I thought I would share an interesting conversation I had last week with my nutritionist.
A little background: As I alluded to some time ago, my insurance plan covers the cost of a number of health related App based service so I chose to enroll in one of the services. The service I enrolled in is intended to "pre-vent or delay type 2 diabetes" and includes an assigned coach. In my case, the coach is an actual (professional) nutritionist who operates her own business outside the parameters of the program. The program itself is very much focused on attempting to help change habits and develop a new long term eating style and their recommended diet is essential the "my-plate" guidelines authored by and pushed the U.S. Government.
For more than a month I had attempted to follow the guidelines but, as expected, I found the amount of non-starch vegetables a problem. My weight had fallen some but at the rate of loss I was experiencing I would die an old man before reaching my goal weight. Finally, I decided to do something I knew had worked well for me in the past...Very Low Carb (not keto). My wife was gone for a week so I bought 5 large ribeyes and some peppered bacon. After consuming nothing but coffee (usually with some milk) in the morning, I ate as much RibEye as I could stuff down my throat at night. On a few occasions I added spinach or roasted broccoli to my meal (man needs a little roughage right?) As expected, my hunger was more controlled, my body began to feel better (after a couple days) and I started loosing weight again.
The phone call: I noticed my "coach" was calling me from a different number, when I asked about it she told me she was calling from her personal cell # because the computer system she would normally make the calls through was down. After a few minutes of casual conversation we began talking about what I had been eating and how I was feeling. I told her about my week of RibEye and how I had begun to loose weight again , had less hunger and even felt better. That is when she opened up. She told me that since she was calling from her personal cell not the programs phone lines, she could tell me what she REALLY thinks. She went on to tell me how the "my-plate" guidelines pushed by the program aren't necessarily what she would recommend in her own practice. She even said MOST people experience discomfort, bloat and inflammation as a result of consuming so much veg and she often advises eating less green and more proteins AND fat. She suggested my general fatigue and pain was likely a result of too much oxalate being consumed via the vegetables in my diet (more so than the sugar and starch I might have been consuming).
Long story short, she recommended I eat vegetables with low/lower amounts of oxalates, avoid starches/sugar, avoid "crop" based oils (corn, soybean etc) in favor of "healthy fats" such as olive oil, avocado oil, butter and ghee. She told me she wasn't recommending the bun-less cheeseburger and bacon approach of the old style Atkins diet but that a focus on low carb, more healthy fats and lean protein was a better approach for me.
I found it interesting that had I not decided to go on a ribeye binge AND she had not made the call from her personal phone line this conversation, and her ultimate recommendations, might not have occurred.
