027: Ketosis, Cravings & Mental Clarity: How Changing Your Fuel Changes Your Brain with Kyle Rootsaert
This is a generated transcript from a podcast episode.
Speaker 2
[00.00.00]
It's May. I can't believe it's May. My name is Cody Cox. I'm your host, and you're listening to Real Food
Mental Health. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you might remember episode number 18,
which was released on February 28th. My guest at that time was Kyle Russert, and he's my guest today.
He is actually my first repeat guest. Kyle is a former pharmacist, and I feel like that's a pretty unique kind
of a person to have on my show, because you don't hear from former pharmacists very much, if at all, in
holistic circles. So he's got a pretty cool story. So go back and listen to that first episode if you missed it.
Episode number 18. But today's episode, we talk about his specialty. He loves to work with diabetic
patients and just helping people with blood sugar regulation in general. So we're talking a lot about that
today. It's a continuation of the last episode, but also we talk about the stigma of eating truly healthy or
living a truly healthy lifestyle. I think in America, we have this aesthetic ideal of what it means to be
healthy, but that's not really being truly healthy. I mean, if you're just wearing yoga pants all the time and
and drinking your protein shakes and going to the gym a lot, that is sort of healthy, but it's more on the
superficial side of being healthy rather than being truly healthy. So we talk about what it means to be
truly healthy and the social stigma that comes with it, and a little bit about how to overcome that stigma
and just be healthy anyway. We also talk about insulin resistance, cognitive decline and cognitive
function, and a few other goodies. Before we get into the episode, though, I wanted to give you a heads
up. We had a lot of technology issues with this recording, so I actually ended up recording this on an
entirely different platform than what I usually record on. I think the sound quality is actually pretty good
considering, but editing was a little bit more difficult with the file format that I was given from this
recording. So you'll you might notice Kyle and I talking over each other a little bit. Some background
noise that I wasn't able to cut out, but hopefully it's not too much of a distraction and I hope you enjoy
the episode. Welcome to the Real Food Mental Health podcast, where we explore the powerful
connection between mental and physical health. My name is Cody Cox, a holistic nutritional
psychotherapist, and I'm here to guide you on a journey to true wellness, mind, body, and spirit. If you're
tired of quick fixes and want real solutions that address the root cause, you're in the right place. Let's get
started on your path to lasting wellness. So there's a lot of stigma associated with eating healthy. And I'm
talking about really being healthy, not just the the low fat, high carb diet, going to the gym, wearing your
your fitness clothing and listening to your music kind of healthy. I'm talking about like, organic whole
foods. Uh, generally for people that means low carb
Speaker 1
[00.03.20]
or maybe even carnivore,
Speaker 2
[00.03.22]
but there's a lot of stigma, and it actually makes this seem kind of weird to those who aren't really in
Speaker 1
[00.03.29]
in that mindset. Yeah, for sure, but I, I, uh, the motivation for that change is probably the biggest
determinant of your success. Um, and that could be so many different reasons. I hate when people are up
against the wall and they want to make this change because they have to, um, that's nobody gets to
motivated to really do anything if you have to do something. Uh, you know, I got this new diagnosis, I
have this new problem, I have to go do this diet, and it can't we can't call it a diet because it's not a diet.
It's. It's it's a lifestyle. It's it's basically saying, um, I'm changing you. I'm going to change your name. I'm
going to change your outward appearance. I'm going to change all the aspects of you. You're going to bea different person at the end of this. It's a it sounds really intimidating, but it's it's it's we get into this
journey and you're identify yourself
Speaker 2
[00.04.43]
as a different person because you know that you have to eat and be different and go throughout your life
very different to be healthy, to be this different person at the other end. But what what I found as I went
through my process was, wow, I'm in love with myself again. I feel so good about how I feel, the changes
within me, and I'll be completely honest with you. Other than graduating from pharmacy school, which I,
I felt at the time was a massive feat. I have never been able to achieve some sort of major long term goal.
I lost weight before I lost weight for maybe six months, changed all you know, got all my clothes tailored
and then had to undo it all. It's like, what a waste. But when you approach it with the mindset that I'm
doing this and I'm going to be somebody different over there, and I don't know where over there is, but
I'm going to fall in love with the process. I'm going to fall in love with who I'm becoming, kind of like all
over again. And I know this creeps out my wife, but I say, man, I feel like a 12 year old child. I've got so
much energy. What am I going to do with myself? Like, oh my God, because I really have that much
energy and I know that I can get back to that young metabolism and that energy. Just by changing really
the feeling of my body. Get getting into a different state where I'm now burning the excess energy. But
most importantly, and I don't think people understand this. Is that the reason why you have these
cravings? The reason why you're so dang hungry is because you got deficiencies. You're lacking
something. The brain doesn't know what it is, but it knows that you're lacking something, some nutrient.
And the only thing that the brain can turn on is hunger. Turn this on. Let's make this go right. We got to
go after these nutrients that we don't have enough of. And these cravings are out of control, right?
They're up and down. Up and down. What I have found that has been the best tool for cravings and
changing my mindset has been fueling my brain differently, giving it actually the nutrients
Speaker 1
[00.07.10]
that the brain doesn't necessarily want. But it's what the brain needs. The brain is going to want carbs and
glucose. It doesn't have the ability, at least when you first go into this on this journey to be able to use
glucose, it knows how to use glucose for energy solely. But when you start switching over the fuel and
go, okay, we're going to be less glucose dependent. We're going to start increasing our fat and start using
ketones and fat for energy, for the brain. It's just kind of like like a little child like you, the parent, know
what's best for that child. And you, as the owner of that brain, actually do know what's best for the brain.
It isn't all that junk food. So when you start changing the fueling, you start changing. Everything kind of
changes. And and you know, what's what's crazy is when I, when I do these first, my first consult with
with a new, new patient, it's almost difficult to like not imagine. Them how they will be, look and feel in
six months based on other patients data, like how many patients are sleeping through the night. They
don't have to get up in the middle of the night to pee. They they they have better thoughts. They, um, they
have better self-esteem. They've lost so much weight. They've they've improved their relationships.
They've they've reinvented themselves completely new identity. And literally they don't look the same
anyways. So it's like this is a step that you cannot, can't skip out on. I envisioned myself as a different
person, and I envision new patients as a different person. So I have to laugh and go, oh my gosh, what are
you going to look like in six months? What are you going to tell me in six months that you had no idea
that you could feel or do ever in this lifetime because, like, that's that's within the realm of possibility. At
first you don't see it. I didn't see it. My my sole goal is to be like a kick ass grandpa. How could I do that?
How can I be there for my my, my grandkids? How can I extend my life? Because my life has purpose. I
think that's that's a big part of this.
Speaker 2
[00.09.33]
Do you have purpose? Do you have a reason to get up in the morning to go on this journey?Speaker 1
[00.09.39]
Yeah. As a therapist, I don't do marriage and family therapy. I've done it before. But I have to wonder, as
a therapist, if we could significantly reduce divorce rates in America, if we would just eat better.
Speaker 2
[00.09.55]
Yeah, and eat better.
Speaker 1
[00.09.57]
Yeah. We're still going to have conflict. We're still going to have relationship problems, but absolutely
less irritable and more patient with each other if we're physically feeling better
Speaker 2
[00.10.07]
and right. But this happens a lot. So so something typically if you really did I would love to see some real
data. Um like look at sleep scores right. Look at sleep scores. Number of hours stress. Look at each V.
Look. Look at metrics. Look at numbers that we can gather from some of this new technology and go,
yeah, I am not surprised that I'm upset today because my sleep score was say, 65, right? I notice my
worst days are days that started off with a really poor night's sleep or an illness or something happened,
so I can pinpoint it. It is so helpful to pinpoint some sort of argument, anger, discussion, whatever.
Around something that you may have had control over, but something that you may not have necessarily
realized unless you unless you measured it, unless you looked at it like, hey, I had a really stressful day.
What does that mean? Can you quantify that for me? Yeah I can. All right. So I got x number of hours of
stress. You know, my HRV is just like, oh, hey. Hey, honey, you are stressed, okay? You you do get the
massage or whatever, right? Like, if you look at days that you've had the most difficulties, it's typically
starts off with the poor night's sleep. You stayed up too late. You ate something before bed, made it
difficult for you to sleep. It's like these are the lifestyle things that and levers that we can, that we can
press, that can improve our relationships. And maybe we can go back to that and go, all right, hey, please
don't take me seriously today because my sleep score is 65, right? I'm. I had a bad night's sleep. Help me
if your person cares about you enough, help me do better so that I can be a better person. Right? That's
what we want from should. Want from everybody is to be a better person and not sabotage each other.
Yeah, it should be about let's communicate. Let's. Let's come together and go. Okay. What can you and I
both do to work together to get a good night's rest, to get that sleep? Better sleep hygiene. How can we
change our diet? How can we how can we we we make movements. Something consistent in our life.
What can we work? How? What can we do together? I'm telling you, like doing this with us. Support will
unfortunately determine your long term success. It's it's unfortunately true. But there, when one person
changes, unfortunately the other person may not see it as as healthy as they should. And so unfortunately,
a lot of people try to sabotage each other. And that makes for it makes it really difficult. But man, support
and being there, if you really want a long life together, you will care about each other's health, you will
do all that you can. And it's not just physical, right? It's everything. It's saying the right things to each
other, helping each other be the best that we can be. My wife wants the best for me, and when I got that
into my thick skull, the only reason she's telling you anything is she wants a better version of me. And
this. This me is constantly changing and morphing and self-improving and going, okay, what do I need to
work on today? Okay, you got to work on anger. Okay? Work on that. Hey, do you realize that every
time you spike your your anger, your cortisol levels spike as well? That's affecting your metabolism?
That's making me unhealthy and hurting me. How can I like if we start looking at the mental illness from
a physical standpoint and going, how much do I have control of? How much can I change the trajectory
of the rest of my life? How can I help my my thoughts? What can I do? Not. What can everybody else
around me do? What can I do to be the best person? To be positive? To be all those little things like
being mindful, being showing gratitude and being grateful. Going through the the self-care steps of yourof your typical day. It sounds really, you know, five year old ish and really, you know, but if you look at
everybody that is a professional, they will always tell you fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. It's
always going to come down to what are you doing on a regular basis? How are you helping yourself for
the future? Right. Stop using the word diet. Think of this as a lifestyle. This is a new person. This is a
whole new opportunity to reinvent yourself. You would never and you would never cheat on that, would
you? You would never cheat yourself on what you're trying to become. Why would you ever cheat on the
diet? I don't understand the cheating. I don't get it because it's like this is your identity. My identity as a
paddle boarder, recreational racing paddle board or some new person doesn't do that. Doesn't eat like
that, right? How you got it. You got to be true to yourself. Mhm.
Speaker 1
[00.15.22]
Yeah. So interestingly, the word diet actually comes from the ancient Greek which means a manner of
living. It actually doesn't have anything to do with food.
Speaker 2
[00.15.32]
We've just made it a bad, bad word.
Speaker 1
[00.15.34]
Yeah. In America we seem to think of it as what we're eating or worst case scenario, you think of it as a
weight loss regimen. Yeah. Um, but yeah, technically speaking, you could use the word diet to describe
life lifestyle. They are sort of synonymous, but in our culture we don't tend to use them that way.
Speaker 2
[00.15.58]
Yeah. I think probably a better way of saying what I promote is a low insulin lifestyle. So I'm doing all
that I can to keep my insulin levels low. I'm doing all that I can to limit mitochondrial toxins. I mean, if
you want to talk about, like, what really causes disease. Just let's just list the mitochondrial toxins. And
it's not just glyphosate and food dyes. It's our lifestyle. When we start going, okay, my lifestyle, my lack
of sleep, my sedentary lifestyle is affecting my mitochondrial health. Now you start looking at your
lifestyle really differently, going, okay, how can I improve this? How can I improve my mental health?
How can I improve my my ability to adapt to my environment or my ability to to benefit my brain, allow
that plasticity, that neuroplasticity, that movement brings the mind that's released from our muscles that
help BDNF so that you now can now you've got it, you're reshaping your brain, you're getting rid of. And
I think this is important because I think when it comes to things that we all struggle with are addictions.
They're ingrained into our brain like like ruts like this erosion that happens every time we dump on
ourselves or a bunch of negativity comes into our world. But movement can help you raise those things,
can help our brains modify those ruts, because that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get rid of old
bad habits. We want to fix those ruts. We want to patch them up. The only way to do it is to is, is to me,
it's it's movement. Movement has been such a big part of. Psychological well-being. It's been such a big
part of my journey and my identity. Um, I don't know what I would do without it. I'm fortunate enough
that I can get out a lot, get a lot of sunshine, and and really enjoy the benefits of movement that
combining that movement and that and the benefit to the brain, along with learning along with the
understanding of the importance of sleep. Man together. That's that's like a, like a very high octane brain
that now serves me well versus what I think a lot of people don't realize is that their blood sugar is
actually bouncing all over the place, that their blood sugar is skyrocketing, and then coming back down
and skyrocketing and coming back down. So what they're experiencing is high energy, low energy, high
energy, low energy. Doesn't that kind of follow your moods? And what I what I see in patients that are
monitored is that they can be bouncing all over the place and they're not eating and they're not moving,
not doing anything. The body is constantly just this ebb and flow of glucose, high glucose, low glucose,this this creates horrible, horrible mood disorders. It's not healthy for our brains at all. And you can
almost guarantee that you're going to have mental illness. You're going to have neurocognitive decline,
which I know nobody wants. But the path back is is really simple. But it's, um, it's such a huge blessing
gift present that so many people just don't know how to unwrap it. It's really very, very easy to get. Start
looking at your food. Start looking at what you're doing. I think measuring is such an important part of
this. Measuring using an aura ring, a smart ring smartwatch. Um, you need to have glucose in there
somewhere. You need to have a monitor. And that's been that really is your metabolic response. If you
want to know what's really going on, measure it all and get help. Get the training that you need.
Understand. And that's that's kind of where I come in. It's like I want people to learn. I just want you to
know, what are you doing to your blood sugar? How is your lifestyle? How are these these things
affecting you? But probably more importantly, I want you to lay eyes on it. I want you to see. Lack of
sleep does. I want you to see what certain foods do. You can't learn that with just guessing. And you
certainly shouldn't trust some sort of expert to tell you that you should eat this way, or you should eat that
way. I feel like that the ultimate is to lay eyes on it and measure it. I know that these these cgms, the
continuous glucose monitors are expensive. You don't wear it all the time, but when you wear it, you'll
learn. And that's literally the whole purpose of any of this learning. Learning about what the smart, the
smart rings and smart watches really do. What are these new metrics? How can I tweak these? How can I
benefit from this knowledge? How can this knowledge help me get through this life? Smarter, better,
healthier? Right? The smart patient does the best. The smart patient that's investing in their own
knowledge and understanding of new medicine, the future of medicine, and new wearables sensor
technology. I think that's where it's at, really.
Speaker 1
[00.21.31]
Yeah, yeah. It's important to go through these things methodically. I mean, you've got you've got so
many things that you could just blindly try and hope they work, but you're going to waste a lot of time
doing that. And so there's definitely some value in measuring these metrics. So I think I mentioned in our
last recording that I wear a Garmin watch. And I actually I chose the Garmin watch over the aura because
I wanted something that I could see the data on a screen without connecting it to my phone first.
Speaker 2
[00.22.01]
Yeah. Otherwise you have to have your phone out in front of you while you're doing it. Yeah. It's
difficult.
Speaker 1
[00.22.06]
Yeah. So it's nice to have the watch so I can just look at that data at a glance and just. Just move forward
with life and stay active
Speaker 2
[00.22.16]
and get a screen. Right. But then you could go back and review. You can go back and go, oh, what
happened Thursday night? Oh, man. Like something happened that night. That's where like the
journaling and being prompted to journal stuff like, hey, you got some unusual numbers here. Tell us
what's going on. I mean, you think about this eventually. When we combine all this data together, I'll
have kind of an AI artificial intelligence idea of who you are and how you react to your environment. I
mean, think about how useful that could be, not just in tailoring medicine, but but seeing what kind of
environment is your best environment? What foods fuel you the best given your type of exercise, right?
What time should you really be going to bed? What? What type of sleep should you be trying to achievelike and looking at it and measuring it? And imagine if I could learn all there is to know about you. And
we can and we can test all these. We can test all these things and come up with a very good idea as to
what your individual metabolism and lifestyle should be, you know? Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1
[00.23.36]
And I really appreciate the work of, uh, Doctor Georgia. I'd so like the change your diet, change your
mind book. She talks a lot about this stuff where essentially what you're doing is you're improving your
metabolism. You're you're you're doing it in many different ways. And I think I can't remember if she
specifically talks about tracking and measuring. Do you know? Like, do you know if she's.
Speaker 2
[00.23.59]
I don't I think Christopher Palmer has mentioned CGM, you know. It's just. Oh, actually. Yeah. So she
does recommend the CGM and the. She's the first, uh, person I heard about the keto mojo from.
Speaker 1
[00.24.16]
Okay. So. So that is in her. That would be helpful, right? If you know ketones, you know you're doing
well. If you know that your ketones are above 0.5, you're technically nutritional ketosis, you're going to
measure it via blood every morning. Um, that's that's really a good way of knowing that you're doing the
right diet. However, how do you know what kicked you out if you don't have that 0.5? Like, what did
you do? Right. What was. And some of it's it's quite subtle. You wouldn't even notice it. Um, like alcohol
would kick you out of ketosis. Um, and it's, it's some kind of like, you can, you can go down that road
yourself and go, okay, when I did this, I didn't get the ketones in the morning. Or to me, knowing what
your blood sugar is. Using the CGM is kind of kind of help you with that investigation. That little
detective work to go. All right. This food was a problem. There's so many people that are just caught off
guard completely when they start testing. And I don't think you need a test forever. I kind of think that
you should go. These are the foods that I eat all the time. These are the ones are the most curious about.
Set up your experiments. Do one at a time. Watch the whole thing. Only put one thing in your mouth at a
time. So it's like literally you're the guinea pig and you're the mad scientist. Try these things. Right? But
it's not something you would do all the time. Once you figure out what foods are good and bad for you,
you can usually figure it out within the two week time frame of the of the sensor, but I would. That's
usually what I tell people. Hang on to another sensor for later in case you want to do some investigations
to line up your experiments is usually what I say, but typically within two weeks. And I actually think,
um, Mark Hyman did a little program on this, and he had people that did one week with and one week,
one week doing a high carb diet and one week on a low carb diet. And how the difference was. But they
were using cgms using continuous glucose monitoring. So they were able to see the difference even over
the course of two weeks. Like when they did the high carb diet, they had a hard time sticking with the
diet because they were hungry so quick. But when they did the low carb diet, the hunger went away and
they're like, man, I'm trying to make my calories here. According to your study, and I'm not really
hungry, so I'm kind of skipping breakfast here. This is difficult. So people are always shocked with
things that they thought were healthy. That it opened their eyes and like, you know what? That oatmeal
really wasn't what I thought it was. I didn't realize that it spiked me even when I, when I did this. Or like
sweet potato versus regular potato, like, you should see the difference. You should measure the
difference. You should know the difference. I feel like my my philosophy has been when somebody sees
it and they learn it, you can't unsee it. Now you have to. You have a choice. You can act upon it, that
number. And that's usually where the accountability is incredibly helpful. When you have a coach that
someone's teaching you and showing you like, hey, did you see what you did? Right. But knowing,
knowing that I think, dictates future success. And this is about long term success. And you can you can
go as slow as you want, or you can just take that and scan that number. Put the phone in your pocket.
And pretend like it didn't happen. I see that a lot. People that don't get the education when they're doing
the CGM. You you really you really want to know what you're looking at. I've had a lot of people. I'vehad very few people actually know what they're looking at. But most people are like, yeah, I don't really
know what it means. It is kind of confusing. There's a lot of graphs, a lot of numbers. It's like a new
language, I get it. But that's what I'm trying to do as the diabetes. I'm trying to bridge that gap of
knowledge, because I feel like the knowledge is what determines the success. If we really want to reverse
chronic disease and fix mental health and wellness, mental health in our country, we have to look at our
food. And what is our reaction to the food? What does the food cause? Does it cause a hormonal
imbalance? Because it's more about hormonal imbalance and your reaction to the food than it is about
calories. As long as we stay focused on calories, we're never going to find this little secret, because I feel
like it's been a little secret. I feel like insulin resistance has been.
Speaker 2
[00.28.36]
Just the £6, 606 ton gorilla in the room that no one's looking at it. Why are we ignoring this? Yeah.
Doctors don't even look at fasting insulin unless you ask them to. Because they're not taught to look at
Speaker 1
[00.28.52]
that. It's crazy.
Speaker 2
[00.28.55]
I think they're so paranoid that the patient's going to come back and go, what does this mean? And he's
not going to have a good answer. But if you want to know if that was your patient, you think that you
would do just a little bit more, just a little bit more because I the typical response I get is that's going to
that's going to screw up your cholesterol. It's bad for your cholesterol. You cannot do that. That's so
wrong. Okay. Now now I'm going to tell your cardiologists, right. Your cholesterol is going to going to
go really bad and you are going to become, um, it's too restrictive and you can't and you can't continue it.
There's just so many things you can't eat and there's no way you can maintain it. Although there's so
much freaking data that says, yes, people can do this for years, years. And how do we know that they're
actually doing the diet? They're not just mouthing it. Oh yeah, I'm doing it. No no no no, they're
measuring ketones still. They're still measuring ketones five years later. That is a diet that you can say,
this is not a fad diet. And and the cholesterol myth that has been just the it has been the worst, absolute
worst mistake in humankind. Ansel Keyes, the 1950s going on about how it's the cholesterol in our diet.
When you when you surveyed very few people in post-World War, World War two Europe, you did a
very small food survey, and you based the diet, essentially of a low cholesterol diet and recommended it
to all Americans because you were loud and very convincing, didn't look at all the data. I only looked at
seven countries because it made a nice straight line. He had access to 23, ignored it. Cherry picked his
data. That's why we're here. That is the sole reason he he was loud and convincing. Not right, just loud.
Speaker 1
[00.30.58]
And there's often a financial incentive to be allowed to. I mean, most likely the studies were funded by
big food companies, pharmaceutical companies. You know, the typical culprits. And so, yeah, we've got
to pay our bills. And so if we're offering if we're being offered a large sum of money to manipulate the
data, then it's kind of hard to resist that. But as you talk about this stuff, it also makes me think of another
book called lies I Taught in Medical School by Robert Lufkin.
Speaker 2
[00.31.29]
Robert Lufkin. Yeah. Oh, you read that? Yeah yeahSpeaker 1
[00.31.33]
yeah yeah, yeah. Talks about following a ketogenic diet. And interestingly, he himself has been on a
ketogenic diet for many years. And he even talks about only eating one meal a day. So he's like extreme
intermittent fasting. And it's it's kind of funny how like when we cut the carbs out of our diet, we actually
don't need as much as long as we're focused on nutrient dense
Speaker 2
[00.32.00]
foods. Right. Because you're not nutrient deficient, so you're not hungry. You don't have this massive
desire to eat and go find some nutrients you're deficient in. And the list of deficiencies is long that that
you will. You'll run into problems if you if you don't address these these deficiencies. But I mean, I just
think of the simplest of building blocks, which is protein and amino acids. Plant sources are inferior. I
mean, there's a lot of data showing that when the absorption just isn't there, when you use plant source
versus animal sources, the absorption rate is significantly higher with animal sources, and not to mention
is absorbed
Speaker 1
[00.32.46]
from plant foods. The nutrients have to be converted to a usable form first. Yeah, it just takes more. Your
body really wants this, right? You do you really want to expend that energy like the brain? Uh, well, the
brain has to make its own cholesterol, but, like, the body would have to make cholesterol if you didn't eat
enough of it. That to me, just like it costs like 100 calories of of basically, ATP has to be generated to
make something that I could get from my diet. Why would I why would I want to tax my body that way?
Why do I want to work so hard? It just doesn't seem like that that they have walked away from. But it's
so crazy because the American Heart Association will say, oh, this is not a nutrient of concern. And then
they'll turn around and say, but you should limit to less than, I don't know what their number. I think 2 or
300, um, milligrams of cholesterol per day. And that basically would force you into a low fat, low
saturated fat diet. Why why, why? Why are you trying to do this?
Speaker 2
[00.33.47]
It's. It all centers around this. This call what it is. It's the statin industry. It's big pharma. Big pharma
convincing you. And they've done this for so long. Just think about, like, the inventor of, like, the first
statin did not take a statin when he needed to lower his cholesterol. Right. And we could talk forever
about cholesterol. It's very frustrating because I get angry because there's so many people. There's so
many victims of this. And I have I have no place, no place in in my little head as to wrap my, wrap my
head around why a woman would ever be on a cholesterol lowering drug for primary prevention. These
people have never had a heart attack, but you want to throw them on that. They don't have an have any
sauce and any any evidence of inflammation. And your high sensitivity C-reactive protein is low like less
than 0.5. There's there's you don't have inflammation. So. That wouldn't be a concern. Cardiovascular
disease is definitely inflammation driven. People with inflammation. You got to measure it. High
sensitivity C-reactive protein as an inflammatory marker is absolutely critical. The proper interpretation
of your labs are really, really critical. And you're right. Fasting insulin needs to be a part of this because
we know that when people have elevated insulin, they have insulin resistance. They got a problem with
the glucose metabolism in their brain. If you're consistently walking around with an elevated insulin level
and remember you have this blood brain barrier, the BBC, and it has to shuttle insulin across this
membrane. And when your insulin level is elevated within your body, so much so often for so long,
you're not getting as much insulin going across that that barrier, that membrane. So now you have not
enough insulin in your brain. But you got lots of glucose because that can cross the blood brain barrier
very easily. Just just shuttles across. No problem. But now your brain has a low insulin problem and it's
swimming in a high glucose soup. Blood sugar is elevated and insulin is low. But you can't get thatglucose that the brain is swimming in into the cells because it needs insulin to do that. So you got this
blood glucose with inside your brain loaded super loaded with glucose. So the brain cerebral um, blood
flow has a ton of glucose and not enough insulin to utilize it. So now you have a low glucose
metabolism. You are not burning your glucose very well, so you have less brain energy. So now the
energy within the brain is starting to go down. And it's really the problem is it's the body's insulin
resistance driving this problem along with many others. You know, we could talk forever about like
what? Mitochondrial toxins are in our in our environment. But I think all of these books really, really
touch on that. And that is like the mitochondria is the center of disease. But it's also it's also the center in
the origin of all your energy when you've got an energy problem. Yeah, it makes sense that disease
would be would be what follows. It's we're all suffering really from a mitochondrial problem. What are
what are we doing to our environment? With our environment. How are we damaging our mitochondria?
Instead of saying, you know, I could say live a low insulin lifestyle because that live a very mitochondria
favorable environment is what you really want to create for your little dudes, because those guys are so
critically important. I mean, they're like little colonies. They're not just one, they're not isolated. There's a
whole bunch of them and they can communicate with each other. They can communicate with your
DNA, they can communicate with the cell next door. They can tell that these dudes are are really the
source of life. So let's keep these guys healthy. Insulin goes up when the when the mitochondria is
unhealthy. You think about the the mitochondria as, as its ability to to burn this excess fuel in our body.
And it can't do that. If it has insulin always telling it to not do that. Insulin at a cell will constantly signal
that cell store energy. Don't burn, don't burn fat. Don't do do not burn it to store it, just pack it away.
That's what insulin signals your cells to do, not burn less energy. Insulin slows your metabolic rate. You
have less energy when insulin elevated. No wonder we feel tired. Usually a couple hours after a meal.
That's insulin doing its effect. Slowing down your metabolism, lowering glucose, pushing fat and energy
into cells and not allowing you to access or burn it. But probably more importantly, what people don't
understand is that when you eat carbohydrates, you become dependent upon those carb. You shift your
energy usage mode to shut off fat, shut off completely, and to only burn carbs. You are now carb
dependent, which is quite frankly, is is a horrible fuel source. It's like a flash in the pan. It's like kindling
wood carbs burn hot and and they're short lived. And that tank really is tiny anyways. Versus these giant
logs. Would you rather throw up? You know, I would agree. Like, maybe if you're really into burning,
would you get the kindling to get it going? And then you throw those logs on afterwards for the longer
fire? We're not accessing those big oak logs and throwing them on the fire, because our insulin is always
there telling us to burn the kindling. Instead, we become kindling dependent. We become glucose
dependent. We're not spending enough time. That's that's the once, the day, once a day eating. It's like
you're you're spending a significant amount of your day with a very, very low insulin level. And when
you're doing that there is no carb dependency. You now start going, okay, let's start burning those. That
donut from three years ago, like the fat that's been stored, can finally let loose and get out of there like
you have opened up the gate. That barn door isn't closed anymore because of insulin, because insulin is
gone. So now this these cells are just ripping through energy. It's like cleaning up a five year old's room,
finally getting rid of all this garbage that's in here. Right? And start burning all these oak logs because
there's an excess of this fat and oak logs, whatever you want to call it. But there's an excess of energy it's
been accumulating for so long. And once you start tapping into that, you're tapping into energy, and your
body feels that energy. Your brain really will feel that energy. And I will tell you, like every single
patient, when they get into ketosis, they always talk about something, something different in their head,
something better, more. Brain energy is probably the most common, um, side effect of ketosis. So if we
were to go into this methodically, like I, I assume there there might be some listeners who are totally new
at this step by step,
Speaker 1
[00.41.36]
right? How would you suggest they get started?
Speaker 2
[00.41.40]Okay. Um, I usually tell people that you got to be a carb detective first and foremost. Right. So you're
going to start reading. You're going to start looking at your label. You're going to start reading your
labels. You need to get some support. You need to let people know around you. This is what I'm doing.
This is help me be vulnerable and ask for help and realize that you're going to make mistakes. And this
this is a journey to the end. This is no looking back. And I'll be honest that you cannot unlearn this stuff.
Once you learn it, you cannot unlearn. Once you see, you can't unsee what the food is doing or or what
your lifestyle is doing to you. So it's it's this journey of like, I'm never looking back. I'm going to re-
identify myself. I might change my room up. I might make some changes, whatever it takes. New
clothes, whatever. Some people are like, I don't know if you've read the book. I'm sure you have. Um,
what's his name? Uh. Atomic habits. Michael cleary. What's his. Oh,
Speaker 1
[00.42.44]
I haven't read it, but I've heard of it.
Speaker 2
[00.42.46]
Yeah, he's talking about, like, little, tiny little things that you can do. Yeah. It's basically, it's the minute
little changes over a long period of time, you're changing the trajectory of your life, right? So go slow. Be
patient. Long term success occurs in those that make permanent changes. There is no such thing as a goal
weight. Okay. You will get there in due time. How long did it take you to get here? It's not going to take
you as long to get back out, I'll tell you that. It never does, but. If we look at this and go, I want these
changes to be people go, oh man, I love it. And I'll say to them like, okay, what foods are you really
enjoying? What foods can you do from here to the end? What do you really love? Because this is about
like, how can I fall in love again with my own, my own life and my own journey? And how can I get.
How can I make long term success achievable?
Speaker 1
[00.43.49]
If you've been listening to this episode and you're like, yeah, low carb diet sounds really good, but how
do I get started? You might be interested in my group nutrition program. It is offered online. So
regardless of what state or country you're in, you can join. Go to Beavercreek Wellness for more
information and I'll put a link in the show notes.
Speaker 2
[00.44.11]
How can I fall in love again with my own, my own life and my own journey? And how can I get? How
can I make long term success achievable? Look. Look at your foods. Look at your lifestyle. Look at
measure what you can and just start looking at it. It's just not going okay. How much sleep am I getting?
Not just looking at the clock, but like I think some of this, this wearable data can really help you fine tune
some of these things, and you can make little changes that can have a number effect. And you can go,
hey, this is working. Otherwise you're going to go to your doctor, you're going to get a lab. And then and
you're going to pay X number of dollars, and you're going to wait for another lab a year later or whatever,
three months, six months or whatever. Like, no, you can push and and pull on these levers on a daily
basis and see changes within a short period of time. So you can go, hey, you know what really works?
When I get up at this time and when I do this, when I go outside and I get some sunlight setting up my
day for success, right? I'm starting to walk more. I'm starting to move more. That typically happens once
people fix their fueling problem. I don't even mention movement on my first discussion. They tell me that
all of a sudden they're like, I'm going to the gym, or I'm walking with my mom, or I'm starting to do this.
Like, it's almost like they have to move because the energy is so significant and they start realizing that
they can move but go slow. Create the habits, habits. Right. Do you go through the motions essentially.
And eventually the feelings will follow and the motivation and the inspiration follow. But go throughthat, that mundane, um, just go through the motions and everything else will follow. You'll feel like
you're doing the right thing. You'll know that this is what you need to be doing. You gotta keep make
this. This is serious. Like you can't do this diet, um, haphazardly. You can't do this diet and get to a goal
weight and then go, I'm good. Now what do I do? Like, no, that is never the discussion. You'll never hear
that out of me. It's like, no. How can you make this permanent? How can you do this to the end? Look
what it's doing for your life. This should be your inspiration. Look how much more you can do now. Do
you realize you have just basically just hit the tip of the iceberg here on what you're capable of doing?
That's what I don't think people realize. You don't think that you don't know what you're capable of, and
you also think that you have plenty of time. Right. We don't have tons of time. Life is being wasted in
front of our eyes. That's kind of why I'm here. I don't like to see the misinformation cause so much
suffering and waste of life. We're not a waste of life. This. This doesn't need to be like this. And when I
see the suffering everywhere I go and I think, oh my gosh, I want to scream when I hit the gym. It's your
food. As you see these people on these treadmills going like, oh my gosh, there's a better way. There's a
much, much better way than this. This is torture. You're all victims. It's like make make a change that
you know that you can do baby steps. You're not trying to. You're not trying to do anything overnight. If
you do try to do this overnight. If you're on any sort of medication, it could be dangerous. Um, but I think
there's a there's a process that people have to go through. It takes some time. And people oftentimes the
biggest complaint is this keto flu, you feel like garbage. You feel fatigued. You feel like you don't have
an energy like look. You'll get through it. Think of it like this. You're switching your engine. The engine
needs new parts. We got to swap out those old parts and put in new parts. And the engine is going to run
better, but it's going to take some time. So what I typically find is that people will lose a bunch of water
weight. And when you lose a bunch of waterways, the electrolytes kind of go with it. So sodium,
potassium and like and if you drink coffee it's even worse. But you're losing your electrolytes are
oftentimes linked to how you're feeling mentally. Like low sodium feels awful. Typically you'll have a
headache and feel fatigued and you just feel like quitting, right? Those are your body's way of telling
you, hey, you might need some salt here. So, um, some people take salt tablets. You could salt your
coffee. You could, you can, you can salt it. Put salt in your hand. Pop it. Um, there's there's, um, different
salt drinks. I know keto has a good salt drink. Uh, element has a good salt drink, but you can just add this
to your water, making sure you're getting your electrolytes. Typically, if you have a headache from keto
flu, man, that is gone in 5 to 10 minutes. If you just pop some salt and you know that you needed that salt
because you weren't thirsty afterwards, you're like, oh, wow. So that that is a really common problem is
people get this, this keto keto flu. Yeah. And it's I hate when people. Here's another thing. People think
that if I go on a diet, I'm going to have to go to the gym a lot. And I don't think that's the case. I think the
gym will come in due time. You're going to want to go to the gym because you're going to enjoy the
consistency and the results that you're getting. The movement will help feed your brain. Um, I think
another, another determinant of success is you got to have the you got to have friends. You got to have
friends that are really supportive family members, you know, people that have the there was a study,
actually with a company that I'm partnering with. I'm really excited to be partnering with it's systems. It's
sure medics is the name of the company. And they did a study to show that, um, particularly women who
had at least five accountability partners were the most successful. So I'm not surprised as women, women
are just so much more social than men. It just it makes me a little jealous, um, that they're so comfortable
with around each other and and just this free flow of sharing feeling, which is kudos to women. But
anyways, um, that that they could create an accountability. Structure that could help them achieve
success. I think that's. That's not just good for you, but it's good for everybody. The person that's doing
the accountability, you're you're basically just improving their life by spreading the word because it won't
it will be just a matter of time before, you know, they're supporting. You're supporting them. Right? I
mean, the shoes on the other foot, because now you want to see their success because you're enjoying
your success. It's like, how many, how many? If you've had a positive experience, how many other
people do you tell about that positive experience? You know, it's like ten, right? And it just it just has
steamrolled. Right. As we see more and more people doing this ketogenic lifestyle, we see more and
more people not just producing books and doing scientific studies, but more and more people like doing
these testimonies online. And it's just amazing. I love looking at before and after photos. It's like it's just
incredible. I mean, my, my mind's pretty good. I mean, I, I like mine, but seeing these people lose £100,
um, actually, I guess I could say it. My son's lost 70. I have a nephew lost 80. So it's. It works. It works
on everybody. But you got to think about this as a as a rut. It's a it's a permanent rut. You got to keep
raining on that. Keep causing that erosion. Make those ruts deeper and deeper so that it's really ingrained
into a different brain now. And now you are a different person. You you are a little bit different. Youdon't eat like everybody else. You can't eat like everybody else and think that you're going to look
different. It's just it's probably the most simplest mindset to look and feel different. You got to eat and
and be different. Your activities are very different and it may be somewhat socially isolating, but, um, I
think we're here to support everybody in this. Aren't we? Aren't we,
Speaker 1
[00.52.39]
Cody? Totally. Yeah. I like what you said earlier about how when you learn it, you can't unlearn it. Or
when you experience it or feel it, you can't. You can't undo that. And I see that a lot. I mean, people don't
really get into this stuff, sadly, until they have a serious health problem that they just don't want to cover
up with medication. So they're kind of forced to learn, and then they start feeling better and then they get
really into it. But for listeners who aren't quite at that point, I would encourage you to just get into it
anyway. I saw a comment just yesterday, actually, and it depicted a guy sitting on an examination table in
a doctor's office. And he was talking to the doctor and he was saying, so, doctor, how long do I have until
I have to change my diet and lifestyle? Yeah, change it now. How many more? How many more months
do I have? How many more years? Right. It's like the ultimate procrastination. But you know what? It
starts off with the with just a little bit of vulnerability, a little bit of humility to say, you know what? I'm
wrong. This was wrong. This is not the right diet. This is not good for me. I gotta quit ignoring all these
signs. I don't want to end up like everybody else like that, that that I that rock bottom point, everybody
kind of has to hit. But to me, it's like, I don't want you to go all the way to that horrible diagnosis. I mean,
I've had I've had people younger than me come to the hospital and diagnosed with cancer and you're like,
did anyone ever ask you what you eat or drink? Like, no. What do you mean? Like, what do you mean
that you, you you eat eggs and bacon on a regular basis. Please define that. And he's like, well. Once a
week. Like, no that's not that's not regularly. Like, what do you eat? Like cereal. Like as long as cereal
and soda and orange juice. And these juices are part of our life, man. You're you're playing. You're
playing with fire. And that's what I mean. Once, you know, once you once you do the deep dive and you
start looking up stuff like, okay, what is what what is the I know I didn't talk about cancer, but like, what
is the incidence of insulin resistance and breast cancer? Like, why do breast cancer tissue have like 6 or 7
times more insulin receptors. These these cells love glucose. You think about like do you really want a
high glucose level? Do you want to constantly be feeding glucose into cells that that can't burn ketones
instead? To me it seems like I want to I want to kill the cells that can only survive off of glucose. I want
to kill those tumor tumor cells that absolutely thrive in a high glucose environment. I want to keep my
glucose as low as possible. Matter of fact, you know what? I'm not going to eat any carbs. I'm not going
to eat any glucose, because the amount of carbs that I know that I need is zero. We've got plenty of
evidence. Plenty of scientific evidence that the very, very healthy people who don't eat any
carbohydrates. Didn't die. They made glucose from other substrates. Then their brain energy stayed fine.
It stayed optimal because they use ketones and fat for energy and not glucose. And they didn't get
Alzheimer's disease, which is, you know, this type II diabetes where you just don't have you have too
much insulin within your body and then not enough glucose that is being utilized within your brain. It's
the brain body connection and it's there. And we can't keep ignoring that. What we put in our mouth
certainly affects our cognitive function. How we feel mentally. Forget about the physical part. Just
mentally do it for your mental health just to stay sane.
Speaker 2
[00.56.51]
I have to admit that like I, I feel I'm a lot more in control emotionally when I'm feeling my brain properly
and getting the sleep that I need. And it's not usually the feeling of the body that's the problem. What?
Typically. Triggers or sends me down the wrong path is my knowledge of the fact that, hey, I didn't get
enough sleep, and then I go ahead and I get worked up and have this huge cortisol spike and spike my
blood sugar for the next two days. I feel like that's valuable information. I feel like that information could
sway you to make better choices. If I can do that for just one person, it would be totally worth it. Totally
worth it. And I typically find that they'll say, yeah, I'm getting along better. I feel more in control of mythoughts. My my habits and my cravings are a little bit easier doing this ketogenic diet. And there's some
really good data about, um, addiction and withdrawal, um, with the ketogenic diet. And that's something
you probably should talk about. And that is like sugar withdrawal is a it's a real syndrome.
Speaker 1
[00.58.03]
Oh yeah. It's totally an addiction.
Speaker 2
[00.58.06]
Oh it's it's but it's it's like we we need to create a boot camp, help people get through that 5 to 7 days of
just hell. I mean, if you can expect it and you know, this is going to happen, I think that's very
encouraging, knowing that there's light at the end of this tunnel, that you don't have to be a sugar addict
and feel out of control and feel like a slave to this pure white and deadly drug that you can get off of it
and and take back your life. That requires a fair amount of support that that you need help for that. And I
think it's such a worthwhile endeavor because. Once you get rid of that sensation of sweetness on your
tongue. And and really, like, the tongue becomes kind of like glucose and insulin resistant. You get a
fatty tongue and you don't get as much stimulation from those sweet sensors. And every time you get that
sweet sensor, that's that's insulin spiking itself as soon as you hit that on your tongue. It's artificial.
Otherwise. Artificial sweeteners didn't save us. Right. And a lot of people use this as a crutch. It really
shouldn't be much of a crutch. It has many other problems associated with it. But getting rid of that
sweetness and being able to, like, reduce the concentration of sweetness, you will find that you will not
be able to tolerate something that's really sweet. Like the amount of sweetness factor comes down
significantly. Your taste buds start becoming revived. And I would and I would say that you almost have
like, um, a resurgence of, of savory, um, what do you call a mame um, sensation the like the spicy
savory. Um. Sensation when you eat certain foods that will become almost like an addiction. I'd rather
people have that kind of addiction which usually craving pushing you in the right food direction versus
the sweetness. The sweetness is you got to wean off of it. It's difficult, but it's doable. Yeah. You know
what? That's so many people's love. Language is food. Yeah. And it's that's that's what's different. Like,
no. Hey, um, we don't have to do all of our social events around food. I don't need a treat. Like, don't, but
don't take offense to it. To me, if I say no, I don't want because I like, literally, I'm going to throw it
away. And I feel really bad if I throw it away. I know you worked hard on this, but it's like, I can't do
this. You really don't want to know why. I don't want to hurt your feelings. So there's always this man.
It's so delicate, so delicate. You can really alienate yourself by saying, I don't do this anymore. Don't do
that for me. That's horrible. Like, it's it's difficult. It's not the funnest. It's not the most pleasant
experience. And that's what I feel like. You may feel somewhat isolated and you painted yourself on a
corner. Um. And you'll. You'll you'll find. Hopefully you'll find yourself inspiring others and doing
being, being helpful and in the most incredibly tactful and kind way. But understand like there's people
don't mean harm. And when they bring in cakes like we would get that stuff at the at the pharmacy every
year or you know, like or they're giving out some sort of special employee treat and they're handing out
you a soda and like a cookie or I'm like, really? You really? But you know what? Again, victims, we're
all victims. They don't know. It's not their fault that they don't know. This is not not an evil plan. No
one's to blame. Your doctor isn't to blame. Like there's just we have to approach this as this isn't the right
choice. What could be better? How can we swap this out? How can how can we? How can we make
healthier snacks if we're going to make. If you even believe in snacking, I don't even believe that that
should be a word in our diet. It's not. That's not something man ever did. We either ate the meal or you
didn't eat the meal. And if you were snacking like you were just sloughing off your GI tract, you are just
stressing your body further, and you're the leaky gut and the the taxing of your immune system, which
has to stand guard when when your blood and your GI tract have to mix together. It's just there's so much
that that goes into understanding of nutrition and food. That that, um, we don't know. And really, no
one's. No one's talking about it yet, but that's. But that's why we're having this conversation.
Speaker 1[01.02.38]
And going back to the. You were talking about the kindling and how that's like carbohydrates. It burns
really fast. If you're eating a lot of carbohydrates, you're going to feel the need to snack
Speaker 2
[01.02.49]
because because you burn so fast,
Speaker 1
[01.02.51]
you're going to be hungry again. Your blood sugar is going to be low and your body's going to want
more. But if you're burning fat instead, then you'll probably be okay without snacks.
Speaker 2
[01.03.02]
Yeah, yeah you will. You you will find yourself well fueled.
Speaker 1
[01.03.06]
So last time I asked you, what's one thing you think people can do to change the way they approach
health and wellness? And I think you said education. Does that sound right?
Speaker 2
[01.03.17]
Yeah, absolutely. Education is critical.
Speaker 1
[01.03.20]
Education is critical. But if you could change that answer and say something else, what would that be
today? No, it's still education. Education is everything. Fair enough. I mean, everything that I'm doing is
education. And there's no it's just awareness. It's like you need to see this. Um. Do you do you know what
this does? You know what that does? Do you do you have do you have the informed consent to take
these medications? Do you have the informed consent? Night that you decide to stay up late. Do you
have the informed consent every time you put this food into your mouth? Like how much? You don't. We
don't have the informed consent because we're not informed. We don't know. We've been guessing this
whole time. No one has the informed consent. No one's having that discussion. And that's the discussion
that we all need. A way. Right? And stop giving them the wrong information. Stop with the garbage that
you can't sustain this. It's going to. It's going to ruin your cholesterol. Your heart is going to explode. It's
just going to get all clogged up. Like how in the world can a diet reduce inflammation but increase
cardiovascular disease? Maybe you got part of this, part of this wrong. Maybe yes it does. Well, it does
reduce inflammation, but maybe it doesn't cause cardiovascular disease. Maybe it doesn't increase your
risk for cardiovascular disease. Maybe inflammation is very tightly linked to cardiovascular disease. So is
insulin. How long will it take for a cardiologist or the American Heart Association? Go. Okay. We're
now measuring insulin in everybody now, because now we know that there's a there's a correlation
between insulin and cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes as we know. But why aren't we looking at
insulin. We're just not looking insulin. You've got manufacturers telling the Ada and the Aha to not look
at insulin, to cast a shadow of a doubt about this very, very important hormone that basically determines
your fuel, your fuel, um, usage. It's either going to be storing fat or burning fat. You need to ask yourself
which one do you want? The only way to start burning fat and tapping into that, that energy you've beencarrying around forever is to lower insulin. And that typically requires that you live a better lifestyle. But
more importantly, you have to look at your food. You've got to you have to measure your ketones. You
can't manage what you're not measuring. And it's just it's not the growing pains. Yes, I realize we're
going to have them. It's going to feel like a new language. It's going to feel foreign for a while. It doesn't
have to be like that. Invest in yourself. Invest in your own education. Um. Invest in your own knowledge
because that knowledge is going to save you. This is probably the most important thing that you can do
every day is to gain better knowledge about your own health, because that's really going to lengthen out
these days. And it's VO2 max. It's always going to require movement. It's so, so crazy that that's what
how we live longer is increase your VO2 max. That's how well are you breathing. How well is your heart
and lungs working together? Like how much exercise can you do? How what's your tolerance of
exercise. And then look at muscle strength and muscle size. All these things are going to come back to
how are you feeling your body. How much energy do you have. Right. How much movement can you
do? Because movement is what saves us. Movement saves us because think about what we just said here.
Like your brain's going to function better because your muscles can now take up that excess glucose and
keep your brain from swimming in glucose. You've changed your insulin sensitivity through that
movement, through that exercise. Insulin levels can start dropping. You can you don't have this insulin
resistance going on within your body but also within your brain. Now insulin can do its job in your brain,
right. And now you're moving. Your brain can adapt. Your brain would much rather run on ketones. It's
it's going to start loving you back because you're finally burning what it needs, not what it wants, but
what it actually needs. So I think you got to take back your brain. And the only way to do that is educate
yourself as to what diet and lifestyle will will give you the biggest bang for the buck. I think it's it's an
easy win. I don't think it costs that much. Changing your food. People. People think that I have a
restrictive diet. It's not restrictive. This is this is this is like. This is a high octane fuel for me. For me. I'm.
I'm after that. Trust me. Nothing. Well, I've got tri tip in the car, but, like, there should be a steak on your
plate, like, every day. Eggs should be a part of your diet. Eggs are little pieces of little multivitamins.
Eggs are the probably the most valuable thing that we could possibly put in our mouth every day with all
the essentials. Like you literally wouldn't need anything else. Matter of fact, there's studies done with
people that are eating like 30 something eggs a day and they didn't die. Yes. Oh their cholesterol. Well,
whatever excess cholesterol they have, they're going to poop it out. Let's let's calm down about the
cholesterol. Like, really? Unless you've already had a heart attack or you got some strange genetic
predisposition for having really, really high cholesterol, you don't need to worry about your cholesterol
and taking a drug. What you really need to do is what do you have control over? You have control of
what you put in your mouth and everything that you do every single day. Your behavior is under your
control. Your movement is under your control. But it works best when you change the fuel, change the
fuel to fat, change it to ketones. And you'll watch and we'll know that it's working. You'll feel better, but
probably more importantly, we'll have physical evidence your triglycerides will drop. In the vertical
study, they dropped over 50%. Your triglycerides, the amount of fat in your bloodstream, which is a very
good predictor for cardiovascular disease. That number will go very low. Matter of fact, if you keep on
this diet, like for here to the end, your triglycerides will will get very low and your HDL, that good
cholesterol will get very high. And that ratio of really, really the healthy ratio is going to get very, very
close to less than two. It'll probably be closer to one. So triglycerides over HDL is really important. Um
metabolic marker I know probably talk about cardiovascular disease on this podcast, but it's really
important that, you know, we've got a healthy heart and and we we can we can modify this. This is
something we have control over. We we can feel ourselves better and fix this problem. We don't have to
be a victim of cardiovascular disease. We don't, which is the number one killer. But
Speaker 2
[01.10.19]
to protect ourselves against that, we have to figure out what's going on and really learn how we can
manage it by looking at it and making our own changes. I'm not interested in having a patient for the rest
of my life, right? And for and vice versa. I really don't want a long term patient. I just want a patient for
three months. It's very intense in the beginning. I'll guide them through this process, but the goal is to let
them be on their own, let them figure it out for themselves. You give them enough knowledge, they can
figure it out from here to the end. And the the most educated patient is the one that has the best, the
longest lasting success. That's the goal. But you have to start now. Yeah. And that's. Yeah. I think you
don't have the timeSpeaker 1
[01.11.12]
started. And so just start now. And maybe it's just you're starting with eating more whole foods and then
you transition into lower and lower carb. But start now in some way or another.
Speaker 2
[01.11.23]
Yeah. Be a detective. Start looking at it. Yeah, definitely. And yeah, really? If you want to get into
ketosis, get yourself a little ketone meter. Measure your blood ketones. Your goal is to above 0.5. Like,
there's nothing wrong with measuring. They're cheap. They're like a buck a strip you can measure.
Glucose doesn't tell you that much when you're just a just a photo. Um, but, you know, these keto emoji's
come with the ketone as well as a glucose strip. And, yeah, it's you got to measure it. You really do. You
really need to know what, um, ketogenic diet really does feel like. I have a lot of people that say, oh, I
failed keto. I didn't do it. Uh, it doesn't work for me. It's not for everybody. It's like, well, did you
measure ketones because you're talking to me like you've never really was in ketosis? Because everybody
that I talked to and when they're ketones above 0.5 and like they actually feel pretty good, they're, they're
not whining about how hungry they are. They feel pretty energized. So yeah, you need to start
somewhere. You need to you got to give yourself a little bit of slack though, and go, oh, I'm going to fail
a couple of times. I'm this is. But it's not failure. When you get up again, it's like, no, wait a minute. What
did I learn from this? What did I learn about myself? I think that's the coolest part, is what you learn,
what you're capable of. And I think, really, the sky's the limit. You know, we all have untapped skills and
capabilities that we haven't either seen for a long time, or it's just it's been there, just waiting to be
discovered. And the only way you're going to discover that is just change the fuel. Change the fuel. Swap
it out. Swap the engine out.
Speaker 1
[01.13.04]
Well, thanks for being on the show again, Kyle, I enjoyed
Speaker 2
[01.13.07]
it. Ah. That's fun. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you leave a review that really helps me out. And
also subscribe to the show wherever you listen to your podcasts. Real Food Mental Health is intended for
informational and entertainment purposes only. The information presented on this podcast is not intended
to replace any medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. While I am a healthcare provider, I am not your
provider. Always seek the advice of an appropriate health care practitioner with any personal questions
Speaker 1
[01.13.37]
you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in
seeking it because of something you've heard on this podcast. Reliance on information provided by this
podcast is at your own risk.