, resistance with your message? Well, I had a ton of pushback when I first started because I was really just trying to encourage everyone to eat this way, and I was so convinced, and I saw what happened with me and what's happening with my clients.

Handling resistance to plant-based eating 2:06

I try to encourage everyone around me, you got to look at this study. You got to do it because of this and try it because, you know, I had a million reasons, right? But I realized after, I don't know, maybe a decade or so that it didn't matter what I said, that the person had to be receptive and they had to want they had to want to make that change. And so I've kind of changed my approach. A long time ago, I realized I was just banging my head against the wall trying to convince people. And once I decided, you know what, I'm not going to try to convince anyone anymore, but I will take anyone who has any curiosity or interest, and I will love them all the way through the process.

I will share whatever knowledge and information and tips that I can. But you know, I always go back to you can lead a human to healthy, but you can't make them eat. They have to want it. And I always kind of say, you know, be a lighthouse, not a tugboat, because the more you pull, the more frustrated it is for everyone. So I stopped with the resistance, kind of went away when I stopped, you know, approaching it. I don't want to argue. I don't want to bait. Like nothing is going to unseat me. Now from the benefits of a whole food, plant based diet or neutral terrain diet, nothing's going to keep me from all the things that I've seen and learned over the years.

But there's a lot of people that still aren't ready for that message, and that's okay. When it how do you deal with people who, like, accept the message? They appreciate the message in your work, but then they have trouble applying it, or they have these the devil. There's this illicit relationship they have with wanting to eat unhealthy foods. They're kind of self-destructive behaviors, even though they know that they shouldn't do it and it sets them back, or they have some fallback, you know, how do you, you know, how do you help motivate them through that?

Right? Well, if they really want it and they reach out to me, I kind of assess where they're at. And, you know, I have some questions that are kind of provocative to just kind of assess where their their mental space is. Why are they here now? Like, why here? Why now? And if they want it badly enough, as you know, it's anything is possible. You just have to want it. And you know, we we've done this so many times with so many people throughout so many years that we know its effectiveness and we know how to strategize.

But what I do is, in fact, what the choosing our diet is, is a confluence of three, variables, three concepts. One is a plant based diet, the other is I use time restricted eating. And because of all the health benefits I've seen with that, starting with your book, you're one of the first inspirations for my journey in that whole realm about fasting and intermittent fasting and all that. And then the third part is mindfulness and approaching it from this. If you want this, here are some strategies to put into place that will help you achieve these goals.

So I use all the objective data. I calculate the actual goals based on formulas and everything that like we're trying to reduce our cholesterol, we're trying to get off high blood pressure meds. Whatever it is, we're kind of pinpoint exactly what the goals are. And then I try to strategize with them like I want to give them a meal plan. I realize that it doesn't help. Like everyone wants a meal plan. They just want a diet. And I just don't think that's effective. I'd rather strategize with, you know, as a team, what's going to work for them, what works with their family and their job and their day to day life?

And how do we achieve those goals in a practical, sustainable way? And we work together to come up with something and then we work through it. You know, stuff comes up because stuff is going to come up and we just kind of work through all those things. But I basically my, my what I do is I put a system in place, here's the system, here's how we deal with our biology and our psychosocial situations, and here's how to make it effective for you. And, and that's it. And it's like, if they want it, if someone wants it, there's ways to do it.

And the results are just, I would say results are typical. People really do have these extraordinary results. Right? I always say there's, an excuse. There's no excuse because it excuses just the primitive, vindictive mind, the negative rationalizations, why it's okay to self abuse yourself.

Time-restricted eating and behavior change 5:53

And there's always the they're just fake phony. They don't hold up to scrutiny. And they're and there's no reason you should not take great care of yourself, you know. But so, explain more about your version of time restricted eating. What do you advise in that part of that part of your book invite and part of your advice you're giving people? So I'm sure you've seen the data. It's very interesting. The data on all that just less eating less and less frequently and having a window of fasting is so healthy for housebound and for all sorts of wonderful things.

But what I notice is, you know, there's that newer data that shows like because I do a lot of weight loss, I take a lot of people through a weight loss transformation. They lose point four to point 8 pounds a day, like predictably. So I could always identify why not if on the Food Journal? If not. So it's amazing how predictable that can be. Now, if I think so. The research recently has shown that if you take the ISO caloric diet and you take it in a time restricted window versus just spread throughout the day, there's no added benefit to the weight loss.

But what I've learned just from working with my clients is there are some behavioral components that are really well managed by just eating less frequently. So there's this one concept like how breaking the seal, like every time you have your first bite and then it's hard for you to stop. You know, a lot of people like if you don't, they don't have the first bite because they're not hungry or it's not on their plan, then they're going to be okay. So this limits that because we're choosing how many times a day we're going to eat ahead of time.

And then the stopping a lot of people don't have, you know, they're not able to stop eating once they start. This is a common thing that I see with a lot of my clients. And so you don't have to do that as many times a day. If you just pick two a couple meals a day or three meals a day or one meal a day, some people like to do one meal a day and then they don't have to, says. The behavioral stuff that comes into play because of these decisions are so efficacious that it doesn't. Mad about the calories or anything like that.

It's just about like honing your body into a certain window of time, or certain couple periods of of eating opportunities that make all the difference for them to do. When you do the time restricted eating, is there a preference for the time of day in which people eat like you know, having more calories early in the day, less later in the day? Or or is it doesn't matter to you what you know. In other words, how do you make that time restricted window shifted in the cycle of the night and dark, or the day and night cycle?

Right? So everything about food is habit, everything. And the thing about, you know, some of the research shows that shifting your more calories earlier in the day is better just in terms of our circadian clocks. But most people aren't hungry first thing in the morning. So there's still benefits to eating less frequently and to having more time in a fasted state that it's worth it to just pick what works for you. So most of my clients, I say, when are you really hungry? You know, and most people like, oh, I just eat because I'm supposed to.

And then so then if they're if they're like that, I have them start a little later in the day. So maybe they have their first meal at 11 or 12. But again, I work with what they get used to and then they pick. Usually most people pick a second to two meals a day. So definitely it's it might be a little bit better to start it earlier in the day, but if you're over eating and you're chronically over nourished and you're eating all throughout the day, it's still better to shift it a little bit later in the day and just have a little later of a window.

So I work with what my client schedules are like. You know, I have clients that are shift workers, and we have to work around that too. But everything about food is habit. So it always, you know, if you do it something consistently enough, the results definitely ensue. That's that's good. So even though you might prefer them to eat an earlier dinner, if it's a later dinner, it's going to make them overall stick with a diet, need less calories, and be more satisfied. You know you'll do what works.

Yeah, exactly. So talk about how this element of mindfulness interacts and intertwines with your whole food plant based recommendations. How does that fit in to make people more, happy, joyous and satisfied? What they're doing? Well, I don't know if there's those are two connected. I use a whole plant based diet just because I really believe it's the health most health promoting way to eat that we know of. And so that's just one element. Like, I just I can't shift on that. Like I won't tell someone you can't eat an animal product.

You have to be vegan. I don't ever have that message. But basing your diet on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, mushrooms, nuts, seeds wrapped in spices and infinite tasty combinations is a really wholesome way to set up your diet. The most health rewarding way to eat. The mindfulness component comes in more of the behaviors and more of the, you know, going back to all these principles of being in the moment and really enjoying your food, eating when you're hungry and stopping when you're satiated, you know, those are things that we don't really listen to anymore.

We use all of these external cues like we're supposed to eat breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day, or we have to eat every two hours to keep our metabolism stoked. Are all these messages because we thought we're inundated with messages, you know, more protein, more this, more that there's all of these different things that we hear all the time. So I'm trying to get my clients back into the space of listening

Mindfulness, food enjoyment, and taste retraining 10:51

to their bodies and tuning in. When are you hungry? When are you satisfying how what's which foods feel best in you? There is inter individual variability on how people tolerate different foods. You know, some people have a hard time digesting grains or they go slower through the GI tract. Some people, you know prefer eating more salads. And so there's a lot of those little, little tidbits that we kind of like hone in on what works for each person. But the mindfulness components are extremely helpful.

You know, I do like a I have a mindfulness, podcast like on on Body and Diet and like how you could just set the, the mood and, you know, shut your screens and sit still instead of standing and walking and eating while you're driving and and actually tasting your food and putting the fork down, like those kind of behavioral components are extremely helpful for people just tuning in to what they're eating and not just getting to the bottom of the the bag of popcorn without even knowing how that happened.

You know, because they're watching TV at the same time. So practices like that, just putting systems into place where their behaviors around them are, you know, helping them achieve their goals, helping them really eat for nourishment and pleasure. Because if you're eating and you're not enjoying it, then that's not going to work long term either. So I want people to find recipes they love to eat and prepare, and there's just so many other things that come into play when it comes to food. It's not just the food itself, for sure.

There's kind of like, you know, we kind of appreciate and are passionate for the magic, the beauty, the internal structure of natural, healthy plant foods that can change our health trajectory and protect us and reverse disease. There's magic in those foods. So there's some it enhances not just our gratitude, our connection with nature, but it enhances our enjoyment of the food because we're not eating for taste, but we also is married together with our intellectual and emotional, satisfaction for doing the right thing for our body and the beauty and the magic of the food.

And I think there's some relation with what you're saying here with mindfulness, and you do appreciate it. This is putting food in your mouth for the calories in to the, you know, to to meet our desire for sweets or, or calories and getting ahead. You know, I think it's magical indeed. Like, if you think about it, the way we are connected to nature, you know, every day, like food is what goes into our bodies. Like we take food from the earth and put it into our mouth and it becomes literally part of our bodies.

We are quite literally what we eat, right? Our cells turnover and where we get rid of what we don't need. But we keep it. We do need, and we construct our entire bodies based on what we put through our GI tract. So there's something beautifully, you know, I just add to the, being symbiotic and synergistic and this beautiful connection to the world we live in. So, you know, and then we see, we, you see like eat to let me see what, what happens in manifest when people switch to a more mindful, conscientious, health promoting diet.

It just it changes everything. Yeah. So the is there a transition period when you start with people that you that you expect them to have some difficulties that would, that they're going to work through with your assistance, that and then it gets better or they're things improve or their taste gets better or they're feeling better. Do you do you notice that temporary difficulties when they first start? Absolutely. And it depends on where they're coming from. Right. Some people come to me, they've been eating a very healthy diet and they just need some fine tuning and they're just trying to lose a few pounds.

Those are literally probably the easiest transitions. But then I also have people that are over 400 pounds that are eating fast food. Three, 4 or 5 times a day. And I at the first question I asked them after, why do they want this? And why now is how how do you want to do this? Do you want to just dive in, or do you want to dip your toe in? And I think that some people personality has to do a lot with that. But the most people want to dive in and when they dive in, I warn them to take a few days where it's not going to be, you know, a lot going on in their life.

Or they could just kind of, you know, deal with the they're they're going to have some kind of detoxification kind of symptoms. Know more often than not, but it's usually like three or 4 or 5 days. And after that it just gets better and better and better and and then the palate shifts. Also, I think that take maybe depending on where they're coming from up to maybe a week or three weeks and it just gets better and better. Like I have my clients, like if they just had some like hyper palatable meal.

So I say, okay, give it a week. But so I had them prepare like one recipe, one soup or whatever. And it's like, you know, whole Foods, not a lot of salt, not a lot of, you know, not oils, no added sugars, all that. And I say eat that a couple times a day for a few days and see how the taste changes over just in the next few days. And it does because it's like you're just, you know, your palate just starts shifting. If you stick to it and it gets everything starts tasting better and better. The nuances taste better and better.

Celery becomes salty, right? Fruit becomes a very sweet. It's it's amazing to watch that happen and to feel that happen. It's like going to the gym and building muscle. You're building like your taste muscle almost. You know, like building back the strengthen your taste buds. You know, I love that. I always used to think of it the opposite where like, you know, when we're babies and we have these fresh palates and breast milk tastes like sugar, and everything's so perfect and amazing. And I always feel like we need to kind of shed everything, all this other stuff that we built up on top of those taste buds, all that, that high hits of sugars and those high, you know, doses of salt that just blunt everything else.

And it's like the shedding to get down back to like the real flavors and the real bare bones taste buds. Yeah. So do you have any like, let's say, your favorite, like, sauce or dressing or dip, like to make vegetables or salads or things tastes better. Do you have like a couple of go to recipes to make, like to add to flavor, to strain vegetables, let's say 1,000,000%. I teach a class, saying that dressings and sauces. The secret to eating more vegetables. Because basically food is a delivery system for sauce, and it's all about a great sauce.

And I love your system, your, and you have what you call it, the, flash. Flash. Because I would call flash where you have like the just a balanced out the, ingredients. But I'm all about it. In fact, I just have that for lunch. I make this, Dijon like a maple Dijon, nut based sauce. That is amazing. And I put that on, like, everything. But, yeah, I love having a good sauce or dressing or a hummus or something. Just because when you want to eat the vegetables, because it just tastes fabulous. So what are the ingredients in this maple?

In this Dijon mustard sauce you're making? What are you put in there besides mustard? So I found this really great. No salt, no sugar mustard. So I use that. I use well, I used to be maple sirup, but now it's evolved because now I can get deep sirup. Really? I have it at Trader Joe's now. So I've been using date sirup and, let's see, there's cashews. I actually I've been blending up the nuts and just, you know, because cashews, like the best base because it's so creamy. But like, I want to get all the different nutrients from all the different nuts, like some walnuts and Brazil nuts, all the other wonderful nutrients that you get there.

So a blend of nuts or seeds and then mustard, a splash of coconut aminos for the salty, the, the date sirup and then black pepper.

Daily food groups, mushrooms, and closing advice 17:58

And what else is in there? This is something to thin it a little bit. If it's kind of thick with the mustard and the date and the cashew, you need some of like the something thinner like you could. Yeah. Because I love the Kashima, the silk Kashima, the unsweetened. That's such a good, nice base. I use that a lot of use water sometimes I'll use like an almond milk, but that's my favorite go to right now. What do you use right now? What's your favorite dressing right now? My favorite sauce for vegetables is like a coconut Thai curry sauce, you know, and then my favorite for like salads or like either either it's usually maybe something fruity, like an orange, a blood orange, toasted sesame, with peeled navel oranges with blood orange vinegar and some cashews, toasted sesame seeds and some lemon like an orange sesame dressing.

Those are like my kind of my to or a or maybe a, a thickened tomato sauce with like soaked sun dried tomatoes in there and roasted garlic with like, almond butter or almonds with hemp seeds and maybe some black fig vinegar, balsamic vinegar mixed in, maybe one of those kind of dressings for salads. Yeah, that sounds delicious. Yeah, yeah. It's all about just changing it up and experimenting and using the flavors you like and then balancing it out, just learning how to balance it out. There's a great formula.

Like what you what you use a flash formula where it's like you have I don't think the flash forward is me. It must be somebody else. But I can take credit for somebody else's work. But that's okay. Well, what's your you know what I don't remember? Could be some could be one of my daughters. This nothing. I don't know, maybe. Maybe it is me because I have people like doing stuff that's playing in me. That's so funny. I thought it was you all these years. Yeah, I don't think so. Okay. So. Sounds great.

So you are, you're also getting people to retrain their taste preferences. And so do you make them make desserts, like healthy desserts too. And they just have fruit or do you advise them, you know, when you do their dietary skeleton, do you include like a dessert recipe too, or how do you, or do you just have fruit or frozen fruit for dessert? So I don't even do breakfast, lunch snack or dinner dessert. I don't do that anymore. It's like just a meal. No, because it's like, what time are you eating?

It doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter what it's composed of. Like, if you really want to have breakfast and foods for dinner, like, let's say you want oatmeal for dinner, there's no reason not to. So I try to get rid of all of that because it's all just marketing. But, in terms of like how I would set up a meal plan with my plan, I use something called what I call the six daily three. So I basically have six food groups that are nutritionally unique, and I recommend prioritizing them in your everyday diet.

So in those six and I think three servings of these six things. So one is leafy green and, and cruciferous vegetables of course. So at least three servings of those every day. And then other than other categories, other colored vegetables are the reds and oranges and yellows and all those are amazing too. And then fruit is a third category and then legumes. So about one and a half cups of legumes every day so that those beans, peas, hummus should be a food group. Soy foods those are all count in that category.

And then the fifth one is nuts and is 1 to 2oz of nuts and seeds a day. Because of all the incredible health benefits and your essential fats that are necessary. And then I used to have activity, daily activity as A61, but I realized I could no longer lump of mushrooms into other colored vegetables because they are so extraordinary. So I gave them their own category a couple of years ago. And, just because the data on mushrooms. Oh my gosh, I mean, I take mushroom caps, I take your I take your. By the way, I tell all my clients to take your supplements.

You're the supplements I always recommend to everyone. I always have, but I also take your immune biotech. So mushrooms in there. I take mushroom capsule. I do mushrooms in my. I've got mushroom tea. So I think people need to incorporate mushrooms on a regular basis as well. I know it's amazing that we actually have receptors on our cell walls to accept the ergo fini mushroom, and our much our immune system is actually this function is dependent on elements in mushrooms. It's kind of amazing how we're designed to be mushroom eaters, isn't it?

Yeah. It's gorgeous. Another one of those synergistic amazing effects of living in this world. That's incredible. Yeah. So anyway, it's, so great. So before we leave, is there anything that we left out that you would leave feel important to impart to our listeners and then leave us with, with where they can reach you, of course, and get Ahold of your services and, of course, get your book to. Well, thank you. I would just say that anyone that's out there that's plant curious or just wanting to make a transformation or transition into a healthier diet, I just want you to just think positively, go on it with curiosity, with a sense of adventure, and like how to explore ingredients or recipes that you've never tried before.

You know, you don't have to like, be perfect. There's no such thing as perfect anyway. It's just a matter of like making it as positive and fun and curious as you possibly can, because every bite matters and it's just a journey. We're all on our own journey. So, good luck to everyone, and thank you for having me here. And anyone could find me and my books and my everything. I plant based, dietitian, ecom, plant based dietitian.com that's easy to spell and easy to remember. All righty. Well, thanks so much for joining us. And of course, wishing you all the best.

And thanks for all the great work you're doing. Thank you. You too.