Ask the Nutritionist - Vegan/Vegetarian (good/bad?) | Intermittent Fasting (good/bad?) | Milk???

Intermittent Fasting, Veganism, Vegetarian, Game Changers, Milk Alternatives ... are all the rage at the moment. So are they good for you? Do they work? And will they work for me?

Shannon Coolican - Exercise Physiologist from Longevity ask Clinical Nutritionist Anthony Hartcher from me&my wellness FAQ's from her clients.

What is the best/healthiest milk alternative?

Depends on what you're looking for - protein, fat, calcium
Important considerations:
- Less is best - fewer ingredients and only ones that you recognise
- Clean brands - Australia’s Own, Macro Organic, Aldi Just Organic / Inner Goodness, Pure Harvest, Nutty Bruce, Inside Out
- Unsweetened
- If you like it creamy then chase high % almonds
- If you seeking calcium find ones with fortified calcium

How can I get more protein without eating more meat?

Nuts, seeds, legumes, grains

Should I go vegan/vegetarian, what are they, what are the benefits?

So what are they? Lacto, ovo, lacto/ovo, piscean vegetarian OR Vegan no animal products.
- Ultimately your decision!
- Benefits - rich in fibre, phytochemicals (phenols - resveratrol; flavonoids - anthocyanins; carotenoid - beta carotene), vitamins, minerals, healthy fats 
- Supports detoxification pathways
- Supports gut / immune (modultation) health
- Supports mental health
- Energy pathways
- Must pay attention to:

• Vitamin B12
• Calcium
• Iron
• Protein

Are weight loss shakes a good way to lose weight?

- Depends?
- Short term focus (yes)
- Convenient (yes)
- Long term sustainable weight management (no)
- A lot are full of sugar alcohols (sweeteners), preservatives, caffeine

Skim/low fat/fortified milk? Which one is best?

Full fat is best remember milk doesn’t have a lot of fat ie. 4%!!! Take away the fat you lose the fat soluble vitamins - vitamins A, E, D, K and of course the creamy texture
A2 protein is easier digested, organic is preferred (grass fed, no additional hormones or antibiotics). Source: Dietitians Association

I love bread, which one is the healthiest choice?

Depends? Are you wheat, gluten or an intolerance to another type of grain?
Sourdough - dark
Sprouted seeded bread

Fasting and if it’s beneficial to exercise while fasting?

Depends on your goal, training duration and intensity. If you are wanting to lose weight, improve insulin sensitivity then yes… if your chasing training performance and your training is longer than 1.5hr or your intensity is high and longer than 45min.

How would a nutritionist help me?

Personalised nutrition to meet your goals (cut through the crap and get straight to a healthy way of eating that suits your goals and lifestyle)

About me&my Health Up & Guest

me&my Health Up seeks to enhance and enlighten the wellbeing of others. Guest Anthony Hartcher is the CEO of me&my wellness which provides holistic health solutions using food is medicine, combined with a holistic, balanced, lifestyle approach. Anthony holds three bachelor degrees in Complementary Medicine; Nutrition and Dietetic Medicine; and Chemical Engineering. 

Podcast Disclaimer
Any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, health care or other professional advice, and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this Podcast. [Connected Wellness Pty Ltd] operating under the brand of “me&my health up”..click here for more

Transcript

Shannon Coolican: 0:00

Hi guys my name is Shannon from Longevity Exercise Physiology. And you accredited exercise physiologist within longevity and today I've invited at the, from me&my Wellness, who is an nutritionist to ask a few kind of frequently asked questions to do with diet and nutrition that we get throughout the gym at longevity to kind of help you guys with your all your nutrition problems. Thank you.

Anthony Hartcher: 0:25

Hi everyone, how you doing? Good. Thanks. How are you? Good.

Shannon Coolican: 0:32

Alright, so today we're just going to go through a few questions that I normally get from different clients throughout the gym. They're pretty basic questions kind of based on different foods and whether they're healthy or not. What most people think about different types of milk. And how nutritionists would kind of help the gym go? Is it like Longevity? So we ready to go?

Anthony Hartcher: 0:56

Absolutely. Yep, we're really keen to share my knowledge and empower the followers and members of Longevity.

Shannon Coolican: 1:06

Alright, cool. Thank you, Anthony. So we'll start off with what you believe is the best, healthiest kind of milk alternative out there at the moment. I know everyone at the gym likes to drink coffee. And everyone has different types of coffee orders. So just a frequently asked question within the gym is what is the healthiest kind of milk?

Anthony Hartcher: 1:24

Yeah, absolutely. So it really depends on your goals, and also the person themselves. So some people are lactose intolerant, some people are intolerant to casein, or allergic to casein, or allergic to y. And so really dependent. Some people are allergic to soy. And so really depends on the individual. And also around your preferences as to you know, if you really like your coffee, and you like it creamy, well, there's no real better substitute than full cream milk for provided you can have it and in terms of milk itself, it's you know, it's a really good electrolyte, it's got a great protein content in it. And it's got fat soluble vitamins, provided you're having the full cream version, not the skin version. So the skin versions hiring now, like lactose, and lactose is the sugar and milk. And that's what you know, some people are intolerant to because they don't have a high amount of lactase, their body doesn't produce the enzyme that breaks down lactose. So, if you can't have milk, then I you know, I think the best coffee is from full cream milk. If you can't, then you know, some alternatives are provided you. You're not intolerant to soy, there's there's variations of soy milk. Now, the best versions of soy milk are organic versions, because they're not genetically modified. That what gets soy a bad name is the genetically modified versions of soy. So you know, a good organic milk soy milk is is best. Now, it's hard when you're going to a barista. And they've only got one version of soy and it's not organic. So it can be quite challenging, you know, alternatives to soy, almond milk, almond milk, it's quite popular in terms of if you're doing it yourself, then you're making it at home your coffee at home or you're you're having almond milk at home, then if you want cream, you want to go for a higher percentage of almonds in your almond milk. So the milk will vary from like 3% is probably the lowest I've seen up to 10, 12%. So you, you get what you pay for. So the cheaper versions, we've got the lower percentage content over Armands so you can imagine you know for 23% Almonds, it's 97% filtered water or you know, there abouts. So it's just you know, really expensive water. Yeah, so that's almond milk, there's rice milk, there's oat milk. There's so many coconut milk is the you know, the latest one I've seen a fair bit of now in terms of how to choose like say just say you're not having it for coffee and you're having it for your breakfast cereal. Then ultimately go organic if you can, because the organic are cleaner in terms of what they have in and so the non organic variations will have may have preservatives, may have stabilisers emulsifiers and all those things. So generally what I asked, you know, let my clients know is you know, pick it up, have a look at the back label, the fewer the ingredients the best and make and they got to be ingredients that you understand. So if you See words that you think what the hell's that? And stay clear of it go to the ones that have only, you know, there's good variety of milks out there that only have like four ingredients. So, you know, for example, it's it's filtered water, it's almonds, they may add some calcium. So that's the other thing if you're, if you're in that bracket that need calcium, so probably, you know, sort of that maybe 60s Plus, we start to get concerned about calcium intake, then it's good to get the ones that are fortified in calcium. So I have calcium added. So another macro brand that Woolworths has calcium added, the Aldi brand has calcium added. Yeah, so and then, you know, the other ingredient that typically is in there is a bit of salt, they may add a bit of salt, salt, fine. It's not much salt. And that's generally all you should see. You don't want to be seeing much more. Some do fortified with other vitamins. So I know there's a brand that's called like, like milk or like milk, I think it's like milk. So what they've done is tried to create a version of milk that's not milk that's plant based, that has similar minerals and vitamins and calcium to milk. Yes, hence the name. There's so many versions of milk alternatives out there go the cleanest, least ingredients and make sure you understand what the ingredient is, before you buy it

Shannon Coolican: 6:40

Okay, great. That's very good to know. I didn't know all the different types of almond milk and the percentage of stuff as well. So it's great to know. Until the next question. I know everyone's very worried, especially kind of vegans and vegetarians about their kind of protein intake. And if they're not eating meat, how can they get the correct kind of protein intake that we need, especially when exercising? So how are we able to get more protein without eating more meat?

Anthony Hartcher: 7:08

Sure, absolutely. It was great question because particularly after the movie Game Changes are now sort of documentary it's a very one sided documentary. I don't know if you can call it a documentary but yeah, the Game Changes certainly make people more aware of the growing intakes of meat we have and and the health concerns around too much excessive meat intake. Just before we go on to answering these questions, I probably would like to share some brands of the milk alternatives that are clean. So sorry, just want to rewind a bit is Australia Australia's own which is available in Coles and Woolworths, Australia's Own Macro bran from Woolworths, then you've got the Audi just organic brands you got there innergoodness brand, which is generally clean, I know the milks very clean, but some of the the milks probably not so good. But they're just organic brands fantastic. Pure harvest is another one that's available, Coles and Woolworths and Nutty Brews, and InsideOut some of the local players that have a really high percentage of Armand, so if you're looking for that creamy texture, then 90 Bruce and inside out have that really creamy texture, however, they come at a cost a bit more expensive. So um, and also, just one other point, before I go on to that question is the unsweetened is what you want to get? So some of them have a lot of sweeteners added to them, you want to get the unsweet unsweetened version. Okay, so getting back to the, the protein and protein alternatives. So there's the plant based proteins and nuts, seeds, legumes, and grains. So, I guess, you know, people want to become a sort of more plant based data, but then they're concerned about the carbohydrates. Well, you have to accept if you're going plant based, you're going to have more carbs with the protein. So certainly legumes and grains have a fair percentage of carbs. With protein nuts and seeds have a good balance between good fats, protein and carbs. So the nuts and seeds are probably the lower carbs, but then I'm certainly not one for and particularly when you're exercising. You do need carbohydrates. So low carbs, certainly not recommended. Certainly, I don't advocate that and, and yeah, so I think finding the balance between plant base and animal because with the animal protein, you're going to get B 12. There's no no b 12 in plant based sources, and that's that's critical. When you're talking about building Protein, you need a B 12 to help synthesise the amino acids to build the chains up to make the proteins. So be tools critical. And so you know, if you got to watch it if you are vegetarian or vegan that you are either supplementing with B 12. Or every now and then you have the occasional animal meat. So I hope that you've got any other questions around that. So Shannon.

Shannon Coolican: 10:30

Yep, sorry, the next one goes on. The next one kind of rolls on to the similar question. So if someone wants to go vegan or vegetarian, kind of what are the definitions of these kinds of diets? And what are the benefits to becoming vegan or vegetarian?

Anthony Hartcher: 10:49

Yeah, great question. So there's lots just like there's lots of variations of milk. There's lots of variations of vegetarianism. So there's the the lacto vegetarian, and that's someone that consumes dairy products, as well as just having plant based products, but they'll have dairy, so they have milk and cheese, yoghurt. And then there's the OVO, which is the ones the vegetarians that also had egg. So eggs included, then you have the combination where it's lacto ovo vegetarian, where they have, I guess, you know, as I mentioned, the dairy plus the eggs, as well as being vegetarian. So essentially, the lacto ovo people that don't want to consume meat, yep. And then you got the pescatarian, which is the They eat fish only of the meats, so they won't eat any land animals. So, and then vegan is no animals. So it's it's purely plant based diet. And so there's no animal products whatsoever. And, you know, in terms of the benefits, there's, there's lots of benefits. And you know, a lot of those benefits were covered in the game changers documentary. So yes, you do. Your body responds really well, it does, if you consume the right types of plant based products, if you know, if you're just eating, like all the, you know, as I mentioned, all the protein sources and not having all the leafy greens, then you're not really doing it in a healthy way. So you do need to have the wide variety, when you're, you know, being a vegetarian or vegan, lots of different colours, you know, that's what you want to be doing is chasing the colours and, and varying it up. So every time you go to the supermarket, you buy a bit different vegetable, different fruits. Because that's how you'll get all your micronutrients covered. In terms of the other benefits packed in, you know, antioxidants, if you're consuming what I just mentioned, lots of antioxidants, lots of phytochemicals. So phyto chemicals are like your fair trial, which is what you know, everyone loves about red wine. You know, there's poly phenols, there's our beta carotenes. So, you know, flavonoids, they're all the phytochemicals and, and the properties that they really help with their antioxidants. They also help with heart health, cardiovascular system, they'll help with Iron Skin Health, particularly the beta carotenes. So yeah, so that's, you're going to get a lot of those minerals and vitamins and also help the, the creation of energy within yourselves, because you have all the cofactors to support energy production. So yeah, so ultimately, you got to be energetic. You'll think really clearly, you should have really good gut digestive health, you'll sleep well. And, you know, you'll perform well, in terms of athletic ability, but you do need to be careful of so you know, the downside against the con side of, you know, going more plant based and removing meats or whatever, is you've got to watch the B12 As I mentioned before, you need to be careful of iron, particularly if you're female and a female athlete, very careful of iron. So you've got to watch your iron intake. You know what you want to be maximising iron absorption all the time but making sure you're having vitamin C's with your iron source and also, you know, having tea tea or coffee around having your iron rich meal. So it's a really important for females. And the other one is calcium. So you know you're not having dairy dairy is an incredible source of calcium. So you need to be making sure that you having plenty of plant based sources of calcium which there are you know, there's tofu and Sesame seeds really high calcium sources as well as your leafy greens, proteins, the other one. So with animal protein, it's complete protein in a sense, it has all the essential amino acids. Whereas plant based protein, they're not really complete. They're only complete if you combine all the proteins, plant based proteins I mentioned. So in a meal, you want to be having nuts, seeds, legumes and grains in a meal, then you're gonna get the complete amino acids or the all the essential amino acids. So I know I've talked a lot about that, but certainly, I think I've covered the, you know, the pros and cons of that vegetarian veganism.

Shannon Coolican: 15:46

Yep. Great. Okay, so a lot of our clients in the gym at Longevity are coming to the gym to lose weight. And obviously through what as you walk through the aisles of different supermarkets, all you see is kind of Weight Watchers different types of shakes that advertise that they can either cut kilos off off your body. So would you kind of recommend weight loss shakes as a good way to lose weight?

Anthony Hartcher: 16:15

Look, yeah, I think the best way to answer this is depending on your goal. So if you've got a short term goal, such as, you know, you want to lose weight for a wedding, or you know, for a shoot or your portrait photos or whatever, you know, for that sort of really short term objective, then it can be supportive. It's not a great long term approach. And it's not something you can sustain for long periods of time. So it's good for, you know, maybe a four week period, because it's really hard to maintain it any longer than that, and I wouldn't, it's not probably not healthy. You know, because a lot of these shapes do contain a lot of additives. As I mentioned before, they're not that clean. I think the most cleaners brand I've seen in terms of those shakes, is the Amazonia Amazon is very clean, has all the ingredients that you recognise, it's all plant based, that's organic. So I really like the Amazonia brand, if you're going to look for one. Don't, don't be fooled by the celebrities that endorse particular brands, I can guarantee that they probably don't use it, they get paid to do the advert advertisement, so just be cautious of that. And yes, it's convenient to so if you're really busy and you're wanting sort of to have a meal replacement, then it can be an okay meal replacement. If you do have the weight loss powder or whatever the protein shake, there, make sure you just add, you know, a handful of spinach and you know, add some grains to add some frozen berries just get some, you know, living living energy or like I guess that that natural intelligence is a good way of putting it plant based sources into it. And the other thing you need to be cautious of is a lot of these sort of protein bars, shakes and all that contain a lot of the sugar alcohols and other sweeteners so they can avoid sort of, they can get it super sweet without having a high sugar content on the label. So it's a marketing ploy. So just be aware of that, because some of these sugar alcohols are really bad for gut health. And they can also create diarrhoea. So you may get the runs if you have too many of these protein bars or shakes that have a lot of these sugar alcohols. And also be careful careful of the caffeine content. So you know some of them have caffeine to sort of stimulate that fat burn. So you can use caffeine can creep up on you and might affect your sleep. So yeah, that's my long and short answer.

Shannon Coolican: 18:57

Um, as someone who really loves bread and our bread is quite similar to the milk alternatives, there's so many different types of bread that people like and don't like. What would you recommend is kind of the healthiest type of bread to be eating.

Anthony Hartcher: 19:11

Yeah, I really love the traditional forms of breads. So the sourdough. So the sourdough is a bread that have gone through a fermentation process. And that fermentation process really helps with the digestion of that bread. So sourdoughs are certainly on top of that list. And again, also the breads that you know you'll see them they'll say, activated seeded bread, activated grain and seeded bread. Activated means that it's also well prepared for ready for digestion. So they're breads that will digest well they won't sort of you know don't get that sort of bloaty feel with them. And again, you want to get them you know, if you're buying them package then you want to have the least amount of ingredients on them. There's a good line of notice that Coles and Woolworths caught our Bills Bakery. So it's organic bread, organic sourdough bread, and it's quite affordable. And then you got like the Sonoma some of these ease ease is another Sydney brands. They all baked on premises and use that traditional sourdough sourdough method. So yeah, the sprouted seed of breads, which you'll get from your health food stores and your organic food stores. And then you've got that more you know, the sourdough you can get from the back bakery.

Shannon Coolican: 20:35

Okay, what about if you were to walk through like a supermarket and you were to see kind of like the whole meal, the white sliced bread, the rye bread in that kind of sense of those packaged breads, what would you say would probably be the best? Yeah,

Anthony Hartcher: 20:46

so darkness is best. So you want to steer away from the white the whites more processed and some of these white brands are they use bleach flour. So there's chemicals in the food you're eating, which is no good for your gut health. It's no good for your detoxification pathways or inhibit, you know, white fat loss or inhibit your performance essentially. So avoid that any of those bleach sort of tick tock, tick tock, brandt, heavenly process go so then these soft breads as much as you might like the texture when you're not the more you chew, the more fibre there is the more nourishment there is the more vitamins and minerals so you actually do want to get your more chewy sourdough breads. Because that's where the vitamins and minerals are avoid the the white you know get you're the ones that rye for example, rice are great. Bread is spelt is a good low gluten has gluten but it's low as spelt rice a good version, the for those that are want to avoid wheat. So yeah, I think that's pretty much how I certainly, you know, shopping around for bread. So I'd certainly go the ones that are more dark and more grains and you know, look more whole as opposed to processed.

Shannon Coolican: 22:15

Right, great. There's been a few kind of different diet fads around at the moment, in particular, kind of like a fasting diet. A couple of the people in the gym have spoken to me about is it healthy to kind of do this fasting diet or fast throughout the day? And is it good to exercise? Or what are the benefits to exercise while fasted?

Anthony Hartcher: 22:39

Yep, yeah, great question. And it's very popular, so that intermittent fasting, or that time restricted feeding. So there's different terminologies that people use. You know, it's very popular, I think it's one of the most searched Google diets or, you know, very popular trend at the moment. So just in terms of my thoughts on it, there's certainly evidence based scientific papers that show that it's beneficial and it's beneficial. Really helps from the resting the digestive system, so allowing it to repair and rejuvenate which is important. It helps with gut health. So you know, when we talk gut health, we're talking about our the bacteria that resides within us. So it helps with just maintaining, you know, healthy ecosystem, which also helps with digestion. It helps with energy. So you can feel more energised, helps with clear thinking. So there's some of the benefits of intermittent fasting. Yes, it's there's papers that show that it's advantageous for weight loss in saying that, it's depends on the individual. So you know, I've had great success with some clients and no success with others. So really depends on the individual, and it depends on your gender. So you know, male females, so certainly I noticed males respond really well to it. Females again, to be hit and miss. And so in terms of the, I guess, I need to define what it is. So the intermittent fasting is the like that five and two. So that sort of five diet for five days where you're having normal calorific intake, and then you're having to low very low days of calorific intake. So, you know, you're, you're, you're normal, maybe somewhere around that 1500 to 2000 calories per day, and then you're very low days, so that 500 to 800, depending on if you're male or female, so you know, 800 if you're male, and then 500, if you're female, something like that. So there's the five and two, but the more popular one is the time restrictive feeding, which is commonly known as the 16 and 18. or the you know, it's all variations of that. So there's benefits from restrict, like so time restricted feeding is, you know, just limiting the window which you're eating, consuming foods. So when I say 16, and eight, so that's eight hours of your eating window that you have, and then 16 hours of fasting, that's most of the research is, it's probably the strongest in that 16, an eight sort of variation of it. But there are benefits all the way down to 12 and 12. So that's, you know, resting your digestive system for 12 hours, and then 12 hour eating window. So you will get benefits anywhere between 12 and 16. But most of the studies have been done around that sort of 16 hours. And that's probably where, you know, most of the benefits are saying, if you're going to get a benefit, but as I said, it depends on the individual depends, you know, your agenda. It depends, you know, on your age and things like that. So that and, and ultimately depends on your goals. So, you know, if I'm looking at, you know, you ask the question around fasting, and exercise. So, and that really depends on your goals. So if your goal is I'm, you know, doing training with longevity to transform my body. So I want to get a better body composition, then, you know, certainly, training fasted helps, you know, with losing fat, because it helps with insulin sensitivity, so an improved insulin sensitivity. So it's also beneficial for those that are type two diabetes, for example. It really helped them improving their insulin sensitivity, in terms of the atheletes, then it's going to affect the performance and but then that will, the performance will only be affected depending on the the duration and the intensity of your training time. And so it all gets down to the energy systems, and you guys are experts in that. So I think probably, you know, I'll leave that to you guys. Because you know, you have an intimate understanding of those energies, energy systems, or when you'll be, you know, going into fat burning, and you know, how that will affect your training performance and stuff like that. So. But yeah, from my point of view, and nutritional point of view, it is advantageous to rest our digestive system, we were constantly flooding up with food, and it's not getting enough time to repair and rejuvenate. So I definitely recommend you like 12 and 12, is really easy to do, you know, so last meal at the end of the day is finishes at 7pm. You don't need eight, the next eight or 7am. So that's quite easy to do if you're to eight, eight to eight. So it's 16 and eight a bit more tricky. And what I sometimes notice with people that are doing the 16 and eight is because they will stop eating at a certain time at nighttime and then they can eat pretty much the next day till about 11am or 12pm. What I notice is all their calorie calorific intake is all backloaded at the end of the day, and it can result in a big dinner. And that's not great, you know, going to sleep on a, you know, a large meal, you know, as you know, those, that energy is not going to be expended, and it's going to go straight to storage. So yeah, it's it's a, you know, depends on the individual, as I said, and their goals and yeah, really what they want to achieve by doing it.

Shannon Coolican: 28:38

And And another question that we hear a lot throughout the gym at Longevity, particularly with people that have never really like consulted with a health professional to do with their diet, they haven't consulted with the dietician, they haven't consulted with the nutritionist before, they always ask how nutritionist would help them. So if you could give a few kind of DocPoint explanations on how you, you feel like you would be able to help some of our clients at longevity

Anthony Hartcher: 29:08

dot point, I think I've been answering the questions through a couple of bullet points would be certainly tailored to your objectives. So you know, I've given advice very generic, generic, and hence why it's taken me a pretty long while to answer the question because there's so many variants. Yeah. So with nutritionist, they will cut to the chase and and develop a dietary programme that will help you achieve your goal essentially, and cut through all the, you know, provide that filtering whereas, you know, you could Google intermittent fasting and get all these different, you know, responses and people's opinions on it. But, you know, we we use evidence base behind how we practice and very, you know, aligned to exercise physiology. So, certainly you will get an evidence based programme that's tailored to your directive. So that's my bullet point here.

Shannon Coolican: 30:07

All right, great. Well, I think that you've answered all our questions today that we had from a few clients in the gym very, very well today, Anthony. So thank you for your time. Yeah, so I'd love to kind of recommend some of our clients that Longevity throughout the gym to come and see you with all their nutritional questions and consult with you to do with their diet. So thank you for your time today.

Anthony Hartcher: 30:29

Thanks Shannon. And that you know, I have a special offer to the Longevity members is that I offer to anyone that's associated with Longevity, a free 15 minute consultations so you can contact me the numbers here the back here or you know, you can get in contact with Shannon and or anyone at Longevity in that they could pass on my details and how you can book in that 15 minute session. So I'd love to help you and thanks for your time today. Shannon. I love empowering people with their nutrition knowledge. Thanks very much.