Jake: Dr. Art Mollen is here with us today. I’ve got one for you. A lot of people talk about diets. What’s the best diet out there?
Dr. Art: The best diet is no diet and it’s basically the lifestyle at the end of the day. You have to commit to certain changes that you’re going to make not only with your diet but your exercise program as well. You know, if I had to underscore one important ingredient in your diets it is fiber. Fiber is the most important ingredient in your diet.
It’ll help your cholesterol, it’ll help your diabetes, it’ll help lower your blood pressure, and it’ll improve your overall bowel function as well. So I think fiber is what people eat too little of.
Jake: Could I get some examples of fiber?
Dr. Art: People often think about fiber and they go, “Oh hey, I eat oatmeal, that’s fiber.” but what I’m talking about is non soluble fiber. Oatmeal is basically a soluble fiber meaning it gets absorbed into the body and it’s not going to help to lower the cholesterol or lower your blood sugar like the non soluble fiber, which is broccoli, which is cauliflower, which is lettuce. So, you want to try to follow what we call cruciferous vegetables, meaning they’re rough. They’re going to be taken out of the body more easily, it’s going to increase your metabolism and wash out the sugar wash along with the cholesterol.
The other thing is minimize the pasta, the rice, the potatoes and the bread. Those four are the killer of man. They’ll increase your weight,will increase your body fat, increase your cholesterol and, increase your blood sugar.
So those are the four things that you need to watch out for and good substitutes for those are salads, fruits, vegetables. An apple has 4.2 grams of fiber in a single apple. Try to eat a couple apples a day. What you want to focus on is try to get to the point that you’re consuming 30 to 35 grams of fiber a day. Most people consume 15 grams of fiber or less. So you want to increase the fiber in the dot the other thing is water, you know, you need to have at least 10 glasses 8-ounce glasses of water a day. I mean that’s going to help to increase your metabolism wash everything out when we talk about a diet again.
It’s a long-term commitment and you’re going to incorporate exercise along with and everybody’s very different. Everybody’s different. Everybody’s going to tolerate different foods and some people will think they have Celiac disease or they’re going to think that they are lactose intolerant. You may have sensitivities to different Celiac products or different lactose products, but you may not actually have the truth condition.
Jake: Dr. Art as always. I love the pointers. Stick to the fight!