Food Matters; Fuel Your Body Well

Food is complicated; I know it, you know it.

Today, I invite you to consider how you are fueling your body, and how it’s working for how you feel? Do you fuel your body often enough, and with foods that help you feel good in terms of energy, and overall effects? Or are you eating on the go, grabbing whatever’s easy, eating so quickly you barely taste anything and soon after having heartburn or a migraine?

What and how you eat matters to your human body. And having a human body is often considered to be inconvenient to others who want you to work as though you don’t have one. But we need to start thinking about fueling our bodies in a way that supports us feeling our best.

My 2 major recommendations for humans?

-More naturally fiber-rich foods

-More plant-based protein

Additional Resources: I highly recommend reading “How Not to Age” by Dr Michael Greger; it’s a BIG book, but he really dives into the evidence of human health and longevity, and I think it’s a powerful argument towards more plants in our lives, without being preachy or political.

Caveat/Disclosure: This is not a lecture about metabolism, weight, weight loss, obesity, etc. If you struggle with disordered eating, eating disorders, binge-restrict cycles, or other trauma responses in connection with food, nutrition, dieting, etc, I’m not diving into any of these, but if you still find the topics triggering, I invite you to sit this one out. Many of us come from difficult or traumatic experiences with these areas, and my goal is not to increase distress.

Transcript

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (00:01.078)
Well, hello and welcome to another episode of Ending Physician Overwhelm. I'm so glad that you are joining me today. So today we're going to be talking about nutrition. If you listened to last week's episode, you know that for the month of September, I am focusing on what are considered the four pillars of obesity medicine, which is one of my specialties. Today we're not talking about anything to do with obesity.

weight, metabolism, anything related to that. But the basic tenants apply broadly for overall well -being, right? So our four pillars are nutrition, sleep, activity, and stress management. Today we are focusing on nutrition. Before I dive in, I'm going to throw it out there that this is not, again, a lecture about

obesity, weight loss, how we feel about our bodies, appearance in particular, metabolic issues. What I'm really trying to focus on today is fueling our bodies well, but it is complicated. And the way that we think about eating and nutrition almost always leads us to having thoughts about our body.

It might lead us to having judgments about our eating and our eating behaviors. And so if you are currently feeling a little riled up, a little triggered by, you know, just even this basic setup, I invite you to go ahead and not listen to the rest. Because what I don't want is to create a bunch of big feelings that leave you feeling riled up. That's not my goal here.

If that happens to you, I want to acknowledge that you are a normal human. In my work, I see this all the time. I've experienced it myself. I come from the perspective of somebody who's really struggled with binge eating, overeating, stress eating, having especially grown up in a household of chronic dieting and overeating. And so I fully acknowledge.

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (02:24.076)
that this is not a straightforward subject for many, many, people. If that's you, it's okay. I invite you to get the help and support that you need. And it's okay to say, I'm gonna sit this one out, or maybe I'm not gonna listen to this one right now. Again, we aren't focused on waiter bodies, but if you're already feeling triggered, it's okay to let this one go.

Dear listeners, if you hear a noise in the background, that is my children who are right outside the door because mom is never so popular as when she's recording a podcast or on a meeting. That's the reality. And here we go. So in my work, both as a primary care physician, as well as an obesity medicine physician, talk a lot about nutrition. And for such a long time, I had

I'm going to say the garbage understanding that most of us have when it comes to practicing medicine, because there is so little focus on nutrition science. You know, how do we, how do we support disease states, you know, with evidence -based nutrition knowledge and the field of nutrition is rife with bad science or science that has been overrun by food industries. That is just

part of the game. it's not to say that we don't have any science or any understanding of what helps our bodies to be healthier, but just to say that many of us trained hearing things that may or may not have been true from a variety of sources that may or may not have had human bodies best interests in mind. So I'm going to put that caveat out there. But in my discussions with people, people often land in my office and they say, what is the best way to eat?

What is the plan that is going to fix me?

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (04:27.07)
And so I share that again, not because we're talking about weight management or anything related to that, but just to say that we are all hoping that there are some magic bullet answers that solve all of our problems and fix something about us. And just to say that it's not true. So when I'm talking about different nutrition principles today and talking about ways of feeling our bodies, just know

that there's a lot of nuance there and there isn't one right way for all humans to eat. So I will share some big picture goals for us, but if you've got a way of eating that works well for you, keep it up. Okay. All right. So I think I've laid probably an overly aggressive groundwork of that it's complicated, but what I want to bring to this discussion today,

is a question of are you feeling your body well in a way that supports your well -being right now?

We learn a lot of really bad habits as physicians when it comes to so many of these areas in our lives. Nutrition is definitely one of them. If you have ever worked in any hospital where there is a doctor's lounge or a staff lounge that has never -ending supply of coffee and frequent occurrences of boxes of donuts that show up magically or candy or parties or buffets,

All of these things set us up to often have some pretty poor eating habits coupled with a training environment that really discourages us from paying attention to our bodies, right? As a medical student, how many of us might have passed out in the operating room or similar experience because we were maybe a little low on energy, maybe a little hypotensive?

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (06:38.956)
from not having enough to drink. How many of you are practicing surgeons right now and you purposefully don't drink enough liquids so you won't have to scrub out and go to the bathroom? I'll throw that into the bucket here. We have been set up with a lot of pretty poor eating habits. And again, not talking about poor eating habits as it relates to body shapes or sizes, but just

habits in terms of fueling our bodies well in a way that helps us to feel good, in a way that helps us to, you know, be functioning really well. So I want you to sit and reflect for just a moment. How am I doing with fueling my body in a way that feels

healthy in a way that feels balanced in a way that feels like I'm not constantly tipping back and forth between trying to cram food in really fast so I can get on to the next thing or avoid eating something that might trigger the need to go to the bathroom. Are you often eating in your car? Are you?

giving yourself a lunch break, and by a lunch break, I mean actually sitting and pausing to eat without staring at your computer, perhaps in the company of another human being. Are you eating breakfast? Are you finding yourself not eating all day and then getting to the end of the day and being really, really hungry? How is the pattern of your eating working for your body? We can...

Drive this down into what is the timing of my eating? Are my food choices feeling like they satisfy me? Do they last? Do they feel like they're triggering heartburn, stomach upset of some kind? You know, am I feeling hangry a few hours after eating because I've just eaten a bunch of sugary foods and then had like a big crash? What are the effects of your current eating pattern?

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (09:00.948)
Again, this is complicated and it's complicated by working in environments that are inconvenienced by us having a physical body. Right? It is inconvenient to your workplace that you need rest, that you need to take a break and eat some food or drink some water or use the bathroom. there are times when all of those things need to be put aside, right? If somebody is coding, right?

you probably can't stop and use the bathroom if you are on the code team. That leads me to an interesting question. I doubt very much that people frequently wet themselves while running a code, but okay, that's a complete tangent. just to say, you know, our bodies are conditioned to not pay attention to those needs during acutely emergency situations.

But because of the nature of our work, we are often tuning our body in to treat it like it's an emergency all the time, especially when other people are constantly dangling urgent things that are not actual medical emergencies in front of us. You know, here comes me talking about sports physical forms that are due tomorrow because they only arrived in the office today and

you know, young child Xavier really needs to, you know, get his sports physical completed. that is a non urgent quote unquote emergency that drops in your lap. That is not, that's not an emergency, right? But because it is sort of framed in that way, we are often putting off our own body signals because we are in a heightened state as

these things that are not emergencies drop into our laps, right? You can see it gets complicated and that is part of a reason why you might not eat all day or you might eat in a rush, right? In a really sort of frantic, hurried way, maybe dousing whatever you're grabbing with some coffee, right? That's further sort of hiding your cortisol and your adrenaline state. There is a lot of...

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (11:24.685)
poor feeling of our bodies that is well intentioned because we know that we've got a lot of work to do, but we are sort of living in this heightened state that makes it inconvenient to need to stop and eat, and especially to need to stop and eat food that would better fuel our bodies than the coffee and donuts we're so conditioned to grabbing because they are quick fuel that will get us through the next couple of hours. Gets really tricky.

And just to say that if you find yourself having struggle with feeling your body well, there are many reasons why this is true, even if you never had an issue before you went to medical school, which is, you know, is the case for some of us and it's not the case for all of us. We need to start to think of ourselves as having human bodies that need adequate

fuel, rest, play, human connection that is not work related, right? We need to bring our stress levels down and to take excellent care of our bodies. And part of that is fueling our bodies with good nutrition. Now, your body is also wired, as all human bodies are, to like certain foods more than other foods.

And we also live in a food environment where we are often surrounded by foods that give us big hits of dopamine, right? Those coffee and those donut breakfasts, right? They give us a huge flood of dopamine, right? They are pleasurable to eat in a very intense way for many people that is not the same as having a yogurt and berries, right? We don't usually get the same pleasure hit from those foods. It's

complicated, but just to say if you wind up, you know, in this eating pattern and wishing that you couldn't be, there are many reasons why we are here. But most of us have bodies that like certain foods and that light up in response to many of the highly pleasurable foods that are out there. It's a whole thing and we don't need to

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (13:45.226)
not get any pleasure from foods, but I think we all need to cultivate some awareness of, you know, the way that the food industry sort of takes advantage of human cravings and desire and feeds into this picture. And I think we also need to be aware of how we do this culturally in between, you know, ourselves, right? When we are talking about food and

you know, just like, really need this, I really need this donut. Like I just, you know, I need to these chips. You know, this idea of we're erasing the stress of the day with the highly pleasurable foods, it's unfortunately fairly common in our working environments to sort of talk about food this way, even though we would often, you know, tell our patients that that shouldn't be the case, right? That we shouldn't.

get so much pleasure out of food. We are wired to get pleasure out of food. And again, we live in a food environment that is well attuned to that fact and constantly trying to sell you on things that are highly pleasurable.

I share that because I think it's really important to have that context so that none of us is sitting here feeling broken if we have started eating in a way that is kind of survival driven, right? If we are finding ourselves like, like I don't, I don't think about food until I'm super, super hungry. And then I grab whatever's there and it's much quicker to eat, you know, a donut and, you know, and, and, you know,

cram some coffee in there as well, than to like sit and eat a bowl of real food. There are reasons why we're here. You're not broken, you're human. And again, you're working in an environment that is inconvenienced by you having a human body. Let's acknowledge that so that we don't sit here and shame and blame ourselves, but we really just see the truth of the situation that we're dealing

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (15:55.506)
In order to start to make changes, again, we need to give ourselves permission to recognize that we do have a human body and that human body needs fuel, fuel in the form of food. And it's okay to take pleasure from the foods that we eat. And I, in fact, tell people, I don't want you to eat food that you hate. Eating food that you hate is not a good long -term sustainable solution. Now, yes, we can adjust our tastes over time.

But if there's food that you know you don't like, continuing to eat it against your will is not something that's likely to be a good situation for you. So permission to, if you hate Brussels sprouts and you're never going to like them, that's okay. It's okay to say, I just choose not to eat that. You can be perfectly healthy your whole life not eating Brussels sprouts. Just like you can be perfectly healthy your whole life never trying the blue Takis.

If you have kids, probably have seen these and you know what I mean. Anywho.

There are a lot of pieces here, but I do want to share with you what we want to think about when we're thinking about fueling our body in a better balanced way. Think about your own, I will say, constitutional makeup. That might include the type of work that you do. It might include the way you prefer to eat.

So for example, if you're vegetarian and you exclude meat, it might include the context of who you live with, right? It might include, do you have conditions like migraines or heartburn or things like that that are triggered or sensitive to certain foods, right? I want you to think for yourself, what is sort of the context of me and my makeup?

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (17:58.56)
And then as I share some general principles, you might think, okay, given that I am this human, how am I going to start to think about feeling my body in a different way? Or what can I add in here that would be helpful? Sometimes that's going to be different ways of thinking about food, right? And not falling into the trap of black or white, right?

If we fall into the trap of black or white, which often comes out of diet culture, where we believe that this group of foods is the perfect one and this group of foods over here is evil and therefore we ought to be all the way over here and, you know, never, never over here. That is not a, not a healthy setup. And it often leads to a lot of disordered eating, even if it doesn't lead to eating disorders. So we aren't going to.

and gelify and vilify all the foods. However, I want you to think for yourself, what are some ways that I might improve my nutrition? What might I want to add? What might I want to optimize? What might I want to choose to intentionally replace in the food choices that I'm currently making? Now, for most human bodies,

we would benefit from eating more fiber -rich foods.

My good friend who's a colorectal surgeon who might be listening to this episode will be so happy to hear this, right? Because when we eat more fiber and when we are adequately hydrating our bodies, our gut is gonna be much healthier and we're gonna have regular bowel movements. So shout out to you. I'm on the fiber train.

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (19:56.15)
When we are eating more naturally fiber -rich foods, we are going to have a whole host of benefits, and I'm not gonna go into all the metabolic benefits. I think we all know and appreciate at least some of those already when it comes to blood sugars, cholesterol, things like that. But what we may not appreciate is that naturally fiber -rich foods, so that includes things like fruits,

vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, whole grains. When we eat those foods, our gut bacteria, the good guys, will break them down. They will ferment those foods into anti -inflammatory substances that help our bodies to feel better. Are they going to make you automatically happy? No, that's not what I'm saying. But I'm generally saying.

that they have positive beneficial effects that are outside simple metabolism or anything to do with those parts of our bodies. We will often feel better when we are eating a more naturally fiber -rich diet.

If we are constantly cramming in quick sources of fuel, again, coffee and donuts, maybe bars or shakes or different things like that, we might be getting some fiber that's been added to those foods, but we're not consuming a whole lot of those naturally fiber -rich foods. And those foods do not contribute to our sense of wellbeing apart from that dopamine hit that we might get from eating them.

This is one of those things that is obvious to many of us and yet we don't pay attention to it. We don't think about, if I eat this food, I'm gonna feel better later.

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (22:00.158)
Again, it gets really complicated. And sometimes we are craving comfort. We are eating out of boredom. We are trying to feel better in the middle of or anticipating a crappy day or at the end of a crappy day, right? So we're looking for those quick hits of dopamine. We are wired that way. Again, that's something that...

you know, is good to pay attention to, but here I'm talking about intentionally adding other foods that help you to feel better. So naturally fiber rich foods. The other thing I want to advocate for having more of in your diet is more plant -based protein that comes again from real food. Now there's tremendous overlap. Thank goodness between these two things.

when we are eating naturally higher fiber foods, we are getting more plant foods. And some of those plant foods are going to have more whole food plant -based protein, right? So again, beans, nuts, seeds, tofu, and soy products, those are all natural, know, sort of whole food based plant -based protein.

everything that you see that's out there in the ethos about increase your protein and that often comes if you look at menopause and perimenopause literature, it comes when you look at weight loss literature, it comes when you just, I don't know, it's just the general vibe that everybody, you know, is at risk for protein deficiency, which is just not true in the United States at least. The conversation has generally steered more people towards animal protein and

I've absolutely been complicit with this, trying to come at this from the best angle that I could, but really seeing a skewed picture of what the data actually shows, what does the evidence actually show. But similar to whole food sources of natural fibers, when we are eating more plant -based protein, we are also having those benefits in terms of better...

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (24:16.364)
fuel for our bodies and substances that don't increase inflammation and consequently help us to have a better mood and you know, kind of overall sense of well -being. So these things dovetail quite nicely. And it really isn't about labeling yourself as a certain kind of eater, right? People often say, well, okay, does that mean I need to become a vegetarian or vegan? I don't actually advocate for those things. What I advocate for

is incorporating more plants into our meals because those things are going to fuel our bodies better. Does that mean that you need to fully exclude animal? No, you can if you want to. But the goal here is really to eat more plant -based real foods that help our bodies to be well -fueled, to have adequate nutrition, to not constantly be relying on

know, supplements and powders and fibers and all of these things, which many of us have turned to, you know, often with the intention of trying to get quick fuel, quick energy, quick nutrition, it comes from a good place. And there may be times and instances where you want to turn to something quick like that, but most of us won't feel well constantly turning to bars and powders and shakes and things for our nutrition as opposed to eating.

real food that is mostly plant -based. I often say, think Michael Pollan was absolutely right. And if you really want to take a very deep, deep dive into the literature on this, all of the longevity benefits and anti -inflammatory benefits that benefit our organs, I highly recommend reading How Not to Age by Dr. Michael Greger. I think many people have seen

the book Outlive by Dr. Peter Atia. He touches on this some, but Dr. Greger goes into a much, much, much deeper dive. It's a huge book on the real true benefits of a more plant -based diet.

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (26:31.188)
And I think if you really want to see what the evidence shows and see why we have gotten such conflicting messages, you know, sort of in the public health nutrition ethos, I think that really does the best job without being overly political about it.

It's important that we find a way of eating that works well for us. Now the inconvenient parts here is that when you are eating more real food that is giving your body more fiber, more plant -based protein, more nutrients, those foods are generally slower to eat because you have to chew them. You have to chew them and swallow them.

And as I've become much more highly plant -based, I find that although it fuels me well, I can't go super long stretches without eating. And you might find that that's true for you too. However, I also know that that's what my body needs and wants. And a lifetime of conditioning, of putting it off, putting it off, putting it off, right?

not taking the time to stop and eat and take a break in the middle of the day, even if it's five or 10 minutes, that pattern has not served me well. It hasn't served my nutrition goals well. It hasn't served the way I just feel in terms of energy levels. It hasn't served my mood. It hasn't served any of those things, but it's okay.

that I have found that, I need to eat in the middle of the day because that's a normal thing, right? And taking the time to pause, even if it's a little inconvenient, to pause and eat and fuel my body with good nutrition feels like absolutely the right step rather than trying to hack it and trying to shove in some kind of fast bar or shake, which in my opinion, they always taste terrible.

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (28:46.976)
I'm just really not into those foods. It feels good to stop and eat even if it's inconvenient. And I think most of us would probably agree that something that would feel better for our day -to -day would be to intentionally pause and treat our human bodies like human bodies and get the benefits of eating in a way that supports our energy level.

that feels good for our health, for our moods, right? That feels like we are treating our bodies well, even if there's all the normal chaos that's going on around us. It's part of boundaries work to take a break and eat. And you know that boundaries are one of my big deals. It's part of letting go of people -pleasing to inconvenience other people.

keep them waiting, not responding to, especially their non -urgent emergencies, so that we can take the time to eat, to empty our bladders, right, to take a little rest in the middle of our day. That's what human bodies need. And we have human bodies.

I would rather deal with the consequences of people needing to wait or not having everything that they want so that I am able to be my best version of myself for the rest of the day. I'm okay with that. And I'm not going to say it's not uncomfortable sometimes. It is, but this is the right thing for me. And choosing to let go of the people pleasing there and to set some healthy boundaries for myself.

is absolutely the right work that I want to be doing for myself.

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (30:37.27)
This also helps us to let go of the perfectionism in the black and white thinking and the sort of pushing through and white knuckling habits that many of us have developed. So you can see that when we are choosing to fuel our bodies well in a way that supports our health, our digestion, our moods, our energy, we are making choices that let go of those anxious messages about, ought to, you ought to, you have to do.

this in this perfect way and you can never touch these foods over here. And no, like let's put that down and let's have a way of eating that works well for us, that supports our wellbeing, that feels good. And I invite you, it's okay for it to taste good. It's okay for it to taste good. You figure out for you, what are those things that are important? So think about your current pattern of eating. Think about if...

There are times when you're not feeling your body well and what the consequences of that are, what tweaks you might want to make. And then as you're thinking about what you would like to change, I encourage you to incorporate more fiber, more plant -based protein that comes from real foods and just see how you feel. See how it feels to pause and eat in the middle of the day. See how it feels to sit down and eat, to not be eating in the car, you know, and...

to fuel your body well, how does that feel?

And are you willing to keep going?

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (32:13.664)
All right, I hope that this has been a helpful discussion of different ways to think about our eating and different ways to really tap into that self permission and those boundaries in order to fuel our bodies well. And the very real issues that come up that keep us from doing this and have gotten in the way. It's okay to make a change here. It's also okay if you decide, you know, I'm really happy with the way things are going. Great. Works for your body. Great. Keep it going.

But if you are finding yourself that you need a little tune up, that you need help, please get help, right? Please sit and do this work. If you are listening to the end of this and you're realizing that you have more struggles than you realize around your eating, around the way that you think about food, around black and white thinking, around being able to stop stress eating or letting go of things, I invite you to get the help that you deserve.

There are so many of us who have struggled with disordered eating and felt like it was us, like we were broken. And it's not true. And you deserve the help that you need in order to fix it if it's a problem for you. So that might be working with a medical professional. It might be working with a coach or a therapist or a nutritionist who's really focused around, you know, sort of healing a relationship with food and helping you feel your body in a way that works.

All of those resources are available. And I'm not going to say that it's completely easy and straightforward because absolutely you will run into, you know, sometimes asking for help and being shut down for various reasons. That is an unfortunate reality of everything that has to do with beliefs about nutrition and eating. And I'm sorry for all of us who've encountered that kind of attitude, but there are absolutely people out there who can help you.

And if you need help finding any of those resources, please feel free to reach out to me. You can reach me at my email address, is megan, -E -G -A -N, at healthierforgood .com. And I'd be happy to, you know, sort of get a little bit more information from you and find out how I can help support you getting the help that you deserve. All right, that is what I have for you this week, my friends. Thank you as always for listening.

Megan Melo, Physician Coach (34:39.394)
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