
Asked & Answered Podcast
The Texas Heart Institute Center for Cardiovascular Care's general and interventional cardiologist, Dr. Alexander Postalian, answers patients' questions about cardiovascular health.
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Asked & Answered Podcast
What do people really mean by healthy diet?
On this episode of Asked and Answered, Dr. Alexander Postalian will discuss the confusion that is associated with what is considered a healthy diet.
Read More: https://www.texasheart.org/heart-health/heart-information-center/topics/nutrition/ or https://www.texasheart.org/heart-health/heart-information-center/topics/healthy-heart-guide/
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What do people really mean by healthy diet? There's so much stuff out there, it's confusing to me. Yes, it is indeed. Very confusing. There are a lot of dogmatic approaches to diet out there. Oh, you can only do this, you can only do that if you do this. Ah, this is the only way, even though there's some nuance to it, the basic principles are not rocket science. Okay? Energy balance. How many calories go in with diet versus how many go out with, with physical activity and exercise, whatever is remaining in the positive side gets accumulated usually in the form of fat. So you can manage how many calories go in by trying to reduce the intake of calories. And you can help try to help manage how many calories go out with physical activity because metabolism, even though there's things you can do for it, the lowest hanging fruit is physical activity. Okay? So that's energy, balance, and then food composition in a simplified way. The foods that harm your body the most are the simple carbohydrates. Those are the ones that are easy to digest. They raise your blood sugar, they get converted into bad types of cholesterol. So things like sweets, sodas, rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, tortillas, adds in my case, because I'm Venezuelan, all those things are bad for you, the good stuff. So you have to focus mostly on lean protein, like grilled fish, grilled chicken and vegetables, and that should be the main components of your diet. Okay? Also, animal fat as in general are not good. Um, like, you know, bacon butter, things of the sort. Um, for example, some diets like the keto diet that can help you lose weight. Sometimes they're a little bit too liberal on the fat side. And we see patients with very, very high levels of bad cholesterol come to the clinic. So common sense approach, favor lean protein, vegetables with not without a lot of dressing. Remember, dressing can sometimes have a ton of calories. If you go to a fast food place, sometimes the salad has more calories than the hamburger. So lean protein, vegetables, main components of your diet, and also manage the amount of calories that go in.