Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 333 - The Ketologist Chris Irvin

Episode Date: February 20, 2020

In this episode, Chris Irvin breaks down the ketogenic diet in the most simplified and easiest to digest way possible. We will cover the in’s and out’s of the diet and make it consumable for anyone and everyone. Chris Irvin, The Ketologist, is the education manager for Perfect Keto, has his M.S. in Exercise and Nutrition Science and is now a leading expert in the Ketogenic Diet. As he learned more about the ketogenic he realized that many of the top researchers and experts that are leading the charge in new discoveries related to the ketogenic diet, are not publishing their work in easily digestible, comprehensible, and accessible way for the general public to understand. This is what lead him to start his brand, The Ketologist. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Visit our sponsors: ➢Icon Meals: http://iconmeals.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Perfect Keto: http://perfectketo.com/powerproject Use Code "POWERPROJECT10" at checkout for $10 off $40 or more! ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

You know, we're seeing a lot of people jumping on the carnivore diet lately, but I think for some people, sometimes that's too hard. You know, and that's not where I started with my diet. And so when I think back, I'm like, man, how could someone get started? And I'm getting a lot of questions like, man, that seems really hard to only eat meat. Yeah. I think a great place to start is with a keto style diet. A keto diet allows you for some more options. You get to kind of open up the playbook.

It's okay if you have some more options. You get to kind of open up the playbook. It's okay if you have some veggies here and there. It's okay if you can even have some treats here and there, which are really, really wonderful. And I don't know if you guys tried the birthday cake, perfect keto bar yet, but holy crap, they sent me some of those bad boys and I think they're gone unfortunately, but those are delicious. But I think keto is a great place for people to start because sometimes being so locked into a carnivore diet can be really difficult. Now we just got more options on a keto diet. And another way for you guys to get started is a cool little survival kit that we have

from Perfect Keto. Okay. So we got four different items, four of my favorites. We first have the MCT oil powder, that powder that you add to your coffee every morning. The salted caramel flavor I heard is actually amazing, but Mark here took it. So you can get the MCT oil powder. Then we have the instant keto coffee, which you can just, it's an instant coffee that you can just have directly with water.

And then we have something wonderful. The ketoneutropic. If you want to get into zone mode or Zen mode, right? And be able to focus while you're working. The ketoneutropic is absolutely amazing. Andrew had some cool points about it, that it's fat soluble, which is why it works so well.

Yeah, because the perfect Keto Nootropic actually adds fat in, so you don't have to add in any of your own. And that makes it so that way your body can actually absorb the Nootropic. It also has actual ketones in it. It's got BHB in it. That's pretty dope.

Yeah, yeah. That's why it works so well. And then lastly, one of my favorites, the Keto Elect especially when days that i'm low carb or no carb i gotta get some electrolytes before i do a lot of jujitsu because i'm sweating and those electrolytes are awesome i love them stops me from cramping and get all my electrolytes i honestly think it was an unfair advantage that you might have had in your last jujitsu match but i don't want oh you know i don't want to speculate controversy let's be careful there yeah yeah you guys gotta head over to perfect keto.com slash power project at checkout use promo code power project bundle for 25 off your order of 100 or more or use power

project 10 for 10 off any order of 40 or more hope you're not recording that i just started oh shit you didn't get that part. I got that part. No! Get that shit off. Don't worry about it. You're the resident black dude, so you can say that. My girl's mom watches this sometimes. I don't need that in my life. We're not allowed to talk about black people?

No. No, no, no, no, no. It is safer just not to say anything, right? Oh, shit. Anyway. We're going to be talking about some keto today, huh? Some ketosis. Some perfect keto.

Yeah, buddy. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think it would be really cool to dive in and learn about can you build some muscle on a ketogenic diet? Can you do a ketogenic diet in a healthy fashion? Can you do it for performance? I feel like some of these things are a little bit different, right? There's different, you know, different ways that you might follow the diet for different results, right?

Yeah. Keto is one of those things that a lot of people, especially in bodybuilding, wouldn't want to mess with. Most bodybuilders wouldn't want to mess with it just because, you know, you still have the idea that you need to eat a lot of carbs to gain muscle or to gain muscle efficiently. And even for performance, too. You know, we always talk about it, guys that do lifting, martial arts, et cetera. You know, you're always fed that you need to have carb-rich meals for your performance.

So it's going to be cool because he has a really, really deep understanding of the ketogenic diet, of the processes that goes on, and we can get deep and nerdy with him. Yeah, I think people are worried about being flat and being kind of smooth on a ketogenic diet, which can kind of happen. But we've talked about this on this podcast before. You can get flat and smooth on any diet, especially when you've been dieting for a long time, and especially if you've been doing a lot of cardio. When I was training for my bodybuilding show, there would be days where I felt flat. There would be days where I felt fat. There would be days where I felt skinny, and there would be days where I felt really jacked. And it would go kind of up and down, but that's what a good coach can do for you.

They can kind of monitor that. They can watch that for you, and they can say, all right, well, you need to eat again. You know, I need to start to bring some more food back in. Yeah. What have you noticed with like something like the perfect keto, the keto bars? Like you notice anything different with like your physique or anything? Like just you just use that as like a snack or? You know what?

I actually think that some of those things, I think they help you to get in a little bit more calories because you end up with a little bit of, uh, palate fatigue from eating so many like eggs and bacon. And, and so it's like, it's an add on, like it's an extra. And then if you're trying to have a little bit more weight management and you're trying to stay a little bit more on the leaner side, uh, then you just want to account for that. And you just want to say, Hey, look, I'm probably going to eat like one or two of those every single day. And, uh, you know, you, you, there's no, there's no like free lunch, you know, you don't, you don't get away with just eating, uh, whatever you want. So as long as you're accounting for it and you're trying to do it, uh, in a weight loss fashion, then it gives you something to look forward to. And if you're trying to do it like for a performance standpoint,

um, I think it can play a pretty good role i've actually noticed from eating stuff like that uh my veins tend to come out a little bit more and i tend to actually look um i just look more like well fed you know when i'm hitting a training session i tend to feel like i can get a pump a little easier and i don't i don't know you know i don't know if it's the fat content in there i'm not not sure exactly what it is but it uh could just be the extra nutrition period yeah it's gonna be really cool though too because like if you look through his instagram he's not yeah he does the ketogenic diet but he's not dogmatic about it so you'll see sweet potatoes on his profile like he does introduce carbs here and there it's not

like he he's like ah keto is the only way to go um we gotta get to the bottom of these sweet potatoes well since he works for perfect keto or works with perfect keto um it's only right that this Keto is the only way to go. We got to get to the bottom of these sweet potatoes. Well, since he works for Perfect Keto or works with Perfect Keto, it's only right that this episode be brought to you by Perfect Keto. Our homies over at Perfect Keto are giving you guys an awesome discount. Head over to PerfectKeto.com slash PowerProject at checkout. Enter promo code PowerProject10 for $10 off your order or $40 or more. And if you step your game up and your order is $100 or more, use promo code PowerProjectBundle for $10 off your order or $40 or more. And if you step your game up and your order is $100 or more, use promo code PowerProjectMundle

for $25 off your order. Gosh, look at you guys. Have a dance battle. Yeah, for reals. I'm going to send this invite over there and we'll wait for him to show up. What do we got over here? This is MCT oil powder.

Yeah, I think I kind of took the whole thing. I don't know about you guys, but I know that they sponsor the podcast, but I haven't had any blowouts with MCT oil powder. Nope. Yeah, I've been good on that. Have you been good on that? I'm great on it, yeah.

MCT oil, though, I can't say the same is true. I've had volcanic eruptions. The first I ever got MCT oil, I actually used it to cook, which you're not supposed to really do like that. And I used quite a bit of it. And then I went to the bathroom like an hour later and it was just like. Like it just spread everywhere. Nice. Like across all parts of the toilet.

Yeah. It feels like it's like a spiritual awakening. Releasing all the demons. I remember when I was doing keto and I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I would look at like my macros and be like, oh my God, I need so much more fat. And we're talking like 8 p.m., 9 p.m. at night. Like, well, I'm just going to make some keto coffee right now because I got to get the fat in. And yeah, I would dump MCT oil powder in there.

And I was like, like man i don't know what's going on oil or powder sorry mct oil not powder and i'd be like i don't know what's going on like i wake up in the middle of the night with like the worst cramps and like i can't breathe and i'm just dying over here and i'm just like well yeah you fucking idiot how many times have you woken up in the middle of the night to take a shit? You know, not that much. Yeah. Yeah.

That never happens. I woke up at like 2 a.m. one day and just unloaded on the toilet. It was just a regular poop, but like, and I texted everybody. I texted everyone. I'm like, people need, my parents need to know about this. I was just like, I took the biggest shit. And then the next day, like, I had all these text messages i'm like hey thanks man congratulations good job but like i woke up and i was like oh my god it's a bathroom i just took this giant like elephant dump i don't know what happened i can't remember the last time i woke up to poop like i really can't that's so

weird i just don't even feel like you have the strength to poop like in the morning i feel like i can't don't even have the strength to like enough oomph yeah to clinch it on out of there yeah i i can't remember but i i can't say that i never have because it just seems like that's definitely something i would do like for sure yeah you know i mean pulling his ergoza yeah that's what we need to call it if that ever happens to me again i'm gonna say i pulled his ergozo last night. Yeah, dropped a fatty. I have been going to the, like, pee a lot lately, still. Like, I'll wake up in the middle of the night, like, rock.

That happens. That's normal. It's probably just your diabetes kicking in. Oh, God. Oh, God. The old betas? That sounds about right. That's dark. Have you ever messed around with a ketogenic diet? Ever messed around with diabetes? Like, okay, have I ever done a ketogenic diet? Yeah, around with diabetes? Okay, have I ever done a keto? Yeah, there have been days that I was just like, wait.

Here we go. We got him. Hey, what's up, guys? What's up? Hi. Can you guys hear me okay? We can hear you. Yeah, great to have you on the show today.

Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to chat with you guys. Appreciate your time. So the way that we want to try to do this show a little bit is we want to try to break it up in kind of two parts because we feel like there is some separation between the two things but you can correct us uh if we if you feel that we're wrong anywhere i feel like there's a little bit of a difference between trying to like manage your body weight and there's a little bit of a difference between like going all in and going for performance so uh first we'd like to kind of kick things off with talking

about how to utilize a ketogenic diet in what you would consider to be a healthy fashion. And also, is there an unhealthy way of doing a ketogenic diet? Because we hear people sometimes talking about like fat bombs and eating just crazy amounts of fat. Is that unhealthy? Is it unhealthy to not have vegetables? Those types of things. Yeah, absolutely. Totally down for that. So, um, it will start out with, I guess we'll start out with, uh, you know, kind of eating like a crazy amount of fat. Like what have you seen, uh, you know, kind of people start out with in terms of like levels of fat that they can consume? Have you noticed any dangers with that? Any, any particular fat saturated fats or otherwise? Yeah. So, you know, when most people start the

keto diet, they always kind of go with those traditional macronutrient ratios of like 75% fat, 20 to 25% protein, 5% carbs. Uh, and you know, I think for somebody who's a beginner that that can be a fair starting point. I think that if you're coming from like the standard American diet, making that shift to cutting out carbs is probably the most important thing for those people. So especially if you're somebody who's like very insulin resistant, right, you don't metabolize carbs very well. You know, if you're cutting out the main source of most of your problems and you're probably going to be in pretty good shape. But over time, I think what happens is, is that approach is too high fat and too low protein. And when you talk about is it harmful, I don't think that it's harmful from a health standpoint, but I don't think that it's most optimal. I think that the, you know, the 20 to 25% of your calories coming from protein is

just too low, especially for somebody who is exercising, lifting a lot of weights, especially the people that you guys are probably working with. It's just not optimal. And there's plenty of research to show that people who, you know, we hear all this stuff that ketones are, you know, muscle sparing and all that. And there's a lot of truth to that. But at the same time, if you have this massive demand for protein to help you with recovery and everything, you know, those traditional macronutrient ratios just aren't going to cut it. But when you come to when it comes to like talking about is having too much fat going to be harmful to you, you know, I think it depends really what the type of fat is. So if you're eating, you know, clean sources of fat, you're

talking about, you know, red meat, you're talking about, you know, having good seafood, and some of those maybe omega six fats that are coming from whole food sources like nuts and things like that, I think that those can be okay. But if you're consuming massive amounts of, you know, pro inflammatory vegetable oils and things like that, definitely not the type of fat that we want to have in our diets. I think that more people are starting to realize that. And I think that's where kind of where the quality standpoint of keto comes into play. If you talked about before, is there is is there like a wrong way to do keto or is there a way to do keto that can be harmful? And I think that's kind of the way that keto can be done harmful. If you're

eating a diet that's, you know, have you having your meat cooked in vegetable oils and things like that? I just don't think that long-term that's going to be a good idea. I still think that it's going to be far superior to the standard American diet, but in terms of really optimizing your health, probably not the best approach. So almost anything might be better than what people are currently doing. Yeah. Yeah. I would say that, you know, if you're taking any step in the direction of getting away from the standard American diet is a massive win for anybody, especially when you consider that like 50% of our population is pre-diabetic. So, you know, that's definitely a result of our standard American diet. So if we can,

anything we can do that's getting away from that is going to be a huge win. How would somebody that's listening to this, you know, it could be somebody's aunt, somebody's uncle that they want to share some of this message with, or it could be somebody directly listening to this. How do they get started on this diet? How do they kiss carbohydrates goodbye? And I guess additionally, do we they get started on this diet? How do they kiss carbohydrates goodbye? And I guess additionally, do we have to kiss them goodbye forever? Yeah, those are great questions. So I think the answer to that comes in knowing yourself and knowing who you are, right? So, you know, there's a difference between what's the most optimal way

to get started and what's the best way to, you know, kind of adopt this as a lifestyle, right? So I think the best approach, if we were just looking cut and dry, no lifestyle factors would be cut carbohydrates out, eat whole nutrient dense whole foods and stick to that long term. But for somebody who you know, if you're eating 400 grams of carbohydrates a day, you're accustomed to having sweets after every single meal, you're drinking 1,000-calorie coffees from Starbucks in the morning. That's a pretty big jump for somebody like you. So I think that if you're coming from that and you feel like this jump to going no-carb or low-carb is a pretty big step, I would start small and just say, can you cut out added sugar?

Can you get rid of added sugar and processed carbohydrates? Can you cut out having sugary breakfast in the morning? I think that for a lot of people, if you can start your day with, you know, either fasting or like a nutrient dense fat and protein meal, you're going to see benefits that are going to make you think that you it's going to kind of show you that this is something worth exploring, right? Like if you have a good quality breakfast, it's not loaded with sugar, you have more energy levels throughout the day, you, you know, your mood is a little bit better, you don't have that crash in the afternoon. And I think that's your brain's functioning better. I think that's going to be the thing

that's going to show people like, oh, there's something to this cutting out carbs, maybe I should, you know, I should try cutting out the carbs and the other meals I have, right. And I think that that's probably the best approach for, for a lot of people out there. Right. You know, for me, when I started keto, I was just a meat, meat and vegetable guy. Anyway, I wasn't much of a sweet guy. I love steak. I love, uh, broccoli and stuff like that. So it was just like that, that was fine for me. So it's pretty easy to make that transition. Um, but you know, my dad started keto a couple of years ago and he was a chocolate holic, right? Like he loved having chocolate chocolate after meals. Um, so for him it was like, let's find some replacements for those things, uh, that, that are going to be better than what you're currently eating. Um, and what was the

second part to that question? Uh, kind of, do we have to kiss carbohydrates goodbye forever? Right. Yeah. So that's, um, that's such a good, good question because it's a common misconception within this space where people think like, if I start keto, that means that I have to stay keto forever. If I slip up, that means I'm done. I'm starting back at like ground zero. And what about your Instagram? Your Instagram followers will run away. They'll think you abandoned them.

They'll be like, what's going on? The guy ate a sweet potato. Oh, my gosh, man. I did. I actually put up a post recently. sweet potato. Yeah. Oh my gosh, man. I did. I actually put up a post recently. I was talking about like blood sugar, how I did like a ribeye with a sweet potato. And I was kind of talking about the blood sugar impact of like having the ribeye with it and how it changed things. And people were like, that's not keto. You can't have that. I thought you were, you know,

following the keto diet. It's like, guys, if the sweet potato is not the worst thing that you can do in your diet, I think, you know, if you're, if that's the worst you're doing, you're doing pretty damn good. Um, but yeah, I think that it's, it's such an unrealistic expectation to say that you're never going to have a carb again. I think that if you are, if you fall into that category of being insulin resistant, pre-diabetic diabetic, then it makes sense for you to not have carbohydrates for as, until you're able to, you know, restore your metabolism to a level where maybe you can start incorporating them again. But while you're dealing with like, if you're operating at a baseline that doesn't allow you to use carbohydrates effectively, then it doesn't seem to make much sense to use them. But for the rest of the population, or for somebody

who, you know, does keto for a long period of time, they restore their metabolism, they become a little bit more insulin sensitive, they can better handle those carbs, there's nothing wrong with incorporating them, as long as you don't go back to where you were before, you know, you hear a lot of people, they say, well, the keto diet doesn't work, because I stopped doing it. And I lost, I gained all the weight back. Well, it's like, yeah, if you were eating pizza every day before pop tarts, and then you went back to doing that, again, you would expect to, you know, it's like, the analogy of if you were lifting weights in the gym and you gain a bunch of muscle and then you stop and you lose it, would you say, Oh, lifting weights doesn't work because you know, I lost all the muscle, right? Like you wouldn't, you wouldn't say that. So,

um, yeah, it's definitely unrealistic to say that you're never going to have them again. I think that even for a lot of people, it may even be better to incorporate them back. And, you know, myself, I did keto for three years and was pretty strict and didn't incorporate really any carbs. Now I do occasionally use performance carbohydrates. So I'll use some carbohydrates before training for certain types of training, the ones that I found to work better for me. And then certain whole food carbohydrates like sweet potatoes, I'll use those occasionally. And I think that like they really contribute towards my goals too. So I think really the answer to that is, is you should not eat carbohydrates as long as your primary goal

aligns with the benefits you get from not eating carbohydrates. Got it. So, so let me ask you this now. What about the, the sweet tooth part of things? Because I mean, I noticed that like when I stopped eating nearly as much sugar, um, things like fruits actually tasted like candy. Like they were actually super enjoyable. So let's say that now you're at a place where you've lost weight, your metabolism is at a good place. You can have some carbs. Um, can people often ask the question, can I eat some fruits now? Like what would, what would you say to that? Yeah, so I think that incorporating the fruits back in is fine. But I think choosing the right ones is important, too. I think that, you know, a lot of times we assume that fruit is it's healthy, right? It's it's a natural sugar. So it's better.

But, you know, there's a lot of research to show that like fructose and stuff like that can be pretty pro inflammatory if we have too much of it. And so I think that the poison is definitely in the dose on that stuff. I think that, you know, there's lower glycemic fruits like berries that I think are fantastic for even somebody who's following a keto or low carb diet. I think that, you know, those have some nutrients that we can probably benefit from. And even if even if it's not coming from the nutrient standpoint, there's, they're not going to be very harmful to you because you're not going to be getting that big spike in blood sugar or getting a lot of that pro inflammatory fructose. But when you talk about some of the modern fruit, like, you know, grapes and bananas and stuff that are

just like really loaded with sugar, I think that you probably will, I think moderation is going to be the key, you know, that's the kind of the cliche, right in the nutrition world is like moderation, moderation. But I think it's really true. Like, if you're using fruits as a way to cure your sweet tooth, and that means that you're having them, you know, multiple times a day all the time, I think it's not going to be a whole lot different than just eating sugar, right? You're probably just going to be putting yourself back in that same place you were before. But if you're able to kind of realize that, like, oh, this is something maybe you have a, you know, banana or something in your smoothie every once in a while. I think that can be fine, but you definitely don't want to do it in excess.

What about in terms of protein? Where are we at with protein when trying to follow a ketogenic diet? You know, people make a big deal about gluconeogenesis and eating too much protein. What are some of your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think that it's probably the most important question about keto because like we kind of mentioned at the beginning, there's so many people that are sticking to those traditional macronutrients that like we forget that those were recommended for children with epilepsy, right?

Which is a lot different than, I mean, I'm looking at you two guys. You guys shouldn't be eating the same diet with somebody with epilepsy has, right? Like you guys have different goals. You have different demands in your body. And I think protein is the biggest one. And, you know, this, this gluconeogenesis that everybody talks about, you know, it's the process of converting non-carbohydrate substrate to glucose in the body. And, you know, because this happens in our body, we assume that it's an excess problem. If we have too much protein, then it's just going to get converted over to that. And I think what's important for people to understand is that this is a supply driven

or this is a, I'm sorry, this is a demand driven process, not a supply driven process. So that means that you have to, gluconeogenesis has to occur. We have to have some blood sugar because there are some cells in our body that can't use fat and it can't use ketones. So we have to have some glucose circulating. But the beauty of it is that we don't have to eat the glucose to acquire it because of this process. But that doesn't mean that, you know, eating a ribeye is going to turn into sugar in your bloodstream, right?

Turn into a chocolate cake. Right. Yeah, I love that's like my favorite analogy. Like if you if you think that a ribeye is going to turn into a chocolate shake or chocolate cake in your body, we got some work to do on your understanding of how the body works. But yeah, I think, you know, even there's studies out there where we talk about even the most metabolically damaged people, you know, people who are dealing with diabetes, who I would say, you know, pretty metabolically damaged, massive protein overfeedings with them still only like only leads to a very minor increase in blood sugar, which I would actually say is probably just a result of a postprandial blood glucose spike that you would get anyway, regardless of if you were diabetic or

not. And this is talking like 50, 60 gram protein in one sitting feeding. So, you know, there's really nothing in the research that speculates that I think that we should have less protein or that we need to think about not eating, you know, not having too much of it on a keto diet. You know, there was actually a study published at the end of last year where they took, you know, not having too much of it on a keto diet. You know, there was actually a study published at the end of last year where they took, you know, average Joes, had them do resistance training for, I think, 12 weeks, follow a keto diet. I think they were doing like 20% of their calories from protein. And the men especially lost muscle mass on this in this study because it just wasn't

sufficient to meet their demands. And that's for, you know, an average Joe, like I said, which is a lot different from the athlete or the high performer or somebody who's carrying around a lot of muscle mass, like you guys are 20% protein, just not going to be sufficient. Unless you're eating, you know, a massive amount of calories that that 20% ends up, you know, being a pretty high amount of protein. So I think that it's a narrative that needs to change. You know, you see it a lot with women too, where I've worked with some women on the diet and they eat low protein and they do it

for a long period of time and they end up with some, some pretty gnarly side effects from it. And it's just, I think that it's the wrong way to look at it. And there's too many people that are, are promoting that style of keto. So I'm definitely on the, uh, the pro protein train. What kind of side effects, by the way? I'm curious. Well, you know, one of the big ones is like mood. Um, so I've noticed a lot. Yeah. Right. That's what you really want to be careful with. Um, yeah, like a big one has been mood, like just, uh, having like, uh, you know, being more depressed, uh, having more anxiety. That was a big one. I had like a couple years ago I was working, I had five women come to me and they told me that, you know, I started

doing keto. I was feeling great. And then I started just having a ton of anxiety. I was like, really, what's, you know, let's just take a look at your diet. And they look at it. It's like, man, you're eating like 50, 60 grams of protein a day. You're working out, working out hard, like lifting weights, doing like what we got to increase that and then we start increasing protein, and the side effects go away. You know, so I think that it's and on top of that, you know, they also are better able to recover from their workouts. So you get a lot of people who are super sore, or after training when they're following this low, low protein version of keto, they're not able to train as frequently.

So you know, that's obviously another pretty big side effect. And I think it's important for people to realize that protein is not just something that we use for building muscle protein is it's important for every process in our body, we have to have protein for it. So, you know, if we're not getting enough, that means that we're not going to be functioning optimally. You know, I heard that or what I've heard a lot about is that a lot of people do the lower protein because they're trying to like chase ketones. They're tracking their ketones and also when they eat more protein, it's like, so can you talk about that, especially for those individuals that are, cause I've never tracked my ketones before, but I hear about it a

lot. So what should people think about there? Yeah. So, well, I guess the first question is, is why are you chasing higher ketones? And I think that that's probably a bigger question when it comes to keto. I think that, you know, there's some therapeutic uses where it might be beneficial for, for more ketones, things like neurological disorders, maybe cancer, different things like that. But for, for the regular person that's just following keto for lifestyle reasons or weight loss, there's really no reason to be chasing higher keto levels. So I think that that's probably, you know, the first thing to address there. But anecdotally, with the people I've worked with, worked in, you know, admittedly, there's not a lot of studies that we can look at that monitor

this type of thing. But from what I've experienced with myself, I do a lot of self experimenting. And I tried to do a lot of data collection on anybody that is following the diet kind of in my life or people that I work with. I've haven't seen it be a problem. I think that most times people who are reporting lower ketone levels, and kind of saying that it's from protein are just people who are testing their ketone levels after they eat. And if you have if you have a massive, you know, let's just say that you have 10, 20 grams of protein and 50 grams of fat, your ketone levels are going to go down because the demand for ketones is less after a meal. You have provided energy through your diet. You've provided it exogenously, so you don't need to have as many ketones circulating. testing their ketone levels in the morning, fasted, kind of establishing like a base. Having more protein doesn't change your ketone levels. I haven't seen that be a problem. So

I think a lot of the reports on that being something that leads to lower ketone levels is not something that it's not true to what people are saying. What is a ketone? Yeah. So, well, it's that little magic molecule that everybody talks about that cures everything, right? It's like the end all be all the health that everybody says. It's funny because I feel like that's how it's become where everybody thinks that it's just like this magic thing. Ketones are something that have been a part of the human evolution for the human physiology

for as far back as we know. When we cut back carbs and we cut back carbs or if we cut back calories, our body burns fat and some of the fat that gets burned gets converted into this energy molecule known as a ketone. It gets created in the liver. The liver sends it out into our bloodstream where it can be used as an alternative energy source to glucose and fat by almost every cell of the body, but primarily it will be used

by the brain. So there's research that shows that most of the other cells in our body will forego using ketones when they're present to kind of preserve them for our brain. And the reason why is that, you know, our brain can't really use fat for energy. So it wants to make sure that we're saving enough energy for that brain that has the biggest energy demand in our body. But what makes ketones unique compared to other energy sources is that they're signaling molecules. And, you know, you can go kind of deep down a rabbit hole on that. But basically, there are epigenetic changes that can occur when your cells are metabolizing ketones. We can improve our mitochondrial function.

We can signal for different things to different genes to be turned on and turned off uh that is kind of what allows these things to have such robust benefits that you know you hear people say like keto is good for this that this it's like how is it good for so many different things well it's kind of because these ketones are are pretty uh pretty incredible remarkable little energy molecules that can do a lot of stuff um but you know you know, what I say for them, for the majority of the people out there who are just following keto as a lifestyle thing, it's, it's a great fuel source for your brain. It leads to incredible mental clarity. And I think that's probably the easiest way to look at it for those people. Yeah. I think, uh, you know, key ketones are fascinating. I think there's still so much

more to learn and know about them, but I, but what But what I see is that, you know, I just think that most people don't spend enough time really producing hardly any ketones. And I think that's hugely problematic. I mean, if we were just to if we were to sum up just, you know, the metabolic disorders of the United States, I think you can find all of it just in the fact that people aren't producing any ketones not not they're not producing any ketones that's not a true statement but they're probably producing a lot less than they need to and if you were just think back from an evolutionary standpoint when there would when would there be a time you know where we didn't have you know stores and uh packaged food and all this processed stuff, when we're around in those times, you would be producing ketones every day because even if you were able to get carbohydrate

sources, I would imagine that you would be fasting. Food might be scarce, especially certain times of the year. So just a really short message to everyone that's listening is that you should try to figure out a way to spend some time creating ketones. You don't need to measure them either. I don't think it's really all that worthy unless you just want to nerd out and find out more about what your body's doing. But we already know that from fasting, you're going to produce some ketones. And we already know that by reducing carbohydrates. And in some cases, some athletes, some people that have a pretty

good amount of muscle mass on people that have a pretty good amount of muscle mass on them can have a hundred carbs and still be okay and still be producing ketones, especially if their calories aren't like through the roof. So I just highly recommend that everyone figures out a way to produce some ketones. And then if you never tried any supplemental ketones, I highly recommend those as well. those could be something that just give you a little zip in your workout you hear people talking about bcaas and uh essential amino acids and stuff like that kind of similar effect it just gives you a little bit of it's not gonna you know plow you through you know the hardest workout you've ever done in your life uh when you're dead tired but it will give you a little push i like them for that reason yeah and you know it's

funny when you, when you say you talk about like just the impact of producing some ketones. I mean, if you look at most dietary strategies that work, there's some sort of ketone production probably going on. And when I say work, like producing some sort of benefit. So, you know, there's, there's low carb, there's keto, there's fasting, those all produce ketones. But then you start looking at even some of the diets that aren't optimal. that's still like a vegetarian diet, right? Like I think that a vegetarian and vegan diet, I don't think that it's optimal for anybody to follow. But some people see benefits, right? Like they'll lose weight, there's some cases of people who are diabetic, and they see

improvements when they're doing it. And you're also I mean, if you're not eating a ton of processed carbohydrates, and you're, you know, probably restricting calories a little bit, you're going to produce ketones. And that's probably why those people are still seeing some benefit, even though it's not the most optimal approach. So it's like when you look at a lot of things that are working for people, ketones and not having a ton of carbs is likely the reason why it's happening. From what I've seen, people are tasting ketones, like they're doing the pea strips and all that good stuff because they're like, oh, this means I'm in ketosis you know that like that's kind of like the goal and then you

know they don't want to have any carbs or they don't want to get off the plan because then what happens oh i'm out of ketosis so my diet's done for the week um is remaining in ketosis like the end-all be-all goal for the ketogenic diet? Or is it something that they should periodically be like kind of dipping their toes into and then just going back to like low carb? Yeah, so I think that that's a phenomenal question. I think that it kind of similar to what we're talking about before is, you know, there's benefits of being in ketosis, right? And I think that as long as your primary goal aligns with that, then you should be in ketosis. But that doesn't mean that it has to be all the time. So, you know, if you're if you're a new person to keto, you've never done it before, you should probably try to maintain ketosis for a

pretty lengthy period of time so that you can allow your body to adapt to producing and using those ketones. You know, if you're frequently kind of kicking yourself, quote unquote, kicking yourself out of ketosis, when you're first starting the diet, you're not going to really properly adapt. So I don't think that that's the best approach. But once you do become fat adapted and you're pretty efficient at burning fat and producing ketones, it's very easy for you to go in and out of ketosis. For me, if tonight I decided that I want to just blow up my diet and I'm going to go, you know, drink 10 beers and eat a pizza and have some ice cream, I'd be back in ketosis by midday the next day, because my body can it can handle those things. So, you know, when it comes when you ask the question is the primary goal to stay in ketosis, I think it has to align with with what your actual personal goals are. So

for me, I'm not doing keto to lose weight, I'm not doing keto for necessarily performance measures. Mostly, it's I want my brain to work really, really well. Going into this podcast, I want to be able to talk fluently. I want to be able to pull good things from my memory. I'm going to be in ketosis coming into this podcast because it makes sense for me too. It aligns with what my goal is. Next weekend, if I go see some friends, and we're, if my primary goal is kind of having some fun with friends and having a couple beers or something, I'm gonna do that and not really worry about it. Right. So I think that that question is kind of part of a larger lifestyle question. And I don't think that people need to

maintain ketosis 100% of the time, I think that cycling in and out of it is perfectly fine. And, and, you know, trying to chase deeper ketone levels, we've never proven that that's actually better. So I don't think that that's a good thing to focus on either. Are you aware of any studies with supplemental ketones being utilized to help regulate blood glucose levels in maybe somebody who's diabetic or pre diabetic? Not in somebody who's pre-diabetic and diabetic. I haven't seen that yet. But what we do see is that ketones and blood glucose

tend to have a pretty inverse relationship. So when one goes up, the other typically goes down. And that has been replicated with supplemental ketones where increasing your ketone levels via exogenous ketones does lead to a decrease in blood sugar, which what it seems like is happening is it's a kind of an improvement in insulin sensitivity that's kind of allowing you to metabolize some of that extra glucose that's circulating. So, you know, it's hard to extrapolate

if that would also transition over to somebody who's a little bit more metabolically inflexible, like somebody who's diabetic. But, you know, we've seen some pretty good antidotes of people who have seen a lot of success using the diet and exogenous ketones, you know, using them together for that. So, but it's kind of one of those things, like, unfortunately, there's not a lot of research on it, because there's not a lot of money to be made on that research. So people don't study it, which is, you know, it's a kind of the same the same thing for a lot of those holistic health approaches, like carnivore, right? I think you guys are pretty big into carnivore.

Love the carnivore diet. I think it's phenomenal. Nobody's going to study the carnivore diet because there's no money to be made off of people eating steak. And that sucks because, you know, there looks like there's so many implications for a carnivore diet, especially with like autoimmunity and things like that. So you see the same thing with exogenous ketones. You know, there's a lot of patents out there on exogenous ketones already. There's not a whole lot of incentive for anybody to put money behind the research. So unfortunately, we don't see that. But when you start looking at the anecdotal stories, we do see some pretty positive stuff.

You know, you did mention becoming fat adapted. And I hear a lot of individuals when they're switching from, you know, eating a lot of carbs to eating a lot of fat, they're like, oh, I can't handle eating this much fat. I feel uncomfortable. I'm blowing up the toilet. Like, can you explain to us, I guess, the process of an individual that I guess doesn't handle fat well initially to becoming fat adapted, what people should expect, how long it might take in terms of the range of time, et cetera? Yeah. So one thing I think that you hear a lot of people say that about having some digestive issues. And I think for a lot of them, it's because when you first hear about keto, it's like, you got to pound MCTs and coconut oil. Yeah. You only have to do that once before you know that that's a mistake to go too heavy

with that. So I think that's probably what's going on for most people. But there are some people who just don't handle having a lot of fat in their diet very well initially. I think that everybody can handle it just fine. But if you've been eating a low fat diet, that's just a foreign object to you, right? So you kind of got to figure it out. I think that one thing that can help is, you know, I don't believe that you have to have vegetables and fiber in your diet. I think that one thing that can help is, you know, I don't believe that you have to have vegetables and fiber in your diet. I'd have yet to come across any research that says it's something that you have to have. But that doesn't mean that in certain instances, it doesn't provide benefit. And I think that for people who are having a hard time with fat in their diet,

having some, you know, like the green vegetables, broccoli, asparagus, things like that, that adds a little bit more bulk to your diet, that might be helpful for kind of easing the burden, unless you have a digestive issue that's preventing you from, you know, doing well with those green vegetables. But I think that adding that in with the fat can be helpful while you're transitioning. And then you can slowly kind of start to remove that from the diet if you want to. How about oil? Because we you've mentioned that about two or three times now. And I, I anticipate that a lot of people in the, like I used to cook with like canola oil and stuff in the past, right? I didn't know that that was bad. Right. So what should people be thinking of in terms of oils they should be cooking with oils they should be avoiding? And can you explain

MCT oils a little bit and like what their exact benefit are like is why we should use it? Yeah, absolutely. So I think it's really easy to think about what oils you should be using. And it's to think about what's the source of the oil and is that a fatty resource or fatty source, right? So avocado oil, avocados are full of fat. You can imagine that their fat would come out of that, right? Corn oil, how much fat is in corn not very much right how much butter you put on it yeah exactly very true very true um but like canola or like uh rapeseed right that's what canola comes from how much fat is in that well not very much soybeans how much fat so it's like then you so if you understand that then you realize to get to a cup of like soybean oil or

canola oil you're talking about like having a ton of soybeans that are going through high heat extraction methods that just lead to toxic materials. So if the source is not fatty, then it's probably not an oil that you should be using. So things like avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil, those are all fat sources, right? So it makes sense that we should be eating oil that comes from those. So I think that that's a pretty cut and dry, easy way to look at it. When you talk about MCT oil, so MCT oil is the reason why it's so popular in the keto space is because it's the most ketogenic fat. So if you kind of look at the way that the body metabolizes fat, most of the ketones that we

produce do not come from the fat that we eat. Most of those ketones come from our stored body fat, but MCTs are an exception. They're actually one of the only dietary fats that we can eat that will get converted to ketones in the body. So MCTs are a unique classification of fats that come from coconut oil or palm oil. And it's also found in dairy, but usually we're getting it from coconut oil. And for kind of the people out there who have never heard of this before, MCT stands for medium chain triglyceride, which all that means is that the length of, in simple terms, the length of the fat is shorter compared to fats that are found in other whole food sources like meat. And that means that it's digested

differently. It's digested more rapidly. And this rapid digestion of them allows them to one be a quicker acting energy source, but to also lead to ketone production naturally, they can be rapidly converted to ketones. But then three, it can also lead to bathroom problems if you have too much of it. So that's, that's kind of what makes them different. But it's, it can also lead to bathroom problems if you have too much of it. So that's kind of what makes them different. But you hear it kind of being the most popular keto supplement. It's what everybody takes when they're on keto. I think that a lot of people are probably overdoing it with MCTs. I don't think that you need to be guzzling MCTs all day. But there's times when it makes sense. I like to use MCTs in the morning, I do like a two hour deep work session where I'll sit down to try to get like locked in and get focused. So I'll do like a decaf coffee and MCT oil because I know that those MCTs are increasing ketones and that's

more fuel for the brain. So I'll use it like that, but you know, you don't need to be guzzling it down all day. And for anybody who has, they've probably experienced the problems that come with it. So, yeah. And you got to think like even a teaspoon of it is quite a bit. You know, you get five or 10 grams of it or something like that. That's a pretty good dosage. And also just a little more on that is coconut oil, I believe is like 70% or something like that or 60% MCT oil, right? That's the reason why people use coconut oil.

Coconut oil is a lot easier to cook with. I don't think it's smart to cook with mct oil correct right right yeah so the the um and then olive oil olive oil and coconut oil those are both uh you can cook with them they can both handle pretty good amounts of heat um even um i think uh was it macadamia nut oil i think even can handle even more heat. So you just don't want to have stuff that you go to heat up and then it oxidizes. And then it turns, it goes from being kind of somewhat of an unhealthy fat and turns into a, like almost like a trans fat, which is even worse, right? Yeah, exactly. And that's why, yeah, looking for those fats to have the higher smoke points they can handle, you know, because if you're somebody

who, you know, you're cooking things in like a frying pan or whatever, you know, you're really heating up that oil. And to your point, when you damage that oil, it's the way that your body handles it is much different than when you're consuming it in the natural form. And yes, it's something that, and even with like some of those other oils too, like I think that cooking with coconut oil and olive oil is great, but I still the best option is just cooking with butter you know i think that yeah in my opinion like things that things that come from animals are better than animals so and it tastes great yeah use some bacon grease right yeah things like that yeah so somebody just gets started on this diet and they're trying to really get their footing and you know they do the diet for two days and they fall off and they do the diet for three days and they fall off, and they do the diet for three days and they fall off, and they come back to you or they're coming back to one of us to try to stay on this diet,

what are something that you would suggest for them to be able to continue and to really stay on it? I realize each person is very different in terms of their personality, in terms of the foods that they really enjoy. But do you say, hey, man, you know what? Just go have at it and eat a lot because you, you really do enjoy food. And I think it'd be good if you were occupied with it, or do you try to have them fast so that they kind of, they decrease their hunger hormone or like, what's some strategies that you use? Cause I think a lot

of people they'll get through a few days and they, they do pretty good and they know it helps them. They've tried it, they lost some weight, but then just have a really hard time sticking with it. Yeah. And I think, you know, that's the question is like, there's a difference between what's most optimal approach and what's the most sustainable approach for the client or the person in mind. So I never recommend that somebody starts by doing, I really not a big fan of calorie counting and macro tracking for most people anyway. I think that it can be too restrictive. You know, if you're an athlete or somebody who has a reason to be like hyper-focused on it, that's a different story, but yeah, you don't want to be hungry. Like if you're, if you're dealing with hunger,

you're going to be more likely to slip up. You know, if you're, if you're coming home from work and, uh, or you're, you're on your way home from work, you're in your car and you're just hungry. Cause you ate like broccoli and chicken for lunch. And you know, your hunger hormones are going crazy. You're going to be more likely to reach for a soda or a candy bar or something like that. So the biggest thing I think is eating enough. You know, I like to, when I start somebody on keto, I like to give them a list of foods and say, Hey, this is, these are the keto friendly foods. Eat as much as you want for right now, because I think that as somebody becomes fat adapted, you're going to get those benefits that help reduce the hunger hormones. It's going to make it easier to, uh, you know, find where you should be

in your, with your calorie intake and stuff. So I think that that that's a big thing is just don't allow yourself to be hungry. But then I also think that, you know, two things is, is what, what's the reason why you're slipping up? So if your slip-up is that you come home, your whole life you've had dessert after dinner, you always eat ice cream after dinner, and that's what you're slipping up on is that you keep doing that, well, go for a low-carb ice cream. I don't think those are the best foods out there for people to eat, but it's going to be better than eating Ben and Jerry's by the pint. So I'd rather have you going out and eat one of those lower sugar ice cream options and

use that to transition yourself off of having that as a, you know, that's not a permanent solution, but it's a temporary solution, I think, to keep you going. And then the other thing too, is like looking at habit stacking, right? I think that, you know, you don't have to be perfect to be doing well. You know, if you make it two days and you slip up, I think that you don't have to be perfect to be doing well. If you make it two days and you slip up, I think that you should celebrate that you made it two days and try to make it three the next day. And try to just string those days together, knowing that this isn't an indefinite decision of I'm either keto or I'm not. And when I'm not, I'm doing the wrong thing. I think it's just being a little bit more honest with yourself and taking it easier on yourself and knowing that you're going to slip up along the way and that's okay. Just get back on track with what you do. You mentioned that you give your clients a list

of foods that they can have and then a list of foods that maybe they should avoid. You also mentioned at the beginning of the podcast that when people start keto, they eat a lot of like the not so healthy fats in excessive amounts. Can we, like we already talked about vegetable oils, but are there any other not healthy fats or fats that people should probably have in limited amounts? Yeah. So I think, um, in terms of like the actual fat, we, we pretty much cover them all, but there's sources of fat that are probably worth paying attention to. So like the typical processed dairy that a lot of people are eating, I think is not great. I'm not against dairy.

I think that dairy can be fine if you have like access to like a good raw source of it. But the processed dairy that most people are eating is not only kind of you're losing all the benefit of eating the dairy anyway, because it's all processed out of it. But it's also there's a lot of added fillers and things like that, that's just aren't great. So when you talk about like, you know, people who are doing, you know, pork rinds and nacho cheese is like their snack all the time. That's hardly real food, right? You're you're eating pretty much just fake processed food at that point. Same thing with like, a lot of like lunch meats and stuff or hot dog processed meats, probably don't want to be having a lot of that, you know, with the only thing that seems like there might be some truth to it on the meat being bad for you is that

having too much processed meat might be something that we should avoid. I think there could be some validity to that. So, you know, doing hot dogs and stuff like that all the time, maybe not the best approach. And I don't think that we should be loading up on omega sixes either. So, you know, doing hot dogs and stuff like that all the time, maybe not the best approach. And I don't think that we should be loading up on omega sixes either. So, you know, even quality, more quality sources of omega sixes like nuts and stuff like that. I think that those are fine because they haven't gone through that. Those processes that kind of oxidize those fats and make them harmful. But our omega three to omega six fat ratio is still important. And we want to make sure that we're not having more omega sixes and omega threes. So, you know, if you're eating like a lot of chicken

and nuts, for instance, that's quite a few omega sixes in your diet, probably not the best approach, you'd want to make sure that you're having probably more red meat and fish, which is going to have a lot more of those omega threes, which is going to be beneficial. So yeah, I think it's more of the sources of it that you have to pay attention to because, you know, we live in a day where like, it's just hard to find real food. You know, if, if you go to the grocery store, 80% of the food that you see on the shelves, it's just not real food. And even the stuff that's got the keto label on it, that, you know, it's low net carbs and stuff. Uh, that doesn't mean that it's, it's good for you. The, uh, the three of us were pretty big proponents or advocates of intermittent fasting.

And there's been times where like I'm in a pretty long duration of fasting and I'm just like, whoa, my breath is terrible right now. And I have tried the ketogenic diet and I kind of like, I just call it keto breath because I have no other explanation for it. I'm like, something inside me is dying. I'm hoping it's like the fat. But do you think intermittent fasting is kind of like another way or a clever way to get back into ketosis for people? Yeah, definitely.

So, you know, keto was invented because it can mimic fasting. So, you know, back in the 1920s, fasting was the primary method for treating pediatric epilepsy. But obviously, having children not eat is not great for their growth. So they wanted to figure out a better option. Keto was able to mimic fasting. So that means that they produce very similar effects on the body, which means that they complement each other really well too. So I think that they can be used pretty effectively. And one of the things I always say is that, you know, the primary difference between like a low carb and a keto diet is that it's, it's the presence of ketones, right? If you go full keto, you have more ketones than if you go low carb,

but a low carb diet can be pretty ketogenic if we incorporate intermittent fasting, right? That's another way to get those ketone levels ramped up. So I think intermittent fasting is a really great tool for getting back into ketosis if you slip up. As long as you're being careful with that. I think that like binging and starving yourself is not the best way to go about it. But if you're being intuitive with it, I think it's a great way to get back into ketosis. I think that it's a great way to get to a deeper state of ketosis. You know, like doing intermittent fasting in the morning is a great way to kind of make sure that those ketone levels are getting ramped up, which can have some benefit throughout

the day. So I do think it's good for that. The one hesitation I have with intermittent fasting is that too many people are doing it too much and for too long, which, you know, I think the calorie restriction is a great thing. Fasting almost inevitably leads to calorie restriction, unless you're very in tune with your diet and you kind of make up for that by eating more during your feeding window, it's going to lead to calorie restriction for most people. And I think there's a ton of benefit to that.

But being chronically calorie restricted, I think, can have harmful effects. And we do know that like, you know, if you weren't keto, and you were calorie restricted for a long time, it would have some negative effects on your metabolism. There's research that shows that when you're in a state of ketosis, some of those harmful effects are mitigated a little bit. But I still don't speculate that, you know, being in 1000 calorie deficit for, you know, indefinitely for like three years or something like that. I don't think that's a good idea. And a lot of people are doing that. I mean, my first year of doing intermittent fasting, I did intermittent fasting every day. And I realized that I wasn't tracking and I sat down one day and I looked at like how much I was eating. It's

like, oh, I'm eating 1700 calories a day. I'm like six foot four, I weigh 200 pounds, I play basketball three times a week, and you know, work resistance train like four days a week. Oh, man, that's not great. It's not gonna be good for me. So I think it's important. Like I think fasting should be cycled into your diet and not something that you do all the time. Yeah. That, that part you mentioned right there in terms of being in tune with like days where you, maybe you should just eat more days where you can manage. It's, it's something that a lot of people, and even when I first started fasting, I fell into that trap. Um, you gotta make sure that you eat a lot on certain days. It's a big deal. Yeah, for sure. And especially when you're throwing exercise in there.

I mean, and the other thing that I think to keep in mind too is that calories, they're one part of the equation, right? Like I don't fall into either camp where I think the calories don't matter or I think that they're the end all be all. They're one of the factors that play a role in our health. But when you're on a low carb diet, when you're fueling your body with the right foods, calories seem to matter less, our body becomes actually more inefficient with burning and meaning that we will burn more energy than we actually need to when we're on a ketogenic

diet. So there's some really good research. And if anybody's ever heard of Ben, Dr. Ben Bickman out there, he has some really great content that kind of explains why this happens. It has to deal with mitochondrial uncoupling proteins and things like that. But we will actually burn more calories when we're on a ketogenic diet. So we don't to be to think that you need to be like in this massive calorie deficit to see benefits. It just isn't. It's not true. benefits. It just isn't, it's not true. And I think one thing that we need to keep in mind too, is that just as important as removing foods are from your diet is replacing them with the right things. You know, if you go keto and you intermittent fast and you're only eating 1200

calories a day, but you're exercising a ton, lifting weights, you're not giving your body the nutrients that it needs to repair and rebuild. Right. And I think that that's the big thing, like step one, yeah, get rid of the crap that's holding you back and ruining your health. But step two is replace that with good stuff. And you know, fasting is a great tool, but I think you have to keep the calorie intake in mind still. Yeah, the food choices are huge. You know, when you start eating eggs and steak and things like that, it makes it much more challenging for most people to be able to overeat. Although there's some people who can still get after it, uh, pretty good when it comes to, uh, females, you, you mentioned some differences. Is there any difference in particular with like the way they should follow this diet?

Have you noticed anything, uh, that stands out to you that they should be aware of? Yeah. So, you know, I, I have a hard time with it because I feel, well, for one, we lack a lot of research with women because to be frank, we don't use women in studies as much because their hormones are so dynamic and they change throughout the month that it's so hard to get good readings on them. So even in animal research, it's usually male animals that are used because some of those variables stay a little bit more consistent. So most of what we have is from people experimenting and antidotes and things like that. male animals that are used because some of those variables stay a little bit more consistent. So most of what we have is from people experimenting and antidotes and things like that. For what, you know, for what I've found is that for some women actually having more carbohydrates can be beneficial in some instances. Like an example of this is my wife has Are you mentioning something like this yesterday?

Yeah. Especially like once I'm like my female clients started to go lower carb, they just started to have so many side effects. Even their periods became a little bit more inconsistent. When I do things like just give them a little bit more carbs, everything kind of just went back to normal. So I just have to be very, very careful when limiting the carbohydrates of a female client. Totally. And I think, you know, again, we don't limiting the carbohydrates of a female client. Totally. And I think, you know, again, we don't have a lot of research on it, but one of my things that I speculate is that I don't know if it's the low, the degree of being low carb that's causing the side effects or if it's the other things that are coming with the diet. Like I think women are more likely to have the lack of hunger. Most women that I talk to that are doing keto are just super low calorie.

I mean, they're eating like, you hear people and they'll be like, I don't know what's going on. I don't feel great. I'm having all these problems. Like, what's your diet look like? Well, you're eating a thousand calories. You're doing cardio for two hours a day. Yeah, of course, things aren't going right. So I think that I speculate that calories, protein, and nutrient intake is probably a better lever to pull.

But there are some people where they have those. Like I have one friend out here who she is. She's just like a superhero. Like you look at her. She has like incredible, like she's incredibly strong. She works out a bunch. She's just like she's literally a superwoman. And she does way better with like, she's had her diet dialed in to the point where she's been doing everything right. And still experiences better benefits when she's around like,

you know, 80 to 120 grams of carbs a day. So I think that, I think that for some people out there, it is going to be better. But I think before you get to the point of thinking you need to have more carbs, let's look at those other things first and say, like, are you getting enough calories, protein, and what are the actual foods you're eating? You know, if you're eating a keto diet where you're doing a salad with chicken on it and olive oil, you know, not many nutrients in that diet, right? So like, let's see what happens when we start to incorporate more like red meat and things like that. One more thing I want to ask you about is since you've worked with a lot of people on keto, have you noticed anything different with postmenopausal women? Like, do they seem to be more consistent on this diet than not?

What do you mean by consistency? In terms of being able to stick with it without like, without the mood or other types of things that typically happen. Yeah. So I actually, it seems like from my personal experience that post-menopausal women do the best. Um, and I, and it's hard for me to tease out why, because I was never working with them before. So is it that they're doing better because they're coming from the standard American diet and anything is better than that? Maybe, you know, that, that could be the reason why, but it does seem like they have less side effects. It does seem like they're able to stick with it better. But you know,

I would spec like, I'm not always the first to say that like, Oh, it's because it's keto, right? Like that's the reason why it's always better. I think that there's a lot of reasons to look at it. And it's like, if you were going through menopause or you were dealing with post-menopausal life in conjunction with the standard American diet, you probably felt like shit, right? Like you're probably like as bad as you could feel. So going keto and cutting out carbs and stuff like that, you're going to experience a massive benefit. And you're going

like, if your baseline was here, now it's way up here. I think that's probably the reason why. So I don't think that there's enough research to say that keto is doing something specifically for these women, but from what I've seen, they do really well with it. What about, you know, somebody's doing a diet, they've lost a little bit of weight, they're feeling really good, but they're starting to really just be bogged down by not eating any carbs. How do we get some reprieve? We've got some snacks or treats, or can they just have a day or a meal where they just kind of go for it? Yeah. So I think that once you're kind of, I think you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't give yourself at least like four to six weeks of being consistent, because I think after

four to six weeks, you're going to restore and repair a lot of things that can kind of make it so you can better handle those carbs when you do want to have them. So I think that that's probably kind of first thing. But then after that, I think that incorporating them is fine. Using them strategically is probably the best. So if you want to incorporate them before a workout or around a workout, it's probably going to be the best option. Whole food sources are going to be better. I would much rather have somebody eating a sweet potato or even fruit rather than having gluten, wheat, pizza, stuff like that. So I think that that's a big thing to keep in mind. But then also, I think if you're going to have those cheat meals,

you definitely want to limit them to some degree. I was at Metabolic Health Summit out in Long Beach a couple of weeks ago, and I was talking withabolic Health Summit out in Long Beach a couple weeks ago, and I was talking with a guy who just started a CGM company. So it's like a continuous blood glucose monitor. And he said he had a friend who was an athlete, incredible metabolism, kind of one of those guys, like you said, who could have like 150 grams of carbs and stay in ketosis. He was wearing the CGM, and he went went out one night and he drank a bunch of alcohol and he came back and he ordered a pizza and ate it. And his blood sugar went up above like

300 and it was like literally like diabetic. Right. And it stayed elevated for like a really long period of time. So kind of tells you like, if you're going to do it, the degree in which you do it, you should probably be mindful of it. I think cheat days can be fine. They can be fun. I like to have them occasionally too. But 10 beers, pizza, and ice cream, you might experience some things that might not be great for you. So I think you just got to be mindful if you do it.

What's up, Poopcast? I hope you guys are enjoying this episode with Chris Irvin. The guy lays out the information on the ketogenic diet. So simple, so easy to digest. We hope you guys are liking it as much as we do. If you guys are interested in more of the ketogenic diet for training, as far as like aesthetics, strength, all that, we're actually going to do a follow-up episode with Chris Irvin,

and that's getting posted tomorrow. So please stay tuned for that. But right now we want to give a shout out to Manny20EG. Manny just dropped us a rating and a review on iTunes and he says, most informative and motivating podcast. Quote, I've been listening to you guys for a year now. I've learned so much on nutrition from you guys and your podcast is always a good start to the day

to help me stay on track with my diet and training. That's really cool to hear Manny. We sincerely like, one, we really, really appreciate you taking the, you know, a couple minutes out of your day to drop that rating and review. It really does help the show. But the fact that you gave us that feedback and it kind of just makes us feel like, you know, on certain days we feel like we're screaming at a brick wall. You know, we have so much good information like today from Chris Irvin that we're always worried, like, man, is anybody even like really hearing us? like we see that people are downloading the show like we get you know good feedback as far

as numbers go but like are people really really like listening and uh getting feedback from you Manny like that that means a ton to us man that makes us that makes it all worth it if you listen right now if you want to hear your name and your review right on air head over to iTunes right now drop us a rating drop us a review and you could hear your name on air just like our boy Manny20EG. We'll catch you guys tomorrow. Peace.