Jan. 23, 2020, Vol.18, Issue 1
So, how’s that diet coming along? The one you started Jan. 1, or maybe Jan. 6th since that was the first Monday of 2020. We hear it over and over again, “Diets don’t work.” But actually, the definition of the word diet simply means the usual food and drink one consumes.
How about a plan that isn’t about restriction — the word most popularly linked to the word “diet” in America — but is actually about creating optimum health while eating the most delicious food on the planet? The Mediterranean Diet is repeatedly ranked the #1 diet by US News and World Report. It has been scientifically proven to maintain a healthy gut and healthy weight, and that translates to reducing your risk of heart disease, dementia, memory loss, and many cancers.
And what if it could get even better than that? Our featured speaker, Dr. Steven Masley, who is a nutritionist and a trained chef, as well as a physician, has been traveling in the region where the Mediterranean Diet originated.
In his newest book, The Mediterranean Method, he has given it a fresh new approach that emphasizes low-glycemic foods that aid in weight loss, and he includes 50 easy-to-use and delicious recipes. If he’s right – and many experts think he is – then you can forget your diet battle and simply eat well for health and weight control. Wouldn’t that be a welcome relief?
Dr. Steven Masley
The Mediterranean Method
The Mediterranean diet is a way of eating—and living—that reflects the culinary traditions of people along the Mediterranean coastline. There’s a good reason for this: the native dwellers of this region, from Spain to southern Italy, through Greece to Lebanon, have some of the longest life spans ever recorded. For thousands of years, these countries have shared a strong commonality in their cuisines: the consumption of fresh, seasonal whole foods that are rich in nutrients.
In his newest book, The Mediterranean Method (Harmony; $27.99; Hardcover) physician and nutritionist Steven Masley, MD, upgrades this ancient diet for modern times. He has combined decades of nutrition research and personal experience as a trained chef to design a diet protocol that is satisfying, versatile, and medically sound. Much more than a cookbook, it’s a prescription for a lifestyle that will extend your longevity and joie de vivre, making you feel better than you ever have.
The Mediterranean eating style—with an abundance of fresh vegetables, hearty beans, whole grains, olive oil, and even red wine—is scientifically proven to reduce your risk for chronic disease, inflammation, metabolic syndrome and cognitive dysfunction. Extensive research has also proven that the Mediterranean diet is superior to other eating plans in terms of blood sugar control, weight loss, and lipid profile changes. Dr. Masley’s “skinny twist” on the traditional eating plan emphasizes low-glycemic foods that aid in weight loss.
It’s no secret that physicians get very limited nutrition training — on average less that 24 contact hours during four years of medical school. And yet in the United States, most deaths are preventable and related to nutrition.
Dr. Masley’s interest in nutrition actually came outside of his medical training. In fact, it began at a time when he was entering a particularly intense phase of his medical training. He felt a strong urge to put his studies on hold and go see the world before he buckled down and focused on his future medical career.
“I knew that breaking out of my familiar academic and hospital environments and meeting a range of new people would ultimately make me a better doctor — one who would be more capable of relating to a variety of patients,” he said.
With $150 in his pocket, some classroom French, and a meager list of contacts, he landed in the South of France looking for work. In the seaside city of Cannes, an American banker hired him to captain his sailboat and also to cook for him and his guests. Fortunately he was a fairly good sailor because his chef’s skills were still a work in progress., His new boss, however, gave him carte blanche to source ingredients from some of the best markets and food shops on earth.
He shopped for fresh seafood in the market stalls in the ports where they called – buying seafood not more than a day out of the water, vegetables, fruits and herbs often grown or gathered by the persons manning the stalls, handmade cheeses, farm-fresh eggs, and pasture-raised meats.
Unlike American shelves full of processed foods with self-stabilizing preservatives, Dr. Masley says, the local attitude seemed to be that if it wasn’t available that day, then it wasn’t worth eating.
“The in-season real food I put in my market basket — foundations of the true Mediterranean diet — changed my life,” he said.
He did a stint in a French restaurant, and later, did an internship at the Four Seasons Restaurant in Seattle. As a physician, he would eventually learn that cooking fresh food was the healthiest choice a person could make.
“Beyond its healthy appeal, there’s another reason I’m such an advocate of the Mediterranean diet,” he says. “The food tastes fantastic, which is why this diet is perhaps the easiest of all to follow, and to stick with — for life.”
You don’t have to live in the Mediterranean to enjoy the health-boosting benefits of this delicious food. You can eat and live this way wherever you call home. Dr. Masley’s goal is to help you bring the healthiest version of the Mediterranean diet into your own kitchen and adopt a way of eating—along with a stress-free, joy-filled attitude toward food and cooking—that will benefit you and anyone else who sits at your table.
Luckily for all of us who plan conferences or community events, Dr. Masley is an engaging, fascinating speaker, who equally matches his expertise with the medical expertise of a heart specialist and enthusiasm for his topic. He can match his dietary recommendations with slides that vividly illustrate the effects of bad food choices on the blood vessels leading to strokes and heart attacks. I took my husband to hear him a few years ago, and he still refers to things Dr. Masley taught in that presentation. It was memorable – and effective. To bring him to your community, give me a call at 503-699-5031 or email me at barbara@speakwellbeing.com.
About the Author:
Steven Masley, M.D. is a physician, nutritionist, and trained chef. A fellow with the American Heart Association and the American College of Nutrition, he has helped thousands of patients improve their cognitive function and prevent and reverse type II diabetes and heart disease.
His clinical research focuses on the impact of lifestyle choices on brain function, heart health, and aging. Masley has published several best-selling books, including The Better Brain Solution, The 30-Day Heart Tune-Up, Ten Years Younger, and Smart Fat, as well as numerous scientific articles that have appeared in The Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Integrative Medicine, JAMA, The American Family Physician, and The Journal of Clinical Psychology.
His health programs have been seen on PBS, the Discovery Channel, and the Today show. Dr. Masley is a clinical associate professor at the University of South Florida.
He and his wife split their time between St. Petersburg, Florida, and the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, sailing and searching for recipes.
Until next time, take care of yourself for your well being and those you love.
Barbara
For Your Well Being is published with the intention of bringing you insider speaker reports, exclusive stories about special events around the country, meeting planner tips, and fun stuff from the worlds of health and well being. Be well and be in the know!
The Speak Well Being Group is a specialized speakers bureau, focusing on speakers for hospital-sponsored community events, healthcare organizations, nurses, conferences and women’s groups. Our speakers are hand-selected. They are not only experts in their fields, they connect with their audiences while bringing them life-changing information, smiles of recognition and ultimately a sense of well being and hope.
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