It Starts With Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways (35 page)

If your health status is toward the left end of the continuum, perhaps just starting to exercise and eat healthier, restoring your
health
takes priority over fueling your athletic performance. In that case, we don’t think you need carbohydrate post-workout, regardless of the duration of your high-intensity activity. You have thousands of calories stored in your body already, and adding a bunch of carbs in any one sitting isn’t the smartest hormonal strategy when you’re already insulin resistant. Therefore, your post-workout meal should include
only
protein.

If you are closer to the lean, healthy, performance-oriented end of the spectrum, you’ll need to start replenishing calories (and glycogen stores) after even short-duration activity to maintain performance levels and muscle mass. Follow our recommendations and include both protein and varying levels of carbohydrate in your post-workout window.

If you are pregnant or breast-feeding, you know how important Mom’s nutrition is to her baby’s health and development, and we believe that the diet that’s healthiest for
you
is also going to be the healthiest for your baby. The more nutrition Mom receives from her diet, the more she is able to pass along to the little one—and there is no diet more nutritious than one that focuses on healthy protein and fat, vegetables, and fruits.

However, you’ll want to make some minor tweaks to your healthy-eating plan, as your nutritional needs (and those of your baby) are different during these special times. Recommendations for pregnancy include:

• Protein:
  A very
  high protein diet
  isn’t the healthiest thing for your baby, and may contribute to low birth weight, poor feeding, and other longer-term effects. Pregnant women should limit protein consumption to
  no more than
  20 percent of total calories. (Nature usually helps us out here—many women report an aversion to, or loss of appetite for, protein during pregnancy.)
  
• Total Calories:
  While pregnant, it’s critical for you to consume enough calories. Make sure you are incorporating more starchy vegetables and healthy fats into your diet to make sure you’re not underfeeding yourself or your baby. Sipping on a can of coconut milk throughout the day is a easy way to add calories.
  
• Omega-3 Fatty Acids:
  EPA and especially DHA
  provide excellent benefits for your baby’s neurological and early visual development, and may reduce the risk of pregnancy complications like preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, postpartum depression, and pre-term delivery. We recommend shooting for 300 mg of DHA per day while you are pregnant (but do not exceed a total of 1 gram of EPA and DHA combined).
  
• Prenatal Vitamins:
  The problem with most
  prenatal vitamins
  is that they contain too many potentially harmful nutrients (like iron and folic acid) and not enough of what a pregnant woman really needs (like vitamins D
  3
  and K
  2
  ). It’s best to meet as many of your nutritional needs as possible with food, even while pregnant. That said, the recommended amounts of certain nutrients, like folate, vitamin K
  2
  , and vitamin D, during pregnancy may be difficult to obtain solely through diet. For this reason, taking a prenatal vitamin with the appropriate nutrients in the right dosages and forms may be a good insurance policy. You want at least 1,000 IUs of vitamin D
  3
  , 500 mcg of vitamin K
  2
  (MK-4 form), and 800 mcg of folate (not folic acid). A good choice is Nutrient 950 with vitamin K from Pure Encapsulations.
  

While breast-feeding, the same protein restrictions are not necessary. However, breast-feeding mothers need to make sure their hydration and caloric intake are adequate for ongoing lactation. Most women’s appetites are stimulated when they breast-feed, and increasing fat intake is the best way to keep up the calories. Keep coconut milk or individual packets of coconut butter on hand, or snack on olives or avocado—and make sure you always have a bottle of water on standby.

Omega-3 supplementation is just as important while breast-feeding as it is during pregnancy. Continue taking the same daily dose of EPA and DHA while you are lactating.

Once again, we believe that the diet that is healthiest for us grown-ups is also healthiest for growing children. There isn’t a single nutrient in cereals, biscuits, or formulas that can’t also be found in healthy meats, vegetables, and fruits!

For infants, breast milk is the perfect food. The scientific literature supports the health benefits of breast milk, reporting that infants who are
breast-fed
have lower rates of respiratory illness and ear infections as babies, and lower rates of type 1 diabetes, asthma, and allergies as adults. Better yet, babies who are breast-fed longer grow up to have higher IQs than those who are breast-fed for fewer months. Because of the numerous advantages breast milk provides for an infant’s development, we encourage mothers to breast-feed for longer than twelve months, if possible.

Once your infant is weaned, there is no need to supplement his or her real-food diet with cow’s milk! Once a cow starts eating grass, it does not return to suckle—that’s simply not natural, biologically appropriate behavior. And while cow’s milk perfectly supports the needs of a rapidly growing calf, your baby has different nutritional requirements.

Since your kids are working so hard to grow into adults (though we can’t imagine why they want to do that), they need plenty of calories to support growth, activity, and normal cognitive development. But eating well isn’t
just
about getting adequate protein, fat, and carbohydrates—
micronutrients
also contribute significantly to our health, and that of our children. One significant reason that fresh, unprocessed foods like meat, vegetables, fruit, and good fats are so healthy is that these foods supply generous amounts of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients—the stuff that directly benefits your child’s health. Choosing foods that supply adequate calories and copious amounts of micronutrition is the “best-case scenario” for growing kids, from toddlers to teenagers.

Your child’s diet should comprise nutrient-dense foods that require minimal preparation—beef, chicken, and fish; sweet potato, carrots, and spinach; blueberries, cantaloupe, and plums; avocado, olives, and coconut milk.

Sound familiar?

It should!

As we’ve mentioned once or twice, eating Good Food confers a
host
of benefits on us adults, including effortless weight management, decreasing systemic inflammation, optimizing hormonal levels, and reducing the risk for a number of lifestyle-related diseases and conditions. And kids are just adults-in-the-making, right? This same food promotes
their
healthy immune function, supports activity and growth, and contributes a wide variety of micronutrients that have been shown to decrease risk of (and improve) conditions such as asthma, allergies, ADHD, and various autoimmune diseases.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, much in the way foods like sugar, grains, legumes, and dairy negatively affect
our
health, they also have a negative impact our children’s health—perhaps even more so, as their immature immune system and GI tract can be even more vulnerable than ours. Even in the youngest of us, typical “kid foods” like milk, yogurt, cereal, peanut butter, and bread can promote systemic inflammation, create immune system dysfunction, and increase the risk of diseases like type 1 diabetes.

Lots of parents we’ve talked to say, “But my kids don’t like vegetables …” or, “But my son
loves
his sugary breakfast cereals.” This is where we often get into trouble, asking, “Does your toddler do his own grocery shopping?” Admittedly, we don’t know how difficult it is to try to take away a child’s Golden Grahams—although we can imagine, knowing how hard it is for our adult Whole30 participants to change
their
eating habits. But until your children are buying their own food with their own money, you as the parent are the single largest supplier of your child’s nutritional needs. And we believe it’s just as critical to your children’s long-term success to feed them healthy food as it is to make sure they don’t drop out of school after the third grade.

Admittedly, getting kids to love Good Food is easier said than done, especially if they’re accustomed to sweeter, more processed foods. But we think that there are few parental duties more noble than loving your children wholeheartedly, and feeding them as best you can.

Even if you have to fight them on it.

Even if they go to bed hungry for a night or two.

Even if you have to resort to the old standbys:

“I’ve had rheumatoid arthritis since childhood. As a waitress, I used to get to the end of the day, and my feet, knees, and hips would hurt so much. My joints were always swollen and stiff, and I’ve tried numerous medications that failed to provide relief. After consulting with Dallas and Melissa, I changed my diet and started taking a high-quality fish oil to help get my inflammation in check. After my Whole30, I was completely pain-free for the first time since diagnosis.
My joint stiffness and swelling were gone, I was able to go off my medication, and I no longer hurt after a long day on my feet. And I’ve been able to maintain my pain-free status as long as I stay compliant with my program.”

—Amber H., Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada

While the idea of getting all of your necessary micronutrition from real food, water, and your environment sounds lovely, it’s not always feasible. We’re not 100 percent perfect eaters, and our food and environment don’t always supply us with the nutrition we need—even if we’re eating Good Food on a regular basis.

In some cases, supplementing with natural compounds already found in the healthy foods we eat, and in our natural environments, can help us shore up our already excellent nutrition. But hear us clearly:

Vitamins and other supplements may
promise
to supply the missing nutrients we’re not getting from our food or our environment—but that’s a promise yet to be fulfilled.
Nutrients delivered by foods
taken directly from their natural environment (like vegetables, fruit, and meat) contain phytonutrients and enzymes that are not—and in some cases
cannot
be—included in any supplement. And remember, these micronutrients work synergistically with other compounds
in your total diet
to provide their health-promoting benefits.

Our takeaway is this: Supplements can never replicate the awesome effects of eating real food. However, that doesn’t mean supplements can’t support an otherwise healthy diet. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that certain supplements (like fish oil or vitamin D
3
) have benefits in the context of a healthy lifestyle that includes eating Good Food. Think about it this way:

So what are our supplement all-stars? Our (short) list follows. These are substances already present in a healthy diet and environment that show clear benefit in the research. Now, we’re not saying you
have
to take these supplements, nor are we saying you should. We are simply discussing compounds that we believe have health-promoting properties and may be able to support your already healthy diet.
^*

You only need to do a quick Web search to discover the benefits of
fish oil
, because there is a
wealth
of scientific literature on this subject. The omega-3 fatty acids, particularly the long-chain forms found in fish oil (EPA and DHA), have been well-documented to have health-promoting effects, including improvement in blood chemistry and a reduced risk for a number of lifestyle-related diseases and conditions. EPA and DHA are natural anti-inflammatory agents, and as such play a role in brain and heart health; protection from cancer, Alzheimer’s, and depression; improvement of skin conditions like psoriasis and acne; fetal brain development; inflammatory bowel disorders; and arthritis, to name a few.