5 Nutrition Red Flags You Should Be Watching Out For

Now I'm sharing what I know with you fitness , nutrition and all the deeper stuff to help you discover your strongest body . Hello , hello , welcome back to another episode of your Strongest Body . If you're new here , I'm Betsy . I'm a certified strength and conditioning specialist and certified nutrition coach here to chat with you .

If you are not brand new here , thank you for being here . As always , I'm excited about today .

I'm excited because the topic I have picked is one I could talk about for a long time , but I actually had to pare it down and only pick some , boil it down , maybe to the most important points , so that I could be efficient and effective with the time on the podcast and also really guide you and turn your awareness on about some of these big red flags .

We're talking about five nutrition red flags , five of the biggest ones to me that sort of exist out there . I picked these five because I think they tend to be really popular on the internet right now . I think sometimes they're packaged or marketed in a way that feels like they are really good health decisions .

I want to help you discern when someone is looking out for your health and when someone's trying to push another kind of diet on you . Then I also think it's important to see that some of these red flags have come from a place where maybe somebody's heart was in the right place and then they just went way too far one direction .

What we're going to do is I'm going to highlight these the biggest five nutrition red flags . Don't get me wrong , there are so many out there . Then I'm going to tell you what kernel of information maybe we can take from it or why you need to steer clear .

I really want to help you find nutrition solutions that are going to empower you , that are going to help you reach your fitness goals and that are going to help you enjoy food .

Maybe you are someone who has been so beaten down by diets , by your lack of success with your nutrition , that you almost dread eating , or you dread talking about it , or it is a big source of stress in your life . What I want to do is help you with that .

Help you figure out how you can eat in a way that supports your health and fitness goals and your life . The thing about nutrition and the thing about eating is that we can't opt out . You could opt out of exercise , right . In order to live and survive , you have to choose to eat . Eating is part of the deal .

We can't escape the decisions and the day-to-day presence Nutrition is going to have in our lives , but we can find a way to really embrace it , to figure out how it adds energy to our life , adds enjoyment to our life and adds to our performance and to our goals .

I believe there is a way where you can reach your strength goals or your physique goals , changing how your body looks , as well as really enjoy the food you eat . We can do that with a real kind of performance for life nutrition . That is my system performance for life nutrition .

Let's talk about these red flags first , because I don't want you to fall prey to any of these red flags . There is a ton of garbage out there on the internet . Even in some places where you feel like you should be able to trust , there is a lot of mistrust .

I actually think that the internet is some place where we question things when you walk through a bookstore and you see a diet book and because you think , oh , it must have been fact-checked before someone published this book . But , dear God , that is not always the case .

There's a lot of crappy stuff out there that we have to sift through and determine whether or not it's going to be helpful for us . Number one beat , number one red flag If someone is trying to convince you that a highly low calorie diet is the way to reach your goals , yuck , yuck . I call them baby bird diets . We are not doing baby bird diets anymore .

Women have been sold this idea that their bodies weren't meant to eat a lot of food and that we're supposed to be small and that we're supposed to be delicate and that we're supposed to eat like that we're supposed to like eat as if we're tiny baby birds . And let me tell you your body , your body , needs food . Your body needs food .

I was going to write the amount of calories . I was going to say that today , like how many calories is like too low calorie ?

But this is going to depend on an individual , like your body size to start out with , is going to is going to determine your caloric needs and then your activity level , and all of that is going to go into what your caloric needs are .

So if you are a naturally very small person maybe you're short in stature and maybe you don't weigh a lot you may actually the number of calories you need might be a lot lower than for somebody else , and so I don't want to just pick out cherry , pick a number out of the air and tell you like that's too little , because it might be the right number for you

, but for most people , these really low calorie diets are doing more damage than good . And that isn't to say that , like we can't reduce our calories , right , that comes from a good place , the idea that , like , maybe , if we want to cut back a little bit , we can reduce the amount that we're eating . But these are talking .

We're talking about highly restrictive , low calorie diets that are going to zap your energy , that are going to you steal from the amount that you need in order to build muscle . You're not going to build muscle at that stage . You're going to lack energy , you're going to have sleep disturbances , you're going to have difficulty focusing .

All of these things come with these low calorie diets and oftentimes , while they may be successful in the immediate because because it is that is how science works the science of like , highly restricting is actually going to help you if you , you are going to lose weight . If you are restricting your calories , you're going to lose weight .

But what it doesn't account for is your ability to sustain that long term and your quality of life . So for most people who are highly restricting , they are miserable and they can't maintain that very long .

And when they let go of that , a lot of the psychological and emotional impacts of having restricted themselves for such a long time catch up with them and they end up eating more than they did before . And more than anything , we create a really combative relationship with food . I , your relationship with food .

This is take out a pen , take out a piece of paper . Your relationship with food is going to be the number one predictor of whether or not you are going to be able to reach your goal , your relationship with food . And that is going to maybe take a long time .

But let me tell you what is going to ruin your relationship with food Highly , highly restrictive , low calorie diets . So if somebody's saying that that is the answer , run far away . Number two fasting as the best and only way for you to lose fat .

So fasting , the idea of not eating for an extended period of time , is often used as a weight loss tool or a nutrition tool . Intermittent fasting , as it is called and has been heavily branded , is the idea that you're going to have a long window of your day where you're not eating and then a short feeding window .

A lot of people are going to do something like 16 hours of no food and eight hours of eating . The reason why this sometimes works for people is because you literally just cannot eat as much food if you are restricting the hours you can eat it , because your stomach is only so large .

The space , the volume , the room that you have in your body to intake food is limited . And then if you say I'm only going to eat between these six or eight hours , you just can't physically get that much in from like a physical standpoint and then a mental and emotional standpoint , because you're like I actually have to do things today .

I can't just eat for six hours straight . When you are limiting the window that you can eat , you are oftentimes limiting the calories . So for some people this is effective . Maybe it is because it reduces the stress for them of like having to eat frequently .

Maybe it is because they work a job in which they just don't have a lot of time to sit down and eat , and so they can minimize the hours in which they're eating . There are reasons why this could work .

The red flag about this , the big red flag , is that this doesn't work for everybody and it is not the only way and it is not the best way to lose fat . You basically are already fasting . That's what going to bed is . That's what ending your night . You stop eating .

You are likely brushing your teeth at some point before bed I hope You're not eating after that and then you sleep and hopefully you're getting a nice long night's sleep , and then you're waking up and then you're eating Breakfast . Break the fast . You are literally fasting .

So we are doing that , and there's a lot of stuff online that's like you shouldn't be , don't eat at this time or whatever , and there's some research to suggest that there is a time that's probably most useful to stop your feeding window . But the idea that you need to stress about your system getting the digestive rest it needs , you are doing it .

You are doing it . Likely , if you are not staying up all night and you are not eating throughout the night , you are probably doing it . Now . If fasting for more extended time works better for you , then that might be a good fit .

But we've got to look for these blanket statements and then start to question , because , in the same way that there are different workouts that work for people , there's like people are different and we need different solutions and fasting for some might help and fasting for others might really wreck concentration , wreck their ability to stay awake , have energy .

Maybe it really impedes their workouts because they're not timed well . So things like that . Number three big red flag is any kind of detox foods , that detox powders , that detox juices , that detox cleanses , things like that News flash . Your body has mechanisms to detoxify itself . Your liver converts toxins into waste products , it metabolizes nutrient .

Everything is happening . Your liver is responsible for this detoxification process that we are trying to artificially create with juice cleanses or gut powders or things like that . Now , it is not to say that there aren't like . Maybe a juice or two has something great in it , nutrient wise .

Or maybe you use a greens powder and it makes up for some of , like , the vegetables , that you don't have time or the availability to consume something like that , but the idea that these kinds of products are going to detoxify your body and that you need to constantly detoxify your body from eating food Like this is just a quick example .

I was around someone who was a kind of obsessive exerciser as well as really you know they were struggling with their relationship with food . I'll say that , and it kind of constantly became this game of .

For these few weeks , I am going to eat all these foods that I've put on my quote , unquote bad food list and then I'm just going to take a week and do a juice cleanse . If you can imagine the kind of , you know , stress you're putting on your body in that way .

The idea that we're gonna like , we're gonna forgo a balanced diet to eat our restricted foods for a certain amount of time and then highly restrict calorie and do a juice cleanse it's just not great for your body . It's not great for your body , especially when your body already has the ability to detox and I don't know what we're also .

What are we trying to detox ? You're not not . It's like those seed oil guys in the in the grocery store . I'm sure you've seen those videos where they're like you don't want to eat this , you don't want to eat that and you don't want to eat this , and they're like scaring you about what's in a breakfast cereal .

There is nothing that's sold at the grocery store that is doing something in which you need to get detoxed from . We're not talking about about chemicals and we're not talking about , you know , stressors on the body . We're talking about food and we're talking about some foods with more nutrients and some foods with less nutrients .

And the idea that someone is peddling your , that you need to detoxify yourself , is just they're trying to make a buck . They're trying to make a buck and sound holier than now . Okay , number four we're on four already removing whole food groups . Unless you have an allergy , you do not need to remove a food Now . If you don't like it , don't eat it . Okay ?

If it causes you to break out in hives , don't eat it . If it , if it closes your airways , don't eat it . If you eat it and it doesn't feel good to you , if you feel like you have a food sensitivity , by all means don't eat it . Here are some things that you also don't have to do . You don't have to put that on anybody else . Okay , because what ?

What is creates a food sensitivity for you may , not for another person . You don't have to preach to people not to eat certain foods . You could just eat the foods that you like and not eat the foods you don't like . Okay , but there is no reason from a health standpoint , other than an allergy and or sensitivity , that you need to remove a whole food group .

There are people with serious illness that require them to not eat a certain food , and we have taken that and then we have marketed it as a way to lose weight , like you know how screwed up that is .

If you think about it , if you think about it for a long time , you think about somebody who's discovered in their life that they can't metabolize something and so they don't get to eat it anymore and they have to spend money and time to find alternatives .

And then we in the fitness and weight loss industry and nutrition industry have gone ooh , if we don't eat this , if we say you can't have it , you'll just lose weight . You know why you lose weight ? Because you cut that out . It's not because there's anything special in that food .

It is because when you restrict something , you likely don't eat it as much , which means you don't have as many calories . You know what happens . Maybe in the long run , you replace those calories with something else , and particularly if it's something that we've created an alternative product for . Okay .

So let me use the example of gluten here , though I'll say that there are so many of these .

If you're a person who has cut out gluten , not because you're intolerant , not because it causes a sensitivity for you , but just because it's for a weight loss goal , and then you replace it with a gluten-free alternative , like of the same caloric value , let me tell you what's going to happen . You're not going to lose weight .

If that is the goal for you , okay . If it causes a sensitivity and you still want that kind of thing , that's what those products are for . So anyone that markets to you that we need to cut out a certain food group is trying to get you to get to your goal by this fake magic , and it's just not real . It's not real .

It creates oftentimes like restrict binge behaviors . It takes all the joy out of your life and it's just . It's bad because it's bad advice , because in a lot of cases , if you're cutting out whole groups , you might be missing the nutrients that come from that food group .

Right , because the idea that that only fruits or vegetables have nutrients is like an absolute joke . Okay , rice has nutrients , potatoes , bread , in , those things that people put on a list of like quote-unquote . Don't eat these kinds of foods . They have nutrients in them . There aren't foods with nutrients and foods without .

There are foods with different quantities of nutrients and different nutrients , different kinds . Same things with meats and you know , oils and fats . There's a reason why these foods exist and what we're .

When we're trying to create complete and whole nutrition that supports our goals and supports our best life , we're gonna have a little bit of everything , as long as it doesn't cause us to break out or to feel sick or anything like that . Whew , I get so fired up . All right . Last one , maybe my favorite .

I don't know if it's my favorite , but the eating clean , no processed food red flag . Okay , I'm gonna go . This is my take it for what it is . If a certain kind of diet works for you and you like the way it tastes and you please , you have autonomy and I want you to do whatever you want .

The argument that existed for a long time was let's not eat processed foods because back in the day , back in caveman day , we didn't have these processing . We couldn't do this kind of processing . We just ate from the land . Blah , blah , blah . What age ? What was the average age that people lived till in that time ? See what I'm getting at here .

We have advancements in science and nutrition that I think is probably useful for us , and that processing of food is oftentimes used for either food safety , for increased shelf life , a thing that is often very important for those who don't have excess income .

Food is expensive and I think we're being super elitist and privileged and just plain old obnoxious If we're saying that some foods because they're packaged and last longer are worse . We don't . The idea that some foods at the grocery store have some sort of like higher moral value is just exhausting to me .

The processing of foods is oftentimes for food safety or extended shelf life and does not change the nutrient quality of the food as well , as there are so many things that change nutrient quality of the food . When you cook a food , when you mix it with something else , things change .

We love to put parameters on things so that we feel like we have control and so that we feel like we can say some things are good or some things are bad , and that's just not how it works . And I wanna go into some other podcast episode .

We'll talk about the glycemic index and some of the kind of misinformation around that and around how carbohydrates , kind of sort of the role in blood sugar and everything . But that feels like a little too much for today . But it's important to debunk some things . But just understand that there isn't .

Unless you don't wash your hands or you don't wash your silverware , you're not eating dirty food , okay , or you picked it out of the ground and you didn't wash the fruit off . Eating clean is a marketing term . Eating clean is a marketing term , and processed and unprocessed foods as used as a marketing tool is just that .

Now , it's true there are unprocessed foods and processed foods , but as a one is better than another , that's not a thing . There are certain instances where the processing of a food is making it safer for you to eat . Now , there may be some foods that you don't like the things that have been added to it .

That is your prerogative and you don't have to eat it . And some of those highly processed foods may taste a little better , and so then it feels like you can't control yourself a little bit eating them . They may have less nutrients than some other foods .

It still doesn't make them a bad food and it still doesn't mean that it can't be combined in some way with other foods to increase the nutrient quality right . So like if we have , because usually we eat a meal or even a snack with multiple components .

I can use a few different things to amp up the nutrient quality , but it's not as easy as saying these processed foods are bad , these unprocessed foods are good . A diet rich in whole foods , meaning foods that haven't been highly processed , is going to be beneficial for you , because they're just typically tends to be more .

It's more nutrient dense , it's also very expensive and it's also likely not built around our busy lives that require us moving around and eating at work and things like that . So what we do to create optimal nutrition , nutrition that supports our goals , that makes us feel good , have energy and actually tastes good , is we probably take a little bit of both .

We have a lot of whole foods and then we supplement with some processed things , because sometimes we don't have the seasonal availability to get the kinds of foods we're talking about , or we don't have the tools to cook the things we're talking about .

And if I have to choose between not having any minerals and vitamins from vegetables one day because I've decided not to eat the whole vegetable , I'm going to opt for the easy convenient powder or the easy convenient liquid format or shake format that is a little bit processed , but I'm still getting those things in my diet .

So it's about nutrition is more of a whole picture and we've got to start understanding that . And the more we parse it down into these little bits of just like one-liners that's what I think a lot of nutrition is is just these like blanket statements that allow for no nuance and are often just marketing tools .

Okay , I could talk and talk and talk , but I have already talked and talked and talked . Here's what I'm going to tell you . My nutrition system that I have created is about fueling your most active , most joyful , most satisfied life .

We're talking about getting the most out of your workouts with the best pre-workout food , the best post-workout food , the best all around kind of nutrition that can support you reaching those strength goals or changing the way your body looks , without having to give up the foods that you love , without having to say we cut out this or we cut out that without having

to highly restrict , and there are zero detoxes involved .

It's about learning the skills skills that you can use in your daily life , because someone could hand you a diet and it could have all the right answers on it , but if you have to just follow something that's written out for you and one thing goes wrong in your day or one thing changes , everything falls apart .

What you need to learn are the tools and the skills to make these decisions on your own and to support the unique needs of you as a person , as an athlete and in your life . That's what I'm doing . I'm giving you these tools , I'm giving you these skills and I'm doing it for free 99 as I say , free , literally free .

I have a five day fit fuel nutrition challenge . I am so excited about this . I have been waiting to put something like this together and I was just like you know . No , we got to do it . Got to do it because I live a life that is like , so fulfilled around food . I eat a lot . I eat a lot of foods that give me energy . I eat foods that taste good .

I am performing at a very high level in my lifts and in my workouts and it's because of this nutrition and I enjoy food with my kids and I eat a variety of different things and tastes and textures , and I do it with this system and I want you to have this

system . So I'm going to put the link to the free challenge in the show notes fit fuel , but it's also just be foster strongcom slash fit fuel . You can read all about it there on that site . It explains everything .

This is it's five days and it's going to transform how you view food and how you make your food decisions , so that you never waste another workout . Okay , I'm always here to answer questions and if you have questions specifically about the challenge or anything else , betsy at be foster strongcom or you can send me an Instagram DM at foster underscore strength .

As always , I am so grateful that you are here and I want you to go build your strongest body and I'll talk to you next time . Bye .