Weight Loss Interview

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Jim: Good evening, everyone. This is Jim Cooper from My Dieting Resource.com and welcome to the Weight Loss and Dieting interview series. Today we have with us Yuri Elkaim. Yuri is regarded as one of North America’s leading fitness and nutrition authorities; is the author of the groundbreaking book and e-book, “Eating for Energy”, and is the creator of the industry leading Fitter U and Treadmill Trainer iPod workout. Yuri graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor’s in Physical Education and Health from the University of Toronto and he’s also a certified kinesiologist, a registered holistic nutritionist, a former soccer player in Canada and France, and the current Head Strength and Conditioning and Nutrition coach for the nationally ranked University of Toronto Men’s Soccer team. A frequent contributor to health and wellness publications and a highly sought after speaker Yuri’s understanding of functional exercise, energizing nutrition, and success psychology has helped thousands of people around the world achieve their goals and improve their quality of life. His passion and specialty lie in helping people achieve their fat loss goals.

Yuri is the founder and owner of Total Wellness Consulting Canada’s leader in developing innovative fitness, nutrition, and personal growth programs to help people reach their full potential.

Yuri, it’s a pleasure to have you with us tonight and welcome to the interview series.

Yuri: Thanks very much for having me, Jim. I’m looking forward to it.

Jim: The first question I have and it’s a really very basic question is: What is the difference between a holistic nutritionist and what I would call a more conventional nutritionist? What is the difference in approach or thought?

Yuri: Well, I guess in Canada, the difference between a nutritionist and what we call a dietician up here is that a dietician goes through a dietetics program through university. So basically they do like a four-year undergrad program at the university, get into about a one-year dietetics specialty after that, which is pretty much a very clinical setting so they’re working in hospital settings with doctors and researchers and whatnot. Whereas what I went through…I went through minor grad in kinesiology and stuff, went back to school. I didn’t go to university for holistic nutrition, I actually went to a specialty college in holistic nutrition; and what I was amazed that was the difference in what was being taught, I was blown away. I more or less than a minor nutrition in my undergrad, dismissing about like half a credit but I learned…I’d gone through a number of nutrition courses and what I was being taught was what most…I’ve nothing against dieticians, I just find that their approach is a little bit different from what I would normally kind of promote.

Basically, theirs is very much like the Canada Food Guide or the U.S. food pyramid. I very much like definitely servings of fruits and vegetables, get this amount of protein, this amount of carbs, very quantitative if you want to call it that; whereas holistic nutrition is more of a qualitative type of approach. It’s actually a lot more similar to a naturopathic doctor type of education, obviously, they go through a little bit more extensive because theirs the…naturopath is a four-year program, but our approach is more holistic and similar to a naturopath. We’re looking at the relationship and the connection between body and food and how the foods you eat affects your body, and in turn, how you feel affects everything else. We don’t just look at food, we look at digestion and the health, the internal organs, and how the whole package relates to your health. So it’s not...it’s not a very mechanical, broken down, quantitative type of thing versus…it’s more of a… a little bit more qualitative, more holistic, more natural. So, yeah.

Jim: Okay. I think it’s a great segue into my next question and that is…I thought it’d be interesting to look at the different diets that people and have, and by diet I mean, the eating systems you use because of where you’re born or the culture you grew up in or a philosophical diet where you…say, like a vegetarian, we do not want to eat meat.

So let’s start with the vegetarian diet and from your point of view and your education, what are the strengths and weaknesses of a vegetarian diet?

Yuri: I think that’s…what I tell people is I’m a big proponent of eating more of a raw vegan diet. I don’t think that you have to become a raw foodist but I think if people can transition to eating more fruits and vegetables, which is essentially what that means, they’re going to better their health and it’s not…I’m doing much as making this up, this is pretty much backed by science. Every latest study that comes out says…if you’re eating more fruits and vegetables, you’re going to decrease your risk of all disease more or less.

So it’s just a matter of being able to overcome some of our bad habits and our stickups on needing to eat meat and needing to have dairy and all that kind of stuff, moving towards more of a plant-based diet. The strengths of eating a plant-based diet –a vegetarian diet or that – you’re getting huge amounts of nutrients, vitamins and minerals that you normally don’t get in a Western diet. On average, I think that North Americans are getting one and a half servings of fruits and vegetables a day which is not enough, worth.

Jim: It’s very little, yeah.

Yuri: Our recommended daily intake I think is up to about 10 servings a day which is…no wonder that there’s so much disease and illness in Western society. So I personally don’t think there’s many weaknesses with the vegetarian diet; what I do think the problem is that a lot of people who go vegetarian focus too much on bad vegetarian choices. And by that I mean they don’t eat meats for whatever reason that is and then they just focus more on eating breads, and pastas, and grains. I don’t think that’s a very healthy vegetarian diet. I think if you’re moving towards a vegetarian diet, it inherently should mean that you’re eating more vegetables. Not necessarily white pasta, white bread, lots of sugar because you could still be a vegetarian and eat like garbage.

Jim: Right, that’s not very good diet.

Yuri: Yeah, exactly. Just because you don’t eat meat doesn’t mean you’re healthier. So I think if you focus on eating more vegetables and fruits, you’re going to do a lot of good for you body. So my…if there was a weakness with the vegetarian diet, I think it’s the vegetarian mentality where if you’re moving towards a vegetarian diet for whatever reason it is; if you don’t want to eat meat for health reasons or ethical reasons or whatever it is, make sure you’re not falling back on breads and grains and stuff like that. Focus on getting more vegetables.