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Guest: Rebecca Washuta

Release Date: 11/10/2024

Welcome to Trulyfit the online fitness marketplace connecting pros and clients through unique fitness business software.

Steve Washuta : Welcome to Trulyfit. Welcome to the Trulyfit podcast where we interview experts in fitness and health to expand our wisdom and wealth. I’m your host, Steve Washuta. Co Founder of Trulyfit and author of Fitness Business 101.

Steve Washuta   Welcome to the Trulyfit podcast, where we interview experts in fitness and health to expand our wisdom and wealth. I’m your host. Steve Washuta, co founder of truly fit and author of fitness business 101  

Steve Washuta   On today’s episode, I have my sister Rebecca Washuta, who’s a licensed dietitian nutritionist, and we go over trending health and fitness topics. If you’re new to this podcast, this is sort of the format here. On Mondays, I have an interview episode with a professional in the health or fitness or nutrition realm, or something that is adjacent to that, that’s going to help health and fitness professionals, or are going to help people in the general public learn more about health and fitness and nutrition.  

Steve Washuta   Or I have my sister on and we go down trending health and fitness topics in the news, and we just sort of talk about them. That’s what I’ve been doing more of late. But I am going to have some interview podcasts coming up. I promise on Thursdays. I do solo episodes, not every Thursday. I try to go every other Thursday where they’re five to 15 minutes me talking off the cuff about something that I believe is important in the health and fitness industry, that I want to rant about today.  

Steve Washuta   My sister and I are going to be talking about the following, make America healthy again. If we were in RFK position and could be some sort of Minister of Health, what would be my sister and I’s first or second issue we would deal with to help the American public? And I L why it’s going to boost the fitness industry? I’ll explain.  

Steve Washuta   I am so sick of gut health, sit fit and chair, yoga, drastic diet experiences, Tiktok, fluffy popcorn, Thanksgiving, food, draft and more. With no further ado, here’s Rebecca and I quick apology here, there was some construction going on during this podcast. We didn’t think it would come through both mics, but it did. It is very faint in the background.  

Steve Washuta   The first 12 minutes, you’ll hear a little bit of it, and then maybe through the middle of the podcast, if you hear hammering or sawing again, very faintly in the background, I just want you to make sure that you’re not looking around your house thinking it’s going on. It is happening in the background. Again, our apologies All right, back.  

Steve Washuta   Thanks for joining the Trulyfit podcast. As usual, we’re going to run down our trending health and fitness nutrition related topics for any new listeners or people who just have not heard you before or forgot, give us a quick rundown of your credentials, who you are and what you do day to day. Sure,  

Rebecca Washuta   yeah, apologies in advance. I’m getting over a cold, so my voice is a little scratchy. I am a licensed dietitian, a Board Certified, licensed dietitian. I have my own private practice here in Miami Beach, and I focus primarily on weight loss and metabolic issues.  

Steve Washuta   And again, for any new listeners here, on Thursdays, I do solo episodes where I talk about something that is trending in the fitness or health industry that I want to elaborate on, or that I talked about with a previous guest, maybe my sister, and I think it’s important to maybe unpack it further. And then on Mondays, I’d either do an interview episode, which I’ve been doing less and less. I do have a few coming up.  

Steve Washuta   Or my sister Rebecca comes on and we talk about all these trending things going on in the health and fitness that we think are vital, whether they’re trending on Tiktok or trending in the news, or we think there are going to be trends that come about, and we want to get ahead of it.  

Steve Washuta   So today, the election had just happened a few days ago here, and without getting too far into politics, one of the changes that may happen is the MaHA movement, which is Make America healthy again. RFK, who was a running for president at first under the democratic name, actually then sort of switched to independent, and then dropped out of the race, and then he supported Trump. Long story short is he has this Make America healthy movement, and he backed Trump.  

Steve Washuta   So Trump may put him in in some sort of position that gives him the power to make some moves. For those of you who don’t know who RFK is, just you know, he was a lawyer who had a lot of famous cases. He sued Monsanto, like, a bunch of times. He for, there’s, like, I don’t know it was like, coal plants or something in in West Virginia and Ohio. He had like, $700 million settlements for, again, just like, toxic, like the toxic water from environmental issues, right?  

Steve Washuta   So he’s, he’s essentially an environmental lawyer, and he’s learned a lot about the environment and health through that. Guys now he there’s a lot of, like, Vax stuff that that he also believes in, and we’re not going to get into that today. We’re going to stay on the Make America healthy movement.  

Steve Washuta   So I’m going to throw it to you first. If you got put into his position, right? If you got put into some sort of, like, Minister of Health, and you could make the first two moves in the first in 100 days, that’s when everything happens. What would be your big two moves that you would make to help make America healthy again.  

Rebecca Washuta   I love this question. So first I want to say that I wish we could separate politics from health and nutrition and science, but it feels like we can’t, you know, I don’t feel like this needs to be a right or left thing. It’s, you know, everyone wants to have optimal health. So if you, you know, disagree with RFK, politically, put that aside, because, you know, we need someone to sort of spearheading some of this thing.  

Rebecca Washuta   So anyway, if I, if I were in his position, the first thing I would do, the easiest thing we can do is we can align our food regulations with the EU i. Don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We can take a look at these artificial dyes, artificial flavors, even some of these natural flavors, some of these preservatives and colorings that are in our foods that we don’t need, that the EU has banned for many, many years.  

Rebecca Washuta   So it’s not like we need to go in and do the research. No, let’s just copy what they do, right? Let’s trust their research, and let’s also demand that these companies right, like, let’s talk about General Mills. If you were to buy, I know your favorite cereal growing up, Steve was Cinnamon Toast Crunch, right? So if you were to buy Cinnamon Toast Crunch here, and cinnamon toast crunch in Spain, it has different ingredients, and that’s that’s not fair, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   And different ingredients being the ones used here in America are cheaper and are less healthy, and some of them are even banned in Europe. So it’s not that big of a stretch to ask these companies to provide us with the same food, the same ingredients, that they’re already doing in all of these countries across the world.  

Rebecca Washuta   The other thing so, you know, that’s what I think we need to do, as far as demanding from some of these large food conglomerates, then I think we need to take a look at agriculture, and we need to immediately stop subsidizing crops like corn, soy, sugar and wheat, because those crops are subsidized. Farmers grow them, and that’s why they’re so abundant in our food supply, and they’re not healthy.  

Rebecca Washuta   So we need to subsidize organic foods, organic produce. We need to make it easier for farms to get organic certifications, because it’s actually very hard and very expensive to do that, even if farmers are, you know, practicing in organic ways. And then we need to outlaw really dangerous pesticides like glyphosate and make sure we’re not putting something else in its place that’s just as harmful. Yeah,  

Steve Washuta   I really like that response, because it’s so easy, as you said, especially part one there. We’re not, you’re not reinventing the wheel. Oh, and that’s actually, again, not to get political, but that is some of Trump’s pitch, sort of internationally speaking, is that, you know, when you work with other countries, import export, things like rules have to be even right.  

Steve Washuta   So you talk about tariffs, like, if we’re being tariffed, then then the tariffs have to go the other way, right? If we’re paying a certain amount of money into NATO, then other countries need to pay that money into NATO. So it’s like, if we’re demanding this, you know, from other countries, if they’re demanding this, then why? Why can’t that cross over? That seems like a really easy fix, right? Take the take those ingredients out.  

Steve Washuta   Now, concerning the agriculture, I think that’s great too, because that goes to something that, you know, I’m big on, which is just incentives. You know, that’s humans. We’re not going to change how humans work, right? That’s, it’s a something we all try to do, unfortunately, and this, this speaks to politics and health and fitness, is that we try to change human nature. You want to work with human nature and incentives do that. So to sort of piggyback off of what you would do, I would say I would have a big incentive structure that favored health food.  

Steve Washuta   And to me, it’s actually the weirdest term, when someone says health food, mean health food, so you’re eating, not health like, shouldn’t all food be healthy? What do you mean? Like, I’ll go to the story. I want to get some health food today. It’s like, oh, so all the food you’ve been eating is, is killing you? Like, shouldn’t you at some point merge those two, all your food should be healthy.  

Steve Washuta   But you know, nevertheless, here health foods, we should have maybe two or three or four criteria, and if you meet that criteria, you circumvent a certain level of taxation or some extra penalty, whatever you want to call it right, a fee, a charge. So therefore, if you have Chips Ahoy cookies, you’re getting an up there’s an up charge there. Okay?  

Steve Washuta   And if you have whatever it is, organic broccoli, you circumvent that upcharge. You don’t have to pay that, right? So that start starts to, even if it doesn’t fully go one way or the other, it starts to level out prices where we don’t have the price problem, which is another incentive issue. If somebody doesn’t make a lot of money, if they make $40,000 a year and they have five kids, even if they’re on these WIC programs, they’re going to be buying the cheaper food, and the cheaper food happens to be bad for you.  

Steve Washuta   So we have to change the price incentive structure. You’re talking about changing it from the agricultural level. I think that’s great, but I think we should also change it from the supermarket level.  

Rebecca Washuta   Yeah, do we? Can I give a third? Can we talk about one more? Sure,  

Steve Washuta   And I’ll give my I’ll give my second after you give your third first. Oh,  

Rebecca Washuta   Okay, sorry. I thought, no, you’re fine the third. Well, no, no, no, you give your second, and then I’ll give my third. So  

Steve Washuta   My second isn’t is has to do with health and fitness as opposed to food, right? Because make America healthy again needs to come from both fronts, as we talk about a lot in this podcast, it’s not just what you eat. It’s obviously how you move. It’s not just how you move is what you eat. And you know, we just like abandoned PE in this country.  

Steve Washuta   And you know, we’ve gotten a little soft. I think we need to have more pe to the point of public schools, I would say, every morning. And this goes to also the maybe over medicated side of this. Meaning, so many people are over medicated at a young age, especially young boys. And one of the reasons they’re over medicated is because they have so much energy to expend.  

Steve Washuta   So what if every morning in public schools there was some sort of physical activity that that you had to meet, right? Maybe on Mondays, it’s yoga, Tuesdays, it’s a sport. Wednesdays, it’s meditation, Thursdays, it’s another sport, right? But it’s something where these kids can go in, they can get some of the energy out of them in the morning and then go to class.  

Steve Washuta   Not only does it keep you moving, but it might keep you more attentive and focused during your classes. So we don’t have to keep pumping these kids full of what are essentially, you know, uppers all day long, 100%  

Rebecca Washuta   I love that. And like, you know, ideally after breakfast. And a lot of kids eat breakfast in school, right? We never did, but a lot of schools have that program where you’re eating breakfast in school, there should be immediate physical activity afterwards, right? Let’s get some of that energy out. Let’s bring your blood sugar down.  

Rebecca Washuta   There’s been so many studies that talk about the benefits of even like going for a walk, and how that changes, you know, some of the synapses in your brain and how you can think better and how you perform better on exams, we need to get up, get up and get moving. I totally agree with that.  

Steve Washuta   No What was your potential third or one that you would sub in for another one of these.  

Rebecca Washuta   my third one, and I’m curious to hear your feedback on this, because of what your wife does for a living. But I really think we need to go into, you know, the health care system at large, and look at some of these hospital systems and incentivize doctors to keep patients healthy right right now.  

Rebecca Washuta   Doctors and surgeons are incentivized to give medication and perform procedures when what we really need is like to incentivize them for not doing a surgery, right? For for for someone coming in and not meeting Metformin. Does that make sense?  

Steve Washuta   Sure. I mean, they have those, but they’re not great. So the ones they have, let’s say for like general practitioners, are like, smoking cessation things, right? So it’s like, Oh, if you, if you’re if you talk to your patient about smoking, if you get your patient to stop smoking, then maybe we could talk about some RVU benefits that you get from this, but, but they’re not they’re not great.  

Steve Washuta   They need more of them. The problem is that doesn’t align with the current, the current healthcare model. So you’d have to change the whole model, meaning, if the model is based off of seeing as many patients as you can in a day, then you then you can’t do that sort of in depth overview of your patient.  

Steve Washuta   So the whole model itself would have to change, not just the few incentive structures around it, which we’ve talked about, you know, many of times on this podcast. It’s a bad model. The healthcare model sucks, but there’s nothing we can really do about it.  

Rebecca Washuta   Yeah, you’re right, and you know, that’s why I as a practitioner, I don’t take insurance like I can. I’m signed up to but I choose not to, because the amount that I get reimbursed for insurance, it’s like 20 minutes with a patient, and that doesn’t even get me through the intake form. So obviously, there’s a lot of changes that need to be made, but I’m excited to see where this goes.  

Steve Washuta   Me too, and time will tell. Hopefully it’s something that is done within the first 100 days, and that it really does matter to the administration, and it’s not just all talk, but we will see. Next topic here is why the N i L, for people who don’t know what that is, it’s basically now they are paying college athletes, and this really pertains more to football players.  

Steve Washuta   But of course, all college athletes and why the N i L is actually going to help our industry, our industry being the fitness and health industry. And I’m going to sort of unpack this, and you can tell me what you think about this. Well, first off, the N i L, no one knows if it’s going to be good or bad. People had a lot of thoughts about this in the first place.  

Steve Washuta   Should you be paying athletes? College athletes? The whole purpose of being a collegiate athlete is that you’re not a professional and what differentiates you is that professionals get paid. So now, if you’re getting paid, are you consider a professional athlete, and are you actually going to go to class at all? If you’re a five star recruit who knows that you’re going to go to the NFL and you’re going to get drafted after two years, so you can basically just get a bunch of C’s in all your class and not do anything.  

Steve Washuta   You know, where does the student athlete come into this equation? That’s a different part of the conversation. We could talk about that, but, but I’m not going to talk about that, right? What I want to talk about is how it’s going to help our industry. And now you not only get, let’s, let’s go ahead and say it’s cost $50,000 a year to go to go to, I don’t know, Syracuse, and now that player the number, let’s say he’s the number one basketball recruit in the country.  

Steve Washuta   In addition to that, is going to sign an N i l deal worth $850,000 for his freshman year. Not only is he saving $50,000 him and his family, but he’s going to be making $850,000 so this now will have high school athletes, in my opinion, working even harder and spending more money, spending more money.    

Steven Washuta   They already started to really spend money, working with personal trainers, working with nutritionists, working with sports specialists to get to that next level, because of the fact you’re going to be making money so much earlier. It used to be that your goal was to get scholarships. Yep, that’s pretty much it, because there’s only a small percentage, maybe 1% of people who get drafted, let’s say, from college to the NFL. You’re never really going to make the money.  

Steve Washuta   You’re there to be, you know, just simply a college athlete, but you’re there also to learn and graduate. Well, unfortunate or fortunate, that structure has now changed because of the money that’s involved, and there will be more money flowing through, and I think that’s going to help out our industry as a whole.  

Rebecca Washuta   Yeah. Okay, so let me ask you a quick question. You said $850,000 is that an accurate amount of money, or did you just sort of make that up? Like, is that what they’re actually considering paying these athletes?  

Steve Washuta   So there is no one standard fee. It’s very interesting. It’s a complete Wild Wild West. It’s so new. And the schools themselves aren’t necessarily paying the athletes. They’re sort of like trusts that you donate to, that alumni are donating to, and that local businesses and things that are donating to, and they’re kind of paid out of a larger trust.  

Steve Washuta   So yeah, I mean, there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s some athletes making millions of dollars, probably right over but they might have to sign, sign some sort of contract to do things. To get that right, they might have to be on a commercial for one of the, you know, whatever, the car salesman, you know, the local Toyota says, I’ll pay you a million dollars, but you got to do six commercials for me in addition to this too, right? So, yeah, it’s, it’s a little bit of a wild wild west.  

Steve Washuta   Now, I will tell you this a little bit off topic, so I’ll try and try, and you don’t have to answer this, and I’ll try not to go too far down this rabbit hole. But it’s actually an advantage so far in the first year or two that we’ve seen this for college sports, as far as leveling the playing field, because you used to just have, you know, five or six teams that were getting all of the five star athletes.  

Steve Washuta   It was really, it’s really hard to compete at the top levels of college football, right? You can weigh eight or nine games and lose four, and maybe you’re here and there, but like the teams who go undefeated and win the national championship, there was like six or seven different teams over the course of 20 years, no one else.  

Steve Washuta   And it’s because they were stacking five star athletes, people would get hurt, which is normal, and you have this attrition, and they had another five or four star player right underneath them. Now you have these other four or five star players that go, You know what? I can go to Vanderbilt and get a million and start right away. Why would I go to Alabama? Maybe make less? Because they have so many other players they’re paying and I’m not going to play. So it’s leveling the playing field out a little bit more too.  

Rebecca Washuta   Listen, I fully, supported. I think colleges are making money off athletes, right? They make money off ticket sales. They make money off, you know, billions stands in the arena, there’s jerseys, there’s things. So why aren’t the athletes being compensated? You know, I, I can’t imagine how difficult it is to be a collegiate athlete, right? Like at that level, because you are practicing, probably, you know, similar amount to professionals, and then you still have to go to class.  

Rebecca Washuta   So I 100% think they should be compensated, and I don’t think that will take away from them graduating, getting a degree, because I think, you know, right? So say you’re someone who’s sort of in the middle, you’re making some money, but, you know, like, Hey, I’m, you know, I’m not going to be able to walk on to the 40 Niners. Okay, well, then at least you can make money now and then maybe invest some of that and choose what you want to do.  

Rebecca Washuta   But, but, yeah, if anyone should be making money off college athletes, it’s the college athletes, right, that are doing the work and putting the time in. So I think it’s great. I think it’ll definitely incentivize teenagers to take it more seriously. And you know, it’s not quite the same camp, but, but adolescent obesity is on the rise, overweight and obesity is on the rise. So if we can incentivize kids that they can make that sort of money at an earlier age if they do pursue athletics. I think that’s a great thing, which.  

Steve Washuta   Will help our industry, because you have to think that more people are going to be trying to get there, more parents are willing to spend the money, and that’s going to help us as people in the fitness and health industry, especially people who start to specialize, right on. I train basketball athletes. I train football athletes.  

Steve Washuta   I work with people who are, you know, trying to, whatever, increase their vertical leap, sort of my industry, and then also in your industry, people, maybe, who are nutritionists who focus on, like, muscle building or something, right? So, like, there’s, there’s going to be an uptick, I think, in in our communities, all, all ships rise with a rising tide, sort of deal.  

Steve Washuta   So I do think that’s good. And yeah, like you said, they’re making billions of dollars off of these kids. It makes sense that they’re being paid. I don’t know how it’s going to work out. They were always they were always being paid. Anyway, it was just swept under the table. There’s been movies made about this in the 80s and 90s, right? You? So you know, you’ll see some kid from rural Arkansas is, you know, he’s, he lives with his grandmother, who lives in, you know, a shack Down by the sea as a 300 square feet and it’s a disaster.  

Steve Washuta   And that suddenly he shows up to school, and he’s, you know, he’s, he’s got an Escalade, and the whole interior sticked out with Louis Vuitton, and he’s got 24 inch rims on it. You’re like, Well, how did that happen? So there was always money being passed around behind the scenes to these athletes, and rightfully so, but it was people were getting in trouble for it. Famous cases Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart and some of these guys at USC. Reggie Bush got his Heisman taken away because they found out about it.  

Steve Washuta   The problem was the coaches would never get in trouble because they would jump ship the programs would get in trouble. So if I’m USC and I’m my I’m I’m the coach, I’m Pete Carroll, when we do something illegal, guess what? I’m so good, I quit. I go to the NFL, I go to a different team, and I don’t get charged. USC, as a team gets charged, they get the fine, which is typically like, you lose five scholarships and you can’t play in a bowl game for five years. But the coaches weren’t getting penalized.  

Rebecca Washuta   So that’s interesting. I didn’t realize that, because you  

Steve Washuta   Can’t, you can’t penalize the individual person. You have to, you have to penalize the organization, but they don’t care, because they just jump ship and go somewhere else. So it was, it was really sort of a kangaroo court type system, and it wasn’t working. So I’m glad that these college athletes are being paid. Well, it’ll have to be restructured down the road.  

Steve Washuta   But again, going back to us, all boats rise with the rising tide, so it’s going to help us in the health and fitness industry as well gut health. We’ve talked about it a bunch. I’ve done whole podcasts on it. I’ve had people with their PhDs who own these companies, pre and probiotics, come on here. It’s all interesting, but I gotta be honest with you, I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the gut health. I’m sick of the gut health because it’s talked about on all levels, right?  

Steve Washuta   We have the PhDs talking about it, and we have like, just like the bro who is chugging apple cider vinegar talking about it, and it seems to be this never ending thing, because the science is always changing. Can we just, like, not talk about it for a few years? Can we just wait five years and do more research and then bring it back up? We stop talking about gut health?  

Rebecca Washuta   No, we can’t start talking stop talking about gut health. I’m sorry. So our gut health really is the center of our health for so many reasons, right? Leaky gut is one of the primary drivers of inflammation, and that’s when you have basically gaps in between the cells and your intestinal wall. Food can get in which you know, or other other particles can get in which, which causes inflammation in our body.  

Rebecca Washuta   The other issue is, the other issue is, the majority of our neurotransmitters are made in our gut, and you need amino acids to build them up, right? So when we talk about this mental health crisis in adolescents and adults that we’re looking at, you know, so many people are on some type of antidepressant, anti anxiety, ADHD, right, all of these different types of medications.  

Rebecca Washuta   And you know, there’s a whole field now called nutritional psychiatry, where if you’re eating the right foods, it can actually help manage and alleviate a lot of these symptoms and a lot of these conditions. And so your neurotransmitters are made in your gut.  

Rebecca Washuta   So if your gut health isn’t optimal, you’re not going to be able to be able to make the neurotransmitters you need to function appropriately. And then, you know, the last thing I’ll say here is your your gut and brain are directly connected, right? And directly connected in in a number of ways, but primarily through the vagus nerve.  

Rebecca Washuta   And we know this because when you are excited about something, right, when your brain is excited about something, you feel butterflies in your gut, right? So there’s like, clear evidence of that, like direct connection that everyone has felt before. And what they’re finding now is that certain organisms in our gut are being found in our brain. When they do these post mortem autopsies of people with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and some of these ones that we don’t even have names for yet.  

Rebecca Washuta   They’re finding different types of organisms that should be in our gut, have traveled and are in our brains. And so I, you know, I really think, like you said, there’s going to be more research. It’s going to be ongoing. We’re always finding out new things, but I don’t think that’s a reason to throw our hands up. I think we need to, you know, pay attention to the information that’s out there, and really be mindful of it.  

Steve Washuta   I am interested in the prebiotics, and I’m also interested. I had this conversation again, like I said, I had this, like, PhD, person who works at this company, come on and tell me the differences basically, between, like, what you’re looking at on the shelf, because, you know that, like any other supplement you you look at the back of it, okay, what? What goes to, what, right, what helps, what? Which one do I need?  

Steve Washuta   There’s no way that I need the same thing that you need, that that Bob needs, that Cindy needs. What am I best using? Are there some that are live and some that are not necessarily live? Are there some that shouldn’t be stored on the shelf? Should I get them directly into cold. I just, I think there is a maybe. That’s why I’m sort of frustrated, because there’s so there really is so much information. And it’s like, Why do I have to look this up?  

Steve Washuta   Why do I have to do this? Like, shouldn’t we have somebody who is already, like, the ultimate expert? And I almost wish it was condensed, yeah, no, but I wish it was condensed down more meaning, like, there weren’t that many. Options, and I get that that’s just not how health works, but there are so many options and there’s so much bullshit in the supplement market. I wish it was regulated more. I’m not somebody who’s usually for regulation, but I wish it was almost put as a medicine and that there wasn’t this sort of go into Walmart and buy it and hope for the best.  

Rebecca Washuta   Yeah, I totally agree. You know, for a lot of people, it’s basically just like throwing spaghetti at a wall, right? They’re like, I don’t know, I’m going to take this probiotic. It has 10 strains, but there’s a lot of evidence about specific strains for if you have, like, Candida, like a fungal infection, if you have, you know, or women who get yeast infections, or specific strains that can treat respiratory illnesses.  

Rebecca Washuta   So so there’s a lot of evidence behind it, but you need to work with a professional that has done that research and really understands it. So you know, when I work with my clients, I don’t just prescribe them a general probiotic. We talk about their symptoms, and then I say, this is the probiotic you need, because it has these strains. So the information is out there. You just, I think you need to work with the right people to get the information you’re looking for.  

Steve Washuta   I wonder if it’s going to be more of a study put into like, Gastro doctors. You know, if you’re like, if you’re like, a gastroenterologist, I know one or two. I’ve never really talked to them about this. I don’t really talk to them anymore. Anyway, they I live in a different city, but I don’t really recall them ever talking much about this, or having this much, you know, information about this in their practices. I wonder if it starts to evolve more into this.  

Steve Washuta   My My conspiracy side tells me it won’t, because right now there’s no money in it, because if you can get it over the OTC and there’s no money for Big Pharma and there’s no money for the hospitals, it’s going to be less talked about, less prescribed, less looked into, just like, let’s say you’re over the counter vitamins are because of the fact that there can’t be some sort of upcharge where someone’s taking cleaving off of, you know, a piece of the profit.  

Rebecca Washuta   Yeah, I think you’re right that, generally speaking, a gastroenterologist wouldn’t know because they’re not taught this in school, right? It’s relatively new information, so they have to be, you know, doing some of this additional work on their own. And you know, you made a great point saying, if there’s no money behind it, what’s the incentive?  

Rebecca Washuta   But there are doctors out there who are great doctors who want to make their patients healthy, and have done this work, right, and have maybe a fellowship or a certification in functional medicine and and really understand how different probiotics help help different ailments. So I think, I think we’re moving in the right direction.  

Steve Washuta   Yeah, I want to go back to something I know we said, like we weren’t going to talk politics here, but just talking about health and how we all want to be healthy. I think something that gets missed. And this is a political theory I’ve briefly talked about with you, I think, just off camera, that a lot of people do not subscribe to. Political theorists.  

Steve Washuta   Think this is bunk, but it’s called the horseshoe theory, where if the people in the center are at the top of the horseshoe, and the horseshoe comes down at the bottom of the horseshoe, there’s actually more crossover between people right if you consider yourself far left or far far right, whatever. So you can be a granola mom who lives, you know, in a tiny house in the woods and won’t vaccinate her kids, and, as you know, only eats organic food.  

Steve Washuta   And you could be somebody who is maybe a surgeon’s wife, and you’re conservative, and you, you know, you go to church and you teach CCD, and you’re, you know, more considered conservative right wing, and you go to these expensive Pilates classes, but you also care about your body and health, and you’re eating the organic foods, right?  

Steve Washuta   There’s a crossover, and those two people, as far as health and fitness are concerned. And I think really what that’s doing is it’s spreading up the horseshoe now too. Because what those sides, those sides don’t have a lot in common, sort of politically, but they do in health.  

Steve Washuta   And I think health is now just spreading up that horseshoe, even to the center, and now everybody is caring a little bit more about health, and I think that’s only a good thing, and there’s going to be space for a lot of specialists. And the reason I’m saying this because you were just talking about how gastroenterologists probably aren’t taught a lot about this.  

Steve Washuta   The landscape is opening up where we’re not just going to physicians for our information, and that we obviously do your due diligence. But I do think in 10 years time, it’s not just going to be about credentials, it’s going to be about proof. Have you helped people? Do you? Do you have those reviews? Do you have the data to support that you help people?  

Steve Washuta   And the landscape is going to grow, and you’re going to go to different people for various things, and it’s going to actually help doctors, because they they won’t have what we just talked about before, they won’t have all the pressures of having to do everything for the patient in 15 or 20 minutes, because they can send them to so many other various specialists that weren’t that were non existent 10 years ago.  

Rebecca Washuta   Yeah, and you know, I don’t know if, if you hear this from your wife, Kayla, but there are a lot of doctors out there that will openly tell you, like, I. Learn this in med school, right? So one of the practitioners that I follow, Mark Hyman, he’s, you know, famous doctor podcast author. He that’s one of the first things he says on his podcast, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   When he’s interviewing these people that aren’t even doctors, or, you know, maybe have different specialties, he’s, like, we didn’t learn this in medical school. Like, this is all new. And so I think if we can, you know, as everyone who’s a practitioner. If we can say, like, hey, there’s more out there to learn, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   If we can be humble and say, there’s, you know, there’s different ways that we can help people, it doesn’t just have to be this old fashioned way and really open, open up our minds to more alternative, alternative ways. I think it’s only going to benefit everyone.

Steve Washuta   Sit, fit and chair yoga. I saw somebody write about it recently. I think maybe it’s on my National Academy of Sports Medicine forum. They asked a question about it. It’s something that I’ve taught years ago. I haven’t taught it in six or seven years, but I used to teach it on a weekly basis. And if anyone’s not familiar with it, essentially, it’s for older people.  

Steve Washuta   So if you have an older population, let’s say 65 and older, or maybe just an injured population, it is very helpful to do these classes where they’re sitting down, because maybe they can’t stand for the entire time. So maybe they’re just sitting down for half the class, or the full class, if they’re much older, and they’re going through exercises.  

Steve Washuta   So maybe they have one or two pound dumbbells in their hand while they’re sitting down, they’re doing bicep curls, and they maybe give them a bender ball, Pilates ball, and they’re squeezing in between their knees, working their abductors. You make it fun, and you do different exercises. I used to have like a beach ball. I would bring out, and they would hit the beach ball in the air, right, working on their shoulders and their their motor coordination and stuff.  

Steve Washuta   So what you know, why, why I bring this up, is because there’s a lot of professionals now who struggle just to make enough money to stay in it? I’ve talked about this before. I can’t really speak to your end in the nutrition end, but in personal training, something like over 75% of personal trainers after two years stop personal training or or don’t do it full time ever.  

Steve Washuta   Or they never make it to full time. Or they, or they, they go full time, and then they have no choice but to back up, because they don’t have enough clients, so they have to go. They just have to do it as a side gig. And part of the reason is because they’re just not creative enough, and there’s and you have to be willing to work with different populations.  

Steve Washuta   And the population that I talk about often that has money, is the older population, right? These boomers who are retiring have the money they want to spend. The money. I know you can speak to this too, because you started working with this population recently.  

Steve Washuta   They’re great to work with, because you learn so much from them too, right? There is a sense of wisdom that a lot of these people have, especially people who have, you know, been been around the block. They’re passing wisdom onto you. They’re happy to be there.  

Steve Washuta   They keep each other responsible. So if there’s a group of them, you know, Cindy, you didn’t make class on Tuesday, why is that? Oh, I was, you know, donating at the, you know, local church or whatever, but, but otherwise, they, they, they make sure that they, as a group, keep each other healthy and responsible and happy.  

Steve Washuta   And then also, I think, you know, forget about it from the financial side, or helping them side, from learning more about the body. Nothing, nothing will challenge you more, but in a good way, in a fun way, than working with someone who has a lot of issues, because you have to get creative. So if I, you know, if someone comes up to me and they say, you know, I can’t really walk and I have a knee issue, I have a knee replacement, and I had an infection.  

Steve Washuta   I can’t walk and I can’t lift this shoulder because I had a surgery here, and my back’s been hurting. You have to start to get creative during those exercises, which is going to make you more confident down the road. And I’m sure, as a nutrition professional, it’s the same thing they’re coming to you with more health history issues.  

Steve Washuta   So then you have to look up those medications. You have to do more work, yeah, okay, more work on the front end. But you learn so much more. And there’s there’s more positives than negatives. I’ll say about working with that population, and chair yoga and sit fit and classes like these are great to start up. They’re great for your wallet and they’re great for your brain.  

Rebecca Washuta   I love that. Yeah. So basically, over the last year, I have primarily worked with the clients that are 55 and older, and I love it. I won’t go back. I agree with everything that you said.  

Rebecca Washuta   And you know they as you know, as far as being in business as a trainer or as a dietitian, this population has money, right, that they’re that they’re willing to spend, they’re focused on their health, because now maybe they’re retired and they’ve gotten the blood work results back from their doctor, right? They’re not metabolically healthy and and they have the time to put in the work.  

Rebecca Washuta   So, so it’s been, you know, really a joy for me to work with that population. I love the idea of having the sit fit and chair yoga in your pocket as a trainer, I think it’s like an excellent weapon to have in your arsenal. What I what I will say, though, is, you know, you need to make sure you’re using it with the with the right population.  

Rebecca Washuta   Because, you know, I remember when I, when I used to work in an office, they would like, they would they had a trainer come in and they were like, here’s what you can do while you’re sitting behind your desk for eight hours a day. No, we shouldn’t be convincing 20 and 30 year olds to sit in their chair.  

Rebecca Washuta   More often, right? And get to work. Go take a walk. Go take a proper lunch break. So, you know, I think I see, I guess, people outside of trainers like you know, when it comes to corporate wellness, I see them misusing the chair yoga, you know, or or people who, you know, maybe are just getting starting on their fitness journey.  

Rebecca Washuta   They want to start with that. I don’t people who aren’t old and don’t have an injury should not be starting with that, right? Like, I don’t want people to think that sit fitter chair yoga is actually super beneficial when you do have the ability to work out at a higher level.  

Steve Washuta   I couldn’t agree more. I think if you’re doing that in the office, because you don’t know what else to do for corporate wellness and you want to make things cool, you really miss the boat somewhere, right? You should be taking those first of all, those people want to get out of the fucking office, you need to be taking them to the local park and doing some boot camp kind of stuff, right?  

Steve Washuta   If you’re doing this corporate wellness stuff, not showing them how they could stretch on their chair, how they can sit on a yoga ball, some of the corporate wellness stuff, people really missed the importance of it. And why? Why you do that? That’s a whole nother conversation.  

Steve Washuta   But yes, for sure, I’m talking about populations who are 7585 I’ve had people in their 90s who just can’t do much else, and they’re relegated, unfortunately, to the chair, people who have movement disorders, right? So I used to run a class.  

Steve Washuta   I have a specialties for for movement disorders, Parkinson’s, cerebral palsy, things of this nature. So we used to do some boxing and and then we would do half the class, sitting down, right? They would they would stand up. Sometimes they would have their helpers that they brought to the class help them stand up, and they put on gloves and move their arms, and they hit some pads and go through some boxing stuff.  

Steve Washuta   And then we’d sit down and do the rest of the class that way. So yes, this, I agree completely. This is for a population who just getting out the door is a win for them on those days, it shouldn’t be sort of a regression of your physical abilities, for sure.  

Rebecca Washuta   Agreed. All right,  

Steve Washuta   so now I’m going to read off something that I came across. I have to reread it myself. I know that you don’t even know what this is, so I’m interested to get your take on the fly here. It’s always fun to just hear about something and see what you think.  

Steve Washuta   So this is called fluffy popcorn. It went viral on Tiktok, and obviously everything that goes viral on Tiktok is genius, and you should do it. And I guess maybe some people started getting sick, and then some health officials stopped, like started cautioning people to not do this. So I’m going to read the article here, or at least part of it, dubbed fluffy popcorn.  

Steve Washuta   This trend involves melting butter and marshmallows then mixing in popcorn sprinkles and raw cake mix for a sweet, gooey treat. Okay, now let’s move to the next part. I don’t know, got like, 48 million views or something. Dr Gonzales, a chief scientific officer for a global safety consultancy Agency, said, consuming raw flour can make you sick. 

Steve Washuta   There’s bacteria like Salmonella and E coli that cause food poisoning and contain the grains from which the flowers directly made. He’s like, you know, wild flour may not look like a raw food. It is, and you shouldn’t be doing this. What are your thoughts on this?  

Rebecca Washuta   Well, so first, I want to talk about it. Just from a health and nutrition perspective. I can’t imagine how many grams of sugar are involving popcorn, you said, sprinkles, marshmallows,  

Steve Washuta   butter, marshmallows, popcorn, sprinkles, raw cake mix, mixed in a potter, yeah, I know.

Rebecca Washuta   I do not recommend just from, you know, from a fast and glucose, a 1c perspective, you know, popcorn can be a healthy food. Why do we have to tarnish it like that? Popcorn? You can have popcorn with with butter. That’s great, but we do not need to be putting all these additives on it. As far as the health safety goes, I think they’re talking about boxed cake mix. So you’re not even referring to eggs.  

Rebecca Washuta   I think the risk is probably very low, but the risk is there. So, you know, it’s something to keep in mind. There’s definitely a higher risk when you’re when you’re talking about raw eggs. That being said, you know, there are, there are dishes where they serve raw eggs.  

Rebecca Washuta   There are drinks. You know, you go out to a bar and they want to make it frothy, they’ll add a raw egg to a cocktail. I don’t know if you’ve seen that. So it depends on how risk averse you are. My concern with the fluffy popcorn is less about the raw flour and more about it being filled with chemicals and sugar and just being terrible for your for your metabolism.  

Steve Washuta   Well, I’m deathly afraid of E coli under any circumstances, so I will avoid any any uptick, any higher chance ability that I can attain E coli. I’m going to avoid it at all costs, even if the percentages are low, I’m going to play the percentages in my favor. So I will not be doing fluffy popcorn. I don’t like popcorn or cake batter or sprinkle, so I’m I think I’m going to clear  

Rebecca Washuta   here, like popcorn. That’s news. I didn’t know that. What do you mean?  

Steve Washuta   I don’t hate it. Um. Um, but I feel like popcorn is a craving food. You have these people whether, whether it’s nostalgic in like, movie theaters, so they sit down and watch a movie, and that’s what they used to have or something, and they have this craving for it.  

Steve Washuta   I’ve never once in my life craved popcorn if it’s been around and it’s cooked, someone else made it. It’s not as if I won’t reach my hand in but it’s not, I don’t consider it one of the foods in which it just pops into my head and I say, I have to have this right now kind of deal.  

Steve Washuta   And that’s how I categorize snacks that I like. Do I get that craving where I where I go, even if I have to run to the store at 8:30pm I’m like, this snack needs to be in my house. Popcorn would never make that list.  

Rebecca Washuta   Okay, well, I will say this popcorn has come a long way. So if you haven’t had it recently, you can get an air popper on Amazon. They’re cheap. They’re under 30 bucks, so you don’t need any oil. You get the organic kernels. You pop it yourself so it’s warm again.  

Rebecca Washuta   No oils. It just pops up naturally. And then you can add whatever you’d like to it so it can be healthy. And I think when you do it that way, and you eat it warm and it’s fresh, it actually is really delicious. So if you are looking for a new snack, something to try out, here’s the  

Steve Washuta   part of the podcast where we complain about something to do with toddlers or daycare. My daycare, since sends home like a paper, and they’re like, we’re gonna, we’re gonna fundraise. So okay, great. And to me, a fundraise means you’re asking me for money, right? So, like you’re fundraising. Somebody goes.

Steve Washuta   Hey, I’m gonna run wherever. I’m gonna run 10 miles, running some marathon fundraiser. Give me some money, right? Whatever it is. No, the fundraiser was a, what I call, like a second level fundraiser, which pushes me to be the fundraiser. So instead, they hand me a sheet, and they go, Yeah, we need you to sell this popcorn. I’m like, well, then you’re not fundraising, then I’m fundraising.  

Steve Washuta   What do you mean? You need me to sell this popcorn? I’m like, on behalf of my three year old, my three year old can’t sell the popcorn. That means you want me to sell the popcorn. So I look at the list, the popcorn is like, $20 a bag, like we were hoping for absolutely insane. We’re hoping for eight minimum. I’m like, You want me to just, you want me to like, what call my relatives, and I’m gonna what, mail them the popcorn.  

Steve Washuta   I don’t even like, how is this gonna work? I just gotta ring my, my neighbor’s doorbell. I’m like, Hey, would you like to buy a $20 bag of popcorn? Like, is it for you? I’m like, No, it’s not for me. Like, is it for your daughter? Not really. Who’s it for it? So, oh, it’s for my daughter’s daycare. It’s a third level fundraising project here. It’s like, no, oh  

Rebecca Washuta   my gosh, wait. What I have to ask? What is the fundraising for? Are they trying to do something? Did they tell you? 

Steve Washuta   They   didn’t tell me. I don’t get it. Their name’s not even on the sheet, right? It’s like the third party that they use scam. I’m like, What? What is going on here? If you need money, just ask me for money. I’ll write you $100 check, whatever it is you need. But I’m not gonna go sell popcorn on behalf of your business. Like I own a business where I ask you to do a fundraiser for my business. That doesn’t make sense.    

Rebecca Washuta   So, no, it’s wild, and I think it’s super old school. I think the only thing that has carried over from the time when we grew up is Girl Scout cookies. People want to buy Girl Scout cookies. I don’t think people want to buy anything else. They wouldn’t want to buy wrapping paper. They don’t want to buy magazines. They don’t want to buy popcorn. You know, we have Amazon,  

Steve Washuta   I agree. But I want to buy Girl Scout cookies. I don’t want to sell Girl Scout cookies. There’s a big difference for the popcorn they’re making. Me sell that popcorn. That’s that’s the part that I don’t quite get. But to Easter on. So let’s move on to the most drastic diet experience. This is where you’re going to have to lead the way.  

Steve Washuta   Here I do. I do want to talk about this from my perspective. But whether it’s yourself, you tried something a client, something you read about, something you heard from a fellow client, what is the most drastic diet experience that you know? What happened afterwards? Maybe it worked and you weren’t expecting it to. Maybe it had really, dire results.  

Rebecca Washuta   Okay, I’m gonna, can I give you two examples? Sure, and I’m gonna use myself. So I do not recommend drastic diets to my clients, no matter what they come to me with, because they don’t, they don’t work long term, right? And my goal with my clients is to achieve long term results in long term health. But you know, I’m sure even with yourself, you’re willing to try some new things.  

Rebecca Washuta   You’re willing to get more experimental, because it’s on you. So after, this is a funny story, after coming home from my honeymoon, and this is eight years ago, we did two weeks in Italy. So it was two weeks of bread and pasta and pizza and wine, and we had a really great time.  

Rebecca Washuta   And I was like, Oh my gosh, I need to come home. I need to do an organic juice fast, or getting, you know, juices and smoothies. So went to Whole Foods, bought all the things, and started with, like, three really, really high fiber smoothies the first day.  

Rebecca Washuta   And I was in so much pain, your gut cannot handle that. So, you know, people think, well, if it’s healthy, it’s healthy. No, you have to look at what’s going on, right? Like, health doesn’t exist. Exist in a vacuum. My gut bacteria had changed in the two weeks that I was in Italy, because it was being.  

Rebecca Washuta   Bed, all carbohydrates, right? All bread and pastas and so then when you go to introduce a wildly different diet, even if it is healthy, right, even if it’s filled with nutrients, your gut can’t handle it. When you’re going to increase fiber, like that, it has to be done slowly, in a stepwise fashion.  

Rebecca Washuta   But I was like, I can handle it. No big deal. So I jumped in and I was in a lot of pain. So that’s something I don’t recommend, something I do recommend, that I do probably once a quarter is I will do a soup fast. So, you know, there’s when people talk about intermittent fasting.  

Rebecca Washuta   They typically think time restricted fasting, but there’s different types of intermittent fasting. You can, you know, eat regularly for five days a week, and then fast for two days a week. You can do every other day. And so I’ve done every other day.  

Rebecca Washuta   And on the days that you’re fasting, you want to have below 500 calories, and so I do that by having soup. So So skip breakfast, just a coffee in the morning, which is normal for me, I’ll have a like a broth soup. You want to avoid creamy soups because they’re higher in calories.  

Rebecca Washuta   So a broth based soup for lunch, usually something with protein, and then something a little bit later, like a vegetable soup for dinner, and then some herbal tea at night. And what this does is it allows your body to focus on cellular autophagy, right? So cleaning out the debris you’re not digesting is you’re not spending energy digesting.  

Rebecca Washuta   It also is turning on some of these longevity pathways in your body, activating sirtuins. So I you know, it’s not easy to do, but I did feel great after that week. So I did it every other day. I did it basically, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then, you know, ate smart on Tuesday and Thursday.  

Rebecca Washuta   But, you know, I think another thing to keep in mind is some people think, well, if you’re fasting, maybe all you’re thinking about is food, but once you’ve done it, once you’ve had one under your belt, it can actually help you focus, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   Because if you’re thinking about how our brains are developed, right, think about a lion like out in the in the Serengeti, if it is hungry, it is super focused, because all it can. You know, it’s looking around. It’s checking its environment for an antelope because it wants to eat. So sometimes having less calories can actually make you more focused, too.  

Rebecca Washuta   So it doesn’t just have, you know, a physiological benefits, but it can also have mental benefits to do that type of fasting. So again, that’s not something that I that I typically recommend to clients. It’s only to very specific clients. It should be done under professional supervision. But for me, the the fast is is really remarkable.  

Steve Washuta   Well, just to touch on something you just just said at the end of that, I think the focus part of it goes untalked about, but it needs to work in also the reverse order, and I’ll unpack that. Meaning, I think the worst time to fast, and unfortunately people do this, is sitting around at home on a Sunday.  

Steve Washuta   That’s not when you want to fast, because you’re you have access to food in your home. Your brain doesn’t really have much to focus on, so you’re kind of, you know, thinking about food on a normal time. My favorite time to fast is when I golf, because I know I’m gonna be out for five hours, and I’m so focused on the shot, and it’s nice weather, and you’re having conversation, and you’re talking to people.  

Steve Washuta   So if I can get through the first two hours in the morning, let’s say I wake up at six, and then I go golf at eight, and I’m out from eight to one and I’m not home till like, 130 or something, right? It’s like, at that point I’m already halfway through the day. I’m not even thinking.  

Steve Washuta   I come home, I shower before. You know what? It’s three o’clock, right? So now I just have to get through the next three or four hours if I’m trying to fast full fold, whatever. 2436 hours. So maybe for somebody else, it’s doing work that’s not that important. If it’s your first time, you don’t want to necessarily try to have to do something that’s really important.  

Steve Washuta   If you have a deadline and you’re a journalist, I wouldn’t say the first time you should fast this on your deadline, but maybe you’re I don’t know someone who likes to play video games. You want to sit down play video games for five hours. That’s a good time to do it. Both your hands are on the controller.  

Steve Washuta   You’re gonna be playing video games all day. So now you don’t even have access to the food. You’re not thinking about it. You’re focused on the video games. That’s just something that popped in mind. But I do think how you fast in in the in the space in which you fast in mentally, yes, it helps you get more focused. But you should do it when you’re doing things where you’re more focused, or else you will have that lapse.  

Rebecca Washuta   Yeah, 100% and I’m sure the majority of people have had days where it’s so busy you’re like, Oh, I forgot to eat today, right? And it can be that easy. So I, you know when I do it, I don’t. I never do it over the weekend, because that’s when you have time and you’re in your house and you’re relaxing. I do it during the week, when I have a lot going on, and then, you know, you’re, you’re not really thinking about it,  

Steve Washuta   yeah, my in high school, I had a. Really wild, weight, up and down. I was taking supplements that you could only get on the black market sometimes, for animal use only. It’s like, huh, 1010, milligrams animal use only? Well, I’ll take 20.  

Steve Washuta   We’ll see what happens. I do not recommend, and that’s why I think I’m glad that I think George Bush had the original ban on, basically, like, all of the what were considered almost legal steroids, the stuff Mark McGuire was taking, you could just get a G and C if you were over 18, and everyone knew someone who was over 18, yeah.  

Steve Washuta   So this was, like, you know, the supplements names were like one ad and four ad. And this was the Andro. What you know is Andro poppers. You could up until 2004 you could get Andro, which was they, they circumvented the law by just changing a molecule, right?  

Steve Washuta   So the laws were based so much on science Beck, not based on like, what the thing did. It’s like, so this is illegal. It has to have and then they drew a picture of the molecule, basically, right? So it’s like, oh, well, if I just add a carbon here, it still works the same way.  

Steve Washuta   And then I circumvent the law. So they found ways around that, basically, and you could get, literally, they were steroids, right? So how they worked in your body? And kids were taking them, really young. So my bot, I shouldn’t have done it. I don’t tell anyone to do that. It’s it’s actually terrible for you, short term and long term.  

Steve Washuta   Nonetheless, I fluctuated weight a lot in high school, but I had one point in which I took a season off from a sport I didn’t play baseball one season, either my sophomore or junior year, and just decided to that I was going to exercise. I wasn’t doing a lot of lifting.  

Steve Washuta   Was only lifting one or two days a week. I got obsessed with running. Part of the reason I got obsessed with running is, speaking of those supplements, I was taking ephedra, which was also legal back then, which is no longer illegal now. So I was popping in ephedra every day. And then me and my buddy read, this was just when, like, the fat, like, uh, high fat diets were coming into fad. Maybe they weren’t even in fat at that point.  

Steve Washuta   Maybe this, this this was just like something we had read on a forum, but I was only eating for like a six week period, me and one of my buddies, tuna, fish, eggs, salad, carrots, that’s it. This was six weeks. I had a lot of it. I had no restrictions on how much I could eat, but that’s all I ate, right?  

Steve Washuta   So basically, no carbohydrates outside of whatever I was getting from the carrots, and I was running maybe three to five miles average a day, because I was on ephedra, and because I had a lot of energy and because I was running, I got down to, I believe, 161 pounds.  

Steve Washuta   At one point I was closer to 190 during the football season. So you’re talking that’s within a six month period, I had dropped 25 pounds. And randomly, I was like, in gym class, and someone threw me like a ball on basketball. And I was like, I dumped the basketball and like, I was like, what?  

Steve Washuta   This is crazy, because you because, you know, I mean, you lost so much weight that you were able to do that. I No one should do that. You should not take a federal run, five miles a day and only eat two inefficient eggs. But, well, it was terrible for my body. Certainly not sustainable.  

Steve Washuta   Not sustainable, yeah. But this was, this was a six to eight week period in which we did this again. I was losing weight anyway, because I was coming off football season where you’re trying to bulk up. So I’m already taking down calories, and then I’m running, and then I’m doing it.  

Steve Washuta   But I can never sustain that. My life would be miserable if that was the food that I was eating every single day. That’s wild. Yeah, Thanksgiving Day draft, I think this is the time we’re ready. We’re ready for here. So we did a food draft, or a vegetable draft, or what did we do? We did a fruit draft, maybe  

Rebecca Washuta   fruit and beverages. We did a fruit draft. 

Steve Washuta   We did a beverage draft. So we like to do our food drafts, and today is gonna be a Thanksgiving food day draft. Now I sent maybe eight to 10 things to you that you can pick from that’s not the entirety of the list. If you think of something that’s considered a Thanksgiving ask, you can go ahead and pick it.  

Steve Washuta   I don’t know how we’re going to start this. I don’t know who gets first pick. You get first pick, and then I get the next two picks.  

Rebecca Washuta   Should we do rock paper scissors?  

Steve Washuta   We can do rock paper scissors live here on camera. One takes it. Rock paper scissors. Shoot.  

Rebecca Washuta   Bam. You cut. Yeah. Okay. First, first pick. Um, without a doubt, mashed potatoes and gravy. It is not Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes and gravy. Delicious, creamy and like, not box mashed potatoes like we have to peel them. We gotta mash them.  

Rebecca Washuta   Add the heavy cream, add the butter, you know. And I know people have stayed away from that for a while, because I think it’s so high in calorie, but you’re actually better off because the fat from the butter and the heavy cream, or sour cream, however you make it, is actually going to slow the absorption of the of the carbs of the potatoes. So go full fat mashed potatoes.  

Steve Washuta   I’m not surprised you picked that. I. I wasn’t thinking about mashed potatoes necessarily, but I didn’t think you would pick. What I was picking is what I should say, and I’ll tell you why after I pick it, my first pick, without a doubt, is pumpkin pie. And part of the reason why is because you are sort of a dessert freak, right? You like to bake desserts.  

Steve Washuta   You love desserts. You you post about desserts. I don’t eat desserts unless I go to a restaurant. We don’t. We barely, we barely have desserts in the house. I just don’t. I don’t have a sweet tooth, so to speak. My sweet tooth comes from, like, I don’t know, chocolate milk here and there, or something so or my protein bars that have some sugars in them and that have, like, sort of a chocolatey flair to it.  

Steve Washuta   So I don’t need a lot of desserts. When I think about dessert, I think about pumpkin pie. It’s my favorite dessert, and I don’t know how to make it, or I don’t have the energy to make it. And typically when you buy pumpkin pies, they’re gross, so you get homemade pumpkin pies on Thanksgiving, and that’s my number one pick.  

Rebecca Washuta   I love homemade pumpkin pie. I actually just wrote an article about some of the health benefits of pumpkin spice. You know, the spice that goes into pumpkin pie, so it’s cinnamon and nutmeg and ginger and all spice, and there are so many antioxidant and anti inflammatory benefits.  

Rebecca Washuta   So I think for this time of year, pumpkin pie maybe could be classified as a as a healthy food, depending on how much sugar is in there. Okay, my second one is pretty old school. I don’t think anyone in our family liked it. I know my husband doesn’t like it, so sometimes I just make it for myself. Green bean casserole. I don’t like green beans any other time of the year.  

Rebecca Washuta   You know, as far as a green vegetable goes, they’re a little bit more starchy, but I love green bean casserole with the mushroom soup and then the crunchy onions on top. And you can do it in a healthy way, right? That you don’t have to use the Campbell’s mushroom. They have, like, Organic Mushrooms and and they have some, some healthier versions of those, of those crunchy onions, too.  

Steve Washuta   Yeah, I’m not a fan. I don’t like anything mushroom. So I’ve had green bean casserole. I know it sounds like, okay, maybe this is not green bean casserole, the way I’m going to say it, but it was substituted out for something that had the same consistency as the mushroom, whatever, but it just wasn’t mushrooms, and it was very good, but I don’t do mushrooms, but going on to pick four here, I guess I have no choice but to go with Turkey.  

Steve Washuta   I know it’s very bland and boring, but what is Thanksgiving without Turkey? And I don’t know why else you would use gravy, or even have gravy, considering, if you’re really making gravy, you need to, you need to cook the turkey in order to make the gravy in the first place. And I love gravy so much that I feel like you have to pair the two together. So Turkey and gravy number four, doing the turkey. Okay,  

Rebecca Washuta   my next choice is not going to be also not going to be popular. I think Thanksgiving is such a heavy meal, right? You have the turkey, of the potatoes, you have just everything is so heavy. I think you need, like a palette cleanser. I think you need something lighter and fresher on your plate.  

Rebecca Washuta   So I think some type of fall salad, right? Whether it’s like beets and goat cheese and arugula, or, you know, pears and walnuts with with spinach. I think you need something lighter, because that food is so heavy, you know, you don’t want to walk away from the table feeling like crap.  

Steven

Washuta   I like that. Yeah, I do. I forget what it was exactly, but it was something as you were describing. Maybe it was chopped up granny smith apples with rape Craisins or cranberries and a little bit of sort of salad, but it had more of a fall flavory feel to it that I’ve had before on Thanksgiving dinners, whether it was when we were younger or sometime after that, that I do remember being good, like you said.  

Steve Washuta   So it’s not just all heavy starches in your stomach and having to sit down on the couch for three hours not being able to move. I guess I’ll go with cranberry sauce next. Maybe you can throw cranberry wine in there, just some sort of cranberry flavor. I like the canned cranberry. It doesn’t matter, some form of cranberry.  

Steve Washuta   So I know that’s maybe you know, not picking something specifically, but yes, a cranberry I don’t typically like the reduce. Like the reduction cranberry sauces that have like chunks of cranberry in them. I don’t, I don’t hate them, but I prefer the old school cranberry sauce in a can. I like that texture. You only have it one time of year. But I also like cranberry wine.  

Steve Washuta   My wife’s family does cranberry wine as a as one of their Thanksgiving treats. So sometimes, instead of having the cranberry flavor from the canned cranberry, we’ll just have a glass of cranberry wine, which still sort of gives my palate the sense of Thanksgiving cranberry flavor that it needs. It’s  

Rebecca Washuta   actually like real wine, where they just use grapes and. Of, I mean, cranberries instead of grapes, or is it just wine, like with cranberry flavoring?  

Steve Washuta   I have no idea. So it’s a great question. It’s a great question. My assumption was that, yeah, my assumption is that they made it from cranberries, but I’m not positive, but it tastes, it doesn’t taste fake at all, and it tastes just like cranberries, and it’s easy to drink. It’s more like a Moscato. You know, it’s a little it’s a little sweet, but it’s it, you know, it, it pairs well with the Thanksgiving Day food.  

Rebecca Washuta   It’s fun for fall. I like that. Do we have one more? One more? 

Steve Washuta   We have one more each. 

Rebecca Washuta   All right? Well, on the beverage if we’re, if we’re on the beverage train, I love apple cider. Mm, so it’s not the same in Miami, you know, because it’s still 70 degrees Thanksgiving. But you know, not apple juice, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   Apple juice, I’m not interested in, but Apple Cider with the spices and the flavors, even like warmed apple cider, you can make it into a cocktail if you wanted to. I I love apple cider.  

Steve Washuta   You know what’s really interesting, when you think Thanksgiving in my head, when I close my eyes, you see colors and and why you see colors? I always thought was because of the leaves that are changing and its fall, but also all of the Thanksgiving Day foods happen to fall into that color palette, right?  

Steve Washuta   So it’s like, so, yeah, so my next pick was going to be like, yams, with the marshmallows on top of them, right? That everyone make on Thanksgiving. I don’t know if that’s called something in particular, but I don’t eat yams. I eat sweet potatoes. I know there’s a little bit of a difference between the two, maybe where they’re grown or something, but I don’t eat traditional yams.  

Steve Washuta   I eat sweet potatoes, and I certainly don’t, and put and have marshmallows and syrup and all this other stuff on them. So it’s good to have, like, a sweetened version of them. But yeah, as I started thinking of it, you have the cranberry color, coloration.  

Steve Washuta   You have you have the we just talked about, the yams. You have the pumpkin pie, you know, outside of, like, the gravy, yeah, the Browns the gravy. All the food choices to mirror, kind of what that Thanksgiving theme is on the outside, like autumn, I guess you would call it, like an autumn color palette.  

Rebecca Washuta   That’s really interesting. I bet it that applies to the other holidays as well, right? Like you think of Easter as, like, brighter foods and, like, a lot of red foods, cherry pie, apple pie at Christmas.   

Steve Washuta   yeah, Easter. A lot of people eat ham that has sort of like a light pink, right? That’s what Easter has, like a pink and yellow and light blue and kind of like a pastel. The veggies, and then Christmas has a little bit more darker tone.  

Steve Washuta   So when people think Christmas, it’s got, like, you know, whatever, dark greens and dark reds and dark blues and like, you’re eating like.People eating filet mignon or steak or something darker, and they’re eating like, you know, so it is interesting how the food matches the holidays.  

Steve Washuta   Maybe there’s something going on there, some subliminal messaging from from big from big food, getting to us for our holidays.

Steve Washuta Thanks for joining in Beck and let everyone know where they can find you and everything about you. If they want to reach out to you, personally, professionally, how they would do that?  

Rebecca Washuta   Awesome. Yeah, thanks for having me. You can find me on Instagram at the happy healthy nutritionist, or check out my website, happy healthy nutritionist com.  

Steve Washuta   And remember, our Monday episodes are released also on YouTube. So if you’re listening to this right now, you could be watching it. The Thursday episodes are typically not they are just solo episodes that I do, that I only release Audio. This has been an episode of the truly fit podcast back. Thanks for joining in. You.

https://www.happyhealthynutritionist.com/

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