In this episode we invite Claire Thetford to the show to talk about Nutrition and Mental Health. How do the foods we eat effect our mental state?
We talk about carbs, fats, micronutrients, macronutrients, the link between the gut and the brain, and much more.
Tune in to this episode to see Nutrition and Mental Health Through a Therapist’s Eyes!
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Episode #98 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] So hello everyone. I am still Chris Gazdik and he is Mr. Craig graves. I’m a mental health and substance abuse therapist have a book available soon coming out. Craig, I did something cool today, man. You want to know, you want to know what I did.
Craig Graves: [00:00:31] Sure. Let’s hear it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:31] I sent in, I’m so proud of myself too, man.
I sent in the two edits that I found on, on in my book.
Claire Thetford: [00:00:39] Oh, you found it? I found it.
Craig Graves: [00:00:41] Okay.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:41] The word once need to do either word one and I caught it.
Craig Graves: [00:00:45] Okay.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:45] And you laugh at this too, man. And the, I don’t know how it happened. I’m pretty sure that the way you typed it, I actually need to look. Somehow in the conversion, over in, in your endorsement.
Thank you publicly for endorsing the therapist’s eyes book project, by the way. And so you, you, you, you said I cohost the, through the therapist’s eyes podcast, something sounded wrong about that, right?
Craig Graves: [00:01:09] Through a therapists
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:11] Therapist’s eyes
Craig Graves: [00:01:12] said that
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:13] that’s what was in the book. I caught it.
Craig Graves: [00:01:16] I caught it. Yeah.
I was looking at the forecast today and I think it said inhale. It was going to be cold. So it makes sense that you found, you found some grammatical mistakes. I mean I’m impressed.
Chris Gazdik: [00:01:26] That’s kind of backhanded, isn’t it? You sure. All right, man, rediscovering emotions and becoming your best self Craig’s and unbeatable mind coach.
We welcome you to, through a therapist size the podcast, see the world through the lens of a therapist and a coach, but be aware. This is not the delivery of therapy services. As any way, check out the website throughatherapistseyes.com Where you can get full transcriptions. You do make the show grow. You make the show go.
Really? Craig people listening out here need to know and understand they do make us grow and help us to get the word out to people. So definitely put us on the automatic download, help us out with sending it to a friend. Those are really, you know, I want the audience to know as we are remade a little bit, now we restarted and we want to make a point of that.
Craig, this is the human emotional experience. Let’s figure this thing out together. Shall we, sir?
Craig Graves: [00:02:24] Let’s do it. And just to kind of expand their subscribe. That’s what Chris means when he says. Put it on the automatic download. And if you feel so inclined, leave us a review that helps us get the word out to people can, well, they’re more than likely.
We’re more likely to show up the more reviews we have if people are searching for mental health topics.
Chris Gazdik: [00:02:43] And we don’t talk about money on the show, but we do kind of want to keep it free, but we do have a donation button check out. Neil’s work on the website. When is, when when’s it going to be where the, the book lists come out.
Do you have any idea on that, sir? Okay. About the end of this month, pretty much any book that we have covered on this show is going to be able to be gotten right from that website. And that’s another way actually, to help us out because it sends us through to the link and very convenient for you because we’ve covered a lot of good books out there.
Craig, you remember them all?
Craig Graves: [00:03:15] No, I don’t remember him all stuff in my head, but we have, we have covered some good man. I got good ones out there.
Chris Gazdik: [00:03:20] I helped, I helped Neil go through all of them and, and comb through every single show and looked at every single book. Like there’s like 25.
Craig Graves: [00:03:26] Well, there’s some good ones
Chris Gazdik: [00:03:28] and really some good ones.
Yeah. Yeah. So that’s a, that’s a really cool reason to go to the site and check those things out and such. listen, Mr. Graves, you know that I do a program at, Metro Atlanta, where, where my, my day gig is with Gardner-Webb university. Right. You know that, do you remember
Craig Graves: [00:03:47] Ms. Bond on the show?
Chris Gazdik: [00:03:48] Yes. She’s
Craig Graves: [00:03:49] a friend of the show out there
Chris Gazdik: [00:03:51] and, hope you’re still out there.
Ma’am. listen, I just, yeah, the experience of wrapping up not a every week, but they’ve changed it. I get to hang out with four weeks with these, these physician assistants and I don’t want to embarrass her, but it’s true Ms. Claire. And I’ve told you this already, but it’s true. she, dude, she was really like one of the two best students I’ve had to date.
Really, she really impressed me to me, with how she went through, knowledgeable about mental health and knowledgeable about the things that were, that we were dealing with, helping me think about some things in different ways. And when she didn’t know something, she went and looked it up. And Craig, I think that she looked up a couple of things for us, specifically the show.
You,
Claire Thetford: [00:04:32] you, you, you,
Chris Gazdik: [00:04:33] you hear us before the mic’s come on. She, she looked up a couple things for us.
Craig Graves: [00:04:36] Yeah. I caught a glimpse of that. Be a good conversation. I’m thinking,
Chris Gazdik: [00:04:40] check this out. She’s done some research. I don’t know ms. Claire, if you have actually had this published at Harvard, is that what I’m seeing here or is your work published there?
Claire Thetford: [00:04:50] No, so I have been published, but I was like one of the smaller names on it. Luckily, I just have a really rare, last name. And so if you look it up, you’re able to find it. Yeah. Harvard just sounds fancy. It does. Doesn’t it
Chris Gazdik: [00:05:07] shadow new nutritional psychology that she did. she, did some research on intermittent fasting.
And what else did you have here? Oh, that was a psychology today on keto diet. Ms. Claire, welcome to through a therapist size. Tell us about your background and you know, what do you know about nutrition? Like where where’s it come from?
Claire Thetford: [00:05:28] Well, thank you guys. First of all, for having me, Again, my name’s Claire, I’m a physician assistant student and I’m attending the wonderful Gardner-Webb university down in boiling Springs.
and I have had the pleasure of following Chris around for the past four weeks. and so literally I have been able to live. Through a, not the a therapist’s eyes, in real time, in terms not the, in terms of past experiences, when nutrition. I was fortunate enough to minor in it. And my undergraduate career, my major was human biology, and I also minored in sociology.
And, I was able to also be a teaching assistant for an introductory course, underneath the main professor and on my summers off in college, I also did nutrition research two years with general mills. And then I also was an intern at a nutrition studies program and Chronopolis North Carolina just working with fruits and veggies.
And I was able to present my research and I won both times. I did. So just a little toot, my own horn thing.
Chris Gazdik: [00:06:38] Am I okay if I eat like fruits and vegetables for like one meal a month or something like that? Does that qualify as healthy?
Claire Thetford: [00:06:44] That would not qualify as healthy.
Chris Gazdik: [00:06:47] They helped me, man. And
Craig Graves: [00:06:48] no matter what the school system says, pizza is not a vegetable.
Chris Gazdik: [00:06:51] Oh man. It’s got tomatoes on it, man. Yeah. Excited about this show. It is called balanced eating nutrition and mental health. With ms. Claire. So, you know, it’s, it’s something crazy that we’ve been dealing with lately on our show, you know, taking care of ourselves. And, and this is one that I’m excited about because I I’m being honest with the listening audience here.
I can’t, I don’t have a lot to say. I really don’t. I know that it’s important. I, you know, talk about self care and then to talk about relationship care. Do you remember the third of the three cares?
Craig Graves: [00:07:24] I do not
Chris Gazdik: [00:07:24] physical. Yeah. Physical care.
Craig Graves: [00:07:26] Okay.
Claire Thetford: [00:07:27] That’s what I call it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:07:29] Exercise, sleep. Nutrition is a part of taking care of your body.
I mean, I got some simple thoughts that I came across, you know, to kind of guide our conversation and stuff, but it’s really, I mean, listening audiences, you’re going to be able to get a little bit out of this show, I think, because it’ll be on my level. We’re not going to talk to over your head until Claire.
You start getting to talk with Craig. Got Craig did tell him he’s got a lot of the, what is his name? Ben Greenfield that you talk about,
Claire Thetford: [00:07:53] Greg?
Craig Graves: [00:07:54] Yeah, listen a lot to Ben. I’m not sure how intelligent I’ll be about talking about what he said. Claire said, give it a go.
Chris Gazdik: [00:08:02] Allowed to ask any questions from Ben Greenfield’s information.
Claire Thetford: [00:08:08] That’s a lie. What did you say? I thought I had it right. I said, I I’m really trying to keep it as surface level as possible, but also while explaining to the general audience, how it actually works in our body and how it affects our mental health, you can go ahead and ask me, but I’m going to tell you, I’m probably going to Google and then,
Craig Graves: [00:08:31] well, that’s good
Chris Gazdik: [00:08:32] because Craig, I told Craig on one of the recent shows, man, I listened to that guy.
He was talking about the, love, not love languages. Love
Craig Graves: [00:08:39] and logic.
Chris Gazdik: [00:08:41] Sorry. My love and logic. Glared. I think I told you, we were talking about this show, man,
Craig Graves: [00:08:44] dude,
Chris Gazdik: [00:08:44] he’s like four minutes in and he said like about 35 words. I didn’t even know what they were, how to pronounce them.
Craig Graves: [00:08:49] Super intelligent. Holy chats.
Over knowledgeable. And he practices what he preaches. I mean, he’s definitely.
Chris Gazdik: [00:08:56] He’s chief pretty impressive.
Craig Graves: [00:08:58] He really is, man. So
Chris Gazdik: [00:09:00] I will go along the audience and, and, and throw a disclaimer here. You know, if you’re, if you’re listening this far and then stay with us because you aren’t going to get overwhelmed.
And I tell you Claire, and I’ll be curious what you believe about this. This notion people get so frustrated and overwhelmed with this topic, because there just seems to be. So much out there so much information and a lot of it seems to conflict with each other. And that’s why I kind of got drawn in Claire thinking that we could really do something good because you’re talking about balanced eating, as opposed to like all this crazy stuff with nutrients and minerals and Craig, you’ve heard me talk about how many neuro trainers mentors we have in our system and all the hormone structures.
I mean, we have hundreds. Of subsets of each hormone and like thousands of hormones in our body mixing with how many minerals and how many different points of nutrition, nutrients. I don’t think we understand this system. Claire, do you, do you think that’s a true statement?
Claire Thetford: [00:10:02] I do, but I also agree with the fact that there are a lot of resources out there and so it can get really overwhelming.
I found myself getting overwhelmed, trying to look up all the different types of diets. And just like, yeah. And try to find evidence on how they can help your mental health. that’s the reason why I think a balanced diet is just, it’s easier. It’s an easier label to have, and it’s also easier for someone that’s beginning their nutrition journey and just able to like, keep the same head with it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:10:32] Peanuts, beer pizza, and maybe some potato chips for the game tonight.
Claire Thetford: [00:10:38] You’re really forgetting some core components of the fruits and veggies that we just talked about.
Chris Gazdik: [00:10:44] He’s in there, man. What are you thinking about your, your thoughts about nutrition and mental health?
Claire Thetford: [00:10:50] Okay. Yeah. I really love this quote, so I already shoot shot you guys.
The articles that I referenced in this, but I really love the comparison of like an expensive car, your brain functions best when it gets premium fuel. But, the idea of that is that processed foods and this analogy is just like regular standard fuel. And this bad fuel can kind of like accumulate and lead to what causes inflammation in our body.
and in this comparison also it allows for somebody to actually take a step back and be like, Hey, and my budget, I really can’t afford pre afford premium fuel each time. So I’m gonna go for the cheap, cheaper gas option as well. So it allows for that balance to be there, but also acknowledging that the premium fuel.
Is the better of the two options. Does that make sense?
Chris Gazdik: [00:11:42] Yes. Well, it does Craig. I think I’m going to be like the comedian, this show. Cause I don’t know anything about this topic. Did she say that we’re not supposed to drink beer? We’re supposed to drink premium as in liquor instead of beer, is that what we’re getting from this nutrition?
That’s what I heard.
Craig Graves: [00:11:56] Maybe you should just be an observer during this year. Just step back. Yeah. Maybe you should just be quiet,
Chris Gazdik: [00:12:03] but it’s going to be so fun. Oh my goodness. Craig, what are you doing about nutrition? Let me throw it over to you before we go very far and see, you know, I know this is an area that you’re, you know, kind of path is, is it fair to say you’re passionate about this?
Craig Graves: [00:12:17] I would probably say I am passionate about it. You know, I try to eat, I probably try to eat clean 80 to 90% of the time. I don’t eat processed food. I don’t eat. I try not to eat sugar, or as little as possible, I don’t know, bread or pasta or, or simple carbohydrates and those kinds of things.
And I’ve never been a huge sweet eater even when I was a kid. So, you know, I, I definitely think a lot of the health and mental health, two problems that we have today in the modern world are a result of. Say to chips and beer and pizza and poor diets. so that’s kind of where I’m at on the whole nutrition spectrum, I guess.
Chris Gazdik: [00:12:59] Yeah. You know, seriously, I like the way you put it Claire, because I, you know, I’ve been fascinated with neurology lately and in, in the last, probably couple years, few years of, of working with people. And one of the things that, that I think is so cool. And something that rings true in my basic nutrition mind is that, you know, the concept of neuroplasticity, right?
So people are struggling out there with depression and anxiety. And that, that, that has a cascading effect. In fact, physiologically, you know, Craig, the. Commercial says depression hurts. I think that it, you know, it has an air on how our brains work. And so one of the things about different diagnostic sets that are out there, I noticed similarities from one diagnosis in mental health to another to another.
And one of those one’s clarity, it was foggy brain, like thinking not clearly. Right. Well, with neuroplasticity, we know that, see, I can sound intelligent to Craig.
Craig Graves: [00:14:00] You sound pretty entailed
Claire Thetford: [00:14:01] doing a little better, continue you’re on a roll.
Craig Graves: [00:14:05] One of those
Chris Gazdik: [00:14:05] things that, that, that gives me hope with this is, is how we can actually influence the way our brain works, breathing for instance, that yeah.
Oxygenates the brain. Well, neuroplasticity is a concept that just says that when your, when your body’s depressed or when your trauma influences the way your brain literally functions, you can eat to help your brain grow it like fats, healthy fats. If you do not give your body. What it needs to grow or tip to function?
Well, brain’s not going to regenerate the brain’s not going to change. It’s good. And to get worse, I would submit in my school P brain. Does that make sense? Great, Claire.
Claire Thetford: [00:14:46] Yeah, it does. I was actually going to say, I know you’ve, I’ve been really focused on neuro-transmitters. I’ve heard you throughout time appointments, talk about it.
so I actually did a little bit of, research in, on serotonin and, as many people know that a major antidepressant. Is an SSRI, which mainly deals with the neurotransmitter of serotonin I’m on a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, which means it just leaves more serotonin available to be picked up, which elevates your mood.
what people don’t know is that Jordy of serotonin actually is produced in your small intestine and. That’s like 90 to 95% and then 5% is produced in your brain. And so how that, yeah, take a moment. Yeah. I’ll tell you. Yeah, I’ll let you pause there.
Chris Gazdik: [00:15:38] Actually. I have heard that you, you know, your gut is your second brain, but you, you, you know, and you said that I forgot that you said that this last week or two Claire in.
Yeah, that is a pause because that’s, that shocks me, that your brain with neurons. Is where I thought serotonin and all the neurotransmitter functioning really operated. So what do you, what does it do in your stomach? I mean, it’s not connecting neurons and whatnot, right? Like, so how has the production way down there getting up to our brain to do something with the, the neuron process?
Claire Thetford: [00:16:14] Yeah. Okay. So this all honestly does come back to nutrition because in our small intestine is where most of our nutrients are absorbed. So, what you put into your body is what you get out of it. when you eat something that’s healthy and doesn’t have as many inflammatory processes in it, it allows for the bacteria in your gut to digest it better and then allows for the cells in your small intestine to grab more available nutrients, which allows the cell to produce the serotonin, which.
Actually goes up through serotonin channels and like gets to your brain. I know it sounds complicated, but the reality of it is, is like the better food that we give the bacteria. The bacteria is able to digest and it allows that yourselves to uptake it. I mean, on a cellular level, good nutrition can honestly promote.
More serotonin to be available and
Chris Gazdik: [00:17:19] okay. And it shoots up through channels to your brain functioning. I’m going to keep it simple, honestly, because simple brain with us, Greg garbage in, garbage out. You ever hear that? Neil you’re the computer guy garbage in, garbage out, goes with accounting and computer stuff.
Right? Evidently it goes with our body too. I mean that’s, I didn’t realize that goes in our, in our stomach and that, so that, that makes a lot of sense to me. w what else? We’re we’re where should we go with, what we should eat and you know, how we should go about doing this? So let’s, let’s, let’s get into that a little bit.
Claire Thetford: [00:17:53] Right. I, first of all, I want to make sure that I explained that, okay, like, Chris, were you able to fully understand it? Or Craig. Just to make sure. Okay, great. Good. I went off of that just to see what types of diets really promote that healthy gut. And it turns out that like the Mediterranean diet and the traditional Japanese one are seen as like almost the gold standards.
in terms of there’s actually been studies done that show that there’s 25 to 35% lower risk of depression and those that follow those types of diets versus our Western diet. Which contains the processed foods and the refined sugars. and I know, I honestly don’t know. I know how they got these numbers, but it comes from Harvard.
So I’m just going to go ahead and believe it. but basically the main components of these diets. Or the high veggie high fru unprocessed grains and fish intake. And actually they were really lesser and moderate amounts of the lean meat and the dairy. They didn’t even talk about the sugars because obviously that would be.
Preferable national hat.
Chris Gazdik: [00:19:04] And as my sound stupid, but is rice not good or bad? Because I know, I believe it was a lot of rice traditionally in the culture. So in, and that would seem to me to be like spaghetti or whatever, which carbs are bad. Right. So what, what about the rice with all these foods?
Claire Thetford: [00:19:17] So that that’s an on the unprocessed grain is where that comes from.
so the wheat, you know, versus the white rice, if that be
Chris Gazdik: [00:19:27] no, say it, say it, say that.
Claire Thetford: [00:19:31] Okay, so unprocessed grains, right? Is there’s white rice then also wheat and then Brown rice. Yeah. You
Chris Gazdik: [00:19:45] clipped out a little bit with the zoom thing and see if we got you. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead again. Yeah. White race,
Claire Thetford: [00:19:51] Brown rice.
Brown rice. Yeah. So one’s more processed.
Craig Graves: [00:19:57] Yeah. What is the staple of Japanese diet? Is it the. The Brown rice or the wheat rice. I know, I know white rice is processed rice, right?
Claire Thetford: [00:20:05] Yes. I would assume that what they’re saying with the traditional would be the Brown rice. just due to the fact that they said on processed, but I’m, I mean, any, I I’m just going to go back to anything in moderation.
I know that we tend to really like, you know, when it comes to just like Chinese food restaurants that are like the hole in the wall places, I mean, there. Versions are way less healthy than the actual version that’s being ate in these traditional like countries. If that makes sense.
Craig Graves: [00:20:43] Yeah. So when I go to my sushi restaurant and get white rice, it’s not a good thing,
Claire Thetford: [00:20:47] right.
I mean, it’s fine in moderation. I’m just going to keep saying that because I, I really, I hate the idea of us having to pull out the balance. Like literally a scale and like measure out everything. And if someone really wants to do that, that’s great. And then that is on them with their research. And it’s something that they’re passionate about, but I don’t want someone that’s going into their cleaner health, nutrition journey to think that that’s the expectation.
Craig Graves: [00:21:19] Yeah. I’ll get that a hundred percent. Cause I don’t always eat strictly good foods. Right. Like I said, 80, 80, 80 to 90, 20 to 10, you know, But if we’re talking about in terms of eating good food, you know, I don’t want it somebody to go to the Chinese restaurant and get white rice and think they’re eating good food when it’s actually probably processed
Claire Thetford: [00:21:40] rice.
It’s not really,
Craig Graves: [00:21:42] it’s not good for them, you know? So that’s kind of where I was going with that. You think about that and you hear bad things about grains and we, and stuff like that. But the Japanese and really Asian cultures in general rice is a staple of their diets. And you don’t see many obese people from, from Southeast Asia,
Chris Gazdik: [00:22:02] Sumo wrestling,
Craig Graves: [00:22:03] and they live long lives.
I mean,
Claire Thetford: [00:22:05] they do live long lives.
Craig Graves: [00:22:07] Yeah. Japanese people live long time,
Chris Gazdik: [00:22:11] you know? And one of the things I’m thinking about is your palette. You know, we’re talking about white rice and the different things, and it just occurred to me. So maybe I can contribute something useful here in the sense that. I think it’s true to say that your palate really does get trained.
And of course, palate is the taste that you have and the familiarity that your body has, you really start craving what you give it. Right. So a lot of those process stuffs are, are sugary and, carbs and carbohydrates. And when, when you, your body just gets used to eating what it’s eaten and you liked what it tastes.
And when you first start trying to change something, it doesn’t taste right. It doesn’t taste good. So you say good food, right? So I wonder if that’s something that either of you really can speak to, you know, changing your palette so that you’re more successful with a balanced diet.
Craig Graves: [00:23:07] In my opinion. I think there’s probably some discipline there.
You know, I’m going to eat it, I’m going to eat whatever my good food is. And I’d like to talk about the Mediterranean diet more in just a minute, if we can, but I’ve also read in several places that, that processed sugar is as addictive as cocaine or heroin.
Chris Gazdik: [00:23:23] Right. That’s what I was thinking. Some
Craig Graves: [00:23:25] of the issue with kicking that habit is not just my palate likes it.
You know, it’s like, well, I need that now. You know? I gotta have my, system’s got to have that.
Chris Gazdik: [00:23:34] What’s funny. You say palate and in my brain, I’m actually also thinking of some of the addictive type traits. Now we’re not talking about addiction today at all. Really? I don’t think we’ll get to that, but I said pallet instead of that powerful craving that an addict might have is a little bit different, but I think that, can we say that pallet is.
Like a second or third cousin to what your body thinks, tastes good by craving sugars and such.
Craig Graves: [00:24:10] When I think about the palette, I think about taste, right. You know, I liked the way a good plate of nachos or the sushi up upper jaw, the balance on rolls. I love the way that, plum plum sauce tastes, you know, if, if I’ve got a eat too much sugar, it might not be that I love the taste of it.
I just I’m craving the sugar cause my body has become dependent on it. For whatever reason.
Chris Gazdik: [00:24:37] What I’m saying is I think your taste preference actually changes based on this.
Craig Graves: [00:24:43] I think tastes does change over time. Right? And I’ve heard that it may be. Claire can clarify, but I think your palette changes every seven years.
You start, you know, I don’t like onions and then seven years later I made no onions. You know, I’ve heard that too. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I think your tastes do change over time
Chris Gazdik: [00:25:03] because I don’t like potato chips anymore. I started eating, I stopped eating a lot of the, you know, the fatty stuff.
I mean, I’ll still eat them can be wrong, particularly kettle chips, but yeah. I eat a bag of potato chips, you know, one of those lunch bags, whatever, I’m kind of like, eh, I don’t like that anymore. It’s not, it doesn’t, it doesn’t even taste as good.
Craig Graves: [00:25:20] Right. You know?
Chris Gazdik: [00:25:21] So do you need, what do you think about that?
Claire chime in with how your body actually gets geared a certain way with, you know, with healthy eating. Do we, do we actually do ourselves a disservice by changing even our, our palette?
Claire Thetford: [00:25:36] I can’t really. Contribute much to the seven year pallet thing, but I can contribute to how habits form. I don’t know if you guys have heard of, it takes like 30 days to form a habit, correct?
Totally. I mean, yeah, but I, I, well, what’s your input on that?
Craig Graves: [00:25:56] Am I wrong about forming a habit? Yeah. Oh, no, no, you’re right. I’ve heard 21 days, but I’ve heard different things. 30 days is probably somewhere in that range is probably true. Yes.
Claire Thetford: [00:26:08] I just say 30. Cause it’s like cleaner sounding number. It’s like easier for me to remember for some reason.
But, before we actually get back there, I. I researched on the race issue. And it turns out that white rice actually gets rid of the nutritious part of the actual like rice. It like gets rid of it and it actually just ends up creating more carb in it. It is actually a thing of white rice per cup has 53 grams of carbohydrate.
And then Brown rice has 46 grams. But it also has the fiber. And like, if that makes sense. and in terms of Japanese culture, actually eating why rice it’s because cost-effectiveness, and then Brown rice takes a lot longer to cook.
Craig Graves: [00:27:03] Okay. So I think you said you were kind of cut out a little bit, but just so we all,
Claire Thetford: [00:27:07] Oh, no, I’m sorry.
Craig Graves: [00:27:10] Don’t be sorry. So you said that the white rice removes the fiber, the processing, or moves the fiber. You said there’s 53 grams and a cup 53 grams of carbs and a cup of white rice. I think you said 46 grams and a cup of Brown rice, but there’s no fiber there. So that’s going to make it not as
Claire Thetford: [00:27:30] right. And there’s also calcium.
And I was just also restating the fact that, and I mean, Chris and I have talked about this, how there’s this huge dilemma and the cost effectiveness of eating healthy. and that’s something that was actually stated was that white rice is cheaper and it’ll all so takes a little bit less cook than Brown rice.
And so just time and cost effectiveness, but in terms of changing. Like your taste and how your body and like getting the refined sugars actually like the built up of it in your gut and then also the addictive patterns of it. I would like to think that’s where a diet called, like the whole 30 thing come in.
I actually know a few people that have done this. I. Honestly, do not think right now I have the willpower to do it. I’m really not. I’m, I’m terrible about practicing what I preach sometimes, but the whole 30 is literally a clean diet and it teaches you how to do it, or a diet based off of just getting rid of the processed food and the sugar removal and people that go on it.
Say that after the 30 days, if they have anything like sugar super processed, it makes them sick. Oh, yeah. And they, they can notice an actual difference in their energy level. If they go back to processed foods. I mean, they say it’s, it’s incredible. The difference it can make. And so it could only take like a month maybe.
Craig Graves: [00:29:03] Yeah. Yeah. I’ve, I’ve kind of seen some of that from my own experience. So like, Several years ago. I think my 17 year old was probably four years old and he had, he and his brother had gone to the beach with my parents and we were buying organic, any foods that earth fare and eating really, really, really clean.
And so my wife, she and I at the time decided we were going to go to the beach since they were away. And the first thing we saw when we got to the beach was a Hooters restaurant. I’m like, Oh man, let’s go get some Hooters wings. And so we went in there and devoured a half a dozen wings. And because of all that, you know, flour and grease and all that jazz dude, we, we, we were so sick after eating all those winnings that we just basically wasted a Friday night.
Laying in the hotel room trying to recover, but you know, if we’d done it a year earlier than it wouldn’t have been a big deal, we loved the Hooters openings. But after we cleaned for so long, it was like, Oh my God.
Chris Gazdik: [00:29:58] Yeah. Feeling the need to put in a joke, I have to contribute something. So if you guys would just keep on eating this stuff, you wouldn’t have that problem when you had tougher, stronger stomach.
Craig Graves: [00:30:07] Yeah. But then our mental health would be in the crapper and would be, you know, overweight and obese and all kind of health, health, health problems.
Chris Gazdik: [00:30:15] One of the things before we lose the Mediterranean diet. Let, let me say this and we’ll go back to that. Cause I think you will want to it. So, so I do want to make this point maybe as we’re talking about.
A pilot. And as we’re talking about Claire, I really seriously do help. I mean, one of the suggestions that I make in therapy, with behavioral, I mean, I, I think of things through those lens, right? The behavioral changes. So for, if you’re out there starting to listen to some of these things and starches and rises, and he’s talking about fiber running, what that is.
Okay, great. You know what. I like behavioral strategies to be manageable, to, to, to help someone be successful. This, and one of the things that I’ve heard that’s been, I think, helpful and gives me a lot of hope. And my clients have been able to latch onto is just change. One thing. Right. If you’re, if you’re looking at adding something, just add something that you want to eat a little bit more of, or take one thing out and just don’t eat that and do that one at a time, you know, one small step I’m sure you’ve heard people talking about that.
Right? Well, there’s, there’s psychological and behavioral science behind that, that it’s more likely to be successful. Thoughts about that, and we’ll go to the Mediterranean there.
Craig Graves: [00:31:34] Yeah, I think it’s probably a good, a good thought to, I don’t know, man, if you’re going to go Mediterranean or keto or something like that, I don’t think there’s any ease and end to that. I think you just have to, you just have to go do it. If you want to cut out soft drinks or cut out sugary foods, that’s a goal.
Then maybe you do that little by little for drinking five Cokes a day, cut back to one Coke a day. Right. But I think you’re trying to get on a nutritious eating plan. In my opinion, I would just do that.
Chris Gazdik: [00:32:01] How many people do that for a week and fail? I think that’s what I get struggled
Claire Thetford: [00:32:04] about. What’s that mean?
I do that. So this is why I I’ve told you, Chris is why I’m a big advocate for just balanced diet is because it, yes, it holds you accountable, but it also allows you to have some leeway because I think it would drive my mental capacity, drove me nuts. It would drive me nuts to know that like, what if I failed?
And then I would. Beat myself up about it versus the balance. And then the slowly taking away, it’s more of a process and to finding what works for you. If you know, you can’t take out that one Coke a day, that’s your limit, then that’s great. You found that, but maybe you can cut out something else in your diet.
To like substitute for that. I just, I think it, it allows you to be more human, but then there are those people that are like totally like barely able to hold their diet. And I honestly big kudos to them.
Chris Gazdik: [00:33:05] You know, there’s a lot of emotions in food, you know, there was a CU I did today. Craig, one of the things I did hear them say is, you know, think back at your first memory.
Food, your first positive experience that you had with food. And it challenged me. I had nothing, I didn’t, I didn’t know what she was going for. And then I did think of something. This is, this is fresh off my break today, just from trainings that I’m doing. And, and, and it was, it was during a football game, was the high school football game that I was at with my dad and I was freezing and he gave me like a dollar and 25 cents or whatever, and I was allowed to go get to the constituents.
Concession stand. And I got a, a glass of a cup of hot chocolate. And I mean, that was like the best hot chocolate I’ve ever seen. It warmed me up. Cause I was so cool. It was a wonderful experience. And I think that we have that relationship, whether we realize it or not with food. And so when you’re, when you’re dealing with like diets and the stringent requirements of this and that it’s.
Yeah, you can feel overwhelmed and hopeless and then you fail. And now you’re full of shame and you’re full of guilt and you feel bad about yourself. And then you look at your belly and it’s too big and you can’t even do a diet. And it’s just, man, you can, you could just fall into a centrifuge of crap instead of having like, just feel good about what you’re doing while making a little bit of healthy change.
And Claire, I think that’s what a lot of what you mean, right. By balanced eating.
Claire Thetford: [00:34:33] That’s. Yeah, that is what I meant, but maybe that’s where Craig can come in and really give me some mental toughness as I can see in his, his background there some mental toughness to do so to go through it. But as for right now, I, I need, I need ice cream every now and then for my mental sanity,
Craig Graves: [00:34:52] I would take the Jocko approach.
You want to eat healthy than eat healthy. I said sacred. That’s healthy. going back to the, let’s go back to the Mediterranean diet. there’s, like you said, in the beginning, there’s so many diets out there and it’s kind of funny because there was a show on Netflix called game changers, and it was about these athletes use the vegetarian diet to enhance their performance.
And in Rogan had a guy on the show to dispute what was said on there. Then they brought on a doctor to, to debate the guy that was disputing the, the, the show. And then they brought on one of the guys that wasn’t. So they spent like five, six, seven hours going through this debate about veganism, vegetarianism versus eating meat and stuff like
that.
Claire Thetford: [00:35:41] You
Craig Graves: [00:35:41] know, how much clear how much, which diets the best? I mean, what would you say I’ve heard good things about its Mediterranean diet. Maybe you can tell us what it is. But, what’s the big debate about all the different
Claire Thetford: [00:35:53] diets. Oh man.
Passionate
Craig Graves: [00:36:02] about it. I mean, you say vegetarian sucks. You might get punched in the mouth or vice versa. It’s
Claire Thetford: [00:36:06] crazy. Oh, the vegan, the vegan, the vegan.
Chris Gazdik: [00:36:11] I just like, I just like to say paleo, can I just say paleo?
Craig Graves: [00:36:16] I think paleo is similar to Mediterranean.
Claire Thetford: [00:36:18] It is I, I actually talked about keto for a second, or I researched it just purely, because you were also talking Chris about how, someone that, you know, went on keto and I didn’t, you guys interview someone.
Chris Gazdik: [00:36:31] It was a really neat show. Yeah. She had a lot of anxiety stuff going on and she did the Quito, show. yeah, she did the keto diet and boom, like her. It’s like night and day went away was weird. It’s crazy.
Claire Thetford: [00:36:43] Apparently like bipolar in particular or mood disorders. it actually has been seen to be effective, because if you’re using the energy source of ketones versus the carbohydrate difference, apparently it actually improves your cellular function down to, I don’t know if you guys know what a mitochondria is, but like that, you know, like sixth grade.
Science or whatever, producing your energy through there apparently like actually has some science behind the fact that it, it definitely, it’s a calming effect. Apparently the calms cells can’t, can’t give you very much more about that. I didn’t look too much into it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:37:24] Yeah. Interesting for add as well, honestly.
Claire Thetford: [00:37:27] Yeah. I wonder I was, I just thought, I thought it was really cool about the bipolar. Thing, even in bipolar one and bipolar two, there were some, and then also I think it was schizophrenia. There was some symptoms
decreased, so that’s interesting.
Chris Gazdik: [00:37:47] What I heard, what I heard was they’re all shit. I love zoom, Craig. I love zoom. No, man. I think by now Kerr, everybody in the world is no in zoom and they’re there. We all are like super patient about that nowadays.
Craig Graves: [00:38:04] But I think what you said is that Quito had a reduced symptoms of schizophrenia.
And in some people. Okay. Yeah.
Claire Thetford: [00:38:14] There’s also,
Craig Graves: [00:38:15] there’s also a documentary on Netflix called the magic pill and they’re basically doing a keto diet on different subsets of people, some of which are kids with add the ADHD. And, some with autism, there was a, or Aboriginal tribe in Australia that, that, and, and the results were miraculous.
I mean, people who were pre dementia. I actually saw cognitive improvement. I mean, it was, it’s an amazing show if it’s still on there and you still have Netflix. So
Chris Gazdik: [00:38:46] both of those on my list because of you actually, I just haven’t watched them
Craig Graves: [00:38:50] those game changers because I do believe that probably every diet isn’t for every person.
So maybe somebody has success with keto. Somebody has success with vegetarianism and they wouldn’t have it the other way, I think. And that’s one of the points I didn’t make in the, in the Joe Rogan shows was. Not every diet is for every person.
Chris Gazdik: [00:39:09] And I’m glad to hear that they made a big point of that. And I’m glad you brought that up because I hadn’t had any in my mind to bring up, but I think that’s like super important.
We talk in mind. I feel good about mindfulness. Like I think I like to keep this simple in my brain because garbage in garbage out, try to think of changing one thing at a time. Well, he here’s another one, you know, when, when you’re dealing with you diet, you’ve got ’em. believe it or not, I just lost my thought just crashed.
Lost it.
Claire Thetford: [00:39:43] What were you saying? You said mindfulness.
Chris Gazdik: [00:39:47] Thank you. Yeah. Mindfulness was the other thing, you know, you’ve got to listen to your body with this. If you’re not paying attention. This is my simple third thought. If you’re not sure paying attention to how you feel when you eat something you’re missing, you know, issues with sensory defensiveness, you’re your mission missing issues with food allergies, you’re missing issues.
It might be making your depression or your anxiety worse. And I think you can capture a lot of those if you really just get mindful. Remember that mindfulness show we did. And I used it the grape or a raisin to demonstrate that like, just. Let’s slow down, pay attention, pay attention to how the food makes you feel.
And I think we’d be a lot better off because our bodies are all very unique.
Yeah. Okay. Go ahead.
Claire Thetford: [00:40:39] No, I, I, I, I liked that.
Craig Graves: [00:40:42] Well, while we’re on the topic of diet, Claire, tell us about what is the Mediterranean diet and I’ve heard good things about it. So what is it? Tell our audience what it is that they don’t know.
Claire Thetford: [00:40:51] All right. So Mediterranean diet. Please tell me if I cut out, but, Oh yeah, that’d be great.
So it’s basing your diet on healthy unprocessed foods, big overhaul, but they’re saying the vegetables, the fruits, nuts and seeds, is it also included legumes, whole grains. They really focus in on fish and seafood food, which tends to be the separator between the Quito and the Mediterranean diet. and also obviously the grains, they really encourage poultry consumption and eggs.
and in terms of their dairy, they. they don’t like milk that much. They, they like Greek yogurt as like the, the dairy, which, and then they’re about garlic, which has some evidence for some health benefits. And then also that the healthy fats that Chris talked about with the avocados avocado oil, olive oil, and then they also said to restrict red meat.
So again, also the difference between the KIDO and the Mediterranean. so that’s kind of the full picture of what they really want you to eat. And then also just regular physical activity.
Craig Graves: [00:42:04] So if you’re eating those things, if you’re eating unprocessed foods that are healthy, you’re eating your vegetables and getting your proteins from different places.
I mean, how can you go wrong? Right?
Claire Thetford: [00:42:13] I mean, A great. Yeah. I mean, this, this diet, to me, the reason why I liked highlighting it was because it, for me, it sounds obtainable, right? Like for me, it’d be hard for me to eliminate carbs right away. Hmm, because it’s a big component on it, honestly, of my everyday diet, but the idea of going straight to whole grain and then also, really focusing in and adding the nuts and seeds component and then also highlighting legumes for the beans, peas, lentils, even peanuts, but, and encouraging healthy fat consumption.
I think it sounds idealistic.
Craig Graves: [00:42:53] I want to come
Claire Thetford: [00:42:54] back to the,
Craig Graves: [00:42:55] I want to come back to the fats too, but tell us the difference in carbohydrate. So some carbohydrates are good, right. And others are not. So can you clarify the
Claire Thetford: [00:43:04] difference? Yes. I’ll. I’ll just go ahead and read the list of the recommended whole grain that they think is preferable for the Mediterranean diet.
they like whole oats, Brown rice, rye, barley, Fuck we hold, we hold grain, bread and pasta. So the whole grain bread and pasta is probably the hone in for regular. Everyday consumption for an everyday person. and I also think whole oats, you could do, the overnight oats where you add in like the Greek yogurt.
I think that’s really good. so that’s what they, they highlighted versus obviously regular, regular white bread, white rice, which again, I explained takes out the fiber and then also the calcium. So the actual nutrients that you can get from grains.
Craig Graves: [00:43:57] Right. So if you, if you take those things out, those are considered processed carbs, right.
And your body doesn’t digest those in the same way that it does a complex carb, right. With the fiber and fiber in there.
Claire Thetford: [00:44:12] Okay. I, that thank you for bringing that up. That actually brings up the idea of how feeds, processed carbs. Actually remove that fiber, which helps with digestion. but in addition to that, it, it creates that inflammation at a cellular level.
and so bringing this into the mental health perspective, inflammation in your brain cells, isn’t good and
Chris Gazdik: [00:44:39] glad you brought you back to the mental health perspective because all your carbs and stuff was losing it, inflammation in the brain.
Claire Thetford: [00:44:47] Yeah. The foggy brain is right there. Yeah, there it is. So it makes the carb how it’s processed in your body and how the cells and the bacteria digest it and makes it unstable.
and in the body, obviously you don’t want something that’s unstable in there, but that’s what actually leads to inflammation. And this by-product is what causes tissue injury. So it creates the high blood pressure. It creates the plaque formation and it leads to the high blood pressure. The heart disease, the foggy, and then also, flammatory processes associated with these processed foods actually are seen to alter a cell at its cellular data level, and it could create a tumor process.
So cancer
Chris Gazdik: [00:45:39] and you know, what’s interesting about that as I was just listening to you, Claire, I was thinking about it is actually in reverse too, right? Like, can we say that when you have trauma experience and you, and you’re, you’re, you’re having tensions in your muscles and in your body, and you’re you’re we know that when you’re having panic, your blood pressure goes up and so blood vessels probably are expanding.
And so all of this inflammation, intention and depression makes your body physically hurt. Too. Right. So can we, can we go actually in the opposite way, like mental health can actually give you added challenges that you’re trying to manage with your diet, just because your mental health system and maybe they’re two really closely linked.
I don’t know, but I guess I’m saying like, if you have trauma experiences, that’s going to set you up for some of that, right. Possibly.
Claire Thetford: [00:46:27] Agreed. Yeah, totally. There’s we, you know what, this makes me think of what we were talking about with that broken heart syndrome. Oh,
Chris Gazdik: [00:46:35] my gosh,
Claire Thetford: [00:46:37] it does not make me want to say the actual medical term, but it is affiliated with what it’s like a, it’s a Chinese like pottery.
And so it’s literally about ballooning and it actually causes your heart to balloon out for a couple of weeks. Like it causes an actual physical effect. So if you feel something with extreme grief, it could actually cause. Like a, almost like a mini heart attack, but it does recover in a couple of weeks.
If you’re able to stabilize your, your panic levels and your adrenaline. You talk about that a lot in your yeah. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [00:47:14] Do you get that Craig, like when you have a breakup and you’re grieving, like your heart actually physically like enlarges and you have these physiological things that is a part of what she looked up a few weeks ago with the broken hearted syndrome.
Craig Graves: [00:47:25] I did not know that. Yeah. That’s new to me.
Chris Gazdik: [00:47:27] Yeah. So, okay. Let me, let me steer as Claire, to, cause we’re we’re we’re we’re we’re 48 minutes in. We’re still okay. On time, but we need to, I want to make sure we get the things covered that we wanted to cover. your research, you you’ve, you’ve done some research and I’m sure that you kind of went through and reviewed some of that, that you did.
What do we want to, is there anything that you really want to glean out of there before that, before we take you down, any other bunny holes and such
Claire Thetford: [00:47:53] you mean in my life past what I was able to present, basically it was taking the, well, I’m gonna make it. I just forgot. Hold on the words that I’m looking for, antioxidant that it’s talking about, how fruits and veggies at a S like, again, we bring it all back to cellular level, but it’s the how antioxidants and fruits and veggies and fruits in particular with that, how they can combat the inflammatory processes that happen.
So not only is increasing. The fruits and veggies. Good for you on the antioxidant level, just in terms of your, the vitamins, the minerals, but it also can help combat the carbon hydrate and the influence flammatory processes that are there. But that’s the basic
Chris Gazdik: [00:48:48] talk a little bit more about the antioxidation.
Cause I do hear a lot of that with antioxidants and oxidized, is it oxidization in the body? I mean, is that I break that down in my West Virginia simple terms here. I don’t, I don’t follow a lot of that.
Claire Thetford: [00:49:03] So I actually did talk about this a couple of minutes ago. but I talked about it at again. do you remember when I said that, process carbohydrates are unstable?
Do you remember when I said that? Yeah. it’s if, if you go down to it, it’s this thing called free, radical, and it is an unpaired electron. To go back just into chemistry. One Oh one, there it’s an unpaired electron wants to be paired. So it is unstable until it is paired
it. Sorry. Hold on. Wait. No, I’m kidding. But, It, it, this is what honestly causes that oxidative stress that you’re talking about and the oxidative stress. And you wouldn’t think that oxygen would be a contributor towards, you know, negative affecting your health because oxygen is what gives us life along with carbon, but it is this oxidative stress that is causing that and that inflammation.
And it’s just because they get left over. Because they don’t have that fiber attached to it. They get left over in the process of metabolism to give our
Chris Gazdik: [00:50:17] model when we eat antioxidants, we’re, we’re helping on our body avoid that process that you just described. That creates actually ultimately the problem is inflammation.
Claire Thetford: [00:50:28] Yeah. It, it, it inhibits the oxygen, the oxidization of it. So inhibits the inflammatory response.
Chris Gazdik: [00:50:34] So that is so cool. I mean, I know I’m making jokes today, but to try to keep it light and keep people engaged, dude, Greg people get lost with this kind of stuff, but this is fascinating. I think the way that our bodies operate in such a uniquely created way on that level.
Do you feel that we’re starting to get clear? Where do you think that are science knowledge on this stuff is being fresh out of. Oh, well, hell I’m not out front right in the whole academia world as we speak, are we starting to really understand this stuff better than we used to
Claire Thetford: [00:51:10] in terms of nutritional research?
I don’t think so. I think we are getting to it. I think we are, but I mean that literally the antioxidant thing was. Literally the reason why I was in research like that is what we were doing is we are trying to, to really like promote this. And, at one point I think I told you, we took like concentrated levels of an antioxidant and put it against like actual cancer cells and at a super, super concentrated level that actually inhibited its cellular growth.
Chris Gazdik: [00:51:44] You are remembering as you’re speaking that. Yeah, you did. Yeah.
Claire Thetford: [00:51:48] And so, I mean, we do know stuff, but I think that’s really the reason why nutrition research needs to continue to be promoted is because if we can stop these things at what we put in our body, rather than trying to attack it, once it’s already begun, I think that’s like a huge deal,
Chris Gazdik: [00:52:05] huge premeditated
Craig Graves: [00:52:06] thing.
There’s probably a lot of research out there. It’s just not, it’s just
Claire Thetford: [00:52:09] not,
Craig Graves: [00:52:10] it’s just not being taught. How you say you’re becoming a PA, right? How many hours, how many hours of study does it take to become a PA.
Claire Thetford: [00:52:19] A lot. I am, so I did undergraduate program. So four years, and this nutrition research that I’m talking about was totally supplementary.
Like it’s something that I did on my own in the summers. So I didn’t have a summer break. It was,
Craig Graves: [00:52:35] I went straight
Claire Thetford: [00:52:36] to research.
Craig Graves: [00:52:37] My next question. How many of those hours are spent studying nutrition?
Claire Thetford: [00:52:42] That’s a good question. Yeah, it is a good question. for a minor, it depends on what university are in and what courses you have to do.
But I was able to actually sense my, the research program was affiliated with NC state, which is where I went for undergraduate. I was able to apply some of my research hours to my minor, but it was a full time job, 11 weeks. And that was times four. Summers is the amount of nutrition research I have under my belt,
Craig Graves: [00:53:13] but that’s not a typical student that’s because you were doing this, this research project, right?
Claire Thetford: [00:53:17] Yeah. That’s not a typical student now.
Craig Graves: [00:53:19] Right. I know we’re running short on time, but touch on fats for a minute.
Chris Gazdik: [00:53:24] Well, let me get an answer on that Creek. Cause I thought you were going to follow up with that. So, so a regular PA student gets how many hours of training on simple nutrition? I don’t think I hear that yet.
Claire Thetford: [00:53:33] Oh, okay. Yeah. we. I think we did a couple of weeks of like a couple of weeks,
Craig Graves: [00:53:39] four weeks out of eight years of study.
Claire Thetford: [00:53:43] Well, so not everyone has to, well, I, so for NC state, for me to be a human biology major, I needed an introductory nutrition course, so I needed to do that. So that was a full semester. but in terms of physician assistant school, I mean, Chris knows this analogy.
It is literally drinking water out of a fire hose. So for the last year, year and a half of what is actual schooling, I mean, I’m learning everybody system. Anything under the sun that you can imagine. So maybe someone from Gardner-Webb can tell me exactly how many hours of nutrition we focused in on, but I know we did touch on it.
I think it was yeah, within the first couple of semesters, but I mean, we have to also be able to research in our own time about this too. Especially if we’re recommending patients, like that’s our first line. For anything, mental health wise, like depression, like physical activity and nutrition change.
Like it would be good to know what you preach.
Craig Graves: [00:54:49] Right. Right. I do think that there’s probably some cornerstones of health, like sleep and nutrition, and I’ve recently come to believe that breadth is too. But I think those things are probably not as prevalent in, in the teachings of current medical practices, you know?
Chris Gazdik: [00:55:08] And exercise
Craig Graves: [00:55:09] and exercise. Yeah, absolutely. if we can just jump into fats for a minute. So Chris alluded earlier that fats were brain food and we’ve kind of been taught that fats are the devil because they create heart disease and stuff like that. But what, what are your thoughts on how much fat and fat in general?
as far as brain health and mental health, and do you have much knowledge there?
Claire Thetford: [00:55:35] I can talk at like a very surface level with it. obviously there’s a difference between saturated fats and unsaturated fats. I think people know that general term, but also
Chris Gazdik: [00:55:47] some probably don’t.
Claire Thetford: [00:55:47] Okay. Saturated fats are like French fries are like
Chris Gazdik: [00:55:53] fried chicken
Claire Thetford: [00:55:55] or like an ice cream and butter.
Unsaturated fats. There is the avocado, the avocado oil, the fish, you know, fish fat with like the Omega threes. And you can actually take like fish oil tablets, and then an eggs too. There’s also that unsaturated fat, But the difference between that, I just lost my train of thought is the unsaturated fats can actually be good for your heart and be good for your cholesterol because.
It’s called HDL versus LDL. And so that’s where the, the medical side comes in with the nutrition. do you guys want me to touch on that
Chris Gazdik: [00:56:37] actually? Maybe so. Yeah. And then, then, then we’ll get your train of thought back to what Craig was asking about. Just what you think about fats and if they’re good or helpful or not.
But HDL and LDL is what I see on that. Dr. Derr takes blood out of me and tells me about them. So what are they.
Claire Thetford: [00:56:50] Right. So there’s a HDL, the actual word is high density lipoprotein. and that is what actually helps your body get rid of excess collects cholesterol. and it’s less like likely to build up as plaque in your arteries.
Whereas LDL is the stuff that you see that builds up as plaque. and that’s the bad. So you do not want high numbers of the LDL. But you do want high numbers of the HDL. And so that’s where eating saturated fats can come in versus the unsaturated fats. And I think everything again is good in moderation in terms of how much fat.
I do know that if you really want to get precise with it, you can look up that research on your own or, you know, the viewer or the listener, I should say, in terms of the amount that is good for your body, your body type. and just consulting with your doctor to see where your levels already are.
Chris Gazdik: [00:57:47] All right. Greg was asking about just general ideas with fats and stuff that I took. I think we took you away from that.
Claire Thetford: [00:57:53] I’m sorry. I love it. I love a good avocado. and I use olive oil and then actually in particular use avocado oil.
Chris Gazdik: [00:58:01] Have you ever had avocados on the grill?
Claire Thetford: [00:58:04] No.
Chris Gazdik: [00:58:04] That’s awesome. Try it. Put a little, put a little oil on the avocado.
Put a little paprika butter. I should say butter. I do butter. And then you put it on Tanya on the grill and sear it. Oh my God. Excellent stuff.
Claire Thetford: [00:58:19] I will ask you. Craig, what do you think? I think honestly, you’ve done a lot of research into your nutrition journey. So what are, what are your thoughts on it
Craig Graves: [00:58:28] on fat?
Claire Thetford: [00:58:30] Yeah.
Craig Graves: [00:58:31] Yeah, I think the fat is being given a bad rap. You know, there was, a couple of reports a few years ago, one of which was in the New York times. And they were talking about how in the fifties, the sugar and sugar industry basically had. Put out some research that was flawed, that demonized fat. And it said that cause of heart disease was fat.
When, when indeed there are in fact that caused heart disease was sugar and you can go look these things up. I mean, this is actually in New York times and different publications where this was exposed. So I don’t want to say that saturated fats good for you, but I don’t believe that it is, it is as bad as we want thought.
I
Claire Thetford: [00:59:13] agree,
Craig Graves: [00:59:13] you know, and I do believe that there is, you know, like there is saturated fat in coconut oil and coconut oil is a, a lot of folks including myself, use that now for cooking. And, you know, I, I drink in MCT and my coffee in the mornings for the energy piece of it. And that, of course, that has saturated fats in it.
So, you know, I try to keep some fat, some levels of fat in my diet, you know, And I do believe that promotes brain health. And I mentioned that, that thing earlier, the magic pill documentary about the lady who, who had dementia and was getting better. And one of the theories behind that is because the keto diet is so high in fat, you know, she’s feeding her brain fat and there’s no research.
I did not know of that, that backs this up, but dementia and Alzheimer’s continue to increase in older people. When we’ve been eating low fat diets for the past 50 years, you know? Right. And so maybe there is some kind of connection in there. I don’t know, but
Chris Gazdik: [01:00:10] I think it’s, I wanted to get here and we only have a few minutes.
So if you have anything else you want to summarize, Craig and Claire, we need to taxi in here, but you know, the. It would be an interesting thing to have a longer conversation about the industry, the food industry and what that has done in the, in the powerful magnet of media to make money. I mean, you know, sugars get demonized, how bad is it?
Fats get demonized. You just made a case for the fact that they’re, they’re not that bad. I, I just, I just wonder out loud, you know, what, what have we done to make money off of food to create a storyline about certain chemical compounds?
Craig Graves: [01:00:52] Let’s definitely plan on a part two, because you guys mentioned intermittent fasting in the beginning of this thing too, and we’re not going to have time to cover that.
Claire. I’m an intermittent faster. I’m currently on my,
Chris Gazdik: [01:01:04] you got a phone app. He’s looking up.
Craig Graves: [01:01:06] I am currently on my. 819th intermittent fast. I would love to hear your, I would love to hear your thoughts on,
Claire Thetford: [01:01:16] on
Craig Graves: [01:01:17] intermittent fasting,
Chris Gazdik: [01:01:19] right?
Claire Thetford: [01:01:20] For, for the listeners. my jaw just dropped to the floor.
Chris Gazdik: [01:01:27] He’s into it.
Claire Thetford: [01:01:29] We will have to do a part two on that because Chris really wanted me to look that up. So I did, and I mean, I’ve got some good stuff on it. I did want to bring up one thing about the fats. So, it turns out that Omega three fatty acids, which is associated with like fish, it is really important for our learning and memory.
It’s like an essential building block. Because your brain actually needs it. And so it is something that needs to be talked about more, but I think it’s, I honestly, and Chris, about your advertising, I told you, I took a course that was called eating through American history and that is talked about so much.
Chris Gazdik: [01:02:11] Oh, wow. That does sound interesting.
Claire Thetford: [01:02:14] Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [01:02:15] What was shoot down a little bit, shoot there a little bit.
Claire Thetford: [01:02:19] Media rules the world, but I think we know that, right. And so, I mean, it it’s like propaganda for your own benefit type of deal. It’s like what Craig said with the sugar studies stating that fat is bad.
It’s like, you can, you can move your research in any which way to kind of ignore or use blind spots to get. What you want. And so it’s, it’s super interesting, but
Craig Graves: [01:02:48] part two, and talk about fasting and talk about that media, the, the, the food industry, if you will, there’s a guy named Jesse Itzler, who wrote a book called living with a seal.
And he posted on Instagram. He said a no lose offer in honor of national serial day. I wanted to make a no lose offer if the CEO of general mills or general mills cereal, and he tagged them in his Instagram posts, we’ll agree to a 20 minute interview with me on, on Instagram, I will donate a hundred bucks thousand dollars to the kid’s charity of their choice period.
And they’ve yet to take him up on that offer
Chris Gazdik: [01:03:25] really?
Craig Graves: [01:03:26] Oh yeah. Because he wants to debate them about the healthiness in quotes of their, of their cereals that they’re marketing to our children.
Chris Gazdik: [01:03:34] Oh, wow. Yes. Cereal is a big, that’s gotta be a big, big area of. I’m going to say shitstorm. I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s got a lot of, well, yeah,
Craig Graves: [01:03:45] he
Claire Thetford: [01:03:45] says advertising.
Oh yeah. He’s
Craig Graves: [01:03:48] going to give the questions in advance. Do you really think Cheerios reduces cholesterol and heart disease? Do you think kicks helps build and maintain strong bones? Like you claim on the packaging?
Chris Gazdik: [01:03:59] Oh,
Claire Thetford: [01:04:00] he’s got some, he’s got some good questions.
Chris Gazdik: [01:04:02] That’s good
Craig Graves: [01:04:02] stuff. The dollars to their charity of choice.
And they have yet to take him up on his offer. Who’s that, that you’re talking about. His name is Jesse Itzler. You can find him on Instagram hustler. I T Z it’s lurking.
Chris Gazdik: [01:04:15] I want to, I want to challenge you to see if you can get him. We’ll have Claire and him back and, and that would make for a really cool show.
Is that something
Craig Graves: [01:04:21] you might pursue if he would join us? Why don’t you do it?
Chris Gazdik: [01:04:24] I want to challenge you to pursue that, that, that sounds like, and Claire, maybe you’d come back with us. And, that would be a really fun and be awesome. Right. That’d be a fun show. Seriously. Look out for that guys. All on the, through a therapist as try, we got a hold of mr.
Graves accountable for that one. All right. How do we want to sell ourselves up? What are we thinking in summary here, Claire? How would you, how would you help your future, patients understand and some of us up on food, nutrition and balanced eating.
Claire Thetford: [01:04:54] Another great big question. I’m going to bring it back to actually what you said, Chris, with the mindfulness.
I really appreciated that. I really appreciated the fact that, I mean, yeah, there’s doing your own research, but it’s also listening to your body and listening to what works for you. But also, I mean, yes, hold yourself accountable, but also don’t beat yourself up over it. I know that sounds like a. Oxymoron or whatever it is, but
Chris Gazdik: [01:05:21] no, I think it works together.
I do. You can hold yourself accountable at the same time that you don’t shame yourself.
Claire Thetford: [01:05:26] Yeah. I think that’s huge for your mental health.
Chris Gazdik: [01:05:30] Right. Great. What do you think you can mean?
Craig Graves: [01:05:33] You know, we talk a lot about holistic mental health being a holistic thing. And we just did a show recently about mental health tips.
And I honestly believe that nutrition is part of that. As part of that process of being proactive to maintain your mental health, if you’re eating good, healthy, unprocessed foods, you’re going to be in a lot better mental state. If you’re eating a bunch of sugary processed junk
Chris Gazdik: [01:05:54] food. Alright, well, listen, cue the music I think, or something like that.
I’ll say, Claire, we got music for our show. Now. I love that, that Craig has done it. sounds awesome, Craig, thank you for doing that for what we do, Claire, thank you so much for being on the show and helping us out with a very difficult topic. I hope that we’ve done some good for our listening audience and I think he did a great job of kind of making an incredibly complex topic, something that’s understandable.
And, that is what I would expect from one of the better PA students I’ve had as rotation at Metrolina psychotherapy associates.
Claire Thetford: [01:06:28] I will stop. Thank you both for having me. I really appreciate it. All
Chris Gazdik: [01:06:32] right, mr. Craig, we are going to tackle a much louder toughest topic. I’d say we have a, a show coming up next week.
I’m just gonna leave you in your bootstraps. Wondering what it would might be. It is a hotly loaded, very controversial national debate kind of show. We’ve taken a break long enough. You ready to get in deep next week? Oh yeah, let’s do it, man. I’ll see you guys then.