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Guest: Rebecca Washuta

Release Date: 2/27/2023

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

Steve Washuta: Have you ever wondered what exactly is in athletic greens and other superfood powders? Are they really as healthy as they claim to be? Are they simply a supplement? Or can they replace a meal? Two common, potentially harmful ingredients and most of these powders we should be concerned with are, I’ll give you a hint they both start with S.

Today I have a licensed dietitian nutritionist to discuss this topic Welcome to Trulyfit welcome to the podcast where we interview experts in fitness and health to expand our wisdom and wealth. I am your host, Steve Washuta, co-founder of Trulyfit and author of  Fitness Business 101.

On today’s episode, I speak with Rebecca Washuta, who is my sister and also a licensed dietitian nutritionist to discuss athletic greens and other superfood powders. What exactly is in them? Should we be concerned with any of the ingredients? We go down a whole list of really insightful, great information about these powders.

In addition to that Rebecca and I touch on other nutrition topics, some other fitness topics was really well-rounded and fun conversation. I hope you enjoy it. My mic was a little bit low on this. So for any new listeners, just know that my mic is typically better than this. This was a one off, but it does not hinder the conversation at all.

With no further ado, here’s Rebecca Washuta. And I, Rebecca, thank you so much for joining me and Trulyfit podcast for the third time, I believe why don’t you give the listeners a brief background and bio of who you are and what you do in the health and fitness and nutrition community.

Rebecca Washuta  

Yeah, thanks for having me back. So I am a licensed dietician, nutritionist. I’m also a health coach. I have my own private practice. And I primarily work with busy people to create new habits and help them reach their health goals.

Steve Washuta: Well, thanks for coming on. We’re a bit more spontaneously, usually these things are planned out more. But I’ve had some trouble recently getting on good guest or at least mean doing my due diligence on the podcast I had on head on because I didn’t produce it. But I recorded maybe three episodes recently that I just I can’t put out and like you’re in the middle of these podcasts. And I’m like, I can’t put this podcast out like they’re either.

They get somehow like hyper political.And I’m not, I’m not ready to go down any of those paths. You know, we’re they are completely anecdotal. And I wasn’t expecting it to be that way. It’s like, I don’t want someone coming on being like, Oh, hey, I am on the carnivore diet, or the keto diet or a vegetarian diet and changed my whole life. Let me tell you how, you know, it’s like, yeah, I mean, that’s useless. Like that.

That’s useless. Like there’s no information that’s going to like that. That’s a motivation thing. And like, I just don’t do that on this podcast. You know, like, maybe once or twice I’ve done it. And when I do it, it’s really nuanced. So I had someone who was, who has cystic fibrosis who became a marathon runner.

Rebecca Washuta  

Like, that’s the thing anecdote, right? You want to hear?

Steve Washuta: I want to hear not that not that you you know that you made it when bacon changed her life, like I like I just, I can’t deal with it. And they sometimes like sneak on almost straight. They pretend they promote

Rebecca Washuta  

themselves as experts initially or like, did you just not let them

Steve Washuta: know? Because they’ll have credentials, that that would lead you to believe that they’re going to be talking about other things, right. So it’s like, um, like, like, Harvard training and graduated and like, all this different stuff, but like, you know, then they become like them.

They’re like a social scientist. And they just, they just, they have like other coming on to talk about other things. Almost. It’s like, like, I can’t really go down those paths. But you also don’t want to like just cancel the podcast. So I just like try to end them as quick as I can. And then I just don’t want them out.

Rebecca Washuta  

Do they? Have they reached back out to you to be like, Hey, Steve, where’s our episode?

Steve Washuta: You know what? It’s never happened. So in all my podcasting, no, it’s probably only happened maybe four or five times where I recorded by can put this out, and then I’ve happened recently, I had on one of my favorite guests, Dr. Chris work, and it was an amazing podcast, it like just like the most scientific podcast I’ve ever had.

He’s so good. We talked about cannabinoids, and like the cannabinoid system and all this stuff. Of course, like the podcast, like didn’t record properly like something. Something happened I you know, I switch sometimes between zoom and Riverside and like, I don’t know what happened. My his his video recorded. My video recorded my audio recorded, but his audio didn’t record so he’s just speaking and whatever.

But like, I could hear him while I was recording. So I don’t know what went wrong. And like, yeah, you know. So there’s always things that go wrong in the podcasting world is the is the long story short here, and it’s good to be able to have someone like you, who has, you know, an expertise in an area who can hop on and give my audience some good information. So I appreciate it.

Rebecca Washuta  

Yeah, happy to do that. I’ll steer away from anecdotal nonsense. Let’s stick to the facts.

Steve Washuta: The superfoods have been trending superfood powder specifically. I have one near me right now. I’ll lift it up. This is the one I take it is called a grown American Ultra superfood. Organic and no athletic greens is the big one. I mean, they like they sponsor like every big podcast, the Joe Rogan podcast, everyone. They’re all around I’ve never really done my research into it, which is maybe silly that I take it. I haven’t done my research.

But I do I don’t take it every day, I probably take it every other day or so it doesn’t cost me much. It’s about 75 cents per serving or something. It’s not doesn’t change my life one way or another. But what do you think about them? We will get into the specifics soon. But just from a general perspective, the fact that they’re trending Do you? Do you think they’re good? Do you think they’re bad? How do you describe them? If a client asks you about them?

Rebecca Washuta  

Yeah, I think they’re a good option. people’s diets generally are not well rounded, right? People aren’t getting enough greens in so I think it is a good supplement. But it is not meant to replace a meal, right? You can’t take that in the morning and say, well, now I don’t need breakfast, you know, just calorically speaking and from the Mac macronutrients, it’s not going to replace a meal, it shouldn’t replace a salad, right? It should be supplementing your diet.

Rebecca Washuta  

So I do think I think it’s great, I take one, but there are so many little details and so many things you need to look for. So super excited to be on and walk through and you sent me the nutrition label on yours. So I’m happy to you know, sort of walk you through just my initial thoughts. And you know, what people should look for, when they’re when they’re buying these types. And then I would like to get into athletic greens, because I don’t recommend that. And I want to share why.

Steve Washuta: Okay, well go into mind first and then athletic greens. But right before that, I have to ask another sort of general question I am. So I’m a big believer, and there’s just no shortcuts.

And this feels like a shortcut. It feels like I can just take a scoop of this, and then get in like more than my daily, like vegetables and fruit servings, I can also get in super foods. It just, it seems too easy. I mean, it is is it doing everything that it’s supposed to be doing? Do I can I literally, like just not eat another vegetable or fruit for the rest of the day and just have a scoop of this?

Rebecca Washuta  

Never again, you know, I mean, think about it, like what they would give like astronauts, right? So it is it’s freeze dried. And so when you when you process vegetables like that, and processed fruits and sprouts and grains, you’re losing a lot of the phytonutrients.

Rebecca Washuta  

Right? So it’s not the same as if you were to eat alfalfa sprouts or eat broccoli sprouts, you know, raw from your garden, because the processing, you know, denatures some proteins and really, you know, removes some of the, the phytonutrients, which are what have the majority of the of the health benefits in in these types of foods. So, again, you’re right, there are no shortcuts. But I think in general, it’s a nice thing to add to your diet. It’s not a replacement, you can never eat vegetables again.

Rebecca Washuta  

But given that we have such busy crazy lives, and we’re always on the go, I’m sure there’s been a day or two where you thought, oh, my gosh, how many vegetables have I had today? Right? Like lunch goes? Breakfast you have you have a quick breakfast, you have a protein bar for lunch. So you know, dinner rolls around, you’re worried about the kids all the things. So it’s like, it’s a nice supplement to have for busy people. You still need to get those Whole Foods Whole Foods always come first.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, and the first thing you mentioned, or you briefly mentioned breakfast, I think it’s impossible, at least for me to get in vegetables and breakfast. Like that’s the hardest meal. Because I just I don’t I don’t associate vegetables and breakfast and I don’t like the standard vegetables that one would put let’s like say in an omelet.

Like those are not what I eat. So except maybe like spinach or something. So I think maybe having it with breakfast would be like Okay, so in addition to me already having vegetables for lunch and dinner like now I have like my breakfast vegetables, so to speak,

Rebecca Washuta  

for sure. And what I like to tell people is when you’re creating a new habit, it’s good to tie it to one that you currently have, right because that will help remind you and pull it forward. So if you are going to take a green powder, most people do have coffee or tea in the morning I say like ticket right before or after that. So you know, you know it’s like that’s a habit you already have. It’s something you can remember to do. Because if you want to get in the habit of you know having a green super super food every day.

Rebecca Washuta  

Sometimes you just forget right it’s it’s hard to develop that habit when you have a busy crazy life. So I think it’s a great idea to have it for breakfast because most people don’t have vegetables for breakfast. I think the only opportunity to really get veggies in is if you’re making a smoothie or right if you’re having an omelette and you can throw in some spinach or broccoli but you can’t have an omelet every day and I don’t I personally don’t like smoothies. I know that that’s the go to for everybody but I want to chew my food so smoothies just don’t feel like a satisfying for me.

Steve Washuta: Well, I agree with the second part that smoothies are not satisfying, but I do have an omelet everyday of some sort. Usually it’s egg whites. It’s not whole it’s not whole eggs. Maybe not every day but almost every other day so it’s because it’s it’s really hard to be creative with breakfast. Like I don’t know how many ways to be creative with breakfast. I don’t like smoothies in the morning. I don’t like yogurt in the morning. I don’t like sugar in the morning if that makes sense.

 Maybe because I put a little tiny bit of like creamer in my coffee and like that gives gives me enough tastes and my coffee usually has like I don’t know maybe like reminds me of that but in the morning, I don’t want sugars. So I don’t know. I digress that’s that’s another whole conversation but let’s let’s go to the angry gets here.

We could start with mine. I could read them off. I know you already know them. Are there ingredients in mind that I showed you again, it’s a superfood organic grown America that you either thought were great that were in there or that were bad that were in there.

Rebecca Washuta  

Yeah. So for yours. You know, and I want to mention this now and then maybe we can circle back to it because it’s a it’s a longer discussion. I do not like spirulina. I think the number one ingredient in yours is spirulina. Spirulina is there’s all of these studies that are coming out that spirulina which is an algae can be contaminated with this neurotoxin called BM A, and that’s being associated with a lot of neurodegenerative diseases.

Rebecca Washuta  

So neurodegenerative diseases are on the rise, not just Alzheimer’s, right, like Bruce Willis and it was a Bruce Willis right now, I don’t know if you read the news now is frontal lobe dementia. So there’s, there’s all of these sort of like new neurodegenerative diseases, and including ALS and Parkinson’s. And anyway, it’s on the rise, and a lot of experts are associating it with BM, BM A, which is found in a lot of spirulina, so I don’t like spirulina.

Rebecca Washuta  

So number one ingredient in yours x? Well, the other thing I didn’t like, I think it’s probably the third or fourth ingredient. And what you sent me is silicone dioxide. So that’s just a an anti caking. Agent, right? So the powder doesn’t stick together. But what jumped out at me is that that’s the fifth ingredient. Right? So ingredients are listed in the order. You know, the order of potency. Yeah. And so the fact that that’s the fifth ingredient kind of sucks, because that has, you know, zero health benefits for you.

Rebecca Washuta  

You know, if anything, if you inhale it, it can actually be irritating to your lungs and cause some asthmatic issues. But I yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t like that. What I did, like, it’s organic, everything in there is organic. I think that’s definitely something you need to look for. Oh, the other thing I didn’t like about yours, it has natural flavors. And so these are sort of hard to get away from, but I think what most people, most people think, oh, it’s natural. It’s it’s not artificial.

Rebecca Washuta  

So it’s okay. natural flavors is basically this umbrella term for like, 1000s of different things. So some things aren’t so bad, some things are really bad, but they can all be called natural flavors, right? The the FDA doesn’t put a ton of guidance out about it. And so even though it’s derived from something natural, like I think yours has natural apple flavor, right?

Rebecca Washuta  

So maybe it was derived from an apple, but you have to ask, how are they deriving it right? What kind of solvents are they using? And then are those solvents you know, being filtered out in an effective way? Or are there solvents like, you know, hexane or whatever, entering into the food supply, which is what we found.

Rebecca Washuta  

So I try to avoid natural flavors, if I can. It is it is hard, especially in the green powders, the green powder that I take does has organic flavors. And so organic flavors are different than natural flavors. Again, this is all like nutrition marketing. So but it’s good for the general population to know, organic flavors have to be 90 95%.

Rebecca Washuta  

Organic, and there is, you know, more stringent regulations around them as opposed to just natural flavors. So if you can avoid natural flavors altogether, or if you can find the green powder that has organic flavors, that’s that’s your best bet.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, I think we had the natural flavor talk when we were talking about the Lacroix’s because, you know, there’s there’s nothing to me more funky tasting, like some of the flavors tastes like hairspray. And you’re like, I’m like, How is this like, considered like natural? Like, but you told me Well, yeah, I mean, natural flavors is an umbrella term.

And maybe 80% of those umbrella terms are okay, and 20% or not, but you don’t know if that’s 20% of just like really weird stuff is in there. It could be the reverse to it could be 80% of men. 20% are good. I have no idea. But yeah, so mine did have the spirulina in it, which was the fifth ingredient. It’s got silicon dioxide, which is the seventh ingredient.

Seven of like, 30 MyJio. Right. So like it is towards the top half. And then the apple flavor is one of the last. And then I think the last is sunflower lecithin, which I think that’s also another agent that just like cakes things together. I’m not sure

Rebecca Washuta  

it is. Yeah, I’m less concerned about that. Especially because it’s last in the ingredient list. It’s just like another type of gum or emulsifiers. Really just for the texture of the powder, and the texture of the overall end product. But yeah, and I noticed yours didn’t have so let’s talk about things that yours didn’t have yours didn’t have any probiotics in it.

Rebecca Washuta  

I didn’t see any enzymes. I don’t think I saw any like adaptogens like adaptogenic mushrooms in it. And those are all foods that you wouldn’t typically get right so that is a good use of the powder because it’s not like you’re going to the store and you know getting a lot of that. So those are things Is that I look for those are little bonuses that I look for in a green powder.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, I do take some of those on my own, but it would be better if they were in the powder. Like, I forget like Lion’s Mane mushroom and like some other things, some other mushroom related things.

Rebecca Washuta  

Rhonda. Yeah, there’s different types of adaptogens. So I mean, if you want it to have been athletic greens, athletic greens, looks good on the surface, right? And I know what you said, like it’s being advertised everywhere, every you know, you, you can’t get away from it. I don’t like it one, I think it’s very expensive. It’s like 70 $80 a jar or something.

Rebecca Washuta  

The other thing is it has spirulina. So I tried to stay away from that. And, you know, I think they’re not super transparent, about like sourcing, you know, I tried to look into exactly where they’re, where they’re getting things from, and, and even if a company says like, Okay, we test our spirulina, at any point, they could switch producers, you know, or switch who they’re getting sources who they’re sourcing their products from, and they don’t have to tell you.

Rebecca Washuta  

So, in general, I do just try to stay away from products with spirulina, and you know, anyone who has a history of neurodegenerative diseases in the family, you know, I recommend you stay away from that, too.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, mine on the back of the bag says something to the extent of like, they grow all the fruits from or they get them from American organic farmers. I don’t know if that’s true. And because it’s a supplement, I don’t know if that needs to be true, like you said, right. They could certainly say that.

And then at some point, they switch and they decide not to change the labeling on the bag, do they really get in trouble for that? Probably not. Right? Because no one even oversees them. It’s not FDA regulated. So you do really have to do your own due diligence. But it stinks because you’d like to trust the companies and that they’re not they’re not pulling a fast one on you.

Rebecca Washuta  

Yeah, and I think no, the term organic is has to be certified right? So you can’t just call your your products organic and not you not have gone through the certification.

Rebecca Washuta  

So I think your your product wasn’t terrible, right? Like it’s organic. I believe that it’s coming from American organic farms, but I didn’t like it that it had spirulina, I didn’t like that the fifth ingredient was silicon dioxide, because most of the ones I looked at didn’t even have that.

Rebecca Washuta  

And I guess the benefit is, you know, sometimes when I stir mine up, there’s like tiny little clumps, but I just use one of those like mixers and then it you know, it goes away. But the silicon dioxide being the fifth ingredient seems like kind of strange, you know, do you

Steve Washuta: think maybe you don’t know the answer, but that they’re putting the spirulina in because it’s cheaper than some of the other ingredients and it’s helping, like give, I guess you would call like more volume to it. Because I know that’s, that’s what some companies do in general, for any product that they’re doing, right?

So they want to make things cheaper, they’re like, Okay, if I have 30 Different ingredients, which are the ones that are the most expensive, the hardest to get, I can’t put that as the majority ingredient, even if it’s healthier because it’s going to cost my company too much money or do you just think that they don’t really understand the research behind spirulina and they’re, they’re assuming that this is beneficial for us.

Rebecca Washuta  

Most people think of spirulina as a health food right. It was touted as a as a superfood for a very long time and it does like other types of seaweed. It does have a lot of nutrients in it right. It’s a nutrient dense food but because of this contamination with the BMA.

Rebecca Washuta  

The nutrition in medical world is very split. So if you google it right now, you’ll see a lot of articles that link BMA and spirulina and to neurodegenerative diseases, and then you’ll see people arguing against it and saying, like, no, it’s just associative. It’s not causative, but like, I’m, I’m not ready, ready or willing to take that risk? So yeah, I think the industry is very split on it. And spirulina has been in our products for a long time. So people just, you know, aren’t willing to make the change. Maybe the company is not willing to change the formula, given the new research, right?

Steve Washuta: Yeah. And I think it’s really hard to show causal. And a short period of time, if this is something is new, so like, associative is enough for me to at least, like take a break from it and be like, Okay, well, I’ll wait all the way to the final verdict to sin. Like, there’s obviously a reason why people are digging into this, right. It’s not, they’re not just bored.

They can, they can be doing a heck of a lot of research, if they if they are considered associative, and continue to do a deep dive into this. Like, there’s, I don’t know, there’s still a 50% chance this could come out to be bad. So why not just hedge your bets, so to speak?

Rebecca Washuta  

For sure. Yeah. And I don’t feel like there’s an anti spirulina lobby, like saying, like, Let’s go after spirit, right. So it’s an I do tell my clients that like, I err on the side of being conservative, right, just in general in my life with what I eat. So, you know, listen, there, the evidence is new, but like, you know, I want to inform them so they can make their own informed decisions.

Steve Washuta: Yeah. And if someone came to you and was like, Hey, listen, I’ve been taking spirulina only, like exclusively for like five years, and I feel like it’s changed my life and it’s so good. It’s doing so many great things.

For me. It’s like okay, well, if you think spirulina is doing well All of this for you so great then maybe like you’re somebody who doesn’t need to stop taking it because the benefits for you outweigh the negative but like, I don’t even know the difference of spirit leanness in in in this

Rebecca Washuta  

changing your life. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Steve Washuta: So, so I think you might have mentioned this but do you personally take them? And then have you recommended some of these for our clients before at least allowed them to take it without any pushback?

Rebecca Washuta  

Yeah, absolutely. So I do personally take it, the one that I take is called, sorry, I have it here. It’s called Garden of Life, perfect food, green superfood, no stevia. So you can find on Amazon and it’s really reasonably priced. It’s like 30 bucks. This is not an ad. This is just the the one that I found that I really like, doesn’t have any of the gums or emulsifiers that yours has doesn’t have any anti caking agents only uses organic flavors, doesn’t have spirulina.

Rebecca Washuta  

So like I checked all my boxes, and has some enzymes and probiotics. What it does not have, which I wish it had is some more adaptogens. But I usually take them in a supplement form, right? You can take lion’s mane or ashwagandha in supplements depending upon like what you need them for. So GABA, that’s the one that that I recommend. And I again, I recommend it to clients for a few reasons.

Rebecca Washuta  

One is it helps to hydrate right, it’s nice to have like I always ask my clients to have a glass of water. Before and after coffee in the morning. A lot of people don’t like to do that. But if okay, if your glass of water also was a scoop of green powder, it’s still water right? You’re still helping to hydrate so that’s beneficial. And yeah, I think it’s you know, when it comes to like traditional supplements, right like your your general multivitamin, I don’t think this takes the place of a multivitamin.

Rebecca Washuta  

Because what it’s offering is a wide variety of phytonutrients in the powder, but it’s it’s not necessarily filling your RDA of all the vitamins you need. So I think you should be doing both. Find a powder that checks the boxes, the one you know, the one that I use Garden of Life and you should be working with a health care provider to determine like a supplement regimen that that you know meets your your personal needs.

Steve Washuta: What if that same exact brand had all those ingredients, but at the very end, it had stevia extract, would you use it?

Rebecca Washuta  

Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah. And so they do different. They do different types. And this one has like different flavors. I just prefer the one that doesn’t have flavor. Like I want my green juice to taste grassy, I squeeze some lemon in it. I don’t like something that tastes too too fake. Right? You were talking about like, tastes like hairspray tastes weird.

Rebecca Washuta  

So the stevia is fine. It’s one of the better sweeteners. In general, I think I try to get clients instead of necessarily switching over to a zero calorie sweetener, we really want to change our palates, right. And we want to just get our palates used to less sweet foods. Because stevia is even more potent than sugar as far as like our taste buds go.

Rebecca Washuta  

And so that can lead you to crave more sugar down down the line. Right so like ideally, what we want to do is slowly remove the sweeteners from from our diet and our drinks. So stevia I’m okay with. But the other one that I used as enough doesn’t have stevia in it.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, it’s amazing how fast your taste buds change. I don’t know the science behind it, but like I could use creamer in my coffee. Like I said, my creamer is you know, some sort of organic creamer. It has like one sugar and maybe and like one gram of fat or something, right? There’s like, it was like 19 calories or something.

And I barely use any of it. But if I don’t have it, and I run out of it, and I just like go two or three days with regular black coffee without having any of it. I’m okay by like the third day, like my tastebuds no longer need that. And really, it’s to me, it’s not, you know, obviously your taste buds are connected to your brain, right sending like a signal like a neuron.

So just like but, but me it’s really just like the second I taste it. I’m like, you know, this is actually better than the day before and better than the day before. Like every day it gets better. So it really is we forget about that. It sounds like such a simple concept.

But we forget like this, like, of course the first day it’s gonna be bad. Like, it’s always bad, but just give it like three or four days and then you’re gonna get used to taking this sweetener out.

Rebecca Washuta  

100% Yeah, I have a three day rule. If clients are like really, really craving food, or even you know, I think post post COVID And during COVID A lot of people were relying on alcohol more than they normally do, right? Because it was a very stressful time.

Rebecca Washuta  

We’re all trapped at home. And so I’ve worked with clients that don’t necessarily have an addiction, but have sort of developed like more of a habit. And so like if you can stop for three days, you don’t really miss it. You don’t crave it. You don’t want it and I think that’s true. You know not listen, not for people who have alcohol addiction, but for people who have just made it More of a habit.

Rebecca Washuta  

I think that’s true for alcohol I think is true for sugar. I think it’s true for like a, you know, really carb, carb, dense foods. Three days is all you need. And then like your palate changes your taste buds turnover, and you know, you’re able to make a more mindful decision about what you really want to eat.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, I’ve noticed that with wine. I’m not someone who drinks a lot of wine. But let’s say I have like a glass of red wine one night, the next night, I won’t necessarily want a glass of red wine. But I want something sugary in that same timeframe. Right.

So let’s say it was 630. It’s like, okay, my brain said 630, like you had two nights ago, you had some sort of like, you know, low calorie ice cream bar. And then you had like glass of wine at 630 the night before. So I was like, this is just what we do at 630. We have something that has a little bit of sugar or faux sugar on it. So let’s, let’s get this going. But like you said, a day or two or three off that quickly dissipates, and you don’t have that anymore.

Rebecca Washuta  

Yeah, you noticed that as well. Right? After three days, you’re like, Okay, I don’t I don’t need it.

Steve Washuta: So what’s going on in the nutrition community? I know we’re all stuck in these these bubbles, right? So like, I see the same things over and over and over on Instagram. And although we’re like, in, I guess you would call them like cousin communities, you definitely don’t see the same stuff that I see, like trending like my tic tock, and my Instagram feed like, just looks different than yours, because they niche down a lot, right?

So I really don’t see any nutrition stuff. I see all like weightlifting and personal training stuff and coach stuff and things of that nature, what’s going on in the fitness world? That’s either, you know, trending on the socials or something you’ve been talking about with clients recently?

Rebecca Washuta  

Yeah, you know, it’s funny, I talked about this with the client and I talked about it with a colleague. Earlier today, it feels like there is a lot of polar, you know, there’s a lot of polarization in our fields in general, right? People are for something or they’re against something. There’s still a lot of polarization around soy. And I’d love to hear your like general take on it. Before I get into the scientific aspect of it. Sure. Soy What do you think? So?

Steve Washuta: The credit, this is all me reporting things from people that I trust, but I have never personally physically opened up any study and read anything about soy. Does that make sense? Like I don’t, I don’t spend time researching soy. But from from people I’ve trust who have said, there are negative estrogenic, I guess you would call them. issues that go on with men who are eating a certain level of soy, and even the with us, let’s call them the soy.

There’s a lot of soy proteins because it’s cheaper to make it. So if you look at the back of like, let’s say certain Clif bars will have like soy protein isolate. And apparently, when they’ve done the studies on soy protein isolate, it does it somehow raises or AIDS and raising estrogen to some sort of small minut level. But overall, I guess, in men’s health that could be deleterious long term.

This is what I’ve been told, I don’t really know. I do know that soy is extremely cheap. And I don’t trust cheap things all the time. Why is it so cheap? What is it doing in my body? So I barely eat soy? And I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing or not?

Rebecca Washuta  

Yeah, okay. Well, there’s different types of soy in the same way that there’s different types of meat, right? And so like i There’s a saying out there that it’s not the cow, it’s the how, right? It’s like, it’s very different if you’re having a grass fed Kobe beef cheeseburger, or if you’re going to McDonald’s, right? Like the quality of the meat is really like what makes the difference.

Rebecca Washuta  

And so the same things with soy, soy, soy protein isolate, you want to stay away from that’s the EU, right? That’s the cheapest stuff. That’s the filler. And in general soy is one of the crops in the US that is most sprayed with pesticides. So if you’re going to have soy, you want to make sure it’s organic, because if it’s not, you can guaranteed it’s like laden with, you know, glyphosate. So you want to make sure it’s organic.

Rebecca Washuta  

However, as far as raising estrogen, it’s actually the opposite. And there’s so much misinformation out there about this. You know, I have clients who are like more afraid of soy than they are if cigarettes or alcohol and I’m like what are you doing? You know? So if you are, if you have a hormone related cancer, so like women with breast cancer, sometimes they take these medications called aromatase inhibitors.

Rebecca Washuta  

 And what that’s going to do is that is not going to allow your body to produce any estrogen right so so people so if you are in that camp and you are on that type of medication you really want to stay away from from soy because you don’t want any additional estrogen. However, for everyone else, the phyto estrogens in soy actually block traditional estrogen. So it’s actually going to be protective, it’s going to have that protective effect because it fits in the estrogen receptors.

Rebecca Washuta  

And so it’s going to block estrogen like real estrogen from binding to these receptors, which is important because you know, then it’s act Really lowering your chances of any issues associated with estrogen down the line. So, you know, that’s like the, that’s the science behind the phyto estrogens.

Rebecca Washuta  

But also, if you look at the, you know, the landmark studies they’ve done in China and Japan, these people have been eating, you know, soy three times a day for 1000s of years, and they have way less rates of certain cancers, you know, compared to the US. And obviously, there are different lifestyle factors from the US to Asia.

Rebecca Washuta  

But if you even, you know, looking at the studies and accounting for all of that, it really does have protective effects, even for men against prostate cancer, and other cancers. So I think it’s a great way to get some extra protein and you just have to make sure it’s high quality soy, so it has to be organic tofu, organic soybeans, organic and Emami. The soy protein isolate that’s in powders and, and bars is definitely something you want to stay away from.

Steve Washuta: Well, that makes a lot of sense. I do think, maybe unknowingly, these people, they don’t, they don’t, they don’t know that that’s an option, they don’t know that they can, they can have a better version of soy. So when they are talking about this, they’re only talking about the cheap versions of soy, right. And maybe there are studies specifically on like soy protein isolate.

And in, in sort of the bodybuilding world, it’s laughed upon, right, you would never use something like that over like a whey concentrate or something. Right. So that doesn’t make a lot of sense. But I like how you put that as you know, it’s, it’s the same thing if you’re getting a grass fed cow steak, as opposed to, you know, a cheap version of that, right, a corn fed cow.

So that does make a lot of sense. I do think Funny enough, I’ve seen people freak out make videos about soy, just like you’re talking about. And like, this is more of like the sort of the bodybuilding world about like how like, soy is like changing our men, basically, in society, like, like, we’re eating too much soy and our men are becoming like a feminized because of it.

And it’s just, it’s, it’s ridiculous that people are willing to again, hear about a study not do their own research, and then have like, such a dyed in the wool view where they’re willing to, like, go on camera and and yell and tell people that their lives are being ruined, from like, something they know absolutely nothing about. But that’s just Yeah.

Rebecca Washuta  

And I think, you know, like you said, You’ve like listened to people you trust. And I think when you’re vetting people you trust, right, because most people aren’t going to open up a 30 page journal, right? Some people don’t even have access to those like online journals where you can actually read the research yourself.

Rebecca Washuta  

So I think when you’re trying to vet people that you trust, look, for someone who’s not like, who doesn’t have a dog in the fight, right? Who’s not like if their whole career isn’t built around the keto diet, their whole career isn’t built around carnivore, right?

Rebecca Washuta  

Because there’s that one guy who’s like his whole, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with him, his whole career is built around kind of a carnivore diet, and he’s he’s written all these books, and it’s like, okay, if he finds evidence against that, well, then his career crumbles, right.

Rebecca Washuta  

So like, people, the people you follow, and you are taking, you know, advice and recommendations from should be able to pivot, right? Like, I used to be vegan, and I was vegetarian. Now in pescatarian. Like, I’m open to different things, I realized Nutrition has to be personalized, I think, you know, people who are like willing to die on certain hills. Usually aren’t the people you want to trust, right?

Rebecca Washuta  

Because what you’re looking for, you will find you can, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of funded research out there, there’s a lot of ways you can skew things. And so if someone you know, has an intention to present information in a certain way, they’re, you know, they’re going to be biased. So I think it’s nice to like, even with spirulina, I’ve said, like, I don’t recommend it, but I’m very conservative, right?

Rebecca Washuta  

There’s, like mixed research out there. And so like, I think you have to, really, especially with social media, you need to vet who you’re listening to, and make sure that they don’t have a dog in the fight, so to speak, with what they’re presenting to you.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, and especially when it doesn’t seem to be that outlandish, right? It’s like, Oh, we’ve shown some sort of study at some point has shown that soy has some estrogen connection somewhere, right? So it’s like, okay, so if you already make that leap, right, that firstly, and then why wouldn’t it be that difficult to make the secondly, that this is causing problems, right? So I think that’s really the problem is we trust your intuition too much.

Sometimes when it comes to the science and stuff. It’s like, oh, well, I I make this first leap and then I heard this so this must make sense. It’s like well, you know, backup it’s typically that the answer is always more complicated than you think. Right? We were trying to we try to simplify this causes this but it’s like there’s so many variables, there’s so many things going on.

And there’s so many layers to these things and we don’t know exactly what was tested so let’s just take a step back and and understand that like this, the all the evidence is not in on anything and that’s the best thing about science right? So you Even when you think you know something, all the evidence is not in yet, there’s still more evidence to come about.

And that’s why I always hedge my bets and I tell people to hedge their bets because you’re gonna look stupid. You’re gonna like a charlatan at some point, when you base your whole career on something you’ve been telling clients something forever, you know, in the fitness industry, well, we have our equivalent. And I was guilty of a to back up everyone was is that like, we all learned don’t go knees over toes in the, in the, in our culture in the western culture. Do you know what I mean by that.

So when your squat, yeah, squat or when you launch right when you’re lunging when you squat, you have to a little bit usually it’s more like knees over shoelaces when you squat, right? We’re all built a little bit different anatomically how our hips built and stuff.

So it depends on on how you’re built. And but when especially when you launch, they say you don’t really keep your keep good 90 degree ankles, your knees directly above your ankle, and then it’s equivalent with your hip really don’t want those knees coming over the toes. And that’s not bad advice. But what that does is that starts to limit ankle mobility, that starts to keep your calves a little bit tighter, because you’re not out stretching the soleus and gastroc.

And what they find is long term that’s actually causing a lot of knee issues for people, right? So if you have any issues, you don’t want to go into the overdose, because that’ll hurt you. But if you don’t have any issues, is it good to develop this, this extra movement pattern, right, I’m able to go a little bit further into this movement pattern, and out stress my gastroc and soleus, which was calf muscles, right?

And get more ankle mobility. And they’re finding them yes, that is the case, right? There’s all these new studies and new research about people who are doing things like walking backwards, more and going more knees over toes and doing all these different things that are like preventing knee injuries. And it’s like, well, no, we have to be ready for things like this to come out in both worlds in nutrition world and in the fitness world, that there’s going to be new evidence, new studies coming out. And we don’t want to be the person who’s like, based our whole career around just saying, Yeah, and

Rebecca Washuta  

you have to you can’t let your ego get in the way, right, you have to be able to pivot and say I’ve learned some new information. I’m changing my view on it. What you said earlier about there being so many different variables, they’re finding now that in nutrition research, sometimes it depends on your, like your gut microbes, you know that the health effect of a certain food, right, so you take a population and some people are really, you know, don’t do well with eggs, and it can cause all this issue or don’t do well with red meat.

Rebecca Washuta  

 Okay, well, like, what was their what was their gut population? Right? What was their microbiome, like? So there’s, you know, it’s more than just the food, it’s the environment that you’re putting the food into, there’s so many different things. So it’s got to be personalized. And yeah, I think you need to be willing to pivot when you find new information, right? Like, you have to just you have to take your ego, take your ego out of it and say I was wrong. And I’m, you know, ready to lean into this.

Steve Washuta: I think it’s really age dependent to I can’t speak to nutrition totally accepted anecdotally. But I can to fitness were to certainly in nutrition. Anecdotally, for me, my body has changed over the years, not only what agrees with me, and what doesn’t agree with me, but the amount of food I just don’t need the same amount of calories as I get older.

Like, even though I weigh more like I just I don’t need it like my body, I can function better off of, you know, whatever, three or 400 less calories so I could even five years ago and I don’t know if that’s just me, or if that’s everybody as they age, but but that’s that’s just the truth for me. And I know that you know, in the in the fitness world, you have these people who are 23 years old, they’re screaming at people like this, this is how you live, this is how you workout, it’s how you get in shape.

And it’s like, well, you’re only talking to your population, like this is terrible information for a 63 year old to be doing any of this. This is not good information like this, this changes over time, all these these health related things you’re supposed to be doing because your body is changing. And as your body is changing, you have to change all of your habits as well.

Rebecca Washuta  

100% Yeah, you’re absolutely right. It’s it has to be personalized and has to be based on not even just your age, but what’s going on in your life. And yeah,

Steve Washuta: any fitness questions for me things your clients ask you about things that you’ve come across you personally?

Rebecca Washuta  

Yeah, you know, what I’d like to ask I, I have seen the effects of cortisol, especially in women, right, it can really cause you to retain weight, especially in your midsection. And so what I recommend to my clients is if you’re feeling stressed, try to avoid really high intense workouts because that can that can raise your you know, continue to raise your cortisol and that can actually prevent weight loss.

Rebecca Washuta  

And so you know, I do recommend going for walks just really low impact thing going for walks walking on an on an incline on a treadmill, and I wanted to get your your feedback on that specifically like walking on an incline on a treadmill. Is that beneficial? Like is that doing anything? Is it you know, kind of worthless? And then yeah, if you want to weigh in on the cortisol and high intensity exercises, I would love to hear your feedback.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, I’ll start backwards from the cortisol. There’s people who are I would call them cortisol junkies, and they feel like crap in the morning and they assume that this workout and I shouldn’t say assume because it does when they’re done with their workout.

They feel better, right? They feel they feel more lucid, their brain is firing better their endorphins are going, cortisol is up, all this stuff is going. And unfortunately, they’re not concerned with all of the other things that are going on in their body, right? Whether it’s okay, I’m doing too much high impact. Whether it is I’m too reliant upon this to fix my day. So what happens when I can’t get my workout in?

Am I now? Am I now just in a really, really bad mood? I mean, there are certainly worse habits to have than me saying I need to go on a three mile run. Right. But But I think people do need to sit with themselves and say, am I working out for the right reasons? Am I just doing this? Because I’m getting this like, at this absolute high at all times? And is this workout deleterious to my long term health and wellness? Am I doing too much high impact stuff? Because a lot of that comes from the high impact stuff, right?

That’s not coming from me sitting down on a machine and doing 12 chest presses. That’s for me doing 40 burpees and doing, you know, Insanity workouts? Right. So I do, I do think that that’s something people should be concerned with, they’re not as concerned and of all the health problems that Americans are going through. It is it is it’s such a sort of a niche, miniscule one. But it is one that someone like

Rebecca Washuta  

you who weren’t aware of Yeah, it’s good to be aware of for sure

Steve Washuta: works with clients who are trying to get healthier, just to you know, put a little bug in their ear and say, hey, just you know, we should work on maybe having various workouts and not all of them, we’re pushing ourselves to the limit. I have friends guys and girls who just go to like Orangetheory twice a week, and they just like busted, like, they’re just burn like 800 calories in 40 minutes. And that’s all they want to do.

And they look like shit, right? They’re not like they’re not in great shape. And I would say that aren’t even that healthy, but they they think they’re doing something good just because they’re busting it at all levels, right?

But you’re not engaging the muscle, you’re not feeling certain muscles, fire, right, you’re not working on your breath, work, not doing all these other things that come in conjunction with being a healthy exerciser. So I think that’s, that is a good point that you brought up.

And as far as walking on a treadmill and incline I do all the time, I really like it now, you’ll see what the bodybuilding community or the people who don’t want to burn fat, like that’s their thing. Because they’re like, Oh, hey, I can still get cardio in. I’m walking, I’m getting my heart rate up to let’s say, like, whatever, like, one 115 or 120, I’m not getting up through the roof. And I’m able to burn some calories and walk and do these things. But I’m not running,

I’m not doing high impact. The incline specifically makes your legs do more of what I call a pulling motion. Right hamstrings. Bicep for more as you’re as you’re walking, if you’re walking uphill, you’re really pulling your body backwards. Does that make sense? But when you’re jogging, let’s say you’re usually on the ball of your foot, and you’re more kind of bouncing. And that’s a little bit more quad intensive.

But when you’re sprinting, or you’re going on an incline, it’s more of a pulling motion, right? Think of a horse, right? You get more posterior work, which means your hamstrings and your glutes, your butt muscles are firing more when you’re walking on that incline. So that’s another reason people are doing it because they’re getting some posterior work.

Now what I will say is you see these people who do it and they hold on to the side of the treadmill, it’s like, or now you’re taking like 60% of it away, right? Yeah. Because if your hands are holding on, you’re putting not only less stress on your legs, but now you don’t have to worry about keeping your body in alignment. So you’re not using any core. And you’re making it just easier overall. So if you’re going to do

Rebecca Washuta  

like do an incline where you don’t have to hold on, like, don’t go to 12 and have to hold on, do it at six and don’t hold on,

Steve Washuta: don’t hold on, you have to hold on to the treadmill, you’re doing it wrong, like those are there, those handles are there for you for emergencies, not to not to aid in your workout. So do it on a five or a six and slowly slow the speed down as you as you go up, right. So sometimes you have to inverse relation at where, let’s say you start at, I don’t know like three five incline, which is not really that high.

And you start at like a 442 speed, which is pretty hard to do that for two walking the three five incline, as you go up an incline, maybe I go from three, five to four, I might have to take that four to speed down to three, five, right, you might have to sort of do an inverse, and you’re not really giving up much there.

You’re still challenging yourself from a cardiovascular perspective. And from again, like we said, a posterior chain perspective, those muscles in the backside are working harder because you’re pulling your way up, rather than like when you’re jogging and you’re bouncing using more quad.

Rebecca Washuta  

Oh, that’s good to know. Okay. I’m guilty of holding on so now I’m gonna I’m gonna change that.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, I mean, yeah, we all do, but it’s certainly it’s, it’s, it’s not like your workouts were not effective, but you’re gonna get way more out of it by not holding up.

Rebecca Washuta  

Yeah. Okay, good to know.

Steve Washuta: Well, this has been fantastic information. Thank you so much for hopping on and talking about this. And I’m sure we’ll hop on again to talk about other nutrition related stuff in the near future, hopefully, but let my listeners and audience know where they can best find you whether they want to work with you or whether they just want to reach out to you or follow the stuff that you put out and promote.

Rebecca Washuta  

Yeah, absolutely. So my Instagram is happy, healthy nutritionist Um, you can find everything there. There’s links to my to my website and my courses and everything. So yeah, you can check me out there.

Steve Washuta: My guest today has been Rebecca Washuta. Thank you so much for joining  the Trulyfit podcast.

Rebecca Washuta  

Thank you.

Steve Washuta: Thanks for joining us on the Trulyfit podcast. Please subscribe, rate, and review on your listening platform. Feel free to email us as we’d love to hear from you.

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Thanks again!

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