The Healthy Celiac Podcast

How Macronutrients Support a Celiac's Gluten Free Diet - Part 2 Ep. 143

• Belinda Whelan • Season 1 • Episode 143

Share episode

Send a one-way text message. Ask a Question or message me your feedback. Be sure to leave your name too if you'd like a shoutout on the Podcast.

Could your gluten-free lifestyle be missing a crucial ingredient for vibrant health? I'm sharing the secrets of protein and its staggering impact on everything from muscle repair to hormone balance. In discussion, I chat about the essentials of protein , revealing the extraordinary ways amino acids improve our well-being, particularly for women. Whether your diet embraces meat, or is plant based, I'll guide you to a protein-rich path tailored for your unique lifestyle. And if you've ever questioned the strength of your hair or the resilience of your nails, you'll soon discover how this macronutrient can be a game-changer.

Today's episode is designed to inspire you to embrace a holistic health approach.

Join me for a journey that promises to extend well beyond today's conversation, into a future of sustained well-being.

Previous Episode Mentioned:
How Macronutrients Support a Celiac's Gluten Free Diet - Part 1 Ep. 142

Want to know how I've nailed living with Celiac Disease? Ultimate Celiac System has all my exclusive tips, secrets and insights.
Find out how Ultimate Celiac System can support your Celiac journey here
https://belindawhelantraining.com/ultimate-celiac-system

Wish you could get gluten free meals on the table fast that the whole family will love? Check out Meal Plans Made Easy
https://belindawhelantraining.com/gluten-free-meal-plans-made-easy

 Join my free community and grab your copy of 11 Mistakes People Make Living Gluten Free here www.belindawhelan.myflodesk.com/11mistakes

Check out my Daily Health Tracker here
HEALTH TRACKER | The Healthy Celiac (belindawhelan.com)

And I would love to connect with you on Instagram thehealthyceliac

If you have a spare moment, please pop over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review. Thank you!



Music Credit bensound.com 

Speaker 1:

All right, welcome back to part two of this series, where we are talking about macronutrients and the importance of macronutrients in your gluten-free diet. Now we are talking about proteins today on the episode. So if you haven't listened to last week's episode, I suggest you go back and listen to that on first, so I'll link that below. So go listen to that and then come back and listen to this episode. But if you listened to last week's episode, thank you for joining me again. This week. I hope you've been looking at your carbs and figuring out what to add in and what to maybe push to the side and maybe not have so much harm. But yeah, this week we're talking about protein and the importance of protein in your diet. So let's jump straight on into it, shall we? So protein is probably one of those things that, as women, we hear so much about. Protein. But perhaps you might not have a big understanding about it, and you know we hear that men eat lots of protein to build their muscles and to be strong, and maybe you thought it's not that important for you or you might not have been eating enough this whole time. So I want to talk to you today about the benefits of protein, why it's important to add it into your diet, how to add it into your diet and what sorts of protein sources are good choices. So protein is very important to having a diet. So, as we spoke about last week, it's one of the three macronutrients that our body needs to function optimally. Okay, so we definitely need to have carbohydrates, we definitely need to have proteins I mean definitely need to have fat in our diet. So today, let's cover off the importance of protein.

Speaker 1:

Now, protein is something that is digested into amino acids, and we need these amino acids in our diet, and there are a number of reasons for that. So the first one is to help rebuild and repair tissues and muscles. That's a really easy one, because most of us relate protein to muscle, but we all need protein, from children right through to elderly. We all need to be consuming protein. Now, I did mention on last week's episode. This is not medical advice. This is just an awareness.

Speaker 1:

I want you to do your own research and look into this further. You will need a different amount of protein to me depending on how active you are, what stage of life you're in, and it's important to know what works for you, obviously, if you want to work with me on this. You can certainly reach out to me. Just head to my website, lyndawheelercom and see if there's an option there that might work for you to have my guidance and support. But otherwise, it's about figuring out what works for your unique lifestyle and your unique diet, because we are all different. Obviously, you know, some people are meat eaters, some people are vegan, vegetarian, so we're going to have some options of different protein choices that you can look at and see which ones you want to add into your diet and which ones you want to focus on more, and maybe ones that you didn't even sort of have an awareness about.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so back to the reasons that we need protein. So the next one is it really supports our organs and our hair and our fingernails, and it supports those in a way that you will just be mind blown. So if you are not eating enough protein and you've noticed that you always have brittle fingernails or your hair breaks, it can make a massive difference. Getting an optimal amount of protein into your diet, you will notice that your fingernails will start to strengthen up or start to grow. You know, you won't even be needing to worry about getting fake nails or anything like that anymore. They will really like be showing such a big difference. I've always loved having natural fingernails because I believe that your fingernails tell you so much about your current state of health. So if you can look at your fingernails and they are strong and growing and they're not flimsy or brittle, you'll know that you're doing something really good within your diet and your lifestyle, that you can always keep an eye on where your health is at. It's one of the first places to go that you'll notice that things are not quite right if your fingernails are not doing well. So if you've struggled for years with bad fingernails, you can look at your diet and know that there's something missing or something's not quite right within your health. So little tip for you there, all right. The next one is it creates enzymes and hormones so well, hormones like as women. This is so important. So if you've got hormone imbalances or you're going through different changes in your life whether you're in premenopause or you've been through menopause it's so important to look at your protein intake and make sure that you're consuming enough protein, because your hormones can be all over the show and are you feeling not quite right.

Speaker 1:

Are you perhaps coming off the diet train. Maybe you have been cutting out food or you've been so focused on eating gluten-free food that you haven't been focusing on adding in the goodness. You haven't been really honing in on eating a balanced, healthy diet, and this is what I love helping people do. I love helping people push the foods to the side that don't really benefit them and focusing more on these good, healthy foods and, obviously, the macro nutrients that we're talking about, and adding those into your diet and into your life. And I'm so excited to talk with you next week as well about healthy fats, because you might be a little bit blown away by what you're going to learn in next week's episodes. Make sure you tune into that one, all right, so the next one is it also supports your immune system. So I found it really interesting. Actually, I was having a look yesterday.

Speaker 1:

A really popular podcaster shared an episode recently on how to build your immune system and I've done an. I've done an episode as well on how to build your immune system and he was talking about how to build your immune system to avoid cold and flu. And I was like this is amazing, like this guy has a huge platform and he's sharing all this information and it's wonderful, and I was reading some of the comments on his Instagram post and he was getting slammed for what he was sharing and I was a little bit kind of gobsmacked and heartbroken that this bloke that was sharing all of this incredible information was just getting slammed because he had gone against the mainstream of what most people think prevents colds and flukes. He was really talking about building your immune system by doing all of these natural things that the main medical stream of people doesn't really push. So consuming protein is one of those things that helps your immune system, and there were people on these comments saying that it doesn't make a difference what you're eating. It doesn't make a difference how healthy you are. It depends on your exposure to germs. And I was like no, this is not right. Why are these people not listening? He's a doctor. Why are they not listening to what he's sharing?

Speaker 1:

And it's true the healthier you are, the easier it is to avoid getting sick. So, putting that out there, it is like I don't care if you need scientific journals, it's just the way it is. Like the healthier you are, the healthier you stay Like. If you talk to people that are healthy, they generally don't get sick as often and they fight it off quicker when they are healthier. So I just don't even know where those people were getting their information from. But you know, at the end of the day, most of the scientific studies are pro-medical and not pro-natural, because they can't make money from natural ways of looking after ourselves. It's as simple as that, and unfortunately there are not going to be enough scientific studies on the natural benefits of looking after our health. So that's me on my soap box.

Speaker 1:

I do like to get up there every now and again, but at the end of the day, consuming protein absolutely does support your immune system. So something to think about. If you keep getting sick and you're not eating enough protein, all right. And the next one is it's important for growth and development. So very important for children to be making sure that they're eating enough protein. But if you are a woman, obviously you know growth might not be a big factor in your you know thought process, but you might be pregnant or wanting to get pregnant. So it's important for you then to be making sure you're eating enough protein for your baby to be able to support your baby while you're pregnant.

Speaker 1:

So something to think about there. But you know, when we talk about growth, it's also muscle growth. I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned that. So you know, if you're going to the gym and you want to get leaner and you want to have that beautiful definition of muscles, then obviously it's important to make sure you're consuming enough protein. Otherwise your body will just start eating into the muscles that it's already got and and it won't be able to build on those muscles. So you've got to make sure you have the right amount of protein for you and what you're doing at the gym and what your goals are, and focusing on that as well. So I hope that gives you a bit of an outline of why we need protein and some of the benefits that are quite incredible from consuming protein. Now, when we spoke last week on the episode, we talked about what to have on your plate and the last quarter on the plate was protein. Okay, so if you can make up your plate with a half of vegetables, the other quarter being some whole grains, and then the quarter that we're talking about this week is protein. So one of the.

Speaker 1:

I mean I don't go off like I'm not a person to count calories. I don't weigh food. I've never, ever done that. I'm very healthy. I stayed lean. I've always been, you know, in I feel my optimal body weight. Aside from you know, pregnancy and after pregnancy, like those, were my times where I feel like my body was nowhere near at its best, but so be it. I grew human. I grew three humans, so I don't care about those periods of time as far as how I looked as such, because that's what my body needed to do to be able to expand and grow children, but I feel like the rest of my life I've been able to keep my body at a lean, healthy weight, and I do put this down to focusing on healthy eating.

Speaker 1:

So getting the right amount of protein into your diet is very important for this overall healthy lifestyle. So you know it's called the healthy celiac podcast. I do hope you're listening because you are focused on your health and you want to learn more about being healthier, and this is just a snippet of what I teach my clients and help my clients with focusing on. So back to it. So what I like to do is, when we talk about protein, instead of weighing food, instead of counting calories, a big against counting calories is adding in the goodness. So when you look at protein, so there are a number of different sources of protein that we're going to talk about in a sec, but you know, your brain probably straight away goes you know red meat, poultry, eggs, fish, like protein. Okay, most people know that they're sources of protein.

Speaker 1:

All right, so let's talk about some more ways that we can get protein into our diet. So foods like legumes, including beans and peas, which are also a source of carbs, which we talked about last week as well. So you're getting a two for one. When you add in things like you know, your beans and your peas, you're getting carbohydrates and you're getting protein at the same time, so they could be a good source. You might be looking for an easy snack that's not packaged, and this is where nuts are amazing. So nuts are a great source of protein and they're good for you. They are actually really good for you. So if you want to pick up, you know, a little handful of nuts in the afternoon, it's going to give you that protein intake that can support you.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes I make salads and, yes, I'll have a protein source from meat in it, and I might crush up some walnuts and sprinkle over the top as well, and that's just added protein into my meal. So you know there's ways of adding in protein to up your amount without it being always meat. So that's something to think about as well. The next one is seeds. So adding in a variety of seeds into your diet. You can do this by sprinkling onto cereals. If you have salads, I will sprinkle seeds on salads as well. I've made up my own protein mix of seeds which I have in my shake. So I'll make up a smoothie and I'll put in some scoops of my protein seeds. So that's an easy choice to add in as well, just for upping your protein amount throughout the day. For added extra, that doesn't necessarily have to be in a meal, it could just be in a snack. So that's something to look at as well. Soy products are a good source as well. So things like tofu, soy milk.

Speaker 1:

If you cannot consume dairy like me, lactose intolerant I sometimes have lactose free dairy, but I've been sort of steering clear of that a little bit. I suppose I have it sometimes, but I also like having organic soy products. So I drink bonsai milk in my coffee. So again, that's just a little way of getting an extra little amount of protein. There's not heaps in it, but it is a good source for people that cannot consume dairy. And then we look at dairy. You know if you can tolerate dairy, things like milk cheese, yogurt, things like that are a good source of getting protein into your diet as well.

Speaker 1:

Now, if you struggle to consume enough food in the day and I know that many people do struggle to eat a lot it's really interesting. So when I used to run some programs back in the day when I first started health coaching, I would run these incredible programs and so many people would reach out to me and go there's so much food I can't eat at all, I'm so full, and it was because they were eating really good, healthy food. They would add in this healthy food and they couldn't believe how much they got to eat, but they didn't feel hungry, so they were getting fuller quicker. So if you are one of those people that you, you know, transition to a healthier diet and you find it really hard to eat a lot which is really interesting actually that you get to eat more food, but it's healthy food and you feel fuller go figure that you might struggle to get enough protein in. So this is where sometimes things like protein shakes and supplements can support a healthy diet. So I have been adding in extra protein in a shake for those days that I do go to the gym. I'm finding that that's supporting me when I get back from the gym. So you might buy like a collagen supplement and just you can drink that in water. You can add it to shape. A lot of them are heat stable, so you can add them to coffee. So it's just a matter of finding one that works for you. But collagen is quite high in protein as well. So that could be a good choice where you don't actually want a protein shake, but you you want something that just it's easy to add into your diet. So that might be something worth looking into.

Speaker 1:

Now, if we don't eat enough protein, obviously we talk about the benefits of eating enough protein. But if you, if you, are not eating enough protein, there might be things going on for you that you know you've not put down to. You know not eating enough protein, so things like swelling in your body, puffiness a lot of people will thought that they feel really puffy and swollen. You know, you might go to the shops and you'll see these ladies with these really puffy ankles. They're just really swollen. It can simply be from not having enough protein in your diet, and we talked about having thin or brittle hair, so that's a big one as well.

Speaker 1:

Not consuming enough protein, a loss of muscle mass. So you'll see this in elderly as well. They'll have like really floppy skin and they just don't have the muscle mass. And as we get older, it is really important to continue to work out and to build out muscles and make sure we're looking after our body, because it helps in so many ways. And you know, if you go through life and you know you've still got good muscle, you're still going to be able to enjoy life and not be sitting on a couch staring at a TV when you're in your 70s or your 80s. You can still go out and enjoy life and you can still, you know, have that energy to be able to enjoy doing the things that you love doing.

Speaker 1:

So you know, think of your future as well. Don't always just think about now. Think about the benefits of moving through your decades of life. How much more positive it's going to be if your body is at its optimal peak and, like I said, hormones, like if your hormones are out of whack. This is something that is huge. So start to look at your plate, start to think about what you're consuming, add in some healthy proteins and you know you'll start to see a big difference in the way that you feel and the way that you look, and I think that you'll be really, really grateful that you do that for your body and for your health now and into the future.

Speaker 1:

And, like I said, if this is something that you want to work with me on, I would love to support you. All you need to do is head to my website, belindawheelandcom, and have a look there if there's an option that might work for you in helping, like with me. Helping support you to you know, reach your goals and get healthier, because that is why I'm here. I love doing what I do as a health coach because it is a lifelong transformation. When you change your health and improve your life, it's not just a temporary fix, it is long term. So thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode on protein, and I look forward to sharing with you all about healthy fats next week on the episode of this three part series and helping you learn that fat is good and you should not be scared of it. There's good fats, there's bad fats. We're going to be covering all of that and I hope you join me on next week's episode to learn all about that. So thanks for tuning in. Talk to you soon. Take care bye.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Belinda Whelan

Host