Semaglutide isn’t just revolutionizing the weight loss industry, as it’s killing many of the core nutrition myths of diet culture. With patients consuming fewer calories, many are becoming more intentional with their food choices. By this, we aren’t referencing the extreme calorie counting often associated with weight loss—but personalized nutrition that supports whole-body health.
What Is Personalized Nutrition?
Personalizing nutrition refers to choosing foods that support your unique health and wellness needs. It’s a concept that goes beyond one-size-fits-all meal plans or simply centering your meals around whole foods. Instead, meals are centered around identifying the precise vitamins, minerals, and macronutrients required to support you—mind, body, and spirit. Food is treated as fuel and tailored to the factors below.
- Genetics: This includes factors such as your sex chromosomes, ethnicity, family medical history, and DNA test results.
- Personal Health: This includes factors such as your past health, current health, prescription medications, mental health, and most recent biomarkers.
- Gut Microbiome: Gut bacteria is increasingly linked to weight loss and whole body health. Your nutrition can be tailored to restore your microbiome.
- Lifestyle: Your physical activity, stress levels, sleep patterns, and other individual health and wellness factors.
- Season of Life: From your current age to whether you are pregnant, nursing, in menopause or andropause, and other transitory times in life.
- Food Preferences: From foods you love to what you don’t eat, food allergies, environmental consciousness, and culturally aligned meals.
Is Nutrigenomics The Same As Personalized Nutrition?
Nutrigenomics and personalized meal planning are often referred to as one and the same. However, you must ask the nutritionist or healthcare provider you’re working with if the personalized approach they prescribe is aligned with nutrigenomics.
Nutrigenomics (aka. precision nutrition) is the practice of meal planning centered around utilizing nutrition to promote targeted health outcomes. Foods, herbs, and spices are selected to create a targeted genetic response.
Are Personalized Meal Plans Lifelong Meal Plans?
No. Nutrition should be personalized to meet your current and evolving needs. For example, if you’re training for a marathon, you’ll need to adjust your nutrition accordingly. Or if you spend a lot more time outside in the Arizona heat in the spring and summer, you’ll need to increase your hydration. Also, how your hormones fluctuate during different seasons of life changes your nutrient needs.
So, you must work with a trusted healthcare professional to make targeted nutritional changes.
How Is Personalized Nutrition Different Than A Diet?
Toxic diet culture leaves many of us associating the word “diet” with deprivation. While caloric reduction is key to weight loss, calories are only one piece of the weight loss equation. For example, you’re losing weight with Semaglutide by a combination of:
- Helping your body regulate insulin levels.
- Slowing digestion and helping your body absorb less sugar.
- Reducing your appetite and making you feel fuller longer.
So yes, you’re consuming fewer calories, but it’s the combination of benefits that drives weight loss.
Personalized nutrition is centered around foods that empower your body to self-regulate at peak performance. Think beyond calories, because not all calories are created equally. A 350-calorie candy bar delivers “empty calories”. There is little to no true nutritional value. On the flip side, a 700-calorie meal with the right mix of macronutrients and micronutrients can power you through your day. It’s the difference between eating fast food and feeling sluggish or eating whole foods and feeling energized.
What Are Macronutrients and Micronutrients?
Macronutrients and micronutrients are what whole foods consist of. Processed foods may contain nutrients, but some contain little to no nutrients.
Whole foods include:
- Fruits
- Vegetables
- Nuts
- Seeds
- Legumes
- Seafood
- Meat
- Low-processed dairy
Macronutrients
You require a personalized balance of protein, healthy fats, and carbs (including sugar). Macronutrients feed and fuel your muscles, tissues, and organs. There are calories in macronutrients to provide your body with energy.
Micronutrients
Micronutrients are the vitamins and minerals that work synergistically in your body to perform all essential functions. This includes regulating your immune system and all systems in the body. Micronutrients contain zero calories.
Will I Lose More Weight If I Personalize My Nutrition While Taking Semaglutide?
For most, the answer is yes! The scientifically-proven meal plans Valley Medical Weight Loss and Med Spa provides to those on our weekly or monthly weight loss programs activate an average of 2 to 5 pounds of weight loss per week. For those taking Semaglutide, most lose 2 pounds per week—in addition to their Semaglutide weight loss.
Weight loss generated by our personalized nutrition begins within a week or two, while your Semaglutide weight loss may take a few months. This is because the dose is tiered, so you’ll need more of the medication in your system to achieve results.
That said, weight loss shouldn’t be the only motivator for adjusting your nutrition, especially when taking a GLP-1 receptor. When you lose weight fast without making changes to both your nutrition and your fitness routine—about 2/3 of the weight you lose is fat and 1/3 is lean muscle mass.
You can counteract this weight loss by personalizing your meals to include increased protein. You must also prioritize strength training 2 to 3 days per week.
Weight Doesn’t Equal Healthy
A common diet culture myth is that hitting a target weight will improve your health. This myth must be busted.
For example:
- Traditional diets often lead to nutrient deprivation by encouraging too few macronutrients and micronutrients.
- Someone who is naturally thin but eats a diet high in processed foods can be nutrient-deprived.
- Athletes with increased muscle mass weigh more than general weight guidelines but may have optimal health.
So, you must think beyond the number on the scale, to quantifiable indicators of health. This includes your lab result biomarkers and how you feel mind, body, and spirit.
Can I Eat The Same Meal Every Day?
Once your personalized nutrition plan is mapped out, you’ll get to work finding recipes that are aligned with the foods that meet your unique needs. For ease, you might be tempted to prepare the same meals daily or several days a week. Kind of like how it’s reported that Victoria Beckham eats grilled fish (often salmon) and steamed veggies every day.
The risk you run by repeating your meals is a lack of nutrient diversity. Different fruits and vegetables contain different vitamins and minerals. So, although your meal may be nutrient-dense and aligned with your tailored meal plan, mix things up. If you repeat one meal a day, maybe an easy and nutritious breakfast, be sure to consume a diverse range of whole foods for lunch and dinner.
And let’s not forget the monotony of eating the same meal every day! Even if you love the meal, you’re more likely to remain committed to your personalized meal plan when you mix things up.
Are Some Whole Foods Healthier Than Others?
Yes and no. The term “superfood” refers to foods that contain a wide range of nutrients or a high level of harder-to-find nutrients. However, superfoods aren’t medically recognized as the term is a marketing ploy.
While superfoods are powerful, they should be part of a meal plan that includes a diverse range of nutrient-rich whole foods.
If you want to eat salmon, avocado, blueberries or other superfoods daily, go for it. Just ensure nutrient diversity in the foods you eat with them.
Why Semaglutide Users Spend Less On Food
Between snacking less, eating less, and making mindful dietary choices—Semaglutide and other GLP-1 medication users spend less on food. They are the driving force behind the declining unhealthy snack category and rising healthy snack category. They also spend less on groceries, less in restaurants, and are inspiring more restaurants to provide healthy menu items.
This is creating a measurable shift in the food and restaurant industry!
How to Create a Meal Plan For Personalized Nutrition?
Personalized nutrition isn’t something you should go alone. In fact, it should be guided by a healthcare professional. Valley Medical Weight Loss and Med Spa provides scientifically proven meal plans to those on our weekly or monthly weight loss program—with or without Semaglutide. We tailor these plans to your past and current health, level of physical activity, lifestyle, and other health factors.
In addition to our meal plans, you can mix things up, caloric intake, micronutrient, and macronutrient balance to explore new recipes. You don’t have to go this alone either, as you can use AI!
How to Use AI to Meal Plan?
AI can be used to create calorie and nutrient-compliant recipes. From keeping meals fun and flavorful to creating a compliant meal plan for international and culturally aligned cuisine. This is achieved by creating ultra-specific prompts. Plan one meal at a time, or a week’s worth of meals that utilize similar ingredients to maximize your food budget. AI can also plan meals that honor your nutritional needs while factoring in the entire family’s food preferences.
Include the factors below in your AI meal-planning prompts:
- Calories per meal
- Micronutrient mix
- Macronutrient mix
- Preferred foods and spices
- Foods and spices you don’t like
- Food allergies and dietary restrictions
A prompt might sound something like:
“Plan diabetic-friendly 700-calorie dinners for the next 5 days. I need no more than 30 grams of carbs per meal and at least 25 grams of protein per meal. Use seasonal vegetables and include at least 2 plant-based meals. Don’t use eggplant, use fresh herbs, and spices for flavor.”
If the prompt doesn’t generate meals that you or your family will enjoy, let your AI tool know what you don’t like about the meal plan and hit enter for an updated meal plan.
Get Your Semaglutide Meal Plan!
If you live in or around Phoenix and are looking for Semaglutide with or without a scientifically proven weight loss program—schedule an appointment with Valley Medical Weight Loss and Med Spa.
We’ll assess whether you’re an ideal candidate for Semaglutide and provide you with a nutrient-dense meal plan to optimize your health and accelerate weight loss. If Semaglutide isn’t right for you, we’ll personalize your nutrition with our ongoing weight loss programs.
