Living A Full Life

Ditch the Diet Books: How Simple Food Habits Create Lifelong Health

• Full Life Chiropractic • Season 3 • Episode 43

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Forget the never-ending debate about which diet reigns supreme. The truth about nutrition is both simpler and more profound than the latest trending eating plan. Drawing wisdom from the world's Blue Zones—regions where people routinely live healthy lives well into their 90s and beyond—we explore what truly matters for long-term wellness when you're an active adult who simply wants to stay healthy.

The secret isn't found in restrictive dieting or complicated rules. It's about cultivating daily habits that naturally support health, just as these long-lived cultures do without ever picking up a diet book. We break down the core principles that work across all healthy eating patterns: prioritizing whole foods, balancing macronutrients without fearing carbs, minimizing inflammatory processed foods, and focusing on protein-centric meals.

Many people find themselves trapped in a frustrating cycle—eating less but unable to lose weight due to metabolic dysfunction caused by years of poor nutrition choices. We explain why this happens and how to reverse it through patient, consistent nutrition that gives your body what it truly needs. The approach is refreshingly straightforward: plan around protein (aiming for roughly one gram per pound of body weight), batch cook healthy basics, shop the perimeter of grocery stores, and make nutritious snacks intentional rather than afterthoughts.

What's most striking about Blue Zone communities isn't just their longevity—it's their quality of life. At 80 or 90, they're still walking, socializing, and enjoying life without the disabilities that many consider inevitable with aging. Their nutrition isn't exciting or Instagram-worthy; it's consistent, seasonal, and embedded in a lifestyle that includes movement and connection. By adopting similar principles, you can create sustainable habits that support not just a longer life, but a fuller one.

Try changing just one habit this week based on these principles and see what happens. Your body might thank you more than you expect.

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Speaker 1:

today we're talking about the best diet to follow if you're an adult who isn't a professional athlete but you do exercise, move your body and want to stay healthy long term keto, vegan, paleo, mediterranean, intermittent fasting which is best? Let's simplify it today, on living a full life With me, dr Enrico Dolcecori Thanks for tuning in for another week of living a full life podcast. These are fun. This one's going to be jam-packed, fast-paced and kind of a summary of all the diet workshops and seminars and podcasts that I've done over my career. There is no one diet to follow.

Speaker 1:

If we really want to look around the world, especially the blue zones, they've been studied so well and deeply because they're trying to figure out why do these certain areas live so long and so well? It's not just their centennial age, it's that they really do really well with overall wellness, and that's the beauty of eating well and a healthy diet. So they don't follow a diet, they don't pick up the Mediterranean diet book and eat that way. Their culture surrounds them with daily habits, just fall into good eating and good exercise. And how can we mimic that in our lives, no matter where we live in the US, europe, around the world, wherever we're at how do we mimic that type of behavior to influence our overall health and wellness, to get those types of results? These people live with low osteoarthritis, low inflammatory conditions, balance is great, their lean muscle mass is maintained. They have all these great things that they've maintained because of the daily habits that they're on. They're not on a diet. Their diet is their habits, and we have to start to focus in that type of a way in order to influence health in our life and maintain wellness and influence our children to live healthy lives as well. So those daily habits and what we fill our home and our environment with that keeps us healthy and on point with foods. There's a lot of tempting things out there to get, both at the grocery stores and fast foods, but what we're going to talk about in today's podcast is how to surround ourselves with things that will just influence us easily to do the right things habitually. That's the focus of this podcast today. So there's some core rules to follow.

Speaker 1:

When we talk about diet, we need to prioritize whole foods. This is just number one to the foundation of this. If we don't do this, the rest all just falls apart. It has to be whole food based. We can't be opening up boxes and cans and packages and expecting health in return health and wellness. It's not going to happen. It's going to come from the whole foods.

Speaker 1:

Whole foods have everything that we need. That's why they're called whole. They have everything we need in them for our macro and micronutrients in the human body. So we've got to prioritize whole foods like vegetables, fruits, lean proteins, healthy fats and even whole grains. Whole grains is what we want a little bit in our diet as well. And then we want number two is to balance our macronutrients.

Speaker 1:

Don't fear carbs. They're not bad. We have to get these carbs in. It's just. Where are we getting these carbs? They have to come from whole foods, fruits. That's where our carbohydrates have to come from Fruits, grains and vegetables. Fats are very important and proteins. Each plays a role in the human body and are the foundational building blocks to everything that we do Our hormones, our cells, our skin everything is built off of the macro and micronutrients that we eat. So we have to minimize processed foods. They're around, they're tempting, they're there all the time.

Speaker 1:

Your job as a parent and as an adult is to minimize the purchasing of these things and the consumption of these things. It just has to be a rule. You just don't walk through the middle aisle. You don't buy a lot of packaged stuff Reduced added sugars, refined oils, fried foods and packaged snacks. Sugars, refined oils, fried foods and packaged snacks. If you do that, the 90% of everything else you buy is going to be good.

Speaker 1:

It's the number one thing in Western culture that has crept into our homes and into our diets. That is, the number one cause of most of the diseases that we can link back to is from processed foods. We know this, we all know this. You can't pretend like this is the first time you've heard this. We know this.

Speaker 1:

Minimize the processed foods and I also get an understanding of what processed foods are. Some of you are like okay, I'll pick up the Oreos, but everything else is good. No, if it's packaged and processed in a plant, there is no wholeness to that food. It is diminished and it's filled with salts, msgs, preservatives, sugars and rancid oils. That's the problem with these foods.

Speaker 1:

They actually cause inflammation. That's the issue with processed foods. Once you eat them, it's kerosene on the fire and it causes more inflammation. Then what we have to do, because we live in this world of processed foods, is eat anti-inflammatory foods berries, leafy greens, fatty fish, olive oil, nuts, turmeric, ginger these things should be in your fridge and in your home at all times because they act as anti-inflammatories when you cook with them or eat with them, they're wonderful to have in your home. We need to hydrate well. Another reason for inflammations we're just a little dehydrated sometimes. So water first. We have to be drinking water. A hundred ounces of water per day limit. Carbohydrate drinks, sugary drinks and excessive alcohol these things just cause more inflammation in the body. So, minimizing the bad, accelerating the good that's the blue zones around the world and what they do. I think one major thing about most of the blue zones, aside from California's blue zone and Italy's blue zone well, I think just California's blue zone zone is they don't have access to all the processed foods as readily as maybe that group in California. But the other blue zones around the world Japan, greece, italy, costa Rica these places don't have access to the amount of processed foods like other areas, and that's one of their successes is because they just don't have it. They're not tempted with it, they don't have it and that is why they live healthier.

Speaker 1:

When we say healthier, it's not just living to a hundred. It's making it to 90 years old and walking, and still being able to walk, go down the street with the dog, come back. That at 90 is great. When somebody on your 80th birthday asks you would you like to come golfing, you're like, yeah, I could go, do nine holes, let's go. That is what health is all about being able being able to do the things that you want to do and not being disabled. Does that make sense In a way of old age crippling us down? That is the definition of longevity and health. So Timing, timing Last one here. Timing matters less than quality. Aim for consistent meals to support energy and exercise recovery.

Speaker 1:

Another problem in America, specifically in the Western world, is people under-eat, under-eat and are obese. It's a conundrum, it's confusing, but really, when you look underneath, in the panels and the hormones and what's going on on the inside, they've wrecked the hormonal balance in their body from all the yo-yo dieting in their lives and now their endocrine system just doesn't work as well as it used to. They're insulin sensitive. They are thyroid paralyzed. They have a lot of issues that are going on that even though they eat low calorie, they're not able to lose the weight. Their body hangs onto it because of the nutrition that they're eating is processed. So the body sees this, it digests it. There's not the macronutrients that it needs and it puts the body into starvation mode, thinking that they're just not getting nutrition and that they're dying. So they don't want to lose weight. That's what happens in starvation mode is we just don't want to lose the weight. It's metabolic catastrophe and that's why we get stuck.

Speaker 1:

What do you do to reverse that? Very difficult to reverse it. What you do is you eat more food whole foods and then eliminate anti-inflammatory foods, and this takes time. You have to be patient, you have to do it for a while. And what happens with the nutrition? Over time, it replenishes the body. The body heals properly. We've seen thyroid start to function better, we've seen pituitary start to function better. We've seen sex hormones start to produce better and all of a sudden now the increase in the natural metabolic changes in the body start to burn fat. So just through food I didn't even mention anything about exercise just by doing that, we have to get ourselves out of the rut of the metabolic syndrome that we're in.

Speaker 1:

So timing matters. We have to eat meals throughout the day. That is what the blue zones do too. As soon as they start to feel a little bit of hunger, they drink water and then eat a snack or eat their meal, and it's time they wake up. In the morning, they have the routine, lunch they have the routine, and dinner they have the routine. And I'm going to show you these routines in this podcast today.

Speaker 1:

Here's some meal planning tips. Before we talk about the foods. I know that you just want to hear doc just tell me what to eat. I'll do it. No, you won't, but you'll. You think you're going to do it. But here's a tip. We had a plan for success.

Speaker 1:

So plan around protein. This is tip number one. Each time you're going to eat, you have to think what's the protein I'm going to eat? Because if you don't think that, then grabbing some crackers and some cheese and some carbohydrates and some fruit and some blueberries and whatever processed foods we grab chips, all the snacky stuff that we grab is all high in carbohydrates and bad fats. There's very low protein in them. So if we don't think protein first, this is how we really tip the scales to a very high carbohydrate and fat diet and a low protein diet, which is metabolic disaster.

Speaker 1:

So plan around protein. Start with lean proteins first Chicken, fish, eggs, legumes, greek yogurt and build meals from there. I told you about meats, I told you about vegetarian options. I just told you I covered everyone's bases right there with just those five, six examples. So think of protein. First, batch cook. Then we want to batch cook and prepare meals. Prepare proteins, roasted veggies and grains in bulk. To save time, cook a batch of roasted veggies, cook a batch of chicken, cook a batch of, or a whole pot of rice or quinoa or whatever it is for you, so that you can portion it and plan it for your lunches throughout the next two, three days.

Speaker 1:

Shop the perimeter of the grocery store. That rule still applies well for most grocery stores. It avoids the central aisles where all the processed food is, and that's where all the fresh food live. For a majority of the stores. It's a good rule to follow.

Speaker 1:

Make snacks intentional. Don't just wait till you're hungry and go grab the carbohydrate, the pretzels and the chips. What we need to do is we need to plan our snacks. Have them packaged so that we don't get into any trouble. Nuts, fruits, hummus with veggies, protein shakes have these readily available so that you can consume them when you need them.

Speaker 1:

Keep it simple, repeatable and seasonal when you need them. Keep it simple, repeatable and seasonal. Rotate two, three breakfasts, three or four lunches and dinners and change with the seasons so that when the watermelon season comes out, you start to bring that in as your fruit and then when the squashes come out in the fall, you start bringing squash into your diet, if you like that stuff, just when those seasonal things come in not pumpkin spice lattes, people, for Pete's sakes. What we're doing is we want to bring in the squashes, the other ones, the spaghetti squash, the other squashes, and bring those in in the falls and start maybe cooking with them as our veggies. That way we're eating seasonally as well. It keeps a mix of your diet and then gives you some of those micronutrients that you might be missing from time to time and brings them back into the body Higher levels of copper, selenium, zinc, whatever it is that you're missing from some ground vegetables. It's just a great rule to follow. And guess what the blue zones do? They eat seasonally as well.

Speaker 1:

Best meals to prepare here you go the meat and gravy of this podcast. There you go, the meat of this podcast. Give breakfast ideas. There's two ways to do this. I eat almost the same breakfast virtually every day. I just default to it. It's egg whites, an egg, maybe some deli turkey or some ground turkey in it, veggies, if I have time to chop them up, and either oatmeal as a carb or a piece of Dave's bread with peanut butter or almond butter on it. It's just a well-rounded 45, 50 gram of protein meal, 30 grams of carbs, 12 grams of fat. It's just one of those 475 calorie breakfast. That just starts me off the right way. But ideas for you overnight oats with chia seeds, berries, almond butter, peanut butter, whatever it is. Veggie omelet with avocado or a side of fruit Any fruit you choose. Berries are the best. Greek yogurt with walnuts, flax seeds and blueberries. There you go. When your kids are like I want to wait for breakfast, get them excited about Greek yogurt, get them excited about avocado Omelets, toast with their almond butter on it. These types of start your kids off to a great morning as well. But for you, those are some examples there as well.

Speaker 1:

It's not cereal, pancakes, cupcakes, starbucks, drive-thru. That's not breakfast. It's just rancid oils, too high in fat and a lot of carbohydrates. It's just not protein centric fat and a lot of carbohydrates, it's just not protein centric. Some lunch ideas Grilled chicken salad with mixed greens, olive oil and quinoa it's a great lunch. Lentil soup with side of roasted sweet potato, turkey wrap in a whole grain, tortilla with hummus and veggies. Just off the top of my head. You can substitute other proteins there ground beef, fish, whatever you want to make. Different salads, different mixes.

Speaker 1:

I typically default to either chicken mostly chicken or salmon, roasted veggies and some quinoa or rice. That's my typical go-to lunch. The roasted veggies may switch up every week. There may be onion, zucchini, eggplant in one of them, then another one, cauliflower, onions, mushrooms and another maybe just cauliflower or just broccoli, whatever you mix it up. But I'm eating the same seven or eight veggies all day. I'm eating the same three or four proteins every day and I'm eating the same four fruits every day and then, as the seasons come in, we're like, oh, pineapples are out, or oh, watermelon is out, or oh, it's cherry season or whatever it is. Then you substitute those in and you have a variety of fruits as the year goes on. Dinner ideas baked salmon, steamed broccoli, roasted potatoes they can be yellow potatoes, they can be sweet potato, they can be whatever you like. Stir fry with lean beef, colorful veggies and brown rice, chickpea curry and spinach and cauliflower rice, making it all fun.

Speaker 1:

Once you start to learn how foods work, you realize the macronutrient portions start to become a lot easier to follow once you're protein centric, if you make sure your protein is there. Now how much protein should you be eating? You've heard everything from half a gram of per pound of your body weight all the way up to I've heard two grams, which is ridiculous. So what is right? If you walk 10,000 steps a day and you eat well, this is the rule you want to follow. You want to eat one gram per pound of body weight. So if you're 175 pounds, you want to eat 175 grams.

Speaker 1:

Aim for 175 grams of protein per day to maintain your lean muscle mass. If we're in a weight loss program, we go down a little bit. If we're in a bodybuilding program, we go a little bit higher. But that's not most of us. That's very few of us that are doing that at the time. Most of us are trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle. That's the rule from the literature that shows how to prevent sarcopenia, how to maintain lean muscle mass, how to be stronger boned when you're 80, less falls when you're 80, better balance when you're 80. That's where the research all points back to about one gram per pound of your body weight. Okay, that's when we want to look at that.

Speaker 1:

So let's say it's 175 grams of protein per day. So 200 times four that's almost 800 calories of your diet, which is about seven. Let's say 720 calories per day of your 2000 calorie diet is going to be protein works out to about 35% of your diet, of your macronutrients. The other 35% should be carbohydrates and then you're left with about 30% of your diet fats. That's the simple rule. It's simple. It works really well. It's the blue zone way of living life and people are very successful on it. Some snacks apple slices with almond butter or peanut butter my kids like that for morning breakfasts and snacks. Carrots and hummus Just hummus has a lot of protein in it. Protein smoothie with spinach, banana and plant-based protein powder to just pack it up with some more protein in there as well. So that's some food for thought. That is the diet basis that just works.

Speaker 1:

When we're in a bodybuilding program, we work with coaches to help us with the diet and the workouts to supplement that. We eat more protein, we push heavier weights in the gym to try and build muscle. That's anabolic. Anabolic dieting, dieting. Then there's catabolic dieting, which is breaking down, losing weight. That again is usually coached. We want to have a coach for that.

Speaker 1:

We do the math. We put you in a calorie deficit from 2000 down to maybe a 400 calorie deficit to 1600. See how that goes and see how the weight starts to come off. But at first we have to have a healthy metabolic system in order to either gain weight or lose weight. So if you're in that category, then you just need a little bit of help. But the fundamental is fix the diet first. Then you're going to start to see results immediately. If you're overweight and you eat like this, you're going to just naturally lose some weight by doing this. It's just the way it goes. If you're underweight, you're just naturally going to put on a little bit more weight because your body is going to be fulfilled with nutrients. It's really cool what ends up happening for a lot of people. And if you're just sick and tired of being sick and tired and you do this, I guarantee you you're going to feel better in most ways Maybe not always, but in most ways you're going to notice a difference.

Speaker 1:

Health isn't about perfection, it's about consistency.

Speaker 1:

That's what all these blue zones do. It's like their life is on repeat. It's not very exciting. It's not very Netflix. No movies are remade of their lives on Netflix. They're not exciting lives. There's no drama there. They have a lot of friends, they do the same things they sit down and drink coffee. They have time, they have culture, they have social skills, they have socialization. They're not stuck in front of screens, food is joy and they walk everywhere. These are how these cultures all make it, and you can see how different our culture is and where we live off, hopping in the car to go everywhere and doing all these things, and why we end up feeling the way we do. Eat real food, mostly plants, not too much, and include protein in every meal and try and change one habit this week, just for listening from this podcast and see what ends up happening. Give us some feedback, tell us how it went. If you have any more questions, info at fulllifetampacom, let us know. Have a great and healthy week, stay well, stay healthy, Take care.

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Dr. Enrico Dolcecore

Host
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Dr. Christine Hafer

Co-host