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The only mistake nutritionists make who do not practice as a clinical profession like I do is to think that there is a one-size-fits-all diet. Even the research scientists who compare one diet to another fail to realize that it is not possible to have one diet that is ideal for everyone. Therefore, I will not tell you what the best diet is for everyone, but I will guide you to find the best diet for you.
The best diet for you should ensure that your diet-related blood test readings are ideal. This is not achieved by everyone with the same diet. For some this means eating meat two or three times a week for example, while for others none at all. Some need to eat omega-3 rich fish twice a week, while others don't at all. Today you'll learn what metrics to watch when trying to figure out if your diet is the best for you.
The first indicator to monitor is your weight. The diet you follow should ensure your weight is normal as defined by your body mass index or body fat percentage. Body mass index is a number that shows whether your weight is normal for your height and is the product of dividing your weight in kilograms by your height in meters squared. The result in this case must be below 25. In if you do a lot of exercise and have increased muscle tissue, then you better use your body fat percentage to monitor, which should be less than 16% for men and 24% for women. No matter how healthy you think you are eating, if you haven't achieved a body mass index below 25 or a body fat percentage below 16% for men and 24% for women, then your diet is not the best for you and you need to change it.
The ideal diet should also ensure ideal carbohydrate metabolism. To understand that you have an ideal carbohydrate metabolism you should measure the following: fasting glucose, fasting insulin and glycated hemoglobin. Your diet is ideal for you when it ensures that fasting glucose is below 90 mg/dL, insulin below 6 and glycated hemoglobin up to 5.5%.
We now move on to lipids. It is clear that diet affects lipids, and here the goal should be LDL below 115 mg/dL if there are no heart risk factors. If you have risk factors that affect heart health such as smoking, hypertension, family history, abdominal fat, etc. you should ask a cardiologist to determine the ideal LDL levels for you. At the same time, triglycerides should be below 100 mg/dL and no more than twice the HDL lipoprotein, which should be above 50 mg/dL.
Liquids are also part of our diet. And here there is an indicator in the blood that can direct us as to whether fluid consumption is sufficient and it is called urea. Fluid consumption on our part is sufficient when the urea in the blood tests is up to 15. Ideally we do not want it to be higher because, according to studies, people who have a urea of 20 have a 50% greater risk of death than people who have urea up to 15. If your blood urea measurement is above 15, then it is important to increase your fluid intake, i.e. mainly water.
Apart from water, salt is also part of the diet. Salt is one of the most important factors in our diet that affects blood pressure, along with our weight. Our diet should be such as to ensure normal blood pressure, which is achieved by reducing salt and reducing our weight. I remind you that the ideal blood pressure is up to 12/8.
Finally, a blood test that is unfortunately not usually done, is the ω-3 index. This indicator shows the percentage of ω-3 in erythrocytes and reflects the consumption of ω-3 in our diet. According to the studies, you should eat enough fish that are rich in omega-3 so that the omega-3 index is above 8%. In case we find it difficult to achieve this with diet, and the truth is that for 50% of people it is difficult, even if they eat fish twice a week, we can supplement our diet with omega-3 capsules to achieve this goal.
One topic we didn't touch on is magnesium and the reason is because I've mentioned it before. So if you've made it this far, it's worth clicking on the video that's currently showing to my right to see how you'll know if the magnesium you'll see in your own blood tests is adequate, or if you need to increase your magnesium intake in your diet. I remind you that pressing the like button or sharing the video helps me a lot. Thank you.