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Summary
On episode 371 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Marla Heller, a registered dietitian who holds a master’s degree in human nutrition and dietetics and has completed doctoral coursework in public health, and author of the book The Dash Diet Mediterranean Solution.
Marla clears up common misconceptions about both diets, that the Mediterranean diet is really about pasta and bread rather than vegetables, olive oil, and variety, and that the DASH diet is a rigid medical plan rather than something flexible and enjoyable.
The conversation covers where the DASH diet came from, why the two diets pair well together, and a handful of nutrition myths Marla says are still doing damage, from grain serving sizes to smoothies to yogurt sugar labels.
Links
- https://dashdiet.org
Key Takeaways
- DASH began as a way to lower blood pressure without medication. Researchers noticed vegetarians, like Seventh-day Adventists, had significantly lower blood pressure on the same food supply as everyone else, and built a more flexible diet around those same principles; in studies, it lowered blood pressure as much as first-line medication within 14 days.
- The Mediterranean diet’s real core is vegetables and olive oil, not pasta and bread. Marla says the “Americanized” version people picture, plates of pasta, is a misconception; the actual pattern leans on a wide variety of greens, olive oil, fish, and only moderate whole grains.
- The old 6-to-12-servings-of-grain guideline from the late 1980s was a mistake. It arrived just as people were becoming less active, and Marla connects it directly to the rise in obesity that followed; most people actually need more protein, not more grain.
- The goal should be losing fat, not just losing weight. Marla warns that rapid weight loss without enough protein can burn muscle (even heart muscle in extreme cases), which slows your metabolism and leaves you weaker rather than healthier.
- Protein needs are higher than the old RDA, which was based on preventing starvation. Marla says the current recommendation for active or older adults runs closer to 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, well above the old 0.8 gram benchmark.
- Blending vegetables into smoothies breaks down their fiber at the molecular level. Marla explains that pulverizing produce cuts up fiber molecules enough to reduce their filling, digestive benefit compared to eating vegetables whole.
- Yogurt’s sugar count on older labels includes natural milk sugar converted during fermentation, not just added sugar. Marla recommends checking the newer “added sugars” line on the label instead of the total sugar count, which can look misleadingly high.
- Sometimes a bigger, faster change is easier to sustain than small incremental ones. The book’s optional “jumpstart” phase cuts fruit, grains, and non-fermented dairy for a week or two; Marla says seeing quick results (lower blood pressure, looser clothes) reinforces the habit faster than gradual tweaks do.
- Marla’s three strategies to get and stay well: eat more protein as you age to maintain muscle; watch the markers of metabolic syndrome together (waist size, triglycerides, HDL, blood pressure, and insulin response); and follow an eating pattern like DASH or Mediterranean that improves all of those markers at once rather than chasing them separately.
“If people can’t enjoy what they’re eating, they’ll never be able to stick with a healthy plan.”
Marla Heller