77. Dr. James DiNicolantonio | Exactly What You Need to Improve Your Mood, Focus and Energy

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Brittany:

Hi friends. Welcome to the Life with Loverly podcast. I'm Brittany, a wife, mom, and lifestyle entrepreneur here to help you discover your best daily style and encourage you to try new things when getting dressed each day. I took a tiny following on social media and turned it into a community of over 1 million amazing women, and I am so glad you're here. I'll be sharing my heart with you beyond the 15 seconds on Instagram. So we'll be diving into things like personal growth, friendships, motherhood, marriage, and of course the business of blogging. Really, this space is here to serve as your go-to resource to building a life you adore while sprinkling some kindness to others along the way. Grab an iced coffee and let's do life together. I'm Brittany, and this is The Life with Loverly podcast.

Hi friends. Welcome back to the Life with Loverly podcast. We have our first guest of the season on today and I could not be more excited about this conversation. You guys really loved my episode last season with my nutritionist Bridget Titgemeier, so I knew I had to bring on another expert in the health and nutrition field. Today I am sitting down with Doctor of Pharmacy and cardiovascular research scientist, Dr. James DiNicolantonio. You have probably seen some of his content go viral on Instagram over the years because he has accumulated almost 3 million followers on the platform and he is a wealth of knowledge. Today we'll be tackling some of the health issues we all seem to be experiencing while also getting into the nitty gritty on specific ways to improve our overall health. Dr. James has written nine bestselling books, has authored or co-authored around 300 publications and has been a guest on major TV outlets like the Dr. Oz show and The Doctors. But here's the thing, I know making healthy lifestyle changes is hard, so I want this conversation to serve as a resource with takeaways you can implement today, but also as something for you to come back to when you're ready to take your health to the next level. My WHY behind my health is to be my best self for my family and loved ones, and I know this community prioritizes this just as much as I do. My hope is that this conversation helps you do just that. Here's my conversation with Dr. James DiNicolantonio.

Hi, Dr. James. Welcome to today's episode of the Life of Loverly podcast. I am honored and having a little fan girl moment that you are on the podcast with us today.

Dr. James:

Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to be here.

Brittany:

So I first discovered you via Instagram a few years ago and I feel like your content has just been on fire since then. I know we have some mutual friends, Rachel and Chris Moore down in Florida. I think we just missed you when we were there last week.

Dr. James:

Yeah, we'll definitely have to connect sometime for sure.

Brittany:

Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, so we've got lots of questions, so we're going to hop right into it today. Did you always know that you wanted to go into health and medicine as a child?

Dr. James:

No, actually I wanted to be a lawyer. My parents kind of steered me into the direction of pharmacy because my mom was a pharmacist and her dad and her grandfather, so they kind of steered me in that direction. I mean, I've always been into being fit, I guess you could say. I wrestled and did cross country in high school and did some other competitive sports like judo and kempo and stuff like that. But no, I didn't always want to be in, let's say medicine per se.

Brittany:

Yeah, I know in the intro I mentioned some of what you do, but do you mind just sharing really quick what your role is now and your history into getting where you are now?

Dr. James:

Yeah, it's a good question. So I graduated from the University of Buffalo as a Doctor of Pharmacy and then I became a cardiovascular research scientist at St. Luke's Mid America Heart Institute, as well as an associate editor of British Medical Journal’s Open Heart, which is the largest open access cardiology journal in the UK. So a lot of my research has been focused on cardiology, lipids, inflammation, things related to the heart. During that time,I published over 300 papers mostly on nutrition. I actually started out publishing on medications at first, and then I realized I couldn't really help my patients as much as I wanted to just focusing on medicine, so then I switched over to nutrition and exercise.

Brittany:

I love that. Let's start with some symptoms that I think a lot of people experience, especially after eating - bloating and fatigue. If someone is experiencing these, where can they start on their journey to uncover or evaluate what's really going on?

Dr. James:

So I guess it depends on how much someone is eating and if they're eating a lot of fiber. So if you're eating a large volume of food or you're eating a large amount of fiber, let's say 10 grams or more, it's actually natural to bloat after that type of a meal. But if you're bloating after a small meal, then that's not normal and there's several things that could be going on. One would be potentially vitamin B1, which is called thiamin deficiency, and the reason being is that B1 actually controls basically the brain connection to the stomach through the vagus nerve, and that's basically how the stomach knows to produce acid and to start digesting food. So when your B1 is deficient, that connection between the brain the vagus nerve and the secreting stomach acid, doesn't work very well. That can lead to bloating, constipation and a lot of gastrointestinal issues. Actually, B1 deficiency can cause something called POTS where when you stand up from a seated position you feel dizzy and faint. So that is a very common cause and a lot of people have this, but they don't realize they do. And so just taking a simple vitamin B1 supplement anywhere from 10 to some people need a few hundred milligrams per day can really help that.

Brittany:

And so would you just recommend somebody doing blood work to figure out that deficiency or is it okay to just start taking that supplement just to see if that helps?

Dr. James:

So the thing is in medicine, none of the tests are a hundred percent accurate. You can be deficient in a certain organ, in the brain, in the heart, in the gastrointestinal tract and the central nervous system, but you won't see it on a blood test. So nothing is perfect. If you want you can maybe try to confirm what's going on, but it's almost sometimes better empirically to take things that have a large therapeutic index like a B vitamin, which is water soluble. There’s a very, very low risk of any type of issues taking B1, especially at the doses I just cited and seeing empirically if, after supplementing, all these symptoms start improving. That's actually better to me than trying to take a test and see whether you're falling within some type of normal range or not.

Brittany:

And I feel like that's very easy advice that any of our listeners could just immediately try if they were experiencing some of these things.

Dr. James:

And I mean, I've had patients that have gotten benefits taking B1, some actually had to do a full spectrum B complex because sometimes they're also deficient in B6 as well, which also has to do with the digestive tract. So sometimes it's better to just cover your whole base and take a good multivitamin/mineral and cover everything. Other times people have to go high on the B1 especially to get that gastrointestinal system working properly again.

Brittany:

Okay. Another staple in people's day of course, is coffee. How can you tell if coffee is something we should consume or not? And are you a coffee drinker yourself?

Dr. James:

So I used to be a very avid coffee drinker until I had to stop, so it's very highly individualized. I consumed anywhere from six to nine cups of coffee for a decade or more. I mean, it definitely improved my performance. It allowed me to write nine books. Without coffee. I wouldn't just be able to do that.

I've had to figure out different things to kind of replace coffee, which luckily I have been able to do, but I started getting a lot of reflux after such a high amount of coffee intake for such a long period of time that I really had to come off of it, otherwise my acid reflux was just really bad. So I would say that coffee as a substance for antioxidants (it is the largest source of antioxidants for the average American) is not inherently bad per se, and it's highly individualized. Some people are fast metabolizers of caffeine and they can tolerate fairly high doses, and then some people are slow metabolizers and even having one cup of coffee, they're super jittery, they can't fall asleep, and they could have things like acid reflux and stuff like that. So what we need to understand about coffee is, I would say once you start hitting the three to four cups, the risk of electrolyte loss, the increased risk of diuresis and dehydration from water loss starts to really increase.

So for every four cups of coffee you consume, you lose about a half a teaspoon of salt extra out in the urine, and you're going to lose about 16 extra ounces of water if you consume those four cups within two to three hours, let's say. So it can be dehydrating if you're someone that already consumes a low amount of water to begin with and now all of the sudden you're pushing out another 16 ounces of water that you typically wouldn't have if you start consuming four cups of coffee per day. Coffee will also deplete potassium as well by about 500 to 600 milligrams for every four cups you consume.

Brittany:

Wow. It's so interesting to hear this because I'm a huge coffee drinker myself. I just love the taste of it, but I need to get better on my water intake. So some of these things are really inspiring me to reevaluate the liquids in my life.

Dr. James:

Well, luckily there's a simple fix because if you simply hydrate with salt, electrolytes and water at least 30 minutes prior to coffee, that's going to have several benefits. Number one, when you wake up, you're already in a dehydrated state, you've lost about 500 milligrams of sodium overnight. You've lost water overnight in the urine. And so getting that back first thing, is going to actually help your mood, your focus, and your energy throughout the rest of the day. So just getting in a good 12 to 16 ounces of electrolyte water with good amounts of salt will help. And doing it prior to coffee is important because coffee actually decreases the absorption of sodium and water by anywhere from 15 to 20%. Most people know after they have their cup of coffee, they typically have to run to the bathroom. That inherently tells you you're losing a lot of salt and fluids when you consume the coffee, and that's kind of how it causes a reduced absorption of sodium and fluids.

Brittany:

Okay. And do you have an electrolyte or salt that you suggest adding to your water?

Dr. James:

Yeah, I always use Re-Lyte. It's got salt in it, it's got potassium, it's got magnesium. I take up to three scoops a day, but I just do one scoop in the morning with 12 ounces of water. And then depending on my sweat losses throughout the day, I might have another two or three scoops.

Brittany:

Okay. Re-Lyte is actually one of my favorites. The mango flavor is delicious in my opinion. As our listeners, if you're looking for a new electrolyte, that is a great option. So past coffee, let's get into a question for my sweet tooth lovers. I know they would really love to decrease the sugar cravings. Can you tell us some ways to curb those cravings and specifically your research on salt? I know we kind of were just talking about salt, but more on how it relates to having a sweet tooth?

Dr. James:

So some good things that help with sugar cravings are anything that's sour. So grapefruit, lemon, lime, and especially if you add salt to that - it’s going to help kick a sugar craving. Now, when it comes to actually trying to reduce those sugar cravings, making sure you're getting enough salt is important because if you think about it intuitively, because salt is an essential mineral there had to be a way for mammals to understand that they're deficient and once they found it to start consuming more of it. And so in fact, there is something in the brain called the dopamine reward center and if any mammal, including humans are deficient and not getting enough salt, then the dopamine reward center in the brain gets activated. It's basically saying, once I find the substance, I want to get a hyper reward from it because that's telling the mammal to continue to consume it and that they're deficient in it. So unfortunately, sugar can hijack this hyper activated reward center in the brain. So that's why when you're on a low salt intake or you're not getting enough salt, sugar is that much more rewarding because of that system.

Brittany:

Is it similar to when you might be hungry or feel this hunger, but then you really just need to drink water or maybe you're dehydrated -  how sometimes those can connect?

Dr. James:

Exactly. So there can be this sort of connection of are you really craving sugar or are you actually craving salt? And that's why sometimes just taking some salt on the tongue with a little bit of water can curb that sugar craving pretty quickly.

Brittany:

Okay. Okay let's talk about working out really quickly. I saw on your Instagram that you stated we lose 1% of our muscle mass every year after the age of 30. What can we do to combat that?

Dr. James:

Yeah, so we also lose collagen around the same rate, just under 1%, but actually we lose collagen starting at the age of 20. A lot of people throw that stat out there, and it was driving me crazy so I actually found the research paper back from 1970 or something, I can't remember the date. They actually measured the collagen in the skin of women and men over from the course of 20 years old to 80 years old, and it was slightly less than 1% every year after the age of 20. And then also, like you said, we lose skeletal muscle around 1% every year after the age of 30. So obviously it's pretty simple when it comes to preserving muscle mass. You want to basically exercise each body group at least twice a week. That's ideal. So I like to do push/pull exercises on the same day. For example, I like to do biceps and triceps, and then I like to do chest and back, and then you integrate things like your neck, shoulders, core, glutes and legs as well. And you try to hit each muscle group twice a week and you want to basically try to do three to four different exercises for each muscle group. You want to do around three sets of somewhere between six and twelve reps, where the last one to three reps are difficult. You don't have to go to failure. And I think actually going to failure every set is detrimental. It's going to increase your fatigue, it's going to increase the time it takes you to recover. And most people actually injure themselves when they're trying to push that last rep with bad form. I think actually going close to failure for most of your sets is actually better than trying to go to failure every single time.

Brittany:

Okay, that's interesting. It makes me feel good for my current workout routine because I do that two times a week. What about cardio? How often should we be doing cardio?

Dr. James:

You want to try to get around 150 minutes of cardio to 180 minutes of cardio per week. A lot of people ask me all the time, is walking cardio? And it depends. If you're walking uphill at a fast pace, then yes, that can be considered cardio, but just basically going on a leisurely stroll, like walking pretty slowly and not walking uphill, that's really not considered cardio. But obviously jogging 30 minutes a day, three to five times a week, that would be considered cardio or just playing sports. As we get older, I think it's more fun to just play sports to get your cardio, whether it's tennis or pickleball or basketball or whatever. That's kind of how I get a lot of my cardio. I do jog three to four times a week, but I also play basketball three to four times a week too.

Brittany:

Okay, that's great. Three things I see a lot of information about on social media with conflicting information are magnesium, collagen, and seed oils. Let's talk about each of these. So with magnesium, I feel like it's mostly connected to aid in sleep at night. Can you tell us more about magnesium and the sleep connections and then what are some symptoms of magnesium deficiency?

Dr. James:

Yes. So magnesium is required in the brain to actually form melatonin, which is obviously the hormone that we start releasing once the sun goes down to help us fall asleep. So that's partially why magnesium can help with sleep, because it improves the synthesis of melatonin so it helps our natural system of falling asleep to do that.

It also has a calming effect. Basically it has this inhibitory effect on the brain as well so it has a nice calming effect too. Some people actually do feel a little tired when they take magnesium. I have the opposite effect. I actually have a ton of energy when I take magnesium. So I take my magnesium during the day, it helps me sleep at night. Some people have to take it at night, however, because they feel too calm and too relaxed, but that's kind of a good thing if you're using it for sleep at night. Now the signs and symptoms of magnesium deficiency are fairly clear – muscle spasms and muscle cramps. That's not to say every muscle spasm and every muscle cramp is due to magnesium. Actually the most common cause, if it’s from exercise and sweating, would be salt loss. But, secondarily, magnesium deficiency does cause muscle cramps and muscle spasms. Really bad menstrual cramps are typically due to magnesium deficiency, photosensitivity, headaches and migraines are also very common to come from magnesium deficiency. And then things that you wouldn't necessarily feel or see would be things like coronary artery calcification, because magnesium is nature's natural calcium channel blocker (it prevents the calcification of our arteries). So you can't know if your arteries are calcifying, but you can take basically what's called a CAC score to see. It also increases the risk for heart failure and high blood pressure if you're deficient in magnesium. So magnesium plays a role in actually 800 enzymatic functions. So it's a co-factor to allow many enzymes to work in the body. And so that's why it can present in so many different ways.

Brittany:

Wow, it's so fascinating. I feel like so many people don't even know a lot of this stuff or they just haven't been taught this or this isn't common knowledge, so I feel like this is really interesting. Moving on to collagen, we hear all types of things about collagen. What do we really need to know about it, and does it actually really help your hair and your skin?

Dr. James:

Right. Well, so the common thing is people will say, well, your body's just going to break down collagen into amino acids so you don't have to take collagen. That's what a lot of people will argue. That's a fair point, but there's a few problems with that. Number one, we don't break down all the collagen into amino acids. We actually absorb a lot of the peptides intact. Number two, radiotracer studies in animals have proven that actually those absorbed collagen peptides can get to the target of action. So that's another thing a lot of people say, well, just because you ingest collagen, how do you know it's going to get to the site of action? Well, we've done radiotracer studies in animals to prove that yes, it can get into the cartilage, it can get into the skin and actually start regrowing and improving those sites and areas. The third factor would be that we have a meta-analysis of randomized control trials in humans, basically where they aggregate all the studies and look at hair, skin, nails, bone health, blood pressure, etc, showing benefits. So from clinical studies in humans to radiotracer studies and animals, we know that collagen does work. And as we just talked about prior, we do lose collagen every year after the age of 20 at just under 1%.

Brittany:

Do you have a suggestion on a brand for magnesium and for collagen that you would recommend if somebody wanted to go out and buy either or both of these?

Dr. James:

So I take Vital Nutrients magnesium, it's a combination of magnesium glycinate and malate. I have a Full Script account which houses all my professional supplements and gives a discount. And then for collagen, I use Ancient Nutrition collagen, it's a multi collagen, and it also contains eggshell membrane and vitamin C. So we do need to ingest collagen, not just for the peptides, but also it contains an amino acid called glycine, which we really don't get in our diet. So that's another benefit of why it actually is beneficial to ingest collagen. It gives you that amino acid that makes up one out of every three amino acids in collagen called glycine, and you don't get glycine through the diet very well unless you take collagen. And the vitamin C in there, is important because it stimulates messenger RNA to actually synthesize collagen in our body.

Brittany:

That's great. Okay, so seed oils, I feel like this has been an interesting topic my family has personally just kind of been trying to get rid of, but they kind of feel like the newest thing to be taken out of restaurants for cooking. So what is so bad about seed oil and what should we be avoiding when cooking at home?

Dr. James:

Yeah, that's a good question. So there's two camps. One camp thinks that seed oils are fine and may even be healthy because they lower cholesterol. And there's another camp, which I fall into, that believes that industrial refined seed oils when you cook with them are harmful. So that's not to say that cold pressed on a salad is harmful. I don't think it's the best, but it's definitely better than industrial hexing extracted and then high heat cooking with seed oil. So there is a difference and I think it's important to kind of mention that, but I'm not guessing, right? Chris Ramsden from the NIA, who's one of the smartest people I know, has done two meta-analyses in human clinical studies. So the reason why there's these two camps is because prior to his meta-analysis, they grouped the Omega-3 studies and the Omega-6 studies, combined them and said, there's no harm.

What Chris Ramsden did was say, nope, I'm going to remove every study that has omega-3's in it, and I'm just going to look at the omega-6 studies. When he did that, he found that compared to saturated fat and trans fat, seed oil significantly increased all cause mortality and increased death from heart disease. So I think that's why there's such conflicting data and why there's two camps. One camp will say, well, the studies don't show inflammation and the studies don't show harms. But then there's the other camp that looked at Ramsden’s two meta-analyses from the NIA and they do show harm. So I think that's primarily what's going on. The other thing is there's many human studies looking at the susceptibility of our LDL (our bad cholesterol) to oxidize when you ingest seed oils and it significantly increases. So that's another kind of mechanistic harm in humans. So I just want to make it clear that there is definitely evidence in humans that consuming omega6 seed oils can be harmful.

Brittany:

And is there a type, if we're cooking at home that we should avoid or what should we avoid? And what should we use instead if we're trying to eliminate seed oils?

Dr. James:

Right. That's a good question. So omega-6 seed oils are things like corn oil, safflower, sunflower, canola, grapeseed, rice, bran oil, and even peanut oil. So you want to avoid cooking with those oils. Oils that are more stable under cooking would be things like ghee and actually, (a lot of people don't realize this) extra virgin olive oil is a fairly stable oil to cook with. Especially because of the polyphenols in it and it's so high in antioxidants that even though it doesn't have the highest smoke point (it still has a fairly high smoke point) the polyphenols prevent the oil from oxidizing rapidly. And so looking at the cooking studies, they have shown that extra virgin olive is a fairly good oil to cook with as well. But then your animal fats, your tallow and your ghee are also good oils and fats to cook with.

Brittany:

Okay. What are your thoughts on avocado oil?

Dr. James:

If you can find a true avocado oil that's not actually filled with seed oils, then that's a decent oil to cook with because it's mostly monounsaturated, just like olive oil, except extra virgin has the advantage over avocado oil because it has way more polyphenols preventing the oil from oxidizing.

Brittany:

Okay. And it's interesting because  I did not realize how many seed oils are in so many products that you wouldn't even think have oil in them. When my family started trying to eliminate seed oils, I mean, just going through my kitchen pantry, I was like, this has seed oils and this has seed oils, and it was crazy. I made a, here's what doesn't and here's what does, and I was just blown away by how many things we consume on a daily basis that have seed oils in them.

Dr. James:

Yeah, I try not to even look at it anymore. I mean, I know what has it and what doesn't, but it's so frustrating. I'm like, why are they even putting it in bread? Or ice cream. I'm like, why are you putting seed oils in ice cream? Shouldn't ice cream just be dairy? What is going on here? So I agree. It's super frustrating and it's also why there's been studies that have looked at the Omega-6 content in our fat stores over the last 50 years, and it's basically tripled how much omega-6 we store in our fat compared to, let's say, 50 years ago.

Brittany:

It's just wild. I mean, not to be a conspiracy theorist, but it also just kind of makes me think what is really going on here?

Dr. James:

Well, basically what ended up happening is during, I think it was like World War I, we had to use a lot of butter and we had to use a lot of these animal fats and it was becoming very scarce. And even prior to this, Proctor and Gamble created the cotton seed oil as a replacement for butter. So it was really out of not just necessity, but it was cheaper. It wasn't as expensive to make, but it wasn't for health reasons.

Brittany:

Yeah, it's very interesting. It definitely makes you think about what you're putting in your body when you really start to think about it. Okay, next question. Cholesterol also seems to be a hot topic in America. I would love to know a few things. One, what blood levels are you looking for in regards to cholesterol? And then two, how are cholesterol and insulin resistance connected.

Dr. James:

So most doctors want to see total cholesterol less than 200. They want to see your LDL less than a hundred, and for someone who's had a heart attack, they want to see it at less than 70. But there's really never been a single study actually showing that elevated cholesterol outside of factors like familial hypercholesterolemia (which is really high cholesterol levels), where if your triglycerides are good and if your insulin levels are good, that solely having a high LDL (let's say 130 or a high total cholesterol of like 250) is bad per se. Because your total cholesterol might be high because your HDL (your good cholesterol) is high. So you have to look at that too. And also what matters more is your bad LDL particles - are they really small because of insulin resistance or are they large and buoyant? That will tell you a little bit too if you're insulin resistant or not. And so, you asked I think, how does insulin resistance contribute? Insulin resistance is what increases VLDL and triglycerides and can even increase LDL too. So if you have high blood lipids, it could be due to the fact that you're actually insulin resistant because you're over consuming refined carbohydrates and sugars.

Brittany:

Gosh, I feel like that we could even go so much further into all of that. One thing I've recently seen, I know some people are starting to use glucose monitors to monitor their glucose within the body. And I know there's certain foods, if you're eating a meal, you should eat certain things first to not make certain levels skyrocket. Do you have any recommendations around if you're just eating a meal, some things you should eat first or in a certain order to help that?

Dr. James:

Protein and fiber will reduce the blood glucose spike from foods. So if people want to consume more vegetables and more protein first and have their starches and sugars later, that will help. So that's why it's actually kind of good that dessert comes after dinner because of that. But you also have things like apple cider vinegar that can reduce the blood glucose spike, and there are some studies showing a little bit of red wine can do that as well, which is maybe why the Europeans don't have as much diabetes as we do, because they consume a little bit of red wine with their meal potentially. And then protein is more satiating long term, so when you get the protein in, that's going to keep you satiated long term, whereas fiber makes you satiated quickly so you don't overeat too much in one sitting.

Brittany:

So it'd probably be more ideal to eat your protein or a salad or greens and then if you had bread with your meal or if that was offered at the table, eating that after you have been eating your greens and your protein.

Dr. James:

Exactly. Yep.

Brittany:

Okay. So speaking of food, for the parents out there who are on the go, do you have any easy meal suggestions that we can make on a weeknight while running our kids around that are good for our families, like children as well? What would just be a good healthy meal?

Dr. James:

Yeah, the crockpot works great. Just grilling works great on the stove top. I mean, I can grill a steak in 12 minutes. It doesn't take very long. I can grill burgers in 15 minutes. The crockpot takes longer, but you just set it and forget it for four hours, so to speak. So you can just throw in whatever meat, you shred it up a little bit and put in whatever ingredients you want and make that, or you can just grill on the stove top. Ground beef, peppers, onions, eggs, etc. Basically I try to get in meat, eggs, dairy, and I consume some grass-fed yogurt and fruit – that's mostly what my diet consists of. I do time my sugar, if I want a little bit of freshly squeezed orange juice, I'll consume that after I consume protein and fat. That way it doesn't spike the glucose. But orange juice, especially freshly squeezed, can help prevent a lot of the oxidative stress that occurs when you eat certain foods.

Brittany:

Okay, interesting. In your latest book, the Obesity Fix: How to Beat Food Cravings, Lose Weight and Gain Energy, you state research that says today’s children may be the first generation of Americans whose life expectancy may be shorter from their parents. What would you say are the things that you are currently educating your children on to prove the stat wrong and how can we set our kids up for success?

Dr. James:

Basically, it comes down to the parents and what they're buying and bringing into the house. If I buy ice cream, we're all going to eat it until it's gone. So it's kind of not having it in the house. And then, the second thing, that maybe even is just as important as the first of not bringing it in, is finding healthy alternatives to that. Because you're still going to get that craving at night, right? You're going to get that sugar craving. So what can you do to offset that? I'll have some grass fed yogurt with a little bit of maple syrup and cinnamon, and that's kind of like my healthy ice cream. And you can put protein in it and collagen and you can put it in the freezer for four hours, and then there's your healthy ice cream. So finding these healthy alternatives to some of the more bad desserts, I guess you could say, is just a simple swap that can help a lot of people out.

Brittany:

It's interesting because I feel like so many people give up the excuse of like, oh, well, I don't have time to do that, or they're just looking for the convenience or our society is just so busy and on the go, and it does take a lot of effort and research to eat healthy, but when you put it this way, that this is literally to save our kids' lives, it feels like why wouldn't we want to do that?

Dr. James:

And that's the thing, it's kind of overwhelming for the average person – what is healthy, what is not. Everything's conflicting. And even myself, I've gone on almost every single diet to try to understand what truly does work. I went not vegetarian, but very, very high fiber, low meat, and I lost a ton of muscle. I went from 160 - 165 down to 147, most of that being muscle loss. So I've tried a gamut of things and I think I sit somewhere between mostly animal foods with well-selected fruits and certain vegetables that I tolerate, and a little bit of starch, a little bit of organic potatoes and a little bit of fruit juice timed correctly, because I think that carbs do help with energy, with mental health, with fertility, with hormone health. Somewhere around 100 to 200 grams of healthy carbs for the average person, is probably good, especially if you're an active person. If you're someone that's not very active, okay, great, maybe the ketogenic diet will work. But for someone who's pretty active, you're going to want at least a hundred grams of carbs if you're wanting to feel good.

Brittany:

Yeah. Okay. What would you say if you were giving somebody advice or giving them a great starting point to make a switch to eating healthier – what would be 10 food items that you just constantly have in your fridge or in your pantry that you would recommend?

Dr. James:

Beef, so like ground beef, steak, chicken, turkey, eggs, some type of dairy (if you tolerate that), freshly squeezed orange juice, and then I would say fruits of your choice/berries, avocado, which is a fruit, but let's call that number nine, and then number 10, vegetable of choice.

Brittany:

Okay, let's go into some rapid fire questions that my followers asked. If you could only take one supplement, what would it be?

Dr. James:

Oh, man, that's tough. Probably magnesium, to be fair, just because it's so depleted in our diet now. We've lost about 35% of the magnesium in our vegetables and about 20 - 25% from animal foods. So even though you're eating healthy, it's fairly difficult to get magnesium. So if I had to choose just one, which I hate those questions, then yes, it would probably be magnesium.

Brittany:

Okay. What are your thoughts on eating organic foods? Is it an absolute must? Are there some foods that you don't eat organic if you are super pro organic?

Dr. James:

So look up the Dirty Dozen, that'll tell you the ones that you should try to eat organic. Organic does have less pesticides. So several meta-analyses have published that there is less pesticide residue in organic produce versus not. But there's also less heavy metals. So the nutritional value, depending on how it's grown, may or may not be better. Many times it actually will be better though, from a toxicity of pesticides and heavy metals side and it will be less, at least based on the clinical studies.

Brittany:

And I think one thing to note too, is, just because it says organic on whatever the food type is, doesn't necessarily mean it's healthy.

Dr. James:

Right. True.

Brittany:

So I think that's also a common misconception. So many people are like, oh, well, it's organic, and it's like, okay, but it still has seed oils and it still has all these things that aren't good for you.

Dr. James:

Almost like how you can eat gluten-free Oreos that are vegan and that's not healthy. But we get caught up in these labels of low salt and low sugar and gluten free and just because it has those labels on it, doesn’t mean it’s healthy. Normally it's actually probably not healthy. Really, one of the best things you can do is look at the number of ingredients. If there's typically more than four ingredients, you want to really pay close attention to that product.

Brittany:

What are your thoughts on Athletic Greens and is it enough to not have to use other supplements if you consume them?

Dr. James:

To my knowledge, I don't think there's ever been a clinical study in humans looking at Athletic Greens, so I don't think there's evidence for it. I can't say for sure, but regardless, I don't think it's worth the price. I think it's like $3 a day for it. I would rather source just a good multivitamin mineral that's probably like 50 cents or less a day than trying to take a mixture of greens. Whether it has an appropriate dose that has clinical effectiveness or not, I really don't know. So I really can't speak to it, but my gut tells me it is too expensive and there isn’t enough evidence for benefit.

Brittany:

Yeah, it's kind of like one of those things, you see so many people doing it and then it's like, oh, well, I must need to take it. But if you really do some research and realize that your multivitamin or a few other things, like you said, could be more cost effective and get you the same nutrients or what the supplements are providing, why wouldn't you do that instead? Another question from our followers is, what is your top tip to combat anxiety or depression?

Dr. James:

Oh, man. Well, I guess it would be to figure out the cause of it. So if you're in a bad relationship and that's causing your anxiety and depression, well then working on your relationship and things like that. In regards to if someone needs to take something, there are certain supplements that may help. Inositol does have anti-anxiety effects. Magnesium has been shown to be as effective as certain antidepressants in clinical studies. So there are supplements. I'm not a huge fan of the medications when it comes to mood and things like that. For panic, that's a little different, like taking a Xanax if you have to, that's a little more understandable. It just seems a little bit more legit than having to go on some of the other medications. But then some people do really benefit from them, so I don't want to shame anyone for having to take a medication – if it works for you, great!

Brittany:

And like you were saying about magnesium earlier, I feel like there's the mood boosting or the calming effects that it gives. So if you're experiencing some of these things then why wouldn't you just try that first?

Dr. James:

Yeah. Well,  it's safe for most people and tolerated very well, unless you have really bad kidney function, because their kidneys mainly get rid of magnesium. And it's just an essential mineral that most people aren't getting enough of. So, worst case you get some diarrhea, but best case it actually works really well.

Brittany:

Yeah, absolutely. Next question. This one actually comes from my husband. He is a marathon runner, and he wants to know, what is your opinion on fueling for a marathon? What would be your suggestions of things to eat? How would you best fuel somebody who is running a marathon?

Dr. James:

Oh, that's a really good question. The most important thing would be hydration. Actually, you don't hydrate during a race, you hydrate before a race. So the best thing to do for a marathon would be to consume a salt solution close to the saltiness of blood, which is about 32 to 3,500 milligrams of sodium per liter, and to consume about one to one and a half liters of that fluid. So basically taking something like Relyte and getting up to at least 3000 milligrams of sodium in about 30 ounces of water. You would start consuming that about an hour and a half before the marathon, over 30 minutes slowly. So let's say you start in an hour and a half, you consume it for 30 minutes, and now basically you have a full 60 minutes for it to get absorbed and to boost your blood volume. And now you're super hydrated and ready to go for that four hour marathon or however long it takes you to run that.

And then obviously carbohydrate intake prior to the marathon is really important. So if it was me, I would say somewhere between 60 and 70 grams of carbs, maybe like an hour before. You don't want salt and fluids and carbs sitting in the stomach while you're running, so you want to give yourself that hour to really digest and absorb it and really be fueled. And then you will probably need to consume some of those glucose packets or whatever, depending on the person and how fast they're going, but maybe every 30 minutes or so.

Brittany:

Okay. That's great. I'm sure he's going to know exactly what you're talking about when I let him know that that was one of our questions. Well, I don't have any other questions for you. I feel like this has been super informative. We've learned a lot about some supplements, some vitamins that we should consider. I think this is giving our listeners a great starting point on how to live a healthier version of themself without making a ton of life-changing decisions. So I really appreciate you being on today. I do have one last question that I ask all of the guests that I interview. This one is, what is the most meaningful act of kindness that someone has extended to you that has had a lasting impact on your life?

Dr. James:

It would have to be when my first child was born, my son, one of my coworkers gave me a little baby gift basket for him that just melted my heart. And the reason why it was so impactful for me is because how I was raised just wasn't correct when it comes to gift giving. My parents were like, well, when someone gives you a gift, it shouldn't be about materialistic things and even Christmas in my house was like it shouldn't be about gifts, it should be about Christ being born, etc. I almost had this negative connotation of giving gifts to people, which was not right. And that really opened my eyes like, wow, it's those small little acts of kindness. That's all you have in a day. And it adds up to a lot. So when you give someone a gift, it's not about the material thing, it's about how you're making that person feel, right? And so from that point on, I don't know why, it just really hit me that giving a gift can actually be very meaningful to someone.

Brittany:

Yeah, I love that. I am a huge gift giver. My love language is receiving gifts even. So I can totally get on board with that, you can just see a person's whole demeanor change when that small act of kindness is given. Well, Dr. James, tell our listeners where they can find you.

Dr. James:

So I'm most active on Instagram, which is @drjamesdinic, but I also have a YouTube channel. You just Google Dr. James DiNicilantonio on YouTube. That's more long form content, but if you're looking for more long form videos then you can go to my YouTube Channel.

Brittany:

Awesome. Well, I really appreciate your time today, Dr. James. Thank you again for joining us!

Dr. James:

Thanks for having me on Brittany.

Brittany:

Hi, friend. If you're loving the show, will you go find that follow button on your podcast app? This will ensure that you won't miss a single episode. I love having you in this community. Until next time.

This season of Life with Loverly is produced by Elizabeth Evans Media Productions.