Realfoodology - How to Balance Your Blood Sugar with Kelly LeVeque

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

110: Kelly LeVeque, is a best-selling author, celebrity holistic nutritionist and wellness expert, who you may know from instagram as BeWellbyKelly. She is the author of Body Love and Body Love Everyday and she makes healthy eating simple. We talk about her food philosophy the Fab 4, what it means, how to balance your blood sugar, what foods are best for balancing blood sugar and so much more! On This Episode We Cover: Blood sugar balance  What whole foods do to help blood sugar balance  Intermittent fasting  Caffeine and what it does to blood sugar  Crash in blood sugar  Continuous glucose monitors Blood sugar balancing meals  How to eat your first meal when intermittent fasting  Blood sugar and depression  Importance of listening to your body Importance of protein  Foods that support blood sugar balance  Linoleic acid  Seed Oils Proper way to eat carbohydrates  What’s causing the rise of diabetes  Endocrine disrupters Plastics  Toxins we are newly exposed to Alcohol  What ultra processed foods do to kids How to read food labels How to break the fast  Certificate of analysis on products  Recipe ideas How to get kids to eat better  Moms vs. Dads feedings kids Why oat milk should be avoided  Check Out Kelly: Instagram bewellbykelly.com Be Well By Kelly Protein Powder  Sponsored By: Cured Nutrition www.curednutrition.com/realfoodology REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% off Organifi www.organifi.com/realfoodology Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% OFF Magic Mind http://www.magicmind.co Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% OFF Check Out Courtney: Courtney's Instagram: @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database Further Listening Food is Medicine and Information for the Body

On today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. We are in the age of frankenfoods. We're in the foods of like, how can we make a burger out of soy protein, gluten protein, industrial seed oils, and let's make it look like it's bleeding on a barbecue. I want people to simplify. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. As always, I am your host, Courtney Swan. I am so excited that you're here and today's episode is a really good one. I sit down with my longtime friend, Kelly Levesque. She is a bestselling author, celebrity, holistic nutritionist, and wellness expert. And you probably know her from her Instagram, Be Well by Kelly. She's also the author of Body Love and

Body Love Every Day. And I just love her so much. We are so lined in our philosophies around real food and she makes eating healthy really simple. Kelly is really great at breaking down really complex nutrition philosophies and she makes them super simple and digestible and gives really good metaphors and just makes it a lot easier to navigate eating healthy,

which I know can be really confusing for a lot of us. We talk about her food philosophy, which is the Fab Four, what it means, how to balance your blood sugar, what a healthy plate looks like, how to build your healthy plate, what foods are best for balancing blood sugar, and so much more. So with that, let's get into the episode with Kelly. As always, before we dive into the guest, I just want to ask you guys a really quick favor. If you could leave a rating and review, it helps this show so much. It is really the best way for me to grow. So any

help that you guys can give me, it takes about two seconds, just five-star rating and review. I would appreciate it so much. And as always, thank you so much for your support. It means the world to me. One of the things that I really struggle with the most is falling asleep at night. And this is why I love Cured Nutrition because I have found that their product Zen in combination with CBN has really helped me to fall asleep quicker. In Zen, it is a combination of magnesium, reishi, CBD, and then it has things like passionflower, ashwagandha. All of these just help to calm the mind and calm the body and get you ready for bed. And then I also take their raw CBN nighttime hemp oil. CBN is known specifically for creating more relaxation than CBD does. So the combination of these two together has really helped me to fall asleep

quicker. I'm obsessed with Cured Nutrition and all of their products because they go above and beyond their commitment to high quality, organic, healthy products is above and beyond any other CBD company I've seen. If you want to hear more about it, I had the founder on the podcast, Joe Sheehy. He's amazing. He's a good friend of mine. I can't speak highly enough. If you want to try these products or any of the other cured products, go to curednutrition.com slash realfoodology and use code realfoodology and you're going to save 20%. That is cured, C-U-R-E-D, nutrition.com slash realfoodology. All right, I'm on a roll recently talking about

different Organifi products that I love because I feel like I've hammered in how much I love the red and the green juice. I drink the red and the greens every single morning just to flood my body with nutrients and antioxidants. But I wanna start talking about some of their other products because they do have a lot of really amazing products. And if the ones that I love and talk about

aren't resonating with you, I want to share other ones so that you can find something that you love on Organifi's website as well. I have been drinking their Pure for about six months now. This is their one that's for mental clarity and digestion. It has no caffeine, but I really have noticed a difference.

It really does turn on my brain. It has a lot of really amazing properties like lion's mane mushroom, which really helps with cognitive function. There's a lot of studies and science behind that. There's also coffee berry in there. There's aloe vera, digestive enzymes, which of course are going to help with digestion. And there's a couple of other things in there, but it's so good, you guys. It tastes like lemonade, but there's no sugar in there. And as of course, always with Organifi products, it is USDA organic and it's glyphosate residue free. If you guys want to try any of the Organifi products, you're going to get 20%

off when you go to Organifi.com slash realfoodology. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash realfoodology. Oh, and make sure that you use code realfoodology and you're going to get 20% off. I hope you guys love it. So let's kind of dive into it. I don't know how many people know your story, but I find it so fascinating that before you got into wellness that you were, you started in cancer research. So where did you start and then how did you get to this place where you became a wellness expert? Yeah. So I went to USC for undergrad. I took nature of human health and disease my senior year. I actually saved a lot of my sciences for like my junior and senior year. Ultimately called my dad in tears, like, what the heck? I should be pre-med. And he was like, well, figure out how to use your

business degree in like science. And so I ultimately moved into like Western medicine, pharmaceuticals to medical device to like the majority of my, the back half of my career being in cancer and genetics, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, colon cancer, tumor mapping. It's really cutting edge stuff. Basically the Netherlands has this bank of tumors, um, solid state tumors that were never treated with chemotherapy. So they're able to look at the genes and genetic pathways, um, of those tumors because they're like on, they're untouched and they weren't ever treated with any type of chemotherapy. So really cool stuff. They were able to basically tumor map and show which genes are turned on or up and which drugs would be the most efficacious. And

that's a really interesting way to like kind of bring you up to speed, which is that I fell in love with reading research. I fell in love with understanding science. But I ultimately wanted to help people from a place of wellness instead of working in cancer centers, working with oncologists of any form, radiation oncologists, surgical oncologists, traditional oncologists, like it's all really hard to see and be a part of. And in my class at USC, Nature of Human Health and Disease, my final paper and thesis in that class was all about type two diabetes. So it just, it's crazy the way that it works when you really are passionate about something and you end up rabbit holing it and learning more about it. And it just, I loved that

class and I loved learning about blood sugar and ultimately an eight year career. I spent an eight, eight years of like my first eight years out of college on PubMed sharing research and trying to make it accessible and understandable to like a lay person. And yeah, it just, it kept eating at me. And I ultimately went back to school first to be a health coach, then to become a clinical nutritionist. So that meant that I took a year of courses about a year and a half, if you look at it, because it took me a little longer. I was doing it on nights and weekends and piecemealing it together from places like UCLA Extension and Berkeley because it just depended what classes were available.

But ultimately, I kept coming back to blood sugar balance. I really don't love an eat and do not eat list. I don't like a strict diet. I read all the diet books growing up, but the minute someone tells me I can't have something, I feel the pressure of wanting to eat it. And it just fails. It fails over and over and over again for me. And so I don't like strict rules, but I loved the science of blood sugar because I understood, I just think it's amazing that our body is able to take anything that we eat, metabolize it. If it's not great for us, we detoxify it through our liver and our kidneys and our bowels. And if it's something we can use, we have hormones that help us suck those nutrients into cells and make something of that, whether that's energy or

a new cell or hormone or neurotransmitter. And so I just think the body's amazing. And blood sugar was so interesting to me because when we eat whole foods, when we eat sugar and starches wrapped in fiber, when we eat proteins and whole food fats, it's like nature's gift to us that all of these nutrients are wrapped in a way that naturally supports our blood sugar curve and that we don't have to do much to support it. And our body, our pancreas naturally releases less insulin. It is able to pull those nutrients into cells. And all our microbes love all the fiber, love all the prebiotics. They even love all of the, you know, the phytochemicals like polyphenols. So

it's amazing. When we really look at whole foods and their ability to support our blood sugar balance and our health, the research is amazing and really motivating. And so I wanted to give people a short list, ultimately started my practice. It's now been a decade seeing private clients, all walks of life, autoimmune diseases, heart disease, you know, people getting ready for specific events. But yeah, I mean, I just love to help people get well by using blood sugar as like our lens. Yeah, I love that. That's where you and I are very aligned with this because I feel very passionately about this as well. Because for me and my own personal journey,

what helped me the most was when I was finally able to manage my blood sugar and get to a place where I felt like I was pretty even keel throughout the day. And that really, for me, took a lot of just experimenting with different diets, different foods that worked for me, took a lot of just experimenting with different diets, different foods that worked for me, different mealtimes. I practice a little bit of intermittent

fasting, which I actually wanted to ask you about, like from the lens of blood sugar balance, I've seen a lot of conflicting evidence on this and a lot of different people talking about like two different sides of it. How do you feel about in the morning practicing intermittent fasting from the lens of blood sugar balance? I think truly if someone's metabolically flexible and they're able to burn fat as a source of fuel and they've been dipping into fat stores and they're able to use that as a source of fuel,

you have a lot on your body and someone can wake up after a night of sleep, maybe had pretty balanced blood sugar the day before, wake up, not feel hungry when they wake up in the morning, feel good not eating, not thinking about food, don't want to force food, then I think that's great. I think where it becomes a problem is when we wait until two or three for some people and then we've waited too long and either we've had caffeine, which can cause a hypoglycemic event or a crash in blood sugar. I don't think people realize that intermittent fasting with excess caffeine can actually be a problem because

caffeine can cause adrenaline and cortisol. And then your liver takes stored glycogen, because that's a tank that we can access, stored glycogen, because that's a tank that we can access, stored glycogen, dumps that, you know, breaks it down to glucose, dumps it in your bloodstream. So you have a surge in blood sugar and then you have a crash. And so if someone, if you're not overdoing caffeine,

if you're not in a stressful, if you're not having a lot of stress in your life, because stress can do the same thing, right? Anything that causes adrenaline and cortisol is going to have this effect on your liver. And I've seen it with continuous glucose monitors where a client will have one cup of coffee and their blood sugar is fine, but then they hit themselves with their second cup of coffee and we see a blip in blood sugar go up and then we see more of a hard crash. It's that kind of a situation where you're pushing off the food, but you have stress in your life,

you have a really hard workout, or you have excess caffeine, and that's gonna backfire on you. It's gonna be two or three o'clock in the afternoon, you're finally gonna let yourself eat something, you're gonna overeat, you're gonna crave sugar, you're gonna have a crash in energy, you might end up eating late night,

and then you go like, maybe that intermittent fasting thing isn't working for me. And so this is where I get individual with a client and I say, okay, let's see. Like, yes, some people have access to continuous glucose monitors and we can get that data pretty quickly and easily. But if you don't, it's just about your symptoms and how you feel and your energy kind of tracking that. Are you sensitive to caffeine? If you're sensitive to caffeine and you want to intermittent fast, these are days you really have to be diligent about keeping it to a cup. If you feel like you don't have energy after your workout and you're doing such a hard workout that you're nauseous, you're shaky, you're lightheaded, you're irritable, it may be best to

fuel up after that workout than to intermittent fast so again it comes down to the person but it really truly to me is looking at the client and saying is this person good at burning are they metabolically flexible are they in a in a healthy place to intermittent fast physically emotionally mentally like you you have to have your mind right if you're gonna intermittent fast too, right? Because you can't just fast and then have a high glycemic meal. We know that inflammatory markers go up when we are fasting into a high glycemic meal.

What I mean by that is it's not a free ticket. You can't just fast until three and then roll into a Domino's pizza, right? We have to roll into a blood sugar balancing meal. You have to prioritize protein, not be in a suboptimal place. And that, I think that is key. And if intermittent fasting is a tool that works for you, just assess all those things. How am I with caffeine? How am I with a workout? What's the stress like in my life right now? I'll tell you one thing. I have a toddler who didn't sleep.

Like, I mean, he's 20 months old now. And Chris and I like high five in the morning because we had a really hard 18 months with this one. Like he's going to give me a run for my money. But those 18 months were never, it wasn't going to work out for me to intermittent fast in those times. And if anything, it was really important for me after these really hard nights of sleep to wake up and eat something proactively because we know one night of poor sleep, we have insulin resistance, we have excess cravings, we eat more on average. And so it was like this helpful tool for me was the Fab Four smoothie. And I just wake up and sometimes I didn't even feel like eating, but I knew if I didn't, I was in a place where the sleep was lacking, the cravings were high. And if Chris toasted a keto, you know, protein-based birch blenders, pancakes for my kids,

waffle for my kids, I was coming in on their plate. And so I just would fuel up to get through that, knowing that it's a proactive step for me and that it was going to make an impact on the subsequent, you know, the rest of the meals of the day. And that's, you know, that's another thing we have to look at clients is just, all right, what's going to work for you and your body? And you said it earlier in the podcast, it's all about experimenting with yourself. And I think what's so interesting is you look at the most popular diets or things that people get really excited about. Paleo, keto, gluten-free, grain-free, whole 30, even plant-based, right? If someone's doing a plant-based diet, that is truly plant-based. They're eating more

vegetables. They're eating, you know, proteins like garbanzo beans or something. The starches and sugars wrapped up in these diets are wrapped up in fiber. It's a slow release of blood sugar. They have to chew through that food. They have to digest through that food, enzymes, hydrochloric acid. Then that sugar and starch is finally released after fermentation from the gut bacteria, you know, through the epithelial lining into the bloodstream. Okay, it's so slow. But like compare that to an apple juice or a soda or sugary beverage, which by the way, increases your, you know, depression risk by 36%. People who overuse and drink sugary beverages daily. So if we're not connecting, you know, we're not

connecting our food choices to how we feel energetically, you know, emotionally, we're missing the boat. Yeah. Well, and yeah, I mean, you just touched on what I found to be the most important thing about figuring out our diets and it's bio-individuality and paying attention to your body's signs and symptoms. Because our bodies will tell us whether or not something is working for us. And that is ultimately where I think a lot of people struggle is because everyone's looking to everyone else for an answer. Tell me, have this expert tell me exactly what to do and what to eat. And at the end of the day, you can take the advice from the experts and listen to podcasts like we're having right now,

but ultimately you have to really try all these different things, take note of how you're feeling, what your energy is like, if you're sleeping, how your digestion is, etc. And then from there you can determine what's working for you and what's not and kind of where you can figure out how to build your perfect diet. And so you mentioned earlier, you don't like strict rules. So what's your suggestion when you're working with clients? What do you kind of tell people since you don't like strict rules?

Yeah, so we approach it two ways. So first, I created something called the Fab Four, which helps people balance their blood sugar. And this is not what not to eat. This is what to look for on your plate. Because if I can put these things on your plate, a lot of time I'm crowding out processed foods. I'm crowding out the acellular carbohydrates. These are any kind of carbohydrate that is ripped from its fiber cells. So think like juices, sugars, liquid sugars, flours. So if rice is a cellular carbohydrate, rice flour is an acellular carbohydrate. Rice has the, you know, the rice bran. And even though it is a high carbohydrate food,

it is a whole food. And there is some fiber there that needs to, that is holding onto that starch. Whereas rice flour, you think about throwing rice on a table. There's like, you can see the table still. Throw rice flour down and it's covering. Think about that like as your epithelial lining, as the microbes there in your gut, like you're covering a lot of it. It's going to seep through. We're going to see a faster and higher spike in blood sugar with something that's acellular. So when I talk about, you know, when I talk about

blood sugar, I'm really focusing on what isn't going to have a major impact on your blood sugar protein. A lot of people are suboptimal levels of protein intake. Protein is going to make everything from every cell in your body to your neurotransmitters and your hormones. It is needed for detoxification in your liver. So, you know, when you think about people doing a detox or fasting or juicing, like protein is needed to do what the liver needs to do to detox. So we got to remember that too. And it makes us feel really satisfied, most satisfying macronutrient out there. So if someone's trying to naturally

lower the amount of times that they eat in a day, so they have better digestion or eat less in a meal because we know quantity of the meal and quantity that we need to digest. If we're overeating, we have a decrease in energy. So there are so many reasons why protein is your friend at every meal,

but it's really satisfying and it supports blood sugar balance because it's not going to have a major spike or effect on your blood sugar. Fat, healthy fat sources like avocado, olives, whole nuts. I love all of the fatty acids, but I think it's really interesting when we're eating and enjoying our linoleic acid, which is, you know, your plant-based omega-6s wrapped up in a whole food, like something that comes rich in vitamin E, which is an antioxidant that protects that fat from oxidation versus liquid form. You know, that's a huge debate right now. That's a huge debate right now. And I'm gonna put a pin in that one right now.

But I will say, you know, it is, we can just look at cellular, we can just look at our cells in particular. We have seen a two and a half fold increase in linoleic acid from basically 1960 to like 2010. And so looking at that, it's amazing. If you tell me it doesn't matter what you eat, I will tell you on a cellular level, what you're eating is showing up in your body. And that ratio is showing up in your cells. So let's just be aware of that, right?

But protein, right? Super satisfying macronutrient, essential to get all of our amino acids from food, no matter what kind of diet you live by, right? Plant-based to carnivore, got to get those amino acids. Fatty acids, three, six, and nine, all your omegas. Um, you know, like I said, when it's a whole food, avocado, olive, nut seed, you're getting those amazing things like vitamin E. You're also getting all those minerals. So don't, I mean, again, I just, I'm always like mother earth, God, like they're get it. It's provided to you in the most amazing package and you have to see the benefit of that, but also getting that fiber in those prebiotics and think about detoxifying hormones,

detoxifying environmental toxins. When we're pooping and when our microbes have, you know, the fiber they need, soluble fiber to multiply and give off butyrate and keep our leaky, you know, keep our gut junctions tight, then we're not absorbing those things. And then the insoluble fiber pushing everything out, really like scraping away old cholesterol, scraping away old estrogen that's been tagged to, you know, to be removed from our body. Like that is an amazing, amazing process. And it happens

when we eat whole foods. And so then the fiber and greens piece of the Fab Four is like, all right, look at your plate. Is there something fibrous, deep in color? That might be some cucumbers and some blueberries. If you're looking at my kid's plate, it may be an arugula salad with some roasted cruciferous vegetables from the night before on mine. Really, it's kind of like, hey, eat some fiber and eat the rainbow because this is where we're going to get those prebiotics. We're going to get all of those phytochemicals that give us nourishment. So let's say I go to a pizza place or a client goes to a pizza place. I go, okay, how are you going to get protein, fat, fiber, and greens? And they may order, you know, they, they may order an arugula salad and the roasted broccoli off the menu. And they may decide to get the sausage pizza. Or if they're,

you know, at John and Vinny's, they have an amazing, I can't remember, but it's like a pounded chicken with an arugula salad on top and they're getting that for the table. And then they're getting a few other things. We're just, we're looking for the things that satisfy us first. And we also know intake of eating those things first and following that up with a carbohydrate blunts glucose excursions and glucose excursions, meaning looking at a CGM, seeing how high and how fast our blood sugar is going. And if you eat protein, fat, and fiber first, the Fab Four, which I've talked about since like ad nauseum since 2016, then you're able to manage that blood sugar spike better. Because if you think about it, it's slowing down your digestion.

You're pairing those macronutrients and mixing those macronutrients, that starch is going to be slower to digest, slower to release into your bloodstream and slower to cause a blood sugar spike. So it's just amazing. And I think it's really, really cool to just, and there are days when I'm like, Fab, what? Like, let's be real, right? It's just light structure to say, hey, I'm going to get back on track and I'm going to make sure I have some chopped veggies in the fridge. And maybe I make a whole chicken or I make a big carnitas pork butt, or I'm doing some grass fed sliders and I'm keeping that in the fridge just to have some protein. No, I have a tahini sauce or an avocado or something to drizzle on top or a homemade dressing.

It's not rocket science. This is not like a, I'm a home chef. I am not, you know, a home cook. I'm not a chef. So five ingredients or less, it should be super easy. But just by thinking about it as what to put on your plate versus what to remove, what to avoid, what not to eat, totally changes the game. It's an attainment game now. It's not

deprivation. It doesn't create the pressure cooker of I'm going to binge and eat that. And it's also a reminder that I'm totally capable of managing a glucose excursion because my body knows what to do with sugar if I eat it. Like your blood sugar goes up and we release insulin and insulin picks that up and it puts it away in your liver, in your muscles. There's not a lot of space left. It'll send it back to your liver. It might get packaged into something else

and stored a different way. But the reality is when we look at even things like blood sugar now, people are so excited about blood sugar. It's just like when we were excited about low carb diets. Okay. We're excited about low carb diets. That means no carb is best. We're excited about blood sugar balance. That means a flat line is best. I mean, there's no, like we are, the goal is not to, to never see a bump in blood sugar. Glucose excursions are fine. The problem is glucose excursions over time increase fasting blood sugar.

And so when we have multiple blood sugar spikes and crashes over and over and over again all day, we see that fasting blood sugar number that used to be, you know, let's say it was a 78 is now a 91 or a 95 or a 99. And as we age, that number gets higher and higher. Our chances of having type two diabetes, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, or in our, you know, fertile years, increasing your chances of polycystic ovarian syndrome, all of those lifestyle diseases go up. And so let's get it straight. A glucose excursion is not a problem. You are an amazing human in a very miraculous body and it has the ability to take the sugar and use it as fuel and put it away and store it for later. But we want to watch that number over time. We want to look at your energy.

And ultimately, we want to provide your body with fuel in the most natural way possible. Do you know what a nootropic is? If you don't, I highly recommend listening to my podcast episode with James of Magic Mind. It was such an eye-opening episode for me. We dive into the science behind nootropics, but basically what they are are properties that help to better your cognitive function. And most of them come without side effects. There are some that are prescription drugs now that do

come with side effects, but I try to stick on the natural side. You guys know me. I like to keep it natural and clean. And this is why I love Magic Mind so much. It is full of nootropics. It also has adaptogens in there, matcha, L-theanine to calm down the nervous system. So you get a little bit of energy and you get a boost of cognitive function, but you also get this calming effect too from the L-theanine. It is amazing. I can't speak highly enough about it. I drink it every single day alongside my morning coffee and it has truly changed my productivity game. They have given me a code to share with you guys.

If you go to magicmind.co and use the code realfoodology, you're gonna save 20%. That's magicmind, M-A-G-I-C-M-I-N-D dot C-O, and use code REALFOODOLOGY. I love the way that you explain that too. It makes it really simple and digestible for people. I love the saying that I've been hearing a lot lately is you never want to eat your carbohydrates naked, which is basically what you just said. And for me, I was like, oh, that's such a perfect way of explaining it to people to

make it really manageable to remember is that whenever you're having a carbohydrate, you always, like you said, you want to wrap it with fiber and protein and fat so that you don't have that crazy, insane spike of blood sugar, which is what is really concerning. So knowing all of this and seeing what's been happening with our population within the last like 50 years or so, in your opinion, what do you think is causing the rise of diabetes and all of these chronic diseases you're talking about? I know it's very multifaceted, but... Yeah. I mean, what is interesting is some of the caloric data. I will say some of the caloric data is really interesting where we haven't seen a major increase in caloric consumption in the last 50 years.

There hasn't been this drastic increase in caloric intake. Right. But we have seen a drastic increase in chronic lifestyle diseases, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, a lot of things that we're going, okay, something isn't right here, something. And what has happened over this period of time is the major processing of our food, the introduction to a number of endocrine disrupting chemicals that we were never, our grandparents were never in contact with. You know, I think about my grandma and I think about, you know, probably BPA and, you know, like maybe my uncle who fought in the war, like just think our toxic load is really high. And just a personal example, like I'm pretty good about avoiding plastic. I've been using clean skincare for, I don't know,

at least since I started trying to 2016, 2015, before I started thinking about, you know, having kids, I've had some form of clean home products for a long time. I just did a blood test, a NutriVal. I was looking, I did all my blood tests this year, finally, you know, taking a break from having babies and breastfeeding to plastics in my blood. You know, sometimes they're unavoidable and we have to think, you know, like I'm not heating any, I don't have a microwave right now. I'm not heating anything in plastic. I'm using, you know, stainless steel, enameled or cast iron pans, glass and stainless steel water bottles. I have glass delivery of water to my house. Like that was my Christmas present to myself.

That's awesome. You know, my husband's like, what do you want this year? I'm like, glass water delivered because I just am sick of you. You know, we had a Brita and then we had the Berkey. And the more I learn, I'm like, is it coming through my tap water? Is it, you know? That's a big concern. Yeah. Yeah.

And then you think about like, you know, we know, we were able to buy our first home last year and I'm going to be 40 next year. And I'm like, oh, getting it in right before my 40th birthday, you know. But even thinking about, okay, well, I'm painting the walls and what are the floors? And there are so many from fire retardants in your kid's car seat to the couch. Like there's a lot of stuff that our parents were never exposed to. And, and so it's definitely multifaceted. I think, you know, the future will tell us a lot more. Um, but I am, you know, I always, I always really work with clients when it comes to getting these things under control, because we know a lot of them are, you know, estrogenic in

the body and our hormones play a big role in how we feel, our fertility, you know, our longevity. And so, you know, EDCs really scare me to be honest. And especially when I'm like trying my best and I'm still, I can't, I'm still finding them and, and I'm going to do another test in like a couple of weeks. It'll be about eight weeks. The only way to really get those out is sauna. I was breastfeeding. I can't really be sauning because you don't want to mobilize any toxins when you're breastfeeding. So yeah, your body is going to hide all of that in your fat. And so I'm holding on to that until I can get really diligent about sauning. But I would definitely say if you're not breastfeeding, if you're not pregnant, saunas are worth the investment, especially if you're trying your best to keep the stuff out of your house.

Absolutely. And if you don't have access or like space in your apartment for a sauna or you can't afford to go, because I know there's a lot of places that have saunas. I have a sauna bag from Higher Dose. And I feel like for what it is, it's pretty well priced.

And I call it my sauna burrito because it's just like it wraps you in like a little burrito. And it's a great, I think a great investment. And I try to sweat in that a couple of times a week because like you said, I mean, we're just being exposed to so many things in our tap water, in the air, in our cleaning products, in our skincare, in our food.

And it's just like, it can seem very overwhelming, but I always like to remind people that, you know, we have the knowledge, we know all the things that we can do to avoid like everything that you just mentioned, drinking out of stainless steel, et cetera. We do the best we can. And then you kind of just have to let the rest of it go

and just, you know, like do your best. Right, absolutely. And I think that's the thing, right? Like I'm not, I'm not down on myself that I have plastic in, in, in my, in my blood or seeing that on my diagnostic results. Like I'm, I'm actually not totally surprised. Like it's, it's everywhere. And again, we are really, we're really amazing at getting things out of our body. If, if we open our detox pathways and that doesn't mean detoxing the way people think about detoxing. It's truly like supporting your detoxification, leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables, protein. Your body makes glutathione from protein. That's

the body's strongest endogenous antioxidant. And yeah, like eating colorful foods, like that's going to get us so far. And so I, you know, I can't believe actually that back in 2016, I had the foresight to say, oh, protein, fat, fiber and greens, because I'm sitting here. I mean, it's not rocket science. It's something your grandma probably sat down at the table and served up a salad and had some protein and some veggies on the plate. But like keeping it that simple for me gives me so much freedom. It's the structure I use for my kids' lunches. It's the structure I used when I was pregnant

because, you know, when you're pregnant, you're insulin resistant and, you know, you're also more prone to blood sugar issues like gestational diabetes, which has an impact on your child's birth weight, your labor and delivery, your chances of preeclampsia, so many things. So blood sugar is important in so many life stages from when you're young and or if you're the kind of person that likes to like go out to the clubs and drink, like your liver needs all of this goodness for detox. If you're the kind of person that wants to optimize and feel their best and have lots of energy, it supports that. When you're pregnant, when you're feeding your kids, like all of it. Like we know that learning and recall, like they did a test with kids and kids who had a whole food

diet versus kids who had a high sugar, high processed diet had a statistically significant difference in their ability to recall a story that was read to them 30 minutes later. Wow. That's really sad and scary when you think about how many kids are eating highly processed, highly sugary foods. It's a really, and I will say, my place in this is to empower moms to control the controllable. I get it. Daycare, school, grandma's, birthday parties. Hi, mom. Hi, mom, if you're listening.

Sorry, it's true. But there's stuff that we can control, but control the controllable. Like, make the hue chocolate gems, like minimal ingredients, lower sugar, because they're getting it everywhere. And it's the same as adults. You know, a lot of these kids are the majority of the sugar they're ingesting is actually from liquid sugar. You're thinking juices, sports drinks. It's so easy for them. And that sugar is so much more craveable and addictive for them that they, I mean, I can just, you know, think about bash getting a juice box. It's done in two minutes and they're ready. They want another one. There's no off switch there. Yeah. That's the problem with these sugary juices is it's so different drinking apple juice versus eating a real apple because you're getting all the fiber and it's going to fill

you up. It's going to slow down the insulin rush to your bloodstream. And I feel like a lot of people don't really understand the importance of that. I always tell people that personally, I'm not a juice person really. And I always say like, eat your fruits, don't drink them. And I feel like this is one of the most important tips that you can give someone who's really struggling with their blood sugars. First of all, just cut out all the sugary drinks. That to me is an easy one. I think it's hard in the beginning because it's addictive, but it's also a really

easy one to say like, okay, no more sugary drinks. Outside of that tip, what are some other tips that you have for people that maybe are struggling with trying to figure out how to manage their blood sugar yeah i will say i have to do a little asterisk on your recommendation there because we want to remind people that sometimes things can be wrapped in a healthy label or be praised for a specific part of it that makes it healthy. Maybe there's prebiotics added to this soda, or there's probiotics in that kombucha, or there's, you know, inulin in that coffee drink. Okay. It doesn't matter if there's prebiotics, probiotics, added antioxidants, curcumin, you know, turmeric to give you the curcumin or whatever it is. Collagen. Turn the bottle around, turn the bottle around, look at the total carbohydrates, subtract the fiber. There's not going to be any fiber unless it's some kind of like smoothie

style drink. And still it's going to be lower than what you would make at home. Subtract the fiber, that total net carbohydrate number in a liquid drink is ending a hundred percent up in your bloodstream and causing a major spike in your blood sugar. So coffee drinks, you know, kombuchas, the prebiotic sodas, that's kind of like fun. Okay. You want to have it, have it with a meal. Don't have it alone. So you're at a tear one, you get some fancy, fancy, like protein and veggie meal and you have it with it. Different experience is going to slow down the digestion there, but really, really try not to have it alone. Again, that goes back to carbohydrates, not being naked. Then you want to think about outside of liquid sugar of all forms, you want to look at how you start your day. Cause it doesn't matter to me when you start your food day. Is that at 6am,

10am, 11am? I feel like 11 to noon is sort of a sweet spot for me and for a lot of clients, but I will say the majority of my clients are waking up somewhere between 5 and 7 a.m. They're not waking up later than that. If your lifestyle allows you to wake up later than that, those hours might be pushback, right? So think about when you wake up. Five to six hours after you wake up, I think is probably like no later than that. And how you break that fast really matters. And that has to be a satisfying blood sugar balancing, hunger hormone regulating meal. Especially because when we see so many people in suboptimal levels of protein intake and this major push for people to lower their

protein intake, not only are we lowering the amount of amino acids that everyone's getting access to, we're talking about all the fat soluble vitamins, A, D, E, K. These are really important. We know vitamin D acts like a hormone in the body. And it's just the perfect vehicle. It's the most nutrient dense vehicle of protein, fat soluble vitamins, and minerals. And so thyroid health is impacted by that. Our immunity is impacted by that. Our detoxification is impacted by that. So breaking your fast with protein would be like one of the biggest tips I have for people, because if someone starts their day and breaks their fast with something that is around 20 to 30 grams, preferably closer to that 30 grams of protein mark,

they can easily go four to six hours without eating again. And so then we get complete digestion of that meal. We get less snacking, less grazing. And when you think about snacking and grazing, that's when processed carbohydrates, processed bars, snacks, quick to grab things happen because you're working, you're going from meeting to meeting, you're here and there and everywhere. And you're jumping into a grocery store or convenience store into your purse to eat something versus, hey, what if you just sat down and actually ate a satisfying whole food meal that stretched your stomach. Because that's another thing that you mentioned when you said apple. It reminded me, you know, we have hunger hormones that are triggered by a number of different things. And we have stretch receptors in our stomach that calm ghrelin. Ghrelin is the gorilla hormone. It makes you want to graze all day long. You know, I say that because you picture the zoo and the gorillas just like, I'm just going to keep eating.

And that's how I feel. And so many of my clients feel when they don't feel satisfied, when they aren't regulating those hunger hormones, they're reaching for things. And so my whole goal as a practitioner and, you know, clinical nutritionist is to get my clients out of their own way. They have goals. I don't want them stressed out about their goals. I want them feeling like hitting and meeting their goals is easy. And protein is a lever I have to pull to get there. And that's why the Fab Four smoothie exists because I would have clients having an egg for breakfast. And like that's six grams of protein. Phenomenal. Choline, vitamin D, amino acids,

super, but really low in protein if you're just having one hard boiled egg. But coming from this culture of diet culture, calorie counting, small mini portions, that feels safe. And I 100% understand why that feels safe, but it may and will probably backfire later in the quantity of food that you eat, in the snacks that you grab for, in the pantry flybys that happen. And so I just want people to have the ability to make this easy.

And the Fab Four really helps my clients do that because let's say you have 20, 30 grams of protein, you have a little healthy fat that's going to slow the digestion of that meal down. Then you're adding fiber and greens. It's going to stretch your stomach. You're going to calm that ghrelin. You know, fat's going to cause the release of cholecystokinin. That's like, I call it the satiety blanket.

So there are so many ways that we can truly use food to our benefit and whole foods mixed together in a meal to allow us to have the fuel that we need. It's almost like going to the gas and you're getting unleaded or are you getting the supreme? Like put the supreme in your body, let your engine run really well and see that you'll get better mileage. You'll get a longer period of time. You'll get an elongated blood sugar curve and you don't have to try. Yeah. Oh my God. I love the way that you put that so much, Kelly.

That was perfect. Yeah. It makes it really easy for people. And I have found personally, because I struggled with that in the early days with the diet culture and everything and just trying to eat like one egg or I would just have this tiny little smoothie or whatever. And then I found myself hungry an hour later. And that is when your blood sugar starts to crash. That's when I found myself reaching for the really high carbohydrate and really high sugary foods

because your body is looking for a really quick form of energy, quick form of carbohydrates to get that blood sugar back up. And that's why when you were talking about the satiety blanket is so important to have that protein, that fat and having the fiber, because I found that when I really focus on that Fab Four, it's so funny, before I even knew about your Fab Four, I just kind of instinctively had started following something similar to that, where I found that, yeah, it keeps my blood sugar level. I'm not snacking as much throughout the day. I'm not reaching for those sugary snacks. I usually find myself when I'm hungry looking for like a meat stick or something like that. So what are some of your favorite

blood sugar balancing foods that you found have really helped people with satiety? Yeah. Well, so first thing, we'll go through the day, right? Because we break the fast with breakfast, whenever that is for you. For breakfast, I love a Fab Four smoothie. If you have a protein powder that you love, I mean, I have a grass-fed beef isolate. I love it. Which is so good, by the way. I just have to say the flavors are amazing and you did such a good job with the ingredients. I mean, I've been drinking protein for 10 years. So I feel like I have a little bit of an advantage. I'm like a protein powder sommelier at this point. I'm like, could be better, could be better.

I will say the taste I'm really proud of and the ingredient profile is the most important to me. If someone has no problem with dairy, a grass-fed whey is a phenomenal, again, it's gonna be the really minimal ingredients, no chemical processing in either of those because it's just water and heat. If you're plant based, I mean, find yourself a clean pea protein or a chocho bean. I think peas that I would say, you know, Truvani, Ritual. Ritual does a good job of, they actually add methionine, which P is low in. So it's a complete protein technically, but the levels of methionine are almost none. The plant-based

proteins, you need to be really careful and make sure that you're getting a good quality one. And the ones that are making really good high quality protein powders, they're showing their lab results because a lot of these plant proteins are coming back with really high levels of heavy metals. Yeah, all plants sequester heavy metals from the soil. So just even when you go buy a squash at Whole Foods or Costco or wherever you buy your produce, they're gonna have specific trace levels, small trace amounts of heavy metals

because they sequester. So things that are really good at sequestering heavy metals from the soil, grains, they're going to be really strong in it. So that's where you see like brown rice protein is really a no-go for me because of its ability to pull things like arsenic and lead from the soil. And that is based on like, what's that soil like where they're getting that brown rice soil. And that is based on like, well, what's that soil like where they're getting that brown rice protein. So that's kind of off the table for me. And then, then you got to look at like legumes and things like that. Pea protein, legumes are going to be the second, probably strongest at pulling that kind of stuff from

the soil. And so what you said is, is right on. You want to look for COAs. They're certificates of analysis. They're going to tell you things like heavy metals, microbial growth. If it's something is certified organic, then they're not going to be able to use specific pesticides. But organic doesn't mean. So unfortunately, when we looked at plant-based proteins, there was a study that showed that actually organic proteins had a higher level of heavy metals, organic plant-based proteins. And so organic doesn't necessarily mean lower heavy metals. And so if you can get them to disclose COAs to you, testing results, specifically important if you're pregnant, breastfeeding, you know, for everyone. But really that's a specific time where I would say probably best to use something

that is animal based if you aren't plant based, because an animal is a great filter for those types of things. So protein in a smoothie, find the one that works for you. Um, Chocho, I think I said that one. That's the one available here in the States right now is Makuna. I've tried it. It's good. It's good stuff. And a minimal ingredient profile too. Um, then I would say eggs, phenomenal source, but you want to make sure that you're getting enough. Like, don't be afraid to have three to four eggs. I think people worry about cholesterol. I'm hoping that that is over by now because I'm pretty sure it was in 2015 when the front of time showed, you know, eggs on the front being actually heart healthy and good for you. So eggs, I would say killer. Great source, like I said, vitamin D, choline, omega-3s.

If you're getting pasture-raised eggs that feed off of bugs and or are fed some type of plant-based omega-3, they're going to convert that short-chain to long-chain omega-3s for you're going to get twice as much EPA and DHA in those egg yolks as the traditional or conventional, if something's caged or even cage-free, because we know what that means. A peek outside. You're getting a peek outside. You want them outside in the sun eating what they want. Um, eggs are great. And then you're going to look at lunch and dinner, right? So that's whatever makes you feel satisfied. Like I love a lettuce wrapped, like grass fed burgers. And even if I get the fab four in the burger and I'm having some sweet potato fries on the side, or I love like something like a siete tortilla. And I'll do like two of those

almond flour tortillas loaded with grass fed beef, guac, all the veggies. I do it, you know, spicy shrimp tacos. I do spicy salmon tacos. Like we love Mexican food here. We grew up in Southern California. My husband and I both did probably more than even American food. So that's for us. A lot of leftovers, roasted chicken, roasted veggies on top of a salad the next day. Yeah. Like tahini sauce, dressings, things like that. Snacks are a little bit harder to come by when it comes to protein and fat-based snacks, but I love using, I use Thrive Market. I get auto shipments of things like Chomps or Thrive Beef Sticks. We get their little mini olive packs.

I love a roll-up, like a turkey or salami, avocado roll-up. Anytime my kids, maybe I feel like they're bored, but they're like, what's in here? And I'm like, we just ate. We definitely just ate. I get it. We'll grab sauerkraut out of the fridge and just have some fermented sauerkraut. We know that things like apple cider vinegar and fermented veggies support blood sugar balance. So love that.

But yeah, really trying to lean into whole foods. I have a lot more fruit in my house than I've ever had now that I have kids because they love it. Um, so I'm having more, probably more apples dipped in almond butter than I have in a really long time. It's all good. Um, smoothies. I love, uh, like a quick smoothie maybe a little protein powder nut milk or water handful of walnuts maybe some frozen blueberries

a little spinach call it a day like I love a smoothie as a snack if I've had if I've waited to eat or if I've had eggs for breakfast chia seed pudding phenomenal kind of a breakfast I have a triple seed pudding, phenomenal kind of a breakfast. I have a triple seed pudding recipe.

It's called faux meal, like fake oatmeal, but it's chia seeds, hemp hearts, flax meal. And you heat that on the stove, just like you would grits, cream of wheat or oatmeal. It cooks up in three to five minutes. You can mix in a protein powder into that. So I don't sweeten it with anything other than a little bit of my vanilla protein. So good. That sounds really good. Yeah. This is making me hungry.

I know. We're a big fan of homemade popsicles around here. So I've been doing fudges with my chocolate protein, um, coconut milk, uh, peanut butter, and like a little bit of banana or avocado. Both of those recipes are great. Lots of nuts, like handful of almonds. I think kind of like my kids are Italian. I'm like, here's some olives, here's some salami, here's some Marcona almonds, whatever. But that kind of charcuterie kind of vibe. I don't know. A lot of the same things over and over again, to be honest. And I don't think that that's a bad thing. Well, and it just requires a little bit of creativity.

Like everything that you just named off, I think will be super helpful for people just to remember like, oh yeah, I can do all these different variations with the same kind of foods, which is really helpful, I think, for people. You've mentioned a lot about your kids eating, you know, it sounds like, well, obviously a pretty, very well-balanced diet knowing you. What's your advice maybe for parents that are listening that are struggling to get their kids to eat healthy? How do you get

them excited about like sauerkraut and stuff? Oh, you know what? It's all about introduction. So I actually wrote a whole kids course on introducing foods to kids. It's called Fat Bore Under 4. So it talks about benefits of breast milk and formula and how to choose and what to do. It talks about introducing foods to your kids. So most of the time kids are being introduced to foods at the six month mark. And there's something called the flavor window, which actually is happening while they're in utero. So the more variety of foods that a pregnant woman can eat, the more flavors that she can eat, spicy, umami, sour, all of it, there's introduction to those flavors in utero, which is super cool. Through your breast milk as well, if you're breastfeeding, if you're formula feeding, all good. But at the six month mark, you want to really introduce

the variety of foods because in that flavor window, which is before the 18 month mark period, this is where the exploration of food is happening and the acceptance of food is easier. So three to five introductions and the child will like something. And after the 18 month mark, it exponentially goes up. So we're talking, you know, 20, 30 introductions of a food before the acceptance is happening. So I say this is the time to teach with food. At the six month mark, let them explore. You know, there are people who are baby led weaning. There are people that are traditional weaning, which would mean they're giving them big chunks of food or they're giving them purees. I am a mix and love it kind of person. I hand my kid a rib. I'm also probably going to make them some type of broccoli spinach puree with olive oil and garlic so that they get used to those flavors

because I want them to taste. I want them to explore. I also want some of it going in their body, not just ending up on my floor. And food before one is just for fun. So don't stress when they say that it's like yes and no. Yes, it is just for fun so don't stress when they say that it's like yes and no yes it is just for fun meaning please don't stress yourself out about it it's not their main source of nutrition you don't really need to worry like what's going in unless someone's falling off a growth chart and your pediatrician will tell you that but it is more than just fun because it is the exploration of food and flavors. It's what gets your kids excited about food. It's where they learn to feel pressured around food or

freedom to explore and calm and ease. So great tips. Make the food with your kid. If you can get your child a kitchen tower, get them involved as soon as possible. Mash was like six months old and I had him reaching spinach out of the bag and throwing it in the top of the blender. I mean, it takes longer, it's messier, but I'm telling you it's worth it. He will grab seasonings, shake it on the veggies before we roast them. We taste things together. If I'm tasting, pulling some chicken off a roasted chicken, I'm giving him a piece, he's eating it too. We try to plate family style or allow him to pull stuff onto his plate. That also helps if they're involved

in putting something on their plate, putting it in their lunchbox. I mean, that's something I do with Bash to this day. I have chopped up veggies and rinsed chopped fruits for his lunch boxes. I'll put the glass Pyrex on the counter, put his little lunch box in front of him. I'm like, got to pick a fruit, got to pick a veggie. And he fills it with color. And I say, try to put as many colors in there as you can. So it might be like two peaches, blueberries, and a raspberry. And

then in the veggie little compartment, it's like a pepper, some carrots, and then he's putting like a dip in there to dip with. But the more they get involved, the more they love food and the more willing they are to try food. And I will say that I am not perfect at this. I did a great job with Bash because I was so excited about all this research and I was a new first time mom and poor baby T. I was like, bud, welcome to the party. This is what you're eating. And then I saw like his resistance to food. I never seen a kid who didn't like blueberries or bananas.

He was one. He's like, nope. And I'm like, blueberries, bananas. These are sweet. This is not like, I'm not giving you kiwi with a weird texture or a flavor. But I just stayed true to the research and said, okay, just don't give up. Because the majority of parents give up, caregivers, parents give up after the first or second denial of food. They're saying, oh, my kid doesn't like broccoli, so I'm not going to make it again. So they stop introducing

that flavor and they miss the opportunity in the flavor window to get them over the hump and exploring with food. And you have to remember too, they're absorbing and learning everything. So I just teach in the kitchen. We talk about colors. We talk about textures. We talk about size. I mean, we count. We, I mean, line up these fruits in order of size. Like what's bigger, what's smaller, what tastes sour, sweet? What would you pair that with? You know, do you like salty and sweet together? Like it's such a place to explore and they love to get messy and do art.

So if someone's having a hard time with food, a lot of occupational therapists that work with kids with food aversions and they let the kids play with it. It's like, can you touch the raspberry? Can you take the raspberry, squeeze it and draw a heart on the paper? It's, I mean, I get so fired up and passionate about this. I just want, because we are laying the foundation, their microbiome is developing and it is considered leaky in their toddler years. And so as adults, when we have leaky gut, this can be the breakdown of our microbiome and our epithelial lining and the mucin layer between our epithelial cells and our bacteria.

They're brand new. They're being introduced to all this food, their microbes are multiplying and protecting them from the outside world. And they're slightly more vulnerable than we are. And so I just think about, you know, that one or two spoons of puree is making an impact on every meal is an opportunity to make an impact on their love of food, their exploration of food, what they're willing to eat. And so introduce all the flavors,

introduce all the textures and don't, don't get caught up when you're, when your child doesn't like something because baby T will eat an entire banana like a monkey right now. Like so quickly, he eats a container of blueberries now. But there was a moment there where I had to say, whoa, I put in a lot more time. I had a lot more time. And that's something you feel as a mom, as you have more children, you feel like you have less and less time,

more responsibility means more work, less time. But to take a minute and invite T up into the kitchen tower to have him sprinkle, even if I just have him sprinkle the salt, like finish the dish for me, sometimes he overdoes it. But it's really just, it's amazing how much they come around

when given the opportunity to take an active role in the kitchen. So that would be my number one advice for parents is to do that. And even if that means once a week, exposure and modeling are key. So take a minute, make the food together, eat the food together.

They wanna see you eating. A lot of parents don't, and they serve their kids at different meal times. There is something to be said too, and this is just in a study, that parental modeling is key for the development of healthy eating behaviors in children. But that there is a stronger influence from the father when it comes to produce consumption in kids. So whether your kids will eat veggies. So Chris, Instagram handle at Be Bad by Chris, has to eat veggies, even if he doesn't feel like eating, even if he doesn't feel like eating at our mealtime, which is around 530

and he never does. Like he likes to eat at eight or 830. He wants the kids to bed. He wants to rest and digest. And I get that. But I just said, hey, babe, I will put a salad or a veggie. There's always fiber and green somewhere. So if you could just plate a side salad size plate and have the broccoli or the arugula salad, or even if I just cut up cucumbers and stuff, will you sit down and eat that and model that? And he does. And he does because he has that science-backed information motivating him. And so if you have a hubby like me that doesn't want, if someone listening is like, that's my husband, this is a great compromise and I would definitely recommend it. That's really great advice. Also, you just made me really excited to have kids. And I love how passionate you are about this. It's really special. Well, I know how you are with animals, so I can only imagine how you're going to be with kids.

Very excited about that. Well, I want to be mindful of your time before we go. I really want people to hear what your opinion is on oat milk really quickly, because I know you and I feel very passionately about this. Well, I will say there are people who have a CGM and eat oatmeal and put some flax seeds in it and some berries and maybe an almond butter or something. And they have a great experience. They feel satisfied. They feel balanced. They have great bowel movements. They don't have any bloating or crashing or fatigue. And that is awesome. Oat milk is an acellular carbohydrate. It's a refined liquid carbohydrate.

So when we're talking about what is it mostly? Coconut milk, carbohydrates, more fat, nut-based milks, more protein and fat, but still these aren't a significant source of nutrition. It's like creamy water, right? My problem with oat milk is that it is mostly just a refined grain. It is just a spike in blood sugar and the most popular brands add sugar, make them a barista blend. So we're

talking about a double spike. There's the oats, there's the cane sugar, whatever they're adding. And then to improve the mouthfeel, they add seed oils, like rapeseed oil. And we talked about earlier, our cells have two and a half times in 50 years, the amount of linoleic acid. And this is, yes, I realize it's probably more primarily from the fryers and fast food restaurants and fast casual restaurants than it is from the oat milk. But the problem is, is the influx of plant-based foods is coming with a major influx in these oils and they do oxidize and have chemical byproducts when they're heated. And we're talking about an oat milk latte. These chemical byproducts are happening. The oxidation is happening and we're just drinking more of it that we need.

So you have the oats refined, processed carbohydrate in this setting. Then you add the added sugar. Then you add the industrial seed oil or seed oil. And then they take emulsifiers to make sure it looks like a milk when they pour it out of the bottle. And we know from the most recent literature on emulsifiers that when they looked at 18 different emulsifiers, only one didn't have a negative impact on the gut microbiome, meaning the vast majority, if not almost all of them, had an inflammatory impact on our microbiome. And so I will call out that lecithin is the one that didn't have the negative impact. So there are certain times when say

someone's like, hey, I wanted a more affordable nut milk, or I want to Thrive Market does a great one where it's like almonds and Thrive Market is not paying me to say this. I have an affiliate link and it's on my website somewhere, but it is nice that it's at affordable price point and they're just using one emulsifier and that's lecithin,

but it's not food. And so, well, I don't want to say that. I mean, trying to say this, I just, I get a little fired up because we are in the age of frankenfoods. We're in the foods of like, how can we make something that isn't this, this? Like, how can we make a burger out of soy protein, gluten protein, industrial seed oils, and let's make it look like it's bleeding on a barbecue. Like, why are we doing that? Because we're making a major impact, not only on the gut microbiome, which is really so key to all aspects of our health and the barrier in our body from the outside world. But I'm just, I want people to simplify. Like how do we become a minimalist and a maximalist at the same time? A minimalist in our ingredient profile, a maximalist in our nutrient density. And we do

that with whole foods. We do that with animal proteins. We do that with whole food fats that are loaded with all of the fats, plus the fiber, plus the fat soluble vitamins. We do that with whole food fats that are loaded with all of the fats, plus the fiber, plus the fat soluble vitamins. We do it with the veggies that are deep in color that bring us all those prebiotics that give us all those phytochemicals. So my problem with also with oat milk is that the majority of samples tested come back covered in glyphosate. Ultimately, when you go back to the middle of this podcast, when you ask me what I think is the biggest culprit of these chronic lifestyle diseases, it's yes, food is playing a major impact, but I think we have no idea what these endocrine disrupting chemicals are doing to our health. And I am trying my darndest

and it is totally impossible to keep these 100% out of our life. But I am really, really trying to lower them for my kids because I think, wow, my grandma wasn't really exposed to these. Then my mom was, and we saw an increase in things like cancer and these lifestyle diseases. And then our

generation, it's even worse. People are getting cancer younger. They have chronic lifestyle diseases and autoimmune diseases that our parents never experienced. Like why has it been such a drastic difference from the seventies when my mom was growing up to today? And what is it going to be like for my kids? Ultimately, everything I do right now is for my kids, like to think about their health. And I always used to say, my mom would be like, I'm so worried about you and your kids. I'm so worried about you.

I'm so worried about the future generations. And now I'm turning into my mother. I'm like, oh my God, I'm so worried. No, I'm not like, I'm taking an active role. I'm trying my best. I'm not going to be worried. But I just so worried. No, I'm not like I'm taking an active role. I'm trying my best. I'm not going to be worried. But I just think for those reasons, I feel like it's not my favorite alternative milk

because the benefits that you would get from the whole oat groat aren't even in there. That was a perfect explanation. And the only thing I would add is I think a lot of people, when you think about it from everything we just talked about in this whole episode from a blood sugar balancing lens, and you think about a lot of people have a latte on an empty stomach, and that's the first thing they're having, that is just going to send your blood sugar level skyrocketing. Yeah. That's another liquid sugar that we're talking about. It's that liquid,

it's that sugary coffee. And they don't think it's sugary because they don't think about, even if it's a unsweetened oat milk, it's going to have an impact on your blood sugar. Yep, exactly. Thank you for that wonderful explanation. So just to wrap everything up, I want to ask you what I ask all of my guests, which is a personal question. What are your health non-negotiables? These can be either daily practices that you do or maybe weekly, just things that you prioritize for yourself, for your own health.

Yes, I would say that first meal of the day is a non-negotiable for me. And I would say I probably have a 90% average on that. So I wanna make it clear that I am in no way perfect, but that first meal of the day impacts the whole rest of the day for me. And the second thing would now be sleep. Now that I can get it, I just know how much it increases my energy. When I get a good night's sleep, I want to work out. I want to go to yoga class. I'm negotiating with Chris to go to the stairs at the beach. I'm wanting to go for a hike with my kids. I'm inspired. And so if you're looking for a

low-hanging fruit, a big lever to pull on the food choices you make, the activity choices you make in your daily life, the outlook you have every single day to find the silver lining, to have a sunny disposition, to feel good. Sleep is the biggest one. And I'll tell you from someone who was pretty sleep deprived for 18 months that, wow, it makes a major impact. So now sleep is one of those things for me. And then I would say, I mean, it's kind of simple kind of simple food, sleep and, um, and outside movement. So I love a good hot yoga class. Like anyone who gets obsessed with yoga, like I love that. Right. But there, we are outside at the beach with our kids, um, probably, probably like two to three times a week. And that came out of, that came out of the pandemic and

really being like, what's really important to our family? How do we want to raise our kids? Where do we want to be? And we are really lucky that we chose, grew up in a place that is close to the ocean, but that's our playground. So instead of going to the playground to play after school, we have sand toys in our car 24-7. And we might even drive our kids down there in their school clothes, rip their shoes off, and just build a castle. Let them literally run in the waves in whatever Target sweatshorts they have on, throw them in the car in their diapers, and come back for bath time in bed. So that, I mean, I just want to inspire people to get outside because it changes everything. I know you're a huge hike fan, like you're a huge hiker and you love nature more than anyone, like being that you were raised in nature and then came to

the California beach. But yeah, I'd say find your, find nature, get outside, like be in the sun. Like it changes everything. After a hard day, I'm like beach and Chris knows like something didn't go well. She needs, she needs mother earth and he'll take me down there and the boys and we just doesn't have to, it's low key, less than an hour sometimes, but just to touch down and be with nature is everything. Yeah, it's so important. It really changes everything. It's helped me so much with just my mental health and it's just fun.

Like you said, you get that connecting, bonding time with your kids. I get connecting time with my dog. Yeah, I love it. We're both huge proponents of being outside. So I love that. Well, for everyone listening, where can they find you? Okay, so I'm at Instagram at BeWellByKelly.

My website, you can go to BeWellByKelly.com or KellyLevesque.com, take you to the same place. I wrote a few books, Body Love and Body Love Every Day. They talk all about the Fab Four and blood sugar balance. If you want the primer, that's Body Love. If you want to dive deep into the science and learn the nitty gritty on protein amino acids, fatty acids, certain types of prebiotic fibers, all that stuff, that's in body love every day. I have courses for every stage of

your life. So pregnancy, food instruction for kids. I have a mini Fab Four smoothie course because we talked about drinking liquid sugars and the majority of smoothies on the market are a lot of liquid sugar, like a orange juice blended with a banana, add a date and you're like, whew, that is a roller coaster. So teaching people to, that they can have a smoothie that supports blood sugar balance and how to do it. Anywhere else? I mean, I'm trying with TikTok. I just, I, I didn't even, I'm, I'm trying with TikTok I just I didn't even I'm an old lady when it comes to that I'm like how do I use this I asked my babysitter for my kids

she gave me like a 20 minute tutorial and to this day like you know I go to my feed and I'm like well I didn't realize that was going to be the cover and it's like some weird like moving gif of like me with like an eye shut, but hey, you know, try your best. Yeah, you're trying.

And now people are like, be real. I'm like, what'd you say? Be well? Oh my God. I just downloaded that yesterday and I'm having a moment with that. Yeah. So I think, you know, sometimes you never know. Is it going to be a Periscope or is it going to be a Periscope or is it going to be a TikTok yeah you never know you don't know so it's probably smart to jump on all of them and just let them weed themselves out

but it's a lot of work and I've got you know people to have calls with and kids to raise so stuff I know it's hard to balance all of it there's too much also I'll link your protein powders too because I think people should definitely try those. Oh yeah. I love protein.

My bad. Well, Kelly, thank you so much for coming on. I really enjoyed this conversation. Yeah, it was really fun. Thanks, Court. Thanks for listening to today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. If you liked this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know. This is a resident media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Chris McCone. The theme song is called Heaven by the amazing singer Georgie, spelled with a J. Love you guys so much. See you next week. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only.

It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.