The Rainbow Diet & The D.E.N.T. Program
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Hi, folks! This is Dr. Trish Murray from the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Today’s blog is going to be talking about the initial steps of my D.E.N.T. Program. D.E.N.T. is the way that I suggest people put a dent in your chronic disease conditions. First of all, that’s an acronym. D stands for diet and detox. E stands for exercise. N stands for nutrition. T stands for treatment. Most of the treatment is really about self-treatment and learning. The whole point of the D.E.N.T. Curriculum or the D.E.N.T. Program is to educate you with the amount of information that is evidence-based, supported by the latest research to help empower you to change your life, change your lifestyle, and improve your health so that you can live your life as productive and joyful and happy as you really would like!
So, the very first steps of my curriculum are to focus on diet. What I’d like to spend some time today explaining and giving you some significant pearls about is diet. The initial diet that I recommend people change first is what I call the Rainbow Diet or the Rainbow Concept.
Now, some people out there have not been making any changes in your diet. You’ve been eating a lot of processed foods. I grew up on them! I grew up on Tang. I grew up on instant mashed potatoes. I grew up on boxed food. My mom was not much of a cook. I know what it’s like. I lived that life throughout my childhood, throughout my young adulthood. I didn’t know. Many people out there don’t know. You’re overweight and you don’t feel well, and you don’t sleep well, and you have joint pain, and you have anxiety or depression, or you just don’t have the energy to get through your day. Or you’ve been making changes and the changes are helping some but they’re just not getting you where you want to be. That’s where you need some help, some mentoring, some coaching. And so, that’s what these blogs are for. That’s what my D.E.N.T. Curriculum is all about – to try and help you break through, weed through the myths out there and help you understand what the main evidence-based, research-based, factual information are to try and help you the most and give you information as quickly as possible. Let’s get into it.
Today’s topic, again, is on the Rainbow Concept. That is the initial diet or changes in one’s food lifestyle that I suggest people make to start stepping on the journey to optimal health. This is a journey, folks. It is not a destination. What I’m going to go over today is not going to solve every single one of everyone’s problems. We don’t all fit in the same box! One person could follow what I’m about to go over with you today and extremely improve their health and feel fantastic. Another person would initiate what I’m going to go over today and see an improvement, but it’s not quite got all the answers. That’s very typical. We don’t all fit in the same box, and the whole point of my D.E.N.T. Curriculum is to teach you how to then go from this basic diet that people start with into a detox, into an elimination concept, and then be able to identify what your own personal triggers are in the food world and be able to realize what also you would need to shift even further. You see, this is a step-by-step process. Again, today’s focus is back on the very initial steps.
So, the Rainbow Diet and the Rainbow Concept. The very first thing about it we emphasize to people is you must understand you are what you eat! Your health, your genetics, your being, your soul even is either going to be given positive information from the food you eat, the relationships you have, your frame of mind or it’s going to be given bad information from bad foods, unhealthy foods and chemicals and choices that you make. You are what you eat.
The first thing you’ve got to do is exactly what the Rainbow Concept seems like it would mean. You’re going to eat foods of different color. Why? Because real food that is red, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple have different…every food of every different color, and folks I do not mean M&Ms and I do not mean Skittles, I mean real food…fruits, vegetables, meats, nuts, and seeds of different colors have different vitamins, different minerals, and different what are called antioxidants and also what are called phytonutrients in them based on their color. Red foods, such as tomatoes or cherries or strawberries or beets, have certain vitamins and minerals in them that make them, if you will, the color red. Foods that are yellow have different vitamins and minerals and antioxidants and phytonutrients in them. If you want to get all of your vitamins, all of your minerals, all of your antioxidants, all of your phytonutrients as best as you can from the food you eat, then you must embrace this concept of eating every color of the rainbow.
What I suggest is you eat at least one serving of each and every color of the rainbow every 48 hours. In an optimal world, we would eat every color of the rainbow every day, but I get that that’s difficult to do. I get it that fruits and vegetables can be expensive. But to be honest folks, I also recommend 6-9 cups or servings of fruits and vegetables every single day. If you’re eating 6-9 cups of fruits and vegetables every day, folks, you are not going to be hungry for a handful of potato chips or a handful of any other boxed, processed food. You’re not going to spend the money on those things. You’re going to spend your money and invest in your health and buy fruits and vegetables and eat color. That’s number one and the ultimate, most important aspect of the rainbow concept.
Now, the next concept is that we also want to eat fat. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we have been taught for the last 50-60 years that we should not be eating fat. No fat, non-fat, low-fat. Oh my god! Let’s not eat fat because it’s going to make me unhealthy and it’s going to make me what? Fat! Well, folks, I hate to tell you but 60% of our brain is fat! We need fat to be healthy. Why do we have a dementia and Alzheimer’s epidemic in our country? Because we’re not eating enough fat. It is not the good fat out there in the world to eat that’s going to make you sick. Yes, there are a lot of different kinds of bad fats out there. Let’s talk about good fat versus bad fat.
First of all, when you read the label of any boxed food or packaged food, if you read that it includes any trans fats or hydrogenated fats or saturated fats then you should not eat it. To be honest, most processed packaged foods have hydrogenated and trans fats in them because those types of fats are basically like a putrefied fat so they’re going to last on the shelf and in that box for months and months and even years. You see, that is a negative/bad fat, and that’s why those foods should not be ingested very often.
Then, what are good fats? Well, good fats are first of all, extra virgin olive oil and also coconut oil. Those are the types of oils you should be cooking with, particularly cooking with coconut oil at high heats. If you’re going to cook in a frying pan or something, you’re going to want to use coconut oil. Extra virgin olive oil may break down in a negative way at high heat, but you definitely can be using extra virgin olive oil on your salads and at lower heats and things like that. By all means, eat olives. Olives are the actual food that you can be eating that have the good fats in it. Besides that, coconut milk, whether it’s the pourable coconut milk like out of a carton or you can buy canned coconut milk that is thick. I put as much as a third of a can of thick coconut milk from a can in my smoothie every morning. It fills me up. The other fat that would be excellent would be from avocados or nuts and seeds. Good fats, again, from extra virgin olive oil, from coconut oil, from coconut milk, from olives, from avocados, and from nuts and seeds are fantastically healthy for you.
The other thing you need to understand about fats, ladies and gentlemen, is that any gram of fat has nine calories in it. When you eat it, you get nine calories from it. When you eat a gram of protein or a gram of carbohydrate, you get only four calories from it. Now, if you’re thinking about a diet and losing weight and that’s all you’re doing is counting calories, which is not what I recommend, if you see it from that standpoint then, of course, you’re going to be told not to eat fats because they have more calories. But what I want you to do is shift your thinking about how long is this food that I’m about to eat for the quantity of it I’m about to eat going to sustain me and make me feel full so I’m not seeking more food too soon. If we eat too much too soon and over and over and we keep reaching for more food, do you see that that is the problem? Not that we, at one meal, ingest more calories and then it lasts us for 6, 8, 9 hours.
For example, I heard a lecture one time where someone gave this analogy. I live in New England, and I live in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, so of course in the winter we have a woodstove. I burn a woodstove all the time! Now, think about a woodstove. If I just take thin little branches or what we call kindling, and all I do is burn kindling in that woodstove, and the kindling burns up really quickly because it’s only thin little pieces of branches. Do you see that I’m never going to be able to go to sleep at night? I have to keep putting more kindling and more wood and more kindling and more wood into the woodstove every half an hour or every hour to keep the energy to maintain the heat in my house. Now, on the other hand, what I tend to put in my woodstove is a good nice big piece of hardwood. A big log of hardwood. Now, of course, I start with the kindling but then I put that bigger piece of a hardwood log, a dense piece of wood, in there that has more energy to it so that the woodstove is then going to burn slowly and steadily and give off more heat slowly and steadily for hours and hours at a time. Then I can go to bed and be comfortable. My home is going to stay warm all night long.
Folks, this analogy is the same thing for eating fats. If you eat good fats, it’s like putting that log on your fire and giving you nine calories of energy rather than only the kindling of carbohydrates or protein that’s only four calories. So, this is the other issue of the Rainbow Diet suggestion. The majority of us, folks, out there are eating way too many carbohydrates. We’re eating way too many grains in particular. Breads, pastas, rice, oatmeal, cereals. If you think about it, the typical person gets up in the morning and the morning in our world, especially American world is full of carbohydrates: cereals, oatmeal, toast, or things like this. Folks, those are all carbohydrates. If you will, back to that analogy of the woodstove, it’s all kindling. It’s not going to sustain you. How many times have you reached for a pastry or had a bowl of cereal or eaten pasta and an hour later or an hour and a half later you’re already hungry again and reaching for another aspect of food, more calories? That is what’s leading to the obesity and diabetes epidemic of our country. We are all eating far too many grains. If you think about it, typically American or someone out there eats let’s say two pieces of toast for breakfast. Folks, one piece of toast is equal to one serving of carbohydrate a day.
My recommendation with the Rainbow Concept is that you should limit yourself to one or two servings of grain a day. Period. If you have two pieces of toast for breakfast, you’re already done for the day. You’ve had two servings of carbohydrates. You don’t get anymore! You notice now with this concept, you really have to shift your thinking to a different way. You have to stop reaching for grains, and you’re going to need to reach for some more better, good, healthy fats, for example, to act like the log that’s going to be burning in your woodstove for numerous hours to sustain you and you won’t feel hungry. You won’t reach for food so much. You will feel sustained. You will have better energy, and it’s just amazing! For example, every morning I drink a smoothie that I make with full-fat coconut milk from a can that is thick with also some nut butter in it for the protein and the fats. I drink that at about 6:30 in the morning, and I do not reach for my lunch because I don’t finish seeing patients until 1:00 in the afternoon. Folks, I’m fine because the good fats in my smoothie sustain me.
So, first rule of thumb with the Rainbow Concept, again, eat all the colors of the rainbow at least one serving every 48 hours. Also, eat 6-9 cups or servings of fruits and vegetables every day. Eat good fats, and I listed those already of extra virgin olive oil, olives, coconut oil, coconut milk, avocados, nuts, and seeds. The next is to decrease all grains (pastas, breads, rice, oatmeal, cereals) to only one or two servings per day. The next rule of thumb is protein.
Folks, we do need protein. Protein is the building blocks of all of your structure: your muscles, your bones, all of your organs, and all of your being. We need protein. I would recommend with my Rainbow Concept, 2-3 servings a day of protein. A serving size, if you’re having animal protein, is about the palm of your hand. Look at your hand and look at the size of the palm of your hand. That’s about the size of a piece of meat. Or, you could have one or two eggs as a serving. Or you could do a plant-based protein. I understand that folks out there are vegetarian or vegan. The thing that’s concerning about being a vegetarian or a vegan is that you do need to make sure you’re getting enough protein.
Now, how much protein does each of us need? Well, evidence-based research says that each of us should be ingesting one gram of protein for every kilogram of lean body mass. Now, the concern or confusion is we go by pounds. If someone weighs 140 pounds, you’ve got to convert that to kilograms. The first thing you’re going to do is divide by 2.2. 140 pounds divided by 2.2 would be, let’s see, that would be about between 60-65 kilograms. Now, this person in this example a 140-pound person which is essentially somewhere between 60-65 kilograms would need to ingest one gram of protein equal to their lean body mass. So, that person would ingest between 60-65 grams of protein a day. That’s how you figure that out. Now, the other thing is if someone is a vegetarian or a vegan, again, you need to look at beans. You’re going to need to look at nuts and seeds. You can look at soy proteins and things, but you also would want to make sure you’re getting enough grams of protein. You’re going to want to do the math and figure out how many grams of protein of whatever you’re ingesting for protein and calculate how many grams of protein you’re eating a day. Again, typically for the average-sized person you’re going to eat somewhere between 40-70 grams of protein a day.
The final rule for the Rainbow Concept, ladies and gentlemen, is to limit sweets. Sugar is not our friend, especially when you talk about desserts and processed sugars. What I say is limit sweets to one serving per week. Yeah – I did really say, “per week.” The fact of eating ice cream every night, the fact of eating some sort of dessert after every dinner in the evening is not a positive thing for any of us. It really should be a treat. Therefore, we should limit it to one a week.
I hope this has helped, folks. The Rainbow Concept, again, is the initial dietary pearls and basically non-negotiable concepts that we try and teach everyone and empower people with that take our D.E.N.T. Curriculum or our D.E.N.T. Program. If you have further interest in learning more about our D.E.N.T. Curriculum or our D.E.N.T. Program, please go to my website at discoverhealthfmc.com where you can learn about our D.E.N.T. Curriculum, you can learn about our D.E.N.T. Program. It’s about empowering you to optimize your own health!
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Related Blogs, Podcasts, and Resources
- Detox Plus Program
- E.N.T. Program Overview
- Elimination Diet Made Simple
- Online Smoothie Course
- Fall 2021 Edition of MWV Vibe, Article “Color Your Diet for Max Benefits”
Get your FREE copy of Dr. Trish Murray’s first book Make a D.E.N.T. in Chronic Disease
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