The Optimized Doctor

Diet


 

Dr. Jeffrey Benabio, director of Healthcare Transformation and chief of dermatology at Kaiser Permanente San Diego.

Dr. Jeffrey Benabio

Mondays through Thursdays I fast. I have coffee with plant-based milk in the morning and don’t eat anything else until dinner. On those days, dinner is usually salad with a protein, most often fish, that is approximately 500 calories. Sometimes we have pasta or a curry, but they’re made from scratch with seasonal, whole foods. I avoid eating dinner after 8 p.m. as it tends to disrupt my sleep.

I don’t fast on Fridays or weekends or when I travel. I eat out rarely. On weekends, my wife and I shop at the local farmers’ and fish markets to prepare ourselves for a week of healthy eating. And on Sundays, we continue our treasured family tradition of Sunday supper, which is basted with nostalgia and drizzled liberally with comfort. Often it requires long preparation, which is part of the appeal, and short attention is paid to its nutritional value. That’s not the point of Sunday dinner. A delicious dunk of fresh Italian bread in grassy-green olive oil or fresh pasta doused with homemade tomato basil sauce is the best possible meal I can have to prepare for a long, hard week ahead.

Dr. Benabio is director of Healthcare Transformation and chief of dermatology at Kaiser Permanente San Diego. The opinions expressed in this column are his own and do not represent those of Kaiser Permanente. Dr. Benabio is @Dermdoc on Twitter. Write to him at dermnews@mdedge.com.

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