Who’s Right? Busting the Myth of a “Perfect Diet”

What’s Inside This Episode?

• The One-Size-Fits-All Myth: Why universal diet plans often fail and how to overcome this outdated approach.
• Food Religion Exposed: How diet dogma clouds judgment and keeps practitioners from finding real solutions.
• The Problem with Studies: Why even peer-reviewed research can be misleading—and how to read between the lines.
• The Power of Personalization: Learn how to tailor diets to address unique metabolic needs and health goals.
• Empowering Practitioners and Clients: Equip yourself with the tools to deliver lasting results through personalized care.

Resources and Links

• See the Full Transcript here
• Download our FREE Guide To Customize your Food Plan for Health and Longevity
• Join the Next-Level Health Practitioner Facebook group here for free resources and community support.
• Reserve your spot for ReInvent 2025 here for a deep dive into the impact of the microbiome on brain health including lab testing and genetics
• Visit INEMethod.com for advanced health practitioner training and tools to elevate your clinical skills and grow your practice by getting life-changing results. 
• Check out other podcast episodes here.

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo’s Bio

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo is a leading authority in functional nutrition, specializing in nutritional endocrinology and root cause health solutions. With over 33 years of clinical experience, Dr. Ritamarie is the founder of the Institute of Nutritional Endocrinology, where she trains health practitioners to create lasting change in their clients’ lives. Her passion is empowering others to break free from outdated paradigms and embrace personalized, science-based approaches to optimal health.

Transcript

Dr Ritamarie 00:00
Welcome back to the podcast. So whether you’re a health and wellness practitioner, a health coach, a doctor, a nurse, a chiropractor, naturopath, any of a number of different types of health practitioners, or you are just somebody who’s looking to optimize your own health, the health of your family, and you’re looking for good solid advice.

If you are listening to podcasts, watching YouTube videos, attending summits, or reading blogs, you are likely very confused about what the exact right diet, lifestyle, and supplement program is for people, because it is confusing out there. Everybody has their opinion, and they state their opinion as if it is fact. So, by now, you might be wondering who is right. I tell you, that is what we are going to be discussing.

Dr Ritamarie (01:23)
The biggest mistake I see is that so many well-meaning speakers are sharing their opinions as if they’re fact. And they have all this good evidence as to why the diet or the lifestyle or the particular supplement regime that they recommend is the best for everybody on the planet. But that can’t be further from the truth.

You know why? Because there is no one size fits all when it comes to healthcare. There is no one size fits all when it comes to the right diet. Everybody has slightly different needs. I’ve gotten into arguments, so to speak, on my own Facebook pages when I state something and somebody comes back, well-meaning, offering me advice.

Dr Ritamarie (02:09)
Well, you’re human. Humans all need to eat this certain way, and you’re human. So, therefore this diet doesn’t need to work for you. And I’ll say, well, I’ve tried that before. It doesn’t work for me. I’ve worked with tens of thousands of people over the last 33 years in clinical practice of seeing people one-on-one in a physical location, online, and also teaching and educating and sharing with my various and sundry programs.

There is no one size fits all. Let me get that through your head. So if you’re trying some of these techniques that these authors, speakers, writers, coaches tell you about that are the perfect diet for everybody on the planet, and you’re not getting those results, whether it’s for your own personal health, your loved ones, or your clients or your patients, it’s not your fault. It’s that there is no one size fits all. So what do we do about this?

It means a lot when people get on and they say, well, I’ve been doing this for so many years. I’ve been doing this for six years, or I’ve been following this carnivore diet for five years, and I feel better than I ever felt in my life. Great. I hear people get on and say, well, the studies show that the plant-based diet is the best diet for everybody on the planet. And here’s the proof. And they can cite good evidence. But here’s the thing.

Studies can lie. That’s right. And if they’re double-blind placebo-controlled, peer-reviewed, you can set up a study to give you the results that you want to get. So therefore, if you wanted to prove that eating a cup of extra sugar a day is not going to harm your health, how do you do that? Do you give a cup of sugar to people who normally don’t eat sugar? Or do you give a cup of sugar to people who are eating donuts and pizzas and sugary treats all day long, but one extra cup isn’t going to make a difference in their health.

So you can design a study to prove what you want to prove. Do you want to go for a plant-based diet? You can find plenty of studies that show that, but not everybody does well on a 100% plant-based diet.

Dr Ritamarie (04:21)
If they’re doing that diet by including a lot of processed vegan junk foods or meat analogs, they’re not going to do well if they have a blood sugar imbalance and they’re eating a lot of fruit and a lot of grains, despite what many people who are following these kind of diets swear that this is the best diet for all of humankind.

I err on the side of stating my facts, the facts that I know as opinions. Let me tell you how I mean that. I will say to somebody, well, in my experience, in my experience with all these clients, I have found this, this, this to be true.

Somebody who’s stating their opinion as fact will say, well, everybody needs to eat this way. Everybody is going to benefit from doing this. That’s the difference, right? They’re not saying, well, in my experience, and my experience might be with a subset of people, in my experience with a lot of people with metabolic imbalances, with blood sugar irregularities, with elevations in insulin and things like that, a lot of those people do not do well on a 100% plant-based diet or the typical diet that people are recommending.

They can do really well on a 100% plant-based diet. I’ve been doing really well on a 100% plant-based diet for almost 40 years now. Does that mean that’s perfect for everybody? No, does that mean that my type of diet is perfect for everybody?
What I found is that for people who do have diabetes tendencies, that do have a tendency to have high blood sugar, they do super well on a plant-based diet that is eliminating grains and fruits, not eliminating permanently like for the rest of your life, but resetting, doing a 30 day metabolic reset or something along those lines without those foods, because it helps their insulin receptors to calm down and be able to work better.

Does that mean that it’s because the fruit or the grains caused their problem? Generally not.
It’s the Cheerios and the Oreos and those Snickers bars and all that other stuff that they ate before they switched to that kind of diet, which is true for me. I switched my diet when I was in my mid to late 20s.

Before that, I was drinking a lot of alcohol, wine mostly. I was eating a ton of desserts. My favorite food in the world was ice cream and I ate a lot of it. I ate lots of Oreos and lots of chocolate chip cookies and lots of M&Ms and Snickers bars, and I didn’t eat much in the way of real whole foods.

Dr Ritamarie (06:55)
So we might argue that the basis of all good diets is real fresh whole foods. And I would say that’s probably true for most people. But sometimes people are in such a gut mess that high fiber foods are not going to be good for them. So what it really boils down to is who’s right? You’re right. I’m right. We’re all right.

Every religion has a piece of the truth. And that was a statement by Gandhi. Every religion has a piece of the truth. And it’s true of food religions as well. We can’t go on our merry way and say this food that I found perfect for me, or that it works for some population that I see in my practice, that makes that the perfect diet for everyone. It’s not. It’s not. Everybody deserves to be treated as an individual.

Everybody deserves to have a practitioner who understands how this body works and is willing to ask the right questions to find out what’s getting in the way of this person not being well. In my particular case, I don’t do well with high sugar fruits unless I eat them in a way that’s balanced with a lot of greens. Little bit of fruit, lot of greens, little bit of fruit, lot of greens, right? Somebody would argue, well, that’s because there’s something wrong with you.

Maybe some old damage was caused by my M&M’s and ice cream diet years ago. It might be related to the genetics that I have that predispose me to heart disease and to insulin resistance and diabetes. So here’s the thing, every religion has a piece of the truth. Every food religion has a piece of the truth.

And I don’t mean that to be a disparaging remark because a lot of people take their diet as their religion that everybody has to follow it and follow it to a T. And if it doesn’t work for them, you blame them, because they didn’t follow it right. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Everybody’s a little bit right. Everybody’s a little bit wrong.
There was a song back in the 60s or 70s back when I was growing up, right? I’m a little bit wrong and you’re a little bit right.

Dr Ritamarie (09:06)
It’s all a matter of us as practitioners, you as a self healer, digging deep to understand what’s going on in your body, understanding the needs that haven’t been met, and understanding the true root causes. And then you find the diet that works for you. And it might be the Judy diet, the Tim diet, the Jack diet, the Mary diet, the diet that works for you. And that’s my story for today.

So as health practitioners, we need to be looking at people as individuals. We need to know how to do the right testing, ask the right questions, look at their environment and help them to identify the real root causes.

It’s not about symptom suppression. That’s the old medical paradigm. It’s about getting to the root causes, empowering people to take charge of their health and taking the steps they need from a diet, lifestyle, supplementation attitude standpoint that works best for them.

Dr Ritamarie (10:11)
So if you’re ready to take your practice to the next level, I invite you to visit our INEMethod.com site and learn about insulin resistance and gut health and microbiome balancing and all the things you need to know to use nutrition and lifestyle to help people get well. Together, let’s create this movement to reinvent healthcare. And until next time, shine on.