What if the secret to eating better isn’t another diet — but changing the way you think about food?
That’s the refreshing philosophy of Meg Marie O’Rourke, RD-LDN, the self-described “Anti-Diet Dietitian” behind Harmony With Food.
Meg joined me on The Debbie Nigro Show for a fun, eye-opening conversation about food noise, muscle, metabolism, ultra-processed foods, sneaky marketing — and what she thinks we should be putting in our supermarket carts.
Her big message? Stop obsessing over diets and start paying attention to what your body needs.
Meg points out that maintaining muscle matters enormously as we age because more muscle supports a healthier metabolism. She’s concerned that restrictive dieting — and rapid weight loss without adequate nutrition and strength support — can mean losing valuable muscle along with fat.
We also tackled the big, processed food conversation. Meg makes an important distinction: processed doesn’t automatically mean unhealthy. Frozen vegetables and beans, for example, can be processed and still be nutritious. Her bigger concern is ultra-processed foods loaded with added sugars, dyes, additives and other ingredients you probably wouldn’t find in your kitchen. ( …but that you might find in my car! Oh boy! )
Meg’s “Put It in the Cart” Five
Think berries, leafy greens, wild-caught salmon, fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi and kefir, and real sources of protein such as chicken, turkey, eggs and beans. Her point: good nutrition doesn’t have to be complicated or wildly expensive.
And what would she put back?
Sugary cereals, heavily processed snack foods and so-called “health” drinks that may be hiding lots of sugar or artificial sweeteners behind clever marketing. Meg’s advice is to look beyond the buzzwords on the front of the package.
And because no conversation with me about food could end completely normally, we also discussed my latest middle-of-the-night discovery:
Pickle juice for leg cramps!
Yes, I’ve actually stood in my kitchen drinking pickle juice straight from the jar in the middle of the night. LOL. That’s what my pal “mo” told me to do. Strangely enough…it seems to work for me. We talked about why there may actually be something behind that little trick!
It all fits perfectly with what “Keeping the ‘Live’ in Alive!” is about: not just adding more years to our lives but putting more LIFE into the years we’ve got.
Listen to my full conversation with Meg Marie O’Rourke and maybe take her along — virtually — on your next trip through the supermarket.
PS: Meg practices Functional Medicine in Rhode Island but is accessible from anywhere. If you’ve been told your labs are ‘normal’ but still struggle with digestive issues, fatigue, brain fog, or weight- loss resistance – you’re not alone. She can help you find the root cause. Check out her website: Harmony With Food.
If you’d rather read than listen the transcript of the audio is below.
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
090926-3
English (US) · 0:13:06
00:00
And now back to The Debbie Nigro Show. It’s a beautiful morning. Keeping that live in alive that’s what I’m doing over here. As soon as we turn the mic on, hey everybody, I’m Debbie Nigro. What’s the show about? It’s about helping people live healthier, happier, more interesting lives. Okay, for as long as possible. And my mission, as You know, if you tune into the show, is to share knowledge and smart ideas and people, and fresh experiences, and help us stay healthy, curious, connected, adventurous, and engaged with life as we get older, so that we have more fun. Because what is longevity?
00:55
Not just about adding more years to your life, putting more life in the years you got. That’s why my next guest is right on time. She’s got a lot of energy and a double name like mine. I’m wDebra Jean. She’s Meg Marie. So Meg Marie O’Rourke is the antidiet dietician and her website HarmonyWithFoodcom is something you may want to check out because she really knows how to personalize food advice for everybody’s individual body. I want to talk to you about a lot of stuff today. Meg, how are you? Hey, thanks for having me, Deb.
01:28
Debbie. Hey, Meg. Where are you located in life? Rhode Island? Rhode Island, yep. Oh, I love Rhode Island, Meg. Yeah. I grew up in Connecticut, though. Oh, cool. Where? Yeah. Right in the center, Berlin, Connecticut. Very nice. I’m broadcasting live from Greenwich, Connecticut to the New York, Connecticut market and beyond, you know, through digital live stream. So, what’s an anti diet dietitian? Tell me the description of that name you give yourself. Yeah, so the real, I would say the dirty little secret that the Big weight loss companies and big pharma don’t want you to know is that the more muscle you have, the faster your metabolism is.
02:08
So all of these diets, and especially the GLP1s I heard you talking in your segment before, yeah, no, they make you lose a lot, especially if you lose fat, you’re gonna lose weight, you’re gonna lose fat, but you’re also gonna lose a lot of muscle. So if you think about it from a scientific standpoint, the more muscle you have, the faster your metabolism is. So why are we all starving ourselves to lose a ton of muscle? And then lose the weight, gain the weight, It really shouldn’t be a secret at all that these strict diets do not work. Wow. I’ve always known that. You know, I’ve been a little chubbette since my early years. I like to eat, and I’ve struggled with food, and I’ve struggled with the food noise in my head. And I wanted to talk about that, it was one of the topics I wanted you to address. These GLP drugs, like dumb down that. Silly voice in your head that says you want pizza and carbs, right? So all of a sudden you’re like, oh, I don’t want that stuff. Food noise can be dangerous. If you don’t get the right nutrients.
03:15
So, I want you to address that. Yeah, absolutely. So, anything, if you’re thinking about something too much, I don’t care if it’s gambling, sex, whatever it is, if you’re thinking about that 80 of the time, like what am I going to eat next? What am I going to have today? What am I going to eat? That is not healthy. And what I do at Harmony with Food is try and get, turn that food noise off and make everyone realize that we have a God given mechanism. If you believe in God, that we have that help that tells us when we’re full and when we’re hungry. But a lot of times people do not tune into that guidance that we have naturally without a medication, a GLP one or some, you know, when you go on a strict diet, if you’ve ever known anybody on Weight Watchers, for example, or any diet, right?
04:10
All they’re doing is talking about the points. The numbers, the weight. People go to meetings, somebody takes a crap in the morning, and everyone’s clapping because they lost a pound. Okay? It’s insanity. And so I always say, you know, I’m known as the antidiet dietician, and I was put on this earth to change the way you think about food. You do know, I mean, I’m a former Weight Watchers, you know, points counter, and I’ve been on every diet there has been. And I do, you know, you notice if you stop eating junk, right, that all of a sudden you don’t crave junk and then all of a sudden you’re like more, you know, you’re more in control of yourself. So I want to talk about junk. Let’s move over since we’re giving a nice transition. These processed foods, I love them. I love every chip that’s on that counter.
04:55
I love them. So I’m more conscious since the news came out by the FDA about how bad processed foods are for you. So I don’t go, I’m driving around with cashews instead in my car. I need to crunch. But there was a story this week that may intimate that we’re getting the processed food conversation wrong. That some foods that are processed, just because they’re processed doesn’t mean they’re bad uh, just cause they’re processed doesn’t mean they’re bad for you. And I guess one of them is beans. You know, can you speak to this, uh, topic? Yeah, absolutely. Like, for instance, frozen vegetables are processed. Like you said, beans can be processed. It’s the ultra processed foods, you know, the foods that have chemicals and additives, you know, um, you know, when you see, when you, if you have children, I don’t have children, but if you have children or grandchildren or nieces and nephews and you see their Eating, you know, lime green, aqua, purple, and red cereal for breakfast.
05:51
I mean, it’s time to wake up. These chemicals in our food are causing a ton of problems for a lot of people, and we all know a lot of doctors don’t know anything about nutrition, and that’s okay. I’m not. I’ve worked with a lot of wonderful doctors and nurses and stuff. But they don’t get trained in nutrition, so they’re very limited in how they can help. You and that’s where someone like me comes in because what I do is called medical nutrition therapy and then of course I do functional nutrition testing to even peel the onion even more so that people are getting that information you know that is correct for them and their body but yeah processed isn’t necessarily a bad thing but when it’s ultra processed and they’re adding chemicals. And dyes and additives and all kinds of other things. It’s not even food anymore.
06:47
And now even in the biohub of Boston, they’re making labgrown meat from the hemoglobin of cows. That sounds disgusting, Meg. I’m never buying a burger that’s made of lab grown meat. I’m not doing lab meat. No. You know, there are some chips out there these days that say no artificial coloring, like Doritos has their own better for you Dorito. Are they any healthier, or is it just a PR ploy? Yeah, I think the problem is a lot of this stuff, like you might have heard of smart foods, are skinny like smart food or skinny pop popcorn.
07:26
You know, they make it sound like their popcorn has lower calories than any other popcorn on earth. The, you know, what they don’t want you to know is every half cup of popcorn is 35 calories if it isn’t loaded with butter and sugar and salt and things like that. So, but women buy that popcorn like it’s going out of style because it says on the bag, you know, skinny pop. The word skinny will get almost any woman to look at it. Oh my gosh there’s only 30 calories in our, or maybe 35, 35 calories and a half a cup of our popcorn. Well, that’s true with any popcorn. So I just don’t get it. A lot of this false advertising needs to stop. I don’t know if the government’s ever going to do anything about it, but I do think more people are waking up. Hey, how about Bethany Frankel’s skinny girl margarita back in the day? How about that one flying off the shelves? I know. And she, honestly, you know I don’t like to, no judgment zone, but, you know, she looked like she might have had her own issues with eating or not eating or something for a while.
08:33
And then you come out with the skinny girl margarita and alcohol. Now, I always joke, Debbie, that I’m the Irish dietitian. We don’t count alcohol calories, but in all seriousness, you know, I just find the marketing is just, it’s failing us. Yeah, she’s so sold that for 120 million, by the way. Skinny girl, Monday. Yeah, all right. I don’t think she cares what I think. No, I don’t think she cares what anybody thinks. Okay, last question, and maybe not the last question, but one of the ones I want to make sure I got to. I like taking a ride in the supermarket with you, okay?
09:05
I’ve got my cart, and now you’re going to tell me five things to put in my cart this week and three things you’re going to tell me to put back. All right, all right. So, one thing I especially this time of year, the summer, like berries, you know, they’re low in sugar, they’re high in antioxidants, they’re great for gut health and the microbiome. Leafy greens, you know, things like spinach, arugula, kale. Don’t make it so boring. They feed your microbiome in your gut. And then wild caught salmon would be my third thing. Anti inflammatory, lots of omega threes, and that. And then fermented foods. Also help support digestion, like sauerkraut, pickles. Any pickles that are in the fridge, kimchi, kefir, they support digestion. And then, of course, real proteins. I’m not a vegan. I’m not a vegetarian. If someone is, I can help them and make sure that they get the right proteins.
09:59
But I would say chicken, turkey, eggs, beans, they all are going to keep the blood sugar stable. They’re all simple. Those five things are simple, affordable, and they can make a huge difference. Okay. What am I putting back? Three things I’m putting back. Three things that you saw that I took that I should never have put in my car right, sugary cereals. You know, theyI won’t name a specific brand. We all know, you know, the purple, pink, turquoise, red, filled with a top that was sugar. No, get those out of your cart right away. They spike blood sugar and they start you on a, you know, roller coaster for the day. Like your blood sugar goes up and then it goes down. It goes up and then it goes way down. And when that process gets started. For the day, I can guarantee you’re going to have a hard day with food that day.
10:45
And then the seed oilheavy snacks, like the chips, the crackers, the cookies. Some of them are ultraprocessed and inflammatory. And then the fake. This is one of my biggest, fake health drinks, these energy drinks, vitamin watered, flavored coffees, either they’re sugar bombs in disguise or they’re filled with fake sugar and they have this big zero sugar on the product. And what people don’t realize is that they’re now filled with the artificial sweeteners that can be anywhere from 200 to 800 times sweeter than sugars. And there’s lots of research, Diet Coke could be an example, that people that drink Diet Coke tend to gain weight because I’m going to use a big word of hyperinsulinemia. The body doesn’t know, the pancreas doesn’t know what to do with this item that’s coming in the body that’s 800 times sweeter than sugar, and your pancreas starts secreting a ton of insulin.
11:46
What does that do? That lowers your blood sugar and makes you hungry, but insulin is also a hormone that causes weight gain. So, all these people drinking Diet Coke to lose weight, it’s very detrimental to them. Ay, ay, ay, meg. Okay, my final thing I want to talk about, and this is something that was passed on to me from a girlfriend pickle juice for leg cramps in the middle of the night. Do you Know this works? Yeah, I mean, I would think it was probably, if anything, it might be salt that maybe that person is missing why they might get leg cramps at night. But hey, I always say, Debbie, if it’s all natural and it’s inexpensive and you were just going to throw away the pickle juice anyway, try it. Let me tell you what I found out. It triggers a nerve reflex in your mouth and throat that tells the overactive motor neurons to calm down. That’s very cool. So, when I tell you, I’ve been up multiple nights in the last couple of maybe six months drinking pickle juice out of a jar. I’m like, what am I doing here? But it works.
12:50
And I think I probably have a better answer, but that’s it for now. All right, Meg, I’ve had a blast with you. Meg Marie O’Rourke, the anti diet dietitian. Thank you. HarmonyWithFood.com Check her out.
