Myth-Busting and Clarity
It doesn't need to be so damn hard and confusing. Also, chip dip for the lake.
The healthiest people eat “clean.”
Right?
We’ve been encouraged to believe that “clean,” organic, whole, non-GMO food is the best path to good health, healthy weight, and disease prevention.
But here’s what so many miss.
The most consistently healthy and happy people aren’t driving themselves mad worrying about chemicals, clean food, stacks of supplements, mold in their coffee, sugar in fruit, toxins in vegetables, or seed oils.
I even saw an influencer on social media this weekend saying blueberries are bad for you. I actually did laugh. People are reaching so hard to stand out and be controversial. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
(Of course that person sells glucose monitors and wants you to be very afraid of any food with carbs in it - even beloved blueberries, which are one of the most antioxidant-rich and lowest carb fruits on the planet. If you’ve already been made afraid of bananas and grapes, I guess it’s time to attack poor lil blueberries. Or something.)
I either hate or love to break it to you but: it’s all just marketing.
I hope that you find that a relief! I sure do.
Here’s the truth:
Consistently healthy people understand how to find plenty of nutrients wherever they are eating. In their own kitchens, of course. But also in restaurants, even gas stations, hotels, food trucks, anywhere really.
As I remind my coaching clients, eating an extra 500+ calories per day of the cleanest, whole-est food will cause weight gain (50 pounds in a year for the average person) and can lead to developing the metabolic health problems related to consuming more energy than your body needs. (It will also crush your bank account while creating unnecessary anxiety.)
It’s entirely possible - and in fact, happens most of the time - for people to lose weight or maintain their weight eating a combination of healthy foods with occasional “toxic” treats because their calories are in line with their activity level and most of the food they eat is nutritious.
That means that more important than clean eating (or worrying about food dyes or the type of sugar you’re eating) is satiety eating, defined by getting nourished and full for the right number of calories for your health.
Being full is where it’s at, because the most satiating (aka filling) foods are also the most nutrient-dense. They’re delicious too, so all the wins.
And please know this, especially given food prices right now:
The highest satiety foods - foods like chicken, beef, fish, legumes, tofu, eggs, yogurt, potatoes, oats, quinoa, avocados, broccoli, spinach, cabbage, blueberries (!), apples, grapes to name just a few - are equally satiating and nutrient-dense whether they’re organic or not.
Read that again.
And so, if nourishment, healthy weight, and disease prevention are your goals, then you have my permission to stop getting distracted by how “pure” and “toxin-free” or “chemical-free” the food is. I’ve seen too many women wasting time and money, suffering with worry, taking dangerous numbers of supplements, and gaining weight because they’ve been made afraid of the normal, filling, nutritious foods that would be getting them results.
Instead of trying to eat clean, focus on high-satiety foods you can afford, as often as you can, wherever you’re eating, and learn how to combine them into simple meals for the right number of calories.
Eating this way is what I call The Satiety Formula™ and it can be used pretty much anywhere.
Protein + fiber-rich carbs + 2 or more colors of plants + a bit of healthy fat (PCPF if that helps).
In practice, it looks like this:
Eggs (P) + toast (C) + strawberries/blackberries (P) + avocado (F)
Cottage cheese (P) + waffles (C) + banana/raspberries (P) + piece of bacon (F)
Burger (P) + bun (C) + tomato/lettuce (P) + (burger is also the F)
Rotisserie chicken (P) + black beans (C) + radish/cabbage (P) + crema (F)
Tofu (P) + rice (C) + mushrooms/green beans (P) + peanut sauce (F)
Frozen pizza (P) + (crust is the C) + arugula/tomato salad (P) + (cheese is also the F)
Steak (P) + potatoes (C) + romaine/blueberries (P) + olive oil (F)
Yogurt (P) + granola (C) + peaches/cherries (P) + walnuts (F)
Deli turkey (P) + almond crackers (C) + carrots/celery (P) + ranch (F)
String cheese (P) + dark chocolate (C) + raspberries (P) + peanuts (F)
How much protein? How many carbs? How much fat? How many calories? It depends on your age, activity level, muscle mass, weight goals, appetite/cravings, and health challenges.
To dive in and get very specific, there is obviously individual planning required and that’s exactly why I work with clients 1:1 - to consistently and deliciously implement The Satiety Formula to elicit significant and lasting health improvement and weight loss. We debunk fads and focus on what works.
Even if we never work together, please give yourself the gift of tuning out the fear-mongering marketing noise.
Whether food is conventional or organic, fresh or frozen, cooked from scratch or just assembled at home, what’s actually the most important is that you consistently get full and nourished using a variety of high-satiety foods. That’s your best shot at diminishing cravings and finding a path to healthy weight without going crazy, no matter where you are, no matter your age.
I spend a lot of time on Instagram breaking down food-foolery marketing (there is SO much of it right now) and sharing Satiety Formula meal ideas in my stories every day, so make sure to follow me there @stephanie.a.meyer.
And if you’d like to work together for clarity and results:
(Many health insurance plans offer coverage for nutrition coaching, so make sure to check yours before you sign up.)
I’ve just wrapped up teaching a live 3-week course called Eat Like a Midlife Badass. We covered 6 session in our three weeks together and it was an incredible experience.
We laser-focused on satiety (per above), learning to prevent afternoon-through-evening cravings and overeating by eating a balanced breakfast and lunch, and got to spend time setting aside old, failed ideas about weight loss and health.
See which of these old ideas sound familiar:
Eat as few calories as possible.
Burn as many calories as possible through exercise.
View sleep and recovery as lazy.
Worry more about toxins and food purity more than actual nutrients (or think that toxins and pure food will lead to weight loss).
Judge people for what they eat and their body weight without any understanding of individual biology, environment, or appetite hormones.
Avoid entire food groups (like carbs).
We discussed - in great detail - new and updated ideas that are backed by science and proven to work:
Understand the right number of calories for healthy weight. If weight loss is a goal, create a small calorie deficit while consuming enough protein to build muscle with satiety, enough carbs for good energy, enough fiber and colorful plants to protect gut health and avoid nutrient deficiencies, enough calories to avoid evening and weekend binges and low energy, and intentionally use healthy fat and flavoring to make food delicious and fun.
Skipping meals and under-eating all day often leads to weight gain, because hunger is so intense at the end of the day that extra calories are inadvertently eaten.
Weight gain in perimenopause/menopause isn’t directly the result of hormone shifts, but is definitely the result of increased appetite and fatigue created by sleep disruption, in addition to the natural loss of muscle that happens to everyone (men and women) as we age. (Men gain weight in midlife too…)
That only scratches the surface of what we covered and unpacked, but needless to say, it’s been a fascinating and rewarding experience. Thank you to the brainy, motivated women who’ve participated live or in replay - your questions have been brilliant and vital.
If you’d like to work through the class recordings and worksheets, send me a note at stephanie@freshtart.com (or reply to this if you received it as an email) and I’ll send you a link to sign up. (I include the class free for my 1:1 coaching clients.)
I’ll leave you with a Minnesota goodbye, as in, a drawn-out farewell. I live in Denver now, but I’ll always be a Midwesterner at heart. (I think I like Denver so much because it’s a very Midwestern-feeling town, I’ve had zero culture shock coming here.)
A few weeks ago I went to central Minnesota for a Meyer family gathering on Green Lake in Spicer, Minnesota. My dad’s family is from Clara City, near Spicer, and we spent time each summer swimming, boating, and fishing in beautiful Green Lake. My grandparents used to rent a little cabin that’s somehow still there - it’s always so sweet to spot it from the boat and remember how much fun I had being sunburned and deeply mosquito-bitten with my cousins and aunts and uncles.
And how much delicious food we ate - my Grandma Meyer was a fantastic cook and baker and I just loved hanging out and helping in her kitchen. For the lake she baked cookies, bars, pies, cakes, sweet rolls, and muffins. She fried chicken and walleye for dinners to have with garden green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet corn, and potatoes. We were so, so spoiled and we didn’t even know it.
We cousins had so much fun together that we (almost) didn’t mind sleeping on the floor on blow-up mattresses meant for floating in the lake. We were sandy, itchy, hot, and some of us (me) were terrified of the spiders that would skitter across the floor right before some grown-up turned out the lights, but somehow it all worked out.
When we weren’t swimming, we were snacking and it was pure heaven. I wasn’t really allowed to snack as a kid and so the bending of the rules made everything even more delicious. My grandpa would bring whole cases of Nesbitt’s orange soda in bottles and stock the fridge and we couldn’t even believe how decadent it was.
The fabulous Meyer aunties are a health-conscious bunch but their favorite snack was what we just called “Margie’s Chip Dip” and it was a staple at the lake. I had honestly forgotten about it until it showed up at snack time a few weeks ago at our gathering and blew my mind all over again. It’s one of those recipes that looks unremarkable on paper but tastes incredible.
My aunt Margie shared it with me and wrote:
“Here’s the recipe that started it all! There have been many variations made depending on what’s in the pantry and personal taste.”
I’ll put the basic recipe below. I made it as is this past weekend in Snowmass and we mowed it down fast!
The original recipe calls for Tostitos and we decided that it is indeed important to go with a heartier chip. This dip is in effect chopped vegetables, not a sauce or salsa, so there’s some serious scooping going on. The scoop style Tostitos would be pretty great, I’ll bet.
I was rushing and didn’t chop things quite finely enough - aim for a fine and uniform chop. Definitely don’t puree in a food processor. This isn’t a tapenade.
OK, if that’s not the most Minnesota goodbye description of a simple dip then nothing is. I’ll stop there. I’m sorry I don’t have a pic - we ate it so fast - but please do enjoy!
Margie’s Chip Dip
Recipe created by Margie’s friend Joanie, also from Clara City
Serves 8 (4 of us ate it all in 2 days)
Note: potential additions (I would make it once first and decide what you might like, if any, because it’s very addictive as is) could include pepperoncini, jalapeno or chili flakes, fresh garlic, black pepper, fresh herbs. This tastes GREAT made the day before.
Chop into 1/4-inch dice:
2 ripe tomatoes
1/2 jar Spanish olives
1 can ripe olives
1 green pepper
1/2 cup white onion
Mix and pour over veggies:
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon garlic salt
Serve with Tostitos. (My note: I think Tostito scoops would be pretty great with this.)