Do I Have to Give Up Meat, Cheese, and/or Eggs? And Other Common Nutrition Questions

Episode 10. I get asked often about my nutrition background. While I have extensive training in psychology and behavior change, my nutrition training is mostly self-study. I did do a 6-week online Plant-Based Nutrition Certification at Cornell University and have read a lot of nutrition books, but I am certainly not a dietitian or trained in the ins and outs of nutrition. I'm also not a physician. For this reason, I rely heavily on my esteemed nutrition and medical colleagues to help us understand the evidence for nutrition and how we can apply it in our lives. Today, I had the pleasure of interviewing my colleague and friend Holly Dykstra, MA, RD, who has her Bachelor's of Science and Master's of Arts in dietetics from Western Michigan University and has worked as a registered dietitian since 2008 in many different hospital-based settings, most recently Preventive Cardiology and Cardiac Rehabilitation where she and I worked together at my previous job. Free Resources Are you struggling to control your eating or feeling stressed about weight gain? Download my free audio guide which walks you through the simple steps of the HOW of anti-dieting. It helps you tune in to your body and make the next positive empowered choice for yourself and your body. Grab that here! Plant-Based, Vegan, Vegetarian, Mediterranean, Oh My! We start by breaking down some of the differences in plant-based diets, Mediterranean diets, vegan diets and what some of the evidence says about the impact of these diets on disease risk. These diets can all fall in the category of "plant-forward" meaning they emphasize plants heavily, but not necessarily exclusively. We dicuss the fact that the Mediterranean diet is very well studied with 5-10 year follow up data. Interestingly, this diet is often more of an overall lifestyle so we can't fully separate the "what people are putting in their mouths" with other health-related factors like being physically active, strong social connections, regular relaxation and self-care behavior