Search for tag: "nutritionist"

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Mitch: So maybe you've heard about it on some ads or a TV show, or maybe you got a friend who's getting really into it. It's ketosis or the keto diet. And I just have a lot of questions about whether or not it really is as magic as everyone seems to make it sound. So we're going to find out today.

This is "Who Cares About Men's Health," where we try to give you some information, some inspiration, and maybe a different interpretation about your health.

I'm Mitch, and joining us today is Scot. He is the master of BS, and manager of The Scope Radio. Hello, Scot.

Scot: I am looking forward to hearing about ketosis as well. I hear it's a state that's hard to get into, but you can burn some major fat, so I want to find out if that's true.

Mitch: And also joining us is the MD that gives us a little bit of validity. That is Dr. Troy Madsen. Hey, Troy.

Troy: Hey, Mitch. Just a little bit. Don't overstate it.

Mitch: And to answer some of these questions, we have the wonderful nutritionist. Thunder Jalili is back with us to let us know about this particular process.

Thunder: Hi, Mitch. I'm happy to be part of the crew again.

Mitch: All right. So before we get into kind of ketosis itself, how about you guys? Have you ever tried out a low carb diet before?

Troy: Mitch, I'll just jump in right here and say no. I absolutely love carbs, so I can't . . .

Mitch: Carbs are the best.

Troy: Carbs rock.

Scot: Why would you do that to yourself? No, not really. I mean, the lowest I've ever had, I was on a diet called the Zone Diet, which I've heard is a low to moderate carbohydrate . . .

Troy: Carburetor?

Scot: Yeah. I've known people who've tried low carb diets, and they're not nice to be around. That's not just a cliché. That's actual truth.

Thunder: And I have tried a low carbohydrate diet. Very, very short-term for just a couple of days just to see what it was like, what it's like to follow this. Not for any weight loss reason, just more of an experiment.

Scot: Thunder, how did it go for you? What did you learn?

Troy: Yeah, were you super grumpy? I was going to ask that.

Thunder: No, not really. I mean, I still ate a lot of vegetables. Those were my carbohydrate sources. So I probably didn't have the classically super low carbohydrate diet. I mean, I don't think I was any lower than 30%, to be honest. So it was fine. I did it, and then after a couple days, I just wanted to have beans and some other stuff, so I just stopped. But it was mostly just an exercise to see how hard is it to do this? How limited am I from a practical sense?

Troy: And did you feel limited?

Thunder: Yeah, a little bit, I did feel limited. I don't mind eating salads and vegetables, but I don't like passing up fruit. You guys know how I love my smoothies. So I don't like trying to decide, "Oh, I can't put this fruit in the smoothie," and things like that. So, yeah, I felt limited in that sense.

I don't necessarily miss rice or pasta. But it's just when you start cutting the different fruits and beans and things, that's where it starts to get tough for me.

Mitch: So why don't we start the discussion here with what is ketosis itself? For someone who has never taken a physiology course, who doesn't have a degree in nutrition, Thunder, what exactly is ketosis and what does it do to the body?

Thunder: So ketosis is the metabolic state where your body is using fat for fuel. Basically, your liver has this ability to make ketones, which is kind of like a metabolic energy substrate in the liver, makes it in the liver. It can actually do this from fatty acids. To some degree, it can also do it from amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins.

So your liver makes these ketone bodies, and it puts it into the bloodstream. And then those ketones can be used as a fuel for all the other cell types in your body.

There are a couple of particular types of cells that really need to use glucose, and if they don't have glucose, the next best bet for them is ketones. So it's important to have that. Your muscles can use ketones for energy, as an example.

So any time you're burning some degree of fat or you're using amino acids for energy, you're producing some of these ketones.

And then the last thing is "ketosis" is thrown around so much. Really, there's a window of ketone bodies, the level you can measure in the blood. And if the amount of ketone bodies circulating in your blood falls within this window, you're said to be in ketosis.

You don't have to be in ketosis to lose weight, but a lot of times, if you're doing something from a dietary standpoint or restricting calories, you are going to be in some degree of ketosis.

And you can actually have too much ketosis where the ketone bodies in your blood are so, so high, it can be dangerous, and it can cause an acidosis and potentially cause some harm, but that's pretty rare to be in that state.

Mitch: That's interesting, because one of the things I came across was what they call the keto flu. Have you ever heard of that?

Thunder: Yeah, so that's if you're just too hardcore about it and your ketones are just really high in the blood, and it just makes you kind of feel bad. It's not really the best thing physiologically. I would say that happens in people who really take the keto to the extreme.

Mitch: Bad breath, soreness, nausea, headaches, irritability. It doesn't sound super great to me, but what are some of the health benefits, I guess, of being in ketosis or using ketones? I guess even if you're not eating a strictly low-carb diet, does the body still go into ketosis? And is there any benefit from that?

Thunder: Yeah, you don't have to be in a low carb diet to have ketosis. If you just have a low-calorie diet, you would be tapping into your fat stores and producing ketone bodies that way, too.

There's not really any great benefit or great detriment of ketosis. It's just one of those natural metabolic states that we fall into from time-to-time. And it's just that in the modern context of people trying to lose weight, people will try to use that as a goal, to be in ketosis for an extended amount of time, with the idea that that means they are burning fat. But there's no specific benefit or detriment. It's just something that happens to us.

The only detriment would be if you go too extreme and you have such high ketone levels in your blood that it leads to keto flu, like you were talking about, or other similar bad effects.

Mitch: Would this be, say, maybe a dangerous thing for someone who's maybe diabetic? Or with how low the nutrients are or how many nutrients you might be missing out on from cutting carbs completely, could it potentially lead to vitamin deficiency problems and who knows what?

Thunder: So, in general, yes to a lot of the things you touched on. I'm also going to give Troy an opening here for the diabetes question if he wants to hop in, but for diabetes especially, diabetics can develop a dangerous condition called ketoacidosis, where basically there's just too much ketones, too much acidity in their blood, and it's very dangerous. They have to be careful with that. Troy, do you want to add anything to that?

Troy: Yeah. I was going to say for diabetics, they definitely would not want to do a ketosis type diet. And I'm sure anyone who's dependent on insulin, they know that. They know their carbs, they're tracking those things, and they're adjusting their insulin doses based on that. So to go to a very low-carb diet could be very dangerous.

Number one, unless they adjust their insulin, they could really drop their blood sugar low, which would be dangerous. But like you said, Thunder, one of the things I treat in the emergency department is diabetic ketoacidosis, where patients come in, their blood sugar levels are really high, but that blood sugar is not getting into the cells, so then their body is producing ketones. And exactly like you said, Thunder, they're acidotic. They're nauseous. They're vomiting. They're confused. It can be a life-threatening condition.

So certainly people with certain medical conditions, you would not want to do any sort of a low-carb diet or really be trying to achieve any kind of ketosis.

Thunder: Yeah. Correct. And the treatment for that is a lot of insulin.

Troy: Exactly. Yeah, that's how you treat it. We start them on insulin. We give them sometimes an insulin drip. Sometimes they go to the intensive care unit. It can be a very serious condition, and something I see on a regular basis.

Scot: I'm sorry. I might have just dozed off or something. I'm a little confused. I thought ketosis . . . People do like the Atkins diet or a very low-carb diet because that puts them in the state of ketosis, which helps them burn additional body fat. Is that not true? I'm kind of getting the feeling that that's not the case.

Thunder: No. One of the ways to encourage burning body fat is to do a lower carbohydrate diet, but a lot of times lower carbohydrate diets can also be lower calorie diets. You've got to get the energy from somewhere, so you mobilize your fat stores.

One of the ways of thinking about this weight loss, fat burning, and all these different diets, there are a lot of different ways to get around the same thing, trying to produce some calorie deficit. So, really, you're not comparing the merits of a keto diet to a high protein diet or whatever other diet you want to find. It's not so much that. It's what kind of diet advice can a person follow to produce the weight loss that they want? That's really the question. Not necessarily does it have to be exactly a keto type diet or whatever else kind of diet?

But yeah, bottom line is any kind of low-calorie diet will produce some kind of ketosis because you've got to tap into your fat stores to provide the balance of energy that you're missing because you're not eating as much food. Does that make sense?

Troy: It does, yeah. And, Thunder, along the lines of weight loss, I've wondered how much weight loss . . . I know with a low-carb diet and pushing yourself toward ketosis, a lot of people do see some fairly quick results in terms of weight loss. But my understanding is that a lot of that is water weight and you get ketones in the blood.

And again, I see the extreme of this with diabetic ketoacidosis where they have these ketones in the blood that pulls fluid from the cells into the blood. That's why you often hear of people who, when they have diabetes or when they're first diagnosed with diabetes, are urinating a lot more frequently, because they're losing a lot of fluid.

And I've wondered with these low-carb diets, where you're pushing yourself toward ketosis, how much of that weight loss is truly long-term fat breakdown versus just pulling a whole lot of water out of your body and losing weight because of that water loss.

Thunder: Yeah, that's a great point. There have been feeding studies, clinical trials have been done comparing different diets over longer time periods, like a period of months, sometimes even up to a year. And a lot of times, you look at the graphs of weight loss, and they kind of look the same. There's an initial big drop in weight in the first few weeks, and then actually, the weight kind of comes up a little bit, and then it stabilizes.

So there's definitely an element of what you said, Troy, in there. You have some water loss initially, but obviously, if you stick with it for the long-term, you're going to be also losing some fat. It's just probably going to take a few weeks for it to stabilize at a certain level. You can't say what you lose in the first three days is going to be the trajectory because that's probably not accurate.

Troy: Interesting. And maybe that's kind of self-reinforcing. You say, "Wow, look at the weight I'm losing." But probably, like you said, you're not going to keep losing that amount of weight over the longer term. You're probably seeing a lot of water weight loss, and then eventually, you're going to kind of level out to where maybe it's more realistic.

Thunder: Yeah. You just kind of settle in on an amount of weight loss, and then you hit a point of diminishing returns where, in these studies, people don't necessarily lose any more weight. They just kind of stabilize at a certain level. And then if you want more weight loss to occur, you have to try something different.

Mitch: So I guess to wrap up that idea, is a keto diet worth it, or are there other ways to lose weight? Is it comparable? For me, at least, it just seems like such a lot . . . I mean, we were kind of joking, but I do love carbs. Carbs are delicious.

Thunder: Especially in the form of cookies.

Troy: Sure.

Mitch: Oh, cookies, whatever, sure. But is it worth that amount of . . . are the benefits, the increased potential for weight loss, etc., enough of a difference that would make cutting all those things out worth it, in your opinion?

Thunder: I think with any kind of change in food behavior, you have to land on something that you can stick with. So, yes, you can lose weight following this keto diet. But the question you have to ask yourself is, "Is this something you can stick with for the next 40 years or whatever?" Forty or 50 years. And if you can't, then it's going to be something you do temporarily, and then you're going to stop and then maybe fall back into old habits.

So I'm not a fan of extreme diets of any kind for exactly that reason, because I'm afraid that this is something that people just can't stick with long-term. It's like a short-term fix.

Troy: Yeah, I agree. And again, it's a theme that seems to come up again and again as we talk about diet and exercise and all that. In my mind, too, it's all about sustainability and not just that short-term fix and getting ready for swimsuit season or whatever it is. It's like, "Hey, can you do this for the next 40 years and enjoy it and have this lifestyle that's rewarding for you?"

And I guess if ketosis is, if a low-carb diet works for you, and you're good with that, you enjoy it, then great. If it's something you're doing just to try and lose the weight and looking at as a short-term fix, it just doesn't seem like a great approach.

Mitch: So why do you guys think that the keto diet is so popular, then? I mean, some of the numbers that I was able to kind of pull up were saying that in the last year, 24.5 million Google searches were trying to figure out whether or not keto was right for them. It continues to have more and more people being a part of it. Why keto? Why cutting out all carbs? Why is that the diet of the time?

Thunder: That's a complex question to answer, but I think maybe some of the themes that are involved there are people are looking for some sort of program that they can easily follow that has noticeable quick results.

People are looking for any kind of crutch or help. A lot of times, if an individual is overweight and wants to lose weight, they don't feel great about it and they may be approaching it from a place of desperation. So if they can latch on to something that they see has worked for other people, and they're like, "Oh, all I have to do is cut out carbs. I can do that," I think that has a pretty powerful element.

And then there's also the element of marketing. I mean, not that there's a specific company marketing keto, but there are a lot of lifestyle-, nutrition-, exercise-based websites that market keto is the way to go. So you have also that marketing that's out there in the ethos that is always promoting keto. So that gets people to try it.

And then the last thing I'll say to that is keto diets have definitely been studied. Low-carb diets have definitely been studied in clinical trials. And the general conclusion is they don't work really any better for weight loss than any other diet. But a lot of times, people will see medical research like that and they will rationalize and say, "Well, that's the averages, but I think it'll work for me." And then they're willing to take the plunge that way anyway because they figure there's no harm in trying.

So that's my personal take of some of the things that are involved in keeping keto popular and really any other kind of fad diet or supplement that comes around.

Scot: Hey, Troy, what about the medical benefits of keto diets? I remember on thescoperadio.com one time we did an interview with a doctor that said there was some evidence that showed that for young children that had epileptic seizures, some of them responded really well to low carbohydrate diets that put them in that state, that ketogenic state.

Are there other health benefits that you're aware of? I mean, you'll see it on the web. People will claim diabetes, cancer, epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease. What do you know about that?

Troy: I'll say, in my opinion, and this is purely my opinion, I think the detrimental effects of a low-carb diet are probably greater than the health benefits. And the reason I say that is because I think a lot of low-carb diets lead to higher meat consumption, and primarily a lot of red meat consumption. So, right there, you have the detrimental effects there.

When we talked about that before, there are those rare exceptions where being in a state of ketosis does help maybe some children with seizure disorders.

Certainly, if you have weight loss, and it's a decent amount of weight loss, and you're able to maintain that that's going to help with potentially reversing diabetes, like a type 2 diabetes, and potentially helping with some of those long-term effects of being overweight. But again, in my mind, the sustainability of a low-carb diet I think is just a challenging thing for probably most of us.

And again, I think probably a lot of the protein intake in the form of meat . . . At least a lot of people I know who are on low-carb diets, they tell me they are eating a lot of meat. It's often a lot of red meat. And I think the health effects of that there, you're talking about increased risk of colon cancer, other types of cancers, certainly increased risk of heart disease, vascular disease, leading to risk of stroke, all those sorts of things. So I think it's kind of a mixed bag, quite honestly.

Thunder: Yeah. And if I could just add on to what Troy was saying, too, I think there are certain medical conditions, like you mentioned epilepsy, where this type of very high-fat, ketogenic-type diet may be required. Sometimes people have inborn errors of metabolism and they have to do kind of crazy special diets. Sometimes these patients are backed into a corner, so to speak, because they just may have to do that to move on.

But for most of us who are not in that camp of medical conditions that require it, then I would agree with Troy that the risks are probably outweighing the short-term weight loss benefits.

Troy: Yeah. And I will say anytime anyone asks me, "What kind of diet should I do?" and we say this again and again, I say the Mediterranean diet. The reason I say it is because there are so many good studies out there looking at long-term health effect impacts on heart disease risk, cancer risk, stroke risk, weight loss, and it does the trick.

And certainly, I don't consider it a fad diet. It's a very, I think, manageable, sustainable long-term diet. And it's certainly not a low-carb diet either.

So, in terms of just scientific evidence, that's the one diet that just seems again and again to come up over many years, lots of really good studies published in very strong reputable journals that really show beneficial health effects.

Thunder: Yeah, 100% agree with Troy. And also it's more of a moderate carb diet, and it's delicious because you get to eat a lot of delicious foods.

Troy: Yeah, exactly.

Mitch: Well, thank you so much for joining us, Thunder, and kind of enlightening us a little bit about keto and what it can and cannot do. I guess keto isn't really magic. So thank you so much, Thunder, and thank you for caring about men's health.

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This content was originally created for audio. Some elements such as tone, sound effects, and music can be hard to translate to text. As such, the following is a summary of the episode and has been edited for clarity. For the full experience, we encourage you to subscribe and listen— it's more fun that way.

Scot: Mitch mentioned that he was using a product named Huel to Troy, and Troy and I went, "What?" We had no idea what he was talking about.

Troy: No idea.

Scot: Yeah. And he explained it to us a little bit and then had some questions that we couldn't answer about it, so we thought, "Well, let's get our nutritionist Thunder Jalili on the show."

So this is "Who Cares About Men's Health," providing information, inspiration, and a different interpretation about men and men's health. We've got a good crew here. I love this crew. I love this crew right here. I provide the BS. My name is Scot Singpiel. He provides the MD. His name is Dr. Troy Madsen.

Troy: Thanks, Scot. We love you too.

Scot: And then we have Ph.D. Thunder Jalili. He knows so much about nutrition and how the body processes nutrition and does its nutrition thing. And I know I completely just undersold what you've spent your whole career doing, but let me just say Thunder is really smart about this stuff.

Thunder: That was a great introduction. I'll take it.

Scot: Okay. Yeah, you're great. And then we have Mitch.

Mitch: Hey.

Scot: He's a Hueligan, apparently, I've come to find out.

Mitch: Yeah. There's a t-shirt even that they sent me. It's a whole thing.

Scot: Yeah. So you ordered some of these Huel meal replacement products. Are they meal replacement products? What are they, Mitch?

Mitch: So you hear about them sometimes on podcasts, on some of the tech blogs that I read all the time. They were definitely invented by Silicon Valley tech bros for tech bros. All of the branding and everything is very, very much, "It is the world's number one complete food." It's not a meal replacement. It is a food.

And the kind of concept is that, "In this busy world that we're all in, you don't have time to think about your nutrition, your macros, what you're going to eat. So we have created a product that is a 'nutritionally complete meal' with an exact amount of calories, an exact perfect amount of," according to them, "macro distribution." It's vegetarian. There's supposed to be a ton of nutrients in it. It's all super foods. Who knows what's in it?

And it's okay. It's not the most delicious thing in the whole wide world, but it's okay. I don't know. I just was curious, how much of this is all hype to repackage the old SlimFast-style meal replacements of the '90s to today's tech culture? So I'm glad that we have Thunder on to kind of talk me through this.

Troy: Mitch, I'm curious. Do they market it as this is all you eat? Or you're on the go, you need a quick meal, you eat your Huel? Or is it just, "This is your food. This will sustain you and you will eat nothing else"?

Mitch: So there are a couple of brands out there that are not Huel that I have not tried that do market it as, "This is all you eat." You eat three shakes a day and you're perfect. All the nutrition your body needs. I couldn't really get behind that particular brand because the idea of just drinking a kind of earthy-tasting protein powder . . . It was like protein powder plus dirt plus a little bit of chocolate. Eating that three times a day, slurping that down was not my idea of a good time.

So the Huel and the reason I hopped on the Huel train was they have what is called their . . .

Scot: Is this your next t-shirt, the Huel Train?

Mitch: Choo-choo, all aboard.

Scot: He's in deep, guys. He's in deep. Intervention.

Mitch: Yes. But what I liked about the kind of marketing for the Huel is that they market it as, "This is a healthy lunch to have." They talk about how you can have their breakfast shake and their lunch and then have whatever you want for dinner. It's this idea of, "Don't go for fast food. Have this instead." And I appreciated that more than thinking I was joining some group of people who just don't like food anymore. I do like food. I don't know. I don't get it.

Troy: Well, I've got to tell you, Mitch, and I mentioned this to Scot off the air here, that I used to do a lot of cholesterol testing on people as part of a job I had. And this one guy, he was a tech guy, and I checked his numbers and I was blown away. I had never seen cholesterol numbers like he had. Crazy, crazy low LDL, crazy high HDL. I was like, "What do you eat?" He said, "Soylent. All I'll eat is Soylent." He said, "Totally on a Soylent diet." It was crazy.

Mitch: So he was doing the goop? He was doing the goop all day, and it was . . . Oh, my God.

Troy: Yeah. He was doing it all day, every day. That was all he ate. So he was not doing Huel like you're talking about it where it's like, "Hey, this is your healthy lunch and you can eat whatever you want for dinner." He was going all in. It sounds like some of these are marketing where it's just like, "24/7 this is all you eat." But the numbers were impressive. I will say that.

Mitch: That's crazy. Okay.

Thunder: That sounds like such a boring food culture.

Troy: It sounds horrendous, but . . .

Thunder: I know. It's like the Russian Gulag of eating.

Troy: Exactly. It's just like, "Eat your porridge."

Scot: I knew that Thunder was going to . . . Thunder is very pro-real food just because I think he enjoys the experience of eating real food.

Thunder: And it tastes good. You can make it taste good too. Isn't that a bonus?

Troy: I was going to say Thunder has already referred to me as the metronome of eating. These guys take it to a whole new level.

Thunder: That's right. You can set your watch by the way Troy eats.

Troy: That's right. But these guys, this was something else, the Soylent diet. And it sounds like probably some of these people that are doing Huel 24/7. That's a whole other level.

Scot: Thunder, what's your take on this? To me, my initial reaction is this probably is not good. I don't know. But then I hear what Troy just said. So what's your take?

Thunder: Like you guys, I am kind of a novice to the whole world of Huel and I tried to educate myself a little bit about it. I don't think they're doing anything new, as Mitch mentioned.

Over decades, there have always been food substitutes, meal substitutes, and they're always marketed with the same sort of thing. "You're too busy to make food, so eat this," or, "You want something healthy and you don't know how, eat this." etc.

So my take on it, this is probably not a terrible thing if you want to do it sometimes. I think, overall, the danger . . . I don't know if danger is the right word, but the problem with this sort of thing, in my opinion, is that it gets you really used to reaching for a convenience product to get your meal out of the way and move on to the next phase of the rat race.

I don't know. To me, it sounds restrictive. I've never tasted it, so I don't know if it's delicious or if it tastes like crappy camp food. But that's one of the things that I would wonder about. Would it get boring? I mean, you're all excited, you do it for a few weeks or a month, and then you're totally sick of eating all these lunches because you're rotating between the same five options.

I don't know, but maybe we'll find out because Mitchell is doing the experiment for us. So we'll get some information about it.

Troy: Along those lines, Thunder, too, I wonder . . . There probably are some beneficial health effects. I don't doubt that. I just wonder about the psychology of eating that way 24/7 and what the long-term effects of that are. Is it like being in the desert with just a small amount of water and then you get to the oasis and when you finally get a chance to drink water, you just overdo it and kill yourself? Do you just break down at some point and just go crazy and just eat tons of fast food? I don't know.

Thunder: Yeah, that's a great point. The health thing and then do you just totally go off the deep end because you can't take it anymore with the monotony?

I will say, regarding the health aspect of it, I'm split in my mindset of that. Just glancing at some of the ingredients and nutrition labels, it doesn't look like it's bad from a health standpoint at all. It's just that I wonder if you become reliant on it, does that prevent you from going out and seeking whole foods on your own? Do you get so used to the convenience that then the meals you do on your own tend not to be great because you've kind of fallen off the wagon of cooking and finding whole foods and going down the classic nutrition route?

Mitch: That's interesting because that was the big thing that I was wondering about. We talk a lot about whole foods. We talk a lot about they're the best possible version. But we've also said like, "Eh, if it's frozen, it's okay. It's still pretty nutritious." And this flash dried or whatever it is. It's 100% like camp food. It tastes . . .

Thunder: Yeah, freeze-dried

Mitch: . . . like camp food, but maybe a little bit better. I don't know. Maybe I'm just biased. But ultimately, is the processing or anything problematic for the foods that are in it, the ingredients? Is the nutritional value impacted by the way that it's formulated and shipped and packaged?

Thunder: I mean, the general answer is probably some, but it's hard to answer specifically without taking the ingredients in their natural state before they're freeze-dried or whatever and comparing them to the rehydrated version.

So we're going to guess that, yeah, there's going to be some degradation of some of the vitamins. But who knows exactly how much? Hopefully, you make it up with other parts of your diet as well, or maybe by just eating enough Huel that if the levels are lower, you eat enough volume to make up for it.

Scot: Hey, question for you Thunder. One of the things that you talked about one time was the food matrix that the nutrients reside in, and that makes a difference, right?

Thunder: It does make a difference, but this does seem to be like whole food. So I've got to give them credit for that. They're taking whole ingredients, not just powderized this or that. They're incorporating whole foods, which theoretically would address the food matrix issue.

Scot: All right. So, Mitch, I'm confused. I thought these were shakes.

Mitch: They do make shakes. That is an option you can have. I found them to be gross. That is a personal . . . That is not an official stance for this podcast or our organization. That is just a Mitch Sears opinion. Kind of gross.

Thunder: They taste like wallpaper paste.

Mitch: No, more like . . .

Scot: And that is a Thunder Jalili opinion. Not necessarily . . .

Mitch: Not the podcast.

Thunder: A completely uninformed opinion because I've never even tasted it.

Mitch: Sure. No, it's more along the lines of . . . Have you guys ever had the taste of pea-based protein powder? That weird veggie taste? You mix that with the smell of dirt and you mix it up with some almond milk and that's . . .

Thunder: My mouth is watering.

Scot: Again, why are you doing this?

Mitch: But I don't eat that. I eat the fancy hot and savory stuff. It's like a mac and cheese. And it's got quinoa-based noodles and a yeast-based cheese sauce, right? Or a Mexican chili that's full of lentils and beans and whatever. So it's 100% like the camp food you'd get at an REI or something like that, the kind of freeze-dried, rehydrate type stuff.

Scot: And do they amp up other nutritional stuff by adding additional things to it?

Mitch: That's what they say. They say they're able to increase the amount of plant-based protein. There are 27 vitamins and minerals. It's high in fiber because it's all lentil- and veggie-based.

Troy: Mitch, it sounds like you're going to do this.

Mitch: What? What am I doing? I just have it sometimes.

Troy: Are you doing Huel? I thought you were . . .

Mitch: I'm doing it.

Troy: I thought you were going all in on it. You're doing it. You're actively doing it.

Mitch: Oh, no. I am currently eating some Huel for lunches and I have another one that is some fancy oats that I have in the morning, high-protein oats. It's a similar concept. But it's not like I'm doing it every single day every, single meal.

Troy: Okay.

Mitch: I just mix it in there when I know I'm going to have a busy day or something like that. So I just do that rather than go get a gas station taquito.

Troy: Okay. So it's going to . . .

Thunder: The infamous roller food.

Troy: Yeah, it beats the alternative.

Scot: Yeah. I guess in comparison to that, it's pretty good stuff, right?

Troy: No, it really sounds like it is.

Thunder: In the application that Mitch is using, it's probably fine because he is not living off it. It's not the staple of his diet. Yeah, I don't really see any problem with it.

I think in the grand scheme of things, if you look across the spectrum of people that would be interested in this, maybe you'll get some people who want to make this their meal all the time. And that could have some issues.

I mean, for one, it's probably really expensive, and for two, it probably gets them away from exploring what they could get out of real foods and just gets them locked into this particular panel of meals.

And then as Troy was saying earlier, what if you just get to a point where you're like, "I can't take it anymore," and you just fall off the wagon and just will eat anything because you need a different taste?

Troy: And along those lines too, you mentioned cost, Thunder. Mitch, what are you finding in terms of how much you're paying for a meal?

Mitch: So it ends up being about $3 per meal.

Troy: That's pretty cheap.

Mitch: Maybe a touch more than that.

Scot: That's way cheap.

Mitch: So that's kind of more . . .

Troy: That's really cheap.

Mitch: Yes. They give you a bunch of bags. You have to order a certain amount, so there is a bit of an upfront cost. But yeah, for me to have just a couple of bags in the back, just on-hand, emergency replacement food, it's been nice. It's been nice to have that. I do worry that this feels processed. This feels like a trap. This feels like it's all snake oil or something like that. So I wanted to figure out.

Thunder: Technically, Mitch, it is processed because it's dehydrated and you have to reconstitute it.

Mitch: Yes. But is it killing the nutritional value? That kind of stuff.

Thunder: Yeah. And again, that's difficult to say. There's probably a little bit of a hit with the nutrients, with the vitamins and the phytochemicals, but it's impossible to say how much.

I have a couple of technical questions about the Huel. So you add water and you just throw it in the microwave. Is that how you prep these?

Mitch: Yeah. You put two scoops. They have these little special measuring scoops. If you want to get real technical about it, they give you the exact weight measurements, and then you put a couple of scoops of water, throw it in the microwave for two minutes.

Thunder: So how much food does this make? Are you full? Are you satiated from eating that?

Mitch: Yeah. It's a big bowl.

Thunder: Okay.

Troy: I'm just confused, Mitch. Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out what these meals are, because my initial thought when I heard about this, I thought of Soylent. With Soylent, you're just drinking soybeans. I mean, it's just like a soybean paste and that's what you're drinking.

It sounds like, though, here you're talking about different varieties. They are like camp food, but some have a pasta sort of consistency to it. Others are just protein drinks. So it sounds like there at least is some variety both in the texture and the flavor of it.

Mitch: Oh, yeah. And I think that's kind of what drew me to it. They've got chilis, they've got Cajun dishes, they've got curries, they've got a chicken and mushroom. And they always spell it a little different because there's no meat in any of their products. A tomato and herb. A sweet and sour if you're feeling like you need a little bit of takeout Asian-type food. It's a good mix. They're okay. They're all pretty okay.

Troy: Yeah. For me, for someone who's certainly not a nutritionist, the way you're doing it seems to make sense where you're using them to substitute certain meals. It's not like it's overly expensive. It sure beats some of the alternatives for fast food or quick meals.

And it sounds like, from what Thunder is saying, there's definite nutritional value there. It's not like the freeze-drying process is necessarily causing it to lose a lot of that. So it seems like a pretty good approach.

And talking about it and just looking at their website here, I'm actually intrigued and maybe this will make it into my food metronome. We'll see.

Mitch: Oh, sure.

Thunder: Hey, I'm looking at the offerings, the hot and savory offerings. There are nine. They're advertised on the website. And I think it'd be neat just to real quick look at some of these ingredients, because they do emphasize the whole food thing.

I'm looking at yellow coconut curry because I actually like coconut curry. So they have dried grains, which consist of brown rice and quinoa, pea proteins, flaxseed, coconut milk powder, raisins, desiccated coconut, which just means dried up coconut, yellow coconut curry. So these are all pretty much whole ingredients that you would use if you're making coconut curry.

And then at the end, they have all the other things they add to it to bump up the nutritional content. And what I mean by that is ascorbic acid, which is vitamin C, nicotinamide. Is that in cigarettes? Nicotine? No, that's actually a vitamin.

Troy: No, I don't think it's the same thing. Yeah, nicotine is in cigarettes, but I don't think nicotinamide makes it in there.

Thunder: But it's funny. People will look at ingredients and they have no idea what some of these are because we're not used to seeing these added to food. They have alpha-tocopherol, which is vitamin E, lutein, which is a carotenoid, a vitamin A derivative, calcium, zinc, retinol acetate. So you guys get the idea.

Troy: Interesting.

Thunder: They're basically putting a multivitamin in these products. And every one has basically elements of a multivitamin added to it.

Troy: Yeah, that's interesting to hear that because as I was scanning over it, I got the impression it's a lot of, like you said, whole foods and you're getting the nutrition from that. It sounds like it has that certain component, which is the bulk of it, but then they're adding a whole lot to it as well to get those vitamins in there.

Thunder: Yeah. That's good for the label.

Mitch: I was so sure that there was going to be an "Oh, Mitch, you're ruining everything" episode. This is awesome.

Scot: I'm actually a little surprised too. And this feels like it's becoming an ad for this product, which it certainly is not, right? I'm still skeptical. I don't know why. I find that to be interesting. It doesn't sound like it's expensive. I figured it would be. It sounds like it tastes okay. It sounds like Thunder is reading the label and he is like, "Yeah, this seems all right." Troy is all like, "If you're just using it as a once in a while meal replacement, that'd be fine."

Thunder: Yeah, and I think that's the take-home message. Once in a while meal replacement, this is okay. You could do a lot worse.

I think what Troy and I agree on is that you don't want this to be the foundation of your diet all the time because while you could get by strictly from a nutrition standpoint, I think you miss out on other things. You miss out on trying new foods, trying new sources of nutrients, and the element of extra nutrition you get from fresh things, farmer's market products and so forth. But as a once in a while meal supplement, I think go for it, Mitch.

Mitch: Cool.

Thunder: I can't even really ding them for too much sodium. That's the low hanging fruit. You always bash on frozen foods or processed foods. "Oh, it has too much sodium." It doesn't really have a lot of sodium either. Yeah, as far as meal replacements go, it doesn't look like it's bad.

Scot: All right, Mitch.

Thunder: For me, it would really come down to taste, if I can stomach it or not.

Scot: Why don't you invite us over for a Huel dinner and we could do some taste testing?

Troy: Yeah. Speaking of inviting people for meals, why don't you serve us up a Huel buffet? We can try all sorts of different Huels.

Scot: We could all sit down at the table and then you can get up and you could put it in the bowl and we can watch you use the specially designed scoop to put two scoops of water in your food and then put it in the microwave and you can bring it out. That'd be great.

Thunder: It could be like a bonding food preparation experience like we talk about except with powder.

Mitch: It just feels like a joke on some sci-fi show of some sort where it's like, "Oh, yes, let me reconstitute the meal."

Scot: Who knows? That may be the way of the future. So I think this episode was all about Mitch wanting permission that this is okay.

Troy: Yeah.

Mitch: Yeah, basically.

Scot: Am I getting it correct that you guys are giving him permission?

Thunder: Yes. Mitch, you have permission to have occasional Huel.

Scot: All right, Mitch. Permission granted.

Mitch: Yes.

Scot: Can we wrap up the episode?

Mitch: Absolutely.

Scot: Okay. Thank you for listening and thank you for caring about men's health.

This content was originally created for audio. Some elements such as tone, sound effects, and music can be hard to translate to text. As such, the following is a summary of the episode and has been edited for clarity. For the full experience, we encourage you to subscribe and listen— it's more fun that way.

Scot: Hey, this is Scot from "Who Cares About Men's Health." The episode you're about to listen to developed into two different themes. It was a very organic conversation, but I think it applies to a lot of men. And I want to be sure that you hang out long enough in case you are the second situation that we talk about today.

So this is about two different guys who are trying to lose some body fat. One has made some poor decisions over the past six months, had some stress in his life, that would be me, and had some questions for nutritionist Thunder Jalili, who we have on the show, and also Dr. Troy Madsen.

And then Mitch, who is producer of the podcast, has a different situation. He's been doing the right things lately, but he is struggling to lose his body fat and he's getting very frustrated and wants to know what he should do.

So we talk about both of those things in this episode. Without further ado, here is this episode of "Who Cares About Men's Health," and I hope you find it useful.

You're listening to "Who Cares About Men's Health," bringing information, inspiration, and a different interpretation of men and men's health. Got a good crew here today. My name is Scot. I bring the BS. The MD to my BS is Dr. Troy Madsen. We've got Mitch, and then we also have nutritionist Thunder Jalili. Thanks for coming together today, guys.

This show is about my fatness. I've gotten to a point . . . I don't know if this has ever happened to you guys, ever. Not Troy. It never happens to Troy. It seems like Troy has always got . . .

Troy: Yeah. Right.

Scot: But I don't know. I was a really good weight and then the last semester of my master's came in January and my exercise, my diet fell apart. I was stress eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and just anything hand over fist. I got the minis. I don't know if you've ever done this. I got the minis because I thought it's not as much Reese's Peanut Butter Cup as if I get the full-size one, except for then eat the whole bag of minis, which is more than . . . Yeah.

Troy: So how much weight are we talking here, Scot?

Scot: I'm 15 pounds up since January.

Thunder: Wow. That's impressive.

Troy: That's respectable.

Scot: Well, this is how guys are supposed to talk about it. Not like, "Oh, that's concerning, Scot." It's like, "Whoa."

Thunder: You're all man.

Scot: "Good for you." And this is another weird thing about it too. I knew that my weight was creeping up, but then all of a sudden one day, it just slaps you in the face with how bad it's become. And it could be different things. For me, it was putting on a particular pair of pants that I apparently hadn't worn in a while. I'm like, "What's going on here?" I got stuff hanging out.

Troy, do you have something like that that's . . . Have you had an experience like that where all of a sudden you're like, "Wow, this has gotten out of control"?

Troy: Yeah, I have. I've talked about it before. I had a stretch where I did put on a decent amount of weight. From where I am now, it was about 15 pounds more. And it was that kind of thing too, where the pants started feeling tighter. And you just start to realize . . . I was convinced that it was muscle weight, but then it became very clear that it was not muscle weight.

Scot: No, it's not muscle weight.

Thunder: Focused around your thick, muscular core.

Troy: Exactly. That's right.

Scot: That's spilling out like a muffin.

Troy: Yeah, exactly.

Scot: For me, I noticed it was coming on, but all of a sudden, one day, it almost, and I hate to say this, snuck up on me. It didn't, but it did. Can anybody relate to that? Mitch? Thunder?

Thunder: Yeah, absolutely. I went through something like that a few years ago too. Not quite 15 pounds, but I probably put about 5 pounds on and I'm not a big person. I'm somewhat lean, so five pounds was very apparent. And it did sneak up on me. It's the same experience, shorts and pants fitting tighter. And I did the eye test in the mirror and I thought, "Yep, it's not muscle."

Scot: What's the eye test in the mirror? Looking at yourself?

Thunder: When my stomach is starting to come over my belt in different places.

Scot: Yeah. So I just got back from a road trip too, and that was another kind of indicator. I put on this pair of jeans to go on this road trip, and they were just tight and things were hanging over and I was uncomfortable just standing. I'm like, "You know what? I'm punishing myself. These are my punishment pants. You're going to wear this on this 600-mile drive today."

Mitch: Oh, no.

Thunder: Wow.

Scot: "And you're going to live with it. You put yourself here. You're going to live with it." So I drove 1,200 miles total with my punishment pants on.

Troy: Wow. You should have just worn a corset or something. Just go all in. Just pull everything in and just hurt.

Scot: Yeah. Anyway, I'm putting together a plan to get rid of this and I thought, "You know what? I've learned a lot over the couple years we've done this podcast." This has happened to me before. I've yo-yoed in my weight before. It's kind of an ongoing thing.

Thunder: Hey, can I ask a question, Scot?

Scot: Yeah, absolutely. Ask as many as you want. It probably could make it more entertaining.

Thunder: So you mentioned your weight has yo-yoed in the past. Is the 15 pounds within the realm of previous yo-yoing, or is it new territory?

Scot: I am not the heaviest I've ever been. I'm still 10 pounds shy of that.

Thunder: Okay.

Scot: There was one point where I was . . . I'm 6'1". I was 190. I'm a skinny fat guy, so people don't notice it, but I have a disproportionate amount of body fat. And I worked really hard to get that down, and I was down to 165, and it snuck up again on me.

For the most part, if I put on some weight or lose some weight, it's a little less of a swing, but I'm constantly exercising and then not exercising, paying attention to what I'm eating and then not paying attention to what I'm eating. This has been a recurring thing in my life.

Thunder: Well, I would say right off the bat that you're not alone. This is something everybody deals with from time to time. So I don't think there's any stigma against it. It's just that it happens and then you deal with it. So I think you're doing the right thing.

Mitch: Scot, I am so glad that you're bringing this up because I am in a very similar boat and . . .

Scot: Hopefully we're not in that boat together because it ain't floating long.

Mitch: Oh my god.

Troy: It's taking on water.

Mitch: I know. Yeah, I am at this moment in time heavier than I've been in maybe four years, and it's not great. It's not great. And I think it's interesting that everyone assumed it was putting on muscle. I just assumed my dryer wasn't working or overheating my clothes.

Thunder: Defective washing machine.

Mitch: Yeah. Go make sure that the heat settings were correct and that's not . . . Anyway. But it's interesting because the struggle I had was very similar where I've been having a lot of fatigue issues and been going to the doctor's for the last year, working on all this stuff. And we got it under control. But during the rough times, both mentally, physically, etc., I've been putting on the pounds. I eat pretty healthy, but I need to get it off. So I'm excited to hear what your plan is.

Scot: Yeah. Well, I haven't eaten healthy, so that's going to be part of the plan.

Thunder: That's Step 1.

Scot: Yeah. I've maintained some of my healthy habits. My breakfast that I eat has a ton of vegetables. I still eat fruits. My problem, I think, truly was beer, sweets, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and everything else. I think I was using it to get myself through that difficult time of doing my master's project. Exercise completely fell by the wayside. So that's where I'm at.

Now, the first thing, Thunder, is during this podcast and just some of the readings that I've done, eating is really the key to this, right? Exercise can play a component, but really, losing 15 pounds of fat, it's diet. Am I correct on that? That's where my focus should be?

Thunder: I'm going to say just partially correct, because exercise is still very important. One of the things you want to do . . . Most people, to lose weight, if they're just looking at the food side of things, are going to try some way of cutting calories. And that's great, but if you cut calories without really exercising, you run the risk of losing some lean body mass. So to avoid that, it's good to exercise and focus on the diet side at the same time.

Scot: Okay. And when you say exercise, you mean some sort of resistance or strength training?

Thunder: I would say all of the above. Obviously, whatever you can do in the context of your work and life balance and all that, and what you enjoy, but all the above. Walking, running, strength training, mixing and matching.

Scot: All right. So this is a mix of what I've learned on the podcast and what I've seen out in the real world. I should come up with a better term than that. I should say on the internet, right?

Thunder: Yeah. That's the real world.

Scot: Instagram, Facebook. That's as far from the real world as it gets. So I've seen this. I've seen that you cannot gain muscle mass when you're in a caloric deficit. My first step to losing some of this body mass is to go into a caloric deficit, right? Below my base metabolic rate. Would you agree with that or not?

Thunder: Well, I would say below what you've been eating, because I would think you're probably eating more calories than you've needed for the last five, six months. And that's one reason why you have some of the weight gain. So first let's target what are your caloric needs and eat to that. And then adding the exercise just to make sure you're preserving lean body mass.

And then there's probably a third component I would add to that. I remember you were a proponent of time-restricted feeding to a certain degree, right?

Scot: Yeah.

Thunder: Have you been doing that the last five, six months, or did that go out the window as well?

Scot: That went out the window. Yep, absolutely.

Thunder: Okay. So I would say bring that back as well. I think with the combination of the three you're going to see some pretty rapid changes, because your body knows what it's like to be leaner as well.

Scot: Okay. So there's a memory thing going on there?

Thunder: Yeah. And you're used to it. Psychologically you're used to it. We're not asking you to do something that's brand new. You know what it is to eat healthy. You've done it before. Psychologically you're comfortable with it. You're comfortable with exercise and you're comfortable with time-restricted feeding. Those are all things you've done in the past. So I think that makes your job easier. It's maybe a little harder if someone has not done any of those things and we're asking them to totally turn their lifestyle upside down.

Troy: And the good thing, Scot, it seems like you've got some pretty easy targets here. Like you said, you've identified you've been eating more sweets than you should. And the time-restricted eating has gone out the window. So yeah, I agree. I don't think you'd want to go below your caloric needs, but it seems like you could definitely cut some calories down to those needs.

Scot: Sure. So let me clarify. I had a BOD POD done one time, which is that thing that they put you in and they check your body fat. And one of the numbers you get back with that is your base metabolic rate. So mine is about 1,700 calories a day, according to that.

My interpretation of what to do with that information is that is the amount of calories my body burns if I did absolutely nothing. That's just to survive if I sat in a chair for 24 hours a day. If I start adding some activity in, then that calorie level goes up.

It was always my impression that to lose weight, what you want to do is you want to have a little bit less than that base metabolic rate. You want to consume fewer calories than that. Thunder, is that true or not? Or really, truly for what I've done, it's just eliminate what I've been doing that's got me here?

Thunder: Yeah. I wouldn't go below your basal metabolic rate or your resting metabolic rate recommendation of calories. I would first focus on reducing the beer intake and the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup intake and things like that that are easy targets. That's low-hanging fruit.

Scot: All right. And why would you not want to go below a base metabolic rate? Is there some reason for that?

Thunder: Yeah, there is. There's actually a good metabolic reason for that. If you cut your calories too much, your body can also defend against that calorie loss and it can reduce your metabolic rate even further, which would make it more difficult to lose weight. So, to avoid that, you don't want to cut your calories too much. You just want to cut out the offending things.

And if you cut out the offending things, you are going to be reducing your calorie intake. It's just not going to go to a level that's low enough that we would worry about it interfering with resetting your BMR, your basal metabolic rate.

Scot: And as a nutritionist, would you also not recommend taking that base metabolic rate, figuring out . . . Because also, on that BOD POD, it tells you, "If you're moderately active, this is probably how many calories you're burning." And that number might go up from my 1,700 to 2,000 or 2,100 calories a day.

Thunder: Right. It all depends on your activity level.

Scot: Would you recommend trying to find that level and eating just below it or . . .

Thunder: That's a good place to start, but again, I guess what I would just focus on if I were you is I wouldn't go out of my way to cut out calories. I'd just cut out the things that I know are bad. Again, doing that in itself may cut 1,000 calories a week out of your diet.

Let's say you have five beers a week. That's like 1,000 calories right there. Let's say you have a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups a week. A week. I'm not saying in a day, right? I'm giving you credit.

Scot: Yeah, you are. A day would probably be closer to accurate, but . . .

Thunder: Do you know what I mean? If you do the math, maybe that's another 2,000 calories. So if in a week's time you're reducing your caloric intake by 2,000 or 3,000 calories because you're not eating the bad stuff, that's calorie reduction.

And then you add to that the time-restricted feeding part of it . . . Maybe let's try to get all the calories in, in a 10-hour period or 11-hour period, and then start off on an exercise program. Give that a couple of weeks, give it two or three weeks, and see how things work out, because that may already get the weight loss going and you don't have to make any additional sacrifices. And I know you won't be messing with your metabolic rate either.

What I think is worse is to say, "Slam on the dietary breaks. I'm eating 1,200 calories a day, and I'm going to hit the gym," and blah, blah, blah. It's like, "Well, how hard do you think you can hit the gym if you're in a semi-starvation state?" And what's that going to do to your metabolic rate?

Scot: Is that a common mistake that people make, what we just outlined there, what I was heading towards?

Thunder: Yeah. I think that crash, aggressive-type, rapid diet is a common mistake. People do it either on their own by just deciding to cut calories like crazy, or maybe they get sucked into some sort of diet plan from a book they read or a website they came across or something that advocates restriction of what you can eat and how much you can eat and things like that. So yeah, that's been for decades or centuries, people have been doing that.

Troy: Yeah. And it seems too, Scot, like Thunder said, if it's so difficult . . . I can't imagine just trying to drop down calories, just a low caloric intake like that. And again, you could maybe do it short-term and then see some dramatic results, but certainly, it's not sustainable. Again, we've talked a lot about sustainability and it seems like it would just make sense just to say, "Hey, this is what I can do. I feel good doing this. I can keep doing it." And I'm sure you'll see results.

Scot: Yeah. I think part of the danger, too, could be if you go a little too drastic, that might only last a couple of weeks. It might be just like, "I can't do this anymore." So you don't get that consistency, which is so important that we've talked about on the show, whether that's what you eat or your exercise. That consistency is super important.

I have another question. So this is a thing I see on Instagram a lot, Thunder, and it comes back to this notion that you cannot lose body fat and gain muscle mass at the same time. And it says that, however, that is possible if you up your protein intake during a caloric deficit.

I think we've already decided I'm not going into a caloric deficit, but I'm curious about that logic. What I read was if you up your protein intake to 0.8 grams per pound, then you can eat less calories than you're burning and you would not lose and you could actually gain muscle mass. Have you ever heard that before?

Thunder: Yeah, I have heard that. There is some truth to it because to gain muscle mass involves resistance training or exercise. And if you're going to do resistance training, you do need a higher protein intake. That's known. So there is an element of truth to that.

So most of the time for people who do resistance training, depending on the intensity and the frequency and all that, we'll recommend maybe they increase their protein intake by 50% or something.

The other part of it, though, is it's hard to reduce your calorie intake that much and still gain muscle mass because you do need energy, you need calories to fuel the muscle, to fuel the process of muscle protein synthesis. So there's definitely a balance of all that. You need insulin to stimulate muscle protein synthesis.

So I would say, going back to your situation, attacking that healthy diet by definition would also make sure that you're getting enough protein. And if you want to increase it a little bit, that's totally fine. That's going to address making sure you're getting quality protein, but at the same time, you're cutting out the crap, the sugar, and stuff, but you're still getting enough calories to allow your body to build muscle in response to that resistance exercise. So cutting too much would probably get in the way of that.

Scot: So we've talked in the past what the average person needs for protein. Refresh my memory what that was.

Thunder: Yeah. So, in terms of kilograms . . . and 1 kilogram is 2.2 pounds, so you can figure out the math . . . 0.8 grams of protein for a kilogram of body weight is the general recommendation for an average adult who has an average activity level, a lower activity level.

And if you add exercise into the mix, then that recommendation progressively increases. So, for example, for resistance training, maybe 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight is a good goal.

So there's no specific hard and fast rule, but it would be looking at your own personal exercise situation and then picking a target accordingly.

Scot: For me, the downside, though, is trying to get in that amount of protein. It requires you to eat a lot of food that's just like, "How many chicken breasts can I eat?"

Mitch: Ugh.

Scot: And then as a result, if you're eating more protein, you can't eat as many fruits and vegetables or carbohydrates as easily. So that there is a downside for me. I don't necessarily always think about optimizing, but I'd like to optimize that because it's hard consuming large amounts of protein.

Troy: Scot, I've struggled with this as well. Obviously, being a vegetarian, I don't get meat sources of protein, but it seems . . . Thunder, you can help us out here too. There are a lot of other sources you can get. For me, I do eat a protein bar every day and I do have a protein drink, so I'm getting some protein there. But I eat eggs and there's a decent amount of protein there.

I'm taking you up, Thunder, on the smoothie thing. I am a convert to the smoothie now, man. And using the non-fat Greek yogurt in that, that's a great source. So that's where I'm getting my protein now, and I find that provides a decent amount of variety. Yeah, it seems to work.

Thunder: Troy, you hit on so many good suggestions for Scot. Yeah, you can eat chicken breast Scot. Actually, chicken breast has a lot of protein. It has, depending on the size of your chicken breasts, maybe 40 to 55 grams of protein. So that's a lot. If you weigh 80 kilos and you're shooting for 1.5 grams of protein per kilo of body weight, you're looking at 120 grams of protein a day. You may get 50 out of that 120 grams from just a chicken breast, right? So it's not always as much as you think.

And then Troy had so many great suggestions of other ways to incorporate it. And I would, again, harp on the smoothie. You can put a scoop of your favorite protein powder and some Greek yogurt in a smoothie, and that would probably give you 30 grams of protein right there.

Scot: So I hear it's 0.8 per pound, right? That's what I hear on the internet. Not per kilogram. And that's a huge difference because 0.8 per pound is 144 grams of protein, and that is hard to achieve.

Thunder: Yeah, that's hard to achieve. But the 1.2, which is about 100 grams of protein, that's really not that tough.

Scot: Yeah. When you do the kilograms, it makes all the difference in the world. Now I can consider doing a vegetarian diet. I don't have to eat chicken breast all the time. That's an achievable number.

Thunder: Yeah. And also, if you can spread out your protein intake across your meals, that's also beneficial. So that's something to keep in mind. If we're going to shoot for . . . if 25 grams of protein is the amount we're going for in each meal, that would mean if you're looking to gain muscle mass and you want to do that through exercise, you want to have four meals in a day with 25 grams in each meal.

Now, for your purposes, if you're trying to lose weight and you're not maybe necessarily looking for maximal muscle building, you just want to preserve what you have, then maybe you don't have to worry about it as much.

So I would say in the context of time-restricted feeding, shoot for 10 hours of eating, shoot for three meals, try to get around 30 or so grams of protein in each meal, and incorporate your exercise routine.

And I'm assuming, saying that, your exercise routine is not going to be hammering in the gym for three hours a day six days a week lifting weights.

Scot: I think that's another mistake people can make too. And I'm not making that mistake because I don't want to work out three hours a day.

Plus, also, we go in the gym and we're like, "Oh, I've got to lose this weight, so I've got to really pound the weights." And then that's not sustainable because it's not fun for me. I've tried to lift the heavy weight and then I feel terrible and I actually start getting weaker, and I just decided that's not what I'm after anymore. I'm just after doing this to stay healthy, right? I'm not after it to look like Arnold anymore.

Troy: Well, we've got to hear from Mitch. Mitch, you said you're in the same boat. Is any of this hitting home? Is this just stuff relevant to Scot? Scot, I know you love numbers. I know you love counting calories. I'm curious, Mitch.

Mitch: As someone who has consistently struggled with their weight his entire life . . . I was a little chunkier when I was younger. I thinned out when I got tall and then got fat again when I was in a relationship where breakfast in bed was going to Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks, and a Beto's burrito. Who knew that you could go to multiple fast food chains if you wanted the perfect breakfast?

Troy: That sounds awesome.

Mitch: I know it sounds awesome. But no, it was a bad habit. I'm glad I'm out of that relationship.

But when I hear that kind of stuff, it's weird to me because I have been doing a lot of big changes to my diet. I have counted calories in the past. I do meal prep. I do everything I possibly can and I still can't lose the weight.

The question I wanted to ask earlier, Thunder, was when you said as someone who has been there before, you're telling Scot one piece of advice. For someone like me, who's never really . . . I have been trying to get down to 180 my entire life, right? And it's still a struggle. If someone is doing okay with most of everything, but still not losing weight, what do you tell to them?

Thunder: Well, I would try to look at the bigger picture for one thing, because the main reason why health professionals like Troy and others would say, "You have to control your body weight. Don't get too fat," the main reason is to prevent chronic disease.

Now, from a societal psychological standpoint, we have other reasons we like to be skinny. We think it looks good and it's attractive and all that. But the main biological reason is avoiding chronic disease.

Now, having said that, there is a weight range that's associated with reduced risk of chronic disease. And you can actually find this in different height and weight tables and charts and things like that.

So it's a long-winded way of getting back to your question and saying if your body weight falls within that realm of reduced risk of chronic disease, I would say that the main box is checked. You're in a lower risk category for diabetes and other obesity-related diseases.

What you're really looking for is more that societal acceptance of body weight, and that's tougher, but it's not medically harmful. Do you understand where I'm going with that, Mitch?

Mitch: Yes. But I guess that's the thing. Let me do the math real quick.

Thunder: And you probably don't want to hear that, but . . .

Mitch: I hear all of that, Thunder, but that's my question. I get all of these tests done. I really interact with my health more than I ever have in my entire life. I'm getting my cholesterol checked. I'm getting everything checked, but . . . But, but, but. My current BMI is 30.3.

Thunder: Okay. So you're in the range where it's a health thing potentially.

Mitch: Yes. And that is what is very . . .

Troy: Are you sure you calculated that correctly, Mitch?

Mitch: Sure did. I triple-checked it.

Troy: What's your height?

Mitch: 6'1".

Troy: And your weight is 180?

Mitch: 230.

Troy: 230. Okay.

Thunder: That sounds about right.

Scot: Troy just committed the number one sin. He tried to guess somebody's weight. "Your weight is 180?" "230."

Troy: I heard 180, but you're trying to get down to 180. I'm sorry.

Mitch: I'm trying to get down to 180.

Troy: Yeah.

Scot: "How old is she? Sixty-eight? Forty-two."

Troy: You just don't guess. Yeah.

Mitch: So I guess that's the thing. All the tests are saying that my cholesterol levels and everything are just fine, but every single doctor visit I go to, the little system automatically lets the doctor know to remind me, "You should probably lose some weight."

But I'm eating, I haven't been exercising as much as I did in the past, but I am getting back into it. Am I really unhealthy or am I just fat?

Thunder: So right now, you're a fairly young man. As you get older, the weight will be more of an issue when it comes to those numbers. You're talking about cholesterol, sugar, and so forth. So, yeah, I guess it is best to get ahead of it and try to lose the weight now.

Some things I would point you towards we also talked about with Scot. Have you tried the time-restricted feeding approach? That would be one thing.

Mitch: Okay.

Thunder: And if you haven't tried that, I would try that. And then I guess I would also look at . . . it'd be nice to do a dietary analysis on you to see exactly what your average intake is. How many calories are you eating? What is your nutrient status? How many grams of carbs and so forth are you eating? That would be the place to start.

Mitch: I'll just send you my last four weeks of calorie counting that I've been doing. And we can explore as to why I'm still putting weight on.

Troy: So you've been keeping a journal, a calorie journal on what you've been eating?

Mitch: For months.

Troy: For months? Wow.

Thunder: Well, what I would actually say, Mitch, have you ever done a dietary analysis, like using software to analyze your diet?

Mitch: No, I haven't. Just the calorie counting and the macro factoring.

Thunder: So since you're already into keeping a log of what you eat in calories, doing an analysis is actually pretty simple. What you do is you just keep a journal of all the food and beverages you consume, and you have to make sure you get your portions correct. And then, say, keep a four-day dietary record or something or a five-day dietary record.

Then use diet analysis software. You enter in all those foods and the amounts, and it'll spit out your average daily calorie intake, the amount of all the different nutrients you're eating, the grams of fat, grams of carb, grams of protein, grams of added sugar, etc. Very detailed analysis.

We do these in some of the classes I teach, but I think there's also online diet analysis software as well that you could access.

So I would say that would be a great starting point. Let's really see what your intake is instead of just guessing that it's good or that it's bad.

Mitch: Sure.

Troy: Do you have an idea of your sugar intake per day, added sugars?

Mitch: It's super-duper low.

Troy: It's super low? Wow.

Mitch: I make all my foods these days.

Troy: Wow.

Mitch: Yeah, I know. I don't know. It's one of the things that I have trouble with when I see things online and sometimes when we have these types of discussions and stuff. It's like I guess I'm obese. I don't think I look obese. Is BMI real or whatever? And then it's like I'm . . .

Maybe the analysis is what I need to do, but I've weighed my food to make sure my portions are right. I've switched to different lower versions of one thing or another. I'm trying and I don't seem to be making much progress.

Thunder: Mitch, have you ever done a body composition test?

Mitch: No. I keep putting off getting in one of those BOD PODs.

Thunder: I think you need to do that as well. The BMI is a reflection of body weight for your height, for your stature. It doesn't really discriminate if that extra body weight is muscle or fat.

And it goes back to what we were joking about. "You mean it's not muscle?" But joking aside, there are some people that just naturally are more muscular for their stature. So why don't we do a body composition to see where you're at with that as part of the overall assessment?

Mitch: Okay. I can do that. I think it would be important to know. I think I need to . . . Something is not working.

Scot: And you sound super frustrated.

Mitch: Well, yeah, and I feel like I'm now taking over the episode. It's, "Scot is feeling fat," and then it's like, "No."

Scot: Yeah, you did. It was supposed to be about me today, but Mitch made it about himself.

Mitch: No, I didn't mean to.

Troy: Well, Scot, yours sounds like you've got some low-hanging fruit. You've got some easy stuff. Hearing Mitch's story, I'm frustrated too. I'm just like, "Wow. What do you do?"

Scot: I know. Yeah, exactly.

Troy: But the dietary analysis, something with a dietician, like Thunder said, the BOD POD, those all sound like great ways to go next. And I think we probably have people listening who are in both boats, who are like, "Yeah, I'm eating too much sugar. I could cut that." And then people maybe who are in your situation, Mitch, where it's just like, "Hey, I'm doing it. I'm doing time-restricted eating. I'm not taking in extra sugars," and they're still just not losing the weight. So it's nice to know where to go from there.

Scot: And is there a troubleshooting kind of . . . It's not called troubleshooting, I don't think, but is there a process, Thunder, that you would then go through for somebody who's in a situation like Mitch? The next step does sound like to do a nutrition analysis and get a BOD POD. With that information, where would you go from there?

Thunder: Yeah, there's definitely a process. A good dietician could take you through that. At the University of Utah, we have Peak Health and Fitness that also does fitness testing and BOD POD, and they can recommend you do a dietician. They help people get this sort of data so a plan can be crafted to let them meet their goals.

So, yeah, there's a process, but you find out what's your nutrient intake, what's your requirements, what's your basal metabolic rate, what's your body composition, and then you go from there.

Scot: I have one last question for you, Thunder. And this is for people like me that have an idea of how many carbs they might be consuming or fat. Is there a percentage of my calories that you would recommend be carbs? Or just eat the number of grams of protein I need and then fill in the rest with good fats and carbohydrates? What should that breakdown look like?

Thunder: I'm just going to give you some super general carbohydrate windows, and there are a lot of customizations that can be built into it depending on your exercise and your preferences and all that.

If half of your calories come from carbs, that's plenty. The others you can fill in from fats and proteins. If less than half come from carbs, 40%, 45% is totally fine also.

And I will add . . . I wanted to give one other thought just to keep in mind, for you, especially, Scot, because you're in a situation where you've had this gradual weight gain and now you're all ready to lose it.

Scot: Oh, yeah.

Thunder: Gaining weight took a while, right? It didn't happen in three or four weeks. It took five, six months, right?

Scot: I'm not falling for your Jedi mind trick. I know where this is going.

Thunder: Yes. I'm saying patience, young Jedi. You're not going to lose all the weight you want in three weeks, right?

Scot: All right.

Thunder: It was fun to gain weight. You took your time with it. Everyone had a great time. Now you've got to be patient with the weight loss. It may take a couple or three months.

Scot: All right. I'll be patient. Do you have any final questions, Mitch? Any final thoughts, reflections?

Mitch: Maybe, just maybe the general approach and advice is not working for me, and I need to go talk to someone who knows stuff and get tested and figure it out. I need to get over the idea that I can just fix it myself, and maybe I need a little bit of help.

Scot: All right. Well, we'll follow up, Mitch, you and I.

Mitch: Yeah. We can do this.

Scot: It sounds like we have two different situations.

Mitch: Sure.

Scot: In a few weeks, I'll report back and let you know how things went. I'm going to take the balanced approach that Thunder suggested. I'm not going to go into some sort of caloric deficit, which I think is the natural reaction any time people want to lose weight. I'm going to admit that it takes some time.

I'm also being kind that I ate a lot of Reese's, as you like to say, Thunder. I think that's cute that you call them Reese's instead of Reese's. I ate a lot of those, and sometimes coming off sugar can be really hard, right? So the first couple weeks, eat generally healthy and if I have a couple of those, that's fine. Some people might not work that way. They might have to just cut it out completely. But I'll take that balanced approach. I'll try to exercise every day and we'll see where I end up.

Thunder: Yeah. And if you have any extra beer in the house you want to get rid of, just send it to me.

Scot: Okay. Well. Thank you so much for listening, and Thunder especially, you're just such a big-hearted guy to help me out like that. Thanks for caring about men's health.

Thunder: Great talking to you guys. Thanks for talking about men's health too.

This content was originally created for audio. Some elements such as tone, sound effects, and music can be hard to translate to text. As such, the following is a summary of the episode and has been edited for clarity. For the full experience, we encourage you to subscribe and listen— it's more fun that way.

Scot: The review of last week's recipes, Saucy Buddha Bowls, plus we're going to wrap up our easy to make "Tasty Man Meals You Can Eat All Week" series.

And to find out the favorite recipe and some kitchen takeaways, this is "Who Cares About Men's Health," providing information, inspiration, and a different interpretation about men's health.

I'm Scot Singpiel, the host, and from thescoperadio.com. And the MD to my BS, it's Dr. Troy Madsen.

Troy: Hello.

Scot: And the guy who is learning healthy isn't always just a pile of vegetables, Producer Mitch is in the mix.

Mitch: Hey there.

Scot: And both of our guests today from the Department of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology at University of Utah's College of Health, first we've got nutritionist and spice wimp, Thunder Jalili.

Thunder: Hi, everyone.

Scot: And registered dietitian and culinary coach, Theresa D.

Theresa: Hello.

Scot: I don't have anything to say about you, because you're just the . . . you're the most solid person on this whole podcast series so far.

Theresa: I'll take it.

Troy: I was just saying, Scot, you've got to refer to Theresa as "TD."

Scot: TD?

Troy: I know that has no meaning to you as not being a sports fan, but . . .

Scot: You like TD?

Thunder: I do like TD.

Scot: All right.

Troy: TD is in the house. We've got TD here.

Theresa: I'm good with that. Whoop, TD is in the house.

Troy: TD is in the house.

Theresa: I can do it. I can hang. I've spent my time on a sideline.

Scot: Last week's recipe was Saucy Buddha Bowls. Unfortunately, Troy got super busy, wasn't able to participate. I was out for a week and didn't realize how much that was going to impact my participation, so I'm feeling pretty bad. But we did have Mitch and Thunder make those, so we're going to find out more about the Saucy Buddha Bowls.

Plus also, since this is the last episode of our "Healthy to Eat Man Meals," we're going to do some reflections. It's kind of like graduation, as Troy said last week. Going to reflect on our favorite recipes. And then also, what did we learn out of this experience? And then Theresa is going to wrap it up with where we can find more recipes, because we're not always going to have our Culinary Coach TD in the place to be on the "Who Care About Men's Health" podcast-y. So you've go out and do this on your own sometime.

Troy: And I think, Scot, since it's a graduation week, we have to pick a valedictorian. And clearly, it's not you or me, so it's going to be a tight competition between Mitch and Thunder.

Scot: I don't know. It could be you. And I like your idea, a valedictorian. We'll figure out who that is.

Troy: Valedictorian, yeah.

Scot: At the very least, you'll get most improved, I think. But we'll find out.

Troy: Yeah, I started pretty low, so the fact that I actually cooked something is . . .

Theresa: More than just adding water.

Troy: Yeah, it is. That was my lesson. I learned that you don't just have to add water, yeah.

Scot: Saucy Buddha Bowls. Thunder, let's start with you. Tell us about this. This one looked really intriguing to me, so I'm bummed I wasn't able to make it. Tell us a little bit about this from your perspective.

Thunder: Yeah, this was a kind of meal that's right in my wheelhouse in terms of what I like. The prep took a little longer than I thought, but that was because I decided to add my crispy tofu to it again. I thought that would be a good addition, so that took more time. And then the other thing I did that was a little different, and it was kind of out of convenience, is I served it with rice instead of the quinoa. I did it that way because my parents were coming over, and they're super old school. I think if I would've given them quinoa, they just would've rebelled.

Scot: What would a parental rebellion look like exactly?

Troy: Probably like my dad's response to the salad we made last week. Not maybe flat-out just refusing, but just kind of like, "Eh."

Thunder: My logic was that my parent's really like white rice, but sometimes if there's a lot of crazy vegetable combinations, they get a little nervous. So I was thinking if I have the white rice, that's their zone of comfort, and they'll take whatever I put on top of it.

Theresa: Just like you do with a toddler, right?

Thunder: Yeah. Same thing.

Theresa: Food introduction. Food pairing. Something familiar with something new.

Thunder: Yeah. It's full circle. It turned out great. I thought it was delicious. My wife loved it. My sister loved it. My dad said it was pretty good, and my mom said she's really not that hungry.

Troy: Well, at least they were polite about it.

Thunder: Yeah, at least they were polite about it.

Scot: What sauce did you go with?

Thunder: I went with the spicy sauce. I can't remember the name off the top of my head, but . . .

Theresa: The tahini one, or the other one?

Thunder: No, the spicier one. I actually didn't have any serious hot sauce in the house, no surprise there given my background of aversion to spice. So what I did is I actually put some of the red chili paste from the Thai recipe we did in Week 1. I put some of that in it and mixed it up, and it actually turned out amazing. And I think that was the high point of the meal. I feel like I can put that sauce on anything and make it Asian.

Theresa: Awesome.

Scot: Cool.

Theresa: Well, that's how I feel about this particular sauce recipe as well, is that it really could go on anything. Maybe you should've just served Mom sauce and rice.

Thunder: Yeah, that would've been a good one. That's an accepted move to have sauce and rice. But it was good. Everybody did like the sauce, even if they weren't wild about all the veggie combinations. I think it was a win.

Troy: Did anyone get seconds?

Thunder: Besides me, my sister got seconds. Bless her. Well, my little nephew had a good quote. He's 11. He said, "I liked everything in it." I said, "Really? Well, what didn't you like?" He said, "Well, I liked the rice and the egg. I didn't like anything else." He was trying to be nice.

Scot: Well, we'll find out if this made Thunder's top meal or not coming up. Let's go to Mitch. How did the Saucy Buddha Bowls work for you?

Mitch: Well, I'm going to start . . . let's talk about the sauces for two seconds. I made both. Fantastic. Especially the fact that there is so much spice and flavor to them, it really made the dish really tasty, right? So it wasn't just roasted vegetables. Just a little bit of that sauce could go a really long way, and that was really kind of cool. I mixed them up a little bit, and that was kind of fun.

So the thing that I tried this week was . . . Thunder last week had mentioned, "Hey, you could make it easier if you just got frozen veg." And I live in a household where someone told me, "That's cheating." And I was like, "Excuse me. Whatever makes this work better, right?" So sure enough, I grabbed a frozen cauliflower, frozen sweet potatoes, some pre-prepared zucchini. They had them all sliced up already in the grocery store, and it wasn't that much more expensive, if at all. I didn't do the full pricing out of everything.

But to be able to just come home and maybe cut an onion and throw everything together and be able to get this done in the 10 minutes it took for the couscous to cook, and the 20 minutes it took to roast everything, that was worth it to me. That is something that I will never forget.

Sometimes, eating healthy seems to take a lot of work, a lot of chopping, a lot of whatever, when you could literally just go to the local fast-food place and someone will hand you a fully prepared meal, right? So that was my big breakthrough this week. It was delicious, absolutely loved it. Tried out the frozen stuff. And the bags were big enough, I have enough to do this again next week.

Thunder: Oh, that's excellent.

Theresa: Awesome.

Thunder: I think that's one of the wins of all this, is that at least we now know we can turn to the frozen vegetable section that makes our prep time less, and maybe that won't be the barrier anymore to not wanting to cook at home, because you eliminated a lot of that chopping and cutting and so forth.

Mitch: And I had no problem with the chopping. I'm comfortable chopping, but it was just like, "Hey, I just cut my entire prep time in half." So it was good. It was really good.

Scot: Yeah, I think anything you can do to make these recipes more simple is a great idea, whether you go for the frozen vegetables and use those instead of doing all the chopping, or get even the fresh vegetables that a lot of grocery stores carry that have already been pre-chopped for you that you can buy. That's a great idea that you had there, Mitch, to cut your prep time.

By the way, what sauce did you end up using?

Mitch: I did both of them.

Scot: Oh, over-achiever, eh?

Mitch: Then you mix them up a little, and so you get a little bit of the tahini, a little bit of the Gochujang, and it's way good.

Thunder: Is that a legal move?

Theresa: Totally. Totally okay.

Mitch: Absolutely.

Theresa: No flags on that play.

Scot: Yeah. TD says there are no flags.

Thunder: No penalty?

Troy: No flags on the play. I love it.

Scot: Nice. All right. Time for some reflections on this whole process. So we're just going to go around the room here. First of all, why don't you go ahead and tell us your favorite recipe? And then follow up with going through this process, what did you learn, how did you change, what's different, do you think you're going to continue to do this? Let's start with Troy.

Troy: Well, Scot, this was definitely a growing experience for me. I came into this, as we talked about, having had experience making pancakes, and that's been my idea of cooking. If it requires more than three or four ingredients, I'm not doing it. So it was a stretch.

In that first week, I seriously had doubts if I was going to continue, and I really wanted to make the Buddha Bowls. Things were just crazy this week, and I wasn't able to do it.

But the biggest thing . . . number one recipe for me was spaghetti squash. Absolutely loved it. It was easy to make, and I could think of many variations with that. That is definitely a keeper. And Laura, my wife, has even been asking me, "Hey, when are you going to make spaghetti squash again?"

Theresa: Yes!

Troy: You know you've succeeded when you have someone actually . . . That's why I asked Thunder if anyone went back for seconds. I knew my sister-in-law liked the salad because she got seconds. The others were kind of like, "Yeah, I liked it," and some were like, "I didn't."

The biggest lesson I learned, I think . . . well, number one, I learned how to use an oven for something other than pizza, which was a definite learning experience, and just trying to figure out where stuff is in the store. That was intimidating, but I feel like I've got a good sense of where to find things. I feel like now I can start to look at more of these recipes, and just try some out maybe not every week, maybe it's every other week, but I would like to continue to do it.

Scot: Hey, Mitch, how did it turn out for you? Favorite recipe and reflections?

Mitch: So my favorite was definitely the Buddha Bowls. In the past, my partner and I have tried eating healthier, getting in shape, etc., and it seems to always, always, always end up being chicken and peas.

Theresa: Iceberg salads?

Mitch: Yes, something along those lines. It's chicken and peas, so just a plain roasted chicken breast, maybe a boiled chicken breast sitting next to a bunch of frozen peas, or a chicken breast and a bunch of . . . We did the "if it fits your macros" for a while, and that felt really strange. Every little thing is a calculation and whatever. And that, in the past, has been my primary relationship with "healthy eating."

And so the thing that really was meaningful for this week and why I really, really liked the . . . or this whole experience and why I really, really liked the Buddha Bowls was it was meal prep that was tasty and fun, and there were carbs in it, but it was still delicious. And the recipes were things that I enjoyed eating, and things that I would try again. There were new things, and it was exciting. It wasn't just the same measured caloric intake three times a day.

And so that was the big takeaway for me, is that I feel like I have . . . I've cooked before. Troy learned so much in this thing, but for me, I have some ingredients, I have some ideas, I have some tried-and-true nutritious recipes that I can add into my arsenal that I really think is going to help me make healthy choices that I actually enjoy eating.

Scot: I want to run a comparison here, Theresa. Mitch's understanding of what was healthy versus his new understanding of what is healthy. The boiled chicken breast next to the peas versus . . .

Theresa: Oh, so plain.

Scot: Yeah, versus some of the recipe . . .

Theresa: It needed a sauce.

Mitch: Some sort of sauce, right?

Scot: I mean, are these recipes just as nutritious as what Mitch . . . I could see how somebody might think being more disciplined, boiled chicken, peas, a salad, would be more nutritious than some of these great things we had. So what is the definition of nutrition? Maybe that's where we're kind of screwed up in our heads.

Theresa: Yeah, I think unapologetic deliciousness is where we should start. It should taste good and it can still be healthy. And I do think we have a bit . . . we as in western cultures . . . have a bit of a skewed sense of what healthy is. You don't want to point fingers, but I think that the diet industry has kind of exploded this, right? If you want to try and lose weight, if you want to be healthy, this is the plan that you need to follow, and it needs to be X, Y, and Z, and nothing but. But there's so much more room for choice. It's okay.

With a few skills that I think most of us have explored this week, or this month, these four weeks, we can take something from a very plain chicken breast, which is healthy, and peas that are healthy, and make them taste good as well without adding a ton of calories, and adding a ton of salt and sugar, which we often associate with deliciousness.

And so we can have both. We can be healthy and delicious. Think about that color, and combining foods, and trying new recipes, and going out on a limb every once in a while.

Mitch: I just want to say I love that "unapologetically delicious." It seems like when we've done this in the past, my partner and I, yes we lost some weight, but I was miserable the whole time. But when you ate something delicious, you almost felt bad about it, right? You were like, "Oh, no, this thing was delicious. It must be terrible for me."

Theresa: "It must be bad for me."

Mitch: Yes. And so that idea of finding healthy foods that are unapologetically delicious is just . . . I love that idea.

Theresa: I'm very much of the practical sense that all foods can fit in an eating plan, right? It's on a spectrum. What do we eat most of the time, and what do we eat every once in a while, or in smaller portions?

We're not going to make health changes to our bodies biochemically or otherwise in one day, right? Sure, we can have blood sugar spikes and whatnot, but we're not going to affect our overall systemic inflammation, or our arthritis pain, or our cardiovascular disease and our cholesterol numbers on one day. But what are we doing for the long haul? And I think we have to find foods that taste really good, that help us to continue to eat that way for the long haul. And what's sustainable? Anyway, that's my soapbox.

Mitch: I love it.

Scot: Thunder, favorite recipe and what did you learn?

Thunder: Probably the first one actually, the Thai curry, because I'm kind of a sucker for curries and coconut milk and all that, so I liked that. And what I learned in this process? I should say of all of us who made the recipes, I'm going to take a guess I'm probably the most experienced in terms of cooking this, because I've been kind of doing it for a while just because I've been influenced by Theresa and everyone else in our department for years.

Theresa: He's worked with a dietitian or two.

Thunder: Yeah. And so I have that background. But what I was reminded of was a couple things. One, it really doesn't take as much time as you think, as long as you have a little bit of a plan in where you can save time. And that's something we've talked about before, like the frozen veggies, and the prepared garlic, and things like that. The other thing that this taught me is that I probably don't use enough sauces in what I cook.

Theresa: Yes.

Thunder: I look back on . . . and I do make a lot of things with vegetables and so forth, but in general, I find myself maybe adding some seasoning salt, or something like that. I have so much more room to incorporate interesting sauces in the stuff that I cook. Even if it's just a side of vegetables, instead of putting butter and salt, maybe add a little bit of a sauce to it, and that would be probably better.

And one last thing. This actually just occurred to me. I think this has had an indirect influence on my daughter, because she's living on her own now. She just moved in to a house, and when I would make one of these recipes, I'd text her a picture, "Hey, look what I made." She's been texting me pictures now of things that she is making at home that are kind of like these recipes, so that's been a positive thing.

Scot: That's great. You've influenced another individual. You're a good dad.

Thunder: It all comes back to Theresa, because it was her recipe.

Scot: So I did miss out one week. I really wanted to try the salad. Which one was the salad? What was that called specifically?

Theresa: The zesty lentil salad.

Scot: Yeah, I wanted to try that, because I'm not big on lentils, but I want to try to incorporate them in my diet in a way that I can sustainably do so. I was bummed about that. And these Buddha Bowls sound great, and I am going to go back and try to grab these. So I'm a little limited, but boy, I loved that red curry. I thought that red curry was great. It was easy to make. And also the granola bars. How did not any of you say granola bars? Those things were . . . I don't know.

Theresa: Unapologetically delicious?

Mitch: Yes.

Thunder: I loved those bars also. I thought they were great, but I was kind of thinking I should pick a meal and not a snack . . .

Scot: Yeah, sure.

Thunder: That's why I went with the Thai curry.

Scot: And quite frankly, portion control on those is a little difficult, right? That's the key for that, because there's sugar in them and they do taste good.

Theresa: You got it.

Scot: But you can't eat the whole thing in one sitting, which I came close to doing. But anyway . . .

What I learned was . . . so I've been in the kitchen before. Nothing very fancy. I tend to only make food for myself because my wife is a vegetarian and I am not, although I am moving more toward a plant-based diet over the past few months. But I kind of enjoyed being in the kitchen for a couple of reasons. One, it's kind of relaxing. Once you get past the point where Troy was, where it's uncomfortable, and you don't know what you're doing, and you feel lost, it's kind of like a meditation state. You just kind of focus on making the food that you make, and I'm not thinking about anything else, which gives my brain a break from my daily life.

And then the other thing was it was like a gift to make food that other people could eat. My wife was so excited every time I made one of these meals, and then we could sit down and share a meal. I can kind of understand when they talk about the power of food throughout history and sharing a meal together, especially one that you've made. Just from an emotional standpoint, that felt really good, right?

Theresa: I love that.

Scot: So that kind of goes to our domain of mental health. You're not only nourishing your body, but you're nourishing your mental health, your soul, whatever you want to say. So I really enjoyed that aspect of it.

Thunder: I always think of . . . when you share food with someone, prepare food and have it together, you're kind of giving a little bit of yourself to that person. So, for me, that always seems to make it special, if someone makes something for me or vice versa.

Scot: I think I want to hit on a theme here. I want to kind of summarize some of the other things that I've noticed everybody saying. If you've never made meals in a kitchen before, that kind of comes down in my mind to overcoming barriers.

We saw a lot of this with Troy, right? Not understanding the kitchen, not understanding the language of recipes, not being comfortable in the kitchen, not understanding where things are in the grocery store, all of these barriers can make you stop and give up. But as we learned with Troy, coming up on Week 4 here, making four recipes, he's feeling a lot more comfortable with that. And if that barrier stops you, that's not good. But I think that barrier has been lowered for Troy.

And Mitch, his perception that a healthy meal needs to take a lot of work or a lot of time, we saw that barrier changed a little bit as well.

And maybe even the barriers you hate, cleaning dishes. You give a little piece of yourself by making the food, and the deal is, "Hey, honey, how about you clean the dishes?" I mean, you can work all these things out.

Theresa: Love it.

Troy: Did you do that, Scot?

Scot: No, I didn't. I don't mind doing dishes. Again, it's a Zen thing for me. For one moment in my day, I'm just focusing on the feel of the dish, how clean it is. So I actually like it.

Mitch: I sure did.

Troy: You did? You told Patrick . . .

Mitch: I did.

Troy: That's good.

Scot: Anyway, if you've been reluctant or you've tried stuff in the kitchen before, and you feel it wasn't a success, I really encourage you to try it for a few recipes, because you will get comfortable pretty quickly. It was pretty uncanny how Troy got comfortable pretty quickly, really. That first week was terrible for him, and now by the end of this, he's feeling pretty good about it, or at least a lot more confident.

Troy: Yeah, I'm feeling better. I won't say . . . I have not reached the Zen state yet, as I heard you talking about. I am definitely not at the Zen state, but I can see what you're talking about. To truly enjoy cooking, and to do it on a regular basis, I think you really need to at least approach that and just enjoy the process, and that's been probably the biggest challenge for me. I can't say I'm at the point where I enjoy the process completely, but I have enjoyed the end result, and so it's a start.

Scot: Yep. And I know your wife has too, because she posted about it on social media.

Troy: Yeah. I think she did it more to maybe make fun of me a little bit, but . . .

Scot: No.

Troy: Her top 10 list of questions I asked, like, "How do you peel garlic?" and whatever else I was asking . . .

Scot: But that's legitimate stuff. That's navigating the kitchen, and that's . . .

Troy: Yeah, these were sincere questions. I wasn't just making stuff up. These were sincere question. I'm like, "How do I do this? I don't know."

Scot: All right. We're not always going to have Theresa with us, so if we want to proceed and go forward, where can we find some good recipes that are still fairly easy to make that you can make in mass quantities and save?

Theresa: Yeah, sure. So there are a lot of . . . Thank god for the internet. There's an amazing plethora of recipes out there. The challenge sometimes is, "Is it good? Am I going to like it?" And so I tend to go with recipes from more sources that have been around a while versus random . . . sometimes blogs can be hit or miss. If you find a good one, there are some really great ones out there.

There are some good apps. Yummly is a really great app. Pinterest is . . . I know Pinterest is often seen as this women's things, female app, whatever, but Pinterest is actually a really great place to go for recipes, because you can type in whatever vegetable you've got in the fridge that's starting to go bad, and you'll come up with thousands of recipes for that fruit or vegetable, or food item. And usually, there are great pictures to go with it and you can kind of scroll your way through.

If you're looking for things on the more plant-based and healthful side, eatingwell.com. They also have a magazine that you can find in your grocery store or things like that. It's a great source for recipes also.

If you're looking for things that kind of take it up to the next notch a little bit, you're looking for some awesome new sauces, things of that sort, one of my personal favorites is Bon Appétit magazine. They've got an awesome recipe warehouse on their website.

If you're looking for different grains and trying to incorporate different grains, Bob's Red Mill has awesome recipes, as well as King Arthur. And a little bit more getting in . . . Maybe you'd like to explore baking. King Arthur and Bob's Red Mill have really great baking recipes also, hitting on the grains a little bit more.

So there's a lot of variety, and it's, again, just trying new things. I think using friends and family is a great way to explore new recipes. So if you're at that family gathering, or if we ever get back to buffets or what have you, having somebody . . . if you like that particular salad that they brought, or that entree, or what have you, asking for the recipe and sharing those recipes is a really great way to add to your list.

And whether you keep those recipes electronically, or if you're like me and old school and like to have them written out, whatever kind of works for you, there are lots of great sources out there.

Troy: Well, I'll tell you, Theresa, as I'm hearing you talk, I think you might want to consider creating either your own app, or website, or both. "TD's Man Meals Made Easy," something like that.

Theresa: I did a quick search, and when you look for a compilation of men's focused recipes, it's really focused either around the grill . . . which isn't bad. I love grilling. But that's it, right? And they tend to be very meat-centric and don't incorporate a lot of vegetables. I don't think you have to be completely vegan or eliminate all meat, but if we're looking at it from a health standpoint, and not only health for me as a human, but health for the planet, we need to be incorporating those plants more.

Yeah, maybe we're onto something. That'll be my next career move maybe, Troy.

Troy: Do it.

Theresa: I'll give you a call.

Troy: TD's Man Meals.

Mitch: Love it.

Theresa: TD's Man Meals, I like it.

Scot: We were given these great recipes, and we kind of had to try them, right? First of all, we had a great guide in TD, in Theresa, but then we just kind of had to try them. I find that sometimes when I go online and start looking for recipes, I get overwhelmed and I don't know which one to pick. I don't know if it's going to be within my skill set. I don't know if it's going to be good. How can we choose a recipe that is within out skill set that's not going to be too incredibly difficult that's still going to be good?

Theresa: Read through the recipe. Does it sound good? Do you understand it? Are there words or culinary skills that are being talked about that you have no idea what it is? Maybe you want to learn a new skill so that would be an appropriate time to take a little bit of additional time. But sometimes it's just reading through the ingredients. Does this have foods that I like? Go for it. Is it curry, and I know that I've made curries before but this one has some different ingredients? Let's go ahead and give it a try because I know I've liked other curries, or things that are similar to it. So sometimes it's helpful to start with something. Is there some familiarity within the recipe?

The image speaks . . . a picture says a thousand words, right? Does it look appealing? That's something that I always try to look for or think about when I'm taking photos to go with my recipes, is to make it look appealing. If it doesn't look appealing, I probably don't want to make it.

Sauces? I want try some new sauces. Make a small quantity first versus making a large quantity of it. So I often find that I'll try a recipe the first time per the recipe and follow the recipe, and then I'll either make changes to it or I'll discard it or keep it as is, and I end up putting that recipe into three stacks. But I usually just try and make just one batch of it first. Try not to make too much.

Or making it and taking it to a group event where other people can eat it too is a good way to test out new recipes that you're not quite sure of.

Thunder: Theresa actually hit on two points that I think, for me, are the main points when I look at recipes and I decide, "Is this something I want to make or not?" And this is, I guess, from my perspective as a guy who also kind of knows how to cook a little bit, but not an expert.

Number one, the ingredients. Do the ingredients look like they taste good? That's my number one thing. And my number two thing is do I understand how to make the dish? Do I understand the instructions? And if those two are a go, then I try it. If one of those two is not a go, then I move on. So that's my personal way of picking things.

Scot: All right. As per Troy's suggestion, Theresa, let's name a valedictorian, or as any graduation goes, sometimes they name "Most Improved" or something like that. Do you have some awards to give out to us guys?

Theresa: I like it. Certainly. I think, first and foremost, "Most Improved," Troy.

Scot: Yeah.

Thunder: Yay.

Theresa: We went from just adding water to the pancakes to taking food to a family event.

Troy: I fed the family. See, I'm basically the guy . . .

Theresa: That's huge.

Troy: Yeah. So I'm the guy at graduation who started off freshman year failing out and then I somehow got in community college.

Scot: Hey, we're not knocking community college here.

Troy: Hey, no offense to community college. I'm just the guy who barely got in community college. So anyway, thanks, Theresa. I do appreciate that award.

Theresa: Right? I would say the next is . . . "Most Saucy" goes to the one and only Mitch.

Scot: Yay.

Mitch: Thank you.

Theresa: Everything tastes better with sauce on it.

Mitch: It sure does.

Theresa: Sure thing, right? And then I would say "Most Likely to Add Tofu to Their Dish," Thunder Jalili.

Scot: Woo.

Thunder: Thank you.

Troy: Yeah, Thunder was doing stuff with his tofu I've never heard of. I just threw mine in the dish. I don't know what you did, Thunder, but . . .

Thunder: Well, the closer they taste to potato chips, the more apt I am to eat them.

Troy: Good call.

Theresa: And "Most Able to Hold Us All Together," Scot. You are the butter to our bread.

Scot: Hey, I like that.

Troy: The sticky to the rice.

Theresa: Yes.

Troy: The one that keeps this train going.

Theresa: The sauce to our Buddha Bowl.

Scot: Theresa Dvorak, TD, as you have come to be known over the past four weeks, thank you so much for helping us out.

And if you are listening to this episode and you have not heard any of our previous episodes, this was part of a series that we started out over the course of four weeks. I think a great way maybe to get started if you're intimidated by any of the things we talked about, any of those barriers, is to just go back to the first episode and try that recipe. And instead of doing the garlic and the ginger as the recipe says, just buy the little jar of pre-made stuff, right?

And then maybe the next time you make it, you might want to try using fresh garlic and figuring out how to make that work so you don't overwhelm yourself. Then you start learning some of those kitchen skills.

And then hopefully you'll get to the point that we're at where you're starting to feel a little bit more comfortable in the kitchen, and you're sharing food, and you're not only nourishing yourself, but you're nourishing your soul as well.

So, Theresa, thank you so much. This has just been such a fun thing to do.

Theresa: This has been really great. I've really enjoyed it. Thanks, guys.

Scot: Yep. And Thunder . . .

Troy: Thanks, Theresa.

Scot: Yeah, thanks for being on along with us. We sure appreciate your insight and expertise, how to make this stuff easier.

Thunder: You're welcome. It's always a pleasure to be on with you guys.

Scot: And, of course, Mitch and Troy, thank you as always for being on the show.

If you would like to participate in any of these recipes, even though we're done with this series, you can go to facebook.com/whocaresmenshealth. You can also find all the recipes in the show notes for this episode in the event you don't want to go back to the previous episodes and try out some of these recipes, work up your kitchen skills, work up your grocery shopping skills, and make some great meals that you're going to love eating that are nutritious.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for caring about men's health.

This week's recipe is Saucy Buddha Bowls. If you make it, tell us how it was and post your pictures on our Facebook page.

This content was originally created for audio. Some elements such as tone, sound effects, and music can be hard to translate to text. As such, the following is a summary of the episode and has been edited for clarity. For the full experience, we encourage you to subscribe and listen— it's more fun that way.

Mitch: Hello and welcome. This is our latest update for our tasty man meals. We'll see how it went with the zesty lentil salad, and Theresa is here to give us another recipe to add to our healthy meal arsenal.

This is "Who Cares About Men's Health" where we aim to give you information, inspiration, and another interpretation about your health. I'm Producer Mitch, and I'm filling in for Scot who is out of town this week. So I guess I will be bringing the BS this episode. And for the MD, we are joined by co-host and chef-in-training, emergency room physician Dr. Troy Madsen.

Troy: That's me. Thanks, Mitch.

Mitch: And from University of Utah College of Health Department of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology trying to get me off of roller food, we have registered dietician and culinary coach Theresa Dvorak.

Theresa: Glad to be here.

Mitch: He is the Director of Graduate Studies for Nutrition and Integrative Physiology, and fun fact, my mom's favorite all-time guest for the podcast, Thunder Jalili.

Thunder: All right. I'm glad to hear I'm good for someone out there.

Theresa: The moms. You got the moms.

Troy: You're everyone's favorite, Thunder. You are. You're the VIP.

Mitch: So let's go ahead and just dive in this week. Theresa this week tried to sneak in a salad that didn't have iceberg lettuce. So we were working on . . .

Troy: Ooh.

Mitch: Yeah. Right? So we were working on the zesty lentil salad. And how was this for everyone? Troy, how did it go?

Troy: I am going to tell you, this salad really was my next step in cooking.

Theresa: Yes!

Troy: So we had to get together for my brother for his birthday.

Theresa: You cooked it for other people?

Troy: Yes.

Theresa: Yes!

Troy: He said, "Hey, we're going to be having . . ." He said, "I'm going to grill some salmon and we're going to have some cheesy potatoes and some fruit." And I said, "Hey, can I bring a salad?" And so I actually made it and I took it. And there were six other people there who tried it and provided their honest feedback. I said, "Please give me your honest feedback."

Mitch: So, Troy, is this usually what happens? People invite you over and you're like, "Oh, I'll make something," or is it like grab some chips on the way?

Troy: No.

Theresa: No. They tell him what we're going to eat and he says, "Okay, sounds great."

Troy: They tell me what we're going to eat. I'm like, "Cool. I'll be there. What time?" I rarely bring anything. I have never in my life made a dish that I have taken to any event and let other people consume. So this was a first for me. I've certainly bought things.

Mitch: That's so cool.

Troy: Yeah. I've bought things, but I've never made something and taken it. So this was a big deal.

Mitch: How did that feel?

Troy: It was good. I felt like I was putting myself out there on a limb a little bit, but then I was just like, "Hey, guys, it's not my recipe. I don't take it personally." Although I did have to make a few modifications. I could not find bulgur, so I went with . . . not quinoa. I used couscous.

Theresa: Couscous.

Troy: Yeah. And I'll tell you, too, I always just . . . I assumed that lentils are the same thing as beans. And I found beans and I couldn't find lentils, so I just found some canned white beans and I used those. And I was going to text my wife and be like, "Are beans and lentils the same thing?" But I was like, "No. I can do this." So I used beans instead of lentils.

Mitch: Okay.

Troy: A couple of modifications.

Thunder: Troy, that's like saying the liver and the heart is the same thing.

Troy: For some people, it is, Thunder, okay? For some people, it probably is.

Mitch: Hey, he made something fancy. He made something healthy.

Theresa: Hey, that works.

Troy: It works. It was a substitution.

Thunder: How did people like it?

Troy: That's a great question. It had mixed reviews. I enjoyed it. I will say given that these are tasty man meals, it was the women who liked it and the men who were just like, "Hmm, I don't know." So my mother . . .

Thunder: It's a lot of vegetables for a man.

Troy: It was a lot of vegetables for a man. So my mother was there. She was so proud and she said, "This is delicious." I noticed that she did not get seconds, but she ate everything she got.

Mitch: Oh, man.

Troy: My sister-in-law actually really liked it and went and got seconds. My brother, whose birthday it was, was like, "Eh, maybe this will grow on me." My dad was flat out like, "Yeah, I don't really like it." And my 13-year-old nephew said, "This tastes like something my mom would make me eat."

Mitch: Oh, no.

Troy: That was his review.

Thunder: That means it's healthy.

Troy: I know. Exactly. I said, "Well, it's healthy." And then my other nephew wouldn't even try it. Tough crowd there, but again, mixed reviews. I enjoyed it. I thought it was tasty. I liked it. Generally, it was a good experience. I made something. People ate it. Some people really liked it. So it was cool. It was good.

Thunder: Well, also, Troy, you did the experiment with a range of demographics there.

Troy: Oh, yeah.

Thunder: Not just men, but young, old, different gender. So good test.

Troy: Yeah. It was across all age groups. And it was a group of individuals who looked at the bowl I had made . . . because I got the pearl couscous, the large couscous. And they said, "Oh, wow, it has corn in it." And I said, "Actually, that's couscous." So they said, "What's couscous?"

Mitch: Surprise.

Thunder: You should have gone with the corn. "Yes. It's corn."

Troy: I should have gone with the corn.

Theresa: Roll with it.

Troy: What was I doing? I should have got corn. Yeah. So, anyway, it was definitely a diverse audience and a diverse testing group. And again, some people really liked it. My sister-in-law said, "This is really good," and did not . . . she's not the type who's going to go get seconds just to make you feel good. She legitimately liked it. So that was good.

Theresa: That's great. What did you think?

Troy: What did I think?

Theresa: Yeah.

Troy: I enjoyed it. I will say I didn't love it, but I definitely liked it. Last week, the spaghetti squash, I loved. For me, that's a keeper. This, I enjoyed and I found it tasty. I wondered if maybe my substitutions weren't the best idea. I don't know if the beans were the best idea. I've got to try it with lentils, and I've got to find bulgur and try that. But I enjoyed it. It was straightforward, fairly easy to make. So I liked that about it.

Theresa: Good.

Thunder: Troy, I will say that the lentils and the bulgur will definitely give it a different taste and probably a different texture too . . .

Troy: Yeah.

Thunder: . . . than the beans. So give it another try with the actual lentils.

Troy: With the actual ingredients.

Thunder: Yeah.

Troy: That's a great idea.

Theresa: And I would say, too, if you found the beans . . .

Troy: Yes, I did.

Theresa: . . . lentils were close by.

Thunder: You were so close. You were within probably 15 feet.

Theresa: Pretty close, honestly.

Troy: I know. I couldn't find my . . .

Theresa: Because they're usually in the same aisle. So you were close. Just look a little more.

Troy: I was within shouting distance.

Thunder: Troy, let me ask you a question.

Troy: Yes.

Thunder: When you got the beans, did you see the Hispanic/Mexican-type foods anywhere in that area?

Troy: That's another aisle. The Hispanic foods are . . . they have a Hispanic foods aisle.

Thunder: Okay. Because in the store that I go to, our local Smith's, that's where the lentils are.

Troy: Okay.

Thunder: And we actually have beans, I think, farther down the aisle. So in that same vicinity.

Troy: Yeah. I will say I found that and I looked around and I was like, "Beans and lentils are the same thing. They're just different names for the same thing."

Thunder: Of course.

Troy: So I just went with it.

Theresa: Well, they're both high in protein, high in fiber.

Troy: Yeah, exactly. Like Thunder said.

Theresa: The lentils and the bulgur will bring more nuttiness to the flavor than . . . Couscous and a white bean are pretty bland. You've got to add a lot more to them. So if I was doing that, I maybe would have added some more garlic, a bit more on the lime or lemon juice, things that are going to bring in a lot more of that robustness and brightness to those sources. But great try.

And honestly, I have written down the goal for you guys and my hope is that not only would somebody say, "Hey, can you make dinner tonight?" but that you willingly bring something to the table.

Troy: I did it.

Theresa: And you did that on your own and that's so amazing. So well done.

Troy: I did it. And it was a first for me.

Mitch: Congratulations.

Troy: I know. It was a proud moment, I will say.

Mitch: So, Thunder, what did you do? Did you have a chance to make this or have your daughter make this?

Thunder: No, I didn't outsource it this time. I actually did it myself. I actually had a great experience with it. So, similar to Troy, I had an outdoor movie I was going to go to. So one of my friends has an outdoor movie screen and we go there sometimes and have dinner and watch movies. He said, "Can you bring a salad?" And I said, "As a matter of fact, I can."

Troy: Wow.

Thunder: So I made the recipe, and I did make one change. I didn't add the red onions because my wife said, "I don't like raw red onions." So I didn't add those in there, but I didn't know that she also doesn't like that much feta, so she never ended up eating the salad anyway because it had feta.

But there was a wide demographic of people, just like at Troy's party. We had my friend and his wife, and his sister and husband, and then our two nephews, one is 10, one is 11. So different ages, different genders. The kids were afraid to eat it. They didn't like the look of it. I kept telling them, "It tastes so much better than it looks," but they wouldn't believe me. All the adults really liked it. So it was a hit.

Troy: Nice.

Thunder: And I really liked it. I actually ended up not only feeding everyone there, which was eight people, but I had a little bit of leftover that I had the next day for lunch.

Mitch: Yeah. This was a big batch, right?

Thunder: Yes. It was a lot of food. And I considered it a meal. I had it for lunch the next day because it has the lentils and it has the bulgur and it has vegetables. So it was like a meal.

Mitch: That was one of the things that I was noticing, is just we had it hot that first night. I felt full. It wasn't like a little side dish necessarily, even though that's what I thought it would end up being. It was a full meal that day.

Theresa: Would it go into the good salad category there, Mitch?

Mitch: Yes, it would.

Theresa: Awesome.

Mitch: And that was it. There was something really fun about doing the bulgur and the lentils. To be honest, even Jonathan was making the joke. It's like, "It seems like she's trying to sneak lentils in with you." Like, with how much Mom mixes in, it's like with a kid. You sneak little vegetables in their food. But it was my first time cooking with bulgur, and it was almost like oatmeal, somewhere between oatmeal and rice cooking it up.

I think one of the things that I'm really taking home from these last few recipes and something I really appreciate is that I've cooked before, but the cooking that I tend to gravitate to was always these big, ostentatious meals. That's when I would cook, is when it was a show stopper and it would take all day. And those were the recipes that I gravitated to, but my day-to-day meals were gas station food or frozen food out of the freezer.

Thunder: Roller food.

Mitch: Exactly. These recipes are super easy, and that's what I'm really appreciating too. I throw two pots on the stove, I throw some stuff in, stir it every so often, and chop some veg up. Done.

Theresa: Awesome.

Mitch: Shake up in a little mason jar, whatever . . . that's what I used to shake up a little bit of a dressing and you're done. It's 30 minutes and you're in and out. And it's a tasty, healthy meal and it's . . . Jonathan really liked it. I really liked it.

Troy: And that's one thing I really like too. Again, like you said, Mitch, it's one of the things you're cooking the one thing and then you're just chopping the other stuff, and then you throw it together and you're done. And when I took it to the dinner, I just kept it in the fridge. I made it that morning, kept it in the fridge, took it that evening, served it cold. And again, it had some people who liked it, which was nice.

I was curious, though, were you guys able to find bulgur? Do you say it bulgur like "vulgar," or do you say it "vulgur"?

Thunder: Yes.

Troy: Is it like "vulgar"?

Theresa: I've heard it both ways.

Troy: Okay.

Theresa: Your choice. Tomato, tomahto.

Troy: Tomato, tomahto.

Thunder: I had an easy time . . .

Troy: Did you find it? You found it pretty easy?

Thunder: I had an easy time finding it. Yeah, it was no problem because I know where the Bob's Red Mill stuff is. And if there's some sort of obscure grain or something, they usually have it.

Troy: Okay.

Thunder: So, yeah, I just got from there. And it's not expensive. That was another thing. The lentils, I bought for $1.20 for a bag and I didn't even use the whole bag. Same thing with the bulgur. It was like $4, and I used maybe half of it. So the point is I could make this again. If you figure out what you are spending per serving on this meal, it's probably super low.

Troy: Yeah.

Thunder: Everyone always says you can't eat healthy because it's too expensive. This is definitely an exception to that rule.

Troy: Agreed. Yeah.

Theresa: And to Mitch's point, it cooks up like oatmeal and it can be used as a breakfast grain as well, and often is. And that's actually where I found it at my grocery store, was in the breakfast cereal/oatmeal aisle. So where the oatmeals were, there was a bunch of other grains, the Bob's Red Mill grains, like Thunder mentioned, where you'd find polenta and ground flax, flaxseed, and then the bulgur was there as well.

Troy: Interesting. Okay.

Theresa: So it can sometimes be in different spaces. But yeah, this is definitely something you could put in place of oatmeal if you wanted to in the morning. Put some cinnamon and a bit of honey and dried fruit and almonds on it and you've got a porridge. So that would be a great alternative. Yes, it's still slightly processed from the whole wheat berry, but it's considered a whole grain compared to, say, a flour or a processed grain. So you're getting a lot of bang for your buck nutrient-wise. And like Thunder mentioned, a lot of these ingredients go a long way and they are really packed full with nutrition.

Thunder: One other thing I really liked about the bulgur in this recipe, I like how it gave it some bulk. It has a pleasant, mild taste and it makes it bulky in a good way that you feel like you're eating something and you can be full.

Mitch: Yeah, it was almost somewhere between a rice bowl and a salad for me. There was a texture to it, there was a nuttiness to it that I really, really appreciated in more than just, "Here's a pile of vegetables."

Thunder: Yeah, I agree.

Theresa: Your standard salad, right?

Mitch: My standard salad, yeah.

Thunder: Iceberg with thousand island.

Mitch: Yeah. It's like, "Great. Thanks. Nutrition."

Troy: Well, I am intrigued by the bulgur. I've got to find this now. I just gave up on it. I looked around, I couldn't find it, I just said, "I'm not going to find it. This is far too exotic for my grocery store to have." But I've got to find it. They've got to have it there. So I'd want to try this again with the bulgur, like I said, and then lentils too. And I don't know if it was the couscous, but I think for my dad it was more just the parsley. I think he's just not a fan of parsley.

Theresa: Sure.

Troy: So I think . . .

Thunder: You can go easier on the parsley.

Troy: Yeah. I've just got to go a little easier on the parsley.

Thunder: I actually went a little heavier on the mint because . . .

Troy: The mint was good.

Thunder: . . . we have mint that grows in our yard.

Troy: Oh, wow.

Thunder: I've been meaning to trim the mint anyway, so I just went crazy with the mint. Probably doubled it.

Troy: That's cool.

Thunder: It ended up being a good thing because a lot of people commented, "Oh, I like the mint in there."

Mitch: Yeah, that was a surprise to me because I only use mint for my mojitos. Mint is never used in just a meal. So that was cool to use that herb.

Troy: Agreed. That was really cool. I liked it too. Tasted great.

Mitch: So moving on, though, this week, Theresa, it looks like . . . I like saying this. It looks like this week we're doing a saucy buddha bowl.

Theresa: You got it.

Mitch: That is so fun. That's a fun . . .

Theresa: We're going saucy this week.

Mitch: Saucy. I love that.

Troy: Saucy buddha. love it.

Mitch: So what's coming our way this week? What are we learning? What are we doing?

Theresa: So this week is your ultimate meal prep week. And what we've got here is . . . so in the recipe, I have listed out certain vegetables that I think go really well and complement each other well in this. However, it's one that you really could just what's in the refrigerator, what looks good, what vegetables do I like and roast them up and put them in. So there's a lot of variety that can happen in this particular meal.

And we explore quinoa with this particular one. But just like you mentioned, you could use the bulgur, you could use couscous, you could use a brown rice. Any kind of grain would be awesome in these grain bowls, in these buddha bowls. So you could even do a lettuce bed at the bottom of or spinach or something like that, fresh greens, if you wanted to as well. So, again, there's a lot of variety, a lot of choice that can happen.

And this is your sheet meal. Now, the downfall is that we're doing this in what tends to be a really hot time of the year in August. So we've got that factor, but this is one that you could certainly slip in your back pocket and pull out in the winter, in the fall, when it starts getting cooler and you actually want to have the ovens on to help bring some warmness into the kitchen.

You could also do this out on the grill if you wanted to. You could make little foil packets. If you're into camping and outdoorsy, you could put them in foil packets and do this out on the campsite as well.

So that's something else that I really like about this particular meal, is that there's a lot of variety there. And it reheats amazingly well. So, for lunch the next day or dinner, that works too.

And then we've got a couple of different dressings that I put on here. So I don't know if some of us want to try one dressing and others try another one to get some of that feedback, but one is an Asian Gochujang paste, which is a Korean chili paste, and the other one is a tahini, sesame seed paste base. So a couple of different options there for the sauces too.

I have found through my cooking that I'm a saucy person. I just am. I like the sauce and it brings . . . a little bit goes a long way. So, in these, if you look at the nutrition breakdown, yeah, there's a ton of calories there, but you really only need a little bit. You only need a couple of tablespoons for one bowl and it brings a lot of flavor and deliciousness to the bowl.

Thunder: Theresa, I have a saucy question for you.

Theresa: I love it. Yeah.

Thunder: So I'm a little bit of a spice wimp. And as I'm looking at these, tell me how spicy are these sauces on a scale of 1 to 10? And if I wanted to make it a little more gentle, how much should I reduce the spice content?

Theresa: Yeah. For sure. So the spicy farmhouse dressing, which has the Gochujang . . . I think I'm saying that right. Probably not. I apologize, my Korean friends.

Thunder: Sounds right to me.

Theresa: It is certainly on the spicy end. So if you're not a fan of spice but want some flavor, I would reduce that to two to three teaspoons, or about one tablespoon, so in half. It makes it on the spicy side. I would say a medium spice, medium to high.

Thunder: If you reduce it, it makes it medium?

Theresa: Nope.

Thunder: Or as is?

Theresa: As written is medium-high on the spice.

Thunder: Okay. That would probably be too much for me. So I would want to go with a couple . . .

Theresa: Okay. Then go in half. It's also one of those things that I also make both of these recipes without the spice as well and then add spice onto it afterwards. So I make these for the whole family, and my young children don't like a lot of spice. "It's too spicy, mama." And so I keep the hot sauce out, which is a great way too if you're serving other people. You can keep the spiciness out. Just mix up everything else and then you can add little bits as you go and on your own. So that's another way to consider it.

The spicy tahini, in general, is less spicy than what the farmhouse spicy dressing is as written. So the chili garlic . . .

Thunder: Would you say that's more of a medium or a mild-medium?

Theresa: I would say more of a medium, mild to medium, yeah.

Thunder: Okay. So maybe that one I could just do it the way it is.

Theresa: Yep. Exactly. I will say too, though, keep in mind that your chili paste . . . this is a great good-to-know tip. The longer it sits in your refrigerator, the less spicy it becomes.

Thunder: Oh, I didn't know that.

Theresa: So I had a container of the chili garlic paste, which is fantastic, and then you get to the bottom of the container and you're using however much you use, and then you buy a new container, and you go to use the same amount and it's like, "Whoa, this is twice as spicy." So, yes, it will lose some of the spiciness the longer it sits in your refrigerator. Just keep that in mind too.

And always something with spice, you can always add more. It's really hard to take it away. So that's why I also like to keep that separate, especially when you're serving multiples or trying something for the first time.

Thunder: Would it freeze well, this recipe? Because everything we've made so far is a pretty big portion and I love the idea of freezing it for another time.

Theresa: Certainly. Definitely. It freezes great. And the dressing will last in the refrigerator for weeks. And these are both dressings that I like to put on almost anything. I'll just be honest there. Any grain, any beans or rice dishes, on your lentils. It's really fantastic. And so I make up a double batch and label it and keep it in the fridge in a jar and add it wherever you want.

Thunder: You hear that, Mitch? You can put it on your iceberg lettuce.

Mitch: Absolutely.

Theresa: It actually does really well on lettuce-based salads too.

Mitch: Okay.

Theresa: So you certainly can.

Mitch: I'm just looking at the picture and everything. This does look the most meal preppy I've seen of what we've made so far. I see it in the little pre-portioned glass jars.

Theresa: Well, the picture I chose was meal preppy, yeah.

Mitch: Yeah. But what I'm reading, as I'm reading through the steps and stuff, this seems pretty straightforward. We're roasting some veg and putting some grains in there.

I guess what is the kind of goal for these types of meals that lasts forever? Just filling? Good nutrition? What are some of the things that we're looking for in here? The sauces are great. I'm also a saucy person. I drench things whenever I can. I think that they're really tasty. But what are the goals for this particular meal this week?

Theresa: So I'm looking for balance. I'm looking for a good source of fiber. We've got lots of vegetables and the whole grains here. I'm also looking for a variety in color. When I build a meal, I use the rule of thumb of about three or four different colors. And here, we've probably got six different colors going for us. But the more color you have, the more variety in nutrients you have as well.

Plus, it's got a good amount of protein to help . . . the protein and fat from the dressing helps to keep us satiated through the day so that we don't just eat something and have a sugar spike and then crash and then we're hungry an hour later. I'm really looking for meals that stick with you a little bit. And that's where that complexity comes from.

Thunder: Theresa, I'm glad you mentioned the comment about protein, because I think when people just look at the ingredient list of what you have in this recipe, there's no chicken or beef or anything that jumps out to you. So we may look and think, "Gosh, it only has some eggs and that's it." But really, if you look at the nutritional breakdown that's provided, it has quite a lot of protein in spite of it being almost a vegetarian meal, or I guess if you're ovo-vegetarian, it is a vegetarian meal.

Theresa: You got it. So we've got the whole grain, the quinoa. And there is actually protein in vegetables too. So we've got to keep that in mind.

And if I'm prepping this for the rest of the week, how I wrote the recipe is a fried egg on top. You don't need an egg. I didn't put an egg on it when I made it for dinner last night. You could if you wanted to. Certainly, you could add something else. You could put some tofu or a piece of fish or chicken on top. But you're right, it's good and filling and complete as it is nutritionally.

You could also boil eggs. If you like boiled eggs, that's a great way, especially if I'm packing it for lunches throughout the week. A boiled egg tends to do better the second time around than a fried egg does. But if you're doing it warm, having that oozy sunny side up egg on top is really great. So there's a lot of variety that you can get there too.

I would say it also multiplies really well. So you could double this easily, and you're only having to increase the amount of labor time of chopping vegetables just by a little bit because you're already doing it.

And that's also another piece that I like, particularly about this bowl or this recipe, is that you could then reuse the vegetables in different ways. So you could make a black bean taco with roasted vegetables, and you add some black beans into it and you've got your tacos and add some salsa to it. You could do a morning hash or something like that with this because it's got the sweet potatoes and the roasted veg and onions and whatnot there, and add a bit more of your scrambled eggs if you wanted to. So it's got a lot of variety that I can pack on to this meal too.

Mitch: Man, that's the kind of stuff that I'm always looking for. I guess because whenever I try to "eat healthy," it's just like you were saying before, it's like my default is a piece of iceberg lettuce. That's what health is. And so this idea of meals that stick with you and are tasty and you can make it into tacos or hash or whatever, that's exciting.

And that's stuff that I think as a layperson, a non-dietitian, non-nutritionist, that's exciting. That's really an exciting . . . a bunch of recipes to add to my arsenal without a lot of thinking. So I really appreciate that.

Theresa: Yeah.

Mitch: Troy, how are you feeling about this one? You had a success last week.

Troy: I know. I'm feeling pretty good. I will say when I first looked at it, I was not excited because I saw quinoa. I love the taste of quinoa, but about three hours later, I feel like I pay the price for eating quinoa. I refer to it as the revenge of the Inca. And I don't know if others experience this. Kind of like Mitch experienced with the spaghetti squash. It's every time. I think it tastes great. Maybe I just eat too much of it and I'm like, "Oh, wow." It hits me hard. So I like the idea . . .

Theresa: You're not alone.

Troy: That's good to hear.

Theresa: I have encountered others that are the same way. So I would say on that, Mitch, just choose a different grain. Find the bulgur and use bulgur as your grain.

Troy: Yeah, this is my week that I'm going to try and find the bulgur. I really want to try it. I love how you describe it.

Thunder: No matter how long it takes.

Troy: I'm going to find it. I could not find that friendly produce lady this last time to ask her where bulgur is, but I will find someone this time. And I will find bulgur.

Thunder: Even if you have to be in there for hours, you will find it.

Theresa: If you do internet shopping, you can order it online too.

Troy: I know. Yeah.

Theresa: Just saying.

Troy: I know. I don't know if my store offers that.

Theresa: I'm talking Amazon or something like that.

Troy: Oh, true. That's a good point. Yeah, Amazon. Anyway, I like the idea of substituting because I want to try the bulgur. So I'm going to try that. But I have to say this week, and maybe it's just because I'm developing a little more comfort, but I'm looking at this recipe and pretty much everything I think I can find. I know where these things are. All the other weeks we've had stuff on there where I'm like, "Okay, I don't know what this," or, "I don't know where I'm going to find it." So that's often been a barrier for me, but this week, everything looks pretty straightforward, which is great.

Thunder: Here's another thought when you're shopping for this recipe. I always look for ways to make it a little easier on myself. And I think I could actually get frozen cauliflower. It is already cut up. That makes that part easy. I can get frozen cut-up peppers as well. Those are available in my grocery. So just an option if you think you want to maybe speed up the process or make it a little simpler on you.

Troy: I like that.

Theresa: Awesome.

Troy: I remember you saying that. And I need to explore the frozen vegetable area more, because I think that sounds like a great option just to throw that in and not have to do as much chopping.

Theresa: And I would say, too, in the produce section often there's fresh, pre-prepared veggies also. So you can find a lot of these things in those refrigerated sections too. So that's a great way, especially when we're looking for something quick and easy. That's certainly a great tip.

Troy: And I'll tell you one thing that's jumping out on here. I'm going to make my mom proud with this. She gave me some bell peppers from her garden when I saw her this weekend and made dinner. I have bell peppers. I'm going to use them in this recipe.

Theresa: Nice.

Mitch: Look at that. Oh, man.

Troy: Yeah. Then I'll call my mom and say . . .

Thunder: Got to take a picture of that and send it to Mom.

Troy: Yeah. I'll send it to my mom and be like, "Hey, I used the bell peppers. They made the recipe so good." So, anyway, I've got bell peppers. I've already got a head start on this one.

Theresa: Nice.

Mitch: Well, I'm looking forward to making it this weekend. So if you're listening and you thought that any of these recipes sounded really tasty, if you want to join us, maybe want to try out some of these healthy man meals that Theresa has been putting together for us, you can find the link to the recipe on the show notes or at our website on whocaresaboutmenshealth.com.

And if you want to see what we're doing and check out some pictures and maybe some posts about our adventures in this healthy cooking, you can check out our Facebook page at facebook.com/whocaresmenshealth.

And feel free to let us know what you think about the recipes or even post some photos of what you're cooking. It's been exciting to take photos about all this too.

So, Theresa, Thunder, it has been a pleasure.

Theresa: Thanks so much.

Thunder: Thank you. It was great to be on. I'm looking forward to trying this one.

Troy: Yep. Graduation week. This is it, cap and gown.

Theresa: I know.

Troy: This is the grand finale.

Mitch: And again, thanks for joining us and thanks for caring about men's health.