Speaker A [00:00:02]:
Welcome to the Paralysis Nutrition podcast, where changing your eating habits is the key to losing weight, improving bowel health, and feeling your best. I’m your host, Fatima Fakouri. I’m a registered dietitian who’s married to a quadriplegic and specializes in nutrition for paralysis. Get ready to be inspired, educated, and motivated so you can take control of your health using the power of food. Let’s get started. This is the Paralysis Nutrition Podcast. Hi, guys. So on today’s episode, episode, I want to talk about magical elixirs.
Speaker A [00:00:37]:
And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, just go to your nature store, nature, you know, natural food store or vitamin store, and you’ll know what I’m talking about. There are just so many products out there that promise amazing results, you know, with weight loss, with muscle building, with goodness knows what. Just, you know, magical elixirs, quick fixes. And they’re all supplements. And I want to talk about them because I think that there is a lot of misconception and a lot of risky business that goes on with this stuff. So that’s what today’s episode is about. So when it comes to supplements, I really have changed my tune over the last year or so. I really didn’t think that people who eat healthy need to take any sort of supplements because why would you get everything from food? Fast forward now.
Speaker A [00:01:38]:
I have been doing coaching in the sci and paralysis community for three years and even my most dedicated, focused clients who work really hard on eating very well, I still think that we can up level their nutrition by adding in some targeted, specific supplements. Now, when I do these customized supplement recommendations for my coaching clients, I’m not giving out anything exotic. I’m talking about things like omega 3s, fish oils, I’m talking about vitamin D, magnesium, maybe some adrenal support minerals, natural things like ginger capsules for digestion. I’m really just talking about targeted, specific things, probiotics, you know, high quality stuff and not a lot of it. And everyone’s recommendations are going to be different. I don’t give out, you know, the same stuff to everybody. It depends on what you want to work on. So I wanted to just preface this episode by saying I’m not against supplements.
Speaker A [00:03:01]:
I do think that there is a responsible way of utilizing supplements to kind of take you to the next level and also to fill in some gaps nutrition wise. So, for example, you know, minerals, not every day, even if you eat really, really well, are you getting all the zinc that you need. Not every day are you Getting everything that you need, like vitamin A. Okay. Unless you had some bell peppers or carrots or, you know, unless you ate vitamin A containing food, you wouldn’t get enough of that, right? So there are opportunities to use supplements in a conservative way so that you can improve your nutritional and your health status. So I just wanted to kind of put it out there that I’m not anti supplement. I do think that they have a place and that most people could benefit from taking some sort of supplements. Now, when I work with clients, I know them, I know what medications they’re on.
Speaker A [00:04:10]:
I know, you know, what they typically eat. I know a lot about them. So I’m able to suggest things that I think will help them. Right. When you go to a health food store or a GNC or a vitamin shop, there’s no registered dietitian there who knows you. There’s people who work there and I’m sure that they’re lovely, but they don’t know anything about you. They do not know about spinal cord injury. They do not know the risks associated with the medications that you take.
Speaker A [00:04:52]:
If you take any medications. Most of my clients do take at least one or two meds. Some take none, which is great, but the majority of people do take meds. So you need to know what medications somebody is on before you can recommend a supplement to them. Because oftentimes these things interact together. So I want to talk about the first magical elixir on my mind. If you’ve ever seen anything like this, you know that it’s got a million ingredients and it promises the world. So I want to talk about detoxes.
Speaker A [00:05:29]:
So detox stuff has become very popular over the last, I don’t know, few years. There’s this notion that our bodies are full of toxins and that we need to cleanse or we need to detox our bodies. And I just want to say this is largely overblown. Okay? Everybody is going to have some toxins in their body, right? We’re exposed to things every day. There’s going to be toxins in your body. Your liver is responsible for filtering out waste, you know, toxins from your body. That is what your liver does. And it probably is doing a pretty good job.
Speaker A [00:06:15]:
You do not need to take anything extra to detox your body. So a word of caution with these detox things. They contain a lot of ingredients, a lot. So, for example, there’s liver detox, right? Liver detox is a. Is a popular one. There’s. I mean, I feel like the liver detox is the big One. And that’s just kind of a.
Speaker A [00:06:43]:
It’s kind of a funny thing because your liver is responsible for detoxing. Why are you detoxing the detoxer? You don’t need to do that. And if you wanted to, you know, support your liver, drink water, drink some tea, eat some vegetables. Cruciferous vegetables, for example, are great natural detoxing things. Like cruciferous is like cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, things like that. Things in that family. You don’t need to actually detox your liver. Like, I feel.
Speaker A [00:07:26]:
It feels silly to say that because the liver is filtering toxins. Okay. And you don’t need to then detox your liver. So when you see something like a liver detox, why do they make these things? They make these things because people buy them and because some people do have, like, fatty liver. Right. And so fatty liver. I mean, I wouldn’t say that. It’s.
Speaker A [00:07:55]:
I don’t. I don’t have the numbers in front of me. I don’t know if it’s, like, common with spinal cord injury. I do know that it’s correlated or it kind of comes along with sometimes obesity, not always. But fatty liver is also correlated with alcohol consumption. So you don’t need to detox your liver. But if you have a fatty liver, for example, I will tell a little cautionary tale. So I had a client a few years ago, two years ago, I think, that was told you have a fatty liver by her doctor.
Speaker A [00:08:30]:
And she said, okay, well, what do I do? And they said, well, nothing. Don’t drink alcohol. And she was like, oh, well, I don’t really drink alcohol much. And they were like, okay, well, there’s nothing you can do. I won’t comment on that doctor’s experience because I don’t think that any doctor should give you a diagnosis and then not tell you what you can do. But anyway, so this client being, you know, health conscious, wanted to do something to support her liver. So she went to the health food store and she asked the people who worked there, you know, I have a fatty liver. What can I do? Do you have anything for fatty liver? And so they gave her a liver detox thing and she went off her, you know, off on her way.
Speaker A [00:09:23]:
The people who gave her the liver detox did not know that she was also on a blood thinning medication. A lot of my clients. Well, I shouldn’t say a lot. Maybe like 30% of my clients are on blood thinning medications. This is to help reduce the risk of blood clots. Okay. Which you know is important. You need to take that medication.
Speaker A [00:09:48]:
So if you are on a blood thinning medication, you can’t take certain things, like you can’t eat too many foods that have vitamin K, for example. And you also can’t take other supplements that thin your blood. For example, you wouldn’t take a omega 3 fish oil if you were on a blood thinner. You also wouldn’t want to consume turmeric in high doses because turmeric is a blood thinner. So anyway, anyway, what happens? This client has a fatty liver. She gets the liver cleanse the supplement, right? It’s a supplement. It’s considered a supplement. It’s not a medication, it’s not a food, it’s a supplement.
Speaker A [00:10:37]:
It was a powder. She said, so she’s drinking this liver detox. And she had a bleeding episode, which is scary and dangerous. And she ended up in the hospital. And I don’t know how long after that, but sometime after that she came to work with me in my coaching program. And you know, I asked her, what medications do you take? She mentioned, you know, that she was on a blood thinner. I said, you know, do you take any supplements? And she didn’t really take many supplements at that time, but she did mention, you know, I have a fatty liver. And I, and I had this liver detox and my ear certain suddenly perked up.
Speaker A [00:11:16]:
And I said, well, which one was it? And she shared me the brand. I forget what it is now, but I looked it up and I said, you know, you can’t take this with your blood thinning medication. And she said, why? I said, well, because it has high amounts of turmeric in it which causes your blood to get thin. And she said, oh, I had no idea that I’m not supposed to take that. They didn’t tell me that in the store. I said, well, of course they didn’t tell you in the store. They don’t know that. They have no idea.
Speaker A [00:11:49]:
They don’t know what medication you’re on. And then she put two and two together and said, you know, I had this bleeding episode and it was really, really scary. And I said, well, this is why we have to be really careful about what supplements we take. So that’s just a cautionary tale. But just know that these multi ingredient, you know, magical elixirs, as I call them, these health potions that promise to, you know, cure all your ailments, they can be dangerous, they can interact with your medications. And in this case we, you know, we were very lucky that she was okay. You know, but she had this bleeding episode and she actually never really put two, two together until we spoke and I said, you know, this is contraindicated. So in a perfect world, you would have someone like a dietitian to help you pick the right supplements.
Speaker A [00:12:40]:
Because if you’re just kind of going by the packaging, that’s scary because the front of the package is marketing, right? It’s marketing language. It’s getting you to buy it, cleanse your liver, you know, remove the toxins. I mean, who doesn’t want to remove toxins from their body, right? But it’s unsafe. It can be unsafe, you know, especially with medications. So the detox stuff, we want to really, really be careful. The detoxes, the cleanses, anything that’s got like a bunch of ingredients, we want to cross check if you can, you know, ask. I don’t. I mean, you could ask your doctor, see what they say.
Speaker A [00:13:21]:
Most of them don’t really know much about supplements. You could also ask a pharmacist. Your pharmacist should have your list of medications, right? And you can say, hey, if I take this supplement, I heard it was good, like, what will happen? They should be able to help you. So the detoxes, the cleanses, they scare me, to be honest, because, I mean, I don’t even know every single one of these ingredients. And just because it’s there doesn’t mean it’s good for you. It could potentially be harmful for you. And I will also say this. I am very open to, like holistic and, you know, what they call alternative.
Speaker A [00:14:00]:
I don’t like that word. But like, I’m into like Eastern medicine. I like acupuncture. I’m into all this stuff. For me, I don’t take prescription meds. I don’t explore any of that stuff for my husband because he’s on, you know, a few different meds and there’s not enough or any research on every single herbal, botanical thingy when it comes to people with spinal cord injury. Like, I don’t know, is this random, you know, herb going to do something weird to your bladder medication? I don’t know. I can guarantee you the two have not been studied together.
Speaker A [00:14:40]:
So be careful, be careful because you don’t know. There isn’t peer reviewed research comparing, you know, baclofen with all these herbs there or whatever medication you’re on. I mentioned that one because I know it’s very common. So that’s my thoughts on the detoxes and the cleanses. I do want to talk about Juice cleanses, briefly, because juice cleanses. There’s this really popular one out. It’s all over social media. It’s called Prolon.
Speaker A [00:15:15]:
And you do. I believe you do eat some food along with it. But the reason I don’t like juices even. Forget Prolon, even just going to the press or any of these, like, popular juice places, those juices, they’re not bad, but they don’t really have much in them. They don’t. Juices do not have any protein, so you shouldn’t be having juices as a meal replacement. And if you’re trying to, like, lose weight and you think that drinking green juices is going to help you, you’re gonna lose a bunch of muscle. That’s what’s gonna happen.
Speaker A [00:15:52]:
Juices, as opposed to, like, smoothies, don’t contain any fiber either. So if you have a juicer and you juice a bunch of celery. Celery juice is. I mean, last year it was, like, very popular. There’s this literal guy who talks to ghosts named the medical medium. And he has this, like. He has a bunch of books. He’s, like, super popular.
Speaker A [00:16:16]:
He does communicate with spirits, I would like you to know. And he’s not a medical doctor. I think he’s a chiropractor. Don’t quote me on that. But he’s definitely not a medical doctor. And he has, you know, this, like, celery juice cleanse thing. There’s nothing wrong with drinking celery juice. Absolutely nothing wrong with celery juice.
Speaker A [00:16:34]:
However, you are not getting protein. You are not getting fiber from a juice. All you’re getting is the water contents of it. And yes, you’re getting some vitamins and minerals, and that’s great. You could get those vitamins and minerals by having a smoothie. So a smoothie is just basically chopping everything up. And so you get to eat the whole food. You don’t just get the water content out of it.
Speaker A [00:17:03]:
So I’m much more into smoothies than I am to juices. You could also add collagen powder, protein powder. You could add Greek yogurt. Smoothies are awesome. If you like smoothies, you should drink them. And I don’t mind when my clients say, you know, I love a smoothie for breakfast. Fine, as long as you can get, like, 15, 20 grams protein in it. Like, I’m all set.
Speaker A [00:17:19]:
Juices have gotten this reputation for, like, cleansing your body and detoxing your body. And it’s like, well, not really. Because the only way you really detox your body is by pooping. And if you aren’t having enough protein, I mean, sorry, if you’re not having enough fiber and protein, actually, you’re not going to poop. So I’m not into the juice cleanses. I don’t think that they’re nearly as harmful or concerning as the, you know, supplemental magical potions that are out there because juices tend to just contain fruits, vegetables, herbs, I mean, not usually herbs. It’s like ginger, fruits, vegetables, like. So, yeah, juices don’t freak me out, but they also don’t, you know, solve every ailment and they don’t especially deliver the nutritional content that I would like to see for a meal.
Speaker A [00:18:16]:
So the last thing I want to talk about today, I know this, this episode is a little bit of a hodgepodge, but I haven’t talked about these couple of things and I’m, I’m hearing them more often in coaching and talking to people online. So I just wanted to talk about it. Because supplements are not regulated by the fda. They are not a food. So the FDA doesn’t review them for safety or efficacy or really purity and nothing. They don’t. Supplements kind of fall through the cracks because they are not a food and they’re not a medicine, they’re not a drug, but you do ingest them. So it’s scary that in the US and I believe it’s very similar in Canada as well, there’s not a lot of, or any really regulation around these things.
Speaker A [00:19:04]:
So they can write whatever they want, really. You know, and it’s not an easy process to prove that a supplement is no good. You know, I had an episode earlier on supplements that you guys can listen to if you want more information on supplements and kind of like the background of the supplement industry. So anyway, the last thing I want to talk about today is diet pills, fat burning supplements and the like. I understand that it’s not easy to lose weight as a wheelchair user. One, because you don’t have the right information. Two, because you probably think being a wheelchair user means that you can’t do the exercise required for weight loss, which is false. You do not need to do exercise for weight loss.
Speaker A [00:19:55]:
You need to eat in a calorie deficit. That being said, I know how important weight loss is to people. I know that they want to feel better. I know that they want to be healthier. They want to have as much independence as possible. And carrying extra weight for anyone can make life tougher, but for wheelchair users, it makes it a lot tougher. Right? So I Understand? And I empathize with people who are willing to kind of go all in, you know, on weight loss. What I don’t want you to do is harm yourself by accident, right? You’re, you’re not meaning to do anything bad, but when you do stuff like take supplements, you can inadvertently put yourself at risk.
Speaker A [00:20:45]:
So I want to talk about things like diet pills and fat burners because they’re more popular than I wish they were. It’s very scary to me having a husband who’s quadriplegic and has fluctuations in blood pressure. It’s very scary to me when people talk about things like diet pills, because most diet pills or you know what the other one is too? Appetite suppressants. Do you know what’s in those? Nothing good. I. Another cautionary tale. And actually this is not just one tale. I have heard this, I think three separate times from different people.
Speaker A [00:21:29]:
So if you are taking something like a fat burner or a metabolism booster, they call them, they call them different things. What you may not realize is that these things contain caffeine. They contain caffeine. Caffeine raises your blood pressure. When you get high blood pressure, you can have a stroke. And there’s three separate instances or stories that come to mind that I’ve heard from real people where they experienced a stroke because they were taking either metabolism booster or fat burner or diet pill. They’re all the same thing. Most of them do contain caffeine.
Speaker A [00:22:13]:
And you don’t realize it because you probably don’t read the ingredients. And they, you know, they usually contain a bunch of other stuff too, like herbs and botanicals and whatever. I don’t know if that does anything. I know that it can suppress your appetite. I don’t think anything is worth it. Even something that’s important like weight loss. I don’t think it’s important enough to put yourself at risk. So a huge word of caution when it comes to these diet pills, fat burners, metabolism boosters.
Speaker A [00:22:43]:
Be really careful because if you have a spinal cord injury, if you’re paraplegic, quadriplegic, if you have a stroke, you could then be dealing with being a post stroke survivor and a paraplegic quadriplegic. I can’t say enough like how much these types of supplements scare me. And they’re out there. You know, you can buy them. You don’t need a prescription. Just go buy some. I’m going to Google one right now just so I have some context. You can lose weight in such a safer way, in such a more Pleasant, healthy way if you know how to eat right, if you have some support.
Speaker A [00:23:31]:
I think so many people end up feeling sort of, I don’t know, kind of like desperate because it’s not easy to lose weight. It’s really, it’s not. And a lot of these products, like, they look pretty promising. Like they advertise weight loss, they make claims like it burns fat or it blocks carbs, it boosts your metabolism. But not only, you know, I, like I mentioned before, not only can they interfere with medications, they can really, I mean, really harm you. You can have higher heart rate, higher blood pressure, you know, and this is scary for someone who, you know, has a spinal cord injury, because if you’re taking something that has a lot of caffeine in it, for example, it’s stimulating your nervous system, okay? And your nervous system is already compromised. And so I don’t like them. Some of these fat burners can cause liver damage.
Speaker A [00:24:44]:
Some of these, what was it called? Some of these things are now banned. Like I remember back in the day, there was that one, I can’t remember the name. Ephedra. It was, it was ephedra. Ephedra is now banned by the FDA because it was causing a lot of problems. I can’t remember exactly why they took ephedra off the market, but they did, right? And they only took it off the market because it caused problems. It’s not easy to get a supplement pulled from the shelves. So I’m pretty sure the ephedra was, was like all the stuff that I mentioned, like the high blood pressure, the heart rate issues, the strokes.
Speaker A [00:25:36]:
People even have seizures and heart attacks, you know, they’re not worth it. They can cause severe problems. And I, I just think that it’s not worth it. It really is not. So if you know someone who’s taking these things, if you’re taking them yourselves, please, you know, really reconsider. And if you’ve, you know, never taken these things, this is information for you, okay? So when the topic comes up, you tell them what I told you. Okay? Alright, guys, thank you so much for listening. Until next time.
Speaker A [00:26:08]:
That’s our episode for today. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed it and that you learned something new. Remember, if you want to lose weight with paralysis, improve your bowel health and feel your best you can. It’s possible you just have to change your eating habits. If you need inspiration on how to get started, check out the paralysis Nutrition Cookbook 101 recipes to help you lose weight and improve bowel health. The cookbook comes with a bonus 30 day meal plan and is the perfect way to start eating healthier. You can find it online at paralysisnutrition.com cookbook I’ll talk to you again soon.
