Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #439 Beyond the Gym: Embracing Rucking & Health w/ Kayla Girgen

Episode Date: January 4, 2026

In this podcast episode, the host welcomes Kayla Girgen, a dietitian and author of "Ruck Fit," a book focused on rucking. They discuss Kayla's background, inspiration for the book, and the benefits of rucking, citing personal anecdotes and experiences. The conversation covers Kayla's journey from academic endeavors to her passion for fitness and nutrition, eventually leading to her own business. They highlight the physical and mental benefits of rucking, the importance of proper gear, and strategies for getting started. Additional topics include blood sugar management, the impact of sleep on health, and the flexibility of intermittent fasting. Kayla also shares information about her CGM program and an upcoming rucking challenge in collaboration with GORUCK. The episode emphasizes practical advice for initiating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.   Kayla Girgen is a certified personal trainer and licensed dietitian who specializes in weight management, metabolism support, and sustainable habit change. She completed her supervised practice at the Mayo Clinic and works at the intersection of fitness and nutrition.   FULL TEMPLE RESET registration is now open. Check it out here: https://kingsbu.com/fulltemplereset The Community is coming! Click here to learn more   Connect with Kayla here: Instagram: @kaylagirgenrd Ruck Fit   Connect with Kyle: I'm back on Instagram, come say hey @kylekingsbu Twitter: @kingsbu Our Farm Initiative: @gardenersofeden.earth Odysee: odysee.com/@KyleKingsburypod Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Kyle-Kingsbury Kyle's Website: www.kingsbu.com - Gardeners of Eden site   If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe & leave a 5-star review with your thoughts!

Welcome to today's podcast. We have Kayla Gergan. She is a dietician and the author of Ruck Fit. Really cool book on Rucking. Haven't had a chance to dive into it yet, but I saw from her publisher that she was going to write about this book. And honestly, I've been into this now for a while. I tell a couple stories on here, but it's one worth mentioning. Back in 2013, my wife and I went to Hawaii for the X Terra Trail Racing World Championship.

And before the race, we were hiking in a bunch of cool places. and, you know, my wife has an limited endurance so we could do all this shit and she wasn't worried about getting her legs tired. But I think it was diamond head or cocoa head, whatever the one is more steeper, we get up there for sunrise, right? So we get up there, it's still dark outside, first light,

hiking up this stuff. It's like railroad tracks pounded in the side of this mountain so you can hike up. And it's damn near vertical. You know, get up to the top. We take photos of the sunrise. We start heading back down.

There's a military guy who's probably, I don't know, a buck 60, buck 70 thick legs little shorter and he's got 80 pounds of freaking gear on his body and he tells me I'm like holy shit dude you're just flying up this thing he was going faster up than I was with no weight on and he goes yep my fourth lap and my mouth hit the ground to see someone with that level of endurance and strength by the way and it's functional right so from that moment on I had a deep respect for what that could do for people. Farmers carries and, of course, things like that are also incredibly beneficial in the

strength game. Anybody that's gotten into more functional movement understands the importance of training your trunk from the feet up. But I got a 40-pound vest from Rogue. I've been walking around, doing a lap around the farm pretty much daily. And occasionally, I'll go for a jog with it. And I just feel better. Like, everything feels stronger.

I feel lighter without it. And so hearing she had written this entire book on it, I was like, this is good. We get somebody on here, point people in the right direction. It is an incredible practice that anyone can pick up. And as we talk about in this podcast, there's so much, so much benefit to it outside of just the physical fitness. All right, without further ado, Kayla Gergen. Kayla, welcome to the podcast.

It's great to have you. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. Glad to be here. I'm stoked. I get a lot of emails, but I just want to say this because I know there'll be, uh, what do you call like a uh they're not hype men but they are they are hype men like a publishing agent you know like people that are that are like always writing you're like oh hey this guy's got a podcast

he's in the top whatever and um oh i loved your and it's always i loved your last podcast you did with so and so here's who i've gotten why you should have them you know and so i have to sift through those and it's probably like 99 out of 100 that just get dumped immediately but i saw you were writing a book on rucking and i was like oh this is awesome actually it's something that I dearly love and have not really ever had an expert on the podcast to talk about it. I was into it a long time ago, when I started getting into functional fitness, obviously I'm 43 years old now, but like most people in the 80s, watched Arnold was reading muscle bags, doing all the bullshit lifts in the gym at 24-hour fitness. And then because I was an

athlete, a football player, and then a fighter, it's like, oh, that's kind of old school. We've got different ways of training. Let's look at a kettlebell. Let's look into the Weck method. Let's look into all these different things, and carrying heavy loads was something that was almost universal, you know, all the various forms of farmers walk and, uh, rucking as well. And a lot of my military guys who are in phenomenal shape are, our experts at rucking. And it's something that you can do for a very long time. Um, I love the fact that that for women, it's going to be such a game changer, especially in the face of osteoporosis. So I'd love for you, you know, before we dive into rucking, because that'll be, that'll be the meat and potatoes of this. Tell me about you. Tell me about

your life. What was life like for you growing up? What got you into the things that you're into today? And then let's dive into Ruckford. Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you for not sending me to spam. So, but I, I'm in central Minnesota. I grew up in a teeny tiny town, less than a thousand people. I was very much more, I would say, academic versus athletic. So in junior high, my stepdad actually was deployed after 9-11. So I kind of like hung back and I dropped out of sports to help with the family business and was very much like type a personality, like didn't want to be a burden to anybody, like very much like achievement based. And I think a lot of that like followed me through into adulthood. And I was one of the, you know, first people in my family to really go to

a four year college and initially started out. I was pre pharmacy. I had no idea what I wanted to do. You know, they just don't prep you and like say you're good at this. Like here's some good job. So I was like, okay, a pharmacist pays well. You know, that was really. where my folks were pushing me to go. And then, you know, after floundering my first, like, freshman year, I hit my first biochem class. And I was like, wow, like, I really have to rethink things. And, you know, wasn't like terribly passionate about that. And really kind of transferred to business and psychology and eventually just kind of walked away for a little bit after, you know, floundering and majors. And really ended up in the, in the corporate world for a while. And on the side,

I really found myself looking into things like fitness and nutrition. And like you were saying, like, I loved bodybuilding.com and health and fitness magazine. This was before we got like all of our information off of social media. And for me personally, I think like what I really pulled out of that, I started going for my personal training certification. But then what I really resonated with was a lot of the nutrition and the discipline as well. So I ended up eventually getting my personal training certification, but then also. got my RD so registered dietitian and was kind of in and out of like retail and clinical weight management. And I think a lot of like the education that I learned after I graduated and passed my

boards was really, I think a lot of the things that I practiced today. So for example, I was like doling out, you know, 1,200 calorie meal plans for weight loss and, you know, low fat and low salt for heart disease. And eventually I was like, like, this is not working. And it really forced me to kind of take a step back. And, you know, with that, like working in health care, how Rucking kind of came into the picture, I was just like mentally burnt out, you know, really not having fun in my profession. So eventually I pivoted into my own business, which kind of brought with it, I would say a lot of, you know, its own challenges. So again, being like a high achiever, I was able to like burn the candle at both ends. I really love to work. And I think I really had a hard time

separating from that, especially when, like, you know, you're just, I think as an entrepreneur, like burnout seems like that would be, you know, like that just seems like it's the norm for a lot of times. It's your badge of honor, right? Exactly. Exactly. It's just like hustle hard. Like, you can sleep when you're dead. And, you know, eventually in all that, I just felt like really burnt out. My coping, you know, strategy at that time was alcohol, I think a lot. Like I felt like growing up that was something that, you know, you go out and party, all the responsibilities are kind of off to the side. And that was something that I really, I think, followed me into adulthood. But eventually I stumbled upon rucking. And that was something that I think allowed me to work

hard, but then also give my mind the rest that it needed. And I think really start to quell like some of that anxiety as well. And it's just something that like floundering between all or nothing a lot of times, it was either like two a days or none a days. I think thinking back on my personal fitness routine and this was something that really i think i was able to scale up or down depending on the day i could do it by myself i could do it with our you know group that we're that we ruck with so i could really kind of adapt it to what i needed at the time yeah it's it's such a cool tool because of the fact that it you know for many facts but one uh it's adaptable in that you can use it in a lot of different things you know i have a 40 pound just 20 pounds in the front 20 pounds

in the back from Rogue, like their standard flack jacket kind of deal. I've used smaller, you know, lighter ones when I was in MMA because I would want to jump rope and be quicker, right? So we're doing jumps, think more pliometrics and things. I think 10 pounds was fine there, but, you know, 40. And again, I've seen like military guys stacked up 100 pounds sometimes, just being crazy, just scaling mountains, you know, with 100 pounds on the back. I'm like, dude, there's no way I could do that.

But yeah, you can do it solo. You can do it with friends. I think one of the main components that's been such a big piece. and you hear guys like Jack Cruz, Dr. Jack Cruz talk about this, like how important it is to train outdoors rather than inside under fake lighting is not very well understood by the masses yet. And, you know, you go to these big box gyms. It's the worst kind of fluorescent lights overhead.

You know, you can watch that on it. You can see that on Instagram or anywhere online where they slow that down and it looks like a strobe light. That is just fucking burning out the nervous system. Yeah. No windows at all. Yeah. Frying the nervous system.

You're overtraining and doing repetitive. of stress stuff, whereas like you get outside, you're getting full spectrum light, you're getting fresh air. I always laughed at this when I was working on it. We had a writing team that was running alongside. And, you know, I focused on the podcast and creating supplements. And so this big article we did was talking about forest bathing. Japan, Japanese scientist did a whole thing on forest bathing. And it's like, you mean going outside? Like it has to be called something. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And so, but, you know, it was like three days, I think it was for people with depression, chronic depression. Three days a week, 30 minutes walk in the city, lowered, you know, 10% reduction in a depression.

But three days a week, 30 minutes in, in a forest, that 30 minutes actually, a lot of people were able to get off SSRIs. It was almost a complete remediation of depression. And so much can be said for that, too. But like, any time where I can stack tools, you know, that are beneficial for. myself and it's like well getting outside's a must uh being in nature if i can make that a part of it rather than a city that's another i'm checking another box there moving my body getting my steps you know applying weight some type of load that's going to help my bones change and my muscle change like you're hitting so many boxes when you do that when you when you fell in love

with this where was there much of a scientific approach to it was just like pure heart i love this thing and then let me let me find out like what this is all about yeah i feel like the science came second it was like I just fell in love with it because like you said you get outside you can really multitask I think what drew me to it initially was like okay you it's a mix of cardio and strength like certainly not going to replace strength trading but I think as you had mentioned earlier like for the appeal for women it's like okay well I can lean out and then also for just bone density so initially went to it for the physical effects and ended up just staying around just for the mental benefits like you said getting outside and then really once I started to dig into it I was like

there's nothing out here. So really, I think a lot of the research that we have is primarily, you know, young men in the military carrying, like you said, obscene amounts of weight, like basically their body weight on their back. And, you know, really my goal was to start cheering about it and just like maybe make it a little bit more approachable because I think in a lot of sense, like people are, are a little bit intimidated to maybe start rucking. Yeah, well, let's talk about, you know, your experience with that, you know, there's there's grades like anything. You know, like I talk, you know, I talk, you know, I talk with got cruz he uh he had a good point on um tanning you know like you've got full spectrum sun you want

full spectrum sun don't use sunblock uh unless you absolutely you're stuck under the sun that kind of thing um you know go in the shade if you have that ability and so like if you don't have a tan or if you're from sweden and you go to the equator don't walk out there and just think you're going to get full day sun and not get hurt by it's like the same thing you never touched a weight and you think you're a back squat a thousand pounds right there's common sense that must be at play here but talk about you know the differences between lighter weights heavier weights where do you think that you feel is like the best midpoint for yourself as well as for others and um you know how do you best work with with these tools yeah i would say like anything especially when it comes to strength

like form is key so when you're starting out like especially if maybe you're you know mostly sedentary which i would imagine like a big part of your your audience is not um like kind of easing into it, but then also looking at like form. So I would say for like women, they can usually start with like 10 to 15 pounds, men probably like 20 pounds, depending on your fitness level, maybe up to 30. But I would say like before you go and like stack weight on weight on weight, like see what that does. I don't know if you noticed a difference. Like especially when you start rucking like it pulls your shoulders back. It's going to help with your posture. You might notice like tightness in your hips or cabs. So there's other sort of ways that I think it can

show up. And then, you know, maybe rock with that for a while. I would say trying to keep it, like, maybe, you know, no more than a couple miles, especially those first, you know, a couple times just to see how that feels. And then if you come back and you're like, I feel like I could have done weight, like maybe add that or you can play with other factors like speed. You can always play with incline. That's another one that's really going to kind of ramp up the intensity as well. But try not to like pull all of those levers at once because I think what you were alluding to is like, like anything you don't want to get hurt and like throw yourself out of the game for you know a longer point of time and um I think for somebody that's just starting out this is a

great approachable thing that you can do again by yourself or with other people and it's something where you know I love rucking with my husband it's like we can really scale you know weight up or down to be able to get the workout that we want but be able to kind of walk and do it together as well so you can do it in that solo or also that group setting so for people just starting out, I would say usually like two to three times a week. And then, you know, maybe you're scaling up. I know people that like rock every day, like myself included, it's just maybe not rucking hard every day. So if you're looking for maybe like a top end goal, I would say thinking about maybe 30% of body weight or no more than like 50 pounds for a lot of people. Because like you

said, like you don't have to ruck with 100 pounds to get the benefits of rucking. And I think sometimes that's lost a little bit in some of the messaging. Yeah. I think. I think, One difference I'd say from rucking and farmer's walks is that with farmers walks, like if you get like the handles from rogue that are basically like, you know, they're basically like barbells that have a little handle on each side. You know, you could load plates on, on two ends per each hand, right? Like I think you could go up to like 405 pounds or some crazy number, you know, 500 pounds there.

Like that could be a lift and walk 10 yards and set it down type strength exercise. And it would be very powerful if that was, you know, you could move um but the thing with the ruck is that it's you know it's it's spread out it's above it's a spread across you know it's not just a grip thing and it is i think something that's meant to be done longer distance you know whatever if that's a mile or 10 miles that's up to you but i feel like the the the cardio aspect flows with rucking more so than like the strength aspect and i would say if i'm going to go for something really heavy that's more of a farmer's walk why don't i try it that way than then trying to ruck for some you know anytime you add high intensity to high

volume. I think we run into issues, right? So keeping the volume, if the volume is going to be up, I want to keep the intensity, you know, at a, at a medium at highest. Yeah. I feel like a lot of times, like thinking about cardio, it's usually not on people's, you know, top of their list of things to do. But if you want to, like, train in specific zones, you can add weight, remove it. Like you said, distance, I think is really fun to play with, especially, you know, again, group setting or just being out in nature. I think it forces you to maybe find some new trails and really kind of expand. on some of that, what did you say, forest bathing, if you will, like just throwing your ruck on and getting outside and doing that too. So I love it. Do you guys have lots of,

what's the terrain like in Minnesota? Is it flat? You got mountains? What is it? We, no mountains, I will say, but there's a park. There's like a three and a half mile loop that I love doing, and there's a ton of elevation in there. So I have the, I have options, I'll say, but me and my husband, even like we live on a tiny little lake. And once that freezes over, we'll, like get out and like rock on the ice. And that can be something fun. I should probably have some sort of disclosure. So like you or I don't get in trouble.

But that's something that that is fun too. But when you rock on sand or rock on snow, like that's really when you light up. I think some of those little muscles that you don't always realize you have to. Yeah. We have a lot of clay here at our at our farm in Texas. And when it rains, like that's it's almost like being on snow.

It's slip and slide. I don't know that I would, I don't know that I would rush in that way. in that kind of weather, but we have, I will say you go down a lot faster, like, by experience. When you have like 20, 30 pounds on your back, you definitely, yeah, you fall a lot faster. Hopefully that's not on thin ice falling faster. No, it's not. Yeah.

Well, yeah, that's, that's good. I mean, I grew up in Northern California, and we were close to Yosemite, like Tahoe, so many great places and moving out to Texas is like it's the hill country here in Austin. And it's hilly and it's nice. but there's not a lot of mountains here but we have um so a 1.6 mile loop around the farm and so you know two of those is a 5k which is easy if we're if we're jogging or running with the kids that kind of thing and um been rucking at least one of those loops every single day with the dogs and it's just awesome you know it doesn't put anything extra on them um it's it's uh it's low impact you know

even though you're walking and things like that it's far far less problematic for my knees and my ankles and back than if I was running hard or jogging even, you know, that kind of impact. So I feel like that's a treat being 43 years old and having put myself through the ringer in a couple of major sports. You know, it's something that's, it's important, you know. For sure. And that's one of my favorite things I think, too, as you mentioned, like low impact. And you think of like, you know, as we age. I think I recently heard maybe was Peter Attia's podcast. Like somebody had mentioned like as we get older, like you think of your your muscles are essentially like beef tenderloin and then they turn into beef jerky so now i can't get that

analogy out of my head but i just think of like rucking in a sense is that low impact so you can really get that workout that you want but like you said you're not just like wrecking your joints in the process either like that will take us through take us through the book i'm sure personal stories in there i haven't i haven't ready yet but tell me tell me um kind of what what does the layout look like what are some of the things you uncover all right guys quick break to tell you about what I've been up to. This year has been a year of transition for me with a fit for service making huge changes. I've been working to create my own community. I still don't have a name for it yet. That is in the works. I'm brewing on it. But one of the things that I've

come to understand is what this community is about. And so I want to give you a little hint here and let you guys drop in. I'd love to get your feedback. And there's a link at the top of the page here if you guys are interested at all. All right. So join in a transformative journey with our exclusive community where like-minded individuals come together to explore the realms of body, mind, and connection. For $150 a month, you'll gain access to a treasure trove of wisdom from hundreds of podcast guests, a lifetime of learning and human optimization, and the teachings of legends like Paul Check, James Clear, and so many others. Reconnect with your inner compass and discover the freedom, health, and sovereignty that await. Embrace the journey to

excellence because we are what we repeatedly do. If that interests you, peep the link in the show notes for the community, and we will get you guys locked in. All right, back to the podcast. I really start with the introduction a little bit of my story, like what I shared earlier, and then talking about the benefits. I think we talked about some of them, including the cardiovascular, the muscle, bone density, you know, really some of those mental health benefits, too, in terms of like just getting outside, getting into nature, and then really breaking down gear.

I know that's one thing we haven't really touched on yet. So really taking you through like what's the difference between weighted vass versus rucksack because there are a couple of key differences and then also training plan. So for a lot of people, I think that are maybe new to rucking. I have anything from like a 5K to a half marathon training plan because I feel like I'm seeing more and more popularity around like not necessarily like rucking races, but people may be taking traditional foot races like a 5K, 10K and maybe rucking it. if they feel like, okay, like my joints just don't hold up for, you know, a run, for example, I'm going to, you know, grab a few friends and rock for this. So I do have a few different training plans if you're the type of person that really likes things laid out. And then I had to do my due part as a dietitian and put some nutrition protocols in and then kind of wrap

everything up just talking about like mindset, how to keep the momentum going and just kind of getting into that action state because I will say that that's one of the biggest mistakes I see for people. They're just like, I'm not, you know, I'll try it tomorrow or we tend to just procrastinate on some of those things or we feel like we have to have the perfect plan or perfect gear, but really all you have to do is grab a backpack, grab some weight. It could be even a couple textbooks, throw it in and go for a walk. And now you're rocking. I love that. Yeah. And the difference, you know, like the rogue vest I have is a weight vest, right? I think about when I, when I, when we had our firstborn, my wife got me, you know, basically like a mountaineering bag that went around

the hips and the shoulders and it was completely adjustable and my son could sit like master blaster in this seat like back behind my head and it was it was a little top heavy if i tried to bend down with him you know but but he was strapped in and it was it was so cool having that weight dispersed across the hips as well as the back and she's like oh you know this is like when you when you you know you go mountaineering or something like that you have a back a really good back like that a backpack like that and i was like i've never had a backpack like that so get into that you know with hunting um that's been that's been a cool feel too. I think that there's a lot of, it is worthwhile if it's something you want to do to actually

get into a ruck sack and start to play with things like that. The weight vest is cool and it's, you know, it's just convenient. It was the exact weight that I wanted 20 pounds in the front, 20 pounds in the back. But I think the rucksack makes a lot of sense, especially with the adaptability of being able to go lower and higher and switch things out. Yeah. And I will say too, like that's one thing, like the weight vest. It sounds like you just kind of slide the plates in to your vest. Is that right? so you could go down to like 10 if you wanted or like up to 40 if you needed to yeah it's I mean well they have it's the way that I bought it was a 20 pound 1 20 pound plate in the front 120 pound in the back but you slide that out same protocol if you wanted to slide in fives or tens

on each side yeah gotcha and I will say there are I know I'm asking because there are some weighted vests out there like I would say more specifically for women you're almost buying them in a fixed weight so that's something to consider too like when you're thinking about gear I know a lot of times like the ones that are more like sand or gel where you don't have that flexibility. I like the options. Like you said, you've got that weight plate. I will say like one, maybe caution for for some people who are like rucking in hot humid temps. Like I don't know if you notice if you like dissipate heat any different, but certainly like stay hydrated to you or if you're like rucking shirtless with your weighted vest. Like sometimes that can just help some of that heat

dissipation to you. I did a shirtless one. and I think I destroyed my nipples, so I'm not going to be doing that again. That was a one-time experiment that I don't think is worth running back. I would say, honestly, you know, I'm sure it's different with different weight. But with female anatomy, I think the rucksack would probably fit the anatomy a lot better than like a giant plate. The way my plate said is like right across the chest, you know, and you want to, you strep that tight so it doesn't move. And that affects your breathing patterns and everything, right? As opposed to like, you know, with a bag, backpack, you've got the full,

ability to breathe. Nothing's constricted in front. It's a different, it's a different feel. Exactly. And that's what that's a good point to, I think, especially ladies, like, looking for something that has an adjustable strap, too, because either, like, the girls are going up, they're going down. And, like, the rucksack, a lot of times they will have an adjustable one. I know I like go ruck. They have the sternum strap, but then they also have the hip belt option on a lot of their rucksacks. And I feel like that was a game changer. Like, once I added a hip belt, I was really able to scale, I feel like my weight up faster and that just helped transfer some of that load from my upper body to lower body a little bit more efficiently too. But I would say playing with a couple

different configurations too. And it takes a little bit to like find something that's comfortable. But if that weight is high and tight on your back, that's going to be key. You don't want it like flopping around depending on your setup. You might need something to pat it a little bit too if you don't have like a specific rucks at rucksack where you have like the velcro pocket so so i was going to ask you that next is there like a pocket fur weights or i've seen some that have almost like a thin end of a barbell that you can put put plates to and then clamp on which i thought was a little silly but funny but like maybe that's just easy for the weight rows to just slide slide plates on and lock it in yeah i think i maybe saw like the one that you were talking about with the like the barbell

end on it. I feel like I've seen that taken to the extreme, but I don't know if I've seen it like used correctly, but for the most part, I would say a rucksack, like imagine a backpack and you've got a dedicated like weight plate pocket. So that interior pocket, a lot of times we'll have one or maybe two compartments depending on, you know, how heavy you want a ruck. So a rucksack is more scalable, I would say for that option, because you can start with 10 pounds, you know, add in increments until you, you know, get up to whatever you're at. end goal might be. But a lot of times I'll have padded straps as well. So usually like if you're grabbing a backpack, you know, off the closet floor or, you know, using something that you have laying

around, what you'll find really quickly is you'll want a little bit of, you know, extra padding. Because otherwise that really is going to like wreck your traps. I think a lot of times once you have that, um, those shoulder pads kind of pulling down. And then also with the rucksack, we talked about the sternum strap. The hip belt oftentimes is optional. But I would say highly recommend it, especially if you're going to start rucking or maybe get north of, you know, say 30, 40 pounds. That can really, really be helpful. And that makes sense. Well, let's, let's dive into some of the mental aspects and then I want to talk food here because I've spent such a large part of this podcast on food. I'd love to hear,

you know, some of your take as an RD and having learned more, you know, as I did too, in the post-education past the, you know, the academic work. So let's talk, talk about the mental game a little bit more i think that people you know for me the way i want to frame this is that you know for a long time i couldn't meditate i just couldn't i couldn't sit still didn't know how uh i've had two phenomenal coaches and i happen to be in my 40s now where i can slow the fuck down and just sit quietly and in large part that's that's come through learning what my body needs to settle down my mind you know and that that usually is some form of movement right this is the practice of what we experience as yoga in the west was designed to quiet your mind

It goes through these postures. That way you can lay in Shavasana and have a bit of peace. But for a lot of people, just getting outdoors and walking is such an important piece to help clear and defrag everything that we've got going on that day. And if I can do that in the morning, it sets me up for a better part of my day. If I can do that in the evening, it kind of gives me the dress rehearsal of what happened, like what would I have changed, that kind of thing. There's a period of reflection that can take place.

And even if I'm just listening to a podcast, you know, like there's just being outside and moving around does something special for the brain. I think in our busy world with all the type A's that we have, you know, and the Alex Ramosey's and David Goggins pushing people to do more, you know, that small break, for some people, they can't sit quietly. You know, they can't just sit and meditate. I think getting outside and moving slowly is a, is real medicine for the, for the mentality. I couldn't agree more.

And I think, like you said, just especially type A, like more achievement driven, And it's like you always want to do, do, do, and it's just hard to be. And I feel like rocking is a bit meditative. You're just kind of thinking about one step at a time, especially when, like, maybe you have a load on that's, like, pushing you out of that comfort zone, like comfortably, like you're really embracing that suck. And I feel like anything like, it feels good to do hard things. And that tends to, I think, translate and how you show up in a lot of other areas of life, too. Yeah, I like that. There's, um, you talked about that a little bit earlier with like the, the people that are maybe falling off the train or trying to get back on. Um, what are something? Rogan calls that his inner bitch. I doubt me use that language, you know, but he said they got to conquer my inner bitch every time I get in the ice bath. And he keeps his ice bass at like, so that's, that's, that's, I mean, for a long time, I was doing cold bass with 44. You know, I kept it there for the wife and kids. And then, you know, I had Dr. Thomas Seeger on and he was like, you should go down a little bit. So I dropped it to 37. But either way, there's a point where, you know, you come. And

across something and this could be weight lifting it could be anything but like there's a i should do this i know it's good for me i know the why behind it and yet i'm confronted with saying yes to it every single day right for me that's the ice bath and and and i think like if there's like if i can just get it i'm going to feel better i'm going to be happy i did that kind of deal and i think for a lot of people that are starting out in fitness it's similar right it's this that's their ice bath that's their hill to climb is just the mental piece of saying if i just do this it's i'm going to feel better I'm going to appreciate life more. It's going to change my neurochemistry, all the things that happen, the magic that happened from training. What are some of the tips you have for people

that are kind of, you know, just getting back into it, coming off an injury? Maybe they haven't trained in a while and you're like, this is something that's worth trying. What do you tell those people? I think it's like it's tying it to something today, oftentimes like whether it's a weight loss goal or like you said getting into things like maybe if you've been sidelined for a little bit, it's hard to look to the future when we have like a goal that's so far out. But I think tying it back to something that's going to really resonate with you today. For me, that's thinking about how I feel afterwards. It's like, okay, if I get out and get my ruck in, I know that I'm going to, I'm going to perform a lot better in a lot of different areas of life.

I'm going to sleep better. That's going to, you know, roll into I'm probably going to eat better. And that's going to, you know, really compound into how I react tomorrow. well and how I show up. So I would say as much as you can bringing that to whatever helps you connect to something today versus something that's three weeks, three months, three years down the road. If there's something that you can really kind of tie and say, okay, I'm going to do this because I want to feel X by the end of today. Also making things easy, I think rucking is super simple. Like in that sense, it's just, you know, as simple as grabbing a backpack, throwing

some way in going for a walk. We tend to overcomplicate a lot. And I find that a lot of times that leaves people procrastinating. So if there is any way that you can just remove friction and make things easy, it's not necessarily the most sexy thing to do. But really, whatever that little thing is that, again, can help create that momentum. Because I find that so many people just set so lofty of goals, like, okay, I'm going to do like zero sugar for the month of December or whatever it is. And then what happens, like once that day's up, it's just like full on sugar binge, right? Or if it's, you know, working out X amount of days. So whatever you can do to kind of make those small changes over time. But again, that's not just like our culture nowadays, unfortunately.

Yeah, like that people do set up. It's a weird thing. Like you want the thing. You have the goal in mind and then people have a tendency to make it almost unapproachable like the barrier to entry is high and uh have you have you read atomic habits by james clear i have yes love that book it's a great one right and you know he talks about atomic right he's like atomic you think of the atomic bomb like this big explosion this big thing happens but it comes from the most minuscule right it comes from atoms right it comes from from these smallest changes and there's so many great pieces in that book when he talks about a habit change really coming stemming from the smallest little things possible making them convenient too right a post on instagram about that like

why i put my ice bath in between where our cars are in the front door it's not aesthetically pleasing right it's it's not like if somebody comes over like oh there's the ice bath the sun it's like so every time i leave and come back in i have to see that thing and i have to know that i do it today right it's just taunting you yes exactly and there's a there's a level of convenience right there's a level of that we've got we've got stained concrete floors in the house they're not to sit on. So we put a bunch of MMA mats in one of the living rooms. And that just invites us to the floor for board games, for tickle time with the kids, for stretching, you know, for all the things that can happen when you get on the ground. And I think that that too is another thing that

we've sought convenience in to make our lives more approachable. Ben Greenfield told me once that he put, you know, this little pull-up bar, this $25 dopey pull-up bar in his office door. And he said, Every time I walked in and out of the office, I did five perfect pull-ups. At the end of the day, I got 50 pull-ups in. And he's really got really strong lads, perfect shoulders for just greasing the groove on these really good pull-ups. And it happened because he had made it accessible and convenient and then said, all right, I can't say no to this thing. That's right in my face. I love that too, like the visual cues, like how you have your ice bath taunting you.

Like if you have something like a habit tracker or whatever it might be, I think having those little visual reminders is like super, motivating, especially if you're, again, type A, like to check boxes that can be really invigorating or I know one of my clients, like she'll go check the box and now she's got to do it. It's like you're not like you're not going to do it once you check that box. So even doing a little reverse psychology there. Oh, that's got like that. That's cool. Yeah, I've done a lot of box checking in my days, but I never checked the box beforehand. That's, uh, I like that right there. That's good smart. Oh, man. Well, let's talk, let's talk diet. What are, you know, it's funny. My sister, she went to medical school for a couple years and then decided she didn't want to do it.

She, you know, went to take some RD classes and, and I just said, hey, you're going to learn a lot here. Some of it's going to be valuable. And you're going to learn some other stuff that's a little outdated. I was like, number one, saturated fat. We just went into it. And I was like, tell me that when they explain why saturated fat is bad, ask them about coconut oil. It's like 90% saturated fat. Is coconut oil bad?

You know, and I talked about medium change rate glycerides and those turning into ketones and being good for the microbiome and killing Candida and the whole host of things there that make coconut oil and MCT so awesome. And it kind of, you know, she just kind of, she's like, yeah, you're right. It's like, that's just it, you know. Talk about some of the things that you learned that maybe have changed since you got out and what are your recommendations in there for people that want to lose weight and get fit. Everything has changed. I will say. one area that I would say, like, is the backbone for the philosophy that I teach is really thinking about blood sugar balance. So I think oftentimes we just get so wrapped up in calories

and, you know, high protein everything. But I will say, like, there is, there are a lot of protein products that are just like still ultra-process crap. Essentially, it's high-protein crackers or high-protein chips and they're half-digested, like you open the bag and all of a sudden they're all crumbled at the bottom. It's like, that's not going to keep you full compared to a rib eye, for example. So I have had a lot of change of heart, I think, on, I would say calories is a big one. Like, we're not just a closed loop system. So it's not that simple. And we don't always factor in like how those calories impact our blood sugar, for example. So even some of those like healthy calories, if you will. And I will maybe like back up and say, I hate telling

people I'm a dietitian because usually that's like followed with like, what do you think of like carnivore or keto or, you know, is this healthy? And like, my annoying rebuttal is always compared to what? Like, are we comparing broccoli and a chocolate chip cookie or are we comparing coconut oil to something else? For example, it's like, what are we comparing? Because that's not a fair question to ask me. So that's typically my rebuttal, but I will say calories is one thing. Again, I really focus on something like blood sugar balance. I love CGM. I don't know if you've ever used something like a continuous glucose monitor. And that is, is a wild game changer. I think for a lot of people, it really helps shift your mindset from

thinking about calories and calories out to seeing, like, how are your energy levels? How are you sleeping? Like, what is your blood sugar doing? Because so often we can really help that to tie back into people's natural intuition. And I think when you're eating according to a plan or a list or a certain, you know, way of eating, we tend to lose, I think, some of that natural intuition. and CGM, I've found, is one way to kind of tie back into that as well. Yeah, that's really, I've been a huge fan of CGMs. We've had, I mean, I heard about them back in 2014 when Peter Attie was talking about Dexcoms on Tim Ferriss's podcast, there were $1,000 a piece with a prescription.

I'm like, I'm never using the CGM, you know, and then a few years goes by. And it's like, hey, these are affordable now. We've got an in-house guy that will give you the prescription. and you know so it's a yes like you can anybody can get a CGM and so I partnered with NutraSense.io for a while had their CEO on had one of their lead people on and learned a ton we learned a ton during COVID on comorbidities and how people who had healthy blood sugar walked right through you know the park when it came to viral load and all the things in terms of like health outcomes they did very well one of the things that I really liked that thing is super important for people that

want to get healthy is that, you know, and this is through their NF1 with thousands of people, you know, all the data there is that you could be 100 pounds overweight, but you can still get to, you're not going to lose 100 pounds of weight very quickly if you do it correctly, but you can get metabolic flexibility and get your carbohydrate and blood sugar management under control within a few weeks, even if you're 100 pounds overweight. I was like, that's, that's encouraging for a lot of people that know it's going to take time and effort and energy to lose that 100 pounds, but you know, like if I do my due diligence, in two or three weeks this cgm's going to tell me that i'm right on track and then i just

stay on track and everything else is good right the weight well the body will change accordingly and so yeah i'm i'm i'm i'm a hundred percent in agreement with you on that i've had it's funny because the cali and case he means have taken a uh shit from kind of from all sides but it's like you know their book is correct it's not the first right like uh dr david perlmutter did grain brain before that um the reason the ketogenic diet works for so many people at least periodically is it's resetting metabolism, it's turning us into, you know, tool-fuel system where we can burn fat for fuel and we can burn carbohydrates for fuel. What are some of the ways in which you work with that because I, or like a metabolic reset, is it just through diet

alone or do you participate in any kind of intermittent fasting? I know it's different for men and women. It's a big conversation I've had with Dr. Nathan Riley, the holistic OBGYN, and Dr. Kayla Osterhoff. She has herbiarrhythm.com. She worked to the CDC for six years. She's brilliant unlike female hormones, the balance of that, you know, four-stage cycle that all women in fertility age have and why there's only select periods like when you're passing to engage with something where you're going to have a lot less without throwing that cycle off. So, you know, the one thing I learned from her was that males are very simple and females are incredibly complex.

So I'd love to get your take on fasting, ketogenic diets and stuff with regard to metabolic flexibility and kind of jump starting that reset. Yeah. And I think that, like you said, it's very encouraging when you can exercise that metabolic flexibility because, like you said, you won't maybe see fast results on the scale. But like once you kind of chip away at that visceral fat and really improve that visor or the metabolic flexibility, it is just your job becomes so much easier. And I think inflammation goes down.

You start sleeping better. That's one thing that I see shows up on CGM2 is not just how food impacts. but also stress is a big one. And lack of sleep, I will say like one crappy night of sleep, your blood sugar is just going to be trashed, essentially. So I will say that just using something like a CGM, I find myself prescribing more bedtimes than I do any sort of other nutrition protocols because once we can get your sleep dialed in,

then you start doing everything better. It's like you have the energy to exercise and cook healthy meals and all of that fun stuff. But I would say when it comes to fasting, I think it's an excellent tool. Like you said, men and women can be a little bit different. For women, usually that looks like something like a shorter fasting window. But I also find that, you know, thinking about perfectionist tendencies that all or nothing thinking, for some people, I find that fasting window can be a bit of a mind game because they're like, okay, well, my window closes at eight.

I got to eat everything I can now. So I'm not hungry at 10. So I think it takes a little bit to maybe see people's personalities, whether that's going to be a good fit, usually in most cases it is, or just like really laying the groundwork that fasting is something that's meant to be flexible. It's not meant to be like so rigid, like, you know, 12 to 8 or whatever that fasting window might be. But I would say I like using that because it cuts off, especially like evening snacking. If I find that people are like eating not because of hunger, but because of habit, that can be a good way just like. like kitchens closed, now we're, you know, off to working on wind down routines or, again, getting your butt in bed by a certain time because that has a profound effect on a lot of things.

So what I love about CGM is it has the nutrition component just seeing like somebody's individual carb tolerance, but there's so many lifestyle factors that really surface, again, stress, sleep, and it's hard to intervene on those things when, you know, you can count grams of protein or you can count calories, but you can't really count. your stress, but when you can see it on something like a CGM, I think that gives you some great visual data to actually be able to go in and intervene on. Yeah, I love that. I didn't even think of it from a sleep standpoint, but it's 100% correct. Thinking about, you know, like the books like Sleep by Nick Little Hale, which is but one of my favorite how-to guides for sleep. We just had

a Dr. Kirk Parsley on. He was a Navy CLMD, big focus on sleep. And then my other buddy, He was a Ph.D. I'm drawn a blank. I coach his son. Party. From, yeah, Dr. Dan Party. Awesome. Awesome.

That was a great one. You know, he was, you know, 10 years in the game on sleep. How much that affects and impacts everything. Fat loss to fat gain, mood, neurochemistry, microbiome, like all these things are impacted there. And so when people think, like, well, what is elevated blood sugar you're going to tell me at 2 a.m.? Well, it tells me you probably woke up and were stressed out. It tells me you probably didn't handle some of the things. you could have handled the day before in what way you can't change the day well you can choose

what are your favorite tools to alleviate stress right and that might mean needing to go for a walk after dinner to process what happened in the day so that when you lay down at night that's not the next thing that comes up because you've been watching TV and distracting yourself until you try to go to sleep right like giving it some time if you can't meditate cool what are the other ways to burn stress well we know rucking will burn stress we know physical movement sweating burn stress and so just trying to see like what are our own internal levers you know i think about the movie inside out the kid's movie where you've got like the the anger you know the the joy it's sadness and all these things and they have this keyboard you know they want to press the rage button and all that

stuff and it's like once we figure out our own inner workings we really can kind of see the mechanics of these things and know how to dial in ourselves we know when we're off center if we just take a second and like check in oh fuck i'm mad oh i'm anxious oh i'm nervous it has to do with uh you know the pay date or whatever the thing is. And then can I change it? No. Can I change it? All right. Yes, I can. I can. I can do it this way. And so I think there's that without that reflection piece, though, and without getting really introspective, it's kind of hard to notice. And if you're wearing just a whoop or a whoop watch an aura ring, you might see that you woke up and didn't get enough deep sleep or enough REM. But you're not going to see that blood sugar spike that for sure

tells you it's a stress related issue. Usually I see it right out of the gate. Like somebody wakes up, their average runs a lot higher. So their baseline glucose. is running high right off the bat and then they have breakfast. A lot of times it's a more exaggerated spike, but then I do see more lows as well. So I think that flexibility, like we're always troubleshooting the blood sugar spikes, but I find that the lows are really maybe not as focused on. And that's really where people tend to feel really crappy. So trying to eliminate a lot of that rebound as well can be certainly helpful. But yeah, sleep is certainly one of those things that I have a whole new appreciation for after like really building CGM into my practice. And I think

once somebody can see again how one bad night of sleep impacts the whole entire day. And it really helps do things like, you know, get to bed at a big time. Because thinking about sleep, I think of revenge, bedtime procrastination. Have you heard of this? No, don't know. Yeah. So, so revenge, bedtime procrastination. It's a thing. And thinking about mindset, like it's when you don't carve out these periods throughout the day. And all of a sudden, you get to the end of the day, you know, you're self-sabotaging by staying up too late. But because you didn't carve out these times earlier in the day, now you're, you know, having that meantime or connecting with your spouse, you're self-sabotaging by staying up too late. And that is essentially revenge, bedtime

procrastination. So I like that. I don't know there's a term for it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, the the, I mean, I often overlook the consistency piece, too, because you think of like, if somebody's like wants tips, it's like, all right, cold, dark, quiet or cold dark and like white noise, right? So like cold is what, under 66 degrees Fahrenheit. It's different for different people. Dark means you're not, you know, it's the whole night, right? Since the sun goes down, you're not dealing with blue lights as little as possible. A candlelight as you can. I don't know anybody that uses candles. But like when you go to your room, like it's blackout blinds, cover any, any flashing light. So there's no flashing lights. There's no green light. There's no nothing. There's And those kind of things, you can carve out those little things, but the consistency piece of going to bed at the same time each day and trying to wake up at the same time each morning and trains the body and the circadian biology in a way that's far more beneficial to where like you're, once you get in, in, in, in trained in that way of going to bed, you can actually deal with a light or something that maybe isn't, it is not what you want in the room, but it's also something, you know, if it's a little bit warmer, I'm still going to sleep fine because I'm going to bed at the same time each day and waking up at the same time each morning. My body just knows when it's time for bed. It knows when to let the melatonin out. It knows when to do all those things. And I think that's an important piece, too, even if people can't. Something I love from Dr. Kirk Parsley was that he was working with a lot of soldiers and whatnot who have trouble sleeping the whole night is, when you go to bed for that eight or a block, you're not getting up.

There's nothing to do but lay there. And if you can't fall asleep, you're going to meditate. And you'll lay down and meditate in the same bed, box breathe, whatever you need to do. right because that you're devoting your time to complete rest and if meditation is the closest thing you can get to sleep then that's what you're going to do for even if it's for four hours right so like you still get that give yourself that eight hours and what happens is over time is if you commit to that people that can't sleep very well and they go to meditate then they end up falling to sleep again right and then as they build that habit it takes them less and less time to fall back

asleep even if they jolt up like all right all right here's what we're going to do I'm committed to this, you go through your meditation practice, boom, you're back asleep. You start feeling more well-rested and the hormones show the difference. The blood sugar shows the difference and your neurochemistry shows the difference. Yeah, for sure. And I think like you said, consistency is so huge and I think that's just underrated. We hear like consistency is key, but I think like flexibility too is another thing that like helps give that consistency a little bit more, you know, leg room too. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I think the flexibility piece too when it comes to fasting is super important if you're it will help for a certain population of people that

just like this is your window to eat and that's it you know but um also you know stay with the same window of eating for a year it's no longer intermittent your body knows when it's going to get its calories and when it's not and that kind of changes its response to it throwing the curveball here and there actually is a fantastic way to make sure that your body's still responding to it your brain is still responding to it um no different than strength training right like If I did the same exercise or the same weight, 365 days a year, and I don't change anything about it, the speed at which I train or the tempo or any of that,

I'm going to stop getting gains doing that, you know? It's a good way to test that metabolic flexibility you were talking about, too. It's like throwing just a little surprise, you know, in there every so often is a good way just to, you know, test your baseline for sure. I like that. Was there anything else in RuckFit that you want to talk about? Anything you've got coming up? You said you coach people.

I'd love to get people to follow you online. Any programs you have or things like that you want to direct people towards? Yeah, absolutely. I am at Kayla Gurgan on all the things. I would say most active on Instagram, but I do have also a CGM program. So I know one thing like getting into CGM is like the data. A lot of people just don't know what to do with it. It's like, okay, I've been wearing this.

I don't know what to do. And that's really my goal is to help teach people like what's normal, what's a red flag. How do we intervene, like whether it's, you know, macronutrient composition, you know, pairing something like carbs with other things. And we talk a little bit about like the lifestyle factors too. So that is something that I will be doing probably quarterly. The next one's coming up in January. So if you're looking for, you know, new year, new goals, new way to do it, that is another

thing that's on the agenda as well. And then I don't know when this is going to be releasing, but January, we also will be doing a, I'm teaming up with go rock to do a rucking challenge. So if you're new and just want to work on consistency, the goal is rough 10 times in January and you're doing it. So you get to pick the weight. You get to pick the distance. So it's a great opportunity for beginners to just have that community spirit and

to maybe not feel like they're alone in all of this if you're not sure. So we'll have a little bit of education coming out with that too. That's super cool. All right. We'll link to your Instagram. Do you have a website where people can reach out for programs and things like that? Yes, Kayla Gergan, RD.com. Awesome. Well, Kayla, it's been a pleasure having you on. I'm stoked that you wrote the book and that you're living, you're the living embodiment of it. I like when I see healthy people talking health. It drives me nuts to see unhealthy people talking health. So good, kudos to you. Yes, amen. All right. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you.