There’s so much conflicting information about nutrition and diets that it’s hard to figure out what’s right. Should you eat plant or animal based? Keto? Low fat? Low carb? The truth is, eating healthy is different from eating what’s right for YOUR body. 


In this episode, I’m going to tell you how to figure out what diet is best for you and the amount of fat, protein and carbs YOUR body needs, which will affect your weight loss, energy, hormones and sleep.


You’ll learn:

  • a simple approach to diet and nutrition that isn't confusing and doesn’t involve counting calories or carbs 
  • How what you eat affects your energy, mood and sleep 
  • How to find your ideal balance of macronutrients (fat, protein and carbs)
  • Why low carb and keto diets may be sabotaging your sleep
  • How finding your ideal will help you have more energy, get to your ideal weight, improve your mood, reduce bloating and get more deep sleep.


If you’re ready to forget about all the confusing and conflicting nutrition and diet advice out there and find the right diet for your body, this episode is for you.


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Episode Transcript


There's so much conflicting information about nutrition and diet that it's hard to figure out what's right. Should you be keto? Low fat? Low carb? The truth is, eating healthy is different from eating what's right for your body. In this episode, I'm going to tell you how to figure out what diet is best for you and the amount of fat, protein and carbohydrates your body needs.


I'm going to explain a very simple approach to diet and nutrition that isn't confusing and doesn't involve counting calories or carbs. I'm going to explain how what you eat affects your energy, mood, and sleep. How to find your ideal balance of these macronutrients. Why low carb and keto diets might be actually sabotaging your sleep.


And how finding your ideal diet will help you have more energy, get to your ideal weight, improve your mood, reduce bloating, balance your hormones, and get more deep sleep. You're listening to the Sleep Detective Podcast, which is going to help you finally understand why you don't sleep well and how to fix it, so you can consistently get the sleep you need uninterrupted and without drugs.


My name is Martha Lewis, and I've been a functional health and sleep coach since 2019. I've helped myself and over 200 clients fix their sleep problems and restore their health so they wake up rested with energy for their day. If you're ready to forget about all the confusing and conflicting nutrition and diet advice out there and find the right diet for your body, this episode is for you.


Now, before I get into it, I want to tell you a story about my client, Wes. So, Wes came to me and was going to sign up for the Complete Sleep Solution program, but he decided at the time he didn't want to spend the money and take six months to do it. So he did a lot of things on his own. He gave up alcohol.


He went to a therapist. He did blood work with a functional medicine doctor. He took a gut health test and he tried supplements. Now his sleep improved a little, but he was only sleeping five to six hours a night and he realized he had spent 3, 500 in seven months and wasn't much better. So he committed to the Complete Sleep Solution Program and we found the reasons why he wasn't sleeping Sleeping that had been missed.


So the lab test showed some imbalances in his body, which we helped him address. But we also suspected blood sugar issues, but in the beginning he didn't think that that was an issue and so he didn't want to test and figure that out. Now five months into the program he had improved, his sleep had gotten better, but he wasn't where he wanted it to be.


So we finally agreed to address his diet and blood sugar and he already ate very healthy. So that's why he didn't think that this was an issue. So he didn't, he still didn't want to test at this point, but he was willing to do the things that I'm going to tell you about in this episode and other things to work on his blood sugar.


So one of the main things he did was he changed his breakfast and added more protein. So he was having a smoothie for breakfast, which is very common, and it even had protein powder in it, but it was still affecting his blood sugar because the problem with smoothies is that they're Already kind of pre digested because everything's ground up in there, right?


So even if you have protein and fat in it, for some people, a lot of people, I would say, our body still goes through it so quickly, like it, it breaks it down really quickly. And so it can still end up spiking blood sugar. And so just by changing his balance of macronutrients, especially protein and fat, well, having more protein and fat in the morning and fewer carbs.


That is, that was the game changer for him. So he wrote shortly after this happened, another good news update. 10 nights in a row getting back to sleep after waking between 30 a. m. I'm a hundred percent certain. I haven't had 10 nights of decent rest in a couple of years. So this is how powerful just making this one change can be and even if we address other imbalances in the body that I talk about all the time like gut health and hormones and neurotransmitters and everything else, if your blood sugar is spiking, if you aren't eating the right balance of macronutrients, which are fat, protein, and carbs for your body, it's still going to affect your sleep.


So this is a really critical piece of the puzzle. And I'm going to tell you exactly how to do this now. So your body is genetically designed to need a certain perfect mix of macronutrients to balance your blood sugar, which is what going to be responsible for your being at your ideal weight, how much energy you have.

your hormone balance, and of course, sleep. Now, I use something called the metabolic typing diet. And according to this diet, there are three types of people with their ideal diet. So there are people who need more protein, there are people who need more carbs, and then there are people in the middle. Who are more mixed and each type has its ideal ratios of fat, protein and carbs that you should eat.


Now the reason this is so important is because let's say your body's meant to run on more carbs for fuel and you're giving it too much fat and protein. What's gonna happen is that it's actually gonna weigh you down. You're gonna feel sluggish like you need a nap. Your mood's gonna be down as well and you'll be craving sweets because your body wants that energy boost, even though that would be coming artificially and in an unhealthy way. Right? So the fat and protein slow down the release of sugar into your bloodstream, which causes your metabolism and hormones to move at the pace of a snail if you're having too much. So it's all about having the right balance.


Of course, we want fat and protein to slow down the release of sugar somewhat to not spike blood sugar too much. But in this case, if you're having too much fat and protein, it's slowing it down too much. Now the opposite is also true. So let's say your body needs more protein and fat for fuel and you eat too many carbs.

So that's like injecting rocket fuel into your system. So your energy is going to spike, which can feel like anxiety, and then it's going to crash. Where then you're going to feel tired and depleted and that rollercoaster ride of being up and down is going to trigger hormone fluctuations and differences in energy that can lead to weight gain and poor sleep.


So that's again why it's so important to figure out the right balance for your body so that then, you know, your weight can stay stable, your blood sugar stays more stable, your hormones stay more stable, which is really important. all going to help your sleep stay a lot more stable. And I want to point out too that super low carb and keto diets can actually ruin your sleep for certain people, especially if you need more carbs than that.


So, Everyone is different and these diets are not good for everyone. In fact, there's no diet out there that is right for every one person. That's why, you know, some people have huge success stories on keto and for others it makes them feel awful. It's not right for everyone, it is right for some people.


But not for everyone. So what's interesting about sleep is that you actually want to have some carbohydrates at night. So your body releases some insulin. Now, of course, we don't want blood sugar to spike too high, and we don't want your body releasing too much insulin all day, but insulin helps clear out the amino acids that compete with tryptophan in the brain.


And at night we want tryptophan because that converts to serotonin, which then converts to melatonin, which is. I'm going to help you relax and be able to go to sleep. So most people need some carbs at night and you might need more than you're getting if you're having trouble sleeping. Now, okay, how do you find out the right balance for your body?


So there is a free quiz online you can take, and I will link to that in the show notes. There's also the Metabolic Typing Diet website, which is mtdiet. com. You can sign up for that. That is a paid program. But you will answer a series of questions kind of similar to the free one I'll give you. And then it's going to give you this very detailed report.


Some people find it really overwhelming. It can be really helpful for my clients. I tend to just have them take the free quiz and not get overwhelmed with the official report. But it's up to you. And I want to point out too that you can also just start with what's called the mixed type. So that's in between the protein and carbs, because most people I found are, are mixed.


So they're, they're a combination of both. But even all mixed types don't need the exact same ratio of fat, protein, and carbs, right? Like not every single person is exactly the same. So I'm gonna explain how to figure out your ideal balance. And how do you figure this out? You really just need to listen to your body.


So, what you want to do is, your meal and in my programs, including the Sleep Essentials program but all of my programs are going to have what's called a food balance log included to help you figure this out. And so let's say, You are a mixed type or you're going to start with a mixed type again.


We're not counting anything. We're not going to count how many grams of fat protein and carbs or any of that. It's really what it looks like on your plate. So for the mixed type, half of your plate should be you. Carbohydrates, and this can be a combination of what are called starchy carbs and non starchy carbs.


So starchy carbs are going to be things like potatoes and carrots and grains and then non starchy carbs are going to be other vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower and greens and things like that. So your, your balance of those carbs. It's going to be different too, but just make half your plate with a combination of the different types of carbs and then almost the other half of your plate is going to be protein and then there's going to be a little bit of fat as well.


So that can be olive oil or coconut oil that your vegetables were cooked in, for example, or maybe there's some fat on the meat you're eating, but you want to have some fat as well. And. So if you're starting there, then write down what you're eating and then tune into your body about 30 minutes to two hours after eating, and then note how you're feeling.


And again, it helps to have this food balance log. I'm going to walk you through it here. So you want to assess if you're feeling satisfied. So if you feel full and content, if you aren't having sweet cravings, if you don't feel like you need a snack, then that means that you're satisfied. Your, your meal was great.


However, let's say that you're physically full but still hungry. So that can mean actually that you had too much fat and protein. Or if you're wanting something sweet, again that can mean too much fat and protein, your body's craving some carbs, it needs some quick energy. Or if you need to snack, that can mean you had too many carbs, so your body just burned right through it too quickly, or just that you didn't have enough food.


And then you also want to assess your energy. If you're feeling recharged, if you're not feeling like you're gonna crash, you want your energy to be pretty even, not radically up or radically down, then that's a good sign that that was a good meal for your body. But let's say your energy hasn't improved.


That could mean that you had too much fat and protein, not enough carbs. If you're feeling wired but tired or you need a nap, that could mean that you had too many carbs and so your energy spiked and then crashed again. And then you can also assess your mood. So ideally you're feeling uplifted, a little bit tired.


Your mind is clear. There's no brain fog. You can easily put words and thoughts together. So that would mean that that is, was a good balance for your body. If you're feeling anxious or irritable, or if your mind is foggy, then that can mean you had too many carbs. If your stomach feels really heavy, then that can mean you had too much fat and protein.


So that's how you assess to see, and then, you know, if things indicated that you had too much fat and protein, then the next meal, work on having a little less fat and protein. Or if it indicated that you had too many carbs, and on the next meal, increase the fat and protein, decrease the carbs. And keep experimenting until you find your ideal balance.


And then what's great about this is that you can see on your plate what it looks like. So when you So if you go out to eat or, you know, whatever it is, it's, you're, you, you already know what works for you based on what your plate looks like, not from trying to add grams of everything and figure it out that way.


So again, the Sleep Essentials program is a $37 program that I created to give you kind of, well, it's exactly what we first focus on when our clients sign up. For any of our programs. So, you know, we're definitely doing functional lab testing to look for the imbalances in the body that are affecting sleep and your health, but we get started right away.


I'm looking at diet, looking at blood sugar, looking at habits. So those are what are included in the sleep essentials program. And so you will get detailed information about. you know, more about the metabolic typing diet, more about finding the right diet for your body, besides just the macronutrient ratios.

And you'll get this food balance log as well that I've been talking about, so you can visually see what I'm talking about. As you can see, eating healthy is different from eating what's right for your body.


So when you find the right balance of fat, protein, and carbs for your body, you're setting yourself up for balanced hormones, for better mood, for more energy, and for improved sleep. So you can sign up for the Sleep Essentials program to get started. I will have the link to that in the show notes. And there is like I just said, there is more to diet than just the macronutrients that I go over in that program.


So we're also looking at food sensitivities. We're looking at blood sugar. We're looking at eating anti inflammatory foods and talking about finding what foods might be. inflammatory for your body. And so you can sign up for that to get started on these essentials. And then if those things aren't enough to help you sleep, then that's a sign that you want to do the lab testing and dig deeper and figure out what's going on in your body.


All right, thanks so much for listening. Next week, I'm talking about five unconventional sleep truths that you need to know in 2025. So I'll be explaining. As an example, what really causes sleep issues, and it's not that you aren't meditating enough or you're watching Netflix before bed. And one of the things I'll talk about is why certain healthy habits, such as intermittent fasting and cold plunging, could actually be ruining your sleep. So tune in next week as well, and I will talk to you then.

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