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S1 E 3 The Compound Effect
126 Plays2 years ago
How do your behaviors add up over time? Is that even something to consider in the nutrition space? What else matters?
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Eating Between the Lines'
00:00:01
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Hello and welcome to Eating Between the Lines. I am your host, Therese Martinez, and I am so happy to have you here.
Navigating Health Without Extremes
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If you want to untangle yourself from diet culture conditioning and get appropriate actionable options to nourish your unique life and body, I'm going to dive deep into the nuanced spectrum of health to help you figure out what to prioritize in your journey
00:00:25
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without getting trapped in the extreme ideology of health optimization or total complacency. I am here to help you apply the science effectively, not rigidly, and get you feeling better in your body and mind. Here is how to eat between the lines.
The Compound Effect of Nutrition
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Hello, welcome back. Today we are diving in to
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the compound effect of nutrition. Today I want to talk a lot about how what you eat and how you live has
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effects over time and then dive into approaches to eating and how we can work to develop skills to change your behavior. So this is not an episode that like any of my episodes, I hope.
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put any type of food on certain pedestals. I want to do a disclaimer there. This is just working to create a better understanding of how what you eat over time affects your body. And then additionally, what you do with that information and how you thereafter can take action to developing skills to improve your database.
Small Actions, Big Changes
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So what is the compound effect of food? Well, there's a book out there and it's called the compound effect. And I don't know if y'all have read it. It is a great book. Essentially it talks about this idea around, you know, little steps adding up over time.
00:02:19
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I think one of the examples was someone going on a walk around the block. Initially someone sedentary starting to go on walks and then they started with one walk around the block and then they would build it up to two and then three and then ultimately over time developed endurance and was able to run a marathon. So this is the compound effect. It basically means that
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There's a slow, what feels like a slow improvement over a short period of time, but with all of the effort put in and the action taken over time.
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There is then an exponential return with your effort. And this can actually go in a positive direction and a negative direction. OK, so you can kind of picture the mirrored graph there of exponentially increasing or exponentially decreasing.
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And so that can also be related to nutrition to a degree.
Nutrition's Role in Overall Health
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So with that, we're looking at your whole life and the inputs, the outputs, all of the different variables that can affect your health.
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And if we look at nutrition a little bit more isolated, though, I always like to note your body is a complex machine. Okay. Nutrition is one part of your health. And so this is why I don't love to get super hyper fixated on it being the end all be all, but I do like to recognize the importance. So.
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If we're kind of looking at inputs with nutrition, what you've eaten over the course of your life, we are looking at all the things, right? Sugars and fruits and vegetables and processed foods and whole foods, alcohol, water, all the works.
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And what tends to happen, especially in diet culture, is there will be this fixation on a certain ingredient. And it makes sense when people get kind of scared because they don't understand the spectrum.
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of what might be quote unquote allowed with this ingredient.
The Context of Sugar in Diets
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So take sugar, for example, we have been bombarded by sugar being the devil in terms of metabolic health, health in general, and leading to conditions like type two diabetes, and a lot of others, honestly, and
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While there is definitely evidence to show that a high intake of sugar is not great, putting this blanketed statement can be somewhat dangerous to folks in terms of their relationship with food and relationship with sugar. And so.
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There is a struggle to understand the balance of intake. And I think people just really want to know strict allotments and for their own self, for what they can eat and what they kind of quote, can't. So if we're just looking at something like sugar, I want to point this out because sugar is just an ingredient, right? We are looking at the amount of intake.
00:05:59
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over time. So volume, the time span, and that's how we can kind of see potential impacts on the body, right? Physiological effects and, you know, emotional effects based off of how it's put on pedestals and shoulds and shouldn'ts around the food too. But ultimately just looking at the body in a health, uh, angle, a high intake of sugar,
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over time can lead to adverse effects. Now.
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I hesitate even saying that statement because there's a lot of other variables. If a person is consuming sugar without a lot of other whole foods, that can make a big difference. If they're consuming a lot of sugar with a lot of other hyper palatable foods, that will make a difference with their health if they are also not moving very much. And so I like to just point this out that there is nuance.
00:07:03
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as always, and there's other variables. And this is why it's really hard to just isolate certain ingredients when we're talking about nutrition and health and wellness. And we can still look at the compound effect of food and somewhat objectively, if we also understand the nuance that will help us approach it in a more helpful fashion.
Seed Oils and Processed Foods
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I know that there are also
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folks out there really demonizing seed oils right now, you know, sunflower, safflower, canola oils. And what this does is it again places a lot of fear in folks' minds with consuming foods that have any of this.
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And it's such a tough balance. I've run into this a lot as a dietician because you want to help guide. You don't want to evoke fear. You want to help promote healthy habits and eating patterns. And you also want to allow for balance and people tend to
00:08:12
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not like listening to their bodies. They don't trust their bodies. They want rules and rigidity to, and things to follow. And unfortunately it just becomes very convoluted in the nutritional space then. So back to the seed oils, I find more often than not with demonizing a certain food group like this,
00:08:37
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And looking at it in a little bit of a different lens, what I more often than not see is that when people consume a lot of these vegetable oils, where are they mostly found? They're mostly found in processed foods. Many processed foods do not have a lot of fiber and protein.
00:09:03
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and potentially other satiating ingredients and maybe a little bit more nutrient density. So that can have effects down the line when it comes to a person's overall health, right? So it might not be the actual vegetable oils that are wreaking havoc on the body, but more so the balance of the other intake, right? So I just like to point that out.
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as well.
Food Intake and Gut Health
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When we take a look at the compound effect of food over your lifespan, we are also looking at how your intake over time has affected your physiology and your knowledge, skills, and abilities. So depending on what you've consumed over the course of your life, you will have a compound effect
00:09:55
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with how your gut microbiome is set up. You'll have a compounded effect with your relationship with food. And these things are really helpful to understand because it can shed a little bit of light on your behavior, why you do what you do.
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And then ultimately my goal is to give you objective advice on what to do with that.
The 80-20 Rule in Diets
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So I want to talk a little bit about the 80-20 approach. So a lot of people look at this as a very helpful tool when getting people to give themselves a little slack with their intake while also 80% of the time
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eating really well. So first and foremost, that's really tough to define because eating really well is different for every single person. So the 80 20 has a lot of pros and cons. Um, I'm not really sure I love it so much because it's just another rule, right? But it can be helpful when a person is trying not to be perfect quote, quote, uh, all the time.
00:11:06
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and maybe give themselves a little bit more grace. But again, it creates rigidity. Like what is actually 20%? What is actually 80%? How do we measure these things? And it just could be kind of confusing. The other consideration is that not everyone is at 80%. You know, everyone's definition of that is different, like I just said, but I mean, in this sense,
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So if we all have the same definition of what healthy was, and then we said, everybody eat healthy 80% of the time, we need to address the fact that some people, everybody has a different point on the spectrum with what their knowledge skills and abilities are, where their physiology is at, where their palette is at,
00:11:59
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and other variables that make it way harder to consume healthy food 80% of the time. So it's important to understand where you might be in terms of what you define as healthy and then steps to work to develop an eating pattern that might set you up around 80% sticking to it and 20% being more lenient.
00:12:28
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Again, I don't know, it's a tool. Some people utilize it. I just think that there is that those considerations are really important to take a look at for sure. Going into a few other variables around the compound effect of food.
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I mentioned before, your palate being one of those things that are impacted over time. So your taste buds are totally shaped by what you eat. They can kind of be manipulated, right? So this is why folks that have a tendency to consume and love hyper palatable foods. I mean, technically I feel like we all like hyper palatable foods, but there are some people out there
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that just really love hyper-palatable foods. And when I say this, I mean high fat, high salt, high sugar. When we're talking a lot of like chips and classically donuts and burgers and pizza, you know, these foods that have a big punch of flavor. You can also find hyper-palatable foods in protein bars. You could find them in, you know, microwavable meals
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So it's not just like bagged junk food or whatever. It can be in other forms that with food that might have a little bit more nutrient density, but they also are just kind of laden with these, these flavors. And so your palate gets shaped over time. And if a person continues to eat these types of foods, it will be harder.
00:14:11
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to adjust to foods that do not have that punch of flavor. And so when I say other foods, I'm sort of referencing more whole foods. Now, I don't like to always say this because I don't like to give people the impression that healthy foods are not absolutely flavorful and delicious. They just are, they are different and it takes time
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and some skills to figure out how to really make the flavors pop and make the dishes really amazing. And so oftentimes when folks do not have the skillset to do that and they just go to eating some more whole foods that are, you know, not hyper palatable in that high fat, high salt, high sugar sense I was talking about, then it's a harder transition
00:15:08
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I mean, think about eating just plain chicken and broccoli. If you are used to consuming McDonald's or going out to eat otherwise or mother microwavable, delicious flavor punching burritos or something, it's gonna be tough. And so that can kind of give people the impression that healthy food is not very tasty, right?
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When in reality, it's just a matter of shifting your taste buds and figuring out how to make that food really tasty. Now, additionally, I also think that people think broccoli and chicken are this like staple of healthy foods. And I like to just really expand on the database of what healthy foods can look like too.
00:16:05
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In any case, that goes into what I want to talk about in a second, which is building your database. But the evolution of a palette is a concept that I do really like to reiterate for my clients when they are just confused and frustrated by why they don't like healthy foods, why the transition has become super hard and feeling just defeated honestly with transitioning their lifestyle.
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And it is a process. I mean, it takes time to trial new foods and different flavor, flavors and ingredients and recipes to learn what foods you like and how to make them work for you. And again, shift your palette. You also have a gut microbiome that is shaped in the way that it is.
00:16:59
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based off of your whole life. We'll talk about the gut in future episodes in a little bit more depth, but there are bacteria in your gut that literally, if you feed certain bacteria, like say you eat a lot of sugar, carbs or whatever, certain bacteria love those sugars and carbs. So what happens? Those bacteria start to thrive and they will start to tell your brain, body,
00:17:30
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to eat more of those things. They want to be fed. And if they, if it becomes relatively imbalanced in the gut, that will feel like a very prominent craving. It might be something you've experienced before. So the idea isn't to not eat sugar and carbs by any means. The idea is to understand how to balance the bacteria in your gut and figure out how to restore, you know, the integrity of the gut lining as well as a big part of it is too.
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but ultimately really looking at balancing the bacteria. And that can take various interventions and working on intake, right?
Creating a Personal Recipe Database
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So building your database. This is my last point on this here. Building your database is a foundational concept that I practice with my clients and all my programs. It is.
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extremely, extremely important to figure out how to apply this concept with your health journey. So I started in college not knowing how to do much, um, cooking. And I think I actually talked about this in one of my last episodes, but essentially
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I had no idea how to like chop an onion, really. I would always get pre like frozen veggies and I'd use Soyaki sauce from Trader Joe's and that would be my staple meal for most evenings. And not that that's a bad meal by any means or unhealthy.
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I just realized that I wanted and needed to kind of expand what I could, especially if I was going to be a dietician. I wanted to have more, more ideas. And I also just felt like I could be a healthier person. So I started looking up recipes and I started trialing them out and following them to a T and some went well, some did not.
00:19:49
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And I would start to notice commonalities between seasoning blends. And once I started noticing the commonalities between these seasoning blends, I would then start to work on my own creativity with my own meals. And again, some went well, some really did not. And it's really frustrating to spend time and money on foods and ingredients.
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when you're not really sure if it's going to turn out. I see this a lot with clients. There's a huge hesitancy and that's fair. And I think it's one of those learning curves that is relatively essential in my mind with these concepts to go through in order to get down the line with that compound effect
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where you will have loads of ideas and options in your own personal database because you went through these times of trial and error with recipes.
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So it can go a good handful of different ways. That was just my own approach and people can have slower approaches and faster approaches in terms of building their database. I mean, I have clients that go, they try one recipe out a month and that's it. And then otherwise we kind of work on staple ingredients and seasonings and condiments to have around.
00:21:27
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to make it particularly easy. I have my own personal grocery staples, and I really talk a lot about the importance of shelf-stable options, freezer options, and then fresher options that you know can be versatile in a lot of different meals to prevent those fresh options going bad. Having those grocery staples is extremely helpful.
00:21:56
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And then having seasoning blends. So seasoning blends, I got up like a bazillion from Trader Joe's. There are so many different companies out there. They can get kind of pricey, which is why I'm not like a huge fan of buying just seasoning blends, but you can get basic seasonings and learn how to do mix and match combinations that make the food super yummy. Additionally, you can get like
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condiments that can be absolutely delicious. I love coconut aminos and tamari. I have certain barbecue sauces that I really enjoy and hot sauces that I really enjoy. Even just getting staples like ginger, garlic, turmeric, and herbs that are powdered or fresh.
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than are wildly powerful in kind of building that database and making foods way more palatable and delicious. Herbs are actually extremely great for the gut microbiome, fresh in particular, but all of those flavors will help a ton. People talk a lot about the quality of salad dressings and condiments. It kind of goes back into that philosophy of
00:23:10
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you know, never having certain oils. And honestly to me, this goes back to the spectrum conversation that first episode, but it's like, okay, are you not going to have the salad because there's
00:23:26
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canola oil or whatever in the salad dressing. So then what's your alternative? You know, if you're actually having a salad that is full and rich of a diverse amount of ingredients and different polyphenols and colors and fibers, and you're not going to have that because there's the oil in the dressing or
00:23:53
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you're going to have a super bland alternative, right? Like maybe you just use olive oil, which I think is actually pretty good too. But if it's not to your palate, then it doesn't make the food enjoyable. And therefore it's not, it's not going to be a great experience. And I don't think it's going to reiterate and encourage you to want to continue eating that food. So for me, it's like,
00:24:23
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Get the salad dressing that's freaking delicious and then eat the salad. And then we'll think about maybe the compound effect of what else you're consuming in a day. And maybe if there's a lot of other hyper palatable decisions, we'll kind of choose our battles here and see if it's even something we need to address or not. Because sometimes it really is not a big deal and other times.
00:24:48
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It's just a matter of figuring out the direction you're even trying to go along the spectrum of improving your health and, and your pallet and your options.
Balanced Diets and Meal Prep
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Like this is a process and I buy packaged, like pre-made dressings often. And I also make my own and I like doing both. They serve different purposes. So.
00:25:17
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I like to point that out. I think that people can be just very dogmatic in this approach to health. And it's really important to remember that you can, you can have the condiments with the sugars and you can have the dressings with these oils.
00:25:36
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And you can still be a healthy individual, like consider what you are putting them on and maybe consider what else you're consuming throughout the day. This is when a professional can help kind of help you assess the intake and maybe make steps to consume sauces with a little bit of less sugar down the line or not. Like again, it just depends on the individual. So meal prepping is another way to talk about building your database.
00:26:07
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And this is another one that I talk a lot with clients because it's really important to know that there are options, right? We do not have to spend eight hours on a Sunday prepping our lunches and dinners in order to be a healthy individual. There are a good handful of various ways to approach being prepared, setting yourself up for success,
00:26:36
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and not needing to spend a bazillion hours in the kitchen doing so. Meal prepping can look like batch cooking a single protein.
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For example, maybe you throw some chicken in the crock pot with fajita seasoning and you shred it. And now you have shredded chicken all week that could be used in a ton of different things. Maybe you put it in tacos. Maybe you use it in a hash. Maybe you put it on a salad, you know, ground beef. I love prepping ground beef. You can,
00:27:14
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You can throw them in tacos. You can throw them in a hash. You can throw it like in a stir fry. I don't see it kind of like doing that and maybe cooking it with eggs and throwing it in a pepper for bell, pep stuff, bell peppers on a salad. This can be really helpful for folks that don't like the same exact meal every single day of the week when they prep it, but it provides the versatility. And this is what a lot of building your database is, you guys, it's figuring out
00:27:44
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what foods you like to have on a regular basis and how you can create versatility with these foods to keep your palate entertained. Because once we are not entertained, we tend to go back to old habits and
00:28:03
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kind of cycle back through maybe other extreme approaches to diets and, uh, otherwise. I also like cooking one meal for the whole week. So sometimes I'll do a full crock pot meal, like a soup or stew or a sheet pan meal. Sometimes I'll just prep the veggies. How I feel like prepping the veggies is oftentimes the hardest thing, but then you have one meal for maybe just lunches.
00:28:31
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right? More dinners, whatever you need. I also think that it's helpful to note that you could just have snacks prepped, right? Just kind of have an idea. Staying intentional with your intake is huge when it comes to setting yourself up for success. And again, those staples on hand is so helpful.
00:28:52
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It's not just about having the staples though. It's having the skill set to know what to do with the staples, to be able to have that versatility, variety and excitement for your palette. So then building that knowledge base is kind of going back to how trialing those recipes or at least looking at different flavor blends can be super duper helpful.
00:29:21
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in terms of slowly building the database so that you can eventually work in that compound effect with your knowledge, skills, and abilities around your nutrition intake. Compound effect of food. A lot more that I can go into with this, but I wanted to just give a quick breakdown. I think it's really helpful to have this understanding because it's
00:29:47
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I don't like to say that nutrition is super complex because I think that that kind of intimidates people and it's a little daunting and nutrition is complex. And I think that understanding how
00:30:06
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it can be complex, can give a person a little bit
Conclusion and Further Resources
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more autonomy with how they approach figuring out what works for them and figuring out how to improve their health and vitality and wellness and whatever way that that looks. It's just so often we look at nutrition and we set these rules and this rigidity and the goods and the bads and this morality around food when it's, it just,
00:30:36
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it doesn't need to be that way. If we try to follow these rules or this like these different diets and without addressing the process of what it can look like to become a healthier individual, I think we're really cheating ourselves. So that's all for today folks. Next time we're going to talk a little bit about what to eat. So,
00:31:07
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Catch it then and have a good one. Thank you so much for listening today. If you found this information valuable, please share this episode and give it a review. They truly help a ton. If you want additional support and information, you can head over to my website, teresmartinezrd.com where you can snag my free guide on how to improve your hunger signals. Get on my email list for regular juicy content.
00:31:33
Speaker
or apply for the next round of my signature program, restoring nutrition intuition. Otherwise, Instagram at Teresa Martinez RD or my Facebook group Fed Fit and Fad Free Nutrition with Teresa are always places for more content and support. Until next time.