I got a good question on a recent video, asking where the line is between intuitive eating and overeating. Given that intuitive eating involves eating whatever you want, whenever you want, as much as you want, I can see how from the outside, it would just seem like constant overeating!
But in fact, intuitive eating is one of the BEST ways to prevent overeating, and there’s a lot of great research backing it up. (See my how-to guide for more details, and to start eating intuitively)
In today’s video, I go over why overeating and intuitive eating are completely different.
The diet industry tries its best to convince you that you need them, but weight loss can be as easy as making small lifestyle changes… and unlike diets, lifestyle tweaks actually lead to sustainable weight loss and maintenance.
And bonus, these kinds of lifestyle changes also make you healthier & feel better.
A powerful example of this that I’ve found in studies is that just drinking more water can lead to a LOT of weight loss! So in today’s video, I go over studies on how you can use water to lose weight, with details on what’s optimal in terms of timing and quantity.
For most of my life, I HATED vegetables. But over the last few years, I’ve turned into a vegetable enthusiast. I often even enjoy them raw with nothing on them. (I can be seen biting into a plain beet or cauliflower, and even having plain arugula, on a regular basis…)
In today’s video, I go over how I went from hating to loving vegetables, and how you can too! Featuring the results of scientific studies (citations below).
As a kid, I HATED vegetables. My parents wouldn’t let me leave the dinner table until I finished my meals, and I often opted to sit for hours rather than eat my salad.
I only started eating vegetables in my undergrad years out of desperate attempts to lose weight, and even then I still didn’t actually like them. They felt more like a punishment.
I started to somewhat enjoy them about 6 years ago when I started eating a high carb low fat diet, and noticed that some foods (like sushi bowls) just happened to taste better with vegetables. And then ~5 years ago I magically started to find salads somewhat enjoyable rather than boring torture. (It also helped that I learned how to make vegetables more exciting with better recipes!)
And then, about 2 years ago, I started completely focusing on intuitive eating instead of following any diet. I stopped caring about weight loss, and started caring about having a healthy relationship with food. I just ate whatever I craved, whenever I wanted to.
And inexplicably, a huge chunk of the time, what I naturally craved was (and is)… VEGETABLES!
Now that I was fully eating according to my cravings, I could see just how much I craved healthy food. And I noticed I naturally stopped liking sugary or hyperpalatable things as much.
Now I can down this entire jar of my pickled veggies in a couple of days…
So how did I have such a dramatic shift in tastes?
Based on all the studies I’ve read on diet science, I have a feeling that it was because of gut bacteria.
First, we know that what we eat changes our gut microbiome, by changing the types and relative quantities of different types of bacteria. And those bacteria do a lot of our digesting for us. For example, studies show that eating more plants changes our gut microbiome to have more plant-digesting bacteria, which then makes us more efficient at digesting plants1.
Second, there is evidence that our gut microbiome can actually influence what we crave2, and even how much we eat3.
So what we end up with is a feedback loop where eating more vegetables changes your gut microbiome to have more veggie-loving bacteria, and those bacteria then make you crave more vegetables.
On the flip side, it can also be a vicious cycle, depending on the food: if you eat a lot of processed food, you get a gut full of processed-food-loving bacteria, which then makes you crave more of it.
The key is to get yourself into the cycle you WANT to be in. And to get into a vegetable-craving cycle, the first step is to just eat more vegetables. (A mix of both raw and cooked, ideally!)
I suggest doing this in the most palatable ways you can manage so that you’re not having to force yourself to eat them. You don’t want to associate vegetables with torture. For example, you can try hiding vegetables in other foods: add spinach to your smoothies, riced cauliflower to your normal rice, and greens in your chili. (If you want to get extra creative, you can add pureed mushrooms to soups, chilis, pasta, etc… that’s how I get my husband to eat them, since he hates their texture!) I have more suggestions in the video too.
And at some point, I bet you’ll naturally find yourself naturally liking vegetables even without having to hide or disguise them.
(Another tip: if you fall in love with vegetable gardening as much as I have, you’ll discover that vegetables are actually pretty magical 😛 )
Mainstream nutrition media loves to talk about how the type of omega 3 that comes from fish is way better than vegan sources of omega 3… but the actual science seems to say otherwise. I found a study that looked at blood levels of omega 3 in 5,000 vegans, vegetarians, fish eaters, and meat eaters, and go over it in my latest video!
Diet culture likes to demonize chocolate, but what if I told you that eating more chocolate can actually make you lose weight? There are a surprisingly large number of scientific studies on this (at least 35), finding that just adding chocolate to people’s diets made them lose weight–but it does depend on how long they ate the chocolate for, and the type and dose of chocolate.
I go over all the details in the video on how you can use chocolate to lose weight!
Today I’m going over a study looking at how eating with a spoon versus a straw actually affects how much you eat–of the same food–in a meal! I also talk about how eating liquids vs solids cause overeating, and whether you should be concerned about liquid calories.
If you like to eat unprocessed foods (like I do!), then you might be wondering (like I did :P) whether blending/juicing “counts” as processing in how it affects your weight loss and satiety. In today’s video, I go over 2 studies looking at whether having whole fruit, smoothies, or juice is better for satiety and weight loss.
Have you ever wondered which exercise is best for your specific situation and goals?
Today I have a video for you where I go over the best type of cardio (high vs low intensity) for you depending on your:
Goals: Body recomposition, weight loss, maintenance, or gain
Diet: Normal, high carb low fat, whole food plant based, or keto
Current rate of weight loss
I also talk about how long you would have to walk to burn the same amount of calories and fat as running, and I show you how the calories burned from an exercise doesn’t tell the whole story.
In today’s video, I go over studies on walking for weight loss. Specifically, I share how much weight you can lose from walking according to the research, how walking compares to running and biking in terms of weight loss and body fat percentage loss, and what speed/effort level to walk at to lose the most weight.
I’m a big fan of muffins. And when I’m craving muffins, I also tend to be in a lazy mood. Something about weekend mornings…
But, I also strive to make my diet as high in whole, unprocessed foods as possible.
These muffins solve both of those problems. They’re oil-free and *almost* all whole foods (besides the sugar), are packed with nutrition from nuts & oats, flexible with the type of ingredients you use, and are super easy to make. Literally less than 15 minutes for prep & dishwashing time. You don’t even need a bowl–just a blender or food processor!
Makes one dozen muffins
Ingredients:
3 cups rolled oats*
3/4 cup nuts–I do half walnuts half cashews
6 tbsp maple syrup
6 tbsp vegan white sugar or brown sugar**
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 tsp baking soda
1 & 3/4 cups water
Optional add-ins: chocolate chips, chopped nuts
*If you have oat allergies, you can substitute rye flakes
**If you want to try substituting the sugar out for more syrup to make them more wfpb, I bet it would work great, just use less water!
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Add all ingredients (besides the optional add-ins) to a blender or food processor and blend until the oats are in tiny pieces–about the size of breadcrumbs. The batter will be very thin, like pancake batter.
If using add-ins, stir them into the batter.
Distribute batter evenly in a greased 12-cup muffin tin.
Bake for 20 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
